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Issue 66.1 of the Review for Religious, 2007. ; ' Spiritu:alilty Perspectives Community Tod:ay~s Saint QUARTERLY 66.1 2007 Review for Religious fosters dialogue with God, dialogue with ourselves, and dialogue with one another about the" holiness we try to live according to charisms of Catholic religious life. As Pope Paul Vl said, our way of being church is today the way of dialogue. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published quarterly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-633-4610 ¯ Fax: 314-633-4611 E-Maih review@slu.edu ¯ Web site: ~w.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious - 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ° Pontifical College Josephinum 7625 North High Street ¯ Columbus, Ohio 43235 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ RO. 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. ©2007 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribution, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. eview for religious Editor Associate Editor Canonical Counsel Scripture Scope Editorial Staff l~ebmaster Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer sJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Eugene Hensell 0SB Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Clare Boehmer ASC Martin Erspamer OSB Kathleen Hughes RSCJ Louis and Angela Menard Bishop Terry Steib SVD Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ QUARTERLY 66.1 2007 contents prisms 4 Prisms 19 spirituality Aging and Christian Spirituality: Joy and Resignation Matthias Neuman OSB explores two challenges of aging, namel.v, the ability to enjoy and the need of resignation. Dreams in Prayer and Discernment Jennifer Constantine Jackson examines the human experience of dreams as one resource from the Lord that can assist us on ¯ the road to spiritual maturity. Reflection/Discussion Questions 3O perspectives Confessions of a Franciscan Ethicist Rende Mirkes O~'S shows how being Franciscan can and does affect the way she does ethics. Review for Religious 40 58 Reclaiming Hope, Recovering Dialogue Colleen Mary Mallon OP explores dialogical communion, from the writings of the French Dominican Yves Congar, and reflects upon specific practices of discipleship that promise to deepen communal conversion while offering prophetic witness to a global world. Personal Reflection/Group Discussion community Rose Hoover RC says that being together on the inward journey is a subtly rigorous togetherness not to be missed. 64 An Experience of Jesus and His Brothers Robert Schieler FSC describes his congregation's Holy Week retreat in which three provinces saw a happily workable way to be energetically together as one. 74 today's saint Mother's Quest and Bequest: Theodore Guerin's Sainthood Mary Roger Madden SP provides a historical vignette of her congregation's recently canonized American foundress to show the greatness of her spiritual bequest. departments 90 Scripture Scope: The Bible and the Church 95 Canonical Counsel: Bona Ecclesiastica 101 Book Reviews 66.1 2007 prisms Do I want to be holy? When we ask our-selves the question, the answer would seem to be obvious. Since we believe in God and we want to enjoy life forever with God, we are trying to be holy. Probably many of us would find it a bit pretentious to say that right now we are making the effort to be holy. Why is it so off-putting for us to admit simply that we want to be holy? Trying to be holy sounds, well, sanctimonious. We judge that we are priding ourselves on some-thing we are not. We don't want to be people setting ourselves down at the head of the table in Jesus' parable, only to be told to take a lower place. All too often we think that to be holy includes all the things that we are not: unfail-ingly pious, always prayerful, never offensive, and ever patient and long-suffering. Perhaps images like the eyes-rolled-up to heaven, the hands folded, and the pallid face featured in many portraits of our saints hold us off from identifying with holiness. We likely need a reevaluation of what it means to be holy. God is the holy One. If God is by nature holy, then we are not naturally holy. But God calls us to be holy and empowers us to "be holy as I am holy." In the sacramental life, we identify these key empowerments in baptism, confirmation, and eucharist. God the Father, in the identifying of us with his Son and in the gift-ing of their Spirit, has truly made us sons and daughters. Being part of God's family--the ones adopted in Jesus' name--we merit being called holy ones, the saints as St. Paul frequently refers to his fellow Christians in the various churches to whom he writes his letters. Review for Religqous We might believe that we are called to be holy, in fact, that we are children of God. But what we are and how we act might be two different things. What does it mean for us to act like holy persons? Jesus is our way that we come to understand and live a divine holiness. Holiness, above all, is rooted in our love relationship with our triune God in Jesus. By watching Jesus in action, we discover how we are to live and act holily. Let's take some examples that we ordinarily do not associate with holiness. Jesus lives his holiness in his presence and in his participation in parties such as the Cana wedding feast and in banquets of all kinds, sometimes held in houses of those consid-ered public sinners such as Matthew and Zacchaeus and at other times in the homes of his pious "betters"--like Simon the Pharisee. Holiness, we see, is made real and strengthened in enjoying life, like parties and banquets. In all kinds of circumstances, Jesus expresses holiness in breaking the rules--usually surrounding Sabbath obser-vances- because of his compassion and love. Jesus, we see, teaches us that holiness is not to be identified just with "keeping the rules." Priests and Levites--good peo-ple- kept the rules of not contaminating themselves by helping a wounded traveler, but it was the foreigner, a false-believing Samaritan, who acted holily. Jesus says that we must act as one who loves neighbor as oneself. Jesus shows us that holiness grows in the conversations and interactions with all different classes of people, sometimes with people who think quite differently from him--the ways of Jesus' ministering in the gospels. Jesus shows us that dealing with others who think differently from us is a part of our being holy. Simply said, to live holily, as Jesus shows us, is to live an everyday kind of life, graced always by the love of God and love of neighbor. David L. Fleming SJ 66.1 2007 MATTHIAS NEUMAN Aging and Christian Spirituality: Joy and Resignation spirituality Aging, that universal human experience, is one of life's great mysteries. Why the various stages in the human life cycle: infancy, childhood, ado-lescence, adulthood, and old age? Why should human life be like that? Why do we grow up and then slowly break down, piece by piece, until death comes for us? Our creative God could have arranged matters differently. But the real-ity remains that human life, unless tragically cut short, ends with old age, dissolution, and death-- years that people often find extremely troubling. Old age is where aging really hits home. Aging, especially the last phase, "old age," has become a major social issue for many Western countries. The graying of populations looms in many of them as a social and economic issue. The recent report of the President's Council on Bioethics, Taking Care: Ethical Caregiving in our Aging Society, puts it pointedly: Matthias Neuman OSB has written for us often. His pres-ent address is Our Lady of Grace Monastery; 1414 Southern Avenue; Beech Grove, Indiana 46107. Review for Religious There is no question that we are on the threshold of a "mass geriatric society.," a society of more long-lived individuals than ever before in human history. For this great gift of longer and healthier life for ourselves and our loved ones we are, and should be, enormously grateful . At the same time, however, there are good reasons to be concerned about the human and moral shape that a mass geriatric society will take, especially if the "price" many people pay for the added years of healthier life is a period of protracted debility, demen-tia, and dependence stacked up at the end before they eventually die. Such a reshaping of the life cycle will create enormous challenges for nearly every family and for the entire society.! The Catholic ethicist Daniel Callahan pinpoints some of those troubling issues. By 2030 almost 20 percent of the American population will be over 65; the combined costs of Medicare and Medicaid will double; close to half of those over 85 will suffer from some form of dementia. He says: "The projected long-term institutional costs alone, quite apart from medical expenses, will be astronomical.''2 Aging also appears as an increasing pastoral care issue for the church. The 1999 document of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, "The Dignity of Older People and Their Mission in the Church and in the World," says that the increasing number of aging people in the developed coun-tries of the world will cause some significant shifts in the style and opportunities for pastoral care: The ecclesial community, for its part, is called to respond to the great participation which older people would like to have ih the church by turning to account the "gift" they represent as witnesses of the tradition of fai.th, teachers of the wisdom of life, and workers of charity. [The Church] must therefore reexamine its apostolate on behalf of older people, and open it up to their participation and collaboration.3 66.1 2007 Neuman ¯ Aging and Christian Spirituality Aging doqs not need o be a series of losses th'a can only be eiid ¢ed::i In this article I explore two challenges that aging pres-ents for Christian spirituality. These challenges touch individuals, families, parishes, and the church as a whole. Aging does not need to be a series of losses that can only be endured. Indeed, it offers genuine possibilities for spiritual growth. I came to be interested in this topic for several rea-sons. Seven years ago my father fell on some ice and broke his hip. He never really recovered from that, and spent his last two years in a nursing home. In those two years my parents, my sisters, and I talked much about the reality of nursing-home life, about how many things aging compels the elderly and their families to give up. A year after my father died, my mother fell inside her house and broke her hip. She recovered much better than he did. She had observed the nursing home firsthand and had no desire to go there: "The smells and the food would kill me for sure." Her great effort to do her therapy and avoid the nursing home enabled her (at age 86) to finish the rehabilitation program three weeks early. She was able to return home, but my sisters and I felt she needed a watchful presence around her more than a duplex could-provide. So she moved into a home for the elderly, and Ibecame chaplain for the Benedictine sisters who run the home. My mother and I walk together frequently, our conversations returning now and then to the trials and opportunities of aging. At ninety-two she feels them acutely. I must face my own aging too. At sixty-four, I have had to accept it for some time now. In the last twenty years, I have given up physically competitive sports; my Review for Religious football, baseball, and basketball gear were given away long ago. I still have golf and the treadmill, but the clock is ticking there too. For the last three years, back prob-lems have cut short my summer golf. What encouraged me more than anything else to do some spiritual reflection on aging was a little pam-phlet titled The Grace of Old Age by Father Vincent M. O'Flaherty SJ. He.wrote a series of reflections while a patient in a nursing home himself. His view of aging is special, and he provides some excellent thoughts on the spirituality of aging. Here is one: "When I look at my tensions from the point of view of detachment, I see that each tension is a fear of losing the power to enjoy one of the goods of this life. As a grace, aging is a slow death of the power of enjoying this world.''4 That last cuts deep. But, as Father O'Flaherty adds, it also makes more spiritual growth possible. But wherein does that spiritual growth consist? Throughout Christian history, old age has not stimulated a lot of sustained reli-gious thinking.5 In developed Western countries, that is due in part to the fact that, until the latter part of the 20th century, most people did not live to old age as we know it. In 1790 the U.S. population over age 65 comprised only two percent. By 1980 that was eleven percent, and in 2004 it was approaching fifteen. The President's Council on Bioethics says that the fastest-growing age group in the U.S. is "the oldest of the old (people age 85 or over).''6 In the last quarter century, the increasing percentage of older people has created much investigation into all aspects of growing older. But there is a counterbalance to this increasingly aging population. As the number of older persons in the U.S. increases, the inherent value of any one of them decreases. Previously the elderly's very "scarcity" was a value. A household with an elderly per-son, with someone who could tell the family's history, was 66.1 2007 Neuman ¯ Aging and Christian Spirituality considered honored and blessed. In our own day people are more likely to worry about how many older people there are and how they are going to be cared for. Both the joys and resignations, " of old agk can be seen~ hs ways of deepenin~ g onr . relationship with~ God. Perspective People generally have two ways of considering the onset of old age. Both appear in scientific as well as common thought, and both are mentioned by the Pontifical Commission's document "The Dignity of Older People.-7 The first way is to anticipate joys, to expect that each age possesses its own blessings, its own joys and achieve-ments. The last years of life offer particular graces: the joy of grandchildren, lessening responsibility, time for relaxation, oppor-tunity to do some things you always wanted to do. The Christian tradition often encouraged this, considering old age a blessing. The Bible provides some examples: "Gray hair is a crown of glow" (Pr 16:31). "You shall rise before the aged, and defer to the old" (Lv 19:32). Older persons are presumed wise, from their great store of life experience. A second way to deal with aging is resignation. This seems the predominant way. People work at accepting the inevitability of aging, and its conclusion. Aging always involves loss. People must give up many things along the way. At each stage of life, valuable and dear things are left behind. Resignation includes a fearful looking ahead to possible situations that one would rather not face. The fear of helplessness, of being a burden to others, remains Review for Religious extremely troubling for many people. With resignation, one tries to be ready for inevitable losses without becom-ing angry about them. There is a whole body of literature on "disengagement theory.''8 As they advance in age, most people probably experience some joy about their future and some resignation regarding things they fear. All of us have to learn the proper proportions for ourselves. This is a matter of our religious response. Both the joys and resignations of old age can be seen as ways of deepening our relationship with God. Enjoying Joys As people grow older, they do not lose their right to joy in life. They can still partake of joys and pleasures, simple though they may be. The church's teaching on pleasure and joy has not always been as positive as it might have been.9 From the perspective of Vatican Council II, people are beginning to see life's legitimate joys as our ini-tial sharing in the resurrection. A nursing-home resident make this point directly: "Despite pain, I am experiencing joy. If that is so, I am experiencing God. I am delighted to wake up in the morning, to have another day to experi-ence God in joy. The simplest things--the weather, the barren trees of winter, the sports scores, reading, staying in touch with families and friends--all give me joy. In all I find a taste of God. Yes, it is tough to grow old, but I have found joy that I did not know in my youth.''1° Some of the sharper slants of disengagement theory would urge the elderly to disengage themselves from any joys that keep them attached to this world. But a Christian spirituality would encourage older persons to enjoy what they still can. Indeed, other scholars of aging would assert that older people who are not too old can develop abili-ties that they never knew they possessed. Studies suggest that the brain's left and right hemispheres become better 66.1 2007 Neuman * Aging and Christian Spirituality integrated during middle age, making way for improved creativity in one's older years. Age also seems to dampen some negative emotions, making it easier to get rid of anger.1~ My own mother in her eighties developed a bet-ter attitude toward death than she ever had previously. It happens to others as well: An editor I know at a New York publishing company provides a case in point. He was in his sixties and con-templating retirement when he realized that he had finally matured into his job. Despite a sharp intellect and a passion for excellence, this man had spent much of his career alienating people with brusque, critical comments and a lack of sensitivity. Now . . . he was finally beginning to master interpersonal communica-tion. As his emotional development caught up to his intellectual development, he morphed from a brilliant but brittle loner into a mentor and a mediator of con-flicts . His best work was still ahead of him.12 This potential to be creative and surprising is some-thing that those who work with the elderly need to be more aware of. Often they do not give aging people a chance. Sometimes the elderly do not give themselves a chance. Learning new abilities, arriving at positions we could never previously attain, constitutes a great joy of one's older years. The Vatican document "The Dignity of Older People and Their Mission in the Church and in the World" urges that the legitimate charisms of older people be recognized. These gifts can be real blessings for the entire church.~3 The charism of disinterestedness, the ability to give some-thing or to give of themselves without any thought of return, is a special gift that older people can share with younger generations. Another charism of the elderly is memory, in particular carrying the past forward and creat-ing a shared identity for a family, a parish, or some other group. Similarly the charism of interdependence, the ability Review for Religious to overcome individualism and self-seeking and enter into genuine interactions with others, becomes very specific in the lives of the elderly. In many ways elderly people have a need of being interdependent. Their deeply felt awareness can teach :., ,-,, -. - o o., :::c~umauitz~te'sloysi~ndpteasures. nity, and integrity in being old and being old in public. That witness amazed many people, and there is much we still need to learn from it.~4 Let us consider some of the joys that are specific to old age. One is reminiscence--thinking back to the happy and satisfying events of one's life. That can surely be a genuine joy. My mother has often said that the vacations my family took together give her much to remember and delight in. (For twenty years we went on a week's vacation each summer.) Another joy as a person ages is to anticipate the contributions one can make by instructing a younger generation and see them grow to maturity, surely a joy for one who looks back on a lengthy teaching career. Father O'Flaherty reminds us that certain joys, although genuine, are limited: "Part of the confusion over the question of happiness in old age comes from a rela-tive definition of fun. Thus we might ask whether living in Sun City is fun. If we look at it from the point of view of entertainment, Sun City has everything. But we should not exaggerate fun in old age; it peaks out with grandma knitting in a rocking chair. Neither a young nor a mature man would be attracted by the fun in Sun City.''s 66.1 2007 Neuman ¯ Aging and Christian Spirituality Christian spirituality invites the aging to have a deeper appreciation of human life's joys and pleasures. There are created joys appropriate to each stage of life. These should be identified and savored, even or especially by the elderly. Here Christian spirituality can take a hint from Jewish spirituality: A characteristic attitude is taken up by the Talmud towards the pleasures of life. Recognizing that what has been created by God for man's enjoyment must be essen-tially good, it not only counsels men to indulge in them but even condemns those who abstain from them. The rabbis assume the standpoint that God wants his creatures to be happy, and it must therefore be sinful deliberately to shun physical happiness and material well-being.~6 Vghile traditional Christian spirituality would allow a much more positive place for asceticism, s011 there is room in Christian spirituality for legitimate joys and pleasures at each stage of life. This means acknowledging and delighting in the pleasures (a sunny day, an exciting sporting event, a glass of wine). Then, going a step fur-ther, it means giving praise to God for these gifts of joy. Enjoyment is a part of God's providence for us. Facing Resignations Enjoying what pleasures one can in old age is part of Christian spirituality. Nonetheless, at the center of a spirituality of aging remains the reality of facing the many resignations life demands. No matter how great the joys are that elderly people may delight in, acts of resigna-tion are perhaps unavoidably greater. Giving up various pleasures of life is a never-ending part of aging: driving at night, strenuous or agile physical movement, certain well-liked foods, traveling to visit distant friends. The list goes on and on. To recall clearly something you have loved to do for Review for Religious twenty, thirty, or forty years and say "No more" both scares and humbles. So, as Christians, how do we deal with these resignations in ourselves and in others? First we admit that they are difficult and frightening. People coping with them should be patient with themselves and with others. Instant or pat answers like "Christ gave up everything, so should you" can do more harm than good. Elizabeth Kiibler-Ross showed five stages that people may experience as death comes closer: denial, anger, bargain-ing, depression, and acceptance.~7 These may be present when people have to use a walker all the time for mobility or have to enter a nursing home. We can help people to acknowledge the pain and loss they feel; denial does not help. We can be there with them, what Sheila Cassidy has called a "Stabat Mater" spirituality, a simple, silent, stand-with-them presence.~8 After each acceptance of loss, people may feel a loss of integrity. To their mind they will seem to be "less," "needier," a "bother" to others. The helping spiritual task assists them to regain a connectedness with people and things, to help them see that their life still possesses a fundamental meaning and purpose, that their own inner life will always have value in sight of God and for those who love them. We think back to Father O'Flaherty's comment: "Aging is a slow death of the power of enjoying this world." In our later years, aging is dominated by physical and mental decline and the giving up of many pleasures. There is also the fear of facing significant pain; that takes serious resignation as well. Father O'Flaherty puts it well again: "Modern medicine has increased my tensions. I am on 'their' side when they prolong my pleasures, but I classify them among nay enemies when they propose to prolong my pains . My fear is that they would lengthen my three hours on the cross to six.''~9 66.1 2007 Neuman ¯ Aging and Christian Spirituality Vatican Council II's Constitution on the Church has some fine insights about offering our lives to God as spiritual sacrifices: "For all [the laity's] works, prayers, and apostolic undertakings, family and married life, daily work, relaxation of mind and body, if they are accom-plished in the Spirit--indeed even the hardships of life if patiently borne--all these become spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (§34). The chal-lenge is thus to see each resignation as a spiritual sacrifice. In their later years people offer their life's troubles. Their fragile and failing bodies and minds become gifts pleasing to God. Father O'Flaherty notes: "'vVhen a man gets old and his mind gets foggy, he cannot formulate flowery prayers. At the beginning of the countdown (age 65) he should start saying the prayer of simple presentation so that he will be in the habit of using it when his faculties are not keen. Just present yourself to God . Push your wheel-chair into the chapel and show your broken hip to our Lord. This throws the burden of giving you a cross on Almighty God. It is the resigned way of praying, with full resignation to the will of God.''2° " When people are young, faith shows itself in a lot of activity, vision, building. But in old age faith turns much more around seeking the peace of God. In facing the res-ignations of aging, giving up and faith are almost indistin-guishable. Sometimes all the elderly can do is bring their broken bodies as their spiritual sacrifice; that is their way of building the kingdom of God. The Constitution on the Church notes, too, that suf-fering can be a way to holiness. "In a special way also, those who are weighted down by poverty, infirmity, sick-ness and other hardships should realize that they are united to Christ, who suffers for the salvation of the world" (§41). In old age, that suffering becomes very real Review for Religion, s and sometimes omnipresent in aches and pains, some-times very severe pain. One of the challenges that aging presents to Christian spirituality is coming to believe and assert that pain in old age becomes a genuine prayer. In dealing with the many resignations of aging, we are always working toward that confession of Christ in the garden: "Not my will, but yours be done" (Mt 26:39). From a Christian perspective, that is the result of every resignation: it becomes a holy resignation, the offering of our lives as a spiritual sacrifice. Notes ~ President's Council on Bio-Ethics, 7~;king Care Ethical Caregiving in Our Aging Society (2005), pp. xvii-xviii. 2 "Curing, Caring, and Coping," America (30 January 2006): 13. 3 Pontifical Council for the Laity, "The Dignity of Older People and their Mission in the Church and in the Vqorld," in Autumn Blessings: Living Old Age in Faith (Little Sisters of the Poor Publications Office, n.d.), p. 43. 4 Vincent M. O'Flaherty SJ, The Grace of Old Age (Franciscan Herald Press, 1976), p. 31. s An overview of this topic may be perused in K. Brynolf Lyon, Toward a Practical Theology of Aging (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), "Aging and the Christian Theology Tradition," pp. 31-53. 6 Taking Care, p. 7. 7 Autumn Blessings, pp. 15-16. 8 Lyon, Toward a Practical Theology, pp. 64-66. ~ Jacques-Marie Pohier, "Pleasure and Christianity.," in Franz B6ckle and Jacques-Marie Pohier (eds.), Sexuality in Contempo~w~[y Catholicism (New York: Seabury Press, 1976), pp. 103-109. m Frank Moan SJ, "Prayer and Pain," America (19-26 June 2006): 19. ~ Gene Cohen, "The Myth of the Midlife Crisis," Newsweek (17 January 2006), p. 82. 12 Cohen, p. 12. ~s Autumn Blessings, pp. 18-20. ~4 Robert Proctor, "A Farewell to Remember: \~That John Paul II's Death Taught Us," Commonweal (3 June 2005): 19-25. ~s O'Flaherty, Grace, p. 20. 66.1 2007 Neuman ¯ Aging and Christian SpMtuality 1~ A. Cohen, Eve~yman's Ta&md (New York: Schocken Books, 1975), p. 230. ~7 Elizabeth Kiibler-Ross, On Death and Dying (Touchstone, 1969, 1997). ~s Sheila Cassidy, Sharing the Darkness (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1991), p. 66. ~90'Flaherty, Grace, p. 17. :o O'Flaherty, Grace, p. 55. via dolorosa it is their sorrow I bear yet they will never know how they have been beaten like a hanging rug stripped bare they are unaware of their nakedness and this is their anguish to thirst and not know why to bleed and not see the wounds Lou Ella Hickman IWBS Review for Religious JENNIFER CONSTANTINE JACKSON Dreams in Prayer and Discernment /~lthe past forty years, writings on Christian spiritu-ity, particularly on prayer and discernment, have given renewed attention to dreams (Doran 498). This article elucidates some movements in this area of study and then invites spiritual directors and discerners to make use of them in Ignatian spirituality. Dreams represent a way of true responsiveness, especially for the laity, to the church's call to an authentic obedience, an obedience that is at all times discerning and fulfilling God's will in the world (Lumen gentium, §37). Some of the earliest contributions to this recent attention to dreams are John A. Sanford's Dreams: God's Forgotten Language (1968) and Morton Kelsey's Dreams: The Dark Speech of the Spirit (1968). The key insight that begins with these works is captured in 1978 in Kelsey's Dreams: A Way to Listen to God (p. 9) and again in 1991 in his reflections on his teaching at the University of Notre Dame: "As I listened to my dreams, I found a presence Jennifer Constantine Jackson, a teacher, is currently a student of theology and Ignatian spirituality. Her address is 333A Harvard Street, Apt. 1A; Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139. 66.1 2007 Jackson * Dreams in Prayer and Discernment wiser than I trying to guide me through my difficulties to wholeness, a wholeness that was possible only when I con-tinued to be in touch with the infinitely loving Holy One" (God, Dreams, and Revelation, p. 213). Dreams take place within one's relationship with God. They invite listening in a process that seems to be initiated and sustained not by the dreamer but by God. Kelsey says that the current ambiguous, even fearful attitude about dreams in Christian spirituality is very dif-ferent from that of the first millennium of Christianity: "The early Christian church viewed the dream as one of the most significant and most important ways in which God revealed his will to human beings . We find this view in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, and in the church fathers up to the time of Aquinas" (God, Dreams, p. 17). Kelsey and others cite many church fathers acknowledging dreams as helpful for growing in relation-ship with God. In his response to the Epicureans' denial of this possibility, Tertullian "specificallysuggested that dreams have various levels of interpretation, and finally he asked, 'Now, who is such a stranger to human experi-ence as not sometimes to have perceived some truth in dreams?'" (109). Kelsey also cites the fathers' reservations concerning dreams in the life of faith. Clement details what must be the formation of one who interprets dreams (106), Origen says that evil spirits can enter dreams (108), and Gregory emphasizes the dangers for those not aware of the illusory nature of dreams (142). It is clear from these cautionary words that there was a shared under-standing that dreams must be discerned within faith. Concerning attentiveness to the needs of Christians today, Kelsey's emphasis on "wholeness" seems to be echoed in The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality. In its entry on "dreams," James L. Empereur SJ cites "the sig-nificance of dream work for spirituality and personal inte- Review for Religious gration" as "based on the conviction that every dream is in the service of wholeness through the integration of the inner and outer lives" (296). At the close of Empereur's four-page entry, the reader still wonders how the "service of wholeness" intentionally involves a participation in the life of the Trinity on the part of those involved in the work of dreams. In Spirituality in Depth: Essays in Honor of Sister Irene Dugan RC, Michael Cooper SJ's reflections on "A Spirituality of Balance" provide some assistance. Cooper says: "At the end of the 'discourse of antitheses,' the Beatitudes in Matthew, Jesus sums up all he has just said by exhorting his disciples, 'You must, therefore, be perfect, just as your heavenly Abba is perfect (Mt 5:48)'" (57). Contrary to the "strict and demanding tone" that the Greek word telios has often taken on, Cooper says that "the actual Greek New Testament meaning of telios is whole, complete, balanced!" (57). Herein lies a key to actualizing "that divine balance which lies at the heart of his gospel call to relationship and discipleship" (59). Highlighting the early communities devoted to religious life in the church, Cooper shows how an attentiveness to dreams in a community's faith life could contribute to this "divine balance": The hermits--male and female--lived alone but never too far from each other, so that they could cry out and be heard in case of threat or illness. Because of the isolation and sensory deprivation, some underwent the equivalent of today's Jungian analysis as their dreams and halluci-nations brought their demons and forgotten memories to the surface. Those who survived this descent into their own netherworlds and who were deeply grounded in their own humanity and in their own Christian faith eventually gained renown as wisdom figures. Individuals would come out to the desert to seek spiritual counsel and often stayed for weeks or months as they pursued their own spiritual conversion. (59) 66.1 2007 Jackson ¯ Dreams in Prayer and Discernment For those committed to religious life in the first centuries of Christianity, the fruits of attentiveness to dreams could be pursued successfully only through grace and only if the purpose was life in Christ. As Kelsey notes, this very purpose brought St. TMr~se of Lisieux spiritual consola-tion through her own dream near the end of her short life (God, Dreams, 164). Are these matters relevant to Ignatian spiritual direc-tors and discerners today? In a 1979 series of lectures on For those committed. to religifus life in thee first centuries of Christi~nity)_ the fruits, of attent, iveness to dreams could.~be pursued, Successfully only through grace only, if the .purpose. was life in,Chris "Jungian psychology and contemporary Christian spiritual-ity," published in Review for Religious, Robert Doran SJ noted that, reserva-tions about Jungian psychology notwith-standing, "there is much that we not only can, but indeed must, learn [from Jung] in developing both a theology and an ascesis of spiri-tual transformation in the context of the contemporary world" (499). Working in the tradition of Bernard Lonergan SJ, and noting as well Karl Rahner sJ'S work in Ignatian spirituality, Doran provides an essential guide especially in the matter of dreams and discernment. Doran found himself more and more convinced that "a psychological understanding of the development and flow-ering of human affectivity., is pertinent to our spiritual self-understanding" (857). Both spirituality ("grace, the Review for Religious supernatural, self-denial, the following of Christ" [858]) and psychology are involved in the "realm of interiority," which is also the reahn of dreams and desire (500). "It is the task of spiritual theology," he says, "to mediate these two conceptual worlds [spirituality and psychology], the one with the other, by taking its stand in interior experi-ence, which is the dimension to which both sets of con-cepts refer if they are talking about anything real" (858). Doran emphasizes such a task because of what he has noticed as two severe problematic positions concerning the relation of spirituality and psychology. The first is "the reduction of spirituality to psychology" (857), and the second, "a tendency, once, perhaps, pronounced in Christian spirituality, [and] still to be found," divorces "spirituality from psychology so completely that discern-ment itself becomes impossible . Such an orientation, when put into practice, leads to a split consciousness and a compartmentalized life" (858). The tendency toward this second extreme, he thinks, is because of an ambiguity concerning, in particular, the work of Carl Jung. Here lies Doran's important contri-bution. He precisely identifies Jung's contributions to an Ignatian discernment of spirits, and he shows clearly where Jung failed to be true to his own scientific method. How Jung contributes to spirituality, he says, is rather by "helping us to recognize inordinate projections and disoriented affections, than in orienting us positively to the God of Christian faith and to Christ"; for, in this area of faith, "Jung, I find, is quite deficient, and his thought derails him from the appropriate orientation to the real-ity of God" (858). Doran emphasizes that, if it is clear where Jung's thought fails, Jung's con(ributions can be much more fruitfully employed. And so he elaborates with a special concern for how a false appropriation of Jung can seriously affect an authentic discernment of spirits: 66.1 2007 Jackson ¯ Dreams in Prayer and Discernment Jung's theological ambiguities, and the alternative inter-pretations and evaluations that are offered of his work, are symptomatic of an underlying spiritual conflict that can be mediated only in the context of the dialectic of grace and of sin, of the standards of Christ and of Satan. David Burrell has indicated correctly that one cannot fail to meet God if one goes on the inner journey to individuation. But one will also meet much that is not God and that is even opposed to God. Not only does Jung not help one to discriminate these forces as they operate in the psyche, but he also contributes to and even encourages the confusion that can be experienced in such moments that call for discernment, and thus mires one in the conflictual forces that wage an ultimate battle in the depths of one's psyche. Jung's work, if left uncriticized, leads one into a psychological cul-de-sac that can assume demonic proportions. (499) Jung sees the issue of good and evil as something to be reconciled within the self, rather than acknowledging that the problem of evil remains and is not within our capacity to resolve. The only. solution can come from redemption, and redemption can come only from God, and God's exis-tence, knowledge, ~nd goodness are offered to us to be accepted or rejected: If we accept it, [it] will involve us in a whole new area of growth and transformation, an area which we would not even know in any explicit way if God had not come to meet us. This distinct area of development is related to our cognitional and mora.1 development. It is not the product of our knowing and our choosing. It is not something that we vainly imagine, or that we produce by wishful thinking. Rather, it is offered to our knowl-edge and our freedom as a gift. (501) Our acceptance of this gift means we are in the realm of "faith, which Lonergan defines as 'the eye of love,' the eye of the love that is ours, that is the atmosphere in which we live, when we know ourselves as uncondition- Review for Religious ally loved by, and rooted in, the love that is God's alone" (501). Any true attentiveness to dreams must take place in this context, where, as Rahner knew well in the tradition of Aquinas, "even in the direct vision of God, God will remain for us an incomprehensible mystery" (858). Now more than ever in history, says Doran with Rahner and Lonergan in the tradition of Ignatius, Christians long to see God and to know that God is the mystery that engulfs them and also to know what they are knowing and feeling. This, says Doran, involves not only self-transcendence, "an accepting of God's offer of both salvation and vocation," but also self-appropriation, which "is a matter of self-knowledge, of self-discovery, of self-understanding" in this acceptance (504) and which also constitutes for the Christian a commitment to prayer and discernment. He says that some factors of modern life make this self-appropriation necessary. His reason for seeing dreams as an important component in prayer and discernment, especially the discernment of spirits, is that they involve feelings, and, applying Lonergan's thought in the tradition of Ignatius, he says: To name one's feelings is to discover the dynamic images, the symbols, that are associated with them. To have insight into one's feelings is to understand the symbolic association. To tell one's stoW is to narrate the course of one's elemental symbolizing. And where does one's elemental symbolizing occur in its purest form, untainted by the biases that, in waking life, can lead us to distort our stow? The place . . . is in our dreams. It is in the dream that we first are conscious, and it is in the dream that we find a "stow" going for-ward that we cannot distort without being aware that we are doing so. If we want to know our "story"--the story of insight, the story of judgment, the stoW of decision, and the stoW of prayer--we can find it in our dreams. There is a psychic conversion that puts us into contact with that stoW. It affects us deeply once it has 66.1 2007 Jackson ¯ Dreams in Prayer and Discernment occurred. For it enables us to judge ourselves in our waking life as authentic or inauthentic in our pursuit of understanding, in our seeking of truth, in our decisions, and in our search for God. (510) Dreams offer one way of being attentive to this mystery that is God. The dreams from the lives of the saints come to mind, and their careful, caring, detached attentiveness to them serves as a model for all Christians committed to a life of prayer and discernment. Since a way is clear for an authentic use of Jung's con-tributions concerning dreams, how such contributions can be employed in the service of prayer and discern-ment should be regularly considered and shared. Maureen Dreams offeron way of being at tentiVe . to this mystery that i God.:. Conroy RSM attends to this question and begins to answer it (by reflect-ing on anima and animus in relation to desolation) in the final pages of her book where she reflects on contemporary issues in the ministry of spiri-tual direction (236-238). First and perhaps most important in aiding "the soul to rid itself of all inordinate attach-ments" (SpEx ~5), dreams can invite people to notice whether anything other than God is at the center of their life. Dreams brought to discernment can serve as personal parables, offered intimately by the Lord for the discerner to explore. Conroy gives instances where discerners on their own initiative mentioned dreams in speaking of their prayer difficulties. In one case, the dream helped the discerner realize that she was "playing God" by try-ing to control the events of her life at the time (182-183). In another case, the dreamer felt wounded by someone he may have been trying to substitute for God, a situa- Review for Religious tion causing unrecognized angers inside him (232). Both Conroy and William Barry SJ (God and You, 52-53) note that such emotions can block prayer. The dreams, then, would be ways that the Holy Spirit invites us to bring our lives to Christ. Kelsey reminds us that dreams come as "receptions"; in the New Testament, visitations are generally received with some fear--and with the message "Don't be afraid" (173). Dreams may offer the gift of spiritual consolation. In the final chapter of his Weeds among the Wheat, Thomas Green SJ describes a woman's dream after the death of her husband, a dream that is clearly a spiritual consolation for her (163-164). In the "afterglow" of the consolation, "it seemed to her that this experience of God's love, of confident hope in bereavement, could not be merely for herself alone, and that it must be the Lord's intention that she write about it and thus provide hope and strength to others similarly bereaved" (165). As Kelsey recounts the dream of St. Thdr~se of Lisieux (God, Dreams, 164), it is clear that her dream, too, was a gift of consolation from the Lord. Dreams can beg contemporary pray-ers to be listen-ers. Attending to dreams requires making time for listen-ing, and, in a culture where people are not easily "hit over the head" with Scripture (Shannon 8), dreams can teach us how to be more receptive to God's word. "Authentic silence," Shannon says, "is pregnant with words that will be born at the right time" (3). Authentic listening is con-nected to authentic vision; both are arts we need to cul-tivate if we wish to be open to the Holy Spirit. As Jules Toner SJ says in his commentary on being open to the Holy Spirit in the Spiritual Exercises, "there is a factor in openness to the Holy Spirit which . . . is closely related to readiness to seek counsel . Sometimes, even with-out our noticing it, one or other of [our] prejudgments 66.1 2007 Jackson ¯ Dreams in Prayer and Discernment 28 can play a major role in blinding us to the evidence for the decision to which the Holy Spirit is leading us" (96). Being open to the "evidence" of our dreams, and pray-ing for this openness, are authentic ways of becoming genuine listeners and persons of vision in every aspect of our lives. Dreams also can teach us to trust in the Lord. With dreams as with other data from our lives that we bring to discernment or direction, there are times when we simply cannot see and do not have the answers. The data of a dream may simply be too confusing or unclear. At these times discerners must wait and trust in the Lord. A renewed attention to dreams in Christian prayer and discernment is a way of true responsiveness, especially for laypersons, to the church's call to an authentic obedience. Thomas Green says that "religious congregations' ideas of common life and obedience have often been distorted in such a way as to canonize the annihilation of personality" (38). In our day, prayerful exploring of dreams may be unique expressions of the life of the Spirit in the church. This can be a new way for the laity to participate more integrally in the life of the church, a wonderful oppor-t- unity for a new level of sharing gifts. At the same time, we continue to be called to greater participation in the life of Christ, who Willingly took the cross so that we might share in his resurrection. If a greater attentiveness to dreams in prayer and discernment is going to achieve anything, may it be to give greater glory to God through a radical participation in the life of him who gave himself for us. Bibliography Barry, William A., SJ. God and You: Prayer as a Personal Relationship. New York: Paulist, 1987. Conroy, Maureen, RSM. The Discer~ting Heart: Discovering a Personal God. Chicago: Loyola, 1993. Review for Religious Cooper, Michael, SJ. "A Spirituality of Balance." In Spirituality in Depth: Essays in Honor of Sister h'ene Dugan RC, ed. Avis Clendenen. New York: Chiron Publications, 2004. Doran, Robert M., SJ. "Jungian Psychology and Christian Spirituality: I, II, and III." Review for Religious 38 (1979): 497-510, 742-752, and 857-866 respectively. Empereur, James L., SJ. "Dreams." In The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality, ed. Michael Downey. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1993. Green, Thomas H., SJ. Weeds among the Wheat--Disce~vm~ent: Where Prayer and Action Meet. Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1984. Kelsey, Morton T. God, Dreams, and Revelation: A Christian Interpretation of Dreams. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1991. Shannon, William A. Seeking the Face of God. New York: Crossroad, 1988. Toner, Jules, sJ. Discerning God's Will: Ignatius of Loyola's Teaching on Christian Decision Making. St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1991. Reflection/Discussion Questions 1. What does it mean for me to listen to my dreams? 2. Have I had the experience of a dream influencing a significant change or decision in my life? What were the circumstances? 3. Can I relate to the statement "Dreams may offer the gift of spiritual consolation"? If so, let me review the experience. 66.1 2007 RENEE MIRKES Confessions of a Franciscan Ethicist perspectives Confessions are never easy. Typically, the stage is set by a .collage of eye-openers. In my case, the events that propelled me headlong into this pub-lic disclosure are interlaced with the common thread of what-it-means-to-be-a-Franciscan. First, some while ago, a new acquaintance of mine innocently asked, with clearly spoken ital-ics, "So, what's it like to be a Franciscan ethi-cist?" Second, for the last fifteen years or more I, together with all the members of my religious congregation, have been encouraged to immerse myself in, and be formed by, not only the ideals and vision of St. Francis of Assisi, but also the eponymous religious tradition fathered by him. And, third, while reading several months ear-lier Cardinal Ratzinger's 1996 address critiqu-ing moral relativism, I was revisited by an old uneasiness.~ I kept asking myself: Are you suffer- Ren6e Mirkes OFS, a Franciscan" Sister of Christian Charity, is ethics director at Paul Vl Institute; 6901 Mercy Road; Omaha, Nebraska 68106. Review for Religious ing from some kind of Franciscan schizophrenia or what? My difficulty, in a nutshell, was this. From one side, I was perfectly at peace with the fact that new pope's exposition confirmed me in the way I help my clients, students, and readers to identify the fallacies of moral subjecfivism. But, from another side, I was unsettled by realizing that my way, like the pope's, was not Franciscan in approach but Dominican and Thomistic. The first incident urges me to confess--t0 acknowl-edge- that until I was questioned I honestly never thought of making a practical connection between being an ethicist and being a Franciscan. The second experience encourages me to confess--t0 declare my si,l or failing--that I have dragged my feet when expressly recalling how Franciscan spirituality actually shapes the here-and-now manner in which I "do" ethics. The third episode prompts me to confess--t0 admit my belief--that Franciscans and Dominicans can learn a .lot from each other, specifically from the charisms of their respective traditions. For the details of this tripartite confession (and a summary critique of moral relativism to boot), I invite you to read on. I confess that I previously neglected to give seri-ous thought to whether my being a Franciscan could affect my ethics work. Learning from the lessons of life is a lot about making connections. And making con-nections is all about understanding what things mean. Before facing the question I began.with, I confess that "Franciscan" is not on.e of the adjectives I routinely used to describe my avocation. I was a Catholic ethicist; I was a Christia~? philosopher; I was an ethicist who is a vowed re/igio~ts. But I had just not taken that seemingly small step toward saying--and comprehending what it means to say--that I am a Francisca~z ethicist. In other words, before I did some careful analysis of the matter, being a 66.1 2007 Mirkes ¯ Confessions of a Franciscan Ethicist Franciscan was just a footnote of, rather than organically related to, my work as a vowed religious ethicist. So, wittingly or unwittingly, the questioner forced me to confront a real hiatus in my thinking and action. Why did I fail to connect the dots of being a Christian, an ethicist, and a Franciscan? The longer I thought about it, the more deeply convinced I became that the crux of my problem was not a rift between my avocation and vocation but my intellectual failure to link my Christian and consecrated-life vocations to my Franciscan calling. I was letting my Franciscan identity wither, and so it was not having its full effect on my life and apostolic work. Lacking attention from me, it was overshadowed by my Christian and religious vocations, becoming a dim sem-blance of what it should have been. Suddenly all those instructions I had received before and during my formation began flowing through my mind. To live as a Franciscan is to respond to Christ's call to follow him, to follow the universal call to holiness, the call I received at my baptism, the call to live and think with the church. To be a Franciscan sister is to incarnate the gospel life that inspired Francis to total discipleship through the vows: ."go and sell," "take nothing along," and "deny yourself." Hence, distinct but interrelated com-ponents simultaneously guide my following of Christ. I have dedicated myself to the evangelical call to holiness, to the long church tradition that draws on prayer and the authentic sources of Christian spirituality, on the recent instructions of the church on the vowed life, and on the particular lifestyle proposed by St. Francis of Assisi. There it was: the proper frame within which I could think anew about being Franciscan in my work as a Christian ethicist. And, for me, seeing Franciscan identity against its proper background was to understand, as if for the first time, its close relationship to my Christian and Review for Religious consecrated vocations. Within this frame, I understood why being a Franciscan is essential in my avocation, my vowed life's apostolic mission to be a Catholic ethicist. I confess that I had never given serious thought to the manner in which being Franciscan did, does, and will affect the way I do ethics. I am confessing here my past failure to explicitly recall the leaven of Franciscan values in the dough of my apostolic service. You see, I had forgotten to note their here-and-now effect, not so much on the content and method of my profes-sional activities, but on the style, manner, and spirit in which I do my work. Once I had explicitly adverted to that leaven, however, I realized I had here a virtu- '.tion on.,[rn .,iFra ci can Values ever more ous circle. Frequent meditation on my Franciscan values fostered an ever more Franciscan self. The more spirited my Franciscan heart, the greater likelihood its values-- continual conversion, poverty, humble "minority," and prayer--would be evident to those I serve.2 First, take the Franciscan charism of pove~-ty. Where every consecrated religious takes vows to live as the poor, chaste, and obedient Christ lived, followers of Francis embrace his special love for poverty. Note that, for il Poverello (the little poor one), poverty was a code word for living the gospel. As such, the vow encompassed not merely being monetarily and materially poor but also the more demanding challenge of imitating the kenosis, the radical self-emptying, of Jesus. For Franciscans, then, special esteem for the vow of poverty means asking for the grace to be formed into the image of the Servant- Lord who washed the feet of his disciples and gave up his 66.1 2007 Mirkes ¯ Confessions of a Franciscan Etbicist life out of love for sinners. For this Franciscan, then, the ethics consults that are "baked in the cake" of my every-day service afford me the precious gift of correcting and encouraging, praying with and, yes, sometimes sharing a good cry with, my clients, moving them ever more surely, moral choice by moral choice, toward their ultimate end of the Good. I frequently remind those who consult me that, because their love of the Truth and the Good is so profound, our exchange puts me in their debt. Indeed, these consultations provide me and them the double blessing of serving Christ in each other. Second, while every religious order requires its mem-bers to conform to Christ by living virtuously, Francis put humilit.y at the top of his list. Imitating Francis, I am called to give first place to the truth about myself as well as my abilities. The former lets me see that God can sing through this poor instrument as long as it is emptied of self; the latter helps me to know that all is gift. While it is true that God has blessed me with the ability to inspire people in their pursuit of the Good, I pray that my being a Franciscan shines through in the way I respond to acco-lades. After a lecture, for example, I always, but always, turn people to the real source of their inspiration: "Oh, I am so pleased you were moved by the truth of Humanae vitae! Isn't it a powerful document?" or "I see that the wisdom and holiness of Edith Stein really spoke to you. Thank God for the living witness of his saints." Third, all religious congregations encourage living in community as an explicit way to serve fellow religious and strengthen them in their service of the larger society. But Francis wanted friars and sisters to be minores, persons who lived together and claimed no special rule or domi-nation or power over anyone. Striving for that attitude as an ethics consultant, lecturer, and teacher, I provide knowledge and advice not in an imperative or domineer- Review for Religious ing way, not in a manner that makes nay moral authority felt, but in a way that appeals to the freedom and dignity of others. In doing so, I reflect and "preach" the value of "minority" by being submissive to those I serve for the sake of God. Fourth, where the church has always encouraged reli-gious to a deep conversion and self-emptying, St. Francis insisted that penance/continual conversion take primacy of place in the mindset and practice of his followers. Pursuant to a Franciscan vocation, the disposition of metanoia means letting one-self be totally cap-tured by Christ. It means unremitting movement toward the Good and avoid-ance of evil. These are the very desires I continually try to foster in those I serve. Frequently I exhort couples, "You will be tempted to give up, to cease wanting to convert to the Lord in the midst of challenging procreative issues. But resist the quick fix 'solutions' of contraception, ster-ilization, abortion, and IVF. The trade-off for expediency in these matters is an attenuated spousal relationship, a weakened family bond, and lost opportunities to lay down one's life for the other out of love." Finally, from his lived experience of the gospel, Francis understood that love must include mission. To demonstrate this he turns our attention to Mary, the per-fect disciple. Francis's way of being Marian was to emu-late the boundless love of Mary for her Son, love which flowed into the spiritual and corporal works of mer#. . Francis God ~ombats evil through holy~,-rn~n and: women, ~ ,.~.aro~gh tho~ who are dedicated 66.1 2007 Mirkes ¯ Confessions of a Franciscan Etbicist encourages every follower of his to frequently recall the scene of Mary standing beneath the cross, standing in the center of the struggle between good and evil, reminding all--but especially a female Franciscan ethicist like me-- that God combats evil through holy men and women, through those who are dedicated to instructing the ignorant by teaching morality. I confess my belief that today's moral climate requires me to morph into a hybrid ethicist: a Franciscan-Thomist. Recall that my uneasiness with the pope's response to moral relativism was largely because his position--and mine--were in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition rather than in the Franciscan tradition. If we had sought a Franciscan answer, it would have come from Bonaventure or his theological successors, Duns Scotus or William of Ockham. Had these men fought a heresy of relativism in their day, they would characteristically have appealed to a voluntarist solution. That is, the best way to avoid the errors of relativism comes from the Platonic way of understanding universal truth, namely, participation in innate ideas. In sum, to avoid the intellectual pride all too easily associated with philosophical speculation, these Franciscan theologians would have insisted that people do best by simply submitting their wills to the universal moral truth brokered by the church's magisterium. The Franciscan/Augustinian solution to moral relativism, then, would not have included rational arguments that yield a reason why people should submit their wills to the church's objective moral teaching.3 Against this background, I take personal solace from a central theme of the pope's theology (which is Augustinian, after all): the need to return to reason as a first step in combating moral relativism. The pope proposes, not naked reason, but reason purified by faith--or clarified by the God who is Logos, who is reason and the Word. A Review for Religious faith that opens people to the living God "liberates reason from its blind spots" so it can be "more fully itself.''4 Implicit in Benedict xvI's critique of relativists--those who contend that judgments about good or bad, right or wrong, are time-and-circumstance matters of personal opinion--is his reliance on Aquinas's philosophical vision of human nature and its transcultural basic needs.5 Since all persons unhampered by ideology, bias, or intellectual sloth can see that these natural needs/goods apply to every human being irrespective of time and culture, they should also agree that these goods ought always be pursued and honored and never denied or suppressed. With these objective human goods in mind, one can set up a series of syllogisms whose conclusions define them as objectively true and universally normative--employ-ing a first premise that has the certitude of self-evident truth and a second premise that cites an observed datum about human nature.6 The following example focuses on the human good of life. First premise: self-evidently, all human beings ought to do all those things and only those things that are really good for them. Second premise: as experience demonstrates, being alive is really good for human beings. Conclusion: every human being ought to seek life and vitality. When we apply this syllogistic argument to other human goods such as wealth, family, procreation, friends, society, play, and the higher goods of wisdom, worship, and contemplation, a set of goods emerges that is not relativist, that is, good for this or that person because of his or her desires or cultural pref-erences, but objectivist and universal, that is, good for all human beings whatever the time and circumstances. Furthermore, since all human beings have a right to this set of real goods, they also have a duty to require legisla-tures and judiciaries to enact and uphold laws forbidding their destruction or suppression. 66.1 2007 Mirkes * Confessions of a Franciscan Ethicist Pope Benedict XVI understands why a Dominican and Thomist solution to moral relativism is the way to go. It offers a discussion matrix within which to address the many fellow pilgrims of his who, by dint of being mari-nated in the skepticism and moral relativism of our day, require cogent persuasiveness for submitting to universal moral norms. And so I must be Aristotelian and Thomist in the content of my moral methods, all the while endeav-oring to have the Franciscan spirit shine through the way I do ethics.7 To conclude, then, I need only repeat my opening statement: "Confessions are never easy." But I can honestly add that this tripartite confession has con-tributed mightily to the lived mission of this Christian, religious, and F~:anciscan ethicist. Notes ~ Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, "Relativism: The Central Problem for Faith Today," available through http://www.ewtn.com. See also The Ratzhlger Repo~7 (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1985); Priuciples of Christian Morality (Ignatius Press, German 1975, English 1986); Without Roots (New York: Basic Books, 2006), and Values in a Time of Upheaval (Ignatius Press, 2006). 2 For an historical analysis of Franciscan charisms, I recommend an article by Raffaele Pazzelli TOR on Franciscan spirituality at www.fran-ciscanfriarstor. com/vocations. Mso the commentary at another section of the same website: www.franciscanfriarstor.com/resources. -~In the 13th century, the Dominican Albert the Great produced vast commentaries on Aristotle. In them Albert took full account of the work of the great Aristotelian translator and commentator Averroes (Ibn Rushd), while not neglecting to cgrrect his anti-Christian errors, hnportantly, Mbert began to clarify, why Aristotle criticized Plato. The latter had a dualistic notion of the human person that made a correct theory of the human body impossible. It was, however, only with Albert's pupil Thomas Aquinas that this point was fully developed. Unfortunately, Aquinas's work got confused with Averroism in the list of propositions condemned by the archbishop of Paris in 1277. As a result the Franciscans thought it best to retain their dedication to St. Augustine and to minimize the influ-ence of philosophy on theology. This is evident in the great works of St. Bonaventure, who tended to think of philosophy as a pagan tradition and Review for Religious strove to keep theology free of the errors of that tradition. Later Blessed John Duns Scotus and V~illiam of Ockham made more use of Aristotle, hut still remained skeptical of the power of human reason. Consequently--and tragically--the Franciscan and Dominican traditions were never recon-ciled. Ockham became a Nominalist and finally schismatic, and his distrust of reason to prove the existence of God was basic to Luther's thought and the split in the church brought about in the Protestant Reformation. 4 Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, §29. SMortimer Adler, Adler's Philosophical Dictionary (New York: Touchstone Books, 1995), p. 13. Perhaps the most egregious example of judicial moral relativism is encapsulated in the opinion of Justice Anthony Kennedy in Planned Parenthood v. Casey: "At the heart of liberty, is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of the meaning of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." (' Mortimer Adler, Ten Philosophical Mistakes (New York: Touchstone Books, 1985), p. 126. Y The Franciscan tradition has made great theological contributions to the church: the understanding of the doctrine of Mary's Assumption, St. Bonaventure's reflection of the Trinity. in creation, remarkable advances in natural science in the 14th and 15th centuries, and influential tracts on spirituality. On the other hand, as regards the theology of the body and virtue theory in ethics, the Dominican Thomas Aquinas has been con-stantly praised as the Common Doctor of the church. Since I work princi-pally in bioethics, I use his contribution and assimilate it to my Franciscan tradition in a harmonious, and not merely eclectic way. I encourage more Franciscans to do research in this field. Franciscan humility, it seems to me, demands as much. 66.1 2007 COLLEEN MARY MALLON Reclaiming Hope, Recovering Dialogue To recent experiences frame my reflection on pe in a global world. Recently, as part of a theo-logical update program for our diocese, I spoke on the Spirit and the chui'ch, focusing on themes that emerge from Yves Congar's great work I Believe in the Holy Spirit. Following the presentations, a number of the participants told of having new sources of hope opened up to them. I, too, was struck by the longing of these faith-filled minis-ters to connect to a vital and vibrant hope, to be deeply, ecclesia@ alive in the Spirit, and to share that life with others. There were charisms in that room that, wisely nurtured and supported, could set the diocese ablaze with the Spirit. Clearly, the desert is seeded; with more water, what a riot of flowers there would be. My second experience comes from St. John's University in New York, where I teach the introductory Colleen Mary Mallon OP first presented this essay as a talk on 21 April 2006 at Molloy College's Women of Spirit symposium. She is assistant professor of theology and religious studies at St. John's University; 8000 Utopia Parkway; Jamaica, New York 11439. Review for Religious course in theology. Early in the semester the students discuss Marcus Borg's explication of religious faith. Borg speaks about faith as assensus, intellectual affirmation, fiducia, complete trust, fidelitas, loyalty, and visio, how a person perceives the world from the perspective of faith.~ In each class the difficulty is not faith as trust or loyalty; it is faith as vision. Their vision of faith is stymied by the suffering, the struggle, and the pain that they encounter in the world. At best they hold a cautious hope that God might be at work in it all, but for most of them we live in a thoroughly indifferent universe. The fundamental faith/ hope in a gracious universe is all but nonexistent. These experiences press me to reexamine my own sources and senses of hope. With what theological visio do I see the present moment? How do I bear witness to gospel hope in these times: war in Iraq, worldwide trafficking of women and children, irruption of sectar-ian violence, the ever escalating divide between the have-mores and have-nots, the continuation of white privilege. And, closer to the bone, how do I claim a gospel hope in a church beset by the scandals of abuse and neglect, by clericalism, and by the antipathies of diverse members of the Body of Christ. My search for a response to these questions brought me back into the work and thinking of the French Dominican theologian and ecclesiologist Yves Congar. His experience of intense social, political, and ecclesial upheaval tempered his own sober confidence in the church as the continuing event of Jesus Christ in the world. I believe his perspective brings gospel hope and historical reality into a fertile, albeit tensive, dynamic. He and other French Dominicans contributed in no small way to the refashioning of theology in the 20th century. Their pertinence to wise theological vision in a global world is not to be overlooked. Using a feminist methodology which asserts that 66.1 2007 Mallon ¯ Reclaiming Hope, Recovering Dialogue "God is be discovered in human experience," let us look at the hungers and obstacles that we face at this time both as individuals and as members of a diverse and complex Christian tradition.2 Seeking what the Divine Presence desires of us at this time is, I believe, the very stuff of engaged discipleship. Discerning how contradictions and struggles mark our ecclesial experiences calls for both vir-rue and skill. I propose that the virtue is hope and that the skills include practices and behaviors that witness to our hope and even expand the horizon of our own gospel faith. If we listen carefully to what lies beneath our experiences so as to attend to the Mystery--infinitely beyond and yet intimately present to our present--we may encounter, even in "the incomplete" and "the lack," a power and a grace worthy of our freedom. I want to sketch a little more thoroughly thesigns of these global times and then turn to Yves Congar for his theological vision, for how it may inspire hope in the church today. The Signs of These Global Times There is no lack of scholarly analysis of globalization and the religious questions that emerge from the unprec-edented movement of people, ideas, and commodities.3 I want to look at the challenges that living in "glocal" presents.4 The anthropologist Roland Robertson uses the term "glocal" for the juncture where the global and local meet.5 Our contemporary experience of this global-local situation is a significant historical factor in our lives today. This is where we discern signs of the times and make decisions as disciples of Jesus. The theologian David Tracy is famous for the claim that we live in an age that cannot name itself.6 Our global-human existence contains such conflicting world-views that no one way, no single story, can hold us as a human family. Moreover, the very stories that perceive Review for Religious individuals and communities in significant patterns have become mobile. Peoples once geographically distinct are now mixing, interacting, and living in patterns that may be completely foreign to their nextdoor neighbor. Sociologists and anthropologists tell us that we, as global residents, are experiencing "flows" of people, resources, and information in ways never before experienced on the planet.7 Dual factors, media and migration, cause the global experience of compression and expansion? We experience global compression whenever we become aware of the nar-rowed space between once distant geographic entities. Exotic strangers now live close to each other in global cities that have drawn peoples together for a host of different reasons: as tourists, as migrant workers, as refugees, as executive elites. Globalization is reshaping our economic, political, and cultural worlds, and this brings a variety of ways of perceiving and evaluating the production of today's tech-nologically sophisticated societies.9 The flow of the classic Enlightenment notions of "democracy," "freedom," and "sovereignty" into new global spaces stirs in them new instances of these Western ideas. What would "democ-racy" look like for women'in a predominantly Shiite Iraq? What does the "sovereignty" of a Palestinian state, led by a newly elected Hamas government, mean for the established national states of the world? In truth, there is no longer one kind of modernity; many modernities are competing around the globe.~° These observations point to the growing tension between the global and the local which Roland Robertson describes as the "contemporary manifestation of the universal-particular dilemma.''~1 We 66.1 2007 Mallon ¯ Reclaiming Hope, Recovering Dialogue live in a world where we truly grasp universals (such as freedom, peace, prosperity) only in particular instances. And there seems to be no end of particulars; we keep discovering uniqueness, singularities, and individualities. We have come to accept, in a sense, one universal: that there are limitless particularities.~2 As Christians we recognize something of this dilemma in the wide range of our ecclesial experiences: the rise of local, base communities of gospel reflection, the renewed focus on particular denominational identities (what does it mean to be a Catholic college or university or hospital?), young people's search for their Christian identity, the rise of religious fundamentalism. Even the concerns regarding the proper role of local episcopal conferences expresses this global-local tension. The question of subsidiarity and collegiality is a much different question today than it was forty years ago at Vatican II. The experience of great diversity raises new questions about the "taken-for-grantedness" of the underlying unity of humanity. Various interpretative frameworks and femi-nist, postcolonial, and postmodern sensibilities foster a new global consciousness of "the other" and "difference." Indigenous stories, newly valorized, emerge on the global scene and inspire local resistance to ideas from outside; these "new primordialisms," freshly reshaped and refash-ioned cultural identities, whet deep appetites for mean-ing and consequence that seemingly transcend, for some people, their own existence.~3 Suicide bombers testify in ways we never expected to the power of meaning in human lives. Disconnected in their storied worlds from wider significance, people become anxious, aggravated, even deadly. New claims for authoritative traditions raise all sorts of questions about identity and symbols and whether our belonging to a particular group prohibits other kinds of Review for Religious belonging. It is in these particularisms that we often expe-rience the tensions of our ecclesial life. Can I be a Catholic and a Democrat? Can I be a feminist and "pro-life"? Like the world we are inescapably a part of, our ecclesial iden-tifies feel the pressure of the global-local predicament and challenges to past certitudes. As these new horizons open, our shared understandings of the gospel cross over into disputed spaces of lived experiences. Within those spaces there appears to be diminishing tolerance among us. Our particular community niche imposes limits on both our imaginations and our practices of tolerance. Many within the church find it increasingly difficult to engage in civil conversations across the wide diversity of perspectives. As the theologian Joseph Komonchak noted in an address to the Catholic Common Ground Initiative, "to judge from a few Internet discussions., many Catholics could learn a thing or two about elementary courtesy, about how to listen and how to speak, about give and take.''14 What hope can we have for a truly "catholic" future when our practice of dialogue mirrors the enclave mentality of our global world? Yves Congar's Incarnational Approach What might a thoroughly 20th-century, white, European, friar-preacher and theologian offer in support of hope in these times? Congar's incarnational, historical approach to theology certainly contributed to the theol-ogy in his day. Early in his theological vocation, Congar understood that he was called to serve the unity of a pain-fully divided Christian community.is Within this call grew his conviction that the dominant mode of doing theology was unnecessarily abstract and all too disconnected from the lives of ordinary people.16 His approach to theology developed from his fraternal relationships with Marie Dominic Chenu and Henri Ma]'ie Feret. Living and 66.1 2007 Mallon * Reclaiming Hope, Recovetqng Dialogue teaching at the French Dominican studium Le SaulchoiT; these three Dominicans plotted the demise of what they called "baroque theology." Congar recalls a particular day when they conceived of a research project on the history of theology. One day, chatting at the entrance of the old Saulchoi,; we found ourselves in profound accord--at once intel-lectual, vital, and apostolic--on the idea of undertaking a "liquidation of baroque theology." This was a moment of intense and total spiritual union . It was not a question of producing something negative: the rejections were only the reverse of aspects that were more positive. One day the balance will be drawn up, but already the positive quality can be sensed. What would a little later be called "ressourcement" was then at the heart of our efforts. It was not a matter either of mechanically replac-ing some theses by other theses or creating a "revolu-tion" but of appealing, as P4guy says, from one tradition less profound to another more profound.~7 This historical approach, learned at Le Saulchoh" and prac-ticed throughout his life, allowed Congar to develop a theology that was more deeply rooted in revelation and at the same time open to the pressing questions of the 20th century.~s It is Congar's approach to revelation that I believe is a critical point of departure. Many theologians regard Congar as the foremost expert on the Christian tradition, and anyone engaged in a theology of tradition cannot pro-ceed without Congar. Some contemporary scholars have noted that, while Congar's view of tradition is stunningly comprehensive, it lacks a necessary attention to the way in which meaning and power are inexorably intertwined. One theologian calls Congar's approach highly idealistic.~9 I have wrestled with this critique because, in some sense, it is a legitimate one. Clearly, Congar missed the post-modern critique of power/knowledge, and his very small Review for Religious reflections on women in relation to ministry and God-language betray his incomplete grasp of feminist concerns and questions.2° I do believe, however, that Congar's intu-ition concerning revelation and history is still significant because it is a profoundly catholic intuition. By this I mean that part of Congar's genius is his confi-dence in the fertile ground found at the intersection of the gospel and the ultimate concerns of people. As I read his theological project, I believe that the starting point of the-ology for Congar is the God-human relationship. Only in and through this relation-ship is knowledge of God possible: a relationship initiated and realized in history, in specific bodies, within unique and diverse human cultures. To make the God-human relation-ship the starting point ointp theologyfor Congar is the ,;, !GOd h :r an Telationship. of theology is to refuse to dissolve the tension between transcendence and immanence; it is, in fact, to claim that tension is integral to our graced existence in this world, in these bodies, at this time in history. I believe that this is a remarkable source of hope for us today. The mind-numb-ing, spirit-quenching materialism of much of our world has laid us low. Our own mystery as beings-made-for-love-and- truth is threatened by the pervasive consumerism that warps our sense of what it means to be human and happy. Our wishes are marketed to us as needs, things we lack are represented to us as inalienable rights, our unwise choices are blindly considered joys of freedom. The God-human Relationship To make the God-human relationship the starting point of our reflection is to reclaim both history and mys- 66.1 2007 Mallon ¯ Reclaiming Hope, Recovering Dialogue tery, and to do so in a way that is not naively romantic nor overconfident either, overreaching our finitude as crea-tures. If we allow materialism to flatten our perceptions, we lose the .meanings and values that animate our worlds of sight and sound, the very worlds through which the Divine Life communicates. In the words of Congar, "the regenerative power that will finally operate is already at work in our world, transiently, precariously, fragmentarily, and generally unperceived.''2~ This power is nothing less than the life of God poured out so that all may have life in its fullness (Jn 10:10). The "good news" manifest in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus makes explicit this divine intention for all creation, overcoming every possible alienation, division, obstacle, and separation. For Congar, this is the heart of the incarnation. God's involvement with creation is utterly personal and pro-foundly existential. "God is not the 'eternal celibate of the centuries,' but love and goodness," who creates beings "animate[d] . . . with a movement and., a desire that is an echo in them of [God's] own desire . . . revealed to us as [God's] spirit.''22 48 The Gift and Task of Discipleship For Congar, we cannot speak properly of the human outside the graced relationship that has called all creation into existence for the divine purposefulness that is agapic love. To be human is to have as gift what grace alone brings to completion.23 For Christians, the deepest, truest realization of the project called "humanity" is in receiving the embrace of a Trinity-imbued life; nothing less than the Word and the Spirit continue to effect the fulfillment of "all things in God.''24 And this fulfillment is not some-thing abstract or ethereal. "The Spirit makes it possible for us to know, recognize, and experience Christ. This is not simply a doctrinal statement. It is an existential reality Review for Religious which comes from a gift and involves us in our lives.''2s Our lives, lived Godward, immerse us in the Christian mystery that is simultaneously a gift received and a task entrusted. For Congar, the gift character of Christian life lies in Jesus' mystery becoming our mystery.-'6 Our immer-sion into Christ makes us new creation, or, as Joseph Komonchak says, "Faith discloses a new world of great depth and breadth and a new self within it.''27 In a global world where the media and the Internet hawk lifescripts to eager, vulnerable consumers, we must not lose sight of the liberating gift disclosed in Jesus; we must never forget Jesus' attractiveT~ess. Through his life, death, and resurrection, we encounter the agapic love that alone is worthy of our freedom. Moreover, we touch upon what Gustavo Gutidrrez has called the first step of all theo-logical reflection: adoration.28 The gift character of our discipleship opens us to God's utterly gratuitous love for all creation. Our only adequate response is the searingly silent gratitude of the mystic heart. To be found by this love is to find ourselves in a new relationship with all of reality, and to allow it to govern our existence both individually and communally, as both mystery and history. The gift given in revelation and received in our very being discloses to us the potential within all creation. We can only know a small part of this all-surpassing gift, but the task entrusted to us, to realize the potential of our graced existence, is of utmost importance for humanity. Our global-local world teaches us that particularity counts, that only in the bodies and histories and cultures of actual, unique persons can the transformation of the whole happen. The gift inspires the task. The gift of God's agapic love points and directs us towards the places where mercy, peace, justice, and reconciliation ache to be realized. Our 66.1 2007 Mallon ¯ Reclaiming Hope, Recovering Dialogue hope does not lie in some perfect world without the great risks that our freedom in history poses. Our hope lies in our unflinching reliance on the gift of the Spirit as we humbly and confidently put our freedom at the service of in some perfect wqrld without the great risks our freedom in history po eS.- the Love that has called us into existence. We recognize today, more than any other time, just how difficult that is. Our freedoms are conditioned by diverse worlds of meaning, some of which do not easily or comfortably coexist. We acknowledge an exasperating pluralism: global technologies that isolate just as much as they bridge. What ways of being disciples might help our hope and deepen Love's grasp, of our lives? Can diverse Christian reflections on the meaning of Jesus speak to each other? Can we practice curiosity and abstain from obstinate judgments? To imagine our discipleship as gift and task in a global world demands, I believe, a new asceticism that curbs our penchant to overindulge in communities of like-mindedness, that calls us to be different from nar-rowly framed groups around us, that calls us to the hard work of dialogical communion, expressed in new practices of ecclesial hospitality. The Task of Dialogical Communion There are behaviors and skills that can show widely that "the regenerating power that will finally operate is already at work in our world." There are disciplines that, if embraced, can witness to human life as dialogical communion. The diversity of the cosmos is authored and authorized by the Source of all life, in whose Mystery Review for Religious diversity poses no threat to unity. In the divine economy, unity stimulates diversity. The gift inspires the task. Dialogical communion challenges us to attend to how the Spirit continues to communicate God's life in and through our historical unity, a unity that is more than mere uniformity. Emerging from enclave mentalities into the liminal spaces of dialogue is, indeed, risky, business. Transgressing the boundaries of worlds of shared commitments and understandings takes great courage, and not only because of the encounter with difference. In a recent talk at St. John's University, Gerry Adams, leader of the Sein Fein party, spoke of the Irish Peace Process. The single most important element of the peace process, according to Adams, is dialogue: getting people to step out of their hard-fought divisions and to speak to each other. But Adams insists that the hardest dialogue is not with the perceived enemy; it is with your own group. Transgressing the boundaries of our habitation disturbs our communi-ties of like-mindedness. We put our identity at risk; our loyalties may be questioned; we may seem to have lost our regard for once-shared values and visions; we may be accused of undermining the very distinctiveness of our group. And we may become agents of change: midwives to the gestating life of redeemed humanity. If our diversity is no mistake, if our global-human condition confronts us, not only with challenges, but with the deep truth that our differences and particularities are the only way we have to express our essential humanity, then we will have to practice a new ldnd of countercultur-alism. When we become aware that the very diversity that delights God troubles and disturbs us, we have stepped into a moment ripe for conversion. I have the privilege of being a board member of the Parable Conference, an organization whose purpose is to make space for dialogue 66.1 2007 Mallon ¯ Reclaiming Hope, Recovering Dialogue Embracing the task Of_ dialogical commun_ion mopes us from false impressions and prejudgment~ to respect and curiosity. among all the branches of the Dominican family in the United States. No other entity for that dialogue exists in the United States. I remember the moment when I saw how mistaken my perceptions of the Dominican laity were. My prejudgment was an obstacle mercifully revealed and dispelled by new relationships with women and men whose embrace of the Dominican charism is truly inspiring. The Parable Conference struggles to keep the dia-logue alive among U.S. Dominicans; it is not an easy task. Ideology, apathy, and enmity challenge our attempts to be in authentic communion across the wide scope of the Dominican .family. Yet the very existence of this group is a good example of the order's preaching charism. Without the witness of an actual, historical community struggling to hold and engage the truths emerging from diverse God experiences, our words are empty and ~ our witness a mere shadow of what it could be. Embracing the task of dia-logical communion moves us from false impressions and prejudgments to respect and curiosity. In a contentiously divided global world, the practice of dialogical commu-nion bears witness every time we risk the hospitable effort to "make space" for each other. In his book Exc&sion and Embrace, the Lutheran theo-logian Miroslav Volf writes, "The will to give ourselves to others and 'welcome them,' to readjust our identities to make space for them, is prior to any judgment., except that of identifying them in their humanity.''29 When I attended Good Friday services last April, I observed a Review for Religious couple in the pew ahead of me struggle to "make space." It was an odd scene, because clearly there was enough space for everyone in the pew. For some reason, however, the woman-already-seated would not move all the way over; when another couple arrived, they had to practically sit on each other. I waited, thinking she would see the problem and adjust, move over just a bit more. No. She looked, made a fussy little head movement, and remained; eventually the intruding couple sat elsewhere. Then she moved over! Now there was plenty of space, and a few minutes later two others filled the pew. Why is it so hard to make space? Why is hospitality so difficult at times? I do not pretend to have a simple answer. I only know that there is a simple answer, and that this incident serves as a parable about the demands of dialogical communion. We need to secure a place where dialogue can happen. We have to cultivate the skills and disciplines that allow for the dignified existence of oth-ers. Without this space we risk the loss of real encounter and the grace it may hold for us. We lose an opportunity to witness to an authentic faith-filled visit, a gospel hope worthy of our fragile freedom. Congar reminds us that theology is not a deadly repetition of neatly worked out dogmatic statements. Disconnected from the existential reality of "someone's living thought," theology "will not bear its fruit.''3° We stand in danger, today, of losing that precious space where we respectfully, thoughtfully, and critically engage the "living thought" of someone else. Dialogical communion might be thought of as the inten-tional practice of hospitality towards those with whom we may not fully agree, or simply do not understand. People securing space for the complex and contrasting truths that emerge from deep diversities are signs of these times: "deep diversity" calls for an equally deep curiosity.3! 66.1 2007 Mallon ¯ Reclaiming Hope, Recovering Dialogue If our starting point remains the God-human rela-tionship, then we will be convinced that Mystery touches us only in history. The truth that embraces us in each encounter with the God of life is one, but its manifesta-tions are multiple. Indeed, genuine engagement of the God-human relationship continues to yield wise and chal-lenging expressions of Christian discipleship: the irrup-tion of the poor into history and the holistic vision of the reign of God as presented in theologies of libera-tion, the gospel reflection of women bringing forth new constructive theologies and the prophetic link with eco-logical consciousness and responsibility, the theologies of human rights that seek out space where diverse religions may work together for peace and the dignity of human life, and the emerging reflection on the other face of rac-ism, namely, white privilege and continuing exclusion of people of color. These truths of discipleship call us to examine anew the precious gift of our graced and historically precarious human existence. They call for a deeper asceticism and humility; they inspire a wondrous reverence for God and a curiosity about the things of God. They invite us to sus-pend our judgments so as to make space for each other and, in the very act of "maki~g space," encounter the God, who does more in us and with us than we can ask or imag-ine (Ep 3:20). "Making space" may well be the greatest and most fruitful spiritual discipline we can practice as a global church so as to be genuinely attentive to the Spirit in a world newly awakened to its divinely conceived diversity. Hope lies in our courageous and sober confidence in the Spirit's power to bring all that is God's to fullness. In the spaces where fragile human hearts meet the Love and Truth that alone overcomes all alienation, there is the hope for a different kind of history, a different kind of humanity. The gift inspires the task. Shall we take up the task? Review for Religious Notes ~ Marcus Borg, "Faith: The \a, ray of the Heart," in The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2004), pp. 25-42. 2 Mary Catherine Hilkert, "Tradition and Experience," in Freeing Theology: The Essentials of Theology in Feminist Perspective, ed. Catherine Mowry LaCugna (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993), p. 60. 3 For an overview of the many facets of the phenomenon of glo-balization, see The Globalization Reader; ed. Frank J. Lechner and John Boli (Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2000), and Patrick O'Meara, Howard D. Mehlinger, and Matthew Krain, eds., Globalization and the Challenges of a New Centmy: A Reader (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000). 4 See Robert J. Schreiter, The New Catholicity: Theology between the Global and the Local (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1997). s Roland Robertson, "Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity- Heterogeneity," in Global Mode, v,ities, ed. Scott Lash and Roland Robertson (London: SAGE, 1995). ~ David Tracy, On Naming the Present (New York: Orbis Books, 1994), p. 3. 7 See in particular Arjun Appadarai's seminal essay "Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy," in Mode~vtity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1996), pp. 27-47. s See in particular Robert Schreiter, "Globalization and the Contexts of Theology," in his New Catboliciq, pp. 1-27. 9 See Saskia Sassen, Globalization and Its Discontents: Essays on the New Mobiliq of People and Money (New York: New Press, 1998). ~0 Mike Featherstone, Undoing Culture: Globalization, Postmode~ism, and Identity (London: SAGE Publications, 1995). ~ Roland Robertson, Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture (London: SAGE Publications, 1992), p. 100. 1, As Roland Robertson expresses it, "there is virtually no limit to particularity, to uniqueness, to difference, to otherness." Robertson, Globalization, p. 102. ~3 See in particular Benedict Anderson, hnagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationali.~n (London: Verso, 1991). ~4 Joseph Komonchak, "Is Christ Divided? Dealing with Diversity and Disagreement," Origins 33 (9): 140-147. ~ In a number of interviews, Congar traced his lifelong devotion to the unity the Christian churches to a siugular moment of contemplation. "It was while meditating upon the seventeenth chapter of St. John's Gospel 66.1 2007 Mallon ¯ Reclaiming Hope, Recovering Dialogue that I clearly recognized my vocation to work for the unity of all who believe in Jesus Christ." Yves Congar, Dialogue between Christians: Catholic Contributions to Ecumenism, trans. Philip Loretz SJ (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966), p. 3. ~'~ "We are too prone to be satisfied with a dogma in itself, which has not to be worked out but is all laid down in the catechism or the theologi-cal manuals. We retail it, we are purveyors of orthodox theology, and that is all. We are in the process of finding that a dogma must be someone's dogma or someone's living thought, otherwise it will not bear its fruit." Yves Congar, Priest and Layman (London: Darton, Longman, & Todd, 1967), p. 209. ~7 Yves Congar, "The Brother I Have Known," The Thomist, 49 (4): 495-503. 1~ For an excellent essay on Congar's life as a theologian, see Etienne Fouilloux, "Friar Yves, Cardinal Congar, Dominican: History of a Theologian," U.S. Catholic Historian 17 (2). ~9 Vincent Miller, "History. of Geography? Gadamer, Foucault, and Theologies of Tradition," in Theology and the New Histories, ed. Gary. Macy (Maryknolh Orbis Books, 1999), pp. 56-85. 20 Congar, however, was not in any sense na'ive with regard to abuses of power, particularly in his ongoing concern for a dialogical church. "In polemics., or in any form of controversy devoid of dialogue, I interpose my own personal power, or rather that of a social formation whose views I am defending, such as a nation, a church, a culture, a social group or class, or a nexus of collective interests. Certain questions, such as that of colonialism in its most absolute form, might be approached from this point of view." Congar, Dialogue between Christians, p. 55. :~ Yves Congar, Lay People in the Church, trans. Donald Atwater (~'Vestminster, Maryland: Newman Press, 1957), p. 86. 22 Yves Congar, 1 Believe in the Holy Spirit, Vol. 2, He Is Lord and Giver of Life, trans. David Smith (New York: Seabury Press, 1983), p. 67. ~3 Yves Congar, This CT;urch That I Love, trans. Lucien Delafuente (Denville, New Jersey: Dimension Books, 1969). 24 Congar, I Believe, vol. 2, p. 12. 's Congar, I Believe, vol. 2, p. 37. z6 Congar, Lay People, p. 57. 27 Komonchak, "Is Christ Divided?" p. 76. :s The "adoration of God and the doing of God's will are necessary. conditions for thinking about God." Gustavo Guti~rrez, The T~vah Shall Set You Free: Conf!'ontations, trans. MatthewJ. O'Connell (Maryknolh Orbis Books, 1990), p. 55. Review for Religious 2,; Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Emb~wce: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otberness, and Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), p. 29. 30 Congar, Priest and Layman, p. 209. 3~ See Charles Taylor's discussion of "deep diversity" in "Shared and Divergent Values," in his Reconciling the Solitudes: Essays on Canadian Federalism and Nationalism (Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1993), pp. 155-186. Personal Reflection/Group Discussion In today's church do I find in myself a growing inability to listen and to dialogue with others about my own beliefs and values? What can I do to develop a more tolerant attitude in myself and so help others to become more tolerant? Do I understand dialogical cornmunion? What are some of the challenges ! would face with the people with whom I live and work? 66.1 2007 ROSE HOOVER Why Do We Gather? A Journey Together community We live in an age when young adults rarely consider religious life an option for themselves. Are we dinosaurs with primordial behavior pat-terns? Do we know why we come together in religious communities in this day and age--or in any day and age? There are varieties of commu-nity, but in this article I simply want to reflect on religious community's purpose, whether we are talking about community under one roof or community in a broader sense that does not nec-essarily mean living together. Why do we gather together? For example, are we brought together as religious for the pur-pose of a particular task? Do we form commu-nity for thesake of the ministry we do? Many people get together for special endeavors and enjoyments--music groups and sports teams, for example. Some groups even live together, like Rose Hoover RC last wrote for this journal in March-April 1992. Her address is Cenacle Sisters; 505 Northeast 5th Avenue; Gainesville, Florida 32601. Review for Religious the ad hoc assemblages on some reality shows. We too have tasks we desire to accomplish, tasks not only pre-cious to us but valuable for the people of God. We know that good community life can help us in our ministries. But is ministry the reason we come together? Today other people do the same ministries we do, and do them just as well, without being members of religious communi-ties. If religious community is for the purpose of carrying out ministry, and if the ministry no longer necessitates coming together in community, then is our gathering as consecrated religious also unnecessary? What about forming relationships? There was a lot of talk a few years ago about relational communities as distinct from task-ori-ented communities. A quick Internet search shows that concept to be far from dead today. As Christians we are indeed called to be in relationship both with God and with other ~ i."~ W:~t~hou~t~:i')ood "rdationships, ,- iydividuals and communities Christians. Without good relationships, individuals and communities are bound to be lifeless. And so compan-ionship, relationships, belong in consecrated life. In fact, loving presence is necessary in consecrated life. But com-panionship, even deep companionship, can be had in other ways, some of them far easier than religious community. Neither friendship nor c6mpanionship, of course, can be the main purpose of religious community. As Antoine de Saint-Exup~ry writes in l/Vind, Sm~d, and Stars, "Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction." In Christian community, if our primary gaze is on each other rather than on Christ, we are not on the way to true communion. 66.1 2007 Hoover ¯ Why Do We Gather? Religious cOmmunity is no way to flee,the,World; the world walks right-inl Wit,h,us.o Can religious community exist for the purpose of mak-ing the practical details of life more economical or more simple? It certainly can, though it does not always do so. In our university town we see students who live together to save money and make life less burdensome, leaving more time and energy for studies. Religious communi-ties, too, can live simply and economically--and even live gospel poverty. But is this all there is to it? Communities, even small ones, can provide security. People throughout the centuries have banded together for the sake of security. Gated communities thrive today. California lays claim to at least three gated cities--in effect, walled towns: Rolling Hills, Hidden Hills, and Canyon Lake. Probably some peo-pie enter religious life to be safe from the dangers of the "world" (or other dangers they somehow perceive). We know from experi-ence that religious community is no way to flee the world, if for no other reason than that the world walks right in with us. Security, then, cannot be the purpose of coming together as religious. There has to be more to religious community than any of these reasons, more even than all of them together. Parker Palmer, a Quaker, who at the time of writing an article for Desert Call (1987) was part of an intentional community, puzzled over the historical longevity of monasticism, given the difficulties of community life. He concluded that it is because the monks "created a form of community that brings them together not for the purpose of togetherness but to support each other in the rigors of the inward journey.''~ Review for Religious To support each other on the inward journey, the spiritual journey, is indeed rigorous. It has no less a goal than transforming union with Jesus Christ. That, after all, is the Christian call. The road can be rocky, and pitfalls can lie along the path. There can be pain and discourage-ment, but also joy, peace, and love. Moments of grace can astonish, but then there may be long and numbing stretches of boredom. At times we wish to shuffle along complacently, and at other times we are strong against the enemy's wiles. We have glimmers of understanding and then clouds of miserable confusion. The journey is truly rigorous. There is no way to make it alone. Whether we thought about it this way or not, this is the reason we entered religious life. God knew the pur-pose even if we did not--the call to give ourselves wholly to God by following a path of transforming union in love. This path not only blesses us with love and forgiveness, it also demands much of us. It requires prayer. This needs to be said bluntly here because, though for some people prayer is pure joy, for others it is a demand, a rigorous one. And, as for praying together, some find it no bur-den at all, while others are being sorely tested. The need for prayer implies the need to find time for prayer, the courage to carve a quiet niche for it when society--and sometimes religious life as well--would instead reward us for constant activity. How many times have we heard someone say with a hint of pride in her voice, "I haven't had a day off in months"? Or maybe we have even made that boast ourselves. As our life goes on, we have opportunities and duties to learn compassion toward the uncompassionate and to love those who do not love us._We learn to see loveliness in those who appear unlovely, sometimes being surprised at seeing our own kind of goodness in someone we never even liked. We find ourselves acknowledging our own 66.1 2007 Hoover ¯ Why Do We Gather? sinfulness, our helplessness, our inability to understand ourselves or the God who loves us and in whose image we are made. The spiritual journey brings people to a better vision of life--but usually without visions. Along the way we more and more take on the mind of Christ, who emptied himself. We learn not to cling to anything, not to hold anything back. We take one step at a time, without know-ing where the road winds and often without being sure that the next step is the right one. The road through our interior landscape may lack clear markers; misty weather may obscure them and make us forget the presence of God. Formidable though the way may be, it is precisely here that we find our delight. The God who created the universe, who fills the cosmos, who was and is and ever shall be, this God is both our companion and our destina-tion. After beginning on this path, any other way seems dull and senseless, hardly worth the trouble of putting one foot in front of the other. To make the most of this wondrous journey and to smooth its progress, we gather together. We support one another by our words, our prayers, and our presence, and we grant one another the silence and solitude we all need. And, when we become discouraged like Elijah lying under the broom tree, we take for each other the role of the angel who said, "Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you" (1 K 19:7, NRSV). We have to admit, though, that sometimes our sisters and brothers the~nselves can be part of the "burning of the noontide heat, and the burden of the day."-' The com-munity may be the very reason we long to crawl under the broom tree and disappear in sleep. But the burdens and the blessings of the road are intermingled and often indis-tinguishable from one another. What seems like a bur-den may in reality be a blessing, and each blessing tends Review for Religious to bring with it its own weight, imperceptible at times, greatly evident at others. In community, as we accompany each other along the way, as we support each other, we bring ourselves to the mix of people, we give ourselves as gifts. As with ordinary gifts, we do not know if we have chosen the right gift for the right person. We sincerely hope we have, and that we are not bringers of burdens or disappointments. In this we all develop subtle social gifts of giving and receiving, giving benefits shyly and having doubts beneficially, all the while sharing in mystery. What, then, is the role of our ministry? Is the value of ministry lessened if the work we are called to do is not our chief reason for coming together? Not at all. Without the inward journey, our ministry lacks integrity. A reli-gious community with a task--even a noble task--as its primary purpose risks allowing both community and task to become sterile. The apostolate is inseparable from the path of transforming union. Like cotton canvas garden-ing gloves, our ministry, hand in hand with prayerfulness, brings our patient dedication to flower in ways beyond imagining--more .and more the work of Christ. We our-selves are transformed into the compassionate and merci-ful Christ for each other and for the world. Notes ~ Parker Palmer, "The Monastic V~ay to Church Renewal," Desert Call, ¼qnter 1987: 8-9. 2 Elizabeth C. Clephane, "Beneath the Cross of Jesus," 1868. 66.1 2007 ROBERT SCHIELER An Experience of Jesus and His Brothers During Holy Week 2006 three hundred De La Salle Christian Brothers gathered in retreat to discern a future together. Under the banner "An Experience of Jesus and His Brothers," we brothers from three East Coast provinces~ and Toronto, Canada, desire to imagine more of a future than merging our provinces into one. As in other congregations, the reason for con-sidering a shared future is the diminishment and aging in our provinces. In recent years the provinces have spon-sored joint formation programs, retreats, workshops, and council meetings. This gathering helped us become even more familiar with one another and our hopes and dreams. From the beginning we wanted to explore creative approaches to consolidation. We saw the merging of provinces as perhaps an administrative necessity but no guarantee for future viability and vitality. Our goal was to Robert Schieler FSC writes from Christian Brothers Provincialate; P.O. Box 29; Adamstown, Maryland 21710. Review for Religious make our network of ministries more effective. These ways were to include a renewed passion for our life together as brothers in community and for our consecrated life in the following of Jesus. The aim of the communal retreat was to facilitate achieving these goals. In the preceding eighteen months, a planning com-mittee guided local community conversations around the Triduum. Four prayer services with reflection questions were prepared for Trinity Sunday, when communities nor-mally .plan for the year, the first Sunday in Advent, and the first Sunday in Lent. Reflection questions sought to mirror sessions that would take place during the retreat: remembering our icons and dangerous memories; discern-ing who we are today and our potential for tomorrow; and deciding on a direction for a shared future. Being pragmatic people, a good many brothers had reservations about this process and the value of the retreat itself. The retreat began on Wednesday evening with over three hundred brothers processing into our prayer space for an opening prayer service and a motivational presen-tation celebrating five brothers identified as icons from our five provinces. During our days of retreat, we would recall icons from Scripture, our Lasallian heritage, and our brothers. Icons, as windows to the interior, help us get in touch with the deeper forces operative in our lives. An icon can help us transcend the immediacy of our pres-ent life situation. By touching the core of our being, icons stir up an interior movement that allows us to go beyond our immediate landscapes. At the opening prayer service we heard read: We gather tonight to remember, to celebrate, to grieve, and to dream. This is our Lasallian heritage. It is rich, indeed! It is composed of individuals, communities, and ministries that at one time listened to the whispers of a radical spirit, a spirit that opened to us new venues and invited us to launch our boats in uncharted waters so 66.1 2007. Scbieler ¯ An Experience of Jesus and His Brothers as to serve better the children of the poor and working class. We celebrate tonight our Lasallian icons. They are stories, people, events of the original foundational journey of our community as De La Salle Brothers that become like windows breaking open the deepest mean-ing, revealing a prophetic insight, full of memory and hope, about the present. They help us to get in touch with our dangerous memories., our wildest dreams. They connect us to our institute, to our church, and to the mystery of God's kingdom here on earth. Brothers, they do not exist to reassure us. Sometimes these icons will destabilize us and challenge our current views and understandings. If we let them, they may stir up in us the deepest movements and yearnings of the Spirit! Seeing men we have lived with or heard about and recalling how they lived as brothers and what they accom-plished stirred us, prompted reflections, and encouraged conversations about our fraternal life together and the mission for which we consecrated our lives. As the open-ing evening came to a close, brothers retired to their rooms in a "wait and see" frame of mind. Dangerous Memories Under the day's theme of "Remembering where we were and refounding our hope. for the future," we met on Holy Thursday morning as provinces to recall our respec-tive dangerous memories. The theologian Johannes B. Metz saw dangerous memories as: memories in which earlier experiences break through to the center point of our lives and reveal new and dangerous insights for the present. They illuminate for a few moments and with a harsh and steady light the questionable nature of things we have apparently come to terms with, and show up the banality of our supposed "realism." They break through the canon of the prevailing structures of plausibility and have certain subversive features. Such memories are like dangerous Review for Religious and incalculable visitations from the past. They are memories that we have to take into account, memories, as it were, with a future content.: One province, in the activities leading up to the retreat, highlighted as one of its most dangerous memories a 1920s decision that resulted in a quick move from primary to secondary education. In 1926 and 1927 the province withdrew from thirteen elementary schools to staff two new diocesan high schools. While reluctant at the time to leave elementary education, the province would realize from these two schools several hundred vocations during the next four decades. This decision is part of the prov-ince lore and often recalled at fraternal gatherings. On this Holy Thursday morning, however, it was about another dangerous memory that several brothers spoke with pas-sion. This dangerous memory was still very much in the present. It was from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Like many congregations and the church in general, the province was caught up in the euphoria of the Second Vatican Council, but was also beginning to witness the fallout: departures, the drop in vocations, and polariza-tion. Between the start of summer 1969 and the end of summer 1970, the province would lose nearly a hundred brothers, including the provincial and much of the prov-ince's leadership. In the coming decade nearly thirty men would leave to enter the priesthood. The novitiate that had served the province since 1880 closed in summer of 1969. At the same time the renewal and updating of our religious life, the principle of subsidiarity, and personal responsibility versus directives from the top were going forward. So was empowerment of young over those with seniority status. While this province would struggle with fundamental issues of religious life through much of the 1970s, by the end of the decade a new formation program was bringing 66.1 2007 Schieler ¯ An Experience of yesus and His Brothers from our pas that we wanted tocar or ard fewer but excellent candidates. Commitment to its tradi-tional educational ministries remained strong while being open to new and sometimes individual ministries. The mental health of the brothers would be honestly faced and addressed. After considerable neglect, personal and communal prayer returned. The morning session was both invigorating and inspir-ing. Table conversation at lunch was animated as other brothers were proposed as icons and further dangerous memories shared. Following lunch and prompted by a presentation on passing with Jesus from death to life and by a video on our roots, we reflected on the values from our past that we wanted to cel-ebrate and carry forward into the future. These included accomplishing our educational mission as a community that can adapt and innovate, the diversity of our educational delivery sys-tems, our formation as educators with a Christocentric spirituality, and our recent establishment of national for-mation programs to share our charism with our lay col-leagues. As Thursday afternoon gave way to evening and din-ner, the brothers seemed to accept that we were on a retreat, not at an assembly. Conversations were more hope-filled, and the feeling now being expressed was "Yes, it is good to be together." This was evidenced by the number of brothers coming.before the Blessed Sacrament in prayer and silence throughout the evening. Finding a seat in chapel for adoration on Holy Thursday had not been difficult for a long time! Review for Religious Three Hundred HistoriesmOne Voice, One Spirit While on Wednesday evening and Holy Thursday we celebrated and remembered those brothers who shaped us and our provinces, on Good Friday we would behold the men we are today. How are we different from those we had honored and recognized? What had we lost? What do we take to the cross? Whom do we take down from the cross? What do we bury? To stimulate our reflection we viewed the film Romero, suffering servant in our time, and listened to a presentation on the crucifixion of Jesus, the Suffering Servant for all time. These enriched our table conversations later, but something else in that afternoon proved transformative. The image of three hundred brothers one by one ven-erating the crucified Christ on Good Friday afternoon was a powerful one. We witnessed three hundred histories that have faithfully lived their initial "yes" given to God. There was much gray, but the talent and energy in that long gray line was palpable. One brother reflecting on the experience wrote: "I found that long line of brothers inspiring. Each of us brought our stories to that moment, and I knew many of the men and their talents, the ~ailures they and I faced, the challenges they and I met, the stu-dents they and I inspired, the communities we had lifted up, and our struggles with various demons. Some were my teachers; others were my mentors in community. There were international, national, and district leaders. Other brothers were and are colleagues and confreres. Yet all our various paths pointed us in the same right direction that afternoon. All of us bowed before the same cross, individually and collectively, confessing our belief in Jesus our Savior. What richer image could we have of our vow formula than that we brothers accomplish our educational mission not as individuals but 'together and by associa-tion' with one another?''3 66.1 2007 Scbieler ¯ An Experience of Jesus and His Brothers This kind of change stimulates resistance because it challenges peopl e's habits. Holy Saturday Holy Saturday morning began with a presentation that many brothers found realistic while others found challenging and some even disturbing or out of sync with the spirit of the retreat. That presentation revealed the harsh demographic realities that nearly sixty percent of the membership is over sixty-five years of age with only twelve of the 420 brothers in the three provinces and del-egation under the age of forty. It spoke of the hope lost after the heady days of the council. It spoke of halfhearted efforts at amalgamation in the 1990s and the first cou-ple of years in this new ~ century. It spoke of the ~' difficulties and chal- !enges of what Heifetz . and Linsky call "adap-tive change" versus "technical change"; change at the core of persons or organizations as opposed to the simple rear-ranging of things.4 This kind of change stimulates resis-tance because it challenges people's habits, beliefs, and cultures. The presentation offered elements of hope and a plan for the future, but for some it stood in contrast to the good feelings generated from the storytelling and shar-ing of experiences from our various provinces. Perhaps we were experiencing the stone being placed at the entrance to the tomb. There was a period of questioning, self-doubt, and waiting. What direction would the retreat now take? We had reached a critical moment, and it took all the facilitators' skills to maintain a retreat atmosphere and not slip into a workshop or assembly one. We pre-pared the brothers to opt for the direction they preferred. Review for Religious The answer would come in the afternoon, after the "three hundred stories" had processed in once more. Five possible directions for a shared future were iden-tified, including remaining as separate provinces or unit-ing in a totally new structure. The five possibilities were posted at the front of the hall, and each brother was given a colored dot to place next to his choice. Again three hun-dred men walked up quietly and indicated their choice. At the end, it was overwhelmingly agreed: to create one province with new structures for the vitality of commu-nities and ministries of the three present provinces and delegation. The key phrase was "new structures." In a letter he sent to the brothers at the retreat, our superior general wrote: Our times demand not only that we change current structures, as if by doing only this we could revitalize ourselves. It is not about simply creating larger prov-inces that are the same as those of the past. We have to reinvent what it is we understand by the term "prov-ince," and create new structures that will allow us to be rnore visible and more effective in the way we manage and accompany Lasallian association throughout the world,s The stone in front of the tomb was being removed along with self-doubt and waiting. We embraced the possible. It is always Holy Saturday whenever people push back the creeping boundaries of the world's fear, making room for irrepressible hope; where people live the long darkness of original sin while believing in the possibil-ity of the deeper light; where people discover the touch of an invincible spring on the bare branches of their winter lives.6 Easter Vigil The Easter Vigil was a most joyous occasion. All three hundred brothers had donned their new sport shirts with one of our familiar congregation logos. In his sermon the 66.1 2007 Scbieler ¯ An Experience of Jesus and His Brothers 72 celebrant for the vigil beautifully summarized the previous several days by recounting a conversation he had earlier in the day with a young man staying at the same resort. I walked by. "Hi," I said. "'Sup. You one of Jesus' brothers?" I knew what he meant because I live in the 'hood. "Sorry?" "You one of Jesus' brothers? I saw the sign: 'Jesus and His Brothers.'" "Yeah, yeah, you are too!" Never miss a catechetical moment. "So you pastors or something?" "No, mostly teachers-Christian Brothers." "That's nice," he said. "I've been watching

Issue 62.4 of the Review for Religious, 2003. ; Church Dii~ection D evo tion a 1 Life Religious Life Pers 3ectives QUARTERLY 62.4 2003 Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bimonthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ V~Zeb 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. ©2003 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 th~ personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. MI 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 crehtion of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. fo r 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 62.4 2003 contents 340 church direction Alphonsus's Perspective in the Post-Vatican II Church Nihal Abeyasingha CSSR highlights the God-given perspective of St. Alphonsus Liguori and suggests that such a perspective can be pgeserved even though the content of the Christian message has new dimensions after Vatican II. 354 Belief, Augustine, and the New Religiosity Paul Graham OSA enters us into a reflection on the shape of our faith, as opposed to its content, in contemporary Western society. devotional life 363 Rediscovering the Rosary Dennis J. Billy CSSR reviews the pope's apostolic letter on the rosary as a venerable form of prayer that will help Christians "to contemplate with Mary the ffice of Christ." 37O Mirroring Jesus: The Luminous Mysteries and Religious Life Mary Joseph Schultz SCC reflects on the luminous mysteries of the rosary not only as a new graced opportunity to deepen our faith by bringing the public life of Jesus into the rosary, but also as a special gift to vowed religious to reflect on essential elements of consecrated life. Review for Religious 379 reOi ious perspectives Why Newly Professed Religious Leave Peter Cantwell OFM reflects not only on what younger people are disillusioned by in religious life but also on what current members might provide as helps in a mutual effort to live the charism. 402 Ignatian Insights into Evangelical Poverty Donald C. Maldari SJ explores the richness and relevance of evangelical poverty and its relationship to theological hope in the spirituality of St. Ignatius Loyola. departments 338 Prisms 423 Canonical Counsel: Papal Enclosure 431 Book Reviews 440 Indexes L33-7-- 62.4 2003 Te naturalized British writer Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) came to the United States for the first time with hope of winning a young lady's hand. He had met her and her mother earlier, when they were visiting England. Sometime during his unexpectedly 16ng and difficult land trip west to California to propose to her, Belloc was stimulated to write the following light verse: Kings live in palaces, pigs in sties, youth in expectation. Youth is wise. Despite Belloc's idealistic inspiration, we might hesitate to agree that such youthful expectation is wise. When our hopes, our expectations, are not realized, we can become disillusioned or bitter and angry or, perhaps, if we have a certain psychological makeup, resilient. As it happened, Belloc's marriage proposal was rejected by the young lady's mother, but he returned to England with his expectations intact. A year or so later, he took another trip to the United States with the same purpose in view, and this time he was successful. He married the young lady. Undoubtedly he felt that he had made his own the truth he had expressed in his verse. Our Catholic faith seems to agree with youth, even finding that living in expectation is a divine way of living. Jesus, after all, taught us to Review for Religious pray daily "Thy kingdom come." Certain times of the year, like Advent, and holy days like All Saints, All Souls, and Christmas highlight for us the virtue of hope or expectation. God has such divine expectations of each one of us that there is no limit to how often he forgives our wrongdoing. Likewise there are no restrictions on the graces of God's intimacy with his sons and daughters in Christ. Scripture would have us believe that God expects to delight in us. Expectation, then, considered in a Christian light, is not just for the young, but it is the graced quality of those who are called to be young in heart by their Christian baptism. Living in expectation, we look forward to growing in holiness. We have expectations about ourselves as saints, just as God does. Living in expectation, we look for the ways that God shines forth in the world he created and leads us towards God's reign. Entering into St. Paul's heart, we have expectations that God keeps working at the century-by-century fulfillment of his creation in Christ. We as members of Christ's Body expect to play our own part, with God, in bringing about this fullness of redemption. Of course, we all have our natural fear of dying, especially faced with its unknown pain and circumstances. But we as Christians can at the same time look towards death with expectation, welcoming our further identity with Christ in receiving death as one more gift of the Father so that we can rejoice in resurrected life forever. As we say in our Creed, we expect the res-urrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Yes, to live in expectation is a profound Christian calling. Such living is rooted, not in youthfulness, but in God, and is sustained by God. We the baptized are meant to live in expectation. We devoutly pray for God's presence gracing us in this way. Then we are youthfully wise. David L. Fleming SJ 62.4 2003 church NIHAL ABEYASINGHA Alphonsus's Perspective in. the Post-Vatican I! Church direction Redemptorists were for a considerable period of their history called "hellfire preachers." And so indeed they were. At the time of Alphonsus Liguori, the founder of the Redemptorists, the preaching was accompanied by "audiovisuals" that would be considered macabre today--the exhibition of a skull, an imaginary dialogue with a damned soul, and thepreachers going around the town in the dark crying out "Save your soul!" Obviously, these procedures cannot and should not be duplicated today. But, if what he did represented a God-given perspective, I think it would be a pity to lose the perspective even today. In this article I intend to highligh,t Alphonsus's perspective and suggest tentatively that it can be preserved even though the content--or the awareness of the content--of the Christian message has new dimensions after Vatican Council II. Nihal Abeyasingha CSSR lives at 454/9 Piachaud Gardens; Peradeniya Road; Kandy, Sri Lanka. Review for Reli~ous Background of the Ministry of Alphonsus The Council of Tren.lt (1545-1563) met to counter the effect that Luther's andI other Reformation perspectives were having on the church. The perspectives were primarily doctrinal. They had serious implications, however, for the institutional and disciplinary structure of the church. There was pblarization: Scripture alone versus Scripture and Tradition;'I faith as commitment alone (tides fiducialis) versus faith ificluding content; only God and grace versus God in Christ acting through human ministry and grace being mediate.d through the church. When the council met in 1545, the attendance was poor, some forty bishops, most of the~m Italian. They began with disagreement, but by 1546 they decided to deal simulta-neously with both doctrifial and disciplinary issues. . The shadow of thel Reformation cast a permanent shadow on the council's deliberations. The result was an emphasis on 'what the Reformers had gotten wrong by Catholic criteria, ignorin, g altogether what they got right. (In the words of G.K. Chesterton, every heresy is the revenge of a forgotten ~r_~-uth.) Among other things, Trent stressed the veneration iof the saints, devotion to Mary, the Mass as sacrifice, th~ importance of suffrages for the dead, and other matters! against the Reformers, Spin-offs of these lines of thought in Catholic culture included stress on Euchanstac ad.orataon, a deemphasls of the role of the laity, and undu~e emphasis on the role of the . ordained minister who c.onfects the Eucharist. In the Catholic trad, ition the theology that followed was highly systematized, the disciplinary structure rigid and centrahzed. But the, ology also reflected attempts to find places of accord with Luther. For example, Michel de Bay of Louvain (+1589) thought of original sin as depriving human beingi of what constitutes the human condition--another vergion of Luther's understanding of humanity's "radical corruption." Bay's position was 62.4 2003 Abeyasingba ¯ Alpbonsus's Perspective Alphonsus's ministry was "popular," directed to the masses who lacked competent pastoral care. defended by Cornelius Jansen (+1638). Even though views such as these were repudiated by the church, they had effects on requirements for receiving the sacraments. I suggest that Alphonsus used the "last things" (death, judgment, heaven, and hell), which had a major impact on Luther, as a call to conversion for those in sin. The response of conversion that he sought was oriented towards the sacraments of recon-ciliation and the Eucharist, the ecclesial communion that is based on the true faith and true sacraments. Alphonsus's ministry was "popular," directed to the masses who lacked competent pastoral care. These people were steeped in superstition and magic, and lived in fear of frightful evils such as the devil coming into their lives. That is where Alphonsus started; he addressed their emotion of fear by proclaiming the last things. Beginning his preaching of the Christian message here, he le~l individuals to the sacraments. He wanted to make it as easy as possible for sinners to confess to a priest (in contrast to the Reformers' idea of confessing directly to God). He advocated a gentle manner with those who committed sins by almost unconscious habit and with those who fell again and again into the same sin (consuetudinarii and recidivt). In his time the laxist view allowed absolution as often as penitents confessed, while the rigorist view demanded thorough amendment of life before they could receive absolution. Mphonsus proposed a middle path of sound common sense. He said that absolution should be refused to consuetudinarii and recidivi unless there were clear signs of repentance, which he listed: tears, weeping, a lessening of the number of sins, notable efforts at amendment such Review for Reli~ous as fasting or almsgiviOg, evidence of a search for new means of improvement, spontaneous confession, special motivation such as the fear of some impending disaster, confession of sins previously and culpably omitted, prior restitution, new awardness, of guilt. He advocated that absolution be deferred only when the confessor was morally certain of the penitent's wrong disposition; that is, .for deferral he needed to make a prudent probable judgment about ,tpheen'i te"n t s' fundamental lack of sorrow. He said, too, ~at absolution is not to be deferred if there is danger of more harm than good being done.1 Through reconciliation followed by the Eucharist (the emphasis more on Holy Communion than on the Mass), people were weaned ,away from sin. What was taking place is pictured on thd cover Alphonsus designed for his book Selva: The Digni~ and Duties of the Priest. The priest is hearing confession .'in front of a large crucifix. Rays from the crucified Lo,"rd stream towards the penitent. Alphonsus's pastoral r~alism saw God's action in Christ reaching penitents thro.'ugh the sacramental mediation of the church. The perspelctive is close to that of Irenaeus of Lyon (+202): "God is~ man's glory, but it is man who receives the effect of Gbd's activity, who is the recipient of all God's wisdom and power. Just as a doctor proves himself in his patients, ~o God reveals himself in men." 2 Alphonsus facilitated reconciliation with a bias in favor of penitents because of his own trust in the power of God's grace. He-k~ew that generally the habitual sinners would fear death, judgment, hell, and the loss of heaven and so would approach sacramental recon-ciliation. He knew thht fear as a motive does not last long. He knew that "~erfect love casts out fear" (1 Jn 4:18). So, to lead therfi beyond fear and enable them to remain converted, to p'ersevere, he offered the motive of love and a support structure of prayer and fellowship, namely, confraternities. 62.4 2003 Abeyasingba * Alpbonsus'sPer~ective To sustain people's effort and stir up love in them, he presented considerations that would naturally lead to love. Look how much God loved you, sending his Son in human .form; that Son died for you amid unspeakable suffering; that intense love continues in his abiding presence, especially in the Eucharist. Will you not return love for love? In such works as The Practice oft be Love of Jesus Christ, he would go further into the qualities that true love for Jesus entails. He knew, of course, the sinner's obvious objection: I am too weak to respond with any degree of intensity of love. He forestalled that objection by his teaching on prayer. Christ has said, "Ask and you shall receive." Ask God--that is prayer. Because God has said it, you will receive. Everyone and anyone can do this much. He bolstered this position by citing respected authors and by telling stories of how sinners who did not stop praying " received a final chance to repent and be saved. Even daough many of the stories would be laughed at today, in those days they made his point effectively. Parish missions were considered finished only when all had had an opportunity for confession. After the mission Alphonsus established some ongoing programs: regular mental prayer in the church and confraternities where people supported one another with fellowship, prayer, and regular instruction to stay on the path of their conversion. There is a clear overall perspective in these programs. Today one can object that in this model popular piety and liturgy merely coexist and that the former can even take precedence over the latter.3 It is likely that Alphonsus knew of Ludovico Antonio Muratori, a 17th-century writer who in Della Regolata Devozione dei Cristiani (Norms for Christian Devotion) proposed a religiosity that drew from the liturgy and the Scriptures to offset superstition and magic, and that he also knew of Benedict XIV's important initiative of permitting the use of the Review for Religious Bible in the vernacular. But Alphonsus did not bring these perspectives into his work for the pastorally most abandoned, chiefly uneducated people inclined to superstition. It would make little sense. They might give a symbolic assent to the matter presented and engage in a symbolic act of conversion, but their lives would not be much changed. Alphonsus said that the test of a good sermon is when the people leave the church striking their breast and not talking about the preacher. A New Context As the church in mid-20th-century Europe was facing something of a crisis of neglect and indifference, some new theological perspectives and initiatives in Scripture, catechesis, and liturgy were appearing. Without intend!ng to imply that Redemptorists were in the forefront of the pre-Vatican II theological scene--in fact, they were not--I venture to suggest that two Redemptorists made a significant contribution to this evolving theology. They did this by examining the existing perspectives in the light of Alphonsus's call-response perspective (fear as initial stimulus leading to love in the long term). This was obvious in the German Bernard H~iring.4 EX. Durrwell, from France, highlighted the grandeur of the resurrection in God's redemptive plan so that believers could more attractively show those who were ignoring the Christian message the way to conversion and growth.5 After all, the motto of the Redemptorist congregation is "With him is plentiful redemption." Paul Hitz CSSR, of Switzerland, even though he did not receive much international notice, contributed to catechetics, which too is a call to grow as believers. Vatican II bro,ught into focus several aspects of theology for which 'Isome theologians had been disciplined. It rediscove~'ed the paschal mystery and, with that, found a new view df the ¯church: its being sacrament, I 62.4 2003 Abeyasingha ¯ Alphonsus's Perspective the common priesthood of all Christ's faithful (and some consequences of this), and a renewed liturgy.6 Alphonsus's Perspective in a Post-Vatican II Context Can Mphonsus's perspective fit in this post-Vatican II context? I do not know whether this question has been posed in this way. It is claimed that Alphonsus's perspective is embodied in a story that is loved, remembered, and lived by Redemptorists. Without assessing that claim, perhaps articulating some contemporary dimensions may not be out of place. In his Confessions Augustine (+430) made this prayerful observation: "Since the time I first learned of You, there is nothing of You I have discovered that I have not discovered by remembering." And what he discovered in responding to the Manichees, Donatists, and Pelagians of his time has influence even in our day. Perhaps one may suggest that a hint of a Vatican II perspective was already present in Alphonsus. In his Duetto (Dialogue with the Soul) he imagines a soul meeting Christ going to his death. The soul asks: "Where ¯ are you going?" Jesus replies: "I am going to die." The soul wants to follow him. Jesus asks the soul to give him his heart and then go and live, always remembering his (Jesus') love." In practice, one emotion seems dominant in the Redemptorist recognition of, and conversion from, sin, and that is joy, thankfulness that one is forgiven. "Father, you show your almighty power chiefly in your mercy and forgiveness" (opening prayer, 26th Sunday, Ordinary Time). Put this grateful joy felt by Redemptorists into the picture of alertness for clear signs of repentance--fear as a starting point of conversion, tears, fewer sins, fasting or almsgiving, seeking new ways to improve, and so forth--and perhaps you have something that at least resonates with the perspective of the Exsultet of the Easter Vigil, stemming from well Review for Religious before Vatican II: 'iWhat good would life have been for us had Christ not come as our Redeemer? Father, how wonderful your care for us! How boundless your merciful love! To ransom a slave you gave away your Son. O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!" Does this Redemptorist picture from before Vatican II fit in with post-Vatican II theological reflection? I think it does. After being careful to identify those who are in the greatest pastoral need, we must remember a few basic principles. First, it is important to touch people where they are. Where Muratori proposed drawing popular piety from Scripture and the liturgy, Alphonsus's program was to meet people where they were and then lead them beyond it. Second, a clear distinction needs to be made between stimulating conversion in the short term (Alphonsus used fear for this) and maintaining conversion in the long term. (For the latter, Alphonsus had only one prescription: love.) Third, how does one propose love? The short answer is: as a call that evokes a response, or an offer that invites acceptance. It is important to keep God's initiative in mind, as in the picture of rays from the crucified Jesus shining on the penitent. Alphonsus's call to love focuses on Jesus' passion: "Greater love than this.no one has, than that a person lay down his life for his friends." But this emphasis should include the following: "Therefore does the Father love me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again" On 10:17-18). Death and resurrection are inseparable. Psychologically, selfless suffering unto death is deeply evocative of response, but it is not complete by itself.7 Rather than being isolated from the resurrection, Jesus' passion should be presented as a step on the journey to fullness of life. "The glory of God is man fully alive, and the life of man is the vision of God," says Irenaeus of 62.4 2003 Ab~yasingha ¯ Alphonsus'sPerspective Lyon. Incorporation into Christ's deat[h and resurrection in baptism should be the basic paradigm for preaching about death and resurrection. For there to be resurrection, there must be passion (suffering) and death; one chooses this journey because of the hope of resurrection. "Christ has passed beyond our sight, not to abandon us, but to be our hopE. Christ is the beginning, the head of the church; where he has gone, we hope to follow" (Preface 1, Ascension). The grandeur of that goal makes the call to conversion attractive today: "With him is plentiful redemption." It is well to remember that even on Good Friday, when the liturgy focuses on the suffering and death of Christ, it is not separated from the resurrection. (The Via Lucis, Stations of the Resurrection, may be one way to maintain the link between death and resurrection.) Note, too, that the apparitions of the risen Lord involved some renunciation (of previous expectations) and often a call to mission as a condition for recognizing the "stranger" as the very Jesus whom the disciples had known. This is the version of the resurrection as call to death and call to love that needs to be worked out in popular idiom for people today. The resurrection is contingent upon the Son's having taken human flesh. If the incarnation had not taken place, no death-cum-resurrection would be possible. This mystery highlights the incarnation as an emptying (Ph 2:6-11), the rich one becoming poor for our sakes (2 Co 8:9). Jesus' life in the flesh meant sharing our condition and emotions. But, because it was not a life limited to the flesh, he was raised to life in the Spirit (Rrn 1:1-4). In the liturgy we pray, "May this sacrament [Eucharist] restrain our earthly desires and enable us to grow in love of the things of heaven" (After Communion, Tuesday, First Week of Lent). The child Jesus shared in the development that every child goes through--from the first stages, whei'e self- Review for Religious reference is the norm, to the point of total unselfishness in love ("He loved them to the end" Jn 13:1). The incarnation is the call to grow. Here one does well to keep in mind that excellent training in a particular discipline (medicine, accountancy, or whatever) does not automatically mean that one is an adult in regard to one's religious growth (the commitment based on content that Catholic faith requires). Many adults remain at the level of children (often the faith content they had at confirmation) and think that a vague "feel good / do some good" religion is growth. God's invitation is to deeper growth, an incar-national growth guided by the Spirit. The journey from the Father to this world and back to the Father is the program for all Christians. It is eriacted (as a "today") in the Eucharist. There is a continuing call to recommitment, to baptism's death and resurrection themes. The Eucharist is a third focus of Alphonsus. For him, Jesus is the prisoner in the tabernacle, awaiting, calling, and welcoming those who come to visit him. But the Jesus of the tabernacle is first the Jesus who was born, lived, died, and rose again, who celebrated that Passover with his disciples and continues to do so in the community of believers. And this is perhaps the high point of the call: to recognize that we are betrayers who are called by the one betrayed (Jesus) to share a meal with him. For this he accepts what we offer (bread and wine, products of the earth and of human hands) and returns them to us transformed (his risen body and blood, the new creation). One can add some glosses to the Eucharistic narrative to highlight this perspective: "On the night he The journey from the Father to this world and back to the Father is the program for all Christians. 62.4 2003 Abeyasingba ¯ Alpbonsus's Perspective was betrayed [by his disciples, with whom we are all complicit], Jesus took bread [that supports life---he was not seeking revenge] and gave thanks [for everything, including the betrayal, life and its support, death, because this is the prelude to resurrection and glory] and shared it with his disciples [betrayers become .companions, "bread fellows"], saying [not only in word but in deed]: 'This is my body, which is broken for you' [the principle enunciated in the Gospels: 'Unless .the grain of wheat dies' and 'Take upyour cross']. Do this in memory of me [the call addressed to all his followers, sinner and saint alike, a call to 'do this' not only in word but also in deed].''8 Finally, for continuing the journey of conversion over the long haul, Alphonsus proposed a program of prayer. He emphasized, not the amount of prayer, but fidelity to it. A short prayer every day is better than a long period of prayer occasionally. Prayer means recognizing one's limitations, acknowledging one's need for God. Beginners in mental prayer need some method, but, as they grow, they should not let the method become a hindrance to prayer. When difficulties arise, they can fall back on the method. This advice of Alphonsus remains valid and relevant in our day, but support groups are needed too. For the community as a whole, Alphonsus proposed confraternities, which were support groups. Today's psychological research has identified the roots of various problems. Lay people should be encouraged to use .their skills to help others in various difficulties, even if it means merely lending an ear to one other person. When people feel that they havebeen heard and understood, they are often able to work their way through their own problems. Such support is very much in the competence of laypersons, and those devoted to pastoral care would do well to keep encouraging them to fulfill their special role in the world. Review for Religious Charisms as Life-Giving Roots The present article indicates the need for religious institutes not to take their agendas from current theology. Theology has its place, but institutes have their own particular orientations and perspectives. It is in rediscovering and living according to their foundational perspectives that religious institutes can make their authentic contributions. These solidly rooted agendas are indeed their very reason for existence. When Cyprian (+258) became bishop of Carthage, he made it a rule to do nothing on his private opinion without the counsel (consilium) of the presbyterate and the agreement (consensus) of the people. The two Latin words are significant. As the one who presided over the presbyterate, Cyprian needed their counsel. Often it would be far more "advanced"--aware of many more theological perspectives, one could say--than the laity. But he also wanted to have the consensus of the people, a fellow feeling of where they were. I suggest that Alphonsus started with the consensus of the laity and, as preacher of repentance, led them to commit their lives in love to Jesus, supporting one another along the journey. The challenge is to be "popular," to meet people where they are, but also to lead them beyond, in terms of call and response, invitation and acceptance. There will be changes in the content and style of post-Vatican II proclamation and ways of celebrating the sacraments, but the apostolic perspectives of Alphonsus and other founders can, I am convinced, well remain unchanged. Notes ' See Raphael Gallagher, "The Fate of the Moral Manual since Saint Alphonsus," in Histo,3v and Conscience: Studies in Honour of Father Sean O'Riordan CSSR, ed. Raphael Gallagher and Brendan McConvery (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1989), pp. 212-239. 2 Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, 3.20.2. 62.4 2003 Abeyasingba * Alpbonsus's Perspective 3 See Directory on Popular Piety and the Litu'rgy: Principles and Guidelines (Vatican, 9 April 2002), §41: "The 'popular missions' emerged at this time and contributed greatly to the spread of the pious exercises. Liturgy and popular piety coexist in these exercises, even if somewhat imbalanced at times. The parochial missions set out to encourage the faithful to approach the sacrament of penance and to receive Holy Communion. They regarded pious exercises as a means of inducing conversion and of assuring popular participation in an act of worship." 4 See Bernard H~iring CSSR, The Law of Christ, 3 vols. (Westminster, Maryland: Newman Press, 1961o1966), and his later work, which is more diffuse and wide-ranging, Free and Faithful in Christ, 3 vols. (New York: Century, 1979). 5 EX. Durrwell CSSR, The Resurrection (London: Sheed and Ward, 1960). 6 See Directory, §§48-49: "History shows, first of all, that the correct relationship between the Liturgy and popular piety begins to be distorted with the attenuation among the faithful of certain values. essential to the Liturgy itself. The following may be numbered among the causes giving rise to this: ¯ a weakened awareness or indeed a diminished sense of the" paschal mystery and of its centrality for the history of salvation, of which the Liturgy is an actualization. Such inevitably occurs when the piety of the faithful, unconscious of the 'hierarchy of truths,' imperceptibly turns towards other salvific mysteries in the life of Christ, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or indeed of the angels and saints; ¯ a weakening of a sense of the universal priesthood, in virtue of which the faithful offer 'spiritual sacrifices pleasing to God, through Jesus Christ' (1 Pt 2:5, Rm 12:1), and, according to their condition, participate fully in the church's worship. This is often accompanied by the phenomenon of a Liturgy dominated by clerics who also perform the functions not reserved to them and which, in turn, causes the faithful to have recourse to pious exercises through which they feel a sense of becoming active participants; ¯ unfamiliarity with the 'language' of the Liturgy--that is, its language, signs, symbols, and ritual gestures---causing much of the meaning of the celebration to elude the faithful. This unfamiliarity can even make them feel like outsiders to the liturgical action, and so they are quick to manifest their preference for pious exercises whose 'language' is closer to their own cultural development, or Review for Religious else for private devotions more in keeping with the details and demands of their daily life. "Each of these factors, and both in certain cases, not infrequently produce imbalances in the relationship between the Liturgy and popular piety, to the former's detriment and the latter's impoverishment. These should therefore be corrected through careful and persistent catechetical and pastoral work. "Conversely, the liturgical renewal and the heightened liturgical sense of the faithful have often recontex~ualized popular piety in its relationship with the Liturgy. Such should be regarded as a positive development and in conformity with the most profound orientation of Christian piety." 7 See Sean O'Riordan, "The Human Psychology of Repentance," Studia Moralia 21 (1983): 79-102, and "The Nature and Function of Pastoral Psychology," Studia Moralia 1 (1963): 348-387. 8 Karl Rahner, "The Episcopate and the Primacy," in Karl Rahner and Joseph Ratzinger, The Episcopate and the Primacy (New York: Herder and Herder, 1961), p. 25: "Essentially the church is the historically continuing presence in the world of the incarnate Word of God. She is the historical tangibility of the salvific will of God as revealed in Christ. Therefore the church is most tangibly and intensively an 'event' where (through the words of consecration) Christ himself is present in his own congregation as the crucified and resurrected Savior, the fount of salvation; where the redemption makes itself felt in the congregation by becoming sacramentally visible; where the 'New and Eternal Testament' which he founded on the cross is most palpably and actually present in the holy remembrance of its first institution. Therefore the celebration of the Eucharist is the most intensive event of the church." I would add that the consequence is that every word in the church must be understood in connection with the memorial dimension of the Eucharist (see I Co 11:26). It is like the prism which separates light intoits constituent colors and also refocuses the different colors into a unity. 62.4 2003 PAUL GRAHAM Belief, Augustine, and the New Religiosity ~/ nd what remains when disbelief has gone?" That striking line from Philip Larkin's poem "Church Going" poses a question that is characteristic of the times we live in. The problem today is not so much disbelief or unbelief, but belief. The onus is now on those who claim they do not believe in God. According to the European Values Study for 1999/2000, 77.4 percent of the sample surveyed believe in God. Even in secular Sweden, which has the lowest number of believers in God in Western Europe, the number is 53.4 percent. Clearly, unbelievers are in the minority. The agnostics, according to this scenario, are not those who are unsure about their belief in God, but those who are not sure they disbelieve. The line from Philip La~'kin's poem cap-tures beautifully the anxiety of the unbeliever who has a nagging suspicion that perhaps there is a God after all. The present-day anxiety, the anxiety of a post-Christian society, is in the possibility that there is a God. Paul Graham OSA is provincial of the English-Scottish province of the Augustinians. His address is Provincial Office; 15 Dorville Crescent; London W6 0HH; United Kingdom. Review fbr Religious In these circumstances, those of us who through our faith have been freed from the burden of unbelief--and it is a burden--have a corresponding responsibility not to take our belief for granted. Belief is something that grows and deepens; it is not static. In the famous words of St. Augustine: "Make progress, my brothers and sis-ters, examine yourselves honestly again and again. Put yourselves to the test. Do not be content with what you are, if you want to become what you are not yet . Always add something more, keep moving forward, always make progress" (Sermon 169). An important part of reflection on faith is its social context. The shape of our belief, as opposed to its con-tent, is influenced by the world around us. If we lived in 13th-century Italy, for instance, unbe-lief would not have been a problem; even the gross sinner would be expected to believe in God. Faith was characterize~l by an intense devotion to the person of Christ in his passion and in the Eucharist. Belief had a tangible feel about it then, and peo-ple were not afraid to express it publicly. In Poland during the Communist times, faith was shaped by the need to take a firm stand against state-controlled atheism. Belief in God was caught up in nationalism: to be Polish was to be Catholic, as being Irish in Ireland was until recently. The object of faith in these differenttimes and places remains the same: God in Jesus Christ. This leaves us with the question: In contemporary Western society, what is the shape of our faith? It is now fashionable to have a "spirituality" in these 2 l st-century "postsecular" times. The problem is not so much religious belief as what to believe in. People today have become spiritually gullible. G.K. Chesterton noted perceptively that, when people stop believing in the true People today have become spiritually gullible. 62.4 2003 Graham ¯ Belief, Augustine, and the New Religiosity God, they start believing in anything. One of the charac-teristics of this new religiosity is its individualism. People now pick and choose the bits of religion they want to believe in and reject the distasteful parts. It has become a lifestyle choice: a bit of Zen here, a bit of Feng Shui there, a touch of white magic perhaps, and even some aspects of Christianity--the nice bits. This is nondemanding, non-threatening religion, a pick-and-mix spirituality. It has become fashionable to make a distinction between "religion" and "spirituality." By "religion" is meant institutional religion, the church; by "spirituality" is meant the "good" things about religion without the awkward bits like the hierarchy and the church's teach-ings. One can now have a spirituality, even if it means rejecting or sitting loose to the institutional form of the church. The problem is, once you detach spirituality from religion, it can quickly become self-seeking and inward-looking. Belonging to the church prevents that from happening. The Latin word religio implies "ties," ."obligations." We are bound to one another and to God, in the church. Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi of Great Britain, has an interesting observation to make here (see Credo in The Times, 24 August 2002). He challenges those who claim to have a "spirituality" but reject organized reli-gion. Spirituality, he says, marks the beginning of a search for God, leading on to religion, to belonging to a community of believers; otherwise it tends to be escapist and self-indulgent. He illustrates this by referring to Robert Putnam, the Harvard sociologist, whose recent book Bowling Alone (2000) is about the breakdown of community in the United States as a result of growing individualism. The metaphor for this breakdown is to be found in ten-pin bowling. In the 1950s bowlers belonged to leagues and clubs and went bowling together, as teams. Today those leagues are no longer so Review for Religious popular, and people prefer to go bowling on their own. Sacks therefore declares, "Spirituality is what happens to religion when it goes 'Bowling Alone.'" Britain faces a similar problem of individualism. A recent sociological study (Changing Britain, Changing Lives, (London: Institute of Education, 2003), involving three birth-cohort studies of people born in 1946, 1958, and 1970, found that in the last fifty years there has been a marked decline in social cohesiveness and awareness, evidenced in the universal decline in voting, community activity, and church activity. The political philosopher Eric Hobsbawm is quoted in this study as saying, "Prosperity and privatization broke up what poverty and collectivity in the public place welded together" (p. 9). This individualizing tendency in society as a whole, I suggest, is influencing deeply the way we believe. St. Augustine understood this very well. Father Tom Martin OSA, in Our Restless Heart: The Augustinian Tradition (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2003), takes up this issue: "Does Augustinian spirituality lead to a privatized spirituality? While it is clear that Augustine privileges the heart and the journey within, he would be the first to decry any reading of him that would turn the Christian life into a solitary journey. It is always a shared pilgrimage, a community of fellow believers on a journey of faith to God" (p. 47). In another passage, speaking of the need to "return to one's heart," he says: "Yet for all this talk of 'heart,' this empl~asis on interiority, its inten-tion is never meant to lead to an introverted spirituality. What is fundamentally interior to me is, for Augustine, the point where I am also closest to my brothers and sis-ters in the human family. From the heart I come to Christian faith, become a member of the church, the Body of Christ . [Augustine's] insistence upon the heart is thus not a self-serving escape from responsibil-ity into interior religion and privatized faith" (p. 43). 62.4 2003 I believe this to be one of the greatest challenges to Christian faith today, the challenge posed by the privatization of belief. I have labored this point because I believe this to be one of the greatest challenges to Christian faith today, the challenge posed by th4 .privatization of belief. As Cardinal Hume once said, "faith is always personal but never private." Augustinian spirituality is one of the greatest safeguards we have. However, because of its emphasis on interiority and the need to find God within, it can very easily be hijacked by the "privatizers" of faith. Martin makes it quite clear that such an interpretation of Augustine is a distortion of his spirituality, which is at all times ecclesial, rooted in community, rooted in the church. "To remove or isolate or separate God or self or community within the thought of Augustine," he says, "would only result in a profound distortion of his spiri-tual vision" (p. 49). So, as we struggle with belief ina society that wants to reduce everything--whether fast food or spirituality-- to individual choice, Augustine provides us with a nec-essary corrective to the "McDonaldization" of religion, as a Scottish theologian calls it (John Drane, The McDonaldization of the Church, London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2000). Return to your hearts by all means, but not to stay there, rather to encounter the God who opens up our hearts to those around us. Augustine himself was only too aware of the temptations of interiority. His first experiment in community life was with like-minded friends near Milan just after his bap-tism. He established a community apart from the hustle and bustle of life in order to spend time in contemplation and reflection: otium sanctum, "holy leisure." He brought Review for Religious this idealized form of Christian community back to North Africa, to Thagaste, where he established a lay community, but he had a.rude awakening. Visiting a church in Hippo one day to look for a candidate for his community, he was grabbed by the congregation and presented to the aging Bishop Valerius for ordination to the priesthood--and he wept. Augustine knew that from then on his life would no longer be his own. Gone for the rest of his life was any notion of otium sanctum. The life of contemplation would lead him now to share that contemplation with others. It is a paradox of his life, and indeed of the Christian life in general, that the journey within becomes at a certain point a journey outwards, to God and to others. Hence his famous observation in the City of God: "For no one ought to be so leisured as to take no thought in that leisure for the interest of his neighbor, nor so active as to feel no need for the contemplation of God" (xIx. 19). The current resurgence of interest in religion and spirituality is evidenced in the number of books in the "Mind, Body, and Spirit" sections in most bookstores. Often the Christian section is quite small in relation to other religions. Clearly, many are hungry for a spiritual view of life. It has become obvious that people cannot survive for long on unbelief and on a purely secular view of the world, in spite of the predictions of the proponents of the "theory of secularization," who are now eating humble pie. Harvey Cox has said: "Today it is secularity, not spirituality, that may be headed for extinction" (Fire from Heaven, London: Cassell, 1996, p. xv). People yearn for enchantment. Secularity does not feed the human spirit, which is made for God. The Vatican has responded to this phenomenon by publishing Jesus Christ, the Bearer of the Water of Life: A Christian Reflection on the "New Age" (Pontifical Councils for Culture and Interreligious Dialogue, 2003). It 62.4 2003 Graham ¯ Belie, Augustine, and the New Religiosity This new religiosity is largely non-Christian. acknowledges that this renewed interest in spirituality and religion in general is evidence of a spiritual hunger in the contemporary world. There is in people a deep desire for the transcendent. "Our hearts are restless," says Augustine, restless for the true God (Confessions, I. 1). The document sees in this new religiosity "a genuine yearning for a deeper spiritu-ality, for something that will touch their hearts, and for a way of making sense of a con-fusing and often alienating world" (1.5). It also notes many positive aspects of this religiosity: its criticism of materialism, its sense of the sacredness of life, and its concern for the environment. But there is a difficulty. This new religiosity is largely non-Christian. As the document says, "it is on the wh61e difficult to reconcile it with Christian doctrine and spir-ituality" (2). It is important to remember that we are all subject to these influences in society at large. One has only to mention the example of Cherie Blair, the wife of the British prime minister, who has publicly declared her allegiance both to the Catholic Church and to forms of New Ageism, such as the use of crystals. I have no wish to judge an individual case, merely to cite her as a very public example of what I believe to be a common misapprehension: that you can mix Christianity with alternative spiritualities and think there is nothing amiss. Some of it may be harmless, but one needs to be dis-criminating. The current tendency towards the privatization of faith and spiritual individualism is also picked up by the Vatican document, which refers to "spiritual narcissism" and the "private world of ego-fulfillment," quoting a well-known commentator On New Age (3.2). It also cautions against looking for religious experiences "engen- Review for Religious dered by turning in on oneself." This leads on to the fundamental point that "Christian prayer is not an exer-cise in self, contemplation, stillness, and self-emptying, but a dialogue of love" (3.4). Certain kinds of religion can easily become an ego trip, and this document is not afraid to say so. Augustine's search for God, expressed in his Confessions, appears on one level to be the classic "journey within," and indeed he gave succeeding generations the spiritual vocabulary for that necessary journey. But he is at pains to point out that, unbeknownst to himself, God was with him at all times on that journey. It was not so much a search for self as a search for the Truth outside of self. In a sense, it was God who went in search of Augustine, not the other way round. It was grace that prompted him to seek God in the first place: "You were within me, and I was in the world outside myself . You called me, you cried aloud to me, you broke the bar-rier of my deafness" (X.2 7). As Jesus says in John's Gospel, "you did not choose me; no, I chose you" (Jn 15:16). It is important to mention this, as Eastern forms of prayer and meditation are very popular. While there are many rich insights to be gained from these traditions, like the need for stillness and proper bodily posture, one has to remember that these are not Christian forms of prayer. They are mainly exercises to bring about an expe-rience of peace and enlightenment. But Christian prayer is not fundamentally about such experiences, unless they come as a grace from God. It is a relationship more than an individual experience of heightened consciousness or awareness. As the Vatican document points out, "life in Christ is not something so personal and private that it is restricted to the realm of consciousness. Nor is it merely a new level of awareness" (3.5). To quote a contemporary theologian speaking about Augustinian interiority, Christian prayer is not a "diving expedition into the soul" 62.4 2003 Graham ¯ Belief, Augustine, and the New Religiosity (John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, London: Blackwell, 1990, p. 291), but an encounter with the living God in the person of Jesus Christ, the bearer of the water of life. Dry Rain It is as if a great party is under way: with every wind falling leaves, multicolored, natural confetti, gigantic golden snowflakes fr6m a sycamore. Autumnal dry rain in its festive, roundabout fashion waters next spring's growth, rots its way to fruitfulness, an ordinary embodiment of mercy, another promise of life from death, another reason to hope. Bonnie Thurston Review for Religious DENNIS J. BILLY Rediscovering the Rosary On 16 October 2002 Pope John Paul ~I promul-gated an apostolic letter on the rosary titled Rosarium Virginis Mariae. The purpose of the letter is to help Christians rediscover the rosary as a venerable form of prayer that will lead them "to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ" (§3). Addressed to the church's bishops, clergy, and faithful, the letter is continuous with the pope's earlier reflections in his apostolic letter on the new millennium, Novo millennio ineunte, where he insists on the importance of developing "schools of prayer" for helping the members of Christ's body to "set out in deep waters" (duc in altum) and experience the fullness of the gospel message. "With the rosary," the pope says, "the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate th6 beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths Of his love" (~1). In order to help this process of reclaiming along, he has officially proclaimed a "Year of the devotional life Dennis J. Billy CSSR writes again from Collegio Sant'Alfonso; C.P. 2458; Roma 00100; Italy. 62.4 2003 Billy * Rediscovering the Rosary Rosary" spanning from October 2002 to October 2003 (§3). A Path of Contemplation In this letter the pope reiterates a statement he made in his letter on the new millennium: "What is needed is a Christian life distinguished above all in the art of prayer." He presents the rosary as a "path of contemplation" that developed in the West and represents a counterpart to Eastern Christianity's "prayer of the heart" or "Jesus Prayer." It numbers "among the finest and most praiseworthy traditions of Christian contemplation" (§5). !n order to reclaim its full meaning, however, the rosary must be prayed meditatively against a backdrop of solitude. It sustains rather than conflicts with the liturgy. If properly revitalized, the prayer will be in touch with its Christological center and will aid rather than impede ecumenical efforts (§4). The rosary, moreover, is proposed as a preeminent prayer for peace and as a way of helping families cope with the forces of disintegration that threaten them on both the ideological and practical levels (§6). Mary is presented in the letter as the model of Christian contemplation par excellence: "No one has ever devoted himself to the contemplation of the face of Christ as faithfully as Mary." Mary's gaze would at times be % questioning look," as when she found Jesus in the temple (see Lk 2:48). It would also be % penetrating gaze" capable of understanding Jesus and possibly even anticipating his decisions, as at the wedding at Cana (see Jn 2:5). It could also be % look of sorrow," as when she stood beneath the cross (see Jn 19:26-27) or % gaze radiant with the joy of the resurrection," as on Easter morning, or "a gaze afire with the outpouring of the Spirit" (§10), as on the day of Pentecost (see Ac 1:14). Re'levy for Religious Because the rosary starts with Mary's experience, the pope describes it as "an exquisitely contemplative prayer." Without this contemplative dimension, it would lose its meaning and risk becoming nothing more than "a mechanical repetition of formulas" (§12). When prayed with reverence and a reflective heart, the rosary enables believers to remember Christ with Mary, to learn Chris~ with Mary, and to be conformed to Christ with Mary, to pray to Christ with Mary, and to proclaim Christ with Mary (§§13-17). A Compendium of the Gospel "The rosary," for John Paul, "is one of the traditional paths of Christian prayer directed to the contemplation of the face of Christ" (§18). It is sometimes referred to as "a compendium of the gospel." To further emphasize its Christological depth, the pope has proposed five new mysteries, from Jesus' public life. In addition to the traditional joyful, sorrowful, and glorious mysteries, these "mysteries of light" are "(1) Jesus' baptism in the Jordan, (2) his self-manifestation at the wedding of Cana, (3)' his proclamation of the king-dom of God, with his call to conversion, (4) his transfiguration, and (5) his institution of the Eucharist, as the sacramental expression of the paschal mystery" (§21). These mysteries span Jesus' public ministry. The first is traditionally understood as the first action of his public ministry. The second and third present him respectively as a miracle worker and as preaching and teaching with The five mysteries lead us from the beginning to the end of Jesus' public ministry and focus on the key elements of his message. 62.4 2003 Billy * Rediscovering the Rosary authority. The fourth foreshadows the resurrection and presents Jesus as the culmination of the Law and the Prophets. The fifth is traditionally considered the last action of his public ministry. The five mysteries lead us from the beginning to the end of Jesus' public ministxy and focus on the key elements of his message. As prophetic actions that effect what they signify, Jesus' baptism and his institution of the Eucharist encapsulate the whole of his ministry and serve as fitting bookends for all that comes between. Although the pope leaves people free to follow the traditional format (§19), he is quick to point out that these five new mysteries round out the contemplative focus of the rosary by adding Jesus' .public life to the profound mysteries of the incarnation, the passion, and the resurreEtion that the other three series highlight. In doing so, he roots the rosary even deeper in the Gospel narratives and encourages the faithful to see the intimate unity of the whole of Jesus' redemptive mission. Because the mystery of Christ also reveals something "about the mystery of man, the pope goes on to point out the important anthropological significance of the rosary for believers: "Contemplating Christ's birth, they learn of the sanctity of life; seeing the household of Nazareth, they learn the original truth of the family according to God's plan; listening to the Master in the mysteries of his public ministry, they find the light which leads them to enter the kingdom of God; and, following him on the way to Calvary, they learn the meaning of salvific suffering. Finally, contemplating Christ and his Blessed Mother in glory, they see the goal toward which each of us is called, if we allow ourselves to be healed and transformed by the Holy Spirit" (§25). When reflected upon with care, each of the mysteries of the rosary says something significant about the mystery of human existence. Review for Religious Assimilating the Mystery The.pope also devotes considerable space to how believers should pray the rosary. He highlights the constituent elements of this method of contemplation, one rooted in "the inner logic of the incarnation," namely, that in Jesus God wanted to take on human features. It is well to announce each mystery, perhaps with a suitable icon that will open up the biblical scenario for those praying. The announcement is meant to lead the imagination to focus on a particular moment in the life of Christ (§29). A reading from Scripture, long or short depending on the circumstances, can follow, and then a brief period of silence (§§30 and 31). After these preparatory exercises, those praying lift their minds to the Father with the words of the Our Father. Then come ten Hail Marys followed by the Trinitarian doxology (and sometimes a short prayer) to conclude the decade (§§32-35). Beginning and finishing the rosary as a whole is done in a variety of ways. Some people begin with a verse of Psalm 70: "O God, come to my aid; O Lord make haste to help me." Others begin with the Creed, an Our Father, and three Hail Marys (§37). Some people habitually pray all twenty decades of the rosary in a single day. For those who say five decades a day, the pope suggests the following format: the joyful mysteries on Monday and Saturday, the sorrowful mysteries on Tuesday and Friday, the mysteries of light on Thursday, and the glorious mysteries on Wednesday and The rosary invites believers to open their hearts with Mary to the Word of God seeking to be born within them. 62.4 2003 Billy ¯ Rediscovering the Rosary Sunday (§38). The beads themselves are more than a mere counting device. Flowing from and converging upon the crucifix, they remind believers that their lives must be centered on Christ, and can be seen as "a chain which links us to God," a symbol of "the bond of communion and fraternity which unites us all in Christ" (§36). The pope makes one point very clear: "Although the repeated Hail Mary is addressed direcdy to Mary, it is to Jesus that the act of love is ultimately directed, with her and through her." The repetition suggests our ongoing desire "to be conformed ever more completely to Christ, the true program of the Christian life" (§26). As a "method of contemplation," the rosary invites believers to open their hearts with Mary to the Word of God seeking to be born within them. Like the liturgy, it is a prayer which engages "the whole person in all his complex psychological, physical, and relational reality" (§27). Ten Purposes The pope's apostolic letter serves ten basic purposes: (1) it provides a fitting Marian complement to Novo millennio ineunte, his earlier apostolic letter on the new millennium; (2) it emphasizes the contemplative dimension of the rosary and encourages believers to use it "to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ"; (3) it reviews the method typically used when praying it and shows how it corresponds to the inner logic of the incarnation; (4) it draws out the Christological basis of the rosary and asserts that, when used appropriately, it will further rather than hinder ecumenism; (5) it highlights the anthropological dimensions revealed in the various mysteries and shows how the rosary can lead to a deeper understanding of human, existence; (6) it affirms that the rosary sustains the liturgy rather than being in conflict with it; (7) it breathes new life into the rosary by adding new mysteries that will root it even more deeply Review for Religious in the Scripture; (8) it shows parents that the rosary can help hold their family together in the faith and can foster their children's spiritual growth and development; (9) it presents the rosary as a prayer that by its very nature can advance peace in the world; and (10) it designates the year October 2002-October 2003 as a special time for rediscovering the power and beauty of this ancient and venerable form of prayer. The goal in all of this is to help the faithful recognize the grea( gift they have in the rosary and use it in new and creative ways as they face the challenges ahead of them. In his conclusion, the pope asserts that the rosary is "a treasure to be rediscovered." It has something to offer to everyone: bishops, priests, deacons, religious, and laypersons. He asks all members of the church to take this old and venerable form of prayer once again to heart: "I look to all of you, brothers and sisters of every state of life, to you, Christian families, to you, the sick and elderly, and to you, young people: confidently take up the rosary once again. Rediscover the rosary in the light of Scripture, in harmony with the liturgy, and in the context of your daily lives" (§43). soundings for one of the sisters in the infirmary little does she know she teaches me how to eclipse her deafness. i am brief, no, spare in my attempts. at eighty, she is the poem: words are few mixing with her grief which ebbs like the tides at twilight Lou Ella Hickman IWBS 62.4 2003 MARY JOSEPH SCHULTZ Mirroring Jesus: The Luminous Mysteries and Religious Life TRhosea rHy-o-lOyc Ftoabtheer r2'0s0 n2a tmo iOncgt oobfe trh 2e0 Y03e-a-cr aomf et,he certainly not coincidentally, during a time of profound unrest, conflict, and anxiety. Our world and our church are in labor, struggling for a birth, a release, new life, The feelings of fear, hopelessness, and anxiety that have invaded the lives of all of us call for healing and a new vision. The luminous mysteries of the rosary offer all Christians a new perspective, a new graced opportunity to deepen our understanding and love of our faith, namely, by bringing the public life of Jesus into the rosary. Here we can find refreshment for our souls in these complicated and strife-filled days. We can also find here an additional special gift as vowed religious. I would like to examine the new mysteries in relation to ~onsecrated Mary Joseph Schultz SCC is president of Assumption College for Sisters, the only rerfiaining sister-formation college in the United States. Her address there is 350 Bernardsville Road; Mendham, New Jersey 07945. Revie-w for Religious life, reflecting on how each one can be linked to an essential element of it. The Baptism of Jesus--"You are my beloved Son. On you my fax;or rests" (Mk 1:11). Baptism the Foundation of Religious Life. By virtue of our baptism, all Christians are consecrated for evangelization. We are reborn in Christ; our life is no longer our own. This exalted reality of the indwelling, always challenging and sometimes downright scary, takes a lifetime, indeed an eternity, to grasp. We have been chosen by God to take on the image of his Son, to be his child in our world today. And naturally we cannot attempt this alone, but God's abiding presence, the surpassing gift of grace, enables and ennobles us from within. What does being reborn in Christ imply, particularly for a religious? We are doubly chosen. Cradle Catholics were first called by God through our own particular birth circumstances; converts to Catholicism followed a circuitous adaptive route to being cleansed, empowered, Christified. Whatever the circumstances of our baptism, we have been called and sent, challenged by the Spirit to put on Christ. But as religious our further call is yet more radical. By our call to religious life, the fire that burns in the heart of all Christians is ignited into a new flame of desire for deeper union, deeper consecration, through the gift of our lives. As John Paul II tells us in Vita consecrata, "in such a life baptismal consecration develops into a radical response in the following of Christ through acceptance of the evangelical counsels" (§14). Apart from the consecration of our baptism, it is unlikely that we would .have heard any call to religious life. It is baptism's sacramental spark that ignites the steady flame of Christianity. But, for the steady flame to be strong, it requires of everyone the living of the evangelical counsels. For religious there is a renewed 62.4 2003 Scbultz ¯ Mirroring yesus commitment to them. This is a new source of fuel, our life newly offered to God in all its aspects, like so many grains of incense. The religious life, often symbolized by burning candles too, takes on a new intensity and brings the baptismal vows into a concentrated focus. Perhaps this is why the profession of the evangelical counsels has never been elevated to being a sacrament in the Catholic Church (which some have proposed). It is so obviously an efflorescence of the permanent sacramental character of baptism already present. It is also a deepening of that already living root. The Wedding Feast of Cana--"Do whatever he tells you" (In 2:5). Obedience. In this wonderfully human and touching scene from the life of Jesus, we hear the only recorded words spoken by Mary during the public life of her Son: "They have no wine" and "Do whatever he tells you." Indeed, these words inaugurate his public life. And, for religious women and men, this scene and these words teach a lesson on the vow of obedience. During the thirty years or so since I began learning about the vows in the novitiate, obedience, of all the vows, has undergone the greatest transformation. It has also held the most difficult challenges. (As in most paschal realities, these are not unrelated developments.) My juvenile understanding of "blind" obedience and merely "doing what your superior tells you" has unfolded into a passionate desire to seek the will of God in all its manifestations. Let us face it, how many direct injunctions do community leaders issue during a year to the group as a whole or to me individually? My obedience must be daily and personal. It cannot be relegated to a once-a-year acceptance of my assigned apostolate, though that has sometimes been traumatic enough. Because of the gift of my vow of obedience, I Review for Religious must strive each and every day to hear God speaking to me in a multitude of people, places, and circumstances. I must keep my heart attentive to all of God's calls and then responsive, doing "whatever he tells you." The response could be as small as picking up the phone when I am already engrossed in another task, or lovingly setting aside my own agenda when a sister needs my help. It could be as large as accepting a call to community leadership, or adjusting to the death of a loved one. I laid down my will at my profession. The "freedom" I renounced back then has given rise to a new deeper freedom of spirit. I am free to pursue holiness through the directives of God mediated by my community leadership, other community members, and the circumstances of my life. United with my sisters in community, I stand before God's will, ready to discern and accept. This requires an ongoing grace of faith, a sense of responsibility for myself and others, and a growing awareness of my gifts and limitations. In due time Jesus takes the water of my desire and turns it into the wine of his desire for me. Because of the gift of my vow of obedience, I must strive each and every day to hear God speaking to me in a multitude of people, places, and circumstances. Proclamation of the Kingdom--"The kingdom of God is at hand" (Mk 1:15). Chastity. In the eyes of society today, chastity for the sake of the kingdom is perhaps the most mystifying and countercultural of the three vows. It has been much written about in the past two years alone. Vv'hy give up marriage and the practice of a holy sexuality when it is 62.4 2003 Scbultz ¯ Mirroring yesus such a gift of God, when the witness of true marital fidelity is so sorely needed in today's world? Precisely to proclaim the kingdom! As John Paul II tells us in Vita consecrata: "Yes, in Christ it is possible to love God with all one's heart, putting him above every other love, and thus to love every creature with the freedom of God!" (§88). Not only is it possible, if one has really been called to it and possesses the graced capacity for the vow, but it is a most powerful means for proclaiming the message of the kingdom. The pure love called forth by this vow flows .from the very life of the Trinity, a communitarian life and love revealed to us in Christ. This life, this very same love, is the "stuff" of the Good News that we are called to proclaim, first by our lives, then by words if necessary, as St. Francis would say. By the evangelical counsels consecrated persons are immersed in the life of the Trinity, freed from the constrictions of an exclusive love, able to be totally available for the mission of the church as lived according to the particular community's charism. My chastity enables my obedience to come to fruition as I am called from one ministry to another, one house to another, even from one moment to another. I can and should live my life unattached, in the light of faith, with the joyful freedom of the new heavens and the new earth (see Rv 21:1). I have died and risen with Christ, and I am called to live in the now of the kingdom. The life of a religious man or woman symbolizes what it in fact is, a contact point between Christ and his church--and God's kingdom is truly at hand. The Transfiguration--"And he was transfigured before them" (Mt 17:2). Poverty. This mystical event in the life of Jesus gives his three apostles a glimpse of who he really is. His Review for Religious divinity shines forth, and they behold the glorious face of the Son of God. In reflecting on this incident afterwards, did it not strike them over and over what a tremendous emptying had taken place when Jesus assumed our human nature and for thirty-three years walked the earth as ordinary as themselves? These apostles, unlettered though they were, could not help reflecting on what they had witnessed. They were able to surmise the real identity of the One who called them to follow, the One for whom they too were emptying themselves, relinquishing things in their discipleship. During the vision Peter had exclaimed, "Lord, how good that we are here!" (Mt 17:4). Then he wanted to install three tents and make the experience a more permanent one. Jesus, however, drew them out of their mystical reverie: "When they raised their eyes, they saw no one else but Jesus alone" (Mr 17:8). He walked with them down the mountain, back to ordinary reality. This was the ordinary-looking Jesus, the man they knew and were used to, the friend they were leaving their ordinary lives to follow. He was "himself" again, and asking them to say nothing of what they had seen. For religious women and men who have left all things to follow the Master, the transfiguration can serve as a meditation on our vow of poverty. Jesus in his divine frugality "left behind" his Godhead to assume humanity, but how divine this poverty is, this incarnation, this "taking the form of a slave and being born in the likeness For religious women and men who have left all things to follow the Master, the transfiguration can serve as a meditation on our vow of poverty. 62.4 2003 Scbultz ¯ Mirroring Jesus of men" (Ph 2:7)! While on his earthly mission, Jesus downplayed his divinity or kept it to himself except for this sacred moment when his human poverty became apparent by contrast. Later Calvary was seen as the ultimate of human pain and humiliation, not by contrast as on Tabor, but in the depths of its willing self-sacrifice. By religious poverty we voluntarily give up personal accumulation and full personal use of worldly goods, even such things as time and talent. This emptying for the sake of Christlike availability is a way of doing something radical for God. It is true imitation of Jesus, "who made himself poor though he was rich" (2 Co 8:9). Where better do we see this stark reality than on Tabor? Living this vow, following the pattern of Christ, calls us to be poor in fact as well as in spirit. Religious need to give evidence of a simple lifestyle, with variations according to community charisms. We need to follow the call to empty ourselves radically, in imitation of the One who for our sake modeled a life of emptiness perfecdy. We face the challenge, especially in a materialistic society, of opting not to have, not to be caught up in the consumer mentality that is so suffocating and numbing. This voluntary self-renunciation makes sense only with the humble Christ before our eyes as ideal and strength. The Institution of the Eucharist--"This is my body to be given for you" (Lk 22:19). Community and Holiness. Religious life without a focus on the Eucharist is, to me, unthinkable and unlivable. How better can we be Christ, fulfill our baptismal consecration, and live the evangelical counsels than by daily receiving our nourishment from his very body and blood, by becoming what we eat? The gift of the Eucharist is the divine imagination's chosen way to be with us always, even to the end of time. Tending toward the holiness to which all founders and foundresses Review for Religious aspired, whatever their historical milieu, the members of religious communities must seek the Source of their graced desire for holiness in their Eucharistic communion. Finding it there, they also nurture one another. The bond of community is one of the distinguishing marks of religious life. We came to accomplish together what none of us can do alone. As members of the Mystical Body by virtue of baptism, we draw strength, light, and urgent zeal for evangelization from the sacramental Christ. "In the celebration of the mystery of the Lord's body and blood, the unity and charity of those who have consecrated their lives to God are strengthened and increased" (Vita consecrata, §95). In communal worship, community members reflect on Jesus' act of servitude in the washing of feet, his giving of himself in service. Turning to one another, we daily echo his words about his body being given for us (see Lk 22:19). To you, my sister, to you, my brother, in community, I give the gift of my personhood. Becoming bread and wine for the world, becoming nourishment for God's pilgrim people through our various ministries, is what consecrated persons are called to. No matter what our apostolic works entail, no matter where or how we minister to God's people, whether through prayer or action, we as religious are called and consecrated for holiness. We owe it to the Mystical Body. We owe it to the world. Our call, though individually discerned and individually professed, is lived in common. Our holiness can never be a private matter. We must be and become ever more really what we have publicly professed. While I am by no means suggesting that religious are on a pedestal, we surely are in a fishbowl, especially in the last few years. We must be who we say we are. Today's people have the right to expect that, when they look at religious, they will truly catch a glimpse of 62.4 2003 Schultz ¯ Mirroring Jesus Christ and the gospel values he preached and lived. It is he who must shine forth publicly. It is he who mysteriously and subdy works thi'ough our dull and sinful human selves, alone and in community. For putting on Christ, for living our vows and making ourselves receptive to communal Eucharistic holiness, we can hope to find the rosary's luminous mysteries providing us with fresh encouragement. Mary, our mother and guiding star, will be there as we begin, and at the end, and in between. Exchanging Gifts Even then, in that first star-guided Giving of gifts imported from lands afar: Not the most practical or the most useful For a young household, those gifts are That they offer: gold (of course, money Matters at any season of any year), . But however richly boxed, their potpourris Of high-priced frankincense and myrrh Fail to feed a family; still, nothing At all was ever expected in return, Unlike our ritual passings back and forth Of pricy imports and baubles, meant to earn More than mere admiration: the like exchange Endlessly of acquisitions from off the shelves Of shops, while that first starlit gift-recipient Gives us back endlessly our ransomed selves. Nancy G. Westerfield Review for Religious PETER CANTWELL Why Newly Professed Religious Leave This article was written to assist Franciscan lead-ers. They and others found it helpful.Without rewriting .it at the risk of losing some of its orig-inal flav~r, I offer it to other religious in the continuin~ conversation about this vital issue. As Francis of Assisi neared death, he said to his brothers, "I have done what is mine to do; may Christ teach you what is yours to do.''1 Implied in these words is a challenge for his followers to discover anew in each generation how to express his ideals. There can never be one fixed expression of such a rich gospel charism, nor should there be. Every age, every season of life, and every culture requires us to dig deep into the gospel as Franci~ read it and find new ways to live his simple but demanding religious perspectives Peter Cantwell OFIM, a Franciscan friar, has been a lecturer and practitioner in individual, couples, and family therapy for thirty years, and is director of ongoing formation for the Australian Franciscan province. His address is St. Francis Xavier Church; 1087 Whitehorse Road; Box Hill, Victoria 3128; Australia. 62.4 2003 Cantwell ¯ Wby Newly Professed Religious Leave message. Failure to take up that challenge condemns us to irrelevance and extinction. Over recent years I have often reflected on why some young friars who join us with enthusiasm and excitement depart from our community soon after final commit-ment. Just at that moment when possibilities for min-istry open out, when there is the exciting chance to walk the path of Francis in our world, some choose to leave us. (Incidentally, I believe the following reflections also apply to why more young men do not join us.) These are my own personal musings on this vexing question, musings with which you, the reader, might dis-agree. Behind them lie some of my own story in the Franciscans and several of my deeply held beliefs about our life. For thirty years I have been involved in renewal programs for religious and in the screening program for candidates for our Australian province. As a professional counselor I have helped many religious and priests at the moment of their departure. Visiting other provinces of the order, I have observed similar phenomena. My teaching of counseling in secular and religious tertiary settings has enabled me to talk with adults about how they see religious life. Behind my reflections are one deep personal convic-tion and one fact. My conviction is that the message and ideals of Francis--of bringing the gospel's peace mes-sage to the world, of seeing beyond the allurement of consumerism, of having a special concern for the poor-- are what is most needed by today's world, particularly today's youth. There is no malaise in the ideals proposed to us by Francis. They are as radiant and relevant as ever they were. The fact about Franciscan religious life today is that there is a gap--though perhaps it is narrowing-- between Francis's ideals for us friars and the lived real-ity of our fraternal lives and ministries. We express 6ur ideals in ways that have lost their relevance. Because of Review for Religious this, some young religious cannot recognize the fire of Francis in our daily structures, and they seek to imple-ment their ideals elsewhere. I do not share the pessimism of friars who say they would not invite young people to join us. I find such defeatism thoroughly unlike Francis; it betrays an unwill-ingness to make changes that we need to make. I write these reflections with hope and rising excitement. Hope and possibility are being shown by those with daring and vision. Baggage We Still Carry with Us In thinking and (alking about why young friars leave, we have often focused on only part of the picture. Thus, some have said that young friars leave because their gen-eration is selfish and not willing to make a commitment. Recent developments in family therapy suggest looking to the big picture--the whole family or, in our case, the whole "system"--for the cure. Formerly, acting-out ado-lescents were usually treated with individual therapy, on the theory that there was something wrong within the adolescent: correct that and all would be fine. But often there was a relapse. Therapy began to realize that the problem might be a reflection of what was happening in the entire family--and that the entire family might need to change its way of operating. Certainly there are times when the difficulty is mostly within the individual, but people cannot not be affected by the systems in which they live. Can these insights help us understand why some friars leave? Is saying that young brothers leave because their generation is "selfish and unwilling to make com-mitments" being fair about the part the system of reli-gious life plays in their departure? When I joined religious life in the mid 1950s, it somewhat resembled what is sociologically called a "total 62.4 2003 Cantwell ¯ Why Newly Professed Religious Leave Francis founded his brotherhood as complementary to the monastic movement. institution," one where the identity of the institution assumes priority Over the identities of the individuals who make it up. We dressed identically; we were exhorted to behave the same. To stand out or be "sin-gular" might indicate pride. Community life was the con-veyer of grace, so conformity to a detailed daily regimen was expected. Personal relationships were discouraged because they endangered celibacy: We were trained to be self-contained and to let our conformity and work express our commitment. Though much is now chang-ing, the nonrelational tone of some communities can cause isolation in young friars. Contemporary research says that religious life had become caught in a monastic lifestyle that many founders did not want) Francis founded his brotherhood as com-plementary to the monastic movement. He deliberately did not want to be absorbed into monasticism. He founded us to be a stark challenge, even a shock, to both civil and ecclesiastical society through living the gospel in a radical and transparent way. After his death the brothers, channeled into the monastic movement, lost mobility, lostpublic visibility, and lost a credible lifestyle. One writer says that we were tamed by the insti-tutional church. We do not live on the edge anymore except by courageous individual choice.3 Young friars find these monastic remnants quaint and a block to their ide-alistic vision. Do we provide opportunity for them to live out their dreams, or are they merely educated to fit in? After the departure of a young brother, I have heard such remarks as "He lost his vocation. I could see it coming. He had all those friends outside community." l~eview for l~etigious These words may reflect a theologically crass way of describing a vocation, absolving the community of any contribution to the departure. The vocation seems to be pictured as something in a hermetically sealed container, given to the recipient by God, and totally immune to and separate from fraternal influences. On one level there is nothing mysterious about the growth of a vocation. I had never met a Franciscan till I did a retreat during the last year of high school. I was impressed by the Franciscan who gave the retreat. He had been a professional reporter with a bright economic future, but he gave it up to be a friar. I thought there must be something pretty good in that life. I approached him. He was interested in me, came to visit my family, kept contact, became a friend (with a big age difference). He nurtured my interest and fanned the small flame of inquiry. He gave me literature on Francis, and I discov-ered that Francis had made a similar decision seven hun-dred years earlier. Francis had everything he wanted, but realized it was not enough. Wow! I could feel excite-ment when I left home to join thefriars. My three broth-ers had all married and were pleased with their choices. I felt I was making an equally exciting choice. It was the start of an adventure, an adventure that has never stopped. Friars supported me and cared for me; I formed deep friendships over the years. These friends offered me opportunities, and they challenged me to live the life. Would my vocation have .grown without them? Could I have nurtured my personal "grace of vocation" without them? I doubt it. A vocation is a delicate seed. It needs warmth and careful watering, especially during the early days. The atmosphere, the environment, affects its interior and exterior development. In a recent article a young per-son says that "true rapport, indeed a real friendship, with one religious is more valuable in discernment than one 62.4 2003 Cant'well ¯ Why Newly Professed Religious Leave IIll hundred religious asking me if I am interested in their order . It is very important that religious communi-ties develop friendships with us that nurture growth in faith and commitment to God.''4 In looking at the place of larger systems in the devel-opment of a vocation, we must say a word about the church. As is the case in the order, there are many seeds of hope within the church today. But ~here is something else as well. In a secular university where I teach coun-seling a couple of days a week, I have wonderful students on the whole, postgraduate students of mature age. About a third of them are nonpracticing Catholics. We often have interesting discussions at lunch breaks. They find it hard to understand how someone who is more qualified in their profession than they are can be both-ered being highly involved in church matters. They are not angry with the church. They just find the church irrelevant. The church sometimes gives the impression that it does not need to listen to people's .needs, that it knows the questions they should be asking. But, as Giacomo Bini says, the church can spend its time answer-ing questions that people are not asking. A Change of Culture The worst way we friars can live our Franciscan com-mitment is to ape in our time what Francis did in his. Our age presents challenges different from his, and here lies the rub. As friars we are called to be mobile, not only with our dwellings and our phones, but with our thinking. Change is of the essence of decent physical, emotional, spiritual, communal growth. The strange thing is not that yeligious life is changing, but that it managed to stay the same for so long. "It is equilibrium, not change, that is fatal." 