Suchergebnisse

Studies of youth subcultures have been carried out for decades from various theoretical perspectives (including functionalism, social ecology, neo‐Marxism, deviance and labeling, cultural studies, sports and leisure studies) as well as from various methodological standpoints (e.g., deductive and inductive approaches, insider and outsider perspectives, ethnographic, historical comparative, and semiotics). The sociological study of youth subcultures thus offers a wide range of opportunities to bring together an interesting topic for young people and theoretical or methodological pedagogies.Suggested booksThe significance of youth‐subcultural studies is evident in the plethora of current books on the topic. Here, I provide a brief summary of some recent books, as well as a few classics that should not be overlooked.Cohen, Stanley 2002 [1972]. Folk Devils and Moral Panics (3rd edn). London, UK: Routledge.This study of the infamous mods and rockers clashes in Britain in the mid‐1960s focuses attention on the media's role in construction youth subcultures as deviant social phenomena. Its significance lies not only in its analysis of how the British media created a moral panic by stereotyping, exaggerating, and mishandling representations of youth, but also in its more general insight into the social construction of social categories such as 'youth', 'subculture', and 'deviance'. Readers of the third edition will benefit from Cohen's introductions to the second and third editions (both printed in the third edition), which give an updated analysis of the two concepts he originally proposed in his title (i.e., folk devil and moral panic).Gelder, Ken (ed.) 2005. The Subcultures Reader (2nd edn). London, UK: Routledge.This book represents the single most comprehensive collection of original research in youth‐subcultural studies. The edited volume has 48 chapters divided into 8 thematic sections, each with its own introductory chapter (in addition to the 48), and covers a broad range of theoretical and empirical research.Greenberg, Arielle (ed.) 2007. Youth Subcultures: Exploring Underground America. New York, NY: Pearson Longman.Unlike some books on youth cultures or subcultures that develop theory at the expense of readability and engagement, Greenberg's edited volume is very friendly to less experienced social science readers. The contributed chapters are written both by professional scholars and undergraduate students. Greenberg has sought to avoid jargon‐ and reference‐laden research and succeeded in developing a book that undergraduates, especially those who are not taking an entire course on youth subcultures, will find most useful.Haenfler, Ross 2006. Straight Edge: Hardcore Punk, Clean‐Living Youth, and Social Change. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.In recent years, there have been several thorough ethnographic studies of youth subcultures. Along with Paul Hodkinson's study of goths and Lauraine Leblanc's study of female punks, Haenfler's book offers keen sociological insight into the contemporary culture of straight edge. His book frames the subculture in terms of its nonmaterial culture, its status as an agent of social change, and its masculine and feminine dimensions. It is well written and serves as a tool for engaging students on notions of gender and social change, especially.Hall, Stuart and Tony Jefferson (eds) 1998 [1975]. Resistance through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post‐War Britain. London, UK: Routledge.This is the classic edited text from the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at the University of Birmingham, UK, which established youth‐subcultural studies as a subdiscipline of both cultural studies and sociology. The editors offer a significant theoretical expose on the links between critical theory and youth subcultures. The subsequent empirical and theoretical chapters further express their collective stance, which although it has come under serious criticism over the years, is still a must‐read for students of youth subcultures. Most of work relates directly to British youth subcultures of the 1950s to the 1970s and, therefore, may seem quite foreign to younger American readers. Teachers relying on this book may need to do some homework of their own to get up to speed on the substantive issues covered.Hebdige, Dick 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London, UK: Routledge.This book is considered by many scholars to be the quintessence of British subcultural studies. Hebdige takes a rather nonsociological view of subcultures in the book, emphasizing a humanist semiotic approach instead. Many scholars have criticized the book as unnecessarily dense and devoid of the voices of subcultural participants, yet the author's insights into the cultural significance of style still make it a very significant text.Hodkinson, Paul and Wolfgang Deicke (eds) 2007. Youth Cultures: Scenes, Subcultures, and Tribes. London, UK: Routledge.This edited collection is based on a 2003 conference in which youth culture scholars discussed the relative utility of the subculture concept in the face of pressure from competing concepts such as scenes and neotribes. The book consists of a rather eclectic set of chapters that tackle both theoretical and substantive issues. While its weakness is perhaps its lack of coherence, this is balanced by its wide coverage of contemporary issues, including gender, race/ethnicity, commodification, and new media.Huq, Rupa 2006. Beyond Subculture: Pop, Youth and Identity in a Postcolonial World. London, UK: Routledge.Focusing on music cultures at the turn of the millennium, Hug offers a solid synthetic analysis of subcultural studies in the UK during the latter half of the twentieth century. She then moves through a series of case studies on various music genres – including bhangra, rave/club, hip‐hop/rap, and grunge – as she attempts to articulate how the cultures that consume such music have moved beyond the 'subculture' label.Leblanc, Lauraine 2001. Pretty in Punk: Girls' Gender Resistance in a Boys' Subculture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.While many books look at core cultural dimensions of particular youth subcultures, Leblanc dedicates her book to young women's participation. Focusing on punk, she investigates the historical structures of the subculture that result in the marginalization of women, how female participants construct the significance of punk in their lives, and how they deal with males both within and outside subcultural contexts.Muggleton, David 2000. Inside Subculture: The Postmodern Meaning of Style. Oxford, UK: Berg.Playing off the name of Dick Hebdige's famous book, this monograph offers a very different reading of youth‐subcultural participation than classic CCCS texts. Muggleton takes an empirical rather than semiotic approach, using interviews and fieldnotes from his study of young people in Britain who dress in alternative fashions. His work offers new insights into the relations between youth culture, fashion, and identity.Muggleton, David and Rupert Weinzierl 2003. The Post‐Subcultures Reader. Oxford, UK: Berg.This edited volume focuses on recent work by scholars working, for the most part, from a postmodern perspective. Rather than seeing subcultures as class‐based, ideologically pinned or static, the authors collectively explore the more fluid and negotiated terrain upon with contemporary Western youths live. The book would be best used for a graduate course, as much of the writing is relatively sophisticated.Thornton, Sarah 1996. Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan.Starting with Pierre Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital, Thornton moves into the world of rave/club culture to study how subcultural participants articulate their own form of status, power, and identity. Another significant dimension of the book is her articulation of the role various media (from mass to micro to niche) play in subcultural worlds.Films and videosAs discussed by Leblanc (1998), films provide opportunities for students to practice casting a sociological eye on the world around them. While Leblanc's focus was on teaching ethnography, her substantive interests in youth and youth subcultures provide a useful discussion for teachers interested in teaching a course on youth subcultures. Over the years, I have used many films and videos, both in whole and part, either to emphasize a particular sociological concept, to provide documentary evidence of particular subcultural styles, practices, and worldviews, or to facilitate relatively safe student engagement with a topic that many of them might shy away from in a face‐to‐face context. In the following list, I will make reference to particular parts of my syllabus (further below) where the film/video might be most useful.Between Resistance and CommunityThis is an independently made documentary film by Joe Caroll and Ben Holtman (2002) about the Long Island, New York DIY (do‐it‐yourself) hardcore scene. The documentary provides an in‐depth look at the scene through the eyes of its members. It is full of raw footage of hardcore music shows and interviews with scene participants and offers a coherent standpoint analysis of the concepts of resistance and community (thus living up to its title). I typically use parts of the film in connection with the concept of resistance, as well as societal responses/reaction and identity/authenticity.Merchants of CoolFrontline's documentary of the relationship between cultural production and consumption emphasizes not only mainstream fashion, but specifically how cultural industries take advantage of young people that live on the cutting edge of style through basic marketing tools. The video is available online (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/view/) and is broken down into six parts. I sometime show parts 1–3 and 6 during a single class in order to have time for discussion. The video is relevant to discussions of style, consumption/culture industries, authenticity, and media.Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood HillsThis is a lengthy documentary film about the so‐called West Memphis Three: three young men who were convicted of torturing and murdering three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, in 1993. The case surrounding the murders and trials remains highly contested, and to this day there are serious doubts by many as to the guilt of the accused. As the documentary shows, the West Memphis Three were heavy metal fans, one of whom dabbled in the Wiccan religion. While the film is too long for most classes, I used two sections of the film to highlight (i) the 'dominant' Christian culture of West Memphis and (ii) the attempts by prosecutors to create a strong tie between the defendants' appearance and style on one hand and Satanism on the other. The film offers students insight into the harsh reality of labeling, moral panic, and societal response (there is also a follow‐up documentary entitled Paradise Lost 2: Revelations).QuadropheniaA film produced during the 1970s by the British rock band The Who, Quadrophenia looks back at the mod and rocker subcultures of the mid‐1960s through the eyes of a mod. The film is best viewed in Section 2 of my course syllabus, while students are reading about the Birmingham tradition (in the USA especially, since many students have never heard of mods and rockers). Mods are cited repeatedly in the CCCS literature; thus, the film gives students something more tangible to engage. The film is particularly good and facilitating student engagement with certain subcultural concepts learned in Sections 1 and 2, including frame of reference, strain, homology, bricolage, and 'magical' solutions.The SourceThis documentary looks at the Beat culture. I use sections of the film to highlight the dominant American culture of the 1950s and how individuals who felt marginalized or otherwise nonnormative moved to big cities in search of other people who were similar. The film works well with a discussion of Albert Cohen's theory of subcultural strain.The WarriorsHaving attended a formal gathering of all the gangs in New York, a local gang called the Warriors are wrongly accused of assassinating a would‐be gang lord and are forced to fight their way back home to Coney Island. The film is full of stereotypical images of subcultural style and deviant behavior. This film fits in well with a review of the Chicago School, in particular a deviance or criminological approach to youth subcultures. The film offers insight into class, gender, strain, and the urban environment.Other film titles and the subcultures to which they relate include:

A Clockwork Orange – abstract representation of subcultural deviance
Afro Punk – punk subculture and race
American Hardcore – punk and hardcore music subculture
Another State of Mind – early hardcore punk scene, highlights music
Boyz in the Hood –marginalized black culture that produced hip‐hop and rap music
Dogtown and Z‐Boys – skateboarding
Dreadheads: Portrait of a Subculture – new age travelers, deadheads
Heavy: The Story of Metal – heavy metal
Metal: A Headbanger's Journey – extreme metal culture, including death metal and black metal
Punk: The Early Years – history of punk
Red Light Go – Bike messengers
Romper Stomper– racist skinheads
Sid and Nancy– punk, focusing on The Sex Pistols
SLC Punk– punk
Surburbia– interesting mix of disaffected youth, mainly punk with skinheads and goths as well
This is England– looks at the intersection of racist and non‐racist skinhead culture in the UK

http://www.youtube.com contains a vast collection of subculture‐related material. I troll the site every few months looking for new resources to use in the classroom.Sample syllabus outlineCourse descriptionYouth as a social phenomenon arose largely as a cultural derivative of the industrial revolution in Europe and the USA and is now global. In the twentieth century particularly, youth became an object of sociological, cultural, and psychological analyses. The concept of 'subculture' has been used with various degrees of success to analyze youths' individual and collective behaviors. This course surveys some of the many strands of youth‐subcultural theory during the twentieth century. It begins with early sociological work from the University of Chicago, followed by an overview of the cultural studies approach from the University of Birmingham, UK. It then moves on to examples of contemporary subcultural theory and research, focusing on a number of discrete sociological concepts and youth‐subcultural groups.Purpose and objectivesThe purpose of the course is to try and arrive at some consensus as to the worth of 'subculture' as an analytic concept as well as the various concepts that drive subcultural studies. The objectives of the course are: to familiarize students with various strands of subcultural theory in sociology and cultural studies; to review a variety of historical and contemporary youth subcultures as well as the concepts and methods used to study them; and to improve students' understanding of how and why youth subcultures emerge, exist, and change.1 Section 1: Introduction to youth‐subculture studiesHoward Becker 1986. Culture: A Sociological ViewSarah Thornton 1997. General Introduction to The Subcultures Reader, 1st edn.Ken Gelder 2005. Introduction: The Field of Subculture Studies* Section 2: American subculture studiesKen Gelder 2005. Introduction to Part One: The Chicago School and Urban Ethnography* Subculture as deviance Paul Cressey 1932. The Life‐Cycle of the Taxi‐Dancer* Subculture as strain Robert Merton 1938. Social Structure and AnomieAlbert Cohen 1955. A General Theory of Subcultures* The ethnographic study of subcultures Howard Becker 1963. The Culture of a Deviant Group*Ned Polsky 1967. Research Method, Morality, and Criminology*Paul Hodkinson 2005. 'Insider Research' in the Study of Youth Cultures Section 3: British subculture studiesKen Gelder, 2005. Introduction to Part Two: The Birmingham Tradition and Cultural Studies* Marxism and class Phil Cohen 1972. Subcultural Conflict and Working‐Class Community*John Clarke et al. 1975. Subcultures, Cultures and Class* The semiotic study of resistance Tony Jefferson 1975. Cultural Responses of the TedsDick Hebdige 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style* Section 4: Subsequent theoretical strands Criticisms and Revisions Gary Fine and Sherryl Kleinman 1979. Rethinking Subculture: An Interactionist AnalysisStanley Cohen 1980. Symbols of Trouble* New directions Andy Bennett 1999. Subcultures or Neo‐Tribes?Rupert Weinzierl and David Muggleton 2003. What Is Post‐Subculture Studies?David Hesmondhalgh 2005. Subcultures, Scenes or Tribes? None of the Above Section 5: Analytic topics Style Ken Gelder 2005. Introduction on Part Five: Style, Fashion, Signature*Dick Hebdige 1983. Posing ... Threats, Striking ... Poses*Jeffrey Kidder 2004. Style and Action: A Decoding of Bike Messenger Symbols Resistance Paul Willis 1977. Culture, Institution, Differentiation*Kathleen Lowney 1995. Teenage Satanism as Oppositional Youth SubcultureKristin Schilt 2003. I'll Resist You with Every Inch and Every Breath Space and media Ken Gelder 2005. Introduction to Part Four: Territories, Space, Otherness*Peter Marsh et al. 1978. Life on the Terraces*Iain Borden 2001. Performing the City* Societal responses and reaction Jill Rosenbaum and Lorraine Prinsky 1991. The Presumption of InfluenceClaire Wallace and Raimund Alt 2001. Youth Cultures under Authoritarian Regimes Identity and authenticity Kembrew McLeod 1999. Authenticity Within Hip‐Hop and Other Cultures Threatened with AssimilationJ. Patrick Williams 2006. Authentic Identity, Straightedge Subculture, Music and the InternetMurray Healy 1996. Real Men, Phallicism, and Fascism* Consumption and play Jock Young 1971. The Subterranean World of Play*J. Patrick Williams 2006. Consumption and Authenticity in the Collectible Strategy Games SubcultureSharon Kinsella 2000. Amateur Manga Subculture and the Otaku Incident*Assignments and projects1. Portfolio project: The portfolio project facilitates students' interaction with the theories and concepts being learned in the classroom.Over the course of the semester, you will be responsible for collecting and summarizing information about one subculture of your choice. I will expect you to analyze the information you collect in a sociological manner, but we will practice this throughout the semester so that you should continually improve your analytic skills. During the second week of the semester, I will divide the class into several groups and each group will choose a particular youth subculture to study (e.g. punk, riot grrrl, goth, hardcore, hip‐hop, skateboarding, graffiti, gaming). You will negotiate with other students to decide collectively what subculture you will study. Individually, you will be responsible for collecting and analyzing information about your topic as it pertains to theories and concepts being covered in class. To do this, you will first need to identify subcultural objects for analysis. These may include (i) a definition of the subculture you are studying, (ii) a song and/or music lyrics, (iii) a research article (historical, sociological, cultural, etc.), (iv) an Internet discussion forum, (v) an event at a local hangout, bar, or club, (vi) a zine, blog, or other publication, (vii) cartoon, album cover, or other art, (viii) journalistic account of a subcultural event, (viiii) a pop culture item (e.g. clip from television, magazine article), or (x) a video (e.g. YouTube) or documentary. Second, you will need to follow the course outline and use a specific theory or concept (e.g. hegemony, societal response, style, resistance, homology, identity, media, diffusion, class, gender) to analyze each item. By the end of the semester, your portfolio should consist of a minimum of 10 items that deal with your assigned subculture. Plan on collecting one item per week beginning in week 4. During week 3, I will show you some examples to get you started as well as bring in a completed portfolio from a previous student. You should not use the same type of subcultural object more than twice, nor should you use the same theory or concept more than twice. The purpose, as stated above, is to have you collect and analyze the information over time rather than collect everything in a mad rush during the last week. Every other week you will give a 2‐ to 3‐minute summary of your most recent portfolio entry.2. Group portfolio presentations: The group presentation requires that students combine many different portfolio entries together and develop a coherent, analytically informed presentation of a specific youth subculture.At the end of the semester, your group will give a 15‐ to 20‐minute multimedia presentation of whatever subculture you have been studying by combining the information collected in individual portfolios.3. Film assignment: The film assignment facilitates the development of the sociological imagination when consuming popular cultural treatments of youth subcultures. I reserve the university auditorium to give the students a fuller cinematic experience. Use the list of films and videos above and the course outline to decide what to show and when to show it.
We will watch one film outside of class during the semester, entitled (name of film). In case you are unable to attend the film viewing, you may rent or buy the film from a number of different sources. Make plans as soon as possible to be available to watch the film. Watching it at home is your prerogative, but watching it with other students will enable you to participate in discussion afterward. After viewing the film, you will write a (x)‐page paper addressing specific questions that I will provide before the film begins (as one example, I often show Quadrophenia and ask that four specific questions be answered in their papers: (i) What aspects of the actors' lives are informed by CCCS theory? What aspects are informed by Chicago School theories? Link your answers to specific readings or citations when appropriate. (ii) How important is 'conspicuous consumption' for mods in the film? Be sure to give multiple examples of consumption as you answer the question. How does consumption relate to our discussion of style? (iii) In what way is the ending of the film 'magical', in the CCCS sense of the term? (iv) How do the concepts of hegemony, bricolage, or homology play out in the film? Pick one of them to discuss and use a detailed example).
Note

1 
In the sample outline below, I list only the readings I might assign to an upper‐level undergraduate course during one semester. See my main article in Sociology Compass 1(2) for a much more detailed discussion of articles and chapters that might be used in each section. An asterisk (*) marks readings from Ken Gelder's The Subcultures Reader (2nd edn), listed above.ReferenceLeblanc, Lauraine
1998.
Teaching Sociology
26: 62–68.

Issue 59.2 of the Review for Religious, 2000. ; Celibate .Chastity: A Symposium Religious Life Questions Witnessing Hispanic Catholic Report MARCH APRIL 2000 VOLUME 59 NUMBER 2 Review for Religious helps people respond and be faithful to God's universal call to holiness by making available to them the spiritual legacies tbat flow from the charlsms of Catbollc consecrated life. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bimonthly at Saint Louis Univers!ty by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: foppema@slu.edu Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP P.O. Box 29260; "Washington, D.C. 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ° P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2000 Review for Religious Permission is herewith gianted 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, arid 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. ~ 0 ]LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Barbara J. Soete SSND James and Joan Felling Kathryn Richards FSP joel Rippinger OSB Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ David Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wittberg SC MARCH APRIL 2000 VOLUME 59 NUMBER 2 con en s 118 131 139 c Oib te chastity: symposium Bowling Alone, Living Alone: Current Social Contexts for Living the Vows Mary Johnson SNDdeN couples the social context of community living with new possibilities for the meaning of the vows, particularly celibate chastity, so as to provide a radical gospel-based witness to countercultural values. Celibate Life Offers Insights Keith Clark OFMCap gives evidence that a celibate life well lived communicates to our culture a powerful message about the nature and meaning of sexuality, the unique nature of Christian marriage, and the motivation for the church's ministry. Discerning Our Celibate Way in Our Culture David L. Fleming SJ spells out some of the implications of discernment--making decisions with a lover's instinct--for living celibate chastity, which is defined as a way of loving. 148 156 What Is Religious Life's Purpose? Justin Taylor SM and Albert Dilanni SM question whether the basic purpose of religious life had been obscured long before Vatican II and still calls for clarity now. Must Hermits Work? Kenneth C. Russell provides insight into the place and value of work in the traditions of eremitical life in the Western church and draws some conclusions for today. Review for Religious 175 Mission: Not Do We Have One But Do I Live One? Rol~ert J. Murray OS~, emphasizes the need to live the valu'es reflected in mission statements for the health of the congregation. 180 188 The Easter Faith of Catherine of Siena Roland Calvert OSFS explains the paradox of Easter faith found not in Catherine's writings but in the activities of her life. Foucauld's Evolving Response tO God's Call Cathy Wright LSJ pictures the unfolding of the vocation of Charles de Foucauld and points to what it says to us about understanding our own vocations. 193 repor U.S. Hispanic Catholics: Trends and Works 1999 Kenneth G. Davis OFMConv, Eduardo C. Fernfindez SJ, and Ver6nica M~ndez RCD present a panoramic of the year's events within the U.S. Hispanic Catholic community. 116 Prisms 209 Canonical Counsel: Location of the Novitiate 214 Book Reviews March-April 2000 116 ~e sometimes put more into preparing for a special event than we put into the actual celebration. We have been preparing during these past years to celebrate the new millennium--our efforts inspired by Pope John Paul II's Tertio Millennio Adveniente. Now that we have entered into the year 2000 we may find ourselves forgetful of the reason for our preparations. The bishops' conferences in many countries have identified various ways that priests, lay people, and religious may enter together into special celebrations that grace our liturgical year. Personally we are faced with the more day-to- day question: What are we doing to celebrate this jubilee year? First we need to recall for ourselves the obvious. What is this jubilee about? The heart of the jubilee year is our cherishing and rejoicing in the fact that the Word was made flesh, God became man, Jesus, Son of God and Son of Mary, was born two thousand years ago. And our world has never been the same. Each of us is called anew to our following of Jesus. How well do we know him? Despite the frequency with which we are exposed to the acronym WWJD, do we feel confident in acting out our response to the question "What would Jesus do?" The very title we proudly bear--Christian--suggests that others can expect to see in us a face of Christ, his action, his love, and his forgiveness. Perhaps, first of all, we need a renewed effort in this jubilee year to foster our friendship with Christ. As we search out the ways helpful to us for growing in our knowledge and love of Jesus (for example, spiritual reading, Bible study, prayer, Eucharist, volunteer service projects), we may find that Jesus' reference to the jubilee text in Isaiah 61 as he proclaims his own mission in Luke 4:18-19 can become our entrance into a way of celebration: Review for Religious The spirit of the Lord is upon me; therefore he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and release to prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord. The context for such a mission for Jesus and so for us is "to be anointed," "to be sent." The biblical concept of jubilee involves, above all, a call from God. As we make attempts to find ways that we can celebrate, more than rushing to take on pious devotions or vol-unteer ministries, we need to listen to the call of God in our life. A litde more reflection time--listening time--is a pervading essential of a jubilee year. Jubilee and sabbath are intimately connected since jubilee is God's expansion of the sabbath rest. But rest in relation to God is not defined as inactivity; rather, sabbath centers us on taking time for our relationship with God, for enhancing that relationship. In a jubilee time we respond to God's initiative in our way of cele-brating rather than assume the initiative ourselves. Our behavior, then, would be like Jesus'--who describes himself as sent. For Jesus, the initiative is always God's. Our celebrating jubilee begins with our taking the time to be a listener, our being available to God's initiative, our making the effort to enhance our relationship with God. Just as jubilee is related to sabbath, so jubilee is also related to Sunday, the day of Jesus' resurrection. Jubilee celebrates a new begin-ning: drawing on new reserves of resources (for those who feel empty and poor), seeking new visions (for those who are blind or in the dark), enjoying new freedom (for those who suffer from feeling lim-ited and bound). The jubilee ideal for the Israelite people was spelled out in such concrete actions as returning land to original settlers, setting free the slave or servant, and letting the land lie fallow. Every action looked to a newness of life, a renewed beginning. Jesus assumed this dimension of the jubilee ideal as his mission and gave it divine meaning in his resurrection. We, the followers of Jesus and the recipients of his Spirit, continue to follow his example as we cel-ebrate jubilee: we listen to God, we follow God's lead, we imitate Jesus, we act like Christians. Maybe a jubilee year !s a time for us to confound G.K. Chesterton's witty and yet poignant judgment: "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has not been tried." Our celebration means that we determine to act like Christians, day in day out, all year long. Th~ world around us cer-tainly would be different. We would know a jubilee. David L. Fleming SJ 117 . March-April 2000 MARY JOHNSON Bowling Alone, Living Alone: Current Social Contexts for Living the Vows celibate chastity a symposium The meaning of the vows, sociologically speaking, is drawn from the human context in which they are lived. Sociologically speaking, their significance lies, not in interior inspiration and dedication, but in how they appear different from other ways of life and ways of liv-ing. Religious vows are liv~d in many social contexts. This discussion focuses on two of them, the societal and the communal. For the first, I shall turn to Robert D. Putnam's influential article "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital" (1995). For the second, I shall refer to the provocative talk given by Sister Doris Gottemoeller RSM at the Wernersville symposium in 1998 and later published in Review for Religious (March-April 1999) and to relevant data from my recent study of women's institutes in the United States. Mary Johnson SNDdeN, an associate professor of sociology at Emmanuel College in Boston, participated in the symposium titled "Celibate Chastity: God's Invitation to Love in a Sexually Confused Culture" held 22-24 October 1999 at the Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth in Wernersville, Pennsylvania. This and the next two articles come from that symposium. In this written version Mary Johnson has refocused her original presentation, developing and broadening the topic in the light of the subse-quent papers and discussions. Her address is Sociology Department; Emmanuel College; 400 The Fenway; Boston, Massachusetts 02115. Review for Religious Bowling Alone Harvard Professo~ Robert Putnam, in "Bowling Alone," draws a riveting picture of the result of the loosening of communal bonds across U.S. society in the last thirty years. A commentary on his research in the Chronicle of Higher Education (Heller, 1996) notes that "scores of iournalists have picked up on the implica-tions." Policy makers and government officials, too, have listened to him. Putnam has twice been invited to the White House for brainstorming sessions on the breakdown of American communi-ties. Currently he is writing a book on the subject, doing cross-national research, and participating in workshops that seek solutions to widespread civic disengagement. Putnam notes that "American social scientists of a neo- Tocquevillean bent have unearthed a wide range of empirical evi-dence that the quality of public life and the performance of social institutions (and not only in America) are indeed powerfully influ-enced by norms and networks of civic engagement." He says that these norms and networks are elements of the "social connected-ness" that constitutes the social scientific concept of "social cap-ital." He defines the concept thus: "Social capital refers to features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit." He continues: "For some reason, life is easier in a commu-nity blessed with a substantial stock of social capital. In the first place, networks of civic engagement foster sturdy norms of gen-eralized reciprocity and encourage the emergence of social trust. Such networks facilitate coordination and communication, amplify reputations, and thus allow dilemmas of collective action to be resolved. When economic and political negotiation is embedded in dense networks of social interaction, incentives for opportunism are reduced. At the same time, networks of civic engagement embody past success at collaboration, which can serve as a cul-tural template for future collaboration. Finally, dense networks of interaction probably broaden the participants' sense of self, devel-oping the T into the 'we.'" Putnam then provides a sweeping overview of the "declined" in social capital in the United States since the 1960s. He begins with politics. Putnam points out that, from the early 1960s to 1990, voter turnout has declined by a quarter in national elec-tions. Since 1973, attendance at town meetings has declined by a third. He states that decline is evident in studies of the numbers March-April 2000 Johnson ¯ Bowling Alone, Living Alone "attending a political rally or speech, serving on a committee of some local organization, and working for a political party." He comments on the loosening of bonds in nuclear and extended families and in neighborhoods. He continues by citing evidence of decline in religious involvement, labor union mem-bership, parent-teacher association involvement, and volunteer-ing in civic, fraternal, and women's organizations like the Red Cross, the Boy Scouts, the Shriners, the Jaycees, and the League of Women Voters. He states that, "after expanding steadily throughout most of [the 20th] century, many major civic organi-zations have experienced a sudden, substantial, and nearly simul-taneous decline in membership over the last decade or two." Putnam concludes this section of his article by referring to the metaphor in his title, which has become a symbol of the dis-integration of communal bonds in the society. He says: "The most whimsical yet discomfiting bit of evidence of social disengage-ment in contemporary America that I have discovered is this: More Americans are bowling today than ever before, but bowling in organized leagues has plummeted in the last decade or so. Between 1980 and 1993 the total number of bowlers in America increased by ten percent, while league bowling decreased by forty percent. The broader social, significance, however, lies in the social inter-action and even occasionally civic conversations over beer and pizza that solo bowlers forg6. Bowling teams illustrate yet another vanishing form of social capital." Putnam gives evidence of some countertrends: the rapid and dramatic rise in membership in certain groups like the Sierra Club, the National Organization for Women, and the American Association of Retired Persons. However, while the political clout of these organizations is considerable, the nature of involvement is vastly different from the organizations discussed previously. Putnam says: "For the vast majority of their members (Sierra, NOW, AARP, and so forth), the only act of membership consists of writing a check for dues or perhaps occasionally reading a newslet-ter. Their ties, in short, are to common symbols, common leaders, and perhaps common ideals, but not to one another. From the point of view of social connectedness, the Environmental Defense Fund and a bowling league are just not in the same category." Putnam identifies two other countertrends: the growth in non-profit organizations, and in support groups. But he argues that these do not fill the role that civic organizations do. He cites soci- Review for Religious ologist Robert Wuthnow's national, study of support groups: "Small groups may not be fostering community as effectively as many of their proponents would like. Some small groups merely provide occasions for individuals to focus on themselves in the presence,of others. The social contract binding members together asserts only the weakest of obligations. Come if you have time. Talk if you feel like it. Respect everyone's opinion. Never criticize. Leave qui-etly if you become dissatisfied. We can imagine that [these small groups] really substitute for families, neigh-borhoods, and broader community attach-ments that may demand lifelong commitments, when, in fact, they do not." Putnam has reflected on causes of and solutions to the breakdown of American communal life. He calls for reinventing community life, but, as an interview arti-cle in the Chronicle of Higher Education says, "the Internet will not do the trick. Nor will nostalgia for a vanishing America. 'Some people have interpreted what I have said as a nostalgic call to return to the 50s. That is not what I say.'" He continues: "It is not just social capital, period. It is social capital that cuts across the existing cleavages in American society. That is, it is not enough that we all start bowling again. There have to be bowling leagues in which people of different races are connecting with one another." He concludes his interview by asserting: "This is the single most important problem facing America. If we can solve this one, if we can get more people engaged in community life in contexts that respect American pluralism, many of our other problems--to begin with, our politics--will be different." Bowling teams illustrate yet another vanishing form of social capital. Beginning the Conversation Putnam's portrait of a society bowling alone has struck a deep chord in the national psyche of Americans. It has caused many to reflect on the fact that our democracy is dependent on a vibrant civic life held together by strong communal bonds. I would argue that Sister Doris Gottemoeller's article "Community Living: Beginning the Conversation" has had a similar effect. Her article has struck a deep chord in the religious psyche of Catholic sis-ters, causing many to ponder what community means to the way March-April 2000 12I Johnson ¯ Bowling Alone, Living Alone of life and mission of apostolic religious in this country. The com-munal bonds that Putnam studies appear weak in a variety of local institutions--family, neighborhood, civic organization, and the like. Both articles point us to a consideration of the quality of communal bonds in local communities of religious. The intent of Sister Doris's article is to "break the silence" about living in community. She believes that "community living may be the 'Achilles' heel' of contemporary apostolic religious life." She says, "Often the mere mention of the topic brings about an awkward silence, embarrassed dismissals, or defensive equivo-cations." She cites a number of reasons for the present silence about the discussion of community life and then raises six questions to begin the conversation: What are we talking about when we talk about community living? What is its theological basis? What can we say about a spirituality for community? What is the role of leadership in creating and sustaining community? What are some special challenges to living community life today? What can we do to renew our community life? I want to focus on the first question here since I believe that it is foundational to .further discussion. Without clear terminology, discussion can lose its way. Sister Doris offers this definition: "Community living is what happens when two or more people relate to one another in a significant, mutually beneficial, and ongoing way." She elaborates on what she means by each of these elements and then concludes that "we are tal~ng about good-faith efforts to live a principal value of religious life. With few excep-tions, it will include a common residence." Building the Structures I begin with Sister Doris's first question bechuse, while much of our rhetbric about ourselves refers to our life in community, I am not convinced that we have a commonly accepted definition. And our inability to arrive at such a definition has implications for ourselves and those who want to join us as sisters. A case in point: A front-page article in the Sunday New York Times (16 January 2000) discusses the efforts of the Sisters of Mercy of New York, New Jersey, and Brooklyn in using modern media tools (a Web site and an advertising campaign) to recruit a new generation of sisters. The article is illustrated with a graphic (recently sent to college campuses in poster form) that includes a catchy picture Revlew for Religious and caption. At the bottom are the words "Sisters of Mercy-- women religious who respond to God's call each day through ser-vice, prayer, and community life." This descriptive is similar to dozens of others used by con-gregations throughout the United States in recruitment efforts. My question now is: What do we mean when we promise new sis-ters community life, and what do they expect to receive when they come? Numbers of women interested in entering, and numbers of newer and not-so-new sisters as well, express a desire to live and pray and share household tasks and support for ministry with sis-ters under the same roof. That is their definition of "community." These women are neither statistically nor substantively insignifi-cant to the present and future of religious life. But it is clear that nowadays the definition of community is often being adapted to mean province life, congregational life, parish life, a circle of inti-mate friends, family members, prayer partners, support and prayer groups within congregations, coworkers, and national and inter-national groups. These broader (or narrower) definitions of com-munity are shared by other numbers of religious. This is a serious issue that has to be addressed. It is one more example of Putnam's finding that communal bonds that have united people to one another on the local level are disintegrating, even while new kinds of linkages are being established. This is not to say that people do not still espouse ideals. But, as Putnam found, they often do so in the abstract or at a distance, through periodic meet-ings, newsletters, or the Internet. But, we have to ask, is this level of engagement adequate to sustain a way of life and mission and to socialize the newer sisters, the majority of whom desire com-munal bonds within communities? This is also not to imply that the relationships with other groups are not important to and essen-tial for life and mission. But, as Putnam said about social con-nectedness, "the Environmental Defense Fund and a bowling league are just not in the same category." Similarly, a group of friends that meets quarterly, a prayer group that meets monthly, and a support group that meets weekly are just not in the same category as a community that lives under the same roof and inter-acts daily. Another question, whether the daily interaction of the community is life-giving, or death-dealing, is an important one, but a different one. Often the two questions are conflated, thus bringing conversation about community to a dead halt. ~larch-April 2000 Johnson * Bowling Alone, Living Alone The work of sharply defining and rebuilding community is essential to the mission and future of apostolic religious life in the United States and other nations where religious life struggles to free itself from the hegemonic hold of middle-class values. This effort is as radical as previous clear and unequivocal claims that the preferential option for the poor means the materially poor. Because many people were willing to work to prevent the word poor from being stretched to meaninglessness and the resultant loss of its prophetic power, we now have a new generation of young Catholics in the United States who claim, in a survey our research team recently conducted, that concern for the poor and the belief that God is present in a special way in the poor are essential dimensions of the Catholic faith (Dinges et al., p. 13). That work, of almost three decades ago, toward a clear and unequivocal def-inition of "the poor" has galvanized energy and commitment to the poor today, especially on the part of the young. In sociology there are dozens of uses for the term community. M1 members of the church, whether single or married, clergy or religious, find themselves embedded in all kinds of groups-fami-lies and parishes and prayer, work, neighborhood, ethnic, national, and international or global groups--which they sometimes describe as their "community." Those social networks will only increase and multiply in the years ahead as technology becomes even more sophisticated. The time seems to be right, especially in the midst of conversations about new forms of religious life, for a case to be made by those who believe that local community life with strong communal bonds is fundamental, not incidental, to apostolic religious life and its mission. This need becomes more acute in light of data given below, data I collected recently in my national study (funded by Lilly Endowment) of women's institutes in the United States. (The .publication of the data from the entire study is forthcoming.) Gathering data from apostolic, monastic, and evangelical orders, the survey was responded to by 70 percent of the women's institutes, institutes that represent 84 percent of the sisters in the United State~. The survey indicates that there are 18,052 com-munities (local houses). The vast majority are apostolic commu-nities. The unit of analysis here is the community, the local house. The table reads as follows: 49 percent of the religious houses in the United States have one sister residing in them, 20 percent of the houses have two sisters, and 9 percent have three sisters; 2 percent Review for Religious of the houses have more than 20 sisters residing in them. Community Size Percentage of houses Number of sisters 49 One 20 Two 9 Three 7 Four 4 Five 6 6-10 2 11-15 1 16-20 2 Over 20 Do these data surprise you? What explains them? How does your congregation compare? What has been lost and gained in this new configuration of houses? Surveying the sisters who entered religious life from 1966 to 1998--the post-Vatican II entrants, not a statistically or substan-tively insignificant generation--I asked the following questions. If you had your preference right now, with whom would you prefer to live? No one 8.8 percent An ecumenical group 0.7 percent An interfaith group 0.4 percent Married couple(s) 0.1 percent Single lay person(s) 0.9 percent Men and women religious 3.8 percent Sisters of my own institute 64.1 percent Children 0.2 percent Teens/young adults 0.1 percent Family members 0.3 percent Intercongregationally - 5.3 percent Combination of my sisters and one of the above 15.2 percent If you bad your preference right now, with how many sisters would you prefer to live? With none 11 percent With one other sister 14 percent With two other sisters 12 percent In a group of 4-7 sisters 45 percent In a group of 8-10 sisters 6 percent In a group of 11-15 sisters 2 percent In a group of 16-20 sisters 4 percent In a group of more than 20 sisters : 6 percent March-April 2000 ~obnson ¯ Bowling Alone, Living Alone Which of these data surprise you? What might explain these data? What further discussions do we need to have in light of these data? How do these issues of community relate to mission? What place does community hold in the life of apostolic congregations? Living in Community In light of Putnam's data, it seems that the creation of com-munal bonds is truly countercultural; that is, it goes against the prevailing value of social disconnectedness and weak, superficial, or nonexistent bonds among people and groups on the local level in the wider society. Countercultural living is one of the hallmarks of religious life. Can these issues be addressed in this light? One challenge to the conversation has to do with the social and communal contexts in which we live. The vows are not only lived within a wider society, marked by looser communal bonds and a religious life characterized by primarily monadic, dyadic, and triadic configurations. The vows are also lived against a hege-monic middle-class culture in which individualism, privatism, and materialism are cornerstones. Another challenge is the personal. Some sisters have had to move into various communal arrangements over the years because of ministry. But sometimes ministry concerns can serve to eclipse .any conversation about community. Some sisters have not been community builders or sustainers in the past. Can these issues be revisited again at this new moment? The challenge is compounded by the fact that many sisters holding key positions in the min-istries of leadership, formation work, vocation work, academia, pastoral work and counseling, national conference work, parish and diocesan work, congregational service, and so forth live alone. Can we be certain to include them in this conversation, even if we have sometimes avoided this issue altogether because they are our friends? Sometimes, when people do live with others, there seems to be a sense that, because of their work, the fewer persons living in the house, the better. Greater numbers of people are seen as deen-ergizing people for mission rather than energizing them. One hears gasps, even groans, when someone says that she lives with several sisters. Memories of the past rise up and seem to choke any attempt to talk about living with more than two other people, an arr.angement that might better accommodate needs of miriistry Review for Religious and hospitality, congregational responsibilities, household tasks, and the maintaining of "breathing room." Can we get to this level in the conversation? The inability to discuss some of these issues is all the more .troubling given the fact that the Catholic Church in the United States continues to grow. It now stands at 62 million people, the largest religious body in the nation, with 20 million of its members in their 20s and 30s. It is paradoxical that, as the church grows, the size of religious houses shrinks. At the same time, vocation and formation personnel continue to plead for more space for possible aspirants and newer sisters. Celibacy in Culture It is against the backdrop of these social and communal con-siderations that I present a brief overview of recent studies in human sexuality. The intended and unintended consequences of uncoupling the vows from community living (a phenomenon now several decades old) need, I' am convinced, to be analyzed regard-ing the mutual relationship each of the three vows has with com-munity. That is, how does celibacy shape community and community shape celibacy? How does poverty shape community and community shape poverty? And so forth. For the purposes of this symposium, we shall focus on celibacy. The studies in human sexuality point to new possibilities for the meaning of this vow: that, together with community, it can provide a radical gospel-based witness to countercultural values. Groups who live this vow well, sharing together the depth of a nongenitally expressed intimacy, give witness to one of the deep-est yearnings of this culture. The celibacy of a group gives proof to the whole society that its yearnings for intimacy can be ful-filled, that it is possible to love deeply and celibately and to do so together, without harsh lonliness. Celibate groups witness to the fact that the journey does not have to be made in isolation, that even this seemingly lonely vow is to be shared. Communities with strong communal bonds and deep celibate love witness also to a love that can cross the seemingly uncrossable social lines of gen-eration, race, and social class, to name just three. It is especially to the young that we must go with this news since they are the objects of so much manipulation about whom to love and how to love. Some of them say that because of this they are afraid to love. We, March-April 2000 127 - Johnson ¯ Bowling Alone, Living Alone whose public identities are so clearly tied to a unique way of liv-ing love, have a corporate responsibility to speak about what we have learned about love to a society paradoxically satiated by sex-ual excess and starved for intimacy. While no studies of human sexuality are perfect because of people's tendencies to overreport or underreport sexual practice, we can glean, from data collected in the following studies, some insights as to how to share the gift that has been given us. The first attempt at a systematic look at issues of human sex-uality was conducted by Alfred Kinsey. Considered a pioneer, Kinsey began his research in the 1930s, and his assertions stood for almost four decades. His work, however, was not without problems. He did not use a sample; he relied upon volunteers to serve as respondents, and so their responses were not representative of the population as a whole. In later years Masters and Johnson, too, used volunteers, involving their work in the same difficulty of being nongeneralizable. Nongeneralizable work can, however, provide important insights on other levels. Sociologist Lillian Rubin, in the United States in the late 1980s, interviewed a thou-sand people between the ages of thirteen and forty-eight about their sexual practices. One significant finding was that sexual activ-ity begins early among today's teens and that teen sexual practices are similar to those of adults. The National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS) of the 1990s was the first national scientific study of sexual practices. Rather than enlisting volunteers, it used probability sampling to find its respondents. A thumbnail sketch of some of the findings follows. First, there has been and increase in the level of pre-marital sex, especially among women. Over 95 percent of U.S. men and women getting married ~oday have been sexually active before marriage. One in five women have reported being forced to perform sexual acts against their will. The perpetrator was often known by the women; sometimes it was someone they loved, including their own husbands. On the other hand, only 3 percent of men reported that they had forced women to perform sexual acts. The researchers, struck by the gender gap, hypothesized' that the gap was due not only to underreporting by the men but also to their failure to recognize their behavior as coercive. The survey also found that 2.8 percent of men and 1.4 percent of women identified themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. This Review for Religious stands in contradiction to the Kinsey report of 1948, wherein 10 percent of the population was estimated to be homosexual. Groups challenged the NHSLS findings, arguing that the percentages are too small. The research team responded by saying that, although larger percentages of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals are found in urban areas and in other enclaves in the United States, the survey findings reflect national, not local or regional, reality. The researchers analyzed their data according to religion and level of education. The Catholic data here indicate that the median number of sex partners since age eighteen was three. Thirteen percent of the Catholics had no sex part-ners in the previous year, 72 percent had one sex partner, 13 percent had 2 to 4 sex partners, and 3 percent had 5 or more sex partners. Which of the above findings surprise you? Which do not? How can discus-sions about sexuality improve our rela-tionship with and commitment to all of the people of God? Beyond these questions, it seems to me that further discussion on living the vows in community might be helped by the following questions: ¯ In light of the studies on human sexu-ality, how do we talk about celibacy and how do we support celibacy? ¯ What kind of norms and structures are in place in those communities which exhibit strong communal bonds? ¯ In those communities, how are the following values manifest: personal and communal prayer? celebration and mealtimes? ecological sensi-tivity? hospitality? concern for social justice and the poor? a sim-ple lifestyle? loving support? trust and joy? concern for the ministry and apostolic call of each sister~ fidelity to the call of the wider congregation and to the people of God? ¯ What are the forces, besides ministry or mission, that have pushed some people to live alone or live with their best friend? ¯ How can we resolve issues about community of the past so that we can move toward envision.ing community for the present and future? ¯ How can we unite our efforts to build strong commu-nities and to learn how to live together with the efforts of other groups, especially couples and families, who are also trying to How can discussions about sexuality improve our relationship with and commitment to all of the people of God? 129 March-April 2000 Johnson ¯ Bowling Alone, Living Alone r learn how to live together, to resolve conflicts peacefully, and to enjoy life together? ¯ How can we unite our efforts to balance ministry and community with the efforts of so many in the soci-ety who yearn for a healthier balance of work and family life? These conversations may not be easy becatise they will require crossing a major, though subtle, divide between those who see liv-ing in community as essential and those who see it as incidental. By not engaging in these conversations, however, we uninten-tionally contribute to negative effects on recruitment, retention, and mission. In the midst of wide-ranging and sometimes obfus-cating discussions on new forms of religious life, the voices of those who are committed to the radical gospel-values contained in the vowed apostolic life as it is lived in community have been eerily silent. Perhaps the time has come for many more sisters to break the taboo. References Dinges, William, Dean R. Hoge, Mary Johnson, and Juan L. Gonzalez Jr. "A Faith Loosely Held: The Institutional Allegiance of Young Catholics." Commonweal, 17 July 1998, 13-18. Gotternoeller, Doris, RSM. "Community Living: Beginning the Conversation." Review for Religious 58, no. 2 (March-April 1999): 137-149. Heller, Scott. "Harvard Professor Examines America's Fading Sense of Community." Chronicle of Higher Education, 1 March 1996, A10. Putnam, Robert D. "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital." Journal of Democracy 6, no. 1 (January 1995): 65-78. Many foreign missionaries depend upon people like you who donate subscriptions for them to Review for Religious. To start a subscription for a deserving missionary, please send $24 to: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Blvd. ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108 To pay by credit card, phone: 314-977-7363. Review for Religious KEITH CLARK Celibate Life Offers Insights poerhaps the most countercultural statement that will come ut of this conference is its title. This may be the only gath-ering that states boldly that we live in a "sexually confused cul-ture." My experience of the past twenty years suggests that an ever increasing number of people with backgrounds in an ever widen-ing array of disciplines have attempted to pronounce the last word in just about all areas of human sexuality. We sit here and suggest that our culture is sexually confused. Audacious! I have no "last word" to offer on the topic. The most recent word I have spoken to myself is this: I want to write to the Holy Father and ask him to change the discipline of mandatory celibacy as a prerequisite for presbyteral ordination in the Roman Church. My reason is this: The witness of a celibate life well lived is thor-oughly obscured in our society, in our church, by the assumption on the part of most that those who are committed to a celibate life have made the commitment reluctantly in order to achieve the status of ordination. Since ordination does not have that much status in the eyes of most people, there is little impetus to con-sider seriously either a celibate lifestyle or ordination. The thou-sands of women and men religious who are committed to a celibate life are somehow lumped with those who are assumed to be reluc-tant celibates for the sake of some other pursuit. Keith Clark OFMCap presented this paper at a symposium titled "Celibate Chastity: God's Invitation to Love in a Sexually Confused Culture," held in October 1999 at the Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth in Wernersville, Pennsylvania. His address is St. Lawrence Friary; 301 Church Street; Mount Calvary, Wisconsin 53057. March-April 2000 Clark ¯ Celibate Life Offers Insights I would make my request of the Holy Father not because I think celibacy has no relevance to our culture, but rather so that the celibate life well lived will better communicate to our culture what our culture so desperately needs to understand. A celibate life well lived can communicate to our culture a powerful message about the nature and meaning of human sexu-ality, the unique nature of Christian marriage, and the motivation for the church's ministry. In order to live a celibate life well, a priest or religious must engage in prayer and ministry in a way that fosters that life. These are the points I intend to develop. The Nature and Meaning of Human Sexuality To understand the nature of human sexuality, we have to go beyond exclusive concentration on the study of genetic markers, synapses in the brain, and the other fascinations of scientific explo-ration in order to understand how human beings are moved to come together in a sexual encounter and commitment. My experience suggests that I am sexual on three levels. First, I know myself to be sexual on the biological level. I have a biolog-ical sexual apparatus which works. It is entirely instinctual. And ir works no matter how I understand or misunderstand it. My bio-logical sexual apparatus is clearly designed to bring me together with a female member of my species for the purpose of making other human beings. (See the Nova series program The Miracle of Life.) The impetus I receive from my biological level to come together with another human being is pleasure. Genital sexual activity is pleasurable. I identify this impetus as my biological sex-ual urge. It can be, and is, the subject of scientific inquiry. I know myself to be sexual on the biopsychological level. In most instances, this is experienced as being sexual in an emotional way. It is that amazing level of the human being which allows one's body to affect one's psyche, and one's psyche to affect one's body. The blush in the cheeks in response to embarrassment in one's psyche is possible because of our biopsychological makeup: In terms of my sexuality, the biopsychological level is that in me which allows some things to have sexual significance for me and which, therefore, stir my biological sexual apparatus. This is the seat of romantic interest. This level of sexuality is both instinc-tual and learned. I am born with the capacity to recognize some things as having sexual significance, and I learn some things that Review for Religious have sexual significance for me. I learn these things, not because somebody sits me down and talks to me, but because of the "minute displays of emotion" (Erik Erikson) which I pick up from my sur-roundings. What has sexual significance varies from one culture to another. (See the movie Walkabout.) The impetus I receive from my biopsychological level to come together with other human beings is emotional fascination. Romantic sexual activity is exciting. I iden-tify this impetus as my biopsychological sexual drive. It can be, and is, the subject of scientific inquiry, especially today, since this level includes one's sexual orientation. Most discussions of human sexuality stop after genital sexual urges and romantic sexual drives have been spoken about. These are the levels we humans share with the higher forms of animal life. Whatever else is said about human sexuality is frequently thought to be the in the realm of religionists and ethicists, taking the form of advice and instruction on how to ride the beast which has been described in considering the biological and biopsychological levels. But, even in the higher forms of animal life, there is another level: the level of sexual need. In the animal world, the sexual need is that the species continue. This sexual need instinctually regulates or moderates the activity of the urges and drives. The biological urges and the biopsychological drives of male dogs are activated only when the need of the species can be met, when there is in the vicinity a female dog in heat. It is filling this sexual need that gives meaning to all the sexual activity. At the level of sexual need, we human beings differ from the higher forms of animal life in two ways. First, we are spiritual beings, and our personal needs are not entirely subjugated to the needs of the species. We have also a personal sexual need, that is, our need for intimacy with other human beings. Second, in human beings the sexual need for the species and the personal sexual need for intimacy do not instinctually moderate our sexual urges and drives. Because we are persons (spiritual), we have an intellect and will. We must moderate our sexual urges and drives by insight and freedom, or they will not be moderated. Because the activity of our biological urges and our biopsy-chological drives is not instinctually moderated, human beings can engage in genital and romantic pursuits without any reference to the personal need for intimacy or the need of the species to con-tinue. Thus, people have invented contraception and abortion, which divorce sexual activity from the need of the species, and March-April 2000 Clark ¯ Celibate Life Offers Insights have invented free love and sexual promiscuity as well, which divorce sexual activity from the personal need for intimacy. The gratification of people's sexual urges and drives is accepted as ade-quate meaning for sexuality. "If it feels good, do it." Urges and drives impel people to behave in ways that will fill their sense of need. If the gratification of their sexual urges and drives alone brought sexual fulfillment, ours would be the most sexually fulfilled culture in the world. In fact, human sexual activ-ity can find its meaning only in the filling of the human sexual need for intimacy. Intimacy is the "simultaneous fusing and coun-terpointing of personalities" (Erikson). It is spirit touching spirit. It is allowed to arise in human life through the dynamics of self-awareness, self-disclosure, and listening in prayer. Among the ways those dynamics can be expressed are genital and romantic pur-suits. But, among married, single, and celibate people, intimacy can arise without genital and romantic pursuits. A celibate life well lived reveals this meaning of human sexu-ality. Celibacy is not merely abstinence from genital and romantic pursuits; that by itself will not lead to personal sexual fulfillment in intimacy. A celibate life well lived is the pursuit of intimacy, sex-ual fulfillment, in ways which do not include romantic and geni-tal pursuits. It is a way of loving people, not because I am urged or driven to do so because they have sexual significance to me, but because they are deserving of love whether they appeal to me or not. The celibate man or woman stands as a support to spouses in their pursuit of intimacy, whether at the moment the spouses are romantically driven or genitally urged or not. The celibate woman or man stands as a support to all people in their pursuit of con-nectedness with other human beings for reasons quite distinct from their attractiveness to us. The Unique Nature of Christian Marriage Although a celibate commitment is most often spoken of as a distinct contrast to married life, the two states of life are intimately related within the believing Christian community. The marriage of Christians is different from the way other people marry. Christian marriage is a sacrament because it is a vis-ible sign of what cannot be seen. Christian marriage is not merely a response to the genital and romantic feelings the spouses have for each other. The commitment of spouses to each other is a com- Review for Religious mitment to be there for each other for life, no matter what. It is a sign of how fully Christ has taken us all to himself. A celibate commitment is not a sacrament: it points to some-thing that can be seen, but might not be recognized for what it is. The celibate commitment points to what is unique in the com-mitment of Christian married couples. The committed celibate within the believing community asks all people to recognize the unique basis for Christian marriage. The Motivation of the Church's Ministry in the World A committed celibate life is a lifestyle, not a ministry. That lifestyle, however, points to that which is the basis of all church ministry. The church's ministry is caring for one another within the community and taking care of our world. It is based on the min-istry of Jesus, who said, "I have come, not to be served, but to serve." Church ministry to its members and to the rest of the world is not based on the driven components of human love, nor is it merely philanthropy called for by the needs people have. It is based on Jesus' commandment to love one another as he loved us. Again, the committed celibate life points to something that can be seen (the ministry), but might not be recognized for what it is. There is, accordingly, an argument from "fittingness" to be made for a celibate commitment in the ordained ministers who preside at our Eucharists and who order the church's ministry. A church might well want to select those who will lead and order our ministry from the ranks of those who say by their lifestyle, and not just their words and actions, that ministry is about loving people for reasons other than their attractiveness to us. Prayer and Ministry, the Sources of Strength for Celibate Living The great fear ] hear from young people is that a committed celibate life would be a lonely life, while marriage is a life filled with intimacy. I think that, in general, human lives are neither lonely nor intimate. Life has lonely moments and intimate moments. Married people stand ready to enter fully and vulnera-bly life's intimate moments, and to find God there concretely. Celibate people stand ready to enter fully and vulnerably life's lonely moments, and to find God there concretely. March-April 2000 . !36- ! Clark * Celibate Life Offers Insights Let me share with you my entering a lonely moment and find-ing God concretely. I was sitting in my office in Milwaukee, prepar-ing a continuing-education report for the provincial council. I began to daydream: I was before that council, not to give a report, but to receive a new assignment. I was being congratulated on my performance in the job I was leaving, and then the provincial asked me what job I would like to do next. I said, "I really don't care. But please, gentlemen, give me a job I can do well that will have some significance in your eyes." The daydream faded, and I sat at my desk pondering what I had heard myself say to the provinci.al council. I was not pleased with what I recognized. What I had said seemed rather mean and cheap. I wondered if the approval of others might be what moti-vated much of my behavior, or all of it! I could feel myself blush at this bit of self-awareness. I was surprised at myself, and I was having a difficult time accepting myself as I now knew myself to be. I felt very fragile. But I stayed with this line of thought and emo-tion, and seemed to reach an even greater depth, where I inwardly smiled sheepishly while disclosing to God who and how I was. At that depth I realized that God was not surprised at my motiva-tion. God had known it all along. It was news only to me! And I realized that God was not having a difficult time accepting me. God had for years accepted me as I was. There was a knock at my office door. I said, "Come in." It was Jeannie, supposedly my secretary, but really the one who runs the office. She was incredibly efficient and competent. I looked at her and, for the first time, wondered whether she sometimes felt as fragile as I did. If she did, I was much more open to accept-ing her that way. I was able to connect with her more intimately than I could have before. It was as if, with the mask of my own self-sufficiency stripped away, I could see beyond the efficiency (and self-sufficiency?) of another and get a glimpse of the perhaps fragile human being who lived there. It is not only this kind of self-awareness, self-disclosure, and listening in prayer that can bring a person to a moment of intimacy with God; so can ministry. Committed celibate persons can have as many moments of intimacy in their life as any married or single people can. There remains, however, a crack in the sidewalk that celibate people might trip on. I learned about this while visiting a couple to give them a chance to talk about a Capuchin they knew and loved who Review for Religious had suddenlY left the community with the intention to marry a young woman from town. As we were preparing to have a drink at their kitchen table, Don said, "I think you and my wife ought to go sit on the porch swing and talk for a while." So we did. Mary and I had talked for a short while about Ralph's departure when she said suddenly, "You don't belong to anybody, Keith Clark, and you never should! Ralph used to belong to all of us, but now he belongs to Jennifer." I thought often about Mary's observation, and I realized that the human desire to belong uniquely to another human being is a desire which will not be fulfilled in my life. About me no one will ever say "my husband" or "my father." And even if they say "my priest" or "my Capuchin," it does not ring true. I will never belong uniquely to any human being. And this is a void where I might fall. I need to fill ~hat void by developing my sense of belong-ing uniquely to God. I find I do this most readily in ministry. I learned a lesson from the full-sized red Hawthorne bicycle that my father gave me right after World War II ended. The bicycle was too large for me. My legs were too short for my feet to reach the pedals. My father put wooden blocks on both sides of the pedals, which allowed me to reach them. Even at the young age of six or seven, I knew that to have a new bicycle was very exceptional. The "war effort" had taken most of the steel available in the nation, and production of peacetime products like bicycles was just getting underway. I knew, too, that I was uniquely the object of my father's love. He did not buy other people a bicycle; other fathers in the neigh-borhood were not buying bicycles for their children. This gift from my father was unique. It took a few lessons from my father to get me up and pedal-ing. He would run alongside me, holding on to the back of the bicycle seat until I had gotten up enough speed to keep the bicy-cle from falling over. Eventually I mastered it. The bicycle stood up well to my use and occasional abuse of it. It lasted well into my newspaper-carrier days, when we added a large basket over the front wheel. I have thought of that red bike often. It taught me a lesson about gifts and how they are to be used and enjoyed. If I had let A committed celibate life is a lifestyle, not a ministry. 137 March-April 2000 Clark ¯ Celibate Life Offers Imigbts I used to think that God gave me gifts so I could do things for other people. that bicycle stand on the front porch to be admired but not used, I do not think I would have made my father very happy. If I had waited until I had a paper route before I used it, I think my father would have been disappointed. Even telling him over and over how much I loved the bicycle and how grateful I was would, I am sure, not have been enough to please him. He gave me the bicy-cle to use and to enjoy. It was a long time before I understood that the gifts I receive from God are much like the bicycle I received from my father. I used to think that God gave me gifts so I could do things for other people. I missed the fact that my gifts are unique and that they are a sign of God's unique love for me. For a long time I was afraid to enjoy using them. Now I allow myself to enjoy using my gifts. I can listen to people and can understand a lot of what they tell me. Sometimes I can even say the needed word, the right word, in response to them. It is a gift from God. Sometimes a seminary student coming to me for spiritual direction feels much better after we have talked. When he leaves my office, I realize that I was able to hear and understand him because of the skills and talents God has given me through my life's experiences. I know that no one else could have done for that student exactly what I did. Some people could have done more than I did; oth-ers could have done something different but equally helpful. But no one could have done just what I did. I sit back and enjoy what I have just done. Then I tell God, "Thank you," knowing I am loved uniquely. Culture and Counterculture These things could be more easily understood and more inte-grally and effectively practiced if we lived in a world of real mean-ing. Until such time as our culture moves into that real world, we continue to live our lives of celibate commitment as a "value radi-ation center" (Van Kaam) so that the values of the real world do not become completely obscured by the understandings and practices of the less-than-real world in which we and others unavoidably continue to live. Review for Religious DAVID L. FLEMING Discerning Our Celibate Way in Our Culture In this third presentation of the 1999 Wernersville symposium, want to gather together the themes of the two previous pre-sentations and then point out the work ahead of us. The topic I have been given has three clear parts, from the words contempo-rary culture, celibates, and discern. Our two previous presentations have clarified our understanding of the first two terms, culture and celibates. Let me highlight several points. Mary Johnson SNDdeN has given us a snapshot picture of our culture and its attitude toward chastity. She began by pointing out difficulties in making an assessment. We, along with other peo-ple, may be overly impressed by flurries of sound-bite judgments proffered by the media or by generalizations stated by pulpit ora-tors. "All college-age students do . " "In our country everyone. ¯." Trying to go beyond impressions towards what we call factual information, we find some security in statistics and in popular polls. But, even with a carefully constructed statistical study, there remains the difficulty of overreporting or underreporting, espe-cially if the issue is a delicate one, such as sexuality and sexual behavior. For example, when reporting sexual mores, it seems that men tend to exaggerate their sexual knowledge or activity because of a macho stance, and that women tend to be reticent about sex-ual activity because of fear, shame, or a sense of propriety. Johnson stressed that there have been three significant statis-tical studies Of sexuality and sexual behavior in the United States: David L. Fleming SJ is editor of this journal. March-dlrri12000 . Fleming ¯ Discerning Our Celibate Way the Kinsey studies in the 1950s, a much smaller but somewhat more sophisticated study at the beginning of the 1990s, and the apparently best-balanced report from the mid 1990s. From these reports we learn something about behavior patterns in our times. When certain reported behaviors surprise or shock our own sense of morality and that of our church, we must be careful that our first response is not to deny the evidence. Once we take note of that caution, what might we observe about the value and living of celibate chastity as reported in our contemporary culture? In the current U.S. culture, we have widespread evidence that sexual activity is no longer considered to be restricted to marriage. Because of the easy avail~ibility of contraceptive pills and condoms, sexual activity is no longer tied to the possibility of pregnancy; rather, it is considered just one more among desirable and plea-surable human activities. A more frightening result of this atti-tude equating sexual activity with recreational pleasure is the easy and frequent acceptance of abortion. We are not surprised that in the reporting of behaviors we note a true gender gap. Men readily report that the woman is a consensual partner, whereas women indicate that they feel pres-sured or coerced by the male. Statistics, then, provide evidence of a gender gap, especially in reading the other sex's behavior signals. In our culture there is a great deal of confusion around the terms intimacy and sexuality. Often the two are identified. But sex-uality can be acted out with little sense of intimacy. Intimacy, on the other hand, does not need to be expressed sexually. Young peo-ple, especially, are looking for intimacy and use sexuality as its mistaken route. Studies give evidence of this behavior pattern. What does celibacy or celibate chastity mean to people in our U.S. culture? It is evident that the celibate vocation is not esteemed or looked upon as a kind of ideal. Rather, in our times, it more readily signifies, especially for large numbers of young adults, sexual dysfunction or pedophiliac tendencies or stunted personality growth. We must be aware, then, that our contem-porary culture has little regard for chastity or celibacy. Its sign value has to be significantly rethought and expressed anew in order to be seen and understood for what it is and what we who live it want it to be. In his turn, Keith Clark OFMCap presented a contemporary picture of the meaning and living of chastity and celibacy. Chastity is the pursuit of consistent behaviors--for marriage, one set of Review for Religious behaviors, and for those professing celibate chastity, another set of behaviors. We need to look at the sexual makeup of the animal species, acknowledge the commonalities we have as human beings, and then carefully pay attention to how we humans go beyond the reproductive drive and mating seasons common to the animal species. We realize our human need for insight into sexual behav-ior and for our exercise of freedom in regard to it. Once again we note that there is the human need for intimacy and that this is not identical with genital activity. Clark stated clearly his notion of celibacy. "A celibate life well lived is the pursuit of intimacy, sexual fulfillment, in ways which do not include romantic and genital pur-suits." Celibacy as a Christian vocation means that we pursue a way of loving people, not because we are so urged or driven, but because people are deserv-ing of love. They are children of God. Both presentations stressed the importance of "norms" for appropriate behaviors in living celibate chastity in a community or group lifestyle. Cultures as large as an ethnic group and as small as a particular religious congregation have developed their own parameters for acceptable behaviors in connection with the affectio~is. These cultures get expressed in norms that guide the consistent behavior of group members. Members of a group have a responsibility to observe the norms expected of participants. We who live celibate lives as members of a priestly order or as members of a religious congregation need to have norms that are agreed as guides for the behavior expected of the whole group. After looking at our contemporary culture with the help of Johnson and getting, with Clark's guidance, a sense of a con-temporary expression of lived celibate chastity, we focus now on the word discern, which is meant to be the connective between the two terms. How do we discern the living of celibate chastity in our culture? What is it to discern? I believe that celibacy, properly under-stood, has a necessary connection with the ability to discern. Celibacy or celibate chastity understood in a Christian manner is a way of loving, a way of relating to others. It is not enough to Members of a group have a responsibility to observe the norms expected of participants. March~April 2000 Fleming ¯ Discerning Our Celibate Way say that celibacy means not being married or that to be chaste means just not engaging in or enjoying sexual activity. It is not enough to equate celibacy with a certain ritual purity. To limit our chastity ideal to these kinds of description fixes us in a pagan or pre-Christian understanding. Sad to say, many older explanations about the vow of chastity, and some contemporary ones too, could well have been written by a good pagan. Celibacy cannot be ade-quately defined in terms of what it is not or what it lacks. Celibacy is understood and lived in terms of what it is and does. Celibate chastity describes a way of loving, loving the way that Jesus loved. Because celibacy is a way of loving, there is a true sense that we are always growing in our life of loving celibately. We cannot lose our chastity; we never "had" it so that we could lose it. We are always growing into being a chaste lover, a lover like Christ. We grow in our loving chastely, or we find ourself becoming less of a chaste lover. We make choices of behaviors that enhance our life-direction (which is meant to be a growing more and more to love as Jesus loves), or we find ourself slipping (all too humanly, through selfishness or focus on self) into more and more limited ways of loving. We do not need to be a loving person to make a decision. Individualism rampant in U.S. culture is the seedbed of a lot of decision making. Even in religious life we sometimes hear glowing reports about the new growth in our understanding of the vow of obedience based on human decision making. We say that we have moved from a kind of infantile dependence to a relationship where authority's only role is to support the individual's decision. Yet, if we understood how obedience and chastity are intertwined, and that discernment is not possible where love is not involved, then we might not be so self-satisfied with our own share in the indi-vidualistic decision making often observable in religious life. Evaluated from a religious point of view, personal decision making is not deserving of praise if love of God has had no play in it. Discernment and obedience can be understood and practiced only by one who loves. Perhaps questions about authority/obedience are more about the love quality of religious life than about respon-sible decision making. When people make decisions about sexual activity, they can decide to use this person for their pleasure. They can decide that treating someone in this sex-object way is what pleases them. What they want to do and what feels good decides their choices in this Review for Religious typical American individualistic stance. People live as though they are the center of their world, and this stance acts as the foundation of their choices. In order to discern, however, we need to be a loving person, one who lives in an expansive (always open to other people's inter-ests) world. People who are caught up in an individualistic way of thinking and acting are incapable of making a discernment. Why? Because discernment is a sensitive listening to God speaking to us through interior movements, that is, feelings and inspirations. Discernment is a lover's instinct. Probably most of us have had the expe-rience of this kind of interior commu-nication between ourself and a close friend. No words are spoken, but a lot gets communicated. When persons are dear to us, we know what pleases them and what annoys them. We listen, not to any externally spoken words, but to the person, and we can respond instinctively--if we are people who love. ls this kind of sensitivity, so familiar to us in our human loves, possible between God and ourself?. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, it has always been recog-nized that discernment is a gifting of God. St. Paul identifies dis-cernment as a special gift to members of the Christian community through Christ's sending of the Spirit. A number of holy men and women have shared their insights into the gift of discernment, how to pray for it, how to grow as a discerning person, and how to make a decision-making process a true discernment. St. Ignatius Loyola especially is renowned for the practical application of dis-cernment procedures for an understanding of What spirit is mov-ing us and for a method of coming to a decision through such a discernment of spirits. Discernment is about making practical life-dealing decisions not just with prayerful prudence, but with our will attuned to the will of God our Father. We are trying to love the way Jesus loved. Jesus prayed a lot; he prayed in order to deepen his relationship with God and so to express his love. The dialogue of prayer is a dialogue of love. Prayer is not discernment, but without prayer there is no discernment. Why? Because discernment is a grace given to a lover. VCe see it clearly in Jesus. Discernment marks Jesus' choices. In the crisis moment in Gethsemane, Jesus in agony Discernment remains always a gift, a growing in a lover's sensitivity. 143- Marcia-April 2000 Fleming ¯ Discerning Our Celibate Way pours out his prayer and in love can say, "Not my will, but yours be done." One who loves has a sense of, a feel for, what pleases the one who is loved. To be a discerning person means that we must be a free person: free of self-will, free of prejudice, free of being locked into doing what is expected (to be accepted, to save face, and so on). We see this freedom in Jesus. Discernment remains always a gift, a growing in a lover's sensitivity, just as Jesus grew in his sen-sitivity to his Father's will up to the end: "Into your hands, I com-mend my spirit." In other words, we never just "have" discernment, as it were, as our possession. We need always to acknowledge dis-cernment as a dynamic grace or gift. As Jesus' special gifting of the Spirit to us, his followers, discernment is always to be rever-enced, esteemed, and lived in our choices. Discernment affects our living of celibate chastity on three levels: (1) the body or the physical, being at home with our sexual makeup; (2) the soul or the psychological, being at home with our affections; and (3) the spirit or the spiritual, being at home with God. Let me develop each of these levels. 1. As people who are trying to love as Jesus loves, we need to love our own incarnation, that is, we must love our own bodili-ness. Acceptance of our sexuality helps us to be like Jesus. For Jesus was sexual and celibate and a man who loved. Jesus is so much at home with his body that he keeps it with him forever. And that is his promise of resurrection for us. To be at home with our body, then, is a Christian attitude to grow in and to deepen. We make the choice to love the body that God gave us. In our culture we know how much we try to run from or deny the failings connected with bodiliness, for example, the whole process of aging. With a cul-ture that wallows in sexuality, especially its genital aspects, we may think that our countercultural stance should be to run from or deny our own sexuality in order to bd the good celibate. But our Christian viewpoint sees sexuality and the way it shapes our relat-ing and our loving, all our life long, as a gift of God to us. Living in gratitude for God's gift, we find that being at home with our own body is the only way for us to love as Jesus loves. 2. We celibates must also be at home with our affectivity. There is no such thing as loving in the abstract; we love the flesh-and- blood people that come into our lives. To love in general is not to love at all. Yet, when we try to love the people that God brings into our life, we find difficulties with the way they dress, the way they talk, even the way they sexually attract us or not. I have always Review for Religious admired the healthy quality of the bawdiness found in Chaucer or in Shakespeare as representative of the peoples of their times. We--especially people vowed to chastity--need to laugh at our affective responses sometimes so embarrassing to us and so little under our control. We may even be surprised at a sexual response we feel in prayer or even at communion time. This is the moment to recall that we are God's creation, enfleshed, with all its humor, distress, and bedazzlement. We thank him for being the ones in whom he delights. We need to give over anew the whole of our life to God and so not let our discerning focus get distracted on self. Always we as celibates--a unit of body, soul, and spirit--need to own and not to deny our affections. We must be in touch with how affective or not we are naturally, from family upbringing, community customs, and ethnic culture. Whatever the limits of what we have inherited, we--growing by the grace of our celibate calling as sensitive lovers--gradually learn how to make various appropriate adaptations. Does Jesus ever seem frozen in the face of others' affective love, whether expressed by Mary Magdalen or by the beloved disciple? Think of John lean-ing on Jesus' chest at the Last Supper or of Mary Magdalen's fierce bearhug in the resurrection garden scene. Growing always in a lover's sensitivity is especially to be valued by a vowed celibate who desires to relate affectively to all. Married couples teach each other how to make love all their lives long. We as celibates must keep our eyes on Jesus in order to keep growing in our way of loving. Our prayer should lead us deeply into the Gospels so that Jesus keeps teaching us how to love. Our being affective people, or not, affects our ministry. In fact, there is little exaggeration in saying that ministry without. affectivity is useless in terms of evangelization. We may be able to do "good things," but for what.purpose if we do not touch peo-ple with love from a God who is Love? 3. We Catholics are fortunate because we understand that God loves us in affective ways. Our Scriptures, our sacraments, our prayers speak out God's way of loving us in the most tender of human expressions. Even more, God loves us in intimate ways. This good news we bear in our very persons as loving celibates: We as celibates must keep our eyes on Jesus in order to keep growing in our way of loving. March-April 2000 Fleming * Discerning Our Celibate Way God wants to be intimate with us. Our spiritual life is a life of love, intimate love with God. Two examples from Scripture bring this fact home to us. I am indebted to the late Father Carroll Stuhmueller CP for his long-time insistence on the meaning of the Hebrew word rahamin. In the Old Testament, especially in the prophetic writings, God is often described in English translation as merciful, tender-hearted, or compassionate. These words attempt to signify the meaning of rabamin. The Hebrew word seems best understood in this way: the feeling that a mother has for the child in, and of, her womb. God wants us to know that the relationship he has to each of us is like the feeling a mother has for the child of her womb. What is this feeling? Is it pity or mercy? No, it is one of pride and 10ve for the child of the womb. That is how God feels towards us. God loves us and takes pride in us. We cannot deny the intimacy of this Hebrew word. That kind of intimacy God claims towards us. We celibates are meant to find a home in this love. In a more theological way I would like to reflect upon the word covenant. Perhaps we are familiar with the covenants of Middle Eastern people of whom the Israelites were a part. A covenant is an agreement between two parties (usually unequal), and the expectation involves certain ways of acting toward each. Covenant is a central theme of the relationship between God and his chosen people. The biblical covenant that God established was marked according to the Semitic cultural tradition by the ritual of killing an animal and sprinkling its blood upon the altar (rep-resenting God) and upon the Israelite p.eople. The blood was a symbol of life, not death; the sprinkling of blood on the altar and on the people signified the familial union. The action said: We share the same blood. When Jesus on the night before he died wanted to establish a new covenant, he retained the same symbol: blood. But it is his own blood that Jesus gives, his flesh for our food and his blood for our drink. This blood is life-giving and makes us who feed on his Body and his Blood belong to the same bloodline as God. Jesus could not make it any clearer that we truly are brothers and sisters to one another; we share the same blood, Jesus' blood, the blood of the Son of God. We call upon Jesus truly as our brother, and together with him we call God Abba-Father. The reality of this new covenant is an intimacy of unity, Jesus God bringing us into the very life of the Trinity. As celibates, day after day in our Review for Religious Eucharist we come forward with hands stretched our to receive and to be taken in by the most intimate love of God, a God embracing us into the divine life of love. What distinguishes us who are called to a life of celibate chastity? We are called to a special way of loving. When we celi-bates are truly at home with our bodies (with our sexuality), with our affections (with our soul), and with our spirit (God's Spirit, now ours), we are free to be the discerning people who, in a sex-ually confused culture, live God's invitation to celibate chastity peacefully, happily, and apostolically. The Silence That Is Not Silence at All Unobtrusive as dawn, the lake balances perfectly between East and West. An early hiker rounds the corner, headset clamped on. Juncoes tsk tsk and give way. Starlings catcall. Merganser, all white hood, skims a straight arrow line, alights with a velvet swoosh pursues prey through clear water soundless. Lichen stained alders circle the shore, haloed with smudges of alizarin catkins. Aments upon aments. A Lent retreatant, I come for the annual fast from stimulation, rededicate to silence or at least to the diminishment of stimulants. Make way for tumult. Here are the Big Ego geese. Indignant honking, they want to be noticed. Chest beating, a squall of identity. Hannah J. Main-van der Karnp March-April 2000 147 --- JUSTIN TAYLOR AND ALBERT DIIANNI What Is Religious Life's Purpose? For thirty-five years since Vatican Council II, we have constantly ?asked questions about identity: What does it mean to be a religious, a monk, a Dominican, a Jesuit, a Marist? It might then seem superfluous to ask about the purpose of religious life. But it is our conviction that pre-cisely this question must receive a more adequate answer before we can come to proper conclusions about how to structure our religious life and truly renew its spirit. The main goal of religious life is to place God at the center of our lives. That is the meaning of religious consecration, and it is best symbolized in the vow of chastity, in which we make a gift of our very hearts to God. Religious consecration is all about the service and worship of God, about affective and effective love of God for God's sake. Religious life is a way of being with ¯ God that takes the form of a gift and an act of worship. It evokes the image of St. Francis lying prostrate on the ground throughout the night calling out repeatedly, "My God and my all,." In other words, religious life needs to Justin Taylor SM, a Marist priest from New Zealand who resides at the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem, does teaching and writing on biblical topics and on spirituality. Albert DiIanni SM wrote for us in 1993 and 1996; his address is Marist Vocation Office; 27 Isabella Street; Boston, Massachusetts 02116. Review for Religious be religious, and this means that it must be theocentric. Religion can be about many things, but first and foremost, as Hegel said, "religion is about God." This may seem to go without saying. But we are saying it and stressing it because we all tend to substitute something else for the love of God. Nothing else will do, not even love of neighbor. The question we ask is: Have we not, long before Vatican II and after it as well, tended to substitute--for a focus on the glory and love of God--either a personal ascetical spirituality or a social morality? We grant, of course, that both morality and asceticism find their place in religion, but we maintain, too, that religion cannot be totally or even primarily reduced to them. Could it be that this tendency to substitute something for religion--whether it be self-improvement or the improvement of other individuals, society, and the world--is what underlies the malaise we currently perceive in religious life? We stress that this problem does not arise out of Vatican II. It already existed before Vatican II and may have caused what the council had to say about religious life to be misunderstood. It is a problem that lies deeper than the distinction between traditional-ists and so-called "change-oriented" religious. Both of these groups, as we shall see, may have given way to the very same error. In her recent book The Fire in These Ashes, Joan Chittister insists that the sole purpose of religious life is "only to seek God" (p. 45). She writes: "We have too often been seduced., by other explanations for religious life, all of them valuable and all of them true to a certain degree. We have sought to be 'relevant.' We have set out to be 'incarnational.' . We have given ourselves untiringly to the 'option for the poor.' We have devoted our-selves to 'the transformation of social structures.' We have evan-gelized and renewed and revised and reformed until we dropped from exhaustion. And all of those commitments are good and necessary and worthy of attention. But, through it all, one thing and one thing only can sustain religious life, can nourish reli-gious life, can justify religious life: The religious must be the person who first and foremost, always and forever, in whatever circumstance, seeks God and God alone, seeks God and God alone in all of this confusion, in all of this uncertainty and, what-ever the situation, seeks God--and God alone." She concludes: "Otherwise, religious life is just one more social institution to be succeeded by social institutions after it, rather than centers March-April 2000 149 Taylor and Dilanni ¯ Reli~ous Life's Purpose of contemplation where, we can hope, the mind of God can touch the mind of humanity" (p. 47). "A center of contemplation where the mind of God can touch the mind of humanity"--is this not a beautiful definition of reli-gious life? For Joan Chittister, contemplation of God is the pri-mary center and focus of religious life. But she is not thinking of a selfish, isolated sort of contemplation cut off from society or the world. Rather, for her, contemplation of God has an effect upon the mind of humanity, changes it and urges it to become engaged in the task of approximating the kingdom of God on earth in works of peace and justice, especially in favor of the poor and the marginalized. This call to contemplation, which is now being stressed by many authors, indicates that the crisis of religious life is deeper than people think. It is rooted in a crisis of faith. By this we mean that there has been a change not only in the depth and intensity of our faith, but also in its actual content. And this is hardly new. It has been present in the church for a long time, as attested by Henri Bremond in his Histoire litteraire du sentiment religieux en France, a magisterial eleven-volume study of mysticism in France in the 17th century. Bremond did not write with a view to commenting on religious life in the 20th century, but his volumes are full of relevant insights. Bremond (an ex-Jesuit turned diocesan) keeps coming back to one particular issue: Why, throughout the period of which he writes, was the Jesuit mainstream in France especially, antimystical? Why, with the notable exception of Louis Lallemant and his school, did the Jesuits begin to focus their spirituality more and more away from God and more and more toward the human? In the course of his writing, Bremond suggests some more or less peripheral reasons, but in the end he expresses a suspicion that the Jesuits, even in the 17th century, were intuitively sensing a crisis of faith. They were sniffing the presence of an incipient atheism in their contemporaries and perhaps in their own hearts. They were beginning to fear, at least subconsciously, that the pure love of God as the chief reason for a devout life was not going to motivate people of their time and place much longer. This, suggests Bremond, is the reason why they felt the need to recommend prayer not so much as adoration and thanksgiving before God, but especially as a means of growth in virtue, a means to inoral and ascetical self-improvement, a way to ensure one's personal eternal salvation. Review for Religious It is clear that this crisis of faith is not restricted to the Society of Jesus in the time of which Bremond writes. The same crisis has continued in a perhaps even stronger fashion in the 20th century. Both before and after Vatican II, religious have tended to recom-mend religious life to the world--and perhaps to themselves--in terms of what it could "do for" themselves or for others. Religious life was considered legitimate and desirable because it was useful, however that usefulness might be conceived, whether in terms of a surer way for the individual to attain tleaven or in terms of a service to society. Both of these stances, however, place religion and religious life on a less-than- full theocentric plane. Viewed in this way, the crisis of faith did not begin in the post-Vatican II era. It was in full swing well before the 1960s, but at that time social and ecclesial structures and a gen-eral feeling of success (at something) kept people going. Once those supports were taken away or seri-ously weakened, its real proportions were revealed. It has been said that, before Vatican II, religious used to "skip the world" and focus too heavily on our individual other-worldly salvation. This is a legitimate criticism if properly understood. To the extent that there was overemphasis on our individ-ual otherworldly salvation, religious life was already ¯ anthropocentric or egocentric, and not theocentric. For a program of self-improvement, even in view of obtaining eternal life, is not specifically Christian, but broadly Stoic. The concentration on obtaining eternal life even became obsessive for a number of people, and priests in confessionals encountered peo-ple so absorbed in themselves and their salvation that they became paralyzed by scrupulosity. For this and for other reasons, an under-standable dissatisfaction set in with regard to a form of devout life whose focal point was one's own perfection. Unfortunately, however, the remedy that was often prescribed compounded the ailment. In line with the self-improvement ten-dencies, the constitutions of many religious congregations before Vatican II propounded a twofold goal for religious life: saving one's own soul and saving the souls of others. After Vatican II, the notion of salvation was expanded beyond an eschatological salvation to include also, and at times almost exclusively, the liberation of peo-ples or the social betterment of humankind. Neither of these This call to contemplation indicates that the crisis of religious life is deeper than people think. I51-- March-April 2000 Taylor and Dilanni ¯ Religious Life's Purpose focuses, however, whether on personal improvement and salva-tion or on social liberation, is properly religious in the sense of having to with the worship and love of God. Neither of them makes God the pivotal center of our lives. If this is true, where should we seek the remedy? If there has been a shift in our faith in this century and before, what then should be the content of our faith? We believe that the religious hunger is ultimately the hunger for transcendence or, more con-cretely, the hunger for God. It is a hunger which, in fact, is often felt most keenly by the poor. The world points to something beyond the world: its Author. Our first response to the world must be gratitude toward the author of that world--paying homage to God. Religious are called to be involved totally with God, to be bridges to others to enable them, not to negate this world, but to transcend it and reach God. The world is extremely important-- the Word became incarnate for the sake of the world--but in itself it is still not enough for us, us of the restless heart. In whatever manner we decide to refashion religious life, we must not lose this central insight, which is at the heart of the religious quest. The "kingdom of God" promoted by the Jesus of the synoptic Gospels certainly demands an effort on our part to improve the world, but it also involves a transcending of the world, and this transcen-dence will consist, as always, in union with God. In fact, without such a reference to the Transcendent, it is questionable whether an urgency to improve the world has sufficient meaning. Again, with Joan Chittister, "The religious must be the person who., seeks God, and God alone" and--we could add, with Vita consecrata (§3, §20)--helps other members of the church in their search for God. It is in this latter task of spurring others on to transcendence that some form of identifying religious garb has its importance. St. Thomas Aquinas asks why religious congregations are called "religious." Our reflections thus far have perhaps prepared us to understand and receive his answer: "Religion is the virtue by which we perform the service and worship of God. Hence, reli-gious are so called because they dedicate themselves totally to the service of God, as if offering God a whole-burnt sacrifice" (Summa theologiae, 2a-2ae, q. 186, a. 1). Here Thomas speaks of a "virtue of religion," a kind of habit. This habit of mind, heart, and action has to be part and parcel of every genuine approach to God, for it is basically about awe in the presence of the "tremendous and fas-cinating mystery." "This tremendous lover" is what Francis Review for Religious Thompson called Christ, and the adjective is striking. It refers to a lover who fills us not with fear but with awe. Our response to God is one of wonder, adoration, and gratitude in the face of a Love that bends down to us, a love that is gratuitous and that we did not merit. What makes religious life distinct from other forms of Christian life (granted that there is no complete cut-off, but many a gradation) is that it is a way of life which is organized and centered on the.service and worship and love of God and which would make no sense on any other terms. From a worldly point of view, it might even be called a useless life; it is worthless except to the eyes of faith. We believe, with Vita consecrata, that chastity is at the heart of the matter. Chastity is the baseline of religious consecration, not primarily a way of being freed for ministry, although it is also that. Through it we consecrate to God our hearts and our sexual-ity, our capacity to love and be loved, and our capacity for repro-ducing ourselves and so assuring a sort of afterlife. It is therefore the point at which the service and the love of God meet in the center of the consecrated person. Religion, as a virtue, is not the same as charity, so that serving and worshiping God are not specifically the same as loving God. But the two are very close, and both are needed. Without love, religion quickly becomes fanaticism; without awe before God, love can be too facile and presumptuous. In the golden age of French spirituality in the first half of the 17th century, the great masters differ a little on where they place the emphasis, St. Francis de Sales placing it on love and Pierre de B~rulle on religion. In any case, they agree that religious life is essentially theocentric. St. Thomas's "whole-burnt sacrifice" strikes the note of throwing all of oneself into a life given to God in a fire of generosity. Abandoning calculation and self-service, a person stakes all on the single-hearted quest of God, and God alone. That is a goal in the pursuit of which a life is well lived and the world well lost. The above remarks raise at least two questions about love of God which require some discussion. We are speaking of a "pure love of God." But is it possible to love God selflessly, for God alone, and not for ourselves? Not in the sense that I could leave myself totally out of any act of the will: whatever I will, I will also as my own good. But it is possible in the sense that there can be a degree of selfless love in an act of the will, and that this selfless love can grow in future acts. In praying I make all sorts of different March~April 2000 Taylor and Dilanni ¯ Religtous'ous L~Life's Purpose "acts," including petition for myself and others. But what makes prayer (any prayer) true prayer, and love of God true love, is that overriding everything else is the love of God for God's sake, the willing of God's good, and the ultimate submission of my will to God's. And that is "pure love." Note that this is not something rare and extraordinary. Selfless love is part of every authentic human love. It is part of the Lord's Prayer, where we say: "Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done." In any genuine human love, I will love the beloved without thinking of my own good and even, at times, to my apparent detriment. M1 lovers would deny the name of "love" to a mere desire to get their own satisfaction. In every true love there is selfless devotion toward the beloved, that is, "pure love," some-where. And selfless devotion, it seems, has always been the touch-stone of a religious life properly lived. The second question concerns the relation between the two commandments of love of God and love of neighbor. Above we wrote that not even love of the neighbor can be substituted for love of God. Love of the neighbor does not replace love of God; it does not even, strictly speaking, express love of God. God is to be loved for God's sake. On the other hand, love of the neighbor is the acid test of the genuineness of our love of God. St. John's for-mulation could not be bettered: "Those who say, 'I love God,' and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen" (1 Jn 4:20 NRSV). To remove all excuse for illusion on this topic, the Letter of James (2:15-16 NRSV) affirms th~it a mere sentiment of goodwill is not enough: "If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm, and eat your fill,' and yet you do not supply them their bodily needs, what is the good of that?" If love of the neighbor is not a substitute for love of God, the reverse is also true. Loving God does not give us an excuse for not loving our brothers and sisters, really and concretely. Christians are called to live for the glory of God and not pri-marily for their own good, not even for their own salvation here or in eternity. The emphasis has to be on the primacy of the love of God. The truth is, however, that the more genuinely we love God, the deeper and more effective will be our love of neighbor, especially the poor and the unloved. The great lovers of God--that is to say, the saints--have been those who have done. most in the Review for Religious way of love and service of their brothers and sisters. There is no risk that following the call to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind will distract us from serving others or from working for justice in the world. Rather, when we go to God, we find One who loves justice and who is on the side of the poor and the weak. This God demands that we too pursue justice and come to the aid of the needy. In loving God we go outside of ourselves in a radical way. We encounter the transcendent Being who loves the created world and invites us to become active within it. There is no competition between the two commandments of love, but rather reciprocity. If love of the neigh-bor is the acid test of love of God, love of God overflows into love of neigh-bor and makes it truly love. For jus-tice without love may quickly become tyranny, while mere "humanitarian-ism" may become bureaucratic, offi-cious, and quite unloving. On the other hand, love of God makes love of neighbor tenderhearted, generous, and selfless. For, in our living communion with God, we discover that God loves us all and that for this reason we must love others and strive to bring peace and justice into the world. What is.the upshot of all this? What does it mean in practical terms? If all this is true, it may mean that the ongoing renewal of religious life needs to be reviewed. It may mean that we must go back to the drawing board and ask ourselves whether we have made changes on the basis of an inadequate notion of the purpose of religious life. It may mean that, while many good things have occurred in terms of a structural renewal of our lives, the spiri-tual renewal is yet to begin--one that may cause us to take a sec-ond look at those structures. Our structures of prayer, our living of the vows, and our community life must be fashioned so that, primarily, they foster our love for God. To achieve this we must grapple with this question: .Are we perhaps in need of a shift in our faith, one that moves away from the many forms of anthro-pocentrism of the last few centuries, and centers religious life more directly on the pure love of God? Chastity is the point at which the service and the love of God meet in the center of the consecrated person. March-April 2000 KENNETH C. RUSSELL Must Hermits Work? Maust hermits work to earn their living? Must they leave side their regime of silence and prayer to earn money, even though this is a Catch-22 situation, with solitude calling them away from society and work drawing them back into it? By taking a job, manufacturing a product, or providing a service, they trou-ble themselves with any number of people so as to have enough income to get away from people and indulge their own hermit's desire to be alone and untroubled. Are they not then better off depending on some form of fixed income, on the largess of the religious congregations to which they may belong, or on the charity of the faithful? It would seem so. But is this kind of dependence legitimate? What does the his-tory of the eremitical life in the Western church say about this? How do the principal texts on the solitary life deal with the eco-nomic, psychological, and spiritual aspects of work? What features remain constant in the tradition? What shifts take place? In this brief overview, which makes no claim to be complete, we begin with the teachings of the pioneers in the Egyptian desert as these are recorded in the alphabetical collection of Sayings of the Desert Fathers and in John Cassian's Institutions and Conferences. We then turn our attention to a few representative medieval texts, primarily from the 12th century, a period marked by a widespread revival of the eremitical life. Kenneth C. Russell last wrote for us in November-December 1998. His address remains 40 Landry Street, Apt. 1505; Vanier, Ontario; t~6~ K1L 8K4 Canada. Review for Religious The Sayings of the Desert Fathers Although the classical picture of the hermits in the Egyptian desert as hardscrabble peasants used to a tough life has been chal-lenged of late, it seems clear that, whatever the truth about their social status and educational background, they earned their keep by the work of their hands. The Sayings tell us that the solitaries plaited ropes (Sayings 184, 39), made baskets (105, 1) and hired themselves out as laborers to bring in the harvest (82, 47; 191, 2).' At least one monk strung necklaces of small dried peas to pay for his food. We are told that Abba Serinus spent his time harvest-ing, sewing, and weaving (191, 2). The monks worked because they had to. They did not share the conviction of the excessively spiritual groups of the time that considered work to be below the dignity of those called to per-petual prayer. Several stories seem to satirize the "angelic" atti-tude of these Messalians, as they were called. One concerns Abba John the Dwarf, a prominent desert figure, who in his youth announced to his brother his intention of living a carefree life of ceaseless prayer like the angels who do no work. After a week he was back knocking on his brother's door, hungry and begging to be let in. When this brother, in no hurry to admit him, got around to answering the door, he told young John: "You are a man and you must once again work in order to eat" (73, 2). The same point is driven home in the story of a monk who, while visiting a small eremitical community, sees the brothers working hard and cautions their leader, Abba Silvanus, not to seek "the food which perishes" (John 6:27). Silvanus allows him to spend the day reading, but does not summon him to dinner. When the hungry monk asks why he was not called, the elder answers: "Because you are a spiritual man and do not need that kind of food. We, being carnal, want to eat, and that is why we work" (187, 5). In these words of practical economy, it is obvious that work not only feeds the monk but keeps him grounded in the real-ity of the world and human nature. The Egyptian hermits lived apart from society, but they were not disconnected from the larger world. A brother was advised by Abba Poemen to do some manual labor "so as to be able to give alms" (148, 69). This readiness "to work for charity's sake" (87, 4) also set the Egyptian monks apart from the Messalians or Euchites, who regarded themselves as the most fitting recipients of any handouts. March-April 2000, Russell * Must Hermits In one story some Euchite monks answer Abba Lucius's query about what kind of work they do by announcing, rather smugly it seems, that they do not touch manuhl labor, but obey Paul's instruc-tion to pray without ceasing. Lucius asks how perpetual their prayer can really be if they must interrupt it to eat or sleep. For his part he demonstrates that work and prayer are not incompatible and shows how his charity toward the poor fills the gaps in his own prayer schedule. "When I have spent the whole day working and praying, making thirteen pieces of money more or less, I put two pieces of money outside the door and I pay for my food with the rest of the money. He who takes the two pieces of money prays for me when I am eating and when I am sleeping" (102, 1).2 But work that enables a monk to support himself and make a contribution to the well-being of others can also prove a distraction. What is supposed to support the spiritual life can become an end in itself (64, 10). It can assume an importance it does not deserve (44, 1 I). This is surely why Abba Silvanus threatens to leave his little community when his disciples and some other brothers move the fence to enlarge the garden (188, 8). This story also implies that at some point work becomes a guarantee of security, which challenges the hermit's dependence on divine providence. Abba Serinus, who worked at a number of tasks, avoided this trap by insisting that "in all these employments, if the hand of God had not sustained me, I should not have been fed" (191, 2). In the same vein, Silvanus is confident that as long as he does his part God will provide (188, 9). Given the tendency of work to become a goal in itself, it is not surprising that when a monk asks Abba Biare what he must do to be saved, the elder advises him to reduce his appetite, dwell in his cell, and reduce his quota of manual work (37, 1). Any kind of work can upset a hermit's life if it assumes too great a place in it. But certain kinds of work were regarded as essentially distracting. Agriculture per se was considered an exte-riorizing activity that draws a monk's attention away from God. Even the gardening that is mentioned in the Sayings was suspect. It was, at best, on the borderline of the acceptable. When Abba Silvanus had to water the garden his disciple usually cared for, he hid his face lest the sight of the trees should distract him (187, 4). Underlying what we have seen so far concerning the eremit-ical understanding of work is the conviction that a monk should pay his own way and contribute to some extent to the welfare of oth-ers. But neither of these obligations demands that all monks must Review for Relig4ous work. Some monks, surely, had the means to sustain their life with-out daily labor. A number of these could probably count on the support of their relatives and friends. Would this modest support not give them more time to pray and meditate? Is there not a mod-icum of good sense even in the extremist position of the Messalians? Why is work itself so important? We must note, first of all, that living on any form of income other than daily labor is explicitly rejected in the Sayings. A monk who is disturbed by the haggling involved in selling his wares asks one of the senior monks whether he may give up work if he finds another means to survive. The elder replies: "Even if you do have what you need by other means, do not give up your manual work" (168, 1). The monk is instructed, in fact, to work as hard as he can. The "word" given here is exemplified in the story of Abba Achilles, who edifies his visitors when they discover that he has been working and meditating all night. "From yesterday evening till now, I have woven twenty mea-sures, although I do not need it; but it is for fear God should be angry and accuse me, saying, 'Why did you not work when you could have done so?' That is why I give myself to this labor and do as much as I can" (25, 5). The Sayings generally do not emphasize the noneconomic value of manual labor. They do, however, present work as a basic element of a hermit's life. When Abba Poemen holds up one of the elders as an example, he observes that "in Abba Pambo we see three bodily activities: abstinence from food until the evening every day, silence, and much manual work" (158, 150). When Poemen lays out the basics of the eremitical life for an inquirer, he begins by saying that "living in your cell clearly means manual work" (160, 168). We know then that, according to the Sayings, work is an asceti-cal activity linked with meditation which should not be set aside even if other means of support are available. It seems clear, how-ever, that manual labor was so tightly tied to economic survival in the experience of most Egyptian solitaries that they felt no need to reflect in depth on the role it played in their lives. It was simply a fundamental but unobtrusive activity of their uncomplicated regime. To get a deeper insight into the role that work plays in Any kind of work can upset a hermit's life if it assumes too great a place in it. 159 March-April 2000 R~ssell * Must Her~nits Work? the eremitical life, we must turn to the elaborations on life in the desert which John Cassian offers us in his Institutions and Conferences. --- 160 Cassian's Institutions and Conferences The presence of Messalians (Syriac for "those who pray" but do not work) is more strongly felt in John Cassian's writings than in the Sayings. The need for daily work seems, therefore, to be less the plain, indisputable fact of life it is in the Sayings and more a deliberate option. Cassian takes Paul the Apostle as the exemplar of work. If Paul, who had the right to live off his mission, worked, how can monks refrain from doing so? Paul worked, Cassian notes, not for the sake of introducing some healthy variety into his life, but to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow even though he might have lived off his savings or from offerings received from others (Institutions 10.8; p. 270).3 Since Cassian uses Paul's injunction to the Thessalonians to work with their hands and to be at peace (1 Th 4:11), it is clear that he sees manual labor as an antidote to distraction (10.7; p. 269). Work concentrates the mind and shuts out external noise. It lifts the individual above the turmoil of the emotions. This is so important to John Cassian that he connects a story illustrating this point to St. Anthony himself. Anthony, we are told, was challenge'd by a brother who argued that his own life was superior to the discipline of the desert. He lived near his rel-atives, benefited from their support, and so was able to give all his time to prayer and reading. Anthony countered his claim to be free of care by showing that he was, in fact, emotionally tied to the economic ups and downs of his supporters. Anthony goes on to say that "this most lukewarm condition [is] depriving you of the fruit of your own hands and the just reward of your labor" (Conferences 24.11.3; p. 833).4 Once again Paul's example is put forward as the ideal. It is his example, Anthony maintains, which compels monks to work. Indeed, were it not for Paul's example, Anthony argues, he and his fellow monks would take the easy route and live off the alms of their relatives. Anthony goes on to chide the healthy monk for living off alms that should by right go to the weak. He then makes an astounding statement which radically opposes the notion that, while others must work, monks are exempt from labor because Review for Religious they pray. He insists, on the contrary, that everyone else in the world relies on the compassion of others, "with the sole exception of the race of monks which, in accordance with the Apostle' s precept, lives by the daily toil of its hands" (Conf24.12.3; p. 834). Anthony reminds us that, according to tradition, the monk gives alms, he does not receive them. In Anthony's opinion, authentic solitaries do not live off their relatives or near them. On the contrary, they flee society and live outside civilization's jurisdiction in the wastelands beyond the fer-tile Nile valley. This withdrawal not only shelters them from the hubbub of village life, but makes farming--the kind of work with which most Egyptian monks were probably familiar--impractical. Cassian regards farming as an unsuitable activity for a monk for several reasons. First, it draws the mind away from the focus on God which should be the monk's principal concern. Second, the fatigue brought on by hard work in the fields drains away the energy a monk needs for his spiritual pursuits (Conf 24.12.4; p. 835).s The third reason, however, is the most important. Not only is farm labor hard, it is also periodic; as a con-sequence, a monk who does this work is at loose ends for long periods of time. Cassian makes this last point evident in the story of some farming monks who grew restless whenever they visited the hermit colony of Skete. They literally could not sit still. Cassian says that they had not learned how to quiet their inner being because they worked outdoors and their thoughts were scattered everywhere by their bodily activity (Conf24.4; p. 828). For John Cassian, therefore; work is primarily associated with the spiritual goal of the monk. The hermit works because work provides the best conditions for prayer. The monk does certain kinds of work because certain tasks can be done day and night, day in and day out, without undue fatigue and without requiring a great deal of attention. The uncomplicated procedures associated with rope making and the like help him to pray. They keep the monk alert and centered so that he is able to resist both sleep and the listlessness and distractedness typical of acedia (Inst 2.12; p. 210). The example of Abba Paul, who had no economic reason to do handwork, shows just how essential Cassian thought manual labor actually was. Abba Paul's basic needs were met by the garden he Authentic solitaries do not live off their relatives or near them. March-April 2000 R~ssell ¯ M~t Hermits Work? tended and the palm trees near by. It seems, in fact, that his idyl-lic little oasis was so far out in the desert that the hermit had no way of getting his wares to market. Nevertheless, he collected palm branches and set himself a daily quota of weaving. At the end of the year he gathered the baskets he had made into a great pile and burned them. Then he started all over again. Abba Paul did not work to feed himself or to provide for the poor. So what was the point of his manual labor? Cassian says that his example proves that a monk can neither stay put nor achieve perfection without manual labor. Abba Paul worked solely to purify his heart, to keep his thoughts on course, to persevere in his cell, and thus to overcome acedia (Inst 10.24; pp. 274-275). In other words, he worked because it steadied and grounded him. The handwork with which he occupied himself night and day while praying centered him in a way that the gardening he did to support his life could not. Work serves prayer as long as it remains a subordinate ele-ment in the monastic regime. But, once a monk begins to think of himself as a "hard worker," he is in danger of feeding his human ambition by measuring his own worth in terms of the profit he makes or the tasks he performs. The monk, in effect, imports the world's notion of success into the desert. Once work itself becomes the goal, it usurps the priority that belongs properly to prayer. This is vividly illustrated in Cassian's tale of an elder who comes upon one of these superachievers wearing himself out try-ing to break up a stubborn boulder. The exhausted hermit thinks he is doing "good work," but the senior monk sees that a demon is urging him on (Confg.6.1-3; pp. 333-334). The point is clear: work that does not serve prayer can turn even the sorry resources of the desert into vehicles of human ambition. Jerome's Letter to Rusticus Before we leave the earliest teaching on the place of work in the eremitical life, we should take note of the list of possible tasks St. Jerome lays out in his letter to Rusticus,a young man on the brink of a monastic vocation.6 Although he counsels Rusticus not to live with his mother, and does mention at one point that by working he will be able to pay for his food, practical necessity is not the principal reason Jerome gives for working. It is primarily a matter of keeping busy and thereby holding the devil at bay. Review for Religious Some of the jobs which Jerome recommends are the familiar crafts of the Egyptian desert: weaving baskets and tending a small garden plot. To these Jerome adds the cultivation and grafting of fruit trees, beekeeping, the weaving of fishing nets, and, signifi-cantly, bookcopying. The copying of manuscripts was, to a great extent, a physical task like the other jobs mentioned. The parchment had to be pre-pared, inks mixed, pens cut, the pages lined, the text written out, and, finally, the manuscript bound. But there was an intellectual dimension to this activity. Jerome mentions that copying texts feeds the mind. He then goes on to remember his own brief stay in the desert when he fought off temptation by working hard to learn Hebrew. We have here, I think, the seeds of a conception of "work" quite different from that of the tradition of the Egyptian desert. We have moved out of the world of small peasant farmers into the cul- ¯ tivated world of the Roman gentleman. Although, while in the desert, Jerome may have earned his keep by some simple hand-work, it is clear that his real work was studying and writing. The same may be said, to some extent, of Cassian. From this time on we see a certain tension between the idea of work as a physical, money-earning activity and work as an intellectual activity for the betterment of the individual. Should someone who can do the higher work lay it aside to do a less spiritual and less humane task for the sake of earning money? Must a hermit work? Are the eremitical life and work in the sweat and blood, money-earning sense of the word compatible? The old question subtly reemerges between the lines, as it were, when Jerome, a man of scholarly inclination, lists the kinds of work suitable for a solitary. Grimlaic's Rule for Solitaries The 9th-10th-century Regula Solitariorum, by Grimlaic, rep-resents a literary dividing line between the Egyptian tradition's insistence that hermits must work to earn their living and the belief that solitaries have the right to turn to others for support.7 After noting the spiritual value of work as a means to. avoid idleness, Grimlaic summons up the example of St. Paul and the Fathers to insist that solitaries must work to support themselves and to help those in need. Indeed, he says that the greater part of the day should March-April 2000 Russell * Must Hermits Work? A hermit's food, drink, and clothing are paid for either by his personal labor or by the offerings of the faithful. be given to "holy work." He has in mind some task which can be performed mechanically while reading or praying.(Regula 39; 629). Grimlaic retells Cassian's story ofAbba Paul, who lived too far out in the desert to make the manufacture of baskets and ropes practical, but who nevertheless set himself a quota of manual work every day. He also borrows from the same source the story of the superspiritual nonworldng monk who was brought down to earth by Abba Silvanus's failure to call him to dinner (39; 630). He further emphasizes the importance of manual labor by laying out the Benedictine schedule of work and accept-ing the principle that, if poverty demands it, more time should be given to labor (40; 631).8 Obviously, there had always been elderly or infirm hermits who were unable to imitate the example of St. Paul "and the holy fathers" which Grimlaic so strongly emphasizes. Nonetheless, it seems to me significant that Grimlaic should undermine his argument by noting that Augustine maintains that the occasions on which Paul himself depended on alms demon-strate that those who are unable to do manual labor may receive their sustenance from others (39; 630). Grimlaic states this principle and then backs away from its implications. He insists that solitaries should work with their own hands even if they have some other means of support (39; 630). The idea that it might be legitimate for solitaries to rely on oth-ers for their keep recurs, however, immediately after Grimlaic defends the importance of work in passages borrowed ~rom Cassian and Benedict. It is no longer an exception to an almost inviolate rule. He simply states that a hermit's food, drink, and clothing are paid for either by his personal labor or by the offerings of the faith-ful (41; 631). He notes that he has demonstrated that it is legiti-mate for solitaries to live off alms. The argument isbased on more than Christian charity toward the needy. Hermits are compared to the priests and levites of the Old Testament, who received tithes so that they might be free to minister to the Lord without the distraction of earthly preoccu-pations (41; 631-632). The Christian clergy, like the ministers of Review for Religious the Old Testament, have nothing of their own, but merely admin-istrate and distribute what they receive from the people. The assimilation of solitaries to the clergy, which was becom-ing more a reality as monasteries were clericalized, is complete in Grimlaic's quotation from a rule for canons in which monks and hermits are said to rightly receive material support from the church because they have followed the evangelical counsel to renounce wealth (41; 632). Without this support they would have to shift their focus from God to the business of securing the necessities of life. But what of the traditional obligation of hermits to help the poor? The Regula Solitariorum deals with this issue by comparing hermits to the apostles in the Jerusalem church. The apostles them-selves owned nothing, but acted as channels through which each of the faithful received what he or she needed. Solitaries are to have the same detachment toward material things and to see to it that the poor share in the offerings which come their way (41; 632). What has happened to the concept of work in this transition from a reference to the fact that the fathers earned their living by the work of their hands to the declaration that hermits have the right to live off alms? The Regula Solitariorum is not saying that hermits need not work, but rather that they need not earn their living by the work they do. The profitability of work is not the sine qua non of the eremitical life. When the Egyptian abbas talked about work, they were refer-ring to an activity by which they avoided idleness and earned money. In the works which follow the Regula Solitariorum, the financial benefits of work will fade into the background. There will be a strong tendency to value work solely as a means to escape the boredom idleness brings on. A Camaldolese Rule for Hermits The shift in what is meant by "work" is evident in a 12th- 13th-century rule for hermits which plays a part in the history of the Camaldolese.9 It is interesting that, when the customary warn-ing against idleness is given and the hermit is told to combat this by "doing some work," the works suggested are actually spiritual and penitential practices (34; 297). When the rule does refer to manualia exercitia, the emphasis is on when manual labor may not be done (35; 298). March-April 2000 155 Russell ¯ Must Hermits Work? The kinds of work mentioned--gathering wood, gardening, collecting straw--are to be done in groups of three or more (36; 298). What the rule seems to have in mind when it talks of work (the noise of which must not disturb the quiet of the hermitage) is the maintenance necessary to keep the hermit colony functioning. There seems to be no notion of profitability whatsoever. Indeed, the emphasis on the recitation of the Psalter indicates the influence of Cluny (37; 298). Liturgical prayer has become the monk's real work. A hermit is simply too busy and too often weak-ened by fasting to work. During Lent, for example, some work (aliquid; manualia quaedam) is scheduled for only two afternoons a week (35; 298). Guigo I's Carthusian Customary The "customary" (or custom book) of what Would later be called the Grande Chartreuse, written by Guigo I, shows that bookcopying was to the Carthusians what weaving and braiding had been to the Egyptian solitaries, that is, the perfect activity for the hermit's cell. Guigo I notes, therefore, that anyone who is capable is taught to do this work (222)'.~° The production of manuscripts seemed particularly apt to these priest-hermits because it was a way for them to preach the word silently (224). The profit motive is not mentioned, but surely the produc-tion of a commodity that was in demand supplemented the support the inner circle of monks received from the outer ring of conversi, who did the manual labor that today we call blue-collar work. Guigo's complaints about the cost of running the place suggest that the community was on a tight budget (210). However, if there was anything left over after expenses had been met, it was Jaot given to the poor directly but sent to the neighboring village for distribution. In this way the Carthusians made it unprofitable for the poor to trek to their door (210). .I.t/k/ Peter the Venerable's Letter to Gislebertus Not all hermits and recluses shared the Carthusians' deter-mination to keep people at a distance. Some of them surrendered to the inclination to escape the monotony of their life by turning outward. Their effort to lighten the burden of their solitary rou-tine by a bit of pastoral counseling may seem prudent to us, but in Review for Religious fact it made the return to solitude all the harder. It had another damaging consequence: it brought them more money than they needed. The extra, of course, was said to be for the poor, but watching the coins pile up could easily lead to avarice or turn the hermit into a local benefactor. It is not surprising, there.fore, that Peter the Venerable, the great abbot of Cluny, advises Gislebertus, a monk of his who has recently become a recluse, to make sure that there is no extra cash in his cell. He insists that Gislebertus not become a distribution center of offerings to the poor. If someone in authority tells him that he must perform this function, the abbot uses his authority to veto the plan. It makes no sense to Peter that someone who has been freed from the worry of meeting his own needs should be entangled in concerns about the needs of others (35).~ Since we are told that his monastery provided Gislebertus with food, clothing, and his hermitage, it is clear that he did not have to earn his living (35). When Peter, therefore, proposes some sort of manual labor, he is suggesting a means of refreshing the'mind and exercising the body. He is recommending manual labor as a relief from the hard work of reading, prayer, and meditation (38). ¯ For Peter, as for Guigo I, the best work for a hei'mit is book-copying. He too is enthusiastic about its pastoral benefits (39). But, if a hermit cannot do this work because his eyes are bad or because it gives him a headache, or if he simply wants to have something more than just bookcopying to do, Peter recommends that he make coinbs, needle cases, small wine flasks, and the like. He even mentions that, if a swamp is nearby, the recluse may imi-tate the ancient monks and make baskets (39). At this point, it seems to me, the text veers toward the romantic. Work has become a hobby, purely a means of avoiding idleness. The task which Cassian said the Egyptian

