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Changing Institutional Norms and Behavior not Culture, Experiential Learning Comes to Myanmar
This paper describes two From-Toe frameworks incorporating institutional and behavioral changes that introduce experiential learning in a developing country without arousing cultural disputes. The setting is Myanmar, a country struggling to join the global economy despite severe political and economic troubles. These frameworks may be useful for those assisting MBA program start-ups in other developing countries.
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Learner autonomy : the first language/ second language : some reflections on the nature and role of metalinguistic knowledge
Learner autonomy is classically defined as "the ability to take charge of one's learning" (Holec 1981:3). Such an ability presupposes a positive attitude towards the process, content and goals of learning, and is sustained and strengthened by a developing capacity for "detachment, critical reflection, decision-making, and independent action" (little 1991:4). The freedom that characterizes the autonomous learner is not absolute, but conditional and constrained. Learning, whether developmental/ experiential or formal, is always embedded in an interactive, social process (self- instruction entails an internalization of this process, so that our capacity for learning on our own develops out of our experience of learning in interaction with others; cf. Uttle 1991:5). This explains the paradox that learner autonomy can be fully understood as a theoretical construct and effectively pursued as a pedagogical goal only when we take full account of the social context in which learning takes place. The argument in favour of fostering learner autonomy has been conducted in both social and psychological terms. In adult education, for example, there has been a tendency to stress "the need to develop the individual's freedom by developing those abilities which will enable him to act more responsibly in running the affairs of the society in which he lives" (Holec 1981:1.). The link between educational purpose and political ideal could scarcely be plainer. Other explorations of the theory and practice of learner autonomy, by contrast, have focussed on the psychological dimension of learning, emphasizing that we can only ever learn on the basis of what we already know, and that no two individuals have exactly the same store of knowledge. ; peer-reviewed
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Lessons from experience: experiential learning in administrative reforms in eight democracies
In: Arena working paper 94,3
Review for Religious - Issue 53.3 (May/June 1994)
Issue 53.3 of the Review for Religious, May/June 1994. ; ChriStian Heritages and Contempora~ Living MAY-J~ !994 ¯ VOIdUME 531 ¯ NUMBER3 Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University. by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535-3048 ¯ Fax: 314-535-0601 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ° St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ P.O. Box 29260 ° Washington, DC 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ° Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©1994 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific libraw clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. review for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Joann Wolski Conn PhD Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Ann Ledden SSND Edmundo Rodriguez SJ Sefin Sammon FMS Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living MAY-JUNE 1994 " VOLUME53 ¯ NUMBER3 contents 326 feature Leadership a New Way: Women, Power, and Authority Janet K. Ruffing RSM explores the Christian concepts of power and the developmental stages which lead to sharing power and to healing the wounds of authority we all bear. 34O 352 life in flux Transition's Holy or Unholy Dark Jane Ferdon OP and George Murphy SJ draw from their experience of spiritual direction to shed light upon some of the darkness experienced by women and men religious. Merging Provinces Gerald A. Arbuckle SM brings insights from cultural anthropology to the process of merging congregational provinces. 364 One Voice from the Middle Place Judith Ann Eby RSM speaks out as part of a new generation which interprets religious life differently from those whose background includes the lived experience of Tridentine Catholicism. 375 life in service Religious, the Laity, and the Future of Catholic Institutions Catherine Harmer MMS suggests that for the good of Catholic institutions it is time for religious to let go of some things and for lay people to take them on so that both groups can act at their best. 386 Being and Acting Holy for Ministry's Sake Clyde A. Bonar proposes some practical ways of being about our one ministry: to be holy. 397 Missionary by Nature William F. Hogan CSC focuses attention upon the essential missionary aspect of every Christian and religious vocation. 322 Review for Rellg~ous life of witness 402 How to Read the Lives of Saints of Old 415 Frederick G. McLeod SJ gives some helps for our understanding and appreciating the richness of meaning found in the lives of saints of old. Prayer Francis J. Ring SJ offers his personal history of praying as a support for all pilgrims in their prayer life. reflective life 420 Even at the Grave We Make Our Song Margaret Bullitt-Jonas explores how three symbols--the crucifixion, the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus Christ-- came to life as she prayed over her infant daughter's death. 436 A Letter to Dead Parents about Today's Life Eileen O'Hea CSJ writes about her present-day experience of religious life. 440 452 46O religious life in perspective Journeying to God Together Susan Beaudry PM and Edwin L. Keel SM suggest that what religious have to offer the people of God is the experience of the spiritual journey, with its wisdom and skills. Charism as Sonnet: Developmental Considerations S. Suzanne Mayer IHM offers various perspectives on living the charisms of religious life for the dynamic of personal growth. Hispanic Faith and Culture--and U.S.A. Religious Gloria In~s Loya PBVM explains the pillars, of ministry, community, and spirituality .which support religious life in a Mexican-American setting. departments 324 Prisms 467 Canonical Counsel: Directives for the Relationship between Bishops and Religious: Mutuae Relationes 473 Book Reviews May-.lWune 1994 323 prisms E those of us living in the midwestern part of the United States, the spring and early summer seasons bless us with a burst of flowering trees and shrubs and a continuing array of nature's living vari-ety. Obviously all these signs of life are not created out of nothing each year. In fact, the changing seasons remind us of how much life remains hidden from our daily human perspective. Seeds look to be so dry and lifeless. Even in planting them in lawn or garden, we can only wonder about and wait for the activities of life still hidden from our sight. Oceans appear to our eyes as only a huge volume of water, but oceans teem with life--mostly hidden beneath the sur-face- which marine biologists endlessly discover and observe and marvel at. If we buy into the impressions promoted by contem-porary advertising, we find ourselves acting as if what we see is what life is all about. Life as sold by secular culture seems to bankrupt itself in surface impressions. Just how limited such a vision of life is quicHy becomes apparent when we deal with moral and religious issues of human living. Abortion only becomes an option if people keep human life out of sight. Arguments for abortion deal with choices and rights, with nary a thought about the hid-denness of human life. "Ethnic cleansing," whether it be in E~rope, Africa, Asia, or America, is a cosmetic phrase to disguise the deadly idea that some peoples are more deserving of life than others. Put into practice, this deadly idea joins the age-old slave trading, the Nazi concentra-tion camps, and futuristic scientific cloning as another 324 Reviezv for Religious sadly and horrendously narrow human mishandling of human life. For all the words about environment and ecology and quality of human life, we seem unable to reverence the mystery of life-- visible life and hidden life--with which our world abounds. For the young Christian community at Colossae, St. Paul used the pregnant phrase that "our life is hidden now with Christ in God." Perhaps we need to reflect more on the hiddenness of our faith life and thereby come to an appreciation and reverence for the hiddenness of life in general. The fledgling Christian com-munity at Colossae realized that in everyday life they looked pretty much the same as everyone else. They ate, they drank, they sometimes went hungry, they married and had families, they got sick, they died; they had joys and sorrows. They gathered, of course, for Eucharist, and their concern and care for one another and anyone in need did give them some mark of distinctiveness. But overall they lived with a new reverence for life--from the very young to the very old. Why? Because the risen Christ in whom they all were baptized had brought them into a new rela-tionship to God and to one another--a relationship subtle as the Spirit but as real as the risen Christ himself. As Saul (now Paul the writer) experienced and many other persecutors have learned since his day, a voice insists that it is Jesus whom they persecute. We Christians hear Jesus insisting, "If you do it to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you are doing it to me." We touch here the source of the hidden life we all live in Christ. But Jesus does more than affect the hiddenness of human relationships--whatever tribe or nationality, religious affiliation or secular lifestyle. Because Jesus has taken on the darkness and hid-denness of suffering and death and by his rising joined it into a new fullness of life, the physical world in which we live is not the same as it was. Suffering and death are not just problems to be solved and if possible eliminated; suffering and death, now seen in a wholly new relationship to life in the risen Christ, must also be met with reverence. In the midst of all our necessary human efforts to relieve the suffering in our world, we believers stand with reverence before suffering, lfor we know. with the sureness of faith that because of Christ life lies hidden even in suffering, sometimes especially in suffering. Therein, deep down, like life in winter, lives Christian joy and the root of Christian reverence for life. David L. Fleming SJ May-ffvtne 1994 325 feature JANET K. RUFFING Leadership a New Way: Women, Power, and Authority The FORUS study in its general conclusions identified authority as "perhaps the most pressing question for reli-gious to resolve."' Underneath the question of authority, I find at least two foundational themes which need to be explored--the meaning of leadership in religious congre-gations in light of differing interpretations of power and authority and the specifically religious qualities of lead-ership. As I study the current research on religious life, I continue to uncover the deep ground of grace out of which religious life grows and flourishes. I remain convinced that we cannot hope to understand the reality of contem-porary religious life without probing this depth level of religious experience. The present theological, interdisci-plinary, experiential reflections address such questions as: Leadership for what? VChat obstacles impede our ability to collaborate? Part II addresses questions about religious leadership: How do leaders support the ongoing conver-sion implied as we discover new dimensions of the Christ mystery in our lives and ministries? What ultimately sus-tains us in our calling? "Authority in many U.S. institutions, including reli-gious life, has.undergone deconstruction. Variable under- Janet Ruffing RSM is associate professor in spirituality and spir-itual direction in the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education at Fordham University. Her address is GSRRE, Fordham University; 441 E. Fordham Road; Bronx, New York 10458-5169. The second part of her article, "If Christ Is Growing in U~," will appear in our July-August 1994 issue. 326 Review for Religious standings of consensus, subsidiarity, discernment, and leadership have diffused understandings of authority. The abuse of author-ity in the past makes individuals reluctant to endorse authority in any way.''2 It is clear from the FORUS study that these differ-ing views of authority and the corresponding understandings of obedience exist within single institutes as well as across insti-tutes. As a result, leadership is sometimes severely impaired in its ability to lead; while in other instances leadership is experi-enced as empowering and free-ing for mission. Authority functions and is understood differently when charism is taken seriously and when governance takes adult discipleship into account. Women religious particularly have been redefining the mean-ing of obedience and authority in ways particularly suited to their awareness of their needs and desires as women. The FORUS study reports that vision groups "view authority as power that is shared among commu-nities of equals,''3 These changes in understandings of authority are related to how such a vision of power and authority and the impli-cations for redefining a vow of obedience appear, to many women to be more compatible with gospel values than does the post- Tridentine version of authority. Women religious as a group, espe-cially at the level of leadership, are pressing for a more enabling exercise of power among themselves. Although religious desire to maintain an ecclesial identity, the FORUS study reports a "lowered respect for the magisterial authority of the church and the U.S. hierarchy in general.''4 According to this study, women are acutely aware of their exclu-sion from leadership by the clerical church. Women religious are looking at church in new ways; they have embraced a clear com-mitment to changing this church. Clerical resistance to this change will further diminish the capacity of women's communities to Apostolic religious women will not fully stabilize nor be able to attract and retain new vocations until ecclesial conflicts about the church's mission and the contribution of religious within it are resolved. NIay-j~ne 1994 327 Ruffing * Leadership a New Way attract the very women who are looking for a public context in society and church that is meaningful for their dedication and service. In my opinion, apostolic religious women will not fully sta-bilize nor be able to attract and retain new vocations until eccle-sial conflicts about the church's mission and the contribution of religious within it are resolved. This includes not only resolving the role of women in the church but also arriving at an operative consensus of the role of the church in the modern world. Religious are in a real sense church people whose mission and identity lie at the heart of the ~hurch's own. The Brooldand Commission Study reported that 94 percent of their respondents named the self-understanding of the church developed in the wake of Vatican II to be a source in forming their ideas about what is essential to religious life.s To the extent that the larger church is ambiEalent about the directions set by the council, religious life will con-tinue to be at risk. In the context of these recent studies which indicate both sig-nificant change and continuing confusion, I will describe the psy-choanalytic roots of our attitudes toward authority, explore several concepts of power disclosed in the New Testament, and reflect on women and power. I will end with the Whiteheads' descriptions of both the developmental stages which lead to sharing power in Christian communities and the necessary task of healing the wounds of authority which we all bear. Formative Experiences with Authority One's basic stance toward authority, those whom I perceive to be "in charge" or more powerful than I, is usually determined by my early experiences with my mother and father and then with institutional authorities such as teachers and other authority fig-ures. This experience forms how I relate to God as an ultimate authority, how I relate to situations of injustice, how I relate to my own authority, and. how I relate to ambiguous authority. (Ambiguous authority refers to that exercise of authority which is usually benign but which is occasionally overbearing or oppres-sive.) If my experience has been one in which authority was exer-cised with genuine love and for my good, I will tend to respect and trust authority. I will creatively participate with authority, and I 328 Review for Religious will feel comfortable being critical of this authority. These responses are based on a sense that persons in authority have benign motives and are both fallible and rational. In other words, were I to present information missing from a decision, that new information would be taken into account and I would not be pun-ished for making a suggestion. Authority exercised with love is neither physically nor verbally abusive, but consistently treats me with respect. On the other hand, if my experience has been one in which authority was not so exercised, fear will be my dominant emo-tional response. I will either conform to the wishes of authority to avoid notice or abuse or I will rebel against it. Neither rebel-lion nor conformity are particularly healthy responses because both are rooted in a feeling of alienation and powerlessness. Authority functions against me and I feel powerless to do much about it. If I rebel, I choose noncooperation. I do not help to change the situation; instead, I may create a separate peace by withdrawing or opposing. If I conform, I do so because I feel powerless. I do not tell the truth but tell them only what they want to hear to avoid conflict. Since I perceive authority to be unloving and irrational, rational discourse cannot achieve any-thing fruitful, so I do not even try. Of course, no one is a pure type, and all usually have had some experience of both forms of authority. But most of the time I inhabit one attitude more than the other. I either offer myself to the process of authority-mak-ing or I withdraw in fear from participation. If my early experience is primarily loving and rational, I will experience God's authority to be for my good; I will recognize and" act against situations of injustice; I will experience my own inner authority and act out of it in nondefensive ways; and I will be able to be critical. I can tell the truth in the face of ambiguous experiences of authority. I can afford to see that a given person in authority has room to grow in the way he or she exercises that authority. New Testament Concepts of Power The New Testament presents two concepts of power. It addresses the way authority exercises power through the behav-ior and teaching of Jesus, and it begins to redefine power as the activity of God in our midst. "Power in the kingdom of God will May-June 1994 329 Ruffing ¯ Leadership a New Way be totally different from power as it is exercised in the kingdom of Satan (the world). The power of Satan is the power of domi-nation and oppression, the power of God is the power of service and freedom." 6 All the kingdoms and nations of this present world are governed by the power of domination and force. The struc-ture of the kingdom of God will be determined by the power of spontaneous loving service which people render to one another. In Mark, Jesus puts it this way: "You know that among the pagans their so-called rulers lord it over them, and their great men make their authority felt. This is not to happen among you. No; any-one who wants to become great among you must be your servant (diakonos), and anyone who wants to be first among you must be a slave (doulos) to all. For the son of man himself did not come to serve but to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mk 10:42-45, Mk 9:35). This teaching occurs in all three synoptics and is par-alleled by the footwashing pericope in John's gospel. "You call me teacher and lord, rightly so--if I your teacher and Lord have washed your feet--so also ought you to wash one another" (Jn 13:14). This is an example of the way power is to be exercised among the disciples--placing ourselves at the service of one another's freedom, calling forth from one another by our exam-ple "kingdom qualities," and releasing the power of the commu-nity in mission. Jesus is very clear about the difference between domination and service. As Albert Nolan says, "The power of this new soci-ety is not a power which has to be served, a power before which a person must bow down and cringe. It is the power which has an enormous influence in the lives of people by being of service to them." 7 Also relevant to this discussion is Jesus' attitude to the law, the power which enabled religious rulers to dominate and oppress. Jesus consistently attacked this abuse of the law. He rejected any interpretation which was used against people. The law was meant to serve genuine human needs and interests. Unfortunately, many fear the responsibility of freedom. We seek the security of a law which gives us prestige and allows us to dominate, or we let others make decisions for us, hiding behind rules, relying on the letter rather than on the spirit of the law. In so doing we enslave ourselves by our fear of freedom, and we deny freedom to others as well. Jesus does not abolish the law, but relativizes it so that we will take responsibility for the sys-tems we create and use them to serve the needs of humanity. The 330 Review for Religious exercise of power and authority in God's kingdom is to be func-tional. It should embody the arrangements that are necessary if we are to serve one another willingly and effectively. Every type of domination and servitude is to be abolished, including religious forms of these abuses. The New Testament also speaks about another kind of power--the power that comes from on high over Mary, the Holy Spirit, who also comes upon the community gathered in Jesus' name after the resurrec-tion. Jesus' ministry is characterized by a release of God's power as he expels demons and heals those who believe. The woman with the issue of blood touches Jesus, and power goes out from him. In Luke, all try to touch Jesus in order to be healed because power emanates from him. When Jesus sends out the disciples to preach, he confers power on them, not to rule but to heal and to cast out demons. Jesus releases in our midst freedom from all that binds us. He heals and forgives sin and invites us to share in this power for good which is the Spirit's action in us. We, as apostolic women, are empowered by that same Spirit. We are called to develop ways of making decisions, organizing our lives, and harmonizing our gifts so that this holy power for mission is released in each of us and in the group as a whole. The disciples had trouble understanding this; they kept mixing up these two kinds of power, wanting to rule and lord it over others rather than releasing the God life to its own ends. Jesus is very clear about the difference between domination and service. Women and Power As women we can often remain confused about these texts and themes. We have been trained in our tradition to be power-less-- to be the servants. Kathleen Fischer puts it this way: "Rhetoric about servanthood has often been used against women, trapping us in subservient roles. As suffering servant Jesus exer-cises power in the service of rglationships,.affirming the dignity and worth of each individual. He empowered others, unlocking their deepest desires and enabling them to use their best gifts."s Women's role in the church has been designated as the subordi-nate one (servants) while others have assumed the positions of May-June 1994 331 Ruffing * Leadership a New Way If we do exercise power unconsciously, we will probably do to others exactly what has been done to us. authority, taking charge, lording it over, and engaging in ritual footwashings while not holding power lightly. As a result, women find themselves oppressed by religious authority and in a posi-tion of permanent subordination. Since power has been a bad word among Christian women, we perceive it as a negative and dangerous reality. Because it is something none of us is to have or exercise, we are therefore often mysti-fied by the use of power in the church and in religious congregations. We do not want anything to do with power, and we may be afraid to exercise it. If we want power, we must be bad. Exercising power in our own interest can leave us feeling selfish, self-destruc-five, or threatened in our relationships. This ambivalence about power and our social conditioning in patriarchal sys-tems create a situation in which we often exercise our power indirectly or unconsciously. Or we may become con-fused and anxious when conflict or struggle comes out into the open. If we do exercise power unconsciously, we will probably do to others exactly what has been done to us. So as not to oppress anyone else as we have been oppressed, we need to understand power differently. We need to see power as a strength and understand how to participate in the healthy use of power. Jean Baker Miller redefines power simply as the "capacity to implement.''9 Expressing power does not need to be coercive or oppressive. Women, however, do not exercise power any better than men unless we become conscious and critical of how and when we express power. The Whiteheads on Power In the American church many men and women, clergy and laity, struggle to reflect critically on their experience of power in ecclesial contexts and to change how that power is expressed. Recent writings by Evelyn and James Whitehead have supported this struggle by exploring gospel understandings of power in the 332 Review for Religious light of the contemporary social sciences. In their work with hun-dreds of teams and in workshops across the country, they found that the single greatest obstacle to collaboration is a mystifica-tion about power along with the inability of many people in authority to share power. The Whiteheads define power and authority this way:l° Authority is the right to command or exercise power in relationship to the goals and values of the group. It is vested in persons (elected leaders) or in offices (specific roles/func-tions). Who or how the "vesting" occurs may be formal (appointment, election, consensus) or informal. But the social group recognizes the function of authority and the process of transferring it from one person to another. Power is the achievement or control of effects. Often it is the ability to produce a change. It may or may not coincide with authority. The Whiteheads continue: It is always present in interpersonal relationships. It is every way of exercising influence over another. One person is always subject to the power of another and no one is com-pletely without power. Power refers to the interactions among us. Finally, they say "power is best. perceived as those interac-tions that both create and threaten human community." According to the FORUS study, it is this definition of power as a resource to be shared that emerges as the dominant view of power among visionary people in religious life. The question remains: How operative is this understanding of power in religious life? In The Promise of Partnership, the Whiteheads consider that one of the primary tasks of religious leadership is to foster the transformation of our experience of power. If religious leaders genuinely exercise power in a manner consonant with the New Testament's understanding, they will use their power to welcome the power of others. They will use their role as leaders to enable those they lead to experience their shared strength in the group. As we mature in personal strength, we experience different modes of power. Early experiences and cultural influences can delay or impede our being comfortable with more mature expres-sions of power. Relying 0n David McClelland's work, the Whiteheads describe four basic orientations toward personal power--receiving power, achieving autonomy, expressing power, and sharing power. ~ May-j~une 1994 333 Ruling * Leadership a New Way Faces of Power Childhood is our basic experience of feeling strong because we are cared for and supported in our growing by our parents. When we are nurtured well, we learn to feel safe in the presence of oth-ers' power. We are empowered by this protection. Feeling empow-ered by others in this way continues into adulthood when we are strengthened by friendship, teamwork, or collaboration. I can feel comfortable receiving care and competence from others, and ][ do not have to rely entirely or only on myself. If I grew up in an unsafe environment, I learned not to trust or I remember depen-dence as demeaning and shameful. Adult experiences can also dis-appoint us and cause us to withdraw, but they are often overcome when we fall in love again or open ourselves again to a new rela-tionship. Autonomy is the strength we have on our own. In achieving autonomy we celebrate our self-reliance and self-sufficiency. Acting on nay own behalf expands my sense of power. Having developed some skills and competencies, I become an agent in my own life. Collaboration depends on my having some basic confidence in my own resources. If I lack autonomy, I will under-mine any partnership through my dependency. However, if I do not learn how to move beyond self-sufficiency, collaboration and openness to outside influence will feel like weakness, for it will imply that my own resources are deficient. Women often have difficulty in achieving autonomy unless the culture in which they function values their self-sufficiency and personal agency. Some religious communities have impeded this development in their members while others have fostered it but have not yet been able to direct this self-reliant energy back into communal projects. Expressing power turns us outward, as we begin to influence others and have an impact on our world. At this stage we feel strong when we influence the world beyond ourselves. A new sense of power stirs when we express our ideas, make demands of others, assume responsibility, take charge, and when others respond favorably. McClelland found that this orientation was prominent among management, supervisors, lawyers, and people in the helping professions. Success in all these fields depends on being able to influence the attitudes and behaviors of others. Personal assertion and social influence are the two particular resources of this power. However, these resources can be dis-played differently. Some express power exclusively in a combative 334 Review for Religious stance of competition with a need to dominate. A leader who feels strong only in this way easily becomes authoritarian. This kind of leader may function effectively in a military unit, but not as well in a helping role or in organizational leadership. !n these roles it is more appropriate to feel power-ful when motivating others, offering assistance, coordinating resources, and helping a group move toward its goals. The shadow side of this abil-ity to influence is dominance and control. Maturity lures us toward still another face of power--feeling strong in sharing power. People at this stage feel themselves to be per-sonally strong and also involved with something larger than themselves. Something beyond self-interest--the will of God, or commitment to a vision--prompts their action. They feel both powerful and empowered, strong both in autonomy and in col-laboration. These people welcome interdependence, the ability to enjoy mutual influence and mutual empowerment. When we work together the power we share increases and enhances my strength. The outcome that emerges from this interplay of interdepen-dence is less mine, yet I feel stronger because something better has resulted. Genuine interdependence is possible only if a significant num-ber of the members of religious communities mature to this fourth level of power. The hierarchical church, in its current exercise of power, shares power minimally. One group is authorized to express power and another group, namely the laity, receives it. If actual partnership is to flourish in the ecclesial community, we need an abundance of religious leaders who value sharing power and who are not threatened by widening the sources of influence. Much of the governance journey in religious life for women has been toward this mode of sharing power. The old way of lead-ership is not capable of fostering the full religious'maturity of its members. A single charismatic leader can function in level three If actual partnership is to flourish in the ecclesial community, we need an abundance of religious leaders who value sharing power and who are not threatened by widening the sources of influence. May-June 1994 335 Ruffing ¯ Leadership a New Way of this schema, but that requires the entire group to submit to that individual charism. I believe the gifts of grace and discern-ment are distributed both more broadly and more abundantly than that. If we truly believe that our charisms live in all of us, that God's spirit releases an outpouring of energy and power, then sharing power is the only style of religious leadership that has the flexibility and openness to engage in the discernment of these movements. Healing the Wounds of Authority The FORUS study critiques dysfunctional religious leader-ship in many religious communities. I understand that much of this dysfunction is a manifestation of incomplete adult ddvelop-ment. For authentic interdependence and collaboration to be pos-sible, those in leadership must be committed to continuing their own development and to fostering the development of their mem-bers. Healing the wounds of authority is often an integral part of the process.12 The Whiteheads describe a continuum of growth in our per-spective about authority. It moves from the perception that power and authority are completely external to ourselves to the percep-tion that we confer authority in partnership with others for com-mon goals. Women in religious life stand all along the continuum. The way authority used to be exercised was coercive. A large part of our individual and corporate journey through renewal has involved deconstructing coercive authority and either avoiding the question of authority altogether (hence not a few resistant women in our midst) or constructing an entirely new way of exer-cising it. Briefly, the Whiteheads portray the function of authority as expanding life, making power more abundant, and calling others to collaborative partnership. However, many of us find ourselves unable to respond to this adult invitation to share power. We per-sist in viewing authority as external to ourselves, with those in authority holding on to power as a permanent and privileged pos-session to be used as they see fit. This kind of authority makes us feel like either children or victims, vulnerable and liable to be hurt when we interact with authority. We project onto our lead-ers impossible expectations, [equiring them to be all things to all people. We treat them as different from us, more knowledgeable, 336 Review for Religious more wise, more talented. Such projection masks our irresponsi-bility and delays our process of maturing. A more mature approach to authority views leaders very much as we view ourselves. We hope they are competent, but we under-stand that they have no special access to wisdom. They, too, are limited, fallible, susceptible to bias and error. No longer something leaders do to us, authority becomes relativized and results in a sense of partnership. Rather than benefi-ciaries, victims, or observers, we become participants with leaders in shaping the best decisions. How do we heal the wounds of authority? Transformation begins, according to the Whiteheads, whenever a crisis causes us to examine behavior that no longer works, whether it he avoidirig authority, fighting it, or trying to win its approval. The process moves through the successive stages of withdrawal, disbelief, self-scrutiny, and authority-making. In withdrawal I recognize that I have put authority outside myself and retreat to an inner place. My external behavior may not change much, hut basically I ignore authority and its claims on me. In the stage of disbelief, I realize that I am more than what authority thinks of me. My sense of self and self-worth no longer depends on external authority. This stage may begin as rebel-lion--" Who says this is the way things are?" I question how things are and think about how things could or should be. I recognize that how things are is often merely the way those in power have decided they should be, sometimes benefiting the leaders more than anyone else. The risk of disbelief is that it can harden into skepticism that rejects all exercise of authority. I can be preoc-cupied with exposing the faults and failings of those in authority when I do not yet see myself as an equal. The stage of self-scrutiny allows me to recognize how I have participated in maintaining coercive authority all along, whether by elevating those in authority, attacking them, or blaming them for things for which I am also responsible. I become able to ask We project onto our leaders impossible expectations, requiring them to be all things to all people. Such projection masks our irresponsibility and delays our process of maturing. May-June 1994 337 Ruling ¯ Leadership a New Way the critical question: When is the influence of external authority-- a leader, a value system, a set of laws--legitimate in my life? A cer-tain level of intellectual and emotional maturity is required in order to respond freely, neither compulsed to negate these demands nor anxious to satisfy a hidden motive. I understand that, as I have contributed to my own oppression, I can participate in my own empowerment. When I can exercise my personal power in response to author-ity both by taking initiative and obeying, I have reached the stage of authority-making. At this stage, I am able to face conflict if nec-essary in the pursuit of a common purpose. This is possible only after I have recognized my prior negative contribution through fear, apathy, or magical thinking. The Whiteheads caution that one cannot wait until this stage is completed; even conscious of wounds and the continuing process of healing, I need to be engaged as a partner in authority.13 The unhealed wounds of authority are frequently the unac-knowledged agenda when leaders and members experience tension between individualism and the common good. Authority will be interpreted and experienced differently depending on the level of healing and the vision of exercising power espoused by each religious. If leaders can encourage communities to begin to heal the wounds of authority and if the majority of the members can endure the pain of growth in this developmental process to become capable of sharing power, our communities will be very different. Both leaders and members will be partners in codis-cernment, as both respond to the ever changing call to be shaped by and to express in life and ministry their shared charism and discipleship of Jesus. According to the FORUS study, outstanding women leaders were extremely active in securing the commitment of the group to appropriate actions or decisions. They used their positional and personal power to influence outcomes, but not at the cost of diminishing the sharing of power in the group. Further they tended "to encourage participation of those they lead, share power and information with them, and enhance their self-worth and energize them." ~4This style of leadership has been pioneered largely by women in a variety of settings as well as in religious life. Clearly, one of the gifts religious women can offer the church is the healing of our wounds of authority and our growth in sharing power, thereby releasing the power of God's spirit in our midst. 338 Review for Religious Notes ~ David Nygren and Miriam Ukeritis, "Research Executive Summary: Future of Religious Orders in the United States," Origins 22 (24 September 1992): 271. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid, p. 268. 4 Ibid, p. 271. 5 Katarina Schuth, "The Intellectual Life as a Value for Women Religious in the United States," Appendix: Survey, Brookland Commission paper, 16-18 October 1992, 10. 6 Albert Nolan, Jesus before Christianity (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1976 and 1992), p. 84. v Ibid, p. 85. 8 Kathleen Fischer, VVomen at the Well: Feminist Perspectives on Spi~qtual Direction (Mahwah: Paulist, 1988), p. 140. 9 See Jean Baker Miller, Toward a New P~chology of FVomen (Boston: Beacon, 1976 and 1986), for a full discussion of the topic women and power. ~0 Evelyn and James. Whitehead, Emerging Laity: Retm~zing Leadership to the Community of Faith (New York: Image, 1988), p. 36. ~ The description which follows is dependent on Evelyn and James Whitehead, The Promise of Partnership: Leadership and Minist~7 in an Adult Church (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1991), pp. 115-127. ~2 See "Healing the Wounds of Authority," in Promise, pp. 27-36, for the full description of this schema. ~3 It should be apparent that only in these latter two stages of self-scrutiny and authority-making is discernment possible. 14 David Nygren and Miriam Ukeritis, "Religious Leadership Competencies," Review for Religious 52, no. 3 (May-June 1993): 413. May-June 1994 339 JANE FERDON AND GEORGE MURPHY Transition's Holy or Unholy Dark life flux ¯ he renewal of religious life over the past thirty years has generated a series of expected and unexpected results. One of the most puzzling is the persistence of darkness. Despite massive and heroic efforts to update and achieve renewal, many groups and individuals are continually deal-ing with a darkness that nothing seems to dispel. As men and women religious and bishops prepare for the Roman Synod on religious life, people will inevitably both review the transitional years since Vatican II and envision the future. They will gather and analyze data from many different perspectives. We would like to offer the perspective of spiritual direction and our experience of working as spiritual directors with men and women reli-gious.~ Theological, sociological, psychological, economic, political, and cultural perspectives all help in the under-standing of religious life. From spiritual direction we can see how people's experience of God has renewed them and how their experience of darkness, the apparent or real absence of God, has purified or stultified them. People's experiences of God in moments of light, energy, joy, and enthusiasm have received refined attention Jane Ferdon oP and George Murphy SJ are adjunct faculty at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, where they have been directing a practicum in spiritual direction. Their address is Jesuit School of Theology; 1735 LeRoy Avenue; Berkeley, California 94709-1193. 340 Review for Religious and have been deservedly relished. There are encouraging signs of new vitality in religious life: a growing freedom in people, more laughter, a refusal to be victimized, an ability to love and receive affection, a desire to know God more and share with oth-ers how God is present among us. People are taking apostolic risks and are praying regularly and contemplatively. Many are concerned with the poor and with unjust structures. People strive for integrity, some even risking their lives to protest war and nuclear arms. Others give their lives as martyrs, witnesses of God's concern for God's peo-ple. Some are willing boldly to confront evil both within the church and outside it. There are many reasons to hope. It is precisely in this context that we need to interpret dark-ness, both individually and col-lectively, to ponder its impact and to move toward light. The subject of darkness is not attrac-tive. By its very nature it can evoke self-criticism and blame. We intend neither. Our purpose is to portray people's experience and to raise some serious questions for reflection and considera-tion. We are convinced that only by scrutinizing the darkness can we be more free to enjoy the new life and energy in our midst. Then, with courage, we can pass on what we have learned to the next generation of women and men religious. Admittedly, some-times we have neither the strength nor the disposition to deal with darkness. As painful as it might be, we believe that God is calling women and men religious and the church not only to look at the light but also to discern the darkness. Experiences of darkness are only beginning to be probed and 'mined.z Our thesis is that sometimes darkness is holy; God is present and waiting in the darkness. This is the dark night of There are encouraging signs of new vitality in religious life: a growing freedom in people, more laughter, a refusal to be victimized, an ability to love and receive affection, a desire to know God more and share with others how God is present among us. May-.~ne 1994 341 Ferdon and Murphy * Transition's Holy or Unholy Dark senses or of spirit that Teresa and John of the Cross perceptively explored for their times and now needs contemporary examina-tion. 3 Another darkness, however, is unholy because God is not present in the abyss. This darkness is destructive rather than cre-ative. It is the realm of the prince of darkness, a darkness that needs to be named and avoided or robbed of its hold. In prayer as in life many women and men religious have expe-rienced both forms of darkness; but how do we discern the dif-ference? Are some of the more stubborn blocks to the renewal of religious life examples of the power of the unholy dark? Is the future of religious life to be found only in the holy dark? Some women and men religious feel trapped in a dark place, clawing interiorly to be set free, wanting to find a way out of dreary con-trolled maintenance, making work their escape and ministry a substitute for a vital relationship with God. For more than a few, religious life as it is does not satisfy; church life as it is does not satisfy. The experience is one of darkness. One woman religious who had served many years in admin-istration described her experience of darkness this way: There is no doubt that religious life is in transition. Many men and women religious feel something is missing in reli-gious life. We sometimes sense it in liturgies, at meetings, in group assemblies, in discussions. We go away hungry. Something deep within is left unsatisfied. So we try harder, photocopy more papers, quote more authors, add more meetings, review statistics, hire consultants. We multiply information, yet increasingly remain dissatisfied and weary. Deep within we sense something is missing still. We assume it is the times, the culture, the lack of leadership or the apa-thy of membership. Vocations continue to decline. The membership's vitality is diminishing. It is a telling situa-tion. How do we read its message? A male religious who is a college psychologist described his experience: There are signs that religious life is dying or at least seri-ously sick. There are too many unhappy persons, unhappy communities, and unhappy work situations in religious life today. One needn't look far to find depression, codepen-dence, anesthetized feelings, controlled conversations. While one sees many people who work hard, often to the point of burnout, their work has a joylessness about it. No matter how much one does, it seems never to be enough. One sees too many men and women religious who do not 342 Review for Religious have much joy in living. Some clothe their depression with false piety and pious clichds. Others become TV addicts. Some have become drug addicts. They misuse prescriptive medication or alcohol. Many practice massive denial. They think everything is fine or would be if we prayed more or were more cheerful. Few people are entering; some are still leaving or staying because it is too late in life to begin again. Those who stay in religious life are aging. Even our efforts at renewal seem short lived, using bandages and patent medicine. A devil chased out, the house left empty, new devils take up housekeeping.4 If we liken this period of transition in religious life to wan-dering in the wilderness (a "desert experience"), some dynamics become clear. It can be an exodus from what oppresses to what frees, or it can be an endless exile in the wilderness. We must dis-tinguish whether there is movement forward or paralysis. Are we simply wandering in circles? Many in religious life feel an oppres-sion of spirit. What used to work no longer fits the present real-ity. It is a time of letting go, yet there is a fear of losing precious valuables,s We know we cannot go back, yet we have grave diffi-culty moving forward. Perhaps our renewal has not reached the depth of genuine conversion. We may be stuck in a desert place, tired of the journey, helpless in finding direction, and discour-aged about our future. In this desert experience of transition, it becomes critical to notice the difference between honest disenchantment and crip-pling disillusionment. Many forget that disenchantment can be the beginning of a positive experience. "The point is that disen-chantment, whether it is a minor disappointment or major shock, is the signal that things are moving into transition. At such times we need to consider whether the old view or belief may not have been an enchantment cast on us in the past to keep us from see-ing deeper into ourselves and others than we were ready to. For the whole idea of disenchantment is that reality has many layers, each appropriate to a phase of intellectual and spiritual develop-ment. The disenchantment experience is the signal that the time has come to look below the surface of what has been thought to be so.''6 Are we unknowingly prolonging our transition because we fear being disloyal to the past by recognizing some of its limits? Would we rather prolong the exile than move to a deeper level of honesty or confront the darkness? "The disenchanted person recognizes the old view as suffi- May-June 1994 343 Ferdon and Murphy * Transition's Holy or Unholy Dark cient in its time, but insufficient now.''7 The disillusioned person simply rejects the earlier view. While the disenchanted person moves on, the disillusioned person stops and goes through the same play or pattern again. Many in religious life remain disillu-sioned rather than disenchanted. There is no real movement from ending to beginnings. So patterns are repeated. One changes one's ministry, school, or parish and never goe~ through the interior process of ending to begin. There are no good-byes. There is no letting go. A priest takes the "geographical cure" and moves to another university or parish only to be hounded by the same issues and behavior, but with a different cast of characters. A sister switches ministry. She leaves grade school teaching, tries pastoral care, goes away for a renewal program, begins a theology degree, and lands in a parish facing the same internal dynamics only in a different set of circumstances. Disillusionment grows. A sense of failure increases. There are many reasons to be afraid. Our fears can be para-lyzing. The crucial discernment is whether God is inviting us into the dark. If so, what are the indications of God's invitation? The danger is that we just presume either that darkness is a reality or that God is welcoming us into the darkness when neither is true. When God asks us to look at the dark, God will be present with us. God's presence may not make the dark less dark, but God's presence assures us that we are not alone. In the unholy dark, God is not present. We often get preoccupied with negative voices. An accusatory voice convinces us that we must save our-selves, and we know that is hopeless. Evil asserts its fascination. We step into the darkness alone and meet chaos. Frequently this same dynamic asserts itself in prayer. For instance, one fears the God who will ask too much, the God who demands great suffering from those who are faithful. Thus, the focus of one's reflections becomes the possible forms of suffer-ing rather than dialogue with God. The accompanying affect is naturally negative: fear, anxiety, worry, stress. Often there is guilt and a loss of self-esteem: "Why is it I cannot do what God wants?" Notice what is really happening: the person is preoccupied with the anticipated suffering, not with God. Has God asked for suf-fering, or is it what we assume God wants? Moreover, does one then avoid the God who asks too much by evading prayer? Instead there may be a dangerous substitute for prayer: reflection on self and what one is unable to do rather than asking God what God Review for Religious wants or telling God of one's fears and worries. Prayer becomes unattractive, Unfortunately, so does God. In place of evoking the presence of God and feeling the security of an abiding presence, prayer becomes a reflection on one's fears. What spirit led us to this quagmire? As fears multiply and resentments fester, even the desire for prayer fades. Sadly, this desolation can go on for years as one comes to resent the God whom we think of as asking the impossible. Perhaps the question we must ask ourselves both individually and collectively is: Have we lost some-thing of a sacred focus? What if it is a divine focus that is missing? Men and women religious frequently claim that rarely does our conversa-tion reach the level of the holy: the moments when a reverent silence fills us, the sense that God is near, not because of a timeless theological assumption, but because of a present shared experience. Is it this elo-quence of the holy that is missing? Is it this level of engagement we can-not seem to reach? The disciples and our spiritual ancestors bonded and dreamed; they boldly proclaimed God's word because they talked among themselves of their encounters with and memories of the holy. Do we? Are we fear-ful, anxious or embarrassed? What if there is no real experience of God? What if others ridicule what is deepest within? What if one has to admit it has been a long, long time since God and I really communicated, not just through rote prayer or disciplined meditation, but by genuine, engaging talk---listening, speaking, feeling, discerning--earthy God-talk. We assume that something is God's will. Rarely do we wres-tle long enough with God's word to know what God really wants. Often we are unable to identify and face our own deepest desires. It is a frightening business to feel underneath the feelings, to ponder something long enough to get to the root emotion. The irony is that sometimes it is easier to acknowledge the depth of feeling than to endure the tiring mechanisms of avoidance. It is no Often we are unable to identify and face our own deepest desires. It is a frightening business to feel underneath the feelings, to ponder something long enough to get to the root emotion. May-.l~une 1994 345 Ferdon and Murphy ¯ Transition's Holy or Unholy Dark wonder we have lost a genuine spiritual fluency. Perhaps it is a clue to why we wander in circles rather than move forward. Thus we prolong the transition. Moreover, in our frustration we can make another or others the enemy rather than going more deeply into a conscious examination of our primary relationship, our indi-vidual relationship with God. How much time, attention, thought, affect, dialogue, and development does this relationship get in my day, week, month? Is it really primary? If it is not, what is primary and why? Did something get lost? Can it be found, renewed, enlivened? Who got distracted? To borrow again from the exodus experience: Have we lost sight of the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night (Ex 13:21- 22)? As a result, do we turn inward with murmuring, grumbling, and accusation (Ex 14:11-12)? Do we feel the disillusionment and strain? As many older men and women religious explain, "This is not the community I entered." We want to tui'n back, not in con-version but out of reluctance. Perhaps we cannot see what is ahead because our backward look prevents us. A woman therapist who sees many men and women religious observed: "Many religious are desperate: body work, crystals, cen-tering prayer, dance, Eastern philosophy, psychotherapy, twelve-step programs, dream work, even hypnosis and psychics have been tried as means to greater peace. The tragedy is that often the means becomes the primary focus. The divine gets lost in the search; searching becomes an end." We become the doers, for-getting that another is there with us, the one to wtiom we are committed by vows. Then we begin consciously or unconsciously to accomplish our own redemption. The Redeemer is forgotten, not deliberately, not consciously, not entirely, but somehow God becomes a distant figure or shadowy image, definitely out of focus, perhaps a memory. Yet, without this presence and this power, there can be no real vision. No wonder we sense something is missing. Someone might be missing, One without whom we can-not move forward. Individual experiences become the dynamic of the group. Often at community or congregational meetings and assemblies there is a clearly defined role for facilitators so that the group process is efficient and the stated objectives are met. Seldom is the same authority given to the spiritual dynamics operative in any group process where men and women religious gather. At times, the belief that God is everywhere becomes an unconscious cover- 346 Review for Religious up for a lack of the divine perspective or an abdication of spiritual responsibility. It can be a form of resistance too. Is there more fear or more freedom in the group? Are there indications of a holy or unholy spirit? Are these named and identified? Which gets more developed. Why have the spiritual dynamics operative in any religious group not been given equal emphasis? One does not wish to propose false piety: the "God will provide" rationale for avoidance. However, we must be wary of an administrative, eco-nomic, or psychological reduc-tionism. Who watches, identifies, articulates the movements or countermovements of the spirit in general chapters? Is it a con-cern? How much time, discus-sion, reflection, or debate is this crucial factor given? Do we assume that all we do is blessed and good, making discernment unnecessary? Are our governing bodies more task- or discern-ment- oriented? If the former, is this one reason we seem so often to repeat patterns? Do we scrutinize the spiritual implications as