5 The challenge is that we need to change. Are we Willing? The following thoughts try to catch the spirit of our Review for Religious times, point out the needs that we have to answer, sketch the cultural milieu to which we have to be relevant with our exciting Message. To be relevant, we will have to make 180-degree turns in many areas. Years after we ourselves grew up, what are some of the characteristics of the culture in which our new friars have grown up? One dramatic change in today's society is a shift from a work world to a relational world. Recent research in Australia society shows that around one-fourth of the people between the ages of thirty and sixty are "down-shifters"; that is, they have changed careers or reduced work hours and taken a pay cut in order to have more time for family and friends: "The lifestyle has given them a wealth of new friends from a wide cross-section of backgrounds, and the dis-tinction of knowing the names 0f everyone who lives in their street.''6 Obviously not all people are choosing to make this shift, nor should they, but it represents a new emphasis in modern life, a move away from workplace efficiency toward the full growth of the human person. The young writer quoted earlier supports such adaptation: "One of the most com-monly found features of Generation X is its sense of iso-lation and its yearning for stable companionship . We Xers are drawn wherever we feel welcome and find friendship.''7 "Intimacy" (how I relate to another human being) is an important element of human growth, occurring in early adulthood and building on people's sense of iden-tity (who I am). In popular parlance, intimacy is often wrongly identified with sexual intimacy. Intimacy tech- One dramatic change in today's society is a shift from a work world to a relational world. 62.4 2003 Cantwell ¯ Why Newly Professed Religious Leave nically means the capacity to function "up close" to another person in any situation of life. There is no evi-dence that physical sexual intimacy is "necessary for mature development, but there is a wealth of evidence that having close friends, feeling cared for and loved, and being able to relate to others without unnecessary barriers are central to happiness. Closely allied to having healthy relationships is the search for true community. More so than previous gen-erations, today's young people meet many of their inti-macy needs by belonging to a group. A young person observes that in his view "religious life is special in pro-viding everyday community practices that foster spiri-tual growth in ways that are difficult to find on one's own.''8 The young today value being in a supportive envi-ronment more than having job security. The breakdown of traditional neighborhoods and the mobility of Western populations are the causes of much loneliness and isola-tion. The multitude of support groups--from therapy groups to reading groups--witnesses to contemporary culture's hunger for community. Young adults do not Seek community as a soft option: "We do not want community just to comfort, us and give us a sense of security. We want to be stretched and chal-lenged to serve God and others with the community life serving as a support that allows us to reach beyond our-selves in the service of God through prayer and works.''9 And they actually seek structures in community, but ones that are alive and thoughtful and provide human and spiritual support. Among the tertiary students I teach, I find it.easy to initiate a discussion on "spirituality," but mention the word religion and the energy for the discussion dimin-ishes. "Religion" is seen to be connected to mainstream churches, which are often experienced as irrelevant. The young seek a spirituality that builds on human whole- Review for Religious ness. For them being "fully spiritual" is being "fully human." They often experience mainstream church life as a spiritual desert. "Xers are known for their great spir-itual hunger. When this deep hunger for religious mean-ing has not been satisfied within the religious practice of families, many of us have looked outside of the tradi-tional familial practices to come into contact with the transcendent meaning that we crave." 10 Young adults today are perceptive about genuine-ness: the medium is the message. "Religious need to present, themselves as people who have benefited immensely from their vocation and have found peace, mission, love, and a passion for the gospel and for God through their decision."11 The culture of the young has little time for the phony, for performance that does not come from the heart. They are very sensitive to any gap between what we ask them to profess and what they observe us living. Do we ask them to profess "poverty" and then live like upper-middle-class people? "In sum, Xers are not going to make a radical countercultural decision unless they see a radical lifestyle being lived out, one that has benefits that married life does not.''12 We ask them to give up everything. What is the excit-ing challenge we offer them? I am convinced that the issue for today's world is "justice," especially for disenfranchised groups and par-ticularly those without a social voice. Issues of church dogma--while not in any sense unimportant--evoke lit-tle energy compared with issues of people's rights to just treatment. Daily newspapers are full of human-rights and justice issues. "Experience indicates that [young adults] have a very strong sense of the common good and of collective social and civic responsibility.''13 They have little truck with cover-ups and social dishonesty, and find the behavior of some church officials in recent sexual-abuse issues obnoxious. 62.4 2003 Cantwell ¯ Why Newly Professed Religious Leave Today's young adults demand authenticity of person and action. Seeds of New Life My hope for the future of our brotherly life comes from my conviction that Francis calls us to a style of fra-ternal living and mission for which there is a thirst in our culture. If our young adults are calling for transpar-ent authenticity in personal life, for communal life that is supportive and challenging, for relationships rather than material efficiency, for spiritualwholeness, and for engage-ment with justice and peace in our world. Are these things not the message of Francis of Assisi and the ideals that today's Franciscans have at heart? It would take us beyond the present article to elabo-rate on these five emphases, nor is it necessary. I would like simply to quote from our Rule, from the contem-porary document Priorities of the Order, and from sev-eral other sources to show that what the young seek has always been and is now central in theory to our life. Today's young adults demand authenticity of person and action. Nothing characterized the life of Francis more than his untiring personal conversion, his belief that the best message he could offer to people was the transparency of his own life, being a "living memory of the gospel ofJes.us.''14 His journey to La Verna was a call to purify his own life, to make it as close to his Lord's as possible. The stigmata was the recognition, the physical manifestation~ of the union of Francis's spirit with that of his Lord. For Francis, fraternity is the first witness of the apos-tolate. For him, our relationship with our brothers and, of course, with God is the foundation of our way of life. What statement on fraternity could be better than the one in our Rule (chapter vI)? "And wherever the broth-ers may be together or meet [other] brothers, let them Review for Religious give witness that they are members of the one family. And let each one confidently make known his need to the other, for, if a mother has such care and love for her son born according to the flesh, should not someone love and care for his brother according to the Spirit even more diligently? And, if any of them become sick, the other brothers should serve him as they would wish to be served themselves." 15 The recent publication from our general chapter offers the same challenge for fraternity: "The Project of Fraternal Life. should be drawn up. so as to help the ministers, guardians, and friars to build up a real and profound fraternal life, to cultivate human values like dialogue, deep-level communication, a family spirit, mutual friendship, courtesy, willingness to serve, joy, jus-tice, transparency." 16 And Giacomo Bini says: "What a paradise . . . the atmosphere of the community becomes when the mem-bers have learned how to get to know one another and to engage in dialogue with themselves, with God, and with the others . We must therefore invest all our talents in promoting a formation to fraternal relationships and to relations with God. No excuses are acceptable: neither age nor temperament nor 'venerable' tradition can dis-pense us from this duty.''~7 One of the most delightful characteristics of both Francis and Clare was their abil-ity to relate to the high and the lowly, the rich and the poor, the powerless and the powerful, with equal com-mitment of spirit. The primacy of the spiritual in young people's search is highlighted in one simple quotation from Francis's Rule: "Those brothers to whom the Lord has given the grace of working should do their work faithfully and devotedly so that, avoiding idleness, the enemy of the soul, they do not extinguish the Spirit of holy prayer and devotion to which all other things of our earthly exis- 62.4 2003 Cantwell * Wb~ Newl~ Professed Religious Leave tence must contribute." 18 And in Priorities of the Order we are told: "The contemplative dimension must be that priority which orientates and animates our whole life: the manner in which we seek and live the presence of God in every day also determines our concrete style of life and our manner of pastoral action in the Fraternity.''19 Francis has been strongly identified with the peace movement, and his peace prayer is recited by many inside and outside the church. Francis devoted his energies to the justice and peace issues of his time. His attempts to mediate between local warring towns and his journey to speak with the Sultan of Egypt are just some examples of his commitment to and preoccupation with peace between peoples. The present pope gathered religious leaders in Assisi when he wished the world to pray for peace. The increasing concern with justice and peace throughout our order--seen in recent publications from our JPIC office in Rome and in the heavy involvement of friars in different parts of the world--witnesses to the clear focus of our communities on these issues. Priorities of the Order sums up the same idea: "The friars in their lives and in their words should be promoters of justice, and heralds and builders of peace and reconciliation, so as to be prophetic signs which fearlessly denounce all that which destroys the dignity of man and of creation." 20 How We Can HelpClose the Gap I believe that some friars leave our fraternity soon after final commitment because the gap between the "lived experience" of fraternal life and ministry and the ideals that were fostered and experienced during initial formation becomes too broad. Great work has been done on initial formation in our order over recent decades, but with final commitment the friar experiences the more ordinary lifestyle of the brotherhood. This older system with its more impersonal tone, overly routinized prayer Review for Religious life, and rugged individualism leaves them feeling iso-lated and unsupported, and they become work-oriented. After years of counseling numerous religious who have left, it is hard for me to remember someone who departed because interesting ministry was unavailable. The common comment has been that life became "too damn lonely." How can the different parties help to close the gap in this time of transition? Times of transition involve cri-sis, and any crisis has two possibilities: opportunity if the crisis is faced, danger oth-erwise. Facing the crisis means avoiding any split by keeping the conversation going, talking of differences and commonali-ties. No one side ever has the whole truth; the truth is a shared truth. I note much good-will on the part of older friars and enthusiasm on the part of the younger ones. There is much "good wine" in both generations. Given this good environment for cooperation, how can we work together? Are there practical moves we can all make? The follow-ing are some of my random suggestions, and maybe you can come up with others: We need to continue moving away from monastic-style buildings towards more ordinary homes. We need to find more visible, credible, and transparent ways of living. For many friars brought up on the older model, where relationships were discouraged and closeness was taboo, this change could present challenges. Contemporary research on religious life indicates that there is a move towards small groups immersed in local communities where there can be a more relational life. "We have need in our society for a countercultural way of life that wit- No one side ever has the whole truth; the truth is a shared truth. 62.4 2003 Cant'well ¯ Why Newly Professed Religious Leave nesses to the gospel call to transcend hedonism, greed, and the desire to dominate.''21 Living in more ordinary houses also makes us more mobile. If we need to do something different, we just sell and buy an ordinary house and are not stuck with a monastery to sell. But young friars .are often looking (like Francis) for a deeper challenge than "living in ordinary houses." They would like to live more simply than their ¯ surrounding culture. They are looking for a palpable sacrifice expressed in our way of living. Smaller houses also demand some of the ordinary decencies of day-to-day living that can be avoided in large houses: "How was your day?" "Sorry!" "Thank you." "May I--?" (Incidentally, the increasing tendency for religious to live alone in ordinary dwellings avoids, in my view, one of the fundamental witnesses of religious commitment.) My own picture of future community life has us liv-ing in ordinary houses and going from there to work. This provides some kind of boundary between work and fraternity. The very acts of leaving home for work and returning home after work are important symbolically. There is no reason why a parish community could not live in an ordinary house within the parish. Friars whose ministry is giving retreats or giving parish missions or working with the poor in the immediate neighborhood or teaching in a nearby school could live fraternally in an ordinary house. We should be slow to build homes or offices specifically for ourselves. If we need office space, we can always buy or rent--then move more easily if the need arises. The move to smaller community living requires more "conscious formation in relationships. Many of the broth-ers in my age group missed out on the "intimacy" stage of formation. There was no encouragement towards friend.ships, towards closeness, towards just ordinary con-nection with other friars. Often those who joined reli- Review for Religious gious life as late vocations have already experienced this stage of development. Gentle encouragement for older religious towards a more relational life can be a big help. Larger communities are sometimes necessary, espe-cially for those who are ill or need more attention, but a large building does not have to impede good fraternity. Attitude is the ruling factor. For instance, even a large din-ing room can be made homey through the use of smaller tables and random seating. House meetings can address, besides strictly busi-ness agendas, matters such as "How are we with each other?" Simple questions like "What is going well in the community?" and "What needs to happen for our life together to be even better?" focus on the positive and require friars to look ahead rather than grumble about difficulties. Such questions create space for friars' needs to be attended to regularly--a good principle of group dynamics. Having a community night--no scheduled work and no work" unless urge.nt--can really help to build frater-nity. Make the night a little special. The meal might be special or served differently or eaten later. The spiritual aspect of our lives should be present. A Eucharist that is thoughtfully prepared is one option, or a special variation on the prayer of the breviary. We need to keep reviewing our commitment to our min-istries, Youth are looking for an exciting ministry that gives witness to our Franciscan values. No ministry is excluded for us, but each ministry must flow out of who we are. The area of our lives which has been most tamed by the institutional church is that of ministry. We have become very mainstream. "Is the societal need that moved us into these works many years ago still relevant? Is the countercultural stance that characterized the socially radical and politica!ly subversive vision of the founders still operative?''22 62.4 2003 Cantwell ¯ Why Newly Professed Religious Leave Why are we doing what we are doing? One reason offered is "We have been doing it for a long time." Not good enough. Another is "We are doing good work and the people love us." I hope that the people will always love us, but that is not a sufficient reason to stay or.go. One danger is that, as priests become fewer, we will be tempted to fill slots for demanding bishops. We speak much about preferential option for the poor. Some of the exciting ventures in our order--and quite ordinary ones as well--are focused on this societal need. In my own province we have a small community of friars living in a housing settlement. They are doing great work in ordinary ways: forming neighborhood groups to keep the suburb clean, finding furniture for the needy, helping build local community support groups, being resources for addressing neighborhood troubles. Young men who are thinking of joining us rightly ask: "Why are you Franciscans doing that particular min-istry?" Can we answer them? I believe the recently introduced custom of mentoring younger friars is an excellent idea that deserves being imple-mented. Being a mentor has been challenging for me, and I believe that it has helped build bridges. Being mentored by more experienced friars has helped me enormously. Meetings of young friars and even meetings, of young reli-gious from different congregations provide support through the sharing of experiences and thus getting a sense of solidarity in a common venture. When the meeting has involved only friars, they have appreciated the presence of the provincial administration for some of the time during the meeting. Meetings of friars in which the experiences of the differ-ent age groups are shared can help build bridges. Recently in my province we asked our two newly professed friars, who had completed a very good novitiate in another Review for Religious pro-~ince, to share with us their experience of the novi-tiate. The theme was expanded to include what young people seek in religious life. Young and old enjoyed the experience. Often what seems like bad will is lack of information. I believe that young friars benefit enormously from hearing the experiences of the older friars, and that sharings like these help close the gap between generations. The proviso is always the priority on listening, coming to learn and understand, rather than being a know-all on either side. In particular, are we attentive to the promptings of the Spirit in the young friars? Do their contributions have their rightful effect on policy decisions? Have we helped them to be skilled at the culture gap? I want to make special mention of the great wisdom and contribution of the older friars. Often in this paper I have referred to age gaps. More correctly, they are cul-ture gaps. Some of the most up-to-date, psychologically flexible, and spiritually wise friars are those who have borne the heat of the day and who are able to offer their wisdom to any who listen. Keeping the conversation going between the different age groups is important in a time of transition. If we do not talk to each other, we build up fantasies of what "that other group" is thinking or doing. I believe we all have lo~s of goodwill, and behind our unwillingness is often fear. When I was prenovitiate director, I used to invite any friar who was passing through the area to "come and talk to the prenovices." The common worry was: "What will I talk about? I don't understand young people?" My response was: "Simply tell them what it has been like for you to be a follower of Francis." We had many enjoy-abl. e evenings, and imagined barriers were broken down. A prayer life that is simple but refreshing is the core of my fraternal life. There are many simple ways to vary common prayer: sing the hymn or play a CD, have some-one read the canticle reflectively, have silence instead of 62.4 2003 Cantwell * Wby Newly Professed Religious Leave Youth hearken to religious callings that offer a countercultural witness to the cultural trends of greed, power, consumerism, individualism. one of the psalms, omit a psalm and have a longer gospel reading or a nonscriptural reading. These suggestions do not require hours of preparation, but they draw us out of a numbing routine that certainly does not refresh my spirit. Faith sharing, too, deepens the experience of fraternity. There is often fear when faith sharing is mentioned: par-ticipants feel they will be asked to bare their souls before the brethren. I like to begin such sessions by saying that it is fine for any friar to be totally silent if that is his wish. One group with which I meet has a simple shared prayer that goes like this. First of all a text is read, usually from the Scriptures. After a short silence anyone who wishes shares just a phrase or word that stood out for him (no embellishment). The text is read a ,second time followed ¯ by a few minutes of silence. Then anyone who wishes . tells briefly what that text means to him or her. Finally we round off with a prayer. I always come away with some small inspiration. We will probably become poorer as a fraternity. Youth hearken to religious callings that offer a countercultural witness to the cultural trends of greed, power, con-sumerism, individualism. One of the most difficult chal-lenges I personally find is not taking the standards of average Australian society as the ones-for my own life. Some young friars have said that, when they joined the order, they went "up" in their standard of living. Can I live in such a way that, when lay people visit the com- Revie~ for Religious munity (or my room), they would find a simplicity of lifestyle that would make them think? Can we use for others the money people generously give us for our min-istry- and maintain a simple lifestyle in our fraternities? I believe Francis would want us to. As our numbers become smaller, we will probably become poorer as an order. I believe that will not do us any harm. When people--of whatever culture or race-- find that we are actually living side by side with them and are in need, they will provide for us. Finally, dare we do something new and exciting when numbers are going down--or even because numbers are going down? If young friars experience only the closing down of houses and nothing else, they might just feel they are on a sinking ship. If I Were a Young Man. If I were a young man with many bright opportuni-ties in Life before me, what kind: of Franciscan religious life would inspire me to join the fraternity? ¯ When I met individual friars, I would want to see the light in their eyes (like I found in the first friar I met) that would tell me they lived life with a passion. ¯ When I visited the communities~ I would want to feel genuinely welcomed (and I reckon I would quickly work out whether it was genuine, or not), not just another statistic. As I joined in community prayer, I would hope to find it fairly simple and thoughtful, not a rushed ver-sion of monastic prayei'. I would not want a lot of prayer--rather a quality about what I experience. And a certain atmosphere of silence at some times of the day would appeal to me. ¯ At recreation I would want to feel that the friars really wanted to have fun together and were not just going through another routine. I would be listening for such ordinary comments as "How was your day? What 62.4 2003 Cantwell ¯ Why Newly Professed Religious Leave were the results of Brother Juniper's visit to the doctor? Who has a new joke to tell?" ¯ I would want to talk to the older friars, to find out how they had experienced following Francis, to learn from their endurance and patience. I would want them to pray for my young journey and have confidence that I could make a contribution, even though different from theirs. I would want them to listen to my hopes, and I would want to hear theirs. Could they translate their struggles into something meaningful to me? ¯ I would hope the kitchen is a place where we all contribute--simple good food and good wine being essential to life. ¯ When they told me about their works, however simple, I would want to ask them why they did those particular things. How does the fire in their belly moti-vate what they do? I would be particularly excited about working for justice, for those without a social voice, for those who feel abandoned by our society. ¯ I would want to experience a rich diversity of min-istries: parishes (why this parish?), retreat work, work with the disadvantaged, skilled individuals doing some unusual ministries. The common denominator v~ould be the "Franciscan need." ¯ I would want to think that there is a certain mobil-ity about the brotherhood, that the friars have their ears to the ground ready to respond to new needs. ¯ I would want the accommodations to be simple yet comfortable--and that the rooms not be so self-contained as to be able to survive a nuclear attack. I would want the neighbors to call in when they think it important--and to be able to share our prayer life. But I would also hope there was a certain sacred space just for the community. ¯ I would want to feel encouraged to give rein to my dreams, to feel there is space for new wine as well as old. ¯ I would be most affected by friars who palpably Review for Religious enjoyed and passionately lived their lives, and who felt fulfilled as human beings and followers of Francis. Franciscan Fire I believe our world today is crying out for precisely those human and spiritual attitudes that Francis of Assisi lived so courageously. Through no bad will, we seem to have lost some of Francis's fire through excessive struc-tures and institutionalization. There is excitement in rediscovering it today, seeing the spark in people's eyes when they hear of Francis. Why do young friars leave? The ultimate answers are all individual. But some leave because the gap between the ideals of Francis and the lived experience of Franciscan life is or appears too great. Rather than blame either side--for blame simply darkens the space between us--can we see these departures as a call to stir the fire in our own lives? Numbers do not really mat-ter. Whether we are few or many is irrelevant, provided that friars are not leaving our midst because we are uncertain trumpets of truly good news. Our task is to echo credibly the ringing values of the poor man of Assisi. Francis and Clare became living and prophetic words to the people of their time. We are challenged to do the same, not alone but in tune with the Spirit. Let the last word be Oscar Romero's: This is what we are about. We plant the seed that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. 62.4 2003 Cantwell ¯ Why Newly Professed Religious Leave This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own. Notes 1 Murray 8odo, The Way of St. Francis (Cincinnati: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 1995), p. xvi. 2 Michael J. Breen (ed.), A Fire in the Forest: Religious Lift in Ireland, survey by John A. Weafer (Dublin: Veritas, 2001). 3 Johannes Baptist Metz, Followers of Christ: The Religious Life and the Church, trans. Thomas Linton (New York: Paulist Press, 1977). 4 Matthew T. Eggemeier, "Generation X and Religious Life: A Personal View," Review for Religious 59, no. 5 (September-October 2000): 485 and 484. s Breen and Weafer, Fire, p. 61. 6 Sydney Morning Herald, 11-12 January 2003, p. 12. 7 Eggemeier, "Generation X," p. 482. 8 Eggemeier, "Generation X," p. 482. 9 Eggemeier, "Generation X," p. 483. 10 Eggemeier, "Generation X," p. 481. 11 Eggemeier, "Generation X," p. 486. 12 Eggemeier, "Generation X," pp. 486-487. 13 Lori Spanbauer, "Snapshot of the Millennial Generation," Horizon 27, no. 2 (2001-2002): 15. ,4 Giacomo Bini, Clare of Assisi: A Song of Praise (Rome: Franciscan Press, 2002), p. 15. is Rule and General Constitutions of the Order of Friars Minor (Pulaski, Wisconsin: Franciscan Publishers, 1974), p. 29. 16 Priorities of the Order, General Chapter 1997 (Rome: Franciscan Press, 1998), pp. 8-9. 17 Giacomo Bini, Clare, p. 55. Review for Religious 18 Rule and General Constitutions, p. 28. ~9 Priorities of the Order, p. 6. 2o Priorities of the Order, p. 11. 2~ Breen and Weafer, Fire, p. 68. 2~ Breen and Weafer, Fire, p. 106. Seminary Woods The oak leaves quietly drift from the tall trees, landing softly on the lake, their edges curled skyward as they float along, blown by a gentle breeze. Father, may my hands ever be lifted to you in prayer, as I am blown about life's surface, a little leaf made to glorify your Name. Christine Diensberg OSF 62.4 2003 DONALD C. MALDARI Ignatian Insights into Evangelical Poverty Over the centuries Christian spirituality has, ironically, valued the practice of poverty as an aid to becoming rich in holiness. The inspiration for this evaluation of poverty comes first from its most limpid example, that of the kenosis (emptying) of the Son of God in the incarnation (Ph 2:7) and then from the lives of every person whom Christianity considers a saint. Catholic tradition recommends the practice of the "evangelical counsels" to all Christians as aids in their growth in holiness.~ They are manifold ascetical practices, especially obedience, poverty, and chastity, designed to counter sinful tendencies. They aim at checking human delusions of independence from God, such as pride and self-centeredness. They promote a relationship with God animated by the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love.2 They all appear oddly paradoxical, like pursuing wealth by way of poverty. Ignatius Loyola's spirituality sheds light on this paradox for all struggling to find hope. The young Ignatius sought fulfillment in the ways that conformed to the values of his or really any Donald C. Maldari SJ is an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies; Le Moyne College; Syracuse, New York 13 214. Review for Religious materialistic society: in riches and honor. His life was driven by the pursuit of courtly honor and of physical gratification. His convalescence from a serious wound at the battle of Pamplona forced him into a poverty of sorts: a lack of distractions that afforded him the opportunity to find authentic fulfillment in a newfound relationship with God. Upon reflection Ignatius concluded that the riches and honors that people seek may lead to a pride that is self-destructive. This pride obstructs a life-giving relationship with God. In order to battle against the suicidal temptation to self-sufficiency that riches, honors, and pride offer, Ignatius turned to evangelical poverty. Along with the great tradition of Christianity, the mature Ignatius understood evangelical poverty neither as destitution nor as austere disdain for material goods to earn divine favor. Destitution wounds the inherent dignity of human persons by depriving them of what they require to develop as God desires. Disdain for material goods denies the goodness with which God endowed creation. As is evident from the First Principle and Foundation of his Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius, on the contrary, rejoiced in the vocation to fulfillment that God extends to all people and recommended using created things for that purpose (SpEx §23). He grew to understand evangelical poverty as a spiritual attitude and material lifestyle that promotes the most fulfilling creaturely relationship with the Creator. That relationship is made possible by the life that flows from God to creatures, that is, by grace, and the hope that animates creatures and draws them into participation in the very life of God. There appears, therefore, to be a relationship between evangelical poverty and theological hope in the spirituality of Ignatius. Ignatius pursues evangelical poverty as a means of cultivating theological hope. This hope puts Ignatius in direct contact with God, as is 62.4 2003 Maldari ¯ I~natian Insights into Evangelical Povert~ Ignatius's spirituality of poverty and hope is countercultural, as is Christianity itself. characteristic of the theological virtues. One can trace the development of Ignatius's embrace of evangelical poverty in his Autobiography, and one can glimpse the results in the fragments of his Spiritual Diary that have survived. In these fragments one is privy to Ignatius's growing relationship with the Holy Trinity, which he perceives as a community of love that shares all it is and has. It, too, lives evangelical poverty! In his Spiritual Exercises Ignatius invites exercitants to develop their own relationships with the triune God. Ignatius's spirituality of poverty and hope is countercultural, as is Christianity itself. The Gospels assert that those who wish to live authentically need to lose their lives whereas those who selfishly cling to their lives destroy them. Sacrifice, the root meaning of which is "to make holy," seems inevitably to involve some sort of renunciation. The Christian tradition believes that this renunciation is necessary because of the sinful and selfish inclinations of humankind. Evangelical poverty is one of the sacrifices which Christianity values. The hope which it cultivates nourishes people, allowing them to participate even now in the life of God. Ignatius's Understanding of Evangelical Poverty Ignatius's Autobiography reveals a man who grows in his love for God. He attributes to God the initiative in their relationship, but recognizes that people can cooperate with God by taking graced action in developing the relationship. Ignatius grew in his recognition of the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, as the mediator between God and humanity. He encounters the Son in all creation, Review for Religious which, created through him, is charged with his presence. He encounters him in a privileged way in the incarnate Christ, the fullness of the revelation of God. In Christ Ignatius experiences the dynamic of salvation: the descent of the Son into the human situation in order to effect the ascent of humanity into the life and work of God. As mentioned above, Ignatius relates to God not only in his divine unity but also as the divine community of the Holy Trinity. Poverty, which he refers to as a "mother," plays a crucial role in the development of Ignatius's relationship with this community (Constitutions, §287). As Maurice Giuliani opines, he even recognizes it in the Holy Trinity and in each of its members: The poverty of Jesus who does the work of his Father, the poverty of the divine Persons whose richness is the love which they have for each other, the poverty of the creature who wholeheartedly desires "reverence and respect" along with fidelity and service. How could Ignatius, thus interiorly instructed, henceforth choose anything else but this way of material poverty, a visible sign of human poverty vis-a-vis God and participation in the poverty of God himself?.3 Poverty was an ascetical practice for Ignatius. He understood asceticism as the exercise a person undertakes to attain a goal. His understanding of it developed from an integration of the insights of Christian tradition with insights drawn from his own experiences.4 He used it as an aid to his relationship with the Trinity.5 Javier Osuna Gil suggests that one consider Ignatius's understanding of asceticism from three perspectives: (1) as an effort to remove all disorder, all impediment, whatever makes us less free to receive the transforming action of God, who embraces us with his Love; (2) as a task for transforming oneself into an agile and flexible "instrument" of God, 62.4 2003 Maldari ¯ Ignatian Insights into Evangelical Poverty with increasing availability; and (3) as a way of "carrying the cross," the necessary cost of the historical impact between the project of Jesus and the project of this world.6 Ignatius uses ascetical practices in order to promote the disposition of sinners who seek to respond to Jesus' invitation to follow him and to cooperate in his mission.7 The Spiritual Exercises themselves are ascetical in character in that they are means of preparing and disposing our soul to rid itself of all its disordered affections and then, after their removal, of seeking and finding God's will in the ordering of our life for the salvation of our soul. (SpEx §1) They propose to facilitate the self-communication of God to the exercitant (SpEx § 15). In 1544 Ignatius penned a short document titled The Deliberation on Poverty that provides an insight into his discernment regarding the prescriptions on poverty in the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. In this document one perceives Ignatius's use of evangelical poverty as an ascetical practice intended to promote his relationship with Christ. Manuel Ruiz Jurado distinguishes three motivations for Ignatius's choice of absolute poverty in this text: ascetic-mystical, apostolic, and Christocentric. The ascetic-mystical reasons include the recognition that poverty promotes absolute hope only in God because it separates one from reliance on secular things.8 The apostolic reasons include giving greater edification through example, having freedom to travel in imitation of Christ and the first apostles, whom Christ charged to live in poverty, and relying for consoling hope, not on secular goods, but on God alone.9 The Christocentric reasons include the desire to imitate Christ, who was poor and faced great adversities and who contin

Issue 51.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1992. ; Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1992 ¯ VOLUME 51 ¯ NUMBER 1 Review fl)r Religious (ISSN 0034-630X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535 3048. Manuscripts, books fi)r reviexv, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious. 3601 l,indellBoulevard. St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Correspondence about the "Canonical Counsel" departmeut: Elizabeth McDonough ()P ¯ 5001 Eastcrn Avenue ¯ P.O. Box 29260 Washington, I).C. 20017. P()S'I'M~XSTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid a~ S~. Louis, Missouri, and additional offices. SUBS(~RIPTI()N RATES Single copy $5.00 includes surface mailing costs. ()he-year subscription $15.00 plus mailing costs. Two-year subscription $28.00 plus mailing costs. See inside back cover fl~r subscription infl~rmation and mailing costs. ©1992 Revieu for Religious review fre° [gii ous Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor . Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer sJ Michael G. Harter sJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe David J. Hassel SJ Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Ann Ledden $SND Sefin Sammon FMS Wendy Wright PhD Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JANUARY / FEBRUARY 1992 ¯ VOLUME 51 ¯ NUMBER 1 contents 18 24 church and ministry Ecclesial Burnout: Old Demon, New Form Richard Sparks CSP suggests some remedies for overcoming a new strain of burnout which tends to afflict church ministers. Vincent Pallotti vs. Polarization Erik Riechers SAC shares some practical steps suggested by Vincent Pallotti for spiritual regeneration in a polarized church. The Ecumenical Kernel Dennis Billy CSSR explains how church unity involves a process of committed encounter between religious traditions whose very existence implies a relationship of concrete mutual dependence. 34 46 56 direction and discernment Elements and Dynamics of a Spiritual-Direction Practicum James Keegan SJ presents a successful way of putting together a spiritual-direction practicum and the personal and clinical issues involved. On Becoming a Discerning Person Charles Reutemann FSC describes in practical terms the meaning of spiritual direction, the person of the director, and the process of the direction session. Discernment and Decision Making Brian O'Leary SJ outlines elements for a pedagogy of discernment so necessary for our contemporary human and Christian situations. 2 Revie~ for Religious religious life 64 Making Sense of a Revolution Se~in Sammon FMS assesses the present state of religious life and sets an agenda for the process of renewal. 78 The Past Is Prologue Elizabeth McDonough OP identifies three interrelated phenomena which have significant influence on the direction of religious life. 98 An Experiment in Hope Mary Carty CND and MaryJo Leddy NDS report on a carefully planned intercongregational exploration in revitalizing religious life. 109 community and missien Internationality--At What Price? Janet Malone CND challenges any community which identifies itself as international to realize the concrete demands made on every aspect of their life together. 118 The Perils of Polarity Julia Upton RSM focuses upon the common roots from which both monastic and apostolic religious life take their growth. 134 Evangelizing Community William F. Hogan CSC suggests that religious who share faith in community are the best evangelizers. 140 4 144 149 Vocation as a Journey Brother Andrew shares a personal reflection on vocation as a crucifying walk in intimate union with Jesus. departments Prisms Canonical Counsel: Clerical Institutes Book Reviews January-February 1992 3 prisms As you page through this issue, you cannot help but notice the new appearance of Review for Religious. The development of this new look involved the staff, the members of the advisory board, and the Jesuit design group called Studio J in a critical assessment of everything from the important areas of content and edi-torial policies to the nitpicking aspects of the letterspac-ing of our new typeface. Our entire effort was to launch into our second half century of publication by enhancing our traditionally fine content and presenting it in a way that is truly "reader friendly." When Review for Religious began to be published in 1942, its very title gave evidence of its intended audi-ence- women and men consecrated in a special lifeform in the Catholic Church commonly called religious life. Yet even the first editors encouraged diocesan priests to use the journal articles as helps both for growing in their spir-ituality and ministry and for appreciating the various reli-gious- life traditions. Early on, too, lay women and men, especially those identified with third-order and sodality movements, were regular subscribers. With the burgeoning of lay ministries after Vatican II, there have been a growing number of lay readers, inter-ested particularly in developing their prayer life, under-standing their own roles as ministers of Christ, and even searching for better community models for family and parish, inspired by the internal efforts of religious com-munities. Our journal's contributors, too, illustrate the wide range of our readership--women, men, lay, religious, priests, even a bishop now and then. The question arose: Should the very name Review for Religious be changed to reflect its wider audience? 4 Review for Religious After much discussion we agreed that the religious-life empha-sis retains its central place because it focuses so well the rich spir-ituality traditions within the church. A secondary title, now evident on our cover, clearly highlights this aspect. But the pur-pose of Review for Religious remains just as current and necessary after fifty years: a forum for shared reflection on the lived expe-rience of all who find that the church's rich heritages of spiritu-ality- Augustinian, Benedictine, Dominican, Carmelite, Ignatian, Franciscan, Salesian, and many others--support their personal and apostolic Christian lives. For readers coming from whatever spiritual tradition, the articles in the journal are meant to be infor-mative, practical, or inspirational, written from a theological or spiritual or sometimes canonical point of view. The journal's look, then, is meant to reinforce its purpose. While you may miss the easily scanned backcover table of con-tents, we hope that you will find our Contents pages more infor-mative by their brief indication of an article's theme and by the grouping of various articles under sectional titles. The new sec-tional titles will keep changing from issue to issue, depending on the relationships among articles published in any one issue. Both the variety of sections and the variety of articles within a section are indicative of the vision and purpose of Review for Religious. In its 1942 beginnings this journal provided a com-munication forum which was almost nonexistent among various traditions represented by religious orders. Still today the mix of articles contributes to the ongoing understandings, critiques, and movements in our religious-life heritages so that we find new insight, expand our horizons, and collaborate more effectively for the good of our church life. I find a growing tendency among church people in the United States to read only the articles or books which reinforce their own views and to ignore or condemn out of hand an alternative or opposing approach. As an editor I find myself seldom (if ever) in total agreement with any one article--even in this iournal. For the healthiness of our life in Christ, we all need to appreciate and evaluate differences, changes, and developments in and among the various traditions which, contribute to the present makeup of the church. The articles in this iournal are like prisms which sub-tly nuance light into colorful and unexpected patterns. For exam-ple, some articles present contemporary ways of understanding our traditions; others probe new community forms, prayer prac- January-February 1992 5 Prisms tices, and models of ministering. You as reader may be inspired, surprised, or even annoyed by a particular theme or approach. For me the image of a prism suggests an application of the ministerial wisdom of St. Ignatius Loyola written at a time of church his-tory rife with excommunications and denunciations. Ignatius says: it should be presupposed that every good Christian ought to be more eager to put a good interpretation on a neighbor's statement than to condemn it. Further, if one cannot inter-pret it favorably, one should ask how the other means it. If that meaning is wrong, one should correct the person with love; and if this is not enough, one should search out every appropriate means through which, by understanding the statement in a good way, it may be saved. Sp Ex 22 (Ganss's translation) As the task of dialogue in the church takes on even greater importance, we want Review for Religious to remain a valued resource for people serious about their spiritual growth, for those involved in ministries, for members of religious congregations, and for spiritual directors and those seeking guidance. Review for Religious is privileged to play its role in that dialogue now as it has since its beginnings. Do let us know whether you find our newly designed journal "reader friendly." David L. Fleming sJ 6 Review for Relig4ous RICHARD C. SPARKS Ecclesial Burnout Old Demon, New Form cal, emotional, intellectual, social, and even spiritual energy--is reappearing among pastoral team members with alarming frequency. In those heady years immedi-ately following Vatican II, there appeared a strain of this self-induced dysfunction among zealous priests, sisters, brothers, and lay ministers who too literally tried to fol-low Paul's injunction "to be all things to all people." In their well-intentioned attempts to "be there" for the old and the young, the churched and the unchurched, parish-ioners and strangers alike, many in pastoral ministry "burned out." But it is not this "workaholic burnout''1 that I intend to discuss--though it still exists. I intend to discuss what I call ecclesial burnout. Most of us professed,, ordained, or hired in the last ten to fifteen years were schooled in a revised, more col-laborative model of ministry. This model is marked by job descriptions, staff meetings, attempts at collegial dia-logue, claiming one's personal needs and space, in short, Richard C. Sparks CSP is an editor at Paulist Press. He holds a doctorate in moral theology from Catholic University, with a specialty in biomedical ethics. He serves as an ethics consultant for several healthcare facilities and regularly offers professional and pastoral workshops on bioethics, sexuality, and moral deci-sion making. His address: Mount Paul Novitiate; Ridge Road; Oak Ridge, New Jersey 07438. church and ministry January-February 1992 7 a greater appreciation for the need of each minister to set limits and to nurture both professional and personal relationships. Ideally this leads to happier, healthier pastoral ministers, men and women who have found a better balance of work, play, prayer, exercise, rest, good nutrition habits, and so on. However, as most practitioners will admit, the team model in its all-too-human incarnations is no panacea. The lived experience of rule by com-mittee and collegial discernment does not always match the ideal. If the workshops I have given in various pastoral settings around the country are any indication, there is a new strain of ministerial burnout. It began in the early 1980s and seems to be immune to the simple correctives of prioritizing one's schedule, keeping in touch with friends, and religiously taking one's day off. The power of this ecclesial burnout to corrupt and to debil-itate formerly effective pastoral ministers (lay, clergy, and reli-gious alike) comes not from an overzealous commitment to work nor from an inflated sense of Lone Ranger ministry. Rather, I think, it is rooted in an erroneous, or at least inadequate, sense of church (that is, one's assumed ecclesiology). For the last five years I have been battling a mild-to-moderate case of it myself and am now slowly on the road to recovery. I feel it, I see it, others confide it, newcomers discern it, col-leagues transfer or leave church ministry altogether because of it--ecclesial burnout. No doubt much of it parallels other forms of psychological burnout. It certainly seems to fall within psy-chiatrist Herbert Freudenberger's classic definition: % state of fatigue or frustration brought about by devotion to a cause, way of life, or relationship that failed to produce the expected reward.''2 The symptoms are the same--long-term sullenness, a cynical edge, an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion, dissipated energy, forgetfulness, and depression (clinical or the everyday variety). People who suffer from ecclesial burnout frequently cite the cases of Charles Curran and Archbishop Hunthausen or the recent Vatican treatment of Rembert Weakland as precipitating their low mood. The suppression of certain catechisms, the removal of longstanding imprimaturs from books, the influence of CUF (Catholics United for the Faith) in Vatican curial circles, and the decidedly juridical tone of some CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) documents contribute to a certain fear that "the party's over." For some, particular diocesan, chancery, or intracommunity ev~counters contribute to a general feeling of 8 Review for Religious malaise. It might sound like a simple case of the liberals' lament, revisionist Catholics being disheartened by what some see as a mid-course conservative correction following a quarter century of Vatican II experimentation.3 But many who placed great hopes in the church after Vatican II increasingly feel that aggiornamento (renewal) may be short-lived, that this era of church renewal may be the aberration and not the norm, and that we may soon be back to church history's "business as usual"--politics, legalism, inquisitions, and all. Those who suffer workaholic burnout are depressed that they personally did not measure up, could not be all things to all people, fell short of some impossible agapeic ideal. By contrast, among those who suffer ecclesial burnout, there is less a question of antipathy about personal imperfections and more of a sense of dis-illusionment with the church and its abil-ity to really be "the kingdom come." I hear story after story of frustration, that no-win Ecclesial burnout does not come from an overzealous commitment to work rlor from an inflated sense of Lone Ranger ministry. feeling of being the person caught in the middle--between the Vatican and people in the pew, between liberals and conserva-tives, between pro-school and pro-CCD proponents, between the "townies" and the university students, between right-to-lifers and everybody else, between the diocese (or one's generalate) and the parish, between Catholics and the wider society, between a pas-tor and other team or council members. Many feel drained, impo-tent, frustrated in their attempts to mediate, to get the church's act together, whether locally or in some larger arena of the church universal. While there are many contributing factors to this experience, I am convinced that one help toward navigating the shoals suc-cessfully is for each of us to reexamine our own ecclesial presup-positions and expectations. The insights that follow may be self-evident to some, but for me they have been eye-openers, a tremendous help on the road to recovery and reinvigoration. Much literature has been written expounding the theory that the dominant image of church in the decades, even centuries, pre-ceding Vatican II was the institutional model. In his often quoted January-February 1992 9 ~÷~s ¯ Ecclesial Burnout Models of the Church, Avery Dulles noted in 1974 that, while all five models--hierarchical institution, mystical communion, sacrament of Christ, herald of God's word, and servant of secular society-- coexist in the church, during any given era one or another tends to dominate.4 In the two major Vatican II documents on the church, as well as in the Final Report of the Synod of 1985, one can find all five models vying for central place,s Despite several decades of the-ologizing and deferential homiletic bows to the notions of church as people of God, mystical body, sacrament of Christ's ongoing presence, and herald of Gospel justice, it is my contention that our pastoral efforts after Vatican II expressed, for the most part, the same model fostered earlier, namely, the institutional model. Sure, we were going to do it better: more effective liturgy in the ver-nacular; more participatory parish, diocesan, and community gov-ernance; more developmental, story-laden religious education; more process-oriented evangelization (RCIA); more experiential approaches to reconciliation; and more social-justice-oriented ecumenism. But we were still about the task of running an insti-tution, making our little corner of the vineyard the best-struc-tured parish, Newman Center, diocesan office, or apostolate around. It seems to me that many of us made a subtle shift or trans-ference. After some initial flirtations with personal workaholism and its consequent form of burnout, we no longer expected our-selves to be supermen or superwomen, serving selflessly twenty-four hours a day, in season and out. But at the same time we did not reject the drive for perfectionism altogether. Rather, we trans-ferred it to our rejuvenated image of the church, expecting our post-Vatican II ecclesial structures to be or to become what we individually could not achieve. The church would or should become wholly Spirit-filled, renewed at all levels, from the Vatican curia, through the USCC, chancery, and intracommunity offices, right down to our own parish or center in Name-Your-City, USA (or Canada). If we all worked hard enough, whether as Lone Rangers or as collaborative partners, we could "pull this Vatican II thing off," making the Roman Catholic Church what some supposed it was intended to be, the kingdom of God incarnate on earth . . . as it is in heaven. "Oops," as one of my Catholic U. professors would have screamed, "you collapsed your eschaton." In such hopeful 10 Review for Religious expectation there seems to be no room for human sinfulness and finitude, too little room for well-intentioned visionaries, reform-ers, and sincere counterreformers to make mistakes. If we really can successfully create the reign of God on earth, then who needs redemption? We could cancel Christ's second coming. There would be no need for his break-through return at the end of time. In our newfound Camelot-like enthusiasm, I fear that we plotted a course destined to dis-appoint. Ask those priests, religious, and lay ministers who opted to leave. Ask those who had physical or emotional breakdowns. Ask those who are now recovering alcoholics, fooda-holics, adult children of alcoholics, or victims of other addictions and dysfunctions. Ask those who joined a religious order or diocese, only to be disillusioned when real life in community did not match vocation brochures or one's own idealistic expectations. Some of them are still searching for the diocesan, religious-order, or denominational "promised land." For the most part we seem to have faced the fact that none of us individually is Jesus Christ (and that even he faced his own doubts, fears, and temptations). By acknowledging that worka-holic perfectionism is wrong, some of us have conquered the demon of "works righteousness," allowing God's tender mercies to bathe us and to begin to heal our brokenness and wounds. Workaholic burnout seems to be waning, at least in the Catholic community.6 However, I do not think we have made great strides in grant-ing a similar benefit of the doubt and benevolent forgiveness to the church and its leaders (including ourselves) for not measuring up, for not ushering in the fullness of the kingdom of God. Hans Kiing, echoing the pioneering ecclesiology of Yves Congar, con-tinues to point out that the church is sinful as well as graced.7 Martin Luther, credited with coining the adage simuljustus etpec-cator, would hardly be surprised to hear that twentieth-century Roman Catholics are having trouble accepting that their church not only was, but is, and always will be sinful, in need of God's abiding assistance, patience, redemption, and frequent forgive-ness. If we really can successfully create the reign of God on earth, then who needs redemption ? January-February 1992 11 Sparks ¯ Ecclesia~Burnout Thus, the warning sign of ecclesial burnout is the sadness, bordering on depression, that has deeply affected many idealistic pastoral ministers upon their discovering that the church is not, and likely never will be, synonymous with the kingdom of God. But does not church teaching say that they are supposed to be one and the same, that the church (especially in its Roman Catholic incarnation) equals the kingdom of God? No, the bish-ops and theologians gathered at Vatican II rejected such a notion in an earlier draft for Lumen Gentium, in which the church in its fullest sense (that is, God's reign or kingdom) was to be equated with the Roman Catholic Church. In its place, the church's official magisters declared that the "church, established and ordained as a society in this world, sub-sists in the Catholic Church''8 (emphasis mine). Despite arguments to the contrary by some dissident conservatives, most ecclesiolo-gists take this to mean that, while the Roman Catholic Church manifests to some degree Christ's cosmic presence, it is not the sum and substance of church nor of the kingdom of God in their fullness. The visible church, at any point in its history, is never a spotless manifestation of the "mystical body," church in the ideal. Lumen Gentium goes on to propose that all Christians, the chil-dren of Israel, Islamic believers, other monotheists, as well as all who seek life's source and meaning with sincere hearts are some-how "related to the People of God," kin in some concentric sense in this family called church.9 The church then, in its most cosmic and echatological sense, is not synonymous with any denomination, though some churches--more than others, and in some historical eras more than others--better embody the call to be communion, sacra-ment, herald, servant, and institution. For those of us tempted to shrink the meaning of church to the institutional denomination or subset in which we have been professed, hired, or ordained, it is well to keep reminding ourselves that the kingdom to come, on earth and hereafter, is bigger. You might be tempted at this point to remark, "What you're saying is fine, but it doesn't apply to me. I already learned in ecclesiology class that the church is the imperfect pilgrim people of God and that it in some sense includes a wide variety of ecu-menically related brothers and sisters." My response is yes and no. I think most of us comprehend this broader ecclesial vision academically (in our heads) and even present it fairly effectively 12 Review for Religious in inquiry or RCIA programs. But I am not so convinced that we have let that broader vision of church, that benefit of the doubt about what can and cannot be accomplished in our lifetime, sink down into our souls, our intuitions, our feelings, our expectations about life as pastoral ministers in the real church of the 1980s and 1990s. I suggest that many of us could benefit from prayerful, per-sonal, and communal reflection on and attempts to incarnate a broader vision. The "kingdom of God" is not an institution, but a designation for any and all people of goodwill who are about God's business. Whether one views this in the language of Rahner's "Anonymous Christian" or in any of a number of more traditional categories (for example, mystical body, invincible ignorance), the community of believers, those who will share in the fullness of redemption, is not coterminous with card-carrying Roman Catholics or even avowed Christians more broadly considered.1° If I measure the coming of the kingdom with myopic vision, focused solely on institutional success or the extent to which my ministerial locus is perfectly fruitful and personally satisfying, I am destined to be disappointed--by my own impoverished "institu-tional" ecclesiology and by a graced but sinful church that always falls short of the ideal. In such a way, I think, many professional Catholic ministers (lay, religious, and clergy alike) are spinning their wheels, burning up psychic energy on form and parochial structures, not Gospel substance. Either we invest too much time and talent trying to create the perfect institutional program, or else we spend time bemoaning the fact that many of our best-laid parochial plans come to naught or go awry. In the process, frus-trations mount, leading to personal and ministerial dissatisfac-tion, depression, departures, and so on. Voile, ecclesial burnout, or maybe I should say burnout induced by unrealistic ecclesio-logical expectations. It seems to me that any proposal for recovery from this form of burnout entails an attitudinal shift. We can change our atti-tude in either of two ways. First, we can expand our definition of church in the light of Lumen Gentium, allowing that no denom-ination or institution can or will incarnate it fully. It takes a lot of The warning sign of ecclesial burnout is sadness, bordering on depression. January-February 1992 13 Sparks ¯ Ecclesial Burnout self-reminding to allow this ecclesiology to sink in, to become our true modus vivendi. We need to reconceive ourselves as min-isters not solely of the Vatican-based Roman Catholic denomi-nation, nor even of the Christian tradition explicitly professed, but of the elusive, ever evolving church of Pentecost, mindful that the fruit of our labor, though real, will be limited at best. Our whole identity as a church employee or minister ought not to be caught up in structural successes and programmatic gains. This broader view of church, if taken to heart, can free us to relish grace incarnate wherever we find it, being less obsessed with insti-tutional achievements and shortcomings. The second change of attitude, in some ways a semantic vari-ation on the first, involves constricting our definition of church, letting it be a referent for various institutional efforts to incarnate faithful and Christ-like living, while conceiving of our ministry more broadly, focused on the wider kingdom of God. Thus we see ourselves less as minions of the institutional church (though not denying our sacramental role and ecclesial responsibilities) and more as ministers or facilitators of the kingdom, God's reign in time and space in all its manifestations. As Patrick Brennan phrases it in his recent best-seller Re-Imagining the Parish: Is the church an end in itself?. No! In this more traditional view of church, the church as movement, as people in a sacred relational bond of faith, exists as servant and instru-ment of something larger, more important than itself--that is, the reign or kingdom of God.11 The kingdom comes in myriad ways, some explicitly religious, many only implicitly so. We can and do find God incarnate in Paschal Triduum liturgies as well as in rather routine daily Masses; in powerful sacramental moments as in exquisite sunsets or a deer crossing the road at some country retreat; in the warmth of old friends, comfortable clothes, and mellow music as well as in the discovery of new relationships and the unexplored terrain of new ideas; in the gathering of colleagues and friends for professions, ordinations, anniversaries, and even funerals; and in vacation times far away from community members and parish life. Wherever there is love, life, and hope (that is, resurrection) in the face of life's limits, including death, we who are Christian ministers should point and say, "There is God's kingdom at hand." When those life-giving moments are in church (liturgy, Scripture, religious education, a retreat weekend, social-justice ministry), 14 Review for Religious let us sing a full-throated alleluia. But when such moments are part of church in its more cosmic sense or beyond the church in a kingdom-coming sense (symphony orchestras, art, nature, Windham Hill albums, even in Leo Buscaglia tapes and some New Age con-cepts), there too we should point to God's incarnate grace and voice praise. Over a decade ago I heard Richard McBrien use the parable of the ten lepers (Lk 17:11-19) as a type for this broader concept of church vis-h-vis the kingdom of God. He noted that all ten lepers were made clean, that is, all ten were redeemed. All ten were made ready for the heavenly banquet. The tenth leper, the one who realized what had been done to and for him, returned to give thanks, to praise God, and to be a herald of this good news. That tenth leper, McBrien suggested, is the church in its institutional manifesta- The community of believers, those who will share in the fullness of redemption, is not coterminous with card-carrying Roman Catholics. tions. We avowed Christians realize God's mighty and merciful deeds. We give thanks (Eucharist) not only in our own name, but in behalf of all creation. We praise God not only for our own lot in life, but also for the blessings bestowed on all of creation and especially on the human family. We strive to live, to speak about, and to incarnate the good news of God's benevolent creation and offer of redemption in every time and place. But it is crucial to remember that the healing of the ten (that is, redemption of the whole) is not primarily dependent on our success. God's healing Spirit blows where it will. Christ's invitation, redemption, and healing touch are not limited by our personal or institutional efforts. In this motif, the kingdom of God is bigger than the church which participates in it and attempts, more and less suc-cessfully, to proclaim it. Whether one equates the kingdom of God with "the church" in its ideal form and uses the same word "church" for those graced but imperfect institutional efforts, or whether one conceives of the kingdom of God as a fuller reality and all institutional churches as more and less successful attempts to embody kingdom or Gospel values, the result seems to be the same. We approach our institutional church--with its papacy, curia, national conferences, January-February 1992 15 generalates, dioceses, parishes, centers, and committee struc-tures- with more realistic and modest expectations. Sin abounds, but grace abounds more. Successes mount up, but so do failures. We have peaks and valleys in our efforts to "do ministry," whether as rugged individuals or as team players. For those who are not intimately bound up with the institu-tional church, these reflections may seem self-evident. But for those of us so imbued with an institutional sense of church, pro-grammed by our own socioethnic heritages and an underlying, intuited, and almost infused Roman Catholic ethos, it may be lib-erating to be confronted by this challenge to broaden our hori-zons, to stretch either our image of church or our sense of ministry to be more kingdom-oriented, less ecclesially confined. As one minister phrased it, "only recently have I been able to proclaim honestly that I cannot save myself. My salvation [and the church's] is only in the gift of God's grace through Christ.''Jz Keep your chin up, your chest out, your personal and com-munal relationships nurtured, your prayer life deepened, and, for God's sake and your own, do not lose your sense of humor. Do not let worries and disappointments about church or parish or com-munity shortcomings dampen your hope. You are not perfect, we are not perfect, they are not perfect--and never will be. So lighten up. Take care of yourself physically, emotionally, intellectually, socially, and spiritually. No use getting "burned out" by unful-filled and unrealistic expectations, personally or ecclesially. "Do not collapse your eschaton." Notes I See, for example, Jerry Edelwich and Archie Brodsky, Burn-Out: Stages of Disillusionment in the Helping Professions (New York: Human Sciences Press, 1980). Recent theological studies into the meaning of genuine Christian love suggest that agape alone, wholly other-centered love, is not only a human impossibility, but most likely a mythical unreality. Not even God, despite treatises to the contrary, is wholly other-centered, sola agape. In the Trinity there seems to be some measure of philia, mutual love one for another, within the Godhead, as well as some degree of eros, personal satisfaction in eternal life and in relationship among each of the divine Persons. Add God's involvement with and seeming delight in creation and we profess a God who is love in all its dimensions--selfless, mutual, and personally fulfilling. The varied literature on ministerial burnout includes a classic text and 16 Review for Religious a new volume: John Sanford, Ministry Burnout (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1982); Robert R. Lutz and Bruce T. Taylor (eds.), Surviving in Ministry (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1990). 2 Herbert J. Freudenberger, Burnout: The High Cost of High Achievement (Garden City: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1980), p. 13. 3 Bernard Hiiring sadly labels this the curial process of "restoration." For further analysis of these trends and H~ring's insights, see Bernard H~iring, "The Role of the Catholic Moral Theologian," in Charles E. Curran (ed.), Moral Theology: Challenges for the Future (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1990), pp. 32-47; "A Letter to the Pope," Tablet (30 June 1990); "The Church I Want," Tablet (28 July 1990); "Life in the Spirit," Tablet (4 August 1990). 4Avery Dulles SJ, Models of the Church (New York: Doubleday, 1974); A Church to Believe In (New York: Crossroad, 1982). s Vatican II, Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church); Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World). Synod of Bishops, "The Final Report," Origins 15 (19 December 1985): 444-450. The ecclesiology in each of these is discussed in Avery Dulles SJ, '% Half Century of Ecclesiology," Theological Studies 50 (1989): 419-442. 6 The 1990 Lutz/Taylor anthology, Surviving in Ministry (note 1 above), was written primarily for a Protestant audience, indicating that what I have called "workaholic burnout" is a current issue for many mainline Protestant ministers. The book, however, has application for religious, clergy, and especially lay ministers in the Catholic Church, people striving to balance ministerial work with a reasonable home and social life. 7 Dulles, "A Half Century of Ecclesiology," 423-425, 433-434; see also Hans Kiing, Reforming the Church Today: Keeping Hope Alive (New York: Crossroad, 1990). ~ Vatican II, Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constinltion on the Church), no. 8. 9Ibid, nos. 14-17. 10 Some more conservative readers might think that I am flirting with heresy. After all, there is an ancient patristic maxim that "outside the church there is no salvation." Seniors and church-history buffs may remember that Boston's Father Leonard Feeney tested the Catholic Church's interpretation of this in the 1940s by asserting that outside the Roman Catholic Church no one could be saved. He suffered excommunication for this ahistorical denominational overreaching of the definition of church, receiving reconciliation only after a nuanced recantation in later life. ** Patrick J. Brennan, Re-Imagining the Parish (New York: Crossroad, 1989), p. 12. 12 W. Benjamin Pratt, "Burnout: A Spiritual Pilgrimage," in Lutz/Taylor, Surviving in Ministry, p. 108. January-February 1992 17 ERIK RIECHERS Vincent Pallotti vs. Polarization o say that we live in a polarized church is to state the painfully obvious. The church is full of some very angry people, and this anger is dividing it into many factions. All around us we find examples of the growing polarization which is sepa-rating brothers and sisters in the Christian community. In our parishes we find different groups struggling for control over the direction of the community. In the dioceses different interest groups push their agenda without concern for the legitimate con-cerns and problems of segments of the local church. On the national and international levels, we can find the same struggle among opposing factions with only an increase in the amount of power and control that is being fought over. To be brief, polar-ization based on anger is a horrible and prevalent reality in our church. We are rapidly becoming people who fight for our ideo-logical causes and, therefore, are filled with an ideological anger towards those who disagree with us. Thus, liberation theologians are angry with classical theologians, classical theologians are angry with conservatives, conservatives are angry with progressives, the youth with the older generation, the laity with the clergy, and the clergy are angry and suspicious of the laity. Finally, there are those who are angry at everybody in the church. Our polarization often comes from anger that stems from ideology and not faith or theology. Ideological anger is based on real pain, be it mental, spiritual, or emotional. But it is an anger justified on ideological grounds. This anger feeds on itself, refuses to seek healing and reconciliation. It enjoys perpetuating itself, Erik Riechers SAC wrote "Love and Apostolate" for our November/ December 1988 issue. His address is 321 90th Avenue S.E.; Calgary, Alberta; Canada T2J 0A1. 18 Review for Religious enjoys no reflective moment. Instead, the knee-jerk reaction becomes the norm of response. Gradually our perception of the issue is clouded, and we replace individuals with neat stereotypes. Finally, we justify our anger by hiding it behind our "cause" and then declaring it righteous, when in fact, by this time, it is often pure hatred based on a gut reaction. Such a polarization, how-ever, has a price tag, and an expensive one at that. The first victim of polarization in the church is our sense of humor. When we are ideologically angry, we are no longer able to laugh at ourselves or with one another. The same humor which used to ease the tensions of our disagreements now adds to them. The foibles and weaknesses that once were laughed at because of their absurdity are no longer funny, for adherents of ideology tend to make no distinction between the allegiance they demand for their cause and that which they claim for themselves. This does not make for easy self-critical observation which is the root of humor. The seriousness which was once preserved for the issue itself is now extended to the proponents, so that not just the cause is on the line, but their very persons are at stake. Honesty is the second victim of polarization based on ideo-logical anger. As our anger grows, our honesty begins to shrivel. The real issues are soon forgotten and fall by the wayside. Personal animosities enter the arena once reserved for the matter at hand, and the issue has become a chance for us to vent our spleens. There is a willingness to see every form of evil in the others, but to ignore or justify the same attributes in ourselves. The best example is the parishioner who bemoans the stubborn-ness of another person in the parish, but describes his or her own intransigence as tenacity in the cause of justice. Sullenly we refuse to acknowledge even the smallest positive sign in the others, yet deem ourselves to be the last bastion of virtue and truth. Here the truth dies an ignominious death. Therefore, it becomes pos-sible for people in the parish to complain that their fellow parish-ioners do not listen to the authority of the pastor, but then refuse to follow the same authority when they themselves disagree with it. On the national church scene, there are some who decry the heavy-handed authority of those in positions of power, yet actu-ally advocate the same methods to further their own cause. In each case, the people who are caught up in the throes of ideo-logical anger have lost the ability to see and recognize the truth. But those who cannot recognize the truth cannot recognize Christ, ~anuary-February 1992 19 Riecbers ¯ Pallotti vs. Polarization the Truth. As a consequence it becomes easy enough to resort to stubbornness and call it fidelity, to savagely attack the integrity of another and call it defending the faith, or to speak with vitriolic cruelty and then label it righteous indignation. Charity is the final victim of our polarization; especially here we pay a heavy price. This is the devastating moment in which brothers and sisters refuse each other table fellowship. Parishioners will not associate with one another, and parish coun-cils replace dialogue with diatribe. Every motive is impugned as we expect the others to be as rotten and nasty as we have made them out to be. No longer is there a willingness to grant the ben-efit of the doubt or to assume the best. Distrust becomes the rule as the grip of our anger slowly squeezes our hearts dry. Yet the bleakness of the picture I have drawn is not a neces-sity and can be overcome. The dreariness of polarization can be lightened with the brilliance of the spiritual life. The polariza-tion of the church we live in can be seen as the result of our sin-ful brokenness, but it can also be seen as a call to a new fidelity. It is our spiritual lives which are suffering most from the atmo-sphere of poisoned debate and mistrust. Recognizing that we have strayed from the path of Jesus Christ, we always have the oppor-tunity to respond anew to the call of the Lord. There are cer-tainly many ways of achieving this, but I would like to suggest the way of a very special man, St. Vincent Pallotti (1795-1850). A man of incredible spiritual stature, he is to this day an effective and powerful teacher of the spiritual life for thousands of members of the Union of the Catholic Apostolate. It is my firm conviction that he has a great deal to offer all of us in the polarized church and that he can point out to us a way of spiritual regeneration. Pallotti's first response to a polarized church is to emphasize the need of putting our focus on God. He is a staunch proponent of such a focus. Repeatedly he calls upon his listeners to channel their energy and effort into God. In one of his most famous prayers, he lists the many things in life that people pursue, but then admonishes us to seek God alone. "Not the intellect, but God. Not the will, but God. Not the heart, but God . Not food and drink, but God .Not worldly goods, but God .God in all and forever." In another passage he writes, "I want nothing but God: nothing, nothing." It is in this God-centeredness that Pallotti offers us an antidote for the self-centeredness which is at the root of all our polarization. When we focus on God and the 20 Review for Religious magnificent work of redemption wrought for our sake, we see our causes and our self-interest for what they truly are: petty and insignificant. The God-centeredness of Pallotti would root us again in the essential mission of Christ and wean us from the pre-occupation with our own agenda. The more we fill our lives with God alone, the less room is left for our own narrow and selfish ideological causes. Pallotti goes on to offer us a second response to polarization in the church by emphasizing the Pauline challenge to become all things to all people. If in the first instance Pallotti prays for a focused heart, in the sec-ond he prays for a responsive heart. As Father Francesco Amoroso, a leading Pallotti scholar, points out, the closer Pallotti draws to God, the closer he draws to his creatures and the greater is his yearning to become responsive to the infinite love to which he has drawn close. "I want to help the poor as well as I can . I want to become food and drink and clothing in order to alleviate their need. I want to be transformed into light for the blind, hearing for the deaf, and health for the sick." In these touching words of prayer, Pallotti shows us the result of a heart aimed at responding to the need of our brothers and sisters, namely, a shattering of the bondage to egotistical and ideological anger. For Pallotti it is per-fectly clear that a heart made responsive by God's infinite love destroys polarization because it is more concerned with the need of the other than with the desire to be successful or right. Pallotti was a man who cherished the communion of the church. He saw our communion as something of an essentially sacred nature because it is rooted in love and built upon that love. Pallotti describes love as the substantial constituent of the church, without which all things decline. Thus, Pallotti challenges us to heed the call to live as church. The church is a communion of brothers and sisters united by their shared life with God and one another in the power of baptism. This shared existence is nour-ished by their participation in the one bread and one cup offered on the one altar of the Lord. They share a common calling in Christ and are led by the same word which calls them to com-munion and demands of them a common sharing in the fate and destiny of one another and of Christ. In God-centeredness Pallotti offers us an antidote for self-centeredness. ~anuary-February 1992 21 Riecbers ¯ Pallotti vs. Polarization We seem to have forgotten that there is no opposition party in the church. Yet we are rapidly losing this understanding of ourselves as church, a loss Pallotti considered intolerable. Instead, we have replaced the image of church as communion with the image of church as parliament. In parliament many parties fight for power, each interested in furthering its cause and hindering the policies of the other parties. Nothing binds individuals together save the desire to be the party in power. In the search for power and the realization of their cause, they constantly belittle, demean, and devalue the efforts and ideas of those they oppose. Above all, a par-liament does not have love as its substantial constituent. Sometimes we seem to have forgotten that there is rio opposition party in the church. We all belong to the community, we are all moving in the same direction. There are no enemies to beat off, only brothers and sisters we must struggle to understand. We belong to the same family, even when we are of dif-fering mind-set. Naturally, this does not deny the possibility of disagreement and differing opinions. Yet, when we disagree or differ, it is as parts of one community that we do so. The force of our differences must be balanced by the strength of our love for one another as brothers and sisters. If getting our own way, winning the argument, or being proven correct becomes more important than preserving our bond of love as community, then we no longer heed the call of Christ. Pallotti was a man of great humility, always struggling to rec-ognize the reality of his life as a sinner who was redeemed by infinite love. This too is part of Pallotti's challenge to us today: to heed the call to live in humility and reconciliation. Humility means that we are rooted in reality, that we perceive reality as it is and not as we would have it. Upon recognizing our reality we abandon exaggerated self-assertion, give up self-righteousness, allow the truth of our sinfulness to stand before our eyes, and we rid ourselves of the illusions of our grandeur, power, and perfec-tion. Only in humility do we find the ability to serve God and neighbor because it is in humility that we see them both as they truly are. Reconciliation becomes possible because we recognize both grace and sin in ourselves and in others. We can be a peo-ple that lives mutual complementarity in the Body of Christ 22 Review for Religious because with the clarity of humility we can acknowledge the charisms in the other members of the church, even if they should not agree with us in every question. Like Pallotti, we are in good shape when despite our differences we realize that we would be impoverished without the gifts and talents of the others. Finally, Pallotti can offer us the simple lesson of humor. If we possess humility, we can laugh at our vanity and pride. The positions we once defended with such venom remain important, but our actions often look as foolish as they actually were. The sweeping generalizations made in the heat of angry debate sud-denly bring a sheepish smile to our lips and a somewhat rueful laugh from our hearts. Thomas More put it well when he prayed for a sense of humor and the grace to understand a joke so that he would know a bit of joy in this life and pass it on to others. That gift of humor is very much a part of our calling, and it is a criti-cal part of the healing needed in a polarized church. For when we are able to laugh at ourselves and one another, we are able to leave behind the anger and the pain and to invest our energy, dedication, and commitment in the only cause that really mat-ters, the kingdom of God. Pallotti's sense of humor is not often described since the hagiographers had other interests in mind when writing about him. But there are subtle hints of a gentle humor in the man, and there is no doubt in my mind that his humor helped him to overcome the many daunting obstacles he faced in his lifetime. For, if Pallotti did not have a sense of humor, we would be hard pressed to explain the gentleness, patience, and kindness which marked his entire ministry and life. Martin Luther King Jr. once spoke with eloquence of his dream of a world without social injustice and racial hatred. Pallotti too had a dream of a new reality, a dream he called many to share with him. We dream of a church which has been swept clean of polarization and ideological anger by the refreshing wind of the Holy Spirit. We dream of a church of mutual complementarity where the ordained and the laity cooperate rather than compete; where young and old are fulfilled rather than frightened by each other; where women and men complement rather than contra-dict each other; where diversity does not mean division and learn-ing can replace lambasting. We dream of a church where the pure waters of coresponsibility will extinguish the burning flames of power, domination, and polarization. .~anuary-February 1992 23 DENNIS J. BILLY The Ecumenical Kernel call for Christian unity an authentic and wide enough theological basis for diverse doctrinal and moral opinion. Such a finding can be arrived at only through a close examination of the various assumptions of that call, not the least of which concerns the very meaning of the term "oneness" itself. This, in turn, must be inte-grated with the whole of theology and in such a way that the integrity of each of the Christian traditions is maintained. The Theological Basis of Ecumenism Theologically the call to Christian unity can be traced to a number of well-known New Testament texts. Jesus' priestly prayer for solidarity among those who believe (Jn 17:21), Paul's chal-lenging description of the oneness of those baptized in Christ (Ga 3:27-28), and the eloquent call to unity in faith, baptism, and Spirit expressed by the author of Ephesians (4:4-5) are but a few of the many texts which come to mind (for example, Jn 14:20, Ac 4:32, Rin 10:12, 1 Co 12:13, Col 3:11, Heb 6:12). When taken together with Irenaeus's understanding of the church's unity of faith in both heart and soul (Adversus haereses, 1.10.2), Cyprian's notion of the unity of the church as the source of salvation (De ecdesiae unitate, 6), and Nicea's definition of the signs of the church Dennis Billy CSSR, who has often contributed to our pages, continues to reside at Accademia Mfonsiana; Via Merulana, 31; C.P. 2458; 00100 Roma, Italy. 24 Review for Religious as "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic" (italics mine), these texts support the classical theological claim of the church's indivisible nature. Such evidence, however, must not be taken at face value. Beneath it lies the question why the call for unity holds such a prominent place in the texts of Christian antiquity. Do these texts portray a historical reality or a theologized hope? Do they reveal a concrete picture of the ecclesial circumstances of their times? Or do they point instead to the discouraging and often embarrassing experience of disunity within the ranks of the early church com-munities? This latter possibility seems more than likely. To sup-port this claim, one need merely point to the first-century tensions between Jewish and Gentile Christians over the need to adhere to the letter of the Mosaic law (see Acts 15), or to the Gnostic threat within the early-second-century church of Antioch which led Ignatius to see the value of a strong monarchical episcopacy, or to the third-century controversy between Carthage and Rome over the rebaptism of the lapsed, or even to the hostile division between Catholic and Arian camps in the pre-Nicene church of the early fourth century. It must also be remembered that so-called hereti-cal ideas often develop within existing ecclesial structures and are labeled as such only when circumstances push the church's teach-ing authority to articulate for its members a more precise theo-logical doctrine. In this respect, heterodoxy occasions the historical context within which orthodoxy struggles continually to refine itself. This relation of codependence in the history of Christian thought needs much further study and clarification. It comes as no small surprise, then, that one of the greatest feats of the Second Vatican Council was its dogged attempt to invert the historical dynamics of ecumenical relations from neg-ative contrariety (that is, heterodox/orthodox codependence) to cooperative dialogue. While acknowledging that the one church of Christ subsists visibly in the Catholic Church (Lume~ Gentium, 8), the council fathers recognized varying degrees of incorpora-tion into Christ's Body and, for the first time ever, the existence of other churches or ecclesiastical communities (Lumen Gemium, 14-16). They also called for the restraint of prejudicial attitudes, dialogue between competent experts, more cooperation in work-ing for the good of humanity, prayer undertaken in common, and the ongoing task of renewal and reform (Unitatis Redintegratio, 4). The intention of these challenging doctrinal innovations was January-February 1992 25 Billy ¯ Ecumenical Kernel to foster within ecumenical relations: (1) a conciliatory attitude towards the divisions of the past, (2) a realistic attitude towards the possibilities of the present, and (3) a hopeful attitude for the future. The immediate result has been more than two decades of intense dialogue between the Catholic Church and virtually every major Christian denomination and non-Christian religion. The Meaning of Christian Unity From these discussions a number of questions about the nature of Christian unity have arisen. Is the sought-after unity something which exists in the transcendent, other-worldly dimen-sion of Christ's Mystical Body? Is it to have visible expressions in the world in which we live? Must these expressions be of a structural or institutional nature? Are these expressions neces-sary to the nature of the church? Is an absolute uniformity of doctrine and morals essential to the rule of faith? Is it something that people can and should experience in the concrete expres-sions of their daily lives? Is greater cooperation in social-justice issues enough? Is it sufficient for the Christian churches simply to agree to disagree? If so, then in what does the distinctive Christian witness to the world consist? Since the answers to these and sim-ilar questions vary as much as the theological starting points of the numerous denominations involved, it is no small wonder that, on almost every front, ecumenical dialogue is slowly moving towards (and, in some cases, has already arrived at) a discouraging and uneasy state of theological deadlock. What is the worth of present attempts to break through this apparent confessional impasse? Is the standstill itself a sign that the ecumenical process has been moving in the wrong direction? The latter seems worthy of exploration. Rather than being thought of as mutually exclusive, perhaps the relational models of negative contrariety and cooperative dialogue can be juxtaposed--held in tension, if you will--in such a way as to enable the churches to understand the meaning of Christian unity in more dynamic and creative terms. Perhaps the Catholic Church needs to examine its tradition of dependence on the classical Protestant theologies (that is, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, Calvinism) as a means of refin-ing its insights into the richness of its own theological tradition. The various Protestant denominations, in turn, should do the same with Catholic theology and perhaps even with each other. 26 Review for Religious The point being made here is that a theological concept can be fully appreciated and understood only in relationship to those ideas it was originally meant to negate. The history of Catholic dogma, in other words, should be written in the context of its own "antihistory," that is, in relation to those who, ultimately, could not accept the consequences of its teaching. But how is this to be done? How is a balance between ecu-menical relations based on negative contrariety and cooperative dialogue to be maintained? Are they not mutually exclusive? Do they not stand in open contradiction to one another? How could they ever be reconciled? Plato's description of justice as well-tem-pered harmony of contrary forces (Republic, IV, 443) proves an invaluable guide in this respect. Unlike Aristotle's rather static rendering of virtue as the mean between the extremes of excess and deficiency (Ethics, 2.6), Plato's understanding allows for a dynamic yet creative interplay of wild and unwieldy forces. True, mistakes will be made from time to time: one horse may over-power the resistance of the charioteer, resulting in his loss of bal-ance and eventual fall. But with the perfection of the skill comes a mastery of these contrary forces; movement is eventually achieved with ease and grace. The point here is that, rather than struggling to reach a theological middle ground acceptable to all concerned, those working for Christian unity should be more involved in trying to help people acquire the skill of dialoguing in the midst of intense confessional conflict. In doing so, future ecu-menical efforts will be less threatened by those in the churches who, somewhere along the way, have let themselves be swayed by one or the other extreme. The Ecumenical Kernel From what has been said thus far, the fundamental principle of ecumenical theology (the ecumenical kernel) may be described as an acquired interior disposition of individual Christians and believing church communities who, seeking to understand the historical and theological significance of their oven religious tra-ditions, maintain an ongoing, balanced relationship of negative contrariety and cooperative dialogue with traditions (both Christian and non-Christian; secular and nonsecular) other than their own. The goal of these relationships is to increase, on both personal and communal levels, a deeper appreci.ation of the mutual January-February 1992 27 Billy ¯ Ecumenical Ke~ ,~,,,~ dependence these traditions share in the historical dimensions of space and time. They are to determine as far as possible the extent to which their stated differences prevent them from remaining true to the most basic tenets of their respective faith traditions. Given the above formulation of the ecumenical kernel, a num-ber of observations arise: 1. As "an acquired interior disposition," the principle resides within individual members of the believing faith community. This habitual attitude of mind looks upon other faith traditions not as a threat, but as a challenge to question and, hopefully, to grow in the knowledge and love of one's own tradition. Acquired by human cooperation with the intricate working of God's grace, it repre-sents a level of maturity which cannot be presupposed for all members of a particular tradition. The principle must be thought of as existing in varying degrees among the members of the faith community. Numerous internal tensions are likely and are to be expected. 2. The principle contains an important social dimension. The above-mentioned interior disposition of mind is not confined to private piety, but is oriented, by its very nature, towards being shared with others and towards growth within groups--often across denominational boundaries--for the purpose of achieving its stated relational goals. A person's own interior disposition of mind is strengthened by the growth of this attitude within his or her community. The more this disposition grows in its social ori-entation, the more it will affect the doctrinal outcome of ecu-menical relations among the churches. 3. The principle asserts that the Christian search for self-understanding must be carried out in the context of the relation-ship a particular faith tradition has to those traditions outside of its official confines and which the thrust of its doctrine was orig-inally intended to negate. This "knowledge by negation" forces the believer to delve ever more deeply to the roots of his or her own theological tradition and to try to determine the precise histori-cal basis of church doctrinal statements. 4. From a doctrinal perspective, precedents for the theolog-ical balancing Of opposing extremes are found in both the classi-cal trinitarian doctrine established in the fourth- and fifth-century councils (that is, three Persons in one God) and in the way the divinity and humanity of Christ were balanced in the definition of Chalcedon (451). In each instance the orthodox position emerges 28 Review for Religious only in contrast to certain teachings encountered within the ranks of the church which the authorities ultimately sought to negate (that is, Arianism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism). In such a way the principle challenges the church to adapt its classical theolog-ical approach of balancing opposing extremes to the pressing ecu-menical concerns of the present. 5. The balancing of the relationships of negative contrariety and cooperative dialogue also points to the capacity of an individual or group to maintain a steadfast internal equilibrium between two very different ways of dealing with the lack of religious unity in their lives (that is, polemics and irenics). Rather than seeking to compromise or to water down one doctrine with the other, the aim here is to develop within believers suffi-cient latitude of mind not only to chal-lenge and confront, but also to see the intrinsic worth of faith traditions other than their own. By helping believers to recognize the extent to which their own tradition is dependent upon and has, in fact, been enriched by various opposing ones, these relationships should evoke a unity of respect that will go a long way in the pursuit of further ecumenical exchanges. 6. Since various religious and secular traditions are likely to be involved, the extent and scope of these relationships will vary from place to place, even within local churches of the same tra-dition. Stronger and more fruitful relationships of negative con-trariety will exist between those traditions sharing a long history of doctrinal controversy. Relationships of cooperative dialogue are constrained only by the limits of constructive theological reflection and exchange. Since each tradition will obviously look within itself for its measure of orthodoxy, progress in ecumenical relations is to be measured not so much in terms of a movement towards doctrinal uniformity as in the mutual commitment of each tradition to keeping the balanced relationship of negative contrariety and cooperative dialogue alive. 7. The goal of appreciating the mutual dependence of con-flicting religious traditions challenges the members of each com- Other faith traditions are not a threat, but a challenge to question and, hopefully, to grow in the knowledge and love of one's own tradition. January-February 1992 29 B~I~ ¯ Ecumenical Kernel munity to take the risk of letting go, if ever so briefly, of some of the most precious presuppositions of their faith. They do this, on the one hand, in order to look at their own tradition from outside its own self-limiting confines and, on the other hand, to experience the conflicting tradition from within its own framework of hermeneutical preconceptions. The result should be an inter-pretative turn back to their own tradition with eyes opened anew to both the strengths and weaknesses of their most basic doctri-nal positions. 8. From this deeper appreciation of mutual dependence, there arises a concern over the extent to which the differences now articulated between each opposing tradition prevent them from remaining faithful to even more basic tenets of their faith which each tradition may very well share with the other. The stated goal is and must always remain a person's faithfulness to his or her own theological tradition. Disagreement between mutually depen-dent religious traditions is to be expected and cannot be over-come in all instances. VC-hat is more important is (1) that these mutually dependent religious traditions support each other in the beliefs and values which they share and (2) that they remain com-mitted to maintaining an open relationship of contrariety, one which will insure that each will continue to refine its own positions and grow in a deeper understanding of their final consequences. These observations do not exhaust the richness of the fun-damental principle of ecumenical theology as set forth in this essay. They seek merely to draw out some of the implications of the principle and to provide a context within which the current efforts of ecumenism may be renewed. Religious have an impor-tant role to play in such a renewal. Religious and Ecumenism Characterized by a communal lifestyle dedicated to the evan-gelical counsels, the religious life provides an environment that can foster the interior disposition of the heart and mind needed to maintain a balanced relationship of negative contrariety and cooperative dialogue. In their vow of poverty, religious seek to empty themselves not merely of an inordinate attachment to material goods, but even of those immaterial attachments of the mind and heart that may get in the way of their service of the Lord. In an ecumenical context, 30 Review for Religious this would mean a willingness to hold one's own theological opin-ions "in check" so as to cooperate with other faith traditions with a view towards experiencing them for their own intrinsic worth. Such an interior disposition should culminate in a deeper aware-ness of the various strengths and weaknesses of one's own theo-logical perspective. In their vow of obedience, religious choose to accept the will of their superiors as a con-crete sign of God's design for them in their lives. In an ecu-menical context, this would translate into a strong identifi-cation of one's own desire for church unity with the approved ecumenical directives of the Catholic Church. Religious would thus stand as staunch defenders of their church's theological tradition who are able and willing not only to confront other reli-gious traditions with challeng-ing questions and observations rooted in a sound knowledge of their own faith, but also to The risk of letting go of some of the most precious presuppositions of their faith to look at their own tradition from outside its self-limiting confines should open one's eyes anew to both the strengths and weaknesses of their most basic doctrinal positions. refine their own theological positions in the light of challenges and observations received from without. In their vow of chastity, religious forgo the goods of marriage in order to give witness to the existence of a life beyond the con-fines of the present earthly reality. In an ecumenical context, this translates into a constant reminder to the various proponents of church unity that the ultimate source of that unity cannot be human efforts alone, but is the trinitarian harmony of "unity in plurality" within the life of the Godhead itself. Religious thus urge their fellow Christians to be aware of the eschatological dimensions of their struggle for church unity. God's kingdom, in other words, is established on earth only to the extent that the oneness and peace found in the divinity's inner life manifests itself (1) within the communal assemblies of the faithful and (2) in the human society where these faithful assemblies gather. January-February 1992 31 Billy ¯ Ecumenical Kernel Even more important than the above considerations is the fact that the religious life asks its members to strive constantly towards achieving in many areas of their lives a delicate balance of opposing extremes, for example, action/contemplation; personal needs/community life; the ideals of the evangelical counsels/the experience of human weakness and the tendency to sin. Such a life of balanced extremes should make the balance of negative contrariety and cooperative dialogue spoken of in this essay that much easier to incorporate within one's own spirituality and approach to life. This is not to say that a similar balance cannot be developed in other states of life within the church (for exam-ple, single, married, priestly lives), but only that the religious life is especially suited to it. To be sure, the eschatological orientation of the vows themselves moves the religious to maintain a contin-ually balanced perspective between life in the present and in the beyond. Realized eschatology refers not to a collapse of the latter into the former, but to the balanced and simultaneous movement of each, bringing the Christian to his or her ultimate end in God. Conclusion This essay deals with the present deadlock in ecumenical progress by reexamining some of the basic premises of the dis-cussion and by suggesting a redirection of many current efforts for Christian unity. As put forth in these pages, the fundamental prin-ciple of ecumenical theology (the ecumenical kernel) calls for the balancing of the opposing extremes of negative contrariety and cooperative dialogue. While the former refers to the relationship of heterodox/orthodox codependence prevalent in the early church and in the Catholic Church's relation with dissident Christian traditions down through the centuries, the latter represents the more conciliatory, irenic approach employed since the time of the Second Vatican Council. The essay argues that the movement towards Christian unity lies not so much in a calculated agenda for doctrinal uniformity as in the commitment among the churches to maintain the balanced relationship of negative contrariety and cooperative dialogue. The bonds resulting from such a relation-ship of opposing extremes give rise to a healthy respect for tra-ditions other than one's own and to a deeper consciousness of the mutual dependence which so many traditions share but so sel-dom advert to. 32 Review for Religious Religious can play an important role in maintaining this bal-ance of opposing extremes. Their commitment to the vows pro-vides them with a deep spiritual basis from which they can develop the necessary internal disposition of mind and heart required for the principle to take effect. Since their way of life already asks them to sustain a similar balance of opposing extremes in many areas of their lives, they give witness, on the one hand, to those who believe it cannot be done and set an example, on the other hand, for those seeking to embody the principle in their own lives. The faithful dedication of religious to their calling not only serves as a leaven for themselves and others (both within and without the Catholic tradition), but also can make those who are deaf to the call for church unity sit up and take notice. Religious should be in the forefront of the church's attempt to maintain with other religious traditions a balanced relationship of nega-tive contrariety and cooperative dialogue. In sum, then, the fundamental principle of ecumenical theol-ogy (the ecumenical kernel) states that church unity involves a pro-cess of committed encounter between religious traditions whose very existence implies a relationship of concrete mutual depen-dence. The goal of ecumenical theology is to highlight this rela-tionship and thus provide, for all concerned, a deeper understanding of the issues which unite and separate them. Since such under-standing will take place only in the context of the above-mentioned balance of opposing extremes, it would seem that the churches have much to do before the long-yearned-for unity "in faith and morals" becomes a reality for future Christian generations. January-February 1992 33 JAMES M. KEEGAN Elements and Dynamics of a Spiritual-Direction Practicum direction and discernment the West Coast to talk about their common concerns in training spiritual directors, has discovered itself large enough to form a separate East Coast "symposium." In the years of religious discovery after Vatican II, a num-ber of institutions in North America established them-selves as centers for the training or development of spiritual directors. This sudden evolution, or fission, into dozens of programs is startling. It seems the training of spiritual directors, almost without being noticed, is becom-ing a significant commitment of church-related institu-tions. While the methods and goals of these ventures are as diverse as the people who manage them, there is a signifi-cant difference between practicum programs and those which do not involve such an element. Even among practicums the variety of ways and means can be dizzy-ing. To stimulate and encourage those engaged in the adventure of developing spiritual directors--or thinking James M. Keegan sJ has been involved in the training of spir-itual directors for a dozen years, first in New England and now in Kentucky. His present work is in the Spirituality Office of the Archdiocese of Louisville: Flaget Center; 1935 Lewiston Place; Louisville, Kentucky 40216. 34 Review for Religious about it--this article will describe some of the facets of a suc-cessful practicum and then present two important issues which seem inevitably to arise in this kind of work. The Need for Practicums At the center of its pedagogy, a practicum program includes the actual doing of spiritual direction with directees over a period of time, plus staff supervision of that work. Under this definition falls a wide variety of actual plans, courses, and organizations ranging from year-long full-time programs to part-time one-to-four- year courses, as well as those shorter arrangements designed for one to four months which may include individually directed retreats as the practicum element. The abundance of programs answers a new demand for spir-itual directors, a demand arising from a felt need as well as from the increased visibility of spiritual direction as an attractive, pos-sibly even faddish, discovery in the current atmosphere of the churches. Increasingly, professional ministers are recognizing their spiritual hunger and lack of regular nourishment in the central relationship of their lives and opting to do something about it beyond an annual retreat. Furthermore, as lay men and women are encouraged and educated to claim their particular gifts of min-istry, many are realizing the concomitant need for stronger spir-itual grounding. So they seek out competent spiritual directors. The quality of training which those directors receive seems of paramount importance if they are to be accurately helpful to these men and women, as well as accountable for what they do. While a reading knowledge of spiritual direction or an understanding of some of its theoretical schemata can be important in preparing one to do the work and especially in reflecting on it later, such an approach without the practical element of working with individ-uals can be counterproductive and even dangerous. The theories of spiritual life that one reads have been developed from many an individual case over long periods of trial and error. They acknowledge, of course, the rough edges and ambiguities one meets when face-to-face with a directee, but they cannot predict how any one of us will react in that circumstance. For instance, one can understand that change and development in prayer are often signaled by inner darkness, and yet have no idea how to understand and respond to a directee's yearning pain. One may January-February 1992 35 Keegan ¯ Spiritual-Direction Practicum have theories about the termination of spiritual direction, but be completely thrown when a particular directee wants to quit. A program involving a supervised practicum should be considered a sine qua non at some point in the development of a qualified spiritual director. Those who run successful programs usually have articulated their beliefs and pedagogy in a model of spiritual direction which they attempt to impart to the participants. For some, the heart of the model is conversion; for others, religious experience or the incorporation of social awareness into one's life and prayer. The strength of the practicum, however, comes not from a model of spiritual direction, but from the experience of God at work in the directee, the director, and the supervisor--and from their suc-cesses and mistakes. If it is genuinely at the service of its partic-ipants' experience of God, a successful practicum program is a continuous test of the model upon which it based. Change and development in spiritual life may look quite different from what is expected; God's action may outfox the supervisor as well as the director and demand that the staff reflect critically upon its assumptions in the light of its experience. Elements of a Practicum A practicum is composed of a staff and the participants. "Staff" here means supervisory staff, even though other staff persons may be vital to the functioning of the program. The staff oversees the participants in at least six basic and essential elements. 1. Active engagement in the work of spiritual direction. Nothing substitutes for each participant's seeing several directees on a reg-ular basis if the core of learning is to be the recognition of God's action in another's life. Other elements of the program are more or less useful as they help participants become better at recog-nizing and facilitating another person's relationship with God. Directees most often come through the sponsoring organization, with staff members conducting a first interview to determine their readiness for spiritual direction. In other instances, participants in the program bring their own directees. In any case the staff should determine its role in the admission of directees so as to insure that these persons' real needs may be met and that the practicum's participants may best learn from their experience. Their work with a number of directees regularly over an 36 Review for Religious extended period of time provides them with learning that cannot be acquired in briefer time or with only one or two individuals. They may learn from dealing with the slow development of one person's contemplative ability, or with people at different stages of spiritual life or in different socioeconomic conditions, or with various dynamics of change in people's relationship with God. Whereas some beginning directees may already be at home in their inner lives, others will need patient help in discovering an inner landscape, noticing and then articulating interior events, and continuing to pray when things get dark. The way in which such variety challenges or affirms assumptions that the partici-pants have provides an invaluable arena for their formation as spiritual directors. 2. Regular supervision of actual cases. Confidential supervision using verbatim reports (or taped interviews) is the central learn-ing arena. Supervision begins when the participant prepares a detailed ("verbatim") report of what actually occurred in a par-ticular spiritual-direction session, and is furthered in the encounter with a staff supervisor. The focus is on exploring the participant's responses and reactions rather than on diagnosing the directee, and the goal is twofold: assuring the welfare of the directee and promoting the personal and professional integration of the par-ticipant, the fledgling director. Many programs include group supervision to provide insight that may not come from a single supervisor, and to encourage participants in the program to think in a supervisory manner. Learning through supervision to reflect on the particulars of their work with a directee, participants can become aware of their particular strengths and weaknesses as spiritual directors. Rather than simply offering tools or techniques for the work, a super-vised practicum can help directors to discover their own distinc-tive style and abilities, taking as their goal the development of the person of the spiritual director as a director. Supervision helps to develop a discriminating mind-set, a love for criticism, and the healthy skepticism about one's own work which allows God to be the creative one in the lives of directees. 3. Regular personal spiritual direction. It is clear that one of the greatest helps or hindrances to growth in a practicum program is the participant's personal experience of receiving spiritual direc-tion. We shall see in the final section of this article that partici-pants' personal lives and prayer may hit rocky ground in the January-February 1992 37 Keegan ¯ Spiritual-Direction Practicum course of this kind of program, and personal issues may cloud their ability to learn. At least during the practicum, participants should be encouraged to receive direction from directors whose practice is known by the staff to be based on principles similar to those being taught. Furthermore, without an experiential awareness of those principles active in their own life, participants may well find the focus of a particular program either intellectu-ally confusing or, worse, negligible. 4. Study: Courses, Workshops, Reading. A tragic flaw in many practicums is the attempt to accomplish so much that the essen-tials are lost; more material is covered at the expense of contem-plative depth and reflection on the work. No staff wants to certify ignorant or uninformed directors, but the body of knowledge with which a good spiritual director should be familiar is growing so rapidly that it could ease an experiential pedagogy into sec-ond place. Each staff will have to determine for itself how much time and energy should be given to at least these four areas: the-ology (Scripture study, Christology, moral theology), psychology (developmental theory, study of the unconscious, diagnostic cat-egories), spirituality (history, traditions of prayer and discern-ment), and culture (religiopolitical history, issues of social justice). Some will set certain prerequisites for entrance into their pro-grams while others will encourage concurrent workshops, courses, and reading. A rule of thumb might be that academic work in a practicum should illumine the participants' experience of doing spiritual direction and whet their appetite for further investigation rather than just provide familiarity with a broad range of material on spirituality. 5. Reflection. Development of spiritual directors demands con-templative time for participants to remember, think and pray about, and otherwise mull over with their directees. Reflection is a value that needs to be built into the program, or competing forces will eat it away. It is possible to design a course whose aca-demic elements unite around and illuminate the participants' experience doing the work of direction. While the goal of a grad-uate program might be the students' command of the history of spirituality and the works of its major authors, a practicum seeks to help its participants understand their experience in the light of the tradition. Reading assignments, for instance, will be differ-ent than in academic programs: participants may be asked to famil-iarize themselves with the cultural background of a spiritual classic 38 Review for Religious and then read only a few pages of the actual work, imagining the experience described, comparing it with what they have seen, noticing their reactions to it. Questions like the following might be pursued after a reading of the first three chapters of the Life of Teresa of Avila: What do you understand (or not) of her expe-rience of God? Have you seen anything like it in any of your directees? How is it different? What do you make of the cultural influences on Teresa? on your directee? What is God like for these people? Where does Teresa's experi-ence lead? your directee's? Some programs provide retreat week-ends for their participants, or other kinds of shared prayer. Journaling can be built into group time, along with some sharing of that journaling with the group. Finally, the staff's reflective lifestyle, or its absence, speaks most loudly of the values inherent in any program. 6. Evaluation. However it may make us cringe, a supervisory program is inescapably evaluative. Supervision, as described here, is a means of critical self-evaluation. Further, if participants are progressing toward some kind of certification, clear develop-mental criteria must be communicated and maintained. It is essen-tial that the staff have understood these criteria uniformly and agreed upon them and that it apply them equitably. Furthermore, the staff needs to talk at length with one another about their atti-tudes toward evaluation, both of participants' performance and of their own. The more clearly the staff understands the foundational phi-losophy and pedagogy of the program, the more clearly it will communicate the goals and objectives of each term or semester, and the more helpful the evaluations will be for those in the pro-gram. If, for instance, a goal of the first segment is a demon-strated ability to listen to a directee with empathy, acceptance, and genuineness, both the staff and those being evaluated would have to understand and recognize the working definitions of those terms and agree on their place in the work of spiritual direction. A positive evaluation would encourage participants by helping them to own their strengths and successes and would challenge them with specific directions for growth in the next segment of the Reflection is a value that needs to be built into the program, or competing forces will eat it away. ~anuary-Felrruary 1992 39 Keegan ¯ Spiritual-Direction Practicum work. In deciding what constitutes a negative evaluation, how-ever, and what the next steps should be, a staff may run into ques-tions and disagreements rooted in the subjective nature of much of their work, and will need to fall back on their previous inter-action and their togetherness as a team. Evaluation is also a means by which a program can measure its own success in the short term. If the learning goals for each term or semester are not achieved by participants in a demon-strable way, evaluation time 1nay signal a need to rethink parts of the program. 7. Summary. As described here, a practicum program focuses its energies and its various elements on the concrete work of spir-itual direction and on its supervision for learning purposes. Study, reflection, group process, even individuals' own prayer and spir-itual direction are variously related to what happens when the participants engage with a directee. The supervisory staff need a shared understanding and experience of the basic elements of such engagement which they want to develop in those who come to them for training. Because the heart of the practicum is the meeting of persons--the directee, the director, and the supervi-sor, all carrying their own inner wounds and scars, and the supremely free person of God--the entire endeavor stands on precarious ground. The following section will discuss two events which, unlike earthquakes, may be predictable. Some Dynamics of a Supervisory Program. Although a practicum is a clinic for ministerial development, personal as well as clinical issues will inevitably arise among the participants and call for attention. V~hen strongly felt psycho-logical and spiritual change begins to happen to individuals in a group, the forces at play can be simultaneously shrill and very subtle, and a staff ought to be prepared to listen beneath the noise lest their program be derailed. Below I will discuss two issues, a personal issue which often has profound impact on the practicum as a whole and a clinical one which arises from the nature of a practicum. First, if the program presents a refined focus or a particular understanding of the nature of prayer or spirituality, it will prob-ably confront to some degree the spiritual lives of those enrolled in it. People will be challenged to confirm their own experience 40 Review for Religious anew, to look into it more deeply than before, or to criticize and possibly jettison their old assumptions about God, prayer, and spiritual life. They may expose the inadequacy of former spiri-tual directors or may encounter their need for counseling or ther-apy; anger may arise and get directed at staff, peers, friends, or directees. Because of new material about spiritual life or new experience of it, the participants themselves begin to change--some-times radically. This is usually an important and welcome development, signaling real engagement in the pro-gram. However, such personal expe-rience can be so strong and so generally felt that, unless a staff expects and understands it, the oper-ative goal of the program can subtly shift from ministerial to personal growth. A practicum can subtly change into a personal-growth rather than a ministerial endeavor if the staff does not keep the emphasis on the work to A practicum can subtly change into a personal-growth rather than a ministerial endeavor if the staff does not keep the emphasis on the work to be done. be done, always conscious of helping the participants to bring their personal growth to bear on their work with directees. Here the staff itself may well need supervision. Elements of the program can be imperceptibly skewed away from the ministerial issues cen-tral to it. Because the person of the director is the focus of super-vision, for instance, supervisory sessions may subtly become therapeutic rather than clinical and professional. If participants are consistently asked to consult their own experience of life or prayer in reflecting on their work, they may not develop the ability to remember and look critically at other people's experience, which will inevitably offer them a wider and more surprising range. Material can be presented in a way that favors the participants' personal application of it and neglects the further step of apply-ing what they have learned to what they have seen in their directees. Since participants often experience the "personal-conversion phenomenon," it can become a group issue which may be best addressed if there is in place some group function where they are encouraged to talk with one another about what is happening to January-February 1992 41 Keegan ¯ Spiritual-Direction Practicum them personally. Further, the staff may need to be flexible enough to modify the syllabus or calendar, to adjust the presentation of material to the ability of individuals in the group to hear and absorb it. The second issue I intend to discuss, for which I borrow the term "narcissistic crisis,''l occurs in some form in most clinical programs and is complicated by the highly personal and value-laden religious material of spiritual direction. People tend to enter such programs with some infection from the cultural stereotype of the spiritual director as wise, holy, and powerful. Whether they measure themselves positively or negatively against this icon and its expectations, participants very often exhibit regressive behav-ior when a supervisor starts to look at the details of their work. Initial confidence or self-doubt may turn into their opposites when otherwise successful and competent people find themselves scrutinized as they assume their new roles. For our purposes it is important to notice that (1) participants may extraordinarily and unrealistically accept or challenge the foundational elements and philosophy of the program; (2) this is an expectable and wel-come development, rather than something to be avoided, and demands staff understanding, unity, and participation; and (3) this "narcissistic crisis" is primarily an individual issue (in that it will configure itself quite differently in each person's experience), but it can easily--and erroneously--be generalized into a broader dis-satisfaction with the program when it catches similar issues in other participants. The resistance of this phase of practicum training often sounds like rebellion or despair: "I have heard all this before." "I am never going to do this right." "There are lots of ways of doing spiritual direction that you're not giving us." "Tell me what I should have said to this directee." At heart these are often state-ments about the personal difficulties individuals are encountering as their self-esteem experiences some dismantling in supervision or in their comparing themselves with more polished perfor-mances from peers or the staff. So the staff must be keen not to mistake them either for genuine criticism or for signs of genuine understanding of the program's foundational elements. This resis-tance, when felt by a group (either the participants or the staff), can swamp and drown gentler voices of moderation and carries within itself strong "we versus them" projections that must be understood and treated as such by the staff lest they polarize the 42 Review for Religious program. Supervisors need to look beneath the manifest behavior to the personal and professional issues that are awakening. Successful negotiation of this "crisis" can be difficult for a staff, testing its team cohesiveness with urges to side with or against certain participants, and its willingness to recognize and respond flexibly to genuine criticism. Supervisors are idealized, identified with, then ignored or renounced--made into idols and then melted down! Erosion of his or her own self-esteem and professional identity can tempt a staff member to clear up a super-visee's anxiety and confusion rather than work with it as appropriate to this stage of learning, or perhaps to respond in anger, or to exaggerate or minimize the real demands of the program. The very survival of the supervisory staff may hinge upon its having done its work in the following two areas. First, a shared understanding of and desire to work with the foundational philosophy and pedagogy of the program is impera-tive and should not be taken for granted. While diversity of background and ideas can enrich a training program, all mem-bers of the staff will need to understand A participant who finds support, challenge, and growing peership in supervision will grow away from dependence on the supervisor and the institution represented in the practicum. the particular goals being sought when the going gets tough. New staffs need to put aside valuable time to discuss and haggle over what they mean by spiritual direction and training directors, and ongoing staffs could profit from a devil's advocate brought con-sciously into their midst. Second, it is of critical importance that the supervisory work of each staff member be open to the others, and in some detail. For the welfare of the program's participants and for the profes-sional development of the staff, the work they do with partici-pants needs itself to be supervised with the same focus on the presenting person as described earlier. They will need to know and trust each other's work when some of the dynamics detailed here begin to operate, or at least to have a forum in which to challenge and change one another. If the goal of a practicum is the integration of supervised January-February 1992 43 Keegan ¯ Spiritual-Direction Practicum learning into one's own personal style of doing spiritual direc-tion, then the participants' success or failure in resolving this cri-sis could be crucial to their development as spiritual directors. If supervisors maintain only a mentor's stance and never allow their own mistakes and biases to be dealt with, or if the program appears inflexible, participants may perceive little room to blend what they have learned into their particular personalities. The result can be either a defensive posture against the program and its goals or a need to maintain one's connection with it in order to feel competent. On the other hand, a participant who finds support, challenge, and growing peership in supervision will grow away from dependence on the supervisor and the institution repre-sented in the practicum. Toward the end of a successful year, for instance, a supervisee said with some force, "I am going to park this whole damn program and get out and walk!" The remark, articulating his desire to integrate his learning with his own stride, would have told quite a different story--and been far less wel-come- at the beginning of the year. At some point any trained spiritual director will have to ques-tion the basic principles of his or her training, experiment with them, and integrate what is of substance into a personal, distinc-tive style of doing spiritual direction. A practicum can impart the skills and qualities needed in a spiritual director. A better practicum can aim to help qualified directors to be themselves in the practice of direction. Conclusion Inasmuch as we are heirs of the Judeo-Christian legacy, spir-itual directors are face-to-face with an extremely delicate task: to facilitate the self-revelation of the incomprehensible God. While we know that anything we assert about this unsearchable God must be taken back immediately as inadequate, human words and gestures are what we have to work with in the place of awed silence. The God who is omnipresent is also most concrete. The unknowable God has chosen to be known and has, in our Scriptures, revealed a personality, desires, and hopes. God has a divine Name and entrusts it to Moses and Israel (Ex 3). God is tender and caring as a mother or a father (Is 43, 49; Ho 11), pas-sionately angry (Am 5), or desperately sad (Jr 14). Able spiritual directors are women and men who have explored and become 44 Review for Religious responsible for their own personalities and have, to some degree, integrated that with the ministry to which they have been called. They can dare to approach the intimate experience of another person and, above all, the Person of God, with humility and expec-tation. Before them is the task of reverencing the mystery while exploring the everyday events in which the mysterious personal-ity of God becomes incarnate, in a sense continuing by that very work the loving thrust of God into even the smallest details of earthly life. Our tradition makes clear that such discernment arises from and is verified in the community of believers. A practicum in spir-itual direction, then, can be more than a training ground. At its best it can be a microcosm of the People of God, an instance of the kind of critical believing community without which we dare not claim to know in our own lives--nor to help others know-- what God is saying here and now. Note ~ See Baird K. Brightman PhD, "Narcissistic Issues in the Training Experience of the Psychotherapist," International Journal of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy 12 (1983). Narcissism is discussed as a dynamic element in the struggle for psychic growth, involving "a positive libidinal feeling toward the self" or the maintenance of self-esteem in the face of the erosion of one's grandiose professional self and of one's pro-jection of perfection onto others, namely, the staff, the supervisor. Brightman sees a clinical program "as a developmental period of adult-hood with its own characteristic tasks and demands, and therefore the potential for evoking the conflicts, fixations, and defenses of the preced-ing life stages (as well as the potential for further growth)." January-February 1992 45 CHARLES REUTEMANN On Becoming a Discerning Person Through Spiritual Direction hese reflections are a practical commentary on a short passage from the prophet Jeremiah: "More tortuous than all else is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it? I, the Lord, alone probe the mind and test the heart" (Jer 17:9). The image of "journey" as a way of describing day-to-day movement towards self-knowledge, towards intimacy with God, and towards a generous love and service of neighbor has been popular in most ages and many cultures. Among written descrip-tions are The Pilgrim's Progress, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, The Road Less Traveled, the journey into The Interior Castle, and the four-week journey of the Exercises of St. Ignatius. Even the life of Jesus is presented to us as a journey: with Mary and Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem; from Bethlehem to Egypt and then back to Nazareth; from Nazareth to other parts of Galilee and to Judea and Samaria; and finally that fatal last journey up to Jerusalem, and then out to the whole world. In particular, the Gospel of Luke-Acts is cast as a splendid journey story. In the Gospel it is like a great bus ride, with Jesus as driver, gathering up all the poor and the outcasts: smelly shepherds, tax collectors, prostitutes, fishermen, cripples, widows, the blind, the possessed-- all are gathered and brought on the journey to that symbolic holy Charles Reutemann FSC is on the staff of the Center for Spirituality and Justice, a training center in the Bronx for spiritual directors. For six-teen years he was director of Sangre de Cristo Renewal Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He resides at Manhattan College and his address is 5050 Fieldstone Road; Riverdale, New York 10471. 46 Review for Religious place Jerusalem. Then in Acts there is another bus ride, and the driver is the Holy Spirit sent by Jesus, gathering more outcasts: eunuchs, sailors, tent makers, prison guards, merchants--all on a bus ride leading to Rome, that symbol of the whole world. Life is a journey, and the most engrossing part is the interior journey of our soul. Our soul's journey--what is it like? Is it merely a random alternation of ups and downs, of going forward and falling back, and then more of the same? Or is there a pattern and a meaning to it? One major spiritual tradi-tion sees our journey as a line, a kind of one-direc-tional climbing of a hill with many slippings and risings. Another and perhaps better spiritual tra-dition sees the spiritual journey as a spiral, as something like the liturgical-year cycle in which we keep moving through the seasons, the seasons of the year, the seasons of our life, the seasons of the life of Jesus, ever moving deeper. With Jesus we move through his birth, early years, public life, conflict life, death, and resurrection. As we touch and live through the seasons of Jesus' life, never boring nor repetitious, we live through the sea-sons of our life, a kind of spiral journeying, touching the same places inside us, but never really the same, as we go deeper, ever trying to find the answers to those two great questions of all life: What does it all mean? and what shall I do with my love? No, we never remain the same on our soul journey, even though our days pass one after the other in twenty-four-hour regularity. This is our interior spiritual journey, fascinating and mysterious. Are there things that we notice as we circle slowly about, things that are happening to us, things that move us forward? and other things that seem to block our way? Of course! First of all, one of the things that all of us recognize and that spiritual guides are most attentive to is our freedom. How much inner freedom do we find in us as the years go by: freedom from our compul-sions, addictions, fixed ways of looking at things? And somehow we also recognize that we cannot will our freedom--it is some-thing that happens, like Topsy, or the Velveteen Rabbit. Another thing we may become aware of as we move along, and it is much akin to freedom, is detachment: Are we really beginning to lose our ego, to lose that self-regarding self?. I cannot forget some- Life is a journey, and the most engrossing part is the interior journey of our soul. January-February 1992 47 Reutemann ¯ Becoming a Discerning Person Our prayer shows us what road we are and what direction we are facing on that road. thing I heard many years ago from an English university profes-sor. We were doing a workshop in Dublin, and one day he casu-ally mentioned that he was teaching history to Mother Teresa's novices in a convent outside of London. "Oh," I said, "and what kind of woman is Mother Teresa?" He paused a moment and then slowly said, "She's a woman who has lost her ego." I have never forgotten that. What a marvelous achievement, and what a lifelong process! A third thing we might begin to notice as we move along on our journey is what motivates us. Are we really begin-ning to live more and more by faith, seeing things through Gospel values and truths, gradually find-ing ourselves more like St. Paul when he cries out, "I live! no, not I, but Christ is beginning to live in me"? There may be other signs that we notice about our inner selves: a certain simplicity, a movement towards integrity--but wait a minute! Are we aware of what we have been saying: ing freedom, noticing detachment, noticing living by faith? Now that is something to notice! Is it possible to become a more noticing person? And there we have the magic word, discernment! Noticing is discernment; a noticing heart is a discerning heart. Or is it a discerning head? Or is it both? Let us pause to look at the other expression in our reflection, "spiritual direction." We all need direction, especially if we find ourselves in an unknown land of many roads, like some parts of the Bronx, or downtown Boston, or Jersey City. And the same is true of our interior life, our spirit life. Most of us know exactly what St. Paul is talking about when he exclaims: "I don't know where I'm going. I don't do the good things I want to do; instead, I do the evil I don't want to do. My inner being delights in the law of God; but I am aware of a different law that is at work in me, that fights against the law that my mind approves of. It makes me a prisoner to the law of sin which is at work in me. What an unhappy person I am! Who will rescue me from this road that is taking me to death? Who will show me the way?" (Rm 7:15-24, adapted). Everyone on the spiritual journey of life needs direction, needs some guidance for the spirit. We know there are various maps to help us find this direction: spiritual books and magazines 48 Review for Religqous that we can study and learn by, especially that great map, the Holy Bible, which has directed more people in the whole world than any other--and still does. Another source of direction is our own prayer, our struggle to be quiet and to reflect, our crying out "Give me guidance today, O Lord!" Our prayer shows us what road we are on, and what direction we are facing on that road. And then there is another source, something that has been practiced in all cultures and religions, namely, the conversation between two people about the interior life and its ways. This con-versation is frequently called "spiritual direction." To a woman coming to me for such direction, I once said, as we faced each other in a relaxed setting, "And zvhy do you want spiritual direc-tion?" She was startled, but after a moment's silence she leaned forward and said, "I want to become more real." I was startled by the beauty of her response. Then I said: "And what would it mean for you to become more real?" Again she was thoughtful: "Well, I have this friend whose mother has Alzheimer's disease. Every time I see her when she's walking with her mother, she is smiling." So it is that some people seek spiritual direction, a conversa-tion with another adult about their values and their God, because they have seen something beautiful in another person and they want to be like that. They are challenged to fill up what is want-ing in themselves, to grow, to go deeper, to become more real. Other people, like myself when I first sought direction many years ago, recognize that, although they want God in their lives, they get careless and easily become distracted, even choked, by the anxieties and cares of the world. They need someone to talk with about their desire for God, someone to be accountable to--so that, in the very telling of their stow, they may be strengthened in their resolve and receive clarity about the paths to God. Others seek spiritual direction because they are troubled: there is a crisis in their lives. It may be a relationship, it may be a major decision about a vocational choice, it may be an addiction. But always this crisis is affecting the sense of God in their lives: Does God understand? Where is God? Am I on the right path? More tortuous than all else is the human heart. Where is the direction? They need the Lord to probe their mind and test their heart. For others, things are not all that clear. There is no crisis, but there seems to be something missing. The refrain "Is that all there is?" rings through their lives. They have had no other adult January-February 1992 49 Reutemann ¯ Becoming a Discerning Person with whom they can talk values. And so, finding themselves drift-ing, uncertain, lacking meaning, they seek direction. From all of this, can we now say that we have some sense of what spiritual direction looks like, at least in a Christian setting and in today's world? It is a conversation between two adults in which one is seeking some guidance on the path to God and the meaning of life. It is not idle chatter, nor even problem solving, though it is about the ordinary things of life: communication, liv-ing situation, working conditions, relationships. It takes time, honesty, and a spiritual sense. It is one of the gifts of the Spirit for forming the Christian and the Christian community. Can we say anything about the guide, the spiritual director? Like all guides, it would seem that the guide should have some training, some expertise, and that he or she should also be receiv-ing spiritual direction on the pilgrim road. We would want a knowledgeable person, someone familiar with the inner move-ments of the heart, the roadways, possessing some skills that might avoid pitfalls, especially the skill of listening to where the person wants to go--listening is so important, and it is a listening that goes beyond ideas and words and focuses on feelings and desires. Every pilgrim on the spiritual journey is best known by his or her desires and feelings, and the guide must be attentive to them. The director need not be a holy person, but he or she must be a seeker of God, one who prays regularly and who has a vision of faith. Lastly, the spiritual guide must really have the interests of the pilgrim at heart, and thus must be patient, humble, and under-standing. It is God who gives the increase, it is God who sends down the rain to water the paths. Can we say anything about what a spiritual-direction session would look like? Well, obviously, the directee would come pre-pared, that is, ask herself beforehand: Where has God been in my life since last we met? What have been some of my responses? As 1 reflect, what might I like from this session? Can I say any-thing about my prayer or about something that has struck me? The session itself can last forty-five minutes to an hour, but no longer than that and possibly shorter. When someone begins direction, it is helpful that the meetings be somewhat frequent: each week or every other week. Then, after three or four meet-ings, the space can be lengthened to three or four weeks. And, of course, to get the most benefit, the directee would take time to write down and even pray over what has been noteworthy in the 50 Review for Religious session. Let me illustrate this point. It is rare that I receive letters from my directees, but recently I did receive one that reads in part like this: "Mainly just want to tell you how much I have come to value our sessions. Thanks very much for your interest, atten-tion, and care in helping me to come to know the Lord better in my life. I believe it is also helping me to communicate that kind of experience to others whom I meet in the course of my own work and ministry, my own life. I guess what occasions this, in addition to the gratitude, is that I just wrote up for myself, as I usually do, a little summary of the points that we talked about . And I was surprised to see how wide-ranging it was, and the depth too, and the com-monalities among the points .Certain themes do begin to appear after a time . " Of course, a director or guide prepares too, by prayer, by reflection, and sometimes by written observations that help chart the inner movements on the directee's journey and the basic direction. Let me now say some more about "discernment" and then try to relate it to how spiritual direction ought to be helping us become more discerning persons. Frequently individuals and even whole groups, when faced with a major decision, will say, "You know, I (we) have to discern that"; and then they start some pro-cess to which they give the name "discernment." Is that what dis-cernment is, something we do when we have to make a big decision? Yes and no. I like to call decision making a "choosing" that gets into the will and into the feeling part of me. Of course, as I do that, I need to weigh things before I say yes to what I choose. I also like it when Karl Rahner says, "There are no big decisions; there are only bundles of little decisions." He seems to be suggesting that we are making little choices all along, choices coming from our feelings and our thinking, perhaps more from one than the other. So discernment is something we can practice in those little choices that might eventually get into a bundle for a big choice. And discernment therefore could become some kind of a habit of noticing my feelings and testing their reasonable-ness,~ that is, whether or not they are leading me to my better self and to my God or leading me away, down some primrose path to my ego self. We should try to become a discerning person in the ordinary times and in the little choices, for discernment is 'There are no big decisions; there are only bundles of little decisions.' January-February 1992 51 Reutemann ¯ Becoming a Discerning Person not the kind of thing we can start practicing when we need to make a big decision. When asked "Who is the holy person?" the Lord Buddha answered: "There are sixty minutes to the hour, and sixty seconds to each minute, and sixty fractions of a second to each second. If anyone could be fully present in each fraction of each second, that person would be a holy person." Awareness leading to rightmindedness. Noticing, testing, leading to choice. For most of us, growth in self-knowledge occurs when we take more notice of our feelings and name them. For, although we may be deeply feeling people, most of our conscious life is taken up with thought: making observations, giving our opinions, try-ing to figure out what we are to do. But does this get down to the deeper self, the desiring self, the hoping and choosing self?. Spiritual directors need to assess this so that they come to see the necessity of helping directees uncover feelings and name them. But it is equally necessary that people test with their heads the inner reasonableness of their feelings: W~here are they coming from? Are they leading to or away from God? Can we conclude then that in discernment it would be a mis-take to separate our feelings from our knowledge-insight? that it would be a mistake to consider our feelings as better criteria for discernment and decision making? and, finally, that we make a mistake when we overlook the possibility that, although operat-ing out of our heads can distort the spiritual journey, living only by feelings or feeling-insights, "spiritual hunches" if you will, can be equally distortive? ~ But perhaps we are getting too theoretical. Let me give some examples of how spiritual direction can help someone become a more discerning person. Peter is an ordained minister who is beginning spiritual direction. He says he is overburdened by the work of an inner-city parish. In several sessions he mentions his hope that the spiritual direction will give him an answer to his "burnout." The spiritual director can help Peter examine his day, note areas that might be curtailed, and perhaps even recommend that he change ministries. Another way to go is to examine with Peter his feelings about his situation: What are the feelings? anger? sadness? self-pity? feeling abandoned and alone? He might then be asked whether the different feelings (not his work nor the situation in general) are leading him to God or away from God. This question needs to be asked with careful nuances. It is here, too, that the exchange can become prayerful. Most people 52 Review for Religious never examine their feelings with God. They may mention them to God, but they never explore how God reacts or even feels about their feelings. It is almost as though God were "over there," observing things, but never really empathetic, never really involved in their feelings, especially "negative" ones like anger, sadness, and self-pity. Is it possible that, as Peter explores his feelings about his burnout, he might become more aware, more discerning about his inner movements and the direction in which they are taking him: to God? away from God? Is it possi-ble, too, that out of this awareness some clarity about practical decisions affecting his burnout might come to him? Can we see how some kind of disciplined willing-ness to look at our feelings and testing their reasonableness with God is central to dis-cernment? Can we also see that it is a chal-lenge to the spiritual director to encourage directees, especially those who operate out of their head (as most of us do), to take this route? It is indeed a real challenge, even hard work. Maria has been coming for direction for several years. She is energetic, has a sense of humor, and talks with verve and rapid-ity. She actively seeks God, even seems to wrestle with him in a verbal kind of way. One day she comes and blurts out: "Where am I in my relationship with God? I am becoming more and more clearly aware of my sinfulness--not vague sinfulness, but specific sins and definite sinfulness. I realize I can do nothing good. I wonder why he bothers with me. And yet I am at peace with this; I don't feel upset by this. And then, when I go into poor neigh-borhoods and see all the people and the poverty and suffering, I wonder if there is a God. I doubt that there can be a God. No, I just don't believe there is a God." She stops and looks at the direc-tor as though to say, "Now solve that!" Clearly, the spiritual director cannot solve anything, nor should she try. Yet there is a "way out." In listening to Maria, the director needs also to listen to herself, noting any movements that are taking place within herself as she listens to Maria. She notices a twinge in her heart when Maria says, "I wonder why he bothers with me." Acting on that, and by patient questioning, the All growth in the spiritual life is strongly rooted in desire, and it is from desire that commitment flows. January-February 1992 53 Reutemann ¯ Becoming a Discerning Person director explores: "Why do you wonder? What is that like? What are you feeling as you wonder that? And God, what might she be feeling as you realize within yourself that you can do nothing good by yourself?." Following this, there might be the opportunity to look closely at the poor, the suffering, and the abandoned and to wonder with Maria whether God bothers with them as she does with her. And then it might be possible to ask Maria: "Are you aware of God asking anything of you in all of this? Do you and God have anything in common here?" Helping a person sort out movements within, even seemingly contradictory movements like peace and sinfulness, compassion for the poor and disbelief in God, is exactly what spiritual direction and its discernment is all about. Other examples of this sorting-out process could be given; but perhaps it is time to make some summary observations about spiritual direction and becoming a discerning person. 1. Formal spiritual direction allows someone to articulate experiences. The central element in experiences, however, is feel-ings and, ultimately, the desires associated with those feelings. All growth in the spiritual life is strongly rooted in desire, and it is from desire that commitment flows. 2. When spiritual direction is focused on discerning the inner movements, then ordinarily connections can be made, themes and tendencies become apparent, and a sense of a desirable direc-tion becomes clear. When this occurs over time, a feeling of ener-gized peace develops on the journey. This becomes evident when remarks like these are made at the end of a direction session: "You're the only one I can talk with on this level--it means a lot to me." "This has been a very insightful session today--it hangs together." "My retreat experience has become more real to me after our talking about it. Things are working out." 3. When discernment is being practiced in spiritual direc-tion, there frequently occur corrections in judgments that directees make about themselves, especially negative judgments. In other words, a positive realistic outlook about the self develops. In addition, the Achilles' heel--that blocking, negative orientation which keeps recurring--generally gets discovered, and this allows for appropriate strategies to deal with it. 4. Practicing discernment with the assistance of a spiritual director encourages a disciplined willingness to check out feel-ings, name them, and test them against reality, that is, test their Review for Religious inner rationality. In this way we discover whether our feelings and what underlies them are leading us to God and our better self, or away from God into darkness and confusion. 5. Insight alone rarely changes people. Action, or commit-ment to trying to live differently, often does change people. Hence, it is not sufficient that our discerning be merely an aware-ness. Motivated desires and even specific tasks need to follow awareness, and so it can be said that discernment and decision making work together for growth in the spiritual life. 6. From all of the above, hopefully we can see that the goal of spiritual direction is to develop a discerning person who func-tions thus outside of the spiritual-direction relationship, some-one who moves with clarity in the direction of active love. Hopefully, too, those two basic questions of the life journey: What does it all mean? and what shall I do with my love? will find bet-ter, clearer answers. Note 1 See pp. 36-37 of Michael J. O'Sullivan sJ, "Trust Your Feelings, but Use Your Head: Discernment and the Psychology of Decision Making," Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, 22/4 (September 1990). I have been helped in my thinking about the interrelationship of feeling and thought in discernment by this article. The Light at the End of the Year Snow has fallen. Day is dark With the early coming on of night; December's darkness fin& its only spark Of brilliance in the Christmas light. Gray as our winter lives become, and stark With harshest turns of weather, bright Is the year's blessed ending. Mark! Now the starburst at earth's Eastward height. Nancy G. Westerfield January-February 1992 55 BRIAN O'LEARY Discernment and Decision Making Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing, and perfect will (Rm 12:2). exposing the influence that a projected course of action will have on one's relationship to God in Christ. It is not, therefore, some kind of generalized awareness of God or of his presence, but an insertion into a process--the process of finding and owning the will of God or, in other words, of Christian decision making. A dis-cernment which does not lead to a decision is incomplete, has been aborted at some point along the way. When a decision has been reached, it becomes a concrete expression, an incarnation of one's desire to respond to God's love and to serve his kingdom. Personal Freedom In spite of the laudable wishes of many Christians to move away from an

Issue 71.1 of the Review for Religious, 2012. This was the final issue. ; Volume 71 2012 Editor Michael G. Harter sj Associate Editor Garth L. Hallett sj Book Review Editor Rosemary Jermann Scripture Scope Eugene Hensell osb Editorial Staff Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp e v i e w f o r r e l i g i o u s A Journal of Catholic Spirituality contents prisms 4 Prisms Ignatian spirituality 8 Were Not Our Hearts Burning within Us? We Are Sent Kathleen Hughes rscj explores the provocative parallels between the Four Weeks of the Spiritual Exercises and the four-part rhythm of the Eucharist as two ways we are caught up in the work of God in Christ, and two invitations to replicate the whole life, death, and rising of Jesus. This article was one of the keynote presentations at Ignatian Spirituality Conference V held in St. Louis, Missouri, July 21-24, 2011. 29 Without the Drama: The Transition from Third to Fourth Week Ronald Mercier sj explores how those who make the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius are invited to enter into a grand silence where they contemplate the empty space without answers that follows the crucifixion—the space that remains the context of our lives, the place of our ministries, and the space within which joy dawns for those who know the Risen Lord. Questions for Reflection 58 Finding or Seeking God in All Things: A Few Cautionary Notes Peter J. Schineller sj researches the phrase "finding God in all things," common in writings about Ignatian spirituality, and discovers that it is rare in the writings of Ignatius. He finds that phrases such as "searching for and seeking God in all things" more accurately describe the Ignatian approach. 2 Review for Religious sharing experience 69 The Warmth, the Will, and the Way Ben Harrison mc is discovering that it helps him be more consistent in his spiritual journey if he is attentive to the warmth of the Spirit's presence in his heart and to the vows as an expression of the will to move deeper in his relationship with God. 78 Getting with the Program A young man writes of his experience of coming to terms during the novitiate with his addiction to pornography. This article could be used profitably as a case study during a novitiate class or read as background for a community discussion. Questions for Personal Reflection and Group Study discernment models 86 Dialogue with the Radically Other: Models of Discernment in the Old Testament Ligita Ryliskyte md phd sje explores the rich imagery of the Old Testament and offers valuable paradigms to understand spiritual discernment as a dialogue with God. In this essay she describes four models of discernment that might be distinguished in Old Testament imagery. departments 100 Scripture Scope: Vocation and the Call to Discipleship: A Reflection on Mark 1:16-20 105 Book Reviews 71.1 2012 3 Review for Religious prisms 4 A wise man once said: "It's a shame to waste a good crisis." If that is true, Review for Religious is facing a moment of great opportunity. In recent years the number of subscribers has steadily fallen off, and the cost of publication has risen to the point that our future as a print journal is in jeop-ardy. The recent deaths of Fathers Fischer and Fleming have taken their toll. We have reached a critical point in our history. When my provincial assigned me to succeed David Fleming as editor, he gave me a specific mission: Assess the viability of the publication. So for the past year, the staff and our advisory board have taken that mission seriously even as we worked to meet our ordinary production schedule. While we all hoped to be able to keep this good work alive, the real goal of our discernment was not to save or to close the journal, but to explore ways to more effectively serve the church. In the past months we have consulted widely. We looked at the shifting demographics of reli-gious life and understood that younger reli-gious are getting more of their information on 71.1 2012 5 the Internet than through printed periodicals. We sorted through spreadsheets of detailed financial information. We looked hard at our available resources and realized that we could sustain publication of the journal in its present format for a maximum of three to five years. The hand-writing on the wall could not be clearer: Simply maintain-ing operations as they are will inevitably lead to closure. Maintenance, without change, is not an option. Part of our analysis took us back to look at our history. Our journal came into being in 1941 at a Jesuit theolo-gate in St. Marys, Kansas, where three enterprising faculty members—Augustine Ellard, Adam Ellis, and Gerald Kelly (later joined by Henry Willmering)—invited their students to edit and publish the papers they wrote as class assignments in what became the early incarnation of this journal which has served the church and religious life proudly for the past 70 years. Richard Smith, Daniel F. X. Meenan, Philip Fischer and David Fleming edited the publi-cation over the subsequent decades. Since Review for Religious was founded at a small theology school, we began exploring the idea that a theology center, rather than the confines of our office, would be a more logical site for the publication of this journal. As we realized that a network of theology centers around the world linked through the Internet could have great potential for producing articles and generating lively discussion, we began exploring that path. We contacted the moderators of Jesuit Conferences that have significant centers of religious formation in Africa, India, and the Asia-Pacific region—in parts of the world Augustine Ellard, Adam Ellis, Gerald Kelly, Henry Willmering Review for Religious Author • Title 6 where religious life is growing—to see if any of them would have an interest in assuming responsibility for the journal. As a result of our inquiries, we are engaged in a conversa-tion with just such a center about continuing the mission of Review for Religious. We are not looking to replicate the journal as it cur-rently exists, but are talking about re-envisioning and re-designing it with current and future generations of religious in mind. As a result of our discussions and discernment, we have determined that this copy of Review for Religious is the final issue that will be produced by our St. Louis office. Whether the journal remains as a print publication, or is redesigned for delivery on the Internet, or ceases publication altogether is yet to be determined. In the meantime, we are suspending publication and putting a moratorium on renewals or new subscriptions until our discernment is completed. To say that we have reached the end is premature. A hiatus or pause is a more accurate description. As Ron Mercier points out in his article in this issue, a rest is as important a part of a musical score as is a chord or a whole string of arpeggios. And such a time of waiting can be a rich moment. We are not sitting idly while the discussion goes on but are in the process of digitizing our entire collection. We plan to make every article, poem, and book review we have published available on the Internet. It should be an invalu- Richard Smith, Daniel Meenan, Philip Fischer, and David Fleming. 71.1 2012 7 able archive for anyone wishing to research the shifts in religious life during the past 70 years. I am grateful to our current staff: Mary Ann Foppe, who has been the office manager for the past 25 years; Judy Sharp, our receptionist, who has handled subscriptions; Rosemary Jermann, who has written the Bookshelf column; Garth Hallett sj, who has served as Associate Editor; Tracy Gramm, who has done layout and graphic design. I have appreciated Ed Hensell osb, Elizabeth McDonough op, Richard Hill sj, and Joseph Gallen sj, who have provided regular columns over the years, and Jean Read, Iris Ann Ledden ssnd, Regina Siegfried asc, Claire Boehmer asc, Joe Meek, and many oth-ers who have made major behind-the-scenes contri-butions. They have been an excellent staff. We are grateful to the countless number of con-tributors who have sent us manuscripts and poetry for our consideration. They helped us keep our finger on the pulse of religious life. And finally, we thank you, our faithful subscribers. We are grateful for your support, and we trust that we have been an important resource for you over the years. Please read the inside of the back cover of this issue. It contains details about how to keep informed about the progress of our discernment. We will notify each subscriber about the outcome of that discernment. Please pray that the Spirit will lead us to a good conclusion. Michael Harter SJ Rosemary Jermann, Mary Ann Foppe, Tracy Gramm, Judy Sharp and Michael Harter Review for Religious Were Not Our Hearts Burning within Us? We Are Sent I need to begin with a confession. I was given an assignment to speak about the Eucharist, particularly as it describes a way of life flowing from Weeks Three and Four of the Exercises. I am not an expert on the Spiritual Exercises, but I have been a student of the Eucharist for many decades, so I was happy to think about this topic. And, though the talk was still non-existent, a description had to be prepared for the program booklet. Many of you have prob-ably had the same experience. You make up a description of a talk right out of thin air, hop-ing to be sufficiently generic so you can talk about almost anything at all. kathleen hughes ignatian spirituality 8 Kathleen Hughes rscj, former professor of Word and Worship at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and former provincial of her order's United States prov-ince, is currently a mission consultant in the Network of Sacred Heart Schools. Her address is 541 S. Mason Road; St. Louis, Missouri 63141. 71.1 2012 9 But a funny thing happened to me on the way to the topic assigned. I took a detour. I stumbled onto what I regard as an amazing new insight about how the Eucharist and the Spiritual Exercises mirror each other. At first I thought I was the last to arrive. Then I checked with those who have far greater familiarity with the literature on the Spiritual Exercises, and no one had heard any reflection on such a topic. That, too, gave me pause and left me wondering how far out on a limb I was climbing. Nevertheless, here's the insight I want to develop in the first part of this talk: there seems to be a quite provocative parallel between the Four Weeks of the Spiritual Exercises and the four-part rhythm of the Eucharist. The gathering rites of the Eucharist include elements of praise and penitence, as are typical of movements in Week One of the Spiritual Exercises; the Liturgy of the Word is the gradual unfolding of the person and work of Jesus Christ, as occurs in Week Two; the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the celebration of Jesus' death for the life of the world, is the heart of Week Three; and the concluding rites of the Eucharist have an affinity with the rhythms of Week Four. In these pages I intend to develop this thesis in more detail, hoping in the process to give fresh insight into God's activity in these two parallel celebrations of the paschal mystery—these two ways we are being caught up in the work of God in Christ. Then I will move to a focus on the Eucharist itself, as it flows from Week Three, incarnates the intimacy of Week Four, and remains the abiding experience of consolation, chal-lenge, and invitation to faithful living, parallel to leav-ing retreat and picking up everyday life. Review for Religious Hughes • Were Not Our Hearts Burning within Us? 10 Part I: Parallels Overview First, then, before we look at the Four Weeks of the Spiritual Exercises and the four parts of the Eucharist in more detail, let me offer an overview of the resonances I've discovered between them. Both the Eucharist and the Spiritual Exercises are a series of movements or stages that, negotiated with grace, realize the Christian ideal of identification with Christ. Both are invitations to conversion; both, at their heart, are offers of holi-ness and transformation. Both the Exercises and the Eucharist have a basic psychological rhythm that facili-tates growth in the spiritual life. The Exercises and the Eucharist as we know them only gradually evolved to their present form. The Exercises began as jottings in Ignatius's personal notebook—conso-lations, desolations, graces received—and this collec-tion of insights developed into a practical manual as Ignatius gave them to oth-ers and learned from their experience. They remain a core series of spiritual exercises that are endlessly flexible as enfleshed in the lives of individuals. The Eucharist, too, is the result of a gradual evolution over time around the core of readings and the breaking of bread, making every age and every human commu-nity a fresh inculturation of a basic pattern. Happily, in our day the basic four-part structure of gathering, listening, responding, and sending has been recovered in the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Both the Eucharist and the Spiritual Exercises interrupt our ordinary time with extraordinary grace. 71.1 2012 11 Interestingly, both the Exercises and the Eucharist are filled with words, indeed with dialogue, and with spaces of silence. Both also make appeal to all of our senses and stir up mystagogical insights in those who are attentive. Both the Eucharist and the Spiritual Exercises interrupt our ordinary time with extraordinary grace; they help us to make sense of our life as it is unfolding before the living God. And both the Eucharist and the Exercises send us to live, in deed, what we have just experienced in this time of encounter with the divine. Finally, both these patterns of prayer follow, for most of us, familiar and predictable dynamics and so, for each, we need the grace to pay attention, to move beyond the familiar in order to get inside the mysteries. The First Week and the Gathering Rites of the Eucharist We come to retreat or to Eucharist just as we are, and we bring our history and our particular world with us into this sacred time and place. We come, sometimes breathlessly, from the work we have just left behind and the preoccupations that fill our minds and hearts. We come always with unfinished business and with distrac-tions, even burdens, of body and spirit. We come with our crosses and our inexhaustible needs. We come because we are drawn to a time and space of intimacy and prayer, of encounter with the Lord who will tutor our hearts, of transformation to new and deeper life. We come to be nourished. We come remembering God's goodness and God's fidelity to us, no matter our own response. We come hoping to touch our finger to the flame once again, placing ourselves, for this span of time, on holy ground. God's unconditional and ever-faithful love perme-ates our awareness in Week One. Each one of us has Review for Religious Hughes • Were Not Our Hearts Burning within Us? 12 been blessed with divine life; God's creative activity has showered each of us in unique ways and has supported and sustained us throughout our lives. In face of the immense goodness of God, we acknowledge our inade-quate response; we know that sin has hindered our rela-tionships with self and others and, above all, with God. Week One provides the opportunity to recognize sin as our failure to respond with love to God always present, to express our own sorrow and repentance, and then to know God's ever-greater love, mercy, and forgiveness. We reflect on our lives in light of God's boundless love for us, knowing that God wants to free us of everything that gets in the way of a loving response. The focus is less on particular sins than on our relationship with God that has been damaged, perhaps even shattered. Yet it is a relationship always available, for God longs for intimacy with us far more than we could ask or even imagine. Our personal history gives us hope: God is filled with mercy and compassion, slow to anger, full of kindness. God's response to our repentance is mercy and forgiveness. By the end of the First Week, we know ourselves as sinners, loved and rescued by a God who is so much greater than our hearts. These same heart movements are present in the gathering rites of the Eucharist. We generally begin the celebration with a hymn of praise and thanksgiving. We are then invited into a time of silence before the liv-ing God, and we cannot but realize our unworthiness and our experience of sin. In the language of the new Missal we own our complicity in sin "through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault," and we join with one another in begging for mercy and for-giveness: "Lord, have mercy." Then the Gloria is our hymn of praise after the words of absolution: "May 71.1 2012 13 almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you your sins, and bring you to life everlasting. Amen." We begin the Eucharist knowing ourselves as loved sinners, disposed to open our hearts to the word proclaimed in our midst. There are two additional striking parallels between the First Week of the Exercises and the gathering rites of Eucharist. The first has to do with the cross of Christ, for the cross is prominent at the beginning of both experiences. The retreatant is invited to make a first meditation before the cross; similarly, when we gather for the Eucharist, the entrance procession places the cross at the very beginning of the celebration. There is nothing like the cross of Christ to sharpen our focus, to bring us to the sober reality that relationships have consequences, that the paschal mystery of Jesus' life, death, and rising is what has made it possible to draw near to the throne of grace. And here's a second intriguing possibility with the Eucharist. There is a presidential prayer at the conclu-sion of the entrance rites, another at the preparation of the table and the gifts, and a third after Communion. These are all, essentially, prayers of petition; they each ask for a specific grace that is dependent for its focus on the place of the prayer in the rite. We really could think of these prayers as "preludes" that name and ask for a specific grace as we move from one week to the next, from one part of the Eucharist to the next. For example, the opening prayer for today's liturgy, the Seventeenth Sunday, Year A, from icel's Missal of 1998, reads: God of eternal wisdom, You alone impart the gift of right judgment. Grant us an understanding heart that we may value wisely the treasure of your kingdom Review for Religious Hughes • Were Not Our Hearts Burning within Us? 14 and gladly forego all lesser gifts to possess that kingdom's incomparable joy. We make our prayer through Our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit God for ever and ever. Amen.1 What a perfect presidential prayer to open our hearts to the Word of God; what a perfect prelude to move to Week Two of the Exercises. The Second Week and the Liturgy of the Word The parallels between the Second Week of the Exercises and the Liturgy of the Word are easily dis-cernible. Both focus on the scriptures, and both invite decision; both are grounded in the Gospels and in the Mystery who is Christ; both the Spiritual Exercises and the Liturgy of the Word, over time, offer an intimate encounter with Jesus of Nazareth—healing, teaching, sharing meals, welcoming sinners, going about doing good, spending the night in union with his Abba, gath-ering disciples and forming their hearts. We reflect on scripture passages, in retreat as at Mass, one after another, not in order to know the scriptures better but to discover ever more fully the One whom they disclose to us. During the Second Week of the Exercises, like Martha's sister, Mary, the retreatant sits at the feet of Jesus, the teacher, drawn to his person, absorbing his attitudes and values, his choices, his preaching of the dream of God for the world, for humankind, for each of us. The Second Week, of course, is not full only of the consolation of spending time with a dear friend. That 71.1 2012 15 dear friend of ours also reveals to us the cost of dis-cipleship, the misunderstandings, the disappointments, the gathering storm of criticism and anger. We take in the whole of the life of Jesus Christ and are drawn to know him more intimately, to love him more ardently, and to follow him more faithfully. We choose to be dis-ciples of the perfect disciple. Empowered by the love of God experienced in Week One and by Jesus' friendship, which deepens for us in Week Two, we choose an ever closer relationship with him, no matter what. Loved sin-ners become loving servants, embracing and following Jesus, setting our faces, with him, to Jerusalem. It has been written that during the Second Week "We find ourselves drinking in the experiences of Jesus, so that we begin to assimilate his values, his loves, his freedom. This style of praying provides the necessary content of decision-making or discernment, which forms an essential part of the Second Week and is meant to be an abiding part of a Christian's life that is shaped by the Exercises."2 Of course, those statements also describe a regu-lar pattern of solitary prayer in daily life that reaches its summit in the Eucharist. God speaks to our hearts, opening up for us the mystery of redemption and salva-tion and offering us spiritual nourishment; Christ him-self is present in the midst of the community through the Word proclaimed.3 The cycle of readings, highlighting first one evange-list's portrait of Christ and then another's in the three-year cycle, invites our reflection on the life and ministry of Jesus, his proclamation of the Good News, his say-ings and parables, his teachings and miracles, and, espe-cially during Lent and the triduum, how his face was set to Jerusalem during his last days on earth. The Gospel is the highpoint of the Liturgy of the Review for Religious Hughes • Were Not Our Hearts Burning within Us? 16 Word, and we mark it with various signs of reverence for the book and with the tracing of the cross on our forehead, lips, and breast, praying that our mind be opened, that our words be true, and that our whole being be exposed to the consolation and the challenge of a Gospel way of life. The homily follows. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal describes the homily as a necessary source of nourishment of the Christian life.4 In fact, for a majority of Christians it is often the only source of spir-itual nourishment in a busy week. The Second Week of the Exercises illuminates the challenge to those who give the homily in the Eucharist. The point of the hom-ily is identical to the grace sought in Week Two of the Exercises, namely, to enable the assembly to know Jesus more intimately, to love him more ardently and to follow him more faithfully. Nothing less! Not entertainment. Not exegesis. Not personal self-disclosure. Nothing less than knowing, loving, and following Christ, choosing his choices, becoming gradually and almost imperceptibly more like him, putting on his mind and heart. Just as one chooses discipleship at the end of Week Two, so too there is a choice at the end of the Liturgy of the Word. As we prepare to move from the Table of God's Word to the Table of the Lord's Supper, we join ourselves to Christ and ask that we too be transformed every bit as much as the bread and the wine, that we and they may become for us and for our world the Body and Blood of Christ. The Third Week and the Liturgy of the Eucharist The focus of Week Three is both the Last Supper and the Passion. So, too, these two themes are conflated in the Liturgy of the Eucharist: "the Sacrifice of the 71.1 2012 17 Cross and its sacramental renewal in the Mass, which Christ the Lord instituted at the Last Supper and com-manded the apostles to do in his memory, are one and the same, differing only in the manner of offering, and . . . consequently the Mass is at once a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, of propitiation and satisfaction."5 The first meditation of the Exercises in Week Three is on the Last Supper in its entirety—including the preparations, the choice of place, the arrangements for the meal, the assembling in the upper room, Christ's washing of the apostles' feet, the supper itself, Christ's giving of his body and blood in Eucharist as the ultimate expression of his love for them, and his final words, his last will and testament, that they continue this same action in his memory. Much of this finds a resonance in the Liturgy of the Eucharist. There is, of course, first the preparation of the table and the gifts, the preparation of the altar itself and then of the offerings of bread and wine. There is the washing of the hands of the presider, a ritual of cleansing and interior purification in readiness for all that will follow. There is the prayer over the gifts, a simple and focused petition—a second "prelude," if you will, asking in a variety of ways that the gifts we have placed on the table will become holy and that we our-selves will be caught up in this action and be made holy to the praise and glory of God. Then the great prayer of praise and thanksgiving, the Eucharistic Prayer, begins. We tell the story of Jesus' life, death, and rising. We enter into Christ's liturgy, the endless self-giving of Christ into the hands of the One he called Abba, from whom he receives back his life. Our worship is an offering of our whole selves with and in Christ to God. That is our participation in the paschal Review for Religious Hughes • Were Not Our Hearts Burning within Us? 18 mystery of Christ's obedience unto death, our identifica-tion with Christ in his radical obedience to God. Have you ever used one of the Eucharistic Prayers for your meditation during Week Three? The Eucharistic Prayer is addressed to God the Father. Could we not think of it as a colloquy with the One Jesus called Abba, our own intimate conversation with God, as we ponder the mystery of the Passion? By turns, the Eucharistic Prayer "collo-quy" offers thanksgiving to God for the whole work of salvation realized in Christ; it implores the action of God's transforming Spirit; it tells the story again of the night before Jesus died when he offered his body and blood, gave the apostles to eat and drink, and left them a command to perpetuate this mystery; it recalls the events that fol-lowed the supper, especially the blessed Passion of Christ together with his victory over sin and death; it makes an offering to God not only of the spotless victim but of our-selves so that day by day we might be perfected through Christ the mediator and be brought into unity with God and with each other when God may be all in all.6 It is a perfect prayer; it is a perfect condensed statement of what we believe and what we long for; it is a colloquy, if you will, that gathers up and gives expression to the faith of the community in Jesus' salvific death and rising and our par-ticipation in that mystery. There is no better word at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer, or at the end of our Third Week meditation on the Passion as we dwell in the silence of God, than the word "Amen." So be it. Week Four and the Communion and Concluding Rites We are ready for Week Four—Jesus' resurrection and his apparitions to his mother, to the women, to the disciples, to Mary in the garden. Always the message is 71.1 2012 19 the same: do not be afraid; peace be with you; go now and tell the good news; go now to feed my lambs. And as peace is the gift of the Risen One, we beg that same peace for the whole human family, and we ask for mutual love among ourselves. We approach the table of the Lord and receive the one Bread of Life, which is Christ who died and rose for the salva-tion of the world. Our Communion makes us one with the Risen Christ, and the last presidential prayer, the prayer after Communion, is a final "prelude"—a peti-tion that we might go forth and live, in deed, what we have just done in word and ritual action. "Please make this Communion take!" this prayer seems to beg. We become what we eat. Through the Communions of our lifetime we are gradually being transformed into God. We know that we ourselves and our world have been radically changed by Jesus' resurrection, and we embrace his commission to become the Heart of God on earth. In contemplating the love of God in the conclud-ing exercise of Week Four, we pray an intimate prayer of thanksgiving to the One who has shared his life so completely with us that we are filled with gratitude and with a desire to make a generous return of love. "Take, Lord, receive," we say, and in so doing we express our availability before God for whatever we will face, rely-ing simply and completely on God's grace. We know ourselves as blessed and sent. Thus far I have been developing the ways that the Eucharist and the Spiritual Exercises mirror and some-times illuminate aspects of each other. As a transition to the second part of this reflection, I suggest pausing over the words of the "Anima Christi" using David Fleming's translation. It was David who said that this prayer is a summary of the dynamics of the whole movement Review for Religious Hughes • Were Not Our Hearts Burning within Us? 20 of the Exercises, and he also described the prayer as a summary of the transformation wrought through the Eucharist. Jesus, may all that is you flow into me. May your body and blood be my food and drink. May your passion and death be my strength and life. Jesus, with you by my side enough has been given. May the shelter I seek be the shadow of your cross. Let me not run from the love which you offer, but hold me safe from the forces of evil. On each of my dyings shed your light and your love. Keep calling to me until that day comes, when, with your saints, I may praise you forever. Amen.7 Part II: Living the Eucharist David Fleming also called the "Anima Christi" a summary of the living of the Fourth Week in the everyday, so it is to that topic we turn, the living of the Eucharist. Many years ago I read a book by Gregory Dix called The Shape of the Liturgy, a very long, very erudite history of the Eucharist by an Anglican clergyman and liturgi-cal scholar. At the conclusion, around page seven hun-dred something, the author shifts from liturgical history, archeology, and philology to spirituality. He quotes the words of Jesus at the Last Supper, "Do this in memory of me," and then poses an intriguing question: Was ever another command so obeyed? Dix paints an extraordinary picture: Century after century, spreading slowly to every continent and country, to every race on earth, this action of Eucharist has been carried out in every conceivable human circumstance and for every conceivable human need, from the heights of 71.1 2012 21 power to places of poverty and need, for royalty at their crowning and for criminals going to the scaffold, for a bride and bridegroom in a little country church, for the wisdom for the Parliament of a mighty nation, for a sick old woman afraid to die, for Columbus setting out to discover the New World, for a barren couple hoping for a child, by an old monk on the fiftieth anniversary of his vows, and on and on. Dix lyrically enumerates these and scores of other instances in which the Christian com-munity has been faithful to Jesus' command, "Do this."8 Over the centuries the Eucharist has been celebrated by innumerable millions of entirely obscure faithful women and men like you and me, people with hopes and fears and joys and sorrows and sins and temptations and prayers every bit as vivid and alive as yours and mine are now. Week by week, on a hundred thousand succes-sive Sundays, faithfully, unfailingly, the followers of Jesus have done just this for the remembrance of him.9 This is an extraordinary picture of the sacrament that constitutes the community, of the event that binds us together, one with another and with Christians of every age, place, race, tongue, and way of life. The Eucharist has been like a wave of grace rolling over the community again and again across the centuries of Christendom, hollowing out spaces for the divine in the midst of the everyday. Was ever another command so obeyed? But after pondering Dix, I realized that when I con-sidered that Last Supper of Jesus and his friends, there was another question on my mind. When Jesus said "do this in remembrance of me," what did he mean by the this? Surely not just the Jewish pattern of the meal, though we know a lot about Jewish rituals, the blessing of bread, the number of cups, the style of blessing said over both. Surely the this is something more. What are Review for Religious Hughes • Were Not Our Hearts Burning within Us? 22 we being asked to do? to be? to embrace? to celebrate? What commitment do we make when we say "Amen"? Scripture supplies two directions toward an answer: one in the Synoptic accounts of the supper and Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, and the other in the Gospel of John. Recall the words of Paul describing the Last Supper: I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me" (1 Cor 11:23-25). Do this in remembrance of me. But what is the this? Have you ever considered that the Last Supper was precisely that—it was the last. The Last Supper was the last of a whole series of Jesus' meals recorded in the Scriptures. Jesus never played the pious ascetic, keep-ing away from celebrations. He loved a good feast. He used that image of feasting as a metaphor of the reign of God—a great banquet. It was said of him, "This man is a glutton and a drunkard." An even more shocking accusa-tion was whispered behind his back: "This man sits down at table with sinners, with the morally dubious, with the outcasts of society, with those living on the fringes." On nearly every page of the Gospels there is a meal or a reference to food. Jesus calls out to Zacchaeus, "Get down from that tree. I'm coming to your house for What commitment do we make when we say "Amen"? 71.1 2012 23 lunch." There is the story of Simon who threw a din-ner party but was an inattentive host, and of the woman who slipped in to minister to Jesus as he sat at Simon's table. There is the story of Peter's mother-in-law who is cured only to get up and wait on them. There is the Syrophoenician woman who would not take no for an answer, who spoke about crumbs that fell from the table and who expected—and received—more than crumbs from this man. There are the feeding miracles that tell us something of the utter lavishness of the banquet and that everyone will receive enough and there will still be something left over for another day. There are parables of feasts, of great abundance, of jockeying for places at table, of appropriate attire, of filling the room with those drawn from the highways and the byways. Even the risen appearances of Jesus include meals. "Peace be with you," Jesus says. "What's for dinner?" On the shore, in the upper room, on the way to Emmaus, they recognize him in the breaking of the bread. How do you recognize someone? Even at a distance, you rec-ognize the timbre of a voice, or a particular gesture, or the slight tilt of the head so characteristic of an indi-vidual. The disciples recognized Jesus for what was most characteristic of him: the way he broke the bread. What is the this that we are to replicate? It is the whole life and ministry of Jesus at table. Scripture scholars refer to this as Jesus' ministry of table fellow-ship. To share food, in Semitic times, was to share life itself. And Jesus shared life with an astonishing assort-ment of people. Everyone was welcome to sit with him at table, to tell stories and to break the bread. Jesus' ministry of table fellowship is a ministry of universal reconciliation, no exceptions. The Last Supper reca-pitulated the attitudes and values of Jesus, who opened Review for Religious Hughes • Were Not Our Hearts Burning within Us? 24 his table and his heart to everyone, who offered hospi-tality to all, who was himself at home with all manner of people, who knew the human need for nourishment of body, mind, and spirit and who was always present to the other—welcoming, reconciling, offering life. Do this in memory of me. The Gospel of John offers a second answer to the question "What is the this?" In John there is a very dif-ferent institution narrative. It is the account of the foot washing. We know the story so well. Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper, laid aside his garments, and girded himself with a towel. He poured water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel. Peter resisted this tenderness until Jesus pressed: "If I do not wash you, you have no part with me." Peter relented in typical Peter fashion: "Not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" When Jesus had com-pleted the washing and resumed his place, he said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you" (Cf. Jn 13:1-15). You should do as I have done. In other words, "Do this in memory of me." I had an experience when I was studying at the University of Notre Dame that colors my understand-ing of the washing of the feet after the manner of Jesus. Notre Dame has a reputation for the excellence of its liturgical studies program and, at least when I was there, for the perfection of its liturgical celebrations: every 71.1 2012 25 minister rehearsed; every detail on a checklist; every liturgy perfect. And, during the sacred triduum, the lit-urgies were even more perfect! It was Holy Thursday and time for the foot washing. Twelve people moved forward, probably having prepared for the foot wash-ing by carefully washing their feet! Then, seemingly from nowhere, a very unkempt man started up the aisle, staggering a bit, perhaps under the weather. It was one of those stunning moments. Time stood still. Then the deacon walked down the aisle to help the man for-ward and assist him in taking off his shoes and socks. What is the this? Tender and loving care for the other; accepting our mutual vulnerabilities; choosing to open our hearts to all, even the one staggering into our life and upsetting its plans and perfections. Foot washing is not just a way of life but an attitude of heart, a kneeling before the other in reverence. Foot washing is embrac-ing a way of service after the manner of Jesus, simply, generously, not counting the cost. Do this: Embrace my attitudes and values as your own. Love those I love, and be my heart to them. Welcome the stranger, the one on the margins, the disenfranchised. Become vulnerable with one another. Kneel in reverence, especially before those whom soci-ety shuns. Nourish one another's bodies and spirits. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep, both here at home and half a world away— those in Norway who are paralyzed by a massacre they Foot washing is not just a way of life but an attitude of heart, a kneeling before the other in reverence Review for Religious Hughes • Were Not Our Hearts Burning within Us? 26 could never have imagined, those who are starving from the drought in Africa, those who are terrified of nuclear contamination in Japan, those who are caught up in trafficking around the globe or denied asylum here at home, those who have lost the ones they love and all they owned in fire, flood, tornado, or earthquake. Make a habit of roaming the globe in prayer so that you do not remain distant from the joys and pain of the world. Send those waves of grace once again across continents and cultures to bathe our world in the love and mercy of Eucharist. Do this in memory of me. Conclusion Week Three invites us to experience the Last Supper, to place ourselves there in the upper room, to look around at the faces, to listen to the words, to pon-der them in our hearts as we watch the immense tender-ness of the Lord with those he loved even to the end, whose hearts he was tutoring even on the night before he died. And we have stayed with him, watched and prayed with him, and accompanied him as he gave up his life. Then we have simply dwelt in silence. That same intimacy and presence to one another marks Week Four, a time of tenderness and affection with the risen Jesus who shares his love and his joy with us but does not let us cling to him. He sends us as apostles, empowered by his Spirit, to continue his sav-ing presence, to be his heart on earth. And day by day, week by week, the Eucharist con-tinues to draw us into these mysteries. The heart of the Eucharist is Jesus Christ. The heart of it is the cel-ebration of Jesus' life, death, and rising every time we gather—and the merging of our daily living and dying with his and with one another—for the life of the world. 