Suchergebnisse

Issue 26.3 of the Review for Religious, 1967. ; Decree on Religious Life by Vatican Council H 391 Vatican II and Religious Life by Edward O'Connor, C.S.C. 404 A Point of Departure by J. M. R. Tillard, O.P. 424 Interindwelling by Thomas Dubay, S.M. 441 Preparing for a General Chapter by Mother M. Romua!d, O.S.F. 461 Selectin~ Seminary Applicants by Mark E. Niemann, S.J. 470 Seminary Adjustment Patterns by Allen F. Greenwald 483 Marriage 'Program for Religious by Dr. and Mrs. J. C. Willke 489 New Morality, New Asceticism by Quentin Hakenewerth, S.M. 496 Chastity and Consecration ¯ by Robert L. Faricy, S.J. 503 Differences in Constitutions by Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. 507 Poems 517 Survey of Roman Documents 520 Views, News, Previews 523 Questions and Answers 531 Book Reviews 554 VOLUME 26 NUMBER 3 May 1967 VATICAN COUNCIL II Decree on. Religious PAUL, BISHOP THE SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD TOGETHER WITH THE FATHERS OF THE COUNCIL FOR A PERPETUAL .RECORD OF THE MATTER 1. The pursuit of perf~c~ charity* by means of the evangelical dounsels has been 'previbusly shown by the Council in the constitution which begins with ther words Lumen gentium to derive its origin from the teaching an'd examples of the divine Teacher and to serve as a striking sign of the kingdom of heaven. Now, however, the Council intends to consider the life and discipline of the institutes whosd members profess chastity, poverty, and obedience and to provide for their needs as the con-ditions of our age suggest. From the very beginnings of the Church there existed men and women who strove through the practice of the evangelical counsels to follow Christ with a greater free-dom and to imitate Him in a closer fashion, each in his own way leading a life dedicated to God. Under the in-spiration of the Holy Spirit .ifi'any of these persons lived a solitary life or founded religious families which the Church gladly accepted and approved with her author-ity. Accordingly, through the divine plan there has grown up a remarkable '~variety of religious groups, a ¢ariety which is of great help to the Church not only in making her equipped for every kind of good work (see 2 Tim 3:17) and ready for, the work of the ministry for the building up of the Body of Christ (see Eph 4:12) but also in making her appear adorned with the various gifts of her children, like a bride adorned for her hus- ¯ This is a translation of the official Latin text, entitled Per]ectae caritatis, as given in ~qcta ,qpos'tolicae Sedis, v. '58 (1966), pp. 702-12. Translation Copyright (g) 1967 Review for Religions Religious Li]e ' ~ VOLUME 26, 1967 4" 4. Vatican Council I1 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS band (see Ap 21:2), so that through her there may be revealed the multiform wisdom of God (see Eph 3:10). In all this great variety of gifts, however, all who are called by God to the practice of the evangelical counsels and who conscientiously profess them dedicate them-selves to the Lord in a special way since they follow Christ who, a virgin and a poor man (see Mt 8:20; Lk 9:58), redeemed and sanctified men by His obedience even to the death of the cross (Phil 2:8). Being thus im-pelled by the charity which the Holy Spirit pours into their hearts, they live more and more for Christ and for His Body which is the Church (see Col 1:24). Accord-ingly, the more fervently they are espoused to Christ by this self-gift that includes all of life, the richer the life of the Church becomes while her apostolate grows in greater productiveness. In order, however, that the great worth of life con-secrated by the profession of the counsels and its neces-sary role may yield greater good for the Church in the circumstances of the present time, this Council enacts the following matters; these are concerned only with general principles for the adaptation and renewal of the life and discipline of religious institutes and also, their own characteristics being respected, of societies of common life without vows and of secular institutes. However, particular norms for the proper interpreta-tion and application of these principles are to be enacted after the Council by the competent authority. 2. The adaptation and renewal of religious include both a constant return to the som:ces of all Christian life and to the original inspiration of the institutes as well as an adaptation of the institutes to the changed conditions of our times. This renewal must be achieved under the impulse of the Holy Spirit and the leader-ship of the Church in accord with the following prin-ciples: ¯ a)Since the ultimate norm of religious life is the fol-lowing of Christ set forth in the gospel, this is to be considered by all institutes as the supreme rule. b) It is for the good of the Church that institutes have their own special characteristics and work. Therefore, there should be a loyal acknowledgment and preserva-tion of their founders' spirit and special aims as well as of their sound traditions--all of which constitute the patrimony of each institute. c) All institutes should share in the life of the Church; and, in accord with their own characteristic structure, they should identify themselves with its undertakings and goals in