Suchergebnisse

Issue 33.1 of the Review for Religious, 1974. ; Review ]or Religious is edited by faculty members of the School of Divinity of St. Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copy-right (~) 1974 by Review ]or Religious. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $1.75. Sub-scription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year; $11.00 for two years; other countries, $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be .accompanied by check or money order payable to Review ]or Religious in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent Review ]or Religious. Change of address requests should include former address. R. F. Smith, S.J. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor January 1974 Volume 33 Number 1 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to Review for Religious; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts, books for review, and materials for "Subject Bibliography for Religious" should be sent to Review for Religious; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106. Review for Religious Volume 33, 1974 Editorial Offices 539 North Grand Boulevard Saint Louis, Missouri 63103 R. F. Smith, S.J. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Editor " Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Review ]or Religious is published in January, March, May, July, September, and November on the fifteenth of the month. It is indexed in the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index and in Book Review Index. A microfilm edi-tion of Review ]or Religious is available from University Microfilm; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyright (~ 1974 by Review for Religious. Documents concerning Religious The following are seven recent documents concerning religious given here in chronologi-cal order and in the English translation provided by the weekly English edition of L' osservatore romano. LETTER TO THE GENERAL OF THE JESUITS To Our Beloved Son PETER ARRUPE Superior General of the Society of Jesus On the solemn occasion of Easter last year you intimated to Us that you were thinking of calling a general congregation of your Society in the year 1974, whose task it would be to explore the most apt ways for the Society to per-form its work in the Church and in the world of today. Importance of the Congregation Our Venerable Brother, the Cardinal Secretary of State, replying in Our behalf,~sent you Our best wishes. Now that you have publicly annoUnced the general congregation, and the provincial congregations are soon to be held for the election of delega.tes and for the preparation of postulata to be proposed to the general congregation, We Ourselves because of the love We bear the Society wish to address Ourselves through this letter to you and your companions to encourage you and to send you Our best wishes for a happy outcome of the congrega.tion. For we are well aware of the great im-portance of convoking it at this time, which could be an hour of decision, so to speak, for the Society of Jesus, for its future destiny and for its task in Church, as it is also for other religious families. 4 / Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 This meeting is a sign--and We are happy to say so--that the Society of Jesus is making a great effort, in accordance with the aims of its institute, to adapt its life and its apostolate to the needs of today's world, which is so constantly and rapidly changing. The Mind ot Vatican II Your desire, in fact, corresponds with the norms of the Second Vatican Council, the proper and careful implementation of which We Ourselves are strenuously trying to attain. Indeed, the congregation is in accord with the opinion of the Council fathers who said: "Effective renewal and proper adap-tation cannot be achieved except with the cooperation of all the members of the institute" (Decr. Perfectae caritatis, 4). However, if that universal Synod was looking for renewal fitting the needs of the present, it did not want this to be brought about through a hazardous experimentation that might be alien to the very character of the religious family, or lead to an abandonment of the primary values of a life consecrated to God. No, it was the mind of that Synod that the common elements of religious life should be confirmed and that they should be allowed to grow and develop. These are: a following and imitation of Christ, "as proposed in the Gospel" (ibid., 2); a renuncia-tion of worldly things so that the religious might live for God alone and for the building up of the Church; a practice of all the human and Christian vir-tues, best achieved by a joyful and constant observance of the vows (cf. ibid., 5), which should lead to the heights of the spiritual life where sublime contemplation is joined with magnanimous action. In Our apostolic exhorta-tion "Evangelica testificatio," which We published later, We explained all this in more detail and dealt with it more fully, using it as a paternal invita-tion to all religious that "they might shed light among men, so that, when they see the good you do, they might give praise to the Father in heaven" (cf. Mt 5:16). The Society of Jesus, especially called to walk in the path of the follow-ing of Christ, should feel itself particularly impelled to review its style of life, testing it constantly in the light of the Gospel, according to the exhortations contained in the words and example of St. Ignatius. Let this be undertaken with a view to actually effecting the renewal begun at the instance of the Council, taking into account new circumstances and needs. This should be done, however, in accordance with the spirit of the Society of Jesus, that is, in fidelity to its tradition which is based on .Christ, on the Church, on St. Ignatius. Hence, that the preparation for the coming General Congregation may not be limited to organizational matters, but give to all the members of the Society of Jesus a proper orientation and win their full commitment to it, they will have to rehearse with penetrating insight, a clear grasp of reality, and a profound sense of duty those principles of the spiritual and apostolic life which for centuries formed, as it were, the very structure that held the Documents concerning Religious / 5 Society together, and which made it a most serviceable instrument for a pastoral, missionary, and educational apostolate involving cultural forma-tion of" the highest excellence. Those responsible for this accomplishment were a large group of men distinguished for holiness of life and love of neighbor. Sources of Strength The foundations of religious formation which were laid in the past should today, even under changed conditions, still be the source of strength of the Society of Jesus. They are: a diligent dedication to prayer, which "has its origin in the authentic sources of Christian spirituality" (cf. Decr. Per- [ectae caritatis, 6); an austerity of life, preventing a person from easily adopting that frame of mind which, casting aside that which is sacred, pre-vails in so many forms of contemporary life and practice; supernatural strength by which apostolic effectiveness is increased, and in the absence of which no action, no matter how excellent on the surface, can yield lasting fruit for the transformation of the human conscience; complete observance of the vows, especially obedience, which is peculiar to the Society and a condi-tion of its religious discipline by which its vigor was always preserved. Hence, there must be no attempt to introduce new methods of deliberation and deci-. sion-making that not only undermine the very notion of obedience, but alter the nature itself of the Society of Jesus. Finally, the ascetical value of com-munity life and the advantages it offers for the formation of character should be kept in mind. To these weighty principles We would also add in a very special manner the fidelity to the Apostolic See, whether in the area of studies and education of young scholastics, who are the hope of your order, or of the students at-tending the great number of schools and universities entrusted to the Society, or in the production and publication of writings aimed at a wide circle of readers, or in the exercise of the direct apostolate. Dangers to Essential Structure of the Order Nor are We ignorant of the fact that over the past few years in several parts of the Society--and it is by no means absent either from the life of the Church in general--certain tendencies have arisen of an intellectual and dis-ciplinary nature which, if fostered and given support, could lead to serious and possibly irreparable changes in the essential structure itself of your So-ciety. As you know, Beloved Son, we have through Our closest collaborators called your attention more than once to these matters, while expressing the hope that the expected renewal will be brought about securely and smoothly. Therefore, on the occasion of the announcement of the gen-eral congregation We express once again Our desire, indeed Our demand, that the Society of Jesus should adapt its life and apostolate to today's con-ditions and needs in such a way that confirmation be given to its characteris- 6 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 tics as a religious, apostolic, priestly Order, linked to the Roman Pontiff by a special bond of love and service, as ratified in the "Formula of the Institute" or fundamental rule of this same Society, approved and repeatedly confirmed by Our predecessors. In the adaptation of which We .speak, experience will be your teacher. It will show what concrete forms of life and action have now become irrelevant and outdated, and what new needs and opportunities pre-sent themselves of work to be undertaken or directed according to the mind of Christ and the nature of the apostolate. We also hope that in the preparation for the general congregation, and later when it is in session, all the religious will be intent on the good of the Society, united in that charity required by your Founder, whose voice can still somehow be heard, in your Constitutions: "Union and agreement among all ought to be sought with great care, and the opposite ought not to be per-mitted; in order that, being united among themselves by the bond of fraternal charity, they may be able better and more efficaciously to apply themselves in the service of God and the aid of their fellowmen" (P.III, c.l, n.18). Final Thoughts~ and Suggestions These,, then, are Our wishes; that they may be heeded we pray to ,the Virgin Mother of God, Queen and Mother of the Society of Jesus; may she support it with counsel, strengthening goodwill, stirring up hearts, and in-spiring all the religious to ever more zealously imitate the Divine Savior in their task of constantly and courageously establishing His reign. What we have written should show you and your companions what is ex-pected of you by Us, who know well what influence the Society of Jesus has, what the task is that it has to fulfill, what confidence it enjoys; all this must be carefully considered, both with respect to the Society itself and with respect to the Church. We wish you to inform your collaborators and all the members of the Society of Jesus of this message, so that each one may see the witness of Our paternal benevolence and of the concern We have for the future destiny of the same Society. For We are convinced that the more faithfully the sons of St. ignatius conserve the Ignatian charism as it appears in the principle docu-ments of the institute, the more effectively will they pursue the glorious work of evangelizing today's world according to their God-given vocation, emulat-ing the example of so many Jesuits who consistently tried-~--and We use the words of St. Ignatius--"to distinguish themselves in the total service of their eternal King and universal Lord" (Spit. Ex., II week). Having made known in writing what is in Our heart, We gladly impart to you and to the whole Society of Jesus the Apostolic Blessing as an'augury of the divine assistance. ~ " From the Vatican, the fifteenth of September, 1973, the eleventh year of Our Pontificate. PAUL VI Documents concerning Religious "/ 7 LETTER ON ST. BRIDGET OF SWEDEN To Our Venerable Brother JOHN E. TAYLOR Bishop of Stockholm In this year marking the sixth centenary of her death, honor is rightly paid to St: Bridget, Flowei" of the North, and rightly are the faithful exhorted to direct their thoughts, with fresh° enthusiasm, so to speak, to the spiritual beauty of this heavenly one, as her memory is being solemnly recalled to mind. This chosen woman had a double fatherland: Sweden, where she was born at the beginning of the 14th century and Rome, where she spent nearly 20 years, and where after her return from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, she de-parted ripe for heaven, to the eternal Jerusalem, on the 23rd day of July, in the year 1373. ~ In that northern region to which the devout mind turns with heightened eagerness on this occasion, the ecclesiastical life was at that time in a fluorishing state, particularly because the Cistercian monks and after them the mendicant orders had introduced a piety that was well adapted to the people. For nurturing this piety, devout pilgrimages, to which Christians were much given, proved very effective. And' when the Scandinavians ad-venturously and with devotion and enthusiasm betook themselves to the holy places:in distant parts of the world, they, as it were,°exchanged spiritual riches with other brethren in Christ whom they met and also experienced in a vital way the unity.of the body of the Church. Wife and Mother Such were the times in which Bridget grew to womanhood. Although she desired to consecrate her virginity to God, she was thwarted in her desire of a Divine Spouse. In,submission to the will of her father, she married Ulf Gudmarsson, an excellent man. As wife and mother she was a shining ex-ample; she lived united to her husband by the bond of Christian love andsh~ reared her' eight 6hildren with discerning wisdom; that is to say, she wished them to grow up to be not only good citizens of their fatherland, but also servants and children of God. And so it came about that the seeds of religious vocation came?to flower among her offspring. Indeed, her second daughter, Catherine, with the aid ofdivine grace reached the heights of sancity. Nor may ewe neglect to mention the charity of St. Bridget lavished on the mem-bers of Christ suffering from poverty or other distress. Following a pious pilgrimage they had made together to the Shrine of St. James at Compostella, Bridget's husband entered a Cistercian monas-tery and soon after he died there. Whereupon Bridget, having set her domes-tic affairs in order, devoted herself entirely to the ascetical life and prepared for her own flights to God, by whom she wa~ richly favored with mystical 8 / Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 gifts. During the two years in which she lived in a retired place near the monastery where her husband Ulf had withdrawn from the world, she was inspired by Christ with the resolve to found a new Order to be named for our Divine Savior, in honor of Mary the Virgin Mother of God. There would be double monasteries housing in separate buildings men and women who had,freed themselves for divine pursuits, but they would constitute onecom-munity, as it were, gathered together in God's name. This order, whose rule Our Predecessor Urban V approved in 1370, began with the foundation called Vadstena. Spiritual Writings There is cause for rejoicing indeed in the fact that this religious family, which almost disappeared at the time when the seamless garment of the Church was pitiably rent, began to flourish again at the beginning of this present century, insofar as its branch of consecrated women is concerned; and a house was established at the Campo dei Fiori, where the mother foundress had formerly lived. That this institute may prosper with a happy increase in this anniversary celebration honoring St. Bridget is the object of our earnest desire. Deservedly extolled also are those works which are entitled "Revela-tions," and which set forth the mystical graces bestowed on St. Bridget. They are records valued besides for their wealth of sacred doctrine, treating of her cult of our Savior's humanity, of His sacred passion, of the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph, and the angels. The spiritual writings and religious art of the 15th and 16th centuries reflect the strong impact of these works. Solicitude for the Church Broadening the range of her concern, however, St. Bridget, like another Catherine of Siena, extended her great and zealous solicitude to the Church and the Apostolic See in that troubled period. As a devoted daughter she sought the reformation of the Church, ihe Mother of all, which, as Vatican Council II says, "is summoned by Christ, as she goes her pilgrim way, to that continual reformation, of which she always has need, insofar as she is an institution of men here on earth" (Decree on Ecumenism, Unitat& redinte-gratio, 6). Like the "valiant woman" she was, Bridget entreated Clement VI, lingering in Avignon, to return to Rome and urged the proclamation of the jubilee year of 1350. This woman, then, who by her life and work united so admirably and beneficially in the one Church her illustrious native land of the North and the See of Peter, corroborates, so to speak, as a citizen of heaven, the gener-ous efforts of those who after a prolonged and lamentable severance are now striving to restore Christian unity. Indeed, Our predecessor Boniface IX ap-pears in some way to have foretold this when in an apostolic letter dated under his seal, 7 October 1391 he said that he declared Blessed Bridget of Documents concerning Religious / 9 happy memory to be a saint "for the unity of the faith and of the Ch'urch" (Bullarium Priv. ac Dipl. Pont., III, Rome, 1741, p. 391 ). Tolally Dedicated Again, we rightly commemorate this singular and exemplary woman be-cause, although she was totally dedicated to God, she was not estranged from her own people. More than this, animated by a Christian love of her native land, she labored for its true progress. Her own family gave 'to Sweden for almost a hundred years kings, among them St. Eric, who were intent upon the good of their people and social justice. And although occupied with household cares, St. Bridget often served as an instructress in royal duties at court and was like a watchful mother to King Eric the Great (or Erikson) and his wife. She gave them a Swedish translation of the Holy Bible, and for this and for her writings mentioned above, she obtained a place in the literary history of her country. May her light shine radiantly, therefore, a light recognized also by those who are not of the Catholic communion. May this extraordinary woman in-tercede with God that He may graciously bestow on the Church the gifts of peace and unity. These obtained, may the faithful of Christ in Sweden and the adjoining northern regions come to recognize that he who is placed over the Catholic Church and exercises the highest apostolic ministry testifies to a singular esteem and brotherly love for them. May the example of this devout pilgrimage ot~ olden days kindle the hearts of those who come to this City in the forthcoming Holy Year, so that sincere repentance and desire for the interior life may bring about a spiritual renewal that will benefit not only in-dividuals but the Church also and civil society. This then is Our message to you in observance of the sixth centenary of th~ death of St. Bridget. In conclusion, We affectionately impart to you and to the faithful under your care the Apostolic Blessing as a token of spiritual strength and joy. This Blessing we desire to extend also to the Abbess Gen-eral and the Sisters of St. Bridget, the Order of our Divine Savior. From the Vatican Palace, on the 19th day of September, in the year 1973, the eleventh of our Pontificate. PAUL VI ADDRESS TO BENEDICTINE ABBOTS The following address was given October 1, 1973, to 270 abbots and con-ventual priors of the Benedictine Confederation led by the Abbot Primate, Dom Rembert Weakland. Also present for the audience were three Orthodox monks and three Protestant monks. From the heart we greet you, representatives of the whole Order of St. Benedict, who, in St. Cyprian's words, have come "to the Chair of Peter and the primatial church, the source of priestly unity" (Ep. 12, 14; PL 3,844-5). You have desired also to pay a visit to us, the successor in the apostolic min- Review for Religious,. Volume 33, 1974/1 istry to that same blessed Peter, in the long intervening line of Pontiffs. We greet also the Priors here present ot~ monasteries located for the most partin Africa and in Latin America, in which areas, with laudable spontaneity you devote your energies to missionary work; that is to say, "you are diligently engaged in implanting there the very rich tradition of your Order" (see Conc. Vat. II, Decr. Ad gentes divinitus, 18). Experiencing God We welcome in addition, recognizing at the same time the high prestige they enjoy, the observers, who, though not full participants in the Catholic communion, are yet striving to follow in the footsteps of St. Benedict. Fi-nally, we receive paternally the abbesses of monasteries and th~ mothers general here present of congregations that adhere to the spirit of this Patri-arch and are called by his name. We know that you are now holding a meeting on a subject of no small consequence; namely, on the mode of experiencing God in monastic life. This topic has various facets, as it were, whether it is considered according to Biblical doctrine, to sacred liturgy, to history, to the conditions and exigen-cies of the present day. We regard this subject as serviceable indeed, if this troubled age of ours is really to return to the great and fundamental reflec-tions that concern human existence itself. For there is danger today that men may banish the sacred from their minds and from their condu& and even presume they can do without God, at least in the use they make'of thoii" lives. Sometimes even those who have given themselves to the divine service and are dedicated to the pastoral ministry can be infected with this secular view. You, however, as monks in appearance, dress, and way of life affirm or should affirm that you belong to the number of those who do not rely upon the vain and passing things of this world, but seek wholeheartedly Him who is the Absolute: whom alone we ca.ll God, God our Highest Good, God Eternal. Here there shines before the eyes of the mind the true concept of religion, whereby man becomes intimately aware that he is ordered to God, Creator, Ruler, Last End, and Author of Salvation, to whom he owes in-terior and exterior worship. Such religion, therefore, encompasses the entire man and obliges him to devote himself to God in wholehearted service. Hence, you who "have chosen the best part" (see Luke 10:42), inasmuch as "your main task is to render the Divine majesty a service at once sim-ple and noble within the monastic confines" (see Conc. Vat. II, Decr. Perfectae caritatis, 9), dembnstrate the excelling power of the interior life for opposing that secular propensity whereby men are induced to abandon their own true center, as it were, and surrender themselves to exterior things. Liturgy of the Hours It should be your concern, then, to be religious who are truly, called so, Documents concerning Religious under a unique title, since you strive to ascend to God, to whom you have been consecrated by the profession of the evangelical counsels, through liv-ing the contemplative life, which you nourish by daily effort. Merely in doing this you express your protest against the neglect of God and against the profane way of life which pervades the world in these times. From our brief exposition, the excellence of prayer to be directed to God is already manifest. Indeed, all the sons of the Church, as you well know, are to adore the Father "in spirit and in truth" (see John 4:23). But since in the world of today prayer is beset by so many snares and threatened by so many perils, to you, who enjoy a more fortunate position, is entrusted the special task of directing your study and efforts to the end that the Church may really appear as the Ecclesia Orans. We are cognizant of the zeal with which you have studied the liturgical aspect in this meeting. We rejoice greatly in your diligence and your ardent desire to make that venerable tradition of yours flourish among you and to preserve that which constitutes the essential part of your spiritual life and which in the course of the centuries has ever enhanced the life of the Church itself. We know also of your solicitude for the vital force, the profound sig-nificance and the benefits which have been derived from the renewal of the liturgy that you brought to pass. Joined to this solicitude of y_ours is appre-hension lest these same benefits be not rightly and duly recognized, the more so because differing inclinations of soul in the great family of- St. Benedict have become evident with regard to the order to be observed in the Liturgy of the Hours; that is, whether this order should be uniform in the various monasteries or particular to each one. Need to Study and Weigh This is a very important question, whether as pertaining to your con-sistent historical and spiritual tradition or to your monastic cohesion which is no longer supported by only one form of sacred liturgy, but is expressed through several different voices, so that in celebrating the praise of God you are no longer "speaking with one voice." Consequently, this question should be studied in such a way as to embrace all its aspects in accordance with the vows made by you, before appropriate norms with the force of precept are laid down. Nevertheless, we wish to state that the difficulties which have arisen should be so weighed, and due account taken of the benefits already ac-cruing, while with joint effort you strive to offer a testimony of fervent and ardent prayer to the world of today with its secular outlook. Assuring you therefore of our fatherly concern for the welfare of your monastic communities, we strongly affirm that we shall take under our eager and careful consideration the outcome and result of the work you have begun on this question, and already at this stage we acknowledge our Review [or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 high esteem for the manner in which, with your wonted wisdom, you are addressing yourselves to this task. However, you are obliged to fulfill not only the duty of liturgical prayer, immensely important as this is, but also that of private prayer. On this sub-ject the Second Vatican Council has given a wise reminder (see Const. Sacrosanctum Concilium, 12), and St. Benedict himself is considered to treat of this point in his Rule, in the section headed. "De reverentia ora-tionis": "Supplication should be made to the Lord God of the universe with all humility and pure devotion" (cap. 20; see P. Delatte, Commentaire sur le R~gle de Saint Beno~t, Paris, p. 217). The exhortations of your founder are by no means inappropriate to this age, in which things progress and change with such rapidity. Just as in former times, so also now, you are to establish "a school of the Lord's ser-vice" (Reg. prol.); in other words, your monasteries should be so struc-tured that those who enter therein learn how to serve God and how to be continuously employed in His service. Such service, however, chiefly com-prises divine worship, by which the virtue of religion is exercised, as we have indicated above, and also holiness. With reference to worship we should like to bring out a special point: in celebrating the sacred liturgy with diligence and piety, as it behooves you to do, let. the sweet voice of the singing Church sound forth and never cease to sound forth in your churches. For men of today also feel the in-effable power of song that uplifts the soul and with gentle modulation gives expression to feelings of adoration, praise, penitence, and petition. Specially Chosen As regards holiness, this thought of St. Augustine should be deeply meditated: "Let not your voice only sound forth the praises of God, but let your deeds be in harmony with your voice" (Enarr. in Ps. 166, 2; PL 37, 1899). Although you have withdrawn from the world, to be occupied with the Lord, you have nonetheless "been specially chosen to preach the good news" (Rom l:l). May that hidden apostolic fruitfulness of which the Council speaks (see Decr. Perfectae caritatis, 7) flow out therefore from your mon-asteries upon the Church and society. May the yeast be prepared in them whereby, through the operation of divine power, the world may be renewed. This holiness, moreover, pertains not only to the life of the soul, but also to what you are doing for the cultivation of natural gifts, inasmuch as, to mention some examples, you devote yourselves to liturgical, Biblical, and historical studies for the common benefit, or, you engage in work, especially manual labor. Indeed, this last, may I add, enables you to go to the assist-ance of those who are suffering from poverty and other hardships, in keep-ing, of course, with the practices of the monastic life. This is in accord with the mind of the Council fathers who exhorted religious "to contribute to the Documents concerning Religious / 13 support of the poor, whom all should love with the tenderness of Christ" (see Decr. Per[ectae caritatis, 13; Const. Gaudium et spes, 42). Finally, not only your own individual life, but the life of the community as a whole, whereby you are joined one to another with the sweet bond of charity, should be adorned by this mark of holiness: that through the fel-lowship of community life directed to God, each individual is assisted in carrying out his service to the Lord, is incited to work for his brethren, is protected from dangers. Thus you will truly bear witness before the world to the holiness of the Church. In short, a community such as this, like a kind of novitiate, prepares religious during their lifetime for the everlasting day. Not without reason did St. Bernard reckon among the aids to good works: "to desire eternal life with all spiritual avidity" (Reg. cap. 4). ~ Example and Exhortation Of all these practices let the abbot give the example and exhort thereto the brethren entrusted to his care. Although the office of governing is ren-dered more difficult at the present time, yet he who "is believed to hold the place of Christ in the monastery" (Reg. cap. 2) should make the utmost effort that the vigor of spiritual life and of monastic discipline be strength-ened, increased, and, if need be, restored. To this end the abbot should en-deavor to maintain an unimpaired union with the magisterium of the Church, like a channel through which living water is drawn off for himself and for the brethren placed in his charge. The foregoing is what we have had affectionately in mind to say to you, and we do not doubt you will strive that your Order may aid the building up of the Church with spiritual forces, also in these times, to the needs of which it should prudently adapt itself. The announced Holy Year should offer you further incentive, since