Issue 31.1 of the Review for Religious, 1972. ; ASSOCIATE EDI'I.'O R Everett A. Diederich, S.J. QUESTIONS ANI) ANS\VERS EDITOR Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Correspondence with the editor, the associate editor, and the assistant editor, as well as books for review, should be sent to I~EVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; 612 Humboldt Build-ins; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, SJ.; St. Joseph's Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106. + + + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Edited with ccclcsiastical approval by faculty mcnlbers of tile School of Divinity of St. Louis UniversJly. the edilorhll otfices beii~g located at 612 Ilumboldt Bnilding~ 539 North (.;rand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Owned b.v the Missouri Province Educational Institute. Published bimonthly and copyright © 1972 by REVIEW I:OR RELIGIOUS. Printed in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. l.ouis, Missouri. Single copies: $1.25. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year, $11.00 for two years: other counlries: $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for Ilew or renewal subscriptions and should bc accompanied by check or money order payable to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S.A. cur-rency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent I~EVIEW I:OR ~ELIGIOUS. Clmnge of address requests should include former address. Renewals and new subscriptions should be sent I)ululh, Minnesota 55802. Manuscripts, editori-al correspondence, and books for review ~bould bc scat 1o REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS: 612 [lumboldt Building: 539 North Grand Boule-yard; SI. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to tile address of tile Questions and Ans\vcrs editor. JANUARY 1972 VOLUME 31 NUMBER 1 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Volume 31l 1972 EDITORIAL OFFICE 539 North Grand Boulevard St. Louis, Missouri 63103 BUSINESS OFFICE P.O. Box 1110 Dululh, Minnesota 55802 EDITOR R. F. Smith, S.J. ASSOCIATE EDITOR Everett A. Diederich, S.J. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS EDITOR Joseph F. Gallen, Published in January, March, May, July, September, No-vember on the fifteenth of the month. Review for Religious is indexed in the Catholic Periodi-cal Index and in Book Review Index. Microfilm edition of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is available from University Micro-films; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. HELEN CONDON, R.S.C.J. The Prayer Question [Helen Condon, R.S.C.J., is a member of the administrative team of the International Union of Superiors General; Piazza di Ponte S. Angelo, 28; 00186 Rome, Italy.] One sign that religious men and women are experiencing renewal and not just making adaptations is the surfacing of a deep current, the desire for prayer. Within the past two or three years there has been a stronger interest in prayer, in new forms and approaches, in books by Lutheran, Anglican, and Orthodox mystics and in Eastern spiritualities. That this interest is more than academic is evident from the efforts being made to experience prayer -the workshops and live-in institutes, directed retreats, the spreading house of prayer movement, the contacts being sought with various masters of contemplation. The Spirit breathing through the Second Vatican Council is surely responsible for this direction of renewal. One strong influence has been the Biblical renaissance of our time, affecting both communal and personal prayer. Among young religious in particular there is often a truly Scripture-centered praying. Another impetus has come from the new freedom given by the chapter decrees of numerous apostolic congregations, doing away with outmoded and excessive devotions and offering wide latitude for individual needs and attractions. What is this contemplative prayer? However we may try to analyze or describe it, in the end it is perhaps least badly expressed as an experience of God. Desire for this experience goes far beyond religious and Christian life, for the same dynamism is active in contemporary society. A'quest for religious experience is a marked characteristic of the counter-culture, however misdirected it may become in esoteric dilettantism and drug addiction. In many places criticism of religious institutions is strongest among those who sense what religion should be. Celebration of the death of God is not an attack on Him but in our misrepresentations, and it can lead to a search for Him. The awareness of God's absence and the widespread crisis of faith and hope may well be social phenomena akin to the mystical dark night. Is it surprising that religious men and women may be similarly affected? Our problems are often the same problems that others have. Realization of this fact can lead to meaningful solidarity with them. It can also be a tremendous apostolic challenge. In this context we come to understand that, although prayer as a human experience has certain constants through the centuries, it must also be real today. Action and contemplation are not antithetical, any more than are body and soul or other so-called dichotomies. All the condemnation of old attitudes and structures that enforced parallel lives of individualistic prayer and work and even the recent criticism of mere horizontalism are now subsiding. What is left is at bedrock level, a hunger and thirst for the living God. The modalities of this experience are many, defying definition and classification. Age-old awarenesses still hold - man's sense of the wholly Other, man's need for a human God - but these are intensified and Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 re-expressed in our heightened consciousness of present realities. Prayer is experience of God's dynamic presence; it is also search for this God. Sometimes it is experience of His absence. Prayer is awareness of His saving action in the world, challenging our integral response. Prayer can be both cause and effect of serving the real needs of men. Yet, without denying the present thrust toward prayer, a crucial question is justified: given the present conditions and circumstances, can many religious men and women engaged in active apostolates really have contemplative prayer? Never have pressures been greater than they are today in Catholic education, the area in which most religious devote themselves. The burden of the future weighs heavily on teachers and administrators: how to assess apostolic need and effective response; how to become more involved in the wider community; how to achieve academic excellence and, of course; how to make ends meet while increasing faculty salaries and benefits, improving instructional programs, and extending scholarships; whether to keep open or to close a school or college. Shortage of personnel presents critical financial problems and sometimes affects morale, especially if teaching sisters, brothers, and priests interpret the questioning of schools and universities and the undertaking of new apostolates by members of their congregations as a lack of support and confidence. Added to all these circumstances is another factor, the grave problems of high school and college students which have also spiraled within a few years and which cry out for help, time, and emotional expenditure on the part of those who teach and guide them. In view of all these pressures - and similar pressures in other kinds of apostolic work - some religious men and women are driven to settle for very little prayer. In addition, the changes within religious life have had an effect - more direct responsibility for one's own "prayer life," greater personal freedom, a wider variety of leisure activities. No longer does a rule or superior "safeguard" times of prayer. Self-discipline is rightly intended to replace other structures, but this kind of self-discipline is not easy, even after years of fidelity to meditation. Other changes have caused malaise and polarization within congregations and local communities. After hectic days in the classroom or office, religious men and women sometimes come home to tensions that are even more difficult to bear. Then there are the heaviest pressures of all, questions that are being asked not just in theological speculation but in personal anguish: ls religious life itself a valid and viable way any more? What meaning has permanent commitment? Is such commitment possible? What really is a relationship with God? Is there such a thing as being "called"? Who is Christ? Where is He? What is the Church? It is not surprising that some find prayer very difficult or meaningless. If it is true that the Holy Spirit is seeking to pray more within us and among us, how can we help one another respond, in spite and because of the problems that burden us? Some of these problems are outside us and some are within. Basic to any effort is a view of religious life itself. It is more and other than professional service, however sympathetic and unselfish. Religious life is a way of realizing the baptismal commitment. It is a faith relationship with the Lord lived out in apostolic community. It is a shared experience of Jesus Christ. A religious congregation is a community of persons committed to, an evangelical life and mission, which is the saving work of Christ among people today. Some such vision reflecting the charism and spirit of the founder is at the head of the book of new decrees or interim documents of ourcongregations. Ultimately this vision is a conviction of faith, with an overriding logic of its own. And this Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 conviction must become the point of reference and basic principle determining our priorities and policies. As a matter of fact, many congregations are acting according to their vision and basic principle in making courageous decisions about reorganizing institutional apostolates and opening up new forms of evangelical service and ministry. Convictions about the individual's'needs and apostolic call are leading to new types of community life and more diversified professional training. The experiments in initial formation and the move toward continuing education and retirement programs result from a realistic application of fundamental aims. Yet are we equally realistic in implementing the prayer-imperative intrinsic to our vision and faith conviction? If in actuality many or even some apostolic religious are so overburdened and pressured that prayer becomes impossible, then priorities demand an honest facing of the problem by everyone concerned. This confronta-tion is the responsibility of a whole congregation or an entire province as well as those in authority, since we now participate in some way in our own government. We have been willing to cut back on institutional commitments because of new apostolic demands, because of the need for further professional preparation, the shortage of personnel and finances. Are we willing to make similar decisions to help one another grow in the faith relationship with God, live the apostolic religious life more humanly and freely? This is not a pious ideal but a pragmatic conclusion. Apostolate is bigger than work, as the person is more than a function. People have to be given time and psychic space to breathe and be. Practically speaking, we need to provide more help for overworked administrators, to lighten class loads of teachers whose day also includes hours of informal counseling or evening activities in the parish. And speaking just as practically, we must begin to give time-off to individuals - spiritual sabbaticals - not just time to acquire a degree in theology, but time and help to seek the living God. Summer renewals of a month or so are helpful. Yet what seems to be needed is a prolonged period, a semester or more, with courses in Scripture and theology and other disciplines integrated into a community experience, and the opportunity for real spiritual direction. The ARC program held in Rome during 1970-71 offered such an experience and might serve as one model for similar ventures elsewhere.1 This kind of spiritual sabbatical might well give the distancing that some seem able to find only in a leave of absence. For most others it would be a time of growth and re-integration after years of self-expenditure. Congregations - which is to say, we - owe their members continuing spiritual help and most especially help in praying - not just talks on prayer, though these can be valuable, but personal guidance and circumstances that favor growth. Good directors are hard to come by; this field of ministry is crying out for sisters and brothers as well as priests. We need prayerful men and women with learning, experience, and sensitivity to the contemporary, who can enlighten and encourage others, enabling them to discern God's leading and to go forward in faith. Besides the congregation, local communities are "responsible" for the quality of 1 ARC - Apostolate of Religious Community - was a program first offered for religious women in 1970-1971 in Rome. Courses in Scripture and theology were taught in English by such persons as Barnabas Ahem, Luis Alonso Sch6kel, Robert L. Faricy, Paul Kennedy, Edward Malatesta, Juan Mateos, Paul Molinari, David M. Stanley, and James Walsh. The 28 participants of varying ages belonged to 17 congregations. They developed their own community life, integrating course content, and communal prayer.'The ARC program,is being repeated during 1971-1972. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 prayer of their members. It is in the living situation that a person's overwork and exhaustion will become most evident. If a community is really a home, then already other pressures lessen and we get strength from one another. If it is not home, a person may tend to withdraw, to center his life outside, to work compulsively. Even if an individual will not or cannot work out of his overextension, his friends can help, like the four men in the gospel~ by laying him at Christ's feet in their own prayer. Since we have chosen to live out our commitment in community, community becomes the context of our discovery of Christ, as it was for His Apostles. As they supported Thomas, we can sustain the faith of one another. Our faith is in need of such help. Perhaps more of us than we could ever guess are going through the same kind of thing - asking ourselves who Christ is and where He is, what our own lives mean and how we can live them today. Another's questioning and searching can help us immeasurably more than facile theoretic solutions. Some are doubting if there is such a thing as a personal call by God. Ultimately the only answer is people's experience. In the long story of salvation history some individuals have known a personal call, and in the more tangible present of our own communities others may be able to share their own moment of meeting with the Lord. Perhaps we can dare to walk in the strength of another's vision, or he in ours, or the hidden Christ may join the two of us as we speak of no longer finding Him. The prayer of the Christian community has special efficacy because the Lord has promised His presence there. Whatever form communal prayer may take, it must make room for this presence, with all its implications of conversion and forgiveness. Through the centuries religious men and women have edified each other by their ardor and fidelity. Today, when we are particularly vulnerable to one another, the quality of community life has a tremendous impact. Perhaps more than anything else, the best help to personal prayer is to be with praying people. What about the individual religious who finds prayer impossible or meaningless? When we cannot pray, when we are bogged down, utterly weary, drained, dried up, when we may already also feel guilty, advice is the last thing we want from Job's comforters, perhaps even from our closest friends. But maybe we can quietly recognize that much of our impotence may come from exterior circumstances and our own human condition. The response is what we are capable of at any given moment. Maybe the only response possible is a desperate cry to God for help. And maybe there will be no answer, only silence. If we can remember words about knocking over and over again, we can try to keep on asking, begging especially for faith: Save me, God! The water is already up to my neck! I am sinking in the deepest swamp, there is no foothold; I have stepped into deep water, and the waves are rushing over me, Worn out with calling, my throat is hoarse, my eyes are strained, looking for my God (Ps 69:1-3). God's power that raised Christ from the dead is working in us (Ep 1:19-20). In prayer the initiatives are His: "Is anything too wonderful for Yahweh?" (Gn 18:14). The response we are capable of may mean a courageous honesty, admitting our own carelessness or compromising or sinfulness. It may mean a willingness to take small steps, perhaps just a recognition of the problem of personal prayer, perhaps letting ourselves be helped. At some point priorities can be sorted out. If the problem is overinvolvement, something has ~to give. Nobody but God can be all things to all men. In its acute form this condition is like a heart attack, when a Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 doctor would say to us: "If you want to live, you've got to let up." Now our very life is just as truly at stake. Do we want to live, and live more abundantly? For all of us, moving into this more abundant life means discovering a rhythm and realizing an integration of prayer into our very existence. The Spirit's action leads to life, not frustration. His invitation to apostolic religious must be possible of acceptance. Given the complexities of today, obstacles around us and within us are immense, but with personal and communal effort they must be surmountable. The new decrees of congregations which altered prayer obligations were intended to open do6rs and windows, not create a vacuum. Contemplative prayer does not need to be defended. Time taken for it does not require apologies to anyone. For the problem of prayer will always be partly a question of time because of the human condition. The modes of prayer are multiple and unique: God can and does give Himself anywhere at any moment. To recognize and assimilate this encounter takes reflection, time, some solitude. Prayer is a human experience, caused and conditioned by and inseparable from human living; prayer is also a gift of the immanent and transcendent God. Apostolic religious are praying people who happen to be teachers or adminis-trators or other professionals, not workers who happen to pray. If we mean what we have so often said - that is what we are rather than what we do that matters - then nowhere is this more true than in our being in Christ. The integration of our lives comes about through the quality of our prayer. The deepening desire for prayer is surely a sign and fruit of renewal. And God's gifts are given not just for ourselves but for others, for the building up of Christ's Body. Religious men and women who are praying people can help others to pray, those who are searching for God without knowing Him, those who have lost Him, those who are revolting against the sterile materialism of technocracy. The religious person is also meant to be a prophet, to condemn injustice and hatred and violence by his words and his life, to proclaim the kingdom of justice and love and peace. One who speaks God's message to mefi must all along be a listener: The Lord Yahweh has given ,me a disciple's tongue. So that 1 may know how to reply to the wearied he provides me with speech. Each morning he wakes me to hear, to listen like a disciple. The Lord Yahweh has opened my ear (Is 50:4-5). M. BASIL PENNINGTON, 0.C.S.0. Contemplative Community lM. Basil Pennington, O.C.S;O., is a Cistercian monk of St. Joseph's Abbey; Spencer, Massachusetts O1562.] The Third Cistercian Symposium (August 30 - September 6, 1971) held at the Abbey of Notre Dame du Lac (near Montreal, Canada) brought together some fifty participants from various nations and continents, including such notables as Jean Leclercq, O.S.B., Armand Veilleux, O.C.S.O., Chrysogonus Waddell, O.C,S.O., Valentine Walgrave, O.P., Ghislain Lafont, O.S.B., and many others. The theme of this Third Symposium was "Contemplative Community." Like the previous Cistercian Symposiums, a team of experts, in this case fifteen, were asked to prepare papers which were circulated in advance. Like the Second Symposium this one also was interdisciplinary and included papers from the fields of Sacred Scripture, patristics, monastic spirituality and history, liturgy, theology, sociology, anthropology, and psychology. A paper reflecting the Anglican perspective was also presented. Unlike previous Symposiums the papers were not read at the meeting. All had been asked to study them carefully prior to the meeting. Or/the first day each expert made a very brief presentation and time was allotted for questions. Such a plan was proposed to allow the greatest amount of time possible for discussion in the hopes that the group might in this way penetrate more deeply hato the question. In practice it proved quite successful. The twelve papers presented were: Scripture Monastic Community and the Summary Statements in Acts Francis Martin Monastic Tradition and History The De Instituto Christiano: Reflections on Contemplative Community Sr. Michael Connor, O.C.S.O. St. Bernard of Clairvaux and the Contemplative Community Jean Leclercq, O.S.B. Seeking God in Community according to St. Aelred Charles Dumont, O.C.S.O. Together unto God: Contemplative Community in the Sermons of Guerric of Igny M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O. A Challenge for Today: The Problem of the Contemplative Community at the End of the Eighteenth Century Cyprian Davis, O.S.B. Contemplation and Community: An Anglican Perspective Sr. Benedicta Ward, S.L.G. Liturgy Liturgy and Contemplative Community: Random Reflections and Notes for Discussion Chrysogonus Waddell, O.C.S.O. Theology The Theology of Contemplative Community Tarcisius Conner, O.C.S.O. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 Sociology The Theology of Social Dynamics with an Application to Contemplative Life Valentine Walgrave, O.P. Anthropology Contemplative Community David F. K. Steindl-Rast, O.SoB. Psychology Some Psychological Dimensions of the Contemplative Community D. H. Salman, O.P. Experts present who did not present papers were: Armand Veilleux, O.C.S.O., abbot of Mistassini and editor ofLiturgie, Ghislain Lafont, O.S.B., of Pierre-qui-vire andJohn Eudes Bamberger, O.C.S.O., Secretary General of the Cistercian Order, psychiatrist and patristic scholar. In addition to the team of experts there was a good cross section 'among the participants of those concerned with the contemplative community. There were abbots and abbesses, novice masters and novice mistresses, monks, nuns and novices; there were Cistercians, Benedictines, and Dominicans; there were those from experimental communities, secular institutes, and the lay state. With such a large group there was always the danger that the Symposium might evolve into a colloquium. In actual fact 6ne evening session was devoted to sharing the experiences of the various communities represented. However, for the most part, the meeting remained a very serious study, yet one constantly challenged by practical pastoral concern. On the first day after the brief presentations and a question period, the meeting divided into five small groups, three English-speaking and two French. These groups, in the light of the presentations, formulated questions which represented areas of concern: the essential nature of the Christian contemplative community, sharing at the level of contemplative experience, integration of the vertical and horizontal dimensions. Fidelity to the evolving community and entrance into the contemplative community were also to be discui;sed. On the second day discussion was largely restricted to the panel of experts. The Biblical type of the Christian community, especially in the light of the summary statements in Acts (2:42-7, 4:32-5, 5:11-6) was explored. And then the wider human phenomenon was considered. It was felt that the specifically Christian dimension which transfinalized and elevated the human could best be understood if it was seen precisely in this light. Thus the concluding statement first considered the human phenomenon and then the Christian: CHRISTIAN CONTEMPLATIVE COMMUNITY In order to live human life to the full, man must transcend his empirical self and so realize his True Self. This implies an openness to the Transcendent. Attention to his openness for the Transcendent makes man aware of his contemplative dimension. Contemplative life as a form of life expresses and fosters in every detail of daily living mindfulness of the Transcendent. Contemplative community is a gathering of brethren who support one another in contemplative life through a giving and receiving that is at once spontaneous and responsible. For the Christian to live the human life to the full means a dying to selfishness to enter into the life of the risen Christ. This is the conversion that leads to transformation into the New Man and to the realization of the Self as Cosmic Christ. This transfiguration is realized as the Spirit opens us to the revelation of the Father in His Word. Loving awareness./of this revelation in all its dimensions is contemplative prayer. Since Christian contemplative life focuses on the Word, it is a form of life which expresses and fosters in every detail of daily living a listening to God and a living by the Word. Some Christians called to the contemplative life gather in love and experience God by sharing solitude in common life, supporting one another as brothers. In doing so, they mediate to each other the revelation of God and they manifest the mystery of the Church as open to God in prayer. 10 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 The full significance of this statement can this schema: CONTEMPLATIVE HUMAN (1) FULLNESS In order to live human life to the full, man must transcend his empirical self and so realize his True Self. be better perceived if it is considered in COMMUNITY CHRISTIAN OF LIFE For the Christian, to live the human life to the full means a dying to selfishness to enter into the life of the risen Christ. This is the conversion that leads to transformation into the New Man and to the realization of the Self as Cosmic Christ. This implies cendent. (2) OPENNESS TO THE TRANSCENDENT an openness to the Trans- This transfiguration is realized as the Spirit opens us to the revelation of the Father in His Word. (3) CONTEMPLATIVE DIMENSION Attention to his openness for the Trans- Loving awareness to this revelation in all its cendent makes man aware of his contempla- dimensions is contemplative prayer. tire dimension. (4) CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE Contemplative life as a form of life ex- Since Christian contemplative life focuses presses and fosters in every detail of daily on the Word (Logos), it is a form of life living mindfulness of the Transcendent. which expresses and fosters in every detail of daily living a listening to God and a living by the Word. (5) CONTEMPLATIVE COMMUNITY Contemplative community is a gathering of brethren who support one another in con-templative life through a giving and receiv-ing that is at once spontaneous and respon-sible. Some Christians called to the contemplative life gather in love and experience God by sharing solitude in common life, supporting one another as brothers. In doing so, they mediate to each other the revelation of God and they manifest the mystery of the Church as open to God in prayer. This extremely rich statement summarizes a great deal of discussion and shared insight, the fruit of the labor of the experts working in panels, small group discussions, general sessions, and long night sessibns of the conclusion committee with various experts. Pages and even volumes could be written on it. The committee did offer a brief explanation or development of some of its aspects but these themselves open the way to further areas of exploration and reflection: Fullness of Life The empirical self is the self experienced as acting, reasoning, managing, controlling; not only the self as egotistical or selfish. To mistake this functional self for one's True Self is an illusion. To h~eak out of this illusion means to realize life in fullness. (We are using "tea|ize" throughout in its double sense of becoming aware and making real.) The realization of this universal Self constitutes the ultimate achievement in various spiritual traditions. In Christian tradition this breakthrough into fullness of life is our entering into the Paschal Mystery. What it means to enter into the Cosmic Christ becomes clear when we take seriously St. Paul's "I live now no longer I but Christ lives in me," and keep in mind that this is the Christ in whom, through whom, for whom all things have been created - the Cosmic Christ of Col 1 : 12-20, "Christ is the visible likeness of the invisible God. He is the firstborn Son superior to every creature, for by him God created everything . and through the Son God decided to bring the whole universe back to himself." Tradition expresses this mystery in the language of image and likeness with reference to Genesis 1:36. Community plays an essential role throughout the process in which the image is restored to its likeness (cf. Eph 1:23). Openness to the Transcendent It should be noted that we are dealing with a process, a path. Traditionally this path has been Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 11 seen as leading from knowledge of self which is humility, through knowledge of others which is compassion, to knowledge of God which is contemplation. This process cuhninates in that purity of heart which is man's transparehcy.to the deifying light, of which St. Benedict speaks, and this is true transfiguration. Contemplative Dimension The contemplative attitude is a matter of love, a matter of an intense continuous desire for God. When we speak about contemplative prayer we mean prayerfulness, not only prayers. The man of prayers strives to "pray without ceasing." In arriving at this, the "intention," that dynamic directiveness toward God explicated in a loving attitude of listening, draws the whole heart after it as the needle draws the thread. We refer to all the dimensions of re~,elation because revelation of the Triune God is in itself as it were three-dimensional. God reveals hiinself to us through his Son, the Word, through whom he created and saved everything (Heb 1:3). Thus God speaks to us through all things. We may call this the theophanic dimension of revelation. But it is only in the Spirit that we can understand God's Word, because "the things of God no one knows but the Spirit of God. Now we have received., the Spirit of God that we may know the things that have been given by God" (1 Cor 2:10-12). We may call this the pneumatic dimension. Even this revelation leaves intact the mystery of God the Father who "dwells in light inaccessible, whom no man sees or can see" (1 Tim 6:16). We may call this the apophatic dimension. Contemplative Life When we say that Christian contemplative life "focuses on the Word" we mean that it is through the Word that we come to know the Father in the Spirit. This is why Christian contemplative practice strives for an ever greater sensitivity to the Word (Ausculta) and, through the Word, to God. The clause "expresses and fosters in everyday living," refers to asceticism as practiced in monastic communities. In Cistercian monasteries, for instance, this is done by a deep commitment to the Rule of St. Benedict as interpreted by the living Cistercian tradition. Contemplative Community All Christian life includes an element of contemplation, and all Christian life implies communion. Some Christians, however, live a community life specifically dedicated to contemplative prayer. Their goal is to realize kohtonia in its full Biblical sense: personal communion with the living God and sharing in communion with brothers (cf. 1 Jn 1:3). This is contemplative community, one way of realizing concretely the mystery of the Church. We are poor men, sinners, needing help, not only God's but one another's. For this reason also we need to share a common commitment within a common life. Deep inner sharing of purpose has brought us to a community where, by mutual love and concern, respect and correction, we search, we grow, we experience God. ("Experience" here is not limited to its merely psychological sense but means a deep personal encounter with God in faith.) We support one another in this experience by praising God together, reflecting and learning, living and suffering together to be reborn together. And yet in this life together each brother is the guardian of the other's solitude, protecting it both against infringement and against deteriora-tion into loneliness. Some people need more solitude and others need more togetherness. This implies a true pluralism among communities and in community. The practical question which had inaugurated the Third Symposium had been formulated thus: To see more clearly the problems inherent in the life-situation when men freely gather together and commit themselves to live together in a Christian community for the precise purpose of obtaining for each one the maximal freedom to respond to God in prayer and contemplation (and) of fostering each one's growth in this (and) to seek out, as best we can, genui~tely practical responses to these problems. 12 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 In more concrete terms: I am a Cistercian. 1 live in community. 1 am trying to be a man of prayer. I want to be fully responsive to my community, each man in it and the community as a whole. At the same time 1 want to live an intense prayer life and attain to the deepest possible union with God and experience of Him. In view of this twofold concern what are the difficulties and tensions i am running into and how practically can we best resolve them? Its answer is found in two related insights: an understanding of what might be called incarnational;contemplative prayer, and of unity in pluralism. As the statement above brings out, contemplative prayer, the contemplative attitude, lies in openness to God, responsiveness to God, God who has revealed Himself to us. We know that this God, our God - indeed the only God - is always beyond all His revelations and manifestations; yet He is known and contacted in and through them. His revelation of Himself is to be found not only in the Sacred Books or in the depths of one's own soul, but in all creation, His work which He ever keeps in being, sharing His being, and above all, in the creature He made to His own image and likeness: man. If one approaches creation and especially his fellow man with the Christian contemplative attitude, then this is contemplative prayer. He contacts God and responds to Him as He is revealing Himself. But a man can not do this unless he does have in his life, besides times of communion with creation and with his brethren, periods of silence and solitude wherein he can become aware of his own contemplative dimension and learn to live and respond at this level. Thus it is necessary for the contemplative community to structure itself to some extent at least so that each member can be assured of the time and leisure (which is something more than just time) he needs for this. The other practices of the traditional Christian ascesis are also presupposed. Even when the legitimacy of the incarnational approach to contemplative living is fully established, it remains that this is not the primary attraction or call of all contemplatives. And thus it does not provide the only or wholly adequate answer to our question. There must be within the contemplative community a healthy pluralism which responds to the members' diverse ways of perceiving God and consequently their diverse ways of seeking Him. The official report of the Symposium summed up the conclusions of the Symposium on this point in this way: Unity and Pluralism The contemplative community finds its unity in its common basic orientation toward listening to God and living by the Word. It experiences this unity insofar as the members are able to communicate to one another that they do share this common orientation. Some of the ways in which this is done are through common prayer, praise and Eucharist, through sharing a common spirituality, through accepting the common leadership of an abbot, through example, through participation in common exercises, mutual service and community support, through the charity of fraternal correction, through a common sharing of the responsibility to work toward unity, and through interpersonal encounter in which the brethren share deeply what God is accomplishing in their lives. Their very oneness in Christ makes them essentially sharers. There can be true pluralism only insofar as there is true unity in this basic orientation because pluralism is the expression and realization of the same ideals or orientation in different ways. Psychologically a community can peacefully accept pluralism and not experience it as threatening to its unity if there is among the brethren sufficient knowledge of each other's sharing in the common goal to allow each to have confidence that his brothers are with him in this. Within the ambiance of this common basic orientation each one, according to his own proper attraction, will seek God in different ways placing more emphasis on one approach or another. Some will more readily seek and find him in the depths of their own being, others in their brothers, in creation, in all the details of everyday life. The former will mediate God to their brothers more by example or "image," the others more by "word," interpersonal relations and shared activities. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 13 Within a truly united community there can be a very extensive spectrum of diversity, a very rich pluralism. Such pluralism manifests the great vitality of a united community. Guidelines as norms which set certain limits to pluralism can help a community to be faithful to its basic orientation and invite it to a deeper awareness of it. But ideally such guidelines should merely reflect values which are personally possessed and cherished by all the members of the community. Finally the report of the meeting added a few brief considerations on the present situation vis-,~-vis the contemplative community: Dynamism of the Present Situation Contemplative life today is an adventure, a risk demanding acceptance in faith of difficult situations, a realistic living of the Mystery of Christ, all the while open to the Spirit so that he may move us. In our present situation it is necessary not only to be aware of our past but also of a future that is unfolding with ever greater rapidity. To be a member of a contemplative community is to accept and embrace with joy the death and rebirth into new life that continually mark a vital community life. Love has to express itself in patience, trust and hope in the face of insecurity in the situations that we encounter today. In periods of transition we experience a certain polarization. In the midst of this we can find u~nity in working together toward a fuller unity to be achieved in the future. There is a new form of asceticism in accepting change in a spirit of detachment and in not forcing change on others. Some unusual situations can demand decisions. In regard to fidelity to one's community, only when it becomes clear that the community's evolving orientation blocks the realization of an essential dimension of one's response to God should a person consider separating himself. Honest recognition of community problems is a first step toward building the future. In formulating solutions the community, head and members, listen to one another, always keeping their basic values and orientations in view. We have to love one another. We need to be healed. There is much pain in the perfecting of a contemplative community but this very pain can be the means of bringing forth life and growth. We live in a new age and must find new solutions for problems, some old and some never before encountered. All who took part in the Symposium felt it was a very enriching experience. A report can hardly do justice to the immense wealth brought to the discussions by the large and most capable panel of experts. But perhaps far more important was the strengthening witness shared by all there, a witness given not only by the participants, one to another, but that of the wonderful contemplative community which hosted the meeting. The large and flourishing community of Notre Dame du Lac with its most generous and open hospitality, its vital celebration of the daily liturgy, and its very evident commitment to contemplative living provided the most ideal context for a symposium on contemplative community. The papers and conclusions of the Third Cistercian Symposium will be published shortly by Cistercian Publications in Volume Twenty-one of the "Cistercian Studies Series": Contemplative Community: A n Interdisciplinary Symposium. GEORGE A. ASCHENBRENNER, S.J. Consciousness Examen [George A. Aschenbrenner, S.J.,is the director of novices in the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus; Novitiate of St. Isaac Jogues; Wernersville, Pennsylvania 19565.] Examen is usually the first practice to disappear from the daily life of the religious. This occurs for many reasons; but all the reasons amount to the admission (rarely explicit) that it is not of immediate practical value in a busy day. My point in this article is that all these reasons and their false conclusion spring from a basic misunderstanding of the examen as practiced in religious life. Examen must be seen in relationship to discernment of spirits. It is a daily intensive exercise of discernment in a person's life. Examen of Consciousness For many youth today life is spontaneity if anything. If spontaneity is crushed or aborted, then life itself is stillborn. In this view examen is living life once removed from the spontaneity of life. It is a reflective, dehydrated approach which dries all the spontaneity out of life. These people today disagree with Socrates' claim that the unexamined life is not worth living. For these people the Spirit is in the spontaneous and so anything that militates against spontaneity is un-Spirit-ual. This view overlooks the fact that welling up in the consciousness and experience of each of us are two spontaneities, one good and for God, another evil and not for God. These two types of spontaneous urges and movements happen to all of us. So often the quick-witted, loose-tongued person who can be so entertaining and the center of attention and who is always characterized as being so spontaneous is not certainly being moved by and giving expression to the good spontaneity. For one eager to love God with his or her whole being, the challenge is not simply to let the spontaneous happen but rather to be able to sift'out these various spontaneous urges and give full existential ratification to those spontaneous feelings that are from and for God. We do this by allowing the truly Spirited-spontaneity to happen in our daily lives. But we must learn the feel of this true Spirited-spontaneity. Examen has a very central role in this learning. When examen is related to discernment, it becomes examen of consciousness rather than of conscience. Examen of conscience has narrow moralistic overtones. Though we were always told that examen of conscience in religious life was not the same as a preparation for confession, it was actually explained and treated as though it were much the same. The prime concern was with what good or bad actions we had done each day. In discernment the prime concern is not with the morality of good or bad actions; rather the concern is how the Lord is affecting and moving us (often quite spontaneously!) deep in our own affective consciousness. What is happening in our consciousness is prior to and more important than our actions which can be delineated as ju~'idically good or evil. How we are experiencing the "drawing" of the Father (Jn 6:44) in our own existential consciousness and how our sinful nature is quietly tempting us and luring us away from our Father in Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 15 subtle dispositions of our consciousness - this is what the daily examen is concerned with prior to a concern for our response in our actions. So it is examen of consciousness that we are concerned with here, so that we can cooperate with and let happen that beautiful, spontaneity in Our hearts which is the touch of our Father and the urging of the Spirit. Examen and Religious Identity The examen we are talking about here is not a Ben Franklin-like striving for self-perfection. We are talking about an experience in faith of growing sensitivity to the unique, intimately special ways that the Lord's Spirit has of approaching and calling us. Obviously it takes time for this growth. But in this sense examen is a daily renewal and growth in our religious identity - this unique flesh-spirit person being loved by God and called by Him deep in his personal affective world. It is not possible for me to make an examen without confronting my own identity in Christ before the Father - my own religious identity as poor, celibate, and obedient in imitation of Christ as experienced in the charism of my religious vocation. And yet so often our daily examen becomes so general and vague and unspecific that our religious identity (Jesuit, Dominican, Franciscan, and so forth) does not seem to make any difference. Examen assumes real value when it becomes a daily experience of confrontation and renewal of our unique religious identity and how the Lord is subtly inviting us to deepen and develop this identity. We should make examen each time with as precise a grasp as we have now on our religious identity. We do not make it just as any Christian but as this specific Christian person with a unique vocation and grace in faith. Examen and Prayer The examen is a time of prayer. The dangers of an empty self-reflection or an unhealthy self-centered introspection are very real. On the other hand, a lack of effort at examen and the approach of living according to what comes naturally keeps us quite superficial and insensitive to the subtle and profound ways of the Lord deep in our hearts. The prayerful quality and effectiveness of the examen itself depends upon its relationship to the continuing contemplative prayer of the person. Without this relationship examen slips to the level of self-reflection for self-perfection, if it perdures at all. In daily contemplative prayer the Father reveals to us at His own pace the order of the mystery of all reality in Christ - as Paul says to the Colossians: ". those to whom God has planned to give a vision of the full wonder and splendor of his secret plan for the nations" (Col 1:27). The contemplator experiences in many subtle, chiefly non-verbal, ways this revelation of the Father in Christ. The presence of the Spirit of the risen Jesus in the heart of the believer makes it possible to sense and "hear" this invitation (challenge!) to order ourselves to this revelation. Contempla-tion is empty without this "ordering" response. This kind of reverent, docile (the "obedience of faith" Paul speaks of in Rom 16:26), and non-moralistic ordering is the work of the daily examen - to sense and recognize those interior invitations of the Lord that guide and deepen this ordering from day to day and not to cooperate with those subtle insinuations opposed to that ordering. Without that contemplative contact with the Father's revelation of reality in Christ, both in formal prayer and informal prayerfulness, the daily practice of examen becomes empty; it shrivels up and dies. Without this "listening" to the Father's revelation of His ways which are so different from our own (Is 55:8-9), examen again becomes that shaping up of ourselves which is 16 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 human and natural self-perfection or, even worse, it can become that selfish ordering of ourselves to our own ways. Examen without regular contemplation is futile. A failure at regular contempla-tion emaciates the beautifully rich experience of response-ible ordering which the contemplative is continually invited to by the Lord. It is true, on the other hand, that contemplation without regular examen becomes compartmentalized and superficial and stunted in a person's life. The time of formal prayer can become a very sacrosanct period in a person's day but so isolated from the rest of his life that he is not prayerful (finding God in all things) at that level where he really lives. The examen gives our daily contemplative experience of God real bite into all our daily living; it is an important means to finding God in everything and not just in the time of formal prayer, as we will explain at the end of this article. ADiscerning Vision of Heart When we first learned about the examen in religious life, it was a specific exercise of prayer for about a quarter of an hour. And at first it seemed quite stylized and almost artificial. This problem was not in the examen-prayer but in ourselves; we were beginners and had not yet worked out that integration in ourselves of a process of personal discernment to be expressed in daily examens. For the beginner, before he has achieved much of a personalized integration, an exercise or process can be very valuable and yet seem formal and stylized. This should not put us off. It will be the inevitable experience in religious life for the novice and for the "oldtimer" who is beginning again at examen. But examen will fundamentally be misunderstood if the goal of this exercise is not grasped. The specific exercise of examen is ultimately aimed at developing a heart with a discerning vision to be active not only for one or two quarter-hour periods in a day but continually. This is a gift from the Lord -- a most important one as Solomon realized (1 Kings 3:9-12). So we must constantly pray for this gift, but we must also be receptive to its development within our hearts. A daily practice of examen is essential to this development. Hence the five steps of the exercise of examen as presented in the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola (# 43) are to be seen, and gradually experienced in faith, as dimensions of the Christian consciousness, formed by God and His work in the heart as it confronts and grows within this world and all of reality. If we allow the Father gradually to transform our mind and heart into that of His Son, to become truly Christian, through our living experience in this world, then the examen, with its separate elements now seen as integrated dimensions of our own consciousness looking out on the world, is much more organic to our outlook and will seem much less contrived. So there is no ideal time allocation for the five elements of the examen each time but rather a daily organic expression of the spiritual mood of the heart. At one time we are drawn to one element longer than the others and at another time to another element over the others. The mature Ignatius near the end of his life was always examining every movement and inclination of his heart which means he was discerning the congruence of everything with his true Christ-centered self. This was the overflow of those regular intensive prayer-exercises of examen every day. The novice or "oldtimer" must be aware both of the point of the one or two quarter-hour exercises of examen each day, namely, a continually discerning heart, and of the necessary gradual adaptation of his practice of examen to his stage of development and the situation in the world in which he finds himself. And yet we are all aware Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 17 of the subtle rationalization of giving up formal examen each day because we have "arrived at" that continually discerning heart. This kind of rationalization will prevent further growth in faith sensitivity to the Spirit and His ways in our daily lives. Let us now take a look at the format of the examen as presented by St. Ignatius in the Spiritual Exercises, #43 but in light of these previous comments on examen as discerning consciousness within the world. Prayer for Enlightenment In the Exercises Ignatius has an act of thanksgiving as the first part of the examen. The first two parts could be interchanged without too much difference. In fact, I would suggest the prayer for enlightenment as a fitting introduction to the examen. The examen is not simply a matter of a person's natural power of memory and analysis going back over a part of the day. It is a matter of Spirit-guided insight into my life and courageously responsive sensitivity to God's call in my heart. What we are seeking here is that gradually growing appreciative insight into the mystery which I am. Without the Father's revealing grace this kind of insight is not possible. The Christian must be careful not to get locked into the world of his own human natural powers. Our technological world can pose as a special danger in this regard. Founded on a deep appreciation of the humanly interpersonal, the Christian in faith transcends the boundaries of the here-and-now with its limited natural causality and discovers a Father who loves and works in and through and beyond all., For this reason we begin the examen with an explicit petition for that enlightenment which will occur in and through our own powers but which our own natural powers could never be capable of all by themselves. That the Spirit may help me to see myself a bit more as He sees me Himself! Reflective Thanksgiving The stance of a Christian in the midst of the world is that of a poor person, possessing nothing, not even himself, and yet being gifted at every instant in and through everything. When we become too affluently involved with ourselves and deny our inherent poverty, then we lose the gifts and either begin to make demands for what we think we deserve (often leading to angry frustration) or we blandly take for granted all that comes our way. Only the truly poor person can appreciate the slightest gift and feel genuine gratitude. The more deeply we live in faith the poorer we are and the more gifted; life itself becomes humble, joyful thanksgiving. This should gradually become an element of our abiding consciousness. After the introductory prayer for enlightenment our hearts should rest in genuine faith-filled gratitude to our Father for His gifts in this most recent part of the day. Perhaps in the spontaneity of the happening we were not aware of the gift and now in this exercise of reflective prayer we see the events in a very different perspective. Our sudden gratitude - now the act of a humble selfless pauper - helps make us ready to discover the gift more clearly in a future sudden spontaneity. Our gratitude should center on the concrete, uniquely personal gifts that each of us was blessed with, whether large and obviously important or tiny and apparently insignificant. There is much in our lives that we take for granted; gradually He will lead us to a deep realization that all isgift. It is right to give Him praise and thanks! Practical Survey of Actions In this third element of the examen ordinarily we rush to review, in some specific 18 Review for Religious, Volume .31, 1972/1 detail, our actions of that part of the day just finished so we can catalogue them as good or bad. Just what we shouldn't do! Our prime concern here in faith is what has been happening to and in us since the last exa.men. The operative questions are: what has been happening in us, how has the Lord been working in us, what has He been asking us. And only secondarily are our own actions to be considered. This part of the examen presumes that we have become sensitive to our interior feelings, moods, and slightest urgings and that we are not frightened by them but have learned to take them very seriously. It is here in~ the depths of our affectivity, so spontaneous, strong, and shadowy at times, that God moves us and deals with us most intimately. These interior moods, feelings, urges, and movements are the "spirits" that must be sifted out, discerned, so we can recognize the Lord's call to us at this intimate core of our being. As we have; said above, the examen is a chief means to this discerning of our interior consciousness. This presumes a real faith approach to life - that life is first listening, then acting in response: The fundamental attitude of the believer is of one who listens. It is to the Lord's utterances that he gives ear. In as many different ways and on as many varied levels as the listener can d"iosbceedrnie tnhcee wofo rfdai tahn.d" .w. iIltl oisf tthhee Laottridtu mdaen oiffe srteecde tpot ihvinit~y, ,h pe amsussitv rietsypoIn adn wdi tpho avlel rthtye oPfa uolninee who is always in need, radically dependent, conscious of his creaturehood. Hence the great need for interior quiet, peace, and a passionate receptivity that attunes us to listening to God's word at every instant and in every situation and then responding in our own activity. Again in a world that is founded more on activity (becoming activism), productivity, and efficiency (whereas efficacity is a norm for the kingdom of God!) this faith view is implicitly, if not explicitly, challenged at every turn in the road. And so our first concern here is with these subtle.intimate, affective ways in which the Lord has been dealing with us during these past few hours. Perhaps we did not recognize Him calling in that past moment, but now our vision is clear and direct. Secondarily our concern is with our actions insofar as they were responses to His calling. So often our activity becomes primary to hs and all sense of response in our activity is lost. We become self-moved and mbtivated rather than moved and motivated by the Spirit (Rom 8:14). This is a subtle lack of faith and failure to live as a son or daughter of our Father. In the light of faith it is the quality (of responsive-ness) of the activity, more than the activity itself, which makes the difference for the kingdom of God. , In this general review there is no strain to reproduce every second since the last examen; rather our concern is with specific details and incidents as they reveal patterns and bring some clarity and insight. This brings us to a consideration of what Ignatius calls the particular examen. This element of the examen, perhaps more than any other, has been misunder-stood. It has often become an effort to divide and conquer by moving down the list of vices or up the list of virtues in a mechanically planned approach to self-perfection. A certain amount of time was spent on each vice or virtue one by one, and then we moved on to the next one on the list. Rather than a practical programmed approach to perfection, the parti'cular examen is meant to be a reverently honest, personal meeting with the Lordfin our own hearts. I David Asselin, S.J., "Christian Maturity and Spiritual Discernment," Review for Religious, v. 27 (1968), p. 594. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 19 When we become sensitive and serious enough about loving God, we begin to realize some changes must be made. We are deficient in so many areas and so many defects must be done away with. But the Lord does not want all of them to be handled at once. Usually there is one area of our hearts where He is especially calling for conversion which is always the beginning of new life. He is interiorly nudging us in one area and reminding us that if we are really serious about Him this one aspect of ourselves must be changed. This is often precisely the one area we want to forget and (maybe!) work on later. We do not want to let His word condemn us in this one area and so we try to forget it and distract ourselves by working on some other safer area which does require conversion but not with the same urgent sting of consciousness that is true of the former area. It is in this first area of our hearts, if we will be honest and open with the Lord, where we are very personally experiencing the Lord in the burning fire of His Word as He confronts us here and now. So often we fail to recognize this guilt for what it really is or we try to blunt it by working hard on something else that we may want to correct whereas the Lord wants something else here and now. For beginners it takes time to become interiorly sensitive to God before they gradually come to recognize the Lord's cidl to conversion (maybe involving a very painful struggle!) in some area of their lives. It is better for beginners to take this time to learn what the Lord wants their particular examen now to be rather than just taking some assigned imperfection to get started on. And so the particular examen is very personal, honest, and at times a very subtle experience of the Lord calling in our hearts for deeper conversion to Himself. The matter of the conversion may remain the same for a long period of time, but the important thing is our sense of His personal challenge to us. Often this experience of the Lord calling for conversion in one small part of our hearts takes the expression of good healthy guilt which should be carefully interpreted and responded to if there is to be progress in holiness. When the particular examen is seen as this personal experience of the Lord's love for us, then we can understand why St. Ignatius suggests that we turn our whole consciousness to this experience of the Lord (whatever it be in all practicality, for example, more subtle humility or readiness to get involved with people on their terms, etc.) at those two very important moments in our day, when we begin our day and when we close it, besides the formal examen times. In this third dimension of the formal examen the growing faith sense of our sinfulness is very central. This is more of a spiritual faith reality as revealed by the Father in our experience than a heavily moralistic and guilt-laden reality. A deep sense of sinfulness depends on our growth in faith and is a dynamic realization which always ends in thanksgiving - the song of a "saved sinner." In his book Growth in the Spirit, Francgis Roustang, in the second chapter, speaks very profoundly about sinfulness and thanksgiving. This can provide enormous insight into the relationship of these second and third elements of the formal examen, especially as dimensions of our abiding Christian consciousness. Contrition and Sorrow The Christian heart is always a heart in song - a song of deep joy and gratitude. But the Alleluia can be quite superficial and without body and depth unless it is genuinely touched with sorrow. This is the song of a sinner constantly aware of being prey to his sinful tendencies and yet being converted into the newness which is guaranteed in the victory of Jesus Christ. Hence, we never grow out of a sense of wonder-ful sorrow in the presence of our Savior. 2O Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 This basic dimension of our heart's vision which the Father desires to deepen in us as He converts us from sinners to His sons and daughters, if we allow Him, is here applied to the specifics of our actions since the lhst examen, especially insofar as they were selfishly inadequate responses to the Lord's work in our hearts. This sorrow will especially spring from the lack of honesty and courage in responding to the Lord's call in the particular examen. This contrition and sorrow is not a shame nor a depression at our weakness but a faith experience as we grow in our realization of our Father's awesome desire that we love Him with every ounce of our being. After this description, the value of pausing each day in formal examen and giving concrete expression to this abiding sense of sorrow in our hearts should be quite obvious and should flow naturally from the third element of practical survey of our actions. Hopeful Resolution for Future This final element of the formal daily examen grows very naturally out of the previous elements. The organic development leads us to face the future which is now rising to encounter us and become integrated into our lives. In the light of our present discernment of the immediate past how do we look to the future? Are we discouraged or despondent or fearful of the future? If this is the atmosphere of our hearts now, we must wonder why and try to interpret this atmosphere; we must be honest in acknowledging our feeling for the future, and not repress it by hoping it will go away. The precise expression of this final element will be determined by the organic flow of this precise examen now. Accordingly, this element of resolution for the immediate future will never happen the same way each time. If it did happen in the same expression each time, it would be a sure sign that we were not really entering into the previous four elements of the examen. At this point in the examen there should be a great desire to face the future with renewed vision and sensitivity as we pray both t~ recognize even more the subtle ways in which the Lord will greet us and to hear His Word call us in the existential situation of the future and to respond to His call with more faith, humility, and courage. This should be especially true of that intimate abiding experience of the Lord calling for painful conversion in some area of our heart - what we have called the particular examen. A great hope should be the atmosphere of our hearts at this point - a hope not founded on our own deserts, or our own powers for the future, but rather founded much more fully in our Father whose glorious victory in Jesus Christ we share through the life of Their Spirit in our hearts. The more we will trust God and allow Him to lead in our lives, the more we will experience true supernatural hope in God painfully in and through, but quite beyond, our own weak powers - an experience at times frightening and emptying but ultimately joyfully exhilarating. St. Paul in this whole passage from the Letter to the Philippians (3:7-14) expresses well the spirit of this conclusion of the formal examen: ". I leave the past behind and with hands outstretched to whatever lies ahead I go straight for the goal" (3:13). Examen and Discernment We will close this article with some summary remarks about the examen, as here described, and disceinment of spirits. When examen is understood in this light and so practiced each day, then it becomes so much more than just a brief exercise performed once or twice ~ day and which is quite secondary to our formal prayer Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 21 and active living of God's love in our daily situation. Rather it becomes an exercise which so focuses and renews our specific faith identity that we should be even more reluctant to omit our examen than our formal contemplative prayer each day. This seems to have been St. Ignatius' view of the practice of the examen. He never talks of omitting it though he does talk of adapting and abbreviating the daily meditation for various reasons. For him it seems the examen was central and quite inviolate. This strikes us as strange until we revamp our understanding of the examen. Then perhaps we begin to see the examen as so intimately connected to our growing identity and so important to our finding God in all things at all times that it becomes our central daily experience of prayer. For Ignatius finding God in all things is what life is all about. Near the end of his life he said that "whenever he wished, at whatever hour, he could find God" (Autobiography, # 99). This is the mature Ignatius who had so fully allowed God to possess every ounce of his being through a clear YES to the Father that radiated from the very core of his being, that he could be conscious at any moment he wanted of the deep peace, joy, and contentment (consolation, see the Exercises, # 316) which was the experience of God at the center of his heart. Ignatius' identity, at this point in his life, was quite fully and clearly "in Christ" as Paul says: "For now my place is in him, and I am not dependent upon any of the self-achieved righteousness of the Law" (Phil 3:9); Ignatius knew and was his true self in Christ. Being able to find God whenever he wanted, Ignatius was now able to find Him in all things through a test for congruenc~ of any interior impulse, mood, or feeling with his true self. Whenever he found interior consonance within himself (which registers as peace, joy, contentment again) from the immediate interior movement and felt himself being his true congruent self, then he knew he had heard God's word to him at that instant. And he responded with that fullness of humble courage so typical of Ignatius. If he discovered interior dissonance, agitation, and disturb-ance "at the bottom of the heart" (to be carefully distinguished from repugnance "at the top of the head''2) and could not find his true congruent self in Christ, then he recognized the interior impulse as an "evil spirit" and he experienced God by "going against" the desolate impulse (cf. Exercises, # 319). In this way he was able to find God in all things by carefully discerning all his interior experiences ("spirits"). Thus discernment of spirits became a daily very practical living of the art of loving God with his whole heart, whole body, and whole strength. Every moment of life was loving (finding) God in the existential situation in a deep quiet, peace, and joy. For Ignatius, this finding God in the prese.nt interior movement, feeling, or option was almost instantaneous in his mature years because the central "feel" or "bent" of his being had so been grasped by God. For the beginner, what was almost instantaneous for the mature Ignatius may require the effort of a prayerful process of a few hours or days depending on the importance of the movement-impulse to be discerned. In some of his writings, Ignatius uses examen to refer to this almost instantaneous test for congruence with his true self - something he could do a number of times every hour of the day. But he also speaks of examen in the formal restricted sense of two quarter-hour exercises of prayer a day. The intimate and essential relationship between these two senses of examen has been the point of this whole article. 2john Carroll Futrell, S.J., Ignatian Discernment (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), p. 64. IEDWABD CARTIER, S.J. Pluralism in Christian Life [ Edward Carter, S.J., author of Response in Christ (1969) and Spirituality for Modern Man (197 I), is associate professor of theology at Xavier University ; Cincinnati, Ohio 4520"/.] There has always been a certain diversity which has characterized the history of Christian life or spirituality. There have been different schools of spirituality, different trends, different emphases; but all of these, in so far as they have been authentic, have been rooted in the same gospel message. They have, each in their own manner, been reflections of the one mystery of Christ. Today's Church is marked by an accentuation of this diversity in spirituality or Christian living. But before fastening our gaze upon the contemporary scene, let us first reflect upon some of the theological principles which give rise to this diversity or pluralism. The first of these principles concerns the mystery of Christ as relived by Church and Christian. The People of God, individually and collectively, are meant to continue the redemptive Incarnation in space and time by reliving the life, death, and resurrection of Christ - the mystery of Christ. The mystery of Christ, however, is richly d.iversified. Jesus in His life, death, and resurrection has left us many different truths and examples to be incorporated into our own Christian existence. Historically, this rich variation of the mystery of Christ has given rise to different schools of spirituality. Each of these gives a special witness to this or that aspect of the Christ-event, to its own particular harmonization and implementation of the various facets which comprise this event - the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. For instance, Carmelite spirituality has always stressed prayer, as it gives a special witness to the Christ who often went aside and prayed to His heavenly Father. Benedictine spirituality gives a special attention to liturgy, and, consequently, emphasizes the priestly activity of Christ. Dominican spirituality has traditionally stressed the pursuit of truth as it points in its own special manner to the prophetic or teaching office of Christ. Franciscan spirituality, among other things, has emphasized the material simplicity of Jesus' life. Ignatian spirituality has stressed as one of its leading characteristics the union of a~tion and contemplation - both of which were marvelously blended in the life of Jesus. In more recent times, in the effort to apply in a special way the mystery of Christ to the diocesan priesthood and to the laity, there have been writings dealing with the spiritualities appropriate to these two vocations. The mystery of Christ, then, possessing at one and the same time a varied richness and a profound unity, makes possible different spiritual movements which, however, ultimately comprise but one Christian spirituality. Consequently, we must preserve a balanced view. We must admit the legitimacy of varied spiritual movements and schools of spirituality with their own particular nuances in the following of Christ, while at the same time realizing that all Christian spiritualities are essentially the same. They have very much in common since they are rooted in the one Christ, in one and the same total Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 23 gospel, in one and the same liturgy. We have established what is a very basic theological reason for diversity in spirituality - the diversity which is contained in the very mystery of Christ. There are two more principles we would now like "to discuss which help us to see' the utility and even necessity of diversity or pluralism in the Christian life. These second and third principles are connected with what we might term the theology of personal uniqueness, and the theology of time and culture. The theology of personal uniqueness tells us that each human person is an eternal imitation of God. Any one individual can truthfully say that there never has been, is not now, nor ever will be, any other person like himself. Each person is a eternal uniqueness. As we are elevated to supernatural life through our incorporation into Christ, this personal uniqueness is .deepened. This is simply an application of the theological principle that grace does not destroy nor lessen nature, but perfects it, gives it a deepened capacity to actuate more deeply all its authentic dimensions. One of these dimensions is personal uniqueness. Our life in Christ, then, far from destroying or lessening our uniqueness, respects and develops it. There are various implications and ramifications flowing out of this theology of personal uniqueness relative to diversity or pluralism in spirituality. We have said that there are various spiritual movements and schools of spirituality because of the possibility of reliving the richly diversified .mystery of Christ with different emphases and nuances. As this diversity is possible between schools of spirituality, so is it possible in reference to individuals. Not only is it possible, but it is actually necessary because of the concept of personal uniqueness. No two Christians will put on Christ in exactly the same manner; for they put on Christ according to what each is. Although obviously each Christian is to assimilate Christ in essentially the same manner, he will also do it in a manner which cannot be duplicated. He will offer Christ his own unique person with his unique temperament, personality, capacities, and talents. Through the uniqueness of this Christian, Christ continues His redemptive Incarnation in a particular way, a way which cannot be duplicated. Consequently, even though two individuals are following the same spirituality - Dominican, Franciscan, Ignatian, or any other - there will be a difference or a diversity manifested as they live out this common spirituality. Sometimes this diversity will be quite striking. This does not mean that one or the other has wavered from the spiritual tradition to which each has committed himself or herself. Of course, such a diversity could be so explained in certain instances. But a diversity, and again even a striking one, could be present as each is authentically living out the one spiritual tradition which they profess in common. In such cases the diversity is to be explained by the principle of personal uniqueness. Furthermore, pluralism or diversity in the Christian life is found not only between the different spiritualities, not only between individuals, but also within the extended existence of the same individual. Contemporary thought has empha-sized that man and his world must be considered according to a framework which has a dynamic, progressive, evolutionary dimension. We now realize that we must not view man as being a static creature. While it is obviously important to realize that man is always essential!y the same throughout the ages, it is also very important to remember that man has a thrust toward change, toward evolving into what he is yet to become,.toward authentically adapting to the signs of the times. If such truths are applicable to mankind in general, they are also proportionately pertinent to each individual. Because each individual has an evolutionary dimen-. sion, a thrust toward that which has not yet been achieved, an innate desire to 24 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 become more what his uniqueness is destined to be, he is simultaneously always the same individual and always a dynamically different individual. One's personal uniqueness, then, has both an unchangeable and a changeable dimension. We can see the implications of this for one's Christian existence. Because the Christian is meant to change dynamically and evolve into a greater assimilation to Christ, his needs are not always the same. While he must always strive to maintain a proper balance of the Christian essentials according to his present spiritual condition and development, his needs may vary.'At a certain time he may be attracted to giving a considerable amount of time to formal prayer. At another time, while not neglecting set times of prayer, he may feel called to a greater external involvement for the cause of Christ. At certain periods of his life he may feel a need for frequent spiritual direction, while at other times the intervals of this direction will be greatly lengthened. A person can feel a graced attraction for the renunciation of certain created goods and values at one time, while at another he is drawn rather to use and relate to them in a proper fashion. While always striving to have a proper balance in his imitation of Christ, he can differ in his desire to focus his attention now on this, now on that event of Jesus' life, now on this truth of Christ, now on another. Spiritual diversity or pluralism, consequently, is present within the one and same Christian individual. Having seen how diversity is present in the Christian life because of the principle of pluralism contained in the very mystery of Christ, and because of the principle of personal uniqueness, we now come to our third and final principle which helps provide a basis for such diversity or pluralism. This principle deals with ideas contained in what can be called the theology of time and culture. In God's dealings with mankind, the concepts of time, or of historical situation, and culture, have played a very important role. In saving man, God works within time, history, and culture. His salvific action is not unnaturally superimposed upon man's historical and cultural situation. Rather, God's salvific process works within time, history, and culture. Consequently, His saving will throughout the continued course of salvation history manifests itself differently - diversely or pluralistically. This diversity or pluralism of God's salvific activity can in part be explained by the factor of historical and cultural exigency. A .classic example of this is the comparison between the old and new covenants. God's dealings with the people of the Mosaic covenant were conditioned both by the point of time in salvation history that was then actually operative, and the culture of the Jewish people. With the enfleshment of His Son and the ensuing formation of the new covenant, God communicated Himself in a manner partially different from that Self-communica-tion which prevailed during the time of the Mosaic covenant. If God's salvific activity has a pluralism or diversity attached to it because He respects the time-conditioned and culture-conditioned life situation of man, so must there be a similarly caused pluralism in Christian life. For the Christian life is radically a response to God's salvific activity, a response to His loving initiative which always precedes us. God's activity, respecting the differences which time and culture insert into human history, will exact differentiated responses from the Christian community. This differentiation or pluralism can exist between the various ages of the Church, and, therefore, we legitimately speak of the pre-dominant spirituality of the sixteenth century or of a certain period within the eighteenth century. This pluralism can also exist within the same age because of cultural differences. God respects the African culture, the Chinese culture, the American culture, and so forth. As Christians within these various cultures respond Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/I 25 to God's continued Self-communication, they will do so in a manner which is partly determined by their particular cultures. Because there are differences in their cultures, we will find a Christian pluralism arising out of these cultural differences. An African spirituality will differ somewhat from an American spirituality, and they both will differ from a Spanish spirituality. Up to this point we have been discussing basic truths and principles which offer a sound theological basis for pluralism in Christian spirituality. This pluralism, while obviously having a place in any age of Christianity, is an especially important dimension of contemporary Christian life; for today's Church offers a particularly advantageous climate for the development of authentic pluralism in Christian living. This favorable climate has developed because of the greater spirit of freedom which is present in today's Church. True, this greater freedom has been abused in many instances, but this fact cannot deny that God seems to intend this climate of expanded freedom in today's Church, for this freedom has emanated from the very truths and principles of Vatican II. The connection between pluralism and a Church which allows a greater freedom of thought and life style expression is obvious. In such a Church various thrusts of pluralism and diversity are bound to fructify more often than in a Church which is heavily monolithic, a Church which has its thought and life style too much imposed from the top down. The hierarchy will always have the leading role in directing the Christian thought and life style of the People of God, but it must do so according to the principle of collegiality. This principle allows for all members of the People of God to help shape the life of the Church. However, in order to flourish, collegiality needs a spirit of freedom, some elbow room in which to maneuver - and, yes, even in which to make some mistakes. Consequently, even though some are tempted to think at times that the greater freedom of today's Church has resulted in more harm than good, fundamentally this is not true. In the last analysis such a Church will be a healthier and more mature Church - and one characterized by a greater pluralism in her Christian life. There are already various examples of an increased pluralism in today's Christian life. For instance, the liturgical aspect of today's spirituality is greatly diversified when compared to the liturgical situation of ten years ago. As for the apostolic dimension of contemporary Christian life, there has been considerable discussion and implementation relative to pluralism in Christian ministry. Also, Christian life style is considerably more pluralistic today than previously. This greater diversity of life style can be found even within the one and same religious order or congregation. There has also been a much greater pluralism in theological thought, a pluralism which often filters down and makes its impact on spirituality, on Christian living. New and diversified forms of prayer have appeared to take their places alongside the traditional ones. These, then, are some indications that today's Christian life is marked by an increased diversity. There are three special qualities which are necessary to live properly in today's Christian community with its increased pluralism. These qualities are not mutually exclusive. There is an overlap between them, but each has its own particular nuance. First of all, there is the need for an increased awareness of the necessity of spiritual discernment. Among the diverse movements in today's Church, which are really Spirit-led? And after I satisfy myself as to which are Spirit-inspired and which are not, which one does the Spirit intend for me personally? Regardless of any particular age of the Church, the Spirit does not intend any one person to incorporate within his own Christian existence all authentic thought styles and life 26 Review for Religious, Volume 3 I, 1972/i styles. But in an age when authentic possibilities have been greatly increased and diversified, the necessity for spiritual discernment becomes more obvious. To cope properly with today's pluralism we also especially need the quality of Christian maturity. Increased diversity within the Church demands increased maturity. In the more tightly structured and monolithic Church of pre-Vatican II days, we had things spelled out for us in much greater detail compared to the situation which prevails today. The Church of today is asking us to exercise a greater maturity, a more mature use of our freedom, as we are called upon to live responsibly in a more pluralistic Church. The Church is asking us to use our greater freedom properly, not to abuse it, but to direct it, among other ways, at the development of an authentic pluralism. Finally, besides an increased sense of Christian discernment and maturity, there is a special need today for the spirit of Chrisitan tolerance - a tolerance of the views and life styles which do not agree with my own. The need for this spirit of tolerance is indeed evident if only we look at what each of us has experienced in recent years. One of the great pains of the post-Vatican I1 Church is precisely that caused by the numerous and diverse viewpoints which have arisen in the contem-porary Church. This spirit of tolerance, of course, does not mean we condone what we think is wrong. It does mean, though, an increased effort at being open to the views of others, an admission that a more greatly diversified Church is intended by the signs of the times, a realization that we are all more likely to make mistakes in such a situation as we grope for the lead of the Spirit, a lead which at times is much more hidden than we would like because of the confusion of a Church and world experiencing a radical transition. A more diversified Church and a more pluralistic Christian life are what we are all experiencing. We can say, as perhaps all of us have been tempted to say at one time or another during recent years, that it is too difficult to cope consistently with the situation. We have all, no doubt, been tempted to withdraw from the struggle which an increasingly pluralistic Church demands. We have been tempted to carve out our own little niche of Christian existence and there lead an unperturbed life and let all the confusion of a Church striving for authentic renewal and pluralism pass us by. If we surrendered to such a temptation, we would avoid a certain kind of pain and suffering. But we would also be missing the joy and sense of accomplishment which result from contributing our share to the shaping of a contemporary Christian life - one characterized, among other things, by an increased pluralism. DAVID K. 0'ROURKE, 0.P. Three Models for Viewing Religious Life [David K.O'Rourke, O.P:, is the prior of the Berkeley Priory; 1730 Arch Street; Berkeley, California 94709; he is also associate professor of pastoral theology in St. Albert's College and in the Graduate Theological Onion of Berkeley and is associate director of the Western Dominican Province's Pastoral Training Program. I The purpose of this article is to give a structured view of some of the reasons why a man may choose to enter religious life. More specifically, it is an attempt to understand in a schematic and rationalized way, with three different and distinct models, what there is in the religious life that brings a potential member to view it as a viable alternative to the several possibilities in the lay life. Obviously, this means that I see the religious life as a viable alternative, and such is the case. There is always the possibility that an analysis of religious motivations and structures can come from, or be seen as, an attempt to undercut religious life. The fact that analyses of this sort have been known to have the heavy-handedness of an autopsy supports these fears. Such is not my purpose. I presuppose that religious life is livable and worthwhile, and I presuppose this because I have seen it to be so for myself and others. Of course, there are pathological reasons why one may choose to enter a religious community. These have been analyzed with ability and insight. My purpose here is to apply the same analytic approach to the valid and healthy reasons that enter into a sound vocation. This latter comment is significant because it points out the pragmatic and experiential quality of the approach I will follow in this article. There are other approaches, ones which would begin on a more absolute and theocentric note, or ones which could begin in a less concrete and more "spiritual" way. I have no argument with them. I presuppose all they might say. Here I limit myself to the more human and concrete elements which enter into an individual's decision. It will also be noted that I am speaking here of male religious. This does not mean that the ideas presented here are not applicable to women religious. However, the ideas in this article are drawn from experience with male religious and in fact might not be applicable to women. My experience with women religious has been limited primarily to counseling those in the process of leaving their communities. Obviously this would give me a one-sided view, so I will leave the question of applicability to the ladies themselves. To begin with, and again noting that my view is of healthy reasons, I see people entering religious life in order to make sense of their lives. With the approach of adulthood a young man is faced with the need of stating for himself who he is, the better to enter into the tasks and relationships that face him. The answer to the question "Who am I?" is critical for his future life. Now it is fairly certain, I imagine, that very few men, save in the hands of TV script writers, actually pose the question "Who am I?" in so many words. Yet, faced with choosing their education, their type and place of employment, their friends, and the need to 28 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 establish a different, more independent relationship with their families, they are in fact faced with the question "Who am 17" And the answers that each makes to these questions, the decisions he maizes about his education, employment, and human relationships will bring into play and firm up the values that will give the ethical dimension to his self-view. It is my experience that the choice for a life within the context of a religious community can be understood in this light. To make this understanding more concrete 1 propose to speak about three models of religious life which have occurred to me, and which bespeak three rather functionally significant aspects of life. They are functionally significant, as I put it, in that by their individual and interwoven appeal they can be seen to account for a major portion of our religious vocations. These three models are the service model, the life style model and the intellectual model. I will speak of each in turn. The service model entails the desire to help, and the process of being helpful to, others. It means a self-view in which the helping process looms large. Asked the question "Who am I?" the answer would be "I am a person who helps others." Obviously, this desire to help and the actual fact of serving can take many forms. In fact it has taken many forms in the course of the Church's history. The many religious groups dedicated to education, to caring for the sick and old, and in general to meeting the needs of those in need, bear eloquent witness to the institutionalization of the service model. Viewing this model further within the context of self-identity, we can single out the following additional elements. By definition it is other-oriented. There is a relational quality which predominates. The individual's energies turn outward from himself to another person or persons. Furthermore, the medium by which the individual religious relates to others is the work he performs for them. This bespeaks a certain type of personality. 1 might add here that the notion of a "personality type" does not imply some sort of pathology. Rather, it is no more than the recognition that the abilities, interests, likes, and dislikes of any individual will lead him to interact with the world around him in such a way that we can note patterns of similarity between certain individuals. The second of the models is the life style model. This is really quite different from the service model. Again using the question of identity, the individual attracted by this model would identify himself by referring to the way he goes about the details of his life. Its scheduling and disciplines, its structures such as the patterns of collective prayer, communality in housing, dress, and table all point to a definite and institutionalized way of life. And it is a style of life to which the individual adapts himself. Again, this life style model has had a long history in the Church. It typifies all those groups which we call monastic and can be seen as the most notable element in monasticism. The relational quality in the life style model is also quite different from that in the service model. Here the relationship is in large part with the individual himself. This might seem strange since there are so many external acts and tangible elements that go into the daily life of a monastic community and to which the individual is called on to relate and respond. But they are things whereby he can give to himself a shape and forming consonant with the values embodied in this style of life. It might seem that this life style model is not only different from but runs counter to the service model. In many ways this is true. It is difficult to say that a way of life that is oriented to helping others is basically the same as a way of life that is oriented toward helping one's self. I do not claim that they are basically the Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 29 same but quite the contrary. My purpose here is, once again, to state that these models are real, that they are articulated in these ways, and that they function in the lives of those in religious life. The third model of religious life 1 wish to go into is the intellectual model. This differs from the above two in that it denotes an approach that is typified not as much by action as by a state of mind. The individual who is attracted by this approach is an individual who enters situations head first. He is interested in knowing the reason why.Faced with the question of self-identity he answers "I am a person who must make sense of things, and to do so I must know why they are the way they are." Does this really differ from the other two? I find that it definitely does, that it is not just an aspect of either of the first two models. The individual drawn by the service model is not about to question the value of serving others. Its value is self-evident. The individual drawn by the life style model is content with the fact that to him this way of life feels right. The individual characterized by the intellectual model is by nature a questioner. Whatever the emotional or other causes, the result is an approach typified by a series of probing questions. Furthermore, his questioning will often be directed toward the other two models. Is this the person we should help? Is this the way to help? What are our priorities here, and are they correct? Is this monastic life appropriate? Why do you like it? Is it worthwhile, does it make sense? In relating to others he does so with a question on his lips. This question stems from his need to make intellectual sense of his world. He confronts, he challenges, he probes, often in a way offensive to those who do not understand his way of doing things. There is an analytic and evaluative process at work, one which can lead to a further integration into the religious life, but which can also appear to be negative and destructive. It can be argued that the individual drawn into religious life by the intellectual model is basically looking into someone else's way of doing things. What are his own supports and values? To answer perhaps oversimply, his chief support is the process itself of analyzing. As long as he is able to continue trying to make sense of things he will be sufficiently at home with himself to survive with some comfort. In addition, there is the more important question of this person's utility t6 the community around him. Does his probing and examining of his community's emotional, theological, financial, and mythological supports serve any purpose? I think it does. The Church in its history, at least in its more self-reflective periods, has tried to build in mechanisms for self-criticism. Granted, this has been with mixed success at best. But we do hold our own critics in some real esteem, at least in hindsight. In addition, we have institutionalized this critical process in those areas of moral theology which deal with concrete issues. The Church and the religious life, at least on the theoretical level, havealways had a place for the analyser, and the capacity of the institution to tolerate its critics is a sign of its maturity. It might also be helpful to point out, finally, that the questioning by this individual does not come necessarily from an opposition to those things he questions. It is analysis, it is not attack. It might well be hard to put up with, but it is primarily this person's way of relating to the world around him. At this point 1 would again like to point out that each of these models is a partial view, and each one does typify real people. Any one of these models is sufficiently capable of absorbing the energies of an individual to provide for him a rather complete view of his vocation. The fact that the model might bespeak a limited 30 Review for Religious, Volume 3 I, 1972/1 approach, in fact does bespeak a limited approach, is both true and irrelevant. The energies and interests of any one individual are always limited. What I am here maintaining is that this limitation has a recoghizable shape to. it, and that in my experience the diversity in these shapes can be viewed in the light of these three models without notable distortion. The fact of limitation can also have aspects to it which are not quite as neutral as might seem to be the case from the above statements. I would like to single out the types of difficulties that can and do arise with each of these models. The service model, as noted above, will be attractive to the person whose identity receives outward expression in helping others. Obviously, this means that this individual will be oriented toward work, since service reqhires work. In certain situations the outlet for helping others is rather severely cut off. This is the case in many novitiates, and especially during academic studies. Here the student is expected to channel his energies in ways which are different from those to which he is accustomed, and this does not come easy. I would suspect that much of the criticism directed against seminary studies has this at its root. The students are not so much opposed to study as they are frustrated in their desire, indeed their need, to expend their energies in the way that comes most easily to them. A basic pattern of relating is frustrated, and this frustration is going to make itself felt. In addition we can expect that any notable frustration in the attempt to be of service is going to cause stress for this individual. Whether the frustration comes from competing requirements, such as studies, or from official interference, or from the rejection of the services offered, the result will be the same - a sense of disorientation that the individual will be hard pressed to cope with. Of all these possibilities probably the most troubling is the rejection of help offered because it is so final and does not admit of alternatives. When the rejected help is the product of considerable effort and the result of a great in~,estment on the part of the individual, the effect can be devastating. Religious who place great stock in their work and are told at some point th::t what they have been preparing for or what they have already been doing is no longer needed are prime examples of this. Their crisis is not a minor one but one that can shake them to the roots of their personality. There is also the danger that the individual attracted by this model - or any of these three, for that matter - will not be a particularly self-reflective person. In this case he is not apt to see that his way of doing things - the particular model that attracts him, or his way of putting it to work - has some subjective and personal need-fulfilling sources to it. His way becomes absolutized, his way becomes the way, and other ways are to be adapted and refashioned in support of his. Furthermore, explaining to the non-reflective person, presenting him with an intelligible rationale which tells him why his view is too narrow, is a waste of time. By definition, by virtue of the fact that he is non-reflective, he will be unable to grasp tiffs. It is asking him to use a weak or undeveloped faculty. It is much better to present him with the conclusion, that is, that others are not going to adapt to suit him, and help him cope with it as best he can. With the person attracted by the life style model, the limitations are of quite another sort. We can pinpoint them by observing that monastic practices have considerable similarities in Christian and non-Christian traditions. It is possible to be a good monk, as the Buddhist monastic tradition bears witness, without being a Christian. There is thus nothing basically Christian about monasticism; it is one of the ways man has invented for living a human life. Also, monasticism can have an Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 31 absolute character to it; it can engage all the time and energies of the monk in a pattern of meditative, penitential, and ritual practices. In addition there is a certain absolutism in Christianity. The life and teachings of Jesus, our knowledge of the early Church from the Acts and St. Paul, and the subsequent development of both these in the life of the Church and in its theology, point out that the half-hearted and lukewarm Christian life is to be shunned in favor of greater commitment. The danger here is to make the mistake of equating monastic absolutism with Christian absolutism. 1 believe that when this happens it does so because monastic absolutism presents an articulated, structured, and circumscribed channel for the Christian's desire to get in touch with what is absolute. In its most extreme form this would be to equate becoming one with the monastic absolute, that is, becoming absorbed, as it were, by the monastic life st~,le, with being one with God. It seems more exact to say that what has happened here is the substitution of a collective human structure for the individual personality, a process of quite questionable morality. But this is an extreme. Our focus here is the garden variety of problem that' comes from the life style model. The one I see to be common and troubling is the equation of religious life as a whole with the life style model. It is easy to see how this happens. Since it is the life style model that deals most directly with externals, especially with those externals which differentiate religious life from lay life, it is easy to equate these tangible and visible elements with religious life. This is a beginner's problem, and except in one area we seem to outgrow it. The exception has to do with the process of introducing new members. They are frequently placed under the direction of someone who is rather committed to the life style model. In large part I think this is due to the expectations of the incoming members, whose focus on visible and external elements is quite normal. It is also due, I suspect, to the guilt of work-oriented superiors about the lack of this model in their own lives, and for which they compensate in the choice of formation superiors. Be the cause what it may, it stacks the deck against a broader and more complete view of the opportunities present in the religious life. The problems in the intellectual model come, as with the others, from the very heart of the model. The intellectually oriented person is probably more developed in the thinking than in the feeling area. He will have less appreciation for the areas of religious life that utilize the feeling side, such as the symbolic and liturgical. This lack can become a real problem, for it can lead to an intolerance of any areas and elements which do not admit of the clear-cut, sharp-edged, and logical approach that is possible in the mind. Having viewed these three models there remains only one major comment I wish to make about them. It is fairly common to recognize that religious, like other people, will be oriented in one direction rather than another, that they have definite personalities, likes, dislikes, abilities, and weaknesses. And having recog-nized this, it is also common to forget it, to hope and expect that the individual will work out a personal balance including significant elements from each of these models. This is often raised to the level of an ideal, the religious equivalent of the well-rounded individual. This expectation is unrealistic, and it can be disastrous. A person who is drawn into religious life by the service model, and for whom the service model represents an important expression of his personal makeup, is quite apt not to be attracted by the life style model. If he is not, then any attempt to make him respond as though he were attracted by it probably won't work. If this is an importarit element in the 32 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 life of the group he is entering, then he should not enter it. If the religious group requires only some token observance of the life style model, recognized as token, then he can be expected to put up with it in the way any mature person can be expected to put up with things he doesn't like. But if the life style model, in fact, be important in the life of this community, then he shouldn't be there in the first place. There is no way, short of self-delusion, to get around the simple but difficult fact that he is in the wrong place. The hopes that he will change, that he will develop an appreciation for this view, are as futile as they are potentially destructive. The probable result will be complaining, fault-finding, and after considerable turmoil, departure for some situation where he can be of service to others and where he should probably have been in the first place. The same is true of the other models. The individual who comes to religious community because he wants and needs the structured, orderly life that comes from the life style model cannot realistically be expected to work and function well where these do not exist. If the life style model is part of the whole pattern of life there will be no problem. If, as is often the case, it is part of the seminary structure, after which the individual is expected to shift to a service model and provide his own working and personal structures, then there is going to be a dangerous situation, possibly involving a personal collapse. Similarly~ the individual drawn to religious life in order to make sense of his life, where making sense bespeaks an intellectual approach, cannot be expected to make a shift from this approach to another one. The fact that the particular style of life which he is asked to enter, and which he can't intellectually organize, might "feel right" to others will mean nothing to him and will probably antagonize him. The same applies to a work situation. "This is the way we do things here," or "This has always been our system" may be satisfying answers to some people. They will not satisfy this individual. He will be disturbed and disturbing until he is given a reason why. If none is to be forthcoming then it is better that he not work in that context. Some religious groups, such as my own Dominican Order, do combine these different models. But the combination is one of tension. We recognize that the tension is there, and we expect our members to tolerate it. We do not expect to be able to resolve it and thus demand that our members pay the price for maintaining the several elements which we see to be of value. There should be no question, however, but that there is a price to be paid. In summary, then, 1 see these models as expressions of personality patterns which do exist in reality. Whatever be the cultural or psychological causes here, experience seems to point out that we can speak of people who live their lives using the service of others, a structured life style, and an intellectual understanding of far-reaching reasons as means for ordering their lives. Furthermore, these patterns are often firm and definite. And, they are incorporated to differing degrees in the makeup of different religious groups. It seems crucial to me that, for everyone's benefit, religious groups should determine their own basic orientation and recruit their members accordingly. NICHOLAS AYO, C.S.C. Variance in the Religious Vows: What Poverty, Why Chaste, Who Obey? [Nicholas Ayo, C.S.C., is a member of the Department of English at the University of Portland ; Portland, Oregon 97203. ] No observer can fail to notice that the religious life under the three vows is undergoing considerable reinterpretation and change. Part of the explanation lies with the sweeping changes revising social and religious institutions throughout the world. What remains in doubt is how far-reaching these reinterpretations have become, and whether they should be viewed substantially as renewal or more as a distortion. The purpose of this essay is not primarily to evaluate the changes in religious life, although to an extent that kind of judgment is inevitable in the very selecting aud ordering of materials, but rather to describe the alternative vow styles that can be observed and to some degree categorized. After the ground has been as accurately mapped as possible, I shall offer some tentative conclusions concerning the progress and direction of the religious life in these days of not only "monasteries without walls," but also "monasteries for sale." In the history of the religious life, the three vows of poverty (goods of the hands and the earth), chastity (goods of body and the heart), and obedience (goods of the mind and the will) are late developments. From the very beginnings of the following of the Gospels in a radical form, there has always been, of course, some kind of interior dedication, if nothing more than a promise made to God alone in one's heart. For those living in comnmnity, a single vow of obedience, or stability, or poverty, or not to tnarry was often considered sufficiently embracive of all the areas of property, family, and discipline required to maintain the well being of a Christian community. What the three vows accomplished did not amount to additional demands upon a total dedication to following the gospel in a radical way, which even the hermit understood welt enough before God, but rather a more explicit determination of a "way of life" that the Church could specify and direct attention to as evangelical by profession and recognized publicly as such by the People of God through their bishops. Poverty Let us look at the three vows separately. Poverty usually is considered first, although apparently for no intrinsic reason. The advantageous effects of poverty depend upon some minimum ownership and use of goods and property. One may retain enough, of course, for life's needs. Destitution distorts poverty. The benefits of poverty, however, were not discovered by Christians. Property of its nature tends to encumber a person, saps his attention, and devours his freedom. The posses-sions- own-you syndro~ne has been with the world a long time. Auyone who owns an expensive yacht, or whatever, may well feel obligated to make use of it, whether 34 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 any longer inclined to or not. Moreover, it takes time, effort, and supervision to maintain an estate, to cultivate, guard, protect, insure, and in all respects properly manage property. Without this effort, the property is sooner or later lost or ruined. The more the wealth, the more the management; and even if managers are hired, the owner has to manage the managers. Property, therefore, unless carefully chosen and curtailed according to one's real needs, easily becomes a burden and actually impedes freedom instead of enhancing it. The pagans knew this, and modern man suspects all too often his convenience machines run him. They must be maintained according to their schedule, not his. Only the man who travels light moves without care. Historically, the ancient monasteries sooner or later acquired great wealth, and contemporary religious orders have amounted to multi-million-dollar operations. Someone has to manage the concerns as well as the property of these institutions. To help preserve the virtue of poverty in those Christians, whether in vows or not, whose task in life demanded the use of the power and goods of the rich, the concept of "stewardship" was evolved. Accordingly, one's labors as manager of millions of dollars were not directed to one's power and prestige, but rather to the commonweal. The steward was merely a servant.whose job was to invest and order goods and services for others. Many. contemporary religious see their vow of poverty in this light. United Air Lines credit cards and new Chevrolets are merely tools, necessary in a modern and affluent world, to get a job done. The heart of th.e religious vowed to poverty ought to remain free of the contamination of wealth, even while he or she has free access to the benefits that only the at least moderately rich enjoy. Poverty of Spirit, a sense of detachment, thus assumes the essence of the vow of poverty. How one uses property, not the quantity and kind of property, becomes the key question. However, from this position, too, a counterinsight arises. The argument goes like this. Granted stewardship is necessary and can be sanctified, it still falls short of the spiritual advantages of actual material poverty. Not everyone need share the poverty of the poor, of course, but those who wish to might vow to do so in an actual and explicit way. Francis of Assisi led a vanguard of those who sold everything, and in sandals alone followed the gospel. In modern times, the carefree poverty of a Francis is difficult to achieve literally - leather sandals can be very expensive. But some groups of religious monks, like the Little Brothers of Charles de Foucauld, do live a simple, inexpensive life, as do their secular monkish counterpart, the sleeping-bag, thumb-riding "hippies" of the 'back-to-the-earth counterculture. This phenomenon demonstrates once more that the advantages of material poverty are not recognized solely by those who follow Jesus Christ alone, although for the believer, identification with the man .of Nazareth, who had nowhere to lay his head, adds a significant core motive. The insight that validates material poverty as such amounts to this. The steward of wealth, while he may well keep his heart unattached, still enjoys the benefits of wealth. He is well cared for and comfortable, and so much the worse for him. Only those who know real want know life in a depth that becomes readily and spontaneously religious. Those who know not where tomorrow's food is coming from have a capacity to appreciate a piece of bread and a cup of cold water as the well-fed can never imagine. The poor know what creaturehood means - to be finite and finally powerless to hold onto one's life and keep everything within one's control. Actually, the rich man does not hold his life securely in his hands either, for accident and microbe strike without distinction of bank account; but the rich Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 35 man can surround himself with apparent defenses, fences, and doctors, who lend him the illusion that he is not finally in fact vulnerable, as the poor man well knows from his own experience. In the living out of actual poverty, virtues such as gratitude for the help of others, heartfelt thanks to God, and sharing alike with others flourish. Faced with helplessness and forced back on basic needs - food, shelter, and friends - it seems far simpler to discover the truth about one's self, that is, one is only a man, naked at birth and destined to dust; masks, poses, the power that corrupts, illusions of bright lights, and life without tragedy, cannot survive the facts. While the rich can hide from the human condition, the poor man knows that to be human is to be vulnerable, even while remaining appreciative, wondering, deeply aware of others, and alive with the radical truth that God alone suffices: "That is why I tell you, don't worry about life, wondering what you are going to eat. And stop bothering about what clothes you will need. Life is much more important than food, and the body more important than clothes. Think of the ravens. They neither sow nor reap, and they have neither store nor barn, but God feeds them. And how much more valuable do you think you are than birds?" (Lk 12:22-5). One further interpretation of poverty deserves mention, because some religious hold to this style, although many point out its fallacy. The position argues that although the group may be wealthy, the individual lives under a spirit of Christian communism - to each according to his need. Needs vary according to status and job, and so does the use of wealth. Actually this p, osition is a variety of the stewardship position, except that it removes the responsibility for management from the individual conscience and invests it in the hierarchical leadership of the group. The individual can thus use any amount of property in peace of conscience provided the group authority has given its approval. The critics of this position, of course, reply that no individual with the vow of poverty can abdicate his responsibility to remain poor, any more than a citizen can automatically wage war simply because his government approves the conflict. Celibacy At first consideration, celibacy seems a necessary concomitant of group living, and group living in a Christian community seems a continuation of the sharing of goods and life outlined in Acts, a sharing which foreshadows the coming of the kingdom. Why groups of families historically have not been able to maintain community living is not easily determined. Through the centuries there have been numerous attempts to do so, from the Brook Farm experiment of our American origins to the communes of 1970, but none have been long lived. Monasteries with single people and strict discipline managed to stay together, but familial groupings have not. No intrinsic reason seems evident to me why Christian community life could not incorporate families, but in practice celibates have a better record of success. The "efficiency model" for the vow of chastity (or celibacy as it might more fairly and accurately be called) emerges from just this insight. For, either it is argued that community life, that is, shared goods and shared inner life, demands celibacy, or even more persuasively it is maintained that a greater freedom for apostolic work becomes available to the single man or woman. Despite the counterarguments of successful and busy married doctors and politicians, it is claimed that a fulltime apostolate often needs a mobility that the person with a family can hardly enjoy without imposing on his family, especially on his children, 36 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 who unlike his wife, did not know in advance what they were getting into. The celibate can work for less money, move locations quickly, and risk his life and health with less fear of the consequences t'o others to whom he is committed and responsible. The input that a generous and inspirational wife might add to a married man's apostolic work is often parried with the negative effects of an unhappy home life in the case of many married "apostles." In short, the argument states that the layman may enlist in the army of Christ, but the celibates will always make up the marines. Besides the "community life" and the "apostolic efficiency" justifications, an appeal for embracing the celibate life may include the "legal status quo." For example, to be a priest, at least today, includes celibacy as part of the package, and when the motivation for the priesthood is high, it can and does override the desire to marry. Actually many men and women remain in celibate vows because by age or inclination they no longer want marriage or children; no't a small number of middle-aged celibates fail to see what overwhelming competition the married state offers the celibate, if children are not a primary consideration. What this reluctance to marry may mean, however, is that many now in celibate vows would have married and raised a family at an earlier age, had the climate of acceptance for such vocational decisions been as good twenty years ago as it is today. Late marriages, of course, will always seem less attractive. If all practical reasons of whatever kind are set aside, whet today might motivate the vow of celibacy? A keen sense of vocation, of being chosen and being called, seems uppermost in many celibate vocational decisions. There is a sense of the mystery behind the destiny of any person, whether to marriage or to single life for the sake of the kingdom: "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," and "Everyman who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or land for my sake will receive it all back many times over, and will inherit eternal life" (Mt 19:29). The celibate vocation remains very much on the defensive today. If formerly marriage was considered a second-rate vocation, it is clear that the atmosphere of sexual fulfillment as a necessary ingredient for maturity and personality growth has left the celibate vocation almost in need of a "single's lib" movement. Those who thrive within the celibate vocation seem to have developed a profotind awareness that no man can run the entire gamut of human experience. One life style cancels out another; there are advantages to restraint as well as to delight. Those who are married have a set of pluses and minuses, which while they differ from the pros and the cons of the celibate, may indeed total out to an equivalent sum. Robert Frost's lines "I have chosen the road less travelled by / And it has made all the difference," or Thomas More's apologia in A Man for All Seasons, namely, I choose to believe this because I choose, may finally be the ultimate explanation for a vocation. There is no adequate reason that can be formulated and presented convincingly to any other open-minded person that he should go and do likewise. One is dealing with the kind of radical freedom exercised in choosing a spouse. I marry Susan because I choose Susan, not for any catalog of virtues that would automatically persuade every other reasonable man to marry Susan. Finally, many celibates do experience a discovery in the expanded opportunities for well-developed and often protracted friendships with someone of the opposite sex. Such friendships often enrich their life and yet confirm their vocation to celibacy. The insight that emerges is this. Any deep bisexual friendship demands cultivation, ingenuity, time, effort, emotional energy, imagination, and thoughtful- Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/1 37 ness. One may conclude that there can be only one dominant psychological center in one's life for any length of time; and if a deep cultivated life of prayer and practi

This guide accompanies the following article: Matthew W. Hughey, 'The Janus Face of Whiteness: Toward a Cultural Sociology of White Nationalism and White Antiracism', Sociology Compass 3/6 (2009): 920–936, 10.1111/j.1751‐9020.2009.00244.xAuthor's introductionOver the past 20 years, the study of white racial identity has received in‐depth, interdisciplinary attention. Under sociological scrutiny, the study of whiteness has traversed quite a few stages: from understandings of whiteness as a category replete with social privileges, as a mere reflection of non‐racial (often class‐based) dynamics, to its most recent turn that emphasizes the contextual and intersectional heterogeneity of whiteness. Because of the increased attention to context and political disputes, the study of whiteness has never been more amenable to cultural analysis than it is today. Hence, an emphasis on different white racial formations that span a political spectrum – from conservative to liberal and racist to antiracist – is now dominant. In this vein, white nationalists and white antiracists represent the distinct polarities of contemporary inquisitions into white racial identity. Motivated by this academic milieu, this guide offers an overview of the major scholarship that address white nationalism & white antiracism, appropriate online materials, and examples from a sample syllabus. Together, these resources aim to assist in understanding the general processes and contexts that produce 'whiteness' and imbue it with meaning, the social relationships and practices in which white racial identity identities become embedded, and how whiteness simultaneously possesses material and symbolic privileges alongside diverse and seemingly antagonistic experiences.Author recommendsThe complexity of whitenessMcDermott, Monica and Frank L. Samson 2005. 'White Racial and Ethnic Identity in the United States.'Annual Review of Sociology 31: 245–61.Any contemporary apprentice of the sociological study of white racial identity should read this essay. Monica McDermott and her student Frank Samson combine to provide a robust overview of the literature. They walk the tightrope of balancing both a broad coverage of the literature with the depth that key studies necessitate. In so doing, they put a finger on the key dilemma of studying white racial identity today: 'Navigating between the long‐term staying power of white privilege and the multifarious manifestations of the experience of whiteness remains the task of the next era of research on white racial and ethnic identity' (2005: 256).Duster, Troy 2001. 'The 'Morphing' Properties of Whiteness.' Pp. 113–33 in The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness, edited by E. B. Rasmussen, E. Klinenberg, I. J. Nexica and M. Wray. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.In this essay – part of a larger volume on whiteness that I also recommend – Duster synthesizes disparate approaches to the study of whiteness. Demonstrating how some scholars understand white racial identity as a contextual and cognitive category ('fluid'), while some frame whiteness as a structural and fixed category of material privileges ('frozen'), Duster asks 'who is right?' He answers via the metaphor of whiteness‐as‐water. In one moment, whiteness can morph into vapor as a contextual and unstable identity, while the next moment it can instantly transform into a harsh and unyielding form of ice‐like privilege. Duster's essay is an excellent retort for those who argue that we should move 'beyond' race to the utopian realm of color‐blind individualism. Duster demonstrates, although the example of the supposedly egalitarian New Deal, that while race is socially constructed, the legacy of racism remains a historically reproduced and real social fact – denying the existence of race perpetuates racial inequality. Duster closes the chapter with a personal anecdote that grounds the historical example in modern, interactional, and everyday life.Perry, Pamela 2002. Shades of White: White Kids and Racial Identities in High School. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Perry gives us two ethnographic studies in one – that of two northern California high schools: one located in a predominantly white, if economically diverse, suburb, the other situated in a multiracial urban community. Perry persistently and systematically probes the complexities of white racial identity in the practices and discourses of the youth attending these high schools. She finds that whites in the predominantly white, suburban high school do not see themselves as a unique race and take their racial identity for granted – they understand distinctly white practices as normative rather than as constitutive of a subjective worldview. In contrast, the whites at the multiracial, urban high school possess a more critical and comparative view of race and their own place in the racial order. In sum, Perry argues that whiteness is a set of complex, contradictory, and multiple subject positions.Wray, Matt. 2006. Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Matt Wray brings the tools of cultural sociology viz‐á‐viz'symbolic boundaries' to the interrogation of the moniker White Trash. Wray problematizes this relatively normalized term to question its origins and how it persists. Drawing upon literary texts, folklore, diaries, medical articles, and social scientific analyses from the early 1700s to the turn of the 20th century, Wray documents the multiple meanings that were projected onto poor rural whites in the United States. Of particular import, Wray demonstrates how white supremacist ideas about class and region became dominant through public health campaigns and eugenic reformations. Impoverished whites found themselves the targets of officials and activists who framed them as 'filthy' or "feebleminded," and thus a threat to the purity and supremacy of the white race. This text is particularly informative for its demonstration of how white supremacist logic was not only focused on racial 'otherness' but used the axes of class and location to directly demarcate and attack those seen as 'white' yet somehow racially deficient and unworthy.Winant, Howard 2004. 'Behind Blue Eyes: Whiteness and Contemporary U.S. Racial Politics.' Pp. 3–16 in Off White: Readings on Race, Power, and Society, edited by Michelle Fine, Lois Weis, Linda C. Powell and April Burns. New York, NY: Routledge.In applying his now classic approach formulated in concert with Michael Omi (Racial Formations, 1986), Howard Winant applies the 'racial projects' thesis to whites: 'I think it would be beneficial to attempt to sort out alternative conceptions of whiteness, along with the politics that both flow from and inform these conceptions. … focusing on five key racial projects, which I term, far right, new right, neoconservative, neoliberal, and new abolitionist' (2004: 6). Hence, Winant maps a theory of white identity formation onto a bifurcated 'culture war.' Labeling this phenomenon 'racial dualism as politics,' Winant advances a paradigm in which whiteness is undergoing 'a profound political crisis.' Winant's essay is especially important for those that wish to emphasize the heterogeneity of white racial identity, as he provides Weberian‐like 'ideal types' for the comprehension of the racial‐political landscape.Hughey, Matthew W. (forthcoming 2010). 'Navigating the (Dis)similarities of White Racial Identities: The Conceptual Framework of "Hegemonic Whiteness."'Ethnic & Racial Studies.In this work, I build upon many of the aforementioned studies. Like Pamela Perry (2002) I dive into two ethnographic sites, but of much different breed. To interrogate how whiteness might be akin to 'vapor and ice' (Duster 2001) and to provide a robust answer to the dilemma of the 'long‐term staying power of white privilege' (McDermott and Samson 2005) alongside the 'political crisis' of whiteness (Winant 2004), I studied a white nationalist and white antiracist organization. Combining over fourteen months of field observations, in‐depth interviews, and content analysis of documents, I found that the varied political and overt ideological orientations of both groups masked striking similarities in how both groups made meaning of whiteness. In particular, these similarities were guided by a collective reliance on reactionary, racist, and essentialist scripts, latent worldviews – and like Wray (2006) – symbolic boundaries. The realization that there remains a shared 'groupness' to outwardly different white identities has the potential to destabilize the recent trend that over‐emphasizes white heterogeneity at the expense of discussion of power, racism, and discrimination. As a resolution to this analytic dilemma, this article advances a conceptual framework entitled 'hegemonic whiteness.' In this model, white racial identity formation is understood as an ongoing process in which (1) racist, reactionary, and essentialist ideologies are used to demarcate inter‐racial boundaries and (2) performances of white racial identity that fail to meet those ideals are marginalized and stigmatized, thereby creating intra‐racial distinctions within the category 'white.'White supremacy & nationalismDobratz, Betty A. and Stephanie L. Shanks‐Meile 1997. The White Separatist Movement in the United States: 'White Power, White Pride!' Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.This is a good place to begin with the study of the white separatist, nationalist, and supremacist movements in the United States. The book is primarily descriptive and quickly debunks the stereotype that the movement is tied to an uneducated and Southern cadre of disenfranchised men. The authors interviewed more than 125 white separatists, attended white power rallies and other white separatist meetings, and examined much of the movement‐generated literature. A major strength of the text is the demonstration of key divisions within the white supremacist movement, most notably religious ideology and views toward gender. However, this high note is often bookended by their overdependence on journalistic‐like description rather than sociological explanation.Zeskind, Leonard. 2009. Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream. New York, NY: Farrar Straus Giroux.This book is a critical companion to Dobratz and Shanks‐Meile (1997). Beginning in the 1950s and taking the reader into the contemporary moment, the text affords a sprawling account of the shifting currents in white nationalism. In both meticulous detail and incredible breadth, the 645‐page tome was composed from Zeskind's 15‐year‐long research of the white nationalist movement – describing in detail how the movement has somewhat successfully moved from the shadows of a stigmatized racist identity to wear the mask of a more 'button‐down' and gentile white nationalism.Ferber, Abby L. 1998. White Man Falling: Race, Gender, and White Supremacy. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.Abby Ferber does an excellent job of illuminating white nationalist publications like White Patriot and White Power to clarify not only the racial, but the intersectional weltanschauung of white male nationalists. In so doing, Ferber demonstrates how the concept of 'race' has evolved alongside the development of the white supremacist and nationalist movements. Ferber's empirically based critique unpacks the still‐growing ideological assertion that white men are now the quintessential victims of the social order, and she convincingly demonstrates the repercussions of their attempts to re‐assert white male power. I would be remiss if I did not also point the reader to her follow‐up study: Home‐Grown Hate: Gender and Organized Racism (New York, NY: Routledge, 2004). Other notable mentions in this vein include Kathleen Blee's Inside Organized Racism: Women in the Hate Movement (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002) and Jessie Daniels'White Lies: Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality in White Supremacist Discourse (New York, NY: Routledge, 1997).Berbrier, Mitch 2000. 'The Victim Ideology of White Supremacists and White Separatists in the United States.'Sociological Focus 33: 174–91.In much the same vein as Ferber, Mitch Berbrier demonstrates how white victimization ideologies are a growing, but not yet central, facet of white supremacist and separatist organizing. Rather, discourses of racial victimization are put to the service of larger concerns in white supremacist activism: for example, either to activate a sense of urgency in the perceived loss of white racial pride and self‐esteem, or to convince outsiders (and potential members) that they are living in time of white 'genocide.' I also recommend Berbrier's 1998 Social Problems article entitled '"Half the Battle": Cultural Resonance, Framing Processes, and Ethnic Affectations in Contemporary White Separatist Rhetoric.'White antiracismBonnett, Alastair 2000. Anti‐Racism. London and New York, NY: Routledge.This is a valuable text for those wishing to understand both the historical trajectory of, and current variation within, the antiracist movement. Bonnett first traces anti‐racism's philosophical historicity through thinkers such as Comte, Montaigne, and Du Bois. After delineating the theoretical underpinnings of the movement, Bonnett then outlines the spatial variation of antiracism to uncover the networked relationships between Brazil, China, France, the US, and the UK, to name just a few examples. In this vein, while the text does not explicitly focus on white anti‐racism, a large portion of the book directly challenges the dominance of the Eurocentric variations of anti‐racism, as it even briefly surveys the outgrowths of anti‐racism in the form of multiculturalism, anti‐Nazi/anti‐fascist movements, and the 'local' activist organizations that purport to represent marginalized communities. While the book takes on a large subject matter, its relatively small size often falls short of giving each subject the attention it deserves. Still, the book serves as an excellent overview.Apthecker, Herbert 1993. Anti‐Racism in U.S. History: The First Two Hundred Years. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.Like Bonnett's text (2000), this book does not explicitly center on white antiracism, but much of the examples used by the late Marxist historian are drawn from white abolitionists and activists. In fact, recovering the lost history of whites whom rejected racist rationales for the 'peculiar institution' of slavery and in turn, evidenced a remarkable degree of racial egalitarianism, appears the impetus for Aptheker's decision to compose the book. Overall, the text remains a tour de force of the pervasiveness of both white racism and its white resistance, as it covers the intersection of racism, sexuality, labor, the political ideologies of Grégoire, Banneker, & Jefferson, religion, the effects of the civil war, and emancipation.Srivastava, Sarita 2005. '"You're Calling me a Racist?" The Moral and Emotional Regulation of Antiracism and Feminism.'Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 31(1): 29–62.This article demonstrates how the dominant practices and discourses of emotional expression shape antiracist debates over what constitutes a proper antiracist approach. By showing how the predominant mode of discussion in many antiracist organizations is hinged to the disclosure of personal experiences and emotion, Srivastrava demonstrates that this mode constricts the ability to produce organizational or structural change. Accordingly, white antiracist discussion groups often devolve into a setting in which the focus shifts from fighting racism to that of quelling the emotional turbulence of white participants – a pattern that unintentionally reestablishes a focus on white well‐being and privilege.Niemonen, Jack June 2007. 'Antiracist Education in Theory and Practice: A Critical Assessment.'The American Sociologist 38(2): 159–77.With critical aplomb, Jack Niemonen interrogates the pedagogical, curricular, and organizational claims of 'antiracist education'– an endeavor largely tied to liberal, white, and 'multicultural advocates.' Operationalized through a study of approximately 160 papers recently published in peer‐reviewed journals, Niemonen finds that the dominant forms of 'antiracist education' are far from sociologically grounded, empirically based accounts of the significance of race, but 'embodies the confessional and redemptive modes common in evangelical Protestantism' (164). Picking up on a key contradiction endemic to a large percentage of white antiracist literature, whites are often framed as 'inherently racist' yet are prodded to constantly seek paths to redemption and salvation. Informing my own work, Niemonen demonstrates how antiracist educators often employ a myopic and reductionist 'culture war' view of the world in which battle lines are drawn between the 'good and bad' whites. Aside from the fact that Niemonen's scathing critique sometimes borders on a kind of evangelicalism in its own right, his overview of the literature does afford the prescient observation that a great deal of antiracist activism is built on abstract moralism rather than sociological empiricism.O'Brien, Eileen 2001. Whites Confront Racism: Antiracists and Their Paths to Action. New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.O'Brien's work is a survey of white antiracist activists from across North America. The book is a nice counterpoint to Niemonen's (2007) findings, as O'Brien finds that many white antiracists are quite savvy in their ability to avoid the typical options of 'being a nonracist' or devolving into emotional turmoil associated with 'white guilt'; many of the whites demonstrate large variation in how they combat modern racism. Of import, O'Brien shows that these whites' affiliations with antiracist organizations – and even their lack thereof – can play a crucial role in their approach to their antiracist activism. As such, O'Brien shows that a more critical white antiracist approach is evolving; one that frames race as a 'social construction' and which unpacks the individual, institutional, and cultural forms of racism.Online materialsPublic Broadcasting Service, 'Race – The Power of an Illusion' http://www.pbs.org/race/000_General/000_00‐Home.htm Starting from the supposition that 'Race is one topic where we all think we're experts', the series, readings, video, and ability to directly ask questions of experts in the field (e.g.: historian George M. Fredrickson and biological anthropologist Alan Goodman) together help to debunk many of the core beliefs that undergird the modern white supremacist and nationalist movement. In so doing, the program helps to show how social, economic, and political conditions, rather than biological make‐up, disproportionately channel advantages and opportunities to whites.Public Broadcasting Service, 'From Swastika to Jim Crow' http://www.pbs.org/itvs/fromswastikatojimcrow/index.html The website includes a video, discussion guide, and multi‐chaptered narrative on the little‐known story of German refugee scholars, who were expelled from Nazi Germany, migrated to the United States south and faced oppression from US white supremacists, and found employment at historically black colleges and universities. The resources therein illuminate the intricate web of politics, migration, nationalism, the contextual construction of racial and ethnic identity, and racism & antiracism.'Racism Review' http://www.racismreview.com/blog/ Launched in 2007, 'Racism Review' is produced and maintained by Joe R. Feagin (Texas A&M University) and Jessie Daniels (CUNY‐Hunter College). Contributors to the blog are scholars and researchers from sociology and a number of other social science disciplines across North America. Many of the articles center on the topics of white racial identity, racism, and antiracism, and aim to serve as credible and reliable sources of information for journalists, students, and members of the general public who seek evidence‐based research and analysis.Southern Poverty Law Center http://www.splcenter.org/index.jsp The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was founded in 1971 as a small civil rights law firm, and today the website for the SPLC is internationally known as a clearing‐house for critical information, and perspectives on, white supremacist and white nationalist groups.Sample syllabus'Sociological Perspectives on Whiteness'Overview of the courseThis course investigates the social construction of race through an exploration of white identity, both theoretically and empirically. It includes an investigation of the historical genesis of white identity, its intersection with political movements and organizations, the relation of whiteness to race, ethnicity, class, gender, nation, and how whiteness is understood in popular culture, and the sociological mechanisms by which it is reproduced, negotiated, and contested.Lecture 1 – Introduction to Race as a Social ConstructionHaney López, Ian F. 1998. 'Chance, Context, and Choice in the Social Construction of Race.' Pp. 9–16 in The Latino/a Condition: A Critical Reader, edited by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic. New York, NY: New York University Press.Urciuoli, Bonnie 1996. 'Racialization and Language.' Pp. 15–40 in Exposing Prejudice: Puerto Rican Experiences of Language, Race, and Class. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Duster, Troy 2001. 'The 'Morphing' Properties of Whiteness.' Pp. 113–133 in The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness, edited by E. B. Rasmussen, E. Klinenberg, I. J. Nexica and M. Wray. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Lipsitz, George 1998. 'The Possessive Investment in Whiteness.' Pp. 1–23 in The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.Lecture 4 – The Creation of 'White Ethnics'Jacobson, Matthew Frye 2001. 'Becoming Caucasian: Vicissitudes of Whiteness in American Politics and Culture.'Identities 8(1): 83–104.Roediger, David R. 1994. 'Whiteness and Ethnicity in the History of "White Ethnics" in the United States.' Pp 181–198 in Towards the Abolition of Whiteness. New York, NY: Verso.Sacks, Karen Brodkin 1994. 'How did Jews Become White Folks?' Pp 78–102 in Race, edited by Steven Gregory and Roger Sanjek. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Roediger, David R. 1999. 'Irish‐American Workers and White Racial Formation in the Antebellum United States.' Pp 133–163 in The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class. New York, NY: Verso.Lecture 6 – Colorlessness and Color‐blindness as a Defense of WhitenessAnsell, Amy E. and James M. Statman 1999. '"I Never Owned Slaves:" The Euro‐American Construction of the Racialized Other.'Research in Politics and Society 6: 151–73.Gallagher, Charles A. 2003. 'Playing the White Ethnic Card: Using Ethnic Identity to Deny Contemporary Racism.' Pp. 145–158 in White Out: The Continuing Significance of Racism, edited by Ashley Doane and Eduardo Bonilla‐Silva. New York, NY: Routledge Press.Bonilla‐Silva, Eduardo. 2003. 'The Central Frames of Color‐Blind Racism.' Pp. 25–52 in Racism Without Racists. New York, NY: Rowman and Littlefield.Lecture 7 – Learning WhitenessConley, Dalton. 2001. 'Universal Freckle, or How I Learned to Be White.' Pp. 25–42 in The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness, edited by Birgit Brander Rasmussen, Eric Klinenberg, Irene J. Nexica, and Matt Wray. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Giroux, Henry A. 1998. 'Youth, Memory Work, and the Racial Politics of Whiteness.' Pp 123–36 in White Reign: Deploying Whiteness in America, edited by Joe L. Kincheloe, Shirley R. Steinberg, and Nelson M. Rodriguez, and Ronald E. Chennault. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press.Hall, Kim Q. 1999. 'My Father's Flag.' Pp. 29–35 in Whiteness: Feminist Philosophical Reflections, edited by Chris J. Cuomo and Kim Q. Hall. New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.Williams, Patricia J. 1997. 'The Ethnic Scarring of American Whiteness.' Pp. 253–63 in The House that Race Built: Black Americans, U.S. Terrain, edited by Wahneema Lubiano. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.Lecture 12 – Whiteness in Popular Culture and Everyday LifeDeloria, Philip 1999. Playing Indian. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Hughey, Matthew W. 2009. 'Cinethetic Racism: White Redemption and Black Stereotypes in "Magical Negro" Films.'Social Problems 56(3): 543–77.Lott, Eric 1995. Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Lecture 13 – White Privilege and the Future of White PeopleHaney López, Ian F. 1998. 'Choosing the Future.' Pp. 404–7 in The Latino/a Condition: A Critical Reader, edited by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic. New York, NY: New York University Press.Winant, Howard 2001. 'White Racial Projects.' Pp 97–112 in The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness, edited by Birgit Brander Rasmussen, Eric Klinenberg, Irene J. Nexica, and Matt Wray. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.West, Cornel 1997. 'I'm Ofay, You're Ofay: A Conversation with Noel Ignatiev and William "Upski" Wimsatt.'Transition 73(7): 176–98.Yúdice, George 1995. 'Neither Impugning nor Disavowing Whiteness Does a Viable Politics Make: The Limits of Identity Politics.' Pp. 255–85 in After Political Correctness: The Humanities and Society in the 1990s, edited by Christopher Newfield and Ronald Strickland. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.[The construction of this syllabus is indebted to Bethany Bryson (James Madison University), Wende E. Marshall (University of Virginia), and Jennifer Roth‐Gordon (Brown University)]