carefully as we do the financial ones? Do we endure less freedom by letting outside influences rather than spiritual profundities dictate most of our decisions? Do we leave room for the spirit to speak, or do we simply presume or even pretend that we are all speaking in the same tongue? Do we then consider those who disagree misfits? It is worth remembering that, whenever there is no dialogue, there is a breach of freedom. Of course, one can agree to dis-agree, provided one has been heard--but in many congregations many voices are silent. This silence speaks. Can we listen to the silence? Sometimes we are afraid. Besides, the tasks need to get done. Our social analysis must move on to the next phase. The danger is that the tasks do get done, but not always satisfactorily. The initial peace or relief that the job was accomplished does not bear fruit. Too frequently the very same issues come back to haunt us. That experience demands a refined discernment of spirits, not At times, the belief that God is everywhere becomes an unconscious cover-up for a lack of the divine perspective or an abdication of spiritual responsibility. May-June 1994 347 Ferdon and Murphy ¯ Transition's Holy or Unholy Dark just reworded policies. If we were collectively to allow the deeper issues to emerge from a time of discernment, we might face very different topics in our chapters and assemblies and our spiritual governance. Do we tend to look at what we can control? Often the Spirit will introduce us to what is beyond our control. This can be cause for delight or cause for fear, which can of itself be a grace-filled revelation. In this desert experience of transition, we must check where have we built our altars: what are we worshiping? On the exodus journey there were two collections in the desert. In one God asks the people for gold to build a sanctuary that God might dwell in their midst (Ex 25:1-9). The other occurred because of a long delay. The Israelites became impa-tient with Moses, and so they contributed their valuables towards the making of a golden calf. Where are our valuables going? To discern a group's focus and leadership is not a luxury; it is a mat-ter of life and death. To choose life is to have God dwelling among us. This choice comes out of freedom. To choose death is to cre-ate our own god, to guarantee our own future. This choice comes out of impatience and disillusionment. The first heralds a sacred beginning; the second repeats a sinful ending not much different from the pyramid building that was supposedly abandoned, an apt example of disillusionment's repetition of patterns. God bids "a collection from the heart" (Ex 25:1). Where are our hearts calling us? Can we let go of old ways to begin anew? It is imperative to explore the darkness. If it is holy, then there is a presence in the darkness. We are in a safe place, and there is a reason we have been beckoned there. Perhaps a vision will emerge. If it is unholy dark, then we must flee the desola-tion. The dark mood that many men and women religious expe-rience can be a developing spirituality. It is time to go deeper; even if we must first address fear or reluctance. Nonetheless, there is an attraction or longing. Reluctance can be a form of darkness. Depression can sometimes be a side effect. Whether the darkness is a form of the dark night or a stubborn paralysis of spirit needs thoughtful attention as well as careful delineation. To explore the darkness is not an optional task; it is a spiritual mandate. However much good therapy has done for many men and women religious, it can still become a substitute for intimacy, for community, and even for God. It is a contemporary irony that authority is sometimes given to therapists that would never be given to religious superiors or confessors. If the darkness is pri- 348 Review for Religious marily psychological, then one must use therapeutic tools. But what if the darkness is primarily spiritual and the depression a side effect? Is this issue being sufficiently addressed? There is no doubt about the spiritual side effects of depression, but what about the possibility that the current mood among many women and men religious is a form of spiritual desolation or even a form of consolation that goes unrecognized because of the awful sense of empti-ness? The helps for relieving depression might be quite different from the remedy for desolation. Certainly one wants to pursue ther-apy if the darkness in prayer results from psychological blocks or bio-chemical factors. If this darkness is spiritual desolation, however, then an active spiritual response and practical spiritual directives are called for. If the darkness is an exodus leading to something more, then it is consoling. If it amounts to going around in circles, it is frustrating, purposeless, and diminishing. Moreover, fidelity to it is a sham. Discerning the darkness is not only an individual task, but also a collective one. Depression or darkness of spirit can lead to self-absorption or self-transcendence. To know the difference affects the individual, the religious group, and the church. Therefore, one must figure out the source of the dark mood, the imp behind the affect. To mistakenly endure an unholy dark as a dark night of the senses or spirit is abusive and destructive, not purgative. Darkness's fruits also deserve attention. Sometimes what is most obvious is overlooked. For instance, do we leave congrega-tional meetings or gatherings feeling empty, down, or frustrated? Do we feel marginalized or disengaged? Or is our experience joy-ful and revitalizing? Do we feel closer to God and so awed by the Spirit that our prayer is renewed and our ministry energized? Do most of the members feel the same? Again, do we pause and reflect about and then discuss which spirit seems to be dominating the group? If we are on holy ground, we leave one another's com-pany enriched. Or is something lacking? Despite contact with To mistakenly endure an unholy dark as a dark night of the senses or spirit is abusive and destructive, not purgative. May-June 1994 349 Ferdon and Murphy ¯ Transition's Holy or Unholy Dark friends, and gratitude for companionship and laughter with them, is smnething of the sacred absent? It is essential to name that absence lest we bless what is not holy. Religious life as we have known it may be ending, but what about the beginning? If we have failed to negotiate our own indi-vidual transitions, how can we begin to face the group transition? Do we feel heavily burdened? What must we let go of? In-betweenness does not have to last forever. Prolonging the pain only adds to the interior paralysis or feeling of numbness that all-too-many women and men religious experience. Endings are not without sequels, but unless interior conversion takes place no beginnings occur, only *eactions to endings, whether denial, avoid-ance, defensiveness, escape, or repression. How do we begin again? Do we want to do so? We have to acknowledge our pain and voice it to God. We must feel its hold and then move beyond its control to where we can join in a gathering to celebrate survival and new life. We should not let our moaning and grumbling get misplaced and do harm. Transition is the time to ask hard questions, not only of ourselves but also of God. Have we voiced our pain in prayer? Is God with us? What is God communicating? Is God the focus of our gatherings? Are we more lost than we realized? Are we in relationship with God and also in dialogue? What is God saying to us? Is there something we must let go of?. Transition teaches us to get along with less. It removes distractions. Until we discern the darkness, it has a coercive and discour-aging hold. Like a small cancer it can grow undetected until it is too late to cure. Then surgery will not help. What "cancer" might underlie a perhaps subtle but still debilitating lethargy? Our great-est danger is to become numbly resigned to the someday inevitable death of religious life and then stabilize our fear, misplace our anger, distract our anxiety, and live in denial. Religious life is not meant to be endured; it exists for the sake of celebration now and eternally. Unless religious are free enough to name darkness, can-didly, low-grade despair and frenetic avoidance are bound to grow. People close their eyes and shut down to survive. Involvement, activity, ministry become the substitute for contemplation, not the result of contemplation nor food for it. What is really hap-pening is rarely talked about, and thus power is given to the secret. And those who dare to bring up the subject of darkness are quickly judged to be either critical of leadership or disloyal to member- 350 Review for Religious ship and then marginalized by other people's pattern of denial. When denial dictates, dialogue dies. The prince of darkness is empowered, and a divine focus is missed again. The issue is about neither leadership nor criticism; the issue is about neither membership nor loyalty. The issue is that the divine play of light is being overshadowed. In naming the darkness, we allow the light to play, the ligh~ that would illumine all we do, the light that would lighten our lives and allow us even in darkness to be con-fident because the gentle Presence of Mystery reveals that we are indeed on holy ground. Notes ~ We acknowledge our debt to William Barry and William Connolly, The Practice of Spiritual Direction (New York: Seabury, 1982), and to the people at the Center for Religious Developinent; they have had a major impact on our practice of spiritual direction. 2 For a succinct treatment of how darkness appears in directed retreats, see William J. Connolly sJ, "Experiences of Darkness in Directed Retreats," Review For Religious 33, no. 4 (July-August 1974): 609-615. Reprinted in Notes on the Spiritual Exercises, ed. David L. Fleming SJ, (St. Louis: Review for Religious, 1981), pp. 108-114. 3 See Constance FitzGerald's "Impasse and Dark Night" in Living with Apocalypse, ed. Tilden Edwards (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), pp. 94ff. Sandra Schneiders IHM also develops this theme in "Contemporary Religious Life: Death or Transformation," a paper given in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1992 and presented at a faculty colloquium at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley in 1993. 4 For the viewpoint of another psychologist on some unhealthy dynam-ics in religious communities, see Charles Shelton, "Reflections on the Mental Health of Jesuits," in Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits 23, no. 4 (September 1991), and a companion article by the same author, "Toward Healthy Jesuit Community," in Studies 24, no. 4 (September 1992). s It is worth while to review Gerald A. Arbuckle's thesis "that a major reason for the reluctance or hesitation of religious congregations, parishes, and dioceses to attempt renewal is their failure to mourn or ritually detach themselves from that which is lost or no longer apostolically relevant. Energy that should be directed toward creating the future is instead spent on efforts to restore or retain that which is lost or dying." See "Organizations Must Ritually Grieve," in Human Development 12 (spring 1991): 22. 6 William Bridges, Transitions (Reading, Mass.: AddisonWesley, 1980), p. 101. 7 Ibid. May-June 1994 351 GERALD A. ARBUCKLE Merging Provinces "May they be so perfected in unity that the world will recognize that it was you who sent me." --John 17:23 Tdre is a trend within the church today for both institutions apostolates to merge: congregations and provinces of congregations, schools and hospitals. Various pragmatic and inspi-rational reasons are given, such as using personnel and finances more effectively for mission. Yet the actual merging commonly fails to meet expectations because people do not appreciate that mergers demand far more than a rearrangement of administra-tions. The contemporary struggle to unite East and West Germany aptly illustrates the point. When institutions seek to combine, they interact as cultures, and the resulting change is not a bloodless abstraction, but a high order of human drama. This introductory article views, from a cultural anthropologi-cal perspective, the merging of congregational provinces--though the theory applies to any organization. Case studies illustrate the theory, and then I suggest some guidelines for use in practice. First we examine what management studies have learned about the mergers of business corporations. Though religious commu-nities are not businesses, they are nonetheless human organiza-tions or cultures. They can learn from the experience of other human organizations that amalgamate,t Gerald A. Arbuckle SM continues to write, lecture, and conduct work-shops on the refounding of religious life. His address is Refounding and Pastoral Development Unit; 1 Mary Street; Hunters Hill; Sydney, N.S.W. 21 I0; Australia. 352 Review for Religious Lessons from the Marketplace The literature on business amalgamations is filled with dreary warnings about the negative effects of mergers. Management con-sultant Tom Peters concludes that "most studies suggest that, in general, [business] mergers do not pan out.''2 Rather than increased profitability, mergers have come to be associated with lowered morale, job dissatisfaction, unpro-ductive behavior, sabotage, petty theft, absenteeism, and increased labor-turnover, strike, and accident rates.3 Management consultant Stuart Slatter advises that the merger of firms "rarely brings increased effi-ciencies, unless accompanied by sound post-merger management. In fact, inefficiencies may actually increase as . divisive splits develop within the new top-management team as each manager retains loyalties to his of change. former business.''4 James O'Toole speaks of the contemporary stress on business amal-gamations as "merger-mania." He says that "the desire of large industrial bodies to merge is insatiable" and that the purpose and strategies for such actions are rarely thought through.5 Charles Handy warns that organizations contemplating merger are "to some extent stuck with their past., their traditions. These things take years if not decades to change.''6 Some authors wonder if the drive for merg-ers comes from authoritarian, patriarchal values dominant in Western society. These values, they claim, blind organizations to feminine values of creativity, of openness to other ways of coop-eration than formal mergers.7 Overall, most commentators conclude that mergers fail because leaders insufficiently consider the human or cultural dimensions of change. In addition to sensitive leadership there must be, authors claim, a cultural compatibility (or what is termed "culture fit") between organizations that seek to merge. If there is insufficient culture fit, then cultural collisions will destroy efforts to merge organizations.8 Anthropologists agree with these conclusions. But they com-plain that, when management writers (with the exception of peo-ple like Edgar Schein) use the term culture, they fail to grasp the complexity of its meaning. They think culture is what people vis- Mergers fail because leaders insufficiently consider the human or cultural dimensions May-3~ne 1994 353 Arbuckle ¯ Merging Provinces ibly do,9 and they fail to consider what they feel about what they do. People may act in the same way, yet differ radically in their cultures, simply because they do not feel the same about what they do. Feelings (expressed in symbols and myths) are at the very heart of cultures, but are far more difficult to name and control than visible actions. A good many authors--for example, Gerard Egan--see culture as but one of many variables in organizations;1° Peter Senge does not refer to it at all.11 Culture is not one facet of life nor merely what people visi-bly do; rather, it is the complete set of feelings affecting, most often unconsciously, all of a specific behavior pattern of individ-uals and groups. Examples are an organization's interiorized system of authority, its modes of communication, its understanding of mis-sion and stratdgies?z Leaders ignore culture at their peril. People may change with relative ease what they visibly do, especially under external pressure; not so their feelings!13 Anthropology Applied Anyone concerned about mergers of institutional cultures must be awai'e of four fundamental insights of applied cultural anthropology. First, cultures have lives of their own, just as indi-vidual~ do. So we rightly say, for example, that cultures grieve or are depressed, are open or closed to creative ideas. Certainly, individuals influence the life of a culture, but the reverse is also true. Sdcond, any cultural change, even for the noblest of rea-sons, is stressful for the people involved. A culture provides peo-ple with a much needed sense of order or security; it is a defense against the anxiety that disorder or the fear of chaos evokes. When cultures interact this felt sense of security is threatened or under-mined; people feel uprooted, losE, disillusioned, angry, sad. Fears and prejudices about the culture with which they must now inter-act come to the surface. Third, people are likely to resist change for one of two rea-sons: the loss of the known and tried, or concern over the impli-cfitions of personal and group loss. Cultural interaction inevitably calls people to new ways of acting; the familiar must be left behind. Hence, any effort to merge cultures leads to varying degrees of overt or underground resistance. Reactions to cultural change in individuals can build up and then explode in ways that appear totally out of proportion to the provocation of the moment. 354 Review for Religious The resistance has merely been deferred and stockpiled; people finally reach a breaking point and express it dramatically. Fourth, the effort to merge cultures is a highly complex and risky pro-cess demanding the leadership of humanly and culturally sensitive and skilled change agents. Without such help people will so resist the change process that mergers falter or fail. The following axioms sum-marize the practical implica-tions of these four points for leaders of would-be mergers: 1. Appreciate the Complexity of Cultures I explain elsewhere in some depth the nature of culture.~4 For our purposes here, how-ever, culture is a pattern of shared values enshrined in a network of symbols, myths, and rituals and created or devel-oped by a particular group as it copes with life's challenges, instructing its members about what it considers the correct way to feel, think, and behave25 Rituals (that is, visible behavior) are the concrete expression of symbols and myths; symbols are experienced or felt meanings. A myth, a set of narrative symbols, is a story or tradition that claims to reveal to people, in an imaginative way, a fundamental truth about the world and themselves. This truth is considered author-itative by those who accept it. In short, myths inspiringly or feel-ingly tell people who they are, what is good and bad, and how they are to organize themselves and maintain their feeling of unique identity in the world. The most powerful myth in every culture is its creation myth, since it provides people with their primary source of identity as a distinct group.~6 Vv~hen the creation myth's existence is threat-ened-- for example, when major cOltural change is being planned or underway--people experience degrees of anxiety, anger, numb-ness, sadness. Various kinds of creation myths affect people in different times and ways. Three of the kinds can be termed the public, the operative, and the residual myths: Myths inspiringly or feelingly tell people who they are, what is good and bad, and how they are to organize themselves and maintain their feeling of unique identity in the world. May-ff-une 1994 355 Arbuckle * Merging Provinces ¯ The public myth is a set of stated ideals that people openly claim binds them together (like the values inherent in the charism of a congregation); in practice these ideals may have little if any cohesive force. ¯ The operative myth, however, is what actually at this point gives people their felt cohesive identity; the operative myth can and often does differ dramatically from the public myth. ¯ The residual myth normally has little or no daily impact on a group's life, but at times can become a powerful operative myth. For example, a former colonial nation will commonly have a resid-ual myth reminding the people of their former dependency on, or oppression by, a dominant European power. If a member of the former country inter'acts with someone from the latter nation, he or she may experience bitter memories of past colonial relation-ships. Then the painful residual myth becomes the operative myth, creating a climate of suspicion and antagonism. The case studies below illustrate the relevance of the above theoretical clarifications, because .proposed amalgamations of provinces inevitably demand changes in existing creation myths. 2. Encourage "Multicultural" Mergers Mergers are not synonymous with takeovers, that is, the total assimilation of other cultures by dominant cultures. True merg-ers recognize the need for dialogue between equals, so that the best of all cultures is preserved in the new emerging organiza-tional culture. 17 3. Arrange for Rituals of Grieving Change causes loss, and all loss evokes a wide range of human emotions: anger, sadness, guilt. These emotions must be ritually expressed and let go of; otherwise they remain repressed and obstruct change. Since individuals and cultures grieve over loss, these rituals must be personal- and culture-oriented.18 4. Seek Culturally Transformative Leadership Leaders must have skills for guiding people through the uncertainties, anxieties, and risks of cultural change.19 Without these rare people, cultural change of a positive kind is impossible. Case Studies: Merging Provinces Case Study 1: An Overefficient General Administration A general administration decided that three provinces should be amalgamated into one province. No problems were anticipated because 356 Review for Religious the administration believed that the reasons for the amalgamation were obvious to all and that the commitment to the congregational charism was greater than to provincial boundaries. The administration explained to the assembled provincials the major reason for the decision: a better use of human and financial resources for mission. On returning to their respective provinces, however, the provincials, who had been convinced by the arguments given them, were surprised to receive immediate neg-ative reactions from their provinces. The provincial administrations then procrastinated for so long that the general administration finally withdrew its decision, blaming the provincials for their lack of courageous leadership. Comment: The general adminstration's decision may have been theoretically correct, but the process of decision making took no account of the provinces as cultures. The decision to merge, taken without adequate consultation, evoked group and individual anx-iety and resistance because people felt that the operative myths of their provinces, giving them felt predictability, were jeopardized. The general administration wrongly assumed that the congrega-tional charism was simultaneously the public and operative myth. On the contrary, the majority of the religious felt closer bonds to their respective provinces than to the congregational charism. Case Study 2: From Euphoria to Provincial "Nationalisms" Three provincial administrations decided to explore the possibility of merging their provinces. An assembly, attended by as many members of all three provinces as possible, enthusiastically endorsed the idea in a vision statement that highlighted the common charism as the unifying force. Thereupon the provincial administrations quickly planned the formal merger. But to their surprise they later received so little cooper-ation from members of the provinces that they finally dropped the entire idea. Comment: An investigation showed that while the religious were together the public myth (that is the congregational charism-based myth) became the operative myth; they enjoyed being together socially as members of one congregation. However, they avoided the pain of looking closely at what they would have to let go of once the merger occurred; they felt the common con-gregational vision would carry them through. On return to their home provinces, the religious recognized what the merger would cost them, and the support for amalgamation rapidly declined; their respective provincial operative myths were revitalized. Quotations from the founder originally assented to in support of May-June 1994 357 Arbuckle * Merging Provinces the merger were now contradicted by other quotations from the same source. Case Study 3: Fearsof Colonialism Revived An administration of a province in the first world explored the pos-sibility of merging with a province in a third-world nation. It argued that the amalgamation would be beneficial to both provinces. The rich province could supply much-needed money to the third-world province; the latter, having a surplus of vocations, could "export" religious to the former. The proposal was immediately and angrily resisted by the poorer province--to the surprise and annoyance of its richer counterpart. Comment: This case study illustrates that a province's iden-tity or mythology can be influenced powerfully by forces beyond a congregation's internal history. The third-world nation had for over a century been a colony of the first-world country. Members of the third-world province sensed an arrogance in the adminis-trators of the rich province reminding them of the oppressive-ness of the colonial era. They did not want their newfound sense of national self-worth undermined by their receiving financial handouts from the richer province. They also feared that they would be administratively dominated after the merger by people from their former colonial power. In this incident the residual myth of the third-world nation became the operative myth of the province; the latter was prepared to remain extremely poor, but in control of its own destiny. Case Study 4: Fears of "Congregational Colonialism" Revived A superior general encouraged two provincial administrations to investigate the advisability of merging their provinces. The investiga-tion showed that for missionary efficiency the merger made perfect sense. However, the reactions to the proposal were so negative in one province, which had been founded several decades earlier by the other, that the plan was dropped. Comment: This case study is similar to the previous one in that the founding province is equivalently remembered as an arro-gant, congregational colonial power. That memory is the residual myth. The thought of a merger makes the residual myth the oper-ative force for identity and effectively prevents any further seri-ous discussion about merging the provinces. Case Study 5: Ethnic Differences Obstructing Amalgamation A general administration encouraged three provinces in a first-world nation to amalgamate, claiming that three separate administra-tions were a luxury the congregation could no longer afford. However, 358 Review for Religious the provincial administration disagreed, claiming that one adminis-tration could never adequately serve the large geographical area involved. Nonetheless, the merger did administratively take place, but the new administration was confronted with previously unforeseen personnel problems. For example, religious resisted requests to move to apostolates across the former provincial boundaries. Comment: The merger was failing, not for geographical rea-sons, but because the provinces were historically formed along ethnic-migrant lines: Polish, Italian, Irish. The cultural preju-dices of last century surfaced once the provinces were adminis-tratively united; that is, the residual myths became the operative myths for a significant number of religious descendants of the original migrants. If people had been involved in the develop-ment and follow-up of the merging, this critical issue would have emerged and been positively worked through. Case Study 6: Merger Plans Successful Three provincial administrations agreed with an outside consul-tant that from a mission perspective it. was essential for their provinces to amalgamate. They consulted all re.embers of their provinces, and most favored the merger. Once the merger decision was finally taken, the provincial administrations sought professional advice on how to pro-ceed. The merger was done in stages over a seven-year period, accord-ing to frequently evaluated strategies. As part of the merging process, all apostolates were assessed for their pastoral relevance and effectiveness in light of clearly stated criteria. Because all members were invited to be part of the merging and evaluating processes, negative reactions were minimal and the ownership of the changes was at a high level. Comment: In this case study the following actions guaranteed success: culturally s6nsitive leadership, aware that in-depth culture change is a slow process; professional assistance in clarifying the vision of the merger and in developing appropriate strategies; the maximum involvement of members of the provinces in all stages of the merging. Advice to Congregational Leaders The following advice is offered to congregational leaders in view of the above theory and the analysis of the case studies: 1. Clarify the Vision and the Strategies for Mergers. The primary aim of any merger of provinces must be to make the religious congregation better able to serve the needs of the May-.~une 1994 359 Arbuckle ¯ MergingProvinces kingdom of God. Thus, congregational leaders must ask ques-tions such as the following: Is the merger apostolically justified, or is it just a way to maintain existing apostolates without evalu-ating them for their apostolic relevance and effectiveness? Are there better ways, than through amalgamation, to achieve the desired effects of a merger? 2. Involve Members throughout the Process. Organizational amalgamations demand cultural change. Any cultural change, to be effective, is slow and risky, requiring as wide an involvement of members as is possible before, during, and after the formal merger. In order to own the new identity people must feel they are realistically contributing to its development. Congregational leaders, therefore, must ask themselves questions like: What structures will best encourage the maximum involve-ment of members? Are the most-skilled cultural-change agents being used to facilitate the process? 3. Foster Group and Personal Conversion-Grieving. Liminality is the cultural betwixt-and-between position which develops when a previous founding myth and its structural or political expressions have terminated, but a new creation myth has yet to be clarified and owned. It is a painfully dangerous stage of grieving because people feeling intense loss are sometimes tempted to retreat back to the old, comfortably secure ways of doing things. The journeying of the Israelites in the desert, with all its temptations to retreat to Egypt and to blame Moses for their miseries, is an archetypal experience of liminality. Moses, confronted by the Israelites' bickering, pettiness, and anger, rec-ognized that, for the people's grieving to be positive, they must have the space to name their anger and sadness in order to let these feelings go in faith and hope. Only then would the Israelites, freed from their attachments to the past, be open to receive the new creation stoW that Yahweh had for them.2° When provinces decide to merge, religious are invited to enter into the liminality of the desert journey. The old provincial creation mythologies must be let go of to allow the creation myth of a new province to emerge and be confidently owned. Congregational leaders, like Moses, must do two things: (1) encourage the religious to share the stories of their provinces with one another, together with their feelings of grief (anger, numbness) over the loss of the predictability that membership in their respective provinces had given them, and (2) call the religious 360 Review for Religious to help shape in hope the vision or founding myth of the new province. It is a call to an ongoing process of personal and cor-porate conversion. Conversion cannot be hurried, but without it .the merging of provinces will fail. 4. Utilize Cultural Change Agents and Consultants. Change agents assume the responsibility for managing the merging process. They are transformational leaders who under-stand objectively the tensions involved in the process, have acquired personal skills to cope constructively with personal and cultural change in their own lives, and are able to foster with empathy a positive approach in others to changes. In the merging of provinces, such people are needed at all levels: as congregational lead-ers, ritual-grief directors, creators of new and relevant provincial structures for mission, and so forth. Because culture change is so complex, it is advisable for con-gregational leaders to seek the advice of consultants at key points in the merging process. The con-sultant's task is to collaborate with those entrusted with the merger in developing "an understanding of the way things are, thinking about the way they might be, and then working with [them] to consider what, how, and whether to change.''2~ The consultant cannot be effective unless he or she has well-developed cross-cul-tural skills.22 The human person is a striver who yearns for progress and is theoretically open to change. But the human person also has basic needs for order, stability, and predictability. The human person is achievement oriented, a striver who yearns for progress and is therefore theoretically open to change. But the human person also has basic needs for order, stability, and predictability. Applied cultural anthropology highlights the fact that, though people may in theory accept change, in prac-tice they commonly opt for the familiar and secure status quo. May-~:une 1994 361 Arbuckle ¯ Merging Provinces This has important consequences for congregations when provinces are encouraged to merge. In the face of declining numbers and the aging of religious, we must not see the mergers of provinces as the automatic panacea to our problems. We need to be: (a) as certain as possible that the merger will improve the congregation's apostolic effective-ness in accordance with its founding vision; (b) aware that merg-ers require, besides mere managerial action at the top, ongoing personal and cultural conversion, or else, like the Israelites of old, religiou~ will resist the changes and hanker after the security of former, apostolically irrelevant provincial structures; and (c) aware that in mergers one province does not take over other provinces, but all are equal partners in establishing a new province to serve the Lord better. Ultimately, without skilled leadership there can be no positive merging of provinces. Edgar Schein warns: "What the leader most needs is insight into the ways in which culture can aid or hinder the fulfillment of the organization's mission and the intervention skills to make desired changes happen . Leadership and ~ulture management are so central to understanding organizations and making them effective that we cannot afford to be complacent about either of them.''z3 Provinces, like all cultures, are unwise to attempt the process of amalgamation, if they lack the necessary leadership. Notes ~ See C. Handy, Understanding Voluntary Organizations (London: Penguin, 1988), pp. 2-23. 2 Thriving on Chaos (New York: Mfred A. Knopf, 1987), p. 7. See also the evaluation of European mergers in The Economist (London), 20 November 1993, pp. 16f. 3 See G. Meeks, Disappointing Marriage: A Study of the Gains from Mergers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); S. Cartwright and C.L. Cooper, "The Psychological Impact of Merger and Acquisition on the Individual," Human Relations 46, no. 3 (1993): 327-329. 4 Corporate Recovery (London: Penguin, 1984), p. 245. s Vanguard Management (New York: Berkley, 1987), pp. 258, 250. 6 Handy, Understanding, p. 95. 7 See G. Morgan, Images of Organization (London: Sage, 1986), pp. 210-212. 362 Review for Religious s See S. Cartwright and C.L. Cooper, "The Role of Culture Compatibility in Successful Organizational Marriage," Academy of Management Executive 7, no. 2 (1993): 57-70. 9 For example, see T. Deal and A. Kennedy, Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison- Wesley, 1982), p. 4. 10 See his Change Agent Skills in Helping and Human Service Setting (Monterey: Brooks/Cole, 1985), pp. 277-287. 11 See his Fifth Dimension: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (New York: Doubleday, 1990). 12 See E.H. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987), p. 314. ,3 See S.A. Sackman, Cultural Knowledge in Organizations: Exploring the Collective Mind (London: Sage, 1991), pp. 16-23; J. Hunt, "How People Get Overlooked in Takeovers," Personnel Management (July 1987): 24- 26, and "Managing the Successful Acquisition: A People Question," London Business School Journal (summer 1988): 215. ,4 See G. Arbuclde, Earthing the Gospek An Inculturation Handbook for the Pastoral Worker (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1990), pp. 26-78, 167-186. ,s I have modified the definition by E.H. Schein in his Organizational Culture, p. 9. ,6 See G. Arbuckle, "Mythology, Revitalization and the Refounding of Religious Life," Review for Religious 46, no. 1 (January-February 1987): 14-43. 17 See A.E Buono and J. Bowditch, The Human Side of Mergers and Acquisitions, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1989), pp. 134-163. ,8 See P. Marris, Loss and Change (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1974), passim; G. Arbuckle, Change, Grief and Renewal in the Church: A Spirituality for a New Era (Westminster, Maryland: Christian Classics, 1991), pp. 151-156, and "Organizations Must Ritually Grieve," Human Development 12, no. 1 (1991): 22-27; D.M. Noer, "Leadership in an Age of Layoffs," Issues and Observations 13, no. 3 (1993): 1-5. 19 For a fuller explanation of the leadership needed, see G. Arbuckle, Refounding the Church: Dissent for Leadership, (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1993), pp. 98-127. 20 See G. Arbuckle, Change, pp. 151-156. 21 E. Miller, quoted by R. McLennan in Journal of Enterprise Management, no. 3 (1981), p. 251. 22 See Arbuckle, Refounding, pp. 213f, 217. 23 E.H. Schein, Organizational Culture, pp. 320, 327. May-d~une 1994 363 JUDITH ANN EBY One Voice from the Middle Place In the matter of human existence the grave and sensible advice of the King of Hearts--"Begin at the beginning" -- cannot be heeded. We have no choice but to begin where we are; and where we are is the middle. It is not given to us to stand on the far side of human time and then, with all delib-eration and grace, to enter . Our first awareness is that we are swimming. We wake in the water. Our beginnings are not wholly our own. Our endings will most likely be beyond our control. We are middle people.~ MmY reflection upon my own journey in religious life draws e to this quotation from John Shea. My entrance into religious life in 1976 was certainly a beginning. I was twenty-one, full of energy and enthusiasm as i entered this new world. Several years later, though, one event was to etch into the core of my being the awareness that I had really entered into a "middle place," a transitional moment in the life of religious communities. After final vows I attended a large assembly of my regional community where the question was asked, "Shall we plan for our future?" A resounding yes echoed immediately, logically, and enthusiastically in my being. Simultaneously an unusually intense session of debate, frustration, and dialogue began in the larger group. After what seemed to be an eternity, the group came to unanimous agreement to plan for the future and spontaneously sang the song of our foundress. Clearly, something significant Judith Ann Eby RSM is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University. Her address is 4133 Hartford St.; St. Louis, Missouri 63116. 364 Review for Religious had taken place. I also understood for the first time that there was a dimension of the community's corporate journey of which I had no understanding. No matter how much I could intellectu-ally grasp their journey, I would never experientially be able to understand part of their lives. Although not the first of such events, it was certainly the clearest one to signal that, at some moment in time, the commu-nity had stepped into an obviously challenging world and world-view different from a former one. I now shared their new world with them. However, there seemed an almost invisible boundary which prevented me from understanding this former world that still played itself out in their collective consciousness. This invis-ible boundary seemed to be not only the actual experience of Vatican Council II, but the experience of pre-Vatican II religious life. Boundaries which mark the end of one period and the begin-ning of a new one in the life of any community or individual can be arbitrary and theoretical. While it is true that many such boundaries could be named, one moment or event often stands out as a clear crossing over from one world into another. For those within religious life at the time of the council and for those who entered near that time, Vatican II was a watershed experience. For better or for worse, life was never again the same. Joan Chittister comments on this reality: For most communities, updating has been the project and process of religious life for 25 years. Clothing has been con-temporized; schedules have been adjusted to compensate for the invention of the light bulb; internal structures have been brought into sync with the best in organizational plan-ning; individual development has been tested by the most recent and most credible of psychological theorems; theol-ogy programs have progressed far beyond the thinking of the medievalists or the Scholastics; community customs books have been amended to meet the nature of contem-porary life. Every dimension of religious life has been scru-tinized and updated. Most of religious life is definitely not in a time warp any more, at least not if relevance is mea-sured by life styles and learnings.2 The renewal after Vatican II was a crystallizing experience which united a number of different age groups around a new interpretation of religious life.3 This focal experience, it must be emphasized, embraces the formative influence and memory of May-~'une 1994 365 Eby ¯ One l~oice from tbe Middle Place pre-Vatican II religious life as interpreted in light of the council. For more than twenty-five years, changes from the council shook the church and religious communities to their roots. Ways of thinking, ways of being, and ways of acting, an entire collective consciousness of a group, were evaluated and reshaped. It is a subdued statement, indeed, to say that such a vast alteration from one world into another has profoundly affected and continues to affect those who were part of religious life at or near the time of the council. A good number of members still form opinions, beliefs, and attitudes in response to the crystallizing experience of Vatican II. Often this leaves them less likely to understand and sympathize with the ideas and beliefs of those who came well after the council and for whom Vatican II is not a watershed expe-rience. This is not necessarily due to a lack of goodwill, yet there is a tendency for one group to judge the worldview of later age groups as misguided or immature. All worldviews are necessarily limited and contain blind spots not easily recognized by those who hold those views. One question slowly emerges from pondering such a vast alteration and its effects on those in religious life: What of those who entered religious communities years after Vatican II? What has been the experience of such members? Much has been writ-ten about the experience of those who entered religious life before and during the time of the council. Other than some articles on formation, little has been written about the experience and from the perspective of those members who remember Vatican II vaguely or not at all. Some members know only the transitional time of religious communities. My hope is to raise a single voice from this middle place so that it may be heard and contemplated and allow the reader, for just a moment, to stand in the shoes of one who has known only the period of transition and to glimpse religious life from a van-tage point relatively rare within communities. The limitation of this essay is that it is a single voice only. Its strength is that it describes a particularized experience that can be known and touched on a human level. There are several assumptions upon which this essay is based. The first is that arbitrary categories of age and experience are not meant to be divisive or to cultivate a we-they attitude. The realization is deep: we are one, many though we are. The focus on newer or younger members and their perspective is not to deny 366 R~view for Religious or diminish the legitimate experience of others. Categories do not have to be mutually exclusive. What is always of uppermost importance is the vitality of the whole group, not of any age group or of any individual. The main issue is not whether we are grow-ing older, fewer, and poorer as a total community, but whether we are growing in wisdom and clar-ity, conversion and gratitude. The second assumption is that congregations as a whole are often unaware or forgetful of the reality that a minority voice is being lost: the voice of the newer or younger members. Newer or younger members, while known individually and usually well-integrated into the larger community, are corpo-rately invisible and often unheard. They do not necessar-ily possess the same opinions, beliefs, or worldviews because great diversity often exists in terms of age and experience. Generalizations about any age group or category are simplistic at their best and crude at their worst. Many who have known Vatican II have moved to new and cre-ative developments very much in line with the renewal of the council while the thinking, beliefs, and actions of many newer or younger members is stale, noncreative, and full of fear. What is suggested here is that the experience and renewal of religious life resulting fro.m Vatican II continues to exert a formative influence upon a significant number of members while the richness and diversity of an exceptionally small population is being lost. Yet in this group are those who will be the leaders well into the 21st century. Middle places imply an ending and a beginning as well as a continuity with what went before. The human experience of end-ings and beginnings will often be bittersweet and both dark and light. Such has been my journey within my own community. It is these experiences of darkness and light, characteristic of tran-sitional moments, as well as the continuity that I want to articu-late. Congregations as a whole are often unaware or forgetful of the reality that a minority voice is being lost: the voice of the newer or younger members. May-.t~une 1994 367 Eby ¯ One Voice from the Middle Place The church and world I knew while growing up was one of constant change. Everything was in flux: the saints, liturgy, sacra-ments, music, religion class, celebrations of church feasts, parish customs, and more. Change was experienced as normal, expected, and part of what it meant to be church. The religious life I entered was in a time of transition and experimentation. It was a world defined more often by the past than by any communal vision of the future. By the time I entered, the initial hope and enthusiasm surrounding renewal in the con-gregation was beginning to give way to fear, anger, agonizing searching, split factions of liberal and conservative groups, and a cancerous doubt. Mary Jo Le.ddy ~peaks of this middle place: At this point in the history of religious life, we are in an in-between moment, a "dark night," when the former mod-els of religious life are disintegrating and a future model has yet to become clear . As the memory and vitality of this conservative model begin to fade, some of the energy and legitimation of the liberal model begin to wane. Those who have a vivid memory of the traditional model of church and religious life seem more clear about the value and sig-nificance of the liberal model of religious life. But does the liberal model make sense in itself, that is, without refer-ence to the more traditi'onal model? There are those who, like myself, never knew the traditional model or never knew it for very long. We know the liberal model was launched from the base of traditional religious life, but we are begin-ning to wonder whether there is enough fuel in the liberal model itself to take it very far. To use another metaphor, we are beginning to feel that driving a liberal model of reli-gious !ife is like driving into the future through a rear-view mirror.4 My inner experience of enthusiasm and belief in religious life often came up against contradictory elements in the community. A few of the major examples focused on the expressions of doubt, grief, and anger in the community. Doubt can be a creative ele-ment. Indeed, it is often a necessary companion on any mature journey of faith. However, the doubt I encountered was often a cancerous doubt that could eat into the core of one's being. It was often disheartening to come up against, time and time again, such cancerous doubt within many members. Grief, usually unresolved grief, was also a major issue for many in the community. It was not unusual for me to become an object of unresolved grief and anger over some former aspect of 368 Review for Religious religious life that had not been sufficiently mourned by the other. As a newer member I stood as a symbol of all that had passed away, of all that was new and unsettling. Grief, doubt, and anger intermingled in various degrees to produce within some people what I experienced as death-dealing statements. Such statements are expressed as a sigh of grief, of loss, of anxious uncertainty toward the future on the part of countless members. They are uttered in the midst of the hus-tle and bustle of life, at com-munity meetings, at times of election and moments of deci-sion, moments of reflection. The private and public acknowledgment of personal experience can be necessary for overall health. Yet it must be remembered that, for those who come at times of transition and do not share the same under-standing or knowledge of a community's history, verbal expressions can take on a particular significance. Language can shape our reality, tell us who we are and who we want to be, can uplift or demolish. A word, once it is spoken, can take on a life of its own; it can have the power to bring about that of which it speaks. At the middle places, when doubt reaches crisis proportions, language is of tremendous significance. Language, in this instance, reflected both lack of vision and lack of credible vision among the members. For older members can often communicate mixed signals to enthusiastic newer or younger members and cause a frequent cri-sis of meaning for them. It is odd but not unusual that entry into any group will always involve the unconscious or conscious assimilation of the larger group's attitudes about some things. Declining numbers was one crisis with which I had to deal. There is a basic difference between the exodus I experienced and the exodus others experienced in the 1960s. When I look ahead of me, I see lots of numbers. When I look around me, I see a handful, and we are the younger mem-bers. Around the time of final vows, I had to come to terms with Grief, doubt, and anger intermingled in various degrees to produce within some people what I experienced as death-dealing statementsl May-j~une 1994 369 Eby ¯ One Voice from the Middle Place this unconscious assimilation of the crisis of numbers. Even today, though, at moments of weakness, fatigue, and real honesty, fear can reach into the core of my being, and I begin to wonder if I will be the last one through the door. Other times, often at commu-nity gatherings, I look around the room and wonder, figuratively speaking, what it will feel like (other things being equal, which they will not be) to bury all those older than I. Numbers can still overwhelm me. Middle places, by their very nature as endings and begin-nings, possess not only elements of darkness, but elements of light as well. As a newer or younger member, I received the best of all that the community had to offer--which was possible because of all that had gone before me. Many of the community's resources of time, finances, personnel, and talents were shared with me. The best of the community's continually growing self-awareness in terms of charism, history, and spirituality encircled me. It would merely be redundant to enumerate these many experiences, work-shops, and activities, since the majority of members are already familiar with them and have themselves participated in many of them. Perhaps I had greater freedom in personal choices and deci-sions than the majority of members had upon their entrance and for a good por.tion of their religious lives. I had greater flexibil-ity in forming relationships with people both outside community and inside. I experienced great exposure to different areas, groups, cultures, and ministries in my regional community. Barbara Fiand SNDdeN, in her book Living the Vision (New York: Crossroad, 1990), discusses the dark side of this high mobility and the exces-sive amount of stress related to it. As one who lived this experi-ence and whose number of moves around my regional community exceeds the example Barbara Fiand gives on page 148, I can well attest to what she says. She does not connect to this mobility the reality that newer or younger members would be more easily exposed to the cancerous doubt of which I spoke earlier. Today I and others who have stayed in religious life perceive our com-munity as larger than the local area in which we live. We are usu-ally well-integrated into the larger community in terms of knowledge, experience, and relationships. Throughout my years in religious life, it has not been uncom-mon for other members to say to me that they do not understand why "we" stay. I suspect these are comments of frustration, despair, 370 Rewiew for Religious lack of hope, or just plain bewilderment. They are comments indicative of middle places where lack of clarity, direction, and insight plague us all. Middle places, besides containing elements of darkness and light, are also by their very nature places of continuity. The con-tinuity is in the interiority. At the time I entered my community, differences were everywhere in terms of clothes, experiences, and theologies of the vows and reli-gious life, in spite of the renewal of Vatican II. The time of forma-tion for me involved excessive mobility and excessive exposure to all of this. After a long process of ¯ sorting through the externals, I found connection and identifica-tion through the interior. This exposure brought me to the real-ization that times were different, details were different, but the essence of the story was the same. Grace had invited me into the deeper myth of religious life. I can speak for no one but myself when I say that the deepest connection I was able to encounter and perceive in others was the experience of religious life as the deepening of one's greatest life and freedom in a journey with the Divine. I would suspect that all newer or younger members who have been in religious life for several years can appreciate, if not marvel at, the journey of those who have been here before us. I have found numerous women whose journey through pre- and post-Vatican II times has demanded much of them. The journey of these women reveals a depth of discipleship and commitment that mine could never rival. These women are part of my congregation and of other congre-gations; some have long been part of my journey and some are recently a part. Some were part of my journey for a time, a sig-nificant time. Some are with me in a new way beyond the bound-aries of space and time. Growth and transformation are profoundly connected to courageous, faith-filled women who show that "a journey with God is the only real source of satisfaction there is, All newer or younger members who have been in religious life for several years can appreciate, if not marvel at, the journey of those who have been here before us. May-June 1994 371 Eby ¯ One Voice from the Middle Place and a life of freedom, no matter how demanding, the only life worth living." s My view is necessarily limited. I merely offer a glimpse of a few of the experiences which could be characteristic of one who has known only this middle place in religious life. And this mid-dle place, too, is necessarily limited. Sandra Schneiders, in her critique of Mary Jo Leddy's book Reweaving Religious Life: Beyond the Liberal Model, gives a good description of the general experi-ence of members who were a part of religious life before Vatican II and those who entered just as the council closed:6 Leddy vividly describes the symbolic malaise, lack of cor-porate vision, tenuous sense of belonging, identity confu-sion, and ministerial disarray that is obviously the experience of some religious, notably those in Leddy's own genera-tional cohort. These religious, now in their forties, entered religious life just as Vatican II closed. Religious congrega-tions, with the permission of the council, began a period of wide-ranging experimentation which left formation pro-grams suspended in mid-air between the collectivist identity that was being repudiated and a new identity that had not yet emerged. The corporate resources of religious life enjoyed by their older sisters were not transmitted to these new members, nor did they have the experiential realiza-tion of the dysfunctionality of much of the older system of religious life which fueled the renewal zeal of professed members. Thus, they could not rely on the deep roots of shared history, symbolic cohesion, and corporate identity as everything began to change simultaneously. Nor could they invest with passion in reforming a life they had never lived. Schneiders goes on to state that part of the significance of Leddy's book lies in the dialogue initiated "between those who lived religious life before the council and those whose experience of this life is almost totally postconciliar." This dialogue is impor-tant since a new generation has emerged today which interprets religious life very differently from those whose background embraces the lived experience of Tridentine Catholicism. My hope is that such a dialogue may be initiated. Newer or younger members are often isolated geographically from one another and lack opportunities to connect with one another. They can easily have a different perception and interpretation of reli-gious life because of differences in culture, generation, and a host of other experiences. Such connection could allow shared dis- 372 Review for Religious cussion of situations and concerns that are unique to newer or younger members. Energy could be channeled into discussion of a vision for the future. Congregations need to become aware of the importance of encouraging and providing financial assistance for structures that facilitate connection, reflection, and analysis among the very members who will carry into the 21st century the depth and dynamic of religious life. There is a tremendous significance in encourag-ing and supporting opportunities of this nature for newer or younger members whose dialogue among themselves can then lead to greater creativity when in dialogue with the larger congregation. This type of connection is not, in and of itself, exclusive. It does, how-ever, allow analysis and reflection which can never go on in larger com-munity gatherings simply because newer or younger members tend to be overwhelmed by the concerns and issues and by the sheer numbers of other members. Congregations as a whole rarely can articulate the dreams, hopes, stories, and experiences relative to newer or younger members. It is a simple fact that newer or younger members often constitutes a minute percentage of any congregation. The newer or younger members' analysis and reflection pre-cede the synthesis with the larger group that they hope ultimately to accomplish. To arrive at a communal vision that will animate and give energy for the future is a primary effort of many religious congregations at this time. Such a communal vision will come with a mixture of risk, wisdom, courage, insight, and pain. Many communities like my own have embraced a new creation, a new moment in their history. Most assuredly, we will be held account-able for choices made, choices not made, choices which will affect not just religious life but the church itself in years to come. Even so, we are invited, individually and corporately, to the awareness that "our own carefully laid plans and world orders should never be regarded as more reliable than the unsystematic reality of God's presence and grace."7 Congregations as a whole rarely can articulate the dreams, hopes, stories, and experiences relative to newer or younger members. May-June 1994 373 Eby ¯ One Voice from the Middle Place Notes ~John Shea, Stories of God (Chicago: Thomas More Press, 1978), p. 11. 