as you know we wish it to be a time of interior renewal. Lastly, as a pledge of heavenly gifts and as testimony of our assured affection, we impart the Apostolic Blessing to you who are here present and to all the members of your families in the Lord. ADDRESS TO THE LITTLE SISTERS OF JESUS The following address was given to the Little Sisters of Jesus at an audience of October 3, 1973. Dear Little Sisters of Jesus, last Friday we had the very sweet joy of meeting you at Tre Fontane, in the eloquent simplicity of your houses and in an impressive atmosphere of evangelical serenity and happiness. Your participation in this audience is like a return feast, for you and for us like-wise. To the thirty-seven Little Sisters who have just made their vows of per- 14 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 petual consecration at St. Peter's tomb, we address our best wishes for fervent faithfulness. But our brief words are also addressed to their families, who have in many cases come from very far away to be present at their de-finitive commitment "because of Jesus and the Gospel." They are addressed likewise to the two hundred Little Sisters at present attending a session of spiritual formation under the direction of dear Father Voillaume. We entrust to you our heart's most ardent desire. We would like you to take all over the world the conviction that a religious profession com-mits at such a profound level that changes of structures and activities have only a relative importance, even if one suffers from them. The essential thing is to keep a very keen awareness of the call of Christ who chooses His friends Himself (see Jn 15:15.) Is not Fr~re Charles de J6sus an example of this faithfulness deepened through different, if not contradictory, situ-ations? It is clear, however, that his mysterious route finds its coherence and its unity in passionate imitation of Jesus Christ, the One Model. Fr~re Charles de J6sus appears as one of the most perfect types of this deep faith-fulness of a human freedom to the freedom and faithfulness of God, who took him far beyond his expectations and hopes. Dear Little Sisters of Jesus, be confiden!! To be faithful does not con-sist in becoming tense over one's promises, but in relying on the Lord to ensure our ~faithfulness. That is why the long hours spent~with Christ in the Holy Eucharist will always be the primary and indispensable source of the friendship, the evangelical testimony you have promised to give in the Church and in the world today. It is with these sentiments that we renew our affectionate Apostolic Blessing to you and to your relatives and to your whole religious family. ADDRESS TO REDEMPTORISTS On October 6, 1973, the Pope gave the following talk to the members of the general chapter of the Redemptorists. Beloved Sons, To you assembled in the General Chapter of your Congre-gation of the Most Holy Redeemer and engaged in deliberations of great importance to the life of your religious family, We extend our affectionate greeting. We desire, moreover, to welcome expressly the new superior gen-eral, who is charged with the office and the burden of guiding your congre-gation through the difficulties of our times--neither few nor inconsiderable --and of conducting it to "green pastures" (see Ps 22:2). Purpose of Chapters A general chapter provides an excellent opportunity--offered to every institute--to 'reflect once more upon the true nature and end set for the institute and to hold discussions that will have a salutary effect on the life of the members. For the responsibility of a general chapter is not discharged Documents concerning Religious / 15 by holding elections and. legislating; .the chapter must also promote the spiritual and apostolic vitality of the whole body (see Litterae Ap. Ecclesiae sanctae, motu proprio, I, 2). Therefore, in a meeting of this kind, the entire family is gathered together in the presence of God to hear His voice and take counsel with regard to its renewal which, as also for the whole Church, "essentially consists in an increase of fidelity to its own calling" (see Conc. Vat. II Decr. Unitatis redintegratio, 6). Your congregation was founded by that most devout Doctor of the Church, St. Alphonsus, in order that its members might sanctify them-selves by an assiduous and faithful imitation of Christ and also engage in apostolic works, above all that special care of souls involving salutary con-tact with the most abandoned. Servants of God Beloved Sons, you are servants of God in the true and primary sense of the word; for "by your vows you are totally dedicated to God through an act of supreme Love" (see Const. Lumen gentium, 44). To be dedi-cated means to be given over to another as his property and possession. You should be followers of Christ as the Universal Synod advised all re-ligious (see Decr. Perfectae caritatis, 2a), corroborating, as it were, and realizing more completely the desire of your Father Founder. Hence each of you must endeavor to order his life to a certain unity and seek Christ daily with a sincere and generous heart. Daily you should put on Christ, an effort which is the beginning and the end and the whole of your life, whether as individual religious or as communities. Thus you truly make Christ present in the world, which is in many instances utterly alienated from Him, its Redeemer. Then those who see you, who speak to you or liave dealings with you may experience a certain mysterious power emanating from our Savior. Thus also you manifest the holiness of the Church, to the world which especially demands holiness in her sons. Life of Charity This daily effort to put on the likeness of Christ constitutes, however, a life lived in charity and motivated by charity. For religious thus "impelled ¯ . . live ever increasingly for Christ and for His body the Church" (Decr. Perfectae caritatis, 1 ). But love truly and properly so called is not for a limited time, is not hedged by conditions, is not rendered less ardent by difficulties, and knows no end. Justly did the Second Vatican Council address to every religious the following exhortation to fidelity: "Let all who have been called to the profession of the vows take painstaking care to persevere and excel increasingly in the vocation to which God has summoned them" (Const. Lumen gentium, 47). The life in which one dedicates himself to God with an undivided heart 16 / Review Jor Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 becomes a means to show forth the love of God for men. Just as God "loved the world so much that he gave his only son" (Jn 3:16), so too a religious who strives to attain the fullness of his vocation is a kind of gift bestowed upon the world. For an apostolate that is enlivened by continual prayer, liturgical and private, by ascetical zeal and the practice of the vir-tues, transfuses the divine life into men and constitutes in its truest sense the service of one's brothers in Christ. Beloved members of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, you have illumined the Church by the sanctity of certain of your brethren, of whom We are pleased to recall to mind the Saints, Alphonsus Mary de'Liguorl, your founder, Clement Hofbauer, Gerard Majella, Blessed John Nepomucene Neumann. By your apostolic labors you have brought the light of divine grace to so many souls. On the occasion of this general chapter, persevere with renewed alacrity in your noble purpose, and if need be give fresh impetus to your zeal and redouble your efforts that the Church of God may reap benefit from you now and in the future as in times past. In fatherly encouragement to you in all these efforts, we lovingly im-part the.Apostolic Blessing .~o you who are present here and to all your members. ADDRESS TO MISSIONARIES OF THE SACRED HEART At the general audience of October 10, 1973, the Holy Father gave the follow-ing talk to jubilarian Missionaries of the Sacred Heart who were present at the audience. Venerable Brothers and Dear Sons in Christ, It is a joy for us to receive you on this occasion which marks the anniversary of your sacerdotal ordi-nation. For forty years you have exercised the ministry of the priesthood, having been called by the Lord Himself and sent out by the Church to preach "Christ crucified" (1 Cor 1:23) and to assist in giving witness to His Resurrection (see Acts 4:33). We can well imagine how many graces the Lord has offered you over the years and how many helps your ministry has brought to those whom you have served with fidelity and sacrifice. On this happy occasion we are glad to offer you our blessing, our felicitations, and our encouragement. We see you as part of a vast number of our brother priests who have been conscious of their responsibility and calling and who have endeavored with God's grace to perform their ministry, in the spirit of St. Paul, as one "worthy of God's approval, a workman who has no cause to be ashamed" (2 Tim 2:15). Today we wish, at this point in your lives, to confirm you in the faith, which you have received and preached, and in the priestly vo-cation that has been your precious gift, high dignity, and important obliga-tion. We urge you at this time to keep alive your hope and to maintain to the end that confidence with which you began (see Heb 3:6,14). To each Documents concerning Religious / 17 of you we say with the Apostle: "God . . . will not forget your work and the .love you have shown him by your service, past and present, to his holy people" (Heb 6:,10). May Christ fill all of you with joy and keep you in his love. On our part we cordially give your our special Apostolic Blessing. Our special greeting of grace and peace in the Lord go to the members of the General Conference of the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, gathered together to consider questions of religious life and missionary activity. As we assure you of our paternal affection and en-couragement, we pray that Christ Jesus will make you apt instruments of preaching His gospel with ever greater effectiveness. We pray that you may indeed draw copiously from the riches of His love so as to be able to com-municate this same love in all its fullness "to the praise of his glori6hs grace" (Eph 1:6). Our Apostolic Blessing accompanies you in your im-portant responsibilities. ADDRESS TO THE CLARETIAN CHAPTER On October 25, 1973, Paul VI gave an audience to the members of the Claretian general chapter during which he delivered the following address. Beloved Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary! We express to you our deep pleasure at th!s vi.s.!t you pay us at the con-clusion of the meetings of your general chfi~ter. We hope that the work you have carried out these days will be fruitful. We hope that the dedicated service of the superior general and of the other members elected to form part of his council, will be effective and helpful for the purposes of your religious family. ~ We cannot overlook a particularly, iIluhainating circumstance, ,.which makes this joyful meeting more attractive: yesterday we celebrated the liturgical feast of St. Antonio Maria Claret. You yourselves made known for this reason your desire to visit Peter's Successor. We thank you for this gesture of support, in which we see a testimony of ekquisite spiritual affinity with your founder. How could we fail to recall before his sons the deep de-votion' he felt for the Vicar of Christ? And how could we fail to,venerate his memory in view of his eloquent and moving 'profession of faith in papal infallibility at the I Vatican Council? All that obliges us gratefully to open our mind to you in confidence, so that. you know that it is in perfect har-mony of religious sentiments with your own. THE CLARETIAN IMAGE We are sure that, during these days of your chapter, the protecting and guiding presence of St. Antonio Maria became more intense and exacting among you. And we like to think too that, when tracing the lines of re-newal, you took as your fixed point of reference the most genuine faithful- 18 / Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 ness to the origins of your institute and to the teachings on the consecrated life that the II Vatican Council proposed .and we ourself have repeatedly in-culcated. Allow us to savour with what purity of characteristic features the image of the Claretian presented itself to the contemplation of St. Antonio Maria. We read it yesterday during the lesson: "I tell myself: a Son of the Immaculate .Heart~ of Mary is a man burning with charity who sets fire wherever he passes. Nothing disheartens him; he takes pleasure in priva-tions, meets difficulties, delights in slander, and rejoices 0in torments. He thinks of nothing except how to follow and imitate Jesus Christ, in working, suffering and struggling always and only for the greater glory .of God and the salvation of souls" (El celo, c. I, BAC 188 [1959], p. 777). o See here, projected towards you, a whole program of holiness, based on religious renunciation of oneself, the fruit of its fertile evangelical vitality. It points out to you clearly,, with expressions of clear Pauline dynamism the good to which your personal and community life must aspire: the following and imitation of Christ in impulses of a charity that is always operative. BEARERS OF VALUES If to this program of interior life we add the very special cult of the Blessed Virgin h~ inculcated in you together with the~rimary dedication to the ministry of the Word, ,we have the complete picture of the Claretian vocation and spirituality. These and no others were the motives that gave life and ,meaning to the irrepressible zeal of the son of Sallent. And none other was the stamp of religious austerity that he imposed on himself to make his ministry more worthy of credit and more in conformity with the demands of the divine call. To proclaim the Good News to the point of sacrificing oneself for the good of one's brothers, to teach men the ever new languagel of;charity, characterized his overwhelming pastoral,task as Arch-bishop of Santiago in Cuba. Rightly could~we say of him, as of the Apostle of the Gentiles, that his vigor as '.'herald and teacher in faith and truth" (see 1 Tim 2:7) suffered no decrease in the midst of difficulties. On the contrary, his pastoral cares, his missionary anxiety found a way to express themselves continually in new ministerial initiatives, at home and abroad, inspired and nourished by the spirit of faithful service to the Church. Beloved sons, .appreciate this spiritual patrimony of yours;, spare no effort in tending its roots, if you really wish to be a tree always young and flourishing, able to adapt itself to the environment, to the changing require-ments of the times in order to continue to give ripe fruit to the Church, as it did in the past and continues to do at present, through its most illustrious sons. , At the chapter you have just held you have been able to convince your-selves that you are bearers of certain values that do not grow old because they .are a select part of the heritage and the universal vocation of the Documents concerning Religious /o 19 Church. The Christian community itself asks you for faithfulness and dis-cretion, generosity and disinterestedness in order to accept you and recog-nize you as the living and united sign of its human and spiritual aspirations. We do not wish to expatiate at greater length. Entrusting these thoughts to you, we wish to encourage you in your aspirations to holiness with our prayers to the Immaculate Heart of Mary so that, with the help of her motherly intercession, you may be exemplary sons of the Church. As con-firmation of these desires and as a testimony of particular benevolence we warmly impart the Apostolic Blessing to you and to the whole Claretian family. First Penance and First Communion Sacred Congregation [or the Discipline of the Sacraments and Sacred Congregation for the Clergy The Supreme Pontiff Pius X, relying on the prescription of Canon 21 of the Fourth Lateran Council, decided by the Decree "Quam singulari" issued on August 8th 1910 (AAS 1910, pp. 577-583), that children, once they had reached the age of discretion, should receive the sacraments of penance and Eucharist. That decision, having been put into operation throughout the universal Church, has produced and continues to produce very many fruits of Christian life and spiritual perfection. The "Addendum" to the General Catechetical Directory issued on the 1 lth April, 1971, by the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy (AAS 1972 pp. 97-176) confirms the custom of children receiving the sacrament of penance before Communion: "Having weighed all these points, and keeping in mind the common and general practice which per se cannot be derogated without the approval of the Apostolic See, and also having heard the Con-ferences of Bishops, the Holy See judges it fitting that the practice now in force in the Church of putting confession ahead of first Communion should be retained." The same "Addendum" took into consideration the fact that in certain regions in the Church some new practices had been introduced allowing children to be admitted to first Communion without first receiving the sacra-ment of penance. It allowed such practices to be continued for a time, pro-vided there was "prior communication with the Apostolic See and., they [the Conferences of Bishops] are at one mind with it." Having now carefully considered the matter and having taken into con-sideration the wishes of the bishops, the Sacred Congregations for the Dis-cipline of the Sacrament~ and for the Clergy, by virtue of this present docu-ment, and with the approval of the Supreme Pontiff, Paul VI, now that the 2O First Penance a~nd First Communion two years have passed, declare that these experiments should be brought to an end with the conclusion of the school year 1972-73 and that, there-fore, the Decree "Quam singulari" is to be obeyed by all everywhere. Given at Rome 24 May 1973. ANTONIUS Card. SAMORI~ Praef . JOHANNES Card. WRIGHT Praef . A Note on Intercommunion Secretariat [or the Union of Christians The following text is an explanatory note concerning the "Instruction on Intercom-munion" issued by the Secretariat for the Union of Christians on June 1, 1972; the text of the 1972 "Instruction" was given in Review ]or Religious, January 1973, pp. 12-8. 1. After the publication of the "Instruction concerning Particular Cases When Other Christians May Be Admitted to Eucharistic Communion in the Catholic Church," on June 1, 1972, various interpretations of it were given, some of which depart from the letter and the spirit of the document. To pre-vent the spread of such inaccurate interpretations and their consequences, we think it useful to recall to mind a few points. 2. With this instruction, pastoral in character, the Secretariat for Pro-moting Christian Unity had no intention of changing the rules laid down by the Vatican Council's decree on ecumenism and further explained by the Directorium Oecumenicum. The intenti6n was to explain that the existing discipline derives from the requirements of the faith and so retains its full vigour. 3. The basic principles of the instruction are: a) There is an indissoluble link between the mystery of the Church and the mystery of the Eucharist or between ecclesial and Eucharistic com-munion; the celebration of the Eucharist of itself signifies the fullness of pro-fession of faith and ecclesial communion (cf. Instruction, par. 2, a, b, c). b) The Eucharist is for the baptized a spiritual food which enables them to live with Christ's own life, to be incorporated more profoundly in Him, and to share more intensely in the whole economy of the mystery of Christ (cf. Instruction, par. 3). 4. Within the full communion of faith, Eucharistic Communion is the .4 Note on lntercommunion / 23 expression of this full communion and, therefore of the unity of .the faithful; at the same time it is the means of maintaining and reinforcing this unity. But Eucharistic Communion practiced by those ,who are not in full ecclesial communion with each other cannot be the expression of that full unity which the Eucharist of its nature signifies and which in this case does not exist; for this reason such Communion,cannot be regarded as a means to be used to lead to full ecclesial communion. 5. All the same, both the Directorium Oecumenicurn and th~ '~Instruc-tion," on,the,strength of what has already been said in the Vatican Council,s decree on ecumenism, allow the possibility of exceptions insofar as the Eucharist is necessary spiritual nour!shment for the Christian life. 6. It is the local ordinary's responsibility to examine these exceptional cases and make concr&e decisions. The instruction (no. 6.) recalls that the Directorium Oecumenicum gives the episcopal authority power, to decide whether in these r~re cases the required conditions are present or not. The episcopal authority's faculty of examining and deciding is governed by criteria laid down in the Directorium Oecumenicum (no. 55) and further explained in the instruction (no. 4 b),:. ". admission to Carbolic'Eucha-ristic Communion is confined to particular cases of those Christians who have a faith in the sacrament in conformity with that of the-Church, who experience a serious spiritual need for the Eucharistic sustenance, who for a prolonged period are unable to have recourse to a minister of their own community °and who ask for the sacrament of their own accord; all' this provided that they have proper dispositions~ and lead lives worthy of a Christian." ~. This criterion is observed if,,ail the required conditions .are verified. An object.ire, pastorally responsible examination,does not allow any vof,the con-ditions to be ignored. . ~. ~ ~ It must also be noted that the instruction speaks of particular cases, which are to be examined individually. Hence-a general regulation.cannot be~ issued which makes a catego.ry .o.ut of an exce.ptional case, nor is it possibles.to legitimate on the basis:of, epikei.a by turning this latter into a general rule. Nevertheless, the bishops can in tiae various situations decide what are theneeds that make exceptions applicable, that is to say, what constitutes a special case, and they can determine the manner of verifying whether all the required conditions are fulfilled in such a particular case. When par-ticular cases presen.t themselves fairly often in one region, following a re-current pattern, episcopal conferences can issue some guiding principles for ascertaining that al!,the conditions are verified in particular cases. Normally however it will be within the competence of the local ordinary to judge such cases. 7. For other Christians to be admitted to the Eucharist in the Catholic Church the instruction requires that they manifest a faith in the sacrament Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 in conformity with that of the Catholic Church. This faith is not limited to a mere affirmation of the "real presence" in the Eucharist, but implies the doctrine of the Eucharist as taught in the Catholic Church. 8, It is to be noted that the instruction (no. 5) calls to mind the fact that the Directorium Oecumenicum (par. 34-54) provides for the Orientals not in full communion with the Catholic Church rules different from those regarding other Christians (par. 55-63)o For example, (a) Since they belong to a community whose Eucharistic faith is in con-formity with that of the Catholic Church, a personal declaration of faith in the sacrament will not be required of them when they are admitted: in an Orthodox this faith is taken for granted; (b) since the Orthodox Churches have true sacraments and, above all, by virtue of apostolic succession, the priesthood and the Eucharist, conces-sions for sacramental communion must take account of legitimate reciprocity (no. 43); (c) Justifiable reasons for advising sacramental sharing are considerably more extensive. 9. The question of reciprocity arises only with those Churches which have preserved the substance of the Eucharist, the sacrament of orders, and apostolic succession. Hence a Catholic cannot ask for the Eucharist except from a minister who has been validly ordained (Directorium Oecumenicum, no. 55). 10. The desire to share the Eucharist fundamentally expresses the desire of the perfect ecclesial unity of all Christians which Christ willed. Intercon-fessional dialogue on the theology of the Eucharist (as sacrament and sacrifice), on the theology of ministry and of the Church is pursuing its course within the ambit of the ecumenical movement, supported by the promises and prayer of our Lord; it is stimulated and enlivened by the charity, poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. We express the hope that the ecumenical movement will lead to a common profession of faith among Christians and so allow us to celebrate the Eucharist in ecclesial unity, giving fulfillment to the words, "Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body" ( 1 Cor 10: 17). This note has been approved by the Holy Father, who has authorized its publication. 17 October 1973 JOHN CardinaF WILLEBRANDS President CHARLES MOELLER Secretary Decree on the Holy Year Indulgence Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary A DECREE WHICH DETERMINES WHAT SPIRITUAL WORKS ARE NECESSARY TO GAIN "THE GIFT OF THE INDULGENCE" IN THE VARIOUS LOCAL CHURCHES ON THE OCCASION OF THE HOLY YEAR The Cardinal President of the Central Committee for the Holy Year has asked this Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary to determine what spiritual works are necessary to gain "the gift of the Indulgence," which the Holy Father has promised to reinforce the spirit of reconciliation and renewal which are the characteristics of this Holy Year. Charged by the Sovereign Pontiff, the Sacred Penitentiary grants that, from the 1st Sunday of Advent of this year, until the day when the Holy Year is solemnly initiated in Rome, the faithful of the individual local Churches can gain: 1. The Plenary Indulgence, in the times to be decided by the Episcopal Conferences, if they go on a. pious pilgrimage to the cathedral church, or also to o~her churches determined by the local Ordinary, in which a solemn community function is held; 2. The Plenary Indulgence, likewise in the times to be decided by the Episcopal Conferences, if gathered in groups (for example, families, school pupils, workers, employees and professional workers, pious associations), they visit the cathedral or other churches designated by the Ordinary, and remain there in pious meditation for a suitable time, concluding the visit with the recitation or singing of the Lord's Prayer and the Creed and with the invocation to the Blessed Virgin; 3. The Plenary Indulgence if, prevented by sickness or any other serious 25 26 / Review fo.r. Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 cause, they join spiritually in the pious pilgrimage, offering God their prayers and sufferings. As regards the diocese of Rome, which should rightly be in this matter an example and stimulus for other ecclesial communities, the same Sacred Penitentiary decrees that the times and ways to gain the aforesaid Plenary Indulgence shall be determined by the Cardinal Vicar General of Rome. Notwithstanding any provisions to the contrary. Rome, from the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary, 24 September 1973. G. SESSOLO Regent G. CARD. PAUP1NI Grand Penitentiary COMMENTARY ON THE HOLY YEAR INDULGENCE The following commentary on the preceding document appeared in L'osser-vatore romano, November 29, 1973, page 6. 1. By order ~f the Holy Father, the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary issued, on 24 September 1973, a decree confirming and clarifying what had already been said with regard to the Jubilee indulgence during this first phase of the Holy Year. It establishes::the so-called "work" or "pious practice" to be carried out by the faithful, at given times and places, to acquire the Jubilee indulgence. ~ .' The "work" prescribed is a "pilgrimage" to a designated church, con-cl'~ ding witl~ barticipation in a solemn community servic~ or at le.ast with the i'ecitatign 'of some prayers. Summarizing the decree of 24 September 1973 and keeping in mind both the norms for indulgences and the Holy Father's Letter of 31 May 1973, to Cardinal Maximilian de Ftirstenberg, President of the Central Committee for the Ho!y Year, the following points.may be r~oted. The faithful who, duly,dispoged, approach the sacraments of confession affd communion and pray acco~:ding to the intentions of the Holy Father and the Episcopal C~ollege, are granted, in conformity with the norms in fbrce, the gift of the i91enary indulgence, at the time~'to be determined by the respective Episcopal Conference, beginning from 2 December 1973: (a) if they'take part in a pilgrimage to the cathedral church or to another church #esignated by the local Bishop and participate in solemn comrriunity serVice there; (b) if they go in groups (for example ram!lies, "sc3ools, professignal @orkers, associations) to one of the afpresaid chur'~hes and devote the, m-s'elves for ~/suitable space bf time to pious considerations, concluding them with the recitation or the singing of the Ou{ Fath~" and the Creed and with an invocation to the Blessed Virgifi; (c) if, being unable to take part in'tli~ pilgrimage of their comn~unity (ecclesial, family, or social), because they are pi'evented by illness or any ~Decree on the Holy Year Indulgence / 27 .o, ther serious cause, they join in it .spiritually by offering their prayers and sufferings. 2. We spoke above of the faithful being ."duly disposed." This is a reminder that the '.'gift of. t, he indulgence" must .be merited by fervent prep-aration; it is bestowed to reward° and "strengthen"--as we readAn the re-cent d.e~cree--the spirit of renewal and reconciliation that must characterize the Hgly Year. , For this reason the simple practices that are required to gain the Jubilee indulgence must not be separated from the work of preparation, on which s9 much stress has rightly been laid. The practices themselves are, as ~it were, the point of arrival°and ,tOe exte_r.na_l sign of deep renewal of the spirit and reinvigorated love for God and one's brethren. . No.w, ,,the work of renewal and fervor is 'the most valuable part of the Holy Year, because, great as is the value of the indulgence that remits the te.mporal pen,alty in the case of, those who are disposed, the value of the works proposed when their fulfillment leads,to an increase of charity is in-comparably greater (St. Thomas, Supplement to the Theological Summa, q. 25~ 2, 2 and q. 27, 2, 2). ,. 