71.1 2012 27 The heart of it is joining ourselves to Christ, the perfect sacrifice, to the praise and glory of God. The heart of it is begging that the Spirit will transform each one of us just as really as the bread and wine so that we become more and more Christ's Body in truth, not just in name. The heart of it is learning over and over again to say "Amen" to all of these realities and—at least some-times— actually meaning it. Meaning "Amen," meaning yes I will try to live, in deed, in the coming days, what we have just enacted in word and ritual action. I conclude with a favorite reflection of mine on the word "Amen." Be careful of simple words said often. "Amen" makes demands like an unrelenting schoolmaster: fierce attention to all that is said; no apathy, no preoccupation, no prejudice permitted. "Amen": We are present. We are open. We hearken. We understand. Here we are; we are listening to your word. "Amen" makes demands like a signature on a dotted line: sober bond to all that goes before; no hesitation, no half-heartedness, no mental reservation allowed. "Amen": We support. We approve. We are of one mind. We promise. May this come to pass. So be it. Be careful when you say "Amen."10 Notes 1 Cf. Sunday Celebration of the Word and Hours (Ottawa: Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1995). This book contains the Sunday collects prepared by the International Committee on English in the Liturgy for the Missal of 1998, since withdrawn. Review for Religious Hughes • Were Not Our Hearts Burning within Us? 28 2 David L. Fleming sj, "The Ignatian Spiritual Exercises: Understanding a Dynamic," in Notes on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola (St. Louis: Review for Religious, 1981) 11. 3 General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 2003, §29, paraphrase. 4 GIRM, § 65. 5 GIRM, § 9. 6 GIRM, § 79. 7 David L. Fleming sj, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. A Literal Translation and a Contemporary Reading. (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1978) 3. 8 Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy (London: Dacre Press, 1945) 744-5, passim. 9 Ibid. paraphrase. 10 Barbara Schmich Searle, "Ritual Dialogue," Assembly 7:3, February, 1981. Obedience You have had my yes for years– and I have had yours since the sun, the seashells, and the storms at sea. But now, ah . . . you and I are more than yes. As time moves with, within, and around, this yes of ours takes on wings, takes on colors I never imagined, challenges that strengthen and soften me, glory that stills me, stirs me, extends and opens me. It becomes a murmur of love that we share. Love that frees me and compels me to choose you again and yet again . . . that I might respond as I wish to respond . . . openly, knowingly, even a little mysteriously . . . as the bush in the desert responded to flame. Kimberly M. King rscj 71.1 2012 ronald mercier 29 Without the Drama: The Transition from Third to Fourth Week of the Spiritual Exercises S travinsky's "Rite of Spring" caused a furor when it was first performed in 1913, but the more I listen to it, the more I think it expresses something important, and not only from a musical point of view. At the tail end of the piece, the "Sacrifice," Stravinsky tries to cap-ture the human spirit in its "pagan"—pure—form. You might want to find a recording of it and play it before you read further. Cacophony—there's no other way to describe it! Bad sound. It assaults the senses. It builds to a crescendo and with the violence of spirit that leads to the sacrifice of a human, a woman who dances herself to death for the Ronald Mercier sj is associate professor of theology at Saint Louis University and rector of the community where Jesuit scholastics pursue the study of philosophy and theology. This article was originally given as a keynote presentation at Ignatian Spirituality Conference V on July 22, 2011, in St. Louis, Missouri. Comments can be addressed to him at Bellarmine House of Studies; 3737 Westminster Place; St. Louis, Missouri 63108. Review for Religious Mercier • Without the Drama 30 sake of the community. It is violence that can kill and wound and send to hell, to use Ignatius's words from the Incarnation meditation. In the ballet that goes with the music, there is a frenetic dance that is almost a form of madness. No wonder people were so challenged by the music; this is not about some nice ethereal enjoyment, but is a revelation of what can shape the human heart and actions. This revelation opens to our fears but not to our hopes. Curiously, the music ends with a bang, a loud discor-dant chord that leaves us waiting for something more. We would like some kind of resolution at this point, but we are left with utter silence after that dramatic end. We wait, but the music just ends. Or does it? For me, this piece leads to a reflection on the transition from the Third to the Fourth Week in the Ignatian Exercises, a movement out of a murderous drama into a disorienting grand silence within which the Fourth Week dawns. I would like to invite you to sit with Ignatius in what we would name "Holy Saturday," a place he sketches as the space for contemplation within which we experience Resurrection. My thesis is simple: Without the grand silence of Holy Saturday, the "seventh day" for Ignatius, we do not experience the joy and freedom of the Fourth Week. Waiting in the transition—a transition into, not out of, emptiness—allows for creation of the space into which the Risen Lord comes, if we let the quiet ripen. The music of Stravinsky captures the movement of the Third Week, a drama of human making. We walk with Jesus as he experiences being sacrificed for "the good of the people." Curiously, Ignatius invites us to experience the Passion, but he does not describe the gore that would have been standard fare in the spiritual-ity of his time. No doubt he assumed that people knew 71.1 2012 31 the specifics of the passion, crucifixion, and death from the religious imagination of his time. I wonder, though, whether that is all. It strikes me that we are invited into two spaces: the fullness of the world upon which the Trinity gazes in the Incarnation mediation, but also the reality of the Trinity's desire effected through what happens in these moments. In this transition, we fulfill the movement of the Incarnation meditation. Ignatius certainly invites us to "consider what Christ our Lord suffers in His human nature . . . [and] to strive to grieve, be sad, and weep" (SpEx §195). We "must be with the Lord in his suffering, [and] follow him unto his death," lest we be "simply spectators at a Passion event which may be very touching, but which in no way dis-turbs the egotism of our lives,"1 as Gilles Cusson so nicely puts it. We experience with Jesus what human egotism can do, the dramatic clash that seeks sacrifice to maintain some order. Ignatius's contemplation of the Passion has little to do with Mel Gibson's hero worship; we con-template one who embraces utter powerlessness, not "muscular humanity." Yet, Cusson also says that we need to attend to Ignatius's Fifth Point, "how the divinity hides itself; . . . it could destroy . . . but does not do so" (SpEx §196). What is God about in Christ? What goes beyond the "work of our hands," the murderous sacrifice, and actu-ally effects the will of the Trinity? Is God violent? Is We contemplate one who embraces utter powerlessness, not "muscular humanity." Review for Religious Mercier • Without the Drama 32 this the "divinity [who] hides"? Or is the violent god our god? What occurs when our dramatic violence ends? For me, personally and as a director, this question is never academic. The temptation to remain specta-tors or to wonder at the horrors of the Passion—and so to remain distant from it and from the Resurrection— always presents itself as a path of light, as "really feeling bad" for Jesus, and perhaps knowing real (even mur-derous) anger toward those who create perverse tor-tures for him. The experi-ence of the Fourth Week then somehow appears too remote, not surprisingly, and not only because by that time we know the exhaustion of having given ourselves so radically to prayer. But if we remain spectators of the Passion, what also becomes remote is the real joy of the Fourth Week, a joy so different from the transient happiness that we may whip up but never suffices for the long-term journey. And the Fourth Week is really for the long haul, not transient at all. What alternative remains? Consider for a moment where Ignatius leads us. As he did in the contemplation on the Incarnation, he places us with the work of the Trinity and with Mary. This gives us our transition point and deserves some pause. Notice how he frames our prayer at the end of the week, the time of transition: One should consider as frequently as possible . . . that the most Sacred Body of Christ our Lord remained If we remain spectators of the Passion, what also becomes remote is the real joy of the Fourth Week. 71.1 2012 33 separated from the soul, and the place and manner of his burial. Let [the exercitant] consider, likewise, the desolation of our Lady, her great sorrow and weariness, and also that of the disciples (SpEx §208, Seventh Day). Two dimensions frame the time after the death of Jesus on the cross, two movements that invite us into a depth within which resurrection happens: the experi-ence of death in Jesus and its impact on those (like us) who love him. Resurrection, Cusson rightly suggests, never becomes a topic for consideration, but encounters us in and through the one whom we love and who has conquered death, a "confirmation from above surpass-ing all human hope."2 Let us stay, though, for a moment with the two aspects Ignatius gives us not so much as a conclusion to the Third Week as the door through which the Third Week becomes, or opens to, the Fourth Week. We have in the Christian tradition a powerful sense that the Paschal Mystery—the death, coming to the dead, and Resurrection of the Lord—never constitutes the past, something complete and over, but, rather, remains the context of our lives, the place of our ministries, the space within which joy dawns for us and for all who know the Risen Lord. Two things, then, shape this contemplation, which really becomes the shape of "the seventh day," a con-templation of the Passion as a whole. First, Ignatius begs us to consider the fullness of the death of Jesus because, without an experience of that fullness, we really cannot complete the journey of the Third Week (and of the Incarnation) or comprehend the fullness of the ways in which Jesus' ministry touches and shapes our lives and our world. We need to ponder, prayerfully, what it Review for Religious Mercier • Without the Drama 34 means for Jesus to "remain separated from his soul," to know death, not just to "be killed." Let me suggest that this consideration never rep-resents some thought exercise or parlor game. In our culture we often trivialize death and, in fact, avoid the topic completely or paper it over with euphemisms. We do not say that people die, but that they "pass away." We make the reality so antiseptic, so unreal, that we actually generate a fear of death that drives us even to try to con-trol it, like some unruly passion. Humans have always feared death, as the social critic Ernst Becker makes clear. In our modern North American culture, though, we have created a kind of nightmare; we rarely encoun-ter the reality of someone's dying. Even worse, people have to die not freely as Jesus did, but alone, caught up in our medicalized model. Alternatively, we can make death into a mere video game: how many can we kill? By contrast, Ignatius invites us to a thoroughgoing realism. In Jesus' death, we contemplate the fullness of his human death, freely embraced for us, the fullness of the trajectory of the Incarnation. We are invited to consider especially his embrace of abandonment. Hans Urs von Balthasar, the great Swiss theologian and pro-foundly Ignatian thinker, asks us to ponder just what this means, as a path toward hope: The Redeemer showed himself therefore as the only one who, going beyond the general experience of death, was able to measure the depths of that abyss.3 Think about that with me for just a moment. For Balthasar (and here he places himself in the whole strand of Christian mystics) we desire to shield our-selves from death. We may have "the general experience of death," but we seek to hold it at bay, often at great cost. No one wants to die, of course, and from time 71.1 2012 35 immemorial we have created lovely myths of "afterlife" as ways of avoiding the fullness of what we would expe-rience in death, so that we do not really die. Instead, Ignatius invites us, in the wake of the cry by which Jesus freely gives up his spirit and accepts death, to consider what it would mean for someone freely and fully to enter into the realm of Hades, of Sheol, in which, as the psalmist says, "no one can praise You." In Jesus, God goes fully to claim the reality of human death and dying as God's very own. Balthasar uses the image of the abyss—a wonderful image—for this. We need to ponder, not morosely but in faith, the full tra-jectory of the Third Week. Ignatius places us there and asks that during the Seventh Day—however long it might be—we continually call that reality to mind and keep it before us. He invites us there in place of repetitions or Applications of the Senses, because in pon-dering the fullness of the death of Jesus, in letting it "ripen to fullness," as it were, we begin to grasp the fullness of what it means that he dies for our sake, that he goes where we would not go. If, as David Fleming, John Futrell, John English and many others suggest, the Last Supper sets the tone for the Third Week, here we know what it means to "be broken and poured out," even to the fullness of death itself. We have been praying for the grace of freedom throughout the Exercises, and in a sense here we encounter freedom in its fullness. Balthasar notes what freedom—in its purest form, free from all stain of sin—would mean: "And precisely in that did his mortal anguish and God-abandonment differ radically from the habitual anxiety of the sinner." 4 Jesus freely—and with-out defense—walks the way ahead of us, embraces our path. Jesus claims the fullness of death as a space within Review for Religious Mercier • Without the Drama 36 which to meet us—thus, the implication of the seventh-day exercise. We can—and do—often hurry by the real-ity, or simply marvel at the wreck of a corpse in the Pietà. Ignatius, according to Balthasar, invites us to let death be full, that we might know freedom with Christ, freedom for our mission ultimately, freedom to love "even to death itself." No masochism or delectatio morosa marks this moment, but only a profound invitation to explore what we fear with the One who has gone the way before us. For Ignatius, that remains key. If Resurrection cannot grasp the fullness of what death means, if it can-not meet us in the anxiety that would hold us bound and create the kind of craziness that marks our death-obsessed culture, it remains but a "nice idea," easily dis-pensed with, perhaps. For Balthasar, Jesus delves into death as abandonment, freely, without losing hope, but relying completely on the God who alone can overcome death. Imagine "separation of soul and body" in its totality, without the experience of Resurrection that often shields us. Jesus embraces that. This descent remains but part of the story for Ignatius, since he invites us to place ourselves with Mary and the disciples in their desolation—an impor-tant context. The imagery of that placement reveals a deliberate quality in two ways: it prepares us to encoun-ter the Risen Lord and accept our mission. In one sense, of course, we explore the same space as previously, explore what it means for Jesus to have died—but now from the perspectives of those left behind. Again, Ignatius invites us to contemplate with Mary—and to some extent with Mary Magdalene—to share space and time with women who also embrace the "empty space" without defense, freely. The sinlessness of Mary parallels Jesus' own condition, and invites us 71.1 2012 37 to imagine how she, whose heart knew only openness, would experience the "separation" of soul from body. In her once again, Ignatius asks us to confront death as death, in its fullness in Jesus, in one whom we pas-sionately love. While I will focus on the encounter with Mary, the mother of Jesus, as a basic form of the Resurrection con-templations, I do not mean to suggest that one must force people to engage that path. Eventually the pattern of the Exercises does lead us there, but as John English suggests in Spiritual Freedom,5 a directee may find it difficult to enter into the purity of Mary's openness to encounter the Risen Lord; a person may find more fruitful prayer with the grief of Mary Magdalene, or the guilt of Simon Peter, or others. Still, the fullness of that openness to the Risen Lord brings us back to the full "yes" of Mary, mother of Jesus, as a paradigm of freedom. We have probably all known a parent who has lost a beloved child. As I write this I cannot help but think of the parents of a young Chinese student who failed at university and chose suicide in the face of despair. I cannot begin to imagine the grief of soul such a moment would entail for those parents; nor can I imagine the added burden of feeling guilt for having laid on a child expectations that he could not fulfill. That empty space of a dead child shocks us; "it should not happen," we say quite rightly. Parents should die before their children do. The empty space becomes almost too much to take in, though with Michelangelo's Pietà we catch a glimpse of how a face might appear when gazing on that emptiness. Yet, for the director at this point in the Exercises, especially in the face of what happens in the transition, an important distinction remains. Monty Williams, in a work in progress that he shared with me, advises that we Review for Religious Mercier • Without the Drama 38 note two different paths as one encounters fear, notably the fear of death. There are two ways of being present to our fears. We could look at them and wonder how we can be so stupid, and then make the plans . . . to ensure those mistakes never happen again. . . . The other way . . . is to experience the amazement. . . . The more we ponder . . . it, the more we are filled with a sense of wonder—which gives no answer. That wonder, that sense of amazement, is our first awareness of the presence of God in the space we have created by looking at our fears. As Williams frames it, two choices remain. We can panic and move into flight or analysis or simply an excess of emotions to make us feel better. Or we can be attentive, in the face of such fears, to an empty space without answers—a much harder place to be. When Ignatius invites us to contemplate, to recall Mary, all of those spaces we have known in the Second Week come to mind. Mary remains for us always the one who attends, who does not withdraw, even in the face of the horror of the slaughter of the innocents, but who pon-ders. The path of our entry into the Seventh Day parallels Mary's path, and a director looks at whether the exerci-tant gets caught up in his or her own pain or can ponder the empty space with Mary—that dreadful emptiness the church hints at in stripped altars and empty tabernacles after the Good Friday service. With Mary, we hear the invitation in freedom to know our beloved Jesus as dead. A terrible space, but not a maudlin one! We hear the call to compassion, to attentiveness, to let an empty space open. In essence, Michelangelo's Pietà invites us not to wild grieving but to face the reality of Mary holding her dead son. Attentiveness is a state of waiting, but for what? 71.1 2012 39 I can't help but remember Mary Oliver's powerful poem "The Uses of Sorrow," which captures so much of what I think Ignatius presents to us in constructing a place for prayer: (In my sleep I dreamed this poem) Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.6 The poem admirably catches the difference between panic/analysis and attentiveness as ways of responding to the human—and here divine—reality of death. For us the path takes time; Ignatius invites us on the seventh day to recall this to mind again and again, but the full process may well be the journey of our lives and our dying. However, contemplating the loss of Jesus is but one dimension. With Mary—and with the disciples—we are invited to ponder the world in which, as Cleopas said, "we had hoped" but which is now a space of desolation. We face the fullness of what Ignatius means when he invites the retreatant to see and consider the Three Divine Persons. . . . They look down upon the whole surface of the earth and behold all nations in great blindness, going down to death and descending into hell (SpEx §106). The reality of human violence is seen in its full-ness in this moment, especially when, with the disciples, we see that violence is also part of their lives—in their abandoning their Master. With Mary and them, the full brutality of violence in the name of God, yet murder-ous of God, comes home to us in all its savagery. No doubt they had seen or heard of crucifixion before. This Roman "tool" helped maintain fear in the populace by destroying its memory of the one killed, lest anyone else Review for Religious Mercier • Without the Drama 40 attempt to do what the crucified one had done. We can all rationalize human cruelty to suit our purposes. Here, though, their Master, Lord, Mentor, the one who healed, raised from the dead, preached Good News—the one they loved—becomes the victim of such cruelty. With him, the hope he had proclaimed also becomes a victim, exactly as the Romans would have desired. Hope is too dangerous a drug to a people fac-ing death. Is the reality of what Cleopas proclaimed— that "we had hoped"—also dead? With Mary and the disciples, we gaze on the empty space in the wake of the cross, and we know the dying of our hopes, of the ways in which all of our plans and expectations go to the cross with Jesus. Our history, our world, hangs in that balance. As director, how often have I sat with people who, in the wake of Jesus' death and burial, have to encounter again their own history of violence—received, experienced in others, commit-ted! The call to attentiveness in this space where our wounded history is made so evident places the past and the future in the balance. If in the first movement with Jesus and Mary we know the fear before death, in this second movement perhaps we face the fear of living in a world mediated by violence, a violence that we can usually hold at bay or ignore by switching the televi-sion channel. Yet, in this transition place, we face the brokenness and "poured-out" quality of our world, and we hear the call not to stronger forms of violence or retribution but to attend in that quiet space and know the fullness of a hope that might have died too. So many people live in this space. It is not theoretical. So, for me, the power of Stravinsky's piece, build-ing to that awful crescendo, that cacophony of death, followed by nothing, silence, lies in wanting some reso- 71.1 2012 41 lution other than the sacrifice. He captures well what those first disciples must have been going through on their "seventh day," after the terrible dramatics of human violence, cruelty, power; now Mary and the others know an empty silence made all the more desolate by what had come before. Building better plans, creating monu-ments, assigning guilt or blame—all of these would have tempered the grief. Instead, we hear the invitation to silence, to attentiveness. It may be that real forgiveness, hope, and resurrection can occur only in such silence. Ignatius places us before those realities that so easily move us away from attentiveness—fear of death and fear of violence or rejection—as a space within which some-thing very different—freedom—can arise. This experience could well represent a kind of "downer" for us, but need it be so? The sense of the deaths we experience—whether the physical death that Jesus freely embraces or the death of our illusions about the world and our patterns of dealing with it—create, as it were, a wasteland, an emptiness before which we stand and pray with Mary and the disciples. Its all-encompassing nature seeks to enlarge our freedom by placing before us our fears. Facing the wasteland yields fruit not in darkness or desolation (though we do indeed pass through these) but, as Antonio Valentino noted in a Directory written in the first generation after the death of Ignatius, aims at perfection in prayer and work, holding always God before one's eyes with gentleness and consistency, and remembering God whenever we think, speak or act.7 If we are moving toward the Contemplatio here as a mode of engaging the world, then this transition that "clears the ground" can yield an abundant harvest. We are left waiting for God's action—not ours. Review for Religious Mercier • Without the Drama 42 I do not use the imagery of "clearing ground" acci-dentally. I find myself touched by the way in which one deals with one sweep of contemplation, which clears, seeds, and bears fruit in ever deeper ways. Think through with me the extraordinary introduction to the Fourth Week that piggybacks on what we have seen. As Cusson mentions, when Ignatius presents the medita-tion on the first resurrection appearance (SpEx §299), he offers a first point, nothing else; the simplicity of the perspective shines through: "He appeared to the Virgin Mary." Ignatius sees no need for second or third points, as are given in all the other meditations. It is a unique tableau.8 Ignatius does complete the sweep from where we have been: His soul, likewise united with the divinity, descended into hell. There he sets free the souls of the just, then comes to the sepulcher, and rising appears in body and soul to His Blessed Mother (SpEx §219). We have before us the same matter as in the con-templations on "the seventh day" of the Third Week; the setting does not change. What happens arises from within where we find ourselves as we attend to the empty space at the end of the Third Week. Our entry into the Fourth Week comes not because we will our-selves to joy. Rather, in the space that death and vio-lence have laid waste, Resurrection dawns like light and, with it, love, joy, and hope as the fruit. We do not change spaces for Resurrection, for the Fourth Week; rather, we extend the Third until it bears fruit. As director, I cannot overemphasize how hard it is to keep people focused at this point; exhaustion has set in. The Fourth Week regularly gets short shrift, as does Resurrection in so much of Christian life; yet, as I pray with the transition from Third to Fourth Week, I 71.1 2012 43 realize how crucial that transition point is to our ability to be in and to serve a broken but risen world. Ignatius leads us to the "hell" which Jesus has entered freely and fully, with all those who have gone before—and with us eventually—and then moves to Mary, in her home and oratory, exactly the order that repeats the end of the Third Week. I would like to move in three points—Jesus' apparition to Mary, Jesus' rising "from the dead," and the gift of joy to a world that killed and can kill still. They are related, but quite distinct too. Think of how redolent Jesus' apparition is for Mary. Ignatius does not describe it much, except for a clear allusion. He asks us to "see the arrangement of . . . the place or house of our Lady. I will note its different parts, and also her room, her ora-tory, etc." (SpEx §220). In §103 we were asked "especially to see the house and room of our Lady." The parallelism is almost exact, and, of course, David Fleming in Like the Lightning alludes to the Annunciation contemplation.9 This is not pious drivel, as some are tempted to say; this really is a new Annunciation, but one that asks Mary—and us—to go on mission for the Trinity with the Risen Lord. After all the Sturm und Drang of the Third Week— the drama of our human violence and blood-lust, even the drama of the Last Supper that begins the Third This really is a new Annunciation, but one that asks Mary—and us— to go on mission for the Trinity with the Risen Lord. Review for Religious Mercier • Without the Drama 44 Week—this dawn of the Fourth Week, of a new world, is so undra-matic. Mel Gibson would have a difficult time with it. We would be tempted to make it dramatic, and certainly the Miraflores altar-piece does so, with Jesus showing his wounds and with Mary por-trayed as quite the medieval lady. Ignatius's description, though, is so different. Certainly, as he notes in the fourth point, the "divinity here manifests itself so miraculously," though in the fifth point the man-ifestation is as the consoler, the one who brings joy in the glory of the Resurrection. What are we to make of the apparition as "con-soler"? By the way, Ignatius gives only this contemplation in the Fourth Week, though we find a number of other texts arranged from §299-312 (in the section on the Mysteries of Christ's Life), with an ever wider circle of people let in on the Resurrection. In the Fourth Week itself, one contemplation alone pre-cedes the Contemplatio, again with Mary. If we take a step back, Mary represents the free per-son who has tasted the fullness of the passage of Jesus, both into death and at the hands of a broken, murderous world. If the darkness that John evokes in the Gospel stands as a hallmark of the Passion, Mary knows that darkness fully. As we wait with her, we hear the invita-tion to know that darkness, to let our own hopes and dreams die, to recognize the fullness of what death, as God-forsakenness, means. Mary roots us in a barren 71.1 2012 45 landscape without familiar landmarks. Stark—not dra-matic. Quiet. As long as we cling to our own artifacts, the land remains cluttered, and we are unable to receive. In essence, Mary descends into a kind of hell as well, the fullness of the First Week's hell, which is not of her doing, but which is the fruit of the world we have created. The more I ponder and pray with these texts, however, the more they strike me as a new "Incarnation," but with a different order and intent. In the Incarnation medita-tion, we move from the work of God, who ponders the broken, murderous world and chooses to enter it, invit-ing Mary—and us—to share in the work of the Trinity here now. With Mary we have been placed in a God-less world, the fullness of hell. We gaze, we ponder with her, in the freedom of those who have elected to follow Jesus. Mary—and we—know what God's heart would have felt in the acute desire to set people free. We now move from the order of "this world" to an encounter with the Trinity as we know the fullness of the desire of the Trinity in the Incarnation prayer, now effected by the Risen Lord. Again, I want to stress the point: Ignatius places us with Mary as the archetype of the person of the Exercises, the free person. While in later contempla-tions we are indeed shown the rest of the Gospel story, here he asks us to share in the fullness of what freedom The Apparition to Mary Reverses the order of the Incarnation meditation From the Trinity To a Broken World To revelation of the Trinity From a Broken World Review for Religious Mercier • Without the Drama 46 means, freedom at the intersection of our engagement with a broken world, and we wonder at the dawning of a world shot through with Resurrection. The transition of this time represents not a movement from Third Week to Fourth Week, as if we could leave the former behind as just a bad memory; rather, the transition is the on-going space of discipleship. We, like Mary, remain in a broken world, but the transition into the Fourth Week recasts the meaning of the world in a dramatic way, so that we can accept the call to serve a world still broken. Contemplation constitutes the basic hallmark of this freedom; the encounter with the Risen Lord that Ignatius sketches out occurs as an offer of new life in the midst of the contemplation of the fullness of death and sinful violence. These two elements of death and life form a diptych, as it were, for our lives and our prayer. We encounter here not merely the Risen Lord but, with Mary, the pattern of what we shall know as we await that ultimate coming of Christ to the world, and we receive a mission to act upon hope. Into that space, the risen Lord comes, not just as resuscitated—"I'm back"—but as a living proclamation of a new world, God's plan for the ultimate healing and completion of the world God so loves. From the broken world, we encounter the divinity made flesh again for us, but now glorified and risen. If Christ performs "the office of the consoler," as Ignatius says, this consolation does not simply cause a "feeling good" or even a happi-ness, but a revelation of a new world and the empower-ing invitation to dwell in that new world and extend it through time and space. That power is "joy." Joy in this case is not an affect, or even a spiri-tual movement, for Ignatius. In fact, he distinguishes between the two realities: 71.1 2012 47 as soon as I awake [I will] place before my mind the contemplation I am to enter upon, and then . . . strive to feel joy and happiness at the great joy and happi-ness of Christ our Lord (SpEx §229). Happiness we know as an affective movement, a passing reality; we feel happy when we experience cer-tain realities. We can know happiness but still be alien to joy, since happiness comes and goes, depending on the experience we feel. Happiness has an object, and in this case Ignatius does want us to evoke within ourselves the experience of happiness; the encounter becomes the cause of our happiness. Joy, however, pertains to a very different reality. Joy—and this is Christ's joy, of course, a gift of the Holy Spirit—intends not a movement of the heart, a feel-ing, but a disposition, a way of being; it is the hallmark of those who have encountered the risen Lord in the midst of surrounding darkness. Joy makes possible the freedom to go on mission into the Fourth Week—our ordinary time. That light dawns in the Resurrection, not apart from but in the midst of the darkness which Mary—and we—have known. G.K. Chesterton's lament about "joyless Christians" captures something very important here: Christianity satisfies suddenly and perfectly man's [sic] ancestral instinct for being the right way up; satisfies it supremely in this; that by its creed joy becomes something gigantic and sadness something special and small. The vault above us is not deaf because the universe is an idiot; the silence is not the heartless silence of an endless and aimless world.10 The joy we experience in the presence of the Risen Lord does not suddenly wipe away the reality of the grief we know at the experience of the brokenness of Review for Religious Mercier • Without the Drama 48 the world and its impact on the vulnerable; rather, such joy places it all in context, allows us to see the world as it is, in the context of God's proclamation of new life and hope in Christ. The way Ignatius ends the Exercises with Mary and this twofold contempla-tion seems to suggest that this joy becomes our "new normal," what God intended in creation and effects through the Incarnation, ministry, and Passover of the Word. We often emphasize the continuity/discontinuity of the Risen Jesus; he is like but different. But is it not really also the world which is continuous/discontinu-ous? In a great line from "Lion in Winter," Eleanor of Aquitaine says, "In a world where carpenters get resur-rected, everything is possible." Exactly—and such is our hope and the cause of our joy. As contemplatives moved to action, we in the Ignatian tradition live in the intersection of the two parts of the diptych, of Holy Saturday and Easter, but with joy as the hinge, something into which we grow. The encounter with the Risen Lord in the midst of a broken world becomes the reality of our lives and a point of conversion into this "new world." In that respect, we are unlike Mary but more like the others who encounter the Lord in a gradual way, but who nevertheless grow into a joyful engagement with the world. However, we can-not separate this encounter from the work which serves life and just peace; we grow in joy and hope only if we place ourselves at the service of justice, as it were, as the thirty-second General Congregation of the Society of Jesus suggested. Yet, we are no longer simply disciples, but apostles, those sent as the Word was sent into the world, but now into a world transformed. This "new normal," a joyful realm, disorients in many ways. Please excuse me as I take a bit of a detour 71.1 2012 49 into a Byzantine theme, that of the "Harrowing of Hell," an ancient icon in the East that depicts a scene sketched by a homily from the second century. I ask you to pon-der it with me for just a few moments. We have here one particu-lar rendition of the icon, but a powerful one with three signifi-cant movements. One of these captures the Contemplation for the Fourth Week as given by Ignatius, namely that the Risen Lord sets free the souls of the just held bound before Christ's Resurrection. For Balthasar and oth-ers, this moment of encounter with the Risen Lord has become the deciding moment for them, the one in which heaven—and the second death—actually open. In that sense, we have a key moment of election again, a confirmation to "fol-low" but now in a different way—to eternal life for them. Yet this Risen Lord calls us to proclaim eternal life and freedom in this world. Second, and this evokes the reality of La Storta, the risen Christ carries the cross, but as a tool through which to break open the gates of Sheol. This Christ on mission invites us to the imagery of the Third Week, but now as a call to freedom, not to death or destruction. The order of the world is profoundly inverted here, and violence gives way to freedom. No wonder the thirty- Review for Religious Mercier • Without the Drama 50 second General Congregation could so freely embrace being "under the banner of the cross" as a mode of identification. This rising Christ changes all the imag-ery of violence, death, and hopelessness we would have taken for granted. One finds joy even in the cross—how odd—but, again, joy is not simply a moment of happi-ness but a consistent mode of being. Again, we cannot separate encounter with the Risen Lord from presence to those who know Holy Saturday and its pain or loss of hope. Last, though, for the East—and for Ignatius, I think—the implications of this little icon and of the work of Christ show free-dom in an even bolder way. A second-century homily proclaims, "I did not create you to be held captive," as does the Office of Readings every Holy Saturday. Do we ponder, though, the implications of that little line, the heart of the link between the Third and Fourth Weeks? The dynamic of the Third Week—from the human point of view—reveals the inevitability of betrayal, duplicity, shame, violence, grief, blood-lust. Not an appetizing menu, to be sure. Ignatius would ask us to contemplate the recreated world in which such patterns have lost their power forever, not just for a moment; we know their power, but as something that has passed away, both from the world and from our lives. If a counterpart to the contemplation on the Incarnation in the Second Week is the Two Standards meditation, perhaps this "diptych" does something Joy is not simply a moment of happiness but a consistent mode of being. 71.1 2012 51 similar. In the Two Standards meditation, Satan calls his demons and "goads them on to lay snares for people and bind them with chains" (SpEx §142). Christ bids, attracts, graces, to a very different world, of poverty, bearing insult and humiliation freely as a means of free-dom (SpEx §146). We have seen that first standard lived to its full-est in the Third Week; now we see Christ who in his revealed divinity, as the fullness of the revelation of the Trinity, continues to serve, to free, to attract, to bid, but now as having conquered all freely and lovingly. Do we not know here the prospect of a whole new world unbound or in the process of unbinding, a process to which Christ missions us? Does Christ not call us in this contemplation with Mary to gather companions in the work of dwelling in this contemplative yet active space? The full import of what has been "the normal" becomes ever clearer to us, even as we enter more fully into com-panionship with Mary in this contemplation. The chal-lenge to us, however, never degenerates into hopeless self-scrutinizing or, even worse, scrupulosity. We do not get forced back into contemplating our sins, as too often happens when people gaze upon the cross, or into the violent guilt or shame of the Third Week. Rather, aware of the Third Week and its full impact on the one whom we love and on the world Christ so loves, we hear the invitation to explore contemplatively a dawning world, one which opens, I think, to the Contemplatio and to our role in extending Christ's joy. James Alison, the British Catholic theologian, has written movingly on this, inviting us to consider how our cultures shape our imaginations through the pat-terns of interaction—rivalistic patterns—which for us constitute "the normal." In Christ, and I think in Mary Review for Religious Mercier • Without the Drama 52 and the disciples, God gives us a dramatically differ-ent pattern of interaction, one that creates relationships touched by joy, not by violence or rivalry or fear. In the complementary contemplations we are given through-out the Fourth Week, we encounter many such persons, wounded in and by the Third Week, even agents of the violence of the Third Week, with whom and in whom we now encounter the pattern of joy and hope. These reflections lead me to ponder the meaning of the "Rules for Thinking with the Church" (SpEx §352-370). They are usually given as a form of Counter- Reformation ecclesiology, a guide on how to engage the debates of the mid-sixteenth century. The text contains all kinds of very context-specific allusions—echoes of debates on predestination, sacraments, authority, and the like that helped tear the church apart. We realize that the inability to attend to what the other was saying represented but one more kind of violence in an already violent age. Ignatius, of course, never had shied away from a fight. One has only to remember how ready he was to dispatch the Moor who had shown insufficient defer-ence to the Blessed Virgin, his Lady. He certainly would not be the first choice as a poster boy for pacifism. Yet, think with me for a moment about the Rules, written at a time when everyone wanted a good fight and looked, all too often, for occasions to pick a fight or score a point. Ignatius's presentation strikes me as curious in that regard, strangely pacific, to use Alison's invitation to a radically different imagination, a con-version of imagination, where our normal expectation is no longer violence or the violent god but rather of a world ordered to and by peaceful relationships. We find here none of the grand drama of the instructions to 71.1 2012 53 the Cardinal Legates to the various Diets and Councils. Instead, we find a man desperate to preserve the unity of the community, to avoid the kinds of clashes that mark his age. Perhaps when we look at the Rules for Thinking with the Church, the metaphor that I have been using— of having had the earth scorched around us and entering a new world—could be helpful. We tend to bring with us the imagery and imagination to which we have grown accustomed. We bring the patterns of guilt or shame or blame or grief or violence that we have learned only too well from the world we have known as normal. Yet, the totality of the presence of the Risen Christ to Mary— and to us—challenges any return to those spaces to which we have grown accustomed. Certainly, if Christ has "harrowed hell" and broken dominant patterns, we are in need of "a way," of his way. Might not the Rules for Thinking with the Church be Ignatius's way of inviting us to turn from the slavish obedience so alien to the freedom of the Fourth Week and to become attentive to the community of people elected in grace, graced by Risen Life, empowered by saints, who could sketch out for us and for our imagi-nation a path with and to Christ? We stand in need of a community of faith, the Church militant in the original Spanish text, which can model for us the new life revealed in and through the Risen Lord. While the Rules invite a kind of docility in seeking a way of peace and renewal of imagination found in the community of the faithful, they do not require checking one's mind at the door. At times we can, like Ignatius, grieve because of a church that shows the marks of the violence and domination of those who killed the Lord. Nevertheless we wait in the hope of encountering Christ in this com- Review for Religious Mercier • Without the Drama 54 munity, in the Holy Saturday-Easter Sunday diptych, still confident that we will contemplatively learn a way forward, not in spite of but in the pain. In a similar way, Ignatius needed the community to foster conversion out of scruples and into Christ. Still, a real encounter as is experienced in the tran-sition opens a path to community. Rooted in a new experience of the world, it is a community of peace, joy, hope, creativity. This, of course, has none of the "grand drama" of the Third Week that would thrill Mel Gibson, but it has the quiet quality of a son meeting a grieving mother who has been wounded by violence but, in joy, is experiencing the possibility of new life, the opening of heart and imagination. Quiet, not dramatic in the ways we are used to, but nonetheless a powerful and creative stance. The difference between the drama at the end of the Third Week and the quiet dawn of the Fourth invites us to know in its fullness what the Two Standards means and what Christ offers: not a crusade of our own, but an allowing of new possibilities to dawn in our age. We have seen such dawns, and their ecclesial power touches deeply. I think of Jean Vanier's L'Arche com-munity embracing the handicapped, those rejected by the world. There is the hospice movement, which rose from Dame Cecily Saunders's refusal to allow cancer patients for whom medical drama could do no more to simply go away and die. Those who serve refugees and bring a moment of tenderness and hope to fragile lives similarly stand at the confluence of this Paschal diptych. Easier, I suppose, would be to follow the temptation to take up arms and fight back or condemn, but we are invited to a very different path, not of moralism but of an embrace like that of Mary by her Son. 71.1 2012 55 We began this talk with Stravinsky's musical image of primal humanity and its lust for sacrifice, a lust that seeks "salvation for the people" in a woman condemned to die by dancing madly. The music crashes to a dra-matic conclusion followed by silence. I would like to end with a different dance, one described by Sydney Carter's words applied to the Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts," here the "Lord of the Dance." Perhaps this could evoke something of the transition to a dance that is joyous, inclusive, expansive. May this be our prayer and our path. I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black— It's hard to dance with the devil on your back. They buried my body, and they thought I'd gone, But I am the Dance, and I still go on. Dance, then, wherever you may be, I am the Lord of the Dance, said he, And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be, And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he. They cut me down and I leapt up high; I am the life that'll never, never die; I'll live in you if you'll live in me— I am the Lord of the Dance, said he. Dance, then, wherever you may be, I am the Lord of the Dance, said he, And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be, And I'll lead you all in the Dance, said he. Notes 1 Gilles Cusson, Biblical Theology and the Spiritual Exercises (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1988), p. 299. 2 Cusson, p. 303. Review for Religious Mercier • Without the Drama 56 3 Hans Urs von Balthasar, Mysterium Paschale: The Mystery of Easter (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans, 1990), p. 168. 4 von Balthasar, p 169. 5 John English, Spiritual Freedom: From an Expertience of the Ignatian Exercises to the Art of Spiritual Direction (Guelph: Loyola House, 1973), p. 247. 6 Mary Oliver, Thirst (Boston: Beacon Press), p. 52. 7 Martin E. Palmer, S.J., On Giving the Spiritual Exercises: The Early Jesuit Manuscript Directories and the Official Directory of 1599 (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996), p. 79. 8 Cusson, p. 303. 9 David L. Fleming, Like the Lightning: The Dynamics of the Ignatian Exercises (St Louis, Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2004), p. 77. 10 Gilbert K. Chesterton, Othodoxy (Garden City, NY: Image Books, 1959), p. 160. Questions for Reflection 1. Where have I embraced the emptiness of death and how has it enabled me to experience the joy of the Risen Lord? 2. Do you have any favorite music, artwork, or poetry that helps you enter into the sacred silence discussed in this article—or that helps you understand other moments in the Spiritual Exercises or in the Gospels? 71.1 2012 57 Dolor 5: At the Foot of the Cross Giving birth is contracting to sleep with death. It is an agreement to pass on everything that has been fed, fondled, fiercely treasured, looked forward to as one looks for the first hibiscus every spring. It is a signature and seal in pledge that one will leave someone something. It holds the possibility—tormenting as tarantula's tricks— that the loved child may pass first, cursedly, of illness, mishap, quick step in the wrong place, by fate or by murderous hatred heaped upon the great. The blood and wash of afterbirth foretell that every holding close lets loose. Small fingers, small toes enlarge as mothering bellies pull back to size and shape. Flowerings green up. They will, they must, brown down with wintering. And every footfall tells an end to every earthly good, each breath started with a slap, each name begun so well that slips into what's next. Pamela Smith sscm Review for Religious 58 peter j. schineller Finding or Seeking God in All Things: A Few Cautionary Notes "T o find God in all things" is a commonplace of Ignatian spirituality. Books and essays on Ignatius and Jesuit spirituality have highlighted the phrase as a hallmark of that spirituality. However, in an essay entitled "The Ignatian Charism and Contemporary Theology," the late Cardinal Avery Dulles wrote that "to the best of my knowledge the expression 'finding God in all things,' does not appear verbatim in the writ-ings of St. Ignatius."1 He admits that we do find "similar expressions" in the writings of Ignatius, and adds that "it seems evident that God can be found in all things." Dulles's observation makes me wonder and leads me to the unanswerable question of whether Ignatius deliberately avoided the phrase "find God in all things." Ignatius does write in many places that we should seek Peter J. Schineller sj is the archivist for the New York Province of the Society of Jesus. He resides at America House, 106 West 56th Street, New York, NY 10019. 59 71.1 2012 and serve God in all things; but, as we will see, except for one place, he does not use the phrase "find God in all things." Jerome Nadal, one of the early companions of Ignatius, clearly believed that Ignatius had the gift or charism to "feel the presence of God" and that this experience should likewise characterize Ignatius's fol-lowers. He writes: "I shall not fail to recall that grace which he had in all circumstances, while at work or in conversation, of feeling the presence of God and of tasting spiritual things, of being contemplative even in the midst of action: he used to interpret this as seeking God in all things."2 Note well that Nadal says Ignatius interpreted this experience as seeking God in all things. So too, Pedro Ribadeneira, also an early compan-ion of Ignatius, reports that "we frequently saw him taking the occasion of little things to lift his mind to God, who even in the smallest things is great. From seeing a plant, foliage, a leaf, a flower, any fruit, from the consideration of a little worm or any other animal, he raised himself above the heavens and penetrated the deepest thought."3 And, in the Autobiography of Ignatius, Luis da Camara, who wrote down the words of Ignatius, states: "At whatever time or hour he wanted to find God, he found Him."4 (To be precise, da Camara says that Ignatius could find God at all times, not that he found God in all things.) So we ask: might there be some wis-dom or insight—or caution—in the fact that Ignatius only once uses the phrase "find God in all things"? The Sole Text and Its Context In the long letter to Antonio Brandão subtitled "Instructions given by our father Ignatius, or at his Review for Religious Schineller • Finding or Seeking God in All Things 60 direction . . ." we read the advice given to scholastics: "the scholastics cannot engage in long meditations . . . they can practice seeking the presence of our Lord in all things; in their dealings with other people, their walking, seeing, tasting, hearing, understanding, and all our activities. For his Divine Majesty truly is in every-thing by his presence, power, and essence. This kind of meditation—finding God our Lord in everything—is easier than lifting ourselves up and laboriously making ourselves present to more abstracted divine realities."5 Again, a caution. This letter was not written by Ignatius, but at his direction by Juan de Polanco. Further, before he says "finding God in everything," he says the scholastics must "practice seeking the presence of our Lord in all things." Finding that presence is not auto-matic— and, perhaps, not so easy as we might think! In the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, we read that Jesuit novices "should often be exhorted to seek God our Lord in all things . . . loving him in all crea-tures and all creatures in him" [§288]. Again, we see emphasis on the element of search. So too, in the Contemplation to Attain Love in the Spiritual Exercises, we read: "Here it will be to ask for an intimate knowledge of the many blessings received, that filled with gratitude for all, I may in all things love and serve the Divine Majesty" [SpEx §233]. Ignatius wants the retreatants to love and serve God in all; he does not write that they are to find God in all things. I wonder if the rea-son might be that Ignatius wishes to safeguard the Divine Majesty, the ever-greater God. Might it be that he fears that we will believe that we can capture or contain or iden-tify the ever-greater God in any one thing or in all things? In addition to frequently encouraging that we seek or serve God in all things, Ignatius does say that we 71.1 2012 61 can and must "find the will of God." Thus the Spiritual Exercises are a way of preparing the soul to rid itself of attachments and "of seeking and finding the will of God in the disposition of our life for the salvation of our soul" [SpEx §1]. And Ignatius most frequently ends his letters praying for the grace to "know God's most holy will and per-fectly fulfill it." Or, "may God in his goodness give us his abundant grace to know his most holy will and entirely to fulfill it." Even as Ignatius urges us to seek and find the will of God, he emphasizes the method and the search. He never claims that seeking and finding the will of God is easily done. It demands prayer, reflection, seeking, mortification, time, and effort. Today's Background, Context, Horizon In an obvious oversimplification, we might say that in our age we find two extreme tendencies: 1) the skepti-cal, secular way of underbelief and 2) the less critical way of overbelief. These correspond to two rival "isms" in our globalized world, spoken of by Fr. Adolfo Nicolás, supe-rior general of the Society of Jesus, in a major address on higher education: 1) an aggressive secularism and 2) a resurgence of various fundamentalisms.6 We might look at the cautious and critical way of Ignatius in light of these two tendencies. 1. The skeptical and secular viewpoint. Many today, including Christians, experience the distance, absence, Seeking and finding the will of God demands prayer, reflection, seeking, mortification, time, and effort. Review for Religious Schineller • Finding or Seeking God in All Things 62 or otherness of God. Rather than finding God in all things, they do not find God anywhere in their experi-ence. Or God is edged out by many possibilities, alter-natives, and options, by many "things" that are not God. They live in a world come of age that no longer "needs" God and are skeptical of those who find, describe, and talk of God so easily. They are critical of claims or interpretations that seem to make God into one thing among many. This objectification of God, they find, entails a loss of God's otherness and transcendence. 2. The less critical fundamentalism or overbelief. At the other extreme are the many believers who see God at work in every event. God is close and at hand. Some Christians seem to think they have a lock on God, clearly grasping and knowing the divine intentions and will for the world and for humankind. Statements to that effect indicate a temptation to reduce God to our size, to capture and lay hold of God. In a general way, two of today's thinkers reflect these two tendencies. The first is the critic George Steiner. In My Unwritten Books, a sequel to his book Real Presences, which points us to various signs of the transcendent, Steiner writes that he feels strongly the absence of God—a powerful experience of emptiness. "Awesome is the God who is not. . . . I strive to be with His sovereign absence."7 Steiner finds himself groping for and seeking God more than believing in and finding God. He adds that to be great, literature need not believe in or affirm God, but at least must grapple with the question of God, the search and debate over the reality of God. From an explicit Christian perspective, we might also listen to James Gustafson. In an article entitled "The Denial of God as God,"8 Gustafson writes that "the history of our religion is the history of human 71.1 2012 63 attempts to manage and manipulate the awesome power of God, who is finally beyond our capacities to know fully, to capture in human thoughts and deeds. . . . It is the history of efforts to control the times and places of his presence." Gustafson asserts that we overlook this awesome reality of God: "how we want a God we can manage, a God who comes when we beckon him, a God who permits us to say that he is here, but not there; a God who meets our needs on our terms; a God who supports our moral causes and destroys the forces we think are evil; a household God and a kitchen God." Then, drawing from the thought of Martin Luther, he challenges us not to try to manipulate or reduce God, but to "let God be God." Ignatius's Balance Surely Ignatius is not guilty of this reduction or denial of God. He had a strong sense of the immen-sity and majesty of God (he loved stargazing), as well as the closeness of God (recall his meditation on the Incarnation and birth of Jesus Christ in the Spiritual Exercises [§101-117]). But can this be said of all his followers? Might some be at times guilty of oversimpli-fying, reducing, identifying God with their own prefer-ences and thus not "letting God be God"? To put this more boldly; if we think it easy and pos-sible to find God in all things, might we end up by not finding the true God—the transcendent God—in or above any things? Emphasizing the finding of God in all things could become misleading and wrongheaded because it misses or misinterprets the special presence of God in some particular times, places, events, and things. Might this approach be similar to the positive emphasis on the generous and widespread presence and Review for Religious Schineller • Finding or Seeking God in All Things 64 offering of God's grace to all persons. If that view, good in itself, is pushed to the extreme, if all is grace, then we no longer distinguish between grace and non-grace, between grace and nature. Or, if all ground is seen as holy ground, then we might overlook or undercut the special presence or intervention, the special rev-elation of God. If we hold that everything i s sacred and noth-ing is profane or secular, then we could also hold the reverse, that nothing is sacred. Ultimately, it seems important and necessary that we maintain the distinction (not separation) of sacred and secular, of grace and nature, of the God who is in all things and yet above all things. Ignatius also writes of one other thing that Jesuits should seek in all things—namely, greater abnegation and continual mortification! "The better to arrive at this degree of perfection which is so precious in the spiritual life, [the] chief and most earnest endeavor [of the Jesuit candidate and those in formation] should be to seek in our Lord his greater abnegation and continual mortifica-tion in all things possible; and our endeavor should be to help him in those things to the extent that our Lord gives us his grace, for his greater praise and glory" [General Examen of the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, §103]. While the seeking of mortification does not pre- If we think it easy and possible to find God in all things, might we end up by not finding the true God— the transcendent God— in or above any things? 71.1 2012 65 clude the effort to seek, find, and serve God in all things, surely it derives from a very different, and more sober perspective. It offers a balance to an overly posi-tive, totally one-sided incarnational spirituality. Ignatius is reminding us that the God or Christ that we seek and serve in all things is the Christ of the cross (abnega-tion and mortification) as well as the Christ of glory who comes with power. Thus Ignatius can write regard-ing the qualifications of the rector of a college, that he should "be a man of great example, edification and mortification of all his evil inclinations" [Constitutions, §423]. The ideal superior is one who both practices mortification and seeks to find God in all things! Living with and Maintaining the Tension Deus Semper Major—God Ever Greater—is the title of the monumental work of Erich Pryzwara sj on Ignatius of Loyola.9 The God of Ignatius, the God we seek, find, love, and serve is ever greater, always more. God is in all, but also always above all. Ignatius had the ability to keep seemingly opposing tensions or ten-dencies in view—prayer and action, contemplation and action, the local and the universal, trust in God and trust in our talents and efforts, and obedience and free-dom. In these reflections we are pointing to 1) the ten-sion between the God in all things, and the God above all things and 2) the possible tension between seeking God in all things, and finding God in all things. It seems best and most creative to hold on to both elements of these two tensions and not eliminate one or the other. In one tension we hold that God is in and also above all things: incarnate, indwelling, working in the world, and yet, in keeping with the fourth part of the Contemplation to Attain the Love of God, above Review for Religious Schineller • Finding or Seeking God in All Things 66 and beyond, the source of all. In the second tension, we maintain both the seeking for and the finding of God. St. Augustine writes that we would not seek God unless we had already found (and been found by) God. So I am simply suggesting that rather than conflate the two, or eliminate one or the other, we place a bit more emphasis on the seeking and searching, and less on the finding, in accord with Deut. 4:29: "from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and soul." A Caution and a Challenge Does this mean we should not use the phrase "find-ing God in all things"? No. It is in common use and does reflect the way Ignatius was interpreted by his contem-poraries even if Ignatius was normally reticent in using it. At the same time, we should use the words carefully and with awe, recalling that God is always greater and beyond. We dare not think we have captured God. We can preserve and use "finding God in all things" if we emphasize the search, the process, the prayerful effort of trying to find God in places and events around us. Two final cautions: Meister Eckhart said that "Foolish people deem that they should look upon God as though he stood there and they here. It is not thus." God is ever greater, ever here, and ever beyond. We might recall, too, the words of Fr. John Courtney Murray when he saw a poster to be used at a demonstration. Expressing the spirit of the times and a commitment to faith and justice, the poster read: "God Is Other People!" Murray is reported to have said "They forgot the comma after the word 'other.' It should read: 'God is Other, People!' " Probably the strongest challenge now is to seek and find God in the cities, in the world of technology and 71.1 2012 67 computers. We should not seek to find God only in sun-sets and stars and in the least of the sisters and broth-ers, but also amid skyscrapers and elevators, amid steel and concrete buildings, amid asphalt streets, on subways and in airplanes—wherever God seems to be edged out, overlooked, or denied. If the challenge seems daunting, we might be consoled by the words St. Augustine attri-butes to God: "you would not search for me unless you had already found me." And, we might add, we would not search for God "unless God had already found us." Notes 1 Avery Dulles sj, "The Ignatian Charism and Contemporary Theology." America (26 April 1997): 16. 2 Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu, Mon. Nadal, iv, 651. 3 Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu, Vita Ignatii Loyolae, in Fontes Narrativi, iv, 742. 4 Ignatius of Loyola, Autobiography, §99. 5 Ignatius of Loyola: Letters and Instructions, (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2006), p. 342. 6 Adolfo Nicolás sj, "Challenges to Jesuit Higher Education Today." Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education 40 (Fall 2011): 9. 7 George Steiner, My Unwritten Books, (New York: New Directions Books, 2008), p. 209. 8 James Gustafson, "The Denial of God as God." Criterion (Autumn 1977): 6-9. 9 Erich Przywara sj, Deus Semper Major: Theologie der Exercitien (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1940). Review for Religious 68 In Distressing Disguise for Agnes Gonxha Bejaxhiu he's a lonely old man dandruff dusts his faded black shirt some polyester blend shiny, holding odors of sweat and cigarettes and left-overs some of which remains on the front of his trousers the purple around his neck shabby, soiled, worn-out even burned a little in one place careless as he is with his smokes over my head his palsied hand trembles and to my ears come mumbled words of grace while my heart strains to see Him, to see His true face, here before me in distressing disguise. Sean Kinsella Winter Sunset At exactly five-fifteen p.m. the over-ripe sun paused a second on the town's rim, all the horizon's color sealed in its neon pulp. I could hardly stop gazing, sure it would burst and spill red-orange juice, winter's redemptive blood, across the Western sky. Patricia Schnapp rsm The Warmth, the Will, and the Way The dilemma is that I am not making very steady progress on my spiritual journey. This leads me to think that I need more consistency. Since I already live "a stable way of life" as a member of a religious order, my basic direc-tion is set. I see that this way of life is leading me where the deepest currents of my heart want me to go. But despite that general clar-ity of direction, I find myself dawdling along, sometimes going backwards, often wandering off to explore some curiosity, rarely totally focused on the path, much less on the goal, of this particular journey on which the Way is also the End. We often pray that the Holy Spirit will fill our hearts and "enkindle in them the fire" of 71.1 2012 sharing experi-ence 69 ben harrison Ben Harrison mc is a Missionaries of Charity Brother. He has worked in formation and has journeyed, in the U.S. and Europe, alongside homeless people, prisoners, addicts, and other people on the margins of society. His email is . Review for Religious Harrison • The Warmth, the Will, and the Way 70 his love. Once on a retreat I was complaining to the director that I didn't feel any sense of God's presence, and he assured me that I wouldn't be feeling the absence if there weren't a kind of presence; the longing itself was a sign of the Spirit's presence. If I could welcome that longing as a warming presence rather than endure it as a chilling absence, it would help to enkindle the fire of his love. When I speak of this warmth of heart I am not talk-ing about seeking emotional experiences in prayer but rather of finding that sense of inner presence that is so important in the prayer of Eastern Christianity. My mind and the actions it inspires range all over the place, but if I am attentive to that warmth in my heart, the inner pres-ence not only influences my thoughts and feelings but also anchors my actions and desires. This sense of warmth, then, helps me to be more consistent on my spiritual way. I frequently have very good insights, and for a long time I thought that they could keep me centered. I often thought, "Oh, what a brilliant idea! If I can only remember that every day, I will be set for life." And so I would make a note and stick it on the door, or I would write a prayer and say it every morning, until it became so routine that what I was saying didn't even register. Soon I would have another brilliant insight with life-changing potential. Such thoughts are like matches that provide real fire, but only for a few minutes. Then, unless the match is touched to a candle or to a heap of kindling, it is spent. I need something more reliable than insights. I need something more reliable than insights. 71.1 2012 71 Perhaps the secret is to do what would be done in a cottage in the woods: continually add fuel to the fire, a log at a time, to keep it burning. Then, late at night, bank the coals, rake them together in a little pile so that the heat will not dissipate. A few glowing embers will remain in the morning, upon which new kindling can be placed and fresh wood arranged so all is ready to warm the beginnings of the new day. That way the hearth never grows cold. I am discovering that this warmth of heart is a sign of the Spirit's presence with me, abiding in me, direct-ing me toward the goal. But there is something else that seems to be essential in order to deepen that presence and strengthen God's claim on me—what I would call will. The desire is there: the forward impulse, the yearn-ing for the heights, the longing to surrender my being to the One Who Is. What is the difference between this desire and will? To wish for something is to entertain a desire for it; to want it is to own that desire; to will it is to act on that desire, to put it into operation. Will has about it an element of determination. And it is not something I can drum up within myself. It has to be given. St. Paul says, "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil 2:12-13). Will and the Vows As I think about my vocation, I would say that my will is expressed, above all, by the vows. My vows are the way I demonstrate to myself, to God, and to oth-ers this desire to belong totally to him. The Latin verb for will is volo, velle, and the Latin verb voveo, vovere means vow or wish. Though etymologically the roots of volo and voveo do not seem to be related, there is, Review for Religious Harrison • The Warmth, the Will, and the Way 72 to my mind, a consonance of meaning. The vows of religious life are a way of making concrete the double-edged desire that is God's desire for me, expressed in a call—a word spoken silently in the heart—that awakens a reciprocating desire in me. His desire to give himself completely to me sets that very same flame alight in me so that I desire to give myself irrevocably to him. The gentle fire of the Spirit's warmth that God enkindles in my heart is drawing me, slowly but surely, toward the blazing glory at the heart of God, and my vows repre-sent the power of that attraction and my determination by God's grace to reach that goal. I see the vows of religious life as the embodiment and expression of the will to be united with God and to give myself to him totally in a particular context, in response to his gift of himself to us in Christ. This is so whether we are speaking of the monastic vows of obedi-ence, stability, and conversion of life or the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience (or, for that matter, similar sets of vows or promises: those of priest-hood or sacramental marriage, of virginity or service, of oblate-hood or lay association). From primitive times a vow was a solemn promise to make some gift or sacrifice to a divinity as an earnest of a good requested or in thanksgiving for a boon received. Although on a literal level this sounds like a type of bargaining or commerce, I can also see it as a way of demonstrating to myself and my God how important something is to me, how sincerely I desire it, how des-perately I need it, how serious my intentions are. The medieval king might have prayed, "Lord, defend us from the threat of these brutal enemies and I will build a church for your glory." Or a mother may pray, "Lord, if you spare my daughter from this dread disease, 71.1 2012 73 I will do everything I can to support research for its cure." Or a widow may say, as one I know did, "Lord, if I am spared from this condition leading to blindness, I will never use my eyes to take pleasure in what is not good and pure." Thus we see how a vow is an expression of a wish for some good for oneself or others. The Italian word for such a commitment is impegno, which can be translated as "pledge." Literally, some-thing given in pegno is pawned. By the vows I am putting the treasure of my earthly life in pledge for a higher good. I am putting my security, my posterity, and my liberty in pawn for something I need more urgently. What is it, in this case, that I need so urgently? I need the grace to live up to this persistent impulse to give myself—an impulse that God has placed in my heart. I know that the faith, hope, and love in me are too weak and faltering to do the job, to get me where I yearn to go. And so I pledge what I have to him and entrust my poor being to him, not to pay him for what he freely gives, but to show him (and myself) that I am serious about following him and that I trust him with this pre-cious but paltry gift of my life, trust that he will keep it safe and see it redeemed and restored in his own time. Pledging my life to him, I am confident that he will give me the grace I need to live each day. In the world of commerce, one pawns something of value for ready money—something that has value but is not spendable, for something that can be spent. The ready cash makes it possible to buy what is needed today. Another word for this ready cash is currency, also called fluid or liquid assets. All these words—"current," "fluid," "liquid"— suggest an action of flowing and remind us of the Spirit, that spring of living water that flows forth from the heart of Christ. Review for Religious Harrison • The Warmth, the Will, and the Way 74 Thus, when I make my profession of vows, I am proclaiming my faith in God and my desire to belong to him. The vows that I pronounce represent the totality of my gift of self. In the institute to which I belong, we profess the evangelical counsels—the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. These three vows are an apt symbol of the totality of my life. By dedicating to God all that I have, all that I love, and all my choices and decisions now and in the future, I am effectively giv-ing him all I am. This triad of the evangelical counsels reflects a totality of being, as do many similar triads. I have no trouble, for example, in seeing parallels between the vows and St. Ignatius's prayer surrender-ing "my memory, my understanding, my entire will." The traditional baptismal formula asks us to renounce "the world, the flesh, and the devil." Scripture tells us that we are to love God with our whole heart, soul, and mind (Mt 22:37). The magi brought the treasures of the nations—gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Micah tells us that our sole obligation is "to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God" (Mi 6:8). It is easy to see how the three evangelical counsels reflect the three theological gifts of faith, hope, and love. And finally, without putting too fine a point on the comparison, I suggest that the vow of poverty is descriptive of my relationship with the Father, without whom I am nothing and have nothing; chastity reflects my relationship with the Word, the Son, who is friend, Savior, and Bridegroom of souls; and obedience is the domain of the Spirit, who prompts the content of obe-dience and makes possible its practice. The act of making vows is thus a statement of my desire to surrender myself absolutely to the Absolute, to dedicate myself to his way and consecrate myself to his 71.1 2012 75 purpose. The mutuality of giving to which God invites me does not mean a mere absorption in each other. Though I would be content to lose myself in God, he seems to want more for me than that. God wants me to share his love for others and so, by my self-offering, he unites me to his own mission—his out-pouring, in-gathering action of universal love. Thus I am given to the particular apostolates and ministries of the institute in which I live my vocation. Sometimes vows are spoken of as sacred bonds. Bonds are something that we feel gripping us, holding or securing us. If bonds are involuntary we feel them as a constraint, an injustice. If they are desired, we feel them as a comfort, a belong-ing, an embrace. I suppose anyone who makes vows feels them sometimes as a restriction and some-times as a liberation. But part of the radi-cal nature of such a commitment is the protestation that one is willing to pay the price, that one values the liberation of giving oneself more than the security of having oneself. It is a recognition that dying to self is the road to life and that the cross shared is the victory won. Like the fox in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince, I want nothing more than for the Little Prince to tame me, so that "the wheat, which is golden [like your hair], will remind me of you. And I'll love the sound of the wind in the wheat." The act of making vows is a statement of my desire to surrender myself absolutely to the Absolute. Review for Religious Harrison • The Warmth, the Will, and the Way 76 Consistency in the Way Returning, then, to my original point, I am saying that two things will help me to find a salutary consis-tency in my spiritual journey: the abiding warmth of the Spirit's presence in my heart, and the will—the determination—to yield to the relentless attraction of Jesus drawing me, and all, to himself. God's love for me in Christ arouses a reciprocating love in me. I give my poor self to him in pledge, not because I have to but because I want to, and he gives me, in return, the wherewithal to make the journey: the daily bread, the water from the rock, and the yearning for home—for the harbor—at the heart of God. Perhaps the greatest indication of his love that God has given me, from my point of view, is not his love itself for me (of which I can scarcely conceive) but my love for him, which is a sweet hunger, a soothing need. Nor is my love for him something that I can claim or that I often feel, but rather an occasional glimpse of light; a fitful melting of joy; a momentary, faint intima-tion of promised ecstasy. It is to the memory of those rare moments of tender quickening, of nostalgia for the unknown, that my will clings during the long periods of dryness, confusion, and loss. It is will that keeps me walking on the way when even the cherished memory fades and all I have left to fall back on is the Spirit's quiet presence in my heart. Indeed, it is all up to God. It is he who supports the journey from behind with his warm abiding. It is he who lures me from ahead through that hunger in my heart. And it is he who strengthens me on the way by the will to journey on. Each day's reminder of that will at work in me is the comforting burden of the vows, by which I experience within myself the debt of love, the 71.1 2012 77 yoke of gratitude, the claim of oneness by which I know that I am his. Being as I am, the fact that I do not manage to live my vows wholeheartedly is not surprising. But it is important that I feel the rub and the pinch and the chafe of them against my stubborn self. As my need and desire for God become stronger than all lesser needs and desires, so the bonds of my belonging to him will grow stronger than all my resistances. At the point that I can give myself without reserve, I will be free. And how do I dare to think that I will reach that point? St. Paul tells us that if God has gone so far as to give his Son for us, "will he not also give us all things with him?" (Rom 8:32). And Paul says further, "I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil 1:6). I trust that God would not have put this desire in my heart, and that of my companions on the way, if he didn't intend to give us the grace to see it through. Home Walking the Labyrinth at Chartres Home. Is it where I begin or end or at the middle stillpoint? Am I at home on the way? Here I am, Lord. Never far from the beginning always approaching the end continually circling the center. Eugene Cartier Review for Religious Getting with the Program P robably one of the most important graces of my novitiate was coming to realize that I had an addiction. It was a painful and embarrassing experience, and yet I have no doubt that it was the best thing that has happened to me in a number of years. During my novitiate I started accessing pornogra-phy online. It was a development I was so ashamed of that I was afraid it would herald the end of my journey into religious life. Previously I had bought magazines and sought out sexually stimulating images in films or through image search engines on the Internet. My behavior began to take root at an early age in romantic fantasy. I would fantasize about being with a girl and wooing her in some exotic setting. Even though I was sexually inexperienced and naive and did not know what adults did together between the sheets, I would some-times escape into this fantasy when I went to bed. 78 A young man writes of his experience of coming to terms during the novitiate with his addiction to pornography. He has requested that the article be published anonym

Issue 65.2 of the Review for Religious, 2006. ; Franciscan Legacy Vocation Religious Implications The Spirit QUARTERLY 65.2 2006 evtew Religtous sters.dia e,.wztl~,, Go dialogue~ with ourselves; anddialogue accordingto cba~s:~of CatboUc reli~o~'l~(~ As Pope Paul I satd~ our way of bet!g church Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published quarterly at Saint Louis University, by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-633-4610 ¯ Fax: 314-633-4611 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ \~el) site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ° Pontifical College Josephinum 7625 North High Street ¯ Columbus, Ohio 43235 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ° Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2006 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library, clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must hear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for comlnercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only he considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. 0 religious Editor Associate Editor Canonical Counsel Scripture Scope Editorial Staff. Webmaster Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Phili'o C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Eugene Hensell OSB Mar~ Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Ciare Boehmer ASC Stephen Erspamer OSB Kathleen Hughes RSCJ Louis and Angela Menard Bishop Terry Steib SVD Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ QUARTERLY 65.2 2006 contents prisms 116 Prisms 118 138 franciscan legacy Custodians of Franciscan Households Michael Blastic OFM enters us into the meaning of Franciscan fraternity through developing three elements: 1) a life lived in brotherhood, 2) experienced in a household, and 3) qualified with patience~ Questions for Reflection / Group Discussion Francis's Charism, Tree-Huggers, and the Eucharist Regis J. Armstrong OFMCap centers his reflections on the .spirituality of Francis of Assisi by focusing on five passages of Francis's writings that d, eal with Eucharist. vocation 153 159 Imitation of Mary and the Religious Vocation Julius D. Leloczky OCist invites those following the special call to religious life into a prayerful meditation on the role of Mary as model and mentor. Prayer Just Because I Said So Mary Joseph Schultz SCC considers the importance of commitment and what it means "to give one's word." Personal Reflection / Group Conversation l~eview for Retigious 166 177 r O ji us imp ic io s Are Religious Superiors Called to Be "Politically Correct"? Vimal Tirimanna CSSR reflects on his experience as major superior and as president of the Conference of Major Religious Superiors of Sri Lanka to share his concern for the proper use of afithority. Identifying Identity among Nonclerical Religious Brendan Kneale FSC clarifies identity for men and women as embracing two dimensions, personal and social, which are mutually supportive. 186 spiri Led by the Spirit: Julian of Norwich Andrew Ryder SCJ notes the central role of the Spirit in the writings of Julian of Norwich. The Holy Spirit is the dynamic, active agent who brings us into communion with the life of Christ and the Persons of the Holy Trinity. epar rn n s 202 Scripture Scope: The Miracles of Jesus 206 Cdnonical Counsel: The Importance of Procedural Law 211 Book Reviews 65.2 2006 prisms do we think of when we hear the word service? We quickly rush to the n0tion of activity--what we do, how we act, how we spend our days and perhaps even our nights. But in our Catholic tradition service and to serve God have a far richer meaning than just activity. We find the first and foundational stage of service in a traditional saying, "They also serve who only stand and wait." By way of contemporary example, we notice that the esteemed waiter at table is the one who watches and is attentive to what is needed by the people dining. Such a waiter spends a lot :of his or' her time just "watching and waiting." In a similar way, the Christian who wants to serve God should spend a lot of time "watching and waiting." A good part of the watching and waiting is identifiable as praying. It is the prayer of one who listens to God--a God who is speaking in his revealing word, a God who speaks through his human messengers, a God who speaks through nature and through events. A person who listens is one who is obedient, for the roots of the word obedience lie in listening. The young Samuel in scripture describes his listening in the phrase, "Here I am, Lord." In the sacramental oi'dination of ministers, such listening is caught by the expression "ready and willing." It is the attitude of Jesus before the God he calls Abba. The second stage of service is made evident in the stance of surrender. It is the giving over of ourselves to. another in love. As Catholics we are being invited to enter Christ's eternal stance of surrender that is celebrated in every Eucharist. Jesus sacramentalized his total gift of self to God and to us in the giving of his body and his blood at the Last Supper. Historically, that gift was made especially in his passion and death. But the risen Jesus continues to invite us to enter into his eternal stance of surrender in every Eucharist we celebrate. For us, our surrender is measured by all the discrete moments of our life. We might say that, nourished by Jesus' body and blood, we are living "into" our surrender. Finally we come to thai stage of service whose mean-ing we think we have exhausted when we describe activ-ities. It is true that there are many ways of serving as a Christian, and these services are an essential element of living our faith. A faith that is not lived out in action is no faith at all. It is noteworthy that Protestants have often described their Sunday worship as services. Although we Catholics have ordinarily not used this designation, the Mass truly can be identified as a se~'vice, and it contains all the stages of service that we have described. The Liturgy of the Word certainly demands all of tls to be obedient, to be listeners, to be people ready and willing to be formed and directed by God's word. In the Liturgy of the Sacrament we are invited to enter into Jesus' eternal stance of surrender, and we come forward at communion time to ratify that gift and so experience our increasing identity with Christ by letting him be our daily bread. And every Eucharist sends us forth with the mission to share our faith and ~o serve God and his people. At the Last Supper Jesus asked all of us to claim our identity with him by following his example--he signified this by a particular activity as he washed the apostles' feet. Whatever our activities, following the risen Christ, we are identified as "ones who serve." . David L. Fleming SJ ,117 65.2 2006 franciscan MICHAEL BLASTIC Custodians of Franciscan Households legacy In a Newsweek web article posted on MSNBC, Melinda Henneberger wrote that "Katrina has reminded us that Christian morality should be about responding to the wretched and loving the unlovable--not about other people's sex lives" (14 September 2005). While the United States describes itself as a Christian nation, in the aftermath of Katrina we have seen that this label is deceptive. Citing Bill McKibben, "The Christian Paradox" (Harper's, August 2005), who pointed this out, she wrote that American practice really rewards dependency, and so it is better to hold on to your cash. McKibben himself reported on a poll concerning religious practice in the United States. He noted that only four in ten Americans can list more than four of the Ten Commandments, and only five in ten can name the four Gospels. He said that these Michael Blastic OFM presented this paper on Franciscan brotherhood at a province meeting in November 2005. His address is The Franciscan Institute; St. Bonaventure University; St. Bonaventure, New York 14778. Revie~ for Religious statistics really do not matter, but what does matter is that three out of four think the Bible teaches that "God helps those who help themselves" (actually a proverb of Ben Franklin's). Approximately 85 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christian, with about 75 percent claiming they pray to God daily and 33 percent going to church weekly. McKibben points out a number of paradoxes. We are second to last among developed countries in government foreign aid; nearly 18 percent of American children live in poverty--here we come in last among the rich nations-- and 26 percent of households lack sufficient food. We are the most violent rich nation on earth, with a murder rate of four or five times that of Europe. We have prison populations five or six times Europe's rate. We are the only Western democracy that executes its citizens; our marriage breakup rate is more than half, and higher than Europe's. tf one measures Christian identity by Jesus' teaching of helping the less fortunate, we come off poorly indeed. ~ Given these statistics, McKibben argues that Americans have replaced the Christianity of the Bible with another creed which ignores Jesus' radical and demanding focus on the other--"Love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus made it clear who the neighbor is--the poor person, the sick person, the naked person, the hungry person. "On and on and on--a call for nothing less than a radical, voluntary, and effective reordering of power relationships, based on the principle of love," to quote McKibben. I know I am not reporting something you do not already know. But I believe that this social context of North America as described by McKibben, visible in the unjust social reality revealed in Katrina's aftermath, is important for reflecting on our Franciscan life. In fact, 1119, 6~. 2 200~ Blastic ¯ Custodians of Frandscan Households such a social context was the occasion for Francis of Assisi's conversion. Here I want to be very clear. Francis of Assisi's conversion was not explicitly, and primarily religious. It was a movement from a social order base& on the creed "God helps them who help themselves" to a social order based on sharing and sacrifice and "Love your neighbor as yourself"--in other words the creed of Jesus. In his conversion Francis first and foremost experienced what it means to be human, and what it implies for social life. The Franciscan movement results from Francis and the brothers learning what is required for human beings to flourish as God intends. From the opposite perspective, it is the medium of fraternity that is the message. A Franciscan fraternity evangelizes to the extent that it embodies human flourishing on the personal, social, and ecclesial levels. First I will describe briefly the early Franciscan experience and vision of fraternal life, and then I will suggest how this may help all of us live our lives as brothers. :120 A Place for Human Flourishing I would describe Franciscan fraternity in this way. I~ is (1) a life lived in brotherhood, (2) experienced in a household, and (3) qualified with patience. I deduce these elements from the Rule of 1223, the Rule that we profess as our form of life. (1) It was the Italian scholar Raoul Manselli who identified Francis's encounter with lepers as the turning point in his conversion. As Francis records in his Testament, that encounter radically rearranged his values and led him to leave the commune of Assisi in order to live with those lepers. He was drawn out of himself so that he could see, perhaps for the first time in his life; the reality of human beings who according to the definitions Review for Religious of life in the commune of Assisi simply did not exist. There was no place in Assisi for the unclean, the unworthy, the unholy, the unbearable, the unlucky, the untouchable, and the unloved. Encountering these suffering human beings, the lepers, Francis showed them a merciful heart. He looked at ., , them and touched them, he stayed with them and shared life with them, he comforted them and served their needs. And Francis tells us he did not do this for himself. He did not go to the~lepers to make himself better. He did not use . them as objects in an ascetical exercise to overcome himself (though this is how hagiographers will understand it). Francis gives the credit for this experiential truth to God: "The Lord led me among them, and I showed them a merciful heart" (Test 2).1 With God's nudge, Francis recognized the lepers as brothers and sisters, as creatures of the same God, as having equal dignity in the eyes of God the Creator. While Assisi's values and practice denied this truth, Francis was led into it by God's grace (what was bitter became sweet), and 'he left Assisi to live among these newly discovered brothers and sisters. Leaving the world of Assisi, Francis ~hus stepped into God's world--creation--where everything was estab-lished by the Creator in relationship. This is the truth that he would later celebrate in the Canticle of the Creatures. Creation sings, creation flourishes, simply by being what it was created to be, by being in relationship with all that exists. In his Testament Francis says, "The Lord gave me some brothers" (Test 14). Experienced as the reality of relationship as established by the Creator, brotherhood is Francis did not go to the lepers to make himself better. 121 65.2 2006 Blastic ¯ Custodians of Franciscan Households embodied in the rule in terms of obedience. According to chapter 2 of the Earlier Rule, after those who come have given everything to the poor as they were able, and after the year of probation has ended for them, "they may be received into obedience" (LR II:l 1). Once received into obedience they may not wander "outside obedience" (ER II: 10). The rule speaks of obedience as a place, the space into which the brothers are received. While monks are received into a monastery after their novitiate probation, Francis's brothers are received into obedience. Obedience becomes a synonym for the space in which the brothers live. What characterizes obedience then is that it is the space of relationship, One could substitute the term relationship for the term obedience throughout the early Franciscan writings and not change the meaning of the texts. The relationships of brotherhood define the space in which the brothers live. This is especially significant given that the rule understands the brothers to be itinerant, even though by 1223 this was beginning to change somewhat. Brothers began living in convents in cities. Brotherhood, then, or better our relationships as brothers, is what defines the space in which to live our life according to the Rule. And, as Francis makes clear, brotherhood is only possible if one. turns toward the other, only if one gets out of oneself and willingly places oneself in relationship to the other. This turning toward others is the basis for contemplation in the tradition; it does not imply separation or solitude, but rather engagement and an ecstatic way of being in the world. A second defining element of Franciscan fraternity is Franciscan mission. After lepers, probably the most recognized symbol of Franciscan life is San Damiano and the speaking crucifix. While this story~appears rather late in the hagiographical tradition (1246), it expresses a fundamental purpose of Franciscan life. Francis received a Review for Religious mission to repair God's house, which was being destroyed: "Francis, don't you see that my house is being destroyed? Go, then, and rebuild it for me" (L3C 13). While in the past we translated those words from the Legend of the Three Companions too simplistically as "Rebuild my church," the hagiographical tradition consistently uses the term house in accounts of this event. And, while Francis initially understood that invitation from the cross to mean the broken-down building of San Damiano, he would come to understand that the mission was rather one of repairing a space in which Frariciscan ' holiness was experienced domestically, the. lives of men and women who have been~.broken and destroyed as human beings can be rebuilt and flourish. House and family are central to the brothers' experience of the Christian life. Their relationship to God is expressed in terms of the household. For instance, in the Second Version of the Letter to the Faithful, we read: And the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon all those men and women who have done and persevered in these things, and it will make a home and dwelling place in them. And they will be the children of the heavenly Father, whose works they do. And they are spouses, brothers, and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are spouses when the faithful soul is united by the Holy Spirit to our Lord Jesus Christ. We are brothers, moreover, when we do the will of his Father who is in heaven; mothers when we carry him in our heart and body through love and a pure and sincere conscience; and give him birth through a holy activity, which must shine before others by example. (2LtF 48-53) Here we can see that for the early Franciscans holiness was experienced domestically. This suggests two things: 65.2 2006 Blastic ¯ Custodians of Franciscan Households 124 (1) we are family with the Trinitarian God we believe in, and (2) our relationship with this God is accessible and lived in the ordinary, everyday experience of domestic life. This is an important characteristic of Franciscan .practice, and suggests family life and not church life as the means for working out our way to God. How does Francis envision rebuilding God's house? Bonaventure's insight in his Major Legend of St. Francis is right on the mark here. He comments that, after receiving this mission in San Damiano, he eventually moved to St. MaiT~ of the Angels; he "lived there in order to repair it" (LMj II:8). The repair of God's house is not so much the action of preaching or teaching. The repair is accomplished by life in brotherhood itself, by living among and with brothers and sisters. The term conversatio is used to describe this "living among" in two places in the Early Rule. Francis encourages the brothers to rejoice when they "live among (quando conversantur inter viles . . .) people considered of little value and looked down upon" (ER IX:2); and "they can live spiritually (possunt duobus modis spiritualiter inter eos conversant) among the Saracens" (ER XVI:5). Using the Latin word conversatio, the root of the term conversation, the Rule envisages life as a conversation, and depends on the monastic sense of conversatio as manner of life. The brothers' manner of life is thus to be conversational--sharing life with brothers and ~isters in this conversational manner rebuilds the house of God. In another text of the Later Rule, this conversation is described more concretely: I counsel, admonish, and exhort my brothers in the Lord Jesus Christ not to quarrel or argue or judge others when they go about in the world; but let them be meek, peaceful, modest, gentle, and humble, speaking courteously to everyone, as is becoming . Review for Religious Into whatever house they enter, let them first say: "Peace to this house!" According to the holy gospel let them eat whatever food is set before them. (LR III:10- 12, 14) Here we see how for the brothers the mann(r of being with others is the primary means for accomplishing the mission, and is itself the message. The gospel is about life, a way of life, a way of being with and relating to others with the peace that is God's gift freely given in Jesus. The brothers simply speak the gospel honestly with everyone, beginning with one another. But, before the brothers can speak the word of the gospel, they must live the word of the gospel. Here recall the emphasis Celano gives to this fact in his Life of St. Francis, "[Francis] was no deaf hearer of the gospel" (1C 22). Coherence of life and message is the norm. The brothers' honest conversation and engagement with the world and people invites recognition of the presence of the kingdom already in their midst. Conversation, though, is a skill that must be learned, and many of the prescriptions of the rule that describe behavior in a negative way can be read as impediments to the quality of conversa'tion that the brothers engage in as part of their mission. This understanding of household and conversation can be seen in chapter 6 of the Later Rule. There poverty is described as "not making anything one's own" and living as "pilgrims and strangers in this world" and "never seeking anything else under heaven." After describing the brothers' poverty this way as modeled on Jesus Christ, "who made himself poor for us in this world" (LR VI:3), the Rule spells out the implication of this poverty for the life of brotherhood: Wherever the brothers may be and meet one another, let them show that they are members of.the same family. Let each one confidently m~ke known his need 125 65.2 2006 Blasac ¯ Custodians of Frandscan Households to the other, for if a mother loves and cares for her son according to the flesh, how much more diligently must someone love and care for his brother according to the Spirit! (LR VI:7-8) Literally the Rule suggests here that the brothers should demonstrate that they come from the same "household," the same family (ostendunt se domesticos invicem inter se). Thus, having nothing, living itinerantly, and desiring only this, the brothers can be at home in their relationships. The brothers should feel at home in the love and. care they have and express for one another. Poverty is the condition for brotherhood. This is an important consideration because poverty can dehumanize. Rebuilding God's house implies offering an alternative to the dehumanizing effects, of poverty. Today we can include everything from forms of work, to abuse, to social structures. The life of brotherhood should provide for humanizing relationships, expressed in turning toward others in their real needs, and their responding with real and mature care. This house is built by God's Spirit as a place where human beings can flourish. Our fraternal life is meant to help human beings prosper, grow, and thrive as "human persons fully alive" and thus to fulfill our mission to repair God's house. A third dimension of fraternal life has to do with what it means to be human. For me, this knowledge comes with the.stigmata of Francis. The stigmata involves unanswered questions. Thomas of Celano in his Life of St. Francis supplied the time, place, and context for the event of the stigmata, but while doing that he was much more interested in unraveling its meaning. Celano recounts that, while at La Verna two years before his death, Francis "saw in the vision of God a man having six wings like a seraph, standing above him, arms extended and feet joined, fixed to a cross" (2C 94). Celano's words suggest that Francis's vision was of a human person taken up into God, burning with desire (like a seraph), and crucified. They suggest the divinization of the human person. Celano is not describing history here. He is interpreting an event whose full meaning was beyond history. He understands the stigmata as demonstrating the fullest potential of being human embraced by God in the incarnation. In Jesus, God embraced the human condition with all of its limitation, fragility, weakness, and vulnerability and, in this embrace of the human condition, revealed God's own divine nature. I.n other words, the crucified flesh of Christ revealed the nature of God. The event of the stigmata reveals both the meaning of God and the meaning of Jesus Christ's human nature. The humanity embraced by Jesus is the same as Francis lived, to the point of knowing it in his own wounds. Marked with the wounds of Jesus, Francis becomes the leper, an icon of the crucified Jesus. Celano says: "While he was unable to perceive anything clearly understandable from the vision, its newness very much pressed upon his heart. Signs of the nails began to appear on his hands and feet, just as he had seen them a little while earlier on the crucified man hovering above him" (2C 94). Francis becomes what he sees, that is, what he has been seeing from the moment God turned him to the lepers to contemplate humanity there as a living icon of Jesus Christ, crucified and fixed to a cross. What does it mean to be human, then, for the early Franciscans? It means to embrace th~ full reality of the human condition as frail, weak, fragile, and vulnerable, and even scarred and wounded. The human person is an image of the Lamb who was slain, who carries even now in glory the scars of the passion. Being scarred and wounded like Jesus is not about imitating Jesus' suffering and pain on the cross. Rather, it is the consequence of t)27 6~.2 2006 Blastic ¯ Custodians of Franciscan Households self-sacrificing love, of being totally for others, without holding anything back: To be truly human means to bear patiently the human condition of weakness, fragility, and vulnerability. In the stigmata Francis demonstrates that it is possible for a human being to be Godlike, to love as God loved, to be totally and completely for the other, and in addition he demonstrates that human persons are capable of compassion, human persons are capable of bearing the pain of.the other. This, it seems to me, is what the Rule describes as the action of the Spirit of the Lord in one's life: I admonish and exhort the brothers in themLord Jesus Christ to beware of all pride, vainglory, envy and greed, of care and solicitude for the things of this world, of detraction and murmuring. Let those who are illiterate not be anxious to learn, but let them pay attention to what they must desire above all else: to have the Spirit of the Lord and its holy activity, to pray always to him with a pure heart, to have humility and patience in persecution and infirmity, and to love those who persecute, rebuke, and find fault with us. (LRX:7- 0) The eight vices that are listed at the beginning of this text are social vices; they have to do with how one relates to others and to the things of this-world. These vices describe one who is living "from the outside in," that is, one whose meaning and behavior are determined by things, by social position, by prestige, power, and clout, all of which lie outside a person. The Rule admonishes the brothers to a life of poverty, having nothing of one's own and desiring nothing more than the action of God's Spirit. They are not to live from the outside in, but from the inside out, by expressing the Spirit of the Lord in outward behavior. The Spirit transforms us flesh and blood into an image of Jesus, the suffering servant of God. Review for Religious Another way of expressing the action of the Spirit here is in our bearing with everyone and everything in patience and humility. The Saying on True and Pe,fect ffoy, recorded as a conversation between Francis and Leo, says that, as they arrive back at the Portiuncola one night, they are refused entrance because of the time of day and because they are stupid and not needed. They are told to go to the Crosiers for lodging. Francis says that, "if I had patience and did not become upset, true joy as well as true virtue and the salvation of my soul would consist in. this" (TPJ 15). The experience of the 'presence of God so transforms human existence that even persecution and sickness become ways to follow Christ. The experience of the Spirit of the Lord thus expresses itself in patience. The Latin term patiens indicates a willingness to endure or undergo something, to be capable of bearing hardship; it implies that one is vulnerable, able to be wounded. For Francis, patience is an attribute of God. In the--Praises of God, written shortly /. after he experienced-ffie sugrnata on Mount La Verna, he says to God: "You are love, charity; you are wisdom, you are humility, you are patience, you are beauty, you are meekness, you are security, you are rest" (PrG 4). Francis sees Jesus as the face of God, who made himself vulnerable in this world, who exercised patience through life and death. But it is the incarnation even more than the passion and death that Francis looks to, because in the incarnation Jesus put himself into the position of weakness, frailty, vulnerability, and limitation Francis sees Jesus as.the fa~e of God, who made himself vulnerable in this world, who exercised patience through life and death. 6~.2 2006 Blastic * Custodians of Franciscan HouseboMs and. in this revealed the full potential of being human, showing that the acceptance.of human vulnerability is salvific. Here the Rule gets to the heart of Franciscan fraternity because it challenges the brothers to be simply human, to live from the inside out, to be patient in suffering and sickness, to be vulnerable and open to the other, in short, to follow the footsteps of Jesus Christ. Authentic human life can flourish in Franciscan households that are built by brothers who turn toward each other, who engage in honest conversation as a way of life, and who patiently embrace their humanness in weakness, fragility, and vulnerability. Guarding the Franciscan Household The term "guardian" does not appear in the text of the Rule of 1223. It will appear inAater writings such as the Letter to the Entire Order and the Testament. No job description can be found in the early Franciscan writings, but it is understood that as guardian a brother exercises a ministry among brothers on the local level. What the Rule says about the ministry of "those brothers who are the ministers and servants of the others." (LR X:I) certainly applies to guardians. They are to "receive [the brothers] charitably and kindly and have sufficient familiarity with them that these same brothers may speak and deal with them as masters with the servants, for so it must be that the ministers are servants of all the brothers" (LR X:5-6). The ministers must deal with the brothers as family. While this quality of service must characterize the ministers, those who are subjects must also live the sacrificial nature of obedience in their relationships with the ministers and others. This sacrificial quality of obedience. Francis learned from Jesus, especially in his agony in the garden as described in the Second Version of the Letter to the Faithf!~k Rt.view for Religious Then he prayed to his father saying, Father, if it can be done, let this cup pass from me. And his sweat became as drops of blood falling on the ground. Nevertheless, he placed his will in the will of his father saying: Father, let your will be done; not as I will, but as you will. His father's will was such that his blessed and glorious son, whom he gave to us and who was born for us, should offer himself through his own blood as a sacrifice and oblation on the altar of the cross: not for himself, through whom all things were made, but for our sins, leaving us an example that we might follow his footprints. (2LtF 8-13) Jesus' obedience to his father was a struggle to say yes to his father's will, and this is really the only thing Francis says about the passion. Francis never speaks of the pain or suffering of the crucified Jesus, as if the entire passion took place in Jesus' struggle to accept his Father's will. And the Father's will, as Francis describes here, is that Jesus be completely for, others, that Jesus be for us. The passion is about struggling to be for others, and thi~ brings us back to the very nature of what it means to be brother. The brother is one who turns toward others, who is totally for others without holding anything back for himself. This js true obedience, because it is the fulfillment of what it means to be in relationship with others. Given this general sense of service, caring for the Franciscan household might be practiced in the following ways, I. I began with the common American Christian belief and practice that "God helps those who help themselves," a creed that can affect us in various ways. This creed is not authentically Christian, and it is eminently un- Franciscan. It supports behavior and practice that become destructive of God's house. All the brothers are responsible for calling each other to lives of genuine other-centeredness, to lives of authentic obedience 131 65.2 2006 Blastic ¯ Custodians of Franciscan Households experienced as fraternal relationship, and to the poverty of having nothing as one's own. Interdepehdence rather than radical independence, mutuality rather than self-centeredness, arid healthy need rather than the fullness of isolation are true qualities of fraternal life. This kind of fraternity is not a given, nor achieved easily or quickly, but remains the goal toward which we live. The guardian's task of caring for fraternal life implies attention to the absence or presence of creeds that conflict with real fraternal life. II. One hard-to-retrieve aspect of fraternal life today, given our institutional structures, is itinerancy. Francis and his brothers lived as pilgrims and strangers in this An important itinerancy !sAhab., while moving abbut; W~ are .s.t.ill at home with each o her: ° world. They were itinerant brothers, literally. They were "houses" on the road--perhaps medieval versions of mobile homes! Itinerancy was a clear aspect of Franciscan identity in contrast to monks--monastic institutions were terrified of wandering monks, called gyrovagues in Benedict's Rule. The. monastic ideal was stability, and part of the difficulty of fitting mendicants into the structure of the church had to do with their itinerancy. The friars were often perceived mistakenly (?) as monks gone bad. How do we recover that dimension of our life? Perhaps by recovering the meaning of itinerancy as metaphor--by not remaining fixed in one place, by taking different perspectives on the same reality, by always being on the way without ever believing that we have arrived, by not claiming the center for ourselves, and so forth. It is easy to get bogged down in our ministry or work, and to Review for Religious disconnect ourselves from the fraternity for reasons of ministry or work, though there can be valid reasons for this. An important aspect of itinerancy is that while moving about we are still at home with each other; our friaries are parts of a much larger provincial fraternity. For fraternity to be healthy and life-giving, it has to be on the move, never settled into stubborn custom or settled convenience or old fears of anything new o'r different. The fraternity must be on the move in a metaphorical sense in order to stay healthy and focused on its purpose. The fraternity has to be kept on its toes, and the guardians' care for households is an appropriate way of keeping the brothers on the move. III. As we have seen, Francis's mission to repair God's house had to do with the quality of human life. It had to do with a style of life or conversation that was inclusive, respectful, honest, and engaging. Conversation does have guidelines. In his book Plurality and Ambiguity, David TracT says: "In conversation we find ourselves by losing ourselves in the questions provoked by the text. We find ourselves by allowing claims upon our attention, by exploring possibilities suggested by others" (p. 19). He suggests some guidelines for honest conversation: ' Conversation is a game with some hard rules: say only what you mean; say it as accurately as you can; listen to and respect what the other says, however different or other; be willing to correct or defend your opinions if challenged by the conversation partner; be willing to argue if necessary, tQ confront if demanded, to endure necessary conflict, to change your mind if the evidence suggests it." (pp. 18-19) To paraphrase Tracy in Franciscan language, we might say that, to have an honest conversation, one must act according to the real d~mands of being brothers in relationship, one must be for the other in honesty, in 65.2 2006 Blastic ¯ Custodians of Frandscan Households integrity of life, in respectful listening. But Tracy's words, too, have already described the dynamic of a healthy fraternity. Real fraternal life is possible only if the brothers can have honest conversations. This is a real challenge because I can be so convinced of my truth that I cannot hear anyone else's truth. Conversation brings into play the truth about being human that Francis witnessed to in the stigmata--being vulnerable, being able to be touched by another, It takes much effort and practice to engage in honest conversation of this kind. Well worth the effort, the honest and earnest conversation in my fraternity will affect the quality of my presence and ministry outside the fraternity. Honest conversation iwfraternal life will also improve another central aspect of our life together, our prayer. To move beyond communal vocal prayer to faith sharing or shared prayer, honest conversation is important. If I cannot engage my brothers in honest conversation, how will I share my faith deeply with others. Perhaps there is a correlation between the friary chapters that demand honest conversation about life and ministry and the friaries that have much, or at least some, quality faith sharing. While the guardians cannot force this to happen, they can'challenge the brothers to develop friary chapters as an exercise in honest conversation. Moving from honest conversation into shared prayer is a logical and easy step. IV. Perhaps the best description of the guardians, given this description of Franciscan life, is that they are mentors. They support, challenge, inspire, and foster discernment of what is true, worthy, and life-giving among the brothers. You can find. a fine description of the mentor in Big Questions, Worthy Dreams by Sharon Daloz Parks (Jossey-Bass, 2000). She describes a mentoring Review for Religious environment as one that "can and necessarily must assist in creating norms of discourse and inclusion that invite genuine dialogue, strengthen critical thought, encourage connective-holistic awareness, and develop the contemplative mind" (p. 142). Sounds like a tall order, but we have all experienced a mentoring environment. Franciscan fraternity is similar to what she describes: "Mentoring environments are communities of imagination and practice. Humanizing practices, as we use the term here, are ways of life, things that people do with and for each other to make and keep life human" (p. 154). Parks describes three practices of a mentoring community: (1) the practice of the hearth, that is, places that invite reflection and conversation and times for doing this (hopefully the chapter provides this); (2) the practice of the table, not something that Franciscans have problems with generally, but is table time really a priority, or do we do what most Americans and families do today, simply eat on the run and alone in order to get on to something else? (3) the practice of the commons, a place where people meet and share their interdependent lives, a practice of learning how to stand with each other over time. That is a description of the recreation room, "a place within which to confirm a common, connected life. ¯ . that conveys meanings and orients purpose and commitment" (p. 157). Practices .like these facilitate fraternal life and build up the Franciscan household. For me, the religious genius of Francis and the early brothers lies in their ability to appreciate and value the human as the religious. The brothers understood the Gospels as showing us what it means to be really and simply human as brothers and sisters in contrast to social structures that are often antihuman. To be a healthy human brother or sister is to be a holy human person. Our way of being human is the message Francis was 6~.2 2006 Blastic * Custodians of Franciscan Households called to share. God's house is repaired and renewed in brotherhood and sisterhood, where human .life in its weakness, fragility, and vulnerability is embraced and celebrated and endured and supported in patience and healthy relationships, and where honest conversation is practiced and promoted. This is the vision of fraternal life that the early Franciscan writings set out. By our common profession we are all responsible for seeking this goal. The challenge is, I believe, to live that common profession, not in an ideal place, but in the "space" of th~ brotherhood that God has given us. With his brothers, the guardian has to be an expert in being human in order to be an effective servant. The guardian is charged only with calling us to be faithful to what we say we are. The guardian thus invites and challenges us to be fully human and to flourish in fraternal life. The guardian cannot do this or be responsible for this by himself. It takes all of us just as we are in the: glory of our frail, weak, limited, and vulnerable humanity. Our life is not about rapid perfection. Our life is about truth, the truth of the gospel which we embody together as brothers following the example of Francis and his brothers, who simply tried to follow the footprints of Jesus. We are called to be brothers to our brothers, to turn toward each other, to engage each other in honest conversation, to embrace our own and our brothers' weakness, limitation, frailty, and vulnerability. Desiring nothing else but this, we are heirs of the .kingdom of heaven, the place God has created that we may flourish as human beings! (see LR VO. May God give us peace! Review for Religious Note 1 All citations of the early Franciscan writings and of the Franciscan hagiographical texts in this paper are taken from Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, Vol. 1, The Saint, and Vol. 2, The Founder, edited by Regis Armstrong, J.A. Wayne Hellmann, and William Short (New York: New City Press, 1999 and 2000). Questions for Reflections / Group Discussion 1. Michael Blastic OFM was addressing guardianship in a particular Franciscan Province. What elements from his presentation do I find applicable to my own life? 2. What do I need to do to make practical in my way of living some of his reflectiOns on livihg together? 3. Have I ever been mentored by someone? If so, what are the effects of my being mentored? Have I ever considered my owr~ role of being a mentor? What would I need to do ? gently her fingers his head against her lap wherein he rested once before held now between her bloody l~ands her head bentover her task carefully removing the thorfis the skin pulling, resistant, bleeding a little even now gently her fingers so as if not to hurt him she winces as the thorns come out Sean Kinsella 65.2 2006 REGIS J. ARMSTRONG Francis's Charism, Tree-Huggers, and the Eucharist I~ was Pope Paul VI who first used the word harisms" officially in the context of consecrated life.1 He did so in his apostolic exhortation of 29 June 1971, Evangelica~ testificatio, ~11, where, in writing about "the charisn{s of founders," he echoed the teachings of chapter 5 of Lumen gentium and those of Perfectae caritatis and, in doing so, challenged consecrated women and men to focus on their unique gifts to the church. Even the most casual observer of the history of consecrated life notices that, since the Second Vatican Council, the vocabulary of consecrated religious is far more conscious and respectful of particular charisms and, among these, the followers of Francis of Assisi are noteworthy. Part of the reason for the Franciscan preoccupation with their unique charism or charisms is a curious difficulty in arriving at objective knowledge of the ever Regis J. Armstrong OFMCap, editor, translator, and author, first presented these reflections on 31 January 2005 to the faculty, staff, and students of the Theological College of The Catholic University of America, where he is a professor: 220 Curley Hall; Washington, D.C. 20064. Review for Religious popular Francis of Assisi. Until the late 1970s much of our knowledge of Francis's spirituality was mediated through the hagiographic literature that surrounds him. Significantly, the 14th-century Little Flowers of Saint Francis was-~-and perhaps remains--the most widely read source for popular knowledge of the 13th-century saint. Strangely, firsthand acquaintance with the saint was limited to three, possiblyfour,'of his writings and, was only broadened when in 1976 a critical edition of his thirty-eight known writings was published and quickly translated.2 "Deceptively simple" is one way of describing those texts. While some might dismiss them because of their transparency, or view them as irrelevant because of their historical context, Francis's gospel insights continue to challenge those who study them, and their timelessness seems to draw an increasing number of reader~. The task before me is to reflect on what the spirituality, let. us say the "charism," of Francis and his followers might offer to priests and others. At this time of Eucharistic emphasis, it seems appropriate to focus on five passages of Francis's writings. The first of these, a short, fundamentally liturgical prayer, appears in the last of the saint's writings, the Testament. In it he recalls the earliest days of the Franciscan fraternity. The second is taken from a set of documents that Francis wrote upon his return from the Islamic world in 1220. The third comes from a collection of writings' that elude dating but reflect a more mature Francis who has come to grips with what gospel spirituality consists of. The remaining .two seem to have been written during the last year of his life. Three prominent gifts emerge in these writings: the gift of faith, the gift of the Spirit, and the gift of the priesthood, three gifts that form a prism through which to gaze upon the Eucharist. I offer you this prism convinced that Francis's writings envision a Eucharist-centered life and, for a 65.2 2006 Armstrong ¯ Francis's Charism, Tree-Huggers, and the Eucharist priest, one that is defined by v~hat he does each day: celebrate what is at the very heart of his life. The Gift of Faith Francis's Testament, written in stages toward the end of,~his life, opens with a set of reminiscences that many see as defining his vision¯ After speaking of his embrace of a leper, the beginning ofhis life of penance, he describes ., o his life of faith. ,!'And the Lord gave me such faith in churches that I would simply pray and speak in this way: "We adore you, O Lord Jesus Christ, here and in all your churches throughout the world, and we bless you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.'" The early biographers Thomas of Celano and St. Bonaventure maintain that he later taught this prayer to his very first followers. The prayer is ecclesial and soteriological in nature, expressing as it does an understanding of the role of the church in the accomplishment of redemption. Those familiar with the liturgical texts will recognize it as appearing in the Liber Responsalis of Gregory the Great, where it is an antiphon for matins on the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.3 In his Documenta Vitae Religiosae, the monk Arnulphe encouraged its recitation upon entering a church and approaching the (ross.4 What is distinctive, however, is Francis's addition: ". ¯ here and in all the churches throughout the world." His version of the antiphon brings us from the abstract church to a particular, here-and-now church and to those scattered throughout the world. True, Eucharist is not We are made aware,of Francis's understanding the church pla e of encounter or adoratiom Review for Religious present or even implied in the prayer. We are nonetheless made aware of Francis's understanding of the church as the place of encounter or adoration, that is, the sacred space in which the pray-er is reminded of the central place of the cross in our redemption. Curiously, Francis sees this practical, tangible gift of faith as something flowing immediately from the embrace of a life of penance. Should we follow his train of thought in this document, Francis suggests that his discoqery of God's presence began with his encounter with a leper and continued with his entrance into a church, where he discovered what was being asked of him. These Were indeed the first dramatic steps of his spiritual journey, from a chance meeting with the leper to ,his "stumble" into the church of San Damiano, where he discerned his ca|l, His biographers rightly suggest that the two are united, in the Franciscan approach to God, two essential elements on faith's journey,s ,~ Note the focused pragmatism of this passage. The Lord's gift of faith demands expression in the ordina~ day:to-day ebb and flow of life. Francis's faith expresses itself in reverence and respect for the sacred place, the sacred place of encounter. His companions later described him with a broom in his hand gathering the priests of an area and encouraging them to keep clean ,their churches, altars, and everything connected with ~the celebration of the divine mysteries.6 Afew years~ later, the Fourth Lateran Council (canon 20) and Pope Honorius III were to address this matterZ This theme of showing reverence for the place and the accoutrements of worship is easily seen in an exhortation he wrote to all the clergy.8 For years the only existing copy of this was one found in a 13th-century missal in the Benedictine monastery of Subiaco, which boasts of a visit Francis made there during a trip to Rome. This manuscript shows the influence of 65.2 2006 Armstrong ¯ Francis's Charism, Tree-Huggers, and the Eucharist the decrees of Pope Honorius encouraging implemen-tation of the Fourth Lateran decree. Recently, however, an earlier manuscript of the letter was discovered, one that may have been written before or immediately after the council and confirms Francis's insistence on reverence and respect fog churches and sacred vessels.9 In both exhortations a prominent theme emerges, the central place of the Eucharist. Although Francis never uses the word Eucharist, he does write of "the Body and Blood of the Lord," thereby suggesting the concrete way in which he regards the Eucharistic presence of Christ. "In this world," he writes, "we have and see nothing corporaliter [corporally] of the Most High except [his] Body and Blood, and the words through which we have been made and redeemed from death to life." In that light, it is difficult to ignore his repeated encouragement of respect and care for what we might consider the insignificant things of worship: reservation, cleanliness, decorum, even liturgical books.° Once again Francis's addition to that liturgical antiphon--"here and in all your churches throughout the world"--emerges, so'that we see a faith that is not cerebral or otherworldly, but practical and down-to-earth. Corporaliter! If the Most High chooses to come to us corporaliter, then we. must carefully respect the matters of our worship corporaliter, in simple specific ways. Francis repeatedly and simply calls his followers to be attentive to the details of worship. These are instruments with which God enables us to proceed, in Hugh of St. Victor's words, "from the visible to the invisible." The Gift of the Spirit This leads us to an undated set of Francis's writings: his Admonitions, a title that does not express well in English the nature of these twenty-eight teachings. Each "admonition" simply presents a few biblical passages or l~evie~ for Religious images and then some practical application to daily life. This form is a common catechetical tool used by medieval instructors in the faith.~° The first admonition begins with a series of biblical passages that initially seem unrelated unless they0are viewed as examples of "seeing and believing." Francis's starting point in this first admonition is the struggles of faith of the apostles Thomas~and Philip, given that God "dwells in unapproachable light,' and "no one has ever seen God." He proceeds to the role of the Holy Spirit, who enables them and us to see things differendy, to see with what Tl~omas F. Torrance calls the Spirit's "epistemological relevance." l~ In this .way Francis leads us into the very heart of trinitarian life--the Father looks upon the Son in the Spirit, and the Son looks upon the Father in the Spirit. Francis challenges us to understand what spirituality is, namely, a Spirit-filled life: All those who saw the Lord Jesus according to the humanity and did not see and believe according to the Spirit and the Divinity that he is the true Son of God were condemned. Now, inthe same way, all those who see in the form of bread and wine the sacrament that is consecrated [literally, sanctified] at' thd altar by the Lord's words through the agency of the priest, and who do not see and believe according to the Spirit and the Divinity that it is truly the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, are condemned. To be sure, the challenge of seeing and believing is prominent, but it is cast in the context of the Spirit and the Divinity. Many commentators on Francis's writings suggest that his vision of the spiritual life is besv defined by a simple statement found in his Rule: "Let [the brothers] pay attention to what they must desire above all else: the Spirit of the Lord and its holy activity." ~2 This being the case, the Spirit's activity in making Christ the center of our lives is primary and, in this instance, 143 65.2 2006 Armstrong ¯ Francis's Charism, Tree-Huggers, and the Eucharist 14'4 becomes the medium through which we gaze. upon Christ. The Spirit brings us to gaze upon Christ with "the eyes" of the Father and, by our conformity with Christ, to gaze upon the Father with "the eyes" of the Son. We are confronted with what Catherine Mowry LaCugna calls "the practical Trinity" and with Karl Rahner's words: "The economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity.''t3 Far mor~ simply, Francis understands the Spirit as calling us to look upon both the incarnation and the Eucharist in a trinitarian way, seeing the incarnate Lord Jesus and the Eucharistic Lord Jesus as the Father does, with.the eyes of the Holy Spirit. As Francis describes it in the first of his ~ldmonitiones, the Spirit's presence in our lives challenges us on three levels with each celebration of the Eucharist. It reminds us of the incarnation, with the Son's daily embrace of humility, self-emptying, and vulnerability: "Behold, he humbles himself each d~ay (Ph 2:8) as when he came from the royal throne into the Virgin's womb (Ws 18:15); each day he himself comes to us, appearing humbly; each day he comes down from the bosom of the Father (Jn 1,: 18) upon the altar in the hands of a priest." The Spirit's presence also prompts alertness to the revelation that comes from the Eucharist as well as from the incarnation itself: "As [the Son] revealed himself to the holy aposdes in true flesh, so he reveals himself to us in the same way in sacred bread." Finally, in light of this, the Spirit's presence fosters contemplation of the Eucharist with what Francis calls, in words reminiscent of Bernard of Clairvaux, ".spiritual eyes" 14: "And as they saw only his fleshwith their physical sight, yet believed that he was God as they conteInplated him with their spiritual eyes, let us, as we see bread and wine with our bodily eyes, see and firmly believe that they are his most holy Body and Blood living and true." , Revie~v for Religious These three sentences from Francis's Admonitiones provide insight into his understanding of a Spirit-filled life. We could concentrate on these thoughts about Jesus' humility, self-emptying, and vulnerability, or we could focus on his encouragement of "adoration," that primary Spirit-inspired activity which many commentators consider the heart of his theology of prayer. There is another, more noteworthy contribution, however, that Francis makes to Christian spirituality, one that gets overlooked: his concern that our lives be conformed to the Eucharist, that they somehow imitate the life of the Eucharistic Christ. Curiously, very little has been written about this, possibly because of that troublesome word imitation, a word Francis never uses and one that enters strongly into the vocabulary of Christian spirituality only in the 14th, not the 13th, century.15 The more common word for this was conformity. Bernard of Clairvaux says wonderfully that Christ is the form to which deformed man must conform in order to be reformed. One is called to bring one's form into line with the form that is Christ. In the spiritual literature of the time, this is brought about by the work of the Holy Spirit. Contemplation of Christ in the Eucharist, contemplation with "spiritual eyes," is primarily the Spirit's doing.16 In Francis's understanding of the call, the Eucharist demands the daily embrace of the virtues of humility, self-emptying, and vulnerability that the Incarnate Word lives and reveals each day. The Eucharist demands the daily embrace of the virtues of humility, self-emptying, and vulnerability that the Incarnate Word lives and reveals each day. 65.2 2006 Armstrong * Francis's Charism, Tree-Huggers, and the Eucharist 1461 The Gift of Priesthood This brings us to selections from Francis's last two writings, the first of which is actually a return to Francis's very last, his Testament, with which these reflections began. After reflecting upon the gift of faith, Francis continues: Afterwards the Lord gave me--and gives me still-- such faith in priests who live according to the rite of the holy Roman church because of their orders that, were they to persecute me, I would still have recourse to them. And if I had as much wisdom as Solomon and found .impoverished priests of this world, I would not preach in their parishes against their will. And I desire to respect, love, and honor them and all others as my lords. And I do not want to consider any sin in them because I discern the Son of God in them and they are my lords. And I act thus because in this world I see nothing corporally of the Most High Son of God except his most holy Body and Blood which they receive and they alone administer to others. It is a rather curious statement coming from a man facing death, one that contains bits and pieces that tantalize biographers of Francis and historians of the Franciscan movement. There are sufficient anecdotes in the early lives of Francis to suggest that he was indeed ridiculed, abused, and demeaned. More significant are the number of papal decrees insisting that Francis and his brothers be given permission to preach, suggesting that doors were indeed being slammed in their faces. The dying Francis transcends all this and leaves as his legacy an example of "respect, love, and honor" for priests as those who are his superiors, his "lords." Once again that refrain surfaces: "I see nothing corporaliter of the Most High Son of God." Here it does so in reference to priests, who "receive. and administer to others" the most holy Body and Blood of the Lord. All Review for Religious that he may have endured--persecution, being taken advantage of, imposed on--is put into context. Francis refuses even to take notice of a priest's sin--that judgment, he maintains, belongs only to God--because of the priest's sacerdotal intimacy with the Eucharist, with the Body and Blood of the Lord. Naive? Simplistic? Challenging? In our day especially, these attitudes seem unrealistic and, in light of recent scandals, disingenuous. To understand them, we must turn to passages from the last and perhaps most beautiful of Francis's writings, one that almost certainly was written at the same time as his Testament, that is, at the end of his life. Only a man comfortable with himself could have written The Letter to the Entire Order. While clearly written by the "inspirational" figure of the brotherhood, by Francis himself, the letter does not hesitate to admit to negligence or weakness, to being "ignorant or unlettered" and "useless and unworthy." Many of its themes resonate with Francis's earlier writings, especially those on the Liturgy of the Hours and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. The maturity of Francis's Eucharistic spirituality, however, appears clearly in this passage: Kissing your feet, and with all the love of which I am capable, I implore all of you brothers to show all possible reverence and honor to the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom that which is in heaven and on earth is brought to peace and reconciled to theall-powerful God. This comes from the Francis who a year or so earlier had the mystical experience of Greccio, where the Christ Child appeared in his arms. This comes from the Francis who shortly afterwards had that other mystical experience of Christ Crucified, which left him with the stigmata. This comes from the Francis who then composed one of the most mystical of all writings, The Canticle of Brother i147 65.2 2006 Armstrong * Francis's Charism, Tree-Huggers, and the Eucharist 148 Sun, where his vision of the peace and reconciliation brought by Christ to all creation is expressed in remarkable poetry. In light of this, what follows is one of his most penetrating challenges: In the Lord I also beg all my brothers who are, or who will be, or who desire to be priests of the Most High that, whenever they want to celebrate Mass, pure themselves, they offer the true sacrifice of the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ with purity and reverence, with a holy and unblemished intention, not for any worldly reason or out of fear or love of someone, intending to please human beings. But, desiring by the sacrifice to please only the most high God himself, let every will be directed to God as far as grace makes possible because there he himself acts alone as he pleases. Here we see the call of the priest to live corporaliter in light of the life corporaliter of Christ now revealed in the Eucharist. The call to purity and to celebrate with purity, the call to be single-minded, and the call to have my every desire directed by God comes from an ongoing call to conversion. The example of the reverence of Mary, the Mother of God, and of the Baptist help bring that call to us. Francis's challenge is simple yet profound: "See your dignity, my brothers [who are] priests, and be holy because He is holy. As the Lord God has .honored you above all others by this ministry, for your part love, revere, and honor him above all others. It is a great misery and a miserable weakness when you have him present in this way and are concerned with anything else in the whole world!" Tree-Huggersmbut Much Much More What does Francis of Assisi, a medieval, Umbrian- Italian mystic offer to American priests in this vital endeavor? My good friend Luke Patrick O'Connell once Review for Religious teased me by characterizing Franciscans as "tree-huggers." Luke, however, was introducing a rather profound discussion on the theological concept of charism. He was attempting to draw me out on what the followers of Francis contribute today to the life and growth of the church. It is a good question, one with which I continue to struggle on many different levels. Pope John Paul once observed that what makes Francis of Assisi so appealing to people of all ages and cultures is his dominant image of God: the One who is all good. "It is what makes you optimists," he suggested, "and, therefore, prophets of hope." Francis's biographers Thomas of Celano and Saint Bonaventure wrote that "he savored in each and every creature, as in so many rivulets, the Fountain of Divine Goodness." In Francis's own writings, however, it is clear that he found God's goodness, the gifts of faith and of the Spirit, more and more overwhelming in the mystery of the Eucharist. In the light of that gift, the daily revelation of God's incredible goodness in his Son, the priesthood became for Francis a reflection of what Eucharist is all about: God's daily humility, self-emptying, and vulnerability. In a word, the Christ of the Eucharist defines the priest! One's sacerdotal character must be molded by the Eucharistic Jesus, who each day places himself in the hands of this priest. Clare of Assisi frequently comes to mind in pondering the mystery of a vocation. Clare begins her own Testament Francis found God's goodness, the gifts of faith and of the Spirit, more and more overwhelming in the mystery of the Eucharist. 1149 6Y. 2 2006 Ar~nstrong ¯ Francis~s Cbaris~n, Tree-Huggers, and the Eucharist reflecting on the role Francis played in that call. She writes: "Among the other gifts we have received and do receive each day, and for which we must express the deepest thanks to our glorious God, there is our vocation, which the more perfect and greater it is, the more are we indebted to him. Therefore the Apostle [writes]: 'Recognize your vocation.'" In her theology, the vocation is given anew each day and demands each day our most profound thanks. For a priest, Francis would add, each day that gift and that gratitude for the priesthood grow in intensity as the daily celebration of the Mystery of Faith ever so gently teaches the priest its meaning. Thus he writes: Let everyone be struck with fear, the whole world tremble, and the heavens exult when Christ, the Son of the living God, is present on the altar in the hands of a priest! O wonderful loftiness and stupendous condescension! O sublime humility! O humble sublimity! The Lord of the universe, God and the Son of God, so humbles himself that he hides himself under a little piece of bread! See the humility of God, brothers, and pour out your hearts before him! Humble yourselves that you may be exalted by him! Hold back nothing of yourselves for yourselves, that he who gives himself totally to you may receive you totally! Notes ~ Information on charisms may be found in Elizabeth McDonough, "Charisms and Religious Life," Review for Religious 52 (1993): 646- 659. Review for Religious 2 Die Opuscula des H1. Franziskus yon Assisi: Neue Textkritische Edition, ed. Kajetan Esser (Grottaferrata, Rome: Collegio S. Bonaventura di Quaracchi, 1976). This text was the basis for Francis" and Clare: The Complete Works, trans, and intro, by Regis J. Armstrong and Ignatius C. Brady (New York: Paulist Press, 1982). All translations from the writings of Francis and Clare are taken from this volume, though sometimes modified. 3 Gregory the Great, LiberResponsalis (PL 78,804). 4 Arnulphe de Boeriis, Documenta Vitae Religiosae (PL 184, 1177): "Deinde, veniens ad ecclesiam, pone manum super ostium, et dic: Exspectate hic, cogitationes malae, intentiones et affectus cordis, et appetitus carnis. Tu autem, anima mea, intra in gaudium Domini Dei tui, ut videas voluntatem Domini, et visites templum ejus. Sicque veniens ante crucem dic: 'Adoramus te, Christe, et benedicimus tibi.'" (Coming to a church, put your hand on the door and say: Wait here, evil thoughts, intentions, and inclinations of my heart and desires of my flesh. You, though, my soul, enter into the joy of the Lord your God, so that you may see the Lord's will and enter his temple. And so, coming before the cross, say: "We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you.") s See Franqois de Beer, La Conversion de Saint Francois (Paris: ]~ditions Franciscaines, 1963). 6 "Assisi Compilation" 60, in The Founder, Vol. 2 of Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, ed. Regis J. Armstrong, J.A. Wayne Hellmann, and William J. Short (Hyde Park, New York: New City Press, 2000), pp. 162-163. 7 For the texts of both Canon 20 of the Fourth Lateran Council and Sane cure olim or Expectavimus bactenus of Innocent III, see The Saint, Vol. 1 of Francis of Assisi: Early Documents (Hyde Park: New City Press, 1999), pp. 53c. 55a. Hereafter The Saint. 8 See The Saint, pp. 54-55. 9 See The Saint, pp. 52-53. ~0 See Regis J. Armstrong, "The Prophetic Implications of the Admonitions," in Francescanesimo e Profezia (Roma: Laurentianum, 1986): pp. 386-464. ~ Thomas F. Torrance, "The Epistemological Relevance of the Holy Spirit," in God and Rationality (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 165-192. t2 For a full exposition of the theme, see Optatus van Asseldonk, "The Spirit of the Lord and Its Holy Activity," Greyfriars Review 5 (1991): 103-158. ,3 Karl Rahner, The Trinity, trans. Joseph Donceel (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970); "Remarks on the Dogmatic Treatise 'De 151 65.2 2006 Armstrong ¯ Frands's Charism, Tree-Huggers, and the Eucharist Trinitate,'" Theological Investigations, Vol. 4 (New York: Seabury Press, 1974), pp. 77-102. 14 Karl Rahner, "The Doctrine of the 'Spiritual Senses' in the Middle Ages," Experience of the Spirit: Source of Theology, Vol. 16 of Theological Investigations (New York: Crossroad, 1983), pp. 104-134. ~s Edouard Cothenet et al., Imitating Christ, vol. 5 of Religious Experience series (St. Meinrad, Indiana: Abbey Press, 1974); Andr4 Rayez, "The Golden Age of Medieval Devotion: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries," in Jesus in Christian Devotion and Contemplation, vol. 1 of Religious Experience series (St. Meinrad: Abbey Press, 1974), pp. 44-85. ~6 This sentiment finds an echo in John Paul II's Dominicae Coenae: "Eucharistic worship., is precisely the expression of that love which is the authentic and deepest characteristic of the Christian vocation . A living fruit of this worship is the perfecting of the image of God that we bear within us, an image that corresponds to the one that Christ has revealed to us." Quoted in L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 26 January 2005, p. 12. Palm Sunday Dear Lord, ride into my heart today on the stubborn mule of my own self-rule. These garments strewn along your way are the little things to which my will clings. 0 Christt. let your triumph be complete: let nothing remain proud, stubborn, or vain. I lie surrendered at your feet. Now, let my voice raise Hosannas of praiser. Agnes Cunningham SSCM Review for Religious ¯ JULIUS D. LELOCZKY Imitation of Mary and the Religious Vocation The great Carmelite martyr St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, better known as Edith Stein, wrote somewhere: "The imitation of Mary includes the imitation of Christ because Mary is the first Christian to follow Christ. Indeed, that is why the imitation of Mary is relevant not only to women but to all Christians." Let us meditate briefly on how religious life can be an "imita-tion of Mary." From all eternity Mary was chosen by God to be the mother of the Redeemer, and she was called at the annunciation. We, too, have been chosen and called: "God chose us in Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him" (Ep 1:4). By this call and her response, Mary became a daughter of God in a special way; she became the new, obedient Eve. Just as Mary must have Julius D. Leloczky OCist joined the Cistercians in Hungary in 1953, later studied in Rome, and in 1964 was sent to the abbey where he continues to live: Cistercian Abbey; 3550 Cistercian Road; Irving, Texas 75039. 6Y.2 2006 Leloczky ¯ Imitation of Mary and the Religious Vocation wondered why was she chosen, we, too, can ask our-selves: "Why me? Out of the millions of people, why me?" The answer is that it is a mystery, the mystery of love. What happens to us is what happened to the rich young man: "Jesus looked at him, and he loved him" (Mk 10:21). The call of each of us is a call for a unique, spe-cial task, one that no one else can accomplish. Our response should mirror the love of the One who called us, but we are called not just to do a job; we are called to give a loving response. The call has, like a coin, two sides: we are called away from something and we are called to do something, called for something. From the moment the angel appeared to Mary, her whole life was changed. She was no longer her own person, she belonged to Someone else. We have been called away from the average or "normal" way of life, from starting a family, from having a civilian job, from having our own home, car, property. We have been called to a loving unconditional surrender, offering ourselves as Mary did: "I am the maidservant of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word." We have been called for a life-long adventure of love, and we do not know where this love will take us. As religious, we have been called to conceive the Word of God in our heart and soul. This conception is "virginal" because it takes place entirely between God and ourselves, without the intervention of anybody else. We have been called to give the Word of God, the Son of God, to others. We can do it only if first we ourselves have conceived Him, carried him in the womb of our soul, nurtured him, let him grow inside us, from our-selves-- if not from our flesh and blood, certainly from our personality. Just as Jesus must have had much like-ness to his Mother, the Word growing within us will take on our likeness. This Word, however, is not just an intel- Review for Religious lectual idea. It does not reside only in our intellect; it must penetrate our entire being, our whole existence. Disciples are not tape recorders to replay the words exactly as we heard them. Sifted through our personali-ties, God's words have to take on the special shade or tint of what we are as persons, just as the gospel of Jesus Christ is different from the pen of Mark and John. Mary's virginity was fruitful; the unmarried state of a religious also must be fruitful. Members of religious orders, when answering God's call to an unmar-ried way of life, do not choose to live in lifeless sterility. They do not give up either love, pas-sion, or motherhood or fatherhood. They just practice them in a dif-ferent way, living, by God's grace, their ability to love on a higher level. Their fruitfulness realizes itself in two ways. Like Mary, they become mothers of the Word of God, and mothers or fathers of many spiritual children. The birth of a child is preceded by birth pangs. No one expressed more dramatically the pain of giving birth to God's word than Jeremiah: "O Lord, you have deceived me, and I let myself be :deceived. You are stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all the day. Everyone mocks me . If I say, 'I will not mention him or speak any more in his name,' there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot bear it" (Jr 20:7,9). To give birth to God's Word is a painful but irresistible duty. It is painful to commu- Members of religious orders, when answering God's call to an unmarried way of life, do not choose to live in lifeless sterility. 65.2 2006 Leloczky ¯ Imitation of Mary and the Religious Vocation 1,56 nicate the Word to others; it is difficult to put Christ's message into human words, to pass on to others Jesus himself and not just our own ego. It can be painful to give Jesus to others, because some people will not accept him, will show a hostile attitude toward him and us, will resist and reject him and us. Yet we have to go on, to continue undeterred, remembering God's word to Jeremiah: "And I, behold, I make you this day a forti-fied city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land" (Jr 1 : 18). If we proclaim God's word, we become parents, and those who listen to us will become our children. This is so even in the case of contemplative religious. It is not by accident that St. Th~r~se of Lisieux has been chosen the patron saint of the missions. If we think back to our young years, we can recall some special persons in our lives whom we can consider our spiritual mothers or fathers. As we advance in age, the roles become reversed, and we should be spiritual parents for others. But it is a frightening realization that we proclaim the Word more by our deeds than by our words; our words and deeds should communicate the gospel message in perfect har-mony. St. Paul dared to set himself as a model for the early Christians. "Imitate me," he wrote. We may shy away from saying the same, but we know that our words will be credible only if they are lived and made a reality in our daily lives. Just as Mary was with Jesus at the wedding at Cana, so she is with us in our apostolic prayer and activity. When we are in any special need, she will tell her Son: "They have no wine." Just as in Cana, with the refined sense of a woman, a housewife, a mother, she perceives if something is missing, if there is a problem, and she will intervene. And, even if Jesus showed some reluc-tance first, Mary knows that her Son will help, and she Review for Religious will tell us to "do whatever he tells you." The interven-tion of the saints is powerful, but the efficiency of Mary's intercessory prayer is unparalleled. Just recall the words of the famous Memorare prayer of the great Cistercian saint Bernard of Clairvaux: "Never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection was left unaided." A mother's life is an unstoppable process of gradual separation from her child. Only during pregnancy can she have the feeling that the child is completely hers. After the baby has been born, as the child is growing, it will spend more and more time away from home, away from its mother. During adolescence the child will claim an ever greater independence. After he or she finishes school and starts a family, the separation will be com-plete. Mary, too, had this painful experience. The twelve-year- old Jesus remained in the temple: "I must be in my Father's house." During his public ministry Jesus called his disciples mother and brothers and sisters, thus in a way pushing away from himself his biological family. On the cross, Jesus gave a mere disciple to his mother in place of himself. Look at Michelangelo's Pietb, this Magnificat prayer carved into marble, and see Mary's generous surrender. Even after all her trials and suffer-ings, she was still the humble handmaid of the Lord. There are two ways of experiencing this separation: (a) to live without the experience of Jesus' presence or close-ness and (b) to allow our spiritual children to grow up and go off and live their lives. Mary, by her suffering and agony, added something to the redeeming sufferings of her Son. Similarly, by car-rying our daily crosses (their heaviness may change from time to time), we complement "what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his body, the church" (Col 1:24). Our sufferings can be physical or spiritual or emotional. They may take the form of sickness, exhaus- 6Y.2 2006 Leloczky ¯ Imitation of Mary and the Religious Vocation tion, frustration, or burnout, They may be caused by the very people for whose sake we are spending our days and burning our energies, as when the crowd shouted at Jesus, "Crucify him!" We may be attacked or accused without reason, we may be slandered, or we may feel abandoned as Jesus did when he cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" But we should not forget that the sadness lasted only three days. Imagine Mary's joy at Jesus' resurrection, at her encounter with her risen Son. The same joy is waiting for us. We just have to persevere, to continue imitating Christ by imi-tating Mary faithfully, day after day. 158 Prayer Slowly and meditatively pray the Memorare prayer. Remember, 0 most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercesson was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto you, 0 Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to you do I come, before you I stand, sinful and sorrowful. 0 Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in your mercy hear and answer me. Amen Review for Religious MARY JOSEPH SCHULTZ Just Because I Said So Sohifting numbers, median ages, and the geography f religious life over the past several decades and today as well do not cause me to pause and reflect on whether we have a future, as many religious have recently been wondering. I believe that religious life most defi-nitely does have a future. For each individual commu-nity, where that future goes must be carefully discerned in the Spirit. But there are other questions with less clear answers. What impels us to go on? What can we offer new members to quench their thirsty hearts once they join us? I would like to reflect on one word as the answer to both these questions--commitment. It is not a popular word today in a mobile and disposable society such as ours. The word commitment is at one and the same time a sign of contradiction to some and a challenge and cause for hope to many others. In some circles a lifelong com-mitment to religious life has fallen under examination in recent years. For my part, I cannot buy into the notion Mary Joseph Schultz SCC, president of Assumption College for Sisters, wrote for us in 2003. Her address is 350 Bernardsville Road; Mendham, New Jersey 07945. 65.2 2006 Schultz ¯ ~tst Because I Said So of a limited commitment to religious life just as I can-not buy into the idea of a temporary marriage commit-ment. As religious we vow ourselves to a God unseen but not unknown. We embrace centuries-old charisms of peo-ple whose lives and lifestyles were shaped by grace amid definite historical settings and cultural needs. We set aside wealth, sexual activity, and the disposition of our own will in freely choosing poverty, chastity, and obedi-ence for life. It is imperative that we study our own com-mitments in gratitude--and that we find ways to convey its challenge, meaning, and joy to Generations X and Y-- if we truly have hope in our communities' future. Our brothers and sisters in community who celebrate fifty, sixty, and even seventy-five years of religious life overflow with peace and joy in their long, faithful, and fruitful commitments, just as their married counterparts do who celebrate their golden anniversaries. What is their secret? Why and how have they survived and thrived in a world of instant gratification, noise, infi-delity, moral weakness, and faltering leadership and through forty years of post-Vatican II experimentation, discussion, renewal, and change in their communities? They would probably answer the question very simply: "I am still here because I said I would be." Sefin Sammon, in his wise and prophetic book Religious Life in America, speaks of the impact of public commitment to the evangelical counsels: "In carrying out our ministry in a spirit of selfless service, we witness further to countercultural values. How? By avoiding the all too familiar and tragic betrayal of consecrated life that occurs when we give our heart away generously at the time of first commitment, and then take it back, bit by bit, with each passing year" (p. 92). Commitment is not widely modeled for today's youth, either in families or in society at large. Hedonism and Review for Religious materialism erode the very notion of a committed life. The rapidity and challenge of change surround every aspect of our culture today. Opting out of anything dis-agreeable or tiresome is only a mouse-click away. Young people are constantly in and out of hobbies, activities, and relationships without so much as a glance back-ward. Often parents try to be supportive by signing them up for lessons, buy-ing instruments and sports either in families or equipment and providing taxi service to and from in society at large. appointments and games. For the young, broad arrays of opportunity and experience soon become bor-ing- or become irritatingly impossible when parental money or patience runs short. Entering my community as an aspirant in my teens in the late 1960s, I truly aspired to living religious life. It was hard for me and for those my age to understand all the post-Vatican II talk about "returning to your foundress's charism." Certainly we should already be who we say we are! Why wouldn't we be, and how could we not be? Naive teenage questions. But, from the moment I left home to enter as a sophomore, my heart was com-mitted to my dream, and I was just a little puzzled by what I saw and heard going on around me. Wasn't every sister as committed as I thought she was or should be? Through the difficult weeks of homesickness, a cer-tain degree of stubbornness and a huge amount of grace sustained me. I knew my choice was right. From my early years my family realized that I was serious about being a sister. It was all I talked about and I only had to wait (impatiently) until I was old enough to be accepted. My Commitment is not widely modeled for today's youth, 65.2 2006 Scbultz ¯ s~ust Because I Said So ,° 1 21 older siblings at times "tested" me and offered their opin-ions about my leaving home at fourteen. But my parents were supportive in their quiet and undemonstrative way. They were proud of me, I knew, loved the sisters, and backed me up at each step. One day shortly before I was set to leave, my mother said, "You know, you really can change your mind. You don't have to go just because you said so." I believe she wanted to give me a last chance to back out with minimal embarrassment. My reply was simple: "I know, Morn, but I want to be a sister." From that day on no more was said. My father died a year later, and my mother was proud of my life choice. She later became a lay associate in my community. Mom's words often ring in my ears: "Just because you said so." Certainly I am not the same person I was at fourteen, but there are traces of that determined girl still inside. I am not the same person I was at final profession twenty-five years ago. But there is one thing I pray never changes, that I am a woman of my word. To me this is a very positive quality. While "just because I said so" can deteriorate into an authoritarian dictate held over the head of a student (and I confess to having resorted to it more than once in a classroom of questioning teens), these same words are to me a sign of fidelity and com-mitment. I gave my word and I intend to keep it, not grudgingly but joyfully. Whether from genetics or my serious temperament or both, when I tell someone I am going to do some-thing, I make it my business to follow through. This can lead to scrupulosity or unhealthy guilt if I am not care-ful. I can place unrealistic expectations on myself (or on others through transference) as I strive to pray for all the prayer requests, write all those notes, make those phone calls, or do those favors that I promised I would. As I have noticed, other temperaments seem to have no Review for Relig4ous problem breaking those promises, skipping those phone calls, or never getting back to me, but they also have fewer sleepless nights. I believe that giving my word to others is about the best I can give them. In this I share God's own view-- giving God's Word was the best of gifts. Giving my word to God on my profession day symbolized all of me with nothing held back. This perpetual commitment, lived out one day, one moment, at a time, is a beautiful gift that I hope to never take back or take for granted. Not knowing the trials, temptations, or dryness that lay ahead could not lessen the fullness of the gift. In fact it only served to increase the value. God took me at my word, and the journey of religious life has been remarkable. Unlike in a marriage vow, I am guaranteed the fidelity of my Partner, and if there is any cooling in the relationship it can only be on one side! "Just because I said so" is in itself hardly a solid enough motivation for perseverance. These words can easily reflect mere stubbornness or the desire to prove something to myself or others. I have seen some sisters leave the community, even after final profession, because this motivation to please self or a parent was the sole force behind their entering religious life. If love, humility, and grace do not underlie my words, then I am foolish and my life is a sham and an exercise in self-righteousness. Giving my word verbally and on the vow formula signed on the altar came after long years of trial and preparation. My commitment was not made as a naive religious wearing rose-colored glasses. I had seen many "heroes" leave the community, had watched the divi-siveness of Vatican II experimentation, and had been asked to step forward and take my place as a responsible member of the community. Publicly pronouncing the words "I vow to almighty God perpetual chastity, 6~ .2 2006 Schultz ¯ ~st Because I Said So poverty, and obedience" was the best I could do, then and now. I would do it all over again today, even know-ing what would lie ahead. I would once again give my word. At the time of my entrance, I believe I had it much easier because, while there were hundreds of communi-ties, my familiarity with them was very limited. Many girls entered a community whose members had taught them or with whom there was already a relative or a close association. This is not the case today, especially with so few religious left in the classrooms. A young person discerning religious life today has a greater challenge than I did forty years ago, partly because of the wide array, of choices open to her. Even after deciding to become a religious, someone could literally spend years of her life visiting monasteries and convents for "Come and see" weekends. With the easy availability of appeal-ing vocation literature and online access, a serious and thorough examination of multiple communities might even turn her into a delayed vocation! What is it that makes a young woman decide on a particular community? What makes a heart resonate and feel at home with one group rather than another? I feel that, when all is said and done, communities must sim-ply be who they say they are. Authenticity is the key that will unlock commitment. After forty years of communal soul-searching, it is time for communities simply to move on. It is time to claim who we are, corporately commit to the charism, and put all our energies into authentic liv-ing of our foundress's spirit here and now in the 21st century. There can be no going back. Now is the time for simply joining hands, holding tight, and boldly moving ahead according to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. This is the gift we have to offer new members, a gift that will enliven our future. Review for Religious Young people, seeking authentic community, will go where they find the real deal. And how can such a com-munity survive today except through common prayer, deep spirituality, shared vision and lifestyle, corporate witness, and joyful life in the Spirit of Jesus. This is what they seek, hoping against hope that such groups exist and will provide them with the challenge they desire so ardently. We have a responsibility to live up to our word. We are here because we said we would be. I am here because I said so. And is this not a Godlike quality--giving one's word? God's Word and our own are why we are all here in the first place. Personal Reflection / Group Conversation 1. What has been my experience of "growing into a com-mitment"? 2. What led me to joining this religious congregation of which I am a member? 65.2 2006 religious VIMAL TIRIMANNA Are Religious Superiors Called to Be "Politically Correct"? implications In January 2002, I was in a bus on my way from Colombo to Kandy, Sri Lanka. Next to me in the same seat was a Buddhist monk. He was very friendly and kept me engaged in a lively con-versation on various matters about our two reli-gions till we reached Kandy, a journey of some three hours. At one stage he wanted to know why the cardinal archbishop of Boston had to resign (an issue widely reported in our local newspapers). I said that it was due to allegations (especially by the media) of his not having made responsible decisions regarding several errant priests of his archdiocese who were involved in sexual abuse. The Buddhist monk was visibly surprised, for till then he was of the opinion that the archbishop had to resign because he him-self was involved in sexual abuse. This Buddhist monk may be excused for his inaccurate impres-sion, but one wonders how many of our own Vimal Tirimanna wrote for us in May-June 2001. His address until October 2006 is Redemptorists; Frangipani; No. 80 Ampitiya Road; Kandy, Sri Lanka. Review for Religious Catholics, including religious and priests, are unaware of why Cardinal Law had to resign. If the factors and reasons that led him to resign from the prestigious Archdiocese of Boston had been applied to various other bishops and religious superiors around the world today, one wonders how many would have had to follow Cardinal Law and resign their posts. It is no exaggeration to say that, in cases of sexual abuse and also in other crucial areas of priestly and religious life, a good number of church leaders are badly wanting in their pas-toral responsibility and accountability towards their sub-jects and institutes. This arises from not making responsible timely decisions, decisions that ought to have been made for the common good of the diocese or reli-gious congregation and for the good of the church. Note that in this article we are not dealing with an occasional failure to make a responsible decision, which is some-thing normal since bishops and superiors are human; we are dealing with habitual negligence to make decisions on the part of bishops and religious superiors. Consistent, habitual evasion of making decisions has contributed immensely to the contemporary difficulties in priestly and religious life and in church life in general. This is the main point of this article. I write this article from my fifteen years of experi-ence as a retreat preacher to the clergy (both diocesan and religious) in Sri Lanka and elsewhere, and also from the experience I gained from my close association with major superiors as president of the Conference of the Major Religious Superiors of Sri Lanka (for two terms, four years) and from being the major superior of the Redemptorists in Sri Lanka (for three terms, nine years). I limit myself here to consecrated life and then to show-ing how the irresponsibility and unaccountability of a good number of religious superiors have contributed to 6Y.2 2006 Tirimanna ¯ Are Religious Superiors Called to Be "Politically Correct"? 168, the present disturbed state of consecrated life. I will ana-lyze briefly what authority means in the Christian tradi-tion, and then I will try to show how secular democratic political trends have affected the role of superiors, how their craving for popularity among their subjects has often inhibited them from making many a vital consci-entious decision. I will show that in these situations it is impossible for prophetic and diplomatic roles to func-tion simultaneously. I will conclude by highlighting the need today for religious superiors to make conscientious, pastoral, and courageous decisions for the sake of the common good of their institutes, and thus give prophetic leadership to today's world. Authority in the Christian Tradition Jesus clearly condemns oppressive and despotic power wielded by the rulers of nations (Mk 10:42). He tells his disciples who were arguing about which of them was the greatest that he who wants to be great must make him-self the least of all and serve others (Mk 9:33-35). For him, true authority is for service in truth, as he so tellingly demonstrated throughout his earthly life, which reached a climax at the last supper when he washed the feet of his own apostles (Jn 13:115). Emulating Jesus' teaching, the Christian tradition has always held that authority is for service. Accordingly, all leaders, civil as well as ecclesiastical, are expected to be servants of the common good of the group that is entrusted to them. A New Testament image dear to the early Christian community was Jesus the good shepherd. This is shown especially in the frescoes in the early catacombs. A shep-herd carrying a sheep on his.shoulders is a common fig-ure in those early places of worship. In fact, the concept of shepherd or "p, astor" and the adjective "pastoral" are woven into our inherited tradition regarding authority. ¯ Review for Religious To be a pastor or shepherd is to take flocks to where there is food and water, looking out for their safety and well-being. In our Christian tradition, leadership, whether in consecrated life or in a diocese, requires the care, compassion, and concern of a shepherd towards his sheep. The well-being of the flock and of each individ-ual sheep ought to be the - - - shepherd or pastor's top priority. If shepherds or pastors are more concerned about themselves, they cease to be shepherds and become hirelings concerned first of all with fattening themselves (see Ezk 34, Jn - - 10:7-18). Superiors, then, are supposed to be shepherds, serving the flock entrusted to them, not seeking their own good, not even their own survival. It is, of course, true that consecrated life has changed drastically in our day and so has the style of community leadership. It is sufficient to compare and contrast the era before Vatican Council II and afterwards. No one would argue today for the type of leadership that was prevalent in consecrated life before the council. It is also true that the way "authority" and "leadership" are under-stood varies from culture to culture. Regardless of the differences in worldviews and the ways of exercising authority, one essential and undeniable element of authority is that superiors' decision making must be for the common good. In the church in general and in con-secrated life in particular, such decision making is vital. After the initial stages of involving as many members as possible in the decision-making process, religious supe-riors must not abdicate their own decision making under any pretext. If they do so, they cease to serve the good of The Christian tradition has' always held that authority is for service. 6L2 2006 Tirimanna ¯ Are Religious Superiors Called to Be "Politically Correa'? 170 the community. This was expressed well in the instru-mentum laboris of the ordinary assembly of the Synod of Bishops held in 1994, on "The Consecrated Life and Its Role in the Church and in the World": The role of authority is that of a sure and authorita-tive guide, of inspiration and encouragement, so that an environment of fraternal communion can be cre-ated, one which can facilitate personal spiritual growth and the fulfillment of the apostolic mission, without, however, declining the responsibility to decide when-ever necessary. (§59) The postsynodal apostolic exhortation Vita consecrata (1996) of Pope John Paul II said: While authority must be above all fraternal and spir-itual, and while those entrusted with it must know how to involve their brothers and sisters in the deci-sion- making process, it should still be remembered that the final word belongs to authority and, consequendy, that authority has the right to see that decisions made are respected. (§43, emphasis in the original text) Superiors Seeking Popularity in Their Communities The latter decades of the 20th century are noted for the spread of democracy in different parts of the globe. Democracy has become a universally accepted human value. Even countries that are not yet democratic are striving, indeed yearning, for it. This is surely a wel-come change for the whole of humanity. Normally democracy not only guarantees human rights on the basis of individuals' inherent dignity, but also for the com-mon good assures the participation of every citizen in the political decision making. Since democracy assures citizens' right to change those in authority after an agreed term of office, those officials normally spend a lot of their energy and resources to be popular, for it is their popularity that ensures their success at elections. Rarely do they offend citizens in public or make unpop- Review for Religious ular decisions even when such decisions are necessary for the common good. If they do, their very survival is at stake. With the mass media often playing the role of watchdog, political leaders today are pressured to say and do the "politically correct" thing. The phrase is fast becoming common parlance. The more "politically cor-rect" you are, the more popular you become. Political leaders who dare to make unpopular decisions, even though such decisions are dictated by their consciences and demanded by the common good, are being thrown out of office. Parallel to happenings in the secular world are some of the ways that religious congregations do things. Thanks to Vatican II, gone are the rigid (and sometimes absurd) practices that marked consecrated life in the years before the council. Although religious congrega-tions cannot be considered democracies in a literal sense, wider participation in congregational and community decision making has brought a lot of relevance and good sense to consecrated life. Today sensible persons heave a sigh of relief and thank God that most of the irrational and dictatorial ways of being a religious superior are over. Today religious superiors are really meant to serve the common good of the flock entrusted to them. The secular concept of democracy surely has had a positive influence on these changes in religious life. Our own experience during the past couple of decades, however, shows that the same concept of democ-racy also seems to have had a negative effect on many religious superiors. Just as secular political leaders earnestly seek popularity, and survive and eventually move up the political ladder because of their popularity, today's religious superiors often seem to seek such pop-ularity within their own congregations for their mere survival and sometimes for their upward mobility either !171 65.2 2006 Tirimanna ¯ Are Religious Superiors Called to Be "Politically Correa'? 172 in the congregation or in the hierarchy. Many of our contemporary religious superiors are doubly careful not to make "politically incorrect" decisions that would make them unpopular among the members of their congrega-tions and thus bring about their own downfall. The wider consultations (and, in many congregations, elections) that since Vatican II are rightly carried out in electing or appointing religious superiors seem to put the supe-riors in a dilemma. On the one hand, to be elected or reelected, they have to be popular or well accepted. On the other hand, to be popular or well accepted, they have to play to the gallery by not making decisions that would upset the majority of the members. Note that by "pop-ularity" I do not mean the mere acceptability of superi-ors to the other members of the community, which is a must in consecrated life. I mean the kind of "popular-ity" that is gained by not offending numbers of influen-tial people. People accrue such "popularity" by not making decisions that are badly needed for the common good--even when their conscience prompts them to do so. They avoid certain good decisions simply because they would offend the majority of the members. It is a "popularity" that is gained and sustained by pandering to a lumpenproletariat. The more superiors do not make deci-sions that would make them unpopular with the major-ity, the more acceptable they become all around. The more they evade their bounden duty to make decisions that could make them unpopular, the greater their chances of getting reelected or reappointed. This is why today, in quite a number of congregations, we hear mem-bers saying: "We made sure to have so-and-so elected because we are sure he (or she) will not rock the boat." To illustrate the point here, let us look at the now popular sabbaticals. Is it always those who really deserve a real break after a tedious involvement in the congre- Review for Religious gational apostolate who get a sabbatical today? Are all those who go for sabbaticals the "burnt-out" persons? What about the way some superiors treat members who complain that they lack self-fulfillment? Are they not fre-quently permitted to find their "self-fulfillment" by get-ting into any and every personal apostolate or pet project, even when these cut them off from their communities? Today it is not uncommon to send abroad for higher stud-ies persons who are erratic or wanting in their basic reli-gious commitment. The persons concerned may not even have the capacity for studies, but to some superiors this seems a diplomatic way of handling the problem, at least temporarily. They do not realize or do not wish to real-ize that such evasions leave the problem for their suc-cessors in office. Such ways of acting are neither just nor charitable even from the point of view of the persons thus treated. Instead of addressing the real problem of the person with genuine charity and justice, they tem-porarily circumvent the issue, not out of sympathy, but instead out of concern for their own survival. Regrettably, avoiding good hard decisions has become an accepted way of being "politically correct" in consecrated life today. So has making decisions that are only temporarily satis-factory, and may be disastrous in the long run. In both these cases, the problematic root is "political correct" words and deeds or superiors' spui'ious "popularity." Prophecy and Diplomacy Do Not Sit Well Together But is conscious evading or circumventing of deci-sions morally correct? Is it the way to be prophetic? Time and again one hears it said: "Well, this is the way things have turned out in consecrated life today, and so what can we do?" "This is the way even most of the bish-ops act, and so what is wrong if our own religious supe-riors do the same?" Unfortunately, this way of looking at 65.2 2006 Tirimanna ¯ Are Religious Superiors Called to Be "Politically Correct"? 174 1 things seems to ignore the very nature and purpose of consecrated life. From its very origins, one of the char-acteristics of consecrated life has been its prophetic nature. Pope John Paul II in his ~ta consecrata enunciated this point well: There is a prophetic dimension which belongs to the consecrated life as such, resulting from the radical nature of the following of Christ and of the subse-quent dedication to the mission characteristic of the consecrated life. The sign value, which the Second Vatican Council acknowledges in the consecrated life, is expressed in prophetic witness to the primacy which God and the truths of the gospel have in Christian life. (§84) A careful scrutiny of history would show us how, at different moments of decadence in church life, it was consecrated life that raised the church out of decadence through its witnessing, thus giving the church prophetic leadership: In effect, the consecrated life is at the very heart of the church as a decisive element for her mission, since it "manifests the inner nature of the Christian calling" and the striving of the whole church as Bride toward the union with her one Spouse. At the Synod it was stated on several occasions that the consecrated life has not only proved a help and support for the church in the past, but is also a necessary gift for the present and future of the people of God, since it is an inti-mate part of her life, her holiness, and her mission. (~ta consecrata, §3; emphasis in the original) So, to argue that the superiors are only emulating the way things are done by the hierarchical church lead-ership is not correct, for consecrated life has to give the lead to the rest of the church, even regarding pastoral leadership. As the late moral theologian Father Bernard Hiiring often told his students, prophecy and diplomacy (in today's parlance, "politically correctness") do not and Review for Religious cannot sit together comfortably. One has to give way to the other. A good number of contemporary religious superiors fail to make proper decisions because they wish to be "politically correct." Thus they not only betray their own vocation to be prophetic, but they gravely damage the common good of the communities entrusted to them. Besides, if a religious superior is supposed to be a pastor, then he has the bounden duty towards the well being of the members. This duty includes fraternal cor-rection. If members go astray and deviate from the group's charism, it is the duty of the shepherd (the reli-gious superior) to begin fraternal correction in charity, even if it hurts. The supe-rior owes such correction to the individuals and the group. Their integral well-being as consecrated peo-ple is one of the superior's top priorities. If superiors shirk this difficult role of fraternal correction in order to be "politically cor-rect," they have no right to Consecrated life has to give the lead to the rest of the church, even regarding pastoral leadership. remain in office, because they have failed in their pri-mary duty of working towards the well-being of the con-gregation and the church. Superiors who do not have as their goal the common good of the congregation and the church contribute to their decadence. Instead of swimming against the popular secular currents, they clearly betray the consecrated prophetic life so well explained by Pope John Paul II: In our world, where it often seems that the signs of God's presence have been lost from sight, a convinc-ing prophetic witness on the part of consecrated per- 65.2 2006 Tirimanna ¯ Are Religious Superiors Called to Be "Politically Correct"? sons is increasingly necessary. Consecrated per-sons are being asked to bear wimess everywhere with the boldness of a prophet who is unafraid of risking even his life. (VC §85) Prophetic Leadership Will the majority of superiors in consecrated life con-tinue to allow the secular democratic political trends to be their model in the coming years? Or will they give prophetic leadership to their own communities by acting according to the moral norms of what is right and wrong? Will they act for their own "good" or for the common good of their institutes? The writer is con-vinced that it is high time that religious superiors become more responsible and accountable in their decision mak-ing as animators, and thus allow their consciences, their specific religious charisms, and the common good to be the norms in their decision making. The norm of being "politically correct" should be the last in their list of pri-orities, for they are certainly not to be "politicians" who eagerly seek popularity, as in the secular world. In this way, they not only will arrest the decline in the quality of contemporary consecrated life, but will also be giving prophetic leadership to the church and the world. 176 Review for Religious BRENDAN KNEALE Identifying Identity among Nonclerical Religious Before Vatican Council II most Catholic priests, eligious, and laypeople had no "identity crisis." We knew who we were, our place seemed well defined, and we had no impending threat of change. Our per-sonal identity and our .social identity were clear and unthreatened, It may, however, be a good thing that after the council we had to take a close look at our identity. Perhaps we ought to question the quality of our earlier identity. Did it show signs of the identity claims that Pharisees made in Christ's time? They and the scribes were quite self-assured groups. Some of us were, too, maybe to the point of blind confidence in our identity. Among religious there was a saying:?'Keep the Rule and the Rule will keep you." It was, we can see now, a dan-gerous motto, even though it assured our identity. St. Paul, who had been a strict Pharisee, came to realize the danger. Brendan Kneale FSC taught for many years at Saint Mary's College of California. Now retired, he lives at De La Salle Institute; 4405 Redwood Road; Napa, California 94558. 65.2 2006 Kneale ¯ Identifying Identity among, Nonclerical Religious What should have happened after Vatican II was a strengthening and sharpening of our identity. Unfortunately, that was not the popular perception of the changes that had been made. Even though changes initiated by the council were intended as clarifications and improvements, we tended to feel, instead, that things were no longer well defined. Shortly after the council, we heard of religious teachers here or there whose dress, teaching, and behavior led students to express surprise that they were religious or even Catholics. After Vatican II, people asked, "Is this the same church?" Some religious and priests asked, "Is mine the same apostolate?" "Is my school or hospital still Catholic?" "Is there any longer a place for the conse-crated life?" After Vatican II many teachers wondered, "Does the syllabus for my catechetical instruction in the classroom truly represent what I believe?" Or "Are all the liturgical innovations good?" And religious asked, "Have laypeople taken over our role?" "Who am I now?" A Definition of Identity It would be refreshing if all who talk about "iden-tity" were really sure what they are talking about. Few people have a clear definition of the term. In various contexts we confuse identity with "self-image" or "per-sonhood" or "character," or perhaps with "individual-ity," "uniqueness," or an adopted "persona." Fortunately, there are careful thinkers available to address the prob-lem of identifying identity. We are told that Erik Erikson, the psychologist who coined the term "identity crisis" (right after Vatican II, significantly), believed that an identity crisis is "the most important conflict human beings encounter." His defi-nition of psychological identity ran as follows: "a sub-jective sense as well as an observable quality of personal Review for Religious sameness and continuity, paired with some belief in the sameness and continuity of some shared world image." Such a definition has the virtue of pointing squarely at both personal and social identity, that is, both private and public. Lexicographers agree that there are two chief emphases in the notion of identity. Etymologically "iden-tity" (from the Latin idem, the same) is, first of all, an enduring and distinctive individuality and, second, a social or relational "belonging." That is, peo-ple are identifiable by their unique and continu-ing sameness (generally indicated by a permanent - name and fixed array of recognizable psychological traits), and they are identifiable by what membership they have within a recognized group. Thus, in answer to "Who are you?" we will give our name to help the questioner to recall our uniqueness, or we will describe (if our uniform does not indicate it) what recognizable place we occupy in a clear social category. Thus we have a private identity and a public identity. Note that the two identities support each other. In fact, an African proverb has it that "I am because we are." A way to gain insight into identity is to contrast it with related ideas. We should try to keep the terminol-ogy clear about what identity is not. It is not "charac-ter," which is "a constellation of enduring motivational and other traits that are manifested in the typical ways that we react to various challenges." Character, then, may be taken as the moral side of one's identity. Nor is identity simply "self." "Self is a unified being which is the source of an idiosyncratic consciousness, the agent We have a.private identity and a public identity. 65.2 2006 Kneale ¯ Identifying Identity among Nonclerical Religious responsible for the thoughts and actions of an individual to which they are ascribed." Hence self is an abstract or generic term for "personal identity"; it is not the same as the important and complementary "social identity." None of the following words is a synonym for iden, tity. "Individual" is mostly a quantitative term; it is related to the words undivided and indivisible. "Person"~ is, according to Thomas Aquinas, "the individual substance of a rational soul" and does not disappear if one's identity is vague or shifting. "Personality" is something different; it includes the social as well as the more strictly personal. Dictionaries say that personality is the complex of char-acteristics that distinguishes an individual or a group or nation--but especially the totality of an individual's behavioral and emotional characteristics. Identity is at the core of this "complex of characteristics" (which makes the loss of identity a serious matter). "Persona" and "role" derive from drama, from play-acting, and are of co,urse the weakest versions of what we mean by identity. In an extended article in Consecrated Life 24, no. 2 (February 2003), Father Amadeo Cencini has developed the notion of social identity by emphasizing the id.entity which comes from "belonging." He uses that word because, in identifying ourselyes, we often specify the career, occupation, group, race, persuasion, and so forth to which we "belong." Those of us belonging to conse-crated life may identify ourselves as members of a named religious institute and belonging here or there within it. This answer makes our personal identity derivable, to some extent, from that of the larger group. Sometimes our identity is seen as tied to "our roots" within a social group. Suppose, however, that the group to which one iden-tifies oneself.as belonging (say, a religious institute) has itself no clear identity. If that group has an identity that Review for Religious is fuzzy or vague, then one of the two main sources of identity (namely, "belonging") is comproinised. A reli-gious institute could have evolved (perhaps calling the change "refounding the order") into something different from .what it was. Moreover, even the larger church, to which the institute belongs, could itself also change enough to confuse people about its own identity. For example, the church could seem to speak without a clear voice about itself, and an institute of consecrated life could becom~ canonically unsure about whether laypeo-pie are "members." Or it might interpret certain changes (like emphasis on adult education or on political involve-ment) as challenges to its identity as teachers of youth or caretakers of the sick. It could wonder if other forms of social service rather than classroom or hospital work should be what the church asks for. Official Ecclesial Positions Readers will know that since Vatican II the church has taken up the problem of identity officially and for-mally. The Vatican (following special synods of bishops) has published three clarifying documents, one each for the benefit of priests, laypeople, and religious. The doc-ument about religious is called ~ta consecrata (1996) and addresses the nature and identity of consecrated life. In particular, and depending heavily on the work of a pre-vious world synod of bishops, Vita konsecrata devoted its section 57 to the role of sisters and section 60 to broth-ers. These paragraphs include the following excerpts: By virtue of their dedication lived in fullness and in joy, consecrated women are called in a very special way to be signs of God's tender love toward the human race and to be special witnesses to the mystery of the church, virgin, bride, and mother . Certainly the validity of many assertions relating to the position of 181 65.2 2006 Kneale * Identifying Identity among Nonclerical Relig4ous .women in different sectors of society and of the church cannot be denied . Women's new self-awareness helps men to reconsider their way of looking at things, the way they understand themselves, where thE)) place themselves in history and how they interpret it, and the way they organize social, political, economic, reli-gious, and ecclesial life . The consecrated woman . . . can help eliminate certain one-sided perspectives which do not fully rec-ognize her dignity and her specific contribution to the church's life and pastoral and missionary activity. Consecrated women therefore rightly aspire to have their identity, ability, mission, and responsibility more clearly recognized, both in the awareness of the church and in everyday life. The consecrated life by its nature "is neither lay nor clerical" . The "lay consecration" of both men and women constitutes a state which in its profession of the evangelical counsels is complete in itself. for the individual and for the church . . . apart from the sacred ministry. The synod expressed great esteem for the kind. of consecrated life in which r.eligious brothers provide valuable services of various kinds, inside or outside the community, participating in this way in the mission of proclaiming the gospel and bearing witness to it with charity in everyday life. Although [lay institutes] perform many works in common with the lay faithful, [members] do so inso-far as. they are consecrated and thereby express the spirit of total self-giving to Christ and the church, in accordance with ~heir specific charism. The term "brother" suggests a rich spirituality. ¯ Brothers are an effective reminder to religious priests themselves of the fundamental dimension of brother-hood in Christ, to be lived among themselves and with every man and woman, and they proclaim to all the Lord's words: "And you are all brothers" (M(23:8). We might add that, when Father Amadeo Cencini wrote about the problem of identity, he called attention Review for Religious to the important role of an institute's charism--a point also emphasized in Vita consecrata. An obvious way to increase a sense of our belonging (and our identity) is by attachment to the institute's charism (provided that the corporate identity is itself clear). Cencini notes that some individual reli-gious are weakly con-nected to the charism of their institute, or hold divided loyalties, or, on the other hand, immerse themselves within it in a psycho-logically unhealthy way. We can recall in Some individual religious are weak!y connect, ed to the charism of their institute or hold divided loyalties. this connection the recommendations of the classic work The Future of Religious Orders in the U.S.: Transformation and Commitment by Father David Nygren and Sister Miriam Ukeritis. The proper connection to the charism and the best sense of belonging are to be found, says Cencini, by a deepening of one's attachment to the charism in three ways: by way of prayer and spiritual-connection, by ascetically conforming to the lifestyle of the institute's norms, and by real engagement in the common aposto-late. (Perhaps he could have added: study and grasp of the relevant literature.) This last point about "real engagement" raises an acute problem for some conse-crated religious: What identifies us as distinct from our secular associates and coworkers? If one uses a simply functional definition of our state, then the problem is indeed acute. Many of our secular associates, such as Gospel Catholics, practice in accordance with their voca-tions a chastity, obedience, and poverty that are often more difficult than ours. They sometimes show more 65.2 2006 Kneale ¯ Identifying Identity among Nonclerical Religious 184 talent, dedication, and leadership than their religious colleagues. If, however, we consider who we are and do not just look at our function, then we see a.radical dif-ference between us and them. If we are aware what we are in relation to the evangelical counsels and in rela-tion to auxiliary vows, what we are in terms of commu-nity life, what we are in relation to mobility, to the radicality, quality, and scope of our availability and ser-vice, then we should not have a problem. In addition tb ~vhat Cencini writes about an insti-tute's common and received charism, wecould emphasize the desirability of our contributing to the charism in some innovative way. If we could do that, it seems to me, we would increase our sense of belonging, and even of "ownership." Each of us should bring to the charism, by conscious effort, an enrichment that stems from our personal talents, from our studies, and from our auxiliary memberships in professional and religious associations (in relation to which we can see our own identity more clearly). Charism is not static. Individuals enrich the charisms of their communities. The differing charisms of various consecrated reli-gious groups illustrate a principle that helps clarify cor-porate identity, namely, the principle of an institutional subsidarity and "division of labor" within the church. Each institute has its own apostolic charism and thus its own responsibility. It is true that numerous apostolic needs are great and pressing, and occasionally they are overriding, but normally we keep our corporate identity by doing our own apostolic labor, not th