2 Joan Chittister OSB, "Religious Life and the Need for Salt," Religious Life Review 30 (November/December 1991): 284. 3 See Patricia \¥ittberg SC "The Problem of Generations in Religious Life," Review for Religious 47, no. 6 (November-December 1988): 906, 907,908. 4 Mary Jo Leddy, "Beyond the Liberal Model," Way Supplement 65 (summer 1989): 47. s John A. Sanford, The Man Who 12Vrestled with God (New York: Paulist Press, 1981), p. 100. 6 Sandra Schneiders, review of Mary Jo Leddy's Reweaving Religious Life: Beyond the Liberal Model in Spirituality Today 42 (winter 1990): 368, 369. 7 Letter of Administrative Team of the Sisters of Mercy of the Union on 19 May 1991 to membership. Paradox Blosso~n-t~othered branches Of whitethorn trees Showing no wood And so full of the hum Of honey-heavy bees Seem to say to me That I should not Register such emptiness In the presence of such plenty Leaning fragrantly down to me In the final days of May. And I say: There is no should! I am a tree Made wood by my winter; Seasons that oppose Are two opposing goods Where envy may not enter To destroy the gift Of paradox. Bernadette McCarrick RSM 374 Review for Religious CATHERINE M. HARMER Religious, the Laity, and the Future of Catholic Institutions Many Catholics have grown up with the assumption that Catholic institutions, especially schools and hospi-tals, are a normal and permanent part of the landscape. Whether or not their children attend either parish or pri-vate Catholic schools, whether or not ~hey ever use the local Catholic hospital, it takes only the hint that these will be closed to cause a great stir. A second common assumption is that the religious congregations who founded and maintained these institutions will continue to do so in the future. Yet these institutions are more at risk now than ever before. Most of the Catholic institutions in this country had their origin in the last century. The parochial school sys-tem developed out of the concern of 19th-century bishops to maintain the faith for the immigrant populations from Catholic European countries. What has become the largest private health system in the country started very simply with religious sisters caring for the sick .and the poor in their homes. The hospitals built and run by their con-gregations were a response to a need to provide profes-sional healthcare in a Catholic setting. For the most part the organizers, builders, and managers of Catholic insti- Catherine M. Harmer MMS has worked as a psychologist in consultation with religious congregations and health systems in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the United States. Her address is Medical Mission Sisters; 300 W. Wellens Street; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19120. life in service May-June 1994 375 Harmer ¯ Religious, the Laity, and the Future tutions for educationl health, and social services were religious sisters, brothers, and priests. Even in the parochial school sys-tems, the bishops depended on the ~isters and brothers to provide the teachers and administrators, and to do so at little cost to parish or diocese. This work of founding and developing the major Catholic institutions, private, parochial, and diocesan, was an immense gift of religious to the church in the United States. Initially they served the immigrant Catholic population. As the years went on, the Catholic contribution was recognized beyond the boundaries of the church, especially in the field of healthcare. Given the social and political status of lay Catholics in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it is doubtful if they could have provided either the impetus or the skill to build these institutions, though their finan-cial contributions were the base for all of them. There is no ques-tion that establishing the institutions was a good thing for religious to do. The question today is whether they can or should continue t.o put as much into them now and in the future as they formerly did. Over the last twenty-five years, there has been a steady decline in the numbers of sisters and brothers, and a steady rise in their median age. During the same period, out of necessity rather than choice, the number of lay people in Catholic institutions has also risen. The cost of maintaining the institutions has increased, par-tially because of salary and benefit increases for the lay staff. In healthcare the potential decline of Catholic-sponsored hospitals was delayed, first by the Hill-Burton funds made available for building and then by the increased availability of third-party insur-ance, Medicare, and Medicaid. The decline of Catholic schools started earlier because there was little financial aid for them except occasional foundation grants. Efforts to acquire tuition credits or direct state support for Catholic schools continue to fail. In many dioceses the future of Catholic schools, even the parochial ones, depends on the ability of the parishes to maintain them independently of the diocese. Thus, only in the wealthier parishes can Catholic schools con-tinue to exist. Even these will last only if the priests and parish-ioners are willing to see fairly large proportions of their income go to the school and if parents are willing to pay increasingly higher tuition. There is the clear possibility that the Catholic school system will gradually disappear through attrition, with 376 Review for Religious only a few schools remaining for those who can afford private education. Creative efforts have been made by congregations. They have involved greater numbers of lay people in their institutions, main-taining sponsorship of the institutions and control over their mis-sion so as not to lose the congregation's charism and values. Particularly in healthcare there have been mergers of different types, from full takeover of one system by another to the collabo-ration of two or more systems forming a new system. Still, while the presence of religious in the institutions continues to decline, the number of lay women and men at high levels of management and in board positions grows. Lay members of the institutions find themselves attracted
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Review for Religious - Issue 53.4 (July/August 1994)
Issue 53.4 of the Review for Religious, July/August 1994. ; Christian Heritages and Contempora~ Living ~ JULY-AUGUST 1994 ¯ VOLUME: 5:3 . Nrt~MBER 4 Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535-3048 ¯ Fax: 314-535-0601 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ° P.O. Box 29260 ¯ Washington, DC 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©1994 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library client~ within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. review for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Joann Wolski Conn PhD Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Ann Ledden SSND Edmundo Rodriguez SJ David Werthmann CSSR Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JULY-AUGUST 1994 * VOLUME53 ¯ NUMBER4 contents 486 feature LeadErship a New Way: If Christ Is Growing in Us Janet K. Ruffing RSM proposes that a task of religious leadership is to integrate a personally appropriated Christ mysticism with historical consciousness and liberationist praxis in a way that is consonant with feminine experience. 498 5O7 traditions An Introduction to Orthodox Spirituality Peter J. SanFilippo presents the doctorine of theosis, the deification of the human person, as the heart of the ascetical spirituality of the Orthodox Church. Yoga, Christian Prayer, and Zen Ovey N. Mohammed SJ compares the praxis of contemplation in yoga and Zen Buddhism with Christian prayer, especially the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola. 524 The Ignatian Spiritual Exercises and Jesuit Spirituality Frederick E. Crowe SJ presents an understanding of St. Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises that distinguishes them from Jesuit spirituality while clarifying their relationship to Jesuit spirituality or any other kind. 534 The Suscipe Revisited Joan Mueller OSF explores various applications of the Ignatian prayer "Take and receive" within the dynamic of the Spiritual Exercises. 544 holiness The Cross Yesterday and Today Robert P. Maloney CM presents a synthesis of the understanding of the cross in the spirituality of Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac in the light of contemporary theology. 482 Revieva for Religious 560 568 Fascination with the Holy--and Conversion Annette M. Pelletier IHM postulates a fascination with the holy which justifies religious life and which demands a response of conversion. Merton's Spirituality of Place Wayne Simsic explains the importance of stability of place as an anchor for spiritual growth in the writings of Thomas Merton. 584 prayer and direction The Future of Spiritual Direction Tad Dunne raises eight issues which need to be addressed if spiritual direction is to be an effective ministry in the church. 591 A Vision Revision about Distractions Harold F. Niedzwiecki OFM points out that a way of integrating prayer and our daily routine is to see God in our environment as well as beyond it. 597 6O5 ministry formation Nonviolence and Christian Moral Responsibility Pa~ricia McCarthy CND presents nonviolence as so integral to Jesus' way of life that it takes its place as a part of Christian moral responsibility. Holy Land Pilgrims and Ministry to Them Anne Hennessy CSJ makes some helpful suggestions for Catholic pilgrims to the Holy Land at~d identifies four situations .dxich call for ministry attention. 617 report Santo Domingo Assembly: An LCWR/CMSM Report departments 484 Prisms 622 Canonical Counsel: Religious and Human Promotion 629 Book Reviews a~ly-August 1994 483 prisms L its spring meeting, the Review for Religious Advisory Board raised some concerns that we hope interested writers might explore in future arti-cles. For example, there remains much interest in and rea-son for writing about charism. Besides the fundamental norm of gospel discipleship around Christ, the founders or inspirers of various consecrated lifeforms, their personal history and example, the original rule of life, and the spe-cial founding charism are still the essential sources for contemporary renewal. Often we image the charism spe-cial to each religious foundation as something that we have to recover in its original purity if we are to move forward while being true to ourselves. Yet many religious groups seem to have experienced that a return to such a pristine notion, of a founding charism may not be the most effective road to' renewal. When relig!ous men and women--after, in many instances, arriving in the United States from European foundations--received some of their formation from the needs and ethos of this land, some incarnate charisms began to look quite different from their European form. For example, monastic foundations, especially of women, were so drawn out into educational or other service areas that the actual lived grace (the charism) evident in the members' lives took a different cast. Certain aspects of monastic spirituality were blended into the later spiritu-alities called apostolic. Sometimes the blending was less like a healthy grafting than like two plants sharing the same pot. When Vatican II called for a return to the sources, some North American religious may have been too quick to seek a purity of charism instead of examining 484 Review for Religious the grafting or the twinned growth that distinctly showed life, however poorly understood or oddly proportioned. We would seem to have a good number of religious congregations that might better be described as having a "blended charism" of a couple spiritual traditions rather than the purity of, say, a Benedictine, Franciscan, or Jesuit charism. Perhaps part of the frustration of renewal is a religious group's attempt to identify a charism by its root rather than by its stalk, leaves, and full flowering evident in their lives. We believe that phenomena like.these might be prof-itably explored. Along the same line, articles which briefly explain how our various spiritual heritages respond to contemporary living have great interest for many people. Back in the early fifties, Review for Religious printed six or eight articles of this kind. The time appears ripe for a similar series. Another area that might bear examination is the apparent paralleling of 50- and 60-year-old Catholics being the active, committed parishioners and religious in contrast with the 20-, 30-, and even 40-year-old Catholics being "affiliative" persons (less flatteringly, "supermarket" Catholics and religious) picking and choosing among the prac-tices which incarnate our faith and its counterpart, religious life. We also might want to pursue these questions. Given min-istry's growing professionalization, do we need to examine more carefully the importance of an intimacy in the Christian-ministry relationship in place of "client-centered" imaging? When is incul-turation a surrender to a culture's racist, sexist, or otherwise dis-torted values, and when is it a demonstration of respect for a heritage that is opening itself to Christian values? At our April meeting we welcomed Brother David Werthmann CSSR to the Advisory Board. He has served as novice director for the Redemptorist provinces of the western United States for six years and as a member of the national board for the National Assembly of Religious Brothers (1987-1993). He is now director of Vincent House, an in-home volunteer program serving per-sons living with AIDS in St. Louis, Missouri. He is a contribut-ing author to the recently published book Blessed Ambiguity: Brothers in the Church. Our appreciation and gratitude go with Brother Se~n Sammon FMS, a founding member of the Board, as he begins service as vicar general of the Marist Brothers in Rome. ¯ David L. Fleming sJ .~ly-Aug.ust 1994 485 feature JANET K. RUFFING Leadership a New Way: If Christ Is Growing in Us As Americans we tend to privatize our religious expe-rience. Because we are schooled by our democratic and pluralistic society to conceal from public discourse the compelling religious vision and experiences that motivate us, some leaders of religious communities carry this reti-cence over into their role in community. In addition, some come from ethnic backgrounds which presume a bedrock of faith, but discourage talking about it. Leaders vary in their ability to express in their lives the faith by which they live. On the other hand, the entire purpose and meaning of religious life is to help those called to it to focus their lives totally on God. For apostolic communi-ties this response to G6d's call is accomplished through the love of our neighbor in compassionate service as well as through contemplation and a lifestyle organized to sus-tain this commitment. . Although the religious dimension of leadership is often neglected,, religious life itself is always and only a work of the fiery Spirit that inspires, empowers, and energizes our free response to this grace. The reflections on power and empowerment in the first part of this article show that one gift women religious offer the church in our pres- Janet K. Ruffing RSM is associate professor in spirituality and spiritual direction in the Graduate School of Religion and REligious Education at Fordham University. The first part of this article, "Women, Power, and Authority," appeared in our May- June 1994 issue. Her address is GSRRE, Fordham University; 441 E. Fordham Road; Bronx, New York 10458-5169. 486 "Review for Religious ent transition is the clear movement in many communities toward a communal life shared by equal disciples who are seeking to r~spond to God's leading. This evolution of empowering author-ity in religious life could indeed be a sign of hope to contempo-rary women. If religious life for women is a means for supporting our total transformation so that Christ be formed in us, it will institutionalize itself in ways that genuinely respect and nurture the deepest possibilities of our femi-nine discipleship. Following Caryll Houselander's words, we can say, "If Christ is growing in us,''~ we will be at peace because where we are Christ is. The entire context in which we seek to live this discipleship has changed. It is a time of chaos and new creation. God's. Spirit broods over these waters. Are we paying attention to these move-ments in our midst? Do leader-ship teams spend time reflecting together on what is happening in themselves, in their members, and in the various groups in the community that reveals what God is doing in their midst? How are sisters understanding themselves in the light of their central dedication to God in Christ? How are they being impelled in ministry? What do they describe as impeding or deflecting them from this central core of the religious-life project? What are the resistances of leaders to some new things? What are the group's resistances to or struggles with ongoing conversion? I believe that paying attention to such'questions is important for religious leadership. Leaders, consciously or not, nonverbally express in decisions and actions their operative vision of religious life, their sense of who God is, their Christology, and their atti-tude toward the women they lead. These are all interconnected. If a leader believes she is diminished in her personhood because God wills her to be powerless and dependent on external author-ity, her behavior will conform to that belief. If she believes that authentic discipleship of Jesus requires members to be compli- Leaders nonverbally express in decisions and actions their operative vision of religious life, their sense of who God is, their Christology, and their attitude toward the women they lead. ~uly-August 1994 487 Ruffing ¯ Leadership a New IVay ant to all requests, she will attempt to secure such compliance. If she believes the majority of members to be selfish and individ-ualistic in their choices, she will find this amply documented. However, if she expects discipleship of Jesus to lead to creative ini-tiatives, release of energy for mission, resistance to injustice, growth in compassion, and a deeply contemplative gaze at expe- ¯ rience, she will Welcome such creativity and action and notice its contemplative interiority. If leaders are not both conscious and critical of the theology they embody in their leadership style, they will fail to recognize how religious faith is functioning within the dongregation. I believe, and the research bea~s this out, that religious lead-ership is more than being conscious of and setting an example of grass-roots theology. The Nygren-Ukeritis study found not only that outstanding leaders of religious congregations were them-selves firmly grounded in their religious experience, but also that they demonstrated an ability to "find and express., the spiritual significance in everyday affairs." The study found, too, that out-standing leaders of religious congregations put greater reliance on God than other members do; generally the male leaders think of God as a "source of support," and the female leaders, as a "source of direction and energy." Further, the interviews showed that in "the spontaneous recounting of their experiences the out-standing leaders more frequently cite instances of actions consis-tent with the religious theory they would espouse." In the judgment of the researchers, these leaders "communicated a gen-uine awareness of God's presence in their lives" and acted accord-ingly. 2 The study concludes that organizations will survive only if their leaders can articulate the founding purpose in contempo-rary idioms and respond to pressing needs. We are experiencing a profound theological reinterpretation of religious life in the light of rapidly changing circumstances. For numerous reasons entire congregations find considerable dif-ficulty in coalescing around a new vision. While some members are stuck in the old paradigm, others propose only a limited view of the new reality. All of us act on old habits of thought and behav-ior. Leaders are reluctant to quench new initiatives since it is rarely clear which one might be leading to the future. Leaders also resist taking initiatives themselves since they are convinced these initiatives need to come from the group. Much of this can be described as a conflict of interpretations or a conflict of per- 488 Revietv for Religious spectives. The FORUS study recognizes that leaders strongly affect the outcomes of such conflicts. "Leaders can have a strong impact on the outcome of the conflict between perspectives. If they sup-port only one perspective, they are likely to decrease the creativ-ity of the transformational process and the active involvement of members whose perspectives are not taken into account . If they enable conflicting perspectives to interact with each other, they will increase the chances of paradoxical transformations, of new and creative shared understandings that emerge from the interaction of the competing perspectives.''3 It is a function of religious leadership to notice and articulate to the community the religious dimension of experience. This includes the team's view of affairs, but also that of the other mem-bers. If the group is assembled, leadership leads by creating an atmosphere in which conflicting perspectives can meet one another and be modified by the dialogue. If the group is not assembled, leadership needs to reflect the range of perspectives and call the group to respond to a religious vision that can be accommodated within this range. I am describing a form of grass-roots theological reflection in which leaders of communities keep before the consciousness of the group a way of sharing the religious heart of their shared reli-gious life. This is a delicate and important task, not just a form of pious exhortation, It requires careful listening, schooled in expe-rience, for what God is actually doing in the group. What form is discipleship taking? How well is it grounded in Scripture and in a sense of who Jesus is? Members will welcome this discourse if it is objective, respectful, and truthful. If this reality can be spo-ken of in narrative or thematic ways, it can foster into the future a sense of shared life, shared goals, and shared commitments. It can build the theological bridges for understanding one another and for a new form of co(porateness. The First Epistle of Peter describes s.omething of this pro-cess: "Venerate Christ in your hearts. Should anyone ask the rea-son for this hope of yours, be ever ready toreply, but speak gently and respectfully" (1 P 3:15-16). Such accounts of the hope that animates us draw the community together around its most central identity. Far more than they do, leaders need to concern them-selves with helping communities to do such spiritual accounting together if religious life is to move through this transitional and transformative time. j~uly-/lugust 1994 489 Ruffing ¯ Leadership a New Way Christological Models While the FORUS study highlights the singular impor-tance of the faith dimension in religious leadership, it neglects to examine in any significant way the content of faith, specifi-cally our understanding of Jesus. Since the conciliar teaching on religious life emphasized that gospel discipleship is the funda-mental norm for religious life, how we individually and commu-nal! y understand our following of Jesus constitutes the religious heart of our vocation. We live religious life in quite different ways with each new interpretation of our faith in Jesus. To help our reflection on the practical following of Christ in religious life, I propose three models of Christology that are oper-ative in contemporary communities. Although oversimplified, these three models might be described as an ahistorical/mystical model, a historical/liberationist model, and a feminist model.4 The ahistorical/mystical model is the largely monophysite Christology that preceded the council and informed much of the 19th-century spirituality many founders lived. In this Christology the one thing we are absolutely certain about is the divinity of Jesus, hence the term monophysite, meaning one nature. The one divine nature managed to obscure the other half of the Chalcedonian definition, namely, Jesus' human nature. Spiritual writers and meditation books emphasized a one-to-one relation-ship with Jesus. Greater emphasis was placed on the hidden life and the passion than on either the public ministry or the resur-rection. Few Catholics, including religious, actually read or med-itated on the texts of Scripture but rather used devotional manuals. The focus of these meditations was the interior attitudes of Jesus in his humiliation and suffering-=humility, obedience, suffering, patience, love, meekness, and so forth. The follower of Christ was to imitate these virtues in order to achieve holiness and to enter into the mysteries of Jesus. These meditations usually had a strong trinitarian flavor. Since Christ was God, the desired atti-tudes were adoration, reverence, and docility before the Mystery. The meditator was drawn into the Trinity itself through the mys-teries of incarnation and redemption. Frequently, the image of God the Father was rather harsh-- a just God who demanded the blood reparation of his Son for humanity's sin. Apostolic religious life in this model usually meant long hours of devotional prayers, use of a meditation manual, and the imitation of the virtues or inner states of Jesus in common 490 Review for Religious life and in ministry. What mattered was increasing conformation to the Christ mystery through prayer and virtue. Obedience and humility were valued over activity and originality. Obedience to superiors and the rule was equated with obedience to God's will. Just as the understanding of Jesus in this model failed to honor Jesus' human reality as much as his divine reality, so too this kind of Christology often led to a neglect of our own humanity and a loss of a sense of the sacra-mentality of human life. In many communities, women were not respected as individuals with differing gifts, histories, and abilities and were not encouraged to care for them-selves appropriately. Since this form of relationship to the Christ mystery was entirely inte-rior and ahistorical, it did not really matter what we did in our world so long as we did it with the proper interior attitudes. This Christology supports the consecration model of religious life. Consecrated to an intimate relationship with Christ, religious are set apart from mundane secular life by cloister, rule, and garb and seek the one thing necessary, namely, progressive contemplative assimilation to the Christ mystery. Much still remains valid in this Christology, especially the way in which Jesus does lead us into the deeper mystery of the Trinity. To become intimate with Jesus, to participate in his life does cultivate in us an entirely different perspective on reality. We are opened to transcendence; we discover the deepest reality of ourselves in the love which comes to us from the Divine Mystery. We never exhaust the need to penetrate to ever deeper levels of the divine and of our own graced reality. The second model is the historical/liberationist model. As one wave of Christology at the time of the council broke over our consciousness, we began to appreciate more clearly the full humanity of Jesus. As Elizabeth Johnson puts it, "if God became a human being, then it is very important to see what kind of human being God became.''5 This led to a full appreciation not only of Jesus' human experience, but of our own as well. As schol- To become intimate with Jesus, to participate in his life does cultivate in us an entirely different perspective on reality. ~uly-August 1994 491 Ruffing ¯ Leadership a New Way ars recovered more and more of the actual history of Jesus and the movement which he inspired, focus turned to a close examina-tion of his ministry, death, and resurrection. Jesus not only talked about the kingdom of God, but actually made it present in the way he was with people, by what he said and did. He embodied the reality of God in his concrete human history. When we began to contemplate this part of the story, we discovered incredible things. It became apparent that Jesus favored the poor, the marginalized, the outcasts. Women were a primary group among his disciples, and he seemed to enjoy their company. Jesus appreciated embod-ied life and drew most of his parables from nature and from com-mon human experience. The kingdom of God was already in our midst. For apostolic religious life the implications were significant. Much of the four Gospels was about Jesus' ministry--which gave us a clue about how we are to be in ministry. It became apparent that Jesus was killed because of the choices he made and what he said in his ministry. As Jesus expressed it, love is more important than law. The law was made for human benefit, not to oppress people. God's will is for abundant life, fullness of life as John's Gospel puts it; God's primary attribute is compassion rather than judgment. When Jesus was killed for upsetting the religious authorities of his day, God validated his ministry and his teaching by not allowing sin and evil to have the last word, but by raising him from the dead.6 As this reflection on Jesus' lived history continued, liberation theology began to develop among poor and oppressed peoples. Drawing on the choices Jesus made in his ministry to share life with the poor and to offer wholeness and liberation to the oppressed, poor and oppressed Christians added social critique and praxis to Christology. Thus, liberation Christologies begin in the context of the suffering of a particular oppressed group. The process of this reflection is communal. Oppressed people come together to reflect on their situation, to pray, and to seek actions that will change things for the better. These actions become the subject for further reflection. Thus, thought and action are intertwined. Liberation theologies emphasize the social nature of sin and grace by reflecting on how the community experiences them within their social structures. These theologies also consider how God and Christ are present in the community as it struggles for 492 Review for Religious justice. Typically there are three steps to this method. A situa-tion is recognized to be oppressive, is called sinful, and is ana-lyzed for its causes, including the way Christian tradition has contributed to the oppression: Has there been complicity in the church and its preaching? Has Christ been understood in a way that is helpful to the oppressor? In this step, liberation tMology is quite critical of the tradition. In the third step, guided by the experience of the oppressed, Christian tradi-tion is searched for elements that would yield new understanding and a new liberating practice. In liber-ation theology, discipleship always entails a change in praxis--activity on behalf of the kingdom of God, judged to be more a present real-ity than an entirely future one. It is out of this theology that Medellin developed the notion of the preferential option for the poor. Massive injustice is analyzed as social sin and not as God's will. There is a mystical side to this Christology, but it is more a spiri-tuality of a people than of individuals. Faith influences base com-munities as they reflect on the Scriptures, the concrete situation of the poor, and action taken to address it. Frequently, when reli-gious espouse voluntary solidarity with the poor, they discover a new experience of God, experiencing Christ in the poor them-selves. Poor people become the ongoing occasion for conversion. Elizabeth Johnson notes that this. theology is also conflictual. The powers within either church or culture do not like to be chal-lenged. To act and live in solidarity with the poor is to risk cer-tain conflict even as Jesus did in his ministry. In this Christology there is less an imitation of the interior attitudes of Jesus than a willingness to accept the consequences of a liberating praxis. What differentiates solidarity with the poor, in this theological per-spective, from involvement with the poor in the earlier mystical model is concrete social analysis. Rather than simply relieving the poor in a loving way, one joins them in their struggle. Frequently, when religious espouse voluntary solidarity with the poor, they discover a new experience of God, experiencing Christ in the poor themselves. July-August 1994 493 Ruffing ¯ Leadership a New Way In the third model, a feminist Christology, we find similari-ties to the historical/liberation perspective. Feminist theology is liberation theology done from the perspective of women's expe-rience. It draws inspiration from the historical material about Jesus' compassionate healing and liberating treatment of women and a discipleship of equals among the men and women who fol-lowed him in the early community. Women clearly understand that their oppression in all cultures is not willed by God. The same steps of analysis and action and prayer as described above are applied to the situation of women. Feminist theology in first-world countries recognizes the resources in Christology for women's liberation.7 The Jesus tradition is a powerful and important spiritual resource for Christian women in their struggle for full participa-tion and personhood in church and society. Feminist theologians in third-world countries pay attention to the situation of women everywhere. The God Jesus reveals cannot be hostile to the deep-est reality of women; women as well as men are fitting images of this God. Likewise, women disciples of Jesus are images of Christ, are every bit as much "altera Christa" as men are "alter Chrisms." Women recognize their suffering and oppression reconciled, healed, and overcome in the death and resurrection of Jesus fully as much as other oppressed groups. Women in religious communities probably lie along the entire continuum of these three Christologies. For some, their rela-tionship with Jesus is primarily a mystical/interpersonal one that has not been significantly changed by reflection on the actual his-torical situation of Jesus' life. Others have deeply appropriated this historical perspective and have assimilated it to their mysti-cal experience of Jesus. The Jesus they meet in prayer is the embodiment of God's compassion. To be involved with him is to be involved with all who suffer. If the FORUS study is correct in its conclusion that service with the poor is not a fully operative priority in communities, it is because a significant portion of the membership has not made the historical/liberation turn. Religious life is constructed on the dominant understanding of what the following of Christ entails in a given historical period. The larger church--both ordinary parishioners and the hierarchy--is more comfortable with religious doing good work motivated by a mys-tical Christology than it is with a stance of prophetic solidarity based on either a liberationist model or a feminist Christology. 494 Review for Religious Feminist Christologies are arising all over the world because even countries that began to address the structural causes of poverty were doing so from the perspective of men rather than women. As worldwide statistics on women become available, it is clear that in every culture women (with their children) constitute the masses of poor people and suffer additionally purely because of their gender. Religious institutes whose originating charisms focused on women and children can reappropriate those charisms in the contemporary context by adopting some form of Christian feminism.8 This is the development our constitutions and chap-ter statements document, but I suspect that they are not fully internalized because our operative Christologies have not yet caught up with them. Religious life has historically been lived longer from the mystical model, which did not necessarily entail apostolic life. Further, religious life has also been lived by women in contexts determined by masculine consciousness and explained in theologies rooted in masculine experience. As apostolic reli-gious and as women, our challenge is to integrate a personally appropriated Christ mysticism with historical consciousness and liberationist praxis in our postmodern context in a way that is fully consonant with our feminine experience. These are the Christologies that support both a prophetic and a contemplative religious life for women. Conclusion In her theological monograph commissioned by the FORUS study, Elizabeth Johnson points to what she calls a "new experi-ence of God emerging in the context of postmodern conscious-ness." The paradoxical experience so many of us have of presence in absence, the loss of familiar ways of experiencing God, and the emergence of something deeper or different are all of a piece. She asserts that a shift is going on in our understanding of the nature of God revealed to us in Jesus. In this essay I have described some of these changes through a Christological lens. However, these changes in Christology also initiate changes in our experi-ence of God. Johnson describes the features of this new experience this way: If there be a God at all, then this is absolute holy mystery that can never be fathomed. Not literally a male person writ large, the sacred can be pointed to by any created good: .~-uly-/lugust 1994 495 Ruffing * Leadership a New Way male, female, animal, cosmic. This mystery does not dwell in isolation from the world but encompasses it as the Matrix of its being and becoming. God in the world and the world in God--panentheism--describes the mutual relation. Thus related, the Holy One of Blessing is a God of pathos who participates in the suffering of the world in order to trans-form it from within. Divine power is the strength of love, rather than raw, monarchical omnipotence. Passionate for justice and peace and compassionate over pain, Holy Wisdom typically self-reveals in the fragmentary break-throughs of well-being that come about through human partnership with divine purpose. Forever God acts to cre-ate a fresh, new future: liberation is her signature deed. A God like this calls for an ethic of critical compassion. We are impelled so to utter the word of God that the world will be changed and renewed by it. She goes on to describe this experience of divine absence and presence as: an experience of the Spirit of God: radically transcendent, like the wind blowing where it will; and at the same time radically immanent, dwelling at the heart of the world to vivify and renew all things. Empowered by the Spirit in our age, people of faith who treasure the living memory of Jesus seek the hidden God of life (contemplation) and live out the passion of God for the world in need (prophecy).9 Rather than a return to the old securities that would quench the fiery Spirit moving in our midst, we need more profound prayer, more attentive listening to the experience of God break-ing through in our midst, and acting from its liberating energy toward a more just, more contemplative, and more novel future. One of the tasks of religious leadership is to contribute to this new naming of God in ways that unite contemplation and prophecy, compassion and action, women's well-being and that of the earth, nonviolence and conflictual change. This task can-not be accomplished without thinking theologically as well as psychologically, without the courage to articulate one's own core religious experience and that of the community, without a sus-taining hope grounded in God's faithfulness. Whatever the even-tual shape of the next form of religious life, it will both emerge from and disclose this new experience of God. It is the task of religious leaders to tell the new story of the surpassing gift of God's fidelity, love, and emancipating compas-sion. It is the task of leaders to uncover the foundational experi- 496 Review for Religious ence of God in every woman in the community and in every inter-action with one another. Religious leaders must forge a new vocab-ulary of the Spirit's presence that honors everyone's experience of God and also points to the "new experiences" emerging in our times and in many of our members. If religious life clearly man-ifests this profound rootedness in the Holy Mystery, "all will be well and all manner of things will be well.''1° Notes ' Lavinia Byrne, ed., The Hidden Tradition: Women's Spiritual Writings Rediscovered. An Anthology (New York: Crossroad, 1991), p. 23. 2 David Nygren, Miriam Ukeritis, John McClelland, et al., "Religious Leadership Competencies," Review for Religious 52, no. 3 (May-June 1993): 412. 3 Nygren and Ukeritis, "The Religious Life Futures Project: Executive Summary," Review for Religious 52, no. 1 (January-February 1993): 11. Interpretation theory also suggests a similar process by bringing the pos-sible interpretations together in dialogue, to arbitrate among, and to seek agreement. Paul Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1976), p. 79. 4 For a readable survey of these contemporary changes in Christology see Elizabeth Johnson, Consider Jesus: Waves of Renewal in Christology (New York: Crossroad, 1991). 5 Johnson, Consider Jesus, p. 50. 6 Albert Nolan, Jesus before Christianity (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1992), is still the most accessible form of this insight into Christology. Originally published in 1976, it is being superseded by John Meier's and Dominic Crossan's recent works, A Marginal Jew and The Historical Jesus. 7 See Elizabeth Johnson, She Who Is (New York: Crossroad, 1992) and Consider Jesus, for ample bibliography of feminist theologies. 8 For an example of this process, see Janet Ruffing and Theresa Moser, "An Option for Women?" Way Supplement 74 (Women and Ignatian Spirituality in Dialogue, summer 1992): 89-100. 9 Elizabeth Johnson, "Between the Times: Religious Life and the Postmodern Experience of God," Review for Religious 53, no. 1 (January- February 1994): 22 and 23-24. 10 Julian of Norwich, Showings of Divine Love. .)~uly-August 1994 497 PETER J. SANFILIPPO An Introduction to Orthodox Spirituality traditions Editor's Note: Out of respect for his religious heritage, the author retains man and masculine reference when the theological roots of Orthodox faith and the tradi-tional expressions of its writers are being reflected. The Orthodox Church knows no dichotomy between her theology, spirituality, liturgy, use of Scripture, and even her iconography. The church experiences all these as inseparable components in an organic whole, which have as their common matrix a doctrine which stands at the very center of her ecclesial consciousness: theosis, the deification of man (for the inclusive meaning of the term man, see Gn 5:2, RSV) and, with him, of the whole created cosmos. Contemplating the masters of the incarnation, St. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote in the 2nd century that "God became what we are so that we could become what he is." This reached its ultimate conclusion two centuries later in the writings of St. Athanasius the Great, champion of orthodoxy at the anti-Arian Council of Nicaea in A.D. 3 2 5 and later archbishop of Alexandria: God became man so that man could become God/ Father Peter SanFilippo, ordained in 1988, is the founding pastor of St. Stephen the First Martyr parish in Roblin, Manitoba, Canada, where he resides with his wife, Joann, and their four children. He studied theology at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York. His address is P.O. Box 1397; Roblin, Manitoba R0L 1P0; Canada. 498 Review for Religious This is not to be confused with the Buddhist ~oncept of nir-vana, according to which complete union with the Transcendent ends in the annihilation of self. The goal of Buddhist spiritual-ity is sometimes described by means of an analogy in which a man made of sand progresses by stages into the ocean until he disintegrates, entirely swallowed up and ceasing to exist as him-self. In the final analysis, this is a hopelessly pessimistic spiritu-ality, for its aim is not the salvation but the destruction of the human person. On the contrary, the spiritual doctrine of theosis represents a powerful affirmation of the innate goodness of the human person as a whole--in the composite, trinitarian nature of spirit, soul and body--created in the image of God. Theosis neither obliter-ates nor even diminishes anything that belongs to human nature or human personhood: in other words, what I am and who I am. It is rather the eschatological manifestation of the children of God, experienced by degrees as a foretaste in this present life. This raises three points which require elaboration: 1. The Platonizing tendency borrowed by classical Western theology to regard man as a soul created in the image of God, "imprisoned" in a body which it longs to shed, is foreign to Orthodox theology. The inadequacy of this philosophical schema is that only a "part" of man (his soul) is thought to possess the divine image and to be destined for immortality, while the other "part" (his body) is bereft of that image, ultimately valueless and irreversibly mortal. This is not to say that certain writers in the Christian East did not lend prestige to such notions from time to time. But in the end they were condemned as a departure from the church's more holistic scriptural tradition. Orthodox theo-logical anthropology postulates the human person as a harmo-niously ordered, inseparable unity of spirit, soul and body, all of which participate in the image of God, all of which were created for eternal life, and all of which are engaged in the process of theosis. Death and the separation of the soul from the body are unnatural to man as God created him. 2. What is destroyed in the process of theosis is neither humanhood nor personhood, but sin. The patristic heritage of the East, in its assertion of the inherent holiness of all that is authentically human, does not view sin as intrinsic to, but contrary July-August 1994 499 SanFilippo ¯ An Introduction to Orthodox Spirituality to, human nature. Paradoxically, the deification of man reveals most brilliantly all that is genuinely human. 3. Theosis begins and is experienced in this present life, while its full manifestation awaits the resurrection on the last day. Theologians have debated for years whether eschatology is pres-ent or future and have even posited the two as if they were not the same reality. The late Father Georges Florovsky, eminent Orthodox theologian and author, merged the two concepts as they ought to be by coining the phrase "inaugurated eschatology": "Thou hast endowed us [already] with Thy kingdom which is to come" (from the Eucharistic canon of St. John Chrysostom). The deification of man does not add persons to the Holy Trinity so that God ceases to be Trinity and becomes "Multiplicity"! While man is admitted to full participation in divine life, he does not become "worshipable," for God remains eternally immutable in the divine essence. We begin to comprehend the nature of this mystery, if only imperfectly and in images, by bearing in mind St. Athanasius's maxim that the incarnation of God and the deification of man are reciprocal movements. According to the doctrinal formulation of the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) on the incarnation, the divine-human union in the person of the Son was accomplished with neither division nor confusion (or mingling), each of the two natures preserving the fullness of its properties and attributes intact and undiluted. This means that no hybridization or cross-breeding has taken place in the incarnation of Christ, while at the same time the union of the human nature with the divine in his person remains perfect, complete, and uni.mpeded. This sheds some light by analogy on our understanding of theosis. However, a critical distinction must be drawn between the incarnation and deification: God became man by nature, while man becomes God not by nature but solely by participation or by grace. This is why the Scripture refers to Christ as the "only-begotten" (or only "natural") Son of God, and to us as children of God "by adoption." Theosis begins neither at conception nor at birth, for the fall has rendered man incapable of attaining the divine destiny for which he was created. Something more is needed to set him on his 500 Review for Religiot~s way, and that is rebirth in the waters of baptism: "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God" On 3:5). Baptism in the Orthodox Church, from the elaborate blessingof the water to the actual immersion, unfolds as a liturgical reenactment of creation which effects, not so much the juridical removal of the stain or guilt of original sin, but the total re-creation of the human person: a rebirth in the profoundest sense of the word, a putting off of the old man and putting on of the new, a mystical dying and rising with Christ in order to "walk in newness of life" towards the eter-nal destiny for which we were created. The white robe prescribed in most baptismal rubrics is com-monly taken to symbolize the virtues, or the virtuous life, to which the neophyte has been called, as if Christ had come for no other purpose than to produce well-behaved people. The Orthodox baptismal liturgy contains a rubric of immense importance for our topic, the full significance of which is nearly always over-looked: while the newly baptized is clothed with the white robe, the congregation, choir, or cantor sings: Grant unto me the robe of light, O most merciful Christ our God, who clothest Thyself with light as with a garment! The real meaning of the white robe, and indeed of baptism itself, is that God has come down from heaven and become incar-nate in order to clothe mortal human flesh in his divinity and immortality, the very "garment" in which he himself is "clothed" from all eternity (Ps 104:2). Immediately after the immersion and the putting on of the white robe, the Holy Spirit is conferred on the neophyte in the sacrament of chrismation (confirmation in the West). This is pos-sible because, in the Orthodox East, the administration of chris-mation has always been delegated to the priest and has never required the presence of the bishop (the consecrated chrism is supplied by the bishop, however). Baptism completes in each per-son what was inaugurated in the incarnation: human flesh is made receptive to the descent and .permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit, received as a gift in chrismation as the firstfruits of deifi-cation and of the world to come. The Orthodox rites of initiation culminate finally in the Eucharist, in which the mystical union between God and man is SanFilippo ¯ An Introduction to Orthodox Spirituality consummated. The Eucharist is the summit of man's Godward ascent in this life, his fullest experience of deification as he becomes one with God, who became one with us, and the most perfect foretaste of the life to come: "Grant that we may more perfectly partake of Thee in the never-ending day of Thy king-dom" (from the prayer after Communion). (The Orthodox Church administers chrismation and Communion even to infants as soon as they are baptized.) The church expects iconographers to undertake their work in an atmosphere of prayer and fasting, together with confession and Communion. There is a cosmic dimension to all we have spoken of here. St. Paul writes that "the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now" (Rm 8:19-22). In another place he writes that God was pleased "to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven" (Col 1:20). Since the whole created order participated in the fall of man, it likewise awaits and shares in his redemption, being transfigured into the new heaven and the new earth filled with Christ, who makes all things new through the Holy Spirit. In the eucharis-tic canon of the liturgy, immediately pre-ceding the actual consecration of the gifts, the celebrant exclaims, "Thine own of Thine own we offer unto Thee, on behalf of all men and for all things"! Orthodox theology recognizes the intrinsic sacramentality of all things, which was lost however as a consequence of the fall. All things were given by God as an act of loving and life-giving communion with man, and in communing with God man was to have lived forever. But because of the cosmic reper-cussions of the fall, created things were stripped of their capacity to communicate eternal life to man, and he died. The holy mys-teries, or sacraments, are the firstfruits of the redemption of the cosmos, the restoration of creation to its Edenic function, for 502 Review for Religious through ordinary elements--water, oil, bread, wine, and even conjugal union--divine-human communion is reestablished and man lives forever once again. The connection between the sacra-ments and their respective "elements" is not at all extraneous: the sacraments are revelatory of the very nature of things. The restoration of created matter to its primeval theophorous (God-bearing) nature is manifested also in the church's iconog-raphy. The painting of an authentic Orthodok icon (much which is not authentic has crept into the church in recent centuries), unlike the typically Western, humanistic approach to religious art, is never an instance of artistic self-expression, but rather a deliberate act of ascetical self-effacement whereby the iconogra-pher surrenders himself to the promptings of the Spirit. The church expects iconographers to undertake their work in an atmo-sphere of prayer and fasting, together with confession and Communion. What is conveyed through the colors, shapes, and lines of the icon is a mystical Sense of presence, an otherworldly beauty devoid of all carnality, and a window into the transfigured world to come. The person embarking on the spiritual journey towards mys-tical union with God collides immediately with the grim reality of the fall and sin. The primordial triadic unity of man's nature has been torn asunder through his own transgression, creating an immense gulf of alienation on every level of existence: between man and God, man and man, man and the universe, man and his own self. This profound alienation is felt acutely in every sphere of life--whether spiritual, physical, emotional, psychological, social--culminating in the final horrific moment of death, what the existentialist ph!losophers have rightly called the "ultimate absurdity". "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" the Lord cries moments before his own de~ithl Perhaps nowhere are the full tragedy and pathos Of man's condition so poignantly expressed as in the shortest verse of the New Testament: "Jesus wept" (Jn 11:35). The God of the universe sheds human tears at the collective tomb of the human race, whom God had created in his own image for beauty and life, now reduced to a rotting, stink-ing corpse. And to all he issues the vivifying call: "Lazarus, come forth!" Orthodox spirituality lays out practically and concretely for monastic and laypersonalike a single path by which to "come j-~uly-August 1994 503 SanFilippo ¯ An Introduction to Orthodox Spirituality forth" from the "tomb" to the fullness of divine life in communion with God. The principle difference between the two lies solely in the degree of intensity. The path we are speaking of is that of asceticism. The "life in Christ" to which every Christian is called is essentially an ascetical life. There is simply no other kind of Christian life to be found in the Gospels. Asceticism comes from the Greek word meaning athletic training or discipline, implying the complete orientation of one's daily activities towards a single goal. It is neither a system of iuridically meritorious or propitiatory suffering, nor giving up something (usually something trivial) as "my sacrifice for God," nor finally a legislated (and repealable) religious obligation. Asceticism is rather an ontological spiritual necessity for the Christian, whose call it is to d~vest himself of every trace of ego-centrism and become limpidly transparent to Christ, whom he has put on in baptism, with whose Spirit he has been anointed, and on whose body and blood he has been nourished. The ascetic echoes the apostle Paul, "For me to live is Christ." Fundamental to the praxis of ascetical spirituality are prayer and fasting. At the heart of the Orthodox tradition of prayer stands the Jesus prayer: Lord ffesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. With this the Orthodox ascetic strives to attain, by grace, to a state of "ceaseless prayer" (1 Th 5:17), purifying the chamber of his heart to make it into a fitting temple for the Lord to come and take up his abode. "The kingdom of God is within you." Enormous self-exertion is required at first to repeat the prayer continuously, during times set aside for this purpose and throughout the day's activities, with inner attentiveness. With time the prayer develops a certain cadence and becomes increas-ingly effortless. Finally, under the direct action of grace, the mind descends into the heart and the prayer begins to say itself, as if it had a will and action of its own, and becomes truly ceaseless, even during sleep. Orthodox spiritual writers understand the descent of the mind into the heart to mean the total reintegration of a per-son's inner faculties so that mind and heart become wholly united and focused in prayer. This is effected by grace alone and cannot be self-induced. In contrast to the Western approach to contemplative prayer, the person who practices the Jesus prayer rids his mind strenu-ously of all images, even images of Christ or episodes from his life, for these are inevitably the products of human self-will and imag- 504 Review for Religious ination. The task of the ascetic is to strip himself bare before God so that grace itself can act on him without intermediary. Fasting is the necessary corollary to prayer. This axiom of the spiritual life, widely recognized not only in Eastern Christendom but in non-Christian traditions as well, has van-ished oddly from Western Christian con-sciousness. In his fallen, unspiritual, and carnal state, man has become enslaved to an obses-sive preoccupation with his own needs, desires, comforts, and pleasures. His inner hierarchy, whereby the body is the servant of the spirit-- the two functioning in perfect harmony and complementarity--has been overturned and the spirit has been asphyxiated. Man is largely unconscious of the depth of his self-enslavement. The moral or virtu-ous person whose libido is under control and who lives moderately may even deny in all sin-cerity that he is enslaved at all. Yet every day of his life, his every thought is: "I am hungry. I am thirsty. I am hot. I am cold. I am uncomfortable. I want this. I want that." The deification of the person, inaugurated as we have said through his sacramental incorporation into the body of Christ, remains locked up within him as a dormant potentiality, in a state of suspended animation, so long as he is governed by his bodily impulses. There is question here not of combatting sinful incli-nations only, but of suppressing even normal bodily needs to the bare minimum, enabling a person's innermost spiritual self to move to the fore and flourish in an abundance of life, reasserting in stages its mastery over the flesh. Two heretical and spiritually disastrous tendencies threaten the ascetic. The first is the Pelagian notion that a person can, through his own efforts, achieve sanctity. Only through grace is a person saved, sanctified, deified. Prayer and fasting, combined with fidelity to all the other gospel commands, renders a person progressively more receptive to grace and provides the Holy Spirit with fertile ground in which to work. God and man work together to give birth to the new creation. Expressed in another way, "God does all the work, man does all the sweating." A person's most heroic ascetical efforts are puny and insignificant in comparison to the grace of God, but nevertheless indispensable because God At the heart of the Orthodox tradition of prayer stands the Jesus prayer. July-August 1994 505 SanFilippo ¯ An Introduction to Orthodox Spirituality respects human freedom absolutely and saves no one against his will. The idea of "merits" is entirely foreign to Orthodox theol-ogy and spirituality. The second is a Manichaean hatred of the body. The Orthodox ascetic, knowing that his body is destined for resur-rection on the last day, loves the body but hates "the flesh"--car-nality in all its manifestations. Through fasting the ascetic strikes a blow at the very core of his self-absorption: his need to eat, for food, for survival. "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." The ascetic has made this the motto for his life, not through bourgeois modulation, but through evan-gelical radicalism, the "violence" by which "men of violence" take the kingdom "by force." Finally, it is through prayer and fasting that the ascetic lives out his days in anticipation of the eschato-logical parousia, so that he may not be found "eating and drink-ing and making merry" when the Lord returns in glory. "Behold, the Bridegroom comes at midnight," the church sings during the first days of Passion Week, "and blessed is the servant whom he shall find watchful." Fasting.degenerates into a flirtation with the demonic in the absence of humility. Humility is the refusal to let others know one is fasting, or to sit in judgment over those who do not fast, or to believe one is doing anything commendable or praiseworthy by fasting. Asceticism must be grounded in the unshakable conviction of one's utter nothingness before God and man. "Let us enter the season of the Fast with joy," the church sings on the eve of Great Lent. The ascetical Christian is the joy-ful Christian, for he has exchanged the fleeting happiness which comes from the things of this world for the joy and peace which surpass all understanding. 