3. We mentioned above--in addition to the proper disposition and the "work" prescribed~what are commonly called "conditions" for gaining the Jubilee indulgence, namely:sacramental confession, eucharistic,communion, and prayer for the intentions of the Holy Father and the Episcopal College. The three "conditions" mentioned above are also required for every other plenary indulgence, with the only difference that the prayer, according to the general norms, is said for the intentions of the Holy Father, while in this circumstance the Holy Father himself (cf. Letter to Cardinal de Ftirs-tenberg, quoted above) has wished to associate the intentions of the Bishops with his own. For the fulfillment of the conditions (cf. Norms, nn. 27, 28 and 29), the following should be noted: " (a) Communion and prayer for the intentions of the Holy Father and of the Episcopal College should be on the same day on which the pilgrimage is made, but they may be before or afterwards. (b) To fulfill the condition of prayer for the intentions of the Holy Father and the Bishops, the faithful may recite a prayer of their own choice. (c) As for sacramental confession, in order to be able to make it un-hurriedly, it can be made even twenty days before or after the pilgrimage. It should also be remembered that confession must be made even by those who do not feel any serious guilt on their conscience; that it is required on the occasion of any plenary indulgence, but even more so for the Jubilee indulgence because of the particular commitment of purification and re-newal that the Holy Year entails. The confession, in fact, if the penitent so desires and the confessor con-s~ ders ~t useful, may ~nclude not only the s~ns since the last good confession, Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 but also the sins of a longer period of time to facilitate a deeper renewal of life. Furtherra~ore, to facilitate the faithful in making their individual con-fession, the recommendation that there should be confessors available "on the days and at the hours established for the convenience of the faithful" (cf. Normae~ pastorales of the S0 Congr. of the Doctrine of the Faith. 16 June 1972, AAS 64, 1972, page 513), is especially applicable for the Holy Year. (d) During .the Holy Year it is also ct~stomary to grant confessors special faculties in order that, if necessary, they"can absolve penitents in some cases, usually "reserved" to higher authority, without the obligation of re-course to the Bishop or to other competent Superior or to the Holy See. During the first phase of the Holy Year, which is celebrated in the vari-ous local Churches, the Bishops can make provision in this regard by grant-ing, at least to the more experienced confessors, the ample faculties at their disposal (cf. M.P. Pastorale munus of 30 November 1963, n. 14: AAS 56, 1964, p. 8). 4. Mention was also made above, in a generic way, of the "norms in force." It will be sufficient to recall here expressly the following two: (a) Every indulgence can" be applied to the dead by way of suffrage (norm 4). (b) The plenary indulgence can be acquired only once a day (norm 24, 1). Religious Life: Style or Culture? Vincent P. Branick, S.M. Father Vincent P. Branick, S.M., teaches Scripture and philosophy at Chaminade College of Honolulu; 3140 Waialae Avenue; Honolulu, Hawaii 96816. Paradoxically, loneliness has appeared most intensely in communities which have accepted in full seriousness the needs of the individual to express and communicate his unique personality. Groups which have sacrificed rich traditions to avoid the suffocation of their members in a mass of impersonal structures, congregations which have radically reformed their rules in quest of a truly personalized life have found their members suffering an over-whelming sense of isolation and lack of social maturity, to the extent of a serious weakening or even destruction of~their religious vocation. The Loss of Religious Culture Obviously, the ideals of personalism governing these reforms are not false. The evident validity of these ideals has led administrators to hold to the reforms in the face of their congregations' equally evident devitaliza-tion and even extinction. The mistake lies not in the ideals but in an un-recognized consequence resulting from an oversimplified pursuit of these ideals, namely, in the loss of religious culture. Many young people who came to religious life with a profound desire to be religious are leaving for the lack of a religious culture in which they could live. Many older religous are retreating into a comfortable bachelorhood for want of a religious cul-ture in which they could grow. What is this missing culture? Culture in General In its fundamental sense, a culture is a milieu or atmosphere in which 29 30 / Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 the human person can express his heartfelt values and through which he can communicate with others about these values. A culture is a consistent pat-tern of practices and manners which specify a shared approach to life, a familiar environment in which an individual finds himself, in which he can feel "at home." This fundamental sense of culture appears most strikingly in the cele-bration of a folk-festival. A nation celebrating itself gathers up its heritage, dances, and contests as a reminder of all that its members have in common. The songs a people sings are truly its songs. These are the songs which its ancestors sang and which likewise catalyzed its ancestors' sense of identity. Through these traditioned customs a nation can celebrate its solidarity in the present and its link to its past. Thus, a folk-festival is not a celebration separated from daily life, but rather an intensification of elements active in a lesser way throughout the daily life of a people, binding a people together. The stranger can visit and enjoy the celebration, but he can never fully par-ti~ ipate in it. He is not of the same culture. Culture as a Social Reality In its more common meaning as a complex of refinements and sensi-bilities, culture is likewise basically a social concept. The "cultivated" per-son is one whose sensibilities have been refined to perceive the beauty of the art and customs of a nation, to understand and use the language and literature that bind a people together, ultimately to understand the languages and customs that bind all men together. The use of such refinement as a device for. mere self-display produces a grotesque caricature, confusing cul-ture. with snobbery. True culture is essentially a social reality. The cultivated person is one who has mastered.the symbols of a society, the symbols which are the means of communication within that scciety. As a social reality, culture is an extension of the human body's ability to symbolize the soul to others. It is an extension produced by a consistent use of many details of life, perhaps insignificant in themselves but very sig-nificant in the pattern they form together. This extension is accomplished with other persons, who together create a circle of common gestures, lan-guage, dress, and other customs, a circle in which each individual feels at home, in which he can express himself and be confident,of understanding, since he is communicating with others in a familiar medium. The N~ed of Every Man for a Culture Every man needs such a culture in which to grow. The man in society needs to feel a certain rhythm about him which he knows and which he can use as a sounding board for his inner life, allowing him to concretize and control that inner life and, above all, to share it with others. Even the her-mit has taken with him his language and his manners which remain at least an unconscious reminder of the people he knows and which .allow him to Religious Li]e: Style or Culture? / 31 express to himself the life he is leading. The man without a culture is the barbarian, the one incapable of using the symbols of communication, the conventions of sharing; thus he is reduced to grunting his basic needs. Far from suppressing individual persons and ideas, the discipline of a culture provides a man with the means of expressing and developing his individuality. The great poets expressed their genius not by creating new and private languages, but by mastering their mother tongues. Perhaps the great attraction of the "hippy culture" was its success in mediating a solidarity and communication among its members. The pattern of the many external, insignificant details permitted one member to talk to another. The long, slightly matted hair, the beard, the colorful but bleached clothes, necessarily frayed at the edges, the beads, and above all, the vocabulary--these details, insignificant in themselves, formed a culture within which one hippy could understand another. The apparent contradic-tion between the hippy ideal of freedom in personal expression, on the one hand, and the strict conformity in dress and hair, on the other, can be un-derstood in the light of the enormous importance such details have when taken together to form a culture. Religious Culture In the same way the person who enters religious life needs a culture, The person who wishes to live his Christian life in intense simplicity and poverty, the person who seeks a prolonged meditative prayer needs a pat-tern of bodily symbols to concretize his aspirations, a sounding board against which he can objectify his ideals. Furthermore, he needs others who share his spiritual values and with whom he can communicate. He thus needs an atmosphere or pattern in which he can develop this life and communicate with others about this life. He needs a religious culture. It is not surprising to find at the historical origin of religious life the practice of spiritual di-rection, the practice of communicating profound religious insights and val-ues, oa practice which gradually of itself expanded into a pattern of religious customs, into a complete religious culture. Loss ~f Culture by Focus on Style Many communities .today have lost this sense of religious culture 'by focusing rather on the question of style. The emphasis on personal style in religious life has had the value of underlining the individual differences in a community, differences which enrich a.community. Yet, in fact, this same emphasis on personal style has broken down much of the consistent re-ligious patterns and symbols in congregationsland, as a result, much of the communication among the members. Diverse individuals and groups, each absorbed in its preferred style, became isolated from each other. Frequently one religious no longer knew if.another possessed the same spiritual sensi-bilities, the same interests, the same background on which communication Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 could be based. The least common denominator in a particular community became less and less. As religious life became a "life style," attention shifted from "life" to "style," and individuals charted their courses alone, away from each other. Presupposed in this pluralistic approach was the belief that each mem-ber of a community could work out his style of life by himself. The man who wished austerity could rise early by himself, eat frugally by himself, and by himself develop a contemplative form of prayer. Supposedly, the others in the same community who did not wish to share this desert could avail themselves of more bourgois amusements. This presupposition, however, neglects man's need for a culture. In effect, this emphasis on style has led to the introduction into the con-gregations of diversities normally holding among congregations. A particu-lar community could find itself composed of austere Trappists, Christian hippies, and mere professional bachelors, each with his own spirituality, each with his own style. Sharing the same province or even living under the same roof, members of communities began to look like strangers to each other. The fundamental element of religious life, spiritual direction, be-came impossible. Prayer life broke down, not through laziness, but through loneliness, through the inability to communicate with others about one's prayer. Formation of recruits became an impossible task, often involving a series of contradictory instructions as a young person passed from the recruiting community, to the novice master, and on through the stages of formation. Rebuilding Religious Culture At present most attempts to rebuild the bond among the members of a community tend in two distinct ways.', the one "theoretical," the other "recreational." The first consists of an attempt to find and concentrate on "the essen-tials." In the face of a bewildering variety of life styles, many communities have sought to articulate the essence of their life, the core reality that every-one could accept, on which everyone could concentrate, allowing then the accidentals to vary according to individual preferences. The theologians were asked to present in clear terms the essence of religious life. General chapters met and held their breath, waiting for this description of the essence. They will probably continue to wait for some time, because the task of articulating the essence of such a concrete and mysterious reality as re-ligious life appears as an impossible job. Whatever "essential trait" is sei~ed upon, whether some particular vow, the three vows, or community life, there appears in history or in the present some obviously religious form of life that flourished or is presently flourishing without it. The appeal to ca-nonical definitions likewise fails to point out an essence of the life, since Religious Li]e: Style or Culture? / 33 these definitions appear more as descriptions after the fact, more as arti-ficially clear and distinct deliniations required for the legal functioning of the Church than as theological penetrations into the fundamental structure of the life. Like peeling away the successive skins to find the onion, the-ologians peeled away the "accidents" but found little left to identify as an essence. The second method of rebuilding the bond among the members of a community is far more down to earth and consists on stressing "the com-mon fun." While awaiting the perfect theology of religious life, people can do something practical. They can recreate together and in that recreation seek to build a community. Such suggestions as "Let's fire the cook and make our own meals together!" or "Everybody in the club room tonight for cocktails!" often clothe desperate attempts to build community. Certainly this effort has served well by focusing on the real need for sim-ple friendliness in communities (to say nothing of the marvelous cooks pro-duced). Yet the idea of common life meant more to the ancients than our attempts at common fun. Such a shallow basis of life does not attract dedi-cated young people. If all they see is this recreational aspect of our lives, they will hardly be convinced to sacrifice spouse and children for a con-viviality that can never approximate the intensity and warmth of a natural family. The community recreation is important, but it can never form the basis of religious common life. The Need to Reestablish a Religious Culture The isolation and loneliness vitiating communities can be overcome only by reestablishing a whole religious culture, a consistent and relatively stable milieu in which religious can feel at home as religious, a pattern of con-crete practices through which one religious can express his deep spiritual values to another. The precise culture will vary with each congregation. Any form, how-ever, will demand certain general lines. First, a religious culture demands an attention to a multitude of accidental details, many of which when taken alone may appear insignificant and even superficial. Neither the cut of the clothes, nor the simplicity in a house, nor the hour of rising appears worthy of an intense crusade. It is useless to seek a rationale directly behind such details, and the temptation exists to peel them away one by one, to peel them away as though from some essential core. Yet insofar as it is a cul-ture, the essence of religious life may be inseparable from the sum total of the "accidents." A religious culture does not stand or fall with any particu-lar detail, but the simple removal of each accidental reduces by that much the identifiability of that culture. Second, any religious culture is necessarily built around the form of prayer of the community, more specifically, around the degree of con-templation a community chooses to practice. A particular type of prayer 34 / Review for Religious, l/olume 33, 1974/1 often requires an ambience, a degree of calm, a type of simplicity regulat-ing the details of the whole day. Conversely, a particular form of contempla-tive prayer colors all else: personal service, the celebration of the Eucharist, professional work. The type and degree of mental prayer is thus a key ele-ment in any religious culture. Third, religious culture, like any culture, requires a willingness of the members to sacrifice personal preferences for the consistency of a com-munity atmosphere, to place a social culture before a personal style. This is not to say that the culture must take the form of some immobile mass of customs. Customs must evolve. As practices no longer serve to communicate the spiritual inspiration of a community, as gestures lose their symbolic values, they should disappear. However, a culture must change as a culture. It must evolve on,the basis of other more stable elements, not on the basis of members darting off in their own directions, according to the demands of personal style. ¯ Within the context of such a religious culture, the search for the essence of religious life can continue, guided not simply by an abstract analysis, but, .more importantly, by a lived contact with the reality. Since religious life is received by man as gift, not produced by him as invention, since the life is fundamentally beyond his natural powers, he will probably never attain that clear insight into the nature of the life that results in a precise defini-tion. Our speech about religious life will probably always be dominated more by poetic intuition than by abstract concept, a poetic intuition that feels at home with small details and operates from a position within the object spoken of. Likewise, the efforts to improve community recreation should have an important part in the building of religious culture. The simple kindness and conviviality of a community recreation can be a powerful expression of the fundamental value of fraternal love, if this expression is part of a greater milieu. Culture and Personal Development Where the individual religious finds a living and consistent culture, there he will find the medium in which to express his unique individuality. In the expressed solidarity of a group, a member has the means of developing a truly personalized life. There he has the means of expressing for himself and for others his unique riches. A culture which involves even many small details will not stifle individuality. As the expression of the spirit, a culture will function as a guide and an agent of personal development. Only a vibrant culture in religious life will dispel the present loneliness. Size and the Cohesiveness of Groups of Religious Sister Jane Marie Kerns, S.H.C.J. Sister Jane Marie is a faculty member of West Catholic Girls High School and,lives at the Convent of the Holy Child Jesus; 4724 Cedar Avenue; Philadelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19143. ~ Six years have passed since the CMSW undertook the monumental study known as the Sisters Survey in an attempt to delve into the thinking and feelings of the religious who participated. Prescinding from the reported findings, one can suspect that even the launching of such a study had value simply as a consciousness-raising device. Foremost among the areas of re-ligious life that came under scrutiny was the, dynamics of group living that we call community life. Explosive--because it is inescapably personal-- and sacrosanct--because it is integral to religious traditions and the essence of religious life as we understand it, the whole topic of group living by re-ligious is subject to biased interpretations. Why? Perhaps just because celibates need so much from community life. Perhaps just because we de, pend so much on life in community to underwrite the whole structure of the social apostolates in which we engage. Perhaps just because an ideal form of community life promises to make tangible and present the kingdom of God toward which we daily strive. Size and Cohesiveness Whatever the reason, there can be no doubt that community is a prime concern among religious and that size as related to cohesion is a pivotal area. In order to bring empirical objectivity into an issue clouded with un-conscious and often conflicting biases, the author undertook a research 35 36 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 project designed to investigate the effects of size on the cohesiveness of groups of religious living together in local communities. By devising a method to quantify the degree of cohesion exhibited through the affective choices made by members of several large and small communities, it was possible to make a comparison based on evidence more objective than opinion and more concrete than theory. Background The CMSW Survey in 1967 showed that 59.7% of the 125,000 sisters who responded to it felt that there was an optimal size of community groups beyond which it would be impossible for members living together to become a community. (Though the Survey did not define the term com-munity, it is patent from much of the literature of the day that sisters under-stand some special sense of fraternity and solidarity or cohesiveness that should be characteristic of the shared life of religious who live together.) Among the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, who were the subjects of the research project on which this article is based, an even greater majority-- 78.2%--concurred in the opinion expressed on the CMSW Survey instru-ment. In subsequent years a plethora of literature praising small group living has led to a general belief among religious in the therapeutic value of the small local community as the preventative for malformation of personality and as a booster shot for personal fulfillment through the healthy human interaction indispensable for strong ego-building? The impetus for the renewal of religious life given by Vatican II in-corporated much that flowed from the best developments of social psy-chology. In this context the drive to revivify the apostolate of the Church required that religious orders of men and women march in tune with the personalism of the culture of which they are a part. Definition of the Problem From this two-pronged incentive of development in the social sciences and updating in the Church, there arose interest in the applicability of many facets of small group research to religious communities. Focusing on the i~ssumptions that in a given group (1) more frequent interaction conse-quent on smaller nfimbers of members tends to produce more cohesive groups and (2) members of a small cohesive group will experience more strong satisfying interpersonal relationships than members of a larger group, the author undertook an empirical study of eleven groups of re-ligious sisters for the purpose of developing an index of cohesiveness that would enable comparisons to be made between larger and smaller groups, 1Gabriel Moran and Maria Harris, Experiences in Community (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968). This is one of many possible examples. Size and the Cohesiveness of Groups of Religious and thus promise an objective test of the hypotheses involved. In brief, those hypotheses state that community size will have a signifi-cant effect both on the number of members with whom one can have good positive relationships and also on the proportionate number of people in community with whom one can have such relationships. Definilion of Key Words Certain key words must be defined in accordance with their use in this ¯ study in order to provide a common working base. The following appear to be most important: 1. cohesion 2. good, positive relationship 3. group--small, large Because of characteristics peculiar to religious orders, the task of defining terms is more complicated than simply borrowing from highly quoted au-thors in the field. A method of definition by distillation was employed in areas where circumstances required. A prime example was the term cohesion. In consulting authors,~ one is confronted with a notion of forces constraining members to remain in the group. But there is nothing in the literature that seems to correspond to the force of perpetual vows which bind the religious to membership in the re-ligious institute and to residence in specific local communities according to the directives from authorities in the order. Two levels of "force" are in-herent in the situation of the religious. One revolves around the strength of his commitment to the religious life itself and the second around the de-gree of commitment with which he engages in the affairs of the local house in which he lives--a commitment arising basically from a sense of duty toward an ideal based outside of the group in which he lives. A third force, distinct from the levels mentioned above, yet probably to some extent conditioned by his whole approach to religious life, is the at-traction that the local community holds for the religious by reason of the rapport he feels with particular members of that given group at any one time. Since all the groups used in this study operate under the same two forces resulting from religious profession in the order, it appears that the third type of force is more germane to our purposes here. Therefore, cohe-sion in this study denoted ". the degree of attachment (involvement, be-longingness, importance) that members have for the group.":' In this con-text then cohesion refers to the obvious capacity of the group to satisfy the ~The writings of men like Cartwright and Zander or Festinger, Schachter, and Back are typical. :~Clovis R. Shepherd, Small Groups: Some Sociological Perspectives (San Francisco: Chandler, 1964), p. 25. 311 / Review [or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 personal needs of its members. It is this connotation that is meant by "strong, satisfying, interpersonal relationships" referred to in the second assumption; and this is the definition of good, positive relationships used in this work. (Though use of the word "friendship" might be a more graceful way of ex-pressing these ideas, its use is being purposefully avoided to.allow for a more open-ended definition of friendship to be employed later in the pre-sentation. ) By small groups, we shall mean groups of between 6 and 11 members and the large groups used in the study ranged from 12 to 29. Procedure The procedure used in the research involved a sociogram-like type of questionnaire in which the respondents were asked to list any number of sisters with whom they had lived during the last year and with whom they would enjoy engaging in a series of activities ranging from purely recrea-tional, to work related, to deeper, more intimate sharing on the religious plane. In every situation the emphasis was on the natural affectivity of one sister for her companions and not any exercise of supernatural charity? Approximately 91% of the sisters responded thus providing the researcher with excellent material from which to construct four measures of cohesion. Three of these stemmed from analysis of who chose whom and how often. By diagrammatically presenting the chain of relationships resulting from tracing the choices of the most frequently chosen individuals as they re-lated to the others in. community, a distance factor was developed. Finally, a study was made of the average number of "good friends" that the sisters INDEX OF COHESION AS DEVELOPED THROUGH THIS STUDY Community z-score corrected distance use of per- average size order ranking z-scores factor sonality votes rank " A 1 1 1 1 1 B 3 2 2 2 2 C 8 3 5 6 6 D 2 5 4 4 3 E 4 7 3 5 4 F 5 6 9 9 7 G 6 4 7 3 5 H 9 10 8 8 l0 I ll 11 6 7 8.5 J 7 8 10 10 8.5 K 10 9 11 11 I1 4For a complete exposition of the steps involved in the research readers are referred to the original work by the author, Sister Jane Marie Kerns, A Quantitative Analysis o[ Size and Cohesion (unpublished M.A. thesis, St. Louis University, 1973). Size and the Cohesiveness oI Groups of Religious / 39 in each house claimed. In this phase of the project each respondent was permitted to define the phrase "good friend" in any way that she felt was adequate and then she was asked to tell how many such "good friends" she had in the~ community in which she lived. Analysis of this section revolved around both the absolute number of good friends claimed and the number proportionate to the size of the community. Interpretation of Results A word of caution is in order here. Before any interpretation of the results can be presented, it must be remembered that this study was de-signed to measure relative cohesion only. It cannot be stretched to comment on disunity, on morale, or on working efficiency of the groups involved; and it must be seen as a measure of natural affectivity--a factor which cannot be assumed to be the dominant motive force for most of the group's activity. This caution is necessary both to maintain a scientific discipline and also to prevent our losing sight of the supernatural aspects of community life that cannot have been explored in this kind of work. Be that as it may, it is still remarkable to notice that the study revealed the presence of no isolates--persons not chosen by any other members of a group--in any of the eleven communities totaling 141 religious. Not only are there no iso-lates, but in actual count there is no, member of any community who was not chosen by at /east 21% of the members of the community who re-plied--- by no fewer than 50% of the members in 7 out of the 1! com-munities. Therefore, it can be insisted that we are justified only in conclud-ing to relatively more or less cohesion but not to any implication of disunity or disaffection. Size as a Significant Factor It can be stated unequivocally that the empirical evidence presented points to size as a significant factor in the study of cohesion. There is every reason to conclude that the smaller, the group, the more the members demonstrate stronger natural choices for a wider segment of the group. But hidden within this general overall conclusion are several important considerations that must be brought to light. Whereas the techniques used here demonstrated the validity of the commonly held belief that small groups tend to be more cohesive, the ques-tion dealing with friendship upset the commonly held expectation that more good friendships are found within small groups and that theoexistence of such friendships is the reason for greater cohesion. From our study the results indicated that such a line o[ r~easoning is faulty. In the first place, smaller houses reported neither a greater number of friendships absolutely nor a greater number proportionately speaking. Hence, friendship and co-hesion are not synonymous nor are they positively related. Rather, it might be concluded that they are alternatives within the group process. 