Issue 39.2 of the Review for Religious, March 1980. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published bi-monthly (every two months), is edited in collaboration ~;ith faculty members of the Department of Theology of St. Louis University. The'editorial offices are located at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis, MO 63108. It is owned 'by the Miffsouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri, © 1980. By REVIEW t,'OR REIA(;~OUS. Composed. printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at ~;t. Louis. Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A.: $8.00 a year: $15.00 for two years. Other countries: $9.00 a year. $17.00 for two years. For subscription orders or change of address, write REvt~-:w t:o~ REt,~(;lOUS: P.O. Box 6070: Duluth. Minnesota 55802. D:~niel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read .Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor March, 1980 Volume 39 Number 2 Correspondence with the editor and the associate editors, manuscripts and hooks for review should be sent to Rt:vlt:w volt Rt:lA~;~o'us; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answer~ing should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19131. "Out of print" issues and articles not re-issued as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 North Zeeb Road; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Spirituality and Theology Alan Jones Father Jones, an Episcopal priest, is Professor of Ascetical Theology and Director of the Center for Christian Spirituality; 175 9th Ave.; New York, NY 10011. His last article in these pages, "Obedience in' the Conteinporary World," appeared in the May, 1978, issue. Non abundantia scientiae sed sdntire et gustare rein internam. (Saint Ignatius Loyola) Dogmatic and mystical theology, or theology and "spirituality," are not to be Set apart in mutually exclusive categories, as if mysticism were for saintly women and theological study were for practical but, alas, unsaintly men. This fallacious division perhaps explains much that is actually lacking both in theology and spirituality. But the two belong together. Unless they are united there is no fervor, no life and no spiritual value in theology, no substance, no meaning and no sure orientation in the contemplative life.' One of the g~'eat privileges of the sabbatical system is that it not only affords the professor an opportunity to follow a particular line of research, but it also enables him to "feel and to taste the inner thing" of his subject. When it comes, however, to the subject known as mystical theology, there is som~ dispute as to whether there is anything either to feel or taste! All I can say is that after my sabbatical, I have felt and tasted Something that might well be a subject. I feel defensive, however, on two fronts. The first is the enormity and depth of the subject itself. The second is the suspicion, odium, and contempt in which the subject has been held by some theologians over the years. The first problem is more easily overcome than the second, for every scholar in whatever subject must, at various times, be overwhelmed by his inadequacy to ' Thomas Merton, Seeds of Contemplation (1972), pp. 1"97-8, quoted in Andrew Louth, Theology and Spirituality (Fairacres Publication 55, 1978), p. 4. 161 162 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 19~80 / 2 plumb its depths. This gives me a certain comfort. The second problem, however, is of more practical concern and is~more difficult to overcome. The cleavage between theology and devotion is surely a fake one, although some fakes and frauds have a wonderful way of pretending to be real. The ugly breach (albeit based on a false dichotomy) between "the intellectual" and "the affective" over the centuries has done serious damage to both. Lo~,e is blind; the intellect is a cripple--so runs a classic image. In order for both to progress according to this. image, the intellect sits on the shoulders of the affections and guides them while the affections give feet to the intellect. In the same way, theology and spirituality belong together. Andrew Louth writes: So spirituality.[is] that which keeps theology to its proper vocation, that which prevents theology from evading its own real object. Spirituality does not exactly answer the question, Who is God? but it preserves the orientation, the perspective, within which this question remains a question that is being evaded or chided.Spirituality is necessary to theology to keep il in its proper vocation. The converse also seems .to be true, that theology is necessary to spirituality to keep, it to its proper vocation . The danger of a non- or un-theological spirituality is.that it will tend to become a mere cult of devotion.~ The immediate occasion of these thoughts which have been sitting in the back of my mind for some time was a casual remark in a letter from a dean of a seminary concerning the possibility of ~ colleague of mine doing some teachi.ng there,in the area of spirituality. In the middle of his friendly letter there was a well-aimed barb. While he welcomed my colleague's coming to the seminary, he was not sure that his faculty would r~egard Christian Spirituality as a discrete discipline. Now this is harmless enough. Fair game, one might say, in academic circles.' Still, underneath the joking there is a vein offseriousness. In other words, I take seriously the phony breach betweeri head and heart," between "theology" and "devotion." But 1 am even more concern~ed by the fact that this so-called bre~ch is thought to be real~ by at least some theologians. The idea has come abotit that the gap has always been there and always w, iil be. Of cohrse we have to bri~dge it occasionally, but this is usually done in the privacy of ou~" schizoid selves when we say one thing and do anotheL The gap, though,~ has to be obliterated, not just bridged, one way or another, and 1 would like to see it destroyed first in the intellectual realm itself.~ ~ ISOuth, op. cit., p. 4. o ' This is where both recent scholarship and the Christian mystical tradition might,.h~lp us. The books which set me. going on this subject were. R. C. Zaehner's Gifford Lectures for 1967-69, Concordant Discord (Oxford University Press, 1970), [this is a strange rag-bag of a book, polemical yet urbane, containing some brilliant insights]; William Johnston's The Inner Eye of Love (Collins,-1_978), which is the.first rece'ni attempt that I know of to argue for the recognition of mystical theology as "a discrete discipline"; Bernard Lonergan's Method of Theology (Dartbn, Spirituality and Theology One might start" by asking whether academic the61ogy itself is a,.discrete discipline. As Andrew Louth points out: ° Academic theology., needs some understanding of its own inner coherence to justify ~ . itself at all as an academic d~sophne, otherwise the several d~sclphnes ofwh ch t consists really themselves belong not together but to other wider disciplines." Without Jesus Christ as a principle of coherence th~ Old Testament just a collection Of semitic writings, the New Testamen a collec~tionof Jeffish and Hellenistic ~Je~vi~sh writings of the first century, and early'Christian doc.- trine a mere st'rand in the history"of ideas?ol~ Ithe later Roman Empire; s~irituality empha.sizes the "principle of coherenc, e" which holds together a seminary cufricultim. Theology serves spirituality .by rescuing it'from a chronic subjectivism. It is tragic when theology a~ad spirituality aredi'vided. Wird Christus Tausendmal zu Bethleh6~n geboren Und nicht in dir, du bleibst doch ewigli~h verloren. (Though Christ in Bethlehem a thousand t!mes was born But not in thee, in all eternity, thou art~forlorn.}6 ¯ ,Tr~ue, but,dangerous, "for without any, corre~cting influence the 'Christ born in me' will become the sort of Christ who can!be born in me. He will tend toAose the historical lineaments of the first-.centur~y~Jgw he was. He will lose his strangeness.He will cease to be the.one~who confronts us in his~sovereign individuality ~.A_c_a~emic the~ology, the dispassionate study of the witness of Jesus of.Nazareth, can provide~that corrective?'' ,This is why we learn Greek. "The strange language.is a symbol of t.he:~strangen~ss of thought that must be passed through before we can understand the GoSpels aright_.':a Longman, & Todd, l~70),~which' provides a method by which such a discipline Can be reestab-lished;:'~ and 'finally, Richard 'of' S(." Victor's" Benjamin' Mino'r~ Benjamin Major'and The Four Stages in the Mystical Ascent (in Clare Kirchbe?ger's Richard bf Stl Victor." Selected Writings on Contemplation, Faber and Eaber, 1957; also M~igne'.s~P,.L.CXCVI). The latter author I consider impbrtant as one who has managed to I~eal the breach between theology and devotion, even though the Victorines tended to side w~th Bernard against Abelard. All four books helped me r~discoVer the fact that there ts such~a subject as mystical theology! ' Lofith,~op. cit., p. 10. - '~Somemight, take exception to this since "the Old ~Testament revelation has an,integrity of its own, independ~ent of the New, as the flourishing Jewish religious c0mmuni~y of our time testifies. The Old Testament is the matrix of Christianity, and is essential for Christianity's identity and S~lf-definition whereas Chri~ianity'is ~n~t simiiarl~, essentiaj for Judaism" (fro~ Dr. J~.mes Carpenter's response to the first draft of this paper). I am in complete agreement with hi~ her~, bui m~' poini was not io disparage the Old Testafiaent revelation as far as Jews are Concerned, but simply to affirm that I cometo.the Old Testament in and through the light of the Christian revela-tion. Dr. Carpenter's trenchant and illuminating comments on the first.draft were helpful in my making this revision, and 1 gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to :him. ~ Louth, op, cit., p: 10: " ~ Ibid., p. I 1. ~ Hoskyns Cambridge Sermons, 1938, p.xxiii. ,. ' ° 164 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 Let us first take a brief look at the roots of the apparent conflict:. The disastrous cleavage between theology and religiousexperience goes right back, of course, to the beginnings of the struggle to articulate Christian belief. The formal "break," which has never really been healed, came, I suspect, at~he time ~)f the Renaissance and Reformation. For me, though,°it is sym-bolized in the earlierconflict between Abelard ~nd Saint Bernard. Ts-hy sym-bolized, because it would not be historically accurate to in~,est these two men with the rigidqualities ! am ascribing to them. Abelard represents theology. He was the proto-scholastic, whose unchastened intellect led'to his ruin. Saint Bernard represents affective piety, the burning heart devoted to God in prayer. Even though Saint Bernard won the first battle of the'campaign, it was Abelard, i believe, who won the war. The conflict resolved itself in two systerris in the thi~ieenth century: that of Saint Thomas Aquinas and that.of Saint Bonaventure. But who has heard of Saint Bonaventure's system apart from those few who are either medieval historians or students of mystical theology? Now, l know that what It have 'written here is somewhat of a caricature. Abelard, ifi places, reveals "a remarkable balance between in-tell'ect and feeling;''9 Saint Bernard, at times, seems to be devoid of feeling altogether., In reality, though, there was no real victor. Theology,became merely the tool of.the roving intellect. Bernard enjoyed ~nly a Pyrrhic ,victory. Abelard representedsomething vital to the healthy development of piety, that is, a probing and critical intelligence. Without theology, devotion was to go its own way. Without devotion, theology was to dry up and become, in Zaehner's words, "the plaything of desiccated mandarins.'''° Louis M. Martz sums up the situation in this way: During the Middle Ages .the scholastics threw a deep s~hadow over the affective life, a shadow which led some, such as Thomas a Kempis and his Brethren of the Common Life, to renounce scholastic subtletie§ as the brood of folly and the bitterlfruit of that curios~tas which St. Bernard denounced as the father of sin." I do not want tO paint too bla~k a picture. Nor do I want to reject Abelard. It was not _all bad, and there w~ele some .6otable men who were both brilliant scholars ahd committed contemplatives, Jean le Charlier de Gerson (1363-1429) for example, of whom most people have never heard! He wrote a synthesis, On the Mountain of Contemplation, the power of which was.such that it was cited b~, Richard Baxter in The Saints Everlasting Rest (1653): "Read'this you Libertines, and learn better the way of de+otion from a Papist." '~ Dorothy Sayers, writing about the problems of understanding Danters ~ James Carpenter. ~ ,~ ' ~o Zaehner, op. cit., p. 280. ~' Louis L. Martz, The Poetry of Meditation, a study in English Religious Literature of the Seventeenth-Century (N. ew Haven: Yale University Press, 1954, revised 1962), p. 11.2. ~ Ibid., p. 169, quoted from The Saints Everlasting Rest (1650), part IV., Spirituality and Theology / 165 Divine Comedy today has three things to say whic,h are germane to the discus-sion in hand: , . first, theReformatio~, which tended to substitute an infallible Book f6r that of a liv-ing and infallible Chur~ch; fpllowed by the Counter-Reformation whic~h tended to make doctrine a more rigid, and inelastic thing--to objectify an~d pigeonhole it, and to take as one,may say, 'the poetry out of it.' Secondly, there was a growing obsession with scien-tific method, leading men to discount all values which whre not (in .the modern sense) "~scientific," so that no truth was held to be true if it could not be tested in the~labofatory. A third point., is the increasing segregauon of specialists in th6r own specialties, so that the scientist is not expected to study theology nor the ttieologtan to study scmnce, nor either of them to be an artist or a poet. ~ Dorothy Sayers' third point is, perhaps the most telhng from the point of view of this PaPer. Over-specialization has made ,us mistake the fake breach for a genuine one. We are like the heretics Farinata.' and Celvalcanti trapped in the same tomb in the Inferno, yet each oblivious iof the other's presence. It was not always so. For Anglicaris the seventeenth-century was a period when the basic unity between the cognitive and affective was affirmed. It can be seen in the Caroline divines and in the metaphysical, poets. The coming together of the intellectu~il and the affective is summed up in a characteristi-cally seventeenth-century word, sensibility: the union of thought and feeling. In the nineteenth centuWroyr,d s"w "o~rt h w a s c o n 'cerned with. developing the "feeling intellect." In Catholicism the split was formally repudiated during the Counter- ;Reformation and the establishment-of-seminaries after the Council of Trent with their curricula which divided theology up to include ascetical, ~mystical, and mor~l departments. I do not believe the repudiation went very deep, but there was, at least, some attempt to deny the gap.~Classical Protestantism, of course, had no u'~e for mysticism whatsoever, and it is interesting to find Richa~'d Baxter trying to justify papist practices of meditation to the puritans. Asceticism and mysticism of any kind suggested the terrible possiblity of earn-ing salvation. It smackedbf merit and not of grace. But how were the saints to grow in grace? Baxter tried to remedy the situaiion by producing the first puritan treatise 'on the art of methodical meditation to appear in England. Why did h~ want to see regialar meditation restored to puritan piety? Without meditation theology was mere theorizing. All the preaching, teaching, and reading is so much-dros~ if it be not internaliz~d,~if the inner reality is neither felt nor tasted. ~ | And why so much preaching is lost among us and profess rs can run from sermon to ser-mon, and are never weary of hearing or reading and yet have su~:h lariguishing, starred souls; 1 know of no truer or greater cause than their ~gnorance, and unconscionable neglect of Meditation." ~'Dorothy Sayers, Further Papers on Dante (Methuen, 1957), p. 88. " Martz, op. cit., p. 154. 166 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 Baxter was not entirely successful in persuading his puritan readers. Enthusiasm was the mark of the elect, rather than the practice of methodical mental prayeL This seems to be just as true today. All efforts at prayer and meditation wbre doomed to fail. One had simply to"w~it!on the mysterious opera~tions of the Holy Spirit. I m~ention this'because_the suspicions0concern-ing mys~ticism and mystical experience run very deep.-When ~hey are repressed they come out in some other form, as Baxter himself realized. The puritan was led "to' expect 0nly Enthusiastick Consolatiohs.'''~ The answer tO wild and pathological charismatic exi~eriences is a sound'~ syst.emati~ and mystical theology. That iswhy t6day, in the face of "religious experiences,'?we need to redevelop and rediscover criteria for judging them. I believe taking seriously ofl~e again th~ study of mystical theology will be a step ifi achieving this. , .~O_ften it has been believed that ~mysticism ~ran ~th~ot~gh Christianity li~e a streak of insanity in the family. Every generation or so a mad man appeared who had to be put away or ignored. This was the prevailing x~iew, for examlSle, of Brunner, who brilliafitly, if unconv'indn~gly, a~rgued the Protestant case againstmysticism. It was a Pelagian aberration, a neo-pl~itonic impurity sully-ing the integrity of Hel~raic ~eality. A wedge was placed between the so-called prophetic religions and the so-called mystical ones: MystiCal religion was passive, ihactive, .quietist, not interested in ~he, world ~nd its sufferings." Ironically, of course, prophetic experience in the Old'Te~tamen( as an im-mediate experience of the reality of God is my.stic~l. What was Moses if not a myStic? Nevertheless,~ the vtew has long prevatled that mystical and propheti~ r.ehglons were opposed to one another. Anghcans took th~s up just before and Well after the Second World War in the pursuit of wl~at ¢vas theft called "BiblicAl Theolo,.gy." Iremember my old profes.sbr, Alan'Richardso~, ~i~n- ~ sistin~ in his gen'tle way that Christianity was essentially ant~-mystical. ~Fh~ puzzl6d me greatly at the time since I had the tempe~rament which took mystic)sm as a given of human experience. Richard.sob, no doubt,~meafit mysticism in the Brunner sense (as essentially monistic add pantheistic), but Brunne~:'s hssessmen~ of mysticism ,~s so one-sided and limited as to be~ in the end, unconvincing. Mysticism's only real ally amon,_g P(otestant theologians, as far as I can make out, wag Tillich. Without theological" undergirdings, mysticism be6om~s, .in Richard Norris' marvelous phrase, little more than th'e building and furnishing of a private little "hacienda of the soul.'"' There has been no stern~ ~ritic, in the " Ib;id., p. 157. ' . '~ See his Bicentennial Lecture, "Hunting the Transcendent," unpublished, but available from the Center for Christian Spirituality. His iconoclasm with regard to spirituality is thorough. I think he gives, implicitly at least, what R.C. Zaehner asks of the theologian: i.e., "not a theology of the Death of God. but a theology of the death of self, the death of the human ~'person,' who is not only our old enemy, the ego., but also the ego~who has 'got religion' because:he thinks he has found the 'true' self." (Zaehner, op. cit., p. 208). ., . ,° Spirituality and Theology / "167 best sense, of mysticism/spirituality-- call it what you will -- than Dr. Norris. He has certainly helped and influenced me in moving towards a~more critical approach to the subject. His" own introductory lectures in Systematic Theology at theGeneral Theological Seminary of New York, (a course which I once shared with him) were undergirded by what I would call "mystical theology." His whole thesis revolved around the-uflcovering of the structure of a relationship between God and the world. Mystical theology is about nothiiigqf.it is not about that. ~ Nevertheless, there are enormous odds against developing a rigorous mystical theology. Traditions are hard to break. Anglicanism gets the worst of both worlds. From Western Catholicism it inherits the'ancient, if false, cleavage between tl~eology and devotion; from Protestantism, deep suspicions with regard to any systematic, disciplined devotional life. There is one final obstacle to look at before we examine the state of theology today and try to negotiate for the reacceptance of mystical.theology as.an object of serious study. It is the obstacle of a peculiar mind-set: hard, obdurate, pseudo-scientific, fundamentalist. By "fundamentalist" I refer not only to a crass literalism with regard to the Bible, but to a crass literalism towards all "facts." - It was not accidental to find, during my days as an.undergraduate; that the Christian fundamentalist students were often, studying~scientific subjects like zoology and biology: subjects of observation and classification. I believe.there is a kind of academic fundamentalism wtiich is just as infectious and insidious as a biblical fundamentalism. It tends to see" facts" as flat, o he-dimensional. This~fundamentalism finds it hard to acknowledge that there may be more than one level ot: truth, more than one way of looking at, reality~ Some early biblical critics, for example, were no less dogmatic in telling us what a par-ticular periscope signified than the fundamentalist. There is little or no sense, in this mind-set, of the value of symbols in pointing to the inexhaustibility of "facts." : Tobe fair, this mind-set goes with scientific technicians rather than with the ,brilliant scientist who, like Einstein,~can make intuitive leaps like the mystic. The best description I havre come across of this mind-set is that of Edmund Gosse °writing about the a~titude of his parents to the Bil~le. It should be remembered that his father, Henry Gosse, was a zoologist. It involved: a definite conception of the absolute, unmodified, and historical veracity, in its direct and obvious sense, of every statement contained within the cove~'~ of the Bible. Further, " - and for my fatli~r, nothing was symbolic, nothi.ng allegorical or allusive in any part of scripture. Both my parents, I think, were devoid of sympathetic imagination. Hence there wa.s no,mysticism about them. They went rather to the opposite extreme, to the cultivation oi" a rigid and iconoclastic literalness.'7 'Edmund Gosse, Father and Son (Penguin Books, 1907, revised 1970, pp. 49-50). 168 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 -Literalness of mind can attack the professor of any discipline, not least that of mystical theology. One has only to read Tanqueray and even Harton to realize how far the "~reification.of ideas" can go. Andditeralness is nowhere more dangerous than ~vhen dealing with "the anatomy of ~ouls." The question is, how do I harmonize (insofar as t want to) all my ex-periences, .all the bits and pieces of the self? I do not think it unreasonable of me to look to theology:.for guidance and help. My spiritual nourishment comes from all sorts of apparently strange places: the novels of Iris Murdoch, my downstairs neighbor banging away at the piano and singing at the top of his voice, our family meals, a stimulating lecture by a colleague, and a host of other things besides the more obvious,centers of Christian devotion. A rigid, literal mind will not help meointerpret and harmonize these differing experiences. Before'we mov~ on to examining what might be the structure and method of a mystical theology, let us look at.the study of theology as such. There has been a great deal written already about theological studies which suggests to me that mystical theology is being slipped in through the back door. Theology which is rooted in present experience or theology as biography suggest an ap-proach to theology-which sees it as a reflection on religious experience (which, to get ahead of myself, is William Johnston's definition of mystical theology). In other words, there is a tendency for theology to be experience-based. Theology is a living, reflective encounter with a living tradition, and not "an understanding which is~at several removes from, and well-insulated against, the reality of which the scriptures speak.'''8 1 think this is why there has been such a resurgence of interest in religious experiences of all kinds:=-some of them, it is true, dangerous and bizarre. The hunger, ,however, is'real enough. It is easy to see why the academic world so easily gets jaded, cynical, and tired. Frankly, we do'not have time to experience much, let alone reflect on it. Theology then becomes dealing with experiences always at second or third hand. A sabbatical such as mine provides an opportunity for what Charles Peguy called "pure reading." Pure readers are those "who read a work solely and simply for the sake of reading it or taking it in, to feed and nourish themselves on it as a precious foodstuff, in order to promote growthdn themselves, to promote their inner, organic~dignity, not at all to use it as something to work with, to promote one's social status in a secular society.'".9 Without this freedom to read and think for its own sake, the pleasure is sapped out of teaching. As R. C. Zaehner puts it, "The joy has turned into tedium, and it is the tedium that one is likely to transmit.''2° La chairest iriste, h~las!'" wrote Mallarme, et, j'ai lu tousles livres ("sad, sad, is the flesh, and 1 have read all those books"). Theology takes a certain amount of leisure, and leisure is ver.y expensive. It Trevor Ling, Buddha, Marx, and God (London: Macmillan, 1966), p. 197. Quoted in Zaehner, op. cir., p. 18. 2o Ibid. SpiritUality and Theology is, however, only meditative reflection that the mere curiositas which Saint Bernard railed against turns into astonishment and admiration. But admira-tion on its own will not do either.: Wonder needs an ihterpreter. Devotion needs theology, and that is why it simply~will not do to relegate mystical theology, to the rubbish heap, since_it_reappears in other._f.o.rms.(in-the-new jargon_~s ~f~co~t~xtu~al education and storytelling theology). Christian mysticism, insofar as it has been a mere interlope.r from Neo-Platonism,2' needs the severe censure of theology. When devotion is cut off from theology, curiositas does notomove towards admiration but to superstition. God becomes, for the theologian cut off, ,from devotion, a "pale, intellectual substitute for the God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob"; for the mystic, God becomes either a crazed Oriental despot or To Hen, the great blob into which he longs to be absorbed. |n fact, the deeper one goes into the realm of mystical experience, the more vital is the critical eye of theological discrimination. Devotion to the point of ecstasy . can lead to a terrible moral indifference. Detachment can easily degenerate into disassociation and the wild inflation of the ego. The "1" that has beenJannihilated becomes "God"! In the Bhagav.ad Gita (18:7) we read: "A man who has reached a state where there is no sense of 'l',.whose soul is undefiled--werehe to slaughter [all] these worlds--slays nothing. He is not bound."22 This has tremendous social implications, as more and more persons long for just such an experience which annihilates the "I"~. and therefore annihilates moral responsibility. The rise in mindless acts of violence and un-motivated crimes points to a religious, as well as sociological disease. Depth p~ychology has taught us that we cannot help acting out our inner ¯ life, and it would be just as well if ~'e were to know something about.it. We might even learn to cultivate it,.not in the Norrisian sense of tending our own little "hacienda," but in the sense of cooperating with, and even co-creating of, our inner life. I cannot do this without the critical discipline of theology. But ~there is a further implication because, not only does the individual live out his inner life, but that same inner life eventually overflows and floods into social forms. The Church, of course, has been left out in the cold in that it has found itself largely bankrupt to offer alternatives to the hungry masses who feed on the spiritual, supernatural, ~ind often superstitious banquet provided by the ambient culture. Theology has done httle to ~nterpret these ~mpulses or ~ to help people develop a discriminating palate with regard to the various ¯ delicacies available. That some of them are deadly is beyond question. The mass suicides of the followers of the Reverend Jim Jones in Guyana point to the literal deadliness of some forms of "religion." So it is not simply a.matter 2, See Zaehner, op. cir., pp. 14Iff. ~ Ibid., p. 231. Zaehner goes on to give the modern instance of a totally unmotivated murder com-mitted by one whose mind is "still, pellucid, and free from occupation" (Andrew Gide, Les Caves du Vatican). 170 / Review for,Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 of academic niceties. A strong, critical seminary faculty could mean a matter of life and dea~.~th,_.It coul~ave a,.strong-i~iv-'~'~'ffd:-~-~-diating-r~l~, par, ¯ ti-c~larly when it looks as if we.might be victimized inside the Church, as well as~without, by new fanaticisms and enthusiams. =, The reader may have'been,frustrated by the fact that I have gotten this far without, givinga definition of what Imean: by mysticism (except as "religious experience"). Dean Inge gave twenty-six definitions in his Christian Mysticism of 1899. Iread.that book (which is not about Christian mysticism at all, but about neo-Platonism), .but since 1899 there,~have been significanli developments to,warrant our adding a hundred more,to~,the "~gloomy dean's" twenty-six. William Johnston. has recently struggled¯ with this problem of definition in. his The Inner Eye of Love. ~ ~ o~' If we go back to the Middle Ages we find that there is no distinction be-tween mystical theology and mystical experience, Jean Gerson (1363-1.429), whom we have already mentioned, writes: Theologia mystica est experimen-talis cognitio habita de Deo,per amoris unitivi complexum (Mystical theology is.~xperimental knowledge of God through the embrace of unitive love).2~ From this Johnston points out. that 'Christian "mysticism,is wisdom Or knowledge that :is found through love; it, is loving knowledge.'??' It is also ex-perimental, knowledge. It is not abstract. It is personal. And as we shall see later, w.hen we take a brief look at Richard of St. ~Victor; mysticism comes to fruition only when it reaches out in love towards others and towards the world, .in what we would call social action or outreach.: Now in my plea for the redevelopment of the mystical theology, I do not wish to imply that nothing has :'been done to reflect theologically,~about mystical experienceiin a systematicway. Roman Catholics have been trying to do"this since,the thirteenth-century, and I have waded through the treatises of Poulain and Pourrat, ,Tanqueray and Garrigou-Lagrange. The trouble witch these works is,that~they are pre-Freudian and pre-Jungian in outlook. It seems to me that it would be hopeless to try to develop a mystical theology today without relying heavily on the insights of these two great pioneers. °.Johnston claims that. the call to loving contemplation is given to everybody. It is supremely human activity. He also affirms that mystical ex-perience (if we go deep enough) is "a passage to'the¯ordinary.''2~ I certainly found this true in my short month as a hermit. It was, quite simply, a move-ment into the wonder of the ordinary. Johnston relies heavily on Bernard Lonergan's, Method in Theology in order to find a definition for mystical theology. As .Lonergan writes, "Method is .not a set of rules to be followed metiEulously by a dolt. It is, a, framework for collaborative creativity.''~ Lonergan is searching for a "transcendental method" which seeks to include not only what is thought, See Johnston, op. cir., pp. 19ff. ~'.lbid~, p. 20. ~ Ibid., p. 37, Lonergan, op. cir., p. xi. Spirituality and Theology / 171 heard, and reflected~upon, but also who it is who thinks, hears, and reflects. Theology seeks a .place where we emerge as persons, meet one another in a common concern for values, seek to abolish the organization of human living'on the basis of competing e~oisms and to repla(e it by an organization on the'~iasis of mhn's pdri;eptiven~ss and intelligence, his reasonableness, and his responsible exercise'of freedom.2' ." ":' L~onergaii"goes o~'i0 define th.$o_Jl.qogy as "refl,ection on religion,"~while Johnstbn ~defines mystical theology_as reflection on mystical~experience. "M~,s'ticism is the experience{haystical theology is reflection on thig~:ex-perierice." 2s We need the latter to combat the ~endency to~anti~-in~elle~tua.lism today, particularly in areas where religidus exl~erience~is coficerned.'"We need," sa~'s Johnston, "to interpret mystical experiefice and fihdits meaning: We~ nebd to distinguish the ahthentic from the inauthentie. Then there is the practical need to guide people.''2~ ~" The data, then, of mystical theology are the experience of mysticism, past and present. The sources are the Bible and the varied witnesses of the Christian tradition. It is conc~erned with° research, texts, history, and doctrines, but is is interesting to note that when Lonergan comes to the foun-dation of theology as such, he speaks of reflection or conversion. ~o Mystical experience has always been the v~ery core of theology. The theology of the Fathers "welled up from their mystical experience. But [and this is very significant] it also led to mystical experience." ~' Johnston goes on to pinpoint the problem today: ~ ,~ The~great temptation of theologY' has always been to di{'orce itself from mystical ex-perience. This was a very real problem in the Middle Ages; and it is a very real problem today. Particularly so, since,m the:last, few centuries theology~has bee_n grea!lY pre- 0 . qccupied with controversial issues; has becomeoextrem~ ely~academic., .and has largely di~vgrced itself from spirituality. Contemplative experience has been relegated to the pious writers on pious books. This is scarcely a healthy situation; for a theology which is divorced from the inner experience of the theologian is arid and carries no conviction. ~' If Bernard l~onergan is rjgti~ ip t~hat the Present and the futurewill be characterized by "the switch to interiority" then we will need to heal the breach between devotion and theology if we are to speak to our generation. Can w~ speak not ofily from "a wealth of sound scholarship bu~ also from a° wealth of personal experience"?~ Johnston gloomily concludes that theologians as a breed s~em particularly resistant to conversion: "The~ theologians i'emain unregenerate.''~' I am not so pessimistic, for this has not Ibid., p. I0. Johnston, op. cir., p. 43, n. 1; Lonergan, op. cir., p. 267. ~ Johnston, op. cil. " Ibid., p. 58; Lonergan, op. cir., p. 130. Johnston, op. cir., p. 56. Ibid., pp. 56-57. ~ Ibid., p. 57. Ibid., p. 58. 172 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 been~my experience. When Alan Richardson rejected mysticism he was plainly advocating it in another sense. When Richard Norris points tothe dangers of what can so easily be a non-subject, he lectures about the God whose being is only uncovered in relationships. He lectures about love. When a seminary dean slips in.a "dig" abou.t discrete disciplines, he unrepentantl~ sees that this non-subject is given i~riority in the seminary curriculum. '.'As conversion is~b~sic to Christian living, so an objectification of,~conver-sion provides theology with its foundations.''3~ So writ.es Lonergan. Priority is being given, at least implicitly, to Lonergan's definition of theology as reflection or,conversion in its intellectual, . moral, and religious dimensions. The latter dimension is the concern of mystical theology. The converted per-son is like someone in love "without limits or qualifications or conditions or reservatio,ns;i'36 Lon.ergan's counsel to theologians is in the form of four "transcendental precepts": Be attentive. Be intelligent. Be reasonable. Be responsible. Later he insists on adding a fifth: Be in love.~7 Lonergan's counsel comes to me almost as a command, as an antidote to madness. Coleridge (and I wish I could locate the reference) delineated two kinds of madness: the moral and the epistemological. Moral breakdown seems easy to discern, but what about the epistemological breakdown where nothing means anything and every human longing and aspiration is relativized out of existence? There is a saying attributed to Saint Anthony: "A time is coming when meri will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying, 'You are mad, you are not like us.' ,,~8 What exactly do I mean by epistemological madness? It is a form of "in-sanity" which atta.cks true knowledge in two ways which are contradictory. " Lonergan, op. it., p. 130, see also,'p. 241; Johnston. op. cit., p. 58, n. I. -'~ Johnston, op. cit., p. 58;oLonergan, op. cir., p. 106. -" Johnston, op. cit., pp. 60, 61; Lonergan, op. cir., pp. 10ft. 1 do not have time, an such a short paper, to do justice to Lone~'gan. And I confess that it took Johnston's book to bring me to a sym-pathetic reading of Lonergan's. I had tried a few years ago and found it then indigestible! Lonergan goes on to say, "Now in a sense everyone knows and observes transcendental method. Everyone does so, precisely in the measure that he is attentive, intelligent, reasonable, responsible. But in another sense it is quite difficult to be at home in transcendental method, for that is not to be achieved by reading books or listening, to lectures or analyzing language. It is a matter of heightening one's consciousness by objectifying it, and that is something that each one ultimately, has to do in himself and for himself" (Lonergan, op. cit., p. 14). ~ The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, tr. Benedicta Ward, S.L.G. (Oxford: Mowbrays, Cistercian Studies #59, 1875), p. 5 §25. Spirituality and Theology The first way is to say that we can know absolutely nothing. Everything is relative. Nothing, in the end, signifies or matters. It is easy to see how'this form of madness leads to moral breakdown and corruption. The second way is to say that we can know' everything (at lea~t in principle). Knowledge is graspable and finite. This is manifested in the various ideali~sms, dogmatisms, and fundamentalisms which drive people mad. It is also easy to see how this leads to a moral bankruptcy of a different order: a bankruptcy of.legalism. Both ways of madness have a root cause: the lust for security (not unlike the two forms of gnosticism which were and are manifested in libertinism and rigorism). "Nagging doubts engender rigid certainties." One way invites us to get lost in a desert of nothingness of the°destructive kind. The other lures us into a jungle of moralism. Both are places where the human spirit soon dies. The dilemma is this: how to have something, to live for, an ideal, a goal, a vision, without our vision being deified, our ideal being the cloak for megalomania. There is a way to resolve.the dilemma. It is a hard way, however. It is the way of prayer. The Christian call to contemplation is an antidote to individual and collective madness, particularly to the epistemological madness, which is attacking our culture now. Lonergan's four precepts are, in effect, the structuring of an epistemology which covers our "knowing" from direct experience, to inquiry and under-standing, through reflection and judgment to decisive action. His sources and references are interesting--Horney, Maslow, Rogers, and Piaget. They all stress the social and historical character of human knowledge. Indeed, Lonergan is the first major theologian I have discovered who really takes the development of human consciousness seriously. Ironically, the only other place that I know of where there is an analogous.ascending scheme of epistemology is in mystical theology. There we begin with study, move into prayer, and end in contemplation. Most of what we call knowledge is really only the first form, study. It is very important and in no way to be despised. Contemplation is not simply the beholding of God in a non-vocal, non-discursive way. In the end, it is that. But it is also simply taking as large a view of things as possible: ltis a mode of knowing, a way of considering every kind of knowledge . It is a free and clear ~regard of the soul, directed to the object of knowledge, gathering in comprehensive-ly many single points, dwelling thoughtfully and poised in wonder upon its object.~9 Now tla~s is a contemplative method of approaching all knowledge. It is only a metho~l, not the method. Indeed, the analytical method is also very im-portant. But unless all our knowing points to a loving contemplative end we ar~ bound to fall into one or other of the traps of epistemological madness. ~ Kirchberger, op. cit., p. 39. '~ 74 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 We.will find Qurselves either;among the libertines or among the rigorists: the know-nothings or the know-it-alls. Contemplation does not require sacrificium intellectus sorightly feared by philosophers and theologians. It does, however, require sacrificing the primacy of theintellect. Contemplation requires its dethronement. It seeks to reverse [he process~of its reification and deification. The intelligentia (for the Victorines, for examp!e, who were Catholic humanists, fundamentally op-timistic about the human condition) is the instrument of the contemplative act, suspended, it is true, during ecstasy, but essential afterwards for integra-tion and interpretation. Intelligentia here is, of course,, not so much the naked intellect of discursive reasoning, but rather an intuitive vision, a sort of unitive principle at the heart of the intelligence which.seeks to harmonize experience. Richard of St. Victor, _for example, says that: the character of contemplation varies in three ways¯ Sometimes it effect~ an enlarging of the mind, sometimes a raising and sometimes an abstraction¯The enlarging of the mind is when the gaze of the soul expands widely and is intensely sharpened, but this in no way goes beyond the limit~of human effort. The raising of the mind is when the activity of the intelligence, d!vinely.i/lluminated, transcends the limits of human effort but does not go over into ecstasy, so that what is sees is above its powers but the soul does not withdraw from its accustomed way~ of knowing . Ecstasy is when the memory of things present withdraws from the mind and it moves by a transfiguration divinely wrought, into a state of soul attainable'by"hunian effort . The first is caused by human effort, the third only ¯ by divine grace, the middle one by a mingling of both, namely human industry and divine grace. Our concern here as theologians is with the first mode of contemplation, with the first step in the third mode in our ascending scheme of epistemology. Richard. goes on to tell his readers that this first step (the enlarging of the mind) . ¯ can be dev~eloped in,three.ways: by art, by exercise, by,a,ttention. We attain the art of' doing someihing when we learn how it is to be done either from good masters or by in-vestigation. The exercise is when we put into practice what we learnt of the art and make ourselves quick and e'~fective in carrying out this practice. Attention is whi:n we reflect . with effort on what we have carried out with great diligence . By these three degrees., the depth,,of mind is widened and made more apt for any kind of Aear~ning or skill." This is not a bad description of educational method as rooted in a move-ment of contemplation which leads into the great knowing of "unknowing," to the knowledge which is love. But, aswe have seen, even this mystical ecstasy is not the end, nor is itthe sole object of our spiritu~al life (the furni.shing of our hacienda!) There is one more act of sacrifice required. "T, he.,la~s~ self-surrender to.God is the surrender of the self-centered desire for Go~, and the final possession o~God on.earth :comes.in union, with Christ's fruit-bearing Ibid., pp. 183-184(Benjamin Major V, ch. II). Ibid., p. 186 (Benjamin Major V, ch. 111). Spirituality and Theolo~,y. /175 life of sacrifice and gervice to the brethren and all 'mankind.'''2 The end of Christian contemplation, then, is always compassion. Presumably it is also the end of theology. As Lonergan says, man achieves authenticity in self-transcendence. One canlive in a world, have a horizon, ~ just in the meastJre that one is not locked up in oneself. As the question of God is ~mpllClt ~n all our questlomng, so being ~n love with God ~lS the basic fulfdlment of our conscious intentionality.'" ~ ~ I fully acknowledge the tendency of~.this strange subject to be.~a parasite on the backs~of the other disciplines. It seems to encroach on territory not its own~ Itcan be annoyin~ and vague and at the same' time'arrogant and preten-tious. It needs help an, d understan~ding ~f itis no(to be a Cuckoo lhying its eggs in the meticulous and well-constructed nests of others. In a way, Christian ~pirituality does not have a separate existence of its own. It exists only in rela-tion to other disciplines, but I would like to see it develop symbiotic rather than parasitic relationships. I repeat, the final end of Christian mysticism is compassion. In Richard of St. Victor's De Quatuor gradibus violentae caritatis (notice here that love is passionate!) he writes that there are four stages in the mystical ascent. There is knowledge of self (meditation). Then there is the ascent to God (contempla-tion). Thirdly there is absorption into God(whichRichard calls jubilation and which, alas, often gets identified as thepoint of mysticism). Fourthly, there is the going forth from God (compassio~n),." In the first degree, God enters into the s~ul and she turns inward into herself. In the second, she ascends above herself and is lifted up to God. In the third the soul, lifted up to God, passes over altogether into-him. In ~he fourth the s0ul gbes forth on God's behalf and descends below herself. In the first she enters~into h'~rsblf, in the second she goes forth from herself. In the first she reaches her own life, in the third she reaches God. In the first she goes forth on her own behalf, in the fourth she goes forth because of her neighbor. In the~ first' ~lie enii~rs in by meditationl.in the secondshe ascends bylcoi~templa-tion, in the third she is led into jubilation, in thefourth: ~she goes out by co~npassion." Theologyi~pushed by!its own p~o~bihg anffliv~ely'fin, certainties, ends either with compassion or with despair and cynicism. , Just as unrestricted questioningis our capacity for sdf-transcendence, so being in love in ~ an unrestricted fashion is the proper fulfillment of that capacity. That fulfillment is not the product of our kno.wledge and choice. On the contrary, it dismantles and abolishes the horizon in which our knowing and choosing went on and it sets up a new horizon in which the love of God will transvalue our values and the eyes of that love will transform our knowing.'~ _, But the very experience of transcendence raises the very issues which theology must continually face. Ibid., p. 46. Kirch'berger, op. cit., p. 224. '~ Lonergan, op. cit~, pp. 104-105. '~ Lonergan, op. cir., p. 106. 176 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 Man's response to transcendent mystery is adoration . Accordingly, which mystery is not to be confused with problem, the ongoing contexts within whic~ mystery is adored and adoration is explained are anything'~ut free from problems.", Academic theology comes into its own' by probing those experiences which otherwise would rob Christianity of its giveness and strangeness.~ Rigorous theo!ogy saves Christi~.nity from becoming domesticated and f~mili~ar. Le! me end with a quotation from Diadochus Photic~:. . the theologian tastes something of the experie_nce of the contemplative, provided he is humble; and the contemplative will little by little know something of the power of speculation, if he keeps the d~isce~rning part of his soul free from error. But the two gifts are rarel§ found to the same degree in the same person, so that each may wonder at the other's abundance, and thus humility may increase in each." Ibid., pp. 344-345. " Louth, op. cir., p. 14. Now Available As A Reprint The "Active-contemplative" Problem in Religious Life by David M. Knigh~t Price: $.75 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious Rm 428 ¯ 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Celibate Friendship Brian O'Leary, S.J. Father O'Leary is a staff-member of Manresa House; Dollymount; Dublin, 3; Ireland. He characterizes the present article as complementary to his first one, ~'Reflections on Apostolic Celibacy" (May, 1979), "dealing with the horizontal dimension where the other dealt with the vertical." One of the difficulties with using the word celibacy in the context of religious life is that .the primary meaning of the word is negative: abstinence from marriage, or the unmarried life, the state of .non-marriage. But if con- ~secrated celibacy is agift from God, then it cannot be so~ethi~.n.g negative. At most it :can have a negative aspect or side effect, aconcomitant frustration or ~'painful limitation. But the gift itself must be positive. Religious celibacy is for living, for loving. It has everything to do with interpersonal relationships: with the God of Abraham, 1.saac and Jacob; with Jesus, :the enfleshed and full revelation of that God; with peopib, men and women, near and far, good and evil. It has to do with love received and love given; with life lived to the full through carin~ and being cared fore through reachir~g o~ut and being reached out to, through c6mmitment to people and having peop!e committed to us. Our relationships with God and with people ai'e closely intertwined. Our Iexperience of being loved by God and loving God is somehow dependent on o~" exp'erience of being loved by people and loving people. St. John wrote: "Anyone who says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, is a liar, since a man who does not love the brother that he can see cannot love God, whom he has never seen" (I Jn 4:20). We can also argue! a man Who does not experience the love of his brother whom he can see, cannot experience love of God whom he has never seen. We need to give and receive a love which is tangible in order to give and receive a love which is !ntangible. Remembei" the lines ot: William Blake: 177 178 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, .1980 / 2 i looked for my soul but my soul 1 could not see. 1 looked for my God but my God eluded me. I looked for a friend and then l found all three. ~ Religious are not usually exempt from this dependence on human love and friendship in their seai'ch for God. Celibacy itself, far from lessening our need of the experience of love, is offering us a greater freedom in loving, and conse-quently a greater facility in finding God. This latter ideal is well expressed in the Autobiography of St. Ignatius where we read: His devotion, that is, his ease in finding God, has always continued to increase and now more than in his whole life. Each time and hour that he wanted to find God~ he found him? This is the experience of a lover, but of one whose love had been purified since the immature days of his young manhood when his love for God and people had leaned more to the fanciful than the real. Describing his convalescence from his war wounds received :at Pampl.ona he says: Of the many vain things that presented themselves to him, one took such a hold on his heart that he was absorbed in thinking about it for two or three or four hours without realizing it: he imagined what he would do in the service of a certain lady, the means he would take so he could go to the country where she lived, the verses, the words he would say to her, the deeds of arms he would do in her service. He became so conceited with this ~ that he did not consider how impossible it would be because the lady was not of the lower nobility nor a countess or a duchess, but her station was higher than any of these.~ . ~ Because Ig'natius' experience of human love at that ti~me'was of this dreamy, romantic kind,'his way of loving God was similar: to undertake great and ar-dubus deeds and penances" such as his spiritual heroes had undertaken: St. Dominic did this, therefore, 1 have to do it. St. Francis did this, 'therefore, i have to do it.~ There was far more of Ignatius in that way of loviiag than there was of God. But gradually h~gi'ew both in human love and in divine love, parallel ex-periences keeping pace with° one another, inextricably intertwined, almost be~:oming one." Finding God in all things ahd all things in God. What then can b~ said about human love? A very great d~al if we judke by the' ~tmount that has been written about it from early epic poetry through lyric poetry, drama, thenQ~el and other literary genres. But .let us take just one series of reflecti6hs from a modern psychologist, Erich Fromm. The Autobiography of St. lgnatiu's' Loyola, Harper Torchbooks (1974), p. 93. Op. cit., p. 23. ~ Ibid. Cefibate Friendship What does one person give to another? He gives of himself of.the most precious he has, he gives of his life. This does not necessarily mean that he sacrifices his life for the other, but.that he gives him of that which is alive in him; he gives him of his joy, of his interest, of his understanding, of his knowledge, of his humor, of his sadness, of all expressions and ~a~ifestations of that which is alive in him. In~ thus giving of his life, he enriches the other person, he enh~ances the other's sense of aliveness by enhancing his own sense of aliveness. He does not give in order to receive; giving is in itself exquisite joy~' Fromin's emphasis here on one's aliveness that is giveri,~shared and enhanced reminds us of the statement of St. lrenaeus: "The glory of God is man fully alive." If wetake glory in its biblical meaning as a visible and tangible manifestatioff of God's presence, as in a broad sense of sacrament of God's presence, then'we can see how in truly human love God can be found and ex-perienced. It is not a question of arguing from the reality of human love to the realitY, of divine love, but rather of experiencing divine love through the ex-perience of human love. To shut oneself off from human love either through fear or inhibition or anxiety or some stoical ideal of spirituality is to cut oneself off from the p6ssibility of touching and being touched by thedivine. Strange as it may seem', mature human love does not come easily and spon-tane0usl~ to us. If left unreflected on and undirected, our loving tends to be egocentric, selfish, possessive, jealous--in a word, sinful.' Mature love demands all the patience and pain and even dying associate~l with growth. For most people, whether Christian or not, the normal ambience for such~growth to maturity is the family. This can be a schpol~o_f generous, self-g~ving love through_.the muluple relationships which kmt tts meml6ers tok'~lier. G~wng, receiving, sharing, each alter~ates--h~ i--~'~a~p-'~f~"~i|y that is closely united in love, yet otie that is not closed in u.p6n itself in a complacent, smug manner.~ The family itself has to. be open to others. It was in our own families that we first learned experientially about love, and we carry that gift with us throughout our lives. Conversely, we also carry the inevitable limita-tions and.deficiencies of that experience throughout our~ lives. Hence the need for being in touch with our past, for forgiveness and I~he letting go of resent-ments, and bitterness, for self-acceptance and the,~healing of memories. But now as adults we are called to a different life-style, one demanding the renunciation of any possibility'of founding a family of our own and bringing new human life into the world. This means that we are renouncing the use of the most natural and normal means for growing in mature, human love. Such a decision is not to be taken lightly. We must be sure that we can grow without such help. Ours is a minority kind of vocation,,~a minority life-style. But the call is still growth, maturity and love. The road may be,steeper, in many ways more solitary, but'it will also be less encumbered. There are two paradoxical 4~, requirements: to develop a capacity and even a desire~.for solitude, and to develop a capacity for deep and lasting friendships. Solitude and friendship ¯ The Art of Loving, Unwin Paperbacks (1975), p. 27. 180 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 are the two keys to a'healthy, integrated, celibate life. In both we find ourselves, the other, and God. Friendship in the lives bf religious takes many forms,, is experienced in many contexts, and has many degrees of intensity. As we live in comm~unity we are first challenged to look for friendships there. Ideally, at least, some close relationships in this. arena should be possible. ~Then there are the people whom we serve in our direct apostolate and those others with whom we col-laborate; some friendships of depth' may well emerge from these sources. Finally, there are the friends ~wejust happen to form from chance meetings or strange coincidences. All of these together give us a wide range of relation-ships such as is healthy and envigorating for any person to hav.e. It~'is an enriching and broadening experience to have friends among many age-groups, different social classes, varied occupations, and so on. Through them we touch life and are touched by life. As we move across the spectrum from acquaintance to friendship to close friendship to deep, intimate love, the reality of our celibacy becomes moreand more pertinent. In a relationship of mere.acquaintance the fact of being a con-secrated celibate is almost irrelevant, but in.a relationship of deep loving it becomes central. Some religious feel safer hovering around the center of that spectrum--and undoubtedly they are. But for others the call to take the risk of deep loving is part of God's call to respond to His love.This they accept with joy, yet they remain aware that their celibacy is a fragile as well as a beautiful gift, and that it has to be guarded as-well as celebrated. Relation-ships of deep, intimate, .human loving can exist between a man and a woman, a man and a man, a woman and a woman. So let us reflect on the conditions in which a religious might feel free to sustain and foster such a relationship. 1. The religious must be mature. As we have seen, maturity is a process of growth, and so the requirement of being mature is 'in some sense relative. What it means basically is that the person be comfortable with his or her own sexuality, be able to know and accept himself or herself as a sexual being. Fur- ,ther, his or her desire must be to create an adult'relationship between equals, not one of emotional dependency. This latter could happen should someone Ibe searching for a deep relationship out of a need,'overt or latent, to relieve or escape from acute loneliness. ~., 2. The religious must be.well rooted in his celibate calling. This will include having a strong personal attachment to Jesus, to the Church, to the order or congregation, to the apostolate. It presupposes a sound and vibrant life of prayer. Deep relationships starting from an insecure commitment can lead one out of religious life, o~ toan alienated existence within. 3. There mustbe an awareness and understanding of the other person's sexuality, and of his or her capacities, weaknesses and needs. An awareness also of the inevitable tendency towards greater intimacy, physical as well as Celibate Friendship psych61ogical. Hence there has to be moderation in the bodily expression of tenderness, affection and love. Touch can be a. beautiful language of com-munic~ ition, more expressive than the spoken or written word, but it can also be a 'gateway to mere~ gratification. It is not enough for a religious only to avoid sexual sin, but he must be sensitiveto the truth of every gesture, and to questions such as: "What is this action doing to the other person? What is it saying to him? In what emotional state is it leaving him?" Self-knowledge and sensitivity to the other go hand in hand. 4. Besides being grounded in one's own vocation, the religious must also affirm and desire the growth of the other in his vocation. This means really wanting and working for the other's growth in celibacy (should he be a religious), or for the other's growth in married love (should he be married). Should the other person be single, the religious must be careful not to stunt the other's affective growth in relationships with other men and women, thus cut-ting off the chance of marriage. Finally, any giving in to a sterile fantasy: "If only things were different"; "if only we were free"; "if only we had met earlier in life," is dangerous, and constitutes a degree of unfaithfulness to our commitment to Christ. 5. The relationship must not be exclusive. The ideal is to be totally non-possessive, and in that sense truly free. The ability to make and sustain other friendships with either sex should be fostered. Celibate love is primarily universal in character. 6. The relationship must be open. This means'o(a) open to God. The two people involved should be able to pray with sincerity about their love both in-dividually and together. In such prayer ]hey will receive guidance and strength. But such guidance and strength is also mediated through people, and ~o such a relationship should also be (b) open io spiritual directors, superiors, mutual friends. There is n~eed of a.constant evaluatioffof such a relationship, and a third party (this can mean one or more persons) can be helpful and ob-jective. Any tendency to hide a relationship, to secretiveness and furtive behavior is a danger signal. 7. There must be a willingness to endure pain, to go through difficult times. This is required in all human loving, but it is especially necessary in celibate love 6f a deep kind because in such love we allow, to a greater 0r lesser extent, the frustrating aspect of.celibacy to surface and be experienced. To the degree that the dynamic towards exclusivit~y and sexual union develop, to that. degree will it become more painful to keep on choosing celibacy. The person unable to tolerate such pain either leaves religious life, or, as in no. 2 above, he endures an alienated existence within his community. 8. By their fruits you shah know them. A relationship such as this cannot be divorced from every other aspect of the celibate's life. If the loving is healthy, life,giving and creative, it will enhance the quality of the person's prayer, community living, apostolic commitment, other relationships, and in-deed his general well-being. By using these criteria it is to be expected that the 182 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 relationship will aid positively to the growth of the person involved, ~n.o.tTbe something merely neutral' or indifferent,~but rather be a~strong contribut~ing factor to human and spirit.ual development. Thins aim is admittedly very,,high,. but one who is living the'qonsecrated life should be able and willing to accept. these criteria, demanding as they are, and eval~uate any intimate relationship accordingly . Now Available As A Reprint Psychosexual Maturity in Celibate Development by Philip D. Cristantiello Price: $.60 per copy; plus postage. .Address': Review for' Religious Room 428 ~ 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Catherine of Siena: Mission and Ministry in the Church Suzanne Noffke, O.P. Sister Suzanne; past president of the Racine Dominican Sisters, having just completed a' new and unabridged translation, of the Dialogue of Catherine, dev?tes herself full time to ,research, writing, and speaking on Catherine and her thought.,. Sister Suzanne resides at 2070 Allen Blvd., #2; Mid~leton, WI 54562. atherine of Siena~ was a woman who knew to,an amazing depth who she was--because she responded with such amazing: fidelity to God's revelation to her of who he is. That revelation, was nev~er for .Ca,therine (nor is it for .any of us) one finished pa~ckage, oNo, she entered. Jnto, it ~lyvel by level throughout her life as she met each new insight and wrestled with its implications and demands. But essentially there were~always those two t~hreads: Catherine knew God as boundless Truth and Love, and she knew herself as limited and even sinful, yet°loved a~d gifted, o The dynamic of Catherine's growth could be very appropriately described in terms of~the classic "transcendental precepts": ~ , Be attentive. Be intelligent. Be reasonable., Be responsible. Her attentiveness to divine initiative in her life is obvious at every stage of her awareness; it was so sacred a matter for her, in fact, that she regarded any failure in that attentiveness as a breach in. fidelity. She was very conscious of, and delighted in,°the active play of her own understanding as an intelligent be-ing in ,re,,ceiving GOd's manifestation of himself. But the play and the deligl~t were never a short-circuited contemplationS: her reason searched out the im- 183 184 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/2 plications of what she saw; and her whole being owned and responded to thoge implications in her living, no matter what the cost to herself. It is so far the picture of a beautifully human, thoroughly moral and noble person, and a discussion of mission and ministry could legltimately be drawn from it. Yet if our model encompassed only these levels--even in faith--the total reality of Catherine, and the fullest ideal of Christian mission and ministry would be muted to a kind of drudgery of diaty well done. Such could conceivably be true and heroic holiness, but we are invited to so much morel Bernard Lonergan captured the sense of this "more" when he added to the four transcendental precepts a fifth: Be in love~' . Now we may love many people, but.to be in love is a much more rare and precious phenomenon. Catherine did not simply love God: she was madly (she herself uses that modifier again and again) in love. And it was one in love that she was attentive, intelligent, reasonable, and responsible. It was love that fired her urgent sense of being sent, her sense of mission to ministry. If we would learn about mission and ministry from Catherine, we must remember that we are looking at and listening to a woman in love. And we must remind ourselves that God is in love with us too~, and that we too are in-vited beyond simply lok, ing him to the mad sanity of being-in-love: "not that we have loved God, but that God has loved us!''2 A Question of Discipleship We are dealing here.with the whole question of dis.cipleship. A disciple is One who learns from another's person as much as from his body 0f teaching: And a disciple in the gospel t~'adition is ultimately and most imme~diately a disciple of Jesus~ Any others who are models and guides' in the Christian ~vay are such only because, and insofar as, they are, first, true disciples themselves. "Take me as your model," writes Paul, "as I take Chris~?'3 In the end, "you have only one teacher, the Christ."' " ' ¯ Catherine's ~rescription for those who would be guides to others describes well her understanding of her own role toward those who were her 'disciples: Be trumpeters of the incarnate Word, God's Son, not only with your voice but with your deeds. Learn from the Master of t(uth, who practiced virtue before he preached it. In this way you will produce fruit and be the channel through which God will pour his grace into the hearts of those who hear you? Catherine, true disciple that she is, can well be both model and teacher to us, for her life speaks as forcefully as doher writings, which could have grown only out of such a life. Method in Theology. LondOn: Darlon, Longman and T0dd,_1972, p. 13. 1Jn 4:'10. ~ I C6 11:1". Letter 226, to Raymond of Capua, c. i376~ ' Mt 23:10. Catherine of Sienb: Mission and Ministry in the Church The Context of Mission and Ministry for Catherine ~ , All of Catherine's life and all that she says about specific questions can be fully understood only/in the context of hei" m.ost bhsic convictions. In isolation from these, so muchwould be--and has been--~ubject to misrepresentation. So, even at the risk of distorting by over-brevity, let me at least summarize'the faith that most centrally dictated the shape of her interpretation of mission and ministry. ' The God with whom C~therine is in love'is at once "gentle first Truth" and "Love itself." Jesus, God's on'ly-begotten Son, God's Word, is Truth in-carnate, the one Way in love for sinful humanity to find reconciliation with the ~Father. Along this Way--Catherine describes him in her Dialogue as the bridge it is in the Church as in a hostelry.that God provides the food and shelter, the companionship and rest without which we pilgrims would surely faint or fall back long before we would reach our destination. In fact, the head of the Church is "Christ-on-earth." Only he holds~the keys to the wine cellar in which is stored :the blood of Jesus, the sole source of life and salvation. And, for Catherine, there-is nc~ other way to union with God but through the open heart of Jesus. God alone--in himself and in Jesus and, analogously, in the Church--is deserving of unqualified love (senza modo). Everyone and everything else is to be loved only con modo--with love that is qualified and conditioned and limited by its relationship with God. Because of this very strong'sense 6f relativity, issues which may loom large in our considerations often 'get from Catherine what may seem short shrift to us. Some of the difference,"it is true~ is cultural; but that fact should not allow us to miss the more signi.ficant difference that cbhaes from this underlying sense of relativity -- a 'sense that is still as ~valid today as it was in fourteenth-century Tuscany. When we are in love, all things are relative~tothe one we love. With this context firmly in mind we can turn as disciples to Catherine and let her person and her words speak to our own convictions about our mission to ministry in the Church. The Foundation and Principle of Mission and Ministry Basic to ~the who|e question of mission and.ministry-for Catheriiae was the same principle she applied to preaching: that we must practice virtue first, then preach it. Jesus, she writes in the Dialogue, never taught what he had not first lived himself. We are useless to others unless we have within ourselves what we would share with them. She writes of herself in the Prologue to the Dialogue that "she knew that she could be of no service to her neighbors in teaching or example or prayer without first doing herself the service of attain-ing and p~ossessing virtue.''6 "We will never be able to nourish our neighbors," she w'rites to a group of women in Naples, "unless we first feed our own souls with true solid virtues. 186 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980/, 2 And we cannot be nourished with virtue unless we cling to the breast of divine chari~ty from which we draw, the milk of divine tenderness."~7 The image is a double one: the bre, ast of divine charity is t0e.open heart of Jesus. In prayer we look into this open heart and see "the secret of the bloo~"~--that God loves us so.madly that his Song's death was not too high a price to pay for_ our love--and seeing ourselves so madly loved, we o in response fall madly in love with God. But prayer itself is imaged by ~Catherine as a mother: it~ is prayer that conceives and gives b!rth to virtue within us, and with.gut prayer the virtue which ministers in love to our neighbors is im-possible . ,. Where, indeed, will we c~tch the fragranc~ of obedlence?~ In ffrayer. Where will we strip ourselves of th~ selfish love that makes us impatient in the face of hurt and other dif-ficulties, and clothe ourselves in divine love, finding our glory in the cross of Christ crucified? In prayer/. Where do we express love and faith and hope and humility? In prayer. In fact, we would not bother to look for what we did not love; but when we do love we always want to,be united with the objec.t of our love--and he_re that object is God.° Where, finally, will we catch the fragrance of coniinence and purity, and a hunger for martyrdom that makes us willing to give our lives for God's honor and the good of sot~ls? Always in th~s gentle mother, prayer . Truly, p~rayer i~ a nio'iher. If'is she who conceives virtues as her children in love for God, and ~ives them birth in love for our neighbors/° There is no ministry, then, without virtue; no~ is there virtue withbut prayer. It is in prayer, that we are sent out, missioned, into action. And once the dynamic has been set in motion by our response ~o God,s initiative, prayer and ministry ~feed;each other: 'prayer drives us out to serve, and our service drives us back into prayer. Indeed, if0both are genuine in themselves, each becomes in.a sense the other: prayer~is a ministry and ministry a prayer. There'ar~ two ways to pray (Catherine writes): The firsi way is that of Continualprayer; that is, ,that constant lioly desire which of itself .prays before God in everything a person does. Indeed, such desire directs all our actions, whether spiritual or temporal, to his honor. That is why it is called continualprayer.'~ Continual prayer, then, is nothing other than holy desire' and the gentle movement of iove.,~ , What fruit do we derive from this sort of prayer? A peaceful quiet within us to which nothing is a stumbling~block: . Nothing wearies or troubles it. Nor does it let us. be ~.Dialogue, I. (All quotations from the Dialogue are taken from the new translation of that work to be publis.hed by Pat~list Press in January, 1980.) See~also Dialogue, 29. Letter 356 .,to thr~e women of Naples. Letter 353, to three women of Naples, 1379. Letter 26, to her niece, Sister Eugenia, a nun in the monastery of'Sf. Agnes at M0t~tepulciah0'. ~ Letter 353. ~, ~ ~ " " Ibid. '~ Letter 22, to Abbot Martino di Pass, ignano of Vallombrosa. Catherine of siena: MiSsion and Ministr.V in the Church / 187 'ideceived when our soul hankers airier our~own room, tO bask there in consolation and peace. It does not even regret having to do something else when we ~,ould prefer to be actually at prayer. No, it extracts from that something else the perfume of humility and the firb of, love for our neighbors. ~ "i'he sec6nd way'is that of vocalprayer, that is, speaking wiih oiie's tong~ae to say the~Of-rice or other oral prayers. This way is designed to bring us to the third way, mental prayer. This is a~:complished when, with I~rudence and humility., we use our minds in vocal prayer--that is, when we pray in such a way that, while we.are speaking with our i~ngue, our h~art is never far from God. Indeed, we should alw~ays try, to set our heart firmly in the love of divine charity." . urging our mmd always to think of, to offer, and t6 receive the i~ pulse of God's love more than-the sound of the.words." It is ume to give honor to God and wear ourselves out for our neighbors: wear ourselves out physically by bearing with everything, a~nd.wear ou_rselve~ out spiritually by offering continual, humble prayer in Ggd's presence with angui~shed longing, with bitter tears and sweat. ' 6 The complementarity of prayer and action, then, is'one of integration, not of mere alternation. Catherine would not be at all at home with the image we have sometimes used, that of a car which needs to return perio~dically to the gas pump for fuel in order to keep running. Her own image of the fountain and the jfig, though she used it in another context, is much more app~'opriate. The fountain is God and his love and truth. "If you take your Jug out of the fountain to dri~k," she writes, "it is soon empty. But if y0o h01d your j~gin the fountain whild you drink, it ~ill~n0t get empty;~ifide~d, it will'always be full." '' In this image, the more we drink from this jug, the more r~om there is f6r it to be filled, and the more i~ is filled, the more we have to drink (or to share). ° What," then, determines" what time shall'be given to bxl~licit praye~, and w~at 'to the ministry of action'?. Precisely ~hat initiative from God which is called mission., Not simply our own inclinatibn,.but the action of the Spirit made kno~'n through oppoit~nit3~, obedience, ~3r dema~nds of lb~;e. Be very.conscientious and persevering in frequenting the holy place of prayer'as,often " .an, d as long as the Holy Spirit offers you the 9pportuni!y. Do not,avoid'it or run a~aYo ~;o from . it ,even if it should cost you your life. Never abandon,~ t,oht .of tenderness or com-passion for your body.~ You must not break away from holy prayer for any reason whatever except obedience or It is'Prayer, .therefore, that~ holds the place of primacy. But¯~ervice is its " Lettei 154, to'Brother Francesco T~baldi of Florence, i3"~8~ t, Letter 353. ~ ~ ~; '~ Letter 154. ~ ~ :, ,6 Letter 296, to Don Giovanni delle Celle, c. 1376. "Dialogue, 64. " Letter 187, to Don Giovanni Sabbatini of Bologna and Don Taddeo de' Malavohi Of Siena, monks of Certosa anti, Be riguardo, c. 1375. '~ Dialogue, 65. 188. /Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 ,/2 , necessary fruit and touchstone. Effective love for others is the expression of true love for God. So God says in the Dialogue: I ask you to love me with the same love which I love you. But for me you cannot do this, for I loved you without being loved. Whatever love you have for me you owe me, so you love me, not gratuitou[ly, but out of duty, while I love you, not out of duty, but grati~itously. So you cani~ot gi~'e me the kind of love i ask of you. This is why I have put you among your neighbors: so thal you can do for-them wha! you cannot do for me--that is, love them without any concern for thanks and without looking for a~ny p[ofit for yourself. And whatever you do foi- them 1 Will consider done for me.2° We cannot, in fact, honestly claim to have even conceived .virtue if we never bring it to birth'for our neighbors. (Again God is speaking.) Virtue, once conceived, must come to birth. Therefore, as soon as the soul has conceived through loving affection,oshe gives bii'ih for her neighbors' sake. And just as she loves m~ in truth, so also she serves her neighbors in truth. Nor could she do otherwise, for love of me and love of neighbor are one and the same thing: since love of neighbor has its source in me, the more the soul loves me, the more she loves her neighbors.2' Catherine not onlY, preached this integration of prayer and virtue and ministry; she lived it more and more deeply as her intimacy with God deep-ened. Her three years 6f alm.ost total silence and solitude were more than merely ~ '°'filling of the fuel tank" for the life of service that was (o begin to blossom at their end. Catherine entered that solitude, one very much centered on the relationship between herself and God, and it was atime of growth fbr her in mystical union with him. But in that solitude was growingalso.the small seedling of another relationship. The ~ulmination of those three years came in a double-edged experience which puzzled Catherine herself. During the night of Carnival in 1368 she had reached a high pitch of inten-sity" in the p~ayer~that had--perhaps incongruously to us in vie~; of her mysticism--been her l~r~occupation for months: prayer foi" th~ gift of faith. Raymond of Capua iells us that she had consistently sensed in i'~sponse to her pleadings the promise voiced in the prophet Hosea: "I will e~pbuse you to myself in, faith.''~ Yet she had never been satisfied that her prayer had been granted. On this night, however, she knew that it had, ih the experience we know as her mystical espousals. Catherine's rapture knew no bounds: she would have been content to rest where she was forever. But just as un-mistakably as the intimacy of faith carrie the mission of faith--in terms of which, frustratingly, on the very heels of rapture, the very Christ who had finally drawn~her to his wedding-chamber began to drive l'ier out of solitude to service. But note that this was not'the end of the prayer of solitude in Catherine's life. Rather she began to learn the very integration of the two, an integration Dialogue, 64. ~' Dialogue, 7. n Ho 2:22. Catherine of Siena: Mission and Ministry in the Church / 189 of wtiich she would later speak so forcefully toothers. Prayer and ministry, love of God and love of neighbor are, Christ tells her, the two feet on which she must walk, the two wings on which she must fi~, 23 Neither. can be complete without the ~ther. And as the circles" of Catherine's involvement widened, her ministry in action intensified her need for prayer in solitude, while her very prayer drove her more and more to con-cern for others. She knew'with the thirst of the psalmist in the parched desert how essential it is to "hold one's jug in the f~untain even as one drinks." And if the call of olSedi+nce afid°lo~,e filled her days to a dizzying pace she would seize the opportunity' of ii~e night to bring it all with her" whole self in quiet before God. As surely as she knew that he was with her in her ministry-- for it was he who,constantly sent her--she knew that she needed time and space to be consciously in his presence in what she calls "the holy place of prayer." The Specifics of Mission and Ministry ~)ut of the dialectice of Catherine's prayer~ an~l action grew the strong specific convictions concerning mission and ministry that dictated her own pat.h :and.her .counsel to' others. She never, even in her Dialogue, attempted a ~systematic presentation of this or any other matt, er. Nor .will 1 attempt to. draw out of her works what could be considered a full "theology of ministry.:' But it is~possible and decidedly worth the effort to pull together in some logical order the bits of. her refle.ction on the question in both the Dialogue and her .letters, and to say something ,again of how she herself lived what she taught. For the implications of any given insight w.ere~for Catherine, very concretely and practically the call of obedience. What; then, has she to tell us?, First of all, and at the basis of any sense of mission, of being sent, is the reality that in his very gifts in us God commissions us to specific ministries. His gifting is,in itself,a call: ¯ - I have distributed [all my gifts] in such a way (he says in the Dialogue) that no one has all of thefia. ~hus I have given you rea~son-- hecessity, in fact to I~ractice mutual charity. For I could~well have supplied each of you with all your needs . But'l wanted to.make you dependent on one another ,so tha~t each of you would be my minister, dispensing the grace~ and gifts you have received~from me. So whether you will it or n~t, you cannot escape the exercise of charity!Z' In another part of the Dialogue the Father becomes even more explicit about'the providence of this interdependence he has built into the economy of creation by the variety of our gifts:°. . In this mortal life so long as y9u are pilgrims, I have bound you with the chain of.charity. Whether you want it or not, you are so bound. If you should break loose by not wanting to live in charity for your neighbors, by force will you still be bound by it. So, that you Raymond of Capua, Legenda Major, ch. 121. Dialogue, 7. 190 / Review for Religiousj Volume 39, 1980 o may practice charity-in action and.in will, I in my provid~ence did not~giveto any one,p_er-son or to each indivi_dually the knowledge for doing ever~y~hing necessary for human life., No, I gav~ something to one, something blse to another, so that each one's need would be a reason to have recourse to~ tti~ other. So thoukh yofi ?hay los('your 'wili for cl~i~:ii'y ° because of your wickedness, you will at least be forced by your o~wn ne'~d'to practice it in action. Thus you see the artisan turn to the worker and th~.workeroto theartisan: each has a need of the other.becaus~ neither.knows how to do what the o~th.e~-.~does. So also the j-0 cleric and rehg~ous' " havek need. of the layperson,.and~ the. layperson. ~r~ ,~ ofo. the religious; neither can get ~long without the other. And so with everything else. Could I not have given everyone everything? Of course. But in my~providence I wanted, to make each of you dependent on the others, so that you would be forced to exercise chanty In action andwl at once." ~ ¯ Catherine hers'~lf had 'a'kind of genius for matching ,her gifts (and .she knew hergifts as well a~ her limitations) with rieeds that wete~beii~g met by no one else. She was deeply sensitive, and she too.k on those cases among the poo( and the sick that called for more care than others were able or willing to give. Sh'~had aqaiercing and uncompromising vision which she shared with reluc-tant listeners as ~vell as with the willing~ what needed saying she ~would say! Whe6. it seemed that' som~ of her followers neededra cl0ister~and,,there was none tliat,matched their r~eed~,-she founded one.~When she~sensedothe gaping, lack ~of holines~ amid thb p~litics of the pope's 'advisers~ she,called °foro.'a "papal counciW of holy persons who would fill the vacuum. Notall of'her:~f-forts met with tangible success; some of her grandest d~eams ~.ame in crashing failure'tlowri on her head~:~ Yet she owned "the mission defined'~by~her:, gift6dness, and~never disowned responsibility for the resu.lts~--:-'~ though sh~ alsb had the ability, so very rare, to let go ofo~rojects that.,~;proved,counter-productive. She knew her own dependence on 6thers a~ Wellas shb knew .that others depended On her. She knew~what it means to be gifted and "missioned. But it is' notS'merely a natural interdependence that~constitutes~ mission: Mission is inseparable from the need of sinful humanity~for redemption, and therefore it demands entry into the redeeming life and passion of Jesus, not only for oneself, but for the,sake of others as well. Those in, m~ss~on const~t, ute more than the Red Cross or thecounty welfare.office,.and this larger perspec-tive (which must be no less than God's own) may put those,in mission in°the paradoxical position of encot~raging themselves and 6tliers in suffering as often as it puts.them in the effort of relieving it. Catherine c~lledit~'~th~ om-passionate'cruelty'and cruel conlpassion of the cross" and "feeding, on souls at. the table ofthe cr0~s." It is one of thoseoarenas where the truth of faithcan "blow" the mind of reason. The Father says in the Dialogue: . . it is by means'of my ser~,ants and their great sufferings thatl would be mei'cifu I to the world and ref6rm my bride [the Church]. ,r. Dialogue, 148. Catherine of Siena: Mission and Ministry in the ~Church '/~191 Truly these last can be called another Christ.crucified, my only-begotten Son, because they haye taken his task upon themselves. He came as a mediator to put an end to war and reconcile humanity to me in peace by suffering even to the shameful death of crucifixion. In the saine way must these b~ocrudfied and'become mediators ~n prayer, in word, in good holy living, setting themselves up as an exam pie to others. The precious stones of,. . virtue shine in their patience as they,be~ar others' sins. These are the hooks with which they catch souls?~ And Catherine writes to her friends and disciples: o You would be deceived if you wanted to feast at the ~tern~l Father's table while avoiding ~'~ feeding ~n souls at the table of the Son. It is, in fact, at this table'that we must eat this food, for it cannot be,had without suffering)' It is time to show whether or not we are lovers of Christ crucified, and whether we find our joy in.this food.28 One of the first indications o'~" this r~ederdptive sensitivify in Catherine sui'- faces at the tihae of her father's death in 1368. The sudden realization that even so good:a~person as her father may still not be fully purified of sinfulness cuts to the heart of her deeply human love for him, and she begs to be allowed to pay in her own suffering the "price" of this final purifi~ation:'~Later, as her real, felt, effective love reaches out to others,, so does thi~ d,esire to enter into their redemption. It becomes truly a hunger that she knows can be satisfied only on the cross. And her joy in being there is for that reason far t6o deep and much more meaningful than the masochism some have attributed to her. It is a fine line for discernment to'draw, ttiis kr~owledge of when suffei'ing (our 6wn or others') is part Of r~demptive providen(e," and when it i~ to be shunned,'c~onquerett, and alleviated.° Ironically, the issue probably~'~eem~ clearest to us at its extreme: "Proclaini the truth and let no fear silence it! 'Be liberal and generous, ready to ~give even your.life if necessary." Thus she wrote to Raymond of Capua,~9 and .the message probably does not strike us all that discordantly. There is no doubt that Chtherine longed to be allowed to enterjust 'that effectively into Christ's redeeming deatti. But is it one Of those face(s of t;eing madly in love with God that we perhaps take so for granted that we do not really sense its place in our own life and missibn'?. Are we not also called to live (and die) redemptively? But whatever the concrete circumstances oLthat redemptive.living and dy-ing may~be for each of us, Catherine reminds us again and again that Christian ministry demands integrity and courage. Cast from you any tenderness for yourself and any slavish fear. The dear Church has no need for that sort of person; she needs strong people who are merciless"when it comes to themselves and compassionate when it comes to her.'° Dialogue, 146. Letter 271, to Alessa Saracini, 1378. Letter 330, late 1378 or early 1379. Letter 373, to Raymond of Capua, February,25, 1380. Letter 296. 199 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 The others' are not action people but wind people who whirl about like leaves, without any consistency or stability. There is not room for shame or embarrassment in regard to our Christian-ity, nor ~for fear of openly owning Christ. We are reminded of Catherine's own natural sensitivity, her embarrassment through much of her life whenever her holiness was "found out," though she eventually was able to share so completely and seemingly unself-consciously. The imagery she uses in writing of this need to be proud to be known as a disciple of Christ is strikingly ' reminiscent of that incident just before she entered the order when the urge to throw~ it all off was so strong that she was actually tempted to put on.her sister-in- law's "aft~er-the-wedding";.dress and parade around Siena in it. Once she had mastered the temptation, she tells us, Mary presented her with the wedd, ing dress that was to be hers, a~ garment from the very heart of Jesus. Years later she writes to her disciple, Gabriele di Davino Piccolomini: You need the armor-which is true charity, and over this armor the scarlet cloak of the blood of Christ crucified . The blood of Christ crucified needs to be revealed, not. hid-den. You must g~ve witness to it before everyone by your good and holy actions, and when necessary by yo.u.r words. You must not be like those fools who are ashamed to re-mind the world of Christ crucified and to testify openly that they are his servants. They are not willing to put on this scarlet cloak, the blood of Christ crucified." Ii isl in fact, not a burden, but our glory to be the ministers of Christ: Those we serve are our helpers, and even our masters insofar as it is their need that comman'ds us. °And even While we are a channel of Ctirist's redemptive love~to them, it is_the~ who in turn me~iiate our way to redemption and salva-tioh. Tfius Catherine writes to Cardinal Pietro Corsini: Be.magnanimous and generous in your charity toward your neighbors, both spiritually and materially. Remember that the hands of the poor are there to help you, as minister of the, blood, in carrying and offering divine grace.The blood of Christ crucifi.ed will teach you to distribute your possessions to the poor with the same generosity he has shown and continues to show to you. He will°make you consider the poor .and'~ those who find themselves in need as your masters." And to Monna Lodovica di Granello: You who have temporal possessions; do your duty by giving to the poor whatever yo~u can give Make yourselyes steward§ of your~wealth to the poor, for the poor are the hands that will grant us entrance to eternal life because of the loving charity with which we have given them alms." The Ministry of Social Justice ~ , Though Catherine herself never held a position of formal authority or had Letter 256, to M. Niccolo, a Tuscan official, after 1376. Letter 128, Gabriele was a layman, not a preacher. Letter 177, 1376. ~" Letter 304, 1378. Catherine of Siena: Mission and Ministry in the Church / 193 more than the most paltry alms to give in her own name, the ministry we today specifically call social justice was very much her concern, and we who sense a special call to this ministry would do well to look to her not only for inspira-tion but also for the criteria on which she based her stands. We have already seen how, in Catherine's view, the divine economy in-cludes the distribution--not always equal or even equitable in our sight--of goods and talents. She insists that there is also a positive providence in poverty and ill fortune, for her sights are always fixed beyond the limits of here and now and the standards of mere reason. Yet she is just as insistent when it comes to the obligations of stewardship imposed by the possession of wealth and power (it is God himself who speaks): 1 have shown you my generosity, goodness, and providence toward people. But they let themselves be guided by their own darksome weakness. Your bodily members put you to shame, because they all together practice charity, while you do not. Thus, when the head is aching, the hand he|ps it. And if the finger, that tiniest of members, hurts, the head does not snub it because it is greater and more noble than all the other parts of the body. No, it comes to its aid with hearing and sight and speech and everything it has. And so with all the other members. But those who are proud do not behave that way. They see a poor person, one of their members, sick and in need, and do not help. They refuse to give not only of their possessions but even a single word. Indeed, they reproachfully and scornfully turn away. They have plenty of wealth, but they leave the poor to starve. They do not see that their wretched cruelty throws filth into my face, and that their filth reaches down even to the depths of hell. I provide for the poor, and for their poverty they will be given the greatest of riches. But the others, ~nless they change their ways, will be severely reproached by my Truth as is said in the holy Gospel: "l was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink; I was naked and you did not clothe me, in prison and you did not visit me." And at that last moment it will do them no good to excuse themselves ¯ by saying, "! never saw you, for if I had I would have done it." The wretches know well enough--and my Truth ~aid that whatever is done to his poo~ is done to him?~ Injustice is a direct assault against God. It could hardly be stated more clearly: ".their wretched cruelty throws filth into my face"! Still, Catherine's ultimate judgments and action where poverty and wealth, good fortune and ill are concerned always come back to that most basic of prin-ciples: only God is unqualified Truth and Love. Nothing of human life is un-qualified or unconditioned except our love for him. Of everything and everyone but God we must discern the "ifs, ands, and buts" before making our decisions. This is where Catherine,s own vision often made her seem the naive fool in the face of political c0mplexities -- but that is the risk integrity runs. The force of the simple truth may seem sometimes to crumple under the weight of reality as reason sees it, but if we are true to the vision of truth (and willing to admit when we have not seen clearly or fully) we still stand as tall Dialogue, 148. 194 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 and. whole as did Catherine ultimately--though the psychological burden of it all had literally done her in physically. Reform was badly needed in Catherine's day. She not only admitted that but proclaimed it to the most sensitive of ears! But she insisted that all reform must begin from within. She loved the Church as few have loved it, yet she criticized and castigated it as few have dared. If God was to show mercy to the world, the world must be reformed. But the world would be reformed only if the Church were reformed. And the Church would be reformed only if its leaders were reformed. And Catherine would be of no use to any of it so long as she held on to her own sinfulness. ;. Like Catherine, we are called not simply to preach--much less to con-demn- but to take the sins of others on ourselves. Her experience, toward the end of her life, of so feeling the weight of the ship of the Church on top of her that she could neither get up nor be lifted up from the floor of St. Peter's was more than figurative. Whereas earlier she had pleaded for forgiveness for others and even offered to suffer for their sins, in her last years she genuinely owned responsibility for those sins and considered herself truly (why would we prefer to see it as pious but exaggerated humility?) the cause of every evil in the world. Where would our burning issues be today if we could honestly own our sinful responsibility for them? Not that Catherine did not preach to others about justice. Her letters are full of very concrete, practical exhortations. To Ristoro di Pietro Canigiani, a Florentine lawyer: You may, in good conscience, seek and demand what is yours in ways that are just, for no one is obliged to let go of what is justly one's own. Anyone who is willing could certainly do the more perfect thing, but it is not an obligation unless one wants to do it of one's own free choice. But there is one thing I want to add: when any poor folk come to you (assuming they are clearly in the right) who have no one to defend them because they cannot pay, if you would work for them out of affectionate love, you would give very great honor to God?~ And to Andreasso Cavalcabuoi while he was Senator in Siena: We often see certain people in government having justice done only where poor are con-cerned-- justice which frequently is really and truly injustice--but they do not have justice done where the great and powerful are concerned.~' Further examples could be multiplied, but always the principles are the same. And always we must begin by doing justice to ourselves--the justice of repentance and virtue--and by reaching out first in response to God's call in the needs of those who are brought to touch our lives most nearly.38 God will see to the widening of the circle, probably much more intensely than we thought we had bargained for! Letter 258, 1378-79. ~' Letter 338, 1379. ~ Dialogue, 6. Catherine of Siena: Mission and Ministry in the Church / 195 The Ministry of Women in the Church We have not yet even touched specifically on the ministry of women in the Church. Yet much of what Catherine has to say and demonstrate of womanly ministry within the Church has in principle been related. She who did and said all we have spoken of is a woman. She did not speak, it is true, of the ordination of women: her culture would not have let that even be an issue. Still she does speak of the ministry of all of us(and the objects and modes of her own ministry were remarkable for a woman of her century and social class. It would be fascinating, in fact, to analyze the parallelism that seems to exist between her reflections on priestly min, i.stry and what she has to say of her own ministry! But easy as it is to point to Catherine as a woman who dared to preach to popes and princes, let us never forget that that preaching as well as her every other service rose out of her encounter with God in prayer. If we do nearly as well as she in our integrity on that score, we need have no further concern about the form or effectiveness of our ministry. We will often be frustrated as she was. We will often be misunderstood and criticized as she was. We may die in the effort as she did. But like her we will come out whole, and the Church ¯ will be nourished on our sweat, blood, and tears. And those we have been privileged to touch in our service will remember, as they did of Catherine, that we could smile through it all! Currents in Spirituality The Past Decade George Aschenbrenner, S.J. Father Aschenbrenner is presently engaged in a national spiritual ministryfor priests, religious and lay people, and works part-time in campus ministry at the University of Scranton, especially with the faculty of the university. His address: Scranton University; Scranton, PA 18510. In a stream there are always different levels of flow. An eddy or a swirl, which~i:loes not run so deep as the current, can either spin off and die on the shore or it can get caught up and become part of the deeper current of the stream. It is fascinating and instructive'to watch this process. The last decade has brought an enormous growth in interest and writing about spirituality. This article, focusing on some present issues and concerns of spirituality in this country, will be describing a variety of swirls, eddies, cur-rents and tides within the stream of contemporary spirituality. Generally, the article does not explicitly distinguish deeper currents from surface motions, but leaves this distinction to the reflection and judgment of the reader. The aim here is simply to list and briefly describe, without any prioritizing, some concerns within contemporary spirituality.' In doing this, I will be consulting both my own experience and the fruits of some conversation with experienced people across the country, At times, I will inject an issue which may not seem of much interest today, but which I ' For anotlier format and a more extensive treatment of individual thematic trends in spirituality, consult the series of articles.of Matthew Fox, O.P. in Spirituality Today beginning in the March, ! 978 issue. Currents in Spirituality: The Past Decade personally feel deserves attention. I am aware, of course, that the degree of in-terest or importance for various concerns will vary according to different geographical sections of the country. But any necessary local nuance is left to the reader. The survey nature of this article, besides severely limiting development of the various concerns expressed, also prevents any resolution of them. Sometimes, however, it is the present state of the matter itself which allows only a statement of the question and which requires that any resolution await further clarity in the Spirit. Part I of the article presents issues that affect \everybody in the Church. Part II treats some matters that touch specific groups: religious, bishops and diocesan priests, lay people. ~ Part i: Issues Affecting Everyone 1. Distinction between Monastic and Apostolically Active Spiritualities. Within the one fundamental Christian spirituality there have always been various spiritualities rooted in different orientations to the one God. Especial-ly since Vatican II, a most helpful clarification has stressed the distinction between monastic and apostolically active spiritualities. Generally speaking, the monastic experience of God depends upon some physical withdrawal from the world and upon as full an involvement as possible in the liturgy both of the Eucharist and of the Hours, which provides an essential regularity and a rhythm that will determine both the type of community support and the external activity appropriate to this spirituality. An apostolically active ex-perience of God, while deeplylocated :in the activity of the world, requires the difficult combination of an external mobility with dependable spiritual habits, so that one may serve wherever the need for God is greatest. Obviously, this ts pirituality will provide a different community support, together with both a different presence and a more extensive involvement in the world. To fail to understand which of the two basic orientations one is called to can cause personal frustration and apostolic ineffectiveness. Disregard of this clarification on the part of the diocesan priest, the religious or the lay person, whether in their training or in the living out of their vocation, may well pro-duce unrealistic expectations and. ineffective service. Taking seriously the dif-ference in the two approaches need not imply any superiority of the one over the other. Rather it may help the Church to be more present in the world ac-cording to its own fullness and to manifest God's loving designs across the whole spectrum of the human family. 2. Renewed Monasticism. After Vatican II there was much questioning and experimentation in reference to the elements of the monastic way of life: enclosure, Liturgy of the Hours, community, work, silence, travel, and external apostolic involvement. 198 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 For a while, the very validity of the monastic life seemed at issue. Now, with its essential validity profoundly reaffirmed, many experiments are being evaluated. This'process of evaluation is not concluded but, together with a deep sense that the monastic ideal has been enriched by much of this .ex-perimentation, there is a concern as to whether some of the experiments were not motivated by trying too much to imitate the active life and whether they have not therefore risked: weakening the power of the monastic ideal for our age. It will always be a difficult matter to know how, without distorting or superficializing the monastic ideal, its powerful experience of God may be brought into contact with the city oLman. 3. An Integrated, Functional Spirituality for Active Apostles: Excessive fatigue, even to the length of "burnout,." at times seems almost synonymous with active apostolic work today. Countless demands from so many angles have over-extended and excessively complicated the lives of com-petent and conscientious men and women. They know the need for formal prayer and a profound, spiritual orientation. And yet there just isn't time for eve.rything. As a result there is not nearly enough formal, personal prayer on the part of many active apostles. And this has serious repercussions, both on the apostles themselves and on all the work they do. And so the search goes on for some functional spirituality that will work .for busy apostolic men and women by giving a sense of integration and unity to their lives. It is instructive that in the past ten years interest has moved from the topic of discernment of spirits to that of apostolic spirituality. To my mind, the con-tent is pretty much the same. But the orientation is very different. Discern-ment of spirits involves chiefly an interpretative sorting out in faith of inner, affective experiences, so that, through dealing properly with the experiences, one can find and be with God in every situation and moment of life. But this process runs ~he risk of generating a short-sighted interiority and a spirituality without adequate orientation to apostolic service. Apostolically active spirituality, it would seem, should involve the same decisive dealing in faith with inner, affective experiences, but now with a much increased realization that this faith-process within the person gives a special quality of integrated, peaceful presence in the midst of the most challenging, active situations--and that this presence, eloquent in its thrust toward God in itself, also leads to ac- .~tions which further his kingdom in the world. Dealing in faith with the daily consolations and desolations of life can integrate and unify our whole affec-tivity and person. And this faith-process certainly does not excuse the active apostle from a program of regular, formal prayer. Rather it reveals the need to discover the unique style of serious, formal prayer appropriate for each in-dividual. Such prayer will always be an essential means to that quality of human presence which reveals a loving Father in Jesus as the Beloved of our hearts and which can find and serve Him in everything. In this sense, current interest in apostolic spirituality seems very healthy Currents in Spirituality: The Past Decade / 199 and very likely to lead to an apostolic presence that is increasingly prayerful and where activity is therefore not seen as weakening the contemplative presence of prayer, but as a continuation of that contemplative presence beyond the limits of formal prayer. This integrated, apostolic presence will not decrease the demands made on us, but it can prevent the sense of being overly distracted and torn between the dichotomy of formal prayer and apostolic activity. This integrated spirituality can also lessen that sense of dualism against which we are so often warned today. 4. Renouncing the World to Serve It for God. ~, It is not easy for us to see the world from God's perspective and to serve its t needs in the light of his dream of justice. Finally, this can be done only by one who comes from an experience of God, an experience in God, back to the world. Though we are usually first led to know and love God, of course, in and through his creation, there must and does come, for those whose ex-perience of God matures, a moment of experiencing Him beyond this world's ~- wisdom and potentiality-- a moment of experiencing God as not simply equal to, but as far beyond, all the beauty and wisdom of this world. This moment of transcendence, of finding complete satisfaction and joy in a loving God himself, roots our identity primarily in God and gives his love a priority over any created reality. It is an experience that re-announces us before God, before ourselves and before the world as a people of God, a people in God. In this way our "renunciation," in the sense of a re-announcement of the world for God, puts the world in its true perspective, as seen in and from God.z Rather than lessening our interest in th~ world, this view dramatically in-creases our zeal to further God's Kingdom in the wo~:id and so bring it to its full potential. But serving the needs of our world properly, as part of our love of God, demands this kind of worldly renouncement. There are issues of some importance for ac, tive apostles today that relate to this renunciation of the world. Can this experience of renunication happen without some physical withdrawal from the worl~d? And since the renuncia-tion referred to here is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, what meaias will help active people to keep it alive and growing as a personal attitude? With much ~to leSs physical detachment from the world in most seminaries and novitiates (and much of this is good and in accord with the appropriately non-monastic raining of active apostles), how can we be assured that this necessary attitude f renunciation is taking permanent root in the apostle's consciousness? How do active apostles prevent their worldly renunciation either from turning into a withdrawal from the world which, while suitable for monks, is most un- See Karl Rahner, S.J., Theological Investigations, vol 3, The Theology of the Spiritual Life, tr. Karl-H and Boniface Kruger, "The Ignatian Mysticism of Joy in the World" (Baltimore: ~, H elicon, 1967), pp. 227-293. What Rahner describes as thefugasaeculi for a Jesuit is fundamental to any mature Christian life with and in God. 200 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 suitable for them, or, even worse, from turning into an unChristian lack of concern for the world? The American Church is not finished with these ques-tions. We need more discussion, and better answers. For without this attitude of worldly renunciation, we may have active apostles busy doing many good things, but nov per~ceiving the world's full potential for beauty and goodness and not furthering the reality of a Father's Kingdom that is revealed chiefly in a dead Son's Resurrection. 5. Relationship of Spirituality and Morality. For too many people morality has been corrupted by an overly narrow, moralistic and rationalistic stress. This moralism, with its rationalistically detailed stress on casuistry, tends to cut'healthy morality off from its roots in the spirituality of God's revelation. It has caused much unhealthy fear, guilt and introspection. The "holy person" was described as one who avoided a clearly delineated list of mortal and venial sins. And, too often, this avoidance of sins seemed more a matter of stubbornly pelagian will power than a matter of prayerfully humble dependence on God's. grace. But today, it seems one could be taking means" for serious growth in prayer, faith and a spiritual life, and yet this spiritual seriousness need not ex-press itself in quite practical matters like the morality of public, social affairs or of a chaste sexual life. At times, neither certain social injustices nor something like masturbation is seen as unholy, thereby affecting one's love relationship with God. The intertwined strands of spirituality and morality are here become so unraveled that holy, prayerful Christian people may not be ex-pected to come to similar moral conclusions on various practical issues. A fuller view of both morality and spirituality, ho~vever, rather finds them mutually inclusive and affirming of one another, mutually accountable, while at the same time leaving to each its own, appropriately specific, stress. To view some practical matter spiritually is to judge its appropriatenes~ against the faith-ideal of a trust in God's loving power wonderfully filling our own weakness whenever it is exposed in self-emptying surrender. In this way cer-tain attitudes, dispositions and actions are unholy and unspiritual because they violate this trust in God's love. Only one's spiritual growth in union with God will provide this trust in the practical details of daily living. Much is being done these days in moral theology to construct a modern .version of full, healthy Christian morality and a spirituality as integral to each other. A very interesting issue in this new approach in moral theology is the role in moral decision-making which prayerful discernment of spirits plays in providing that moral knowledge whereby a holy person can know God's love in a concrete situation. 6. Sin ~ Forgiveness-- Sacrament of Reconciliation. Related to the previous consideration of spirituality and morality is another issue, that of our personal experience as sinners in the human recep- Currents in Spirituality: The Past Decade / 201 tion of God's vivifying forgiveness in and through the sacrament of recon-ciliation. Although there are unhealthy dualisms which de.ny integral human living and which should therefore be avoided, the dualism of a person saved in Jesus, but still with much affective evidence of sinfulness cannot be avoided. This dualism is the very setting for the Christian adventure of sons and daughters still gradually coming into their own. The seven capital sins, alive in our affective consciousness as dispositions, inclinations and impulses, provide us with our own version of the pauline divided heart? But we.have an in-destructible hope of ever more healing and wholeness in the crucified Son's discovery of his Father's blessing of resurrection. Continual conversion, so central to the Christian life, happens in the pain-fully purifying humiliation of a double acknowledgement: my personal sin-fulness, and the faithful love of the Trinity for me in the Son's Calvary experience, And this brings in turn a double awareness: we are never nearly so good as we try to make ourselves out to be; but we are far more loved in the Trinity's forgiveness than we could ever imagine. This process of personal assimilation of God's forgiveness is neither instantaneous nor superficial. The inner humiliation of an unqualified admission of personal sinfulness before our beloved Father in his crucified Son is something that we instinctively try to avoid. In this experience, a careful discernment of what is spiritually good for each person is needed.' Despite the reform of the rite of the sacrament of reconciliation I wonder whether people are being helped to deepen their experience of this growth to self-identity through forgiveness. The old superstructure surrounding the in-stitution of frequent confession has broken down--as it had to. Reconcilia-tion prayer-services have restored the communal dimension of sinfulness and forgiveness within the community of the Church, and a whole new format has been developed for the individual reception of the sacrament of reconcilia-tion. But there are ways in which a communal experience of the sacrament, without a carefully~ personal and individual experience, can superficialize or short-circuit the human process of receiving.God's forgiveness. As we grow to a more healthy and loving sense of ourselves, we can learn to find the in-dividual experience of the sacrament a helpful means of growth to the maturi-ty of humble trust in the fidelity of the Trinity's forgiving love always available in our weakness. 7. Faith and Justice. After the topic of prayer, this seems the theme most treated in today's spiritual writing. Many persons are much more sensitive today to the systemic network of social sin that is rooted in the individual sinfulness of human Rm 7:14-25. See my article, "Forgiveness," Sisters Today, Dec. 1973, pp. 185-92. 202 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 hearts--that are radically social in nature. But we have a long way to go in developing a sensitivity to social sin and a social morality. And the insight that justice, in a sense much fuller than simply its social-political meaning, is in-tegral to faith badly needs to grow in the Church. Opportunities for such growth are being very well served by current studies in scripture~ and in Christology.6 Further study and reflection, however, is neede~l to recognize more precisely the sense of justice that is so centrally related to Christian faith-- the full paschal justice of God, motivated and revealed in us through a refined and decisive faith. It is the zealous faith of a great love of God that urges on us a passionate concern and practical involvement for the justice of God's Kingdom. For we are not urged on simply by a social theory about the unity of the human family, or about communal ownership of our earth's resources, or about the inherent evil of war. The fundamental and difficult question of how Christianity relates to various political ideologies--and to ideology, as such--arises here. In South America the question of the possibility of a Chris-tian marxism is very alive, whereas in this country there is a serious question-ing of the assumptions of capitalism. These are complicated questions about specific situations and activities. But we must remember that zeal for the justice of God's Kingdom can never be limited simply to the matter of a specific kind of activity that one is involved in. Rather, and with more far ranging, quite practical effect, it must grow to a vision that pervades and in-fluences everything we do. A few other aspects of this issue deserve listing. The tendency to an ex-cessively introspect, privatized spirituality needs the challenge of that zeal for justice which validates a person's faith.7 We must learn how to relate our zeal for justice to our contemplation. For active apostles in the heat of unjust, op-pressive situations, it is never easy to believe in the grace that could convert understandable angry feelings into the appropriate expression of tenderness and compassion. Much more than a matter of a given temperament, we must see tenderness and compassion not as unbecoming to either a man or a woman in certain situations, but as virtues contemplatively rooted by grace in a per-son's affectivity and will. Finally, many of us need new experiences to help us feel much more passionately the tangled questions this issue raises~ before we can even know the question, much less the answers. ~ See John R. Donahue, S.J., "Biblical Perspectives on Justice" in The Faith That Does Justice, ed. John C~ Haughey, S.J. (New York: Paulist, 1977), pp. 68-112 and Jose" Porfirio Miranda, Marx and the Bible, tr. John Eagleson (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1974), 338 pp. ~ J~irgen Moltmann, The Crucified God (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 346 pp.; John Sobrino, S J, Christology At the Crossroads, tr. John Drury Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1978), 432 pp.; Leonardo Boll, Jesus Christ Liberator (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1978). 7 cf. Richard A. Blake, S.J., "'As the Father Has Sent Me'," America, Aug 25, 1979, pp. 66-69 and William J. Byron, S J, "Privatization--A Contemporary Challenge to lgnatian Spirituality," Chicago Studies, vol. 14, No. 3, Fall, 1975, pp. 241-251. Currents in Spirituality: The Past Decade / 20:3 8. Role of Women in the World and the Church. Another major concern in spirituality today is the role of woman. The issue, understandably en6ugh, is often so fraught with crusading passion and angry feelings that, as male and therefore one who surely does not feel enough the seriousness of the issue, one almost fears to say anything at all. Against a backdrop of past and present prejudice, the lea'dership role of woman in the Church slowly increases. But there is a long way to go. Attitude, rather more than qanguage, seems nearer the heart of the matter--and yet linguistic care both expresses and shapes our attitude. And the attitude of many leaders and other people in the Church must profoundly change before women will exercise a suitably influential role and make their unique contribu-tion (something any exaggei'ated uniformity and equality, of course, will not allow). In general, there seem to be three stages to this concern. First is an awareness of the fact injustice, however it is explained. This is often followed by a period of intense reaction, which is quite understandable; whether ap-parently exaggerated or not. Finally, a stage of peaceful service in the Church is often reached, as one doeg what is possible to correct the injustice. It is a process similar to Kubler-Ross's stages8 arid has been gone through by others when facing the deadly situation of unjust discrimination.~ Women's ordination to the priesthood is, of course, still debated. For many, however, it does not seem to be the heart of the issue at the present time. Much will continue to be accomplished without changing the present policy on women's ordination to the ministerial priesth6od. This does not deny-that there are painful situations, which can be paschally productive for all, in which women actually minister a "sacramentally" salvific experience without the acknowledged ministerial priestly capacity to formally celebrate the experience in the Church. A good example of this is the woman director of a retreat who cannot administer the sacrament of reconciliation after sharing a retreatant's graced experience of God's forgiveness. Many would feel--and many would not m that this is still an open question, about which the Church seems not to have enough light in the Spirit to know whether a change is called for or not. In the meantime, we all need to grow in a sensitivity to correct past in-jostice in our own relationships, to beg for light in the Spirit regarding what is the right growth in this issue for the future, and to pray for the humility and the urgent patience of Jesus in his passion to live and serve generously in the present situation. 9. Spirituafity and Psychology. Because spitituality involve~ the total human person in relationship to ~ Elisabeth K~Jbler-Ross, On Death and Dying (New York: Macmillan, 1969), 260 pp. 904 / Review for Religious, Volume 39, 1980 / 2 God's saving love, it can be related to every area of human behavior. It is I~ especially appropriate and valuable to relate spirituality to psychology, and, over the past decade or more, interest in this relationship has 'increased enor-mously. As an overly rationalistic view of spirituality subsides, we investigate much more the role of the non-rational dimensions of our person in spiritual growth. Spirituality can be naive, and destructive too, when it flies in the face of healthy psycholggy. But spirituality loses its salvific power for the human person, and becomes even demonic, when it capitulates completely to psychology. A delicate balance is called for in this relationship--something not easily arrived at, or easily preserved. In turning to s'ome specific aspects of this general issue, it is obvious that much greater~ stress is now being placed on communicationskills, on affectivi-ty, on the role of the body, and on consciousness-altering techniques--all of which can enrich our prayer and further sensitize us to the many ways God's word an~d love come to us. The practice of spiritual direction often legitimb.tely ,~. overlaps with a type of psychological counseling. But the ultimate aim of ~ facili

Issue 33.2 of the Review for Religious, 1974. ; Review ]or Religious is edited by faculty members of the School of Divinity of St. Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copy-right (~) 1974 by Review ]or Religious. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $1.75. Sub-scription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year; $11.00 for two years; other countries, $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to Review ]or Religious in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent Review Jor Religious. Change of address requests should include former address. R. F. Smith, S.J. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor March 1974 Volume 33 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, books for review, and materials for "Subject Bibliography for Religious" 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 Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106. Directed Prayer and the Founding Charism Norbert Brockman, S.M. Father Norbert Brockman is a staff member of the Marianist Center; 4435 East Patterson Road; Dayton, Ohio 45430. Among the growing movements among American religious in the past few years has been the directed retreat. In increasing numbers, religious have placed themselves under a director who has guided their meditation for periods as long as thirty days.1 The movement owes much to the Jesuits, who have taken leadership throughout the countr~ in reviving an approach to the retreat that is closely linked with their own renewal and spirituality.2 There have been spinooffs from the directed retreat movement that sug-gest that directed retreats are much more than a passing fad, although for some they will take on that character. The first of the side benefits of the directed retreat movement has been that religious of a number of congregations, especially women, are being trained in the method and approach of directing prayer. The Jesuits have established centers for this purpose, and programs for training, using the Ignatian retreat, are well patronized. A congequence of this is the flowering of directed retreats among women religious,, and the better training of for-mation personnel capable of working with mature nuns. Secondly, the directed retreat seems to bring many religious to long-term spiritual direction. Foi" the first time, for many religious, ~it has been possible--in a directed retreat--to consider spiritual direction as some- 1See, for example, Margaret Baker, H.V.M., "My Experience of a Directed Retreat," Review for Religious, v. 31 (1972), pp. 573-7; Sister Christine Freed, R.G.S., "I Feel like Singing Forever," Review ]or Religious, v. 32 (1973), pp. 1379-1384. '-'Thomas E. Clarke, SJ., "The Ignatian Exercises---Contemplation and Discernment," Review ]or Religious, v. 31 (1972), pp. 62-9. 257 258 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/2 thing other than crisis intervention. While one can comment only impres-sionistically, it seems that a real phenomenon of the past three years has been the increased desire among religious for spiritual direction.:' While the pattern is not so clear as to the expectations.of the religious seeking direction, the question of growth in prayer is always a serious considera-tion. The direction of prayer itself has an ancient and honorable tradition in the Church. From the earliest days of Christianity, the spiritual novice submitted himself or herself to a spiritual guide under whose direction growth in the life of prayer was undertaken. The stories of the fathers of the desert reinforce this strongly, and direction in prayer was for them an all-important issue in the relationship between novice and adept Chris-tian. The origins of this are obscure, but it would seem that the earliest forms of direction in prayer come from the baptismal catechesis, where the person responsible for the conversion of a neophyte not only helped in the education of the candidate for baptism, but particularly assumed the task of.teaching them the spiritual life. Together the two shared a period of prayer and 'fasting before the administration of the sacrament." In modern times, with the structure of the annual or other periodic retreat, various forms or styles of retreats came to the fore. The Ignatian r~treat has always had, in this period, a special place. It has been widely used b~, religious whose congregations are not Ignatian in spirituality, and its very basic Christian themes have made it equally.popular among lay-people. Although the preached retreat had become the predominant form, the notion of the directed retreat never died out, and its revival on such a large scale is in reality a return to an earlier Ignatian tradition. The Notion of the Directed Retreat The focus in the directed retreat is on the notion of "directed." It is a retreat in which the pfirticipant works with the retreat master in the man-ner of a s~iritual director. There is normally an hour-long interview each day, during which the retreatant's prayer is evaluated, directions and themes are~ given for further meditations, and the quality of the retreatant's prayer' is developed? As indicated above, although the nature of the directed retreat has ancient roots in the Church, it has been most characteristic o~ Jesuit re-aSee Sandra Marie Schneiders, I.H.M., "The 'Return' to Spiritual Direction," Spiritual Lile, v. 18 (1972), pp. 263-78. 4Michel Dujarier, Le parrainage des adultes aux trois premiers siO(les de l'Eglise (Paris: 1962), p. 377. 5Herbert F. Smith, S.J., "The Nature and Value of a Directed Retreat," Review ]or Religious;,v. 32 (1973), pp. 490-7. This article is available from Review ]or Religious as a separate reprint. Directed Prayer and the Founding Charism / ~259 treats in recent years. The point needs to be made that the nature of this retreat is simply the direction of prayer itself, adapted to the peculiar de-sign of a retreat, a period of time in which a person withdraws from ordi-nary pursuits to develop more consciously and deliberately in the spiritual life. Admittedly, among American religious other values have also entered in,, but this has always been understood as the essential purpose of retreat. For, a religious working far from the center of his province~ in a small community, the value of fellowship is a real one, for example. Some province retreats resemble a tribal gathering in this regard, and others use a workshop model rather than the traditional one of withdrawal for prayer. The comments that follow will be placed in the context of directed re-treats, but they might as easily apply to much of the real work of spiritual direction. Direction in prayer, even the special, concentrated form of di-rected meditation used in directed retreats, is the heart of spiritual direc-tion. An aspect of regular ~direction, even if relatively infrequent, is sug-gestions for prayer, the joint evaluation of movements in prayer, the dis-cernment of these movements, and help in heeding the call to new levels of prayer. The purpose of this article, however, is not to explore the nature and values, of the directed retreat, but to discuss its use to inculcate the values from the founding charism of a particular ~religious congregation. The question of the nature of th~ directed retreat has been explored in depth elsewhere." What has not been investigated at any point is how the tech-nique of the directed retreat can contribute to the deepening of the ~ommit-ment of a religious to his/her °founding charism. Because non-Ignatian development of the directed retreat has been so°limited, the paucity of in-formation on the topic is understandable. What follows here is based on the author's study within the documents of his own order, as well as at-tempts to work with sisters of two other,groups attempting to find better means for developing their own spirituality within their members. The Founding Charism .In recent attempts among religious to heed the directives of Vatican II that they renew .themselves in the spirit of'their founders and foundresses, the emphasis has been placed upon research and the question of teaching the proper spirit of the order to cb.ndidates,r Along with this has gone the concern for finding newer expressions for the origina! teaching of the founder, while remaining faithful to his/her intent. This has produced some valuable materials in some groups, some false starts in others; there ~William A. Barry, ~S.J., "The Experience of the First and Second Weeks of the Spiritual Exercises," Review ]or Religious, v. 32 (1973), pp. 102'-9. See also the same author's "Silence and tl~e Directed Retreat," Review ]or Religious, v. 32 (1973), pp. 347-51; and Smith, "The Nature and Value of a Directed Retreat." rVatican Council II, The Renewal o/Religious LiIe, no. 2. Review [or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/2 have been elements of both renewal and deception in the experience of getting in touch with one's roots. In the directed retreat, the issue changes somewhat. The purpose of the retreat is not to analyze, speculate, or study. It is to experience the meaning of the life of the Lord in a renewed sense. It is to deepen one's prayer, and to deal with issues that affect the spiritual life. When we speak of a directed retreat designed to inculcate the values of the spirituality of a religious congregation, therefore, the point is that the important elements of that spirituality must be assembled in what may be new ways, intended to move the soul through prayer more than grouped in perfectly logical structures. The experiential dimension, and the very goal of the directed re-treat according to one's own charism, is to bring the retreatant to the ex-perience that the founder had in founding the congregation. One must experience the foundation within oneself as a truly authentic, congruent integration of the spiritual life. It should make sense, bring an interior peace, and strongly confirm one's commitment to this congregation at this time in history. Few religious have taken themselves, or been taken, through the experience of the founder or foundress.'By this is not meant that the privations or sufferings of the founder--the more dramatic ele-ments of his/her life--need be reproduced in some sort of role playing. Indeed, the point is the reproduction of the insight and inspiration of the founding charism itself. What elements of the Christian experience brought about the development that the religious knows as his/her spiritual legacy? How were the evangelical counsels and the gospel message ex-perienced by the founder in such a way that the foundation of this group became a means of incarnating these values? If the congregation is the incarnation of the values of the founder--an extension of his/her charism into history--how is it to be experienced, personally by the members and corporately by the community as a whole? The questions above zero in on the issues that the directed retreat can deal with, in terms of the founding charism of a congregation. What is ob-vious, then, is that the design of the retreat must be developmental, and that might well be, as stated above, quite different from the design used to teach the ideas of the charism, or to study them. Critical Elements of a Founding Charism What, then, are the elements of a founding charism that must be con-sidered in designing such a retreat experience? The Spiritual Exercises are a brilliant example and deserve to be studied, even by those whose spiritual tradition differs sharply from that of the Jesuits. The themes, from the "Two Standards" to the last consideration, are highly developmental. Each builds on what precedes, not so much intellectually, but in the context of faith. It is possible to find all the elements of the Christian life from conversion Directed Prayer and the Founding Charism / 261 to union with God. In short, a spiritual path is described. At the same time, the style of the retreat is congruent with the highly personal emphasis on decision and discernment. The Ignatian directed retreat is characterized (usually, although there are exceptions) by lone meditation, usually at some length, by minimal communal aspects, and by minimal liturgical life. The focus is on the individual coming to grips with his/her personal relationships with the Lord, with an acceptance of that Lordship in one's life, and in the development of a prayer life that nourishes and defines that relationship. What then are the elements of a founding charism that are critical to the development of directed prayer in this ~evelopmental sense? Four ele-ments surface in any investigation of this question: method of prayer, ascetical and/or devotional practices, a spiritual system, and theological concepts. These are the elements that the designer of the retreat prayer experiences needs to coordinate. The study that makes this possible should be on the part of the retreat director, and the retreatant should not be called o'n to do other than move immediately into the prayer experience. .Let us, then, briefly look at each of these elements of the founding charism in turn. Method of Prayer The first critical question is whether the founder taught a method of prayer, particularly a method of meditation. In many cases, what will be discovered is that the founder/foundress did .use a currently popular method of meditation, but that it was a matter of convenience in instruct-ing novices, and not an important element of the spirituality of the con-gregation. Here some communal discernment is necessary. In reading the founder's letters of direction, for example, or instructions on prayer, it is necessary to discover the significance of any proper method to the totality of his/her founding charism. If a distinct approach, emphasis, or technique is present, it should be integrated in the directed prayer of the retreat experience, For instance, a congregation consecrated to Mary might well have developed a receptive approach to prayer based on an understanding of Our Lady's fiat, a disposition of total availabi!ity to the Lord. It would hardly be congruent in such a case to suggest.an aggressive, intellectual type of mental prayer. It would surely conflict with many of the themes that the founding charism will c6ntain. Ascetical and/or Devotional Practices This area, like the last, deserves careful work to determine the con-tinuing value of the ascetical and/.or devotional practices of the founder. Things which are merely characteristic of the nationality or culture of the founder may be safely set aside, and tangential devotions may also be ex-cluded. After all, even founders and foundresses are entitled to devotional 262 / Review 1or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/2 expressions which are uniquely personal, and without having these pro-jected onto their religious foundations! In what sense is the devotion in-volved in the direction that the founder gave his/her early members? What is its theological content? A founder or foundress with a great de-votion to the cross, who writes and speaks of the cross in such a way that it permeates the spirituality of the order, is teaching something of greater import than a founder with a great personal devotion to a. patron saint or to a shrine. Similarly, the practice of taking names in religion may have been merely the religious convention of the time of foundation, or it may have had specific meaning~ Other ascetical practices are.to be similarly evalu-ated. In one tradition, the regulations of the founder about the diet may have been a simple indication of poverty within his .cultural context; in another tradition, the manner in which the question is treated might indi-cate that the retreat should include some fasting, if possible, and with cerr tain goals in mind. A Spiritual System The most obvious element is the spiritual system of the foundation. Did the founder have an approach to spirituality which he taught to the early members? What virtues did he consider important, especially, what aspects of the Christian life did he consider characteristic of his founda-tion? What were his interpretation and understanding of evangelical chastity, poverty, and obedience, and did this differ from the prevailing understand-ings of his time? Did the foundation include any other vows besides the three traditional ones, even though these may no longer exist in the con-gregation? What was the value that the founder/foundress was stressing by having additional vows? What was his/her notion of common life and community experience? What is the role of the apostolate in fostering the spiritual life? All these are part of the questions that must be asked in the process of constructing the spiritual system of the founder or foundress, as, usually in most cases, active founders have not written out the spiritual system in clear fashion. Besides exploring the documents of the congregation, however, the living experience of the early foundation is itself of importance. The story of the life of the founder is often of great value in determining what he meant by a certain teaching. Religious orders are, after all, not only com-munities, but a special modality of community--witness communities that show forth the transcendent dimension of Christian life. The witness of the early foundation, therefore, is of great importance as a form of teach-ing. Theological Concepts Usually, theological concepts do not appear in a founding charism as Directed Prayer and the Founding Charism / 263 such. Founders and foundresses are rarely interested in theology except as it reveals the person :of Jesus Or underlies a religious value. Nevertheless, founders are usually very concerned about fidelity to the deposit of faith. A renewed understanding of theological concepts in recent years may make it possible to enrich the understanding of the founder. The founding charism does not really change, but the religious order is called to fidelity to it, not to literal acceptance in the language, cultural norms, and symbols of the early society. As the Church grows in its understanding, of herself and her divine mission, so 'a religious congregation should show signs of growth in its self-understanding.'To utilize a theological concept such as the Eucharist without integrating the better insights coming from a renewed liturgy of celebration would be more than unfortunate. It would be .a denial of the fidelity'of the founder to the Church's teaching, because as he was faithful to ~the Church's expression of eternal truth in his time and culture, so the congregation, today must reproduce that fidelity. Again, renewed Biblical scholarship has made possible far greater sophistication in understanding the gospel message than heretofore. That cannot be ignored in studying the founding charism, merely because it has happened since the founder died! The °emphasis laid upon the experiential above is not to be interpreted as demeaning the importance of the intellectual as preparation for prayer. Anti-intellectualism is not a mark of the Christian, Quite the contrary, and the directed prayer experience will be the richer for the .hours spent by both ~director and retreatant in studying the basic teaching ,of the Church, especially in those areas that touch upon the founding charism. ~Fhe Retreat ~s Reflection of the Founding Charism The first of the elements of a founding charism was stated as the method of meditation or mental prayer. The idea of the importance of the ,congruence of this with~the total spirituality of the founder or foundress was stressed, but this idea can also be expanded~. The entire style of the directed retreat should reflect the founding.charism. The import/race of this cannot easily be exaggerated because of ~he'experiential nature of:the directed retreat. There" is a profound difference between the directed re-treat., as desert experien.ce (silence, lone meditation at great length, and so forth) and the directed retreat as communal',experience (common liturgi-cal celebrations,' some group discussion, and so forth). In among these contrasts are many modalities of directed retreat, of course. The point is that it is important to include those aspects which will most effectively help the retreatant to gro~w into the values which are the subjects of the prayer experiences. The spirituality that emphasizes a deeply communitarian-or service value will not come through successfully in a desert experience. This i~ not to say that the desert experience is not of value for religious f~'om adtive commui~ities~(far from it!), but only that a limited aspect of their spirituality is likqly to emerge in such a context. Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/2 Similarly, methods of discernment should be congruent with the found-ing charism itself. What was the method for discerning the will of God used by the founder or foundress? Was it a communal means, or one based on authority? Discernment itself has become an issue, both within the directed retreat movement and in other contexts? It is an integral part of the Spiritual Exercises, and would seem to be an integral part of the work of the director of prayer. Within a given tradition, the method of dis-cernment might well be prophetic or charismatic. More likely it will reflect an authoritarian tone, which would translate into the directed retreat as a form of obedience to the spiritual guide. This type of obedience itself needs to be understood, as it isnot the same as the obedience owed a superior under the evangelical vow. In some traditions, the means of discernment might be very communal, in such a way that group direction might be a compatible style for certain congregations using the directed retreat. This would be alongside the pri-vate interview, which is essential to the directed retreat. A final word should be added on the place of resolutions. Many re-ligious feel strongly that they should come home from retreat with clear resolutions for the future--a battle plan, so to speak. The presumption is so strong with many that it is an issue that should be frankly discussed with the director. It is certainly not necessary for the directed retreat; it is enough that there be an interior renewal and deepened commitment to the spirit of the foundation. Whether there are "results" or decisions on con-crete action for the future should flow from the needs of the person him-self/ herself. Too often it is merely another expression of a workaholic personality. Conclusion This has been a simple and sketchy view of the development of a directed retreat from the point of view of the goal of growth in the spirit of one's own order. As such, directed prayer is a powerful means of growth toward incarnating in oneself the values of the founding charism. It is a means of renewal that not only affirms one's commitment to religious life, but also goes far toward building and renewing the community through renewed religious, standing firmly in the tradition of the one who brought the order into being under God's grace. 8Criticism has been recently expressed by W. Peters, S.J., "Discernment: Doubts," Review ]or Religious, v. 32 (1973), pp. 814-7. See also James V. Gau, S.J., "Dis-cernment and the Vow of Obedience," Review for Religious, v. 32 (1973), pp. 569-74; David T. Asselin, S.J., "Christian Maturity and Spiritual Discernment," Review ]or Religious, v. 27 (1968), pp. 581-95; and John R. Sheets, S.J., "Profile of the Spirit: A Theology of the Discernment of Spirits," Review ]or Religious, v. 30 (1971), pp. 363-76. The last article (that of Father Sheets) is available from Review ]or Religious as a separate reprint. Prayer: The Context of Discernment Charles J. Healey, S.J. Father Charles J. Healey, S.J., is a faculty member of the Department of Theology; Boston College; Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts 02167. Discernment Today In our attempts to seek and find God in our lives and to live out our Chris-tian lives of faith, hope, and love, we are often involved in a process of rediscovery. There is not that much that is new for us in the sense of dis-covering something for the first time. But often the conditions of the times in which we live and our own felt needs combine to lead us to focus on a particular aspect of the spiritual life. Such, I would suggest, is the case in the area of discernment. It is certainly a term that has deep roots in the history of Christian spirituality. But ours is a period that has seized upon the process of discernment--perhaps too quickly and too glibly at times-- in the hopes that it might aid us in our efforts to love and serve God both as individuals and as communities, and to seek and respond more gener-ously to His will in our lives. This renewed interest in discernment should come as no surprise. First of all, there is the very visible desire of many to deepen their own union with God, to establish or reestablish what they consider the essentials and priorities in their lives, and to make any required decisions in a context of faith and prayer. In a time of great change, many are seeking to find strength and unity within themselves not only to cope effectively with their lives and all their responsibilities, but also. to maintain themselves as lov-ing and productive persons. Secondly, many communities are turning to the process of discernment as a method of helping them in their attempts at renewal as a community and as a basis for group decisions. But whether 265 266 / Review for Religious, ~olume 33, 197.4/2 it is a case of individual discernment or corporate discernment, it is impor-tant to stress over and over that the basis of any discernment has to be the deep and intense prayer of the persons involved in the process. The context of any true discernment is prayer. The purpose of this article, then, is to offer some reflections on discernment, using the word in the broadest sense here and focusing on the intimate connection between discernment and prayer. ontex! Is Prayer Discernment really makes sense only when it is situated in the context of prayer. Unless there is a corresponding desire to seek and find God continually in our lives and to deepen our awareness of His reality and presence, discernment can end up just being talk. The seeking and yearn-ing attitude of the Psalmist must penetrate our own lives deeply: "To you, my heart speaks; you my glance seeks, your presence, O Lord, I seek. Hide not your face from me" (Ps 27:8-9). There is, of course, a renewed in-terest and even a hunger on the part of many today in the area of per-sonal prayer; and this accounts in part for the renewed interest in the area of discernment. There are many indications of this all around us at the present time; and many are definitely expressing a desire for praye~r which springs from a felt human need and the presence of the Spirit in our midst, ever renewing, ever arousing. Recently I was listening to a taped conference on prayer by Thomas Merton in which he mentioned at the beginning that he ~did not like to talk a great deal about prayer. This was certainly not from any disinterest, for if there is any constant preoccupation and interest that emerges in his life and writings, it would be with the value and priority he constantly gives to prayer. But he wanted to stress the point that pr~yer for us should be something simple and natural, something as simple and natiaral as breath-ing. It is hard for us to talk about breathing since it is such a normal process of our lives and one wfiich we can easily take for granted. So, too, he feels should be the case with prayer. At times we can complicate it and make an issue or a cause out of it. But usually when we make a~ca~]se or an issue out of something, we oppose it to something else: "This is.prayer, this isn't. This is something sacred, this isn't." The f~us could then shift to the issue rather than the reality, and prayer could then be viewed as something complicated and artificial. Perhaps we can best consider prayer as the simple, natural, continual response of one who is,. convinced he be-longs to God and seeks to grow in union with Him, and the response of one who realizes he is a person possessed by a loving God. And it is in this climate, this atmosphere of prayer tl~at the whole process of discern-ment should be placed. The context is a very normal, full, and serious seek-ing after God. Pray'~r." The Context o[ Discernment / 267 The Process of Discernment ' Discernment, then, should not be considered a cause or an issue nor ev~en' a method in itself. It is a process in prayer by which one seeks seri-ously to know and follow God's will, to hear His call and faithfully and generously respond in the very real life situation of the person concerned. If l~ra~er should be a very human and ordinary experience, so too should b6 discernment. In this sense, it is a very simple process; and yet, on the other hand, it can be difficult in the sense that it presupposes constant efforts at'a deep and continuous union with God through prayer. This re-quires perseverance, patience, and willingness to expend time and energy. It' cannot be turned off and on like a water faucet if it is to be effective; it presupposes a firm basis of faith and the continuous seeking of the presence of the Lord. ~Alth0ugh discernment is a word that can come easily to the lips, it can still remain a rather elusive concept. Perhaps this is because it pre-soppos~ so much else. At any rate, we might recall Father Futrellrs defi-nition that discernment "involves choosing the way of the light of Christ instead of the way of the darkness of the Evil One and living out the con-sequences of this choice through discerning what specific decisions and ac-tions a~e, demanded to follow Christ here and now.''1 Thus discernment focuses on the ongoing attempts to clarify and ascertain God's will in our lives and seeks to specify what actions and decisions are required in the life of "on'e who wishes to follow Christ tothlly. The process presupposes an int'eflse desire, hunger, and willingness to seek God's will and to embrace it generously once one has come to a reasonable certitude regarding it. W~ might say it all comes down to our attempts to hear and respond to:the wo~'d of God in our own unique lives. But. if we are to be sensitive t~lGod speaking to us in the many ways He does.in our liv6s, we must first hear His call; we must listen quietly and give Him frequent opportuni-ties to speak to us. If we fire to b~ sensitive to God's presence and attentive to His touch, there must be an element of stillness and listening. Since this listening~aspect is so important for discernment, we should not be surprised to find this aspect of prayer being re-e~mphasized today.2 Many are ex-periencing the need today to. take time out from all their activities in order to turn within and seek God's presence within, to contemplate Him and to listen to Him in the stillness of their hearts. It is a kind of active receptivity as we let the radical truth of God shine forth with its own life within us. We seek to make the words of the P~almist our own: "In your light we see light." It is in this atmosphere .of stillness and presence that one can best determine God's call, God's touch, God's will. ~John C. Futrell, S.J., "Ignatian Discernment," Studies in the Spirituality o] Jesuits, v. 2, no. 2, p. 47. '-'See, for example, W. Norris Clarke, S.J., "Be Still and Contemplate,"~ New Catholic World, November-December 1972, pp. 246 ft. 2611 / Review [or Religious, l/'olume 33, 1974/2 Building on the Past As we seek to see clearly where God is touching us at a given time and where He is leading us and asking us to respond and follow, it is very help-ful to grow in the awareness of where God has touched us and nourished us0 in the past. Each of us has his or her own unique history in the hands of a loving God, that is, significant events, persons, books, Scripture pas-sages, and so forth, that have been a source of great strength and help. All of this constitutes our own faith experience of God; and the more it is brought to our conscious awareness, the more it becomes our own. Often in discernment workshops or faith sharing experiences, methods and oppor-tunities are presented to help individuals grasp more explicitly what they uniquely possess of God in their lives. One can call this by various names: one's core experience of God, one's beauty within, one's name of grace, and so forth. But it all comes down to the same reality: we seek to realize what we already possess, what is uniquely ours, and where God has touched us and loved us significantly. Once we are more aware of how God has acted in our lives in the past, we can more easily return in a spirit of prayer to be nourished and strengthened and sustained. What has sustained us in ~the past and what has touched us before, can sustain us and touch us again. This conscious awareness also helps us to be more responsive and sensitive to where God is touching us now, where He is leading us. We can begin to see a pattern and a continuity in our lives of faith. Above all, we be-come more aware of the profoundest reality of our lives, namely that which we possess of the power and love of God that has worked within us in the past and continues to be operative in the present. Discernment in prayer, then, is an ongoing process that seeks to find God and His will in our lives; it involves a constant seeking of God and an awaren(ss of His presence in our lives. Through discernment one seeks to hear God's continuous call, to recognize it as clearly as possible in order to follow it as faithfully and generously as possible. It seeks to answer the question: How can I best love and serve God in the present circumstances of my life. It is an ongoing process because our lives, our experience, our work, our relationship with God is an ongoing process. His Word does not come to us in a vacuum but in the concrete circumstances of our everyday lives. As Thomas Merton says in one of my favorite passages from his writings: Every moment and every event of every man's life on earth plants some-thing in his soul. For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest im-perceptibly in the minds and wills of men. Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because men are not prepared to receive them; for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the good soil of freedom and love.3 aThomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions, 1961), p. 14. Prayer: The Context of Discernment / 269 In a very true sense, it is only the faith-filled person, the contemplating person that is acutely sensitive to these seeds of God in his or her life. And for the soil of freedom and love to flourish in our own lives, we must con-stantly open ourselves to the Spirit of God through an abiding spirit of prayer. Not only must we seek to grow sensitive to God's speaking to us in the external events of our lives, but we must seek to grow in an awareness and sensitivity to the movements within ourselves as we react personally to the signs of His will and presence. How do my present reactions corre-spond to the felt experience of God that has been so much a part of my life in the past? Are my present movements in resonance with that source of peace, that sense of oneness and wholeness before God that I have ex-perienced before, that sense of belonging to God that has been so nourish-ing and sustaining in my life? Are they consistent with the normal signs of the Spirit working within us, the signs of "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility and self-control" (Gal. 5:22-3)? These are some of the questions one seeks to clarify in order to fulfill the desire to seek and find the Lord and His will. The spiritual director can play an important role in assisting here, for at times we can be too close to ourselves to have the needed objectivity. The director can aid us in clarifying and objectifying our own experiences and interior movements and aid us to see where God is touching us, loving us, and indicating His presence and His will. A Sense of Freedom In addition to a deep and constant spirit of prayer, discernment also requires an attitude of freedom and detachment. The attitude of freedom I refer to is that which allows a person to give to God and His will the central place in one's life;, it is a freedom and detachment from all other things that would either prevent or hinder one's striving to focus On God. It is the sense of freedom that allows God to become and remain the cen-tral reality in one's life. The Psalmist speaks of this centrality with the words: "As the eyes of the servant are on the hands of the Master, so my eyes are on you, O Lord." It is the freedom that allows one to respond generously to Jesus' invitation to Matthew, "Come, follow me," and His words to the disciples of John the Baptist, "Come and see." Come and see and taste the goodness of the Lord. It is the freedom expressed in the words of the prophet Samuel, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening" (1 Sam 3:10), and the words of the Psalmist, "Here am I, Lord, I come to do your will" (Ps 40:7-8). We might note in passing that there can be an intimate connection between this spirit of freedom and a lifestyle that is marked by a spirit of simplicity. How does one grow in this spirit of freedom? Ultimately it is through a cooperation with the power of God's grace and love working within us. 270 / Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/2 But one important way is through a deepening realization that one is a loved sinner, that one has been touched and healed. A profound convic-tion of God's steadfast love and fidelity can be a very liberating force that enables one to turn to God and seek Him alone and His service in a spirit of simplicity and joy. This freedom grows in a context of lively faith and is nourished in prayerful reflection on God's goodness, mercy, love, and providence. Conclusion In general, discernment in prayer is an inward looking process; the focus is mainly on the movements and experiences of God within us. But the process must never stop here for there should also be an outward dimension of discernment. First of all, as in so many areas of the spiritual life of man, a healthy norm is: "By their fruits you shall know them." There is a confirmatory aspect of all discernment in the external fruits that are in evidence and the good works that are produced. Secondly, the great commandment,of love must always be kept in perspective, and a deepening union with God should lead to a deepening union with one's fellow man. An increasing sense of compassion for one's fellow man and his needs should flow from one's union with God. Finally, the process should lead to an increasing sensitivity to life and all its mysteries, to an increasing awareness of.God's presence in all things, and to our own growth as-con-templatives in action. A Norwegian Outpost: Maria Einscete M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O. Father M. Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O., is a Cistercian monk of St. Joseph's Abbey; Spencer, Massachusetts 01562. Our plane put down at Oslo and I soon bungled my way through customs, only .to find--no one. Communications had gotten a bit confus(d and now there was no one there. But everyone I asked seemed t6 know of him: "Brother Robert, yes, the hermit. He lives up in the mountains near Lake Tinn." And so I began my pilgrimage. Ten o'clock the next night I stepped down from a bus in the pouring rain and made bold to ask the young lady who alighted with me the oft repeated question: "Where is Brother Robert? . That way," she answered with a bold sweep of the arm as her hand pointed up a dark rise of conifers. I turned in the opposite direction to the friendly lights of an inn. It was a good choice. There among the youths gathered around the blazing fire was Jan. A couple years earlier he had been up to see the hermit with his pastor. He offered to be my guide. Good to his word, Jan arrived early the next morning with his little Volkswagen which took us as far as it could. Then we began to climb on foot. I was a bit embarrassed when Jan took my bag, but soon I was very grateful that he had--for otherwise I probably would never have made it. We must have climbed steadily, along an old logging trail, for forty-five minutes or more when Jan sudde.nly stopped and pointed back into the woods. We had actually passed our goal: Maria Einscete--Mary's Hermit-age. Maria Einscete was just a simple log cabin, one just like so many others in those forests. Larid in Norway belongs to the owner by hereditary right. It cannot be "definitively alienated. Most families living in the villages or on the lowland farms own stretches of woodland up on the mountains. 272 / Review ]or Religious, l,'olume 33, 197/.'-/2 In better times they kept men up there ,to care for the woods, but now most of these lumberjack's cabins are empty. One of these landlords, a kindly man, let Brother Robert use his abandoned cabin, plant some vege-tables, and dig a well. From the United States to Chile and to Norway Brother Robert, Father Robert Kevin Anderson, is a monk of St. Joseph's Abbey, Spencer, Massachusetts. He entered the Cistercian Order at the Abbey of Our Lady of the Valley back in 1949 when he was 17. He was one of the first choir novices professed after the community trans-ferred to Spencer. Frater Kevin, as he was called in those days, cared for the newly planted orchards and, after his ordination to the priesthood, for the newly planted brothers--as father master of the lay novices. But he had always experienced an attraction toward a more simple and radical form of monasticism. He went on to pursue this, first at St. Benedict's Monastery in the Colorado Rockies, then at the Monastery of Las Condes in the Chilean Andes. It was at the latter monastery that he first embarked on the eremitical life which he found to be his true calling. Later Father Robert sought deeper solitude in southern Chile; but the bishop there had some ideas of his own about how Father was to lead the eremitical life. So Father moved on to the land of his family's origins, Sweden. Here again, a hard-pressed bishop with few priests had his own ideas how a hermit-priest should live. And again Father moved, this time across the border to the diocese of the sympathetic and understanding Cistercian bishop, John Gran of Oslo. Until he could find a suitable site, Father Robert lived in a distant parish. Soon he found what seemed like an ideal place for a hermit: an island on Lake Tinn. But appearances can be deceiving. Living on an island meant dependence on others for all supplies, or keeping a boat for summer and an ice sleigh for winter. Then, too, the fine summer weather brought traffic to the lake. Father lifted up his eyes to the mountains, and soon ascended to Maria Einscete. The Hermit Life o| Father Robert Although feature articles and TV presentations have made Father Robert known throughout Norway and even throughout Scandinavia, he yet receives few visitors. The Norwegians respect and are inspired by his life of prayer and presence to God. They do not want to intrude. Besides, the ascent is difficult and the way known to few. The Catholic pastor, whose parish extends for several hundred miles, calls in from time to time. And of course, the good sisters find their way there at times; also, the search-ing young--from as far away as south France or America. Priests have occasionally come for retreat. And a pious convert lives not far from Father's mailbox and enjoys having him in to say Mass in her front room. A Norwegian Outpost: Maria Einscete / 273 But usually Bror Robert (as the Norwegians call him) is alone with his goats and his God. He goes down to the road to the mailbox every few days--and the owner of the neighboring box watches to see that the mail is collected, a sign that all is well with their hermit. Once a week or so, on skis in winter and a motor bike in summer, Father will go to the village for supplies. All the villagers know and love their hermit. They expressed real joy when "Brother Robert's brother" came to visit him. From time to time Father goes to Oslo to speak to the Dominican nuns, the only con-templative community in Norway. And once a year he goes south to the French Abbey of Mont-des-Cats to see his spiritual father. This was one of the conditions the bishop placed on his presence in the diocese as a hermit: that once a year he would spend some time in a monastery. Father Robert's life is very simple. He prays the hours quite as they always have been celebrated in the monastery, and offers Mass for all man-kind. He does some wood carving, mounts ikons, and practices the ancient Norwegian craft of weaving baskets from birch roots. He also translates books. He is a gifted linguist and has mastered both new and old Nor-wegian, as well as the local dialect. These occupations, along with Mass stipends, help him to keep body and soul together. At the time of my first visit Father Robert had been living in his log cabin for about a year. The only facilities were the woods. He had dug a well nearby and so had plenty of good water. But he confessed to me that he spent most of his time during that first winter chopping firewood--for his cabin had no inner walls and was very difficult to heat. The Spencer community helped him then to get a logger's caravan, which is not only much more snug and easier to heat, but which Father was able to locate higher up on the mountain where he can benefit from much more sunshine. The view from the new location, looking out across Lake Tinn to Mount Gaustaf, one of the highest peaks in southern Norway, is simply magnifi-cent. As the rays of the sun play on clouds, mountains, lake, and forest one is ceaselessly awed. This is indeed a Godly place--an ideal place for a hermit. The Monastic Presence of Father Robert This extension of Spencer Abbey and of the American Cistercian Re--' gion, this foothold of Cistercian life in Norway, is certainly something for which we should be most grateful and praise the Lord. The effectiveness of Father's monastic presence cannot be fully evalu-ated but it is certainly significant. This is rather surprising in a country where most are at best nominal members of a state church, and the few, very scattered Catholics tax the handful of devouted priests and religious who seek to minister to them. The latter, without exception, seemed to ad-mire and respect Father and find inspiration in his fidelity to his particular calling. But the Lutherans, too, revere him and seem to be grateful and 274 / Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/2 happy .that this man of God is in their midst. They relate stories of her-mits and monks who lived in this land before the Reformation and the Danish oppression, even of a particular hermit in the area of Lake Tinn. Even for these apparently religiously indifferent, ,the man of prayer living alone on the mountain is a sign of hope, of something better, higher, tran-scendent. And when the final option comes, hopefully, with perhaps only a vague and confused idea of what he stands for in their minds, and the grace flowing from his prayer in their hearts, they will reach out for that Transcendent Reality. Blessed be the Lord God . . . he has raised up a horn of salvation for Norway. Now that there is a Cistercian bishop and hermit, in Norway may we not soon have a regular cenobitic foundation? It is time the Cistercians returned. The Cistercians first directed their steps to Norway back in the twelfth century, in the Golden Age of the Order. And there are still significant remains ~of their presence. On the Island of HoevedCya in the Oslo Fjord, just a short ferryboat ride from the capital, are the ruins of an abbey founded in 1147 from Kirkstall,. The whole outiine of the regular build-ings is there. The walls of .the church reach up ten and fifteen feet, and higher at the comer tower. Through the insisterice of 'Bishop Gran the government now preserves this site as a national monument. It is a very beautiful site indeed. But historical sites, no matter how beautiful, are not enough. The Church of Norway, like every other, needs for its fullness the presence of living and thriving contemplative communities. Guided by the Lord, Brother Robert has made a beginning. May the Lord prosper what he has begun. Reflections on Bangalore Sister Mary-John Mananzan, O.S.B. From October 14-22, 1973, the Second Asian Monastic Congress was held in Banga-lore, India. Sister Mary-John Mananzan, O.S.B., attended the meeting and gives here her impressions of the Congress. Sister Mary-John is Dean; St. Scholastica's College; P.O. Box 3153; Manila, Philippines. This will not be a report on the Bangalore Congress in the usual sense, but rather a reliving of significant experiences and a sharing of insights gained. No amount of faithful reporting can capture the atmosphere of such a meeting. But .perhaps the sharing of one's impressions can give a glimpse into the dynamics of the ievent much more than a complete but detached description 9f the proceedings. Personalities Let me begin with the significant people who made an impression on me. Among the observers to the Congress were two Tibetan monks who rePr, ds.ehted thee Dalai Lama. They were Lama Sherpa Tulku and Lama Samdong Tulku. The one word that ke'eps coming to my mind to describe them is "genuine." I was struck by their authenticity, their trueness to them-selves, their utter lack of pretense. They went about with serene dignity, quiet friendliness~ and unfailing self-mast6ry. They talked with perfect frankness about the problems of their people in exile with feeling but with-out the slightest rancor againsl~ the invading Chinese. And with disarming simplicity, one of them asked in our small group discussions: "Please ex-plain to us what you mean by a personal God." The theological jar~gon did not seem to satisfy them, so during the coffee break I ventured an explana-tion which ran something like this: "Lama Sherpa, do you sometimes talk to the Absolute Reality?" 275 276 / Review [or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/2 "Yes," he replied. "Do you think he understands you?" "Yes." "Well, that is more or less what we mean when we say that God is a person." He seemed to be more satisfied with this explanation. The lamas had a way of expressing their ideas in an unusually effective way. During the discussion on prayer Lama Samdong Tulku made the following remark: "I.got the impression that when you pray, you send your words to the Absolute Reality. We, we push ourselves to It." Another personality which, for me, stood out, was Abbot Primate Rem-bert Weakland himself. He was a most excellent presiding officer; more-over, his introductory and concluding talks showed his keen intelligence, his versatile scholarship, and his sobriety of judgment. He was most human. He joked with the seminarians of the Kristu Jyoti College where we stayed as though he were one of them but without losing his dignity. In fact I ob-served in him something I seldom observe in many superiors today--an unembarrassdd awareness of his authority and an unapologetic reference to it when he considered it useful to do so. Among the non-Asians who had adopted the Eastern way of monastic life, the one I considered most credible was Father Bede Griffiths. He went about in a most unobtrusive, unostentatious way without the slightest effort to edify or to preach. I find this significant because I felt that there can be a tendency among non-Asians who have insights about the indigenization of monastic life and liturgy which are in themselves authentic, to be over-zealous and therefore tactless in their efforts to conscienticize the people whose culture they have studied and adopted. I believe that there can be a very naive, uncritical adaptation to indigenous culture which, if cohpled with a lack of delicacy in strategy, could alienate the people because it ap-pears to them to be another and a subtler form of paternalism. When this is further accompanied by efforts to edify, then the people are positively repelled. Then one provokes reactions which may sound extreme and de-fensive, but are not wholly unjustified like: "Why do they give themselves to be more Eastern than the Easterns?" The adaptation of the Eastern forms of monasticism by monks and nuns in Asia is an important venture; but this must be undertaken with utmost delicacy, tactful strategy, and with what perhaps for Westerners will amount to an almost intolerable amount of patience. I was enriched by the friendship with Vietnamese monks and nuns who shared with me their spiritual adventures. They have left their b!g monas-teries in the hillsides and have come to live among the poor in the center of the city of Saigon. The nuns take in laundry and typing work to support themselves and the monks take turns in tricycle driving. Reflections on Bangalore / 277 The Theme of the Congress The theme of the Congress was: "The Experience of God." This was divided into subtopics .such as: Monastic Experience of God in Christianity and Other Religions; The Experience of God: Methods of Realization; The Experience of God in Community Life; The Influence of Asiatic Religious on Monastic Structure; The Experience of God and Social Responsibility; and The Contribution of Christian Monasticism of Asia to the Universal Church. These were discussed in small groups as well as in the general assemblies. Again I will not make an effort to summarize the discussions but rather pick out those which had an impact on me. First of all, I regained my respect for the word "monastic." Due to certain historical factors, the word "monastic" in certain circles had come to mean deportment, a pattern of behavior and a fuga mundi attitude. In the Congress, the main emphasis was on the single-minded search for God. There is a monastic dimension to every human being. For those who have come to an awareness orbit and who wish to fulfill this dimension of their being, there should be monastic communities whose structures are flexible enough to share their way of life even on a temporary basis. At this point, it is good to mention.what Bishop D'Souza expressed as the petition of the Indian hierarchy. The Indian hierarchy, he said, is asking the monastic communities to be: 1. eschatological signs (monks and nuns should primarily be men and women of God) 2. centers of liturgy 3. havens of serenity 4. examples Of simplicity of life and refinement 5. model communities for Christian living 6. houses of undiscriminating hospitality One thing that was realized in the Congress was the contribution that the non-Christian form of monasticism can give to the traditional Christian monastic" life. There are several elements of the Eastern form of monasti-cism which have been forgotten or not emphasized enough in the Western tradition. There is, for example, the importance of the techniques and meth-ods in the search for the Absolute. The role of the body in prayer that is very much emphasized in Yoga and Zen could'be given the same impor-tance by Christian monks and nuns. The existential view of the Absolute and the unified view of reality of the East could balance the more con-ceptual and dualistic view of the West. The importance of the guru in Eastern spirituality can likewise revitalize the role of the spiritual director. Father Raymond Pannikar summarizes the unique role of the East thus: "Just as Africa's contribution to the Church is sensitivity to creation and that of the West,. the discovery of the value of history; so the unique con-tribution of the Asian is to develop the dimension o] the spirit." 278 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/2 Shared Prayer The Congress was not just a series of intellectual discugsions on the experience of God: It was for many participants something of a spiritual experience in itself. Contributing tO these was, first, the shared liturgy which the different regional groups prepared, giving the ~vhole community an ex-perience of a variety of. indigenous liturgy "Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese. There were likewise opportunities to meditate in the, Zen' way, the Yoga way, the Tibetan Buddhist way, and in Christian shared prayers. Amid the variety of methods, ceremonies, symbols, °and gestures there was the unity of hearts in worship.~And then there were the interpersonal en-counters which occasioned the sharing of spiritual experiences, the creating oLbonds which gave the promise of lasting friendships.~There was thus the wonder of discovery of the other in each other. There were no resolutions, conclusions, or statements at the end of the Congress. As Father Abbot Primate said, Bangalore was more humble in its tone than the Bangkok Congress. Its open-endedness is a challenge to further reflection and to further action. And this challenge was expressed in the delegates' message to their communities which reads as follows: Message to Our Communities Together with Father Abbot Primate, Rembert Weakland, we, , gathered here at Bangalore for the Second Asian Monastic Congress, salute you with an Indian greeting:which echoes in our liturgy, SHANTI, PEACEF ,~ We would like to share with you the atmosphere of joy, openness and fraternity that prevails in this community, which grow out of peoples of dif-ferent backgrounds, not only of race and culture, but also of religious tradi-tion. We are fortunate to have at our meeting Cl~ri~tia'n monks and sisters of various countries, Tibetan lamas, Buddhist and Jain mdnks and Hindu swamis and sanyasis. We lived together, 'praying and discussing in mutual enrichment. We are amazed to realize that, amid very real differences of opinions and experiences, there is an overwhelming convergence of concern: THE SINGLEMINDED SEARCH FOR GOD. It is in this conce.rn ~that we experience a strong bond of unity. We consider it our task as monks to commit ourselves wholehea.rtedly to this search, and it is in this context that we accept the world around us and feel h sense o.f sol!darity with it. We have a role in bt~iiding up the city of man. This consigts in pointing out to man the path to God. In particular, we are to share with the poor in theii-°striving for human dignity and liberty. It has become clear to us that to realise these goals i.n our times calls for a radical openness.and flexibility in our religious life and structures. We are in a moment of challenge. If we fail to respond, we lose our right to exigt as monasteries. Your delegates will bring home to:you reports of the proceedihgs of the Congress. Understandably, these will kive but a glimpse into what really happened here. But, for many of us, this Congress has been a: real spiritual experience. ,.Your delegates can communicate this experience more effectively than any written .report. It is our earnest prayer that all the communities scattered throughout Asia will put into effect the insights gained during this Congress. Tliis may mean breaking away from fixed patterns, settink out like Abraham ihto ff new land. Reflecffon~ on Bangalore / 279 We strongly recommend openness to our brothers of other religious traditions who, as we have experienced here, have so much to offer us. We urge the rethinking of our way of life so that as many people as possible may have the opportunity of sharing with us our experience of God within the content of living and vital communities. Let us maintain the bonds of unity which have been established among us through our delegates. During these days we have thought of you and prayed for you. May our continued unity in prayer be fostered by renewed contacts with one another. Toward a More Authentic Sharing in Community Laurent Boisvert, O.F.M. Father Laurent Boisvert, O.F.M., is the editor of the excellent Canadian magazine for religious, La vie des corntnunaut~s religieuses and lives at 5750, boulevard Rose-mont; Montreal 410, Quebec; Canada. The article originally appeared in the March 1973 issue of La vie des communaut~s religieuses and is printed in translation here with the authorization of that magazine. The translation was made by Sister Clarisse Marie, S.N.J.M.; General Administration of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary; 187 Chemin de Cap-St.-Jacques; Pierrefonds 940, P.Q.; Canada. The sharing of material goods, based on the needs of each individual or moral person, tends to express and intensify the fraternal bond which unites us as religious. However, in everyday living this sharing meets with ob-stacles which compromise, in varying degrees, its fraternal character. A review of them will help us to become more conscious of them and so favor, I hope, the building of that community of justice, peace, and love which all of us desire and which alone can tnaly be called "fraternal." It is not rare to hear religious ask themselves: How does it happen that our lives are so little changed by the many conferences, sessions, and work-shops in which we participate? These same religious insist that we present them not so much the fundamental values of religious life which they say they already know, but rather a way of integrating them into their lives. The reflections which follow relate to this first step: the "how" of living a more genuine fraternal community life, a step which consists in over-coming in oneself the chief obstacles to its realization. False Mental Attitudes When we insist, before community groups, that a distribution of goods 2110 Authentic Sharing in Community / 2111 be made according to the needs of each, some religious express amazement. It seems useless to them that we should come back to so fundamental an issue, and one that everyone accepts. No one can deny, however, that in spite .of acceptance in theory, certain religio.us, and a number sufficiently large to warrant the mentioning of it again, demand for themselves the use of all kinds of things, basing these requests, not on real need, but rather on the fact that other religious have and enjoy the use of. them. If someone has such and such a thing for his work, goes out so many times during the week, or wears clothing of such and such a quality, etc., others use the example of such religious to justify having the same things and acting in like manner. If one group needs two cars, another group made up of the same number of people will perhaps demand one, just because the first group has two, How can we explain this dichotomy between the theory of sharing goods according to need, and the contrary practice illustrated by the examples just given? The reason is, it seems to me, that the criterion for the distribution of goods, recognized at the intellectual level, has not yet penetrated the mentality of all religious nor modified their attitudes and their conduct. Certain religious accept the idea of pluralism in the forms of sharing, but their reactions are those of people accustomed to a uniform type of sharing. They still lack that which, for all of us, is most difficult to realize, namely a change of attitude. No modification of structures, how-ever radical, can dispense a religious from the effort required to bring.about this conversion. It is easier and faster to set up pluralistic structures for sharing than it is to transform a person accustomed to uniformity so that he becomes capable of understanding, of respecting and of favoring diversity on the level of persons and their needs, and of making the necessary applications. All of which helps us to understand that if, in our congregations, the adaptation of structures has in large measure been accomplished, the con-version of our ways of thinking has not. Some years of effort will still be necessary, years of patience and of tolerance, before the transformation of mental attitudes and of conduct becomes a reality. In spite of everything, some people will never know such a transformation, because they believe that such a change is an evil and not a benefit to be pursued. Charity re-quires that we respect them, and that we learn to live with them, in the wis-dom and great-heartedness of compromise which, under its° positive forms, is love. Inability to Estimate One's Needs Accurately It is not sufficient to want to share a community of goods according to the real needs of each one. For the actual realization of this principle one must be able to evaluate tfiese needs honestly and accurately. Some religious are more or less incapable of making such an evaluation. For some, the reason lies in the formation they received as young religious and the long 2112 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/2 practice of a poverty based on dependence. They had only to ask and to leave ,to ,authority to judge the legitimacy of their request. Once the su-perior had given an affirmative answer, they never questioned themselves again about their use of the things granted. -This dependence,, judged in our day excessive, has atrophied the sense of responsibility"of some and made them quite unable to determine their own needs: Today, when au-thority leaves them free to choose such and such a thing,, to do or not do such and such an. action, to go or not to go to such and such a place, they prefer no action at all rather then assume responsibility for it. Long and difficult will be,the liberating process which will one day enable them to judge their own needs, if~ such will ever be possible. ~ C-Certain religious, coming from poor families and having, lacked some of the basic necessities during their childhood, make up,for lost time and accumulate without reason a surplus of goods. They:even admit that they ask for things to make up for the lack of them experienced in the past.And so they fill their closets with items.for, which they have,no real need, but which give them a sort of psychological security. In this Way they com-pensate for the time when they sutIeredreal want. ~ ,, For other religious, the practice of a poverty consisting of going with-out, of detailed restriction for use; of meticulous control and uniformity, has brought ab6ut another ,excessive reaction in that they,are constantly asking .for things they don't really need and of which they never .seem to have enough. At the other extreme are those who considered this former practice of poverty the ideal one, and so refuse to accept any form of com-munal sharing based on a pluralism of real needs. Using False Criteria Again, for some religious, the relative incapacity of identifying their real needs results from the use of false criteria. They will say, in, order to justify a trip: all my brothers and,sisters went to such aoplace, though an-other might say~ with just as much truth: I cannot make that .trip since none of my brothers and sisters have ever been there. Can the single fact :that one's relatives have visited Europe constitute a ,valid reason for asking for a trip overseas? Or again, can the simple fact that one's parents have never taken:~some scenic trip within the province or state:~be sufficient reason for denying oneself ,such an outing? In both cases, the use .of the "family" norm, instead of helping, hinders the discovery of real needs. That one consider the situation of one's family is certainly not wrong, but to use it as the sole means of defining orie's Own needs and the ~type of relaxation one has a right to seek is certainly without justification. These .conclusions apply .likewise .to one's social and professional posi-tion. There are people who count on the life style of ~this double milieu to determine personal needs. If they: live inca neighborhood where~each family averages one or two color-television~, sets, a summer cottage', a snowmobile Authentic Sharing in Community / 2113 or~ two, etc., they think that they too have a right to these same things and wi!l use them, under the illusion that they are living their commitment to po~verty.,lf th~ey work in the.~schools or hospitals and if the majority~of their companions go to Florida every year, wear a new outfit every day, etc., they come to believe that such is Lequired of them too, and in their minds these things become necessities that must be satisfied. The fallacy .of such ~rea.soning comes,from the setting up of one's .social or professional sur-roundings as an absolute ~in determining personal needs. It ought to be evi-dent that even if all the teachers of the school have a car, and if all the families in the area have two television sets, I do not necessarily need the same things. It also ha.ppens that this met.hod of evaluating needs ac.cord-ing to a social or professi0nal milieu soon involves various forms of dis-crimination, ail.harmf.ul to .the ,building of a fraternal community. Let us add that economy, valid as it may be, often prejudices one?s judgment of personal needs. To know how to economize is a quality that most people of average means acquire through° force of circumstances, That religious should possess, it is nother surprising nor embarrassing.;Waste-fulness and .extravagance, as well as carelessness, have always been,.con-sidered faults. The error, in the case of the religious, is to purchase things, not because ~one may need them, but because they are on sale and that per-haps one day they will be useful. It is also true that this intention of econo-mizing has a way of multiplying needs. The Influence of Numbers ,, In visiting a number of local commu~nities I ~have ~liscovered that re-ligious in small groups have their real needs satisfied much more easily than do religious in.larger gr.oups: Although not universal, this situation is repre-sentativ, e of a number of congregations. Of course, there are many cases in which it is reasonable and necessary ¯ to take numbers, into consideration. For example, if the local authority in a community of one hundred persons is planning an outing which includes transportation and lunch~ it is obvious that one must consider the number of those who wish to participate. The influence of numbers can, however, become harmful to community sharing when., a particular type .of logic prevails as sometimes happens in larg~ groups, though it. may also be found in more restricted ones, too. For example, two or three religious.desire to obtain skis in order to satisfy.a real need for relaxation, so they go to the local authority with their req.uest only to receive this answer: I cannot authorize such an expenditure; just think of the money involved if the sixty religious of the house were to come asking for skis! This reasoning characterizes a mentality which cerl~ainly is not pluralistic ,'and which fails to respect personal needs. That two or three religious desire some skis in no way implies that all the others need or even wish them. The falseness of this reasoning is even more evident Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/2 when we realize that the community is made up for the most part of older people or of those who are ill. On pushing this kind of logic to the extreme, one ought to refuse a wheelchair to a sick person who really needs one because everyone else might want one too. This type of reasoning may also exist among some members of the community group. They refrain from asking for what they really need be-cause they say: If everybody were to ask for such a thing, the community could not afford it. However, it is nowhere written that all the religious of a house must have the same needs at the same time, and that to satisfy them one must buy sixty canes or sixty wigs at the same time! Why, then, should we suppose this uniformity and always act in view of the total num-ber? Wherever this kind of logic dominates, whether on the part of the superior or of the members of the group matters little, it makes impossible the practice of community sharing according to need. The Moral Weight of Salaries The religious earning a high salary seems to have a special facility for getting what he needs and often more than he needs, while the one who makes no financial contribution is sometimes too embarrassed to make known real needs. Other variants of this phenomenon are these: The re-ligious in a salaried service who works overtime may think it his right to keep and to use as he pleases at least a part of the extra money so earned; the one who has won a grant or money award will not fail to exploit his chance of obtaining favors; the religious who receives an "old-age pension" and the one who regularly draws some form of income may also use these to obtain personal advantages. The moral weight of money earned by a religious' likewise risks in-fluencing the decisions of the superior. Does he feel as free and no more obligated in evaluating the requests of the one who hands in a substantial check than he does in judging those requests made by members who make no such contribution? It would not be surprising if, in the first case, he finds a particular facility in saying "yes" at once and with a smile, while in the second case, he has a tendency to ask questions about the necessity of the items requested and to multiply his reflections on the observance of poverty. In allowing a lapse of time between turning in one's check and making a request for what one judges useful or necessary, the religious can help those in authority to avoid showing favor and granting to him as to the others only what he really needs. At the provincial level we occasionally see this tendency in operation in those cases in which authority tends to discriminate between local groups of varying incomes. Groups with significant revenues sometimes receive more easily the authorization for extra expenditures than another poorer group, though the actual needs of the two groups may be identical. If such is the case, it is evident that discrimination is practiced in dealing with local Authentic Sharing in Community / 285 groups, a situation very detrimental in the realization of a truly fraternal community. The Matter o~ Gi~ts It also happens that the reception of gifts sometimes prevents sharing according to need. The religious, benefiting from the generosity of family or friends, is often better provided for than the one who must depend solely on the community. In order to justify the keeping or the use of things received, the religious reasons that he got them gratuitously when he ought rather to be motivated by real need. If our poverty permits us to accept gifts, they must nevertheless be used for all without discrimina-tion. This means that the religious may not have more because he receives more, but that all needs be judged by the same standard and that all be treated in the same manner. Whether the .goods to satisfy our needs comes from within or from outside the community is of lesser consequence. Two other observations must be made here in regard to gifts. Certain religious still declare that the refusal of anything offered to them by their parents, friends, or others, always constitutes a failure against poverty, indeed an injustice to the congregation. As it stands, this statement is inaccurate. The refusal of certain goods offered is sometimes required by our commitment to poverty. Such is the case when an individual or moral person does not need that which is offered, and in addition, the donor re-fuses any transfer of his gift. Such is likewise the case when, in response to a real need, a religious is offered something which can in no way be justified by the norms of simplicity. The second observation bears on the "intention of the donor." The intention clearly expressed by the donor does not suppress or replace the authorization required for the keeping and the use of goods. A religious cannot go to Europe simply because his parents have given him~the money for the trip. If competent authority refuses him" the permission and if the intention of the parents about the destination of their gift remains fixed, there is nothing left for the religious to do but to refuse or to return the money. However, in the majority of cases, it is not necessary to be scrupulous about respecting the intention of the donor. Many people offer us small gifts (the notion of "small" varies considerably, of course) and say to us: This is for you, for your personal needs, clothing, recreation, etc. If we took the time to explain our way of life to them as a community sharing a common fund, they would probably be quite happy to allow one of our companions to benefit from their generosity.Though we rarely explain this to them, we can ordinarily, without any qualms of conscience, pre-sume their understanding acceptance and put in the common fund what-ever we receive. 2116 / Revie.w for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/2 On the contrary, the intention of the °donor must be respected when the gift is made in the form of an inheritance or legacy. Let us make clear, however, that the religious to whom these goods have been offered alway~ has the right to refuse them. He even has the duty to do so in a case in which the, acceptance of an inheritance or legacy, involves obligations ~otaily or partially in violation of his religious 9ommitments. We must also understand that. authority does sometimes have a word to say in our ac-ceptance or refusal of such goods. The Moral Weight of Competence, Position, and Conduct In this matter of sharing, the professional status of religious some-times operates in his favor. Experience shows that in certain cases the religious~ ,possessing special qualifications obtains what he needs more easily than does his confrere who lacks such competence; he may even receive a ~urplu~ while the other is deprived of basic necessities. We have no intention of condemning competence; but under pain of closing our eyes to reality, we must acknowledge that this competence does sometimes exercise a moral influence on those presenting their needs, inclining them to ask for more than they really need. It may also influence those whose role is to insure .a just distribution of material resources in their application of the principle of real need. Experience0shows us that a past office may become another pretext for keeping and us_ing certain goods. The religious whose work required a specialized library, for example, may have a strong inclina.tion to keep it even after he no longer occupies the position which once required it. The one who needed a car for his work will be tempted to continue to keep it even after he is transferred to another office which in no way requires its use. Certain personal itnd marginal benefits connected with having a car make it very .painful for him to give it up. Again it may happen that one's present position Fay serve as an oc-casion for the granting or obtaining.of favors either for self or for others. Thus a superior, as soon as he is named,.,may ask for a ~'oom with a bath attached. Is this to help him fulfill his office"moi'e efffctively? Is such an installation really needed for his work? If not, how can he justify requesting it for himself while refusing it to others. It is no more justifiabl~ for a superior to use the pretext of his office to receive and to keep as long as he wishes all the magazines that come to the house. How can one approve such action? If he were in charge of formation and if, with the consent of the community or of authority, he had a prior right or even exclusive right to the use of a magazine published for formation personnel, nobody would complain. But no one can accept, and with reason, that an individual in virtue of his office, keep for himself as long as he likes the newspapers and magazines :meant for the use of all. Such practice is an obstacle to fraternal sharing. The one whose function Authentic Sharing in Community is to build community ought to be the first to ~remove from his own life anything that might compromise it. Let me add as a last moral influence a particular type of conduct in which a few religious indulge when making a request to authority. Their tone, gestures, and manner in general can be so high-handed that it be-comes almost impossible for the superior to refuse, even when he judges superfluous the object requested. When dealing with such persons he per-haps says to himself: It is easier to grant them what they want at once than to put up with the endless scenes and references to the matter that they will make if it is denied them. The superior may even justify his action by saying that he consented in "order to avoid a greater evil. All the same, that will not prevent those in the community from believing that at times a dif-ficult disposition does get results. While we understand the delicate posi-tion of authority in these instances, we must also recognize that such con-duct on the part of a member of the group can be an obstacle to fraternal sharing as it prevents the application of the principle: each according to need. The Influence of Social Convention According to current styles and in varying degrees, social convention may also influence both the religious in determining his needs, and the su-perior whose role is to assure that fraternal dimension of communal shar-ing proper to a religious household. Ordinarily we find it easier to ask for those things~ accepted by social convention than for those outside it. The superior in turn has a tendency to authorize more quickly those things it approves than those which are indifferent or contrary, to it. In this way social convention sometimes exerts a destructive influence on the charitable quality which ought to characterize our sharing from a common fund ac-cording to individual needs. . In considering the influence of social convention on religious, it cer-tainly explains at least in. part their attitude toward smoking, for example. The religious who smokes normally receives the necessary tobacco even though the expense occasioned ma~, be as high as two or three hundred dollars a year. The need to smoke, createdand developed by him, no longer requires critical evaluation but is taken for granted; and when the com-munity budget is prepared, there is no hesitation about'setting aside im-portant sums for it. ~ : It is not at all,certain, on the other h~nd, that the philatelist would so easily be allotted a similar sum for the purchas.e of new stamps. How does it happen that we consent so easily to satisfy the needs of the one who smokes but refuse those of the stamp collector? The pressure of social con-vention would seem to be the exp!anation. Under pain of being considered out of step with the times, religious cannot ignore social convention completelyi but by conforming to it with- 2811 / Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/2 out discrimination they can create needs the satisfaction of which amounts to real slavery and causes surprise and even scandal to others. Religious ought to be free enough, for example, in the matter of dress to avoid mak-ing an absolute of an outmoded costume and to consider relative those fashions which social convention seeks to impose on them everyday. This relativity can be expressed in one's choice of classic styles, simple and few in number, and much less subject to frequent and costly change than those passing fads which are here today and forgotten tomorrow. If it is normal for religious to be aware of social usage and to observe it when in their exterior relations they judge it necessary or useful, they must make the necessary effort to prevent it from entering so deeply into their lives as to create an endless chain of new needs. Let it suffice to men-tion the use of alcoholic drinks. Rare are those social functions, meals, and evenings from Which these are absent. If the religious is not on his guard, in multiplying his social relationships, he risks developing an acute need for alcohol. In this case, satisfaction can never be regarded as liberation, but rather a most insidious form of personal slavery. A Lack of Empathy Lack of empathy is particularly noticeable on those occasions when a religious must submit to a superior or to other members of his group his personal needs in view of an evaluation or control. It may happen that one's first reaction is to make comparisons with one's own needs, forgetting that each one is unique and therefore different; And so the superior says: I don't understand why you want to buy this secular outfit; I don'~ wear one and I've never suffered from not doing so. Or again: I never went to hear such and such a singer; I don't see what advantage you can get out of an evening so spent. Such a person never tries to put himself in the position of the one asking in order to be better able to understand his needs. He seeks rather to impose his own values on the other person or again to convince him that he does not have such a need because as superior he himself never experienced it. Without exactly realizing it, the superior may set himself up as a sort of prototype whom the others would profit by imitating. In following this sort of logic, ought he not require others to be hungry at the same time he is and with the same intensity, to be sleepy when he is, and to require the same number of hours of sleep? People incapable of this empathy are quite unable to evaluate the needs of others. We might as well say at the same time that they do not know how to exercise the service of authority, since they will never be able to understand those whom they are supposed to help. They may think they understand others, but as a matter of fact they understand only that which they can project on others. In general the person with little empathy is intolerant, not through ill will, but through his inability to put himself Authentic Sharing in Community / 2119 in the position of others. In wishing them well, he may even impose on them things that may cause them serious harm. Exclusive or Prior Right to Use The use of certain equipment may be necessary for a religious in the fulfillment of his office. It is considered essential for his work and he could not give it up without compromising the task confided to him. Such usage is valid and his confreres readily accept his use of what is neces-sary; but if they see that he has reserved for his exclusive use things for which he has no real need, at least at certain times, feelings of discontent-ment and a sense of injustice are not slow in surfacing. An example will help to make my point clear. Let us suppose that my work requires the use of a car quite regularly. On the days when I don't have to make any trips, those times when I travel by plane, am I going to lock up the car when I could just as well let others use it? If I put the car in the garage and the keys in my pocket, and if I force my com-panions to take the bus for their trips when the use of a car would be much appreciated and a real convenience for them, can I say sincerely that I am living the principle of fraternal sharing? In order to justify my conduct, I can no doubt find many reasons: A car is something one doesn't lend to just anybody; I must keep the things I need for my work in good condition; no one knows how to take care of them as I do; it is often a costly business to lend one's equipment; thb community has other cars for general use; etc. Underneath these reasons, all of which contain some element of truth, there is perhaps another which I won't admit: an undue attachment which makes me a slave of this thing. Deep down I prefer its safekeeping to communion with my brothers. In fact, my refusal to put the car at their disposition, far from favoring inter-personal relations, risks destroying them altogether and setting up barriers which are difficult to break down. If, after such conduct, I dare to repeat that goods should be oriented toward the well-being of the group and the strengthening of mutual relations, I must admit that in practice I sub-ordinate persons to things. If in my work, instead of this exclusive right to the use of equipment, I exercise what may be called a prior right to its use, I will quickly come to realize to what degree this type of use and the mentality which it de-velops favor fraternal union. Nobody denies that there are certain incon-veniences in this kind of sharing, that one risks finding one's things out of order, not in the same condition as one left them, etc. However, be-fore committing myself to sharing, ought I wait until no such risks are involved? If so, I mi~ght just as well say categorically that I refuse to share. Of course, everyone recognizes the existence of an occasional case when it would be better to keep one's tools exclusively for personal use. Such exceptions, however, do not modify the general rule according to 290 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/2 which the religious ought to exercise a prior right rather than an exclusive one to the use of those things necessary for the accomplishment of his duties. The first recognizes and favors fraternal sharing, while the second usually cuts it off abruptly. The Proprietor's Mentality Every religious making use of community goods can say, and he has reason: This property belongs to me; it has been put at my disposition by a moral person called the "province" or "institute." He may be inclined per-haps, in ~order to justify his poverty before those who do not believe in it anymore, to exaggerate the inconveniences of such a situation and to keep silent about the advantages which it affords. Sometimes he will even cover up his possessive attitude with regard to certain things saying that they do not belong to him and therefore he cannot lend them. Under pain of deny-ing the evidence, we must admit that some religious seem to have a pro-prietor's mentality with regard to goods belonging to the province or in-stitute. Such a mentality is an obstacle to fraternal sharing. If, in order to illustrate my idea, I use the community treasurer as an example, it is not that this mentality is more widespread among them than among other religious, but because frequent reference is made to them when this topic is discussed. In fact, it often happens that the treasurer acts as if he were the proprietor of the community's goods. He feels free to ask ques-tions, even indiscreet ones, about the sums of money requested, while actu-ally it is his business simply to hand over what has been authorized. He scolds others for expenditures which he has no right to judge. He may even insist on an itemized account which normally is given to the superior. When he gives out money, his gesture is marked by a pained expression as if part-ing with it hurt him physicallly. If we describe it at its worst, we might say that in keeping the purse-strings, he seems to keep the whole community on a,.leash. This caricature, although rough!y drawn, is not entirely the fruit of the imagination. If I have exaggerated some situations, I have reproduced others with an accuracy that no one can deny. It is not surprising if religious, subjected to caprices of this kind, no longer dare ask the community even for what is necessary, but arrange to obtain it outside, or keep a part of their salary or gifts received, in order to satisfy their needs. The changing of the name "procurator" to "economist," "treasurer," "controller," or whatever, does not remedy the evil. The real problem is not one of vocabulary, but of one's way of thinking, and it is this that must be changed. The bursar must recognize, in theory and in practice, that the property confided to his administration belongs to the community., that his task consists in managing it with competence, and in distributing it amiably to religious whose needs have been approved by authority. His office must not be the scene of daily contention, but rather a place where love operates under the guise of both gift and welcome. Authentic Sharing in Commitnity / Let me express sincere appreciation to all those religious who fill their post as treasurer with competency, interior detachment, and in a spirit of service. Everyone knows that theirs is often a thankless task, and one we could not do without. In accomplishing it with that joy and tact which love knows how to exercise, they can do much towards the realization of the ideal of fraternal sharing according to the real needs of each one. Fear, Embarrassment, Shame, Scruples in Regard to Asking Strange as it may appear, there are still some religious who are unable to express their real needs, who prefer to deprive themselves of what they need rather than ask for it. These religious, either by temperament or for-mation, have developed in themselves a fear, an embarrassment, shame, or even scruples about asking. Among them are those who are not earning, and on this account dare not mention their needs. Some of them think of themselves as a burden to the community. While helping these religious to free themselves from whatever prevents them" from asking for what they need, authority must take the initiative, offering them and even giving them whatever they may need. If this is considered an exaggeration, it is better to fail on the side of kindness and attention than on that of indifference and privation. It is always easier to notice the people who abuse than those whom we abuse. There also exists on the part of some a certain shame and embarrass-ment about asking which may be the result of our manner of community living and sharing in the past. I understand the uneasiness of those of thirty, forty, fifty, and more who still ask local authority or the treasurer for stamps, letter-paper, tooth-paste, soap, etc., but such a practice of com, munity sharing can no longer be justified in the name of poverty. Though long since outmoded, it has not yet totally disappeared. In my opinion it would be so much simpler, so much more adult and reas6nable, to put all these things for common use in a place where each one could take what he needs as he needs it. It is useless to complain of possible abuse in order to refuse such an elementary practice. The existence of such abuse is inevitable, whatever the manner of living the principle of common sharing. Would it not be better that the abuses accompany an adult practice of sharing instead of a childish and embarrassing one? In conclusion on this point let me say that one of the gravest abuses of the practice of religious poverty is that form of dependence which encourages and even develops personal irresponsi-bility. The Application of Various Formulas for Sharing Though there are several formulas for the sharing of go~ds, I do not in-tend here to present the advantages and inconveniences of each. I wish only to point out that the manner of applying any valid formula is able to trans-form it into an obstacle to fraternal sharing. Take for example the individual 292 / Review ]or Religious, F'olume 33, 1974/2 budget. It is, for religious in general, a practical manner for determining needs and when approved, of receiving whatever is necessary to meet them. This does not mean, however, that such a formula is best for all the religious of an institute, or of a province, or of a local community. There are some people who find a personal budget more of a useless bother than a help in practicing religious poverty. Why impose it on them then? On the other hand, why forbid it to the rest of the community just because some do not find it helpful? In ~. word, fraternal sharing is not free when the individual budget is refused or imposed on all alike. In those communities in which, in order to respect personal needs, the community budget is made obligatory and the individual budget optional, uniformity may compromise the quality of fraternal sharing. As regards the community budget it is rare, thanks be to God, to hear people use the argu-ment of uniformity to obtain more, to grant or to refuse permission. Wherever uniformity is the sole criterion for making requests or granting authorization, fraternal charity in the treatment of local groups is often ignored. Though two communities may be made up of the same number of persons, it does not follow that the needs of one be identical to the needs of the other. To respect each group in its uniqueness requires ordinarily both diversity and plurality in the manner of treatment. It is the same for individuals. How can anyone justify uniformity in the amount of money granted annually to religious who make use of a budget? Let us take the matter of clothing, for example. The one who is small and well-built will surely have an advantage over another less well-proportioned, with bulges here and there, not to mention fiat feet! Some would remedy this situation by asking that the first person hand in what he has left over, and that the second ask for what he still needs. However, one must admit that the latter remains in an awkward position as it is always harder to ex-tend the hand to receive than to turn in a surplus. In the end, would it not be simpler and more charitable to leave each one free to evaluate his cloth-ing needs and to ask for the money necessary to take care of them. The individual budget plan by which a uniform lump sum is given to all religious also presents, in actual practice, certain facets detrimental to fraternal sharing. Let us suppose that each religious of a local community receives $2500 annually, and that it is left to him to allocate this sum as he sees fit. Such procedure risks creating unjustifiable inequality. Religious whose parents live a few miles away will spend very little to goto see them regularly, while another having parents living at a distance, can visit them only rarely and under pain of seriously jeopardizing his budget. Isn't this a form of discrimination? Another weakness inherent in this plan is that the religious who can economize will manage to procure all sorts of valuable objects (record-play-ers, tape-recorders, etc.) and will have the clear impression, even the con- Authentic Sharing in Community / 293 viction, that these belong to h, im. Of course, he will feel free to take them with him on changing residenc~. As a last obstacle to fraternal sharing, let me add the refusal a priori of approving several different plains and allowing them to be used within the local community as the memlSers judge best. One would respect individual needs more surely if some wer~ permitted to use an individual budget, while others were given an allowan+e for expenses, and still others received the money necessary as the need arose. There are some very deserving religious who do not have any use for a~ individual budget or for a regular allowance and who desire to continue to~ practice poverty by asking for things as they need them. We violate the fraternal quality of our sharing if we impose on them a plan which burdens rather than frees them in their service of God. Conclusion The practice of fraternal sfiaring to which we are bound bestows on our I . community of goods its evangehcal and religious significance. Indeed, it is in order to strengthen the fraiernal bond which unites us and to express it before the world that we have chosen to put all our possessions into a com-mon fund, and to share them according to the real needs of each one. The obstacles that this sharing mebts in practice prove that it is difficult for all of us, because of our sinful condition, to observe perfectly that which we desire with all our hearts. However, the rehg~ous who recognizes the diffi-culties and makes an effort to leliminate them from his life, demonstrates his faith in those values for whic~ the fraternal community stands and his de-sire to collaborate construct~ve, ly in building it, depending on the support of Jesus Christ, thecenter of oui" lives, for a more perfect realization of it. The General Chapter of Affairs Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J., a specialist !n canon law for religious, writes from St. Joseph'.s Church: 321 Willing's Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106. Pre-chapter Preparation : Pre-chapter preparation, despite its evident need, was almost univer-sally unknown before post-Vatican II general and provincial chapters. The delegates'to the general chapter should be elected hbout a year before the assehably of the chapter. This will make it possible to have the pre-chapter committees constituted predominantly of chapter members from the begin-ning. The superior general and his council, or a committee appointed by him, could have already inaugurated the work by securing the proposals from the members of the institute and having them arranged according to subject matter. These could be given almost immediately to the pre-chapter committees. The delegates may be elected earlier than a date determined in the constitutions, e.g., six months before the assembly of the chapter. This determination of time is a very accidental aspect of the law, and a rea-sonable cause excuses from it. The more fundamental content of such a law is to elect the delegates at a time that will give the best possible preparation for the chapter. I think myself that a committee of more than five is gener-ally less efficient. If the quantity of the work so demands, several parallel or sub-committees can be designated. As many as possible of those on a com-mittee should be competent in the field of the committee. Each institute should know from its experience of recent chapters and from the problems now facing it just what committees are needed. There should be a steering or co-ordinating committee. Other committees have been on the religious life, vows, constitutions, government, liturgy, formation, apostolate, finances, 294 The General Chapter o] Affairs / 295 retirement, and habit. Canon law has no legislation on committees. There-fore, it depends on the particular institute to determine the committees and their work; the members and chairpersons may be elected or appointed or be designated partially by both election and appointment; the chairpersons may be elected by the members of the particular committee. Manner of Pre-chapter Committee Preparation The one directing the pre-chapter preparation gives the proposals or chapter matter to the chairpersons of the pertinent committees, who in turn distribute them to the individual members of the committees to ~work up, dividing the matter as evenly as possible. Let us suppose that the following proposal has been assigned to an individual of the government committee: the term of office of the superior general should be reduced from six to five (four) years, with only one immediate re-election permitted. The committee member is to work up a report on this proposal in the manner of a secretary, an objective researcher, not as a supporter or antag-onist of the proposal or as a policy maker. The chapter makes the decision on enactments and policy, not the committee. The first thing the committee member does is to write down the number of the proposal, if these are num-bered. Identical and almost identical proposals are to be treated together on the same report. The committee member therefore next notes on the report the number that submitted it, for:example: 36 handed in this proposal for a five and 15 for a four year term. He then expresses the proposal in one statement or in parts but both in such a way as to permit a yes-no discussion and a yes-no decision. He next, under the heading~of sense, gives any ex-planations of the proposal, always being complete throughout the report but as ~clear and brief as possible. Submitted proposals, are almost, always wordier and more obscure than the example given above, but the term "im-mediate" in the example above could be briefly explained. He could well conclude the section on sense by a statement such as the following: The pi'oposal contains two ideas, a five (four) instead o1~ a"six year term andonly one immediate re-election. The heart of his report is in the following sec-tion, in which he gives all~ the reasons for and then all the reasons against the proposal, noting when any of these reasons has greater weight for or against the four than the five year term. He ends the report with his recom-mended decision: to be accepted, to be rejected, to be accepted with modi-fications. It is evident that the reasons for the acceptance or rejection are the favorable or unfavorable reasons he has already listed. He should add his reasons for suggesting modifications. Copies of this report are distributed to all the committee members. They are to be given adequate time for its study. When a sufficient number of reports are ready, they are to be dis-cussed in a committee meeting. The committee confirms, rejects in whole or in part, and corrects the report of the individual member, which thus becomes the committee report. The committee vote on the report and its :296 / Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/2 distinct parts should be included on it, e.g., 3 for, 2 against. Reports for all the proposals to be discussed in any period of sessions should be ready be-fore that period begins. These should be distributed to the capitulars at least on their arrival so that they can be properly studied. The failure to have such reports is a primary cause for the many unreflecting, inefficient, and slow general chapters we have had in the post-Vatican II years. Any religious experienced in chapters should see the need of reports of the type described above. They are demanded by evident facts. The primary such fact is that a chapter should make its decisions from convictions based on solid reasons. This will certainly not be attained unless there is a thorough investigation and study of the facts and reasons. It is also a sufficiently evident and most pertinent fact that many of the capitulars will not study the proposals beforehand. The reports will help to lessen their uninformed voting. Many capitulars will not be able to understand some proposals with-out such a report, for example, those who have had no experience in han-dling large sums of money can find financial proposals difficult to understand, and a religious who has not been in the novitiate since he left it thirty years ago will find. many ideas on formation most difficult to grasp. Proposals handed in by chapter members during the chapter should be processed through the pertinent committee in the manner described above. Subject Matter of the General Chapter of Affairs The norm of the practice of the Holy See for this has been the more im-portant matters that concern the entire institute. If the matter is not more important or does not concern the entire institute, it appertains to the ordi-nary government of the general, provincial, or local superiors. In the con-crete this matter has consisted of the proposals submitted by the members, provincial chapters, and the general capitulars during the time of the general chapter. The first observation is that the proposals under one aspect can readily be insufficient. Almost universally the proposals on a particular matter do not touch, at least adequately, all the more important aspects, difficulties, and problems of the particular field. Quite often they are concerned only with its accidental and lesser aspects. Very frequently also the admittance of a proposal will demand as a consequence or antecedently presume another proposal which has not been submitted. In all such cases, the pertinent com-mittee should add the required proposals, noting on each its committee source and the reasons why it was submitted by the committee. It is not very intelligent to have the submitted proposals as the subject matter, with-out designating anyone to point out and supply for the omissions and the lack of balance. In such a system, it can be almost a mere accident that the general chapter faces all the real problems of the institute. There has to be a way of rejecting very expeditiously the proposals that are less important and general or otherwise evidently inadmissible. Each The General Chapter of Affairs / 297 committee should list all such proposals submitted to it, and very early sub-mit this list to the co-ordinating committee. The latter should go over the lists and have them duplicated and distributed to the chapter members. Sufficient time should be granted for the proper study of the lists, and the chapter is then to be asked to reject all of them in the one vote. The per-mitted recourse against rejection should be of the following type. If a capitu-lar, not the one who submitted the proposal as such, believes that any such rejected proposal is worthy of a committee report and chapter discussion, he should hand in this proposal with his reasons for its repeated presenta-tion. The verdict on confirming or rescinding the rejection should not be made by the original rejecting committee but by the co-ordinating com-mittee. This will avoid having the same committee as both judge and de-fendant in the recourse. Greater Reduction of Matter Is Necessary The reduction of the work of the general chapter has to be much greater than the mere immediate rejection of proposals considered less important, less general, or otherwise evidently inadmissible in the past. No general chapter can s.atisfactorily handle a thousand or two thousand proposals. This is true even if the pre-chapter prepa.ration is most thorough and com-plete, The number of proposals that confronted very many post-Vatican II general chapters was prostrating. Nor is it sensible to think of more fre-quent general chapters; we have too many now. Not a great number of them have been religiously effective, and there is nothing in multiplication that augurs greater effectiveness. Perhaps the remedy is to cut down very severely the work of the general chapter to the particular matters that are very highly important and urgent and to give much greater attention to policies than to enactments and changes of enactments and laws in particular matters. Present Mentality Few will now even question the statement that we are faced by a crisis of authority. Pope Paul VI has often spoken~ of this crisis, for example: To mention another: there is the excessive emphasis on the right of the indi-vidual to do as he pleases, which leads to the rejection of any and all limits imposed from without and of any and all authority, however legitimate it may be (May 25, 1968, The Pope Speaks, 13 [1968], 222). In this way a mentality is spread which would like to claim that dis-obedience is legitimate and justified in order to protect the freedom that the sons of God should enjoy (January 29, 1970, ibid., 15 [1970], 54). Since therefore it is a visible society, the Church must necessarily have the power and function of making laws and seeing to it that they are obeyed. The Church's members in turn are obliged in conscience to observe these laws (December 13, 1972, ibid., 17 [1973], 376). This mentality of hostility tO authority and law is one of the very im-portant and urgent matters that a general chapter must face and strive to 2911 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/2 change, but it is also a fact that makes one question the enactment of many laws at present. Matters Excluded from the Competence of General Chapters Possessing Experimental Authority These chapters obviously cannot change ( 1 ) divine law, whether natural or revealed; (2) and without the previous appro'~al of the Sacred Congrega-tion for Religious and Secular Institutes these chapters may not put into effect anything that is contrary to the common law (canonical prescriptions, laws of Vatican II, and other laws and decrees of the Holy See); nor (3) make any change in the purpose, nature, and characteristics of any institute or in the Rule of an institute (Ecclesiae sanctae, n6. 6). Proposals These are made by the members of the institute and by provincial chap-ters. All are to be encouraged to make proposals; all are equally to be counseled to make only good proposals, and this means good for the entire institute. A proposal is to be judged by its content, but an obscure and un-duly long proposal is a certain indication of insufficient thought. The insuffi-ciency in this: case frequently extends to the content of the proposal. To find l~roposals a religious, should go over the life of the individual members and of,the community immediately with God, the community life, and the life of work. He should go through all pertinent books, e.g., the constitutions. He is to evaluate and to find ways to correct and improve the life of sanc-tity, the apostolate, the present policies and trends of the institute, its public image in the Church and in.general. He should evaluate, all innovations of the post-Vatican II years. Have they succeeded, failed, and in each case to what extent? Have the members of the institute become better religious, better participants in the community life, better apostles? What are the big problems facing the institute today? What is their solution? What is the re-ligious' effectiveness of superiors, their councilors, those in charge of forma-tion, of the works of the al:iOstolate? Is the tenor and style of life in the houses conducive to the religious life, the apostolate, a religiously satisfy-ing community life? Are your proposals solid, progressive without being im-prudent? Do they all propose freedom from something that is difficult and demands sacrifice? Proposals must be signed only and to the extent that this is com-manded by the law of the institute. A final day, well ahead of the opening of the general chapter, must be determined for the handing in of proposals. All, including general capitulars, should hand in their proposals during this tim& The general capitulars retain the right of making proposals during the chapter: Toward the close of the chapter, a date is to be determined be-yond which no proposal will be accepted. All of these provisions are to enable the committees to process the proposals properly and in due time. The General Chapter o/ Affairs / 299. The right to make proposals is determined by the law or practice of the particular institute. Those who do not have this right may suggest proposals, preferably in writing, to ~those who do enjoy the right. The latter may but are .not obliged to accept merely suggested proposals (see Review ]or Re-ligious, 23 [1964], 359-64). Position Papers and Questionnaires These were the high hurdle and wide stream obstacles in the procedure of. so many special general chapters, and few of these chapters landed fully on the opposite bank. Position papers were also at times a means on the part of committees of appropriating to themselves the policy making func-tion of the chapter. Questionnaires were frequently the substitution of a none too reasonable head count for a vote given because of convincing reasons. A background paper or questionnaire is only rarely necessary or advisable, e.g, an intelligent vote, for or against a particular proposal can demand a brief historical description. If so, the background paper should be prepared.~ Authority of the Superior General in Pre-chapter Preparation The superior general, assisted by his council, has authority over the entire pre-chapter preparation. This is evident from the fact that, outside of the general chapter, there is no one else on the general level of authority and from canon 502, which places the institute under his authority (see Ecclesiae sanctae, no. 4). Frequently at least a superior general gives ample delegation to. another religious to direct and supervise this preparation, e.g., to the Chairperson, of the steering or co-ordinating committee. However, the superior general can always lessen or~'withdraw such authority, lie may also always step in to correct and guide particular matters, individuals, or committees. Post-Vatican II general and provinc, ial chapters have often been vanquished in the pre-chapter preparation. The game was lost before it began. The superior general is not arbitrarily to interfere in or hamper the, work of the committees, but he should be completely aware of what is going on in all committees. He should be very sensitive to a too conservative or a too leftist~ approach and, even more practically, ~to a group that is unduly and wrongly influencing the pre-chapter preparation. ' Attaining a:Universal Voice in Chapters Especially since about 1965 we have had a constant clamor that the religious of temporary vows or other commitment be permitted to be dele-gates to the general and provincial chapters. This has been an outstandingly unreal issue of recent years.The clear fact has been that the young were talking in the chapters and pre-chapter preparation. The voice that was not being heard was that of the older and of many middle-aged religious and chapter members. This has been true also in other discussion groups, for example, local community discussions. Our need and problem of the-mo- 300 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/2 ment is to hear the older and the middle-aged religious. I doubt that this can be attained at this time except by having the chapter discussions start with small discussion groups. Each group should be composed of religious of all ages. This system would demand a sufficiently competent chairperson and secretary in each group, the report by the secretary of the group, and the distribution of copies of the reports of each group and of the composite report of all the groups before the common discussion of the matter in the whole chapter. The attainment of the most accurate and efficient procedure in this matter demands a very thorough study. Discussion groups are a time consuming means. They could be employed only for the more serious mat-ters. My own sincere judgment, based on the observation of chapters, is that such a means is necessary to hear the voice of the older and of many mid-dle- aged religious, especially of sisters. Part of the factual basis of this judg-ment is the lack of the older and middle-aged voice manifested very gen-erally in post-Vatican II chapters, that is, the effects that.revealed an inex-perienced, imprudent, and exaggerated origin. As far back as 1901, the Roman Congregations governing religious have refused to approve those of temporary vows or other commitment as dele-gates in the general and provincial chapters. Chapter Principles The preceding section on proposals lists fairly adequately the aspects and fields that can give rise to proposals. Proposals can also be drawn from the principles that should guide chapters, communities, and individuals, which we shall give in this section. The supreme principle is that all should seek the greater good of the Church and of the whole institute, not merely of some part of it or of some group in it. Seek the good not merely of the young, but also of the middle-aged and the aged. A high degree of differ-ence in some aspect of life that is verified in any particular country or re-gion should receive its proper consideration. This is to be true not merely of the United States but of any other country, of Germany, France, Italy, England, Japan. Differences do not exist in all aspects of life. The American has no less need of prayer and mortification than the Italian. Obviously no nation is to give the impression of being superior to all other nations. All should retain all the good of the past and be willing to accept all good ideas of the present and of the future. It is equally the duty of all to oppose anything that is useless or harmful to the institute or its members. Any false principle such as disobedience, especially if public, to the govern-ing or teaching authority of the Church should be immediately rejected. The goal in prayer is not freedom but a more universal life of constant prayer. The Holy Spirit guides practically all of us by the ordinary way, and this implies that our problems, difficulties and their solution are at least gen-erally ordinary. Little will be gained from a study of oriental mysticism or concentration or from emphasizing the charismatic. Much will be gained to The General Chapter o] Affairs / 301 the extent that it is realized that the difficulties in prayer are the very ordi-nary things of the lack of desire for sanctity of life, the unwillingness to make the sacrifices that such a life demands, the lack of a realization that prayer demands a constant effort, an impersonal spirituality, a poor introduction to mental prayer, a complicated system or machinery of mental prayer, a neglect of spiritual reading, a life that is merely activist, natural, secular, and similar ordinary things. If a chapter accepts open placement, how can the institute staff missions, colleges, hospitals, schools, homes for the aged? Can there be a generally satisfying community life when there is unlimited home visiting and unlimited going out for diversion? W.hy always leap to the new, the youthful, the leftist? Certainly sometimes the old, the moderate, the conservative is the true, the relevant, the practical. Why run to manage-ment consultants before you have tried a thorough investigation, study, and planning on your own? If any advisers gave false and imprudent advice, this advice can be the perfect mirror of what was wanted. List everything that your institute has adopted in renewal and adaptation. How many of these have helped the members to become better religious, better apostles, better Catholics? It is certainly not easy to start all over; neither is it any too comfortable to be on a plane that is speeding to certain extinction. The dominant thought of any chapter has to be the spiritual, the su-pernatural, the eternal not only with regard to the personal lives of the in-dividual religious but also to the apostolate and community life. Natural development and fulfillment and social work are important but not primary, nor are they the soul of the religious life or of its apostolate. Reject ideas and proposals that are disproportionately expensive. All experimentation in the Church and much more its worship should be carried out in a manner that is adult, mature, dignified, restrained rather than undisciplined and reckless, and not marred by the extremes of either the right or the left. The common saying is that religious dress is not an important question. This is true of religious dress in the abstract and considered merely in itself. In its effects and ramifications, religious dress, especially of women, is certainly an important question. In the past the error was to identify the old with the true, the good, and the relevant; the same error is verified now with regard to the new. Re-evaluate every post-Vatican II experiment and change. In-vestigate every question and adopt the solution that the facts demand or counsel; do not start off with a new structure or theory. The goal is only secondarily to renew and adapt the institute; the primary purpose must be to influence the religious to renew and adapt themselves. The thrust is pri-marily personal, not institutional. There is one essential test of past, present, and future experimentation. Does it produce greater sanctity of life, a deeper and wider community life, a greater spiritual effect in the apostolate? One of the most important qualities demanded in superiors and chapters today is the courage to stand with the wise and oppose the foolish. How many of your schools, colleges, and other institutions are very secular? Can you 302 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/2 justifiably allow this to continue and progress? Take anything and every-thing that is good and helpful from psychology and sociology, but never forget that they are no substitute for revelation, morality, or spiritual theol-ogy. How many factual studies were made that proved the later difficulties and defections of religious were found especially in those who entered im-mediately after high school? Honestly face the vocation problem and any of its causes that may exist in the individual and collective lives of your re-ligious. It is possible to emphasize the dignity of the married life without denigrating the religious life. Is the life style of your religious in conformity with the deep totality of the religious consecration? Do all things conduce to greater sanctity, better community life, and a more spiritual apostolate? Are we complaining about the lack of inspiration in the religious life after we buried it in selfishness, materialism, and naturalism? Adopt only what gives at least solid probability of success; otherwise your conduct is at least ordinarily imprudent or even rash. Procedure in lhe Chapter The chapter procedure should be kept as simple and uncomplicated as possible. The need of recourse to parliamentary procedure should be infre-quent, and each institute is now in a position to list the few parliamentary rules that are practical. The secretary of the chapter is to post the agenda for the sessions of a day at least on the preceding evening. It can be the understanding that the proposals or matters are to be taken in the order of the reports distributed to