506 Review for Religious OVEY N. MOHAMMED Yoga, Christian Prayer, and Zen lSican Council II's Declaration on the Relationship of the ~" Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra aerate, §2), says that "in Hinduism men [and women] contemplate the divine mys-tery., through ascetical practices or deep meditation" and that Buddhism "teaches a path by which men [and women], in devout and confident spirit, can either reach a state of absolute freedom or attain enlightenment." And Pope John Paul II, speaking on Christian dialogue with Hindus and Buddhists on 21 June 1991, observed that "dialogue with the great religions of Asia recalls for us the universal value of self-discipline, silence, and contem-plation in developing the human person and in opening hearts to God and neighbor." ~ These statements focus, not on doctrines and theology, but on the praxis of contemplation that leads to direct religious experi-ence. They recognize that the dialogue between Christianity and Eastern religions must be of a different kind from that with Judaism and Islam, which centers on theological issues. And indeed, because Hindus and Buddhists emphasize the priority of experience over faith, a dialogue with them may well be impossi-ble without a dialogue on contemplative prayer. However, as the pope's observation seems to concede, the church today is ill prepared to enter into such a dialogue. For though contemplative prayer has enjoyed pride of place in the history of Christian spirituality, since the Reformation it has not Ovey N. Mohammed sJ is professor of systematic theology at Regis College. His address is Regis College; 15 St. Mary Street; Toronto, Ontario; Canada M4Y 2R5. ~ly-dugust 1994 507 Mohammed * Yoga, Christian Prayer, and Zen been a primary conscious emphasis in the church. The fear that claims to an immediate experience of God would diminish if not challenge the teaching authority of the church, the memory of the havoc that false mysticism had created in the past, and the scientism and rationalism of the 19th century that esteemed con-cepts and ideas rather than ineffable experience have all con-tributed to the church's emphasis on dogmas, duties, and prohibitions rather than on religious experience. Understandably, when by the turn of the century people were more and more reacting against the mere acceptance of dogma and were search-ing for a faith that is living and personal, the church had diffi-culty in meeting this need out of its own spiritual treasury. At this very juncture, yoga and Zen methods of meditation and exercises for entering the contemplative state became known in the West, beginning with the World Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in 1893. Because of the Christian interest in experience over doctrine, many began to turn to Eastern reli-gions for their contemplative education. By the time of the Second Vatican Council, even members of Catholic religious orders were in dialogue with yoga and Zen masters, not to convert them to the Christian religious outlook, but to learn attitudes and exercises which might be helpful to Christians in their own prayer life. The Jesuits were among those in religious orders who engaged in this dialogue on contemplative prayer because the spirituality of Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) also offers methods and tech-niques to those in search of a contemplative spirituality. Though much has been written by Jesuits on the dialogue with Zen,2 lit-tle has been written on the dialogue with yoga.3 This article com-pares the techniques of yoga and Zen Buddhism with Christian prayer, especially the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. The aim is not only better understanding as dialogue demands, but also better ways of giving of the Exercises today, when the prac-tices of yoga and Zen have great appeal. It will be shown, too, that Zen methods of concentration which differ from those of Ignatius can be found in the Christian tradition. Yoga and Ignatius Etymologically, yoga is a Sanskrit word from the rootyuj (to hold fast, to bind together). In Hinduism it designates any asceti-cal technique or method of meditation.4 The rootyuj also governs 508 Review for Religious the Latin iugum, the Frenchjoug, and the English yoke as it appears in Matthew 11:29: "Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me." The word yoga, then, like the word yoke, connotes the need for discipline in the spiritual life.5 The techniques of yoga go back centuries before someone named Patanjali wrote his ~ga Sutras (Aphorisms), sometime between the 2nd century B.C. and the 4th century A.D. Hindus, however, acknowledge this work as the classical text on yoga. It also happens to be the exposition of yoga practices best known to Westerners. For both these reasons, then, we will rely on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras in our comparison of the techniques of yoga with those of the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius.6 According to Patanjali, yoga is a means of controlling the mind and the senses (YS I, 2), and its purpose is to lead one to a suprasensory and extrarational experience of God (YS I, 1). Yoga includes a number of angas (members, elements). They can be regarded as stages through which one must progress if one is to reach one's goal: (i) various forms of abstention from evil-doing (yama), (2) various observances (niyamas), (3) posture (asana), (4) rhythm of respiration (pranayama), (5) withdrawal of the mind from sense objects (pratyahara), (6) concentration (dharana), (7) meditation (dhyana) and (8) enstasis (samadht), a state of consum-mate interiority that is at once stasis and transcendental con-sciousness.( YS II, 29).7 The first member or element (yama) introduces us to the need for purgation in the spiritual life and aims at freeing us from the evils of social sin. It consists of five abstentions: "from harming others, from falsehood, from theft, from incontinence, and from greed" (YS II, 30). These abstentions parallel the last five com-mandments God gave to Moses (Ex 20:13-17): "You shall not kill" (harm), "you shall not commit adultery" (incontinence), "You shall not steal" (theft), "You shall not bear false witness" (false-hood), and "You shall not covet., anything that is your neigh-bor's" (greed). Ignatius, too, introduces us to the purgative way (SE §10) when he states that exercitants should begin the Exercises with a consideration and contemplation of sin (SE §4). And, like Patanjali, he focuses on the social consequences of sin (SE §§45- 71) and on the commandments relating to it (SE §§238-243). Patanjali's second element (niyama) is also purgative, but cen-ters on personal sin. It involves five observances--"purity, con- ~dy-August 1994 509 Mohammed ¯ Yoga, Christian Prayer, and Zen tentment, mortification, study, and devotion to God" (YS II, 32)-- aimed at suppressing the egoistic tendencies that impede the gen-erous offering of ourselves to God. Ignatius, like Patanjali, expects exercitants to attack the roots of their personal sins by getting to know the slightest disorder in themselves. He expects them to desire "a deep knowledge of [their] sins and a feeling of abhorrence for them; an understand-ing of the disorder of [their] actions, that filled with horror of them, they may amend [their] life and put it in order" (SE §63). Toward this end he advises them to recall the sins of their past life (SE §56) and examine their conscience twice daily (SE §§25-31). Elsewhere he instructs exercitants to enter the Exercises "with magnanimity and generosity," offering God their "entire will and liberty" and the disposition of their person (SE §5). He insists that people "must keep in mind that in all that concerns the spir-itual life [their] progress will be in proportion to [their] surren-der of self-love, and of [their] own will and interests" (SE §189). Patanjali's third element is posture (asana). In the Hindu tra-dition posture refers to two things: the place where one chooses to meditate and the bodily position in which one meditates. The place where one meditates should be free from external distrac-tions. Patanjali does not say that one bodily position is better than another, but he does say that the body should be "firm and relaxed" (YS II, 46). The purpose of maintaining a fixed and com-fortable position is to realize a certain neutrality of the senses so that consciousness is no longer troubled by the presence of the body. The following passage from the Bhagavad Gita illustrates the meaning of posture common among Hindus: Let the athlete of the spirit ever integrate [him]self stand-ing in a place apart, alone, his thoughts and self restrained. . Let him set up for [him]self a steady seat in a clean place. . There let him sit and make his mind a single point; let him restrain the operations of his thought and senses and practice integration., to purify the self. [Remaining] still, let him keep body, head, and neck in a straight line, unmov-ing; let him fix his eye on the tip of his nose, not looking round about him . [There] let him sit., intent on Me. . ; then will he approach that peace., which subsists in Me (6:10-15).8 Ignatius, too, recognizes the need for solitude in meditation, making much of withdrawing from friends and acquaintances and 510 Review for Religious from worldly cares to make the soul more fit to approach and be united with God (SE §20). Like Patanjali he does not claim that any one bodily position is to be preferred during meditation, but he does say that one should find a comfortable position and remain in it (SE §76). He agrees with the Gita that the restraint of the eyes is helpful in meditation (SE §81). The fourth element is rhythmic breathing (pranayama). As Patanjali puts it, "After mastering posture, one must practice con-trol of one's breathing" (YS II, 49). He gave this instruction because our respiration is generally unrhythmic, and unrhythmic breathing can hinder the mind's repose. Moreover, since the mind and the body act and react upon each other, rhythmic breathing can bring calmness and concentration of mind (YS II, 53). Practice is very elaborate, but on the whole it aims at slowing the breath, making the inhalation and exhalation even, and reducing the amount of air required. Ignatius also recognizes the importance of rhythmic breathing as an aid to deepening concentration (SE §258). The fifth element of yoga is pratyahara, that state in which the senses abide within themselves (YS II, 54). V~hen one remains motionless, keeps one's eyes and attention fixed on a single point, and breathes rhythmically, the mind is invaded by fewer distrac-tions and becomes more and more concentrated and unified. According to Patanjali, to test one's ability to concentrate at this stage, one must listen to the positive and negative echoes of one's being; for even with the withdrawal of the senses from exter-nal stimuli, difficulties arise, most of them produced by the sub-conscious. The trouble arising from doubt is the most dangerous of the obstacles that bar the road to concentration. Doubt "may be motivated by greed, anger or self-interest" (YS II, 34); "men-tal illness, lack of enthusiasm, sloth, craving for sense pleasure, false perception . and failure to concentrate" (YS I, 30). These distractions are often accompanied by grief and despondency (YS I, 31). To overcome doubt, Patanjali recommends implanting the contrary thought: "To free from thoughts tl'iat distract one from yoga, thoughts of the opposite kind must be cultivated" (YS II, 33). Ign~itius also says that the senses must be brought under con-trol and turned inward. Like Patanjali he observes that difficulties in concentration at this stage come from the subconscious, because of our +raving for "sensual delights and gratifications" (SE §314), our "inclination to what is low and earthly" (SE §317), or "because we have been tepid, slothful, or negligent in our exercises of piety" .~ly-August 1994 511 Mohammed * Yoga, Christian Prayer, and Zen (SE §322). Like Patanjali he notes that these distractions are often accompanied by "anxiety, . sadness," and "fallacious reasonings" which disturb the soul (SE §315). To cope with these difficulties, Ignatius says that every effort should be made to plant the contrary thought: "If the soul chance to be inordinately attached or inclined to anything, it is very proper that it rouse itself by the exertion of all its powers to desire the opposite of that to which it is wrongly attached" (SE §16; also §155 and §157). Patanjali's sixth element of yoga is concentration (dharana) to remove distractions (YS I, 32). He defines concentration as the fixing of the mind on a single idea or object by trying to visual-ize it (YS III, 1). Visualization calls for the use of the senses and discursive reasoning to focus the mind and so make the object of concentration present. An Indian image illustrates his point: just as an elephant's trunk sways to and fro and reaches out for nearby objects until it is given an iron ball to hold, so the wavering mind will settle down if given something specific to focus on. Ignatius promotes mental concentration in a similar way, rec-ommending in the first or second prelude of almost every medi-tation that we fix in the mind some scene, real or imagined, and try to make it present by visualizing it (SE §§47, 65, 91,103, 112, 138, 151, 192, 202, 220, and 232). He frequently directs the exercitant not only to see, but also to hear, smell, taste and touch in the imagination what is taking place in the meditation (SE §§66ff, 92, 103, 106, 121ff, 143ff, and 194ff). In pondering the matter and significance of the particular meditation, like Patanjali he expects one to apply one's intellect, will, memory, imagina-tion, and reflective ability (SE ~§3, 77, 78, 130, 206, 209, etc.). As concentration deepens, we arrive at the seventh element of yoga called meditation (dhyana). Meditation sweetens the dryness of intellectual discrimination and calls forth the highest form of love. Patanjali defines it as an "unbroken flow of thought toward the object of concentration" (YS III, 2), in which discursive and notional knowledge begin to give way to an experiential and intu-itive mode of knowing. For Ignatius, too, there is a progressive deepening from the discursive mode of knowing to the nondiscursive and intuitive. As he explains in SE §50, for example, one practices rational reflection on the subject matter so that the will may move the affections to a way of knowing beyond the intellect. That is, a deeper and simpler interiority leads to higher spiritual percep- 512 Review for Religious tions and an experiential knowledge of the truth. That is the aim of all true meditation, for as Ignatius explains, "It is not much knowledge which fills and satisfies the soul, but rather the inte-rior understanding of and relish of the truth" (SE §2). When one has intensified the power of meditation to such an extent that the totality of one's consciousness is indistinguishable from the meaning of the idea or object of one's meditation, one has reached the eighth and final step of yoga, samadbi, which Christians regu-larly refer to as a mystical union with God (YS II, 45; III, 3; III, 11). This mystical union is a state of contempla-tion in which one encounters God directly in an experience that is ineffa-ble- beyond words, beyond thought, beyond all conceiving. For Ignatius, too, meditation should lead to a mystical union with God, who can be found in all things (SE §235); the soul embraces divine things without any intervening agency. He seems to imply that this state of soul is the supreme end of prayer when he refers to a soul find-ing its Creator and Lord in a "consolation without previous cause" (SE §330 and §336). There is "direct" contact; God inflames the soul with "his love and praise" (SE §15; also §20), enabling it to "taste the infinite sweetness of divinity" (SE ~124). Ignatius describes this state of soul in his famous letter to Sister Teresa Rejadell: It frequently happens that our Lord moves and urges the soul to this or that activity. He begins by enlightening the soul; that is to say, by speaking interiorly to it without the din of words, lifting it up wholly to his divine love and our-selves to his meaning without any possibility of resistance on our part, even should we wish to resist.9 Meditation sweetens the dryness of intellectual discrimination and calls forth the highest form of love. The letter's wordless experience ("without the din of words") means that it is an experience "without concepts," "without par-ticular objects of thought."1° In other words, the person who obtains this direct experience of God has an ineffable experience of the divine. Ignatius empha-sizes this point at the end of the letter to Sister Rejadell when he 3~uly-Augus't 1994 513 Mohammed ¯ Yoga, Christian Prayer, and Zen says: "We have touched on a matter which can hardly be dealt with in a letter, at least without a much longer treatment. Even then there could be matters that could better be felt than put into words, let alone written down in a letter." ~i In his Spiritual Diary he writes that his own mystical experience can be compared only with the speech or music of heaven.~2 As we have seen, the eight elements of yoga given by Patanjali are paralleled in Ignatian spirituality. Let us now bring Zen Buddhism into our discussion, highlighting the techniques of Zen which differ from those of Ignatius but can be found in the Christian tradition. Zen, Yoga, and Ignatius To better understand Zen Buddhism, it may be helpful to know something of its background. Siddhartha Gautama (563- 483 B.C.) was an Indian prince who lived in what is now Nepal. Finding that religious truth based on the authority of others was at best a secondhand truth that can be called into question by competing truth claims, he renounced his kingdom to find through direct religious experience a way of salvation that is beyond words and creeds. One day while meditating near Caya, which is south of the present city of Patna, he received enlight-enment and became the Buddha, the Awakened One. Having found what he was seeking, out of compassion he spent the rest of his life teaching others how they, too, could find the truth first-hand. His teaching spread widely through two schools of thought: Theravada, which favored withdrawing into a monastery to pur-sue the path, and Mahayana, which maintained that the path to enlightenment is as applicable in the world as in the monastery. Zen Buddhism belongs to the Mahayana school of Buddhism found in Japan. In fact, the very word Zen is the Japanese coun-terpart of the Chinese word ch'an, which in turn is a translitera-tion of the Sanskrit word dhyan.a, meaning the meditation that leads to enlightenment. Thus the roots of Zen reach back into yoga, with its discipline of mind and body and its practice of med-itation. 13 The Zen Buddhist method of finding enlightenment can be found in a concise r~sum~ as given by Siddhartha himself: "Do not what is evil. Do what is good. Keep the mind pure. This is the teaching of Buddha." 14 514 Review for Religious The first step of Zen, "Do not what is evil," centers on social sin and corresponds to the first element of yoga given by Patanjali and found also in Ignatius. Avoiding evil is spelled out in the Five Buddhist Precepts (Pancha Sila) in terms of five abstentions: from killing, stealing, lying, illicit sex, and intoxicants. These absten-tions remind us of the Old Testament commandments and empha-size that the climb to enlightenment begins with purgation.'s The second step of Zen, "Do what is good," centers on char-ity and also parallels the second step of Patanjali and Ignatius. In the Buddhist tradition, doing what is good may be described as the practice of brotherhood in thought, word, and deed or compared to the love and good works of St. Paul (1 Co 13:4-7). It is a personal attitude and is purgative, too, inasmuch charity calls for detach-ment in the generous offering of oneself for the good of others. The third injunction, "Keep the mind pure"--or, in less poetic imagery, to discipline and purify the mind--again shows the influ-ence of yoga. Stages three to five in Zen parallel stages three to five in Patanjali (posture, breathing, and withdrawal of the senses), though there are differences in details. Stages six to eight (con-centration, meditation, and enlightenment) are so closely related that they form a unity, but in our discussion they will be treated separately, as in our comparison of Ignatius and Patanjali. Buddha's third injunction recalls one of the beatitudes of Jesus, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Mt 5:8). Doubtless, St. Paul had some discipline in mind when he said, "Be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Rm 12:2), and exhorted us to train ourselves in godliness (1 Tm 4:7). More con-cretely, Zen's third element, like Patanjali's, is posture and refers to the place where one chooses to meditate as well as to the bod-ily position in which one meditates. With respect to the place, one should select a quiet spot in which to sit. But with respect to the position of the body, one is not allowed--as in Patanjali and Ignatius--to experiment to find a position that is stable and relaxed. One should normally meditate while sitting. And whether one sits in the full-lotus position or the half-lotus, or on one's heels and calves, or on a chair, one should satisfy at least three requirements: keep the head and spine erect; lower one's gaze to a point a yard or so away without focusing on anything in par-ticular; and fold one's hands, thumbs and first fingers pressed tightly together, and res~ them on the lap. In Zen experience these requirements facilitate the unification of the mind.~6 Mohammed * Yoga, Christian Prayer, and Zen The Bible recognizes the importance of place and posture in prayer. In the Old Testament God takes Hosea into solitude to hedge up all the ways he used to run after the desires and thoughts of the world (Ho 2:6). Moses retires to the wilderness to better commune with God (Ex 18:5, 19; 34:27-28), as does Elijah (1 K 17:3-6), and Ezekiel lies on his side for a long time (Ezk 4:4-5:1). In the New Testament, too, Paul (Ga 1:17), John the Baptist (Mt 3:1-6) and Jesus himself (Mt 4:1-2) go into the desert to be alone. Contemplative prayer, has to be inward, and this calls for disci-pline. Hence the advice of Jesus to his disciples: When you pray, go into a room by yore:self, shut the door, sit, and then pray to your Father in private (Mt 6:6). The fourth lesson is breathing, but not in the controlled form prescribed by Patanjali. Rather, when one has established oneself in a stable sitting position, one should take a deep breath, hold it momentarily, and then exhale through the nose slowly and quietly. After doing this two or three times, one should breathe natu-rally. 17 The fifth element of Zen deals with the mind abiding within itself and with the distractions that come from within (makyo). It corresponds to Patanjali's fifth element of yoga (pratyabara). Motionless, with head and spine erect and eyes lowered, breath-ing naturally, one begi~ns to experience a certain detachment from the world, but thoughts, memories, feelings may bubble up to the surface of the mind from the subconscious)8 These obstacles to concentration are due to doubt, sense desire, sloth, and tor-por and are often accompanied by excitedness and worry.19 Unlike Pataniali and Ignatius, who suggest implanting a contrary thought to eliminate these distractions (makyo), Zen teaches that one should merely ignore them. The Bible acknowledges the need to cope with distractions in prayer so that only the still small voice of God is heard, soft and light as an exhalation (1 K 19:12). The sixth element of Zen is concentration. Because the human mind cannot rest inactive, it has to be prevented from dispersing itself among a multiplicity of thoughts and memories by being provided with some inner task to satisfy its need for activity. The task can be to focus on fi chosen topic or idea by means of images or discursive reasoning, as we saw in Patanjali and Ignatius. But even Patanjali and Ignatius recognize that this is not the only way of achieving one-pointed concentration. Another way recalls the saying of Matthew 6:7 that in praying we should not heap up 516 Review for Religious empty phrases, thinking that we will be heard for our many words. This other way, by contrast, consists in only one word or one short phrase repeated over and over attentively. To still the mind by thus restricting one's rational consciousness has a long history in both Eastern and Christian spirituality and is the method taught by the Hare Krishna and Transcendental Meditation movements. Patanjali, echoing Proverbs 18: i 0 that "The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runs into it and is safe," teaches that the attentive repetition of the name of God, like the use of images and discursive reasoning, can lead one into the intuitive consciousness of meditation in stage seven (YS I, 28). And Ignatius teaches, in his second and third methods of prayer, that the rep-etition of a single word or phrase, coordinated with one's breath-ing, can deepen concentration (SE §252 and §258). A 14th-century Catholic mystic explains this method of concentration in The Cloud of Unknowing: If you want to gather all your desire into one simple word that the mind can easily retain, choose a short word rather than a long one. A one-syllable word such as "God" or "love" is best. But choose one that is meaningful to you. Then fix it in your mind so that it will remain there come what may . Use it to beat upon the cloud of darkness above you and subdue all distractions, consigning them to the cloud of forgetting beneath you. Should some thought go on annoying you, demanding to know what you are doing, answer it with this word alone. If your mind begins to intellectualize over the meaning and connotations of this little word, remind yourself that its value lies in its sim-plicity. Do this and I assure you that these thoughts will vanish. Why? Because you have refused to develop them with arguing.2° In the history of Christian spirituality, John Cassian (360?-432?) was the first person to describe this practice of rep-etition, which he learned from the desertfathers. He does so in chapter i0 of his Tenth Conference, one of the most beautiful passages in Christian writing, using this verse: "Come to my help, 0 God; Lord, hurry to my rescue" (Ps 69:2).2~ John Climacus (579-649) attaches particular importance to the repetition of the Jesus Prayer.22 Later on, the standard form of this prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me," was widely prac-ticed in the monasteries of Mount Athos. This prayer, combined with respiratory discipline and bodily posture as a preparation j~uly-Aug.ust 1994 517 Mohammed ¯ Yoga, Christian Prayer, and Zen for entrance into meditation (techniques similar to those found in yoga), became the soul of the Hesychast movement in the 13th century23 and in recent centuries has spread widely among the Orthodox churches, whence comes that little gem of a book The VVay of a Pilgrim.24 A similar method of deepening concentration appears both in the repetition of the Hail Mary in the rosary and in Gregorian chants. In all these examples from Hinduism and Christianity, repetition is a way of restricting reflective consciousness. It is a kind of weapon for warding off discursive reasoning, thinking, and conceptualization. It narrows the horizon of rational con-sciousness and prepares the mind for a breakthrough into intuitive consciousness in stage seven. While Patanjali and some Christian writers teach a method for developing concentration that avoids a multiplicity of words, so concerned is Zen with the limitations of words and ideas that it makes transcending them the central point of its method. The two principal schools of Zen, the Soto and the Rinzai, teach meth-ods of concentration that try to get one unhooked from words and thoughts from the very start. The Soto school proposes con-centration on one's breath, inhalation and exhalation, instead of on any words, while the Rinzai school makes use of a koan (a puz-zle or paradox) to put pressure on the mind until the structures of ordinary thinking collapse completely, clearing the way for one's entrance into intuitive consciousness in stage seven and for the sudden flash of insight or enlightenment in stage eight.25 The koan functions in a manner not unlike the sayings of Jesus that oblige one to reach for insight beyond the normal conventions of thought: "Those who find their life will lose it" (Mt 10:39) and "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (Jn 12:24). Ignatius does not mention either of these methods (Soto and Rinzai) among his prayer suggestions. The Zen distrust of words as keys to concentration reminds us that the prohibition of images of God enjoined at Mount Sinai (Ex 20:1-5 and Dt 5:8-9) goes well beyond images engraved on stone or wood to include our words and concepts. Since no one has ever seen God (Ex 33:17-23; Jn 1 : 18), God is a mystery and so unknowable. Isaiah's confession of God's hiddenness implies that God lies beyond the range of the intellect (Is 45:15). Paul makes the same point when he says that God dwells in "unap- 518 Review for Religious proachable light" (1 Tm 6:16) and when he tells us that any expe-rience of God surpasses all understanding (Ph 4:7). For Paul, to be morbidly concerned over mere verbal questions and quibbles leads us to lose our grasp of the truth (i Tm 6:5). He and Jeremiah go as far as to say that clinging to images of God is an impediment to finding the living God and is a form of idolatry (Rm 1:23; Jr 2:11). The Zen attitude to words reminds us that not everyone who says "Lord, Lord" shall enter the kingdom (Mr 7:21-23) and that, to encounter God, we must be still and let God be God (Ps 46:10). Many Christian mystics teach a wordless nondiscursive path to God that resembles the teaching of Zen. For example, Dionysius in the early 6th cen-tury says that "as you look for a sight of mysterious things," you "must leave behind you every-thing perceived and understood" and "strive upward as much as you can toward union with him who is beyond being and knowl-edge.'' 26 In the 14th century the anonymous author of The Book of Privy Counselling gives this advice to his disciples: "When you go apart to be alone., reject all thoughts, be they good or be they evil.''27 The French Jesuit Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751) writes that we should pray "with a simple gaze., without using any reasoning" and "pay no attention to distractions.'2s John of the Cross (i 542-1591) advocates the abandonment of thinking in order to make way for intuitive consciousness in stage seven when he observes: "The attitude necessary., is to pay no attention to discursive meditation." All that is required is to liberate oneself "from the impediment and fatigue of ideas and thoughts and care not about thinking," for "desires disquiet the soul and distract it from the peaceful quiet and sweet idleness of the contemplation which is being communicated to it.''29 The Benedictine historian and exegete John Chapman (1865-1933) considers the spiritual-ity of John of the Cross to be Buddhistic;3° the Cistercian Thomas Merton (1915-1968) believes that "Zen is nothing but John of the Cross without the Christian vocabulary.''31 Many Christian mystics teach a wordless nondiscursive path to God that resembles the teaching of Zen. July-August 1994 519 Mohammed ¯ Yoga, Christian Prayer, and Zen The sudden coming of enlightenment at stage eight in Zen has many parallels in Christian spirituality: "The Lord spoke sud-denly to Moses" (Nb 12:4), and on the road to Damascus "sud-denly a great light shone about [Saul]" (Ac 22:6). The enlightenment experience, whenever it appears, is ineffable. When Jeremiah encounters God directly, he does not know how to speak (Jr 1:6). When Paul is "caught up into Paradise," he is unable to say what happened to him (2 Co 12:3). St. Thomas Aquinas, fol-lowing the Zen dictum that those who know do not tell and those who tell do not know, chooses to say nothing except that his enlightenment leaves the Summa Theologiae looking like so much straw. Enlightenment brings joy and a feeling of oneness with all things and a heightened sense of reality. It is an experience not unlike that which Ignatius had on the bank of the Cardoner: As he sat there the eyes of his understanding were opened, and though he saw no vision he understood and perceived many things, numerous spiritual things as well as matters touching on faith and learning, and this was with an eluci-dation so bright that all these things seemed new to him. He cannot expound in detail what he then understood, for they were many things, but he can state that he received such a lucidity in understanding that during the course of his entire life--now having passed his sixty-second year--if he were to gather all the helps he received from God and everything he knew and add them together, he does not think that they would add up to all that he received on that one occasion.32 Seeing reality more clearly and the cosmic feeling that all created things are bound up together belongs to the very essence of Ignatian mysticism, as it does to Zen. This accounts for the cry of the soul expressed early in the Exercises: "The heavens, sun, moon, stars, and the elements; the fruits, birds, fishes, and other animals--why have they all been at my service?" (SE ~60), and accounts as well for the Contemplation to Attain the Love of God at the end (SE §§230-237). Personal Prayer and Interreligious Dialogue Our study has shown that Patanjali, Ignatius, and Buddha all agree that, for religion to be personally authentic, it must involve some direct religious experience and not be merely an affirmation of propositions accepted on the basis of authority--a teaching 520 Review for Religious that seems to be alluded to in the Epistle of James. Moreover, in spite of certain denials, all three make it clear that a personal, direct experience of the ground of one's salvation requires some kind of prior discipline to establish oneself in silence, not just physical silence but a silence of the senses, a silence of the mind, until that silence is reached for which there is no word. Contemplative prayer is the usual name for such a discipline. There are at least eight elements in the praxis of contemplation, and these elements are common to yoga, Ignatius, and Zen. Elements three and four (posture and breathing) in all three spir-itualities insist that contemplative prayer is not exclusively a men-tal or inner activity, but is accomplished in unison with the body, though Zen emphasizes posture more than yoga and Ignatius do and yoga places more stress on breathing than either Zen or Ignatius. In element six, both Patanjali and Ignatius teach a dis-cursive method for deepening concentration, based on the use of images and reason, and a nondiscursive method, based on the repetition of a word or short phrase. Zen teaches only a nondis-cursive method aimed at emptying the mind of all thoughts and images. Patanjali acknowledges that the Zen method of concen-tration can lead one into intuitive consciousness, as do many Christian mystics, though Ignatius makes no mention of it. If today Zen and Hindu meditation movements, like Transcendental Meditation, have a wide appeal among Westerners, it is in large part due to the fact that they teach nondiscursive techniques for entering contemplation. This is a significant point, not only for the dialogue between Ignatian spirituality and Eastern religions, but also--inasmuch as many Christians ignore the contribution of the body to prayer and many others are disaffected with discur-sive prayer--for the directing of Ignatian retreats. Notes ~ "Address to the Staff Members of the World Council of Churches Sub-Unit and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue," in The Bulletin of the Pontificium Consilium pro Dialogo inter Religiones 78 (1991): 26/3,307-308. z For example, Heinrich Dumoulin, A History of Zen Buddhism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969) and Christianity Meets Buddhism (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company, 1974); H.M. Enomiya-Lassalle, Zen Meditation for Christians (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company, 1974) and Zen--VVay to Enlightenment (London: Sheed and Ward, 1976); J.K. Kadowaki, Zen and the Bible (London: Routledge and d71~ly-August 1994 521 Mohammed ¯ Yoga, Christian Prayer, and Zen Kegan Paul, 1980); Daniel J. O'Hanlon, "Zen and the Spiritual Exercises: A Dialogue between Faiths," Theological Studies 39, no. 4 (December 1978): 737-768; William Johnston, The Still Point (New York: Fordham University Press, 1970), The Inner Eye of Love (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1978), Silent Music (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), and Christian Zen (New York: Harper and Row, 1971). 3 O-bey N. Mohammed, "Ignatian Spirituality and the Bhagavad Gita," Thought 62, no. 247 (December 1987): 423-434. 4 Mircea Eliade, Yoga (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), p. 4. s Dom Aelred Graham, Zen Catholicism (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1963), p. 123. 6 For references to the I~ga Sutras, see Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, trans., How to Know God: The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali (New York: New American Library, 1953), or I.K. Taimni, The Science of Yoga: The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (Wheaton, Illinois: Theosophical Publishing House, 1975). Hereafter all references to the Yoga Sutras are indicated as YS. For references to the Spiritual Exercises, see Louis J. Puhl, trans., The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1951). Hereafter all references to the Spiritual Exercises are indicated as SE. 7 Eliade, pp. 48-49. 8 R.C. Zaehner, trans., The Bhagavad Gita (London: Oxford University Press, 1973). 9 Letters of St. Ignatius of Loyola, trans. William J. Young (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1959), p. 22. ~0 Karl Rahner, The Dynamic Element in the Church (Montreal: Palm Publishers, 1964), p. 153. ~ Letters, p. 23. ~2 The Spiritual Diary of St. Ignatius of Loyola, trans. William J. Young (Woodstock: Woodstock College Press, 1958), p. 44. ~3 For material on Zen written by non-Jesuits, see C.H. Hambrick, "Zen Buddhism," in The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Religion (Washington, D.C.: Corpus Publications, 1979); Alan W. Watts, The Way of Zen (New York: Vintage, 1957); Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (New York: Weatherhill, 1970); D.T. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism (London: Arrow Books, 1959) and Essays in Zen Buddhism. First Series. (London: Rider and Company, 1970); Christian Humphreys, Zen Buddhism (London: Unwin Books, 1971); Thomas Merton, Mystics and Zen Masters (New York: Dell Publications, 1967) and Zen and the Birds of Appetite (New York: New Directions, 1968); Philip Kapleau, The Three Pillars of Zen (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967); Graham, Zen Catholicism (see note 5). ,4 The Dhammapada, trans. Juan Mascaro (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1973), verse 183. 522 Review for Religious ~s Christian Humphreys, Buddhism (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1975), pp. 111-115. ,6 On posture see Johnston, Christian Zen, pp. 105-109; Enomiya- Lassalle, Zen--Way to Enlightenment, pp. 103-109; Kapleau, pp. 18-20, 30-31, 34, 317-320. 17 On breathing see Enomiya-Lassalle, Zen--Way to Enlightenment, pp. 109-110; Johnston, Christian Zen, pp. 77-80; Kapleau, p. 32. 18 On makyo see Kapleau, pp. 38-41, 100-102; Johnston, The Still Point, pp. 9-10, 36. 19 Edward Conze, ed., Buddhist Scriptures (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1971), p. 246, "Hindrances." 20 William Johnston, trans., The Cloud of Unknowing and The Book of Privy Counselling (New York: Image Books, 1973), p. 56. 21 John Cassian, Conferences, trans. Colm Luibheid (New York: Paulist Press, 1985), pp. 132-140. 22 John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, trans. Colm Luibheid and Norman Russell (New York: Paulist Press, 1982), pp. 45-47. 23 Eliade, pp. 63-65; Gaspar M. Koelman, Patanjala Yoga (Poona: Papal Athenaeum, 1970), pp. 195-196; J.-M. Dfichanet, Christian Yoga (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960), pp. 173-183. 24 Translated by Helen Bacovin (Garden City: Image Books, 1978). 25 Dumoulin, A History of Zen Buddhism, pp. 135-13 6; Shunryu Suzuki, p. 33. 26 Pseudo-Dionysius, "The Mystical Theology," I, I, in The Complete Works of Pseudo-Dionysius, trans. Colin Luibheid (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), p. 135. 27 Johnston, The Cloud of Unknowing and The Book of Privy Counselling, p. 149. 28 The Spiritual Letters of P.J. de Caussade on the Practice of Self- Abandonment to Divine Providence, trans. Mgar Thorold (London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne, 1948), p. 39. 29 John of the Cross, "The Dark Night of the Soul," I:10, 4, in Selected Writings, ed. Kieran Kavanaugh OCD (New York: Paulist Press, 1987), pp. 185-186. 3°John Chapman, Spiritual Letters (London: Sheed and Ward, 1989), p. 269. 31 Thomas Merton, Springs of Contemplation: A Retreat at the Abbey of Gethsemani, ed. Jane Marie Richardson (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1992), p. 177. 32 Joseph N. Tylenda, trans., A Pilgrim's Journey: The Autobiography of Ignatius of Loyola (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1985), pp. 38-39. July-August 1994 523 FREDERICK E. CROWE The Ignatian Exercises and Jesuit Spirituality Tere is a tendency, noted more in passing remarks than in ematic studies, to equate Jesuit spirituality with the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola. I do not know whether anyone has ever made the equation in so many words, but one hears it said that the Exercises are the wellspring of Jesuit life, that Jesuit spirituality is to be found above all in the Exercises, that the Exercises are the basis of Jesuit spirituality, that Jesuits have a vision given them by the Exercises, and so on. There is a profound truth in all these statements, but just because the truth in them is so very profound and so very true, it seems to me all the more necessary to state explicitly that it is not the whole truth and to think out clearly the relationship of the Exercises to Jesuit, and any other, spirituality. Otherwise part of the truth is easily taken to be the whole truth, and so we come imper-ceptibly to identify two distinct elements in Jesuit spirituality: the Exercises, and the complex history that culminated in Ignatius's Constitutions for the Society of Jesus. Then, since innocently defi-cient ideas still have consequences, we arrive at two practical errors: pointing the Exercises toward a spirituality they do not intend and depriving Jesuit spirituality of its specific character, as found most notably in the Constitutions. Frederick E. Crowe SJ is well known for his books and articles on the thought of Bernard Lonergan SJ. He may be addressed at Lonergan Research Institute; 10 St. Mary Street, Suite 500; Toronto, Ontario M4Y 1P9; Canada. 524 Review for Religious Two simple lines of reasoning should, it seems to me, estab-lish the point I am making. The first is a thought experiment that makes the case in a more graphic way than my abstract assertion. Let us imagine two men with the proper dispositions who both make the Spiritual Exercises. One of them emerges from the thirty days with a decision to seek admission to the Jesuits. The other emerges with a decision to join the Carthusians. Is this an impos-sible scenario? Will anyone tell the Holy Spirit, "You cannot do that; the Exercises are identified with Jesuit spirituality; you really cannot use them to direct someone to the Carthusians"? Or would anyone say that the Carthusian vocation here is due to a failure of the exercitant to be guided by the Spirit, that the Spirit was directing him elsewhere, that he is in fact a Jesuit manque? I mean this, of course, as a reductio ad absurdum, for no one would dream of tak-ing such a position on what the Holy Spirit should or should not do, or of attributing a failure to respond properly if the exerci-tant does not decide to be a Jesuit. And a parallel statement could be made about two women emerging from their Ignatian retreat, one to become a Poor Clare, the other to become a social worker; or about a man and woman emerging with plans for matrimony. My other line of reasoning takes us to actual history. We might ask: What were the first companions of Ignatius doing in the years that followed their experience of making the Exercises, say between 1534 and 1540, a period in which they were steadily seeking the divine will? Why, if the Exercises had already deter-mined what the Jesuit spirituality and way of proceeding was to be, did they run through so many different options before they set-tled on that way? What, indeed, was Ignatius himself doing for nearly two decades after Manresa, wandering around Europe and the Holy Land before he found his destined way of life? And a still more pointed question: What was he doing in the dozen years of "blood, toil, tears, and sweat," during which he laboriously worked out the Jesuit Constitutions? The answer seems obvious in all these questions: Ignatius and his first companions were seeking some-thing the Exercises had not given them. Will anyone tell the Holy Spirit, "You really cannot use the Ignatian Exercises to direct someone to the Carthusians" ? July-August 1994 525 Crowe ¯ The Ignatian Exercises and yesuit Spirituality I believe that we need to face these questions and work out with all possible accuracy what role the Exercises may play in Jesuit or any other spirituality' and how that role may be complemented by the distinct and specifying roles that different spiritual tradi-tions may contribute--for Jesuits, in the way their Constitutions, above all, determine for them; for Carthusians, Poor Clares, and other religious institutes, in ways that they also have worked out for themselves and that I need not try to determine for them here. Is there then a spirituality in the Exercises? Yes, indeed, the very highest. If we leave aside the case of those who are not dis-posed to go beyond the First Week (§18),2 the aim of the Exercises is to bring exercitants, whatever their state in life is to be and wherever God will direct them, to choose to live under the stan-dard of Christ: "We shall also think about how we ought to dis-pose ourselves in order to come to perfection in whatsoever state or way of life God our Lord may grant us to elect" (~135)3- which means embracing the way of Christ, in the highest poverty, spiritual poverty certainly and if God wills it in actual poverty as well; in willingness also to bear opprobrium and injuries in order to imitate him the better (§147); and again, when God is served equally by either of the two alternatives, to choose poverty with Christ poor rather than riches, opprobrium with Christ covered with opprobrium rather than honors, to be counted vain and stupid with Christ so counted rather than wise and prudent in this world (§167); and so forth. The real question is: How does this spirituality relate to the various specific spiritualities to which various individual exercitants may be called? I will suggest a few ways of conceiving the relation, ways that follow more traditional lines of thought and shed some light on the matter, none of them quite satisfactory, but each adding an element of understanding. And then I will propose another approach to the whole question. The obvious pair of terms to define the relationship in ques-tion is generic and specific: the Exercises have a generic spiritual-ity, the following of Christ; then, giving more determinate content to this, we have the specific spiritualities of Jesuit, Carthusian, and so on. I have drawn on these concepts already to start dis-cussion; they contribute some clarity, but they use the language of logic, which seems simply inadequate for so spiritual a question. Another useful set of terms would be infrastructure and super-structure. To follow Christ is infrastructure for whatever way of life 526 Review for Religious we choose to follow; on this basis one builds a superstructure of, say, the Jesuit way of proceeding. These terms from the world of civil engineering clarify our question rather nicely. Still, they make the following of Christ the invisible element, or at any rate not the focus of attention--a situation that does not correspond to any voca-tion emerging from the Exercises. A third set might be the concepts of the compact and the differentiated that have now come into general use, mainly, I believe, through the influ-ence of Eric Voegelin. Bernard Lonergan also has some helpful pages on the process from the compactness of the symbol, where very profound truths may be contained and grasped, to the enucleated and analyzed differ-entiations of scientists, philosophers, and theologians. He illustrates the process by Christology and the "tran-sition from a more compact symbolic consciousness expressed in the New Testament to a more enucleated theo-logical consciousness expressed in the great Greek councils.''4 Once again we have a pair of terms that provide some understanding--certainly the various spiritualities are differentiated from one another (one has only to adduce again the example of Carthusian and jesuit)- but do they also contain the unwelcome hint that the various dif-ferentiations divide up something that the compact contained in its wholeness? A fourth pair, made familiar in social studies, is the communal or collective and the particular or individual. Our communal spiri-tuality is the way of Christ; our individual spirituality is the par-ticular way of life in which we follow Christ. This seems a promising line of thought, but working out the relation between the communal and the individual, we would need to see how the communal is explicit in the particular andhow the particular con-tains without loss the whole of the communal. No doubt we could add to this list and pursue similar paired meanings with considerable profit, but I wonder if in the end it We need to work out with all possible accuracy what role the Exercises may play in Jesuit or any other spirituality. July-August 1994 527 Crowe ¯ The Ignatian Exercises and Jesuit Spirituality would bring us to the heart of the matter. I wonder in fact if our aim here is not a bit off center, if we should not approach the problem from another perspective altogether. For in the various pairs we have considered, the first member seems to remain incomplete until the second is added, and the second has always to be concerned that it incorporates the whole of the first. Further, the second term in each pair is thought of as an end product with its meaning determined: what a Jesuit is, what a Carthusian is-- these are already more or less clearly defined, belong to an estab-lished order, are in some measure static. Does such thinking deal adequately with the dynamism of the Exercises? I would like to explore a somewhat different approach. In this line of thought it is the heuristic character and therefore the dynamism of the Exercises that will be the focus. But all dynamic movement, all searching, all heuristic activity suppose and take place within a horizon that determines the activity and defines the source of energy for the search; I therefore need to study first the idea of horizon. For both terms, horizon and heuristic, I draw directly on the work of Bernard Lonergan. For the meaning of horizon, it will be best simply to quote Lonergan's account of the matter: In its literal sense the word, horizon, denotes the bound-ing circle, the line at which earth and sky appear to meet. This line is the limit of one's field of vision. As one moves about, it recedes in front and closes in behind so that, for different standpoints, there are different hori-zons. Moreover, for each different standpoint and hori-zon, there are different divisions of the totality of visible objects. Beyond the horizon lie the objects that, at least for the moment, cannot be seen. Within the horizon lie the objects that can now be seen. As our field of vision, so too the scope of our knowl-edge, and the range of our interests are