Issue 38.1 of the Review for Religious, 1979. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X) is edited in collaboration with 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 Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. © 1979 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A.: $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 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Daniel 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 January, 1979 Volume 38 Number 1 Correspondence with the editor and the associate editors, manuscripts and books for review should be sent to REVIEW Fort R~LICIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gailen, 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. Review for Religious Volume 38, 1979 Editorial Offices 3601 Lindell Boulevard, Room 428 Saint Louis, Missouri 63108" Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Joseph F. Gallen, SJ. Miss Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is published in January, March, May, July, Sep-tember, and November on the fifteenth of the month. It is indexed in the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index and in Book Review Index. A microfilm edition of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is available from University Microfilms International; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyright © 1979 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Stewardship, Justice and the Religious Purpose in Education William J. Byron, S.J. Father Byron is President'of Scranton Univergity; Scranton, PA 18510. ere are three ideas°ar'ound which I would like toor, ganize this essay. The first two., stewardship and justice, will be relat~ ely brief. The tfiird notion concerns ou~" religious purpose in edu'cation. I holSe to develop it'in~ a way that will make a case for the educ~itional apostolate as'an +xercise of stewardship arid an instrument of justice. Stewardship It has been interesting to obser~ve in the 15as! several°years a renewed' interest in the notion of s~eWardshil5°in the Catholic 'community. We are discove'ring (or rediscoverifig) that"riOt ~0nly is stewardship a simple term, it is also an uncbmplicated~solutioh to significant portions "of some major s~ciai prolSlems. In practice, stewardship is an instrument of social justice. Reflo~ztiOn°ofi'ste~a~dghil~ might begin with the first verse of the Twdfity-fourth Ps~l~a: '"The earth is the Lord's iind"the fulhess thereof." All of material 6reation, as Well as all wealth flowing from it, b~longs to God. Wealth possessed ~r~produced by human persons is owne~ by' God. We own nothing abs0iut~ly; all We have we hold in trust. Thi~ is the ffiith foundation of th6 stewardship perspective. As composites c~f body and soul, we include our intellectual and spiritual resources as part, of the basic endowment which belongs ~to the Lord: Our use of both ~nateri~l and immaterial r~sources is intended to be an exercise of ste,.wafdshio.~ , .~ 4 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 All we have we hold in trust for other~for those who inhabit this planet with us.now, and for those who will live here in the future. Stewardship has inescapable societal obligations. Why do I say all we have is held in trust for others? Why not owned by God and held by me for my personal use? Why the social dimension? Possession of a particular share of created resources may be private, but that private share cannot be used without regard for others. There are two considerations here: one of equity, the other of responsibility. On the equity side I have to ask, "Is my share a fair one relative to the needs and claims of others?" Put another way, does my share represent an unfair gain taken at the expense of others?" The equity issue quite obvi-ously relates more immediately to the possession and use of material re-sources rather than to those that are spiritual and intellectual. It is not necessary for someone to .know less mathematics so that I might know more. My food supply, however, may be held at the expense of someone less fortunate than I. Broadening the equity consideration from the individhal person to a larger group (as, for instance, one's race or nation) one can ask the equity question this way: does my group's share represent an unfair gain taken at the expense of other groups-? The responsibility consideration looks to the future. Are resources being used now in a way that will provide for future generations a secure basis for their existence? Again, this is easier to see with respect to material re-sources. If we depli~e our oil supplies, will they have an alternative source of-energy? If we pollute our lakes and streams, will they have ffater to drink? If we fail to sustain our soil, will they have bread to sustain their lives? What we refer to as "our" resources are also theirs, for they, like us, are sons and daughters of the sole owner, the Lord, who has entrusted his creation to our care and for our use. We are stewards. We own nothing absolutely. All we have we hold in trust. As inhabitants of this earth at this time, we religious educators, like our feilow~ on this planet, have stewardship responsibilities. As members of a religious community, moreover, we possess a tradition, a history, a style, some physical assets and an impressive array of spiritual and intellectual resources. We own none of these absolutely; all of these we hold in trust. We are stewards of this collective religious-community endowment. We face, therefore, considerations of equity and responsibility as we manage our collective endowment. The equity donsideration relates directly to justice and will be discussed in the next part of this article when we have to ask ourselves whether our share of these resources represents an unfair gain taken ai the expense of others. The responsibility consideration looks, as I suggested earlier, to the future. Are we using our resources, particularly our intellec.tual and spir-itual resources, in a way that is likely to enrich the lives of future inhabitants Stewardship, Justice and Purpose in Education of this planet?°The steward is in charge ofla household he does not.own. Is that ho, usehold being maintained by us in a state of apostolic readiness for effective service now and in the future? The story in ,Luke 16:1-8 of the "unjust steward" or "dishonest manager" serqi~s as a reminder that we can miSlase or misapply our heri-tage; we can indeed violate the trust that is ours. Failure to meet our responsibilities as stewards would mean failure to preserve a heritage that the Lord, the dominus, the owner of the householdmay well intend to have available for the service of future generations. To take my own Jesuit household as an example, I would include in my list of the central elements of the heritage that is now ours tb use and to preserve for the future these four: (1) The Spiritual Exercises, (2) development of the intellect, (3) service to the Holy See, and (4) apostolic flexibility. These four elements suggest that the Society of Jesus intends to foster in itself an embodiment of(1) holiness, (2)learning, (3) service to the Church, and (4)availability for necessary service ~an. ywhere in the world. ,~ Further specification of these elements rais'es four disturbing questions and one simple observation. The questions are these: 1. Does the prefer-ence .for poverty which characterizes The Spiritual Exercises also charac-terize the holiness of the Society today? 2. Does the emphasis on learning, present at the origins of the Society, remain an active emphasis in thisstage of the Society's growth and in all stages of the individual Jesuit's growth? 3. Does service to the Church of Christ and to the Vicar of Christ charac-terize our labors now as in the days of our origins? 4. Are we individually and collectively free to move our heritage and our resources in the direction of the greatest need, wherever that may be? The one observation I ~ould want to make in connection with the stewardship of the Jesuit heritage is this: formal education through the operation of schools, although part of the Jesuit tradition, is neither essen-tial to the heritage nor identifiable as an element that characterizes, the origins of the Society of Jesus. Similar reflection~, questions and observations can be directed toward the heritage and "household management" of any other religious commu-nity. " .~ o,~ 7 Justice Justice is symbolized by trays in balance on a scale. We speak of the "scale~ of justice." ~Vhen one tray yields weight to the other and imbalance occurs, the weights have to be adjusted to restore the balance. Imbalance symbolizes injustice; compen.sation makes adjustment (ad-just-ment), '~the achievement of justice, possible. Three years ago it was my privilege to address the New Orleans (Jesu'it) Province Assembly on th~ justice dimension of our apostolates~ In that paper I asked, "is ~our corporate apostolic service compensatory; are we 6 /ReviewforReligious; Volum~e 38, 197911. throwing our weight ~onto .the side of the oppressed?" I went on to say Symbolidally, justice is ~+l~resented by trays in balance on a scale.- The unbaladce of social injustice, where one group's advantage (th 'down tray) is taken at the expense .of another group (the up tray) calls for compensatory action.As a social group, we Jesuits should sh~ft our weight over to the weak stde. We see gaps between r, ch and poor, powerful and powerless, advantaged and disadvantaged. In exercising our min- " istry of justice, by whatever apostolic instruments, we sl~duld, it seems to me. trans- "' late the ideal of the Third Mode of humility into practice by choosing to be with Christ and as Christ---on the short side of all those gaps. Where do we throw our weight? Where do we throw our wealth, our income, our apostolic energy? One of the delegat6s to that assembly was the talented young lawyer-activist Alfred C. Kammer, S.J. In the question peribd following my talk, he expressed his personal view that the Society, as a group, occupier solidly and squarely the down tray in most" of the gap-comparisons that come to mind. In his recent contribution to Studies in the' Spirituality of Jesuitst Fr. Kammer~returns to my question, "Where d6 we throw our weight? Where do we throw our wealth, our income; our apostolic ener-gy?" and addresses it in these words: Th~ activist answers Father Byi'on's question by saying that the Society largely casts ' its weight with the "haves.'"with those who at best "don't care" and at worst are'the oppressors. He sees the institutional and personal weight of the Society lined up with the "haves" in such popular dichotomies as .these: white vs. black white vs. brown male vs. female U.S. vs. Third;World powerful vs. , powerless rich vs. poor . suburban vs. urban well-educated vs. poorly educated And, Fr. Kammer continues, "the,activist concludes that no matter how much Jesuits 'tinker' with their present .institutional commitments to facilitate the entry of some minority composed of the poor or disadvan, taged, th~e,.Society's weight is stii! .cgs.t overwhelmingly on the side of the well-off" (p~p. 10-11). I think Fred Kammer locates us Jesuits correctly. Weigh'ted do~v~ with the advantages of education, nutrition, health care, secure housing and all the other physical things necessary for our work, as well as those things less necessary but useful and convenient, we are on the down. tray, on the side of the well-off. Now_this raises many quegtions. What is the relatedness or relati0nship-between us and those who are less well off, those on the up tray, the disadvantaged. Are we Wher~we are because they are where they are? Has our gain been taken at their expense? With whom do we side when the issue ~" 'Burn-out' Contemporary Dilemma for the Jesuit Social Activist." Vol. X. No. 1, January 1978. Stewardship~ Justice and Purpos~e in Education is ,raised of redressing the balance? Without attempting to answer these difficult questions, I raise another that resurrects the,notion of stewardship. What are we do~ing ._with what we have? Do we manage it responsibly, share its, apply it,to the i,mprovement of life for others now and in the future? The Religious, CommUnity's Purpose in Education Many if,not most of us religious in America are stewarding our resources in an institutional educational environment. Will our stewardship-have anything .significant to contribute to .the promotion of justice? It may well be true that ~tinkering with our institutional arrangements will not shift our weight completely and existentially to the side of the poor and powerless. One need not conclude, however, that we must abandon our advantages. Nor does it follow that the down tray is necessarily the wrong place for' many religious to be. If we de=institutionalized our works, if wee gave away every physical asset we igossess ~nd went to live with the poor, poverty wo(dd be fieither relieved nor ~r~duced. We ar~ ~lo~t,lbcked 'into an adversary rel~ti6h~hip on the side ofth( rich againstth6 po6÷, 0n the side of whites against the blacks, on the side of a@ dominantgroup agaii~st any oppressed minoi'ity. We are in a position to'convert the "versus" linkages into hyphens find to forge connecting links of ~:econciliation between rich and poor, black and white, and other- di~,ided ~roups. A~dmittedly, many if not :most of us, a?e on the down tray. Admittedly, all occupants of the down tray will have to give somethingup if some semblance of balance is to b~.realized, and'most are unwilling to give up anything. And admittedly, the effort tO~'fi'chieve a balance between the trays is uphill and long range. But that is ttie.hatu're of the work we are called to do. Are we'free enough to do l~h~at i,v~b{k well? Central to an~ educational ~ork isthe develop~ment 0f"tiun~a~] potential. Human potential stretches into eternity;~the positive~side toward union with the Creatoi"bf that human p0t.e0[i-hl; the negative side points to the possibil: ity of eterh~i! alienation. , Formai education's inte{ests are coextensive with the entire range of positi~,e p~ssibiliti~s for human development. Recognition of this fact came early in Jesuit historY,. For more th~n four centuries now, we have been choosing formal education as an extr~brdinarily v~luable instrument for our work in the development of hum~.n potential. Many other religious in-sii'tutes have made'the same decision. ,:~ ,,~ ¯ At.this moment in our history, we Jesuits of the United States are faced with a.decline in numbers,'a fairly widespread loss.of nerve, some uneasi-ness ,about the appropriateness of our life-style and our ability, to live harmoniously and work effectively in companionship, and we are also faced with nagging doubts about.the apostolic value of what we are doing in,our schools. Our experience is.not uriique. In addition, we Jesuits have~lSeen challenged to redefifi~ ourselves~.and our mission.in terms of the service of 8 /Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 faith and the promotion of justice: Can this redefinition and concommitant rededication happen without abandonment:of our commitment.to formal educatiori? I think it can. Our Jesuit purpose in education is a logical extension of our stewardship and justice responsibilities.~And the same is true for many other religious. Formal education's interests are coextensive with the entire range of positive possibilities for human development. That is why religious communities choose formal education for their members, and choose to offer formal education to others. Higher education touches that ra.nge" of positive possibilities in a priv-ileged way. Wisdom is areal possibility at the stage of human development associated with higher education. At this level it is the privilege of educa-tors to group themselves into communities of inquiry which may become or beget wisdom communities,. The religious purpose in higher education is to move the minds and hearts of developing persons. The direction of this movement is Godward. The norm is truth. The outcome, it is to be hoped, is wisdom. And wisdom, we would all agree, is a gift from God. As the religious is a faith-committed person, so religious education is intended to be faith-commjttedactivity. If, as faith directs, everything depends on God, then wisdom would suggest that every'thing must be entrusted to God. If such wisdom is present with us at the beginning of religiously sponsored education, it may well be expected to reside with our students at the end of the edpcati0nal experi-ence. Any religious experience involves a search for God's will. This search, in the vocabulary of spirituality, goes b.y the name of discernment. And discernment, as we all know, is a wisdom characteristic. As any Jesuit knows, the Igna.tian way of discernment cannot be learned, from books. It can only be exp,grienced under the direction of a sensitive gpide. Hence, a special task, a privileged opportunity for Jesuits in higher education is to offer the e,xperience' of The Spiritual Exercises to those in .the learning community who want to grow spiritually. In the context o'f the Exercises, as in the classroom, learning should be directed by a motivator-organizer and assimilated by an active participant in the process. As a classroom educator or spiritual guide, the Jesuit, as an instrument of God's grace, is expected to assist the Spirit in moving the minds and hearts of those who want to grow. -' In the domain of higher education, there are many with the potential for wisdom. That is why Jesuits gather there to work. Their task is not only to teach and search for truth in all its forms, but also to share their founder's special grace with those who want to grow the Ignatian way. The Ignatian way toward wisdom is part of the heritage, the endowment over which every Jesuit exercises a stew~irdship responsibility. His antecedent respon-sibility; of course, is to have internalized the Ignatian way. His educational methods :will; not surprisingly, reflect it. Normally, his desire will be to live and work in companionship with others who are familiar with the Ignatian Stewardship, Justice and Purpose in Education way. And the Jesuit's hope, wherever he works, will be to share this way Or see it shared with others. That is responsible stewardship. It is also part of the Jesuit purpose in education. Parallel purposes, hopes and apostolic approaches characterize the work of other religious who are educators. There is much of a practical nature that (ould be said of education-for-justice efforts now underway in Catholic educational institutions. A lot of experience is accumulating. Rather than listing courses, projects and field experiences of demonstrated value, I would prefer to mention only one program that is designed to assist all educators in addressing the world hunger issue. Atthe 1974 World Food Conference in Rome, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger pledged the cooperation of the United States to work with other nations so that "within a decade no child will go to bed hungry" anywhere in the world. In hopes of facilitating contributions from educational institu-tions toward this goal, Bread for the World Educational Fund launched in 1976 a Decade of Commitment on World Hunger (DCWH). The program is designed for institutions of higher education. It provides conference oppor-tunities for administrators, faculty, campus ministers, career guidance counselors and students to share ways of placing and keeping hunger on the academic agenda. Emphasis is placed on four areas within which colleges ~:an deal with the hunger issue: curriculum, research, campus ministry and career choices made by students ("In the face of the world hunger problem, what are.you going to do with your life?").?~ Som~ of.the best work in justice-education is happening in secondary schools. Again I refrain from listing the specifics. I would, however, like to say a word about the person of the secondary educator. To put it more pr.ecisely, I would like to repeat a great theologian's reflections on the value of the person and importance of the work of the religious who is a high school_teacher. The Jesuit secondary educator is the man John Courtney Murray, de-scribed with admiration and affection as "The Schoolmaster." He spoke of the schoolmaster as the grammarian, the person who is knowledgeable in the elements of his subject, whose knowledge is, in this sense, elementary but certainly not superficial. The schoolmaster is devoted to the communi-cation of these elements as a lifetime work. Being a schoolmaster, said Fr. Murray to a Jesuit audience at Woodstock in 1961, is '~being on the growing edge of things, beca.use the growing edge is youth." "We are supposed to be Jesuit ministers of growth," he added, "'ad profectum animarum." "We are supposed to be men of tomorrow. One of "~The Educational Fund, which can also provide worship aids and high school course-materials on hunger, is a separate corporation closely related to the Christian citi~.ens lobby known simply as Bread for the World (207 East 16th Street, New York City 10003). Membership in Bread for the World (annual dues $10) will keep one informed, by means of a monthly newsletter and background papers, about the hunger issue. "10 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 our earliest undertakings was to become schoolmasters, schoolmen. Doc-trina exacta et solida is first the tradition of the Church; it is also the tradition of reason. We are committed to an intellectual apostolate--a min-istry of and io intelligence." The schoolmaster imparts the skills and guides the maturation process. The more fully the religious schoolmaster or schoolmistress has assimilated the basic elements of his or her religious, heritage, the more valuable is he or she as a role model in the 'midst of the young. The classroom teacher's task is largely one of method and motivation; the object is to move both minds and hearts. Inevitably, the response the teacher stimulates will be a response to himself or herself. This is a privileged relationship. If the sct~oolmaster (or the scholar, for that matter) is a person of justice, a sense of justice will be communicated to the students. If the institution-alized set of arrangements known as a school embodies in its procedures relationships of justice, then those who teach and learn there will, in vary-ing degrees, embody in themselves the principles of justice. The religious schoolmaster has, of course, a life outside the classroom. There are pastoral opportunities and citizenship responsibilities. The apostolic base, the school, can and should.be a place from which the religious reaches out to the Christian and civic communities for the service of faith and promotion.of justice. That outreach will, it might be expected, involve both witness and advocacy roles in 'the cause of justice as an expression of faith. Education for justice is a challenge we religious are capable of meeting. We should have no doubt about that. Whether we will. meet it or not is another matter. But we can, if we choose. The educational outcomes, the results of our efforts to educate for justice, depend on powers beyond our own. There is no reason to believe that the Lord will not raise up men and women of justice in our midst and in our times. I recognize that there is no bne method known now to be the most effective in educating for justice. The argument over method goes back to the Aristotelian notion that the one who does justice will come to under-stand justice; and back as well to Plato's view that the one who first understands justice will then act justly. In this important matter of educat-ing for justice, we Catholic educators have a laboratory system in our American schools and colleges. We can try different methods in different situations and compare results. The findings of our experiments in educa-tion for justice can be shared with other educators in other systems. We can make a difference here. As we do it our way, in the intellectual-educational mode, unjust, ex-pioitative, discriminatory and oppressive situations will remain in our world. But in direct proportion to our success in educating fqr justice, future world situations will have a reduced share of injustice. It is a Chris-tian characteristic not to give up on the future. Stewardship, Justice and Purpose in Education / 11 Father BenWren, a New Orleans Province Jesuit whose scholarly inter-ests include Eastern mysticism, tells me that there is a Chinese saying to0the effect that one who is concerned with planning for a year should plant rice; the person interested in planning for a decade should plant trees. But one who wants to plan for a century will surely want to educate people. There.is a religious purpose in education. That purpose is consistent, for example, with our contemporary Jesuit focus on the service of faith and the specification of that service in the promotion ofjustice. The activist impulse suggested by the word promotion is quite congenial with our purpose and style of education. Through education; we can touch both trays on the scalEs of justice. When we work with the advantaged, we should have the disadvantaged in mind. We can challenge ourselves and all others who occupy the down tray to dedicate ourselves in conscience to making life livable for the poorest of the poor. When we work directly with the e~onom-ically disadvantaged, we can assist them in developing the competencies that can help them move toward a better life. The earliest Jesuit schools were free. But never, so far as I can deter-mine, were Jesuit schools exclusively for the poor or exclusively for the rich. Today, we are with the rich,much more than we are with the poor in our educational work. Who can say that we cannot somehow, somewhere in the decades ahead bring our educational energies into more direct contact with the poor? Who can say that we will not, in the meantime, find new and effective ways of bringing the "haves" with wtiom we work to an accept~ ance of their obligations injustice toward the "have nots"? And who woul~l want to take responsibility for disengaging ourselves from the apostolate that makes either option possible? That last question, in my view, highlights the importance of personal and community life-style for those who work in the educational apostolate. We religious in America are perfectly capable of going soft. We can indeed insulate and isolate ourselves from the condition of the disadvantaged masses. We are capable of-violating our stewardship. If that should happen, justice will not be served and the religious purpose in education will have lost its salt. In The American Mind (Yale, 1950), Henry Steele Commager remarks that for Willa Cather, the past was significant for its moral qualities. Her long literary life was, according to Commager, an elaborate remembrance of things past--the past of the pioneers who had built the West, of the immigrants who had carried with them into the New World their sense of beauty and art, of those earlier spiritual pathfinders, the Franciscans and Jesuits, who had served their fellowmen and their God so selflessly. And all her novels and stories., were animated by a single great theme as they w.ere graced by a single felicitous style, the theme was that of the supremacy of moral and spiritual over material values, the ever recurrent but inexhaustible theme of gaining the whole world and losing one's soul (p. 150). Dealing, as she did, with the frontier as the setting for many of her 12 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 stories, Miss Cather apparently found inspiration in the frontier idea and saw it as a setting for clarification, and dramatization of moral issues. Hence, as Commager points out, the passing of the pioneer generation meant, to Miss Cather, the passing of all the old virtues, "and she was incapable of believing that there could be different virtues in a civilization whose standards were those of the countinghouse, whose habits were predatory, and whose rewards were social and ostentatious rather than spiritual and private" (p. 154). Commager cites a tribute to Nebraska writ-ten by Willa Cather in the early 1920's: We must face the fact that the splendid story of the pioneers is finished and that no new story worthy to take its place has yet begun . The generation now in the driver's seat hates to make anything, wants to live and die in an automobile, scudding past those acres where the old man used to follow the corn rows up and down. They want to buy everything ready-made: clothes, food., education, music, pleasure; Will the third generation--the full-blooded joyous ones just coming over the hill--be fooled? Will it believe that to live easily is to live happily.'? (p. 154). Two generations have passed since those words were written. Religious at work in Nebraska and elsewhere in America are prepared to admit that many of us in many different driver's seats have been fooled. Regrettably, some of us, by witness and word, have foolishly encouraged others to believe that to live easily is to live happily. The "new story" thatoWilla Cather was looking for in Nebraska,can be written anywhere in America by contemporary religious educators, if they choose to. I suspect that "the full-blooded joyous ones just coming over the hill" are not now being fooled; they recognize that if we want to live happily, we will want to do what we can to make life livable for the poorest of the poor. Schools alone cannot do it and they certainly cannot do it right away. But without the schools, it will not be done at all:. Discipleship and Loneliness: A Marcan Meditation Michael T. Winstanley, S.D.B. Father Winstanley lectures in New Testament Studies at Ushaw College, the Senior Seminary for the Northern Dioceses of Eng_l, and. He lives in the Salesian community attached to Ushaw College; Durham DH7 9RH; England. His last article, "'Jesus, Poverty and the Kingdom," appeared in the July, 1977 issue. Your vow to remain unmarried for the sake of God's kingdom will draw you into the loneliness of the cross of Jesus and reveal the basic loneliness of every man.1 In his,book The Calvary Christ Gerald O'Collins writes: "Too often a cloud of stale words covers Calvary. Theologians and exegetes can use a language remote from anything we feel. Conventional-religious art asks for our conventional reaction. Tendencies .towards evasion in all of us allow this art to continue and the dull language to grind on. We accept the old fo.rmulas, the familiar crucifixes and the ponderous pronouncements of scholars with a mixture of loyalty and mystification. We need to find and fashi6n ways of reflecting on the crucifixion which can let it speak to us again with. new power.'' How far this statement mirrors our feelings and experience, each indi-viduai must judge. I should like to suggest that one way of reflecting on the crucifixion which can indeed let it speak to us again with new power is to tRulefor a New Brother (London; Darton, Longman & Todd, 1973), p. 16. 2G. O'Collins, The Calvary Christ (London, SCM, 1977), p. ix. 13 14 / Review for Religious, Volume 38,~ 1979/1 take one evangelist's presentation of the passion of Jesus, to meditate on it, and to allow its impact to challenge our lives. For each of the evangelists narrates the story in his own way, with his own particular emphases, highlighting different aspects of the drama, f~cusing different facets of the person of Jesus,.communicating his own theological vision and understand-ing of the significance of the event. Unfortunately, the originality of each approach is often blurred, and the sharpness blunted by the comfortably generalized picture which most of us have. In this article I shall concentrate on one of the motifs which dominates the passion according to Mark, namely the loneliness of Jesus.3 It is this which constitutes his greatest suffering, far more than any physical pain. In fact, Mark, as indeed the other three evangelists, evinces little interest in the physical torments of the Master, laying little stress upon them. Mark's Gospel has been called a passion narrative with a long introduction. This reminds us to view the passion within the framework of the whole Gospel; consequently, in our consideration of some of the elements of the narrative, it will be necessary to refer back to earlier sections of the Gospel. The earliest passion narratives probably began with the arrest scene. "Suddenly, while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, appeared, and with him was a crowd armed with swords and ~cudgels; sent by the chief priests, lawyers and elders." The man responsi.ble .for the success of the arrest is not one of those whose constant opposition had dogged Jesus' tracks, but "one of the twelve," one of his friends. Our minds flash back to an earlier scene in which Jesus "then went up into the hill country and called the men he wanted: and they went and joined him. He appointed twelve to be with him, to be sent out to proclaim the gospel, with a commis-sion to drive out devils. So he appointed the twelve .-." (3,13-16). Discipleship is primarily a personal call to the intimacy of friendship, a being "singled out" in order to "be with." It is one of these chosen ones who had shared his fellowship who is the traitor; and the sign of his treach, ery is the normal sign of respect and friendship: "When he reached the spot, he stepped forward at once and said to Jesus, 'Rabbi,' and kissed him. Then they seized him and held him fast." The verb Mark uses here means a particularly ~iffectionate kiss, a firm embrace. After a futile act of token resist~ince which served only to emphasize Jesus' defenselessness, "they deserted him and fled, every one of them," including the~youthful follower who narrowly evaded capture. , Mark recounts this Scene with a laconic matter-of-factness that is chill-ingly disconcerting. Earlier that evening, as they walked together from the supper room to the garden, Jesus had predicted their flight: "You will all fall from .your faith; for it stands written: 'I will strike the shepherd down and the sheep will be scattered.'" And Peter, not untypically, had insisted that he would die even, rather than disown Jesus. "And they all said the same" 3cf. Hendrickx, The Passian Narratives (Manila, East Asian Pastoral Institute, 1977). Discipleship and Loneliness: A Marcan Meditation / 15 (14, 26-31). Yet they were not Slow to seek their own safety and leave Jesus to face his fate alone. This flight and abandonment, the memory of which haunted the early Christians, was in fact the culmination of that failure on the part of the disciples both to understand and to accept the messiahship of Jesus which Mark traces throughout this Gospel, especially after Caesarea Philippi in Chapter Eight. On that occasion, in answer to Jesus' questioning concerning people's opinions about him~ and his further probing as to the views of the disciples, Peter, as their spokesman, professed Jesus' messiahship. Jesus responded by speaking openly about his passion for the first time, which provoked a bewildered attempt to dissuade him. At this time Jesus rebuked Peter in ~strong terms for his thinking as men think rather than as God thinks, and proceeded to outline the nature of discipleship: "~nyone who wishes to be a follower of mine must leave self behind, he must take up his cross and come with me" (8,34). A little later in the narrative, as they journeyed through Galilee, Jesus again spoke of his passion, "but they did not understand what he said and were afraid to ask" (9,32). And on their way they argued about seniority and importance and greatness. Jesus predicted his passion for the third, time on the road going up to Jerusalem in terms which were unmistakably clear. The failure of the disciples to understand is illustrated by the next incident, in which the two sons of Zebedee made a bid for the top jobs in the Kingdom. The rest were naturally indignant about this, a row broke, out, and Jesus, in patient frustra-tion, attempted to open their minds to the nature of his messiahship and of his kingdom, and to the real meaning of discipleship in terms of service (10,44-45). It is this inability or unwillingness to grasp and to accept what messiah-ship meant for Jesus when this proved to be different from what the twelve were expecting and hopiag for; this inability or unwillingness to embrace in vision and in lifestyle the kind of discipleship such a messiah demanded, which expressed itself so decisively in their garden choice not to be "with him," to care for their own safety (8,35), to forsake him and flee. The next scene in the passion drama, comprises Jesus' trial before the Sanhedrin and the denials of Peter; the~e two incidents are closely inter-locked in Mark's account. '~Then they led Jesus away to the High Priest's. house, where the chief priests, elders and doctors of the law were all assembling." Already Mark has clearly designated the Jewish leaders as the ones responsible for Jesus' arrest (14,43), and he indicates each section that made up the San.hedrin, the supreme religious and legislative body. For Mark, these are his real enemies. From the early stages of the public ¯ ministry they have consistently opposed him. In Chapter Two, when the paralytic is brought to Jesus, the doctors of the law consider his talk about 16 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 forgiving sins quite blasphemous, and Jesus vainly attempts to open their eyes as he cures the poor man. A little while la.ter, after the call of Levi, when Jesus is at table with tax-gatherers and sinners, the Pharisees com-plain~ to his disciples about the types he"mixes with; Jesus, on hearing this, retorts, not without a touch of irony: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick; I did not come to invite virtuous people, but sinners" (2,17). Mark now records the Pharisees' criticism of the disciples for plucking corn on the Sabbath, a complaint which stung Jesus to challenge their basic tenets in enunciating the principle that people mattered more than sabbath regulations. This incident is followed by an episode which underlines the mounting hostility, the failure of Jesus to win acceptance of the religious ~lite. It is a sabbath and Jesus goes to the synagogue, where there is a man with a withered arm. "And they were watching to see whether Jesus would cure him on the sabbath, so that they could bring a charge against him." Aware of their malicious intentions, Jesus tries to draw them, to make them aware of the perversion of religion, the distortion of the image of God, that adherence to legalistic casuistry entailed. He encountered an obstinate and ominous silence, saddening and frustrating. "But the Pharisees, on leaving the synagogue, began plotting against him with the partisans of Herod to see how they could make away with hirh." Thereafter Jesus is obliged to live and to work under the shadow of this threat. The rift widens as the ministry continues, and eventually, as the conflict approaches its climax, Jesus takes the game into their own court, openly challenging them by expelling the money-lenders and merchants from the temple .precincts. On hearing of this, the chief priests and doctors of the Law "sought some means of making away with him, for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching" (11,18). Not long afterwards Jesus spoke that indictment-parable of the wicked husbandmen. The inevitable result was that -they began to look for a way to arrest him, for they saw that the parable was aimed at them; but they were afraid of the people, so they left him alone and went away" (12,12). As that fateful final week progresses we hear of the attempts by the Phari-sees and Herod's party to entrap him in regard to the Caesar tribute (12,13), and by the Sadducees in regard to the resurrection (12,18-27); and we hear Jesus word-lash the doctors of the Law (12,38-40). And so, finally, as the Passover feast approaches, "the chief priests and doctors of the Law were trying to devise some cunning plan to seize him and put him to death" (14,1). Now these men have Jesus in their power at last. From the commence-ment of the so-called trial or enquiry, their intentions are firm and limpid; with cynical singlemindedness "they sought testimony against Jesus to put .him to death" (14,.56). Mark paints the scene in a few, bold, vivid strokes: the balking incompetence of the false witnesses; the silent, dignified, isolated figure of Jesus; his foes bent unanimously on his destruction. Discipleship and Loneliness: A Marcan Meditation Swiftly the evangelist brings the matter to a head, as the high priest asks Jesus whether he is in fact the Christ. At Jesus' open affirmation, the high priest, with an elaborate dlsplay of passionate horror, accuses him of blas-phemy; and the gathering ends as planned: "they all condemned him as deserving death' '--again Mark emphasizes the unanimity of the opposition, and the utter aloneness of Jesus. Whilst, in an atmosphe.re of frenzied hate and delighted success, Jesus is beaten and mockbd and humiliated, Mark shifts our attention to the courtyard where Peter stands by the fire warming himself in the chill night air. We are familiar with the painful description of Peter's triple denial of the Master. Mark skiifully orders them in a crescendo pattern so that the third denial is the most intense, accompanied by curses and a solemn oath. Some scholars suggest that Peter, still under fire in spite of his first two denials, resorts to the strongest possible manner of dissociating himself from Jesus by actually cursing him; this is the force to be given to that staggering disavowal: "I do not know this man you speak of"--an even more emphatic restatement of his earlier rejection of Jesus' messianic way at Caesarea Philippi. Peter, singled out to be with him, decisively opts in public not to be with him. Mark heightens the effect of this by juxtaposing the incident with the trial .scene: Jesus, true to himself and his mission, affirms what he cannot deny, his messiahship; and he is rejected by the religious leaders of his own people and by his closest follower. Alone and in chains, he is led away and handed over to pagan power (15,1). The rejection and isolation of Jesus is further accentuated in the subse-quent scene when the ordinary people shout for his death. The fickleness of crowds, the fragility of public opinion, is a commonly recognized phe-nomenon. From the statements of the Pharisees cited earlier, it would seem that Jesus continued to enjoy a considerable amount of popularity with the masses. Yet their acclaim was always suspect. Quite early in the Gospel, Mark describes the wave of enthusiasm and excitement sparked by Jesus' miracles and teaching; the people flocked to him with their sick, and hung on his words. But their response went little deeper. For the most part, they misunderstood the nature of his kingdom, the,genre of his peculiar messia-nism. They were not won to faith; they were prone to disappointment and disillusionment, with the resentful antagonism that this engenders. Now, when Pilate in a desperate effort to release him, offered the mob the option of choosing "Jesus Barabbas," as he was probably called, a freedom fighter convicted of murder, or Jesus of Nazareth, the crowd, incited by the chief priests, clamored for the insurrectionist, and screamed for Jesus to be committed to the hideous torture-death of crucifixion. We should not allow our familiarity with the story to dull our sensitivity to the poignant pain of that scene, the dreadful irony as the nation whose whole history pointed to this moment, the nation chosen out of all peoples on the face of the earth to be God's own people (Dt 7,6ff.), disowned their 11~ / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 Emmanuel. Jesus stands there in the open, alone, the impassioned cries of the people that was his people ringing in his ears, as they chant his rejection. His bitter desolation is intensified by a sense of injustice. Even Pilate was convinced of his innocence: "Why, what harm has he done?" Thus he is abandoned tothe Roman soldiery. In his economic description of the crucifixion and death of Jesus, Mark emphasizes the solitude of Jesus by mentioning details which, because of our acquaintance with the versions of Luke and John, we are apt to over-look. After the passers-by had hurled abuse at him and mocked him in his helpless anguish, and the lawyers had jested and gibed, "even those who were crucified with him taunted him" (15,32). At the end the robbers, too, renounce his companionship; Jesus does not belong even with his fellow-sufferers. Similarly, it is only after the death of Jesus that mention is made of the women who had followed him from Galilee, and who "were watching from a distance" (15,40). At the foot of the cross there is no mother, no beloved disciple; Jesus died utterly alone. The searing anguish of his pain and loneliness arid failure is focused and captured in the loud cry from the cross: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" But he died "without a word or a wink from God to reassure him that, whatever the gawking crowd might think, he knew that Jesus was not only innocent, but valid where it mattered.''4 Jesus' sense of total rejection by men is compounded and intensified by his feeling abandoned by the Father,.by his experience of estrangement and alienation that be-longs to our sinfulness. The psalm that Jesus is citing is a psalm of uncon-ditional trust in God's love and ultimate vindication. The last words of Jesus are a radical expresSion of his loneliness, and a "radical expression of a devotion to God which endures in every adverse experience--a devotion which continues to claim God as 'my' God and will not let him go although he can be experienced only as the absent One who has'forsaken the peti-tioner.''~ It is this surrender in love and trust that is our window into the mystery of his personality, for it is the human expression of what.we have come to call divine sonship; it is this surrender in the brokenness of death which, like the buried grain, is the source of our life.6 It is, I believe, true that Mark's way of presenting the passion of Jesus can allow it to "speak to us again with new power," speak to us with hope and with challenge in the center of our experience. All of us know at first hand the meaning of loneliness. I still vividly remember my feelings of desolate helplessness on the occasion of my first day at school as mother walked out of the playground beyond the iron fence. Or years later, when, having spent three years in enclosed quasi-monastic surroundings, I went to sit my finals in London, sporting a large 4L. E. Keck, A Future for the Historical Jesus (London, SCM, 1972), p. 229. ~E. Schweizer, The Good News according to Mark (London, SPCK, 1971), p. 353. ncf. my article "Trust--the Life-Attitude of Jesus" in Doctrine and Life, Nov. "76, pp. 803 ft. Discipleship and Loneliness: A Marcan Meditation Roman collar at twenty-one; everything and everyone seemed to be telling me that I did not belong~°I recall also the numbing sense'of lostness that came over me as' the train hissed noisily to a halt in Wigan station the evening 'my father died. Loneliness has many forms: the jarring sadness of bereavement, the corrosive listlessness of loss and separation, the anguished alienation and shame.of guilt and sin, thedisappointment of failure, the isolation of intense physigal suffering or imprisonment; the d(structive discouragement and paralysis of non-acceptance and rejection, the pain of misunderstanding and estrangement, the gnawing emptiness of unfulfilled longing for intimacy and genuine cbmpanionship, the absence of~God. Loneliness is thic.kly woven into the fabric of our lives, it.is a facet of our human poverty, our poverty of being. But Mark assures us that it is an aspect of being human that Jesus-fully shared throughout his ministry and especially in hi~ final hours. Most of us are anxious to avoid pain, physical pain; our medical and pharmaceutical experts have mercifully developed many varieties of anal-gesic. Most of us, likewise, sedulously attempt to avoid the pain of loneli-ness; and our society has developed a wide range of would-be anaesthetics--from discos to little dog~--to soften the abrasive harshness of our experience. I, for one, am very grateful for the refuge and comfort afforded by the telephone! And yet I wonder whether Mark is challenging us as disciples of Jesus to Cope with our loneliness m. ore creatively. Whilst recognizing with thanks the extent to which he made the experience of loneliness his own, perhaps we are reluctant to recognize that he did what most of us, most of the time, seek to .shun. In spite of gripping fear and instinctive repugnance, he did not run away from it; and his steadfastness transformed it into a life-giving element of redemption. Perhaps it is here that Mark is speaking to us again with new power; perhaps the challenge for disciples of Jesus consists in transforming the pain of loneliness into a source of personal growth and of life for others. It is very important that instead of taking one of the numerous escape roads open to us, we learn to come to terms with our loneliness and listen to our own feelings and struggles, our aspirations and questions, and live themacceptingly. It is here in the unique my.stery'of our personal selfhood, in the depths of our being, that we must have the courage to allow God to find us. It is here that his call is to be heard: "Do not be afraid, for I am with you . " So often God seems absent for the simple reason that we are fearfully evading his loving presence. Loneliness is paradoxically a poten-tial source of enrichment, for it can teach us the meaning of poverty of spirit, which opens us to the gift of God's kingly rule through the Spirit poured into our hearts, that surrender in loving and trusting obedience which is the hallmark of the Master.7 rI'his is developed by Henri J. M. Nouwen, Reaching Out (London, Collins, 1976), pp. 25-101. 90 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 In learning to come to terms with our loneliness, we may learn like Jesus, to love more genuinely, more compassionately. Our going out to others will be legs oriented to answering our own needs for companionship and fulfillment, and will become an expression of authentic service which can liberate and heal and enliven. At Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asked Peter and the other eleven: ~' And you, who do you say I am?" He reiterates this question to each Christian daily. Peter was able to acknowledge J~esus as Messiah, but his response was inadequate, it did not involve a willingness to follow in his way; he jibbed at the implications of discipleship. Loneliness, failure, misunderstanding, rejection are always painful, very painful, and are a constant in our human experience; a constant, however, shot through with hope because of the paschal mystery of Christ. Our answer as disciples to the challenging ques-tion of Jesus must be expressed in our willingness to take up this cross and go "with him." A Lamb Looks Through the Fence (Where the grass appears to be greener) The grass is greener on the other side: At least, it seems that way. Shepherd, give me a heart content To praise, to server to stay. This is the pasture of Your choice, And lessons here await: Calm the longings of my heart And bid the storms abate. For fences also keep us safe, Hedged in with loving care, Provided for and protected from The lion and the bear. Teach me to trust--this humble prayer Removes the restless yen: Some day we'll see from a higher view How green our side has been. Vi~la Jacobson Berg 5 Roosevelt Ave. Malverne, NY 11565 Reflections of a Bishop on Religious Communities Leonard J. Crowley Leonard J. Crowley, Titular Bishop of Mons in Numedia, is Auxiliary Bishop of Montreal. He is Director Of the Office for English Language Affairs in the archdiocese; 2000 Sherbrooke St. West; Montreal, Que. H3H IG4; Canada. n the very fitting context of the Feast of Pentecost last year, two Roman Congregations (The Congregation for Bishops and the Congregation for Religious and for Secular Institutes) promulgated a very significant docu-ment on Directives for the Mutual Relations Between Bishops and Reli-gious in the Church. The statement is significant, for its very existence admits that there is room for growth in understanding between the episcopal office and religious communities. For far too long within the Church's often turbulent history there has been too little fruitful communication between the overseers of the faith and those specialists who have a particular and time-honored gift to share with the faithful. Th~ warning of John Cassian to his monks in the fourth century seems, even today, to express a deep-seated mistrust: "The two groups you must avoid at all times are women and the bishops." The Diocesan/Religious Rivalry This basic antipathy often shows itself as well in the ranks of those from whom the residential bishop is normally chosen in North America--the diocesan clergy. What some may naively call a healthy rivalry between religious and diocesan groups is often~ at root, a basic distrust of one another's real motives and abilities in the exercise of the apostolate. 21 22 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 This recent document addresses itself directly to this sorry condition where it exhorts that "efforts should be made to renew the bonds of fratero nity and cooperation between the diocesan clergy and communities of religious." It even suggests the context of "simple and informal" gather-ings "which serve to increase mutual trust, apostolic solidarity, and fra-ternal harmony" (37). The duty for seeing to it that such fraternal gattierings take place and grow in significance and depth is placed squarely, as it should be, on the shoulders of the bishop. Furthermore, it is the duty of the bishop to so blend the services of diocesan and religious groups that each recognize members of outstanding talent and together support their promotion to positions of service commensurate with their capabilities; for "the bishop should . . . exhort the diocesan priests to recognize gratefully the fruitful contribution made by religious to their Church and to approve willingly their nomination to positions of greater responsibility which are consbnant with their vocation and competency" (55). In basic fact, if we truly are to witness to the mystery of the Lord Jesus in our midst, then there should be no rivalry but only harmony in the service we render. The bishop and his diocesan assistants should rejoice in the presence of specialists who bring a particular talent to minister ina certain area to the People of God. In such a context, "bishops, along with their clergy, should be convinced advo-cates of the consecrated life, defenders of religious communities, promoters of vocations, firm guardians of the specific character of each religious family both in the spiritual and in ihe apostolic field" (28). As a matter of fact, it is the bishop's "specific office to defend consecrated life, to foster and animate the fidelity and authenticity of religious and .~o, help them become part of the communion and of the evangelizing action of his church, acc.ording to their distinctive nature" (52). ~ Difficulties of Identification But herein lies the crux of the problem. Many a bishop would be hard pressed to identify the "distinctive nature" of the religious groups en-trusted to his watchful overseeing. In many instances there seems to have ¯ been a loss of clear identity on the part of religious communities. The bishop i~ fully aware, in most instances, that "the very nature of apostolic action requires that [he] give precedence to interior recollection and to the life of prayer;" but he is also frustrated by the realization that some religious apparently have not taken to heart the realization that they must, "in conformity with their distinctive nature, renew themselves in depth and be assiduous in prayer" (23a). What a bishop must be seeking from religious who reside in or enter his diocese is a specific dedication and consecration to a form of spirituality and to an apostolic witness that is as clear and as vital as it was when the Ruleo that embodies that life was first written. The bishop must be concerned with the future of his flock; but he wants that future founded solidly in the values that have come out of the past. Therefore he must be in search of"religious Reflections of a Bishop on Religious Communities [who], even while showing a particular spirit of enterprise and foresight for the future, [are] intensely loyal to the intention and spirit of their insti-tute." (34). However, the simple fact appears to be that many religious groups have maintained a loyalty to their institute but have lost sight of both its intention and its spirit. The Second, Vatican Council has urged. The Adaptation and Renewal of Religious Life to begin with a sincere return to the spirit and the mind of the Founder and from that unique font to build anew a personal and communal zeal for the spread of the Gospel, in all its richness. It is obvious that many, if not all, religious communities have adapted themselves, their customs, their habits, to the contemporary condition--not without a great deal of soul-searching, painful compromise, and interminable meetings. But adaptation was the easier half of the challenge and directive laid down by Perfectae Caritatis. How many communities have gone on to embrace a radical renewal of their original spirit? For it is in the light of that question that one can honestly ask about the future relevance of religious life. Ignorance of Specific Spirit In many instances, individual religious find it all but impossible to dis-tinguish the uniqueness of their charism from that of other religious commu-nities. Beyond a loyal chauvinism for their own institute, many admit that their vision, their mission, their methodology is essentially the same as evi~ryone else's. The historical reasons that called: the original foundation into existence often are gone now, the needs alleviated, the witness fulfi!led, the expectations satisfied. The more specific the historical reason for the foundation, the more difficult becomes the task of pinpointing its relevance now in the latter part of the twentieth century. This quandary has caused much frustration on the part of dedicated and deeply concerned men and women who recognize the values of their traditions, see a need for apostolic zeal within the mission of the Church, but find it difficult to wed the two into an effective and realistic union within the contemporary con-text. What has happened in the minds of many young religious is to say, "Forget the past. Deal with the present and prepare for the future." But such an outlook definitely isolates one frbmthe ~rich traditions that give reason for the continuing existence of the particular institute. It truly ap-pears that too many religious today are ignorant of the spirit that enkindled the foundation of their community. They may know its historical back-ground; but they have done little to identify with .the charismatic zeal that gives them a uniqueness and an individuality so necessary in building up the full experience that is Church. For there appears today to be little difference between one religious community and another except in terms of an accident of history or geography. Beyond the clear distinctions offered by the stric~tly contemplative and monastic communities, religious orders and societies seem to have Ihid aside those distinctions that called them into 24 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 existence. Many individuals apparently responded to a vocational urging as personified in a particular individual: a teacher, a pastor, a chaplain, a family friend. The specific community to which that individual belonged meant little, except that it was the obvious context within which the indi-vidual was to pursue his vocation if he intended to follow the lead of his childhood hero. Thus many young men have gone in pursuit of the priest-hood, not as a diocesan priest or as a member of a religious community, but as a priest like Father Racine, or Father Joe, or Father O'Brien. Many young ladies simply continued their religious quest in the same context as the academy or the convent school to which they were sent by parents desirous of the best education possible for their offspring and knowing that the "good sisters" would provide just that. Symbol of Identity Of course, as the individual comes to identify with the community to which he has gone, to learn of its traditions and history during his years of postulancy and novitiate, he doubtless grows in love for and identification with the order or the congregation. That identity used to be symbolized .very powerfully in the reception of the religious habit. More than anything else, the habit had been the external symbol of an internal commitment. For many communities of religious women, the bishop was called upon to participate in this very important step in identification with the spirit of the Founder and the vision of the order. But, for many communities today, the habit stands as a symbol of the past. And the search for a clear, contempo-rary sign of identification whereby new members might feel a sense of oneness with the community has been a very frustrating one. Yet, in the beginning, it was not the habit that gave identity; it was the spirit and zeal of the Founder, as these drives inspired the community, giving a clear sense of purpose and single-mindedness to all who embraced the Holy Rule. It is that spirit which must be renewed in religious communities today if the symbols of religious life are to have any role to fulfill within the Church. The Problem of Stability Because many religious communities have been established for the ministry of the Universal Church and not for the local church alone, many within a diocese, often the bishop himself, tend to resent the fluidity of a religious community's commitment to a particular apostolic endeavor. For such persons, whose commitment to the local church is total, there is a very deep-seated hesitancy to entrust the fulfillment of a ministry to a group whose commitment often seems to be as long as its superior's vision is far-reaching. Such an anxiety seems natural and even fortified by the gospel parable about the hireling and the good shepherd. However, what many, whose commitment to the local church is so intense, fail to recognize or to acknowledge is that the purpose of religious exemption is "so that institutes Reflections of a Bishop on Religious Communities carl express their identity more adequately and devote themselves~to ,the common good with special generosity and on a wider scale" (22). If all who work together within the diocesan community have a proper appreciation of the exempt status as "a certain expression of that pastoral concern which unites them intimately with the Roman Pontiff for the universal care of all people," such an awareness "will promote greatly increased apostolic' ini-tiative and missionary zeal in every particular church" (22). ' Of course, every religious community that comes to ~erve the local church, even if it does beloia~ to an institute of pontifical right, "should feel themselves truly a part of the diocesan family" (18b). Therefore their com-mitment should be as deep find their solicitude as pervasive as every other apostolic witness within thediocese. However, in those situations where an institution finds itself "unable to carry on a given undertaking, its superiors should, in good time andwith~confidence; make known the factors hinder-ing its continuance at least in its actual form, especially if this lack is due to personnel. For~his part, ti~e local ordinary should consider sympatheti-cally the re~luest to withdraw from the undertaking and in common accord with the superiors seek a suitable solu'tion" (47). in other words, every local Church must always see itself as a vital organ of the universal People of God under the guidance of the Holy F~ther. None of us can afford to allow our apostolic vision to become so myopic as to blind us to the needs beyond our own backyard. Bishops~ especially, must realize that the zealous service of religious in his pastoral domain is always carried on'with a sense-of ministry to the Universal Church. Such a presence, then, is a blessing as it broadens the horizons of our apostolic perspective and helps us to appreciate more deeply the total concern of the Father for all his children. Thus as religious come and go within a diocese, neither the ordinary nor his diocesan assistants should resent their fluidity but shoiald see, in their willingriess to move as the Spirit calls them, a vivid reminder that we all are a pilgrim people on the move to the home that we can ohly begin to build toward in this world. The Church is larger and more loving than any of us. We must always st.rive to be of humble service to her needs and to free those who feel the ardent call to another vineyard, to another manifestation of the Spirit's solicitude in the midst of the people of God. Future Expectations Religious ~ommunities are ~:alled today to "devote themselves with full awareness and zeal to the task 0f incarnating and manife.sting in the diocese the specific witness and the genuine mission of their institute" (22). This is the value and the service that the bishops, are going to be searching for in the future, all the more so ,as they realize quite clearly that they "are entrusted with the duty of caring for religious charisms . [For] in this way;" by fostering religious life and protecting it in conformity with its own Review for Religious, Volume 38,~!~979/1 definite characteristics, bishops fulfill a real. pastoral duty" (9c). Thus the bi~hopJs going to be in search of and solicitous for those communities that. are responding in the modem day to the needs of the Church after the spirit and .with the zeal of their founders. Quite obviously, then, "religious supe-i- iors have a grave duty, their foremost responsibility in fact, to assure'the fidelity of the members to the charism of the Founder, by fostering :the renewal prescribed by the Council and required by the.times" (14c). The future of religious life will lie in the oab!ljty that each religious community has to move away from the mentali~ty of being an embattled camp; of~asse~ting, by quality of performanceoand depth of, solicitude, the recognition that "every institute exists.for the Church and must enrich her with its.~distinctive characteristics, according~to a particular spirit,and a specific mission" (14b). Eacho!n,stitute-is a shepherd, not a hireling-~.,~but only, ifoit speaks with the voice of its Founder who echoes the voice of the Good Shepherd. "The very charism of the founders appears a_s "an experi-ence of the Spirit' transmitted to their ,disciples to be lived, safeguarded, deepened and constantly developed by them, in harm~gny with the Body of Christ, continually in the process oLgrowth" (11). o. The future of the religious life de, pends, then, on a renewal that will be as much new as it will be re-. Besides a deep appreciation of the~historical origin and vision of one's community, each one,must se, ek innovative and creative ways w~ith which to bringthe wisdom an~t°~technology of contempo-rary society to bear upon the timeless values articulated, by the Lord Jesus and specifi.cally~ pursued within a particular religious context. The more clearly and more wholesomely we can make those value~"'li.~,e in our own day, the more relevant and essential becohaes the role we intend to.fulfillS' That is one reason why the renewal of the religio~us life remains ~such a crucial issue. However, that renewal is feasible only if each in~stitiate ,and every member is clearly aware that"it is necessary to preserve the identity of each institute so securely, that the danger of an ill-defined situation be avoide.d, le§t0religi,ous, failing to give .due consideration to the .particular mode of action proper to their character, become part of the ]if~"of the Ch.urch.in~a vague and ambiguous way" (11). ~_ Personal Reflection' As a bishop, I have been renewed by this document from the two ¯ Congregations, with a sense of the very serious responsibility that I have for the religious communities who minister to the people .I w.atgh o.ver.~I have always hoped that the religious who come into our midst would bring their special gifts and talents to' bea~- however or wherever thei.r apostolic pre~s-ence took them. Now I realize more clearlyothat, together wit.h my brother bishops, !' have a duty to help.directly and distinctly the religious commu~ nities in our midst to remain true to their founders' ideals and to fulfill ~their, specific mission in th.e w_ay that they alone °can do. In other words, 9s bishop, it is my duty to see to it that the apostolic commitment of each ~ ~ ~ ., ~ Refie~ctions.-bf a Bishop on Religigus Communities / 27 community is in keeping with and true to the spirit of their Rule. I must be available to help each religious entrusted to my pastoral care--and that includes every one in the diocese where I ministeruto be true to the specific charism of his or her community. It is my deep hope and confident prayer that religious, for their part, will serve each diocese in which they labor, not as general practitioners of gospel values (nor will: they accept ministries which would expect such an approach), but rather will share the fruits of their own foundations with the whole people of God in the particular and unique way that they are able. Admittedly such an approach demands a restructuring on the part of young and old alike. But that revamping is essential to the future flowering of the religious life and the future fulfillment of the Church. Unity Through Diversity In conclusion, the renewal of every religious community is eventually going to bring each congregation to the realization that we are all struggling toward the day when Jesus will be "'all in all," where there will be no distinct communities because the vision of every founder will finally be focused together in~ the one reality of the Lord Jesus. And there will be'no more religious communities because there will be only one religious Com-munity in the City of Goti; there will be, in the-~0rds of St.'Aug~astine, "one Christ loving himself." Yet, as we move toward that day of fulfillment, we musl move in the paradoxical fashion of human naturemfor~we move toward unity through .diversity. It is that great diversity of religious ingight and,~xp~erience which must be shared.with the Christian Community'in order that its unity might be achieved mor~ effectively and all-inclusively. In order to accomplish that objective; y,oung religious must take gr~at pride in the"tradition to which they ~ commit themselves, a pride that will make them zealous sharers, with all'God's people, of:the girls entrusted by the Spirit to their care. For ,those girls shall be, preserved only if they are generously commu-nicated to and'for the Church. And religious must learn to see in the bishop ,a source of support and solicitude, no longer the "'enemy,''-~but a loving brother, deeply concerned for their well-being and their growth. For the bishop clearly should understand that the future of religiousfife is the future life of the Church. - ~0 As the~Spirit shared the great diversity of his charisms on. that first Pentecost, magi the message that Mother Church has given to her ministers on this past Pentecost Sunday fill all of us ~4ith deep respect and concern for the building up of the girls entrusted to each of us for the life of the Church. Th, en.the grace of the Ho!y ,Spirit will fio~d fulfillment in us all as we bec~me truly one in Christ to the glory of God "the Father. From.""Ministry'' tO"Church Work" The.Fate of Tired Souls Paul Marceau, C.S.C.' " Father Marceau is a doctoral candidate in spirituality at the Graduate Theological Union, .Berkeley, CA. Presently he is on the staff of Moreau Seminary; Notre Dame, IN 46556. n the aftermath of the recen~ papal election a news commentator referred to one of Pope John Paul's distant predecessors who, after assuming the office, said that he spent so much time tending to the needs of others that he was in danger of becoming a stranger to himself. The problem of the threat of'being consumed by the demands of ministry is not a new one. Jesus himself seemed to recognize this danger and from time to,time would draw the disciples aside to rest (Mt 14:13f.). In this articl6 I~will sketch what 1 believe ~to be a particular form which that problem' takes 'in apostolic religious life today: the phenomenon of the over-burdened, under-cared-for religious who is being consumed by apostolic and community work and who, in the process, may be dying a slow and painful death as a human being, a minister, and a religious. As the life of such a person gets frag-mented by the constant demands of apostolic ministry there is a danger of losing one's personal center, and one's relationship with God becomes threatened in the process. Whenthat happens in the life of any minister in the Church I would suggest'that the apostolic activity of such an individual ceases to be "ministry" °and becomes only "church work." Most reiigious in apostolic communities have found (and continue to find) the early years of ministry an intoxicating experience. The apostolic life which they enter after their years in formation is challenging and de-manding. There seems to be so much to be done, so many needs to be 28 From ,"Ministry" to '~Church Work" attended. Within a short time the religious begins to feel needed and ap-preciated in ways that were unknown and perhaps impossible in the years of formation? There. develops a greater sense of self-worth as the person begins to do what he or she could only reflect upon or do only in a controlled and well-regulated way in the years of formation. There is a sense that one is finally fully immersed in ministry and with that comes the sense that one isat last doing something with his or her life, and not simply preparing to do so. A.new dimension of the personality develops and becomes more cen-tral: that of the hainister and apostle. The focus shifts from what ~was, in the years of fOrmation, substantially pr.eparatory, receptive, and to a large degre,e inner-directed and reflective to the active, the outward, the full immersion in ministry. The apostplate in these early years after formation makes heavy de-mands on self and time but most individuals are excited by this and would not want it to be otherwise. With the constant need and cpnstant demand of the apo.stolate, however, there come problems with the m.anagement of one's time and, ,indeed, of one's life. There is less and less time (and perhaps even desire) for leisure, for one's own concerns, for reflection upon one's life. Given the choice between the needs of others and one's "free time"0 (and there doe~ not alw.ays seem to be a choice), the religious often sacrific~es w.tlat .is the e~siest to sacrifice: personal time and space. Prior to the Changes in religious iife'which took place following Vatican I1, time for prayer and reflection was protected, at least in theory,2 by being built into~ the schedule. Such tim(for private ~'ea.ding, prayer, and refl+ction, how-ever, isnow no longer "given"; it has to be found and it seems ~ncreasingly difficult.to find it. Personal prayer and reflection gradually have come to be nudged out of the lives of many by the hectic ~nd busy pace of their apostolic.life. Indeed, there was a time in the past decade when such times aside f(om'ministry were rl.o.t only considered luxuries but were Iobked upon as 'selfish luxuries, as time stolen from the service of others in need. Perso'n~l prayer beco~n"e~, problematic, even for those with the best of intentions. Few, if any.~,fiaiike a conscious decision to give UP personal prayer; it gimply gets~ pushed out by the "more important" and more immediate concerns of Io~,e and service to others. It is a gradual process by which people's lives simply become so overwhelmed by the 9postolic and. qn the past. of course, apostolic involvement during the years of formation w~s minimal. Young religious were protected from such "outside" distractions. As a result, for people trained in such a context, immersion into full-time ministry,provided a shocking change from . their years of formation, The change is less abrupt today since significant apostolic involve-ment is seen as a critical part of formation. Nevertheless, the "full-time" ministry has a dynamic of its own which can really be experienced only in the doing of it, no matter how well one is prepared for it. zWhile time for meditation, spiritual ~'eading, examination of conscience, and so forth, may have been provided in previous schedules, there is certainly enough evidence to wonder to what extent such schedules were ac~tually honored--other than by those in formation. 30 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 community demands that there is simply no time "left over" for oneself., Finding time for' personal prayer becomes a terrible.struggle, the wagingof, ahopeless, losing war. For some, the loss of,,that dimension of their re-ligious life is easily justified by their appeal .to the demands of ministry; for others Such loss is--the Source of much shame and guilt.~ Foi" many, prayer has bedome a time squeezed into'fi hectic and already' cluttered day. It is ~so~ething to be fitted in between Walter Crorikite ahd'~ an evenin~g meeting, or between a dis~tressing hous~ meeting arid the celebration of the Eticharist.:These patterns of prayer-time tend to reflect their livegt prayer time itselfis'9 hectic and bdsy,°'often cluttered, time. Even when the time is fotindfor it, prayer is'filled with the concerns of 0ne's~ day. It is a time full of distractions, a very busy and unfocused time, filled~ with the hundreds of stimuli that the individual brings off ~he street with him: The time which one struggles to have alone'with God becomes a time to do a lot Of religious "business," a trine for pra~,ing for the concerns ministry, .for commending to ~he Lord all the. wounded who ha~d tbuched one's life that day. The time "aside" is really no time aside at'fill but simply a 'diffei-erit'fOi'um for doing what"one had been doing all'day long. " " For"others, the dynamic of personal prayer shiftg from "time aside" to prayer-on-the-i'un, a kind of "are you running ~vith me~, 'Jesus" format. There is sirrligly no 'time to tend to the'personal reli~gidoiums e"n °s i~o'n~ "o:f ~ o' n~e* :s~ ' life, and God is put on "hofoldr "~ n'"creas"~ °ngly lon"g ~er. "p~e ,r i.~ods of time. Not infrequently i'eligious m~ke little bargains with God, prom'ising to return to him at a latCr date when there is more time available: "I'm g?ing tO be very busy this s~'ineste~ and I reall3i won't have mucl~time for prayer ' but I'll get back t'~3ibu at Chris~tmasvacation or during the~summer when things let up a liitle." But Chrqst~n°~s o~:summer vacation corhes along, and when there ts finally t~me for prayer, such individuals find that they can no longer pray as they once d~d because they have fallen out of the habit of personal prayer. The closeness and the ~nt~macy ~s no longer there; God seems to be further away. The more personal, direct and intimat~'relationship~vith God that one might have known in quieter and mor~ peaceful ti~e~ is gone. There is a dis-ea'se about one's relationship to God, and the times alone with him are f0un'd~{o be somewhat strained and uncomfortable. The struggle to fi'nd some t~me aside does not, aftei- all, seem to' be quite worth it because thOre does not seem to be much pbint to it. " ~ Iwshort, given the difficulty of finding times for prayer,~ and the busy and hectic pace we experience,e.ven when they fire found, prayer time becomes~ more and more minimalT"and what there is becomes increasingly lesg satisfying. As a.result,, m~ore and more weight for the spiritual life comes to be put on community, or on "apostolic prayer." Liturgy and'common prayer become the focus and substance of the prayer life .of many to the exclusion of~all other forms. But with that, .there is often felt an, uncom-fortable dissonance between what one says in his~ministry and'what one' From "Ministry" ,to "Church Work" d0es.-,Thus~, although he may preach eloquently; celebrate reverently, discuss the gospel enthusiastically and be complimented and affirmed by his parishioners, students, and fellow community members as being a good priest andreligious, the spiritual dimension of apostolic and community I.ife seems to have no echO;in his ownolife: He believes the message and is sincere when he tblls others about it, but at times it seems very far frorfi what he himselffis experiencing. Neverthe!ess, sharing sacraments,and common prayer~with others is at least a lifeline for many. When there is a dis-ease and a discomfort about being too alone with oneself and with°G0d, one can often find solace in participating in the more formal, more .struc-ttired ,forms of prayer, such as the sacraments and Office, since slach f/arms allow 'one to approach God without being too alone before him. Just as p~ople must build up habits of pr.aYer with time and practice, so it is that they fall out of the habits of personal prayer. Thps, ~hen a pe,rson's life become~ overwhelmed and fragmented by a busy and hectic apostolic ministry, personal prayer becomes difficult not only because of time con-siderations but because the doing of it becomes an uns~itigfying thing. For one who has fallen out of the practice .of personal prayer, moments o~f aloneness can become very frightening, and so instead of struggling tofind such times of alonene'gs and of the oppo~:tunity to foc~us within, the religio0,s may eventually fipd h~mself strugghng to avotd focusing w~th~n for fear of seeing too deeply, with to6"~uch clarity, ~hat may be happening to his fraghaehted life. When tli~it' h~ppens, the 'i~dividual spends an enor~mous amount of time and psychic energy fleeing such moments, protecting him: self from God. P~rsons sensing this dis-ease a, bout the'Jr relationship with God may read about God, talk al~out God, may do'the works of the Church and~ma~ even°hpproach G~d. in the company of othersobut they are often unable to bear facing God' in their aloneness, to be ~ilent before him. If such.is.the fate of n.ot a few apostolic religious in the past decade (and I believe it has b, een), then the task for them, again, becomes one of the struggle t9 av.oid, such moments. The apostolate, itself a contributory cause to this state of affairs, becomes a welcome and easily legitimized.distraction from facing oneself. Religious can throw themselves into their_work and give themselves over to be consumed by the apostqlic need which, as a matter of fact, is always ~,aiting there to be cared for. But this is not the zeal of those early y~ears of their ministry; it is, in fact, just the oppqsite. The work, what one does, is now.no longer ,a way of sharing what is inside, but a way of avoiding it. Instead of zeal andenthusiasm driving one from within to sha~e what.~e .has pers.onally experienced and discovered about'life and about God,,there is flightto the work for its own sake, a flight away from the i,nterior self. ~with diminishing personal energies and resources.tq ~driye and sustain himself, he becomes willingly carried along by the demands of the apostolat~e, .and~ lifebecomes one busy apostolic distraction. When ihat .happen,s, when,a person becomes emptied inside and can live .only on'the 32 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 outside, then he is:no longer engaged in the doing of ministry but.is simply busy about doing what I would call simply "church work." The irony of all this is that a person may be, and very frequently is at this same time in life, just h!tting his professional stride, doing the kinds of things that he always wanted to do in ministry,~with all the requisite pro-fessional training, and receiving very reassuring feedback from others about his ministry--and yet the.re seems to be something terribly missing, and he cannot understand why~ He may be doing very good work, pro-fessionally satisfying, assisting others in. living their lives and yet feel that he.is not doing a very good job of living his own. He might say to himself: "I should be happy but I am not. What is the matter with me?" As one person expressed it to me: "I am good and successful at what I am doing. ! enjPy it and find satisfaction in it--but why do I feel like I am dying?" The constant concerns and needs of others (and the constaht need to be focusing outside oneself), the very things .which used to energize and sus-tain the person in the early years of ministry, now only drain energies and makes the indiviidpal feel th~it his whole life', by choice"or by abdication, is being consumed by the apostolate. The apostolate has become for him a thousand-tentacled monster, constantly making demands, never letting up, constantly draining him of diminished or even exhausted personal energies. For the weary church worker the apostolate becomes a.two-edged sword: it is a welcome distraction protectin.g him from looking too closely within and, at the same time, a drain upon his personal energies even to the point of exhaustion. There is a variation to the above theme ~f the one who allows his life to become c~onsumed by the apostolate~ in order to avoid what may be dying inside, and this variation is marked by the opposite of involvement: with-drawal. For this person the apostolate becomes an eight-hour-a-day (or less)job and he is quite capable of walking away from it in order, as he sees it, to preserve his own necessary personal time and space; Having created sixteen hours of personal time and space of the twenty-four, however, the task he faces then becomes One Of filling up his space and time so that he will dot be left alone with it. In order to defend himself from se6ing the void within, the individual will do anything to fill up that time, to be distracted. He will read novels and magazines for hours (this may be his'version of "'being alone"). He may spend evening after evening watching television without really knowing or caring what is on the screen. He may arrange a heavy social schedule.'He will do anything rather than face the emptiness and discomfort that is within him. The weary church worker's life has become overwhelmed and frag-mented by the consuming demands of today's apostolate. He may be a victim of the work but. in the end; he knows that b,~ ,.'s a willing victim. He m'ay even see himself in the role of a martyr, giving his all that the world rr]ay be saved (or at least a little'more saved). But underneath the hectic and clu~ttered life of today's church worker, there is the danger of building up F¢om "Ministry" to "Church Work" /,33 increasing levels of resentment against those whom he serves. The de-mands never let up and nobody will leave hi~n alone. He may be tired. There may be a lot of suppressed anger and resentment. But worse than either of these, as long as he seems-to be good and successful in his work, is the fact that nobody seems to care about what is dying inside him and how he feels about himself and his ministry. The problem, in fact, is that no one can see what is dying inside him. All the outward signs appear to be good. The iridividual is busy, involved, committed to the apostolate, and actually doing good work there. He is sociable and affable in community, relating well there. No one can see what is happening inside him because no one is allowed to see it. The individual may have a difficult time even bringing himself tO see it and there may be too much shame and guilt to allow anyone else to see it. All the while the person may be saying: "they (superiors, fellow religious, fellow ministers) are themselves too busy ministering to others and I cannot burden them with my problems; I know what I~feel like when one more problem comes my way and I don't want to be just one more problem for' them." There is a final, cruel irony in the situation of the apostolic religious who, by the process described above, has been turned into a busy church WorkeL There is a rehewed interest and concern for spirituality and praye~ in the Church today--and that is w~lcomed. Religious are once more con-cerned about their relationship with God. But, as often a~ not, that concern is a source of guilt rather'than a source of strength. Concern for spirituality and prayer--whether the concern is assumed or imposed~--isjust one more ~lemhnd placed upon the life oLthe already tired religious. Instead of one's i'elationship with God being the source of personal energy and an impetus to ministry, it can become just one more thing to worry about along with.all the others~ one more thing with which the religious has neither the timenor the energy to contend. Instead of being the place of rest where he no longer has to be doing and Working, his prayer becomeg just one more thing to do and to work at. Instead of his relationship with God being the source and center of life, it is thrown in with all the other things which clamor for attention in a life which has lost its center. Apostolic religious communities in America today are running the risk of producing amongtheir members merely weary church workers suffering from battle fatigue. In the long run, however, there will be a price to pay in human suffering and tragedy, as suppressed anger and resentment can be suppressed no longer and begin to surface, Often in indirect but destructive ways. Religious will retire too Soon from the battle, burnt out men and women who will no longer be driven or taken advantage of. They will unclutter their lives of hectic apostolic activity and then turn and fill them up with other more relaxing distractions; but whether busy with apostolate or busy with relaxing distractions, many will be leading lives of quiet desperation because their lives no longer have any focus or center to hold them together. Review for Religious, Volunie°38, 1979/1 There are alternatives, I think, to the way we live apostolic religious life and the way we do ministrytoday. Just ~as~we do no good for a.materialistic society if we ourselves get caught up in its materialistic ethos, likewise we do little good for a society that runs at an insane pace, fragmenting the lives of its people when we ourselves run at; that.~same pace, becoming quite as fragmented in our own lives. A different style and pace of apostolic religious life need not mean that apostolic ministry be less involx;ed, less concerned, or less whole-hearted than it is now. .~ . ~.," Finding the meaning of one's life in one's relationship to God and sustaining that relationship personally through reflection and prayermmany indeed "take time away from others" but it may also allow us to offer them something more than what had been our busy, overburdened lives. G~'ound-ing our personal lives outside of the work we do may both'free us from the apostolate and, at the same time. free us for it. We will be freed from the apostolate not in the sense that we will lose the apostOlic dimension of our life in favor of the comtemplative life but rather in'!the sense that the meaning of our lives, as individuals and as communities, would no longer be tied to this specific apostolate and this particular work. "We would be freed from the works of our own hands to pursue and minister to the needs of people wherever and whatever they may.be, On .the other hand, it may well be that we would be doing the same kinds of. things ,that we are ,doing now,. but the person doing them will be different: still busy, but less frantic, and bringing to those situations a life which is a little calmer, a little more rootedand peaceful. Our apostolic ministry might be less cluttered but, at the same time, more deeply involved; we might be less frenzied, but also more zealous about the things we do. Finding the focus and center of one's life in God and taking time to tend to that dimension of life will give impetus and focus to our ministry. It will take :nothing away from it but will, instead, make ministry all the more importantmand all the more possible. "Promises to Keep"' A Homily for Final Vows J.Peter Schineller, S.J. Father Schineller, ~ member of the faculty of the Jesuit School of Theology in Chicago (JSTC), shared with those who witnessed his final vows in the Society of Jesus the't~houghts and movements that were his then. He resides at 5554 s. Woodlawn Ave.; Chicago, IL 60637. While'I was visiting "my brother and sister-in-law over the Christmas hblidays, as oftenhappens with a new toy, an argument arose betweeh their two children. The younger boy was unwilling to let his big sister play with his new eiectriC helicopter. The conversation went something like this: "It's my t6rn! You'have to let me play ffith~it."" "I don't want to and 1 don't have to." "You have to, and you know you have to." "I don't ~have to,' and I ~on't." "You have to, because you promised!" "Well, OK." My five year old nephew was trapped. He was caught by his promise, and he kne~ it. He knew in his child's wisdom that a prom~ise is something special, something sacred, and not just any old word. Promises make a difference.' "The child in me made promises more than 18 years ago, not about toys, but about how to spend my whole life*; promises not to ariother pers6n, but promises to God, tlie Father of all persons. And here I am this ~evening, to *The Jesuit's "first vows," taken at the end of the novitiate, include the perpetual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. (Editor)' 35 36 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 renew and to finalize those promises in my profession of "final vows," and to renew the promises with joy and enthusiasm. And so in these last few moments in which I am still a Jesuit scholastic, I would :like to share a few thoughts on 1) how I see these promises, 2) where the inspiration to make the promises comes from, and 3) how it is possible for anyone to make a profession of vows. First of all, what am I promising and vowing this evening? In one sense, it is nothing new, nothing beyond what I promised eighteen years ago, a life of poverty, chastity and obedience in the Society of Jesus. It is not a new turn, a grandiose new option, but rather a public statement of my choice tO continue on the road begun. Yet in another sense, it is a new choosing, because with eyes far more open than 18 years ago, I am saying, "This is the path for me, and I promise to take this path as long as I live." The promises I make tonight are promises that I can only make tonight, and could not have haade five, ten--or eighteen years ago. Much has been written about the meaning of the vowed life. i donit intend'to present a new theory, but let me say briefly how.I see what I am promising. In the vow of obedience, I am saying that I will not try to build ~a career for myself. Rather my life is a responding life in the Society of Jesus, a response to the call of God as seen in the needs of others. In chastity I am foregoing the joys, pleasures and anxieties of building a home and family and thus establishing family roots. My basic community will be the Jesuits I live, work, and move with. In this way I hope to be available for loving service, wherever the good news of God's love is called for. In poverty I am saying that I will look upon my time, talents, education as always God's gift to me, not for myself, but to be shared in the service of others. Finally, I promise to do all of this as a member of the Society of Jesus. That is much easier to grasp and to explain. For it means living, growing, working, enjoying life, and dying with many of the persons you see here. And it is quite a group: young and old, tall and short, from all over the United States, and even from around the world. What do w,e have in common? All of us are engaged in the serious convers.~ition and ctiallenges of Christian life and ministry, in the~.tradition of Ignatius and the many .great Jesuits of the past and present. We are trying-in many different ways to let the good news of the love of God break into this world. ~ Secondly, where do I get the urge or inspiration to make these vows and promises? If it comes simply from my own imagination, then I could make and break these promises without further ado. But years ago, in quiet and diverse ways, the idea crept into my head to be a Jestlit and a priest. The idea came fr.om reading books, from conversation; from the example of my family, parish priests, and from Jesuits who taught me, And so I responded. "Promises to Keep," A,Homily for Final Vows But it was a long time ago that the journey began. Today where do I get the inspiration to make this profession of final 'vows? It seems to me that the process is quite similar. You, so many here, and so many who couldn't be here, in your own ways, have kept ~the vision and ideal of being a Jesuit priest before my eyes. YOU have been sending me signals, challenging, pushing, leading m.e, ~and so I respond. You have been sending me signals,' as I read them, that indicate that what I am about is good, and is from God. Signals have come from the parish at Harvey, Where I help on Sundays, to friends and teachers at the University of Chicago; from Jesuits in New York to students I teach and learn with here at the Jesu.itSchool of Theology; from fellow faculty members, friends of Hyde Park, to those I live with at Jesuit House. And I have to rely on :these signals, signals which have given me hope, courage, and confidence .,that 1 am on the right path. There is one conviction that has grown over the years, that while the vows are finally from God and made to God, it is according to his plan and purpose that the desire and courage to take and renew the promises of vows always comes mediated through.human lives. I sensed today a new insight into, or application of the parable of the last judgment in Matthew 25. If I might dare paraphrase it, I would say, "what I prpmise or vow to you, the least ofGod's brothers and sisters, I am vowing to God himself." But thirdly, how it is ppssible to make and live such promises? Many would say that this way of life is inhuman, psychologically unhealthy, or even un-Christian. How can i be sure that this is truly the will of God for me? How can I avoid the danger of the vows, the danger of being un-loving, irresponsible, the danger of pride in thinking that I have chosen a "better w~y" than n0n-vowed life? How can I'choose or control the future, and say where I wish to be ten or thirty years from now? Am I not fighting against Christian freedom, the freedom of the Spirit? Finally, and most trouble-some, how can I promise to God what he alone can give true obedience, holy poverty, and perfect chastity? These virtues are his gifts, and so how dare I promise or vow them'before God? The answer to these difficulties and°dangers must be an answer in faith, hope, and loving trust. Let me explain: I used to think I could figure it out--and had figured it out. I had what I thought was an adequate view of God, a solid enough view.of myself and the meaning and possibiliti~es of human life. I thought that on the basis of this perspective I could pronounce and keep my vows. They made a lot of sense. Now I see it is ndt so easy. For I see that vowed life, in common with all life, is, to use Karl Rahner's phrase, "a surrender to the mystery and incomprehensibility of God." I can't give a complete and adequate rational account or grounding for vowed life, for myself or anyone else. But on the basis of expei'ience and prayerful reflection, I dare to say that this life is not only.possible, but it is God's will and graced way for me. Living the vows as I have been about and encoun- 311 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/'1 tering the mystery of God in and through them is. their only final justification. Th.ey have been, are, and I say tonight, will continue to be my way to meet God, to be myself, and to respond to the needs .of God's people., Just as the Jesuit-.style of life has shaped my daily existence, so, in a.mysteriou.s way, the vowed life has shaped and formed my faith-filled idea of God himself. The God, revealed to me through the vows is a God I can and must stand before in trust. He is the one. who gives joy, peace, fulfillment, and a sense of purpose and mission far deeper tha~ any that I could create or grasp on my own. Moving to the center of the mystery of the possibility of the vows, I dare to say in and through these vows that God, the incomprehensible one, is not distant, far-off, uninvolved, but rather he is somehow present and working as the one who makes possible these promises in the first place. I find I am almost forced to say that he, in his Holy Spirit, is making the vbws and promises in and through me. And go only on this basis.do I dare to promise what God alone can give as gift. For I am convinced that it is a response to his impulse and urge that pushes me to make this commitment. I began these reflections with the story of a child:s pr~mise at Christ-mastime. Let me conclude with a poet's words on promises. In the midst ofa busy Week in a snow filled winter in Chicago, a pocida of Robert'Frost is perhaps most appropriate, "Stopping by Woods on a Siaowy Evening." It is good that we are here together, pausing; ~stopping not by woo~is, but in the city i~f Chicago in Augustana Lutheran Church.Tlie poet, stopping with his horse and carriage explains, "The woods are lovely, d~rk and deelS." And ~peaking formyself, Isay, yes,the woods I have journeyed through over ,the past eighteen years have been lovely, dark and deep. The woods a~re lovely--exciting, encouraging, adventuresome and challenging years, with beautiful moments of joy and peace, so lovely that~ I gla.dly, freely continue down this path. The woods are dark--filled with the .unexpected, from a pre-Vatican II Church onward towards Vatican III, with the graced paradox of a Jesuit pronouncing his final vows in a Lutheran church. Final-ly, the woods are deep if nottiing else the years of th~ journey have been deep, far too deep for me to understand and explain all that led me here tonight,, and all that is involved in this celebration, far tro deep for me to adequa.tely thank all who have supported and e, ncouraged me. Yes, the woods have been deep--filled with the mysterious presence of God in one humari life. The,,woods I,have journeyed through have been lovely, dark and deep, and I am saying in effect tonight that I would not trade a~0ay this way of, life through the woods for any other way. I say this joyfully, and as strongly as I can. But we can't stop here and pause here too long in-snow filled Chicago. For as the poet reminds us,'and as his poem concludes: "Promises to Keep," A Homily for Final Vows / 39 The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. May God who is Father, Son and Spirit continue to strengthen and guide each one of us on our journeys in the miles ahead. REPRINTS FROM THE REVIEW "A Method for Eliminating Method in Prayer," H. F. Smith, S.J . 30 "An Apostolic Spirituality for the Ministry of Social Justice," M. Oliva, S.J . 50 "CelibateGerhtality," W. F. Kraft . 50 "Celibacy and Contemplatio~n,'~ D. Dennehy, S.J . 30 "Colloquy of God with a Soul that Truly Seeks Him" . 3.0. "Consciousness Exhmen," G: A. Aschenbrenner, S.J. . ~.50 "Hidden in Jesus Before the Father," G. A. Asch~ffbrenner, S.J . 50 "Institutional Business Administration & Religious," Flanagan and O'Connor . 30 "Instruction on the Renewal of Religious Formation;' S.C. for Rel!gious . ~ . .~. . 35 "Prayer-of Personal Reminiscence," D. J,' Hassel, S.J .6.0. '~Profile of the Spirit: A Theology of .Disdernment of Spirits," J. R. Sheets, S.J. ' . 50 "Psychosexual Maturity in CelibateDevelopment," P. Cristatitiello . . . ~ . 60 "Retirement or Vigil," B. Ashley, O,P. .~.3.0 "The 'Active-Contemplative' Problem," D. M. Knight .7.5. "The Contemporary Spirituality of ihe Monastic Lectio," M, Neuman, O.S.B: . ~. . 50 "The Four Momeiats of Prayer," J. R. Sheets, S.J .5.0. "The Healing of Memories," F. Martin . . . 35 "The Nature and Value of a Directed Retreat," H. F. Smith,oS.J . :.° . .35 Orders for the' above should be sent to: Review for Religious Room 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St~ Louis, MO 63108 Destructive Passivity Spiritual Direction in Judith Roemer Sister Judith is a member of the staff of the Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth; Church Road; Wernersville, PA 19565. ecently, I have become aware of the work of Aar.on a.nd Jacqui Schiff on psychological aspects of passivity (T. A. Journal, 1:1, January, 1971). As I read some of their findings, I began to see applications to the situation of spiritual direction. I began to realize how important it is for directors to be more alert in detecting patterns of destructive passivity in their directees. I came to recognize how important it is not to foster such patterns. It.seems to me, then, that noting and examining the categories of these psychologists regarding negative passivity can be highly productive in improving the process of spiritual direction. ~ "Passivity" has long been esteemed in the spiritual life. For that reason, it seems necessary to distinguish clearly from the start precisely what is the subject of this paper. There definitely is a time for activity, and a time for passivity. What seems essential is that passivity, as a way of responding, be carefully chosen. When, after looking at a situation and being in touch with my faith, my intelligence, and my affectivity, I decide to do nothing, I have made good use of passivity. This paper is not about those freely-chosen, well-thought-'out, peacefully and joyfully chosen situations. On the con-trary, this paper is concerned .with a form of passivity which inhibits adult responsibility and substitutes an unproductive way of acting for a decision. Previously I had thought of passivity in terms of "'dging nothing," However, the unproductive types of passivity wear many masks. Along 40 Destructive Passivity in Spirit.ual Direction / lll with "doing. nothing," passivity can take the form of "over-adaptation," "agitation," "incapacitation," and "violence." Each form in turn has many other forms as the category is expanded. In writing about the situation of spiritual~direction, my assumption is that, for the most part, I am dealing with normal, productive adults. Hen~e~ without pushing Schiffs' original categories of abnormal behavior beyond their intent, I suggest that the destructive areas of passive behavior noted by them do have potential tendencies that are also to be~found ~n the situation of directing healthy adults. Both director and directee carl profit by being aware of them. Secondly, I want to show that the Spiritual Exer-cises of St. Ignatius contain some useful tactics for cou.nteracting destruc-. tive passivity. Using these tactics can be the occasion for providing quality decisions for the furtherance of the Kingdom. Doing Nothing In religious circles we often smile knowingly at the self-made martyr; we chide one another with the standard phrase, "Offer it up." We are indignant at the priest and levite who preceded the Good Samaritan and passed by the wounded stranger because it wasn't their business. We scoff at Cain as iii~ asks about being his brother's keeper. All of these are simply good exam-ples of the first category of destructive passivity, of doing nothing. Not quite so obvious is the example of a person who gathers data ad infinitum; waiting endlessly for the perfect insight, the perfect moment, before con-cretizing his dream in decision. Close to him is the example of the person who is caught in speculation to the point of paralysis. His personal intui-tions convolute beyond time and talent, becoming a threatening burden rather than a beaconing light. Substituting one a~tivity for another, washing the car instead of writing the checks, is yet another form of "doing nothing." A quite obvious form is plain indecisiveness. Not quite so easy to detect would be falling into a certain disproportionate balance of activity and passivity in prayer. One of the greatest struggles in prayer is knowing when to let go of activity in order to be quiet. As a person moves from a meditative stance to a contemplative stance, he is faced with the decision to choose or to resist passivity. Instinctively he would tend to resist whatever would challenge his depen-dence on word, fantasy, clarity or concept. In prayer, though, a person at some time is faced with the necessity of choosing the darkness of faith in place of his familiar dependency on thoughts and feelings. In the Exercises of St. Ignatius, the First Principle and Foundation (23) gives a clear direction against ~'doiflg nothingi': "The other things., are created for man to help him . Hence he ought to make use of them insofar as they help., and to rid himself of them insofar as they prove a hindrance." Later, in the Kingdom (91-98) the id quod volo (grace desired) is indicat- 49 /Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 ed in the petition to be "prompt and diligent., not to be deaf." Further on, the Three Classes of Men (149-155) portray sets of persons in the midst of decisions. At one extreme is the destructively passive man, who, filled with hopes, dreams, doubts, and attachments, comes to the end of~ his life uncommitted, not having "made use of any means." At the other end is the man of the ThirdClass who has developed a sense of freedom, a willingness to work with many options "to be better able to serve God our Lord." Many,, times people are unaware that there is any way out of their unproductive passivity, and thus see "doing nothing" as a way of survival. But this neednot be the case. A director who insists on careful discernment encourages his directee to find and develop many alternatives, thus lessen-ing the need for anyone to be locked into a single unproductive mode of ¯ acting. Over-adaptation A second, kind of passivity is over-adaptation; taking another's goal as one's own. Unlike the former category of "doing nothing," this one of over-adaptation appears to be busy and productive. Yet the exaggerated dependency role continues to operate and the results are destructive. Fear and "peace at any price" are common manifestations of over-adaptation in religious life. Yet it is often close to ordinary adaptation, which is a necessary~part of human existence. Hence over:gdaptation is difficult~to spot externally. However, careful listening to a directee can give a director many hints of how the directee is going to excessive pains not to cause trouble, to be nice, to be cooperative. Unfortunately it is not uncommon to hear of difficult or even impossible situations in which a person chooses to "sit" on his thoughts and feelings, to "adapt" rather than confront another person or a structure. The pain is often "offered up," and the unhealthy situation persists lest the individual be considered unmortified, or narrow-minded. Fear, too, can be used to mask over-adaptation. Especially among reli-gious women, being timid sometimes has an air of virtue about it. The timid woman wants to be rescued, preferably by a male spiritual director who will protect, reassure, and comfort her without suggesting that she move out of her unproductivity :and decide, with his help, what she is to do about it. Rather insidiously, this kind ofpassivity can be a mask for a deeper kind of aggression. It is difficult to challenge someone who is "trying so hard" to cooperate. Consciously or unconsciously, it doesn't take too long for the over-adapter to learn how much control can be gained in such a situation. Unfortunately, this kind of over-adaptation is often canonized as "docility." ,. Ironically, gaining control through over-adaptation often proves frus-trating. In the effort to mold, regulate and maintain the climate of safety created by over-adaptation, the directee often cannot hear the voice of the Destructive Passivity in Spiritua[ Direction Spirit. This kind of person has set up an atmosphere in which he does not have to give up his security. In clinging to safety he has substantially cut himself off from the world of inspiration and challenge. Directors often see this in directees who cannot believe that God could possibly be leading them beyond their self-made rules, beyond their self-made security and safety. Directees see this in directors who speak only of asceticism, never of mysticism, who prefer devotions and practices instead of fidelity to the Spirit. In some way those who claim they have no time for prayer as well as those who claim they cannot be involved with their neighbors both have fallen heir to passivity,in the form of over-adaptation. The former have let the rat race rather than their own head, heart and faith decide their destiny. The latter have refused to be molded by the poverty, particularity, and concreteness of the Incarnation.' Lastly, in our day, we often fail victim to concern for public relations. Our assumptions about what the bishop will think, what the lay teachers will think, what our community will think, what the Protestants Will think, what the children will think, and so on, endlessly, often decide the course of important events ?Further, they are used as a justification and motivation for over-adapting, for decisions which are unworthy of our faith experi-ence. Over-adaptation is an excellent example of how the "angel of darkness" comes disguised as an "angel of light" (Ex 332). We are all familiar with the monsters that have arisen in the guise of virtue under such "headings as availability, community, poverty, or blind obedience. Burning the candle at both ends, :navel gazing, stinginess, and the ill-use of human talents are all destructive~and.unworthy of the Kingdom. Those who have suffered these delusions might well look less to over-adaptation and more to considered responsiveness in their future decision-making. The Exercises are intended to be a celebration of one's gift of spiritual freedom. Key to that~disposition is ~ spirit of indifference. 1 can use things when I need them and put them aside when they hinder'rme. I canchoose the one or the other, not being unduly influenced by position, location or advancement. Such a stance demands a sense of presence: pres~ence to myself ag I accept the wonder and agony of who I am; and presence'to God as I accept the reality of Someone beyond'me who loves me, At the peak~ of the Ignatian ,experience, the exercitant becomes a cor~templative-in-action. Again and again, each one of the exercises faces him with the question: "What do I want?" He is asked to identify his desire and pray for what he needs. He is asked to face the reality of what he can do, what he needs to ask for, what he plans to do about it all. As though this were not enough, he is asked to order his de~i~es, prioritize his Iongings, lest he assume the posture of the man of the Secon~l Class (Ex 154), thus leaving himself open 44 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 to compromise and mediocrity, It is comforting to note that over-adaptation is often the easiest of the unproductive passivities to remedy. Most people who are negatively pas-sive have done a lot 0fthinking :to arrive at such a position. They are equally capable of assimilating new. information, though. For this reason, it would be a good thing for a director to confront such negative passivity directly. Thinking seriously about developing more positive options, a director and directee can develop new alternatives that lead to more creative results. Agitation The third category of unproductive passivity is agitation, the repetition of actions that have no meaning in terms of what the individual is seeking. In prayer this often shows itself in the kind of spiritual gluttony that ex-cludes the invitation to the darkness of faith. Most of us who pray consistently catch ourselves at times trying too hard, attempting to "program" a religious experience by learning the new-est techniques, and then clinging to the resultant experience as though it were God. Once an individual has fallen into this, it ultimately comes to him asa surprise to find that faith is~dark. His experience with this darkness then arouses anger, possessiveness, the demand that God come to him on his terms. His first experience with this reality often brings about more agita-tion in the form of worry, fretting, the gloomy exaggeration of his situation out of all proportion to its reality. Many persons tend to drop prayer at this point; "Nothing is happening," they say. Or they become over, involved in new techniques, in more interesting works, or in other people, rather than take the effort to learn to live comfortably with dark faith. Since religious people tend to be idealistic, they tend to strive for goals so high that the gap between the real self and the ideal self creates depres-sion rather than energy. Here is where good direction offers an opportunity for balance. Directors should be on the alert for extremes. Wild imaginings in time of prayer, quickly changing moods of sadness, exuberance, fear, or zeal need testing. It seems unlikely that experiences of being "bugged by God" about small ~hings or "being made to suffer" by God hold up in the pro.cess of good discernment. It is more likely that persons have allowed themselves the "luxury" of agitation as a replacement for the decision to accept fully the implication's of their call. Such a decision, lived, is sobering. Life with God becomes quiet, gentle, strong, and often hidden. One must be willing to give up the excitement of flurry, th.e pride of being a "martyr to the cause," the prestigiousness of extraordinary phenomena. The con-crete decision i.s amazingly simple, poor, and hidden, just as it was when the Word was made Flesh. St. Ignatius has many suggestions for coun~teracting agitation. In the Rules for Discernment for the First W~eek (313-327) he describes the behav-ior that is characteristic of those facing their own sinfulness. He warns Destructive Passivity in Spiritual Direction against secrecy, sadness, false reasoning, restiessness, frames of mind that lead to lack of faith, hope, and love. In the Second Week's Rules for Discernment (328-336) he describes the experience of agitation as "'violent, noisy, and disturbing." These, he counsels, are from the evil one. Again, [the course of thoughts suggested to us] may end in what weakens the soul, or disquiets it; or by destroying the peace, tranquility, and quiet which it had before, it may cause disturbance to the soul. These things are a clear sign that the thoughts are proceeding from the evil spirit, the enemy of our progress and eternal salvation ~333). Unfortunately, many enjoy their agitation. Not only does it substitute for their having to make a decision, but they can often find convincing reasons to suggest why it is actually accomplishing something. However, this would be a dangerous area to cultivate.Little that is long-lasting for the K~ngdom is accomplished through such agitation. Further, the'anxiety that I am arousing can move me into the more destructive aspects of passivity: incapacitation or violence. For the director, little or nothing is accom-plished by cooperating with the agitation ofhis directee. In fact, trying to dialog logically with a person in this state often brings the directee more deeply into a dependency role, delaying a good decision. In these cases an effort should be made by both director and directee to calm the agitation, moving it back to an over-adaptive situation where, temporarily at least, the director can give calm instructions that will provide a better atmosphere for the directee to think of alternatives and decide on more productive options. Incapacitation A more entrenched kind of passivity is the fourth type: incapacitation. 'One of the most common manifestations of freezing or incapacitation tn spirituality is stubbornness, an unwillingness to move one step further until I fully understand where I am going. This kind of stubbornness commonly occurs during the transition from meditation to contemplation. "I don't know what is going to happen, and I will not let go until I do," The result is that I stay where I am, often giving up mental prayer as a result. Hand-maid to stubbornness is scruple, a fear of doing something good lest I be wrong or at least somewhat ill-motivated, Much good can be left undone while a person worries about whether or not he is proud, vain, or ambitious, The Exercises answer this frame of mind. lfl such cases one should raise his mind to his Creator and Lord, and if he sees what fie is about to do is in keeping with God's service~, or at least not opposed to it, he should act directly against the temptation. According to St. Bernard, we must answer the tempter, "" I did not undertake this because of you, and I a.m not going to relinquish it~because of you" (351). Refusing to let go of an emotion, pleasant or agonizing, is another form of incapacitation. "'I can only pray provided it is a high experience." ""Io have grown comfortable with my anger (resentment, low self-image) and 46 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 the atmosphere I create helps me feel secure. I control my environment." Unfortunately, the situation backfires and shields the individual from life, i~ssenin'g the likelihood of his loving or suffering, rejoicing or crying with the rhythms of the real world. Having entrenched himself in his low self-image, he begins to project distorting 'images on God. God becomes the Great Controller, the Life-Taker, the Divine Exactor, rather than the Evoker of Freedom and the Loving Father. Lastly, incapacitation demon-strates itself as an unwillingness, an inability to look at one's blind spots. Fear of losing the security of his images often prevents the individual from being called beyond his own devices to the darkness of faith by the whispers of the Spirit. The Ex~rcises face incapacitation firmly by asking the individual to seek for the gift of knowing that he is deeply loved and ~knowing that he is at the same time sinful. Coupled with that grace is his growing realization of who he i~the wonder and the agonywthat leads him to grow comfortable and free with his own reality. In the protection of this new freedom the person does not.have to struggle for survival. He has experienced love. He knows that he is "precious in his sight" (Is 43:4). The Exercises would stir him out of his inactivity, bidding him to look at his secret stubbornnesses as a "false lover" who readily leaves as soon as he is discovered (326). In #325, I am admonished to face the temptation boldly so that it can be put to flight. My willingness to renounce my incapacitation reaches a high .moment when I honest|y put myse|f before Christ on the Cross "as one friend speaks to another" and hear myself own the answers to the triple question, " What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What ought I to do for Christ?" (53). Paradoxically, the most extreme kind of passivity is violence. In it I give up my responsibility for thinking and loving to vent my energy on destruc-tion. Among religious people the violence is often inward: psychosomatic illness, masturbation, guilt, tortured imaginings. These are a poor substitute for the ecstacy to which I am called. The individual prefers the certainty of destruction to the uncertainty of wonder. Even worse, ,he can cloak the mess he has created in a false rationalization of the Third Degree of Humil-ity (Ex 167),thinking that these passivities are his way of bearing poverty, humiliation, and scorn with Christ. Eventually the fruits of distress and frustration, both in himself and in those who have to live with him, will hopefully bring him to his senses. The fruits of true Christian suffering and a true participation in Christ's life always bring forth peace and joy in the depths of the spirit. Violence can also be outwardly directed. We religious may not throw a chair through a window, but we do impose verbal burdens

Issue 17.3 of the Review for Religious, 1958. ; A. M. D. G. Review for Religious MAY 15, 1958 M~re Marie of the Ursulines . Sister Benita Daley Gifts Of the Holy Spirit . paul w. o'erie. C~urrent Spiritual Writing . Thomas G. O'Ca~lagha. Do We Know Our Mother? . Sister M. Annice Summer Sessions Book Reviews Questions and Answers Roman Documents about: Christ and World Harmony Religious Obedience Feminine Fashions VOLUME 17 NUMBER 3 Ri::VII::W FOR RI:::LIGIOUS VOLUME 17 MAY, 1958 NUMBER 3 CONTENTS M~-RE MARIE OF THE URSULINES~ Sister Benita Daley, C.S.J . 129 SUMMER SESSIONS . 134 THE GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT-- Paul W. O'Brien, S.J . 135 CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING--- Thomas G. O'Callaghan, S.J .1.45 DO WE KNOW OUR OWN MOTHER?-- Sister M. Annice, C.S.C . " . 157 SURVEY OF ROMAN DOCUMENTS~R. F. Smith, S.J . 167 BOOK REVIEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS: Editor: Bernard A. Hausmann, S.J. West Baden College West Baden Springs, Indiana . 178 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS: 13. Changing a Will . 188 14. General Sanation . 188 15. Absence During the Canonical Year . 189 16. Constituting a Chapter Without Approval . 190 17. What Is an Immediate Third Term as Superior General?. 190 18. Gloria in tile Mass of a Beatified Foundress . 191 19. Canon Law for Brothers and Sisters . 191 OUR CONTRIBUTORS ' 192 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS,, May, 1958. Vol. 17, No. 3. Published bi-monthly by The Queen's Work, 3115 South Grand Blvd., St. Louis 18, Mo. Edited by the Jesuit Fathers of St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approval. Second class mail privilege authorized at St. Louis, Mo. Editorial Board: Augustine G. Ellard, S.J.; Gerald Kelly, S.J.; Henry Willmering, S.J. Literary Editor: Robert F. Weiss, S.J. Copyright, 1958, by The Queen's Work. Subscription price in U.S.A. and Canada: 3 dollars a year; 50 cents a copy. Printed in U.S.A. Please send all renewals and new subscriptions to: Review for Religious, 3115 South Grand Boulevard. St. Louis 18o Missouri. /v re Marie ot: !:he Ursulines Sisl:er Benil:a Daley, C.S.J~ IN JUNE, 1958, when the city of Quebec celebrates the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its founding, it will honor Samuel de Champlain, who first recognized the importance of this great port on the "king of all rivers" as he termed the St. Lawrence. The achievements of the great men who contributed to the growth and development of that city will be recalled--men like Bishop Laval and Frontenacm but no chronicle of its glor!es will be complete without a tribute to that illustrious pioneer, M~re Marie of the Ursulines. The passage of three centuries has not dimmed the memory of the courageous woman who exemplified in her remarkable career an amazing variety of callings: wife, mother, mystic, business woman, teacher, writer, and cloistered religious. Her name and deeds are interwoven with every worth. while endeavor to colonize the little seventeenth-century settle-ment that was to become the thriving commercial and industrial city of today. In her missionary-career of thirty-two years, she endured all the hardships incident upon life in a pioneer out-post that was constantly under attack by the Indians. Marie Guyardqthat was the family name of this Ursuline missionary--was born in 1599 in Tours, France. Reared in a Catholic home by devout parents who inculcated habits of deep piety and love of labor in their eight children, Marie leari~ed at an early age to relish the joy of prayer and meditation. Yet, like any normal child, she entered gaily into games and pastimes with her brothers and sisters and the neighborhood children. When she was only fifteen years old, she asked her mother's permission to become a nun. Her mother refused this requesti believing that a person like Marie, so gay and vivacious, should 129 SISTER BENITA DALEY Review for Religious marry. Marie's parents then proceeded, to seek a desirable husband f~r their daughter. Their choice fell upon an estimable young silk merchant of Tours, Claude Martin. Thus it was that at the age of seventeen Marie became a bride. Although the desire to lead a religious life in the cloister still dominated all her thinking, she never questioned her parents.' decision about marriage. That, she believed, was the unfolding of God's plan in her life. She would obey her parents and accept this sacrifice of her own desires. Married life brought heavy burdens to the inexperienced girl. Marie Martin had to assist her husband in the manage-ment of his business which included, according to the custom of the time, housing and feeding his principal employees. Even though the religious bent of her nature sonstantly impelled her to yearn for hours of solitude in which to pray and to meditate, she developed great skill in directing her husband's establish-ment. Her talent for organization, her ability to deal harmoni-ously with all sorts of individuals--she supervised a large staff of servants and about twenty workmen in her husband's shop --these gifts were to serve her well in later years as a missionary in New France. The birth of her son, Claude, in 1619, gave her great joy; but six months later her husband died, leaving his finances in such a state that she was virtually penniless. A widow at nineteen, with an infant son to care for, attractive and highly respected, this young girl received many offers of marriage. Her family advised her to" remarry as the solution of her problems. But Marie Martin knew exactly what she would do now. She would follow the call of God in her heart; she would live for Him alone, making a cloister for Him in the depth of her being. Some day her hope of consecrating her life to God in religion might be realized. When and how this might be accomplished she did not know for her first obligatioa required her to devote herself to the upbringing of her child. 130 May, 1958 M~E MARIE Madame Martin returned then to her father's home but soon answered the call of an older sister who needed help in the management of her large household. Marie's brother-in-law, Paul Buisson, a wealthy artillery officer, approved this plan for he knew that this capable young woman, in return for a home for herself and her child, w.ould supervise his affairs efficiently. Eventually, Marie took complete charge of his transport business, his warehouses, and his stables. In short, she became the unpaid servant of the Buisson family--prepar-ing meals, nursing the sick, regulating accounts, and directing employees--for all these duties fitted admirably into her design to live entirely for God. Eagerly she sought the means to multiply fasts, penances, and vigils. It is not surprising then that history records her as one of the great mystics of her time. In the midst of her endless labors, God rewarded Marie Martin with heavenly visions, with revelations of the Blessed Trinity and of the Incarnation. Bossuet called her the St. Teresa o{: her century; and well he might, fo'r, like the saint of Avila, Madame Martin was practical, never neglecting ordinary duties for spiritual joys. Leading this extraordinary life of close intimacy with God and of long hours of toil, Marie wat,ched her young son grow into a strong and healthy boyhood. When he was twelve years old, she confided him to the care of the Jesuits to be trained, believing that a boy of his age needed a man's guidance. With. his consent, she achieved her long-desired goal, entering the Ursulines in Tours in 1631 at~ter obtaining her sister's promise to pay for young. Claude's education. In later years, Marie Martin experienced the happiness, of knowing that her son had become a Benedictine priest. In the cloister, Marie de l'Incarnation, as she was now called, attained ,great mystical heights. God bestowed upon her special giftsthe interpretation of scriptural texts--which are evidi~nced in the spiritual writings she composed at this time. She even saw Canada in a vision, not knowing it by name but SISTER BENITA DALEY Review for Religious perceiving only that ~it would some day be the field of her missionary labors. When she learned that the Jesuits of New France were asking for teaching nuns for Quebec, she resolved to answer the call if the opportunity arose. She longed to bring the light of faith to the savages of the New World. It was " with great rejoicing then that she received her appointment to found with two other Ursulines a mission school for Indian children in Champlain's struggling colony on the St. Lawrence. Exactly. four years after that great explorer's death, Mire Marie and her companions sailed from Dieppe. That was May 4, 1639. After a three-month voyage, they landed in Quebec, receiving a joyous welcome from its two hundred colonists. The tiny house to which ~he nuns were ceremoniously conducted was little more than a shack, but to Mire Marie it held promise of the fulfillment of her apostolate for souls. The little convent with its back against an enormous cliff looked out on the enchanting loveliness of wide stretches of water, a world of beauty that M~re Marie always cherished even when, at a later date, hunger and cold and destitution plagued the nuns. Here the first school opened with six Indian girls. Hardly were the Ursulines settled in their new home than an epidemic of smallpox broke out in the colony. Soon sick Indians in all their dirt and" wretchedness crowded in upon thenuns who cheerfully nursed them. In so doing, M~re Marie and her co-workers sacrificed the convent's slender resources in food and clothing. Y~hen the horrible experience ended, they de-cided that they had been too busy to contract the dread disease. As the number of pupils in the school steadily increased,' it became necessary to build a structure that would adequately house both nuns and students. The task of raising funds for this pressing need devolved upon Mire Marie. Then began that series of letters that went to France on every ship leaving ~he port of Quebec. Historians record that during her mis-sionary life this pioneer wrote over twelve thousand letters, enough volumes to fill several shelves in a library. 132 MARIE Not all of these letters were appeals for money. Many of them, sent to Ursuline convents, to important people in France, and to her Benedictine son, constitute, in the opinion of scholars, one of the finest primary sources of information on seventeenth-century Quebec. They narrate with typical French clarity the daily occurrences of the colony so that every phase of its de-velopment unfolds in this correspondence. The appointme~nt of the governors of the colony, the Indian massacres, the tor-tures of the Jesuit martyrs, the perils of living under constant threat of Iroquois hostilities, the complete destruction by fire of the Ursuline convent in 1650, the horror of the earthquake that shook Quebec three years later-~all these facts M~re Marie recounted in vivid detail. If the nuns, being cloistered, could not move freely among the colonists, the latter came to the convent to seek advice on various matters. M~re Marie took great pains to keep herself informed on all questions that pertained to the well-being of the people. As a result of her interest, government officials as well as the colonists, esteemed her sane judgments, her practical good sense. They valued more and more the type of education she administered in her convent school, for with the new re-cruits that had come from France to increase her staff, she planned an educational program that aimed to transmit to the pupils the culture and traditions of Old France. In 1642, the new monastery, a three-story structure, the pride of the colony, was completed. Mire Marie herself had drawn up its plans and supervised its construction, even mount-ing the scaffolding to direct the work in progress. But material achievements did not lessen her spiritual undertakings. In order to instruct the savages in the faith, she mastered four difficult Indian languages, thus displaying an amazing linguistic ability. She began this study at the age of forty; and, in the following twenty years, she demonstrated her proficiency by writing catechisms, grammars, and dictionaries ir~ 133 SISTER BENITA DALEY the Algonquin, Huron, and Iroquois dialects. These texts have proved invaluable to missionaries of later centuries. At her death in 1672, this interpid French woman had com-pleted thirty-two years of missionary labor crowned with success as an administrator and educator. She had helped to initiate a new movement in the Church--the active participation oi: re-ligiot~ s women in missionary, educational, and social projects. Her pioneer work led to the establishment of numerous com-munities of religious women who today staff our hospitals and schools and undertake the social apostolate. Agnes Repplier, in her biography~-M~re Marie of the Ursulines--now appropriately being re, issued in this anniversary year, points out that holiness "was the weapon with which she fought her' battles, established her authority, and became a living principle in the keen, hard, vivid, friendly, ~nd dangerous life of New France." SUMMER SESSIONS Marquette University will conduct a three-week workshop in sister formation granting three semester hours of graduate credit in education. The workshop will explore the application of the Everett Report to the needs of communities of sisters. It has been designed specifically for directresses of study and for the administration and faculty of juniorates and scholasticates (college level) of sisterhoods. It has been scheduled for the mornings and afternoons of August 4 to 22. It is open only to sisters. The fee is $50.00. The directress of the workshop is Sister Elizabeth Ann, I.H.M., of Immaculate Heart College; Los Arigeles, assisted by sisters acquainted with the Everett Report and by other consultants. Room and board t~or the sisters attending the workshop is available in Schroeder Hall. Address: Marquette University Graduate School, Milwaukee 3, Wisconsin. St. Mary's College, Notre Dame, Indiana, announces the six-teenth annual summer session of its Graduate School of Sacred Theol-ogy for Sisters and Laywomen (June 23-August I). Scheduled are fourteen classes in: fundamental theology, dogma, morals, Old Testa-ment, New Testament, patrology, biblical theology, church history, introduction to theology, introduction to Sacred Scriptures, introduc-tion to the Summa of St. Thomas. The faculty includes Jesuits, Dominicans, Passionists, other priests, and lay professors. Address (Continued on page 166) 134 The ifi:s. ot: :he I-Ioly Spiri Paul W. O'Brien,S.J. FRANKLY I HAVE always wanted to know more about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They held a strange attraction. The soul seemed to feel instinctively that they occupied a key position in its spiritual, life. And yet the.y seemed so elusive. Beyond a few elementary notions, they remained rather difficult to grasp. I wondered whether the main ideas could not be pinned down and put in simple language. It is this I have tried to do both for my. own understanding of the question and perhaps for the profit of others. The Need oE the Gifts ." A soul in love with God and witl~ some little experience in th~ spiritual life comes quickly to realize its ihadequacy. This comes about not merely frbm the intellectual conviction that unaided nature can~ never reach the supernatural, that "without Me, you can do nothing." Rather it is an experimental knowl-edge, even supposing God's elevating grace, of the slowness of its mind to grasp the things of God. It "tries to penetrate the truthsof faith and finds them veiled; it seeks to draw the logical conclusions from these truths, but the elements of the'problem slip from its memory before the conclusions are reached. Its will that should be such an impelling power toward God is so hesitant, so wavering; and, even when with God's grace it feels a power for ordinary acts~ of virtue, it senses its inadequacy for anything that might be termed heroic. In all sincerity we are seeking to do the will of. God, "a will presented to us through obedience, through our rules, but which still leaves so much undefined. We know at a given moment "what" we. must do, but the "how" seems to admit of indefinite progress; and we feel blocked. The life that we live seems to be a life planned by a reason directed by' faith,, but it is one where my reason 135 PAUL W. O']~RIEN Review for Religious does the directing. Actually we are longing for the Holy Spirit to assume the direction of our lives. We are thirsting to have our love enkindled by the Spirit of love-to have our intellects enlightened by the Spirit of Truth. In a word, we are yearning to supplement our life of the ~irtues by a life of the gifts under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The Nature of the Gifts St. Thomas tells us that these gifts of the Holy Spirit are permanent dispositions of the soul to obey the Holy Spirit promptly. They are not just passing actual graces; they are permanent dispositions in the soul. They are not like the in-fused virtues which enable us to act; these are passive disposi-tions which enable us to receive, to be acted upon by the Holy Spirit. Granted the existence of our supernatural organism, we might possibly reason fo the necessity of such gifts, in order that the organism be perfect; but God has spared us the labor. He has told us of the gifts in Isaias 11:2: "And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him; the spirit of wisdom and under-standing; the spirit of counsel and of fortitude; the spirit of knowledge and of godliness (piety). And he shall be filled with the fear of the "Lord." Actually the text refers to Jesus, .the Messiah; but the Fathers of the Church in explaining it taught that these gifts have passed from Christ to all the mem-bers of His Mystical Body. It is therefore a point of faith that these gifts exist. It is also certain that they are permanent habits. But, for the rest, theologians have their little differences. It is ~the more common and more probable opinion that the gifts are really distinct from the virtues. And it seems more probable that there are actually seven gifts, though some theologians think it not improbable that the number seven is used, as often in the Old Testament, in a mystical sense of plenitude. But for our practical purpose, it is enodgh to know that the gifts of the Holy' Spirit exist, that they are permanent in the soul in grace, 136 May, 1958 GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT and that through them the" Holy Spirit can direct all the activi-ties of our souls. Reason-guided or God-guided? When God made human nature, He put into it all that it needed to live its life and do its work in a fitting manner. And so He endowed it with a soul, with faculties of thinking and willing, and virtues to 'perfect these faculties. We then had everything necessary to live a human life. The guiding power in this organism was reason. To live as a human being, we had to live according to reason. But God did not leave me to my natural resources and natural end. He destined me to know Him in the beatific vision and to share His own divine life. To accomplish this, it was necessar~ that He elevate my natural organism; and this He did by bestowing gratuitously on my soul sanctifying grace together with the infused virtues, both theological and moral. Not only has He elevated my powers making them able to act supernaturally and reach out to Him; but He has furnished new maps to my reason, indicating the way to :Himself by marking out new signposts with His revealed tr~ths. Surely .the way is now clearer, and reason .finds more secur.!.ty; 'bui it is still reason that directs my life, even though :helped by faith. My life to God is still reason-controlled. And ~onsequently !t is subject to all the. limitations of human reason. ¯ I cannot s~e all the future; .I. cannot foresee the consequendes of my present actions; I cannot know the hearts of those with Whbm I deal, whether my well-meant word or action may not be untimely. My grasp of faith is so imperfect. If only the great God who is above all might enter in to guide my life! How wonderful to replace the groping of my reason through an uncharted future with the security of divine Wisdom--my vision obscured by the veil of faith, with God's clear knowledge of Himself, eternal Truth--my imperfect intuition of the hearts of others, with the intimately penetrating knowledge of God--my hesitancy in choosing God's way, with the sureness of 137 PAUL W. O'BRIEN Review ]or Religious God's Will-~.my :weakness of love, with the impetu.osity of God's Spirit. And yet this is the life that God holds out to me through the gifts. This is'the true meaning o~ the gi~ts, that my soul is o.pened up to this direct action o~ God, that my soul is disposed to obey. promptly, this Spirit o~ ldve, that my soul may soar above its reason:controlled guidance, to be taken to God's Heart as His instrument, guided by the Holy Spirit, with all that this involves. Some Illustrations Theologians around the time of St. Thomas tried to explain the gi~ts o~ the H01y Spirit by the examp!e o~ a rowboat fitted out with~sails~ The oars or.the.boat ~orresp0nded to the virtues, the" active ¯agents in the movement ot~ the.boat. The sails were the gift's of the Holy Spirit, those passive disppsitions by which the boat recdi~ed an outside impulse and direction from the Wind. ¯ " ~ Cardinal Billot, some six centuries later, modernized the dxample, propoging a °motOrboat fitted out with ~ails. The motor, actively 'propelling the° boat f~:om "within, corresponde~{ to th~ virtues'; the ~ails, receiving passi,~ely the breezd, reprd-sent~ d the gift's of the" Holy Spirit. ~ Were ~hese great .theologians alive t~0da'y, we may pre.sume that the)) would look for s~mething more" modern and might hit on Our radio-~ontrolled rob0.t planes. Sbme time back ~I saw some boys~ flying iu'~h a plane; and," if I am no~ mistaken (in ~nY .even~ it may serve~ us ~or an example), ~he plane, somd ten feet long; contained i~s "own motor, Which propelled it into the air" arid drove i~ along a( an~ ordinary spee~l. O~ co~rse there was no one in the plane. But 'aitach'ed some w.ay to th~ motor was a radio recei,~er. From the ground the boys '~ver~e ~ble to sdn~t impulses into ~hat rhceiver and to control the ipeed of thd motor' as well as the di.rection o~ the plane~ They could turh it to thd right or left, speed it up, make it lo6p the loop, and sO forth. "I ~ould not but think that that' little radio receiver" co~respohded t6 ~he" gifts of the Holy Gh6st~ while the motor correspondedto the in~used Virtues. 138 May, 1958 GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT The gifts of the Holy Spirit, then, m~y be considered as God's radio receiver put into our soul, a passive disposition to receive the impulses from the Holy Spirit. Surely we carry within us our own motor, the infused virtues, which move us along in a normal way; but in order that these virtues be directed, that their activity be increased, there was need of a receiver. The plane could fly without the receiver, just as we can practice ordinary virtue without this special direction of the Holy Spirit. But to be controlled with sureness, to be brought to a safe landing, to receive added strength, for all this we needed a means by. which the Holy Spirit could enter. Neither do we consider the radio receiver as the motor of the plane. And so it is with the gifts. They are not the motive force that moves the soul; they merely receive the impulses of the Holy Spirit that activate the virtues. The virtues remain the operative powers of the soul. Cormaturality What are these habits, these permanent dispositions of the soul? Do they merely mean that God in His almighty power can break into the soul whenever He wishes--a mere "obedi-ential potency," as theologians would say--or are they some-thing more? The disposition which is a gift of the Holy Spirit is something more. It creates in the soul a sort of reaching out for God's inspiration, a power of attraction, giving the soul what theologians call "connaturality," making the soul as it were "tuned-in,~' preparing the soul so that the-inspiration of the Holy .Spirit would feel "at-home." A child is attracted to the loving atmosphere of the family circle, but repelled by the cold, indifferent spirit of a strange house. .And so while the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is gratuitous and the disposition is passive, yet the gift creates this connaturality, giving the soul a certain claim on God's help. Through fidelity to grace, the soul can merit an increase of God's inspirations and conse-quently a greater capacity for the gifts. PAUL W. O'BRIEN Review for Religious The Functions of the Individual Gifts Theoretically there is a certain utility in knowing the func-tion of the individual gifts. It completes our knowledge. But since spiritual writers are not in complete agreement on these functions and practically the discernment of the effect of each gift is rather difficult, it is enough for the good soul to know that God has a way of directing all its activities, that this way. is by means of the gifts, and that God will know which gift He is using, even though the soul may not. The soul needs only to beg God to come in His fullness, to take over the direction of all its acts. However, it is helpful to note in a general way (I am fol-lowing St. Thomas) that every activity of the soul is cared for by the gifts. All of God's grace is directed to enlighten my intellect or strengthen my will. Hence the gifts perfect these two faculties, four of them (wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and counsel) perfecting the intellect, and three of them (piety, fortitude, and fear of the Lord) perfecting the will. Now the intellect may grasp truth intuitively, or it may have a judgment about it. And in judging about it, it may judge divine things, created things, or apply general truths to concrete acts. For each of these operations, there is a gift by which the intellect in that operation is disposed to be guided by the Holy Spirit. Corresponding to and perfecting the intuition of truth is the gift of understanding, by which the soul penetrates the truths of faith--understanding not merely how believable they are, how right it is that the soul adheres to them, but penetrating even to the very truths themselves, perceiving connections be-tween the truths, analogies, logical conclusions, etc., all of which it could probably get by study, but which it receives in a simpler and more instinctive manner. This gift together with the "gift of knowledge perfects faith. The gift of wisdom corresponds to that judgment of the mind about God and divine things, as the soul judges that God 140 May,, 1958 GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT is lovable above all, as 'it ~askes God with'~i certain sweetness, as it judges all things in the light of God and adheres to Him in charity. Wisdom perfects charity. The gift of knowledge corresponds to the judgment of the mind about created things or of divine things according to creatures. It enables t.he soul to form a true judgment of human things--to see clearly its own conduct and the conduct of others. It is this gift that is activated particularly in the dark nights of the soul, making the soul see its sinfulness and the nothingness of created things. Like the gift of understand-ing, this gift also perfects faith. The gift of counsel looks to the direction of particular actions--what to do here and now under these circumstances. What faith, wisdom, and knowledge teach in general, counsel applies in particular. This gift corresponds to the virtue of prudence, which prescribes the means for attaining the end. Three gifts perfect the will. Piety excites the soul to a filial affection toward God. The virtue of religion and the gift of piety both lead us to the worship and service of God. But religion considers God as Creator, while piety looks to Him as Father. Piety reaches not only to-God, but to everything and everybody connected with Him; hdnce to Holy Scripture, the saints, the souls in purgatory. It corresponds to the virtue of justice and governs us in our relations with others. With regard to ourselves two gifts come into play. Forti. rude stimulates us against the fear of dangers or human respect, enabling us to resist certain strong temptations, to undertake arduous works for God. It corresponds to the virtue of forti-tude. The other gift regarding ourselves is fear of the Lord. The~e are two kinds of fear, that of tl~e slave who fears the lash, the punishment, and that of the son who fears to sadden. his father by offending him. The first is called servile, fear and has no place in the gift. Rather it is filial fear, which looks 141 PAUL V~. O'BRIEN Review for Religious chiefly to God and deters us from offending Him. Thus it perfects hope. But it also makes us avoid that which most attracts us to sin, namely the delights of the world; and in this respect it corresponds to the virtue of temperance. This gift of fear of the Lord is the basis of all others, for the first step on the way to God is a reverence for Him that makes us flee sire Ordinary and Extraordinary Action of the Holy Spirit It is a great consolation to the soul to know that as long as it is in the state of grace it possesses all the gifts of the Holy Spirit and is therefore under the guidance of the Holy Spirii. However this guidance varies according to the disposition of the soul and its fidelity. It is not a felt guidance, and great activity of the Holy Spirit may' pass unnoticed in the soul and may be guessed at only because of its effects. It is through this action of the Holy Spirit that various vocations are realized, as step by step He leads the soul to the fulfillment of His eternally determined plan. In acting through the gifts, the Holy Spirit may enter our lives in two ways. One is the ordinary way, inasmuch as He conforms to the ,natural workings of our intellect and will, elevated of course by grace, taking occasion from sermons, our spiritual reading, our meditations, to inspire us with good thoughts. We experience greater light, a more intense love; and yet our intellects are reasoning in the way they have always reasoned; and our wills are loving as they have always loved. Even the acts to whic~h the Holy Spirit will lead us are acts accord with our nature, within the sphere of reason enlightened by faith. Through this constant influence of the Holy Spirit in our ordinary actions, the soul may arrive at a high degree sanctity, without being consciously aware of this intense activity of the Holy Spirit through His gifts. Though heroic sanctity is attainable through this ordinary mode of action of the Holy Spirit, it is more common to find in the saints the more extraordinary mode of action by which 142 May, 1958 GIFTS OF THE; HOLY, SPIRIT our faculties, through these same gifts, are given a new way acting~or reach out for .objects naturally outside their normal' sphere. This extraordinary action of the Holy Spirit takes various t~orms: in one, it will be the way oi~ infused contemplation, com-monly called the mystic life, which is generally brought about through the intense activation of the gifts of wisdom, under-standing, and knowledg~gifts that perfect th~ intellect. Ex-amples of such action may be found in~ the great contemplatives, St. ~John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila. It is well to note that. the gifts of ~wisdom .and understanding may.be present in' a soul in a. high degree without the soul being conscious of. them or without their producing infused contemplation, which is 'but one of the possible forms of their influence. ¯ In another, the' e~traordinar.y' action of the Holy" Spirit will direct the soul to a more active and apostolic life, in which the gifts which are directed more to action (e.g, counsel and fortitude) predominate.' Such a soul was ~Sto Vincent de' Paul, who seems not to ~have en'joyed .infused contemplation/ but who led a life of heroic charity. In still others, God's acti6n works toward a combination of these lives, as with the great contemplative~ ipostles,' St. Paul; St. Ignatius,-St. Francis Xavier. Thd form which this' action of the Holy Spilit Will take will depend on the vocation and work to Which God has destined the soul. BUt whethe~ the mode of action be ordin~iry or extraordinary, no sanctity is possible without this habi~hal docility to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit; ai~d this docility is at-tained through the gifts. Our Practical Attitude " There is .no soul in love with God that d6es not desire to be completely under .the sway of the Spirit \of Love. ¯ And, since this" direction will come about especially through the gifts oi~ the Holy Spirit, there is no" soul that does not long to possess 143 PAUL V~r. O'BRIEN these gifts in all the fullness that God may be pleased to grant. Since an incoming inspiration seems to enlarge the capacity of ~the gifts, our desires for the increase of the gifts are really desires that God may be ever more generous with His inspira-tions. Our problem, then, is one of fidelity to. these inspirations and the growth of our desires that the ego may decrease while God and His influence are !ncreasing. However, there is a certain preparation that can be made.' And here we may return to our "radio-receiver." For good reception, the air must be. clear, free from "interference," free from ~'jamming." Alas, how often our little "gift-receivers" are shut out from the impulses of God's grace by the interfer-ence of passion and prejudice, and by the jamming of worldli-ness and the clamor of creatures. We must clear the air through purity of heart--striving with all our might until an emptiness of self has cleared the way for His divine influence. But it is not enough to .have the air cleared; we must be "tuned-in." The soul must be recollected, attentive to God, tuned-in to the Holy Spirit, not trusting in the initial impulses and guidance of its reason, but turning with evei-increasing fre-quency, as He gives the measure, to the Holy Spirit for the inspiration and continuation of our works. When our part is done, the rest will depend on the source of the impulses. But here we have no difficulty; for the source of our inspirations is God with His power, His attractiveness, His clarity. His part will never fail. The trouble can only be in the receiver. We must go forward therefore in confidence, trying to bring home to ourselves the beauty, the security, the divineness of a life lived under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The measure of that life in us will depend in great part on the strength of our desires. We will long for it, struggle for it, and keep begging for it as we implore the Spirit .of Love in His sevenfold gift (septiformis munere) to come in all His full-ness into our hearts. Come Holy Spirit! 144 Current: Spirit:u l rit:ing Thomas ~,. O'C~lhgh~n, S.,J. St. Th~rhse of Lisieux A VERY NOTABLE event occurred two years ago in the field of hagiography. It was the publication of the auto-biographical manuscripts of St. Th~r~se of Lisieux.1 o.ne point of great interest in this was that the saint's own handwritten manuscripts--there are three of them--were photographically re: produced in their origina/ form: two copybooks (one. of eighty-four leaves and the other of thirty-seven) and a letter (five leaves). Accompanying the published manuscripts were the editor's three volumes of scholarly, most interesting, and helpful notes. For many years readers of St. Therese s autobiography, The Story of a Soul, have known that the printed account which they were reading did not agree perfectly with the autograph manuscript. For example, the preface of a 1924 French edition made it quite clear that there had b~en changes in the text. The very awareness of these changes aroused the desire of hagi-ographers and devotees of Th~rhse to know exactly what the original manuscripts had said. These autograph manuscripts had been iCor many years in the care of Mother Agnes of Jesus, a sister (Pauline) of Th~se a~d prioress of the Carmel at Lisieux. When she was asked to have them published, she arranged to have this done after her death. Thus, in 1952, a year after her death, a beginning was made under the direction of Father Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalen, O.C.D., the eminent Carmelite spiritual theologian. When he died the following year, the work was entrusted to Father Francis of St. Mary, O.C.D., who has completed the task most successfully and admirably. ~ Manuscrits ~utobiogra~hiques de 8ainte Thgr?se de l'EnfantJesus, Carmel de Lisieux, 1956. 145 THOMAS ~,. O~CALLAGHAN Review for Religious Whatever one's opinion might have been before this present publication, it is now quite clear that The Story of a Soul is not really a book, nor even a spiritual diary. It is rather a com-pilation of three manuscripts, all written during the last three years of the saint's life. The first of these, the larger of the two copybooks, was written during the course of 1895 at the request of the above-mentioned Mother Agnes of Jesus. She, as prioress at the time, asked Th~r~se to write her childhood memories. At that time there was no intention of publishing them; they were to be only "un souvenir de famille." This manuscript became the first eight chapters of the autobiography. The second manuscript, written during September, 1896, was a letter to her sister Marie, Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart, who had asked Th~r~se to explain her "little way of confidence and love." This letter, also never intended originally for publi-cation, became by reason of its importance Chapte~ XI of the autobiography. The third manuscript, written during June, 1897, three months before Thgr~se's death, was the second copybook. This was written at the request of Mother Mary of Gonzaga, the prioress at that time-~Mother Agnes of Jesus, her predecessor in office, very diplomatically persuaded her to request it--and was intended to serve as the basis of a short biographical account which by custom would be sent to other Carmels after Th~r~se's death. Although it was written nine months after the letter to Sister Marie, just mentioned above, it preceded it in the auto-biography and became the substance of Chapters IX and X. These, then, are the t.hree manuscripts from which was drawn the autobiography of Th~r~se of Lisieux. When, a few months before the saint's death, there arose the question of the publication of them, Th~r~se gave Mother Agne.s of Jesus the permission to edit them as she thought fit. Mother .Agnes did just ~hat (and, because of various reasons and personalities in-volved, it was perfectly legitimate to do so). "In fact," says Father Francis, the editor, after comparing the manuscripts with 146 May, 1958 CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING ihe published version of the autobiography, "Mother Agnes of Jesus rewrote the autobiography of Thgr~se" (I, 78). '~ What did Mother Agnes change? How serious were these changes? How did they alter the real Th~r~se? Since we cannot answer these questions in this very brief survey--un-doubtedly many articles will be written during the next few years on these precise questions--we would like to recommend a very fine article, "Saint Th~se," written by Sally S. Cunneen, in Jubilee (October, 1957). It is an article which makes for most pleasant and interesting reading. Faith and Love St. John the Evangelist dedicates a large part of his writings to .the development of his teaching on love. In his account of the public ministry of our Lord, the first twelve chapters of his Gospel, he unfolds some of this teaching by°showing the relation-ship 0f love to faith. It is this relationship of Johannine love and faith that Father Barrosse, C.S.C., makes the subject of a very scholarly and fine article.2 As a help to one's spiritual life, many points in this article are well worth study and reflection. First, for St. John, what is faith? It is not merely an in-tellectual assent to a list of revealed propositions. For the be-loved disciple faith means to believe in Christ, to accept "Jesus for what He is . . . the Son of God sent or come into the world" (p. 540). BUt, as Son of God, Christ is God's image, and thus God's revelation of Himself. Christian faith, then, means to accept Christ as God's revelation of Himself to men. It is not merely, however, a spdculative knowledge about God which Christ reveals. He desires also to reveal to men God's inner life by offering them an experience of it, a share of God's own life. To do this w~is the salvific mission of Christ. Faith for St. John, then, means to accept Cl~ris~ as the "Son of God who has come into" the world as God's salvific manifestation 2t'The Relationship of Love to Faith in St. John," Theological Studies, XVIII (1957), 538-59. 147 THOMAS G. O'CALLAGHAN Review for Religiou~ of Himself to men" (p. 543). This really demands in practice a complete surrender of one's entire person to the living person of Christ. But what is the relatiorr of this Johannine faith to love? Perhaps the following summary answer of the author to that question will be an indication of the important matter which he treats in the article and how profit, able a study of it could be. .In Christ God offers Himself to men out of love. Christ is the concrete manifestation of God's love in the world. To believe in Christ means to accept Him as God's offer of Himseli:; in other words, it means to comply with the advances of God's love. Those who love themselves inordinately, who desire a glory independent of the borrowed glory they can have from God in Christ or who love the evil which they have apart from God, can only reject the offer of God's love and refuse to believe. Only those who love God's glory and who therefore love. Christ, the manifestation and offer of that glory, will accept the advances of God's love. These are the men who have the "love of God" within them. (p. 559) The Rosary There are two parts to the rosary devotion: the recitation of the Paters and Aves (vocal prayer.) and meditation on the mysteries of the life of Christ and Mary (men~al prayer). Of these two, the latter is the. more important; it is the soul of the rosary devotion. But it is also the more difficult. What makes it so difficult? Father Paul Mahoney, O.P., selects, three of the main difficulties and offers some practical remedies.~ These dif-ficulties are: inattention, inability to probe the mysteries, and disunity of thought. The first difficulty, then, and perhaps the most common, i.s inattention or the lack of attention or the "inabilit~ to keep the mind and imagination centered upon one idea for even a short period of time" (p. 427). There are several causes of this. The first is a lack of proper training; a person has never learned to concentrate; and, thus, over the years the bad habit of inatten-tion has developed. In such cases, the opposite habit must be 3 "Difficulties with Rosary, Meditation," Cross and Cro~zn, IX (1957), 426-33. 148 May, 1958 CURREI~ SPIRITUAL WRITING formed by deliberate effort. Perhaps this is best done, when say-ing the rosary, by taking only One thought for each decade and deliberately concentrating on it during the recitation of the ten Ave$. "Another cause of inattention is neglecting to make a conscious intention before saying the Rosary" (p. 428). Since the ~osary is such a fruitful devotion when said fervently, a devotion worthy of our very best efforts, it is Very important, before starting it, to make a firm intention to recite it well. And, since the desire to finish our prayers quickly can stifle fervor, our intention should include the resolve to take our time and avoid rush. A second difficulty in meditating during the rosary is "an inability to probe the mysteries. Many fed incompetent to meditate on the mysteries of ~he Rosary." (p. 429) A very basic mistake here is to confuse prayerful meditation with theo-logical speculation. The latter is by no means necessary. For the former all we need are a fe~v spiritual thoughts which will lead to will-acts of adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, love, hope, humility, and the like. But where will we find these few spiritual thoughts? They can be easily gathered from an attentive read-ing of the New Testament, the Missal, and Breviary, especially those passages which pertain to the rosary mysteries. Everyone should have a little collection--mental, or even better, written-- of spiritually helpful rosary thoughts. For the third difficulty, disunity of thought, and its solution, we shall refer the reader to the article itself. A summary of it would only be confusing. Despite the difficulties that are attached to fruitful recitation of the Rosary, we must make the effort. Repeated beginnings, labor, aridity, and perseverance are the price that must be paid for mastery of the Rosary. But once victorious, the soul can confidently expect what is promised in the prayer for the feast of the Holy Rosary: imitation of what is contained in the mysteries and possession of what they promise. (p. 433) 149 THOM~,S G. O'CALLAGHAN Review for Religious Catholics and Neurosis What can Catholics do to modify or prevent neurotic reactions? The answer to this question is given in a very solid and clear article by Father James F. Moynihan, S.J., the chair-man of the Department of Modern Psychology at Boston College.4 A neurosis is a minor mental disorder, psychological in origin, which is characterized by personality maladjustment, but which does not usually require commitment to a mental hospital. The formative process of such a disorder, says Father Moynihan, "seems to involve a certain type of personality who~ in some conflict causing anxiety, finds a solution iri pathological (neurotic) symptoms" (p. 248). Thus, at th~ core of a neurosis is an anxiety. Depending upon the manner in which a person reacts to and resolves this anxiety, his behavior .is either normal or neurotic. The main purpose of Father Moynihan's article is to point out ~ome of the elements of a solid spiritual life which help a Catholic to adjust himself and to react to anxiety normally. We will limit ourselves here merely to his observation on humility. "Good mental health has a very definite correlatidn with an old-fashioned virtue which we call humility, yet not so old fashioned that it has not crept back into our current literature on personality and personality-adjustment. We can, to be sure, have some very distorted ideas on just what humility means, yet certainly an honest appraisal of one's own excellence is basic to the concept. The person with a balanced sense of his own qualifications, with a real sense of humility, is not confounded' by the limitations inherent in his own personality make-up. He need not look upon them as evidence of personal inferiority. For he realizes that limitations are the common lot of humanity; that he is a man and not a god. Nor does he need to hide in fantasy and self-excuse, or develop the Cinderella complex of self-pity with its inevitable concomitants of envy, jeal-ousy, and a sour-grapes attitude. In fact, a sense of humility is the basis for a real semse of humor which psychologists associate with the mature personality because it prevents us from taking ourselves too seriously and helps us to realize that our human experience is a shared ~xperience. This virtue of humility, manifested in a self- 4"Catholics and Neurosis," Spiritual Life, III (1957), 247-56. 150 May, 1958 ~URRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING concept that is objective and realistic, can, of course, be strengthened by faith in God's abiding presence so that it will lead the individual to a degree of confidence in which he can say with Saint Paul: can do all things in him who strengthens me." (p. 252) Venial Sin Although venial sin is not destructive of charity nor incom-patible with the state of grace, one should not underestimate its harmful effects on the spiritual life. Father Jordan Aumann, O.P., in a brief but fine article on the nature of venial sin and its relation to charity and perfection, enumerates and comments on four of the more important effects of venial sin.5 "First, venial sin lessens the fervor of charity and decreases thg soul's generosity in the service of God. Secondly, venial sin or zhe attachment to venial sin deprives the soul of many graces and inspirations . Thirdly, venial sin makes the practice of the virtues increasingly difficult." Finally, and this effect follows from the preceding, "venial sin gradually disposes for mortal sin." (pp. 268-69) From such effects it is quite clear that venial sin builds up in the soul a strong barrier to the perfect love of God and to Christian perfection. The Liturgy Sign and causality: these are two key words in sacramental theology. For a sacrament is a sensible sign which causes grace. When St. Thomas treated the sacraments, he carefully balanced these two elements of sign and causality. Before his time, how-ever, emphasis had been placed on the idea of sign; and after him, especially since the sixteenth century, the stress has been mostly on causality, the idea of sign being relegated to a definitely inferior place. To show that this imbalance, the overemphasis on causality, has impoverished the role of the sacraments~ in the spiritual life is the purpose of a very solid and interesting article by Father Godfrey Diekmann, O.S.B., the editor of Worship.e 5"Venial Sin and Christian Per~%ction," Cross and Cro¢wn, IX (1957), 262-70. e"Two Approaches to Understanding the Sacraments," I¢~orshi~, XXXI (1957), 504-20. 151 THOMAS G. O'CALLAGHAN Review for Religious A sacrament is a sign; thus, it is something which leads to the knowledge of something else; it instructs. "In the case of the sacraments it is Christ who instructs, insofar as He chose the sign; and it is the Church too that instructs, inasmuch as she expanded and further explained the essential sign, by surround-ing it with additional rites ~ind prayers" (p. 507). In the sacraments, then, Christ and the Church are our instructors, our teachers. The sacraments are also causes; but they cause what they signify. It is only a proper reading of the sign, therefore, which will instruct us as to what is being caused. This is im-portant. It was, for example, the neglect of the sign of the Eucharist--food, necessary for nourishment, growth, strength --that led to the neglect of frequent Communion for such a long time. In the spiritual life what have been the consequences of overstr.essing during the last few centuries the element of causality and of neglecting that of sign? Here briefly are some of Father Diekmann's interesting observations in answering that question. First, an overemphasis on the causality of the sacraments in the production of grace has resulted in an overshadowing and obscuring of the important role of faith in the process of salva-tion and sanctification. In fact, the Protestant rebellion was in part an attempt to restore faith to its proper and significant place. Another result has been "a more or less mechanistic view of the sacraments" (p. 510), that is, a sacrament is a "holy thing which contains and confers grace" (ibid.). Thus is lost the notion of the sacraments as bein_g the saving actions of Christ, a continuation of the priestly activity of Christ. "F~x opere ol~erato means really, ex opere operantis Christi . " (ibid.). A third result of overstressing causality was the narrowing down of the sign to what was necessary for validity and a neglect, therefore, of what Christ and the Church through a full sign '152 May~ 1958 CURRENT SPHtITUAL WRITING have been trying to teach about the effects of the sacrament. Another consequence has been an overemphasis on the Triden-tine phrase non loonentibus obicem, not placing a hindrance; thus, a negative, passive approach in the reception of the sacra-ments has been inculcated, not that positive disposition of faith and devotion which St. Thomas taught and fostered. These unfortunate but logical consequences of this over-stressing of the element of causality are being corrected in ~0od part today by modern liturgical-theological writing, which is re-establishing the proper balance between sign and causality. The article continues with some most interesting points about the relation of the sacra'ments and sacramentals, the social nature of the sacraments, the sacraments as acts of worship-- this last point rarely being given its proper importance and at-tention.' This is truly an excellent article and well worth careful reading and study. Priests will find both interest and inspiration in "The Pas-toral Value of the Word of God," an exceptionally fine paper read at the Assisi Liturgical Congress by Father Augustine Bea, S.J., consultor of the Sacred Congregation of Rites and t~ormer rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome.7 The ques-tion which Father Bea answers is: What is the pastoral function, importance, and efficacy of the word of God (i.e. of Sacred Scripture) in the sacred liturgy? His answer is most important for one who is both "minister of the word" and '"minister of the Sacrament," the priest. At the Last Supper our Lord "created the type of the principal liturgical function of His Church: close union of the word with sacrificial action" (p. 243). For on that evening His sacrifice was surrounded with His words of teaching, en-couragement, and exhortation. It is therefore quke understand- 7 Tile Clergy Mont/i/y, XXI (1957), 241-54. This and all the other papers read at the congress appear in The /lssisi Patters (Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1957). 153 THOMAS G. O'CALLAGHAN Review for Religious able that the three elements: Sacred Scripture (Epistle and Gospel), explanation (homily), and Eucharistic Sacrifice, should be "a characteristic mark of Catholic worship" (p. 242). Sacred Scripture has of its very self, since it is the word of God, a marvelous pastoral efficacy. But when thisword of God (together with its explanation in the homily) is united to the Eucharistic Sacrifice, this pastoral value is increased and intensified. This is why "the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit . . . , has united the reading and explanation of the word of God with the offering of the eucharistic Sacrifice in one great liturgical unity and has desired that the same priest be 'minister of the word' and 'minister of the Sacrament' " (p. 250). Most of us are not too familiar with devotional practices among Christians of the Eastern rite churches. Consequently, an informative and interesting article on Russian icons is most welcome,s According to the dictionary' icon means image, portrait, statue; and, as related to the Eastern Church, it means a sacred painting or mosaic. Such a definition,, however, might be a bit misleading, for not every sacred painting is an icon nor is a true icon painter concerned with making mosaics. Icons originated in Egypt long before the time of Christ. "In its original form it was a representation, made in the encaustic method, of a deceased person and placed by relatives on the mummy case of that person" (p. 322). These pictures or paintings were not perfect and exact portraits, but distinguish-ing characteristics of the person were. sufficiently retained so that the subject was recognizable. What was of major import-ance, however, was that the picture look "alive." To attain this vital quality special attention and emphasis was given to the eyes. S Mary Corkran, "Russian Icons," Cross and Crown, IX (1957), 321-29. 154 May, 1958 CURRENT SPIRITUAL WRITING This type of painting was later copied and adopted by the Christians. They retained the characteristic design and coloring, and even something of the purpose of the icon, to commemorate the dead. But in the Christian tradition, obviously, the subject changed and became the Savior, our Blessed Lady, the saints, and many characters from the Old Testament. Also, in the more elaborate icons, there were whole scenes taken from the Old or New Testament. These icons were not considered merely as decorative re-ligious paintings. To the Oriental Christians icons were sacred objects, blessed by the Church, and "honored as Special symbols of the person they represented" (p. 323). They had a very real place in both public and private devotion. "In the churches were splendid images of our Lord, Our Lady and the saints, each of them having its own special place. Many of the smaller ones were taken down and displayed for public devotion, or carried in procession, on the appropriate feast days. The larger and prinicpal icons were fixed and, before the beginning of a service, the worshiper made what amounted to a holy pilgrimage among Christ and the saints, bowing low before each one and perhaps lighting a candle or two" for private devotions (pp. 324- 25). Each home had its iittle oratory where there were enshrined icons of the Savior, our Lady, and favorite saints. This was the center for the family life of prayer. Among the countless icons in honor of our Blessed Mother, some of the most venerated are those portraying our Lady of Tenderness. These picture the Blessed Mother, her eyes ex-pressing interior grief, looking down upon her Child, while He, looking up to her, puts his hand to her face in a loving desire to comfort her in her sorrow. Our Lady of Tenderness must certainly be looking down with eyes of interior grief upon her Russian children today. Let us hope and pray that they will look back to her. Prayer St. Teresa of Jesus said in her Life that mental prayer is nothing but a friendly conversation with God who knows and 155 THOMAS G. 0'CALLAGHA.N loves us. For her, mental prayer was not a mere duty, an impersonal ascetic practice, but a real personal relationship with God. In "The Realm of Prayer" Romano Guardini tries to insist upon the same point.~ After stating that the "first step into prayer is self-recollection" and that the second is "visual-izing (before the inner eye) the'reality of God," he states that the third is "seeking His holy face. In this the worshiper tries to establish, or rather to give expression and effect to, the 'I-thou' relationship with God which is man's birthright." (p. 12) God, to whom we speak and pour out our heart in prayer, knows and loves each of us intimately and personally. To Him we are individual persons, not merely blurred parts of a countless throng. He has called each of us to an intimate personal relationship of love with Him. "Into this mystery of love. one enters through prayer." This is what it means to seek "the face of God" or, as one may put it, the "heart of God." Prayer must be a person-to-person relationship, a per-sonal affair. Not merely to seek, but especially to find the "face and heart" of a personal God in prayer, is undoubtedly difficult. There are distractions which come upon the soul from both without and within. This shows the need for "the right attitude, both outwardly and inwardly: collectedness at the beginning and discipline during prayer" (pp. 10-11). But these of themselves will never suffice. The key to the answer is in faith. "In this concealment, darkness, and void, my faith must seek out His countenance and His heart so that I may direct my prayer to Him. I must establish the inner point of contact and hold on to it, when--as constantly happens--it tries to elude me." (p. 12) Faith must seek out His holy face and heart. Without that there can be no personal conversation with Him who loves US. ~Jubilee, December, 1957. 156 Do We Know Our Own Mot:her? Sister M. Annice, C.S.C. RECENTLY IT occurred to me that I have had devotion to our Blessed Mother as long as I can remember. Fortu-nately for me as for millions of other Catholics, my good parents introduced me to the Mother of God as soon as I could grasp anything through pictures, statues, and the words of prayers relating to Mary. This process involved both ex-perience and some formal learning. It was not a matter of one exclusive of the other. No doubt, it would generally be granted by most o~ us that our imaginations and affections, our emotions and thoughts were all at work as we gradually grew in the knowledge and love of the Mother of Christ. Every new insight into the mysteries of the rosary brought its emotional repercussion of joy, sorrow, love, confidence, etc. That is completely normal to the psychological structure of humaa nature. Added to this, we also. received that special endowment from God, supeknatural grace, moving us to know and love His Mother more intimately and to seek her he(p and friendship. And yet, asI listened to Father Patrick Peyton, C.S.C., recently, I began to wonder if some of us actually do know Christ's Mother as realistically and intelligently as we might. Are we not too satisfied to constantly petition Mary for every-thing that we want and to say a good many perfunctory prayers? In complete, adulthood, with a wondrous capacity for superna-tural love and a developed mind able to seek more complete knowledge of her mysterious privileges, do we not still _act toward Mary as we did at the age of adolescence? When I heard Father Peyton speak of Mary as "omnipotent" in her inter-cessory power with her divine Son, I knew that I had never before experienced this same surprise and joy. And in that same week as I .was leafing through a little booklet entitled, 157 SISTER M. ANNICE Review for Religious Liturgical Novenas to Mary,I I was again profoundly im-pressed when I read, "The Lord gave thee His own power, for through thee He completely overcame our enemies." Thus it "dawned" on me that I had not given enough attention'or thought to the Blessed Mother's prerogative of participation in divine power. Now, should anyone wish to know more about this great privilege purely for the sake o~c possessing great knowledge? Assuredly not! Its fruits should be growth in the love of, and confidence in, the Mother of God. These virtues will not develop without some "culturing," some ground in which to take root and grow. Granting, of course, that only God can give us the grace of these supernatural virtues, we are still re-quired to cooperate with God in this action. And this requires effort on the part of our faculties to dispose us better for the receiving of God's grace. Now in this case it would seem that to consciously cooperate with God, we ought to make use of our ability to learn greater, and deeper, truths about God's Mother. It is, then, in this spirit that we propose to consider some-thing of that power of Mary which is said to be next to omni-potent. But to understand Mary's power, even in a partial way, is to understand better the stupendous gifts of grace be-stowed on her by God, in view of her divine maternity. The expression used by the angel Gabriel at the annuncia-tion must be truly the best signification of Mary's unique privilege. It would seem that the title "full of grace" could not then be improved upon by-man. But what we do with the interpretation of the angel's salutation is bound to fall short of the reality signified, which was Mary's real state of soul. Full-ness of grace is generally to be understood as a superabundance of holiness. Mary's sanctity was unquestionably inferior to the 1Published by the Benedictine Convent of Perpetual Adoration, Clyde, Missouri. 158 May, 1958 Do WE KNOW OUR MOTHIi~? created sanctity of her divine Son in proportion as the divine motherhood falls short of the prerogative of the' hypostatic union. This beautiful prayer, composed by the archangel, is at the same time a perfect description of the woman chosen by the Second Person of. the Trinity to be His own Mother. Here was the one human being preserved from the stain of sin, the frightful darkness of spiritual death, and in no way subject .to the influence of Satan. Mary. must certainly have received from God a greater fullness of grace than any other mere creature; for Christ, her divine Son, the Son of God, is the principle of grace, that is, the very author of grace. Now the more closely one approaches the source or principle of anything, the more he participates in the effect of that principle. And the Blessed Mother was the nearest one to Christ in His humanity because He assumed His human nature from her alone. For this reason it is held by Catholic theologians that the sanctity of Mary transcends the sanctity of all the saints in heaven and sur-passes even that of the highest angels. Upon this p~rfect creature Christ depended for His physical life His flesh and blood. From her He drew His beauty of figure and features, His sensitive hands, His majestic head, and His eternally lighted, gentle, but piercing eyes. She was at the same time the mother of this babe with a human nature and this divine Person, Christ the Son of God. The great holiness and power of Mary which we reverently hope to understand better are inseparable from her Immaculate Conception. This privilege of our Lady was Solemnly defined by the Church as an article of faith. His Holiness, Pope Pius IX, on December 8, 1854, solemnly pronounced the dogma: We declare, pronounce, aad Vdefine that the doctrine that holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary in the first instant of her conception was kept entirely free from the stain of original sin by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the foreseen merits of Christ Jesus, the Savior of mankind--We declare, pronounce and 159 SISTER M. ANNICE P~eview for Religious define that this doctrine has been revealed by God and. therefore must be firmly and constantly believed by all the t:aithful.-° The p.rivilege itself, which Pope Pius IX declared to, be a part of revelation, is Mary's actual preservation from original sin through the merits of Jesus Christ and is revealed implicitly or confusedly in the book .of Genesis (3:15). God's own words spoken to Satan are, "I will put enmities between thee and the woman and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel." Christian scholars and exegetes have interpreted this passage as God's first enun-ciation of His victory over the devil through the plan of the promised Messiah. In an implicit way Mary is undeniably mentioned here. For Christ, the Savior is the posterity of "the woman" in conflict with the posterity of the serpent. Further-more, this victory over Satan would not have been complete if Mary had not been preserved from the stain of original sin by the merits of her divine Son. We' may say that, as a whole plant is contained in a tiny seed, the Immaculate Con-ception of the Messiah's Mother is contained in the promise of God recorded in Genesis. From the writings of both Greek and Latin Fathers there is evidence that they held as part of their ancient tradition the two principal ideas which implicitly contain the dogma of the Immaculate Conception; namely, Mary's absolute purity and the contrast between her and Eve, the~,first mother of mankind. Yet the Eastern Church seems from the first to have. had a clearer conception of the dogma itself. However, the controversial period in the West which led to a gradual clarification of the dogma must be recognized as a providential act--a kind of blessing in disguise. So much sincere, honest debating, discussing, and resolving of difficulties by the best minds in the Church was a splendid theological education and orientation of the minds 'of the faithful. Indeed, the whole '-'Thomas J. M. Burke, S.J. (ed.), Mary and the Po$es (New York: The America Press, 1954), pp. 43, 44. 160 May, 1958 DO WE KNOW OUR MOTHER? movement may well have been the main factor which helped to bring about the solemn definition of the dogma by Pope Plus IX in 1854. The second phase of Mary's plentitude of grace refers to her increase of grace at the Incarnation of the Word. The Fathers of the'Church hold that Mary conceived the Word spiritually, as it were, by an act of faith and charity before she conceived Him physically. Thus, she conceived Christ intellectually and volitionally by the act of her holy will before He descended into her blessed womb. And St. Thomas has told us that Mary's fullness of grace increased at the Incarna-tion of her divine Son, giving as the cause of this the mutual love of Jesus and Mary. This new increase of grace is con-sidered the immediate or proximate preparation disposing Mary for the miracle of divine motherhood. Since the grace had to be proportionate to this perfection, it seems that a special grace from the Word efficiently caused Mary to be properly united with Divinity itself. She. is thus the unique creature, who, by giving to Christ His human body, is really included in the divine plan of bringing the Son .of God into the world. The moment that Christ entered into Mary He undoubt-edly produced in her an increase of divine love such as had never been experienced by any soul on eaith. For no other being was ever to have the privilege of giving Him His very flesh and blood. Rather, He was ever afterward to give it for them and to them, on the cross, in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, and in Holy Communion. Since grace is the effect of God's active love for His creatures, the mutual love of Mary and her Son must also have brought about a constant increase of grace in her soul. For God loves all men, yet loves the elect in a special way. Surely then, His unique love of His own Mother would effect an immeasurable superabundance of grace in her. It is extremely important to understand that God gave Himself so freely to Mary's soul as to constitute it in a strictly unique state of holiness. Hers was/~ love of the highest natural 161 SISTER M. ANNICE Review for Religious as well as supernatural level, and she was entirely responsive to her Son's love for her. All souls seem to have a kind of unlimited obediential potency or capacity for knowledge and love which God freely makes use of to lead them to the beatific vision. Yet they are born shackled and earth-bound by Adam's sin. Light and love must be admitted into their souls through the instrument of sacramental baptism. But in Mary we find, as we have said above, a person entirely preserved from the blight of sin in her very being, life, and powers. From the very origin of her life her judgment was clear and her appetites pure and virtuous. Thus they were like clean arrows coming forth from an absolutely pure source. The Psalmist expresses something of the mightiness of such a person in the words, "Who is this that cometh up from the desert, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army in battle array?" (Cant. of Cant. 6:9). It is surely with justifiable reasons that theologians teach that grace increased constantly in Mary's soul throughout her life. While we know that Mary's graces had limits set to them, since they were in a human soul and thus not absolute, we do not know, nor does it seem possible for us to fully understand, to what degree of holiness she attained as she progressed to-ward the end of her earthly life. The growth of charity in any soul causes the will to avoid sin and cling more lovingly and generously" to God. True charity also extends to all men after first extending to God, thus uniting all souls in Godhthe greatest joy that can come to us on earth and a kind of imita-tion of our beatified life. The Church teaches us that merit, prayer, and reception of the sacraments are the requisite means for growth in charity. Of course, God alone can produce this divine virtue in man's soul; and His love is ultimately the reason for any infusion of grace into a soul. But good acts may contribute to one's increase in grace by disposing the soul for it and, in a way, morally meriting that reward. Moreover, St. Thomas teaches that where acts of charity are not remiss 162 May, 1958 Do WE KNOW OUR MOTHER? (short of that which the soul is capable of) the soul receives the reward immediately and thus grows in grace progressively. Surely, all of Mary's acts of charity were such as to receive immediate reward and her consequent progress is again im-measurable. Mary's prayers, next after her divine Son's, must also have been the most efficacious ever uttered on earth. They thus not only had the most meritorious but also the most im-petratory value. For these are proportionate to the humility, confidence, and perseverence of the one praying and surely Mary excelled in all of these virtues. After considering Mary's initial fullness of grace and her continuous development in God's love and grace, we come finally to the unique grace of her Assumption into heaven. The Church has explicitly defined this privilege of Mary as an article of faith. Toward the end o~ the Holy Year, 1950, our present Holy Father solemnly pronounced the dogma that "The Mother of God was assumed body and soul into heaven." Since this dogma is so closely related to that of the Immaculate Conception, which we have been considering, it will be sufficient to recall that from the sixth century forward the departure of the Blessed Mother from this world has been celebrated in the liturgy of the Church for August 15. And it can be accepted without question that the death of the Blessed Virgin cannot be regarded as a penalty for personal sin, nor as the effect of original sin. Thus again, it is through theological argument, proceeding on premises that are a part of divine revelation, that the Church arrives at valid conclusions about the Assumption of Mary. The state of incorruptibility of the Blessed Mother's sacred body is the first fact which is inferred. Since the Mother of God is associated in such a singular manner in the triumph of her Son over Sat.an, she shares in the privilege of being preserved from the penalty of death and decay in the grave. It is accepted that the Blessed Mother who is "the woman" spoken of in the Protoevangelium won a threefold victory over Satan; namely, over sin by her Immaculate Conception, over 163 SISTER M. ANNICE Review for Religious concupiscence by heq virginal motherhood, and over death which is a penalty for~ s~n" by a triumphant resurrection similar to that of her divine Son. Thus, we may say' that the Blessed Mother, side by side with her divine Son, triumphs over death and corruption. The dogma of our Lady's Assumption is so closely associ-ated with her Immaculate Conception that it is almost surprising that the papal proclamation on the former took place a whole century later than the Immaculate Conception. Yet they are two very distinct and separate privileges even though the in-corruptibility of Mary's body is to be inferred from her complete preservation from sin and her virginal purity. Perhaps no one has more beautifully and emphatically pointed out the close relationship between these unique privileges than His Holiness, Pope Pius XII. In his encyclical, Fulgens Corona, he asserts: From now on the faithful can meditate more deeply and more profitably on the mystery of the Immaculate Conception. For there is a most intimate connection between the two dogmas. The mar-velous wisdom and harmony of the divine plan by which God wished that Mary be free from all stain of original sin emerge more fully and clearly in the light of the assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven. Thd promulgation of this doctrine has shown it to be the crown and perfection of that earlier privilege bestowed upon her. These two illustrious privileges, then, stand out in radiant glory, the one as the commencement, the other as the crown of her earthly life. The total innocence of her soul free from every vestige of sin has as its counterpart and fulfillment the total glorification of her virginal body. Since she was intimately associated with her Son in His struggle against the foul serpent of hell, so also she shares in His glorious victory over sin and its tragic effects? Having considered briefly the unique graces of our Blessed Mother, we ought surely to grasp somewhat better the reasons for her great power in obtaining graces for all men. We .must also realize more profoundly that by her divine motherhood Mary participated in the love, holiness, and power of God, in a way possible to no other of His creatures. As a concluding consideration we might ask ourselves, Precisely how does Mary 30p. cit., p. 14. 164 May, 1958 Do WE KNOW OuR MOTHER? enter into the very act of' our salvation? For we know in a general way that she is coredemptrix of the whole human race and that her mediation like her motherhood is truly universal. The general teaching of the Church regarding Mary's causality in our sanctification is that of moral causality. virtue of this causality Mary is present by an affective presence in the souls of those who are in the state of grace and pray to her. This kind of presence may be attributed, to a degree, to any beloved object which, though absent from the one loving it, is virtually present to the lover. So, our Blessed Mother is affectively present in the souls of her children who truly love her. And this affective union tends toward and contributes to the real union which we shall enjoy in heaven with Christ and His Mother. As we r~each higher degrees grace and charity and our wills advance in the transforming love of God, we must surely grow in the love of both Jesus and Mary. But it is through her union with her divine Son in His sacred passion and death that Mary is the coredemptrix of men. The teach, ing of the Church is that Mary merited de congruo all that Jesus has merited de c~ndigno for us. Thus, her merits are completely in union with and dependent on those her divine Son. This has been confirmed by the pronouncements of a number of the supreme pontiffs in their encyclical writings. Pope Leo XIII, in his encyclical on the rosary, says: This is why we pour forth the Angelic Salutation so often to Mary, that our weak and halting prayer be given the confident strength that it needs; we plead with her that she intercede with God for us and that she become our advocate. The prayers we say will find great favor and efficacy with Him if they are commended by the prayers of the Virgin; for He addresses to her this gracious invitation: "Let your voice sound in my ears, for your voice is sweet" (Cant. of Cant. 2:14).4 Pope Pius X in/ld Diem Ilium asserts: So by reason of her mutual sharing in the afflictions and desires of Christ, Mary "most properly deserved to become the reparatrix 40p. cit., p. 100. 