40 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 Two possible lines of thought might be adduced to explain the seeming contradictions posed by the fifth stage of the investigation. First, by de-veloping and combining some of the thought of Simmel~ and of Mancur Olson'~ with regard to small groups, a synthesis can be arrived at which sheds light on the subject. Simmel's contribution springs from his conten-tions that smaller groups have qualities, including types of interaction among their members, which inevitably disappear when the groups grow larger. Olson points to a major difference between large and small groups when he formulates as a principle: ". the larger the group, the less it will further its common interests." Second, by appropriating some of the insights of Sister Joan Michele Rake7 and blending them with the thought of Simmel and Olson, the contradiction of fewer friendships in more cohesive groups is dissolved. Sister Joan Michele draws the boundaries between "engulf-ment" by the community and self-development of the healthy religious who makes good use of the structures of community. Hers is not so much a study of the effect of size but rather a clarification of issues on some of the dynamics at work in any group. The Specifics of Small Groups Consider the relative investment that members of a small group must make in order to obtain the benefits of membership and conversely the mag-nitude of the slack that must be taken up by the remaining members if one member fails to carry his own weight. More specifically, consider the num-ber of functions that must bc performed smoothly if life in the house is to be mutually beneficial. Since the small group enables not only face-to-face rela-tionships but even more importantly, person-to-person contact and consul-tation, many of the decisions reached and the functions implicit in the religious life lived in community are arrived at and disseminated tacitly. For example, each one knows from personal experience that does not need explicitation that communal worship can only be consummated if the com-munity is present and each one knows that in a small house her absence is both noticed and keenly felt. The differential involved is not merely a quan-titative one, but actually a qualitative one. There is a certain unspecified number below which communal worship declines into merely a collection of individuals attending the same liturgical function. And it is this height-ened sense of awareness of the qualitative contribution made by personal participation of each that typifies the small group. Person-to-person contact makes possible agreement--implicit or ex-plicit-- on common goals of a more specific nature than can be formulated '~Kurt H. Wolff, The Sociology o] Georg Simmel (Glencoe: Free Press, 1950), p. 87. ~;Mancur Olson, The Logic o] Collective Action (New York: Schocken, 1968), p. 36. rSister Joan Michele Rake, Friendship in Religious Li]e (unpublished M.A. thesis, Duquesne University, 1969), Chap. 7. Size and the Cohesiveness of Groups o]. Religious / 41 when a larger number of individuals is involved. And converSely, devia-tion from the commonly accepted ideas is more obvious and therefore re-quires more of an expenditure of psychic energy for continued adherence on the part of the deviant and more of an effort on the part of the group as a whole to combat either by modifying the idea or by converting the deviant member. Whether we speak of positive elements that tend to unite or of negative elements that tend to threaten the group's solidarity, there is more immediate response required, a greater expenditure of personal effort on the part of each member in the small group, and a return in the way of benefits of group membership commensurate with the effort expended. The Specifics of Large Groups In the large group the sahae level of return is expected, but the level of expectation of individual participation is lower. Since person-to-person com-munication on. :every issue and between every set of persons is too time-consuming and too indeterminate in the process of seeking consensus, cer-tain abstractions in the form of community mechanisms, offices, and so forth must be established and these become looked upon as the expression of group cohesion that can no longer be immediately and obviously attained. The areas of shared ideas becom6 somewhat more general and, therefore, more readily acceptable to the total group in spite of the greater variety of opinions. In turn these more abstract expressions of relations and more general types of agreements require less commitment on the part of the individual. Though the ideas themselves may be less "radical," less basically rooted in the peculiar characteristics of the group, more generalized, ad-herence to the ideas becomes more radical, more a bare minimum that can-not be sacrificed if group unity is to be maintaini~d. A full complement of the members is not required to constitute a "com-munity presence." Absenteeism is not as noticeable--certainly not as per-tains to the particular individual who is absent, since her personal contribu-tion has in some ways become distanced or formalized in the large group setting. Differences between Small and Large Groups Wha~t results from the above discussion is an argument to the effect that the demonstrably greater cohesion among the small group members results more from a heightened sense of personal investment and personal con-cern, a greater consciousness of the personal element in the affairs of the house, a greater consonance between the individual's own approach to life since his personality enters more fully into the determination of group atti-tudes, a greater sense of the interdependence of the persons in the com-munity in all its affairs---especially because they answer directly to and for each other. In the larger group some degree of personalism is lost as the sheer force of numbers demands some degree of abstraction and the substi- Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 tution of shared symbols that can be immediately present to all when the person-to-person common search for common understanding is not practi-cal, The sense of interdependence is therefore "once removed" with the result that the individual who has to expend less of herself in contributing to and in conforming to more general ideas is then .freer to develop inde-pendently of the group in more areas. Not only is there in larger groups more room for individualism to fluorish and a greater variety of personality types emerging (assuming of course the absence of any rigorous pressure to conform in all respects), but this sharper differentiation among component personalities enables stronger, more particularized dyadic relationships to de-velop out of the shared responses. Hence, we see the application of Simmel's principle that the quantitative increase in size of a group leads to a qualitative differentiation ~on the part of the individuals.8 Simmel holds that an individual tends to maintain a certain balance between the social and the individual aspects of his life. When he is involvi~d in a small group with a high profile for cohesiveness or for strong identity as a group, he has little opportunity to express his own individuality--and little need to do so since there is satisfaction offered in the group. But when he is involved in a larger group with a less ~iell-defined profile, °one that is less consonant with his unique personality since it is necessarily more generalized, he then finds scope--indeed he must--to express his individuality. As the group gains in individuality ~(a situation that pertains to small groups), the individual loses and vice versa. The Question of Friendship Sister Joan Michele believes that wherever the "corporate mentality" is strong among religious--that is, a tendency to look on the group life as an exercise in efficiency--it will be more difficult for 'real friendships to grow. If friendship is ". an encounter between two persons. [which] results in an enduring nonexclusive relation which is lived as a gift of affinity and affection and occasions the autonomous growth of the persons involved,''~ it can only flourish where there is a real encounter of unique personalities --personalities well-developed, mature, sharing a common ground in .their search for truth, and coming, as it were, by chance upoh an unconscious, mysterious affinity that raises comrades, colleagues, and companions. above those levels of association to a new plane that is by no means the necessary consequence of living in community. Precisely what dynamics are generated by the presence of more or fewer dyadic relationships could not be explored in this project since the identity of "good friends" was not revealed; but it has been necessary to digress into these areas ever so slightly, simply to make the point that the cfn-~ 8Wolff, The Sociology o! Simmel, p. 87. '~Rake, Friendship, p. 52. Size and the Cohesiveness of Groups of Religious / 43 clusions reached in this research are quite validly and integrally consistent with the general direction of small group theory. Yet there is real danger that they may lend themselves to simplistic interpretations that do not con-vey the whole picture. The research has confirmed the theory that (1) community size does have a significant effect on the number of members with whom one can have good, positive relationships---both the absolute number and the proportionate number of members; and that (2) the smaller size communities are the ones that exhibit these good, posi-tive relationships more frequently. Equally important, however, are the findings resulting from the question on friendship; namely, the members living in larger groups tend to report both a greater number of "good friends" and to consider a greater proportion of members of the com-munity in the category of "good friends." The above statement when coupled with the theory of writers like Van Kaam, Sister Joan Michele, and even classical authors such as Simmel indi-cates there are ways in which the more cohesive small groups are at the same time more restricted in opportunities for developing friendship and that friendship might actually exist as an alternative to cohesiveness, not as a concomitant element. Practical Conclusions Taking a step beyond the scientifically validated conclusions of the study itself and addressing the practical value of all this for the present-day religious community, there are perhaps two major points to be considered. The first point of practical concern for religious is the importance of the absence of isolates from the communities studied and the commentary this is on the ability of religious who share the overall goals of the religious institute to assimilate members into a community even when religious have no voice in choosing where or with whom they will live. Though this point cannot be pushed beyond the limits mentioned earlier, it can be cited as evidence that the freedom in assigning personnel that has been a plus factor enabling religious groups to function efficiently in the apostolate is not in and of itself incompatible with the desire to provide living condi-tions that foster good interpersonal relationships. The second point to be made is that decisions regarding community size (where circumstances allow for either possibility) might reasonably be made in favor of smaller community groups at a time when the call to re-newal emphasizes our need to search together for a more radical commit-ment to the essence of religious life. If sociologists and psychologists are correct in their assessment of the differential in ability of various size groups to reach consensus at various levels of abstraction, certainly religious would do well to make use of this knowledge in their efforts to re-create 44 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 in the Spirit the shared faith that brought their institutes into being. Further-more, if the members of congregations are appraised of what can and cannot be achieved in groups of various sizes, realistic expectations can constitute solid foundations auguring well for solid progress. Structures of themselves will never cure. But they can facilitate if used wisely, and they can hinder if used poorly or ignored. Size is not of itself a panacea, nor a Pandora's box. Perhaps we have mistakenly held in the past that the same quality of religious life can exist with six or sixty in the community. As we eschew past folly, let us not perpetuate new foolishness by assuming that small size will do more than facilitate the emergence of a faith sharing which will depend for its quality, not on numbers but on the grace of God realized in the lives of those who grow together toward the fulfillment of their covenant with both God and His People. The Liturgy of the Hours in Religious Communities John Allyn Melloh, S.M. Father John Allyn Melloh, S.M., a member of the School of Divinity of St. Louis University, lives at the Marianist Residence; 4528 Maryland Avenue; St. Louis, Missouri 63108. The Liturgy of the Hours should not be looked on as a beautiful monument of a past age, to be preserved almost unchanged in order to excite our admira-tion. On the contrary, it should come to life again with new meaning and grow to become once more the sign of a living community.--The General Instruc-tion on the Liturgy of the Hours, paragraph 273 Reform, renewal, restoration of the liturgy is always one of the paramount concerns of any ecumenical council; Vatican II was no exception. Desirous of "imparting an ever increasing vigor to the Christian life of the faithful" (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, paragraph 1), the Council fathers placed liturgical reform top on the list of their priorities. If the liturgical celebrations of the People of God were to be a "foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims" (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, paragraph 8), then much renewal was needed, lest the pilgrim people of Yahweh seek a new city-~one where celebration was indeed a reality! Restoration of Eucharistic praxis, as well as an updating of other sacra-mental ritual celebrations, was essential for the nourishment of Christian piety and the mediation of the salvific graces to all mankind (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, paragraph 1 !). Equally important for the liturgical life of the ekklesia was the restoration of the Divine Office, the Liturgy of the Hours, the "public prayer of the Church" (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, paragraph 90). In the age of aggiornamento, this "wonderful song 45 46 / Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 of praise" (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, paragraph 84), which had all but entirely disappeared, had to be revived; and a genuine "revival" was needed for the "voice of the bride addressed to her bridegroom" (Constitu-tion on the Sacred Liturgy, paragraph 83) had become mute. This "very prayer which Christ himself, together with his body, addresses to the Father," had become, over the ages, a prayer which Christ, along with a few isolated members--becoming fewer day by day--of His Church addressed to the Father. The opus Dei had become the onus Dei.t General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours Almost ten years later, in February 1971, the Sacred Congregation of Divine Worship issued the General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours. In five chapters, full of good solid Christology, ecclesiology, and spirituality, this document speaks of the Liturgy of the Hours as a viable prayer form for the Church--even in 1973! Perhaps one of the most significant Roman documents issued of late, and certainly the longest and most theological document ever issued on the topic of the Divine Office, the General Instruc-tion makes clear that the intent is the restoration and revitalization of the Liturgy of the Hours. The "ptiblic and communal prayer of the people of God is rightly considered among the first duties of the Church" (General Instruction, paragraph 1), for the ekklesia is most itself, achieves its own special identity, and fulfills its mission when the assembly is together at prayer, especially at liturgical prayer. Vatican II has consciously and firmly asked that~the Liturgy of the Hours once again be prayed, that this prayer form once again be given life by the living People of God--that it may become a living prayer and that the entire Church may "offer praise to God . . . in singing that canticle of praise which is sung throughout all ages in the halls of heaven" (General Instruction, paragraph 16). The New Book of the Liturgy of the Hours A day to be hailed in litui'gical circles was 23 June, 1971, for on that day, L'osservatore romano published Laudis canticum, officially promulgat-ing the new book of the Liturgy of the Hours. The work of Vatican II and its liturgical commission had borne fruit. The new edition of that book once called the "Breviary" had been arranged and prepared in such a way as to encourage the faithful to celebrate the hours. Once again, this necessary complement to Eucharistic worship and sacramental practice was restored so that it would become "the prayer of the whole people of God" (Laudis canticum, L'osservatore romano, page 1 ). At least now there was a chance that should one of the faithful stumble across the Prayer of Christians he might recognize it! In the new edition--albeit interim--of the Liturgy of the Hours genuine reforms were made. Structure of the hours was modified, the cycle of Psalmody changed, intercessor3/prayer introduced--all with a view to pub- The Liturgy of the Hours in Religious Communities / 47 lic celebration of the Hours of Prayer. In its restored form, the Divine Office was to be a "font of piety and nourishment for personal prayer" (Laudis canticum, L'osservatore romano, page 1 ). Toward a Revitalized Celebration The documents of Vatican II, the General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours, Laudis canticum--all ask that the prayer of Christ be con-tinued by the members of His Body; earnestly they request that this prayer of Jesus be continued in the revitalized celebration of the Liturgy of the Hour's. It is in our spatio-temporal matrix that groups of praying men and women can continue this prayer of the Lord who lives ever making inter-cession for us (Heb 7:25). Communal prayer will once again take root in the Church at large, replacing, in part, private prayer, especially that form of private recitation of the Office which is a liturgical anomaly. Once again the Church-united may celebrate the prayer of the Hours "to give Him glorious praise" (Ps 66:2). The General Instruction on the Litu.rgy of the Hours, despite the wealth of genuine theological principles and very fine material for meditative re-flection, is rather weak in detailing how the Liturgy of the Hours may "be celebrated in communities--"celebrated" as opposed to "recited," "said," or "read." In the following pages, it is my intent to ,describe how the Liturgy of the Hours is celebrated in our Marianist community in St.Louis, Missouri; likewise, since Evensong was celebrated each evening at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas, during the. 1973 summer session, using the same format of celebration, I would like to include comments from those who participated in those liturgical celebrations. Morning Praise Matins consecrates to God the first movements of our minds and hearts; no other care should engage us before we have been moved with the thought of God, as it is written, "I thought of God and sighed" (Ps 76:4), nor should the body undertake any work before we have done what is said, "I say this prayer to you, Lord, for at daybreak you listen for my voice; and at dawn I hold myself in readiness for you, I watch for you" (Ps 5:4-5).--The General Instruction on the Liturgy o] the Hours, paragraph 38; quotation from St. Basil Morning itself conveys the notion of rebirth and renewal; the gift of God--a new day to be lived out in Christ--stirs the soul of the Christian to prais.e and to supplicationl The character of the Morning Office quite naturally becomes an act of dedication, of preparation, of offering the first fruits of the day's labor to the Lord, in the hope that the entire day will be pleasing in His sight. As Morning Praise is celebrated in our community, a vested celebrant enters the chapel and greets the community after reverencing the altar. A Morning Hymn is sung; this hymn thematically recalls the symbol of God who is light (1 Jn 1:5) and of Christ who is the Sun of Justice (Mal 4:2). Review for Religious, I"olume 33, 1974/1 Praise and thanksgiving for light--both natural and supernatural-colors the sung praise of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A redeemed people, brought from darkness to the kingdom of God's beloved Son (Col l:13), from darkness of idolatry to the light of the Gospel, we praise our God for crea-tion, for redemption--for the light of day and the light of Christ. A brief penitential rite--an offering of incense--follows the hymn. During the incensation of the standing community, Psalm 51 or 63 is sung. St. Basil explains: "When day is breaking, all together, as from one heart, sing the Psalm of confession [Ps 51] to the Lord, each one making his own these words of repentance." John Chrysostom points out that Psalm 63, an ardent cry of longing for the Lord, is also a Psalm of purification, giving voice to the Christian's awareness of his weakness and need for the loving mercy of the Lord. A collect concludes this brief prayer for purification and readies the community for the celebration of the Word of God. The community is seated during the singing of the morning Psalmody. Psalms of praise, especially the traditional morning Psalms 148 through 150, are used. Ordinarily, only one Psalm is sung and the usual mode of singing is responsorial. Psalms are chosen according to themes well suited for a morning prayer. A significant pause for silent prayer follows the singing of the Psalmody. An appropriate Psalter collect, stressing praise of the beneficent God, concludes the sung Psalmody. An adequate rhythm of community prayer is enhanced through the use of lectio continua in Morning Praise. Especially appropriate are Old Testa-ment selections; since the Epistles and Gospels are proclaimed during the celebration of Evensong or the Eucharist. The choice of readings varies with the Church year. After a period of silence of several minutes, all stand for the singing of the Gospel Canticle of Zachary, which accompanies the offering of incense. As a symbol of intercessory prayer "going up" in the Lord's sight (Rev 8:3-4)--a survival of the Temple usages described in Exodus 29 and 30-- the offering of incense is made at the altar, which is then incensed. Intercessory prayer is generally a brief morning litany which concen-trates on themes of renewal, dedication for the work of the day, prayer for God's continual blessing throughout the day. Usually the prayer is sung; and on penitential days the community kneels for this prayer, which is con-cluded by an appropriate collect. The Lord's Prayer, which Tertullian has called the "epitome of the Gospel itself," that eschatological prayer which stresses the primacy of the kingdom and the life of those living in it, can be considered the climax of the Office. The prayer is always sung and the congregation prays it in the usual orans position. A blessing concludes the Morning Office--the prayer of praise of God, of thanksgiving for creation and redemption, and of ardent desire for the life of the Kingdom. The Liturgy of the Hours in Religious Communities / 49 Evensong Our fathers did not think it right to receive the blessing of evening light in silence. Rather, the moment it appeared, they would praise and thank God for it.--St. Basil, Treatise on the Holy Spirit As day is drawing to a close and the evening is upon us, the Christian community gathers to give thanks "for what has been given us during the day, or for the things we have done well during it" (St. Basil, Regulae fusius tractatae, Resp. 37, 3; PG 31, 1015). With an evening light service, the celebration of Evensong commences. To the proclamation: Jesus Christ is the Light of the world! intoned by a vested deacon, the congregation responds: A Light that no darkness can extinguish! During the ceremonial illumination of the church, the lighting of the candles and the lighting of the chapel lights, an evening hymn is sung. Ordinarily the Phos Hilaron is sung in one of its several settings, or another appropriate evening hymn, stressing the theme of Christ our Light, is sung. A diaconal proclamation, an act of thanksgiving for the blessings of light and an act of praise of God, concludes the light service. An evening act of contrition, an offering of incense, follows; and Psalm 141, "The Psalm at the kindling of lights," accompanies the liberal incensa-tion of the community. This offering of incense, an atonement symbol (Num 17:11-3), is a purificatory action. It should help the Christian com-munity recall the "sweet odor of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor 2:14-6) and be a symbol expressive of that saving blood of the Lamb who ever lives to make intercession for us (Heb 7:25). An appropriate Psalter collect is a conclu-sion to this ritual action. Evening Psalmody is sung responsorially. Ordinarily only one Psalm, in addition to Psalm 141, is sung in the evening. Evening themes of thanks-giving for the blessings of the day and repentance for inevitable daily failings can be found in the Psalter. Such Psalms are appropriate for the evening Office. A period of meditative silence of significant length follows the sing-ing, and this period of prayer is concluded with the praying of a collect. The reading from Scripture is taken from the cycle of readings in the new lectionary. Customarily, Epistle and/or Gospel readings are used in the evening. A homily is preached when Evensong is celebrated immediately preceding the community evening dinner. The period of meditative silence is broken by the singing of the Gospel Canticle of the Virgin Mary which accompanies the offering of incense. In line with the use of incense as a symbol of intercessory prayer, the altar is honored with incense to affirm our belief and real participation in the com-munion of saints (Rev 8:3-4). Gospel Canticles, reverenced as the good news of salvation, are always sung standing. A fundamental part of Christian prayer, intercession for the universal needs of the Church and the world, is offered, following the urgings of Paul (1 Tim 2:1-4). The traditional Byzantine Litany of Peace is often 50 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 sung as one form of intercessory prayer. Other litanies are also used. One of the most famous and popular of the Eastern hymns is the Tri-sagion, which came into wide usage after the Council of Chalcedon in the fifth century. A hymn of Trinitarian praise and thanksgiving as used with the doxology, it is a fitting introduction to the prayer given us by Jesus. It is essentially of the same prayer style of praise and thanksgiving as we find in the prayer given by Jesus and as such it is a beautiful sung introduc-tion. Expressing an ardent desire for the coming of the kingdom and a solemn plea for the forgiveness of sin and genuine fraternal reconciliation, the Lord's Prayer is a most fitting conclusion to the Christian Office. A solemn blessing, most often tripartite in form, is the dismissal of the community, an invocation of the power of God upon the assembly and a petition for the mercy and loving kindness of the Almighty Lord in whose name we have gathered. At times, the Kiss of Peace is exchanged at the conclusion of Evensong, as a symbol of the peace of the kingdom, that peace which alone can be given by the Lord of that dominion. ' Resurrection Vigil of the Lord's Day Come,O faithful: let us drink a new drink, produced miraculously not from a barren rock, but springing from the tomb which is a fountain of immortality: the tomb of Christ by which we are strengthened. Glory to your holy resurrection, O Lord! Today the whole creation, he~iven and earth and the deepest abysses of the earth are filled with joy. Let the whole universe celebrate the resurrection by which we are strengthened. Glory to your holy resurrection, O Lord! Yesterday I was buried with You, O Christ! Today I rise with You in your resurrection. Yesterday I was crucified with you: glorify me with you in your kingdom. Glory to your holy resurrection, O Lord! Christ is risen from the dead! He has crushed death by his death and bestowed life upon those who lay in the tomb. Glory to your holy resurrection, O Lord! Jesus is risen indeed, as He had foretold: He has given us eternal life and abundant mercy.--Third Ode, Easter Canon of John of Damascus Byzantine Daily Worship, Easter Sunday, page 849 These words contain the spirit of unrestrained joy of the Christian who encounters the Paschal Mystery of the Lord Jesus. The sense of triumph, of joy, of exultation, and of hope permeate this entire text. While the vigil of the Easter celebration of the resurrection is truly "Mother of all Vigils," nevertheless a weekly commemoration of the Pascha of the Lord is in the mainline tradition of the Church. The celebration of the Resurrection vigil of the Lord's Day, which takes place at eleven o'clock Saturday evening, is a wonderful preparation for the Eucharistic Banquet of the Lord's Day. It is a rich and deep experi-ence of the mystery of the passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord and The Liturgy o] the Hours in Religious Communities / 51 Savior Jesus Christ, celebrated communally with hymnody, Psalmody, and readings. The Night Watch, that time when we gather as a community, to recall the resurrection of Jesus and to pray for His glorious return, is a service of the Word celebrated with grandeur. The chapel is in darkness awaiting the appearance of the New Light. A vested presbyter and vested deacon enter, bearing the lighted Paschal Candle. The diaconal proclamation of Christ as the Light of the World begins the celebration, and the ceremonial illumina-tion of the church is accompanied by the singing of the Phos Hilaron. A Byzantine setting of Radiant Light, arranged for three-part singing, is a magnificent hymn of light praising Father,' Son, and Holy Spirit. The Paschal Candle is honored with incense during the singing. The deacon sings Hip-polytus' Easter Hymn or the Paschal Praeconium, giving voice to the joyful thanksgiving of the Christian assembly. The singing of Psalm 141, with its accompanying offering of incense, is polyphonic. While this ritual action is an evening act of contrition, it is nevertheless a joy-filled, because confident, plea for the loving kindness of the Lord who always awaits with eagerness the return of those who have been unfaithful. Concluding this action of repentance is an appropriate collect. At times the singing of Psalm 141 is omitted in favor of using a differ-ent Psalm, one with Paschal overtones. The second Psalm, sung respon-sorially, takes on a Paschal character through the use of alleluia antiphons. The great cry "Alleluia" re-echoes in the hearts of those who have experi-enced the risen Lord and Psalms of praise express the gratitude of the as-sembly for the Great Passage of the Lord. One of the charismatic speeches recorded in Acts with a sung respon-sorial Psalm or an appropriate patristic reading is the First Lesson, followed by a distinct pause for reflection on and assimilation of the text. The Gospel Alleluia is intoned as the Book of Gbspels is incensed. The account of the Resurrection is sung by the d