biblical, liturgical, dogmatic, pastoral, ecu-menical, missionary, and social matters and foster these as much as they can. d) Institutes should foster in their members an ade-quate knowledge of the modern condition of men and of the needs of the Church so that they may correctly eviduate in the light of faith the drcumstances of to-day's world and, burning with apostolic zeal, may be able to give men a more effective assistance. e) Since the primary goal of religious life is that its members should follow Christ and be united to God through the profession of the evangelical counsels, seri-ous consideration must be given to the fact that the best of adaptations made in accord with today's needs will be ineffectual unless they are animated by a spiritual renewal which must always be given precedence .even in the matter of external works. 3. Everywhere and especially in mission territories, th6 way of living', praying, and working should be suit-ably adapted to the modern physical and psychic con-ditions of the members and, as required by the nature of each institute," to the needs of the apostolate, to the re-quirements of culture, and to social and economic con-ditions. The manner of governing in institutes should also be examined according to the same criteria. Therefore, constitutions, directories, prayer and cere-mony books, and other similar collections should be suitably revised and, obsolete prescriptions being elimi-nated, be adapted to the documents of this Council. 4. An effective renewal arid a due adaptation cannot be achieved except through the cooperation of all the members of the institute. However, to establish the norm of adaptation and re-newal, to enact legislation in the matter, and to provide for adequate and prudent experimentation belongs 0nly to the competent authority, especially to general chapters, without prejudice, where required, to the ap- 15robation of the Holy See or of local ordinaries accord-ing to th~ norm of law. But in matters involving the future condition of the entire institute superiors should in an "appropriate way consult and listen to the mem-bers. Fdr the adaptation and renewal of monasteries of nuns, suggestions and advice may also be obtained from federation sessions or from other lawfully convoked meetings. :All, however, should remember that hope for renewal is to be basdd, more on a careful observance of the rule and the constitutions than on a multiplication of laws. .5. The members of each institute should first of all recall to~ mind the fact that by the profession of the evangelical counsels they have responded to a divine call in guch a way that they live for God alone nbt onl~ ÷ + ÷ Religious Li]e ¯ VOLUME 26, 1967 39~, ÷ ÷ ÷ Vatican Council I1 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 394 by being dead to sin (see Rom 6:11) but also by re-nouncing the world. They have committed their en-tire life to His service, a fact that constitutes a kind of special consecration which has its inmost roots in the consecration of baptism and which expresses the latter consecration in a fuller way. Moreover, since this self-gift of theirs has been ac-cepted by the Church, they should realize that they are also dedicated to th~ service of the Church. This service of God should inspire and foster in them the exercise of the virtues, especially humility and obedience, courage and chastity, by which Christ's self-emptying (see Phil 2:7-8) as well as His life in the spirit (see Rom 8:1-13) is shared by them. Being faithful to their profession, then, and leaving all things for the sake of Christ (see Mk 10:28), religious should follow Him as the one thing necessary (see Lk 10:42); and they should listen to His words (see Lk 10:39) and be solicitous for the things that are His (see 1 Cor 7:32). Since, therefore, they are seeking first and foremost God alone, the members of each institute must join the contemplation by which they are united to Him in mind and heart with the apostolic love by which they strive to spread the kingdom of God by associating themselves with the work of redemption. 6. Those who 'profess the evangelical counsels should before all else seek and love God who has first loved us (see 1 Jn 4:10), and in all circumstances they should strive to foster a life hidden with Christ in God (see Col 3:3); these attitudes will begin and incite the love of neighbor which is directed to the salvation of the world and to the building up of the Church and which in addition animates and orientates the actual living of the evangelical counsels. Therefore, drawing upon the authentic sources of Christian spirituality, the members of institutes should steadfastly develop the spirit and practice of prayer. Moreover, it is of foremost importance that they have recourse every day to Sacred Scripture so that by read-ing and meditating the divine writings they may learn the "surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ" (Phil 3:8). In accord with the mind of the Church they should take part in the sacred liturgy, especially the sacred mystery of the Eucharist, with both heart ~nd lips, thereby nourishing their spiritual life from this richest of sources. Strengthened in this way at the table of the divine law and of the sacred altar, they should love the mem-bers of Christ as brothers and should love and respect their pastors in a filial spirit; ever increasingly they should live and think in union with the Church, com-pletely dedicating themselves to its mission. 