165 SISTER M. ANNICE of the sinful world," as well as dispenser of all the benefits won for us by the bloody death of Jesus. Of course, we do not deny that the right to confer these benefits belongs to Christ . Yet, in consideration, as we have said, of the sorrows and sufferings common to both Mother and Son, the Venerable Virgin has been empowered to be "for the entire world its most afficacious mediatrix and advocate with her only Son.''s And Pope Benedict XV, writing on the Queen of Peace, states: And since all graces which God deigns to bestow in pity upon men are dispensed through Mary, we urge that in this terrible hour the trusting petitions of her most afflicted children be directed to her: This seems to be the fact underlying the establishment of the feast of Mary Mediatrix of All Graces. In the beautiful hymn of Matins for this feast the Church sings: "All the gifts which the Savior merited for us are bestowed by His Mother Mary. The Son gladly loads us with benefits in answer to her" prayers." Likewise, our present Holy Father has extolled Mary's part in our sanctification and the salvation of the whole world by instituting the new feast of Mary Queen of the Universe. A study of the encyclicals on our Lady would, of course, require another paper or rather a whole volume. But even a brief study of the Mother of all graces--Mary, full of grace~ is sufficient to convince us of the power corelative to such grace. Summer Sessions (Continued from page 134) inquiries to: The Registrar, S~hool of Theology, St~ Mary's College, Notre Dame, Indiana. Dr. Karl Stern, noted Catholic psychiatrist and author of The Pillar o.f Fire and The Third Revolution, will conduct an Institute on Mental Health in Religious Life from June 9 to 13 at St. Louis University. The institute will be limited to religious women. ~ Oil. cit.,'p. 56. 6 William J. Doheny, C.S.C., and Joseph P. Kelly, Papal Documents on Mary (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1954), p. 151. 166 Survey ot: Roman Document:s R. I:. Smit:h, $.J. THE DOCUMENTS which appeared in the /lcta/lposto-licae Sedis (AAS) from December 1, 1957, to January 31, 1958, will be surveyed in the following pages. All page references to AAS throughout the article will be accom-panied by the year of publication of AAS. The 1957 Christmas Message On December 22, 1957 (AAS, 1958, pp. 5-24), the Roman Pontiff gave to the world his annual Christmas message. Taking as his text the words of the Breviary, "Lift up your eyes, O Jerusalem," the Holy Father exhorts the faithful to lift up their eyes to the great things of God as did the shep-herds and the Magi at the sound of angels and the mysterious shining of a star. Though this vision of God's great deeds, continues the Vicar of Christ, brings strength, peace, and har-mony, yet many today, attracted by that science which ex-tends the power of man even into the realm of the stars, can bring themselves to admire only the great things of man, changing the angelic hymn to read, "Glory to man on earth." This attitude, he adds, is typical of homo faber, man the maker who reveals his greatness in his works; modern man, however, r0ust learn that by adoration before the crib of the Man-God he will not retard the course of his technical prog-ress but will add to it the crowning perfection which will make of him, homo sapiens, the mar/ of wisdom who easily under-stands that what God manifests in the mystery of Christmas is incomparably greater than all human power, energy, and effectiveness. Devoting the first major part of the message to Christ the comforter amid the discords of the world, His Holiness 167 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious begins by remarking that modern man is torn between ecstatic admiration of the harmony of nature and bitter discouragement at the chaotic existence for which he himself is responsible. This, he adds, has led some moderns to fall into a total pessi-mism, holding that disharmony is the characteristic mark of the human situation. The 'source of. this pessimism is to be found in the preponderantly material progress of modern times which has deprived man of a sense of true human values. Born and trained in a climate of rigorous technology, .man tends to conform himself to the characteristic superficiality and insta-bility of technology, emphasizing speed, sense observation, and material energy at the expense of the intellectual and the spir-itual life. The answer to this total pessimism, Plus XII points out, is to be found in the mystery of Christmas. How can man despair of the world, if God Himself does not despair of it? How can the glory of the Creator of all things shine forth in a world based only on contradiction and discord? If men would but learn the lesson of Bethlehem that every human action should look to eternity for its direction and effectiveness, then the activity of man on earth would not be condemned to absolute discord but, on the contrary, would manifest the eter-nal harmony of God. In the second principal part of the message, the Pope considers Christ as the pledge of the harmony of the world. He' begins by noting that the coming of the Incarnate Word, while confirming man's right to dominion over the world, shows at the same time that this dominion can be achieved only by the Spirit of God. On the le~)el of man this means that man must find in his soul, image of the Spirit of God, the link which unites all the world into one harmony. It is in his spiritual element that man will find the sign of unity, order, and harmony. Where the spiritual abounds, so also does the harmonious. If, however, the spiritual element (and conse-quently the divine element) is no longer regarded as funda- 168 May~ 1958 ROMAN DOCUMENTS mental, then there is no longer a possibility of harmony; the world becomes something estranged from man, obscure and dangerous, ready to be not an instrument, but an enemy. It is true, continue~ Pius XII, that Christ has not removed all the consequences of original sin t:rom the world. Dishar-mony and consequently sadness will still exist among men'until the dawn of the eternal day, but this sadness will not be a sadness of death, but the sadness of an expectant mother whose sorrow is turned to joy after the birth of her child. For the goal assigned to history after the time of Christ is the birth of a new life, of a humanity in constant progression toward order and harmony. In the final major division of his message, the Pontiff considers Christ as the Light and the Way for men in establish-ing harmony in the world. The Christian, the Pope begins, is not merely an aesthetic admirer of the divine order in the world; he is also an ardent defender of it against those forces which would prevent its realization. This zeal for the preservation of harmony should be the decisive element whenever there is question of the development or abandonment of projects which human ingenuity now has the possibility of realizing. Recent military progress, adds the Pope, has certainly produced new signs in the heavens, but they are also signs of that pride w~hich feeds hatred and prepares conflict. Accordingly the seekers of harmony must center their efforts on the achievement of peace, a good so precious and desirable that every effort for its defense is well spent, even when it involves the sacrifice of some legiti-mate aspiration. May the Prince of Peace, concludes the Pon-tiff, through the solidarity of all men of good will, complete that which is lacking in the order and harmony willed by God for the world. For Priests and Religious On November 6, 1957 (AAS, 1957, pp. 1046-47), the Sacred Penitentiary published the text of a prayer for priestly 169 R. F. SMITH" Review for Religious vocations composed by His Holiness. The faithful may gain" an indulgence of ten years each time they recite the prayer; and, under the usual conditions, they may gain a plenary in-dulgence if the prayer is recited daily for a month. Under the date of December 15, 1957 iAAS, 1958, pp. 51-54), the Sacred Congregation of Rites issued an instruction in which it is stated that a priest who is sick or one who is going blind so that he can read only very large print can obtain from the congregation a dispensation to celebrate a votive Mass of the Blessed Virgin or the daily requiem Mass. The rest ,of the instruction details the rules and rubrics which must be fol-lowed in celebrating those Masses. On December 9, 1957 (AAS, 1958, pp. 34-43), the Holy Father delivered an allocution to the Second International Congress of the States of Religious Perfection. The tendency toperfection, begins the Pontiff:, is a habitual disposition of the Christian by which, not content with fulfilling the duties which bind under sin, he strives with all his might to love and serve God and to serve his neighbor for the sake of God. Toward this ideal every Christian is invited to tend; but it is realized in a complete and a surer way in the three states of perfection described in canon law and the three apostolic constitutions, Provida Mater, Sponsa Christi, and Sedes Sapientiae. However, the Pope adds, this does not mean that outside such states there does not exist a true tendency toward per-fection. There are a great many men and women of every. condition who bind themselves to the evangelical counsels by private vows, being guided in matters of poverty and obedience by persons selected by the Church for this purpose. To such persons none of the constitutive elements of Christian perfection is lacking, even though they do not belong to a juridical or canonical state of perfection. Although, the Holy Father continues, Christian perfection is always the same in its essentials, still, because of the condi- 170 May, 1958 ROMAN DOCUMENTS tions of modern times, the manner .of applying oneself to per-fection needs modification. This need for modification applies in a special sense to those outside the states of perfection who occupy high social rank and discharge important duties. Such persons are constrained to surround themselves with a certain display of comfort, to participate in official festivities, and to utilize expensive means of transportation. These are things that appear at first sight difficult to reconcile with the poverty and humility of Christ; nevertheless, even in the midst of such material goods, nothing is lacking in their total consecration to God, for grace works in them according to the words of Christ: "That which is impossible to men is possible to God" (Lk. 18:27). The Holy Father then considers some of the problems that arise from the need for modification and ildaptation in the states of perfection. After noting that the desire for religious perfection does not preclude the consideration of the renovation and adaptation of the means toward perfection and after observ-ing that the objective norm for determining the spirit of any religious group is the mind of the founder as that is expressed in the constitutions of that group, the Vicar of Christ takes up the matter of obedience; for, as he says, the movement of adaptation has provoked a certain tension in this area of re-ligious life. In particular, the accusation is made that obedience imperils the human dignity of the religious, hinders the maturing of his personality, and prevents him from being orientated to God alone. In considering the first objection, the Holy Father notes that the religious should recall, that when our Lord said that His disciples would find repose of soul in following Him, He was teaching that over and beyond legal observance they would discover the sense of true submission and Christian humility. These attitudes will free the religious intekiorly, showing him that his acceptance of his state of subjection is a placing of 171 R. F. SMITH Review for Religious himself in the hands of-God whose, will is expressed through the visible authority of those whose role it is to command. In reply to the charge that religious obedience leads to infantilism, the Holy Father observes that this charge cannot be proved true in the case of the.majority of religious in their intellectual, affective, and active lives. Moreover, it must be recalled that St. Paul in Ephesians 4:12-13 urges the faithful to grow into the perfect man; and in I Corinthians 13:11 he explicitly forbids Christian adults the modes of thinking and feeling which characterize childhood. The Holy Father recalls that already in 1952 he had used these texts to show that a sane education teaches a man to use his liberty wisely and to become independent of his educator. If every member of the states of perfection, superior as well as subject, would apply to himself these texts of the Apostle, then every danger of infantilism would vanish, without jeopardizing legitimate au-thority or submission to its decision. Nor, continues the Vicar of Christ, can the objection be sustained that obedience turns a person from God. Superiors command only in the name of God, and subjects obey only for the love of Christ. In this way the subject daily ratifies the total gift of himself to his only Master. In the final part of the allocution, the Pontiff urges the various religious groups to collaborate with each other; he like-wise exhorts them to close and constant contact with the Holy See. This does not mean that the Holy See wishes a centraliza-tion of everything; centralization is a system of government which makes all decisions and reduces subordinates to the role of mere instruments. Such centralization, says the Pontiff, is entirely foreign to the spirit of the Apostolic See. Neverthe-less, the Holy See can not renounce its character as the directive center of the Church. Accordingly, while leaving to constituted superiors the initiative foreseen by the constitutions, the Church must retain its right and exercise its function of vigilance. 172 May, 1958 ROMAN DOCUMENTS Clothes and the Woman On November 8, 1957 (AAS, 1957, pp. 1011-23), the Holy Father spoke to a group of fashion stylists, giving one of the longest allocutions that he has delivered in recent months. Taking as his subject feminine clothing fashions and their attendant moral problems,~ His Holiness begins by examining the threefold purpose of clothing. The first purpose, he points out, is that of hygiene, a purpose which arises chiefly from the need for protection against the climate and other external agents. Hygiene, he notes, can never justify license in clothing nor can it permit a style of clothing that is injurious to health. Modesty, the natural pro-tection of chastity, is the second purpose of clothing. This purpose must outweigh all caprice and must always preside at the determination of clothing styles. The third purpose of clothing is that of fitting appearance. This purpose arises from the natural and legitimate desire to enhance the beauty and dignity of a person by clothing. From this third purpose of clothing arises fashion or style, the express function of which is the enhancement ot: physical beauty and which is characterized by elegance. Fashion, Plus XII continues, is of great social importance for style has always been regarded as an external index of public manners. It is, then, says the Pope, providential that there should be persons like those he is addressing who are technically and religiously prepared to free style from undesirable tendencies and who see in fashion the art whose partial purpose is to give a moderate enhancement of the beauty of the human body but in a way which will not hide but rather adorn "the imperish-ableness of a quiet and gentle spirit" (I Pet. 3:4)'. His Holiness continues by saying that style, like other good things, can be corrupted by fallen human nature and turned into an occasion of sin and scandal. This is the reason why at times ecclesiastical tradition has been extremely severe 173 R. F. SMITH Revicw ]or Religious with regard to matters of fashion. Nevertheless, Christianity does not demand an absolute renouncement of care for the external appearance of the body; for this would be to forget the words of St. Paul: "I wish women to be decently dressed, adorning themselves with modesty and dignity" (I" Tim. 2:9). Accordingly, the Church does not condemn ~tyle when it seeks a fitting enhancement of the body; this attitude of the Church, however, does not stem from a purely aesthetic view-point, but rather from her conviction that the human body, God's masterpiece of the visible world, has been elevated by the Redeemer to be a temple and an instrument of the Holy Spirit. It is evident, adds the Pontiff, that alongside decent style there also exists indecent style; the frontiers between these two are sometimes difficult to determine; but one principle always remains true: style may never be a proximate occasion of sin. Another source of immorality in style is an excess of luxury, for this leads to a grasping for wealth, is an offense to those who live by their own labor, and reveals a cynical attitude toward poverty. In their thinking on the problems of style and fashion, suggests the Holy Father, his listeners should keep in mind three concrete rules. First, they should never underestimate the influence of style for good and for evil; secondly, style must be consciously directed, not slavishly followed; and, thirdly, in all sectors of fashion moderation should be observed. The Pontiff then concludes his allocution by urging, hig hearers to bring their Christianity to bear at meetings of the fashion w6rld and in their work to fight for the supremacy of spirit over matter. Talks on Various Subjects On November 24, 1957 (AAS, 1957, pp. 1037-40), the Pope broadcast a message to the people of Milan at the con-clusion of a special mission of several weeks duration preached in all the parish churches of that city. Calling Milan the heart 174 May, 1958 ROMAN DOCUMENTS of the national economy, the Pontiff noted that the elevation of the earthly city to the level of the city of God is the goal of the Church. He urged the Milanese to apply themselves to the same goal and concluded by expressing the hope that the close of the mission would mark the date of the city's spiritual renaissance. On November 10, 1957 (AAS, 1957, pp. 1024-27), Pius XII gave an allocution, to the International Congress of the Private Schools of Europe. He told the group that the attitude of a country toward private schools is an accurate reflection of its spiritual and cultural level. If the State reserves the task of education exclusively to itself, it thereby manifests an attitude incompatible with the fundamental rights of the human person. On November 24, 1957 (AAS, 1957, pp. 1027-33), the Pontiff talked to a group of physicians concerning several moral problems of so-called reanimation. Reanimation, as envisaged here, means" the use of respiratory apparatus to bring back to consciousness a patient who has suffered a central paralysis which consequently has paralyzed the respiratory system. The first question asked about the case is whether or not there is a right and an obligation to utilize respiratory apparatus in all such cases, even in those which in the judgment of the physician are completely hopeless. In answer the Pontiff replies that a person has the right and" duty to take the means necessary to preserve life and health. This duty, however, usually obliges a person only to the use of oidinary means; that is, means which do not impose an extraordinary burden on himself or on others. On the other hand, it is not forbidden to do more than is strictly necessary for the conservation of life and health. In the case described, then, the physician's rights and obli-gations are correlative to the rights and obligations of the patient, who, though he may licitly use the respiratory apparatus, is not obliged to do so, since it is an extraordinary means of con-serving life and health. With regard to the family of the 175 R. F, SMITH Review for Religious patient, their rights and obligations depend in general on the presumed wishes of the unconscious patient, provided he is of age. As to the proper and independent rights of the family, they are ordinarily obliged to use only ordinary means. Hence, if the use of artificial respiration would be too costly for them, they may licitly insist that it be stopped and the doctor can licitly obey them. As the Holy Father points out, this is not mercy killing, since the removal of artificial respiration in this case causes death only indirectly. The second problem concerned the question of extreme unction in such a case. The Holy Father replied that artificial respiration should be prolonged until extreme unction is ad-. ministered. If, however, the circulation of blood has already stopped, then extreme unction cannot be administered if the patient is certainly dead; if, however, this is doubtful, then extreme unction may be administered conditionally. The third moral problem asked whether a person in a state of hnconsciousness because of a central paraly.sis and whose life--that is, his blood circulation--is maintained only by artifical respiration, and in whom no improvement is noted for several days, should be considered as.dead; or should one wait for the cessation of blood ciiculation in spi~e of artificial respiration be-fore he can be called dead. To this the Holy Father replied that the question of the moment of death is a purely medical one and hence does not pertain to the competency of the Church. On November 9, 1957 (AAS: 1957, pp. 1023-24), the Pontiff gave an allocution to the Ninth Convention of the Food and Agriculture Organization, noting with sadness the depopu-lation of agricultural areas since "1952 because 6f the decrease in the prices of agricultural products. This loss of population, he remarks, is disquieting; for it is a threat to a sector of population which, because of its stability and fidelity to tradition, is more than ever necessary for the equilibrium of society. 176 May, 1958 ROMAN ~)OCUMENTS On November 27, 1957 (AAS, 1957, pp. 1033-36), the Holy Father spoke to Theodore Heuss, president of the Federal Republic of Germany, in the presence of many German notables, expressing praise for the accomplishments of the German people since the war and voicing the hope that the new Germany will assist in the unification of Europe. The Pontiff's interest in the federation of Europe was also shown in the speech on. ~his subject which he gave on December 3, 1957 (AAS, 1958, pp. 31-33), to members of the Council of the Municipalities of Europe. On November 5, 1957 (AAS, 1957, pp. 1003-10), the Pope spoke to the ecclesiastical archivists of Italy, telling them to care for their archives not merely for the sake of erudition, but for the glory of God and the honor of the Church; for in their archives there are many beautiful records which if revealed would give striking testimony to the holiness of the Church during the course of history. Miscellaneous Matters On November i, 1957 (AAS, 1957, pp. 1051-56), the Holy Father issued an apostolic constitution in which he pro-vided that all who make a pilgrimage to Lourdes between February 11, 1958, and February 11, 1959, inclusively may, on the day of their choice and after confession, Communion, and prayers for the intention of the Holy Father, gain a plenary indulgence. On December 25, 1957 (AAS, 1958, pp. 29-30), the Pontiff issued an apostolic letter in which he created a new" rank within the Pian Order founded by pius IX in 1847. The new rank will be called ~he Grand Golden Collar; it will be superior to the three grades into which the order was already divided and will be used to decorate heads of states and other persons of wide authority. On December 13, 1957 (AAS, 1958, pp. 50-51), the Sacred Congregation of Rites issued a decree concerning the 177 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Religious cdmposition of the paschal candle, of the two candles lit during Mass, and the candle which in some places burns before the Bl~ssed Sacrament in place of. a lamp. The decree "states that it is the mind of the congregation that all these ~andles contain a fitting proportion of wax, olive oil, or other vegetable oils. The congregation, however, leaves to the bishops' conference of each country the determination of the per'centage of these materials-that must be' in these candles if they are to be used for. liturgical purposes. Where there is no national conference of bishops, the ordinary of the place is to decide the matter. On October 24,. 1957 .(ASS, 1957, p. 1045), the same congregation approved the formula for. the blessing of a radio station; the text of. the blessing may be found in AAS,-1957, pp. 1043-45. ,. On June 21, 1957 (AAS, 1958, pp. 46-49), the same congregation approved the introduction, of. th~ cause of the Servant of God Dorothy. de Chopitea Villota Serra (1816-91), wife and mother. On the same day (AAS, 1958, pp. 49-51), the same congregation also approved the reassumption of the cause of. Blessed' Marcellinus Joseph Benedict Champagnat (1789-i840)', priest, donfessor, and founder of the Institute of the Little Brothers of Mar~,. ' " Book I?eviews [Material for this department should be sent to Book Review Editor, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, West Baden College, West Baden Springs, Indiana.] THE SACRED HEART IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH. By Margaret Williams, R.S.C.J. Pp. 248. Sheed and Ward, New York 3. 1957. $3.75 . Mother Williams describes her book as "an anthology of the passages taken from the writings of the men and women best qualified to speak: lovers and thinkers and doers, apostolic scholars, saints all walks of llfe, persons heart-conformed to Christ who have.p.ut iato their own words 'the purposes oi: His Heart to generation upon generation' in the life of the Church." This is ajust estimate; and she has composed an impressive book which has impact: the 178 May, 1958 BOOK REVlgWS swing, and sweep of the devotion through the centuries to its prominent ¯ place in the Church today. Many of the selections make fascinating reading, and sprinkled through the narrative sections are many drops of knowledge valuable to any client of the Sacred Heart. In this treasure are many little-known selections from well-known' authors. Especially valuable to,this reviewer were Bossuet's sermon and Cardinal Newman's meditation, as well as A Kempis's sermo~ and the Meditation on the Five Wounds from the times of Richard Rolle. To know that the great Benedictine nuns at Helfta were accustomed to offer each past hour to the Sacred Heart; that St. Clare adored the Divine Heart in the Blessed Sacrament many times a day; that St. Catherine of Siena in vision watched Christ exchange His own Heart for hers--such details enrich us all. And to know that the Litany .of the Sacred Heart was collected by Venerable Madeleine Remuzat, a Visitandine nun living around the time of the deliverance of Marseilles from plague in 1720; that June was made the month of the Sacred Heart after a girl in Paris asked her bishop in 1833 to make this request; that-St. Plus X added the threefold invocation to the prayers after low mass--such knowledge adds to our apprecia-tion of our present-day practice of the devotion, thereby leaving us the richer for it. Theologically the book contains a few unfortunate expressions. Christ's Heart did not "experience the full range of human feeling, for Himself or for others" (p. 8), unless the latter phrase somehow enables contrition or penance or remorse to be included in His experi-ence. That "all dogmas can be traced to Scripture, in which they are at least implicitly contained . . . and devotions grow from dogmas" (p. 10)~ is a statement which needs explication, to say the least, and might lead the unwary into historical quicksands if "dogma" means a truth solemnly defined by the Church as pertaining to faith. That "religion is the highest of all virtues because of its object, which is God Himself" (p. 25) seems to confuse the virtue of religion with "religion" in general, taken as the sum-total of all our relationships with God, especially faith-hope-charlty; this may be a possible opinion, but should not be stated as if it were simply certain. But these are rather fine points and do not obscure the great value of the book. There is one matter, however, which, it seems to this reviewer, ought to be brought to the reader's attention lest the value of the book be somewhat dissipated. This is the necessity of clearly dis-tinguishing between '~divine Love" and "the Sacred Heart." The two are not simply tl~e same, as Plus XII repeatedly implies in 179 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Religious Haurietis ~lquas in passages like "the heart of the Incarnate Word is rightly considered the chief index and symbol of the threefold love . . ." (America Press translation, No. 27). This distinction is of utmost importance when we begin to trace the devotion in history. "Divine Love" appears from the first moment of human history and permeates the bible story of man's strivings to answer or reject that Love. "Divine Love" is a 'theme of the Fathers of the Church and a constant delight to Benedict and Chrysostom and Venerable Bede. But this devotion to "divine Love" is not yet devotion to the Sacred Heart--a point which Mother Williams plainly makes in a note on page 23: "The organic Heart of Christ, the proximate object of the Devotion, is not clearly indicated in these passages [in the early Fathers] although it is implied indirectly." Again on page 66: "It is the authentic mark of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart thus to see the physical and not merely the metaphorical Heart of Christ as the symbol of His love for men." This is fine, but the readet~ will justly ask how to reconcile such statements with earlier ones such as' that on page 2: "Looking to the spirit rather than to the letter, [the second way] finds the Devotion in the varying blends of its elements, tracing it back to the early ages of the Church and even into Old Testament times. In this sense, Devotion to the Sacred Heart has been at work since God first set His heart upon man." This way seems to the reviewer to lead to an obscuring of the very nature of this particular devotion; the "elements" ofa devotion are not yet the devotion itself, and there is danger of mere nominalism in calling "Devotion to the Sacred Heart" any cultus in which the symbolic Heart of Christ does not actually appear. This one distinction clarified, the book will richly repay any reader. An epilogue gives a good summary of the connection between this devotion and that to the Immaculate Heart; the proper distinc-tions are made, and the p~'oper emphasis indicated. An interesting appendix lists scripture sources for the. various invocations of the Litany of the Sacred Heart. The style is at times a bit too colorful for some tastes, as on page 134: "Satanic violence, blood-drenched and black, beat against the white serenity of Providence . " But far more representative of the spirit and .worth of the book is this: '*The Devotion to the Heart that so loves leads straight into the Trinity. Mother Church, like Mother Mary, will think these thoughts of Christ's Heart from generation to generation, till all her children have been called home into the Vision of Love." (p. 219) Thank you, Mother.--D~XVID J. BOW.X, AN, S.J. 180 May, 1958 BOOK REVIEWS A HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. Vol. VIII. Period of the Early Nineteenth Century (1823-1878). By Reverend Fernand Mourret, S.S. Translated by Reverend Newton Thomp-son, S.T.D. Pp. 807. B. Herder Book Company, St, Louis 2. 1957. $11.00. Those who have the earlier volumes of Father Thompson's trans-lation of A History of the Catholic Church will be eager to add this eighth and next-to-last volume to their sets. They are already aware that this work fills a definite need as nicely as it fills a library shelf. For those as yet unfamiliar with this translation of Father Mourret's Histoire Generale de l'Eglise, a quick survey of their library stacks will make its usefulness apparent. Such an experiment will reveal that the shelves contain no comparable treatment of church history in English. This nine-volume treatment of the whole of church history helps to fill the gap between the smaller text-book histories and the more specialized studies of particular persons or periods. The present volume begins with the pontific.ate of Leo XII when the political fallibility of the Council of Vienna had already become harshly appar.ent. It ends with the death of Pius IX whose reign was climaxed by the pronouncement of papal infallibility at the Vat-ican Council. The history of the years between is made to march in step with the popes and the Catholic crusade to bring Christianity to a Europe which had largely rejected it and to mission lands which hardly knew it. The story is an absorbing, nineteenth-century re-enactment of the passion, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ in His Mystical Body. Since the nineteenth-century battles of the Church were largely European, one of the chief values of this book is that it is written by a Et~ropean. Father Mourret gives the reader the benefit of his extensive reading of French works and periodical records which would otherwise be inaccessible to most Americans. Moreover, the author is not distracted from events of greater historical significance by any feelings of a need for detailed treatment of the beginnings of Catholicism in the United States. It is humbling to find that Father Mourret gives the ecclesiastical history of the United States in the early nineteenth century only 7 out of the 807 pages of his book. However, honesty demands the admission that this coverage is fair enough if one takes a world view of church affairs during the period. It should also be said that this curtailment of side issues gives the author space for more adequate treatment of the European story he is admirably equipped to tell. 181 ]~OOK REVIEWS Review for Religious Father Mourret's story is a factual one. He is not so much a ra-conteur of illustrative anecdotes about important people as he is a careful, clear-headed recorder of events: As such he uncovers many revealing facts about such elusive subjects as Freemasonry, socialism, and liberalism. His book will also give very helpful data to teachers and others who must explain such matters as the Syllabus of Errors, the definition of papal infallibility, or the 'perenially popular topic of the relationship of church to state. Although in Father Mourret's marshaling of facts he himself does not tend toward generalizations, he will perhaps excuse a con-cludi- ng general comment on his work. This generalization regarding the book, which the efforts bf Father Thompson as translator and the willingness of. Herder as publisher apparently second, is that any library will find it a useful addition to its shelves.- CLYDE B. KELLY, S.J. RICHES DESPISED. A STUDY OF THE ROOTS OF RELI-GION. By Conrad Pepler, O.P. Pp. 181. B. Herder Book Company~ St. Louis 2. 1957. $3.25. "Modern industrial man is out of tune with the hymn of nature." As a result, the riches of Christianity--a religion rooted in natur~ are despised. So says Father Pepler, insisting that man must live close to Mother Nature for his spiritual welfare. The author's analysis of modern society indicates that most men, when "out of tune and out of time with the rest of the divine orchestra of the universe," become more and more unreceptive of grace. "Looking down into the nature o~c man and seeing in that nature its .reflection of the whole world of nature," "Father Pepler claims that the world's recent material advances have hidden the nature of man under "an encrustation of artificiality." Between man and his God have ariseh the immense barriers of a false culture and a false imagination. The author sagely comments on the harm done by'modern mediaof corn- " munication in achieving a uniform, mechanical imagination. The Christian religion was designed for the man in touch with nature; modern man is not in touch. The point is exemplified by our difficulty in understanding the natural symbolism of the sacra-ments, sacramentals, and the Mass. It is Father Pepler's opinion that "the Christian religion cannot exist normally and as an integral part of society in the artificiality of modern civilization." To correct the situation, "society must somehow be changed in order to allow grace to work freely." So the author offers some 182 May, 1958 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS principles and practical suggestions for fhe change. For instance, acceptance of. the .standard of the cross is one of the principles. Riches Despised is a thought-provokirig book which reads easily. Its insights into the interaction of man and nature are reminiscent of Anne Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea. Father Pepler has delved deeply into a baiic problem of ~modern Christianity and offers a lucid, penetrating analysis; this is the "great merit of the b6ok. But his. solutions, are disappointing and generally unacceptable, though distributists and advocates 6f a "back-to-the-land" move-ment may be pleased. Making the monastic ideal a rallying point for the wo~Id of 1958 and suggesting that a foundry need employ no .more than fifty men seem to this reviewer to be highly imprac-ticable suggestions.¯ One small point: Is it accurate to refer to religious obedience as a "denial by vow of . . . personal initiative"? Religious who work close to Mother Nature will find in this book an appealing apologia for their way of life. Religious who wonder why it is so difficult to find God in all things will find a partial answer in these pages. Readers attracted by the ideas under-lying the Grail movement will want to read Riches Despised~ RA~YMOND C. BAI~IMHART," S.J. BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS THE BRUCE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 400 North 'Broadway, Milwaukee I, Wisconsin. My Other Self. In Which Christ Speaks to the Soul on Living His Life. By Clarence J.: Enzler. This,book is not to be read but pondered, prayerfully. It lends itself ideally to St. Ignatius's second method of prayer. The author's presentation of Christ's ¯address to the~ soul is done reverently and with convincing verisimilitude. When ment.al prayer is difficult, try using, this book. It should help to dispel the mists with which the centuries may have shrouded the'figure of Christ for you 'and b'ring Him right down to the present. Pp. 166. $3.50. The-Plaints of the Passion. Meditations on the Reproaches of the Good Friday Service. "By Jude Mead,'C.P. You will find abun-dant material for .many meditations in the author's explanation of the eleven Reproaches chanted on Good Friday during the venera-tion of the. cross. There is an excellent introduction on the "various senses of Holy Scripture. Pp. 133. $3.50. 183 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Review for Religio~ts The Rubrics of the Revised Holy Week Liturgy in English. Pp. 69. $1.00. The Simple Rite of the Restored Order of Holy Week. Pp. 95. $1.00. Both books were translated and edited by Gerald Ellard, S.J., and F. P. Prucha, s.J. They are published with the authorization of the Sacred Congregation of Rites. They should do much to help. both priests and people to an appreciation of the new liturgical setting that now enshrines these holiest days of the year. Separated Brethren. A Survey of non-Catholic Christian De-nominations. By William J. Whalen. Living in a Protestant country, our relations with our Protestant neighbors will be much improved if we get to know more about their religious background. Such knowl-edge will also guide our zeal in our efforts to bring these "other sheep" back to the true fold. Priests and teachers ot: r~ligion should find the book particularly helpful. Pp. 284. $4.50. MESSRS. M.~H. GILL AND SON, LIMITED, 50 Upper O'Connell Street, Dublin. The Mother of the Little Flower. A Sister of St. Th~r~se of the Child Jesus Tells Us About Her Mother. Translated by Reverend Michael Collins, S.M.A. Present and future mothers of families wi/l find in the mother of the Little Flower a concrete realization to a heroic degree of the virtues which .make mothers of families truly valiant women. The translation is adequate but not always happy. Pp. 123. Paper 6/-. GONZAGA UNIVERSITY BOOK STORE, Spokane 2, Washington. Contemplation in Action. A Study of Ignatian Prayer. By Joseph F. Conwell, s.J. This book deals with the problem: "Is there a prayer proper to the Society of Jesus, .and if ~o, what is its characteristic note?" The author's interesting ~indings are supported by the authority of the Gregorian University, Rome, where they were first published as his doctoral dissertation. Pp. 123. Paper $2.50. B. HERDER BOOK COMPANY, 15-17 South Broadway, St. Louig 2, Missouri. Conquest of the Kingdom of God. By John of the Angels, O.F.M. Translated by Cornelius F. Crowley. There is an unction in the writings of the ancient authors on the spiritual life which is all too frequently lacking in the writings of the writers of today. You will find that unction in the present volume which is the tenth in the "Cross and Crown Series of Spirituality." Pp. 216. $3.95. 184 May, 1958 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS The Church. An Introduction to the Theology of St. Augustine. By Stanislaus Grabowski. Priests, seminarians, and all students of St. Augustine will welcome this scholarly work on the Church accord-ing to the mind of St. Augustine. There are abundant footnotes and they appear where they are needed and have not been relegated either to the end of chapters or at the end of the book. This is the author's second notable, book-length contribution to the study of St. Augustine. His first was The All-Present God. Pp. 673. $9.50. The Liturgy of the Mass. By Pius Parsch. Translated and adapted by H. E. Winstone, M.A. The faithful are becoming more and more liturgical minded. The present volume, the third edition of a classic on the liturgy of the Mass, will do much to enable them tq under-stand the Mass and, as a result, help them to participate in it more fruitfully. Pp. 344. $4.95. Eve and Mary. By Peter Thomas Dehau, .O.P. Translated by the Dominican Nuns of the Perpetual Rosary, La Crosse, Wiscon-sin. This book is a study in contrasts as the title indicates. It con-trasts the pride and disobedience of Eve with the humility and obedience of Mary; the temptation of our first parents with the temp-tations of Christ in the desert. The book makes unusual spiritual reading for ,topics rarely considered are treated at length in its pages. Pp. 268. $3.95. P. J. KENEDY & SONS, 12 Barclay Street, New York 8, New York. The Sacrifice of Praise. An Introduction to' the Meaning and Use of the Divine Office. By V. G. Little. This book is much more than an explanation of how to say the Roman Breviary taking into account the most recent revision of the rubrics. It does this and does it well. But what inakes the book really outstanding are the chapters on The Genesis and Growth of Vocal Worship, The Office Through the Centuries, The Breviary, The Nature of the Office, The Redemption of Time, The Substance of the Office, The Divine Office, and the Life of Prayer. Even religious and priests who have said Office for many years can read these chapters and come from their reading with a new or renewed appreciation of what a treasure they have in the Bre~;iary and what a privilege is theirs to be able to say it every day. Pp. 200. $3.00. DAVID McKAY COMPANY, INCORPORATED, 55 Fifth Avenue, New York 3, New York. The Popes on Youth. By Raymond B. Fullam, S.J. Anyone who has anything to do with the education of youth, be he layman, 185 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Review for Religiou.~ religious, or priest, will find this book invaluable as a reference book where he can easily find the official teaching of' the Church on the many problems .connected with the education of youth today; as a source book for conferences and study groups; as a guide to his efforts and source of encouragement. That the book is meeting with the success that it so ricl~ly deserves is indicated by the fact that a second edition has already appeared. Pp. 442. $5.00. THE NEWMAN PRESS, Westminster, Maryland. Dogmatic Theology. Vol. II. Christ's Church. By Monsignor G. Van Noort. Translated and revised by John J. Castelot, S.SI, an~d William R. Murphy, S.S. This second volume of a ten-volume set on the science ot: theology measures up fully to the high standard of excellence established by the author and translators in the first volume, The True Religion. The present volume is divided into two sections. The first is apologetic, i.e., it treats the Church as viewed from outside in the light of reason; the second is dogmatic and views the Church from inside as illumined by faith. All interested in theology, but particularly teachers of religion on the college level, will find the book very useful and stimulating. Pp. 428. $7.00. Eucharistic Reflections. By Right Reverend Monsignor William Reyna. Adapted by Winfrid Hetbst, S.D.S. This is a new, revised edition of the very popular eight small volumes entitled Eucharistic Whisperings. The book is very useful for visits to the Blessed Sacra-ment. Pp. 404. $4.75. Ponder Slowly. Outlined Meditations. By Francis X. Peirce, S.J. Meditation books tend to similarity. This one is different. There is an utter lack of formality. Each meditation consists of a number of thoughts announced in ghort, pithy phrases leaving the reader free to develop them according to his needs. The material for the book was originally collected by the author and used by him for tric~ua and retreats to Sisters. In their present form the meditations should prove helpful to all who make a .daily meditation. Pp. 323. $3.95. PAGEANT PRESS, 101 Fifth Avenue, New York 3, New York, Chosen Arrows. An Historical Narrative. By Sister Mary de Lourdes Gohmann, O.S.U. The Ursuline Sisters of Louisville, Ken-tucky, will complete the first centenary since their foundation in the autumn of 1958. To mark the occasion Sister M. L. Gohmann has written a vivid account of the trials, labors, and successes that divine 186 May, 1958 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Providence has accorded these valiant workers in His vineyard. In her narrative the dry bones of historical fact are brought to life by the imaginative re-creation of many a conversation. The book is of interest not only to the members of the Ursuline Order and their many friends, but to all who are interested in the history of the Catholic Church and the history of Catholic education in. America. Pp. 533. $5.00. THE SCAPULAR PRESS, 329 East 28th Street, New York 16, New York. A Little Queen's Request. An Informal Biography of Saint Th~r~se for Our Teen-agers. By Sist

Issue 64.2 of the Review for Religious, 2005. ; Faith Perspectives Taking Account Religious Life Holy People QUARTERLY 64.2 2005 Review for Religious fosters dialogue with, God, dialogue witt~ ourselves, and dialogue with one . another about the l~olin~ess~w~e try tolive' ~ ~ according to charisms of Catholic religious life,,; As Pope Paul VI said, our Way of being church is today the way of dialogue. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published quarterly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ° St. Joseph's Provincial House 333 South Seton Avenue ° Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2005 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. view for religious Editor Associate Editor Canonical Counsel Scripture Scope Editorial Staff Webmaster Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Eugene Hensell OSB M~ry Ann Foppe 7Fracy Gramm Jiady Sharp ' Clare Boehmer ASC Steve Erspamer SM .Kathleen'Hughes RSCJ Ernest E. Larkin OCarm Lot~is and Angela Menard Bisl~op Terry.Steib SVD Miriam -D. Ukeritis CSJ :'. QUARTERLY 64.2 2O05 contents 116 prisms Prisms faith perspectives Reaching the Alienated Heart: An Interpretation of the Descent into Hell Dennis J. Billy CSSR examines our creedal profession that Jesus "descended into hell" and finds an understanding for our contemporary human experience. 129 Feet First into Resurrection Bonaventure Stefun OFMCap delves into the significance of the Christian action of the washing of the feet in its sacra-mental way of relating us to the risen Christ. Reflection and Discussion 11,4] 135 152 taking account Framing the Ethical Rights of Priests James F. Keenan SJ writes as a moral theologian to propose four ethical rights that would seem to need recognition for the healthy communio of the church. Faith and Solidarity in Action Anne Munley IHM presents a summary overview of the May 2004 plenary session of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) dealing with the ministry of reconciliation. Review for Religious 159 Women Religious in Treatment for Addictions Millie Cargas describes art therapy and its effectiveness in therapy programs. 168 Asceticism and Chaste Celibate Love 177 184 194 Vilma Seelaus OCD unites chaste celibate love with an asceticism that enlarges the heart to receive a greater outpouring of God's love, which then flows more freely through us into the lives of others. Prayer hoOy people Snapshots of Three Lesser-Known "Saints" Robert F. Maloney CM sketches in brief detail the lives and deaths of three Catholics who continue to call us to witness to our faith. Learning to Live Serenely: The Wisdom of FFancis de Sales Juliana Devoy RGS reintroduces us to the sage advice of Francis de Sales in the ordinary daily living of our Christian lives. Reflection and Questions Good and Bad Zeal, Good and Bad Spirits Joseph I. Cisetti notes that, while distinct, the teaching of St. Benedict on good and bad zeal and the instructions of St. Ignatius on good and bad spirits bear similarities useful for both personal discernment and pastoral ministry. Reflection Questions ~ 201 206 ]epartrn r s Scripture Scope: Reading the Acts of the Apostles Canonical Counsel: No More, No Less, and No Other . 212 Book Reviews 64.2 200Y prisms Te title of the apostolic letter "Stay with Us, Lord," published on the occasion of the October 2004-October 2005 Year of the Eucharist, repeats the request that the two disciples gave to the stranger as they made their way to Emmaus on that first Easter Sunday. Each year we seem to enter anew into the full challenge of our asking the Lord "to stay with us" as we move into the Easter and Pentecost seasons .and the Ordinary time of our Christian living that follows. Every Eucharist we celebrate brings home to us our relating to the Risen Lord in his sacra-mental presence. As we know from our scripture readings in the Easter season, Jesus seemed to move in and out of the disciples' lives. His alter-hating presence and absence prompted Peter and some of the other apostles to go back to their trade of fishing, which provided the occasion for a picnic breakfast at the seashore. Perhaps over and over again we may have heard the apostles and disciples begging "Stay with us, Lord." The Risen Lord does "stay" with his eucharistic stance of offering himself totally in love to God his Father and of giving himself R~ie'w for Religio~s totally in love over into our human hands. The once-event of crucifixion is removed from the boundaries of time by the very person of Jesus now risen and "stay-ing" with us day after day. Each celebration of the Eucharist calls forth our recognition of this nearness of Jesus, inviting us to be with him in this love-offering. Eucharistic adoration outside of Mass continues to chal-lenge us to recognize Jesus' presence not so much as merely "staying" with us but rather as continuously offer-ing himself in love totally to the Father and to us and always inviting us to fully integrate ourselves into his sacrificial (that is, "making holy") action. "Stay with us, Lord"--heartfelt as the plea is--needs more humbly to be prayed as "Let us be where you are, Lord." Our greatest desire is always to be where God is; we do not smugly ask God to take the trouble to come to where we prefer to be. By God's grace and calling, some women and men, often hermits or consecrated religious, have dedicated their lives to Eucharistic worship. They have given their lives to "stay" with the Lord. But for the most part we ordinary Catholics find that life is spent in many activities, working for a living, being helpful and hospitable, planning, coping with setbacks, involved with family or community, with limited time for church celebrations and Eucharistic devotions. Are we slow to expect Christ to "stay with us"? .If we are, why not prayerfully seek to "stay with Jesus" as he continues to be active everywhere in this busy world of ours? Then we realize the 'truth of the Eucharistic action: Jesus is the One inviting us to be With him in his love offering to God and to others. Our. prayer is: "Let me stay where you are." David L. Fleming SJ 117 64.2 2005 faith perspectives DENNIS J. BILLY Reaching the Alienated Heart: An Interpretation of the Descent into Hell The doctrine of Christ's descent into hell after his suffering and death on Good Friday conveys some important truths about the meaning and scope of the paschal mystery. To understand this doctrine, we must distinguish its theological for-mulation from the underlying truth it seeks to express. Also we must put aside any prejudices that would prevent us from probing this doc-trine for its full worth and must open our hearts to its deep spiritual wisdom. My purpose in this essay is to explore what the Apostles' Creed means when it says that Jesus "descended into hell" and to see this teaching's impact on our lives today. Christ's Redemptive Self-Emptying As we begin, note that the descent into hell makes sense only if we examine it in the con-text of the creed's other affirmations about Dennis J. Billy CSSR, a frequent contributor to our pages, writes from Accademia Alfonsiana; C.P. 2458; 00100 Roma, Italy. Review for Religious Christ, especially those related to his plan of redemp-tion. The Apostles' Creed, we are told, "is rightly con-sidered a faithful summary of the Apostles' faith" and constitutes "the oldest Roman catechism." 1 Since all of the church's teachings about Christ are closely related, just where this particular doctrine appears in the creed can tell us much about its overall function in the faith of the early church. When looking at the surrounding words, we see that Jesus' descent is placed between affirmations about his suffering and death ("he suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried") and the proclama-tion of his resurrection ("on the third day he rose again"). If the early Christians considered entering the realm of the dead a natural outcome of Jesus' passion and death, then rising from the dead preceded his ascent into heaven. This immediate context tells us that Jesus' descent into hell occupies an important place in the over-all narrative of Jesus' redemptive journey. If it did not, it would never have been placed at the very heart of the creed's Christological affirmations. The preceding and subsequent Christological affir-mations in the Apostles' Creed make this even more apparent. Earlier we affirm that Jesus is the only Son of the Father, that he was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. Later we affirm that Jesus ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. The creed's entire Christological narrative, then, looks something like this: incarnation, birth, suffering, death, descent into hell, resurrection, ascent to the Father's right hand, return in glory, final judgment. Along with the resurrection, Jesus' descent into hell lies at the center of the narrative of human redemption. It is the last action of Jesus' redemptive self- 119 64.2 200~ Billy ¯ Reacbing the Alienated Heart emptying and the point from which his transformation and glorious ascent begins. rOse,ore the dead, ' ascended into heave " allows for somb latit de: about how these forrnulation " " should be ftnderstOod. ,:, Formulation and Truth At this point some pivotal questions arise. What is the correspondence between the statements in the Apostles' Creed and the truths they express? Is this brief narrative of Jesus' redemptive mission meant to be taken lit-erally? Does it reveal certain truths about Christ's redemptive action that can be removed from their present theological formulations in the hope of uncovering deeper, even more penetrating insights into the mystery of the Christ event? Is it possible to uncover the underlying truths of the creed without doing damage to the tradition by which those truths have been passed down? There are no simple answers, to these important and enigmatic questions. Some statements in the creed are affirmations of historical fact and require a close con-nection between the formulations themselves and the truths they .state. To say that Jesus suffered, died, and was buried, for example, leaves little room for discus-sion. Either these affirmations happened or they did not. The historical events to which they refer must be either accepted or denied. Other statements in the creed, however, are affirma-tions of faith that cannot be historically verified and thus Review for Religious offer more leeway in distinguishing between their for-mulations and the truths they disclose. To say that Jesus rose from the dead or ascended into heaven allows for some latitude about how these formulations should be understood. What do we mean when we say someone has risen from the dead? What is our understanding of ascension? What is our understanding of heaven? Unlike the notions of suffering, death, and burial, these con-cepts have no historical precedents with which to com-pare them. Given these possibilities, theologians need to discern with care the nature of the particular creedal statement before them and then determine to the best of their abil-ity the relationship between the formulation itself and the truth it uncovers. While a certain logical gap will probably always exist between the formulation and the truth to which it points, the gap will likely vary from one doctrinal formulation to the next. Understanding Jesus' Descent Like the doctrines of Jesus' resurrection and ascen-sion into heaven, the creedal affirmation of Jesus' "descent into hell" allows for a certain amount of dis-tance between its theological formulation and the truth it expresses. After all, there must be more to this doctrine than the image it conjures.in our minds of a literal, spa-tial descent by Christ into the dark and gloomy under-world of the now outdated Hebrew worldview. What about the astonishing message of God's undying love for the world? Most would agree that hell is not so much a place as a state of being, one completely alienated from God. In our reinterpretation of hell, the focus should be on the spiritual and mental, not the physical. When speaking about Jesus' "descent into hell" today, perhaps we should interpret it as revealing something about 121 64.2 2005" Billy ¯ Reaching the Alienated Heart humanity's alienation from God and about Jesus' role in bringing that alienation to an end. Alienation makes us feel isolated from ourselves, one another, and God. It hinders us on our journey through life and prevents us from becoming the persons we are called to be. Ronald Rolheiser puts it this way: "We are social beings, meant to live in love and intimacy with others. Our nature demands this. When, for whatever reasons, we cannot achieve this and communicate love as we should, then something is missing inside of us--and we feel it! We feel estranged and alienated.''2 To be in hell is to be in a state of complete and utter alienation from God. In such a state, we have lost touch with our-selves and so have become incapable of reaching out in love to anyone. If we are honest, all of us will admit experiencing sometime in our lives this sense of being estranged from and "out of sync" with ourselves, the world around us, and the God who created us. We feel at war with our-selves, divided and incapable of healing the division. Although we are conscious of it in various ways and degrees, this sense of alienation is not a matter of per-sonal choice (although choice can contribute to it), but a part of our existential condition as human beings. What makes matters worse is that we somehow sense that it was not meant to be this way, that something has gone terribly wrong with our human condition and that some-how humanity as a whole bears at least some (if not all) responsibility for it. Making All Things New Christianity is all about how God chose to make things right again by sharing our human condition and overcoming this alienation lurking deep in our hearts. Down through the ages, the church has developed the Review for Religious doctrines of original sin and redemption to explain this universal alienation and reveal the way God has chosen to rectify it. Jesus' descent into hell is intimately tied to these fun-damental Christian doctrines, each of which, like two sides of a coin, cannot exist without the other. Here, too, a distinction must ., - - -- be made between the formulations of these doctrines and the truths they disclose. Like Jesus' descent into hell, these doc-trines allow room for interpretation. The doctrine of original sin affirms that all of humanity has somehow become alienated from God in its collec-tive soul. The doctrine of redemption, in turn, affirms that, for any healing to take place, Jesus entered that realm of alienation and preached the Good News of God's love for each and every human being. When seen in this light, Jesus' descent into hell is the final stage of his redemptive self-emptying. H~ has entered our world, given himself to us completely, to the point of dying for us, and even to the point of telling those who live in complete alienation from the divine that God still loves them. Through the cross Jesus reveals his message of divine compassion, breaks down the resistance of our primal alienation, and offers newness of life to all who would have it. Byzantine iconography illustrates this point very well. When depicting the descent into hell, the artist normally has Jesus standing on the toppled gates of hell with a scroll in one hand and pulling Adam out of a bottom- The word preached by Jesus to those in hell boldly proclaims a new creation made possible by hi! rising from the dead. 64.2 2005 Billy * Reaching the Alienated Heart less pit with the other. Below Adam, angels can be seen locking Satan and his minions in chains that will hold them captive for all eternity. According to the principles of iconography, a scroll typically represents the preach-ing of the word. Since "Adam" in Hebrew means "man," in the universal sense of the term that today many would refer to as "humanity," Jesus' lifting of Adam, the first man, indicates the healing of humanity's primal wounds and its elevation to even great heights through Christ's redeeming grace) The word preached by Jesus to those in hell boldly proclaims a new creation made possible by his rising from the dead. Through his resurrection Jesus, the first fruits of the new humanity, takes fallen humanity by the hand, lifts it out of its primal alienation, and lets it par-ticipate in a union with the divine more intimate than everbefore thought possible. Jesus' descent into hell cannot be properly understood apart from his rising from the dead. It relates to the resurrection as the doctrine of original sin relates to the redemption. They are like two sides of a coin: they cannot exist without each other. Observations The above presentation offers a rethinking of the church's traditional teaching of Jesus' descent into hell. What follows are a number of remarks designed to fill out this interpretation in practical and relevant ways. 1. To begin with, this presentation challenges us to examine our minds and hearts in order to affirm what we truly believe about our faith. The doctrines of Christianity developed over time out of the experience of God's people and must always try to speak to their ongo-ing experience. If they fail to do so, they risk becoming brittle assertions from the past that fail to inspire and give life. The challenge for today's believers is to engage Review for Religious these doctrines in such a way that they continue to speak to their experience while remaining faithful to the insights of our Christian forebears. This presentation of Jesus' descent into hell uses different interpretive lenses to affirm the underlying truths of the traditional teach-ing so that they can be understood among the shifting contours of today's spiritual landscape. 2. A fundamental presupposition of this presentation is that it is possible to draw a distinction between a par-ticular formulation of the Christian faith and the truths it seeks to express. Since the complex relationship between language and meaning are not easy to unravel (if at all), we have urged here that, when seeking a refor-mulation of a doctrine that would be more palatable to contemporary tastes, we proceed strictly on a case-by-case basis. The approach used here for reinterpreting Jesus' descent into hell, for example, would not neces-sarily work in discussions of other creedal statements, especially those with more historically verifiable claims. 3. The distinction between a theological formula and the truth it discloses can be upheld on the basis of the analogy of human language. As with language, the Aposdes' Creed is a complex system of symbols that seeks to convey an intricate web of meaning. While all trans-lations of that meaning from one language to others are themselves interpretations (some better than others), we maintain that translations are not only possible but some-times absolutely required. This claim is all the more true for the church's proclamation of the Gospel, which at one and the same time must remain faithful to the apos-tolic tradition and relevant to the spiritual needs of each generation. 4. The choice of the phrase "alienation from the divine" as the existential equivalent to the Christian doctrine of hell has much in its favor. The term "alienation" is used 64.2 2005 Billy * Reaching the Alienated Heart by many spiritual writers today and, when taken to an extreme, conveys a sense of the intense pain and isolation experienced in a life marked by a total absence of God. The knowledge, moreover, that there are different degrees of alienation (from simple noninclusion to total estrange-ment) brings new insights in the Catholic doctrine of purgatory. If hell is the state of being in which individuals have become so alienated from God that they can no longer open their hearts to God's compassionate love, then pur-gatory represents that state of being where alienated hearts still can be moved to conversion. Seen in this light, the final judgment is not an external ruling exercised by Christ at the end of time, but the simple recognition that per-sons' choices in life have a cumulative effect on their hearts. 5. Finally, Jesus' death on the cross, his descent into hell, and his resurrection from the dead do not bring an end to humanity's existential condition of alienation from the divine, but begin its healing. Jesus' descent into hell was not a single, one-time event, but a continuous engag-ing with humanity's alienation from the divine. Because Jesus' redemptive action occurs both in and out of time, he continues to empty himself for us to this very day by descending into the throes of our alienation from God in order to make of it a new creation. V~at has changed for us as a result of his redemptive action is that, in the midst of this alienation, we can hear a still small voice from deep within our hearts calling us by name and affirming God's compassionate and abounding love for us. That voice is the Spirit, the bond of love between the Father and the Son, who wishes not only to speak but also to dwell within our hearts. Jesus' redemptive action makes it possible for us to live a life in the Spirit. This descent into hell is a stark reminder of what our lives would be like without him. While these observations do not exhaust the insights Review for Religious that this interpretation of Jesus' descent into hell has to offer, they demonstrate that doctrine can be both con-tinuous with the past and relevant to the spiritual sensi-tivities of today's believers. We have seen that this descent can be understood as Jesus' proclamation of the truth of his resurrection even to those who have com-pletely alienated themselves from the divine love. Although God's love for humanity is deep and plen-tiful, Jesus was well aware that not everyone would be ready to accept his message of forgiveness and intimate friendship with the divine. He experienced rejection dur-ing his public ministry and fully expected the same (if not worse) when he journeyed to hell by way of his grue-some and bloody death by crucifixion. This knowledge, however, did not prevent him from proclaiming his trans-forming message of God's love in the realm of the dead. On the contrary, it emboldened him. The point of this essay is that this shadowy realm lies not in some dark, murky Sheol beneath the pillars of the earth, but deep in the human heart. Even today Jesus goes there to proclaim his message and bring an end to humanity's primal alienation from God. Although the message he preaches is a source of vexation to many (hence the well-known phrase "harrowing of hell"), many whose hearts have not been completely hardened will listen to it and be moved to repentance. In the final analysis, Jesus' descent into hell affirms that the Good News is destined to be proclaimed not just to the ends of the earth, but to the heights and depths of reality itself, especially the heights and depths of the human heart. "God is everywhere," as we learned from our penny catechism--even in hell. He is present not only by virtue of keeping things in existence, but also by virtue of his word, the healing message of hope he carries to our fallen and alienated humanity. 127 64.2 2005 Billy ¯ Reaching the Alienated Heart Notes *Catechism of the Catholic Church (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1994), p. 53, §§194 and 196. 2 Ronald Rolheiser, The Restless Heart: Finding Our Spiritual Home in Times of Loneliness (New York: Doubleday, 2004), p. 43. 3 For more on iconography and Jesus' descent into hell, see M. Helen Weier, Festal Icons of the Lord (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1977), pp. 41-44. 128 Mother and Son She sits in the half lit room, eyes half closed in prayer. Outside, it is still dark, and all in the house but her are asleep. She looks up as the room fills with light, a new day breaking, the light like none she or anyone else has ever seen. Although it is not whiter than snow, the light of the angel at the tomb, to see it would frighten most. But she, with a light of her own, greater than that of angels, knows she has nothing to fear from this light of purest love. Kevin Bezner Re~ie~ for Religious BONAVENTURE STEFUN Feet First into Resurrection ~ nly with the beginnings of scholasticism in the 1 lth or 12th century was there a careful and sys-tematic distinguishing of sacraments from sacramentals. In 1274 the Council of Lyons (DS 860) listed the church's seven sacraments. In earlier centuries, preach-ers would include various actions in Christian life as grace-giving sacraments/sacramentals, without con-trasting them. One action of Christ commonly followed was his washing of his disciples' feet at the Last Supper. In an age when most travel was by foot, one would think that people would take feet for granted--take them in stride and ignore them. Once people's feet developed calluses, it would seem that they could go on forever with a minimum of care. Paul blithely considered feet to be less majestic parts of the body, even though essen-tial for carrying the faith beyond the mountains. As insignificant as feet would have seemed, people could not forget what the Master had done. One can imagine Peter welcoming visitors to his place of abode with a basin and a towel. Feet took on such an importance that 129 Bonaventure Stefun OFMCap writes this reflective article from St. Augustine Friary; 221-36th Street; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15201. 64.2 2005 Stefun ¯ Feet First into Resurrection washing guests' feet was seen as a kind of sacrament in the church for hundreds of years. Imagine how the concept of a body's importance may have developed in the early church. First came the gru-eling crucifixion and then the gradual realization of res-urrection, both actions involving the Lord's body. What Jesus did in washing the apostles' feet became a way of understanding his res-urrection, for it was a complete and natural demonstration of his incarnation, his embod-ied life on earth. His concern for a lowly part of the human anatomy reminds us that his own mortality came from his human makeup. Disciples could simply follow footsteps into the theology of a Lord who could die and then be raised from the dead. The story began on Easter Sunday. Once the Sabbath restrictions were ended, disconsolate women set out for the tomb where their Master had been quickly buried. These were the women from Galilee who used to accom-pany Jesus and his Twelve. They liked to prepare the lit-tle that he ate and to minister to his various needs, tiny as those needs usually were. This time, with desolate hearts, they wanted to per-form their final service with all their deepest love. They wanted to provide for Jesus' body the anointing that had to be cut short when the Sabbath followed so closely on his dying. Their hearts were filled with love and with an overflowing sorrow, the ambivalent feelings the living experience in taking care of the dead. All those feelings were suddenly turned to alarm as Review for Religious they drew close to the tomb. It was gapingly open, and they could see that it was empty. Immediately they feared desecration or vandalism or strong intimidation on the part of the soldiers or the city's leaders. In their bewil-derment the women turned back to their homes, stum-bling along in stunned silence.lust a short way along their return road, the)~ were jolted to a stop. There was .Jesus, just standing there, not a desecrated corpse but alert and fully alive. He lifted his hand in silent bless-ing and greeting. He had come on purpose, knowing the familiar road they would use. Without hesitation the women knelt in a cluster and embraced his feet. Their prostration was typical enough for their day, more than just a simple bow when paying respect to a beloved teacher. Disciples would kneel to acknowledge how superior the person was who taught them and made sense of life's daily struggles. This time, embracing their Master's feet implied something even greater than deep respect. Jesus himself had embraced his disciples' feet with his hands, washing their feet and drying them with the padded caress of a towel. The women marveled when they heard the Apostles tell the story. Once that ritual of washing feet was completed on the solemn occasion of his last meal with them, Jesus told his disciples to do what he had done, and they told others. This would be a sign that they were.Jesus' disci-ples. The whirlwind events of the next days prevented any development of the new rite of service, but all would have been thinking of his command to wash one another's feet, serve one another, love one another just as Jesus loved each of them. Even the children would have to be part of this new and loving ritual of washing feet. Jesus said plainly that all such service, even to the very least, was really done for him. 131 t~4.2 200~ Stefun * Feet First into Resurrection The Gospel of John On 12:3-7) subtly connects this foot-washing by Jesus with the tearful washing and costly anointing of Jesus' feet by a woman of tarnished reputa-tion in the house of Simon the Pharisee (Lk 7:37-38, Mk 14:3-8, Mt 26:7-12). Judas called the flood of oil a dread-ful extravagance. We all are inclined to thoughts like that, John seems to imply, and perfumed oil belongs on the head, not the feet! It certainly seemed wasteful until Jesus said it was part of the preparation for his burial. Now, on the road returning home, the women real-ized that the pre-burial anointing by one or two women was more important to Jesus than what they were attempting to do by going to his tomb early in the morn-ing. He seemed to accept that anointing of his feet at a Pharisee's interrupted dinner as a special sign, a sign which indicated an intense love and an immense faith. John suggests in his Gospel that the woman, named Mary, was showing the kind of reverence a body deserves that brings God's presence into salvation history. Jesus kept saying that he knew he was about to be executed. He would die and bring about forgiveness of sin, and he would do it through his body. He would put his body into total submission to God, and in dying he would trust the Father to take care of him, including his body, and even his feet. The woman herself seemed to be saying the same thing with her aromatic anointing. The body she anointed would not carry the stench of corruption but rather the fragrance of God's presence. In accepting this service for his burial, Jesus was indicating that he had no fear of physical corruption after death. Psalm 16 had long before assured him of his Father's intervention to keep his body from decay. He needed just to trust his Father, to live by faith as completely as he asked his dis-ciples to do. Review for Religious As the women of Easter Sunday embraced their Lord's feet along a familiar road, they understood the fuller meaning of washing and anointing feet. They con-eluded that every washing was also an anointing, a prepa-ration for his burial. All the daily care for little children and other needy persons was part of his burial, as were all the care and respect shown for the bodies of persons who had died. The very care became the perfume of love and the promise that the Father would be present even when bod-ies succumbed in death. What this woman did in anointing his feet, Jesus said, would be recalled wher-ever he would be remembered and his gospel proclaimed. When he made this remark, it seemed like simple grati-tude on his part, but he was really saying that every dis-ciple of his could help prepare his body for burial. Their daily acts of service to their brothers and sisters would be an anointing with perfumed oil, a symbol of God's presence and a pledge of resurrection, his own first, and then that of all his disciples. It was natural for people in the early church to con-clude that the washing of feet was a kind of sacrament, a sign of the Lord's presence and a channel of grace. Gradually, in the course of centuries, feet became pam-pered by socks and sturdy shoes and comfortable trans-portation and no longer looked forward, upon arriving, to the soothing removal of mud and dust. Not just tramping feet but all parts of a Christian's body took on the role of signifying the body of Christ. Can we, like Jesus, in dying, trust the Father ~to take care of us, including our body, and even our feet ? 133 64.2 2005 Stefun ¯ Feet First into Resurrection Instead of a washing only, at baptismal rites the body would be anointed, as it would also at confirmation and the sacrament of orders. Often a healing anointing would be given to the sick, and the sacrament of healing addressed the greater healing of sin's wounds and the grand hope of sharing in our Lord's risen life. In these latter-day circumstances, the washing of feet has taken on the appearance of an act of penance and humility, a virtuous act, but no longer a sort of sacra-ment like the seven described by the Councils of Lyons, Florence, and Trent. Not just the washing of feet, but all thoughtful care of others used to be understood as a path toward understanding and being involved in Christ's dying and rising. If feet no longer need gentle washing as a matter of kind hospitality, some other service in Jesus' name for a poor child or a travel-worn person on life's journey would keep Jesus' disciples aware day by day of him dying and rising among us, or us dying and rising in him. Questions for Reflection and Discussion Questions for personal reflection and group discussion: 1. How do we understand our Catholic distinction between sacraments and sacramentals? Perhaps we may need to review "Sacramental, in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Part Two, Chapter Four. 2. We experience the washing of the feet during the Holy Thursday Eucharistic celebration. Have we experienced other sacramental moments during the Eucharist or other Catholic prayer service? Why was this action sacramental for us? Review for Religious JAMES F. KEENAN Framing the Ethical Rights of Priests Lately priests have been writing and signing a variety of statements. For-instance, on 9 December 2002 fifty-eight Boston priests signed a letter calling for the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law. In a letter of 1 October 2003, priests of Rockville Centre called for a meeting with Bishop William Murphy over "widespread dissatisfaction" with his leadership. The priests of Chicago wrote an open letter to the hierarchy about the tone and content of church leaders' remarks about gay and lesbian persons, a letter subsequently adopted by priests of Rochester (New York) and Boston. Then there Was the let-ter of last August signed by more than 160 priests in Milwaukee calling for a married clergy. Amazing actions inasmuch as many cannot remember during the 1980s or 1990s any other James F. Keenan SJ has written for us twice before, in 1992 and 1996. His address is Theology Department; Boston College; Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts 02467. taking account 135 64.2 2005 Keenan ¯ Framing the Ethical Rights of Priests such letters written by priests. Thus, it seems relevant for a Catholic moral theologian to ask: Do priests have a right to do this? A~dmittedly, in each instance the letters are admoni-tory at most, yet they are concerned with influencing the bishop and/or the bishops' conference. As the priests in Rockville Centre noted in their letter, as "your brother priests., we believe that [we] may have a special role." Do they? Before answering that question, I need to ask three prior questions. First, how much have moral theologians assisted priests? Second, how interested would priests be in the assistance of moral theologians? Third, how appropriate is rights language for speaking about the priesthood? After answering these questions I will pro-pose four specific ethical rights for priests. Question 1: How much have moral theologians assisted priests? The answer to the first question is simple: Not much. Strange as it may seem, priests and bishops rarely receive any professional training from moral theologians. Those who study at seminaries, divinity schools, or schools of theology do not have the type of ethical training that those at other professional schools receive. Students at business, medical, or law schools take ethics courses that address the ethical issues relevant to their particular pro-fession. They are taught the responsibilities and rights specific to their profession: matters of representation, confidentiality, whistle-blowing, client expectations, priv-ileges, promotions, evaluations, conflicts of interest, pro-fessional boundaries, and so forth. This type of ethical training is not found at most seminaries, divinity schools, or schools of theology, even though many students take two, three, or four courses of Review for Religious Christian ethics. Divinity students and seminarians gen-erally do not study the ethical demands, responsibilities, rights, obligations, and privileges specific to their voca-tion. Rather, they study the ethical norms and relevant circumstances regarding the laity's sexual relations and the attendant reproductive issues, the social ethics of governments and businesses, and the medical ethics of physicians and nurses. That is, those in ministry are taught how to govern and make ethically accountable the members of their congregations. But, generally speaking, they are not taught by what ethical reasoning, insights, or norms they should govern themselves ethi-cally. A priest, therefore, knows much, much more about birth control and in-vitro fertilization than he knows about the demands of confidentiality, the principle of subsidiarity, or the right treatment of employees. This same alienation is found in canon-law courses. When seminarians study canon law, they learn more about whether a married couple can get an annulment than the rights and responsibilities incumbent on their own state in life. Ask a priest what he should do if his vicar says to him, "An accusation has been filed against you; I deem it credible; you have two-hours to leave the rectory." Few would know what rights belong to him. But tell him that you want to marry a person who while belonging to another Christian denomination married a person in a non-Christian wedding but subsequently entered that denomination and then they both sought the blessing of a minister (of yet another denomination) and he will be able to explain to you whether and why your intended needs to file for an annulment. Priests learn a lot about how to direct others, but not about what pertains to themselves. That being said, there have been a few recent signs of change. As early as 1996 the moral theologian Richard 64.2 2005 Keenan ¯ Framing the Ethical Rights of Priests Gula wrote his Ethics in Pastoral Ministry (Paulist Press). Gula has spoken around the country about the need to develop such training. The Protestant ethicist Karen Lebacqz has likewise written and spoken extensively on the topic. More recendy, facing the crisis here in Boston, Edward Vacek, Stephen Pope, and Lisa Sowle Cahill have written and spoken in a variety of places about the need for professional ethics in the church. With the Mennonite theologian Joseph Kotva, I edited Practice What You Preach: Virtues, Ethics, and Power in the Lives of Pastoral Ministers and Their Congregations, which con-tained twenty-six essays by Christian ethicists from a dozen denominations reflecting on the need to develop more ethically accountable lives of service and leader-ship. Interestingly, though all the contributors were well-known, most of them had never written on ethical issues internal to church life. In order to help readers get an idea of the scope of issues facing people in ministry, the writers in our col-lection offered ethical guidance for individual church leaders and their communities and dealt with issues such as disillusionment and deference in clerical life, semi-nary admissions policies, candidacy programs, pastoral assignments, staff salaries, liturgical celebrations, and the practices of collegiality and subsidiarity. These initial exercises by moral theologians illustrate, then, just how much work we need to do to assist the clergy in their professional service to the church. But that leads to the second question. Question 2: How interested would the clergy be in moral theologians' assistance? That answer is simple: It all depends on the priest, for there is no consensus among priests about the need of professional ethics. The reason for this is, in part, the Review for Religious differences among them regarding their own under-standing of themselves and of episcopal decision making. The first difference is how they privilege one dimen-sion of their ministerial identity over another. Admittedly, all understand themselves as having the status of ordina-tion and yet being called to service. But they look at that double identity with specific preferences. In a wonderful new book, Evolving Visions of the Priesthood (Liturgical Press, 2003), Dean Hoge and Jacqueline Wenger asked the clergy whether there is a new status or permanent character conferred by ordina- Because status privileges the clergy as liping in a"distinct world, establishing a professional ethics for them Can be especially challenging. tion. When they first asked that question in 1970, only 52 percent of those aged 26-35 said yes, while 88 percent of those aged 56-65 said yes. But now, more than thirty years later, 68 percent of those once young priests now between 56-65 answered yes, while an enormous 95 per-cent of those 26-35 said yes. That is, thirty years ago the younger the priests were, the less inclined they were to be concerned~with the status question; today the younger they are, the more they are so inclined. Because status privileges the clergy as living in a distinct world, establishing a professional ethics for them can be espe-cially challenging. The second difference correlates with the first. Those priests more inclined to understand themselves as ordained and set apart are more comfortable with earlier forms of episcopal decision making, while those more inclined to identifying themselves with their ministerial service are looking for more professional standards. The 139 64.2 2005 Keenan ¯ Framing the Ethical Rights of Priests former tend to look at ecclesial bureaucracy with esteem and are satisfied with their fraternal and paternal expres-sions. Similarly they are comfortable with the way the Roman curia proceeds. Those who prefer service look to the world of the professional where the norms of con-duct are posted and expectations regarding promotions, decision making, and power sharing are public and clear. Thus the way a priest identifies himself also tends to develop into where he looks for standards of authority. We might be surprised by the way these differing tendencies look at canon law. Those who see themselves as having a set status are comfortable with exercises of local episcopal authority and prefer the bishop's admin-istrative or executive judgment to the actual application of the law. The men who want clarity and norms are more likely to want reform of clerical culture, and toward that end they often turn to their professional identity as expressed in canon law. These tendencies play out similarly in the contem-porary problematic of removing priests. Priests who understand themselves as ordained and set apart prefer episcopal exercise of administrative power to resolve matters. Priests who understand themselves primarily as servants favor canonical procedures. These dividing lines are applicable not only to the clergy but to the laity's relationship with the clergy. It ought not to be surprising, then, that the champions of the right of accused priests to receive due process and juridical appeal are more often those who tend to orga-nizations like Voice of the Faithful. One layperson, Catherine Henningsen, frequently addresses VOTF chap-ters and calls the removal of priests without due process "the most underreported aspect of the pedophilic crisis" and labels it "the second wave of abuse on the part of many bishops." She follows step by step the normative Review for Religious procedures that bishops should follow, that the clergy should expect, and that the laity ought to oversee. Her work highlights the natural affinity between VOTF and freestanding priests' organizations like the Boston Priests Forum and New York's Voice of the Ordained, which look to guarantee the rights of accused priests. But other priests--those who are more comfortable with ecclesial administrative judgments--are strong critics of Henningson, seeing her work as opportunistic. A final set of tendencies among priests is how they distinguish the private from the public. Priests inclined to understand themselves primarily as separated from oth-ers usually are less inclined to find relevance in the dis-tinction between the private and the public. Priests inclined to service, professional standards, and canon law give the distinction great weight. These feel that they should have private living quarters and be able to dress as they want on their vacation days. Some also see celibacy as an unnecessary intrusion into their private lives. I propose these rights, then, not to extend the divide, but to offer a context in which priests tending in either direction can discuss them, Moreover, I propose them, not as a manifesto or as a confrontational stance for those priests and laypersons who prefer the more service-ori-ented professional model. Rather, I offer a modest pro-posal to both sides of the aisle, and to those as well who try to bridge those aisles. Hopefully, it may let us find common ground upon which we can find agreement rather than disagreement. Question 3: Is rights language appropriate? The answer here is also simple: Yes. I use the word "rights" not as a canonist does, that is, as a very specific right that the Code of Canon Law recognizes; but rather as what moral theologians and Christian social ethicists 141 64.2 2005 Keenan ¯ Framing the Ethical Rights of Priests mean when we talk of the right to food, or work, or healthcare, that is, as an ethical right. Certainly, I propose these with the hope that they may be' eventually articu-lated into canonical precepts, but I do not claim that they necessarily have canonical force now. Moreover, I do not see rights as some sort of volun-taristic assertions of power over and against others; rather, I see rights language as springing from acom- " Way, b foreright . .language appeared in modern liberal democracies, righis Were fi. dt , trinsic .the,. good munity of faith looking to see how its mem-bers can best protect the good of the whole church and its specific members. Following Brian Tierney (The Idea of Natural Rigbts: Studies on Natural Rights, Natural Law, and Church Law, 11 Y0- 162$), I believe that rights were originally recognized by l lth- and 12th-century theologians and canonists who tried to articulate those that belonged to popes, bishops, the clergy, and other church members, not as inimical to the life of the church, but as constitu-tive of the church. In other words, way before rights lan-guage appeared in modern liberal democracies, rights were first expressed as intrinsic to the good of the church. Finally, as Aristotle taught us, ethics is for the com-munity, and asserting the ethical rights of priests is cer-tainly not at the cost of the community, but rather for its benefit. Thus, to the extent that these rights are not respected, to that extent not only priests but the com-munity of the church, its own very communio, suffer. Book II of the Code of Canon Law outlines the obli- Review for Religious gations and rights of all the Christian faithful (cc. 204- 223). The first set of rights and obligations belongs to the laity (cc. 224-231), and eventually the Code turns to the rights and obligations of the clergy (cc. 273-289). Here we find three canonical rights: of association, to a vaca-tion, and to fitting and decent remuneration. Instead of these three canonical rights, I propose four "ethical" ones: the right of priests to share respectfully in the episcopal ministry of the local ordinary, the right of association, the right to exercise their ministry, and the right to fair treatment. I propose these rights as modes of helping the church to further understand the way priests today should ethically live and serve in the church. The Right to Share Respectfully in the Bishop's Ministry The first right echoes one that was discussed in the revision of the Code of Canon Law, "the right of coop-erating with the bishop in the exercise of his ministry." It is the right being implicitly invoked and exercised by priests in their recent letters to bishops and bishops' conferences. John Lynch, a canon lawyer who has written on the rights of priests, frequently asserts that the "cleric shares in the episcopal ministry." Interestingly, he roots his claim precisely in the first canon in the section on rights and obligations, canon 273: "Clerics are bound by a spe-cial obligation to show reverence and obedience to the supreme pontiff and their own ordinary." Lynch's claim is derived from three Vatican Council II documents. The Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests (Presbyterorum ordinis, §7) says: "Priestly obedi-ence, inspired through and through by the spirit of coop-eration, is based on that sharing of the episcopal ministry which is conferred on priests by the sacrament of order 64.2 2005 Keenan ¯ Framing the Ethical Rights of Priests and the canonical mission." Similarly, The Bishops' Pastoral Office (Christus Dominus, §28) says: "All priests, whether diocesan or religious, share and exercise with the bishop the one priesthood of Christ." Finally, Lumen gentium §28 declares: "The bishop is to regard his priests, who are his coworkers, as sons and friends, just as Christ called his disciples no longer servants but friends." Interestingly, the special obedience that the cleric owes his bishop is based on his sharing in the episcopal min-istry itself. This ethical right is found not only in the Code, its commentary, and Vatican documents. It is found also in the rite of ordination. The first question the bishop asks the ordinand is: "Are you resolved, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to discharge without fail the office of priest-hood in the presbyteral order as a conscientious fellow worker with the bishops in caring for the Lord's flock?" Then in the prayer of consecration we hear the bishop say: "Lord, grant also to us such fellow workers, for we are weak and our need is greater. Almighty Father, grant to this servant of yours the dignity of the priesthood. Renew within him the Spirit of holiness. As a coworker with the order of bishops, may he be faithful to the min-istry that he receives from you, Lord God, and be to others a model of right conduct." In sum, various foun-dational texts recognize the priest as having a share in the exercise of episcopal authority. For this to be conveyed as a right, I suggest that it would be implied in "respect-ful" sharing. When we hear of priests' repeated unsuccessful attempts to meet with their ordinary, we learn that this right is not adequately recognized. In fact, when we note the phenomenon of public letters written and signed by priests, we ought to see this not so much as an indication of that right being exercised, but rather as expressing frus- Review for Religious tration that the presumed right has been ignored. Priests are "going public" because in many instances the right has been long bypassed. When routinely exercised and recognized, the right would foster community, the life of the diocese, and the credibility of episcopal leadership. The Right of Association The right of sharing in the ministry of the bishop leads to fostering right relations among the clergy through association. Canon 275, ~1, states: "Since cler-ics all work for the same purpose, namely, the building up of the Body of Christ, they are to be united among themselves by a bond of brotherhood and prayer and strive for cooperation among themselves according to the prescripts of particular law." Immediately after this paragraph, the Code adds, "Clerics are to acknowledge and promote the mission which the laity, each for his or her part, exercises in the church and in the world." Thus, associations of clerics have reason not to create separa-tion from laypersons, but rather to promote their involvement. In fact, in an earlier draft of the Code, priests were called to recognize the laity's mission; in the promulgated Code they are called to promote it. Though canon 215 defined the right of all the Christian faithful, both lay and clergy, to form associa-tions, canon 278 establishes it as the first canonical right for priests. The Code reads: "Secular clerics have the right to associate with others to pursue purposes in keep-ing with the clerical state." This is the first time that canon law recognized this ethical right. Moreover, in developing the revised Code, the com-mission rejected a proposal that placed associations of priests under the local ordinary. To do so would be to infringe on the exercise of the very right that was being promulgated. 64.2 2005 Keenan * Framing the Ethical Rights of Priests The Code derives its inspiration from the natural law and from the writings of previous pontiffs. For instance, in his encyclical Pacem in terris (§24), Pope John xxIII upholds the natural right to assemble and says that peo-ple "have also the right to give the societies of which they are members the form they consider most suitable for the aim they have in view." He adds: "It is most necessary that a wide variety of societies or intermediate bodies be established equal to the task of accomplishing what the individual cannot by himself efficiently achieve. These societies., are to be regarded as an indispensable means in safeguarding the dignity and liberty of the human per-son, without harm to his sense of responsibility." Thus from the natural law, our own experience, papal encyclicals, and the Code itself, we recognize the ethical right of priests to form associations. Throughout the United States we have seen in the past few years free-standing priests' associations emerge (the Boston Priests Forum, New York's Voice of the Ordained). This ethical right validates these groups. Their recent initiatives to form local movements are congruent with good thinking within the church. Moreover, these organizations do not replace presbyteral councils, but represent a few of what Pope John xxIII referred to as the "wide varieties" of gatherings necessary for human flourishing. The Right to Exercise Their Ministry While priests have an obligation to exercise their priestly ministry, they also have a right to exercise that ministry according to their particular judgment. Here we can think of pastors, for instance, who must discern whether this particular couple is actually ready to get married in the church. And there are instances where the appropriate place or time for a child's baptism is something that pastors must discern. Review for Religqous The question of the exercise of ministry was raised recently by the Boston Priests Forum regarding preach-ing. They wanted to reflect on what is at stake when the chancery defends a particular value and a pastor won-ders whether he ought to raise in his sermon another possibly competitive value. To what degree is he called to exercise his ministry as expressing his particular voca-tion? In the USCCB document on Sunday homilies Fulfilled in Your Hearing, we find the bishops calling the pastor to listen to the Scriptures and to the congregation and to respond to that listening. Is there something that hap-pens existentially in that listening that could prompt the pastor to hear the needs of the laity of his parish in some other way than what a statement from the chancery may convey? Could there also be times when laypersons believe that something beyond what the chancery has articulated needs to be recognized? And if the cleric, in all this listening, is also obliged "to foster peace and har-mony based on justice" as canon 287 states, could he find himself eventually perceiving an obligation in con-science to respond as a preacher of the Word to the par-ticular congregation he serves? This is not advocacy for rebel priests. Rather it rec-ognizes both the context in which a cleric exercises his ministry and the process by which he comes to articulate the sermon and other forms of ministry. Though by his faculties a priest exercises his ministry at the bishop's pleasure, there seems to be another claim on the priest that comes not from the bishop directly, but from the people whom the priest serves. If the priest is to truly promote peace and justice and communio, it seems that in discerning how to do so he needs to rely on something in addition to the bishops' particular will. Like other expressions of his ministry that he shares with the bishop 147 64.2 200~ Keenan * Framing the Ethical Rights of Priests and with the laity, a priest's preaching calls for a consci-entious integrity to witness to the gospel as he sees it expressed in his midst. The Right to Fair Treatment To appreciate this right we need to turn to the zero-tolerance policy as it appears (§§56-60) in the Report on the Crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States by the National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People. There the ten lay authors note that the policy "was deemed necessary because some bishops and religious superiors in their assessment of sexual abuse of minors by priests under their authority badly under-estimated the seriousness of the misconduct and harm to victims, and allowed wrongdoers to continue in posi-tions of ministry, from which they went on to harm oth-ers." They conclude: "To prevent any recurrence of such situations, the charter and essential norms remove any further discretion on the part of bishops and religious superiors in this regard." But what, then, is the net effect on an offending priest? Here the report notes: "Accordingly, the zero-tolerance policy applies without regard to any assess-ment of the degree of culpability of an offending priest based upon such factors as (i) the nature of the sexual act (e.g., the improper touching of a fully clothed teenager versus the sodomization of a child), (ii) the fre-quency of abuse (e.g., an isolated event versus a pro-tracted history), or (iii) efforts to address the problem (e.g., successful treatment of a problem that had led to an act of abuse years ago versus untreated problems that manifested themselves more recently). The policy also applies with equal fbrce to a priest who reports himself as having engaged in an act of abuse in an effort to obtain help with his problem." Review for Religious Fair treatment usually observes some form of due proportionality. And, though the review board acknowl-edges objections from a variety of observers about the fairness and effectiveness of the policy and though they write "the zero-tolerance policy may seem to be too blunt an instrument for universal application," they believe, nonetheless, "that for the immediate future the zero-tolerance policy is essential to the restoration of the trust of the laity in the leadership of the church, provided that it is appropriately applied. In assessing individual cases in order to determine whether the priest engaged in an act of sexual abuse of a minor, the bishops must consult with the diocesan lay review board, so that they may strive for individualized justice in light of their developing experience and expertise." The report's caveat with regard to appropriate pro-cedures and diocesan lay review could serve, then, as a witness to the fair treatment of priests, but that witness needs to be guaranteed by the national review commit-tee as it endorses the zero-tolerance policy. Inasmuch as review boards recognize disparity regarding their role and the application of appropriate procedures, they need to witness to priests' rights as well as to the rights of the laity, especially children. Finally, they acknowledge "that any discussion of the charter's zero-tolerance provision would be incomplete without noting that there is no equivalent policy of zero tolerance for bishops o.r provincials who allowed preda-tor priests to remain in or return to ministry despite knowledge of the risks. In fact, in the minds of some priests, the impression was created that the Dallas char- Fair treatment usually observes some form of due proportionality. 64.2 200~ Keenan ¯ Framing the Ethical Rights of Priests 1501 ter and the essential norms were the bishops' attempt to deflect criticism from themselves and onto individual priests . Priests, who now stand uneasily under a sword of Damocles, with their every action scrutinized, under-standably may ask why the bishops do not face such con-sequences if they fail to abide by the charter. This distinction has deteriorated the relationship between priests and bishop." The report concludes this section stating that the bishops "must show that they are willing to accept responsibility and consequences for poor leadership." Fairness then cuts two ways. Not only ought due pro-portionality emerge somehow in the treatment of accused and offending priests, but priests alone cannot and should not bear the weight of the scandal. If a zero-tolerance policy is applied to priests, where is an analogous policy for the scandalous bishops? The scandal will only come to rest when justice has been served, but an inequitable justice is not justice. The national review board has, then, two more responsibili-ties: They must somehow guarantee that due process and due proportionality are granted to priests, and they must hold proportionally accountable both the offending priests and the offending bishops. I want to conclude on a hopeful note. When we read the report, there is the impression that the writers are talking to two constituencies: the bishops and the laity. Regarding priests, they are more talking about them than talking to them. This has been in large measure a com-mon way that judges, reporters, advocates, and others have proceeded. Everyone tries to engage the bishops in order to talk about priests. I propose these four rights--one about participatory leadership, another about right to associate, a third about ministerial vocation, the fourth about fairness--with the hope that these may further encourage the voice of the Review for Religious clergy. Throughout these recent years, when occasionally, though not at all often enough, priests have addressed either the harm and shame attached to the abuse of chil-dren or the rights of the laity and bishops, they have usually done so in the place that they are called to be: the parish pulpit. I suggest that if priests begin to recognize the rights due them--especially at a time when many find themselves, as the report states, demoralized--they might in turn be more vocal from that pulpit in recog-nizing the rights of others and in fostering the communio that the Church so desperately needs. Healing grace always accompanies restorative justice. My Novitiate When I arrived, I was bankrupt: empty, nicotine-stained, desperate, hungry and broke. I had been robbed by those who loved me. The vault held nothing sacred. The bed you gave me was comfortable. I hardly felt the stretching. You smiled and I hoped. Copper penny joy clinked as it hit the floor and echoed in my soul. One by one, the nickels came. Prayer became my treasure. I grew rich with coins of every size. Celibacy became an asset, obedience, my wealth. Who knew that poverty could h'old so much? Finally that time has come. At profession I ask. "Where now may I spend?" Grace Gallant $SM 64.2 2005' ANNE MUNLEY Faith and Solidarity in Action At the heart of religious life is a conviction that the healing and liberating mission of Jesus is for all times and all peoples. This grand mission, the impe-tus for apostolic energy and service, is succinctly stated in the Gospel of John: "I came that they may have life and have it abundantly" (Jn 10:10). The mission of bear-ing life is common to women religious throughout the world. Though of many cultures, the nearly one million women religious in today's world are of one heart in pas-sionate commitment to bringing to birth God's dream of unity, justice, peace, and abundance of life for all. Brought into existence to support leaders of women's religious congregations and to link congregations in ful-filling their life-giving mission of love and service, the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) holds a plenary session every three years to bring members together in an atmosphere of prayer and support to con- Anne Munley IHM, a member of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Scranton, Pennsylvania), is director of Programs and Social Mission at the International Union of Superiors General (UISG); Piazza di Ponte Sant'Angelo 28; 00186 Roma; Italy. Review for Religious sider urgent matters facing religious life and God's peo-ple. In May 2004 almost eight hundred members gath-ered in Rome for five days to reflect on the theme "Women Disciples of Jesus--Bearers of Reconciliation for Our World." This was an apt theme at a time when millions of people in various parts of the world are suf-fering the consequences of war, violence, abuse of power, and divisions of every kind. Before coming to the UISG plenary session, each con-gregational leader was asked to reflect prayerfully on the following scriptural passage: "For anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation . It is all God's work. It was God who reconciled us to himself, and gave us the work of handing on this reconciliation" (2 Co 5:17- 18). Those planning the session also requested that each participant, bring a symbol that reflected efforts of the sisters of her congregation to enter into God's work of reconciliation in those parts of the world in which the congregation ministers. Since UISG consists of approx-imately thirty-five regional groups called constellations, delegates representing the constellations were similarly requested to bring pertinent symbols. To engage all UISG members in reflection on the theme, the UISG Bulletin (No. 123, 2003, 21-33) pub-lished in five languages an article by Robert Schreiter CPPS tided "A Spirituality of Reconciliation." It explores the biblical basis for a spirituality of reconciliation and suggests five principles that flow from Paul's reflections on reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5:17-20: (1) Reconciliation is first and foremost the work of God; (2) God's reconciling work begins with the victim; (3) God makes of both victim and wrongdoer a "new creation"; (4) we place our suffering inside the story of the suffer-ing, death, and resurrection of Christ; and (5) full rec-onciliation will happen only when God will be all in all. 64.2 2005 Munley ¯ Faith and Solidarity in Action A strength of the UISG plenary session is that it gathers congregational leaders who have direct experience of religious life and the joys and sufferings of people in all parts of theworld. 1,54 Schreiter speaks of wounds the wounds of victims and of those who would help them as entry points for a spirituality of reconciliation that connects people's sto-ries to the story of Jesus, the "wounded healer." This image speaks to the experience of women religious who, though recognizing their woundedness, persist in efforts to bring about reconciliation because through their faith they are enlivened by God's healing action in their lives. For the God of life nothing is impossible. Hope arises out of confidence in what God will bring forth. A strength of the UISG plenary session is that it gath-ers in one place at one time congregational leaders who have direct expe-rience of religious life and the joys and sufferings of people in all parts of the world. In a multicultural and multilingual meet-ing, prayer, ritual, liturgy, music, dance, and other artistic media are path-ways to mutual understanding and relationship. Explanations of con-gregational and constellation symbols enabled partici-pants to enter into situations in need of reconciliation in other parts of the world and to glimpse the realities of women religious seeking to respond to various circum-stances crying out for healing. It was a humbling expe-rience to hear stories of what being called to be "bearers of reconciliation" means in different parts of the world. Some were stories of steadfast witness in the face of incomprehensible human suffering. Table conversations Review for Religious helped us to understand the stories more intimately, to see into these stories with the "eyes" and "hearts" of oth-ers. Prayer, ritual, and a Power Point presentation of images of people's needs and of sisters' endeavors towards reconciliation and healing provided an enriching pre-lude for further theological development of the theme by Diane Bergant CSA. Working with the biblical accounts of the reconciliation of Jacob and Esau and of Joseph and his brothers, Bergant stressed that it is will-ingness to forgive on the part of the one offended that opens up possibilities for reconciliation and healing of relationships. Participants reflected as well on stories of particular efforts to bring reconciliation to painful situations within the church, society, and religious congregations. These stories were told with eloquent simplicity by three con-gregational leaders. They shared personal experiences of serving in leadership at a time when issues of abuse, life-and-death consequences of ethnic and tribal war-fare, and the need to reconcile long-standing congrega-tional divisions demanded great outpouring of time and energy and unremitting trust in the guidance of the Spirit. Sharing on the part of two congregational leaders from Iraq about the impact of the war on the people among whom their sisters minister evoked poignant response and heartfelt expressions of support and soli-darity. These presentations put flesh on what it means to lead as a "wounded healer." What wove the plenary session, together was a reflec-tion model that moved from sharing experiences (see-ing) to situating reflection in the word of God (judging) to acting on the basis of shared convictions. Throughout the session a writing committee gleaned key ideas and various suggested action steps and fashioned them into a 64.2 200~ Munley ¯ Faith and Solidarity in Action draft version that was brought back and discussed, then further revised, and ultimately approved unanimously in an atmosphere of expectant hope and joy. Here is that approved declaration: Declaration of the International Union of Superior.s General Women Disciples of Jesus Christ: Bearers of Reconciliation in Our World For anyone who is in Christ there is a new creation . It is all God's work. It was God who reconciled us to him-self and gave us the work of handing on this reconcilia-tion. (2 Corinthians Y:17-18) We live in a time of extreme violence, a time when lights of hope and reconciliation are desper-ately needed.We are nearly 800 women leaders from 69 countries and five continents. The International Union of Superiors General repre-sents members of Catholic religious institutes in 98 countries throughout the world. We believe that no more important mission exists at this time than to be bearers of the reconciling hope for which the world cries. Believing that reconciliation is God's desire for the world, we humbly declare our reliance upon God, the source of reconciliation and the source of all healing and forgiveness. We know too that we are not alone as we journey with people of many faiths and traditions who long for a reconciled world. We walk with them in our insecurity, fragility, and need for continuous conversion of heart, recognizing our common desire to make inclusive love and the search for truth the basic principles that govern our lives. As leaders we commit ourselves to work with one another, with the members of our institutes and Review for Religious national conferences of religious by: Living a spirituality of reconciliation. We will witness in community this spirituality of compas-sion, respect, courage, truth, and reconciling hope. Proclaiming publicly our commitment to be bear-ers of reconciliation. We will: ¯ collaborate with other associations for justice, res-olution of conflict, and an end to war in all its forms. ¯ use the media to announce an alternative vision, tell stories of reconciliation, and denounce violence and injustice. ¯ create and promote dialogue, understanding, and reconciliation among peoples, cultures, and reli-gions. ¯ intensify efforts toward healing, reconciliation, and right relationships between women and men. ¯ continue to intensify our efforts, as bearers of rec-onciliation in the world, to eradicate the traffick-ing of women and children. ¯ promote the education and formation of women and girls. ¯ be proactive in peace building and in caring for all creation. We move forward as women religious leaders, disciples of Jesus Christ. We are firm in our belief that, in solidarity with others, our members will collaborate in the Spirit's work of transforming the world. While this 2004 UISG declaration is a Wonderful out-come of the plenary session, an even more precious out-come is the strengthening of the "invisible ties" that bind the women religious of the world together in a spirit of solidarity and collaboration. A poetic prayer by Macrina Wiederkehr suggests an image that pertains not only to 64.2 2005 Munley ¯ Faith and Solidarity in Action the work of the UISG session, but also to the ~uture that is yet to be born: On tiptoe we stand, Lord Jesus ,, eagerly awaiting always expecting you to come some more. Our hands and heart are open to your grace. Our lives are still waiting for the fullness of your presence. We are those who have been promised a kingdom, and we can never forget. Yet we have a foot in both worlds and so we stumble. But we stand on tiptoe, owning our-kingdom-loving hearts and our earth-eyes. We lean forward and hope. (Seasons of Your Heart, 69) Those who had been present left the 2004 UISG ses-sion deeply aware that the women religious of the world are indeed "standing on tiptoe" together. Review for Religiou~ MILLIE CARGAS Women Religious in Treatment for Addictions In early childhood Sister Miriam was sexually assaulted by a family member, a parish assistant, and a neighbor down the road. These malefac-tors never had to answer for their uncon-scionable acts, but Sister Miriam (names have been changed) has paid a high price for them. After many years of competent service in the nursing profession, she was directed to go for treatment of her serious addiction to substance abuse. Sister Miriam is not alone. Many other women religious, with differing stories, have ceased functioning healthily in their ministries and communities. "Women religious" means in this article Catholic women who have taken vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience in one or other religious institute or congregation. Sisters with addictions? Women religious in rehabilitative psychological treatment programs is a difficult concept to accept when typical feel-ings toward sisters are of good, giving, self-sac- Millie Cargas is a registered art therapist (ATR), and her address is 127 Park Avenue; St. Louis, Missouri 63122. 64. 2 200Y Cargas ¯ Women Religious in Treatment for Addictions 160 rificing persons. We remember these valiant women as our teachers, as nurses, parish administrators, and other professional helpers. Often they have been highly respected and admired; people have emulated them. They are capable and articulate persons who have for-saken the materialistic world for the kingdom beyond-- and now they need therapeutic treatment? Yes, for they are human. Like all of us, they need help sometimes. No religious order has escaped the scourge of dys-functions caused by addictive behaviors. The life of Sister Anne had spiraled out of control as her weight climbed to a dangerous three hundred pounds. She could no longer play kickball with eager boys or jump rope with high-spirited girls. During a visit to her internist, Sister Anne was sternly warned of imminent death unless she took immediate steps to reduce the strain on heart and lungs. In response she claimed she had always had a weight problem just as her whole family did; it was not her fault, and nothing could be done. Her intractable anger and alarming obesity, however, limited her physical and professional activities severely and made her a difficult, contrary, and noncontributing member of her community. Sister Anne's uncontrolled addiction to food was not only causing havoc in her pro-fessional life, but was deeply affecting all her relation-ships. Though she did not see the need for treatment, leadership mandated it. This is not always the case. A significant number of other sisters ask for help, realizing, as one said, "I can no longer live this way." Humbled, she admitted her powerlessness. There are various treatment centers in North America. To mention a few: Guest House in Lake Orion, Michigan, and Emmaus Community in Elberon, New Jersey, are for sisters only. Behavioral Medicine Institute and St. Louis Consultation Center, both in St. Louis, Review for Religious Missouri, St. Luke's in Silver Spring, Maryland, Ecclesia Center in Girard, Pennsylvania, and Southdown in Ontario, Canada, are for both men and women religious. Before acceptance into a treatment program, the applicant participates in a series of pretreatment evalu-ations comprising interviews by various staff members, extensive psychological test-ing, and a thorough medical exam. Although therapeutic programs vary, the major components are individual counseling, group sessions, physical activities, spiritual direction, and programs tai-lored to individuals. Sister - - William Mary was a master gardener. Itwas her profes-sion. But gambling was her downfall. Her healthcare facility allowed, her to include gardening in her treat-ment program as long as it contributed to her recovery and was not distracting or distancing her from others. A simple definition of art therapy is using artistic materials in therapy or as therapy. Art Therapy Some treatment curriculums have incorporated art therapy as an effective therapy. This is my area of exper-tise. I have worked with Catholic women and men reli-gious for twenty-five years. I have ~ecently conducted several week-long art-therapy workshops specifically for religious women. A simple definition of art therapy is using artistic materials in therapy or as therapy. For exam-ple, the resident is given a subject and asked to paint or draw images and/or abstract designs. The imagery and other graphic dimensions of art therapy offer a unique way of identifying feelings and expressing oneself. It dif-fers considerably from verbal communication, which can 64.2 2005 Cargas ¯ Wo~nen Religious in Treat~nent for Addictions be insufficient or restricting. A case study illustrates this. Sister Katherine had joined a teaching order even though she was woefully shy and became almost inartic-ulate in group settings. She became the community financial officer. To bolster her much-needed self-con-fidence, she went on shopping sprees that her financial .resources were able to fund. This gave her illusions of power that brought her deeper and deeper into her addiction. This irresponsible money management landed her in therapy, Because she had no experience in art, Sister Katherine felt great risk at getting into it. She did so only reluctantly and even ~belligerently. But, to her great surprise and indeed pleasure, she discovered that her images had a way of speaking and engaging others that her hesitant words and extravagant spending had not. This was real progress for her. Understandably, people fear getting into something new. They fear to make mistakes, to expose their lack of artistic ability. They bring up such familiar objections as "I can't draw a straight line" and "I'm no artist" and "I haven't done art since grade school" as they fight the fears of appearing awkward and becoming embarrassed. Finding a new way of expressing oneself in colors, shapes, and designs in either representational or abstract imagery takes courage. Once they get over their fears, their endeavors are often richly rewarded. Some women revealed skills that they were unaware they had. Others had allowed their artistic talent to lie dormant for far too long. But in art therapy, whether or not the persons are artistically skilled, they eventually welcome the opportunity to go beyond words. An art-therapy badge at one convention appropriately declared, "When words are not enough!" The women in the workshops often relish their wordless therapy once they have worked through their initial resist~ince to art therapy or, more Revie~ for Religious commonly, their anger at finding themselves in treat-ment in the first place. Art Therapy Described The actual week-long art-therapy workshops are all group oriented. After a brief introduction I define the type of art which will be used in the workshop. I stress that artistic talent, no matter how people understand it, is less important than each one's own innate creativity and willingness to plunge into the activity. In these cir-cumstances there is no right or wrong way to do art. I emphasize that one cannot make mistakes, and I advise the group to ignore their own all-too-dominating inner critics. I repeatedly state throughout the week that the process is as important as the product, if not more so. Each session begins with a particular focus. Sometimes I hand out a picture, a poem, or a brief essay to assist creativity, and I always have some music played to support the theme. At age seventy-five Sister Jeanne just knew she was not going to like this mandatory part of her treatment program. But, being a prayerful per-son, she would listen to the proposed topics with her eyes closed, allow the music to seep in, and pray to the Holy Spirit for help. And helpful imagery did appear to her receptive mind and soul. She allowed her initial resis-tance to bow out gracefully and opened herself to lis-tening, ready to entertain new possibilities. Sister Jeanne was a pharmacist, and her issue was addiction to pur-loined prescription medicines. Now, if she could open herself up to some new and different perceptions and experiences, perhaps she could also consider trying alter-native ways of alleviating the pain of her arthritic con-dition. The broad themes of art therapy range from fun and pleasure to themes that are darker and more threatening. 64.2 2005 Cargas * Women Religious in Treatment for Addictions The artistic creations take on a life of their own. Sister Ren~, from Germany, had been sexually abused at a very early age. Paradoxically, she had never actually accepted the art-therapy discipline and yet always com-pleted the assignments--though without enthusiasm. Her colleagues, however, were astonished by her pow-erful imagery done in blacks and grays and blurred opaques. Even though she "resisted" art therapy, she was illuminating, minimally but really, the darkness of her horrendous experiences. Participants are free to work with the broad theme that has been proposed or to select just a small aspect of it to explore more intensively. The themes are vast and varied. Here are just a few that have proved provocative and success-ful: journey, relationships, aging, play, transforma-tion of issues, sexuality, ambiguities, emotions, self-worth, self-identity, joys, anxieties, mixed messages, and change. The "journey" theme can be depicted in any number of ways, including the classic one of marking each milestone in life. Or highlights of success or failure might be featured. Or perhaps the sisters emphasize the eternal goal of their journey. When they have completed their art pieces, each sis-ter presents hers to the group for comments and reac-tions, but specifically not for analysis. The meaning of her work is primarily for her to determine, not those who have not lived her experiences--although the oth-ers' reactions, questions, and support may bring her to deeper insights or different revelations than she origi-nally had in mind. Sister Jude, an elementary teacher with addictions to both food and alcohol, created many figures of herself. Although she was fifty-five years old, Review for Religious they all looked like little girls. She was startled when this was pointed out, but now she was in a position to acknowledge such a "disconnect" in other therapies if she so wished. At the end of the week, each person displays her total body of work to the group. There is always amazement that so much could be done in a short time, that so many issues could be covered in some depth in just a week. As Sister Norine finished presenting all of her works, she said she felt empty, completely drained. She had exhausted her psychic energy. Others in the group read-ily realized that they had similar feelings. Summing Up The art belongs to its creator. Each person does what-ever she wishes with it. Many use a particular piece in their ongoing counseling as it illustrates or illuminates a specific issue. Sister Irene's picture of her attempted sui-cide was more frightening than her bland emotionless oral description. Some pictures have deservedly been framed. Others have been shown with pride or for disclosure to trusted empathetic friends. Others have been destroyed for reasons only to be surmised. No one seems to have been untouched by the week's experiences, which brought forth a myriad of emotions, memories, and hopes. The artistic creations take on a life of their own. They give graphic evidence of people's psychic state and are more permanent than spoken words. They lend themselves to further explorations as the client grows in self-knowledge. They reveal aspects that perhaps were not noted on first viewing. During one workshop the spiritual director asked the group to bring their art on spirituality to the group session the following week. She was impressed by the images created with regard to such a profound and elusive subject. Spirituality is the bedrock 64.2 2005 Cargus * Women Religious in Treatment for Addictions for religious women, and so their attempts to capture it in art are as challenging as they are moving. It is exhilarating to observe artistry and creativity emerge while clients are learning to trust and appreciate their own endeavors. Those who never considered them-selves artistic are often amazed and delighted with their creative results. They have not become "more" artistic, but they have gone beyond their own all-too-limited per-ceptions of their creative abilities. Art has a transformative effect through its ability to transcend time, space, and earthly boundaries. The clients just described have taken risks in telling the group their own sacred stories with the help of original art that enlightens their listeners but most importantly them-selves. One treatment center director told me about being confronted by a new group of residents .upset by the announcement that the regular week's schedule was suspended and that art therapy would replace it. She told them she could not adequately explain why art therapy works or what its therapeutic benefits are, but promised it would work. The group would understand art's bene-fit more clearly and convincingly later. And they did. Creativity is healing. To call forth new possibilities-- a definition of creativity--is to find new directions toward healthier lifestyles. To create new views, rather than remain stuck in old destructive patterns, is some-thing that art can offer. The overeater can picture a thin-ner body; the alcoholic can picture a cornucopia of renewal; the burnt-out person can picture a serene land-scape; and the spendthrift can visualize a pleasing bal-ance and proportion. Art therapy cannot guarantee change, of course, but it can offer graphic glimpses of hope, and hope is a'forerunner to change. It is important to appreciate that these previously functioning women who have gone into treatment have Review for Religious been given and are taking time out for themselves, per-haps for the first time. In a lifetime of giving to others, they are now receiving. Such a respite from their ordi-nary busyness allows them to tell their stories and to explore their concerns by means of art, and art can enlarge and deepen their creative potential. The art-therapy experience encourages people to leave the abyss of addictive behavior behind and try something new. Homemade imagery can reinvigorate deadened or tired emotions and bring joy back into their lives and their spiritual selves. Accepting and working with their cre-ativity assists wounded souls to move from humiliation to humbleness and towards the kingdom where we are all meant to dwell. Easter Monday Morning Prayer 0 God of my forever rising who alone can slip twixt bones and sinews probing the marrow of my being to the dark recesses of my heart wherein by my sin you have been entombed, carving away the stone, I beg you, up-raise me this day with you again and always and forever. Alleluia. Amen. Elizabeth McDonough OP 64.2 200~ VILMA SEELAUS Asceticism and Chaste Celibate Love T biblical understanding of God is captured in ee words: God is love. Created as we are in the image and likeness of God, the core of our being is a "being-in-love" with God.1 Because of our radical con-nection with God, we are conceived and born into the world as preconscious predispositions for love. As Rahner puts it, "man is the event of God's absolute self-com-munication.'' 2 Love therefore is the root and foundation of our being. Life's deepest challenge is to fully accept and give human expression to this foundational reality of love. The vow we call consecrated chastity, or chaste celibacy, has everything to do with love. By it we open ourselves to becoming fully loving persons. Chaste love is love that is single-hearted. Single-hearted love does not of itself exclude a genital expres-sion. Chaste loving is the universal call that includes both married persons and persons who remain single. In mar- Vilma Seelaus OCD last wrote for us in September-October 1999. Her address is Carmelite Monastery; 25 Watson Avenue; Barrington, Rhode Island 02806. Review for Religious riage, love is meant to have a genital expression. The religious vow is not only of chaste love, but also of chaste celibacy intended as a total response to God's uncondi-tional love. The single-hearted love to which religious vow themselves is at the heart of the kind of loving to which we are all invited as human beings. As consecrated celibates we vow to live out in a chaste celibate way the love relationship with God, and with one another, to which all persons are invited.3 Fidelity in chaste celibate loving has its own unique call for asceticism; celibate love must include asceticism. Celibacy for God means that one has a desire to receive God's love and to become passionately in love with God, expressing it in the vow of chaste celibacy. Today we increasingly recognize what the mystics have known for centuries: that, in our universe and in the heart of every human l~erson, there is an energy which as Christians we know to be God's creating love in all that exists. St. Teresa of Avila in her Sixth Dwelling Places describes a remarkable vision in which she sees all things in God. In this vision, "God is like an immense and beautiful dwelling or palace, and this palace is God himself." Teresa now sees all things as taking place in God and therefore in Love. All human love is either an expres-sion or a distortion of this one love, namely, God's unconditional love embracing and encircling the human family. Teresa writes: Could the sinner, perhaps, so as to engage in his evil deeds leave this palace? No, certainly not; rather, within the palace itself, that is, within God himself, the abominations, indecent actions, and evil deeds committed by us sinners take place . The greatest evil of the world is that God, our Creator, suffers so many evil things from his creatures within his very self and that we sometimes resent a word said in our absence and perhaps with no evil intention.4 [16.9 64.2 2005 Seelaus * Asceticism and Chaste Celibate Lo~e How true isoit that even self-centered, narcissistic love contains within itself in a diffused, distorted way the energies ' of divine°iove? 170 Our life unfolds in God! Postmodern Christian ecolog-ical theologians see this reality as the basis of God's rad-ical immanence in the world and as the human challenge to respect and care for the ecological systems of our planet earth, symbolized as the body of God.5 Chaste loving extends itself to loving care of the world in which we live, which, in one of his less-known poems, John of the Cross images as the palace created by God for "all the members of the just," who are "the body of the bride" of the eter-nal Word.6 In viewing all of human love within the ambience of God's creat-ing energy of love, we see how out of harmony is the so-called "sexual revolu-tion," which seeks sexual pleasure apart from genuine love between persons. Yet even self-centered, narcissistic love contains within itself in a diffused, distorted way the energies of divine love. The human urgency for union with God, who alone can offer unconditional love, easily finds expression in dif-fused and distorted ways when God's love is unrecog-nized or rejected. Aware of this reality, Jesus had and has great compassion for all of us, who in ways small or great live love's distortions. Asceticism enlarges the heart to receive a greater out-pouring of God's love. It also allows the energies of divine love to flow more freely through us into the lives of others. This asceticism is a matter of self-denial and self-emptying.7 What we deny ourselves and allow God to empty out are the things within us or around us that we tend to hold on to tenaciously. The purpose of asceti- Review for Religious cism is freedom for self-surrender, not self-punishment, not the giving up of things out of self-hate. Rather, gen-uine asceticism springs from a desire to be rooted in love. It is an expression of our willingness for our love to be freed of its distortions. The asceticism that leads to self-surrender can be sustained only in prayerful com-munion with God and is itself a form of prayer. Self-sur-render softens the soil of our inner being so that stubborn willfulness may more easily be uprooted by God, leaving room for God to plant seeds of willing-ness. 8 These are seeds of the Christ-life. Frans JozefVan Beeck, the Dutch theologian, in an early work of his titled Christ Proclaimed, points out that Jesus "was with-out the need for anxious self-possession, self-mainte-nance, and self-affirmation." Jesus was content to receive his being in a stance of total surrender to his Father.9 To love is to love someone--other persons as well as God. Self-denial can be psychologically harmful and even sinful outside of the context of our relationship with other people and with God. There is, however, some-thing in our being that clings to aloneness, to private and even narcissistic self-possession, distorting the inner solitude of our uniqueness. This distortion, the denial of relatedness, is sin. Sin would have us cling to our sep-arateness as something absolute. This is an ontological illusion, but it nevertheless lures us to rest on its com-forting bosom in the hope of avoiding the pain that comes with reaching out in love. Relatedness can be painful, as we discover early. Although other persons reflect our uniqueness and help us discover our gifts and potential, they also mirror our inadequacies. As we struggle with the demands of friend-ship and human encounter, that relatedness undermines personal myths of omnipotence and reveals our finitude. The insecurity of finitude is hard to accept, and, just as 7171 64.2 200~ Seelaus * Asceticism and Chaste Celibate Love 172 others willy-nilly make demands of us, we place all kinds of expectations on ourselves to be all-knowing and all-capable, to be fully adequate to every situation. Amid these usually unconscious self-expectations, the gifts and talents of others threaten us, so we turn them off or become defensive. Insofar as we are out of touch with these inner movements, enW, jealousy, and competi-tiveness keep us outside of the unifying energies of God's love that flow between people. The opposite can also happen. Self-doubt can so overwhelm us that we give up trying. The gentle vigilance of self-knowledge is an excel-lent form of asceticism. Self-knowledge keeps us in touch with the polluting elements that can be present in love's stream. Self-knowledge looks squarely at emotional and attitudinal dams that cause love's flow to stagnate.1° It strengthens us to bear the pain of our failures as we struggle to learn new patterns of behavior more expres-sive of love. The asceticism of self-knowledge necessar-ily opens us to a deeper understanding of God in our life. God is compassionate, unconditional love; God accepts us just as we are. Imperfection is normative to our finitude. For us to be perfect is to accept the reality of our imperfection. God's only expectation seems to be that we surrender to God's Trinitarian love and that we ourselves become passionate lovers. Fasting is a very traditional and helpful form of asceticism. As self-punishment it is harmful; nevertheless, fasting can be sincere worship. It can express genuine love toward God, who is father, mother, beloved, and friend, the source of all we have and are. The stomach's empty feeling reminds us that we are a hunger for God, who alone can fill our emptiness. Fasting can be an expression of praise and adoration of the One in whom we live and move and have our being. Jesus, alive in his Review for Religious Spirit worshiping in us, becomes more than a desire; he fills our emptiness with his own praise of his Father. Like the young Carmelite Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity, we too are destined to be a "praise of His Glory." Fasting is a form of worship; it is also a form of the prayer of petition. Our finitude has many needs. We eas-ily come to the limits of our human potential, especially in the realm of love and relat-edness. Times exist when a , relationship reaches an impasse or when persons dear to us seem stuck in self-destructive tendencies, or are struggling with seemingly impossible sit-uations. Our fasting for them can be a hidden silent petition that God nourish the loved one to newness of life. Fasting can also be a prayer for the gift of detachment from the things we cling to in anxious self-possession and which keep us from self-surrender. Asceticism therefore can take many forms. It is cru-cial to the critical moments when a committed celibate is being tempted along a path whose ending would inevitably be genital intimacy. Here one is faced with the asceticism of choice. One. needs to set appropriate boundaries to love's expression while still fostering warmth and caring in the relationship. Fidelity to love is always a paschal experience. The asceticism of choice, in this instance the appropriate channeling of love's warmth, can be painful. But it is pain that is life-giving. Unlike the repression of feelings, which imprisons the self in the turmoil of unacknowledged emotions, the asceticism of choice is an encounter with greater inner freedom and is a call to growth in love. One's pain How would I explain that fasting is a form of worship and also a form of the prayer of petition ? 64.2 200Y Seelaus ¯ Asceticism and Cbaste Celibate Love becomes redemptive not only for oneself and the loved person, but for others as well, because it springs from genuine love and is a true love response. Because love is the creating energy that sustains the universe, and its energies flow through all of'humankind, it is necessarily the very heart of the church. Therefore any decision that one makes out of love and with the intent of fostering love has apostolic value. It shares in the life-giving, redemptive mission of Christ. This real-ity is worth pondering. It broadens one's understanding of the apostolate and of the meaning of mission for con-secrated celibates. We participate in God's creating action through the choices we make, and in doing so we inevitably affect the lives of others. Decisions drawn from the deep well of love enter into love's stream flowing from the womb of God, the source of life, the one life that flows through all of humankind. Even the smallest of our decisions is like the proverbial pebble thrown into the water whose ripples expand in ever widening circles. Here I am reminded of an experience in my own life that becomes increasingly meaningful. My monastery in Rhode Island is located on Narragansett Bay. Occasionally I take an early morning walk along the beach to enjoy the sunrise reflecting itself across the water. One such morning the bay was unusually calm. As I walked along I heard a sudden strong swish of incoming surf. This usually announces the changing of the tide, but the waters of the last high tide had not yet fully ebbed out. I turned and scanned the bay. In the far distance a tiny craft was speeding across the water, split-ting its quiet surface and leaving behind rolling waves of water. As the craft disappeared between the islands, the waters returned .to their previous unruffled state. The swish at my feet settled to a calm. I have experienced this phenomenon many times, Review for Religious and it never ceases to amaze me that the movements of such a small craft, hardly visible in the distance, can affect such a large expanse of water even to a distant shore. This symbolizes for me the awesome reality that the choices we make, no matter how small, are not insignif-icant. Humanity is bonded in a common stream of con-sciousness and love; the movements of one person, toward life or toward diminishment, necessarily affect the whole. Asceticism in its many forms is a prayerful desire that not only our activity but also our entire being may be apostolic, that is, life-giving for others. It fos-ters human solidarity as an enduring reality, by creating a fleer channeling of divine life through the collective body of humankind.12 Notes 1 See Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (New York: Seabury Press, 1972), p. 105. 2 Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith (New York: Seabury Press, 1978), p. 126. 3 This paper was first written in the 1970s. Since then, much of great value has been written regarding the vows. In this recent minor revi-sion, no attempt was made to connect with the fine work of recent authors. 4 In terior Castle, VI. 10.2- 3. Collected Works of St. Teresa ofAvila, Vol. 2, trans. Otilio Rodriguez OCD and Kieran Kavanaugh OCD (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1980), p. 419. s See Life Abundant: Rethinking Theology and Economy for a Planet in Peril by Sallie McFague (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), pp. 138ff. See also the writings of Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme. 6 Romances, nos. 3-6, "On Creation," in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, trans. Kieran Kavanaugh OCD and Otilio Rodriguez OCD (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1991), pp. 62ff. [See especially no. 4, pp. 63-64. Ed.] 7 See Vilma Seelaus OCD, Self-Emptying: Philippians 2 and the Carmelite Tradition (Washington D.C.: ICS [Audio] Publications, 2004). 8 See Gerald May MD, Will and Spirit: A Contemplative Psychology (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1982). 64.2 200Y Seelaus * Asceticism and Chaste Celibate Love 9 Frans Jozef Van Beeck sJ, Christ Proclaimed (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), p. 421. ,0 For a further development of the value of self-knowledge, see Vilma Seelaus OCD, "Effective Ministry through Contemplative Self- Knowledge," Review for Religious 41 (May-June 1982): 390-399. " See Elizabeth of the Trinity, The Complete Works (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1984). ~2 The asceticism of chaste celibate love has yet a deeper dimension, which is the asceticism of prayer, especially contemplative prayer. To remain faithful to love and to prayer during the painful times of dark night and the seeming void of love would be a topic in itself. See Hein Blommestijn, Jos Huls, and Kees Waaijman, The Footprints of Love: John of the Cross as Guide in the Wilderness, trans. John Vriend (Leuven [Bondgenontenlaan, 153; B-3000 Leuven; Belgium]: Peeters, 2000). Prayer Psalm 73 Let the words of the psalm help you pray: Yet with you I shall always be; you have hold of my right hand; With your counsel you guide me, and in the end you will receive me in glory. Whom else have I in heaven? And when I am with you, the earth delights me not. Though my flesh and my heart waste away, God is the rock of my heart and my portion forever. But, for me, to be near God is my good; to make the Lord God my refuge. I shall declare all your works in the gates of the daughter of Zion. Revie~v for Religious ROBBER E MALONEY Snapshots of Three Lesser-Known "Saints" In 1918 the historian Lytton Strachey said in the preface of his Eminent Victorians that in writ-ing history less is often more. In other words, true selectivity is more important than volume. He wrote: "It is not by the direct method of scrupulous narration that the explorer of the past can hope to depict a singular epoch [or per-son]. If he is wise, he will adopt a subtler strat-egy. He will row out over the great ocean of material and lower down into it, here and there, a little bucket, which will bring to the light of day some characteristic specimen . . . to be examined with a careful curiosity." Surely few events say more about pex~sons than their death. Death not only closes life, it defines it. Christians have always regarded mar-tyrdom as the preeminent form of the follow-ing of Christ. From the earliest time, martyrs captured the Christian imagination and inspired Robert E Maloney CM, the former superior general of the Congregation of the Mission (Vincentians), continues to live at Via dei Capasso, 30; 00164 Roma, Italy. 64.2 2005 Maloney ¯ Snapshots of Three Lesser-Known "Saints" 1781 others to incredible heroism in living the Gospels even to the end. The Book of Revelation sings the praise of these heroes: "Love for life did not deter them from death" (12:11). Some, of course, renounce their faith rather than die a martyr's death. But for others, some-times even people whose lives seemed mediocre, death is their finest hour. In Shakespeare's Macbeth (I,iv), Malcolm says of the previous thane of Cawdor: "Nothing in his life / became him like the leaving it; he died / as one that had been studied in his death / to throw away the dear-est thing he ow'd / as 'twere a careless trifle." In this brief article, I offer a snapshots of the deaths of three lesser-known martyrs who in turbulent times were like a "lamp shining in a dark place" (2 P 1:19). Joseph Chow Tsi-Che Did you ever want to be pope? I have sometimes heard Catholics say, with a bit of humor and a bit of frus-tration: "If I were pope for a week, here is what I would do!" Of course, very few of us get that opportunity. But a priest of my own community, whom some of my older friends knew, was actually offered the job. Joseph Chow was born in 1891 in Shijiazhuang, about 180 miles south of Beijing. He made his vows in the Congregation of the Mission in 1915 and was ordained to the priesthood four years later. After serving as a pro-fessor in the minor seminary in his hometown and then as a philosophy professor in the major seminary of Beijing, he was ordained a bishop in 1931, serving ini-tially as the vicar apostolic in Baoding, not far from his birthplace. In 1946 he was named the archbishop of Nanchang, much farther to the south, a city I visited a number of years ago, where his memory is still revered. In 1950, soon after the establishment of the revolu-tionary government in China, Joseph received the invi- Review for Religious tation to become pope. A delegation from Beijing came to visit him. A writer of the time describes their con-versation as follows: "Because you have so many gifts, you have been des-ignated to be the head of the Progressive Chinese Church. Are you willing to become the pope of China?" "Do you really believe that I have the necessary qualities?" "We do." "In that case, I would prefer to become the pope of the entire world." The delegation left, angry at his refusal. From then on, he was kept under constant surveillance. In May 1951 he was arrested, tried, found guilty, and thrown into prison. The charges against him were that he had opposed the reform of the church, that he had listened to the Voice of America, and that he had recruited members for the Legion of Mary. He was condemned to forced labor, toiling in isol'ation for twenty-two Joseph Chow renounced a very prestigious offer: to be the pope of China. ConSequently, he endured a slow, arduous, hidden martyrdom. years. Just before his death he was released, so that he would not die in prison, and was carried to the home of a Christian in Nanchang. There he went peacefully to the Lord. By all accounts Joseph Chow was an extraordinarily gifted man. Those who knew him attest that he was good-humored, quite funny at times, but very clear in what he believed. He surely knew what he was willing 179 64.2 2005 Maloney ¯ Snapshots of Tbree Lesser-Known "Saints" to die for. He renounced a very prestigious offer: to be the pope of China. Consequently, he endured a slow, arduous, hidden martyrdom. In the end the government, by freeing him from prison several days before his death, tried to deprive him of the title of martyr, but Catholics in China today recognize that he was precisely that. 180 Jean Le Vacher I doubt that Jean Le Vacher will ever be beatified, even though the cause for his beatification was actually introduced in 1923. Jean was born in Val-d'Oise, France, on 15 March 1619 and entered the seminary along with his brother Philippe on 5 October 1643. He was ordained a priest in 1647 and went to Tunis almost immediately. Within a year after his arrival, the superior of the mission there died, as did the French government's representative in Tunis. Jean, at the age of twenty-nine, was named both head of the mission and French consul, a combi-nation of jobs which seems strange to us today. Two years later he also became vicar apostolic. Twenty-five years later, history repeated itself in Jean's life. Having been named vicar apostolic of both Algeria and Tunis, he again became the French consul, this time in Algeria. That is the root of the problems surrounding his beatification. On the one hand, Jean was a remarkably zealous missionary, laboring for years among the slaves in the capital, whom he estimated to number about fifteen thousand. But he was also the con-sul, a difficult political post at a time when relations between France and Algeria were steadily worsening. In late June 1683, fighting broke out. The French fleet began to bombard the capital. At the same time a plague raged within the city. The Turkish forces in Algeria asked Le Vacher to mediate peace. He, two Turkish diplomats, and an interpreter arrived under a Review for Religious white flag at the French admiral's ship. As negotiations dragged on, Admiral Duquesne was inflexible and at one point yelled at Le Vacher: "You,re more a Turk than a Christian!" During the negotiations one of the Turkish diplomats deceived the French, promising to work with them to reinstate their control over Algeria. But, once back on land, he himself seized power and began to fire on the fleet again. When the French retaliated, Le Vacher was arrested, along with the few other French citizens who remained in the capital. Le Vacher's martyrdom took place on 16 July 1683, toward sunset, on a small pier in the port. He was asked to renounce his faith and declare himself a Muslim. Instead, he bade farewell to the Christian slaves in a loud clear voice and exhorted them to remain firm in their faith. He was tied to a wooden frame which was then attached to the mouth of a cannon. Then a little drama occurred which it is affecting to recall in the midst of all the strife in the Middle East and North Africa today. None of the Muslims in the crowd was willing to light the cannon's fuse. Many Jews were there, but they too were unwilling. Finally a renegade Christian lit the fuse. Le Vacher was blown to pieces. Ten other Frenchmen followed him to the same type of death. The French campaign was ultimately unsuccessful; a shortage of supplies forced Admiral Duquesne to return home. Because of Jean Le Vacher's political post, some have questioned whether he was really a martyr. Reading the accounts of his death, I have little doubt myself. He died professing his faith courageously and encouraging others to profess it too. In fact, many followed him to death. Marguerite Rutan Marguerite Rutan was born in Metz in 1736. There, at the age of twenty, she began her postulancy in a hos- 181 64.2 200Y Maloney ¯ Snapshots of Three Lesser-Known "Saints" 182 pital as a Daughter of Charity. A year later, on her birth-day, she entered the novitiate in Paris and just five months afterwards was sent to serve at a hospital in Pau. She had the happiness of seeing her two sisters enter the same community shortly after her and the sadness of seeing both of them die at a young age. From Pau she moved to several other hospitals, finally arriving in Dax, near the border of Spain, where in 1779 she was named superior. Ten years later, with the outbreak of the French rev-olution, life became increasingly difficult for the sisters. Resources for the running of the hospital were scarce. The government provided fewer and fewer funds. After 3 October 1793 all sisters employed in running hospitals and schools had to choose between taking the oath of allegiance to the state church or leaving the institutions where they served. Sister Marguerite and her companions refused the oath. From then on they were constantly under surveillance, but their services in the hospital were so needed that they were allowed to continue. Finally, however, on 24 December 1793, Marguerite was arrested on charges of "corrupting the revolutionary, republican spirit of the soldiers who went to this hospital." What had happened, in fact, was that a group of sol-diers, to express gratitude for the care given in the hos-pital, returned to do some songs for the sisters. Sister Marguerite stopped to listen to them, offered them refreshments, and gave them some money. That was her crime. She was taken to a prison at the nearby Carmelite house. At the beginning of March 1794, a guillotine was constructed in the central ~quare of Dax. Simultaneously most prisoners were transferred to another city, but Marguerite was left in the Carmelite prison, a sign that her fate had already been decided. After a brief trial, her name was placed upon the list of those to be guillotined. A commission arrived in Dax Review for Religious to review the cases of those facing capital punishment. On 9 April after a quick hearing in which the same charges were repeated, Marguerite was condemned to death. The sentence was to be carried out immediately. She and the local cur~, also condemned, were tied back to back, placed on a cart with soldiers surrounding them, and rushed to the execution place accompanied by the sound of tambourines. Having first witnessed the behead-ing of the cur~, Marguerite asked the executioner not to assist her and mounted the scaffold by herself, removed the shawl from around her shoulders, put her head on the guillotine, and was executed. In their accounts of Marguerite's death, all observers noted her dignity. She seems to have been undaunted by the prospect of death, wearing those around her gently while speaking her mind clearly and unflinchingly right to the end. Tertullian tells us that "the blood of Christians is seed" (Apology 50.13). The martyrs strengthen those who come after them. They demonstrate that some things are worth dying for. By their witness they proclaim that fidelity to one's central commitments is more important than life itself. In the darkness of persecutions or of oppressive regimes, martyrs are like flashes of lightning that illumi-nate the nighttime sky, a surge of electricity that ener-gizes those who live on beyond them. The church has been blessed by many such martyrs right up to the present. This great "cloud of witnesses" (Heb 12:1) strengthens us to be faithful, no matter what the cost. 183 64.2 2005 JULIANA DEVOY Learning to Live Serenely: The Wisdom of Francis de Sales 184, Ewvery day in the Eucharistic liturgy we pray the ords "Protect us from all anxiety." The daily repetition of this invocation is not without meaning. We have only to open the newspaper or turn on the evening news to find plenty of material for angst. After 9/11 and its consequences, not only individuals but whole nations are experiencing increased anxiety. But it is not only the world scene that disturbs us. We witness divisions in the church, breakdowns of family life, loved ones' illnesses, financial reversals, and many other problems that threaten our peace of heart. Undue worry, anxiety, and agitation not only are detrimental to our psychological well-being, but also impede our spiritual growth. A spiritual guide who can teach us serenity and Christian optimism no matter what happens in the world is St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622), bishop and doctor of the church, a man with a wonderfully balanced and integrated personality, who combined a deep spirituality Juliana Devoy RGS last wrote for us in May-June 1999. Her address remains Good Shepherd Sisters; 30 Estrada da Vitoria; Macao. with a penetrating insight into human psychology. Separated from him by a cultural, theological, and linguistic gulf of four centuries, we nevertheless find in his published works and in his letters of spiritual direction gems of wisdom which, if we take the trouble to extract them, will both counsel and console us on our spiritual journey. In this essay we will examine several points of Salesian spirituality that can aid us in gracious living and tranquillity of spirit. Befriending Reality In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis says that, aside from sin, anxiety is the greatest evil that can happen to us. "It proceeds," he says, "from an inordinate desire to be freed from a present evil or to acquire a hoped-for good. Yet there is nothing that tends more to increase evil and prevent enjoyment of good than to be disturbed and anxious.''~ In one of his colorful images, he likens anxiety to birds caught in a net: the more they flap their wings trying to escape, the more they become entangled. Francis knew well what he was talking about. As a nineteen-year-old student in Paris, he had undergone a spiritual crisis over predestination, asking himself whether it was possible for him to be separated from God for all eternity. The moral and spiritual anguish that he suffered was so great that he fell ill and could not sleep or eat. The crisis was resolved only when he abandoned himself unconditionally to God's love, praying for the grace to love God here and now if he could not love God in eternity.2 Francis emerged from his persOnal "dark night" with two profound convictions about reality: his radical dependence on God and God's utter trustworthiness. In the Salesian worldview, creation is suffused with God's goodness and our peace is found in conformity to 64.2 2005 Devoy ¯ Learning to Live Serenely ~DO we live ,the truth, that every vocation is the lo~cus fo~" meeting God andeve~ Christian is called to a life of holiness,? -°186 God's will because God is a GodJbr us. Our particular life circumstances are where we will find God. Francis, therefore, counsels a loving acceptance of the situation in ¯ . which we find ourselves. His Introduction was written especially for lay people who desired to live in closer intimacy with God. Predating Vatican Council II by hundreds of years, he taught that every vocation is the locus for meeting God and that every Christian is called to a life of holiness. But the way to holiness would be different for everyone because the practice of devotion must "be adapted to the strength, activities, and duties of each particular person." A bishop is not called to live like a Carthusian, nor a skilled workman to spend his day in church like a religious. There is no need to emulate the lifestyle or the virtues proper to a vocation that is not one's own. His letters of direction illustrate this teaching in practice: I should like you to consider how many saints, both men and women, have lived in the married state like you, and that they all accepted this vocation readily and gladly. We must love all that God loves, and he loves our vocation; so let us love it too and not waste our energy hankering after a different sort of life, but get on with our own job. Know that God wishes nothing else of you save what he sends at the moment, and do not be on the lookout for other things . What is the use of building castles in Spain when you have to live in France? What a marvelous thing you said when you wrote to me: as long as I am serving God I don't care what kind of sauce he puts me in . Come now, you Review for Religious know very well into what sauce he has put you, into what state of life and condition; and, tell me, is it all the same to you?3 But it would be a mistake to imagine that what is being advocated is a passive acceptance of the status quo. In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis devotes a large section to "The Will of God.''4 He distinguishes between God's signified will and the will of God's good pleasure. Although obviously God has only one will, our discernment of what God wants of us will have to take account of two different sets of realities. In the first case we are guided by the commandments, the counsels, teachings of the church, and holy inspirations. When there is question of something clearly ordained by God, there is nothing to discern; we have only to obey. For choosing a vocation, however, or choosing one action rather than another, Francis counsels a great liberty of spirit since it is impossible to know God's will absolutely. In important matters we should pray, consult a spiritual director, and then do what we think is best. Even if doubts arise afterwards about whether we chose well, we should remain in peace and continue on the course we have chosen. In lesser matters we should "do freely what seems good to us, so as not to weary our minds, waste our time, and put ourselves in danger of disquiet, scruples, and superstition." The "will of God's good pleasure" is God's will already done. It is the actual circumstances of our lives, the "sauce in which God has placed us," the events that take place and the things that exist outside our control. It is not that God causes everything that happens, but that "whatever is, is in some way within God's providence; it is not outside the loving embrace of the creative and redempt

Issue 60.4 of the Review for Religious, 2001. ; tiving i:iturgy dialogue ~ ~ormation meeting God JULY AUGUST 2001 VOLUME 60 NUMBER 4 Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bimonthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ ~¥eb 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. ©2001 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 co~nmercial 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. ~ fe0 rVreligious 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 McD6nough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm J.udy Sharp James and Joan Felling Adrian Gaudin SC Sr. Raymond Marie Gerard FSP Eugene Hensell OSB Ernest E. Larkin OCarm Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ JULY AUGUST 2001 VOLUME 60 NUMBER 4 contents 342 living liturgy Eucharistic Praxis in Ecological Perspective: A Capuchin Look Edward Foley, Capuchin, proposes that shaping a liturgical ecosystem for a community includes creating a rhythm of corporate worship that provides space, time, and energy for private prayer and devotion. 365 377 dialogue Being a Hermit: W~nere and How? Kenneth C. Russell sees present-day hermits as needing, for practicality's sake, to build their lives out of solitude and humble earnings understood in tandem. Learning a Foreign Language: Continuing the Dialogue on Homosexuality Christopher Renz OP considers the continuing dialogue a way for all to find their deepest human identity in the God they seek to know better. formation 387 Reflections of a Novice Director George J. Auger CSV pictures the kind of candidates coming to religious life and why, and then proposes what we should be offering them. Review for Religious 397 What Can a Seminary Do? Donald Macdonald SMM develops the notion of a seminary as a place where individuals are helped to mature within a gospel framework. 408 Commitment to Faithfulness Elizabeth McDonough OP briskly reminds herself and other religious that God's faithfulness through the changes and tensions of thirty-some years calls them today to the same fidelity their vows joyously witnessed to on the day of their first profession. 413 419 Flames of Love: Living Contemplatively Carolyn Humphreys OCDS describes holiness in terms of living a contemplative life, that is, an adventure in love. An Experience of Christian Meditation Ernest E. Larkin OCarm offers some theological observation, simple personal description, and succinct analysis of his own experience of the Christian Meditation of John Main OSB. 338 Prisms 432 Canonical Counsel: Renewal of Vows and Perpetual Profession 438 Book Reviews July-August 200 t prisms Ppe J~)hn Paul II has declared more men and women blessed and canonized saints than any of his predecessors in the papacy. He himself has explained his action by saying that we are more than ever in need of many models--some from within our countries or cultures, others closer in time--to aid us in our own Christian living. We also might suspect that the need for recognition of holy women and men as models and helps for our life is heightened by the individualism that has become embedded in our United States culture and similar cul-tures. When we move about in a cultural individualism, there is a tendency to make even our faith an individual conquest. "I" will save my soul--of course, with Jesus' saving grace. But still it is "my" effort. From the very beginning of the Christian com munity, St. Paul stressed the importance of our being a communion of saints. Although Paul's Greek word koinonia is rendered by the English fellowship more often than the English communion, the idea cannot be mistaken. Paul's conversion experience on the road to Damascus would never let him waver from the conviction that the (persecuted) Christians' union together with Christ is so intimate that Jesus can say "I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting." That same experience roots the Pauline image of the Body of Christ in which all Christians are members, differing in gifts and functions, but all being necessary for the healthy functioning of the Body. Review for Religious The reality that we need to hold on to today is the truth that "we all need one another." The communion of saints reminds us of this fact. As it has developed over time, the communion of saints refers first to us baptized and now living our seemingly humdrum lives within our church communities. The communion of saints means also those who have died and are officially recognized by the church as the holy ones giving example for us. The communion of saints includes finally those who have died--sometimes identified as the "souls in purgatory"--many of whom we remember dearly and who for their part still remain caring and concerned for us. The fullness of the meaning of the communion of saints keeps all of us caring and concerned for one another--in our union with Christ and in the power of the Spirit. In our creed, we profess that we believe in the "sanctorum communio"---that is, not only a union among holy people but also a people made holy by their participation (communio) in holy things (the sacraments). Today we are being called to put that belief into action. In our remembering those who have died, both the recog-nized saints and those everyday ones of our families and friends, we are joined in a conversation--a special conversation that has been traditionally called prayer--praying for one another! We need to be aware of the stories of their lives so that we can know and feel their strength and their compassion and their receiving of God's grace through participation in the sacramental life. We, the now-members of this church on earth, must hold one another in prayer, both public liturgical and personal private, and reach out with helpful hands to one another because we are in communion, the union of holy ones sustained by holy things. We are not alone; we live our life of faith in communion. David L. Fleming SJ P.S. Our advisory board--one concrete instance of the communion of saints--says a goodbye full of gratitude to Sister Kathryn Richards FSP, Father Joel Rippinger OSB, and Sister Patricia Wittberg SC on the completion of their terms. We welcome with thanks Sister Raymond Marie Gerard FSP, Father Eugene Hensell OSB, Father Ernest E. Larkin OCarm, and Sister Miriam D. Ukeritis csJ. ff~uly-August 2001 EDWARD FOLEY Eucharistic Praxis in Ecological Perspective: A Capuchin Look living liturgy The teaching of the Catholic Church on the Eucharist is both clear and challenging. As the primary sacrament of the church, the Eucharist, like the liturgy itself, is the "font and summit of the church's life." Therein, how-ever, lies a certain paradox, for how are both the whole of the church's liturgy and the Eucharist itself the fount and summit of the church's life? Sometimes our response to this mystery is to oppose various aspects of the church's liturgy, one against another: Eucharist vs. the Liturgy of the Hours, Eucharistic liturgy vs. Eucharistic devotions, and so forth. The tension in such pairings appears in the shaping of an horarium for community prayer. Sometimes an horarium has little place for any-thing but the celebration of Eucharist; other times community prayer makes little space for the celebration of Eucharist. Maybe there is another way. This is a time of unusual theological ferment and liturgical turmoil, specifically regarding the role and manner of celebrating the Eucharist. Exceedingly diver-gent understandings of Eucharist mark the present-day Edward Foley OFMCap, a professor of theology, wrote this position paper (here somewhat revised and abridged) for three Capuchin provinces. Its reflections may well have relevance for others too. Foley's address is Catholic Theological Union; 5601 South Cornell Avenue; Chicago, Illinois 60615. Revie~ for Religious Catholic Church. In this global, ecclesial, and Capuchin context, the following reflections cannot resolve all differences. The mod-est goal here is to provide some theological and pastoral principles as a basis for dialogue in full view of our commonalties and dif-ferences. Though addressing specifically Capuchin life and prayer, these principles may be helpful to members of other religious com-munities too. There is no little irony in the fact that contemporary exchanges about this central sacrament of love have been among the most cantankerous, even vitriolic, that the modern church has witnessed. The differences in eucharistic theologies among Catholics have often degenerated into questioning others' moral integrity and even challenging of their fidelity to the church. For the followers of Francis, there is another way. Embracing our founder as a true vir catholicus,2 we assume that those who profess to follow the gospel after him are also viri catholici. Thus, trusting in the authen-tic Catholicity of our brothers, "let us cultivate mutual dialogue [and] let the spirit of brotherly understanding and sincere esteem permeate everyone." 3 Theological and Pastoral Principles Among the many theological and pastoral principles that are important for reflecting on the Eucharist in the lives of 2 lst-cen-tury Capuchins, six seem particularly important. Liturgy as fount and summit. As previously noted, the Second Vatican Council asserts that the liturgy is the fount and summit of the church's life.4 This pivotal dogmatic assertion is often recast in the language of theologia prima. Recognizable across the Christian traditions (asserted by Catholics,5 Protestants,6 and Orthodox7 alike in this postconciliar era), this ancient belief holds that the act of worship is the church's first theology and a prized expression of our faith and our dogma. Liturgy as expressive and creative. A corollary of the dogmatic assertion about the liturgy as fount and summit of the church's life is that worship not only expresses the church's faith but also creates it. While the former is readily recognized, the implica-tions of the latter are seldom acknowledged. To admit worship as creative and generative of faith and belief is to say that worship not onl~ announces what has been accomplished, but also proclaims what is yet to be achieved. Our common prayer is just as much July-August 2001 Foley * Eucharistic Praxi~ in Ecolog~cM Perspective about our future as it is about the present or the past. Worship is thus a critical and corporate rehearsal of the church's mission and is essentially formative for all Christians and all Capuchins, whether they are in initial or ongoing formation. Liturgy is for people as well as for God. Liturgy's expressive-creative power is directed not only to God, but to people as well. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy repeatedly connects "human sanctification" and "God's glorification" when it speaks of the purpose of the liturgy,s In most of these formulations, the sanctification of people is actually mentioned before the glorification of God. While this might strike some as odd if not problematic, implicit in this ordering of the text is the ancient Christian understanding that, while liturgy (in order to be true to its nature) must give glory to God, God is not in need of the liturgy or sacraments; only people are. Thomas Aquinas, like 6ther Christian theologians throughout the ages, affirms the perfection of God,9 who is in need of nothing from humanity, while affirming that human beings need sacraments,l° Furthermore, giving priority to the sanctification of people in worship acknowl-edges God's initiative in the liturgy and admits that our glorifying response is secondary. Thus the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the signs and symbols of the liturgy "can become means of expressing the action of God who sanctifies men, and the action of men who offer worship to God" (§1148). Liturgy must address human need in its cultural context. For wor-ship to achieve effectively the sanctification of people, it must address their local cultural contexts. The church is always made present in a given place and time by a local church through its liturgy,n In each setting the rites "need to be adapted to the capac-ity of the faithful.''12 If culture is "the whole of human activity, human intelligence and emotions,''~3 then attending to human need in its cultural context requires consideration of ethnic and linguistic differences and attention to the broad diversity that marks any and every worshiping community?4 It is only by respect-ing the local contexts that the liturgy will meet the magisterium's variously articulated criterion that worship "be meaningful and appealing to the body of worshipers." ~s Liturgical practice heeds to be understood within our pluriform tradition. A myth of Christian beginnings is that Christianity was born in unity and moved toward pluriformity. The opposite is true, however. The noted biblical scholar Raymond Brown could Review for Religious write about the churches--not church--the apostles left behind26 The diversity of early liturgical practice appears in the fact that a common institution narrative cannot be found across the New Testament.17 Regarding issues like the frequency of eucharistic celebration, the tradition is similarly diverse. In primitive, patristic, and even early-medieval Christianity, there seems to be no common pattern for the celebration of daily Eucharist. It certainly was not part of early Christian monasticism.~s It is only in the 8th century that there is evidence for daily Eucharist for the church of Rome, and then only during the solemn season of Lent. 19 Fasting in this period presumed fasting from Eucharist; this concept of "fasting from Eucharist" for the sake of a later heightened experience of Eucharist marks the spirituality of various individuals; groups, and movements in the church and is an instance of one among var-ious ways of valuing Eucharist.2°~As to our Franciscan tradition, daily Eucharist does not appear to be a presumed part of the ear-liest vision of Francis for his community, though there is a pre-sumption of a daily celebration of the Divine Office.2~ Well into the Middle Ages, some communities of religious had an ordinary horarium that did not include the daily Eucharist, but rather a Communion service, as attested by various medieval ordines for Communion without celebration of the Eucharist.22 Even today, for significant segments of the Catholic Church, daily Eucharist has never been the norm.23 Our liturgical tradition is dynamic. In order to contribute to people's sanctification according to their particular needs in their particular culture, our liturgical tradition must be living and dynamic. Our Franciscan history demonstrates the dynamic nature of the church's liturgical tradition in response to the prophetic. For example, Innocent III and the Roman curia granted Francis and his followers the unprecedented permission to develop as a community of penitential preachers. Until that time, permission for groups to do itinerant preaching and to practice mendicant poverty In primitive, patristic, and even early-medieval Christianity, there seems to be no common pattern for the celebration of daily Eucharist. July-August 2001 Foley * Eucharistic Praxis in Ecological Perspective had been extended only to established communities previously declared heretical and now being reunited with the church.24 Francis's "novel" request and prophetic vision to live the idea of evangelical perfection, however, both challenged and changed the church's tradition regarding who can and should preach. Admitting the diverse and dynamic nature of our tradition suggests that shaping worship patterns cannot be reduced to find-ing the answer from the past, but instead requires us to make care-ful decisions--not only drawing upon but also contributing to the church's ever evolving tradition. An Ecological Vision of Liturgical Praxis One cannot appropriately discuss the Eucharist in the life of any Christian without seeing it in the life .of the church. After asserting that the whole of the liturgy and not just the Eucharist is the fount and summit of the church's life, Vatican II then notes the special importance of Eucharist within the liturgical economy.2s Asserting this, however, is ipso facto to assert the rela-tionality of the Eucharist to the other sacraments, to the rest of the church's liturgy, and to the whole of the church's life as well. Included are the Liturgy of the Hours, sacramentals, and popular devotions. Endorsing popular devotions, the council directs that these devotions "should be so fashioned that they harmonize with the liturgical seasons, accord with the sacred liturgy, are in some way derived from it, and lead the people to it.''26 I propose to consider this liturgical relationality by means of an ecological metaphor. A relatively new science, ecology studies the relationship of plants and animals to their physical and bio-logical environment.27 Among its major emphases is the depen-dence of every form of life on other living things and on the natural resources in its environment--an insight already recorded in the writings of Charles Darwin (+1892). While it may seem odd to employ what could be considered a naturalistic framework for reflecting on Catholic worship,'recent developments in theology suggest otherwise. Since the late 20th century, theologians around the world have recognized the link between social harmony and ecoharmony and shown the impor-tance of an ecological perspective.2s In 1988 a consultation by the World Council of Churches recognized what they called the integrity of creation, that is, "the value of all creatures in and for Review for Religious 'themselves, for one another, and for God, and their intercon-nectedness in a diverse whole that has unique value for God.''29 Theologies of ecology, according to Robert Schreiter, are a major flow in contemporary global theological discourse.3° Recendy the ecological perspective has been employed in liturgical theology?' For Franciscans the ecological perspective comes from the spiri-tuality of our Father Francis, who our constitutions remind us "felt united by a fraternal bond not only to people but to all crea-tures as well" (§97:1) and whom the church has proclaimed the patron saint of ecology. Here it will be useful to offer a few ecological principles to facilitate our using the ecological metaphor when speaking of community worship: ¯ Changes made in any environment affect all of the organisms in that environment. ¯ The continued existence of a whole group or life community involves a shifting balance or "dynamic equilibrium" among its members. ¯ A community and its environment constitute an ecosystem which draws vital materials from its surroundings and transfers materials to it, ¯ Competition, a characteristic of all communities, is unusually keen in areas where one type of community overlaps with another. ¯ An orderly, predictable sequence of development or "ecological succession" takes place in any area. With these principles it becomes clear that no one liturgical element in a community's liturgical ecosystem can be modified or eliminated without the other liturgical elements in the life of a faith community being affected. Just as apparendy inconsequential species of fauna or animal life contribute to the health of an ecosystem and cannot be altered or eliminated without creating an imbalance, so is it advisable to consider the whole of a faith community's public prayer life from perspectives of holistic health and balance. All the elements are interrelated. This means, for example, that considering the frequency of Eucharistic liturgies separately is inadequate. Not to consider them in relation to the Liturgy of the Hours could unintentionally diminish the latter, which is important to the life of the church and our brotherhood. Furthermore, given the foundational prin-ciple that worship shapes faith and is essentially formative, an isolated emphasis on Eucharist could give Capuchins an impaired perspective on the nature of Christ's presence and inadequate experiences of the multiple modes of his presence as dogmatically asserted by Vatican II.32 July-August 2001 Foley * Eucharistic PraMs in Ecological Perspective In shaping a liturgical ecology for any community, a number of elements need to be kept in balance. One is frequency of cele-bration. The issue of frequency needs to be raised about all elements of worship and not .just the Eucharist. Another issue is quality for each and every ritual element in a community's life of faith. Quality is affected by the amount of time both ministers and community have in preparing for worship and also by the resources available in that preparation. A third issue is continuity across the ritual life of a community. Each facet of a community's prayer life should reflect the quality and richness of the ritual resources avail-able to a community. Music, multilingual prayer patterns, ritual gestures, enhanced environment, and so forth should not be limited to one element in a community's worship repertoire, but should enhance the whole of its liturgical life. These resources need to be shared so that one element of a community's prayer does not drain all of its energy and resources, reducing the remaining elements to secondary experiences. Such continuity respects the principle of progressive solemnity,33 which admits a certain rhythm of more or less festivity, more or less simplicity, according to the day or the season. Shaping a liturgical ecosystem for a community includes creating a rhythm of corporate worship that provides space, time, and energy for private prayer and devotion. This is essential if corporate worship is to be truly life-giving and spiritually nour-ishing. The rhythm, quality, balance, and intensity of corporate prayer cannot be so overwhelming or burdensome that it hinders personal lives of prayer. An authentically hea!thy liturgical ecology not only requires a rhythmic balance of frequency, quality, continuity, shared resources, and progressive solemnity in a faith community's worship, but also in the whole of its life. Recall that the council has said that the liturgy is the fount and summit of the church's life, not simply its worship. Liturgical spiritualities are not shaped in a vacuum, but emerge and flourish in the interplay of liturgy and life. This vital connection is clearly shown in the New Testament, where the Greek words leitourgia (service) and leitourgein (to serve) do not occur as isolated terms for worship, They also refer to the missionary proclamation of the gospel, taking up a collection for the poor, and even the state's function as appointed by God.34 Commenting on this New Testament language, Ferdinand Hahn says that "the terminological evidence means not only that any Review for Religious cultic understanding of Christian worship is out of the question, but also that there is no longer any distinction in principle between assembly for worship and the service of Christians in the world."" Karl Rahner speaks about this living service of Christians as the "liturgy of the world," the name he gives to that "terrible and sub-lime liturgy, breathing of death and sacrifice, which God cele-brates through the length and breadth of human history.''36 Following upon the belief that God's self-communication (grace) is always present in the world, Rahner believes that every genuinely human experience at least implicitly mediates God's self-communication to us. Concerned that--unlike the experience of the early Christian community--liturgy today is too isolated from the rest of reality, Rahner poses the whole of human life as a kind of "liturgy." When we gather for the church's explicit public worship, according to Rahner, we are not doing something apart from what we are called to do in the rest of our lives. Thus "the liturgy of the church is the explicit manifestation of the implicit liturgy of our lives.''3~ An ecoliturgical approach to worship, then, demands not only a balance of resources, time, energy, quality, and continuity across the cultic aspects of a community's life, but also between cult and living, between liturgy and life. It is such an image that comes to us in that idyllic picture of early Christian living from the Book of Acts: They devoted themselves to the apostles' instruction and the communal life, to the breaking of bread and the prayers . Those who believed shared all things in com-mon; they would sell their property and goods, dividing everything on the basis of each one's need. They went to the temple area together every day, while in their homes they broke bread. With exultant and sincere hearts they took their meals in common, praising God and winning the approval of all the people. Day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (2:42-47) A Capuchin Ecology of Liturgy: The Components According to our constitutions, there is a foundational triad for any authentic Capuchin liturgical ecosystem: Eucharist, the Liturgy of the Hours, and contemplation. The Eucharist. Regarding the Eucharist, the constitutions call for full, conscious, and active participation in the Eucharistic sac-rifice (§48:1). They instruct that in our fraternities a community July-August 2001 Foley ¯ Eucharistic Praxis in Ecological Perspective Mass should be celebrated each day, and, where this cannot be done each day, it should be celebrated periodically and partici-pated in by all brothers (§48:2). Notable in this'instruction is the emphasis on appropriate preparation (§47:3), active participation (§48:1), and especially the building up of the fraternity (§§47:1, 2, 3; 48:2, 5). It is reasonable, therefore, to conclude that, while our constitutions present daily Eucharist as the ideal, it is not one to be achieved at any cost. Eucharistic celebrations without deliberate preparation, a spirit of "creativity and spontaneity" (§47:3), and especially a rhythm of celebrating Eucharist that does not contribute to the building up of the experience38 of fraternity is to be avoided. This last emphasis on the Eucharist's contribution to a spirit of fraternity takes on new meaning as we become increas-ingly aware of the way that our order was clericalized early in its history, and today are conversely experiencing a renewal of the foundational vocation of brotherhood. The Liturgy of the Hours. As for the Liturgy of the Hot~rs, our constitutions call for the daily celebration of the church's prayer, and, where it cannot be celebrated in its entirety, at least Morning and Evening Prayer are to be celebrated (§50:2). Besides this "house obligation," there is the further canonical requirement that all fri-ars in major orders and solemn vows are bound to pray the Liturgy of the Hours. Embedded in the instruction and laws regarding the Liturgy of the Hours is a series of important principles. Consistent with their instruction on Eucharist, our constitutions again empha-size how the Liturgy of the Hours contributes to building up the fraternity (§§47:2; 50:2, 5)--thus the importance of communal rather than individual celebration of the Hours. Beyond the brotherhood, however, the constitutions also recognize that the Liturgy of the Hours is the prayer of the whole church and recommends that, according to local circumstances, the Liturgy of the Hours should be celebrated with the faithful (§50:3). Finally, it is again notable that, when discussing the Liturgy of the Hours, our constitutions speak about not only frequency but also quality of celebration. Building on the concept of Franciscan prayer as "affective," the constitutions talk about the word of God in the Liturgy of the Hours penetrating our hearts (§51:2). To that end, these celebrations are to be "living and vibrant, with praiseworthy intervals of silence" (§51:2) and, as far as possible, celebrated with song (§51:3). Mental Prayer Our constitutions say that mental prayer is an essential spiritual exercise of the brothers and should be practiced Review for Religious daily (§52:3). The constitutions note that this exercise of mental prayer not only unites us individually with Christ, but also contributes to the efficaciousness of the corporate experiences of the Sacred Liturgy (§52:2). The constitutions expend a consider-able amount of energy exhorting the brothers to engage in con-templation and, in particular, charges superiors and local chapters with fostering this spirit of prayer (§§52:4; 53:3, 4). They also encourage the brothers to cultivate this spirit of prayer among the people of God (§53:6). What is somewhat surprising, however, is that the constitutions do not give much attention to the fraternal aspects of mental prayer or examine how contemplation has corporate as well as individual benefits and builds up the fraternity. Devotions. Besides this foundational triad of Eucharist, Liturgy of the Hours, and mental prayer, the constitutions give some atten-tion to devotions. In particular, they note the importance of devotion to the mysteries of the humanity of Christ, especially his nativity and passion (§54:2). They encourage us to venerate Mary, our mother and patroness, especially through liturgical wor-ship and the rosary (§54:3). They encourage us to venerate St. Joseph (§54:4), our holy Father Francis, and the saints, especially Franciscan saints (§54:5). They note the importance of reading Sacred Scripture and other spiri-tual books (§58:1). Echoing the teaching of the council, the constitutions wisely say that these devotions should always be in conformity with the spirit of the liturgy. And they are consistent in emphasizing that recollection and contemplation, especially apparent in the gift of silence, should mark our prayer (§57~ 1). A rhythm of celebrating Eucharist that does not contribute to the building up of the experience of fraternity is to be avoided. A Capuchin Ecology of Liturgy: The Principles Following basic laws of nature, every healthy ecosystem achieves its own natural equilibrium of the given particulars. So too does every healthy liturgical ecosystem, balancing particulars according to the basic principles of liturgy and Christian life. In pursuing this reflection on liturgy in Capuchin life, let us look at :~dy-dugust 2001 Foley * Eucharistic Praxis in Ecological Perspective certain particularities of our Capuchin charism, of our various ecclesial and provincial contexts. Fraternity. Few images permeate our tradition as much as that of fraternity. Our constitutions not only stress the cultivation of fraternal life among members of the order (§§84-96), but actually approach all of humanity (§83) and even all of creation (§11:2) fraternally. A Capuchin ecology is a.fraternal ecology, and broth-erhood is a privileged way that Capuchins perceive each other, the church, all human beings, and every creature. Our constitutions recognize, too, that the liturgy must nourish our fraternal life (§47:1); it must be the fount and summit of our fraternal life. For fostering brotherhood throughout the order, the province, and the local community, the constitutions mention "common prayer" first (§11:3). They also suggest that growth in fraternity and the flourishing of fraternal charity become an important criterion for evaluating a community or province's prayer life. If the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy could say that "the full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else,''39 analogously it seems appropriate to suggest that fraternal development among Capuchin brothers is the aim to be considered before all else in a Capuchin ¯ liturgical ecology. If growth in fraternal charity is a necessary outcome of authentic Capuchin worship, then worship must not only intend to enhance fraternity, but must do so in fact. Worship needs to satisfy certain human needs if it is to be an effective source of sanctification. What differentiates liturgy after Vatican II from that of the previous period is the contemporary emphasis on pe.rformance that actually satisfies this human need, rather than simply intending to do so. Intention is important but insufficient. There are few more telling statements of this principle than the United States bishops' assertion that "good celebrations foster and nourish faith; poor celebrations may weaken and destroy it.''4° In the "performance" of our common worship, therefore, it is essential that our patterns of prayer support the fraternal hospitality and inclusivity which are the hallmarks of our life. Given that the official liturgy of the church is traditionally a clerical domain, there is a special responsibility among Capuchins to develop prayer patterns that are inclusive of the nonordained. While ordained brothers may not intend to marginalize nonor-dained brothers, it can and does happen. The advice of the U.S. Review for Religious bishops directed to preachers is useful to ponder here: "If exclu-sion is heard, then exclusion is communicated, whether intended or not."41 More pointed is the language of the Fourth Plenary Council of the order (CPO IV), which expresses concern about "a community of priests who draw inspiration from Franciscan spir-ituality., without sufficient discernment" and therefore risk pro-pelling the order towards increasing clericalization" rather than being "a fraternity of lesser brothers endeavoring to live the gospel.''42 Minority. A pivotal concept for the essence of Capuchin fraternity is that of "lesser brothers." Minority, as outlined by CPO VI, is "a genuine manifestation of interior poverty, which in the Franciscan life-project also expresses itself externally as humility of heart and lack of power, and as solidarity with the needy and the deprived.''43 As noted by the gen-eral ministers of the First Order and the Third Order Regular (TOR), while the Franciscan order at its foundation was in fact a mixed institute, Francis did not intend to retain both cleric broth-ers and lay brothers as necessary components of the fraternity. The general ministers conclude: "In order to be 'religious' according to Francis's project, a 'lesser brother' does not need to be either cleric or lay."44 If all future applicants sought to be one or the other, the order's foundational concept would be undisturbed. The Second Plenary Council of the order challenged us "to pray as lesser brothers.''~s This challenge is to pray and live out that prayer in such a way as to avoid any and every impression of the superiority of one brother over another. Maintaining this spirit is a particular challenge in the context of Eucharistic worship, which many in recent years have experienced as.a source of oppression, not grace.46 Eucharistic leadership is not a right but a privilege. In a Capuchin context, it must contribute to the sense of meekness and minority among all the brothers. Only then will it fulfill the vision of CPO II, which imaged prayer--especially the Eucharist-- as an act of conversiono47 If that is not a fruit of Eucharistic or any other worship, the worship is for naught and actually diminishes the fraternal bond. The personal preferences and prerogatives of A pivotal concept for the essence of Capuchin fraternity is that of "lesser brothers." July-August 2001 the ordained, then, should not dominate any aspect of a Capuchin liturgical ecology. Rather, the ordained brothers need to under-stand and accept that in the liturgy they are special servants48 and that their concern is "the common spiritual good of the people of God [and all the brothers]49 rather than., personal inclination or arbitrary choice." so A Mixed Community. One recent contribution to understanding Capuchin life that can help in shaping a Capuchin liturgical ecology is the language of a "mixed institute." Pope John Paul II used this language in his letter to our minister general, John Corriveau, when he recognized that the Capuchins "constitute a fraternity made up of clerics and lay people who share the same religious vocation according to the Capuchin and Franciscan charism.''