bounded. As fields of vision vary with one's standpoint, so too the scope of one's knowledge and the range of one's interests vary with the period in which one lives, one's social back-ground and milieu, one's education and personal devel-opment. So there has arisen a metaphorical or perhaps analogous meaning of the word, horizon. In this sense what lies beyond one's horizon is simply outside the range of one's knowledge and interests: one neither knows nor cares. But what lies within one's horizon is in some measure, great or small, an object of interest and of knowledge,s 528 Review for Religious It is easy to apply this idea to the world of the Spiritual Exercises. One enters upon them with a given horizon, vaguely or clearly conceived: "the range of one's knowledge and interests"; for example, maybe one is led by a spirit of repentance or by anxiety about one's salvation. One makes the First Week, remaining for the most part within such a horizon--with glimpses of something beyond, to be sure, in such passages as the colloquy at the end of the first exercise (§53). But if one responds to the call of Christ in the Kingdom exercise (§91), one pushes back the previous horizon to work within a new one, far wider, with far greater potential, a horizon that is all-encompassing, a boundary that is in fact no boundary for it encloses a territory that is boundless. Now it is this ultimate hori-zon, and not any relative and con-fining horizon, that I would equate with the spirituality of the Exercises. The horizon of those who should not be led beyond the First Week is narrow and con-fining. What happens when one enters the Second Week with the mind and heart of those who would "show greater devotion and . . . distinguish themselves in total service to their eternal King and universal Lord" (§95)? What happens is the discovery of a new horizon, the horizon defined by Christ the Lord. The horizon is established in the exercises on Two Standards (§§ 136- 148) and Three Ways of Being Humble (§§165-168); details are added in the Mysteries of the Life of Christ Our Lord (§261); and in the Third and Fourth Weeks communion with Christ (what the Germans call Mitsein) fortifies the attraction of the good with the power of love and the interpersonal. This does not happen without the grace of God and a con-version. For besides the ultimate horizon there are relative hori-zons. There are shifts in our relative horizon as we move, say, from school days to the work force, and this shift may occur as a normal development of potentialities. "But it is also possible that the movement into a new horizon involves an about-face; it comes out of the old by repudiating characteristic features; it begins a Communion with Christ fortifies the attraction of the good with the power of love. 3~dy-Aug~t 1994 529 Crowe ¯ The Ignatian Exercises and yesuit Spirituality new sequence that can keep revealing ever greater depth and breadth and wealth. Such an about-face and new beginning is what is meant by a conversion.''6 Against that background we turn to the idea of the heuristic, taking as our context the fact that the Exercises are a search. Thus, the first annotation tells us: Our purpose, after removing obstacles, is to seek and to find the divine will (§1), and the fif-teenth annotation has advice for those who during the Exercises are seeking God's will (§15). Or, as is repeated over and over, recurring like a refrain, we are to seek what gives glory to God (§16). In the key stage of the Election, "While continuing our contemplations of [Christ's] life, we now begin simultaneously to explore and inquire: In which state or way of life does the Divine Majesty wish us to serve him?" (§135). And still, at the heart of the Exercises, in the meditation on the Three Classes of Men, we are seeking to "desire and know what will be more pleasing to the Divine Goodness" (§151). We are, then, in an area in which the idea of the heuristic plays a central role. My Webster's dictionary defines heuristic as "serving to guide, discover, or reveal." A helpful point: the famous "Eureka" of Archimedes is from the same Greek root; it means "I have found [it]; I have discovered the secret." Now this line of thought is thoroughly developed in Bernard Lonergan, and I find his treatment of the idea helpful for understanding the process and dynamic of spiritual search that the Exercises are. In his usage a heuristic notion tries to give some advance notice of what we hope to find; it is an anticipation of the answer we seek to a ques-tion; it is not a determinate concept, like various concepts in physics or chemistry or biology; it is an indeterminate anticipation. The nearly perfect word for this way of conceiving in antic-ipation what we have not yet deter'mined in particular is what-ever, and the nearly perfect use of whatever we can find right in Scripture. Paul, writing to the Philippians (4:8), exhorts them to focus on "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is com-mendable" (NRSI~ in the Douai translation, "whatsoever"). Well, what is true? what is honorable, just, and so on? That will emerge with each new day, and meanwhile we are guided by its anticipa-tion in that "whatever." To come, then, to the present point, Ignatius and Paul are at one in conceivin, g by anticipation what they do not yet determine 530 Revie~v for Religious in particular. Apropos of the Election, Ignatius writes that we are to "think about how we ought to dispose ourselves in order to come to perfection in whatsoever state or way of life God our Lord may grant us to elect" (§ 135). It is possible now to bring these two ideas together in a new understanding of the relationship of the Exercises and Jesuit or other spirituality. My brief statement of the case would be that the horizon of the Exercises and the spirituality they directly intend is established in the exercise on the Two Standards (§§ 136-148) and the exercises that directly relate to it; further, that the heuristic of the Exercises is epitomized in the Election (§§169-188), where we search for and discover and embrace the state of life God intends for us. And the relationship between the two is indicated in the Introduction to the Consideration of the States of Life: "We shall also think about how we ought to dispose ourselves in order to come to perfection in whatsoever state or way of life God our Lord may grant us to elect" (§135). Perfection as defined in the Two Standards and their retinue of exercises is the horizon; but "whatsoever state" God may direct us to is another matter: it rep-resents the heuristic element. The Exercises do not, therefore, intend any one spirituality; their objective ordination, what the scholastics would call their finis operis, is neither Jesuit nor Carthusian spirituality, nor any other; they intend what God will choose, and their finis operis is a "whatever." What we therefore first conceived as generic, as infrastructure, as compact, as communal, we now conceive as a horizon; and what we first conceived as specific, as superstruc-ture, as differentiated, as individual, we now conceive as the area within that horizon that we discover to be God's will for us. But in moving from one to the other we do not add some-thing specific that was not contained in the genus, for everything is contained in the horizon; and, for those who respond fully, the whole spirituality of the horizon enters every vocation and every state of life. The situation is more like that of the incarnation: as the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ (Col 1:19), so the fullness of the horizon of Christ is the world in which we dwell, Jesuit and Carthusian and all others that respond fully to the call of the Kingdom exercise. And similarly, the "superstructure" we conceived as our way turns out to be what we may call an "addition," but an addition to what is already complete (like the humanity of Christ added to the July-August 1994 531 Crowe ¯ The Ignatian Exercises and Jesuit Spirituality God's will is the supreme heuristic notion guiding the exercitant, and the Exercises are a heuristic device. eternal and infinite Word). The "differentiation" we spoke of is not a dividing off of a part, but the incorporation of the whole, and the "individual" contains the fullness of the communal. Thus, one is everywhere safe within the all-encompassing arms of the Christian horizon; one is never in exile, never outside the shores of home, never a wanderer like the prodigal son in dis-tant lands. One does not, therefore, go beyond this horizon to be a Jesuit or to be a Carthusian or to find some other particular vocation. There is nothing there beyond it. It is the all-encompassing. Just as within any rel-ative horizon of geography one can go north or south, east or west, with-out going beyond the horizon, so within the ultimate horizon estab-lished by Christ one can become a Jesuit or a Carthusian, but one cannot go beyond the horizon set by Christ; one can only contract that horizon by living an inauthentic Jesuit life or liv-ing an inauthentic Carthusian life. Further use of the ideas of heuris-tic and horizon is readily made. In Lonergan's thought one can speak of heuristic notions and heuristic devices. There is the notion of being, the notion of the good, and so on; but there are also the heuristic structures that promote the discoveries we seek (his rather famous scissors action of heuristic method). One could say that God's will is the supreme heuristic notion guiding the exercitant and that the Exercises are a heuristic device, an instru-ment par excellence for finding God's will, maybe with a kind of scissors action too. (I do not, however, call the Exercises the supreme heuristic device, for we do not limit God's creativity to what was divinely done in Ignatius, and we do not know what successor God may be preparing for Ignatius.) Again, still in Lonergan's thought, one can speak of interrelationships in the set of horizons, of their complementary, genetic, and dialectical differences. But that would add length to an article that is already 532 Review for Religious long enough, and introduce further specialized categories where they are already rather extensive. Notes ~ Eventually such a study should come to the details of particular spiritualities, but that is a further step. Here I intend the word in a broad sense: "spirituality" includes, therefore, elements of doctrine and practice, of vocation and way of proceeding, of tradition and orientation, of rules and constitutions, and so on, without specifying what these may be for Jesuit, Carthusian, and other vocations. 2 The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius: A Translation and Commentary, by George E. Ganss SJ (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1992), no. 18 in the numbering that is standard for all editions. All English quota-tions will be from this edition; numbers will be given in parentheses in the text. 3 In the Latin, "ut veniamus ad perfectionem in quocumque statu seu vita, quam Deus Dominus noster eligendam nobis dederit" (§ 135). The "quocumque" is the "whatever" I will presently discuss. 4 Bernard Lonergan, Topics in Education (The Cincinnati Lectures of 1959 on the Philosophy of Education), ed. Robert M. Doran and Frederick E. Crowe (University of Toronto Press, 1992), pp. 55-58. On Eric Voegelin see Kenneth Keulman, The Balance of Consciousness: Eric Voegelin's Political Theory (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990), pp. 92-93: "What the pattern of symbolizations indicates is the development from compact to differentiated forms . The terms "compact" and "dif-ferentiated" refer not only to the symbolizations, but also to the charac-teristic forms of consciousness that generate them." s Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology (2nd ed. reprint, University of Toronto Press, 1990), pp. 235-236. 6 Ibid, pp. 237-238. I add a few helpful quotations: "Horizontal lib-erty is the exercise of liberty within a determinate horizon and from the basis of a corresponding existential stance. Vertical liberty is the exer-cise of liberty that selects that stance and the corresponding horizon" (ibid, p. 40, with a reference to Joseph de Finance). "For falling in love is a new beginning, an exercise of vertical liberty in which one's world undergoes a new organization" (ibid, p. 122). "A horizontal exercise {of freedom] is a decision or choice that occurs within an established horizon. A vertical exercise is the set of judgments and decisions by which we move from one horizon to another" (ibid, p. 237). "Further, deliberate decision about one's horizon is high achievement. For the most part peo-ple merely drift into some contemporary horizon. They do not advert to the multiplicity of horizons. They do not exercise their vertical liberty by migrating from the one they have inherited to another they have dis-covered to be better" (ibid, p. 269). July-August 1994 533 JOAN MUELLER The Suscipe Revisited " J here~T~ is little doubt that one of the most famous excerpts .~- of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises is the Suscipe--"Take, Lord, Receive." In recent years its popularity has increased through John Foley's musical rendition of the text? Those who have made a thirty-day or a nineteenth-annotation Ignatian retreat are likely to recognize this prayer: Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and all my will--all that I have and possess. You, Lord, have given all that to me. I now give it back to you, 0 Lord. All of it is yours. Dispose of it according to your will. Give me your love and your grace, for that is enough for me.2 Directors of the Spiritual Exercises soon discover a variety of responses to the Suscipe. Some retreatants admit that they decide to what degree they pray it. The prayer feels like a radical, even reckless risk. Some, then, pray "to desire to desire" to enter into this prayer. Others simply decide to pray it with less intensity than they pray other prayers that feel less radical. Some retreatants report that the Suscipe begins to move through their consciousness like a mantra without their having any memory of deciding to pray it in this way; there is a passive, almost unconscious move-ment going on. Some people, however, pray the Suscipe with gusto, as if it is their greatest joy to make the words their own. Such people experience giving everything over to God as their true freedom. Joan Mueller OSF is assistant professor of systematic theology at Saint Francis Seminary and teaches in the summer spirituality program at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. Her address is Saint Francis Seminary; 3257 South Lake Drive; Saint Francis, Wisconsin 53235. 534 Review for Religious Even though directors are well aware that the Exercises are designed to foster personal response to the gospel, we may won-der how one prayer can elicit such a variety of responses. We could probe this question by means of various methodologies: personality theories, enneagram numbers, prayer styles, and so forth. In this essay I propose examining the question through a consideration of the dynamics of the Exercises. A Dynamic Theory of the Spiritual Life The Ignatian Spiritual Exercises can be seen as a paradigm for spiritual growth. Many such paradigms exist in the Christian spir-itual tradition: St. Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle, St. John of the Cross's Ascent of Mount
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An Experiential Approach to Learning About the Development of Public Policy
In: Teaching public administration: TPA, Band 13, Heft 1, S. 19-27
ISSN: 2047-8720
Exploring alternative assessment: a democratic approach to student self-assessment in a reading methods class
The purpose of this study was to explore student self-assessment in a reading methods class. The study is the result of my interest in alternative assessment practices in teacher education; specifically, I am searching for ways to eliminate the barriers often found in traditional assessment that inhibit constructive relationships between student learning and assessment processes. I selected an ethnographic method to capture the meaning of student self-assessment as the instructor and the preservice teachers were living the experience. Primary data collection sources included a survey questionnaire, interviews, field notes, various site artifacts and journals. All data were transcribed and coded for themes. The results of the study illustrate how the instructor's approach to student self-assessment is important as it represents the conditions and context necessary to promote student self-assessment. The instructor's approach consists of five properties: class climate and management, small group work, task approach, theory and practice, and student assessment. The way the preservice teachers managed and responded to student self-assessment is delineated in the section on the students approach to student self-assessment. Their approach is defined by four properties: participating in small group work, engaging in ambiguous tasks, receiving and giving feedback, and reporting self-assessment. Finally, the study presents the factors influencing student self-assessment and a model of a democratic approach to student self-assessment practiced in the class. The conclusions of this study suggest that the students approach to self-assessment is linked to the instructor's approach in a complex way. The instructor's approach in the reading methods class creates the context in which the preservice teachers integrated the methods class and their field-placement experience, engaged in critical inquiry, generated the criteria for their work, received and gave feedback, revised their work, analyzed their work and participated in a democratic learning environment. The interpretations of this study imply that the alternative assessment practices used in the reading methods class studied represent one way to promote professional learning, since it enhanced the preservice teachers' becoming empowered, informed decision-makers, and independent learners. ; Ph. D.
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Review for Religious - Issue 52.1 (January/February 1993)
Issue 52.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1993. ; rel i gious Christian Heritages and C0mempora~ Living JANUARY-FEBRUARY1993 ,,VOLUME52 ¯ NUMBERi Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535-3048 ¯ FAX: 314-535-0601 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ 5001 Eastern Avenue ° P.O. Box 29260 Washington, D.C. 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. SUBSCRIPTION RATES Single copy $5 includes surface mailing costs. One-year subscription $15 plus mailing costs. Two-year subscription $28 plus mailing costs. See inside back cover for more subscription information and mailing costs. ©1993 Review for Religious for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming sJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Michael G. Harter SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Joann Wolski Conn PhD Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Anti Ledden SSND Edmundo Rodriguez SJ S~fin Sammon FMS Wendy Wright PhD Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JM',/UARY-FEBRUARY 1993 ¯ VOLUME 52 " NUMBER 1 contents 6 feature The Religious Life Futures Project: Executive Summary David J. Nygren CM and Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ provide a summary of "The Future of Religious Orders in the United States" (FORUS), a comprehensive study of the opinions, beliefs, attitudes, and practices of men and women religious. 56 69 growing spiritually A Developmental View of Salesian Spirituality Joann Wolski Conn examines a process of self-knowledge through the lens of the lives of St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal. The Cloistered Heart Nancy Shuman provides snapshots of her journey into a heart cloister for finding a union with God. discerning vocation 86 The Transfer and the RCIA: Process and Ritual 102 Kathleen Hughes RSCJ and Barbara Quinn RSCJ draw outlines of development from the RCIA process for the transfer of a religious from one community to another. Vocations among Teaching Brothers Eleace King IHM provides the encouraging results of the CARA study of vocations in teaching brothers communities. 2 Review for Religious 111 119 131 living religious life Internationality: Intentional or Accidental Catherine M. Harmer MMS focuses on the structural aspects necessary for a religious group to be intentionally international. Mission before Mission: God's Mission within Us A. Paul Dominic SJ develops the insight that the mission of individual Christians is one and the same as God's mission in themselves. Talents for Living in Community Melannie Svoboda SND proposes eight "lesser" gifts of personality and attitude which enable people to live more graciously with others. departments 4 Prisms 140 Canonical Counsel: New Communities 147 Book Reviews January-February 1993 3 prisms Anew year ushers in new life. Newspapers in every city vie for the picture of the first baby born in the early moments of a new year. Perhaps all of us need to image ourselves in that picture of a newborn and ask our-selves what kind of fresh life we seek in this year 1993. As we enter into this new gift of time, God's grace con-tinues to be a light to our mind and a strength to our will. In 1993, what light do we seek for our faith, and what strength do we need to live in closer union with our Lord? Review for Religious hopes to focus some light where it will be helpful by highlighting an article in each issue of this new volume. Our present issue is privileged to publish "The Religious Life Futures Project: Executive Summary." David J. Nygren CM and Miriam D. Ukeritis csJ have worked some three years on a major study of religious life and its future in the United States. By means of this arti-cle, they present in a concise and understandable form the conceptual background, methodological considera-tions, research findings, and major implications of their three-year study. Because this article attempts to provide easy entrance to the complete study shortly to be pub-lished in book form, it also gives our readers a ready ref-erence for use with future articles that will either critique assumptions and method or suggest further developments implied in this study. The importance of the study lies especially in the breadth and thoroughness of its col|ection of data, rep-resented in it~ six independent elements: a national survey, leadership studies, a study of caring people and one of visioning groups, individual interviews, and a final theo-logical/ historical monograph. There is no doubt about its timeliness gince the church is now looking forward to the Review for Religious ninth assembly (in 1994) of a worldwide synod of bishops. The theme of the synod is "The consecrated life and its role in the church and in the world." Since bishops, priests, lay people, and religious need to be involved in the preparation and the followup of this and every church synod, Review for Religious hopes to be a channel of grace by bringing to its readers clear informative articles as well as inspiring motivational ones for the ever richer living out of the spiritual heritages found in particular religious families such as the Benedictine or the Franciscan. It is especially crucial that members of the institutes of con-secrated life become active participants in the presynodal reflec-tion. As for the hierarchy, the apostolic pronuncio reminded the assembled bishops of the United States in November 1992 that every bishop has a special responsibility regarding consecrated religious life. Ultimately all active Catholics need to become involved because the church is as healthy as religious life is healthy. For if the Spirit's charismatic structuring of the church, represented in the ever fecund religious-life form, appears to be weakening or becoming attenuated, then the body of the church in all its members suffers. Such an interrelatedness is reflected in the Pauline principle about the Body of Christ, and church history provides the data of its reality. While special articles will highlight this synod preparation, Review for Religious through its usual wide variety of spiritual topics will continue to bring fresh understandings and applica-tions of spiritual legacies to our Christian life. We hope that our readers will find both light and strength for their spiritual growth in 1993 through the contributions of our many authors. I would like to draw your attention to a new name added to the listing of our Advisory Board members. Joann Wolski Conn, with her doctorate in theology, teaches in the Neumann College Graduate Program in Pastoral CounselinF and Spiritual Direction, a program which assists spiritual.directors to use four great tra-ditions (Franciscan, Ignatian, Carmelite, and Salesian) in their ministry. Her books, Women's Spirituality (1986) and Spirituality and Personal Maturity (1989), have been well received. In this very issue our readers will profit from her "Developmental View of Salesian Spirituality." We look forward t6 her contribution to our board discussions and decisions for the good health and progress of this journal. David LI Fleming SJ 37anuary-February 1993 5 DAVID J. NYGREN and MIRIAM D. UKERITIS The Religious Life Futures Project: Executive Summary feature In this Executive Summary we attempt to provide in as concise and understandable a form as possible the conceptual back-ground, methodological considerations, research findings, and major implications of the Religious Life Futures Project. VVe also recognize the range of interests and various needs of the many persons like yourself who bare expressed great interest in reading the results. With that in mind, the following description of the con-tents of the various sections may assist you in selecting the point at which you would prefer to begin your reading. Section I presents the purpose of this research project. Section H provides the theoretical perspective. This includes some background information on the concept of trans-formation as used in studying groups and organizations. It also David J. Nygren CM, an organizational psychologist, and Miriam D. Ukeritis csJ, a clinical psychologist, began work on this three-year study at Boston University in 1989 and completed it at De Paul University in Chicago in 1992. Nygren is now director of the Center for Applied Social Research and assistant professor of organizational psychology at De Paul University. Ukeritis is director of the Institute for Leadership of Religious Organizations at De Paul and a research associate in its Center for Applied Social Research. They may be addressed at De Paul University; Center for Applied Social Research; 2219 North Kenmore Avenue; Chicago, Illinois 60614. NOTE. This study in modified form was originally pub-lished in Origins 22, no. 15 (24 September 1992). 6 Review for Religious provides some information on the levels of change (social institution, congregational, and individual) considered in this project. Section III provides a description of each of the six research units and of the methodology for each of them and then offers summary find-ings. Results are presented in terms of the analysis described above. Section IV, "Conclusions: Shaping the Future, "presents the summary conclusions of the entire project. If you are interested in "bot-tom lines, "you may want to start your reading with this section. Some may wonder why we did not present this chapter first. When, in shar-ing our results with some groups, we began by presenting a summary of our findings, we were repeatedly asked, "Where/bow did you reach these conclusions?" Hence, in this executive summary, we begin at the begin-ning and work through to the conclusions. Subsequent publications of the results of this study will refer to these findings as The Future of Religious Orders in the United States (FO~U3). Table of Contents I. Introduction and Purpose .8. II. Theoretical Perspective . 9 A. The Concept of Transformation . 9 B. Levels of Change . 12 III. Research Units . 16 A. National Survey . 17 B. Leadership . 30 C. Visioning Groups . 35 D. Caring People . 38 E. Individual Interviews. . 40 E Theological/Historical Monograph .42 Conclusions: Shaping the Future .42 Acknowledgments . 51 References . 51 Bibliographical Notes . 52 January-February 1993 7 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project I. Introduction and Purpose The 30 years since the Second Vatican Council have been turbu-lent ones for Roman Catholic religious orders in the United States. The average age of the members of many congregations has increased to 67 years, while the number of religious has decreased approximately 45% for brothers and sisters and 27% for religious priests. Sevei'al "traditional" works, have been called into question while other works and other definitions of mission have arisen. The understanding of ways of living the vows ha~ changed substantially within many congregations. The distinction between religious life and the "laity" has also decreased considerably, with many "lay people" now developing some type of formal associa-tion with religious congregations and many religious identifying more clearly with lay people. How can such phenomena, which apply in many congrega-tions and across the traditional distinctioris of religious life (con-templative, monastic, mendicant, and apostolic), be best understood? How do individual religious and congregations expe-rience and understand the changes that have taken place in reli-gious life? What do these changes portend for the future of religious life? And, most important, what changes must yet occur if religious life is to remain a vital gift to the church into the next millennium? These were the questions with which we began the Religious Life Futures Project in 1989. Our own congregations, the Vincentian Fathers and Brothers and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, are but two of the hundreds of congregations that were seeking to transform their lives, ministries, and institutions. With the support of our respective congregations and with a gen-erous grant from Lilly Endowment, we designed a comprehensive study of religious orders in the United States. Basic Purpose of the Research Our purpose was to examine the changes that are occurring in the experience and the understanding of religious life. To accom-plish this end we embarked upon a project that would have as its outcomes: 1. identification of the norm~ative beliefs about religious life and how they will likely shape the future of religious life in this country. 2. building a national data base of all male and female religious 8 Review for Religious that includes current demographic data, membership informa-tion, existing and emerging structures, current member atti-tudes on multiple dimensions, and projections for the future. enabling the leadership of religious orders to identify the current paradigms of effective management of transformation, consol-idation, merging, or extinction. labeling the changes that must yet occur if religious life is to remain a vital social and theological gift to the church into the next millennium. In this summary we hope to indicate how the lives of 121,000 religious are reflected in the opinions of the more than 10,000 religious priests, sisters, and brothers who took time to share their ideas and beliefs with us through personal interviews, ques-tionnaires, workshops, and written communications. We worked from several assumptions: that only religious can describe their experience of faith as religious; that the sociological data we gath-ered would serve them in their own self-direction; that without significant change religious life in the United States will continue to decline an, d, more important, that those who most need the help of religious will not be cared for; and that the generosity and self-sacrifice still present in the lives of religious must be articulated for others if they are to consider following Jesus in this manner. The study sought the broadest possible input from leader-ship, membership, and those with unique perspectives to offer. These latter were persons identified by their peers as possessing vision about the future of religious life and/or possessing notable caring attributes. This summary combines all the results and shows what, after all these scientific undertakings, we believe will make a difference to individual religious, to the various congre-gations, and to their ministry. II. Theoretical Perspective A. Transformation "Transformation" is perhaps most familiar to Christians in Paul's call to "be transformed into Christ," but the dramatic change undergone by religious orders and organizations has expanded the meaning to include organizational considerations. In the organizational realm it refers to qualitative, discontinuous shifts in members' shared understandings of the organization, accompanied by changes in the organization's mission, strategy, January-February 1993 9 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project and formal and informal structures. In contrast to simple and gradual changes, organizations undergoing tranoCormation come to understand themselves and their: .missioh very differently from their original understanding. Studies of transformation focus on one or another level at which .the change occurs: either the industry or the social insti-tution considered as a whole, or a particular organization, or a part of one (individual persons). In contrast, we investigated issues related to change in religious life on all three levels: Religious life as a whole (the social institution). This inves-tigation revealed that, while congregations may differ in their expression of religious life by virtue of gender or tradition (apostolic, monastic, mendicant, or contem-plative), all groups share broad-based beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. ¯ The particular congregation (organization), namely, the 816 groups that participated in the survey. This survey investigated the shifting ways in which the groups expe-riencing transformation interpret a shared past, select value priorities, allocate resources, and assess mission opportunities. It also investigated the shifting metaphors and rituals which members use to express their beliefs and which draw them together with a shared sense of belonging. ¯ The individual (126,000 sisters, brothers, and priests). The study investigated the implications of transforma-tion for the individual members of religious congrega-tions. These three approaches enable a more complete understand-ing of how intercongregational, congregational, and individual experiences can affect each other and of how the various types of change can occur. A Model for the Process of Transformational Change Transformation usually begins with a crisis, an awareness that the understandings currently shared by the organization's mem-bers are no longer adequate. Several types of crisis may occur: performance may be poor, leadership transitions occur, some pow-erful subgroups' interests may no longer be served, management practices may no longer be successful, or, most typically, a major environmental shift may.confront the already existing interpretive schemes. The easiest response for the organization to take is to defend itself against the challenge and perhaps not to respond at 10 Review for Religious all. For transformation to begin, the experience of crisis must "unfreeze" the members' present understandings of the organi-zation by presenting a strong enough challenge to their validity. After unfreezing takes place or in conjunction with it, various individuals and groups begin developing alternative understand-ings. These lead to new types of action and most likely to changes in the structures of the organization. Moreover, the new types of actions that take place are likely to occur out-side the organization's traditional boundaries (for example, AT&T's work moved beyond telephones to include computers and other forms of communication as well); bound-aries are likely to break down. There is likely to be considerable conflict among the original and the developing interpretive schemes and the. subgroups espousing them. Groups that hold one particular new perspective, for example, are likely to find themselves in conflict with indi-viduals or groups that espouse the original perspective or a different new one. The conflict may take various forms: one perspective may clearly dominate various other perspectives and may stand aloof from them, or leaders may acknowledge the potential value of, and .thus encourage, interac-tion between several different perspectives. Leaders can have a strong impact on the outcome of the con-flict between perspectives. If they support only one perspective, they are likely to decrease the creativity of the transformational process and the active involvement of members whose perspectives are not taken into account. If they "separate out" the different perspectives, they are likely to perpetuate splits between the groups. If they enable conflicting perspectives to interact with each other, they will increase the chances of paradoxical trans-formations, of new and creative shared understandings that emerge from the interaction of the competing perspectives. The process of transformation is not affect-free. Rather, it is often paralyzing and disorienting and is experienced as a sequence In contrast to simple and gradual changes, organizations undergoing transformation come to understand themselves and their mission very differently from their original understanding. ~anuary-February 1993 11 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project of deaths and rebirths. Initially, various members' primary feelings are likely to include shock, defensiveness, loss, and anger. Throughout the development of new interpretive schemes, mem-bers will experience both ambiguity and confusion, not only when it is unclear that any satisfactory new understanding is develop-ing, but also when there are multiple potential perspectives. The conflict among subgroups will create additional tension. If and when a new synthesis is reached that people experience as acceptable, there is likely to be a sense of rightness and satisfac-tion, at least among members whose perspectives have been incor-porated. Summary Application of the Conceptual Model In this study we assume that religious life, congregations, and religious priests, brothers, and sisters are in the midst of a trans-formational process and that the new understandings of religious life held by significant numbers of members have not yet been fully developed. We also assume that the environmental change that most stimulated the transformation process was the new understandings of the church proclaimed during Vatican II and incorporated shortly afterward in documents directing religious congregations to begin the analysis and revision of their basic principles and practices. Presently, diverse, sometimes contradictory understandings of religious life have been developed among groups of religious. In addition, environmental forces that strongly support the devel-opment of particular understandings are present (for example, among the hierarchy and in various segments of the laity). How can the process to this point be best understood? What will hap-pen next in the transformational process? To what extent can leaders influence the transformation process? B. Levels of Change Change at the Level of the Social Institution The changes that have taken place generally in religious life have, of course, occurred in many different congregations. Schneiders's (1986) work describes a shared shift across many congregations--in the understanding of many of the components of religious life such as the vows and community. In addition, books suggesting that religious are meant to be "prophetic" or 12 Review for Religious "countercultural:' (for example, Woodward, 1987; Foley, 1988) are written to religi6us as a group, not to particular congrega-tions. Thus, the first level this study will consider is religious life as a shared entity across congregations. Shifts in understanding are frequently intertwined with shifts in structures, both formal and informal, and these structural shifts include not only new types of relationships and divisions among subgroups, but also the breakdown of formerly established orga-nizational boundaries. At the level of the universal church, Molinari and Gumpel (1987, p. 19) ask, "Is the consecrated way of life a structure in the church or a structure of the church?" The latter phrase implies only one structure of divine origin, namely the hierarchical one, while the former implies multiple divinely willed structures in the church. At the core of the dis-tinction is the degree to which the hierarchic structure governs the pneumatic components, the charismatic dimensions, of the church. Depending on the response to the question of one structure ¯ or many, structural diversity and change will occur in very dif-ferent ways. Many religious believe that their traditions repre-sent the pneumatic or charismatic dimension of the church that was evident in their founders and foundresses, and that these tra-ditions are better structured and controlled without the influence of the hierarchic structure. Areas for Investigation. In addition to the changes occurring within religious life in relation to the church, intercongregational structures have also been developing. We examined in a limited way intercongregatiofial changes such as mergers that are associ-ated with shifts in understanding or direction. What in particu-lar has happened to the boundaries separating religious from the diocesan clergy and from the laity? Change at the Level of lndividual Congregations Mthough some changes in understanding have been occur-ring across congregations in religious life as a "social institution," others have been occurring differently within different congre-gations. Moreover, many of the changes that have occurred across the board have been experienced by members of individual con-gregations as occurring within their own congregation more than in religious life as a whole. Thus, this study was concerned not only with changes in religious life generally, but also with changes occurring within specific congregations. .~anuary-Febrtmry 1993 13 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project For example, Bartunek (1984) described how the under-standing of the educational mission in one women's congregation shifted from the mid 1960s to the late 1970s. At the beginning of the change process, education was viewed as synonymous with activities that took place in schools the congregation adminis-tered. By the late 1970s, however, the educational mission was seen primarily as "seeking justice with the heart of an educator," which might or might not take place in formal educational set-tings, let alone schools the congregation administered. Beres and Musser (1987) have described how during that same period another congregation broadened its mission from particular areas of service to a general philosophy of service, with priorities shift-ing from the works of the congregation to the works of the con-gregation's individual members. Within religious congregations Nygren (1988) found that both male and female religious are adapting their structures and categories of membership to their emerging self-understanding. In a survey of 740 leaders of religious congregations, he found that 70% of the female leaders indicate that they are adapting their membership to include the full or partial membership of lay people. Among female congregations 18% of the total sur-veyed expect to amalgamate with another congregation, province, or monastery to adapt to internal changes. Correspondingly, 25 % of the male leaders anticipate altering membership categories, and 12% of them expect to amalgamate with another entity to adapt to change. These anticipated or accomplished changes affect both the existing members and the organization's self-definition. In one congregation studied by Bartunek (1984), members' shifts in understanding were intertwined with the development of several cross-province groups and commissions. They were also intertwined with the breakdown of formerly established exter-nal boundaries. Many congregational members started working with groups that had been clearly outside the original boundaries of the congregation. These structural changes eventually resulted in a merger of the U.S. provinces of the congregation. Areas for Investigation. How broadly applicable are the types of changes described above? What types of structural changes are occurring? What effects.do these changes have on the develop-ment of new understandings? Next, what are the processes through which new under-standings have be~n occurring? The model articulated above sug- 14 Review for Religious gests that change typically includes an initial experience of crisis, accompanied by strong feelings such as sadness, anger, and defen-siveness and followed by the development of differing under-standings on the part of various organizational subgroups. Feeli.ngs and reactions also accompany this stage: ambiguity and confu-sion about the possible understandings as well as conflict between groups. The introduction of the new Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious, for instance, introduces legitimacy to a divergent opinion among religious leadership. When a new syn-thesis is reached, a sense of rightness occurs. If it fails to occur, more destructive dynamics may characterize the group's func-tioning. In addition, from which elements of the environment do members of a particular congregation receive messages or con-straints regarding appropriate (or publicly appropriate) self-under-standing? In particular, how do the hierarchical church and the laity have an impact? How do intercongregational groups and networks affect the development of understandings within the congregations that belong to these groups? Next, how has leadership been affecting the experienced changes in religious life? The role of leadership has been ana-lyzed !n detail for an understanding of how leaders contribute to the development or decline of organizations. Change at the Level of Individual Members of Congregations It is clear ~hat changes have not left individual members untouched. For example, Ebaugh (1977) showed that the changes had strong effects on why members of women's religious con-gregations left the congregation. Others have indicated that one of the typical effects of a transformational process is an increase in the stress level of individual members. This is due to the ambi-guity that accompanies the change and to conflict between sub-groups. There should be more to the experience of individual reli-gious, however, than difficult feelings. Bartunek and Ringuest (1987) found that members of a particular congregation whose work took them across the congregation's original boundaries during the early 1970s, and who remained in their congregation, eventually came to perceive themselves as more influential in the congregation than did members who continued to carry out tra-ditional works. January-February 1993 15 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project Thus, we are concerned not only with the change taking place on the congregational and intercongregational level, but also with the way various members of religious orders and particular sub-groups are experiencing the change. In addition, the differences between the experience of men and women religious may be rel-evant. We address two questions regarding this experience. Areas for Investigation. What has the experience of change been like for individual members of congregations? The model we have presented proposes that individual members of congrega-tions should experience a wide range of feelings during the change process. The departure of such a large percentage of religious has also had an impact on those who remain. Those who con-tinue to live the vocation to religious life surely have a unique perspective on their role and are rooted in a spirituality that sus-tains them. With this frame of transformation, then, we designed a .comprehensive assessment that could give us some measure of how change is occurring and affecting religious life at the level of the social institution, congregations, and individuals. III. Research Units The design of the Religious Life Futures Project contained six independent studies. They are described below. Figure 1 depicts the six research units, and a brief description of each unit follows. Figure 1 Religious Life Futures Project Research Units Hist/Theol Monograph Leadership S~udies Interview Survey Caring People Study Visioning Groups 16 Review for Religious The National Survey was a comprehensive questionnaire asking 9,999 religious sisters, brothers, and priests to express their beliefs and opinions about spirituality, motivation, services they provide, issues they consider to be negative or positive influences on the future of religious life, and various other matters of religious life in general and their orders in particular. The Leadership Studies were based on the recognition that leadership is a key factor in sustaining the life of any group. Investigations of leaders' views, of members' perceptions of their leaders, and of the competencies required ~or"~utstanding leadership were pursued in this research unit. The Caring People and Visioning Groups units of our project were constructed on the reason-able assumption that these subgroups could offer distinct perspectives. The caring people were identified by virtue of their exemplary car-ing for others, and participants, in the visioning-groups unit con-sisted of people nominated in virtue of their hopeful, positive, and compelling vision concerning the future of religious life. Individual Interviews, using a standard protocol, were pursued with persons identified as particularly knowledgeable about reli-gious life. These interviews probed for the interviewees' under-standings of the nature and purpose of religious life, of the challenges facing women and men religious at this time, and of the qualities required for leadership in the future. The Theological/Historical Monograph was commissioned to be written by Elizabeth Johnson CSJ, PhD, with a historical postscript by John W. Padberg SJ, PhD. Their material wi!l add perspective to the wealth of information collected, analyzed, and evaluated. The Religious Life Futures Project contained six independent studies. A. The National Survey Purpose and Method The purpose of the National Survey was to obtain informa-tion about members' attitudes and practices regarding religious life. Questions ranged from general demographics to patterns and attitudes about living arrangements and job satisfaction. The sur-vey also sought information regarding attitudes toward vows, var-ious aspects of religious life, spiritual growth, and future plans. .~anuary-Felrruary 1993 17 Nyffren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project Early in 1990 each major superior in the United States was contacted by letter with a request for a list of the names and addresses of their members. From the more than 121,000 names received, a stratified random-sample design selected the partici-pants for the survey. This random sample was stratified to ensure statistically valid comparisons according to tradition (apostolic, contemplative, mendicant, monastic) and vocation (sisters, broth-ers, religious priests). The 335-item questionnaire was mailed in October 1990 to the 9,999 religious priests, brothers, and sisters selected in this manner. With postcard and phone follow-ups, an overall response of 77.4% (7,736 responses) was obtained. The data base used for reporting results consists of 6,359 usable surveys. In the data anal-ysis, the responses were weighted to reflect population proportions of sisters, brothers, and religious priests and of apostolic, mendi-cant, monastic, and contemplative groups. All data were analyzed according to age groups that would reflect developmental stages (ages 19-45, 46-60, 61-73, 74-96). Data Analysis and Results The questions throughout the survey represented a broad range of topic categories. Initial principal-components factor anal-yses were conducted on a select number of the items in the sur-vey. Separate factor analyses were conducted for vocation (sister, brother, priest), tradition (apostolic, mendicant, contemplative, and monastic), and age group (19-45, 46-60, 61-73, and 74-96). The results of these analyses, presented in terms of level of analysis and grouped in meaningful clusters, appear in Table 1. As indicated, four major clusters of factors emerged on the level of the Social Institution: structures, innovations, restraints, and cred-ibility. The clusters of factors are listed on the chart and will be defined and discussed below; summary findings, too, will be pre-sented on the following pages. Social Institution: Structures The National Survey factors related to Structures include role clarity, permanent commitment, external authority, systemic change, and hierarchical alliance. Because of the significance of role-clarity findings in this study, we present an extended discus-sion of this issue and then a summary of the other factors. 