7. No matter how urgent the needs of the active apostolate, institutes which are entirely devoted to con-templation in such a way that their members, in solitude and silence, in continual prayer and joyful penance, are occupied with God alone always retain a preeminent place in the Mystical Body of Christ in which "the mem-bers do not all have the same role" (Rom 12:4). The rea-son for this is that they offer an exceptional sacrifice of praise, while with regard to the People of God they make it radiant with a rich endowment of holiness, in-spire it by their example, "and increase it by their hid-den apostolic fecundity. Accordingly, they are a glory of the Church and a fountainhead of heavenly graces. Nev-ertheless, their way of life should be revised according to the foregoing principles and criteria of adaptation and renewal, though their withdrawal from the world and the exercises proper to the contemplative life should be conscientiously safeguarded. ,8. In the Church there are a great number of insti-tutes, both clerical and lay, which are dedicated to vari-ous works of the apostolate and which, in accord with the grace given them, possess different gifts: service in those who minister, doctrine in those who teach, com-pellingness in those who exhort, sincerity in those who offer help, cheerfulness in those who do acts of mercy (see Rom 12:5-8). "There are indeed varieties of graces, but the Spirit is the same" (1 Cor 12:4). In these institutes apostolic and charitable activity belongs .to the very essence of religious life since it has been entrusted to them by the Church as a sacred service and a special work of charity to be exercised in its name. Hence, the entire religious life of the mem-bers should be imbued with an apostolic spirit while all their apostolic activity should be penetrated with a religious spirit. In order, therefore, that the members may first of all respond to their vocation to follow Christ and that they may serve Christ Himself- in His members, their apostolic acti~,ity should flow from close union with Him. In this way there is fostered the full-ness of love for God and for neighbor. These institutes, therefore, should suitably adjust their observances and customs to the needs of the apos-tolate to which they are dedicated. Since, however, there are many forms of religous life dedicated to apostolic works, it is necessary that adaptation and renewal take account of this diversity and that in the various insti-tutes the life of the members be strengthened for the service of Christ by means that are suitable and appro-priate to each institute. ÷ ÷ Religious LiJe VOLUME 26, 1967 395 Vatican oud~il II REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 396 9. In both the East and We~t the venerable iristi'(~fidn of monastic life which through the long cotirse of cen-turies has earned for itself great respect in the Church and in h.uman ~ociety should be preserved with Care and should shin~ forth in all the brilliance of its genuine spirit. The principal duty of monks is to offer to the divine majesty within the confines of the monastery a service, humble but at the same time noble, whether they com-pletely devote themselves to divine worship in ~the con-templative life or whether they have legitimately under-taken some work of the apostolate or of Christian charity: Therefore, ~having safeguarded the characteristic nature of their institution, they should renew their ancient tradi-tions of doing good and adapt them to the contemporary needs of souls in such a'way that monasteries' may be vital-izing sources of edification for the Christian people." ~Similarly, those religious bodies who by rule or by their institute closely join an apostolic life to the choral Office and to monastic observances should adjusf their way of life to the needs of the apostolate appr6priate to them in suck/ a way that they faithfully preserve their form of life as one which contributes in an outstanding way to the good of the Church. '~ 10. Lay religious life, .both for men and women, con': stitutes ifi itself a complete state of' the professiqn of/,he evangelical counsels. Therefore, in a spirit of great es-teem for that life and its contribution to the pastora! work of the Church in the education of youth, in the care of the sick, and in the fulfillrhent of other serv-ices, this Council confirms these religibus in their voca-tion and urges them to adapt their life to modern needs. " This° Council declares that in religious institutes brothers, providing that their: lay character remains un-changed, there is" nothing to prevent some 'members according to the" derision of the general chapter, ~om being admitted to' sacred orders in order to meet the need for priestly ministration within the h~uses of their own institute. 