~ Mixed communities, according to the postsynodal apostolic exhortation l, qta consecrata, are .institutes "envisaged as a brotherhood in which all members, priests and those who [are] not priests, [are] considered equal among themselves."52 Some of the brothers, admittedly, 'think that the language of "mixed institutes" is not the best way to consider our life together. At the same time, th~ image of a mixed institute or community has a certain apostolic breadth that is lacking in our language of fraternity or minority. Our constitutions exhort us to "strive to nourish our spiritual life and that of the fraternity from the liturgy and .to open its treasures to the faithful" (§47:1). In a parallel vein, the Fourth Plenary Council of the order said that the aim of formation was to have men capable of living the gospel life in the worldS3--which implies that they be capable of praying and worshiping with all the p~ople of God, not just Capuchins. Most of the faithful in the Catholic world and most secular Franciscans are not "brothers" but "sisters." And so "fraternity" is not the best term to suggest our desire to share the treasures of the liturgy with them. Also, the terms "lesser ones" :and "minority" can be perceived as contributing to condescension towards and oppression of vast numbers of our sisters and brothers whom the world daily percei'(es as less valuable politically, economically, and personally and "minor" in worldly importance. The prophetic language of a "mixed community," whilenot suggesting fraternity and minority, does propel us into an apos-tolic mode regarding our liturgical ecology. If worship is .the fount of all Christian life, then it must also be the fount of Capuchin ministry and fratern)ty. The liturgy is a type of "rehearsal" of the Review for Religious Christian life. Rehearsal, in this sense, is neither the dramatic enactment of some long-finished historical event nor an imper-fect repetition of some act in order to get it right. Rather, it is a continual reentry into and appropriation of a rich and inexhaustible reality. Rehearsal so imagined is neither artificial nor preparatory; rather, it is ritual engagement with the truth. To rehearse, in the liturgy, our vocation as a mixed community is, therefore, to rehearse not only fraternity and minority among us Capuchin brothers, but also mutuality and collaboration among all the people of God.54 It is to announce prophetically the equal dignity of all the baptized in a "mixed" church and to honor each as integral and necessary to the church's worship. This is the "becoming" .and "living" of alternatives to oppression in a liturgical mode which CPO V called for?~ If we can tune our prayer life with sensitivity to the mixed community that is the church and can craft worship that is empathetic to all the baptized, thbse accomplishments will redound to the building up of the Capuchin fraternity and further realize our charism of minority. A Capuchin Ecology of Liturgy: The Contexts Besides considering the components and basic principles of a Capuchin liturgical ecology, it is important for us to look at the particular context which--given the ecological interconnectedness noted above--must impact one's own particular community's wor-ship, I will use my own context to illustrate this point. I belong to the St. Joseph (Midwest)Capuchin province in the United States. Two aspects of this context have a notable impact on shaping a Capuchin ecology for my province. One is the declining number of priests, especially apparent in the midwest and western United States. The other is a formation program that my province shares with the St. Mary province in the eastern United States and the Mary Mother of the Good Shepherd province in Canada. Working collaboratively .on initial formation has challenged my province to think interprovincially regarding continuing formation as well. I will flesh out some of the implications. The Broader Ministerial Situation. One context we must consider is the broader liturgical landscape of the church in which we are called to serve so that we can form and sustain men who are both comfortable and effective in that landscape. Of particular note in the United States is the declining number of active priests in the Jul)'-AUgltSt 2001 Foley * Eucharistic Praxis in Ecological Perspective U.S. and Canada and the growing phenomenon of Sunday Assemblies in the Absence of a Priest.s6 This reality grows in magnitude the further one moves away from the northeastern seaboard and travels west and south. For many people in the U.S. and Canada, not only is daily Eucharist an impossibility, but Sunday Eucharist is less and less frequent. Both the U.S. and Canadian bishops have issued ritu-als for Sunday Assemblies in the Absence of a Priest, The dif-ference between the two rituals demonstrates the wide range of possible responses to the shifting ecclesial landscape. What is most striking in this regard is the prominence the U.S.ritual gives to Holy Communion as a presumed' and integral part of the Sunday service in the absence of,the priest, whereas the Canadian ritual gives Holy Communion a secondary emphasis in its ritual,s7 Given this context, our minority can call us both to help people gather for Eucharist and also to stand in solidarity with them when they are forced to fast from Eucharist because of a lack of priests. The Formation Context. The other context for us Midwest Capuchins to consider in forming a healthy liturgical ecology is the joint formation setting (postulancy, novitiate, and year of integra-tion) that my province shares with two other provinces. The three provinces together stretch for several thousand miles, from Montana to Massachusetts. Distinctive ecclesial and community cultures are apparent across the vast populations of Catholics that we serve. Worship is often a focal point for these differences. This is especially true in a joint house of formation, where the expec-tation is that young Capuchins will be shaped in prayer patterns that not only' are credible for them but also will not create disso-nance with others in their home provinces, Like the liturgy, formation is about both the present and the future. Worship is not formation per se, but it is formative. Worship has an essential role to play in initial formation, as in all Capuchin life. For those in initial formation, however, worship serves some distinctively different functions from those it serves for Capuchins in continuing formation. Worship, for Capuchins as for all other Christians, is of course for their sanctification and God's glorification. In initial formation, however, it has the added functions of acclimating and sensitizing beginners to lifelong rit-ualizing in a fraternal, minorite, mixed religious community. Furthermore, in my particular context, it has the function Of shap- Revie~v for Religious ing future ministers to serve in the diverse and shifting liturgical landscape of the North American church. Consequently, a liturgical ecology for Capuchins in our initial formation program must respond not only to the needs of the can-didates but also to the needs of the local Capuchin com.munity, and must also successfully expose them to the range of official worship patterns that currently mark the North American church. Furthermore, their worship should help beginning Capuchins not only in their personal prayer life but also in acquiring skills in liturgical planning and leader-ship. Beginners should develop more than toleration for various worship patterns. They should develop the litur-gical flexibility necessary for flourishing and ministering within those patterns. While it is possible to generalize about the worship needs of men in initial forma-tion, there is also ~normous diversity that must be taken into account. The somewhat leisurely, almost idyllic setting for novitiate, for example, is quite different from the frenetic pattern often apparent in a house where our simply professed are attending school. The centripetal momentum of the former is clearly different from the centrifugal forces of the latter. Thus, important nuancing and even differen-tiation in the patterns of a liturgical ecosystem seem to be required. One size does not fit all here. CPO IV speaks of initial formation as a process of apprentice-ship which initiates one into the proper balance between fraternal life, prayer, and workY If this apprenticeship is to be "organic," as cPO 1v suggests,s9 and in continuity with the fullness of Capuchin life, then the prayer patterns of any house of formation must be in continuity with the fullness of Capuchin prayer as well. Life and prayer in houses of formation must be considered in concert with the life and prayer of all the houses of the province. The Provincial and Interprovincial Context. An ecological perspective sees all worship patterns within the larger provincial The expectation is that young Capuchins will be shaped in prayer patterns that not only are credible for them but also will not create dissonance with others in their home provinces. ¯ Fo~ " Eucharistic Praxis in Ecolo~cal Perspective and interprovincial ecology we call Capuchin life. No house is an isolated liturgical ecosystem, but is part of a larger Capuchin environment. A sound liturgical ecology within any house, there-fore, must be in relation to the liturgical ecology of the province (which CPO IV calls the "the prime fraternity"6°) or provinces in which it exists. Otherwise a single community (for. example, the novitiate house) can be reduced to a hothouse, and the chances of successful transplant--or ecological succession--anywhere else in the community will be seriously diminished. Prayer patterns across a province should be familiar, hospitable, and of such quality that they beckon any friar who would visit that house to share in the prayer. Provincial leadership, and not simply a single house or two, has primary responsibility for addressing the health of the entire provincial and even interprovincial liturgical ecosystem. This means that prayer life, prayer leadership, prayer quality, prayer frequency, and prayer commitment are concerns for all members of a province and of all the provinces. These are con-tinuing- formation issues. To expend energy only on the liturgical life of specially designated "houses of prayer," retreat centers, or houses of initial formation, and not expend the same energy on the other communities contradicts the principles of fraternity, minority, and mixed communities articulated above. Suggestions for a Liturgical Ecosystem for Capuchins We have provided some fundamental theological and pastoral principles, introduced the concept of a liturgical ecology, and noted the unique components and principles of Capuchin life. We have also noted the need to address the specific Capuchin context in which a liturgical prayer pattern must be shaped. What follows is a recapitulation and an array of specific suggestions. General Liturgical Principles ¯ Quality61 is as important as frequency in shaping worship patterns. ¯ Some prerequisite factors for sustaining that quality are sufficient time for preparation, especially for the various min-isters; sufficient time for celebration, allowing for appropriate periods, of silence; sufficient energy for celebration so that a spirit of "creativity and spontaneity" marks the worship. ¯ Continuity across various worship forms is essential. ¯ Resources of time, energy, and the various liturgical arts need be shared across the vai'ious liturgical celebrations of a community's life. ¯ The principle Review for Religious of progressive solemnity needs to be observed, so that there is a reasonable and effective rhythm of celebration in each house of formation. ¯ Creativity, spontaneity, and a spirit of contemplation need to mark this worship. ¯ Eucharist, the Liturgy of the Hours, and contemplation are the foundational triad for community prayer. ¯ It is the local community that is best able to assess its needs, and thus is the primary agent for setting its prayer horar-ium. ¯ Capuchins in initial formation need to be exposed to the central worship forms of the people to whom they will be minis-tering in the future. ¯ Continuity of values, quality, frequency, and resources are necessary across a province (and sometimes among provinces) for the integrity of a liturgical ecology. Eucharist ¯ A rhythm of quality daily community Eucharist is the ordinary ideal for Capuchins. ¯ Besides the general prerequisite factors for sustaining this quality noted above, quality daily com-munity Eucharist also requires a sufficient number of competent62 ordained brothers to share the leadership of presiding. ¯ Sunday Eucharist, as the central worship act of the church, is more prop-erly celebrated with the larger ecclesial community. ¯ On some occasions other than Sunday, it is~appropriate for the brothers to have their need for Eucharist served by the wider ecclesial com-munity. ¯ On some occasions Communion services are an appro-priate communal prayer experience for the brothers. ¯ On some occasions "fasting" from Eucharist is appropriate in order to heighten a forthcoming Eucharistic celebration, for example, fasting from Eucharist on the vigil of a great feast with an enhanced celebration of First Vespers. ¯ Concelebration is not an absolute canonical right, and is properly regulated by both the ordinary of a diocese and the ordinary of a religious community.63 ¯ Concelebration is a value which must be balanced with other values such as fraternity; it is possible that in some situations con-celebration is not the ideal in 'a Capuchin community; it should not simply be the prerogative'of an individual concelebrant, and must be considered in view of the wider needs of the community. The Liturgy of the Hours ¯ Quality daily celebrations of Morning and Evening Prayer are the ideal for Capuchins. ¯ Besides the general prerequisite factors for sustaining the quality noted above, quality daily cele-brations of Morning and Evening Prayer presume a notable level of musicality. ¯ The Office of Readings is highly recommended July-August 2001 Foley * Eucharistic Praxis in Ecological Perspective as a form of individual lectio divina. * The Liturgy of the Hours is sufficiently important that it needs to stand on its own as a central form of community prayer, and thus ordinarily should not be com~ined with the Eucharist as a matter of expediency. Contemplation ¯ The daily exercise of mental prayer.is the ideal for Capuchins. ¯ Besides specific time devoted to mental prayer, a spirit of contemplation should mark community celebrations of Eucharist, the Liturgy of the Hours, and other devotional activities. Popular Devotions ¯ Popular devotions observed by individual friars or local com-munities need to contribute to the overall liturgical health of the community, especially the central triad noted above. ¯ Since such devotions often have strong cultural references, it is often better for the brothers to celebrate such devotions with the cultural and linguistic communities that embrace these devotions (for example, in my own context, the Guadalupe novena and Eucharist are best celebrated with a Latino community).¯ Popular devo-tions are clearly secondary in Capuchin prayer life. Decision Making ¯ Decisions about a local community's liturgical ecology belong to the local community, facilitated by the leadership. ¯ The decision-making process should be in a "convergence" mode (that is, based upon the convergence of the multiple factors which need be considered in planning), rather than a "displacement" mode (that is, focusing on one factor which displaces all other factors in the decision-making process).64 ¯ Decisions about a commu-nity's liturgical ecolbgy are not permanent but cyclic. A process of decision making and evaluation and new decision making is essential for the vitality and renewal of the ecosystem. ¯ The deci-sion- making process should be flexible enough that there is room for proper experimentation and error. Both are part of the cycle of growth and development. Notes ' Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum concilium; here-after CSL), §10. 2 From the first antiphon of First Vespers of the Office of St. Francis, composed by Julian of Speyer and others, Officium S. Francisci, Ad I Vesperas, Antiphonae I, Analecta Franciscana X, p. 375. English translation in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, Vol. 1, ed. Armstrong et al. (New York: New City Press, 1999), p. 327. Review for Religious 3 Constitutions of the Capuchin Friars Minor, 84:2. 4 CSL §10. s For example, Aidan Kavanagh, On Liturgical Theology (New York: Pueblo, 1984), pp. 3, 8, passim, and David Power, "Cult to Culture: The Liturgical Foundation of Theology," Worship 54, no. 6 (1980): 484. 6 For example, Gordon Lathrop, Holy Things (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), p. 5; Don Saliers, Worship as Theology (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), passim; Geoffrey Wainwright, Doxology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 8. 7 Mexander Schmemann, Introduction to Liturgical Theology, 2nd ed. (New York: St. Vladimir Press, 1975), p. 12. 8 For example, §5 speaks of "the work of Christ our Lord in redeem-ing mankind and giving perfect glory to God"; §7, "Christ, indeed, always associates the church with himself in this great work in which God is perfectly glorified and men are sanctified"; §10, "From the liturgy, there-fore, and especially from the Eucharist, grace is poured forth upon us as from a fountain, and the sanctification of men in Christ and the glo-rification of God, to which all other activities of the church are directed as toward their end, are achieved with maximum effectiveness"; §61, "There is scarcely any proper use of material things which cannot thus be directed toward the sanctification of men and the praise of God"; and §112, "the purpose of sacred music, which is the glory of God and the sanctification of the faithful." 9 Summa theologiae I, q.4, aa. 1-3. 1o STIII, q.61, aa.l-4. 1, Congregation for Worship and Sacraments, Inculturation and the Roman Liturgy, §26. 12 Inculturation and the Roman Liturgy, §35; see CSL §34. 13 Pontifical Council for Culture, Toward a Pastoral Approach to Culture, §2. 14 For example, age, class, abilities and disabilities, educational back-ground, theological differences, and devotional needs. is This formulation is taken from the U.S. his.hops' 1972 document (rev. 1983) Music in Catholic Worship, §7. ~6 Raymond Brown, The Churches the Apostle~ Left Behind (New York: Paulist Press, 1984). 17 See, for example, Joachim Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, trans. Norman Perrin (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), pp. 138-203. 18 Adalbert de Vogii~, "Le Pr~tre et la Communaut~ monastique dans l'Antiquit~," La Maison-Dieu 115 (1973): 62-65. For one relatively exhaustive treatment of the gradual clericalization of monasteries and introduction of daily Eucharist, see Angelus Albert Hiiussling, "M6nchsKonvent und Eucharistiefeier," Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschungen 58 (Miinster: Aschendorffische Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1973). ffuly-August 2001 Foley * Eucharistic Praxis in Ecological Perspective ~9 See Antoine Chavasse, "Les grand cadres de la c~l~bration ~ Rome in Urbe et extra muros jusqu'~ VIIIe si~cle," Revue B~n~dictine 96 (1986): 7-26. 20 See Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987). Zl See chap. 3 of both The Earlier Rule and The Later Rule in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, Vol. 1, pp. 65-66 and 101-102; also A Rule for Hermitages, which makes no allowance for Eucharist but only for the Liturgy of the Hours, despite the presumption of three or four broth-ers living together, pp. 61-62. It was only in 1224 that the order was given papal permission to celebrate Mass within community houses, an act that commentators call "a clear testimony to an increasing clerical orientation in the order," p. 562. 22 See Jean Leclercq, "Eucharistic Celebrations without Priests in the Middle Ages," Worship 55, no. 4 (July 1980): 308-325. 23 Many churches in union with Rome (that is, part of the Catholic Church) that follow the Eastern rites limit the celebration of Eucharist to Sundays and major feasts. 24 See the assessment of the originality of the Franciscan project by Herbert Grundmann in his Religious Movements in the Middle Ages, trans. Steven Rowan (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), pp. 55-58. 2s "From the liturgy, therefore, particularly the Eucharist, grace is poured forth upon us as from a fountain." CSL §10. 26 CSL ~ 13. 27 Much of what follows is dependent upon the article "Ecology" by E.J. Dyksterhuis, in Compton's Encyclopedia On-Line (http://comp-tonsv3. web.aol.com/current_events/top_science.html), I.X~II.00. 28 See Dianne Bergant, The Earth Is the Lord's: The Bible, Ecology, and Worship (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1998), esp. pp. 14-16. 29 Bergant, Earth, pp. 15-16. 30 Robert Schreiter, The New Catholicity (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1997), p. 16. 3~ See "The Preparatory Rites: A Case Study in Liturgical Ecology," coauthored by Kathleen Hughes, Gilbert Ostdiek, and me, in The Ecological Challenge: Ethical, Liturgical, and Spiritual Responses, ed. Richard Fragomeni and John Pawlikowski (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1994), pp. 83-101. 32 CSL §7 speaks of Christ's presence in the ministers, the Eucharistic species, the sacraments, and the word and when the community prays and sings. 33 The General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours, §273. 34 See "leitourgeo" by H. Strathmann in Theological Dictionary of the Review for Religious New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel, trans, and ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (G~and Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1967), Vol. 4, 226-228. 3s Ferdinand Hahn, The Worship of the Early Church (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1973), p. 38. 36 Karl Rahner, "Considerations on the Active Role of the Person in the Sacramental Event," in his Theological Investigations, Vol. 14: Ecclesiology, Questions in the Church, The Church in the World, trans. David Bourke (New York: Seabury Press, 1976), p. 169. 37 Michael Skelley, The Liturgy of the World. Karl Rahner's Theology of Worship (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1991), p. 101. 39 Earlier in the constitutions it is noted that "Franciscan prayer is affective" (§46:6, emphasis mine). In view of this characterization and the previously noted need that liturgy be humanly appealing (see n. 14 above), it seems reasonable to assert that this ideal of daily Eucharist must be balanced with the need of a community for effective and affec-tire worship. 39 CSL §14. 4o Music in Catholic Worship, §6. 41 Fulfilled in Your Hearing, §8. 42 §§20-21, on p. 76 in The Path of Renewal: The Documents of the Five Plenary Councils and the First Assembly of the Order of Capuchin Friars Minor, ed~ Regis Armstrong. 43 §3, on p. 8 of Living Poverty in Brotherhood (Rome: Curia generale dei Frail Minori Cappuccini, 1998). ~4 The Identity of the Franciscan Order at the Moment of Its Foundation (1999), p. 35. 4s §14, on p. 31 in The Path of Renewal. ~ See Can VVe Always Celebrate the Eucharist? ed. Mary Collins and David Power (New York: Seabury Press, 1982), esp. the article by Enrique Dussel, pp. 56-65. 47 §16, on p. 31 in The Path of Renewal. 4s See §25 of the new Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani (2000). 49 The author's interpolation. so IGMR, §42. s* Letter of John Paul II to John Corriveau, 18 September 1996, as cited in Analecta OFMCap 112, nos. 3-4 (1996): 566. s2 Vita consecrata, §61. s3 §4, on p. 72 in The Path of Renewal; this image is reflected in our constitutions, §54. s4 See the related discussion in chap. 11 of the Fifth Plenary Council of the Order, in The Path of Renewal, pp. 116-121. ss §95, on p. 137 in The Path of Renewal. s6 In a recent report by the U.S. bishops on the priest shortage, the 3~uly-August 2001 Foley ¯ Eucharistic Praxis in Ecological Perspective following statistics were offered: total number of priests, 47,600; num-ber active in parishes, 27,000; ratio of priests to Catholics, 1 to 1257; number of dioceses reporting fewer priests than needed, 83 percent; parishes without a resident pastor, 2334; parishes directed by a nonpriest, 437; dioceses closing parishes, 13 percent; dioceses reducing number of Sunday Masses, 42 percent; dioceses expecting major increase in lay min-istry in the next 10 years; 86 percent. From the U.S. bishops' study The Impact of Fewer Priests on the Pastoral Ministry, as reported in the National Catholic Reporter, 30 June 2000. s7 Whereas the U.S. ritual provides for Communion as a possibility in all rituals presented (see §§25-36 in the U~S. publication Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest (New York: Catholic Book Publishing Company, 1994), the Canadian ritual provides only for Celebrations of the Word and of the Hours, without Communion (Sunday Celebrations of the Word: Gathering in the Expectation of the Eucharist [Ottawa: Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1995]). s8 §50, on p. 88 in The Path of Renewal. s9 §57, on p. 92 in The Path of Renewal. 60 §80, on p. 101 in The Path of Renewal. 61 While there is no universal agreement on the meaning of "qual-ity," the U.S. bishops offer direction in this definition: "Quality means love and care in the making of something, honesty and genuineness with any materials used, and the artist's special gift in producing a harmonious whole, a well-crafted work," Environment and Art in Catholic Worship, §20. 62 While there may exist no unanimity regarding what constitutes "competency" for presiders', the point is that, given the critical and for-mative nature of Eucharist for beginning Capuchins, presidency is not a slot to be filled by anyone. Someone (presumably the directors of the various levels of formation) needs to take responsibility for quality con-trol in this area. My working definition of competency in presiding is: "an obvious level of development in the priest-presider that combines (1) solid knowledge of the liturgy with (2) competence and ease in perfor-mance skills (gestures, proclamation, and so forth) for enacting the rites, (3) a clear pastoral sensitivity for the assembly and other ministers, and (4) a transparent spirit of personal prayer," from Integration for Beginning Preachers and Presiders: A Study Funded by the Wabash Center fir the Teaching and Learning of Religion and Theology (1999). 63 See John Huels, "Concelebration," in Disputed Questions in the Liturgy Today (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 1988), pp. 39-45. 64 See my "Evaluation of Roman Catholic Ritual Music: From Displacement to Convergence~" in my Ritual Music (Beltsville, Maryland: Pastoral Press, 1995), pp. 173-189. Revi~ for Religious KENNETH C. RUSSELL Being a Hermit: Where and How? Hermits face a basic practical problem: how to pay for the withdrawal from society that defines them. And their "apartness" does define them, as Jacques Winandy emphasizes: "'If separation from the world, and this alone, makes the monk' (Dom Gu4ranger), it must also, and by an even stricter claim, make the hermit."1 But how can hermits reconcile their desire to withdraw from the world and their need to be connected to it for financial reasons? Can hermits live at a distance from society and still be self-supporting--as the earliest eremitical tradition says they should be2--or is their solitude something to be paid for by others, either through outright gifts or a willingness to pay inflated prices for the small items they manufacture? How are they supposed to manage? After all, not everyone with a vocation to the eremitical life is a successful artist or a popular writer or a computer whiz who can sit on a distant hilltop and still earn real money. Not everyone who desires to be alone with God has a pension or investments to pay. the bills. For the last few centuries, no one has given much thought to where hermits should live and what work they might do. In fact, there was a tendency to regard Kenneth C. Russell, a frequent contributor, writes from 40 Landry Street, Apt. 1505; Ottawa, Ontario; K1L 8K4 Canada. JMy-August 2ool dialogue Russell ¯ Being a Hermit them as good-for-nothing nobodies who had no proper place in the regular structure of respectable consecrated life. But, after a long campaign by the pioneers of the eremitical revival, hermits have, as it were, been cleaned up and brought in from the cold. Canon 603 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law provides a much-appreci-ated mechanism by which they may gain recognition as individuals "dedicated to God in consecrated life." What effect, though, does this official recognition have on a hermit's fundamental problem: how to withdraw from society and still find money to keep a roof over his or her head and food on the table? Three Commentaries Canon 603 itself says nothing about the tension between the hermit's quest for solitude and his or her need of money. But, of course, the commentaries on the canon cannot ignore it. How do they deal with it? These commentaries are of some importance because they are among the texts likely to be consulted when a hermit seeks to be recognized as "one dedicated to God in consecrated life" by the profession of the evangelical counsels in the hands of'the diocesan bishop. These texts are also likely to influence those counseling would-be hermits on an appropriate course of action. I have focused on three commendable texts, each of which has much to offer anyone seeking information on the eremitical life. The first of these was prepared by the French Canonical Committee for Religious in 1993 at the request of the Episcopal Commission for the Religious State) (It is worth noting that in 1989 there were an estimated 150 hermits in France. Of the 79 female and 39 male he~rmits known to the episcopal authorities, 57 were monastics, 35 were religious, 7 were diocesan priests, and 19 were lay people.) The second text, written by D.J. AndrOs, was prepared in response to a request for guidance made to the Instituto Juridico Claretiano by some bishops from Spain, Brazil, and Italy. This long text, first published in 1986, offers a detailed model of dioce-san regulations which.might govern hermits in a particular church.4 The third text is an oft-referred-to article by Helen L. MacDonald titled "Hermits: The Juridical Implications," which appeared in 1992.5 I want to consider two questions. First, where do the authors Review for Religious of these texts think hermitages should be located? Second, what work do they suggest hermits do? In other words, I want to examine how these references deal with the tension between the hermit's distance from the world and his or .her need of cash. These are not directly questions of canon law, although the pattern of the canons dealing with religious life may influence how they are answered. Certainly the writers' conception of the eremitical life and the weight to be given to its various elements plays a role in determining where they think hermits should live and what they should do. Location and Work The outline of statutes Andr6s offers is the most restrictive of the three documents in regard to place and work. It situates hermits in isolated areas of mountainous regions. There is a practical reason for this idyllic setting since AndrOs, who.insists that hermits not work for others, recommends herbal gardening, beekeeping, and care of a flock as suitable employment for hermits. While he notes that the work undertaken by hermits' should not be too absorbing or exhausting, he also says that hermits should be financially independent. They should not expect the bishop or their family to bail them out when they have difficulties. AndrOs obviously believes that the "separation from the world" which characterizes hermits should be taken in a material, measurable sense. He also insists that physical labor should be part of hermits' penitential regime. Hermits, in other words, should not be exempt from the obligation to earn their living by the sweat of their brow. MacDonald takes a softer position in regard to hermits' paying their own way. She speaks of a need to determine how a candidates for recognition as hermits "will be financially supported. ,,6 This may come, she says, from work done in the her-mitage, contributions from family or a religious community, or, in the case of priests, from Mass stipends. She mentions the correc-tion of papers from college extension courses, weaving, painting, and making small crosses and other salable objects as work that could be done within the hermitage. The only exterior money-earning activity she mentions for nonclerical hermits is the possibility of part-time teaching. Like AndrOs, she points out that hermits have no right to expect support from the bishop. She Jnly-August 2001 Russell * Being aHermit find locations that foster the degree of isolation they need. notes, however, that he may fully or partially support a hermit if he chooses to do so. She concludes that "it doesn't matter much what the hermit does, as long as it is in keeping with the eremit-ical vocation and is approved by the bishop."7 MacDonald's openness to the idea that hermits might be supported by others or helped along with gifts of food or clothing suggests that she does not really expect most hermits to be self-sup-porting. It may be significant, therefore, that when she speaks of the work hermits do she puts the word labor in quotation marks. Since MacDonald situates hermits' work within the hermitage, she feels no obligation to locate the cell in a specific kind of place. She notes, in fact, that hermits can be found almost anywhere. Hermits, she argues, must find locations that foster the degree of isolation they need. Her understanding of solitude seems quite flexible; she believes that many hermits "will make daily visits to the poor or the sick.''s She maintains, nonetheless, that the loca-tion of hermitages should indi~:ate "a real sociological separation from the community.''9 She does not, then, measure hermits' iso-lation in miles or kilometers. Hermits need not, in her opinion, flee to hidden spots in the green countryside. The document of the French Canonical Committee for Religious also qualifies the sociological separation of hermits by pointing out that it does not exclusively or Hermits must even primarily refer to the avoidance of con-tact with others. The text notes, however, that individuals are not so caught up in eco-nomic and societal affairs as large groups. This peripheral status of hermits--compared, say, with that of a religious community-- should show itself by the solitaries' simplic-ity of life. But how is this life to be maintained? This document recognizes that the need to work can become a determinative factor in the sched-ules of hermits. It is a serious matter. Hermits are expected to support themselves. Candidates for official recognition are asked to consider what type of work they can do that both suits their aptitudes and respects the form of life they are about to embrace formally. The text does not suggest what sort of work hermits might take up. Nor does it indicate where they should locate their hermitages. It merely insists that the silence hermits need must be guaranteed by the solitary location of their dwellings. Revie~v for Religious Poverty Since work and a hermit's standard of living are integrally linked, we must look briefly at how the texts under consideration view the commitment to poverty that formally recognized hermits make. First of all, each text acknowledges the tradition that the poverty of hermits is a real, physical limitation. It is quite different from the poverty of members of religious institutions who, though they theoretically possess nothing in a personal way, share in the corporate sufficiency of the order or congregation to which they belong. Hermits obviously lack this "cushion," and, since they salvage as many hours as they can from the tyranny of work because of their desire to be silently with God, they are reduced to a standard of living that provides nothing but the basics. Even when hermits do not have to depend on work for their income, their focus on God alone strips away the distraction of material comforts. The poverty of hermits is neither the poverty of the destitute nor the poverty of religious. It is not a matter of not owning things, but of having little, whether owned or not. MacDonald explicitly acknowledges the difference between religious and eremitical poverty: "While poverty in an institute consists in being dependent on the superior or community for ~verything, the hermit may, in fact, own what is necessary while at the same time be lacking the very real security offered by belonging to a community.''1° The French committee of canonists points out, however, that the poverty of hermits poses a problem since canon 600 governing poverty in all forms of consecrated life does not seem to fit their situation. The committee notes that there are two ways of dealing with this issue. The first, which is more in conformity with tradition, views the poverty of hermits as a stripping to essentials in accord with the nature of the eremitical life. The second makes the diocesan bishop the hermits' superior in the strict sense, and not merely the overseer of their plan of life. The bishop, then, is seen as the "superior" whose administration and regulation control hermits' poverty. Although AndrOs emphasizes the real poverty of hermits, he seems, nonetheless, to be sympathetic to this second approach. When he states that solitaries should not own their hermitages, he is obviously bringing their poverty into conformity with the nonownership model of canon 600. His statement vividly illus-trates iust how untraditional this view of eremitical poverty actu- Russell ¯ Being aHermit ally is. Egyptian hermits may not have had a land claim on file in the local registry office, but they certainly thought of the huts they built with their own hands and at their own expense as belonging to them! I would argue that, while it may be inappropriate for a religious to own his or her dwelling, there is no reason why a contemporary hermit should not do so, if earlier savings make the initial down payment possible. A hermit's ownership of a modest apartment or cottage will not compromise the real poverty in which he or she lives. In fact, paying the mortgage will probably ensure it. Resolving the Tension Of the three texts examined, two attempt to resolve the tension between physical withdrawal from society and the need to make money by contact with it. Andr~s's document does this by locating the hermitage in a pastoral setting where the kinds of work it recommends can be done. MacDonald makes the hermitage the site of a cottage industry and then situates it to fit the hermit's tolerance for solitude. The French text does not address the tension directly. It vaguely locates the hermitage in solitude and leaves the question of how hermits might earn a living open, with the proviso, of course, that the work done not be detrimental to the lifestyle it is supposed to support. But how helpful are these texts? The mountaintop solution of Andr&s document obviously gives priority to the location of the hermitage. Isolation makes the hermit, as it were, and consequently the solitary place determines the work done. The text resolves the tension between the need to be connected for economic reasons and the desire to be separated, but unfortunately it limits who can be hermits since many people lack the aptitude for the work he thinks ideal. MacDonald's solution to the tension between withdrawal and the need to work is equally unsatisfactory. The hermitages may be located anywhere, but solitaries work in them at tasks that are unlikely to pay the bills. In this scenario hermits come close to being licensed charities like their medieval predecessors. MacDonald's attitude toward the economic status of hermits directly contradicts the French committee's insistence that hermits not be a burden to others. Unfortunately, its text says Review for Religious nothing about how hermits are supposed to pay for the solitude they are required to seek. Its silence, however, may indicate that the committee thinks bishops and hermits should adopt a practical attitude to the reconciliation of finances and solitude. Why There Is a Problem Why do hermits find it so hard to reconcile the need for soli-tude and the need to earn a livelihood? Why is this a problem? I believe there are two reasons. First of all, the recognition of the eremit-ical life in canon law has brought regulations in its wake. This was inevitable. Bishops cannot be expected to be responsible for what they cannot regulate. The real issue is just how much regulation is required. Andr~s's text goes into great detail on the various material and spiritual aspects of the solitary life. MacDonald's article and the document of the French committee "of canonists are more restrained. All the texts, as might be expected, fill in gaps in canon 603 by refer-ence to the canons governing individuals in religious communities. The consequence of all this is that, though hermits recog-nized by canon 603 are not religious according to the definition in canon 574, they tend to think of themselves and to be thought of as such. They are, as it were, drawn by the strong gravitational pull of religious life into a zone wher~ certain proprieties influence the conception of the kind of work they might do. Some jobs are thought respectable, some not. You might find a religious distributing clothing at her community's secondhand depot, but you will not find one handing customers their garments at the local dry cleaners. There is a good reason for this. Congregations have specific missions to fulfill in the church. The only problem is that this "religious" reason does not apply to hermits. They do not work to do good, but to earn the money they need to maintain their life of prayer. The fact that many hermits are monastics or priests or former religious strengthens this pull to conform to the respectability the Egyptian hermits certainly thought of the huts they built with their own hands and at their own expense as belonging to them! '371 . July-August 2001 Russell ¯ Being aHermit faithful associate with religious life. It is as though there is a line in the sand. On one side is the lay world with its way of doing things and, on the other, the religious world with its conventions. Canon 603 has clearly reached across the line and drawn the erstwhile solitary misfit out of secular society into a world where only certain ways of earning a living are considered proper. The shabby, "good-for-nothing" dropout whom no respectable order would admit has been spruced up and given standing in the church. It is only fitting, apparently, that such a "cloistered" individual earn his or her living "religiously." Hence we get the manufacture of pious items or other genteel pursuits within a hut up the lane from the "hermit lives here" sign. Benedict Joseph Labre and his fleas are still out in the cold! The second reason for the unrealistic approach to hermits' need for cash and quiet is, I suspect, an idyllic image of medieval hermits. Solitude is given such a priority in this conception of the eremitical life that any place other than a mountaintop or forest glade seems inappropriate for a hermitage. Unfortunately, the taming of hermits (whom Jean Leclercq called the least institu-tional of people) and the medievalizing of the image of solitaries hinder the adaptation of the eremitical life to the conditions of our time. Hermits face what might be called a Cluniac tempta-tion: to emphasize prayer to such an extent that work (penance!) and humility are neglected. Toward a Solution What, then, is the solution? How can the various components of the solitary life find their proper place in the regime of the hermit? The first step is to realize that the designation hermits is a catch-all word for a disparate group of men and women who, though they share certain common features, live these out in ways that are unique to each. The authors of the texts examined admit this. They tend to forget, nevertheless, that as a consequence the eremitical life resists organization and detailed regulatory prescriptions. If hermitswI am speaking here of nonmonastic hermits and of those who are not members of congregations tolerating them in their midst--can free themselves of the propriety associated With religious and can shed the medievalimage of the hermit, there is no reason why there should be any tension between their quest Review for Religious for solitude and their need to support themselves. Once the two issues are considered in tandem--as they were in the case of the solitaries in the Egyptian desert--hermits can seek solitude where they. can earn a living. And, if hermits are willing to live the hidden life of aloneness with God without display or privilege, there is no reason why those who lack the skills that make country living profitable should not find employment in the city. There is no rea-son why they should not take the same menial, part-time jobs that many lay people work at and live on. Living in the city will not compromise their anonymity or their noninvolvement in society's preoccupations or even their real phys-ical solitude. One can live in an apartment building for years with-out knowing one's neighbors by name. Encounters in the elevator seldom get beyond chitchat about the weather. In fact, the city offers greater possibilities for alone-ness than the country, where friendly and curious neighbors are likely to try to inte-grate the stranger in their midst into the community. The quiet of city hermits may not be the idyllic quiet that can be found The city offers greater possibilities for aloneness than the country. in the countryside (when snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles are not on the move), but it can be authentic nonetheless. However, just as the need for quiet must determine where hermits live, even in the city, so their focus on God must govern the kind of work they do. A long tradition discourages work that wears the hermit out or that demands so much attention that there is no room for God. It may well be, then, that hermits, most of whom are mature individuals, will find that the skills they have acquired over the years do not fit their new calling. They may have to look for simpler, less demanding jobs that can be done and forgotten about when the shift ends. A Summary and Some Questions In this paper I have been concerned with how some influen-tial scholarly texts deal with the tension created by the need of hermits to distance themselves from society while remaining linked to it for sustenance. I have argued that there is a disturbing tendency to deal with hermits as though they are quasi-religious. I have expressed the fear that this conception of the hermit, which J~dy-August 2001 Russell * Being aHermit goes hand in hand with a rather romantic image of the medieval solitary, will stifle the development of the eremitical life. It threatens to freeze the life into a privileged leisure enjoyed by pensioners, the financially secure, and those willing to take hand-outs from others. The texts I have looked at are concerned with her~nits "rec-ognized by law as. dedicated to God in consecrated life" by a public profession of the evangelical counsels before the diocesan bishop. One need not make such a profession to lead an eremitical life. Many hermits never take this official step, some because they are satisfied with the private vows or promises they have made, and some because they have not been able to find a bishop willing to accept hermits. Do some hermits perhaps feel uneasy about being recognized? Is the term public profession another example of a concept borrowed from religious life that does not quite fit the reality of the eremitical' regime? Should it, like the notion of poverty, be reinterpreted? Of itself, the technical canonical term public does not seem to imply publicity. Elizabeth McDonough states that "the vows or other sacred bonds (that is, promises or formal commitments) pronounced by hermits are public because the canon refers to them as such and because they are received by the diocesan bishop in the name of the church (c. 1192, §2).''~ Both AndrOs and MacDonald, however, make the commitment of the hermit public in the ordinary sense of the word. AndrOs recommends that it take place in the subject's parish church on a Sunday or a feast day. MacDonald insists that the congregation be involved "whether the ceremony takes place in the cathedral, the nearest parish church, or the hermit's 'home parish.'''~2 This kind of public event may be fitting for someone making a monastic commitment or taking vows in a religious congregation. But does this understanding of public fit a hermit? Does it not vio-late the radical hiddenness the hermit seeks? Does it not tend to make him or her a religious in the eyes of the people? Does it not awaken expectations that he or she will conform to what is expected of religious? I am reminded of Emily Dickinson's remark in her pbem that begins "I'm Nobody! Who are you?" When she surmises that she is not alone because the reader may well be Nobody too, she cau-tions the person not to tell: "they'd advertise - you know!" Exactly. It seems to me that big public celebrations, newspaper articles, Review for Religious television coverage, and so forth are hindrances to the witness of hermits. This should depend on the peace that goes forth from them and not on the fact that others know they are hermits. They should have faith that living a hidden life has value even if only the bishop and a few intimates know about it. It would be unfortunate if a split developed between the offi-cially recognized hermits and their untamed, unregulated, scruffy counterparts. It would be a setback for the eremitical tradition if hermits recognized in law pursued a somewhat stylized and regulated eremit-ical life while their freelance peers held firm to the nonconformity that' has always pushed hermits to the fringe of society and the church. The following statement, however, by a renowned canonist, J. Beyer, suggests that this is just what is happening: "Today, besides the public witness of the hermits through their abandonment of the world, austerity of life, and external soli-tude, there are also hermits who remain in the world, live in reserve, supporting themselves by common manual labor. They are almost unknown, and in their cities they pray and work to the praise of God and for the salvation of the world.''3 I argue that this distinction between publicly recognized her-mits following a "classical" eremitical regime, on the one hand, and hermits living hidden lives "in the world," on the other, is detrimental to the renewal of the eremitical life. The distinction is a false one produced by an unrealistic religious view of how soli-taries should earn their living and where they should locate their hermitages. Unfortunately, the commentaries studied do not come to grips with these issues in a practical way. MacDonald and Andrts offer unrealistic advice while the French canonists leave the whole matter vague. Authentic hermits--whither recognized in law or not--want to be anonymous nobodies alone with God in a simple life of prayer and work. They need to be able to support their arduous, insecure, and unapplauded lifestyle in any appropriate way they can. They need to live where work is available. Formal recognition according to canon 603 should intensify their commitment to this hard life, not restrict their ability to live it. The witness of hermits should depend on the peace that goes forth from them. ffu~-August 2001 Russell ¯ Being a Hermit Notes ~ [Jacques Winandy], A Manual for Hermits:for the use of the Hermits of St. John tbe Baptist (privately printed, 1964), p. 10. For a revised version of this manual, see Jacques Winandy, Vie drdmitique: Essai d'ini-tiation, Vie monastique, Vol. 6 (B~grolles-en-Manges: Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 1976). 2 See my article "Must Hermits Work?" Review for Religious 59, no. 2 (March-April 2000): 156-174. 3 "Les ermites," in Comitd canonique fran~ais des religieux, Vie religieuse, dr~mitisme, consecration des vierges, communaut~s nouvelles: ~tudes canoniques (Paris: Cerf. 1993), pp. 163-181. 4 D.J. AndrOs, "Proyecto de estatutos diocesanos para los ermitafios de la iglesia particular de. Comentario aplicativo al can. 603 del CIC," Commentarium pro Religiosis et Missionariis 65 (1986): 185-248. s Helen L. MacDonald, "Hermits: The Juridical Implications of Canon 603," Studia canonica 26 (1992): 163-189. 6 MacDonald, p. 177 (italics added). 7 MacDonald, p. 186. s MacDonald, p. 187. 9 MacDonald, p. 184 10 MacDonald, p. 185. 11 Elizabeth McDonough, "Hermits and Virgins," Review for Religious 51, no. 3 (May-June 1992): 305. 12 MacDonald, p. 180. ~3 Quoted in The Code of Canon Law: A Text and Commentary, ed. James A. Coriden et al. (New York: Paulist Press, 1985), p. 468 (italics added). Cleft for Me The hand that formed the firmament, that fit galaxies together and fashioned me, now hangs limp, nailed to a tree. Yet that mangled hand still has the power to cleave the rock inside of me. Teresa Burleson R~view for Religious CHRISTOPHER J. RENZ Learning a Foreign Language: Continuing the Dialogue on Homosexuality I;his poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," Robert rost describes the woods as dark and deep, an appropriate metaphor for emotions present in discussions on homosexuality in religious and priestly life. One need only compare two recent articles to get a feel for the deep and opposing sentiment on this issue. Paul Shaughnessy claims that homosexual i~riests are "legion" within the priesthood, that they are a problem to be solved (which will be tough, he says, because at issue is a fight between liberal and conservative Catholics), and that the solution to this problem is to reject all homosexuals who apply to the seminary2 James Martin, in sharp contrast, says that a clear and dispassionate review of the major issues raised by the presence of homosexual priests will help significandy.2 The question, he says, is not whether God is calling homosexual men to the priesthood, but why. Martin responds by analyzing the gifts that homosexual priests bring to the church: a profound compassion (arising from their personal experience with persecution, rejection, and suffering), a deep spirituality, and an artistic creativity. Any attempt to resolve these conflicting views can seem intimidating, like a journey into Frost's woods. A clear and Christopher J. Renz OP, director of formation for the Western Dominican Province, lives at St. Albert Priory Studentate Community; 5890 Birch Court; Oakland, California 94618. ' Renz ¯ Learning a Foreign Language dispassionate first step is Donald Cozzens's Changing Face of the Priesthood, and specifically chapter 7, "Considering Orientation.''3 The book's purpose is to describe the current state of the priesthood and review the issues and challenges that lie ahead. In chapter 7, Cozzens discusses the so-called "crisis of orientation" under three headings, "homosexuality and the seminary," "throughout the ages," and "the priesthood as a gay profession." He says that a delay in facing this crisis will cause great harm to the church and the priesthood. Though Cozzens's reflections specifically deal with seminarians and priests, I believe they are also relevant to religious formation communities. As director of formation in my province, I am particularly interested in exploring how this crisis affects women and men in formation programs. In this paper I will explain why I believe the religious formation community is a more helpful working model for discussing this "crisis of orientation" than Cozzens's seminary model. As his purpose is only to raise issues, Cozzens offers no in-depth look at possible causes or specific solutions to the "crisis of orientation" he sees, but, by linking it to a "disproportionate" number of homosexual men in seminary life and the priesthood, he seems to imply that this crisis is best resolved by establishing a more "proportionate" balance between homosexual and heterosexual men in the priesthood. He discusses the expanding social phenomenon of homosexual orientation and the conflicted relationship of gay and lesbian groups with the church, particularly as regards its consistent teaching on homosexuality (that homosexual women and men are to live lives of celibate chastity). Two related paradoxes arise. First, while gay and lesbian activists claim that the church denies them their sexual rights, they also note that the church has been an historical haven for homosexuals, particularly through religious life and the priesthood. Second, as a requirement common to both homosexually oriented people and to the priesthood and religious life, the church's teaching on celibate chastity has made priesthood and religious life naturally attractive for them. Cozzens does not consider a large number of homosexual men and women in the priesthood and religious life to be surprising. Cozzens's brief treatment indicates the tensions between the church and the gay and lesbian community and presents a forum for reflection and discussion. The tensions may involve doubts and Review for Religious even suspicion. Cozzens correctly notes that some gay4 networks and subcultures use the priesthood to legitimize sexual acting out. As he addresses concerns about the consequences of a priesthood seen to be a "gay profession," one is left with the impression that the real issue is whether or not homosexuals who enter religious life or the priesthood bring with them the sexual attitudes of the so-called gay subculture. More bluntly, are homosexually oriented religious or priests trustworthy as regards upholding the church's teaching on homosexuality? The implication seems to be that many will use religious life and the priesthood as "fronts" for their sexual activity. Such assumptions are harmful because they tend to dismiss the sincere and good intentions of at least some homosexual women and men. On the other side, homosexual persons who enter priesthood or religious life may have their own counterreactive suspicions. They may wonder if the church trusts them, if their religious community assumes that they will act out, if they will find support among their colleagues. Addressing these tensions is essential in order to allay such mutual distrust. Cozzens looks at two consequences of the disproportionate numbers between homosexual and heterosexual seminarians: the psychological effects and the threat to unity and integrity of the community. As a psychologist, Cozzens claims that a large number of gay men in their community brings about in straight seminarians and clergy a "chronic destabilization." This produces self-doubt, and has implications for both spiritual vitality and emotional balance. In the seminary the energy used to cope with this psychic unrest is energy diverted from study and prayer, putting heterosexual seminarians at a disadvantage. Cozzens compares this phenomenon to the stress experienced by a traveler in a country whose language is unfamiliar. Such chronic destabilization can be particularly problematic in a closed system such as a seminary because the unconscious stress can cause a loss of psychic energy, a sense of not fitting in, that may suggest to a seminarian that he is not called to the priesthood. Granting for the sake of argument all of this to be true, one is left to wonder about the psychological effects on homosexual Addressing these tensions is essential in order to allay such mutual distrust. Renz ¯ Learning a Foreign Language seminarians or religious in a predominandy heterosexual seminary or formation program. Will they not experience the same kind of psychic destabilization? Will they not feel out of sync too? And what about all the energy they use up in stabilizing themselves in the predominantly heterosexual environment? Would the simply professed who have a homosexual orientation not be tempted to leave the religious community for the same reasons? Would it matter if they did? Is it not true that the traveler will become more stabilized when committed to learning the language of that foreign country? Is this not the expectation placed upon homosexual women and men? One means to alleviate the chronic destabilization induced by the disproportionate number of homosexual seminarians might be the limiting (or elimination) of homosexual men in the seminary. Cozzens raises this possibility as important for consideration. It is clearly Shaughnessy's choice. Such an option would perhaps fall within the guidelines established by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF): "There are areas in which it is not unjust discrimination to take sexual orientation into account; for example, in the placement of children for adoption or foster care, in the employment of teachers or athletic coaches, and in military recruitment.''s This approach would provide a quick solution to a perceived problem. It seems short-sighted, however, and could be a greater threat to the stability of priesthood than that posed by the disproportion. Chronic destabilization may loom large in Cozzens's view because a seminary community is a closed system that is small in several ways. Seminary communities are transient in nature. They exist for the sake of educating men for priesthood within a few years. The focus is more on the individual than the group. Once formal education is completed, the community dissolves and is replaced by the "brotherhood of priests," a less tangible body. Religious communities, in contrast, are much more permanent. Members make lifetime commitments to the group, whose interests are given some priority over the individual's. This is not to deny that there are comparisons to be made to the "brotherhood of priests." But it is to suggest that religious communities are better places in which to understand and deal with the benefits and risks of chronic destabilization. What is learned in religious formation programs can be applied to seminary formation programs later. Review for Religious Formation in religious life is an inculturation process, a reeducation into the values of the religious community. Many wtio come to us carry with them the goals and values of the contemporary culture. Formation programs gradually confront these values and then see if they can be aligned with those of the church and the congregation or order. This process produces a sort of culture shock, a dis-ease not unlike chronic destabilization. It might be useful, therefore, to consider Cozzens's observations under this light. The issue at hand is not destabilization (which must occur), but how the formation program responds to it. Initial formation provokes successive levels of chronic destabilization. The first levels involve "externals" (times, places, schedules) and ways of socialization (inductive explanations, patterns of obedience, and so forth). Eventually, other personality values are encountered and challenged, including those dealing with psychosexual development. Being asked to replace personal values with the new ones belonging to the religious community and the church causes a psychic distress that usually lasts through the first few years of simple vows. The destabilization is indeed chronic and, left unattended, is detrimental to the formation process. Religious life brings under one roof a variety of people, including those with differing sexual orientation. Perhaps for the first time heterosexual persons will live and interact with homosexual persons. This experience will undoubtedly produce destabilization, more so for one in the minority. I view this crisis of sexual identity as part of the formation process. The psychic and spiritual unrest can be an opportunity for the individual to open up to the community's core values. It can, however, also induce a rigid shutdown. A healthy formation program, then, must examine why each person is being destabilized, that is, what values, prejudices, or expectations are being disturbed. The destabilization is then corrected through a gradual reeducation process, which includes both classroom and applied lessons. Living with people of the opposite orientation becomes an important part of this reeducation (restabilization) process. It is an opportunity to learn about someone who is different. It is also the time to establish Initial formation provokes successive levels of chronic destabilization. ffuly-August 2001 Renz ¯ Learning a Foreign Language common values and goals, including the community's choice for celibate chastity. Religious formation programs that reduce in number or remove homosexual members because they "destabilize" the community fail in their task of formation because they do no.t attend to the restabilization of the heterosexual candidates. Because their secular heterosexual values are not destabilized and in the process replaced with celibate Christian heterosexual ones (instead, the stimulus is removed), the destabilization can happen in an altogether different way, with the presence of homosexual religious. Heterosexual candidates whose formation programs do not destabilize them are ill-prepared for religious life because they are less likely to integrate the values of the community and church: celibate chastity, tolerance, charity, and so forth. Another problem with limiting or eliminating homosexual persons from the priesthood or religious life is that the developmental needs of those homosexual persons do not get addressed. A responsible formation program promotes good psychosexual development in all its candidates through things like course work, facilitated discussion, spiritual direction, and psychological counseling (where indicated). The result is greater psychological and spiritual well-being for the individuals and hence for the community. In many formation programs, sexual orientation is taken as part of a larger picture of the psychosexual composition of a candidate. Orientation is usually not, per se, the determinative factor for suitability in seminary or religious formation programs. As Timothy Radcliffe, master of the Order of Friars Preachers, notes, we human beings are "more than our sexual orientation. For none of us, heterosexual or homosexual, can find our deepest identities in our sexual orientation."7 This idea finds its origins in the CDF document "The Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons.''s Cozzens's concern about chronic destabilization in seminary life is problematic precisely because it overemphasizes sexual orientation to the exclusion of the whole person. This overemphasis, not the number of homosexual men, becomes the real concern. The second problem Cozzens identifies with these numbers is an inevitable emergence (he thinks) of a gay subculture, dangerous because it can cause a split within the seminary community and threaten unity. Consequendy, he sees a need for "determining the kind of vocational support appropriate to the straight seminarian Revie~ for Religious living in the midst of a gay subculture.''9 Cozzens quotes Radcliffe to support his position: "It can threaten the unity of the community; it can make it harder for the brethren to practice the chastity which we have vowed. It can put pressure on brethren to think of themselves in a way that is not central to their vocation as preachers of the kingdom.''1° It is not clear what it means to have a support system that is "appropriate to the straight seminarian." One might infer that Cozzens either would develop separate support systems for homosexual and heterosexual seminarians or, in order to keep their number to a proportionate level, would limit the number of homosexual applicants. There are several problems with this analysis. First of all, Cozzens has taken Radcliffe out of context, who states just above the quoted passage: "If a brother comes to believe that he is homosexual, then it is important that he knows that he is accepted and loved as he is. He may live in terror of rejection and accusation. But ¯ this acceptance is bread for the journey as he moves to discover a deeper identity, as a child of God . So, every brother should be accepted as he is.'''1 Radcliffe assumes that homosexual subgroups would be highly divisive because he also assumes that the homosexual friar has found support and acceptance as a homosexual in the community because of the community's healthy way of life. He implies that, when homosexual friars feel supported, there is" no reason to form a subgroup and that such groups would be disruptive. Another problem with a "vocational support appropriate to the straight seminarian" is that it presupposes an irreconcilable disunity between homosexual and heterosexual seminarians. It proposes to deal with the subculture by either ignoring or removing it. The better course is to deal direcdy with the subculture by looking at its values, introducing correctives where necessary, building up the values of the church and community (especially as regards celibate chastity), and exploring the common needs of the two groups. The concern over subcultures is legitimate. The presence of a subculture often indicates poor communication, stereotyping, prejudice, and exclusion. I take issue with Cozzens's "straight only" response to the Acceptance is bread for the journey as he moves to discover a deeper identity, as a child of God. July-August 2001 Renz ¯ Learning a Foreign Language presence of a gay subculture because it short-circuits an adequate analysis of the problem and creative solutions for it. One important difference between seminarians and new members of a religious community is in types and levels of commitment. Seminarians often do not choose the place where they will study. They may not think the seminary community and their personal investment in it are essential to their formation because this community is a temporary reality. Bycontrast, those who enter religious life choose the religious community for life. Initial formation is directed towards creating a viable community, and new members are willing to invest great personal energy in this process. These personal commitments help the religious formation director deal with a subculture within the community. Creating unity in a seminary would probably be more difficult because such personal investment in the group is likely to be lacking. The commitment by Cozzens to unity within the seminary seems to be a commitment to similarity (same orientation) rather than unity, the Pauline concept of unity embracing diversity (see 1 Co 12:4-26). Such an approach might be reasonable in the absence of a deeper group commitment by the seminarians. But separate vocational support systems for heterosexual and homosexual persons would amount to sides in opposition, the gay subculture versus the straight mainstream culture. The effect, then, could be an even greater disunity, O~en discussion (under the careful guidance of formation directors) is an essential means to develop this unity in the formation community. Fear can usually be eliminated through careful education and open dialogue. But is this "unity at a price"? Despite his concern for unity, Cozzens never suggests that homosexual and heterosexual persons come together for dialogue. Why? Is this a bit too frightening? Is this the deepest darkest part of the woods; where people are either unwilling or unable to go? The evangelical counsels call religious to be witnesses. In the presence of this fear of the "crisis or orientation," religious can offer a calming influence. The Dominican friars, for example, have formally stated at the general chapter of Caleruega (1995): "The same demands of chastity apply to all brethren of whatever sexual orientation and so no one can be excluded on this ground . No sexual orientation is a priori incompatible with the call to chastity and the common fraternal life.''~2 Other religious communities have formulated similar statements. This kind of leadership can create a Review for Religious proper climate for the "clear and dispassionate review" desired by James Martin. Formation directors should show a similar leadership. Keeping in mind the common responsibility of all members to adopt church and religious community values, formation directors can encourage open discussion on this "crisis of orientation." There remains one final issue: What would it be like for heterosexual and homosexual seminarians and religious to sit down. with one another and openly discuss the fears and prejudices that they have about each other? Would anyone come out alive from the depths of that conversation? How can we prepare a place where no one gets destroyed? I would suggest that the way is, as Cozzens describes, something akin to learning a foreign language. At first the student is disoriented. Learning the new language requires courage, patience, and the willingness to sound and look foolish at times. With diligent persistence, however, the ear, mind, and tongue gradually adjust to the foreign sounds and symbols. As proficiency grows the student opens up to experience the new culture. Eventually the differences fade away and the person feels "at home." This is the goal of the good formation program. Respon-sible formation directors model patience, openness, a desire for unity, charity, and a fidelity to the home we call religious life. In this way they gently guide the destabilization-restabilization process for new members. In addition to noting that the woods were dark and deep, Frost saw them as "lovely." The dialogue on the "crisis of orientation" in the priesthood and religious life, however dark and deep, will inevitably lead us to a beautiful place. By offering their experience to the church, religious communities show forth the beauty that results when people become "of one mind and heart on the way to God" (Rule of St. Augustine). This unity is, after all, the path by which we leave the dark woods. Cozzens is correct when he notes that a delay in facing this "crisis of orientation" will cause damage to the church and the priesthood. I believe that the church will effectively face this crisis only by journeying into fear, suffering, and pain. When undertaken with a genuine intellectual curiosity informed by a gospel charity, this journey can lead to peace and healing for all. There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, gay or straight in God's kingdom-~only redeemed persons. But there are ffuly-August 2001 Renz ¯ Learning a Foreign Langnage miles to go--are there not?--before we rest peacefully in that blessed unity. Notes ~ Paul Shaughnessy, "The Gay Priest Problem," The Catholic World Report (November 2000): 52-58. 2 James Martin, "The Church and the Homosexual Priest," America (4 November 2000): 11-15. 3 Donald B. Cozzens, The Changing Face of the Priesthood: A Reflection on the Priest's Crisis of Soul (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2000). 4 There is a problem of terminology in Cozzens's work. Specifically, what is meant by "gay"? For Cozzens it refers to some homosexual men (in the seminary and the priesthood) associating with one another. One secular definition means the part of the homosexual community that is politically charged and sexually active (whose ideologies and way of life are in opposition to church teaching). One understanding is rather innocuous, the other is not. This distinction illuminates those places where education on church teaching and healthy psychosexual development are necessary. s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "Some Considerations Concerning the Catholic Response to Legislative Proposals on the Non- Discrimination of Homosexual Persons" (1992), § 11. 6 See Gerald D. Coleman SS and Roger L. Freed MD, "Assessing Seminary Candidates," Human Development 21, no. 2, pp. 14-20. 7 Timothy Radcliffe, Sing a New Song: The Christian Vocation (Springfield, Illinois: Templegate Publishers, 1999), p. 146. s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. "The Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons," Origins 16, no. 22, pp. 377-382, §16. 9 Cozzens, Priesthood, p. 103. ~0 Cozzens, Priesthood, p. 103. " Radcliffe, Sing a New Song, pp. 146-147. ~2 Initial Formation of tbe Friars Preachers: Recent Documents (Rome: Santa Sabina, 1999), p. 217. Review for Religious GEORGE J. AUGER Reflections of a Novice Director CNoardinal Basil Hume OSB, in his Footprints of the rthern Saints, said, "I always think that people join a religious order for one reason, and stay for the proper one." I suppose that could be said of all vocations, be they to the religious life, marriage, priesthood, the single life, or even various professions and occupations. One might say that all life is "becoming," a process of gradual growth. For Christians this means entering ever rdore deeply into the paschal mystery of the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord. What follows are simply reflections, hopefully practical, on the process of entering the religious life, that is, on the novitiate. I offer a few things I have learned as novice director through reading, reflection, experience, and of course prayer. I shall consider first the candidates coming to us and why and then what we are called to offer them. Bear in mind that, though we speak of a "formation process" for those entering religious life, a novice director does not "form" novices--they form themselves. One can do no more than God, that is, invite persons to prayerfully discern and perhaps freely choose religious life as lived by a given religious congregation and as George J. Auger CSV presently ministers as novice direc-tor for the Chicago province of the Clerics of Saint Viator. His address is 1212 East Euclid Street; Arlington Heights, Illinois 60004. 2~uly-August 2001 Auger * R~flections of a Novice Director inspired by the charism of its founder. Of paramount importance is respect and reverence for those seeking entrance into religious life. Here we are dealing with the unique mystery of people's relationship with the Lord. What is good and spiritually wholesome for novices is also good for a congregation, and this whether the persons remain or leave. As Charles de Foucauld said, "Why I left the Trappists is why I entered the Trappists." The attitude of a novice director should be first and foremost the good of the novices, even before that of the congregation. The good of the novice is the good of a congregation. Congregations are of the temporal order, individuals of the eternal. No religious congregation is simply of divine origin. For apostolic religious congregations today, it is evident that novices are far less numerous than in the past. Some congregations are disappearing just as others are being born. The history of religious congregations down through the centuries bears this out. Who Are Coming to Us and Why? Those coming to us are sons and daughters of a culture vastly unlike that of most congregational founders. True, the charism of a founder may well be alive, but the living of it is expressed differently in differing historical settings. (The congregations founded during and after the French Revolution are but one example.) Still, all have common thread running through them: they all desire to bring Christ's compassionate love to the needy and poor of their time, and this in spite of the prevailing culture of their day. They are evangelical and they are countercultural. Specific details of their lives come from the living charism of each founder. Those entering religious life today are older than formerly. Most have college degrees, something often required before entry. (Is it not strange that before Vatican Council II there were "lay" brothers and sisters, members with relatively little formal education? Most were religious in the full sense of the word, yet today few if any would be accepted into active apostolic congregations. What was perhaps done for nondiscriminatory reasons had a way of discriminating. Surely the term "lay religious" is passe, yet are there not men and women called to the religious life who do not have and do not desire the academic knowledge required by many congregations? Where do such religious vocations go?) Many of those entering our novitiates have been Review for Religious successful in their secular endeavors. Some have had a "conversion" experience. Others find themselves unfulfilled and resdess and in this hear God's call for "the more." These are women and men full of enthusiasm and idealism, searchers seeking fulfillment and happiness in giving of themselves for the good of others. Generosity is not lacking. They are not looking for an easy bourgeois lifestyle. They are looking for challenges, unafraid of the unknown and willing to take risks for the sake of God's reign. It is a mistake to sell them short. It has been my limited experience that those entering our communities are children of the computer and television age. Some have read relatively little and are unaccustomed to sit still with a book. They have learned to live in an individualistic and "consumer" society, as have many of us seasoned religious as well. Silence, solitude, disciplined regularity, a simple lifestyle, faith sharing, an openness to the divine presence, and prayer are, for some, unfamiliar even though these things are essential avenues of spiritual growth. For some the primary motivation in seeking entrance into religious congregations is external. They see religious life primarily in terms of ministry or what they feel called to do (ministry to youth or to the poor and neglected, teaching, parochial ministry, and so forth). But these same persons often lack a theological foundation, both dogmatically and ascetically. The spiritual life is foreign territory to them. For them religious life is not a mystery of intimacy, but a means to the end of ministry. The contemplative dimension of religious life is seen only vaguely. Others seek religious life after having had an "experience of God." These are attracted to the person of Jesus and see religious life as a way to deepen their intimacy with the Lord of their lives, yet this intimacy is with a resurrected Lord and neglects the cross. All seems "sweetness and light," They forget that God's desire and theirs will only connect on Calvary. With Paul they must learn "to glory in the cross of Christ." The human existential experiences of those joining our ranks is far different from those of the past. For the most part, those entering before Vatican 17, and they were numerous, led a sheltered For some the primary motivation in seeking entrance into religious congregations is external. July-~lug71st 2001 Auger ¯ Reflections o~a Novice Director life supported by a regime that somehow guaranteed, in the end, some kind of fulfillment. They were inspired by men and women who lived the religious life of their day to the full and radiated the secret of a life rooted in Christ. In formation, when things became difficult, there was always the support of brother or sister novices. Life was lived in terms of a goal, and that goal was often seen in terms of a life following the years of formation. Certainly one indirect but real incentive was the respect and even reverence with which religious life was held by the Catholic community at large; added to this was a subde desire for recognition or advancement on the social scale. A religious was somehow a "special" person, respected and sometimes even revered. How things have changed! Gone are the years when our novitiates were filled. Gone is the ministerial certainty of those in charge of formation. Gone is the high esteem religious life was once given. Gone are those ministries once held to be for all time. Today it is difficult to speak of a novitiate community with only one or two novices! It is not uncommon for congregations to experience one or several "noviceless" years. Of course, there are many reasons for this, some mentioned above; yet this is no cause for discouragement. Many of the ministries once undertaken by religious are now taken by laypersons, some of whom are now called associate members of a congregation, enthusiastically embracing the vision of its founder. The Holy Spirit is present and guiding us, offering us the grace to read the "signs of the times." One must not forget nor disparage the past; rather, one must build on a past marked by generosity, sacrifice, and a willingness to give one's all for the sake of God's reign. This element in religious life has not changed, nor will it in years to come. I believe that those entering our ranks are sold on our mission. This is usually the most attractive element presented by vocation directors, and this is good. There is, however, a difficulty. Our mission is frequendy in a transitional stage. It is seldom limited to one specific mission, though there remain congregations with only one, such as nursing or caring for the aged. For congregations that once taught in primary and secondary schools, teaching is no longer exclusively a matter of schools. Parochial ministry, social services, and chaplaincies are now rightly seen as having a teaching dimension. Religious women and men consider all sorts of ministries as teaching, often resulting in small local communities and even one-person assignments. This can and does create a Review for Religious problem, for those entering our ranks seek community. They seek a community where men and women share a vision and are willing to sacrifice for it. The problem is that all too often apostolic congregations voice their common vision in such abstract and general terms that, in the end, these mission statements say and mean very little. The focus of such congregations is blurred or nebulous, and so those entering them may find themselves confused and uncertain regarding both identit3) and mission. It is well and good to say that our mission is to advance God's reign, but must one enter religious life to advance the reign of God? There has to be something more. In such instances the deep mystery of religious life is obfuscated. The purpose, I believe, of the novitiate experience is to clarify the meaning of religious life, a life devoted to a mission, yes, but at the same time rooted in and nourished by a personal relationship with the Lord. In reality and in the practical order, one's mission and identity as a religious are one: "I am my mission." The attractiveness and appeal of religious life comes from religious afire with the love of God and impelled irresistibly to love and help others (Col 1:28-29). Mission is rooted in one's intimate and personal relationship with the Lord. What Are We Called to Offer Them? There is an advantage to the paucity of novices today. We are now able to minister to one by one, getting to know them in depth and letting them get to know us as we live the mystery of our religious life. The novitiate is a time for internalization, of interiority: knowing and experiencing a deeper relationship with the Lord. It is a time to nourish the seed of divine love within them, to foster the contemplative in them, inviting them to experience God's presence and abiding love. To paraphrase an early father of the church, the measure of our love of God will always be commensurate to our conviction of God's love for us. "You have not chosen me, I have chosen you" (In 15:16). Mission is important, yet it is not primary in the novitiate experience. The external and all-too-human excitement and enthusiasm for what novices will do at some future time must somehow b

XA VOL. IX. NO. 2 APRIL. 1900 ooTheO O Oettysbuf! Mercury CONTENTS. Arbor Day Hymn 35 Our Country's Safety 36 Miscellaneous Column 39 Duties of an Alumnus to His College 43 An Evening- Reverie 44 The Duties of an American Citizen 45 A Strange Apparition 47 The Healing- Influence of Time 48 Editor's Desk 49 A Science Unfriendly to Sensi-bilities 53 An Outing- 55 Chief Incentives to Higher Edu-cation 57 Destruction of Forests and Ex-tinction of Wild Eife 59 Railroads in Turkey 61 Leaving- the Nest 64 Exchanges 65 FAVOR THOSE WHO FAVOR US. TkJ. For Fine. Printing go to CARLISLE ST. GETTYSBURG, PA. C. B. Kitzmiller Dealer in Hats, Caps, Boots and . Douglas Shoes GETTYSBURG, PA. R. M. ELLIOTT Dealer in Hats, Caps, Shoes and. Gents' Furnishing Goods Corner Center Square and Carlisle Street GETTYSBURG, PA. EDGAR 5. MARTIN, ^CIGARS AND SMOKERS' ARTICLES. t^" f^F? ^F* Chambersburg St., Gettysburg. Have you got to ■■■■ speak a piece? Well, we don't know of any kind of " effort," from the schoolboy's "recitation" or the schoolgirl's "rend- S ing," and along through the whole school and college career, down to the " response to toasts " at the last m "claee dinner," that ia not provided for among t— Commencement Parts, including "efforts" for all other occasions. (1.50. Pros and Cons. Both sides of live questions. $1.50. JBJ Playable Plays, For school and parlor. $1.50. ™ College Men's Three-Minute Declamations, $1.00. _ College Maids' Three-Minute Readings. $1.00. B Pieces for Prize-Speaking Contests. $1.00. Acme Declamation Book, Paper, 30c. Cloth, 50c. | Handy Pieces to Speak. 108 on Depurate curda. 60c. _ List of "Contents" of any or all of above free on re- ■ quest if you mention thin ad. ■ HUfDS & NOBLE, Publishers 4-5-13-14 Cooper Institute K. T. City Schoolbooks ofallpublishers at one store. .THE. GETTYSBURG MERCURY. VOI,. IX. GETTYSBURG, PA., APRIL, 1900. No. 2 ARBOR DAY HYMN. TUNB—"America." [By PROF. S. F, SMITH.] Joy for the sturdy trees, Fanned by each fragrant breeze, Lovely they stand ! The song- birds o'er them thrill; They shade each twinkling- rill ; They crown each swelling- hill; Lovely or grand. Plant them by stream and way, Plant them where children play And toilers rest. In every verdant vale, On every sunny swale— Whether to grow or fail, God knoweth best. Select the strong and fair ; Plant them with earnest care ; No toil is vain. Plant in a fitter place, Where like a lovely face, Let in some sweeter grace, Change may prove gain. God will his blessing send, All things on earth depend, His loving care Clings to each leaf and flower, Like ivy to its tower, His presence and his power Are everywhere. 36 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. OUR COUNTRY'S SAFETY—THE PUBLIC SCHOOL. IT has been said: '' The wars of the world are the mile-stones of history.'' Our country has just passed the mark of another mile, a mile which has proved a glorious epoch in her career. Battles have been fought and victories won, and our nation is the conqueror, and, at the close of the recent Spanish-Ameri-can war, our people find themselves possessed of an increase of the same feeling which has always characterized our nation. It is not the triumphant feeling which the conqueror has over his vanquished foe. It is not the exultation of a successful combat-ant. It is a deeper feeling and one which brings more real pleasure to the hearts of our people than the mere gratification of the desire for victory. It is the feeling of safety. Who can have more pleasure than the little child as he plays within sight of his parent, and knows that any attempt to harm him will surely be resented ? How well the tired soldier enjoys his sleep when he knows that trusty guards surround him. Few of us ever allow fear to detract from the pleasure of a trip on the railroad; we feel perfectly safe. likewise, how much the citizens of our great Union enjoy our prosperity when possessed of that same feeling of safety. And what is the cause of our great confidence ? Is it our strength of arms ? Russia is one of the mightiest of all nations in military and naval strength ; yet if she were deprived of her pres-ent efficient corps of ever-watchful civil officers and her complete secret service, internal strife would instantly cause her downfall. Does the cause of this feeling lie in our great numbers? No. China, the most thickly peopled country in the world, has been imposed upon for centuries, and is still being imposed upon, by countries which have much less population. Perhaps it is in our possession of large amount of territory. But Spain, our late opponent, at one time possessed of vast amounts of territory, has not been safe. It may be because of our present sound financial condition. But our financial condition has not alwa}'s been sound, and although at times our country has been plunged into great distress thereby, in no case has that feeling of security disappeared. This sense of safety which prevails in the United States to-day does not spring from external causes. It arises from an internal cause, and that is the superior mental development ofour populace, THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 37 brought about through free education. Our safety is the public school. The frequent crises through which our government has passed have taught us that no matter how perilous the circumstances, our people are equal to the occasion. They have true patriotism, which can only be inspired in those who have had some mental training. It is true that many who have not used the advantages which have been offered are, nevertheless, loyal citizens and devoted servants of their country. But the highest love of country can only be conceived by one who has enough mental training to comprehend reasonably well the workings of his own government. And when our people use—as they have been using—these oppor-tunities for free education, and by this means are able to cast their votes intelligently, we cannot help believing that the public school is our safety; for it is the votes of our common people that control our government. One of the greatest perils of any country is the ease with which the votes of the illiterate man can be influ-enced, but the educated citizen very seldom allows his opinion to be changed. It requires only a glance at modern history to see that those nations that have had the best free educational systems have the truest citizens, are most prosperous, and are possessed ofthe highest degree of safety ; that those whose intellectual standards are lowest are the ones who have had the least success in governing, have lost the most territory, and are now either in peril of downfall or in a state of entire subjection. The stability of the German and English governments is un-doubted, and their excellent schools are unrivaled. Free educa-tion is offered to all in France, Norway, Sweden, and Italy; and these governments are safe. On the other hand, the average Spaniard's lack of mental capacity is the result of the failure of his government to provide him with sufficient free schooling, and the feeble condition of the Spanish nation is only too evident. Only about three per cent, of Russia's immense population are able to read and write, and she is totally devoid of the feeling of do-mestic safety. China has no free schools. The government of Hindustan has given way to a more highly cultured conqueror. Not one out of a hundred Filipinos has ever examined the contents of a book. And the fall of the illiterate Turk is not far distant. The security of a nation is in direct proportion to the efficiency 38 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. of its public school system. And in this respect our nation stands among the highest. Our people are among the most enlightened of the world. They know how to run our government. It is not necessary that that work be left in the hands of a few intelligent despots. Our proportion of illiteracy, as compared with others, is extremely low. What a rare thing it is to find a young man now in these United States who cannot read the names on his ballot. And why is this ? It is not only because all over this land the doors of the public schools stand wide open, ready to receive him, but also many of our states have adopted laws which compel him to enter, and to spend a portion of his life in the school-room. With such a beneficial system of schools as this, it is no wonder that a feeling of safety prevails. And if we feel safe for this reason now, we have great cause to believe that our country is destined to be still more secure. Our nation is yet young. England and Germany have existed for many centuries, but we are not much more than one century old. Yet, our common school S3Tstem bids fair to rival that of either of these countries. Give us time and we shall excel both. And while we are growing in this respect, we are growing also in security. And this security shall increase, for our government recognizes the importance of increased mental training for her people, and her intention is to enlarge the facilities for obtaining it. We shall surely prosper; our foundations shall remain firm, because we have come to realize that our security does not lie in force of arms, in numbers, in possession of territory, or in a sound financial condition, but in the education of our people, and that the safety of the United States is the public school. —"NESCIO." " "Tis better far to win a heart That's loyal, kind and true, Than take a city from the foe, As mighty warriors do. For city walls are battered down— Such triumphs have an end ; But heaven and eternity Encompass friend and friend." It is better to inspire the heart with a noble sentiment than to teach a truth of science. —EDWARD BROOKS. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 39 "MISCELLANEOUS COLUMN." Scientific American, February 2nd, 2900 A. D. [Read at "Junior Special," rendered in Phrena Hall, February 2nd.] THE editorial management wishes to apologize to its readers for the lateness of the present issue and to offer in explana-tion, that the auto-feediiig-electro-hypopueumatic printing-press to-day refused to turn out over twelve thousand copies per second, and despite the most careful investigation by our best machinists the trouble was not located until late this afternoon. The perpetual motion-motor, it was finally discovered, had a cog broken out of the main epicycloidal wheel, of course lessening its working power very much. In the future we hope nothing will interfere with our usual prompt issue of the paper. A report has just been received at our office that great conster-nation is rampant at the central station of planetary communica-tion, because of the failure of the receiver of the wireless 'phone in the metropolis of our neighbor planet, Mars, to record the message sent by our Transportation Syndicate, regarding the proposed scheme of establishing a line of aerial transportation be-tween these two sister and friendly planets. The cause of the trouble in Mars cannot be imagined. It is earnestly to be hoped that their long distance receiving instrument which in delicacy, certainty, and accuracy of impres-sion is far superior even to our own, will soon be in working order again, and negotiations between these two syndicates be resumed. If an agreement can be made the line will run straight through from Mars to Chicago where the terminal will, in all probability be built, with no intermediate stations except a fifteen minute stop at the Moon for luncheon, provided the climate of that celectial orb does not prevent. VIVIFACTION PROCESS IN HISTORICAL INVESTIGA-TION. The electro-galvanicpropozone process of vivifaction for the restoration of life in deceased bodies in which decomposition has not too far progressed, one of the century's greatest inventions, is now employed by historical associations in their researches. The Boston association monopolizes this new application of the process by patent in America and is using it to great advantage on Egyptian mummies, which, in case the memory has not been too seriously impaired by prolonged inactivity, will, in answer to 4o THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. properly directed questions, give very tolerable verbal accounts of the life and times of the dim ages in which they formerly lived. Professor Sage, of this fortunate association organized for the purpose of original research, after patient efforts with the mummy of Rameses II, succeeded in bringing the renowned king of tyr-anny and persecution to consciousness, and by a rigid examination conducted in the ancient Egyptian tongue, secured many facts of the greatest historical importance. When Rameses was asked what he had been doing since he left this mundane sphere so many centuries ago, he gasped and cried out in great terror, "Xege ! Xege!" which being translated into English is "water ! water !," and falling back would have fainted, had the professor not promptly applied smelling salts to his nostrils, thus making further exami-nation possible. Conservative theologians who yet adhere to the superstition of less rational ages, viz., that there is another world where oxi-dation, chemically speaking, continues interminably, have attached a great deal of imaginary significance to his exclamations calling for water, confidently asserting that had Rameses known of the progress the world has made in invention he would have called for a Babcock fire-extinguisher. To discuss this question, however, does not lie within the province of a scientific journal. BY SPECIAL ETHERO-GRAM FROM PHILADELPHIA. ' 'The government medical board was puzzled last evening by a queer case of disease discovered among the south tenants of this city. The city physicians in special meeting determined that it was a reappearance of a malady known to earlier ages as consump-tion." This is the first case on record since the twenty-third century, when that dread disease was conquered by the celebrated medical discover}'of A. D. Ketterman, an obscure chemist, the great grandson of the renowned and eloquent preaching evangelist P. H. Ketterman, of the twentieth century. Thus is called to mind the achievements and genius of the chemist's great grandfather, who we find by reference to the encyclopaedia, converted the entire population of Gleuville, the "Babylon" of the world in that century. The destined pulpit-orator early showed religious inclinations. By reliable chroniclers it is asserted that even during his college course he would burst THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 41 forth in pious exclamations, quoting Scriptural names as if by inspiration, especially, it is said, after examinations, very much to the astonishment and edification of his companions. It will be remembered that the great preacher was the last master of the L,atin language in the world's history, whose style possessed in every respect the polish and purity of the Augustan age. Although the authorship is much disputed, it is generally believed by scholars that he wrote that celebrated epic, depicting the trials of a student on his weary pilgrimage through the muddy realms of learning. This sublime poem seems to have burst from the heart and experience of the poet-preacher. What school-boy is not familiar with the well-known couplet beginning this famous poem: " Greekibus—cramit, Flunkibus—damit!" The remainder of the poem can be found in any library of stand-ard literature. THE LATEST INVENTION. A machine christened the hypoelecto-chronogxaphic indicator for the accurate measurement of the energy and rapidity of the vibrations of the cerebal nerve-fibres, and exact determination of the algebraical formulae corresponding to the chemical reactions in nerve tissue changes during process ol thought and feeling, has recently been patented by a young inventor named McCarney. The machine is to be used in testing the qualifications of students for admission to colleges instead of entrance examinations, since it will not only more accurately indicate the capacity and attain-ments of the applicant as well as show whether he shall be a poet, orator, mathematician, or philosopher, but it will prevent cheat-ing, a practice which has been growing for many centuries. When the machine was applied to the head of the inventor, the indicator whirled around on the dial, coming to a standstill at the formula A s S. In order to test the machine as to whether it would always register with uniform accuracy, the inventor had it applied to his head several times but every time the pointer turned round with marvelous promptness and rapidity to the above mentioned formula, obstinately refusing to move the thousandth part of an inch, no difference to what part of the inventor's head the instrument was applied. The inventor is a lineal descendent of the famous Irish orator McCarney, a school fellow of the evangelist Ketterman at the 42 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. National University, known in his day as Gettysburg College, and possesses all the mental characteristics of his illustrious progenitor. MUSICAL COMPOSITION UNEARTHED. A musical composition of the first order has been discovered in an old cannon, unearthed on the ancient battle-field of Gettys-burg, which is causing much discussion as to its authorship in music circles. The name is somewhat obscured and although the first three letters Moz— are distinctly legible it cannot be deter-mined whether the remaining letters are —art or —er. The fact that it was found on the scene of the latter's early training and the high quality of the production incline us to the belief that it is the work of the later and more brilliant genius. ADVERTISEMENTS. All aerial machinery, flying machines, storm preventers, cyclone traps, rain producers, etc., etc., repaired promptly and to order. Terms moderate. Work satisfactory. Respectfully soliciting your patronage, ALUMINUM FOUNDRY CO., Pittsburg, Pa. RELICS FOR SALE. Bicycles, automobiles, phonographs and many other quaint and curious remains of the dark ages. ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION AND SYNDICATE, Boston, Mass. TO STUDENTS I ! ! Auto-Greek and Latin-translator; easiby concealed in vest pocket; runs two hours with one winding and will meet the requirements of any ordinary examination. Price $2.00. Satis-faction guaranteed. Also LATE SPECIALTY ! Auto-essay-writer ; easy to manipulate ; will write any thing but poetry and love letters. Correspondence strictly confidential. Price $2.00. For sixty days we will mail in plain package both the auto-Greek and Latin translator and the auto-essay writer to any address for $3.00. HINDS & NOBLE, (Incorporated 1887,) New York City. {In answering advertisements kindly mention the "Scientific American." mm THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. DUTIES OF AN ALUMNUS TO HIS COLLEGE. HEINTZELMAN, '01. 43 MORE and more are educational institutions beginning to see the importance of keeping in close touch with their alumni, and recognizing the fact that their success and growth depend upon these former students. The world judges the worth of a college by the sort of men it turns out. Athletics may and do advertise a college, but a long list of able and honorable alumni gives standing to any institution and commands for it the respect of all men. This assertion needs no other proof than that afforded by the older universities of our country. Their lasting glory is not in football and baseball teams but in the long line of illustrious sons to whom they point with just pride. To particularize, we would state, so must it be with our own Gettysburg. When the glory of the athletic field long since shall have faded, the world will look to the men who delight to call her Alma Mater, and in them see the true worth of Gettysburg. We cherish the memory of those who have gone before us from these walls, and rejoice that there are those who are to-day reflect-ing honor upon our college. Thus we see to what a great extent the prosperity of a college depends upon its alumni; and, as this is the case, certainly every alumnus should regard it as his bounden duty to do all in his power to uphold the honor and dig-nity of his Alma Mater. Often do we hear of colleges complaining of a lack of interest, as manifested on the part of the alumni in showing their utter dis-regard and unconcern for all college affairs. The all-absorbing and important question is, " How the alumni may best be made to retain his interest for his Alma Mater." The alumnus, if left entirely to himself is apt to forget the color of the desires, purposes and ambitions of his college days ; and as he becomes more engrossed in the details of business or the anxieties of professional life, to denominate as boyish and foolish the very things which made up the best part of his college life. But if he were put there again, under like conditions, he would be as enthusiastic as the best of the modern students. On the other hand, the undergraduate often fails to appreciate properly the attitude which the great majority of alumni are forced to assume after they have been out a few yearsi Affairs of \ V 44 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. profession, business, church, society, and home create their sev-eral diverging interests among alumni and make demands on their time which cannot be evaded ; so that it is only here and there one is found who can control his engagements, money and time to allow anything more than occasional indulgences in the revival of the old college associations. While the warmest recollections may remain, and the most devoted regard for the college may still be found, yet these things make him seem a very indifferent al-umnus in the eyes of the undergraduate. In no other way is the interest of alumni more revived than in the alumni associations. Where alumni are numerous a small per cent, can be depended upon to form a body large enough to support monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly reunions. The duties of an alumnus to his fostering mother are not com-pulsory, but must be prompted by a spirit of love for the institu-tion that did so much for him. In times of distress and need he should come to her. assistance as he would to his natural mother. Thus we see the duties of an alumnus to his college are many and varied—all converging to this general principle, " to do all in his power to uphold the honor and dignity of his Alma Mater, and thereby continually keep pushing her to the front rank among the best educational institutions of the country." AN EVENING REVERIE. As I sit by the open window, When the toil of day is done, And gaze on the far off hillsides Enclosing the setting sun ; O'er me creeps a lonely feeling, But contentment fills my breast As I see the day declining And the approaching hour of rest. My thoughts are my sole companions, What happy thoughts are they ; For in my mind I see my friends, So near, yet far away. Oh ! what a happy moment, When sorrow flees away, And sadness has no place, In the closing hours of day. —" LAH.," '01. wm ■n I THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. THE DUTIES OP AN AMERICAN CITIZEN. E. C. RUBY, '02. 45 WE often hear people expatiating about the glorious rights and privileges of the American citizen, especially those rights and privileges to which he is entitled under our form of government. With respect to these the American citizen may well be proud ; for he holds within his grasp powers for which citizens of other countries have long been contending. The citizens of every country have moral, social, and political rights. The American citizen differs from all other citizens in his political rights. This is due to the kind of government under which he lives. In America the citizen is guaranteed the right to worship God as he will; the right to assemble when and where he will ; freedom of speech, press, and petitions ; the right to keep and bear arms. Nor is this all. His house is preserved in-violate from search and seizure, and everywhere in all his rela-tions the shield of the law is thrown over his person and possessions. But the American citizen has likewise duties corresponding to his inestimable rights and privileges. Only in proportion as he recognizes and performs the duties devolving upon him are his rights and privileges of value to him. The citizen has his own destiny to work out consistent with the moral order of the world. All he can realize is made possible to him by his own nature, and he is responsible for the exercise of his own powers. Every American citizen has duties which pertain to the nation, the state, and whatever political division of the state he may choose as his residence. The duties toward the nation are true of all its citizens ; the duties toward the state are true strictly of the people who comprise that state ; so with regard to the smaller political divisions of the state. As the nation is the power that alone realizes the ends and purposes of government, it is by understand-ing the nation that the rights and dicties of American citizenship are learned. Foremost among the duties of the American citizen is patriot-ism— unselfish devotion to his country. If Americans will but catch the fire of patriotic zeal for their own country, there is room enough in history for the future generations to refer to their lives and their services as memories to be linked with those of Wash-ington and Franklin and Hamilton, of Lincoln and Grant and Garrison. Even at this present time the American citizen has an 46 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. excellent opportunity to show his patriotism by refusing to give encouragement or to lend aid and support to our enemy in the Philippine Islands. It is to be regretted that the American citizen sometimes loses sight of the true meaning of patriotism. It would be well for that one to put on his glasses and carefully study the following words from Henry Clay : " The high, the exalted, the sublime emotions of a patriotism which, soaring toward Heaven, rises far above all mean, low, or selfish things, and is absorbed by one soul-transporting thought of the good and glory of one's country, are never felt in the bosom of him who with-draws from his on account of his pride, vanity and egotism, and cannot see beyond the little, petty, contemptible circle of his own personal interests. That patriotism which, catching its inspira-tion from on high, and leaving at an immeasureable distance be-low all lesser, groveling, personal interests and feelings, animates and prompts to deeds of self-sacrifice, of valor, of devotion, and of death itself, is the noblest, the sublimest of all public virtues." Another very important duty of the American citizen is obedi-ence to the laws. Sometimes a law may seem to the individual cit-izen unnecessary or trivial, or may prove inconvenient. Never-theless, no one has any right to put his personal preference or con-venience before the laws which serve the public good. The government which guarantees to its subjects rights and privileges must be dependent upon another duty of the citizen— the payment of the taxes levied for the necessary expenses in main-taining that government. It would plainly be unfair that citizens should enjoy the benefits of a government without making any return. To vote may be considered as a right or a privilege. But it is also a duty, and one which ought to require as much faithfulness on the part of the citizen as that of obeying the laws, or of pay-ing the taxes. The duty of the right use of the elective franchise still needs to be learned by many American citizens. This is a duty which is required of every American citizen at some time or other. Finally, it is the duty of every American citizen to know his rights and to perform his duties ; to understand the privileges of his own government; to carry out its humane principles ; and to eradicate, by lawful means, all influences injurious to the peace and welfare of his native land. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 47 A STRANGE APPARITION. CLARENCE MOORE, '02. A TERRIBLE night it was. The rain which had fallen in-cessantly for twelve hours had about ceased, but the wind had risen, and was blowing a perfect gale, causing sign-boards to creak and shutters to rattle. The streets of Gettysburg were deserted. Not even was a dog found wandering around on such a dismal night. The clock in the tower of the old court house had just struck the hour of midnight, when a man stepped out of the Eagle Hotel and started towards the Square, leaving behind a group of jolly friends. Turning up the collar of his great coat, and pulling his hat down over his eyes, to shield himself from the gale, he hurried along the deserted streets, eager to reach his home, just south of town. Sorry, indeed, did he feel for having ventured forth on such a night as this. Once, before he reached the top of Balti-more Hill, he had almost resolved to turn back, but thoughts for the one who he knew was anxiously awaiting his return drove away his fear, and he hastened on. As he passed the gates of the National Cemetery he thought that he saw some object moving ahead of him, but the arc light in front of the gate kept swinging violently in the gale, and he could discern little of the appearance of the object. A sudden fear came over the mind of the traveler, and he wished himself at home. Mustering sufficient courage to make a full investigation, he slowly moved towards this object of interest, and discovered that which made him shiver from fright, for the object before him was that of a large, broad-shouldered man, dressed in mili-tary attire, crouching beneath the branches of the overhanging pine trees, to shield himself from the terrible tempest. Seeing no means of avoiding an encounter, our midnight traveler cautiously approached the stranger, and in a voice that portrayed his feeling, thus addressed him : '' Who are you that dares to cross my path on such a night as this?" The tall figure straightened to his full height, and in tones commanding, but gentle, made reply : " Don't you know me ?" "No." " I am General Hancock." 48 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. '' You General Hancock ? What are you doing here ? Why are you not over there on your horse where you belong ?" The figure advanced a few steps and thus spoke : " When The Smith Granite Co. erected yonder monument to my memory some few years ago, they did their work well, but about two years ago a flash of lightning struck the monument, shattering the base and rendering it unsubstantial. In every storm my position is perilous, yet, through all this time, I have never offered to leave my seat. To-night, however, the shaking was more than I could endure. I have always tried to be a fear-less man, but to-night the thoughts of being tossed over by the raging winds, and hurled down over yonder hill, were more than I could endure, so I have left my steed to seek shelter beneath these lofty pines." " My dear General," exclaimed the belated traveler, in a ner-vous manner, " I have just come from the Eagle Hotel, and whom did I see there but Col. John P. Nicholson, Chairman of the Battlefield Commission. He'll give you both thunder and lightning if he catches you off your horse." At this reply the General, without another word, sprang across the road, leaped the high iron fence with a single bound, and hastily remounted the steed which he had left only a short time before. Though storms have since swept over Cemetery Hill, never again has the General offered to leave his seat. This weird tale may seem incredible to you, dear reader, and far be it from us not to offer an explanation of the whole affair. Our friend who beheld this scene had evidently tarried long at the wine, which caused his imagination to become aroused and his vision obscured. THE MEALING INFLUENCE Of TIME. C M. A. STINE, '01. AS we stand in the light of the present and look down the long vistas of history we see, here, the ruined city, the overthrown statue, the ravaged temple and the countless tiny hillocks which are graves ; there prosperity smiled upon a nation, and all was beautiful and peaceful; yet while we look, the broken columns vanish amid the grasses, the tall pillars of the empty temple become the tale of the mighty, empty vastness THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 49 which we call the past; the graves have vanished into the bosom of the earth, and the happy and the sad become alike in the dim, mellowing light. The shadowy, silent aisles of time present no glaring contrasts. Time, the destroyer, is also Time, the healer. There have been great revolutions, terrible massacres, convulsions of nature which have wiped out cities, but they are forgotten utterly or, if not yet forgotten, are spoken of without the emotions of bitter passion that they once held. The terrible suffering has long since passed from the recollection of men. How much emotion is ex-cited to-day by the narration of the lives and property destroyed, or the suffering entailed by the wars of a Rameses, an Alexander of Macedon, or a Napoleon ? Or take, for example, two more recent events in our own country. How much of the bitter hos-tility of the war of the rebellion still remains? Even the South-erners themselves have in many cases utterly changed their views. No one is ignorant of the destruction of the Maine. Only one short year has passed and yet we no longer feel the shock of sor-row and indignation which the mention of this event at first ex-cited in our breasts. Time changes our opinions, even as it soothes regrets. What once, we may have regarded as an unmitigated evil we can to-day look upon rather as a blessing. It is sure that the monastic system of the middle ages was regarded as a great evil, yet it is also true that it was the monks who kept alight the feeble spark of learning, preserving the priceless treasures of the literature of the past to us. Consider our own Washington. How men clamored for action, for a general who would do something, that winter at Valley Forge ! He had few admirers then. Yet how men have changed their opinions ! Listen to the sentiments of Lincoln. He said : "To add brightness to the sun, or glory to the name of Washington, is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe pronounce the name, and in its naked, death-less splendor leave it shining on." Of this changing of our opinions the civil war affords an excellent example. As we have already said, the change has been so great as to be almost incon-ceivable. Having seen that time certainly does exert so beneficient an influence, we naturally inquire for the causes. Let us first con-sider new associations. As we hasten on, busy with our life 50 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. work, we constantly come into new associations. People think differently, and we are influenced by their views. Our own views are broadened and we look at an event from many standpoints, whereas heretofore we may have regarded it only on the light of our own selfish interests. Thus our views are modified and changed, and what we heretofore have regarded as an evil may now appear to us as a great good. Again ; a higher system of education, as our store of learning grows with the centuries, makes itself felt. It, too, broadens us and widens our field of vision, and, in the case of individual sor-row especially, it furnishes us other matters with which to occupy our minds, and other thoughts to take the place of a great sorrow. As a third cause let us consider one of the facts which we know to be true of the human mind. We are so constituted that we have the power to forget. It is a psychological truth that parox)'sms of grief or of joy will return each time with less force and with less frequency. Gradually we are able to forget even our greatest losses, our most poignant sorrows. Whether we will it or no, such is the case. Longfellow says: "Time has laid his hand upon my heart, gently, not smiting it, but as a harper lays his open palm upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations." So it is that Time deals with mortals, smoothing our cares and helping us to live on. It furnishes us new interests, new employments and causes us to forget our losses and disappoint-ments. As with the marble statue, at first its lines are sharp and clean cut, and the draperies stand in rigid folds, but gradually the lines soften, the draperies flow in gentler curves and the figure is doubly beautiful. We are not then heartless creatures that we do not grieve forever over the ruin of the past. It is rather one of the wisest provisions of an all-seeing Father that the present should crowd out the past, and that our griefs should be lulled and our mistakes corrected by the hand of Time. Imagine for a moment a dreary world, without a smile, where only there is mourning, and grief that cannot be forgotten. If it were not for this healing influence of time it is certain that the world would be uninhabitable; life could not be endured. Truly, "A wonderful stream is the River Time, As it runs through the realms of tears, With a faultless rhythm, and a musical rhyme, And a broader sweep, and a surge sublime, As it blends with the ocean of years." mm .THE. GETTYSBURG MERCURY. Entered at the Postoffice at Gettysburg as second-class matter. VOL. IX. GETTYSBURG, PA., APRIL, 1900. No. 2 Editor-in- Chief, ' S. A. VAN ORMBR, '01. Assistant Editors, W. H. HETRICK, W. A. KOHl.KK. Easiness Manager, H. C. HOFFMAN. Alumni Editor, REV. F. D. GARLAND. Assistant Business Manager, "WILLIAM C. NEY. Advisory Board, PROF. J. A. HIMES, LIT. D. PROF. G. D. STAHLEY, M. D. PROF. J. W. RICHARD. D. D. Published monthly by the students of Pennsj-lvania (Gettysburg1) College. Subscription price, Oue Dollar a year in advance; single copies Ten Cents. 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 Business Manager. Articles for publication should be addressed to the Editor. Address THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY, GETTYSBURG, PA. EDITOR'S DESK. THE Y. M. C. A. is heartily to be congratulated on the suc-cess and high quality of the entertainments presented under its auspices, this year, in Brua Chapel. The audiences were large, considering the unfortunate inclemency of the weather on two different evenings, and likewise, were always apprecia-tive, as manifested not only by repeated encores during the per-formances, but as well by the high terms of praise with which all who attended expressed their opinions regarding them afterward. Mr. Kellogg's entertainment, entitled " The Grand Bird Car-nival," was first on the list. Exhibiting by the aid of a stereop-ticon the birds in their natural haunts and environments, Mr. Kellogg produced, with the appearance of each bird upon the screen, its peculiar song and call by means of the art, or rather gift, of warbling, which he has cultivated with the most gratify-ing success. I 52 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. He was accompanied and assisted by Miss Octoria Stuart, a vocal soloist, and Mr. Gouhler, a pianist, both of whom were well received. The entertainment was highly interesting and in-structive. Elias Day, characterist, furnished the second evening of en-joyment. Mr. Day is graceful in delivery, unctious in humor, unique in personality, and, above all, a born entertainer, possessed of that versatility and originality necessary to sustain unaided the unbroken enthusiasm of an audience throughout an entire even-ing. The Patricolo Grand Concert Co. was in every particular highly satisfactory, giving us a musical treat such as only the best in talent and most proficient in art could furnish ; but it was by no means scandalized by being associated in the same series with The Franz Wilczek Concert Co., which fully, if not more than fully, satisfied the expectations created by the former. The next and last number will be a lecture. The committee expects to procure a speaker of acknowledged ability and wide repute ; and thus to complete a course of entertainments, which will not only reflect most favorably upon the association and com-mittee in its service, but will recommend similar courses in the future to the patronage of college and town. IN accordance with custom, and in compliance with law, Gov-ernor Stone recently designated and proclaimed Friday, April 6th, and Friday, April 20th, to be observed as Arbor Days throughout the State. Since 1885 days have been set apart annually by Governor's proclamation for the planting of trees and shrubbery; and in compliance therewith thousands of trees are planted annually. Public roads are being shaded, school grounds and college campuses are being beautified, and waste lands are being made to serve a purpose. The tree beautiful and symmetrical, the tree growing and ex-panding, the tree comforting and cheering, and finally, the tree towering aloft and wrestling with the storms, is emblematic of a true college class. Would not the planting of trees by the several classes have a tendency to unite more closely the several mem-bers to one another and to Alma Mater ? Perhaps in future years THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 53 class reunions may be held beneath the shade of trees planted in college days. " A tree is a nobler object than a prince in his coronation robes." So FAR we have had an abundance of material for publication, but stories and poems are lacking. We need stories and poems, and we believe that there are those in college who can produce these, if they but try. It is desired that students write articles, solid and humorous, and verse, specially ior publication. A few articles have been mailed to us, unsigned; these do not appear. The editors should know the authors of all articles, whether or not the name is to appear in print. IS SCIENCE UNf RIENDLY TO SENSIBILITIES ? HOPE DILL, 01. SCIENCE and humanity go hand in hand for the reason that science is in itself human. In studying the lives of scientists it has been my rare fortune to find none of whom the kindly and affectionate nature has not been spoken of as a general characteristic. And although humanity is said to be a natural and innate quality, that scien-tists all have been born human, would seem unlikely, indeed. It seems preferable to lay the blame on their careful and culti-vated study of the sciences, in which they see so distinctly the value of humanity. A great many facts illustrative of this could be related of the different scientists, such as Darwin's giving up his favorite pastime, shooting, as a sport which inflicted too great pain. Such illustrations could be multiplied, and would be very interesting, if space would permit their being brought in here. There is a story told by Mr. Dana in one of his lectures on "Coral Islands," which brings us a true idea of his nature. I shall give it in his own words : "During my rambles over the island I came across a noble bird, as white as snow and nearly as large as an albatross. In 54 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY my zeal for science I began to contemplate it as a fine specimen —indeed, a magnificent specimen—and although it was not in my line of research, it seemed a failure of duty to neglect the oppor-tunity to secure it. By a scientific process the work of death is easily accomplished. I went up to him ; he stood still, not offer-ing to fly. I commenced to carry out my plan—a slight point of blood soiled the white plumage, and my zeal gave out. It was another's duty to play the executioner, not mine; and after strok-ing down his feathers and wishing him well, I walked away. But as I glanced back from time to time there was that bird still looking at me in mute appeal, and I see him yet as on that day." The more animals become the object of scientific study the better; for the scientific spirit is essentially a spirit of benevolence and mercy, and a minister of good toward the lower world. It is by scientists that measures have been taken to secure merciful treatment for animals in their transportation, and for the prevention of various forms of cruelty and neglect, which animals have suffered at the hands of man. The question of vivisection is a much-disputed one as to its value; of course, the practice of vivisection is liable to abuse in indifferent hands; but the feeling of the scientific world in gen-eral is strongly opposed to needless infliction of suffering on lower animals. The diseases which afflict man and the animal world can only be known through these means. But after a time the need of vivisection will pass away, and the truths which it has established and taught will form a body of knowledge available for the pre-vention of suffering to animals, and also to the human race. It's the humanity in man which prompts him to risk his own life to prevent suffering among his fellow-men. We all have read of the late scientist who, in investigating the Bubonic plague, ex-perimented on himself for the good of science and to relieve the suffering among others. The wonderful treatment in similar dis-eases, what were formerly deadly, is due to scientific discover)^, and many of the scientists, imagining this knowledge, have lost their own lives. So let us think well if we are going to interfere in any way with scientific investigation, and let us endeavor to entertain correct views toward the lower animals, which in certain ways are even superior to ourselves. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 55 AN OUTING. ONE OF THE "CROWD." IT was iii the month of August in the summer of ninety-nine that " the crowd," as we termed ourselves, assembled to talk over the proposed camping party. We had talked over the same thing every year as the season came 'round, and, so far, it had not been realized. This time we were determined to make our actions suit to our words ; and, as each girl declared she would go if she were the only one to go, the way looked very clear, for us to spend a part of our vacation under the airy (?) roofs of tents. After much discussion and many suggestions from all, it was arranged that we should take extra blankets, jackets, lanterns, frying-pans, hammocks and bakers, for it was said, " afterweget there we will need loads of things which we haven't along." When "the crowd" separated that evening it was with the thought that on the morrow we would go to spend a short time healthfully and happily beneath the shelter of the leafy boughs by the side of the beautiful Dunning's Creek. On that memorable day, on which we started to the camping grounds, the sun came up in all his glory, much to the delight of us all, for we were trembling with fear, lest we should be delayed a few hours on account of rain. Part of the crowd went ahead with the tents and cooking apparatus, while the others of us were transported thither on the most comfortable (?) kind of conveyance—a hay wagon. We all wore hats that were broad in the brim, And in them I'm sure we looked very prim ; If you could have seen us that very day, That's what you would have had to say. It was certainly a jolly crowd, and must have been a very en-viable sight for the ones who were to remain at home. When we arrived at our destination, the tents were already go-ing up, and it seemed to us very much like " gypsying." Many were heard to exclaim, "Oh! girls, isn't this jolly ? " "It'sperfect-ly delightful ! " etc., but alas ! night changed our feelings some-what. As some of the girls were given to talking and laughing, rather than to sleeping and dreaming, until the wee sma' hours, we did not get a large amount of sleep. Just as we fell asleep we were awakened by a most terrific peal of thunder. The rain 56 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. came down in torrents, and the lightning was something awful. It was one of the worst storms we had ever witnessed ; and our first night in camp, too ! We felt the chill creeping into our bones and the edges of our pillows getting wet. We were very glad then to reach down and pull over us the heavy comforters which we thought were a burden to us. To make things worse, the boys had forgotten to dig a trench around the tent. That night as they silently performed their duty they looked, from the inside of the tent, like so many brownies hard at work, trying to finish before the break of dawn. Towards morning we fell asleep, and when we next awoke we heard sighs and groans from all parts of the tent; the following expressions were oft repeated : " Oh, girls, it's raining yet! " and "oh, girls, what shall we do? " In the absence of a cook the girls, all excellent cooks (as all girls are), took turns at the cooking. The cooks of the morning assured us breakfast and sunshine at eight o'clock, and, true to their prophecy, we had an excellent meal and glorious sunshine. During the week we spent our time fishing, boating, bathing, cooking, eating, drinking and reading. One of the most delightful things was the camp-fire at night, and the roasted corn and potatoes. Have you ever heard of setting eel-bobs for roasting ears ? Well, we sawsome boys who did it—and they caught thecorn, too. We had a delightful trip into " Italy "; it is not every camp-ing party that can take a trip into that beautiful country—and on a hand car, too. If you have ever had the pleasure of riding on a hand car, you can have some idea of what pleasure we had on that trip. After visiting many old ruins and taking souvenirs from them, we returned to our '' old camp grounds '' for the night. We were much pleased with the fine scenery, and much invigorated by the delightful breezes from the mountains. We spent Sabbath at camp. As we nearly all belong to the Christian Endeavor Society, we held a very delightful and inter-esting meeting on Sabbath evening on the grounds. We all thoroughly enjoyed our outing, and are all anxious to go camping again as soon as the season comes around; but when we returned to our homes we were fully able to appreciate what a sweet place is home, and what good things we have there. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 57 CHIEF INCENTIVES TO HIGHER EDUCATION. J. R. STONKK, '01. THE great elements in human nature that tend to incite to higher education are intense love of knowledge and the desire to see human nature brought into a closer relation with the Divine Nature by the holy influences of pure and rightly directed knowledge. These are the highest and truest incentives. All other worthy incentives, directly or indirectly, owe their origin to these. There are incentives cherished by some who are of a narrow and somewhat ungenerous nature, which stimulate an ambition to pursue a course of higher education in order to enter the sphere of high intellectuality merely for selfish ends and not for the noble purpose of using the power acquired through careful intellectual discipline to give to the world some new and elevating ideas along the line of enlightenment, and to bring it into more perfect har-mony with the plans of its creator. Incentives like these, tending to selfish ends and embodied in narrow concepts of what is true greatness, are cast into the deep shadow of contempt when contrasted with the truer and higher incentives with their glorious terminations in careers that have risen to the zenith of the intellectual sphere, illuminated the realms of learning and left their records in letters of fire, eternally upon the pages of history. Thus in order that men may be stimulated to take a course of higher education, in a true sense, a state of intense longing of the soul to drink deep of the fountain of knowledge must exist. If it does not exist as a psychical condition it may be culti-vated by a rightly-chosen course of reading, in which the indi-vidual is brought face to face with the greatest and most noble-minded authors; authors who .instill into the minds of their readers their own high ideals and lofty ambitions. The love of knowledge comes with reading and grows upon it. The influence of books upon man is remarkable ; they make the man. The young man who reads of deeds of manliness, of bravery, and of noble daring feels the spirit of emulation growing within him, and the seed is planted which will bring forth fruit in heroic endeaver and exalted life. Carlyle saw the influence of books many years ago, when he I 58 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. said : "Of all the priesthoods, aristocracies—governing classes at present extant in the world—there is no class comparable for importance to the priesthood of th» writers of books." Books are the soul of actions, the only audible, articulate voice of the accomplished deeds of the past. The men of an-tiquity are dead; their fleets and armies have disappeared ; their cities are ruins ; their temples are dust; yet all these exist in magic preservation in the books they have bequeathed us, and their manners and their deeds are as familiar to us as the events of yesterday. " A reading people will soon become a thinking people, and a thinking people must soon become a great people." As the mind is thus, by reflective reading, introduced into the sphere of philosophy and filled with an insatiable desire for ever increasing knowledge, it is destined to rise above the common modes of life, and to seek a course of thorough training in the higher institu-tions of learning in order that it may be more fully equipped for the vocation of life, whether it be along the line of philosophic or scientific investigation or of philanthropical work. The love of knowledge is not only the highest and truest in-centive to higher education and the principle that stimulates man to spend his energy in trying to bring his fellowmen into a higher sphere of morality and culture, but when created and fostered in the young mind, it is almost a warrant against the inferior excite-ment of passions and vices. It will cultivate a refined taste for all that is best and noblest in literature, and the culture of all that is purest and noblest brings scorn upon whatsoever is low, coarse and vulgar. Ivet the love of knowledge be created early within the soul of man, and let the principle be cherished throughout all stages of life ; and human nature will soon reach a stage of more perfect harmony with the Divine Nature, whose attributes are infinite knowledge and wisdom. "What a superb face," said a Boston girl as she stood before a marble head of Minerva. "Yes," said another, "what a nose for spectacles." THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 59 DESTRUCTION Of FORESTS AND EXTINCTION OF WILD LIFE. WILLIAM FBEAS, '01. THIS is a subject which has agitated many minds for many years, and one well worthy of study. The forest problem is one that must soon be considered, whether we will or not, because forests all over the country are rapidly disappearing. For the proper treatment of this subject, a retrospective view is necessary. When the Pilgrims came to America they found the Atlantic coast covered with a large belt of forests, mostly pine. They cleared small places for their settlements and for agriculture. It was with almost indescribable toil that this was accomplished. The forests seemed to spring up as soon as they were cut down. But our forefathers succeeded in preparing a great portion of land for agricultural purposes, as their number steadily increased. Gradually the drift of population was westward, and the country beyond the Alleghenies was opened up. It was a trackless wil-derness, inhabited by hostile Indians and wild beasts. The population of America has been steadily increasing, and with it the demand for lumber, which our forest supplies. The Atlantic coast has been made almost destitute of forests by the lumbermen making inroads into them. First, the New England States, then New York, then Pennsylvania were de-spoiled of their covering of forests, which at one time were thought inexhaustible. The Southern States have a forest sup-ply which is likely to last for some years yet, but those bordering the great lakes are rapidly losing their trees. It might be well to touch upon the uses and benefits of our forests. There is an old saying that " The tree is father to the rain," but with greater truth it might be said, "The rain is father of the tree." For the forests do not produce the rain, but the rain the forests, and without a certain amount of rain they can-not exist. We can easily see that where the rainfall is copious, and evenly distributed, forests thrive very well; and where it is light, and unevenly distributed, they cannot thrive at all. In California there are immense tracts of timber land, and in fact, west of the Alleghenies there are vast forests, which, under proper care, will produce lumber for an indefinite length of time; but if these be removed, or treated with negligence, the laud will soon be destitute. 6o THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. There are two great evils which threaten the life of the Ameri-can forest. The first is the forest fire, which is allowed unchecked to ravage large forests, and in a day destroy the work of perhaps five hundred years. This is either through negligence on the part of lumbermen, or pure wantonness of some vandal spirit. After the Winter cutting, the loose limbs become as dry as tin-der, and serve as an excellent field for such a fire. The fire de-stroys not only the young seedling, but the tree ready for the axe, and so affects the ground that it takes generations of enriching the soil to give suitable ground for a forest. The second evil is the cattle allowed to browse in the forests in most localities where they abound. They eat up every green thing, and thus only the old trees remain in a forest, the cutting of which at once means the extinction of the forest. The forests are mostly owned by private individuals, and thus the General Government could do nothing, but the State govern-ment should pass fencing laws and also laws in regard to forest fires, to inflict the severest punishment upon the one or ones starting them. They could easily be apprehended, since public sentiment would not shield those who do it, as it endangers their own life and property. Private owners might claim that it would not pay them to spend their money now, that their successors be richer, and there is truth in this. The forests are of benefit in restraining the mountain torrent, in preventing mountain springs from drying up, and in keeping the moisture in the ground for a length of time. So, if the forests are destroyed, perhaps large tracts of land watered by rivers having their sources in the moun-tain regions may be made barren and unproductive. The rail-road has had something to do in destroying forests, by cutting them in two, as it were, and perhaps sometimes in starting fires. The Government and the railroads should combine in the protec-tion of the forest. There has been a scheme considered by the "powers that be" to buy up waste land, and plant forests on it. They can plant them, but they cannot make them grow. The soil for anything of this kind must be sufficiently enriched. So we may arrive at the conclusion that if the destruction of the forests is to cease, something must soon be done to prevent the destruction of the seedling. There is another subject right in line with this, and also of THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 61 great importance, namely, the extinction of wild life. At one time the forests and prairies were full of game, which has grad-ually disappeared as civilization has advanced. Recently game laws have been passed which, to a large degree, protect the wild life of our country during certain periods of the year. The Ameri-can bison has almost entirely disappeared from our plains, being driven off by the Indian, white man, prairie fire, and railroad. Indeed, the railroad has as much as anything else to do with the gradual but sure extinction of wild life. Another example which should be mentioned is the birds which used to frequent our wooded lands, and especially forests on marshy ground. Many an object lesson we might gain from them, and profit by having learned them. Laws have been passed which, to a certain extent, protect them, and already there can be noted a cessation of their rapid removal. The destruction of our forests and the extinction of wild life must soon cease on account of public sentiment. RAILROADS IN TURKEY. ARDASHES H. MERDINYAN,'01, KONIA (ANCIENT ICONIUM). THERE is not any country which is more distinguished in her opposition to improvements than Turkey. It is well said, that the Turk does not understand progress, and like a dog in the manger, he has hitherto neither developed his realm himself nor allowed others to do it for him. The country comprises the most magnificent spot upon this great sphere, and stands forth as the most beautiful relic of the past centuries. Her civil and geo-graphical history have undergone many changes ; yet she kept herself far back in civilization and progress. As her usurpers were the haters of progress and reformation, it is not strange to see her destitute of many tokens of civiliza-tion; one of which may be considered railroads. They are the means by which a country enters into closer intercourse with na-tions, and people rise to a higher standard in ever}' phase. But Turkey has been one of the slowest countries in this respect, and she is even more fanatical than China in her opposition to im-provements. The Sultan has thrown every possible obstacle in the way of the opportunities for improvements which presented I 62 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. themselves by many foreign capitalists; so that old fashioned traveling prevails in the country even at the present time. There are not very many trains to abolish that old fashioned traveling, which is, indeed, subject to many hardships and dangers. Ten or fifteen years back the railroad systems were introduced into the country, but not fully yet. At the present time there are over i,800 miles of lines built by Europeans. During the last few years there has been great enthusiasm to establish railroads by European capitalists in different sections of those most important and historic cities, and some have been able to obtain the royal concession of the Sultan. Eately the Euphrates Valley railroad, which was for a longtime discussed, seems to be completed, run-ning from Constantinople to the Persian Gulf, giving a new and eas}r route to the far East. In 1878 English capitalists tried to get a franchise for their road, but they were refused. Then Russia tried to cut off British ambitions by getting the privilege herself; but the Sultan fearing to displease England said no. In 1888 the German Bank of Ber-lin and allied syndicates secured a concession from Turkey, and a railroad was built from Constantinople to Angora, and later— in 1897—to Konia (ancient Iconium). The precise arrangement with the Sultan was that after a time he was to buy back the rail-road, but as the Turkish treasury never has a surplus, the day of redemption has been put off and put off until the road is perma-nently in German hands. Now the same German capitalists, with some British interests in sympathy, have secured another conces-sion whereby they are permitted to extend their line to Bagdad, and thence to Bassorah, at the head of the Persian Gulf. This railroad is to be extended from Konia terminus on through the pass of the Taurus mountains to Aleppo, thence direct to the Euphrates ; down that great valley to Bagdad (about i,ooomiles from Konia), and finally to Bassorah, about 400 miles further. This route will lead through lands illustrious with early traditions. The moun-tains, too, are rich in minerals ; and the building of railroads will surely open up many sources of wealth. The rich mountains of Asia. Minor will open up their treasury for humanity, which, under Turkish power, had been out of existence. There are now rail connections from western Europe to the Bosporus. You can go from Paris to Constantinople on the Oriental express without change of cars. Thence the Anatolian railroad will now set you THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 63 down at Konia—nearly 400 miles to the east—and the extension will leave you at Bassorah, 1,400 miles farther. By this route, when it is in operation, the journey from London to Bombay will probably take 12 days. Russia put in her application for permission to construct a line of railroad from Karo in Trans Caucasus, a strong Eussian fort-ress, to Ergerum in Armenia, a Turkish stronghold. Russia's policy is to push this line on west until it connects with the Ana-tolian road at Angora, and also east by way to Tehron. These roads when connected will reduce to hours the journey which now requires days. They will do much to civilize the county, to re-move the barbarism, and will promote peace and bring prosperity to the country. At the present the condition of the country is very uncomfortable on account of the lack of trains. The recent enthusiasm of foreign capitalists is tending to introduce railroads in every section of the country, bringing to that country many blessings which have been excluded for a long time. A few more words may be interesting concerning the trains and the way of running. The trains are very far from being com-fortable. There are three classes of cars, and three grades of tickets. The fare is about 3-4 cents a mile. The first-class car is not equal to the regular passenger car of Pennsylvania. There are no excursion tickets, no smoking cars, no closets ; neither is there any water ; passengers generally carry a pitcher or tumbler to get a drink at the depots, which are provided with wells—nor even do they have stoves to heat the cars in winter. Cars are divided into four or five compartments, each having two seats cross ways, so that passengers sit facing one another. The doors are on both sides of these compartments ; conductor asks for tickets from these doors. There is no connection between two cars. A narrow platform extends on both sides of the car upon which now and then the conductor goes and comes from one car to another for the tickets. The arrival and departure of trains are made known to the people five minutes before by the ringing of a bell in the depots. After the signal of the bell the ticket window is open, and you see passengers, after getting their pass-port examined by the police, which are always in the depots, hastily buy their tickets and run to the cars. When a train ar-rives at a town or city all passengers are taken into the waiting room, where their pass-ports and trunks are examined, then they are left out. 64 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. LEAVING THE NEST. M. R. RABY, '01. THE subject suggests to our mind a nest in which there are some young birds. They have been under the care and protection of the mother bird up till this time ; shelter and food have been provided for them, and now they have grown to maturity and are about to leave the nest. When they do this they must take care of themselves ; hunt their own shelter, seek their own food and be prepared to protect themselves against dangers. As soon as the bird has strength enough to get to the top of the nest it will jump from branch to branch, and after a few unsuccessful attempts, will be able to fly. Rooking at the subject in a different light we can apply it to mankind. We may ask the question, " Why does the young man seek to leave home?" It is instinct with the bird; but man is endowed with an intellect, and different reasons may be given, which will answer the question. Sometimes he begins to feel the responsibility of life. He looks about, sees that those older than himself have all left the homes of their childhood and are now busy with life's duties. He feels that each one is put here for some purpose; there is some work for each one to do, so when he comes to the full attainment of his powers he is ready for life's work. The influences and surroundings at home determine largely whether he will make a start early or later in life. If his parents are hard working people, he will see this and will lighten their burden when he can, perhaps by leaving home and relieving them of the care of himself. On the other hand, if his parents are well-to-do, he will not likely leave home so soon. Sometimes there is a spirit of wandering which seizes the young man. He becomes unsettled, and perhaps discontented with the quiet, uneventful life at home, and wishes to see some-thing of the world. This is the most critical period in his life ; this is where he ought to pause and think. I cannot suggest any one better as an ideal man of character than Abraham Lincoln—one who left his nest thoughtfully aim-ing at something higher than simply remaining in the log cabin and not making use of his talents. He attained true greatness through his own efforts ; and, by making use of every oppoitun-ity, at the time of his death he held the highest office which a nation could bestow upon him. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 65 Who can tell on looking at the head and face of a child what his future will be? Look at the eye, nose and mouth of the boy at school and you will not fail to perceive from Lhe very outlines of his countenance that his destiny depends upon the influences by which he may be surrounded. On the one band you see him choosing his profession and contemplating a settled life, wedding himself to a virtuous and loving woman. "In another case you seethe man emerging from the scenes of brutal intoxication to plunge into deeper and darker vices, until life becomes a burden and he goes down to the grave forsaken and alone." "How different this from the career of the upright man, whose happiest hours are spent in the home with his loving family and who grows old amid the most genial influences, honored and loved, and who goes to his last resting place amid the tears of friends and loved ones, cheered by the hope of a happy reunion where life is perfect and joy complete." EXCHANGES. THE Oratorical Contest Number (February) of The Midland is the best exchange that has reached us to date. It contains eight orations that are worthy of a second reading. The March number is at Normal, which is good. AMONG the March journals, another special number appears ; it is the Poetry Number of The College Student, F. and M. It con-tains several rather carefully written and interesting poems by students. THE Marchjuniata Echo contains a high-grade story, A Legend of Alfarata and the Arbutus, by W. L,. Shafer. It is especially interesting to those familiar with the fabled Onojutta (Juniata). TIME'S Warning, in St. John's Collegian; Debating as a Fac-tor in Education, in The Bucknell Mirror, and The Use of the Dictionary, in The Roanoke Collegian, are worthy of notice. 66 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. WE welcome to our list of exchanges The Georgeionian. It is a bright, cheerful journal, containing weighty matter, with an abundance of foil. A DOWNFALL. c. w. w., 'oi. As I was going' down the street, I met a charming- girl ; She was so pretty and so sweet— My head was in a whirl. I wished to pass her dandy like, I wished to cut a swell, When I a cellar-door did strike, And lo ! behold !—I fell. I picked me up—a silly goose ; I heard a little laugh— A merry giggle, and—the deuce— I heard her say—" the calf." c$p THE DAY OF REST. There is a day of peace and rest For every troubled mind ; A day of joy supremely blest, Where strife is left behind. Grief comes to man as comes the night Upon the fading day ; But joy comes with the morning light, And dawn dispels the gray. The soul of each one seems to him So torn and bruised by woe, Unlooked for things with visage grim, Than ever man did know. But though the heart be bruised and torn, The future may seem dark ; The night will yet burst into morn More bright than heavens arc. Have courage, then, while yet 'tis night And storms seclude the stars; A fairer day more sunny, bright Shall greet your morning hours. -W. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY. 67 THE BRAVE AT HOME. T. BUCHANAN REED. The maid who binds the warrior's sash With smile that well her pain dissembles, The while beneath her drooping- lash One starry tear-drop hangs and trembles ; Though Heaven alone records the tear, And fame shall never know her story, Her heart has shed a drop as dear As e'er bedewed the field of glory. The wife who girds her husband's sword, 'Mid little ones who weep or wonder, And bravely speaks the cheering word, Although her heart be rent asunder; Doomed mightily in her dreams to hear, The bolts of death around him rattle, Hath shed as sacred blood as e'er Was poured upon the field of battle. The mother who conceals her grief While to her breast her son she presses, Then breathes a few brave words and brief, Kissing the patriot brow she blesses, With no one but her secret God To know the pain that weighs upon her, Sheds holy blood as e'er the sod Received on Freedom's field of honor. ' PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS. C. R. SOLT MERCHANT TAILOR Masonic BIdg., GETTYSBURG Our collection of "Wooleus for the coming- Fall and."Winter season cannot be surpassed for variety, attractive designs and general completeness. The latest st3'les of fashionable novelties in the most approved shades. Staples of exceptional merit, value and wearing" durability. Also altering, repairing, dyeing and scouring at moderate prices. .FOR UP-TO-DATE. Clothing, Hats, Shoes, And Men's Furnishing Goods, go to I. HALLEM'S MAMMOTH CLOTHING HOUSE, Chambersburg St., GETTYSBURG, PA. ESTABLISHED 1867 BY AEEEN WALTON. ALLEN K. WALTON, President and Treasurers ROBT. J. WALTON Superintendent. flammelstoian Broom Stone Company Quarrymen and Manufacturers of Building Stone, Sawed Flagging and Tile Waltonville, Dauphin Co., Pa. Contractors for all kinds of Telegraph and Express Address. Cut Stone Work. BROWNSTONE, PA. Parties visiting- the Quarries will leave cars at Brownstone Station on the P. & R. R. B. For a nice sweet loaf of Bread call on J. RAJHER Baker of Bread and Fancy Cakes, GETTYSBURG. PA. ELMER & AMEND, Manufacturers and Importers of Chemicals and Chemical Apparatus 205, 207, 209 and 211 Third Avenue, Corner 18th Street NEW YORK. Finest Bohemian and German Glassware, Royal Berlin and Meissen Porcelain, Pure Hammered Platinum, Balances and Weights. Zeiss Mic-roscopes and Bacteriological Apparatus; Chemical Pure Acids and Assay Goods. SCOTT PAPER COMPANY MAKERS OF FINE TOILET PAPER 7th and Greenwood Ave. PHILADELPHIA PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS. The Century Double-Feed Fountain Pen. Folly Warranted 16 Kt. Gold Pen, Iridium Pointed. GEO. EVELER, Agent for Gettysburg College PRICE LIST. No. 1. Chased, long- or short $2 00 No. 1. Gold Mounted 3 00 No. 3. Chased 3 00 No. 3. Gold Mounted 4 00 Spiral, Black or Mottled $2 50 Twist, " " 2 50 Hexagon, Black or Mottled 2 50 Pearl Holder, Gold Mounted 5 00 THE CENTURY PEN CO., WHITEWATER, WIS Askyour Stationer or our Agent to show them to you. Agood local agent wanted in every school. vmmwmwmwmimwmmwmmL I Printing and Binding We Print This Book THE MT. HOLEY STATIONERY AND PRINTING CO. does all classes of Printing- and Binding-, and can furnish you any Book, Bill Head, Letter Head, Envelope, Card, Blank, or anything pertain-ing to their business in just as good style and at less cost than you can obtain same elsewhere. They are located among- the mountains but their work is metropolitan. You can be convinced of this if you give them the opportunity. Mt, Holly Stationery and Printing Co. t**wkk7**. 3 H. S. BENNER, .DEALER IN. Groceries, Notions, Queensware, Glassware, Etc., Tobacco and Cigars. J7 CHAMBERSBURG ST. 1 WE RECOMMEND THESE BUSINESS MEN. Pitzer House, (Temperance) JNO. E. PITZER, Prop. Rates |1.00 to $1.25 per day. Battlefield a specialty. Dinner and ride to all points of interest,including the three days* fig'ht, (1.25. No. 127 Main Street. MUMPER & BENDER Furniture Cabinet Making, Picture Frames Beds, Springs, Mattresses, Etc. Baltimore St., CIETTYSBURa, PA. You will find a full line of Pure Drugs and Fine Sta-tionery at the People's Drug Store Prescriptions a Specialty. .GO TO. f?ote! (Gettysburg Barber Sfyop. Centre Square. B. M. SEFTON J. A. TAWNEY ,. Is ready to furnish Clubs and Bread, Rolls, Etc. At short notice and reasonable rates. ■Washington & Midde Sts., Gettysburg. W.RCODORI, Sin^TSXl Dealer in Beef, Pork, Lamb, Veal, Sausage. Special rates to Clubs. York St., GETTYSBURG. Davib Croxel, Dealer in ^tne groceries anb Hotiorts *_{-c4}orfc Street. .GO TO. CHAS. E. BARBEHENN, Barber In the Eagle Hotel, Cor. Main and Washington Sts. YOHN BROS Agents for the Keystone State, Waldo, Washburn, Groupner & Meyer. Highest Grade Mandolins, Guitars, Banjos, Mandollas and Mandocellos. Headquarters for Phonographs, Graphophones and supplies. Trimmings of every description. All sheet music one-half off. Earge discounts on Books and studies. 326 Market St., Harrisburg, Pa. FAVOR THOSE WHO FAVOR US. Spalding's OFFICIAL Athletic Goods Officially adopted by the leading Colleges, Schools and Athletic Clubs of the Country. Every requisite lor Baseball, Football, Golf, Tennis, Athlet-ics, Gymnasium. Spalding-'s Offi-cial League Ball is the Official Ball of the Na-tional League and all the lead-ing college asso-ciations Handsome cata-logue of Athletic Sports free to any address. Spalding's Baseball Guide for 1900,10 cts. A. Q. SPALD1NG & BROS. New York Chicago Denver ROWE. YOUR GROCER Carries Pull Line of Groceries, Canned Goods, Etc, Best Coal Oil and Brooms at most Reasonable Prices. OPPOSITE COLLEGE CAMPUS. S. J. CODORI, *# Druggists Dealer in Drugs, Medicines, Toilet Articles, J> Stationery, Blank Books, Amateur Pho-tographic Supplies, Etc., Etc. BALTIMORE ST. R. H. CULP PAPER HANGER, Second Square, York Street. COLLEGE EMBLEMS. EMIL ZOTHE, ■ ENGRAVER, DESIGNER AND MANUFACTURING JEWELER. 19 S. NINTH ST. PHILADELPHIA, PA. SPECIALTIES: Masonic Marks, Society Badges, College Buttons, Pins, Scarf Pins, Stick Pins and Athletic Prizes. All Goods ordered through A.N. Bean. To Repair Broken Arti-cles use Remember MAJOR'S RUBBER CEMENT, MAJOR'S LEATHER CEMENT. Meneely Bell Co. TROY, N. Y. MANUFACTURERS OF SUPERIOR BELLS The 2000 pound bell now ringing in the tower of Pennsylvania Col-lege was manufactured at this foundry. PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS. You can't expect to create the im-pression that you are well dressed unless your clothes are MADE FOR YOU. Equivocate as you may, the fact remains that ready-made garments lack that air of exclusiveness which custom work possesses. J. O. LIPPY, Merchant Tailor 39 Chambersburg- St., Gettysburg1, Pa. G. E. SPANGLER, Dealer in Pianos, Organs, Music, Musical Instruments, Strings, Etc. YORK STREET. 1ST SQUARE. GETTYSBURG. L. D. Miller, GROCER Confectioner and Fruiterer. Ice Cream and Oysters in Season. 19 Main St. GETTYSBURG City Hotel, Main St. Gettysburg. J* Free 'Bus to and from all Trains Thirty seconds' walk from either depot Dinner with drive over field with four or more, $1.35 Rates $1.50 to $2.00 per day John E. Hughes, Frop. ^WlLLlNSUREYOUR^ FAMILYONEYEAR/ i AGAINST ILLNE5S. 1 PHY5ICIAN5& PLUMBERS' BILLS.DUETO IMPURE AIR, To/itrPstPfR agrnrW-tsi* ,N. flew York, Bos/on. PA//d

The College Metcuty. VOL. IV. GETTYSBURG, PA., JUNE, 1896. No. 4. THE COLLEGE MEftClPRY, Published each month during the college year by the Students of Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College. STAFF. Editor: ROBBIN B. WOLF, 97- Associate Editors : LEWIS C. MANGES, '97. ED. W. MEISENH ELDER, SAMUEL J. MILLER '97. CHARLES T. LARK '98. JOHN W. OTT, '97. CHARLES H. TILP, '98. EDMUND L. KOLLER, '98. Alumni Association Editor: REV. D. FRANK GARLAND, A. M., Baltimore, Md. Business Manager: HARRY R, SMITH, '97. Assistant Business Manager: JOHN E. MEISENHELDER, '97. m™™./One volume (ten monflhs). . . . $1.(10 1ERMS-tsingle copies 15 Payable in advance. All Students are requested to hand us matter for publication. The Alumni and ex-members of the College will favor us by sending information concerning their whereabouts or any items they may think would be interesting for publication. All subscriptions and business matters should be addressed to the business manager. Matter intended for publication should be addressed to the Editor Address, THE COLLEGE MERCURY, Gettysburg, Pa. EDITORIALS, 47 MUNICIPAL REFORM, 50 MEDUSA WITH GORGONIAN TERROR GUARDS THE FORD, - 52 GIRLS THAT ARE WANTED, 53 COLLEGE SLANG, 54 COLLEGE LOCALS, 54 ALUMNI NOTES, - - 57 ATHLETICS, 1 - - - - 61 FRATERNITY NOTES, - -.--.--62 Y. M C. A. NOTES, --- . --- 63 TOWN AND SEMINARY NOTES, 64 LITERARY SOCIETIES, - - --- 65 EDITORIAL. WITH this issue the new Staff takes charge of the MERCURY. Our first number is un-avoidably a rather inferior one, but we will endeavor to improve with experience. We feel the responsibility resting on us and enter-tain some fear as to our ability to properly rep-resent so great an institution. We recognize the fact that it will be no easy task to keep the MERCURY up to its standard. During the past year the MERCURY has compared very favor-ably with all its sister monthlies. The most we can hope is to do as »well as last year's Staff with little or no idea of being able to improve on it. To this end the Staff asks for general co-operation and assistance. The MERCURY is called the College paper and"? it cannot be such without the hearty co-opera-tion of the Faculty, Students and Alumni. Notwithstanding the few thorns which may spring up in our path, we have undertaken the task in the hope that you will join in with us and make the MERCURY a splendid success. Let us endeavor to make this year's MERCURY the best possible. If you give us such assist-ance as is due from you, it will be a very cold day when the MERCURY drops. If you have any suggestions which you think will help us, they will be cheerfully received and most care-fully heeded. *** AFTER many months of hard labor by the class and several more of anxious expectation, the Specif um has at last appeared. The Fresh-men and others can no longer torment the editor with the question, '' When will the Spec-trum be out ?'' The book is a grand success and well worthy of notice in our columns. It was an agreeable surprise to everyone to see such an excellent college annual. Its beauty 48 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. starts with the cove, blue with the lettering and seal of the college in gold. Contrary to the maxim, the beauty is deeper than the sur-face. The half-tone engravings and the line drawings are far better and far more numerous than in any of the previous numbers. The reading matter also is very creditable. Wit and humor abound throughout the book. Some of the class histories are very spicy. A number of funny drawings represent the comic societies, such as the "Deutsche-Gesellschafft" and the "Brother's Cohen." No doubt the Faculty were able to solve the names of the whist club. The Spectrum is very appropriately dedi-cated to John E. Graeff, Esq., President of the Board of Trustees. In this the Staff has given an illustration of the eternal fitness of things. Mr. GrEeff has done so much for our institu-tion that he deseryes our respect and admira-tion. In no way could the boys have shown their appreciation of him better than by this dedication. The advertisements are especially numer-ous. Nearly all the business houses of G. as well as many of other cities and towns are represented. This department of the Spectrum is so essential to its success that the manager and his assistants should be congratulated on it. The editors also deserve great commenda-tion for uniform arrangement of the book. Surely the book is an ample reward for the labor expended. The '98 Staff has already been elected and we would advise them to make the '97 Spectrum a model by which to gauge their work. * * * THE six Juniors who elected Greek, have just finished the famous so-called tragedy of Euripides, known as "Alcestis." It is, how-ever, improperly called tragedy. It is more of a melodrama, partly comic and partly tragic. The translation was very easy and the class was able to take quite long lessons and thus see into the play much better than when the translation is difficult and the lessons short. These long lessons were asked for by the class in order to finish the book before the hot weather. A great deal of satisfaction is to be derived from reading Greek in this way, the class having elected Greek because they liked it and not because they had to do it. Having finished the book, the Faculty has excused the class from the Greek periods the rest of the term. We are glad to see this. One of the best ways to stimulate students to better work is to reward them for it. The play much more than any of the classics heretofore read portrays human life very well. In Admetus we see fickleness and hypocrisy. In him we see how dear human life is, he even wishing his aged parents to die in his stead. Having failed in this he asked and persuaded his wife, Alcestis, to die for him. Then when she has consented he goes around bewailing a thing of which he was the wilful cause. He reveals his wickedness by his disrespect for his aged parents merely because they refused to die for him. The Greeks generally thought it was only fair for the old people to die for the young. His parents' refusal to die for him shows that life is sweet, even to the very aged, when King Death comes. The reception of Hercules into the palaces of Admetus, then in mourning, shows that the law of hospitality was held sacred at all events. In Alcestis we see extraordinary woman-hood. How manj' women to-day would sub-mit to death in their husband's stead? How many women would be willing to part from their young children ? It is around her that the play centres. She is unrivaled in history and incapable of being surpassed by anyone. How beautifully she reveals a mother's love for her children. The last words spoken by her all pertained to the children's welfare. She is so anxious about their bringing up in her absence and anxious lest Admetus marry a step-mother over them, who, through envy will harm them. Some parts of the play seem a little queer to us now, but they were the custom in that time. The play, on the whole, is surely one of the best of the classics remain-ing to us. THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 49 WE notice in the Dickinsonian that the Fac-ulty and students have resolved: "that no col-lege or preparatory student shall be allowed to play on any team of which the}' are not the ma-jority." Also, ' 'that no person shall be allowed to play on the college team who does not take six periods a week in the law school or twelve in the college.'' This last is an admirable and commendable action. There is so much of a tendency of late to introduce professionalism into college athletics that people are losing in-terest in various college teams. If a college has a so-called "stuffed team" and wins a vic-tory, it cannot rejoice or boast of it because the college boys did not win it, for the victory was solely due to the professionals. As long as this evil continues there will not be the right college spirit in the various institutions and the MERCURY congratulates Dickinson on these resolutions and hopes that other colleges will follow this lofty example. THERE will be an inter-collegiate oratorical contest at Mt. Gretna on the morning of July twenty-ninth The contest is under the au-spices of the Pennsylvania Chatauqua Society. Our College is invited to participate in the con-test. The Literary Societies should take timely action on the matter. We have much reason to regret that the College was not rep-resented in last year's contest. Considering the fact that last year's contest was the first one of the annual intercollegiate contests, it was considered a great success. Music and other forms of entertainment will be provided to diversify and enhance the success of the contest this year and G. should certainly aid in the advancement of a cause as valuable as this one. "GIVEN A SOLID FOUNDATION," says the Troy Times, "the pupil can go on developing mentally, even after the school days are over. With a smattering of much, and an accurate knowledge of little, the years of school train-ing may prove scarcely better than no educa-tion at all." The paper thus quoted speaks not from any theoretic opinions, but from its observation of life. Out amid the busy world, it observes and says this. Moreover those who follow the smattering method in the time of their school days, come to realize the sentiment expressed when it is late, if not too late, to do better. Even those who were diligent, busy students and attained a fair education and have won a good position among educated people, only lament wherein their preparation was poor and that leniency toward them allowed them to take a position in school beyond their entering standing. What they may have thought, at the time, kind in teachers, their later judg-ment, chastened by experience and observa-tion, does not approve, and they now regard their early treatment as mistaken kindness and wish there had been exercised toward them the truer kindness of strictness in require-ments. Those who are just through and have gone no further than the "Commencement," may say to inquirers after a college course, that they "got in" and "got along" on less than the stated requirements, and were able to "make up," and may try to encourage like deficient applicants; but, after these same persons have been out among men and in the conflict of life, taught by experience and ob-servation, they will be very slow to encourage such a course. Rather will they advise every one to be sure of his foundations, that they be sufficient and solid. For foundations are the first things, both in time and in importance, and first things cannot be done last nor lasting things secured unless the first things be prop-erly done. "A solid foundation" is for life ; man can build upon it. "A smattering of much and an accurate knowledge of little," may see one through college, but from that time on it will prove more and more unservice-able, and become the object of the severest condemnation and remorse on the part of the one who at last awakens to realities. Education is a building. Lay well the foun- 50 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. dations, if it is to be a creditable and abiding one. Our whole college course is only a lay-ing, of foundations ; afterwards we begin to build. * * * ALUMNI PERSONALS.—To an alumnus this is the most interesting feature of a college journal. To this page he turns first of all. Somehow we are all fond of a little gossip and like to talk of one another. Here however we say only pleasant things of the "boys." We trust this year to make this column of still greater interest to the Alumni than we have been able to make it in the past. Our men are in the front rank, at the bar, in the halls of legislation, in the pulpit, in the medical profession, and indeed in all the walks of life. Pennsylvania College can be proud of her sons. It is our purpose to tell one another what is being accomplished by these worthy sons of Alma Mater. We must have help from the Alumni. Can we not expect that each man will feel it his duty to post the edi-tors of any mark of achievement in the life of any brother? Send us marked copies of papers containing interesting items of news in reference to the work and the advancement of Alumni. Or send a postal. We shall be much obliged for this help and we promise to do our share of the work in making this page worth the price of the paper. G. DR. GILMAN AND THE HOPKINS UNIVERS-ITY.— There is a possibility that Dr. Gilman will tender his resignation as President of the University to accept the Superintendency of the public schools of New York City. Pres-sure is now being brought to bear on Dr. Gil-man by the leading men of New York, among them Mayor Strong. But the Trustees of the University, the Alumni and the business men of Baltimore are doing all in their power to re-tain their president. Just now the institution is financially embarrassed on account of the condition of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, in who^e stock the University has large holdings. The business men of Balti-more have met and made a very successful ef-fort to tide over the difficulty. Subscriptions amounting to $150,000 were made in one even-ing, and it is expected that more than double this amount will very soon be subscribed by those who feel that the cause of education is the cause of the people and must be maintained at any cost. The Alumni have spoken with no uncertain sound in reference to their Presi-dent's withdrawal from the institution, and it is now believed that Dr. Gilman can be re-tained. Might we not sa5' just here that Dr. McKnight's withdrawal from our institution, at this time, would be equally unfortunate with the withdrawal of Dr. Gilman from the Hop-kins. We have heard the expression of many Alumni and it is the unanimous verdict that Dr. McKnight cannot be spared now from our beloved institution. We suggest that the Alumni, as many have done, send in their in-dividual appeal to the Board, expressing their conviction in this matter. Dr. Gilman has been twenty years with the University and has led the institution to its commanding position. Our president has been with our institution but twelve years, and we feel safe in saying his success in that position is not less marked than that of Dr. Gilman. Let these men be shown that loyal support and undivided inter-est in their work will be given them, and then wefeel sure that both institutions can retain their honored and successful leaders for many years to come. Baltimore city and the trustees and alumni of the Hopkins University have spoken for Dr. Gilman. Now let the Trustees, the Alumni, and all the friends of our college speak for Dr. AicKnight. The institution needs him now as much as it ever needed him. G. MUNICIPAL REFORM. From that eventful time when our first par-ents, hy their one disobedience, "brought death into the world and all our woe," it has been habitual with man and all human institu- THK COLLEGE MERCURY. 5i 1 tions to corrupt themselves—to aim rather at selfish, transitory things than at the high and noble. But at the same time that this evil principle entered the world there also entered a counteracting influence for good in the I prophecy of enmity between Man and Satan. ' Hence, from the foundation of the world, we have had. these two opposing influences or powers running side by side in all human his-tory. In individuals, we see them present in varying proportion ; there never was a man so base that he had.not some good in him, nor one so devout that he had not the stamp of the fall upon his life. Likewise in respect to sys-tems, institutions, or influences extending throughout the land, the same principle ob-tains ; if we see an evil tendency exerting its influence in nation, state and city, it is natural that there should be—Nay ! we are often sur-prised if we do not find—some counteracting influence, some positive effort made to oppose it. One of the greatest national, state and mu-nicipal evils, which eats at the very vitals of our country, is the corruption into which poli-tics has been degraded. The republican prin-cipal of politics, a principal of the very loftiest character, which makes of the individual a king and of his right of suffrage a sceptre, has been brought down almost, we might say, to the brute-level of cupidity and avarice by a class of political bosses, office-seekers, and their overwilling dupes. We are proud to call ours "The Government of the People," but we are forced to confess that, at some times and in some sections of the country, the gov-ernment no more represents the people than does some foreign power. The picture—far removed from reality though it is—of each man going to the ballot-box and .there deposit-ing a mandate which is in perfect accord with what he conceives to be for the best interests of his country and good citizenship ; of honest election officers counting these ballots each and all exactly as they were meant to be counted ; and finally of the candidates elected by them performing their duty in accordance with their sworn oath and without fear or favor, need not be, as we are compelled to confess it now is, an ideal picture. Yet why in the name of republicanism, of justice, and of personal honor, is it not reduced to practice ? Simply because the vote of the individual voter does not represent his conception of duty ; and be-cause every individual in our country's vast political system does not do his individual duty. The only true reform is the reform of the in-dividual : these vague, general reforms will accomplish little or nothing. You may cry Reform ! Reform ! till you are hoarse, but if you do not aim at the individual your energy is wasted. In our own day much is made of the cry : "Educate the masses ! ! " Educate the individuals and the masses and every other class will take care of themselves. We are also accustomed to say that in this country there are vast systems, trusts, syndicates, monopolies, corporations, etc., as though these terms represented single and indivisible powers, whereas none of them is • possible save through individuals. Municipal reform aims decisively at the re-form of the individual ; perhaps no reform ever instituted has this principle more inherent in it. Some one says that "the weather-vane of popularity is pointing in the direction of Municipal Reform ; '' and who can deny that it is the burning need of the age ? At a time when political corruption exists in so many forms that it is impossible adequately to enum-erate them. Nor need we go outside of our own commonwealth to find abuse of public trust; where the last schedule for State sup-plies included seal card cases, four-dollar pocket knives, twenty gallons of fine bay rum, and many other luxuries for the State officials and their clerks, all of which is furnished at the expense of the tax-payer, of course ; and where, as in one instance of which we have heard, a man may secure a position and then hire some one to do his work for less than his own salary, thereby making a neat little mar-gin. It seems, sometimes, that ours is no 52 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. longer an age of "push" but an age of "pull." Pull, political pull, is a great thing to-day, and oft-times it seems that the man who has none of it has but a poor chance. There seems to be a premium placed upon vice and underhand methods rather than on good citizenship. As the young mayor of Syracuse has well said : "Silence and the power of the almighty dollar are often mistaken for statesmanship." The apparent failure of a new movement in certain localities or along certain lines is no proof of its real failure. This principle of Municipal Reform has existed in politics ever since there has been corruption, we may say, but never in such an organized form as it is to-day ; in this sense, then, it is a movement entirely new, and therefore that it should meet with obstacles is but to be expected. Often hinderances in a movement of this kind serve but to establish it more firmly. At a recent election, in a neighboring city, a reform candir date was overwhelmingly defeated ; instead of giving the movement a deserved set-back, as some newspapers wished it to be believed, it had the effect of establishing it more firmly. If any one man deserves more credit than another in starting this reform, it is Dr. Chas. H. Parkhurst, of New York : he it was who first put the reform into active practice and took such an important part in the Lexow in-vestigations. Mayor Strong, Theo. Roosevelt, and others, might be mentioned as prominent men in the movement; the latter of these it was who said : ' 'The man serves his party best who-serves his State well. The man who has to be bribed with office or promise of patron-age, is a curse to the party to which he be-longs." Since first started, the movement has taken on definite shape and there are associa-tions in New York City, Brooklyn, Chicago, Buffalo, St. Louis, Syracuse, Harrisburg, and other cities. Their establishment has had the effect of raising the standard of political candi-dates. Their purpose is not necessarily to an-tagonize the old parties, but, if these fail in their duty to nominate good candidates, to run an independent ticket into the field. These associations are known under various names, as the "Taxpayers' Eeague," "Citizens' Re-form League," etc. The Taxpayers' League of St. Louis recently served an injunction on the mayor of that city preventing him from obtaining salary for some time during which he was absent from the city. It cannot be denied that this reform is a real power for good, and not a hollow machine, as many other political parties and organizations; that it is an offspring of good citizenship, is thoroughly American, and is resolved "that the Government of the People, for the People and by the People shall not perish from the earth." C.,'97. "MEDUSA WITH GORGONIAN TERROR GUARDS THE FORD." "They ferry over this Lethean sound Both to and fro, their sorrow to augment, And wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach The tempting stream, with one small drop to lose In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe, All in one moment, and so near the brink ; But fate withstands, and to oppose th' attempt Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards The ford, and of itself the water flies All taste of living wight, as once it fled The lips of Tantalus." —Paradise Lost: Book II, lines 60U-61U. The torments of hell are here described. The damned, with parched lips and burning brows, are permitted to approach to see that which would relieve their sufferings ; but to touch and experience that relief is strictly guarded against by the Gorgonian monster, Medusa. Here it was the punishment of the damned which furnished the excuse for their exclusion. We find the same decree of fate expressed in ancient Pagan history. The ancients were wont to say. "The gods have placed a price on every good and noble pleasure," thereby conveying the idea in our homely expression, "that he who dances must surely pa)' the fiddler." And further, we find that in our glorious day of free governments, free schools, advanced civilization and advanced scientific investiga-tion and discoveries, none has arisen to re-lieve us from the certainty that just punish- THK COLLEGE MERCURY. 53 ment will follow evil doing ; that just and logical results must follow every cause ; that reaction is equal to action and opposite in di-rection in both moral, mental, and spiritual, as well as in the physical ramifications of na-ture's workings. Evil doing to-day receives its punishment as it did in days of yore—as it did in the darkest dajs of superstition. A wrong act leaves a diseased spot on the in-dividual or the social fabric, or perhaps both. Action is imparted, and reaction is a resultant of the forward movement. Sin begets sin just as surely as it did when Adam disobeyed the laws of God in Eden's paln^ garden. There is a line of demarkation between good and evil; there is a limit to any activity of mind, body, or soul, where the human being must stop and gaze and wonder, for "Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards the ford." Every one of us desires to go beyond. We desire to know more and see more of the mys-teries of nature. One cannot follow the pro-gresses of political science to-day without recognizing and paying tribute to the enor-mous intellectual energy directed in these channels. There is a magnetism in mystery. We watch the astronomer of to-day with his hand upon the modern telescope, and with the data of Herschel, Kepler and Tycho Brake as his alphabet, step from one palace chamber to another of God's domain and, with flushed cheek and bated breath, look upon the opening fields where human eye never gazed before. But who has followed the trend of our scientists and has not found that every one of them, in his highest strain, oversteps the boundary of the natural and attempts to pass into the domain of the unknown and the mys-terious and, like the damned of Hell, to be met by the horrid head of Medusa ? A man can go but a short distance among the phenomena of nature until he finds other and new laws flashing athwart his mental vis-ion— laws whose origin and the majority of whose operations lie beyond his faculties. They are like the comet which comes sud-denly within our field of vision and as sud-denly disappears, while we realize that, ex-cepting the small arc its vast parabola lies far beyond our glasses. It is here where these changeless laws from a realm beyond counteract, hold in check, or co-operate with the equally changeless laws of the realm of our acquaintance, that a man's philosophy either makes or unmakes him. It is here that a scholarly man becomes either the firmest and most faithful of Christians, or the saddest and most dissatisfied of sceptics. It is here that a finer set of faculties, more delicate, more finely poised than the merely intellectual, is either crushed and held under foot, or expands and blossoms into the full majesty of perfected humanity. It is here by the ford of Medusa's guardian-ship that man must recognize that the human mind is so constituted that a sin against that constitution and legitimate mode of thinking is fatal to all righteous conclusions. The man who pries into the domain of nature anywhere will find that to repress any inquiry which the constitution of the mind demands, is done at the cost of intellectual freedom. Even among the most hidden things of earth's fauna or flora, or of the composition of her inorganic crust, or the record of her rock bed, so strangely, yet we can not help thinking, so truthfully written we dare not repress the question of "how" and "when" and "why." The day is not far distant when the world will open its eyes upon a perfect calculus, a diviner science, a complete and responsive philosophy. That day will the world read the law above all the enactments of human codes, the same in all times and in all circumstances. It is the law written by the finger of God upon the heart of man. This, then, will be the line of demarkation—this, the guardian of the ford, not the horrid, snake-haired Gorgon sister. G.W. E./97. GIRLS THAT ARE WANTED. The girls that are wanted are pure girls; Pure from the sole to the crown ; Pure as the lily which white and fair, 54 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. Sheds its sweet fragrance everywhere. The girls that are wanted are girls of sense, Who will do the right at any expense ; Girls that are loving, girls that are true, These are the girls for me and for you. The girls that are wanted are good girls ; Good to their sisters and brothers, Good to their mothers who give them advice Desiring their daughters to always be nice. The girls that are wanted are girls of heart; From whom the truth shall never depart, Girls that are pretty, girls that are fair; These find lovers most everywhere. The girls that are wanted are wise girls ; Wise as old Solomon King, Wise that they know what to do and say To drive the wrath of the household away. The girls that are wanted are girls of wit; ' Upon whom malice and pride find no fit, Girls that are clever, girls who are kind These are the girls we leave not behind. The girls that are wanted are ready girls ; Ready and anxious to please, Ready and willing unto others to do, The same you'd have others do unto you. The girls that are wanted are of intellect; At least enough for self-respect. Girls who are prudent who understand For these there's a constant and steady demand. J. W. W., '99. THE following poem was written lately by our friend, Major Robbins, at a small social. The poem, no doubt, will be much appreci-ated and especially so, as coming from its author: The flower I like is the beautiful dogwood, I am not very sure a Theolog would : To call that a rhyme is a silly pretense, But perhaps it may answer to save my five cents. We have in this room quite a bevy of girls With their roguish eyes and their graceful curls, And every bright eye is shooting a dart That pierces some helpless Theolog's heart. Every now and then from these clustering curls Love sallies out and his banner unfurls, And each Theolog cries, while gasping for breath, Oh ! give me a sweetheart or give me death. I tell you when love and Theology mix, It puts a fellow in a terrible fix; The only relief is to steal a sly kiss Which quickly transforms all the trouble to bliss. W. M. R. COLLEGE SLANG. At Columbia University a few members of the American Dialect Society have undertaken the work of collecting information about col-lege slang as found in the different colleges and universities of the country. Among the many expressive words belonging to this class, the following are a few which seem to be in general use among college students : Balled up—Meaning to become badly con-fused. To have a cinch—To enjoy special favor or advantage. Co-ed—A female student at a coeducational school. Ctam—To study hard immediately before, and for the sake of an examination. Crib—To plagiarize, and to use a help in ex-amination. Flunk—To make a failure. Frat—Abbreviation for fraternity. Fresh—Forward or meddlesome. Also.short for freshmen. Grind—To study hard and continuously. Also to make fun of. Horse—To use improper helps, to plagiarize. Also a noun, meaning an improper help. Jolly—To tease or jest with. Plug—To study laboriously. Also a per-son who is generally disagreeable. Phase—To embarrass, or disconcert. Pony—Same as hotse. Pull—To gain favor from. Also as noun, same as cinch. Prep—Preparatory student. Also the pre-paratory department. Queer—To ridicule or jest with. Ride—To use a hotse in examination. Roast—As a verb, to assign a difficult task. Also to guy and to censure. Also to treat un-fairly, as by an umpire in a ball game. As a noun, an easy task. Sheepskin—Graduating diploma. Trot—About same as horse. COLLEGE LOCALS. EDMUND W. MEISENHELDER and EDMUND L. ROLLER, Editors. The trip to Millersburg on Saturday, May 23, is one that will be long remembered by the boys of the musical clubs. Leaving Gettys-burg at 11, A. M., after a two hours' wait at Harrisburg, we arrived in Millersburg at 5 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 55 o'clock, Saturday afternoon. The town, we found, was some distance from the station, and on an elevation considerably higher than we were used to. We went immediately to the church to practice, and, after practice, were assigned our places of entertainment. From this on, our pleasant times continued unbroken until we left. The boys can never get done talking about the royal and cordial way in which they were all entertained by their hosts and hostesses ; and it went very hard for some of them to come away on Monday morning. The concert, in the evening, was very suc-cessful in every way, and an audience of about 400 greeted us. A natural delicacy, of course, forbids us to dwell long upon the success which attended everything connected with the con-cert, but let it be said that whatever reputation ,the Gettysburg College Glee Club lost at Han-over and York was doubly regained at Millers-burg. The fact that the manager received numerous requests for a repetition of the con-cert on Monday evening shows how the peo-ple appreciated it. The boys were pressed into service while there. On Sunday, at the morning service, they sang "Come, Said Jesus Sacred Voice," and assisted in the singing of the hymns. In the evening, at the Young Peoples' meeting, the Octette and the Violin Quartette led the music. A reception was given the clubs on Satur-day evening, after the concert, by Mr. and Mrs. Lark ; and one on Sunday evening, by the Misses Freck, and both occasions were the source of considerable enjoyment. In fact, we were royally entertained, all the time and anywhere we went, by the Millersburg people, and the boys will always remember and appre-ciate it.' SOME NOTES CONNECTED WITH THE TRIP. Miss R., from Irving, characterized Ott as "sweetness long drawn out," and our man-ager, Louie, as "concentrated sweetness." Coming along Market street, in Harrisburg, S.,'99, was observed to tip his hat on several occasions to the wax figures in the milliners' windows. As we came through Harrisburg on the re-turn trip, some of the club were inveigled into the Russ restaurant on Market street by the proctor, and it was only by the heroic efforts oflsettthat they could be gotten out again. The sandwiches were 10 cents a piece. Although the Glee Club may have gotten a little "flat" on Annie Laurie on Saturday night in Millersburg, they were sharp enough when they sang Fanny Laurie going down Mulberry street in Harrisburg. S., '99, in Harrisburg tried to "shake" the rest of the fellows and slip into a saloon, but he was too closely -watched. Mr. O., '97, (at our reception Sunday night, holding a hassock under his arm)—"If any-body has a quarter they may have this.'' Miss F.—"Oh, wait, I'll go and ask Pa. to buy you for me." O. will not admit he was sold. The Sons of Hercules are not in it with the Glee Club when it comes to carrying a piano up a narrow winding stairway to the second floor of a church. Such was the experience of the octette on Saturday evening. The Sophomores have taken up surveying and, as far as we know, like it. Dr. N. has plenty of fun at their expense, especially when they strike a new instrument. The matches for the preliminaries of the Tennis Tournament have been arranged and will be played off in the coming two weeks. Philo Debating Club held a banquet on Fri-day evening, May 29, at Hotel de McCul-. lough. The occasion was one of much enjoy-ment. The Class of '98 have elected their Spectrum Staff which is as follows: Editor, E. W. Meisen-helder, Jr.; Ass't Editor, Charles T. Lark; Associate Editors, Miss M. Naomi Myers, Miss Effie E. Hess, C. M. Nicholas, C. E. Fleck, Charles H. Tilp; Business Manager, S. M. Lutz; Ass't Business Managers, Chas. T. Fite, Robert W. Woods, Paul F. W. Kuen-dig, Herbert Finch, J. A. McAllister; Illus-trator, E. L. Koller; Assistants, Robert M. Culler, A. G. Fuss, H. B. Erdman. During the visit of the Chester Cadets to Gettysburg, they were serenaded by the Col-lege Octette at their quarters in the Hotel Gettysburg. The cadets expressed their ap-preciation of the serenade in more ways than one. We were glad to notice, also, that dur-ing their visit, the flag was floated from the cupola of the dormitory—a "good thing"—it ought to be there oftener. Dr. N.—Mr. E., what is the cube of four? S. of a P. M.—Forty-eight. 56 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. In speaking about the food of the Romans, in the Sophomore class the other day, the gen-eral sentiment was against garlic; but "B. A." T whispered to his neighbor that garlic May be all right under certain circumstances. We suppose he has tried. Dr. B. (In Private Life of the Romans)— What are neat cattle ? N.,'98—Why, pretty or graceful ones. Dr. B.—What is pleurisy ? "Meadow" L.,'Q8—Heart disease. (He had just returned from Millersburg). L.,'98 (who teaches English Grammar in Prep.), was making strenuous efforts to form the passive voice of the verb "to be," but he did not succeed. Eddie, '98, was seen hurrying up town, and upon being asked the reason of his haste, re-plied that ' 'they did their pressing together.'' There is 110 occasion for alarm, for the Sopho-mores are studying botany. Mr. E., of Prep., whose attempt to get an American wife was noticed in the last MER-CURY, was walking up Baltimore street the other evening, carrying a basket for a young lady, and, looking around in all directions, told the young lady that he was afraid the MERCURY staff would see him. T.,'98, astonished the class the other morn-ing by translating a passage in Greek "Arouse, ye hotse-bearing Trojans!" It looks very suspicious, he must have had such a subject on the brain. The way in which the class base ball games have been played lately remind one very much of the way in which the recent prize fights have been fought off—by talk. One class will chalk in large letters its exploits all over the buildings on the campus, and the other will chalk all over the town their exploits. This practice is nothing short of vandalism, and there should be an end of it. The "flittings" in college have become the fashion, it seems. The last man to have his possessions removed was "Sam," of the first floor east. Who'll be the next ? Prof. H.—Was there ever any sectional party spirit in the United States ? Mr. B.,'96—I don't know of any. Prof. H.—How about the war? Mr. B.,'96—Oh, yes, I remember now. There was. Quite a give-away of your age, Bruby. Dr. B.—While there is life the chemical forces help to build up the body, what do they do when the body is dead ? Eddie,'96—(In a hurry)—Kill it. Dr. H.