18 Review for Religious Categorization of Factors Derived from the Religious Life Futures Project Table 1 Social Institution Congregation Individual STRUCTURES Role Clarity Permanent Commitment External Authority Systemic Change Hierarchical Alliance INNOVATIONS Diversity Expanding Lay Roles Greater Inclusion RESTRAINTS Cultural Threats CREDIBILITY Commitment to the Poor Anomie LEADERSHIP ' Spiritual Intensity Charisma/Individual Consideration Intellectual Stimulation/ Inspirational Laissez-Faire Active Management by Exception Contingent Reward DYNAMICS Community Living Involvement Influence Ongoing Development GUIDANCE Procedural Clarity Effects of Renewal Support of Sponsored Institutions SPIRITUALITY Oneness with God Intensified Spirituality Structured Prayer BELONGING Congregational Commitment Affiliation Intention to Remain ACTION Faithfulness to Vows Works of Mercy Role Clarity. Role clarity for religious is defined as "the indi-vidual's perceived level of understanding regarding his or her pur-pose and function within the current structure of the church." On this measure 55% of the sisters reported high role clarity, along with 65% of the brothers and 68% of the priests. More than 30% of the women reported low role clarity, indicating a lack of understanding or clarity regarding their role in the church today. The discussion of leadership issues related to the National Survey may be found in the section which fbcuses exclusively on this topic. ffanuary-Felr~utry 1993 19 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Projea Considering the data by tradition, we find 77% of the con-templatives and 64% of the monastics reporting high role clarity while only 59% of the apostolic and mendicant religious indi-cated they have a clear understanding of their role. Role clarity may be proportionately greater in the future, for, while only 52% of the youngest members reported high role clarity, 71% of the oldest did so. This finding parallels research that finds in many professions greater role clarity among those who have been in the profession for a longer time. Interestingly, the more highly educated members of religious congregations experience lower role clarity as religious. In terms of the fields of study, religious in the more applied disciplines such as business, education, and health care were less clear about their role as religious in the church than religious whose training is in the more theoretical disciplines such as theology, the human-ities, and the social sciences. The role demands of health-care providers or educators may present pressures that replace or com-pete with, rather than complement, the current role of religious in the church. Other research has demonstrated that ambiguity regarding role can, in general, lead to anxiety, reduced ability to meet role requirements, decreased ministerial satisfaction, lower trust and self-confidence, increased sense of futility, and greater propen-sity to leave a religious order. The lack of role clarity that a high percentage of religious experience may contribute to still more decline in the numbers of religious. There may also be some con-nection between the equal number of women and men entering religious life now (in contrast to women's former, three-times-greater number) and the greater number of women now experi-encing low role clarity. Taken together, this data signals the essential need for role clarity if religious orders in the United States are to be revitalized. Permanent Commitment. In responding to questions related to the normativeness of a lifelong commitment for religious life, all groups (considered by vocation, by tradition, and by age) reg-istered barely moderate agreement. On a scale wher~ 1 repre-sents "strongly disagree," 3 represents "neither agree nor disagree," and 5 represents "strongly agree," the group means ran between 3.1 and 3.5 on the matter of their agreeme.nt that permanent commitment is the norm. External Authority. All respondents tended to disagree that 20 Review for Religious reliance on external authority would influence the future of reli-gious life favorably. There was a general rejection of seeking input regarding thought, opinion, or behavior from outside sources such as church or group authority, indicated by the fact that, on the five-point scale described above, means for all groups were between 2.5 and 3.1. Systemic Change. Sisters, brothers, and religious priests experienced little connection between their work for sys-temic change (defined as "efforts to influence the social and political struc-tures which tend to discriminate against disadvantaged persons") and their per-sonal and spiritual fulfilhnent. All means were greater than 3.0 and less than 3.4. This did not change when considered by age groups or tradition. Hierarchical Alliance. The cluster of items that reflect a positive relationship between the hierarchy and religious or a positive attitude regarding the church's hierarchy and magiste-rial authority was not typically rated highly by religious. The more highly educated members of religious congregations experience lower role clarity as religious. Social Institution: Innovations The National Survey included items measuring participants' responses to trends in religious life that introduce greater diver-sity into community living. Items inquired about the conscious inclusion of persons who have declared their homosexual orien-tation, about the comfort level of minority-group members as perceived by members-at-large, and about the impact of includ-ing lay associate members. Admitting Homosexual Persons. Survey participants were asked to respond to this statement: "Declaring a homosexual orientation would not exclude an individual from being admitted to my con-gregation." Sixty-four percent (64%) of all respondents indicated either agreement with the statement or uncertainty. Thirty-six percent (36%) disagreed. Considering the data by vocation, only 16% of sisters agreed with the statement, and nearly 50% expressed uncertainty. This was significantly different from the responses of religious priests and brothers. Agreement of religious priests registered at 43 %, January-February 1993 21 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project with 22% uncertain. Thirty-five percent (35%) of the brothers agreed, with 25% uncertain. Among the four traditions, 53% of contemplatives indicated disagreement, im:plying the least expectation that persons declar-ing a homosexual orientation would be admitted to their con-gregations. "Agree," "uncertain," and "disagree" percentages were rather evenly split among the other traditions. Among monastics the greatest percentage (39%) agreed. Thirty-eight percent (38%) of the members of apostolic groups (again the greatest percentage) indicated uncertainty regarding admission of candidates with a known homosexual orientation. Considering the data by age, 45% of the members under 45 expressed their belief that a person with a homosexual orientation would be admitted to their congregation. Forty-three percent (43 %) of the oldest age group felt that homosexual persons would not be admitted, and 46% of the same age group expressed their uncertainty. Members of Minority Groups. When asked to respond to this statement, "Members of minority groups may feel uneasy in my congregation," the sentiment among religious in general is fairly well split: 36% agree; 22% are uncertain, and 42% disagree. This response pattern reflected the response pattern of the sisters, the brothers, and the religious priests considered separately and also of the apostolic, the mendicant, and the monastic religious con-sidered separately. But 52 % of contemplatives disagreed with the statement, while 27% agreed. Analysis by age reveals the greatest differences. Fifty-two per-cent (52 %) of the youngest group and 44% of the next age group (46-60 years) indicated their belief that members of minority groups would feel uneasy. In contrast, half of the 61-to-73 age group and 53% of the oldest group did not believe minority-group members would feel uneasy in their orders. At present, less than 10% of the members of religious orders in the United States are members of minority groups even though, in the near future, 50% of the U.S. Catholic population will be Hispanic. The real-ity of multiculturalism must be addressed by religious orders. Lay Associates. In response to this statement, "Inclusion of lay associates as members of my congregation may undermine what it means to be a member of my congregation," only 16% of the respondents agreed; 65% clearly disagreed. Lay associates, includ-ing members of the opposite sex and married couples, appear to 22 Review for Religious have widespread acceptance among religious. In general, religious reported little concern about having lay associates as members of their congregation and about the effect their presence may have on the meaning of membership in it. Other Factors. When asked to rate the impact that expanded lay roles in church ministry, feminist thought, the ordination of women, and the inclusion of married persons would have on reli-gious communities, respondents of all groups consistently indi-cated their belief that these situations and possibilities would have little effect if any. Social Institution: Restraints Respondents were invited to rate (on a five-point Likert scale where 1 represents "not at all" and 5 represents "extremely") aspects of contemporary American culture such as capitalism, technology, and affluence in terms of their potential threat to the future of religious life. Data analysis by age and tradition shows that religious view them as minimal threats. Considering the data by vocation, sisters indicated a greater (but not high) concern regarding the impact of cultural realities than did brothers and religious priests. Social Institution: Credibility The "credibility" cluster consisted in working with the poor and anomie. Commitment to the Poor. To measure a member's stated com-mitment to work personally with the poor, survey participants were asked to respond to this statement: "Although there is in.creasing talk about working with the poor, I feel little commit-ment to that." Mean scores for all vocations, traditions, and age groups did not exceed 3.5. (Sisters, members of apostolic groups, and religious in the 19-45 age group yielded the highest means in their groupings.) Thus, members of congregations express little commitment to participate in an activity which has increasingly become a value espoused by many congregations and, quite explic-itly, by the church. These findings suggest that the greatest commitment to work with the poor would be found in a young sister in an apostolic congregation. This group currently shows the least tendency to increase in size. Anomie, defined as a state in which normative standards of January-Felrruary 1993 23 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Reli~ous Life Futures Project conduct and belief are weak or lacking, is characterized by dis-orientation, anxiety, and isolation. Loss of conviction about the vows, lack of clarity about the role of religious, reactance to authority, lack of a corporate mission and ministry, and disillu-sionment with leadership pose significant threats to the future of religious life. The mean scores for all groups were greater than 3.5. These concerns increased with age. Congregational Level." Leadership The National Survey used specifically designed items related to qualities of spiritual leadership along with Bass's leadership scale to assess members' perceptions of their leaders. So that all leadership studies may be reported together, these findings are incorporated into Section III B, Leadership. Congregational Level." Dynamics The National Survey .also measured several factors affecting community living, including involvement, influence, and satis-faction with opportunities for ongoing development. Involvement and Influence. Involvement is defined as "the expe-rience of having, and the desire to be engaged in, activities related to the life of one's congregation"; influence, as "the experience of having and the desire to have some impact regarding the deci-sions and future of one's congregation." On a scale where 1 rep-resents "strongly disagree" and 5 represents "strongly agree," agreement regarding involvement in congregational activities was high (ranging from 3.9 to 4.0.), with nearly the same means across the three vocations (sister, brother, religious priest). Levels of perceived influence wei-e significantly lower, with means ranging from 3.2 to 3.0. Vv-hen the factors of involvement and influence were considered by tradition, the range was the same. Considering the data by age, interesting patterns surfaced. The youngest group had the lowest mean for influence and the highest mean for involvement. The 74-96 age group, in contrast to the 19-45 group, had the highest mean for influence and the lowest for involvement. A consistent pattern did emerge: The members' perceived or desired level of influence in their congregation is consistently lower than their experience or desire of involvement in it. This raises serious questions that touch on group-commitment and ownership issues. 24 Review for Religious Ongoing Development. Respondents' satisfaction with oppor-tunities for ongoing development through education and forma-tion, rated on a scale of 1 ("very dissatisfied") to 5 ("very satisfied"), averaged about 4.0. In general, the high levels of sat-isfaction and the high expectations that possibly accompany that satisfaction may encounter significant frustrations or difficult choices when, as is likely in most congregations, they encounter decliriing revenue and personnel. Congregational Level: Guidance The National Survey also investigated the degree to which a congregation's policies and structures promote the effective func-tioning of the group. Procedural clarity, effects of the renewal process, and members' willingness to support sponsored institu-tions are the focal points for addressing this question. Procedural Clarity. Analyzed by vocation, tradition, and age, religious indicated a moderate level of satisfaction with the clar-ity of their congregation's policies, and procedures. The group means ranged from 3.5 to 3.9. With the scale ranging from 1 ("strongly disagree") to 5 ("strongly agree"), it is fair to say that members do not experience an.overwhelming sense of clarity con-cerning their congregation's policies and procedures. Effects of Renewal, Thirty years ago the Second Vatican Council directed religious orders to examine their structures and update themselves. A return to the spirit of the founder was identified as a critical part of this renewal process. Members' assessments of their congregation's efforts and success in remaining faithful to the founding charism or in maintaining the prophetic character of religious life reflect once again only a moderate level of agree-ment. Across age groups the highest rating (the mean was 3.8) reflected the assessment of the 61-to-73-year-olds. Significantly, this was the group that provided most of the leadership during the past 30 years. The youngest group expressed the lowest satisfac-tion. There were no differences between the various traditions in their ratings of the effectiveness of renewal efforts. Support of Sponsored Institutions. In an effort to assess the com-mitment of members to their congregation's institutional com-mitments, respondents were asked to indicate their willingness to work in an institution sponsored by their congregation and their willingness to live in such an institution. Overall, 93% of the religious responding to the survey January-February 1993 25 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project answered yes regarding their willingness to work there. This rep-resents 94% of the religious priests and brothers and 92% of the sisters who responded. A smaller but still sizable percentage (88%) indicated their willingness to live at an institution sponsored by the congregation; this figure represents 84% of the sisters, 91% of the brothers, and 92% of the priests. ~'hese results present the opportunity to leaders, congrega-tional planners, and institutional decision makers to consider the availability and willingness of members of religious organizations and to direct their efforts toward a corporate mission. The empha-si~ on individual ministries that has evolved in recent years may now be shifting or open to reconsideration by members. Individual Level: Spirituality Spirituality was considered in terms of the experience of a sense of oneness or harmony with God, the degree of increased spiritual intensity, and the value of structured prayer to personal and spiritual fulfillment. Oneness with God. M1 religious report a moderately high level of agreement on a five-point Likert-type scale (1 represents "not at all" and 5 represents "frequently if not always") to questions assessing a sense of oneness with God. Sisters and contempla-tives score highest. Not surprisingly, this sense appears to deepen with age insofar as mean scores for age groups increased as age increased. Intensified Spirituality. The survey also measured changes in spirituality in terms of the degree to which respondents reported finding greater value in religious life and having deeper belief in Jesus Christ and deeper appreciation of the value of prayer since the time of their first profession of vows. While sisters, contemplatives, and members of the 74-96 age group reported the greatest levels of intensified spirituality, the other groups reflected high levels. StTv~ctnred Prayer. The degree to which structured prayer ex~)e-riences such as common prayer, an annual retreat, confession, and devotion to Mary were reported to be a source of spiritual and personal fulfillment was also measured on a five-point scale. Considered by vocation (si~ters, brothers, priests), all resporidents registered agreement beyond a level of 4. I. Consistent with their tradition, contemplatives had the highest mean of the tradition groupings in reporting structured prayer to be a very valuable 26 Review for Religious contributor. The experience of structured prayer as spiritually and personally fulfilling increased with age. Individual Level'. Belonging The National Survey measured individuals' commitment to their congregation as well as affiliation and the intention to remain. Commitment to Congregation. All traditions, vocations, and age groups reported moderately high to very high levels of congre-gational commitment. Not surpris-ingly, levels of agreement steadily increased with the respondents' ages. Affiliation. As was the case for commitment to the congregation, all groups (vocation, tradition, and age) were strong in their agreement with items indicative of high affiliation. Sisters, contemplatives, and members of the oldest age group had the high-est means in their respective cate-gories. Intention to Remain. Members of all groups (considered by age, voca-tion, and tradition) expressed--at or beyond the 4.2 level on the five-point "strongly disagree/strongly agree" scale--agreement with items related to their intention to remain in their congregation. This high degree of durability may be viewed both as cause for celebration and as cause for concern. Religious women report chastity as most meaningful and least difficult, while men report chastity as most difficult and least meaningful. Individual Levek Actions The National Survey also measured respondents' manifesta-tion of belief through their fidelity to vows and works of mercy. Faithfulness to Vows. Self-ratings regarding faithfulness to their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, when analyzed by voca-tion, tradition, and age, ranged between 3.7 and 4.1. Because the purpose of this study was not to delve into the details of behav-iors of religious women and men as they relate to observance of their vows, the research asked only for individual self-reports of fidelity to each vow. Of greater concern in this investigation were those individual that were related to persons who do or do not perceive themselves as faithful. January-February 1993 27 Nyg~ren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project Regarding practice of the vows, the researchers learned that religious women report chastity as most meaningful and least dif-ficult, while men report chastity as most difficult and least mean-ingful. In a ranking of difficulty, obedience emerges as more difficult for women than for men. Works of Mercy. The belief that direct action to help the sick or poor made a somewhat valuable contribution to their spiritual and personal fulfillment was registered most strongly by religious priests and sisters. Considering the data by tradition, members of the mendicant and apostolic groups reported that their practice of the works of mercy was somewhat valuable to their personal and spiritual fulfillment. Monastic religious experienced such works as less valuable, and contemplatives, perhaps as a function of their lifestyle, experienced them as least helpful. Factor Conclusions: Social Institution The social institution of religious life in the United States continues to reflect the dynamics of an organization in signifi-cant transition. The lack of role clarity for a large percentage of religious and the ambivalence regarding permanent commitment to the classic vows leave the social institution vulnerable to innu-merable other social and cultural forces. The results would indi-cate that the population of religious in general is moving toward a much more permeable system of membership, commitment, autonomy, and inclusion. While on the one hand this reinforces innovation that includes diversity and broadened assumptions about religious life, the research also indicates that religious do not see how clearly they are influenced by cultural assimilation. Likewise, the credibility of many religious may be lessened in the eyes of those they serve and in the society in which they func-tion because of the discrepancies between their espoused values and their practice. By their own admission, religious see indif-ference and a lack of passion to be a major threat to themselves as persons and to religious life overall in relation to other social sys-tems in society. Factor Conclusions: Congregation Leadership is a critical force for the clarification of the role identity of religious in the United States. Within congregations, 2 8 Review for Religious particularly among women, there exists a fair degree of satisfac-tion with leadership. The hidden side of the satisfaction is that it may signal complaisance among members who at the same time find it difficult to influence the direction of the congregation. For many, the congregation lacks a coherent approach to col-lective action, particularly regarding sponsored institu-tions. In addition, the efforts at renewal have not met indi-vidual hopes. Community life continues to engage mem-bers, and they feel deeply committed to congregational life, willing to be more involved than they currently are, but also feel less influen-tial with leadership in the matter of setting the direction of the congregation. The high need for affiliation noted in the survey results may, in fact, stifle the creativity necessary to move groups into the future. Leadership is a critical force for the clarification of the role identity of religious in the United States. Factor Conclusions: Individual A facet of the research that addresses optimistically the lack of role clarity for many religious is the data that suggests how important spirituality and a vital relationship with God really are for many of them. Structured prayer, however varied the forms, continues to be a value. Individuals feel genuinely called by God to religious life and see an intensified spirituality as desirable. They are personally committed strongly to the community, they derive satisfaction from belonging, and most intend to remain in religious life. It is fair to say that the data indicates a stronger ecclesiology than Christology. Individuals emphasize participation in the life of the church and community as foundational to their spirituality. Their relationship to the person of Christ is less clearly drawn, perhaps because of the design of the study itself or maybe because of shifting language schemes to describe one's spirituality. What is clear from the research is that their spirituality will define their uniqueness in the church and their belonging will satisfy their affiliative needs. January-February 1993 29 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project The data suggests also that, if religious experience difficulty, it has to do with the impact of the vows on their life and with their fidelity to the vows. The personal sacrifice that has been the foundation of the vowed life has found support in the effect it has had on the mission of the congregation and the church. Profound shifts have occurred in the interpretation of the vows and the willingness to live them. More fluid interpretations of poverty, obedience, and chastity are widely observed. In addition, some religious describe new vows--of ecology, for instance--as descriptive of the future. Personal understandings of religious life and the commitment required to live the life are very broad. This results in part from lack of role clarity and from the vast cultural shifts in American society that have had a significant influence on religious life. Most religious would see some return to normative behavior as neces-sary, but they are reluctant to do so if that means returning to the sect-like distinction of religious life of the past. B. Leadership The recognition and identification of leadership as a critical factor in the transformation of religious orders prompted the investigation of leadership from many perspectives. These included: 1. a series of regional gatherings attended by 192 leaders of religious congregations; 2. members'oat-large perceptions of their leaders through the National Survey; 3. a separate "Leadership-Competency Assessment of Leaders of Religious Orders" with personality psycholo-gist David McClelland PhD. One of the first issues to surface during the course of the Religious Life Futures Project was the urgency of selecting and training leaders who not only can manage the complexity of reli-gious life that is predicted to intensify during the next 10 years, but also can focus the attention of their communities on a vision that will unite individual efforts inspired by the mission of their founder or foundress. The most striking weakness among cur-rent leaders is their inability to formulate a strategy to achieve a purpose or mission. Also of concern was the increasingly widespread use of con- 30 Review for Religious sensual processes and team leadership. The findings indicate that, while potentially effective, such approaches can often lead to mediocre management, representing the least common denomi-nator within an organization. Uninformed implementation of consensual methods often paralyzes the visionary leader. Leadership Workshops At the Leadership Workshops the participants were asked to write, in the form of a letter to their members, their vision for the future of their congregation, of the people whom their congre-gation serves, and of religious life in general. A content analysis of these "letters" yielded four categories of leadership: Value-based leaders expressed a sense of direction for their con-gregations or themselves in terms of the conceptual and cultural aspects of religious life. They were able to give expression to their values, but were unable to ide.ntify strategies to actualize them. For example, the author of one letter expressed concern about the environment, but only vaguely proposed that the congregation become involved in recycling. A letter simply urging the eradi-cation of "oppressive structures" without any suggested imple-mentation illustrates another value stated without a strategy. Visionary leaders, on the other hand, expressed a sense of direc-tion in terms of the structural and organizational aspects of reli-gious. life. The articulation of a strategy to accomplish their vision marks the difference between visionary and value-based leaders. One of the letters, besides proposing a new form of community in which nonvowed members would participate in governance, named specific guidelines and thus coupled a vision with a strat-egy. Conflicted leaders were unable to address change and often expressed frustration, anger, sadness, and even despair. These feelings were frequently directed toward members of the con-gregations. One such leader wrote, "It seems to me that some of our religious are unconcerned. They seem to have lost the orig-inal enthusiasm for their religious calling. Life has become drudgery for them, and membership in our congregation is a bur-den. Nothing we do or try to do seems to change this picture, and it is of great concern to me." Incognizant leaders, those who are unconscious or unaware of major issues facing their orders, failed to address any of the con- January-Felrruary 1993 31 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project cerns facing their congregations or the church. For example, one leader wrote, "There is no secular history/profane history; there is only sacred history. God is present in everything and in all. God journeys with us, with all people. God is the force, the life, the purpose behind everything and everyone." The researchers note that, while God is ultimately the means and the end of reli-gious life and leadership itself, incognizant leaders do not realize their role in enabling the action of God. From these workshops, the researchers concluded that there is often a gulf between the responsibilities of the office and the abilities some leaders bring to it. In many cases, leaders lack the necessary competencies or training to function effectively. Members' Perceptions of Leadership from the National Survey The National Survey measured members' perceptions of their leaders, using a measure of leaders' spiritual intensity and Bass's transformational and transactional leadership scales. The spiri-tual intensity of their leaders is rated highly by both men and wbmen. Both female and male religious expressed a slighdy higher degree of satisfaction with individual leaders than with leader-ship teams. Women were generally more satisfied with their lead-ership than men were. The survey measured the degree to which members viewed their leaders as transformational and transactional. Transforma-tional leaders provide vision and a sense of mission while instill-ing pride and gaining respect and trust. Transactional leaders focus on administrative and operational details. Typically, trans-actional leaders orient subordinates toward achieving goals by monitoring their performance, rewarding their accomplishments, and taking corrective action when necessary. Sometimes they abdicate responsibilities and avoid decision making. Both women and men tend to consider their leaders to be transformational people who embody charisma and individual consideration as well as intellectual stimulation and inspiration. On a scale where 1 represents "almost never" and 5 represents "frequently if not always," sisters' mean ratings of their leaders on charisma and intellectual stimulation were 3.67 and 3.57, respec-tively. Conversely, male religious consistently rate their leaders higher on transactional qualities, contingent reward (brothers' mean was 1.78; priests' mean was 1.70) and active management by exception (brothers' mean was 2.38; priests' mean was.2.26), than 32 Review.for Religious do female religious (contingent-reward mean was 1.62; manage-ment- by-exception mean was 2.06). The findings showed that, while spiritual intensity was the most frequently observed behavior of all outstanding leaders, charisma or individual consideration of members was the most significant predictor of satisfaction with an individual leader or a leadership team. Leadership Competency Study This research unit assessed systematically the competencies required for outstanding leadership. The model of competency assessment developed by McClelland and associates at McBer & Co. was employed. It began with the convening of a panel of experts to assist in identifying a criterion group of 24 present or former leaders of religious congregations regarded by their peers as "outstanding." Using the "Behavioral Event Interview" (BEI) method also devel-oped by McClelland, the research team interviewed this group of 12 women and 12 men. Similar interviews were conducted with a control group of 15 "typical" leaders (11 women and 4 men) matched with the criterion group for age, gender, tradition, size of congregation, and length of tenure. These interviews were then transcribed and coded by two separate raters for leadership competencies. Analysis of the data revealed that outstanding and typical lead-ers share certain "threshold competencies," including an ability to articulate the mission of their congregations, an inclination to act efficiently, basic conceptual and analytical skills, self-confi-dence, and avoidance of impulsive or emotional expression. These can be regarded as foundational competencies for leaders of reli-gious orders. Outstanding leaders, however, were found to differ from typ-ical leaders in several significant ways. For instance, outstanding leaders expressed, nearly three times as often as did typical lead-ers, a desire to perform tasks well or better than they had been performed in the past. They stated more than twice as often as typical leaders that they wanted to find new ways to achieve goals and to make things better for the people their order serves. Approximately 65% of the outstanding leaders mentioned taking initiative to deal with anticipated problems at least five times. Only 22 % of typical leaders referred that often to taking such actions. January-February 1993 33 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project Outstanding male leaders are more likely to start projects dealing with problems anticipated in the coming years than are typical male leaders and female leaders in general. The study also found that outstanding leaders were signifi-cantly more likely than typical leaders to mention using their power to influence group decisions or behavior; to build consen-sus and team spirit by soliciting the views of others; to attempt to see issues from different perspectives; and to draw on divine assis-tance in their leadership roles. Conversely, typical leaders were more inclined than outstand-ing leaders to mention that they had threatened sanctions to control the behavior of subordinates; had acted out of formal authority, not by building consensus; and had involved themselves with the per-sonal problems of individual mem-bers as opposed to the problems of the entire congregation. Typical leaders seldom refer to God in their leadership activity. The study' also found differ-ences between outstanding men and outstanding women leaders. Outstanding men appeared more likely than outstanding wo~nen to have begun new projects; to have acted assertively; to have offered more opinion, s, particularly negative ones, to subordi-nates; to have developed the leadership capacity of others; and to have experienced the benefit of God's support. The outstanding women, on the other hand, appeared more likely to have focused on consensus building; to have pointed to the spiritual significance of events; and to have positive expecta-tions of others and of religious life in general. The leadership-competency assessment revealed that out-standing male leaders are more likely to start projects dealing with problems anticipated in the coming years than are typical male leaders and female leaders in general. Neither ?utstanding nor typical female leaders appear to initiate such projects. While all male leaders report more behavior that threatens members with termination of an assignment or with dismissal from a con-gregation than do female leaders, this is strikingly true of typical male leaders. Outstanding female leaders behave in this manner more frequently than their typical counterparts. This suggests the desirability of a moderate use of sanctions. 34 Review for Religious C. Visioning Groups Recognizing that various groups of members could offer distinct perspectives, the study was to include the views of persons who could provide specifically clear opinions regarding the future of religious orders. Individuals identified as future oriented yet rooted in their order's charism were invited to participate in one of four Visioning Groups. This research unit was conducted through a series of weekend gatherings. The aim was to learn about the personality characteristics and beliefs of the individu-als and to develop strategies and agendas that could implement the visionaries' images of the future of religious life. Their prospec-tive views would also be compared with those of both leaders and members-at-large of religious orders. Selection of Participants Subjects for the Visioning Groups were recruited through a nomination process that began with a letter sent to the major superiors of 550 randomly selected congregations. The superi-ors were asked to consult with their councils, similar groups of advisors, or members-at-large to nominate one member of their order to participate in a group experience. Criteria for selection asked that the nominee be a person of vision who is recognized for his or her ability to live the charism of the congregation in today's society and that the nominee be able to articulate a sense of hope and a belief in the future of religious life. A total of 92 religious-- 48 women and 44 men (12 brothers and 32 priests)--participated in the Visioning Groups' gatherings. "The Dilemma": Affiliation vs. Transformation One of the most significant findings of the Visioning Group workshops emerged from an exercise conducted during the course of each gathering. Participants were organized randomly into groups of three or four people and given the task of identifying those elements critical to the future of religious life. After a period of private reflection, participants were asked to gather in their assigned groups and share the results of their reflections. Each of these groups then joined another, resulting in groups of 6 to 8. They continued the conversation and were then asked to con-struct an image or metaphor that captured visually and graphically the components they considered essential to a future vision of religious life. The results of their work included such images as a January-February 1993 35 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project kaleidoscope, a prism, a jazz band, a symphony orchestra, and the spiral of unitive consciousness. After all groups in a session had ~'eported and presented their images of the future of religious life, each person was asked to consider all the models and to stand near the one he or she found most compelling in terms of a future vision. Participants were asked to base their choice on their willingness to make a personal commitment and to devote their energy to realizing that future vision. This request invariably created a dilemma for the partici-pants. Preferring a model designed by another group produced in most individuals a sense of guilt, of betrayal and abandonment of the group with which they had worked to produce an image. This process replicated the dilemma which many members of congregations experience in wanting to be involved in actualizing a compelling vision of the future, but desiring also to maintain existing relational bonds. While this sense of loyalty or affilia-tion that inhibits change is not unique to religious groups, it does represent a critical factor in groups moving toward changing the future. Affiliation is generally stronger than vision. This tension is particularly important to consider in light of the National Survey's finding that members of religious orders experience a particularly high need for affiliation. This dynamic is an important challenge for religious leaders. Visioning Groups Conclusions: Social Institution Revitalized religious life, rooted in Jesus Christ and the gospel's values, will manifest that spirit in the world by challeng-ing systems that oppress others, by living in visible simplicity, and by renewing congregations' fidelity to their founding pur-pose. The visioning groups view authority as power that is shared among communities of equals. This perception, however, may level the traditional notions of the vow of obedience and bring more democratic ideals into the classical traditions of religious life. Viewing the global community as the locus of redemption, sisters, brothers, and religious priests will face alterations in prayer, expanding their language for a greater inclusivity. They will choose to share in the world's suffering and will shift away from the rigidity of regional and juridical thinking. Members of reli- 36 Review for Religious gious orders will express their relationship with Jesus in the con-text of belonging, in shared symbolic life, and possibly in a shift in primary language. The dominant language of religious life has shifted from theological constructs to social and psychological paradigms. Many religious no longer use sacramental or tran-scendental frames of reference to describe their experience of God. Multiculturalism as normative is desirable, but confronting the personal and systemic racism that marks our society and reli-gious orders could be the single greatest challenge in the area of membership. Conclusions: Congregation Religious congregations ought to provide opportunities for structural expressions of emerging forms of religious life. To do so, they will have to discern the contemporary expression of their founder's charism, redefine or reestablish boundaries for mem-bership and behavior, and confront the discrepancies between espoused and lived values. The images (discussed above) of a future vision of religious life that were constructed by small teams were efforts to isolate and highlight a particular manifestation of a charism, not as an end in itself but to show a possible direction for the congregation to move in. At present, such efforts to regain the founding spirit are often viewed by the majority of members as marginal. When those who may have the vision are pressured to conform to the group, revitalization may be undermined. Conclusions: Individual Individuals within religious orders will shift from an internal to a global focus. They will need to acquire new interpersonal skills and an ability to cope with moving from stability and secu-rity to change and risk that lead to a more clearly focused mission. Challenging a culture that has supported privatism and indi-vidualism, members of religious congregations will need to reex-amine nonnegotiables. Relinquishing many previously held tenets, they will respond to the call of serving absolute human need in the spirit of their founder. New members must demonstrate the maturity to live a life of sacrifice, must possess or acquire the skills for leadership posi- .~anuary-Fetrruary 1993 37 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Reh~ious Life Futures Project tions in global and church communities, and must be able to sus-tain intimate relationships in the context of a celibate commit-ment. Current members, too, who continue to belong to religious congregations will need these skills and qualities and must prepare to live in communities that require them. D. Caring People The Caring People unit studied the characteristics of persons identified by members of their congregations as "uniquely car-ing" or "unusually helpful, thoughtful, understanding, or caring persons." All selected subjects received mailed packets that included a cover letter, a six-picture story exercise (projective technique), the National Survey questionnaire, and a variety of open-ended and short-answer measures. Because traditional question-and-answer research does not easily permit the study of unconscious motives, open-ended (projective) techniques were used to study the motive structures of these persons. This approach was espe-cially important because much research about traits and behavior typically depends on self-reports which introduce the possibility of bias in the direction of socially acceptable responses. In other words, what might have been measured in other studies was the need for consistency of self-image, not necessarily the subject's willingness to go to the assistance of a needy person. By coding responses to some open-ended questions, we were able to con-struct a profile of caring people. Findings The Caring People study found that, in contrast to typical religious, religious who are perceived as unusually helpful, under-standing, and caring feel closer to and more trusting of God, who is seen as the source of healing and care. On projective measures, caring religious score higher in trust and lower in mistrust than typical sisters, brothers, and priests and tend to portray authority as benevolent. Caring religious con-nect divine assistance, in contrast to individual effort, with heal-ing experiences. They are less self-controlling and more spontaneously inclined to generosity. Caring people state that they often find the experience of contemplative prayer very valuable. They also demonstrate a 3 8 Review for Religious greater interpersonal involvement in caring experiences. Caring religious describe these relationships as growing and mutual and as containing a wider meaning or significance beyond the imme-diate relationship. Finally, these religious experience more joy in caring and more zest for living. This contrasts with typical religious, who describe caring for others in tension-reduction terms. That is, typical religious report their caring as a response to a need in themselves such as caring out of duty or as a repayment, or car-ing in response to special needs such as the illness, rejection, or trauma of other people. Presence of God This research suggests that, for caring religious, helping is not simply a transaction between two people. There is a third force in the relationship that .might most generally be called a "benevolent authority" or, more simply, God. The caring reli-gious stays in close touch with God and wants to share this behev-olent authority with others. When encountering a person in need, the goal of the caring religious is not primarily to relieve his or her suffering, but to create a three-way relationship in which Jesus and the gospel's values are deeply involved. Helpers of this type do not see themselves as agents in the process; at most they are partners with or assistants to the real source of helping. They do not feel ultimately responsible. For this reason and also because the helping is in itself joyous, caring religious do not as readily "burn out." This description also explains why caring religious who are so motivated are perceived to be helpful rather than manipulative. Because they so obviously believe that of themselves they can do nothing and because they want to establish a mutually rewarding i'elationship, caring religious are not perceived as egoistically threatening the self-esteem, interpersonal power, or indepen-dence of others. To the extent that responding to absolute human need is embraced anew as the ultimate mission of religious congrega-tions, the formation and development of this motive for religious life is clearly essential. Caring People Conclusions: Social Institution This part of the research effort assumes that a fundamental ffanuary-Felrruary 1993 39 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project component of the role identity of religious is their call to care for others. It also assumes the motive of desire for oneness with God. Perhaps the future of religious life will be defined increas-ingly by these attributes or actions on behalf of others that medi-ate the presence of God. Caring religious live an operative Christology that is simultaneously immanent and transcendent. Conclusions: Congregation The Caring People study suggests that the heart of congre-gational life is the life of Jesus Christ in the gospel. The imme-diacy of the presence of the caring person to another is possible because of this effort to mediate God, whom they see as a benev-olent authority and the source of their action. Conclusions: Individual The focus of individual formation must be increasingly spir-itual. This research would indicate that those who learn to be authentically caring are inclined spontaneously to generosity, are trusting, and are aware that God acts in and through them. This level of freedom requires viewing God as a benevolent authority in whose name one acts as mediator. E. Individual Interviews Using a standard protocol developed for use in the Individual Interviews phase of the study, the researchers 15robed persons identified as particularly cognizant and understanding of religious life's nature and purpose and of the challenges now facing women and men religious and identified, too, as having the qualities required for leadership in the future. The purpose of this por-tion of the study was to verify the beliefs of members-at-large about the nature and purpose of religious life and its mission, about emerging forms and structures, and about future directions and to compare these beliefs with those surfacing in other forums. Conclusions: Social Institution Interviewees noted that the mission of Jesus will be the cen-tral focus and that the spirituality of congregations will be rooted 40 Review for Religious in their charism. Driven by pressing social and ecclesial needs, charity and justice will be the focus of mission and ministry, and most apostolic community life will be in proximity to the poor. Although a clear church identity will be maintained, the struc-tures of religious life will be based on mission rather than canons, and the unique charism of religious life will remain largely distinct from hierarchical functions. An inclusive atmosphere will be marked by multiculturalism, a clear inclusion of women and the feminine, and a genuine respect for diversity. Perhaps the most striking discrepancy in the portrait of the future of the social institution of religious life that emerges from the Visioning Groups, the National Survey, and the Individual Interviews involves commitment to the poor. The random sam-ple of members reveals at most a moderate commitment to par-ticipate in an activity which has become increasing!y a mission espoused by many religiou~ orders and quite explicitly by the church. Conclusions: Congregation Some of several changes in congregational living could strengthen the religious orders of the future. Specifically, inter-viewees indicate that religious community life will be marked increasingly by the intentionality of sha~ed values, purpose, and resources. Some congregations whose charisms are similar will merge, the number of apostolic groups will decrease, and many groups will become smaller. Because their members report greater clarity of focus and mission, membership in monastic orders may increase. The ranks of religious orders will be marked by older mem-bers, with few younger members and many second-career entrants. New congregations, though few, will contribute to the revital-ization of religious life. Religious congregations must examine the impact of what has often been an uncritical introduction of associational and affilia-tional forms of membership. This will entail a focus on the mean-ing of membership and in many cases the reestablishment of boundaries. Congregations that are vital to the church will have an explicit focus, and their effectiveness will be enhanced by the members' commitment to the collective mission. January-February 1993 41 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project Conclusions: Individual In the view of those who participated in the interviews, com-mitment to works of mercy is critical. Most individuals who belong to religious orders were motivated at the outset by their impulse to generosity and are sustained by their special relation-ship with God. By serving those with absolute human need, sis-ters, brothers, and religious priests will dedicate themselves to a high-cost, high-commitment life in communities that can be wit-nesses to Jesus Christ and the gospel. E Historical/Theological Monograph Because it is important also to understand the findings of the study from both historical and theological perspectives, the researchers commissioned a theological/historical monograph. Elizabeth Johnson CSJ, PhD, of Fordham University, will write a theological monograph focusing on religious life since the Second Vatican Council. John W. Padberg SJ, PhD, of Saint Louis University, will provide a historical postscript to her work. This work, projected for completion in 1993, will add perspective to the wealth of information collected, analyzed, and evaluated in this research effort. IV. Conclusions:Shaping the Future of Religious Life If religious life is to continue to be a vital force in the church and the world, the FORUS study concludes that dramatic changes must occur in most religious congregations in the United States. Fidelity to the spirit of the founder and responsiveness to critical and unmet human needs are basic to the ongoing mission of reli-gious communities. Yet, while individual examples abound, only in limited ways have religious acted collectively to address absolute human needs, new forms of poverty, and demands that seemingly outstrip the capacity of any group to respond. Vatican II called religious to a return to the "spirit of the founder." While most congregations have engaged in much study and have made great efforts to move in this direction, the absence of corporate commitment to meeting currently unmet needs in the light of gospel imperatives stands in contrast to the collective vision and action inspired by God that marked the birth of most apostolic, monastic, and contemplative congregations. Religious 42 Revieva for Religious life as a social institution in United States society is at a crossroads. To achieve a desired future, religious as a group as well as indi-viduals must confront the forces that currently restrain them and reinforce the dynamics that will allow them to be in fact respon-sive to absolute human need in accord with their particular charism. A future marked by significant revitalization will emerge for congregations that--in union with God, in fidelity to their founding purpose, and in response to absolute human need--confront the current gap between the gospel and the culture. The research concludes with an equation of sorts, depicted in Figure 2 below, that can be applied to all con-gregational traditions in vary-ing degrees. The interaction of eight critical factors in the context of personal and collec-tive conversion will move con-gregations from their current states to their desired futures. The research also concludes that for other groups the The absence of corporate commitment to meeting currently unmet needs in the light of gospel imperatives stands in contrast to the collective vision and action inspired by God that marked the birth of most apostolic, monastic, and contemplative congregations. restraints on advancement are severe and may lead to decline. What follows is a brief summary of the conclusions drawn from the various facets of the study. 1. Individualism and Vocation Since Vatican II, shifting paradigms of vocation and con-comitant cultural trends have deemphasized the distinctiveness of the religious life. The research suggests that the personal call to holiness given to all Christians in Lumen Gentium did in fact impact religious life and the understanding of the religious life. Religious feel somewhat ambivalent about their current state while at the same time celebrating the advances of the laity in the church since Vatican II. The age of experimentation in the church paral-leled vast cultural shifts in kanerican society towards individualism, cultural assimilation, and the democratization of all authority. ~anuary-February 1993 43 Nygren and Ukeritis ¯ Religious Life Futures Project Figure 2 Shaping the Future of Religious Life in the US Restraining Forces ~ lndividualisrn]~ ~Average Loadershipl_~ Aut"orit V'i
BASE
Learning by participation
In: World health forum: an intern. journal of health development, Band 13, Heft 4
ISSN: 0251-2432
Umweltbewußtsein
In: Umwelt und Ökonomie: Reader zur ökologieorientierten Betriebswirtschaftslehre, S. 144-150
Review for Religious - Issue 51.1 (January/February 1992)