11. Although they are not religious institutes, secular institutes nevertheless involve a tri~e and full profe.ssion of (he e~angelical counsels in the world, a profes.sion that has been recognized by the Church,. This pr6~.es-sion confers a consecration on ,men and wom~n, lay as 'well as clerical, living in the world. Accor .dingly, th~ members should have as their principal goal a total ded= ication of themselves to God in perfedt charit.y; and the institutes themselves shbuld preserve the.it ,special' and characteristic secular nattire so' tliat, in the world and~ as it were, from the world, they may everywhere be able to carry out in an effective way the apostolate for which they were founded. These institutes, however, should fully realize that they will not be able to execute so great a work unless their members are so thoroughly trained in divine and human matters that they are truly a leaven in the midst of the world for the strengthening and growth of the Body of Christ. Their superiors, therefore, should give serious attention to the training, especially the spiritual one, to be given to the members; and they should make provision for its later development. 19. Chastity "for the sake of the kingdom of heaven" (Mr 19:12) which religious profess should be regarded as an outstanding gift of grace. The reason for this is that it liberates :the heart of man in a unique way (see 1 Cot 7:32-5) so that it can bemore greatly inflamed with love for God and for all men; consequently, it is a special sign of heavenly realities and the most suitable means by which religious fullheartedly dedicate them-selves to the' divine service and to works of the apos-tolate. In this way they recall to the minds of all Christ's faithful that wondrous espousal by which the Church has Christ as its only spouse--an espousal that has been instituted by God and that is to be fully revealed in the age to come. Religious, therefore, in their eagerness to carry out their profession faithfully, should believe the words of the Lord; and, having put their trust in God's help, they should practice mortification and restraint of their senses lest they overestimate their own strength. More-over, they should not neglect the natural means that promote health of mind and body. In this way they will not be influenced by the false doctrines which char-acterize perfect continence as impossible or as harmful to human development, and by a kind of spiritual in-stinct they will reject everything which endangers their chastity. All, especially superiors, should furthermore remember that chastity is safeguarded with greater se-curity when true fraternal love among religious flour-ishes in the life they lead in common. Since the observance of perfect continence touches in an intimate way the deepest inclinations of human nature, candidates should not make nor be allowed to make profession of chastity except after they have been tested in a truly sufficient way and except when they pos-sess the required psychological and affective maturity. They should not only be warned of the dangers to which chastity is exposed but they should also he instructed in such a manner that they may assume celibacy dedicated to God in a way that contributes to the benefit of their entire personality. ÷ + + Religious LiJe VOLUME ~'~, 1967 397 Vatican Coundl I! REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 398 ~" 13. Voluntary poverty for the sake of the following of Christ, since it is highly regarded, especially today, as sign of that following, should be carefully practiced by religious and, if necessary, should even be expressed in new forms. Through it is acquired a sharing in the poverty of Christ who, though He was ,rich, became poor for our sake in order that by His poverty we might be-come rich (see 2 Cor 8:9; Mt 8:20). With regard to religious poverty, it is not sufficient to ¯ be subject to superiors in the use of. things, but it is nec-essary that the members be poor in fact and in spirit, having their treasures in heaven (see Mt fi:20). In the matter of their ,employment all religious should realize that they are subject to the common law of work; and while they procure in this way the things necessary for their sustenance and works, they should in addition cast off all undue solicitude and entrust themselves to the providence of the heavenly Father (see Mt fi:25). By their constitutions religious congregations can per-mit their members to renounce their patrimonial goods, both those already acquired and those to be acquired. Taldng. into account the circumstances of individual places, institutes should themselves strive ~to give a kind of collective witness of poverty; and they should gladly contribute from their own goods to the other needs of the Church and to the support of the poor whom all re-ligious should love in closest union with Christ .(see Mt 19:21; 25:34-46; Jas 2:15-6; 1 Jn 3:17). Provinces and houses of institutes should share their temporal goods with one another so that those who have more .help the others who are experiencing need. Although institutes, without prejudice to rules and constitutions, have the right of possessing everything necessary for their temporal life and for their works, yet they should avoid all appearance of luxury, of excessive wealth, and of accumulation of goods. 