Issue 34.5 of the Review for Religious, 1975. ; Revtew ]or Rehgtous ts edited by faculty members of the School of DIvlmty of St Louts University, the edttorlal ol~ces bemg located at 612 Humboldt Buddmg, 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copy-right (~) 1975 by Review [or Religious. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. S!ngle copies: $1.75. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year; $11.00 for two years; other countries, $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years (for airmail delivery, add $5.00 per year). Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to Review ]or Religious in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming .to represent Review ]or Religious. Change of address requests should include former ad~ciress. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Galicn, S.J. Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor September 1975 Volume 34 Number 5 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. / ;" ~: :°~Vith these ,words Po o ~t only for Jesmts,~but-~f6r all~rehg~ous;~ )s wh6, .in ~varyingways, ~dentff, y:.o. 671 A Survey of the Thirty-second General Congregation John R. Sheets, S.J. Fr. Sheets, chairman of the theology department of Creighton University and director of its new Masters Degree in Christian Spirituality program, was an elected delegate of his province (Wisconsin) at the 32nd General Congregation. He resides at Creighton University; 2500 Califor-nia St.; Omaha, NB 68178. The Thirty-second General Congregation of the Society of Jesus began on December 2, 1974. It finished its work on March 7, 1975. The Holy See authorized the promulgation of its decrees on May 2, 1975. In this article I will attempt to set down in an intelligible way a description of what went on during those ninety-six days, especially for (hose who are not Jesuits but who are in-terested in the congregation. Having gone over once again both the official documents and the Acta of the congregation, and having tried to recapture.my own experience over those days, I feel keenly the limitations of what follows. In the first place, it is difficult to give a survey of the vast amount of material covered by the various commissions;-secondly, it is hard to detail my own ex-perience without writing an autobiography; thirdly, it would take someone with both a sense of historical detail and a journalistic flair to present the in-terplay that took place among the various identifiable groups within the con-gregation, and also what took place between the Vatican and the congregation. In spite of these reservations, I hope that the observations that follow might provide some insight into what happened, and at the same time provide a counterweight to impressions given to the public through the general press. For me personally the congregation was the peak experience of my life. I am still trying to sort out the reasons for this. There is the obvious fact of hav-ing been part of a decision-making body whose decrees could have momentous importance for the Societ), of Jesus and for the Church at a very critical mo- A Survey of the Thirty-Second General Congregation / 673 ment in history. Again there was the experience of being "companions in the Lord" with two hundred and thirty-six other Jesuits from all over the world, united in the same Ignatian vision, sharing a common purpose, praying and working together to formulate with the help of the Holy Spirit responses to what the Church and the world ask of the Society today. The "honeymoon experience" of the first days gave way, as the weeks went on, to the .experience of fatigue, the perplexities of the search for the proper wording, the experience of working on disparate problems at the same time, without any clear point of convergence. Added to these was the experience of the interaction between the Vatican and the congregation which brought with it great anguish. However, it was also perhaps the experience that changed the congregation from a group of planners relying much on our own wisdom into something approximating an instrument of the Holy Spirit. The whole experience of the congregation in many ways paralleled what a person goes through in making the Spiritual Exercises, where one is subject to the movement of different spirits. On the one hand, it was the occasion of the greatest consolation; on the other, 1 have never in my life experienced such heaviness of heart. There were moments when one could almost feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, particularly at the concelebrated liturgies where one was drawn into the mystery of the communio jesuitarum, both the living and the dead, ~hrough our sharing in the Eucharist. Certainly the con-celebrated Mass, celebrated on the opening day of the congregatiofi in the Gesu, a church hallowed by the memories of Ignatius, Xavier and the early history of the Society, with seven hundred Jesuits participating, was one such moving experience. But if there were consolations, there were also periods of desolation, the worst desolation I have ever experienced. These came from the pall of uncer-tainty cast over the congregation from the communications of the Holy Father through Cardinal Villot in reference to the way the congregation had proceeded on a particular point concerning the Fourth Vow in the Society. This was also the occasion for the Holy Father to remark with pain that he detected from the Acta of the congregation attitudes among the delegates which were at variance with the kind of disposition a Jesuit should have toward the Pope. To be frank, however, it was not so much the interventions of the Holy Father that depressed me. In fact, as events would show, he was under the im-pression that we had received a specific communication on the subject that he had given to one of the delegates to be transmitted to us. But because of a mis-understanding the delegate did not in fact communicate it, and the congrega-tion learned about it only after we had taken a step which seemed to con-travene directly the explicit instruction of the Holy Father. To me the tone of his and Cardinal Villot's letter, while severe, was comprehensible in the light of this misunderstanding on the communication of their earlier message. What was far more upsetting was the sudden change in the mental climate of the congregation. Somewhere Kierkegaard mentions that the sudden is the 1574 / Review for, Religious, Volume 34, 1975/5 category of the demonic. In the course of only minutes, the demon of rumor, suspicion and recrimination was let loose. Suddenly it all fitted into a kind of master plot to discredit Fr. Arrupe, bring about his resignation, and bring to nothing the efforts of the congregation. No one knew who the enemies were, but some gave the impression that there was one hiding behind every column in the Vatican. Among the memories which will always be with me are the occasions when I used to walk in St. Peter's Square at night, when it was deserted, except for a police car and a few pa~sers-by. The majestic beauty of the facade of St. Peter's, bathed by the light of the moon, the beauty of the fountains flashing in the lights, the Vatican apartments with a light here and there, formed a setting of peace which seemed to overflow into me, particularly when events occurred which plunged the congregation into gloom. Looking back over those difficult periods I am certain that if it were not for the example and leadership of Fr. Arrupe we would have lost courage. He transmitted to us both by word and example a sense of the working of God's providence and the life-through-death process in which we were engaged. We were faced with the humbling and humiliating fact that we experts who were supposed to discern the signs of the times could not discern a sign that was much closer to us. In many ways the misunderstandings did not "have to be," when one looks at them from a human point of view. The reports from the press about con-frontation, maneuver and counter-maneuver were the product of journalistic imagination. The sad fact is that pain was caused by people who were trying their utmost to act with responsibility to the Holy Father and to the Society. But I have probably got ahead of myself. All I wanted to do in these in-troductory remarks was to point out that for me personally the experience of those three months led by the diverse paths of joy and anguish to a deeper ex-perience of the ways of God, that "If Yahweh does not build the house, in vain the masons toil." The Procedure Followed in the Business of the Congregation In preparation for this congregation there had been four years of highly organized participation on the level of the local communities and the provinces. The extent of this participation varied. In general, however, it had a beneficial result in creating the awareness that this congregation would grow out of the discernment that took place on the local level rather than work from the top down. Perhaps some might consider that this was a waste of time and money when we measure the results of those years of preparation, and the little impact that it had directly on the congregation. However, the minimal result of this preparation was that at least we did not come into the work of the congregation cold, but had some awareness of the problems that confront us, as there were seen by a large segment of the Society. For those who are not familiar with the structure of the Society of Jesus, a few words of explanation may be helpful. In the Society of Jesus the supreme A Survey of the Thirty-Second General Congregation / 675 authority is vested in the General Congregation. It does not meet at regular in-tervals, but only on two occasions, either to elect a new superior general, or to face a particular state of affairs which can be handled only by the highest authority of the Society. Of the thirty-two congregations that have met in the four hundred and thirty-five years of the Society's history, all except seven have been called to elect a new superior general. When, therefore, in 1970 Fr. Arrupe decided to call a General Congregation to convene after appropriate preparation, he felt that the state of the Society needed to be reviewed. It was an opportune time, since ten years would have elapsed since Vatican II and our last congregation. Delegates to a General Congregation are basically of two kinds: the provincial superiors, who attend by right of office, who make up ap-proximately one-third of the membership of a congregation and the other two-thirds who are elected. The only delegates who were unable to attend the 32nd General Congregation were a few from behind the Iron Curtain. Their unoc-cupied desks remained an ever-present symbol to the assembly of the oppres-sion of the Church in various areas. In spite of these absences, there were two hundred thirty-six delegates present. In the Society of Jesus the agenda is made up after the congregation con-venes. It is based mainly on the postulates (requests) submitted either from in-dividual Jesuits or provinces. Contrary to what one might suspect, there is probably no more democratic legislative group than is to be found in the General Congregation. Any Jesuit can send in postulates either through his province or directly, as an individual to the General Congregation. All of these are considered on their merits independently of their source. Over one thousand postulates were submitted. After a preliminary analysis, it was seen that they could be organized according to ten categories. Ten commissions were set up roughly corresponding to these ten categories. Initially the commissions had a membership of about twenty-five each, com-posed of representatives from different parts of the Society. Later, for the sake of efficiency in composing the documents emerging from the commissions, the number was reduced to four or five. The amount of work that went into the final draft of the documents was enormous. The work of the commission would be submitted to the whole assembly, receive revisions (or even be re-jected), be returned to the commission; then again be submitted to the assembly, with a repetition of the same procedm:e, until the assembly was satisfied with it. The whole assembly convened in a large hall that had been especially renovated for the congregation. Electronic equipment was installed to provide simultaneous translation. Voting was done by means of a small switch at each desk. In the front of the hall in full view of all the delegates was a large elec-tronic board, with indicator lights arranged accordihg to the seating plan in the hail. This board registered the votes with a green light if affirmative or a red, if negative. At the top of the board was a place where the total affirmative and negative vote would register immediately after the vote was taken. All ~'~' ~ ~.~. 676;~ R~i~.w for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/5 voting~'~bhe exception," was public. The exception came at the request of the congregatiori ~hen it came to vote on the question of grades in the Society. Doubtless this pr0ce.dure was intended to provide the general with the oppor-tunity to vote in a way that would not compromise him in whatever future ac-tions he would have to take.as a result of the vote. The Main Themes Seventeen documents issued from the congregation, most of them originating from the ten commissions which had been established. Other documents came from special commissions appointed as the need arose. Though the documents differ in content, some common themes run throughout. Perhaps the main theme reflected in the documents is that of mission. Related to this is a reawakened awareness of the Society as a whole, of which the local communities are part. The Society, while it exists also for the sanc-tification of its members, takes its special meaning from its apostolic orienta-tion. This apostolic orientation is specified by its relationship to the Holy See, particularly through the Fourth Vow, and in its service to the Church through the promotion and defense of the faith. A characteristic of this apostolic orienta-tion is adaptability to the needs of particular times and places. In our day this involves an overriding concern to overcome the injustices which oppress so many millions of people. However, in all of its apostolic work, the goal and the means it uses are to be consistent with the tradition of the Society as set forth in its Formula of the Institute which sets forth its fundamental pontifical law. This ties in with the identity of the Society, a theme that is both the subject of one particular document and one that runs through all of the others as well. The Society is a priestly, apostolic body, bound to the Holy See in a special way for the defense and promotion of the faith. The sense of mission involves not only working with those who are op-pressed but it also involves becoming identified with them as far as this is possible. Our poverty, therefore, which has its juridical as well as evangelical aspects, takes on a particular experiential mode in so far as, by it, we can iden-tify with the poor. The decree that has to do with union of hearts and minds is also intimately related to the nature of the Society as an apostolic body. Ignatius clearly saw that the Society's apostolate depended first of all on the union of the members with God, and then derivatively on their union with one another. One theme which is conspicuous is that of repentence. The Society acknowledges that it has failed in recent years to live up to those characteristics which were suppose to distinguish it, such as obedience, loyalty to the Holy See, fidelity tO the principles of the religious life. The State of the Society One of the commissions set up early in the order of business was the one charged to examine the state of the Society. Its purpose was to form some A Survey of the Thirty-Second General Congregation / 677 kind of an evaluation of the condition of the Jesuit order at this point in its history, assessing both its weaknesses and its strengths. To provide this com-mission with input, the delegates met in small groups over a period of several days. These small groups were of two kinds: what were called "assistancy groups" (for example, all of the American Jesuits belong to one "assistancy," the French to another, etc.), and "language groups," composed of people from different countries who had some facility in their own and other languages (German-English, French-English, Spanish-French, etc.) These groups dis-cussed the state of the Society in reference to key points such as formation of Jesuits, religious observance, the apostolate. These sessions broadened the practical knowledge each of us had of the Society and helped to create among us an awareness of community. They were also informative, first of all in bringing us to realize that many of the problems were common, with varying degrees of acuteness, while others were peculiar to a particular section of the Society. A criticism which many of us in the western world resonated with came from one of the German provincials in my group when he said that the image that the Society in Germany gives is that of B~rgerlichkeit, which in English connotes a comfortable, gentlemanly, middle-class existence. On the other hand, the situation of the Jesuits from behind the Iron Cur-tain, some of whom were also in my language group, has spared them some of the enervating effects of secularization. For one reason, their apostolate, where they are able to exercise it, is mostly pastoral work; secondly, their precarious existence serves to keep their faith at a high level of vitality. The delegates from the Third World countries brought other emphases. From the Spanish speaking countries there was a strong orientation toward social change, bringing with it problems of political involvement and the degree to which such involvement could subscribe to an ideology which often had Marxist overtones. In other regions, such as Africa, Indonesia and the Far East, one of the main problems is "inculturation," embodying the faith and the spirit of the Society in forms peculiar to their own cultures. As part of this evaluation on the state of the Society, Fr. General himself gave a picture of the way he sees the Society at the present, as a body which is very much alive, but with certain illnesses. He also gave a detailed description of his own relationship with the Holy See and the other officials in the Vatican, providing afterwards an opportunity for the delegates to question or discuss any of the points he had brought up. The document on the state of the Society which came out as a result of all this exchange is not one of the papers published to the Society. It was intended only for the delegates and their work in the congregation itself. However, the document is not in fact that useful. Its main value was in providing the oppor-tunity for the delegates to familiarize,themselves with the state of the Society through their live exchanges with one another. A document of this kind by its nature remains general, and gives little sense of the extent and import of either the positive or negative points. 671~ / Review for Religious, l/olume 34, 1975/5 The Work of the Commissions As was mentioned above, ten commissions were formed, more or less along the lines of the categories of material received in the postulates. While a few others later came into being and some of the original ones were changed, these ten commissions formed pretty much the working base of the Congrega-tion. Risking over-simplification, they could be divided into those which looked mainly inward, for example, about our "grades," the Fourth Vow, for-mation, final incorporation into the Society (final vows), central government, the constitution of provincial and general congregations; those which looked outward, namely, the mission of the Society today, inculturation, the service of the Society to the Church; and finally those which look both inward and outward, for example, on union of hearts, the Jesuit today. Some comments on a few of the documents might contribute to a better understanding of them. 1. The Mission of the Society Today The decree which took up the lion's share of the time, and which provided the platform for most of the rhetoric was the one that dealt with the mission of the Society today. The very nature of the topic explains why it took so long to come up with a satisfactory formulation. It involves an articulation that had to bring together the old and the new: fidelity to the essentials of the Society's apostolic nature, and coming to grips with the needs of today. While such a formulation has its own difficulties, the problem was exacer-bated by an initially one-sided approach and by the impression that some gave of using language more appropriate to political parties than to a religious group attempting to clarify its mission. The initial approach was largely horizontal, too much concentrated on the socio-economic aspects, with too lit-tle of the priestly. In the effort to make the congregation conscious of the urgency of these problems there was a tendency to absolutize what was in fact only one aspect of the Society's apostolate. One of the observations offered by Cardinal Villot in the letter in which he com-municated the Pope's authorization to promulgate the work of the congregation pertains to this decree. He stresses an important point, which is already present in the decree, but which deserves emphasis, namely, that the total work of evangelization has a comprehen-sion that cannot be reduced to working for social justice, and secondly that there is a priestly way of working for social justice that is distinct from the proper role of the laity. No one can judge from the final document how much work went into it. If one were tothink of a carpenter shop filled with shavings, and one tiny cabinet to show for the work, the comparison would be apt. The final decree, though somewhat diffuse, manages to relate the fundamental apostolic orientation of the Jesuit life as a priestly order to the promotion of faith which in the real-life situation is inseparable from the promotion of justice. 2. Poverty The. subject of poverty has continued to bedevil our recent congregations. A Survey of the Thirty-Second General Congregation ] 679 As everyone knows, there are two main aspects to what is called religious poverty: the juridical and the evangelicalwor the personal appropriation of the values of evangelical poverty. The decree on poverty, probably the most im-portant document to come out of the congregation, has two parts, the first be-ing more inspirational and exhortatory, while the second is juridical, setting down a basic reform in the structures of our institutional practice of poverty. It is not possible to enter into the technicalities of the juridical part of the decree since it presupposes some knowledge of the structure of the Society. Suffice it to say that the decree formulates what is, to my mind, a creative way of realizing for our own times the Ignatian ideal of poverty, taking into con-sideration the different socio-economic conditions of the twentieth and six-teenth centuries. On the personal side, frugality, the sense of being part of the kenotic mystery of Christ, dependence on the community, and identification with the poor are stressed. in his letter, Cardinal Villot makes two points concerning this decree. After commenting on the fact that the Holy Father was aware of the immense amount of work that had gone into this decree, which attempts to relate the traditional practice of poverty in the Society to the needs of our times, he says that considering the newness of the approach, it would be better to promulgate the decree ad experimentum, to be reviewed in the next General Congregation. He also cautions that the decree should not jeopardize the Society's traditional approach to gratuity of ministries. 3. Grades and the Fourth Vow No other subject discussed by the congregation received as much attention from the press as that of our "grades" and the Fourth Vow. As I remarked above, the delegates had proceeded in a spirit of obedience to the Holy Father's wishes, but in the spirit of Ignatian obedience which allows represen-tation of one's case to the superior, with full openness, however, to the final decision of the superior. But, as I mentioned above, the delegates were not aware of an important communication from the Holy Father which he had given to one of the officials manifesting his mind clearly on the topic. We were made aware of this special communication only after we had proceeded in good faith to take up the question, and to give an "indicative" votewone that is not definitive, but from which it is possible to infer the mind of the delegates. The indicative vote was overwhelmingly in favor of abolishing grades. One can imagine the consternation of the Holy Father when he read of the results of this in the Acta, a copy of which he received regularly, especially when he learned that we had not been given his specific directive on this matter which had been communicated to one of the officials of the congregation. This unfortunate series of events precipitated a strong response from the Vatican. First there was a letter from Cardinal Villot in the name of the Holy Father expressing his consternation at the proceedings. Later there was a letter from the Holy Father himself, tin which he expressed his wonderment, pain, disappointment. What the delegates found particularly difficult to understand in Cardinal Viilot's letter was the strong language used about the failure of Fr. Arrupe to exercise the proper kind of leadership that could have headed off this series of unfortunate events. I~1~0 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/5 While the delegates were still reeling from this unexpected turn of events, they learned of the directive that had been given by Cardinal Villot to one of the officials to be given to the congregation. The official explained before the whole congregation that he had not understood that he was supposed to transmit this directive to the delegates in any official way. This was a costly mistake. Yet in some ways I think it was a felix culpa because of the benefits which came out of it, as I shall comment below. At this point I should say something about the meaning of the grades and the Fourth Vow for those unfamiliar with the Society's structure and legisla-tion. When the idea of the Society was evolving in the mind and experience of Ignatius, one of the features that emerged was a conception of having membership in the Society on different levels, or "grades." For those with their final vows, there were to be three levels or grades. First of all, there are the "solemnly professed," with solemn vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and a Fourth Vow of special obedience to the Holy Father in regard to mis-sions, that is, apostolic commissions. In the past one hundred years about 40% of Jesuit priests have belonged to this grade. In the mind of Ignatius the professed were supposed to exemplify to a special degree what he looked for in every Jesuit, proficiency in learning, a high degree of virtue, mobility, a life supported only by free-will offerings, exemplifying in their lives a similar relationship to the Vicar of Christ that the disciples showed toward Christ Himself. In addition, key positions in government were reserved to the professed, such as the office of provincial. Again, only the professed could take part in a General Congregation. In the second place, there were priests whose final vows were simple, not solemn. Without going into detail on the differences between solemn and sim-ple vows, it is sufficient to remark here that for one thing they differ accord-ing to the seriousness of the reasons needed for dispensation. This grade is that of "spiritual coadjutor." Members of this grade do not take the vow of special obedience to the Holy Father. In the third place, there are "temporal coadjutors" or brothers. Their final vows are also simple vows of poverty, chast.ity, and obedience. They have the same apostolic purpose as the priests, but have a different way of contributing to the realization of it. The grades are a feature that are peculiar to the Society. As one would sur-mise, the distinction has not been an unmixed blessing in the history of the Society. Though Ignatius never conceived of a Society which would have privileged and unprivileged castes, human nature being what it is, the results were predictable. Since human nature associates power with authority, the professed came to be considered as a kind of first-class type of Jesuit, and the non-professed as second-class. In recent years there has been much historical research on the origin of the ~grades. Also there has been considerable discussion whether the distinction of ~the grades was inextricably tied up with the vision of St. Ignatius, or whether it was something that with the change of times no longer served a purpose. The A Survey of the Thirty-Second General Congregation Thirty-first General Congregation did not face the question head-on. It con-tented itself with broadening the norms by which a person could be admitted to profession. It also transmitted the final solution of the problem to the Thirty-second General Congregation. The intervention of the Holy Father did not directly concern grades. He limited himself to the question of the Fourth Vow, which he said could not be extended to non-priests. This intimates that the Holy Father was concerned not simply about a juridical division in the Society which could be changed by another law, but about a theological question concerning the relationship between the priestly identity of those who take the Fourth Vow and the mis-sions which are the direct object of the vow. Again (I am speculating) the intervention of the Holy Father might be a healthy reminder in this age of blurring all distinctions for the sake of dubious notions of equality, that differentiation in functions does not necessarily mean division. Reserving the Fourth Vow to priests helps to keep the priestly focus of the apostolic work of the Society which has characterized it from the begin-ning. This need not create first- and second-class citizens, but it could engender an awareness that there are different gifts within the same body by which the same goal is realized. 4. The Union of Hearts A commission without a name was set up as a kind of catchall to handle four topics that on the surface had little unity: the question of union and pluralism, communal discernment, religious life, and community life. Since I was a member of this commission from beginning to end, I feel more in touch with it than with the other commissions. It was a kind of a "Benjamin" com-mission compared with those set up to handle the "important" topics like mis-sion, grades, poverty, etc. Ironically, Benjamin was suddenly given an importance late in the con-gregation. The Holy Father in his intervention had commented on the fact that he had heard a lot about mission and justice, but little about renewal of the religious life, even though we had already been at it for two months. So all of a sudden the pressure was on to come up with something significant along those lines. The final document on union of hearts is a contemporary commentary, on Chapter One of Part VIII of our Constitutions, "Aids Toward the Uniori of Hearts." Under this heading the commission found a focus which could unite the various topics given to it. Much effort was spent in an attempt to formulate a clear statement on the subject of union and pluralism. Many of the postulates asked for such a state-ment, some of them stressing the harm coming from internal divisions, others emphasizing the need for a "healthy pluralism." Eventually the commission decided that a theoretical statement would not be helpful. Instead it for-mulated, along with principles on which union of hearts is based, certain prac-tical directives on prayer, community life, sacraments, and communal discern-ment. 682 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/5 The subject of communal discernment received a lot of discussion. Some wanted to turn it into a kind of Aladdin's lamp which could call forth some kind of a jinni. Others were more skeptical over the possibility of univer-salizing the practicableness of such a process. The final statement in the docu-ment attempts to locate communal discernment within the spectrum of various kinds of spiritual exchange within a community, not exaggerating its role, but on the other hand recognizing the value that it has when the right dispositions and circumstances are present. Incidentally about midway through the congregation, an ad hoc commis-sion was also established to see whether the congregation itself could not carry on its work through a method of communal discernment. After a couple of meetings, it dissolved, because it felt that proceeding according to a formal method of communal discernment was impractical for the congregation because of the large numbers involved and the wide range of subjects on the agenda. 5. The Jesuit Today In the light of the diversity that has appeared in Jesuit life over the past ten years, it was felt necessary to have a statement which would describe the meaning of being Jesuit today. The congregation was presented with five different papers, each of which approached the subject of Jesuit identity from different points of view. They opted for the one which now appears among the official decrees. The decree relates Jesuit identity today in a very simple way to our Igna-tian tradition, to our apostolic mission, and to the source, center, and goal of Jesuit life, which is the imitation of Christ. The Holy See and the General Congregation We have already commented on the intervention of the Holy See in regard to the subject of extending the Fourth Vow to non-priests. However, this is only an application of something which is much broader. The interest of the Holy See in this congregation is unparalleled in the whole history of the Society. Perhaps this comes from the fact that Pope Paul had a keen sense of its importance for the Society and for the Church itself. I have just finished once again going over the papal documents, beginning with the letter written to Fr. Arrupe on September 15, 1973, which the Holy Father wrote after Fr. General had announced the convening of the General Congregation, and concluding with the covering letter which was added to the approbation of the decrees. There is one theme running through all of these communications: the necessity of being faithful to the distinctive nature of the Society as it is expressed in the Formula of the Institute, a distinctiveness which has proved its fruitfulness over hundreds of years of experience. Specifically, the Society is described time and time again as a priestly apostolic order, with a special bond of obedience to the Holy See. There is, to be sure, a stress on the need to adapt to the needs of our times, but such adap- A Survey of the Thirty-Second General Congregation I 683 tation must always maintain the essentials as these are to be found in the For-mula. 1 Pope Paul wrote of his concern for the Society not only as the Vicar of Christ who has responsibility for the whole Church, but in terms which, unless I am mistaken, are unprecedented in the history of this relationship between the Society and the Holy See. He speaks of himself as the one who has the chief responsibility for the preservation of the Formula of the Institute, "supremus 'Formulae Instituti' fideiussor," and the chief protector and preserver of the Formula, "Formulae Instituti supremus tutor ac custos." It would not be true to say that all of the delegates responded with un-qualified enthusiasm to the interventions of the Holy Father. Though all recognized his right in abstracto to intervene, a~nd the corresponding attitude of obedience to which we were obliged and, which all gave without contesta-tion, nevertheless when the interventions came in this particular way, with these particular words and in this particular timing, there were signs of ruffled feelings. In case anyone needed reminding, we learned in the process that the delegates as a whole, while good and responsible men, are not yet ready for canonization. However, we did see in an exemplary way the incarnation of Jesuit obedience in at least one person, Fr. Arrupe. This was not something he did just "to give good example." His whole life has been so totalized by his faith that even his perceptions pick up the reality beneath the appearance. He senses the presence of the Vicar of Christ beneath the appearance of Pope Paul. The concern of the Holy Father shown in so many ways over the past few years and in a special way through his vigilance over the activities of the con-gregation are to my way of thinking a special grace for the Society. In a way that we never planned on, the interventions of the Holy Father brought us to a level of faith we would not have reached by ourselves. It also brought us to a realization that the Society is a servant of the Church. In some small way the history of this congregation parallels the description of Peter's death, about whom our Lord said, "You will stretch out your hands, and somebody else will put a belt round you and take you where you would rather not go" (Jn 21:18). Father Arrupe I have already mentioned that if it were not for Fr. Arrupe's example and leadership the congregation would have capsized under the difficulties it ran into. He constantly called us to a vision we needed in order to see what was happening from a supernatural point of view, and in order to avoid the traps of tNot many Jesuits are aware either of the content or the importance of the Formula of the Institute. Yet, even more than the Constitutions, it is the basic rule or fundamental code of legisla-tion in the Society. It contains the results of the deliberations of Ignatius and his companions in 1539 which provided the first sketch of the Institute of the Society of Jesus. It was first approved by Paul Iil in 1540, then again by Julius 111 in 1550 in a slightly revised form. 684 / Review for Religious, l/olume 34, 1975/5 self-pity or recrimination that were only too present. Like one of th~ prophets, he reminded us to see what was happening as coming from the hand of God, and to use it for our own purification and conversion. In a talk given to the delegates on the second day of the congregation, he spoke of the answer that we had to give to the needs of our times. It should be the foolishness of the cross by which Christ redeemed the world, which is the wisdom of God. "In the absolute foolishness of the Cross, the emptying of all things, we find the key to the ultimate solution to the problems of today." In a way we did not foresee, those words were prophetic. Again, he exercised his leadership by leaving the congregation free to follow the paths where its deliberations would take it. In its authority, the General Congregation is superior to the general. Fr. Arrupe always acted with full awareness of this fact. On occasion he would let the delegates know how he felt about certain things, not to pressure them, but in order to make this part of the input of their deliberations. The congregation showed its appreciation of his leadership over the past ten year,s in many ways. There are few who have had to pilot a ship through such a stormy period. The burden has not been easy. But there is always evi-dent in him the same buoyancy and infectious joy that somehow puts him in touch with the Stillpoint that is beyond, above, beneath the storm. Yet, while realizing his outstanding qualities, the delegates did not apotheosize Fr. Arrupe. They realized that with all of his gifts there were also limitations. In fact, the decree which set up a council for the general was framed mainly to supply the kind of help which might balance out the one-sidedness of some of his gifts. Differences Between This Congregation and the Previous Ones The Thirty-second (2ongregati0n had many characteristics which made it very different from any preceding General Congregation. Some of the more important ones might be the following. As was mentioned above, there was a four-year period of preparation for this congregation which was unprecedented. Similarly a few months before the actual opening day a special preparatory commission met to organize the material. This was the first General Congregation where, from the start, traditional rules of secrecy were lifted, except for the prohibition against making public either the names of delegates who spoke on the different questions, or the tally of the votes. Five Jesuit journalists were given free access to the meetings. They published a report about every week that kept the Society informed of the progress of affairs. In this Congregation for the first time the voices of the Third World were not only heard in larger numbers, but they showed a vitality that added zest to the meetings. However, even among these voices there were different accents. All of them were keenly aware of the injustices which oppress their peoples by reason of the exploitation of the capitalistic countries. However, the Spanish- A Survey of the Thirty-Second General Congregation / 685 speaking delegates tended to stress political and social involvement; the Africans continually reminded us of the need for the sense of the transcendent, the specifically God-and-Christ-centered nature of our apostolate; and those from the Far East, while keeping these same perspectives, also stressed the need for approaches that were directed both toward personal conversion and change of the structures. No other congregation has met at a period when there has been such a crisis in vocations. Over the past ten years, the Society has diminished from about 36,000 to 30,000 members. While in some places the number of novices has begun to pick up again, the overall picture remains dim. In 1965 there were 1902 novices compared to 705 in 1974. In the United States there are about 200 novices, showing a slight increase over the past few years. In some coun-tries, however, the picture is dismal. Spain, for example, had 269 novices in 1965. In 1974 it had only 30. Germany had 114 in 1965. At present it has about 30. Similar figures could be given for France, Belgium, Holland, Italy. When one compares the number of scholastics presently in their training with the number of priests engaged in apostolic work, there is only one scholastic for every five priests. This will seriously change the scope of our apostolic work over the next fifty years. Another unique factor was the everpresent concern of the Holy See in regard to the preparation for the congregation, the things taken up, and the final results, as I have mentioned above. The theme was repeated over and over again: be faithful to yourselves, especially to your identity as it is ex-pressed in your Formula of the Institute. The only specific feature which was singled out in the expressions of this concern was fidelity to the lgnatian idea of the Fourth Vow, both positively in the fact that it should be a vital factor in the life of the Society, and negatively in that it should not be extended to non-priests. Again, the fact of asking the congregation to submit its decrees to the Holy See for its approval before they were promulgated was unprecedented. The approbation was given with, in some instances, a few qualifications. Another characteristic which distinguishes this congregation from begin-ning to end and is evident in the decrees is thee theme of repentance. There is a mea culpa, mea maxima culpa evident in the Introductory Decree, the Decree on Mission, on The Jesuit Today, as well as in others. The Society is painfully conscious of its failings over the past ten years. Particularly in contrast to the Thirty-first Congregation, with its stress on freedom, subsidiarity and conscience, this one stressed the complementary features of the limits of pluralism, the need for norms that are applicable for Jesuit life as a whole, the responsibility of superiors for a greater firmness in governing, the importance of the manifestation of conscience both for the spiritual direction of the individual, and the good of the apostolate, the value of communal discernment when the proper conditions are realized. This congregation, unlike others, had a unifying theme throughout: the mission of the Society today. This did not happen because it was planned. There was a kind of unconscious dynamic at work which imperceptibly gave 686 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/5 this orientation to the various decrees. The consciousness of mission, if fully appropriated in all of its richness, could do much to revivify the Society, over-coming in the first place a great deal of individualism and self-will, and bring-ing about a greater sense of the living presence of Christ sending through His Church, and through superiors. In the actual procedure of the congregation there were unique features arising from the sharing that took place in smaller groups. One of the most im-portant parts of our daily life was the concelebrated Mass which was celebrated according to the different language groupings. Finally this congregation is probably distinctive in the fact that a little over half of the delegates were under forty-nine years old (122 out of the 236). Strengths and Weaknesses of the Congregation Like all meetings of this kind there are both strengths and weaknesses to be found. I could not resist the temptation to say that one of the strengths was un-doubtedly sheer psychological tenacity to "keep at it" for over three months when everyone was exhausted both from the work itself and the emotional strain. But the main strength of the congregation is the sense of solidarity manifest among the delegates and throughout the Society, a solidarity coming from a vision based on faith and brought into an Ignatian focus through the Spiritual Exercises and our Jesuit tradition. However, I think that there are also some deficiences evident in the work and structure of the congregation. Some way has to be found to expedite the carrying out of business. Though it was an attempt to get the input from the whole Society, on balance, the analysis of the postulates took up too much time. And questions of order consumed interminable hours. In regard to particular questions, in retrospect, it might have been a serious mistake not to have separated in some way the question of the Fourth Vow from that of grades. While they are related, they are distinct. And the interven-tion of the Holy See was concerned with the Fourth Vow, and not directly with grades. Again the expression given to the relationship of the Society to the Holy Father is "safe," but it creates the impression of one who is driving a car with one foot on the accelerator and the other on the brake. It does not seem to ex-press the 61an of Jesuit spirituality in its fullness. One reason for this inade-quacy stems from the fact that the congregation came to the topic only in the last few days before it ended, and the members did not have the mental energy or the time to do justice to it. Another difficulty is in the formulation itself. Attempts to combine both the unreserved expression of the spirit of loyalty and the juridical aspect of limits tend to cancel one another out. For example, there were numerous attempts, all sterile, to speak of "mission" in relationship to "doctrine," wherein loyalty would be unreserved in regard to mission, but conditioned in regard to doctrine. Consequently the resulting statement is bland, not nuanced. This will probably be one of the main topics that will have to be taken up at the next General Congregation. A Survey of the Thirty-Second General Congregation Another deficiency is the fact that the congregation treated those problems which are more obvious because they have a certain shrillness--the problem, for example, of global injustice. Just as important, however, but without the volume being turned up, are questions touching man and technology, par-ticularly the genetic manipulation of man. Again, these questions will probably have to be faced by the next congregation. What to Hope For If the Society as a whole could translate what is set down in the decrees from formulation into fact, it would be renewed. In turn it would become a great force in renewing the Church and the world. What hope is there for such a renewal? The parable of the sower and the seed has its application to the Society as well as to the Church. There are those whose roots are not deep enough to withstand trials. There are others whose life of faith is choked by cares and riches. But then there are the many who do yield fruit, some, a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. Decrees, however excellent, are no substitute for the gospel-call to totality. To the degree that individuals open themselves to the radical call of the gospel will they also open themselves to the decrees, which after all are only a faltering attempt to express this radical call in a way that is both Ignatian and contemporary. There are many factors which will contribute to energizing this renewal. Many feel a need for a deeper life of prayer. The importance of spiritual direc-tion is expressing itself strongly. A fuller appropriation of the Spiritual Exercises ¯ through the directed retreat is a great blessing. Again, an important factor is the reinforcement and leadership given to the Society by other religious con-gregations which have already led the way in the renewal of religious life by bringing their lives more in conformity with gospel simplicity and single-mindedness. We can also hope that we will not repeat the mistakes of the past ten years. Considering the turmoil and confusion coming from "future shock," these mistakes are perhaps understandable. But no organization can exist in a state of continuous convulsion. Many of the delegates, in searching for answers to the problems which faced us "discovered" our Thirty-first Congregation, which someone described as the great congregation in the history of the Society. We found that in many cases we could not do better, in fact could hardly come up to the decrees of the Thirty-first. But we also felt like a traveler who had spent hours trying to find his way only to discover after much meandering that there was a map in his glove compartment. The documents of the Thirty-first General Congreg -tion were such a map. The logical question, then, is: why were not the decrees implemented? A still more haunting question is: will the same thing happen to the decrees of this congregation? This was a problem which preoccupied the delegates throughout the whole time. Meetings were held to discuss implementation. But as the saying goes, 61~! / Review for Religious, l/olume 34, 1975/5 there is many a slip,between the cup and the lip. How much will the Society be able to drink in from the decrees? One of the main sources of hope, in addition to those mentioned above, is a renewed sense of solidarity and confidence among the provincials, and a strong sense of support in Fr. General. In the past ten years very often inaction resulted not from a failure of courage or faith, but because of a blurring of ideas concerning the fundamentals of religious life, often enough because of contradictory views bandied by theologians. The provincials obviously have not suddenly received some formula of universal application to solve all problems, but there is a greater sense of assurance and direction. The weight of implementation turns around the local superiors with the support of the provincials. There is hope here also, because the superiors themselves have a greater sense of their solidarity and of their role as spiritual leaders of the local communities. Ultimately the problem is always the same: conversion. It is something never accomplished once and for all, but continues to repeat its call. There are the perennial obstacles to conversion: inertia, self-love, self-will, the evil spirits that affect us all as individuals. However, it especially in the way that the collectivity reenforces the inertia in individuals that we find the main obstacle today. Group-think and group-feel, in large part created through the media, produce a kind of closedness that filters down from a collective level to in-dividuals, bringing about imperceptibly a closedness in the individual. Each one, young or old, is caught in some degree on this split level of collectivity and self, and suffers from the unfreedom of the collectivity. Jesuits already engaged in the apostolate have to discern how much this group-think affects their personal lives, impeding their personal conversion and the fruitfulness of their apostolate. Jesuits who are in formation have to do the same. The responsibility of those who are in charge of training the younger Jesuits is great. The importance of the congregation comes not from the written decrees but from the support that these decrees give to creating in the Society a different kind of group-think, a "group-feel" based upon the gospel. "My name is legion." Legions can be driven out only by legions. The demonic in collectivity can only be driven out by the embodiment of holiness in collec-tivity. The Society will rise or fall to the extent that the good will of the in-dividual is supported and sustained by a corporate realization of sanctity. No individual can abdicate the responsibility for his own conversion. But in a special way superiors have a responsibility for the whole group. Newman remarked somewhere that good is never done except at the expense of those who do it, and truth is never enforced except at the sacrifice of its propounders. Reformers and prophets have never been well received. Perhaps superiors are destined to enter into that role, not, however, with a martyr complex or heaviness of heart. We have a living example in Fr. Arrupe that it is a role that is compatible with a deep joy. Aiding and facilitating the work of the superiors are the communities A Survey of the Thirty-Second General Congregation / 689 themselves which are called upon, through community meetings and prayerful discernment, to face their own response to the gospel call to simplicity, and to bridge the gap between the radical response to which we have vowed our lives and the actual way in which we live them. When I asked one of the delegates who was in great part responsible for the formulation of the decree on poverty how optimistic he was about its im-plementation, he said: "When I think of human nature, I am not very op-timistic. But when I think of the power of the Spirit, 1 am hopeful. Everything depends on the Spirit. Legislation can support; it cannot convert. Of ourselves we are weak, but with the power of the Spirit we can overcome, overcome even ourselves." POSITION OPEN The Department of Theology in the School of Religious Studies of the Catholic University of America announces the opening, beginning January, 1976, for: Assistant, Associate or Full Professor in the field of Christian Spiritual Theology. Applications should be sent to:Chairperson Department of Theology Catholic University of America Washington, DC 20064 The Catholic University of America is an equal ol~portunity employer. The Recovery =of Religious Life Bro. Raymond L. Fitz, S.M. Bro. Lawrence J. Cada, S.M. Both authors belong to the Marianist Training Network. Brother Raymond Fitz is director of the Marianist Institute of Christian Renewal and associate professor of Engineering Management and Electrical Engineering at the University of Dayton. He lives at 410 Edgar Avenue; Dayton, Ohio 45410. Brother Lawrence Cada is chairman of the Department of Science and Mathematics at Borromeo College of Ohio and lives at 315 East 149 Street; Cleveland, Ohio 44110. I. Introduction~ How long will the turmoils now besetting religious life last? Are they almost over, and has the process of returning to a more normal situation begun? Or will things stay unsettled for some time to come? This article will argue for the likelihood of the latter alternative. On the basis of the models and analyses presented, the article will try to show that religious life in America is undergo-ing a profound transition, which will take another twenty to twenty-five years to run its full course. Moreover, the study will seek to demonstrate that social disintegration (loss of membership, lack of vocations, collapse of institutions, etc.) of religious communities in the Church will probably continue for at least the next ten to fifteen years. The most significant questions facing religious life in those ten to fifteen years will center on "death and dying." Many aspects of the life as it has been known will be passing away. Only after these questions are accepted and creatively answered can religious life be expected to be revitalized and renewed within the Church. This process will demand both a recovery of that deep dynamic impulse which first gave rise to religious life in the Church and a recovery from the malaise through which it is now passing: tThis is a draft of a work in progress. Feedback on the content and style of this paper would be ap-preciated. 690 The Recovery of Religious Life hence the title "The Recovery of Religious Life." Although much of this arti-cle argues for the plausibility of these assertions and their implications for the future of religious life, there will also be provided an explanation of how the data were collected and organized, and of what was called important or unim-portant. In this sense, these assertions represent a starting bias that informs the entire article. As such, this bias merits being stated at the outset. The approach taken in this article2 is to explore the questions about the future of religious life from a historical and sociological point of view. In the first two parts of the article, two models are developed: a historical model of the evolution of religious life as a movement in the Church and a sociological model dealing with the organizational life cycle of an individual religious com-munity. Then, in the final sections of the article, these two models will be used to address questions about the present condition of religious life and its future. Every model represents a simplification of reality, and the models in this arti-cle are no exception. To arrive at the questions posed in the final sections, the article will digest and condense large amounts of material drawn from a variety of sources that are partially indicated in the notes. It is hoped that this simplification is not a serious distortion of the facts and that it will arrange the historical and other data in such a way as to provide an overview from which some tentative generalizations can be made. II. The Evolution of Religious Life: A Historical Model Religious communities in the life of the church are not fixed and static en-tities. Taken together they make up a historical process unfolding over time, and religious life can be viewed as a significant social movement in the history of Western Culture. As parts of a movement, religious communities arose in response to dramatic social change in the Church and in the larger cultural and political arena of Western Civilization. They became a dynamic force in shap-ing and cha~ging the Church and secular culture. They have been both a cause and an effect of social change: the founding of religious communities has fre-quently been a response to major developments of society, and the evolution of the Church and Western Culture has been significantly influenced by the life and work of religious communities. As in all social movements, the role of myth, the emergence of belief systems, the fashioning of institutions and social structures, and the role of personal transformation and commitment are central to the evolution of religious life. The dynamic interplay of all these elements creates, sustains and limits the histo~'ical unfolding of religious communities. ~This article grew from a variety of experiences over an extended period of time with multiple presentations at workshops and reflections from many religious. Especially helpful were Fr. Norbert Brockman, S.M., Sr. Gertrude Foley, S.C., Bro. Thomas Giardino, S.M., and Sr. Carol Lichtenberg, S.N.D. The scheme of dividing the history of religious life into the five eras presented in the second part of this article was first suggested in a lecture given by Fr. David Fleming, S.M., at the University of Dayton in December, 1971. 692 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/5 A. Organizing Concepts One way to view the unfolding of religious life within the Church is to look at how the image of religious life has evolved over time and what implications this evolution has had for the functioning of individual religious communities.3 The term dominant image of religious life is used here to name a multifaceted reality that includes how religious view their life and its functions and role within the Church and the world during a given period. The term is also meant to indicate the sense of history which permeates religious life at a given time. How do people, both the religious and the members of society at large, picture the past of this way of life? What kind of future are religious supposed to be creating? The process by which the dominant image of religious life evolves in time can be characterized by a repeated sequence of identifiable phases of change: - Growth Phase. A relatively long period of elaboration and develop-ment of the dominant image of religious life and its implications. - Decline Phase. A period of crisis in which the dominant image of religious life comes under strong question. Religious communities seem no longer suited to the aspirations of the age. Religious com-munities lose their purpose, drift into laxity, and disintegrate. Transition Phase. A comparatively short period of revitalization in which variations of the dominant image of religious life emerge and one of these is gradually selected as the new dominant image. - Growth Phase under a New Image. A period of elaboration and development under the new dominant image of religious life. The supposition that religious life has passed through a succession of such phases of growth, decline, and transition is the basis of a model that can be used to organize and interpret the data of the history of religious life.4 The remainder of this section is devoted to illustrating a way this model might be constructed. 3Some sources used to clarify the notion of dominant image were Fred Polak, The hnage of the Future, translated and abridged by Elise Boulding (San Francisco: Jassey-Bass, 1973); Changing Images of Man, Policy Research Report No. 4, Center for the Study of Social Policy, Stanford Research Institute, May, 1974; and Kenneth E. Boulding, The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1961). *Some sources used to clarify the notion of social evolution were Stephen Toulmin, Human Understanding-I (Princeton: P. U. P., 1972); Anthony F. C. Wallace, "'Paradigmatic Processes in Cultural Change," American Anthropologist (Vol. 74, 1972), pp. 467-478; Donald T. Campbell, "'Variation and Selective Retention in Socio-Cultural Evolution," in H. R. Barringer, G. I. Blanksten, and R. W. Mack (¢ds.), Social Change in Developing Areas (Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman, 1965); Edgar S. Dunn, Economic and Social Development." A Process of Social Learn-ing (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U. P., 1971); and Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962). The Recovery of Religious Life / 693 The following questions have been used in fashioning the model. First, there are questions about variation that deal with searching and experiment-ing. Under what conditions do variations appear in the dominant image of religious life? If these variations lead in certain directions, what factors in culture, the Church, or religious life itself influenced the choice of those direc-tions? Second, there are questions about selection. What determines which variations in the dominant image of religious life are selected out to serve as essential elements of a new image of religious life? How do members of religious communities distinguish well-founded and properly justified variations from those which are precipitous, not well thought out, and hasty? ¯ Finally, there are questions about retention that deal with incorporating and establishing the new. How are selected variations incorporated into religious communities? What processes are needed? What set of factors distinguishes in-novations which endure from those which disappear quickly? B. Major Eras in the Evolution of Religious Life Using the concepts described above, the history of religious life can be divided into five main periods: the eras of the Desert Fathers, Monasticism, the Mendicant Orders, the Apostolic Orders, and the Teaching Congregations) The description of these eras given in this section constitutes the historical model that will be used in the final portion of this article. 1. Era of the Desert Fathers The first period was the Era of the Desert Fathers. Following the earliest manifestations of religious life in the mode of consecrated virgins and widows within the Christian communities of the persecuted Church, ther~ emerged the image of the religious as the ascetic holy person. The description of the her-mit's life given by Athanasius in his Life of Anthony crystallized an ideal which inspired both solitary anchorites and many communities of cenobites. The desert was seen as the domain of the demons to which they had retreated after being driven out of the cities by the triumph of the recently established Church. It was to this "desert" that generous men and women withdrew to 5Factual and historical data on the history of religious life were gathered from such standard sources as The Catholic Encyclopedia (1907), The New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967), the An-nuario Pontificio, The Official Catholic Directory, and The Catholic Almanac. Some of the other sources on this topic were Raymond Hostie, S.J., Vie et mort des ordres religieux (Paris: Descl~e de Brouwer, 1972); David Knowles, O.S.B., Christian Monasticism (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969); Humbert M. Vicaire, O.P., The Apostolic Life (Chicago: Priory Press, 1966); Derwas J. Chitty, The Desert a City (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1964); Owen Chadwick, John Cassian, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: C. U. P., 1968); William Hinnebusch, O.P., "'How the Dominican Order Faced Its Crises," Review for Religious (Vol. 32, No. 6, November, 1973), pp. 1307-1321; William A. Hinnebusch, O.P., The History of the Dominican Order, 2 vols. (New York: Alba House, 1966, 1973); Teresa Ledochowska, O.S.U., Angela Merici and the Company of St. Ursula, 2 vols. (Rome: Ancora, 1969); William V. Bangert, S.J., A History of the Society of Jesus (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1972); and Adrien Dansette, Religious History of Modern France, 2 vols. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1961). 69t~ / Review for Religious, lZolume 34, 1975/5 carry on the Church's important work of doing battle with the devil in the wilderness as Christ had done long ago. In this way the desert came to be seen as a place of austere beauty, where the monk was trained in the ways of perfec-tion. He returned from time to time into the midst of his fellow Christians, who saw in him the power to do good--healing the sick, casting out demons, comforting the sorrowful with gentle words, reconciling the estranged, and above all urging everyone to put nothing in the world before the love of Christ. This image captured the imagination of the Christian world as news about the Desert Fathers spread from Egypt to all points of the Roman empire. Throughout the 4th century monasteries sprang up on all the shores of the Mediterranean. By the 5th century, the golden age had begun to fade. In the East, the monks had become embroiled in doctrinal controversy. In the West, TABLE 1: ERA OF THE DESERT FATHERS (200-500) Dominant Image of Religious Life. The ideal of religious life is the holy ascetic who seeks " the perfection of Christ as a solitary or in community with a group of monks. Disciples withdraw into the "desert" and place themselves under the care of a master ascetic who teaches them the ways of perfection. They live nearby as hermits or gather in cenobia or monasteries where the master is the superior. The monk prays, mortifies himself, does battle with the devil for the sake of the Church, and spends his life seeking union with Christ. 2nd and 3rd Centuries 251 Anthony horn Consecrated virgins and widows live a form of 271 Anthony withdraws into the desert RL within Christian communities of the early 292 Pachomius born Church during the persecution. 4th Century 313 Edict of Milan 325 Pachomius founds cenobium 356 Anthony ~lies 357 Athanasius writes Life of Anthony 360 Basil founds monastery in Cappadocia 363 Martin founds monastery in Gaul 376 Melania founds monastery on Mount of Olives 393 Augustine founds monastic group in Hip-po 399 Cassian, disciple of Evagrius, migrates from Egypt to West Hermits and cenobites flourish in the Egyptian desert. Various forms of solitary and com-munity RL spread around eastern rim of the Mediterranean (Palestine, Syria, Cappadocia). First monasteries are founded in the West. 5th Century 410 Alaric sacks Rome RL continues to expand in the East. Spread of 415 Cassian founds monastery in Marseille wandering monks and various kinds of 455 Vandals sack Rome monasteries in the West while the western half 459 Simon the Stylite dies of the Roman Empire crumbles. 476 End of western Roman Empire 1st TRANSITION: SPREAD OF BENEDICT'S RULE The Recovery of Religious Life / 69t~ the foundations of Roman civilization weakened under the onslaught of the barbarian tribes, and the ties between the eastern and western halves of the Empire began to break apart. The monasteries in Gaul and other parts of the moribund West became refugee cloisters, where the monks gathered the few treasures of civilization they could lay hold of. As dusk settled on the glories of imperial Rome, the stage was set for the rise of feudal Europe and with it the next period in the evolution of religious life. 2. Era of Monasticism The next period was the Era of Monasticism. In his attempt to regularize religious life as "a life with God in separation from the world," Benedict produced a new dominant image of religious life. This image was not only a correction of the abuses which had crept in during the 5th and 6th centuries, it also, and more importantly, turned out to be a successful adaptation of religious life to the feudal society of the Dark Ages and the early medieval period. Benedict's short and practical Rule furnished workable guidelines for all monastic activity and every age and class of monks. It combined an uncom-promising spirituality with physical moderation and flexibility. It emphasized the charity and harmony of a simple life in common under the guidance of a wise and holy abbot. By the 9th century, this new image had spread to virtually all the monasteries of Europe. The ideal of the Benedictine monk became the model for Christian spirituality and played a part in the stabilization and unification of society. Various modifications, such as the Cluniac, Carthusian, and Cister-cian Reforms, maintained and adapted the dominant image to the developments in European society. Cluny and the Cistercians devised methods of uniting monasteries into networks that became harbingers of the modern order. However, by the time the 'first stirrings of urbanization began at the end of the 12th century, the dominant image began to show its inadequacies and once again laxity in religious life was not uncommon. There was also a great debate between monks and canons about which form of religious life was a more authentic embodiment of the apostolic ideal. As the civilization of the high Middle Ages began to emerge, new possibilities were felt in society and with them came the opportunity for a transition in religious life. 3. Era of the Mendicant Orders When Francis and Dominic launched their communities, they ushered in the next period, the Era of the Mendicant Orders. As mendicant friaries sprang up in towns across Europe, they met with an initial hostility which could not fathom how this new style could be an authentic form of religious life. Gradually, though, the new image of religious life became acceptable, and it proved to be a much better adaptation of ~:eligious life to the needs of urban society than was possible for the monasteries in their rural settings. During the course of the 13th century, even the monastic orders established studia close 696 / Review for Religious, l/olume 34, 1975/5 to the new universities, where the mendicants were flourishing. As Christen-dom was passing through its zenith, the image of a religious life unen-cumbered with landed wealth played a key role in the cultivation of the in-tellectual life by the Church within society and in the preaching of the Gospel for the Church. TABLE 2: ERA OF MONASTICISM (500-1200) Dominant Image of RL. Life in a monastery is the ideal of the religious. The daily round of liturgical prayer, work, and meditation provides a practical setting to pursue the lofty goals of praising God and union with Christ. Within the Church and society, the monks set an example of how deep spirituality can be combined with loving ministry to one's neighbor and dutiful fidelity to the concrete tasks of daily living. 6th Century 529 Benedict founds a monastery to live ac- Spread of monasteries throughout western cording to his Rule Europe (Gaul, Spain, Ireland, etc.). Various 540 Celtic monasticism takes root in Irela'nd formats. Excesses and laxity are common--as 590 Columbanus founds monastery in Lu~r are wandering monks. euil 7th and 8th Centuries 642 Arab conquest of Egypt Gradual spread of Benedict's Rule to.more and 700 Venerable Bede more monasteries of Europe. Missionary 746 Boniface founds monastery in Germany journeys of Celtic monks to evangelize 755 Canons of Chrodegang founded northern Europe. 9th Century 816 Regula Canonicorum of Aix-la-Chapelle Observance of Canons Regular is made uni- 817 Charlemagne's son decrees that form by the spread of the Rule of Aix. Con- Benedict's Rule is to be observed in all solidation of Benedict's Rule. Virtually all monasteries. This project coordinated by monasteries are "Benedictine." Benedict of Aniane. 910 Cluniac Reform 1084 Carthusian Reform 1098 Cistercian Reform 10th and llth Centuries Various reforms breathe new life into Benedict's ideal and introduce organizational variations. 1111 Bernard joins the Cistercians 1120 Premonstratensians founded 12th Century Canons Regular unite into orders which are a variation of the monastic networks of Cluny and Citeaux. Military orders attempt a new form of RL which is temporarily successful (Knights of Malta, Templars, Teutonic Knights, etc.). 2nd TRANSITION: RISE OF THE MENDICANTS After a rapid flowering, the mendicant orders were affected by the same changes which spread across the Church and European society in the 14th and 15th centuries. As the Renaissance presaged the new humanism, the secularization of European society, and the breakup of the unity of Christen-dom, there emerged the conditions for yet a new kind of religious life. The Recovery of Religious Life / 697 TABLE 3: ERA OF THE MENDICANT ORDERS (1200-1500) Dominant Image of RL. The simple friar who begs for his keep and follows in the footsteps of the Lord is the ideal of RL. He prays as he goes, steeping himself in the love of Christ. Unencumbered by landed wealth, the mendicants are free to travel on foot to any place they are needed by the Church. They hold themselves ready to preach, cultivate learning, serve the poor, and minister to the needs of society in the name of the Church. 1211 Franciscans founded 1216 Dominicans founded 1242 Carmelites founded 1256 Augustinians founded 13th Century Mendicant friaries spring up in medieval towns across Europe. These foundations lend themsel~,es to work in the new universities and the apostolate of preaching. Rapid expansion of the mendicant orders. Monastic orders make some attempts to take up the style of the mendicants. 1325 75,000 men in mendicant orders 1344 Brigittines founded 1349 Black Death 1400 47,000 men in mendicant orders 1415 Hus burned at the stake 1450 Gutenberg 1492 Columbus 1500 90,000 men in mendicant orders 14th Century ~tabilization and slow decline of the mendicant orders. Abuses in RL are prevalent. 15th Century Various reforms restore the mendicant ideal and produce a gradual increase in membership. First stirrings of the Renaissance introduce an uneasiness into the Church and RL. 3rd TRANSITION: THE COUNTER-REFORMATION 4. Era of the Apostolic Orders The transition to the next period in religious life, the era of the Apostolic Orders, happened with the Counter-Reformation. Not long after Luther sparked the Protestant Revolt, the new image of religious life appeared with the foundation of various orders of Clerics Regular, the chief of which were the Jesuits. The verve and style of this new foundation set the pace for religious life, The mendicant orders had taken up this ideal in part by joining in the mis-sionary conquests,of the Church in the newly discovered lands. The new image also spurred religious to come to terms with the secularizing trends of the scientific revolution, modern philosophy, and the rise of nationalism in Europe. Jesuits, for example, could be found in the royal courts of almost all of Europe's Catholic kingdoms, in the laboratories of the new scientists, and teaching the youthful Descartes at La Fl~che. As the proponents of the Enlightenment testily challenged the very ex-istence of the Church, a slow decline descended upon religious life. Large and nearly empty monasteries dotted the European countryside. Jansenist and Enlightened thought undermined the.rationale for religious life from opposite directions. The Bourbon kings succeededin persuading Rome to suppress the 69~! / Review for Religious, l/olume 34, 1975/5 Jesuits in 1773. On the eve of the French Revolution, worldwide membership in all the men's religious orders stood at about 300,000; by the time the Revolution and the secularization which followed had run their course, fewer than 70,000 remained. Many orders went out of existence. As the 19th century began, there was need of a thorough-going revival of religious life, which could realistically cope with the new consciousness of Europe. TABLE 4: ERA OF THE APOSTOLIC ORDERS (1500-1800) Dominant Image of RL. Religious are an elite of dedicated and militant servants of the Church with a high level of individual holiness, a readiness to defend the Church on any front, and the zeal to win new expansion for the Church to the very ends of the earth. 1517 Luther sparks the Reformation 1535 Ursulines founded 1540 Jesuits founded 1541 Francis Xavier sails for Far East 1545 Trent starts 1562 Discalced Carmelite Reform 16th Century RE virtually wiped out in Protestant Europe. Founding and expansion of a new kind of RL in the format of the Clerics Regular. These groups work at shoring up the Church's political power in Catholic Europe, reforming the Church, and spreading the Gospel in the foreign missions. 17th Century 1610 Visitation Nuns founded 1625 Vincentians founded 1633 Daughters of Charity founded 1650 St. Joseph Sisters founded 1662 Ranc6 launches Trappist Reform 1663 Paris Foreign Mission Society founded 1681 Christian Brothers founded 1700 213,000 men in mendicant orders Flowering of spirituality, especially in French School, leads to new foundations such as the various societies of priests and clerical con-gregations. Bulk of men religious still belong to mendicant orders. 1725 Passionists founded 1735 Redemptorists founded 1770 300,000 men in RL in world 1773 Jesuits suppressed by Rome 1789 French Revolution starts 18th Century A few clerical congregations emerge, but RL as a whole seems to be in decline due to the in-roads of Enlightenment thought, Jansenism, wealth, and laxity. Weakened RL is given the coup de gr?tce by the French Revolution, which sets off a wave of political suppression and defection in France and the rest of Catholic Europe. 4th TRANSITION: FRENCH REVOLUTION 5. Era of the Teaching Congregations The revival of religious life which occurred in the next period, the Era of the Teaching Congregations, set off in a new direction. There were about 600 foundations of new communities in the 19th century. They were, for the most part, dominated by the movement of educating the masses. For the first time The Recovery of Religious Life / 699 in European history, the idea of educating everyone had the possibility of be-ing concretely realized. The new congregations joined in this movement in hopes of planting the seeds of a hardy faith in the souls of the children they taught by the thousands. This zeal for the education of children was combined with a cleansed Jansenistic spirituality to form the new image of religious life. While the activity of religious spilled over into other apostolic works such as hospitals, teaching set the pace. Even the few pre-Revolution orders which were managing a slow recovery took on many of the trappings of the typical 19th century teaching congregation. For the first time in the history of religious life, recruitment of adult vocations was almost completely displaced by the acceptance of candidates just emerging from childhood. Through the end of the 19th century and on into the 20th the religious who gave themselves to this demanding work of teaching edified the Church and produced a brand of holiness which was most appropriate for a Catholicism which sought to strengthen a papacy denuded o.f worldly power and to care for the masses of the industrialized wor.ld in need of christianization. By the mid-1960's membership in religious communities reached the highest point in the history of the Church. In the last decade, this trend was reversed for the first time in more than a century. Crises have set in which some ascribe to a loss of identity TABLE 5: ERA OF THE TEACHING CONGREGATIONS (1800-present) Dominant Image of RL. Religious dedicate their lives to the salvation of their own souls and the salvation of others. The style of life of religious men and women blends in intense pursuit of personal holiness with a highly active apostolic service. Identity with the person of Christ unites this two-fold objective into a single purpose. 19th Century 1814 French Restoration; Jesuits restored by Rome 1825 Fewer than 70,000 men in RL in world 1831 Mercy Sisters founded 1850 83,000 men in RL in world 1859 Salesians founded 1870 Papal infallibility declared Revival of RL after widespread state sup-pressions. Numerous foundations of con-gregations dedicated to a return to authentic RL blended with service, principally in schools. Old orders, such as Jesuits and Dominicans, rejuvenated in the format of the teaching con-gregations. Church gradually centralizes around the papacy and isolates itself from secular trends of the modern world 20th Century 1950 275,000 men in RL in world 1962 Vatican II starts; 1,012,000 women in RL in world 1965 335,000 men in RL in world 1966 181,500 women in RL in U.S. 1972 879,000 women in RL in world 1973 143,000 women in RL in U.S. 1974 227,500 men in RL in world Expansion and solidification. In the sixties, crises set in from within RL due to loss of iden-tity and inroads of secularizing process. Numerous defections and decreasing numbers of new members. 5th TRANSITION: (?) 700 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/5 and the inroads of secularism. It seems that another transition in the long history of religious life has begun. Further considerations will be undertaken in the remainder of this article to better analyze the present situation. 11I. The Life Cycle of a Religious Community: A Sociological Model The previous section of this paper focused on a historical model for the evolution of religious life as such within the Church; in this section attention is turned toward the life of the individual religious community or institute. To this end, a sociological model for the life cycle of individual religious com-munities which organizes the important dimensions of each period in the life of the communities is developed.6 This model allows further probing of the questions concerning the plausibility of a revitalization of religious life, since revitalization of present religious communities is one way that religious life as a whole will be renewed. A. Organizing Concepts To date, only thirteen men's religious orders in the entire his.tory of the Church have ever surpassed a membership figure of 10,000 at some point of their existence. The membership pattern of three of these orders--the Dominicans, the Minims, and the Jesuits--is graphed in Figure 1 below. Although these three examples are taken from among the largest orders of the Church, they are representative of the membership pattern in most religious communities, large or small. Typically one finds one or more cycles of growth and decline in the number of members. These membership patterns suggest a dynamic of inner vitality that goes on in a religious community. Using such analogies as the human life cycle and other cycles of growth and decline, a sociological model has been devised which divides the life cycle of an active religious community into five periods: foundation, expansion, stabilization, breakdown and transition. The model is shown schematically in Figure 2. The shape of this curve is intended to repre-sent the over-all vitality of the community as it passes from one period to the next. In the following section salient events and characteristics which typify each of these periods are described. An attempt is also made to isolate the crises which occur during each period. ~Some sources used to clarify the notion of a life cycle were Hostie, Vie et mort; Wallace, "'Paradigmatic Processes"; Gordon L. Lippitt and Warren H. Schmidt, "Crisis in a Developing Organization," Harvard Business Review (Vol. 45, No. 6, November-December, 1967), pp. 102- 112; and Lawrence E. Greiner, "Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow," Harvard Business Review (Vol. 50, No. 4, July-August, 1972), pp. 37-46; Thomas F. O'Dea, The Sociology of Religion (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1966); Luther P. Gerlach and Virginia H. Hine, People. Power and Change: Movements of Social Transformation (Indianapolis: Bobbs- Merrill, 1970). The Recovery of Religious Life / 701 _z 20 LLI ~ lO 30 1200 1300 ! \/ , st 1400 1500 1600 1700 I t I t I I I II ! I ! 1800 1900 2000 Figure 1: Membership of Dominicans, Minims, and Jesuits IFOUNDATIONIEXPANSION ISTABILIZATION BREAKDOWN TRANSITION Figure 2: Life Cycle of a Religious Community B. The Periods of the Life Cycle 1. The Foundation Period The first period in the life of a religious community centers around a found-ing person and his or her vision. The founder or foundress undergoes a radically transformi,ng experience, which can usually be pinpointed to an event or series of events, and .which is perceived as an abrupt shift in the founding 702 / Review for Religious, I/olume 34, 1975/5 person's identity and a timeless moment in which a vision or dream is received. Contained in the transforming experience is a new appreciation of the message of Jesus which leads to innovative insight on how the condition of the Church or society could be dramatically improved or how a totally new kind of future could be launched. A new impetus to live the religious life in all the totality of its demands is felt, and a new theory emerges that is at once a critique of the present, an appropriation of the past, a compelling image of the future, and a basis for novel strategies. The founding person's transforming experience is followed by the initial emergence of the community. A fortuitous encounter takes place between the founder or foundress and some contemporary men or women in which the founding experience, the innovative insight, the emerging theory, and the call to holiness are shared. The group unites under the guidance of the founding person to search for and invent new arrangements for living the Gospel together and working toward the realization of the Kingdom of God. The foundation period may last ten to twenty years or longer and fre-quently coincides with the last part of the founding person's lifetime. Integra-tion and cohesion center on the founding person and still more deeply on the person of Christ. The structural identity of the community appears in seminal form, and authority in the community springs from the wisdom of the found-ing person. Founding events of religious communities have a uniqueness about them which has caused them to be especially treasured as significant moments in the Church's past. Examples of founding persons and their visions readily come to mind: Angela Merici's dream of a new kind of religious life for women that centered on an active apostolate; the hopes of Robert of Molesme to restore fervor through the primitive observance of Benedict's Rule in the wilderness of C~teaux; Don Bosco's contagious vision of loving Christ and joyfully serving the poor. The more striking cases of founding persons receiving their in-spirations have become part of the common heritage of all religious: Anthony hearing in a Sunday Gospel the words which were the key to his life's aim; Ignatius retiring to Manresa to receive his visions. For the most part the foundation period is a time of grace and charism for a new religious community. But there are also crises that must be faced. The crisis of direction forces the community to decide which undertakings are im-portant and which must be sacrificed. The crisis of leadership confronts the community with the problem of finding out how it will live beyond the time of its founding person. The crisis of legitimization engulfs the nascent community in the question of whether or not the Church will approve it as an authentic form of religious life. The Waldensians, for example, showed some signs of becoming a new religious order on the pattern of the mendicants, but they never overcame the crisis of iegitimization. Instead of becoming a religious community, they ended up as renegades who had to hide out in the woods of medieval Europe. The Recovery of Religious Life / 70a 2. The Expansion Period When the community has emerged from the foundation period, it un-dergoes a fairly long period of expansion, during which the founding charism is institutionalized in a variety of ways. A community cult and belief system solidifies, a community polity is fashioned, and community norms and customs take hold. As members of the community's second generation mature and grow older, they recount stories of the foundation, which they have heard from the pioneers or have themselves experienced in their youth. These stories enshrine decisive events which set the community's direction or establish its characteristic traits. Gradually, rituals and symbols which express and com-memorate the most treasured facets of the foundation are fused with the.iore of the older members into a sort of sacred memory and cult that begins to be passed on from generation to generation as the community's "founding myth." Attempts are made at thinking through the founding myth and expressing it in terms of contemporary thought patterns. Eventually these efforts result in theories, interpretations, and social models which coalesce into a belief system and give a rational structure to the more intuitive thrust of the founding myth. Simultaneously, procedures are devised for community decision making and communication, and bit by bit the community's polity.takes shape. Norms are set down and customs emerge which cover all aspects of the community's life, such as membership criteria, leadership standards, and apostolic priorities. The members of the young community experience an excitement about the growth and success which characterizes the expansion period. Large numbers join the community, and new works are rapidly taken on which enhance the possibility of a still broader recruitment. Major interpreters of the founding vi-sion are recognized. Patterns of spiritual practice are determined, and the community's spirituality is made concrete in manuals of direction or other written documents. With expansion come certain organizational crises. How is authority to be delegated? What means will be used to integrate and tie together the rapidly expanding network of establishments and the burgeoning membership. When Bernard joined the Cistercians thirteen years after their foundation, he led the community through this kind of organizational crisis. In the process, a new en-tity, the general chapter, was invented to cope with the situation, and this in-novation is still a standard feature.of most religious orders today. Another crisis of this period centers on maintaining the pristine vigor of the founding vision. As rival interpretations arise, which will be discarded? A classic exam-ple of this kind of crisis occurred in the great debates about poverty among the early Franciscans just after Francis died. 3. The Stabilization Period After a fairly long expansion, which may last two to three generations or "/04 / Review for Religious, l/olume 34, 1975/5 longer, there ensues a period of stabilization. Numerical increase in membership may continue, but geographical expansion usually slows down. The stabilization period may last a century or more, but it is sometimes as brief as fifty years or so. A feeling of success pervades the community during the stabilization period. Members experience a high degree of personal satisfaction from simply being in the community. The prevailing image of religious life is clear and accepted. It provides a basis for describing unambiguous social roles for religious. The community is accomplishing its purpose and this purpose is self-evident. The need to improve is not seen as a need to change things but simply to do better what is already being done. Gradually, as stabilization sets in, more and more of the community assumes that religious life has always been the way it is now and that it will always remain so in the future. There is little need to elaborate the understanding of the founding vision or penetrate into it more deeply. It is simply accepted and repeated to new members who join. No one is left in the community who knew the founding person or the first dis-ciples personally. Memory of the founding events takes on the cast of past his(ory that is separate from the present moment. Formation of new members emphasizes their conformity to standard patterns of external behavior that are seen as the best means of cultivating interior commitment. The over-all feeling of success which is so typical of the stabilization period is not illusory. There is in fact a job that is being done and done well by the many generous religious who devote themselves to its accomplishment. The kinds of crises that Crop up during the stabilization period are linked to the other characteristics of the period. The crisis of activism occurs. Members become so absorbed in work that they lose sight of its spiritual and apostolic underpinning. They allow the satisfactions of accomplishment to dis-place a centeredness in Christ. Loss of intensity is another crisis of the stabilization period. Is it possible to maintain the intensity of vision and com-mitment among members, now that the community has become so highly in-stitutionalized? They can often be simply carried along by the sheer inertia of the community's activity and held in place by the pressure of social expecta-tion placed on their role as religious from people in the Church. Another danger stems from the crisis of adaptation. In the midst of success the com-munity is seldom open to adaptation, and any changes that have to be made are fraught with difficulty. Quite often, even the most legitimate changes are rejected, and their proponents are righteously and intolerantly silenced. The failure of later Jesuit missionaries to implement the ideas of Matteo Ricci con-cerning Confucian practices among Chinese Catholics is perhaps a good ex-ample of the sort of resistance to adaptation that can be found during the stabilization period. 4. The Breakdown Period Eventually the seeming immutabilities of the stabilization period start to give, and the religious community enters the breakdown period. The The Recovery of Religious Life / 705 breakdown may be gradual and last a half a century or more, or it may be rapid and run its course in a few decades. In either case, what happens is a dis-mantling of the institutional structures and belief systems that arose in the ex-pansion period and served the community so well during the stabilization period. This collective decline gives rise, in turn, to stress and doubt in the in-dividual members. Initially .a number of persons become dissatisfied with the current state of the community. Perhaps they are simply struck by what they judge to be the silliness of some of the community's customs or procedures. Or they may come to see that the community's life and work are not equipped to handle im-portant new challenges. Unanswered questions about the function and purpose of the community begin to accumulate and start to raise doubts. Levels of in-dividual stress increase slowly at the beginning, but then rise rapidly as doubt spreads to more and more levels of the community's social structure. To handle the growing problems, standard remedies are tied. All that is needed, it seems, is to get back to doing well what has always been done and to renew commitment to the community's mission. However, the usual problem-solving techniques become increasingly ineffective. A sense of crisis grows as community authority and decision-making structures become confused. The community's belief system begins to appear archaic and bound in by the trap-pings and articulations of a bygone age. The founding experience and myth, which had been internalized by the community's early generations, is no longer felt by the members. As the community loses its sense of identity and purpose, service to the Church becomes haphazard and lacks direction. Moral norms in the com-munity are relaxed and some members perhaps distract themselves with sex and a misuse of wealth. There is a net loss of membership through increased withdrawals and decreased recruitment of new members. The crises that arise during the breakdown period center on the various phenomena of decline in the community. The crisis of polarization can become acute when those who have faith in the community as it was align themselves against those who in varying degrees reject the community as it is. The crisis of collapsing institutions sets in as the community is forced to stop doing "business as usual" and abandon long-established works. The resulting demoralization leads to the crisis of the community's impending death. What is to be done as the chilling awareness grows in the community that it is inex-orably listing into disintegration on all sides? 5. The Transition Period The breakdown is followed by a period of transition. Three outcomes are possible for religious communities during this period: extinction, minimal sur-vival, or revitalization. Extinction, the first of these outcomes, occurs when all the members of a community either withdraw or die and it simply passes out of existence. This happened, for example, to 76% of all men's religious orders founded before 706 / Review for Religious, l/olume 34, 1975/5 1500 and to 64% of those founded before 1800. From a historical perspective, then, a reasonable expectation would seem to be that most religious com-munities in the Church today will eventually become extinct. A religious community which does not die out may go into a long period of low-level or minimal survival. If the membership pattern of presently existing religious orders founded before the French Revolution is examined, one finds that most of them enter into a period lasting across several centuries in which the number of members is very low. In fact, only 5% of all men's orders founded before 1500 and only 11% of the orders founded before 1800 have a current membership which is larger than 2,000. The Minims (Figure 1) are typical of the orders which once were quite large and now have a small membership. This type of outcome should not be interpreted as a dis-appearance of vitality in every case. The Carthusians, for example, follow this membership pattern. Yet they seem to be living UP to their reputation of never having relaxed their observance--never reformed and never needing reform. To this day the order's spiritual impact appears greater than its numerical strength. There is also a small percentage of religious communities which survive the breakdown period a~d enter into a period of revitalization. At least three characteristics can be singled out in all communities which have been revitalized in this way: a transforming response to the signs of the times; a reappropriation of the founding charism; and a profound renewal of the life of prayer, faith, and centeredness in Christ. The time in history fn which revitalization occurs seems to make a difference. If the revitalization occurs during one of the shifts in the dominant image of religious life singled out in the historical model above, the com-munity takes on many of the characteristics of the emerging image, and the transforming response to the signs of the times seems central to the revitaliza-tion. If the revitalization occurs midway during one of the major eras in the history of religious life identified earlier in this article, the revitalization takes on the characteristics of a reform with the reappropriation of the founding charism playing a central role. In either case the community experiences the revitalization as a second foundation. Personal transformation or conversion is central to revitalization. With personal transformation comes innovative insight and a new centering in the person of Christ. The innovative insight allows the transformed individuals within the community to develop critical awareness of the assumptions un-derlying the traditional meaning of the community and functioning of that community within the Church and the world. This innovative insight brings with it a focusing of energies through a new positive vision of what the com-munity should be in the future. The vision allows the emergence of a new theory which gives meaning to the experiences of individuals and the shared events lived within the community and spurs the community to building and creating its future. Such a new theory guides the community in the search for The Recovery of Religious Life / 707 and the invention of new models ~of living together as a community bound by. the evangelical conditions of discipleship in the service of the Church. A more complete sketch of the human dynamics of revitalization will be given in the last section of this article. The essential components of this dynamic, namely, insight and vision, and new theory and new models, are mentioned at this point to complete the picture of the life cycle of a religious community. Some limitations of this sociological model and the historical model of the previous section are given in the next section together with some generalizations that can be drawn from the models. IV. Some Limitations and Generalizations A. Limitations of the Models Before proceeding, some concluding and cautionary remarks must be made. Evidently the rapid overview of the history of religious life given in the first portion of this article should not be taken as anything more than a demonstration of how the evolution of religious life can be interpreted so as to fit the model of the five main eras that are being postulated in the proposed historical model. The account is far too compressed and over-simplified to provide an adequate and proi~erly nuanced telling of the story of religious life. For example, little attention was given to the Canons Regular, who constituted a significant portion of men religious from the Middle Ages to the French Revolution. There was no discussion of the medieval military orders nor of Orthodox monasticism. A still more gaping lacuna is the almost complete absence of any analysis of the way women's religious life differed from or followed the same pattern as that of the men. It may be that the sources used in this study were not sensitive to the distinctive role women actually played in the evolution of religious life. On the other hand, it may be that up to the present time the trends of women's religious life have been very parallel to those in the men's orders. The models proposed for the evolution of religious life and for the life-cycle of a religious community are also both simplifications. Some might validly question, for example, whether there were just five major eras in the history of religious life and whether the transitions between the eras occurred as clearly as the historical model suggests. The description of the dominant image of religious life for each era is a simplification of what was in every case a rather complex phenomenon. Hopefully, the liberties that have been taken are justified by the intention of trying to synopsize the history of religious life in such a way as to make some tentative insights more easily accessible to someone who is not a professional historian. Similarly, the breaks between the successive periods in the life cycle of a religious community are nowhere near as clear-cut as the proposed sociological model suggests. In .history, breakdowns sometimes occur within one order in different geographical locales at different times. Revitalizations often occur in some places for an order, while it decays elsewhere. At times 708 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/5 there are orders in which the role of the founding person is rather minor and does not have the decisiveness described in the model. Some communities have been founded in rather modest historical circumstances that were not accom-panied by the profound inspiration described in the model. These and similar qualifications must be kept in mind when the sociological model is used to in-terpret the life cycle of any particular community. B. Generalizations The models presented in the previous sections suggest some generalized conclusions. These conclusions can be helpful in exploring the present crisis of religious life. The historical evidence suggests that there have been significant shifts in the dominant image of religious life across the centuries. These shifts seem to occur when there are major societal changes astir and when the Church is un-dergoing major changes. The first transition happened as the Roman Empire fell in the West and feudal Europe was beginning; at the same time the rift between western and eastern Christianity was starting. The second transition occurred as feudal Europe was giving way to medieval urbanization and as the Church was gathering all of Europe into the unity of Christendom. The third transition took place at the start of the modern period of Western Civilization as the Church underwent the shock of the Reformation. The fourth transition resulted from a direct attack of society on the Church as a whole and on religious life in particular. Admittedly each of these changes in the culture and the Church differed from one another in many respects. However, the pattern seems clear enough at least to permit one to ask whether perhaps another shift in the dominant image of religious life would happen if major changes in society and the Church should come to pass. Although religious communities have been founded in almost every cen-tury of Christian history, it seems that each major shift in the dominant image of religious life is heralded by some significantly new foundations which em-body a new image in an especially striking way. This could be said of the earliest Benedictine monasteries for the first transition, of the Franciscans and Dominicans for the second transition, of the Jesuits for the third transition, and of the plethora of 19th century foundations for the fourth transition. It also seems to be the case that many communities go out of existence at each transition. Those that survive either continue in a diminished form or somehow blend the new dominant image with the charism of their own foun-dation to get another lease on life. The mendicant orders, for example, grew numerically stronger during the Era of Apostolic Orders as they adapted their own special gifts to the new style of religious life. The culture of the high Mid-dle Ages was rapidly and irretrievably passing away, but the mendicants adapted and flourished. One might ask, then, if the Church would witness the death of many religious communities and the foundation of new and different ones if a shift in the dominant image of religious life were to occur. The remainder of this article will explore the plausibility of maintaining that The Recovery of Religious Life / 709 another major transition has in fact begun in the history of religious life. Should this hypothesis be true, it would be appropriate to pose questions about h6w religious life is dying and how a recovery and revitalization might happen. Another observation that suggests itself from this brief survey concerns the continuity that underlies the shifts of the dominant image of religious life. As the image evolves it continues to hold up the impelling ideal of a radical following of the conditions set forth by Christ for an evangelical discipleship embedded in a life of prayer and deep faith. While the contemporary religious would probably not feel called to take on the externals of the life of the Desert Fathers, he or she will surely understand and be drawn to the stark beauty of the life of radical discipleship that moved Anthony to withdraw into the desert. Similar remarks could probably be made about the ultimate aims of the first Franciscans and the first rugged band of Jesuits. Through all the twists and turns in the make up and style of religious life, there is a deep core of seeking union with Christ in a special and total way that endures century after century. A great deal of historical precedent would have to be explained away by anyone who would wish to maintain that religious life is about to disappear as a separate and distinguishable way of life in the Church. The historical pattern seems to be one of repeated recovery. The present moment is indeed a time of trouble for religious communities, but religious life as a whole will doubtlessly survive. Turning to the sociological model, some further generalizations can be made. In the evolution of a religious community the non-rational elements of transforming experience, vision, and myth play a central role. This is es-pecially true during the periods of foundation and revitalization. Although necessary for each period in the life-cycle of a community, the techniques of rationality (long-range planning, leadership training, etc.) will never be suf-ficient to found a religious community or to revitalize one. The renewed vitality that comes to some religious communities during the time of transition finds its source in plumbing the depths of.the mythic and non-rational and in-tegrating them with the more rational dimensions of human life. A central insight of the myth of original sin is that humankind is not capable of sustained development; breakdown and disintegration are ever-recurring manifestations of the human condition. Since religious men and women exist within the human condition, it should not be surprising that, from time to time, all religious communities experience an extensive period of significant breakdown and disintegration. These bleak realities should be em-braced with humble acceptance of th~ human condition and a faith-filled hope that the Lord will in time resurrect life-giving initiatives from the death-dealing processes of breakdown. V. Where Does Religious Life Stand Today? In the previous sections of this article, the history of the religious-life movement in the Church and of particular religious communities was ex-amined to determine the major factors within culture, the Church, and 710 / Review for Religious, Volume 34, 1975/5 religious communities themselves that significantly influence the evolution of this movement. Generalizations from the proposed models indicate that major. transitions are likely to occur in religious life when secular culture is in the midst of a major crisis, and when religious life has experienced a period of major breakdown. The factors can serve as a useful matrix for answering the question, "Where does religious life stand today?" As was mentioned in the in-troduction, the answer proposed in this article is that religious life is undergo-ing a pervasive transition that will last for the next twenty to twenty-five years and which will significantly change the style of life and service of religious communities. The plausibility of this assertion is developed in this section. A. Signs of Transition in Secular Culture Many writers have noted that contemporary culture is in the midst of a societal transition. Some compare the present time to the Renaissance. Others claim that the present multifaceted change is equal to if not greater in magnitude than the agricultural and industrial revolutions. Many strands of societal transition have been pointed out. Spiritual, intellectual, philosophical, psychological, political, economic, and many other crises in society have been described by writers from a wide range of disciplines. For the purposes of this article, a cluster of these difficulties, which might be broadly termed the socio-economic crisis, will be summarized below as a sample of the sort of comment on contemporary society being made today. Catastrophic events and critical trends are continually reported by the news media. These reports range from widespread famine in the Sahel and South Asia to the continued downward spiral of the national economy. Careful analysts and writers have noted that these events and trends are a manifestation of the parallel growth of a set of interrelated critical issues which they have designated as the "world problematique.''7 A list of the critical issues that make up the "world problematique" would include: Energy Problems: Runaway growth in domestic and worldwide use of energy; shortages and scarcity of energy; insufficient capital resources to develop new energy sources. Food Problems: Food supply unable to meet the demand for food; worsening of weather conditions through pollution; increasing food prices due to food scarcity and increasing cost and consumption of energy; deterioration of arable land through increased urbaniza-tion and ecological undermining; actual widespread famine; potential long term problems of hunger and famine. Pollution Problems: Rise of pollution-induced illness; exponential increhse in the pollu-tion of the air and seas; denuding of natural environment through strip mining. 7.Some sources used to examine the "world problematique" were Kenneth E. F. Watt, The Titanic Effect: Planning for the Unthinkable (Stanford, Conn.: Sinauer Associates, Inc.); Donella H. Meadows, et al., The Limits to Growth (Washington: Potomac Associates, 1972); Mihajlo Mesarovic and Eduard Pestel, Mankind at the Turning Point (New York: Reader's Digest Press, 1974); Lester R. Brown, In the Human Interest (New York: W. W. Norton, 1974); and Lester R. Brown with Eric P. Eckholm, By Bread Alone (New York: Praeger, 1974). The Recovery of Religious Life / 711 Economic Problems: Growing world inflation; market saturation (e.g. airplanes, elec-tronic equipment, automobiles); instability and manipulation of monetary system, lack of alternatives to growth economics; increasing gap between the "have's" and the "have not's." Work Problems: Increasing unemployment and underemployment; saturation of the labor market; decreased productivity; increasing alienation and dissatisfaction with work; depersonalization of work environments. Problems of Urban Areas: Deterioration of urban areas; increasing crime rates; in-creasing cost of essential urban services. Problems of International Order." Hazards of international competition and war; com-petitive economic policies. What makes the "world problematique" different from problems en-countered in previous eras is its complexity and the pervasive interrelationship of its elements. Hence, the "world problematique" is not amenable to normal methods of problem solving. Attempts to address such critical issues in a singular or joint fashion introduce fundamental dilemmas that do not appear resolvable within conventional modes of thought. Among such dilemmas which seem to be plaguing the contemporary politico-economic situation, four might be singled out: the dilemmas of growth, guidance, global justice, and social roles.8 These dilemmas are delineated more fully in Table 6. One may ask if these problems and dilemmas have not been present during most of the Industrial Era. Are not the problems of the 20's and 30's very much the same as those of the 70's and 80's? What makes the above mentioned problems and dilemmas different is that they have not been ameliorated through the use of conventional wisdom and standard problem-solving ap-proaches. In fact, one may argue that application of these approaches has led to many unanticipated and undesirable consequences. Resolution of the problems and dilemmas is dependent upon a thorough-going shift in social perceptions, involving restructuring of beliefs, images, and human aspirations at a fundamental level. B. Crisis in the Church and the Breakdown in Religious Life The Catholic Church in America has been profoundly influenced by con-temporary change. For at least fifteen years the Church has been experiencing a transition of its life. The Second Vatican Council (1962-1964) was a result of the early stages of this transition and a triggering event for its later stages. The Church began to open itself to a world which was undergoing a dramatic secularization. This opening up or aggiornamento had significant impact on all dimensions of Church life. Parish life and parochial education are no longer the only shapers of the values and beliefs of American Catholics. The once-clear norms and social roles ~vithin the Church no longer seem to serve their original purpose. For example, the Vatican's official position on birth 8The schematization presented in Table 6 is based on the work of Bill Harmon, Director of the Center for the Study of Social Policy, Stanford Research Institute. 712 / Review for Religious, I~'olume 34, 1975/5 TABLE 6: SOME DILEMMAS OF CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY Growth The fundamental "new scarcity" of fossil fuels, minerals, fresh water, arable land, habitable surface area, waste-absorbing capacity of the natural environment, fresh air, and food come from approaching the finite limits of the earth. These limits demand a radical slow down or leveling off in material.growth and energy-use curves of the past.' Yet, the present economic and political system is built around a growth hypothesis. The economic and political consequences of limiting growth appear unbearable. Guidance Dilemma Ecological considerations along with awesome power of modern technology to change any and all aspects of the human environment establish a mandate for greater guidance of technological and social innovation. Yet, the political price of such guidance is very high. Such guidance is perceived as con-trary to man's fundamental right to freedom and as an inhibition to economic growth. Global Justice Dilemma Further advances by the industrialized nations make the rich nations richer and the poor nations relatively poorer. The impressive ac-complishments of the industrial economy are largely built on a base of cleverness plus cheap energy, the latter from the world's limited stockpile of fossil fuels. Yet, the costs of not redressing these inequities may be serious political and economic world instabilities as well as widespread famine and inhuman suffering in the poorer nations. Social Roles Dilemma Present economic system is failing to provide Yet, the absence of satisfying and personally an adequate number of satisfying social roles meaningful roles for women, youth, the especially for women and minorities. The aged, and minorities along with worker employment market is saturated; there is a dissatisfaction in general results in in-need to keep youth and the aged out of the creased I~ersonal alienation and erodes labor market, the morale of the nation. control is considered unacceptableto an increasingly large number of Catholics. Difficulties are arising in the functioning of such Church structures as the priesthood and the traditional role of the laity and of such Church institutions as parishes, schoo|s, and hospitals. Their once-unquestioned role within the Church no longer seems to satisfy the needs of an increasingly large number of church members. This crisis and transition within the Church has had a dramatic effect on religious communities of women and men. Religious communities have begun to experience all of the signs of entering into the breakdown and disintegration period described earlier in this article. There has been a sharp decline in membership due to increased withdrawals and a decrease in new recruits. Re- The Recovery of Religious Life / 713 cent literature9 gives a statistical picture of this breakdown in the United States. - A recent National Opinion Research Center study indicated there is a larger relative number of resignees among those already established in church careers than in any other equivalent period of time since the French Revolution. - For the years between 1965 and 1972 66% of the yearly decrease in communities of religious women was due to dispensation or termination of vows. In communities of religious women the average annual net increase over these years was approximately 768 members, the average annual net decrease was 3841, with only one-third of that loss caused by deaths. - The total number of Sisters in 1974 had declined 17% from 1960 and 23% since their peak membership year in 1966. - The total number of religious Brothers in 1974 had decreased 12% since 1960 and 26.5% since their peak membership year in 1966. The purposes of religious communities which were once clear and widely understood have become vague and meaningless to some in the midst of the modern church crisis. The structures of authority and process of communica-tion and decision making within religious communities seem no longer to fit the needs of the individuals within the community or suit the evolving work of the communities. The processes of formation to religious community have sometimes become disorganized and seem to lack purpose. These and other signs indicate that the last fifteen to twenty years have been a time when most religious com-munities have begun to experience breakdown. This cluster of the signs of breakdown in virtually all communities seems to indicate that we are ap-proaching the end of another major era in the history of religious life. C. Restatement of the Bias This review of the transitions in secular culture as well as the current crisis of the Church allows us to use the historical and sociological models of the evolution of religious life and religious communities outlined in the previous sections to answer the question "Where does religious life stand today?" In the introduction of this article, an answer was given in what was called the fun-damental bias of the article, namely, that religious life in America is undergo-ing a profound transition, which will take another twenty or twenty-five years to run its full course. The arguments leading up to this bias can be set forth as follows: 1. The dominant image of religious life has undergone several major tran-sitions as religious life has evolved as a movement within the Church. 2. The occurrence of these major transitions is associated with a number 9Carroll W. Trageson and Pat Holden, "Existence and Analysis of the 'Vocation Crisis' in Religious Careers," (pp. 1-3) in Carroll W. Trageson, John P. Koval, and Willis E. Bartlett (eds.), Report on Study of Church Vo