—Mr. K., why did Moses ascend Mt. Nebo? Mr. K.,'99—To see the Children of Israel. Mr. D., '99, recently asked one of his fel-low classmen, "Where are the capillary veins ?'' Dr. S., '99—"Now, Mr. T. will you please describe to me the course of the blood through the body. Supposing a chip to be in the blood, where would it go after it enters the aorta ?'' Mr. T.—"Down." Dr. S.—"Pshaw, no ! It would go up." Mr. T.—"Well the chip, to which I refer, would go down." Recently, a young lady of town was heard to remark to another lady, "But his arms are so short." On inquiry it was found that the per-son under discussion was Mr. S., '98. We surely expected better things from you "Sivy-" Mr. F., '98, who is now studying Homer's Iliad, asked a fellow classman recently whether there wasn't also a VitgiV s Iliad. Mr. K., '99, recently requested Mrs. "Gov" to iron "wrinkles" in his pants. The pants were creased to suit Joe. Ask Mr. W., '97, about the efficiency of the University police. If "Billy" didn't see all of the relay race, he saw the police and the man-ager of the events. We are sorry that he could not be present with his men, as we are sure that it would have inspired them to greater efforts. "Stocky" is said to be in doubt whether he wishes to be a Lutheran minister or a U. B. minister. It is, however, a fact that he has been up to visit at the U. B. parsonage every night for the last week. Mr. E., '97, remarked in the class-room that it wouldn't do to send the Indians west to the reservoirs. Mr. N., '98, sings with the poet, "Tired nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." but for reasons given by Dr. H., the sleeper must not snore in balmy sleep. Mr. D., '99, is very much in love, for on the night of April 4th, he laid everything at THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 57 the feet of his young lady friend. "Well, the idea!" she exclaimed. Thus repulsed, Robert took up his bed and walked; the burden on his back only exceeded by the varied emotion which filled his heart. A very interesting lecture was delivered on Thursday evening, May 7th, by the Rev. F. W. Staley, of Middletown, Pa. The subject of the lecture was "An Hour's Ride with Sheridan ; " and it was delivered in a masterly manner. The lecture was worthy of a much larger attendance. Mr. C.,'98, says that women cook eggs with hour glasses. Dr. N. (drawing a small circle on the board)—Now, Mr. Z. ('98) how can I get in? Mr. Z., it is needless to say, was unable to answer. Mr. T./98, remarked that a certain young man was well /^versed in the Bible. At the wild-flower show, on the night of the 12th of May, a- young lady remarked to a "Sem." that she was going to write a poem on his mustache. He replied that it was all right, but he would first make a good impression on her with his mustache. Mr. F., '98, says "I am and am ashamed to own it." We are in doubt whether Charlie means that he likes frogs so well or whether he means to confess that he crawled on the bed when he saw one. Mr. S.,'99, has made a new discovery. He says: "The skin is an organ of the body, both of exphation and presperation. There are a few Spectrums left. If any are wanted, notify the business manager immedi-ately. Ask Mr. E. (1900) whether he likes soda-water and whether he carries only a nickel at a time. Recently Ralph left two young ladies standing on the street, while he glided into a neighboring drug store and regaled himself with soda. It is needless to say that he made a favorable impiession on the ladies. Nick suggests that when you come to a large tree, which is in the way while survey-ing, you sit down and rest. Mr. F.,'98, told us that to obtain the num-ber of yards all you would have to do is to multiply the number of feet by three. Mr. C.,'98, tells us that a tonsorial artist, in I is the white-the days of Rome, was one who took care of the nails. Dr. B.—Now, Mr. R., it says here that pea-cocks were considered as the ne plus ultra of table luxury, what does that mean ? Mr. R.,'98—Oh ! that means that they never were used as food. Dr. M. (correcting Mr. W.'s translation in German)—"Mr. W. place the hind legs after the object, since you will rarely find them in front." A Sophomore wit recently propounded the following problem to one of his class-mates : "Mathematically speaking, how many are there in Pop's family? " His class-mate was unable to answer and he replied, "Two and one to carry." Dr. B. to Mr. S., '97—Which gate more easily found on a dark night, a washed one, or one not white-washed? " Mr. S., '99—A white-washed one, but I be-lieve I can find any kind of a gate after dark." Dr. B.—"But Mr. S., you know that little boys ought not to be out late at night." Dr. B.—"Now Miss W., what was the ques-tion I asked ? '' Miss M., '98—"I don't know." Dr. B.—"He that hath ears to hear let him hear." Mr. C, '96, recently asked whether "tur-nips were not about ripe." From the ques-tion one might think that he was not from the country but his appearance gives him away. Mr. F., '98, will soon develop into a fine base-ball player. His strongest position on the team is left field. In this place Herby covers everything outside of the foul-line. No previous class has ever made a greater success of psychology than the present Junior class. So bright are they that Dr. McKnight generally permits them to leave the room long before the period is over. ALUMNI-I,. C MANGES and CHARLES H. TILP. Editors. '44. Messrs. P. Anstadt, D. D., and Sons, of York, Pa., have just issued a very conveni-ent and suitable "Teachers' class-book tor Sunday-schools." '50. M. Valentine, D. D., ED. D., has been 58 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. .elected President of the Board of Control of Maryland College, Lutherville, Md. '57. Rev. H. L. Baugher, D. D., president of the General Synod, will be one of the speak-ers at the reunion of the Lutherans of Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and Michigan, at Witten-burg College, Springfield, O., June 3. '57. Rev. D. M. Gilbert, D. D., of Harris-burg, delivered the Baccalaureate sermon at Maryland College, Lutherville, Md., on May 31st. '61. Rev. J. B. Remensnyder, D. D., of New York city, at the 200th anniversary of the Collegiate Reformed Church of that city, represented the Lutheran church. Dr. Rem-ensnyder said that the Lutherans did not at first meet anything save opposition from the Dutch, but he added that this opposition could the more easily be forgiven since it arose from an excess of zeal for righteousness. The speaker briefly outlined the early history of "the Lutheran Church in this country and her devotion to orthodoxy, and ended with an appeal for.Christian unity. '63. The Rev. George U. Wenner, D. D., who for twenty-two years has been one of the secretaries of the Evangelical Alliance, has been appointed delegate to the Jubilee Confer-ence which is to be held at Mildmay Park, London, from June 30th to July 4th. He has accepted the appointment, and expects to sail on the 17th of June. The Alliance was or-ganized in 1846, at which Dr. S. S. Schmucker was one of the delegates from America. ''63. Rev. E. J. Wolf, D. D., will be the principal speaker at the 20th annual conven-tion of the Lutheran S. S. Association of Somerset county, to be held in Trinity Church, Somerset, Pa., June 9th and 10th, 1896. '66. Rev. W.' H. Gotwald, D. D., of St. Mark's, Washington, D. C, has resigned. '67. Rev. C. S. Albert, D. D., was on the program for a paper on ' 'Sunday-schools in the Lutheran Church," at the recent conven-tion in Washington, of the Society for Relig-ous Education. '68. Rev. Dr. J. W. Richard, of the Gettys-burg Seminary, Sunday, May 17th, preached the Baccalaureate sermon to the graduates of the Waynesboro, Pa., High School. '68. Memorial Lutheran Church of Harris-burg, Pa., Rev. Lee M. Heilman, D. D., pastor, will dedicate a fine organ the latter part of June. Rev. H. H. Weber, '82, of York, Pa., will preach the sermon. '68. Rev. A. S. Hartman, D. D., Secretary of the Board of Home Missions, lately made a trip through the Pacific States. '69. The repairs and renovation of St. John's Lutheran Church, Charlestown, S. C, Rev. E. T. Horn, D. D., pastor, cost over $8,000. '70. The Rev. G. F. Behringer, of Nyack, N. Y., has been appointed one of the "uni-versity preachers" for the fall term.of Cornell University, by President Schurman. '71. Rev. Jno. Wagner, D. D., of Hazleton, Pa., will deliver the annual alumni address on Tuesday of Commencement week. '71. Rev. D. T. Koser, pastor of the Arendtsville Lutheran Church, at a recent communion added thirty-three persons to his church. '71. Rev. W. H. Dunbar, D. D., delivered the annual address before the Y.- M. C. A. of Maryland College, on May 31st. '72. Judge S. McC. Swope held court in Chambersburg on the 26th of May, for Judge Stewart. '72. Rev. J W. Poffenberger, of Leech-burg, Pa., is looking up the interests of our .church at Vandergriff, Pa. '73. Rev. E. H. Leisenring, Rev. H. F. Kroh, '84, and Rev. H. C. Alleman, '87, all of Chambersburg, Pa., have been appointed an executive committee to arrange for a Luth-eran Reunion at Mont Alto in September. '73. Rev. John A. Wirt, D. D., of Des- Moines, la., has been elected President of the Ministerial Association of that city. The ser-mons of Dr. Wirt are very much appreciated and are frequently requested for print. His Easter sermon was printed in pamphlet form and 900 copies were distributed among the members of the congregation. '73. An article on "The Roman World in the Times of Christ," by Rev. Jeremiah Zim-merman, appeared in the April number of the Lutheran Quarterly. '73. Rev. Philip Graff has become con-vinced that the proper way to fish for men is to go out into deep water. So it seems. He has left us and accepted a call to a Free Will Baptist congregation in Oakland, Cal., quite THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 59 near the Lutheran Mission with which he once was connected. '74. St. Mark's Lutheran church of Han-over, Pa., Rev. Charles M. Stock pastor, has decided to build a parsonage for the Cold Springs mission in Adams county, Pa. Rev. Mr. Stock became greatly interested in the work, and now has interested his people. This is a most unselfish and charitable act. '75. Rev. M. L. Young, Ph. D., of Meyers-dale, Pa., a member of the Board of Control of Maryland College, attended the first annual meeting of that body at Lutherville, Md., May, 13th. '75. Rev. E. G. Hay, pastor of the Red Hook Lutheran congregation at Red Hook, N. Y., added 22 new members to his church at his Easter Communion. '76. Rev. W. F. Rentz, is having splendid success in his work as pastor of the Lutheran missions in Atchison, Kan. '76. T. C. Sanderson is and has been train despatcher 611 the H. & B. T. R. R. for over twenty years. '77. H. B. Wile, of Carlisle, Pa., was one of the judges at the Philosophical Oratorical contest held in Bosler Hall, Dickinson College. '77. Rev. W. L. Seabrook, of Winchester, Va., will preach the sermon at the 30th anni-versary of the pastorate of Rev. J. S. Snyder at St. Matthews Lutheran church, New Market, Va. '77. We are very glad to note that Dr. John J. Young's article, "The Lutheran Church in Relation to the Inspiration of the Holy Script-ures," first printed in the Lutheran Quarterly, has been published in a separate pamphlet. It is certainiy an instructive article. '77. Rev. J. A. West is having success in his work as pastor of the Lutheran church at Bryant, Ind. '78. H. Max Lentz, of Florence, Ky., is the editor of the Boone County Banner, a live monthly devoted to the interests of the Luth-eran churches in Boone county, Ky. Several numbers have found their way to our reading rooms. '78. Rev. and Mrs. O. C. Roth, of Grace English Lutheran Church, "will soon move into their new parsonage, purchased by the church a few days since. Their new home will be on East Baltimore street, near Patterson Park, in a very pleasant section of the city. The house is large and commodious, and will be a pleas-ant home for this hard-working pastor. It is now undergoing repair, preparatory to the re-ception of the pastor's family. '79. Dr. A. C. Wentz, of Hanover, Pa., was recently elected one of the vice presidents of the State Medical Society. '80. Rev. M. P. Hocker, of Steelton, Pa., visited the college for several days about the 1st of the month. '80. The Golden Rule for April 16th contains a portrait engraving and sketch of Rev. M. F. Troxell, pastor of the Lutheran Church at Springfield, and vice-president of the Illinois Christian Endeavor Union. '80. The Baltimore Herald of April 9th pub-lished a poem for Arbor day by Rev. G. W. McSherry, of Taueytown, Md. '80. Rev. W. Stahler, pastor of the Lutheran Church at Lebanon, Pa., recently delivered his lecture on "Travels in Europe" before the people of his former charge at Shippensburg, Pa. The pictures thrown npon the canvass, and the descriptive sketches of the incidents of travel, were of the most interesting character. '80. Mr. Sterling G. Valentine and family were guests at Dr. Valentine's recently. '82. Rev. Chas. R. Trowbridge, pastor of St. Paul's Church, Baltimore. Md., has been granted a vacation from May 1st to September 15th. During this period his address will be Lutherville, Md. '83. R. M. Linton, editor of the Somerset Democrat, attended the Democratic State Con-vention recently held at Allentown, Pa. '83. Rev. W. W. Anstadt, of Bedford, Pa., preached the Baccalaureate sermon to the graduating class of the Bedford High School. The address is highly spoken of in the Bedford papers. '83. Rev. C. W. Baker, missionary secre-tary of the York county conference, in giving his sixth monthly report to the missionary committee, added the following summary of his first six months' work : Families visited, 375, containing 1,600 souls ; business, social and pastoral calls made. '83. St. Mark's Lutheran church, of York, Pa., Rev. P. Livingston, pastor, has resolved upon providing for the extinction of the debt ^resting on the church building. 6o THE COLLEGE MERCURY. '84. Rev. Huber Gray Buehler, professor in the Yale Preparatory School at Lakeville.Conn., accompanied by his wife and several students, will make a tour of Europe, sailing from Bos-ton on the last of June, returning to America the latter part of September. '85. The Homiletic Review for March, which is the embodiment of the best homiletic litera-ture, contains a sermon on "Christ's Teaching Practical," by Rev. Edgar Grim Miller, of Easton, Pa., from the text : "Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven ? '' This text is treated under the three following divisions: Christ's significant silences ; the harm that has come from the dis-regarding of the manifest principle of prece-dence that runs through the Master's teach-ing ; and our clear duty as followers of Christ. '85. Robert Horner, wife and son, of Phila-delphia, are- guests of his mother, Mrs. Caro-line Horner. '86. Rev. O. G. Klinger attended the Sus-quehanna Synod, at Danville. '86. Franklin Manges, Ph. D., delivered the address at Fairfield at the Memorial services on May 30th. '86. Rev. Win. F. Berger, of Gettysburg, Pa., a graduate of our institutions at Gettys-burg and Springfield, is now a member of "The Trumpeters," the successors of the cele-brated Silver Lake Quartette. The company is now on a tour of the whole United States. Mr. Berger makes stirring addresses on tem-perance. '88. Rev. W. H. Harding, of Maytown, has been called to Port Royal, Pa. '88. Rev. Silas D. Daugherty, of Sharps-burg, Pa., has been unanimously elected pastor of Grace Church, the new congregation lately organized in Altoona, Pa. '89. Rev. W. L. Rutherford, pastor of the Lutheran church at Montoursville, Pa., has issued a parish paper bearing the title The Messenger. It has sixteen pages, double col-umn, with cover, and is to be published quar-terly. The first issue gives promise that it will prove helpful to the pastor in his work. '90. The Lutheran church at Aspinwall, Pa., is soon to be dedicated. Rev. H. C. Reller is the pastor. '90. Work has been begun on the new church at Johnstown, Pa., Rev. F. S. Schultz, pastor. The same will cost when completed about $7000. '90. Geo. W. Rowe, who is engaged in the life insurance business in Millersburg, Pa., was in town on business during the last week in May. '90. Rev. Henry Anstadt was in Gettysburg I recently. '90. Rev. U. S. G. Rupp, of Ft. Washing-ton, Pa., reports great progress in his work. He will try to build a new church in the near I future. '91. Rev. August Pollman recently gradu-ated from the Baltimore Medical College with the honor of being Valedictorian. Rev. Pohl-man will circulate among the churches until October next, when he will sail for Africa. '91. David A. Buehler has accepted a posi-tion with the Van Dyke Brothers, who are the largest druggists and manufacturing chemists in Northern Philadelphia. '91. Rev. C. L. Ritter, of Fayetteville, Pa., has accepted the call' to Burkettsville, Md. formerly served by Rev. S. E. Slater. '91. Rev. S. Gring Hefelbower's address has been changed from Berlin, Germany, to Newville, Pa. '91. The Minersville Messenger of May 2nd contains the full sermon on "Doubts and Doubters," by Rev. M. L. Tate. The publi-cation of such sermons is always calculated to do good. '92. Rev. J. W. Ball, of Los Angeles, Cal. was installed pastor of the First Lutheran Church of that city on the 26th of April, Rev. H. L. Yarger and Rev. C. W. Maggart officiating. '92. Rev. G. J. M. Ketner, of New Chester, Pa., will be ordained very shortly in his own church. '92. The; new church at Red Lion, Pa., Rev. H. E. Berkey, pastor, was dedicated on May 24th. Revs. H. H. Weber, of York, Pa., and J. W. Richard, D. D., of Gettysburg, Pa., preached the sermons. '92. On Wednesday evening, May 6th, af-ter prayer-meeting, the pastor of Calvary Lutheran Church,' of Baltimore, Rev. George Beiswanger, was given a pleasant surprise. The first catechetical class presented him with a handsome silver-plated private communion THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 61 set. The presentation was made by a mem-ber of the class. The pastor responded with a few words of appreciation. This is but another token of appreciation for work done in the Master's name. '92. The Adams County Conference of the West Pennsylvania Synod met in St. Paul's Lutheran Church, McSherrystown, Pa., Rev. Ferdinand Hesse Pastor, from Apnl 27th to 29th. The opening sermon was preached by the president. Rev. S. E. Herring. '93. V. R. Saylor has lately finished his third year's work in. the schools of Somerset, Pa. He is now conducting a local normal school at the same place. '93. Frank G. Turner, of Lutherville, Md., graduated from the Law School of Maryland University, June 1st. '93- J- J- Brallier, of Elklick, Pa., who just closed a successful term of school work took a business trip to Pittsburg during the first week of May. '93. W. H. Deardorff graduated from the Jefferson Medical College, of Philadelphia, and has received an appointment in the Meth-odist Hospital. '93. Merle Boyer received the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the Medico Chirurgi-cal College of Philadelphia. Mr. Boyer was historian of his class. '93. J. Ransom Plank was graduated from the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia at the last commencement. '94. Win. O. Nicklas was among the boys at college on the 10th and nth. '94. C. F. Kloss is canvassing the State for students for Gettysburg College. He began his work the first of the month. '95. The name of Geo. H. Eckels appears in the Philo Review as an instructor in Latin and Algebra in the Cumberland Valley State Normal School. '95. C. H. Hollinger, who is reading law at Harrisburg, paid a visit to his old friends at college and seminary May 24th. ATHLETICS. CHARLES T. LARK, Kditor. With the completion of the new athletic field, an increased interest in all branches of athletics seems to have taken hold of our students. The athletic spirit of this institu-tion never was at a higher pitch or more uni-versal. During recreation periods, pole-vault-ing, shot-putting, hammer-throwing and jump-ing contests hold full sway. The number of base-ball enthusiasts is unusually large this year, and our many tennis courts are alive with players. The various classes are organizing teams to represent them in the annual athletic games to be held here during Commencement week. We anticipate some very excellent showings in the coining contests. We have much excellent material for field and track athletics, which is as yet undeveloped. There is no reason why we should not have one of the finest athletic teams in the country. The home team defeated with ease the Col-gate University nine on May 7th. The game was called at the end of the seventh inning to enable Colgate to reach the train. The visiting team was at no time in the game. Burns, besides striking out fourteen men, had a home run and a two-base hit to his credit. He is indeed "the hero of Gettys-burg." Tate made three hits one of which was a home run. The following is the score in detail : GETTYSBURG. R White, 3b 1 Sheely, ib 2 Tate, c 4 Burns, p 1 Brown cf o Hartzell, If o Misenh'd'r, ss. 1 Hutton.rf 1 I^icht'b'ger, 2b. o Total ro 10 21 H PO A E 4 14 COLGATE. R Carpenter, 3b. o Sheldon, ss o Ford, S. J., a. o Hodge, ib o Ford, W. S., cf. o Wood, 2b o Hudson, rf o Frame, If o Suuderland, p. o 3 4 5 1 Total o 4 21 9 5 Earned runs—Gettysburg, 3; Colgate, 0. Two-base hits—Get-tysburg, 1. Home runs—Gettysburg, 2. Stolen bases-Gettys-burg, 9; Colgate, 1. Base on bails—Gettysburg, 2; Colgate, 1. Hit by pitched ball—Colgate, 1. Struck out—by Burns, 14; by Suuderland, 5. Time of game—1.45. Umpire—Paul Buendig. Right after the Colgate game the Freshmen defeated the Sophomores in a one-sided unin-teresting game. The victory was due to the hard training of the Freshmen before the game. The score by innings is as follows : Sophmores 2 4 0 0 0 0 0—6 Freshmen 4 9 3 4 4 9 4—27 Batteries—Sophmores, Nicholas, Culler and Geesey ; Freshmen, Roehner and Manges. The Freshmen defeated the Gettysburg Junior team on the morning of May 14th. The game was a very uninteresting one, and resulted in a score of 19 to 9. The batteries 62 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. were : Freshmen, Roehner and Manges ; Get-tysburg, Hartzell and Sheeley. On the afternoon of May 14th a very large and enthusiastic crowd witnessed a game of ball on the home grounds, in which Ursinus received a crushing defeat at the hands of our team. It was a real pic-nic for Gettysburg. Burns received excellent support, for our boys played an errorless game, made fourteen hits and twenty-one runs. Abel and Leisenring, each, made three hits. The Ursinus team went completely to pieces. An entire lack of team work characterized their playing. They made but two hits and many times that number of errors. The following is the score in detail : QBTTYSBURQ. R II ro A URSINUS. Hunson, SS o Cadwall'r, 2b. o Trook, ib o Rahnn, c o Zimm'rm'n,3b o Kugler, If o Scats, cf o Ehler, rf o Laros, p o Ensminger, p. o R H PO A i 6 o 14 White, 3b 3213 Shecly, ib 3080 Leiscnring,2b. 3 3 3 4 Tate, c 4 2 14 1 limns, p 3 1 1 1 Abel, ss 1302 Hutton, r.f 2100 Hartzell, If. 1000 Herman, cf.,. 1 200 Total 21 14 27 11 Total o 2 27 10 17 Earned runs—Gettysburg, 3. Three-base hits—Gettysburg, 1. Stolen bases—Gettysburg, 9; Ursinus, 1 Bases on balls—Gettys-burg, 3; Ursinus; 4. Hit by pitched ball—Gettysburg, 1; Ursinus, 2. Struck out—by Gettysburg, 14; by Ursinus, 12. Passed balls— Ursinus, 1. Time of game—2.20. Umpire—Paul Kuendig. A somewhat interesting game was played on May 16th between the Freshmen and Good Intent. The opposing pitcher had rather more speed than the Freshman were accustomed to and, as the game progressed, his arm seemed to grow stronger. The Freshmen were ahead during the first half of the game, but then by a bunching of hits, Good Intent obtained a lead which '99 was not able to overcome. The Freshmen exhibit the right kind of spirit and deserve credit for their showing against this team. The score by innings is as follows : Freshman .10 331001 1—10 Good Intent 0 0 13 2 12 2 0—14 Batteries—Freshman, Boehner and Manges. Good Intent- Plank brothers. On May 16th, for the first time since conclu-sions have been fought for on the base-ball field, has Gettysburg suffered defeat at the hands of her friendly rivals, the Carlisle In-dian boys. The game was played at Carlisle and had to be called at the end of six innings to allow our team to catch the train. It was a pitcher's battle from start to finish, and in-tensely interesting. Burns did excellent work, striking out thirteen men, while Jamison struck out eleven of our men. We lost the game by our inability to hit the ball at the right time. The batting of Tate was the fea-ture of the game. The score by innings is as follows : Gettysburg 0 0 0 10 0—1 Indians 3 10 0 0 0—4 Batteries—Gettysburg, Tate and Burns ; Indians, Spense and Jamison. The game with F. & M. on the home grounds, May 23d, was somewhat similar in score to the previous game at Lancaster. It is very probable that the score would have been much smaller had not Tate been injured in the first inning. Manges, '99, took his place and although he played well, the. team seemed to be demoralized. Notwithstanding these misfortunes Burns pitched an excellent game, striking out 13 of F. & M.'s heavy hit-ters. Sheibley led the batting for the visitors and Cremer's work behind the bat was of a high order. The tabulated score is as follows : GETTYSBURG. Sheely, ib o i Leisenring, 2b o o Tate, c i o Manges, c o o Burns, p o o Meise'h'd'r, 3b o o Diehl, ss o o Herman, cf o o Krafft, If o o Hutton, rf o o H po A E 1 7 1 o F. & M. . R H PO A Hanibright, 3b. I 11 2 Cremer, c 1 1 10 1 Criswell, p 2005 Graybill, 3b 1 1 1 o Sheibley, 2b I 2 I 4 Gillan, cf 0100 Hosterman, ib. 1 o 14 1 Harr, rf 1000 Kready, ss 1 1 o 2 Total 9 7 27 15 Total 1 1 24 9 Earned runs—P. and M., 2. Two-base hits—F. and M" 1. Stolen bases—F. and M., 5. Double plays—F. and M., 1. Bases on balls—Gettysburg, 4; F. and M., C. Hit by pitched ball—Gettys-burg, 1. Struck out—By Burns, 13; by Criswell, 10. Passed balls—By Gettysburg, 5; by F. and M., 1. Time of game—2 00. Umpire—Paul Kuendig. Unusual interest is being taken in tennis this spring. The courts are in constant Use and a larger number than ever before have en-tered the tennis tournament. The drawings have been made for the tournament and, as the teams are quite evenly matched, we antici-pate many interesting games. Some of the preliminary games have already been played off and the rest will be played off between now and commencement week. The prizes are very fine and everyone is doing his best to win them. FRATERNITY NOTES. PHI GAMMA DELTA. Bro. Wert, '95, of Harrisburg, Pa., recently spent 10 days in our midst. Bros. McConaughy, '80, and Martin, '90, are visiting at their respective homes in town. THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 63 Bros. Stahle, '89; Miller, '85, and Bliut, '90, were lately in town. Bro. Knuble will return from Europe to his home at New York, about the middle of next September. Bro. Fickinger, '94, was recently elected Borough Superintendent of the public schools of Chambersburg, Pa. This is a very impor-tant and desirable position, and Bro. Fickinger was elected to it over seventeen other appli-cants. Bro. Smith, '97, was called home May 23d by the sudden death of his aunt. Bro. Smith, '99, accompanied the musical clubs on their recent visit to Millersburg. Bro. Neudewitz preached at Post Royal, Sunday, May 17th. PHI KAPPA PSI. On the evening of May 15th, the Chapter was most royally entertained at the home of C. S. Duncan, Esq., '82. White, '97, and Lark, '98, who accom-panied the musical clubs on their recent trip, report a fine time. Hart Gilbert, '67, will edit the Star and Sentinel under the new management. We were pleased to meet Bros. Cremer, Gillan, Criswell, Sheibley and Nauman, of the F. & M. team. Reitzell, '96, was called to Pinegrove by the death of Mrs. Farquhar, daughter of Bro. D. R. Miller, '56. A. S. Garver, '56, is at present enjoying a trip abroad. SIGMA CHI. John B. McPherson, '83, has retired from the editorship of the Stat and Sentinel, a weekly town newspaper, after a successful period of six years. He will now devote his entire time to the practice of law. John R. Scott, '89, and William Hersh, '91, are contestants for the Republican nomination for District Attorney. As they are Brothers, we can't show partiality for either's success. The Phi Phi Chapter at the University of Pennsylvania, which has been defunct for a number of years, was revived on Saturday, May 9th. Lawyer, 1900, spent a few days at his home, Westminster, Md., recently. Erdman, '98, spent a few days at Carlisle, recently. He also played with the musical clubs, which gave a concert at Millersburg on the evening of the 23rd ult. PHI DELTA THETA. E. O. Keen, '92, graduated from the Re-formed Seminary, on the 14th of May, being one of five speakers. E. A. Linhart, '89, was elected president of the Pennsylvania Alpha Alumni Association for the ensuing year. F. B. Shaw, '96, is superintendent of the mines at Six Mile Run, Pa. G. H. Kain, and D. J. Forney, spent a few days the beginning of the month with G. H. Eckels, '95, at Shippensburg, Pa. F. W. Friday and J. E. Meiseuhelder spent the 24th of May at their respective homes. ALPHA TAU OMEGA. W. O. Nicklas, '94, spent a few days re-cently with the Chapter. C. H. Spayd, '99, spent Sunday, May 17th, with his parents at Harrisburg. R. L. Smith, '98, who was compelled to go home on account of his injuries, will return to college to take his examinations. M. R. Zullinger, '98, has not improved in health and will not return until next Sept. The Chapter will hold its annual banquet on Wednesday evening of Commencement week at the Hotel Gettysburg. Y. M. C. A. NOTES. Messrs. Ritter and Doty attended the dis-trict convention of the Y. M. C. A. at Cham-bersburg, May 1st and 3d ; they were pleas-antly entertained by Mr. Samuel Garver, an ex-member of the class of '42. Mr. Ritter read a paper on the "Influence of the Summer Bible Conferences at Northfield. On Thursday evening, May 21, Mr. David McConaughy, Jr., spoke to the Association of the Organization of the World's Students' Federation. This is one of the most signifi-cant movements of the age, uniting the stud-ents of the world in aggressive work for Christ. 64 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. The "Students' Hand-Book" will soon be out and ready for distribution. From the en-ergy of the committee, we are led to expect a book worthy to be sent in exchange to other institutions. If the students could but realize the inesti-mable privilege of attending the Northfield Conference, more would go, or would con-tribute liberally to send representatives. Three have decided to go. We should send at least five, and even more. It ensures faithful and efficient workers for the ensuing year. It is, too, a more far-reaching advertisement than the victories of our athletic teams. ToW|\l /\ND SEWIINARY NOTES. S. J. MII.I.KR, Editor. TOWN. Many improvements are being made through-out the borough. Old buildings are being re-paired and new ones erected. The Battlefield Hotel, which had been de-stroyed by fire last fall, has been rebuilt and is again open for guests. Monday, May nth, about twelve young ladies of the graduating class of Wilson Col-lege, Chambersburg, were here viewing the Battlefield. About one hundred cadets of the P. M. C. of Chester, accompanied by a number of friends, arrived here 011 Tuesday evening, May 19. . Wednesday evening a camp-fire was held in the Court House and a concert was given by the Cadet Banjo and Mandolin Club to which the students of the College were invited. The program was excellently rendered. Col. John P. Nicholson presided. Col. Hyatt wel-comed the audience to the entertainment and an address was made by Major Robbins of the U. S. Commission. On Thursday evening a drill and dress parade were given on the Pre-paratory campus. They left for home on Fri-day morning, via Washington. Saturday, May 23d, about ninety members of the Union League, of Philadelphia, includ-ing manj' prominent Philadelphians, arrived and spent that day and Sunday on the field. Sunday evening, May 24,the "Trumpeters," a male quartette formerly known as the Silver Lake Quartette, rendered some excellent music to a large audience in the M. E. Church. The gentlemen are engaged in temperance work. After the singing Rev. W. F. Berger lectured 011 "The Power of Christ's Name." A new schedule went into effect on Sunday, May 17, on the P. & R. R. Trains arrive and depart as follows: Arrive 10.05 A. M., 2.05 and 6.05 P. M.; depart 6.40 and 11.05 A. M. and 4.10 P. M. On Sunday the train arrives at 10.25 A. M., and departs at 5.00 P. M. The Commencement exercises of the Gettys-burg High School took place on Thursday evening, May 28th. The graduating class consisted of nine members. The equestrian statues of Generals Meade and Hancock were dedicated on the 5th of June. An excellent program was rendered. The exercises at the Meade statue began at 10.30 A. M., with prayer by the Rev. J. G Walker, of Philadelphia, and at the Hancock statue at 2.00 P. M., with prayer by the Rev. Dr.- H. W. McKnight, of Gettysburg. The State Convention of Sons of Veterans was held in Gettysburg this week and a large number of delegates attended. An excellent program which had been arranged for their entertainment was very creditably carried out. SEMINARY. Rev. Harry B. Stock, of Carlisle, a member of the graduating class, has received a unani-mous call to the Second German Lutheran church, Carlisle. Rev. A. J. Rudisill has .accepted a call to New Bloomfield, Pa. Mr. H. D. Newcomer, of the Junior class, will engage in mission work at Strinestowu, Pa., during the summer. The graduating class consists of twenty-one members. Fourteen out of the class have ac-cepted calls. Mr. J. E. Heindle, of the Junior class, will engage in mission work at York Haven, Pa., during the summer vacation. On Friday evening, May 22, the Rev. Dr. Seiss, of Philadelphia, delivered the annual lecture on "Christian Worship" in the Semi-nary chapel. The discourse was an able and logical one and was well attended, both by the citizens of the town and the students of the College. At the Intercollegiate Oratorical Contest be-tween the Prohibition clubs of various colleges held at Philadelphia, Rev. J: T. Huddle was the successful competitor. His subject was, THK COLLEGE MERCURY. "The Destroyer of the Nation." Prize re-ceived was thirty dollars. Revs. G. C. Cromer and M. J. Killian will engage in supply work in Illinois and Virginia respectively, during the summer vacation. LITEFJARY SOCIETIES. JOHN W. OTT, Editor. PHRENA. The following have been initiated into Phrena Society : Miss Amanda E. Bennett, Oscar Neviu Diehl, Miss Gertrude Frey, Miss Mattie B. Johns, John McCarney, Menno Sharp and Charles Howard. Phrena Society has purchased a fine piano, the Steinway baby grand. The welcome visi-tor was placed in the hall on Saturday, May 23rd. It has come to stay, and with its me-lodious strains to charm on to victory the con-testants both in debate and oratory. On Saturday evening, May 30th, a special program was rendered, at which time the piano was dedicated to Phrena Hall. The pro-gram was as follows: PKOGRA51ME. Address of Welcome, - - Bikle Music, --- Miss Diehl Declamation, "Ode for Decoration Day," - - - Bechtol Oration, "The Ideal Knight," Breiner Music, Miss Wolf Oration, --- .- Moser Music, - The Misses Keith Declamation, "The Conquered Banner," - - - - Keisch Oration, "Our Country's Future," Weeter Music, - Miss Wolf Oration, "Enemies of Our Government," - - Meisenhelder Declamation, "The Blue and the Gray," - - - - Stalcy Music, The Misses Keith Declamation, "Union and Liberty," - Woods Music, Miss Diehl About the middle of the program the '96 members of Phrena presented a beautiful piano lamp. The lamp is onyx and brass, and will ever be useful as well as ornamental in our hall. PHIXO. On Friday evening, May 22nd, the class of '97 gave a unique program. The subject was the "Song of Hiawatha." PROGRAM Song—"Dancing Over the Waves," White Philos of '97. Introduction, - Miller The Story of Hiawatha, Miss Tipton Hiawatha's Childhood, Smith Hunting the Eed-deer, - Coble —Music- Hiawatha's Wooing, - - - Clute The Wedding Feast, - White Song of Chibiabos at Hiawatha's Wedding, - - - Erb Son of the Evening Star, Wheeler —Music— The Famine (Pantomime), Miss Sieber The Whiteman's Foot, Friday Hiawatha's Departure, Englar Longfellow's Conception of the Indian Character, - McClean A. G. SPALDIflG i BROS "The Name is a Guarantee" that the article bearing it is the ! bent produced. Uniforms and Supplies of Every Description for . . Base Ball = Tennis = Golf Send for Handsome Illustrated Catalogue. The Acme of Perfection— THE SPALDING BICYCLE For 1896. A. Q. Spalding: & Bros., Largest manufacturers of Bicycles and Athletic Goods in the world. NEW YORK, PHILADELPHIA, CHICAGO. 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In this dissertation I explore the co-emergence of multinational corporations and the consolidation of the discourse on human rights at the level of the United Nations throughout the second half of the twentieth century and analyse the resulting conceptual gap that created tensions in the international legal order. Despite attempts by developing countries to alleviate this imbalance through the New International Economic Order (NIEO), a multitude of soft law initiatives and the reluctance to address human rights issues in MNCs at the level of the United Nations failed to make MNCs incorporate human rights standards in their operations. The merging of the two concepts became increasingly more challenging throughout the 70s and 80s when the world was faced with the oil crisis and the rise of neoliberalism. This shift in the global legal architecture forced the Third World to take a new approach to tackle the conceptual gap, this resulted in the emergence of the Third generation of human rights and ultimately, the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). CSR is a concept of international private business self-regulation that aims at merging human, socio-economic, and political rights into the world of the corporation. As a response to the concerns for human rights violations by corporate actors, CSR slowly came to the forefront of the global business scene to enable the continuation of the operation of multinational enterprises. CSR presented a platform for global soft law initiatives to minimise the conceptual gap they had created over throughout the preceding decades. This allowed people such as John Ruggie to develop the Guiding Principles, the most successful initiative to date. This dissertation will provide its readers with a fruitful understanding of the crucial role that international law played in this development and further, what implications this had on the political and economic level. - Introduction In the words of Sundhya Pahuja and Anna Saunders, the second half of the twentieth century staged a 'series of encounters between rival practices of world making, each of which travelled with rival accounts of international law'.[1] Anti-colonial disputes, the Cold War, the rise of developmental issues and the increasing popularity of neoliberalism are only some of the events that generated these competing views of the international legal order. These events brought different coalitions across the Global North and Global South, and different 'alliances of interest between 'public' and 'private' actors'.[2] At the heart of the system that emerged lie two fundamental elements: the modern multinational corporation and human rights. How to conceptualize multinational corporations (MNCs) and how to define their relation to the law and the State was part of these rival stories. In this paper I explore the co-emergence of multinational corporations and the consolidation of the discourse on human rights at the level of the United Nations throughout the second half of the twentieth century and analyze the resulting conceptual gap that created tensions in the international legal order. In particular, I examine how this encounter, which became evident as calls for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) were being advanced within the UN, came to produce the idea of 'Corporate Social Responsibility' (CSR). I show that CSR emerged from the failure of the NIEO, particularly in relation to the roles and responsibilities of private actors in the global economy and how this can be traced to the limits of initiatives addressing the tensions between human rights claims and the interests of multinational corporations. In so doing I provide an understanding of the crucial role that international law played in this development and the implications this had at the political and economic level. The first section of this essay examines the lack of direct use of human rights language in the UN literature focusing on MNCs and their role in world development from the 1960s to the 1970s. This includes an analysis of the report entitled 'Multinational Corporations in World Development'.[3] I demonstrate the emphasis and enthusiasm for multinational corporations displayed at the level of the United Nations and how the concepts of the corporation and human rights were kept separate due to their respective supporters during the Cold War. I then focus on the attempts by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the 'Group of 77' (G77) to bridge this conceptual gap through the imposition of policies and initiatives, though without major success. The second section analyzes the influence of the oil crisis and the rise of neoliberalism on the shift of the global legal architecture, ultimately promoting the birth of the new developmental state. Here concern is with the new legal structures' attempt to merge the concepts of multinational corporations and human rights through a third generation of human rights, [4] and I engage in theoretical approaches by legal scholars such as Samuel Moyn and Antonia Darder. In the third section investigates the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and analyzes its application and limitations. CSR is a concept of international private business self-regulation that aims at merging human, socio-economic, and political rights into the world of the corporation. As a response to the concerns for human rights violations by corporate actors, CSR slowly came to the forefront of the global business scene to enable the continuation of the operation of multinational enterprises. I demonstrate how CSR aspired to close a gap between human rights and corporate action in a way that would harmonize them through a multitude of soft law initiatives. This leads to the question of whether direct regulations can apply to MNCs under international law and a discussion of the UN Global Compact, at the time the world's largest and most far-reaching CSR initiative.[5] Finally, this paper closes with the most recent developments in the global legal order designed to tackle the conceptual gap between MNCs and human rights, namely through the United Nations Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises[6] and the development of the Guiding Principles. Dawn of co-existence The United Nations lies at the heart of the international regime with its normative, institutional and procedural human rights activities.[7] By adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the UN created a milestone document in the history of human rights. The Declaration has had an enormous influence on the world both in terms of 'spreading the philosophy of human rights, and in terms of inspiring legal texts and decisions'.[8] New states have used the Declaration as a basis for their constitutions, while domestic and international courts have invoked the Declaration in their judgments.[9] As human rights law developed, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, followed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, were both drafted under the auspices of the United Nations, adopted in 1966 and entered into force in 1976. Together, these three instruments make up the 'International Bill of Human Rights'.[10] Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the world became a stage for global changes that altered the legal order. The end of colonialism dawned in the Global South, and during the height of the Cold War the West faced the Soviet Bloc and its mission of 'exporting revolution'.[11] Leaders of nationalist resistance movements received military as well as financial aid from the Soviet Bloc which intensified anti-colonial mobilization for self-determination.[12] Simultaneously, globalization was increasing rapidly, with multinational corporations emerging onto the global scene with heightened awareness of their existence as an entity with legal personality. As outlined by Sornarajah, their distinct bases of power allowed them to assert their interests through the law. With economic resources often exceeding those of their host state, MNCs had the ability to sculpt and manipulate legal outcomes through arbitration processes concerning foreign investment protection. This was done by exerting lobbying pressure on a host state which might be reluctant or even unable to object to the activities of MNCs.[13] The 'Multinational Corporations in World Development', report drafted by the UN Secretariat's Department on Economic and Social Affairs in 1973, considers 'the role of multinational corporations and their impact on the process of development, especially that of developing countries [.] [and] international relations'.[14] From the outset, the Report identifies the emerging phenomenon of the MNC in international economic affairs, how its size and spread has increased, and identifies the wide array of its activities and its use of natural resources which 'rival traditional economic exchanges between nations'.[15] It is surprising therefore, that a Report from the Department on Economic and Social Affairs, does not contain the term 'human rights' throughout the entire document. In the Report's introduction the UN makes a clear distinction between the differing views of impacts MNCs have on host countries. While 'depicted in some quarters as key instruments to maximizing world welfare, [they] are seen in others as dangerous agents of imperialism'.[16] The fact the United Nations recognized the potential neo-colonial nature of multinational corporations further highlights the need for guidance on human rights violations by MNCs. Yet the Report's reluctance to engage in the area of human rights provides a first glimpse into the divergence of the concepts of multinational corporations and human rights. An explanation for this can be identified by analyzing the Conventions, on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, with the UN's reluctance to avoid tensions between the supporters of both Conventions, respectively the United States and the Soviet Union. The US pushed for the development of civil and political rights, reflecting the protection of the freedom and liberties of individuals. Stemming from a Western philosophy, John Locke identified that in a 'state of nature' humans had 'natural rights' including the right to life, liberty and property. Similarly, French legal philosophers such as Rosseau, Montesquieu and Voltaire argued that such rights emerge from the inherent nature and virtue of man.[17] As Joseph and Castan argue, 'natural rights theories were highly influential [.] particularly in the revolutionary fervor of the United States'.[18] The advancement of civil and political rights reflects the capitalist ideology of the United States, conforming to the libertarian nature of Western capitalist societies.[19] In contrast, the Soviet Union pushed for the advancement of economic, social and cultural rights. These included the right to work, the right to an adequate standard of living, and the right to physical health. Contrary to the civil and political rights, these rights were based on the idea of equality, one deeply rooted in the political ideology of socialism. As the US would not commit to a proposition that there is a right to social goods, the US has never ratified this Convention.[20] The Soviet Bloc promoted the right of self-determination by providing military and financial aid to indigenous political activists in their fight for independence; an idea enshrined in Article 1 of the Covenant which states that: 'All peoples have the right to self-determination'.[21] For the Soviets 'national self-determination was an adjunct to revolutionary communism'.[22] They envisioned self-determination as the tool for the transition from dismantling a colonial empire to establishing a socialist state.[23] However, while the United Nations was reluctant to adhere to human rights in the framework of multinational corporations, other international institutions were motivated to develop this area. The OECD attempted to impose human rights on MNCs by adopting the Guidelines for MNCs (hereinafter 'OECD Guidelines') in 1976.[24] These were 'voluntary recommendations for business practices relating to human rights, disclosure of information, anti-corruption, labour relations, taxation, the environment and consumer protection'.[25] The Guidelines were intended to strengthen the international investment climate by improving the relationship and confidence between MNCs and host countries. National Contact Points (NCPs) were created that bore the responsibilities of enforcing and promoting the Guidelines, and any natural person could make a claim related to the violation of the Guidelines.[26] This aspect of the Guidelines provided an enforcing mechanism accessible to the public. But although the Guidelines were formally adopted by member states as a corporate responsibility instrument, they were subject to widespread criticism in the international legal order. As explained by Cernic, the Guidelines are ambiguous while the NCPs are limited in their influence on host states. Even though they outlined the need to respect human rights, the obligations were not framed in mandatory terms.[27]. Since the Guidelines lacked legal basis, the OECD was unable to assert sanctions on non-compliant corporations, and critics labeled them weak and ineffective. However, it was the intention of the OECD to guide rather than to legislate, because they saw voluntary versus legally binding standards as less of a dichotomy and more a continuum.[28] Although voluntary, corporations would be under scrutiny and potentially harm their reputation if they violated the Guidelines.[29] Yet, the Guidelines were hardly successful in the international legal order. A year later, in 1977, the ILO attempted to bridge this gap by adopting the Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning MNCs and Social Policy. These also attempted to 'encourage the positive contribution the MNEs can make to economic and social progress'.[30]. Article 8 emphasizes the respect for the Universal Declaration and the International Covenants. However, its voluntary and non-binding nature, as well as its weak monitoring process made this instrument as frail as the OECD Guidelines.[31] The lack of responsibility and perseverance stemming from international organizations and their disappointing attempt at bridging the gap between multinational corporations and human rights forced national and regional change. On the one hand, developing nations began taking matters into their own hands. To portray unity and solidarity throughout the 'Third World' the G77 coalition, formed in 1964 by developing member countries with the primary intention of promoting its members' economic and humanitarian interests through cooperation at the level of the United Nations, took a strong initiative. In the late 1970s the Group expressed its concern at the 'imbalance of negotiating power between TNCs [transnational corporations] and their host countries and inability on the part of the latter to control the activities of the TNCs within their territories'.[32] Simultaneously, home countries wanted to ensure their investments abroad would be protected, 'specifically from expropriation without a commitment to compensation based on international law'.[33] In accordance with the principles and concerns of the freshly adopted NIEO, developing countries raised the issue of the dominance of MNCs over natural resources and strongly urged the UN for a reaffirmation of their sovereignty over their resources. The NIEO was an attempt by Third World developing states, in the wake of decolonization, to deploy international law to achieve economic justice and improvements in the areas of development and socio-economic rights.[34] Pushed by the G77, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) member states devised a set of NIEO proposals in 1974 including (1) that developing states are entitled to control and regulate all activities of MNCs within their territory; and (2) that international trade must be based on equitable, stable and remunerative prices for raw materials.[35] Despite its impressive aims and careful compilation, the NIEO was unsuccessful. It failed 'to displace the power and advantage held by influential states', it failed to alter international law which favoured the economic interests of capital-exporting states and, most importantly, it demonstrated the Third World's acceptance of the economic ideology of the capitalist mindset, inflating the value of foreign capital including the exploitation of local labour in developing countries.[36] Consequently, the UN set up the United Nations Commission on Transnational Corporations which drafted a code of conduct for TNCs, one of the first formalized instruments drafted by the UN that set an obligation upon MNCs to respect human rights in host countries.[37] However while developing countries insisted on the idea of adopting an international instrument that was binding on MNCs, developed countries were not prepared to go beyond the voluntary sets of guidelines already in place.[38] On the other hand, due to the ineffectiveness of the international institutions, some MNCs that sought to abide by human rights law attempted to create some provisions themselves. An example is the Sullivan principles designed by Leon Sullivan, former member of the General Motors' Board of Directors. These principles included the elimination of discrimination based on race, and the concept of equality in the workplace. The objective was that by engaging in human rights concepts like dignity and respect, MNCs could be a lever for the elimination of apartheid in South Africa. However, like the previously established soft law on obligations on multinational corporations, these principles were voluntary and unlike the OECD Guidelines which had the NCPs, there was no enforcement mechanism. The great majority of MNCs that adopted his principles did so with the sole motive of being able to continue to prosper in South Africa.[39] In summary, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, there were attempts at a variety of levels to bring together the concepts of human rights and multinational corporations. Though it was largely absent on the level of the United Nations until the late 1970s there were many first steps by international institutions to bridge this gap. The NIEO was the first set of concrete economic principles that were prescribed in international law 'articulating a form of justice based not on domination of one people over another'.[40] It was an 'effort to assert the sovereign autonomy of the non-western world',[41] exemplifying the importance of linking human rights and development, and the fundamental values of duties of international cooperation. However, there was still much to be done as the new decade of the 1980s saw a drastic restructuring of the global trade and investment system - ultimately ending in massive international debt and a dramatic increase in foreign direct investment. A Change in the Global Legal Architecture An accumulation of capital obtained by the main oil producing states in the Middle East led to the establishment of the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Cartel in 1972. With the intention of creating a monopoly and obtaining major profits, OPEC raised the price of oil by approximately 400%, with its members keeping revenue in US or European banks, from which developing countries regularly borrowed in the form of aid and loans.[42] However, banks were now lending at higher interest rates to these countries as they were deemed less creditworthy. As a result of sovereign debt and the surplus problem in the international banking system, developing states were forced to rely on foreign direct investment (FDI), as opposed to private borrowing. The very principle that developing states wanted to control with the establishment of the NIEO was now negated by Western states selling MNCs to the developing world as necessary for their survival.[43] Simultaneously to the effects of the oil crisis, the political ideology of neoliberalism emerged on the global scene. Conservative governments gained power in western countries, communism collapsed in Eastern Europe with a move towards market economics, and Latin America implemented stabilization policies to boost their economies.[44] This process saw neoliberalism became an enemy for structural equality, political inclusion, economic access and human rights.[45] Prior to the implementation of neoliberal policies, the relationship between multinational corporations and their host state was formed through the conflict between the host country's national developmental interests as opposed to the corporation's global investment interests. The state being the more powerful actor, attempted 'to channel its private investments to serve its own developmental objectives'.[46] However, as Michael Peters argues, neoliberalism provides 'a universalist foundation for an extreme form of economic rationalism'[47], which according to Paul Haslam, was a re-forming of the modern state rather than the perceived notion of the state 'unambiguously withering away'.[48] As a result, power shifted from host countries towards multinational corporations as the era was characterized by liberalization of foreign investment rules.[49] As the United Nations World Investment Report of 2000 showed, out of the 1035 changes made in national legislation regarding Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from 1991 to 1999, only 5.9% were directed at restricting FDI.[50] Now more than ever before, the existence and nature of human rights were jeopardized in the sphere of multinational corporations led by neoliberal politics. Yet when analyzing human rights and neoliberalism, the two concepts have a plethora of similarities that run counter to this assertion. Samuel Moyn states that human rights and neoliberalism share (1) a predecessor and (2) a target, namely the welfarist West and the post-colonial nation state seeking economic autarky respectively.[51] Both concepts emerged and were formalized in the West. As a target, developing countries need both economic (neoliberalism) and social (human rights) elements to establish economic control. Furthermore, the two concepts share key foundational building blocks. Firstly, the principle of prioritizing the individual 'whose freedoms matter more than the collectivist endeavours' and secondly, their shared antipathy toward the state due to their rejection of its moral credentials.[52] As described by Darder, neoliberalism is characterized by a rampant greed that subsumes any notions of equality and public responsibility.[53] At the heart of this lies the ultimate subversion of human rights. When faced with the powers of global capitalism, human rights struggle to maintain themselves in the Third World. A prime example countering this thesis is the idea that human rights are a handmaiden to neoliberal policies. The argument follows that human rights are so tightly related to the role of a freely functioning market that there could be no socio-economic rights without extreme capitalism.[54] Unfortunately under this notion, human rights fall victim to being seen as dependent upon the capitalist order, creating the illusion that multinational corporations enhanced and promoted human rights in the developing World. What Wolfgang Streeck termed as 'non-market notions of social justice' became impossible to secure. Any attempt to place social commitments over economic ones were expelled, leaving market pressures to form human obligations and be governed by the dictatorship of neoliberalism.[55] The World Bank and the IMF, backed by the United States and other western states, became key in the project for liberalization, privatization, and market-friendly policies, known as the Washington Consensus. MNCs were given the protection they needed to flourish, be it proprietary or intellectual property rights. The interests of human rights on the other hand were not regarded. Though excelling and growing more than ever before, human rights had done so 'on a discrete track spearheaded internationally through the UN'.[56] Directed by developing states, human rights were intentionally dealt with by the United Nations while international economic law was being dealt with by the international institutions where they hold the balance of power.[57] Simultaneously, the developing world saw the third generation of human rights emerge as a result of anti-colonialist movements in the post-Second World War era. Newly born independent nations voiced their concerns over repeating their colonial past and demanded a new set of rights. These included the right to self-determination, the right to a healthy environment and the right to participation in cultural heritage. These are reflected in Declarations and Conventions such as the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples of 1960, the Proclamation of Teheran of 1968 and the Stockholm Declaration of 1972.[58] What makes this generation of human rights exceptional however is that while they reflect neither the traditional individualistic approach of the first generation, nor the socialist tradition of the second generation, they simultaneously demand certain recognitions from the state while being able to be invoked against the state. Most importantly though, as articulated by Vasak, the third generation of human rights 'can be realized only through the concerted efforts of all the actors in the social scene: the individual, the State, public and private bodies and the international community'.[59] In other words, these rights belong to the community as a collective, rather than to an individual.[60] Drafted in 1986 by the UNGA, the Declaration on the Right to Development [61] (DRD) calls for effective international cooperation towards development objectives through the enhancement of human rights and the distribution of benefits.[62] The DRD gained inspiration from the NIEO as it relied on providing equal national opportunity through measures of fair distribution of natural resources and income. Alongside neoliberal policies, the two contradicting concepts were forced to work in tandem. Foreign investment in the developing world could proceed under the neoliberal ideology as long as it did not infringe the DRD. Interestingly, the right to development was coined by the former UN Independent Expert on the Right to Development, Arjun Sengupta, as 'growth with equity'. Growth should not only focus on the economic aspect, but also emphasize human rights and the principles of justice. This focus on equity, would require a 'a change in the structure of production and distribution in the economy to ensure growth was equitable', including the required international cooperation and not having to rely on the market.[63] Though the United Nations are promoting and enhancing the development of human rights, they are disregarding the fact that their work should be focused more on the human rights aspects entailed in the market, rather than solving human rights issues outside of the market framework. The development of human rights and the regulatory frameworks supporting multinational corporations attended very different interests. The new global legal architecture born of the oil crisis and rise of neoliberalism reorganized the relations between the Global South and Global North. At this point human rights and the regulation of corporations, with their distinctive genealogies, were forced to come together, but the failure of this exercise could not be challenged until the late 1980s when the third generation of human rights provided another opportunity for the merging of the two concepts. The outcomes of these new sets of discussions produced a more clearly defined relationship between human rights and multinational corporations which, although more sophisticated, was still unable to produce a satisfactory result. Nevertheless, the right to development began to take root in the corporate world. For the sake of their reputations, corporations were forced to appreciate the power held by vulnerable individuals that could act together as a strong collective.[64] As Claire Dickerson argues, multinationals became more aware of their relationship with human rights not only in regards to the individual, but rather to the society as a collective.[65] These were the first formalized steps to the recognition of what came to be known as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The Heterodox Approach What became apparent in the sphere of business and human rights were two situations, (1) that states were either unable or unwilling to implement human rights; and (2) that multinational corporations acting in such states were unprepared to deal with the risks of harming human rights through their activities. This was seen especially in the private extracting sector, such as oil, gas and coal, using aggressive means to exploit remote areas and leaving large physical and social 'footprints'. Local communities began resisting the activities by the multinationals and the language of human rights became increasingly popular in challenging corporate norms.[66] Some of the world's largest MNCs had become culprits of violating human rights standards, including Nike, Shell or Yahoo. Nike was guilty of using child labour, while Shell misused public funds to practice corruption and theft at all levels.[67] The effects were reflected in local communities that resorted to violence and criminal behaviour, significantly affecting the living conditions of these areas. In the early 1990s, some corporations began adopting measures to comply with responsible business conduct. CSR was a voluntary form of business self-regulation that attended the current societal goals. It involved the creation of monitoring schemes that regulated the workplace standards and policies of the global supply chains. However, what caused CSR to emerge, was not only pressure exerted by nations that felt their human rights had been impinged, but also a wider global political ethos. With its emphasis on privatization and deregulation, neoliberalism promoted CSR initiatives in order for corporations to gain self-control and rely less on direct government initiatives. Due to its voluntary nature, CSR was not conceived as a regulatory instrument but as a learning forum to promote strategies that enhanced socially responsible policies. This included the enhancement of human rights, environmental protection and anti-corruption efforts. [68] CSR had now progressed to the forefront of the global business scene by morphing out of corporate philanthropy.[69] Corporations began adopting voluntary schemes that not only adhered to social policy, but at times even went beyond the standard set by local requirements, which occasionally created conflict between the two.[70] Unilateral corporations produced company codes, with companies such as Gap and Nike adopting theirs in 1992. This involved internal audit teams and ethics officers to be established, verifying that contractors were complying with their company's codes of conduct. Gradually, social audit teams emerged onto the global scene. As one of the most prominent, the Fair Labour Association (FLA) monitored the working conditions for some of the top athletic brands such as Nike, Puma and Patagonia. In the food industry, the label of Fair Trade emerged, ensuring for local farmers the social, economic and environmental standards they deserved. Corporations adopted CSR measures mainly to improve their reputation. However, perhaps a greater incentive for corporations to adopt CSR measures lies in the financial risks posed by community pushback as a result of human rights violations. These pushbacks cause delays in design, operation, construction, siting, granting of permits etc. Further, they can create problems and relations with local labour markets, higher costs for financing, insurance and reduced output.[71] In a study of a large multinational company that wished to remain anonymous, Goldman Sachs found that it had accrued $6.5 billion in such costs over a two year period.[72] A great percentage of these costs could be related back to the staff time in managing conflicts that arise in communities as a result of human rights violations. In some instances between 50% and 80% of an assets manager's time can be devoted to these issues. Thus, it is clear that in this lose-lose situation, where MNCs violate human rights and thus incur losses, it makes sound corporate sense to adopt some sort of CSR measures.[73] Despite the improvements and the clear step forward the business world took in addressing human rights, CSR involved limitations and fragmentations that challenged its success. It was built on the assumption that it is an effective mechanism for a corporation to positively reconnecting with the community it is based in. Thus, in practice, CSR operates under the presumption that society has granted authority to corporations with naturally applying legal responsibilities.[74] In 2000 John Ruggie conducted research in the Fortune Global 500 and a wider range of corporations to assess the extent and success of voluntary initiatives promoting human rights. Staff monitoring schemes had evolved, demands by socially responsible investors had grown, and large public sector funds all aided in this development. However, the research also found 'company-based initiatives fell short as a stand-alone approach'.[75] Most companies still did not have the capabilities of managing human rights risks and instead were acting on a reactive based notion. Moreover, it was within the company's discretion to decide which human rights the company would address and furthermore how to define its measures. Thus, their voluntary nature could often be used as a camouflage to delay real reform.[76] A logical response to such a broad limitation would be to impose direct obligations under international law upon MNCs. Though only states and international organizations have legal standing in international law, the general view on this contention is that it would be possible to impose obligations upon MNCs due to their major economic and political influence as explained earlier, and their capabilities of influencing the enjoyment of human rights.[77] However, as explained by Zerk, the challenge lies in 'developing jurisprudence which refines and makes precise the vague aspirational statements [.] in the CSR debate'.[78] However, as the law stands, the most promising and efficient method for applying obligations on multinational corporations remains to be the national courts. Yet the fact that claims must be raised as a tort-based litigation proving a violation of domestic tort principles rather than claiming a violation under international human rights casts doubt over this method. An interesting exception to this is the US Alien Tort Statute of 1789. The tort states that district courts 'have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violations of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States'.[79] The original intention of the statute was to establish a civil remedy for violation of international law norms such as piracy, mistreatment of ambassadors and the violation of safe conducts.[80] This piece of legislation lay dormant until the 1980s when human rights lawyers discovered its potential for foreign plaintiffs to raise a claim for certain human rights abuses against an individual of any nationality, or a corporation as long as they had a presence in the United States. The question whether the Act could be enforced against a corporation was considered in 2012 in the U.S. Supreme Court case of Kiobel.[81] The court held that there was a presumption against extraterritoriality applying to claims under the Statute. There is therefore no application of the statute abroad unless it is explicitly stated in the international law which is the subject of the claim.[82] As stated by John Ruggie in his advice to the Human Rights Council in 2007 'no single silver bullet can resolve the business and human rights challenge. A broad array of measures is required, by all relevant actors.'[83] Ultimately, as a measure to seek guidance on the matter, this led to the UN Global Compact in 2000, the largest global CSR initiative.[84] The UN Global Compact was a strategic policy initiative posed by the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that aimed at improving corporate conditions in areas such as human rights, environmental protection and labour rights.[85] It was a prospective and hopeful initiative that was designed as a learning forum to develop, implement and disclose sustainability principles among corporate actors.[86] At its time, the Global Compact was the most far-reaching, non-governmental set of policies aimed at catalyzing the voluntary nature in the corporate citizenship movement.[87] Legal scholars such as Meyer and Stefanova felt the Global Compact could shape the relationship between MNCs and human rights through 'rewarding responsible TNCs [MNCs], while shaming at least some of the irresponsible TNCs [MNCs] into better promoting human rights'.[88] Their only concern about the extent of the success of the Global Compact lay, in the Global Compact's voluntary nature. Comparing it to the OECD Guidelines implemented 25 years earlier, an initiative like the Global Compact will only be successful if there is commitment to the initiative at all levels of the international system. Thus, the main task is to put a human face on globalization through the values and principles shared by the people, the corporation and the state.[89] However, Aravalo and Fallon dispute this. Published in 2008, their Report uses the Compact Quarterly and UNGC Annual Review to critique the Global Compact's activities and practices throughout its eight years of existence. Published by local networks and the UN respectively, they evaluate new businesses adhering to the Global Compact, as well as Global Compact practices and responses. Aravalo and Fallon found that after evaluating the various progress reports, the Global Compact falls short of being a successful initiative. According to the UNGC Annual Review, there are a multitude of gaps existing in the Global Compact framework. Research instruments for instance, under the principles of human rights and labour protection, have been deemed as inadequate as participants have failed to voice their concern over the protection of such rights within their corporation. The Global Compact has solely used online surveys to administer data, which smaller businesses are often unwilling or unable to provide. The methodology applied by the Global Compact was ambiguous and did not show the extent of the success of CSR initiatives.[90] Alavaro and Fallon argue that it would be highly beneficial for the Global Compact to re-think its methodology process of evaluating its success by introducing a chronological component into its future research models. [91] It would allow for a clearer comparison not only for participants of the Global Compact, but also for the comparison with non-Compact companies in the area of corporate responsibility.[92] As a result of this poor research methodology, the Global Compact has difficulty assessing its direct influence on the broad and voluntary concept of CSR. There are key principles of CSR that fail to receive the attention they deserve in the scope of the Global Compact. However, this is not to say that the Global Compact has been an outright failure. The Annual Review, though lacking quantifiable data, has provided a wide array of case studies providing evidence for the practical influence of the Global Compact on participants. These include programs in education and working relationships the Global Compact has encouraged and facilitated. It can be said therefore, that the Global Compact is making a difference, even if only in these cases. Until shortly after the turn of the millennium, neither company codes nor multilateral initiatives such as Global Compact, successfully achieved the necessary, concrete obligations in regard to human rights and environmental protection demands. This was set to change with the arrival of the United Nations Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises (Norms). Drafted in 2003, the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights attempted to merge the concepts of MNCs and human rights and transform these newly developed principles into hard law. The intention was to impose human rights obligations upon companies through the domestic legal systems of their host countries. The Norms clearly express that 'states retain primary, overarching responsibility for human rights protection' and that corporations are identified as 'Duty-bearers' based on that expectation of following human rights principles.[93] The expectations expressed by the Norms are supported by enforcement mechanisms for their implementation which address the requirements that MNCs must adopt in terms of their internal practice. Furthermore, there are a multitude of rights that go beyond what is traditionally accepted as international human rights law. Examples include rights associated with consumer protection, the environment or corruption which are covered by different areas of the law.[94] However, the Norms failed to achieve promising results. Described as a 'train wreck' by John Ruggie, the Norms fell under heavy criticisms for a plethora of reasons. Firstly, the Norms fall under heavy scrutiny for attempting to impose obligations upon corporations, while simultaneously imposing parallel obligations on the state. The intention was to address the fact that MNCs operate in a legal vacuum due to their status of acting as a multinational. To alleviate this issue, it was thought that binding MNCs to hard international law would be the best option. On the one hand, minimalists argue that binding multinational corporations to international law is not an appropriate method as this would go beyond the concept of soft law initiatives such as Global Compact. This argument is developed by stating that binding corporations to international law would 'privatise human rights'. The Norms would be placing obligations on an entity that was never democratically elected, nor eligible to make reasonable decisions in regard to human rights at the level of international law.[95] On the other hand, maximalists lobby for a judicial body solely focused on the practice of multinational corporations and argue that corporations should be bound by international law.[96] Secondly, there was severe backlash against the Norms from states, corporations and businesses who argued that there was a lack of consultation from the Sub-Commission when drafting the Norms. However, this argument has since been disputed by institutions such as the Corporate Europe Conservatory or the scholars Weissbrodt and Kruger.[97] In regard to the discontent presented by states, many argued that there was a lack of involvement on their behalf in the Norms' development. As stated by Kinely, Nolan and Zerial, it is of vital importance that in issues revolving around CSR and their wide variety of stakeholders, everyone's voice must be heard when protecting human rights.[98] Thirdly, issues were raised regarding the language used by the Norms. Terms like 'sphere of influence'[99] and 'complicity' were deemed as vague and unclear.[100] It is agreed upon, even by supporters of the Norms, that such terms must be defined more definitively and where possible, draw definitions from more grounded areas of the law like criminal law, tort or contract law. This attitude towards the Norms from corporations shows the extent of their distrust and the scare factor used to attempt to dismantle the Norms.[101] However, even though the Norms failed as a concept, as Kinley, Nolan and Zerial maintain, 'the Norms have been a beneficial and fruitful initiative, reinvigorating debate on business and human rights'.[102] Previous to the imposition of the Norms, CSR had found itself in a position that was stagnant, focusing solely on codes of conduct that should be implemented by corporations using a bottom-up approach. The Norms altered the position of CSR to now provide a top-down approach and provided human rights activists with hope that human rights protection in regard to multinational corporations was now in the hands of the United Nations. However, the reactions to the Norms from the CSR community varied. CSR had been a newly emerging concept which was still unclear when fitted into the international legal order. It was still in its early years of development with highly broad-reaching initiatives in the fields of both soft and hard law. The playing field for CSR was simply too big for such an underdeveloped concept to handle. Further, it was attempted to implement CSR through domestic laws and quasi-legal initiatives raised to the level of international law. It is therefore often perceived that the implementation of the Norms were an attempt to remedy CSR by uniting these various aspects into one document at the level of the United Nations. The Norms conjoined national and international levels of CSR while maintaining that states continued to hold the primary responsibility of ensuring that businesses protect human rights. The world was a 'deeply divided arena of discourse and contestation lacking shared knowledge, clear standards and boundaries; fragmentary and often weak governance systems concerning business and human rights in states and companies alike'.[103] A range of governments still expressed their demand for further attention to be given to the relationship between human rights and the practices of multinational corporations. Thus, the United Nations appointed a team led by John Ruggie to establish the Guiding Principles. Rather than establishing a new international framework as was previously attempted with the Norms, Ruggie was 'urged [.] to focus on identifying and promoting good practices and providing companies with tools to enable them to deal voluntarily with the complex cluster of business and human rights challenges'.[104] Ruggie moved away from the traditional 'mandatory approach' which involved the compliance of national laws in correspondence to a corporation's voluntary measures and practices, to a heterodox approach. This heterodox approach was devised to create an environment of mixed reinforcing policy measures that provided cumulative change and large-scale success. The Guiding Principles lay on three foundations: (1) the state duty to protect against human rights abuses; (2) the responsibility by corporations to respect human rights and the implied obligation of acting in due diligence; and (3) the need for greater access to remedies for victims. However, there are two things that the Guiding Principles fail to accomplish. Firstly, to create binding international law and instead rely on normative contributions which further elaborate the implications of existing standards. Secondly, the Guiding Principles 'fail to ensure the right to an effective remedy and the need for States' measures to prevent abuses committed by their companies overseas'.[105] Amnesty International goes further by reiterating that aside from lacking accountability measures, the Guiding Principles should mandate a due diligence approach rather than only recommending it, as this would solve internal as well as extraterritorial accountability issues. Alongside Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch criticized the Guiding Principles for not adopting a global standard in corporate responsibility, and instead resort to a 'sliding scale' based on a corporation's size and geographic location.[106] However, when compared to other governance regimes in the past and present, the Guiding Principles seem to be a robust framework. Although various human rights organizations and NGOs identify neglect of human rights in the framework of MNCs, the Guiding Principles reiterate business as an instrument to contribute to societal welfare.[107] Thus, it acts as a basis for the empowerment of society and a benchmark to judge practices and conduct of corporations and governments.[108] Conclusion The discourse of the co-emergence of multinational corporations and human rights took the world by storm. The ongoing globalization of multinational corporations and the evolution of the concept of human rights were born attending different aims in the global legal order. Their greatest challenge however was not necessarily their harmonization and co-existence, but more importantly co-existing under the intentional gap created through the world's largest and most influential actor, the United Nations. This was clearly visible in the 1960s and 1970s. Throughout the various Reports and Declarations that were passed through the international institution, the two concepts were kept separate. While the United Nations was enthusiastic for the growth of both MNCs and human rights, it intentionally avoided discussing the harmonization of both concepts. Due to the underlying pressures imposed on the United Nations by the tensions from the Cold War, the UN was left in a legal vacuum unable to merge the two distinctive genealogies. The global international legal order was unaware of the extent of the importance of such a gap being eradicated before adopting a resolution as complex as the NIEO. Thus, from this point onwards, the NIEO was therefore already bound to be unsuccessful. Not only had international law not developed enough to impose such obligations upon MNCs, the corporations themselves were not aware of the ramifications and necessity for abiding human rights obligations as I showed in the third section of this dissertation. Enthusiasm for further initiatives such as the push by the G77 or the United Nations Commission on Transnational Corporations was only short lived. The events of the 1980s greatly disrupted the already turbulent environment of the global international legal order creating a greater gap between the concepts of multinational corporations and human rights. The 1980s became a stage which saw a great change in the global legal structure. The NIEO was an already broken concept from the outset as the conceptual gap had already created a disparity in the relationship between MNCs and human rights. This meant that although they were not aware of it at the time, the Global South could not rely on the imposition of the NIEO. Fostering the Western neoliberal policies, the conceptual gap between MNCs and human rights was now well established. For human rights to become a globally instructed concept, MNCs are a useful tool to spread, promote and enhance human rights across the globe. This of course is under the condition that the MNC does not violate human rights. From the other perspective MNCs rely on human rights in terms of their societal and financial risks. It becomes clear that when this is not realized by the proponents of both concepts, it can lead to major discrepancies and disparities as was proven in the Global South during this period. If there had not been this conceptual gap, and instead there had been a clear and devised relationship between MNCs and human rights, the effects of the oil crisis and neoliberalism would not have left the detrimental mark in developing countries that they did, potentially allowing the NIEO to prevail. However, the ongoing persistence of developing countries and their call for the third generation of human rights to gain prominence forced MNCs to catch up with their relationship to human rights. What emerged, were essentially the first initiatives and practices of CSR. CSR was heavily affected by the fact that it relied on the voluntary nature of businesses to adhere to as well as practice CSR. Even though corporations had an incentive to adopt CSR measures, weak monitoring systems allowed violations to still occur on a grand scale. The issue was that the multinational corporation as a concept was still unclear and lacked definition and that tying MNCs down with hard international law was not possible due to the diversity of MNCs. CSR allowed for too large a divergence from the issue at hand and required to approach human rights at a different angle. This was the key reason for the partial success of the Guiding Principles. Ruggie's unconventional, heterodox approach provided clarity and distinct concepts that individuals, business and states could adhere to. Although the conceptual gap has still not vanished, the UN has after an array of various attempts, managed to narrow the gap that it had created almost sixty years ago by continuously forcing society to rethink and redefine the relationship. What exactly lies in the future is uncertain and impossible to foresee. It can be said with great certainty however, that if initiatives such as Global Compact or the Guiding Principles are enhanced and given more attention, the world will be faced with a much clearer and concise relationship between multinational corporations and human rights. Focusing on monitoring mechanisms, methodological research and greater transparency and accountability among all actors involved will undoubtedly seal the conceptual gap that has caused the international legal order to experience such unsettling times. [1] Pahuja, Sundhya. Saunders, Anna. Rival Worlds and the place of the Corporation in International Law in Dann and Von Bernstorff (eds). Decolonisation and the Battle for International Law (OUP, 2018) p.1 [2] Ibid. [3] UN, Multinational Corporations in World Development ST-ECA/190 [4] Linarelli, John. Salomon, Margot. Sornarajah M. The Misery of International Law. (OUP, 2018) p.245 [5] Ruggie, John. Just Business. (W.W. Norton & Company, 2013) p.70 [6] United Nations Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises E/CN.4/Sub.2/2003/12/Rev.2 [7] Alston, Philip. Mégret, Frédéric. (eds) The United Nations and Human Rights: A Critical Appraisal (Second Edition, OUP, 2020) p.1 [8] Clapham, Andrew. Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2007) p.42 [9] (n.8) p.108. [10] ibid . p.109 [11] Allina, Eric. Imperialism and the Colonial Experience in Paul A. Haslam, Jessica Schafer and Pierre Beaudet, Introduction to International Development (3rd Edition, OUP, 2017), pp. 24-42. p.39 [12] Ibid. p. 40 [13] Sornarajah M. International Law on Foreign Investment (CUP, 2010) p.5 [14] United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Multinational Corporations in World Development, 1973 ST-ECA/190 p.VI [15] ibid. p.1 [16] ibid. [17] Joseph, Sarah. Castan, Melissa. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: Cases, Materials. (3rd Edition, OUP, 2013) p.4 [18] ibid. p.5 [19] ibid. [20] Alston, Philip. U.S. Ratification of the Covenant on Economic, Social And Cultural Rights: The Need for an Entirely New Strategy. The American Journal of International Law Vol.84, No.2 (CUP,1990) pp.365-393, p.4 [21] UN General Assembly, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966, Article 1 [22] Simpson, Gerry. The Diffusion of Sovereignty: Self-Determination in the Post-Colonial Age (Ashgate Publishing, 2000) p.266 [23] Ibid. [24] Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, 1976 [25] Carasco, Emily. Singh, Jang. Towards Holding Transnational Corporations Responsible for Human Rights. European Business Review Vol.22, No.4, (Emerald Publishing Group, 2010). p.4 [26] Cernic, Jernei. Corporate Responsibility for Human Rights: A Critical Analysis of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises Hanse Law Review, Vol.4, No.1, (2008). p.16 [27] Ibid. p. 12 [28] Sanchez, Juan Carlos Ochoa. "The Roles and Powers of the OECD National Contact Points Regarding Complaints on an Alleged Breach of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises by a Transnational Corporation." Nordic Journal of International Law (2015) Vol.84, No.1, pp: 89-126 p. 18 [29] Bolt, Cassidy. "Leveraging Reputation in Implicit Regulation of MNEs: An Analysis of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises' Capacity to Influence Corporate Behavior." Corporations and International Law, 20 Jan. 2018, Available at: sites.duke.edu/corporations/2018/01/20/leveraging-reputation-in-implicit-regulation-of-mnes-an-analysis-of-the-oec

The College Mefcufy. VOL. IV. GETTYSBURG, PA., DECEMBER, 1896. No. 8. THE COLLEGE MEftClPRY, Published each month during the college year by the Students of Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College. STAFF. Editor: ROBBIN B. WOLF, '97. Associate Editors : LEWIS C. MANGES, '97. ED. W. MEISEN H ELDER, SAMUEL J. MILLER '97. CHARLES T. LARK '98. JOHN W. OTT, '97. CHARLES H. TILP, '98. E. L. KOLLER, '98. Alumni Association Editor: REV. D. FRANK GARLAND, A. M., Baltimore, Md. Business Manager: HARRY R, SMITH, '97. Assistant Business Manager: JOHN E. MEISENHELDER, '97. ".". jOne volume (ten months). . . . $l.no iMiMS-\Siuglecoples, . . .15 Payable in advance All Students are requested to hand us matter for publication The Alumni and ex-members or the College will favor us by-sending Information concerning their whereabouts or any Items they may think would be Interesting for publication. All subscriptions and business matters should be addressed to the business manager. Matter intended for publication should be addressed to the Editor. Address, THE COLLEGE MEHCUKY, Gettysburg, Pa. CONTENTS. EDITORIAL, 114 DE ORATORE, - --. --- 117 AN ADVENTURE (Poetry), --- 118 AN APPEAL, "9 A LULL FROM THE HIVE (Poetry), --- 120 COLLEGE LOCALS, 120 ALUMNI NOTES, -- 122 ATHLETIC NOTES, 125 TOWN AND SEMINARY NOTES, 127 FRATERNITY NOTES, - --- '--128 SUBJECTS FOR "ROMAN LAW" THESES, 129 LITERARY SOCIETIES, --- . - - 129 EXCHANGES, --- 129 EDITORIAL. REVIEWS ! Examinations ! ! Vacation ! ! ! The stereot3rped program is about to be ren-dered. The term, on the whole, has been un-usually pleasant. Seldom has there been a fall session of so much charming weather. This has been conducive to good spirits with the professors as well as with the bo}rs. Sev-eral interruptions broke the monotony of col-lege work—the foot-ball games, the visit of the Columbian Club, Election day, Thanksgiving day, Institute week and several others. The work in the class-room has been very good, and this is somewhat surprising in the face of the great temptation to stay out-of-doors. The moral and spiritual work of the term is shown in the excellent results in the Y. M. C. A., alike in the meeetings, in the efforts among the non-members, and in the continu-ation of the week of prayer during the second week. Neither has athletic activity been neglected. The "gridiron," bowling alleys, gymnasium and tennis courts have been well patronized. After all comes vacation, especially desired by the Freshmen. The MERCURY extends to all its heartiest wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year. ' + * * INTER-COLLEGIATE ORATORICAL CONTEST TO BE HELD AT GETTYSBURG.—The annual meeting of the delegates composing the Com-mittee of Arrangements of the State Inter-collegiate Oratorical Union was held at the Windsor Hotel, Philadelphia, on Saturday, Nov. 21st. Fourteen representatives were present from the seven following colleges : Lafayette, Lehigh, Muhlenberg, Franklin and Marshal, Ursinus, Swarthmore and Gettys- "S THE COLLEGE MERCURY. burg. Our delegates were G. F. Abel, '97, from Philo, and R. B. Woll, '97, from Phrena. President Yetter, late of Muhlenberg, called the meeting to order. The unfinished business was then taken up and completed. The re-quest of Susquehanna University for admission was refused on the grounds that the Union is large enough and the University very young. After hearing the delegates, it was decided to hold the contest at Gettysburg on March 27th, 1897. Hon. John Stuart, of Chambers-burg; Hon. J. B. McPherson, of Harrisburg, and Hon. Rob't E. Pattison, of Philadelphia, were chosen to act as judges of the contest. The officers elected are: Pres., R. N. Hood, of Lehigh ; Vice Pres., W. E. Stoeckel, of Muhlenberg; Treas., G. F. Abel, of Get-tysburg; Sec, \V. H. Kready, of Franklin and Marshal ; Executive Committee, Blair, of Swarthmore; Shenk, of Lafayette; Wolf, of Gettysburg, and the Pres. and Sec. ex officio. A rotation system was adopted so as to have the contest held once in every seven years at each college. The contest will be held at Gettysburg, 1897; Lafayette, 1898; Lehigh, 1899; Muhlenberg, 1900; Ursinus, 1901; Franklin and Marshal, 1902, and Swarthmore, 1903. A communication has just been received from Muhlenberg asking Gettysburg to ex-change with her. The following considera-tions make such an exchange desirable : the expense and trouble attending the contest and the fact that our oratorical talent does not promise us the prize. The expense will be from sixty to one hundred dollars, even if we can overcome the trouble; but when Gettys-burg has the contest, she should have a fair prospect of the prize. The only objection to the exchange is that Muhlenburg has already had the contest there, while Gettysburg has never had it. No action has yet been taken on the matter. * * * IT is to be hoped that the article in our last issue, on the Gettysburg Club at New Haven, by Wm. J. Gies, has been thoughtfully read and pondered by the different Alumni. This is at present the only Gettysburg Alumni Club in existence, outside of the general associa-tion. There should be other clubs of this kind at such centres as York, Philadelphia, Balti-more, Harrisburg, Altooua and other places. Such organizations are not only pleasant for the members, but are beneficent to the institu-tion. One of the chief objects of the clubs should be to furnish recruits for the college. No doubt the motive which prompted the New Haven men to form a Gettysburg Club was their interest in their Alma Mater. There are few better ways of showing your interest in the college, than by the formation of such clubs. The New Haven men have already had let-ter heads printed. At the top of the page in large characters are the words, The Yale Get-tysburg Club, while to the left in small type is a list of the officers for i896-'g7. Pres., Wm. J. Gies, '93; Vice Pres., C. F. Kloss, '94; Historian, H. L. M. Hoffman, '95; Sec, A. H. Brown, '96; Treas., D. F. Culler, '93, * * * OUR RELATIONS WITH DICKINSON.—There has been considerable talk, throughout the present term, in favor of contracting friendly relations with Dickinson. Our neighbor has intimated that we ought to come on bended knees and uncovered heads and apologize for all the defeats which she has suffered at the hands of the Gettysburg athletic teams. Get-tysburg has too much dignity to submit to such conditions, but being eager to renew the annual games with Dickinson and desirous of being on friendty terms with her neighbors, the Gettysburg boys held a mass meeting and selected one of the professors to meet with rep-resentatives from Dickinson. So much for Gettysburg. What has been the response of Dickinson ? She sent fifty of her boys to Harrisburg on the day of our game with Swarthmore, who did their utmost to have Gettysburg defeated. The Dickinsonian in their issue of Nov. 7th, recog-nizing the disgraceful character of such be-havior, offers the following by way of apology: THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 116 "There were some men whose behavior at Har-risburg, had they been college men, would have disgraced Dickinson. The}7 were town boys and not students of the college, yet Dick-inson will, in all probability, get a bad repu-tation on account of the incident.'' This sounds plausible. But the facts are in evidence against it. Several of the Gettysburg boys, being fraternity men, went up and spoke with the Dickinson men belonging to their respect-ive fraternities and thus found out that the students had been doing all the mean work for which their Weekly blames the town men. But in glancing over the Dickinsonian, a second article is noticed. This was probably written by one of the associate editors, who was ignorant of the scheme to get out of the trouble. This article says : "Dickinson rooted lustilv for Swarthmore and we do not consider this in any degree objectionable. We do, however, think that the ungentlemanly con-duct and disgraceful language of a few of the students is deserving of the harshest censure. Just such actions as these are the cause of so much talk about college rowdyism." Let the readers form their own conclusions, from the two quotations, as to the attitude of Dickinson towards Gettysburg. * * * WE take pleasure in calling the attention of the readers to the publication of the '98 Spec-trum. The work is being pushed vigorously by the class, and judging from the present prospects, it will be an unusually interesting one. The men on the Staff are the leading members of the class and are exerting all their powers to make it a success. The Alumni department of which Win. J. Gies, '93, has been elected editor, will be one of the import-ant new features. The artist's corps is also very good as was seen in their work on the '97 Spectrum. Many new cuts will supplant the old ones which have been reproduced in nearly all the preceding issues. These and several other features point to a good book, one which deserves support. It comes only once a year. It need not be paid for till May, '96. Send in your subscriptions now and thus give them encouragement in their task. All suggestions which may tend to improve the publication will be very thankfully received by the Staff. * * * EVERYONE desires to enter the coming new year with a clean record for the past year. To this end, kindly pay your subscription fee to the MERCURY. Our treasury is very low and we, .too, would like to enter the new year with everything squared up for the old. If you are in doubt as to the amount of your ar-rears, consult the Business Manager. ' * * * FEVERISH HASTE.—Americans are always in a hurry. Proverbs on the foolishness of haste seem to have no influence. We work with one eye on the clock. Trains move too slow for us. Steamers are regular snails. We can "do" Europe in a month and he is a poor sight-seeing traveler who cannot see Rome in three days. We "run" down to the city. We "run" out west. We "rush" to conventions and "rush" through them as well. Every-thing must have the electric movement, in seeking wealth, in seeking pleasure, in ac-quiring an education and even in prayer and praise. We have gotten beyond the "long" sermon and there is no place in the liturgy of devotion for practical men and women for the "long" prayer. We sympathize with John Foster who longed for the power of touching men and women with the spell of "be quiet." No thorough work can be done in a hurry. No great picture was ever painted by contract against time. The author who writes the book that lives must have leisure, quiet and the seclusion of his stud}7, away from the rush-ing tide of busy life. The old "A B C" method may be slow but it is sensible. He is wise who takes time for thorough preparation for his life-work, who is willing to work and to wait. Feverish haste to get into college, feverish haste to get through and into the business or profession of one's choice is all a mistake, a costly blunder. The old proverb can be wisely applied to one seeking an edu-cation, "Make haste slowly." G. THE COLLEGE MERCURY. WILLING WORKERS.—There is always work awaiting the willing worker. He who puts his whole heart into his work will be success- ! Inl in it. He will always be wanted in his business or his profession. He who goes grumbling to his task will soon find himself going backward in his work until finally he may be "out of a job" altogether. In every business and in every profession we are told there is always "room at the top." Here at the top is where you find the willing worker. What an army of unwilling workers then there must be in the world. There are far too many workmen who throw down their tools where they stand on the instant the bell announces '•quit work" and who will wait next day. patiently for the signal to begin again. Where you find one man who magnifies his office, by throwing his whole soul in his work, and bending every energy to success in it, you must find nine or perhaps ninety-nine who work mechanically. Even in the ministry there are men who are forever haunted with the fear of doing unrewarded work. I sup-pose it is true in every profession that the few willingly work for the work's sake, and the many struggle along merely as a matter of business necessity. This characteristic of will-ingness to work is to be seen in student-life, where habits of work are formed and fixed. Many boys, and girls, too, for that matter, are in college merely to "finish" their education, as if that were a thing possible of achievement, or to get a diploma, to be graduated. The result is they "finish" when they get their diploma. They are at the end of advancement then, and have reached the limit of progress. For the remainder of life, as up to that time work pushes theni, they belong to the great army of Unwilling workers. But he, who comes to col-lege not to "finish," but to fit himself for life work, not to get a diploma, but to get a basis lor future growth and development, will prove himself in all his college work to be a willing worker. When he leaves the college halls he will join the army of willing workers who adorn their profession or their business, and who are a power in the world. May the army of willing workers inc. ease ! G. DE ORATORE. [In anticipation of the coming oratorical contest and in order to arouse more spirit in the society work, we publish in this issue an article, entitled "De Oratore," by Morris W. Croll, '89, Professor in the University School, Cleveland, Ohio. The article was taken from the University School Record^ There has recently been a noticeable revival of public speaking as an art. While we were deploring the decay of oratory, we suddenly found that we had a number of public men be-fore us who, whatever their failings, are at least successful students of eloquence. The platform, with its pine table and its semi-circle of influential citizens, has again become a feature of political campaigns, and the square-jawed orator once more receives, with his hand thrust between the first and second buttons of his frock-coat, the wild greetings of his fellow-citizens. There has been, moreover, whether it is or is not due to the revival of oratory in politics, a similar revival in some of the largest col-leges. Everyone who has read the news-papers must have noticed that the debating clubs of Princeton, Harvard, Yale and "the Tech" have taken a prominent position among the student organizations of their respective institutions. In most large colleges there are now two rival societies, which command the respect and enthusiastic support of the student-body by the direct, simple and convincing ex-temporaneous speaking of their members. In short, it is evident that the old-fashioned de-bate has become popular. This is a consummation which many of us have devoutedly wished. The debating-club was the school in which Americans of the last generation learned statecraft. And they learned not only that, but two yet more desir-able things—the power, namely, of thinking at once rapidly and logically, and the power of putting .thought readily into consecutive language. The=e ends are as desirable, surely, for us as they were for our fathers. It is useless, however, to insist upon the THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 118 profitableness of debating. That is obvious. It is as a form of amusement, as a sport, that debating I think, is not appreciated. "The spice of life," says Stevenson, "is battle." Who would compare the enjoyment of seeing the best horse in the world run against an invisible record with that of seeing six raw-boned trotters striving toward the line at a country fair ? And who would not go further to hear a subject tossed about between affirma-tive and negative than to hear the same sub-ject expounded by its most learned advocate ? There may be some pleasures of which rivalry is not an element, but the sum and substance of all that which we call sport is eager compe-tition. And, with this definition in mind, I venture to say that there is greater striving, closer application of the powers of a man to a desired object, a narrower watch for advantage, and a quicker grasp of opportunity in a lively debate than in a foot-ball match. Consider, for one thing, how much depends upon the manner of marshalling facts. When you have ended you know whether or not each one has fitted into its place and helped to strengthen the whole. You know whether or not they are real, significant facts, and whether, if they are not significant, you have made them seem so. You know, too, if it is a good, fair-and-square extemporaneous debate, what you have forgotten and where you lost your grasp and failed to make your point; and you squirm with eagerness to try again. But it is all over with you. You have had your chance and either won or lost with it. You must await patiently the decision of the judges, who sit, like the fair ladies in the tournaments of old, ready to award the prize to the better combat-ants. Here is sport enough in all conscience, and nothing said of the hundred details of the game—of the skill in anticipating the oppo-nents' plan of attack, of the incidents that oc-cur, so unexpectedly, diverting the fight to this issue and to that, of the fine fencing with the swords of rebuttal and rejoinder which be-gins after the opening speech. Is it not clear that success in the art—or, let us say the sport—of debating requires rare qualities ? Finally, like all good sports, debating demands a fine balance of temper, equal parts of spirit and good humor; and he will be most success-ful and win most judges who is "eager to fight, yet not averse to quarrel." M. W. C. AN ADVENTURE. While the western sun was sinking On that feast-day of the Fall, Through the corridors we wandered Of old "recitation hall." On Professor Bikle's blackboard, As through his room we did pass, We had written our initials For to morrow's I^atin class. We had viewed the halls where students Oft orating, raise their voice, "Phrenakosmian" was quite nice, but "Philomatheau" was our choice. On the walls the shadows, deepening. Plainly marked the close of day. Warning us we'd miss our supper, Should we longer dare to stay. Dearer joys there are than supper, (Leastways on Thanksgiving Day) So we tarried in the "Sweat-box" •Singing, "When I'm far away,'' "Sometimes you may think of me dear." And the old familiar song Had, to me, peculiar meaning As we sang it, lingering long. Groping then adowu the stairway, We were one and all quite shocked, On arriving at the entrance, There to find the door fast locked. We might shout from out a window To some passing boy or man, But, for several obvious reasons, We objected to this plan. In our minds there was strange mixture Of amusement and dismay, When we found to leave this prison There was but one other way. We must stumble up that stairway To the gloomy upper floors, Down the fire escape and exit Through two swinging iron doors. In this pleasant manner, took we, Down through tower dark and tall, Unconventional departure From the recitation hall. I will ne'er forget that visit, Neither do I think will you, To that building of the college Of the "orange and the blue." M. G. IK) THE COLLEGE MERCURY, AN APPEAL TO THE ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF THE COL-LEGE FOR SUPPORT OF THE "SPECTRUM." The Junior class would respectfully call the attention of the alumni and friends of the col-lege to the Annual soon to be issued by its representatives, the '98 "Spectrum" Board. The "Spectrum" idea has always been cordi-ally endorsed by the Faculty ; the students in college are enthusiastically co-operating in the consummation of the special plans designed for the forthcoming Annual ; the class of '98 is unanimously as well as heartily supporting the work now devolving upon its chosen rep-resentatives, and the Staff of editors and man-agers itself is using every endeavor to publish a "Spectrum" that will be a lasting credit to the college and the class. That the Staff will be able to accomplish this desideratum, with the co-operation of the student body and the alumni, it feels entirely confident. Numerous decided improvements over former Annuals have been devised and several entirely new features will be presented. Sta-tistics and historical data in regard to college events of the past year and with reference to the classes, fraternities, societies, athletics, as-sociations, etc., etc., will receive special at-trition. Original literary contributions, of a character suitable for the "Spectrum," will be given the prominence they deserve. ' In order to make the '98 "Spectrum" of particular interest to the Gettysburg graduates a large section of the book will be devoted en-tirely to the alumni. This department will comprise all of the statistics, etc., given in the '93 "Spectrum," revised to date, and, besides, will comprehend many new and additional lads and features of interest and value to all who are in any way interested in the affairs of Gettysburg College. The Staff, in the arrange-ment and compilation of this department, have been fortunate in securing the kind assistance of an able and enthusiastic Gettysburg Alum-nus. The Staff feels assured that this part of the volume will be generally considered of special importance and no labor will be spared to make it the most complete and valuable alumni record issued within recent years. Suggestions in regard to this department as well as to any other matter relating to the book will be very thankfully received. General communications should be addressed to the Editor, E. W. Meisenhelder. The Staff earnestly appeals to the alumni for financial support of the "Spectrum." Prac-tically every student at Gettysburg has favor-ably responded to our solicitation for subscrip-tions and we respectfully urge every alumnus to do likewise. Many graduates have already placed their names on our subscription lists, but we hope to receive many more before the next term opens. Subscriptions given to any of the students during vacation will be promptly transmitted to the Staff. Business communications should be addressed to the Manager, S. M. Lutz. We hope to make the '98 "Spectrum" the very best annual ever published at Gettysburg. To do so, however, it is quite obvious that we must have the united support of the alumni. The student-body is doing its full share to aid us in every way. May we not hope that the alumni will freely give us the material assist-ance we need in order to publish an Annual that will be received by every friend of the college with a feeling of real pride and pro-nounced gratification? We mean to leave nothing undone to perform completely the part expected of us. Will the alumni do theirs ? We make an earnest appeal for unanimous support. May this sentiment now, and al-ways, receive universal approval and adop-tion—" Every Gettysburgian for the 'Spec-trum' and the 'Spectrum' for Gettysburg." THE STAFF. Why don't we have a few class games of foot-ball. Last year these were among the most interesting we had. Surely there is good material in all the classes—especially, the Freshman. THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 120 A LULL FROM THE HIVE. Be earnest forever ! Be this our endeavor ! Be honest, be cheerful, be kind ! Making the spirit the test of our merit, To outward appearance blind. Our memory Will cherished be By teachers and class mates and friends If efforts are made towards these ends- Whenever you roam from the pales of your home In the bright sunny days of a spring, You see the bees gather from forest, from heather, Golden stores while they buzz and they sing. They nectar sip From lilies' lip Which gives to them food and good cheer When days become cold, lone, and drear. In the spring of our life, when earth's joyous and rife, And all things are happy and gay, When song birds are filling the air with their trilling, Your honey, O store, while you may ! When days of gloom And sadness come. The heart and the memory will hold Its treasures more precious than gold. W. H. B. C, '99. COLLEGE LOCALS. EbMUND W. MEiSE.NHEi.niiR and E t,. ROLLER, Editors. Dr. N. (to 190b Cadet who is verj' much in-teiested in something between himself and the board)—Mr. K., you had better take that to the window where you have better light. Mr. S., '99, recently went out after turkeys. After a walk of about four miles and a half, he arrived at the desired place. Cautiously walk-ing along a fence, he is surprised by the owner of the property who immediately begins to shoot. Walton now held up his hands and said, "I surrender." But when three men strive to tie him he makes a brave fight and finally succeeds in gaining his freedom. Now knocking two of the men down he makes a bold dash for the road. The men follow in hot pursuit and Walton falls over a plow. Never losing his presence of mind, he immedi-ately jumps up and runs into a brook. Hav-ing thrown the pursuers from his track by this piece of strategy he proceeds to a neighboring woods where he lies behind a log. till late at night. Finally he makes his way home where he is received with open arms by his worried com-panions. The MERCURY extends its sympathy to Mr. S. for injuries received. Dr. N. (to Mr. D., 1900, who is up at the board and holding a book under his coat), "You might injure your arm.by holding things so tightly under your coat." Mr. E., '99, tells us "many of our presi-dents had a very humble beginning, for in-stance, George Washington the rail-splitter." Prof. Van O., in Prep. Greek, to Mr. M.— "Have you Kelsey's edition?" Mr. M.—"No, sir." Prof. Van O.—"Who's have you?" Mr. M.—"Anabasis'." Mr. D., 1900, says that "James II, of Eng-land, w7as of a weak character because he chewed tobacco." Dr. B.—"Mr. M., what was the Koran ?" Mr. M., '97.—"An officer appointed by—" Class laughs and Mr. M. stops short in his explanation. Mr. R., '99, would like to know who Mr. Hastings is and what position Mr. Hastings is holding in Penn'a. Mr. K., '98, (translating German),—"My hat fell down confused." Prof. K. (to Mr. B., '98, who has been sleeping and has been rudely awakened to re-cite)—" Mr. B. you ought to feel refreshed after your little nap." Dr. B.—"If your eyes were shut how would you recognize Br." Mr. F., '98.—"By its color." Mr. B., '99, (in gymnasium and talking to Mr. L., 1900)—"M. L,. don't get on those mats with your feet." William Harrison Winfield R., of Prep., re-cently jewed a town storekeeper five cents on a broom. After a vain effort to jew him more he asked him, "Wouldn't you just wrap it up since I don't like to carry a broom along the streets ? " Mr. M., '99, (explaining the habitability of the moon)—"The moon revolves around the sun and has its own moon and is inhabited and the inhabitants revolve on their axes. Mr. G. 1900, wishes to borrow a horn, on which he wishes to increase his breathing ca-pacity ; Dr. S. having marked him minus. Every evening, about dark, G. will stick his head out of the window and look around to see if any one is near. If no one is near, he will blow a feeble blast on the horn and quickly withdraw, appreciating the joke hugely. We wish Mr. G. all success in his efforts. Mr. E., 1900, recites with great feeling and with good effect, "God bless the man who first invented sleep." I .'I THE COLLEGE MERCURY. Prof. K (to Mr. B., who is reading an es-say)—" The last sentence is not correct. Can you tell me why ? " Mr. B., 1900—"It is too much like a Soph-omore's writing." Prof. K.—"That's right. Quite a number of pretty words which mean nothing." Overheard at the W. M. R. R. depot from the lips of a young lady : "Well, Mr. A., I think you are the nicest man on earth." Ernie, '97, is strictly in it. Several bright Sophs intending to have some fun paid a visit to "Jess" K. the other night. Cayenne pepper was wafted about the room and burnt in the flame of the lamp. "Jesse" stood the test very well and . the "Sophs," after a short while, were compelled to leave. A more crestfallen crowd would, with difficulty, have been found. It was plainly a case of "the hunter hunted." Josey K., '99, who is a remarkable wit, said that "T., '99, received a ten for night work." Joe had reference to the Prep. fire. "Stocky" recently asked on what date New Year came last year. Mr. F., '98, has a new way of getting off from reciting Greek—he hides his book when the recitation period comes. Prof. Klinger is on to it, however. Prof. K. (in Greek, to Mr. B., '98, who has just flunked)—"Mr. B., I supposed you would have been better prepared to recite after your pleasant little nap." The back row in Lab. of the Classical Jun-iors have suddenly been deprived of the sober-ing effects of the presence of Mr. A. B. B. V. O., who departed for more peaceable climes about a week ago. "How can a fellow do sat-isfactory work, Mr. Stover, when there are a lot of bums banging around ? " The standard of the college is surely being raised, at least the standard of the Sophomore class, when a '99 man discourses fluently upon the Darwin theory—as was heard a few days ago. Truly we have "all sorts and conditions of men" around here, Darwinites, Silverites, Atheists and Preps. Mr. H., 1900, received quite a "moist" re-ception at the rear door of middle division lately. It always pays for a Freshman to "look aloft," especially when he has his Sunday clothes on, for the more moisture greens re-ceive the longer they will retain their verd-ancy. Mr. S., 1900, was lately giving his opinion about a certain "dramist." We suppose he meant "dramatist," but then he's only a Freshman and will learn. Prof. H., in teaching Anglo Saxon, has at last succeeded in impressing upon the mind of Mr. L-, of the Dummies, '98, that we get from the old English gumena our word grootn. "You may have occasion to use it some time." Mr. F., '98, (in Anglo Saxon)—"And he hastened about an ell.'' Prof. H.—"Mr. F., he wouldn't have has-tened very far in that case, would he?" A word about the College Musical Clubs. The very creditable manner in which they fur-nished the music for the recent Adams County Institute has again brought them before the people. The music this year, both of the Glee Club and of the Violin Quartet, has been very much better than any before given— simply the result of diligent and frequent prac-tice. The Glee Club has been rather unfort-unate in losing temporarily its second bass, Mr. Manges, whose larynx was injured in foot-ball practice, but his active and neces-sary work as manager has still continued. The clubs are in good condition now and the stu-dents in general will lose nothing by taking an interest in them—for they represent the col-lege musically, as the foot-ball and base-ball teams represent it in the capacity of athletics. The Juniors are writing plays for Prof. Himes. The whole college is awaiting the re-sult anxiously, for they will no doubt revolu-tionize the whole dramatic science. They range all the way from Adam and Eve to the Judgment Day. One of the sources of pleasure of the last month, was Dr. Everett's lecture on "Our Girls." A fair sized audience greeted him, which, however, should have been considera-bly larger, in view of the frequent announce-ments. The lecture was very entertaining, brim full of humor and anecdotes. We all , want to hear the Dr. again. Overheard in the Shakespeare recitation : T., '98—Say, Nick, what does "Gervinus" mean in the notes to the plays ? Nick, '98—"Why, that's the German for the author of the notes.'' S., 1900, seems to take quite an interest in the establishment of the Battlefield Photo-grapher. If he wants his pictures taken free, he is certainly going to lots of trouble. There i may be other reasons. THE COLLEGE MERCURY. This is about the time when the Sophomores ; are beginning to put on a little dignity. How- ' ever, they cannot overcome their little habit of giving their class yell every time they see a Freshman walk across the campus—just to show him how brave they are. Our society reading rooms are being mis-used by some of the fellows—especially by non-society men. They ought to realize that the rooms are for "reading," and that for this absolute quiet is needed. They were not fitted up for club rooms or places to play foot-ball. If everyone would individually realize this fact and respect the rights of his fellow student, it would certainly be better for all concerned. "Bobby" W., '98, has lately been quite at-tentive to the fair sex—one of them. This is quite surprising, viewed from our past knowl-edge of W., but then it must happen to them all, and Bobby has been captured. Congrat- | illations. During the recent convention of the Adams County Teachers' Institute some of the college fellows—especially those of the musical clubs— had the pleasure of associating with Prof. Park-er, of Binghampton, N. Y., and who conducted the music. He is a jovial good fellow, and took quite an interest in the boys, as did the boys in him. He sang several solos at the In-stitute. "Herbie" F., '98, recently in chapel one morning uttered quite a feminine shriek. It is said he "saw snakes" —one, anyway. The latest capture that the girls of Gettys-burg have made is "Albertus." Well, well, will wonders never cease ? We thought he was hardened. It is said, too, that the young ladies have been also inquiring earnestly after Fv '98. One of the fellows recently in German used the word "compar-able," accenting the second syllable. Dr. M.—"I would pronounce that 'com-par-able.' " "Since when ? Thats the first time I ever heard it pronounced that way." Dr. M.—"Well, you are not so old that you can't learn a few new things. There are many things happening continu-ally in and about college that would make very interesting items among the locals, but which never get there because they never reach the ears of the editors. It is the duty of the fellows, and to the interest of them all, that they hand such things in to the local de-partment, and thus increase its interest. Very few items are handed in and the editors have to do entirely personal work in getting such as do appear. We ask your assistance. The skillful investigation of scientific intel-lect, expanding in every direction, will ever bring to light new and wonderful discoveries. Following close on the disclosures made by the now famous Roentgen, which prove that cer-tain rays of light can be made to pass through even the obtuse head of a Sophomore, the an-nouncement now issues from the Chemical Lab. Dept., that the fruit of the genus Dios-pysos Virginiana of the natural order Ebena-ceae, commonly called "persimmons," may be obtained from the Platanus Occidentalis or syc-amore tree. This startling fact, like so many others in the scientific world, was chanced upon by the "Professor" quite accidentally, but that makes it none the less interesting. Samples of the delicious fruit recently secured, and a full explanation showing with what ease and rapidity it is digested, may be obtained upon application. Be sure that vou are not faked. ALUMNI-I. C. MANGES and CHARLES H. TILP, Editars. '41. St. Paul's Lutheran church, of Steel-ton, Pa., and the new church at High Spire, Pa., are to be formed into one charge. Rev. E. Miller, D. D., will be the pastor. '44. Rev. Peter Anstadt, D. D., of York, Pa., is considering the question of publishing a biography of the Rev. Doctor Ezra Keller, '35- '45. Rev. J. F. Probst has left Asbury Park, and will spend part of the winter at Ashville, N. C. His health has not improved to such an extent that he is able to resume the active work of the ministry. '46. Rev. Conrad Kuhl, D. D., prepared the history of the Central Illinois Synod for the 50 years of its existence, that was read by Dr. Rhodes, at the convention held at Hills-boro, 111., in October. '48. Many requests have come to Rev. P. Born, D. D., especially from former Theolog-ical students, to have his Inductive Bible Study ot the Old and New Testament issued in book form. Now that he has retired from active work as professor the call comes louder than l-?l THE COLLEGE MERCURY. ever. The work will compose a volume of about 300 pages. '50. Dr. M. H. Valentine's new book on "Ethics," will be out before Jan. 1st. The work will be used as a text-book in our col-lege. '52. Rev. Prof. John J. Scherer, of Marion, Va., has returned from a trip to Texas. '54. Rev. John Tomlinson, Dixonville, Pa., has compiled some valuable statistics, which appear in the Lutheran World of Nov. 26th. They are worthy to be read and pondered. '55. Rev. P. Bergstresser, D. D., of Rock-wood, Pa., spent vSunday, Nov. 22, in Alle-gheny City and filled the pulpit of his son, Rev. Fuller Bergstresser. '57. Rev. H. L. Baugher, D. D., has been elected Managing Editor of The Lutheran Wo//,/. The Doctor will give his undivided attention to this arduous and responsible work. This excellent paper is indeed fortunate in se-curing the services of so learned a man. '58. The Lutheran Observer of Nov. 20, con-tains a poem entitled, "Nearer Home," by Rev. B. H. Hunt, that was written and pub-lished in the Observer while the author was a student at college. The song is found in many song books. '59. After nineteen yearsof editorial service, Rev. J. H. Sieker has transferred the editor-ship of Zeuge die Wahrheit, to pastor Stack- In^/., of Paterson, N. J. '60. Rev. Prof. M. H. Richards, D. D., de-livered the first of a series of lectures at the Moravian College, Bethlehem, Pa. His sub-ject was, "An Excursion to Eden." The lec-ture was highly praised and the students and friends are looking forward with pleasure to the second lecture, soon to be delivered. '61. Rev. L. Grab has accepted the call of St. Mark's church, Omaha, Neb., and is at work in his new field. '62. Rev J. B. Keller, late pastor at Smiths-burg, Md., will spend the winter in Georgia. '62. The corner stone for the new Lutheran church at Vandergrift, Pa., was laid on Thurs-day November 12th. The sermon was preached by Rev. M. I,. Culler, president of the Pitts-burg Synod, and the cornerstone was laid by Rev. J. W. Poffinberger, '72 of Leechburg, Pa. '62 Prof. H. E. Jacobs, D. D., LL- D., president of Mt. Airy Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, filled the pulpit of College church, Sunday, Nov. 15. '63. Rev. J. L. Smith, D. D., of Pittsburg, Pa., on Sunday, November 29, organized the St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran church of Wilkinsburg, Pa. This is the first Lutheran congregation organized in that thriving town, and was brought about through the untiring efforts of Dr. Smith. '63. The November number of The Luth-eran contains an obituary and cut of the late Prof. Davis Garber, Ph. D. Muhlenberg Col-lege, where he labored for 26 years, has sus-tained a great loss in his death. '63. Rev. E. J. Wolf, D. D., recently at-tended a meeting of the Common Service Com-mittee at Alleutown, which is now preparing a Liturgy. '64. Friday evening, October 30th, the Rev. J. G. Griffith, pastor of the English Lutheran church, Lawrence, Kansas, by request, deliv-ered an address on the Reformation of the 16th century to about 400 Indians at Haskell Insti-tute. '64. The Zanesville, (O.,) Times Recorder of Nov. 30th, contains an account of the 20th anniversary service held in St. John's Evan-gelical Lutheran church of that city. It gives a review of the work done by the pastor, Rev. Frank Richard, D. D., during his long service in this church, and shows that the work has prospered in his hands, during the past fifth of of a century. The ladies of the church gave an elegant reception and reunion at the par-sonage, on Nov. 26, in honor of the occason. '65. Rev. Joseph Hillpot died on October 30th at Quakertown, Pa. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Ministerium. '69. Dr. J. A. Clutz and Rev. H. L. Yar-ger, '83, assisted at the dedication of the First church of St. Joseph, Mo., on November 15. '73. Rev. T. J. Yost, of Cumberland, Md., preached the sermon at the opening of the State Convention of the West Virginia C. E. Union held at Clarkesburg, W. Va. '73. Rev. J. A. Singmaster, D. D., Allen-town, preached the sermon at the dedication of St. Matthew's English Lutheran church, Brooklyn, on Nov. 12. He also presented the chancel windows given by Hon. and Mrs. Schieren. THK COLLEGE MERCURY. 124 '73. Rev. Chester H. Traver, late of Rhine-beck, New York, has taken charge of the Lutheran church at Churchtown, New York, and thus succeeds the late Doctor Marcus Empie. '77. Rev. J. A. West has taken charge of the Lutheran church at Londonville, O. He has been warmly received by the people of his I charge. '77. The congregation of Christ Lutheran | church, of Los Angeles, Cal., of which Rev. j M. H. Stine, Ph. D., is pastor, dedicated a new j pipe organ on Sunday, Nov. 15. Rev. Stine has been very successful as pastor of this church, j '78. The good Lutheran people of Palo, 111., are arranging to care for their pastor, Rev. Holmes Dysinger, right royally. The founda-tion is already laid for a fine $3000 parsonage, to be built of dressed stone in harmony with the church itself. '78. Rev. O. C. Roth, pastor of Grace Eng- ! lish Lutheran church, Broadway and Gough street, Baltimore, Md., commemorated his seventh year as pastor on November 2nd. He preached two sermons on the event. '79. The new Lutheran church in Benders-ville, Rev. U. A. Hankey, pastor, is to be dedicated on the second Sunday in December. Dr. E. J. Wolf and Rev. H. H. Weber will have charge of the services. '80. Rev. M. F. Troxell, D. D., of Spring-field, Ills., preached an eloquent sermon on the Reformation, in Grace Lutheran church of that city. '81. Rev. J. W. Byers, D. D., of Nevada, 0., and the people of his congregation royally entertained the Eastern Conference of Witten-berg Synod, during its 97th convention, which was held in Nevada, O. 82. Rev. Chas. R. Trowbridge will spend the winter in Easton, Pa., where he has taken up work in his new charge. '82. Frank E. Colom, Esq., is one of the best and most active lawyers at the Bedford Bar, and a worthy son of his Alma Mate). He was elected president of the Bedford County Sunday School Association, at its 15th annual convention, held at St. Clairsville, Pa. '83. Rev. W. W. Anstadt has accepted the call to Hollidaysburgh, Pa. He will take charge of his new field on the first Saturday in December. '83. Rev. L. M. Kuhns, of Omaha, Neb., laid the corner-stone for his new church a few weeks ago. Rev. H. W. Kuhns, D. D., '56, was present and participated in the services. '83. Rev. H. L. Yarger assisted Rev. W. F. Rentz, of Atchison, Kansas, in a series of special services, and proved himself a valuable assistant. '84. Rev. L. M. Zimmerman, Baltimore, Md., is preaching a series of sermons on "Pil-grim's Progress." One of the subjects was, "The Pitfalls to Young Men." '85. Rev. A. F. Richardson, of Grafton, Wt Va., was unanimously elected president, for his third term, of the West Virginia C. E. Union, which convened in Clarkesburg, W. Va., Nov. 18. '87. Rev. Herbert C. Alleman will be in-stalled pastor of College Church December 6, Rev. Alleman, D. D., of Lancaster, Pa., and Rev. J. C. Kohler, D. D., of Hanover, Pa., are the committee on installation. '90. On Nov. 8th, the cornerstone of Beth-any English Lutheran church, New York City, was laid by the pastor, Rev. J. Fred. W. Kitzmeyer. '90. Rev. Oscar H. Gruver has resigned as pastor of the First English Lutheran church, San Francisco, California. 91. Rev. Stanley Billheimer, Washington, D. C., was in Gettysburg Thanksgiving Day, visiting his parents, Dr. and Mrs. Billheimer, '91. Rev. S. Gring Heffelbower has been called to Mauheim, Pa. '92. Rev. George Beiswanger, pastor of Calvary Lutheran church, Baltimore, Md., en-tertained the members of the present and retir-ing church councils at the parsonage, Thurs-day night, October 22nd. '92. Rev. Edward O. Keen completed his studies in the Reformed Theological Seminary, Lancaster, Pa., in May last, and is now pastor of St. Paul's Reformed church of Waynesboro, Pa., having begun his work there Aug. 1, '92. Rev. D. P. Drawbaugh, McConnells-burg, Pa., has been doing faithful and thorough work in his field and his efforts have been crowned with excellent results. '93. Rev. Marion J. Kline preached the first of a series of four sermons on "The Life of Joseph" in Bethlehem Lutheran Tabernacle, Harrisburg, Pa., on Nov. 15th. The audience was large and the discourse was exceptionally fine. I •■■ THK COLLEGE MERCURY. •93. Rev. \V. S. Oberholtzer has changed his address from MifBjntown, Pa., to Harbin, Indiana. '93. Rev. F. II. Knubie, of New York city, has accepted a call to begin a new English Lutheran church on the west side of New York city. '93. The English Evangelical Lutheran church, Jersey City, Rev. E. E. Neudewitz, pastor, was the recipient of a very costly pul-pit Bible recently. It was given by a member of the same. '93! Rev. John C. Rowers was installed as pastor of St.'Mark's Lutheran church, Wash-ington, I). C, 011 Sunday, November 15th. The charge to the pastor was delivered by Rev. M. L. Beard, '75. of Middletown, Md., and that to the people by Rev. Geo. S. Bow-ers, of Hagetstown, Md. '93. Rev. G. W, haulers, Jr., of Argusville, N. Y., delivered a lecture on "Normal Train-ing in the Sunday School," before the Sharon Institute, at I.ecsville, N. Y., on November 17th. His address was instructive and well received. '93. On Sunday, Nov. 29th, Rev. Wm. C. 1U finer formally began work in his new field at Fayetteville, Pa. '93, The examining committee of the York Bar'met Nov. 20, to examine P. M. Bortner, who has been reading law with Niles ec Neff. Mr. Bortner passed a very creditable examina-tion, and on the motion of J. E. Vandersloot, Esq., a member of the committee, was admit-ted to practice at the York County Courts. '93. Rev. A. A. Kelley was installed pastor Of the Trindle Springs church, Sunday, Nov. 8. Since he has been pastor of this church the membership has been doubled. Rev. and Mrs. Kelley were visiting friends in Gettysburg, Thanksgiving Day. • '94. Herbert A. Allison is a member of the faculty of Susquehanna University. The Oc-tober "number of The Susquehanna contained a good cut of him. His department is the Greek language. '94. Prank E. Pickinger, principal of Cham-bersburg schools, was manager of the foot-ball team, composed of ex-college players, that played our team Nov. 21, on the new athletic held. '96. W. H. Mengcs was captain of the York V. M. C. A. foot-ball team tins fall. ATHLETICS. CHARLES T. LARK, Editor. Gettysburg, 6—Maryland University, o. Gettysburg, 58—Chambersburg ex-college plavers, o. Gettysburg, 64—Western Maryland Col-lege, o. Maryland University having 700 student from whom to select, as a matter of course, has a strong foot-ball team. This eleven, by its excellency on the gridiron, has won for itself the championship of Maryland. It is com-posed of a set of big fellows, almost all of whom have had years of experience in their respective positions. In spite of the fact that our grounds were wet and soggy, the game between Gettysburg and the above mentioned team, on Nov. 14th, was one of unusual inter-est. The players were about evenly matched as regards weight. The playing was so sharp and close that almost through the entire game it looked very much as though neither side would score. Deuson, the left half-back and Capt. of M. U., although the lightest man oh the team, played a most brilliant game. His three years experience on the University of North Carolina eleven, showed up to a good advantage and his work received merited ap-plause. Too much can not be said in praise of Capt. White and Lawyer for their magnificent play-ing. They always play a good game but in this particular one they excelled themselves. Their runs and tackles were the feature of the daw Had our team made more preparation for this game than it did, we would have won by a larger margin. M. U. kicked off and the ball was downed on our 30-yard line. By an elegant exhibition of team work," our fel-lows took the leather from this point to our opponents' 10-yard line, where it was lost on downs. Through the successful use of a quar-terback kick, and their quarter proved himself an adept at this, they captured the hall on their 30-yard line. The ball changed hands ofteu but we finally forced it to their 2-yard line where, on an account of an unfortunate I fumble, they obtained possession of it and again advanced it somewhat down the field, it being on their 20-yard line when the first half ended. The second half was marked by many fine plays. The ball was kept entirely within the territory of M. U., nevertheless it changed hands frequently. . During the last five min- THE COLLEGE MERCURY. [26 utes' play our men summoned all their strength for one mighty effort and after a series of de-termined, desperate rushes, the ball was taken across the line by Capt. White after a 25-yard run. The crowd yelled itself hoarse. Dale added two more points by kicking the goal— 6 to o. Time was called a few minutes after the ball was again put in play. Among the distinguished spectators present were Congressman-elect Benner and Judge Swope. This was one of the most exciting games of the year and we take great pride in placing it under our list of victories. The line-up follows : MARYLAND UNIVERSITY. POSITIONS. GETTYSBURG. Allen left end Moser Steele left tackle Byers Gauss left guard Koppenhaver Riley centre Stifel McCain right guard Hagerman Lewis right tackle Nicholas Dawson right end (Kite) Doty Riddington right half back Dale Barrow quarter back Lawyer Armstrong full back Sheely Touchdown—White. Goal—Dale. Refree—Kump. Umpire— Kuendig. Linesmen—Steward and Leisenring Time of halves—25 and 20 minutes. Our students had anticipated a closer con-test than that which took place on Nov. 21st, between Gettysburg and an eleven from Cham-bersburg, composed of ex-college players. Although somewhat heavier than the oppos-ing team we should by no means have had the walk-over we had. Fine individual playing but lack of team work tells the tale for Cham-bersburg. Our fellows made gains wherever and whenever they desired. "Willie" Burns, 1901, played the star game and seems to be as much at home on the foot-ball field as in the box. We scored 32 points in the first half and 26 iu the second, making the total 58-0. Dale, 1900, missed but one goal out of ten. ■ The following was the line- up : GETTYSBURG. POSITIONS, CHAMBERSBURG. Stifel centre Sherrod Koppenhaver left guard Plank Hagerman right guard Shaefer Ott left tackle Brown Nicholas right tackle Parrott Doty right end Wragg Young (Loudon) left end Pierson Lawyer quarter Orr Burns left half back Smith Dale right half-back G. Fletcher Sheely fullback F. Fletcher Touchdowns—Burns, 3; Dale, 3; Nicholas, 1; Stifel, 1; Sheely, 2. Goals—Dale, 9, Referee—White. Umpire—Kuendig. Lines-men— Leisenring and Lark. Timekeeper—Wheeler. As a matter of course interest on Thanks-giving Day centers around the turkey, but foot-ball comes in as a very close second. This is the first time for a number of years that our team has played at home on this holi-day, and, as the day was pleasant, an enthusi-astic crowd of 500 people turned out to see us line up against Western Maryland College. This was the best game of the year, at least in one respect —in point of attendance. Western Maryland started the game with a dash, and for the first ten minutes' play held our eleven very nicely. They then lost confi-dence and their playing during the remainder of the game looked to the foot-ballist like the first attempts of a lot of novices, while to the referee it looked like 64 to o. Lawyer, 1900, was, unfortunately, physically unable to be in the game, and his position, quarter-back, was ably filled by Capt. White, whose place at left-half was filled by Burns, 1901. Dale, igoo, did excellent work in kicking ten goals out of eleven. In short each player played his position well. Line up: WESTERN MARYLAND. POSITION. GETTYSBURG.' Stiaugh. Reckford left half-back Burns Johnson left end Fite Joice left tackle Nicholas Little left guard Ott Satlerwight '. center Stifel Warfield right guard Hagerman Baker right tackle Manges Edwards right end Doty Zepp right half back Dale Patton quarter back (Capt.) White Crockett full back Sheely Touchdowns —Dale, 7; Burns, 2; Manges, 1; Hagerman, I-Gials— Dale, 10. Time of halves—25 minutes. Referee— Kuendig Umpire—Murphy. Linesmen—Wolf and Whalen. The feelings of a Gettysburg man, in look-ing over our record in foot-ball for the season which is just now past, can be but those of gratification and pleasure. We have indeed been eminently successful, having won six games out of nine, and to-day stand higher iu the foot-ball world than we have ever stood before. In spite of the fact that we contested with some of the strongest elevens in the coun-try, we have to our credit an even hundred more points than have been scored against us, as is shown by the following: State College, 40—Gettysburg, University of Penn'a, - 32—Gettysburg, F. & M., - 24—Gettysburg, Baltimore City College, o—Gettysburg,' F. &. M., Swarthmore, University of Maryland, Chamb'sbg ex-Col. pl'ys, o- Western Maryland Col., o-o— Gettysburg, 4—Gettysburg, o—Gettysburg, -Gettysburg, -Gettysburg, o. o. o. 50. 10. 12. 6. 58. 64. Totals, 100 200 127 THE COLLEGE MERCURY. Certainly this happy result of a seasons work demonstrates most clearly the value of a coach. We were very fortunate in securing the services of Mr. Best and our success is largely due to his efforts. He did remarkably well iii developing such a team from so many inexperienced players. Koppenhaver, 1900, Stifel, 1900, and Hag-erman, 1901, at left guard, center and right guard respectively formed a center which held like a brick wall against all our opponents. Each member of this trio, averaging 195 pounds of solid muscle, at the beginning of the season was new at at the game, but their de-velopment has been remarkable. They broke through constantly and opened up well for the barks. Ott, '97, Manges, '97, and Nicholas, '98, are the men who efficiently filled the tackle positions. "Pop" Ott is one of our old relia- ' bles and always played an aggressive game. The reputation of Manges as a ground gainer is thoroughly established, while "Nick," be-sides taking ample care of his man and mak-ing gams when called on, kept things lively by his seemingly inexhaustible supply of jokes. Doty, '99, Fite, '98, Young, 1900, and Lou-don, 1901, at the end positions, upheld the orange and blue. Although this is their first year on the team, they played like veterans. Doty, after having been tackled, is fond of shaking the man from him and going on. He is a hard man to down. Eite, besides being a good tackier, is a snappy player and runs well. Young and London each played a steady game and made their presence felt. Lawyer, 1900, as this is his second year at the position, has become quite proficient as a quarter-back. He keeps his wits about him and gets into the interference well. Sheely, '97, made many fine tackles and struck the line hard, besides kicking very cleverly. burns, 1901, Dale, 1900, and White, '97, played at half. The first one mentioned kicks well and runs fast. Dale is adroit at kicking, is a swift runner, a fine tackier and an all around good player. Capt. White seems to be entirely at home in the game. It is quite unnecessary to enumer-ate liis achievements and abilities as a foot-ball player, as he is a heady player, was always in the game, and was a source of encouragement to his men. Perhaps the secret of his ground-gaining, is the fact that he sticks like a leech to his interference. We must not overlook the second team which, under the leadership of Kuendig, '98, turned out so faithfully. Their services were of great value to the first eleven, as they there-by were given sharp, hard practice. The scrub contains many players of promise, among whom are : '98, Kephardt, Tholan, Briner, Kuendig; '99, Herman, Brumbaugh, Trimble, Roehner; 1900, Good, Wisotzki, Brandt, Kohler. As we lose but a very few men, the prospects for next season's team are of the brightest. Our players may now retire from the grid-iron and take merited satisfaction in looking over a season well spent. TOWN AND SEWJINARY NOTES. S. J. MILLER, Editor. TOWN. It seems as if improvement has become the ' adopted watchword of the town. Telephone wires by the dozen have been stretched across the diamond, thus to communicate with all the important neighboring towns in the county. The Water Company has enlarged the water supply by replacing the old pipes with larger ones. Several new and costly buildidgs have been erected, among which is the new school building, known as the Meade High School, and which in all probability will be occupied at the beginning of the New Year. The association of the survivors of the Twenty-first Regiment of Pennsylvania' Cav-alry recently held its seventh annual reunion in this place. About seventy-five members were in attendance. At a business meeting the following officers were elected: President, Major Robert Bell, Adams county; Vice-Pres-ident, Captain E. McMillan, Lancaster; Secre-tary, J. Harvey Cobean. Gettysburg; Treas-urer, Captain Long, Gettysburg. The anniversary exercises of the Women's Bible Society were held on Sunday evening, Nov. 15th, in Christ Lutheran church. Rev. Dr. Huber presided. Prayer was offered by Rev. Dr. Richards, of Gettysburg, and ad-dresses were made by Rev. Dr. Jacobs, of Philadelphia, and Rev. Dr. Morrow, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Bible Society, after which a very creditable report of the society was read by Rev. A. R. Steck, pastor of the St. James Lutheran church, this place. THE COLLEGE MERCURY. 128 The semi-annual convention of the Adams County C. E. Union was held in the St. James Lutheran church, this place, on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 20th and 21st. The conven-tion opened on Friday at 2 P. M. The ad-dress of Welcome was delivered by Rev. A. R. Steck and the response was made by Presi-dent Longanecker. The sessions were very interesting and were largely attended through-out the whole convention. Rev. C. H. Rockey, of Shepherdstown, W. Va., preached in Christ Lutheran church on .Sunday, Nov. 22. The Christian Endeavor Society of St. James Lutheran church held their eighth anniversary exercises on Sunday, Nov. 22. In the morn-ing Rev. E. F. Jeffers, D. D., Principal of the York Collegiate Institute, preached the anni-versary sermon. At the evening service Rev. A. R. Steck presided. An excellent program was rendered. Rev. Rockey offered prayer and Rev. Dr. Jeffers delivered the address of the evening, his subject being, "Spiritual Power.'' The old tin roof on the Methodist church has been removed and a slate one put on. The St. James and Christ Lutheran congre-gations held a union Thanksgiving service in St. James Lutheran church on Thursday morn-ing, Nov. 26, at 10 o'clock. Services were also held in the Presbyterian and Reformed churches in the morning. SEMINARY. Rev. J. E. Byers preached at Williamsport, Md., on Sunday, November 1. Rev. J. H. Harmes filled the pulpit of St. John's Lutheran church, Hagerstown, Md., on Sunday, Nov. 8th. Rev.' Paul Koller preached at Hagerstown, Md., Shepherdstown, W. Va., on Nov. 15th and 22nd respectively. Rev. W. H. Feldman was sent as a delegate to attend the Inter-Seminary Missionary Al-liance at Chicago, on Nov. 12- 15th. While there he also had the pleasure of attending the Luther League Convention. The pulpit of the Second Lutheran church, Carlisle, Pa., was filled by Rev. Brady on Sunday, Nov. 22. Rev. M. S. Kump preached in Christ Luth-eran church on Sunday evening, Nov. 29. Prof. J. H. W. Stuckenberg will deliver the following lectures in Brua Chapel, beginning with Monday evening, Dec. 7th: Monday—"The Importance and the Method of of the Deeper Study of the Age." Tuesday—"Characteristics of the Age." Wednesday—"The Dominant Ideas." Thursday—"Social Trend." Friday—The New Social Era." Saturday—"Higher Education in Germany." This is a new course of lectures prepared es-pecially for Gettysburg, and we are indebted to the Seminary students for his coming. FRATERNITY NOTES. PHI KAPPA PSI. A. J. Smith, '83, a Professor of the Univer-sity of Texas, recently suffered the loss of his wife. We were pleased to meet Dr. Philips, Presi-dent of West Chester Normal School, who de-livered a lecture before the Teachers' Institute convened in this city last week. J. C. Bowers, '93, made a business trip here a few days since. W. F. Lutz, '94, is engaged in journalistic work at his home in Bedford. A. C. Carty, '96, attended the New York City rally on Dec. 4th. . PHI GAMMA DELTA. Bro. Jacobs, '62, preached in the College church recently. Bro. Knubel, '93, has started a mission in upper New York City. We wish him success in his undertaking. Bro. Roth, '95, of Bucknell, spent a few days in town recently. We were glad to have with us during the past month Bros. Brewer, '83, Garland, '85, Fickinger, '94. Bros. Fite, '98, and Albers, '99, spent a few days with Bro. Stahler, of Norristown, Pa. Bro. Kolb, 1900, spent Thanksgiving at Mechauicsburg. SIGMA CHI. Bruce Trimmer, Kappa, '98, of Bucknell, made us a visit several weeks ago. Leisenring spent Thanksgiving with his parents at Chambersburg. I2CJ THK COLLEGE MERCURY. Win. Hersh, '92, was elected District At-torney of Adams Co., by the largest majority ever given a candidate. Rosensteel was called to his home in Altoona several weeks ago on account of the death of his grandfather. Edwards, Alpha Psi, Vanderbilt University, played end on the Western Maryland College foot-ball team in the game here on Thanks-giving. Munro and Fredericks were at their homes in Lock Haven over Thanksgiving. Frank Hersh, '92, who was home for several weeks, has returned to his work in Braddock, Pa. Keith, '99, paid a flying visit to the Chapter at Dickinson several days ago. Fredericks stopped at Bucknell on his way home on Thanksgiving, and visited the Chap-ter there. Lawyer spent Thanksgiving at his home in Westminster. PHI DELTA THETA. J. A. Singmaster, '98, was initiated Novem-ber 23d. Kain, '97; Meisenhelder, '97, and Beerits, '99, attended the 24th Biennial Convention of the fraternity held in Philadelphia Nov. 25th to 30th. M. F. Holloway, '84, and A. S. Cook, '95, were also in attendance. Chas. Reinewald, '88, spent a few days in town recently. J. C. Moore, Jr., Pa Zeta, paid the Chapter a visit the beginning of the month. ALPHA TAU OMEGO. Saturday night, Nov. 21, the Chapter held a banquet in the meeting hall, which was pro-nounced by those present to have been a very enjoyable affair. Edward Gaines, a member of the U. of Md. foot-ball team, spent Sunday, Nov. 15, with the Chapter. William O. Nicklas, '93, has been admitted to the Chambersburg bar. William H. Menges, '96, visited the Chapter during Institute. Dr. Franklin Menges, '86, was with us In-stitute week. James P. Michler, '97, is at present a stu-dent at Washington and Lee. SUBJECTS FOR "ROMAN LAW" THESES. ABEL—Spread of the Roman Law Through Barharic Invasions. ARMSTRONG—Marriage and Divorce Among the Romans. HIKLE—Influence of the Laws and Organization of the Roman Empire on the Laws and Organization of the Early Church. CLUTE—The Extent and Limitations of the Patria Potestas. COBLE, Sr.—Slavery Among the Romans. DUCK—The Indebtedness of Modern States to Roman Juris-prudence. FRIDAY—The Roman Law of Succession. HUTTON—Roman Citizenship-Different Kinds, How Acquired and How Lost. Miss KEITH—The Nature and Authority of the Jus Respon-dendi. MILLER—The Functions of the Roman Praetor. Miss SIEBER—The Roman Method of Legal Procedure in a Province as Illustrated by the Trial of Christ in Pal-estine. SMITH—The Roman Judiciary System. WHEELER—The Change from Republic to Empire in Rome, a Change to nu Autocracy. WOLF—Influence of Christianity on Roman Legislation. LITERARY SOCIETIES. JOHN W. OTT, Editor. PHILO. Messrs. Baker and Markel were initiated during the past month. On Friday night, Dec. nth, Philo will render her last special program of the term. The program promises to eclipse all others. PHRENA. Messrs. Gilbert and Hitchner. both of 1900, were elected members last Friday evening. On account of the various interruptions 011 the several past Friday evenings, Phrena will not render.her next special program till next term. EXCHANGES. The MERCURY is at present receiving a very large number of exchanges. We mention some of them as follows: The Lafayette, Ursinus College Bulletin, Bucknell Mirror, F. and M. Weekly, College Folio, Phoenix, Wittenburg, Midland, Mer-cersburg Monthly, Roanoke Collegian, Dela-ware College Review, Dickinsoniau, Monthly and Weekly, Occident, Mielensian, Lutheran Ensign, National Educator, Muhlenberg, Ora-cle, Lutheran Observer, Perkiomen Seminary Bulletin, Free Lance, Susquehanna, Western Maryland College, Augustana Journal, George-town College Journal, The Reflector, The Mountaineer, The Crescent, Orange and White. ADVERTISEMENTS. Yale annually buys $7,000 worth of books for her library. Harvard expends $15,000 for the same purpose. Columbia expends$43,000 in the same way. A National University, under government control, is to be established in China. The faculty will consist of foreigners. The first president will be a former tutor of Li Hung Chang. "Age comes to every man, hut fate Is kind to women fair ; For when she reaches twenty-eight, She stops right then and there." FPU. H. WIlNNlCrl at onfeetionmj I OYSTERS Manufacturer, Wholesale and Retail Dealer in peam. ] SEASON. NEWS DEPOT & SUBSCRIPTION AGENGY. IVIaln street, - - Gettysburg, F=a. SOLE MANUFACTURER OF DR. TYLERS COUGH DROPS TIMNTCODORT DEALER IN BEEF, PORK, LAMB, VEAL, SAUSAGE, York Street, Gettysburg. a-Speclal Ratesto Clubs."a R. A WONDERS^ Corner Cigar tParlors. ,.A FULL LINE OF. CIGARS, TOBACCOS, PIPES, &C, Scott's Cor. Opp. Eagle Hotel, Gettysburg, Pa. T« F. HBNSTXG utn\.tR \u BREAD, ROILS, PRETZELS & CRACKERS YORK STREET, GETTYSBURG. 8@TReasonable Rates to Clubs. L. Dm lf|ILLLl\j GETTYSBURG, Qrocer, (^onfeotioneT and fruiterer. Ice Cream and Oysters in season. /,. Foot Ball Supplies. EVERYTHING FOR THE PLAYER, Jackets, SHoos, Stockings, Jerseys, Shin Guards, Etc. Spalding's Official Intercol- A^cj 'Mffift legiate Foot Ball, '*^^F^. Officially adopted by the Intercollegiate Association. COMPLETE CATALOGUE FALL AND WINTER SPORTS FREE. A. G. Spalding: & Bros. NEW YORK, PHILADELPHIA, CHICAGO. 1108 CHESTNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA Xl/righi's Qngraving jfeouse 'AS become tile recognized leader in unique styles of COLLEGE and FRATERNITY EN-GRAVINGS and STATIONERY. College and Class-Day Invitations, engraved and printed from steel plates;. Programmes, Menus, Wedding and Reception Invitations, Announcements, etc., etc. Examine prices and styles before ordering elsewhere. 50 Visiting Cards from New Engraved Plate for $1.00. ERNEST A. WRIGHT, 1108 Chestnut Street, PHILADELPHIA Visitors to Settysburg College, Settj/sburg, !Penn'a, Will find the CUMBERLAND VALLEY RAILROAD running in a South-Westerly direction from Harrisbnrg, Pa., through Carlisle. Chambersburg, Hagerstown an I Martinsburg to Winchester, Va., a direct and available route from the North, East and West to Gettysburg, Pa., via. Harrisburg and Carlisle. Through tickets via, I his route on sale at all P. R. R. offices, and baggage checked through to destination. Also, a popular route to the South via. Carlisle. AsK for your tickets via. Cumberland Valley Railroad and Carlisle, Pa. J. F. BOYD, Superintendent. H. A. RIDDLE, Gen. Passenger Agent. ADVERTISEMENTS L M, BUEHLER, SUCOKSSOU TO A. D. BUEHLEK & CO., -HllBoofig st£giS —.A_isr:D— (gO TO ->M0TEL GETTYSBURG* -XBA'RBER SIIOPX-Centre Square. ^^B. M. SEFTON. 2/ou will find a full line of SPure 'Drugs dc J'ine Stationery ^People'a *Druff Store. {Prescriptions a Speci'ctity. Elliott & HOUSGP. H. B.—Stiff Hits mads to Fit the Head is two minutes. (Z>, B. KlTMpLEfJ, HATS, CAPS, —^ ^rr BOOTS* SHOES. CS^3=S=»tisfaiotion GSuara nteed.ii3 No. 6 S. Baltimore Street, GETTYSBURG. 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Issue 42.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1983. ; Rt vtFw I-or Rvt IGIOU~, (ISSN 0034-639XL published every two months ~s edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St Lout,, Umverslty The editorial offices are located at Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis. MO 63108. REVIEW FOR REI.IGIOtJS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Instltute of the Society of Jesus. St. I.ouis. MO. © 1983 by REVIEW FoR REI.IGtOtJS, Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis. MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A.: $9.00 a year: $17.00 for two years. Other countries: add $2.00 per year (postage). For subscription orders or change of address, write: REVIEW VOll RELIC, IOUS: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Daniel T. Costello, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Book Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor Jan./Feb., 1983 Volume 42 Number I Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGtOt~S; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's University; City Avenue at 54th St.; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVtE'W EOR RELtGtOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108, "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Review for Religious Volume 42, 1983 Editorial Offices 3601 Lindell Boulevard, Room 428 Saint Louis, Missouri 63108 Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Daniel T. Costello, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Miss Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Book Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is published in January, March, May, July, Sep-tember, and November on the fifteenth of the month. It is indexed in the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index and in Book Review Index. A microfilm edition of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is available from University Microfilms International; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyright © 1983 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Signs of Hope in Religious Life Today Stephen Tutas, S.M. Father Tutas has been Superior General'of the Marianists. and is now assigned to their forma-tion center in California. The September-October, 1982 issue carried "Preparing for the 1983 Synod." Father Tutas resides at the Marianist Formation Center. 22622 Marianist Way: Cuper-tino, CA 95014. One of the most important contributions religious women and men can make to the Church in any era is to be signs of hope, encouraging others in their own response to Gold's call by a witness of joyful dedication. This call to religious to be signs of hope is as urgent today as in any other time in the history of the Church. The preparatory document for the 1983 Synod of Bishops states that "the dominant characteristic of our era s~ems to have become that of tensions and divisions., situations of incomprehen~ion, of estrangement, of conflict, of schism, of reciprocal condemnation . " In response to this, 1 believe it is absolutely necessary that we religious today strive to be outstanding men and women of hope. We must really believe--and show our belief--that the Holy Spirit is active in the Church today, and that this active presence of the Spirit is the basis for our hope. Points of Convergence For some time now, ! have been especially sensitive to the signs of hope found in religious life. I was privileged to see some of these signs of hope as 1 met with other superiors general of both men and women religious congrega-tions. The various formal and informal meetings in Rome and elsewhere were for me inspiring moments when we were able to share with each other what we experienced in our visits to communities. It was very heartening for me to see how many points of convergence there were as we discussed the main themes of religious life and were able to refer to so many encouraging examples of 4 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 what was actually being realized on a day-by-day basis in religious communi-ties throughout the world. My personal experience included contact with communities of the Society of Mary (Marianists) in thirty one countries on all the continents. As I found in my exchange of views with others, my experience reflected well the general thrusts in religious life as 1 came to identify these through visits and reports. Obviously, not all that I experience is positive and encouraging. I am painfully aware of the inadequacies in my own life and in the lives of others. It ,is always true that the Church "is at the same time holy and always in need of being purified."~ But while recognizing our failures as religious, I believe it is much more life-giving to look at the signs of hope so evident in the lives of many religious women and men and build on these so that together with other members of the Church we can move forward to the third millennium in a spirit of hope. I often pray in the words of Pope Paul VI that "the world of our time, which is searching, sometimes with anguish, sometimes with hope, be enabled to receive the Good News not from evangelizers who are dejected, discouraged, impatient or anxious, but from ministers of the gospel whose lives glow with fervor, who have first received the joy of Christ, and who are willing to risk their lives so that the kingdom may be proclaimed and the church established in the midst of the world."~ After completing my terms of service as Superior General, 1 was privileged to have several months to devote to prayer and reflection before taking up my new assignment as Director of the Marianist Formation Center in Cupertino, California. Most of this time of prayer and reflection was spent in the Mother-house of the Dallas Province of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Irving, Texas, where I served as chaplain under ideal conditions that made it easy for me to look back with gratitude and to look forward with hope, while sharing my experience of gratitude and hope with the community as I tried to live fully in the present. Now that 1 have taken up my new life and work in California, With the specific responsibility to promote continuing formation in the Marianist Prov-ince of the Pacific, I would like to share with the readers of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS a gummary of the signs of hope that I see in religious life today. Ten Signs of Hope I have selected ten signs of hope that I find particularly striking. It is evident that these signs do not exist everywhere. And where they do exist, the signs .vary in clarity and intensity. But these signs do exist, and my daily prayer is that they become ever stronger and more general throughout the Church, I hope the readers of this article will find in the list a confirmation of their own experience, and a further encouragement to continue working to make these signs ever more clear and ever more general. 1. A strong commitment to ongoing renewal, emphasizing: - personal and communitarian prayer, making union with God clearly the Signs of Hope in Religious Life Toda.v / 5 basis for religious life: - the building of community, recognizing this bonding in view of a shared ideal as the sign of being a true follower of Christ; - the concern for a greater simplicity of life: - the positive understanding of celibacy as a way of loving rather than as a simple renunciation of marriage and of family. These four points constitute a truly radical change in religious life which is often unnoticed as we ourselves go through it. It is not that the value of prayer, community, simplicity and celibacy were lacking in the past, but that we have been able to give new expression to these values in a changing world. I have selected these four characteristics of renewal as being the most life-giving. First and foremost, of course, m,ust be the contemplative dimension of religious life. I find it significant that the "Conclusive Document"just issued by the Vatican as a follow-up to the 1981 International Congress of Bishops and Others Responsible for Ecclesiastical Vocations declares, in speaking of religious states, that "the contemplative dimension is the true secret of spiritual renewal and apostolic fruitfulness in religious life.'~ All renewal programs begin with this contemplative dimension. Efforts are also being made to emphasize community as a sharing of faith: faith is given expression in a concern for simplicity of life: the commu~ nity of faith is always being urged to look beyond itself. These are outstanding fea-tures of various renewal programs. Perhaps never before in the history of religious life has so much attention been given to providing assistance for continuing formation. This itself is certainly a great sign of hope. 2. A rediscovery of the relevance of the founding charism, along with a renewed interest in the person of the founder or foundress, and also a renewed understanding that the founding charism is just as important for the Church of our time as it was at the time of the actual foundation of the community. The document, "Mutual Relations between Bishops and Religious," is an important encouragement for us religious to renew the offering of our cha-risms to the local church, and this with a renewed awareness that we are needed and wanted for the specific gifts God has entrusted to the various religious families in the Church. General chapters, especially in writingconstitutions in response to the Second Vatican Council, have expressed very forcefully how the founding charism is able to meet the urgent needs of the Church in our time. 3. New directions in evangelization, in continued response to that great docu-ment of Pope Paul VI, Evangelization in the Modern World, which followed the 1974 Synod of Bishops on Evangelization. 1 found it very rewarding to read Archbishop Robert Sanchez' address to his .fellow bishops at Collegeville last summer in which he gave heavy emphasis to the dynamic orientations implicit in Pope Paul's statement, saying that "it 6 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 would be difficult to exaggerate the importance that this document will have in revitalizing and prephring the Church for the future . -4 For us religious, this Apostolic Exhortation has sparked and encouraged a gratifying transition from concern about ourselves--even about our survival-- to a greater sense of mission and outreach. 4. The greater insertion of religious corhmunities in the local church and a more ecclesial thrust in solidarity with other religiotls and in collaboration with all others in the local church. As we look back over the past twenty-five years we can appreciate what dramatic changes have taken place in terms of greater collaboration among religious themselves, but also in terms of the active involvement of religious in the life and structures of the local church. The Unions of Superiors General and the national conferences of superiors have provided excellent leadership in this regard. At the same time, more and more bishops are recognizing the unique contribution religious communities can make to the life of the local church. Here, as with the other signs of hope, much needs to be done, but the first step in making this sign clearer and more general is to acknowledge the great strides that have already been realized. 5. The increasing concern for the promotion of justice and peace. 1 am temp~ed to write more extensively aboiat this sign than any other because, as President of the USG Commission Justice and Peace during most of my years as Super-ior General, I was able to witness first hand the response religious have made to the call of the 1971 Synod's document on Justice in the World. Perhaps the simplest statement is best: if the movement to promote.lustlce and peace has developed so strongly in our time. it is in great part due to the courageous initiatives on the part of so many religious throughout the world. 6. The promotion of the laity. It may be surprising to some that ! ha~,e chosen to underline the promotion of the laity as a sign of hope for religious. But ! believe the attention that has been given to the vocation of the laity since Vatican II has served to clarify even more the specific vocation of religious men and women in the Church. Among the significant consequences of this clarification has been greater attention by religious to the witness they give by the quality of their religious life. There is a definite priority given today to being. Religious life, theh, will not be evaluated simply in terms of doing. As important and vital as our work may be, the first and most important contri-bution we religious can make to the Church is in terms of our life. This emphasis religious give to being is a wonderful response to the call of the Church in our time, as this was stated so clearly by Pope John Paul 11 shortly after his election: "What counts most is not what the religious do, but what they are, as persons consecrated to the Lord."5 I also find it encouraging that more and more r~eligi0us ar,e emphasizing a greater collaboration with the laity, recognizing the unique values that each Signs of Hope in Religious Life Today can offer the other. One of my hopes, as a consequenge of the last Synod of Bishops on the Christian Family, has been for a more effective collaboration between the community of religious and the Christian family in the local church. 7. Collaboration in the promotion of vocations. Ever since the Second Vatican Council, the Church has been calling upon all Christians to work together in promoting all Christian vocations. The Conclusive Document referred to ear-lier is an excellent guide t9 help toward the realization of this objective put forward by the council. What I find as a heartening sign of hope is that so many religious communities are making well-organized efforts to collaborate with each other in the promotion of vocations rather than seeking unilaterally to promote their own vocations. Religious who see clearly their responsibility to promot~e a sense of voca-tion in the lives of all, and who offer their own charism to those whom God may call are themselves great signs of hope for the Church in our time. 8. Trends' in .formation and government that assure the best conditions for human development, such as: - concern for affective maturity; - emphasis on freedom and personal responsibility; - endorsement of animation as a way of exercising authority; - general application of the principle of subsidiarity; - appreciation of collegiality on all levels. Each of these points is itself a sign of hope. Taken together, these trends offer great promise for the future of religious life. 9. A reassessement of the role of religious life in the churches of Africa, Latin America and ASia, featuring both a new thrust (from missionary to collabora-tor) and new foundations to implant various expressions of religious life for greater and longer-lasting service to the local church. The kind of thinking sparked by Buhlman's "The Coming of the Third Church" has been both challenging and stimulating for many religious communities. The transition from missionary to collaborator is not easy, but it is being done. and done very well, in so many places. The new foundations, despite the overall decline in numbers and the stead-ily advancing age of communities, are remarkable signs of confidence in God's Providence, that a generous response to the evident needs of God's people is the only way to live. 10. The spirit of hope that is evident in so many leaders of religious today. I am strongly convinced of what 1 like to call "the apostolate of administration." There is nothing more life-giving than a religious leader who is a man or woman of hope and is able to share that hope with others. We religious are blessed in having many women and men of hope among us at this time in the history of religious life. I! / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 As I look at these ten signs of hope, I sense in religious life today a real desire for a way of life that, in the words of Cardinal Pironio, is committed, serious, profound, fraternal, ecclesial. Something really tremendous is happening in the Church today, and this amid the tensions and struggles of life. And so it is very life-giving for us religious to look beyond the day-to-day struggles, the evident failures and shortcomings, to see how God is at work in our lives and to share this experience with each other. Not all that is happening in religious life can be attributed to the Spirit. There is need for continual discernment. But the good that is evident in religious life is a sign of the Spirit at work among us and deserves to be recognized and proclaimed. We are in an age of transition as we experience the death of much of what was familiar and as we experience the birth of a new era in the history of religious life. May our constant prayer be for the grace to believe in the potentiality of our religious communities, recognizing that religious life does have a great mission in the Church today, and that each religious community is called to serve the Church in a special way, offering.its particular charism to be incarnated, adapted and enriched in so many different people. NOTES ~ Lumen Gentium, n. 8. 2Evangelii Nuntiandi, n. 80. 3The Conclusive Document, p. 53. *Origins, Sept. 2, 1982, p. 181. 5October I, 1979. quoted in The Conclusive Document, p. 53. Our Images of God Michael T. Winstanley, S.D.B. Father Winstanley's "The Eucharist as Light and Life" appeared in the issue of November/ December, 1982. He continues to live and teach at Ushaw College: Durham DH7 ORH: England. This is eternal life: to know thee who alone art truly God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent (Jn 17:3). The quality of our praying and living, and of the service we offer to others, depends a great deal on our image of God. The words of Jesus quoted above provoke me to ask: Who is this God whom 1 am invited to come to know genuinely, to whom 1 pray, for whom 1 strive to live? A correlative question follows: What image of God do I communicate to others, do we communicate as religious, as Church? We all have our image of God, though perhaps we have never paused to articulate that image in words. And whether we advert to it or not, we "reli-gious" people cannot avoid conveying an impression of our God to others. We do so, for instance, by the way in which, as parish workers or priests or headmistresses or nurses, we treat the people to whom we minister. And simple, ordinary things can speak loudly about our image of God, things like the architectural design of our churches (especially the position of the altar), the siting and decoration of our community houses, clerical dress, our style of worship. Since all religious have their particular image of God, it is obviously important that, as followers of Jesus, our God be the God of Jesus, the God whom he came to reveal, the God to whom he prayed. It would be rash to presume that his God coincides with mine! It would be equally rash to pre-sume that the image of God we project coincides with the God of Jesus! 9 10 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 Recently, I attended a lecture by the retired Anglican theologian, E.L. Mascall. He was discussing the role of theology in the university. Theo-logy is a word about God. He questioned whether the word about God that was declaimed in the lecture theater was verified in its turn by the word about God so eloquently proclaimed by the life-style and structures of the Theology Department--an interesting question, one that is capable of being transposed to our Churches, hospitals, classrooms, religious communities. A recent con-tributor to this review maintained that the structures and patterns of seminary life have considerable influence (for the worse) on the students' image of God.~ This in turn has a negative effect on their prayer. From what do we fashion our image of God? Later in this article I shall attempt to share with you some reflections on the Scriptures' image of God. With my head ! can acknowledge it as accurate and authentic. But deep down I have another image, a "gut-level image," and this is the image that so often seems to determine my living and my praying. 1 sometimes feel as though I'm watching a slide show in which two projectors are being used and the slides fade into one another. There are the scriptural slides, and then there are the "experience" slides. Sometimes the transitions are smooth and corroborative: at other times there are conflicting and distorting idol-images. One of my friends is a keen golfer. Over his fireplace hangs a picture of a little man in a flat cap who has hit his ball into a bunker and is having difficulty in extricating it. He is just about to move it by hand--ever such a little--when he looks round at the skies and sees a vision of God: an elderly gentleman, with long, flowing beard, his finger waving threateningly. I find it easy to identify with the little golfer. I had a marvelous relationship with my father. I was always sure.of his love and understanding and help. l knew he was on my side; I could trust him implicitly. On the other hand, when 1 was about ten years old, l went for a holiday to the seaside. We were staying with a Catholic family, and they had two children of my own age. On Saturday evening we went to confession. 1 hadn't too much to say, and as I was preparing, l read through the pages of sins which, according to my prayer book, Catholic boys could commit. As a variation on the usual lies and disobedience, I thought I'd add something from the section on the sixth commandment. After all, l had kissed the little girl we were staying with, and maybe that was adultery! The priest behind the grill in that dark box was not amused, but tore strips off me, making me feel utterly evil and rejected by God. When we returned to the hotel, 1 broke down in floods of tears. The scar remains. That slide often fades on to my screen. Maybe God is like that--just maybe. An acquaintance of mine told me that when he wa_s young, he never felt sure of his mother's love. If he was naughty, she gave the impression of withdrawing her love. This made him fearful and anxious and unsure, desper-ately keen to please and not to make mistakes. Our Images of God / "1"~ It is factors like these that have helped to fashion our "gut-level image" of God. Figures like parents, teachers, priests, novice-mistresses have made it easier or more difficult to accept and make really our own the scriptural revelation of God, the Christian image of God. One writer says: "1 am con-vinced that one of the basic reasons for the current difficulties in both Chris-tian and religious life and practice is that we have .lost touch with our God."~ By "our God," he refers to the God of the Bible. So let us explore a little this biblical image of God. The Loving Faithfulness of Yahweh One of the deepest convictions of the people of Old Testament times was that their God, whom they .had come to know as Yahweh, had come out of his distance and mystery, and had approached them, spoken to them, and inter-vened in their history. "At various times in the past, and in various different ways, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets. (Heb I:l). The story began with the call of Abraham--way back somewhere between the nineteenth and seventeenth centuries B.C. Abraham risked changing his whole way of life in leaving behind homeland--and all that was familiar to him--livelihood, status and security, and migrated to the land of Canaan under the impulse of God's engaging presence in obedience to a promise. The most dramatic intervention of God in their history, chiseled indelibly into the national memory, was the Exodus event. This theme recurs like a leitmotiv throughout the various movements of Old Testament literature, and was made present again in the annual celebration of Passover. In one of the descriptions of the call of Moses, the prophet chosen to play such a key role in God's purposes, we read: I am Yahweh. 1 will free you of the burdens which the Egyptians lay upon you. 1 will release you from slavery to them, and with my arm outstretched and my strokes of power, I will deliver you. I will adopt you as my own people, and I will be your God (Ex 6:6). And Yahweh, they believed, did in fact deliver them in dramatic and exciting fashion from their oppressors. In the ensuing.events of Sinai this motley grouping of nomads received a new unity and identity as God's own chosen people, specially favored and uniquely privileged. Yahweh's relation-ship with them and theirs with him were sealed in the Covenant. One of the salient features of the Old Testament writings is the profound consciousness which Israel evinces continually that she belongs to Yahweh, that she is his community, his people. An extract from Deuteronomy provides ideal expression of this awareness: You are a people consecrated to the Lord your God: the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people of his own possession out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love upon you and chose you. for you were the fewest of all peoples: but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath which he swore to your fathers . 12 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 Know therefore that the Lord.your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations (Dt 7:6-9). Israel was called, then, because of the love of Yahweh and his enduring faithfulness. And she was called to respond in love and faithfulness to him: this is the meaning of covenant pledge. Again Deuteronomy expresses this in language which is amazing for the height of its idealism and the totality of its commitment: Hear, O Israel, you shall 10ve Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might (Dt 6:4-5). Unfortunately, however, Israel did not in general respond very well. Time and again throughout the undulating course of her history, she turned away from Yahweh, falling far short of the demands of love and fidelity, wanting rather to be like the other nations and to follow their ways. Her infidelity is mirrored in the catastrophes which befell her, like the fall of the N. Kingdom to the Assyrians in 721. But the tragic experience of failure brought growing insight into the nature of her God, the kind of God Yahweh really, is. This insight is spelled out most. movingly and beautifully by her prophets. These men were sensiti~zdy awareof Yahweh, of Israel's special calling, of the demands of the Covenant; they were deeply distressed by her waywardness and infidelity. Their image of God, their understanding of him, can be summed up in the twin concepts of love and faithfulness which we have already met. Does a woman forget her baby at the breast. or fail to cherish the son of her womb? Yet even if these forget, 1 will never forget you. See, I have branded you on the palms of my hands. (Is 49:14-16). For the mountains may depart, the hills be shaken, but my love for you will never leave you and my covenant of peace with you will never he shaken (Is 54:10). I will betroth you to myself forever, betroth you with integrity and justice, with tenderness and love: I will betroth you to myself with faithfulness, and you will come to know Yahweh (.Ho 2:21,19,22,20). I have loved you with an everlasting love, so I am constant'in my affection for you (Jr 31:3). And with this realization of God's constancy amidst their failure is born a firm hope for the future. As Jerusalem was about to fall to the Babylonian troops, Jeremiah proclaimed: Our Images of God / 13 Behold the days are coming, says the Lord. when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah . I will put my law within them. and I will write it upon their hearts: and I will be their God and they will be my people. And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and teach his brother, saying '~Know the Lord," for they shall all know me. from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord (Jr 31:31-34). And there are those inspiring words of Ezekiel: Then I am going to take you from among the nations and gather you together from all the foreign countries, and bring you home to your own land. I shall pour clean water over you and you will be cleansed: I shall cleanse you of all your defilement and all your idols, l shall give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in you: I shall remove the heart of stone from your bodies, and give you a heart of flesh instead. I shall put my spirit in you, and make you keep my laws and respect my observances. You will live in the land which I gave your ancestors. You shall be my people and I shall be your God (Ezk 36:2513. Yahweh, then, is constant: he continues to be present with his people, present in love, and in faithfulness to his choice and to his promise. The Loving Failhfulness of Jesus Centuries later, a man was wandering through the towns and villages of lakeside Galilee, preaching and healing and exorcising. From amongst those who were interested in him, he singled out twelve, as Mark says (Mk 3:!3-15), "to be with him," to share his friendship, life, ideals, and "to be sent," to share his mission. But these men consistently failed to understand him and his message, they were unable to accept the implications of discipleship. They continued to foster the old expectations, to cherish the old dreams, to think in the categories of success, political and nationalist liberation and prosperity, power and glamor. They failed to grasp the meaning of the kingdom he constantly talked about. They lacked insight to perceive who he was, this Jesus from the backwoods of Nazareth. But Jesus did not go back on his choice. One evening, as they were at supper in Jerusalem around the feast of the Passover, he spoke to them with sadness in his voice, telling them that one of their number would shortly betray him, and another, their natural leader and spokesman, would deny all knowl-edge of him. He went on to say that they would all run away and desert him in the end. At the same time, as head of the table, he broke bread and shared it with them as a sign and pledge of his love and friendship. And he offered the cup of wine, and spoke of the longed-for new covenant, the new fellowship with God, his Father, that would be sealed in his own blood. And one of them did, in fact, betray him very soon: Peter denied all acquaintance with him, cursed him even: and the rest of them took to their heels in flight, to a man. The Roman authorities executed him by the hideous and shameful torture-death of crucifixion. The God whom he had proclaimed to be near seemed very far away. 14 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 But early on the Sunday morning, some women friends found that his tomb was empty. Shortly afterwards, this Jesus appeared to Peter and then to or'hers of the group, and they came to know that the Father had raised him from death. Thus, their Risen Lord brought together again his disillusioned and scattered band, whom he loved still, and forgave, and whom he still looked on as his. his chosen ones, to whom he was fai'~hful still. And he breathed his Spirit into them, and constituted them the nucleus of the new covenanted People of God, a God whom, like him, they could now address as Father. These men came to realize that in Jesus they had encountered the love and faithfulness of God present in their midst, enfleshed. The Loving Faithfulness Which is The Spirit The Farewell Discourses of John's gospel provide us with valuable insights into the way in which the love and faithfulness of the Lord are expressed in the age of the Church: It was before the festival of Passover. Jesus knew that his hour had come. and he must leave this world and go to the Father. He had always loved his own who were in the world, and now he was to show the full extent of his love (13:1). After washing their feet as an expression of his loving service, a prophetic sign of his self-giving on the cross, Jesus returns to recline in their midst. Judas departs into the night. And Jesus opens his heart to his friends: "My children, for a little longer I am with you . . . where I am going you cannot come" (13:33). There is an atmosphere of sadness, of impending loss and bereave-ment: "You are plunged into grief because of what 1 have told you" (16:6). Jesus seeks to comfort and reassure them: "Set your troulSled hearts at rest. Trust in God always: trust also in me" (14:1). Jesus' love for his friends is palpable. Evident, too, is his strong desire to remain with them, faithful to those whom he has chosen. They are his friends, not servants. He has disclosed to them everything that he has himself heard from the Father. He has shared with them all his secrets. His willingness to lay down his life is token of his love for them. "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Dwell in my love" (I 5:9). The manner in which Jesus shows his faithfulness and love (and therefore continues to reveal the nature of the Father as Faithful Love), and also con-tinues to be present with them after returning to the Father, is through the gift of the Spirit, the Paraclete: If you love me and keep my commandments, then at my request the Father will give you another Paraclete to be with you forever. He is the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot accept since it neither sees nor recognizes him: but you do recognize him since he remains with you and is in you (14:15-17). For John, the mission of Jesus is to reveal the Father and to give life. The Paraclete is almost another Jesus. His role is to continue Jesus' mission, to be his presence now that he is absent. He functions as teacher and guide, and as Our Images of God / 1'5 witness to the disciples and to the world (see 14:25-26; 15:26; 16:7-11; 16:13-15).3 A similar understanding of the Spirit's role is to be gleaned from the letters of Paul. When writing to the Church at Corinth, he says: And if you and we belong to Christ, guaranteed as his and anointed, it is all God's doing: it is God also who has set his seal upon us. and as a pledge of what is to come has given the Spirit to dwell in our hearts 12 Co 1:21-22). As in the Old Testament, we find again an emphasis on the free, elective love and initiative of the Father, bestowing that profound reality and sense of belonging, and pledging his enduring faithfulness. It is the Spirit dwelling within us who grafts us into Christ and assures us of a future. In Galatians Paul tells us: "To prove that you are sons, God has sent into our hearts the Spirit of his Son, crying 'Abba, Father!' You are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then also by God's act an heir" (4:6). Through the Spirit we are caught up in the relationship of Jesus and his Father, and so come to know God as love, as Father, just as Jeremiah and Ezekiel promised. The fact that we are God's children, and therefore heirs, means that this relationship has a lasting future, that God is faithful. in that magnificent hymn in the Letter to the Romans we meet those lines which celebrate the heart of the Good News that God is love and faithfulness; If God is on our side, who is against us?. Then what can separate us from thelove of Christ?. For I am convinced that there is nothing in death or iia life, in the realm of spirits or superhuman powers, in the world as it is or the world as it shall be, in the forces of the universe, in the heights or depths--nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (8:31-39). ISon¢lusion The God of the Bible is best understood as Faithfulness and Love. In this way Yahweh reveals himself in the Old Testament period. In his ministry and passover, Jesus reveals the love and faithfulness of the Father~ In the post-resurrection time, the Holy Spirit takes us up into the enduring love and faithfulness of Father and Son, enabling us to know and to live in that mystery. We find, then, a threefold expression of the faithfulness and love which is our Christian God. Returning to our starting point, we need to ask ourselves whether this is in fact our image of God, whether we genuinely know God in this way. "Have I been all this time with you, and you still do not know me?"(Jn 14:9). We must ponder the interaction in i~ur lives and prayer between this biblical image and those many other images which the experiences of our past have fashioned and which tend to become superimposed, creating a distorted picture, preventing us from seeing the God of Jesus in sharp, life-giving focus. Why do we find it so difficult to surrender fully to this God in loving trust? We stand in such great need of healing and integration. 16 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 And what about the image of God which we communicate to those with whom we live, those we meet in our work? Partners in Christian marriage are meant to show forth, the one to the other, something of the love, acceptance, forgiveness, tolerance, understanding and faithfulness of God--for Christian marriage is a sacrament, is a sign of God's faithful love. Their experience together is intended to be a window into the mystery of God, to be revelation. The high incidence of marital breakdown amongst Christians is a tragedy! In a similar way, we in religious and Church communities are called to mirror to one another the authentic face of the God of Jesus. Communities where there exist intolerance, lack of care and compassion, refusal to forgive, authoritarianism, selfishness, harsh judgments, are actually idolatrous; they betray their whole raison d'etre. Parents, we know, have a vital part to play in shaping their children's understanding of God. Whilst making the demands necessary for growth to maturity, parents must convey to their children a sense of being valued for who they are (and not for what they can achieve), a sense of being loved with a love they cannot lose. Sadly, the imperfeciions of parental love can so easily impart an unfavorable image of God. Likewise, in our ministry within the Church and our mission to the world, we religious are constantly and inevitably (albeit at times quite unconsciously) projecting an image of God to those we meet. We need to be alert to and critical of those aspects of our dealing with others, and of our life-style, those facets of our structures, institutions, regulations, forms of leadership and min-istry, which give the lie to the joy-filled Gospel we announce, which present to our world instead an image of God which is a travesty, perpetuating idols of power, success, security, possessions, which instills fear, guilt, anxiety and hopelessness. Jesus prayed to God as Father. The kernel of his preaching was the kingdom, God's nearness to us in acceptance and saving love. He described the prodigality of God's forgiveness in his parables. More importantly, his own way of living and relating proclaimed in language more powerful than words the palpable reality of his mercy and love, especially for the poor and outcast. The source of Jesus' remarkable freedom, his intuition into what in life is really important, his prophetic overturning of so much that had been acceptable in the society, politics and religion of his day, his breaking down and crossing of so many barriers that kept men apart, was, 1 believe, his image of God. Because Jesus knew that God is Father and is very near, and because he surrendered to the exigencies of such a vision, he could serve others in deep compassion and healing care, he could be near to them in self-gift with a courage and faithfulness that did not balk at death. In killing Jesus, men sought to destroy his God, for they perceived that such a God was too uncom-fortable to live with, and the implications of accepting him were too challeng-ing and demanding, calling as they did for radical conversion in outlook, attitude and way of living. Our Images of God / 17 Perhaps there is still much in our Church and in our religious communities to suggest that we perpetuate the attempt to deface and destroy the God of Jesus, and present instead to our world a caricature, a dreadful distortion. In John's gospel, Jesus, in a moment of controversy with the Jews, exclaims: "I was sent by the One who truly is, and him you do not know . It is the Father who glorifies me, he of whom you say, 'He is our God,' though you do not know him!" (7:28; 8:54)--words which leave us much to ponder. But Jes~s also speaks these words of great reassurance and challenge: If you dwell within the revelation I have brought, you are indeed my discip~.es: you shall know the truth, and the truth will se~ you free (8:31-32). NOTES ~Stephen Happel, "The Social Context of Personal Prayer in Seminaries," REVIEW FOR REI.I-GIOUS 39 (1980), pp. 846-854. 2Francis J. Moloney, Disciples and Prophets (London: DLT, 1980), p. 19. SR.E. Brown. The Gospel According to John (London: Chapmans, 1972), pp. 1135-1143. Discovery Why do ! find so much of me within a wood? As if I stumbled on that part of me most pure and good. There, 1 am wise and simple: I know and am understood. (Why do I find so much of me within a wood?) Why in a wood is my soul set free, - Where my eyes like wild things the silence see And ears hear color marvelously. Why in a wood am 1 free? Why in a wood is truth so true And ! in a wood shot trembling through With a worship terrible, ancient, new? Perhaps ! find in a wood---not me-- but You . Sister Ann Maureen, I.H.M. 11201 Academy Road Philadelphia, PA 19154 Scripture: Literary Text and the Word of God Emmerich W. Vogt, O.P. Father Vogt is a doctoral student of the University of California, Berkeley, and the Graduate Theological Union. He is enrolled in a joint program of these institutions in Near Eastern Religion, focusing on the Old Testament. He is also an instructor at Holy Rosary College (Fremont), and resides presently in the Berkeley Priory: 2401 Ridge Road: Berkeley. CA 94709. With the rise of the modern critical sciences and the subsequent and grow-ing concern for scientific critical study, the historical character of the Bible has again and again been called into question. In their scientific investigations, scholars concede that the biblical narratives are not necessarily factually accu-rate. Some narratives, though perhaps based on actual historical events, are themselves fictional. Moreover, literary and form criticisms have shown evi-dence of various literary techniques and genres, such as mythological lan-guage, present in various narratives. To many, this scholarship has led to a certain skepticism regarding the revelatory character of Sacred Scripture and its reliability as the Word of God, something which has been proclaimed by Christians throughout the centuries. Some are led, on the one hand, to deny any authenticity to Scripture as revelation, while others, more fundamentalist in their approach to Scripture and seeking to preserve their faith in it as the Word of God, become hostile towards all historical and literary critical endeavors. The person of faith, having neither the expertise to make a scholarly inquiry, and lacking sufficient instruction from local pastors or religious educators (who themselves are often confused as to the nature of biblical literature), i~ lbd to reject either his or her faith or the methodology of the modern critical sciences. And this situation is present among both clergy and laity. In essence it is a dilemma which stems from a lack of understanding regarding the nature of Scripture as at once a 18 Scripture: Literao, Text and the Word of God / 19 reality of literary language and the Word of God. An illustration of this dilemma can be seen in the life of John Ruskin, a renowned nineteenth-century English art critic. Raised as an Evangelical Christian, from an early age he was taught devotion to Scripture as the Word of God. However, as a grown man in his thirties he lost this faith largely because of a conflict he saw between Scripture and science. He confided this to a friend, Henry Acland, in 1851: You speak of the Flimsiness of your own faith. Mine, which was never strong, is being beaten into mere gold leaf, and flutters in weak rags from the letter of its old forms: but the only letters it can hold by at all are the old Evangelical formulae. If only the Geologists would let me alone, I could do very well but those dreadful Hammers! I hear the clink of them at the end of every cadence of the Bible verses.