Issue 28.5 of the Review for Religious, 1969. ; ASSOCIATE EDITORS Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Augustine G. Ellard. S.J. ASSISTANT EDITOR John L. Treloar, S.J. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS EDITOR Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Correspondence with the editor, the associate editors, and the assistant editor, as well as books for review, should be sent to REVIEW VOR R~Joxous; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 63to3. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106. + + + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Edited with eccleslastmal appro~ d by faculty members of the School of Divinity of Saint Louts Umverslty, the editorial olhces being located at 612 Humboldt Building, 539 North Grand Boulevard, Same Louts, ~dlssouri 63103. Owned by the Missouri Province Edu-cational Institute. Published bimonthly and copyright t~) 1969by REVIEW roa REt.lmo~s at 428 East Preston Street; Baltimore, Mars-land 21202. Printed in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at Baltimore, Maryland and at additional mailing offices. Single copies $1.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada $5.00 a year, $9.00 for two years; other countries: $5.50 a year, $10.00 for two years Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money orderpaya-hie to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in LI.S.A currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REview vor~ RELIGIOL$ Change of address requests should include former address. Renewals and new subscriptions, where accom-panied by a remittance, should be sent to REvlF.w vo~ RELInIot~s; P. O. Box 671; Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Changes of address, business correspondence, and orders not accompanied by a remittance should be sent to REvIEw FOR RELIGIOUS; 428 East Preston Street; Baltimore, Maryland 21202. Manuscripts, editorial cor-respondence, and books for review should be sent to R~vmw FOrt RE~.IoIot:s; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard, Saint Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to the address of the Questions and Answers editor. SEPTEMBER 1969 VOLUME 28 NUMBER 5 JOHN CARROLL FUTRELL, S.J. Some Reflections on the Religious Life It is no secret that today many religious are under-going a painful identity crisis. Participating in the con-fusion that always accompanies dramatic change in cul-tural patterns (complicated by the extreme rapidity of this change in our modern world), religious are further troubled by the problems posed very existentially to them in their effort to obey the call of Vatican II to renew their authentic living of the gospel pattern ac-cording to the original inspiration of their founder and to adapt their way of living to the signs of the times. The breakdown of external structures which in the past had supported their interior commitment, the loss of comforting customs which had provided a kind of.touch-stone of authenticity (however formalized one felt them to be), the disconcerting shift of attitudes toward the place of the religious life within the Church, the value placed upon active insertion into a secularized world, the challenges to faith itself posed by new theological and liturgical languages and symbols--all of these fac-tors together have brought up in' the minds of many religious agonizing questions concerning the value and even the validity of their lives. A basic question that is often repeated is whether it is possible to specifically distinguish religious life from lay life as a Christian. Having grown up in a culture that took it for granted that the religious life was the "way of perfection" and a "higher" or "better" form of Christian living and, perhaps, having included this idea within the complex of personal motives for following the vocation to the religious life, some re-ligious feel lost and without identity in a world where such abstract and tendentious comparisons are no longer significant. Members of various religious congregations wonder whether there is anything really meaningful in their specific vocation. A divisive and potentially death- 'dealing polarization develops in some communities be- John Carroll Futrell, S.J., is a faculty member of St. Louis University Divinity School; 220 North Spring Ave-nue; St. Louis, Mis-souri 63108. VOL~UME 28, 1969 705 + ÷ ÷ ~lohn Carroll Futrell, $.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS tween those who cling for personal survival to old structures of living, praying, and working, and those who are impatient to reject all that has gone before and to embrace all that is new simply because it is new. The following reflections are addressed to only some aspects of these difficult problems. Much time and prayer Will be needed before effective solutions are found to .them. Nevertheless, it is important that religious do reflect upon them and that they share their reflections with one another in an effort to discern what God is asking of us as religious in our own times. What is offered in the following pages, then, are some reflections, firstly, on the meaning of Christian spirituality in it-self-- whether lived by laymen or by religious; then, on the accurate location of the difference between lay life and religious life; and, finally, on the religious life as institutionalized in the Church and on the function of community structures within religious congregations. A Christian is a person whose life in the world derives its meaning from his faith in Jesus Christ encountered in His Church--who discovers in Jesus Christ God re-vealing Himself to man, judging and freeing us by the cross and resurrection of Christ, and sending His Spirit to enable us to share now and forever in the divine life of the Trinitarian community of love. Ad-herence to a creed of truths, following a moral code, commitment to living out certain religious values: all these are consequences of the basic faith experience of the person of Jesus Christ. A person who merely in-tellectually assents to propositions or who merely decides to espouse certain humanitarian values derived from the gospel is not truly a Christian unless these positions are expressions of his commitment in faith to Jesus Christ and of his belief in the good news which Christ proclaimed. When this faith in Jesus Christ is freely and de-cisively assumed as personal commitment by a person (and not merely as a sociological fact of "religion" in his life), this is the result of a personal experience of the person of Jesus Christ. That is to say, the individual recognizes in the divine revelation in Christ, witnessed to by the Apostles and handed down by the Church, the identification of the universal experience of the trans-cendent- the unknown God obscurely encountered in the openness of the human spirit to the mysterious Absolute. In spite of all the various scientific, philo-sophical, psychological, and magical efforts to explain away this experience, it remains real and undeniable in the self-awareness of human beings who have achieved a certain level of consciousness. Indeed, most children seem to have a real experience of God when they are very young. Wordsworth wrote reams of poetry testifying to this. Teilhard de Chardin has written eloquently of the growth of his experience in The Divine Milieu and has pointed out the errors into which men have fallen "in their attempts to place or even to name the uni-versal Smile" (Torch Books, p. 129). Contact with the Other who makes us feel his presence-in-absence in this experience has been the underlying goal of all the great world religions--and of the psychedelic games of today. The Christian is the person who recognizes in Jesus Christ the face of God: "I am in the Father and the Father is in me." Christian faith experience, then, is the consciousness ¯ of recognition: a recognition of the one true God ex-perienced in one's own interior experience of fulfill-ment, of completion, of "coming home" in faith in Jesus Christ; a recognition experienced also in seeing the lives of Christians who embody the word proclaimed by the Church, in the word of Scripture, in the break-ing of the Eucharistic bread, and progressively in one's own experience of new manhood through lived faith. Faith is certitude derived from the authenticity of witness---of signs--and experienced through living it. It is vital to recognize the particular form of certitude had in faith. It is the certitude of experiential experi-ence, the certitude that comes from fully experienced living. This is the highest form of practical certitude enjoyed by human beings, the form of certitude upon which we base our actual living. It has been well said that "theory is good, but it does not excuse you from living." Men do not guide their lives by the coherent symmetry of logical theories but by the practical under-standing that comes from the certitude of lived ex-perience. For example, the only way that I know that another person really loves me is by faith certitude. I cannot "get into the skin of another," cannot share the unique and incommunicable act of self-awareness within which the other freely determines his relation-ships to all that is exterior to himself---including me. My assurance that he does indeed love me can be based only on signs--words, gestures, all the human modes of non-verbal communication, actions of self-giving, and so forth. Yet, I can come to the greatest certitude of his love because of my lived experience of it. The certitude of faith in Jesus Christ, then, is the certitude of lived experience. It is faith--not the knowl-edge derived from empirical experience of the senses or of microscopes or test tubes, not the knowledge result-ing from the logical necessity of a syllogism, but faith + + 4. VOLUME 28, '1969 707 John Futrell, $.]. REV]EW FOR RELIGIOUS in witness and signs authenticated in the living per-sonal experience of God in the person of Jesus Christ risen and living in His Church. The experience of God is always the experience of presence-in-absence, just as is the experience of personal relationship with any person. Because another person is constituted in his selfhood by his unique self-aware-ness, there always remains a new depth of his person to be penetrated, a further horizon of mutual knowledge and love to beckon us onward. The greatest degree of union and love we reach in our mutual presence always opens outwards to a new profundity yet to be sought --the fascinating and wonderful absence discovered in mutual presence which makes personal relationship a dynamic always growing life and not a gtatic, finished work. Our personal relationship with God in prayer is characterized by this same presence-in-absence, this same experienced love and union, this same certitude of something being lived. Indeed, even our self-awareness is marked by presence-in-absence. The only "I" that I am is the self of the present moment summing up all my past history and straining towards my future self-actualization. But I never grasp this present of myself: it slips into my past even as I try to focus upon it. I know the present, my present, only in the lived experieuce of a unique kind of actuality, of plenitude, of density and richness. I know myself with certitude as presence-in-absence. In the lived experience of God as presence-in-absence in prayer, there is a similar plenitude, richness, density, actuality; and in opening ourselves to welcome God in this experience, we are conscious of a profound tran-quillity, peace, calm--a recognition of "rightness," of our authentic, fulfilled selves. It is this primordial ex-perience of peace in absolute openness to God, in total responsiveness to His word, which, is the touchstone of all future discernment of specific response to a specific divine call in a here and now situation. This experi-enced certitude of lived faith is discovered through the authentic testimony of witnesses who embody the word for us, and it is grasped in our own act of faith because of the signs manifested by these witnesses. This certitude grows progressively stronger as we have the living experience of our own faith, until our faith in God in Jesus Christ becomes the greatest certitude of our lives, a certitude daily renewed and accomplished anew everyday, just as is our love of another. On the other hand, it is important to notice the es-sential difference between the experience of personal relations with other human persons and with God in Christ. Another human is bodily present to me and his body mediates his interiority to me. God is not bodily present to me nor is the risen Christ in His human body. I cannot affirm the existence of God as the basis of the experience of his presence-in-absence as I can affirm the existence of another man. Even philosophical demonstrations of the existence of God, while they may be perfectly valid, do not give me God as the object of interior experience. For this reason, even the greatest mystics have always testified that they never felt that their interior experi-ence placed them outside the domain of faith. It is al-ways by faith, which is essentially a divine gift originat-ing from a gracious divine initiative, that we come to realize our experience of God in Christ. The Christian life, then, is a faith--a life of faith. No matter how we analyze the spiritual life according to human scien-tific categories, the object of our experience never leaves the realm of faith. That is why divine revelation in the Bible in no way claims to be a theory of our relations with God. On the contrary, it is the history of this relation which is there taught. And it is fundamental that the origin of our existence and of our reIationship with God is His divine initiative, that the beginning of this history is divine. This fact exactly situates the continuing relationship between God and us: every-thing depends upon His divine initiative. Faith is al-ways a gift. To be a Christian, then, means to live a life grounded in the personal faith experience of God in Jesus Christ. Now, human beings first experience--first live, and only thereafter do they seek to express their experiences and to reflect upon them. It is vital, therefore, to dis-tinguish the lived experience from its expression and from theoretical reflection upon this expression. In the life of the Church, lived Christian experience, the living tradition of the Christ-event as experienced by the community of believers, is primordial. The expressions of this experience at various historical and cultural epochs during the last two thousand years are only temporally conditioned, relative expressions of this ex-perience. The role of theology within the Church is always the re-expression and the re-interpretation of this primordial Christian experience in contemporary language, contemporary conceptual structures, contem-porary cultural contexts. What is essential is always authentically to preserve spiritual continuity across rad-ical cultural discontinuity. Similarly, the faith experience of an individual Chris-tian, beginning with his earliest experiences of God as a child, are necessarily conditioned in their relative expression by the language, the. symbols, the images ÷ ÷ ÷ Religious Li]e VOLUME 28, 1969 709 John Carroll REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ~10 available to him at a given age and stage of maturity. As he grows humanly and intellectually and rejects the anthropomorphic images of early childhood, such as God the kind grandaddy with a long beard, or the romantic idealizations of adolescence (which were the only modes of expression then available to him), he must not at the same time reject his certitude of the lived experience of God. All the great masters of prayer testify that prayer becomes progressively simpler, more and more leaning upon bare faith, less and less at-tached to a series of concepts or emotions. This is because one is entering more profoundly into the density and richness of God's presence-in-absence, into the lived experience of personal union with God in Christ which is beyond expression and theorizing. There is no greater certitude in life than this lived experience of God. The individual Christian, too, must preserve au-thentic spiritual continuity across the radical discon-tinuity of his language and images and symbols as he grOWS. Now, the Christian, having found the meaning of his life in the world in his faith in Jesus Christ, must live this faith in all the situations of his daily life. He must witness to his faith by a Christian style of life, a Christian spirituality. This is always true of all Chris-tians, even though the concrete expressions of this life style are relative to the historical and cultural context and the concrete situations within which Christianity is being lived. The essential elements of Christian spirituality are always the same: living out Christ's great command-ment of love according ~o the general norms He enunci-ated in the Beatitudes and exemplified in His life. How-ever, these essential elements will be expressed in different ways discerned by prophetically interpreting ex-istential situations, that is to say, by prayerfully reflect-ing upon the challenges posed by the signs of the times in the light of the gospel, in order to recognize and respond to God's word here and now. It is through listening to the world--the existential word of God--- and at the same time listening to the Spirit--the pro-phetic word of God in Christ in the Church and in the individual Christian--that through a continuing dia-lectic the Christian discerns how to live his Christian faith here and now. He confirms the validity of the decision arrived at through this discernment by com-paring his inner experience of peace and tranquillity in this specific choice with the peace and tranquillity enjoyed in his primordial experience of openness and surrender to God in Christ. All Christians are called to this essential Christian spirituality. In living their discerned life style, all Chris-tians must witness to both the incarnational and the eschatological aspects of the Christ life which animates the Church: the presence of the Spirit of the risen Christ in His Church renewing tile earth by unifying mankind and transforming the universe--building the earth to its fulfillment in Christ-Pleroma; and also the Christian hope in Christ who is to come in the final accomplish-ment of the kingdom of God in the Parousia. All Chris-tians must express the "cosmological" love of God im-manent in the ongoing new creation accomplished by the Spirit of Christ through the efforts of men in the history of the world; and all must express the "trans-cendent" love of God the absolute future of man--the Father who is known only in Christ, the Trinitarian community of love which will be shared perfectly by men in their union with one another and with the Father in Christ through the Spirit when Christ comes again. The manner in which individual Christians are to express ,this twofold Christian love is discerned in the here and now situation of their own historical and cultural context. This individual expression takes place within the community of Christians and is grounded in the initiative that comes from God: different gifts, dif-ferent charisms, different divine initiatives, different calls--all for the service of the entire People of God, all ordered to the community expression of the Christ life in the world and to the embodiment of the two aspects of Christian love. II Essentially, then, there is only one Christian spirit-ualitv, always aimed at the full possession of all men b~ tl~e Father through Christ in the Spirit. This is true because there is only one essential Christian vision of the meaning of life in the world, a vision based upon the faith experience of God revealing Himself to men in Christ through the Spirit living in the Church. The differences in the manner of living out this one spirituality originate in the various expressions of this spirituality determined by historical and cultural con-texts and, also, in the different charisms given by the Holy Spirit to individual Christians to enable them to serve the Church in specific ways. The distinctive func-tions within the Church of bishops, priests, religious, and laymen are grounded in these different charisms. The distinctive styles of life or spiritualities observable in the lives of married persons and religious are simply distinctive ways of living the one Christian spirituality ÷ VOLUME 28, 1969 ~ohn Carroll ~ Futrell, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS which must he fully expressed by the whole Church as a community. For instance, an essential element in the one spirit-uality of all Christians is evangelical poverty in its root meaning of an attitude (a beatitudel) of anawim: aware-ness of man's dependence upon God in Christ resulting in single-hearted seeking of God and issuing in acts of peacemaking and of mercy towards others. This attitude must be embodied by all Christians in lives showing forth the two-fold incarnational and eschato-logical Christian love. Living as anawim according to the Beatitudes, all Christians often will discern the call to acts of renunciation of real human values in order to be true to their faith in Christ; and these actions will witness not only to their faith in the risen Christ present in the Church and renewing creation here and now, but also to their eternal hope in Him who is to come in the final fulfillment of the kingdom--their existen-tial acknowledgment of God as the absolute future of man in Christ. The vowed evangelical poverty and chastity and obedience of Christians who are called to the religious life, then, is not the only way to practice or to express the eschatological aspect of Christian love. Neverthe-less, the life of the vows is the only way to manifest this aspect through the signification of an entire life to bear permanent, visible witness to it in the world. Any Christian living out his Christianity authentically .is called upon in many ways to renounce various goods and values in order to take up his cross and follow Jesus. Think of men and women who in order to fulfill their vocation in the sacrament of marriage or as parents or as truly just and loving neighbors to other men are challenged to sacrifice desirable goods and values for the sake of fidelity to Christ in their daily lives. Never-theless, the overall, visible style of li[e of the l~y Christian in its permanent life pattern manifests above all the aspect of Christian love in the Church which is to work in the world in order to transform it in Christ, continuing the incarnation of Christ by building the earth. Although this Christian lay life includes and, when necessary, expresses the eschatological aspect of the Church, it shows forth in its basic dynamism the in-carnational aspect. On the .other hand, a religious in his actual work of serving the Church normally is equally engaged in the ,work of building up Christ in mankind and in the world. He too lives and expresses the incarnational as-pect to the Church. But by the public foregoing of the 'high, positive, human values renounced through his vows, the total meaning of the being-in-the-world of the religious becomes the tangible insertion into this incarnational dynamism of the eschatological aspect which is visibly manifested through the overall, perma-nent pattern of life according to the evangelical coun-sels. To make permanently visible to men this eschato-logical dimension of the Church is the specific meaning of the religious life as a distinctive way of living Christianity. As Karl Rahner has pointed out, that which con-stitutes the unique signification of the vowed evangelical counsels in the religious life is that this is the perma-nent foregoing of high, positive, human values for the sake of a value which cannot be the object of a direct experience, a value which necessarily must be believed in and hoped [or. By their vows religious abandon a possible experience in favor of a value that is now possessed only in faith and hope. That is to say, it is possible for me to have the experience of possessing the results of my work, of having a wife and children, of exercising my own autonomy of choice; but I possess the value of the fulfillment of the kingdom now only in my faith and hope in Christ who is to come. The re-nunciation of the vows is a visible manifestation of permanent and absolute openness to God's future for man in Christ. This renunciation, therefore, is the visible expression and the continual realization of love for God much more in the eschatological dimension of this love than in its terrestrial or incarnational dimen-sion. Even the unbeliever must recognize the meaning of a gesture of faith and hope and love which is the perma-nent renunciation of these positive human, values through the vows. For example, a man in vowing chas-tity "puts his body on the line" until death because of his faith and hope and love of Christ who is to come, and thereby he visibly witnesses in a most striking way to this faith and hope and love. One can believe that this faith and hope and love is absurd, but one cannot deny its depth in the People of God among whom it can call forth such a visible testimony. All Christians, then,--religious and lay--must live both incarnational and eschatological love. But the over-all pattern and significance of the Christian lay vocation is visible witness to the incarnational aspect of the Church, while the overall pattern and significance of the religious life of the vowed evangelical counsels is visible witness to the eschatological aspect. The distinction between lay life and religious life in the Church, therefore, is not to be sought in a difference of the basic Christian vision o~ of the essential Christian spirituality. The distinction is. to be sought, 4. VOLUME 28a 1969 ÷ John Carroll Futrell, SJ. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS rather, in the variety of charisms and the different modes of response to the divine initiative. The difference arises from distinctive ways of living the one Christian life, that is, particular ways of responding to and of ex-pressing the love of God through following Christ within a permanent life pattern having a specifically different, total, overall signification than do other particular ways of living Christianity. Whatever might be concluded through theoretical discussions based upon various hier-archical models, there can be no question in the real order of one Christian way of life being "higher" or "better" than another. It is a question rather of a charism, of the divine initiative and authentic response to it which can only be the "best" for the individual person responding to God's call to him. III A community of persons has a history, just as does an individual person. In the history of the community of Christian believers, the Church, there has been from the beginning an evolution of "structured" charisms, dis-cerned by the community as authentic responses to the divine initiative for service of the People of God. These structured charisms have been lived by groups of in-dividuals who have been given these charisms, organiz-ing themselves into institutionalized communities for service of the Church through lives devoted primarily either to prayer, to spiritual or corporal works of mercy, or to apostolic mission. In this way, the religious life developed as a distinctive, institutionalized way of liv-ing Christianity, eventually having its own juridical description in canon law. From the groups congregat-ing around St. Antony in the desert to the official recognition of secular institutes in 1948, this evolution has continued (as it still does) in the response of Chris-tians to divine initiatives within diverse historical and cultural contexts. A Christian who discerns that he has been given the charism of service of the Church in the religious life enters into the institutional structure of this charism by public, vowed commitment to the three evangelical counsels, declared to the whole People of God repre-sented by the one who in the name of the Church re-ceives the vows. By so doing, this Christian establishes himself in a permanent, distinctive life style which has a special and unique force as a sign of one aspect of the one spirituality of the entire Christian commu-nity. His response to the divine initiative is, therefore, his acceptance of the charism of his vocation. The personal experience of Jesus Christ is the basis of all Christian faith. When this experience is char- acterized by certain qualities, the result is that one is simply impelled to give his whole life and all his love to Jesus Christ through living the vowed evangelical counsels. Depending upon certain other characteristics of this personal experience of Jesus Ctirist, one feels simply impelled to consecrate all his life and energy to prayer for the People of God in the contemplative life or to their active service and to helping other persons to share this faith experience of Jesus Christ through apostolic mission. This Christian's whole life as a re-ligious is grounded in this faith experience; and it depends for its growth and depth and permanence upon the growth and depth and permanence of his personal relationship to Jesus Christ in love. The original charism must come to its complete fulfillment. The individual choice to live the religious life in one specific religious community rather than another is the result of the judgment that one's own response to the divine initiative discerned in the charism of his vocation can be best embodied in this specific community voca-tion. He discovers his personal identity as a Christian person precisely in the community identity of this re-ligious order or congregation. The community identity of a given religious congre-gation is rooted in the original inspiration of the founder(s), the basic vision of a particular way of follow-ing Christ, which underlies all the different techniques devised to try to live out this vision within different historical and cultural contexts. Where, as in many apostolic congregations, the basic vision of various com-mumtles as similar or even identical, the specific differ-ence of these congregations arises from their particular approach to service or mission and from the history of each congregation in living out the basic vision. The history of an institution progressively charac-terizes this institution in its identity, just as the personal history of a man characterizes his identity. A man of forty carries with him the accumulated characteristics oflhis own personal evolution. His face and body and psychology are marked by specific traits by which he identifies himself to himself and by which other people identify him. This is equally true of different religious congregations. That which is essential today, then, in order to ac-complish authentic renewal of religious congregations is to truly discover the original inspiration of the founder, the basic vision, the radical intention neces-sarily expressed by the founder in the language (images, symbols, gestures, practices, ways of action) of his own historical and cultural context. 