Issue 63.1 of the Review for Religious, 2004. This was the first issue of the Review as a quarterly publication. ; Education Objectives Human Development Eucharistic Ce~nteri~ng Saintly Models Spiritual Growth QUARTERLY 63.1 2004 Review for Religious helps people, respond and be faithful to God's universal call to holiness by making available to them the spiritual legacies that flow from the charisms of Catholic consecrated life. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published quarterly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP Mount St. Mary's Seminary; Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2004 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. for religious LIVING OUR CATHOLIC LEGACIES Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Clare Boehmer ASC Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm 'Judy Sharp Sr. Raymond Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Hensell OSB Ernest E. Larkin OCarm Louis and Angela Menard Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ QUARTERLY 63.1 2004 6 Secularism, Justice, and J~suit Higher Education-- Are They All the Same? Martin R. Tripole sJ questions the adequacy'of the justice agenda in Jesuit education and proposes to spell out the task for educators in establishing "the justice of God's kingdom" among students. 21 32 The Spiritual Development of Individuals Stanislaw Glaz SJ points out that spiritual development can proceed correctly only on the condition that we discard the illusions that we have created about our lives and likewise discard vain expectatio~ns for the future. Breaking Stereotypes Ignatius Jesudasan sJ writes about stereotypes from his Indian and Jesuit experience and calls us to reflect on our efforts to move beyond such prejudice. 40 53 A Charism Illumined: Eucharistic Anamnesis and "Viva Memoria" Hildegard Magdalen Pleva OSSR develops the crucial feature of both anamnesis and "living memory" as the ability to make past events and the person of Jesus present and active in our time. Eucharistic Devotion in the Rising Generation Randall S. Rosenberg reflects upon the desire of young people to spend time in loving contemplation and adoration of the Eucharist as a sign of growth in an integral faith life. Review for Religious 58 Teresa of Avila and Friendship Susan B. Cordsen reflects on Teresa of Avila's struggle with friendship. Teresa has much to say to us today as we struggle with what it is to be friends of Christ and friends of one another. 66 Five Faces of Rosalie Rendu Robert P. Maloney CM reflects many of the numerous new blesseds and saints of Pope John Paul's pontificate are not well known. This article attempts to acquaint readers with one of them. Growth in Faith, Hope, and Love Normandie Gaitley SSJ discovered through the setback of apparent failure and rejection God's voice in the midst of the storm calling to a deeper faith, hope, and love. 84 Mountain Caves Carolyn Humphreys OCDS describes our growth in intimacy with God through the imagery of our exeriences in entering the darkness of spiritual caves. 4 Prisms 91 Canonical Counsel: Papal Enclosure: Further Considerations 99 Book Reviews 63.1 2004 R first things first. As we begin a new year, it may be helpful to observe what is first in our lives. For example, we believe that the Eucharist is central to our living the paschal mystery. Yet we might look at whether or how it is first in our religious practice. Jesus provides us with two helps--the first, a word, and the second, an action. During the Last Supper events recorded in the synoptic Gospels, Jesus makes reference to the covenant: "This is the new covenant in my blood." Covenant, a specific agreement practice among the Middle-Eastern peoples, took on a new depth of meaning when the Israelite people understood that God had made a covenant with them] To celebrate this new relationship between God and a people he calls "peculiarly his own," the biblical covenant is sealed with the blood of a sacrificed animal. Blood--just as in out'modern-day blood transfusions--means life, not death. When the priest sprinkled blood first on the altar representing God and then on the people, this blood ritual symbolized the sharing of life between God and God's people. When Jesus says the word "This is the new covenant in my blood," he is taking the symbolic covenant of the Jewish faith and providing an undreamt-of reality to his word. In Eucharistic communion, we find ourselves given the food and drink of everlasting life. Our veins, our very bodies, our very beings are coursing with the "blood" of this new covenant of shared life, the Review for Religious Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Mary, the new Paschal Lamb. The action Jesus performs as key to our understanding is recorded only in John's Gospel account of the Last Supper. The action is Jesus' washing of the disciples' feet. When Peter objects, Jesus replies that, if he does not wash his feet, then Peter will have no relationship with him. In the face of such a harsh consequence, Peter immediately reverses his position and desires to be washed totally clean as a guest made'welcome from the travel of dusty roads--not just his feet, but his hands and face as well. For the Johannine community and for the church in her Holy Thursday celebration, this washing of the feet dramatizes the central mystery of the Eucharist, a sharing of life, giving it away, a life-in-service--"I have given you an example," Jesus says. Eucharist, meaning celebration of holy Mass, and Eucharist, meaning the sacrament of holy communion, include both word and action. God in Jesus is speaking a word of love in sharing divine life with us, bringing us from being just God's creatures to being truly sons and daughters, members of God's family. But in Eucharist God is also involving us in his very action of sharing, and so we find ourselves moved not only, to share our life with God but also, like God, to share life with all those whom our life touches--all of them our brothers and sisters! Eucharist is key to Jesus on the cross--to pay whatever price love costs--to give over his life to God and to give over his life to us. Easter, too, finds its key in Eucharist--Jesus sharing resurrected life, his Father's gift to him, with all of us so that we too might continue to rejoice in and share this life forever. Entering into Eucharist, then, we participate in the paschal mystery, the mystery of the dying and rising of Jesus, the pattern of living the divine cost of sharing life given in love. . .David L. Fleming SJ 63.1 2004 MARTIN R. TRIPOLE ,,Secularism, Justice,. and Jesuit Higher Educationm Are They All the Same? Whether or not justice is present in Jesuit higher education seems recently to have become a mat-ter of high priority. In 2000 every Jesuit college or university in the nation was pressed to send representatives to a special conference in Santa Clara, California, to examine the extent to which justice was being promoted in the policies and curricula of Jesuit institutions, with a view to implementing stronger justice agendas. More than three hundred delegates attended. In October 2002 a follow-up gathering was held in Chicago. Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education recently devoted its entire spring 2000 issue to social justice.1 In July 2002 in Philadelphia, the fifth annual meeting of Col-leagues in Jesuit Business Education focused on "The Paradox of Globalization and Economic Justice." And an international conference on justice and globalization for. leaders in Jesuit Martin R. Tripole SJ last wrote for us in September-October 2000. His address is St. Josepl'i's University; 5600 City Avenue; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19131. Review for Religi.ous higher education was held in November 2002 at Santa Clara University. The perception seems to be that Jesuit higher edu-cation is not adequately committing itself to the pursuit of justice and something must be done about it. The pressure has grown to make the promotion of justice-- in an institution's mission statement and curricular offer-ings-- the litmus test for qualifying as a Jesuit institution. So much has this conjunction of justice with Jesuit edu-cation become the standard parlaffce at Jesuit institu-tions today that, when lay administrators, faculty members, and students refer to Jesuit education, they immediately identify it with the promotion of justice. In short, if your institution is not promoting justice, it is not Jesuit. Many educators question this symbiosis.of justice and Jesuit education. Is the purpose of Jesuit education to promote justice? Is it possible to fashion Jesuit edu-cation according to a justice model? Doesn't a liberal education in the Jesuit tradition have dimensions far deeper and more important? This article questions the adequacy of the justice agenda in Jesuit education, arguing from (1) the under-standing of the Jesuit mission as approved by the 34th General Congregation (GC34) of the Society of Jesus in 1995, (2) the inherent inability of the iustice agenda to .maintain the Catholic and Jesuit character of Jesuit higher education, and (3) the compelling challenges cre-ated in the world since 11 September 2001, in relation to which the justice mission falls seriously short. Justice and the Jesuit Mission at GC34 The identification of Jesuit education with the pro-motion of justice stems from the 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus (GC32) in Rome in 1975. It decreed that the Jesuit mission is "the service of7 63.1 2004 Tripole * Secularism, Justice, and Jesuit Higher Ed faith, of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement.''2 Though the congregation never defined what it meant by justice, most commentators noted the 1960s and 1970s political- and social-activist thinking reflected in the decrees and have rightly concluded that the congregation was referring to social justice. In effect, the congregation asserted in the key for-mulation cited above that every branch of the Jesuit mis-sion had somehow to justify its existence by how it promoted justice. That was the way things stood until 1995, when GC34 was convened. One would never guess, from the continuing emphasis placed upon jus-tice today, that GC34 broadened and deepened the for-mulation of the Jesuit mission so that it now includes much more that is explicitly Christian. Though GC34's thinking included social justice,3 the justice that is linked to the service of faith is now under-stood to be the scriptural and theological understand-ing of justice as "the justice of God's kingdom,':4 The aim of our mission received from Christ. is the service of faith. The integrating principle of our mission is the inseparable link between faith and the promotion of the justice of the Kingdom. In this pre-sent congregation we want to deepen and extend, in a more explicit way, the Society's awareness of those integral dimensions of our mission to which [GC32's] Decree 4 drew attention and which are now reaching maturity in our experience and in our present min-istries. (2:14) Central'to GC34's understanding of faith and the "justice of God's kingdom" is that faith entails sharing in the church's mission of evangelization and therefore pro-claiming the gospel and bringing its teaching into every culture and society (2:15). United with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit, and operating "within the total evangelizing mission of the church" (2:3), Jesuits are called "to promote the kingdom in all its aspects," Review for Religious including destroying the "structures of sin" and fulfilling the universal "desire to find God" and to "live by his gospel in all its implications" (2:11). The congregation, recognizing that the roots of injus-tice are to be found not only in "economic structures" but also in "cultural attitudes," explicitly states that jus-tice will "flourish" in society only when a deeper cultural transformation is achieved (2:17). Social justice is in a sense a by-product of the transforming power of "Christ's explicitly liberating presence" within history (4:8). Through inculturation, the "liberating power of the gospel" (4:3) be-comes present in every soci-ety by touching its "structural, cultural, and religious aspects with its light" (2:18). Clearly, by shifting its focus to the need to transform cultures, and integrating that effort into the church's total evan-gelizing mission, GC34 has found a deeper and mtre sat-isfying way to correct social problems than by focusing on the promotion of justice alone. Few would deny that promoting social justice is a work "integral". to the church's life. But it is another thing to assert, as GC32 seemed to do, that promoting social justice is an "absolute requirement" of every effort to serve-the gospel. Jesus seems repeatedly to have dis-tinguished the service of faith from the promotion of justice. At the beginning of his ministry, he made faith in his teaching and repentance for sin the appropriate response to the coming of tlie kingdom (Mk 1:15). He stressed the saving power of faith (Mr 9:22, Jn 3:16) and of baptism (Mk 16:14, Jn 3:5) and taught the parable of the talents (Mt 25:14-30), all without alluding to justice. And is it not fitting to proclaim the need for dis- Few would deny that promoting social justice is a work "integral" to the church's life. 9 63.1 2004 Tripole ¯ Secularism, 3~ustice, and yesuit Higher Ed cipleship of Christ (Mk 1:16-20), or the soteriological sig-nificance of Jesus' healing actions (see Mk 2:1-12; 3:7- 12), as well as the redemptive significance of his death and resurrection (1 Co 15), without mentioning justice? Jesus calls his disciples to a life of service of God and others. But the service Jesus intended is broader than promoting justice and does not call for such promotion unless just relations are lacking. Service, however, always calls for love. The quintessence of Christian living is found in our expression of love for one another modeled on Jesus' life of love (Jn 15:12). This love is manifested most of all in laying down one's life for another, as Jesus did On 15:13). It is promoting love, therefore, that would be the more adequate hallmark of the Jesuit mission. Jesuit and Catholic Presence in Jesuit Higher Education Understanding the Jesuit mission as inculturating the gospel has greater implications for Jesuit education than promoting justice does. According to GC34, a Jesuit university "must be out-standing in its human, social, spiritual, and moral for-mation" of student~ (17:11). Borrowing from Pedro Arrupe, superior ger~e.ral\of the Society of Jesus from 1965 to 1983, the congregation ranks, as a priority apos-tolate of the Society of Jesus, "theological reflection" upon "humanism, freedom,~ m~ss culture, economic development, and violence" (16:7). The congregation~ recalls that the early Jesuits "linked Christian catechesis to an education in classical humanism, art,and theater, to make their students versed both in faith and in cul-ture" (4:10), and specifically affirms that in the educa-tional apostolate Jesuits "have a special role to play in linking Christian faith" to contemporary movements in culture (4:28). The justice mission is not broad enough to handle these goals. Review for Religious In the light of GC34's understanding of the Jesuit mission, we would do well to examine the findings of "Jesuit Education 21," the last major conference on Jesuit higher education in the United States. Held at St. Joseph's University in June 1999, the conference brought together over three hundred laypersons and Jesuits from around the world, with more than eighty presentations made by prominent educators. A close examination of the conference proceedings5 indicates much of what is troubling Jesuit higher education today. They show that more is needed to restore the Jesuit and Catholic char-acter of Jesuit institutions than promoting justice can provide. Though their concerns were distinctly pro-Jesuit and pro-Catholic, the participants never came to a consensus on what being Jesuit and Catholic means or how Jesuit and Catholic values, whatever they might be, can be pre-served. A reviewer of the published proceedings called them "fascinating" and "indisl~ensabl~e' readin_g, yet admitted he could not conclude fro---~-~hem_ what Jesuit education stood for.6 This inability to state with clarity what it means to be Jesuit and Cath_olic_may reflect an erosion of identity already underway in Jesui_~t and Catholic colleges and universities. The proceedings provide good grounds tofear that the secularization that oc~ in many Pro___testant schools in the early 20th-century is well under___way at Jesuit and other Catholic institutions as_w__ell.____A basis for this view may be found, for exa--m-~le, in ~he distinction admissions recruiters.have frequency_ drawn-between Jesuit values and Catholic ide~-~ity. Many_ said they emphasize the former and do.wnpla._y or ignore the latter as a matter of policy. But why?-The distinction, they said, enabled them to iden6fy Jesuit schools to potential applicants as institutions promoting humanistic values, rather than as schools fostering Catholic identity. The 11 63.1 2004 Tripole ¯ Secularism, Justice, and Jesuit Higher Ed effect was to make being Jesuit distinguishable from belonging to the Catholic Church. That recruiters make such a distinction as part of their effort to appeal to potential students may indicate how ingrained among students as well as among recruiters secularization has already become. The erosion of Catholic identity may be even more evident in the hiring of new faculty members increas-ingly for their professional competence and their sup-port of humanistic values rather than for an interest in fostering a Catholic culture on the campus. One admin-istrator at the conference, bluntly admitted without com-ment or apology that Jesuit institutions will no longer accept support for the Catholic mission as a factor to be considered in the hiring of new faculty. He argued that Jesuit distinctiveness is now identified with humanistic values such as seeing the world, as sacramental, showing love by deeds, and searching for ultimate meaning, and that, when the Jesuit character is understood that way, "Jesuit education can and will thrive independently of the fortunes of the institutional Catholic Church." He went on to say that, "if you were to tell faculty tomorrow to 'hire for mission' with an emphasis on Catholic rather than, or over and above, Jesuit, I know what will hap-pen . The present faculty simply will. not do it" (Francis Fennell, Proceedings, p. 446). The peremptory nature of these remarks indicates how difficult it would be to reverse the trend toward secular humanism, for the faculty are the primary decision makers for hiring in their departments. Deeper theological roots of secular humanism may be found in the increasing acceptance of a principle never accepted by the Catholic Church, that faith is a private matter. This perspective includes relegating faith matters to the theology department and campus.ministry, rather than considering a Catholic culture something all Uni- Review for Religious versity personnel can share in. Theology departments, however, eager to be accepted as legitimately academic and hospitable to pluralistic thinking, are increasingly reluctant to identify themselves with matters of faith, thereby adding to the alienation of faith from the life of the institution (Avery Dulles, Proceedings, pp. 168-169). Does Promoting Justice Foster Secularism? Jesuits may themselves have much to do with this incursion of secularism into Jesuit universities, for an identification of Jesuit values with secular humanism has been widely accepted in Jesuit circles. The favored jar-gon for what Jesuit products should be--"men and women for others"--would be an acceptable character-ization of ideal products of any secular university. Are there any institutions in favor of self-centered graduates who want to promote injustice? The common phrase makes it difficult to distinguish a good secular humanist from a good graduate of any Jesuit institution. Jesuit spirituality promotes "finding God in all things." The principle, admirable in itself and valuable for people who wish to implement their faith, is problematic when put into the hands of secular humanists, since it allows not only faith in any god whatsoever, but also the marginal-ization of the true God over against a quasi-sacral aura that envelops all things. Support for secularization has unwittingly come from equating the Jesuit mission with the promotion of justice, an equation that can be made even when faith is absent~ Such an equation allows the reduction of the Christian faith to secularly acceptable standards and makes what is specific to being Catholic optional: belief in the triune God, commitment to Jesus Christ, and fidelity to the church and its teachings. When, therefore, Jesuit edu-cation understands its mission as promoting justice, someone must ask: Is such a mission capable of preserv- 13 63.1 2004 Tripole ¯ Secularism, 3°~stice, and Jesuit Higher Ed ing the Catholic character of our institutions? It would seem not. The promotion of justice is put on a par with other advocacy movements-- not life-altering efforts, but efforts that fit into the little compartment in our lives that supports Charitable causes. Catholic Identity and the Lives of Our Students The justice-advocacy movement has the weakness of being normally integrated into the larger framework of self-identity, even when it is most effective. The promotion of justice is put on a par with other advocacy movements-- not life-altering efforts, but efforts that fit into the little compartment in our lives that supports charitable causes. We contribute to the muscular dystrophy program on Labor Day, our hearts go out to Michael J. Fox and his cam-paign for curing Parkinson's disease, the more youthful among us dance the night away to seek financial contri-butions for the fight against AIDS--but afterwards we return to the secular aims and purposes that motivate our humdrum daily lives. Self-chosen secular aims and agendas are not likely to be altered much by participation in special advocacy movements, for many students take it for granted that in any case the measure of success is the worldly standard of money, power, and reputation. Against such a back-drop, advocacy causes fulfill the contribution to human-ity that political correctness and secularized Christianity deem necessary for those who would be model citizens and good Christians, but they do not call for renouncing worldly values in the ways that Christ proposed in his Sermon on the Mount. Review for Religious Reducing Jesuit education to a justice syndrome, then, is inadequate. In order to work, such a syndrome would need to be integrated into a life-altering motivating prin-ciple. In seeking to make our students eager simply to pursue social justice, we fail to provide them with the Christian rationale for being committed to such activity. The rationale that the older generation of Catholics accepts as a Christian truism--that sharing a common humanity should make human beings concerned for the welfare of others--cannot be taken for granted in our students. Many of them operate on a sense of worth the root of which is their aggressive pursuit of self-interest. For them, being a "person for others" is a sop for the weak and sentimental. Many people thought that 1960s altruism would of itself promote everywhere an array of humanistic values consistent with the goals of Chris-tianity. We now know that this did not happen. Only faith in Jesus Christ can bring in its train the life-altering principles dynamic enough for consistent and truly humanistic, humane, human activity. Reducing Christianity to a sort of social justice makes faith appear redundant and irrelevant (when in fact full Christian faith is central). Identifying Jesuit education with pro-moting .justice caters to this seeming redundancy and calls into question any need for any sort of Catholic edu-cation and any Christianity that demands a faith com-mitrnent to Jesus Christ. It is not accidental that, as years pass, our students are less and less inclined to call them-selves Catholic or practice a Christian way of life. In effect, they have been programmed by a system that has made Christian commitment and Catholic living mar-ginal or obsolete. Justice and Ignatius's Educational Goals ls an education geared to the promotion of justice consistent with St. Ignatius's goals? Many do not think so. 63. I 2004 Tripole * Secularism, Justice, and yesuit Higher Ed Surely no one disputes that Ignatius supported the integration of the virtue of justice into the lives of stu-dents at Jesuit institutions. In a letter written to his nephew Antonio de Araoz in 1551, Ignatius indicates that education in Jesuit sch'ools should lead to positions of influence for the good of society--either in specifically Christian activity, such as being a priest, or in govern-mental and other administrative positions of~authority. He specifically mentions that persons educated in Jesuit schools may benefit society by taking on roles in "the administration of justice." But Ignatius never saw such activity as intrinsically self-motivating. Whatever field of endeavor graduates might enter, they were to be moti-vated by the desire for "God's greater service" and that of "Christ, our eternal salvation." 7 George E. Ganss shows, in his classic study Saint Ignatius' Idea of a Jesuit University,s that Ignatius under-stood his goals for the education of non-Jesuft students as part and parcel of the Christian life envisioned in his Spiritual Exercises. There Ignatius indicates that human beings are "created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by means of doing this to save their souls," and that everything else is created for them for these purposes.9 That same outlook on life is °brought to bear upon Part Four of Ignatius's Constitutions, which treats of the goals of his colleges (high schools) and universi-ties: "The end of the Society [of Jesus] and of its stud-ies is to aid our fellowmen to the knowledge and love of God and to the salvation of their souls." Since Ignatius saw the study of theology as "the means most suitable to this end," he declared that "principal emphasis ought to be put upon it.''l° Ganss argues, however, that the inculcation of Christian values was not left simply to the work of the-ology professors, but was integral to the life of the entire university.~l For Ignatius, all of life is brought into focus Review for Religio us through a personal encounter with Jesus Christ and a commitment to Christ's mission by sharing in the paschal mystery of his death and resurrection. It would have been unthinkable~ for Ignatius to set up educational insti-tutions without orienting them and their students toward this same encounter and mission. Jesuit Education after 11 September 2001 Perhaps the most serious question to be asked of advocates of justice education is whether their agenda, in the light of the events of 9/11 and the gravity of the priest sex-abuse scandal, meets the chal-lenge of our time. The roots of the horrendous actions of the Middle East terrorists on that September day may be found on many different levels--economic, social, cultural, and religious. Surely an enlightened awareness of the inadequacy of the attempts of the United States to promote justice throughout the world needs to be brought to bear upon the kind of response we make. But, whether one is Palestinian or Israeli, European or American, Democrat or Republican, the issue is not whether to promote justice (who is in favor of being unjust?), but how to discern and implement practical methods that will satisfy people's yearnings for justice and peace. Faith does not endow Christian educators with the ability to discern what such methods might be--they continue to elude the best of political-scientists of whatever faith-- The issue is not whether to promote justice (who is in favor of being unjust ?), but how to discern and implement practical methods that will satisfy people's yearnings for justice and peace. 17 63.1 2004 Tripole ¯ Secularism, Justice, and Jesuit Higher Ed but it does provide a motive for see,king the best of meth-ods and choosing honestly the most,prudent moral action. The issues on the table since the'attacks of 9/11 are fundamental. The very survival of humanity seems to be at stake. It would be naive and platitudinous for Christian educators to think they have made their specific contri-bution merely by calling for the promotion of justice. The stakes are far too high, the dimensions of the prob-lem too great, for talk on that level to be adequate. The world has a right to expect more from people of faith. The sex scandal among the clergy also calls for a major rethinking of what it means to be a disciple of Christ. If those who have been singled out by the church to be model artisans of a new humanity have instead become instruments of dehumanization, more is de-manded to correct .the situation than a call for justice. To respond to the demands of our day, Christians are being called to a thorough reformation of their lives--abandoning self-interest and recentering their lives in the Christ who renounced himself on the cross for the salvation of the world. Christians must become persons who are themselves transformed and are at work revamping the human psyche so that it is motivated no longer by secular and material drives alone. The goal is a transformation of culture so that the person of Christ and the pattern of his life will willingly be accepted as the ideal of what it means to be human. What other efforts could Christians be expected to make? The mission for Catholic and Jesuit educators today is to go all the way or not go at all. What we need to promote is not simply justice, but a new visiofi of humanity where God's Spirit is recognized as the power driving generous and beneficial human action, rather than as optional or marginal to it, Our goal cannot merely be social justice, but the justice that destroys the Review for Religious demonic forces of the world, restores community between the human race and God, and ennobles human dignity by seeing it as a sharing in divine life. Our goal must be to spread the fire that Jesus came to earth to ignite, brightening people's minds and warming their hearts (Lk 12:49). This is what our students need to receive in our schools. The task for educators in Jesuit universities is to establish "the justide of God's kingdom" among our stu-dents. Instead of equating the Lucan principle "Blessed are the poor" with a call for economic and political jus-tice, we need to hear the Matthean principle "Blessed are the poor in spirit," which calls us to walk humbly with the Lord so that in the Spirit we can create even on earth the life of his kingdom. Doing that, we may even succeed in showing terrorists that Christ is the redeemer of the world and that faith in him is the very way to God and to wholeness and peace in human relationships. Notes ~ Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education 19 (Spring 2001), "After Justice." 2 Decree 4, "Our Mission Today: The Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice," §2, in Documents of the 31st and 32rid General Congregations of the Society of Jesus, ed. John W. Padberg SJ (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1977). 3 Indeed, GC34 devotes an entire document to the social-justice agenda: Decree 3, "Our Mission and Justice," in Documents of the Thirty-Fourth General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, ed. John L. McCarthy SJ (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1995). 4 Decree 2, "Servants of Christ's Mission," §11, of GC34. Hereafter references to the documents of this congregation are noted in the text thus: (2:11). 5 Jesuit Education 21: Conference Proceedings on the Future of Jesuit Higher Education, ed. Martin R. Tripole SJ (Philadelphia: St. Joseph's University, 2000). References are noted in the text. 6 Dennis O'Brien, "How to Be Loyal to Loyola," Commonweal 128, no. 8 (20 April 2001): 26. 19 63. I 2004 Tripole ¯ Secularism, Justice, and yesuit Higher Ed 7 To Antonio de Araoz, On the ministry of Christian education, I December 1551, in George E. Ganss SJ, Ignatius of Loyola: The Spiritual Exercises and Selected Works (New York: Paulist Press, 1991), pp. 361-365 at 362 and 365 (letter selected and translated by Martin E. Palmer SJ). 8 George E. Ganss sJ, Saint Ignatius' ldea of a Jesuit University (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1956). 9 The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, trans, and ed. George E. Ganss SJ (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1992), §23. ~0 St. Ignatius of Loyola, The Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, trans, and ed. George E. Ganss gJ (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), Part 4, chap. 12, no. 1 (§446; emphasis added). The nature of the university was different in Ignatius's day, to be sure, yet there is no reason to think that Ignatius would alter the content of this statement, even if it were directed to the Jesui~ university of today. 11 Ganss, Saint lgnatius'Idea, pp. 176-178. Song of the Thistle You brought me forth on the parched prairie where Russian thistles rolled and were caught against fences. And I like a thistle am still on a roll fencing with frustrations, but you don't leave me stuck to the wires now as you didn't then. I am still a tumbling weed that survived the dirty "thirties rolled fast by the Wind this day. Somewhere along the Way I am scattering seeds that may yet become shrubs or trees, something more than thistles and tumbling weeds. Mary Alban Bouchard CSJ Review for Religious STANISLAW GLAZ The Spiritual Development of Individuals Psychology shows us that, in the spiritual life of Christians who strive to keep the command-ments, much falsehood and aggression may go unnoticed. Sins we are not conscious of may be hidden in our soul. For sin is not only breaking a few specific commandments an&admitting some of the peccadilloes on a catechism list. There is sin when 'people neglect their own growth and ignore their life's purpose as deter-mined by God and by nature's laws of develop-ment. Anger and theft, are often the result of a sin, the sin of being immature, of not growing apace with one's years. If we want to grow, we have to be in contact with ourselves and with God. A lack of personal development leads to inner compulsions to hurt ourselves and others, as a way of believing in our own strength and showing it: We feel weak and humiliated, and then we choose to do harm in order to feel our own vitality. Stanislaw Glaz SJ is professor of psychology at the University "Ignatianum," where the address is: ul. Kopernika 26; 31-501 Krakow; Poland. 21 63.1 2004 Glaz ¯ The Spiritual Development of lndividuals Members of the clergy, psychologists, and theologians often ask what should be done to foster people's spiritual growth and thereby foster their personality development as well. What are the essential conditions for proper development and growth? As answers to questions like this one, I plan to share some of my pastoral experience of the last few years. I will point out several factors, often unconscious ones, that influence people's spiritual development in either constructive or destructive ways. One cannot name everything thht can benefit spiritual development. Many psychologists and theologians have tried to show elements helping such development, but those they have mentioned concern mainly the ascetic and theological aspects. Today the psychology of spirituality~ offers more such factors than earlier theology could offer. Reconciliation with Oneself and with Others Many psychologists believe that, before people can love their enemy, they have to learn to love the enemy in themselves. They have to effect a reconciliation between hostile elements in themselves. To the end of their lives, people retain certain personal imperfections. They need to admit their aggressive and murderous tendencies, their inclinations towards iealousy, fear, sadness, loneliness, and other emotions. It is often more difficult for us to love the enemy in ourselves than the external enemy. We must allow the sun of God's love and benevolence to shine on and into our entire being, including all that is dark and threatening and everything that is odd, awkward, or inept. Then the light of love will transform the evil (Powell 1978). A sense of guilt is often caused by a lack of rec-onciliation with oneself, a failure to face one's own truth. Psychologists say that the sense of guilt is often necessary. In providing a chance to learn the truth about one's self, it Review for Religious can be a blessing or a curse. People with a negative attitude towards their sense of guilt are not able to accept the history of their life. They rebel at the fact that they were brought up in this or that way, were born .at this or that moment of history, were not in a position to realize their dream--that they experienced deep wounds. They blame their parents and society for not giving them the opportunity for normal development. They choose to see themselves as victims, rather than accept their situation, their wounds, their limited range of experience. They must understand that their parents and neighbors did not set these limits (perceived wrongly as constraints) intentionally, but only as the unavoidable result of similar limits and perceptions in their' own lives. Thus it is necessary that people evaluate the world by new principles (Sovernigo 1990, pp. 221-223). Reconciliation with oneself plays an important role in the spiritual development of human beings. We need to accept the person we became, to accept--along with our talents---our handicaps and weaknesses, our vulnerability, our fears, and our dallying perseverance. We must look at all that we do not Jike in ourselves, at everything we would rather not see, at our low esteem. This is ~a lifelong process. We endlessly discover in ourselves things ~that are new to us. We have to accept it all, including our own incompleteness. We must account for everything in .our lives that we excluded or rejected because it did not fit in our favorite image of ourselves, an idealized and untrue picture. We must admit that, besides the love and friendliness in our souls, there also are such feelings as hatred, anger, A sense ofguilt is often caused by a lack of reconciliation with oneself, a failure to face one's own truth. 23 63.1 2004 Glaz ¯ Tbe Spiritual Development of Individuals depression, and fear; not only brave and unselfish yearnings, but also godless spheres that want to remain undisturbed and unchanged. If we do not face the full truth about our patterns of emotion and thought and behavior, we project them unconsciously on others. Facing the full truth of our life till now means more than glancing at it superficially. It requires great courage. It requires giving up our ideal image of ourself (Laing 1969). Life in Accordance with Love Happy people are~not those who can either solve their own problems or ignore them. Happy people are people aware of their value as persons living their own unique lives, being themselves, loving others and letting others love them in their limitedness. Love assumes the need of self-control, which starts with awareness of our own feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. Love is both the skill and the wish to allow the loved ones to be who they want to be, without any insisting that they meet our own expectations. How much love we can offer to others depends on the love we have for ourselves. We are all unique. We should love our own selves, and our self-esteem should not be directly affected by our limitations and faults. Neither our current behavior, nor the behavior of others towards us, nor our feelings are the gauge of our own value, which is constant. People often evaluate themselves by .the definition of beauty and by role models put forward by the surrounding culture. Such self-evaluations are the origin of false selves that commandeer the true selves that people are given once and forever (Griin 1999, Mellody 1992). People have their genuine selves, which are the core of who they are, their essence, their spiritual entity. It is there that God is present, where their fears and sufferings do not penetrate. People who allow their own true self, their spiritual self, to direct their actions make of their Review for Religious soul a secure citadel where God lives and freedom reigns. This inner sphere is invulnerable. One can never be deprived of this intrinsic dignity. But one needs to discover it and to experience God as the foundation of all existence, of all human lives. God gives me life, and God sustains me in it. My value does not depend on passing an exam, nor on the judgment of others. It depends on my being who I am. God wants me to be myself. My value comes from no one but God. My value is my privilege (Powell 1978). The Way of Experiencing Faith Faith is not only the teaching of the church, it is not only the spiritual dimension, but it is also the proper perception of reality, the proper perception of God, of other people, and of myself. It is the art of a sane life, the art of trustful judgment of myself, of handling myself appropriately. Faith is the way to freedom. It is trust in God. It is conviction that God touches tenderly each sphere of my being, that his grace reaches all of the human soul in order to bring the light of his life there. Faith allows me to share with God all my mysteries. Faith is conviction that through Christ and in Christ human beings gained participation in God's life and that all of creation is permeated by God (Grfin 1980). True love depends not only on being free from an external sovereign, from the power of this world, and from the authority of another person, but also on being free from internal compulsions. Some ~limitations of our freedom may be occasioned by inherited behavioral tendencies. My freedom is limited when I do not know God, when I lower my self-esteem, when I create a false image of another person, when I follow slavishly the role models given to me by my parents, when I let myself be controlled by fear of loneliness, or when my perception of life and the world, is false. 63.1 2004 Glaz * The Spiritnal Development of Individuals Destructive Elements Spiritual development proceeds step by step. Many people, even when considerably along on their° spiritual iourney, may do things that impede their progress. Psychologists have tried to discover these hindrances and evaluate their consequences in both sociological and developmental terms. In their religious and social lives, numbers of people have a rigorous attitude towards themselves. The roots of such an attitude may be numerous and deep in people's unconscious. These roots may form when children do not experience unconditional love or when their parents do not treat them seriously in terms of their own self. Then the children are likely to be deeply wounded and fail to experience themselves as distinct and unique beings. According to many psychologists, their primal sense of security is injured; in other words, the children feel fundamentally unloved. Their self, their sense of the "me, who I am" is hurt, damaged, rejected by the very persons they needed to accept them unconditionally. After being treated in this way, children may react violendy against the people around them or against themselves. Such behavior is likely to bring some kind of punishment on them. Later, growing up, they may similarly punish themselves. This injustice and violence is likely to be .at the root of future violence and cruelty in the world (Gri.in 1997a). Upbringing becomes destructive when it fosters one side only, for example, only male aspects of personality like toughness and audacity, and depreciates sensitive feelings. Such treatment convinces a boy that his own and others' feelings are not important. Aggression towards the external world always corresponds with resentment towards oneself. The lack of love causes children to be fearful. They fear rejection, loneliness, and life itself. They desperately try not to disappoint their parents. They see exaggerated rigidity as a way of gaining their Review for Religious parents' love. Having no support from their inner self (for it is not developed yet), the children try to create support by imposing clear and sharp demands on themselves. Such severe attitudes towards themselves are efforts to overcome the deeply rooted fear resulting from the absence of parental warmth and acceptance. Such children do not trust themselves or others because they do not feel the support of a stable and clear relationship with their parents, nor the support of good pedagogical rules and guidelines. They are filled with suspicion and doubt, and so they perceive other people as untrustworthy and threatening. Feeling a similar vague mistrust of themselves, they seek to overcome it by sticking strictly to their own clear norms (Powell 1969). They feel well. only on the condition that they fulfill certain ideals. Their sense of their own value depends on whether people describe them as perfect children or not. They identify with "model" children so strongly that they cannot tolerate any deviation from that ideal.VV-henever they learn .that something they did was a mistake, they make their self-imposed rules and rituals more severe and uncompromising, But if persons force themselves to fit their ideals, they only torture themselves. They think that God expects them to be ideal constantly, that they should always be kind and open to others, forgetting self always. But that is not God's will; it is their own self-imposed "ideal," which often serves solely to gratify themselves, their own expectations and ambitions (Griin 1997). Lack of Love of Oneself Such an "ideal" appears mosdy in our ideal image of ourselves. We cannot accept that God created us to be who we are. We think that our imaginary idea of ourselves is more important than God's will. We do not try to develop all that God gave us; we do not accomplish numerous real possibilities in our lives. In our minds we27 63.1 2004 Glaz * The Spiritual Development of Individuals have ready pictures of ourselves deriving either from our parents and official and unofficial teachers or from own ambitions, our dreams of being some kind of hero or heroine. We may think, then, that we can do almost everything without any help from anybody. We may believe we can form the world as we wish and that we have no need to take into account the order given to the world by God. Many of us assume that we can achieve our hopes and ambitions by some kind of force. Before God this may indicate both a lack of humility and a failure to give God due respect. ~ People who push themselves higher than they are supposed to go land finally in their own prison. Resisting God is resisting life. It does damage to oneself. The egoism in people's drive towards self-actualization often leads away from love of their neighbor. It is in their work that they look for their identity and value, because they have failed to find value in themselves as God's beloved creation[ Such people have trouble admitting that they can. and do make mistakes. They look for ways to gloss over the evidences of their errors. They may push a miscalculated plan to a regrettable conclusion (provided they :do not appear responsible for it) rather than admit the wrongness of their initial decision. Their fear of anyone's negative opinion of them is stronger than their fear of doing damage: What will happen if others know how weak and fallible I am? And so they create and take on problems for other people, overestimating their own ability to control the damage. Such people lack balance. Their thought is all-or-nothing: If I do not achieve greatly at all costs, I am empty and dull, a nothing (Sovernigo 1990, pp. 228-229). Misunderstood Asceticism ~. A sound asceticism is characterized by a positive attitude towards ourselves. Its role is giving support to Review for Religious us--although people often think of it as rejecting pleasure and inhibiting our drives. The idea is the affirmation and development of life, not its negation. Unhealthy asceticism often includes a deficient image of God, which in turn may cause insensitivity and destructive desires, aspects of perfectionism. Perfectionists try to be like God. They create a system of compulsions, of detailed principles and commands. Adhering to that system and enlarging it becomes their goal in life. They deprive themselves of any pleasure; they live solely to sacrifice. They do not let themselves have any happiness because it will not last and then they will feel all the worse. They want, on their own, to get rid of anything negative in themselves. They do not trust God. They do not believe that somehow everything will make sense, that God can positively transform even what is negative in their lives. All they have to do is let God into their lives, their souls. The religious attitude of those people contains a lot of disbelief in the goodness of humanity. It assumes that people are good only when they are doing things, such as saying as many prayers as possible. Only fi solid faith in the true God brings the kind of trust that people need in order to live heaolthy and constructive lives without fearfulness. People who do not put trust in God's unconditional love for them have trouble in coping with guilt, which is present even in people who strive always to be good. People without trust in God do not understand what Jesus' carrying our cross and our carrying some of it with him are all about. They live stubbornly according to their own ideals, and their lives become rigid. Their suppressed and unmet needs attack them and appear as neurotic behavior. Perfectionists A sound asceticism is characterized by a positive attitude towards ourselves. 29 63.1 2004 Glaz ¯ The Spiritual Development of Individuals demand of themselves that their lives be altogether free of shallow or untrue motives. Such asceticism becomes a process of self-destruction (Sovernigo 1990, pp. 233-237). It seems, then, that spiritual development can proceed correctly only on the condition that we discard the illusions that we have created about our lives and likewise discard vain expectations for the future. One of those illusions is that we can create our own justice, love, and truth. And yet we have been transformed by Christ, we are called to a new life, called to a full development. To live that new life means to live in accordance with our innermost calling, not surrendering to expectations and demands that we ourselves or other people mistakenly impose on us. It means allowing God to create us and form us. Living by the Spirit's guidance and power means freedom from compulsion to prove our own value. It means life based on gratitude for all that we have been given by God. The aim of life is acceptance of that inner, spiritual reality which God gave us, which he gave us with love and in truth. The aim of life is being and living that reality and discovering the beauty of being, each of us, our individual selves, discovering and showing our original faces, faces given to us by God. Bibliography Albisetti, Valerio. 1991. Per esserefelici. Milano: Edizioni Paoline. Griin, Anselm. 1980. Lebensmitte als Geistlicbe Aufgabe. Benediktinerabtei Mfinsterschwarzach. Griin, Anselm. 1996. Glauben als Umdeuten glauben--lieben--loben. Benediktinerabtei Miinsterschwarzach. Griin, Anselm. 1997. Gut mit sicb selbst umgeben. Mainz: Matthias- Griinewald-Verlag. Griin, Anselm. 1997a. Tu dir docb nicbt selber web. Mainz: Matthias- Griinewald-Verlag. Griin, Anselm. 1999. lm Haus der Liebe wobnen. Stuttgart: Kreuz Verlag. Laing, Ronald D. 1998. L'lo diviso. Turin: Einaudi. Review for Religious Mellody, Pia. 1992. Facing Love Addiction: Giving Yourself the Power to Change the Way You Love. HarperSanFrancisco. Powell, John. 1969. Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am? Mien, Texas: Thomas More Association. Powell, John. 1978. Unconditional Love. Chicago: Thomas More Publishers. Sovernigo, Giuseppe. 1990. Religione e persona: psicologia dell' esperienza religiosa. Bologna: EDB. Nothing Is Lost That's what the fossils teach, leaves pressed to carbon traces, footprints cast in pudding stone, a dinosaur with feet smaller than my hand. Nothing is lost, not even what we cannot find a trace of. Firm under our feet, those old lives live on, in new forms, rock and root, awareness of what we are and have come from. Once a mind opens, thelight is there; it cannot close. Knowledge grows and we see what we could not, learn what needed light to be clear, like seeds long still in sand till the rain softens the dark, and green horns seep through the grains toward the sun. Nothing is lost. Everything feeds on, is formed from the past. And so shall we be, someday: seed and loam for what will come. Doretta Cornell RDC 31 63.1 2004 IGNATIUS JESUDASAM Breaking Stereotypes Reality is changing constantly. Stereotypes do not. Therefore they are unreal, products of the emo-tion and imagination of individuals and groups that have a vested interest in maintaining and perpetuating illu-sions. Stereotypes are born of fear or perception of threat. They go with and generate the negative attitudes of closed minds and hearts, keeping people stuck in their prejudice. Every group has experience of stereotypes. India abounds in them--a reason why we do not progress as much as we could. Our stereotypes make us our own worst enemies. The great national task in this context is to break the stereotypes in our minds by seeing and recognizing reality, which changes and has changed from the last time that we took a look at it. What follows is an example set by a minority group, without a conscious design to break stereotypes, nor claiming to be nor setting itself up as a model of stereotype breaking. This group just did something natural. Spontaneity is the natural way to break stereotypes, which are unnatural and antinatural. One has only to watch that stereotypes do not become second nature. Ignatius Jesudasan SJ wrote this from Loyola School; Uthiramerur; 603 406 India. Review for Religious Jesuits are a worldwide and well-known male religious order and organizational network in the Roman Catholic Church. Although they are generally known by the quality of their educational institutions, they are involved in and committed to many other endeavors too. They are a missionary order; they are always to be in a state of mission, of being sent. It is in this sense that the church itself is missionary. It understands itself as being sent into the whole world by Jesus Christ, who himself was sent here by God, whom .he called Father. In other words, Christ is not for himself, but for others. The church is not supposed to be for itself, but for the world. Christians is not supposed to be for themselves, but for others. Gandhi's vision of India was something similar. His self-image and life and action manifested the same spirit. Is this something wrong? Is it not the way that everyone is supposed to be? Where then is the problem? It is in this sense of mission and being missionary--in this stereotypemthat Christians and Christian organizations have caught the attention of the Indian majority mind and consciousness. As an avant-garde organization in the Catholic Church, the Jesuits and their diverse works are not free from the stereotype. Even Gandhi was not free from it. Regarding the church and its missionaries, is the stereotype well founded? Stereotype as Prejudice. Stereotyping is people's habit of assuming that they know what in fact they do not know. It is pretending to know. If my etymology is correct, "pretend," from the Latin roots prae and tendere, means to hold out in front, to stretch forth, to put forzvard a falsehood, a mask, an empty faqade. It means to assert as real what reality denies. In life we are often involved in such contradictions, or koans as Zen masters name them. We hold what we do not hold, and know what we do not know. We do not know 63.1 2004 Jesudasam * Breaking Stereotypes Since stereotypes are founded on people's ignorance and on bigots" exploitation of that ignorance, the first and best remedy is to get to know those about whom stereotypes exist. that we do not know. In other words, we lie to and deceive others or ourselves; or else we may not know enough to be able and willing to admit and correct our ignorance. And this is what bias or prejudice is. It is judgment before knowing or hearing the case. We indulge in it because we are cocksure of our rightness. And this sense of rightness is not all wrong. Prejudices have their roots in positive or negative emotions like love and hatred, or attraction and repulsion. Behind love and hatred, and attraction and repulsion, there may be many layers of knowledge and experience. What knowledge and experience do large numbers of Indian people have of Christians that cause them to dislike or feel uneasy about them? They "know" that the church and Christians are missionary, and they take it to mean converting others to their faith and worldview. They see such conversion as a loss to Hinduism and a gain to Christianity. This is why ethnoreligiously conscious Hindus, which secular Hindus are not, perpetuate the stereotype about Christian education, Christian social work, Christian medical work, and what have you. No one asks whether the schools and colleges do it, or the other good works do it. No factual statistics substantiate the prejudice against Christians. People take no surveys among Christians or even non- Christians about conversion facts, efforts, or even conscious intentions before adopting or retaining or rejecting these stereotypes. Review for Religious Stereotypes and prejudices are not good for any group or nation, and are positively harmful to them, for they divide, scatter, and waste their precious emotional energy resources and capacities for constructive development. India's emotional unity is affected by the prejudice directed from any community towards any other community on whatever basis, be it language, religion, caste, state, or locality. It is therefore in the national interest to remove every bias, prejudice, and stereotype that any individual or community has about any other individual or community. Since stereotypes are founded on people's ignorance and on bigots' exploitation of that ignorance, arousing mass phobia regarding the ethnically different, the first and best remedy is to get .to know those about whom stereotypes exist. It is probably with this in mind that Jesus spoke with authority to his fellow Jews: "I tell you: Love your enemies, do good to them, and pray for those who persecute you." This is good advice for any nation, and certainly not bad for India. Bias-breaking Spirituality Breaking stereotypes is therefore a social, psychological, national, and spiritual service. One may engage in it consciously or not. I see an example of unconscious stereotype breaking in a small document published recently by the Indian Jesuits, containing a summary of a week-long meeting of South Asian Jesuits held recently at Mumbai to plan a course of action for the coming years. The document is called "Action Statement of the Jesuits for Living and Sharing the Good News in South Asia." The title might strengthen the suspicion already present in the minds of the prejudiced, but the actual document will show how far it is from being sectarian propaganda material. The document was not produced 6"3.1 2004 yesudasam ¯ Breaking Stereotypes for public consumption or propaganda. It is meant solely to inspire, enlighten, and direct Jesuits in their various endeavors. The Vatican and the bishops might not appreciate it, but it was not written with them in view either. Christianity as Humanism It reads pretty much like a religiously secular document. Religious faith and social commitment are nowhere camouflaged. Faith, what the meeting's delegates believe in, is the source of their motivation. Sharing this faith is the purpose of all their activity and involvement. But neither that faith nor their activity is sectarian or divisive in purpose or practice. Christian terminology is used, which is unavoidable. But it is neither propaganda, nor propagandist in intent. It is inspirational for the group, and is not directed against any other group or the common good. Denominational religious conversion does not figure in it at all, not even as a hidden agendum. All the same, personal and cultural transformation, respect for every individual and group, and human dignity, equality, and fellowship stand out as serious social concerns. The document deplores absence or shadowy presence in the culture of the land. But, instead of accusing and finding fault with the culture, it calls for struggle and sacrifice to bring about desirable change in social patterns, The realities of globalization, religious fundamen-talism, and ethnic nationalism are recognized as aggravating the social conflicts in South Asia. The confusion of values in the fast-changing society (youth falling prey to alcohol, drugs, cults, sects, violence, and sexual exploitation), gender discrimination, and the commoditization of women and of labor are clearly focused upon. Civil liberties, human rights, environ-mental concerns, community-building techniques, and Review for Religious human solidarity are seen as signs of hope even amid the conflicts and tensions. Church as National Social Service Several areas of Jesuit involvement in South Asia are reviewed and planned for. They are education, parish ministry, interreligious dialogue, youth formation, social action for empowerment of women, Dalits, and tribals, and finally Jesuits' accountability to themselves and one another. Jesuit education is open to all, but especially to the poor, the Dalits, tribals, and women. Basics of all religions and problems regarding social justice, the environment, and human rights are to find a place in Jesuit curricula. Jesuit education is to serve the full human development of the weak and the marginalized and thereby help bring about social equality. There is to be remedial education in the schools and socially relevant research at higher levels. Even the formation of Christians is given a more social than religious thrust and direction. Basic Christian communities are to blossom into basic human communities imbued with the gospel values. In a male-dominant patriarchal church and society, the document asserts the need to discover the feminine in every person and in this way change one's own mindset and enhance one's way of relating to God, the world, humankind, and all creation. It asserts the need to include women in church decisions and priestly formation, and to take up women's issues in social action. The document calls for focus on the liberative dimension of cultural symbols, language, myths, and festivals. It calls for addressing religious fundamentalism, including Christian funda-mentalism. On the side of tribals, they support traditional rights to forestland, water, and habitat, and unity in tribal diversity. On behalf of the much-fractured Dalits, the document propounds standing up for their dignity as 63.1 2004 ~esudasam ¯ Breaking Stereotypes God's children, opposing caste discriminations, working for equal respect for each man and woman, and working preferentially with and for the most marginalized of the Dalits, irrespective of their religion. In social action the meeting's delegates want to share the struggles of the poor for a fuller life, to educate the illiterate, to organize domestic and displaced laborers and help them get skilled training. For greater effectiveness and coordination, they propose greater all-India administrative linkage and democratically transparent accountability. Sharing the gospel means working for equality, for the human dignity of those to whom it is denied. Social Activism People's participation is the essence of the democratic process. In actuality, social structures exclude many from the process. Sharing the gospel in this context means working for equality, for the human dignity of those to whom it is denied. This is the philosophy behind the action plan described above. One recognizes echoes of political language, but the composers of the document are not a political party. They are churchmen to the core. They do not speak a distinctively churchy language either, but one of social activists. The plans might be high-sounding and idealistic. Everything might not be realized as desired or planned. But the goodwill is obvious, and it is unlikely to be wholly in vain or go unfulfilled. Does this mission pose a danger or threat to Hinduism? No reasonable Hindus would take it so. Denominational conversion could indeed be perceived as a sociopolitical and cultural threat, especially if it took place on a massive scale. But conversion in the values of a Review for Religious culture does not pose such a threat. The nation and its people can be the better for it. (Will the Indian people then come off the various stereotypes about church, mission, and Christians?) Reflection Individuals can challenge and be challenged by others in dialogue into greater confidence and indifference. Then they will speak without fear their critical as well as creative ideas. Then they will feel accepted with their strengths and weaknesses and will participate with joy and confidence in their own and the common works. They will come up with initiatives that could be discussed, decided, and acted upon. This might be a way of rediscovering Ignatian indifference--through structural changes more in tune with our times. This might be a way of refounding St. Ignatius's Society as our Society. No institute or nation is founded once and for all. It stands always in need of reappropriation and reidentification by new and would-be members or citizens. It is when they are happy with the country or institute that they proudly identify with it and want to strengthen it further. Such a feeling is not an individual's to produce all by oneself. Every member has a personal responsibility to it. The government or the leaders have a major structural and personal responsibility. Friends, I am passing these thoughts on to you in the hope that they may evoke some critical reflections for our common good. 63.1 2004 HILDEGARD MAGDALEN PLEVA A Charism Illumined: Eucharistic Anamnesis and "Viva Memoria" ¯ he Second Vatican Council gave the church an energizing impulse. One of its most generative instructions directedreligious orders and con-gregations to go back into their history, examine early texts and archival material for guidance in reappropriating their founders' inspiration and charism, and thus begin their own rejuvenation. The still burning embers of the Spirit's work were to be fanned into flame and illumine the path ahead in new times and new circumstances. The Order of the Most Holy Redeemer pur-sued this directive in company with their Redemptorist brothers, whose efforts brought its founder, the Venerable Maria Celeste Crostarosa (1696-1755), into the light. Renewed knowledge of her vivacious spirit and mystical ¯ experience was a rediscovery of the institute's charism, the life force to be reappropriated by her sisters, the call to be a living memory of the 40 Hildegard Magdalen Pleva OSSR is newly professed among the Redemptoristine Nuns; P.O. Box 220; Esopus, New York 12429. Review for Religious paschal mystery of Jesus. Our formula of profession says, "You have called me to relive in myself the Mystery of Jesus. and to be a living memorial of it." During my ten years of association with the order and two years within the community, in conversations with friends, lay associates, religious of other congrega-tions, and visitors to our monastery, I have often attempted to explain our charism, to be a "living mem-ory" of Christ (Crostarosa, Dialogues, §104). It does not mean mere imitation; it goes beyond that. My effort to expand on the "beyond" kept falling short. From this sense of inadequacy came a search for a way of defining "living memory" that would be appropriately substan-tial yet comprehensible. The Eucharistic Connection With time and within the misty atmosphere of men-tal conjecture, "living memory" began to merge with Jesus' words in the Liturgy: "Do this in memory (anam-nesis) of me." Suddenly the overlap was not just a coin-cidence of vocabulary. It included a concept of Eucharistic theology explored in graduate school. That first appreciation of Eucharistic anamnesis seemed like a bright star exploding before my eyes, initially blinding in its brightness but then illuminating everything. At the consecration of the Mass, not only is the Body and Blood of Jesus made present under the appearance of bread and wine, but the entire paschal mystery is made present, and not only present but also active among us here and now. We are not merely remembering Jesus' life and sacrifice on the cross. Those events are actively redeeming the world at this m'oment. That explanation of the Eucharistic Liturgy's meaning and power emerged from the past in response to my "living memory" question of the present. It suggested that the concept of liturgical anamnesis could clarify our Redemptoristine concept of "living memory4."1 63.1 2004 Pleva ¯ A Charism Illumined The form and features of this concept emerged from careful reading of Maria Celeste's Dialogues and Autobiography, which provide a rich vein of evidence of her post-Communion meditation experiences. One morning after Holy Communion I heard in the very center of my soul these words of the Credo pro-nounced: "consubstantialem Patri per quem omnia facta sunt" [one in being with the Father, through whom all things were made] so that, filled to over-flowing with divine gifts, it seemed to me that the divine essence was in me . My Lord Jesus Christ. gave me his divine heart, which he enclosed in my breast in place of my own . I seemed to enter into a new life of Love, a life in God. (Autobiography, capi-tolo 18) This morning., my whole soul was transformed into your very substance. (Dialogues, §30) Since your soul is the figure of My substance, what ~ really are you within your spirit, in your very being, if not a living image, a living copy of Me? (Dialogues, §47) After I received Holy Communion . . . I saw You within me and myself changed into You . I felt that just one word was being spoken to me, namely, "sub-stance of the Father" [consubstantialem Patri] . This transformation, O Lord of my heart, of my being into Yours, You deigned to make so many times! (Dialogues, §125) This morning I went to Holy Communion and You transformed me into Yourself so that I entered into the humanity of Your divine Word and began to sacrifice myself to the Father for all people. (Dialogues, §147) You do this precisely by the spirit of observance in terms of your Rule, which was given to Me so that you might be a viva memoria [a dynamic memory] of My life. (Dialogues, §104) These passages speak of a transformation that is not merely an imitative overlay but a participation in the substance, the very essence, of Jesus, in which he in turn is consubstantial with the Father. Nor is it a static par-ticipation, but a highly animated one that propels Maria Review for Religious Celeste "into a new life of Love, a life in God." By such participation and animation, Jesus, his paschal mystery, his work of redemption, is made present and active in our time. For Maria Celeste the incarnation of Jesus was the opening of new territory in the relationship between God and humanity, a territory into which she entered with abandon. By taking part in the Eucharist, the essen-tial act of remembering Jesus, she became substantially one with him, not merely an imitation of him. Gradually these mystical experiences revealed to her the necessity of remembering always, of living a life of remembering, a life of "oneness" with Jesus Christ. Eucharistic Anamnesis The phenomena of Eucharistic anamnesis and "liv-ing memory" each reflect the other. Yet their depth, their power to inform sacramental and spiritual appreciation, was lost over time. While the anamnetic character of the Eucharist was buried under weighty layers of theo-logical argumentation, Maria Celeste's mystical experi-ence of "living memory" was lost to obscurity for more than two hundred years. In the 20th century each became the object of a kind of archaeological dig, a treasure to be unearthed by tectonic shifts brought about by the Second Vatican Council. The crucial feature of both anarnnesis and "living memory" is the ability to make past events and the per-son of Jesus present and active in our time. This idea, however, this connection, is not enough. One must ask where this astounding concept of anamnesis comes from. The answers will more fully illuminate the Redemptoristine charism, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church gives inquirers a start: The Eucharist is the memorial of Christ's Passover, the making present and the sacramental offering of his unique sacrifice . In all the Eucharist Prayers we 63. I 2004 --44 Pleva ¯ A Charism Illumined find after the words .of institution a prayer called the anamnesis or memorial ["Father, we celebrate the mem-ory of Christ . We. recall his passion" etc. / "In memory of his death and resurrection" etc. / "Father, calling to mind the death your Son endured . . . his glorious resurrection" etc. / "Father, we now celebrate this memorial of our redemption. We recall Christ's death, his descent among the dead" etc.]. In the sense of Sacred Scripture, the memorial is not merely the recollection of past events but the proclamation of the mighty works wrought by God for men . They become in a certain way present and real. This is how Israel understands its liberation from Egypt: every time Passover is celebrated, the Exodus events are made present to the memory of believers so that they may conform their lives to them. ¯ . . When the church celebrates the Eucharist, she commemorates Christ's Passover, and it is made pre-sent . "As often as the sacrifice of the cross . is celebrated on the altar, the work of our redemption is carried out." (§§1362-1364) Rooted in Jewish Liturgical Practice The memorial or anamnetic character of the Eucharistic banquet is not a conceptualization newly minted by post-Vatican II sacramental theology. Rather, it is a theological concept found in the oldest Eucharistic Prayers, which reflect how the practices of the early church were deeply rooted in ancient Hebrew liturgical tradition. "The primitive Eucharist was a commemora-tion. Not a commemoration of the Last Supper, but a commemoration of Christ, and of his saving mysteries. The idea . of a 'mere' commemoration (nuda com-memoratio) would have been meaningless to the Jewish mind" (Lash, p. 44). In 1969 Rabbi Marc Tannenbaum, then director of national intex:religious affairs for the American Jewish Committee and an observer at the Second Vatican Council, wrote: "To commemorate and to remember is in the Jewish tradition never a mere Review for Religious memory, but always implies a look toward the future and a making present again" (Breaking of Bread, p. 148). The Jewish Passover Seder is the penultimate expression of the Hebrew commemorative meal, making present in real time the mystery of the Passover of the Lord God. Based upon the work of scholars in Eucharistic the-ology, among them Louis Bouyer, Louis Ligier, Joachim Jeremias, Jean-Paul Audet, and Gregory Dix, an even greater understanding .of the origins of the earliest Eucharistic Prayers or anaphoras is emerging. The most ancient anaphoras conform in structure to the Jewish prayers said at a fellowship meal, espe-cially the birkat-ha-mazon, which was typically anamnetic in char-acter and featured three move-ments: blessing, thanksgiving, and supplication (Audet in Klein, p. 410). Beyond appreciating the stylistic resemblance of early Eucharistic Prayers, it was Gregory Dix who had the insight to consider the Sitz-im-Leben, that is, the insti-tutional setting in actual Hebraic practice which gave specific meaning to these liturgical meal prayers (Klein, p. 413). Dix's insights answered a basic question: What did Jesus, as a Jew of his time, have in mind; what did he mean when he said, "Do this in memory of me" (1 Co 11:24)? "The command of Jesus did not refer to the rep-etition of a sacral fellowship meal. This could be pre-sumed as fundamental to Jewish religious practice. In other words, Jesus did not have to institute a meal, because the meal was already there. What Jesus did was to invest this meal with a new anamnetic character" (Klein, p. 414). For the Hebrew of Jesus' time, the Passover meal was not merely "a subjective, human psy- What Jesus did was to invest this meal with a new anamnetic character. 63.1 2004 Pleva ¯ A Charism Illumined chological act of returning to the past, but an objective reality" undertaken to make the Passover of the Lord perpetually present before God (Bouyer, p. 103). "By the power of the Lord of history, those events are in a sense made present in the liturgy, so that the worshipers are living them ag.ain in their own lives. A Jewish ritual memorial, therefore, is no mere thinking of the past; it is a memorial filled with the reality of that which it com-memorates" (Maloney, p. 265). This was the anamnetic character of the meal. When Jesus said "Do this in mem-ory of me," he invested the meal with a new anamnetic object, that is, the paschal mystery, which is the saving acts of his own life, death, and resurrection. The Implications of Anamnesis for Our Practice Celebrations of the Eucharist in which we share today are the occasions in which we call to mind the person and events of our salvation--Jesus Christ and his paschal mystery--in such a way that we render them liv-ing and active in our own time. The plural pronoun we is operative here. The priest, although acting in persona Christi, is not acting alone. The gathered community is not merely present or participating by observation. The community gathered for the memorial meal is integral to anamnesis, to recalling and thereby making actively pre-sent the person and saving action of the~Redeemer. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum con-cilium) of the Second Vatican Council declares that God's people gathered for Eucharist "offer the immaculate vic-tim through the hands of the priest, but also together with him" (§48). The Eucharistic Prayer emphasizes this integral func-tion by repeated use of the pronoun we. "We thank you for counting us worthy to stand in your presence and serve you" (EP II). "We offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living .sacrifice" (EP III). "We, your people and Review for Religious your ministers, recall his passion, his resurrection from the dead, and his ascension into glory" (EP 2). Indeed, the level of participation penetrates more deeply if the community offer themselves along with the gifts of bread and wine: "Father, we bring you these gifts. We ask you to make them holy by the power of your Spirit, that they may become the body and blood of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ." In the consecration Jesus becomes uniquely present under the appearances of bread and wine, but also, through the Eucharistic anamnesis and the congregation's living memory, actively present within and among those gathered. This answers the question of the way Jesus Christ becomes actively present at each Eucharistic celebration. According to people's receptive memories, Jesus the redeeming Christ becomes present in those who are united with him in this memorial. In remembering, we become what we remember. Just as the anamnetic character of our Eucharist is rooted in an ancient religious ritual, appreci-ation of the effect of anamnesis is imbedded in our history. St. Fulgentius (467-533), bishop of Ruspe, speaking of the obligation of the faithful to fulfill the words of the Savior at the Last Supper, wrote: "Thus they drink the Lord's cup by preserving the holy bond of love; without it, even if a man should deliver his body to be burned, he gains nothing. But the gift of love enables us to become in real-ity what we celebrate as mystery in the sacrifice." Alexander Schmemann, the late Russian Orthodox scholar of liturgy, wrote about the power of anamnetic memory in his work The Eucharist. His words are so elo-quently reminiscent of the Constitutions of the Order of the Most Holy Redeemer that they" must be quoted at length: In Christ . memory comes to reign and is restored as a life-creating power, and, in remembering, man par-takes not of the experience of the fall., but of the 47 63.1 2004 Pleva ¯ A Charism Illumined overcoming of this fall through "life everlasting." For Christ himself is the incarnation and the gift to mankind of God's memory in all its fullness . The essence of our faith and the new life granted in it consists in Christ's memory, realized in us through our memory of Christ. From the very first day of Chris-tianity, to believe in Christ meant to remember him and keep him always in mind . From the very begin-ning the faith of Christians was memory and remem-brance, but memory restored to its life-creating essence--for . this new memory is a joyous recog-nition of the one who was resurrected, who lives and therefore is present and abides . Faith eternally knows that the one who is remembered lives . The remembrance of Christ is the entry into his love, making us brothers and neighbors, "brethren" in his ministry. His life and presence in us and "among" us is certified only by our love for each other and for all whom God has sent into, has included in, our life, and this means above all in the remembrance of each other and in the commemoration of each other in Christ. Therefore, in bringing his sacrifice to the altar, we create the memory of each other, we identify each other as living in Christ and being united with each other in him. (Schmemann, pp. 128-130) The constitution and statutes of our order assert again and again this understanding of the Eucharistic Liturgy as the agent of "living memory":. The church continues to make present this memorial of the Passover of the Lord, a living bond of 16ve between Christians and a pledge of future glory. Our liturgical celebrations must give witness at one and the same time to the holiness of the Lord and to his loving presence among us . This silent con-templation, maintained in faith and love in the depth of the soul, allows us a personal experience of God and also permits us to enter fully into the plan of redemption . We allow Christ to relive his mys-tery in us by contemplating him in the whole of his life. (§§37-42) Review for Religious Participation by the Holy Spirit's Power The scope of this paper does not permit lengthy dis-cussion of the debate regarding consecratory elements of the Liturgy of the Eucharist. While the church in the West has long held to "This is my body . this is my blood" in the Gospels' Last Supper narrative as the con-secratory formula, the church of the East has always con-sidered the epidesis, the prayer of the invocation of the Holy Spirit, to be the essential mo-ment of consecration. Again it is Alexander Schmemann who calls the debate back to order. "Despite hundreds of treatises written in response to this question, neither aca-demic theological nor liturgi-cal studies have given, alas, a satisfactory answer . We cannot 'break through' to the genuine meaning, embed-ded in the very experience of the church, of the Eucharist as the sacrament of remembrance" (Schmemann, pp. 192- 193). Although today the Catechism of the Catholic Church (§§ 1352-1353) declares the Eucharistic Prayer "the heart and summit of the celebration," specifying the institution narrative as consecratory, the very existence of the old debate reminds us to renew our attentiveness to the work of the Spirit. This attentiveness is important for appreci-ating the anamnetic character of the Eucharistic Liturgy. Each of the four principal Eucharistic Prayers includes an epidesis invoking the power of the Holy Spirit as the agent of consecration: "Let your Spirit come upon these gifts to make them holy" (EP II). By these words we acknowledge that it is by the power of the Holy Spirit Attentiveness to the work of the Spirit is important for appreciating the anamnetic character of the Eucharistic Liturgy. 49 63.1 2004 Pleva ¯ A Charism Illumined - that the gifts are changed. In these words we ask that we too may become h01y, becoming "a living offering to God" (Catechism, §1105) in the mystery we celebrate, the sacrament of remembrance. For Redemptoristines the vocabulary of anamnesis (memory, remember, remembrance, recall, memorial) should be like music to the ears. The charism to be a "living memory" of Jesus was revealed to our foundress during post-Communion meditations in which she expe-rienced the transformative power of the Eucharist accomplished through the work of the Spirit. Her daugh-ters are to be transformed into the "living memory" by participation in the Eucharistic banquet, which was from the beginning a "memory." By remembering we partic-ipate in the change of the Eucharistic elements into the Body and Blood of Jesus and, in turn, we are changed into the very life we remember. The Jesus of Maria Celeste's mystical experiences said: "You shall take on a memory of my life in each hour [of the day]. I shall be the lamp of all your activities, and you shall eat the living food of eternal life which was contained in the works of my life while I was a pilgrim on earth. This is the spirit of the institute: viva memoria and imitation of me just as I lived among you" (Dialogues, §§104-105). Elsewhere this level of attentive remem-bering is referred to as a "fixed gaze." To the degree that Celeste's daughters' devout recollection approximates a fixed gaze, their very lives take on an anamnetic character. Then we make the paschal mystery more present and active in real time. We become the "living memory" of Jesus. Our acts of memory, insofar as they are produced by the Holy Spirit, render us not only spiritual people (pneumatikoi) but also bearers of the Spirit (pneu-matophoroO, a living epMesis (Bianchi, p. 162). By our lives we call down the power of the. Holy Spirit into every cor-ner of the world and the troubled hearts of humanity. Review for Religio,,s My original question concerned the deeper meaning of our charism, to be a "living memory" of Jesus Christ, to make the person of Jesus present in our world in a manner that goes beyond any mere imitation. Our Eucharistic Liturgies are "pregnant with reality" (Crichton, p. 14), a reality Jesus called for at the Last Supper: "Do this in memory of me." Jesus, the incarna-tion of the memory of God, is asking us to become, in turn, the incarnation of his memory in our world. The words of Maria Celeste express self-affirmation and encourage her community today: Now that Your sacred humanity, united to the Word of God, has been glorified . it gives me such a risen life in God that it transforms me into the eternal life of God, as I await the dawning of the new day that will make me blessed for all eternity. (Florilegium, p. 95) If we have it in our power to make present and active the saving work of Jesus by our remembering, the qual-ity of that remembering, our alert presence to it, becomes so much more vital. Seeing the relation between the anamnesis and Maria Celeste's "living memory" intensi-fies our call to be contemplatives. For Redemptoristines, for all contemplatives, or for all who would live their active lives in a more contemplative fashion, the Eucharistic anamnesis can reinforce our effort to live rec-ollected lives, to order our lives by continually remem-bering (and thus reactualizing) the person, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Almost fifty years ago Thoma~ Merton declared, "In the night of our technological barbarism, monks must be as trees which exist silently in the dark and by their vital presence purify the air" (Merton, p. 124). Just as the trees of the forest breathe transforming life into the world, our conscious and active "living memory" is, with the divine breath of the Spirit, cocreator of the saving presence of Jesus in our time. Appreciation of the anam- 63.1 2004 Pleva ¯ A Charism Illumined netic power of our "living memory" is impetus for the life and work of contemplation. Sources Bianchi, Enzo, OCSO. "The Holy Spirit in Monastic Life," trans. Brian Kerns. Cistercian Studies Quarterly 37, no. 2 (2002): 153- 166. Catechism of the Catholic Church. Liguori, Mo.: Liguori Publications, 1997. Crichton, J.D. "A Theology of Worship." In The Study of Liturgy, ed. Cheslyn Jones, Geoffrey Wainwright, and Edward Yarnold SJ. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. Or see Study, rev. ed., 1992, p. 15. Crostarosa, Maria Celeste. Dialogues, trans. Joseph W. Oppitz. Esopus, N.Y.: Mother of Perpetual Help Monastery, 1981. Dix, Dom Gregory. The Shape of the Liturgy. New York: Seabury Press, 1982. Florilegium: Texts from Mother Maria Celeste Crostarosa, ed. Sabatino Majorano. Liguori, Mo:: Liguori Publications, 1993. Klein, Terrance W. "Institution Narratives at the Crossroads." Worship 67, no. 5 (September 1993): 407-418. Lash, Nicholas. His Presence in the World: A Study of Eucharistic VVorship and Theology. Dayton, Ohio: Pflaum Press, 1968. Maloney, Raymond. "The Doctrine on the Eucharist." In Commentary on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, ed. Michael J. Walsh, pp. '259-269. Collegeville~ Liturgical Press, 1994. Merton, Thomas. Basic Principles of Monastic Spirituality. Springfield, Ill.: Templegate Publishers, 1996. Order of the Most Holy Redeemer (OSSR). Constitution and Statutes. Rome, 1985. Schmemann, Alexander. The Eucharist: Sacrament of the Kingdom. Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1988. Tannenbaum, Marc. "How Mode(n Jews Celebrate Their History." In The Breaking of Bread, ed. Pierre Benoit, Roland E. Murphy, and Bastiaan van Iersel. Concilium, vol. 40. New York: Paulist Press, 1969. Review for Religious RANDALL S. ROSENBERG Eucharistic Devotion in the Rising Generation _~ .~.aismseuse M oafr tAinm SeJ rdiicda a, nhiicgeh jloibg,h inti nthge t3h Me aprecrhs 2o0n0a3l reflections of contemporary Catholics on traditional devotions. In recent times we have witnessed in the United States a rise of the devotion of Eucharistic adoration. How ought this revival to be perceived? Is it merely an attempt to resurrect nostalgic memories of the "good old days"? Or is it the authentic recovery of a lost Eucharistic piety that has had an important place in our tradition? In this "bent" world, both of the afore-mentioned possibilities could be operative. In his April 2003 encyclical on the Eucharist, Ecclesia de Eucbaristia, John Paul II recognizes "positive signs" of an increase in "Eucharistic faith and love." But he also takes notice of what he calls "shadows" with regard to this devotion. He writes: "In some places the practice of Eucharistic adoration has been almost completely abandoned. In various parts of the church, abuses have occurred, leading to confusion about Catholic doctrine Randall S. Rosenberg has taught high school theology and is beginning work towards a Ph.D. in systematic theology at Boston College. His address is 14 Eddy Street; Newton, Massachusetts 02465. 63.1 2004 Rosenberg ¯ Eucbaristic Devotion and sound faith concerning this wonderful sacrament. At times one encounters an extremely meager understanding of the Eucharistic mystery" (§10). John Paul claims that the worship of the Eucharist outside of Mass, as linked to the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice, is of "inestimable value for the life of the church." He calls upon pastoral leaders to encourage this devotion which affords the opportunity to "spend time with him, to lie close to his breast like the Beloved Disciple (see Jn 13:25) and to feel the infinite love present in his heart." Surely this intimate language springs from the depths of the pope's personal experience of Christ in adoration: "How often, dear brothers and sisters, have I experienced this, and drawn from it strength, consolation, and support!" (§25). What are we to make of our pope's proclamation? As a faculty moderator on a recent high school retreat, I witnessed students spending some time in Eucharistic adoration. The adoration followed several days of small-group sharing and was linked with the opportunity for the sacrament of reconciliation. Without solicitation, one student remarked to me how powerful this experience was for him. This was not a student regularly involved with campus ministry, nor did he seem particularly interested in matters religious. The student asked me why this opportunity was not more available. It struck me that this generation (I am not very much older) does not carry around the baggage that many middle-aged and older American Catholics carry; that is, there is no liberal-conservative rift dividing them. I am all for healthy theological tension, but young people today are not likely to label those who spend time in Eucharistic adoration traditionalist conservatives, nor those who are concerned about social justice radical liberals. There seems to be a growing sense that the contemplative and active dimensions of the faith ought not to be pitted against each another, but rather are part of the rich and Review for Religious complex life of faith in the modern world. John E Kavanaugh SJ recendy suggested (America, 4 November 2002) that the old dichotomies of liberal and conservative simply do not work anymore. One such illuminating experience for him was an encounter with a prayer group of college students who invited him to speak on the topic of "Real Presence in the Eucharist and in Persons." Many in the church are righdy concerned about an emphasis on private Eucharistic devotion over against the communal dimensions of the faith. Influenced in part by the groundbreaking work of Henri de Lubac SJ, the church has rediscovered the social dimension of the Eucharist, namely, that this powerful sacrament is not only an encounter with the divine, but also a means of fostering unity in the church and among human beings generally. Rightly under-stood, Eucharistic contem-plation could deepen one's relationship with Christ made present under the appearance of bread and wine and also with the assembly of the faithful, the body of Christ. In the midst of our technological culture that fosters noise, clutter, information overload, and a quick fix, and in a world culture that is permeated with violence and war, I propose that we need Christic contemplation and silence. Since my conversation with the student, I have become more convinced than ever that our world not only needs silence, but also hungers for silence. One can commune silently with Holy Mystery in nature or in one's living room, but our sacramental tradition provides us with a special quiet encounter with Jesus. Many in the church are rightly concerned about an emphasis on private Eucharistic devotion over against the communal dimensions of the faith. 63.1 2004 Rosenberg ¯ Eucbaristic Devotion ! The great theologian Karl Rahner SJ--who respected the tradition deeply and engaged modern intellectual developments creatively, and who tried to convince ordinary people that they can be mystics in their everyday activities--warned against the loss of this devotion. In Mission and Grace: Essays in Pastoral Theology, Rahner suspects that those who oppose contemplation of the Eucharist are really uncomfortable with "private, prolonged, contemplative prayer in general; that the objections raised against visits as such are for the most part only a sort of ideological cover, supplied in retrospect, for a general withdrawal from the severe demands of meditation." In his final writings Rahner wrote that the worshiping of Jesus in the sacrament must not disappear. Its history may have started from unnoticeable beginnings. However, in salvation history and in the history of the church, something cannot disappear simply because it started almost without being noticed. No, as Catholics we wish, individually and together, to loo1~ to the sign of the presence of the one who has loved us and has offered himself up for us. It should not be unusual for us to kneel at times in private prayer before the Lord who has saved us. ("Eucharistic Worship," in Theological Investigations x aI0 Eucharistic adoration may also foster the contemplative dimension of a concern for social justice. A hallmark of the theology of Johannes Baptist Metz, famous for his spiritual classic Poverty of Spirit, is what he calls dangerous memories. According to him, what theology often ignores is the history of suffering. We must not do theology, he would say, with our backs turned to Auschwitz, but with a mysticism of eyes open to the dangerous memories, the me.mories of horrendous human suffering. Discourse about the war in Iraq, then, cannot be divorced from the dangerous memory of the Review for Religious young boy who lost his arms and was severely burned in a U.S. missile attack. Not only was he injured, but his pregnant mother was killed, along with his father and several of his siblings. One encounters dangerous memories in the Eucharist. As Pope John Paul has insisted, the Eucharist makes sacramentally present again the horrible sufferings of Jesus, himself a victim of injustice. In the light of the dangerous memory of the cross, Eucharistic adoration provides, if well understood, the opportunity to become conscious of and to lament the terrible sufferings of God's children in our present day. We are given a chance to commune with the one who gave us these haunting words: "Whatever you do to the least of my brothers you do to me." Christ-centered contemplation, then, may lead to Christ-centered action. Although we must avoid letting private devotion seem more important or more central than the Mass, it would be wise to listen to people, especially young people, who desire to spend time in loving contemplation and adoration of the Eucharist. Such devotion may actually build bridges across rifts in the church and in the world, actually make the church more Catholic and catholic. I am convinced that the rising generation is ready to discard divisive political labels and embrace both the prayer and the activity necessary for integral lives of faith. 63.1 2004 SUSAN B. CORDSEN Teresa of Avila and Friendship Teresa was a friend par excellence. She had tremendous natural relational gifts. These caused her great difficulty, but also became keys to her effectiveness as a reformer. Friendship is a central element in her writing as it was in how she lived her life. In her autobiography she writes, "As I grew older, when I began to know of the natural attractive qualities the Lord had bestowed on me (which others said were many), instead of thanking him for .them, I began to make use of them all to offend him.''1 The redemptive learning and teaching that flowered from her experience can be helpful for us today. In her early life, relationships were a con-stant struggle for her. In her autobiography Teresa says that a friendship of hers with a teenage relative "pained my father and my sis-ter" (2.4). She uses her own reflections to illus- Susan B. Cordsen, a lay Carmelite for twenty-one years, is doing graduate studies at Washington Theological Union; 6896 Laurel Street, N.W.; Washington, D.C. 20012. Review for Religious trate and teach "the harm a bad companion can do." Later she speaks of the personal influence of a nun in the convent school she was attending: "This good com-pany began to help me get rid of the habits that the bad company had caused" (2.4 and 3.1). Both the negative and the positive aspects of friendship frame her discussions. In 1536, at the age of twenty-one, she entered the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation. There "the par-lor" and outside relationships became a major "harm and distraction" for her. In that early period she had a vision of Christ, who "desired to make me understand that those friendships were not proper for me" (7.6). Since she did not know that it was possible to see the Lord in such a personal, experiential way, and since "the vision was not to my liking," she tried to conceal it from her-self (7.7). Concerning these friendships, she ignored other external and internal warnings as well. In 1544 a Dominican confessor, Vicente Barron, iarged her to return to personal times of prayer. Here she reflects: "Spiritual friendship is. extremely impor-tant for souls not yet fortified in virtue--since they have so many opponents and friends to incite them to evil" (7.21). Now she begins to express prayer in friendship terms with her famous definition: "Mental prayer., is noth-ing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means frequently taking time to be alone with Him who we know loves us." For friendship.to :endure, "the wills of the friends must be in accord" (8.5). Seeing Christ as "friend" who invites us into "friendship" becomes the key and model of her redeemed relationality. Yet her internal struggles remained intense. She says, "For more than eighteen years, I suffered this conflict between friendship with God and friendship with the world" (8.3). Finally, in 1554, she had her profound conversion before the statue of the wounded Christ. Yet, even here, though 63.1 2004 Cordsen ¯ Teresa of Avila and Friendship Though she was deeply reoriented toward friendship with Jesus, she was not fully freed from personal attachments. she was deeply reoriented toward friendship with Jesus, she was not fully freed from personal attachments. This came about two years later. She writes of her new Jesuit confessor, Juan de Pradanos, who led her with skill and gentleness because she was still fragile, "espe-cially with regard to giving up some friendships I had." She was not offending God, but was attached, feeling she would be ungrateful to aban-don them. This would seem to be a rather common state of affairs in people's friend-ships. The friendship is not sinful or "destructive," and to simply discard the rela-tionship would seem disloyal to the friend, and yet the attachment is the very thing that keeps us unfree and interferes with both our friendship with God and our friendship with the person. Turning to God in prayer,. Teresa was for the first time granted a rapture; she heard, "No longer do I want you to converse with men but with angels" (24.5). She com-ments, "These words have been fulfilled." How? By her withdrawing into silent prayer, ending all human friend-ships to speak only with angels and God? No. "For I have never again been able to tie myself to any friendship or to find consolation in or bear particular love for any other persons than those I understand love [God] and strive to serve him; nor is it in my power do to so, nor does it matter whether they are friends or relatives" (24.6). This freed her to become more of a friend rather than drawing her from friendship. This is because her friendship with others now flowed from her friendship with Christ. It is astonishing Review for Religious how deeply and richly she draws on the concept of friendship to express her relationship with Jesus. She notes, again and again that he is a "true" friend. This is a term she uses just before writing about the importance of the sacred humanity of Christ and how we must never seek to go beyond this. "We are not angels but we have a body" (22.6-10). The concept of friendship keeps her connected to the sacred humanity. She writes of how God treats the soul with friendship; she even prays that the Lord make a certain person "our" friend, that is, the friend of both God and Teresa (27.9 and 34.8). God enables in us a sense of mutuality whereby the soul and God understand each other (27.10). This key, friendship, continues in her "Meditations on the Song of Songs." Though a human love story and one often used by mystics to comment on the love of God pursuing and enticing the soul in the image of the bride, Teresa adds her own twist. Her meditation is really on only a few verses and treats the themes of prayer and union as she does in her other works. But here she emphasizes "friendship" and "peace." Quoting the verse "Let Him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth," she asks how dare we speak them. She answers, "The soul that is enkindled with a love that makes it mad desires nothing else than to say these words." Then, after speaking of the Blessed Sacrament, she wonders whether the bride "was asking for that union so great that God became man, for that friendship that he effects with the human. race. Obviously a kiss is the sign of great peace and friendship among two persons.''2 Teresa discusses everything from "friendship" with the devil to our relationship with God as "skin-deep." Using "friendship" to express growth and union, she refers to "another kind of friendship, stronger than this," but adds that "neither is this the friendship the bride seeks" (2.20 and 2.27). "God grants so great a favor as to 6! 63.1 2004 Cordsen * Teresa of Avila and Friendship join [the soul] with himself in a friendship like this" (3.9); "how is it possible that even while in this mortal life one can enjoy You with so special a friendship [that] only those who experience this friendship will understand it?" (3.14 and 4.1). Teresa develops this human love story in many directions, including that of marriage. The fact that she uses it to reflect on divine friendship may help us reflect on the friendship dimension within marriage. As usual, Teresa not only shares her experience, but also reflects on it to help others. In setting up her Carmelite reform, she initially limits her monasteries to thirteen nuns. Here "all must be friends, all must be loved, all must be held dear, all must be helped.''3 She herself knows how difficult this is in practice and tries to point out pitfalls and give guidance. Though written for cloistered women, her insights are practical for us as well. She is concerned about hav-ing "excessive love" for one person and thus failing to love others equally, feeling sorry about an affront to the friend, desiring possessions so as to have things to give as gifts, and looking for times to speak with her and often only about trifling things. Such friendships seldom help each other toward love of God. Yet because we are human we are often drawn more to one person than another and easily become attached. The crucial ele-ments are self-knowledge and awareness (4.6-8). Teresa usually does not recommend cutting off con-tact altogether, which would not be possible in the monastery anyway. "To break away from these friend-ships involving a particular fondness, great care is nec-essary at the outset of the friendship. This breaking away should be done delicately and lovingly rather than harshly" (4.9). She says to limit time together. She is not trying to destroy the friendship, only reorient it. She shows this by the way she speaks of spiritual love, which is what she desires for all friendship. "Even though in Review for Religious the beginning it is not so perfect, the Lord will gradu-ally perfect it. Let us begin by using the suitable means, for, even though the love bears with it some natural ten-derness, no harm will be done provided this tenderness is shown toward all" (7.5). Her advice regarding falling in love with confessors shows her realism and balance. The sisters should "try not to think about whether they love the confessor or don't love him; but, if they do love him, let them love him . A great principle for making much progress is to love the confessor, if he is holy and spiritual and if I see that he is dili-gent about my soul's progress. For our weak-ness is such that some-times this love helps us very much to perform great deeds in the ser-vice of God. If the love is not of this kind, there is danger . There is much need for caution and pru-dence. The best advice is that the confessor not know that there is such affection . If [the sisters] know that he is God-fearing, they should not weary themselves over any temptation . about their great attachment; when the devil is worn out, he will go away." However, if they "become aware that the confessor is turning toward some vanity," they should make their confession brief and seek another confessor:4 Teresa looks to self-knowledge, awareness, patience with our emotions, and God's grace to navigate rela-tionships. Regarding confessors she advises developing internal boundaries rather than trusting external bound-aries to keep relationships proper. Again, it is Christ the friend who shows how we are to be friends together. Teresa looks to self-knowledge, awareness, patience with our emotions, and God's grace to navigate relationships. 63.1 2004 Cordsen * Teresa of Avila and Friendship Teresa says this is "a love with no self-interest at all. All that it desires., is to see the other soul rich with heav-enly blessings" (Way, 7.1). As with all of life, this friendship is not without suf-fering. After speaking of the cross, Teresa asks, "What better friendship than that [Jesus] desire for you what he desired for himself?." (Way, 17.7). This is one of many places where she notes that one of the gifts of Christ's friendship is a sharing in his cross--but the suffering comes not from denying friendship but from attempt-ing to live it without self-interest, to have affection but not attachment. We do not reach this fully in this life. In trying to distinguish the different loves, Teresa says, "I don't think I know which love is spiritual, or when sen-sual love is mixed with spiritual love" (Way, 6.2). Yet this is often the condition we are in. We have the choice of pulling back in fear we will become attached, or of crossing boundaries, ignoring cautions as Teresa did early in her life and fostering distracting and harmful rela-tionships. Or--a third choice--we can choose the path Teresa did and respond to the invitation to friendship with Christ and trust that his grace and mercy will grad-ually bring our friendships in line with his own. In her letters Teresa shows herself to be a very human person. She chides others for not valuing her friendship enough to write more; another "owes her more." Showing great affection, she speaks of being lonely, scolds, encourages, pleads. Her words leap energetically off the pages. There is her great affection for Jertnimo Gracifin, a friendship that brings her much joy and sor-row, and is a puzzlement to others. In her "Spiritual Testimonies" she writes of a time when she "was living in great~ loneliness" and says Gracifin was the only one to "give me comfort, and he had to be absent most of the time." The loneliness continued, and she had a curious intellectual vision of the Lord placing "himself in my Review for Religiot~s arms as in the painting" of the body of Jesus in his mother's arms after being taken down from the cross,s Teresa came to acknowledge her natural gifts for friendship and to thank God for them. She allowed them to be used to draw others to .Jesus. In our world that strives to improve communication skills, set boundaries, express our sexuality neither too much nor too little, where does friendship fit in? The recently beatified Mother Teresa of Calcutta spoke of the great loneliness in the United States. Sexual abuse continues to be a problem and to cause problems in the church and in the world at large. Where is the friendship that St. Teresa of Avila wrote of and lived? Teresa, teach us to be friends of Christ that we may be friends of one another. Notes ~ The Book of Her Life, chapter 1, section 8. Hereafter till note 2, references to this work will be supplied in parentheses in the text. The translations used in this article are those of Kieran Kavanaugh OCD and Otilio Rodriguez OCD, The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, Vols. 1, 2, 3 (Washington: ICS Publications, 1987, 1980, 1985). ¯ Note 2 begins a second series of parenthetical references, and note 3 begins a third series. 2 Meditations on the Song of Songs, chapter 1, section 10. 3 The Way of Perfection, chapter 4, section 7. 4 Teresa as quoted in the translators' note to The Way of Perfec-tion, 4.8. s Spiritual Testimonies, 53. 63.1 2004 ROBERT P. MALONEY Five Faces ofRosalie Rendu On 9 November 2003 Pope John Paul II beatified Rosalie Rendu, a Daughter of Charity. She was the Mother Teresa of 19th-century France. Her energy, creativity, and courage leap out from the accounts of those who knew her.~ Fifty thousand people flocked to her funeral on 9 February 1856. What was said that day, and the articles written in her praise, remind me of Shakespeare's eloquent words: When she shall die, Take her and cut her out in little stars, And she will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night.2 The church beatifies and canonizes men and women pre-cisely for that reason: that they may shine out like stars for us, that in the midst of darkness we may see what it really means to be holy. Saints make holiness real, con-crete. In this article I offer five faces of Rosalie Rendu. Prodigious Worker and Organizer Rosalie was born on 9 September 1786, in Confort, a tiny village in southern France. At just fifteen years of Robert P. Maloney CM, superior general of the Congregation of the Mission, is a frequent contributor to our pages. He resides at Via dei Capasso, 30; 00164 Roma; Italy. ¯ Review for Relig4ous age, she set off for Paris. There she spent more than fifty years of her life in the capital's poorest neighborhood, Mouffetard. Her works were prodigious. She began as a teacher in a primary school, which she later ran. Though she herself had little formal education (biographers say she never managed to write French very well), Rosalie and others labored strenuously to teach children to read, write, and do basic mathematics along with learning their catechism. For young girls and needy women, she soon orga-nized courses in sewing and embroidering. She then founded a day-care center and a nursery school fox; the children of working mothers. For these same mothers she started a branch of the Children of Mary. In addition, she and the sisters ran a center for the distribution of food and firewood, with a pharmacy, a clinic and a clothes dispensary. She helped in counseling the newly founded Society of St. Vincent de Paul. She assisted in the reestablishment of the Ladies of Char-ity in 1840. She cared for the sick and the dying in the recurring cholera epidemics, and throughout her life she visited the poor and infirm in their homes. During the several epidemics between 1849 and 1854, withas many as a hundred and fifty persons dying in the parish every day, Rosalie and the sisters kept doing all they could. They attended to the living, accompanied the dying, and buried the dead. Though Rosalie was not an advocate of orphanages, in 1851 she took over the running of one; in 1852 she began a home for the elderly. The secret of Rosalie's enormous energy was this: she saw the face of Christ in the face of every poor person. 63.1 2004 Maloney * Five Faces of RosMie Rendu In the judgment of the theologian who examined her writings, the secret of Rosalie's enormous energy was this: she saw the face of Christ in the face of every poor person. One of the sisters who lived with her remem-bered Rosalie encouraging the community: "Love our good God very much. Do not be sparing in your duty; serve the poor well, always speaking to them with great kindness . The ruder they are, the more dignified you must be. Remember, our Lord hides behind those rags.''3 Local Superior When she was not yet seventeen years old, a seem-ingly sickly Rosalie was sent away from the novitiate of the Daughters of Charity in the hope that a change of air would improve her health. It is hard to imagine that the air was much better in inner-city Mouffetard, but she thrived there. She quickly won the hearts of the sisters of the house. When she returned to the motherhouse for "habit taking," the local superior sent a letter to the superioress general saying: "I am very happy with this little Rendu. Give her the habit, and send her back to me.''4 And so it was that she took her first step toward becoming the "apos-de of the Mouffetard district," where she would spend the remainder of her life. In 1815, when she was twenty-nine years old, she became the superior. She carried out this service for the next forty-one years, until her death. What was Rosalie like as a superior? Those who gave firsthand testimony about her noted three things: (1) Describing Rosalie's relationship with the sisters in the community, her cousin speaks of her "infinite tender-ness." She was sensitive to what went on around her. Some thought she was sensitive even to a fault. In 1844, when two sisters whom she loved died, Rosalie broke into tears and wrote, "I rebelled in some ways against the hand that struck us, yet I am confident that these two angels will obtain mercy for me.''5 Review for Religious (2) Young sisters loved her. The house where she was superior became a "formation house," so to speak, to which many were sent. From Rosalie they learned first-hand how to serve the poor. Twenty-two postulants lived with her over the years. Eighteen sisters prepared for vows under her direction, starting in 1832. At the time of her death, twelve sisters lived in her community; half of them had been sisters for less than four years. She waged war against pride. One of the sisters says: "In spir-itual direction she pursued this fault relentlessly: 'It's our number-one enemy,' she said. 'Look for it . . . it dis-guises itself to trick us and confuse us, but we must grab it by the throat and choke it.'''6 (3) Rosalie's incredibly active house was also a house of prayer. The community rose each morning at four. One sister testified: "If we had to accompany her on a charitable visit during our prayer time, she said to us as we walked: 'Let's begin our meditation!' She suggested a subject for meditation in a few simple, clear words and entered into prayer." One of her best friends, the Viscount of Melun, quotes her as saying, "I never pray so well as I do in the street.''7 Intrepid Woman By all accounts this tender woman was fearless. Rosalie lived in turbulent times. As a child she experi-enced the Reign of Terror in France; her family hid a nonjuror priest in their home. She experienced the rev-olutions of 1830 and 1848 and the terrible cholera epi-demics of 1832, 1849, and 1854. Rosalie walked among the wounded, the sick, and the dying with little fear for her own health. She and the sisters ministered to thou-sands of cholera victims. The most well-known incidents of Rosalie's bravery took place during the revolutions. When she and the sis-ters hid revolutionaries, Monsieur Gisquet, the chief of69 63.1 2004 Maloney ¯ Five Faces of Rosalie Rendu police, signed a warrant for her arrest. But the local policemen warned him that her arrest would cause a riot in the Mouffetard neighborhood. Gisquet himself went to notify Rosalie of the warrant. She replied: "I am a Daughter of Charity. I have no flag. I help the unfortu-nate wherever I meet them. I try to do good to them without judging them, and I promise you that, if you yourself are ever being pursued and ask my help, I will not refuse it.''s The chief dropped the matter. Fierce fighting broke out within the city during the revolution of 1848. The archbishop of Paris mounted the barricades in an effort to stop the slaughter and was shot dead. The fighting became even more intense. General Cavaignac, later president of France, decided on a massive bombardment of the Mouffetard neigh-borhood, but first offered the sisters safe-conduct out. Rosalie responded to his messenger: "Please thank the general and tell him that we are the servants of the poor and also their mothers and that we want to die with them.''9 Rosalie and the general became lifelong friends. --70J Friend of the Poor and the Rich On many occasions I have walked to the cemetery in Montparnasse to visit the grave of Rosalie Rendu, which is near that of Jean-Paul Sartre. Fresh flowers always lie there. On the simple stone are engraved the words: To Sister Rosalie Her grateful friends The poor and the rich She knew how to be friend to both. The poor loved her deeply because they sensed that she lived out precisely what a witness said she asked of those who accompanied her: "Welcome everyone. Speak to the poor with both kindness and dignity. Do not make them wait. Treat them as you would treat your father, your brothers, your sis-ters.'' 1° The rich, too, were attracted to Rosalie. They Review for Religious found her appeals irresistible. She knew how to engage their energies and their resources in the service of the poor. Her correspondence extends to the archbishop of Paris, superiors general, politicians, doctors, young stu-dents, relatives, and friends. She took on Frederick Ozanam and his companions as apprentices and thus par-ticipated in the birth of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. From 1833 until Rosalie's death, the Viscount of Melun visited her at least once a week to seek her advice and help in the service of the poor. Among those who gave Rosalie material aid were the king and queen, General Cavaignac, writ-ers and politicians like Lamartine and Caubert, and many local politicians and administrators. The ambassador of Spain, Donoso Cort6z, came to Rosalie's house weekly to receive a list of the poor to visit. When he himself fell ill in 1853, Rosalie assisted him until his death. On 27 February 1852 Rosalie was awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor. On 18 March 1854 the Emperor Napoleon III and the Empress Eug6nie came to visit her at her house. ¯ The daily line of those seeking entrance into Rosalie's office was long. She worked effici.ently, writing little notes to remind herself of their requests. She sought to find some response, even if inadequate, to all the needs presented to her. Rosalie knew how to engage the energies and resources of the rich in the service of the poor. Faithful, Sometimes Misunderstood, Daughter of Charity Rosalie was revered in her own lifetime. People from all ranks of society came to see her. ~ But her extraordi-nary popularity sometimes raised eyebrows in high cir- 71 63.1 2004 --79,.2 Maloney ¯ Five Faces of RosMie Rendu cles. In the latter part of her life, she suffered from the disapproval of her superiors. The troubles began in the late 1830s, when Jean-Baptiste Nozo was superior gen-eral of the Congregation of the Mission and the Daughters of Charity. Because of a financial scandal, strong opposition to Nozo mounted up. Jean-Baptiste Etienne was his most formidable opponent. News of the conflict hit the papers, so that much of Paris was talking about it. Finally the archbishop of Paris intervened, com-posing a document of interdict against Etienne and oth-ers. Rosalie wanted the matter to end peacefully. She had good connections with the archbishop and went to intercede with him, refusing to leave without an answer and pleading with him to burn the d

Issue 47.2 of the Review for Religious, March/April 1988. ; A Spirituality of Suffering Issues and .Trends--1987 Advance Health-Care Directives Evaluating Chapters Volume 47 Number,2 March/April 1988 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The edito-rial offices are located at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO. 63108-3393. REvmw FOR REL=G=OUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. ©1988 by REvmw FOR RELiGiOUS. Single copies $3.00. Subscriptions: U.S.A. $12.00 a year; $22.00 for two years. Other countries: for surface mail, add $5.00 per year; for airmail, add $20.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Philip C. Fischer, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read M. Anne Maskey, O.S.F. Acting Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editors March/April, 1988 Volume 47 Number 2 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW VOR REIoU;IOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Rich-ard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave., Berkeley, CA 94709. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REWEW VOR RE~olt;Iot~S; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. Charism as E powerment to Discerff, to, De.cide,, tO Act, to Assess : F:intan D: Sheeran, SS.CC:. ' ~, Fathbr Fint~n D. 'Sheei'an'is a priest ih the" Congregation of, the Sacred Hearts. He works p~'esently as a.consultant.to religious communities and resides in his Congre-gatio, n's formatjo.,.n.~.c.ommunity, in Ch,everly, ,Ma.ryland: This is ,hi~s first contribution to our pages. He may:be addressed. ~ at Damien House; 6013 Inwood Stre~et;,. Chev-. erl~, Maryland 20785. harles de.,Gaulle.is supposed to have puzzled ove.r the possibility of.gov-erning a people who had more,t~.an three hundred diffeyent cheeses. Per-haps Church authoritie~s~are affli.cted with somewhat similar doubts as they cpntemplate the present state,of religiou~s life .and,especially the pre-sent state,of study and writing 9.n,the re.ligious life. ~Prior .to the CQuncil, a narrowly ju.ridic and0institutional~ u~nderstanding ~i'nd interpretation of re,ligious life0dominated practi.caily all writing and reflection on the sub-ject and there was consider~ible:hom.og.eneity in the field, even by pre-conciliar~ standards. Since the Council, there has been.a rich and continu-i, ng outpouring of reflection as atte,mpts have been and go on being made to understand and to.reinterpret,the religious life from various~vantage pojn~ts including in the light of.dev~eloping experience. The author of~one such ,r.ecent .i~nterpretatip.n, ,Sar~dra .Schnei.ders,. ob.serves about .this, "What a).l~ of t.hese attempts have demonstrated is the richness of the phe-nomenon of religious life and,.the,fecun~dity of approachi.ng its mean!ng fnraotemd b_trhoea dtheero.p.looignyt~s ooff 'rveileiwgi othuasn l itfhee a dt olegamsat tsiicn jcuer itdhiec aCl oounnec tihl.aotf h ~arde ndto. m~iz One fairl3~ prominent feature of all, of this.reflection has been the con-siderable ¯ attention given to charism the charism of, religious life, the charism of founders, the charism of particular congregations. This atten- 161 Review for Religious, March-APr~ il 1988 tion has included reflection by religious themselves, u~sually in a pastor-~ ally oriented way, as an element of such enterprises as rewriting consti-tutions, establishing apostolic criteria or mission statements and so on. Then, forthe first time, there have been statements on charism in offi-cial Church documents. These have been well noted. Evangelica Tes-tificatio speaks of the charism of founders (n. I I ) and Mutuae Relationes of the chai'ism of particular congregations (nn. I l, 12). Finally, charism has been touched on, to a greater or lesser degree, by practically every t.heologian writing comprehensively about the religious life since Vati-can II.2 Among theologian~ none has given more particular attention to the nature and role of charism in religious life than Tillard in line with his strong accent on the religious life as the "following of Christ." I will touch briefly on some of his reflections on charism referring in par-ticular to his There Are Charisms and Charisms.3 What I wish to speak about in this pres.ent article is Charism from a dynamic or "functional" perspective rather than from the point ofview of '~'content," meahing ho~ a charism is a particular Gospel orientation with certain evangelical accents and nuances. I am concerned rather with how a charism "func-tions" if one can speak in such a way, in the ongoing life of a congrega-tion, how it can be a source of life, of unity and of dynamic newness. A religious congregation is born of a Personal and particular experi-ence of Christ and his Spirit, a charismatic experience in the sense that it is the Spirit alone who initiates the encounter that leads to such a re-alization. ".the charism~of the religious life, far from being an im-pulse born of flesh and blood . ~. is the fruit of the Holy Spirit." (Evangelica Testifi~atio n. 11). "The 'charism ~f the founders' (ET n. 11) .appears as 'an experience of the Spirit'." (Mutuae Relationes n. 11). The person is ~eized by the Spirit. To iliuminate this experienc,e Til-lard turns to the New Testament narratives of apostolic vocation and re-sponse. 4 It is Jesus who invites; it is he;who takes the initiative, filling the life of the person ~ind leading them to the service of the kingdom. This divine initiative d0e~ not at :all depend upon any moral excellence on the part of the humarl partner in the encounter nor does it of itself im-mediately :add anything to their moral stature. (This point has larger im-plications with which we are not immediately concerned here with ref-erence to the truth that vocation to the religious life is in no way a call to any "higher" degree or form of holiness than the call of every Chris-tian in virtue of baptism.) It is an encounter with the Risen Lord which reorients the persoh's life creating a mysterious enthusiasm in which ex-planation for the otherwise inexplicably radical response is rooted. As Charism as Empowerment / 16~$ John Lozano remarks, commenting on the call of the apostles: ¯ . .They leave e~,erything--family and occupation--and go off with him. As an event in a chronicle, it would not make any sense. But it is not just any "unknown man" who passes through the account . The center of it all is relationship with Christ, understood, of cou~:se, in a post-resurrecti~on sense, when these accounts were shaped as an ex-pression of faith in theoSon of God.5 For the founder and for every religious, as for the apostles, this fol-lowing of Christ originates in an encounter'which is "charismatic"--it is of Christ and his Spirit. At the deepest level the reason a person be-comes a founder (or a member) of a religious congregation is ": . . not a for . . . but a because of. One does. not become a religious for something, ,with a view to something; one enters the religious life be-cause of JesUs Christ and0his ascendancy.''6 I make these remarks and references centering on the fundamental character of the charism of religious life because while my concern in this article is with the ongoing dynamism of charism in our religious com-munities this dynamism is inseparable from what charism is at root. Be-fore moving along it is also worth no~ting some of the marks of authen-ticity of the charism of a congregati6n, marks which continue to have considerable import for the life of a group. Mutuae Relationes mentions a number of the "true marks of an authentic charism" (12). One of these is a distinct quality of newness. "Every authentic charism brings an ele-ment. of real originality in the spiritual life of the Church along with fresh initiatives for action" (12). (The document does'not fail to note that this very newness may be a cause of difficult);. Most religious congregations can offer some testimony from their history to the truth of this. observa-tion. Nor need they always go back.to the archives to obtain it.) It is help-ful to look at something of the nature of this "newness." . The newness of charism is a n~wness of action and realization and not just of thoughts and words. The charism translates into pastoral life and action on behalf of God's people and not just into words and docu-ments. It is an originality which relates intimately and penetratingly to the reality of a particular time and place. Founders and foundresses are people of their own time, place, and culture, and they have a keen aware-ness of their environment. Moreover, they discover their vocation pre-cisely in the context of that environment. It is in terms of their percep-tion of reality and of their vision and articulation of a response that the newness of the Spirit is revealed. Their concrete pastoral response is a "fresh initiative for action"; ~it is new; it is other than the response (or 16~1 / Review forReligious, .March-April 1988 lack of response) customarily being made by'society .or tt~e Church to this part!cular need. In facL it frequently reveals the~pgvert~y of the percep-tion and the.ineptitude.of the response of the Church~and of society ~gener-ally. No wonder, as Mutua'e Relationes delicatel,y remarks, such re-sponses "~ay appear unseasonable to many." A further trem(ndously powerful element of the'freshness and :new-ness of c,harism is an aspect of which we are be(oming more awa~re. It is that the charism empo.wers the ,founders of religiou_s_:congregations to anticipate and to shape the,future in concretely effective~ways. Charism is, by its. very nature futtire-0riented. But it is an,orientation filled with purpose and with the power to achieve its purpose. This becomes clear when we read the histories.of our congregations in. the light of whatis for u~ arelatively recent perception: that history procee~ds, from, the choices, decisions and actidns 9f individuals'and particularly of groups, organized groups,of all osorts--politic'alo parties,, unions, corporations, churches, and so forth. Social realities are, the result, of human choices and decisions made in the context of economic, social,.political alterna-- tires and not simply the product~ of blind 'processes. and intractable natu-ral. forces. These actions ot~ individuals and groups create structures and systems 'whiCh in turn condition and limit our perception and options. The Shape of our society is chosen. The choi(es and action of the Church and its commuhities"fall within this complex. A~social history of eight-eenth- and nineteenth-century Europe."would surely show that society~as it was then constituted required .and secured the existence of large masses of illiierate poor in order to maintain itself as it actually was. When in-spired women and men commiited themselves to creating religious con, gregations who would,educate and care for the. illiterate poor, they did much ~more than perform an immediate work of mercy~--they became ef-fective ~gent.s of social transformation. They anticipated and shaped an alternate, future, a "new" future. The "newness" which has charism as its source is dynamic and creative; it "renews the face of the earth," "In realit.y, the charism of the religious life . . is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, who is always at work within the Church.'. It is precisely here that the dynamism pr.oper.to each religious.famil3) finds its origin" (ET, 11). My concern with charism ~is exactly with the dynamism proper to religious congregations not simply as regards their origins but more as regards their ongoing life and mission. Again the actual experience of the foundersand foundresses is illuminating. Orie significant practi, cal outcome o~f~a renewed .focus on~ charism in many congregatiQns has been the serious study given to the lives of the founders anti, also in some charism as Empowerment / 165 instances to congregations" initial or "'primitive" commt~nities. These studies have been motivat(d by a~desire to rediscover th~ originating his-tory of the community as it really was and especially to know the persoh oLthe founder or foundress freed from the m3~ths and apocrypha which had often accumulated over years of neglect of critical history. Almost invariably, the result has been someth.ing like the restoration or,rediscov-ery of the work of Michaelangelo in the Sistine Chapel. Anyone who has had the opportunity to be present while the work of restoration in' the Chapel has been going on has to have been powerfully impressed by see-ing the ~"old" and the. "new" side by side. From behind the dust and debris of years thereoemerges into the light astonishingly rich and pow-erful portraits, far more striking and iml6ressive than the painting that had been accepted as authentic for years. Similarly, the women and men with whom we come into contact in recent studies of foundress~s and foun-ders ~re~p.eople'of'vividly living faith, of prophetic imagination and origi-nality; they are deeply human people with 'a'great stor~e of practicality arid common sense; men and women who were wholly, given to the Church'e~,en as they'had the insight and courage to name its needs and to confront its resistan~'eg.7 What had passed for authentic portraits had frequently~obscured a more~brilliant reality. Because of the ~i+ailability of many such Studies~ it is also possible to see, in very rough outline certainly, but perhii~ps more clearly than be-fore, something of a c6ifirhon pattern' of'movi~ment marking these jour-neys that culminate in the foundation of ~ congregation. What we are lo6k-ing at is the historical realization of charisms, their taking on concrete form and incarnation in real people, real groups. I beliexie that there is a movem6nt'inv01ved which has a typical~ rhythm, one marked by dis-tinct phases or "moments." There is an initial moment of sear6h~iSt dis: cernment with regard to the'authenticity of the call tO move in the di~'ec-tion of commencing a project; there i~ a moment of definite ch6ice 'or decision; there is a rn'oment.of action and finally a moment of assessment or evaluation. The word "moment" could be misleading. While deci-sion or choice is always in itself a m~tter of a moment'whatever the prece-dents, the actual history of ]~oundations shows clearly that the other so-called moments can be a matter of a Io,ng time, many years even; or of a relatively short period. It'varies greatly from one founder or foundress to another but these moments as such are, I believe, discernible in their histories. Obviously these moments are0quite ordinary in the sense that th~ey represent the elements of any careful decision-making and action process; in that sense they are to be expected,. Our interest in,them, how- 166 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 ever, is in how in fact they take on a distinctively "charismatic" char-acter, how they embody the "functional dynamics" of charism, how in this sense they. are utterly.di.,stinctive. . The moment of search or discernment is that period when the per-son begins to be aware of being called by God in a special way but as yet lacks assurance about this. They wonder, pray: seek counsel. Clearly there are instances where this moment stretched on for years, where the interval between the first intuition and the moment of decision was con-siderable. The time of search is followed by a moment of decision. The person now sets aside all doubts about their call and embraces the invitation of the Lord wholeheartedly and without reserve. Choice is made and com-plete commitment. One way that this new and profound option is mani-fested in the life of the person concerned i.s by an important change in their language. A confident assurance that their inspiration is from God, prev!ously absent, now marks their expression. What in other circum-stances might be regarded as simply pious phrases or even trite expres-sions take on a clear and undeniable authority and power. Such phrases as, "This is God's will" or "This is the will of ~Divine Providence" or "This is God's work" are now used in reference to their efforts. There is a new transparency of purpose; a clear~, simple and confident assurance marks their speech, as indeed a great courage,° freedom and enthusiasm marks their conduct, about the enterprise. These very quali-ties are, without doubt, key to their capacity to attract others to join them. The third moment is.the moment of actign, of doing the thing that they are called to do, gathering people together in a spirit of mission. The moment of decision and the moment of action are not the same. There c~an be instances where the decision has indeed been made but ac-tion is delayed. In the history of the foundation of my own congregation there is an example of the founder making a decision to commit himself to the project of foundation and then delaying to act on the decision. In the event he felt himself to be called to account by the Lord and repented of his delay. ~. The charism of founding a congregation comes to fruition and real-ity only when the group actually, exists and from,the beginning the un-folding of the project in fact will always involve the unforeseen and un-foreseeable. It may be better not to think of the charis.m of a founder as separated from fits realization in the original group. In a sense the foun-der or foundress must wait to 'see what God has wrought but there is ai- Charism as Empowerment / 167 ways an intuition and sense of what the new community must~be which is key to judgment on its development. While it is never a question of checking against a preexisting blueprint, there is a need to assess and to assure fidelity to the inspiration which called it into being. This moment has parti(ular significance for the founder and for the primitive commu-nity but it is a moment which must continue as long as the community endures. So indeed must all of these moments in their own way. They comprise the charism in action, the "dynamism proper to each religious family." What I wish to suggest now is that this same rhythm, these same mo-ments must continue to mark the "functional dynamics" of the charism as it exists and is exercised in a congregation. Mutuae Relationes (11) speaks of.the charism of the founders which ".hppears as 'an expe-rience of the Spirit' transmitted to their followers to be lived by them, to be preserved, deepened and constantly, developed in harmony with the Body of Christ continually in a process of growth." The charism enables" the group to search and discern what it must be and do, what must be its way of life and of pastoral action in response to the world in which it finds itselfand to do this with a certain perspective, a certain orienta-tion and point of view, a particular spirit. ~ The implication is that the group must actively.commit itself as a group to such search and discernment evdn as the founder or foundress did. It is a search by the group in such fashion that if must guard and foster that level of unity which alone makes corporate search possible. This search in turn deepens and strengthens the real unity of the group. A province, for example, needs to identify and tO sustain the processes and structures which make a group or corporate reflection and search pos-sible as a province in a stable rather than a merely elbisodic manner: Lead-ers need to'know how to promote and foster such processes of reflection and the structures they require. The charism of a group is riot "auto-matic" nor does it function in any magical way. It can remain virtually inoperative for want of sufficient cohesion within the group or for lack of sustained 6ommunal processes. The charism enables the group to search out what it must be and do and to what it must commit itself in the power of the Spirit, animated by precisely those attitudes and values which constitute the "content'" of the charism, meaning that particular Gospel orientation or accent which characterizes every charism. The grbup is enabled to make judgments which are inspired by the same spirit which animated the founding vision. More, they can experience a confi-dence in their capacity for authentic and profoundly religious newness 161~ / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 in their.:pastoral responses. As with the founder 9r f0undress, it is Jesus who in~,ites;.it is he who takes the init!ative.leading us in. service to the kingdom in,this time and this place. Nor is that initiative~depe_ndent on any spl.endid historic achievement b.y the congregation orieven on ;the measure of its present, resources: But process and structure are necess~ary. The processless,~ s~ructure!ess~co.ngregation or.province is a mirage, Which is not to say, ho.wever, that the processes and structures must.be t.his.or, that~type, an.d even less that there i~s only one acceptable _form. While the cultivation and sustenance of process and structure make~ par~ ticular demands on,!eadership, it is also one,area.where the real mean-i. ng o.f" membership"~_ is tested. Real living commitment, to the commu-nity demandsoand is .revealed in a real investment of time, energy and presence in. its pro.cesses and structur.e~. C, ommitm~nt ,to the,"spjrit of the. cgngregation. ," while h.a.ving no time for its. process.es, is commit-ment. to the dance w~hile disdaining the steps; it becomes increasingly, ethe-real. ~ ~. ¯ . ~., ~- .- .~ ~ Secondly,, the .charism enables a group to. make decisions and choices whic_h ar~e faithful expressions of the charism oitself. It is a.grace which leads to and-enables choices made for the sake of the kingd0m,and bear-ing the mark of a certain spirit and orientation. Some groups find it prac-tically impossible~ to make real decisi0.ns and diffiRult choices. People go through .the for.ms and moti0ns~of, decision-makin~g, 9t. chapte.rs ,for ex-a. rnple., only.to, discover in time that no real commitment had been gen-erated and that implementation is_ unlikely or impossi.ble.There had,been only the,~.utward app~earance.of dec.!sion. It is.not a questiQn of .bad faith but.of processes in, adequate to the challenge. Of eyoking commitment at deep level. One of the dynamic ':,fu.nctions" of charism is to empow~er and enable the group to truly choose and gen~uinelydecide; to risk, to surrender, .to be converted. At a time when all of our, congregation~.s.ar~e. confronted~ wit.h, chali,.en.ging choices of serious consequence,, this is, an area where we read.ily experience.both the neeod that, charism play its em-powering ¯ role and tha!0we be open. to .it. -The charism further enables the group,to act and to act corporately. This means that the charism enables in the.group that level of, shared per-ception and vision, of shared aspiration and intent, w, ithout which cor-porate choice and action are impossible. And it empower.s, apos.tolic 9c-tion. "Corporat.e action" js not a .question of everybody, doing the same thing but rather that the members.of t.he group act~by intent in .the~iight of a shared vision of, direction which can give uni.ty and .c.oherenceto quite varied _ministries. For example, a group .may-have achieved a Charism as.Empowerment / 1169 shared understanding of.what '.'evangelization" means in this particu, lar place and time and, though in the.service of that vision:the members. pursfie quite diverse ministries, they are aware that they pursuea com-mon goal,. On the contrary it can happen that people exercise th'e same ministry (even hll te~iching in the'same school; for example) withotit hav-ing any shared visionOf what, they are doing or even having quite 6p-posed perceptions of ~hat it is that.they are about. " ' ~ Finally the charism enables th~ "group to assess its decisions add choices~ i!,s orier~tati~ons and actions in terms of fidelity to th~ founding ifispiratio~i and ~esp~si.veness to current needs. I re~eat here without. ~ilab~ratii~n ~th~t all Of this does not happen aiatomatically. It demands susz' tained effd~t I~y the~r~tip p~ec.i~sely, as a group ~r~d it is ~,i~rtually !n~pos'- sible without having in pla.,Ce;oin a stable way, those processes and struc-tures which ~ak~e bngoin~or~orate rei'lection,~choice 'and'~actiofi the'nor-m'al way Of life of the group~.°These 'processes and structures will vary, greatly from gr6up~°to group depending on their h.~story and trad~tlon~s,. their niamb~rs, ~g~ographical dispersion, and so forth.- I must point Out that while i tiavetried in thi~ ~irticqb to k6ep the "c6n-tent'" of charism and°its' "dyna~aic functi~_.n" separate, in th'~ end this is, of cgurs6, impossible and it'seems more especially so now in these time's thah ever. The "functioning of a religious congregation ~s ~n-s'eparabl~ .from its id~n~ti.ty, 'fro~ the radical meaning of its ~li~;e in°the Chu~'~h "/~ffci just as the f'6under ~nd (o'undress discovered their v~ocation , . .~ ~,; ~ - _ , . ~ o , o "~ ~ . : . - and ~ts meamng and shaped what they d~d and how'they d~d ~t ~n the con-text df their envir6nment, so do we. A sh~arp aware~ness of the i'6ality of our world and of. our place in it is as much a par~ of out vocation's iri-" gredi~nts ~is it was that 6f our fo'u'fiders ~nd foundres'ses. And we have avail~ble to us by God;S gift~,inst~:uha'ents and r~6ans for awareness; for takir~ cri{icai dista~e and for critic~ii~nalysis whicl~ th'.ey did riot. Tti~se are means which can enhance our capacity for pt:ophEtic dis~ernmeni, choice and.action,, means~which are immeasurably deepened and sharp-ened by the charismatic gifts that root the life'of.the congregation. I~'wouli:l conclude with a brief comment on the relationship between the charism of a religious congregation and the place of the c6ngrega-tion in t~ local ChUrch. The first obedience owed by every religi6us ~con-gregati'oia tc~ tile Church isto be faithfully itself. As a ~ift' given by the Spirit io the Churcl~'a congi'~gati6n remaihs "useful" to the extent that it remains faithful to its charism. If it is authentic, this ~lways'r~eans deeper ~olidafity with the olife and' ministry of the Church.This deeper solidarity is not just a matter of rendering more services or of undiscrimi- 170 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 nated availability. Rather it is a matter of living and acting as a congre-gation in the Church more and more in virtue of the charism. "The re-ligious life is a state within the Church, not just in the sense that it op-erates within the Church, receives grace from the Church and is legally sanctioned by the Church, but in the sense that it shares in a.special way in the mystery of the Church, is one of her organs through which, the Chi~rch perfects her own life."8 The charism is the first medium of our solidarity with the Church as a congregation. And so we bring to the lo-cal Church, for example, not only ministers and services, but a particu-lar point of View, a particular capacity for discernment needed by the Church,~a. capacity for choices, actions~, assessments, illuminated by a definite Gospel inspiration. Solidarity with the Church, in turn, evokes and animates ih~e~charism of a congregation. A congregation can therefore be profoundly obedient to its charism and to the Church to the degree that it is integrated in the life of the Church. Where the local Church strives to be a Church which integrates all of its m~mbers in its life and mission, in its discernment and decision-making, it gre.atly facilitates the deepest obedience of religious congre-gations. Where the local Church integr.ates all of its members in a search for God's ,will for his Church, in choosing direction for its mission and in implementing, its decision~, in such a Church, the charism of the reli-gious congrega[ion, a gift given for the Church, will grow to full stat-ure. Such obedience must never be substituted by a mere rendering of services in an undisce,,rned way even---or especially when there is much regi~rd for service and little appreciation of the meaning of charism and of its role in the Church. I offer here a brief ~uote from Bishoia Stanley Schlarman of Dodge City. In January o~" thins year' I~e wrote a pastoral letter to his people in which he reflected on religious life in the light of the dialogue with the religious of his diocese. , Furthermpre because religious become even more skilled in searching out God's will together, they can initiate new ways of answering the needs of the times, even taking risks, when needed on behalf of the poor and oppressed . In the light of these reflections I want to invite each person in our dibc~san family into a Trinity experience of community through knbwl-edge and love, dialogue and respect, and the mutual s6pport of one an-other's vocation.9 For religious that is an invitation to charismatic life, dynamism and newness. Charism as Empowerment / 17'1 NOTES ~ Sandra M. Schneiders, New Wineskins, (New York: Paulist Press, 1986) p. 28. 2 For a very useful survey of writing on charism see M. Midali, "Contemporary Theo-logical Trends in The Charism of Religious Life: A Gift of the Spirit to Church and World" USG. (Rome, 1981). 3 j. M. R. Tillard, There Are Charisms and Charisms, trans. O. Prendergast, (Brus-sels, Lumen Vitae, 1977). '* lbid, p. 41 ft. 5 John M. Lozano, Life As Parable (New York: Paulist Press, 1986) p. 28. 6 j. M. R. Tillard, op. cit., p. 56. 7 Francis J. Maioney, Disciples and Prophets, (New York: Crossroad, 1986) pp. 161- 2. Maloney stresses especially the prophetic dimension of religious life and of the role of founders and foundresses. 8 Friedrich Wulf, Decree on the Ai~propriate Renewal of Religious Life: Commen-tary on'the Documents of Vatican II, Vol. !I (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968) pp. 669-70. 9 Bishop Stanley Schlarman, "Reflections on a Dialogue With Religious," Origins, March 5, 1987, pp. 669-70. ApostOlate of the Moment Frank Quinlivan, C.S.C. Father Quinlivan,is director of, his novitiate and,has served as a missionary. He may be addressed at Holy Cross Novitiate; P.O. Box 749;,Cascade, Colorado 80809. ~kctive religious life has a rootlessness to it. Religious are a truly pilgrim people. We move on. We are seldom anywhere long enough to put down deep and permanent roots. We enter.into the lives of others and they en-ter our lives, but we pass through each other's lives. It is not uncommon for us to long for more "normalcy" in our lives--what we see as some permanence and stability, a place to pitch our tent for more than a season, a set of relationships which endure. Min-istry today, however, seldom affords us this. Even those whose ministry allows them to be in one place for an ex-tended period of time still find a certain rootlessness because in our highly mobile and nuclear society the people ai'ound us move on. Hos-pitals and schools have a built-in turnover of people. Today urban par-ishes see a large and continuous flow of people in and out. The pace of change is rapid. Perhaps most disconcerting of all is to look back and see that we have left few, if any, permanent marks behind us. So many years and so much effort leave little to show. The things we began, the work we did has ceased to exist or else has been greatly altered. The lives we touched have moved on and changed. We quite literally "lose track." We enter into many lives. That is what ministry is. We enter into people's lives in significant ways. We are there in a special way, invited into the hearts and consciences of people in a moment of pain, of joy, of growth or healing. But where are those people now? Maybe we still get Christmas cards from a few of them. 172 Apostolate of the, Moment / 173 ¯ ' 'Did our ministry make a difference a long-term, lasting differefice? Sometimes we may know, but'usually we.don'-t., In-an effort to p¢ofessionalize our ministry we have learned to do a great deal of lo'ng-ran~e planning and goal setting, of clarification bf ob- ¯ jectives and intensive evaluations. Ou~: experience of ministry, however, is" often that we ehd up walking a path that we did not envision and through areas that w~ 'have not charted. We can take the tools of management and apply them to ministry. They cfin help; 15uttheir applicati6n is ne~r perfect. If we do not lobk at ministry~as often perhaps most often unexpected, unplann+d, mo-meritai'y ~ind without measurable long-term consequences, we will be building up gomething Which can 6nly be frustrated and frustrating. It is important that we see much of ministry as an ap.ostolate of the moment. We are here now in this place with this person and it has, made a difference at this time inthis iife and that is enough. Fieeting contacts between pe~pJe where something human happens, often unplanned and impo.s'sible to follow up on, are how the history of the kipgdom and of ministry are most often written. This pers~)n was min-istered to at this moment,, l,oved, served, ,forgiven, encourage~d. There was,, a pointof huma~n~ con, tact, a sharing, a totJ~hing,, ~eemingly not sig-nificant, nor planned and, perhaps, not even remembered, but,this was the building of the_ kingdom. We move through others' lives and they thro~ugh ours, often in a.jum-ble, but the.points of intersection and meeting are the way. We,do not know, where fully ninety percent of them are-now. It is enough that their Way and our way crossed. ~ When we have aplan, be it for our lives or for only the day; we tend. to get very upset by interruptions. The in,terruptions, perhaps, are what we are meant to be doing. As'ministers we~are meant to be interrupted. ~ This is not an argument against planning and evaluation, or against efforts to make ministers "more professional: It is an argument, however, fOrothe" need to realize that ministry'does not°often ,fit into these catego-ries. It ,is possible .for us, like so many people,, to so live and work in the past or in the future, that we fail to,understand the,importance of the present moment. Yet it is in this.very moment that ministry is done.:" Our very rootlessness, as disboncerting'as it can be for us, is a key factorin our ministry. It allox;vs us to be.present this moment, the time when ministry.is done. It allows us to'be true agents,of the kingdom which is built up by many cups of cold wate~ given~in Jesus? name., 174 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 The apostolate of the moment is tied to our definition of .success. The normal definition of success hinges on things which we can point to and count, marks left behind which are permanent and observable. Ministry affords us little of this. How are we to know that weare ~uccessful min-isters, ,when. we have so little to "show"? All of us have been to funerals in our community when an elderly religious is laid to rest. We can ihink:of the countless lives he or she has touched. We can think of the thousands of points of intersection where his or her life and works touched ~nother's. Yet when they die, other than the community, there is usually no one else there.~ Most of the peo-ple they ministered to, in those special moments, are not aware of their death, do not remember the moment of ministry, do not recall even their name. Success in ministry, in our apostolate of the moment, cannot be meas-ured by conventional standards of success. Lives, may hav~ been touched profoundly, deep change~ may have occurred, but our rootlessness will mean that we will often never even know this. Jesus speaks of salt and seeds and yeast: They "are little things, seem-ingly insignificant, that effect great works, u~ually unseen, transformed into something else, hidden from notice, known only if they are lack-ing. This is'~how the success of our apostolate of~the moment must be understood. Let us attempt to plan and .to evaluate, but let us also understand our apostolate of the moment. Each human life is God-given and precious, beyond all value. Each moment of each life is precious and invaluable. That we are there in this moment is tremendously important. If there be an enduring effect or long-range consequence, we may never know. It is enough simply that we were there at that moment. A final word. Jesus tells us that he is the vine and we are the branches. When we reflect on ~his and on our rootlessness, there is much to learn. A branch does not have rootsoof its own. Separated from the vine it will die, but it is rooted in and through the vine. What weexperi-ence as rootlessness is, in truth, deeply rooted in Jesus. All ministry is his. The branches may grow in all directions; but the vine ties them to-gether and ~provides them .with root and life. The branches are often pruned and cut back so that there may be new growth in new directions, but they are neveruproote.d or cut off from the vine entirely. Much of our ministry is momentary, but its significance is eternal. Jesus told us that even a cup of cold water, given in passing, was not without lasting, even eternal significance. Apos~tolate of"the Moment / 175 It is difficult ifor us to be content with an apostolate of the moment. It would be satisfying to be able to see enduring effect and accomplish-ment. Our planning actually accounts for little of what we end up doing and there is so little visible to evaluate. It is, in the end, a matter of deep faith that we will not show up empty-handed before the Lord, but rather loaded down with a great deal of fruit despite being so rootless. Thief You kissed me - a Child of five - and stole my heart away. You called me - a girl of fourteen - and became h~y "first love." You covenanted me - a young woman - and bound me to You, eternally. O, gentle Thief, never give me away, nor ever set rile free! Claire Mahaney, R.S.C.J. Valparaiso Community 140 Valparaiso Avenue Menlo Park, California 94025 Eoaluating General and Provincial Chapters Gerald A. A~buckle, s.M. Father Arbuckle continues to give workshops on "refounding" religious life and to write for this review. His "Beyond Frontiers: The Supranational Challenge of the Gospel" appeared in the May/June 1987 isSue. His permanent mailing address is: East Asian Pastoral Institute; P.O. Box ~1815; Manila 2800; Philippines. Come now, let us talk this over, says Yahweh (Is 1.'18). People differ about the effectiveness of general and provincial chapters they attend. In the evaluations of a general chapter held recently, par-ticipants varied in'their assessment. Some were thoroughly satisfied; oth-ers felt that it was a useless experience since ~participants were not.com-mitted to implement the chapter's mission statement and decisions. Oth-ers claimed the chapter ignored'realities, while some felt that they had been manipulated by well-organized groups. Who is right? Without some objective criteria to judge the chapter by, it is impossible to even begin to answer that~question. This article is an attempt to offer sonie ~ciological and faith criteria to help readers evaluate their chapters. It is not in, any way an exhaus-tive study on how to assess the effe~tiyeness of chapters. My aim sim-ply is to answer this question: Are there certain attitudes, ways of look-ing at the world, procedural methods,, and ideologies which hinder or facilitate the work of chapt6i's? I will concentrate on general chapters, but my comments will apply with only very minor adjustments to provincial chapters. To aid in ~y analysis I will list a selection of comments by participants of general chap-ters held from 1971 to 1985 and then use them as catalysts for my own 176 Evaluating Chapters /:177 evaluatiofi of,such gath6rings. Hopefully, readers will be able to iden-tify from their own experience with several of these comments and. then be helped by my .,a.ssessment. I will proceed by defining,the nature and aims of a general chapter; by recording various comments by participants of general chapters; and then by evaluating thes~,corfihaents in lighi 6f sociological and:faith, criteria. ', Aims ~f ~en~r~i,,c]t~pters ,.~ "; ~dd~lly,° 'a general chapter, "aft a ~'ign of unit~, in charity," ~ho~u.ld be "a moment of grace and of the action of the Hbly Spirit in an insti-tute. It should be a joyful, paschal,, and ecclesial'experience which bene-fits the institute itself and also the ,whole Church.-The,general chapter is meant to renew and protect the spiritual patrimony of the institute as well as elect the highest superior ahd councilors; conduct major, matters of business, and issue norms for the whole institute.''~ There are two key emphases in this. desc~ription: the apostolic .calls to w~tness h~r6 a'ntt now and to plan for the futur6. I ffill~expI~iin briefly what ~acl~ em a~is means. In order to ffitnes~ h'ere and now, 'ihe chapter is to I~ a faith experi-ence, a cooperative action of both the Holy Si~irit ~nd the" memb~i's of the chapter. It is to be to the.Church and to the,congregation a vivid com-munity expression of,g.osl~el°charity and joy;:.comm~union will .arise out of a pro~cess bf personal a~nd .corporate convers~ign. ~ , . In planning for the~future, t.he chapter is. to,c.a, II the congregation to be accountable to the ideals of the Gospel and its charism, praising crea-tive apostolic, initiatives' and correcting aberrations since the: last chap-ter. It should establish~policies that~ relate the congregation's-charism, ap-ostolic life, and personnel resources to the ever changing pastoral needs of the People of Gbd. It is to.elect,the,highes(officer and his or her~ as-sistants on the basis of their abiliti~e~ to4ead~and inspire ~the 6ongregation to conversion, to its faith-and-justice mission, and tb the implementation of the chapter's policies and decisions.~ It should, call p.a,~icipants to com-mit themselves to lead within the~pr~ovi~ces i'fi impl~m~i~ing thee policies and decrees of the chapter. The two calls'are" complementary. 0n~ m~st not e~i~t:without the other. If all the chapter does is to formulate polici.es for the coming years, it is no different.than a commercial board of directgr~ which meets to plan and choose its executive officers. If, on the other hand, the mem-bers believe that all they have to doAs pray and live in charity and thus fail to prepare theologically and in every,,other way necessary to make sound pastoral and religious-life policies,, ~then they gravely misunder- 178 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 stand the incarnational role of the apostolic Christian and so of their con-gregation; they are running away'from serious obligations, taking refuge in a false spirituality or supernaturalism (see Lk 6~46-49). Reflections on Reality Do chapters in fact realize this twofold.call? To help readers answer this question, ~ list some evaluative comments of the participants 0f sev-eral chapters; then I attempt to assess them in tile light of the ideals for cha~ters given above. i. "No outward conflicts, but~there was too much pressure for con-sensus .in all things. The time for divisions was over, we were told. The consensus just covered over deep divisions; I "and others became in-tensely angry because of this. The chapter was not a reconciling event that it is said to have been." 2. "The c~hapter was to be a time for dialogue, yet it was riddled with conflicts. Some group said they were out to bring reality into the chap-ter. They caused conflicts all the time, refusing to listen to contrary views. We agreed on nothing." 3. "I tried to raise the important initial-formation issue, but the emo-tional reaction and pressure of the group against it was so great that I had to drop it. I was marginalized for proposing a discussion. So we strug-gle in ignorance for. six mor6 years about formation." 4. "We had a good chapter, since we stressed the discernment pro-cess, downplayed debates and the study of reports on the congregation." 5. ~'I feel unhappy with our chapter. One national group effectively stopped the discernment process. 'We don't decide things by prayer! That's pre-Vatican pie.ty,' they said." 6. "Some participants held back from sha~ring their views until they had ihe right momeni for maximum impact; they would not listen to others. I thought they used their silence as power to manipulate us." 7. "People say that there sfiould never be conflicts, but only'consensus' on issues. This puzzles me. Perhaps disceinment might'help." 8. "I feel the chapter was an experience of grace. I did not feel the under-" ~urrent of ideological pressure groups, power movements, national/ cultural lobbying, that characterized our last chapter." Evaluating Chapters 9. "There was hardheaded debate, but a spirit of listening, openness to reports of the world we must be evangelizing, an experience 0f rec-onciliation and sisterhood. I believe there was a deep conversion to the Lord in all of us. Discernment, research, and prayerful preparation helped. Decisions are being now implemented." 10. "Every now and then our chapter made self-congratulatory expres-sions or decisions that were so unreal. You would think that the whole world was waiting on every word, yearning to be led by a dynamic con-gregation, well equipped for apostolic action. We wrote a mission state-ment,- but ignored priority of apostolic needs, the insights of theologi-cal e.xperts--anything, it seems, that would have embarrassed us to face the poverty of our spiritual and human resources. We had warm, comfort-ing liturgieS. It made people feel good. What a sad, escapist experi-ence!" I I. "'We wrote many documents, including a mission statement. We felt we had accomplished much because we did a lot of writing, but the real issue of conversion remains unconfronted." 12. "I was frightened by the repeated labeling of participants as 'right-ists' or 'leftists.' If you were classed as a leftist by one vocal group, there was nothing one could do wrong in the chap~ter. Groups, especially some national groups, spoke of 'winning or losing battles,' obviously rejoicing when rivals were 'conquered.' " 13. "It was a prayerful chapter. We got to the painful issues, and made good decisions. Now, several month~ later,participants are not inter-ested in doing anything about the decisions." 14. "Two sma!l, but vocal, groups struggled to dominate or manipu-late our chapter. One group wanted by force of law to restore the status quo, the opposite group wanted.change to be,imposed by law on all of us. Both were humorless, almost fanatical." Some of these comments are optimistic, but, overall, respondents are uneasy about the effectiveness of'their chapters. Given the frequent, un-critical 'use of such value~charged sociological terms as "conflict" and "consensus," I estimate that their unease is justified. I suspect that sev-eral chapters described by participants were insensitive to how power can be manipulated, sometimes by people with immense goodwill but with little knowledge of the social sciences, in ways that are quite contrary to gospel values. Review for Religious, March-April 1988 Because of the confusion that Can exist about how a culture or group functions?internally, a, confusion evideht in the comments listed, my task is now to, ex.plain the n'ature-and function of two popular models of so-cieties: the confliCt arid ~the consensus models; this will necessitate an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses'oUsociological models in gen-eral. Also, after showing how these two models can be misused w~hen applied to the'an, al.ysis of r~li~iOus~congregations., I,shali ~xialain the role of di~ce~'nment in m~k.ing'decisions. Models of Society , - A model, o~: ideal-type, analysis denotes a~particular and popular method of sociological investigation of society. An idea.! type i~ an "ex-aggerat! on',' .of cert,/in features which tend to be present in society; once the type is constructed by ttie researcher; ~i°concrete s'ittiation can then be better understood by means of comparison with the ideal type. For ex-ample, the researcher concludes that a particu, lar society is like, or di-verges from,~the ideal type in this or that way. Ideal-types have been con-structed, for example, of capitalism, communism, bureaucracy, and pre- Vatican II religiouscongregational governments.3 In summary, an ideal type has the following qualitieS: First, it is not "ideal" ir~ an ethical way. Secondly, it is rather "ideal" in a logical sense;it is freely d~signed by the researcher in an effort to better ~om-preh~ nd reality by isolating, accehtuating or emphgsi~ing, arid artiCulat-ing the elements of a recurrent social phenomenon (bureaucracy~ for ex-ample) into an internally consistent system of relationship. Thirdly, an ideal~type in no way em.b~.~ces all details of the~rea!ity; the aim, as opted, is to emphasize or highlight "significant" recurrent social phenomena. This means that various aspects of society are not included in the model because they do, not fit its Overall purpose or focus~ Hence, to get the best possible analysis of a social situation~, it would be.important to construct several ideal types for analytical use. The response can then be integrated to give a fuller picture of the sit'uation. ~ Fourthly, ideal types are not hypotheses; they are not falsified if they are not, fully substantiated in a particular situation or even,at all, but they are research aids in the building of hypotheses, Fifthly, ideal types gen~ erally are~really scientific refinements of~ common sense. ,For example, the fact!that people use,(even correctly) the two models we describe be-low (consensus and conflict models) does not necessarily mean,~they°are trained social scientists. It ma~, mean that they instinctively.feel, for.~what-ever~ reason~ comfortable, with the emphases that .the models describe~ Moreover, some models, such as the two we are to describe, have.~be~ Evaluating. ~hapters / 181 comepopular!zed in all l~inds of literature, so that the nonexpert" readily absorbs the language particular to the models ,and thus uses it in ways that may or may not be sociologically exact. Finally, an ideal type or model is not a caricature of reality. A cari-cature, when made of a person, consists of a graphic distortion of the s~a-lient points of his or her appearance or habitual costume so as to excite amusement oro.contempt; a caric,ature of a society or. group has the same deliberate distortion.An ideal type does not distort reality, but only high-lights particular details to facilitate a better knowledge of a situation. Of course, if an ideal type is ,wrongly, used, it can well become a caricature. Consensus and Conflict Models of Society Cooperation or Consensus and conflict are two basic processes of group life. Consensus is that general agreement in thought a~d feeling which~tends to l~roduce order where the~e was disorder. Conflictu~l'i'ela-tionships c~n be~=ategorized in terms of competition (mutually opposed efforts to obtain the sa~ne objectives), rivalry (conscious competition be-tween particular groups), or~conflict (the struggle over val~es and claims to scarce resources in which the aims of the opponents are to neutralize, injure, or eliminate their rivals). Two commonly used~ideai types have been constructed~ around'these two words: consensus and conflict (see Fig-ure ~1) 4 . Inthe cQnsensus model the.assumption is that people generally agre~e on values and norms; soqial life.is.basically.stable becausecooperatipn is rewarding.A spirit, of interdependenc,e pervades the society. Conflic-tual situations do ,emerge (~r~iters on this-model then tend to speak of "strained," "otense," "rival ".or, "competitive" relationships rather than "conflictual" o.nes), but they, do not threaten the dominant, consen-sus; .conflict resolutionS°in which equilibrium or harmooy 'i~ resto~r.ed, is achi.e~ed othr.~ugh trust :~n~ di,alogue and with ~'he aid of legitimate lead-ershi. p.,5 Maj.or social change comes very siowly and .depends on signifi-cantly large shifts in a~t.itud.e, and belief. The model therefore is conser-vative 'about change; many su~ggestions for chang~e are considered unre-alistic because people hold so firmly to their existing attitudes, vaiues~ and customs. ' In.the conflict model the key characteristic is the domination of some groups~by others, and actual or.potential conflict is at the heart of all so-cial relations. If~consensus exists-it is only a.facade. Behind this mask of.harmony the powerful, including ;the legitimate authorities, in order to maintain their-positions of .influence, manipulate or oppress othi~rs through the use of coercive power. ,Change comes about when existing 112 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 Key Points I. Basic qualities 2. Social life involves is essentially and depends on or produces 3. Leadership through 4. Social systems are and tend to Figure 1. Models of Society Consensus or Integration Model no'ms/values commitments cohesive consensus, solidarity,. reciprocity, coopera-tion, dialogue legitimate authority integrated remain Conflict or Coercion Model interests inducement and coercion divisive structured conflict, op-position, exclusion, and hostility power ¯malintegrated 9nd con-tain "contradictions" change conflictual situations are further exacerbated and new groups or individu-als emerge who manage to challenge the power structures in a confron-tational manner. Adversaries in conflicts generally judge the outcomes in terms of victories and defeats, wins or losses. In brief, at the heart of the conflict model is the assumption that conflict is the indispensable force in society. Ali relationships are coloreffby' it. The model empha-sizes the role of structures in society and how the powerful can use them to their advantage, and hence emphasiz,es'that change comes about through the alteration of structures through various forms of coercion. The roots of the conflict model go back to .people like Machiavelli and Hobbes. Karl Marx helped to refine the conflict model; conflict leads to revolutionary change rather than fi~aintenance of the system and, in the end, to what Marx claimed Would be a better society. His influence in the social sciences is considerable, though supporters tod~y do not nec-essarily agree with all that he said.6 Uses and Abuses of Models of Society As pointed out above, models are human constructs that articulate emphases in society. The models help us measure particular societies or cultures; enabling us to get a better understanding of their structures and dynamics. Most social scientists today would avoid adopting exclusively either the conflict or the consensus model; depending 9.n the nature of the particular group being studied, they would draw. on the.~trengths of Evaluating Chapters both models. Cultural anthropologists, whose task it is to study in depth a cultural situation, generally feel more comfortable with the consensus rather than the conflict model; they discover that people are more apt to resist change, often vigorously,~ because it threatens their critical need for cultural identity, security, and sense of belonging. People may adopt the jargon of the conflict model and yet remain at heart most unwilling to change. The process of facilitating change is more complex than the en-couragement of conflict; that may have quite the opposite effect. Abuses of the models occur inseveral ways. (A) One way is through the unscientific and exclusive application of one or other of the models to reality. People are then blinded to wider realities and values that may significantly influence the behavior of people. For example, as regards the mainline Filipino culture, it is .unwise to apply the cohsensus model exclusively, even though most key aspects of that model are evidently present. The emphasis is on the external maintenance of smooth, inter-personal, cohesive relationships and consensus in decision, making. If the enforcing of justice endangers harmony, then justice may have to be sac-i'ificed~ However, if theconsensus model is uncritically applied to the culture, it will not bring to light the intense conflictual anger and°resent-ment that can build up within individuals, for example because human rights are being ignored. A pointcan be reached when the anger cannot be contained, and it then breaks out with a feroc!ty and intensity that can stun the.unwary observer.7 On the other hand, the exclusive use of the conflict model blinds peo-ple to the existence of values, held in common and to the attitudinal re-sistance to change that generally exists at any level. The mere change of power structures, without attitudinal change or a chaiige of values, will lead to new forms of oppression. (B) Another abuse of the models occurs through the conscious or un-conscious desire to deny uncomfortable or embarrassing realities. There is the urge in all of us to deny awkward truths about ourselves or others, for if we acknowledged their existence we would have to do something about them. (C) A.-third abuse is the turning of either model into an ideology. By ideology I here mean (I am defining it in its pejorative sense) an action-oriented understanding of the person, of history, and of the world. The understanding is dramatic; the individual identifies ~vith it, is emotion-ally and totally gripped by it; one's :personal identity is constructed around the ideology and one accepts a role within the action drama. An ideology is apt to become for its adherents a dogmatic faith, blocking out 184 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 all challenge~ to it; people believe.,in it, then they~beheve in beliex;ing in'it.8 Ideologists readily use emotion-'ch~rged'labels.ofithemselves and others, for example; "libei-als, . conservatives," . ~ rightists,"~ "left-ists," o "radicals.",' An ideology is a caricature of an ideal type of soci-ety.~ My e.xperience'is that ideologists can,,~become so fanatically con-sumed by the rightness of their cause that. humor is beyond them, most certainly~,:t~he gift. of being~able to laugh at themselv.es.9 Ideologists are blinded to anything that threatens to undermi~n.e their assumptions. Take the conflict ideologlst. Situations and people are sim-plistically categorized, fo~xample, into '~pEre.ss~rs.and t.he oppressed, so that no gray ar,~e,a in the.a, nalys.is is. perm, itted. A.nyone who .~lares to doub! the analysi.s is lqgically (and emotively) assigned to the category "oppressor." ~0 Sigilarly, the consensus ideologist will not tolerate ai~y-thing~ but "harmony,," so that even ~enuine 90nflictual sitt]ations ar.e cov-ered over.~,,. Consensus/Conflict Model Analysis and'the Church Interest in the conflict perspective ih social'relations revived~ ht least in the Ehglish-speaking 'hations, in the. 1960s: In ~r~ceding decades, the dominant" sbc°ial-science theori~'s a~d:m0del~°d'eiaicted societie's~as founded and maintained o~ consensus ar~l ~ooperatiori. Howe~ier, the po-litical upheavals~ of th~ 1960s, 'botli domestic and international; focused attent~oh;ofi~)cial coffflicts and'~h6ir r~solution~ through ye~hlore con-flicts. For example, as concern for world poverty gi'6~v, people 6~ed the cbnflict rno~l~i to'better appreciate how pbwer (~conomic, l~olit'ical, and military) ~otild be i~ed to'impose unequal'exchanges which lead toga ~vorld system ina?ked by dependency arid pb~?erty. : : ~ ~ At the same time as the conflict"fia-6del was being revitalized and re-fined in the secular world, the Church began to ekperience the impact of'the incarnational and social-justice thrust of Vatican II.'Papal social documents 'and'synodal statements reflected,this trend. Proponents of lib-eratidn theolo~gy pointed'out that the philosophy of'cohsensus was being twisted, into an ideology in South America by the powerful minority to oppress the poor. Structural poverty must be tackled in order to briffg genu-ine relief. The.bishops~-'conference at Medellin in 1968 shocked partici-pants. into an awareness of this fact, and thereafter the small ~eed of lib: eration.theoiogy'sp~routed and grew rapidly. The documents of Medellin clearly show thd powerful influence of~the conflict-model in aiding the bishops to grasp the efiormity of the injustices being experienced by their people. On the wider intbrnational scene,.,Paul VI in his~landmark 197.1 document Octogesima Adveniens and in his Ef;ang~lii Ntintiandi (30-39) . Evaluating. Chapters o.f L975.and the bishops; 1971 ,synod on Justice in the World pinpointed ~he~caus.es of. world pox~erty in terms of the sgci.ological conflict model; but cle.arly rejecte.d ~both conflict and ,~consensus ideologies. , In the late 1970s there developed among concerned pastoral workers what became.known as Structural Analysis. This is a heightened criti-cal~ iselfrawareness of. .the wgys in which we c.an be. biase.d~ oLlimite.d in 9ur own thinking by our soqial, e.conom!c, cultural, or religious-life con-text. Advocacy, for the poor is a~critique of conservative-establishment power, domination, and wealth ideology. Identification with the poor and the oppressed is pictured as a "war waged on a more or less clearly iden-tifiable enem~,. The model is essehtially a conflict one where the promo-tion of a good ~s ,~nextrlcably hnked to a fight w~th a known adversary. ~ Unfprtunately, Structural'Analys~s, when it is used by tl~e amateur so-cial scientist, can r~adily t'~:n into a conflict~ ideology and'~hus"b~ the. cause of inj~Jst'ic~rather than an ~nstrument for its'removal. There are example~ of this in the evaluative coinment~ of genei'al ~ch~l~ters gi~,i~ri above. ' ~: :" " In summary, in the main Church documents that set out evangeliz, a, tion's preferentia! option for the poor: 1. The conflict/coercion/consensus models are used as ins, t.ruments of ~ocial/power ,analy.sis. 13 ,o 2. The limitations a,nd.~the dangers of misusiog the conflict mode!,in pa~rticular are pointed out: (.A) The,model cannot embrace theotransce_~n~ de.n,t; concern for just~ice mustoembrace the fullness of the ggspelme, s.- sage: "the prophetic~proc~l.amation of a herea.fter, man's profound and definitive calling, in both cofltin~uity and dis.cgntinuity with the present situation." 14 o~ ~ (B) The model must not be turned into a violence or conflict ideol-ogy;~ 5 "the action which,[the Church] sanctions is not the struggle of one~ class agai.nst an.other !n ord.er to eliminate the foe. She does not.pro~ ~ce.e.d from a mistaken acceptance of an alleged la~ of history: . . . The~ ~Chris.t~ian :wil~l always prefer the path of dia!ogue and joint action.' ,.~6 Nor should the conflict model be turned.into an °ideology that interprets the special option for the poor as embra~cing evaong.el.ically only;one section of the population: "This option excludes no one. This is whyothe Church cannot express this option by means of re.ducti.ve sociological and ideo-logical categories which would make this preference a partis.an choice and~ a.sourc~e of conflict." ~7 0 (C) Sociological models, 0.r ideologies that use these models, do not take into account the reality of sin; efforts at attitudinal or structural 11t6 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 change that ignore our proneness to sin are d6omed to failure. The urge to dominate or neutralize one's opponents, and the culpable escape from the realities of mortality, find their causes within our desire to deny God and replace him with gods of our own making.~8 (D) True dialogue between individuals or groups is not based on the ability to dominate, but on a spirituality of powerlessness born of char-ity; charity moves us to be open to others in order to respect and listen to them. 19 iE) E~vangelizers must watch lest they use the models in an amateur, but osten.sibly scientific~ way ~ manipulate and oppress people.2° 3. The~commitment to the social-justice apostolate must come out of a deep spiritual conv6rsion nourished by pra~yer. Prayer brings us to un-derstahd, how injustice is rooted in the sinfulness and selfishness of our hearts, it is prayer which calls on th~ Spirit to create within us both the courage and the love to bring about a conversion in people's hearts and the renewal of all structures of society.2~ Understanding Discernment "Discernment" is another frequently used term in the chapter com-ments noted ~bove. Discernment is a prayerful reflection on a human situ-ation in the light of faith. I must discover and root out all the attitudes, ignorance;, and prejudices that obstruct ~y ~penness to the Holy Spirit. Hence, I turn to whatever can hell~ me sharpen my grasp of truth--to the-ology, to social sciences, to discussion. But for discernment I need more than skilled human insights. I need the openness of a converting listener of the Lord. Discernment is not so much a skill as a presence with the Lord. It is being a Mary, "who sat down at the Lord's feet and listened to him speaking" (Lk 10:38). Father Thomas Green, S.J., points out that there are three presuppo-sitions of genuine discernment in the life of a Christian. First, discern-ment assumes that a person sincerely desires:to do what the Lord wants; secondly, this desire involves an openness to what God wants without reservations. Thirdly, the discerner must know the~ Lord in love, an ex-perienced intimate knowledge of God that a converted person has espe-cially through prayer. Discernment assumes conversion or the fact that the person has responded to God's grace and abandoned himself or her-self to the Lord. As Green says, "Discernment is.a function of a lov-ing, pe~rsonal relationship to the Lord. It can normally be only as deep and as solid as that relationship itself. The true discerner must be a pray-ing, loving person."22 Evaluating Chapters The presuppositions for communaLdiscernment are the logical exten-sion of the requirements for individual discernment.23 Every person of. the community must desire God's will; there must already be that open-nes, s, that intimate union of friendship in Christ. Without these qualities, communal'and individual discernment-remain human actions or tech-niques, not movements .in faith. Only'an individual or,group that has ex-perienced "that peace of God which is so much greater than we can un-derstand," and which ought to "guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus" (Ph 4:7), can identify what the Lord is asking. Discernment does not dispense with the need to use every human method possible--for exa~nple, sociological research, theological discus-sion-- to clarify the options that one must choos~ from. At tim6s this may require vigorous debate Or discussion. This is indispensable preparatory activity. To neglect it is to ekpect the Lord to work miracles, and'because of our laziness this he will not do. However, despite the perfection of our research, there are limits to our insights. We are relating to a God and Savior whose ways~ can be humanly inconceivable and unpredic.table; so, once the background material has been clarified, then we take it in a prayerful way, to the Lord and with him we contemplate the options. Evaluation of General ~Chapter Comments In view of the above explanation, many of the evaluative comments on several general chapters are not at all surprising. ShOrtly after the end of Vatican II, congregations initiated a series of provincial and general chapters of renewal aimed at updating legislation arid approving new con-stitutions. In the 1970s and 1980s the j.argon of ihe consensus, and espe-cially the conflict, mode~ls of analysis became increasingly popular and acceptable in secular and theological circles. Participants at congregaz tional chapters merely reflected ~hat was happening in the wider Church and society. Our formation p~ograms unfortunately had not adequat~ely prepared us in the social-gcience disciplines always to use sociologica~l or anthropological models with the needed professional caution. We have used sociological terminology, especially of the conflict model, but have frequently failed to grasp the technical ramifications of the language. In very recent years, as congregations have slipped more and more into the stage of chaos,24 religious have grown suspicious of the simplis-tic use of the conflict model and more aware of the attitudinal and spiri-tual dimensions needed i~ charige. Structural changes have not had the desired miraculous effect. Now the terms "consensus" and "discern-ment" are the "in" words though there is frequent confusion about their 188 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 meaning, as is evident in the following analysis of the chapter evalu- ¯ ations. Mis'use of tl~e Conflict Model (Reread Con~ments 2, 3, 5, ,,6, 12,~ 14) Delil~erately or otherwise~people coerced other participants. Com-ment 3 p,oints to an~,,atmosphere of subtle,.but effect!ve, coercion; the in-dividual feltemotionally pressured io withdrawoa mgtteroof considergble importance to the congregation~--initial formation. In comment 5 one na-tional group r~efuses to cooperate in the discernment process, so the only option ope.n is the ~use of power politics~ pressure grouping, wins and losses. In comment 6 some manipulate the group through orchestrated sile~nc,e.s; they will not risk shar!ng views~ntil they are in a positio,n to d~minate the g~roup with their own decisions. Christi.an mutuality.d~es np.t. ex!.s,t: In comment ~2 i.ndividuals are thor~ughgoin~g ideglogists; they openly proclaim that nothing will be done except through confhcts initi-ated by .them. MisUse~%f the Consensus Model (Comments 1, 7) In comment 1 participants Were using corisensus ideologically, though they may not have been aware of it. Obviously, they had experi-enced in the past the disruptive b,!tt, erness and failure of.the conflict ide-ology. and wanted to~ avoid it at all-costs., They the.n misunderstood the meaning of consensus. People of comment 7 are se~rc,hing to grasi~ the meaning of discernment. Misufider~.tanding of Discernn~ent (cpmments.4, 9, i3) Comment 9 ~vould suggest that a positive chapter was held; not so with .the chapters referred to in comr~efits 4 and 13. A l~'ey presupposi-tion in dis~ernmen(is, the willingness to do what God wants ~f us, no matter h~ow Oistastefql it may be. The fact that "nothingohas been d~)ne about th6 Chapter decrees" shows that this effective willingness was not present. ~, Escdpism/Denial (Comments V,~' 2,, 3;~ 4, 5, 6, 7) ~ . Ernest Becket claims that the root cause of human evil is that our "natural and inevital~ie .urge" is "to deny mortality and achieve a he-roic self-image."25 Discernment demands that we admit our mortality, our,absolute need~of God. This means f.acing ~up constantly to the reali-ties of our 'own sinfulness and our need to be dying to ourselves in order that we rise in Christ, This is painful. It attacks that which we so enjoy-- our .pride and~ self-sufficiency, ., ' ~ EvaluaiingChapters / t89 ~There are examples and hints of participants denying their own per- ,sonai and corporate mortality and thus avOiding reality, for example'; through the misuse.of conserisus and conflict models and the failure to have the openness to one another that.comes 6nly through the risk of faith. Power, as commonly understood in:the comments, is unilateral; that is, people are out to impose their influenc~ on others while cloging then~selves to the'insights of the'latter. RelationalpoWer is precisely the ability t~O listen to others as well as being available to influence the same people (see comments 2, 3).26 InSistence on conflict or c6nsensus at all costs overlooks, the fact that ultimately there can be nor worthwhile change unless it springs out of one's conversion to the Lord'~ his love, his meekness. Fine documents do not effect conversion (comment~l l')~. In response to.grace we must turn wholehe~rtedly to the Lord. No culture must ever be the norm for the Christian.-A cultu;e may or. ma3? not facilitate dialogue, but ultimately dialogue for tl~e Christian must=have its roots in faith and in imitation of Christ.'He is the exemplar of relational power, the power of mutuality and risk' in .~harity. He thtis teaches us what genuine dialogue means. Ponder how often he asks peo-pie wh~it, they wish of him. He does not tell them what hE thinks they need: "'What do ~,ou want me to do.for you?" he said to the blind man. "Master, let me see again'~' (Mk 10"51). Or take that in~ident~in which Jesus enters into dialogue with the Canaanite woman who persistently begs him to heal her daughter. She does not take no for an answer, and Jesus listens (Mr 15:21-28), just as he does with the Samar.!tan woman at the well and his perplexed follow+r.s on the rgad ,to Emmaus. Then the touching interchange on the cross itself, when Jesus in his agony listens and responds to the repentant thief. The ultimat~e~source of his gift of lis-tenir~ g is the divine/human e£change bf th( incarnation itself:"'Hi~ State was divine, yet he did not cling to his equa!ity with~God, but emptied himself to assume the condition of a slave" (Ph' 2:6-7). Conclusion " Chapters are called to be witnesses of charity to the Church and to their own congregations and to apostolically relate their ~institutes to the needs of a changing world: In order to know these needs, "participants must break through the'barriers of their own pr6judices and ignbrance. An amateurish use of the social sciences, for exampl.e, through the mis-use, of sociological models of analysis, only iincrease~ these barriers. St. Paul was never a trained social scientist, but he had a shrewd in-sight into how people could misuse power. He detested those who sought to divide the Church into exclusive, conflictual, unlistening po~er blocks "191~ / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 that aimed to dominate one another--all in the name of Christ: "What could be~more unspiritual than your slogans, 'I am for Paul' and 'I am for Apollos'?" (1 Co 3:4), That approach, he insists, traps.people and deprives them of their freedom and openness to the Spirit; it. is a "sec-ondhand, empty, rational philosophy based on the principles of this world instead of on Christ;' (Col 2:8). Paul then is condemning ideologies, or any action-oriented beliefs, which claim to legitimize the domi~nation or manipulation of people. At root, "feuds. and wrangling, jealousy, bad temper and quarrels, disagree-ments, factions . . . and similar things" are the fruit of "self-indul-gence," which "is the opposite of the Spirit, and the Spirit is totally agaipst such a thing" (Ga 5:20, 17). The sign of the converting, therefore listening, person or group is love, for "Love is always patient and kind; ~t is never jealous., never rude or selfish., not resentful . [It] delights in the truth; it is al-ways ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and .to endure whatever comes" (I Co 13:4-7). Such ~people will do all they can to discover God's will, for they take to heart the ever pressing invitation of the Lord: "Come now, let us talk this over, says Yahweh. Though.your sins are like scar-let, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool" (Is 1:18). NOTES t Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes, Essential Elements in the Church's Teaching on Religious Life, May 1981, par. 51. 2 See G. A. Arbuckle's Strategies for Growth in Religious Life (New York: Alba House, ! 986), pp. I 16- I 19. 3 See Max Weber, TheMeth~gdology of the Social Sciences (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1949), passim. 4'See P. S. Cohen, Modern Social Theory (London: Heinemann, 1968), p. 167. 5 See presentation of model by Talcott Parsons, The Social System (New York: The Free Press, 1949), passim. 6 See Steven Vago, Social Change (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1980), pp. 39-44. 7 For a Japanese parallel see lan Buruma, A Japanese Mirror: Heroes and Villains of Japanese Culture (London: Jonathan Cape, 1984), pp. 219ff. 8 See Antonio B. Lambino, "Ideology, Social Change and the Christian Con-science," in Loyola Papers, Manila, 1976, nn. 7/8, pp. I If. 9 See Arbuckle, StrategieS, pp. 67-87. t0 See insights by Renato A. Ocampo and Francisco F. Claver in Pulso, Institute on Church and Social Issues, Manila, voi. I, no. I (1984), pp. 7-16, 48-63. t t John L. Seymour, "Social Analysis and Pastoral Studies: A Critical Theological Assessment," in Pastoral Sciences, vol. 4 (1985), p. 58. Evaluating Chapters / 191 12 See Joe Holland and Peter Henriot, Social Analysis: Linking Faith and Justice (Ma-ryknolh Orbis, 1984); pp. 14-44. 13 See Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction on Christian Freedom and Liberation, 22 March 1986, par. 42; also Donal Dorr, Option for the Poor: A Hundred Years of Vatican Social Teaching (Maryknoih Orbis, 1983), pp. 175,244- 250. 14 Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, 1975, par. 28. 15 Paul VI, Octogesima Adveniens, 1971, par. 28. 16 Instruction, op. cir., par. 77. ~7 lbid, par. 68. ~8 lbid, pars. 38, 39. ~9 lbid, pars. 55-57. 2o Octogesima Adveniens, pars. 38, 39. 21 Evangelii Nuntiandi, par. 15. 22 Weeds Among the Wheat: Discernment--Where Prayer and Action Meet (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1984), p. 64. 23 See John Futrell, "Communal Discernment: Reflections on Experience" in Stud-ies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, vol. 4, no. 5 (1972), passim; and Brian P. Hall and Benjamin Tonna, God's Plans for Us: A Practical Strategy for Communal Discern-ment of Spirits (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), passim. 24 See Arbuckle, Strategies, pp. 23-66. 25 Escapefr~om Evil (New York: The Free Press, 1976), p. xvii. 26 See Evelyn Woodward, "Uses of Power in Community," in Human Develop-ment, vol. 4, no. 2 (1983), pp. 27-29. The "Active-Contemplative" Problem in Religious Life by David M. Knight Price: $.75 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell~ Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 The ,Relevance of Life Review tO the Vowed Life James J. Magee, D.S.W. ~ ~o' Doctor Magee has, done extensive research and consultative work in the j'ield of re-tirement programs for religious women~ His last article in these pages, "Confidants Help Older Religious with Life Review," appeared in the issue of March/April 1987., He may be addressed,at the College of New Rochelle; New Rochelle, New York 10805. ¯, ~ ¯ , In response to the "graying" of their membership, many religious com-munities have begun to draw upon the reminiscences of their older mem-bers as a valued resource. Communities have sponsored groups to tape oral histories of the personalities, geographical sites, institutional crises, and developmental issues for which only the older members can give first-hand accounts. They have asked members whb are retired from their pri- ~ mary mini, str~!e~s~i'tg~.feiz.0.~d ~th.~zhaile~i'~es t,h~t iin~ar)'~.bly cbn.fro~t those who succeed them. Ttiey have, encouraged them, too,. to value the in- . creaseo ~nvo~vemento~n~4tte rewew that accompanies'aging:as occasions for healing memorie_s and di.sce~rning God's gracious intervention through-out their lives. Life review is a fo£m of reminisce.nce,~in whic,h persons recall long-forgotten incidents, dwell on them, and re6apture the emotions that origi-nally accompanied them, often while trying to convey these felt experi-ences to a listener. Thes'e.re~zollections are:usuhlly clear and vivid, ac-' companied by pleasant or uncomf6rtabl~ emotions varying in intensity. Life review increases dra~atie~ll~ in middle age and continues un-abated among older adult~':~In, life~re~,iew:ifii:li.vidfi~als reflect upon their personal history and accept responsibility for it. It is a process in which reviewers gradually r.ecpns~truct and assess their past, using their current 192 Life Review and the Vowed Life / 193 values to weigh behavior that memories progressively retum to conscious-ness. It focuses attention upon the connectedness of their: past with their current sense of themselves, evoking memories of formative experiences that influenced their personal development (Merriam, 1980). Life Review and the Daily Examen This description of life review overlaps several of the functions of the daily examen. A critical evaluation of life experiences with a goal of integrating them in an acceptance of oneself here and now is common to them both. Life review, however, is seldom a structured progression of memories. Usually it proceeds circuitously through reverie, reflection, dreams, diary or journal entries, correspondence, and storytelling. More significantly, life review enhances the fruitfulness of the daily examen by focusing upon the vowed lifestyle as a way of life that can release its members from compulsions that impede their self-actualiza-tion and intimacy with God. Like everyone who engages in life review, older religious become enmeshed in memories which join their own per-sonal history with the history of their family. They particularly recog-nize the ways in which they have mishandled in their own lives some is-sue( s) that they know various family members have mishandled over gen-erations. In a previous article in this journal (Magee, 1987), I indicated that these intergenerationai issues characteristically include the fol-lowing: WEALTH. (How much is enough? Who has access to it? What is sup-posed to be done with it?) HEALTH. (Use/avoidance of preventive and rehabilitative services, hy-pochondria, phobias) SEXUALITY. (Knowledgeability, scrupulosity, homophobia, premari-tal and extramarital activity) WORK. (Workaholism/inertia, process/product orientation) ANGER. (Forms of ex.pression, targets, repression, degrees of openness to resolving differences) RELIGION. (Freedom to participate/disaffiliate, questioning institutional teaching) AUTONOMY. (What decisions are mine to make? Where can I live? How often am I expected to contact kin?) These issues recur in families over generations because they have never been resolved. Instead of coping with them when they arise, fam-ily members react with a heightened anxiety which spurs demonstrations of denial, projection, and somatic symptoms. One authority refers to such issues as "islands of sensitivity" in a family. When family mem- Review for Religious, March-April 1988 bers even approach one of the "islands," no more than a particular kind of look, gesture, word, or tone of voice is needed to arouse an emotional explosion (Fogarty, 1977). ¯ Life Review and the Vowed Life How appropriate, then, that the lifestyle of living in community un-der vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience should lead religious to con-front the very issues which hold such intractable control over most peo-ple's lives. Texts concerning formative spirituality consistently em-phasize the inevitability of the vowed life engaging religious with their tenacious, problematic attitudes toward status, sexuality, and autonomy. It is to be .expected, then, that life review will elicit memories that reit-erate the difficulties religious had in observing their community's way of life precisely because that lifestyle addressed issues of exquisite sen-sitivity in their families. Consider the situation of a son who intervened between his parents who were estranged over any subject involving finances. The mother, in turn, invested in a compensatory relationship with her son, while the fa-ther maintained a deprecatory attitude toward him. The son rallied to-ward his mother, but experienced increasing anxiety over the intensity of their relationship. Later, after entering his religious community, he remained sensitized to expressions of anger, even disagreement. He was unable to resolve arguments, felt drawn to one member against another, and yet believed he must work everything out between them. Finally, he remained particularly scrupulous about observing the letter of his vowed poverty, and alert to any apparent laxity in the observance of other com-munity members. A second example concerns a woman religious who was raised in a patriarchal household in which daughters were assigned, without right of protest, the least challenging and most wearisome chores. Although she demonstrated exceptional organizational abilities in her community, she participated only reluctantly whenever her superior asked her to co-ordinate retreats conducted by a priest rather than by another woman re-ligious. In fact, whenever community liturgies involved several male cele-brants, she suffered symptoms severe enough to keep her from attending the services. A final example concerns a friar who grew up in a tradition-oriented family in which the eldest son for four consecutive generations had as-sumed direction of the family business. In this man's case, however, he entered his community even though he was the firstborn and had been christened with his great-grandfather's name. He maintains that his Life Review and the Vowed Life choice of vocation was the only discontinuity with his family of origin. For the family's entrepreneurial orientation and expectations for his as-gendancy continued throughout his life to compound his difficulties in sharing in the give-and-take exchange of community living and in ob-serving prescribed consultations with his superior. Life Review and Depression For most older religious, life review affirms their self-esteem as saved sinners, "in Christ, a new creation." Insight into the heritage of their family-based compulsions demystifies so much of their dysfunc-tional behavior. With faith, they see their frailties of character as graced opportunities "to boast of nothing but the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." For a troubled minority, however, life review, like the examen it-self, can lead to depression instead of peace. For three groups, life re-view can precipitate a crisis of conscience and faith. One group consists of religious who "have consciously exercised the human capacity to in-jure others" and cannot imagine that they could be forgiven by those whom they have injured or by God (Butler, ! 963). They feel that no re-course exists to undo whatever harm they have inflicted. Often they ap-pear obsessed with a theme or event, discussing it with one listener after another. Somerset Maugham's (1959) observation about reminiscence is poignantly relevant to members of this group: "What makes old age hard to bear is not a failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories." Members of the second group.are those charact.eroiogically arrogant and proud. They use life review not to appreciate the gratifications that their memories recall, but to accentuate that their accomplishments and sources of life satisfaction are now behind them. Moreover, because they have built their self-esteem upon recognition for their achievements and affiliations rather than on their inherent worth as human beings, they view aging as distancing them further from the bases for their self-worth. Life review may also lead to depression for a third group who have tended throughout their life cycle to live in the future. Their memories surface a lifetime of opportunities missed because they were focusing uport tomorrow rather than upon today. Feeling powerless to modify their future-orientation and seeing death as foreclosing further opportunities, they become disconsolate over a life that appears to them as wasted. These three groups are in crisis about their spiritual life and their men- Review for Religious, March-April 1988 tal health. Their depression requires professional mental health attention. Conclusion Increased investment in life review is a developmental attribute of aging. As members of religious communities age, life review becomes a more potent resource. It enhances the quality of the daily examen. It helps religious to understand lifelong difficulties they may have had with their vowed community lifestyle. Finally, it helps in identifying relig-ious who need mental health services as well as spiritual direction. REFERENCES Butler, R. (1963). The life review: An interpretation of reminiscence in the aged. Psychiatry, 26, p. 70. Fogarty, T. (1977). Fusion. The Family, 4(2), p. 56. Magee, J. (1987). Confidants help older religious with life review. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 46(2), p. 235. Maugham, S. (1959). Points of view. Garden City: Doubleday. Merriam, S. (1980). The concept and function of reminiscence: A review of the re-search. The Gerontologist, 20(5), pp. 604-609. The Cross Reconsidered William F. Hogan, C.S.C. Father Hogan's last article, "Eucharistic Community of Disciples," appeared in the issue of November/December 1985. He continues to reside at the generalate of the Christian Brothers: Fratelli Cristiani; Via della Maglianella, 375; 00166 Roma, Italy. History points to the virtual impossibility of maintaining balance between all the facets of the mystery of Christ, his person and his message. Theo-logical controversies over the centuries bear witness to this; current spiri-tual movements, as in the past, similarly offer testimony. ~ In the present day, emphasis on the Cross would appear to be one aspect of theology-spirituality that has receded in the light of other stresses, and a variety .of reasons could be adduced, not the least of which would be a reaction against some of the negativism in the past associated with the attention given= to the cru~ifixiofi in the Paschal Mystery and the insufficient ac-cent on the resurrection. Further, the broader view of the theology of crea-tion and incarnation has been seen .as necessary for a better appreciation of the basic concept of mission and our part in it today. It is not surprising that the recent extraordinary synod pointed to the need of recognizing "that in today's difficulties God wants us to teach more profoundly the value, importance, and :centrality of the cross of Je-sus Christ."2 These words assume a particular importance when we re-flect on the many kinds of life-struggles in our world and the areas need-ing redemption. What the synod said concerning teaching the Cross should not be restricted to ministerial actions toward others, for the mes-sage touches life and spirituality and needs to be integrated therein. But how a person approaches the centrality of the Cross in ministry as well as in personal life is very important, for there is need for integration as such. We cannot just let the. Cross remain outside ourselves as a reality 197 Review for Religious, March-April 1988 to be looked at. (While this may seem obvious, in fact, in our daily liv-ing we may well find ourselves looking at the Cross disinterestedly as an object.) The Cross is not simply a thing, static; rather it involves and expresses a relation of personal self-emptying love and total giving for us. Unless seen in that perspective, it will not touch us concretely and we will find much more comfort in concentrating on the Risen Jesus, avoiding the starkness and pain of the Cross. Touch us it must, for the Cross is at the core of Christian discipleship and reveals the mystery of divine love in the gift of the person of Christ, who invites us to follow him into the Paschal Mystery. Discipleship entails such a preferential love for Jesus as to demand that we go after him all the way into the mys-tery of his death-resurrection and not be deterred by lesser preoccupa-tions. The integration of the mystery of the Cross into our lives is inti-mately associated with the whole question of our human sinfulness and brokenness and how we own that as part of our lives. Often we would prefer not to look at that side of ourselves, since it can be discouraging and depressing. Some past approaches of spirituality urged people to re-flect on sin in such a way as to foster morbidity and gloom because of insufficient attention to the love of Jesus and that of the Father in send-ing him to humankind. As a result, instead of a deep spirit of sorrow for sin, a sense of guilt took its place, accompanied by feelings of shame, where the attention is at least unconsciously on self and not on God-- "I thought I was better than that." And then for many the next logical step is the loss of a meaningful sense of sin out of a flight from guilt and shame. No doubt, it can be frightening to see some aspects of ourselves, when at times we catch a glimpse of our dark side or it catches us by surprise; and we would prefer not to acknowledge to ourselves our sin-fulness, brokenness, and weakness. Yet a major factor in this reluctance may be how we look at this part of our lives. Do we view it separately in itself or in conjunction with the Cross and the healing power of God's love? Do we at the same time see God's power operative in the midst of our human frailty, using it as an occasion to break into our lives? A basic call is given to each of us to accept ourselves as we are if we are to grow to maturity. This includes acceptance of our dark side as well as the brightness of gifts, talents, and admirable qualities. However, the acceptance of one's sinfulness must be against the background of the re-ality of the Cross and divine love eager to lead us through our b~oken-ness towards wholeness, analogous to the felix culpa message proclaimed The Cross Reconsidered / 199 in the Exsultet of the Easter Vigil Service, We are not to cling to our sinfulness in a wrong way, trying to hide it from ourselves and from God, but let him use it and operate through it--sincerely believing that "for those who love God all things work together unto good" (Rm 8:28). A correlated sense of sin and of the Cross leads to greater convic-tion of need for, dependence on, and openness to the God who loves us in our weakness; simultaneously there is a breaking down of the exagger-ated kind of personal autonomy that lies at the root of so many personal and societal problems. And the human person gradually becomes steeped in the gratefulness to God that is the antithesis of the ingratitude of sin. Joyful dependence on God should overflow into a sense of dependence on others, enabling us to more intensely live Jesus' message of interde-pendeiace. We need each other, as we all need God and his redemptive love, because of our mutual brokenness and sinfulness. And in a very real way it can be said that God uses individual frailty as a means of be-coming a life-giving channel for others when we accept them and need them in their sinfulness. God ministers to them through us when we com-mune with them in our mutual need for healing and strength; and at the same time we receive God ministering to us. The Cross is not an isolated reality, for it extends to all aspects of individual and social life in touching what is most fundamental in hu-man nature. Each season of the liturgical year, while concentrating on one or other dimension of the mystery of salvation in Christ, must ulti-mately be viewed from the perspective of the Paschal Mystery. The Cross and resurrection are present in all of them even as they were pre-sent in the lifelong discipleship of Jesus. His self-emptying in following the will of the Father and seeking the Father's glory in all the phases of his life led to the culmination of kenosis in laying down his life. Any-one who would respond to Jesus' call of discipleship must necessarily make the same journey from self to the Father, and the Cross is inescap-able. We may~not like the manner of expression of the Imitation of Christ, but the message still holds true: The cross is always ready and everywhere waits for thee. Thou canst not escape it, whithersoever thou runnest; for whithersoever thou goest, thou carriest thyself with thee and shalt always find thyself. Turn thyself up-wards, or turn thyself downwards; turn thyself without or turn thyself within thee, and everywhere thou shalt find the cross.3 Various spiritualities in the past emphasi~.ed practices related to the Cross and some of them have been dropped. Perhaps this was wise and 900 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 even necessary because the devotions were not sufficiently well grounded for some people and even, in fact, became ends in themselves. Now may be the opportune time to take another look at the values these devotions and practices were meant to instill and deepen and to seek to reincorpo-rate them with new expressions and emphases, especially making a more explicit link to discipleship and our human brokenness. This could be help-ful in enabling us to perceive life and ministry struggles in terms of the Cross and drinking the cup (see Mt 20:22). Similarly opportune would be ongoing personal reflection on God's personal redemptive love for the individual--a truth that can never be deeply enough engraved on our hearts, a truth intellectually admitted but so often not interiorly believed such as to affect our lives. In the awareness of the pilgrimage of our lives, we need to see the already attained as having been reached in terms of God's love and the power of the Cross and the "not yet" element as something to be faced in the light of the same. Throughout the centuries the Cross has been a symbol of Christ, point-ing backward through history to the salvific event and at the same time forward with a prophetic call. It speaks to the world and to individuals about love, unlimited love, the love to which we are still challenged to-day: What I say to you is: offer no resistance to injury. When a person strikes you on the right cheek, turn and offer him the other. If anyone wants to go to law over your shirt, hand him your coat as well. Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him two miles. Give tqthe man who begs from you. Do not turn your back on the borrower. You have heard the commandment, "You shall love your countryman but hate your enemy." My command to you is: love your enemies, pray for your persecutors. This will prove that you are sons of your heavenly Fa-ther, for his sun rises on the bad and the good, he rains on the just and unjust (Mt 5:39-45). The disciple of Christ, even in his/her sinfulness, is empowered to take up the challenge of Christ through the power of the Cross operative today and, in trying to witness to this love, will be living out the Pas-chal Mystery. How important it is that we seriously reconsider the Cross and its im-plications in our lives today, for it is so easy to forget or at least take it for granted. The Cross Reconsidered NOTES ~ See John Dalrymple, "Not Peace but the Sword," in The Way, January 1986, where the author indicates how some elements of charismatic spirituality tend to cloud over some disturbing aspects of Christ and his message. 2 L'Osservatore Romano, December 10, 1985, Documents section, Relatio Finalis D. 2. 3 Thomas a Kempis, My Imitation of Christ, Confraternity of the Precious Blood," Brooklyn, New York, 1954, p. 147. A Sister's Passing I watched the sunlight touch the corners of the sky and softly climb the hills, while you-- so still-- let the light fade in your room and quietly went.away to another mansion where mysteries are no more, and the Son-light never dims. I shall not question your going. R.LP. Sistei" Dorothy Clark, R.S.C.J. 2/6/85 Claire Mahaney, R.S.C.J. 140 Valparaiso Ave. Menlo Park, CA 94025 Advance Directives for Health Care: A Proposal for Priests and Religious Ruth Caspar, O.P., Ph.D. Sister Ruth, recently returned from a sabbatical devoted to research in bioethics, is a consultant in biomedical ethics along with being Professor and Chair of the De-partment of Philosophy at Ohio Dominican College; 1216 Sunbury Road; Colum-bus, Ohio 43219. The events surrounding the recent death of Monsignor.Thomas O'Brien will put clergy and members of religious congregations on notice that they should enact directives concerning their preferences regarding medi-cal treatment well in advance of the age of 83. ~ This was the age of Mon-signor O'Brien at the time of the severe stroke that left him paralyzed, unable to swallow and take nourishment, and incapable of speech. It was also the age of Brother Charles Fox when he suffered cardiac arrest and anoxia during routine surgery.2 In both cases, medical technology was available to sustain the lives of these patients, and in both cases persons close to them--friends who could have been expected to know their val-ues and preferences--sought the removal of these medical interventions. A review of the medical, legal, and ethical aspects of these cases, which differ in significant respects, will be instructive in providing a con-text for the discussion of Advance Directives "for members of the clergy and of refigious congregations. Brother Fox In the literature of bioethics, the case known in law as Eichner v. Dillon stands as one of the precedent-setting decisions regarding proxy consent authorizing termination of treatment for an adult incompetent pa-tient. 3 Father Philip K. Eichner, S.M., secured in that decision judicial 202 Health-Care Directives / 903 approval from the Appellate Court, Second Department, of New York State to remove respirator support from Brother Joseph Charles Fox, di-agnosed as suffering from "permanent or chronic vegetative coma." This petition had initially been approved by a trial court order, but was appealed by Nassau County District Attorney Denis Dillon. Both Father Eichner and Brother Fox were members of the Society of Mary, and both at that time belonged to the community at Chaminade High School in Mineola, N.Y. When Brother Fox entered Nassau Hos-pital for routine surgery for a hernia in October 1979, he had spent 66 of his 83 years as a Marianist Brother, the last ten of them in retirement at Chaminade, where his longtime friend Father Eichner served as relig-ious Superior and president of the high school. Their relationship, beyond that of friendship, was also established on the trust and respect that are part of the structure of religious community life under vows of obedi-ence. In 1953, Eichner had been a novice under the guidance of Brother Fox, then prefect of novices; in 1979 this role was reversed, and Fox lived and worked as a member of a community under the direction of Fa-ther Eichner. Why did this case make legal and bioethical history? Removal of a respirator from a patient in chronic vegetative state, with no hope of re-covery of cognitive functioning, is now fairly well supported in legal precedent and moral consensus; the debate in the courts and among bioethicists today focuses on the withdrawal of a further and more con-troversial intervention: tube feeding, which is at issue in the O'Brien case. But this was not the agenda in 1979 when Quinlan was foremost in the consciousness of the courts and the public as a result of media ex-posure. The Fox case was not finally resolved until March 31, 1981, when a decision of the New York Court of Appeals, highest court in that state, consolidating Eichner v. Dillon with Storar, upheld the decision of the lower court regarding Fox. It had opened on October 2, 1979, when Brother Fox, in relatively good health but advanced age, went in for sur-gery to correct a hernia he had suffered while gardening. In the course of the surgery he suffered cardiopulmonary arrest. Heart massage even-tually restored a heartbeat, but not before oxygen deprivation tothe brain had reduced Brother Fox to dependence on a respirator to sustain even the most basic ~of vital functions, with no hope of regaining conscious-ness. When this prognosis was confirmed by neurosurgeons, Father Eich-ner requested that the hospital remove the patient from interventions that 204 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 were clearly "extraordinary" under the well-articulated moral teaching of the Catholic Church. He was supported in this request by Brother Fox's nieces and nephews, all of whom concurred in this decision. More-over, Father Eichner and the provincial, Father Keenan, could report that they had heard Brother Fox express his preferences regarding the mat-ter. In discussions surrounding Quinlan he had said that he would not want to have his life prolonged by such extraordinary and artificial meas-ures, a conviction he reiterated immedi~ately prior to his own s.urgery. He had, however, no written document stating his position. When hospital officials refused, alleging both legal and moral qualms, Eichner was left with no alternative but to go to court if he wished to honor the known preferen.ces of his Marianist brother. He sought a court order appointing him as proxy for the incompetent patient with authority todecide whether life-sustaining equipment should be with-drawn. This was granted by the trial court on December 6, 1979 (Brother Fox had by now been in deep coma for two months); the order was im-mediately appealed by Dillon. Before the subsequent decision in favor of Eichner was rendered, Brother Fox died on January 24, 1980. Citing the far-reaching impact of the issues contested in the case, the Appellate Division proceeded with the case, announcing its decision two months later (Eichner v. Dillon, March 27, 1980). Dillon appealed once again, to the highest court in the state; once again Father Eichner's right as proxy to authorize the termi-n~ ition of treatment for Fox was upheld in the 1981 decision In re Storar. Though vindicated at every level of court review, the progress of the Fox case nevertheless incurred $20,000 in legal fees and over $80,000 in medi-cal costs. Monsignor O'Brien If the Fox case seems relatively clear and straightforward in spite of the difficulties encountered in its progress, that of Monsignor Thomas O'Brien, had it proceeded through court review, would have been a storm center. Nevertheless it presents an even stronger argument for a need for Advance Directives on the part of clergy and religious. Father Thomas O'Brien, ordained a priest for the archdiocese of New York, served over the many years of his priestly ministry at St. Paul's in Harlem, St. Anastasia's in the Bronx, and St. Malachy's, the "Ac-tor's Chapel," in Manhattan, where in retirement he held a position as Pastor Emeritus. He is described in the court record as "a lively, gre-garious loving man, an avid reader, a rapt conversationalist, and a good friend to the members of his parish."4 Health-Care Directives / 905 At the age of 83, he was severely disabled by a stroke suffered on May 25, 1986. As a result of the stroke~and subsequent paralysis, he was restricted in his movements, unable, initially, to swallow or take notir-ishment, and incapable of speech. In response to the medical emergency, a nasogastric tube was in-serted for the provision of nourishment. As the name suggests, these tubes are inserted through the nose and pass to the stomach. No consent form was required for this "noninvasive" intervention. Alth6ugh there was some difference of expert opinion about Father O'Brien's degree of competence, the record indicates that "he was not happy with the tube that was inserted and would have preferred to have it out." This he com-municated clearly by attempting to remove it fifteen times. At this point, hospital officials at Frances Shervier Home and Hos-pital in Riverdale, N.Y., petitioned the court for a conservator for pur-poses of consenting to the surgical insertion of a feeding-tube directly through the abdomen into the stomach: a gastrostomy.Such a procedure would allow the continued provision of life-sustaining nourishment with-out the irritation and discomfort associated with the nasogastric tube. It would also, from the perspective of the hospital, "buy time" for the reso-lution of the question bf competence. With the consent of a court-appointed guardian, "there being some conflict in psychiatric testimony.as to whether Msgr. O'Brien was or was not competent to make a decision as to the continuation of life-sustain-ing procedures," the surgery was performed on September 17, 1986. The issue, now that the stomach tube was in place, was whether it could be removed. To determine this, the court sought additional psychiatric testimony and heard the opinions of those most closely associated with the patient. There were no family members in a position to speak for Father O'Brien, nor had he personally authorized anyone to make decisions regarding his health care. No living will was available. One fellow priest is mentioned in the court record--the director of the residence where Father O'Brien livi~d--but he did not act as proxy decision-maker. The person who seemed to be best able to speak for the patient was a Iongtime friend who had initially requested removal ofthe NG tube. His opinion is noted in the record with respect ("His integrity and concern define what true friendship is all about"), but it was not held to be binding. Four psychiatrists, examining the patient who now had the stomach tube in place, found that he "was not so depressed or withdrawn as to render him incapable of making a rational decision affecting his life." 906 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 His method of communication, however, was limited to affirmative and negative responses which he communicated by squeezing the .hand of the speaker or nodding his head. In this way he indicated that he was not happy with the tube. He understood that it was necessary to sustain life. Did he want to live? No. Did he want to die? No. Hearing his testimony, Judge Greenfield found it necessary to visit the patient himself and to conduct his own assessment of competency and patient preference. Once again he found the evidence unclear and the mes-sages ambiguous, leading him to conclude that the court could not order the removal of the tube. "It will not order the discontinuance of a life-support mechanism without the clearest and most compelling indications from the person most directly involved. Whenever there is doubt, a court must opt for the affirmation of life." For some weeks after the insertion of the stomach tube, Monsignor O'Brien seemed to improve. Attorney for the Shervier Home, Thomas Ford, reported that he took some food orally, attended physical therapy, and prayed the rosary with his nurse.5 He died on December 8, 1986, three months after surgery for the gastrostomy. No further legal action was taken with respect to his case. Who Speaks for the Incompetent Priest or Religious? In the wake of~ Eichner v. Dillon major superiors of religious con-gregations in the United States commissioned a study of the legal issues surrounding treatment decisions in terminal illness, patient rights, and sur-rogate decision-making for their members. Prepared in 1983 by Mary Cos-grove Consentino, Esq., for the Leadership Conference of Women Re-ligious and the Conference of Major Superiors of Men (LCWR/CMSM), Health Care Decision Making for Incompetent Patients: Who Decides? provided an analysis of these issues, a review of rulings in the six states that had, at that time, acted on matters regarding who might decide whether life-sustaining equipment might be withheld from a terminally ill or permanently unconscious incompetent adult, and a set of recom-mendations for effecting surrogate decisi0n-making. Although this paper was not addressed specifically to clergy who are not members of religious institutes, many of its suggestions could be adapted for their use, and indeed for anyone contemplating the designa-tion of a proxy for health-care decisions. In the case of sisters, brothers, and priests who are members of religious communities, the analogy with the family offers strong support for the recognition of a fellow-member as the person best able to speak for an incompetent patient. Health-Care Directives / 207 Religious communities and dioceses will be concerned about these matters for a number of reasons. The individual person's rights of self-determination, privacy, and dignity in dying will be of paramount im-portance. In addition, there are legitimate concerns regarding the finan-cial costs of unnecessary and. futile treatment, the desire to avoid litiga-tion, and a need to clarify the roles of family and community members in decisions regarding medical treatment for priests .and religious sisters and brothers. The LCWR/CMSM paper recommends oral discussions--both for-mal and informal--as one means for bringing these concerns to the sur-face within a religious congregation. It had been this type of discussion that provided the occasion for Brother Fox to articulate his personal pref-erences regarding life-extending technology, remarks that were accepted as evidence by the courts. Increasingly, however, a more formal vehicle for the expression of directions concerning terminal care in the event of incompetency is advised. Referred to generically as Advance Directives, these may take the form of a living will or a durable power of attorney for health care. The living will is a directive executed by an individual while com-petent, specifying preferences concerning the types of treatment that one would wish in the event of incapacity. Typically these directives, antici-pating a condition of terminal illness and incompetency, request the with-holding of life-extending measures that would have the effect only of pro-longing the dying process. Durable powers of attorney are legal docu-ments authorizing an agent (the "attorney in fact") to make decisions on behalf of another person, even a~ter that person becomes incompe-tent (hence "durable" since traditional powers of attorney terminate with the incapacity of the principal). In each jurisdiction th'e binding force of living wills and durable pow-ers of attorney will depend on legislation (Natural Death Acts), compli-ance with statutory regulations, and the interpretation of the courts. As anyone familiar with the d~iily news will know, this is one of the most rapidly developing fields in medico-legal affairs. The LCWR/CMSM'pa-per reflects the state of the question on these matters only for ! 983 and must be updated. Highly recommended for this purpose is the recent publica~tion, A Mat-ter of Choice: Planning Ahead for Health Care Decisions, prepared in 1986 by attorney Barbara Mishkin for the U.S. Senate Special Commit-tee on Aging and distributed through the Special Projects Department of the American Association of Retired Persons.6 A Matter of Choice pro- 208 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 vides essential information that will greatly assist anyone contemplating the preparation of an Advance Directive for health care, as well as those charged with planning and implementing policy on these matters. Included in this report are the statutory provisions for the enactment of living wills in the 38 states that had legislated Natural Death Acts by September 1986, and a complete discussion of the durable power of at-torney, now recognized in all 50 states. Information regardingfamily con-sent statutes in the 17 states that have specific legislation regarding the rights of family members to make health-care decisions for incap.acitated adults is also provided, as are the provisions for making donations of bod-ily tissue or organs through the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act. Sample forms for living wills and durable powers of attorney are provided in an Appendix. The Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care There are some clear advantages of the DPA, making it preferable to a living will, and reflected in the recommendation and endorsement by the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medi-cine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research in 1983.7 As an Advance Directive it is more flexible and more personal: phy-sicians and others involved in health care will be interacting with a per-son who is cognizant of the actual condition of the patient, rather than with a document drafted at some time in the past. The agent, chosen by the patient with a view to being able to speak in his or her behalf, will be in a better position to authorize either continuation or termination of treatment, in consultation with physicians and others responsible for the patient's care. DPAs can be used in behalf of persons not terminally ill (someone with permanent loss of consciousness or with degenerative ill-ness) and can be drafted to authorize a variety of services. A further advantage over the living will is the fact that, with the leg-islation by the District of Columbia in January 1987, 50 states and the District now have DPA statutes. There is great variety among them, how-ever, and only the most recently enacted were designed explicitly for use in medical-treatment decisions. Since most were enacted primarily to authorize decisions regarding property, they are silent with regard to their possible use for health care. Increasingly, however, they are being rec-ommended for this purpose. Attorney Mishkin's report for the Senate Committee is optimistic regarding their application to this field: No court has ruled on the validity of powers of attorney in this context, however; therefore no one can say with absolute certainty that a power Health-Care Directives / 20~ of attorney for health care would be implemented by a court, if the ques-tion were posed. Nevertheless, since courts generally will accept clear and convincing evidence of a patient's wishes in matters concerning health care, the probability is high that a court would accept an incapaci-tated patient's designation of a proxy health care decision maker through a durable power of attorney.8 For members of religious congregations, the DPA seems best suited to one very important function: clarifying who may speak for the com-munity member when physicians and courts, in the absence of such a des-ignated proxy, may tend to assume that it would be next of kin. This is not to say that family members might not be involved in the consulta-tion, but that the designated spokesperson would be a member of the re-ligious institute. An Education Program for Priests and Religious In recent years many religious congregations, provinces, and dio-ceses in the U.S. have begun the process of widespread education of their members regarding these matters. In some instances these programs are well underway or nearing completion, with all members aware of their rights and responsibilities, in consultation with the legal, medical, and ethical expertise needed to facilitate the implementation of an effective policy. Others have just begun. The rapidly developing fields of biome-dical ethics and the law surrounding terminal care will assure that this will be an ongoing project for all groups. For those who have not yet fully considered these issues, a program for community education is sketched in broad outline. Whatever ap-proach is taken, the design should enabi~ members to come to g~:ips with the,major theological, ethical, legal, and medical questions raised by the new life-extending technologies. For members of communities under vow, these will be considered in the cohtext of congregational expecta-tions with respect to a common life, simplicity, and justice in the alloca-tion of resources. Theological Reflection Priests, brothers, and sisters who have chosen to live in dedicated service within the Roman Catholic Church will want to ground their re-flections on the long and well-articulated tradition of that Church regard-ing the sanctity of life, the ministry of healing and caring that defines Catholic health care, the redemptive role of pain and suffering, and the reality of human finitude and mortality. No document better summarizes 210 / Review for Religious, March-April 1988 that tradition and addresses the pressing moral questions t~aised by new forms of treatment than the Vatican Declaration on Euthanasia.9 The 1980 Declaration, prepared by the Congregation for the Doc-trine of the Faith, carefully distinguishes the terminology used in the eutha-nasia debate: actions and omissions, intentions and consequences, ordi-nary and extraordinary means-~clarified in this document in terms of treat-ments offering "proportionate" or "disproportionate" burdens and bene-fits. Its principles are clear and offer realistic guidelines. While affirming the.sanctity of life and God's sovereignty, the Dec-laration speaks also of the unavoidability of death. Seen in the light bf faith, death provides entrance into eternal life. We may not hasten the hour of death through suicide or murder, but we are not required to sub-mit to treatment that "would only secure a precarious and burdensome prolongation of life, so long as normal care due to the sick person in simi-lar cases is not interrupted." Care-givers act conscientiously when they "administer the remedies that seem necessary or useful." Medical in-terventions that are normally optional, are those in which "the investment in instruments and personnel is disproportionate to the results foreseen" or" those that "impose on the patient strain or suffering out of propor-tion with the benefits which he or she may gain from such techniques." Some Catholic religious may be initially hesitant regarding the legiti-macy of enacting advance directives, having read of the opposition of their bishops to living wills. In this regard it will be important to clarify that the opposition of Conferences of Bishops to state legislation of cer-tain Natural Death Acts was directed at the legislation and not at an indi-vidual person's right of self-determination in writin~g such a directive. Foreseeing the rapid development of law (39 states now have such legis-lation), the National Conference of Bishops, through its Committee for Pro-Life Activities, issued on November 10, 1984, "Guidelines for Leg-islation On Life-Sustaining Treatment." ~0 These guidelines, reflecting the Vatican Declaration, propose "ways of respecting the moral principles ¯ . . as well as related concerns of the Church, whenever there is a de-bate on whether existing or proposed legislation adequately addresses the subject. ' ' The Catholic Health Association distributes a directive, the "Chris-tian Affirmation of Life: A Statement on Terminal Illness," that provide.s an opportunity for a person to state his or her wishes regarding treatment in terminal illness, in full compliance with the principles of the Church. ~ In states that have legislation regarding living wills, some, but not all, Health-Care Directives / 911 allow departures from the statutory form, and this document might be used as an alternative. Women and men whose lives have been lived in faith will also ap-proach sickness and death inspired by the same faith, identifying with Jesus in obedience to the call of the Father. They will appreciate the min-istry of their brothers and sisters who care for them in their illness, and will be concerned to act as responsibly with the resources of their com-munities in their illness as they have done in good health. Belief in res-urrection and eternal life places decisions regarding medical intervention within a faith-context. It will be inappropriate to deny death by insisting on medical interventions that are futile and that only prolong the dying process. Ethical Principles Ethical discussion of the issues raised by new developments in medi-cine and life-extending technologies, when addressed to a broader pub-lic than the Catholic community, is frequently framed in terms of cer-tain principles that must be honored and balanced in the delivery of good health care. Among the principles most central to this debate and to the matter of advance directives are these four: self-determination (or auton-omy), beneficence, justice, and fidelity. The principle of autonomy is derivative from a recognition of the in-herent dignity of the person as a free and self-determining individual. As such., competent adults have a right to control what will be done to them regarding medical treatment, and others have a responsibility to respect their reasonable wishes. This right holds, also, for previously competent adults who have indicated what their preferences would be in the event of incompetency andlor who have designated a proxy to make decisions for them. The full exercise of this right requires adequate disclosure of information--the risks and benefits of alternative procedures--as foun-dation for truly informed consent or refusal. The right to self-determination is not absolute and may be overrid-den in certain circumstances. Patients, thus, may expect that their pref-erences will be honored unless they are in conflict with "compelling state interest," the stated policies of the health-care facility, or the pro-fessional integrity of the care-givers (who are also persons with the right to self-determination). For the religious who has freely joined and re-mained as a member of a community guided by the teachings of the Catho-lic Church, choices will be further limited by fidelity to those teachings. The more extreme interpretations of autonomy assume a radical individu- Review for Religious, March-April 1988 alism that is contrary to the commitment that members of a voluntary com-munity have with respect to one another. The principle of beneficence, or patient benefit in this context, re-quires that one do good and avoid doing harm. The negative requirement (nonrrialeficence) is a more stringent duty than is the need to provide posi-tive benefit to improve the lot of the patient. In fact, these two aspects of o