~ Geology had been successful in weakening the faith of many Victorians, cast-ing doubt on biblical stories such as the Flood. It is very odd, indeed, that an artist and art critic like Ruskin would have had this difficulty. As an artist he "asserted that art itself must be regarded as a 'universal language,' which spoke not to the connoisseur alone but to the whole of modern mankind: a work of art was closely linked with all the other aspects of contemporary civilization.'"- What Ruskin failed to realize was that Scripture is the Word of God in human garb. It is art, it is literature. It is the Word of God, but the Word incarnated in human language. We have come a long way since Ruskin's time in our understanding of both science and of Scripture. Today we are much more accepting of Scripture's true nature as literature. Yet, we hesitate, and for that very reason, to accept Scripture as the Word of God. "We somehow are under the mistaken assumption that if God were to communicate with us, he would have to do so in exact, scientific terms, revealing to us scientific realities. Recognizing the mythopoeic nature of Scrip-ture, we are inhibited from accepting this as a valid means of divine communi-cation. This was Ruskin's problem, which led him to deny Scripture as the Word of God. An examination of the nature of literary language and its prevalence in human culture, however, will manifest its suitability to express the Word of God. The Nature of Literary Lanaguage The preacher captures the attention of his congregation with a moving story that illustr~ites a certain belief. What holds the interest of the listeners is not abstract religious truths bt~t rather religious truths conveyed in image or story forms. What the artist does with images-in-colors the preacher is able to do with images-in-words,~ and the result is a captivated audience. The human person is intrigued by such story-telling. We are image-form-ing people, and this phenomenon is clearly understood, appreciated, and pur-posely exploited by the artist, whether he be painter, song-writer or storyteller. Colorful images and not sterile abstractions are what captivate the human mind. This is illustrated by Erich Fromm in his study of dreams. 20 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 Let us take a mood in which you feel lost, deserted, where the world looks gray, a little frightening though not really dangerous. You want to describe this mood to a friend, but., you find yourself groping for words and eventually feel that nothing you have said is an adequate explanation of the many nuances of the mood. The following night you have a dream. You see yourself in the outskirts of a city just before dawn, the streets are empty except for a milk wagon: the houses look poor, the surroundings are unfamil-iar, you have no means of accustomed transportation to places familiar to you and where you feel you belong. When you wake up and remember the dream, it occurs to you that the feeling you had in the dream was e~actly the feeling of Iostness and grayness you tried to describe to your friend the day before. It is just one picture, whose visualization took less than a second. And yet this picture is a more vivid and precise description than you could have given by talking about it at length.4 This phenomenon is not something new to the human experience. "The ability to make images is:primeval, and it is no accident that the earliest records of human activity show men making pictures."5 The us~ of literary language, however, involves insight, and our endeavor, if we are to fully enjoy and appreciate the artist's creation, is to elucidate the insight the imagery is meant to convey. The words used, the structure within which they are expressed, and so forth, are all carefully laid out by the designer. Luis Alonso Schoekel makes this point in reference to the literary language of Scripture: In literary language, words have an absolute importance, and they are sought with the greatest care~ They are not merely a way of saying something completely separable from what they say. Words are important for their sound quality, for their rhythm in a phrase, for their aura of associations, and for their resonances in the periphery of our consciousness . 6 The choice of words, the creation of moods through images, the ability to effect "resonances in the periphery of our consciousness" give literary language a charism not possible with philosophical abstractions. However, since the modern world has been so greatly influenced by the scientific mind, oftentimes the value of literary language is not appreciated as a valid means of conveying very real truths about human existence. Nevertheless, human literary achieve-ments give witness to this charism: The power of stories, parables and literal untruths to give us information can well be illustrated in the case of proverbs and "cautionary tales." The tales of the Hare and the Tortoise, the Monkey and the ,lar of Nuts, the Ass in the Lion's Skin, and many others like them, have lasted for centuries, passed from one culture to another, and still appeal today. They have survived not just because they are good entertainment, but because they each have a credible point--that life is like that. The same is true of popular proverbs, "The early bird catches the worm," "Too many cooks spoil the broth," "Empty vessels make the most noise". We test them, not by verification of their literal sense, but through living by them and finding them to work out in experience.7 Trained to search for precise, scientific data, however, the modern mind often misunderstands the nature of mythmaking and storytelling as a valid means of teaching morals or handing on true insights drawn from our com-mon experience. "For the philosopher of the age of reason, myths are barbaric superstitions that grossly befogged the mind of man . -8 Scripture: Literary Text and the Word of God / 2"~ An example of this mentality can be seen in an incident related by John Knox about a man who thought an error had crept into the text of Shakes-peare's As You Like It which reads, "books in running brooks, sermons in stones."~ This man thought that the lines must have originally read, "sermons in books, stones in running brooks." Reflecting on the man's observation, Knox remarks: A work of art is called "truer when it effectively embodies a real vision or mood of the artist, though its correspondence with any objective reality is remote indeed. Even in such a case, however, it would be rash to deny any kind of objective reference. When one calls a work "true,"does one not imply, at the very least, that the vision or mood is to some extent or at certain moments shared by others besides the artist and is therefore not entirely subjective? And does one not probably imply that there is something in the real situation of man in the world which gives rise io, or answers to, the artist's feeling? ¯ . . In other words, when we say there are "books in the running brooks," we are making a statement which, if we regard it as true at all, is for us objectively true--quite as much as the statement that stones are there. We mean that "running brooks" have something to teach us--that they really do.t0 The imagery used in a story possesses a certain power--a power not possessed by mere clear and distinct ideas as such--todraw the mind to truths by way of the imagination. However, clear and distinct ideas expressed in conceptual language is thought by many to be the only valid means of com-municating truth, as we can see from the words of the eighteenth-century philosopher, David Hume: If we take in our hand any volume of divinity, or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain quantity or number? No. Does it contain an experimental reason-ing concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it to the flames. For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.~ This mentality fails to grasp that the nature of literary language is such that stories created by the imagination, while not factual in themselves, nevertheless present the reader with certain truths about reality. It is the "kind of language that can somehow work upon men and lead them to insight and even action, where a more conceptual language might fail."12 Fiction can contain truth precisely as imaginary; it can be expressive of reality.13 The human mind is not drawn by abstract reasoning alone, and man's life entails more than ideas. We come to learn from sense experience, and such experience cannot be conveyed adequately in abstract reasoning. This charism of literary language was not understood by the rationalist, Humian mind. To misunderstand this charism is to "alienate man from his own nature," a point stressed by Edward Schillebeeckx: We might say that it is empirically demonstrable that man is alienated from his own nature if he thinks he has finished with the symbolic thinking of the religious conscious-ness . But in our one-track Western culture we can also demonstrate that the exclusiveness and absolutism of purely, scientific and technological thought., allows whole areas of our humanity to die out or become stunted, and precisely in doing so alienates man from himself.~a 22 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 A ~:lose look, however, at the literary compositions appealing to popular society will reveal that, despite the tendency to downgrade the role of literary language in expressing truths, this charism of language is very prevalent in our contemporary world. Contemporary "Rock," for example, manifests the artist's expression of "truth through images." Simon and Garfunkel's famous song, "Bridge Over Troubled Water," uses such imagery to tell of devoted friendship in a time of personal struggle. Elton John, whose mu.sic appeals to millions of people throughout the world, expresses in ima~gery an autobio-graphical situation from his early adult life in a song entitled "Someone Saved My Life Tonight." In the song he speaks of his former relationship with a woman he describes as "a princess perched in an electric chair." By way of such imagery, he conveys to the listener something of the reality of that relationship. And many articles have been written about the great influence of the Beatles' songs on contemporary society.15 Their songs abound with colorful literary expressions~ It is by way of such imagery, and not in spite of it, that their message is conveyed. These are but a few examples from contemporary popular imagery-in-music that demonstrate the usage of imagery and symbol to convey thought. "People cannot live by abstractions alone"~6 but ~appeal time and again to the image, and this appeal is perennial. It is found not only in contemporary music but in contemporary literature. The current popularity of the writings of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien is evidence of the charism of literary language in contemporary culture. Those who read them are well aware of their fictitious nature, as are those who flock to see the Star Wars sagas and or.her such science-fiction marvels. "Our knowledge that the stories are not factual is neither here nor there. For the stories themselves have power to arouse certain moral attitudes . In addition to its function of allowing the human mind to be creative in conveying truth through story, there is another reason why the .human person seeks to express himself in some medium other than with clear and distinct ideas and conceptual language. This was touched upon.above in the quotation from Erich Fromm: oftentimes we cannot adequately express ourselves through conceptual language alone. Furthermore, not all of our experiences are capable of such expression. Such is the case with re!igious experience. Some other form of expression is needed. Mythopoeic Thought and the Charism of Literary Language Because of the charism of literary language, linguistic expression can be given to that part of reality which escapes scientific scrutiny but which is, nevertheless, real and a part of our existence. Such is the case, for example, with our human urge for survival, for justice, for happiness. These urges, which are universal, experienced by people of all cultures and generations, come into conflict with the historical, existential living out of our lives.~8 The desire for survival is our common experience. We do not desire life for a given Scripture: Literao, Text and the Word of God / 23 number of years only, but eternally; if given a choice we would not have our lives terminate. Whether by witch doctors or miracle vitamins, we seek to prolo.ng our lives, to avoid aging and death. The same is true regarding happiness: we seek happiness not for a predictable number of years but for all our years. We do not want finite happiness as contingent beings, but infinite happiness as immortal beings. The conflict arises when we find ourselves cruelly thwarted. The experience is traumatic. Answers to queries arising out of this conflict escape the scientist; they evade his scientific scrutiny. From the experience of ourselves as contingent, we realize that "man cannot ground the possibilities of his own existence, his knowledge and his ability in his own planning and his own reflection."19 Out of the conflict arises the question of God, and a merely scientific, conceptual language is not adequate to deal with such a reality as God. The human person, being at home with imagery pre-cisely as a human person, resorts to mythopoeic thought to give expression to queries such as the origin of evil and injustice; man's loss of immortality which he so ardently desires; "the origin of the world and of man; the nature of deity; the origins of society and of social institutions; the ultimate validation of moral principles; the purpose and direction of human existence."z° Incapable of being adequately expressed in conceptual language, such queries find expression in mythopoeic thought. Because the language of conversation rarely enables us "to share all the wealth of an experience, or to communicate the richness of what we live within ourselves,TM mythopoeic thought finds expression in and through the charism of literary language. Although the religious experience deals with "problems that lie beyond sensible experience,"~2 the mind can nonetheless give expres-sion to this experience. John Knox saw this need for mythopoeic expression in religious language: In a word, we find ourselves dramatizing or mythologizing. Use either of these terms you will or find some other: bul however you want to say it, the main point is clear and undeniable: we are no longer speaking factually or literally. We cannot speak so when we are speaking of God, for our speech can use ,only the terms provided by our human .experience and thought, and God transcends both. The divine, however near to, even pervasive of, the human it may be, is still essentially transhuman or superhuman.2s God-talk by its very nature den~ands an expression beyond that of the discursive language of the philosopher, an expression that transcends the philosophical. Schillebeeckx cautions that although our talk of God may be inadequate, that is no reason.for silence: Unless linguistic expression is given to the reality which escapes us but grounds our being, even though this may only be through the "poverty" of symbolic expressions, it threatens to disappear into forgetfulness.24 What the person of faith "has experienced," however partially or brokenly, and therefore needs to affirm is, in its fullness or at its source, 'out of this world.''~ When we read the Christian mystics, we notice their frustration at attempting to find words adequate enough to convey their religious experien- 94 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 ces.26 The very stating of the experience seems to make it something less than it is. This demonstrates that the mythopoeic form of expression is not simply an entertaining way of speaking, as in fairy tales, but is necessary if we would convey all of our experience of reality. If we are going to appreciate the language and literature of the Bible, we need to understand mythopoeic expression and how it was used by the peoples of the ancient Near East. Out of the cultures of the ancient Near East came the literature of the Bible, which we call sacred. Literary Language in the Ancient Near East For many centuries the literature of the Bible had to be studied and interpreted simply on its own merits since no extra-biblical literature was known that could elucidate its past. For example, there was no corresponding historical material to enable the scholar to judge the nature of the historical books of the Old Testament. Did they contain history properly understood by modern terms? Knowledge from the cultures of Israel's past was greatly lack-ing, knowledge that would help answer such questions. This situation has changed drastically over the last century due to the discovery of a great number of ancient Near Eastern texts relating to the Hebrew Bible that not only predate it, but bear some strong resemblances to its subject matter. The ancestors of Israel's traditions did not live in isolation but were greatly influ-enced by the predominant cultures of their day. Pius XII, in his encyclical on the study of Scripture, recommends the study of those ancient cultures: It is absolutely necessary for the interpreter to go back in spirit to those remote centuries of the East. and make proper use of the aids afforded by history, archaeology, ethnol-ogy and other sciences in order to discover what literary forms the writers of that early age intended to use and did in fact employ.27 By discovering the literary forms used by Israel's literary ancestors, we better understand the nature of the biblical literature. Innumerable parallels between the cultures of the ancient Near East and the Scriptures have been documented by scholars.28 The wealth of ancient Near Eastern texts discov-ered since the middle of the last century has revealed, among other literary genres, such genres as "epics and myths, hymns and lamentations, proverbs and 'wisdom' composition,"~9 and these from texts of various cultures: Egyp-tian, Mesopotamian, Hittite and Ugaritic.30 Mythopoeic expression was common throughout the ancient Near East. Would this have had an influence on the literature of Israel, even though this latter is said to include the "Word of God"?. Nahum Sarna explains that there was such an influence, and the influence was no slight one: In actual fact, no advanced cultural or religious tradition has ever existed in a vacuum; it cannot therefore be studied in isolation. This is all the more true of the people of Israel. who strode upon the stage of history at a time when the great civilizations of antiquity had already passed their prime . The ancestors of Israel originated in Mesopotamia, wandered through Syria and Canaan, and settled for a prolonged stay in Scripture: Literao, Text and the Word of God / 25 Egypt . The land of Israel enjoyed a location of unique strategic importance as a corridor connecting Europe. Asia and Africa, as well as a window to the Mediterranean lands. Through it crossed the arteries of international communications, and into it flowed the powerful cultural and religious influences of surrounding civilizations. It is no wonder that the culture of Canaan was a mixed one. for its geographic position perforce imparted to it a richly international character that impeded the maintenance of individuality and the development of cultural and religious independence. In view of all this. the discovery of numerous parallels between Israel and her neighbors should hardly occasion surprise and chagrin?~ It can be said, then, that Israel and her literature were certainly influenced by the dominant cultures of her past, just as the world today is influenced by dominant cultures: McDonald's golden arches are found in Paris; Levi jeans are worn in Africa; and Shakespeare is read in Polish. Israel utilized those methods of expression common in the ancient Near East. and she borrowed from their subject matter and imagery, all the while, however, making it her own. Her literature, then, can no longer be naively regarded as a "dictated" Word of God as if somehow removed from human experience and the modes of expression utilized by the human community. Rather, it is the Word of God mediated through a rich literary language. Literary Language in the Bible Although great progress has been made in our understanding of the Bible since the discovery of ancient Near Eastern texts, a confusion has resulted. Sarna remarks that ¯. the modern student of the Bible has at his disposal a formidable array of primary and secondary tools, the fruits of a century of intensive scholarly endeavor. Excellent new translations into modern English, a deluge of popular works on archaeology, a plethora of enyclopedias, dictionaries, historical atlases, reliable non-technical commen-taries of recent vintage, all deprive any literate person of the excuse of ignorance . But the crux of the matter is that in the eyes of modern, secularized man, the Bible has very largely lost its sanctity and relevance?2 ~ We seem to meet with two extremes among readers of the Bible: those who accept the results of the modern critical sciences and have come to understand the true lite'rary nature of Scripture, but as a result do not regard such litera-ture as inspired, and, on the other hand, those.who, intent on maintaining their faith in Scripture as the Word of God, reject the results of the methodologies of the critical sciences when applied to Scripture. Why is this? The predominance of evolutionary theories, the general awareness of the findings of modern science regarding the "birth" of the universe, and the results of comparat.ive studies showing the influence of ancient Near Eastern mythol-ogies on Scripture--all this has had great ramifications regarding the inspired character of the Bible. Genesis has lost its credibility, having been understood literally for so long and by so many. The modern critical sciences have done much to shed light on the literary characteristics of this literature. As a result of such studies, we know that Scripture expresses its message not simply through 26 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 historical narrative, but also by way of poetic narrative. Because the Bible is great literature, it may contain such literary genres as myth, fairy tale, fable, saga, legend, etc.33 For Jews and Christians the Old Testament is sacred and canonical. Faith proclaims that it is inspired: it is the Word of God. Now, when the modern critical sciences discover the presence of mythopoeic expres-sion in Scripture, should the person of faith regard these sciences as a challenge to his or her faith? Or does the Word of God in revelation find expression in and through the charism of literary language? In studying what he calls "the immanence of transcendence: the possibility of expressing the reality of revelation,''34 Schillebeeckx maintains that "trans-cendence lies in human experience." Revelation itself is not a reality apart from human experience: it can be expressed only in and through the medium of human language in such wise that God's revelation comes in the form 'of human ideas and words. This emphasis on the human situation will help us underStand just how God has acted to communicate his word to the human community. As Thomas Aquinas taught, "In the divine Scriptures, divine things are conveyed to us in the manner to which people are accustomed.''35 We experience reality. What is our common mode of expressing that expe-rience? Oftentimes. imagery and mythopoeic expression. If this is the manner to which we are accustomed, and the manner to which people of the ancient Near East were accustomed, should we be surprised, or our faith challenged, because the mythopoeic nature of some of the biblical narratives is made apparent by the modern sciences? Or should we be surprised that God would use this means, to which we are accustomed, to communicate his Word? On the contrary, such an understanding can only serve to enhance our apprecia-tion of that sacred literature. To lack this understanding is to misinterpret and invalidate the scriptural message. "The devastating effect of all this upon faith, when faith was exclusively identified with a literalist approach to Scripture, is abundantly obvious.''36 If for no other reason, Scripture has lost its credibility because modern man has failed to understand that God's word has come to us precisely in our human garb, the human garb of our language, so to speak. It is a failure on the part of the Christian to commit himself or herself to a living and pervading faith in the Incarnation. Scripture is the Word of God mediated through a mythopoeic expression, and richer by that very mediation. NOTES ~George ,P. Landow, The Aesthetic and Critical Theories of John Ruskin (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1971), p. 266. "-The Ent:vclopedia Americana. 1978 ed. s.v. "Ruskin, John." -~Mhson Olds, Stor.v: The Language of Faith (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America. 1977). p.5. '~Erich Fromm, The Forgotten language: An Introduction to the Understanding of Dreams. Scripture: Literary Text and the Word of God / 27 Fairy Tales and Myths (New York: Rinehart, 1951), p. II. ~Gerardus van der l,eeuw, Sacred and Profane Beaut),: The Holy in Art (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. 1963), p. 155. 6Luis Alonso Schoekel. The Inspired Word: Scripture in the Light of Language and Literature (New York: Herder & Herder. 1965), p. 160. 7peter Donovan, Religious Language (London: Shelden Press, 1976). p. 29. 8Philip Freund. Myths of Creation (New York: Washington Square Press, 1965), p. 20. '~John Knox, Myth and Truth." An Essay on the Language ~?f Faith (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1964). p. 19. The reference is to Shakespeare's As You Like It, Act II, Scene I. ~Olbid., pp. 20 & 21. ~Donovan, Religious Language. p. 16. ~2John MacQuarrie, God-Talk." An Examination of the Language and Logic of Theology (New York: Harper& Row. 1967), p. 205. MacQuarrie is citing from Hebert's The Bible From Within, p. 176. ~JDonovan, Religious Language. p. 29. ~'~Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ." ~he Experience ~f Jesus as Lord (New York: Seabury Press, 1980), p. 58. ~See, for example, 77me. Dec. 22, 1980. ~rRene Wellek and Austin Warren. Theory of Literature (New York: Harcourt, 1956), chapter 12. ~TDonovan, Religious Language. p. 26. ~SThe following are ideas expressive of those heard in a class at the Graduate Theologic~il Union from Professor Kevin Wall. This notion of the conflict between a person's expected desires or urges and his actual, existential situation of life lived in the world is referred to by Professor Wall as the "myth/history conflict." ~gSchillebeeckx, Christ, p. 47. -'°John L. McKenzie. "Aspects of Old ~estament Thought~" Jerome lh'blical Commentary 77:23 (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1968), p. 740. -'~Alonso Schoekel, The Inspired Word. p. 159. 2~McKenzie, "Aspects," p. 740: -'-~Knox, Myth and Truth. p. 5. ' 2'~Schillebeeckx, Christ. p. 55. ~SKnox. Myth and Truth. p. 81. ~'Such was the case, for example, with St. Catherine of Siena. During a mystical experience brought,on in prayer, Raymond of Capua (her confessor) heard her say, Vidi arcana Dei: "1 have seen the secret things of God." Raymond recounts that, "When, after a great length of time, she returned to her bodily senses sh,e kept repeating the expression Vidi arcana dei. Wishing to know the reason for this 1 said, "Mother. why do you keep saying the same thing over and over again. instead of drawing out for us as usual the meaning o,f what you say, or of adding a word or two of explanation?' 'Because,' she said, '1 find it quite impossible to say anything else. or put it into other words.' "But why,'~ I asked. 'do you find this so now, when you never did before?". 'Because.' she said, 'on this occasion ! am so conscious of how inadequate human words are to express .what I saw. I should feel as if I were only belittling God, and profaning him, by any words I could say. When the mind is rapt in God. and is granted the light and the ability to fix its gaze on him. what it contemplates so far surpasses anything that can be put into words that the one thing seems to be the negation of the other. No: this time I cannot attempt to give you even a faint idea of the things 1 have seen. They cannot be encompassed within the limits by which human speech is bound'" [emphasis added]: Raymond of Capua. The Life of Catherine of Siena, tra,ns, by Conleth Kerns (Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1980), p. 179. ~TPius XII. Divino A.fflante Spiritu. EB 560. -'SNahum Sarna, Understanding Genesis (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), p. xxvi. ~S.N. Kramer, Sumerian Mythology: A Study ~f Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B.C (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1944). p. 13. ~0See Walter Beyerlin. ed. Near Eastern Religious Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Phila-delphia: Westminster Press, 1978). -~Sarna. Understanding Genesis, pp. xxvi-xxvii. -~'-Ibid. p. xx. ~-~See John I. McKenzie. "The Literary Characteristics of Genesis 2-3," Theological Studies 15 (1954). p. 546. See such scriptural pas'sages as I K 17:7-16; 2 K 4:1-7: 14:9: Nb 22:22-35: and the story of Sodom in Gn 19. ~Schillebeeckx, Christ. p. 55. 35St. Thomas says, "In scriptura autem divina traduntur nobis per modum quo homines solent uti. "Comm. on Heb. ch. I, 1,4 ,quote0 in Alonso Schoekel, The li~spired Word. p. 44. Images of Job Jesse Nash, O.S.B. Brother Nash resides in St. Meinrad Archabbey; St. Meinrad. IN 47577. Every age has its heroes. Religious ages venerate saints and martyrs. Rebellious and turbulent ages tend to venerate rebels and even anti-heroes. Our age is curious in that it is characterized by both tendencies. One would naturally suppose that the heroes of traditional religious groups will sharply clash with those figures idolized by more secular, non-traditional groups in our society. Ahd such is typically the case. What the religious imagination sees as'a virtue, the non-religious or secular imagination disdains. Rarely do both camps find themselves prizing the same figure, whether histori-cal or legendary, as a hero. But the literary character Job is an example of such an exception. Both the traditional religious imagination and the contemporary imag-ination, which includes rebellious religious persons as well as non-religious ones, claim Job as their own. It is the oddity of this dual claim which has prompted this essay. The Book of Job as a Story Like an intricately designed puzzle, the book of Job frustrates the scholar and exegete. It is difficult, some say impossible, to translate. As to how the book came to its final, present form, which is a combination of poetry and prose, scholars are not in agreement. Nor are they in agreement as to how the various parts of the puzzle should really be fit together into one harmonious whole. The questions the book raises are legion. In spite of scholarly difficulties ,with the book of Job, the character of Job has been for centuries a hero of the religious imagination. For Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Job the man has been a hero to be imitated.~ More specifically, .lob was thought to be a model of patience in the face of a~Jversity. St. James represented all Images of Job / 29 three of these great religious traditions when he used Job as an example for his congregation to imitate: "You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, and how the Lord is compassionate and merciful" (5:11). In more recent times Job the man has become a hero of another sort altogether for both the religious and the secular imaginations. Job as a model of patience has been replaced with the model of Job the rebel. Job has even been adopted by the existentialists as one of their own. Today the Job who shakes his fist at the heavens in outrage and the Job who broods over the meaning of life is of more fascination than the older, more traditional view of Job. Scholars and. laity alike are more attracted to Job the impatient than Job the patient? How, we might ask, could two such contradictory models be constructed around the same literary figure? One reason for this difference in models lies in the structure of the book of Job itself, which looks something like this: 1. Prologue chapters I-2 11. Job's Laments and Debates chapters 3-27 111. A Hymn to Wisdom chapter 28 IV. The Debates Continued chapters 29-37 V. The Divine Speeches chapters 38-41 VI. Epilogue chapter 42 In the prologue and epilogue, the book is basically in prose. The rest of the book is mostly poetic in style. In the prologue Job is patient, and at the end of the divine speeches he surrenders to God, repenting in the end (40:3-5: 42: I-6). From these sections of the book the model of Job the patient was constructed. A different picture of Job is found in his laments and in his argumehts with his friends--here Job is not only impatient, he is rebellious. Thus we have the two models. Of course, the problem with either model is that it relies only on sections of the book congenial to the desired model. The book as a whole is often ignored. When this happens we are only given a glimpse of one image of Job when in fact there are three distinct images of Job in the book: one of patience, one of impatience or rebellion, and one of repentance. The images, at first glance, appear to be contra-dictory. How do we reconcile Job's rebellion with his final repentance? Some have chosen to ignore the repentance as though it were out of place in the book. But as Bernhard Anderson has pointed out, the fact that Job repents is the key to the book as a whole.3 Several scholars, along with Anderson, have stressed that the book of Job should be read as a story.4 By reading the book as a story with each of the various sections belonging together, we find that we do not have to choose between the model of Job the patient and Job the rebel. Neither model really reflects the whole story, so to speak. To choose ,lob the rebel over Job the patient or repentant (or vice versa) neglects the fact that in the book we catch glimpses of at least three moments in the life of a literary figure as he attempts to understand himself, his suffering, his world and his God. To read the book of Job as a story is to read the 30 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 movement of one person from self-assured patience to open rebellion to finally repentance and reconciliation with God. From Patience to Impatience In the prologue, chapters I-2, Job is presented as a successful family and business man with considerable wealth in terms of land, livestock, and servants, He was also blessed with many children. Both the extent of his wealth and the number of his children were signs of God's blessing in the popular piety of the day. Of course, the reason for this blessing was Job's righteousness. He was "blameless and upright, one who feared God, and turned away from evil" (I:1). 'The depth of his piety can be seen in his concern for the spiritual welfare of his children: ¯. he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said. "lt may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts." Thus Job did continually (1:5). Such a description not only serves to draw attention to Jo.b's piety, it also points to his wisdom. Although his children had every reason to be contented and thankful to the Lord. the possibility of alienation from God was always present. When misfortune did strik~ Job's children, servants, and property, he reacted as a wise man should. He mourned his loss and worshipped God (1:20). He was steadfast, as St. James said. and reconciled his loss with his faith in God: Naked I came from my mother~ womb, and naked shall 1 return: the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord. In all this he did not sin or charge God with wrong ( 1:21-22). Even when Job himself is afflicted with sores over his body, he remains stead-fast. To his goading wife, he retorts: "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil" (2:10)? Job's so-called patience was maintained because of his conviction that come what may, good or bad, it comes from God. Thus suffering was something to be endured. This too was part of the popular piety of the Ancient Near East (see Pr 3:1.1-12). ' Needless to say. Job's patience does not last long. As Job's patience ends in the story so does the prologue and thus begins Job's poetic lamentations and debates with his friends. Still, Job does not curse God. Rather. he curses the gift of life: "Let the day perish wherein 1 was born, and the night which said. 'a man child is conceived'" (3:3). His friends protest his outburst. Life. as a gift from God, was sacred to these people. Moreover. and here is a point often missed. Job's outburst is out of character for him. Eliphaz chides him: Behold, you have ,instructed many, and you have strengthened the weak hands. Your words have upheld him who was stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble.knees. But now it has come to you, and you arc impatient: it touches you, and you are dismayed (4:3-5): Images of Job / 31 Having helped others, Job now finds himself unable to cope with his own suffering and pain. He is forced to admit he hasn't the strength to be patient (6:11-13).~ Sheol is a nicer alternative than his present life (3:13-19). Sense of God and Sense of Self Job's patience and wisdom crumble before his pain. He is not being true to form, his friend Eliphaz notes. He becomes rebellious and argues with his friends. Claiming that he has not sinned, he argues that he does not deserve to stiffer in such a way (6:10). His outbursts are directed against God as well: "Why hast thou made me thy mark? Why have 1 become a burden to thee" (7:20)? Being bold in his anger, he would even presume to argue face to face with God to defend himself and the record of his life (13:3-5). Such a posture from Job has led John Bowker to think that Job's "sense of God" has been radically altered. Job no longer knows what to expect from his God, who is supposed to reward the righteous and not punish them.5 But is this actually the case? Did Job's experience of suffering cause him to question the very God he worshipped in the prologue? This question is crucial because'on it hinges the model of Job the rebel. Roland Murphy sheds some light on the question. He notes that Job is expe-riencing "the dark side of God.''6 This side of God'is not new to Job or the reader of the book. In the prologue we are told that God is going to allow Job to be tested (1:8-12: 2:3-6). This is the Hebrew way of saying that God is not above such a thing. The reader is almost immediately confronted with "the dark side of God," Job himself in the prologue relates his misfortunes to the hand of God and claims that evil as well as good should be accepted from God. And in his laments Job never doubts the existence of this side of God. The God Job worships in the prglogue is the same God he rages against in his lamentations. True, Job does rebel, but he rebels because he himself has become a victim of this side of God. Where before he counseled and consoled the victim, now he is one himself. Ironically, he asks: What is man. that thou dost make so much of him, and that thou dost set thy mind upon him. dost visit him every morning, and test him every moment? (7:17). Job has always been aware of this side of God, the testing side. But now that he personally is affected by it he questions the rationale .behind this possibility of the God-human relationship. Becoming more rebellious, he even questions the ration-ale behind punishing sinners: "It~ I sin, what do I do to thee, thou watcher of men" (7:20)? It is Job's "sense of self" that has radically shifted. He complains about the nature of a person's sojourn on earth in general--it is like that of a hired-hand (7:1). Old age also stares at him: "my life is a breath" (7:7), he tells his friends. Angrily, he is forced to conclude that suffering is only an additional complicating factor in the problematic nature of a person's life. 32 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 Job's sense of self is shattered by the greeting he gets from his social world. His friends wrongly associate his affliction with sin. His affliction (remember, he is covered with sores) has ostracized him from his natural acquaintances (19:13-19). Worst of all, "I am repulsive to my wife" (19:!7). His frfistration and rage are exemplified in his protest to his friends: "Why should I not be impatient? Look at me, and be appalled, and lay your hand upon your mouth. When I think of it I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my flesh" (21:5-6). And while all this has hap-pened to Job, the wicked prosper and grow old peacefully (21:7-21). Tested by God and shunned by his social world, Job rebels. One can under-stand his preference for the peace and rest of Sheol (1:13-19). What one cannot understand is how Job got the reputation over the centuries for being patient. But neither is Job's rebellion the last word in the story. To Repentance Job demanded a face-to-face showdown with God so as to resolve the issues he had raised. Yet when God does appear, much to the surprise of the reader, God does not defend himself by resolving the issues. In the divine speeches (chapters 38-41) God is on the offensive, asking some questions of his own: where was Job at creation or can Job control creation? Job is overwhelmed and concludes: "Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer thee" (40:4)? And finally, "I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee: therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes" (42:5-6). But why does Job repent? God does not actually absolve Job as he had demanded. Instead, Job is given a whirlwind tour of, in G. K. Chesterton's famous phrase, "an idiotic universe," a universe in which the wild ass (39:5ff), the wild ox (39:9ff), the ostrich (39:13ff), Behemoth or the hippopotamus (40:15-24), and even Leviathan or the crocodile (the subject of all of chapter 41) are the wonders that attest to God's glory and power. God here literally sings a hymn of praise to the ostrich, the hippopotamus, and the crocodile, creatures ugly or dangerous to humans. But these are the wonders of the universe according to God. He even seems proud of his "idiotic universe." God's description of the wonders of the universe catches Job off guard, so to speak. "What is man that you make so much of him?" Job had asked earlier. God replies by making much of creatures ugly or dangerous. The divine speeches force . Job to realize that he is not the center of the universe and that humans are not the only concerns God has. In regard to the meaning of the divine speeches, Robert Gordis notes: "The universe was not created exclusively for man's use, and therefore neither it nor its creator can be judged solely by man's standards and goals,w ' Job's rebellion was against his world and his God. God appears and shows him how little Job actually knows and understands. To demand to know the reason for suffering is to ask for more than is possible for humans. But God does not himself offer an easy answer. He confirms Job's suspicions that he has indeed created "an Images of Job / 33 idiotic universe." Nevertheless, a person's first obligation is not to understand but to give glory to the creator come what may.8 By his rebellion Job has caused an imbalance in the divine-human relationship. His repentance restores that relationship. onclusion Perhaps the unnerving thing about the book of Job for the reader of any age is that Job does repent. God in his confrontation with Job never addresses the problem of the suffering of the righteous or even the problem of ordinary living, both of which came to frustrate Job. Rather, God in the divine speeches accepts the world as his creation. He lays claim to it in spite of how crazy the world may appear to us. Job repents, but God declares to his friends that Job had spoken correctly of God (42:7). By his repentance Job accepts God in spite of unanswered questions and "an idiotic universe." Herein may lie a model worth our imitation, a model more challenging than those of Job the patient or the rebel. NOTES ~Nahum N. Glatzer, The Dimensions of Job: A Study and Selected Readings (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), pp. 12-34. 2Qoheleth has also been appropriated by some as a rebel or as an existentialist. For a critique of the use of Job and Qoheleth in such a manner see Robert Gordis, Koheleth-- The Man and His World. 3rd ed. (New York: Schocken Books, 1968), pp. 112-28. 3Bernhard W. Anderson. Understanding the Old Testament, 3rd ed. (Eng!ewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1975), p. 559. 4See Glatzer, p. 4: Robert Gordis, The Book of Job: Commentao', New Translation, and Special Studies (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America and KTAV, 1974): William J. Whedbee. "The Comedy of Job," in Semeia, 7 (1977), pp. 1-39. 5John Bowker, The Religious Imagination and the Sense of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), p. 100. ~'Roland E. Murphy, The Psalms, Job, Proclamation Commentaries (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977). p. 79. 7Gordis. The Book of Job, p. 435. SAnderson. p. 558. A Word On Tomorrow's Renewal M. Helen Hardebeek, O.S.B. Sister Helen has been a member of the Benedictine community of Boerne, Texas. since 1960, and is presently working with Benedictine Sisters in Mexico City. She has attended both public and private universities. She writes "influenced by the totality of these experiences . prompted by a strong desire to encourage my sister and brother religious to see the long-range nature of our renewal efforts." Sister Helen may be addressed at Rio Bamba #870: Delegaci6n Gustavo Madero: Mexico 14. DF. 07300. Tired of talking about renewal? Want to know when we are finally going to settle down? You may be in for a shock: we've only just begun. The thing about renewal is that it never should have stopped happening in the Church in the first place. But stop it did--and that fact stands to warn us that stop it can again. We are made of the same weary bones and tired blood and change-resistant mentalities as those who first began to settle for the routine churchiness which provoked John XXIII to call for an opening of windows in the 1960's. Fifteen to twenty years later, most American Roman Catholic religious communities have lived through renewal processes; whether they have lived through renewal experiences remains an open question. Ask a representative religious (if you cannot find a representative religious; ask just any religious you come across), "How is your community renewing itself?." The answer very likely will be, "We already did." Thus do we set ourselves up a~ marvels of.grace or as paragons of delusion. It is a little like asking, "Are you looking forward to springtime?" and being told, "l've already seen one." Members of a community may feel that they have "renewed"just because they have studied and revised constitutions, set up group-defined goals and objectives, and established committees to evaluate the results of the efforts directed toward achieving those goals and meeting those objectives, While 34 A Word on Tomorrow's Renewal such efforts do indicate a willingness to travel toward renewal, they are no indication that renewal has indeed taken place. True, many aspects of our communities have changed, but l~t's face it: not all change is in the direction of renewal, and we are not always wise and clever and alert enough to catch the difference right away--although we may be scandalized at the thought that for all our prayer and sincerity, We, as groups, actually can make mistakes. Perhaps one of the biggest mistakes we are tempted to make is that of canonizing ourselves before our time, thinking that because we have asked the Spirit to guide us and have trusted the Spirit to guide us, thereby we must have made excellent decisions. The truth is that we--none of us--are immune from the probability of making some mistakes--even in prayed-over group deci-sions. We get together, trust, and do the best we can with the information and inspiration at hand. Nevertheless, it can turn out that, with the best will in the world, groups have made decisions which ultimately do not result in the authentic renewal of ministries and of lives that was intended. And~that does not say that the Spirit hds not been with us! After all, whole masses of populations lack success, lack necessities, lack knowledge, even though the working of the Spirit in their lives may be pro-found-- so profound, in fact, that our age probably will not know what groups and which actions have been truly effective in renewing the face of the earth. Looking at the poor and the oppressed and the ignorant~ one could judge that all they do and have done is to make mistakes! But we don't know. And we don't know about ourselves~ either. So one day we may discover that we have made some bad decisions. Does that mean that the Spirit is not with us, "or was not present at the time of the decision-making? Let us transpose the questions to another level: Is the Spirit not with prayerful poor or oppressed or ignorant persons? H~ive we made successful results to be our criteria by which to judge the value of prayer? It is-not necessarily success that characterizes the value of our renewal efforts. True renewal is characterized by love--a love that keeps growing in the same Spirit~regardless of success or failure, a love that does not allow factions to develop--factions made up of those who knew better all along, those who should have known better in the first place, and those who, in the clear light of hindsight, can now tell us better. Is renewalactive within the hearts of the cOmmunity members? If.so, then renewal is active within the fiber of~the community, and that community will be renewed. Ask ~f the community is loving, open, to the ideas of each person, or are there m(mbers whose ideas are always disregarded a priori because, for example, they "talk all the time without thinking!" Some people, unfortunately pei'haps, think by talking: as a result, much of what they say gets tuned out. Yet, in a "controlled-process situation," where solitary reflection is insisted upon as a pre-requisite to the sharing of insights, the tuning out of anyone by any6ne else is definitely a sigff of bad will, and a hindrance to the renewals process. 36 / Review.for Religious. Jan.-Feb. 1983 Another instance: does a clique of judges hold court privately on the inner workings and outer behaviors of the group? Thoughtful dialogue about per-ceived problems and weaknesses can be a sign of a loving community because thoughtful dialogue imp!ies a sincere desire to include ever more intensely Christ who is present where two or three are gathered in his name; but carping criticism is as different from thoughtful dialogue as chewing gum is from eatirig a hearty meal. Attempts at dialogue with chronic complainers are a wrong-way drive down a one-way street--just that pleasant, and just that effective. On the other hand, dialogue, which includes elements of constructive criticism, can be useful and invigorating. is the community loving? Does every person feel free to express opinions and to raise questions, knowing that the opinion expressed will be valued, and that questions asked will be seen not as signs of stupidity, but rather as signs of sincerity? ls the community loving? Or would a member cringe who has to ask for a substitute to wash dishes, a driver to the doctor, a helper on a project which is running late. So many indications of love, or its absence, could be listed--and most of them come down to simple, everyday acts which indicate an unselfish-ness, a lack of self-importance, a kind way of thinking. The process of renewal should, of its nature, be !ight, joyful, and exciting. What was old is becoming young again! What was broken is being healed! What was listless is being invigorated! When renewal is experienced as tire-some, dull, irksome, something is wrong. The mark has been missed. Better to stop and play a game or put a vase of flowers on the table: to sing a song or have an ice cream party. If we are truly renewing, we are becoming more and more like the happiest people who have ever lived: Jesus, whose awareness of the Father kept him headed toward the breathtaking experience of Resurrec-tion; our founders, whose glimpses of what it means to help others come into contact with Eternal Beauty made their lives adventure stories. Our founding documents brim with the possibilities open in life for you and for me. If we are not filled with happy thanksgiving for creation, not convinced that life is a splendid opportunity for sharing a magnificent message, then we still need renewing. How do we become and stay renewed? A lot depends on attitude. We can go through a group process and come out animated or disgusted--it depends on attitude. Any process can fail if those who come to it are disgruntled because they have to work in small groups, or because they had to stop what they were doing to come to "another meeting," or because they have convinced themselves that processes are for the purpose of manipulation. If process after process results in a heavy, sarcastic atmosphere, it may be time to say, "Per-haps we are not going to be renewed. Maybe we are going to die." And a funeral service could well be the next process--to lay to rest the hopes and dreams of the founder, the hopes and dreams that this group had been ¯ intended to realize today. A Word on Tomorrow's Renewal As we have seen, negative attitudes can sabotage renewal efforts. Positive attitudes, however, can enliven these efforts with ease and graciousness. Con-sider, as an example, the study of revised constitutions. As mentioned earlier, a study does not, in itself, guarantee or signify renewal--but the spirit in which a study is undertaken can be, indeed, a sign of renewal, if the corporate and individual qualities of Christian love highlight the interaction as the members explicate their documents together. Usually revised constitutions are couched in current theological terms-- which undoubtedly are interpreted differently among the membership. A study of these terms and of the varying understandings can be a fruitful "grassroots" source of reflection; and when it turns out that interpretations do differ, perhaps drastically, that is just fin!! Why not? Go through your community's constitution by yourself sometime. Is every phrase crystal clear? Is every underlying assumption apparent and familiar to you? Do you have a suspicion that there is more being implied than a cursory reading indicates? Or do you have other suspicions: that you know exactly what particular passages mean to certain others of your group and that your own interpretation differs vastly from theirs? The process of revising constitu-tions was intended to provide a theoretical framework wherein renewal could take place. The riches of our revised documents may be far greater than we realize, especially if we have not given ourselves the benefit of taking a close look at the fine print, and more especially, if we have not taken advantage of the opportunity to share our insights with others, and of learning from their impressions and reactions. Firm understanding of our own thought takes time; firm understanding of one another's thoughts is an even slower process. It is also tricky in that we must constantly allow for change (growth) in our own and in the other's thinking. However, if we are to know both ourselves and our documents, we may need to face up not only to the inspirational aspects, but also to the hard questions that result when differing interpretations are discussed openly. Did anyone ever say not to question our documents? The asking of searching questions may be a great source of renewal, particularly the asking of searching questions by our own Companions, within the context of our own communities. If we are fortunate enough to belong to a group that is honest, open, and tolerant, we can increase in our appreciation of the elusive nature of truth. As we ponder truth's way of moving past our present understandings, its way of surrendering itself only to the most persistent of pursuers, we can grow in our appreciation of the ongoing nature of truthful renewal--and we will not grow tired. On the contrary, we will grow livelier as we support one another as individuals, as we contribute to the cohesiveness and effectiveness of our communities, and as we witness in our ministries that ongoing efforts are needed if we are to become an ever-renewed people on our way to an ever-new God. Am I Growing Spiritually? Elements for a Theology of Growth Matthias Neuman, O.S.B. Father Neuman is a Professor of Theology at St. Meinrad Seminary. An earlier article, "The Contemporary Spirituality of the Monastic Lectio." is still available as a reprint. Father Net~man may be addressed at St. Meinrad Seminary: St. Meinrad, IN 47577. ecently a student at our seminary expressed his judgment about the quality of the theological and spiritual training offered to him: "Because of the many talents, and abilities of our faculty I am sometimes overwhelmed by the,vast-ness of what one should know and be. This has contributed to .a feeling of insecurityand incompetence on my part in tackling pastoral duties and spir-itual responsibilities." In a later conversation this student indicated that the variety of theological disciplines, the pluralism within each discipline, and the multiplicity of personal spiritualities forced him toward too many choices and subsequently a stalled indecision towards his professional and spiritual devel-opment. This young man. rather sharply reflects the problem that confronts many people today. The American religious scene corrals a grab bag of inter-ests, from mysticism to social action, from pure rationalism to biblical funda-mentalism, from family-c~ntered religion to process cosmology. The spiritually minded individual, fortunately or unfortunately, gets exposed to most of these religious trends at"some time or other. Besides being intellectually confusing this incredible mixture tends to stall one's personal integration, growth and competence in the spiritual life. In this article I wish to explore the possibility and issues of a viable "theology of spiritual growth.L' I would like to search out some concrete directives by which a Christian adult might seriously look at his or her life and give a satisfying response to the question: "Am ! growing spiritually?" 38 Am I Growing Spiritually? / 39 This tremendous concern of faith-minded adults for their o~,n spiritual growth cannot be separated from the larger thrust of American religion into the realm of interiority and spirituality. At the outset it would be good to take some time to clarify what is meant by the two terms spirituality and spiritual growth. At least in Roman Catholic circles, and I suspect beyond, spiritualio, has become a "hot" subject in recent years. Books, workshops, prayer seminars and directed retreats proliferate and vie for the increasing crowd of concerned believers intent on deepening their faith. This movement in spirituality high-lights a number of concerns in American religious practice. There is, first, the desire to break through the abstractions and formalismsof religion to gain a personal, immediate contact with God. This desire also wants to go beyond the generality of scriptural l~hrases such as "life in the Spirit" and "following the Lord." These are certainly important but they need to be fleshed out with a commonsense language of our time and culture. Second, prayer is viewed,as "being-in-the-presence-of" the Divine rather than an obligatory addressing of the Deity; it is personal communion with God. Third, by means of spirifuality people wish to free their emotions and use their real-life experiehces as their primary religious foundation in place of theoretical dogmas. And, lastly, the spirituality thrust calls each man and woman to develop a very persOnal and intimate religious practice. These concerns convey some of the flavor of the spirituglity movement, but they do not make precise the structured shifts that take place in the religious practice.of people. Fo.r this we need to know the basic elements of any spiritu-° ality. I would like to suggest four constitutive elements which are always operative, either explicitly or implicitly, within a given spirituality9 I. The point at which God touches people in their dai~v lives. The~real, generating source of any spirituality is found where the person oi" per~ns s~e~nse the p,resence of Mystery or of the Transcendent in their everyday lives. Wher-ever we sense that a power beyonff draws us out of ourselves and gives us a feeling of awe or of selfless love (the Holy), then a spirituality begins.2 Those everyday moments, places, events or persons which join us to the Transcen-dent ground the structural origin of any sPirituality. 2. The supports constructed to protect and nourish this experience of Mystery. The instinctive reaction to an experience of the Holy is to surround it with activities: derived from our best abilities, which are intended to'shore up and protect, and thus contribute to the likelihood that the Mystery will appear to us again. Whatever form these follow-up activities take, they constitute the intrinsic "devotions" of the spirituality. 3. A method of.focusing one's attention,for the renewed encounter with Mystery. Such styles of "attending" are, in fact, methods of prayer. From a phenom, enological perspective, every style of prayer--meditation or contem-plation, communal or ritual movement--reflects a particular way of organiz- 40 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 19~3 ing and stimulating consciousness to prepare for Mystery. 4. A method of growth and conversion. Every spirituality encloses some plan for extending the benefits and riches of one's contact with God into all other areas of one's life. To meet the Transcendent must rearrange values, and that rearrangement must automatically push itself into all other parts of a person's total !ife-world. A spirituality, then, inherently implies some kind of spiritual growth. This last item of the structure of spirituality needs development, thus bringing us to the major concern of this paper: a theology of spiritual growth. Our American culture is obsessed by the need for progress. People feel compelled to constant growth--intellectually, personally and spiritually. Not unlike so many consumer products that we buy, each year (we feel) we should be able to measure ourselves as "new and improved."This often rabid quest mirrors the ethos of American modernity itself, the cumulative result of indus, trialization, technology, mass media and the.myth of prbgress.3 This cultural storm has flooded into the religious milieu of America as well, engulfing all the branches of the Christian tradition. The myth of contin-ual growth, the American dream, has ever so forcefully incorporated itself into our religious practice and hopes. People feel an intense need to be able to measure and plot their progress toward God. They ask for special courses and practica in spirituality, faith formation and prayer. They seek out spiritual directors with whom to identify evidences of their spiritual growth. This state of affairs generates a plethora of problems. First of all, few people seem to have any clear idea or conviction about what "spiritual growth" really consists of, or how to measure it. Like myths about sex, views of spiritual growth get passed around from popularized article to popularized conference. Countless people strive constantly to improve, to grow, but end up terribly frustrated because they aren't sure if they are getting anywhere-- because adequate criteria and a coherent theory are lacking. Marshall McLuhan once wrote: "The price of eternal vigilance is indifference,TM an ominou~warning for so many who cast themselves headlong into plans of spiritual regeneration. This presents us with a serious problem in Christian spirituality today. In the remainder of this article, I will try to indicate some componen~ts of a theology of spiritual growth which might assist Christians to make a better evaluation of their lives in their journey towards the Mystery of God. Three points, will be specifically addressed: i) the necessity of a critique of cultural theories of human growth; 2) a better use of Christian religious rcseurces as a foundation for valid spiritual growth; and 3) the importance of increasL,g *he role of personal responsibility for one's spiritual growth. The Necessity of a Critique of Growth Theories In the last quarter century, under the onslaught of the psychological revo-lution, an ~er-increasing array of theories of human growth have established Am I Growing Spirituall.v? / 41 themselves as elements of the American cultural scene. Philip Rieff's prophetic warning has ~come of age: Psychological Man lives by the ideal of insight--practical, experimental insight leading to the mastery of his own personality. Psychological Man has turned away from his Occidental preoccupation with transforming the environment and converting others. Rather. he now more nearly imitates the Oriental ideal of salvation through self-contemplative manipulation.5 Some perception and schematizing of human growth has traditionally bei:n a part of all folk wisdoms and religious traditions. The transition from child to adult was always hcknowledged, and a large portion of folk literature dealt'with the shifts in behavior, attitude and community-esteem that attach to the passage from boy to man or girl to woman. Similarly, religious traditions Of every kind have alwa3)~ sought to understand the fundamental ~hifts that occur in the course of human life and how this changes the individual relation-ship with God; the Hindu schema of Student-Householder-Wanderer-Holy Person serves as a typical example.6~However, these traditional understandings of human growth have been sharply accentuated and developed in our hyper-psychologized milieu. Not too long ago psychologists began to delineate more precise stages of growth--down to year-by-year and month-by-month. In addition to more narrowly identifying the temporal sequence, they also expanded the list of means by which such growth should occur. One fairly recent book lists a sample of the ways available to contemporary Americans, offering us growth by means of play, breathing, extended perception, smell, taste, touch, sex, family, encounter groups, peak experiences, gestalt therapies, LSD dreams, meditation, training intuition, psychedelic experiences and-- finally--relaxation .7 In such a supercharged atmosphere, is it any wonder that people start Worrying about "having to grow"?. They check themselves month by month to keep tabs on the normalcy of their progress. A man in a parish once told me of his anxiety that his mid-life crisis hadn't started on time! People can get abnormal trying too hard to be normal. A good theology of spiritual growth ought to address this issue head-on. Available theories are legion in our society. Just consider the complexities of balancing together Piaget's cognitive development,8 Erikson's psycho-social theory of growth,9 l~ohlberg's stages of moral development,10 Richard Jones' structuring of imaginal growth,~ Daniel Levinson's modeling of adult life-transitions, 12 and Elizabeth Kuebler-Ross' enumeration of the stages of dying.~3 Apparently the negotiation of one's way through that maze begins with the first month of life and never ends until the final breath. It would be a grim and determined individual who would seek never to sway from the tough road of.such normalcy: "Narrow is the path that leads to life and few there are who follow it" (Mt 7:!4)! What I find distressing is how easily and totally those growth schemas are imported wholesale into spiritual thinking and writing. Piaget and Kohlberg 42 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 are assumed to present ready-made outlines for faith development.14 Erikson's schema is accepted as the basis for identifying the major steps of adult religious conversion.~5 Levinson's adult life-transitions provide the hidden key to a mid-life "spirituality of crisis."16 . 1 would like to suggest that a theology of spiritual growth ought to provide a much deeper and more detailed critique of these'theories of human growth and their uses for spirituality. While there is much excellent research in these cultural theories of growth and development,and while they certainly offer a mine of insights to be tapped for a theology of spirituality, there is still a need for religious prudence in the acceptance of them.' Too often, for instance,, one encounters the feeling that the accurate following of this or that theory becomes binding ,for human happiness. "Normalcy" equals happiness and fulfillmen!! A theology of spiritual growth should exercise some critical defla-tion of such expectations. ,. Again, readers of psychological theories frequently assume~that a particu-lar age-related growth pattern can be made the target of personal decision and attacked forthwith. They forgetthat the most such schemes can accomplish for any individual is to provide possible awareness-points along the way toward long-range programs and decisions, points which might possibly help people to locate the source of some of their present blockages in one or other unre-solved issue of their past lives. There are, in other words, no instant panaceas. In seeking for balance in the utilization of these chronological growth patterns, a theology of spiritual growth would do well to brush off discarded philosophy books, rehabilitating, for instance, the existentialist notion of "event."~7 In the making of a human life, the setting of attitudes, actions and hopes is as much the result of the particular and unique events which happen to an individual as it is of the unfolding of any chronologically structured growth scheme. Most life events occur without our previous consent,'even though others may be defiberately planned and executed. The powerful exis-tentialist insight into event, however, has recently been smothered, philosophi-cally, in the waves of' structuralism. Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison provide a good example of one man whose mind, heart and vision had been irrevocably changed and shaped by his unplanned prison experience.~8 Other areas cannot be developed here. But let me suggest that any ade-quate theology of spiritual growth must incorporate and develop four basic d~,namics of human and spiritual deepening. I have drawn these from a theory that combines social phenomenology and cultural anthropology. ,I. Chronological Growth Stages. This dynamic encompasses the many theo-ries that seek to explain how the structural human being (mind, emotions, sociality, and so forth) moves through the trajectory of life. Its purview.is the time line, and it locates the person as moving successively out of. oqe set of structures into a future set. Most of the growth schemas menti.oned above-- Erikson, Kohlberg, Levinson, and so forth--are good exp?sitors of, this Am I Growing Spiritually? dynamic of human growth. Knowing these chronological stages can give us some positive insight into how we have negotiated the human need to cope With emotional maturity, sociality, intellectual responsibility, and so forth. We need to know this, and it can serve as a fundamental indicator of our spiritual growth toward the mystery of God.19 2. Cultural Exposure. Just as significant for a basic human and spiritual deepening is the dynamic of cultural expression to which a person has been exposed. Here growth opportunities point to a richness or expansiveness of social, personal and religious experiences of life. This may be the. most ne-glected of all the basic areas of human and spiritual growth. Americans espe-cially hax~e been provincial---even to the point of denigrating the cultural riches of other peoples. Yet we have ,to realize that there are many ways of meeting the fundamental issues of life in family and society, of entering into interper-sonal relations, and so on. To limit oneself exclusively to the learned patterns of one:s own family or culture is, in effect, to deny the possibility of other ways of growing that God has offered to the human race. Cultural openness is also a means of grasping more profoundly just how God's life me~rges with our own. A personal example may illustrate what I mean here. 1 was raised in a small midwestern town, in a culture strongly shaped by traditional Germanic values. A cardinal belief of that culture was: You never get something,for nothing. That limited experience kept me from really understanding and inter-igrizing the New Testament notion .o.f charism--a gift of God freely bestowed. It wasn't until I had lived in another culture (Italy)~.f.or four years that the cultural expression of pure gift became an experienced part of my reality, enatiling me to interioriz_e this New Testament meanin.g. I doubt that this could have happened if 1 had clung rigidly to my inherited convictions. A broadbased cultural exposure can be a vital dynamic of both human and spiritual growth. Not only should we recognize this, but we should be ,willing to let ourselves be challenged by it. 3. The Depth of TranSformational Possibilities. This dynamic considers'to what extent the indivi~lual recognizes the opportunities that are available for changing one's life~ The previous element cab present numerous possibilities and values to test One's ability to go~ beyond and enrich one's inherited and socialized culture. This dimension of human deepening, though, looks far mor+ r~dically and openly to the future hnd to the goal of humanization than do the previous two areas. It incorporates the hope and realistic expectation that 6ur live~ can actually be reshaped and renewed into a creative new pattern that combines inherited values and newly-learned cultural expressions. The full reality of spiritual growth, then, must internalize the possibility that the true spiritual person will be the result of a creative religious act.2° 4. Integrative and Creative ~)ecision. This final dynamic specifies that unique moment when the three preceding dimensions are brought into mutual interac- 44 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 tion. Chronological growth, cultural possibilities, and projected changes are balanced and ready to be creatively merged by free decisions. This truly inte-grative dynamic of spiritual deepening is the traditional meaning of Wisdom. Christian theology has also called it "discernment in the Spirit of the Lord."!t is an axis of human and spiritual growth which reaches far beyond the simple importation of cultural growth theories into religious spirituality. These four elements of spiritual growth ought to provide at least a basic framework that would take us beyond a simple application of the chronologi-cal growth stages. Spiritual directors and reflective Christian adults should examine all four areas for material to answer the question: Am 1 growing spiritually? Christian Resources and a Theology of Spiritual Growth Having considered the problem of understanding growth in contemporary spirituality and the human social sciences, we must further inquire." Does the Christian religious experience offer any special contributions to this issue of spiritual growth? Does the Christian tradition add any unique perspectives in ascertaining the precise goals, means or methodological steps of authentic spiritual deepening? First, let us acknowledge that Scripture surely affirms some kind of reli-gious maturation. The Apostle Paul gently reprimands his congregation at Corinth: "I treated you as still infants in Christ. What I fed you with was milk, not solid food, for you we.re not yet. rea.dy for it" (I C° 3:1, 2). In another passage he contrasts the ways of Children with those of adults as a norm for spiritual deepening (! Co 13:9-12). Paul further notes the real possibility of regression or backsliding on the" spiritual journey: "! am astonished at the promptness with which you have turned away from the one who called you." (Ga 1:6). Along with other biblical writers (see Jn o16:12) the Apostle of the gentiles presents a definite conviction of the need for growth or deepen-ing on the spiritual journey. But we will look in vain for any systematic description of a life-pattern of holiness in the Scriptures. Alas, no biblical Erikson has appeared to lead us into this Promised Land. At best we can discern religious situations, spiritual responses to the situations, and recogni-tions that people have not progressed as far as they should have. Secondly, from a purely linguistic and cognitive viewpoint the Scriptures complicate the matter of trying to formulate a coherent theory of spiritual growth. This complication results from the cultural and religious pluralism that lies behind the,early Christian writings: this pluralism results in a variety of central symbols--all concretizing the same Christian wa~y.2~ The New Tes-tament encompasses a variety of goals in the spiritual process: the pascha~l pattern of Christ in us (Paul), the kingdom of God (Jesus), the holiness of God (I Peter), the life.and ministry of Jesus (synoptic gospels). Similarly diver~e are the means to attain these goals: aft active moral love (Paul), the new com-mandments (Matthew), loving knowledge (John) and personal conversion Am I Growing Spiritually? (Jesus). As if this were not enough, one fails to find the least evidence of any systematizing method which would trace the step-by-step procedures of spiri-tual growth through the means to the end. While many later Christian writers have attempted to formulate systematizing examples, they all impose a later schema on the earlier texts,z2 The absence in the New Testament of a step-by-step explanation of spiri-tual deepening should be understandable in a moment's reflection: these canonical writings are occasional pieces, not systematic expositions. Moreover, in the cultural milieu of their composition, subjective spiritual growth was not a high priority: it is our modern viewpoint that has elevated it to a primary concern. And yet the richness of spiritual experience in the Christian heritage does possess an immense wealth in its own right, one that need not be clipped or stretched to fit within our cultural categories of human growth. Methodo-logically, this suggests that a revisionist method of theology, such as the one outlined by David Tracy, should be introduced more forcefully into the realm of spirituality.23 The Christian heritage should challenge" contemporary culture, as well as vice-versa. I would like to suggest one issue which might be pursfiEd in this dialectical exchange. The question should be raised: Does the Christian religious vision even allow that spiritual growth have any single necessary ground-plan? Ought we not consider as a real possibility that the reason it is difficult to find a methodo-logical statement of spiritual growth in the Bible is because there isn't supposed to be one? These writings are open-ended! They provide no abs61ute goal of spiritual growth: they offer no absolute means of holiness: they organize no steps in an absolute methodological pattern. Taken as a collection of accumu-lated experience these writings simply give us a variety of examples of men and women who are "on the spiritual way." Like the parable of the Good Samari-tan which avoids a direct answer to the question: "Who is my neighbor?" the wholel import of the scriptural collection deliberately leaves a great deal of latitude for people to choose their own path. The implied message of the Good Samaritan story, "Be loving and you will recognize your neighbor," may be symbolic of the entire scriptural message. Paul's great theme of freedom in the Galatian letter forcefully accents that same open-endedness. "Before faith came, we were allowed no freedom by the Law . The Law was to be our gua~rdian until Christ came . lqow that that time has come we are no longer under that guardian" (Ga 3:23-25). That warning may be spoken against any absolute plan (including a growth plan) that would shackle human freedom. When Paul pleads with his hearers to be guided by the Spirit (5:26), he is admonishing people to remain open and a

Issue 35.4 of the Review for Religious, 1976. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS IS edtted by faculty members of St Louis University, the edttorlal offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building, 539 North Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copyright © 1976 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $7.00 a year; $13.00 for two years; other countries, $8.00 a year, $1.5.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Book Editor Assistant Editor July 1976 Volume 35 Number 4 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of .address should be sent to REvx~w FOR RELmiOVS; 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 vOa RELmIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gailen, S.J.; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; .Phil'adelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19131. "Jesuits Today" Horacio de la Costa, S.J. Father de la Costa wrote the March contribution to'our series on the 32nd General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, "A More Authentic Poverty." He resides at Xavier House; P. O. Box 2722; Manila 2801; Phil!ppines. ' Just. before it adjourned, the 32nd General ~Congregation of the Society o[ Jesus arrived at a clear and distinct,idea of why it had met. This realiza-tion is expressed.in its In~troductory Dec.rce,~ which, being introductory, ~was of course taken up last. The decree makes several points. First, that the congregation immedi-ately, preceding, the 31st, sought toadapt Jesuit life to the directives of the Second Vatican Council. Second, that it did so in documents which '~ccuraiely and faithfully.~ express the genuine spirit and tradition of the Society." Third, that during the decade that followed, "significant" success attended the effort to reduce these documents to practice. Fourth, that that success Was circumscribed by "two exaggerations, each tending in an op-posite direction," the one a resistance, to renewal as being "somehow a de-parture from the genuine Ignatian spirit," ~the other an adaptation of Jesuits and their work to the needs of the world w.hich is excessix, e,,,and in fact "runs counter tom the .Gospel message." Fifth, that these conflicting tend-encie~ not only "threatened unity within the Society," but gave "cause for concern" both to the superior general of. the order and to the Pope. And hence, sixth, that the aim of the 32nd General Congregation was, by recog-nizing and removing these exaggerations, to achieve "a balanced renewal of 0religious life and a discerning re-dedication to apostolic service." A~ congregation delegate put it more imaginatively by saying that the 31st General Congregation had launched a satellite, to which the 32nd then 481 4a2 / Review for Religious, l/olume 35, 1976/4 proceeded to transmit certain course corrections, its intention being not to modify, much less to reverse its trajectory, but rather to focus it more ac-curately on its moving target. And that, while engaged in this exercise, the said congregation received a fairly strong input from the Vatican com-puters. The focus which the congregation decided to give the 'Society today centers on the concept of mission. More than ever before, mission--the act or state of being sent--must be a key element of the Jesuit's self-iden-tity. "A Jesuit . . . is essentially a man on a mission: a mission which he receives immediately from the Holy Father and from his own religious su-periors, but ultimately from Christ himself, the one sent by the Father. It is by being sent that the Jesuit becomes a companion ot~ Jesus.''1 Well, then, what is the mission on which Jesuits are being sent today? Considering only the multiplicity of works in which Jesuits are actually en-gaged, and leaving aside the multiplicity of works in which they think they should be engaged, it covers a very wide range indeed. But are these works merely a miscellany chosen at .random, a collection without internal co-hesion? Or is there some unifying, some integrating factor-pulling them together in a convergent thrust? The congregation decided that if there isn't there should be, and that it should be the service of faith and the pro-motion of justice considered as complementary facets of an undivided whole. "The mission of the Society of Jesus today is the service of faith, of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement.'''~ This is the "basic choice," the "priority of priorities" for the Society at which the congregation arrived. How did it arrive at it? It may be well to consider this briefly, to consider not only the product, but the process by which it was produced. The product is this handful of documents which .~esuits are supposed to translate from words to action; to bring to iife in their lives. Well and good. The trouble is that they are texts, and legisla-tive texts at that. Paragraphs On parade, marching down page after page in neatly numbered companies, footnotes following after like a baggage train; all spick-and-span, i's dotted and t's crossed, treadling the measured tread of ecclesiastical Latin. Parade-ground texts, remot~ely reminding us of a battle, butobearing only a faint resemblance to a battlefield. ~ How can we make these texts come alive? Would it help to have re-course to one of Saint Ignatius' little devices for making things come alive? "First prelude, the history of what I am about to contemplate. Second pre-lude, a composition of place. Here it will be to see with the eyes of the imagination . '"~ Very well; and what will it be here? Perhaps, to try to see these texts as people; the people who produced them; the congregati 1GC 32, "Jesuits .Today," n. 14. :GC 32, "Our Mission Today," n. 2. 3Spi~ritual Exercises, n. 102. "Jesuits Today" / 4113 whom the Society sent to Rome to discern what its response should be to the call of Christ. See them there in that hall on Holy Spirit Street--Borgo Santo Spirito --men from widely different national, cultural, occupational, experiential backgrounds, who, in trying to fulfill their brothers' commission, strove strenuously not only with each other but with themselves, and in the pro-cess got confused, enlightened, dismayed,_ heartened, disheartened; lost courage and regained it; got bored, doodled, dreamed of home; went to the Gesfi to celebrate the Eucharist; got an insight; tried it out on a couple of companions over a plate of pasta and a flagon of Frascati; and finally ar-rived at the consensus congealed in these texts. We must not, then, be deceived by the asceptic neatness of these docu-ments. They are the fai'r cop, y of whai:at first looked like an illegible scrawl, but; in the end,. surprisingly, made sense. If God writes straight with crooked lines, then the g.roping and searching, the backing and filling, the findin.g and losing, the consolations and desolations which filled the house on Holy Spirit Stri~et with tongues of fire disguised as will-o'-the-wisps were the crooked lines with which God wrote straight for Jesuits; and it may help to see how straight God has written if we have some idea of how crooked were the lines. I am not, of course, suggesting that the congregati thought crooked. QO the contrary; the~y were straight-thinking, straight-shooting men. The trouble was that the targets they were shooting at seemed to weave wantonly from side to side, and sometimes to disappear altogether. I think most of them will agree that there was hardly a moment during the congregation when they were not in one way or another confused: confused by the ap-palling diversity of the Society's apostolic initiatives and commitments; con-fused by the added complication that Jesuits are inserted {hus variously in a world iri process of rapid change; confused by tensions old and new, in the Society and outside it, between generations, between the backward-looking and the forward-looking, between innovation and tradition, be-tween development and liberation, between ideology and praxis, between capita!ism and socialism, between the two sides of the Iron Curtain, between East and West. A confusion so great that if a consensus emerged--as it did --it is more than likely that that straight line was drawn not by the hand of man.but by the finger of God. The consensus is what is embodied in our text~; and what I am really trying t'o say, I suppose, is that to appreciate the consensus it is necessary to have some idea of the confusion that preceded it. The Introductory Decree speaks of "two exaggerations, each tending in an opposite direction," which "have threatened the unity of the Society.''~ 4n. 4. 41~4 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 One cannot say that the exaggerations themselve~ ~vere present at the con-gregation., but one might suggest that the tendencies they exaggerat~ were. The congregation seems to have brought into confrontation two radically different ways of thinking about the Society ~nd its mission, so different as to seem irreconcilable. One approach was conservative, traditional, back-ward- looking; the other was radical, inno.vati~;e, forward-looking. In Commission I on the Norms of the ApoStolate, Commission II on the Missiofi of the Society, and Commission IV on the Promotion of Jus-tice, what the "radicals" seemed to be saying was this: "Let's start from the facts'. Let's" look at what has to be done in th~ world and let's do that. What kind of work? Never mind what kind o,f work, as long as it works! We must do only 'Jesuit' works? There are no 'Jesuit' works! What does Pedro Arrup~e say? 'Jesuit identity ~s to have no identity!' " To which the "conservatives" seemed to r~eply: "Now, wait. You can't possibly mean that. ~'ou can't possibly mean that there is no specifically Jesuit apostolate. There must be something 'Jesuit' a Jesuit is supposed to do. Start with the facts? What facts? Real facts, or what are alleged to be facts by those who have already de,ideal ffhat they want to do? Let's not start with such facts. Let's start with something more certain and secure: the Formula of the Institute, the Constitutions, the Spiritual Exercises, the directives of Paul VI. Let's reflect on what the~, say we should be doing, and let's do that. There are others in the Church ahd in the world ~;~o c/an do the rest, and do it better. What does John Janssens say? 'We can-not be Divine Providence.' " Two approaches to the apostolate. Two "niind-sets," each convinc6d that"it was i'ight and the other wrong. And so there was debate. No need to pl~y down the fact that there was debate: a cl~ish of argument' on a corn= mon ground of discourse. It will not do to give ttiis congregation the image of a group of gi-6wn men politely bowing to each other and saying, "Ah, so? That is what you think? How nice! Thank y.ou very much!" And each or~e going off, as the poet says, "eonvinced against~ his will, but of the same opinion still." A "confrontation, then, conducted for the. most. part with sweet reason-ableness, but not without sound and fury. Such at least was the impression given by couriers to the staff officers of the Deputatio ad Secernenda Pos-tulata (the commission to validate initiatives taken by Jesuits, individually or corporately, for consideration of the co.ngi'egation), standing on.their rise o~ ground ab.o~ve the smoke of battle: Committee Room P, fourth floor. But when the smoke of battle cleared, and the field glasses went up to sur-vey the sh~m. bles, it became visible even to the naked eye that,what began a's a confrontati6n had turned out to be a convergence. What happened? Some would say that debate had given way to discern-ment, It may well be. 1 do not know enough about discernment to be cer-tain. My personal observation is that as the~congregation progressed people "Jesuits Today" / 485 were listening more to each other, and were more inclined to question not only those from whom they differed, but themselves. Thus: We must promote justice. That is the conclusion imposed by the facts. Yes; but what is justice? What do I really mean by it? Or rather, what does the Gospel say it is? , Or again: The. Formula of the Institute says that we are a society founded for the .defense and propagation of the faith, Yes; but how do you defend and propagate the faith? By word alone? Also by wit'ness? What kind of witness? What kind of witness in a divided' world? And further: Jesuits in the developed world must be chiefly concerned with secularism, with the~ marginalization of Christianity in societies an-ciently Christian. Jesuits in the underdev.eloped world, on the other hand, must be chiefly concerned with underdevelopment, with' the marginalization of the powerless in unjust societies. Certainly; but are these two phenomena completely distinct? Or are they somehow related? How related? And finally: Take a look at the Constitutions, Part VII, where Saint Ignatius lays down his norms for the selection of ministries: the more uni-versal good, the more lasting good;,.help to those most in need of help, works that have a "multiplier" effect, spiritual works by preference, but corporal works if more urgent. Apply these norms to our moment of his-tory, and what do you corne up with? ~ . It was by some such process of shared reflection that the two mind-sets we have described discovered, initially to their discomfiture, increas~ ingle, to their delight, that they were saying the same thing. More precisely, that they were in the same boat; rowing, ,bailing, or busily polishing brass, but in the same boat, with Diakonia Fidei (Service of Faith) stenciled on the port side and' Promotio lustitiae on the starboard side. ,A pretty rocky boat, to be' sure; not quite,rigged and already slightly battered; with cracks to be sealed, sails to be set, a course to be charted; but one boat, not two planks from a shipwreck. And not completely at .sea, either; for we now have, by this callida.iunctura of faith and justice, a focus to our apostolate, a destination for our mission. The convergence can be more clearly seen by juxtaposing nn. 4 and 10 of the document "Jesuits Today" and nn. 2 and 3 of the document "Our Mission Today." We arrive at this basic choice' from several different points of departure. The postulata received from the provinces, the panorama of the state of the Society presented at the congregation, and the suggestions given us .by the PoPe, ~all direct our .attention to the vast expanse, and circuit of this globe and the great multitude and diversity of peoples therein . We are con-firmed in this basic choice by being led to it from another point of departure, namely; the original inspiration of the Society as set ~forth in the Formula of the Institute hnd the Constitutions . 486 / Review]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 The mission of the Society of Jesus today is the service of faith~ of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement . In one form or another, this has always been the mission of the Society; but it gains new meaning and urgency in the light of the needs and aspirations of the men of our time, and it is in that light that we embrace it anew. Put that way, it sounds pretty obvious. The point, however, is that when the congregation began it was by no means obvious; that it became obvious by a convergence of two different approaches in a process of interaction; and that this convergence was, for many in the congregation, a discovery. Closely allied to the problem of what Jesuits do is the problem of what Jesuits are. There was a far greater number of postulata from the provinces concerning the first problem than concerning the second. However, there were enough for the Deputatio ad Secernenda Postulata to decide to form an Intercommission on Jesuit Identity. Why an "intercommission"? For two reasons, First, because its members were recruited from the regular commissions which had already been formed. Second, because the Deputatio's instructions were that this group should be a link between the other commissions; or rather, a listening post, lis-tening in on all of them to pick up and put together what they were saying that could have a bearing on Jesuit identity. But why did the question of identity come up at all? What gave rise to the postulata on the subject? One reason might have been the feeling that many of those who leave the Society do so because they no longer have, perhaps never had, a clear idea of what it is to be a Jesuit, or why they should be Jesuits rather than something else. Or else, the concern that we are engaging in all sorts of development work, justice promotion, political action, and other efforts to build up a more human world, but doing so according to the norms, ideals, and procedures of secular agencies or move-ments engaged in the same enterprise; in effect, that we are identifying our-selves with them instead of making the' original, the unique contribution we are called upon to make as an apostolic, religious, sacerdotal body. Which, incidentally, is what the.more reflective among the secular humanists them-selves expect us to make. They don't expect us to do0what they are already doing: They expect us to do "our thing." But what is "our thing"? We do not seem to be quite clear on that. This intercommission, then, was told to do something about the problem, but it was also very distinctly told that it was not to make up "Jesuit iden-tity" oui of its own head. It was by all means to avoid being creative. Its job was simply to find out what the congregation itself was saying about Jesuit identity, explicitly or imlSlicitly, in the course of its deliberations on mission, formation, poverty, government, community lift; and if it succeeded in drafting a statement on the subject, to sub/nit the draft to the congrega-tion for approv~il. The result is the document entitled "Jesuits Today." An earlier title, "Jesuit Identity," was rejected by the congregation, and "Jesuits Today" / 4117 rightly so. This document is in no sense a formal definition of the Society or of the Jesuit. It is simply a descriptive summary of some of the attributes that may serve to identify Jesuits both to themselves and to others. Even as a description it is certainly not definitive, for Jesuit identity, like that of any other personality, is, first of all, elusive; it cannot be pinned down or exhaustively catalogued in any statement. And it is elusive chiefly because it is in [ieri, in process of becoming: the identity of a living and growing thing which keeps changing while remaining itself. Some future congrega-tion will doubtless find it necessary to draw up another statement of Jesuit identity. That is why it was finally decided to call this document simply "Jesuits Today." As the effort at self-understanding of persons who do not take them-selves too seriously, it was given, inevitably, other, less formal titles. "Cari-dent: the toothpaste with Formula 32, a special blend of charism and iden-tity, guaranteed to enhance that dazzling, distinctive Jesuit smile." "ldenti-kit." the police portrait of the mystery man going around holding up people and asking them, 'Who am I?' " But "identikit" is not just a gibe. It contains a thought of Father Arrupe's which he expressed to the Intercommission on Identity~ I hope I may be forgiven for paraphrasing it here. A photograph of Jesuit identity is not possible, only an approximate likeness, as in an identikit. Why? Interiorly, spiritually, we do have an iden-tity:, the Ignatian spirit, insofar as we live it. But exteriorly, apostolically, what is Jesuit identity? It is to have no identity. We have no specifically Jesuit ministries, as other religious institutes might have: not education, not social action, not parishes, not this or that form of action or contemplation, 'but only what here and now God wants done. The document begins with the first and most obvious clue to a Jesuit's identity: his name: Jesuitbsomeone who pertains to, who belongs to, Jesus. Everyone knows how tenaciously Saint Ignatius clung to that name. Nothing could induce him to change it, This complete certitude that he and his company are something that belong to Jesus seems to be based on the spiritual experience Ignatius had at La Storta, a.wayside chapel just outside Rome. He was making his way to Rome from the north on foot, and all the way he was praying to Our Lady that he might be "placed with the Son." Arrived at La Storta, he had this vision, or enlightenment, or insight, in which the Eternal Father asks Jesus carrying his cross to take this pil-grim into his company. And Jesus accepts him. It is interesting that in all this the Lord is not called Christ but Jesus. Jesus, his personal name. Which suggests that for Ignatius being "placed with the Son" meant entering into a personal relationship with him, a rela-tionship of personal love. This is confirmed by the fact that when his com-panions asked him what our Lord's words to him ("I shall be propitious to you at Rome") meant, Ignatius replied with great joy, "I don't know. Maybe it means we shall b~ crucified with him in Rome!" A love relation- 488 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 ship, then, not just between servant and master, not just between soldier and cat~tain, but between sinner and Savior. This brings us to what the document sees as another clue to Jesuit iden-tity. The Jesuit is a man who has come to a vivid realization not only of his sinful acts but of his isinfulness; and with equal vividness has come to realize that his conversion, his turning back to God, began not with him but with Jesus: the saving love of Jesus reaching out to him, in his sinful-ness. "You did not choose me; no, I chose ~,ou.'''~ If, then, the Jesuit is' one who, following Ignatius, asks to be placed with Jesus, it is because he is responding to love: the love of Jesus which, beyond,all expectation, antici-pates and seeks his love. His response is that of the converted sinner. These are the two related thoughts with which the document begins: "What is it to be a Jesuit? It is to know that one is a sinner, yet called to be a companion of Jesus.''G There was some objection at the congregation~'to beginning the docu-ment with" this confession of sinfulness, this "beating, of breasts." It was thought to be overacting~ or over-reacting to the alleged Jesuit.propensity to arrogant ~triumphalism. Does this show.of humility really counteract that impression--if, indeed, it is the impression Jesuits give? Is it not, in fact, a kind of triumphalism in reverse? Why not simply ~and immediately focus on the central element of Jesuit. identity, that of being socius lesu: the com-panion of Jesus, the man who has answered the call of the Eternal King? Perhaps. But the point is that that is not how~Ignatius began. And that is not how the Spiritual Exercises begin. Ignatius the Jesuit begins with what James Brodrick calls the "pilgrim years," when this wandering penitent signed his letters "Ignacio pecador": Ignatius, sinner. And the Exercises begin not with 'the Meditation on the Kingdom but with the First Week: with the effort to realize thfit the love of Jesus has reached out to me in my sinfulness. They begin, in fact, even before that. They .begin with the First Principle and Foundation: with the love of Jesus reaching out to me in my nothingness; by the act of creation choosing me out of nothing. That in the. mind of Ignatius it is-Jesus who does this, is suggested by the fact that both in the Exercises and the Con-stitutions there is constant attribution to the Second Person incarnate not only the title of Savior but of tfiat of Creator. The next few paragraphs of the document: bring out what seems to be another essential i~ngredient of Jesuit identity. It is outward-looking more than it is inward-looking. After his conversion, the Jesuit fixes his gaze not so much on what goes on in tlie soul within him ~at on what goes on in the world around him. We are all familiar with the popular (and, one hopes, .~Jn 15.16. G"Jesuits Today," n. Ol. 7nh. 4-9. "Jesuits Today" / 4119 distorted) image of the Jesuit as a worldling, inclined to involve himself in mundane affairs which are none of his business; conducting himself in a manner far removed from the popular (and equally distorted) image of the "man of the cloth" as so completely wrapped up in, things divine that he cannot even change a blown fuse when the lights go out. Well; let's face it. There is an element of truth in this. We will find it in the initial response of the converted sinner as expressed in the key colloquy of the First Week of' the Exercises: "What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ?. What must I do for Christ?" What to do. What, and where, is the action. This is not the initial response of other types or schools of spirituality. By way of contrast, we might paraphrase a passage from the Chinese phi: losopher Mencius, of which', surely, there are echoes in the Western world: Yoti wish to find God? God is in the heavens, .the infinite heavens. But the infinite heavens are reflected in a small pool deep.in a,well-~-the well of your soul. Plunge, then, into your soul, and there find God. But that is not what the Jesuit does.~ What the Jesuit does.is go into the Second Week of the.Exercises. There he hears Christ calling for-com-panions to go with him to conquer the~world,s There ~he looks up to God in his .Trinity of persons and finds their gaze also, fixed on the world, whose salvation they are d~ciding to accomplish? There,.he, sees Christ choosing mento send into the world to proclaim his sacred tehching,to persons ot~ every class and calling.~° From which it appears that the Jesuit instinct (or charism) is not to withdraw from the world to be~alone with God, but rather to turn to the world and ask himself, "Wh~t~ can Io do for God. in this world in whose midst I am, and to which I am sent?" This would seem to be the force of Saint Ignatius; assertion that the grace,by which the Jesuit is driven to serve men is identical with the grace by which he achieves his pe~:sonal salvation.1~ Or, as our document puts,it: "The grace of Christ that enables ~nd impels us to seeko'the salvation~and perfection.of souls' or what might be called in contemporary terms the integral liberation of man, leading to participation in the life, of God himself is the same grace by which we are enabled and impelled to seek 'our own salvation and perfection.' ,,1~ It was suggested earlier that "Jesu.its Today." is an "echo" document, echoing in the key of identity what the other documents of the congregation say about mission, compa~nionsh]p, freedoha, dis~ernment,~ and love. The emphasis ,on mission: that the Jesuit is essentially a man who is sent by Christ through the mediation ot~ those who hold Christ's authority, is clearly an echo of the document "Our Mission Today." 8Spir. Ex., n. 95. .~lbid., nn. 106-107. aOlbid., n. 145. a~General Examen, n. 3. ~-~"Jesuits Today," n. 1~1. 490 / Review for Religious, °l~'olume 35, 1976/4 The emphasis on companionship: that the Jesuit is essentially a com-panion, a companion of Christ first, but in Christ also of those whom he has called to the same companionship, is similarly an echo of the document on "Union of Minds and Hearts." The emphasis on freedom: that the Jesuit is essentially a man who is free, or rather, a man who has been set free, and this, paradoxically, by the vows that bind him, is an echo, at least in part, of the document on Poverty. The attitude towards the vows here brought out as characteristi-cally Jesuit is that they are not meant to enclose a man, to protect him from the world, to pluck him from the madding crowd and wall him up in some pleasance of peaceful contemplation--in the matchless phrase of Fray Luis de Le6n~ ~'la escondida senda por donde han ido/los pocos sabios que en el ~mundo hart sido"---but to detach him; to hack away from him all en-cumbering armor, and thus to free him from the constraints that may hold him back from any service in the world that Christ working in the world may require of him. The emphasis on discernment: that obedience for the Jesuit not only permits but demands discretion, is an echo, again, ,both of "Our Mission Today" and "Union of Minds and Hearts." It recalls Ignacio Iparraguirre's dictum that the Constitutions are not so much law-book as guide-book, and Pedro Arrupe's oft-repeated saying that being told what to do does not exempt us from the necessity of discerning how to do. In thi~ connection, it is surely significant that the command "to water a dry stick, or "to bring a lioness unto him (the superior)" of the Ignatius/Polanco Letter on Obedi-ence does not include detailed instructions on where to get the water or how to persuade the lioness. And, finally, the emphasis on love: that the Jesuit is essentially a man moved by a personal love for the personal Christ, is an echo not of any particular document but of what might be called the La Storta insight, which seems to have been recaptured, to a greater or less degree, by so many of the delegates to this congregation. As Father General Arrupe, bouncing up the back stairs of the house on Holy Spirit Street after breakfast one morning, put it to one of them, sleepily drifting down: "We proclaim the Gospel in poverty and humility-- fine. But perhaps to add: in love. There is much concern today about loving the Mystical Christ, seeing and serving him in our fellow men, espe-cially the poor; and that is good. But if we do this, is it not because we love Christ in himself, in his Person? Is it not because each of us, pilgrims with Ignatius, prays to the Father 'ponerme con el Hijo' (place me with the Son)?" Which obiter dictumomay serve to explain why our document says: "In love: a personal love for Jesus, whom we seek to know with an ever more inward knowledge that we may the better love and follow him; Jesus, whom "Jesuits Today" / 491 we seek, as Saint Ignatius Sought, to experience; Jesus, Son ot~ God, sent to serve, sent to set free, put to death, and risen from the dead.''~3 There is a lack of definition in what the document says about the So-ciety as a priestly body.TM It strongly asserts the elements which make up this attribute: that the core, as it were, of our membership is a group of brdained priests; that the vocation .to the Society is one; that it is the whole body of the Society that is priestly; and, consequently, that all its members share in that priestly attribute, even those who are not ordained ministers" of the Gospel. But as to the precise nature of that participation the document says nothing. This reflects pretty much the state of the question as the con-gregation left it. The general sentiment was that further theological reflec-tion was needed to say anything more on the subject, and it was hoped that this reflection would form a vital part of our ongoing renewal of spirit. If we now take a look at the document as a whole, we will notice that it has a certain quality of movement: this movement being, basically, that of the Spiritual Exercises. In other words, Jesuit identity is conceived not as state but as process. Companionship with Jesus begins with conversion: the realization that having been called to life by God Creator, then estranged from him by sin, I have been recalled to life by God Redeemer. This realization draws me to stand before (~hrist crucified and make my first oblation: What will I do for Christ? The First Week. Hard upon this conversion comes the call of Christ the King: "I want you to b~come my companion, and the companion of these Others whom I have also called." To do what, Lord? "To be sent, as I was sent. Into the world; not away from it. This world, your world; in all its diversity, agony, tragedy, hope: Sent to share with people the saving faith I have shared with you, and in my justice to reconcile men to God and men with each other." My response to which is my second oblation, the~Kingdom obla-tion: to bring Christ to men not by the witness of word alone but by the witness of life: in poverty, humility, and love. The Second Week. What is 'the range of this oblation? It involves all that the apostolate involves--for Jesus as well as those Who have asked to be'placed with him. Some' experience of success, certainly, and an abiding serenity; but also frustration, b~trayal, defeat, nakedness to p~in. An oblation to failure. An oblation t6 the CrosS. The Third Week. But out of the depths of failure, joy. The joy of total and mutual self-giving: Jesus to me, myself to Jesus. Day by day joyfully going to ttie work site with God the Workingman--habet se ad modum laborantis to build a world at once more human and more divine. My third oblation. Take and receive. 131bid., n. 27. 14Cf. ibid., nn. 21-22. The Freedom and Detachment of Submission Sister Mary Catherine Barron, C.S.J. Sister Mary Catherine last published in our pages in the March, 1976 isstie of Review for Religious. She resides at 808 Cypres.s St.; Rome, NY 13440. ' In his Asian-Journal, under a November 19 entry, Thomas Merton speaks of three doors which he posits as desirable for the eschatological pilgrim to enter: "the door of emptiness, the door without sign, the door without wish."' And in an earlier work of his, C~ontemplation in d Worl~l~of Action, Merton tells of the internal spiritual liberation which such surrender of self brings: ". a kind of permanent vacation in the original sense of 'emptying.' ''~ Perhaps it would be fitting for each of us in our individual lives to pon-der the possibility of taking a "vacation" through these three rather unin-viting doors. ~ Father JohnoQ. Haughey, S.J., in his most recent.book Should Anyone Say Forever? recounts a pos~sible interpretation of the statement of Jesus in Matthew 7:13-14 where he tells his disciples to "enter by the narrow gate" since this alone "leads to life." Father Haughey says: "The narrow gate Jesus was alluding to probably refers to the gate in Jerusalem which could only ~accommodate people unaccompanied by their possessions and camels and donkeys.''3 If we are to become such a people "v~cationing" through 1Thomas Merton. "The Himalayas/November 1-25." The Asian Journal ot Thomas Merton (New York: New Directions Paperback, 1973), p. 154. '-'Thomas Merton, "Problems and Prospects," Contemplation in a World o] A'ction (New York: Image Books, 1973), p. 36. aJohn C. Haughey, S.J., "The Underpinnings," Should Anyone Say Forever? (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1975), p. 21. ,~ 492 The Freedom and Detachment o[ Submission / 493 ngaargreo-w-t ghaetne si ta nsed. te_~rr.ar.inss"p athreant tw doe omrsu, sutn benecguinm tbheere jdo ubyrn eexyc ewssit the mtwpoor raal tbhaegr- im-portant spiritual qu~ilities: freedom and detachment. And since Jesus never exhorted his foil6wers to any endeavor that he himself would not surpas, singly complete, qt would be well to follow in. his footsteps on the roadway to and through t_,hese beckoning (but sometimes, frightening) entrance-ways to the Kingdom. " The Free Christ '-Jesus was' a free man, able ~o commit himself to a way of life which in-evitably and irrev6.cab.!y would end in ignominious agony. Because he wa's free,,,he was also. supremely detached froin the picayune compromises Of life by which we' s6 ~asi!y bind ourselves to ~he transient. Categorically'~l~eaking, it seems that Jesus was free enough to:°sub-ject himself to 6th~rS (in his case, always his inferiors); subject himself to the law (re, ligi~'s and civil); subjeCt~ himself to the Transcendent (his Faiher). And ~e.c.a.u.s.e he was' unafraid of that type of subjection which we, in ~so utterly a human stance, avoid, C'firist becomes the detach.ed and liber-ated man, par ~exi~ellenc¢--i.nfi.nitely able to detach and .liberate us for him-self. Submission to Others ~,, In all. of hi,s relationships with others . (his creatures).,~ Jesus is able to submit{ His first profound submissibh in the womb of Mary initiates the patter.n of "nm:row gate" and "doors ,w, ithout signs" that he follows through-out 'his. life. Frbm the early Temple .expe.rience: "And he then~.went down with them . .;.'~and lived under their au, thority" (Mary and,. Joseph.), to Ca~a: "They have no wine" (whe~ he lberforms his first miracle through the intercession Of his mother), thro~ugh .his public, life: "Lord, that I may see~gain" (miracle after miracle upon request), to Calvary:" . ~h et y¯, . ,~,.led him awfiy to crucify, him,'! Jesus fi~lfills~ th6 will of others. Had he .done so out b.f mere fiuman weakness, or .the inability to assert himself and dominate, or through the petty hop~ of gaining prestige and popularity, wealth and'status, his final submission atGolgotha would be but the ~pathetic end,to an :already. doomed demi,gOd. But Jesus submits freely--in total self, surrender--comPletely in control o~ his own life and that of his corn temporaries. Knowingly, willingly, in complete gix;enness, he yields to others. Why? Why such a profound stooping into emptiness, into human obliterr ation, into the undesired door of death to self? "I have come that they may have life and have. it to the full,"-.J'~.sus answers (Jn 10:10). The words are haunting because they imply that fullness of life commensurately grows as we become more liberated and detached for others. If this is the pat-tern for Christ, can it be any,different for his followers? ~ 494 / Review [or Religioux, ~'olume 35, 1976/4 Submission to the Law Jesus also demonstrates throughout his earthly, existence that interior freedom enables one to become so detached from self that adherence to imposed human statutes becomes possible. He is born according to the law of the Scriptures, in fulfillment of the prophetic words and visions trumpeted through the ages of Salvation His-. tory, in complete accordance with all the signs and symbols which mani-fest his coming. And he dies in the same manner, as derided and rejected as Isaiah had seen that he would be, "lifted up" as he himself proclaimed, under Jewish rejection and Roman assent. And situated between those two n~atural, human laws of birth and death remain the countless daily submis-sions to civil and religious law which Christ fully and freely accepts. He announces in the Temple that "this day the Scriptures are fulfilled in your midst" (and in his person) while at the same time having scrupu-lously adhered to the proscribed religious rites. In response to the legalistic baiting by which the Pharisees hop,e to entrap him: "Master, is it permissi-ble for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" (Lk 20:22) Jesus judiciously replies: "Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; to God the things that are God's," thus delineating the parameters of civil and religious obedience. Ironically, it is his fulfillment of religious law (the feast of the Passover) which brings him to Jerusalem--to Annas, Caiaphas, and Pilate who sen-tence him to death. In the presence of these designated earthly authorities, Jesus, detached, submissive, and free, recalls the only reason for anyone's submission to human law: "You would have no power over me if it had not been given you from above" (Jn 19:11). Knowing this and authorizing it, Christ, freely gives himself over to these misguided, conniving, fearful, self-centered representatives of the Law, who wash their hands of him and conclude that "it is better for one man to die than that the whole nation perish" (Jn ~11:50). Again we are tempted to ask the question "why"--why this submission to human laws and human beings by one who is their Source and Origin? Perhaps the better question would be "how"? How do we become liberated and detached enough to do the same? Submission to the, Transcendent Once again Jesus provides us with the answer: "The world must be brought to know that I love the Father and that I am"doing exactly what the Father told me" (Jn 14:31). In other words, he tells us that we will only be able to submit ourselves to temporal rules and temporal persons if we have first submitted to the Eternal Rule and the Eternal Person: "Love the Lord, your God with your whole heart and soul and mind" (Lk 10:27). Christ did; Totally, constantly, unswervingly, he submitted to his Father: "I come not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me" (Jn 5:30). And it is this~awareness of the Father's will and the Father's The Fr'eedom and Detachment of Submission / 495 love that is the motivating force of all of Christ's other submissions: "No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son who is nearest to the Father's heart, who has made him known" (Jn 1:18). Christ makes the Father known through his execution of the Father's will In the name of his Father, he cleanses the Tempir, restoring it as a place of worship, proclaiming it his Father's hous~e, and thus establishing, in one dramatic act, the power of his filial submission. In all his conversations with men, Christ consciously mentions the Father. To Nicodemus, he confides the reason that he has been commis-sioned by his Father: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life" (Jn 3: 17). To the Samaritan woman, he outlines the "kind of wor-. shipper the Father wants" (Jn 4:23). To the Jews, he openly acknowledges his dependence on the Father: "The Son can do nothing by himself; he can 0nly do what he sees the Father.doing" (Jn 5:19). And when his disciples ask him to "show us how to pray," .Christ refers them to the Father. Even when he teaches, Christ does so in the name of the Father. And the only authority he possesses for his teaching derives from his submis-sion to the Father: "The works my Father has given me to carry out, these same works of mine testify that the Father hasjsent me" (Jn 5:36); His final great submission to the Father coincides with Christ's final great submission to religious and civil law as dispensed through the hands of his human subjects. In perfect freedom, detachment, and submission, Christ foretells and then completes his passion and death. When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing of myself: what the Father has taught me is what I preach; He who sent me is with me, and has not left me to myself, for I always do what pleases him (Jn 8:28-29). Having uttered these profrundly simple words, Jesus stoops through the "narrow gate" of death, passes through the ."door of emptiness, the dorr without a sign, the door without desire"--the Cross. The Father loves me because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me; I lay it down of my own free will, And as it is in my power to lay it down, so it is in my power to take it up again; and this is the command I have been given by my Father (Jn 10:17-18). What liberation and detachment infuse these submissive words! 496 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 The Paradox Merton would be among the first to assent to the paradox inherent in freedom, detachment, and liberation. He states: "Obedience [submission] is, paradoxically, the one guarantee of . . . charismatic, inner liberty" ~Contemplation, p. 34). And Christ himself was the first to demonstrate the paradoxical dimension inherent in following him: "Anyone who loves his life loses it; anyone ~vho hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life" i, Jn 12:25). The choice~is ours to mal~e. Haughey cogently reminds us that b~, our choices we are irrevocably defined (Should Anyone ¯ . . , p. 32). And Christ urgently.prods us to make his own irrevocable ~hoice. ours, when he claims:~ Eternal life is this; to know you, " the only true God ~" ~'~ ~ and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (Jn 17:4). In such knowledge, indeed, resides the foUndatiori arid reward for all the liberation, detachment~ and Submissidn of thepi!grim heart. ~ t'The three doors (they are one door) . .' Christ said: '!~am the door. I am the op~er~ing, the. '.shewing,' the revelation'" (Asian-Journal, pp. 154- 155). "Come follow m6"--through the "narrow gate~" through the "'un-marked, undesired doors;" into thd liberation and detachment of submis-sion- the Chri~tic "vacation" of love. The ,,'Active-Contemplative" Problem in Religious Life David M. Knight Father Knight is a member of the House o! the Lord community which staffs a "house of prayer" established in Memphis under the jurisdiction of Bishop Dozier. His present work is mostly in the. area of priests' retreats and team approaches to parish missions. He has published" before in 6ur page~, his latest title concerning religious government and obe~lience (July, i97]). His address: Nazarettl 'House of the Lord; 1306 Dellwood Ave.; Memphis, TN 38127. Can we still use the terminolbgy: "active-cQntemplative-mixed" to char-acterize religious life today? Aiad if we do use these tdims, ar, e we really using them in the way St. Thomas understood them--a way that carries oo the aut.horit3~ of his own tSrestige? Father Ladislas Orsy, S.J., suggests:that we abandon this terminology with its threefold division 9f religious life:" The arguments against the division are manifold. First,, all religious institutes are called to .be con~templative. Then, there cannot be true apostolic action in the ,full sense without its being rooted in the inspiration and strength of the Spirit which is contemplation." Finoally, tl~e express!on "mixed life" does not make s+nse. Action has to grow fi'om contemplation; they are 6rganically united, not mixed. ¯ . . "~here~'ore, so far as the distinction has a foundation, it must lie in the external way of life of these communities; in the specific approach to the realization of contemplation and action. TO avoid confusion, it might be better to describe this differentiation among religious by spe~king about fully enclosed life. moderately enclosed life, and fully open way of life. (Open to the Spirit, Washington (Corpus Books), 1968, pp. 271-272). 497 4911 / Review for Religious, l/'olume 35, 1976/4 Fathers Thomas M. Gannon, S.J., and George W. Traub, S.J. present St. Thomas's division as a distinction between "the contemplative life, the active life, and the apostolic life" (The Desert and the City, New York: Macmillan, 1969, p. 142). So far as I have been able to discover, St. Thomas does not use the term "apostolic" any more than he uses the term "mixed'" to describe a category of religious life (see George E. Ganss, S.J., " 'Active Life' or 'Contemplative Life'" in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 22 (1963) pp. 53-66, esp. p. 61). He teaches that human life in general is divided simply into "active life" and "contemplative life" (Summa Theo-logica, II-II, Q. 179, art. 1) and that, in itself, the contemplative life is "more excellent" than the active (ibid., Q. 182, art. 1). But he adds that a man might be "called away from the contemplative life to the works of the active life on account of some necessity of the present life, yet not so as to be compelled to forsake contemplation altogether. Hence it is clear" that when a person is called from the contemplative to the active life, this is done by way not o] subtraction but o] addition" (ibid., ad 3, emphasis added). There is much evidence in St. Thomas's treatment of this subject to conclude that Thomas would consider all religious as belonging essentially to the category of contemplative life. Some reasons for this are: 1. The religious state is directed to the perfection of charity, which extends to the love of God and of 6ur neighbor (Q. 188, aLt. 2). But to direct one's whole life to growing in loving knowledge of God without which the perfection of charitY is impossible is to embrace the goal of the contemplative life. 2. The active life has two senses for St. Thomas: a) a life directed to the practice of the moral virtues as con-trasted with the theological virtues. The moral virtues (pru-dence, justice, temperance, fortitude) aim at the correctness of man,s external actions toward persons and things in this world (Q. 181, art. 1 and Q. 180, art. 2, Sed contra). The theological virtues (faith, hope, charity)aim at knowledge and love of God himself, as object. It is obvious that no one striving for the "perfection of charity" can make th~ moral virtues the goa.1 of his life. And Thomas teaches explicitly that if a person is practicing the moral virtues in order to arrive at contemplation, he is in the contemplative rather than in the active life (Q. 181, art. 1 and 2). And this is what religious do. b) In a second meaning, the active life is one which is taken up with external activities, such as active works of service to the neighbor. When Thomas argues in favor of this for religious he always seems to be working on the assump-tion that the religious in question is in the contemplative life, The "Active-Contemplative" Problem / 499 but that he accepts to leave contemplation partly or tempo-rarily and add works of the active life "in order that God's will may be done and for His glory's sake" (Q. 182,~ arts. 1 .~ and 2). That he assumes this to be the case when religious engage in active works is indicated by his answer to the question "Whether a religious order should be established for the works of the active life?" One objection against the proposition is that' every religious order belongs to the state of perfection, but the perfection of the religious state consists in the contemplation of divine things (Q. 188, art. 2, obj. 1). Thomas doesn't contradict this. He ~imply answers, "Since religious occupy themselves with' the works of the ' " active life for God's,sake, it follows that their action-results~ ]rom their contemplation o] divine things. Hence, they are not entirely deprived of the fruit of the contemplative life." (Emphasis added.) St. Thomas recognizes; however, that active work may result from contemplation in two ways. It may be that the work results from the full-ness of contemplation. A man contemplates God until"he is filled with a wisdom, an insight into the mind and heart of God, a graced understand-ing of the Scriptures, that overflows his heart and is shared with the neigh-bor 'in preaching or teaching. For St. Thomas, obviously, preaching and teaching are not something°'a .man .is prepared to do by academic study. The intellectual who is not a contemplative cannot teach or preach in St. Thomas's sense of the words, which refer precisely to a sharing with others of the fruits of one's contemplation. The merely academic teacher of theology, the eloquent intellectual in the pulpit, are nothing but sounding brass' and tinkling cymbal; their activity does not even enter into this dis-cussion. There are other works of the active life which do not presuppose the fullness of~contemplation: active works of service for the neighbor, such as taking care of guests, nursing the sick,., and so forth. And yet, if they are engaged in such works out of love for God and a desire to serve him perfectly in his Body on earth, they do proceed at least from a beginning of contemplation; from a prayerful response to the Scriptures. (If, such work should, in any given person, proceed from a merely humanitarian concern for others, it ~would not.be~ a Christian act, and again would not even enter into our discussion here. )" Also, St. Thomas presumes that, in religious, such activity is directed to the end of religious life, which is the '~perfection of charity." And since, as we have seen, this perfection cannot be conceived apart from contemplation which attains God directly in faith, hope and love, we must conclude that this activity, in a religious, is directed to the end of the contemplative life. In other words, a religious engaging in such active labors is; in 'fact, a contemplative.A given religious may not 500 / Review lot Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 be a contemplative in the sense of having already attained that degree of spiritual deepening and prayer., which enables him or her actually to con-template in the full sense of this word, or to share with others the fruits of contemplative insight into the mysteries of God. But the religious is still a contemplative by reason of the.end to which his or her life is directed. Thus a postulant or candidate in a religious house who has not yet begun to pray seriously, who perhaps has little or no spiritual ~xperience to share with his neighbor~ and who spends his day washing dishes in the kitchen or teaching some secular shbject in a school--that person is, nevertheless, already in the "contemplative life." He is a contemplative in the same sense that a fetus in the womb is a human being: he is not yet sufficiently developed to function fully as a contemplative, but he is already intrinsically ordered, by a free choice of his destiny, to the "perfection of charity," to loving knowledge of God answered by a total gift of oneself. We should also apply to this qtiestion St. Thomas's reasoning about the pursuit of moral virtues belonging to the contemplative rather than to the active life if contemplation is its ultimate end (Q. 181, art. 1 and 2). If a man engages in :active works, but with the intention that through these he will rise to a more and more loving knowledge of God (contempla-,, tion), then this man, too, is inthe contemplative life, although .he.is occu-pied in the ,w~orks of the active life. We should remember here that even a monk in the most enclosed contemplative monastery is still engaged :in the works of the '.'active life"---even though he.is called a contemplative~ so long as he is at that stage of spiritual growth in which his main concern is acquiring moral virtues, and his prayer life is sti'il on the level of active meditation, spiritual reading, and such (see John of the Cross, Ascent of Mount Carmel, Book II, ch. 17, par. 4). To be engaged in the "works of~ the active life" not only means doing what we popularly refer to as "active work"--teaching, nursing, repairing houses, keeping books, etc. In its most fundamental sense this expression means actively using one's human powers to bring about, a change, whether in oneself or in outside reality, whether one does this through carpentry or through meditation on the. gospels. Contemplation, on the other hand, is resting in what one has~ already learned, already come to love, letting oneself be transformed without labor (not without pain) into what one sees. Where meditation is studying,~,think-ing, deciding, contemplation is looking, listening, loving. Thus we conclude that religious, even though entirely taken up with° external activity, truly belong in the category of "coritemplative life" so long as their works-- whether of moral virtue or of service to others--are not, for them, ter-minal activities in themselves, but means to arrive at a more loving knowP-edge of and union with God. As St. Thomas puts it: "When a man makes use of~ things pertaining to the active life, merely as dispositions to con-templation, such things are comprised under theocontemplative life" (Q. 181, art. 1; and see Q. 180, art. 4). We might have to. question ~ind The "Activ~e-Contemplative'" Problem / 501 qualify the word "merely" in this sentence, but the main point is clear: so long as a religious is aiming at the perfection of faith, hope and love, which is inseparable from contemplation, he is in the "contemplative Aife." What we call. the "active life" for religious, then, is one of two things: first, it~might be an overflow of contemplation. This might take the form of an overflow of love as well as of knowledge. That is, it might take the form,~not just of preaching and teaching, the two examples St. Thomas gives, but of heroic service in nursing, counseling, social action, or the like. In this first sense, then, a religious might be an "active" contemplative through any form of activity which is, .in this individual, so impregnated with grace and love that it~ results, in the given case~ from the "fullness of contemplation." In a second sense, the "works of the actiVe, life" might be a stage of growth toward contemplation--not towa~:d spending long hours in formal prayer, necessarily, but toward habitual contemplation, toward such intimacy with God in faith, hope and love, that° one is always, in a sense, seeing the face of God, and reflecting it (see Q. 182, art. 3). In the words of Gannon and Traub (The Desert and the City, p, 148), ¯ . . In Thomas' understanding as well as in the usage of other ascetical writer~ ~ ofthe time, the active life and the contemplative life designate successive but interacting stages of growth.ifi the interiorqife of a Christian' seeking "spiritual .growth, whether he be a religious or a layman. The active life is the earlier , stage where, seriously 'beginning his pursuit of living spiritually, he struggles ~ against sin and imperfections in himself and both learns and practices the moral virtues and the exterior acts @hich spring from them. Activity thus comprises the'Ltwo stages of spiritual growth which were later named "~he pur- ~. ~gative way of the beginners" and "the illuminative way of th6 advancing:" The :contemplative life, on the other hand, is a higher stage where the Chris, , tian practices c,.hiefly the theological virtues, especially charity, and under its inspiration works of love that witness to it. Among these manifestations of charity one often finds a growing desire to withdraw into solitude in order to achieve undistracted contemplation of God°. We are now better able to understand St. Thomas's comparison of the three kinds of religious orders. (Q. 188, art. 6): .° . The work of the'~active life (that is, the work that religious can do) is of two kinds. One proceeds from the fulness of contemplation, such as teaching and preaching . And this work is more excellent than simple contempla, tion. For even .as it is better to enlighten than merely to shine, so it is better to give to others the fruit of one's contemplation than merely to Contem-plate. The other work of the active life consists entirely in. outward occupa-tion, for instance, almsgiving, receiving guests, aiad the like, Which are less excellent than the works of contemplation, except in cases of necessity, as stated above.'. Accordingly, the highest place in religious orders is held by those which are, directed to teaching and preaching . The second place belongs to those Which are directed 10 contemplation, and the third to those which are occupied ~vith external acii0ns. J Tl~e lowest 'place among religious orders is held by those "which are 502 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 occupied with external actions." Understand here that these actions are not such that they must proceed from the "fullness of contemplation," such as authentic--that is, spiritually effective--preaching and theological teach-ing must be, but actions which achieve their proper end equally well whether the one performing them is a beginner in the spiritual life or a mystic. A candidate of one day in a religious order, if she is a skilled nurse, can nurse as well as another who has twenty years of contemplative prayer behind her. However, we must also understand that these actions can pro-ceed from the fullness of contemplation, in which case more will be taking place than just the action itself. A nurse who is a mystic will communicate the love of God, to her patient as well as she communica'tes all the human concern implied in good nursing care. If a given religibus order is set up in such a way that it effectively fosters in the members a contemplative spirit that will make all the external actions come from the fullness of con-templation, then that order belongs in the first, and highest, category .of religious ordersEnot in the third one. Likewise, an order established for teaching and preaching, if it is no longer such that it effectively fosters contemplation in the members, does not belong in the first category of religious life, but in this third, and lowest one. What we call here an "ac-tive" order, then, is one which is basically in the contemplative life, because it has loving knowledge of God as its end, but which is not really organized to produce this loving knowledge of God very effectively. An individual religious here and there might attain it, but the order as such does not concentrate on the attainment of. contemplative union with God, but just on the active work to be done. In such an order contemplative union with God will not be excluded as an end, of course; in fact, it will be specifically proposed (in words) as an end, and there will even be some prayer, or other spiritual exercises, prescribed or suggested to help the members attain union with God. But it will be obvious from the real structures and policies of the community that what the order as such is bent on is active service, with or without much progress in loving knowledge of God. If the com-munity's particular mixture--harmony, balance, formula--of prayer and service are such that they do, in fact, lead one to ri~e through the active stage of growth (active methods of prayer and emphasis on moral virtues as well as active service) to the loving knowledge of God that belongs to developed faith, hope and love, i.e. to the plane of developed contempla-tive life, then in that measure the order does not. belong in this third category of "active" .religious c6mmunities. We might ask here whether any "active" orders as we have just de-scribed them really exist. Here we have to distinguish between existing in ]act or existing juridically; i.e., existing as active orders because they have degenerated into mere service organizations or because that is what they were founded and accepted by the Church to be. ~It may be that in ]act, the majority of the orders we call "active" in the popular sense today The "'Active-Contemplative" Problem / 503 (meaning not strictly contemplative) have become ~tctive as described above. Juridically, however, many, perhaps most, were not founded to be this, as is clear in the history and constitutions of such communities as the Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans, and so forth. If, though, there are orders actually founded to be active in the sense we have described, then they were probably founded on a double principle of practical realism: first, some active task had to be performed, and dedicated hands were needed to perform it. Secondly, it was assumed that the persons who would be called to such a life would not be, as a general rule, apt material for a way of life that aimed at much more than solid moral virtue and a sound, con-sistent piety that kept one living and functioning as a dependable worker in the vineyard of the Lord. God might, of course, raise one to the highest contemplation and mysticism in such a way of life; but the life as such did not presume to aim so high. Let us be frank in admitting the possibility of a certain class distinction in this. Just as St. Ignatius hesitates to give to rudes (the crude, uninstructed, ignorant) more than the "First Week" of the SpiritualExercises (namely, the part that aims at conversion from, sin and systematic practice of the moral virtues: see Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius Loyola, Annotation 18: Louis J. Puhl, editor, Loyola Uni-versity Press, Chicago, 1951, pp. 7-8) so the founders of some religious communities seem to have assumed that their recruits would be mostly uneducated peasant girls, whose interior life would be adequately nourished by a few simple exercises of piety and a strongly structured community life. I do not know if this was the case, any more than I know if any "ac-tive, .order as we have described it was ever approved or founded to be such in the Church. But if such an order exists, it is easy to see why St. Thomas would give it the lowest place in his hierarchy of religious com-munities. It is also easy to see why the Church so ~asily grants permission to transfer from an active order to a contemplative order, if even part of the description of active orders as we have presented it above should be true. The second place on the scale of religious orders belongs to those "which are directed to contemplation." Since all orders are ordered to con-templation indirectly, at .least, this category obviously applies to those orders which occupy themselves primarily and directly in-exercises which by their very nature tend to foster contemplative prayer. We must recall that many of these exercises may belong, of themselves, to the "active life"; the practice of moral virtue, active methods of meditation and prayer, etc. To be a member of a contemplative order does not mean that one has already attained to contemplative prayer, or that one's life is actually char-acterized by a deep and habitual awareness of God in faith, hope and love. But it means that one's life is organized directly to foster this spiritual growth. Obviously this is a "higher" form of religious life than the active life described above. It is not yet the highest form of religious life, in St. 504 / Review [or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 Thomas's opinion, 'becausethe aim of the community is just the interior development°of its own members., The community is like a tree whose energies are all bent towards growth, but which is not yet mature enough~ to produce fruit. It,is better to aim at full developme]at than to be content with giving lesser fruit on a lower level, A developing fruit tree is a "higher" form of life than" a bush already serving to prevent erosion. So the orders we call "contemplative" are in themselves on a higher,plane than those we have described ~here as "active." The contemplative at least aims directly at~ spiritual growth towards contemplation, while the active qife seems to be designed for beginners who are going to remain on a non-contemplative plane of spiritual activity. St. Thomas assigns the "highest place" among religious orders to those "which are directed to teaching and preaching,"' but with the understand-ing that "preaching and teaching" presuppose contemplation: that what is preached'and taught is precisely the fruit of a contemplative life. He is not referring to those who teach secular subjects, or even to those who teach academic theology unless what they teach proceeds from the fullness of their contemplative prayer. We might add to St. Thomas's teaching' here-and pr~opose that "teaching and preaching" as the fruit of contemplation might be equally the work of a cloistered, contemplative commianity or of a community of Social activists busily reforming social structures in the political ~arena. What is r~quired for ,"teaching °and preaching" is not presence in the classroom or pulpit, but simply the fact ,of communicating to others the truth of God as this proceeds from that loving sureness of vision 'which is a mark of authentic contemplative prayer, It may well be that in" our day no teaching and preaching are more eloquent, or more needed, than the silent, inescapable witness of the,,monasie~ on the moun-tain top. Still another way to teach and preach has been brought very much before.~our consciousness these days. The Synod of Bishops, 41974, spoke of the "intimate connection" between the Church's work and concern for social justice and her task of evangelization. An earlier synod, 1971, went so far as to say that "action on behalf of justice and participation, in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel." (Both texts available from U.S. Catholic Conference,Publications Office, passages cited fr6m p. 1'8 and p. 34, respectively.) By0 this principle any"outward occupation, even the very active one of political struggle for social justice, is. a form of Christian teaching and preaching--and 'in the sense that St. Thomas. uses the terms --provided that it truly proceeds from the fullness of contemplation and is done in such a way that what clearly appears to the world is the truth 'of Christ's own mind and heart~ embodied in unambiguous action. St. Thomas's argument for this hierarchy of religious orders is based on' two principles. The first concerns the value of the end that is aimed at; the second concerns the effectiveness of the means employed, to achieve The !'Active-Contemplative" Problem / 505 the end. Orders which share the r+sults of their contemplation with others are more excellent than those whic~h just, contemplate, because these orders aim at the end of all religious life, the perfection of charity, in a way that includes more of the end, more of[the good that "charity" embraces. They organize their lives in a way design,'ed both to bring them to a more loving knowledge of God,in contemplati,~n, and to be of service in love to the neighbor (Q. 188, art. 6). Remember that, as we have explained this, any .I religious order, from the most clo~.stered contemplatives to the most active workers in the Church, can belon~g to this third and highest category of rehg~ous life provided that the commumty truly has a. formula for living that combines prayer and service in such a way that the community "speaks" to the Church out of tl~e fullness of contemplative insight into God. The superiority of such an order is based on the fact that the end to which it is directly ordered includes, both the good of contemplation and the good ,of active service to the! neighbor. It is obviously this kind of community St. Thomas has in mi~d when he argues that a religious order i . can be founded for works of the acuve life because their activity "results from the contemplation of divine ihings" (Q. 188, art. 2) and that~ a per-son who is in the contemplative life can .be called away from exercises of contemplation to works of the active life without losing anything bec~ause his engagement in active works is idone "by way not of subtraction but of addition" (Q. 182, art. 1 ). In suctl a case one does not forsake contempla- . tion entirely, but only partly or te~mporardy in order to add works of the active life (ibid. and art. 2). Thus such a community is "better" because "its end is a greater good." I Hence a religious order is preferable to another if it be directed to an end that is abso.lutely more excellent eit,her because it is directed to a greater goo~!,~ or. to more goods (A. 188, art. 6). This is the first principle by ~vhich St. Thomas rates religi6us orders, the principle that looks to the goo~d or end they are directly structu.red to attain. The second principle looks ito the suitability of the means emplpyed to achieve the end: !. If, however, the end be the same, 'ithe excellence of one religious order over another depends secondarily, not o~ the amount of exercise, but on the pro-portion of the exercise to the end in view. Wherefore, in the Conferences of The Fathers (Coll. ji, 2), Blessed Anthony is quoted~.as preferring discretion, wherebY, a man moderates all his at c¯ tions, to fastings, watchings, and all such observances ( ibid). I In evaluating a religious community we should look to its structures. The question is not really how austere the community is, or how strict its life appears to be. Nor is the question how human the community is, or how free its members, seem to be. The real question is: how well are its structures adapted to helping the members attain the goal of religious lile? 506 / Review Jor Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 A tight ~community is no better than a loose one--and no worse. Whatever leads persons to the perfection of charity--towards God and neighborm is the ideal of religious community policy. St. Thomas warns that a religious order is not better because it has more penitential practices than another, more prayer than another. But in our day we may be failing into the same error he warns against under a different form. In our reaction against some of the rigidities and distorted practices of the past, we have perhaps apotheosized another set of values, made idols out of some other very particular and limited ideals. We have refocused our attention on-freedom and personalism, discernment and dialogue, community life and social involvement. And because these values are good,~we are under the illusion that in pursuing them we are renewing religious life. The truth of the matter is that religious life is not renewed by .any community exercise as such, whether it be dialoguing or taking the dis-cipline together. Religious life is renewed by discovering, in prayer and surrender to the Holy Spirit, an integral and harmonious set of structures that correspond to the complete goal of the community. If growth in con-templation, for example, understood as loving knowledge of God, is an integral part of the community's aim in life, then the community must in-corporate into its life-style specific and effective structures that really promote this growth. To affirm the ideal in words in the Constitutions is not enough. Communities should be evaluated, not by the orthodoxy of their statements, but by the effectiveness of their structures. What a com-munity really is should be judged, not by the goals it proposes to itself, but by the means it is willing to commit itself to in order to achieve these goals: and commit itself to realistically by building them into its life-style. We might ask what point there is in comparing religious orders. After all, the "best" order for any individual is the one which is most suited to his own temperament, stage of growth, and particular call from God. What point is there in comparing'religious orders in the abstract? I think that the precise point of all this is that the three categories we find in St. Thomas are not meant to be--or at least cannot be taken today to refer to---three different patterns for authentic life. We are not really offered three different choices of what a religious order can aim at. I believe that in St. Thomas's sense every religious order must be founded for "~teaching and preaching" if it is to be Christian. For the teaching and preaching that we intend here is nothing more specific or less spiritually profound than Christian witness. A religious vocation is a gift from God. But it ig a gift like those St. Paul speaks of in 1 .Corinthians, chapters 11- 14: manifestations of the Spirit given for the common good. A purely active religious order that really did not provide within the structures and policies of its communal living, means effectively to promote spiritual growth--growth towards deeper and deeper contemplation (under- The "Active,Contemplative" Problem / 507 stood not as longer hours of forma!, contemplative prayer, but as an ever more constant loving awareness of God and of all other things in the authenticity of their being as relation to God) would hardly be a legitimate form of life in the Church. At the most it would be legitimate as a com-munity that understood and accepted itself, with frank humility, as a com-munity for persons incapable of ~rogressing beyond the level of moral virtue in the spiritual life. But can.[we believe that any such category ac-tually exists? And would such a community really be viable? Would its apostolate really be valid? Yet I think we have around us in the present day examples of communities which have become in fact, if not in desire, purely "active" communities. The level of prayer is very low. Deep under-standing of the life of grace is praciically non-existent. This is not in every individual, of course, but it is embodied in the communal expression of the community as a whole. In these, communities does an authentic "apos-tolate" really exist? We may run sc,hools or hospitals, may engage in social service or social action with enthusiasm, and labor to the point of exhaus-tion. But by our fruits we must be judged. Are our schools producing peo-ple who have been touched by an ,encounter with Jesus Christ as a person --real in himself and active in his ,Body on earth today? Are our hospitals symbols and witnesses to the whol~ world of Christ's healing concern for the poor, the suffering, the afflict~ed? Is our reform of social structures permeated with the spirit of the beatitudes. Where the labor and service of an "active" order does not reail3} "teach and preach" the truth of Christ and the gospel, is that labor reall~ an apostolate? And can one's activity express the truth of the gospel if it! does not rise from a loving con.templa-tion of that truth within one's own!, heart,° a contemplation that makes one alike in one's being to, what one sees? Let us suppose, on the other h~nd, a more contemplative order, either a cloistered community or a veryI explicitly prayerful, active commumty. And let .us. suppose that it is so turned in-on itself, so defensive against all that is going on in the Church, sd protective of its own traditional struc-tures in their last, rigid detail, thatlthe community as a whole is not a wit-ness to anyone in the Church. Or w.orse: let us say the community ',speaks" to a diehard minority of crustacean Catholics who are clamped like barnacles onto anything in the ChUrch that~has the appearance of a rock. Suppose the community really exists to encourage a faction in the Church to believe, in opposition to the main body of the hierarchy, that Vatican II is only a passing wave:~that will soon get over us, leaving things exactly as they were before? It would be hard to accredit such a community as truly contemplative, of course, no matter how much time they spent in silence and stances of prayer. But one clear reason why the community would be invalid even as a contemplative community is that the com-munity would have no truly apostohc d~mens~on. They would not .be preaching and teaching--not in ~the name of the Church and for the 508 / Review lor Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 Church--but in the name of a factional spirit that is resisting the life of the People of God. Sucti communities are teaching a spiritual archeology and calling it biology:' holding up fossils to the world as the living Body of Christ. Let us suppose another.contemplative order, one still in its beginning stages. Let us say it is set up to be ~a community of solitaries. In its first efforts to really achieve solitude and a true spirit of prayer this community may have to defend itself to some extent even from contacts with the main body .of the Church. "It may ~have to. withdraw far into' the wilderness, far from the paths of men, and jealously guard its privacy for a while. To this extent it'can appear, momentarily at least, as a "counterwitness" to the ~solidarity of the whole Church's sharing in the charismatic .gifts of ~every member and group. But soon, if the community's charism is authentic, the flow of life back into the Church in the form of "teaching and preach-in~" .must begin anew. The monastery will begin to shine as a 4ight in the world--and most visibly to. the Church--through its manner of life and prayer. More than lik.ely pilgrims and pray~ers will begin to come, and they will be welcomed in the spirit of open faith traditional to monastic communities: a spirit of hospitality which receives each guest as possibly sent from God to receive or to give a blessing only God foresees in its details. On a level that is deeper yet than hospitality, and theologically more fundamental, the community must always understand itself, very con-sciously, as called and gifted for the benefit of the whole Church: The community must be aware of, and concerned about, what its life is "saying" to the Church, and what the Church's life is saying to it: how its self-understanding matches and fits into the ~ Church's contemporary under-standing of herself. The enclosed life must not" be a seIJ-enclosed life. There is no self-enclosed life in the living Church, the organically-inter-dependent mystical Body .of Christ. The reactionary community, be it monastic or non-monastic, is a non-apostolic community. Whether it spends twenty-four hours a day behind monastic wails or eighteen hours a day exhausting itself in the inner city, the community that has ceased to inter, act vitallywith tile Church is a non-apostolic community. How can a group that has sealed itself off from the Church's life claim in spite of this to be "sent" by the Church or to the Church? It is not possible, therefore, for a contemplative (or any other kind of) community to be authentically Christian. if it opts 'to live solely in its own little ~world of private tradi-tions, and practices, oblivious to all that is taking place in the life of the worldand the Church around it. To be truly contemplative, 'then, is to be apostolic by that very fact. And to be authentically ~apostolic one must be contemplative. And to be either, or both, in .the Church one must be in vital, responsive contact with. the. rest of the Body of Christ on earth. This contact crosses denominational The "~4ctive-Contemplative~' Problem. / 509 . lines: an authentically prayerful com, munlty of Protestant Christians (Taiz6, for example) speaks very eloquent!y to Catholics, and vice-versa. But a community that has set itself up as[ a standard for the Church, in opposi, tion to the movement of the Holy Spirit in the Church, speaks to no one. If the community is factional in a ]reactionary sense, clinging, to the past while the (~hurch moves into the future with God, its teaching becomes a "spiritual necrophilia," a fascinatioo with what is dead and controllable, based on fear of responsible encouhter with the Living God. °If the com-munity is factional in a progressive '~ sense, caught up in the .current of this world:rather than moved by the v~inds of the Spirit, then its teaching is idolatry: 'it receives man-made images from the pagans, or shapes them: from its contemplation of the worla, and presents them to the People of God as a ~graven image, a reflectioh of man's own contemporary face, to Worship as the new face of God. What, then, should We say in conclusion about the traditional threefold division of religious orders into "active," "contemplative" and "mixed"? First we should recognize that the word "mixed" may not legitimately claim a place in our tradition aldngside the categories of "active" and "contemplative." To describe the th'ird category as !'apostolic" rather than mixed (as G;innon arid Traub do) is misleading,~ because it implies that' the other, two categories, are non-i~postolic. This could be justified,° per-haps, if we_use "apostolic" t,o :refer~ in a very strict sense to precisely the kind of life the twelve Apostles' le, d,.as Father Orsy does (Open to the Spirit, pp. 273ff.). But', this is not thee meaning the word "apostolic" evokes when we ,:use it. In current usage~ "apostolic" means bringing grace to others as Christ's instrument, contributing by~(~ne's life' to the redemptive work, of the Church. Father Orsy"p0ints out this distinction very succifctly when .'he~ Says of rehg~ous, All are ,apostles but not all apostles follow the~ apostles', way of iife" (ibid.):ii, St. Thomas seems to recognizeIonly two categories of life for human beings, the contemplative and the active. He seems to assume that all re-ligious are in the contemplative li~fe by °virtue of the fact that they are striving for the "perfection of charit:y," which cannot be conceived of apart from that loving knowledge ~of God which is c'ontem~lation. Likewise all religious must be apostolic, 'became love of neighbor is included in the perfection of charity., . In the organization; the~structufing of religious life, however, one com-munity differs from another. Some ~ommunities organize their lives almost entirely toward actiVe works of sergice: Contemplation is still a recognized goal (asit is of every fully Christian life), but the community as such does not directly aim at it in any signifidant way through communal policies or structures. So far as the communl!y as a whole is concerned, its visible stance, embodied in structures, points it: only toward active service, and toward the active stage of spiritual "growth. Spiritually the community is 510 / Review [or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 geared to the level of moral virtue. Each member is expected to labor generously in the vineyard of the Lord, and to live peacefully and coopera-tively in community. The vows as such are not stressed except as a basic and not particularly elevated platform on which to live and work. Mem-bers are called upon to live celibately and purely, to make simplicity and sharing the characteristics of their relationship to material things, and to subordinate personal preferences to the decisions and goals of the com-munity where the common good requires this. This life of "reasonable service" is nourished by workshops, discus-sions, and reading; by some sustaining prayer, and methods of personal and communal evaluation and accountability. Good liturgies and theological input are welcomed where available. Spiritual direction is encouraged for those who feel the need of it and can find a director. Everyone is expected to find time to make an annual retreat of five to eight days, and allowed to make it usually, on whatever level of depth the individual desires. If a person lives a morally virtuous life within this framework, causes no trouble in community, and does his or her work well, the community will ask nothing more: This describes the kind of religious community we have called "single-mindedly active," and it may correspond to the reality St. Thomas defines in his comparison of religious orders as a community "occupied with external actions." There is a direct concern for the spiritual life in these communities, but the level of spiritual life aimed at is that which will sustain the members in their active work for the Church and in their inter-action with one another in community life. For anything beyond this the individual must seek means and support on his own. Other communities are singlemindedly contemplative. They embrace structures and organize their lives in such a way that the way of life itself is a constant impetus toward growth in specifically Christian faith, hope and love. In these communities the life is so designed that anyone who is simply leading a life, of good moral virtue and pei'forming well in com-munity and in his work will have it brought home to him with increasing conviction that he is nothing but a "useless servant" (Lk 17:10). The whole manner of ~living is specifically designed not to. make sense except as an expression of the mystery of Christian. faith. And therefore a person must be constantly aware of this mystery to find the life even bearable. The key here is not austerity as such, but simply the absence of any rea-son within this world for living as one does. This "faith or foolishness" quality, stands out with dramatic clarity in the cloistered contemplative life, where not even work can be used as a justification for the way one lives. The active religious might be able to tell himself in moments of waver-ing faith that even if there is no God it is worth the sacrifice of family and possessions just to devote oneself to one's fellow man in his poverty, his sickness, his ignorance. It is certain that many active religious and priests The "~4ctive-Contemplative" Problem / 511 pour themselves out in work in order not to have to face the deeper ques-tions of their relationship to God in fi~ith. It is more difficult for the cloist6red contemplative to do this. He ~ight try, but everything in the life-style he is submerged in will cry out to him what he is doing. The cloistered orders give a place to prayer that is obviously not intended just to support a life of moral virtue or keep people generous in their work. The poverty, pursued by these communities is, as a rule, a level of deliberately-sougllt deprivation not imposed by circum-stances or embraced just out of a s~nse of solidarity with the poor, a style ~of life designed to be congruous. Religious obedience is recognized, not just as a means to harmonious, cooperative living, but as a form of kenosis and a way of surrendering to the Holy Spirit in the Mystical Body of Christ. And the structures of com-munity life embody this understanding of religious obedience and of the government that corresponds to it. ~Within such a context celibacy is both understood and expressed as a poSitive way of relating to God through Christ in a relationship of growing lintimacy, mutual comprehension--and gift, ' Communities designed to express and to lead to' the fullness of Chris-tian knowledge and love of God and of all other things in the light of God are obviously, in St. Thomas' opinion, preferable in themselves to communities that do not aim at this. If it came to a choice between one or. the other--an either-or alternatave Thomas would say the second kind of community is the better choice in itself. It is better, in the abstract, to be a singieminded contemplativ~ than to be singiemindedly active. It might be, however, that for a givenl individual, or in a given set of circum-stances~ it would be a better thing in the concrete case tO choose the more active form of life. But are we really faced, in theory at least, with an either/or alterna-tive. Granted that the choice betw,een an enclosed, a cloistered life and a non-enclosed life is an either/or alternative. Granted again that the choice between a life of solitude and continuous contemplation in the sense of an undistracted intellectual preoccupation with God is an either/or alternative to a life of active, absorbing labor.' Still, "actively' and "contemplative" do not have to be either/or alternatives. Contemplation need not be restricted in its meaning to the absorption of the intellect in God during periods of formal prayer, Contemplation can be, and ought to be, a total and con-tinuous attitude of mind and heart; an ~rientation toward God and an awareness of relationship with God in all that one does and encounters (see Gannon and Traub's seventh ]chapter, "Finding God in AllThings," op. cit., p. 152ff.). This awarenes~l of God in all things is fostered both by periods of formal prayer (experience teaches that. these are normally indispensable) and by a total life~-style that expresses emphatically and 512 / Review for Religious, l/olume 35, 1976/4 unambiguously the faith, hope and love of which one wishes to remain aware. For St. Ignatius of Loyola the key to continuous contemplation is an ever-growing abnegation of self and a continuous stance of renunciation towards this world embodied in concrete choice (see Gannon and Traub, op. cit., chapters seven and eight: "Finding God in All Things" and "The Logic of Christian Discernment," esp. pp. 158- 172). For St. Thomas Aquinas the choice presented by the active and con-templative life-options is not an either/or choice but a triple one: either the active life, or the contemplative life, or both. In the third option one chooses to live in a way that leads to contemplation and in additio.n to this to share with one's neighbor i.n service the results of one's contemplative life. It may be--this We neither defend or dispute--that St. Thomas made too much of a distinction between contemplation and action, conceiving of contemplation too narrowly in terms' of an explicitly intellectual absorp-tion in formal prayer. It may also be, as I believe the case, that he did not understand, or at least develop, how many kinds of activity could be included under the term "teaching and preaching" that for him designates the kind,.of work in which th~ fruits of contemplation are shared. But if we follow the principles of St. Thomas's doctrine, I believe we arrive at an ideal of, religious life towardwhich every community can aim. This is re-ligious life characterized by a double end: that of growing explicitly in loving knowledge of God in faith, hope, and love while explicitly ordering one,s life to the spiritual benefit of the neighbor. Such a life must not only be explicit about its end. It must also incorporate effective means to produce the contemplative spirit and apostolic effectiveness sought. In the measure that a given form of religious living really does produce contemplative peo-ple and really does "speak" to the Church in a solid and effective way, that life corresponds to St. Thomas's ideal. This ideal of St. Thomas~was expressed in,Vatican Council II as the ideal, not of one particular category of religious order, but of religious life itself: ", ¯ . . As they seek God before all things and only Him, the members of each community should combine, contemplation with apostolic love. By the former they adhere to God in mind and heart; by the latter they strive to associate themselves with the work of redemption and to spread the Kingdom of God. (Decree on the Renewal o] Religious Li]e, part 5, Abbott p. 47~0. See also Orsy, op. cit., chapter seven, "Filled with Grace and Power: Contemplation," esp. pp. 209, 254). The "mixed" life, in other words, is not really an option in religious life:if we use the term in the sense developed here, it has tobe an aim. To'~be practical we should suggest in conclusion that every religious take a good, hard look at.the concrete reality of his or her community's life. What concrete structures, policies, activities, or provisions: of com- The "Active-Contemplative" Problem / 513 munity life are specifically designed ~to foster the contemplative spirit? How effective are they? What real priod~ty are they given in the actual life of the community? How much do they influence community decisions? In what visible ways do they determiqe the community life-~style. Secondly, what is the life of the community saying to the Church? What are the real effects of the c~mmunity's work? What are the fruits of its apostolate? Is the communityiin reality working for the Kingdom of God, or just working and offering ~hat work in some general way for the Kingdom .of God? Is the .community corporately ~fiware of the difference between a life of moral virtue and a life of theolbgical virtue? Is there an insistence, in visible, concrete ways, that each member keep growing to the level of perfect faith, hope, and love? Or d~es the community in its actual policies insist only on a good day's work and a cooperative spirit in community? To be a "good religious," an acceptable member of the community, how much contemplative spirit is required? Are prudence,~justice, temperan.ce, and fortitude enough? o. ~ It is certainly legitimate for an individual to live the "active" life during certain periods of his spiritual growth. But this is only legitimate if th~ active life is seen as a phase of growth ordered toward achieving contem-plation. Or the active life can be added to the contemplative as a way of sharing its fruits with others. But ithe active life as such cannot be the final goal or total plan of any serious;Christian's life. What is legitimate for individual~ is legitimate for communities. That is, a community can structure its corp9rate; its communal life to be "active" for some members or for a certain~ time. But this is legitimate only if the community situates its active life-s~tyle within the broader context of an identifiably contemplative life-style~. The community must .be able to identify the explicit elements in its overall style of living--its structures and policies--that present the contemplative life to its members and foster its growth. The community must be able to show that it is concretely geared --and not just abstractly committed~to bring its members to the "per-fection of charity," the fullness of the loving knowledge of God. If a community is not willing or able to do this, it should take the responsibility of redefining itself. It should present itself to its members and to the ~world as a singlemin~ledly "active" community, a "service orgamzatlon in the Church. This ,;vould be,' in St. Thomas's explanation, a third class religious order. A second-class religious order ~would be one that is committed and geared toward achieving contemplation, but which frankly acknowledges that it is not strong enough in itsl contemplative life to take on an ex-plicitly apostolic dimension. By "apostolic dimension" I do not mean, of course, just active work. A comm.hnity of solitaries strictly cloistered in the desert can have a fully-developed apostolic dimension. By "apostolic 514 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 dimension" I mean an explicit concern about what one's life is "saying" to the Church. (This is, I believe, a legitimate interpretation of what St. Thomas means by "teaching and preaching.") Any community can put this concern aside temporarily. A novitiate house, for example, or a new religious older in its first beginnings; might have to forget for a while about what it is saying to the Church in order to concentrate exclusively on what God is saying to it. But a community which did not see itself as ever having any concern~except the growth and sanctification of its own members would have to acknowledge itself as a second-class religious order--a sort of spiritual hospital for people who are never expected to become strong enough to share the burden of the Church's mission. I seriously question whether either of' these first two choices~ are legitimate options in religious life. If religious life (like every,.valid Christian life) has the per[ection of charity as its goal, it seems a contradiction in terms that one would accept to be a second- or third-class religious. Realistically, I think ,the value of St. Thomas's distinctions lies in the help they give us in recognizing situations that ought to be temporary in the life of religious communities; situations we might be tempted to accept as permanent. We have mentioned a legitimately' exclusive preoccupation with one's own spiritual growth, provided it is temporary. We see in the life of the active orders around us a-similar preoccupation at this moment in history, but which might not be recognized for what it is. After Vatican II, when religious renewal began in a massive way, one religious com-munity after another awoke to the distortions that had crept into our understanding of religious life. We realized that in our efforts to become spiritual we had lost s~ight of ,what it was to be human. Words like "ful-fillment" and "interpersonal relationships" began to punctuate our con-versations. We threw ourselves into the rediscovery of our emotional and affective lives. We made acceptance of ourselves h religious goal, and embraced as a duty the grateful enjoyment of this world as God's gift. Words like "renunciation" and "abnegation" became "trigger" words, sym-bols of a repressive' and distorted spirituality that blanketed human values and suffocated human personality under an all-covering mystique of self-sacrifice. Religious began to pursue courses and workshopg for their own intellectual and psychological development. Individuals began to take responsibility for their own decisions and to speak up like adults in com-munity discussions. We went in for group decision-making and discern-ment. The emphasis was placed on personal responsibility. Bells were abolished, the time and place for prayer left up to each individual. Supe-riors were abolished, too, in many cases and group accountability substi-tuted for personal, spiritual ,government. People began to furnish their rooms in ways that expressed acceptance of the world rather than austerity. Convents went in for bright curtains, pink bed spreads and teddy bears. A rich variety of food and drink became available twenty-four hours' a day. The "Acttve-Contemplative" Problem / 515 Smoking and drinking ceased to be tabu to nuns. The ancient practice of the "peculium" so constantly condemned in religious tradition, came back in the form of personal budgets. Nuns and priests started dressing to ex-press their individual personalities as well as their maleness or their womanhood. Sisters experienced what it was to "feel like a woman again," for better or for worse. Priests and seminarians fell in love with sisters,~ and sisters fell in love with them. Some left religious life and got married. Those who remained began to speculate on the "complementarity of tlie sexes," and to ask how one's human sexuality could be integrated into a celibate life without compromise to chastity. Experiments were acted out, mistakes were made. Growth resulted, tragedy resulted; there was good and evil! In all of this there has been in religious community life an absorbing corporate preoccupation with "self." Religious communities have turned their gaze inwards, trying to straighten out their own house. For the time beirig many communities have become more concerned with what religious life is saying to them than they are with what their religious life is saying to the Church. In many specific instances, communities have defied alike the prejudices of the laity and the precepts of Rome. In their intense ef-fort to listen authentically to what God is saying to them, it would seem that some religious have become less attentive to the voice of the wider Church, whether this comes from the ranks of the People of God or from the official representatives of that People. A temporary preoccupation with self is legitimate and good, even on the community level. But no real discernment.or renewal of religious life can take place in the long run in isolation from the People of God. Re-ligious cannot ignore what their life is saying to the rest of the Church. As long as a community is doing this, or has to do it, it is engaged more in spiritual therapy for its own members than in making its contribution to God's people. It may well be that for a certain time a religious community may have to direct all its efforts toward "becoming human." Perhaps the human values of responsibility, affectivity, self-acceptance, and interper-sonal relationship have been lost through a distorted way of living in the past. These values may have to be recovered. But if a religious community accepts as its permanent goal in life, and as its normal guideline for community policy, the ideal of "becoming human," that community must inquire into its place in the overall community Of the People of God. So long as a community is mainly preoccupied with the healing of its own self-inflicted wounds it falls, I believe, into St. Thomas's second cate-gory of religious life. Whether the community is exclusively preoccupied with becoming divine through contemplation, or with becoming human through sensitivity sessions and the use of creatures that reinforce people's sense of personal ~worth, it is not yet strong and mature enough to share with others the fruits of a healthy and developed spiritual life. We should 516 / Review for Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 recognize this and make sure that we do not accept a temporary, therapeu-tic situation as normal policy for religious life. We can set up spiritual hos-pitals for oursel~,es on a temporary basis. But .if the raison d'etre of our lives is just to constitute a healing milieu of humanness, our expectations for the future should be that no healthy human'beings will apply. Religious life is intended to lead people through active and contempla-tive stages of growth to that developed maturity of life, both human and divine, which allows each person to become a word of grace made flesh; a word of light, of life, and of love spoken tothe People of God. Religious life structured to this goal is the first, the highest, and I believe: the only authentic form of religious life. St. Thomas's distinctions invite us to look at three levels of value in religious life and tO ask" ourselves if our own communities are concretely and effectively geared to achieve them all. To a Young Sister on Her Final Profession Day You .,ask me for a poem, Sister, in honor of this day on which you place for all eternity, your life. your total self~ within the Heart of Him who called you, drew you, in a thousand subtle ways to 'love Him for Himself alone. But how can words of human speech express what is forever inexpressible, what can be only numbly felt :by hearts too grossly fles!! Even the Psalmist's flame-tipped words that ride ~he winds and pierce the clouds fall, helpless, to the ground. The only poem I can give you, Sister, is a prayer, whispered in the depths of nay own heart, to Him who dwells there too, as in Your own. And even that prayer says less in words than in desire. Love Him---trust Him--always, Sister, until that day when there will be no need of poems or words but only of that Word who is all love that ever was or is ° or can be. He is your poem, Sister! Sister Mar~c'Luke, c~S.]. 3556 Rocky River Drive Cleveland, OH 44111 The Incomplete Conversion J. 'Rankin, King~ . Mrs. Kin"g graduated from St. Louis University in 1973. She has pfiblished poetry in The Haiku Anthology, Poet atid~,C~itic arid elsewhere. She 'is presently engaged in research fin the .field of comparative re!igious,experience. Her address:. Nativity Hermi-tage;. Taos, NM 87571. We are b~ now, as participant observers,, nearly used to~ the revived in-terest in spirituality which has characterized the seventies, jStudies .and ex-periments inthe practices of Eastern Orthodox and Asian traditions oc-cupy~. a small but well educated and serious° number of cgntemplative re-ligious: Monumental tasks of research and translation by monastic scholars pr_o_mise considerable assurance that the monastic renewal will be both sound, and profound. A. reawakened interest at. the popular level in the role of .the, Holy Spirit in Christian life heightens mass awareness of God's saving ,pr.e~sence. ,Chri_stocent~ic~,incarnationalism, more intellectual than the popular movement, less comprehensive than the monastic effort, pro.- vides a vehicle for renewed devotion to th.~:, humanity of Christ among many priests and religious. These tendencies exist beside, and tend to color th_e spiritualities o.f, the religio_us orders which are more and more coming to be seen as mutations of and variants upon the one-basic spiritually of ~the Church Universal, simple ,and whole, the spirituality of the ages. Of all these, this essay .will °attempt to deal 0nly with the contemporary popular tendency. It, will stress its weaknesses rather than its strengths, its situation of risk rather than its posture of promise, because it is, among the trends developing at pres_ent, at once the most massive and the most fragile. It. is my hope that this approach will contribute more at the pres-ent moment to the ongoing recovery of spiritual discipline among us than the positive one which has been the more common over the past few years. 517 518 / Review ]or Religious, F'olume 35, 1976/4 While the popular spiritualities of the prayer group and the pentecostal meeting discover their sources in traditions outside the Church, they may also be accurately described as reactions to the conventional spirituality that preceded them. That earlier spirituality stressed rule and form, this proposes the Spirit and the spontaneous. That spirituality was rooted in the prescriptions of the spiritual manuals, this adventures without them. If that spirituality had nearly forgotten the Illuminative Way, this is ignorant of the Purgative. That spirituality put affectivity to its bow and aimed it upward, often so austerely as to be accused of being cold. This is charac-terized by a diffuse and volatile emotion. Conventional spirituality was a spirituality of reserve, interiority. Popular spirituality celebrates the mani-fest, effuses. Their differences are sufficiently radical to render them remote and, in a very profound way, both antipathetic and antithetical to one another. ~ And yet both have this in common, that the first had forgotten and the second has yet to learn the meaning of metanoia~f metanoia not as moment but as process. It is ironic that popular spirituality, in setting out to recapture the Spirit and the Life, should bear within itself, also, that precise element the want of which drained the previous spirituality of ex-actly those things. For it was certainly °its failure to grasp and implement the mechanics of the Purgative Way--that radical reaction to the discovery of one's own sinfulness--which stripped the previous spirituality of its vitality and left it, intact in all its structures but resoundingly,empty, a prey to that kind of renewing which obliterates altogether. It is characteristic of reactionff to~ over-react and, sometimes, to miss the point, Iri this case the.point was not that there was something wrong with the spirituality of the manuals: it was, hfter all, the Catholic spiritual-ity, the spirituality of the ages; but that there was something dreadfully wrong with those .who professed it. Specifically, they were not half sorry enough for their sins. On the contrary, they often thought themselves very good folk°'indeed. It is not perhaps surprising that their ~lateral~descendants should harbor a similar misapprehension, and that it. should produce, spon~ taneity to 'the contrary, a similar chill of ';righteousness"; a characteristic which proclaims as clearly as any antinomianism; the Spirit's absence. Genuine metanoia is a process. It begins, to be sure, with a haoment: "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee: Wherefore I abhor.myself, and repent in dust and ashes,''1 I abhor myself~ an abhorrence that generate~ an ongoing and ever deepening reaction. We have called that reaction the Way of Beginners, the Purgative Way. We have identified with precision its stages; its characteristic rhythms of prayer, its temptations, its joys and sorrows, its goals and the interior technology which must be employed if they are to be attained. And we know its term: aJb. xlii, 5:6~ The Incomplete Conversion / 519 a sincere and complete conversion; .and'its consequence: a man sufficiently iiast to bear experimental cbntact with the Spirit of God in illumined faith-- a man who has the justice, the prudence, the temperance and the fortitude to worShip in Spirit and Truth under the influence of infused prayer. ¯ At the present time 'the popular movement recognizes the moment but is unaware'0f the process. Its characteristic exercises--shared and peti-ti0riaty prayer and Scripture reading--are not primary metanoiac agents. It is difficult to see how the movement is to proceed, if it does not assim, ilate a technology" of interior change. Popular spirituality's mistaken guess that the first gift of the Spirit is joy prevents it from cultivating that sorrow, with its concommitant hatred of sin and the filial fear of the Lord which dreads' to lose him, which are, in fact, the Spirit's choicest gifts to the youngest of his Chosen. ~'Its apprehension of a fullness of some kind, when overly encouraged, acts as a bar to its experiencing its own poverty. A dollar may indeed look like a great deal to a man who has known only'plugged nickels all his life but. it remains, nevertheless, a dollar, with a dollar's purchasing power. There seems tO be some danger of the popular renewal's forgetting that the ish seddqdh~ the just man, is ?a member of the an~wim, God's afflicted ones: the poor, the weak, the humble, the meek, the oppressed . the needy, the broken hearted, the crUshed in spirit.''-~ In its search for signs of the Spirit's presence, it is prone to overlook the "Sign of'Jonah" proposed to a previous unbelieving generationhthe death, burial and resurrection of the Lord and i.s, in consequence, diverted from living any coherent program of its own daily dying which is, after all, the Christian's only entrde to the higher life. "There is an apophthegm of Pambos," writes Andre Louf,'a "that is all the more pointed for its brevity: 'Acquire a heart and you can be saved.' 'Acquire a heart': this implies that we do not yet have that spiritual sensi-tivity, that alertness of heart, that can discern and understand the things of the Spirit." The popular, spirituality is of~theopinion that it can. There is perhaps no greater bar to the acquisition oL a heart than the persuasion that one has one. "Better just to smeil a~ flower in the garden or something like that," wrote Thomas M~rton,4 "than to have an unauthentic experience of a much higher value." * A concept of change nearly defines traditional spirituality. Life in Christ is metamorphosis. Its dynamism is the life of God in Trinity which enters the soul 'at the time of its baptism or through the"second and "labo-rious" baptism of penance. Conversion, then, i.s not an arrival :but a de- 2David Holly, The Quest ]or Biblical Living; Cistercian Studies,~ Vol. X, Nos. 3 and 4, p. 235. aAndre Louf, Spiritual Experience, Cistercian Studies, Vol. X, no. 2, p. 128. 4Patrick. Hart, ed., Thomas Merton, Monk (New York: Sheed & Ward; 1974), p. 190. Review. ]or Religious, Volume 35, 1976/4 parture.: To delay upon the platform, cheering the trains as they come in, is nearly always fatal. The Kingdom of Heaven withers when .it finds~a pos.t-conversion ?'level". and is staticized there. Transformation is'the primary work of the Holy Spirit. ,It is' to this--a definitive delivery~ffrom sin--that" his chief inspirations tend, for he is indeed the very SpiriL.of Christ, he who came to ~.set free the captive, to deliver those Iying in prison, To un. derestimate the extent of,the captivity, the depth of the dungeon, is to miss entirely the pointoof the Mission of the Spirit. . We often hear~it said today that because God loves us he accepts us. That is, of course, the one thing he will never do-,-because he loves us. "When he said 'Be perfect,' he meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hanker-ing after is harder--in fact, it is impossible. It may be hard4or an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to, fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you.cannot go on. in-definitely being just an ordinary, decent,;egg. Wg must be hatched or go bad.''~ , Perhaps we could say that contemporary popular spirituality is in a situation of vulnerability at the moment because it does not dream that~it is an egg. It would seem to be a fatal diversion to cultivate joy if "real spiritual joy is one of the rarest fruits of the., spirit, to be attained only near the summit of the way, after all evil ,habits and thoughts are overcome, all passions conquered, and reconciliation with God is reached?'~ If "the true signs of sincere penitence .are the taming of the beast of anger and absti-nence from all condemnation.of others''~ and if only sincere pen.itence can open the way to any kind of consistent experience of God, then it would seem to be the better .part of enlightenment to .work at those hydra-headed passions. That, at any rate, seems to be what the Spirit.has always bee.n saying to t.he Churches. ; It wbuld not,.perhaps, be necessary to notice the belief clusters and attitudes in popular spirituality which .hinder its. developing genuine in-teriority if it had not attained a very rapid and, indeed, massive growth and were not now showing a decided disposition to impose .itself wherever possible on the rest of theoChurch. Now it is, of course, highly d~e~irable that we should all be more committed Christians, but it may be4hat a good many of us do not desire to be imposed upon, nevertheless. ~Especially by those whose light does not exceed our own. The prospect of spending the rest, of one's spiritual life occupied in "praise"~ and intercessory prayer, punctuated by predictable prophecies will not appeal to everyone . While enthusiastic neo conversi may be able to speak winningly and cohvincingly of their ~newly discovered life in Christ, it is the Church's ex- ;'C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1974), p. 169. ~-~ "Iulia de Beausobre, ed., Russian Letters b] Direction, 1834-1860, beiiig the l~tter~ of Staritz Macarius of Optino.(St. Vladimirs Seminary Press, 1975), p. 106. rlbid., p. 169. The Incomplete ~onversion / 521 perience that fruitful apostolates are the result of a mature Christian life. And it is, besides, the spiritual doctrine of Catholicism that too great an eagerness to teach others is, in beginners, a sign of sp!r!tual pride.i, Although it is typical of evangelical Christianity to send its converts immediately into the field, it has not been the apostolic Church's custom. Following the example of her Lord, who spent thirty years in obscurity be-fore undertaking his public mission, she has preferred that her children nurture the life of grace in humble penance, in mortification and in prayer before sending them "as sheep among wolves." ". when we are fully grown men," writes Tauler in full fidelity to the tradition, "we may come and live in the land of Judah. 'Judah' means 'to confess God.' Then you can teach and admonish in Jerusalem . You can cross over into Galilee which means 'overcoming all things'. ,,8 The facility with which the technique for inducing a Pentecostal type conversion experience can, apparently, be acquired, makes it tempting to the popular movement to adopt evangelical traditions of proselytization. The maturer fruits of conversion oin terms of authentic interior cleansing will not be likely to develop, however, under condition~ 6f forc6d acti~on. Th6 spirit of "results" apparent among the'fastest paced evang'el!qa~l,16rom0i~r~ today should give us pause. For that spirit is not the meek Spirit, the Holy ~pir!t, thee Spirit of repentance which the popular spiritua!ity ~has claimed for its own. "I realize," wrote Andre Louf in a rece6t ar~ic, le, that repentance is not o_nly~ a difficult theme to touch on today, but is also~ g~ven the .complexes of our times--one of the most. difficult to pin down and live authentically. And yet it remains essential. In general, repentance is:'re-fused today. We live at the turning point between th~ obsessive neurosis (if ~ - I may call it that) characterizing the pe~:iod immediately before our own, and °~ the adolescent effervescence add aggressivity of a period that is now freeing ~ itself;of~ that neurosis. ProoL~that he has sinned can only create unbearable ~, ~anguish in one ~ho is already eate.~ up with anguish. Sin was intolerable for the l~eriod immediately before our own, and people tried to free them-selves from it by what the Fathers used to call dikaioma, the pretension to ° justice. Sin-is unbearable, so one claims to be just by an outward observance of law, or rather, of a certain n~n~ber of r~gulations; in r~hlity one is fleeing from me~tanoia. Today instead we hav~ an adolesc,eni effervescer~ce and aggreg- '~sivi~y which is~just as~ neurotic and ~'for which sin is just as uhbea'rable; the solution now, however, is to say there is no such thingP " ~ '" -~or to bury it under the cliches Of "love" and "joy" and "community" and "perice." ~' " The question for the next few years or s6, so far as the popular spirithal-itY goes, is whether ~it ~ill be able radically, to assimilate to its present spirit the basic spirituality of the Church and its metan~iac techniques. Or will the conversion remain incomplete? ¯ - SJohn Tauler, O.P., Spiritual Con]erences (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1961), p. 38. aAndre Louf, Spiritual Experience, Cistercian Studies, Vol. X, no. 2, p. 132. Ministry, Grace and the Process of Humanization Rev. Stephen J. Duffy Father Duffy is Associate ProfessOr and Chairmarl of the Department of Religious Stud.ies; L6yolaUr~iversity; New Orleans, LA 70118. My" subject ~is ttie very topical "theology of liberation.''a Before we plunge into the subject, however, there are some contextual questions that demand an answer. Why should w~ be concerned with grounding Christian pastoral or social ministry in theology at all? In this connection, is talk about a theology of liberation just a pep-talk or a sales pitch to send enthusiasm soaring? Are institutes and courses on pastoral ministry some kind bf inter-lude before we all get back to our real work? Do they amount to little more than abstract and theoretical discussions designed to titillate, the more intellectually inclined? My strong conviction is that a theology of liberation and discussions of pastoral ministry in that context should be far more than any of these. ZGustavo Guti6rrez, A Theology o] Liberation (Maryknoll: Orbis B~oks, 1973)." See also his "Notes for a Theology of Liberation," Theological Studies 31 (1970), pp. 243-261. Guti6rrez is prob~b~ly the most widely read and mo~t influential single theologian of liberation. For a good overview accompanied by a rather, complete bibliography, see Phillip Berryman, "Latin American Liberation Theology," Theolog-ical Studies 34 i(1973,), pp. 357-395. A variety of liberation theologies has been flourishing outside the Latin American situation. Cf. e.g., James H. Cone, A Black Theology o! Liberation (Philadlephia: J. B. Lippincott, 1970); R. Lauren.tin, Libera-tion, Development and Sa/v~ttion (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1972); J. B. Metz, Theology o] the World" (New York: Seabury Press, 1973); R. Reuther, Liberation Theology (New York: Paulist Press, 1972);~F. Herzog, Liberation Theology (New ¯ York: Seabury Press, 1972). 522 Ministry, Grace and Humanization / 5~23 '~ I am convinced first of all that there is a deep theological meaning to pastoral ministry. One of the most important contributions of Vatican II's Constitution on the Church is' the notion of Church as mystery. According to Vatican II, the. Church is first and foremost a mystery, a "kind of. sign of intimate union with God," and of the unity of all mankind." The Church is ,an outward sign and instrument, at once concealing and dis-closing the invisible action of God in the world. But if the Church is a mystery, then all its activity in the world is mysterious too, sharing in the very mystery of God. And if0'the Church is not solely the hierarchy or a voice speaking infallibly, or some vague entity.floating serenely above the chaos of this world, but is rather a community of persons, then our ac-tivities, too, share in the mysterious character of the,Church's action. As individual Christians, and as persons engaged in a work more or less clearly identified in some way as the Church's, there is no esCaping the fact ,that our activities will not be merely social or economic or educational or political .or psychological, but will bear a dimension that is Christian, and therefore mysterious. In the second place i believe'it is highly important for us to understand theologically this Christian dimension of our work, to grasp something in our own lives of this mysterious sign simultaneously revealing and con-cealing the. mystery of God. It is crucialfor us to understand what w~ are doing, for it is difficult to do a task well or enthusiastically without under-standing its purpose and meaning. Crucial, I say, because the meaning of Christian ministry cannot be exhausted by political~ sociological, economic, educational, or psychological interpretations. As sharers of the Chris'tian vision we affirm, in fact, that all such human acti'~ities, abstracted from their Christian dimension, would be ultimately meaningless. Thirdly, as students of theology, or :at least as persons with something of a professional interest in the Work of the Church, we must learn to think in theological terms about our ministry in the world. One of the emphases of liberation theology is that if theology has any meaning at all, it .must be applicable to real-life~ situations. Theoria .and praxis must be wed. I think that here our Christian education is :often lacking. We go through hours of religious instruction, even theology, without a hint that sometiow this must have practical implications. Few attempts are made to show the student how to relate what he has learned in °the classroom with what he is meeting in the s~reets. When Thomas Aquinas faced the prob-lem, at the very beginning of his Summa~ whether theology is a practical or a speculative science; he answered that it is both. From our~practice think we would have to deduce that we consider it to be purely speculative. The popular image of the priest closing his theology books on ordination, never to reopen ttirm again, is, unfortunately, close to the truth. Now I do not in the least want to downgrade theoretical or specuiative theology. I do not want it thrown out in favor of pastoral or even biblical Review ]or Religious, Volume 35; 1976/4 theology, I. feel it should.be even more emphasized, in the sense thaf each one should be trained, not merely to accept passively the theology he. or she is taught, .but rather to be able to reflect actively, creatively, theologi-cally, not only about classroom matter, but about the whole spectrura o1~ Christian :life in the world. If that is not done the pastoral gimmicks taught today will be obsolete in ten years, Critical theological reflection, by rel-ativi