Issue 51.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1992. ; Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JANUARY-FEBRUARY 1992 ¯ VOLUME 51 ¯ NUMBER 1 Review fl)r Religious (ISSN 0034-630X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535 3048. Manuscripts, books fi)r reviexv, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious. 3601 l,indellBoulevard. St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Correspondence about the "Canonical Counsel" departmeut: Elizabeth McDonough ()P ¯ 5001 Eastcrn Avenue ¯ P.O. Box 29260 Washington, I).C. 20017. P()S'I'M~XSTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid a~ S~. Louis, Missouri, and additional offices. SUBS(~RIPTI()N RATES Single copy $5.00 includes surface mailing costs. ()he-year subscription $15.00 plus mailing costs. Two-year subscription $28.00 plus mailing costs. See inside back cover fl~r subscription infl~rmation and mailing costs. ©1992 Revieu for Religious review fre° [gii ous Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor . Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer sJ Michael G. Harter sJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe David J. Hassel SJ Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Ann Ledden $SND Sefin Sammon FMS Wendy Wright PhD Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JANUARY / FEBRUARY 1992 ¯ VOLUME 51 ¯ NUMBER 1 contents 18 24 church and ministry Ecclesial Burnout: Old Demon, New Form Richard Sparks CSP suggests some remedies for overcoming a new strain of burnout which tends to afflict church ministers. Vincent Pallotti vs. Polarization Erik Riechers SAC shares some practical steps suggested by Vincent Pallotti for spiritual regeneration in a polarized church. The Ecumenical Kernel Dennis Billy CSSR explains how church unity involves a process of committed encounter between religious traditions whose very existence implies a relationship of concrete mutual dependence. 34 46 56 direction and discernment Elements and Dynamics of a Spiritual-Direction Practicum James Keegan SJ presents a successful way of putting together a spiritual-direction practicum and the personal and clinical issues involved. On Becoming a Discerning Person Charles Reutemann FSC describes in practical terms the meaning of spiritual direction, the person of the director, and the process of the direction session. Discernment and Decision Making Brian O'Leary SJ outlines elements for a pedagogy of discernment so necessary for our contemporary human and Christian situations. 2 Revie~ for Religious religious life 64 Making Sense of a Revolution Se~in Sammon FMS assesses the present state of religious life and sets an agenda for the process of renewal. 78 The Past Is Prologue Elizabeth McDonough OP identifies three interrelated phenomena which have significant influence on the direction of religious life. 98 An Experiment in Hope Mary Carty CND and MaryJo Leddy NDS report on a carefully planned intercongregational exploration in revitalizing religious life. 109 community and missien Internationality--At What Price? Janet Malone CND challenges any community which identifies itself as international to realize the concrete demands made on every aspect of their life together. 118 The Perils of Polarity Julia Upton RSM focuses upon the common roots from which both monastic and apostolic religious life take their growth. 134 Evangelizing Community William F. Hogan CSC suggests that religious who share faith in community are the best evangelizers. 140 4 144 149 Vocation as a Journey Brother Andrew shares a personal reflection on vocation as a crucifying walk in intimate union with Jesus. departments Prisms Canonical Counsel: Clerical Institutes Book Reviews January-February 1992 3 prisms As you page through this issue, you cannot help but notice the new appearance of Review for Religious. The development of this new look involved the staff, the members of the advisory board, and the Jesuit design group called Studio J in a critical assessment of everything from the important areas of content and edi-torial policies to the nitpicking aspects of the letterspac-ing of our new typeface. Our entire effort was to launch into our second half century of publication by enhancing our traditionally fine content and presenting it in a way that is truly "reader friendly." When Review for Religious began to be published in 1942, its very title gave evidence of its intended audi-ence- women and men consecrated in a special lifeform in the Catholic Church commonly called religious life. Yet even the first editors encouraged diocesan priests to use the journal articles as helps both for growing in their spir-ituality and ministry and for appreciating the various reli-gious- life traditions. Early on, too, lay women and men, especially those identified with third-order and sodality movements, were regular subscribers. With the burgeoning of lay ministries after Vatican II, there have been a growing number of lay readers, inter-ested particularly in developing their prayer life, under-standing their own roles as ministers of Christ, and even searching for better community models for family and parish, inspired by the internal efforts of religious com-munities. Our journal's contributors, too, illustrate the wide range of our readership--women, men, lay, religious, priests, even a bishop now and then. The question arose: Should the very name Review for Religious be changed to reflect its wider audience? 4 Review for Religious After much discussion we agreed that the religious-life empha-sis retains its central place because it focuses so well the rich spir-ituality traditions within the church. A secondary title, now evident on our cover, clearly highlights this aspect. But the pur-pose of Review for Religious remains just as current and necessary after fifty years: a forum for shared reflection on the lived expe-rience of all who find that the church's rich heritages of spiritu-ality- Augustinian, Benedictine, Dominican, Carmelite, Ignatian, Franciscan, Salesian, and many others--support their personal and apostolic Christian lives. For readers coming from whatever spiritual tradition, the articles in the journal are meant to be infor-mative, practical, or inspirational, written from a theological or spiritual or sometimes canonical point of view. The journal's look, then, is meant to reinforce its purpose. While you may miss the easily scanned backcover table of con-tents, we hope that you will find our Contents pages more infor-mative by their brief indication of an article's theme and by the grouping of various articles under sectional titles. The new sec-tional titles will keep changing from issue to issue, depending on the relationships among articles published in any one issue. Both the variety of sections and the variety of articles within a section are indicative of the vision and purpose of Review for Religious. In its 1942 beginnings this journal provided a com-munication forum which was almost nonexistent among various traditions represented by religious orders. Still today the mix of articles contributes to the ongoing understandings, critiques, and movements in our religious-life heritages so that we find new insight, expand our horizons, and collaborate more effectively for the good of our church life. I find a growing tendency among church people in the United States to read only the articles or books which reinforce their own views and to ignore or condemn out of hand an alternative or opposing approach. As an editor I find myself seldom (if ever) in total agreement with any one article--even in this iournal. For the healthiness of our life in Christ, we all need to appreciate and evaluate differences, changes, and developments in and among the various traditions which, contribute to the present makeup of the church. The articles in this iournal are like prisms which sub-tly nuance light into colorful and unexpected patterns. For exam-ple, some articles present contemporary ways of understanding our traditions; others probe new community forms, prayer prac- January-February 1992 5 Prisms tices, and models of ministering. You as reader may be inspired, surprised, or even annoyed by a particular theme or approach. For me the image of a prism suggests an application of the ministerial wisdom of St. Ignatius Loyola written at a time of church his-tory rife with excommunications and denunciations. Ignatius says: it should be presupposed that every good Christian ought to be more eager to put a good interpretation on a neighbor's statement than to condemn it. Further, if one cannot inter-pret it favorably, one should ask how the other means it. If that meaning is wrong, one should correct the person with love; and if this is not enough, one should search out every appropriate means through which, by understanding the statement in a good way, it may be saved. Sp Ex 22 (Ganss's translation) As the task of dialogue in the church takes on even greater importance, we want Review for Religious to remain a valued resource for people serious about their spiritual growth, for those involved in ministries, for members of religious congregations, and for spiritual directors and those seeking guidance. Review for Religious is privileged to play its role in that dialogue now as it has since its beginnings. Do let us know whether you find our newly designed journal "reader friendly." David L. Fleming sJ 6 Review for Relig4ous RICHARD C. SPARKS Ecclesial Burnout Old Demon, New Form cal, emotional, intellectual, social, and even spiritual energy--is reappearing among pastoral team members with alarming frequency. In those heady years immedi-ately following Vatican II, there appeared a strain of this self-induced dysfunction among zealous priests, sisters, brothers, and lay ministers who too literally tried to fol-low Paul's injunction "to be all things to all people." In their well-intentioned attempts to "be there" for the old and the young, the churched and the unchurched, parish-ioners and strangers alike, many in pastoral ministry "burned out." But it is not this "workaholic burnout''1 that I intend to discuss--though it still exists. I intend to discuss what I call ecclesial burnout. Most of us professed,, ordained, or hired in the last ten to fifteen years were schooled in a revised, more col-laborative model of ministry. This model is marked by job descriptions, staff meetings, attempts at collegial dia-logue, claiming one's personal needs and space, in short, Richard C. Sparks CSP is an editor at Paulist Press. He holds a doctorate in moral theology from Catholic University, with a specialty in biomedical ethics. He serves as an ethics consultant for several healthcare facilities and regularly offers professional and pastoral workshops on bioethics, sexuality, and moral deci-sion making. His address: Mount Paul Novitiate; Ridge Road; Oak Ridge, New Jersey 07438. church and ministry January-February 1992 7 a greater appreciation for the need of each minister to set limits and to nurture both professional and personal relationships. Ideally this leads to happier, healthier pastoral ministers, men and women who have found a better balance of work, play, prayer, exercise, rest, good nutrition habits, and so on. However, as most practitioners will admit, the team model in its all-too-human incarnations is no panacea. The lived experience of rule by com-mittee and collegial discernment does not always match the ideal. If the workshops I have given in various pastoral settings around the country are any indication, there is a new strain of ministerial burnout. It began in the early 1980s and seems to be immune to the simple correctives of prioritizing one's schedule, keeping in touch with friends, and religiously taking one's day off. The power of this ecclesial burnout to corrupt and to debil-itate formerly effective pastoral ministers (lay, clergy, and reli-gious alike) comes not from an overzealous commitment to work nor from an inflated sense of Lone Ranger ministry. Rather, I think, it is rooted in an erroneous, or at least inadequate, sense of church (that is, one's assumed ecclesiology). For the last five years I have been battling a mild-to-moderate case of it myself and am now slowly on the road to recovery. I feel it, I see it, others confide it, newcomers discern it, col-leagues transfer or leave church ministry altogether because of it--ecclesial burnout. No doubt much of it parallels other forms of psychological burnout. It certainly seems to fall within psy-chiatrist Herbert Freudenberger's classic definition: % state of fatigue or frustration brought about by devotion to a cause, way of life, or relationship that failed to produce the expected reward.''2 The symptoms are the same--long-term sullenness, a cynical edge, an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion, dissipated energy, forgetfulness, and depression (clinical or the everyday variety). People who suffer from ecclesial burnout frequently cite the cases of Charles Curran and Archbishop Hunthausen or the recent Vatican treatment of Rembert Weakland as precipitating their low mood. The suppression of certain catechisms, the removal of longstanding imprimaturs from books, the influence of CUF (Catholics United for the Faith) in Vatican curial circles, and the decidedly juridical tone of some CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) documents contribute to a certain fear that "the party's over." For some, particular diocesan, chancery, or intracommunity ev~counters contribute to a general feeling of 8 Review for Religious malaise. It might sound like a simple case of the liberals' lament, revisionist Catholics being disheartened by what some see as a mid-course conservative correction following a quarter century of Vatican II experimentation.3 But many who placed great hopes in the church after Vatican II increasingly feel that aggiornamento (renewal) may be short-lived, that this era of church renewal may be the aberration and not the norm, and that we may soon be back to church history's "business as usual"--politics, legalism, inquisitions, and all. Those who suffer workaholic burnout are depressed that they personally did not measure up, could not be all things to all people, fell short of some impossible agapeic ideal. By contrast, among those who suffer ecclesial burnout, there is less a question of antipathy about personal imperfections and more of a sense of dis-illusionment with the church and its abil-ity to really be "the kingdom come." I hear story after story of frustration, that no-win Ecclesial burnout does not come from an overzealous commitment to work rlor from an inflated sense of Lone Ranger ministry. feeling of being the person caught in the middle--between the Vatican and people in the pew, between liberals and conserva-tives, between pro-school and pro-CCD proponents, between the "townies" and the university students, between right-to-lifers and everybody else, between the diocese (or one's generalate) and the parish, between Catholics and the wider society, between a pas-tor and other team or council members. Many feel drained, impo-tent, frustrated in their attempts to mediate, to get the church's act together, whether locally or in some larger arena of the church universal. While there are many contributing factors to this experience, I am convinced that one help toward navigating the shoals suc-cessfully is for each of us to reexamine our own ecclesial presup-positions and expectations. The insights that follow may be self-evident to some, but for me they have been eye-openers, a tremendous help on the road to recovery and reinvigoration. Much literature has been written expounding the theory that the dominant image of church in the decades, even centuries, pre-ceding Vatican II was the institutional model. In his often quoted January-February 1992 9 ~÷~s ¯ Ecclesial Burnout Models of the Church, Avery Dulles noted in 1974 that, while all five models--hierarchical institution, mystical communion, sacrament of Christ, herald of God's word, and servant of secular society-- coexist in the church, during any given era one or another tends to dominate.4 In the two major Vatican II documents on the church, as well as in the Final Report of the Synod of 1985, one can find all five models vying for central place,s Despite several decades of the-ologizing and deferential homiletic bows to the notions of church as people of God, mystical body, sacrament of Christ's ongoing presence, and herald of Gospel justice, it is my contention that our pastoral efforts after Vatican II expressed, for the most part, the same model fostered earlier, namely, the institutional model. Sure, we were going to do it better: more effective liturgy in the ver-nacular; more participatory parish, diocesan, and community gov-ernance; more developmental, story-laden religious education; more process-oriented evangelization (RCIA); more experiential approaches to reconciliation; and more social-justice-oriented ecumenism. But we were still about the task of running an insti-tution, making our little corner of the vineyard the best-struc-tured parish, Newman Center, diocesan office, or apostolate around. It seems to me that many of us made a subtle shift or trans-ference. After some initial flirtations with personal workaholism and its consequent form of burnout, we no longer expected our-selves to be supermen or superwomen, serving selflessly twenty-four hours a day, in season and out. But at the same time we did not reject the drive for perfectionism altogether. Rather, we trans-ferred it to our rejuvenated image of the church, expecting our post-Vatican II ecclesial structures to be or to become what we individually could not achieve. The church would or should become wholly Spirit-filled, renewed at all levels, from the Vatican curia, through the USCC, chancery, and intracommunity offices, right down to our own parish or center in Name-Your-City, USA (or Canada). If we all worked hard enough, whether as Lone Rangers or as collaborative partners, we could "pull this Vatican II thing off," making the Roman Catholic Church what some supposed it was intended to be, the kingdom of God incarnate on earth . . . as it is in heaven. "Oops," as one of my Catholic U. professors would have screamed, "you collapsed your eschaton." In such hopeful 10 Review for Religious expectation there seems to be no room for human sinfulness and finitude, too little room for well-intentioned visionaries, reform-ers, and sincere counterreformers to make mistakes. If we really can successfully create the reign of God on earth, then who needs redemption? We could cancel Christ's second coming. There would be no need for his break-through return at the end of time. In our newfound Camelot-like enthusiasm, I fear that we plotted a course destined to dis-appoint. Ask those priests, religious, and lay ministers who opted to leave. Ask those who had physical or emotional breakdowns. Ask those who are now recovering alcoholics, fooda-holics, adult children of alcoholics, or victims of other addictions and dysfunctions. Ask those who joined a religious order or diocese, only to be disillusioned when real life in community did not match vocation brochures or one's own idealistic expectations. Some of them are still searching for the diocesan, religious-order, or denominational "promised land." For the most part we seem to have faced the fact that none of us individually is Jesus Christ (and that even he faced his own doubts, fears, and temptations). By acknowledging that worka-holic perfectionism is wrong, some of us have conquered the demon of "works righteousness," allowing God's tender mercies to bathe us and to begin to heal our brokenness and wounds. Workaholic burnout seems to be waning, at least in the Catholic community.6 However, I do not think we have made great strides in grant-ing a similar benefit of the doubt and benevolent forgiveness to the church and its leaders (including ourselves) for not measuring up, for not ushering in the fullness of the kingdom of God. Hans Kiing, echoing the pioneering ecclesiology of Yves Congar, con-tinues to point out that the church is sinful as well as graced.7 Martin Luther, credited with coining the adage simuljustus etpec-cator, would hardly be surprised to hear that twentieth-century Roman Catholics are having trouble accepting that their church not only was, but is, and always will be sinful, in need of God's abiding assistance, patience, redemption, and frequent forgive-ness. If we really can successfully create the reign of God on earth, then who needs redemption ? January-February 1992 11 Sparks ¯ Ecclesia~Burnout Thus, the warning sign of ecclesial burnout is the sadness, bordering on depression, that has deeply affected many idealistic pastoral ministers upon their discovering that the church is not, and likely never will be, synonymous with the kingdom of God. But does not church teaching say that they are supposed to be one and the same, that the church (especially in its Roman Catholic incarnation) equals the kingdom of God? No, the bish-ops and theologians gathered at Vatican II rejected such a notion in an earlier draft for Lumen Gentium, in which the church in its fullest sense (that is, God's reign or kingdom) was to be equated with the Roman Catholic Church. In its place, the church's official magisters declared that the "church, established and ordained as a society in this world, sub-sists in the Catholic Church''8 (emphasis mine). Despite arguments to the contrary by some dissident conservatives, most ecclesiolo-gists take this to mean that, while the Roman Catholic Church manifests to some degree Christ's cosmic presence, it is not the sum and substance of church nor of the kingdom of God in their fullness. The visible church, at any point in its history, is never a spotless manifestation of the "mystical body," church in the ideal. Lumen Gentium goes on to propose that all Christians, the chil-dren of Israel, Islamic believers, other monotheists, as well as all who seek life's source and meaning with sincere hearts are some-how "related to the People of God," kin in some concentric sense in this family called church.9 The church then, in its most cosmic and echatological sense, is not synonymous with any denomination, though some churches--more than others, and in some historical eras more than others--better embody the call to be communion, sacra-ment, herald, servant, and institution. For those of us tempted to shrink the meaning of church to the institutional denomination or subset in which we have been professed, hired, or ordained, it is well to keep reminding ourselves that the kingdom to come, on earth and hereafter, is bigger. You might be tempted at this point to remark, "What you're saying is fine, but it doesn't apply to me. I already learned in ecclesiology class that the church is the imperfect pilgrim people of God and that it in some sense includes a wide variety of ecu-menically related brothers and sisters." My response is yes and no. I think most of us comprehend this broader ecclesial vision academically (in our heads) and even present it fairly effectively 12 Review for Religious in inquiry or RCIA programs. But I am not so convinced that we have let that broader vision of church, that benefit of the doubt about what can and cannot be accomplished in our lifetime, sink down into our souls, our intuitions, our feelings, our expectations about life as pastoral ministers in the real church of the 1980s and 1990s. I suggest that many of us could benefit from prayerful, per-sonal, and communal reflection on and attempts to incarnate a broader vision. The "kingdom of God" is not an institution, but a designation for any and all people of goodwill who are about God's business. Whether one views this in the language of Rahner's "Anonymous Christian" or in any of a number of more traditional categories (for example, mystical body, invincible ignorance), the community of believers, those who will share in the fullness of redemption, is not coterminous with card-carrying Roman Catholics or even avowed Christians more broadly considered.1° If I measure the coming of the kingdom with myopic vision, focused solely on institutional success or the extent to which my ministerial locus is perfectly fruitful and personally satisfying, I am destined to be disappointed--by my own impoverished "institu-tional" ecclesiology and by a graced but sinful church that always falls short of the ideal. In such a way, I think, many professional Catholic ministers (lay, religious, and clergy alike) are spinning their wheels, burning up psychic energy on form and parochial structures, not Gospel substance. Either we invest too much time and talent trying to create the perfect institutional program, or else we spend time bemoaning the fact that many of our best-laid parochial plans come to naught or go awry. In the process, frus-trations mount, leading to personal and ministerial dissatisfac-tion, depression, departures, and so on. Voile, ecclesial burnout, or maybe I should say burnout induced by unrealistic ecclesio-logical expectations. It seems to me that any proposal for recovery from this form of burnout entails an attitudinal shift. We can change our atti-tude in either of two ways. First, we can expand our definition of church in the light of Lumen Gentium, allowing that no denom-ination or institution can or will incarnate it fully. It takes a lot of The warning sign of ecclesial burnout is sadness, bordering on depression. January-February 1992 13 Sparks ¯ Ecclesial Burnout self-reminding to allow this ecclesiology to sink in, to become our true modus vivendi. We need to reconceive ourselves as min-isters not solely of the Vatican-based Roman Catholic denomi-nation, nor even of the Christian tradition explicitly professed, but of the elusive, ever evolving church of Pentecost, mindful that the fruit of our labor, though real, will be limited at best. Our whole identity as a church employee or minister ought not to be caught up in structural successes and programmatic gains. This broader view of church, if taken to heart, can free us to relish grace incarnate wherever we find it, being less obsessed with insti-tutional achievements and shortcomings. The second change of attitude, in some ways a semantic vari-ation on the first, involves constricting our definition of church, letting it be a referent for various institutional efforts to incarnate faithful and Christ-like living, while conceiving of our ministry more broadly, focused on the wider kingdom of God. Thus we see ourselves less as minions of the institutional church (though not denying our sacramental role and ecclesial responsibilities) and more as ministers or facilitators of the kingdom, God's reign in time and space in all its manifestations. As Patrick Brennan phrases it in his recent best-seller Re-Imagining the Parish: Is the church an end in itself?. No! In this more traditional view of church, the church as movement, as people in a sacred relational bond of faith, exists as servant and instru-ment of something larger, more important than itself--that is, the reign or kingdom of God.11 The kingdom comes in myriad ways, some explicitly religious, many only implicitly so. We can and do find God incarnate in Paschal Triduum liturgies as well as in rather routine daily Masses; in powerful sacramental moments as in exquisite sunsets or a deer crossing the road at some country retreat; in the warmth of old friends, comfortable clothes, and mellow music as well as in the discovery of new relationships and the unexplored terrain of new ideas; in the gathering of colleagues and friends for professions, ordinations, anniversaries, and even funerals; and in vacation times far away from community members and parish life. Wherever there is love, life, and hope (that is, resurrection) in the face of life's limits, including death, we who are Christian ministers should point and say, "There is God's kingdom at hand." When those life-giving moments are in church (liturgy, Scripture, religious education, a retreat weekend, social-justice ministry), 14 Review for Religious let us sing a full-throated alleluia. But when such moments are part of church in its more cosmic sense or beyond the church in a kingdom-coming sense (symphony orchestras, art, nature, Windham Hill albums, even in Leo Buscaglia tapes and some New Age con-cepts), there too we should point to God's incarnate grace and voice praise. Over a decade ago I heard Richard McBrien use the parable of the ten lepers (Lk 17:11-19) as a type for this broader concept of church vis-h-vis the kingdom of God. He noted that all ten lepers were made clean, that is, all ten were redeemed. All ten were made ready for the heavenly banquet. The tenth leper, the one who realized what had been done to and for him, returned to give thanks, to praise God, and to be a herald of this good news. That tenth leper, McBrien suggested, is the church in its institutional manifesta- The community of believers, those who will share in the fullness of redemption, is not coterminous with card-carrying Roman Catholics. tions. We avowed Christians realize God's mighty and merciful deeds. We give thanks (Eucharist) not only in our own name, but in behalf of all creation. We praise God not only for our own lot in life, but also for the blessings bestowed on all of creation and especially on the human family. We strive to live, to speak about, and to incarnate the good news of God's benevolent creation and offer of redemption in every time and place. But it is crucial to remember that the healing of the ten (that is, redemption of the whole) is not primarily dependent on our success. God's healing Spirit blows where it will. Christ's invitation, redemption, and healing touch are not limited by our personal or institutional efforts. In this motif, the kingdom of God is bigger than the church which participates in it and attempts, more and less suc-cessfully, to proclaim it. Whether one equates the kingdom of God with "the church" in its ideal form and uses the same word "church" for those graced but imperfect institutional efforts, or whether one conceives of the kingdom of God as a fuller reality and all institutional churches as more and less successful attempts to embody kingdom or Gospel values, the result seems to be the same. We approach our institutional church--with its papacy, curia, national conferences, January-February 1992 15 generalates, dioceses, parishes, centers, and committee struc-tures- with more realistic and modest expectations. Sin abounds, but grace abounds more. Successes mount up, but so do failures. We have peaks and valleys in our efforts to "do ministry," whether as rugged individuals or as team players. For those who are not intimately bound up with the institu-tional church, these reflections may seem self-evident. But for those of us so imbued with an institutional sense of church, pro-grammed by our own socioethnic heritages and an underlying, intuited, and almost infused Roman Catholic ethos, it may be lib-erating to be confronted by this challenge to broaden our hori-zons, to stretch either our image of church or our sense of ministry to be more kingdom-oriented, less ecclesially confined. As one minister phrased it, "only recently have I been able to proclaim honestly that I cannot save myself. My salvation [and the church's] is only in the gift of God's grace through Christ.''Jz Keep your chin up, your chest out, your personal and com-munal relationships nurtured, your prayer life deepened, and, for God's sake and your own, do not lose your sense of humor. Do not let worries and disappointments about church or parish or com-munity shortcomings dampen your hope. You are not perfect, we are not perfect, they are not perfect--and never will be. So lighten up. Take care of yourself physically, emotionally, intellectually, socially, and spiritually. No use getting "burned out" by unful-filled and unrealistic expectations, personally or ecclesially. "Do not collapse your eschaton." Notes I See, for example, Jerry Edelwich and Archie Brodsky, Burn-Out: Stages of Disillusionment in the Helping Professions (New York: Human Sciences Press, 1980). Recent theological studies into the meaning of genuine Christian love suggest that agape alone, wholly other-centered love, is not only a human impossibility, but most likely a mythical unreality. Not even God, despite treatises to the contrary, is wholly other-centered, sola agape. In the Trinity there seems to be some measure of philia, mutual love one for another, within the Godhead, as well as some degree of eros, personal satisfaction in eternal life and in relationship among each of the divine Persons. Add God's involvement with and seeming delight in creation and we profess a God who is love in all its dimensions--selfless, mutual, and personally fulfilling. The varied literature on ministerial burnout includes a classic text and 16 Review for Religious a new volume: John Sanford, Ministry Burnout (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1982); Robert R. Lutz and Bruce T. Taylor (eds.), Surviving in Ministry (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1990). 2 Herbert J. Freudenberger, Burnout: The High Cost of High Achievement (Garden City: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1980), p. 13. 3 Bernard Hiiring sadly labels this the curial process of "restoration." For further analysis of these trends and H~ring's insights, see Bernard H~iring, "The Role of the Catholic Moral Theologian," in Charles E. Curran (ed.), Moral Theology: Challenges for the Future (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1990), pp. 32-47; "A Letter to the Pope," Tablet (30 June 1990); "The Church I Want," Tablet (28 July 1990); "Life in the Spirit," Tablet (4 August 1990). 4Avery Dulles SJ, Models of the Church (New York: Doubleday, 1974); A Church to Believe In (New York: Crossroad, 1982). s Vatican II, Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church); Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World). Synod of Bishops, "The Final Report," Origins 15 (19 December 1985): 444-450. The ecclesiology in each of these is discussed in Avery Dulles SJ, '% Half Century of Ecclesiology," Theological Studies 50 (1989): 419-442. 6 The 1990 Lutz/Taylor anthology, Surviving in Ministry (note 1 above), was written primarily for a Protestant audience, indicating that what I have called "workaholic burnout" is a current issue for many mainline Protestant ministers. The book, however, has application for religious, clergy, and especially lay ministers in the Catholic Church, people striving to balance ministerial work with a reasonable home and social life. 7 Dulles, "A Half Century of Ecclesiology," 423-425, 433-434; see also Hans Kiing, Reforming the Church Today: Keeping Hope Alive (New York: Crossroad, 1990). ~ Vatican II, Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constinltion on the Church), no. 8. 9Ibid, nos. 14-17. 10 Some more conservative readers might think that I am flirting with heresy. After all, there is an ancient patristic maxim that "outside the church there is no salvation." Seniors and church-history buffs may remember that Boston's Father Leonard Feeney tested the Catholic Church's interpretation of this in the 1940s by asserting that outside the Roman Catholic Church no one could be saved. He suffered excommunication for this ahistorical denominational overreaching of the definition of church, receiving reconciliation only after a nuanced recantation in later life. ** Patrick J. Brennan, Re-Imagining the Parish (New York: Crossroad, 1989), p. 12. 12 W. Benjamin Pratt, "Burnout: A Spiritual Pilgrimage," in Lutz/Taylor, Surviving in Ministry, p. 108. January-February 1992 17 ERIK RIECHERS Vincent Pallotti vs. Polarization o say that we live in a polarized church is to state the painfully obvious. The church is full of some very angry people, and this anger is dividing it into many factions. All around us we find examples of the growing polarization which is sepa-rating brothers and sisters in the Christian community. In our parishes we find different groups struggling for control over the direction of the community. In the dioceses different interest groups push their agenda without concern for the legitimate con-cerns and problems of segments of the local church. On the national and international levels, we can find the same struggle among opposing factions with only an increase in the amount of power and control that is being fought over. To be brief, polar-ization based on anger is a horrible and prevalent reality in our church. We are rapidly becoming people who fight for our ideo-logical causes and, therefore, are filled with an ideological anger towards those who disagree with us. Thus, liberation theologians are angry with classical theologians, classical theologians are angry with conservatives, conservatives are angry with progressives, the youth with the older generation, the laity with the clergy, and the clergy are angry and suspicious of the laity. Finally, there are those who are angry at everybody in the church. Our polarization often comes from anger that stems from ideology and not faith or theology. Ideological anger is based on real pain, be it mental, spiritual, or emotional. But it is an anger justified on ideological grounds. This anger feeds on itself, refuses to seek healing and reconciliation. It enjoys perpetuating itself, Erik Riechers SAC wrote "Love and Apostolate" for our November/ December 1988 issue. His address is 321 90th Avenue S.E.; Calgary, Alberta; Canada T2J 0A1. 18 Review for Religious enjoys no reflective moment. Instead, the knee-jerk reaction becomes the norm of response. Gradually our perception of the issue is clouded, and we replace individuals with neat stereotypes. Finally, we justify our anger by hiding it behind our "cause" and then declaring it righteous, when in fact, by this time, it is often pure hatred based on a gut reaction. Such a polarization, how-ever, has a price tag, and an expensive one at that. The first victim of polarization in the church is our sense of humor. When we are ideologically angry, we are no longer able to laugh at ourselves or with one another. The same humor which used to ease the tensions of our disagreements now adds to them. The foibles and weaknesses that once were laughed at because of their absurdity are no longer funny, for adherents of ideology tend to make no distinction between the allegiance they demand for their cause and that which they claim for themselves. This does not make for easy self-critical observation which is the root of humor. The seriousness which was once preserved for the issue itself is now extended to the proponents, so that not just the cause is on the line, but their very persons are at stake. Honesty is the second victim of polarization based on ideo-logical anger. As our anger grows, our honesty begins to shrivel. The real issues are soon forgotten and fall by the wayside. Personal animosities enter the arena once reserved for the matter at hand, and the issue has become a chance for us to vent our spleens. There is a willingness to see every form of evil in the others, but to ignore or justify the same attributes in ourselves. The best example is the parishioner who bemoans the stubborn-ness of another person in the parish, but describes his or her own intransigence as tenacity in the cause of justice. Sullenly we refuse to acknowledge even the smallest positive sign in the others, yet deem ourselves to be the last bastion of virtue and truth. Here the truth dies an ignominious death. Therefore, it becomes pos-sible for people in the parish to complain that their fellow parish-ioners do not listen to the authority of the pastor, but then refuse to follow the same authority when they themselves disagree with it. On the national church scene, there are some who decry the heavy-handed authority of those in positions of power, yet actu-ally advocate the same methods to further their own cause. In each case, the people who are caught up in the throes of ideo-logical anger have lost the ability to see and recognize the truth. But those who cannot recognize the truth cannot recognize Christ, ~anuary-February 1992 19 Riecbers ¯ Pallotti vs. Polarization the Truth. As a consequence it becomes easy enough to resort to stubbornness and call it fidelity, to savagely attack the integrity of another and call it defending the faith, or to speak with vitriolic cruelty and then label it righteous indignation. Charity is the final victim of our polarization; especially here we pay a heavy price. This is the devastating moment in which brothers and sisters refuse each other table fellowship. Parishioners will not associate with one another, and parish coun-cils replace dialogue with diatribe. Every motive is impugned as we expect the others to be as rotten and nasty as we have made them out to be. No longer is there a willingness to grant the ben-efit of the doubt or to assume the best. Distrust becomes the rule as the grip of our anger slowly squeezes our hearts dry. Yet the bleakness of the picture I have drawn is not a neces-sity and can be overcome. The dreariness of polarization can be lightened with the brilliance of the spiritual life. The polariza-tion of the church we live in can be seen as the result of our sin-ful brokenness, but it can also be seen as a call to a new fidelity. It is our spiritual lives which are suffering most from the atmo-sphere of poisoned debate and mistrust. Recognizing that we have strayed from the path of Jesus Christ, we always have the oppor-tunity to respond anew to the call of the Lord. There are cer-tainly many ways of achieving this, but I would like to suggest the way of a very special man, St. Vincent Pallotti (1795-1850). A man of incredible spiritual stature, he is to this day an effective and powerful teacher of the spiritual life for thousands of members of the Union of the Catholic Apostolate. It is my firm conviction that he has a great deal to offer all of us in the polarized church and that he can point out to us a way of spiritual regeneration. Pallotti's first response to a polarized church is to emphasize the need of putting our focus on God. He is a staunch proponent of such a focus. Repeatedly he calls upon his listeners to channel their energy and effort into God. In one of his most famous prayers, he lists the many things in life that people pursue, but then admonishes us to seek God alone. "Not the intellect, but God. Not the will, but God. Not the heart, but God . Not food and drink, but God .Not worldly goods, but God .God in all and forever." In another passage he writes, "I want nothing but God: nothing, nothing." It is in this God-centeredness that Pallotti offers us an antidote for the self-centeredness which is at the root of all our polarization. When we focus on God and the 20 Review for Religious magnificent work of redemption wrought for our sake, we see our causes and our self-interest for what they truly are: petty and insignificant. The God-centeredness of Pallotti would root us again in the essential mission of Christ and wean us from the pre-occupation with our own agenda. The more we fill our lives with God alone, the less room is left for our own narrow and selfish ideological causes. Pallotti goes on to offer us a second response to polarization in the church by emphasizing the Pauline challenge to become all things to all people. If in the first instance Pallotti prays for a focused heart, in the sec-ond he prays for a responsive heart. As Father Francesco Amoroso, a leading Pallotti scholar, points out, the closer Pallotti draws to God, the closer he draws to his creatures and the greater is his yearning to become responsive to the infinite love to which he has drawn close. "I want to help the poor as well as I can . I want to become food and drink and clothing in order to alleviate their need. I want to be transformed into light for the blind, hearing for the deaf, and health for the sick." In these touching words of prayer, Pallotti shows us the result of a heart aimed at responding to the need of our brothers and sisters, namely, a shattering of the bondage to egotistical and ideological anger. For Pallotti it is per-fectly clear that a heart made responsive by God's infinite love destroys polarization because it is more concerned with the need of the other than with the desire to be successful or right. Pallotti was a man who cherished the communion of the church. He saw our communion as something of an essentially sacred nature because it is rooted in love and built upon that love. Pallotti describes love as the substantial constituent of the church, without which all things decline. Thus, Pallotti challenges us to heed the call to live as church. The church is a communion of brothers and sisters united by their shared life with God and one another in the power of baptism. This shared existence is nour-ished by their participation in the one bread and one cup offered on the one altar of the Lord. They share a common calling in Christ and are led by the same word which calls them to com-munion and demands of them a common sharing in the fate and destiny of one another and of Christ. In God-centeredness Pallotti offers us an antidote for self-centeredness. ~anuary-February 1992 21 Riecbers ¯ Pallotti vs. Polarization We seem to have forgotten that there is no opposition party in the church. Yet we are rapidly losing this understanding of ourselves as church, a loss Pallotti considered intolerable. Instead, we have replaced the image of church as communion with the image of church as parliament. In parliament many parties fight for power, each interested in furthering its cause and hindering the policies of the other parties. Nothing binds individuals together save the desire to be the party in power. In the search for power and the realization of their cause, they constantly belittle, demean, and devalue the efforts and ideas of those they oppose. Above all, a par-liament does not have love as its substantial constituent. Sometimes we seem to have forgotten that there is rio opposition party in the church. We all belong to the community, we are all moving in the same direction. There are no enemies to beat off, only brothers and sisters we must struggle to understand. We belong to the same family, even when we are of dif-fering mind-set. Naturally, this does not deny the possibility of disagreement and differing opinions. Yet, when we disagree or differ, it is as parts of one community that we do so. The force of our differences must be balanced by the strength of our love for one another as brothers and sisters. If getting our own way, winning the argument, or being proven correct becomes more important than preserving our bond of love as community, then we no longer heed the call of Christ. Pallotti was a man of great humility, always struggling to rec-ognize the reality of his life as a sinner who was redeemed by infinite love. This too is part of Pallotti's challenge to us today: to heed the call to live in humility and reconciliation. Humility means that we are rooted in reality, that we perceive reality as it is and not as we would have it. Upon recognizing our reality we abandon exaggerated self-assertion, give up self-righteousness, allow the truth of our sinfulness to stand before our eyes, and we rid ourselves of the illusions of our grandeur, power, and perfec-tion. Only in humility do we find the ability to serve God and neighbor because it is in humility that we see them both as they truly are. Reconciliation becomes possible because we recognize both grace and sin in ourselves and in others. We can be a peo-ple that lives mutual complementarity in the Body of Christ 22 Review for Religious because with the clarity of humility we can acknowledge the charisms in the other members of the church, even if they should not agree with us in every question. Like Pallotti, we are in good shape when despite our differences we realize that we would be impoverished without the gifts and talents of the others. Finally, Pallotti can offer us the simple lesson of humor. If we possess humility, we can laugh at our vanity and pride. The positions we once defended with such venom remain important, but our actions often look as foolish as they actually were. The sweeping generalizations made in the heat of angry debate sud-denly bring a sheepish smile to our lips and a somewhat rueful laugh from our hearts. Thomas More put it well when he prayed for a sense of humor and the grace to understand a joke so that he would know a bit of joy in this life and pass it on to others. That gift of humor is very much a part of our calling, and it is a criti-cal part of the healing needed in a polarized church. For when we are able to laugh at ourselves and one another, we are able to leave behind the anger and the pain and to invest our energy, dedication, and commitment in the only cause that really mat-ters, the kingdom of God. Pallotti's sense of humor is not often described since the hagiographers had other interests in mind when writing about him. But there are subtle hints of a gentle humor in the man, and there is no doubt in my mind that his humor helped him to overcome the many daunting obstacles he faced in his lifetime. For, if Pallotti did not have a sense of humor, we would be hard pressed to explain the gentleness, patience, and kindness which marked his entire ministry and life. Martin Luther King Jr. once spoke with eloquence of his dream of a world without social injustice and racial hatred. Pallotti too had a dream of a new reality, a dream he called many to share with him. We dream of a church which has been swept clean of polarization and ideological anger by the refreshing wind of the Holy Spirit. We dream of a church of mutual complementarity where the ordained and the laity cooperate rather than compete; where young and old are fulfilled rather than frightened by each other; where women and men complement rather than contra-dict each other; where diversity does not mean division and learn-ing can replace lambasting. We dream of a church where the pure waters of coresponsibility will extinguish the burning flames of power, domination, and polarization. .~anuary-February 1992 23 DENNIS J. BILLY The Ecumenical Kernel call for Christian unity an authentic and wide enough theological basis for diverse doctrinal and moral opinion. Such a finding can be arrived at only through a close examination of the various assumptions of that call, not the least of which concerns the very meaning of the term "oneness" itself. This, in turn, must be inte-grated with the whole of theology and in such a way that the integrity of each of the Christian traditions is maintained. The Theological Basis of Ecumenism Theologically the call to Christian unity can be traced to a number of well-known New Testament texts. Jesus' priestly prayer for solidarity among those who believe (Jn 17:21), Paul's chal-lenging description of the oneness of those baptized in Christ (Ga 3:27-28), and the eloquent call to unity in faith, baptism, and Spirit expressed by the author of Ephesians (4:4-5) are but a few of the many texts which come to mind (for example, Jn 14:20, Ac 4:32, Rin 10:12, 1 Co 12:13, Col 3:11, Heb 6:12). When taken together with Irenaeus's understanding of the church's unity of faith in both heart and soul (Adversus haereses, 1.10.2), Cyprian's notion of the unity of the church as the source of salvation (De ecdesiae unitate, 6), and Nicea's definition of the signs of the church Dennis Billy CSSR, who has often contributed to our pages, continues to reside at Accademia Mfonsiana; Via Merulana, 31; C.P. 2458; 00100 Roma, Italy. 24 Review for Religious as "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic" (italics mine), these texts support the classical theological claim of the church's indivisible nature. Such evidence, however, must not be taken at face value. Beneath it lies the question why the call for unity holds such a prominent place in the texts of Christian antiquity. Do these texts portray a historical reality or a theologized hope? Do they reveal a concrete picture of the ecclesial circumstances of their times? Or do they point instead to the discouraging and often embarrassing experience of disunity within the ranks of the early church com-munities? This latter possibility seems more than likely. To sup-port this claim, one need merely point to the first-century tensions between Jewish and Gentile Christians over the need to adhere to the letter of the Mosaic law (see Acts 15), or to the Gnostic threat within the early-second-century church of Antioch which led Ignatius to see the value of a strong monarchical episcopacy, or to the third-century controversy between Carthage and Rome over the rebaptism of the lapsed, or even to the hostile division between Catholic and Arian camps in the pre-Nicene church of the early fourth century. It must also be remembered that so-called hereti-cal ideas often develop within existing ecclesial structures and are labeled as such only when circumstances push the church's teach-ing authority to articulate for its members a more precise theo-logical doctrine. In this respect, heterodoxy occasions the historical context within which orthodoxy struggles continually to refine itself. This relation of codependence in the history of Christian thought needs much further study and clarification. It comes as no small surprise, then, that one of the greatest feats of the Second Vatican Council was its dogged attempt to invert the historical dynamics of ecumenical relations from neg-ative contrariety (that is, heterodox/orthodox codependence) to cooperative dialogue. While acknowledging that the one church of Christ subsists visibly in the Catholic Church (Lume~ Gentium, 8), the council fathers recognized varying degrees of incorpora-tion into Christ's Body and, for the first time ever, the existence of other churches or ecclesiastical communities (Lumen Gemium, 14-16). They also called for the restraint of prejudicial attitudes, dialogue between competent experts, more cooperation in work-ing for the good of humanity, prayer undertaken in common, and the ongoing task of renewal and reform (Unitatis Redintegratio, 4). The intention of these challenging doctrinal innovations was January-February 1992 25 Billy ¯ Ecumenical Kernel to foster within ecumenical relations: (1) a conciliatory attitude towards the divisions of the past, (2) a realistic attitude towards the possibilities of the present, and (3) a hopeful attitude for the future. The immediate result has been more than two decades of intense dialogue between the Catholic Church and virtually every major Christian denomination and non-Christian religion. The Meaning of Christian Unity From these discussions a number of questions about the nature of Christian unity have arisen. Is the sought-after unity something which exists in the transcendent, other-worldly dimen-sion of Christ's Mystical Body? Is it to have visible expressions in the world in which we live? Must these expressions be of a structural or institutional nature? Are these expressions neces-sary to the nature of the church? Is an absolute uniformity of doctrine and morals essential to the rule of faith? Is it something that people can and should experience in the concrete expres-sions of their daily lives? Is greater cooperation in social-justice issues enough? Is it sufficient for the Christian churches simply to agree to disagree? If so, then in what does the distinctive Christian witness to the world consist? Since the answers to these and sim-ilar questions vary as much as the theological starting points of the numerous denominations involved, it is no small wonder that, on almost every front, ecumenical dialogue is slowly moving towards (and, in some cases, has already arrived at) a discouraging and uneasy state of theological deadlock. What is the worth of present attempts to break through this apparent confessional impasse? Is the standstill itself a sign that the ecumenical process has been moving in the wrong direction? The latter seems worthy of exploration. Rather than being thought of as mutually exclusive, perhaps the relational models of negative contrariety and cooperative dialogue can be juxtaposed--held in tension, if you will--in such a way as to enable the churches to understand the meaning of Christian unity in more dynamic and creative terms. Perhaps the Catholic Church needs to examine its tradition of dependence on the classical Protestant theologies (that is, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, Calvinism) as a means of refin-ing its insights into the richness of its own theological tradition. The various Protestant denominations, in turn, should do the same with Catholic theology and perhaps even with each other. 26 Review for Religious The point being made here is that a theological concept can be fully appreciated and understood only in relationship to those ideas it was originally meant to negate. The history of Catholic dogma, in other words, should be written in the context of its own "antihistory," that is, in relation to those who, ultimately, could not accept the consequences of its teaching. But how is this to be done? How is a balance between ecu-menical relations based on negative contrariety and cooperative dialogue to be maintained? Are they not mutually exclusive? Do they not stand in open contradiction to one another? How could they ever be reconciled? Plato's description of justice as well-tem-pered harmony of contrary forces (Republic, IV, 443) proves an invaluable guide in this respect. Unlike Aristotle's rather static rendering of virtue as the mean between the extremes of excess and deficiency (Ethics, 2.6), Plato's understanding allows for a dynamic yet creative interplay of wild and unwieldy forces. True, mistakes will be made from time to time: one horse may over-power the resistance of the charioteer, resulting in his loss of bal-ance and eventual fall. But with the perfection of the skill comes a mastery of these contrary forces; movement is eventually achieved with ease and grace. The point here is that, rather than struggling to reach a theological middle ground acceptable to all concerned, those working for Christian unity should be more involved in trying to help people acquire the skill of dialoguing in the midst of intense confessional conflict. In doing so, future ecu-menical efforts will be less threatened by those in the churches who, somewhere along the way, have let themselves be swayed by one or the other extreme. The Ecumenical Kernel From what has been said thus far, the fundamental principle of ecumenical theology (the ecumenical kernel) may be described as an acquired interior disposition of individual Christians and believing church communities who, seeking to understand the historical and theological significance of their oven religious tra-ditions, maintain an ongoing, balanced relationship of negative contrariety and cooperative dialogue with traditions (both Christian and non-Christian; secular and nonsecular) other than their own. The goal of these relationships is to increase, on both personal and communal levels, a deeper appreci.ation of the mutual January-February 1992 27 Billy ¯ Ecumenical Ke~ ,~,,,~ dependence these traditions share in the historical dimensions of space and time. They are to determine as far as possible the extent to which their stated differences prevent them from remaining true to the most basic tenets of their respective faith traditions. Given the above formulation of the ecumenical kernel, a num-ber of observations arise: 1. As "an acquired interior disposition," the principle resides within individual members of the believing faith community. This habitual attitude of mind looks upon other faith traditions not as a threat, but as a challenge to question and, hopefully, to grow in the knowledge and love of one's own tradition. Acquired by human cooperation with the intricate working of God's grace, it repre-sents a level of maturity which cannot be presupposed for all members of a particular tradition. The principle must be thought of as existing in varying degrees among the members of the faith community. Numerous internal tensions are likely and are to be expected. 2. The principle contains an important social dimension. The above-mentioned interior disposition of mind is not confined to private piety, but is oriented, by its very nature, towards being shared with others and towards growth within groups--often across denominational boundaries--for the purpose of achieving its stated relational goals. A person's own interior disposition of mind is strengthened by the growth of this attitude within his or her community. The more this disposition grows in its social ori-entation, the more it will affect the doctrinal outcome of ecu-menical relations among the churches. 3. The principle asserts that the Christian search for self-understanding must be carried out in the context of the relation-ship a particular faith tradition has to those traditions outside of its official confines and which the thrust of its doctrine was orig-inally intended to negate. This "knowledge by negation" forces the believer to delve ever more deeply to the roots of his or her own theological tradition and to try to determine the precise histori-cal basis of church doctrinal statements. 4. From a doctrinal perspective, precedents for the theolog-ical balancing Of opposing extremes are found in both the classi-cal trinitarian doctrine established in the fourth- and fifth-century councils (that is, three Persons in one God) and in the way the divinity and humanity of Christ were balanced in the definition of Chalcedon (451). In each instance the orthodox position emerges 28 Review for Religious only in contrast to certain teachings encountered within the ranks of the church which the authorities ultimately sought to negate (that is, Arianism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism). In such a way the principle challenges the church to adapt its classical theolog-ical approach of balancing opposing extremes to the pressing ecu-menical concerns of the present. 5. The balancing of the relationships of negative contrariety and cooperative dialogue also points to the capacity of an individual or group to maintain a steadfast internal equilibrium between two very different ways of dealing with the lack of religious unity in their lives (that is, polemics and irenics). Rather than seeking to compromise or to water down one doctrine with the other, the aim here is to develop within believers suffi-cient latitude of mind not only to chal-lenge and confront, but also to see the intrinsic worth of faith traditions other than their own. By helping believers to recognize the extent to which their own tradition is dependent upon and has, in fact, been enriched by various opposing ones, these relationships should evoke a unity of respect that will go a long way in the pursuit of further ecumenical exchanges. 6. Since various religious and secular traditions are likely to be involved, the extent and scope of these relationships will vary from place to place, even within local churches of the same tra-dition. Stronger and more fruitful relationships of negative con-trariety will exist between those traditions sharing a long history of doctrinal controversy. Relationships of cooperative dialogue are constrained only by the limits of constructive theological reflection and exchange. Since each tradition will obviously look within itself for its measure of orthodoxy, progress in ecumenical relations is to be measured not so much in terms of a movement towards doctrinal uniformity as in the mutual commitment of each tradition to keeping the balanced relationship of negative contrariety and cooperative dialogue alive. 7. The goal of appreciating the mutual dependence of con-flicting religious traditions challenges the members of each com- Other faith traditions are not a threat, but a challenge to question and, hopefully, to grow in the knowledge and love of one's own tradition. January-February 1992 29 B~I~ ¯ Ecumenical Kernel munity to take the risk of letting go, if ever so briefly, of some of the most precious presuppositions of their faith. They do this, on the one hand, in order to look at their own tradition from outside its own self-limiting confines and, on the other hand, to experience the conflicting tradition from within its own framework of hermeneutical preconceptions. The result should be an inter-pretative turn back to their own tradition with eyes opened anew to both the strengths and weaknesses of their most basic doctri-nal positions. 