Sexual Objectification in Mo Yan's Big Breasts and Wide Hips Vianey Paramitha English Literature Faculty of Languages and Arts State University of Surabaya helenavianey23@gmail.com Dr. Ali Mustofa, SS., M.Pd. English Department Faculty of Languages and Arts State University of Surabaya ali_mustofa2005@yahoo.co.uk Abstrak Penelitian ini memfokuskan pada penggambaran objektifikasi seksual yang dialami oleh tokoh utama dan apa efek yang timbul sebagai akibat dari objektifikasi seksual. Fitur objektifikasi seksual ditampilkan untuk memberikan pemahaman tentang klasifikasi objektifikasi seksual. Untuk menjawab masalah pertama, penelitian ini menggunakan teori objektifikasi seksual oleh Fredrickson dan Roberts dan didukung oleh beberapa filsuf dan fitur objektifikasi seksual yang dikemukakan oleh Martha Nussbaum dan Rae Langton. Masalah kedua dijawab dengan menggunakan konsep dari Fredrickson dan Roberts dan filsuf lainnya tentang efek objektifikasi seksual. Data ini menyajikan objektifikasi seksual yang dialami oleh Shangguan Lu dan apa efek dari pengalaman objektifikasi seksual tersebut. Analisis ini mengungkapkan objektifikasi seksual yang dialami Shangguan Lu dan faktor-faktor yang menyebabkan objektifikasi seksual. Fitur dari objektifikasi seksual digunakan untuk menggambarkan bentuk objektifikasi seksual yang dialami Shangguan Lu. Selanjutnya, pengalaman objektifikasi seksual membawa efek di dalam hidupnya. Shangguan Lu mengalami kecemasan terhadap penampilan, disfungsi seksual, kemarahan, depresi, keinginan untuk bunuh diri, kepemilikan terhadap anak-anak, dan sikap seksual. Efek tersebut muncul karena pengalaman objektifikasi seksual. Kata Kunci: objektifikasi seksual, objektifikasi diri. Abstract This study focuses on depicting sexual objectification performed by the main character and what the effect arising as result of sexual objectification. Features of sexual objectification occur to give understanding about classification of sexual objectification. To answer the first problem, this study uses the theory of sexual objectification by Fredrickson and Roberts and supported by several philosophers and the features of sexual objectification offered by Martha Nussbaum and Rae Langton. The second problem is answered by using the concept from Fredrickson and Roberts and other philosopher about the effects of sexual objectification. The data presents Shangguan Lu's sexual objectification and what the effect of her sexual objectification experiences. The analysis reveals Shangguna Lu's sexual objectification and factors which causes sexual objectification. The features of sexual objectification are used to describe the shape of sexual objectification in Shangguan Lu. Furthermore, her sexual objectification experiences bring effect in her life. Shangguan Lu experiences appearance anxiety, sexual dysfunction, anger, depression, willing for suicide, property of children, and sexual attitude. Those effects arise because of her sexual objectification experiences. Keywords: sexual objectification, self objectification. INTRODUCTION Mo Yan is known as great Chinese writer. Many of his works are approved in the world. He is regarded as the winner of Noble Prize in Literature in 2012. The one of his novels which brings him gets the prize is Big Breasts and Wide Hips. This epic novel story is first and foremost about women, with the female body serving as the object for man sexual desire. The story is about the protagonist, Mother, is born in 1900 and married at seventeen into the Shangguan family. She has nine children, only one of whom is a boy. The boy becomes the narrator of the novel. A spoiled and ineffectual child, he stands in stark contrast to his eight strong and forceful female siblings (Mo Yan, 1996). The story begins when she was child, she called as Xuan'er, survives meanwhile her parents are die. She brought up by her aunt and uncle. She grows up, bound feet frowned upon, and so the blacksmith dares to propose marriage between Xuan'er and his son, Shangguan Shouxi. Her name becomes Shangguan Lu. This is reluctantly accepted and Shangguan Lu has to go and live with her despotic mother-in-law and her husband. Her mother-in-law starts becoming even more despotic when Shangguan Lu does not produce any children. However, she and her family eventually realize that it is her husband who is infertile, not her (Mo Yan, 1996: 48-54). Shangguan Lu has sex with other men to get a baby boy. First, she is fertilized by her uncle and gets two daughters. Further, she has sex with duck peddler, monk, dog butcher, even worse, rape by four men. Every time the result is a girl. Finally, Pastor Malory, the local priest who claims to be Swedish, though he speaks the local dialect perfectly, falls in love with her. From Pastor Malory, she manages to deliver another girl and then, immediately after, a son, Jintong (Mo Yan, 1996: 58-75). In 1900s, women in China are still exploited and follow the custom tightly. They have to follow the rules. Shangguan Lu lives between dynasty changing, the glory and collapse of dynasty Qing. When she still five years old, she must binding her feet. Binding feet is shape feet smaller. The smaller the size of their feet, they are considered more beautiful. In marriage, women usually betrothed to increase their level, as requirement, they must look beautiful in front of public. Shangguan Lu shapes her feet tiny in order to make people look her as beautiful woman and the scholar will marry her. Unfortunately, when she is seventeen years old, Qing dynasty is collapse. Binding feet becomes prohibited and tiny feet don't become benchmark of beauty. Her aunt accepts Shangguan family's marriage proposal because she is afraid of no man purpose Shangguan Lu who has tiny feet (Mo Yan, 1996: 48-50). Sexual objectification through Shangguan Lu begin when her mother in law, Shangguan Lü suppress her to have a baby boy. When Shangguan Lu doesn't give any child yet, Shangguan Lü starts to blame her and treat her rude. She concludes that her daughter in law is barren. The objectification between Shangguan Lu and her mother-in-law represents Sarah Gervais's words. Women also objectify woman as more of a comparison with themselves (Sarah Gervais's research article, 2012). Her aunt and uncle are disappointed with Shangguan family and check Shangguan Lu up in doctor. The result is nothing wrong with Shangguan Lu, so that actually Shangguan Shaoxi who is barren. They keep that fact secret in order not to make conflict with Shangguan family (Mo Yan, 1996: 58). Her aunt helps her. She makes Shangguan Lu unconscious and makes her husband have sex with Shangguan Lu. From her uncle, Shangguan Lu gets two daughters, but it can't make Shangguan Lü satisfied (Mo Yan, 1996: 58). Having a son moreover he is the first child in family in China is very important, it gives you pride because in China, men control is very strong. Heir of family is in the son's hand. A daughter is considered as a disgrace. So, Shangguan Lu begins to have sex with other men who is she meet with. She makes her body become an instrument as sex machine in order to fulfill her mother in law will. Objectification theory by Fredrickson and Roberts (1997: 173) postulates that many women are sexually objectified and treated as an object to be valued for its use by others. Her action has effects especially in her psychology. She must bear the burden alone. She keeps her husband disgrace, having sex with other men secretly, and takes care of her children alone. Her husband is not helping at all; he is too submissive with his mother and often treated Shangguan Lu rude. Women, in the other hand according to Evangelia Papadaki, who studies Mackinnon and Dworkin (2007: 344), may have the desire to change reality, but they certainly do not have the power required for such changes. In this case, Shangguan Lu can't rebel and denied Shangguan family's treatments. She wants to get respect from Shangguan family, in contrast, she does not get it even sacrifice her self-regard to other men in order to get baby boy (Mo Yan, 1996: 66). Discussing about woman often followed by stereotype that woman is a sexual object. The study about sexual objectification posted by Frederickson and Roberts is related to explore more about woman as sexual object. The theory of sexual objectification by Fredrickson and Roberts in Psychology of Women Quarterly will also support with other feminists theory likes, Kant in Lectures on Ethics, Dworkin in Pornography: Men Possessing Women, Sandra Bartky in Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression, Herman in Could It Be Worth Thinking About Kant on Sex and Marriage?, etc. Also this thesis contain of features of sexual objectification and the factor to make the reader understand more about sexual objectification. The psychology effects of sexual objectification will explain with theory by Fredrickson and Roberts Psychology of Women Quarterly, Harry Mills's article, Locke from Reason Paper no. 18, etc. Sexual objectification according Fredrickson and Roberts defined as the seeing and/or treating a person as an object. In this entry, the focus is primarily on sexual objectification. Sexual objectification theory suggests both direct and indirect consequences of objectification to women. Sexual objectification theory provides a useful model for understanding how socio cultural factors may give effects for women who experience sexual objectification (Fredrickson and Roberts, 1997: 174). Based on those perceptions it can be conclude that sexual objectification theory are the proper approaches to analyze the sexual objectification and its effects in the character Shangguan Lu in Mo Yan's Big Breasts and Wide Hips. RESEARCH METHOD This thesis uses the novel as object of research. The novel reads many times for properly understanding. The next step is finding appropriate theory for the novel and collecting the data through noting the quotation related with the theory. It is include in words, sentences, and discourse that can represent sexual objectification and its effect in Mo Yan's Big Breasts and Wide Hips. Classification data is important to answer the statement of problems. To make it easier, tabling the data occurs to simplify reading the analysis. SEXUALITY According to Richard A. Posner in Sex and Reason, sexuality is term social attitudes that make sex problematic, self-conscious, rather than just "natural" or biological. Sexual power is something special and comes with its own strings attached. In famous stereotype, men have been the experts in sex. They become the teacher of inexperienced female partners. It means men have sexual power through their female partners (Richard A. Posner, 1994: 13). SEXUAL ACT IN MEN AND WOMEN According to Richard A. Posner in Sex and Reason, woman who lives in sexual abstinence usually has depressions which are same with organic sexual tension. They are manifestation not from a physical urge, but of erotic yearning, narcissistic willing to be loved, and masochistic struggling to give. Even in wives of impotent husbands, the typical irritability and aggressive mood express disappointment, injury, vexation, and contempt rather than a state of somatic excitability. Once the pleasure has been enjoyed, the wish for repetition is naturally intensified (1994: 92). In many women, bourgeois morality or their mother malicious frigidity has created the idea that coitus is a sacrifice they must fulfill dirty needs of men. They must dutifully let it happen to them (Richard A. Posner, 1994: 95). SEXUAL OBJECTIFICATION According to Fredrickson and Roberts in Psychology of Women Quarterly, objectification theory provides a framework for understanding the experience of being female in a socio cultural context that sexually objectifies the female body. Objectification theory postulates that many women are sexually objectified and treated as an object to be valued for its use by others (1997: 173). Sexual objectification occurs when a woman's body or body parts are separated from her as human being and then she is viewed primarily as a physical object for satisfy male sexual desire (Kant, 1963: 165). Sexuality is not an inclination which one human being has for another. It is an inclination for the sex of another. It becomes a principle of degradation of human nature. It gives rise to the preference of one sex to the other, and to the dishonouring of that sex through the satisfaction of desire. A man has desire for woman is not directed towards her because she is human being, but it's because she is woman. The man has no concern because she is human being, only her sex is the object of man sexual desire (Kant, 1963: 164). According to Fredrickson and Roberts in Psychology of Women Quarterly, many woman experience more extreme forms of sexual objectification. It is sexual victimization such as rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment. With these forms of victimization, a woman's body is literally treated as not more than instrument or thing by her perpetrator (1997: 186). Sexual objectification that forms sexual victimization and harassment experiences women at much higher rates than men (Fredrickson and Roberts, 1997: 189). Bartky says the psychological oppression of women consists of women being stereotyped, culturally dominated, and sexually objectified (1990: 23). According to Bartky, there are those practices that aim to produce a body of a certain size and shape: women must conform to the body ideal of their time (1990: 65–67). The very contours a woman's body takes on as she matures -the fuller breasts and rounded hips- have become distasteful (Bartky, 1990: 101). K. Martin also says within pubertal changes, a girl becomes more fully started enter to the culture of sexual objectification (1996: 31). Evangelia Papadaki, who studies MacKinnon and Dworkin, in Sexual Objectification: From Kant to Contemporary Feminism concludes women, on the other hand, may have the desire to change reality, but they certainly do not have the power required for such changes. This means that women are fifty-fifty to act in order to fight sexual objectification. It can be conclude that women are not fully responsible for their objectified fate. Women represent of powerless and victimized person. (2007: 344). Sarah Gervais, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln says that people can't just appoint to the men. Women see other women this way too. This happen related to different motives. Men might be doing it because they're interested in potential mates. Meanwhile women may do it as more of a comparison with themselves. In marriage, a woman is nothing more than an object for her husband's use and abuse. Dworkin posts his pessimistic language. Wife beating and marital rape are belief as a man's ownership of his wife licenses whatever he wishes to do to her. Her body belongs to him to use for his own impingement, to beat, her body belongs to him to use for his own release, to beat, to impregnate" (Dworkin, 1989: 34). According to Dawn M. Syzmanski et al in Sexual Objectification of Women: Advances to Theory and Research, drawing from feminist, vocational, and organizational psychology, the cores criteria for sexual objectification environment are ones in which: a) Traditional gender roles exist, b) a high probability of male contact exists (physically speaking, a male dominated environment), c) women typically hold less power than men in environment, d) high degree of attention is drawn to sexual/physical attributes of women's bodies, e) there is approval and acknowledgement of male gaze (2011: 20). Dawn M. Syzmanski, reading Worell and Remer, says that traditional gender role socialization encourages many men to be powerful, controlling, and dominant; see women as sex objects, view sex as a conquest; and believe that women are their property (2011: 21). Martha Nussbaum in Objectification (1995: 257) has identified seven features that are involved in the idea of treating a person as an object: 1) instrumentality: the treatment of a person as a tool for the objectifiers purposes; 2) denial of autonomy: the treatment of a person as lacking in autonomy and self-determination; 3) inertness: the treatment of a person as lacking in agency, and perhaps also in activity; 4) fungibility: the treatment of a person as interchangeable with other objects; 5) violability: the treatment of a person as lacking in boundary-integrity; 6) ownership: the treatment of a person as something that is owned by another (can be bought or sold); 7) denial of subjectivity: the treatment of a person as something whose experiences and feelings (if any) need not be taken into account. Rae Langton in Sexual Solipsism: Philosophical Essays on Pornography and Objectification (2009: 228–229) has added three more features to Nussbaum's list: 8) reduction to body: the treatment of a person as identified with their body, or body parts; 9) reduction to appearance: the treatment of a person primarily in terms of how they look, or how they appear to the senses; 10) silencing: the treatment of a person as if they are silent, lacking the capacity to speak. THE EFFECTS OF SEXUAL OBJECTIFICATION Appearance anxiety, according to medical dictionary, is social anxiety surrounding overall appearance, including body shape, and fear of negative evaluation by others. It likes the environment only looked someone by physical appearance. Commonly, it happens to woman who always worries with physical appearance. Fredrickson and Roberts posts in Psychology of Women Quarterly that self-objectification can increase women's anxiety about physical appearance, fear about when and how woman will be looked or evaluated, and reduce opportunities for gain position in states. It also diminishes awareness of internal bodily sensations and increase women's opportunities for body shame. Woman has emotion that results because of measure standard with other women. This self-objectification can increase women's physical safety in which can lead to depression and sexual dysfunction (1997: 180-181). Fredrickson and Roberts in Psychology of Women Quarterly also say that sexual dysfunctionorsexual malfunctionrefers to a difficulty experienced by an individual or a couple during any stage of a normalsexual activity, includingdesire, preference, arousal or orgasm. There are many factors which may result in a person experiencing a sexual dysfunction. These may result from emotional or physical causes. Emotional factors include in interpersonal or psychological problems. Emotional factors can be the result of depression, sexual fears or guilt, past sexual trauma, and sexual disorders. Sexual dysfunction is especially common among people who haveanxiety disorders (1997: 190). Anger can occur when people don't feel well, feel rejected, feel threatened, or experience some loss. Pain alone is not enough to cause anger. Anger occurs when pain is combined with some anger-triggering thought. Thought that can trigger anger is personal assessment, assumptions, evaluations, or interpretations of situations that makes people think that someone else is attempting, consciously or not, to hurt them. In this sense, anger is a social emotion. Sometimes people make themselves angry so that they don't have to feel pain. People change their feelings of pain into anger because it feels better to be angry than it does to be in pain (Harry Mills's article Psychology of Anger, 2005). According to Mental Health Foundation, depression can happen suddenly as a result of physical illness, experiences dating back to childhood, unemployment, bereavement, family problems or other life-changing events. Having a female body, according to Fredrickson and Roberts in Psychology of Women Quarterly, gives girls and women plenty worry about and little to control. A woman's body generates feeling of helplessness. It can also result of depression (1997: 188). Dawn M. Szymanski, reading Clark et al, adds that individuals who deal with oppressive events may have feelings of anger and depression. It continues to other negative substances to manage these feelings (2011: 18). Suicide, according to Oxford dictionary, is the action of killing oneself intentionally. Suicide is often committed out of despair, the cause of which is frequently attributed to a mental disorder such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse (Keith Hawton's article Suicide, 2009). Common methods include: hanging, pesticide poisoning, and firearms. According to suicide case data from 1978–2008, China has one of the highest female suicide rates in the world and is the only country where it is higher than that of men (World Health Organization, 2011). Xu Rong, head of the Suicide Prevention Project at the Beijing Cultural Development Centre for Rural Women, explains this emotionally taxing situation so many Chinese women encounter: "They have their father-in-law to deal with, their mother-in-law, various uncles, sisters-in-law and so on. She's got to gain everyone's acceptance. When there are conflicts, she's the weakest." There are places in the world today where children are regarded more or less as property, and the results are not pretty. In some places parents do sell children, and especially daughters, into slavery, or otherwise exploit them for the parents' advantage. Mothers own their children (Reason Papers no. 18, 1993: 191). Okin in Justice, Gender, and the Family says that a woman presumably would be entitled to use her children in any way she wishes, to keep it in a cage to amuse her. It looks like as some people keep bird. She feels free to eat it or kill it if she were so inclined (1989: 84). Women have babies, and babies come into the world dependent and incomplete. They require years of parental nurturing, a huge investment of resources. The effect is women offer in return. It is legal contract as the return of parental nurturing (Reason Papers no. 18 Who Owns the Children? Libertarianism, Feminism, and Property, 1993). According to Greg R. Foster, we do not inherit sexual attitude. Rather than inherit, our attitudes evolve from social, economic, and political necessity. Often they evolve out of fear, guilt, or shame (1968: 317). The mothers are reluctant to talk about sexuality to their daughters as they find it embarrassing to discuss these issues even daughters want to discuss about such issues with their mothers but feel hesitant to ask fearing their curiosity may be rebuffed as 'too much interest'. In the absence of a cultural framework of communication both mothers and daughters are faced with a dilemma – whereas the culture and traditions advice against it, the time demands it. The adolescent girls do not get information from their mothers due to this. The social taboos surrounding sexuality are so great that young adolescent girls usually do not share their sexuality views with their mothers and they are misguided and hence indulge in pre- marital sex (from neerusha.wordpress.com, posted in 2008). SEXUAL OBJECTIFICATION IN SHANGGUAN LU Binding feet in order to make women looked beautiful is one of the example sexual objectification. Because of her gender and position, Xuan'er (childhood name of Shangguan Lu) who is innocent follows the old tradition and start to binding her feet. Her aunt utilizes her innocence to create Xuan'er future, marrying with rich or high social class man. Her aunt uses Xuan'er as an asset which can be exchange with another material. Xuan'er produces a feminine body which learn to see themselves as objects for gaining scholar men (based on Bartky, 1990: 65-67). By looking Xuan'er from her body shape and makes her body adorable as the society accept, her aunt and uncle do sexual objectification indirectly to her. According to K. Martin (1996: 31), with her pubertal changes, Xuan'er becomes more fully initiated into the culture of sexual objectification. Her mother-in-law also the person who makes Shangguan Lu experiences sexual objectification. As the theory women who objectify woman by Sarah Gervais's research article in 2012, women are perceiving women this way, too. It could be related to different motives. Men might be doing it because they're interested in potential mates, while women may do it as more of a comparison with themselves. Shangguan Lü can give a son to her family, so she compares her own pride to her daughter-in-law. Shangguan Lü feels valuable than Shangguan Lu because she can produce a son. Shangguan Shouxi only looks Shangguan Lu as the object of his desire. He has no role as husband who supposed to protect and take care of his wife. He exploits Shangguan Lu to fulfil his sexual desire. It means Shangguan Lu humanity is not respected. Shangguan Shouxi has no concern about Shangguan Lu's feeling. All he cares is whenever he wants to do sex, she must serving him, whether she wants or not. Sexual objectification puts wife as the object of husband. There is no protection to wife. Shangguan Shouxi makes Shangguan Lu not only as object for his sexual desire but also object to beat whenever he wants. Her body belongs to him, so Shangguan Shouxi feels free to do whatever he wants including beat his wife's body. Shangguan Lu is powerless person, Shangguan Shouxi can do anything rude to her freely. As Evangelia Papadaki's conclusion (reading MacKinnon and Dworkin), Shangguan Lu presented as completely powerless and victimized (2007: 344). Shangguan Lu experiences extreme forms of sexual objectification. She Lu is being rape by four men Four men have objectified Shangguan Lu. She becomes sexual victim. Shangguan Lu has less power, so she can't rebel or out from that situation. She never wants to be raped although she utilizes herself for sex (based on Fredrickson and Roberts, 1997: 186). There are factors why she is objectified by the men. Shangguan Lu portrays as the exotic women with big breasts and wide hips. Men bring high degree of attention by their body. Also, Shangguan Lu typically holds less power than the men in environment. Shouxi and other men become the ones who are powerful, controlling, and dominant (2011: 20-21). One of seven features idea of treating a person as an object by Martha Nussbaum (1995, 257) implies in Big Paw Yu attitude toward Xuan'er. It is ownership which is the treatment of a person as something that is owned by another (can be bought or sold). Matchmaking is one of the methods in selling human. Xuan'er's owner is her aunt and uncle.Big Paw Yu likes to exchange Xuan'er beauty with appropriate price for grown up Xuan'er. Big Paw Yu feels dominate Xuan'er as his own treasure because he deserves for raising Xuan'er. The way Pastor Malory describes Shangguan Lu's body also can be the example of Rae Langton (2009: 228-229) about the features of sexual objectification. It is reduction to body which is the treatment of a person as identified with their body, or body parts. Pastor Milory's description about Shangguan Lu waist and breasts means that Shangguan Lu identified through her sexual parts of her body. THE EFFECTS OF SEXUAL OBJECTIFICATION Shangguan Lu gets appearance anxiety as the effect of her sexual objectification. She anxiety about how society, especially men, value and pay attention in her. Shangguan Lu compares her feet with her aunt. In that time, a woman looks beautiful from the size of her feet. Woman with tinier feet values as the most beautiful women. Based on that stereotype, Shangguan Lu feels anxiety about her feet size. She wants to value as beautiful woman. Shangguan Lu does not enjoy at all doing sex with Dabiao. It may happen because Dabiao has no appeal, he describes as ugly man. Shangguan Lu who describes as beautiful woman with big breasts and wide hips is worth for better man than Dabiao. It influences her sexual activity, she does sex with no attractive and desire. Shangguan Lu keeps her anger inside to make her feel better. Even it is not move out, it can decrease her pain. Her anger occurs because she feels threatened to have baby boy, her efforts to become appropriate wife and daughter-in-law are not appreciated by Shangguan family, and the pain for what they do. Mostly, she keeps her anger inside because she doesn't want worse condition. If she disapprove, Shangguan family treatments to her will be getting worse. Cry is one of Shangguan Lu's emotions to decrease her depression. In fact, she cannot handle all of her disappointment, burden, and pain as a result of sexual objectification. Sexual objectification experiences make her weak, not only physically but also mentally. Dawn M. Szymanski, reading Clark et al, adds that individuals who deal with oppressive events may have feelings of anger and depression, which may then lead to coping via use of alcohol or other substances to manage these feelings (2011: 18). Passed out is one of the substances to manage her feeling. Shangguan Lu keeps many problems by herself. It makes her helplessness. Fredrickson and Roberts (1997: 188) also say that sexual objectification may result of depression. Shangguan Lu experiences sexual objectification, even sexual rape which also the shape of sexual objectification. Shangguan Lu has depression inside her. It leads to a will of suicide. According to Xu Rong's explanation, Shangguan Lu represents a Chinese woman with many problems. When Shangguan Lu is in conflict, she is the weakest. The biggest problem is the difficulties in producing son. Her willing for suicide is because of marital conflict. A woman, according Okin, presumably would be entitled to use her children in any way she wishes (1989: 84). Shangguan Lu who becomes a mother, entitled to use her daughter in any way she wishes for, including sell them. The reason of sell her child is because she is not capable for raising nine children and one granddaughter. The only way to survive this condition is sell her children so her daughter will raise appropriate with adoptive mother. Daughters of Shangguan Lu do not inherit Shangguan Lu's sexual attitude. Likes Greg R. Foster, their attitude evolve from social and fear (1968: 317). Her daughters don't know how sexual objectification experiences in their mother. Xiangdi knows her mother and sisters live poorly. They often have no food for eat. She is afraid if her family increasingly displaced. Her fear encourages to self objectify. She sold herself to give money for her mother and sister so they can live well. She sacrifices herself by objectify herself. She feels that she meritorious to her family. Greg R. Foster's theory implies that Xiangdi's fear about her family financial condition leads her to experience sexual objectification (1968: 37). CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION Sexual objectification is treating or seeing person as sexual object to fulfill one's sexual desire. This person also evaluates only by her physical appearance. Based on Sarah Gervais's statement, sexual objectification commonly happens in woman's life. Woman and man have probability to objectify woman, but they will not objectify man. This study describes about sexual objectification experiences and the effects to Shangguan Lu in Mo Yan's Big Breasts and Wide Hips. Her mother-in-law's attitude toward her implies Sarah Gervais's statement about woman who objectify woman as comparison for herself. Shangguan Lu also experiences the extreme form of sexual objectification as Fredrickson and Roberts's theory such as rape and sexual harassment. The factors encourage sexual objectification experiences is Shangguan Lu are based on Dworkin and Syzmanski. Those are because men are human centre of the world and he is powerful, controlling, and dominant. Woman, likes Shangguan Lu, is typically hold less power. Based on Martha Nussbaum and Rae Langton's theory about features of sexual objectification, Shangguan Lu includes in instrumentality, ownership, and reduction to body. The sexual objectification in Shangguan Lu brings effects in her life and personality. They are appearance anxiety, sexual dysfunction, anger, depression, willing for suicide, property of children, and sexual attitude. Appearance anxiety is fear about how her body be evaluated with another. Appearance anxiety happens when Shangguan Lu makes decision to binding her feet. She does it to evaluate as beautiful woman. Sexual dysfunction occurs when she has no desire in sexual activity with Gao Dabiao. Anger appears because Shangguan Lu has pain of sexual objectified combined with disappointment. She mostly keeps her anger inside herself. Shangguan Lu who feels helpless because of sexual objectification often gets depression. Her depression expresses by surrender to condition and cry. The worse of her depression is when she passed out. Also, the extreme way of Shangguan Lu's sexual objectification experiences is takes shortcuts to suicide in order to free from her suffer. The other effects are her attitude towards her daughters. Okin gives thought that woman presumably would be entitled to use her children in any way she wishes, even if Shangguan Lu wishes her daughter to be sold. Shangguan Lu has full will in property her children. The last is her daughter sexual attitude. Daughters of Shangguan Lu do not inherit her sexual attitude. Xiangdi, who is afraid if her family displaced, sells her body to get money for her family. Shangguan Lu who experiences sexual objectification also hides her sexual activity from her daughter. Even though she is sexually objectify, she does not want her daughters get same experiences. This study gives contribution in sexual and gender study. Big Breasts and Wide Hips gives portrait of woman who looks by physical, sexual, and gender. Shangguan Lu's life story gives description how Chinese woman who has no social class treats unfair by the society especially men in that era. This novel brings knowledge about how hard to born as a woman in China at that time. The story in Big Breasts and Wide Hips also has other aspects beside sexual and gender study. In future, this novel worth to discuss in other issues viewpoints. REFERENCES Bartky, Sandra Lee. 1990. Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression. New York: Routledge. Brake, Elizabeth. 2005. Justice and Virtue in Kant's Account of Marriage in Kantian Review. Dallas: Spence Publishing Company. Dworkin, Andrea. 1989. Pornography: Men Possessing Women, New York: E.P. Dutton. Dworkin, Andrea. 1997. Intercourse. New York: Free Press Paperbacks. Foster, Greg R. 1968. Considerations in a Philosophy of Sex Education. Winchester Community School: A Laboratory of Ideas. Fredrickson, Barbara L. and Tomi-Ann Roberts. 1997. Objectification Theory in Psychology of Women Quarterly. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Herman, Barbara.1993. Could It Be Worth Thinking About Kant on Sex and Marriage? in A Mind of One's Own: Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity. Boulder: Westview Press. Kant, Immanuel. 1963. Lectures on Ethics. New York: Harper and Row Publisher. Langton, Rae. 2009. Sexual Solipsism: Philosophical Essays on Pornography and Objectification. Oxford: Oxford University Press. MacKinnon, Catharine. 1987. Feminism Unmodified. London: Harvard University Press. MacKinnon, Catharine. 1989. Towards a Feminist Theory of the State. London: Harvard University Press. MacKinnon, Catherine. 1989. Sexuality, Pornography, and Method: Pleasure under Patriarchy in Ethics volume 2. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Martin, K. 1996. Puberty, Sexuality, and the Self: Boys and Girls at Adolescence. New York: Routledge Nussbaum, Martha. 1995. Objectification in Philosophy and Public Affairs. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Okin, Susan Moller. 1989. Justice, Gender, and the Family. New York: Basic Books. Papadaki, Evangelia. 2007. Sexual Objectification: From Kant to Contemporary Feminism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Posner, Richard A. 1994. Sex and Reason. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Syzmanski, Dawn M. et all. 2011. Sexual Objectification of Women: Advances to Theory and Research. CA: Sage Publications. Vaughn, Karen I. 1993. Who Owns the Children? Libertarianism, Feminism, and Property in Reason Papers no. 18. Los Angeles: Nash Publishing. Yan, Mo. 1996. Big Breasts and Wide Hips. New York: Arcade Publishing. INTERNET SOURCES http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2012/bio-bibl.html downloaded on December 20th, 2013 http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/mo-yan-the-beacon-of-chinese-literature/1/224329.html downloaded on December 20th, 2013 http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/mental-health-a-z/D/depression/ downloaded on April 9th, 2013 http://womanobjectification.blogspot.com/ downloaded on April 9th, 2013 http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=5804 downloaded on April 9th, 2013 http://www.dekcsb.org/116-anger-management/article/5804-psychology-of-anger downloaded on April 9th, 2013 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014067360960372X downloaded on April 9th, 2013 http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/suicide-factsheet-a.pdf downloaded on April 9th, 2013 http://rebekahnydam.hubpages.com/hub/The-Problem-of-Female-Suicide-in-China downloaded on April 9th, 2013 http://neerusha.wordpress.com/attitude-of-mothers-and-daughters-towards-sexuality-effect-of-mothers-work/ downloaded on April 9th, 2013

Issue 21.4 of the Review for Religious, 1962. ; ALOYSIUS J. MEHR, O.S.C. Community Exercises in Religious Life Introduction: The Religious Community in Perspec-tive The religious communityx exists within two wider communities from which it draws its own unique vitality and significance. These two communities--forming one kingdom of God--are the Church and the total human world. Both are immeasurably deep and charged with dynamism; and we cannot arrive at an adequate grasp of the significance of community exercises in religious life unless we see the posture of our own particular commu-nity within these two great communities which are great covenants, the covenant of creation and the cove-nant of Christ. The religious community, however, is not related to the Church and the world only extrinsically as though these formed some kind of background or framework out-side of the community. Kather, the religious community exists at the point of encounter between two great lines of force and destiny which are the Church and the world. Its being calls out to the total human Community from which it arises and in whose service it acts; and its being is a response, deep and creative, to the call of the Word of God. The religious community sums up, symbolizes, and is an eikon of the human community and of the Church. The religious community, therefore, arises from the depths of creation, from the depths of life, lost in the eons of the life's growth itself.2 We carry on the work of crea- 2 This paper was written for and delivered at the international convention on Crosier spirituality held at Maaseik, Belgium, July 24-26, 1961. It has been revised so as to make it applicable to re-ligious communities in genera!. 2 Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, translated by. Bernard Wall (New york: Harper, 1959); The Divine Milieu, trans-lated by Bernard Wall (New York: Harper, 1960). Hans Urs yon 4. 4. Aloysius J. Mehr, O.S.C., is on the faculty of Crosier House of Studies, Route 1, Wallen Road, Fort Wayne 8, Indiana. VOLUME 21, 1962 30! 4" Aloysius Mehr, O.~.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS tion, converging, as Teilhard sees it, to a kind of world unity in which all things are synthesized into community,a The direction of the history of life has moved through phases of biology ("biogenesis") into the world of incar-nate spirits ("noogenesis"); and in the New Covenant this force is caught up in the moment of the Resurrection, present among us as a pledge of the final entry into the glory of the Lord (kabod Yahweh). Our community-being, our being-together (Mitsein in Heidegger's termi-nology) is thus wrapped up in the forces and destinies of life, surging on in space-time towards its fullness, the seed of which it carries in itself at the present. Moreover, our community-being is also wrapped up in the fulfillment of creation, the new creation in Christ who draws all to the parousial and paschal destiny of all creation--a destiny that is already sacramentally present in a community called together in the Eucharistic sacrificial meal. These are undoubtedly far-reaching and difficult themes the full significance of which will always remain inaccessible to us, lost behind the veil of the future and the inscrutable destinies of man in the divine plan. We must expect, then, that any discussion of the religious community must, in its ultimate significance, shadow off into mystery. We shall not be able to lay out the forces in us as problems which can be solved, here and now, once and for all times. Community-being is essentially dynamic: we, as men and as religious, are homines vi-atores. Our fellowship in God is an eikon--an image, a sign, a symbol--of the Church localized in our areas of concern, but the Church which is the people of God on the march (in via), creating (in/ieri) what we most deeply are unto fullness in Christ who fulfills all in all (Eph 1:23; Jas 1:18). From this viewpoint we are able to see, or rather to begin to see, the profound significance of community exercises. Community exercises are the historical and temporal incarnations of our being-together (Mitsein). There is a deep and vast need, truly an ontological need, a need arising from our being-together, for authentic community activity that emanates from the inexhaust-ible fullness of our being.4 What we are demands suc-cessive real-ization; our being overflows into our life. Activity, operatio, exercise--these are not on some pe-riphery of the real, bu~ rather incarnations in the fabric of the real world. Man is embodied soul and besouled body. His existence is incarnate existence, caught up in Balthasar, Science, Religion, and Christianity, translated by Hilda Graef (London: Bums and Oates0 1958). s Teilhard develops this theme in The Phenomenon of Man: ~ Gabriel Marcel, Homo Fiator, translated by Emma Crawford (Chicago: Regnery0 1955), p. 26. solidarity with the corporeal universe but transcending it as spirit.5 Human being demands expression; as in-carnate, it is essentially temporal, basically historical, realizing itself further and more fully in successive and authentic encounters with the real--in the mysteries of birth, death, conversion, sickness, and above all, love.~ This paper is, first of all, a re-investigation of certain societal universals--relationships of persons which are the anthropological, sociological, and theological binding forces which help to produce a healthy and fruitful com-munity. The term "relationship" will be used more fre-quently than "community exercises" or "community ac-tivities." This, however, should not confuse the reader. An activity has social implications and social value if it is a relationship to others. The fact, therefore, that we will not group our material under the usual headings like "prayer life" or "recreations" or "the apostolate" should not tempt the reader to conclude that we are not speaking of things usually thought of as "community ex-ercises." We will speak primarily about the unifying forces, the community-building potential of community exercises, whether these be a simple conversation, a rec-reation, the Mass, superior-subject relationships, pro-fessional relationships of instructors with students, or even the exercise of talent in a "private" way within the community. It would be wrong to see as binding forces only those activities in which all of us perform the same movements or say the same words. On the other hand, community and society can hardly exist where there is no mutual a.ctivity, no common involvement of all the members in some fruitful, meaningful task. Finally, this analysis of communal activities precisely in their unifying value views the religious community in its objective, intersubjective, and Christian dimension. Part I: Community in Social Patterns To an anthropologist7 a very significant characteristic of the monastic community is that it is a celibate, reli-giously oriented institution'. This is without precedent or parallel in primitive or preliterate culture. In general, as the society becomes progressively complex,, certain indi-a Von Balthasar .develops this theme in his book Science, Religion, and Christianity. e Gabriel Marcel, The Philosophy O] Existence, translated by 4. Manya Harari (New York: Philosophical Library, 1949)', p. 6. 7The Reverend Alphonse Sowada, OiS.C., received his master's degree in anthropology from the Catholic University of America, Community Washington, D.C., in the spring o[ 1961. In an interview with the Exercises Reverend Ronald Kidd, O.S.C., he initiated in outline form the following analysis of the monastic community based, on anthropo-logical procedure. Father Sowada is'presently working in the New Guinea Mission, VOLUME 21, 1962 3O3 ÷ ÷ ÷ Aloysius Mehr, O$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 3O4 viduals are set aside solely for religious activity. Hence the phenomenon even of the Israelitic priestly office, given to the tribe of Levi, suggests a somewhat highly developed social complexus. Furthermore, sexual prac-tices become restricted for religious specialists only in civilized, cultured society. The religious community, com-bining both factors, arises only late in the development of a people. This unique development suggests various problems: a separation from the elemental and primitive social binding forces, perhaps a tendency towards over-com-plexity and hyper-specialization, in general, a danger of an ever greater artificiality. Man-to-Nature Relationships The ecological system comprises the sum total of the man-to-nature relationships in a given social organiza-tion. It comprises all the activities by which these people make a living--how they satisfy their elemental needs from nature. Thus, the supplying of food, the manufac-ture of clothing, the realm of technology, and attendant organizations and belief are .elements in an ecological system. In primitive societies, these are the concern of everyone; social organizations and belief patterns (treated in the following sections of this paper) arise from this common involvement in wresting an existence from na-ture. The ecological system forms the foundation for the actual social forms of the people. In the religious community, participation in this basic, elemental social activity is often frustrated. The general pattern is the specialization of ecological functions; they are more often than not entrusted to a few--the prior,,;, procurators, and other superiors. As a result, the remain-ing members of the community lack this elemental bind-ing force with one another and with the community as a whole. This can easily lead to frustration, complacency, and eventually create parasites within the community, In this connection it should be noted that the work of those religious who are engaged in manual labor almost exclusively is much more in line with the needs expressed in an ecological system, provided that they are truly a part of the community in which and for which they work. In order to utilize this natural, social binding force, these religious must feel themselves solidly within the whole community. They should experience the same satisfaction that the son or daughter enjoys when they begin to co-operate with their parents in providing a livelihood for the family. The social bindings formed by the ecological system are intense and deep. For the clerical and teaching members of a community, there is also a need for an acceptable way either to fulfill this function or to find an adequate substitute. The apostolate might seem like a perfect substitute. But in the apostolate the results are apt to be too far distant for the immediate kind of satisfaction caused by common involvement in providing the basic necessities of life. In fact, where superiors or subjects try to make' apostolic work an "acceptable" sublimation, the very 'remoteness of results can tend precisely to create further frustration and complacency. '~ In general, any project in which personal initiative is called into play within and for the community and in which a sense of fulfillment can be forthcoming ~can be used as a substitute. Such projects are of great value in binding together the religious,community. Stress should be placed°especially on the matter of results; for example, graduation, profession, and ordination days should be planned wisely to be days of community joy in accom-plishment rather than of relief in being through with tedious work. Although effective substitutes depend on both subjects and superiors, it is the superiors, above all, who must see the absolute need for them. Individual ~religious may have the initiative to make valuable .suggestions, but :the only person who can integrate these suggested projects into the community and give them their full social force is ,the superior. Without due attention, the community moves towards increasingly artificial social forms, lacking and attempting to substitute for, the basic level of social solidarity. In order to have a healthy community, we must find effective and meaningful substitutes. Man-to-Man Relationships Next, we deal with interpersonal relationships, en-compassing social ability and practice, questions of status and hierarchy in the communal organization, questions of law regulating interpersonal behavior, family orienta-tion, pressure groups, informal and formal groupings. This is the area of personal response and personal: activ-ity~ phenomena that vary with,each individual. Consid-eration of the interpersonal relationships are of 'utmost importance in analyzing the social structure of a com-munity; they form the operative and dynamic structure of society. Perhaps the most evident charact~eristic of interpersonal relations within the religious community is its thorough structure ot control. First of all, everyone knows every-one else and every individual can control his response thereby. Moreover, the social control within our unique form of community is almost familial or patriarchal. This is a good basis for developed social organization. In a healthy community a person is a part of things, 4. + + Community Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 305 ÷ Aloysim OM.e~h.Cr., REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS he knows what is expected of him, he is not bewildered or lost within the crowd. He is at home, he knows how to approach everyone else, he knows how to regulate topics of conversation, to account for individual differ-ences, to accept the particular interests of the other mem-bers of the religious society. He enjoys that ecce quam bonum feeling which is a natural result of being [ul_ly ac-cepted by the group. He belongs to them, uncondition-ally; they are happy to have him and would be distressed at losing him. As. a further consequence, he feels shel-tered, contented, and can gradually abandon all his poor little defensive mechhnisms as well as the defects of. char-acter which necessitate them. All his potential gifts can flower, he can. give himself up confidently to his most generous aspirations. Such. :are the blessings which accrue to an individual who lives in a healthy group definitely ready to accept him.s There are, however, definite dangers in our communal make-up. The first and perhaps most serious danger is that of artificiality--artificially controlled responses. To the extent that responses become too automatic, too pat, too set, too taken-for-granted, the very situation which ought to promote solidarity could conceivably destroy it. Responses must be genuine; meaningless responses are detrimental to community. The artificiality of community llfe can be much re-lieved by warm parental and fraternal relationships be-tween superiors and subjects, instructors and students, and, above all, between equals. This fosters the character formation that ordinarily occurs within the family. Con-sequently, everyone must take his role in community seriously; he must be open, understanding, sympathetic, and avoid meaningless responses and inflexibility policy in the name of functional efficiency. Professors ought to be aware of the fact that attitudes built up by personal relationships with students are as important as the material being taught. On the other hand, students must realize that they have much to learn and that their attitude towards their instructors is extremely important. Entering. into dialogue is always a two way street. Within the community deep and authentic friendships should be fostered, for personality grows in proportion as it is opened to others. Fear of friendship shatters munity and leaves only a group of isolated introverts living in the same building. Mistaken notions of partic, ular friendship have forced many a religious to lead an unnecessarily lonely life. Authentic friendship means that I am genuinely con-e Communal Lile, translated by a Religious of the Sacred Heart (Westminster: Newman, 1957), p. 267. cerned with my neighbor as a person. When interest is only pretended, people instinctively feel that they are be-ing treated, not as human beings, but as a case, an object, an It. Make-believe interest, pharisaical interest does more harm than good. Every Christian, and certainly every religious, should be conscious of the manyreasons why he should be deeply and genuinely interested in his neighbor in all places and at all times. Another danger in our communal make-up presents it-self where subjects refuse to cooperate with their supe-rior, or where incapable men are invested with status-power. In primitive tribes, subjects who refuse to work with their superior are simply eliminated. Moreover, a leader who blunders in personal relations or in tribal projects, for example, failing to bring off a hunting raid successfully, loses prestige ipso facto. But in our com-munity, the social status of the members is not easily changed. This has its advantages and disadvantages. More permanent social relationships can be formed so as to .give the individuals a greater security and to give the social order a basic stability. On the other hand, where poor relat!onships are formed, this situation too tends to perpetuate itself. Overspecialization is another factor which endangers solidarity in a community. Anthropologists distinguish between diversification, which can lead to mutual de-pendence and promote solidarity, and specialization, in which a member withdraws himself from the community in order to devote his time and energies to some partlc-ular field. In primitive societies, specialists share perforce a vast number of tribal interests: the medicine man is interested in the buffalo hunt and thereby enjoys a social binding to the hunters; he is involved in wars and raids since his status to some extent depends on a perpetuation of the present social organization. In general, in primitive cul-tures, bindings between religious functions and the re-mainder of tribal functions are very strong. But when society develops, it tends to free itself more and more from nature (the ecological system); and it does so only to become more and more dependent upon man and man-to-man relations. This dependence must serve as a constructive and not a destructive force. In order to prevent diversification--which is absolutely necessary in a complex society--from becoming special-ization, we must manifest and recognize on a community level our mutual dependence; for example, the very real dependence of one teacher upon all the others. Here we see the importance of faculty meetings in which the par-ticular field of competence of one person is seen as com-plementing that of another. There are many ways of Community Exercises VOLUME 21, 196Z ÷ ÷ ÷ Aloysius Mehr~ O.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS keeping different interests and fields of competence from becoming divisive. Perhaps greater stress should be placed on the apostolate as a community apostolate, a common effort, accomplished in different ways by each individual, but without thereby becoming any less communal in in-spiration, motivation, and reality. An awareness of our mutual dependence is absolutely necessary for the proper integration of personal activity towards our social goals. Interpersonal relationships in the religious community include not only individual-to-individual relations but also those of groups.-A formal grouping is one which is established de [acto and is recognized by the society as exercising a certain control of the whole. Chapters, councils, a faculty, special committees for accreditation, and so forth are all formal groupings. Informal groupings are not officially set up or estab-lished. We see examples of informal groupings during common recreation periods or when some religious work together informally as a group. Informal groupings can at times exercise more influence than the formal group-ings; that is especially true if the formal groupings are inoperative or if the i.nterrelationships between formal groupings is neglected. It is in the informal groupings that public opinion is formed and in many cases social innovation begins. The informal groupings should pro-vide much of the initiative and dynamism necessary for any society to be alive, to grow and develop, and to keep in touch with the members and their real needs and as-pirations. While informal groupings are very important, formal groupings are even more important in a religious com-munity; ours is by its nature a hierarchical society, and one strongly so. Therefore the effective functioning of our formal groupings is especially important for the vi-tality of the entire community. Inoperative formal group-ings, or artificiality in formal ,groupings, invites seg-mentation of the society, then disintegration, and finally demoralization. The history of the American Indian is an extreme case of precisely this. Factors leading to inoperative formal groupings are many. Among them are age differences, lack of precise definitions of ideals, and immaturity. For a well-function-ing community, superiors-,must be willing to present straightforward proposals to their councils or others' whose advice they are to seek. This means the full pres-entation of real cases that involve discussion and choice, not simply decisions for'ratification.9 In short, he must seek to collaborate. Also, he must have the humility and wisdom to consider minority positions; seeking support Ibid., pp. 270-273. only in numbers infallibly excites mistrust, resentment, opposition, or utter indit~erence. "The prudent and most efficient thing for the superior to do is to make the group share, from the beginning, in the common task.''1° Cooperation between formal and informal groupings is of the essence in achieving a healthy, vital c0mmufiity. This means that we must understand the roles which these groups are to play within, the community. More-over, since the religious community is so strongly hier-archical and the superior tO a large extent controls the interrelationships between formal and informal group-ings, he should be doubly alert, astute, and comprehend-ing in regard to the ideas generated in the informal groupings.Suspicion on the part of a superior is harmful to the vitality of the community, kills personal initiative, and tends again to artificial substitutions and the seg-mentation of the community fabric. But beyond this a superior must have the ability to select appropriate ideas from the informal groupingsmthose ideas which will prove beneficial to the community. It is difficult to re-spect a superior who accepts every suggestion that is of-fered to him or proves that he does not have the ability to choose well. In a primitive society he would in that eventuality lose status. Man-to-Ideals Relationships Under this heading we find community purpose and sense of purpose. In primitive society religion ferments the whole society. And certainly community goals, re-ligious ideals, can and should be important unifying fac-tors in a religious community. It is worthy of note here that in primitive ~ociety where the satisfying of the basic needs has such a prominent role, the upper echelons tend to have the same ideals as those of lower status, the .young as the old, the specialists as those engaged in community projects. When the eco-logical needs become less urgent and the man=to-man relationships more important, it becomes more difficult for all to have the same ideals. But the religious commun-ity should be able to realize this unity of ideals in a way that other communities in contemporary life cannot. In a religious community we-ness will tend to be established by living according to a unique set of ideals--provided the ideals are well defined. Our fellowship, as we will see later, is a unique fellowship in Godl For social vitality and solidarity, it is better to define ideals clearly and energetically and then, as the need arises, to modify them than not to define them at all or to define .them haphazardly or casually. Searching for Ibid., p. 270. 4" 4" CEoxm~misuensity VOLUME 21, 1962 309 4. 4. dloysius OM.Se.hCr,., REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ideals has little social result. Without well-defined, known, and accepted objectives, ideals will be fashioned individually and in groups; this leads directly to com-munity segmentation. In this situation, the very factors which in a healthy social organization cause solidarity and vitality have the el~ect instead of segmenting the community. Ideals must and will be formed. If the proper formal grouping will not define them, it is inevitable that informal groupings will attempt to fill this lack. Community goals and ideals, however, cannot be al-lowed to stagnate. Once they have been defined, they must be re-defined as social changes and new needs make themselves felt. In this sense, it is only by innovation that society can maintain its health and well-being. For these reasons, our ideals require constant modification and elaboration to insure their continued adequacy for the very real and growing society which they both reflect and form. Furthermore, wise inter-group relationships constitutd community dynamisms and insure that the social structures of the community are truly alive and' changing--that the incarnations of the community ideals are true responses to the appeals of the era and the per~ sons, that the community continues to be constituted through history in its response to the Word, that its voca-tion continues to be authentic. It is in this context that tradition possesses real meaning. One group, which is n.aturally the most capable of really fruitful effort in this direction, is the meetings oE the various spiritual directors on a regional or inter-national basis. Undoubtedly much good could be ac-complished by regular and well-prepared meetings of these spiritual leaders in each order or congregation. Each meeting should consist oE a series of scholarly papers followed by serious discussion. Here again, we should point out the grave responsibit-ity of superiors. Upon their shoulders must rest a good portion of the burden of keeping goals alive and develop-ing with the community itself. But this responsibility can-not be placed solely upon the superiors. For a society to develop, all should participate in the re-discovery of old ideals and the formation of new. Community is a "we"; its responsibilities are no less communal than the end which they serve. If a religious suffers from abnormal loneliness, an anthropologist would immediately look for some need which is neither being fulfilled nor et~ectively substituted for. Where such a condition exists, the man is not livit~g a whole life; and attempting to live a half life tends to-wards increasing frustration. The only effective remedy in such a case, according to anthropologists, is the real-istic integration of our activities by directing them mean- ingfully towards the specific and ,well-defined goals of our community. Any notable incidence of real loneliness will probably reveal upon careful .investigation some rupture in the social structure of the whole community-- whether ecological, man-to-man, or man-to-ideals, More-, over, from the fact that our society is in 'itself artificial to a certain extent (lacking almost necessarily the deep and elemental bindings of an ecological involvement), we must be doubly aware of the other unifying forces within our community. Part H: Community and Personal Creativity ~ Patterns of social organization are vital, without the slightest doubt. Much. of our actual failure to realize deeply and meaningfully fellowship with one another in a brother-to-brother relationship stems from the neglect or mismanagement of the social structure of our com-munity. Yet the religious community---even considered only as a deep community of men--is not simply cre-ated by experts. The expert manipulates, controls, studies problems, and finds solutions; but his union with his tools and the particular determined purposes of his craft is extrinsic. We can think in" this connection of the over-organiza-tion of working communes as they sprang upsince the last world war. Here, everything is functionalized--all the activities are planned out, with time alloted on the schedule for religion, recreation, and so forth, which are considered as necessary means for overhauling the ma-chine periodically. When people begin to see their lives coincide with the routines planned for them, when they see themselves and their own importance diminish to the level of cogs in a machine, their spirits harden, atrophy, and wither. Life becomes less than free in the sense that activities are not flowing from the deepest levels of being. They become re.ore and more a number in a filing system. This is no doubt an extreme case. But we must reso-lutely resist the temptation to reduce man simply to an aggregate of psychic functions and forget that he is a living soul. In my relations with the men in my com-munity, I am involved. My actions should not tend to build a wall of separation between the me I know myself to be and others. Given the thorough system of social con-trols characteristic of religious life, given too a life that is frequently arranged by my superiors, the most common temptation is to avoid reaching out in true personal ap-peal to the other in all his unique personality, but to see both him and myself as [unctions--a teacher, student, cook, carpenter, Mass-sayer (a cog in a machi'ne can never pray), a procurator, or sflperior. The conclusion we have been working towards is this: ÷ ÷ Community Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 dloysius Meh~, O.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS community is not established by merely legislating laws, setting up a hierarchy of superiors.and subjects, or giving a dozen human beings a common residence. Nor can it be produced by a system' of techniques. Community must grow out of its members, for it is a highly personal gift of oneself to the other person in all the richness of his individuality. While techniques cannot produce community, they are nevertheless valuable in eliminating those things which could prevent community from happening; for example, enclosure within myself, being trapped, as it were, in a system of concentric circles which stand between me and my life. Furthermore, techniques are undoubtedly neces-sary for the effective accomplishment of particular, goals; for example, organizing a sports program requires some manipulating of people. But teamwork still remains a union based on something outside of the being of the other person;, while it may be a true degree of community, it is still not the fullness of human community, let alone: of fellowship in the word and love of God. "Community," Martin Buber .writes, '"is where com-munity happens.TM There is something in genuine meet-ing which extends beyond calculations, plans, and proj-ects. Just as my being is not definitely exhausted in any one particulai'ity of my life but overflows into promise and possibility,12 rooted in my existence and its destiny, so also the community is never definitely established, en-tirely a "given" factor, a.status; Community, the genuine union of beings, is created out of the depths of promise of my bei~ng. It is not pro-duced. Community is meeting; and that meeting which calls to the other from all that I am is essentially creative: something new happens, I become something that I was only potentially before, and in this connection I must think in terms of gilt or grace. I can remain open to re-ceive this gift of the other as long as I am not artificially isolated from my own being in a world of function; but somehow we are here in a realm in which the notions of cause and effect no longer apply with their full import--. I do not cause dialogue. Even more, in a very real sense, I am given to myself fully only in dialogue, in the gift of another self calling out to me, joining our lives in com-mon destiny and hope. "All real life :is meeting.''13 The energies of life become fully real only in community: [ am the possibility, even more, the promise of community in my most elemental reality as incarnate spirit. r~Between Man and Man, translated by Ronald Gregor Smith (Boston: Beacon, 1955), p. 31. '~ Marcel, Homo Viator, p. 26. ~ Martin Bub~r, I and Thou, translated by Ronald Gregor Smith (New York: Scribner's, 1958), p. 11. Hence community--and in a unique way, the religious community--fulfills a basic demand (exigence in French) of human being. The ability to say We, the possibility of genuine encounter presupposes beings who can love and give themselves to others, beings who are incarnati.ons of the spirit which man i~, a spirit embodied iia'spake.and time, in solidarity with the cosmos and the covenant of creation. The human spirit can be stifled for just so long--a time and a time and half a time of the Scrip-tures-- within the abstractions and reductions of a func-tionalized world which, we repeat, is a real danger in a religious community due to the artificiality and conven-tionalisms so easily developed in such a life. But in the well-chosen words of Gabriel Marcel, it seems, at least as far as man is concerned, tha~ even if life is weakened and in a way degraded, it must still retain a certain character of sacredness . We must accordingly realize, I think, that here we are faced with a~ certain absolute, and that this absolute must be assisted, however strong the temptation to resist it?' Man's spirit seeks the fullness of being, the fulfillment of its destiny.15 Even in the midst of degradation or open rebellion, the voice of his spirit calls out for authentic living. Rebellion is a call to another to answer my appeal, to respond, knowing that even if I fail, at least my call will go on being heard. Although many unfavorable things can be said about rebellion, yet we must admit that it is still authentic living. As Camus has written, "I rebel--therefore we are,''x~ In modern religious life, the danger is not primarily open rebellion. With us, frustration more frequently takes the place of rebellion. We begin with high ideals, but, after encountering many difficulties and meeting with many failures, it is easy for us to lose courage, to be-come despondent and frustrated. The principal cause of this frustration is the lack of understanding one's own abilities, strength, and weakness, Being frustrated, religious enclose themsdves within a shell of their own creation; they try to circumvent the full meaning of their vocation. Frustration is a flight from authentic living, and that is the reason why frus-trated religious try to escape and lose themselves in rou-tine or a ceaseless merry-go-round of activities. Here we see, or begin to see, the ontological.significance of frus-tration, despondency, and defense mechanisms--the psy- ~ The Mystery ol Being, translated by G. S. Fraser (Chicago: Regnery, 1950), v. 2, pp. 182-188. x~ Marcel, The Philosophy ol Existence, p. 4 a0Albert Camus, The Rebel, translated by Anthony Bower (New York: Vintage Books, 1959), p. 22. ÷ ÷ ÷ Community Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 Aloydm 0M.$eh.~r., REV~EWFOR RELIG;OUS chological and sociological ruptures which prevent com-munity from happening. It is in this context that we propose to re-investigate the three relationships already viewed on the anthro-pological level: my relationship to things, to other peo-ple, and to ideals. Creative Community and Things 1. Art. In our mechanized world, things are considered more and' more as means, even pure means (bona utilia), apart from myself, only accidentally and, ontologically speaking, haphazz'rdly coming into contact with me. Their own values are, for me, simply utilitarian. I fail to see in them the mystery of creation in which I also am essentially involved. Art, beauty--these are simply esoteric tinsel, luxuries for the functional man. In a way this man is only half a man, and hence only half himself, begrudging those energies of life with which his created and corporeal being is essentially in communion.,x7 It would be almost meaningless to tell such a man that his activities are incarnations of his being, for he has denied any essential involvement in this universe of space and time.xs When I live out of harmony with myself and the deep community of creation in which I am, which 'is my world, my environment, my ontological context, how can I truly give myself to another? Furthermore, how can a com-munity that is out of harmony with creation be worthy of being presented to Yahweh in the Eucharistic assembly as the sign of His pleroma? The famous American painter, Ben Shahn, writes: I have always believed that the character of a society is largely shaped and unified by its great creative works, that a society is molded upon its epics, and that it imagines in terms of its cre-' ated things--its cathedrals, its works of art, its musical treas-ures, its literary and philosophic works. One might say that a public may be so unified because the highly personal experi-ence (of the artist) is held in common by the many individual members of the public. The great moment at which Oedipus in his remorse tears out his eyes is a private moment--one of deepest inward emotion. And yet that emotion, produced by art, and many other such private and profound emotions, ex-periences, and images bound together the Greek people into a great civilization, and bound others all .over the earth to them for all time to come.1D Art brings into play the unifying forces of creation but' at a deeper, more subjective, and thoroughly personal~ a~ Von Balthasar, Science, Religion, and Christianity, p. 45. a~Bernard Haring, C.SS.R., The Law o] Christ, translated by Edwin G. Kaiser, C.PP.S, (Westminster: Newman, 1961), v. 1, p. 87. ag Ben Shahn, Shape o] Content (New York: Vintage Books, 1960), pp. 45-46. level. Lacking a developed and fully shared ecological sys-tem, the religious-community unity depends on other re-lations to our world, activities of creativeness, ingenuity, activities which produce "results," or better, activities in which my being sees fruition in the corporeal world in which I am. The point is that we should not i~eglect the unifying force of art, the union of persons in the beauti-ful, in the shared experience of meaningful incarnation. But the attitude of encounter with the beautiful is not limited to what we call the fine arts. If I pick up a chisel, it is simply a tool which I use to perform some task. Con-sider, however, the difference when a highly skilled artist or carpenter picks up a chisel. His work expresses him-self, gives himself to the community. Here we return to the general theme of these 'pages: df community is to happ.en, I must give mysel[, and not simply offer the other some service which I perform. In art--from garden-ing to the liturgical setting--I give myself, I entrust to the community that deep and personal experience of creativ-ity. In accepting another's art, we "welcome" him. To welcome is active, personal, embracing. I go out of my-self to meet the other, to invite him to feel at home with me. We cannot merely accept the other's art, whatever it may be, as we accept the result of an assembly line. To accept his art, I must reach out and take his work into my own life; and by doing so I take him, too, into my life. And here again we glimpse a moment when com-munity happens. If a community does not accept the beautiful, it neglects an important binding force--a neglect which will tend to re-appear in personal encounters. Without the proper at-titude toward art, even the deep significance of liturgical symbolism and expression will lose some of the vitality which it was meant to have. The community chapel, above all, should be a masterpiece of art, expressing community, proclaiming the fellowship in God which we are. 2. Play. Finally, we should consider more deeply the meaning of play. Perhaps play is not the deepest of the arts, but it is a true creative expression of man.2° Play is of its nature public. "Through play we find ourselves no longer imprisoned and isolated in our own individual-ity.'' 21 Play "is act in its spontaneity, acting in its very activity, the living impulse.''~ As a vital phenomenon or manifestation of human being, play--to be genuine-- demands a man in contact with reality; "only the vital Eugene Fink, "The Ontology of Pla}'," Philosophy Today, v. 4 (1960), pp. 95-109. Ibid., p. 96. Ibid., p. 97. ÷ + ÷ Community Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 315 4. 4" 4- A~oysius Meh~, 0.$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS being., can die, work, struggle, love, and play. Only such a being is in touch With surrounding reality and the total environment--the world.''u3 Humanplay . is a creation through the medium of pleasure of a world of imaginary acuv~ty . Play ~s always character, ized by an element of representation (something like the real world and its rules, but never degrading into routine). This element determines its meaning. It then effects a transfigura-tion: life becomes peaceful.~' In our own world, play is apt to be a highly organized, commercial project; and here again its mea'ning tends to become more and more functionalized---I play, not for delight, but in order to preserve physical and psychic health. If we would look for a moment at the primitive world, we would find far more significant contours: In the primitive times, play was not practiced so much as an act in its pleasure-giving aspect as is the case for those isolated individuals or groups who periodically detach themselves from the social group to inhabit their own little isle of passing hap-piness. Originally, play was the strongest unifying force. It founded a community quite different, it is true, from that of the living and the dead, the governing and the governed, and even from that based on the family. The community of play of primitive man included all the forms and structures of com-mon life., and it called forth a reliving of all the elements of life. This reached its high point in the community festival. The ancient feast., was a liturgical spectacle where man ex-perienced the proximity of the gods, heroes, the dead, and where he found himself in the presence of all the beneficent and dreadful powers of the universe . What was represented was nothing less than the whole universe.= Genuine play is extremely important in a religiou:; community. We will develop this point further in Part III where we will see that community recreation should serve as a catechesis of the proper celeb'ration of the~ Eucharistic festival--the Mass. Inter-personal Creativity: Intersub]ectivity Community exercises are significant only in as far as they involve an encounier with the Thou. This is the point, above all others, which we must remember. This is the heart of the matter. Divorced from all genuine en-counter with the Thou, community exercises are mean-ingless. In our very proximity, it is easy for me--because of routine, fatigue, and so forth---to consider my confrere less and less as a person (a Thou) and more and more ;ts an object (an It). An object is contained within itself, something which I can possess and manipulate. A person Ibid. Ibid., pp. 104-105. Ibid., pp. 105-106. is a being to whom I can call out, whom I can invoke, who is able to return my call, and in our response to each other create community. I can say "We." But to approach the other in his own unique being and destiny, in all that makes him himself, I myself must be a presence to him. Self-consciousness atrophies,, encloses me in .myself; we may be with one another physically and temporarily, but we have not yet realized Mitsein, that full union in love and welcome where deep calls out to deep. Without doubt, our lives and our encounters with one another tend to form stereotyped patterns. In accordance with our rule and constitutions,~l meet others at certain determined places and at set times. We are joined to-gether for specific purposes: prayer, recreation, work, in short, every conceivable type of community exercise. In a way there is constant community. I am very little in real solitude whether before God or before men. The students whom I teach in the classroom, the community for whom I cook or for whom I build cabinets, the confreres with whom I watch television--these are certainly beings with whom I exist; and even though I cannot speak of the re-ligious life as being entirely or ~even properly speaking functionalized, yet frequently there is something in the other which I am neglecting. P~r~haps 1 am polite and courteous: I smile at the other and laugh at his jokes; I try to understand his problems and offer him sympathy-- and still; perhaps, we stand more in juxtaposition than in community. But there are moments when this half-face to the 'world breaks down, hours of.grace (kairos.in St. John) in which the possibility of far deeper community is suddenly revealed. It is then that we see individuals in an entirely new perspective and their presence becomes more mean-ingful to us. A time of community crisis can draw us to-gether in this way, and we learn to depend on a confrere as he is, and not just in what he does---or better, what he does incarnates what he is. The world from which our candidates come has been well described as a broken world.20 This factor must be kept in mind while considering, the present-day prob-lems of religigus life. Older forms of unity have been gradually breaking down--the family, for instance, has been to a great extent replaced by the peer group, the gang, the more casual associations. Political and techno-logical unions have become strong~ r, suggesting a growth 'in world unity. But frequently, ~he new unions which have sprung up are on the impersonal plane; technol-ogy, for. example, unites the worlO" because cultural dif- ~ Marcel, The Mystery o! Being, v. 1; pp. 22-47. The title used for this chapter is "A Broken World." ~ 4. 4. 4. Community Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 317 + Aloysius Mehr, O.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 318 ferences do not prevent a person from working a machine; in principle any one at all can learn this operation. But "any one at all," l'on,.das Man, does not exist. What exists are real people, individual, free beings, irreplace-able in the solitude of their liberty. In those moments of human existence in which I some-how transcend the world of mechanisms, I sense another dimension which I know to be more basic, and more real. I sense that there is something in myself and in the self of the other which is immanently private and which does not lend itself to concepts or superficial unifying or binding forces; this is unique subjectivity, the deepest level of per-sonal existence, that which constitutes me as I, the irreduc-ible core of personality, the shrine of what is most serious and authentic in me, the theatre of my eternal commit-ments. It is this dimension of mystery which constitutes the great distinction between persons themselves. Regardless of how close two persons may unite with one another, something of the other's.subjectivity will always evade the other: he may become a Thou for me, we may even speak with full force and meaning the word "We," but the other is always profoundly other than me. The We is precisely for this reason a miracle or the grace that it is. We can never be like two drops of water coming together to form a single drop. I may give myself deeply in love and hope to another, but he will always remain absent from me in some way and this hbsen~e is what makes him uniquely himself. But it is of the essence to note that the other is dis-closed to me in his full contingency only in those situ-ations in which we are genuinely open to one another. I can hardly speak of the mystery of subjectivity--the revelation of the other--without speaking of the mystery of intersubjectivity--the mutual revelation of both ofu~, which includes the gift of the other person to me. Here; we can speak more justly and fully of presence: presencel reveals a human dimension beyond that of proximity or even of sharing an experience, and this is the dimension of full encounter, coesse, of co-presence.~7 Presence is in its deepest reality co-presence. The structure of this situation is one of appeal and response. To meet another', I must call out to him, or welcome his appeal to myself by responding with my whole being, and not simply with a stereotyped, pre-determined response. When I speak to another, the area of mutual concern may be a purely business proposition; but if I welcome him into my life, if there springs up deep sympathy in the basic meaning of that word, we Roger Troisfontaines, S.J., De L'Existence a l'Elre (Louvain: E. Nauwelaerts, 1953), v. 2, p. 21. are to another something more than a billboard which announces the time of a community exercise or an IBM machine that reels off information. The question he asks me implies his faith in my ability to answer--my ability to stand, as it were, in his place and understand his question "from the inside.''2s" ~'The question, anyway, operates as an appeal, a signal that may or may not be received.''29 The appeal reaches me in my freedom. I may respond by being, for all practical purposes, some sort of information machine; yet in t~he course of our conver-sation, he becomes something more than a "somebody." "That is, he participates more a~d more in the absolute which is unrelatedness and we cease more and more to be 'somebody' and 'somebody e!se.' We become simply 'US.' "30 This is not merely a psychol~gical interpretation of emotional experience, for realistically speaking, "I cannot really invoke 'anybody'; I can only 'pretend~ to do so. In other words, it appears as if inv'ocation can only be ef-ficacious where there is communiiy.''al Truly, I can speak the word Thou to another only Where community is re-vealed, and we speak the word We.m This deep dimension of human reality reveals me to m~self; in my.deepest and freest being, I find the mystery Of intersubjectivity, the mystery of our solidarity in the destinies of the human phenomenon and the covenant of'creation. Although the sharpest mani[esthtion of this ontological community of men tends to be the somewhat dramatic events--birth, death, love, and go forth--which break in on our course of existence?3 still intersubjectivity runs in a scale from, for example, the chance smile of a stranger from whom I happened to ask directions in a city I am not familiar with to the union with one another in Ghrist in the Eucharistic assembly. Thi(. is important for com-munity life; by holding myself open to the other, by mak-ing myself available, by my. willingness to welcome him, entirely mechanical situations like asking a routine per-mission from my superior can be illuminated with a bit of the radiance of the truly significant. The deepest moments of intersubjectivity can act perhaps as beacons, reflecting that, unit most clearly and fully. As I enter the religious liie and make my pro-fession, the community kiss of peace manifests beautifully the community which has been created in me. This mo- ~ Gabriel Marcel, Metaphysical Journal, translated by Bernard Wall (London: Rockliff, 1952), p. 21. "Ibid., p. 143. ~ ~a I bIbidid.,, pp. 114761. ~ Ibid., p. 303. a Marcel, The Philosophy o] Existence, pp. 3-4. ÷ ÷ ÷ Community Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 319 4. Aioysius Mehr, 0.$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ment, though past, can be kept alive, can remain a presence to me--a moment of deep community to which I bear witness in the day-to-day encounters. I know, deeply within myself, that these encounters, for all their routine, flow forth from the community which we are, the com-munity which must be ever renewed through the passing years in creative fidelity to the situations in which. I am given to myself as one whose life, in the religious com-munity, is a being-with. From this point of view, we can look more closely at the full meaning of the opportunities of our religious com-munity: The closeness in which we live with one another is dangerous if reduced to the level of the functional, but it can just as truly point out to us the heights and depths of intersubjectivity. Social bindings open out into onto-logical community. Religious community life is rooted in social organizations and patterns, but it exists on the level of the human person in his freedom. In conclusion, the activities of our religious life must reflect the deep fact of our community-being, of our being-with one another, sharing a common destiny, united in the bonds of true love in Christ, For the structure of intersubjectivity is in its fullness, the structure of love. But we must be willing to see the levels and the manifestatiom of this love dim from time to time, just as in marriage the union in love has its ups and downs. Nevertheless, I must be aware of my deep responsibility to make my-self what Louis Lavelle calls "accessible" and Gabriel Marcel "disponible" or "availabie" to the other. Marcel equates this accessibility with charity, and quite rightly so.34 This is the fundamental posture or attitude for any fruitful communication between men, a communication which means opening myself to the presence and in-fluence of the other, desiring this presence, and being will-ing to go out into something that is quite different from myself. The self-centered egoist finds it impossible to be accessible and available. He is incapable of sympathiz~ ing with other people or imagining their situation. "He remains shut up in himself, in the petty circle of his private experience, which forms a kind of hard shell round him that he is incapable of breaking through.''3G Handy rules for making encounter possible, while help-ful, cannot be used without the danger of taking up a position outside the encounter itself in order to manipulate both the other and myself.3e I can perhaps ~' Ibid., p. 15. ~ Marcel, The Mystery o/Being, v. 10 p. 201. a Dale Carnegie gives.many of these handy rules in his famous book How to Win Friends and Influence.People (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1936). The value of some of these rules is questionable because of their pharisaical tendencies. be more aware of what I cannot do--in summary, tO treat him as an object, as a somebody, as anyone at all, as a function (whether teacher., farpenter, or any o[ the categories that can substitute for the person). In dis-agreements, I must respect the gift, for the other gives himself to me in his ideas and intdrpretations; in com- ¯ munity we can seek not a Procru~stean compromise but a kind of common expectation so that together we can go on seeking the light of truth. Th~ very things which tear us apart from one another~differences in age, in taste, in talent, in personal history-~zan unite us, not in a collectivity where differences are ignored or frowned upon, but in a community of mu[ual understanding. Creativity and Community Ideals High ideals attract men; the. higher the ideals the greater the attraction. Ideals fire, men with enthusiasm. But ideals cannot be handed physically to me as, for in-stance, a book or the constitutions.' Ideals can be described on paper, but they cannot exist oh paper. They are real-ized only in free creativity at the ~ery depths of being. More particularly, the ideals of. a gommunity must be ideaIs for particular men. They must be possible of fulfill-ment in their unique life and in the unique situation which invites their loyalty andS,, faithfulness to them. Every religious must create, again and again, the tra, di-tions and ideals of his order or congregation .by incarnat-ing them anew in his own life. The passage of ideals to incarnate human life, to act and incarnation in space and time is truly creative, for it ~nvolves a full and personal gift of myself creating meaning. Bu~t this does not happen in a void, but rather in an encounter, or 'a revelation of what I am (in the community that we are) that calls forth my witness and fidelity. An e, ncounter means a call and a response; a gift and a pre~ence of another who confronts me in my uniqueness; a re'alization of the destiny which lies at the heart o[ myselL "In action," writes Teilhard, "I cleave to the creatlve~ power of God; I co-incide with it; I become not only its instrument but its living prolongation.''~7 In the words of Gabriel Marcel: We have to realize that there are modes o[ creation which do not belong to the aesthetic order, and which are within the reach of everybody and it is in so far as he is a creator, at how-ever humble a level, that any man at all can recognize his own freedom.~ In our context, this means that in my freedom I must ~ Teilhard de Chardm, The D:vtne Md~eu, pp. 26-27. m Gabriel Marcel, Man Against Mass Society, translated by G. Fraser (Chicago: Regnery, 1952), p. 16. 4. 4. 4. Community Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 4. 4. 4. Alo~$ius OM~e.Ch~r., REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS respond to the unique religious vocation, which I have received from God, and that response is the truly creative assumption of the ideals, traditions, customs, and rules of my community. If I am to be a religious, and not merely act like one, I must enter into the living tradition of my community, see clearly the deep relationship be-tween law and reality (law in its deepest meaning in Christianity is the living out of our incorporation in Christ), and sense within myself the dynamism within the community, the promise of the future held in the hands of the present moment, the hour of trlal and grace. By translating the traditional ideals of my particular community into my life, I reach back into the very an. rials of history and, at the same time, proclaim that which is yet to come. I enter into living communion with the past and the future, with all who have professed, or will in the future profess, these ideals. Ideals seen in their' existent,_'al fullness are moments of consecration, joininl~ us with the ever-continuing history of our community. As Hiiring points out, History is to be viewed from the standpoint of the "now" in relation to beginning and end. The historic present reaches out into past and future. The past has its heritage which may be compared to the warp and woof of a rich fabric constantly redesigned into marvelously new and alluring shapes and formsi The treasure.is a summons or invitation, and a challenge as well, to the free will of man in the historic moment of the present.~ My response to this challenge wiaps up the rich her-itage of my order in the dynamism of my unique, per-sonal life, and.hands it as a sacred trust to the community, enriched, for future generations. By thus entering deeply into the We, and sharing together, feeling together in our deepest being the subtle movements and aspirations which translate possibility into act and thus tradition into life, and being into incarnations, I realize existentially arid not only notionally or rationally both the being which I am called to be and the significance of the union of men who have joined their own destinies together in respond-ing to the same ~hallenge. But just as we cannot understand man until we see his marvelous destiny, so we cannot begin to see the beauty and mystery of our community until we view it in its promise, in its dynamic growth and activity towards fullness. The religious community, as we pointed out in the introductory pages of this paper, exists within two wider communities--the community of life and t'J~e community of grace--from which it draws its own vital- The Law o] Christ, v. 1, p. 87. ity and life-thrust. In either Community, our destiny is not encompassed by the immediate projects, particular ends, or temporary goals. Our being plunges back into the dynamisms of created being itself; and in us the world achieves a certain completion of its own dest!ny. We are then a kind of particular and contingent, though nonetheless real, summation or symbol or eikon, image, of the community of all being. But the deepest values of our activity do not only capitulate in us the mystery of creation and the dy-namisms of life. As Teilhard would phrase it, ontogenesis has passed on into Christogenesis. Creation has been caught up, in its deepest dynamisms, into the new cre-ation, which is fulfillment, not destruction (Eph 2:15). As a community within the Church, and indeed its true eihon, its incarnation, we continue the forces of creation through the Incarnation and the New Adam into the promise and pledge of the Parousia (1 Cor 15:24). In this perspective, or better in this divine milieu, lies the true significance of our activities; we are bound together under a common cause which is as wide and deep as the community of men and as transcendent in its promise as the parousial presence in which life and temporality shall be consummated in the supreme en-counter of love. Seen in this light, we must modify our earlier thesi~ about the artificiality of the religious community. Adapt-ing Teilhard's terminology and the vision of St. Paul, we can rightly say that the religious community is an anticipation of a later and final stage of evolution, the unity of all men in Christ, the Omega point of historical being. This higher unity of mankind, which we an-ticipate, involves a center of gravity, a focal point, an axis above and beyond the ecological and physical. And what is this axis of religious community life? It is charity. The religious community must be founded on love of God and neighbor. This new level of mankind, as any leap in evolution, involves a definitive departure, a break from the lower stages even though it is their continuation, ful-fillment, and transformation.4° And yet, as an anticipation we are beginning to create the new within the old; this combination of the old and the new must involve sacrifice and tension--the death of the type as we pass into the era of the antitype, the dis-sipation of shadow as we strive to realize the light. There is tension and strain. Creation groans and is "in the pangs of childbirth" (Rom 8:22). Life is born through death. In our very community, creation is being re-capitulated in Christ. Christ is being born! The Divine Milieu, p. 86. ÷ ÷ ÷ Community Exegcises VOLUME 21, 1962 323 dloysius Mehr, 0~.~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Part HI: Community in the Word The deepest significance of religious community exer-cises is not found in mere human encou.nter, but in the encounter with men in God. Religious life .is a charism, a localized outpouring of the Spirit of God, who fills the whole .Church, in such an intense and concentrated way as to bear witness to a particular reality which in varying degrees permeates the whole Church. Keligious life is not radically different from Christian life; rather it is the living image, the eikon, the type and inauguration of perfect Christian life. The perfection to which all Christians are called and in which all shall share when the Day of the Lord dawns is incarnately realized in the Church today by the religious life, which can be called the "sacrament" of Christian perfection. The flourishing of religious life in the Church stands an apocalyptical pledge that the things to come will truly come because they have already been realized living type; religious life bears encouraging witness to each generation of Christians that the life of the Gospel can truly be lived to the full now, into the fullness that is to come. Such a witness can only be the fruit of the Spirit outpoured in charismatic plenitude. Once the religious life is seen as charismatic, its sacra-mental and ecclesiological dimensions become apparent and important. Since the religious life is the image of perfect Christian life, the basic structure of religious life must be seen in relation to the strhctural pattern of the Church's life. The possible points of reference here are numerous; we will limit the discussion to two features of Christian life which seem to be most fundamental. First, the Church is a community formed by the word of God. Secondly, the Church is a community of sacramental worship. Community in Covenant The Church of the New Testament, seen in the con-tinuity of sacred history as recorded in the. Scriptures, is the fulfillment of that people of God which was in continual formation down through Old Testament times by the gradually unfolding revelation of the Word of God. After the fall, God's Word appears on the human scene as a call; God called Abraham to leave his people and his father's house for a land of promise in which his descendants would multiply until they became as numer-ous as the sands of the sea (Gen 12:1). When Abraham responded to the initial promptings of God's Word, God spoke again to Abraham to make a covenant with him for a mutual sharing of destiny down through Abraham's posterity, which would come into being as a result of God's Covenant-Word. Abraham's family came into being as the family of God (Gen 15). As the history of the family of God folds back upon it-self, the same pattern emerges in the formation of the Israelite people from the family of Abraham. The Israel-ites were called out of Egypt to hear the Word of God proclaimed on Mount Sinai'(Ex 3:16--17). Another cov-enant resulted from this new proclamation, a covenant which was again creative of the community with whom it was made (Ex 24:8). The Israelites became a spiritual community in becoming the people of God in the Mosaic covefiant. The pattern recurs again as each successive wave of revelation leaves in its wake a fuller, more spiritualized community to whom God's Word is addressed as a call and a covenant. There can be no doubt from the annals of sacred history that when God speaks to man He speaks to man in community. In the dialogue between God and man, God is the I who speaks the creative Thou to the community. In the light of the fall of Adam, this dialogue appears as a healing dialogue. The community of the'human race disintegrated in sin. It appears to be God's plan to build it back up again meticulously in time, .through the gradual revelation of his creative Word in a gradually more perfect community, until these last times in which He speaks to us by a Son (Heb 1:2). He is the perfect Word uttered in the community which in the new Adam already exists but which is still being perfegted. (created) and realized (actualized) in all the members of the new human race by the continued call and proclamation of the new covenant in every life and time. In the realm of salvation, man does not walk alone and he is not free to do whatever he chooses. He is saved in community by the healing Word of God which is spoken to and in the community which it itself creates. The inner structure and dynamism of the Church is to be and to become this community of the Word of God. Let us now look more closely into the religious life in terms of what has already been said. If the religious life is to be the type and the eschatalogical pledge of the life of the Church, it ought to be the flesh-and-blood realiza-tion par excellence of the community of the Word of God. It is here that the progress of sacred history toward the fulfillment of God's plan of perfect community ought to be moving forward to the last day when the perfect community of the cosmos will be reheaded in Christ and God will be all in all (I Cor 15:28). The implications of this reach deeply into the basic attitudes incarnate in the concrete circumstances of re- Eoxme~mc~uen$lty VOLUME 21, 1962 325 Alo~situ Mehr, O.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ligious life. If the religious community is to be at all, the breath--the spirit-~of. God's Word must be free to move through and in us. Through baptism and confirmation we received the Spirit unto the building up of the com-munity to the full stature of Christ.4x The religious com-munity must be the community of the Word of God, true to the pattern of sacred history outlined above: call, proclamation of the Word, covenant. 1. (Tall. We are accustomed to the idea of a vocation to the religious life. We must draw this out to its concrete conclusions. First, when God calls man He calls him to community. A vocation to the religious life .is a call to community. Secondly, when God calls man to a religious community, He calls him to be initiated into a particular religious community. This means that the candidate must undergo a true initiation into the concrete life of that community and that he must successfully complete the initiation: he has to prove himself ready and able to renounce anything and everything which stands between him and the ideals of his vocation, to accept deeply in his incarnate being the two-edged sword of the Spirit. The religious pre-novitiate and novitiate training ought to be for the religious community what the catechu-menate was for the primitive Church. It ought to test the authenticity of the call. The community, but also the candidate, must ask the question: Is the Word of God truly at work here? God speaks toman in human language, not in weight-less abstractions. Hence the family background of the candidate must be looked into to see if God's Word came to him through parents genuinely in touch with God by their lives of faith. I[ the indications here are strongly negative, the.stronger influence of less natural channels of God's Word must be evident. Because of the psychology involved in such a situation, the candidate's response to this call must be tested for its supernatural authenticity by a convergence of other factors indicating the working and direction of Providence with adverse circumstances. The following questions must be answered: first, hits the candidate attained at least the minimum strength of character, mental health, and social ability required for successful community life; for the monastery or convent cannot function as a rehabilitation center without in-justice to its other members. Secondly, does the candidate at least show promising signs of being able to respond to maturing influences that will be able to help him to ~ Eph 4:13; see La Saihte Bible de Jerusalem (Paris: Cerf, 1956), p. 1546, note n: "Non pas simplement le chrfitien arriv~ h l'~tat de 'parfait,' mais l'Homme parfait en un sens collectif: soit le Christ lui-m~me., soit mieux encore le Christ total, T~.te. et mere- grow to a greater measure of personal authenticity? If the latter is the case, one must investigate whether or not these maturing influences so much needed are actually present in the community which the candidate wishes to join and whether they will be accessible to him. ~This is only another way of asking whether this person,~who does seem to be called by God, is being called to thig particular community. 2. Proclamation. This has led us to our next point. The community has been called together to hear the Word of God; hence that Word must be. authentically proclaimed in the community. In the Church there are official proclaimers, messengers (kerukes), for this task: the priestly hierarchy. In the religious community, this responsibility rests primarily with the superiors. They must be men of God's Word. The Bible must be familiar ground to them. They ought to be able to breathe the Scriptures. God's Word cannot be spoken with authority except by men who themselves hear the Word of God and keep it. St. Paul's timely words to Timothy, the head of the Ephesus community, point out this obligation: Attend to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching., to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was g~ven you by prbphetic utterance when the elders laid their hands upon you. Practice these duties, devote yourself to them, so that all may see your progress. Take heed to yourself and your teaching; hold to that, for by so doing you will save both your-self and your hearers (1 Tim 4:15--16; see also Col 3:16). The central time and place for the proclamation of God's Word to the community is the liturgy. Everything within the range of possibility should be done to make this proclamation authentic. The laws of liturgical psy-chology must be understood and incorporated into actual liturgical practice. Also it should be understood that proclaiming God's Word in the liturgy is not confined to the scriptural readings but extends to the homily or sermon delivered in the assembly. It is a mistake to think that because religious do a great deal of spiritual reading they do not need to hear sermons. Faith comes from hearing (Rom 10:17). The Scriptures must be au-thoritatively interpreted in relation to concrete con-temporary events. Here the jurisdictional power of su-periors can be seen to be more than a matter of legality. Theirs is the charism to preach authoritatively and to recognize the authentic prophetic spirit in those whom they delegate to preach. In general, there ought to be within the community a real atmosphere of reverence to the Bible. This is mani-fested, for instance, in the handling of the sacred books. Dilapidated Missals ought not be found on the altar. Out-side of the liturgical assembly, the Missal should not be ÷ ÷ Community Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 AIoysi~s Mehr, O&C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS carelessly thrown in the corner of the sacristry but re-served in a place of honor, like the Blessed Sacrament and the Holy Oils. The same can be said for the Bible used for community reading during the meal, and to a lesser extent for the copy of the Bible kept by individuals in their rooms. Private Bible reading ought to be en. couraged within the spiritual reading program; but this entails some instruction in how to read the Bible, es-pecially for those who do not have the benefit of an in-tensive Scripture course. All these things are only ex. amples, but they indicate a direction .of attitude which must be fostered if the seed of God's Word is to find good ground to grow into a community. 3. Covenant. The proclamation of the Word of God in the community climaxes in covenant, an intimate I. Thou relationship of God with the community. Itshall be a continual burnt offering throughout your genera-tions at the door of the tent of meeting before the Lord; where I will meet with you, to speak there with you . And I will dwell among the people of Israeli and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them lorth out o] the land oI Egypt that I might dwell among them: I am the Lord their God (Ex 29:42-46). The intimacy of the covenant is best expressed in the Scriptures by the idea of a sacred meal with God at the time of the covenant. "Then Moses and Aaron and Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up and they saw the God of Israel . they beheld God and ate and drank" (Ex 24:9-11). The sacred meal will be discussed later. What is of moment here is that God addresses the community as Thou. He covenants with the community. He shares the destiny of the community, and in this way alone does the community become God's people, heir to the promises. "I will be your God and you will be my people" (Jet 32:38)~ The community has in fact been established by the progressive call of God through both Testaments. Or, to put it more critically, the concrete possibility has been established for the authentically Christian community to become to be, to grow in creative fidelity into being fully what it already is in the reality of infallible promise. Nor is the creative, call merely the point of origin; the call is repeated through and in the community of the Church to each generation for the divinization of every era. We are in fact inserted into this order of the Spirit; and by this very reality bear the serious responsibility of. hastening the Parousia (2 Pet 3:12) by a total effort to build community, to respond to the creative call ad- dressed to us, to assure that there will be in us a Thou for the moment when God speaks his "I." There must be real communion of persons who have an authentic, conscious, un-egocentric participation in the human nature and creatureliness they share in their com-mon flesh from the loins of Adam. There must be com-munity in which Christ is progressively becoming in-carnated and given being-in-the-world, caught up, as it were, by the Spirit and created time and time again in authentic response (possible only in community) to the liturgical Word. proclaimed now, as in times past, in liturgical community. Then the great Passover of Jesus from the Cross into the glory of His Resurrection~ Ascen-sion, and Enthronement can take root- in the world and create from our community authentic and supernatural Christian community, the Body of the Lord. For a man to enter the We :of the community, certain things must happen to him. For one thing~ he must have experienced encounter with other persons in the com-munity. This occurs on various interpenetrating levels. On the sacramental level, the encounter begins with his initiation into the Church through baptism and confirma-tion which are an encounter with the concrete Church community. In the religious life a further sacramental encounter is the act of religious profession. Think of the handclasp, the Amen of the community, and the kiss of peace. , Through baptism, confirmation, and profession, the religious has already met the members ofthe community on the sacramental level, the. authenticity of which meet-ing will depend on the authenticity of the ritual. This also means that he is ontologically structured for and pledged to this encounter in all its dimensions. Other levels of encounter which are basic to the we experience are the father-son relationship between su-perior and subject, the brother relationship between con-freres, the teacher-student relationship, and the more in-timate encounter of true religious friendship. A parish community is as strong as the basic I-Thou relationship between the husband and wife in the families of the pa.rish, since marriage is the effective sign of the Church. similarly a promotion of genuine I-Thou relationships within the community builds up the great We of the I. Thou relationship with God, as the.se experiences open the personalities of the religious to that common human nature and creatureliness which would otherwise be hoarded up individualistically by each selbcenter. The human nature and creatureliness which we share is a concrete human nature and creatureliness incarnate in the human beings around us, and it is there where it must ÷ Community VOLUME 21, 1962 32g ÷ ÷ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS be met. Here we have the sensible, real basis, the sign, of the Body of Christ which is realized in sacrament. Another experience which conditions for and builds up the great We is the common sharing of a rich ex-perience, a going through something together, a com-mon passover. God made his covenant with Israel after the Exodus experience, after the people had passed through the Red Sea together. This experience involves the elements of crisis, judgment, and victorious issue. Once again, on the sacramental level, this is accomplished through the catechumenate and initiation sacraments of baptism and confirmation in which the candidate shares the Christian community's experience of the Exodus, of the Passover from the Egypt of sin through the Red Sea of baptism to the new life of the people of God. In the religious life a further sacramental or ritual sharing of crisis-victory is embodied in profession, the passover into the state of perfection. But this sacramental ontology of community on the basis of shared experience becomes incarnate in and is the fulfillment of numerous experiences undergone on other levels of life. Religious life can provide many ex-cellent experiences of solidarity through crises and vic-tories. As examples can be mentioned: working out phil-osophical and theological problems; a difficult community project such as the continued and successful support of a mission; a common experience of joy such as might be expected at ordinations and professions; the death of a member of the community; in short, any event which deeply affects the community. This solidarity in experience is not limited to events. What may be more important is the common experience of the presence of great persons. Just as the Israelite community was somehow bound up in the persons of Moses, Josue, and Aaron, and just as the Church is bound up in the persons of Christ, the Apostles, and the Virgin Mary, so the religious community is bound up in the per-sons of its superiors and leading figures. The superior must be a deep, spiritually mature person who is in personal contact with his community so that the members of the community actually have a chance to experience him and feel a solidarity in this experience. As fdr the other leading figures in the community, the more deep personalities God has given to a community, so much richer will that community life be as the solidarity in this experience broadens the horizons of the com-munlty. It is a corruption of a precious gift for a com-munity to consider its outstanding members as divisive forces or to make them feel like isolated individualists. Sharing the experience of encounter with a great man is one of the strongest bonds of unity there is between man and man. We have discussed some factors in the formation of the community We which becomes the Thou whom God addresses in his covenant dialogue. There is one other element of covenant that should be mentioned, and it is the sharing of destiny. God becomes involved in the community's destiny and the community is caught up into God's great mystery of salvation, the secret hidden from the ages and revealed fully in his Son, the movement of salvation history (Col 1:26-27). There is a movement toward fulfillment, toward Pleroma. Christ has already been established as the Head of new order in heaven, but his Body is still undergoing construction upon earth. The completion of Christ's Body is being realized little by little. It is a steady growth until the full measure of the perfect Man is attained. This fullness, Pleroma, means that in Christ harmony has been established among all things, that the universe is "filled b~ the creative presence of God."42 When this day shall arrive, the Church will contain Christ in his fullness. The Church will reach the stature of the perfect man (Eph 1:23), The movement .of salvation history, however, is not inevitable. God is faithful and will accomplish His pur-pose, but His people do not always respond with like fidelity, and He will not use force. If the Day of the Lord is to come, it is the Christian community, we, who must hasten it (2 Pet 3:12), we who must move ahead; and we are free to contribute to this forward movement or to hold it it check. If we should choose the latter, we would become like the Thessalonians who sat around and waited for the Parousia and who were upbraided for their pre-sumption (2 Th). The religious community ought to be an advance guard unit in this forward march, for it is by definition a place of perfection and fulfillment. This again points up the necessity for the proclamation of the Word of God in the community. The history of salvation is contained in the Scriptures. God's plan is there, and only those who are familiar with its patterns are capable of reliable frontier work on the boundaries of sacred history. Ful-fillment does not mean reckless lunging out in any direc-tion. Yet neither i~ it all mapped out in detail. Here the living tradition of the Scriptures assumes its rightful im-portance. The leaders of the community must be men who walk in the way of the Lord and meditate on His law. If we may say so, they must have a scriptural instinct, a Pierre Benoit, O.P., "Corps, t~te et pl~r6me darts les Rpitres de lacaptivit~," Revue Biblique, v. 63 (1956), pp. 5-44. ÷ ÷ ÷ Community VOLUME 21, 1962 .331 ÷ Aloysius OM.Se.hCr., REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS a feel for the way God does things, and a contact with the currents of life in the Church. They must be attentive to the voice of higher authority and at the same time be aware of the prophetic movements within their own com-munity. They literally have to know which way the Wind --the Holy Spirit--is blowing. Community in Worship At this point lines of thought begin to converge: the Word of God, community, covenant, sacred history; and their point of convergence is worship. We may say that the community called into being by the Word of God in the context of sacred history through the intimacy of the covenant is primarily a worshiping community. What happens in Christian sacramental rituals? The Word of God, spoken once definitively in Jesus Christ, is spoken now in the Church community which is the Body of Christ, the real, glorified soma tou Christou, which is building up to completion. Ritual makes possible.through its pneumatic bodiliness, its symbolic or sacramental na-ture, the entrance by the commUnity here and now into the great sacramental moment, the primordial time, Christ's great Resurrection Passover, which stands at a particular moment of history yet transcends it, catches up within itself the vitality of all history, its direction and its completion. Here the Christian community whose task it is to move sacred history ahead, to build up the Body of Christ, is in contact with the vital source of the upward thrust of sacred history: the leap of the crucified Jesus up into the life of the Christos-pneuma. Covenant intimacy with God becomes possible in ritual: the I-Thou rela-tionship between the Father and the community comes into being in the spoken word and the meal ritual (or other symbolic act), in both of which, taken together, the risen Christ in whom we meet the Father is present through the working of the Spirit. By hearing the ef-fective Word together and eating the sacred meal to-gether (or doing the ritual action of the other sacraments), the members of the community pass together through the greatest of all experiences: the Passover of Christ, the primordial passage of non-being into being, of what is away from God to what is in God, of what is dead: sarx, to what is alive: pneuma. 1. Mass. In this context, the Mass, as the supreme Passover ritual, becomes for the Church and the religious community the supreme moment of covenant communion with the Father and with one another. The place of meet-ing with God is the place of.assembly and formation of the people of God. The people of God were formed to the Qehal Yahweh by communication with God himself. The community entered a covenant with God, and the effec- tive token of this covenant was the paschal meal. This reaches its fulfillment in the Eucharist where we become one people of God by sitting at table with God. For the community, the Mass is not just one of the de-votional exercises of the day, nor merely one of the "means" used by a group 0f3ndividuals for accumulating personal merits. It is first of all a gathering, an assembly of Christians, those who are of Christ. Secondly, it is not an hour of community meditation, but an hour of com-munity action, an event, a celebration. The act of cele-bration is important, for the event is Christ's event (here we have the true meaning of ex opere operato), and the community enters into the mystery of Christ by their ritual transposition of the action of Christ. The event is the Resurrection Passover of Christ which He Himself rit-ually transposed in the sacramental moment of the Last Supper and ordered to be clone in commemoration of Him. Let us examine these two interrelat'ed realities: com-munity and event. The worshiping community is not a priori, not an automatically given thing with which to work out the problem of celebrating Mass. Nor can the community be improvised haphazardly. It must be .built up by active and intelligent effort; it demand~ active con-cern and reverence for the laws of human acting. In fact, if the sacramental reality is to be accomplished, if com-munity is to be created on the supernatural level, the sacramental signs must be authentic. As St. Thomas has told us: the sacraments signify what they cause and cause only insofar as they signify,aa This highlights the necessity for catechesis: instruction, explanation, acclimatization--initiation into the reality of the community and the event. Catechesis is a psy-chological necessity because words and actions must be significant. The Bible and the ritual must be understood by the community. Cathechesis is accomplished both by systematic instruc-tion and by the actual celebration authentically done. We have already spoken of some things that can be done out-side the celebration regarding the catechesis of the Bible. A suggestion or two concerning the cathechesis of the ritual outside the celebration may slip into what fol-lows by an occasional convenient parenthesis, but what we are primarily interested in here is .the ca-thechesis that occurs within the celebration of Mass itself. No matter how much formal instruction we have about the Mass, we can come to learn the Mass only by doing the Mass. Actions must be learned from within, by doing. No matter how many books we read about how Summa Theologiae, 3, q. 62, a. 1, ad I. + + + ommunit~ Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 ÷ ÷ ÷ Aloysius Meh¢, O.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ,334 to study or how to play tennis, we will never really have learned these activities until we have entered into them. Catechesis must adapt the celebration of the Mass to the psychological climate of the assembly. This, of course, must be done within the limit of the laws of the Church. We do not, for instafice, simply "adapt" our celebration into the vernacular, despite the fact that this might be an excellent cathechetical move, one to be hoped, prayed and worked for through legitimate channels. But there is much to be done within the limits of the present rubrical framework. Let us begin with the community itseff. We can talk the idea of community to people until the Parousia, and it will not create community. A Christian community has to be built up by the celebration of Mass itself. The daily conventual Mass is a summons to enter deeply into com-munity. The community must experience community. Community is indeed where community happens. In the primitive Church there were at first no Catholic schools to teach the idea of community. Community was built up through worship, a worship that took into account the concrete conditions of the lives of the faithful. One of these basic concrete conditions is the bodiliness of men. Body is intrinsic to human personality. Man not only has a body, but also is a body. As we have already seen, man is a spirit incarnate in a body which is its epiphany, its revelation, its sign. And to come to the point here, it is through his body that man is part of the community of the race of Adam 'and through his body that he enters into conscious contact with the community. It is the role of good catechesis to create a sensible at-mosphere of community. It is especially when brethren gather around the altar that they ought to get that ecce quara bonum feeling. What can be done toward this? First of all, there have to be people there. And they ought to be there for the Mass. If I sit down to eat a meal with someone and he insists on reading the paper, I do not feel that he is really with me. Likewise, if the man next to me at Mass is "getting his meditation in" or "getting through his Office," the sense of community i~ being broken down. This does not mean that everyone at Mass has to be doing the same thing, for there are many liturgies or works to be done at the one great liturgy: the celebrant, the choir, the schola, the altar ministers, the organist, the choir director--all have their own work to contribute to th~ whole. But there must be that sense of the whole to which all are contributing. All present must feel that "we came here to do the Mass." The importance of this, I think, is felt instinctively even by those who close themselves up in a meditation book at Mass: they stand, sit, and kneel with the community. This at least is better than nothing, but it is for from the ideal. Akin to this is the practice of having "a Mass going on" in church when the community has come there to do something else. One picks up the habit of not becoming distracted by the Mass. Not only does this dull ofie's abil-ity to participate at other times when he is supposed to, but such a psychologically unsound practice of not doing what you are doing, on the basic religious level, has a disintegrating effect on the total personality and shows up in other activities. The desire to "get in an extra Mass" may proceed from sincere devotion, but it some-what misses the point. Whenever the Mass is used as a background or as something that is secondary, its signifi-cance (which is of prime importance in the sacramental realm) is greatly lessened (I do not say completely ab-sent); this lessening of significance breaks down the au-then. ticity of the ritual, hence its effectiveness. But in the Mass-and-something-else situation, it is not only the Mass that suffers. When two community exercises which de-mand full attention are combined, neither is able to have any depth. The sense of community at Mass is also built up by the alertness and freshness of the presence of the participants. This means that those who plan to attend Mass in the morning ought io feel it their responsibility to get enough sleep the night before to enable them to be attentive to one another and to the sacred actions. It also means that Mass should not be scheduled to be done after a marathon of spiritual exercises has just about exhausted the normal capabilities of a man to do the intensive work which good praying demands. Another important contribution to the sense of com-munity is the very structure of the church building. People at Mass ought to be able to see the altar and to see each other. They must be able to feel close to one another and not to feel oppressed by one another. Their place in church ought to be related to their role at the Mass. They ought to be able to feel together in the pres-ence of God. These problems have to be worked out on the architectural level by those competent in the field. The furnishings of a church must be such as not to distract from the main purpose of the building. The com-munity ought not to be pulled in all directions by a penny arcade of devotional concession stands. This does not mean elimination of statues from the church, but it does mean an integration of all furnishings into the main-stream of attention. This must be done by the planning of skillful designers, not by a mere process of accumula-tion. ÷ ÷ ommunlty Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 335 4. ÷ 4. Aloy~ius Mehr, 0.$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 336 The celebrant, too, has his role to play in creating a sense of community. He must realize his role as the leader of the community, as one who acts in their name, and must by his very actions sweep up the community .into participation with him. Hemust understandthat not all parts of thd Mass are equally important, and he must learn how to emphasize the important parts with the proper gestures and tone of voice, and not to monopolize the attention of the community when what he is doing is not the main thing going on, especially when the choir is singing. His gestures must be authentic. When he greets the people, there should be contact, and he should wait for their response. When he proclaims the Word of God, he should do so loudly, clearly, and expressively. During the great presidential, prayer, the anaphora, from the pre-face to the doxology, he should invite the silent attention of the community to what he is doing by his own sense of presence, by his poise and serenity. His whole bodily attitude must be expressive of praise and thanksgiving, His priestly vestments ought to mark him as a man of dis-tinction. In short, he must look and sound like a leader, and to do this he has to feel like one. He is not to be esoteric or insert idiosyncracies into the celebration, yet his action must be personal action flowing expressively from his total personality which on the deepest level is priestly. Finally, the two .very important factors in building up the sense of community are music and movement. People experience real togetherness by mutual singing and mu-tual movement. Every conventual Mass should be a com-munity sing. But again this does not mean that everyone has to sing everything. Some of the prescribed chants are too difficult to be enjoyable for those who are not trained to sing them. The obvious answer is to let the trained schola sing those parts, while the rest of the community listens attentively--at that moment their liturgy is med-itative listening together. Beyond this, there is need for the composition of good music which is singable by the real communities that actuall~ exist. °The ability to sing must be built up, but we have to start where people are and help them experience their own way into better things. The most familiar mutual movements at Mass are the changes of posture: standing, sitting, kneeling, and bow-ing. These movements ought to be expressive and forma-tive of community. This means that all should rise, bow, and so forth, together because community actions are not fully authentic unless every member makes his contribn-tion to the communal movement. These movements, as well as all the ceremonies during any liturgical function, should be expressive of two things: first, the gravity of what is being done, and secondly, the anirna una et cor unum of the community. Beyond the familiar change~ of posture, there are three great movements of the .people of God at Mass--the En-trance Procession, the Offertory Procession, and the Com-munion Procession~during which the community is sing-ing together. There are practical difficulties in restoring the movement features of the first two processions which have been reduced to the singing of the Introit and Of-fertory Antiphons. The difficulties are not insurmount-able, but they are more formidable than the difficulty it would entail to reintroduce the singing feature of the Commun, ion Procession. There are few experiences of community which can match walking in a group of your confreres in joyful song on the way to and fron~ the table of the Lord where you share the .one Bread. Let Us now make a few observations about the cat-echesis of the Mass as an event. The Mass is not an ordi-nary dialogue, nor an ordinary meal. It is a festive speak-ing of God and a festive eating with God. It involves a longing for happiness and salvation, for every feast" has the atmosphere of expectation and liberation from rou-tine. This is the eschatological dimension of the Mass. The early Christian found it easier to feel the festivity of the Mass because he found it easier to see the Mass as a cel-ebration of the coming of the risen Lord, a pledge of His final coming. For the early Christian Christ was present in the Church, especially in the actual liturgical assembly gathered together in His name: as the community cam~ together, Christ came among them. When those who love come together the tone is one of festivity. The Mass must, then, become a real celebration, as its interpenetrating rhythm of dialogue and meal indicate it is meant to be. At a celebration people talk and sing and move around. There is real, free communication. Mass is a dialogue between God and His people through the mediatorship of the priest. The priest talks to God in the name of the people and to the people in the name of God. When people really come together in a festival setting to talk with one another, they bring their interests, their work, their experiences, and their whole personality which transcends these experiences. Here one can see the role that community recreation and community meals can play as a catechesis of the proper celebration of Mass. It is not stretching a point to see community recreation as the extension and fruit of the festive dialogue of the Mass; in itself it has something of the nature of a ritual and might indeed be considered a sacramental for community. Play is sacred. When the Bible says the people rose up ÷ ÷ + Community Exercises VOLUME 21o 1962 337 ÷ ÷ Aloysius Mehr, O.~.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 338 to play while Moses was conversing with God on Mount Sinai, it speaks condemningly of the event, including its sexual misbehavior, precisely because it was an act of false worship (Ex 32:1-6). Later in Israelite history we know that David leapt and danced before the Ark of the Covenant (2 S 6:14). Play is an expression of joy and freedom--like the Sabbath day of rest. The idea of worship and the free-dom from the drudgery of work belong together. The need to break routine is rooted in man's desire for the freedom of salvation. Play is free dialogue, whether it be in the form of relaxed conversation, or a contest in which make-believe competition is manufactured, or the sharing of some unroutinized activity just "for the fun of it." Play keeps a man from b~ecoming a slave to his work; it keeps him from confining himself to the world of I-It. We take a game seriously to a point. We must take it that far, for playing is literally "making fun" of work. The religious significance of this is deep. One can take his life's work seriously only to a point; from there he must "make fun" of it in the sight of God and man as David made fun before the Ark and the people. Other-wise he will become proud and self-sufficient. The world of I-It is not to be despised, but it must lead up to the world of I-Thou, of dialogue between man and man and between man and God. Community recreation ought to be fun, but it must never be dissipation or aesthetically squalid, or the whole meaning of it is destroyed. It is the bringing of the real necessity of one's work to the level of free personal dialogue with God and man. A person-alized celebration of community recreation is a great help to a personalized celebration of Mass. The festivities of" the Mass reach their climax in the meal celebration. Food and drink are an essential part of a celebration. The Mass is a holy eating together, a sacred banquet in which we are filled with the bread of life and drink of the cup of gladness. The symbolism of wine especially provides the atmosphere of festivity. The feeling tone of the Mass is that of a celebration of people who are spiritually well fed and well drunk, who feel the spiritual fullness from the rich bread and the spiritual freedom from the intoxicating wine. Here we might note that the regular community meals can be a real catechesis of the Mass, since they are in fact a sacramental extension of the meal aspect of the Mass through the ritual prayers surrounding them. Human eating is of its nature a sacred and communal act. It is not a mere refueling for another round of work. God is present at every meal in his gifts of food and drink and in the fellowship around the table. The prayers before and after meals set the tone of the meal. They are mos~tly i, excerpts from the Psalms, breathing the spirit of the anawim, the spirit of joy, thanksgiving, appreciation, de-pendence on God, praise, awareness of God's presence, simplicity. The meals themselves should reflect all this. The food should be simple fare, b,ut good. It ought, t.o be eaten in an atmosphere of calm enjoyment, not of frantic dumping from platter to plate to palate. There ought to be a real spirit of fellowship at the table. But besides fellowship at table, we should also be aware of how community meals tie in with the Mass. Father Godfrey Van Lit, O.S.C., describes the intimate relation-ship between the refectory and the ~ chapel, community meals and the Mass.4. The Christian dining room table is a symbol of the Eucharistic table, the altar, and hence the refectory used to be decorated with a large, artistic painting of the Last Supper. As we have silence of place in the chapel, so we also observe silence of place in the refectory, And as in the community Mass the leader pro-claims to us the Good News, so also during our commu-nity meals a lector acquaints us with the consequences of the Gospel narrative. Both at Mass and at table, we are reminded that "not by bread alone does man live, but by every word that comes forth from. the mouth of God" (Mr 4:4). Both the Mass and the community meals ought to par-take of the spirit of the Passover and Chaburah meals of the Old Testament. The pervading tone here is that of a family meal. The community superior presides in the place of honor at the table as the father of the family who provides the good gifts. In so doing he is the epiphany of our heavenly Father who provides us with all good things, and the assurance of His presence among us. "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9). The hebclomadarius who leads the community both at Mass and at the meal prayers must be seen as the delegate of the father of the community, just as every priest stands at the altar as the delegate of the bishop. So simple a thing as the custom of not starting the prayers until the superior "knocks of[" in chapel or rings the bell in the refectory helps to keep this family awareness. At the com-munity table one ought not to feel that he is just one nameless stop along the long line of the gravy train, but that he is among the little group of his brothers with whom he is at home. We are one "b~cause the bread is one" (1 Cor 10:17). The event aspect of the Mass also demands that the ritual transposition of the sacramental moment should be ~ Lucerna Splendens super Candelabrum Sanctum, Id Est, Solida ac Dilucida Explanatio Constitutionum Sairi ac Canoni¢i Ordinis Fratium Sanctae Crucis (Coloniae Agrippinae: apud Antonii Boet-zeri Heredes, 1632), pp. 45-58; 87. ÷ ÷ ÷ ECxo~mrmcisuensity VOLUME 21, transparent; the celebration must be a revelation of the event itself. The main event is the Easter Passover, but there are other sacramental moments in sacred history which unfold in the course of the Church year as incip-ient or concluding stages of the Passover, from the In-carnation to the Mission of the Spirit. The sacramental moments are themselves revelations, openings into the Passover mystery, which pervades the whole Church in her sacramental ritual. A final note on the Mass concerns the apostolate. Cult is formative of missionaries. Worship is the school of the very Christian experience which the apostle seeks to com-municate to others. Here we must remember that there is no. effective activity without sanctity; there is no sanc-tity which does not radiate in the Church; there is no grace which does not come from the Head, and there is none which does not flow from the member back over the entire Body.~ + + lloysim Mehr, O.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 34O A religious who neglects his personal sanctity in order to intensify his activity, paralyzes it. The gift of the Spirit is the sacramental basis for com-munity in work. When a man works to bring forth the fruits of the earth as a Christian, he brings these temporal things into the sphere of the Spirit by doing the very best job he can to make his farming or his teaching, and so forth, as perfect as possible within the total context of human life, of community. He is working with the crea-tive force of the Spirit who hovered over the waters and brought order, harmony, and completion out of chao:; and who is now at work in the community. He brings; creation into his Passover experience. He is using the totality of his mind and energies and spirit, which totality exists only within the community, 'to bring creatures to perfection, to fill up the glory ofGod which will come in its fullness at the Parousia. 2. Penance. We are not accustomed to thinking of the sacrament of penance in terms of the community, and in this we have missed much of its meaning. The weekly confession of devotion can easily become for religious a routinized ticking off of peccadillos which one "gets rid' of" by inserting his penitential coins in the laundromat at the back of Church. The sacrament of penance is a re-penetration of our ex-istence into Christ's healing death and Resurrection. Re-penetration implies that something preceded. Through baptism man is ontologically structured into the commu-nity of the holy--holy persons and holy things which they share. Sin 'is something abnormal for man in Christ Jesus '~Jules Lebreton, S.J., The Spiritual Teaching o! the New Testament (Westminster: Newman, 1960), p. 375. (Rom 6:2). By sin man withdraws from the Body of Christ and sides with the world. The sacrament of penance is reconciliation with the Church. It is the Church that listens to his confession, prays for him, and gives him absolution. Here we see the Body of Christ, wounded by'sih, festoring itself t~0 health. For us, a return to God is always, first of all, a return to the Church. Forgiveness is not so much something which the Church brings us, but rather a belonging to the Church outside of which there is no salvation. The importance of the local Church community must be emphasized here. When a sinner is forgiven, he is for-given through the forgiveness of the local community. This was more evident in the earlier forms of the sacra-ment of penance when the sinner was received publicly back into the assembly. He was assured of God's forgive-ness by the concrete forgiving spirit manifested to' him by the community. The power to absolve is vested in those with hierarchical authority, but they absolve in the name of the community of the faithful; hence the?e is a more fruitful and creative spiritual power at work in the con-fessional of a community'where there is a strong spiri't of mutual forbearancb and forgiveness, where the '~'as we forgive those who trespass against us" is prayed with awareness and sincerity, where the offensive person is ac-cepted in patience, understanding, and ultimate trust in what in him lies beyond his offences: his Christian per-sonality. The sacrament of penance can also be made more fruit-ful if the sacramentals of penance in the community life are appreciated. Two important ones. come to mind: Compline confession of sins and the chapter of faults. Let it be remembered that by the institution of the Church these rites are sacramentals, and if approached in a spirit of contrition they accomplish forgiveness of sin. The Compline confession of sin is the best catechesis for the sacrament of penance for it clearly embodies .its essential elements: contrition, confession of sin in the community and to the community, including the whole community of saints in heaven as well as those present; absolution is given by the presiding priest; and everybody prays together for the effectiveness of the forgiveness. The chapter of faults is also well constructed to pro-mote the communal atmosphere of penance, but it needs to be approached in a genuine spirit of sorrow. The pub-lic confession of our faults in the presence of the com-munity helps to make us realize that by our transgres-sions, by our indifference, lack of interest, fulfillment of purely personal inclinations, and non-participation in the community as such, we cut ourselves off, in fact we deny, the ontological status or nature of our very calling. ÷ ÷ ÷ F~oxmermcisuens ity 4. .4. Aloysius Mehr, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Worse yet, we hold back the community, we retard its growth. This seems to be the point of the chapter of faults: we confess that we have not been completely faith-ful to the ideals to which we vowed creative fidelity. 3. Holy Orders. In clerical religious communities, the whole idea of community life is intimately bound up in the sacrament of holy orders. Some observations on the place of the priesthood in the Church are necessary to clear the ground. It has often been said recently that the Church is not the clergy, despite the impression that has long been given to the contrary. The community is the first inten-tion. The priesthood exists for and in and fromthe com-munity through the apostolic succession. The priesthood is a charism, a mode of being in the Church, for the com-munity, not for itself. It expresses and makes possible and matures the general priesthood of the faithful in its three-fold dimension of worship, kingship, and prophethood. These are the Messianic goods, and they have been placed within the community in the gift of the Holy Spirit. In this context the Church itself is the Ur-Sat~rament con-taining the fullness of the Spirit, which is worked out through many diverse gifts. The priesthood is a charism for the building up of the Church (Eph 4:11-14). Ordination is the,gift of the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands in the Church for the community. The priest is filled personally by the Holy Spirit to be his minister. No man takes the office to him-self-- or for himself. The fullness of the priesthood is only in the bishop. He is the sign of the full presence of Christ on earth, the organ of unity within the local Church community. He is one with Christ and one with his people. His faith is the norm for the faith of his flock. St. Cyprian defines the . Church as the people united to its priest, the flock stick-ing with its shepherd. The 'bishop is the nucleus of the community because he is the link with Christ through the imposition of hands through which the continuum of the soma tou Christou is maintained. The presbyterate is only a share in the bishop's priest-hood, a subsidiary priesthood under the bishop. As the ordination rite explicitly states, the presbyter is a "sec-ond- rate" priest: secundi meriti. In this light, every priest is a diocesan priest, and, exempt or not, when he works as a priest in a diocese, he works there as the helper of the bishop. By his ordination he is ontologically struc-tured for this work. He is called from the depths of his being to be a helper to the bishop of the diocese in which he lives. Here one can see what a deordination it is for religious priests not to be on good terms with the local ordinary. These good relations should also exist with the rest of the local clergy since the presbyterate is not merely an in-dividualistic but a collegiate institution. The architecture of early churches and the episcopal liturgy indicate this by placing the corona presbyterorum on the bema round the bishop. We still put the clergy together in the sanc-tuary. When a presbyter is ordained he joins the ordo foresbyterovum. This is eloquently obvious in the ordina-tion rite when the "college of presbyters" encircles the ordinands and joins the bishop in the imposition of hands. Priestly fellowship is rooted in the sacramental re-ality, and this sacramental reality is also what makes com-munity life a natural thing for priests. The unity in an order of canons draws its essential vitality from the sacra-ment of holy orders. In this context, the naturally prominent position of the Divine Office and liturgical exercises in many of the cler-ica. I religious communities becomes evident. The Divine Office is, as defined by Pope Pius XII, ~he perennial prayer of the Church, offered to God in the name and on behalf of all Christians, by those who have been deputed for this. It is the hymn of the Divine Word who has united to Him-self the entire human race, and the hymn which He sings is the hymn of praise which is sung in heaven continu-ously. St. Augustine is correct in saying that in the Divine Office "Christ prays for us. as our Priest; he prays in us as our Head; we pray to him as our God . We recognize Our voice in him and his voice in us.''4~ It is the Church praying. But we should go one step further. When a community of canons regular is called into existence by the Holy Spirit and officially approved by the Church, it is by its very nature entrusted with the solemn and communal celebration of the sacred liturgy, especially the Divine Office and the conventual Mass. If any religious body has the right to say that the liturgical life is its ideal, it is the canons regular.47 They above all should lead the way in the liturgical revival of Christian life. The proper chanting of the Divine Office in common is formative of community. But, in order to be formative of community, it presupposes first of all that the community understands the dignity of the Church's prayer, secondly, that the choir members are able to read the text of the prayer intelligently, and, finally, that they adopt as their own the sentiments expressed in these prayers. ,e Mediator Dei, nn. 142-144. ,TDom Germain Morin, O.S.B., The Ideal o] the Monastic Life Found in the Apostolic Age (Westminster: Newman, 1950), p. 105: "If any Order has the right to boast of this it is the Canons Regular, rather than ourselves." See also the article "Canons Regular and the Breviary" by Roger Capel, Orate Frates, v. 23 (1948-49), pp. 246-251. ÷ ÷ + ECxoemrdmsuesnity VOLUME 21. 1962 343 ÷ ÷ ÷ Aloysius Mehr, O$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS It is not merely a question of recitatk;n or of singing which, however perfect according to the norms of music and sacred rites, onl)t reaches the ear, but it is especially a question of the ascent ot the mind and heart to God' so that, united with Christ, we may completely dedicate ourselves and all our ac-tions to him.'s Whenever the Divine Office is chanted "worthily, with attention and devotion," it is prayer in the fullest sense of the term, and every genuine prayer cements together the members of a community. "Our deepest contacts with one another can be made only through God.''49 It is only in the depths of prayer that, in the fullest sense of the term, deep calls out to deep, and the soul gives itself to God. In this sense, every genuine prayer is a renewal of religious profession, the leaving of all things and following He-who- is. If the religious community is to blossom forth into a true community of worship and love, it must be able, at all times, to call upon this interior gift to God.5° The central portion of the Divine Office is the Psalter: the Word of God. The best way for men to pray together is to speak with God in God's own words, for the Word of God is formative and expressive of the community. The common chanting of the Psalter is, by and large, a meditar tive re-experiencing together of the great events of sacred history--again a community-forming factor.5x The Psalter is redolent with man's proper responses to God and his works: the spirit of the anawira, the poor in spirit, God's lowly ones through whom sacred history is accomplished. By a continual singing of these prayers day after day for many .years, these attitudes of heart sink into those who give themselves to this prayer with their minds and hearts and bodies. Through the ritual action, the attitudes and events are effectively experienced by the total personality in community; by all the rules of psychology such prayer is extremely capable of transforming one's life as an aLt-thentic individual in the community. A final note on the Divine Office concerns the non-choir members and every other member of the community who has been assigned work incompatible with regular attend-ance at choir. Here it is important to remember that the choir is a community obligation'. In a living community there are many members "just as in one body we have many members, yet all the members have not the same function" (Rom 12:4). Some are sent out as missionaries, others do the cooking, others are engaged in social work--- ~s Mediator Dei, n. 145. ~9 R. W. Gleason, S.J., To Live is Christ (New York: Sheed anti Ward, 1961), p. 11. ~ T. de Ruiter, O.F.M., Her Mysterie van de Kloostergemeenschap (Mechelen: St. Franciskusdrukkerij, 1958), p. 131. ~ Mediator Dei, n. 148. each according to the grace that has been given to him (Rom 12:6). And then there are also those who are not excused and who have the responsibility to be in choir. In each case it is the community at work or at prayer. Whether we are in the choir or legitimately excused, we are all working together in the name of the omhaunity, fulfilling our role in the completion of the cosmic task. 4. Extreme Unction. The communal dimension of ex-treme unction must be viewed from the Christian stand-point on death. The creation of Adam in flesh is the man-ifestation of the mystery of contingency which attends the existence of all things outside of God. Only God is in Himself and by Himself. All other beings tend to fuller being, which implies nonbeing. Death is the natural con-sequence of man's fleshy nature. Since the human race is a community in flesh it is also a community in death. Adam, however, did not accept his contingency. He failed to project beyond the dissolution of flesh to fuller life. He revolted against being the creature who dies, and death became a punishment for this sin. since the human race is a community in sin, it is a community in the pun-ishment of death (Rom 5:12). Christ, the New Adam, humbled himself: took on con-tingency. He submitted, as the suffering Servant, to be the creature who dies, and death became a redemption, a passage into the eternal life for which Adam revolted in vain (Rom 5:15-19; 1 Cot 15:21). Since the Church is a community in redemption, it is a community in triumph over death. Through the Church's sacraments of death and disso-lution, Viaticum and extreme unction, all human suffer-ing. and death is taken into the redemptive sufferings of Christ. The falling apart involved in suffering and death becomes the creative mustering of forces for the upward thrust to a higher level of life. The death of the Christian is his final experience of the Passover of Christ. Without Christ, death is complete loneliness. One leaves the community of his loved ones to go alone into nothing-ness. Christian death conquers this ultimate loneliness. The highpoint of the ritual for the dying is the admin-istration of Holy Viaticum. The Christian does not go alone into death: the Lord comes to take his faithful serv-ant up into his triumphant Passover. The Lord is able to come in Viaticum because the community has celebrated the Eucharistic Passover. Much of the loneliness of death comes from the effect of sin, by which man cuts himself off from the community. In the prayers and anointing for sickness unto death, the healing Lord approaches in the person of the priest to cure the wounds of severance from the community, to re-store the peace of mind that can come only from c6mplete + + + Community Exercises VOLUME 21, 1962 345 4. 4. 4. Aloysius Mehr, O$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 346 reconciliation with the Church. Again, the priest is acting in the name of the community. The death of a Christian is a deep experience for the community in which it occurs. When at all possible, the religious community should be present at the administra-tion of the last sacraments to the dying members of the community, and they should pa.rticipate in the expressive prayers of the ritual. Such a death is a witness to the reality of the triumph of Christ, a real martyrdom. The joyful and peaceful suffering and death of one with whom we live in intimacy is a striking pledge of the reality of Christ's Resurrection and the certainty of the Parousia. Here we have the reason for a quite joyful celebration of a funeral. What is said of death extends also to the sufferings of illness, disease, and serious injury, as well as of old age. Here there is the same factor of dissolution and contin-gency which is at work in death. Illness and death are times of crisis that naturally draw the community together to struggle against the loneliness which has set into our flesh as a result of sin. The serious sufferings of a member of the community are a community experience and ought to be entered into by the community. This involves a patient care and con-cern for the aged and the sick and keeping the community informed of their condition. It means visiting the sick. It would also be good to make use of the magnificent ritual for the visitation of the sick: let the community gather occasionally in the sick room to join in these moving and consoling prayers led by the superior. In the communal carrying out of this sacramental, the healing Lord will be present, and the patient endurance of suffering in the true Christian spirit will again be a witness to the community of the reality of Christ's presence and the certainty of his coming. Epilogue: The Dynamism of the Sacramental Com-munity There is an inherent tension in the very being of a sac-ramental dispensation or system: the tension, inherent in the nature of a sign, toward the fullness of that reality which is less than fully present in the sign. This underlies the call, covenant, and passover aspect of the sacraments and gives them their "obligatory" dimension, their ex-istential imperative. In Christian life this tension is the cosmic covenant: the Christian community's responsibil-ity for the entire cosmos which needs redemption and building up. This means authentic community work. Religious life is Christian response lived to the full in the working out of salvation history. It is charged with the building up of the Church unto the Pleroma, with the hastening of the day of the coming of the Lord (Ac 3:20; 2 Pt 3:11-12