14. Through profession of obedience religious offer the fuII dedication of their own will as a sacrifice of themselves to God, and through this sacrifice they are united to God's saving will in a more constant and secure way, Hence, after the example of °Jesus Christ who came to,do the will of the Father (see Jn 4:34; 5:30; Heb 10:7; Ps ~39:9) and who, "taking the form of a servant" (Phil 2:7) learned obedience from what He suffered (see Heb 5:8), religious under the impulse of the Holy Spirit sub-mit themselves in a spirit of faith to superiors who act as representatives of God; and through superiors they are led to serve all their brothers in Christ as Christ Himself on account of His submission to the Father served the brethren and laid down His life as a ransom for many (see Mt 20:28; Jn 10:14-8). In this way they are more closely bound to the service of the Church and strive to attain to the measure of the mature manhood and full-ness of Christ (see Eph 4:13). In a spirit of faith, therefore, and of love for the will of God religious should give a humble obedience to su-periors according to the norms of the-rule and of the constitutions. In executing what is commanded and in fulfilling the work assigned them, they should apply the forces of their intellect and will as well as their gifts of nature and grace in the knowledge that they are contrib-uting according to God's plan to the building up of the Body of Christ. In this way religious obedience, far from diminishing the dignity of the human person, leads, it to maturity by extending the freedom of the sons of God,. For their part, superiors, as oneswho will give an ac-count of the souls entrusted to them (see Heb 13:17), should be responsive to the will of God in the fulfill-ment of their office and should exercise their authority in a spirit of service to their brothers in such a way that they express the charity with ,:which God loves them. They should ~govern their subjects as children of God and with respect for the human persons, thereby facili-tating their voluntary submission. Accordingly, they should take special care to leave them adequate freedom with regard to the sacrament of penance and direction of conscience. They should lead their subjects to the point that they cooperate by an active and responsible obedience in fulfilling their duties and in undertaking new tasks. Hence, superiors should gladly listen to their religious and should foster union among them for the good of the institute and of' the Church, without preju-dice, however, to their own authority to decide and order what is to be done. Chapters'~ and councils should conscientiously dis-charge the role assigned them in government; and both of these groups, each in its own way, should be an expres-sion of the common concern of all the religious for the good of the entire community. 15. After the example of the primitive Church in which the body of believers was one heart and one soul (see Acts 4:32), common life, being strengthened by the teaching of the gospel, by the sacred liturgy, and es-pecially by the Eucharist, should be continued in a spirit of prayer and of communion in the same spirit (see Acts 2:42). As befits members of Christ, religious in their living together as brothers should outdo each other in given honor (see Rom 19:10); and they should bear each other's burdens (see Gal 6:2). For" the love, of God has been poured into their hearts by .the Holy: Spirit (see Rom 5:5); consequently,,thegcommunity is like.a true family gathered' together in the nam~ of ,the Lord and Religious" Li]e. ~ . VOLUME 26, 1967' 399 Vatican Council I1 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 400 enriched by His presence (see Mt .18:20); Moreover, love is the fulfilling of the law (see Rom 13:10) and the per-fect bond of union (see Col 3:14), and through it we know that we have made our exodus from death to life (see 1 Jn 3:14). In addition, the unity of the brethren is a manifestation of the coming of Christ (see Jn 13:35; 17:21) and a source of great apostolic vigor. In order that the bond of brotherhood be greater among the members, those who are called lay brothers, assistants, or some other name should be closely joined to the life and activity of the community. Unless circum-stances genuinely indicate a different course of action, steps should be taken that there be only one class of sisters in institutes of women. The onlydistinction of persons to be retained is that which is required by the different works for which the members are destined either by special vocation from God or by reason of spe-cial aptitude. In accord with their nature and with the norms of their constitutions monasteries and institutes of men can admit both clerics and laymen .on an equal status with the same rights and obligations except for those which result from holy orders. 16. Papal cloister should be retained for nuns of the purely contemplative life;, but, after the monasteries themselves have expressed' their desires, it should be adapted to the circumstances of time and place, obsolete practices being abolished. 17. The habit of ,religious, as an outward mark of their consecration, should be simple and modest, poor yet fitting; moreover, it should meet the requirements of health and should be adapted to circumstances of time and place and to the needs of the ministry. The habits of both men and women which do nbt meet these norms must be changed. 