0nly when this basic vision is clear is it possible to discern how to express it ÷ ÷ ÷ Religious Li~e VOLUME 28~ 1969 ÷ ÷ ÷ John Carroll Futrell, S.~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS authentically in the new language imposed upon us by the signs of our times: to preserve spiritual con-tinuity across cultural discontinuity. Furthermore, since there is no infallible guarantee of the permanent worth of this basic vision, and since charisms can be given for time-conditioned service of the People of God, it must be discerned whether or not the basic vision and, so, the existence of a given religious congregation is still valid and valuable in the ongoing life of the Church. When it is discerned that a religious congregation can still make a real contribution to the life and mission of the Church, then courageous and loyal adaptation of life style must be undertaken in order to renew the true embodiment of the basic vision of this community here and now. Whatever means are discerned to be authentic and effective for this end, these will have to be structured into the life of the community. The com-munity is made up of individual body-persons who find their own personal identity in the community identity. Their mutual union in this community of persons is grounded in this profound identification of life meaning which they share with one another. Unless this profound union is embodied in some really ex-perienced way in common worship, common ways of living, common service of the Church, it is inevitable that it will float off into the realm of pure abstract theory, an ideal existing only as a dream. During a time of dramatic cultural change such as we are now experiencing, it is clear that there must be much experimentation with community structures, al-ways discerned according to the criterion of the re-newed basic vision of the community. Indeed, at present the indications are that much pluralism must be al-lowed. But especially during a time of pluralistic ex-periments, ways must be found to embody the total unity of the entire community sufficiently and frequently enough to keep it real. This is absolutely imposed upon us because we are body-persons, a fact too often forgotten with disastrous results. The fundamental problem posed by the necessity of embodying community unity through some form of structures is the continual need to carry on the dialectic of the individual good and the common good, personal initiative and aspirations and community ideals and commitments. The aim should be to effect a synthesis of these personal and community elements as often as possible through true mutual discernment. But when such a synthesis proves impossible, after this discern-ment, it is the universal good of the community which must be given priority in making decisions, precisely because the personal identity of each individual member is found in the community identity. In any community, even that of two persons in marriage, there is a new reality larger than each individual 'T': it is the reality of "we." The final word must always be given to this Because of the depth of their union grounded in common personal identity, the persons belonging to a religious community have a unique foundation for true, warm, human mutual love. This love must be experi-enced and embodied in aII the ways that go to establish and develop human interpersonal relationships and to confronting difficulties of temperament, disagreement, misunderstanding, and so forth. Since this union is the result of divinely given charisms, every effort must be made to share the basic faith experience of Jesus Christ which is the source of the communion of persons in this religious community. Because the individual experience itself is not verbal but lived, this sharing must be chiefly on the level of non-verbal communication. Here communitarian prayer can be very effective. Listening to another praying to God, even in language that I myself couhl not use, is a most effective way to come to the recognition that he shares the same faith experience of Jesus Christ, the same charism, the same response of life commitment, as do I. If the members of a religious community do share the basic faith experience of Jesus Christ which grounds their unity and their life together, then they will be enabled to grow in true human love for one another. Where there is profound union and an atmosphere of mutual love, it is possible to disagree (even violently) about means to ends without becoming polarized and, finally, disunited and destroyed as a community. Dif-ferences will be seen for what they are: differences of language and symbols which are conditioned by cultural contexts and, so, are completely relative, deriving their value only from their effectiveness in embodying the basic vision which remains the ground of union. Where deep union and mutual love are present, it will be recognized that persons in the community in responding to community-discerned adaptations are not to be condemned if they find it difficult to adjust to what for them is a new and foreign language to express their personal identity issuing from their personal faith experience of Jesus Christ. This is a matter of the dif-ficulty of changing ways of structuring and of expressing experience which have been built up over a lifetime, rather than a matter of a negative attitude to renewal and adaptation. The only attitude that one must change (whether he be "traditionally" or "progressively" oriented) is that 4. Religious Li~e VOLUME 28~ 1969 4" 4" ÷ John Carroll Futrell, $.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS o[ fixation: confusing language with experience and means with ends and insisting that unless things are done my way, they cannot be authentically Christian. This is equivalent to saying: "If you speak French in-stead of American English, you cannot be expressing truly human thoughts and feelings." Redemption from fixation--and from polarization--will be achieved through sharing the faith experience of Jesus Christ and only thereafter attempting to find a language to express this experience. These reflections have led to the conclusion that the religious has his personal identity through his response to a particular divine initiative, his acceptance of a special charism discerned in the characteristics of his personal faith experience of Jesus Christ. The religious embodies his response to this charism by vowing himself to the life of the evangelical counsels in a specific re-ligious community. This means that he commits him-self to witness visibly by the total signification of his overall pattern of life to the eschatological aspect of Christian love lived in the Church. Within the community of Christians, all of whom ~hare one Christian spirituality, the distinctive role of the religious is permanently to manifest the faith and hope of the entire People of God in Christ who is to COmae. The religious' life of union with his companions in his own religious community is a life of mutual love grounded in the community identity of shared faith experience of Christ, which is expressed in the basic vision of this community's service of Christ in His Church, and which is embodied in community struc-tures adapted to the signs of the times through authentic discernment. The way towards a solution of the difficult problems being experienced by religious today, therefore, would seem above all to be the way of a universal renewal in all religious of their profound, personal faith experi-ence of Jesus Christ and a renewal of their mutual union and mutual love through mutually sharing this experience. It is through union with Jesus Christ that we shall achieve communion with one another. EDWARD G. BOZZO, C.F.X. Being-toward- Community:. Essence oJ Religious Life As the over-delayed Instruction (dated Jan. 6, 1969) from the Congregation of Religious concedes, the forma-tion of young religious is a topic of deep concern today. Leaving to others the full assessment of that ,uneven document which, in my view, hovers indecisively between old and new theologies, between an essentially juridical conception of religious life and some attempt to touch its theological pith, what I would urge is that religious life is dominantly about community and that this must be sustained as the master idea in considering every phase of its renewal. Though this is a simplification un-less qualified as I hope to do further on in this article, it is at present the hermeneutical wedge needed to cut through the complexities renewal involves. If, I submit, in the light of the recent Instruction, religious congrega-tions attempt to grapple with formation as a problem apart from the religious life as centrally concerned with creating and maintaining community, their adaptations of formation programs will be misfocused or foundering. As is evident from my intentional use of first person references, I present a personal (though I hope not un-substantiated) point of view as forcefully as I can. In doing so I make no claim to infallibility but hope that in presenting a position as vigorously as possible that I might at the very least provide the reader with a means of clarifying his own notions of the religious life, even if it be by disagreeing with those presented here. Though my topic is the general import of the idea that religious life is essentially the sustained effort toward community, let me begin by briefly stating the connection between this thesis and the specific question of the forma-tion of young religious. And let me begin this brief Edward Bozzo, C.F.X., is a mem-ber of Xaverian College; I0000 New Hampshire Avenue; Silver Springs, Md. 2090~1. VOLUME 28, 1969 + 4. Edward G. Bozzo, C.F.X. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS treatment from the juridical aspect of the religious life --a perhaps more familiar starting point to middle-aged religious--that irrelevant species of which I am a member. Two other prenotes: I write as a member of what is usually called an active religious congregation and I beg pardon of any sister who might read this for main-taining masculine references throughout. Men become religious, in the technical sense, by pro-nouncing vows to God through His visible Church. These vows are called public in a technical sense, namely, that the Church so designates and recognizes them as con-stituting a person in the religious state. To describe how these spare juridical facts occur in actual life, how-ever, it would have to be added that a person becomes a religious by joining a specific religious institute approved by the Church. This datum is [taught with significance. Among other things, it means that one's chief source of awareness of what being a religious means comes ~rom the particular religious with whom he lives. One's idea of what the practice of the vows means, of the style of life to which they give rise, one's idea of life in common and dedicated service to others--all of these one learns from the religious with whom one lives. (;anon law and the institute's constitutions, no matter how well expressed, capture these realities only partially and in bare out-line. I Both are theoretical instruments which subserve the experience of religious life which latter holds the primacy, not vice versa.2 Since one's self-definition as a religious, for one's whole life as a religious, has its source in the lives of the reli-gious with whom one lives, it follows that our life in 1 See Friedrich Wulf, "Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Life," in Commentary on the Documents o[ Vatican II, v. 2, ed. Herbert Vorgrimler (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), p. 303, where Wulf notes that it will take religious congrega-tions a long time to overcome the narrowness which has plagued the official ecclesiastical concept of the religious life, especially since the 19th century. See also pp. 338, 340, and 362. ~ In philosophical terms, though we always need theory, it is ex-perience, the practical, which holds the primacy. Theory derives from practice and serves practice. To reverse this order is to create a host of difficulties in daily life. See John Macmurray, The Sel[ as .4gent (London: Faber and Faber, 1957), pp. 17ft. As regards religious life, it is necessary to recall not only that theory derives from experience and helps to interpret experience, but also that the theoretical apparatus has been overjuridical in its emphasis. Hence, even though theory is subservient to experience, now as never before, religious life requires work on its theoretical base. As Wulf remarks in commenting on chapters five and six of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church: "The theology of the reli-gious state is only in the making," Commentary on the Documents o] Vatican //, v. 1, ed. Herbert Vorgrimler (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967), p. 278. See Wulf in Vorgrimler, v. 2, p. $43: "Religious life today, that of active orders in particular, is becoming less and less amenable to detailed regulation." common is and ever remains the formative influence in our lives. Religious life does not escape the law of our lives as persons: we need one another to be ourselves,s Indeed, religious life aims to express this with a force un-paralleled by other styles of life.4 Whether or not they really believe it, at least many religious are now saying that religious formation never ends. The principal reason why it does not is that we ever depend on our fellow religious for discovering the implications of our lives as persons dedicated to God.5 The practical consequence of these facts for our con-gregations is that each one of us, whether he acknowl-edges the fact or prefers to dwell in illusion, plays a form-ative role. He cannot shirk this fact, nor the obligation arising from it by pretending that it is the novice master's job or the task of a group or team more particularly associated with young religious. For all of us formation is continual so long as we lead lives of mutual interde-pendence-- a phrase which describes our very condition as persons, and therefore our lives as religious as well. Under either head, life in common is essential. From the point of view of formation, personal and religious, our lives of mutual interdependence constitute our chief source of strength and progress, as well as the source of our obligation to live for our fellows. It scarcely needs mentioning that this mode of dis-course is currently employed to talk of Christian life in general and that there is nothing particularly distinctive about it so as to mark off religious as a spedal class,o That 8 See John Macmurray, Persons in Relation (London: Faber and Faber, 1961), p. 211. ' "The theological and spiritual new mentality which the council introduced into the religious orders has forced us to pose anew the question about the structures of religious life. To begin with we must mention the fundamental law which was present at the founding of every religious order, and which has moved into the forefront of Christian thought today in a specially urgent manner: the law of brotherliness" (Wulf in Vorgrimler, v. 2, p. 330). ~ Obviously this does not preclude a religious learning from those not members of the religious fraternity. See Wulf in Vorgrimler, v. 2, p. 339: "Common prayer, spiritual conversation among brethren and sisters--things which in fact make them brethren and sisters-- alone cause all of their efforts to bear fruit. The place where spiritual renewal happens is in the small group. The more a com-munity fosters these small groups, the greater the hope that the work of the general chapter will go beyond mere words and regula-tions, and reach out into real life." e Commenting on Chapter 5 of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Wulf, in Vorgrimler, v. 1, pp, 267-8, writes: "We are all set a single goal, one and the same Christian holiness (the degree of which., can and does vary according, to the vocation and the measure of grace allotted to each man). Ultimately, there-fore, there is only one kind of Christian life, and its nature is briefly sketched for us here: (1) The inward road that leads a Christian to his salvation (and often the outward road as well) + + .I-Being- toward. Community VOLUME 28, 1969 + ÷ ÷ Edward G. Bozzo, C.F.X. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS should not be surprising, since the religious life is not .a. privileged class existence, but the Christian life lived with utter seriousness. It has been the custom to define religious life in terms of Christian life. Hence, when individualistic notions of Christian life prevailed, reli-gious life--Christian calling lived intensely--was defined in individualistic patterns. When the dominant con-ception of Christian life was saving one's soul, the concomitant conception of religious life was a perfec-tion that made little of the social dimension of personal and Christian progress.7 Thanks to a host of long germinating movements in the field of theology itself (Biblical studies, for example) and in the world of thought more generally (most signifi-cantly in philosophy), individualism is seen now as an unrealistic way of conceptualizing personal existence,s As persons we do not possess any fullness of ourselves alone. We do not store up richness of interiority on our own and then issue forth to bestow our largesse upon others if and when we feel magnanimous enough to do depends at the deepest level on the guidance of the Holy Ghost and the promptings of his grace. (2) At every turn, therefore, in every situation he encounters, the Christiau must listen for the voice of the Spirit making known God's will for him., and obey it. This obedience is what the gospel calls adoring the Father in spirit and in truth (cf. Jn 4:23), and it means utter openness to God and utter docility to him. (3) Within the framework of the Christian dis-pensation taking this road means following the poor and humble Christ as he carries the Cross. (4) On this road the main business of the Christian is a living faith that stirs up hope and acts through love. At a time when every state of life and every community in the Church is trying to expound its own particular spirituality (and often ineptly), it is well for this Constitution to remind us of the one fundamental Christian spirituality of Scripture and tradition." Further: "What they all have in common is this: that Christian sanctification is not a road running parallel to the road of one's ordiuary life and work, but is a thing achieved in and through one's state of life with its daily tasks, in and through the concrete circumstances and events of one's existence." ~See Wulf in Vorgrimler, v. 2, p. 347, n. 11 especially. As Rahner writes: "This sense of being responsible for my brother, not only for his earthly needs but precisely for his eternal salvation, may be nothing short of decisive for my own eternal salvation. This is not sublime egoism. The realization that unless one loves selflessly one is risking one's own salvatiou does not imply some higher form of egoism. It is the scale by which I can measure how absolutely necessary is concern for my brother's salvation. The possibility that he has of working out his salvation without me means that he owes me nothing. But I can find myself only if I find my brother. The whole of life has got to be a forward movement towards loving my brother. I must love my brother, and in that love forget myself. If I do that, I am an apostle. If I do not do it, I am ultimately lost" (Karl Rahner, Christian in the Market Place [New York: Sheed and Ward, 1966], pp. 13-4). ~ See William F. Lynch, Images o] Hope (New York: New Ameri-can Library, 1966), p. 185. so.0 Hard as it may be for men, especially Americans, to swallow it, no one in his existence as a person exists in-dependently of other persons.10 The terminus a quo of personal life is a complete dependence on a personal other and the terminus acl quem is not rugged individ-ualism but interdependence with others.11 Personal exis-tence is and ever remains conditional upon mutuality with other persons. Failure to live according to this basic norm of our being is, in William F. Lynch's view, one of the root causes of mental illness. In religious terms it is Pelagianism. As Biblical studies have made apparent with ever increasing emphasis and as the recent conciliar documents attest, God calls us as He did Israel, as a people; He saves us as a people; .we worship Him as a people. In short, Christianity is fraternal faith, demon-strated in fraternal concern for others, Christians or not, for Christian faith is a progressive assimilation to the Father's only Son who is universal in His concern--in His life, His death and His eternal priestly intercession in behalf of all men.12 In yielding to the Spirit, in allowing Him to consume our selfishness, we are made Jesus all over againJ~ In him all walls of separation from our fel-lows crumble (see Gal 2:llff). With the growing appreciation that Christian life is a OAs Kwant writes: "We are intentional beings and not centered on ourselves. We achieve a meaningful existence through the reali-zation of values. The situation is not such that we find first in ourselves, in our so-called interiority, the fullness of meaning and value and that, next, our giving of meaning in the world and in encounters with other human beings are an effusion of our interior fullness. Divorced from the world and from the others, there is only emptiness in ourselves" (Remy Kwant, Phenomenology o] Social Existence [Pittsburgh: Duquesne University, 1965], p. 239). ~°See Lynch, lmages, pp. 19-20 and 31. n See John Macmurray, Persons in Relation, p. 66. = "The first characteristic of faith today I should like to stress can be summed up in one word: brotherly . Faith both presup-poses the community and creates it; the courage to believe is always born of a pentecostal event, where many are gathered together in unity of purpose. Faith is our confidence in the personal experience of others, a conviction gained through the power of the Spirit which is at work in others, our personal experience of the Spirit given to us for the sake of others, This permanent characteristic of faith., should be one of the most notable characteristics of the form of faith today. It cannot be sufficiently stressed, however, that this brotherly love is not directed towards an abstract but toward our actual brother here and now, our 'neighbor' " (Karl Rahner, Belie] Today [New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967], pp. 54-5). as See Barnabas Ahern, New Horizons (Notre Dame: Fides Dome Book, 1965), p. 94 and passim; Piet Fransen, "Towards a Psychology of Divine Grace," Cross Currents, v. 8 (1958), p. 219; Franqois ¯ Roustang, Growth in the Spirit (New York: Sheed ~ Ward, 1966), p. 21; and Amed~e Hallier, "God is Friendship: the Key to Aelred of Rievaulx's Christian Humanism," American Benedictine Reoiew, v. 18 (1967), p. 403. 4- 4. 4- Being-toward- Community VOLUME 28, 1969 723 ÷ + Edward G. Bozzo, C.F~X. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS call to brotherly faith, brotherly existence and care, there is a concommitant realization that religious life as the radical living of Christian life is predominantly brotherly existence. Insofar as religious life manifests this, its fundamental nature, it renders its primary serv-ice to both Church and world. This conception of the nature and function of religious life holds implications of highly practical import. The following paragraphs aim to explore some of them by attending primarily to the intramural living of religious life. As stated previously in touching on "formation," all religious must appreciate that each of them is involved in striving toward community. Recognizing this, one practical suggestion that has been proffered with increas-ing insistence is that religious cannot attain this by living in large groups in Mussolini-modern buildings.14 With-out disputing this recommendation, I submit that the import of religious life as fraternal existence in Christ lies deeper than the intimacy to be attained by living in smaller groups in cosier houses. Keeping the communal nature of reigious life to the fore means realizing that no religious can achieve "his perfection," his union with Christ, by an idealistic leap up to God which would ignore his concrete relations to his fellow religious. Each of us approaches God only by living for his particular brethren at hand, centering his interest in them and not in himself. To live this is to live in Christ; more specifi-cally, it is to live Christ's kenosis. Capsulizing St. Paul's view of Christian life again, one may see it as a progres-sive yielding to the Holy Spirit who transforms us into the image of the Father's only Son. And this Son is one who lives His whole existence towards the Father through a self-forgetful concern for all men. In sum, the Christ in whom we live, move, and are, the Christ into whom we are transformed through the Holy Spirit's action in us, is a self-emptying Christ, not a self-regarding Person.1'~ Selfishness in this perspective is not just per-sonal immaturity, it is--far more significantly--a resis-tance to grace, a refusal to let the Spirit take over in us so that the Christs we are meant to be cannot take form in our lives. The poverty, chastity, and obedience of the religious find their deepest meaning in this kenotic yielding to the 1~ In commenting on Vatican II's decree on religious, for example, Wulf (in Vorgrimler, v. 2, p. 330) writes: 'The responsible and effec-tive participation in the common good and in the common task in the spirit of brotherhood can no longer be realized in large communities, for by his psychical constitution, modern man feels lost and threatened in the mass, so that the ideals just mentioned can only be realized in communities of manageable size." 1~ See Piet Schoonenberg, "He Emptied Himself, Philippians 2, 7," in Who Is Jesus oI Nazareth? (New York: Paulist, 1965), pp. 47-66. Spirit, manifested inour heterocentricity toward others. These two cannot be separated, for a relationship to Christ, or to God in Christ, which is not a relationship to one's brothers, is no Christianity at all. The more earnestly a religious strives to live the Christian life, that is, to live as man sanctified by God, the more he becomes aware of his own poverty his impotence, weakness, and guilt and the more he realizes the totality of the de-pendence in which he lives from God and unto God-- the essence of what he professes in the vow of poverty. The more a religious strives to live as the force of God's agape in him would have him live, that is, the more uni-versal his love toward others becomes both in its scope and quality the more his chastity comes to expression. For then he loves as God loves, caring for others hon-estly, 16 with no eye to using them for his advantage but with a creative love that aims to set others free of the myriad forms of slavery which keep them from the liberty to which they are called. This honesty in love-- loving others as the Father loves, with no eye to private gain is the essence of religious chastity. The more the religious yields to God's beckonings to him, the more he follows the particularities of God's petitioning of him through others---even to the point of yielding his life for them, the more the relig!ous lives obedience to the Father. The depth of asceticism that is required to live this style of Christian existence, the depth of personal prayer required to maintain and nourish this kenotic orienta-tion needs no commentary. It involves many dyings be-fore death, surrendering the comfortable illusion that each of us is a special case, that life and other people should make exceptions in our regard. It means living Christ's life of service and in so doing becoming a vehicle through which the glory of the risen Christ is manifested. As Ratzinger writes: "A true parousia of Christ takes place wherever a man recognizes and affirms the claim on his love that goes out from a fellow man in need." lz Much more could and should be ex- 1BChastity is emotional sincerity. See John Macmurray, "The Virtue of Chastity," in Reason and Emotion (London: Faber and Faber, 1962), pp. l17ff. x7 Joseph Ratzinger, The Open Circle: The Meaning o] Christian Brotherhood (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1966), p. 119. The glory of the Father is the brotherhood of all men in his Son Jesus Christ. Our life as a community and as individuals, serving one another and others, must make the name of the Father known, manifest His glory by seeking the brotherhood of all men in Christ Jesus. But the source of this, it cannot be sufficiently emphasized, is God's love for us---this is what makes us persons fundamentally. What we have to give is God's love (see the Epistle to the Philippians). At this profound level the operative law is: All receptivity is produc-tivity, as SOren Kierkegaard notes in SOren Kierkegaard's Journals + + + Being.toward- Commu~nity VOLUME 28, 1969 ÷ 4. ÷ Edward G. Bo~o, C.F~X. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS plored regarding the linkage between religious life and kenotic Christology as this constitutes a promising vein for elaborating a theology of the religious life. However, the few hints offered will have to suffice for the moment, so as to attend to other implications of conceiving reli-gious life as a process of being toward community. One of these is that religious life as brotherly existence does not mean that the uniqueness of each religious is abolished. Quite the contrary. As Teilhard de Chardin was fond of phrasing it, true union differentiates,is That is, when we put into act by living communion with others the mutuality which makes us persons, each of us comes to himself. Each attains, at least in some measure, his freedom. The fundamental reason for this is that in friendship, fellowship, fear is eliminated or overcome by love. None of the parties in the fellowship has to pretend, act a part, be on his guard. For this to become a fact in a religious community all must share the intention to live as brothers. All must overcome fear of each other with trust. For fear paralyzes and separates us. Since fear is always fear for oneself in the face of others, it closes us in on ourselves, drives us away from exercising our constitutively mutual relationship to them. Fearful of others, I might seek for God, for free-dom, or more simply, for some sense of contentment not in my relations to others but solely in the life of the mind and imagination--solely in a private spirituality. Others might deal with their fear of their fellow by dominating them, using them as means to their purpose-- even if that purpose be "spiritual" it demeans the persons so manipulated. For fellowship, community, to become an actuality each must be positively motivated toward all his brothers. Consequently it cannot happen if a religious seeks friend-ship with only one or two other members alone, and when each of the parties in this relationship or clique is negatively motived toward all the other members. The trust of each member of the community, his faith in them, must extend toward all of them. Only so can true brotherhood become fact. To the extent that it does, each member can, for example, express his ideas without fear that what he says will be used against him. By the very nature of brotherhood, variety issues naturally-- from the assurance of feeling at home in one's reli-gious family. One does not have to strive after artifical techniques to assert his individuality. He is accepted and and Papers, v. 1, ed. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Indiana University, 1967), p. 395. ~See Robert L. Faricy, Teilhard de Chardin's Theology o[ the Christian in the World (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967), pp. does not need to contrive test cases to discover if he is or not. More significantly, in the context of realized brother-hood ideas do not divide us. I know that even if you do not agree with my position on this or that issue that you will not cut me off--excommunicate me from your con-cern. And you have the same assurance from me. When each member of the community feels secure in this confidence our differences, whether in the realm of ideas or otherwise, are a potential source of enrichment for all of us. We are free to work out fruitful constructive forms of compromise to further corporate action. Every dif-ference between us does not become a wall of separation dividing brother from brother, camp from camp. Such division is our damnation. The future is in our hands only so long as we live as brothers. We cannot achieve any good as a congregation, or as a small community within it, if we do not share the same intention in our apostolic action. Just as we are mutually interdependent as persons, we are inter-dependent as agents. If as agents our intentions do not harmonize, the action of each of .us is frustrated. The future then becomes something that happens to us, some-thing which we await, rather than a reality which we as agents are empowered to determine and can determine when our intentions harmonize and agree with God's intention--that we as religious be one and through our work (directly or indirectly) work for the realization of brotherhood among all men. In this light religious life can be appreciated as the concrete expression of what the Church is. It is the fra-ternity of God's people, His family which lives a broth-erly existence under Him and by so living is the instru-ment for expressing and extending brotherhood among all mankind. The creative energy for realizing this broth-erhood is the agape of the Father Himself operating through the common humanity which each of us shares with every other person.10 The task of the Church today is what it always has been--to cooperate with God under the guidance of the Spirit of Christ in establishing the kingdom of God. The means for establishing this king-dom, for accomplishing this task is the means that Jesus taught His first Disdples. The Church must be a real community on earth which exhibits to the world, in its life and in the relations of its members, the image of the kingdom of heaven, and which acts, in relation to the world outside, in the brotherly spirit of that king-dom. Never has the Church needed religious life to mani-fest this, its nature at its truest, as now. And never have 4. 4. Being-toward- Community 1, See Yves Congar, .4 Gospel Priesthood (New York: Herder aVnOdLUME 28, 1969 Herder, 1967), p. 5, on the Father's love as the source of all mission. 727 men so expressly proclaimed in myriad ways, their thirst for brotherhood. If religious life would only come to itself it could spearhead the realization of brotherhood--- the consummation of personal existence now so devoutly wished. It depends on so little and so big a condition as this: that each of us in his religious family treat each of the others as a friend. 4. 4- 4- Edward G. Bo~,o, REVIEW FOR RELIGIous 728 HRBAN NAAL, S.M. The Community of Today Walls are built either to keep people in or to keep people out. Whether these walls are built of stone, brick, or concrete or whether they are built of weaker material, the object is to keep someone or something in or to keep someone or something out, physically. There are also pyschological walls built for the same purpose, though not always built intentionally. In the Middle Ages cities had walls. Most of these walls are in ruins today or have disappeared as the cities expanded beyond them. In fact, expansion could take place only when the people went beyond the walls. It seemed that as man neared modern times the walls crumbled, "freeing" the community to expand in all directions. It would seem that one could almost say that the walls had to come down if expansion were to take place, for the walls that kept out also kept in. Any com-munity that held rigidly to its walls would of necessity suffocate. Growth took place as the walls came down aIIowing for greater activity, travel, business, communica-tion, work, education. Modern communities no longer have walls. They are neither needed nor desired. Yet, there seems to exist today in the modem world communities whose walls have remained intact since the Middle Ages and who seem rigidly to resist any attempt to break down those walls, whether physical or psycho-logical. The citizens seem determined to hold onto those walls, nor can they visualize that real progress can take place only if they break down these separating walls, walls that are keeping them in and keeping others out. The communities referred to are religious communities and the walls that they will not demolish are not those made of stone, brick, concrete, or even weaker materials but those psychological walls existing in their interpre-tation of what a community is and must remain. Com-munity for these religious is a "living" together and by 4- 4- 4- Brother Urban Naal, S.M., teaches at Vianney High School; 1311 South Kirkwood Road; St. Louis, Mo. 63122, VOLUME 28, 1969 ~9 Urban Naal, S.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS this they mean a living together in one place at one time by all the members assigned to a particular community or house. What is actually stressed is the physical sharing of one house though they do not seem to realize this. As the modern community cannot be limited by walls that suffocate, so the modern religious community must be ~eed from the walls that bind it. This can only be done through a reinterpretation of what a religious commu-nity is and a realization that a modern community must be a psychological sharing and not a physical sharing alone. To constantly insist upon a physical sharing, a doing everything together, to keep repairing walls that need to crumble, succeeds eventually in suffocating the very members who have retained the walls. Growth can-not take place until the walls are removed. The modern religious community must be bound to-gether by a spirit and not by the physical presence of the walls of a house. The witness o[ such a community must consist in a harmonious interest in the diverse works of each of the members and not in the force shown by a group of people living together under one roof. The community witness must be a living together of diverse ideas and cultures and values. The individual religious, bound by public vows of religion, must be free to leave the walls of the commu-nity for greater activity, travel, business, communica-tion, work, education, and the needs of society at large. He is living in the modern world, not the Middle Ages. He must be trained to think as an individual and not as a group. This is not to say that there are no dangers in taking protective walls down, especially for those who first cautiously venture forth. (Nor is it to try to claim that walls of themselves preclude all danger.) There is danger for the young who need walls to inclose them until they are old enough to venture forth on their own. There is danger for the member of the community who has never been given the chance to go it alone and Who psycho-logically needs walls to shield him. There is danger for the immature in the community who do not have the strength nor security to leave the womb. There. is danger, too, once the walls are down that undersirable persons or ideas might creep in. Yet, to grow in the modern world the member of the community must learn to live with these dangers, to grow because of them. No one can avoid all danger. In fact, it is through these dangers that growth takes place. In learning to deal with danger man matures. It is a fallacy to feel that walls make it possible to create an artificial situation in which all members by a certain age or a certain stage of life become model religious, fitting perfectly into some kind of foreseen mold. Nor can this denial of the individuality of man be called Christian, no matter how much it appears to be the basis of the religious community. The members of a religious community must be trained to use the God-given talents they possess and to grow as individuals according as God made them. Guidelines are not outlawed, but charity must consist in accepting each member for .what he is and for how God made him rather than to how closeIy he matches someone's personal rule of perfection. If the religious community prepared thinking individ-uals using the brains God gave them to use, there would be no need of wails for physically mature persons, no reason to fear the wails coming down. The community of living together under one roof tends to stifle initia-tive and creativity. It forces the members to aim at a common--and often lowest--denominator, regulating the lives of the members according to some precon-ceived general norm resulting in the members actually dedicating themselves to mediocrity rather than to the highest potential of which they are capable. It does not permit each person to grow at his own rate nor to be-lieve according to what he is able to "see" at present. The religious community in the twentieth century must be an outgrowth of the Middle Ages. It must progress with the times and be as efficient as the dines permit. The religious, to be true religious and apostles, must go out beyond the wails to where they are needed, to where the action is. Artificial action and needs cannot be set up within the walls or close-by. The modern religious must carry his community in spirit wherever he goes, wherever he is needed. He must be trained and trusted to carry this community with him, rather than be crippled by forever being tied to a particular house often far from the needs of the world. He must often go alone into the field (be it education, communication, business) to bear witness and to work, even though it be far from an established community of his order. He might even become the center of a new-type of "community" of those working around him. This does not mean that there is no need for the com-munity in the traditional sense of the word. It definitely has a place. It is the walled city or quiet womb in which the religious needs to reside while being formed. It is the "dock" to which the weary working religious needs to return periodically for nourishment and light and the moral support of his fellow religious which is so important to one working alone in the field of battle. The individual religious could not continue to work + + ommunity VOLUME 28, 1969 without these periodic retreats to that haven from whence he came. There is need, too, of the traditional community for those who do not feel that they can or want to leave it. Yet, the modern religious, a religious in the true sense, must be free to go beyond the walls that presently hem him in and thwart his apostolate. To force community members to live closely together under the same roof under the guise that the four walls constitute a commu-nity is to miss the point completely and to miss the modern apostolate completely. The real community is a spiritual thing, a love of and an acceptance of one's fellow religious wherever they are. It is not confined to those living within the four walls of a particular com-munity. Nor is it created by the mere presence of four walls. The normal family with grown members no longer reside within the same four walls; and yet no matter how far they are scattered they exhibit an in-tense loyalty to the members of the family from which they came because of their love and acceptance of one another, not because they happened to at one time reside within the same four walls (which have now crumbled). The modern religious community if it is to succeed must go beyond the walls that they have erected less they awake one day to find that life has pass them by. Let not today's religious communities be the ghost towns of tomorrow. ÷ ÷ ÷ Urban Nail, $.~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS GEORGE C. McCAULEY, S.J. The Toll and Why We Pay h: A Theological Image of Religious Life Religious are always surprised and annoyed by the basic ignorance, even in the Catholic community, of the distinction between priesthood and the religious life, between orders and vows. In the new Church people ask brothers, nuns, and religious priests: "Are they going to allow you to marry?" It becomes easier to live with such ignorance when finally we discover that it is based on a lack of any real interest. But today the question: "What is a religious?" is being posed earnestly and painfully not by others but by many religious themselves. Prophets of doom count the days for religious orders and congregations, and they offer statistics in support of their baleful prognoses. With many religious leaving and fewer entering the re-ligious life, religious are anxious for a self-understanding that will help them navigate through some of the con-temporary uncertainty. A perfectly satisfying self-under-standing is rarely forthcoming in life. We are more in need of a creative and humanly intelligible hypothesis against which we can test our Christian and religious experience. It is the task of theology to set forth such an hypothesis. To that end we will attempt first to describe more thoroughly the religious' contemporary plight, and then to isolate the human (therefore intelligible) form of the religious' commitment, its various motivations, and the content of that commitment or the directions in which the religious life has always and will always take those who embrace that life. The Toll The religious gradually becomes an out~ider to the cultural milieu in which he lives. True, it is hard to iso-÷ ÷ i÷ George C. Mc- Cauley, S.J., is a member of the the-ology faculty of St. Peter's College in Jersey City, New Jersey 07306. VOEUME 28, 1969 4- 4- 4- George C. McCauley, $.~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 734 late a cultural milieu which affects all people in exactly the same way. It is also possible that many religious are more in touch than many non-religious with what-ever cultural milieu is available. We will develop the thesis, however, that the more in touch the religious is, the greater the toll will be that he will pay. If we ac-cept as a working definition of cultural milieu as the main network of achievements, activities, and values that emerge from the physical and spiritual resources of men, then it is clear that the religious gradually becomes unstuck from this network. The reason for this is that most men are usually attached to this network at various points, while the religious fits the cultural pattern only sketchily. The cultural pattern involves at least the triad of job, marriage, and family. The economic, political, and recreational systems of men are geared to and de-pendent .upon man's wishes in those three areas. The communications media feed, and feed upon, the needs that are contained in those three aspects of life. Assiduous-ness, success, planning, ingenuity, failure, social useful-ness, ambition, acceptability, and normality are in a thousand subtle ways measured against the standard inherent in the triad of job, marriage, and family. The religious recedes from this standard, and this gradual recession takes its toll on his'cultural sensibilities. His routine activities have little to do with the cultural standard: his clothing is both singular and culturally meaningless. His language is dissonant: fun, life, enter-tainment, pleasure, anxiety, responsibility, relaxation-- these words have a different ring for him than for other men. His normal working hours are accompanied by different expectations, and hence he misses the rhythms which usually mark the beginning and end of a man's work. He is disassociated from the immense cultural ritual of finding and keeping a mate. His energies are not spent on the intricate process of nesting, of providing and securing goods for a family. He does not shop, keep financial records, save, angle, sweat, or celebrate with the same sentiments or relish that other men have. The point of all this is not simply that the religious does not do what most men do. It is rather to suggest that he gradually foregoes sensibility in these areas. Sen-sibility is itself a difficult term to define. The religious need not become insensitive to the cultural life around him. He knows that men around him are engaged might-ily in their own routines, and he senses these routines in others. But he notes their absence in himself. He can-not perceive them within his whole emotional, self-aware-ness apparatus. The toll that he pays is this sense of void in himself in comparison with the cultural mass which surrounds him and which, by its sheer weight, seems to pressure him to be like it. This realization should not lead the religious to exag-gerate his predicament. Every vocation has its toll and everyone could recount the frustrations and limitations implied in his life choices. What is important is that the religious understand the scope and dimensions of the toll that he will in all likelihood pay. He must situate himself as honestly as possible in terms of his actual cultural coordinates which in his case are not normal ones. Then he must ask himself if he understands why he takes, in faith, such a peculiar stance vis-a-vis his culture. Not that he should so call his faith into question that it ceases to exist. This unimaginative and simplistic solution removes the problem by denying its existence and we can only get so far in life with this gambit. On the other hand religious communities must have a con-sensus of self-understanding against which they can judge themselves and the times. The stresses and strains of living as marginal men in a vast cultural network tend to prove too much for everyone's individual nerves. Only a community's conviction, its faith elaborated in intelli-gible and affirmative terms, can sustain the religious life today. The religious is not helped by being told his life is more than human. He suspects mightily that what people mean by this comes down in the long run to being less than human. Hence he asks for an understanding of his vows in terms of their true humanity. Reasons and an Image The religious is pressed to say why he does what he does. Up to a point he can answer that Christ's example is what motivates him. But the limitations of this ex-planation of the religious life are apparent. For one thing, we are not Christ. For another, the Scriptural references to "imitating Christ" (1 Th 1:6; 1 Cot 4:16) apply to all Christians, not to one class or group of Christians. The same is true of the Scriptural ref-erences to "following Christ" (Mt 8:22; 19:21; 12:26; 19:28; Mk 9:38; Jn 8:12). Again, the picture of the way Christ actually lived is difficult to disengage from the sev-eral layers of testimony about Him which we have in the Gospels. In other words, we do not have any ready-made picture of what His poverty, chastity, and obedience looked like, and this makes our claim as religious to be imitating Him more difficult. The Son of Man did not have a place to lay His head, but He had a devoted fol-lowing of women and it is hard to see how anyone in those circumstances would have to do without material necessities. He was obedient to the Father, but was such .I-÷ 4- TI~ Toll VOLUME 28, 1969 ÷ ÷ ÷ George C. McCauley, REV]EW FOR REL[GIOUS obedience more difficult than obedience shown to men and women who do not have all the Father's advantages? He was celibate in a culture that did not set as much store as we do today on mutual love between man and woman, on personal sexual attraction and its flowering in family life. We will return to the question of the reli-gious' relationship with Christ in a moment. The point here is that expressions like "imitating" Christ which recur in our traditional formulations of the religious life are not by that simple fact illuminating when we come to examine what the religious life is. We are there-fore forced to take a closer look at the religious life as a form of human activity. One advantage to this ap-proach is that the religious might get a clearer, more identifiable picture of what he is doing, even apart from the question of why he is doing it. What image, then, will help us understand what the religious is doing? We will suggest as a basic charac-terization of that life its daring nature. By this is meant more than that the religious is exposed to the toll men-tioned earlier and hence that he risks not surviving his being distanced from the cultural milieu. Not surviving is a risk, to be sure, but a risk is not a dare. The latter has a more positive connotation and requires a more ex-tended analysis. When we speak of a daring feat or of a daring way of life, the emphasis is less on the possibility of failure as it is on the uniqueness of accomplishment involved. The accomplishment takes place in the face of obstacles and danger, but these aspects are subordinate to the inner content of the accomplishment itself. Examples of daring are varied. There are daring feats of exploration, .of physical prowess or menta! endurance, of both of these latter in varying combinations. We even speak of daring crimes. Daring stems from a certain persistent determina-tion to do something which (though not necessarily be-cause) other people do not do. This determination settles on what is uncustomary.The darer fixes on strange goals and pursues them with a single-minded intensity. He is oblivious to commentary, favorable or not, on his ac-tions. It is not a question of toughness nor of unconven-tionality. The darer may be outwardly the mildest and most unprepossessing person in the world. But he is capable of totally concentrating on the steps which sepa-rately and together form his achievement. We cannot deny that his dare resembles an obsession. He is also sub-ject to the usual urge to limit and falsify the demands of his dare, to exaggerate his readiness, qualifications, and technique for daring properly. But these he corrects in order to be true to the dare. The point here is not to ask why he dares, but to ob- serve the act of daring in itself, its rigid demands, its engrossing personal fascination for the darer, and its indifference to other ways of acting. This indifference is important. The mountain climber, for example, can be questioned endlessly as to why he does what he does. He is in effect being asked to justify his daring which often seems to be either sheer folly or disdain for life in the valley. Mallory's well-known explanation of why he assaulted Everest ("Because it is there") is, however, less a comment on Everest, which is there for everyone, than a revelation about Mallory who was different precisely in his d~ring. In his case, as with all daring, we are forced to admit that, to some extent, daring is its own justifica-tion. No amount of scepticism, no amount of bewilder-ment on the part of those who do not dare, can detract from the darer's achievement. The test of the human validity of a dare is the admiration that it inspires in the observer. And in terms of a traditional humanism, the burden of the proof is on the non-darer to show that daring is unjustified. In all this, we cannot facilely iden-tify daring with "doing your own thing," since there is an aspect of human achievement and of human approval to the dare that is often lacking where some attempt to glorify "their own thing." If we apply the image of an act of daring to the con-duct of religious, we get some idea of what the religious life as a form of observable human conduct is. It is a form of daring whose justification, in part at least, is to be sought no further than in its own intrinsic impera-tive as daring. We must practice the same discipline in examining the religious life as we did with the act of daring itself, by postponing questions of motive and of content in order to see the human form of the religious life as such. Hence we may not assume as a general prin-ciple that Christ "calls" to the religious life individuals who are neutrally qualified, that is, ready to lead that life or some other life, with the only difference in the subsequent choice beifig a difference in the degree of love that they can summon up for Christ. Such a view makes the choice of the religious life almost com-pletely a matter of an adult decision to move from a neutral plane to one of greater (more altruistic) love. But is it not more likely that Christ calls individ-uals to this life because they are daring types, that is, because they have, before any adult decision related to Christ, something in themselves which is capable of and which demands living a dare? The rich young man in the Gospels was sad that Christ invited him to a life of poverty and of dedication. This narrative has sometimes led to the impression that a call from Christ brings a person who supposedly stands in neutral balance before various ~÷ ÷ ÷ Tlw Toll VOLUME 28, 1969 George C. McCauley, S.J. REVIEW FOR REL~6~OUS possible life options to choose a "lfigher" state into which he then fits his talents. But such a view of Christ's calling may not credit Christ with sufficient politeness. The call of Christ is perhaps better adapted to our in-dividual capacities than we expect. The rich young man's sadness is not only to be attributed to the fact that, in following Christ, he will have to do without his riches, but also to the fact that he is the kind of person who should dare to do without riches if he is to respond to the imperatives of his own deepest person which Christ sees more clearly than he does. How then do such terms as "greater love," "closer following of Christ," or "higher state" apply to the re-ligious life? If, as we will suggest later on, the religious' dare also turns out to be of immense service to the Church and to the world, how is the religious to relate his own imperative as a darer, this personal and quite human as-pect of his calling, to the service of others? What we are really asking is how Christ looks upon the individual religious: as someone who should consciously concentrate on the service and love of Christ and of others beyond the measure of what is normally asked? or as someone who should be candidly aware of his own personal imperative to dare, to enjoy the situation of being a darer regardless of how much service or love is connected with it? Is Christ the kind of person who would "use" the darer for the service of the Church? Or is Christ calling the darer to a conscious love and service of Himself and of the Church only in order to reveal to the darer his own true self? If Christ's concern in calling the individual religious is primarily to a!low that religious a large meas-ure of fidelity to what is most personal and quite human in himself--to his capacity to dare--what sense is there in describing the religious life as a call to greater or higher love? The religious life is indeed centered on Christ; and, through this centering, it has a more uni-versal scope and influence. And all this, too, is thoroughly human, even if our cultural norms do not recognize this humanity. But we should not call such a commitment "greater" or "higher" if what we really mean by those words is a commitment that is more universal in scope. Perhaps the better way to describe the religious' relation-ship to Christ is to speak of Christ initially as someone who calls us to love Him and others, then as someone who shows us the way in which we love ourselves, and finally as someone with whom we are ourselves in the daring service of others. There are several corollary observations to be made on our use of the image of daring to help us understand the religious' commitment. First of all, it seems that this image is less suited to women religious then to men, simply because men more than women have been asso-ciated with those activities from which we sought an un-derstanding of the structure of daring. It is risky to sug-gest what daring consists of for the gentler sex; yet, if a parallel image is to be sought, it is to be sought in a con-text of exceptional actions which of themselves call forth human esteem and which also call for unusual deter-mination, singleness of purpose, no apologies, and a deep sense of a specific pull in one direction. Childbearing and putting up with male pretensions are daring enough, but are they not also too universal to illustrate a womanly dare? The will to make sense out of life, and to live its rhythms in one's actual circumstances, char-acterizes every basic vocational choice. It is only where the choice seems to depart from the usual without be-coming bizarre that we are dealing with a dare. Hence women religious must seek the image of their daring in some other more appropriate phenomenon. The only one that suggests itself at the moment is the image of the woman of abandon who sets no store on propriety, scorns convention, and foregoes a good name in the pur-suit of love. Despite its obvious limitations this image conveys many of the qualities that we associate with dar-ing. The second observation concerns "leaving" the life of vows. There are overanxious minds who rule out a priori the continued desirability of a permanent style of religi-ous life. Yet, it is somewhat tyrannical to say that no one should live his religious dare to the end of his days. It overlooks the fact that some people do live it, and live it well for a lifetime, shifting emphases and priorities as the circumstances of the Church require, deepening the main lines of their dare, personally enriched and a source of joy for all around them. But in assessing the permanency of the religious life we have to keep in mind that, where we are dealing with something resembling a dare, we are going to have to keep a respectful distance from another person's commitment. The reason is that we simply do not know who is called to dare and for how long. The Church has always recognized this and has granted dispensations from "permanent," "final" vows, however "solemn" they might have been. We have pre-served, if grudgingly at times, the insight that Christ is not as fanatical as we sometimes wish to be in insuring lifetime commitments. No less a master of spiritual in-sight than Ignatius of Loyola indicated in his spiritual Exercises that there is always room for the subsequent discovery that one's life choices have not added up to a "divine vocation." His sixteenth century advice to a per-son making such a discovery was that they make the best of the situation. In parochial Europe at that time making ÷ 4- ÷ Th~ Toll VOLUME 28, 1969 ~9 ÷ ÷ ÷ George C. McCauley, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS the best of the situation often excluded, [or purely social reasons, departing from