Issue 48.2 of the Review for Religious, March/April 1989. ; Ministry and Ministries On Becoming An Apostolic °Hermit Mid-Life Divorce And Alienation The Readmission of Former Members Volume 48 Number 2 March/April 1989 Revn~w t:or Rt~LIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at St. Louis University by the Mis-souri Province Educational Institute of the Soi:icty of Jesus; Editorial Office; 3601 Lindcll Blvd. Rm. 428: St. Louis. MO 63108-3393. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis MO. Single copies $3.00. Subscriptions: $12.00 per year: $22.00 for two years. Other countries: for surface mail. add U,S. $5.00 per year: for airmail, add U.S. $20.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write: R~v~w t:oR Rt~t.~GOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth. MN 55806. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to R~:v~:w ~'o~ R~:t.t~no~s; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. David L. Fleming, S.J. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Editor Associate Editor "~"~ Contributing Editor ~% ~,~,¢~ Assistant Editors °"'~ March/April 1989 Volume 48 Number 2 Manuscripts, books for review and correspundence with the editor should be sent to R~:\'~:w ~'o~ R~:~.t~aot~s; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; SI. [a~uis, MO 63108-3393. Cnrrespondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Rich-ard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709-1193. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from R~:v~:w ~'on R~:t.~aot~s; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. la~uis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write Io the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. PRISMS . Computers easily make available various readouts of statistical in-formation. While I was perusing the printout listings of our January- February 1989 issue, 1 began, to realize how much I take for granted the exchange of information in our contemporary world. This international exchange of information through a journal like REVIEW FOR REL~C~OtJS pro-vides one of the most valuable prisms which exist for expanding our worldview and our unders.tanding of religious life. I want to share with you a few of the statistics about the interriational readership. First, I should call attention to the fact that REVIEW has sub-scribers in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. territo-ries, such as Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, the North Mariana Islands, and the Canal Zone. Roughly this grouping takes in about sixty per cent of our subscription list. Our readers are also from all ten provinces of Canada, including the Yukon and the North-west Territories. Subscribers are also present throughout Mexico, six countries of Central America, ten countries of South America, and throughout the West Indies. REWEff FOR REt.~C~OUS has large numbers of subscribers in the English-speaking countries of Europe, such as England, Ireland, Northern Ire-. land, Scotland, and Wales. But its readership is spread throughout Aus-tria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Po-land, Portugal, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, and West Germany. The subscription lists are large for India, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand, with a widespread distribution throughout the coun-tries. Africa, too, is well-represented, with subscribers from some twenty-two countries, such as Republic of Ivory Coast, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, South Africa, Liberia~ Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Uganda, Zambia, Sudan, Tanzania, Swaziland, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Cameroun, and Mauritania. REVIEW also serves readers in Indonesia, Bangladesh, Thailand, Ma-laysia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Israel, Jordan, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Sin-gapore, and Hong Kong. As editor, I think that I may want to take a win-ter trip to visit our subscribers from Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Gilbert Is-lands, Solomon Islands, and Western Samoa. These listings do not exhaust all the places R~:w~:w FOR reaches, but perhaps this kind of enumeration can give all of us a greater 161 Review for Religious, March-April 1989 appreciation of the catholicity of the articles we read and the religious life we try better to understand and live. Of course, this international dimension is reflected in the authors who submit manuscripts and in the content matter of the articles submit-ted. For example, in this issue, Father Donald Macdonald, writing from England, reflects upon the situation of Church members in some com-munist- dominated countries of Eastern Europe. Brother Martin O'Reilly shares with us his vocation director's experience, working in Liberia and Sierra Leone in Africa. Father Robert Maloney calls our attention to an impressive lay-movement of young people who serve the poor in Italy. Reverend Paul Casper, who first went to Burma as missionary in 1952 and later served as the first American Dean of St. John's Cathedral in Hong Kong from 1982-1986, reflects on the influence of his fellow An-glican, C.S. Lewis, upon his experience of spiritual direction. As editor, I want to continue to welcome readers and writers from all over the world. REVIEW FOR RELigiOUS will continue to be enriched by the .reflections of people who come from different community, mission, and cultural life-experiences. Through this journal, we are being given a new window--varied prisms--upon our world and upon our religious iives.~ David L. Fleming, S.J. Ministry and Ministries John R. Sheets, S.J. Father John Sheets, S.J. is well known to our readers. His last article, "Spiritual Direction in the Church," appeared in the issue of July/August, 1987. Father Sheets may be addressed at Creighton University; California at 24th Street; Omaha, Ne-braska 68178. In the remarks which follow, I try to distinguish two related but radically different forms of ministry: that which is primordial, the ministry of pres-ence, and that which is functional, activities, some of which are institu-tionalized, others not, which serve to constitute and build up the Church. The ministry of presence is overlooked today. When people speak of ministry they tend to speak only of functional ministry, various ac-tivities which in one way or another build up the Church. However, they forget that the functional ministry is always built on and presupposes a primordial, or deeper form of ministry, the ministry of presence. Though it is risky to use masculine-feminine analogies today, I think that those who can bypass the loaded nature of such language, and re-gain a certain direct vision of those realities, without the prejudices of our times, can spontaneously recognize in the ministry of presence quali-ties which are feminine, and in the mini~stry of function, masculine char-acteristics. I do not mean, of course, that functional ministries belong only to men, and not to women, or that men cannot exercise qualities of presence. The distinction is aimed at calling attention to two related but different modalities of ministry: a mode of being in and with, which is presence; and a mode of being for, which is function. We live in an age which is centrifugal. The self is caught in a kind of cyclotron that empties the inner self as it pours itself into more and more things to do. For this reason in the remarks which follow there is an attempt to recapture the primordial ministry of presence, which alone 163 164 / Review for Religious,. March-April 1989 can vitalize, energize, the ministries of function. In a sense it is an at-tempt to see how the feminine principle of presence lies beneath all other activ.ities within the Church, providing the presence of the Spirit, who alone breathes life into those activities which are ordinarily called min-istry. Without the presence of the breath of the Spirit, ministry in the sense of activity is like those dry bones Ezekiel describes (Ezk 37), strewn about in a valley, lifeless skeletons that have a faint resemblance to a living person. Hans Urs von Balthasar in Elucidations (London: S.P.C.K., 1975, p. 70) describes what I have just spoken of as a kind of "masculiniza-tion" of the Church. "The Church since the Council has to a large ex-tent put off its mystical characteristics. It has become a Church of per-manent conversations, organizations, advisory commissions, congresses, synods, commissions, academies, parties, pressure groups, functions, structures and restructurings, sociological experiments, statistics; that is to say, more than ever a male Church . " General Reflections on the Meaning of Ministry Before going into some specifics in regard to ministry, I would like to give a working description of ministry that will include everything pre-sented in this article about various ways of speaking of ministry. Most of the time discussions on ministry begin with a description of various activities in the Church that are exercised for the good of others, either as individuals or as :a community. This approach is a valid one. But it also tends to play into models which belong to other forms of hu-man activity for the good of any society, not specifically the society we call the Church. Hence, it is possible that, without realizing it, what is secretly at work in discussion of ministry are models coming from hu-man social structures, such as civil society, instead of those that respect the uniqueness of the ministries that belong to the Church. One has to see Christian. ministry in terms of the complete newness of the forms of activity that the Christian calls ministry. The Church, on the other hand, does not exist only as a heavenly city coming downfrom above. It exists in the world in interaction with other societies. It also has similarities with other societies, especially the state, But the danger is to lose sight of the uniqueness of Christian ministry, and to reduce it to secular models. I want to speak of Christian ministry, then, by beginning from a slightly different perspective than is customary. Ordinarily discussion of ministry begins by talking about different activities in the Church as they are exercised by different members. But it might be more helpful to ap- Ministry and Ministries / 165 proach ministry in a reverse direction. Ministries come from awareness of needs that have to be taken care of within the Church. Ministries are always a response to specific kinds of needs. Ministries in the Church then are those activities which are generated within the Church in re-sponse to the needs of the community. In somewhat the same way, all "secular ministries," such as schools, hospitals, civil authority have to be understood primarily as response to needs within the community. There are no ministries that are simply there, self-evident, self-explanatory. Ministries.exist only because they are called forth as a re-sponse to certain needs. They are essentially relative then to the need that calls them forth. They come, go, remain as the needs either remain or come and go. Their importance ranges from fulfilling needs which are essential to the existence of the Church (for example, the ministry of holy ordi~rs), to those which are i, mportant for'its well-being, but not essen-tial tbqts very existence. This,is true both forthe secular notion of ministry, as well as the ec-clesial. But the needs in each case are radically different. Hence, the re-sponse, or the ministry will be radically different. To understand minis-try, then, one has, so to speak, to work backwards, from need to re-sponse. The respbnse in turn depends upon the particular gift, whether of grace or nature, to respond to the need. St. Paul always sees the gifts of ministry in this sense, as Spirit-evoked responses to community needs. Ministry t.hen is called forth by the particular needs of the organiza-tion as social whether the social body is sec.ular or religious. Some of these needs are practically identified.with the continued existence and Well-functioning of the.body; for example, in the state, different levels of auihority are 'called forth from the need to preserve the society so that it keeps its identity and reaches its goals. The importance of the minis-try varies. Its importance is relative to the nature of the need that has to be taken care of. But our question is concernedowith the society called the Church, not secular societies. Ministry in the Church is the Spirit-created response to the unique needs of the new kind of society' that came into the world-through the institutiofi' of Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit at Pen-tecost. The basic needs.to be responded to are those to which Jesus him-self responded. The Church exists only to carry out what Jesus intended in his life and redemptive death. The deepest need of humankind, then, is the.need for redemption. This is the need that Jesus came to fulfill. He had no other purpose. All ministries in the Church are relative to the one basic need, the need for redemption. "166 / Review for Religious, March-April 1989 The primary ministry in the Church, then, is that which he commu-nicated to his,,apostles. He breathed into them his own mission or his own ministry. " 'As the Father sent me, so I send you.' He then breathed on them saying, 'Receive the.Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone's sins, they stand forgiven; if you pronounce them unforgiven, unforgiven th.ey remain' " (Jn 20:21-23). He creates a correlation between his ministry which comes from the Father, and the mission of the apostles, which comes from Jesus. They are to minister to the fundamental need of hu-mankind, reconciliation with God and with one. another. Thus th+ fundamental ministry of the Church which is poured into the Church is to respond to a need at the heart of the whole of humanity and even of the universe itself. If this ministry fails, then the mission of Ctiiist is aborted. The raw fundamental need of humankind remains un-touched. "We are still in our.sins" (see 1 Co 15:17). Within that fun-damental ministry, which makes die mission of Christ present, ,there are other subordinate ministries, each of them in one way or another a par-ticipation in the fundamental response to the need for redemption. All forms of ministry in the Church, therefore, are responses to the radical need of humankind, the need f+r redemption. They are not self-actuated responses like those belonging to other socie.ties. They are di-rectly evoked and sustained by the Spirit ~vhose intention is to carry out in the Church what he initiated in the life and death of Christ. St. Paul uses a striking metaphor to bring out ministry as response to need. He calls himself a debtor to everyone. What he owes them is the Gospel. This is the Spirit-evoked gift to answer the radical need in the human heart. M6re than health, money, food, or anything else, the radical need is for Christ. "I am in debt to Greek and to non-Greek, to learned and Simple" (Rm i : 14). The Need for the Presence of Christ: Ministry as a Mode of Being Present As I mentioned in the beginning, it i~ important at the outset to dis-tinguish, ministry according to two different modalities: (a) ministry as presence,, which is a mode of being-with, what I called above, the pri-mordial form of ministry, and (b) ministry as partiizular activities which are ways of doing that flow from being-for others. The latter has to do with activities which flow from and presuppose ministry in the first sense. Most often when people talk about ministry they refer only to doing something. They forget that ministry as we find it in the Church is situ-ated within what is deeper, the mystery of an existence that has been trans- Ministry and Ministries / 167 formed through grace. This transformed existence brings a new mode of presence into the world. I spoke above of ministry as the Spirit-created response to need. The great absence, and therefore, the deepest need, is that of the absence of God in the hearts of individuals and society. The first mode of "minis-try" then is not some particular kind of activity. Rather it is a mode of presence that penetrates a person's whole being. It is a kind of "glory," or radiance that end/elopes a person's whole life. It cannot be located within any one particular kind of activity. "We all reflect as in a mirror the glory of the Lord" (1 Co 3:18). Like a mirror, Christian existence reflects tothe world the presence of Christ. This is the primary mode of ministry. This "presence" or glory comes from the fact that, as Paul says, we are a "new creation." "When anyone is united to Christ, there is a new creation; the old order has gone, and a new order has already be-gun" (2 Co 5:17). He tells the Christians that in the midst of an evil world they are to "shine like stars in a dark world, and proffer the word of life" (Ph 2:13). All of Paul's exhortations about what to do as Chris-tians flow as corollaries from the mystery of their transformed existence as a new creation. The images that Jesus uses to describe the primary ministry of the Christian do not concern specific activities. He calls the Christian salt, light, leaven for the world. The Christian's pri(nary ministry to the world, then, is not some particular activity, but a kind of epiphany of the presence of the New Creation. The most fundamental ministry then is to live the Christian life in its fullness. It is a doing that is identified with their very being. How they live flows from who they are. Very sim-ply it is the call to be holy. It helps us understand this primary form of ministry if we reflect on the fact that all Christian ministry receives its meaning insofar as it takes on the.pattern of Christ's ministry. In Christ, we see the perfect expres-sion of "ministry." All that he does flows from who he is. The myste-rious interaction of Jesus with everyone came.from an awareness of a pres-ence in him Which eluded all categories and particular activities. Similarly his primary activity in the Church is not through specific ministries, for example, orders,.charisms, and so forth. It is the fullness of his presence filling the whole Church. "He put everything in subjec-tion beneath his feet, and appointed him as supreme head to the Church, which is his body and as such holds within it the fullness of him who himself receives the entire fullness of God" (Ep 1:22-23). "Be assured. Review for Religious, March-April 1989 I amowith you always, to the end of time" (Mt 28:20). At center of all particular ministries in the Church, then, is the mystery ~f presence. Christ's own ministry is the Si~irit-evoked response to the most radi-cal needs of humankind redemption, salvation, atonement. "I have a ba, ptism wherewith I am to be baptized, and how I am straitened until it be accomplished" (Lk, 12:50). His fundamental ministry then is to re-veal the Father's love. This love is not only an affective, but also an ef-fective love. The Father shows his love through the redemptive gift of his Son. Hence, the mode of being of Christ is a redemptive mode of being. He is from the beginning the? ',Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." His ministry then is identified with his whole being. No matter what he says or does, it is always the expression of his gift of himself: "This is my body given for you. This is my blood poured out for you." Christ's presence then is a special mode of presence: a re-demptive presence. All particular activities flow from his pervasive pres-ence as the Suffering Servant. The Church itself has only one primary ministry. It is the sacrament of the presence of Christ. It exists only to bring to the world what Christ accomplished through his ministry, to bring.~the world in touch with the mystery of Christ. All of the various particular ministries in the Church, ways of doing, flow from the primary ministry which is a mode of being present. Similarly, the primary mimstry of the Christian is that of pres-ence where God is absent, to be light in the darkness, leaven in a dead world, salt in a world which has lost its savor. The failure to recognize the primary ministry as that of presence has led to many ambiguities, in discussion of ministry today. One gets the im-pression that greater participation in ministry is only (or mainly) being able to participate in many activities which were closed to a person up to the present. But in reality the primary ministry is to respond by pres-ence to what is absence, or anti-presence. This has always been the pri-mary ministry of the saints, canonized and uncanonized. The m.inistry of presence creates an atmosphere that is broader, deeper, more pene-trating, both stronger and more delicate, and more effective while it is more self-effacing than what is brought about by particular ministries. Yet it has to be admitted that this primary notion of ministry is often neglected~ The activistic mentality that pervades our society sees minis-try mainly as involvement in more activities, o~ in activities associated with one form of ministry, that of Orders. But the ministry of presence is not a matter of this ministry or that. It takes in a whole constellation of activities that identify the New Creation. Th.ey are not so much spe- Ministry and Ministries cific activities as Christian modes of being. St. Paul describes this min-istry Of presence as the harvest of the Spirit: "lbve, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control" (Ga 5:22). The ministry of presence, then, takes in all of those activities which are gr0upe~d under the names of the spiritual and corporal works of mercyL''When I was hungry., thirsty., a stranger., naked. ill . in prison" (Mt 25:31f). In particular, it takes on Christ's minis-try as the Suffering Servant. "I have set you an example: you are to do as I have done for you. In truth I tell you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor a messenger than the one who sent him" (Jn 13:!5-16). As Paul says, "Let your bearing toward one another arise out of your life in Christ" (Ph 2:5). All of these activities belong to the Christian qua Christian, not to the Christian as having a particular form of ministry. They are insepara-ble from the Christian identity itself. These activities form the primary ministry of,the Christian. I have spoken, then, of ministry as the Spirit-evoked response to needs. The primary ministry is the response to the need for the presence of Christ through the Christian in the world which still needs to be touched by the redemption. This is the ministry that flows from the pres-ence of the New Creation. Presence in torn is not one or other specific activity. It is a kind of epiphany that shows itself in the constellation of activities that irradiates from the New Creation. Ministry on this foundational level is related to specific forms of min-istry as the atmosphere is to thir~gs that breathe. The specific forms of ministry are lifeless unless they live out of this atmosphere that identi-fies the Neff Creation. Yet it has to be. admitted that popular ways of speal(ing of particular ministries in the Church isolate them from their roots in the primary form of ministry, which is a mode of being present as the New Creature to the Church and to the world. It is on the level of the ministry of presence that really important but unheralded ministry takes place in the Church. It is that which belongs to states of life, such as, for example, marriage. The "ministry" of ¯ mother or father is not this or that particular activity. It is a mode of lov-ing presence that creates a kind of a cosmos of relationships which we call the family. Others, for example, a baby sitter, can carry out particu-lar activities that a mother or father also do. But it is only when such particular activities are rfianifestation of the mystery of presence, the mys-tery of motherhood and fatherhood, that such activities create the mys-tery that we call the family. 170 / Review for Religious, March-April 1989 The Catholic lay person, like every other Christian, exercises the min-istry of presence. This presence obviously comes to the fore in ways of acting that are spe~:ifically Christian. But those particular activities have their power because they are witness to a presence that makes Christ pre-sent in the whole of one"s life. The p~resence is that of the New Crea-tion, in a quiet hut powerful way emitting signals that show the 'presence of Christ in the secular world. They are like beacohs of light sending rays out into the night, both illumining the darkness an~! attracting people to the light of Christ. Particular Ministries in the Church Finally, after this long buildup, we come to the place where most people usually begin discussions about ministry. They mean particular activities in the Church directed to building up the Church that have ec-clesial recognition. "Above we spoke mainly of ministry as the manifold group of activi-ties that flow from the new mod~ of being which St. Paul calls the New Creation. They are not activities in the same sense as the particularized m~nistries. In the particularized ministries one does something to accom-plish something else. But in the foundational ministry one is not "'do-ing" one thing to accomplish something else. Rather it is a ministry of transforming presence. "To crown all, there must be love to bind all to-gether and complete the whole" (Col 3: 14). "'I may dole out all I pos-sess, or even give my body to be burnt, but if I have no love, I am none the better" (1 Co 13:3). Ministry as a particular activity ~n the.Church presupposes and lives off the foundational ministry which is presence, the presence of the Holy Spirit in individuals making them the New Creation: The Holy Spirit, then, draws individuals into the love of Christ by givingthem gifts to respond to particular needs in the Church. St. Paul's description of.min-istry always presupposes the presence of the Holy Spirit in the individ-ual not simply as an individual but as a member of the Church. Gifts are given to individuals to enable them to fulfill a need within the Church. Presupposing, then, the fundamental ministry of presence, St. Paul speaks of various ministries which the Holy Spirit calls forth to respond to various needs. While each is izalled to the primary ministry of radiat-ing the presence of Christ to the whole (the fundamenthl ministry), there are particular functional-roles within the community called forth to re-spond to a whole range of different needs, some more essential than oth-ers. Paul describes some of these. "And these were his gif!s: some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teach- Ministry and Ministries / .17"1 ers, to the building up of the Body of Christ" (Ep 4:1 !-13). "Now you are Christ's body; but each of you is a different part of it. In the Church, God has given the first place to apostles, the second to prophets, the third to teachers. " (1 Co 12:18f). However, the primary ministry, the ministry of presence, with love as its animating principle, should animate all the particular ministries. "Be ambitious for the higher gifts. And I am going to show you a way that is better than any of them" (1 Co 12:31-13:1). Then he goes on to describe the ministry of all ministries, the mystery of love as the primary "ministry" to which we should aim. Ministries on this level have to do with the whole social unit, the whole Church. They reorientate a person's whole existence to take on a specific kind of relativity,from Chr.ist,for the Church. This reorienta-tion is such that it modifies in a new way the person's Christian iden-tity. There are three modes in which the presence of the New Creation is radicalized in an individual: the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, and holy orders. Theologically the term "character" describes what St. Paul calls the metamorphosis, the change in the inner structure of a per-son's life (2 Co 3:18). This is the radical reorientation of a person's whole being, first of all, through baptism to become the New Creation, to respond to one's own radical need--the need-for redemption; then, through confirmation which takes presence to a new dimension, orien-tating the baptized person to the needs of the whole Church; then, through holy orders which radicalizes in a person Christ's own gift-presence, making a person "steward of the mysteries of God" (I Co 4:1), a person whose presence is to draw forth the New Creation. The traditional theological term, "character," then, describes three modes of the presence of Christ in the New Creation. Flowing from these modes of presence are different kinds of activity. I have commented briefly above on the mode of presence that comes through baptism and confirmation. These are modes of presence and ac-tivity which belong to all Christians by virtue of their baptism and con-firmation. It is what is specifically called the mini~stry of the laity. Within that mode of presence there are many kinds of activities, as, for exam-ple, that which belongs to those who are married, or to those engaged in secular occupations in the world. I shall comment briefly on the kind of presen.ce that belongs to the priest. It has two sides. The priest mediates to the Church and the world the presence of Christ. On the other side, the priest draws the whole of Review for Religious, March-April 1989 the Church into the presence of Christ. Like John the Baptist the priest is to introduce the Bride to the Bridegroom, and the Bridegroom to the Bride. Priestly ministry has a.single purpose: to bring about the New Crea-tion- to nourish, sustain, and guide the New Creation by word and sac-rament. All of priestly activity then is some form of transubstantiation, that is, to change the old reality into the new. The priest's whole being is to transform the world by touching it with the redemptive event of Christ. The priest lives from Christ, for the Churchl' But at the heart of all ministries in the Church is the radicalization that takes place through baptism which brings into being the New Crea-tion. Confirmation and orders have their roots in the new mode of pres-ence of Christ in the individual and the Church through baptism. Con-firmation draws out another aspect of the giftedness of the New Crea-tion, that is, the apostolic dimension to "let your light shine before oth-ers . " Orders is a gift of the Spirit presupposing baptism which em-powers individuals to draw forth from the "old creation" the New Crea-tion, through word and sacrament, and to direct the community in the ways to live out the implications of the New Creation. Problems Associated With Ministry St. Paul describes ministries as the work of the Holy Spirit in call-ing responses from within the New Creation to particular needs within the Church. The images he uses always suggest harmonics or coordina-tion. In a sense, the Holy Spirit is like a conductor calling .forth from each individual player in the symphony that which leads to the harmon-ics of the whole piece of music. One of St. Paul's favorite images to bring out the .sense of harmonics of ministries is that of the body, where the whole exists for each part, and each part exists for every other part, as well as for the whole. "There is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit; there are all sorts of service to be done, but always to the same Lord, working in all sorts of different people; it is the same God who is working in all of them" (1 Co 12:if). The words "same Spirit," or the "one Spirit" oc-cur about ten times in the passage to show that ministry is a Spirit-evoked response to different needs. The same emphasis is found in Ephe-sians 4: If. "Do all you can to preserve the unity of the Spirit. , there is one Body, one Spirit . . . one Lord, one faith~ one baptism, one God." It is interesting that Paul's extensive description of the interplay of the gifts of the Holy Spirit for the good of the whole Church is found mainly in a community where there was the greatest.disharmony, the Ministry and Ministries / "17'3 Church at Corinth. He is therefore calling attention to a special kind of sin, the obstruction of the power of the Holy Spirit in the very persons who are called to build up the body of Christ. But the situation at Corinth does point to what have always been three problems with ministry in the Church: (1) the failure to see minis-try as the Spirit-evoked response to different needs within the Church; (2) the failure to see that each ministry has its meaning not in itself, but only insofar as the foundational ministry of presence animates it; (3) the adaptation of the uniqueness of Christian ministry to secular models. I shall comment on these briefly. (1) The problems in the Corinthian community that turned the sym-phonic movements of the Holy Spirit into groups of warring factions have always been part of the sinfulness of the Church. Basically it is the problem of what in Jungian psychology is called the "persona," the pub-lic image a person seeks before the eyes of others. The symphonic na-ture of ministry becomes discordant when one's attention turns from the ministry in itself to an awareness of the public image associated with dif-ferent ministries. The attention then is not on what the Holy Spirit is do-ing through one's ministry, but on the way ttiat one's own glory appears before others. Some even felt they got a better public image by the fact that they were baptized by a person associated with such an image-creating personality, for example, the eloquent and gifted evangelist, Apollos, in contrast to someone like Paul who apparently did not pro-ject such an image. (2) The second problem which has plagued the Church in her past history, as well as at the present, is tile dissociation of the ministry of doing from the primary ministry of being or of presence. For this reason Paul insists that though the Corinthian Community exercise all of the other ministries, even to the point of giving all they have to the poor, or giving their bodies to be. burnt, yet if they are isolated from th~ min-istry of presence, of being, that is love, (hen all activities are like activi-ties of a corpse. There might be much activity, very busy people, but it does not carry the life-giving power of the Spirit. It is dead. The lack of holiness in those who are supposedly the New Creation has been the biggest obstacle to the work of the Spi.rit during the whole of the history of the Church. (3) The third problem, related to the first two, comes from a failure to recognize the uniqueness of ministry in the Church. Ministry in the Church is a reversal of all notions of service that we find in societies that owe their existence to some natural cause, for example, the state or the 174 / Review for Religious, March-April 1989 family. In these societies, a person enters at a certain level, then makes every effort to move to the top, with increase of salary, prestige, power, and the expansion of the "public image" as one works to the top. In the process, whoever is above is a threat because the one above stands in the way. Those who are below are looked on as inferior. Judgments about the importance of different "ministries" are always made accord-ing to the ladder\of the upward-bound movement and then more specifi-cally to what rung of the ladder one is on. This problem has always been with the Church. It was practically im-possible for the apostles to put this new wine into old wineskins. They argued who was the most important. Then Jesus taught them, "If any-one wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and the servant of all" (Mk 9:35). The sons of Zebedee asked Jesus, " 'Grant us the right to sit in state with you, one at your right and the other at your left.' Jesus said to them, 'You do not understand what you are ask!ng. Can you drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism I am to be baptized with?' " Jesus tells them that if he as master and Lord has washed their feet, then they should wash one another's feet. This is a symbolic way of describing Christian ministry. Paul says, "Rivalry and personal vanity should have no place among you, but you should hum-bly reckon others better than yourselves" (Ph 2:3). I am sure there are many other problems that have to do with minis-try today. Some are organizational problems, others from many of the feminist questions. The ones I mentioned above are attitudinal. They have always been with us, and are with us today. They can be at work also in other problems such as organizational or the feminist issues. I can-not imagine people agitating for a job which, for example, would mean that they would take a salary cut, pay more taxes, have longer hou.rs, and work anonymously. The Christian notion of ministry~ is even more out-landish than that. Ministry and Religious Life In his Apostolic Exhortation on the religious life, The Gift of Redemp-tion (March 25, 1984), Pope John Paul II presents what is probably the most profound theology of religious life that has ever been thought out. He roots religious consecration in the New Creation that comes into be-ing through baptism. Religio6s life then has its primary ministry in what we spoke of above as the ministry of presence. It is foundational to all other particular forms of ministry. But the presence that forms the fundamental ministry of religious life takes on a particular paschal duality. It is to image forth the life of Jesus Ministry and Ministries as the Suffering Servant. It exists to show forth the duality that belongs to Christ's own paschal mystery. The paschal duality means that one and the same reality has two related aspects: the cross (sacrifice) and the res-urrection (the New Creation). The vowed life of the religious, then, is to bring into the world a particular modality of paschal presence. That is the fundamental ministry: the ministry of the paschal presence. But there are particular ministries which religious congregations ex-ercise for the good of the Church and society. When we look at the his-tory of the Church in our own country, these ministries are numerous. Some of the majors ones are education, hospitals, orphanages, care for the elderly, but there are many others, including the contemplative life of intercession for the Church. Other forms of particular ministries have emerged over the last twenty-five years. But it is the foundational ministry above all which must activate all particular ministries. To quote Pope John Paul: "It is precisely this wit-ness of love that the world today and all humanity need. They need this witness to the Redemption as this is imprinted upon the profession of the evangelical counsels" (no. 14). "From this witness of spousal love for Christ, through which the entire salvific truth of the Gospel becomes par-ticularly visible, there comes., as something proper to your vocation, a sharing in the Church's apostolate, in her universal mission . . ." (no. 15). He goes on to speak of the particular apostolates. Then, "And thus, even though the many different apostolic works that you perform are ex-tremely important, nevertheless the truly fundamental work of the apos-tolate remains always what (and at the same time who) you are in the Church. Of each one of you can be repeated, with special appropriate-ness, these words of Saint Paul: 'For you have died and your life is hid with Christ in God' " (no. 15). Conclusion Questions about ministry are very much with us today. Many of these questions were brought up in the recent synod on the laity. But the end results did not bring much clarification. Perhaps the most positive result was to bring an awareness of the need for a theology of ministry that relates ecclesiology, pneumatology, grace, sacraments, and voca-tion. I am sure that the synod wa~ an important step along the way to clarification. As the history of the theology and development of doctrine show, clarification of issues that touch the life of the Church very pro-foundly is a long process. .What I have tried to do above could be summed up as follows: (I) since ministry belongs to a unique reality, namely, the Church, which "176 / Review for Religious, March-April 1989 is, so to speak, held together 'from above,' through the Holy Spirit, min-istry in the Church is unique, and cannot be reduced to service as~we find it in any human society; (2) ministry is not self-initiated but originated by the Holy Spirit in order to respond to needs, some of which are con-stitutive of the Church, for example, sacrament of orders, and others which depend on historical, sociological factors; (3) the primordial min-istry is that of presence, which cannot be limited to presence of the Spirit "because God's love has flooded our inmost heart through the Holy Spirit he has given us" (Rm 5:5); (4) particular ministries address par-ticul~ ir needs within the Church or the w.ay the Church interfaces with the world; (5) three main problems were singled out: (a) the use of min-istry to glorify oneself; (b) the shift from primacy of presence ("the more excellent way" which Paul describes as love) to a primacy of par-ticular ministries; (c) the subtle adaptation of the gospel paradoxes about ministry ("Then if I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you ought also to wash one another's feet" (Jn 13:14) to promotional mod-els taken from secular societies; (6) finally, I spoke of the particular min-istry of religious, whether active or contemplative: it is the ministry of a special mode of presence, a kenotic presence, which translates the words of Jesus, "this is my body given up for you . . . blood poured out for you" into the three evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, obe-dience, creating a paschal presence which animates all particular minis-tries. Come and See: An Experiment in Vocation Discernment in Africa Martin O'Reilly, C.F.C. Brother Martin O'Reilly, C.F.C., does vocation counseling work in Liberia and Si-erra Leone. His address is Christian Brothers; P.O. Box,297; Monrovia, Liberia. ~lln unkind joke, certainly thought up with post-Vatican II religious life in mind, asks: how do you join a small religious congregation? Answer: join a big one and wait. It is, however, a joke that would not be under-stood in many parts of the Church, particularly in Africa. Let me explain. Between 1975 and 1985 the number of local priests rose in West Africa by a staggering 630%; local sisters increased by 280% and'brothers by 340% (Statistics compiled from L'Englise Catholique en Afrique, edited by Pere Perraud, Pontifical Missionary Union, France, 1987). T.he prob-lem for many seminaries and religious communities in the younger. churches is not so much trying to attract candidates, but to find ways in which to sort out the wheat from the chaff. This article will focus on the ways in which vocation counselors can effectively carry out their ministry in situations where the large numbers applying for entrance to religious communities, the newness of the ,~o-cation to many people, and the particular backgrounds of the applicants make it difficult to accurately assess the. seriousness of an application. If the postulancy is to really be a preparatory period for entry into the. novitiate, and not simply a sorting out of suitable candidates from the unsuitable, then there is need for some kind of system of deselection prior to that. A method for doing so is what is proposed here. It is the result of my own involvement over these past five years in vocation coun-seling in Liberia and Sierra Leone. 177 "17~1 / Review for Religious, March-April 1989 The Game Plan ~ Perhaps the best way to begin is by saying how I don't carry out my ministry: I don't advertise; I don't give talks in schools or churches; I don't have a telephone; I don't have my own means of transport; and I am not fulltime on the job. I prefer, rather, to spend a couple of weeks, five or six times a year on the road, covering some 3,000 miles or so, visiting those who have contacted me. I stay with them in their town or village, and meet their family and friends. Just as an ordinary friendship grows, so does mine with .those who have expressed interest in the life of a Brother. Through the people who have invited me to visit their homes, I have met others who want to know more about the religious vocation. Many people have joined our community through a friend or relative introducing them to me. Since b~ginning in my ministry in 1982 I have developed a network of contacts that r.uns into the hundreds. When my relationship with an applicant has developed past a cer-tain point, I then invite him to "come and see" where 1 live. I invite him to spend ten weeks with myself and the community. Apart from help-ing with his transport costs, he has to arrange his own travel documents and come under his own steam--just as any person would have to do, were he or she to travel and visit a friend in a far-off place. The idea behind the ten-week vocation discernment program is for candidates and the community to experience each other for a sufficient length of time, allowing both parties to get to know each other, and to see if they are compatible and willing to grow together in community, prayer, and service. :Who Is Invited? ~ There are fivemarkers I would look foi in a person suitable for ac-ceptance into the pre-postula.ncy program (I am presuming that an appli-cant is baptized and confirmed as a Catholic, has reasonable references and is in good health): (I) An applicant must have shown evidence of being able to commit him-self to a group within the Church (for example, The Legion of Mary, St. Vincent de Paul, Y.C.S., or a prayer group) for a substantial period of time. Simply "attending Mass'? regularly is not enough evidence of a commitment to the Church within the African context. (2) An applicant must have "nets to leave behind." The economic con-dition of many of the countries in West Africa is such that the vocation . of a priest or a religious can be a very attractive proposition. It offers a person security and status, to say nothing of sanctity! Those straight Come and See / "179 from school are not usually in a position to have ~proved their compe-tence in the art of living and providing for themselves. With few excep-tions school-leavers have the added problem of not seeing entrance to a religious community as anything more than pursuing "further stud-ies." Those who apply, and have no job, I advise to look elsewhere. (3) The family of an applicant must be able to understand what decision a young person is making in asking to join a religious community. There has to be some significant member of the family, not necessarily a par-ent, who supports his intention. The applicant, for his part, must explain to the family that all he is trying to do is to "find God's will." If he finds out that it is not God's intention forhim to be a religious, then he should tell them that he will return home a wiser person; but if it is, then he must explain thathe will be returning to join the community as a pos-tulant with, hopefully, the understanding and support of his family. (4) An applicant has to be able to see that there are difficulties for him in asking to join a religious community. His ability to talk of his'fears about the demands of a celibate life are as good an indicator as any of the degree of his seriousness. If he cannot see this as a tremendous chal-lenge, then I tell him that he probably has not thought enough about the vocation. (5) With regard to the intellectual ability of an applicant, it is essential that he be capable of tertiary education. A person's particular paper quali-fications do not always reflect his academic ability, so it is not appro-priate to apply the same rules for entry to everyone. A candidate should certainly have finished his secondary school education and not beqook-ing to resit exams at a later date. If I am unsure as to the suitability of a person applying for the pro-gram, I will give him the benefit of the doubt; but when it comes to en-try into the° six months postulancy, and I am s.t!ll unsure of his suitabil-ity, I give the benefit of the doubt to the community and ask him to look elsewhere for his vocation. The Rationale Behind The Program The pre-postulancy program, as outlined here, is conceived of as an extension of the vocation counselor work, .rather than the beginning of religious formation. Those selected for the prograrfi--never more than twelve--are fully aware of the temporary nature of the experience, and understand that at the end of the program they may, or may not, be in-vited to apply for admission to the postulancy program. For most of those entering the program, this will be their first expe-rience of living in a multi-cultural environment. Great care, therefore, 180 / Review for Religious, March-April 1989 is taken to make our candidates feel at home--if not, then they will prob-ably wish they were at home.! We have found that candidates, at this stage of the life in a religious community, prefer to share rooms and need ample opportunity for settling in ,and' being themselves. It goes without saying that the personnel involved in directing the program are comfort-able living with young people and are prepared to trust them. I have found that for a pre-postulancy program to work well, there must be a group of candidates with a specified program to follow. Sim-ply inviting young Africans to come and live with a religious commu-nity and to occupy themselves with some form of pastoral work is not a sufficient basis for helping them understand the meaning of religious life. Candidates need clear guidelines so as to help them negotiate the difficulties in living in a structured environment with others from differ-ent backgrounds and cultures. Growth in appreciation of the meaning of religious life will take place when candidates begin to experience the com-munity as sufficiently safe and supportive so that they can be themselves. However a person presents himself prior to joining the community, he cannot maintain a pretense for long when invited to participate in a strong community experience. Candidates, also, can be so concerned with try-ing to match our real or imagined expectations of them that they find it difficult not to think of themselves as playing the lead part in a drama scripted by others. As far as is possible I make the agenda of our daily living together the responsibility of all and try to foster a sense of ac-countability among them, a sense that "we are in this together." For people to encounter themselves, others, and God in a real way there has to be a ring of authenticity about the experience. I am espe-cially interested in exploring with those invited to join the program their notions about themselves, talents as well as weaknesses; the ways in which they handle questions relating to anger and misunderstanding~ sexu-ality and intimacy, and obligations towards family members--as well as the ways in which they enjoy praying. Matters spe(ifically related to the meaning of the vocation to the religious life, I leave for later on in the p6stulancy. Hopefully, as a result of this approach candidates come to build up their identity as members of the community and as people of prayer on more than the superficial foundations of rules and ritual. Sometimes formators can be afraid to get close to c.andidates, pre-ferring to treat them in h remote fashion. This is, 1 feel, wholly unac-ceptable within a cultural climate where tactile contact and verbal com-munication are so important.~Shaking hands, giving hugs and passing the time of day together are as natural to Africa as the sunshine. Most of Come and See 181 those applying to join us have encountered a good deal of opposition from their friends and family. They need to know from the outset that they are really welcome into the community, not simply for who they might become, (that is religious brothers), but for who.they actually are. That is not to say that there is no room for tough love, but simply that the most effective direction will be given by the formator who is capa-ble of sharing his or her affection for the candidates in concrete ways. A crucial element in thesuccess of the "Come and See" program has been the close presence of professed religious, actively involved in the mission of the congregation, and a novitiate community prepared to welcome candidates, albeit for only ten weeks, into the religious fam-ily. Both professed members and novices have provided a tangible ex-pression of the ideal and the possibility of becoming a religious candi-date. The director of the program is also supported by this in the com-plex business of evaluating applicants to the postulancy. Counseling and helping people discern their vocation is very much, at this stage, a group experience. The value of regular or weekly com-munity meetings, with the opportunity of bringing into the open any is-sue of concern to individuals or the group, cannot be overestimated. If something important to one or more of the candidates is being intention-ally avoided by the community, then nothing of importance will be ta~ked about either. Our weekly sessions start with a review of the pre-vious week and points arising from the reading of the community jour-nal take up the first part of the meeting. I have known that part of the meeting to go on for two hours. The principle of dialogue in Africa seems to be "to talk until you agree"! The length of the program--ten weeks--is long enough for both the candidates and the community to come to have a fair idea of one another, and yet short enough for a person to feel as though he has not burnt his boats by leaving home to enter into a religious community. Having a ter-mination point after ten weeks, instead of say six months, lessens the .chances of early drop-outs and an accompanying lowering of morale 'within the group. It also makes candidates feel free to reevaluate their own decision in the light of their experience of religious life and leave without recriminations, should they feel that such a life is not for them. Conclusion In the five years that the Brothers' Formation Center has been in op-eration in Gbarnga, Liberia, forty-two candidates have completed the "Come and See" program. To date, we have eight postulants, four nov-ices and ten junior professed. Most of those who have left us did so at 1~19 / Review for Religious, March-April 1989 the end of the pre-postulancy program, and left in good spirits. Those who entered the postulancy, and have stayed with the community, say thai the important thing about the pre-postulancy program was that it was religious life "small, small" and hence made them able to realize the importance of being themselves within a culture (religious life) vastly dif-ferent from the 6he they were used to. They were more able to relax and relate to the idea of becoming religious once they knew that they were accepted for who they were; and not who they might become. If those who enter the postulancy do so with some semblance of realism in terms of themselves, and the firm knowledge that "it. is indeed good when brothers dwell as one," then there is a reasonable chance that they can give themselves fully to the significant step of embarking upon the path of becoming members of the Congregation, and I as vocation counselor will have don~ my job. Assessing The "Moral Integrity" Of Candidates For Religious Life Charles Shelton, S.J. Father Charles Shelton, S.J., has a doctorate in clinica! psychology and is currently an Assistant Professor of psychology at Regis College in Denver, Colorado. A more detailed understanding of this theory of conscience is presented in his most recent book, Morality and the Adolescent: A Pastoral Psychology Approach. New York: Crossroad, 1989. His address is Regis College; 3539 West 50th Avenue; Denver, Colorado 8022 I. Over the past twenty years, it is safe to state that the application process for entering reli~ious life has radically changed. Gone are the days when a simple behavioral observation of the candidate's religious practice or the encouraging word of a religious who knows the candidate suffices for entrance. Instead, the application process for most orders and insti-tutes focuses on a thor~ough social history, detailed interviews, psycho-logical evaluations, and an overview of the candidate's sp!ritual life. Sur-prisingly, little has been written regarding one crucial aspect of the ap-plication process--that of the candidate's moral integrity. This article ad-dresses this issue by offering a theoretical yet practical view of the can-didate's capacity for moral growth. The linchpin which holds together the candidate's vocational aspirations with his or her moral integrity is "conscience." Accordingly, we will provide a model of conscience and suggest a practic,al approach which will be of use to vocation directors and interviewers of candidates. The thesis of this article is that the "moral integrity" of a candidate is a crucial area of assessment and that a perspective which utilizes an integrative understanding of conscience offers the best way for providing a thorough examination of the candi-date's capacity for living the moral life. 183 11~4 / Review for Religious,~ March-~April 1989 ,The Moral Life of the Candidate Perhaps one reason that little has been written about the candidate's moral life is that one simply "assumes" that anyone wishing to enter priestly ministry or a religious congregation possesses an upright moral character. Although understandable, such a position remains question-able. Any vocation director can readily provide stories about candidates who express interest .in religious life, many of whom are ill-suited for psychological reasons, as well as at times "moral" reasons, for proceed-ing with the application process. The question of the candidate's moral integrity, however, has taken on new significance over the past two decades. Several reasons can be offered why serious examination needs to be given in this area. First, many candidates seeking to enter religious life today are ~lder. This be-ing the case, the backgrounds and experience of the candidates provide an often admirable, yet at times puzzling, array of experiences. Many involved in the candidate selection process at times wonder what has re-ally gone on in the life history of the candidate. Secondly~ the psycho-logical nature of candidates often admits to a complex personality struc-ture which is threaded with a variety of motives and psychological ex-periences, not all of which are compatible with the demands of the re-ligious community.For example, I was once presented with a situation about a candidat~ to a diocesan seminary. The candid.at~e had. admitted to several questionable behaviors but now contended that a conversion experienc6 had resolved these issues. Since I did not know the candidate, I refused to offer an opinion regarding his suitability. I did suggest, though, that given the behaviors in question careful scrutiny must be given this person's motives. The capacity for rationalization is virtually limitless. Thirdly, the complexity of today's ministerial roles and struc-tures necessitates a well-developed and well-defined moral conscience Which allows flexibility, sustains insight, and fosters behaviOr~ which are~ healthy and which nurture moral integrity. The recent scandals surround~ ing sexual acting out among priests and religious necessitate a.well-integrated conscience which assists a person in reflecting 6n his or her own vocational commitment. All in all, conscience remains the single most vital human mechanism for assisting an individual's living of dis-cipleship. As a consequence, it becomes important to offer a view'of con- ~Cience that is'integrative and best captures the human desire to live the life of Christian discipleship. As a clinical psyChologiSt my own view is that for conscience to make sense it must be intimately rooted within the very human experience of life; indeed, conscience must arise from The "Moral Integrity" of Candidates / 185. the very depths of human experience as it responds to the self-commu-nicating presence of God's offer of grace. This perspective allows the very moral integrity of the person to be encapsulate~l within the reality of h.~uman life and surface in the very depths of human personhood. Ac-cordingly, I think that conscience is best explained as the decision for other-centered value in the concrete decision of everyday life. That is, conscience serves as the capacity to appropriate more and more the Chris-tian dynamic of love in the existential reality ot~ one's life. It is the one force .within life that serves to break through deceit and self-deception and challenges one to strive for a more authentic living of discipleship. In order to see this clearly, I would like to offer a model of con-science that incorporates seven dimensions. My thesis is that only an ex-amination of these seven features will allow a more complete and thor-ough understanding of a'person's capacity for moral int'egrity. As a way to assist the application process of candidates, I will offer specific com-ments and questions that are applicable for a candidate seeking to enter religious life. Through an eva, luation of these seven dimensions, a more adequate sense of the candidate's moral integrity can be ascertained.~ Evaluating for Moral Integrity Within a model of conscience, the following seven dimensions should be considered. Adaptive Psychic Energy. We are what we focus on and experience. Stated another way, what we give attention to offers insight into the type of person that we are. Psychic energy is required for all human endeav-ors. Indeed, perceptions, thoughts, emotions, attachments, and behav-iors ~all rely upon an adequate investment of psychic energy. At the same time, psychic energy is itself limited. One has only so much energy to invest. Thus, to tend to certain tasks and goals precludes, by necessity, investment in other ventures. Developmentally, psychic energy is best utilized in the successful resolution of developmental tasks. Applicants seeking to enter religious life require careful scrutiny of both their level of identity formation as well as their capacity for intimacy. Most likely, individuals who are without a sense of healthy identity or a balanced and mature sense of the demands, ambiguities, and feelings associated with intimacy are susceptible to the pull of a pervasive dependency or the un-due influence of others (or environmental situations) which deflect needed psychic energy for spiritual growth. Moral growth is most apt to take place when one can bring to one's evolving and (increasingly. con-solidated) ethical self the accumulated wisdom derived from a felt (yet evolving) sense of "who I am" and the felt attachment (yet continual 186 / Review for Religious, March-April 1989 self-discovery) that "I am loved and I do love." Some needed questions to consider in this regard include: To what extent does this ~:andidate know who he or sh~ is? How influenced is this candidate by his or her own needs or by the influence of others? With what degi'ee of self-awareness can the candidate speak of a sense of self-definitioh? Does there exist appropriate intimacy experiences in this per-son's life (or for yoUn(er candidates, the maturing capacity for inti-macy)? Has this candidate's sense of identity and intimacy allowed for greater self-awareness that is capable of dealing with increasing ambi-guity and the com, pl~xities of adult (and religious) life? Defensive Psychic Functioning. Healthy growth is dependent upon adap-tive psychic functioning which incorporates mature defense mechanisms. Defense mechanisms are psychic operations whose function is to allay anxiety and.p~rovide a more flexible and adal~table resPonse to reality. Healthy defenses include sublimation, a flexible and resourceful sense of humor, role flexibility, s~ppression's"(the conscious contro~l of im-pulses), and altruism. Needless to say, the living in community and the demands of the chaste life require wide use of these defenses in order that the religious might integrate and deal with sexual and aggressive urges. Community life, the constant demands of the apostolic life, and the need to continually appropriate the ideals of the vowed life require an adaptable and flexible approach to others. On the other hand, there exist a' wide variety of defense mechanisms which are apt to prove un-healthy for living and which in turn stunt moral growth. These include: projection (the attributing of unacceptable feelings to others); externali-zation (the blaming of one's difficulties on others); acting out (the ac-ceding to impulses); rationalization (the making of excuses); stereotyp-ing (theorefusal to allow and accept differences); and compartmentaliza-tion (the excluding of one area of life from self-examination). A classic example of this last defense is the person who lives a credible life as a religiousin most areas of life, yet refuses to look at one area such as sex-ual acting out. As the candidate becomes less able to marshal mature defenses, the inevitable result is a limit of self-knowledge and of reflective self-awareness needed for interior examination. Naturally, this form of lim-ited psychological functioning is bound to impact on the discerning of choices or a balanced and realistic reflection on personal life issues. Some pertinent questions are: Does the candidate rationalize'? exter-nalize? project? and so forth. What does personal responsibility mean for this candidate? How comfortable is the candidate with his or. her ira- The "Moral Integrity" of Candidates pulses? How does the candidate sublimate? How does the candidate deal with ambiguity? To what extent is creativity possible for this candidate? Empathy. Conscience is not only rational reflection; it includes emotional investment and attachment. Empathy best exemplifies this emotional ex-pression since it points to the capacity to bond and show sensitivity to others. Normally, empathic expression is not an issue for religious. How-ever, there exist several areas for scrutiny. Does the candidate overem-pathize? The person who cannot maintain healthy identity boundaries is apt to lose objectivity. Further, when empathizing how does the candi-date deal and integrate his or her empathic stirrings? How self-aware is he or she of emotional distress which arises from pastoral situations which often elicit intense internal feelings? This issue is critically im-portant because burnout (an ever present problem for members of caring professions such as those in religiousolife tend to be) often results from continual exposure of the self to empathic distress (experiencing the pain and hurt of others in pastoral situations) which, over time, wears down the religious both physically and emotionally. This burnout in turn less-ens the capacity for reflection, healthy objectivity, and discerning choice. Self~esteem. Adequate self-esteem is indispensable for maturation. S;~lf-esteem refers to a felt sense of inner goodness and a sense of self-competence. There are several ways self-esteem relates to the candidate's level of moral integrity. First, without a healthy sense Of Self-esteem, a person is psychologically limited in the capacity to admit personal fault and the seeking of forgiveness. Lack of self-esteem leads invariably to over-compensating behavior and desires for control; or, conversely, there exists denial~ of responsibility or rationalizations. Without self-esteem the religious who hurts a fellow community member is disinclined to view himself or herself as bearing responsibility for the hurtful action. An equally problematic behavior that is likely to surface from lack of self-esteem is over-dependency on the behaviors and thoughts of others. In other words, the religious who lacks a felt sense of "inner goodness" is vulnerable to being overly influenced by another. Consequently, such "neediness" is likely to evoke blindness regarding personal action and the rationalization of specific behaviors. Several questions come to mind that could be integrated into an as-sessment of the candidate. First, does the candidate genuinely "like" himself or herself? Is the candidate capable of independent and mature judgment which is open to input and guidance from others? At the same time, are there indications that this candidate is overly dependent on ob- Review for Religious, March-April 1989 taining a good impression from or the approval of others? Guilt. Feelfngs of guilt exact a tremendous toll on the psyche. They can be'the source of debilitation leading to weakened self-esteem, depres-sion, a sense of personal devaluation, and compensating behaviors which often take on a compulsive quality. Still, there is a vital, indeed neces-sary role for guilt in moral development. Healthy guilt serves as a vital linchpin'in orienting one to awareness of personal transgressions and the need for forgiveness. Furthermore, such guilt' experiences induce a re-sponse that is caring and sensitive to the concerns of others. Admittedly, the experience of guilt is one of the most difficult psychological tight-ropes to walk. If experienced too intensely, its effects can be crippling. On the other hand, to deny the experience of guilt deprives the self of' a naturally occurring psychic experience whose function nourishes increas-ing sensitivity and altruistic responding. My own impression is that many religious downplay the vital role that guilt exercisesin the experience of forgiveness, I suspect this is most likely due to many religious' own back-ground and difficult time with guilt feelings. Several questions are pertinent. How. has the candidate dealt with moral transgressions in his or her own life? Can he or she discuss them? Is there a sense of openness and also a healthy distance from these past experiences? What has the candidate learned from these experiences? Is the candidate still reacting to them? How does,the candidate speak of his. current limitatiohs? How does the ~candidate believe that he or she needs further growth? Note here the view of growth from a sense of positive integration as opposed to a compulsive sense of goals to be accom-plished. Idealization. The role of idealization is vital for the development of a healthy moral sell It is within our capacity for 'idealization that the can-didate 'is able to construct a view of the order or congregation and the personal desire"to enter religious life. Idealization speaks of dreams, hopes, desires and what the ca.ndidate wishes to become. It implies a mold~ ing process of gradual evolvement which is shaped from images and hopes yet to be realized. Idealizations indicate the quality of one's emo-tional investment and the underlying values to which the moral self is committed. Several questions are pertinent.~,How realistic is the candidate's view of self? religious life? It is to be expected th~at the view of both self and the order/congregation might be somewhat distorted; and the issue b'(- comes how open 'is the candidate to having his or her idealizations rfiodi-fled? A further question refers to the capacity of the candidate to deal The "Moral Integrity" of Candidates with disillusionment. Since idealizations are so valued, the failure of them to occur or be implemented can lead to tremendous hurt and an-ger. Behaviors emanating from such perceived slights and disappoint-ments include acting out, cynicism, passive-aggressive behavior, ration-alizations. In other words, the negative affect resulting from disil-lusionment can cloud healthy moral reflection and an authentic living of the vows. Teleology. A final dimension of the well-integrated conscience is a re-flective sense of purposive meaning. A teleological perspective is sim-ply one's capacity for rational reflection which provides reasons ("that for the sake of which") why one's behavior is carried out. Candidates to religious orders and congregations, of course, are capable of reasoned and reflective behaviors. The issue here is more the "style" of one's telic inclinations rather than the content of the reasoning. In other words, most people could give reasoned responses for their behaviors. The key for mature functioning, and most certainly for moral functioning, is the motivation behind such reflection. Tendencies to be observed include the following: Does the reasoning of this candidate contain a healthy per-sonal investment? Is there an emotional investment in his reasons? Con-victions are most apt to be lived out when they contain a mature blend-ing of reasoned reflection and emotional commitment. On the other hand, does the candidate isolate affect? Does he or she appear to sepa-rate reasons from the emotions which such content would naturally elicit? For example, a candidate who would,speak of a particularly disturbing experience in a cold and very intellectualized way might well not be aware of underlying emotional dynamics. On the other hand, the candi-date whose rationales are continually interspersed with an impulsive qual-ity or tinged with emotionally laden content might be too absorbed in de-veiopm+ ntal issues or underlying dynamic processes to offer healthy dis-tance and the requisite discerning that is needed for moral decision mak-ing. Conclusion This article has underscored the significance of exploring the moral integrity of applicants in any overall assessment of candidates. It is ar-gued that moral development is not simply a process of doing right or wrong. Rather, growth in the moral life is a complex event best exem-plified as an integrative process emanating within the rooted experiences of human living. In the assessment process itself, an exploration of the candidate's past life history is imperative. Equally important, though, is assessing some quality of the candidate's capacity for moral growth. This 190 / Review for Religious, March-April 1989 article argues that optimum moral growth for the candidate is most apt to take place when the following qualities are present: appropriate work-ing through of developmental issues, a realistic and adaptive view of self and others, a caring sensitivity, the capacity for admitting wrong, a healthy sense.of self-esteem, aspiring ideals that are realistic, and reflec-tive reasoning. Though no assessment procedure can accurately predict a candidate's ability to live consistently the moral life, it is well worth the efforts of those involved in the formation process to address every candidate's capacity for moral integrity. An Easter Prayer Love's force is stron.ger than the pull of dark: It can level mountains, raise the dead To a new life, and strengthen weary feet To walk on waters, piled rough waves of night. Its breath can blow the dying coals to light A tunnel black as pitch and radiate The way round pitfalls and sucking s~nds Even to the long, long corridor's end: Chain love's force in tomb with rock-seal tight, Beat it level on Friday's cross and still After three-days He rises above The morning sun in Tabor splendor. See how He moves unhindered through barred doors, All His glory sta.mped on hand and foot and side: Balm to festered sores of Calvary, Now free from binding shroud and fastening nails. Oh, Beacon Light at the end of the sea's corridor, Ointment spice for hurt eyes and wounded hands, Oh, Summoning Bell, buoyant to all our stumbling feet, Help us, Risen Christ, to walk life's dark waters! Marcella M. Holloway, C.S.J. 6400 Minnesota Avenue St. Louis, Mo. 63111 Comprehensive Counseling David Altman, O.C.S.O. Father David is a monk of Holy Trinity Abbey; Huntsville, Utah 84317. At one time or another during our lives, individuals will come to usfor the help they think we can give. Whether or not we find ourselves ex-pert in various kinds of problem-solving, we ought to be able to help them identify problems and be able to present recommendations. Perhaps the key to success in relating to and helping others is to see personal relationships as Christian ministry. The people we meet are, of course, Christ himself, in one of his many disguises. They are also our current pastoral assignments, to be met with faith and self-sacrifical love. Upwards of 85% of helping others consists.in listening: listening at-tentively with compassion and understanding. At times we will be called upon to respond, and this must not be done tritely, but intelligently and constructively. The Approach The secret, if there is one, of a good approach to solving personal problems is to meet each person-situation comprehensively, which is to say, completely. This simply means that we have to use a method which will ensure that problems are not permitted to get by undetected. We want to throw out a net, so to say, which will catch and identify all the difficulties from which a person is suffering. A way to do this is to realize that we human beings are basically three-fold in our makeup: we are physical beings, mental-psychologi~:al be-ings, and moral-spiritual beings, Obviously, then, we can have three gen-eral kinds of problems: physical, mental-psychological, and moral-spiritual. 191 Review for Religious, March-April 1989 These categories are not mutually exclusive since they all pertain to one human person in each case. I have found them useful in my own coun-seling experience because they are complete: they are the net from which no problem need escape, provided that each category is kept in mind dur-ing communication with the person who is seeking help. Competency Few of us are competent to handle difficult cases of pathological na-ture. Of course, those with severe illnesses are to be directed to pro-fessionals with the appropriate expertise. Psychotics need psychiatrists or psychologists; seriously sick bodies require medical attention; and mor-ally ill people need men and women who can show them God's healing ways. Because we presumably are these men and women of God, we ought also to have a certain competency in identifying problems in the other two areas of each person: the physical and the psychological. The body-soul unity is the temple of God's Spirit, sharing intimately in the spiri-tual life of each of us. Therefore our desire to, help the suffering Christ in others ought to carry us beyond spiritual and moral interests alone. Though we may not have the professional training by which we can solve a probiem fully, our working knowledge of various problems en-ables us to provide reasons to a person of his (or her) need for another with more expertise. Simply remarking, "You need a doctor" can be a slap in the face for one who is in pain. We should be able to convince another of his need for help, and perhaps even supply a good name for reference. Difficulties One of the greatest difficulties in attempting to solve individual prob-lems in any of the three areas is to give a suffering person What we want instead of what he needs. When a medical doctor sees a patient, the as-sumption is that the patient has a medical problem. Tunnel vision can take over, and physical medicine is all the doctor can see, whereas the patient's main difficulty may be in a quite different area. It is not un-usual for doctors to listen to remarks such as "I'm not feeling well" and respond with great pastoral concern: "Here, let me give you something for your nerves." This is treating the, sympto.m rather than attempting to identify the underlying cause, the root problem. When a person sees a psychologist with a problem, the psychologist will usually presume that the problem lies within the bounds of psycho-logical expertise. This too may not be the case at all. Remember the story Comprehensive Counseling / 193 of the man who went to a psychologist with a physical ailment that was impinging on his nervous system. "I feel terrible," was the complaint. The doctor responded unwaveringly with talk therapy and persevered in missing the mark. There is little sense and even less success realized in forcing one kind of solution on an entirely different kind of problem. Equally futile and costly is the failure to address real problems in favor of their symptoms. Worse still is the failure of the health-care specialist torecognize a ~prob-lem, then write off the patient as a hypochondriac. This is no solution, only an excuse. When religious or priests are approached for counseling, we nor-mally presume, in our turn, that the person is simply looking for a closer relationship with God, and we proceed accordingly and unfortunately. I remember a person coming to see a religious for years, feeling terrible for a great deal of her time. The counselor came across very generously with saccharine exhortations to a deeper relationship with the Lord. The individual responded with nodding smiles as tears of pain continued to roll down her cheeks. The religious was giving what he wanted, not what the person needed. As it was, the individual had developed a severe case of hypogly-cemia, diagnosed laterby a physician. And, as counselors should know, fluctuating blood-sugar levels have very much to do with a person's emo-tional dispositions. As soon as the suffering person said, "I feel terrible," that was the tip-off for aphysicai condition. After all, we can only feel, bodily, through our nervous-system cells. When they are offended, they are go-ing to let us know about it, one way or another, In addition to hypoglycemia and diabetes, people today are subject to stress situations--and with widely varying nutritional needs. Medical science today knows that under these stress conditions the body gobbles up vitamins and minerals to an enormous degree. Since the B vitamins, vitamin C, and calcium predominantly nourish the human nervous sys-tem, a deficiency is going to show up with contributions toward various kinds of problems: mood swings, nervousness, anxiety, anger, irritabil-ity, depression, compulsive sexual problems, insomnia. Any nervous-system- related problem can be caused or made more burdensome by the severely deficient diets that are practiced today throughout our junk-food land. One person complained of not feeling quite herself: irritable, even biting toward others. I learned that she had just recovered from the flu, Review for Religious, March-April 1989 which is just one of the stress factors we experience. I suggested a vita-min- mineral supplement on an as-needed basis, and the problem was cleared up. A third physical difficulty, also masked as spiritual or psychologi-cal, is the problem of intolerances. Pioneer medical research has shown that all kinds of personal difficulties are really the human body's reac-tion to ~,arious environmental factors: food intolerances certainly, but also paints, finishing substances, and other chemicals, even artificial light-ing. PhysiCal problems are the first options to explore in c~unseling. They are the most quantifiable, and perhaps the easiest to identify, if not to solve. Relationships People have trouble with relationships, and each of us has three re-lationships in life: a relationship with God, with others, and with one-self. Problem areas are identified by determining the quality of these three relationships, and there are many tip-off statements that come your way as a~counselor. They come voluntarily to the listening ear, and they can be elicited .by asking the right questions. For example, a counselor can determine the quality of someone's re-lationship with God by asking for details about private and communal prayer-lives and: about fidelity to known moral obligations :in 'marriage and work-commitments. Listening to descriptions of interpersonal rela-tionships can reveal much. On one occasion I heard, "They're pickin' on me." This could be true, or it could be a defense. In this particular case, "they" were not the problem. I was talking to the problem. We all enjoy the forbidden luxury of finger-pointing, but we should be mos'e aware that whatever we do, whatever~we say, whatever we wil.l-fully think, we are always saying something about ourselves. We behave out of what we are. Often individuals will present their relational difficulties in terms of an impossible situation with absolutely no way out. The answer is the awareness of the great difference between a real relational situation, and the particular way it is described. Simply reframe the problematic situ- ¯ ation. Discard the impossible description, redescribing the circumstances yourself, so as to provide as many solutions as you can. This takes imagi-nation, and first attempts will result in grasping at straws. But hold on to the straws, as they lead to stronger, more promising answers. It should also be clear that principles of good counseling are appli-cable not only to others,,but also to ourselves. In this connection there Comprehensive Counseling / 195 is a check on the judgments we must make in order to help others: the golden rule, the virtue of empathy, placing oneself in the other's shoes. These principles demand questions such as: Would I follow this advice myself? How would I feel were this advice given to me? Would I bene-fit from the behavior I am planning to recommend? The measure of the quality of any relationship--with God, others, or oneself--is the answer to this question: How does the individual han-dle conflict? We are all fair-weather friends of God, of others, especially of ourselves. But the true measure of a person's strength of character and personal integration is how one stands up in adversity. Do we respond to challenges with virtue and resultant, growth, or with vice and rebel-lion in its many forms? : We cannot give what we do not have; we can only give what we have, so the personal problems we carry around are going to show up in relationships with others. Do they handle re!ational conflicts with at-tempts at reconciliation and peace, or are they inclined to antagonism, revenge, and consequent alienation? Vices In the course of counseling experience, we come across the problem of evil: evil circumstances, evil behavior. We are all sinners before God, and before each other, a fact which ought never to be discounted in problematic relationships. We meet people who sin against God, against others, against them-selves. One of the best favors we can do for them is to help them admit and own their own evil. It is a mistake to try to identify every problem medically or psychologically. Wrongdoing must be identified, owned, and corrected. We are admittedly honest and generous in assigning praise for vir-tue and for any good act; we must be just as honest in recognizing and assigning vice (evil habits)and sinful acts. How we speak about this to others is important, but the honesty must be there, because the only way to solve a problem is to' face it. The love of Christ is a challenging love, because it is only through challenges that people grow. We must often challenge others' behavior, challenge their sin, challenge our own sin. It is these challenges which are the cross-experiences of our lives and the meaning of suffering. We grow through challenges into the strength of character that we need, to live life well, and to die well. These challenges or crosses hurt, because growing pains always do hurt. But the rewards are well worth the perse-vering effort. Review for Religious, March-April 1989 After the apparently innocuous complaint "My life seems to have no direction or purpose," aofew questions were able to uncover a some-what profligate sex life, little or no prayer, and a difficult family back~ ground. Well, we are all products of our background, but we never need be slaves of our backgrounds: Psychotherapy can be of great healing bene-fit; so can a humble confession of guilt with attendant petitions for for-giveness and :mercy; so can the healing power of prayer: holding up bad memories in prayer, exposing them to divine remedies. Whatever difficulties we:have had to endure, they tend to force upon us burdens and pressures which are often channeled compulsively as they please. Kn~owing that our two main emotion-vices are anger and lust, we see that compulsions can spell big trouble. As a result~ people gravitate toward giving up dominion over their own beings:~They become slaves of various emotions and habits. Indi-viduals abdicate the kingship or queenship of their beings in favor of an-ger, lust, drive for power, vain ambitiow, money, prestige, or another person. Taking steps to become one's own man, one's own woman, elimi-nates this slavery, and the first and most important step is fidelity to God ~nd his laws governing human living. This is i'eal love, which will in-variably be returned in greater measure, because w'e love a God who will not be outdone in generosity. Conclusion This contribution has also been called comprehensive because it is only an overview. There is no substitutefor common sense in counsel: ing, and no substitute for prayer. The Jesus Prayer o~: another prayer,of aspiration before, during, .and after the counseling session deepens the session in God, exposing both parties to divine healing power and spe-cial graces. We are ourselves healed as we heal others, because with our love, our desire to give.God to others,' we find that the same generous God gives to us in response to our needs. We offer the gift of our lives to the suffering Jesus in others,', and he returns this gift with his own life and gifts: the graces we need to accomplish our healing task well, and the grace to grow through our own physical, psychological, and moral prob-lems into the personal sanctity ordained for us. The Power of Romantic Love William F. Kraft, Ph.D. William Kraft, Ph.D., is well known to our readers. Dr. Kraft is on the faculty of th~ Psychology Department of Carlow College where he may be addressed: 3333 Fifth Avenue; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213. ~1 don't know what's gotten into me, but I do know that I'vemever felt like this. I never thought I could feel so alive, so open, so good. Since becoming friends with Sarah, I feel more confident; it's as though prob-lems don't bother me like they used to. I function better, I'm more open, and life just seems to finally make more sense. Especially when I'm with Sarah, I feel light, energetic,optimistic. It's as if almost anything is pos-sible. "Some sisters label our relationship as exclusive, or God forbid: par-ticular. In some ways, I guess it is. I know I can hardly wait to see her, to spend the weekend with her, to go on vacation with her. And some-times, I think I yearn too much to be with her. And yet, how could some-thing as wonderful and good be bad? True: sometimes we get a bit too physical, but never genital. We really strive to be chaste, but it's diffi-cult at times. I would like to be more physical, to give all, but I know that would be going out of bounds. "Before my friendship with Sarah, I was sort of happy. I was a good teacher and got along okay in the community. But ! always had the feel-ing that I was missing something important, that life should be more than getting by or maintaining the status quo. And I was always kind of shy or constricted. It was as if I had all these flashing red and yellow lights in my mind, and now there are more green lights." This sister has fallen romantically in love--one of our most invigo-rating and seductive modes of love. She has been lured into and is en- 197 Review for Religious, March-April 1989 joying the experience where almost anything seems possible and almost nothing seems impossible. Feeling more courage and confidence, old problems seemed to have changed and new possibilities have emerged. And her friend seems to be the center of her life, the source of her new vision and strength. Her life is so much more alive than her relatively constricted past. Understandably, she wants more of this new life. Such is romantic love. Listen to this male religious. "Something incredible happened to me this summer. While finishing my master's degree, I fell in love. I met. Carol, and my life changed. It wasn't as if I had a game plan; it wasn't even on my mind. It just happened. "It's great. I've never been so open in my life, especially with a woman. I share everything, and it feels so good. We hold nothing back, and we seem to know what each other is thinking and feeling without even saying anything. It's magic. She's on my mind and in my heart all the time, and I can't wait to see her or at least call her. Thank God she lives in the same city. When we are together, time goes so quickly. A few hours seem like a few minutes. "I think others would say that I've been a good religious. I've done well in my ministry and have gotten along in my community. I am grate-ful to my fellow brothers and priests. So it is difficult to think about leav-ing the religious life, and neither is it an easy question for Carol. We love each other very much, but we also love the religious life. And it has been good to us. "When you asked me what is wrong with Carol, I was stumped. I know she is not perfect, but I don't see or feel anything wrong with her. And I feel so much better myself. I'll take your advice to wait until life settles, and not make a hasty decision that would change my entire life. True, I have known Carol for only four months, but it seems like I have known her all my life. "Why shouldn't I leave. True, it would be difficult to find a good job, and family life would certainly be different. But I could still do much of what I do now, and I feel that being married to Carol, I could even be closer to God. I will, with the help of you, my friends, and God discern my experience. But why would God give me such a beautiful gift and then expect me to reject it?" Indeed, romantic love is wonderful. Although this man has been a very rational, successful, and good community religious, he finds him-self in a serious dilemma: to leave or stay in religious life. His past has been good to him, and he to it, but his future seems to offer an even bet- The Power of Romantic Love / 199 ter life. Being immersed in the magic of love, he feels strongly drawn to this land of apparently unlimited possibilities. Both of these religious are enjoying and being inspired and chal-lenged by romantic love. Their love consumes them, embracing all their senses, mind, and spirit. Radically new horizons of meaning have opened up, pressuring them to restructure their lives. What should they do? In this article I will discuss the nature and dynamics of romantic love, its positive and negative possibilities and consequences in religious life, and ways to cope with oneself and others in service of healthy and holy growth. The Nature and Dynamics of Romantic Love Romantic love lures us into a world where there is nothing dull and mundane, a world that promises a new and better life. It offers us an ex-hilarating and inspiring unity of feeling intensely and of being strongly involved with the ideal. To experience transcendence passionately can be awe-fully seductive. Romantic love offers us an exhilarating and inspiring unity of feel-ing intensely and of being strongly involved with the ideal. As romantic lovers we yearn to be with each other, constantly think about and feel for each other, and so it seems touch each other even when we are physi, cally absent. Being without each other, we feel an intense void as well as presence in absence, and being with each other brings warmth, secu-rity, and fulfillment along with this sensuous enrapture. We initially ide-alize each other, feeling that we can do and share anything, and be our most perfect selves. We feel what love can be without its limits, and we want to give, to be,and to receive all that is possible. There is a special magic--a passionate affair with the ideal, an experience of heaven. What happens when we fall romantically in love? Initially we prob-ably feel as though we are walking on clouds, and that everything is pos-sible. We experience each other in terms of perfection, while our imper-fections are denied, minimized or rationalized. We may feel thatwe want to live together, to capture this love forever. This romantic time is one of the most exciting, pleasurable, and satisfying experiences. In the in-itial stages of friendship we may experience new possibilities in testing our limits, risking our vulnerability, feeling more alive than ever before, and willing to do almost anything. We may feel that everything is possi-ble and all right, and that life is radiantly alive. Our romantic friendship usually inspires us to become our best selves, and often new energy and courage provide the way. We can have romantic experiences in solitude. For instance, we may 200 / Review for Religious, March-April 1989 intensely feel the spiritual possibilities of contemplation. We may expe-rience a world of meaning that is transcendent and permanent. To ask ultimate questions and to be confronted with mysterious issues can be a peak experience. T° hear silent music can include the romantic. Romantic lovers--religious, single, or married--initially experience the unlimited potential of each other and concretely celebrate each other's perfection. However, paradise does not last; our romantic time is usually followed by one of imperfection. Sometimes suddenly, instead of experiencing each other as unlimited, we intensely experience our limi-tations. We find ourselves criticizing, obsessed with the other's imper-fections, or perhaps withdrawing from each other. Think of a sister and priest (or lay couple) who fall in love and get married. At first, they radiate with love and cannot stand to be without each other. But sooner than later they begin to test and question their love, and at times cannot stand to be with each other. Instead of diviniz-ing each other, they now demonize each other. For instance, minor hab-its may become irritating. One squeezes the tooth paste from the middle and the other from the ind. His snoring upsets her, while her hair curl-ers upset him. More seriously, she becomes frustrated and angry because he no longer shows his feelings as he apparently once did. He becomes confused and angry with constant complaining about his overworking and in general his unavailability. Whatever the focus of criticism, they focus on eacffother's limits, as contrasted with their past when they en-joyed their unlimitedness. Instead of heavenly, being with each other feels more hellish. Their magic has disappeared. Consider a novice who experiences religious life as a perfect way of living. Particularly in early formation when there is considerable personal affirmation, exploration, and direction, religious life offers extraordinary opportunities for individual and communal growth. However, "reentry problems" may be experienced when a new religious moves from the no-vitiate to living in an ordinary community. Community living seems rnuch~different than it was in the novitiate, or how it was ideally de-scribed. The inevitable imperfection of living with others may feel more like a burden than a joy. A danger is to identify religious life (or any life form or person) with its perfections and possibilities, or with its limits and obstacles to growth. Like any personal (and professional) life, there are more or less problems and opportunities. Positive and Negative Seduction As its etymology indicates, seduction conveys a negative meaning, namely, some thing, activity, or person that leads us astray or into The Power of Romantic Love / 201 trouble. And indeed, this can be the case. However, seduction can also have positive meaning in luring us to a better life. One reason romantic love is important is that it can be a prelude and invitation to a more committed love. Its strong attraction, gentle excite-ment, and erotic idealism make it easier, more enjoyable, and exciting for us to enter love. Since love, especially intimate love, is a risky ven-ture, romantic love makes the entry into love relatively easier, safer, and moi'e fun. It is a delicious taste of heaven. But like food, its satisfaction is temporary, and if we eat too much of that elixir, we can get sick. Ro-mantic love is an intense promise of a more permanent love that is both ideal and limited, erotic and transcendent, for the moment and forever, pleasurable and painful, divine and demonic--a love that embraces and dignifies all of us. If some of us knew the total picture of religious life, especially its hard times, before entering religious life, we may have had second or third thoughts about making a life commitment. Strictly from a rational-istic view, religious life may not have been as appealing. Fortunately our Holy Spirit called us with an alluring voice. Likewise, some of our friend-ships may never have occurred without romantic love's promise of an even .more balanced, wholly, and permanent love. To be sure, not all men and women entered religious life or friendship in a romantic aura. But many did, and few people live without any romanticism. Our spiritual journey with and toward God can also include romantic times. It is not unusual to go through a time--or times--of being roman-tically in love with God. We may suddenly feel that anything is possi-ble, that everything will turn out all right, that everything makes sense. We may bask in a divine light while minimizing, forgetting, or even re-pressing darkness. Although there is much truth in the vision, dark nights will come in service of a deeper and more realistic presence to God. Romantic love is not only a means toward an end. When immersed in romantic love, it is good to celebrate and proclaim our romantic stand in the world. Our experience is a witness to love and often promotes hap-piness for others. We can also build a precious source of memories that can help us gain perspective when going through difficult times. And in-deed as authentic lovers we can, though not constantly, congistently cele-brate times of romantic love. Helping Oneself and Others Think of two religious who care for each other and become close friends. Initially, they may idealize their relationship so that it is basi-cally exclusive. At first, they may wonder how they ever li.ved without 202 /Review for Religious, March-April 1989 each other. Especially if one or both persons have had restricted feelings of affection, now they can feel free to express themselves without re-straint. They feel liberated and more wholly alive. Their "particular" friendship, however, soon incorporates limits and obstacles. For in-stance, they discover that they can irritate and confuse each other, and :they can become hurt, angry, jealous, and perhaps guilty and ashamed. Instead of harboring resentment, or ending the friendship, both persons can step back--physically, psychosocially, and spiritually--and listen to themselves and each other, and hopefully return to renew and deepen their friendship so that it includes both their positive and negative dimen-sions. The challenging ideal is that both the light and dark sides of life be integrated, rather than absolutizing one of them. In fact, these experi-ences point to and affirm what life is--both divine and demonic, light and dark, life and death. When we experience a person as perfect, it is helpful to keep in mind that every person is imperfect. When there are disagreements, past agreements can be remembered as well as agreeing. to disagree. Our challenge is to see potential virtue where there is vice, strength where there is weakness, joy where there is sadness, love where there is hate, life where there is death. Courage and commitment are needed to move with and grow from life's paradoxical rhythm. Although romantic love is particularly enjoyable, the genuine desire to give one's self totally to another p~'esents challenging difficulties. Be-cause of the affective and ideal qualities of romantic love, we may nei-ther want nor perhaps experience any limits, and consequently may yearn to give unconditionally in every way pogsible. As religious we may yearn to celebrate our love in genital experiences, but we can say "no" in serv-ice of a "yes" to our love. What can superiors, friends, or other community members do when they observe religious in romantic love. Particularly when the exclusivity is causing little community I~arm, the wisest approach may be to do noth-ing, that is, to let romantic love run its course from the divine to the de-monic. However, when infatuation occurs or the dark, limited phase ap-pears, interveution may be called for. What you d6 depends on the kind and amount of power and responsibility your superior and others in re-sponsible roles have, as well as what you are willing and able to do, par-ticularly in being willing and able to invest the time and energy on con-fronting, processing, and following through with consequences. A superior may choose to confront a priest with his infatuous friend-ship. Confrontation means to state assertively and with concern what you The Power of Romantic Love / 203. observe in the other's behavior. It does not mean to interpret or analyze a person's behavior, nor does it include verbal oppression or emotional rape. We give feedback, and depending on our authority, we state natu-ral and logical consequences of one's behavior. For instance, if you con-tinue to date this woman as well as isolate yourself from the community, then counseling must be pursued or you will be transferred to another city, or you will be asked/told to leave. It is important to remember that although we impact on one another more or less positively and negatively, we cannot change anyone. We can give others opportunities, feedback, advice, consequences, and so forth, but only they can change themselves. We can only change and con-trol ourselves, and this is accomplished within varying degrees of lim-its. Authoritarian, codependent, and other well-intentioned and overly responsible people may find this fact difficult to accept. Ideally, a radical decision (for example, leaving religious life) or a life commitment (for example, vowed religious life) should not be made in either the so-called divine or demonic phases of love. When we are madly in love and experience no imperfections whatsoever, a life com-mitment is precarious. And we should be equally as prudent about mak-ing radical decisions, those that significantly irnpact on our lives, while in a demonic phase. When life is overwhelmingly dark, any light or re-lief can be tempting. It is better to wait until light emerges in our pre-sent situation--to wait until we make more sense of our struggle and be freer to choose. To paraphrase an old saying: the darkest and coldest time is right before dawn. Ideally, we should also not make a decision for life only out of ro-manticism or infatuation--when there are no limits or imperfections, but rather when we can be open to both the positive and negative factors of our past, present, and future situations. For instance, a brother who falls in love with a sister may be in the divinizing stage of romantic love. When asked what is wrong with his beloved, he may say nothing con-crete. Until he can point out experientially what is positive and negative about her and himself, it is probably better for him to wait before mak-ing such a radical decision such as leaving religious life to get married. A decision to leave, not because of romantic involvement, but be-cause nothing seems right and satisfying is quite tempting. When under enormous stress, we can be duped into feeling that a change in lifestyle will solve personal and interpersonal problems. It is more likely that we will take our problems with us and unconsciously seek a similar situ-ation. It is wiser to look at and deal with the dark side in ourselves and 204 / Review for Religious, March-April 1989 then make decisions. In short, authentic committed love is never perfect or divine, and nei-ther is it always imperfect or demonic. It is a combination of both. When on earth, life and love are matters of heaven and hell. If authentic love were perfect, commitment would not be necessary, there would be heaven, not earth. Because we are a unity of perfection and imperfec-tion, commitment is called for. Seed I .know interpretation has rules, But they should not freeze mystery. Why can't metaphors step between parables, And people and plots mingle? The sower, for instance, and the birds on the wayside who fed, the birds Who never fall unknown any more Than the bum thrown out of the bar And the starving, potbellied African baby. How wide is the wayside'? Past oceans And deserts and ranges and space to Ultimate doing of truth in love? And the rocks (poor Peter), are they always shallow? Have you seen those rock walls on roads Where, in spite of technology, a stubborn Wild shoot adorns the crazy face of An impossible height? or the sturdy Root that splits concrete apart and Frees the seed of a water main (prodigal spill)? Then There's the child who patiently pulls the Tufts from the cracks between bricks And scatters the clumps for the wind To sow next season's crop and chore. But the thistles--I don't know about them. I cringe at the vision of crowns And wonder if scarlet hands too Can drip the seeds of the realm That the sower went out to sow. Clarita Felhoelter, O.S.U. 3105 Lexington Road Louisville, Kentucky 4020'6 The Experience of Mid-Life Divorce and AlienationI David J. Hassel, S.J. Father David Hassel, S.J., is currently Research Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University of Chicago. The contents of this article will be part of his forthcoming book called The Ache of Alienation. His address is Loyola University; 6525 N. Sheridan Road; Chicago, Illinois 60626, Helen,s husband had confronted her a year ago after a very quiet dinner. "Helen," he had said, "there is something we have to talk about in the living room while the kids are out." They had sat there through a long silence before he said in a rush of words: "I want a divorce; I cannot go on living as we have been--distant, on parallel courses, never really meeting. The kids already suspect something and are old enough to han-dle this now. I've made a decision and no talking will change it. I don't want to hurt you anymore than I've already done. My lawyer has drawn up the legal papers; you'll be taken care of financially." Helen, her voice sounding like cracking ice, had said to him: "Joe, it's Anita, isn't it. That day down at the office I saw the glance you gave her--like the one you had once given me." "Yes," he said, "but we are not going into that." Helen could recall herself slowly getting up, slowly going up the stairs to her room, throwing herself on the bed and beginning to shudder with great dry heaves. No tears, only a terrible emp-tiness. When during the course of the following weeks, she had been alone with each of the children, she had received some additional shocks. Jim, the twenty-two year old just finishing college, put it simply: "Look, Mom, where have you been the past two years? Dad has been home less and less, and telling less and less what he has been doing. What have 205 206 / Review for Religious, March-April 1989 you been thinking?" The twins, Edith and Carol, high school seniors, were rather casual: "Morn, this is the way things go these days; you have to be ready for the worst and this is the worst, no doubt about it." Timothy, the twelve-year old, was inconsolable: "Dad's leaving us be-hind and it's unfair; I hate him now. But what can we do? I guess we just get used to it the way Jerry Kanz did when his Dad moved out." Helen, like many another to-be-divorced woman, had looked back over her life and wondered bitterly: Where did it start to go wrong? Where did I fail? Except for Timmy, the children seemed so casual about it all. Were they simply ungrateful, without any affection for her and Joe or were they covering up their anger and disappointment? Her telephone call to her mother had caused a flood of tears and a scalding anger-- more at Helen's stupidity than at Joe's two-timing. Her favorite brother had only said, "Well, the bastard finally owned upto it, did he?" Women friends had been properly shocked and consoling for some weeks; then the telephone calls became less frequent and one friend fi-nally said to her: "Honey, you have to stop lamenting and get your life together--without Joe; the sooner the better." All her doings had be-come meaningless: cooking meals, house-cleaning, shopping, bridge-clubbing, fulfilling the immediate needs of her children, attending Mass, telephoning friends, volunteering at the hospital, watching TV late into the night. Then the depressing guilt-fits began. Why were her children so un-feeling unless she had failed badly in their upbringing? Why had she not noticed sooner her husband's wandering and done something to woo him back? Had she become an insensitive creature herself? Were all her friend-ships superficial, revealing her own lack of depth? Was all her busyness merely a way to hide from herself who she really was: an empty shell of a woman? How could even God find time for her anymore? Actually her past seemed gutted, her present confused and her future dark with anxiety. The Woman Religious' Parallel Experience of "Divorce" Helen's experience, in one form or another, is that of thousands of wives and mothers as divorces continue to multiply across America. But is it so very different from the experience of not a few women religious who at mid-life review the past ten or twenty years of their own lives and wonder where their prayer-union with Christ has gone? The woman religious has been living the regular routines of a life consecrated to Christ: spending some time with him before breakfast and before heading to bed; taking care of his people in hospital, school, day- Mid-Life Divorce and Alienation care center, parish, and social work office; making some friends along the, way; watching TV and going for occasional walks; attending family gatherings, and centering her life in daily Eucharists. But in everything she feels hardly any feedback of gratitude or joy. If she is a social worker, she may have been called a meddler by the fam-ily whose children she has seen through hospitals, remedial reading courses, and angry bouts with their parents. The high school teacher of twenty-five years' experience may have been told by a lay colleague that she is twenty years behind the times in her teaching techniques and thirty years behind in her understanding of today's high schoolers. The sister-nurse may be overwhelmed with the ugly fact that her order's hospitals are now big business and that she had better play it safe with charity cases lest the hospital's budget-report show red ink. An almost exhausted sister may be informed by her superior that if she cannot take this job of religious coordinator at the disorganized St. Dismas parish, she had better find another job.to earn her way. Meaning seems to have drained out of her work. The once beautiful routines connected with teaching, nursing, administrating, catechizing, parish organizing, and social work-ing feel drab, spiritless, and unending. Meanwhile, because of her busy dedication to her order and its works, she has allowed her own brothers and sisters to fade out of her life as they moved to the distant coasts and as she wrote less and less ¯ often. Her parents have become elder.ly, somewhat absent-minded, eager for her presence but hardly able to carry on a relaxing conversation, and evoking melancholy in her at their decline and helplessness. Her sister-friends are as busy as she; glad to see her and to chat for a time, but al-ways on the move to another appointment: little time for long leisurely conversations, not many fun times." Because she is one of the few younger sisters in tier older community, she may have to assume greater responsibilities without any contemporary nearby in whom to confide and with whom to laugh at life's crazy antics. This is a new aloneness never felt in her initial formation. The simple joys of life seem few and far between during these periods of intensely felt alienation. She wonders: is all my past life for nothing? Have I lost the respect of my own family; those who first gave me life and hope? Have I missed out on community life? Or did it never exist and I pretended, that it did? Why has my ministry lost its zest? Have I begun to give up on it and, if so, will I ever find a second ministry and trust myself to its demands for a disciplined life of sacrifice? Do my superiors and fellow religious value me for myself or only for what I can do? Are we all just worker- Review for Religious, March-April 1989 bees in the religious hive? Where is the reality of my prayer life? God seems so distant, so uninterested in me, so unlike the intimate friend of my early religious life. Around me I seem to find so many happy fami-lies and fulfilled career women. Or am I just romanticizing their lives out of my own drabness? Then begin the guilt-fits. Mow did my life dissipate into merely con-stant duties, deadlines, hurried moments of leisure with friends, commu-nity tensions, and superficial moments with Christ? How could I have ¯ let it happen? Does all this mean that I never had a vocation to religious life or that religious life in my particular group is now ,antiquated and no longer viable in ou~ present culture? What is my future--if anything? Who but a recently divorced iaywoman could Fully appreciate these questions and feelings 0f the woman religious. The divorced man, hear-ing a man,religious venice similar questions and feelings, would surely resonate to these pains of the heart and mind. The Feel of Alienation from the Church Among the Divorced and the Alienated The suffering asked of divorced men and women and of alienated re-ligious is scandalous not only to them but to the people who love them dearly. The shock felt by the "divorced" is such that at times they do feel isolated from their family (blood or religious) and perhaps even from Christ's Church. Their great temptation is to cut loose from past ties; to be free from all the b~aggage of the past~ They ask themselves: "Why not just leave the family or the religious order and forget any service of the Church?" It seems so much easier simply to concentrate on a career and, if the occasion offers, to form a small manageable group of new friends. Later some of these "divorced" will leave the Church deliber-ately and others will slowly drift away complaining: "'I'm tiredof fight-ing Church bureaucracy and small-mindedness." There is no denying that, in the twentieth-century Church, the petty pride of place, the drift towards disorder, the trickery practiced in the name of the kingdom, the mechanical use of the sacraments, the eloquent extolling of poverty by comfortable clerics, andthe depreciation of women's ministry are all very much alive. In fact, Christ found them quite active in his first century Church: the women's announcement that they had met the risen Christ was called "women's gossip"; John and James used their mother to agitate for their occupying the seats of power next to Christ; Paul had to confront Peter about using different standards for Jewish and gentile converts; Jerusalem converts tried to saddle all gen-tile converts with the hea~y apparatus of Judaic Law; Ananias and Sa- Mid-Life Divorce and Alienation / 209 phira embezzled the common holdings of the Christian community; some of the apostles, notably Judas, deplored Mary Magdalen's ministry to Christ as frivolous. This is the kingdom, God's people, as Christ de-scribed them in the parables where the net is thrown into the sea to haul in both good and bad fish or where the wheat field is sown with weeds by the enemy. The problem is not that scandal is always in the Church but that faith-fulness is needed to live through the scandalous events amid feelings of alienation. Men and women religious suffering alienation from their com-munities need to share their lives with divorced laymen and laywomen if they are all to remain faithful to the Church and to their families, lay and religious. The pooling of experience, the companioning in common sorrows, the cooperative attempt to let the Church know their agony, the working together to build better futures for each other and for the Church, enable the divorced lay people to take heart and the alienated religious to remain loyal. One woman religious who has been offering a program for divorced women in her motherhouse found that the prayers of the retired sisters gave solace to the divorced women, while the faith of the divorced women amid severe mental suffering proved encouraging to elderly sis-ters, some of whoin felt~ intensely their seeming uselessness to the world and to their Church. One of the divorced women approached this woman religious directing the program and said to her: "Were you divorced be-fore you entered religious life? You seem to read us so well." Aloud the sister said: "No, I've never b~een married," but whispered inside her-self "But I have experienced divorce--from my congregation." Recently women and men religious groups have been welcoming some divorced into their communities and finding that these women and men bring in a dimension of life much needed by the religious order. The divorced woman or man has gone through devastating bereavement from all that once gave meaning t,o her or his life. Through this stripping, they have rediscovered their own personal worth, having learned how to dis-tinguish life-roles (mother or father, wife or husband, secretary or car-penter, daughter or son, sister or brother) from their own selves which play out these roles. The divorced woman, for example, no longer de-fines herself merely by what she can do, but by what she can be--first in herself and then for others. This, of course, affects her relationship with Christ. She is devoted to him, first of all, for his own sake; and she expects his affection to be directed towards her for herself and not sim-ply for her accomplishments. Neither God nor herself is made out to be 210 / Review for Religious~ March-April 1989 an heroic workaholic. Such a mature attitude can be benevolently conta-gious. On the other hand, women and men religious have something to of-fer divorced laywomen and laymen. After all many religious have had to deal with the mid-life transition.2 They have come to see that the "yes-terdays outnumber the tomorrows" and that they have to trim their ap-ostolic sails accordingly. Their eqergy is less, their talents are not quite as rich as they first thought, they must drop some projects totally, oth-ers partially, in order to do the central works. At this point envy of the younger, the more energetic, and the more talented can creep in. Amid these tensions, one becomes more aware of personal shortcomings, pre-tenses, sins of revenge .and cattiness, and suddenly vehement sex-drives. This discouraging aspect of life is often allied with a sense of being enmeshed in a great bureaucratic machine (at the job or in the congrega-tion o~in work with the local government) with which one must battle for personal values without destroying oneself or the organization. At this same t~me friendships take on greater importance and one must re-order one's commitments to people, work, and God. Here the man and woman religious~face bereavement from parents and older friends who die. They have moved away from pet projects, from. former work that gave much satisfaction, and from favorite attitudes or ideas that no longer fit the times.' Death, including their own,.seems at times to totally sur-round them. But at the same time, if the man and woman religious can ride all these waves with some gratitude and graciousness, the slower pace al-lows them to have time for more care of others. A warm Wisdom, the fruit of keeping a sense of humor amid much suffering, can pervade their every day. A new stability may take shape at the center of their being. In their lasting friendships, they may rediscover their faithful God. And all this they can offer to divorced laymen and laywomen out of the very alienations which they had felt towards their own congregations. How bountiful the divorced lay people and alienated religious can be towards each other and thus towards the people of God--even though at times they feel so utterly empty and find themselves walking laboriously as though in desert sands. This desert experience has been chronicled and deserves our attention since out of it can come a conversion which will reveal a new self, a new God, and a new world. The Desert Experience of Transition Before Conversion Two women have given us brutally honest yet sensitive accounts of Mid-Life Divorce and Alienation their transitions from one congregation to another. The great change seemed to them like a lay person's divorce and remarriage with its awk-wardness, periods of loneliness, and rediscovery of self and life.3 Sr. Marie Conn found the loneliness of transfer to a new religious commu-nityunique in its roots and in its intensity. For she left behind a vibrantly rich past with only a vague future in mind. Besides, those with whom she would live her present and future had little idea of her past and she, of their past. When one starts all over with new and slowly developing friendships, with fresh routines, and with no one able to enter into one's more precious memories, one is thrust into a new relati

PRIZE NUMBER. ' APRIL, 1906 ¥OL. XI¥. HO. 2 GETTYSBURG COLLEGE GETTYSBURG, PA. M*Uft«0ftNMtf \m**nmm***mh*m*m EBTT«aBVRaMKEW8» PRIHT, , r HELP THOSE WHO HELP US. The Intercollejlate Bureau or Academic Costume. Cotrell & Leonard, ALBANY, N. Y. Makers of Caps, Gowns and Hoods to the American Colleges and Universities from the A tlan-- tie to the Pacific- Class contracts a specialty, Rlcia. G-owxis fcr tlxe ZF-u.lpit a-zid.Beaaels.- Seniors Going into Business or Technical Work should write us to-day for full information concerning desirable posi-tions in all parts of the country. We already gave 1,2:51 definite places for College, University and Technical School graduates to be-gin work in July or September and the list is growing daily. A choice of the beat opportunity is yours if you write us at once, stating age, course taken, practical experience if any. and line of work preferred. ^5e3a.n.s37-l-va.ziia. B'ld.g-., I»ls.ila,«a.elp3a.ia" ^a,.- Offices in Twelve Other Cities. Come and Have a Good Shave, or HAIR-CUT at Harry B. Seta's BARBER SHOP 35 Baltimore St. BARBERS' SUPPLIES A SPECIALTY. Also, choice line of fine Cigars. R. A. WONDERS Corner Cigar Parlors. A full line of Cigars, Tobacco, Pipes, etc. Scott's Corner, opp. Eagle Hotel GETTYSBURG, PA. Pool Parlors in Connection. IF YOU CALL ON C. A. Bloehe*, deuueler, Centre Square, He can serve you in anything you may want in REPAIRING)- or JEWELRY. i WE RECOMMEND THESE FIRMS. Established 1867 by Allen Walton SJfc Allen K. Walton, Pres. and Treas. Kobt. J. Walton, Superintendent. Hummelstown Brown Stone Company and Manufacturers of BUILDING STONE, SAWED FLAGGING, and TILE, WALTONVILLE, Iade in his image thou must nobly dare The thorny crown of sovereignty to share. Think not too meanly of thy low estate ; Thou hast a choice ; to choose is to create." THE MERCURY. 43 SONG OF THE WAITERS. BY ROE EMMBRT, '06. OH, we belong to the boarding-house, The boarding-house caf£, Oh, we don't bother with etiquette, For manners are in the way ; If you've got the " mon " you steps right in, And every man has his say ; You pays yer cash, And you gets yer hash, At the boarding-house cafe\ We brings yer in and we sets yer down, At the boarding-house cafd ; You bows yer face and you says yer grace,. If it happens to be yer way ; When you ask for bread look out for yer head',. And keep it out of the way, For we slings 'em down, And don't pass 'em around, At the boarding-house caf£. And we ain't a first class restaurant, At the boarding-house cafe ; We've just a common eatin-hou.se And there's no champagne-frappe Yer soup comes hot, right out of the pot, But it ain't no consomme ; But it goes to the spot, And yer gets a lot, At the boarding-house cafe. Oh, we feeds ten dozen students, At the boarding-house cafe ; Oh, we piles it in their faces, Just three times every day ; We starts 'em in for breakfast With some shredded, flaked, baled hay ; For dinner its mash, For supper its hash, At the boarding-house caf£. 44 THE MERCURV. O'1) things look mean and they ain't too clean, At the boarding-house cafe ; When the outfit ain't too dirty, Why you bet we lets 'em lay, For we feeds the college students And they don't care anyway ; They pays their cash, And they gets their hash. At the boarding-house cafe. A MODEL Y. M. C. A. BUILDING. G. E. WOLFE, '09. By the death of Sir George Williams, which occured some weeks ago, the world was newly reminded of the great organi-zation, the Young Men's Christian Association, which he es-tablished sixty-one years ago. In these years the Association has undergone such a great transformation that today it is a mighty factor for good every-where, devoting itself to a broad and diversified development of young men and boys and engaging in many enterprises for general social advancement. The most characteristic monu-ment to the memory of this noble man will be found not in St. Paul's Cathedral, where his body will lie, but in the Association buildings which have been erected all over the world for the carrying on of its great work. It is the purpose of this paper to sketch what the writer, and others who have seen it, consider a model Association building. No one walking down one of the principal streets, in the not far distant city of Lancaster, could fail to observe this model Young Men's Christian Association building, for it occupies one of the most imposing corners in the city, and is of consider-able size; the main building being four stories in height, 180 feet long by 63 feet wide, and extending, together with the an-nexed gymnasium, practically the length of a half-square. The external appearance of the building is also such as to at-tract notice, distinguished as it is for its beauty of architecture THE MERCURY. 45 and material. One's first impressions, then, on entering the building, are very pleasing, and, as one continues to make an inspection of it throughout, these first impressions invariably continue with the spectator. A marked- feature of the internal appearance of the building is its cheerfulness—it has a homelike air. The fact that care and taste has been exercised in the arrangement of every part is clearly in evidence. ' The walls throughout the building are hung with some of the most beautiful pictures that are to be had—fine reproductions of famous paintings, most of them, framed in neat, substantial frames ; all of them the gift of one of the city's most generous educators. These are not only pleas-ing to behold, but also make interesting and inspiring subjects for study. The attractive paper on the walls also adds greatly to the cheerfulness of the interior of the building—the designs in some of the rooms being quite rich—as do also the furnish-ings, which are elegant and serviceable. In fact, the internal appearance of the building,is all that one could desire. But the purpose to which every part of this splendid Asso-ciation building is dedicated is the thing that will interest one most, when making a tour of it. The basement is the first de-partment- visited,-and ihe first objects there to claim one's at-tention are the Twin Regulation Howling Alleys, the Manual Training Room, which is well equipped for practical work, and the Locker Rooms. The Swimming Pool, 40 feet long by 18 feet wide and 3 1-2 to 6 1-2 feet deep, the seven beautiful marble and nickeled Shower-Baths, constituting a most elegant bath equipment; the Boiler Rooms, Workshop and Store Cel-lars are also located on this floor. On the first floor are seven Store Rooms, the rentals of which contribute materially to the financial needs of the Asso-ciation, and the splendid Gymnasium with 2806 feet of floor space, equipped with the best appliances for health and devel-opment. The second floor is the working floor of the Association and contains the Reading Room, which is open to all the men of the city; the Library with its 8000 volumes; Member's and 46 THE MERCURY. Ladies' Parlors; the main floor of the Auditorium, which has a seating capacity of 835 ; and the Reception Halls and General Offices. On the third floor are located the Banquet Halls; a suite of rooms given over entirely to boys' work; the Bible Study Room; Committee Room; Auditorium Gallery; Magazine Closets and Kitchen. The fourth and top floor contains the Dormitories, the com-fortable rooms of which are furnished and maintained by the Ladies' Auxiliary; Educational Class Rooms, where young men can and do increase their store of learning in various branches.; Camera Dark Room, where the developing, toning, printing and mounting of pictures can be done most conven-iently ; and Boys' Printing Office. The value of this beautiful building is over $200,000, but the fact that it stands for all that is best in the physical, mental, social, and moral development of manhood, is what gives it its true worth. It provides an ideal place for the boy, as well as the young man, who is seeking to improve his spare moments, and who recognizes the value of association with his fellows in a healthful atmosphere. Though it is not by any means a mere place of amusement, it does furnish that which is most beneficial in this direction ; indeed the Association puts forth definite effort along this liner- to offset, if at all possible, the tendency of so many young men to gratify this element of their character in unclean places, the number of which in a city es-pecially is far too great. As an example of what is being done: in addition to the approved games constantly available, and the Star Course of entertainments, the Auditorium every Saturday evening during the winter season throws open its doors to the crowds, and furnishes most excellent entertainment in some form or another. The Physical Department in Association work today receives special attention, and this building providing as.it does the best gymnasium and apparatus obtainable, together with a most competent instructor, is there to offer men who need it the best possible means for scientific body building and health producing THE MERCURY. 47 work and there are many such, who from long hours in the office, behind the counter or in the study are forced to cry out for some sort of vigorous recreation. The Swimming Pool not only provides a luxury, which one must have enjoyed to ap-preciate, but is also an ideal place to acquire the fine art of swimming at any season of the year. However, all the various phases of Association life in an As-sociation building, interesting as they are, cannot be touched upon here, but it does seem in.place to express finally the hope that, especially in view of the fact that the Young Men's Chris-tian Association of Gettysburg College is striving to have a building of its own and thus increase its sphere of usefulness, this little description of a model Association building may arouse a deeper earnestness on the part of our students and friends to the extent that the time for the erection of the build-ing which will meet our needs here may be hastened. The necessity tor such a building is obvious, and it is to be hoped that all are interested. AMERICAN HUMORISTS. THOMAS E. SHEARER, '07. AMERICAN literature from its very beginning has had a delicate and exquisite humor. Who that has read the works of Washington Irving, the Father of American Litera-ture, has not been charmed with his humor? The same ques-tion might be asked concerning the works of J. Fenimore Cooper, the Founder of American Romance, and also of the earlier writings of Lowell, such as the " Biglow Papers," or his " Fable for Critics." Dr. O. W. Holmes acquired fame as a humorist from his Breakfast Table series, and even Hawthorne, with his " undercurrent ot melancholy and serious thoughtful-ness," has given glimpses of the higher and brighter side of life. Yet in this earlier period it would hardly have been predicted that there would ever be a class of writers who would make it a business to excite the laughter of the public. But the pro-fessional humorist made his appearence in the early '5o's, in 48 THE MERCURY. the persons of Benj. P. Shillaber and Frances M. Whitcher, of " Widow Bedott" fame. The former known to the public as " Mrs. Partington," was a very popular humorist. He was born in Portsmouth, N. H., in 1S14. For some years he was connected with various periodicals, and afterwards (1852) pub-lished " Rhymes With Reason and Without." This was fol-lowed by " Liie and Sayings of Mrs. Partington," " Partington-ian Patchwork " and " Ike Partington and His Friends." The droll sayings and blunders of " Mrs. Partington," drew smiles to the gravest of faces and made her a conspicuous character. Scarcely less prominent and slightly preceding her in time, was " Widow Bedott." Her quaint humor and playful descriptions of country life and society brought the writer immediate fame. " Widow Spriggins," added to the " Widow Bedott Papers," increased her fame. This authoress was born in Whitesboro, N. Y. in 1811 and died in 1852. Closely following these was a great number of humorists, among whom Samuel L. Clemens, Chas. Farrar Browne, Henry W. Shaw, Marietta Holly and E. William Nye are the most noted. Samuel L. Clemens, or-Mark Twain, as he is better known to the public, was one of the most successful of professional humorists. He was born in Florida, Mo., in 1835. He early learned the printing trade, was pilot on a river steamboat from 1855-*6i, when he became private secretary to his brother who then held a government position. He afterwards lived in Cali-fornia and in Hawaii, and later in Hartford, Conn., where he attained fame as a humorous lecturer. In the field of author-ship his broad humor soon gained for him a wide circle of readers. His most successful work was " The Innocents Abroad" published in 1869. Other well known works are " Adventures of Tom Sawyer," " Huckleberry Finn," etc. A good example of his humor is his story of playing jokes on a guide. The party was traveling in Italy, and after they had noticed the satisfaction the guide took in exciting their emotions, they never took any interest in anything. The doc-tor asked the questions, as he could keep his countenance, and ' MHBMMHHHHHMHHH1 THE MERCURY. 49 I looked more like an inspired idiot than any of the others. " It comes natural to him," said Mark. When the guide showed them relics of Columbus, none of them had ever heard of him, and so it was of everything else. " The guide was bewildered, nonplussed," he continues. " He walked his legs off, nearly, hunting up extraordinary things, and exhausted all his inge-nuity on us, but it was a failure; we never showed any interest in anything. He had reserved what he considered was his greatest wonder till the last—a royal Egyptian mummy. He took us there. He felt so sure, this time, that some of his old enthusiasm came back to him." " See, gentelmen !—Mummy ! Mummy !" The eyeglass came up as calmly, as deliberately as ever- « Ah what did I understand you to say the gentleman's name was ?" " Name ? he got no name ! Mummy !—'Gyptian mummy!" " Yes, yes, born here ?" " No, 'Gyptian mummy." " Ah just so. Frenchman, I presume ?" ■• No !—not Frenchman, not Roman !—born in Egypta !" " Born in Egypta. Never heard ot Egypta before. Foreign locality, likely. Mummy—mummy. How calm he is—how self possessed ! Is—ah—is he dead ?" " Oh, sacte bleu ! been dead three thousan' year!" The doctor turned on him savagely: " Here now, what do you mean by such conduct as this ? Playing us for Chinamen because we are strangers and trying to learn ! Trying to im-pose your vile second-hand carcasses on us ! Thunder and lightning! I've got a notion to—to—if you've got a nice fresh corpse, fetch him out!—or, by George, we'll brain you !" " Artemis Ward," as Chas. Farrar Browne is known, was a natural born humorist. Humor seems to have been his birth-right. It came from him as naturally as water flows from a spring. It sparkled in his conversation and gleams forth from all his writings. He was born in Maine, in 1834, and at an early age went West to make his fortune. After roving about for some time he entered newspaper work, contributing de- f I 5° THE MEKCURV. scriptions of an imaginary travelling menagerie, under the style of " Artemis Ward, Showman," while on a lecturing tour he had an opportunity to study the Mormons, and soon after, his book " Artemis Ward Among the Mormons," appeared. He was fond of giving himself the character of a showman and mingling lessons of good common sense with his droll witti-cisms. As such a character he tells the following experience with a " Woman's Club." " I pitched my tent in a small town in Injianny, one day last season, and while I was standin' at the dore takin' money a deppytashun of ladies came up and sed they was members of the Bunkumville Female Reformin and Wimins' Rites Asso-ciashun, and they axed me if they cood go in without payin.'" " Not exactly," sez I, " but you can pay without goin' in." " Dew you know who we air?" said one of the wimin—a tall and feroshus lookin' critter, with a blew kotton umbreller under her arm—" do you know who we air, Sir? " " My impreshun is," sed I, " from a kersey view, that you are females." " We air, Sur," sed the feroshus woman, " we belong to a Society whitch beleeve wimin' has rites—whitch beleeves in razin' her to her proper speer-—whitch beleeves she is endowed with as much intelleck as man is—whitch beleeves she is trampled on and aboozed—and who will resist hence4th and forever the encroachments of proud and domineerin men." During her discourse, the exsentric female grabbed me by the coat koller and was swinging her umbreller wildly over my head. " I hope marm," sed I, starting back, " that your intentions is honorable ! I'm a lone man hear in a strange place. Be-sides, I've a wife to hum." " Yes," cried the female, " she's a slave! Doth she never think of throwin' off the yoke of tyrinny and thinking and votin' for herself!—Doth she never think of these here things?" "Not bein' a natural born fool," sed I, by this time a little riled, " I kin safely say that she dothunt." - i THE MERCURY. 5 l "Oh what, what," screamed the female, " 0, what is the price that woman pays for her experiunce ! " " I don't know " sed I; " the price of my show is 15 cents pur individooal." " & can't our society go in free?" asked the female. " Not, if I know it," sed I. " Crooil, crooil, man ! " she cried and burst into teers. . " Won't you let my darter in ? " sed another of the exsentric females, " O, please let my darter in—she's a sweet gushin' child of nature." " Let her gush ! " roared I, as mad as I could be at their tarnal nonsense, " let her gush " whereupon they all sprung back with the simultaneous observashun that I was a Beest. " My female friends," sed I, " be-4 you leeve, I've a few re-marks to remark ; way them well. The female woman is one of the greatest institutions of which this land can boste. It's on-possible to get along without her. She is good in sickness— good in wellness—good all the time. O woman, woman," I cried, my feelin's worked up to a high poetick pitch, " you air an angel when you behave yourself, but when you take off your proper apparail & (metyforicolly speakin') get into panyloons— when you desert your firesides, & with your heds full of wimin's rites notions go round like roaring lions, seeking whom you may devour somebody—in short, when you undertake to play the man, you play the devil and air an emfatic noosance. " My iriends," I continued, as they were indignantly departin,' " way well what A. Ward has sed." Marietta Holley was a writer who saw the humorous side of things wherever one was to be found, and she presents it to her readers in the most agreeable manner. Her humor is with-out any apparent effort or anything that is far-fetched. It flows along in a natural spontaneous way that is delightful. Miss Holley was born near Adams, N. Y. In her early years she began to write sketches, poems and essays, some of which were published in a local paper and gave indications of the future success of the writer. Her first real literary effort appeared in a Philadelphia magazine under the pen name \1 S'< THE MERCURY. " Jemyme." After this she used the name of "Josiah Allen's Wife," by which she is now best known. It is said that her first book was refused by the publishing house, but that one member of the firm assumed the responsi-bility of bringing it out, and did so with eminent success.* Af-terwards, she published " My Opinions and Betsy Bobbet's" which was so successful that since then her books have been in constant demand. " Samantha at the Centennial" and " Sweet Cicely, or Josiah Allen's Wife as a Politician," both had large sales, but her most successful book was " Samantha at Saratoga" for which she received $ 10,000 before it was pub-lished. Nearly, one quarter of a million copies of this book have been sold. Owing to their length no example of her writings can be given here. Her biographer, however, says, " Her humor is of the wholesome type, imbued with common sense and she never provokes laughter at anything which is good. Ratherr in the most playful and laughter provoking manner, does she hit off the follies and foibles of society. She can see some-thing humorous in almost every person, every snatch of con-versation and every style of dress." Edward William Nye was a writer of humorous sketches. He is known to the public as " Bill Nye," the signature under which his articles were published. He was born in Shirley, Maine, in 1850. While he was yet a child the family moved to the West, and he received his education at Falls River, Wis, Later he went to Wyoming where he studied law and was ad-mitted to the bar in 1876. At an early age he began to con-tribute humorous sketches to the papers. For some years he was connected with various western journals and it was while he was editor of the Laramie "Boomerang" that his fame spread beyond the confines of the West. He finally settled in New York, where he contributed to the " World " and to some other prominent papers. He made a lecturing tour through Europe, and on his return lived at Ashe-ville, N. C, where he died in 1896. His writings have been — HBHMMM BHMHP If THE MERCURY. 53 published in book form under the titles—" Bill Nye and Boom-erang," " The Forty Liars," " Baled Hay," and " Remarks." He says the discovery of New York occurred in this man-ner : " About this time a solitary horseman might have been seen at West Two Hundred and Ninth street, clothed in a lit-tle brief authority, and looking out to the West as he petu-lantly spoke in Tammany dialect. As he stands there aboard of his horse one sees that he is a chief in every respect, and in life's great drama would naturally occupy the middle of the stage. It was at this moment that Hudson slipped down the river from Albany, past Fort Lee, and, dropping a knickle into the slot at One Hundred and Twenty fifth street, weighed his anchor at that place. As soon as he had landed and discovered the city, he was approached by the chief, who said :." We gates. I am on the the committe to show you our little town. I suppose you have a power of attorney, of course, for dis-covering us?" " Yes," said Hudson. " Very good," said the chief, as they jogged down town on a Sixth Avenue elevated train towards the wigwams on Four-teenth street. " We do not care especially who discovers us so long as we hold control of the city organization. How about that, Hank ?" " That will be satisfactory," said Mr. Hudson, taking a pack-age of imported cheese and eating it, so they could have the car to themselves. Thus was New York discovered via Albany and Fort Lee, and five minutes after the two touched glasses, the brim of the Schoppin and the Manhattan cocktail tinkled together, and New York was inaugurated." There yet remains space, to say but a few words about " Josh Billings " and to give his " Letter to Farmers." Henry W. Shaw, or " Josh Billings," was the son of a Massachusetts Congressman and was born April 21,1818, He entered Hamil-ton College but soon tired of college life and ran away to the West. There he led a roving life, at one time he was a coal-dealer ; again, he was a farmer, and then he became a steam- 54 THE MERCURY. boat captain. He finally settled in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., as a real estate agent and auctioneer. The quaint spelling he adopted has had much to do with the popularity of his productions. He wrote an " Essay on the Mule" which received no notice; then adopting dialectic spel-ling his " Essa on the Muel, by Josh Billings," was reproduced in halt the papers of the country. His homely humor, plain common sense and droll manner, made him popular as a lectuier. Among his publications are— " Josh Billings on Ice ; " " Every Boddy's Friend ;" " Trump Kards ; " and " Josh Billings Allminax," which continued for ten years with a circulation of over one hundred thousand copies a year. He died in Monterey, Cal, in 1883. LETTER TO FARMERS. Beloved Farmers : Agrikultur iz the mother ov farm pro-duce ; she is also the step.mother of garden sass. Rize at half-past 2 o'clock in the morning, bild up a big fire in the kitchen, burn out two pounds ov kandles, and greeze yure boots. Wait pashuntly for dabrak. When day duz brake, then commence tew stir up the geese and worry the hogs. The happiest man in the world iz the farmer; he rizes at 2 o'clock in the morning, he watches for dalite tew brake, and when she duz brake, he goes out and stirs up the geese and worries the hogs. What iz a lawyer ?—what is a merchant ?—what is a dok. tor?—what is a.minister?—I answer, nothing. A farmer is the nobless work ov God ; he rizes at 2 o'clock in the morning, and burns out a half a pound of wood and two kords ov kandles, and then goes out tew worry the geese and stir up the hogs. Beloved farmers, adevv, JOSH BILLINGS. S THE MERCURY. 55 THE USE OF ROUTINE. E. VICTOR ROLAND, '07. THERE has never been an age when activity so pervaded every phase and condition of life, as in our present age. Whether we take a view of the industrial world, with its varied enterprises, or survey the broad field of intellectual pursuits, we behold every successful and renowned man actively engaged in his particular work. This must needs be true of every in-dividual, whether he be farmer or manufacturer, lawyer, preacher, or what not. We live in an age of great things, and consequently great things are expected of us, and in order that we may not be a disappointment to ourselves and others we must follow out some system or. routine of work. It shall not be our purpose to speak of the use of routine in the many pursuits of life, where it must necessarily be followed, if suc-cess is sought, but to consider it in relation to education and its importance in student life. A splendid example of routine is found in almost all of our schools and colleges. Take for instance the system followed out in every well regulated public school. The child takes up the study of certain branches, and continues these from day to day and from term to term, until he is able to take up other studies, ior the development of his higher faculties, and thus he continues until he has prepared to enter college, where the course is continued on the same plan. Just what routine should be adopted by the student when he enters college is hard to map out, but it is most essential that every college man adopt some routine to be followed out in his daily life. Now in order that one may not err in the mapping out of this daily plan of action there are three things that he must realize. First, that he has come to college above everything else to be a Christian man. Secondly, that he has come to college to acquire the training, that comes from the pursuit of such.studies as the curriculum offers. Thirdly, that there are various outside activities of the col-lege life that he must help maintain. r; I 56 THE MERCURY. Now as to the first. How is the student to maintain his Christian life, and raise it to a higher standard ? There seems to be only one reasonable way to do this, and that is to set apart a portion of every day, for the study of God's Word, and the cultivation of the secret prayer life. The college man has peculiar temptations, and it is only by following out the above plan, that he can hope to combat successfully with them. 'Twill not be necessary to say to the one who follows out the above plan, that he should attend as many of the religious services associated with the institution, as are possible. So then we will consider this as the first step toward a successful routine. It would hardly seem necessary to say that every student who enters college, should pursue energetically the studies composing the regular course. It is only through this plan that he can ever expect to become a learned man. Taking for granted, that every student realizes this, there might be added a word in regard to how these studies should enter into the day's work. Every lesson should have a certain portion of the day in which to be gotten out, and if possible nothing else should be allowed to interfere. It might be added here, that a portion of every, day could be well used, if it were allotted to the study or reading of good literature. It is fitting also to say that some portion of the day, should be allotted for glancing over the daily newspapers. And now we come to the consideration of the outside work of college life, such as the literary societies, the college publi-cations, the musical clubs, and the various athletic sports. How much time a student can devbte to such matters, will de-pend largely on his ability to get out his required work. The ordinarily intelligent student will have some time to put on such work, and so he should help in whatever field he is fitted for. Every student should engage in some form of athletics, if it is possible lor him to do so, as all decent sports, will aid in giving him a strong body, which is the best condition for a free and healthy mind. It is a sad thing that many students do not realize the importance of the exercise of their physical organism, and thus quite a few leave college physical wrecks. ■■■■■Hi THE IVfERCURY Entered at the Postoffice at Gettysburg: as second-class Matter VOL. XIV GETTYSBURG, PA., APRIL, 1906 No. 2 Assoi tale Editors GEO. W. KESSLER, '08 J. K. ROBB, '08 EDMUND L. MANGES, '08 Advisory Board PROF. J. A. HIMES, LITT.D. PROF. G. D. STAHLEY, M.D. PROF. J. W. RICHARD, D.D. Editor-in-chief WARD B. S. RICE, '07 Exchange Editor THOS. E. SHEARER, '07 Business Manager THOMAS A. FAUST, '07 Ass't Bus. Managers. HENRY M. BOWER, '08 H. WATSON DAVISON,- '08 Published each month, from October to June inclusive, by the joint literary societies of Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College. Subscription price, one dollar a year in advance; single copies 15 cent3. Notice to discontinue sending the MERCURY to any address must be accompanied by all arrearages. Students, Professors and Alumni are cordially invited to contribute. All subscriptions and business matter should be addressed to the Busi-ness Manager. Articles for publication should be addressed to the Editor. Address THE MERCURY, GETTYSBURG, PA. EDITORIALS. WE consider it no little pleas-ure to send to our readers, this month, a double prize number, consisting of the inter-collegiate oratorical prize oration, and the Senior Graeff prize essay. By these we are enabled to judge our position among the institu-tions of our rank, and to become acquainted with the merits and qualities of orations and essays which are worthy of reward and applause. 58 THE MERCURY. MUCH interest has been shown of late by the members of the literary societies. Some of the students are just beginning to realize the invaluable, practical benefits that are derived from this line of work. We note, with pleasure, a great im-provement in the work of the members and particularly of those who have been most active. It is this unceasing toil, this ever readiness to act, that has raised the plain of the achieve-ments of the societies so much nearer that of their ideal. The one great object of the societies is to create a desire in the hearts of their members for better and higher achievements in the literary field. We study our text books so that we may develop our minds, cultivate our intellects, and broaden our sphere of thought, but how are we to impart our knowledge to others, unless we learn to give expression to our.thoughts. If we should study our text books from now until eternity, what would we get ? Theory, that's all, simply theory. It is very good as far as it goes, but it doesn't go very far unless we are able to put it into practice. Be practical, are the key-words to success. By continued application we develop our intellect, but what will this development avail us unless we rightly direct it. The literary societies are the practical agents whereby an ease of speech and clearness of expression is at-tained. If you don't believe it, try it. Thousands of others have done so, and are now at the top of the ladder above the wrangling of the rabble. We congratulate the societies upon the rapid strides they have made toward excellence in every branch of their work, and, in the literary field, among the students, we hope soon to see even greater activity. * * * 1 GETTYSBURG has again triumphed. It was not on the ath-letic field ; it was not a victory over brute muscle and brawn ; but we are gratified to say that it was in the intellectual arena that she has shown her strength. One of Gettysburg's sons has brought honor to his Alma Mater from a field from which heretofore she has retreated in defeat, though honor-able, and each time with a firmer determination to finally con-quer. Her earnestness has now been compensated, and the THE MEKC'JRV. 59 victorious ivy of the 1906 inter-collegiate contest waves over her head. This victory, which several times has been on the point of being ours, but is now a reality, should be a stimulus to every loyal Gettysburg student. It should be our purpose to hold that which has been placed in our hands; it should be an at-tainment to which all should turn with that firm determination which is characteristic of final success. Then let us all realize the situation and prepare ourselves to contend with the future. Our chance will be small, if we put too much confidence in letting tomorrow care for itself; or if we attempt, in the very latest hour, to make a dash, for there is much truth in a bor-rowing from Hare : " Nothing bursts forth at once, the light-ning may dart out of a cloud ; but the day sends forth his bright heralds before him to prepare the world for his coming." We hope, fellow students, that you will not regard this lightly; for we know that these things are not mere chance, but the re-sults of careful and steady preparation. Nor do we believe that we are hoping for impossibilities, for we are confident that there are those in our midst who can again lead the Orange and Blue to victory. EXCHANGES. We acknowledge the receipt of the following exchanges: The Amulet, The Haverfordian, The Scio Collegian, The Sus-quehamia, Juniata Echo, The Forum, The Manitou Messenger, The Red and Blue, Augustana Observer, The State Collegian, The Dickinsonian, The College Student, The Drury Mirror, The Monthly Bulletin, Temple Echos, The Lesbian Herald, The Philomatliean Monthly, The Mountaineer, The Augsburg S. S. Teacher, The Star and Sentinel, The Gettysburg Compiler, and the Western Maryland College Monthly. The College Student contains a very readable essay on " Chas. Lamb—His Personal Qualities, His Dictaion and Rank as a Critic." The writer treats his subject systematically and the result is a unity which is very pleasing. 60 THE MERCURY. " American Students in Christian Mission " in The Philo-mathean Monthly contains some concise statements concerning the great Student Missionary Conventions. There have been five such conventions in America. The first was held in Cleve-land, Ohio, in 1891, and was attended by 680 delegates ; the second, at Detroit, Mich., enrolled 1325 delegates; the third was at Cleveland again, with 2221 delegates ; at the fourth, at Toronto, Canada, there were 2957 delegates and at the fifth, at Nashville, Tenn., their number was almost 5,000. The Augustana Observer this month is below par. Neither of its two articles are up to the standard, although one is writ-ten by an alumnus. Just the reverse is The Manitou Messen-ger. Its neat appearance is pleasing and the contents are in keeping with the appearance. The review of " Tito Melema " and the article on " Joan of Arc " are both good. We find The Red and Blue especially attractive this month. " The Sketch Book " is a novel feature, but highly entertaining. The article " The Lure of Bohemia " was read with profit and enjoyment. Prize Contest Essays are usually very profitable reading, but there is one in The Sitsquehanna entitled " Conrad Weiser— The Patron of two Races " that makes us wonder if the prize is not a booby affair. From all appearances the essay seems to be a compilation of heterogenous sentences, nearly every one of which is placed in a separate paragraph regardless of content. We trust there are other competitors, for we should not like to see a prize of any value and honor won by such an essav. PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISER'S • i FURNITURE Mattresses, Bed Springs, Iron Beds, Picture Frames. Repair Work done promptly. Under-taking a specialty. * Telephone No. 97. £9C. E- Bender 37 Baltimore St., Gettysburg, Pa. The Windsor Hotel 1217=2 Filbert St., Philadelphia. Headquarters for Students. Thoroughly Renovated, Refurnished and Remodeled FRANK M. SCHEIBLEY, Manager. Graduate of Lafayette College 1898. A. G. Spalding & Bros. Largest Manufacturers in the World of Official Athletic Supplies Base Ball Lawn Ten is Foot Ball Archery Roque Ouoits Cricket Lacrosse Golf Implements for al Sports Spalding's Official Base Ball Guide for 1906. Edited by Henry Chadwick. The most complete and up-to-date book ever published on the subject. Fully illustrated. Price 10 Cents. For over a quarter of a century Spalding's Trade-Mark on Base Ball implements has marked the advancement in this particular sport. Spalding's Official League Ball is the adopted ball of the National League, and must he used in all match games. Every requisite for Lawn Ten-nis and Golf. Spalding's Trade MarK. on our Athletic Implement gives you an advantage over the other player as you have a better article, lasts longer, gives more satisfaction. Every Base Ball Manager should send at once/or a copy of Spalding's Spring and Sum-mer Catalogue—FREE. A. G. SPALDING «3 BROS. New York, Chicago, Boston, Buffalo, Washington, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Montreal, Canada, New Orleans, London England, Denver, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Syracuse, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Hamburg, Germany. ,. .-.i.k.i i»i«j; PATRONIZE OUK ADVERT1SEKS. BEGKEK & GOUINS OHAMBERSBURG ST., Dealers in Beef, Veal, Lamb, Pork, Sausage, Pudding, Bologna, Hams, Sides, Shoulders, Lard, Prime Corned Beef. SEFTON & FLEMMING'S LIVERY Baltimore Street, First Square, Gettysburg, Pa. Competent Guides for all parts of the Battlefield. Arrangements by telegram or letter. Lock Box 257. J. I. MUMPER. The improvements to our Studio have proven a perfect success and 41 Baltimore St., we are now better prepared than Gettysburg, Pa. ever t0 give you satisfactory work • ICE CREAM Telephone Call 1612 SODA WATER Sheads' (High (Grade (Confections 37=39 Chambersburg Street, Gettysburg, Pa. FRUITS RESTAURANT ATTACHED Under New Management —r-^ The Peoples Drug Store Invites you to visit them and select your needs from a fresh, new, and up-to-date stock. C. WM. BEALES, Ph.Gr., Prop. D. J. Swartz Country Produce Groceries Cigars and Tooaccj) GETTYSBURG. Dealer in Shoes Repaired —BY— J. H- BR^ER, 115 Baltimore St., near Court House. Good Work Guaranteed, WANTED. College students during their vacation can easily make $20 to $30 per week. Write for par-ticulars. THE UNIVERSAL MFG. CO., Pittsburg, Pa. "I I I

Dirk Messner on the dynamics
of global change and the significance of international science and technology
cooperation in the post-Western world



This is the fifth in a series of Talks dedicated to the technopolitics of International Relations, linked to the forthcoming double volume 'The Global Politics of Science and Technology' edited by Maximilian Mayer, Mariana Carpes, and Ruth Knoblich 





In recent years, the analysis of new emerging powers and shifting global order has become central to the study of international relations. While International Relations, aiming to evolve into a truly global discipline, is only just about to start opening up towards Non-Western perspectives, global power shifts have already led to a restructuring of global governance architecture in large fields of political reality and practice. Dirk Messner illustrates how far global power shifts have to lead to new patterns of international cooperation using international science and technology cooperation as a case in point. He argues that investment in joint knowledge creation and knowledge exchange is vital for managing the earth system. Messner also points to the multitude of tasks related to socio-technical systems which the political sphere is currently facing, particularly with regard to the challenge of managing the climate system. 