18. Adaptation and renewal of institutes depend to the highest degree on the training of the members. Con-sequently, non-clerical men religious and religious women should not be assigned immediately after the no-vitiate to works of the apostolate; but their .religious, apostolic, academic, and professional training, involving also the securing of appropriate degrees, should be con-tinued in an adequate way in houses adapted to this purpose. In order that the adaptation of religious life to the needs of today may not be merely external and in order that those engaged according to their institute in the ex-ternal apostolate may not be unequal to their task, suit-able instruction on current practices and ways of think-ing and feeling in society today should be given to religious according to each one's intellectual capacity and personal ability. The training of religious should be accomplished by a balanced blending of its components so that it contributes to their personal unity, Moreover, throughout their entire life religious should consciously strive to perfect their spiritual, academic, and professional culture; opportunity, .means, and time for this should be provided by superiors as far as possible. It is also the duty of superiors.to see that the directors, spiritual fathers, and professors are.carefully chosen and thoroughly trained . ~ 19. In the matter of the founding of new institutes, need or at least great usefulness as well as the possibility of their growth, must be seriously weighed lest there come into~.existence institutes that are useless or not suffi-ciently vigorous. Where the .Church ~has been but re, cently established special consideration should be given to developing and fostering forms of religious life which take account of the'inhabitants' characteristic way of life and and. of the customs and ~onditions of the region. 20. Institutes should faithfully retain and carry on the works proper to them; and, having considered the welfare of the entire Church and of the dioceses; they should adapt them to the needs of time ~and place, using suitable and even new means and abandoning ,those works which today, fit in less well with the spirit and genuine characteristic of the institute. The missionary spirit must by all means be preserved in institutes, and it must be adapted to modern con-ditions in accord with the nature of each institute so that the preaching of the gospel to all the nations may be more effective. 21. Institutes and monasteries which in the judgment of the Holy See after consultation with the interested local ordinaries do not'provide reasonable hope of even-tually flourishing should be forbidden to receive novices in the future; and, if it can be done, they should be united to another, more vigorous institute or monastery which is not very different in purpose and spirit. 22. As opportunity permits and with the approval of the Holy See, indep~endent institutes and monasteries should promote among themselves federations (if they in some way belong to the same religious family) or unions (if~ especially when they are too small, they have almost equivalent constitutions and usages and are im-bued with the same spirit) or associations (if they are engaged in the same .or similar external works). 23. A davorable attitude should be shown to con-ferences or councils of major superiors that are estab-lished by the Holy See; these can make a significant ÷ ÷ ÷ Rel~gious VOLUME 26, 1967 40! ÷ ÷ ÷ contribution to the fuller achievement of the purpose of the individual institutes, to a more effective cooper-ative work for the good of the Church, to a more equi-table distribution of. the laborers of the gospel in a given territory, as well as to the transaction of matters of common interest to religious. Coordination and coop-eration with episcopal conferences should be established with regard to the exercise of the apostolate. Such conferences can also be established for secular institutes. 24. Priests and Christian educators should make serious efforts to see that by religious vocations that have been suitably and carefully selected there be given to the Church a new growth that clearly corresponds to its needs. The evangelical counsels and the choosing of religious life should often be treated even in ordinary preaching. By educating their children along Christian ways of life, parents should nurture and foster religious vocations in their hearts. Institutes have the right to make themselves known in order to foster vocations as well as the right to seek candidates provided this is done with due prudence and with observance of the norms set down by the Holy See and the local ordinary. For their part, members should remember that the example of their own life is the best recommendation of their institute and the most effective invitation to choose religious 'life. 25. Institutes for whom these' norms of adaptation and renewal are established should respond with eager-ness to their divine vocation and to their role in the Church of these times. This Council has a great esteem for their way of life, a virginal, poor, and obedient one of which the model is Christ the Lord Himself; and the Council puts great hope in the productiveness of their works whether these be little publicized or well known. All religious, therefore, by integrity of faith, by charity for God and neighbor, by love of the cross, and by hope in the glory to come, should spread the good news of