one's chosen state. There is less pressure on the religious today to continue in a vocation that no longer appears to be divine, that is, that no longer amounts to a growth in charity (beginning at home) for the individual or for those he encounters. We all must wait on the individual to tell us as the fruit of his most interior discovery whether or not in fact he wishes to continue his dare. If he does not, that is, by the unique nature of his daring situation, his business and not ours. It might even not be a bad idea for the Con-gregation of Religious, when issuing papers that release from the vows, to add a word of thanks for the service, short or long, that an individual has given to the Church in the course of daring commitment to Christ. A third observation brings us back to the question of the religious' motivation in choosing to make the dare that his life is. We suggested that his motivation is pri-marily a response to Christ in which the religious may not be aware that Christ's invitation suits his own make-up as a darer. This prior suitability in no way offends against the gratuity of Christ's invitation. It simply gives Christ more credit for exercising his gratuity politely, according to the actual condition of the person whom he is inviting. Yet, the choice of the religious life is open to other motivations precisely because of its dare struc-tare. These motivations are not properly religious and can therefore cause great harm to the individual who acts on them. For example, there is the motivation pres-ent, ironically, in those whose faith is most precarious. Doubt sits in the center of most authentic faith; but where this doubt is severe, and where the person in ques-tion is highly sincere or scrupulous, it sometimes hap-pens that the person wishes to put his doubt "to the su-preme test." That is, he wishes to test it out in the most difficult circumstances in order to be able to say that he gave faith a chance to prove itself to him. A parallel may be drawn here between the case of some religious and that of doctors and psychiatrists among whom a high incidence of depression is found. This depression is con-sidered to be as much a cause of their professional interest and vocation as it is a result of exposure to the hard realities of their profession. Similarly the religious may gravitate to his particular way of life in order to test faith at the extreme. Unfortunately, he may then push himself (or others) beyond the measure of daring to an unbounded or fanatical kind of performance testing, without much joy or real personal exchange, and without the care that distinguishes the darer from the presumptu-ous or dangerous achiever. What the Religious Dares to Do If in its human form the religious life is an act of daring, what is the content of that dare? What does the religious dare to do? As a general statement we might say that the religious dares the normal structures of Christian living. The Vatican Council (II) pointed out that the religious' special act of consecration "is deeply rooted in [their] baptismal consecration and provides an ampler manifestation of it" (Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of Religious Life, n. 5). This baptismal con-secration takes in the whole Christian commitment to form community with God and with one's fellow men by engaging in a life of authentic cult and. sacramental humanism. It is obviously a very broad kind of commit-ment. How then is it possible to dare it? What the Church has done is to divide up the baptismal commitment somewhat artificially into the less broad categories of poverty, chastity, and obedience; religious center their dare in these areas. What is important to realize is that the normal Christian has a commitment in these areas by reason of his baptismal vows. He is directed to take a stand, in the name of Christ, on material goods and pos-sessions, on sexual and married love, on his relationship of dependence on God and on others. What the religious does is to take these preexisting structures of the Christian commitment and to treat them in a daring fashion. We will analyze this effort in a moment. Part of the contem-porary crisis in the religious life, however, is precisely the fact that the normal structures of the baptismal com-mitment are in flux. Hence the religious is uncertain in his dare. This is an extremely painful state, and all the more dangerous because the religious is, as a darer, a most earnest person, all appearances to the contrary. It is not surprising that many religious are leaving to under-take specific (if temporary) tasks of more than ordinary dedication. To attribute this phenomenon solely to a lack of generosity or to a general softness is perhaps one of the most simple-minded analyses ever made in the Church. On the other hand, the uncertainty attendant upon the religious life today is largely inevitable. The review to which the Church itself and the baptismal commitment are being subjected today creates a state of imbalance for the general believer and for the religious. We can illustrate this in the three areas of the religious' dare. In one sense, little has changed in the baptized per-son's commitment to poverty. There is still the need to resist our tendency to clutter, to surround, to weigh our-selves down with all sorts of paraphernalia which pains-÷ ÷ ÷ The Toll VOLUME 28, 1969 74! ÷ ÷ ÷ George C. McCauley, S.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS takingly insure or trumpet our personal importance. There is, too, the command and invitation of Christ to share with the needy. In daring these Christian forms of poverty, the religious can hardly pretend that it makes no difference what he owns or what he shares with others. He will therefore continue to aim at divesting himself of those layers of material possession which enable nor-mal people to define themselves in terms of what they have instead of who they are. The religious will bare his person to the world in testimony to the fact that it is at the level of personhood that we most truly exist and Christ most truly works. He will continue to share his talents and his energies with his fellow man. He will also give witness to the fact that sharing at the level of personhood is a far more demanding and far richer kind of sharing than all others, and that this kind of sharing is most illustrative of the kind of redeemer Christ was. But there is a special stamp to the poverty of the baptised Christian today, a stamp which in turn calls for revisions in the way the religious dares that poverty. The Church's present attitude (officially communicated in various encyclicals) toward material goods and toward money is characterized by an insistence on a responsi-ble, intelligent, and imaginative use of these things in society at large. The religious' dare at this level need not imply that he personally receive and keep a salary which he then uses wisely and imaginatively. The prob-lem with money today is not in the individual use of money but in the social uses of money, in the con-structive political uses of money at the institutional, local, national, and international levels. Religious have in fact felt the need to be daring in these areas. They have had to question their investment of money and manpower in traditional institutions and aposto-lates, to consolidate their houses of formation, to avoid reduplication that has no other justification than a de-sire to be true to the Good Old Founder, to fund mis-sionary work conjointly with other groups and even other faiths, to work through civil institutions where these have the moneys and structures to do a job better. But there is always room to improve the quality of our dare. The fortunes of Christian authority are also fluctuating today. Everyone is trying to make sense out of the apparent "disobedience" shown papal and episcopal authority. Opinions range from the simplistic view that we are dealing with a wave of sinful disloyalty to the view that we are developing a Christian anarchy which reduces the relation of the faithful to the hierarchy to a matter of contending power groups. The more solidi analyses of theologians of authority have taken two di- rections: first, to attack facile identifications of Christian authority with those profane forms of authority that we meet in our normal experience (parental, civil, educa-tional, personal magnetism, power, and so forth). What changes, this attack has brought about in our usual attitudes toward jurisdiction, law, rules, derision mak-ing, official teaching, penalties, and so forth, is not yet clear. Secondly, theologians have put Christian authority in the context of dialogue, not as though dialogue were simply the modern style of Christian authority and its pragmatic concomitant, but because of the God-given and inalienable dignity of the individual Christian be-fore all men which demands that he direct his life in responsible freedom, that he assess events with an open-ness to people who think differently from himself. There are innumerable problems in the theology of authority which remain unsolved. Our point here is again to point out that the religious dares what the normal Christian is exposed to in the matter of authority. The hero in the religious community today is not the one who can keep the rules best. Many of those trained to wait for superiors to decide for them what they will do by way of work, apostolate, or formation suffer most. And it is not clear that their suffering offers us the opti-mum example of the folly of the cross. Ironically, the greatest suffering (and possibly the more authentic em-bodiment of Christian folly) comes in the religious' ex-perience of dialogue. Today's religious communities probably have more experience in dialogue than any other large groups of people in the world. In the hours and hours spent on examining apostolate, structures, attitudes, renovation, and local problems, religious have discovered the real dimensions of their divi-sions. This discovery has often been accompanied with confusion and even with bitterness. Some communities have, to all appearances, been destroyed by this dialogue. Others are finding their life less romantic, more stark and seemingly loveless. Still others are discovering that it is precisely in a keen sense of intramural differences that the true nature of Christian faith is emerging. The religious is discovering that he must and can break bread --at least the bread of Christ--with those with whom he differs. He must and can work together despite serious ideological rifts. He must and can love what is really not himself. The image of his religious community as a homo-geneous unit has shattered irreparably. If he does not find a new and absolute source of unity in the principle of dialogue itself, he is doomed. The astounding aspect of this whole development is that the secular world needs precisely this kind of unity-in- diversity at the present time. Nothing could be more ÷ ÷ ÷ The Toll VOLUME 28, 1969 4. 4. George . McCauley, S.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS pragmatic and more relevant than for the Roman Catholic Church, through its experience of dialogue, to become the spokesman for dialogue in the modern world, to share with the world its hitter experience and yet the constructive healing that it has found in dialogue. We are learning as a community and not simply as in-dividuals to face the different levels of meaning that lie behind human language, to concentrate on that which unites us rather than on that which tears us apart, to rid ourselves of the mentality that says it is easy to dis-agree in lucid and unambiguous terms. Perhaps if we learn this lesson well the world will profit from our presence. The religious communities are now £eeling the pain of dialogue in the most intense fashion. Dialogue has hardly even begun on the parish level and, given our cultural and religious background, it will be only through an "authoritative" command of bishops over a long period that parish-level dialogue will be triggered and sustained. In the meantime religious communities will be asked to dare this dialogue structure of authority. If they are hard pressed in doing so, it is no great surprise. The question is: Is it not worthwhile? The third and most obvious area of the religious' dare is the matter of chastity. Chastity is required of all Christians by reason of their baptismal vows. Unfortu-nately, it is often understood in purely negative terms without much realization that a purely negative view is uhimately insulting to Christ. Yet, the purpose of Christian chastity is that every Christian learn from Christ what it is to be an authentic human lover. Such is the logic of the sacrament of matrimony, in which a couple accepts Christ into the heart of their human love, making His attitudes the standard for their own relationship. What this implies, too, is that, when Christ is introduced into the heart of human love, that love is forced to become open to other people beyond the lovers themselves. For the commitment to Christ as the standard and support of human love opens the couple out to Christ's community who help to interpret the standard and to support the couple in their pursuit of human love. Hence Christ makes even the private love between man and woman more open to others and more enriching for all. The religious extend this principle of openness in human love through Christ. By introducing Christ even more into the heart of his love, he opens himself out to more human contacts, to relationships of support and understanding with more people. Whatever the ac-tual scope of the religious' concern for and contact with people, his intention, and the content of his dare, is to give himself to as many as possible through Christ. Or, to put it more in the actual terms of his awareness, his instinct and his hope is that in not giving himself to one woman in Christ, Christ makes of him a man for all men and women. There are two observations to be made concerning the religious' chastity. First of all, a vow 0f chastity is not something which blots out in the religious an aware-ness of his own capacity for married love. In fact it seems that the more authentic hi~ dare in this area the more proximately ready he should be for married love. We might even say that, without ever mildly compromising his commitment, the religious should try to keep ready in order that his dare never become a sort of misguided m~prise for other ways of living and loving, and in order that his devotion to the Lord preserve its own proper relationship to other loves. Religious love Christ not with some globally undifferentiated or asexual love, but men love him as a man and women love him as women. And unless one has some notion of what the difference between the two is, one risks marring the appropriate overtones to the individual's relationship to Christ. The second remark to be made is that the religious also serves those for whom human love between a man and a woman is a physical, psychological, or economic impossibility. In an affluent sodety who cares for the un-gainly loves? Who sympathizes for the awkward, the ugly, the malproportioned? For people in whom love crouches like a deformed child? For those for whom their own sexuality is an embarrassment or a grotesque albatross? For whom communication with the other sex is at best a halting dumb-show or hollow bravura and at worst a mockery? Against the standard of successful married love, these people are judged severely in most societies. We do our best to hide them, or not to discuss them, because we surreptitiously set up as an absolute standard of human dignity success in married love. The presence of religious can do much to dissipate this false assessment of human dignity. Sooner or later, some0he is going to have to explain the religious who, while he insists on his own dignity, does not measure it by the imperious standard of successful married love. And others, seeing the religious, can take hope for their own dignity. Conclusion Our analysis has not left us without questions. This is inevitable since any theological image is no more than that, a way of understanding a faith experience which constantly runs ahead of our images of it. In admitting the difficulty of reconciling the image of daring with the service aspect of the vows (service to Christ and to men), we are simply expressing in other terms the perennial problem of reconciling love of self with love of others, ÷ ÷ Th~ ToI! the problem of being a self in the world. Other prob-lems lie beneath the surface of our consideration of the content of the religious' dare. A kind of parallel think-ing urges us to conclude that, just as the religious ends up not marrying, not having possessions, so too he should end up not choosing in the face of a superior's commands. This is indeed an aspect of his dare, but only in the sense that the religious foregoes choosing to limit dia-logue, just as he foregoes limiting his human love to one woman and just as he foregoes limiting his person to his possessions. The superior's commands should not ignore the positive purpose of the vows which are not supposed to be some kind of exercise in how-long-can-you-go-holding- your-breath. The religious superior has to realize that the vows open up the religious to the service of all. Moreover the superior has to realize that he is dealing with the daring of an individual person and that his function as superior is not to get individuals to conform to some imaginary and generalized "will of Christ." The superior's main role is to let Christ work in the life of the individual religious, without himself insisting a priori on the possible ways in which and only in which Christ can work. The religious superior can never interfere with the general lines of the structure of the religious life itself. If, as we suggested, these general lines require the re-ligious to dare the baptismal commitment to poverty, chastity, and obedience, it becomes all the more im-portant for religious superiors today to examine their own attitudes toward how the Church today is formu-lating the baptismal commitment. On this point, the general argument in the Church over what the implica-tions of Christian baptism are is taking a further toll on individual religious who feel that their dare is up in the air while the general argument rages. It is hardly sur-prising, then, that the optimists and pessimists line up in about the same way on the religious life as they do on the Church itself. It is curious, however, how optimism also resembles a dare. ÷ ÷ ÷ George C. McCaul~y, S.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS JOHN W. STAFFORD, C.S.V. Prayer Life in the Contemporary Community Introduction There are several approaches to a reflection on the prayer life of the contemporary religious community. One could enter the reflection, with the bias that there just does not seem to be much prayer going on these days in the contemporary community, either private, personal prayer or communal prayer. In that case the title of this paper might have been altered to read: "The Decline and Fall of Prayer in the World of Today." A second bias might be a more joyous one. Freed from the routine of the so-called religious exercises, the con-temporary religious leads a life of prayer that is unself-ish, authentic, meaningful, and full of compassion and concern for one's fellow man in God's world of today. The times and places of prayer are utterly unimpor-tant, but there is prayer going on. The forms of prayer are informal, perhaps free-form, or even utterly form-less. But there is substance to the prayer, and substance is certainly more important than form. Our title then might have been: "Come, All You Gals and Guys, Let's Strum a Prayer to the Lord." Or, if one wants to risk use of a language that is not exactly alive and jumping, the title might even be, with a certain appropriateness: "Laborare Est Orate." A third approach might be from the bias of the har-monizer, the synthesizer, the cool observer of the con-temporary scene, who perhaps thinks he is without bias. The reflection then would focus on what is good in the prayer life of religious in the past that should be pre-served, on what should be modified to conform to the needs of today (with a reference, of course, to Perfectae ÷ ÷ ÷ John W. $taf-ford° C.S.V., lives at 1100 Forest Avenue; Evanston, Illinois 80£02. VOLUME 28, 1969 747 + + ]ohn W. Sta~ord, C~.V. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS caritatis, n. 3), and finally on how entirely new concepts of prayer can enrich our religious life. The title of all this could well be: "The Adaptive Renewal of Prayer Life in the Contemporary Community"; perhaps more briefly: "Old Wine in New Bottles", or maybe: "Old Wine in Your Own New Plastic Bag." There could even be a fourth approach (and I am sure more), that of the planner and the prophet. The reflection would be directed towards some kind of schema of prayer life to fit the tempo and needs of to-day. There could be principles and propositions, a sort of blueprint or script or scenario for the ideal type of prayer life for a contemporary religious. This could be entitled simply: "How the Religious of Today Should Pray." The approach here, no doubt with conscious and un-conscious overtones of all four of the above, will be what may be rather grandiosely called phenomenological. The reflection will be that very difficult one of attempting to look at the prayer life of religious factually and with-out bias, non-judgmentally. Perhaps in any meaningful sense this is practically impossible, not only because of the lack of truly factual information, but. also due to man's apparently irresistible drive to look at every-thing through the basic biases of his being. The Facts of Contemporary Prayer The hard facts of the contemporary prayer life of religious are not easy to come by. There are all sorts of things going on ad experimentum; but there seem precious few real experiments with verified data that can be communicated and dealt with in objective study. There are, of course, some generalizations frequently made, but of dubious value. Some examples: religious today have largely lost the true spirit of prayer; there is less prayer today, but better prayer; there is really more prayer going on, in pri,date, although less in public to be seen by others; there are new modes of prayer around that are truly prayer even though they cannot at all be classified into the categories of the past. No doubt such statements are true for selected nmnbers of people, but how generalized we can make them it is impossible to say. But it seems that, based on widespread observation and report, some true generalizations are possible about the present-day prayer behavior of religious. Fewer religious are seen in their chapels, either for private prayer before the Blessed Sacrament or for com-munal exercises of prayer. When they do come together to pray, it is on a schedule that is notably more flexible and less demanding than even only a few years ago. There certainly has been adaptation in prayer "to the physical and psychological conditions of today's reli-gious" (Perfectae caritatis, n. 3). Changes in the forms of communal prayer have been widespread: exercises formerly thought best performed in common, like spiritual reading and visits to the Blessed Sacrament, are now considered more personal and private. The formulas of morning and evening prayer, which in many congregations grew like barnacles over the decades and even over the centuries, have been largely replaced by the official prayers of the Church, Lauds and Vespers or Compline. More recently, these official prayers have lost some of their novelty in those congregations where they were only recently introduced; hence there has been a rather widespread substitution of other readings for the Psalms, and this has here and there taken forms that are as contemporary as the latest popular literature. Today, then, there is certainly more variety, more improvisa-tion, more individual participation in prayer than there has been in the "Official" Church for centuries. It seems that another notable change with regard to the prayer life of religious is that, even though there may be less praying in public, the whole question of prayer has become explosively public. People talk about prayer more than perhaps at any other time since the Golden Age of Spanish mysticism in the sixteenth cen-tury. But the talk today would hardly be understood by a Spanish or any other variety of mystic: it deals not with degrees of the spiritual life, not with problems of aridity and desolation and dark nights of the soul, but with the very relevance of forms of prayer and of prayer itself in a secular age. There is a frankness in today's discussions about prayer totally unknown before. The superiority of prayer over service to others is seriously questioned. The assumption that there should be the same prayer for all at the same time and in the same place is simply rejected. And some of the traditional prayers of the Church come in for especially withering criticism, like the clear implication in the Hymn at Lauds for the Christmas season that the Infant Jesus was cold and hungry, and that choice bit from Psalm 136, at Thursday's Lauds: "Happy the man who shall seize and smash your little ones against the rocks." And "Good Night, Jesus," just does not seem to swing on an electric guitar. The whole place of prayer in the religious life, es-pecially in the formative years, has come under ques-tioning scrutiny. It would seem a valid generalization that until fairly recently young religious fresh "out of the world" and into the novitiate, for the most part, first were taught to pray, according to the accepted 4. 4- 4- Prayer LiJe VOLUME 28, ].969 749 ÷ ÷ ÷ John W. Sta~ord, C~.V. REVZEW FOR RELZG[OUS forms and customs of the congregation. Then, in seclu-sion from the world they learned how to live in charity with one another. Finally, if they belonged to the active societies, after a number of years of formation it was considered safe to permit them to engage in some form of external apostolate for the service of others, where they would meet "people of the world." Throughout they were taught to do all this for Christ who is God. It is not at all. clear that the concepts of Christ and of God of many religious today are those of even a decade ago. The Thomistic God of the philosophers is by no means accepted by all religious today. Maybe this was true a generation ago, too, but the fact is that if it was, one just did not say so! And views of Christ held today by many religious might have been labeled as tainted with heresy not at all long ago. It is not popular today to begin with prayer, for God through Christ, then move on to carefully guarded relationships with a highly se-lected group of chosen souls presumably much like yourself. You begin with people. In your encounters with people you learn more of yourself; and, if you are lucky, you come to see that people, ultimately, cannot really fulfill the totality of human needs. So God enters in, transcendent, it is true, but not at all the God with the carefully distinguished attributes of the old theo-logical manuals, and by no means always the God to whom novices formerly were taught to pray. But this God, nevertheless, is still a God to whom one prays. As everyone knows, a notable change in the prayer life of the contemporary religious, as in the prayer life of the whole Church, is the restoration of the centrality of the divine liturgy. Even though the importance or even the wisdom of daily Mass is questioned widely, and the forms of the Mass by no means always held to what is officially permitted, the Mass is still the great prayer of religious. It is a fact that many are dissatisfied with the Mass unless it is made something that they consider authentic, .dynamic, and fulfilling. The Liturgy of the Word is modified to fit the needs and interests of the participants, and the spontaneous changes made in the Liturgy of Sacrifice are in the direction of more personal meaningfulness and of greater social relevancy. A final fact that might be noted in today's prayer life of religious is that it can no longer be considered as restricted to the "ghetto" of the convent chapel. For the Mass at least, religious join more often than before with others in public church or university chapel. And those who do not belong to the congregation have now a warmer welcome than ever before to worship with religious in their own chapels. Religious, too, like all in the Church, have come to see that ecumenical prayer is a beautiful witness to the uriity and brotherhood of mankind. The PersonabCommunity Tension Throughout what has just been said we can distill out, amongst other things, a tension between the per-sonal or the private and the communal or public that, it would seem, is the greatest in history. Whether, as some would say, in the past the person became lost in the group or, as others would say, the group bestowed per-sonal fulfillment on the individual, there did in fact seem less tension between the two. Some things were done privately, some together; there seemed litde debate about it all. Certainly, there have always been in reli-gious communities as in all societies this elemental con-flict between the individual and the collectivity, the age old philosophical and very real and practical problem of the one and the many. But the conflict was generally controlled in the area of religious prayer. Today we witness a tremendous development of per-sonalism, of emphasis on the dignity and integrity of the individual. Though there is around, even in our highly sophisticated society, a lot of compulsive conforming to group norms and tribal customs, there is a more wide-spread and more intensive insistence on the importance of the individual. Read the documents of Vatican II and the pronouncements of our own contemporary popes; read the Declaration of the Rights of Man of the United Nations; recall the Four Freedoms of a generation ago; note the contemporary emphases everywhere on the rights of conscience and on freedom of religion; look at the map of the world. Everywhere there is insistence on self-government of peoples, on responsible self-determi-nation of the individual. Truly we can call this the supreme age in history of the individual person. Paradoxically, we can also see that never before in history has there been more "community." This can be seen, at one level, in the communications explosion of our age, the mass media of communication, the break-down of barriers of space and time by jet and satellite. Although there is certainly not peace throughout the world, nevertheless as never before in history a political or diplomatic brushfire anywhere is watched with alarm lest it become a world conflagration. Even though all men are by no means brothers, there is a longing for universal brotherhood, and progress towards it, that are truly remarkable. There is a concern for the poor and the unlettered and the deprived of the world as never before. This is clearly evident on a more local level. Vast groups of our own population are outraged, not because + + Prayer Liye VOLUME ~8, ~tg&~ ¯ 751 + 4. 4. John W. Sta~o~d~ .$.V. REVI