Print version of this Talk (pdf)




What is the most important challenge facing global politics that should be the central debate in the discipline of International Relations?



The biggest challenge of the next decades which we have to come to terms with is governing the big global commons. When I say global commons I do have in mind the atmosphere, the climate system, and other parts of the earth system, but also international financial markets and global infrastructures, such as the Internet – stability of these and other global commons is a public good much required. We need to stabilize the global commons and then manage them in a cooperative manner.



Three dynamics of global change make it specifically challenging to manage these global commons. The first wave of global change is the globalization wave; the economic globalization, cross-border dynamics, global value chains. It becomes evident that in many areas and especially when it comes to the global commons, regulation exceeds the capacity of individual nation states. The international community is required to institutionalize multilateralism and efficient global governance mechanisms in order to properly address issues arising from global dynamics. The second big global change is the shift from a Western to a post-Western world order. Global power shifts remaking the international system impede governing global commons. The third wave of global change is related to climate change, which adds a new dimension of global dynamics; human beings now have to learn how to steer, to stabilize, and how to govern the earth system as such. We are not only a species living on this planet, depending from resources and ecosystems of the earth systems. With the acceleration of economic globalization during the 1990s and the emergence of new, non-Western economic drivers of change, like China, humankind now significantly impacts the physical structures of the earth system. This trend is new. For the first 4,6 billion years of the existence of the earth system it was driven by the laws of physics, the dynamics of biology and bio-chemical processes. Homo sapiens appeared 220.000 years ago, and the impact of our species on the earth system has been marginal until the industrial revolution started 250 years ago. During the last decades human mankind became a major driver of change at a planetary scale.





How did you arrive in your current thinking about these issues?



I have always been interested in international relations, international policy dimensions, and the global economy. I started at the Free University of Berlin at the beginning of the 80's towards the mid-80's, studying Political Science and Economics. One among those professors who have been particularly important to me is Elmar Altvater. He was the supervisor of my diploma as well as of my Ph.D., and he sent me abroad. This resulted being a pivotal experience to me. I studied the last year of my first degree in Seoul, in South Korea. It was the period, the 80's, when the four Asian Tiger states emerged following Japan's example: South Korea, Taiwan, Hongkong, and Singapur. I had the chance to visit these countries, study there and learn a lot about Asia. I was fascinated by the dynamics of emerging economies and what this implied for the international arena. Somewhat later, the Latin American continent became the center of my interest. I did research in Nicaragua, Uruguay, Chile and some other Latin American countries, trying to understand liberalization-movements, how weaker actors come under pressure in Western-dominated global settings, but also how some countries managed it to become dynamic parts of the global economy (like the "Asian tigers" or Chile) and why others failed. I learnt that it is crucial to understand dynamics of global change in order to being able to build solid and inclusive economic structures and legitimate political systems at national levels. There has always been a political impulse that pulled me into certain fields I decided to work in.





What is your advice for students who would like to get into the field of global change research or international cooperation?



My first advice is: visit and work in different countries and different cultural and political settings. It is one thing to learn from scholars or books, but having studied and having lived in different contexts and countries is absolutely a key experience. This is the way to understand global dynamics, to get a feeling for differences and similarities. My second advice stems from my experience and conviction that we need much more interdisciplinary research than we currently have. We talk a lot about interdisciplinarity, however, we do not have career paths that systematically build interdisciplinary teams.



Looking particularly at global environmental changes and the future of the earth system, at the end of the day, social scientists and natural scientists need to learn how to work together and to understand each other. The future of the oceans, for example, is not a question that can be understood by ocean biologists only. They are the people studying how these elements of the earth system are actually working, the dynamics and drivers - focusing on physical, chemical, and biochemical processes. But when we look at the oceans towards 2100 from the perspective of global change, the most important drivers are now us human beings, our economies, our consumption patterns, our greenhouse gas emissions and their impacts on the oceans. And this implies that to understand dynamics of global change, we need to analyze the interactions, interdependences and feedback loops between three systems: the ecological system(s); social systems (our economies and societies) driven by humans; the technical systems and infrastructures. Therefore natural scientists, social scientists, and engineers need to interact very closely.  In the German Advisory Council on Global Change we call this approach: Transformation Research. Currently, we do not possess the appropriate university structures to adequately address this sort of problems. This is an immense institutional challenge. If I were a young scholar I would move into this direction, crossing disciplinary boundaries as much as possible.





What is the role of science and technologies in the dynamics of global change?



There are multiple important dimensions, but I would like to focus on some of them by moving through the aforementioned waves of global change. Technology is driving economic globalization, the first wave of global change. So we need to understand the dynamics of new technologies, especially the impact of ICTs, in order to understand the dynamics of economic globalization. The World Wide Web and social communication media are restructuring industrialization processes and global value chains. ICT infrastructure is also displaying a big potential for less developed regions. In Africa, for example, we saw many African countries jumping from the old telephone technologies to smartphones within less than a decade, because the old, maintenance and capital intensive communications infrastructure was no longer needed. Many African people now have access to smartphones, thus to communication- and information networks, and begin to reshape prize constellations and the global economy. Because of its restructuring effects, the impact of ICTs is relevant in all areas of the global economy. The global trend towards urbanization is similarly related to ICTs. Currently, we approach the global economy via data on national economies. But this might be about to change, as global mega-cities develop into global knowledge and financial hubs, building their own networks. In 2040, 80 percent of the global production, global GDP, global consumption, global exchange might be concentrated in 70 to 80 global cities or city regions.



Technology is also linked to the second wave of global change – the tectonic global power shift – in the way that investment in technology and knowledge in emerging economies are growing rapidly. We are not only facing economic and political power shifts, but also a remaking of the global science and research system itself. From my perspective, international cooperation in the field of science and technology research between "old powers" and "new powers", between Western countries and non-Western countries is extremely important for two reasons: First, we need to pool know-how in order to solve core global challenges and to develop patterns for managing the global commons. Interaction and cooperation in the field of science and technology is especially important for the creation of knowledge that is "better" in any way. For instance, in the field of adaptation policies to the impacts of climate change, most of the knowledge on how societies and local communities actually work or respond under these conditions exists in non-Western societies. The generation of knowledge is context dependent. We need to interact with colleagues from the respective countries for mutual learning and common knowledge improvement. My second argument is that, as an effect of the global power shift, traditional development cooperation is losing legitimacy. Many of these societies, from China to Peru, from Kenya to Vietnam, are no longer interested in our usual business, in our "aid-packages", our money, our experts or our concepts. What they are more interested in is true and reciprocal knowledge exchange and joint knowledge creation. Therefore, investments in respective forms and institutions of knowledge exchange and creation will be a central pillar of/for future oriented development cooperation or international cooperation and beneficial for all partners involved. Joint knowledge creation is a precondition for joint action and legitimate global governance initiatives.



The role of technologies with regard to the implications of climate change is crucial and multifaceted. In the German Advisory Council on Global Change we put forth suggestions concerning the transformation towards a low-carbon global economy. We are relatively optimistic in a technological sense. This statement is partly based on the Global Energy Assessment (GEA) research, which has been driven by Nebojsa Nakicenovic, one of our colleagues, who is working on energy modeling. The perspective there is that we know which kind of technologies we need for the transformation into a low-carbon or even zero-carbon economy. We can even calculate the investment costs and structures of different countries and regions. But we do know relatively little about the transformation processes of entire societies, economies and, eventually, the international system towards low-carbon systems. The transformation towards a low-carbon society is a "great transformation". In the entire history of mankind there might be only two examples for such a profound change: the industrial revolution 250 years ago and the Neolithic revolution 10.000 years ago, which induced the practices of agriculture. Today, we thus witness the third great transformation: the decoupling from fossil resources, from high-carbon to zero-carbon. To achieve the 2° Celsius goal, a complete decarbonization of the basic infrastructures of the global economy (the energy systems, the urban infrastructures and systems, the land use systems) is required – within a very limited period of time, until 2070. Comprehensive knowledge is key to achieve this. Let me emphasize once more the significance of international cooperation in the field of science and technology research, particularly in the IPCC context. I am sure that politicians from China, India, or Brazil only accept what the IPCC is presenting as objective knowledge, as the stand of the art knowledge, because their national scientists are deeply involved. If this were a classical western-based knowledge project it would have resulted in a lack of legitimacy. In the case of global climate policy, it is obvious that investment in joint knowledge creation is also about creating legitimacy for joint action.





What are the main obstacles of the low-carbon transformation?



The first two great transformations have been evolutionary processes. No one "planned" the industrial revolution, not to mention the Neolithic revolution.  These have been evolutionary dynamics. The sustainability transformation instead needs to be a governed process right from the beginning. In our institute, we looked at different transformation dynamics, not only the really big ones, the Neolithic, industrial, and the current sustainability transformation. We also examined structural adjustment programs in Latin America and Africa, the collapse of communism at the end of the 80s, the abolition of slavery, and similar other key transformations of human societies. Based on this historical perspective, we have identified four main drivers of transformation: The first one is crisis, this is the most important one. Confronted with strong crises, society and probably also individuals react and change direction. The second important driver is very often technology and scientific (r)evolution. The third driver is vision: If you are confronted with a problem but you do not know where to go to, transformation becomes very difficult. The European Union is the product of a fresh vision among elites after World War II; the United Nations is a result of the disasters of the first half of the 20th century. Advancing a vision is an essential means to move or to transform in a goal-oriented manner. Sustainability, of course, is also a vision. The fourth and last driver of transformation is "knowledge": you know that you have a certain problem constellation, and though the crisis is still not there, you react based on your knowledge in a preventive way.



For the low-carbon transformation, the fourth driver currently is absolutely key. We are able to address problems which would otherwise become much worse in the future, although the climate crisis is latent still – in contrast to, for example, the financial crisis, which is more visible in its effects. The impacts of a global warming of 4 or 5 degrees are still not visible. This makes for a huge difference. In fact, humans are not very good at acting and transforming significantly based on knowledge only. In combination with visible, tangible crises, knowledge is a strong driver of change, but without crisis, it is merely sufficient. Transformations based on knowledge and preventive action only are rare. The ozone hole is one positive example; solving the problem was possible because it required less complex technological change, affecting few industries only. Human beings are risk-averse in a sense, we are conservative, we do not like to change rapidly; we are path-dependent. John Maynard Keynes once said: "It is easy to develop new concepts and ideas. The difficult thing is to forget the old ones". Therefore, scientific tools are needed in order to sketch out future scenarios. Based on scientific knowledge, we need to convince our societies, our political decision-makers that it is necessary and possible to transform societies and economies towards sustainability – in order to avoid disruptive change in the earth system. Pushing towards sustainability at a point where the crisis has not yet materialized implies a specific and new role for science in managing global dynamics. Organizing a deep transformation towards sustainability avoiding significant crises driven by Earth system changes would be a cultural learning process – a civilizational shift.





What are the effects of growing multipolarity for global governance processes?



To start optimistically, I would argue that in contrast to historical situations in which this kind of tectonic power shifts led to conflicts or even wars, the current situation is different. The world is highly interconnected and economic interdependencies are stronger than ever. Charles Kupchan is differentiating between "war", "cold peace" and "warm peace". I think that a big "war" is not very probable, and "cold peace" is what we are in actually. "Warm peace" would be cooperative global governance: we identify our problems, have a joint problem analysis, and subsequently start acting cooperatively on them. But this does not describe the contemporary situation. While there are no severe global conflicts, we do not solve many of the global interdependency problems.



There are many barriers to global cooperation and I would like to mention two or three of those. The first one consists of power conflicts and power struggles. Hopefully realists such as John Mearsheimer are not right in claiming that "a peaceful rise of China is not possible". But the fundamental point remains that the re-organization and shuffling of power resources is rendering cooperation extremely difficult. The second point is that all the important global actors currently have severe domestic challenges to manage. The European countries are coping with the European dept crisis. Similarly, the United States is concerned with financial turbulences and rising social inequalities. China has to keep its annual growth rate of about 8 to 12 per cent and meanwhile stabilize its rapid modernization process. In India, there is still a large group of people suffering from poverty. So, managing that and trying to be a responsible global actor at the same time is not easy at all. In brief, all actors that we would like to see taking on a more responsible role on the global level are overcommitted domestically.



There is consensus among different disciplines on what cooperation is actually about. At the Centre for Global Cooperation Research we did a study on The Behavioural Dimensions of International Cooperation (2013) based on insights of very different disciplines – evolutionary biology, social anthropology, cognitive sciences, psychology, political sciences, behavioral economics – to find out what the basic mechanisms are which help human beings to cooperate at any scale towards global corporation in a world of nine billion people. Finally, we identified seven factors promoting cooperation: trust, communication, joint we-identities, reputation, fairness, enforcement – and reciprocity, which is the most fundamental prerequisite. These factors form an enable environment for cooperation and they are manmade. In contexts, actor constellations, systems, in which these basic mechanisms of cooperation are strong, they help to embed power dynamics, to solve social dilemma problems and to manage interdependencies. In contrast, contexts, actor constellations, and systems in which theses basic mechanisms of cooperation are weak, will be driven mainly by power dynamics and struggles. By looking at these factors one immediately understands why the G20 context is so difficult. We have been able to create and to well establish these factors in our old settings; in the European Union, the Western world, the transatlantic community. But now we are sitting together with new actors rather unknown. The G7/G8 world – the OECD driven and the western driven global economy and global politics – has moved towards G20 since it was acknowledged that one cannot manage any global turbulence without emerging economies. The G20 was created or rather called to meet in 2008, a few days after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers when many feared the collapse of the world's financial markets. Most western economies were highly indebted, whereas the emerging economies, especially China, were holding large currency reserves. From a behavioral perspective we have to invest in these basic factors of cooperation in the G 20 context in order to create the essential preconditions of joint action to solve the big global problems. This represents a long-term project, and unfortunately many of these global problems are highly challenging from the time perspective: a tension derives from the gap between time pressure in many of these areas and the time it probably needs to build up these basic mechanisms of cooperation. In fact, the major feeling is that international cooperation is even weaker now than a decade ago. I usually visualize the current situation of the G20 as a round table with 20 seats but no one is sitting there. Charles Kupchan's "No one's world" or Ian Bremmer's "The G0 world" deal with the same problem: international cooperation, global governance is currently so difficult, although all these interdependency problems rendered the problem of managing the global commons fully obvious. If you talk to our Foreign Ministers or Finance Ministers or Chancellors and Presidents, they of course all know exactly what is out there in terms of globalization impacts. But organizing the necessary global consensus and the governance and cooperation structures is tremendously difficult.





How far is the discipline of development research affected by global change?



This is a complex question, to which I do not have a definite answer. The whole field of development research is currently about to get redefined. In the past, the concept of development was clear: On the one side, there was the developed world, the OECD-world, consisting of 35-40 countries and on the other side, the "underdeveloped" part of the world, all other countries. Understanding the differences between developed and developing, along with thinking about the basic drivers of modernization and wealth creation in less developed countries was at the core of development research for a long period. How can poor countries become rich and as developed as OECD countries already are?



Today, it is highly questionable if even the broader categories of "development research" still serve to analyze the new realities. Do we currently still need "development economists", and how would they differ from classical "economists" doing research in those European countries suffering most from the debt crisis, high unemployment and weak institutions? Situations in many OECD countries nowadays look like what one would expect from a still developing or emerging economy, and the other way around. So, what distinguishes development research? This is an important question. Studying non-OECD countries, do we still need development research based governance theories or democratization theories – thus, theories that are systematically different from those we apply in our research on OECD countries? The discipline of development research is under immense pressure. This debate is linked to the second wave of global change we talked about: the post-western world order, emerging economies catching up, convergence trends in the global economy.



If you look at the role of international technology transfer, the same scenario arises: the North-South, donor-recipient categories have dissolved. Technology transfer has lost its distinct direction, and it is much more reciprocal and diffuse than it used to be. There are several studies currently pointing to the fact that investment rates in R&D and in technology creation are growing fast in several regions around the globe, whereas in many OECD-countries, investment is stagnating, or even decreasing. The whole map of knowledge, if you like to say so, is about to undergo deep changes. This implies that the common assumption that knowledge is based in OECD countries and transferred to the South via development cooperation is just not working any longer. We need new patterns of cooperation between different countries in this area. And we need research on global development dynamics which will be different from classical development research which has been based on the assumption of a systemic North-South divide for a long time.







How do institutions such as the World Bank react to the emerging and redefined agenda of development?



The current reorientation of the World Bank as a Knowledge Bank originates from the assumption that knowledge is just as important as money for global development. The second point is that more and more of their partners in non-OECD countries, classical developing and emerging economies, are more and more interested in the knowledge pools of the World Bank and less in their experts. And: dynamic developing countries and emerging economies are even more interested in investments in their own knowledge systems and joint knowledge creation with the World Bank. The old North-South knowledge transfer model is eroding. You might say that there currently are two contradictory global trends: on the one hand via social media and the Internet, knowledge is being widely distributed – broader than ever before and actually, theoretically accessible at any point in the world –, on the other hand the proliferation of knowledge is accompanied with access restriction and control, and the growing privatization of knowledge. Aiming to play a constructive role in collaborative knowledge generation, the World Bank invests a lot in building up freely accessible data bases and open research tools, including the provision of governance or development indicators of any kind. However, this is a difficult process that is developing slowly.



The World Bank is currently undergoing several basic re-orientations. The structures inside of the World Bank are about to become less hierarchical and more horizontal. Originally, the World Bank has been a much more western dominated organization as the Bretton Woods institutions were formed by the United States and its allies. If you look into the governance structures of the World Bank today, it is still largely dominated by OECD countries, but you can notice that this is changing. It is a global organization but 90 % of people working there have been studying at Anglo-Saxon universities. Actors especially from emerging economies have been criticizing that for long, claiming that the World Bank as a global organization should have to be represented by a global citizenship. Although this had slowly started to change already, all the knowledge and all the qualification procedures still remained very western dominated. So they asked the World Bank to diversify its partner structures, to reach out and cooperate with research institutions from around the world. This is what the World Bank is trying to do at the moment, which is really a break with its culture. Because even though the World Bank is a global organization, it has always been a very inward-looking organization. The World Bank was strong, with fantastic professionals and researchers inside, but without cooperating tools. Now they are trying to broaden their cooperation structures and to learn from and together with other institutions.





What are the opportunities and difficulties of big data analysis for global development?



Access to any kind of data is important for any kind of knowledge creation. It has been very limited for many developing countries over a very long time. So, thinking about how to assure access to serious data is significant. This would be my first point. My second point is that, when it comes to big data and the question of managing large amounts of indicators on, for example, cross-country or cross-sector modeling, I think the new technologies are opening up new research possibilities and opportunities. Big data provides the opportunity to identify patterns. Looking for similar dynamics in very different systems is a very interesting exercise, because you get deeper insights into the basic dynamics of systems. This is what I have learned from my colleague Nakicenovic, whom I have mentioned before, and who is working on the Global Energy Assessment, or from Juergen Kurths, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who is studying basic structures and dynamics of very different complex systems like air traffic networks, global infrastructures and social media networks. Managing big data allows you to see patterns which cannot be seen if you only work with case studies. However, to understand the dynamics of countries and sectors, new actor constellations or communities, you need to go into detail and in this specific moment, big data is only the starting point, the background: you also need qualified, serious, very often qualitative data on the ground. Big data and qualified, specific data: they complement each other.



For sure, an important aspect of big data is that for the most part, it is gathered and stored by private businesses. We started this interview talking about global commons and we actually just defined a global commons: data on development should be a global commons, and we need standards and rules of managing those. Private actors could play a role, but within a set of rules defined by societies and policies, and not the private business sector.









Dirk Messner is the Director of the "German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)" since 2003 and teaches at the Institute of Political Science, University of Duisburg-Essen. He is Co-Director of the "Käte Hamburger Kolleg / Centre for Global Cooperation Research (KHK/GCR)", University Duisburg-Essen, which was established in 2012. He furthermore is Co-Chair of the "German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU)", member of the "China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development", member of the "Global Knowledge Advisory Commission" of the World Bank and member of the "European Commission's Scientific Advisory Board for EU development policy". Dirk Messner's research interests and work areas include globalisation and global governance, climate change, transformation towards low carbon economies, and development policy. He directed many international research programs and thus created a close international research network.



related links:


Profile at German Development Institute
Messner, Dirk / Guarín, Alejandro / Haun, Daniel (eds.) (2013): The Behavioural Dimensions of International Cooperation, Global Cooperation Research Papers 1, Centre for Global Cooperation Research (pdf)


Read Jing Gu, John Humphrey, and Dirk Messner's (2007) Global Governance and Developing Countries: The Implications of the Rise of China here (pdf)


Messner, Dirk (2007): The European Union: Protagonist in a
Multilateral World Order or Peripheral Power
in the »Asia-Pacific« Century? (pdf)


Print version of this Talk (pdf)

Issue 14.6 of the Review for Religious, 1955. ; A. M. D. G. Review for Religious NOVEMBER 15, 1955 Jnfecjration . Joseph P. Fisher Community Workshop . ¯ Sister Mary Joselyn Renovation and Adaptation . Joseph F. Gallen Book Reviews Questions and Answers Index to Volume XIV VOLUME XlV NUMBER RI:::VIF::W FOR RI:::LIGIOUS VOLUME XIV NOVEMBER, 1955 NUMBER 6 CONTENTS INTEGRATION--Joseph P. Fisher, S.J . 281 COMMUNITY WORKSHOP OF THE DULUTH BENEDICTINES-- Sister Mary Joselyn, O.S.B . 287 SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS . 292 RENOVATION AND ADAPTATION---Joseph F. Gallen, S.J . 293 BOOK REVIEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS-- Editor: Bernard A. Hausmann, S.J. West Baden College West Baden Springs, Indiana . 319 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . . 328 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 29. Tax on Religious Houses for General Expenses . 329 30. Salaries of Religious to be Assigned to Province . 329 31. Indulgence in the Form of a 3ubilee' . . 330 32. Order 'of Procedure for Former Mothers General . 330 33. Matter for Questioning in Canonical Inquiry . 331 34. Modesty of Eyes . 332 35. Bowing to Superior's Chair . 333 36. Illegitimacy, When an Impediment . 333 INDEX TO VOLUME XIV, 1955 . 334 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, November, 19550 Vol. XIV, No. 6. Published bi-monthly: January, March, May, July, September, and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, .by St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter January 15. 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Augustine G. Ellard, S.J., Adam C. Ellis, $.J., Gerald Kelly, S.J., Francis N. Korth, S.J. Literary Editor: Edwin F. Falteisek, Copyright, 1955, by Adam C. Ellis, S.J. Permission is hereby granted for quota-tions of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription price: 3 dollars a year; 50 cents a copy Printed in U. S. A. Before writing to us, please consult notice on inside back cover. Int:egrat:ion Joseph P. Fisher, S.J. ALL good Catholics cry out against secularism--the divorce of God from His world. They rightly insist that God must be made a part of a man's daily life, that God must be brough~t into education, business, government, entertainment--all the pursuits of human life. Men who insist on keeping God out of public life will make shipwreck of human life. If God is kept, so to speak, in church and not allowed to go out into the market place, the business world, the motion-picture halls, the places of government, then man will live most of his life without God and that is sure to be fatal. Although a religious is not likely to be tainted by secularism in the sense in which it is used above, there is a possibility of a some-what similar division in his life between the spiritual and ordinary life. How often a spiritual director finds that young religious going forth from the novitiate or from a period of some concentration.on the spiritual life into the active life feel very uncomfortable in their new surroundings and activities., Often enough they feel as if their spiritual life has evaporated almost overnight. At least it seems to them that they have suffered a great setback in their progress in the life of the soul; and that--naturally for good religious-~causes them concern. They then look upon their present way of life with some-thing like suspicion or even distrust, and they hanker, as it were, for the fleshpots of Egypt. It must be admitted that often, when such transfers are made, there actually is a loss of interest in spiritual things because of the, many distractions that duty and, perhaps, desire of relief bring into the lives of such religious. But much of the difficulty can be traced back to a wrong outlook on the spiritual life. In a sense it is alm0st inevitable that young, inexperienced minds develop a certain attitude on the spiritual life because of the way they approach it. Before they entered a seminary or convent, al-though they had been good Catholics, they had not worked sys-tematically on the spiritual life or used the various spir.itual exer-cises standard among religious. As a consequence, when they are. fa.ced .with a whole .new field of life, the spiritual life, and read. about it in books and hear about it in talks and retreats, they look. upon it as something different from what their lives have been, as 281' JOSEPH P. FISHER Ret~iew for Religious something superadded to ordinary life, as even opposed to ordinary life, as unable to be mixed with ordinary life. It seems a life apart, a sanctuaried life. It is 'lived in quiet, and solitude; it grows by prayer and penance; its natural habitat is the chapel or oratory; it is a plant easily wilted by exposure to the winds of the world. And so, when they do go forth from the warmth of novitiate fervor into the cool atmosphere of the classroom or hospital, they feel a chill. And to their minds there naturally seems a split between ~he spiritual life as they knew it and life as they are living it. But is not all this true? To a certain extent it is and has to.be. But frequently there is a ne'edless and harmful exaggeration, an over-emphasis on certain truths to the neglect of others. We can admit once and for all that the common insistence on silence and solitude and recollection is necessary especially for a beginner in the spiritual !ife. Before entering, religion he probably lived among many dis-tractions, engaging in sports, attending dances and parties, going to mdvies, and in general occupying himself with many such matters; and his life to a 'large extent was sustained by these things. Ob-viously, if they were continued, he would go on being supported by them and would never come to lean on the truths of the faith, the truths of the spiritual life. It is only when these false supports are removed and the noise of the world has faded away that he will be forced, so to speak, to lean on God and the things of God. He will either have to swim in the waters of the spirit or sink; or, of course, remove himself. With this admitted, let us turn to the question of how the harmful exaggeration can be handled. The main element in the exaggeration is that it sets up a di-vision in the life of man. Instead of life's being a whole, it becomes a thing of diverse and even antagonistic parts, parts which are held" together rather mechanically and awkwardly. On the one hand there is the spiritual life, needing its sl~ecial atmosphere, nourishment, and care. On the other hand there is ordinary, natural life with its entirely different needs and demands. Some hold them together rather forcefully; some give up the fight in favor of ordinary life; some, we hope, work out a satsifactory integration. The main error consists in thinking that a man is spiritual, is engaged in super-natural activity, only at certain restricted places and times--for example, at prayer, in chapel. If he is not in such places or doing such things, he is regarded as being away from the spiritual, super-natural life. He may be, but he need not be. So the ideal would be if the whole of life were spiritual, super- 282 November, 1955 INTEGRATION natural, if the whole of life were of a piece, if a man were~always about his Father's business. Is this possible? Can a man conceiv-ably be in such a posltxon that he regards a11 things, no matter what they are, as spiritual, supernatural? Whether he eats, plays, talks, suffers-~can it all, in a true sense, be the same? It seems 'that it was for the saints. St. Paul certainly lived out his exhortation: "Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or do anything else, do all for the glory of God" (I Cor. 10:31). ' The biographer of Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, a discalced Carmelite lay brother, states: "Everything °was the same to him-~every place, every employment. The good Brother found God everywhere, as much while he was repairing shoes as while he was praying With the community. He was in no hurry to make his retreats, because he found in his ordinary work the same God to love and adore as in the depth of the desert" (Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, p. 53). And it has been told of Jerome Jaegen, whose process .of beatification has begun, that he combined attention to external things and to God in a wonderful way: "It is quite remarkable that just when he was campaigning for office and acquainting himself with his new duties, he was pass-ing through what he calls the first phase of the 'Mystical Marriage.' In this phase, to find her Groom, the soul need only turn to Him within her 'where the seat of consciousness is,' where He is always present. While he was a Deputy to the Diet his mystical life reached its full development. He attained to that condition in which one can simultaneously pay attention both to external things and to God manifesting His presence within the soul" (REVIEW FOR RE-LIGIOUS, II (1943), 359). Such, to a greater or less degree, must have been the outlook of all real saints. Life, theft, can be one, can all be spiritual, supernatural. A man does not have to pass arti-ficiall); from one part of his life to the next; does not have to leave for a time his warm spiritual world and run out, holding his breath, as it were, into the cold world of everyday life, then hasten back before his spiritual life has disappeared. It is true that we have been speaking of the saints, and saints could do what we cannot. Assuredly, but, if there is one thing in which ordinary men can well imitate the saints, it is, in this ideal of an integral life, where all is part of a whole. " . By what means, then, can a religious grow in this integrated way of life? The grace of God, of course, has much to do with it; but, as in most other matters concerning the spiritual life, we must 283 ~JOSEPH P. FISHER Revib~V for . Religiohs do our part. Various means can be suggested which are standard matter in books on the ascetical life. However, we shall endeavor to put them in a way that fits our purpose. The first and most obvious means of making the whole of life spiritual, supernatural, is to have what is called a "good intention." With the proper intention, a man in the state of grace can make all his good or indifferent voluntary acts a source of supernatural merit. Theologians dispute about the precise requisites of this in-tention; but all agree that the more explicit and actual the intention, the better. Fbr our purpose the thing to be insisted on is this:'a man should try to grow in the realization of this really very im-portant truth about the power of intention. He has to see it as an integrating factor in his life, as a unifying principle that assimilates whatever it touches into the supernatural life he leads. In this way a man is aware that all is supernatural, that no matter where he is; what he is doing, he has not left the spiritual world but is busy building it. It is clear that this ability to realize all things as super-natural through the means of a good intention requires a more" penetrating and active faith than is required to accept as spiritual such actions as prayer, visits to the Blessed Sacrament, and the like. The next means that suggests itself is the practice of the presence of God. This subject has been treated at length in several previous articles in the REVIEW 'FOR RELIGIOUS. Here I want to emphasize a certain point of view. For our purpose--a means of integration-- the practice of the presence of God remains a rather ineffective means if viewed in the following manner. (However, .there is a place even for it in the case of those who are learning the practice and know what is the further end they should have in mind.) A person is thought of as going along his ordinary life and then at the sound of a bell or at some stated interval as turning away for a moment from what he is doing and thinking of God. Then back to his ordinary life. A rather crude image may give a clearer idea of this method. It will be obvious how the image applies to our matter. A fish's normal element is water--it is at home in water.' But oc-casionally a fish jumps into the air, an entirely different element from water and one in which the fish is not perfectly at home. The forced leap into the higher and lighter element is for only a ~ery slight bit of time. Then the fish relapses into the medium congenial to it. Certainly such a manner of practicing the presence of God, if it goes no farther, would not help integration. On the.'other hand there is a way of practicing it which would be immensely helpful. 284 November, 1955 INTEGRATION As has been well said, we do not really put ourselves into the presence of God--we are actually there, always there. We cannot get away from God--He is closer and more pursuing than the air we breathe. But, of course, we have to know the facts, realize them, act on them. To this end it is suggested that we read matter on the presence of God and often make a meditation such as the Contem-plation for Obtaining Divine Love. It is only when God becomes, so to speak, the element in which we live our lives--in Him we live and move and bare our b.eing--tbat the presence of God will be an integrating force in our lives. It is important to point out that this practice is not only or even chiefly a matter of the mind; for, obviously, we cannot have God in the focus of our minds con-stantly. However, after much work on our part, He can be, as it were, aIways.on the fringe of our attention--but this must be with-out strain or violent effort. And best of all He can be at the end of all our loves; for in all things we can, if we so wish, love God. God, then, can be the unifying principle in our life, making all our living a whole, and enabling us to pass from prayer to play, from play to work, with the conviction and consequent peace that we are always about our Father's business and our soul's sanctifica-tion. It was no doubt with this ideal in mind that St. Ignatius "came to the following conclusion, stated in a letter he caused to be written to some young students and quoted by Father Lindworsky in The Ps~Icbolog~ of Asceticism: " 'Ou_r father holds it for better, ~hat in all things one should endeavor to find God, rather than that long continuous periods of time should be applied to prayer.' In-stead of devoting themselves to prolonged prayer, the students were exhorted to exercise themselves 'in finding God our Lord in all things, "in conversation, in walking, seeing, tasting, bearing, thinking, and in fact in all kinds of activity, for of a truth the majesty of God is in all things' " (p. 68). When a man has come to such a familiarity with God as St. Ignatius implies in this passage, it is hardly right to speak of the "practice" of the presence of God as if it were one practice more or less in the spiritual life. Really it is a man's spiritual life or at least has the function of a barometer in its regard. "Where thy treasure is there is thy heart also." There can be no doubt about it. Although in treating recollection we shall cover somewhat the same ground we did when treating the question of the presence of God, it seems worthwhile to examine the subject in its relation to integration. A rather common way of looking at recollection is in- 285 ~OSEPH P. FISHER dicated in some such expression, as, "He made an act of recollection." This suggests that the person in question is, for the most part, un-recollected, and then briefly recollects himself. This act of recollec-tion would consist of turning away from the distracting, perhaps absorbing, unspiritual business of the moment and turning to the thought of something pious unrelated to the matter at hand. As was said in connection, with the practice of the presence of God, there is a' place for this kind of thing, but it is not at all the ideal. There would seem to be something strange about the idea that a man i's recollected who recollects himself for brief, flashing moments; and for the rest of the time, most of the time, he is anything but recollected." Would it not be better to regard recollection as some-thing capable of being more pervasive, more continual? Perhaps at least at the beginning of one's endeavor to practice recollection it would be well to change the sense in which the word recollection is commonly used, that is, calling up a spiritual thought of some kind. Would it not get us closer to what we want if we would have it mean the gathering of our powers on what the will of God puts before us.?. My imagifiation, my mind, my will often tend away from what for me is expressly God's will. Holding them to what is God's will for me from the right motive--it is God's will and I wish to fulfill it--would seem to be a fine form of recollection. If I am supposed to pray, I call together my powers and bend them this way; if I am supposed to study, I marshal them on my books; if I am supposed to recreate, I turn them to this end--the motive always being to do God's will, to find God in all things. It is plain how this.again would make for integration. As one grow.s in the power of recollection, one would approach more and more the prac-tice of the presence of God as indicated above. Then God would come to be all in all. It would seem that the form of recollection proposed is espe- ¯ cially import~lnt for and adapted to active religious. If their activity is divorced from their spiritual life, sad, indeed, is their-lot. The harder they work, the farther they withdraw from spiritual progress. But they ought to sanctify themselves by their apostolate. This quires real effort, a real desire for spiritual progress. An integrated life will bring power and peace and spiritual ad-vancement. It is an ideal all religious should work for. It will. not come without effort and the grace of God. Life seems almost too short to mak~ a whole out of the many parts. But here, as in all things, there is a shortcut--the love of God.- 286 Communi .y orkshop ot: t:he .Dulu :h enedict:ines Sister M. Joselyn, O.S.B. i N the fall of 1954, Mother Martina Hqghes, Prioress of the Bene-dictine Sisters of Villa Sancta S~holastic~, Duluth, Minnesota, first projected .the plan ofa workshop for the sisters in which any problem of the community would receive a frank, orderly, and serious discussion under the leadership of an experienced priest. All the sisters were urged to give thought to matters they would like to consider or have ~onsidered. at the workshop; aJad ar.rangemenrs wi~re made to bring a large group--as it happened, about half the community, which numbers more thah four hundred members--to the mother house for a two-d~y institute during the Christmas holi-days. In due time, Father Louis Putz, C.S.C., of the Department of Religion of Notre Dame University, .was engaged as the workshop moderator; and a committee of eight sisters representing different age and occupation groups in the community was appointed to plan the sessions with Father Putz. From a considerable correspondence between Father Putz, Mother Martina, and the committee members prior to the arrival of Father Putz at the mother house, and from a half-day planning session of the committee and the leader after his arrival, evolved the subject matter of the discussions: "the spiritual and temporal good of the commu.nity, with emphasis on the relations between superibr and subjects." It was believed that the over-all subject for discussion should be definite but not too narrowly restricted, should represent some hierarchy of values, yet not be a mere string of non-debatable principles. All the workshop members attended the first general session, which was held in the auditorium. At this time, the ~hairman of the workshop committee sketched the procedure for the remainder of the day's sessions, and Father Putz presented his view of the value and method of.such a workshop, adapting in fact both the technique and the major emphasis of the Catholic Action cell movement :o this group. Father Putz stressed the necessity of rethinking certain practices of religious life in the light of prese.nt day temper but with relation to traditional and tried principles. He also urged that the observe-d.iscuss-act method of the cell movement be applied by the 287 SISTER M. JOSELYN Review ~or Religious sisters in a manner calculated to deepen and intensify the loving union of the community members functioning as a family or ecclesiola within the Mystical Body of Christ. At this time, the committee distributed to all members of the workshop an outline to guide the day's discusssion. The outline (which is appended) was to be regarded as a set of signposts, rather than as "material to be covered." The group was then divided into fourteen small sections by an" ingenious use of colored slips which had been handed out at the door. (Thus the divisions were abso-lutely random.) A meeting room was designated for each small group, most of which numbered about ten to fifteen. Within the groups, a leader and a recorder were informally appointed. The first discussion lasted about forty-five minutes, tending to begin rather timidly but to gain momentum through full participation as time went on. Throughout the session, Father Putz acted as "floating delegate," stopping in at various subgroup meetings. At the end of the morning session, each recorder presented to the entire group the findings of the subgroup to which she belonged. In this manner, conclusions or resolutions or questions were pooled; and it was possible to determine which problems were common to all subgroups as well as to ascertain the different views of a large num-ber of sisters on one general subject. At the conclusion of the first half-day session, certain questions arising from the morning's meet-ings were directed to Father Putz and to Mother Martina, both of whom aimed to focus attention on the general principle (rather than the specific practice) involved. The procedure for the afternoon session of the first day was the same as that for the morning session. At the end. of the first d~iy's discussions, Father Putz and the planning committee worked for several hours preparing permanent recommendations from the recorders' reports, evaluating the pro-cedures, and outlining the second day's program. It was decided that the large outline of the subject for the second day, "the temporal good of the community," instead of being given as a whole to each subgroup, would be divided into fourteen sections, each group re~ ceiving one segment of the topic, as designated on each sister's copy of the outline. (This outline is also appended.) On the second day, sisters engaged in hospital work held (at their own request) special sessions within the larger group, still following, however, the outline given to all. In every other respect, the second day's sessions were conducted" like the first day's. Since tb.e outlines of content are included in this article, it will Nooember, 1955 COMMUNITY WORKSHOP. not be necessary to describe iff detail the development of these topics in the small groups. Mother Martina did state at the closing session that "the discussion has pqinted up four areas which I have under consideration at present: delegation of authority, care of the aged, training of the young, and local and major superior relations." Effort was made by the~ planning committee to obtain an over-all picture of the participants' reaction to this first community work-shop; to this end the committee prepared and distributed at the last session a short questionnaire (appended) to be answered anony-mously by all who wished to do so and left in a designated place. The fact that many sisters had only a-few moments between the close of the workshop and their departure from the mother house may have a relation to the number of questionnaires turned in. Ac-cording to the committee's digest of the returned sheets, the seventy-nine respondents stated unanimously that they liked the workshop. Seventy said they would like another workshop (nine others did not answer- the question). More than thirty sisters suggested that they liked the workshop because it was an opportunity for each " sister to present her opinions and to hear the thinking of others on common problems, resulting in an intensified community spirit and a unity of effort for the common good. Others thought that "the earnest and high ideals so generally manifested among all the sisters gave a boost to one's courage and spiritual striving." Thus, the workshop "gave a real stimulus to live the ideal life of a religious, and it served as a fine personal examination. It stressed the idea that each individual sister, as a member of the Mystical Body, must help to make our Benedictine family a happy, ideal one." Others answer-ing the questionnaire noted that they liked the facts that "topics and discussion were handled objectively" and that "respect for the personality of each individual sister was stressed." Thirty-four sisters thought the qualifications of a superior had been adequately dis-cussed; forty-four= thought the relations between superior and sub-jects had been adequately discussed. In the appropriate sect!0n of .the questionnaire, many valuable, constructive suggesti~ons for improving future workshops were in-dicated by the participants. Adverse criticism~ of the workshop gen-d~ ally i~ciffd~d t~orelated t~oint.si in'light 6f th.e tjm'.e, available, too many topics were listed for. d!~.c~ssion,: .a.n.~do,. c.onsequently, some of the discussions were {6b general. A "desire whs manifested to con-tinue discussion of these subjects at a future date.~ It was also.sug-gested :.that,, the,, recommendations.,-of., the. ,-w. orksl-;£i~,] b~ ". ~:.m~riz4d 289 SISTER M. JOSELYN Reuiew for Religious and distributed to each sister and that'in the.coming year each mem-ber of the community take.note of "topics for future workshop dis, cussions. Among suggestions for future workshop subjects, the majority of sisters included the discussion of "the greater spiritual growth of our community through an interpretation of the Holy Rule and how to apply it to our daily life in modern times," "how we can better fulfill our end in religious life," and "how to balance the active and contemplative aspects of .our life." THE SPIRITUAL COMMON GOOD HOW TO PUT THE SPIRIT OF CHARITY INTO OUR RELIGIOUS FORMATION A, Prayer in general I, How to make the necessary ada.ptations to our community exercises a) Normal times b) Vacation time c) In sickness 2. .How to teach goqd prayer and help 'others to pray well. a) Piling up non-essential devotions which interfere with the true spirit of prayer 3. Penitential obligations at times of ember days and fast days a) How to keep in the spirit of the Church b) Charity iri fulfilling our obligation c) Humility to ask for dispensation0if we n~ed it 4. Obligation of silence and recollection in view of charity a) Maintaining silence outside of recreation time b) Charity toward those who must talk during silence time to relieve tension B. Spiritual formation in terms of.spiritual reading 1. H6w to translate the Gospels into life and action 2. How to make our life liturgical 3. \Vhat kind of spiritual reading makes the'liturgy richer and unifies our life as a community and as an, individual II. SACRAMENTS ¯ A. Eucharist 1. How do we prepare as a community to celebrate thoughtfully the Sacrifice? B. Penance 1. How to make an intelligent use of the sacrament of penance OUR RELA;FIONSHIP TO THE COMMUNITY A. How to promote in the community the unity of charity 1. Attitude toward one another 2. Toward superiors 3. Particularly to speak up where, it is necessary and calied for in Chapter and outside of Chapter TEMPORAL COMMON GOOD Groups 1, 2, 3, 4 I. THE SUPERIOR A. Do we look at the office of~superior as an honor and not a service? 29O November, 1955 COMMUNITY WORKSHOP Bo Is the superior submissive to her higher superior, or is she jealous of her own responsibility ? Is she choosey in observance o~ canon law? Distribution.of house duties, assignments, etc, 1. Prudence and fairness in distribution of house duties 2. Partiality or favoritism--allowing cliques to develop 3. Keeping peace by letting sisters do as they please 4. Playing up to flattery 5. Regarding sisters only as subjects who must obey 6. Suspicious of actions of sisters, judging interior sentiments 7. Overloading the willing Groups 5, 6, 7, 8 ' E. Does the "superior take the trouble to know all abou~ "each sister, her temperament, aptitudes, interests, in order to help her? 1. Does she try to develop the personalities of the sisters? 2. Does she have confidence in the sisters? 3. Does she lack discretion with the sisters? 4. Does she have objective rather than subjective attitude? F. Does the superior make herself inaccessible to the sisters? G. Is the superior w!lling to rethink the'function of the community? H. Are'subjects prepared technically and spiritually for their responsibilities? 1. Do you think obedience will cover inc'ompetence? 2. Do you act as though the office of superior gave universal competence? 3. Are young religious allowed to come to responsibilities for which they may be capable? 1. Spending" money for luxuries or extras and not buying the essentials for school or mission !. Confusing the spirit of economy with spirit o~f poverty 2. Being overconcerned about food, clothing, rooms Groups 9, 10, 11 II. CHOICE OF SUBJECTS A. ~ccepting postulants without sufficient health, intelligence, or social ap-titudes B. Accepting religious into profession who are not fitted for community life C. Minimizing obligations of religious life for sake of attracting vocations 1. Spirit of sacrifice, motive for entering 2. Appeal to generosity 3. Indiscretion in fostering vocations. Groups 12, 13, 14 III. IV. RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CLERGY A. B. C. Do Relationship between principal and pastor Relationship between subjects and priests ¯ Willingness to advise clergy of indiscreet giving of gifts as tokens of ap-preciation Pastors and subjects channel activities through superior or principal Money collecting in Catholic schools 1. Red Cross, Red Feather, Sales, contributions, etc., etc., etc. 2. Sisters going into business for themselves RELATIONS WITH EXTERNS A. Civil law 1. Expecting privileges because we are religious 291 SISTER M. ,JOSELYN 2. Untruthfulness---cheating in filling out blanks, etc. 3. Apathy toward voting or in political affairs Parishioners 1. Making our friends on basis of prestige and money 2. Asking them for favors--rides, etc. 3. Hanging on to them after you are removed from the mission a) Writing to them b) Visiting them, etc. Are you a Superior__ or Subject~ EVALUATION FORM 1. Did you like the workshop? Yes. No. Why? 2. Do you think the qualities of a superior were adequately discussed? List qualities unmentioned. 3. Was relationship between superior and subject adequately discussed? 4. Give suggestions how you think ideas gained from the workshop can be put into practice in the community. I. 2. 3. 5. List any topics on superior-subject relationship of interest to you which were not discussed at this workshop. 6. Would you like future workshops? If so, suggest topics. 7. How could future workshops be improved? 8. Would you be interested in starting a study group on your mission? SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS t:ather Gerald Kelly, S.J., editor-in-ch~e~ of the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS suf-fered a severe heart attack on October 4. He is slowly recovering from it in St. Joseph's Hospital, Kansas City, Mo. Prayers for his successful recovery will be welcomed. In September, 1931~ a hurricane and the subsequent tidal wave destroyed St. John's College, Belize, British Honduras, and took the lives of eleven Jesuits and twenty-two.of the students. Considerable other damage was done in this mission of Missouri Province Jesuits. In October, 1955, the hurricane Janet brought fur-ther disaster to the mission. Kindly remember the Belize mission in your prayers. The Dominican Rural Missionaries, whose work in Louisiana was described in our July, 1954~, number, page 217, were victims of another kind of tragedy. On January 16, 1955, the entire' community of their convent at Grosse Tete, Louisiana (three sisters and an aspirant), were killed when their statio._n wag'on was struck by a freight train. The three sisters were killed instantly; the aspirant sur-vived one day. This congregation is interested not only in prayers a'nd in more vocations to their own institute but also in finding young women who would be inte'rested in" helping t~em as ~ay al~ostles. " If ~U hav~ "pertinent information' for them or wish further information ~igm th~'m~" ~vrite tS: Si~'ter Marie Elisabeth, O.P., Our L~dy of Father Titus Cranny S.A has prepar~ed a small volume entitled Father Paul, Apostle o~ !.Tn~t~l. Th,s paper-bound volume" would make good background read-ing for the Chair of Unity Octave, 2anuary 18-25. Graymooe Pre~, Peekskill, Renoval:ion and dapt:at:ion Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. THoEf imtphoer traenlicgeio oufs tlhifee mmoevr~eimtse anntd o rfe rqeuniroevsa rteiopnea atendd pardeasepntatatitoionn. The purpose of the present article is to give a synthesis.of the movement, to clarify its concepts, and to emphasize its principles, spirit, and more practical headings. The originality of the article, if any exists, will thus be in its arrangement, not in content. The article is directed more particularly, but not exclusively, to lay in-stitutes of brothers, sisters, and nuns. I. RENOVATION The concepts of renovation and adaptation, as usually expressed by authors, partially coincide. If we separate them, renovation is to be conceived as the intensification of the entire ~eligious life of every individual religious and of every institute. This implies a greater personal conviction, esteem, and practice of the life of re-ligious sanctity, a more universally active zeal, a deeper sense of re-sponsibility, and a greater consciousness of the necessity of progress in the works.of the institute. In a word, renovation is a universal renewal of fervor; the movement under this aspect is primarily inspirational to a more perfect realization of the ideals of the re-ligious life. Renovation is more important than adaptation. It is idle to expect that a mere change of laws and observances will make an institute holier or more effective in its apostolate. Renovation is a prerequisite to adaptation. It has been well said that only the fervent can adapt. Proper adaptation demands clear spiritual visiqn and the humility to admit that something may be better than what we have been doing in the past. A conspicuously universal renova-tion is also difficult of attainment. An anonymous Camaldulese monk may be guilty of the exaggeration of pessimism, but he is not completely lacking in realism when he writes: "From experience we know that the exhortations of superiors, circular letters, conferences, constant vigilance, rewards, and corrections are very infrequently effective. Older religious have habits that are too deeply rooted; with difficulty they return to the path of full observance, even when convinced of their mistakes. The young more readily follow the 293 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Religious careless, the mediocre, who ordinarily are in t~e majority, while the fervent are everywhere pretty much a small minority.''1 II. ADAPTATION Adaptation is change. A law, regulation, custom, practice, ob-servance, or manner of thinking and acting should be changed when it has become harmful or useless for the end for which it was in-tended, when a certainly better means can now be found for~that end, or when another means is demanded by the sound progress, necessities, or problems of our age. The/fundamental necessity for adaptation is that the world in which we live and for which we work has changed greatly in practically every aspect. Hospitals of today are vastly diffe~erit from those of a hundred years ago. We have adapted in the care of the sick and in many other things; the goal now is to extend the principle of intelligent and prudent adap-tation to every aspect of the religious life. Adaptation is not reform, mitigation, or relakation. What it excludes is the principle of un-swerving material conformity to everything done in the past. It presumes that the old is good but does not refuse to abandon the old for something certainly better; it does not identify the modern with the good nor does it hold that the modern or new is necessarily evil it believes and emphasizes that there are immutables in religion but also that not all thing~ are immutable. Adaptation is life and recognizes that the la'w of life is gradual change and a mixture of the old and the new. The two evident errors in this matter have been expressed bY Plus XII as the childish and immoderate hankering after novelty and the solidifying of the Church in ~a sterile immutability.2 The errors are thus excessive conservatism and the desire of change for itself, a blind attachment to tradition and the scorn of tradition, no ~hange whatever and intemperate and imprudent .change. Authors describe the former as a scelerosis, a lack of life, incipient death, the latter as worldliness and naturalism. Adaptation is thee responsibility primarily of higher superiors. It should be accomplished according to the general norms g, iven by the Holy See, but it is not to be ex-pected that the Holy See will take upon itself and impose the hdapr tations necessary in each institute. Adaptation should be carried out prudently and in a spirit of calmness, peace, and unity. How- 1. Acta et Documenta Congressus Generalis de Statibus Perfectionis (Editiones. Paulinae), III, 603. 2. Ibid., I, 33. 294 Nooember, 1955 RENOVATION AND ADAPTATION ever, the good of the institute is to be the supreme norm of action; and it is a fact of experience ,that some religious will oppose the most evidently necessary changes. III. WHAT CANNOT BE CHANGED The following are of their very nature excluded from adap-tation : 292 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. The general purpose of the religious life of complete evan-gelical perfection. The three religious vows and their essential objects, purpose, and spirit. The mortification and prayer necessary for the attainment of the purpose of the religious life. Anything commanded or forbidden by the law of the Church. The distinctive and solid spirit of the particular institute. Anything certainly essential or fundamental in, the pa.rticular institute. IV. MATTERS TO BE EXAMINED FOR POSSIBLE ADAPTATION It would be an evident exaggeration to say that eve.rything listed below should be matter for change in every instifute, All the mat-ters listed have been mentioned and more frequently emphasized in the discussions on adaptation. The list is a~range~ in the order of the concrete importance of the topics in the judgment of the writer. 1. Greater care in the admission of candidates arid more de-cisiveness in the early elimination of the unsuitable before perpetual profession. 2. The establishment ofa juniorate for sisters immediately after the noviceship, in which the young professed will com-plete their undergraduate education or training and continue their spiritual formation. 3. A sounder doctrinal formation in the postulancy, novice-ship, and juniorate. 4. The elimination of the prominent externalism and for-malism. 5. Proper concept of the founder or foundress. 6. Greater attention to the purpose and spirit of the vows rather than to their mere obligation. 7. A schedule of prayer that gives proper~ emphasis to mental 29,5 JOSEPH 1=. GALLON Reoieto for Religious prayer, is sufficiently liturgical, and not excessive in the quantity or in the importance placed on vocal pra~yer. 8. The direction of the works of the institute to the n~eds of our time, which in most institutes will consist of an emphasis on the works for the poor and the working class. 9. A horarium that is less contributory to tension and pro-vision for proper daily, weekly, and annual rest. 10. Greater care in the selection of and a previous training, if possible, of local superiors and novice masters and mistresses. 11. A government that is more spiritual, individual, paternal or maternal, and not lacking in the necessary firmness. 12. Establishment of a tertianship and, perhaps, 'of a period of recollection before perpetual profession. 13. Greater emphasis on maturity, a sense of responsibility, dependability, efficiency, and proper initiative in the train-ing of religious. 14. Simplification of the religious habit. 15. Higher intellectual standards in continued study and prepar-ation for classes. 16. Elimination of the continuous rotation of the same superiors. 17. Greater mutual knowledge, cooperation, and attention to the interests of other religious institutes. 18. Possible extension of the period of temporary vows to five years. 19. Pertinent canonical matters.' V. EXPLANATION OF MATTERS OF ADAPTATION 1. Greater care in admission. The principle of St. Plus X that there is no greater cause of the weakening of religious discipline than the careless admission of candidates ~s of universal validity.3 The fundamental defect here is the failure to grasp and act on the evident principle that anyone lacking the suitability for the life and works of the institute does not possess a vocation for that institute. The grace of the omniscient God is not moving anyone to a state of life for .which he is not fitted. Therefore, the need for religious is never a justification for the admission or retention in the pro-bationary states of those who do not possess the capabilities for the particular institute. The modern innovation proposed under this heading is that 3. Epistle, Inter Plura, May 31, 1905, to the.Abbot General of the Order of Re-formed Cistercians, Ench&idion de Statibus Perfectionis, n. 248. ~ 296 November, 1955 RENOVATION AND ADAPTATION of psychological testing. A principle of adaptation is that we should be wil.ling to accept all that is, good in modern progress. Such test-ing, when practicable, can be an aid; but it will never exclude the necessity of the considered and experien,,~ed judgment and proper ¯ firmness of a competent higher superior. To me it is also a certain fact of experience that the great majorityI at least of the outstand-ingly difficult cases were sufficiently evident to such a judgment either before admission or at the latest during the probationary states of the religious life. 2, 18. Establishment ot: a juniorate for sisters and extension ot: temporarg profession. The completion of the undergraduate studies of sisters immediately after the noviceship is necessary for their own spiritual, intellectual, psychological, and physical well-being, and for the maintaining and elevating of the standards of Catholic edu-. cation. Plus XII manifested to superiors his keen desire that the schools taught by sisters be the very best and also stated that the training of all sisters should put them on an equal footing with their secular colleagues: The Sacred Congregation of Religious af-firmed that it is rash to expect a subject immediately after the almost exclusively religious formation of the postulancy and noviceship to be a teacher and much less a serious educator, even for very young children. This demands suitable preparation, and the S. Congre-gation insisted that such training was to be given despite the im-mediate need for teachers. It is evident that the assignment of postu-lants and second-year novices as regular teachers is an even greater abuse. ~ This heading reveals another distinctive principle of the move-ment of adaptation, which is that of the elevation of the spiritual, intellectual, cultural, and professional equipment of religious. It is also a very apt illustration of an even more fundamental norm of the movement--we cannot reasonably continue to do everything in a particular way just because it was done that way in the past. Educational and professional demands are much greater today; they must be met with much better preparation. The entire matter of the juniorate in this country is 'being ad-mirably promoted by the Slster-Formatlon Conferences of the Na-tional Catholic Educational A~sociation. This also exemplifies a principle of the movement. Adaptation is vital action; it is life, action, and progress from within. The attention given to the intellectual and professional train-ing should n'ot obscure the even greater necessity of continued spit- 297 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review ~or Religious itual formation in the juniorate. An equally urgent need of young professed is that of-competent and prudent guidance in the difficult adjustment of the first'years in" the acti~ce life. This will demand the continuation of the office of a mistress of junior professed for at least two years after the juniorate. The juniorate will consume all or most of the u~ual three-year period of temporary vows, and thus the question :can arise whether this period gives sufficient testing in the active life before perpetual profession. The ready solution is an extension of temporary pro-fession to five years. In such a system the Code of Canon Law per-mits a prolongation of only one year. This is a change in the con-stitutions and should be decided upon only after serious reflection. It demands the approval of'the Holy See in~ pontifical institutes and that of all ,the ordinaries in whose dioceses the congregation has houses in the case of diocesan.institutes; 3. Sounder doctrinal spiritual formation. Sufficiently common defects .in American novitiates are the application of' the postulants and second-year novices to the external works of the institute, the excessive employment of both classes in domestic duties, the small amount of instruction given in the religious life, an overemphasis of secular studies; and the prominent tendency to confine the religious life to mere externals and to external regularity and conformity. The modern generation is decidedly factual and can readily fall into disillusionment and even cynicism from such a postulancy or novice-ship. The master or mistress of novices should give an instruction of at least forty-five minutes on all days except holidays. These in-structions are not to be confined to the vows but should cover the entire field of ascetical theology during the postulancy and novice-ship. The concepts and principles are to be presented solidly, not sentimentally nor with, mere devotionalism, and not in mere prac-tical illustrations that are not reduced to principles. Solid presen-tation demands that the theological foundation of principles be given. The movement of renovation and adaptation contributes several valuable principles in this field. The first is that no spirituality is lasting unless based on personal conviction. The second is that we can no longer be content with a mere collective presentation; the emphasis must be on individual guidance. The third is that there must be an active participation by the postulants and novices in this work of their own instruction. They should be permitted freely to ask questions and to propose difficulties; they should be. aptly November,, 1955 RENOVATION AND ADAPTATION questioned on their grasp of spiritual principles; there should be discussions, brief papers on :some spiritual topic, on the ideas ac-quired from the reading of a spiritual book, or on some spiritual prob-lems or difficulties. Other techniques and methods will be found by a real teacher. The purpose, however, must always be to lead the will to action, notthe mere acquisition of knowledge.;~and there must never be any doubt that the master or mistress is in charge. We must abandon the unsound pedagogy that an idea once presented to a group is understood by all. This is true of no teaching and much less of spiritual teaching. ~Fhere must be an adequate spiritual li-brary, sufficient time °for spiritual reading, and proper guidance in this reading. One author l~as aptly expressed a .very practical truth by stating that the poverty of a spiritual life is very frequently the poverty of proper and constant spiritual reading. Proper instruction, individual and competent guidance, and patience will usually succeed in directing the tendencies and defects of the modern generation into good qualities. For example, their independence of judgmen.t and ac.tion, .demand for reasonableness and sincerity, and 'desire for personal initiative can be developed into a profound and lasting.conviction of spiritual values. Their realism, sincerity, and generosity will be ultimately docile to a spiritual for-mation that is interior, solid, individual, that makes legitimate al-lowance for different personalities, is not bent on crushing them, and is not dominated by a multitude of petty details.and formalities. 4. Externalism and [ormalism. This is the most.frequ~,ent topic in the discussions on adaptation. The problem is found principally in the ,customs, observances, and practices, written and unwritten, of 'religious institutes. A certain amount of ,regulation is obviously necessary for order and efficiency. Apart from this, external ob-servances have no place in the religious life merely for themselves; their purpose must be the cultivation of the interior virtues of the ~eligious life, for example, love of God, humility, chastity, mortifi-cation, obedience, prayer. Consequently they must be of such a. nature as to constitute apt means for the fostering of such virtues. The first principle of adaptation here is that the purpose 6f observances ,is not being realized. This defect is very universal, especially, but not solely, in institutes of women. Religious forma-tion has been too narrowly confined to externals, external disci-pline, external regularity and conformity; there has been too little; training in the interior life and interior ~'irtue. The moral value of an external act consists in the fact that it proceeds from an interior 299 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review for Reliqiotts act of virtue of the will or that it leads to or intensifies such an act. Sincere interior virtue will produce the proper external act; the religious who is sincerely poor in heart will be poor in act. It is very possible to de-emphasize and even to ignore in fact this pur-pose both in formation and in our own personal lives. Instead of saintly religious, we may be tending to train spiritual robots. Modesty of the eyes is not a virtue because I never see the leaves of the trees unfold in spring or do not know the color of the ceiling; it is a virtue only if it proceeds from the consecration of my heart to God, protects that consecration, and lead~ me ultimately to greater love of God. The profit of silence is not precisely in the low score of the examen book but in the increase of my spirit of prayer. A similar defective tendency is the attitude towards "our h01y rule." The rule is really not holy in itself; its holiness is verified only insofar as, it contains and leads to a love of and assimilation to Jesus Christ. It is basically misguided formation to propose the rule independently of this assimilation and especially to extol it above such assimilation or the laws of God. The overemphasis on externals has led to their excessive multi-plication. They extend to all and to the.smallest details of life. We .may be wearing a tight harness of sanctity that will not allow us to move or to breathe; we are praising the observant religious and have forgotten the saintly religious. Excessive observances are a dry diet of spiritual shredded wheat. The soul lacks a richness of spirituality, is superficial, and dulled to the great truths and person of Jesus Christ. It is not a satisfying diet, and usually a few years suffice for the loss of spiritual appetite and the symptoms of a lowered and even critical spiritual vigor and tone. Another defect of very many observances is that they either were never apt or have lost their aptness for their purpose. Why should sisters be forbidden to eat in a dining car but be allowed to request a waiter to set up a table in another railroad car that will make them even "more conspicuous? I think it is reasonable to avoid the expensive dining car whenever possible, but I can see no reason for a prohibition of eating there when~ necessary. Why should sisters be forbidden to eat even with sisters of other communities? Why is it a violation of cioister to enter the home of your family but meritorious to sit in a car outside their home. and talk to them? Are such artificialities in keeping with the saneness of sanctity, with the majesty of the doctrines and person of Jesus Christ? Reverefice and politeness are to be fostered; but are all the profound bows of 300 November, 1955 RENOVATION AND ADAPTATION the head and Of the body, all the kissing of hands, and all the kneel-ing to superiors apt means today of expressing this reverence and politeness? Why in a life whose spirit is that of humility and of a family must there be precedence in the refectory and community room? These are only a very few examples of a very Widespread defect. Observances should be the external expression of the spirit of the institute and of the founder. In the thought of one author they should possess the perpetuity~ of real life transmitted from gen-eration to generation but not the perpetuity of fossilization. Obedience and submission are evidently due to prescribed ob-servances, but superiors should examine whether their number is excessive and their nature now apt for their purpose. There is also too much legalism, the material satisfaction of the mere wording of the law, in institutes of both men and women; and too little at-tention to the purpose of the law, its more perfect fulfillment, and to motivation. Legalism is clearly destructive of an interior life. Religious discipline is also frequently enforced with an unreasonable rigidity. Religious know that it is possible to be excused or dis-pensed from the laws of the Church, for example, from Sunday Mass or from fasting; but observances are often proposed as if they never admitted an excuse or dispensation. I am not encouraging laxity but discouraging rigorism; there must be a proportionate reason for an excuse or dispensation. Observances are the field of conduct that demands the most searching examination by superiors. It is the field of which Pius XII said: "In this crisis of vocations make sure that nothing in your customs, your manner of life, or the ascetical practices of your religious families is an obstacle or a cause of loss of vocations. We mean certain usages which, if ever suited to another cultural context, are out of place today, so that even a really good and courageous girl would find them only an obstacle to her voca-tion." 4 5. Concept of a founder. The concept of a founder or foundress has been too narrowly that of a lawgiver and ofimmutable laws. The Pope has stated .that founders frequently .conceived their in-stitutes to meet the needs of their own age and thus erected their institutes on the principle of adaptation. He concludes from this that lo.yalty to the founder requires constant observance of the prin- 'ciple of adaptation and the acceptance of all that is good in the be-liefs, convictions, and conduct of our contemporaries. This dem~inds 4. Acta Apostolicae Sedis~ XXXXIV ('1952), 825. ¯ '30.1 JOSEPH, F. GALLEN 'Reoiew for Religious that we distinguish the essential and immutable from the'_accidental and changeable in the words and works of the founder and that we do not follow as a rigid norm what the founder, did but rather the pliable norm of what he would do in any aspect of life if he were faced by our own age. Furthermore, the founder is not a mere giver of 'laws but also and primarily ~a giver of life to his "institute. ~ That life is his distinctive spirit, which consists in his approach to the spiritual life, his characteristic virtues, the principles he emphasized, his manner of approaching life and its problems, and the general types of works of zeal that he favored. Our fidelity to our founder is to be yerified in the repr, oduction of his life and spirit, not in the mere unwillingness to change even the slightest detail of his least law. 6, 13. The uows and training in maturity. The movement of renovation and adaptation finds in the vows one of the conspicuous fields of juridicism, that is, the overemphasis on laws to the detri-ment of the theological elements of the purposfi and spirit of the vows and their efficacy for the acquiring of many interior virtues. To secure permission is important; but it is more important to ad-vance by poverty in the love of God, to be detached from the love of material things for themselyes, to make progress in trust in divine providence, patiegce, meekness, humility, and the spirit, of mortifi-cation. The vow of chastity has not attained its purpose,unless it is increasing the .love of God, 'love of other human beings in and for God, devotion to prayer and the interior life with God, affection and intimacy with God in prayer, and .making life less materialistic. Obedience is a sterile vow unless it is intensifying especially love of God, faith, and humility,, and also docility to grace,~zeal, the spir~'t of self-denial, and generosity. In a word, obedience is effective to the degree that a theocentric has'supplanted an egoistic life. The obligation of the vow and of the laws of the Church on poverty is confined to external actions. It is, however, a "field of conduct that demands the constant vigilance of superiors. The coun-sels of Plus XII in this matter are that the life of religious ~hould b~ truly simple a~id poor, their houses should be simple, and their actions in poverty should not contradict nor ddstroy their profession of it in word. The buildings of religious, even those used for ex-ternal works, should be efficient, sanitary, not unattractive, but simple, and devoid of even the appeararice of luxury, "indulgence, extravagance, or needless expense. It is surprising holy. often this point has been emphasized by authors on adaptation. One of them has called the propensity~ to expensive buildings and .renovations ~302 Nooember, 1955. RENOVATION AND ADKPTATION "stone disease"; it could also be termed "Gothic poverty." Such bhild=. ings create the impression of hav!ng been erected to" attract the rith. and thus tend to the tragic tonsequence of alienating the pobr:~ Authors follow the Pope in' stressing the need of a truly simple and poor life in everything--buildings, lodging, furniture, fbod,' medical care, all personal accessories, amusements, vacations, journeys, and means of travel. Modern material developments are to be used insofar as they increase efficiency, preserve or promote health; bu( they are to be rejected" when their purpose is on.ly comfort, indul-gence, luxury. / Pius XII has reaffirmed the validity and supreme value of the traditional concept of the vow of obedience. He has also implied or stated that the modern apostolate requires one. who can face boldly the gigantic tasks of our age, one able to meet its d~ngers, overcome its spiritual destitution, competent to .think for himself, and formed to maturity of judgment. These are not the tasks nor th~ endow-" ments of a child. The modern evils of communism, atheism, and secularism are not trembling at the child_ishness of their foes. The purpose of obedience is to develop the good in man, to eliminate the" evil. The ability to think for oneself, to get a new idea at least oc.casionally, maturity of judgment and action, the power of de-cision, legitimate self-initiative, efficiency, dependability, and a sense of responsibility are not evils and are necessary for success in any state of life. Obedience should not be presented nor authority exer, cised in a way that destroys or fails to develop these necessary capa-bilities. Obedience is too often presented as the mere order of a superior and the submission of a subject. Ancient comparisons that illustrate the perfection of external obedience unfortunately have the defect of connoting a passive reaction on the part of the subject. Obedience is p.rimarily an instrument of personal sanctification, and no one except the infant is sanctified in passivity. Insistence on the purpose and spirit of the vow will bring out that this vow demands a truly tremendous vital reaction of love of God, faith, and humility. The subject gains the merit of the vow by having it as his motive, and such a motive is to be presumed in the actions of a religious. The superior should govern sufficiently but not excessively; a~ad it is certainly not necessary, profitable, prudent, or formative for him to step into or order every detail of an action or work. If you want the child to walk, you have to allow him to fall a few times. This mellow proverb is true in work, study, and also in the spiritual .life. The religious life is not a democracy; religious are subjects, n6t 303 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Review [or Religious associates, of the superio~ They are also human beings. They should be allowed and encouraged to get new ideas. The superior is the competent authority to accept or reject and also to,encourage such ideas; but he should not confine all ideas in the house, province, or institute to his own. A religious or novice may find a better way of doing an-assigned duty or work, or he may do it in his own in-dividual way.' In most cases this can be permitted. Everything does not have to be done always in the same way. The counsels of per-fection are not the freezing point of human endeavor and ingenuity. A religious or novice should be given the necessary instructions for an assigned duty or work; if he does it childishly, inefficiently, care-lessly, he should be firmly checked. The religious life must not be the cradle of ineptitude. The qualities described above should be formed continuously in all aspects of the religious life, spiritual, in-tellectual, and the life of work. The childishness of many religious is an actual problem and one that cannot be ignored. The Pope has praised the great things that obedience accomplishes by uniting the forces of the members of the institute. The efficacy of this union is in fact greatly diminished by the childishness that makes a member unable to handle his assignment or his proportionate amount of the effort. Instead of united effort, the union of. obedience is too often that of the few carrying the many. 7. Pra~ter. In a previous article in the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, I tried to explain the principles of adaptation with regard to prayer~ A few added comments will s~uffice here. The spirit of prayer and habitual self-denial will always be the distinguishing marks of the sincere religious. Both have been emphasized by Plus XII. He has insisted on the necessity of an interior life, that it should main-tain a constant balance with external activity, and has reprobated as the heresy of activity the intense apostolate that is not constantly nourished by the use of the ordinary means of personal sanctification. These emphatic words of His Holiness evidently imply an equally emphatic obligation of superiors to insist on the use of these means by their subjects. The errors of men and women in this matter are not the same. The woman tends to the misdirected prayer of de-votionalism rather than to the prayer of sanctity; the danger of man is of infidelity to his religious exercises. The latter is certainly fre-quently caused by valuing work over prayer and even more fre-quently by the simple omission and neglect of prayer. Excessive activity is not the only cause of a feeble interior life. It must be 5. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, XIII (1954), 125-37. 304 November, 1955 RENOVATION AND ADAPTATION remembered that the idle apostle is rarely the mystic of the monas-tery. The diagnosis of external idleness is most infrequently that of a local infection. It is an anemia of the person that extends to all activity. W'hy are so. many. superiors disturbed at violations of religious discipline and yet completely unconscious of so basic an evil as idleness? A fundamental principle of adaptation is the hier-archy of values. ~rriters on adaptation are quite insistent on the value of litur-gical prayer. There should be sufficient liturgical prayer, but the, choral recitation of the Office should not be urged to a degree or quantity thfit is !mpracticable in so many congregations of lay re-ligious. I also cannot see the all-sufficiency of the Office, for example, that it can supply for regular mental prayer in a life dedicated to sanctity. One or two authors bemoan the ignorance of Latin in lay religious, who thus do not understand so much of their prayer. The remedy suggested is a sufficient study of Latin. Is there any real hope that this remedy will be generally effective? It is not contrary to th~ present spirit of the Church to be more attentive to the use of the vernacular as the language of prayer. In some institutes the prayers are in a foreign language, usually that of the country of origin of the institute. When this is no longer a spoken language of the majority of those entering the part of the institute in question, isn't it time at least to begin to think of changing the language to that of the country? Plus XII stated that the missionary possesses no office of transplanting a specifically European culture to mission lands.6 Religious institutes likewise should not impose the nation-ality of the country of their origin on members of other nations. 8. Works of the institute. A study of the documents of Piu~ XII leads to the opinion that his basic motive in promoting the movement of renovation and adaptation is the apostolate. An under-lying thought can be sensed in his words that communism, atheism, secularism, paganism, and materialism would not be strong and belligerent today if religious had measured up to their exalted voca-tion in both prayer and an enlightened and laborious zeal. He urges a laborious zeal, since he has not only reprobated the heresy of ac-tivity but has also warned of the dangers of an idle and indolent life. He has emphasized the necessity of an enlightened zeal. This de-mands the i~se of all appropriate new forms and methods of the apostolate and of all modern developments for the spread of the 6.Acta Apostolicae 8edis, XXXVI (1944), .21'0, . 305 JOSEPH F. GALLEN Re~,iew "f~o~ Religiods Kingdom 6f Jesus¯ Christ. An enlightened zeal also directs its ef-forts primarily t6' combat' the great evils of the age and to prevent their'diffusion. Various documefits of Pius XII lead to the belief that he considers the dechristiafiization of the poor and the working class as the great danger of our age. Other classes' are not to be ignored, but the distinctive impression of the apostolate of r~lig_ious institutes in general should be that it is directed to the poor and the working class. This is also the spirit of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. Most religious institutes were born of a love of the poor and unfortunate. The preservation Of such a solid spirit is one of the immutables of the religious life. A work such as the parish school is not only a glorious and niost necessary apostolate but also a pr6: tection of this spirit. Several authors have commented on the ten-dency'of some institutes founded for thd poor gradually to orientate themselves towards the higher classes and the rich. They draw-away from the poor, and the poor draw away from them. In speaking of the apostolate for the poor and the working class, the present Pope has instructed priests to become brothers to brothers and to mix their apostolic Sweat with that of the.working men.7 Religious also must exercise this apostolate in a spirit of understanding, com-panionship, closeness to the poor and their problems, and not in that of a generous and kind but aloof and superior caste of society. Religious poverty has the apostolic purpose "of enlightening and impelling mankind to.the proper evaluation and use of material things. We have to live, but this purpose demands that we exclude com-mercialism and the motive of gain from our apostolate. It is cer, tainly not against poverty to keep accurate accounts, but the spirit of 'poverty and its apostolic purpose require also that we examine ourselves frequently as individuals .on how much we are doing for nothing and as institutes on how much we are giving away. All institutes, especially of sisters, should refuse new works when their overworked members can scarcely carry out their present en-gagements. In taking new works, congregations of sisters should be more attentive to the missions. Pius XII stated: "The apostolate of the Church today is scarcely conceivable without the cooperation of religious women in works of c.harity, in the school, in assistance to the pries.tly ministry, in the missions,s " 9. Horariurn. The horarium should be in conformity .with the customs and de,m.ands of the age, the place, and the work. The 7. Ibid., XXXXI (1949), 65. ~8. Ibid., XXXXI (1949), 41). November, 1955 RENOVATION AND-ADAPTATION horarium is frequently a most evident proof of the excessive and tenacious attachment to tradition. It is not reasonable to insist that the meals be at the same hours as during the life of a founder who died several centuries ago or.to leave the horarium unchanged for more than a centu~ry. A religious house is not a fortified island of anachronism in a changing world. The test of a horarium is not its antiquity but its ~uitability and efficiency. Admittedly the life of religious should be one of laborious zeal, but the work can be excessive and can hinder or even exclude ade-quate prayer. One author has pointed out that the amount of work of some religious clearly excludes the nature of the mixed ,life, the proportionate union of the contemplative with the active life. S~- periors are to do everything possible to make a life of. praye~ ade-tqhuea toenllyy poobssstiabcllee ftoor parlal ytehre:i rit s iusb ajuegctms.e Tntheed tbeyn stihoen. toefn wsioonrk o ifs t h.neot horarium. There is a minimum of calm, quiet, and peace necessary for a prayerful life. The habitually excited religious cannot be a .prayerful religious. The daily life of too many lay religious is a scurrying, headlong, excited, and feverish rush from duty to duty. There are difficulties in adjusting, the horarium, but some adjust-ment is possible. It must be less minute, 'less oppressive, less insistent on e.verytbing in common; there must be more breaks, more free time, more attention to rest, and more easing of the tension. Re; ligious should be give.n adequate time for their meals, and 'the time immediately before and after meals should not be one of' compressed activity. The religious life is not a tight winding of the human mechanism. The prolonged day of many lay religious demands a physical strength and emotional stability that may be desirable but are rarely attainable. That "a sister nurse should not be given a weekly holiday is one of the inexplicable facts of the religious life, especially when we reflect that her immediate superior has a knowledge of medicine and may. even be meritoriously dabbling in psychoso-matic medicine. The same is true of sisters in institutional work. The week end should not be considered the natural depository for all 'spiritual and qther duties that cannot be squeezed into the week. Other contributing factors to the constant nervous strain are an exaggerated notion Of common life and an excessive, number' of permissions. Common life does not forbid private rooms nor that religious study in their roc~ms. It does not demand tl~at everythifig be done together nor that religious be always together. Life becomes too tense when religious may never go to their rooms, without: the- 307 JOSEPH F. GALLEN / Reoieto for Religio-s permission of the superior, except for the night's sleep. Express per-mission should be necessary for relatively important matters and to the degree that is necessary to .keep obedience reasonably active, but express and particular permission should not be required for the most ordinary and usual actions of everyday life. The number of permissions necessary in many institutes is unreasonable. Local superiors of houses that are not extraordinarily large have admi~tted that practically their whole day consists in sitting in their office and handing out permissions. Such a life is,not only tense; it is imma-ture and an immature exercise of authority. The overworked lives of lay religious demand a proportionate annual vacation. Each in-stitute should strive to have an appropriate vacation place for its members. This will also eliminate the individual vacations that are not conducive to the religious spirit and much less to religious poverty. 10. Selection of local superiors. In my opinion, nothing is more valuable and necessary to religious institute's than outstandingly capable higher superiors, general and provincial. However, the ef-forts of the most talented higher superiors can be frustrated by inept local superiors; and there are few higher superiors who do not re-alize the shortage of capable local superiors. I think we should ad-mit the actual scarcity of the talents required for this position. The sincere admission of this fact has led several authors to suggest a school or previous training for local superiors. I do not see the practicability of the suggestion of a school. It is not impractical to emphasize that one of the most important duties of a higher superior and his or her council is to make a thorough investigation and to give most careful and prolonged thought to the appointment of local superiors. Some previous instruction is possible, especially when all the local superiors in any one year go into office on the same day. They can be brought to the mother house a few weeks before they are to take office, can study the constitutions, and other laws of the institute, be given conferences on government and its problems by the higher superior, on points of the constitutions by the master or mistress of novices, on financial and material matters by the general or provincial treas.ure.r, and on the works of the institute by the various supervisors of these works. One of the real obstacle~ to proper local government is that the local superior is overworked. In some institutes all local government and administration is personally discharged hy the local superior. All government," discipline, "permisSions, finances, m~iterial n(cessiti~s, and" direction of ~he work of th~ h6us~'~re~un'der'him' alone. The 308 November, 1955 RENOVATION AND ADAPTATION superior would be relieved of overwork, the government could be more spiritual and efficient, and greater opportunity for training others in the exercise of authority would be realized by giving the local superior some help, for example, by having the local assistant take care of ordinary matters of discipline, ordinary permissions, and the material nee~ls of the house and its members. The same question of preparation arises with regard to masters and mistresses of novices. The suggestion of a school is not so im-practicable here, but the general necessity of a prolonged and con-tinuous course of preparation can also be exaggerated. The religious chosen for this position should be of solid spirituality, prudence, mature judgment, and of more than average intelligence and learn-ing. If the institute is clerical, I do not see why such personal qual-ities and his background of dogmatic and moral theology would not enable a priest to master and to present properly the principles of the spiritual life from his own private study. Brothers and sisters also are now more frequently being given theological train-ing. Such training is to be taken into account in making this appoint-ment. It is evident also that theological knowledge alone is not sufficient for the appointment. Brothers and sisters could also at-tend summer courses in ascetical theology or the various institutes on the religious life now being held during the summer. 11. Government. There are few sincere religious who do not sympathize with superiors in their difficult and burdensome duties. Everything in the religious life depends in some way on superiors, and thus the movement of renovation and adaptation will be in-efficacious without their comprehension, cooperation,, and personal participation. The aspect of renovation demands that the govern-ment of superiors be more universally spiritual. Their first duty is to direct their subjects to the essential and universal purpose of the religious state, sanctity of life. It is a certain fact of experience that they will fail in this duty if they themselves are mediocre, indiffer-ent~ or not striving at all for sanctity of life. Superiors who are mere executives, financiers, expert in public relations, good managers, skilled directprs of external works, and those who have lost famili-arity with spiritual principles or are spiritually illiterate have al-ready failed in their first essential duty. Their talents can be em-ployed in other posts; they should not be superiors of religious com-munities. The movement of adaptation strives to intensify, not to lower, the primacy of the essential purpose of the religious life. A not infrequent complaint of subjects is. that their superiors are in- JOSEPH, F. GALLEN ~: Review for? Religious competent or simply not interested in spiritual problems and ques~ tions. The field of religious government and that of conscience hav, e already been explained in the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS.9 In talking to subjects on matters within the field of go(~ernment, ,superiors are certain.ly not forbidden to speak of such things as the necessity and importance of the irlterior life or to suggest supernatural motives or practices. They may also speak freely on general spiritual~matters, for example, the necessity, value, methods, and difficulties of prayer. Canon law forbids that a manifestation of conscience be commanded .or induced; it does not forbid any religious superior, including those of lay institutes, to receive a voluntary manifestation of conscience. This law of the Church has been misunderstood. The superior is not to intrude himself into the field of conscience but he is not for-bidden to listen to and to. give advice 'on any such matter that is freely and spontaneously proposed to him. Such manifestations will not be realized unless the superior is sufficienly spiritual himself, spiritually competent with regard to others, and able to inspire their confidence. It is to be equally emphasized that subjects are always free in this matter. Superiors have two practical advantages in spir-itual directiofl that are of no small value in many cases, external knowledge and observation of the subject and the authority to take effective action to aid the subject. ~ Spiritual direction in general is a sufficiently frequent topic in the discussions on adaptation. It 'seems evident enough that habitual spiritual direction is necessary for young religious in the states of formation, adjustment to the active life, and that of the tertianship or period of renovation of spirit. There can be differences of opinion in this sufficiently delicate matter. My own opinion is that any spiritual formation should strive to produce within a reasonable period a formed religious. I conceive a formed religious as one who habitually, with the grace of God, can direct himself or herself. The necessity of spiritual direction for such a religious should be occa-sional, for ~xample, two to four times a year, not habitual., Such a necessity is often satisfied at the retreats or in some cases by the religious superior. Habitual direction is necessary for those who have peculiar problems, and here also the prudent director strives as soon as possible at least to diminish the problem. To me it is by -no means evident that greater sanctity of life necessarily, demands 9. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, XII (1953), 30-31. ¯ '3~10 November, 1955 RENOVATION'AND ADAPTA~IION habitual special direction. M~ ~xperience of such religious is that they-have common sense and are merely doing the ordinary things in a more perfect and constant' manner. I am aware of the religious proverb that it is dangerous to,run along .witho'ut the advice of the elders. Most proverbs are only partial truths. Excessive dependence on others is also an evil. Religious are adults; they should live an adult life. No one can live another's life or shoulder another's re-sponsibility before God. Spiritual formation should prepare for life, and the irrefutable fact of the life of the soul is that it must be lived for the most part alone.Relatively very few decisions of the life of the soul can await consultation with a director. There should also be hope of reasonable and proportionate profit in spiritual di-rection. Does experience show any such profit from the habitual direction of chronic mediocre and indifferent religious? Isn't too much direction being "expended in their behalf? No one denies that there should be as much liberty of confession as is possible. This wisdom is evident in the laws and spirit of the Church, but spiritual direction and confession are not identical. The Pope has manifested the necessity of maternal government in instit~tes of women. The same thing has been emphasized by authors as also the need and value of paternal government in insti-tutes of men. This demands no small capabilities in the superior. He must put aside personal and natural indifferences, attractions, and repugnances, and have a supernatural love and interest in all his sub-jects. He has to put off th~ smallness of a vision confined to little things and of a mere prefect of religio~s discipline. He must possess the humility to realize that the office is not for himself; he is not to impose his will but to find the will of God 'for his subjects. Paternal government is a giving, not a receiving; it is selflessness, not self-interest or self-indulgence. The office of superior cannot be one of personal aggrandizement; the superior has no right to material concessions and indulgences or to freedom from religious discipline al~ove his subjects. The superior cannot be cold, harsh, or unfeeling; he must be outstanding in divine charity, mercy, gentle-ness, humility, calmness, politeness, and the capability of guiding a community not so much by ~the tables~of the law as by creating the spirit of a family, of confidence, and cooperation. Paternal gov-ernment is individual. The subject is not a numbered soldier; a community is not a¯mere total of subjects. The religious is to be treated as a son or daughter~. The superior, should know the sub-ject'} individual deficiencies and~ make appropriat& .allowance 311 JOSEPH F. GALLEN them. He~ should also know his individual abilities and strive to assign him to the work for which he is suited. There must be de-tachment in the religious life, but it is not sane government to con-ceive detachment as the nullification of all natural and acquired abilities. Pater~aal government can also be misunderstood by both su-perior and subject. It is certainly to be lavished especially on the aged and really sick. It is also to be extended to the odd, the trouble-some; the mediocre, the indifferent, the weak, the insincere, the lazy, and the childish, but it is not to be confined to them. I wish to break my frail lance in favor of the hard-working, the fervent, the normal. I suspect that many religious cannot meditate on the prodi-gal son without crushing a great sympathy for the elder son. These religious also are to be treated as sons and daughters of the house-hold, not as cousins twice removed from their weaker and childish brethren. Paternal government is not sentimentality, softness; nor is it weakness. It is not to be understood in the sense that the superior always yields to the will of the subject. It is not an exaggeration to sa.y that quite a few communities are ruled by the subjects, and in such circumstances it is not the exemplary subjects who grasp the dragging reins or ease them from the nerveless fingers of the superior. It will not be without profit or interest to study the pertinent com-ments of some eminent and experienced authorities. Father Alberione, superior general of the Society of St. Paul, writes: "In institutes of men superiors sense the need of more means for securing obedience and of a wider path of dismissal. In too many institutes there are religious, especially priests, who do their own will and secure their own indulgence in almost everything; they spend the entire day in idleness and indolence or devote their time to criticism . Greater means would be necessary for the effective attainment of observance and religious activity.''1° Father Suarez, the late master general of the Dominicans, stated: "There should be greater facility in dis-missing religious as on their part the freedom of leaving. The rest, freed of the bad example and of seriously disobedient religious, could devote themselves more peacefully to the religious life.''11 Father Janssens, father general of the Society of Jesus, makes his own the words of an octogenarian of forty years of laudable experience as a superior: "They [superiors] do not nowadays dare to give an 10. Acta et Documenta Congressus Generalis de Statibus Perfections, I, 267-68. .11. Ibid., I, 257. 312 November, 1955 RENOVATION AND ADAPTATION order; if they should, they do not dare to demand an account of its execution; if they do demand an account, they do not dare to sanc-tion negligence with. penances.''12 Finally, Father Creusen, S.J.: "In superiors of men it is not unusual to observe the lack of authority and government; in superiors of women, the contrary. The former~ should be impressed with the necessity of demanding observance of the rule, of fostering the virtues that correspond to the'vows, of not granting excessive liberty to subjects, "and so forth; to superiors of women one should rather emphasize the need of maternal govern-ment, of appealing to supernatural motives, not to their personal authority, and so forth.''13 A similar topic is that there should be more, though not ex-cessive, government by higher superiors. Too frequently these ap-pear to be insulated in their offices except for the annual appoint-ments and the canonical visitation. The latter can also readily de-generate into little more than a formality. One somewhat modern-means of accomplishing this necessary contact and government is by meetings, for example, with the superiors and appropriate offi-cials of the houses of formation, with all the local superiors or those ,of a particular territory, with those in charge of the external works in local houses, with the general or provincial supervisors of these works. Such meetings will further religious discipline, proper uni-formity, general progress, and help to prevent the perpetuating of the same problems. 12. Tertiansl~ip. In this matter clarity and distinction of con-cepts are desirable. Spiritual formation is begun in the postulancy and noviceship: it is continued in the juniorate. There should also be special guidance during the period of adjustment to the active life. When a juniorate is in existence, there seems to be little need of a prolonged period of spiritual formation before perpetual pro-fession. Most institutes have only three years of temporary vows, ¯ and thus perpetual professton will follow .shortly after the comple-tion of the juniorate. I can see the reasonableness of prescribing a relatively brief period of greater recollection before perpetual pro-fession. The tertianship is rather a period of renovation of spirit, the re-enkindling of the religious spirit and fervor that may hay( grown cold in the active lifeof the institute, a more profound ac-quisition of the genuine spirit of the institute, and a more mature and deeper spiritual formation. I personally think that the appro- 12. Ibid., I, 258. 13. Ibid., I, 254. 313 JO;EPH F. GALLEN Revieu) [or.'R6ligious priate time for the tertianship in lay .institutes is about ten years after the first profession, when the religious is about thirty to thirty-five years of age. Sufficient time has then been spent in the active life, and the age level does not preclude the required docility. Several congregations of sisters in the United States have al-ready instituted a tertianship, dr renovation, as they are more apt to call it, for about six weeks during the summer. This should be the minimum time. My own opinion is that it should not continue longer than six months in lay institutes. The tertianship has been highly praised by Pius XII, warmly recommended by several authors, and is favored but not imposed by the S. C~ngregation of Religious. This whole matter was previously explained in the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS.14 "14. Simplification of the religious habit. Plus XII recommended this simplification to religious women and praised institutes that had taken such action. He nowhere affirmed the fairiy common mis-apprehension that this was the only thing to be adapted, that it was the most important or urgent matter of adaptation, or that the 'l~abit should be fundamentally and completely changed. He stated ~bat the habit should express the consecration to Christ and should be appropriate, hygienic, not affected, simple, and religiously modest. Roman C9ngregations had previously manifested that the habit of religious women should be dignified, grave, in keeping with poverty, riot. likely to arouse adverse comment or ridicule, suited to the cli-. mate, and efficient. The question of the habit aptly illustrates one of the great ob-stacles to all adaptation, the excessive attachment to externals. The purpose of the religious habit is that it should be a symbol of, and should express the separation from, th~ world and the consecration to Christ and not that it should do this in any excessively individual or peculiar manner. Attachment 'to the symbol is more tenacious than to its purpose. It appears to be unfortunately true that ex-cesslve attachment to the present habit increases in direct proportion to its evident need of change. On the other hand, this change should be made slowly, prudently; t-be proposed habit should be worn in all the houses by a few religious for a sufficient time of trial; and there should be freedom of suggestion. The change should beoto something better and satisfactory¯ I have seen changes that were 'not improvements. It seems to me also that congregations with 14. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, XII (1953), 267. 31~4 Nouember, 1955 RENOVATION AND ADAPTATION a common founder should strive, if at all possible, to retain their identity or at least similarity of habit. It is strange that women should not know how to dress" and their men should have to instruct them. The Pope has done it, the Roman Congregations, authors, and I now attempt it again.15 Ap-parently the only hope of success is to be very direct and explicit. The habit should be examined on the following points: peculiarities, imprisonment of the face, starch/ ruffles, pleats, quantity of-cloth, number of articles of clothi.n~, capability for the necessary change of clothing, time in laundering,i efficiency, and the existence of summer and winter. As is evident f.rom some simple habits, it .is possible toeliminate all the starch and the imprisonment of the face and ,still have a religious' habit, i The starch, ruffles, and pleats are not simple, unnecessary, and crehte a truly awesome laundry problem. Countlessnovices are being .grounded in spirituality in a 1.aundry. ¯ It must take hours merely tb iron some habits.The poor do not buy such articles of clothing.i Modesty must be preserved but it does not demand the number of a~rtlcles or the quantity of clgthing now worn by most religious women. To take the mildest of examples. If the ordinary sleeves reach [~ the hand, why does modesty demand the ever present wide outer tsleeves?. The Pope said that the habit ~hould be hygienic. This o~viously requires, and it is but one ex-ample, that the waist and sleeves' should be detachable, readlly~ " .change-able, readily laundered. Toiignore this is to prescind from elemen-tary hygiene. Anything that even appears to be odd or peculiar should be ruthlessly eliminated. Jesus Christ was not peculiar in His earthly life, and peculiarity is not an apt symbol of con~ecra-' tion to Him. The modesty iof the habit does not require that it be a mere blessed sack. If all the headings given above are properl~r considered, the resulting habit will be suitable for work and effi-cient. We must remember, ,finally, tl~at no religious institute is or Can be exempt from the cold of winter and the heat of summer. Secular men and women stil! bow to this fact of nature at least by wearing an overcoat during~the winter and, outside of a very few highly nervous lndlwduals, ,thFy do not wear the same coat duriilg the summer, 15. Higher intellectual standards". This topic has also been explained completely in the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS.15 All religious 15. Ibid., XII (1953), 256-57. i6. ~bid., X~I (1953), 268-69. ./ JOSEPH F. GALLEN Reuieto /:or Religious and particularly those engaged in teaching should beintellectual and cultured men and women. ~This certainly implies that they have in-tellectual tastes and are constantly reading and studying. Such ~ habit is to be inculcated and emphasized~ from the beginning. It is surprising how often a supposed education, also Catholic, fails to produce a habit of reading. There must also be something to read, and we can finish this topic by emphasizing again the .need of ade-quate libraries in all religious houses. Higher superiors should in-sist that a sufficient outlay for books be part of the annual budget of all houses and they should also 'inspect the libraries during their canonical visitation. 16. Rotation of the same superiors. This matter is both im-portant and practical, but it has been completely explained in the REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS.17 17~ Mutual knowledge and cooperation with other institutes. All religious should have a sincere and deep reverence, love, and loyalty for their own institute. All are to be real sons and daughters of their institute. ~'They expect paternal government; they should give filial deportment. Modern generations can be justly accused of a greater deficiency in these precious qualities than the generations of the past. In casting off romanticism for realism they may also be putting off love and devotion for cynicism. It is more erroneous to act as if all that is good, holy, and zealous were confined to our own institute. This induces a very repulsive caste pride and is also an evident obstacle to renovation and adapta-tion. We cannot reasonably maintain that all human progress ceased at the death of our founder. The Italians have a good name for par-ticularism; they call it "'iI campanitismo.'" We may freely translate this as a vision narrowed to the village steeple and a life confined to its shadow. Narrowness is a discordant quality in a life supposedly dominated by the limitless truth and good that is God. Religious cannot be lacking in love and reverence for the Church, of which their institute is only a very small and very subordinate part, nor for the diocese, the parish, and other institutes. They should bare a sincere conviction of the good, the greatness, and the accomplishments of other institutes. This demands primarily that they do not harm other institutes, for example, by inaugurating works that are not'necessary in a locality and that can onl~ harm the established works of other institutes. The movement of ad.~ilSta- 17. Ibid., X (1951), 193-200. November, 1955 RENO~CATION AND ADAPTATION tion goes further than the mere avoidance of injury; it emphasizes and promotes cboperation. This has been a primary motive for the various congresses of religious, the permanent commission of mothers general established in Rome, the associations instituted in France and Italy for sisters engaged in the same activities, the con-federations or permanent conferences of higher superiors in France, Portugal, Spain, Brazil, and Canada. The Sacred Congregation of Religious has inspired, fostered, and approved sucl~ associations. It may be maintained that this purpose, is fulfilled in the United States by the National Catholic Educational Association and the Catholic Hospital Association. The Sister-F0rmation Conferences and the meetings of superiors and officials promoted by the Catholic Hospital Association are apt means of accomplishing renovation and adaptation. Seriou~ consideration at least should be given to the formation of a permanent association of higher superiors of religious women in the United States. Common discussion and effort would be very helpful to their common purpose, difficulties, and problems. The formation of all such associations should be a vital movement from within; and the sisters themselves must give practically all the talks, lead, and carry on the discussions. They alone are fully ac-quainted with their life and problems; they can and should solve their own problems and supply their own initiative. Or,hers can at times help or contribute some ideas, but in all such associations and meetings the principal part should be left to the sisters themselves. Adapta-tion is life, not passivity or forced movement; and passive partici-pation is rarely satisfactory or permanent. 19. Pertinent canonical matters. It seems incredible that a re-ligious institute would not have conformed its constitutions to the Code of Canon Law, but it is still possible to encounter such a situ-ation in congregations of sisters. _Quite a few of these congregations retain what is called the direct vote, i. e., all the professed, at least of perpetual vows, vote directly in the general elections. This is contrary to the practice of the Holy See, which demands the system of delegates. Many diocesan congregations are unaware of the fact that their diocesan state, according to canon law and the practice of the Holy See, is only. temporary and probationary and that they should become pontifical. Canon law and the practice of the Holy See also favor the extension of diocesan congregations to many dio-ceses and are opposed to their confinement to the diocese of origin. Some congregations have a structure of government that is intended for a monastery of nuns, not for a congregation of sisters. Several ¯ 317 authOrs have" advised° small and struggling institutes, especially of women, to unite with larger and flourishing institutes and preferably with one of the same origin. This suggestion is practical for a few institutes in the United States. Orders of nuns that certainly cannot observe even minor papal cloister should become congregations. Papal cloister.cannot be ob-seryed~ by institutes that are almost wholly occupied in such works as parish schools. Some congregations of sisters have a strictdr cloister by the law of their constitutions. This cloister should not be ob-structive of the special purpose of the institute. Monasteries of nuns should present any real problems or diffi-culties on papal cloister to the Holy See. If engaged in education, they are to be attentive to the fact that this demands their own proper education. These same monasteries should realize that the Holy See has for a lbng time promoted federations of monasteries of men. The same principle is now merely being extended to monasteries of women. The advantages of federations were authoritatively listed in Sloonsa Christi. Nuns have been isolated from practically all in-novations in" the religious life, and this has riot always been to their advantage. They are also included in the present moxiement of renovation and adaptation and should study especially the advan-tage~ of federations. Those engaged in the mote scientific teaching of religion and who read ~panish will no doubt like to know that the Salesiafis in Argentina publish a monthly magazine entitled Didascalia, devoted to the teaching of' religion. Agents in the United States: Don Bosco College, Newton, New Jersey; in Canada: Salesian of St. John'Bosco, Jacquet River, New Brunswick. In our November, 1954, number, p, 289, we described Volume III of th~ Canon Law Digest, by T. Lincoln Bouscaren, S.J., and on p. '306 of the sam~ number we announced that annual loose-leaf supplements to the Digest would be published. The Supplement of 1953 appeared shortly afterwards; and very recen[- ly the Supplement through 1954 has been published. In the valuable work of pre-paring these annual supplements, Father Bouscaren ¯is being aided by Jame~ I. O'Connor, S.J., professor of canon law at West Baden College. Like the Digest itself, the annual supplements are published by The Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee 1, Wisconsin. An important letter of the Sacred Congregation of Seminaries and Universities on the Proper Training of Clerics to an Appreciation of the Divine Ot~ce (Feb. 2, 1945) has been translated into English by T. Lincoln Bouscargn, S.J., and is now published in convenient pamphlet form. The pamphlet includes an excellent bibli-ography by Owen M. Cloran,,S.J. Price, ten cents. Grail Publications, St. Mein-rad, Indiana. 318 ook eviews [All material for this department should be sent to: Book Review Editor, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, West Baden College, West Baden Springs, Indiana.] SEEDS OF THE DESERT. The Legacy of Charles de Foucauld. By R. Voilluame. Translated and adapfed by Willard Hill. Preface by John LaFarge, S.J. Pp. 368. Fides Publishers Assbciafion, Chicago, IIIinois. 1955. $4.50. Any priest or religious will read this book with a sense of ex-hilaration. Its spirit is aggressive and optimistic and so inexplicable on natural grounds that one cannot help but think that it brings him into direct contact with the life-stream of the Church. The English title~ while'more poetic, is less revealing than the original: Au Coeur des Masses: La Vie Religieuse des Petits Fr~res du P~re de Foucauld: The Little Brothers of Jesus area Congrega-tion founded by Father Refi~ Voillaume according to a plan sketched at the turn of the century by Father Charles de Foucauld. The Con-grega~ ion.was approved by the Church in 1936. The letters of Father Voillaume to the Little BrotHers, which comprise the bulk of the present work, reveal that the purpose of the congregation has been boldly conceived and is being wisely executed. The brothers, some ordained, some lay, intend to bring Christ in His Church to the poor: to the workers of France, the Moslem Arabs of North Africa, . the colored of the Cameroons, the nomads of Transjordan, the under-proletariat of Chile. The plan is de-signedly lacking in methods of apostolic efficiency. It is decidely not of this world in its "foolish" simplicity. In fraternities of from three to five men, the Little Brothers live the life of the poor whose souls they seek; factory wbrkers, fishermen, shepherds. They do not preach; they do not found social organizations; they do not try to change the living conditions of their fellow-workers. This they leave to others. Their eye is on Jesus at Nazareth and their hope is to bring the modern poor to the fullness of Christian life. Their method is to be a leaven of example anal self-immolation among the masses. The difficulties and dangers facing such .an enterprise are ob-vious; and the author is at pains, in his letters to the br0ther~, to point them out and to chart a safe course. Again and again he tells them that in their circumstances mere formal observance~ are not BOOK REvIEws Review [or Religious enough to guarantee the life of perfection to which they have vowed themselves. Only contact with the vivifying person of Christ is powerful enough to weather the fatigue, the discouragement, and the temptations they will encounter. Though much of the guidance Father Voillaume offers the Little Brothers is necessarily of a particular nature, his letters will never-theless have a widespread appeal, especially among religious. The author's love for the poor, his desire to bring God to them, his con-fidence in the power of Christ, and above all his enthusiasm for the little way of the Gospel in a world which thinks big, are plain on every page. His spirit is infectious and will be caught with profit by those whom it touches. The letters on the vows are par-ticularly good. Written on a familiar subject they have a freshness which reflects the vigor of the author's mind. They stress the psy-chological and po.sitive aspects of" the vows and are noticeably de-void of platitudes. Time alone can adequately test the courageous experiment of the Little Brothers of .Jesus. ]3ut if Father Voillaume can plant deeply in his followers the spirit he has left in his book, success seems assured.-~PAUL F. CONEN, S.d. THE EUCHARIST-SACRIFICE. By Reverend Francis J. Wengier. Pp. 286. The Bruce Publishing Co., Milwaukee I, Wisconsin. 1955. $5.00. Father Wengier has given us in this book a notable addition to the growing number of titles of theology in English. The Eucharist- Sacritice is a defense of the opinion of the Reverend M. de la Taille, S.3., on the essence of sacrifice in the Mass as found in the justly famous volume Mysterium Fidei. It also contains chapters dealing with other controversial aspects of eucharistic doctrine,, such as transubstantiation, the actual offerer of the Mass, the quantity of Mass fruits. The last chapter is devoted to a consideration of the Encyclical Letter of Pope Plus XII, Mediator Dei, and an epilogue is added on "The Blessed Virgin and the Mass." Father Wengier defines the Mass as "A true and proper though unbloody Sacrifice of the New Law, instituted by Christ when He said: 'Do this in commemoration of me,' in virtue of which com-mand the beloved Bride of Christ, the Church, doing through her ordained minister what Christ ~Himself did in the Cenacle, renews Christ's sublime Sacrifice by offering to the heavenly Father the very same formal Supper-Golgotha Victim while picturing the Lord's passion in the consecration of the separated :elements of bread and 320 Nouember, 1955 BOOK REVIEWS wine" (p. 102). This definition, which fairly represents the. opin-ion of De lh Taille, is defended particularly against the opinions, of Abbot Vonier (The Keg to the Doctrine of the ~.ucbarist) and Reverend M. D. Forrest (,The Clean Oblation), though others are not neglected. The book is somewhat marred by the undue acerbity with which the author treats the opinions of adversaries. This particular con-troversy, for some reason, always generates a great deal of heat'. Undoubtedly a partial reason at least is the fact that all sides of the controversy appeal to the very same texts of the fathers and the councils, each interpreting them in support of a particular opinion. The chapter which the author heads: "Various Ways to Swerve from the Genuine Idea of the Sacrifice of the Mass" is not calcu-lated to win friends or conciliate opinion. The opinion that a symbolical immolation cannot at the same time be a real immolation will be favored by few theologians. To assure us that there is a symbolical immolation in the Mass and ~hen say that it is not an immolation but an oblation' is liable to be slightly confusing. If immolation is a constituent element of sac-rifice, then it must be present in the sacrifice of the Mass or else that sacrifice is not true and proper as described and defined by the Coun-cil of Trent. The presence of the immolated victim may be a sign that a sacrifice has been completed in the past, but only immolation can be constituent of sacrifice in the present. Again, the adjectives "bloody" and "unbloody" in the Council of Trent can refer only to the immolation since the oblation, taken in the sense of one of the constituent parts of sacrifice, is always unbloody even in a bloody sacrifice. Consequently only a theory which places an unbloody immolation in the Mass together with the oblation would seem to be consonant with the doctrine of Trent. However opinions differ, this book is sure to find an honored place on the bookshelves of theological libraries. It deserves careful reading to appreciate its many fine qualities.--CARL FIRSTOS, S.J. GOD'S HERALDS, A GUIDE TO THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL. By d. Chalne. Transla÷ed by Brendan McGra÷h, O.S.B. Pp. 236. Joseph Wagner, Inc., New York. 1954. $3.95. To one seriously, interested in reading in English a concise, or-thodox introduction to the canonical Hebrew prophets, God's Her-alds will be most welcome. Father McGrath's translation of the late J. Chaine's Introduction a Ia Lecture des Prophetes meets a real 321 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Religious need for seminarians, religious, and laymen who are interested in th~ prophets whether from an historical, do, ctrinal, or s,ociological v~iewpoint. After a short chaptbr on prophetism and the social milieu, the author considers pairs or groups of the prophets in a reasonably, accurate chronological order. This treatment is calculated to bring out the climax of divine revelation and the historical drama of God's relations with Israel. If the message of Isaias and deremias is diffi-cult to follow, the reason is to be found in the unavoidable "enfilad-ing that results from this chronological approach. '- The style of the book is quite direct; the content, informative and condensed. Passages are paraphrased rather than quoted. In spite of all this, the salient features of many of the prophets, espe-cially of Jeremias and Ezechiel, stand out cl'early in but a few pages. Although God's Heralds is intended to be a non-technical study, it i's, nevertheless, primarily intended as an introduction or pre-lection to private reading or study of the prophets. One feels that this purpose could be better implemented by the addition of a table or chart indicating the chronological order in which the different prophets and their various oracles should be read. Admittedly, this order is frequently problematic. The whole book, however, supposes a rather definite chronological arrangement; and so a tab-ulated abridgment of the prophets treated w6uld ,be of considerable help to private reading. Nevertheless, the index of texts, plus fre-quent cross-references, enables the student to refer back for the his-torical setting as outlined~in this work. As the translator notes in his preface: "The world of the pro-phets is a complicated one, and it takes serious study to become really familiar with it." Monsieur J. Chaine's small volume is not "affective reading." But sound, even if "non-technical" study of the prophets is required if their message is to ring clear. Father McGrath is to be commended for translatin~ a book on the prophets so apropds of the current needs of clerics and laymen alike in these days when we begin to realize that God will judge the nations. --CHARLES H. GIBLIN, S.,J. (:;)UAESTIONES CANONICAE DE JURE RELIGIOSORUM. By Servo ~,oyeneche, C.M.F. Volume I, pp. 536; Volume II, pp. 496. Insfifufum Jurldlcum Clarefianum, Yla Giulla, 131, Rome, Ifaly. 1954; For more than thirty years Claretian Father Servo Goyeneche has been solving canonical problems concerning religious proposed 322 November, '1955 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS under the heading of Consultationes in the Claretian review entitled Cpmmentarium pro Religi~sis. Now this renowned canonist and professor at the Pontifical Institute Utriusque duris in Rome has arranged all these answers in the order of the canons of the Code of Canon Law and has published them in two volumes under the title of Quaestiones Canonicae. The term religious is used in a wide sense; and, besides the canons contained in the second book of the code under the formal title De Religiosis; it includes most of the other° canons of the code touching religious at least indirectly. Hence the valuable:canon index to be found at the enff df Volume II runs from canon 4 to 2408. , Usually the text given is that which appeared originally in Com-mentarium pro Religiosis. However, the author has noted any change of opinion on the part of a writer quoted and. has included, the answers and interpretations given during the past thirty years both by the Commission for the Interpretation of the Code and those of the various Roman Congregations. This valuable compendium of practical questions and answers regarding religious should find a place in all the clerical communities of religious orders, congregations, and societies. Lay religious (broth-ers and sisters) will hardly find the volumes helpful because they are written in Latin.--ADAM C.' ELLIS, N.J. BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS ACADEMY LIBRARY (3UILD, Fresno, California. One Hundred Years an Orphan. By John T. Dwyer. The book tells the story of Saint Vincent's, San Francisco's Home for Boys, at San Rafael, which completed the first century of its existence in 1955. It is a well-written book and profusely illustrated with many excellent photographs. Pp. 159. $3.00. THE BRUCE PUBLISHING COMPANY, Milwaukee 1, Wisconsin. The Glor~t of Christ. A Pageant of Two Hundred Missionar~j Lives from Apostolic Times to the Present. Age. By Mark L. Kent, LM.M., and Sister Mary Just of Maryknoll. An arresting, dramatic incident introduces each missionary. An appropriate reflection closes the account of his life. Not all the missionaries chosen for the book are canonized saints, though they would be if the Church would still recognize cahonization by popular acclaim as she once did. An inspiring bbok. If they could do so much for Christ, why can't I? Pp. 282. $3.75. 323 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Retffeto.~ for Religious How to Meditate. By Reverend A. Desbuquoit, B~lrnabite. Translated and arranged by Reverend G. Protopap,as, O.M.I. Not only beginners in mental prayer but also those who have practiced it for many years will find the author's analysis of mental prayer enlightening. I/is chapter on "Tasks of Mental Prayer" is particu-larly ~uggestive and should prove very helpful. Pp. 75. Paper $1.00. Spurs to Meditation. By Reverend Bartholomew g. O'Brien. Just how much of a problem formal meditation can .be for a priest, Father O'Brien knows from personal experience in a very large and busy parish where he served for ten years. Spurs to Meditation is written specifically for those priests and seniinarians who still find meditation a problem. The author hopes with good reason that his book will help to solve that problem for many of his readers. Pp. 116. Paper $1.25. ~ CATHOLIC LIFE PUBLICATIONS, Bruce Press, Milwaukee I, Wisc. The Pierced Heart. The Life of Mother Mary Angela Trusz-kowska, Foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Felix (Felician Sisters). By Francis A. Cegielka, S.A.C., S.T.D. The Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Felix now comprises ten prov-inces. Three are in Poland, where the congregation was born, and the other seven are in the United States. There are 4,3-37 sisters in the congregation as of 1955. Of these 3,505 are in the United States. Because the sisters are so numerous here, they are known for the many works in which they are engaged, but little is known about them. This is the first biography in English of the remark-able woman who founded this flourishing congregation. It helps us to get to know the Felician Sisters. It is regrettable that the book is so brief, only 76 pages. May the day come soon when we shall have a fullrlength biography. $2.50. THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA PRESS, 620 Michigan Ave., N.E., Washington 17, D.C. The Catholic Elementary School Program for Christian Family Living. Edited by Sister Mary Ramon Langdon, O.P., M.A. This book embodies the proceedings of the Workshop on the Catholic Elementary School Program for Christian Family Living conducted at the Catholic University Of America, June 11 to June 22, 1954. It is of interest to pastors and sociologists. Pp. 209. Paper $2.25. The Local Superior in Non-Exempt Clerical Congregations. A Historical Conspectus and a Commentary. By Robe,rt Eamon Mc- 324 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Grath, O.M.I. The book is a thesis submitted to the Catholic Uni-versity of America in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Canon Law. Pp. 127. Paper $2.00. CLONMORE AND REYNOLDS, LTD., 29 Kildare St.; Dublin. The Origin of Political Autborit~ . By Gabriel Bowe, O.P. Certainly a very timely book now that so many false theories on political authority are rife. It is based on a thesis which merit.ed for the author the degree of Lector in Sacred Theology at the Angelicum in Rome. Pp. 102. Cloth 12/6. COLLEGE MISERICORDIA, Dallas, Pennsylvania. Lh;fng the Little Office. By Sister Marianna Gildea, R.S.M. A very effective way to make the recitation of vocal prayers of rule easier, more consoling, and more profitable is to take them as the subject of meditation. Sister Marianna has done just that with the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and in this volume she shares the fruit of her labors with the reader. Do you wish to improve the effectiveness of your recitation of the Little Office? If you do, this book will help you. Pp. 167. Paper $2.75. COMITE DES HOSPITAUX DU QUEBEC, 325 Chemin Sainte- Catherine, Montreal~ Morale et M~d;,cine. By 3ules Paquin, S.d. Doctors and nurses are constantly in need of guidance in handling moral problems aris-ing from the practice of their profession. This need is provided for in Catholic medical and nursing schools by courses in medical ethics. Morale et M~dfcfne is intended as a textbook for such a course, though it would also serve as a handy reference book for doctors and nurses in actual practice. Besides giving a clear exposition of the moral principles connected with the many important problems of modern medicine, the book also contains a section dealing with the moral problems of psychiatry. It will be of interest particularly to re-ligious connected with hospital work. Pp. 489.- . DAUGHTER~ OF SAINT PAPAL, Old Lake Shore Road, Derby, N. Y. Jesus" Alp~'al~t for. R'elfgi~Us. Cbmpiled by the Daughters' 6f SaintPahll There"is ~'cldapt~r fore'ach'l~tter of the alphhbe~i" The first l~.l[f.io;f' each "~b~e~; c'onsi~tsof brief cifiot~ioh~ froh~'H61y Scripture oi~ the virtue dealt" ~'i~h ih"that "~l~'~i3~er: ~Tl~e ~c~'fid"hhif comprises brief quotations.:fr0m the~.writings .of.,t.he ~fa.thers of the Cht@ch- a'nd ,the:~sairits on, ~he,' sam~, virtue;., It 'is not a~boolc;to be "read; but ,a.th'e'sautus-of suggestions.for~:meditatibn. :',Pp~. 'l.24,.-Paper 3-25 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Revieta for. Religious $1.00. Cloth $2.00. The Hero of Molokai. Father Damien, Apostle of the L, epers. By Omer Englebert. Translated by Benjamin T. Crawford. Robert Louis Stevenson, who so eloquently defended Father Damien in his open letter to Doctor Hyde, predicted that the Church would raise Father Damien to the honor of the altars within a century after his death. That prediction is. now in process of verification. His cause has been introduced at Rome, and some significant progre.ss has been reported. The present biography of the hero of M61okai is in a popular vein and should hasten the day of his beatification. Pp. 364. Paper $1.50. Cloth $3.00. FIDES PUBLISHERS, 21 West Superior St., Chicago 10, Illinois. The Psalms. Fides Translation. Introduction and notes by Mary Perkins Ryan. This may be called the laymar~'s own edition of the psalms since the introduction and notes by a lay woman were written with him and his difficulties in mind. Pp. 306. $3.95. FOLIA, 55 Beechwood Avenue, New Rochelle, New York. The Augustinian Concept of Authority/. By H. Hohensee. This volume puts "at the disposition of theologians,' philosophers and classical scholars, teachers and students alike, an abundant source-ma~ erlal for the interpretation of Augustinian thought" on the sub-ject of authority. Pp. 77. Paper $2.00. FREDERICK PUSTET COMPANY, INC., 14 Barclay St., N. Y. 8. In the Light of Christ. Through Meditation to Contemplati'on. Pp. 340. $4.50. Hearts Shall be Enlightened. ReHections [or the Examination o[ Conscience. Pp. 179. $2.50. Both volumes are by Mother Mary Aloysi, S.N.D. Religious, particularly religious women, will be pleased with these two volumes, the latest books from the prolific pen of ~he gifted author. Both volumes are intended to make the meditation and the examination of conscience of the monthly day of rec611ection more fruitful. The first consists of forty inspiring meditations; the second, of.an equal number of reflections. There can be no doubt that a religious who makes her own ahd lives according to th~ teaching so eloqtiently pro-pounded in th~se volumes is very dear to the Heart of Christ. GRAIL PUBLIEATIONS, St. Meinrad, Indiana. Blueprint :/or Holiness. "The Christian Mentalit, g. ,By Denis Mooney, O.F.M.This little bookl~t contrasts~ the. Christian men-. 326 . .: .: . November, 1955 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS tality, the effective desire of always, pleasing Go.d, with the natural mentality, the desire of always pleasing self. All our faults and sins have their root in the latter; our virtues spring from the former. The Christian mentality must be expande,.d until it extinguishes the natural mentality. The book is very simply written and~ illustrated with diagrams--something most unusual in aspiritual bool~. Pp. 64. Paper $0.50. ~ The Education of the Religious and Modern Trends. By Rev-erend Manuel Milagro, C.M.F: The author writes specifically for those who are educators of religious destined to become priests. Among [he topics treated are the following: vocation and disci-pline, anticipatory ministerial drills, the educator, the confessor, the superior, the educational formula ora et labora, the ministerial for-mula ora laborando, mental hygiene, rectification of distorted fea-tures. Pp. 97. $0.75. Dedicated Life in the World. Secular Institutes. Edited by Jo-seph E. Haley, C.S.C. The answers to many questions that we are asked about secular institutes are found in this" booklet. We find there their historical background, their canonical status in the light of papal documents, their nature, and finally their present and future status in America. It concludes with a useful bibliography. Pp. 48. $0.25. The Crown of Twelve Stars. Meditations on the Queen of the Universe. By a Ca~rmelite Nun, the Apostolic Carmel, Mangalore, lndia. If you baye been looking for appropriate meditations for the first Saturday of each month, The Crown of Twelve Stars should terminate your search. You may even find that though each indi-vidual meditation is short, it affords enough material for mind and heart for more than one hour of prayer. Pp. 54. $0.35. P. J. KENEDY AND SONS, 12 Barchiy St., New York 8. What the Church Gives Us. By Monsignor James P. Kelly and Mary T. Ellis. Those who have to instruct conveits will welcome this new book on the fundan~entals of the Faith. Though e~senti-ally a catechism, it is not writtefi in question and answer form." Even Catholics could profit by a careful reading of this well-writ-ten book. It deserves a place on the shelf of every lay retreatant's library. Pp. 152. $2.50, ~ The Salt of the Earth. By,Andre Frossard. Translated by Mar-jorie Villiers. Andre Fross,a}d has written a very readable book about the religious life as exemplified in six religiouS.orders, Bene-; BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS dictines, Carmelites, Carthusians, Cistercians, Dominicans, Jesuits, and Franciscans. It was written for people in the world who know little or nothing about religious. It is profusely illustrated with humorous woodcuts. The author is not always accurate about de-tails: The Jesuit General is not appointed by the pope; St. Bernard entered Citeaux with thirty not twenty-five companions; the influx of hermits into theoEgyptian desert began during and not after tbe persecutions. Pp. 160. $2.95. NATIONAL SHRINE OF SAINT ODILIA, Onamia, Minnesota. Odilia, Maid of the Cross. By Bernard C. Miscbke, O.S.C. Would you like to know what life was like in England in those far off days when it was still pagan? What is the historical founda-tion for the legend of St. Ursula and the eleven thousand virgins? Why is St. Odilia the special patron of the Crozier Fathers? You will find the answer to all these questions in Father Mischke's fic-tionalized biography of St. Odilia. Pp. 163. $2.00. SHEED AND WARD, 840 Broadway, New York 3. A Rocking-Horse Catholic is the last book that Caryll House-lander wrote before her death on October 12th, 1954. In it she tells the story of her youth. She was baptized a Catholic when she was six, and so characterizes herself not as a "cradle" but a "rocking-horse" Catholic. She lost the. faith in her teens but found her way back to the Church to become a militant Catholic and the author of six books on religious topics. When you begin to read this book, be sure that you have several hours at your disposal, for you will find it difficult to put it down before you have reached the end. Pp. 148. $2.50. Soeur Angele and the Embarrassed Ladies. By Henri Catalan. Something new in detective fiction: a Sister of Charity appears in the role of detective and solves a murder mystery. Pp. 154. $2.50. TEMPLEGATE PUBLISHERS, Springfield, Illinois. The Our Father. By R. H. J. Steuart, S.J. The conferences of Father Steuart on the Lo~d