8. From this deeper appreciation of mutual dependence, there arises a concern over the extent to which the differences now articulated between each opposing tradition prevent them from remaining faithful to even more basic tenets of their faith which each tradition may very well share with the other. The stated goal is and must always remain a person's faithfulness to his or her own theological tradition. Disagreement between mutually depen-dent religious traditions is to be expected and cannot be over-come in all instances. VC-hat is more important is (1) that these mutually dependent religious traditions support each other in the beliefs and values which they share and (2) that they remain com-mitted to maintaining an open relationship of contrariety, one which will insure that each will continue to refine its own positions and grow in a deeper understanding of their final consequences. These observations do not exhaust the richness of the fun-damental principle of ecumenical theology as set forth in this essay. They seek merely to draw out some of the implications of the principle and to provide a context within which the current efforts of ecumenism may be renewed. Religious have an impor-tant role to play in such a renewal. Religious and Ecumenism Characterized by a communal lifestyle dedicated to the evan-gelical counsels, the religious life provides an environment that can foster the interior disposition of the heart and mind needed to maintain a balanced relationship of negative contrariety and cooperative dialogue. In their vow of poverty, religious seek to empty themselves not merely of an inordinate attachment to material goods, but even of those immaterial attachments of the mind and heart that may get in the way of their service of the Lord. In an ecumenical context, 30 Review for Religious this would mean a willingness to hold one's own theological opin-ions "in check" so as to cooperate with other faith traditions with a view towards experiencing them for their own intrinsic worth. Such an interior disposition should culminate in a deeper aware-ness of the various strengths and weaknesses of one's own theo-logical perspective. In their vow of obedience, religious choose to accept the will of their superiors as a con-crete sign of God's design for them in their lives. In an ecu-menical context, this would translate into a strong identifi-cation of one's own desire for church unity with the approved ecumenical directives of the Catholic Church. Religious would thus stand as staunch defenders of their church's theological tradition who are able and willing not only to confront other reli-gious traditions with challeng-ing questions and observations rooted in a sound knowledge of their own faith, but also to The risk of letting go of some of the most precious presuppositions of their faith to look at their own tradition from outside its self-limiting confines should open one's eyes anew to both the strengths and weaknesses of their most basic doctrinal positions. refine their own theological positions in the light of challenges and observations received from without. In their vow of chastity, religious forgo the goods of marriage in order to give witness to the existence of a life beyond the con-fines of the present earthly reality. In an ecumenical context, this translates into a constant reminder to the various proponents of church unity that the ultimate source of that unity cannot be human efforts alone, but is the trinitarian harmony of "unity in plurality" within the life of the Godhead itself. Religious thus urge their fellow Christians to be aware of the eschatological dimensions of their struggle for church unity. God's kingdom, in other words, is established on earth only to the extent that the oneness and peace found in the divinity's inner life manifests itself (1) within the communal assemblies of the faithful and (2) in the human society where these faithful assemblies gather. January-February 1992 31 Billy ¯ Ecumenical Kernel Even more important than the above considerations is the fact that the religious life asks its members to strive constantly towards achieving in many areas of their lives a delicate balance of opposing extremes, for example, action/contemplation; personal needs/community life; the ideals of the evangelical counsels/the experience of human weakness and the tendency to sin. Such a life of balanced extremes should make the balance of negative contrariety and cooperative dialogue spoken of in this essay that much easier to incorporate within one's own spirituality and approach to life. This is not to say that a similar balance cannot be developed in other states of life within the church (for exam-ple, single, married, priestly lives), but only that the religious life is especially suited to it. To be sure, the eschatological orientation of the vows themselves moves the religious to maintain a contin-ually balanced perspective between life in the present and in the beyond. Realized eschatology refers not to a collapse of the latter into the former, but to the balanced and simultaneous movement of each, bringing the Christian to his or her ultimate end in God. Conclusion This essay deals with the present deadlock in ecumenical progress by reexamining some of the basic premises of the dis-cussion and by suggesting a redirection of many current efforts for Christian unity. As put forth in these pages, the fundamental prin-ciple of ecumenical theology (the ecumenical kernel) calls for the balancing of the opposing extremes of negative contrariety and cooperative dialogue. While the former refers to the relationship of heterodox/orthodox codependence prevalent in the early church and in the Catholic Church's relation with dissident Christian traditions down through the centuries, the latter represents the more conciliatory, irenic approach employed since the time of the Second Vatican Council. The essay argues that the movement towards Christian unity lies not so much in a calculated agenda for doctrinal uniformity as in the commitment among the churches to maintain the balanced relationship of negative contrariety and cooperative dialogue. The bonds resulting from such a relation-ship of opposing extremes give rise to a healthy respect for tra-ditions other than one's own and to a deeper consciousness of the mutual dependence which so many traditions share but so sel-dom advert to. 32 Review for Religious Religious can play an important role in maintaining this bal-ance of opposing extremes. Their commitment to the vows pro-vides them with a deep spiritual basis from which they can develop the necessary internal disposition of mind and heart required for the principle to take effect. Since their way of life already asks them to sustain a similar balance of opposing extremes in many areas of their lives, they give witness, on the one hand, to those who believe it cannot be done and set an example, on the other hand, for those seeking to embody the principle in their own lives. The faithful dedication of religious to their calling not only serves as a leaven for themselves and others (both within and without the Catholic tradition), but also can make those who are deaf to the call for church unity sit up and take notice. Religious should be in the forefront of the church's attempt to maintain with other religious traditions a balanced relationship of nega-tive contrariety and cooperative dialogue. In sum, then, the fundamental principle of ecumenical theol-ogy (the ecumenical kernel) states that church unity involves a pro-cess of committed encounter between religious traditions whose very existence implies a relationship of concrete mutual depen-dence. The goal of ecumenical theology is to highlight this rela-tionship and thus provide, for all concerned, a deeper understanding of the issues which unite and separate them. Since such under-standing will take place only in the context of the above-mentioned balance of opposing extremes, it would seem that the churches have much to do before the long-yearned-for unity "in faith and morals" becomes a reality for future Christian generations. January-February 1992 33 JAMES M. KEEGAN Elements and Dynamics of a Spiritual-Direction Practicum direction and discernment the West Coast to talk about their common concerns in training spiritual directors, has discovered itself large enough to form a separate East Coast "symposium." In the years of religious discovery after Vatican II, a num-ber of institutions in North America established them-selves as centers for the training or development of spiritual directors. This sudden evolution, or fission, into dozens of programs is startling. It seems the training of spiritual directors, almost without being noticed, is becom-ing a significant commitment of church-related institu-tions. While the methods and goals of these ventures are as diverse as the people who manage them, there is a signifi-cant difference between practicum programs and those which do not involve such an element. Even among practicums the variety of ways and means can be dizzy-ing. To stimulate and encourage those engaged in the adventure of developing spiritual directors--or thinking James M. Keegan sJ has been involved in the training of spir-itual directors for a dozen years, first in New England and now in Kentucky. His present work is in the Spirituality Office of the Archdiocese of Louisville: Flaget Center; 1935 Lewiston Place; Louisville, Kentucky 40216. 34 Review for Religious about it--this article will describe some of the facets of a suc-cessful practicum and then present two important issues which seem inevitably to arise in this kind of work. The Need for Practicums At the center of its pedagogy, a practicum program includes the actual doing of spiritual direction with directees over a period of time, plus staff supervision of that work. Under this definition falls a wide variety of actual plans, courses, and organizations ranging from year-long full-time programs to part-time one-to-four- year courses, as well as those shorter arrangements designed for one to four months which may include individually directed retreats as the practicum element. The abundance of programs answers a new demand for spir-itual directors, a demand arising from a felt need as well as from the increased visibility of spiritual direction as an attractive, pos-sibly even faddish, discovery in the current atmosphere of the churches. Increasingly, professional ministers are recognizing their spiritual hunger and lack of regular nourishment in the central relationship of their lives and opting to do something about it beyond an annual retreat. Furthermore, as lay men and women are encouraged and educated to claim their particular gifts of min-istry, many are realizing the concomitant need for stronger spir-itual grounding. So they seek out competent spiritual directors. The quality of training which those directors receive seems of paramount importance if they are to be accurately helpful to these men and women, as well as accountable for what they do. While a reading knowledge of spiritual direction or an understanding of some of its theoretical schemata can be important in preparing one to do the work and especially in reflecting on it later, such an approach without the practical element of working with individ-uals can be counterproductive and even dangerous. The theories of spiritual life that one reads have been developed from many an individual case over long periods of trial and error. They acknowledge, of course, the rough edges and ambiguities one meets when face-to-face with a directee, but they cannot predict how any one of us will react in that circumstance. For instance, one can understand that change and development in prayer are often signaled by inner darkness, and yet have no idea how to understand and respond to a directee's yearning pain. One may January-February 1992 35 Keegan ¯ Spiritual-Direction Practicum have theories about the termination of spiritual direction, but be completely thrown when a particular directee wants to quit. A program involving a supervised practicum should be considered a sine qua non at some point in the development of a qualified spiritual director. Those who run successful programs usually have articulated their beliefs and pedagogy in a model of spiritual direction which they attempt to impart to the participants. For some, the heart of the model is conversion; for others, religious experience or the incorporation of social awareness into one's life and prayer. The strength of the practicum, however, comes not from a model of spiritual direction, but from the experience of God at work in the directee, the director, and the supervisor--and from their suc-cesses and mistakes. If it is genuinely at the service of its partic-ipants' experience of God, a successful practicum program is a continuous test of the model upon which it based. Change and development in spiritual life may look quite different from what is expected; God's action may outfox the supervisor as well as the director and demand that the staff reflect critically upon its assumptions in the light of its experience. Elements of a Practicum A practicum is composed of a staff and the participants. "Staff" here means supervisory staff, even though other staff persons may be vital to the functioning of the program. The staff oversees the participants in at least six basic and essential elements. 1. Active engagement in the work of spiritual direction. Nothing substitutes for each participant's seeing several directees on a reg-ular basis if the core of learning is to be the recognition of God's action in another's life. Other elements of the program are more or less useful as they help participants become better at recog-nizing and facilitating another person's relationship with God. Directees most often come through the sponsoring organization, with staff members conducting a first interview to determine their readiness for spiritual direction. In other instances, participants in the program bring their own directees. In any case the staff should determine its role in the admission of directees so as to insure that these persons' real needs may be met and that the practicum's participants may best learn from their experience. Their work with a number of directees regularly over an 36 Review for Religious extended period of time provides them with learning that cannot be acquired in briefer time or with only one or two individuals. They may learn from dealing with the slow development of one person's contemplative ability, or with people at different stages of spiritual life or in different socioeconomic conditions, or with various dynamics of change in people's relationship with God. Whereas some beginning directees may already be at home in their inner lives, others will need patient help in discovering an inner landscape, noticing and then articulating interior events, and continuing to pray when things get dark. The way in which such variety challenges or affirms assumptions that the partici-pants have provides an invaluable arena for their formation as spiritual directors. 2. Regular supervision of actual cases. Confidential supervision using verbatim reports (or taped interviews) is the central learn-ing arena. Supervision begins when the participant prepares a detailed ("verbatim") report of what actually occurred in a par-ticular spiritual-direction session, and is furthered in the encounter with a staff supervisor. The focus is on exploring the participant's responses and reactions rather than on diagnosing the directee, and the goal is twofold: assuring the welfare of the directee and promoting the personal and professional integration of the par-ticipant, the fledgling director. Many programs include group supervision to provide insight that may not come from a single supervisor, and to encourage participants in the program to think in a supervisory manner. Learning through supervision to reflect on the particulars of their work with a directee, participants can become aware of their particular strengths and weaknesses as spiritual directors. Rather than simply offering tools or techniques for the work, a super-vised practicum can help directors to discover their own distinc-tive style and abilities, taking as their goal the development of the person of the spiritual director as a director. Supervision helps to develop a discriminating mind-set, a love for criticism, and the healthy skepticism about one's own work which allows God to be the creative one in the lives of directees. 3. Regular personal spiritual direction. It is clear that one of the greatest helps or hindrances to growth in a practicum program is the participant's personal experience of receiving spiritual direc-tion. We shall see in the final section of this article that partici-pants' personal lives and prayer may hit rocky ground in the January-February 1992 37 Keegan ¯ Spiritual-Direction Practicum course of this kind of program, and personal issues may cloud their ability to learn. At least during the practicum, participants should be encouraged to receive direction from directors whose practice is known by the staff to be based on principles similar to those being taught. Furthermore, without an experiential awareness of those principles active in their own life, participants may well find the focus of a particular program either intellectu-ally confusing or, worse, negligible. 4. Study: Courses, Workshops, Reading. A tragic flaw in many practicums is the attempt to accomplish so much that the essen-tials are lost; more material is covered at the expense of contem-plative depth and reflection on the work. No staff wants to certify ignorant or uninformed directors, but the body of knowledge with which a good spiritual director should be familiar is growing so rapidly that it could ease an experiential pedagogy into sec-ond place. Each staff will have to determine for itself how much time and energy should be given to at least these four areas: the-ology (Scripture study, Christology, moral theology), psychology (developmental theory, study of the unconscious, diagnostic cat-egories), spirituality (history, traditions of prayer and discern-ment), and culture (religiopolitical history, issues of social justice). Some will set certain prerequisites for entrance into their pro-grams while others will encourage concurrent workshops, courses, and reading. A rule of thumb might be that academic work in a practicum should illumine the participants' experience of doing spiritual direction and whet their appetite for further investigation rather than just provide familiarity with a broad range of material on spirituality. 5. Reflection. Development of spiritual directors demands con-templative time for participants to remember, think and pray about, and otherwise mull over with their directees. Reflection is a value that needs to be built into the program, or competing forces will eat it away. It is possible to design a course whose aca-demic elements unite around and illuminate the participants' experience doing the work of direction. While the goal of a grad-uate program might be the students' command of the history of spirituality and the works of its major authors, a practicum seeks to help its participants understand their experience in the light of the tradition. Reading assignments, for instance, will be differ-ent than in academic programs: participants may be asked to famil-iarize themselves with the cultural background of a spiritual classic 38 Review for Religious and then read only a few pages of the actual work, imagining the experience described, comparing it with what they have seen, noticing their reactions to it. Questions like the following might be pursued after a reading of the first three chapters of the Life of Teresa of Avila: What do you understand (or not) of her expe-rience of God? Have you seen anything like it in any of your directees? How is it different? What do you make of the cultural influences on Teresa? on your directee? What is God like for these people? Where does Teresa's experi-ence lead? your directee's? Some programs provide retreat week-ends for their participants, or other kinds of shared prayer. Journaling can be built into group time, along with some sharing of that journaling with the group. Finally, the staff's reflective lifestyle, or its absence, speaks most loudly of the values inherent in any program. 6. Evaluation. However it may make us cringe, a supervisory program is inescapably evaluative. Supervision, as described here, is a means of critical self-evaluation. Further, if participants are progressing toward some kind of certification, clear develop-mental criteria must be communicated and maintained. It is essen-tial that the staff have understood these criteria uniformly and agreed upon them and that it apply them equitably. Furthermore, the staff needs to talk at length with one another about their atti-tudes toward evaluation, both of participants' performance and of their own. The more clearly the staff understands the foundational phi-losophy and pedagogy of the program, the more clearly it will communicate the goals and objectives of each term or semester, and the more helpful the evaluations will be for those in the pro-gram. If, for instance, a goal of the first segment is a demon-strated ability to listen to a directee with empathy, acceptance, and genuineness, both the staff and those being evaluated would have to understand and recognize the working definitions of those terms and agree on their place in the work of spiritual direction. A positive evaluation would encourage participants by helping them to own their strengths and successes and would challenge them with specific directions for growth in the next segment of the Reflection is a value that needs to be built into the program, or competing forces will eat it away. ~anuary-Felrruary 1992 39 Keegan ¯ Spiritual-Direction Practicum work. In deciding what constitutes a negative evaluation, how-ever, and what the next steps should be, a staff may run into ques-tions and disagreements rooted in the subjective nature of much of their work, and will need to fall back on their previous inter-action and their togetherness as a team. Evaluation is also a means by which a program can measure its own success in the short term. If the learning goals for each term or semester are not achieved by participants in a demon-strable way, evaluation time 1nay signal a need to rethink parts of the program. 7. Summary. As described here, a practicum program focuses its energies and its various elements on the concrete work of spir-itual direction and on its supervision for learning purposes. Study, reflection, group process, even individuals' own prayer and spir-itual direction are variously related to what happens when the participants engage with a directee. The supervisory staff need a shared understanding and experience of the basic elements of such engagement which they want to develop in those who come to them for training. Because the heart of the practicum is the meeting of persons--the directee, the director, and the supervi-sor, all carrying their own inner wounds and scars, and the supremely free person of God--the entire endeavor stands on precarious ground. The following section will discuss two events which, unlike earthquakes, may be predictable. Some Dynamics of a Supervisory Program. Although a practicum is a clinic for ministerial development, personal as well as clinical issues will inevitably arise among the participants and call for attention. V~hen strongly felt psycho-logical and spiritual change begins to happen to individuals in a group, the forces at play can be simultaneously shrill and very subtle, and a staff ought to be prepared to listen beneath the noise lest their program be derailed. Below I will discuss two issues, a personal issue which often has profound impact on the practicum as a whole and a clinical one which arises from the nature of a practicum. First, if the program presents a refined focus or a particular understanding of the nature of prayer or spirituality, it will prob-ably confront to some degree the spiritual lives of those enrolled in it. People will be challenged to confirm their own experience 40 Review for Religious anew, to look into it more deeply than before, or to criticize and possibly jettison their old assumptions about God, prayer, and spiritual life. They may expose the inadequacy of former spiri-tual directors or may encounter their need for counseling or ther-apy; anger may arise and get directed at staff, peers, friends, or directees. Because of new material about spiritual life or new experience of it, the participants themselves begin to change--some-times radically. This is usually an important and welcome development, signaling real engagement in the pro-gram. However, such personal expe-rience can be so strong and so generally felt that, unless a staff expects and understands it, the oper-ative goal of the program can subtly shift from ministerial to personal growth. A practicum can subtly change into a personal-growth rather than a ministerial endeavor if the staff does not keep the emphasis on the work to A practicum can subtly change into a personal-growth rather than a ministerial endeavor if the staff does not keep the emphasis on the work to be done. be done, always conscious of helping the participants to bring their personal growth to bear on their work with directees. Here the staff itself may well need supervision. Elements of the program can be imperceptibly skewed away from the ministerial issues cen-tral to it. Because the person of the director is the focus of super-vision, for instance, supervisory sessions may subtly become therapeutic rather than clinical and professional. If participants are consistently asked to consult their own experience of life or prayer in reflecting on their work, they may not develop the ability to remember and look critically at other people's experience, which will inevitably offer them a wider and more surprising range. Material can be presented in a way that favors the participants' personal application of it and neglects the further step of apply-ing what they have learned to what they have seen in their directees. Since participants often experience the "personal-conversion phenomenon," it can become a group issue which may be best addressed if there is in place some group function where they are encouraged to talk with one another about what is happening to January-February 1992 41 Keegan ¯ Spiritual-Direction Practicum them personally. Further, the staff may need to be flexible enough to modify the syllabus or calendar, to adjust the presentation of material to the ability of individuals in the group to hear and absorb it. The second issue I intend to discuss, for which I borrow the term "narcissistic crisis,''l occurs in some form in most clinical programs and is complicated by the highly personal and value-laden religious material of spiritual direction. People tend to enter such programs with some infection from the cultural stereotype of the spiritual director as wise, holy, and powerful. Whether they measure themselves positively or negatively against this icon and its expectations, participants very often exhibit regressive behav-ior when a supervisor starts to look at the details of their work. Initial confidence or self-doubt may turn into their opposites when otherwise successful and competent people find themselves scrutinized as they assume their new roles. For our purposes it is important to notice that (1) participants may extraordinarily and unrealistically accept or challenge the foundational elements and philosophy of the program; (2) this is an expectable and wel-come development, rather than something to be avoided, and demands staff understanding, unity, and participation; and (3) this "narcissistic crisis" is primarily an individual issue (in that it will configure itself quite differently in each person's experience), but it can easily--and erroneously--be generalized into a broader dis-satisfaction with the program when it catches similar issues in other participants. The resistance of this phase of practicum training often sounds like rebellion or despair: "I have heard all this before." "I am never going to do this right." "There are lots of ways of doing spiritual direction that you're not giving us." "Tell me what I should have said to this directee." At heart these are often state-ments about the personal difficulties individuals are encountering as their self-esteem experiences some dismantling in supervision or in their comparing themselves with more polished perfor-mances from peers or the staff. So the staff must be keen not to mistake them either for genuine criticism or for signs of genuine understanding of the program's foundational elements. This resis-tance, when felt by a group (either the participants or the staff), can swamp and drown gentler voices of moderation and carries within itself strong "we versus them" projections that must be understood and treated as such by the staff lest they polarize the 42 Review for Religious program. Supervisors need to look beneath the manifest behavior to the personal and professional issues that are awakening. Successful negotiation of this "crisis" can be difficult for a staff, testing its team cohesiveness with urges to side with or against certain participants, and its willingness to recognize and respond flexibly to genuine criticism. Supervisors are idealized, identified with, then ignored or renounced--made into idols and then melted down! Erosion of his or her own self-esteem and professional identity can tempt a staff member to clear up a super-visee's anxiety and confusion rather than work with it as appropriate to this stage of learning, or perhaps to respond in anger, or to exaggerate or minimize the real demands of the program. The very survival of the supervisory staff may hinge upon its having done its work in the following two areas. First, a shared understanding of and desire to work with the foundational philosophy and pedagogy of the program is impera-tive and should not be taken for granted. While diversity of background and ideas can enrich a training program, all mem-bers of the staff will need to understand A participant who finds support, challenge, and growing peership in supervision will grow away from dependence on the supervisor and the institution represented in the practicum. the particular goals being sought when the going gets tough. New staffs need to put aside valuable time to discuss and haggle over what they mean by spiritual direction and training directors, and ongoing staffs could profit from a devil's advocate brought con-sciously into their midst. Second, it is of critical importance that the supervisory work of each staff member be open to the others, and in some detail. For the welfare of the program's participants and for the profes-sional development of the staff, the work they do with partici-pants needs itself to be supervised with the same focus on the presenting person as described earlier. They will need to know and trust each other's work when some of the dynamics detailed here begin to operate, or at least to have a forum in which to challenge and change one another. If the goal of a practicum is the integration of supervised January-February 1992 43 Keegan ¯ Spiritual-Direction Practicum learning into one's own personal style of doing spiritual direc-tion, then the participants' success or failure in resolving this cri-sis could be crucial to their development as spiritual directors. If supervisors maintain only a mentor's stance and never allow their own mistakes and biases to be dealt with, or if the program appears inflexible, participants may perceive little room to blend what they have learned into their particular personalities. The result can be either a defensive posture against the program and its goals or a need to maintain one's connection with it in order to feel competent. On the other hand, a participant who finds support, challenge, and growing peership in supervision will grow away from dependence on the supervisor and the institution repre-sented in the practicum. Toward the end of a successful year, for instance, a supervisee said with some force, "I am going to park this whole damn program and get out and walk!" The remark, articulating his desire to integrate his learning with his own stride, would have told quite a different story--and been far less wel-come- at the beginning of the year. At some point any trained spiritual director will have to ques-tion the basic principles of his or her training, experiment with them, and integrate what is of substance into a personal, distinc-tive style of doing spiritual direction. A practicum can impart the skills and qualities needed in a spiritual director. A better practicum can aim to help qualified directors to be themselves in the practice of direction. Conclusion Inasmuch as we are heirs of the Judeo-Christian legacy, spir-itual directors are face-to-face with an extremely delicate task: to facilitate the self-revelation of the incomprehensible God. While we know that anything we assert about this unsearchable God must be taken back immediately as inadequate, human words and gestures are what we have to work with in the place of awed silence. The God who is omnipresent is also most concrete. The unknowable God has chosen to be known and has, in our Scriptures, revealed a personality, desires, and hopes. God has a divine Name and entrusts it to Moses and Israel (Ex 3). God is tender and caring as a mother or a father (Is 43, 49; Ho 11), pas-sionately angry (Am 5), or desperately sad (Jr 14). Able spiritual directors are women and men who have explored and become 44 Review for Religious responsible for their own personalities and have, to some degree, integrated that with the ministry to which they have been called. They can dare to approach the intimate experience of another person and, above all, the Person of God, with humility and expec-tation. Before them is the task of reverencing the mystery while exploring the everyday events in which the mysterious personal-ity of God becomes incarnate, in a sense continuing by that very work the loving thrust of God into even the smallest details of earthly life. Our tradition makes clear that such discernment arises from and is verified in the community of believers. A practicum in spir-itual direction, then, can be more than a training ground. At its best it can be a microcosm of the People of God, an instance of the kind of critical believing community without which we dare not claim to know in our own lives--nor to help others know-- what God is saying here and now. Note ~ See Baird K. Brightman PhD, "Narcissistic Issues in the Training Experience of the Psychotherapist," International Journal of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy 12 (1983). Narcissism is discussed as a dynamic element in the struggle for psychic growth, involving "a positive libidinal feeling toward the self" or the maintenance of self-esteem in the face of the erosion of one's grandiose professional self and of one's pro-jection of perfection onto others, namely, the staff, the supervisor. Brightman sees a clinical program "as a developmental period of adult-hood with its own characteristic tasks and demands, and therefore the potential for evoking the conflicts, fixations, and defenses of the preced-ing life stages (as well as the potential for further growth)." January-February 1992 45 CHARLES REUTEMANN On Becoming a Discerning Person Through Spiritual Direction hese reflections are a practical commentary on a short passage from the prophet Jeremiah: "More tortuous than all else is the human heart, beyond remedy; who can understand it? I, the Lord, alone probe the mind and test the heart" (Jer 17:9). The image of "journey" as a way of describing day-to-day movement towards self-knowledge, towards intimacy with God, and towards a generous love and service of neighbor has been popular in most ages and many cultures. Among written descrip-tions are The Pilgrim's Progress, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, The Road Less Traveled, the journey into The Interior Castle, and the four-week journey of the Exercises of St. Ignatius. Even the life of Jesus is presented to us as a journey: with Mary and Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem; from Bethlehem to Egypt and then back to Nazareth; from Nazareth to other parts of Galilee and to Judea and Samaria; and finally that fatal last journey up to Jerusalem, and then out to the whole world. In particular, the Gospel of Luke-Acts is cast as a splendid journey story. In the Gospel it is like a great bus ride, with Jesus as driver, gathering up all the poor and the outcasts: smelly shepherds, tax collectors, prostitutes, fishermen, cripples, widows, the blind, the possessed-- all are gathered and brought on the journey to that symbolic holy Charles Reutemann FSC is on the staff of the Center for Spirituality and Justice, a training center in the Bronx for spiritual directors. For six-teen years he was director of Sangre de Cristo Renewal Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He resides at Manhattan College and his address is 5050 Fieldstone Road; Riverdale, New York 10471. 46 Review for Religious place Jerusalem. Then in Acts there is another bus ride, and the driver is the Holy Spirit sent by Jesus, gathering more outcasts: eunuchs, sailors, tent makers, prison guards, merchants--all on a bus ride leading to Rome, that symbol of the whole world. Life is a journey, and the most engrossing part is the interior journey of our soul. Our soul's journey--what is it like? Is it merely a random alternation of ups and downs, of going forward and falling back, and then more of the same? Or is there a pattern and a meaning to it? One major spiritual tradi-tion sees our journey as a line, a kind of one-direc-tional climbing of a hill with many slippings and risings. Another and perhaps better spiritual tra-dition sees the spiritual journey as a spiral, as something like the liturgical-year cycle in which we keep moving through the seasons, the seasons of the year, the seasons of our life, the seasons of the life of Jesus, ever moving deeper. With Jesus we move through his birth, early years, public life, conflict life, death, and resurrection. As we touch and live through the seasons of Jesus' life, never boring nor repetitious, we live through the sea-sons of our life, a kind of spiral journeying, touching the same places inside us, but never really the same, as we go deeper, ever trying to find the answers to those two great questions of all life: What does it all mean? and what shall I do with my love? No, we never remain the same on our soul journey, even though our days pass one after the other in twenty-four-hour regularity. This is our interior spiritual journey, fascinating and mysterious. Are there things that we notice as we circle slowly about, things that are happening to us, things that move us forward? and other things that seem to block our way? Of course! First of all, one of the things that all of us recognize and that spiritual guides are most attentive to is our freedom. How much inner freedom do we find in us as the years go by: freedom from our compul-sions, addictions, fixed ways of looking at things? And somehow we also recognize that we cannot will our freedom--it is some-thing that happens, like Topsy, or the Velveteen Rabbit. Another thing we may become aware of as we move along, and it is much akin to freedom, is detachment: Are we really beginning to lose our ego, to lose that self-regarding self?. I cannot forget some- Life is a journey, and the most engrossing part is the interior journey of our soul. January-February 1992 47 Reutemann ¯ Becoming a Discerning Person Our prayer shows us what road we are and what direction we are facing on that road. thing I heard many years ago from an English university profes-sor. We were doing a workshop in Dublin, and one day he casu-ally mentioned that he was teaching history to Mother Teresa's novices in a convent outside of London. "Oh," I said, "and what kind of woman is Mother Teresa?" He paused a moment and then slowly said, "She's a woman who has lost her ego." I have never forgotten that. What a marvelous achievement, and what a lifelong process! A third thing we might begin to notice as we move along on our journey is what motivates us. Are we really begin-ning to live more and more by faith, seeing things through Gospel values and truths, gradually find-ing ourselves more like St. Paul when he cries out, "I live! no, not I, but Christ is beginning to live in me"? There may be other signs that we notice about our inner selves: a certain simplicity, a movement towards integrity--but wait a minute! Are we aware of what we have been saying: ing freedom, noticing detachment, noticing living by faith? Now that is something to notice! Is it possible to become a more noticing person? And there we have the magic word, discernment! Noticing is discernment; a noticing heart is a discerning heart. Or is it a discerning head? Or is it both? Let us pause to look at the other expression in our reflection, "spiritual direction." We all need direction, especially if we find ourselves in an unknown land of many roads, like some parts of the Bronx, or downtown Boston, or Jersey City. And the same is true of our interior life, our spirit life. Most of us know exactly what St. Paul is talking about when he exclaims: "I don't know where I'm going. I don't do the good things I want to do; instead, I do the evil I don't want to do. My inner being delights in the law of God; but I am aware of a different law that is at work in me, that fights against the law that my mind approves of. It makes me a prisoner to the law of sin which is at work in me. What an unhappy person I am! Who will rescue me from this road that is taking me to death? Who will show me the way?" (Rm 7:15-24, adapted). Everyone on the spiritual journey of life needs direction, needs some guidance for the spirit. We know there are various maps to help us find this direction: spiritual books and magazines 48 Review for Religqous that we can study and learn by, especially that great map, the Holy Bible, which has directed more people in the whole world than any other--and still does. Another source of direction is our own prayer, our struggle to be quiet and to reflect, our crying out "Give me guidance today, O Lord!" Our prayer shows us what road we are on, and what direction we are facing on that road. And then there is another source, something that has been practiced in all cultures and religions, namely, the conversation between two people about the interior life and its ways. This con-versation is frequently called "spiritual direction." To a woman coming to me for such direction, I once said, as we faced each other in a relaxed setting, "And zvhy do you want spiritual direc-tion?" She was startled, but after a moment's silence she leaned forward and said, "I want to become more real." I was startled by the beauty of her response. Then I said: "And what would it mean for you to become more real?" Again she was thoughtful: "Well, I have this friend whose mother has Alzheimer's disease. Every time I see her when she's walking with her mother, she is smiling." So it is that some people seek spiritual direction, a conversa-tion with another adult about their values and their God, because they have seen something beautiful in another person and they want to be like that. They are challenged to fill up what is want-ing in themselves, to grow, to go deeper, to become more real. Other people, like myself when I first sought direction many years ago, recognize that, although they want God in their lives, they get careless and easily become distracted, even choked, by the anxieties and cares of the world. They need someone to talk with about their desire for God, someone to be accountable to--so that, in the very telling of their stow, they may be strengthened in their resolve and receive clarity about the paths to God. Others seek spiritual direction because they are troubled: there is a crisis in their lives. It may be a relationship, it may be a major decision about a vocational choice, it may be an addiction. But always this crisis is affecting the sense of God in their lives: Does God understand? Where is God? Am I on the right path? More tortuous than all else is the human heart. Where is the direction? They need the Lord to probe their mind and test their heart. For others, things are not all that clear. There is no crisis, but there seems to be something missing. The refrain "Is that all there is?" rings through their lives. They have had no other adult January-February 1992 49 Reutemann ¯ Becoming a Discerning Person with whom they can talk values. And so, finding themselves drift-ing, uncertain, lacking meaning, they seek direction. From all of this, can we now say that we have some sense of what spiritual direction looks like, at least in a Christian setting and in today's world? It is a conversation between two adults in which one is seeking some guidance on the path to God and the meaning of life. It is not idle chatter, nor even problem solving, though it is about the ordinary things of life: communication, liv-ing situation, working conditions, relationships. It takes time, honesty, and a spiritual sense. It is one of the gifts of the Spirit for forming the Christian and the Christian community. Can we say anything about the guide, the spiritual director? Like all guides, it would seem that the guide should have some training, some expertise, and that he or she should also be receiv-ing spiritual direction on the pilgrim road. We would want a knowledgeable person, someone familiar with the inner move-ments of the heart, the roadways, possessing some skills that might avoid pitfalls, especially the skill of listening to where the person wants to go--listening is so important, and it is a listening that goes beyond ideas and words and focuses on feelings and desires. Every pilgrim on the spiritual journey is best known by his or her desires and feelings, and the guide must be attentive to them. The director need not be a holy person, but he or she must be a seeker of God, one who prays regularly and who has a vision of faith. Lastly, the spiritual guide must really have the interests of the pilgrim at heart, and thus must be patient, humble, and under-standing. It is God who gives the increase, it is God who sends down the rain to water the paths. Can we say anything about what a spiritual-direction session would look like? Well, obviously, the directee would come pre-pared, that is, ask herself beforehand: Where has God been in my life since last we met? What have been some of my responses? As 1 reflect, what might I like from this session? Can I say any-thing about my prayer or about something that has struck me? The session itself can last forty-five minutes to an hour, but no longer than that and possibly shorter. When someone begins direction, it is helpful that the meetings be somewhat frequent: each week or every other week. Then, after three or four meet-ings, the space can be lengthened to three or four weeks. And, of course, to get the most benefit, the directee would take time to write down and even pray over what has been noteworthy in the 50 Review for Religious session. Let me illustrate this point. It is rare that I receive letters from my directees, but recently I did receive one that reads in part like this: "Mainly just want to tell you how much I have come to value our sessions. Thanks very much for your interest, atten-tion, and care in helping me to come to know the Lord better in my life. I believe it is also helping me to communicate that kind of experience to others whom I meet in the course of my own work and ministry, my own life. I guess what occasions this, in addition to the gratitude, is that I just wrote up for myself, as I usually do, a little summary of the points that we talked about . And I was surprised to see how wide-ranging it was, and the depth too, and the com-monalities among the points .Certain themes do begin to appear after a time . " Of course, a director or guide prepares too, by prayer, by reflection, and sometimes by written observations that help chart the inner movements on the directee's journey and the basic direction. Let me now say some more about "discernment" and then try to relate it to how spiritual direction ought to be helping us become more discerning persons. Frequently individuals and even whole groups, when faced with a major decision, will say, "You know, I (we) have to discern that"; and then they start some pro-cess to which they give the name "discernment." Is that what dis-cernment is, something we do when we have to make a big decision? Yes and no. I like to call decision making a "choosing" that gets into the will and into the feeling part of me. Of course, as I do that, I need to weigh things before I say yes to what I choose. I also like it when Karl Rahner says, "There are no big decisions; there are only bundles of little decisions." He seems to be suggesting that we are making little choices all along, choices coming from our feelings and our thinking, perhaps more from one than the other. So discernment is something we can practice in those little choices that might eventually get into a bundle for a big choice. And discernment therefore could become some kind of a habit of noticing my feelings and testing their reasonable-ness,~ that is, whether or not they are leading me to my better self and to my God or leading me away, down some primrose path to my ego self. We should try to become a discerning person in the ordinary times and in the little choices, for discernment is 'There are no big decisions; there are only bundles of little decisions.' January-February 1992 51 Reutemann ¯ Becoming a Discerning Person not the kind of thing we can start practicing when we need to make a big decision. When asked "Who is the holy person?" the Lord Buddha answered: "There are sixty minutes to the hour, and sixty seconds to each minute, and sixty fractions of a second to each second. If anyone could be fully present in each fraction of each second, that person would be a holy person." Awareness leading to rightmindedness. Noticing, testing, leading to choice. For most of us, growth in self-knowledge occurs when we take more notice of our feelings and name them. For, although we may be deeply feeling people, most of our conscious life is taken up with thought: making observations, giving our opinions, try-ing to figure out what we are to do. But does this get down to the deeper self, the desiring self, the hoping and choosing self?. Spiritual directors need to assess this so that they come to see the necessity of helping directees uncover feelings and name them. But it is equally necessary that people test with their heads the inner reasonableness of their feelings: W~here are they coming from? Are they leading to or away from God? Can we conclude then that in discernment it would be a mis-take to separate our feelings from our knowledge-insight? that it would be a mistake to consider our feelings as better criteria for discernment and decision making? and, finally, that we make a mistake when we overlook the possibility that, although operat-ing out of our heads can distort the spiritual journey, living only by feelings or feeling-insights, "spiritual hunches" if you will, can be equally distortive? ~ But perhaps we are getting too theoretical. Let me give some examples of how spiritual direction can help someone become a more discerning person. Peter is an ordained minister who is beginning spiritual direction. He says he is overburdened by the work of an inner-city parish. In several sessions he mentions his hope that the spiritual direction will give him an answer to his "burnout." The spiritual director can help Peter examine his day, note areas that might be curtailed, and perhaps even recommend that he change ministries. Another way to go is to examine with Peter his feelings about his situation: What are the feelings? anger? sadness? self-pity? feeling abandoned and alone? He might then be asked whether the different feelings (not his work nor the situation in general) are leading him to God or away from God. This question needs to be asked with careful nuances. It is here, too, that the exchange can become prayerful. Most people 52 Review for Religious never examine their feelings with God. They may mention them to God, but they never explore how God reacts or even feels about their feelings. It is almost as though God were "over there," observing things, but never really empathetic, never really involved in their feelings, especially "negative" ones like anger, sadness, and self-pity. Is it possible that, as Peter explores his feelings about his burnout, he might become more aware, more discerning about his inner movements and the direction in which they are taking him: to God? away from God? Is it possi-ble, too, that out of this awareness some clarity about practical decisions affecting his burnout might come to him? Can we see how some kind of disciplined willing-ness to look at our feelings and testing their reasonableness with God is central to dis-cernment? Can we also see that it is a chal-lenge to the spiritual director to encourage directees, especially those who operate out of their head (as most of us do), to take this route? It is indeed a real challenge, even hard work. Maria has been coming for direction for several years. She is energetic, has a sense of humor, and talks with verve and rapid-ity. She actively seeks God, even seems to wrestle with him in a verbal kind of way. One day she comes and blurts out: "Where am I in my relationship with God? I am becoming more and more clearly aware of my sinfulness--not vague sinfulness, but specific sins and definite sinfulness. I realize I can do nothing good. I wonder why he bothers with me. And yet I am at peace with this; I don't feel upset by this. And then, when I go into poor neigh-borhoods and see all the people and the poverty and suffering, I wonder if there is a God. I doubt that there can be a God. No, I just don't believe there is a God." She stops and looks at the direc-tor as though to say, "Now solve that!" Clearly, the spiritual director cannot solve anything, nor should she try. Yet there is a "way out." In listening to Maria, the director needs also to listen to herself, noting any movements that are taking place within herself as she listens to Maria. She notices a twinge in her heart when Maria says, "I wonder why he bothers with me." Acting on that, and by patient questioning, the All growth in the spiritual life is strongly rooted in desire, and it is from desire that commitment flows. January-February 1992 53 Reutemann ¯ Becoming a Discerning Person director explores: "Why do you wonder? What is that like? What are you feeling as you wonder that? And God, what might she be feeling as you realize within yourself that you can do nothing good by yourself?." Following this, there might be the opportunity to look closely at the poor, the suffering, and the abandoned and to wonder with Maria whether God bothers with them as she does with her. And then it might be possible to ask Maria: "Are you aware of God asking anything of you in all of this? Do you and God have anything in common here?" Helping a person sort out movements within, even seemingly contradictory movements like peace and sinfulness, compassion for the poor and disbelief in God, is exactly what spiritual direction and its discernment is all about. Other examples of this sorting-out process could be given; but perhaps it is time to make some summary observations about spiritual direction and becoming a discerning person. 1. Formal spiritual direction allows someone to articulate experiences. The central element in experiences, however, is feel-ings and, ultimately, the desires associated with those feelings. All growth in the spiritual life is strongly rooted in desire, and it is from desire that commitment flows. 2. When spiritual direction is focused on discerning the inner movements, then ordinarily connections can be made, themes and tendencies become apparent, and a sense of a desirable direc-tion becomes clear. When this occurs over time, a feeling of ener-gized peace develops on the journey. This becomes evident when remarks like these are made at the end of a direction session: "You're the only one I can talk with on this level--it means a lot to me." "This has been a very insightful session today--it hangs together." "My retreat experience has become more real to me after our talking about it. Things are working out." 3. When discernment is being practiced in spiritual direc-tion, there frequently occur corrections in judgments that directees make about themselves, especially negative judgments. In other words, a positive realistic outlook about the self develops. In addition, the Achilles' heel--that blocking, negative orientation which keeps recurring--generally gets discovered, and this allows for appropriate strategies to deal with it. 4. Practicing discernment with the assistance of a spiritual director encourages a disciplined willingness to check out feel-ings, name them, and test them against reality, that is, test their Review for Religious inner rationality. In this way we discover whether our feelings and what underlies them are leading us to God and our better self, or away from God into darkness and confusion. 5. Insight alone rarely changes people. Action, or commit-ment to trying to live differently, often does change people. Hence, it is not sufficient that our discerning be merely an aware-ness. Motivated desires and even specific tasks need to follow awareness, and so it can be said that discernment and decision making work together for growth in the spiritual life. 6. From all of the above, hopefully we can see that the goal of spiritual direction is to develop a discerning person who func-tions thus outside of the spiritual-direction relationship, some-one who moves with clarity in the direction of active love. Hopefully, too, those two basic questions of the life journey: What does it all mean? and what shall I do with my love? will find bet-ter, clearer answers. Note 1 See pp. 36-37 of Michael J. O'Sullivan sJ, "Trust Your Feelings, but Use Your Head: Discernment and the Psychology of Decision Making," Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, 22/4 (September 1990). I have been helped in my thinking about the interrelationship of feeling and thought in discernment by this article. The Light at the End of the Year Snow has fallen. Day is dark With the early coming on of night; December's darkness fin& its only spark Of brilliance in the Christmas light. Gray as our winter lives become, and stark With harshest turns of weather, bright Is the year's blessed ending. Mark! Now the starburst at earth's Eastward height. Nancy G. Westerfield January-February 1992 55 BRIAN O'LEARY Discernment and Decision Making Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing, and perfect will (Rm 12:2). exposing the influence that a projected course of action will have on one's relationship to God in Christ. It is not, therefore, some kind of generalized awareness of God or of his presence, but an insertion into a process--the process of finding and owning the will of God or, in other words, of Christian decision making. A dis-cernment which does not lead to a decision is incomplete, has been aborted at some point along the way. When a decision has been reached, it becomes a concrete expression, an incarnation of one's desire to respond to God's love and to serve his kingdom. Personal Freedom In spite of the laudable wishes of many Christians to move away from an
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