Christ throughout the entire world so that their wit-nessing may be seen by all and that our Father who is in heaven may be glorified (see Mt 5:16). Accordingly, through the prayer and interest of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, "whose life is a source of instruction for all,''1 may they daily experience a greater growth as well as a greater salvific effectiveness. Vatican Coundl I! REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ,t02 Each and every one of the matters contained in this Decree was decided by the fathers of this Council. And St. Ambrose, De virginitate, bk. 2, c. 2, n. 15. We, by the apostolic power given to Us by Christ, to-gether with the venerable fathers, approve in the Holy Spirit, decree, enact, and order to be promulgated what has been decided in this Synod for the glory of God. Given in Rome at St. Peter's on October 28, 1965. I, PAUL, Bishop of the Catholic Church Religious Li]e, VOLUME 26, 1967 EDWARD O'CONNO.R, C.S:C. Vatican II and the Renewal of Religious, Edward O'Con-nor, C.S.C., on the faculty of Notre Dame University, may be reached at Box 514; Notre Dame, Ifidiana. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS The Vatican Council was designed to bring about an aggiornamento in the Church; not surprisingly, it also took up the renewal of religious life. But perhaps the most important things which the Council had to say about religious life are not to be found in the chapters devoted specifically to this subject but in those con-cerned with the Church as a whole. For a man is a Christian before he is a religious; and, even in his religious life, that which is most fundamental is not the set of observances that distinguish religious from others, but the same mystery of grace and sacra-mental economy that defines every Christian life. The reason is that the religious life is not peripheral to Christianity (as Leslie Dewart imagines) but an effort to live the Christian life in its fullest and most authentic expression, as Pope John declared. Neither is it created by the ambition to be better than the Church but by a humble and sincere aspiration to "live the life of the Church as deeply and unqualifiedly as possible and thereby to participate as plentifully as possible in the Church's spiritual resources. Such an attitude towards the religious life pervades the Council's teaching. It appears in the way the chapter on the religious life is inserted into the Constitution on the Church and still more in the persistent care taken to expound the religious life in ecclesiological terms. Thus, after declaring that the vows commit a person to the service of God by a special title, the Council adds at once that by baptism we are already consecrated to God. Hence it becomes necessary to explain how the religious vows relate to those of baptism: In order to derive more abundant fruit from this baptismal grace, [the religious] intends, by the profession of the evangeli- cal counsels in the Church, to free himself from those obstacles which might draw him away from the fervor of charity and the perfection of divine worship. Thus he is more intimately consecrated to divine service (LG 44; see PC 5)? The religious state is sometimes menaced by a kind of sectarianism which tends to cut it off in part from the mainstream of the Church's life and action. Religious are tempted to take for granted the common sources of spirituality in the Church, such as prayer and the sacra-ments, and to regard their community rule with its special practices of piety and asceticism as the chief form and source of their distinctive spiritual life. Likewise, the fact that religious are accustomed to the fi:equent use o{ the sacraments and daily attendance at Mass can induce a kind of familiarity and routine that cause them to take these things for granted and so to profit little by them. The Vatican Council has drawn up a magnificent statement of the meaning and value of the great sources of Christian spirituality: the liturgy culminating in the sacraments and above all the Eucharist; Scripture seen not just as a relic to be venerated but as the living God's living word to His people; and finally the Church it-self, that all-embracing mystery in which the Word and the sacraments are contained. Besides its theoretical statements about these sacred mysteries, the Council has set in motion a number o{ reforms, especially in regard to the Eucharistic liturgy, designed to make their mean-ing and grace more accessible. The acts of the Council regarding the liturgy have also been supplemented by the encyclical letter of Pope Paul, Mysterium fidei (Aug-ust, 1965), giving important practical directives for Eu-charistic piety during these times of theoretical con-fusion. Religious above all ought to profit by the new passageways opened into these spiritual riches. Probably the first point which those concerned with renewal of the religious life ought to examine is whether the Scrip-ture, the Eucharist, and the liturgy as a whole have be-come for them the source of living contact with God en-visaged by the Council. The lethargy regarding these spiritual riches with which the whole Church has been afflicted has not left religious unaffected, and they would be rejecting the peculiar grace of the Council if they were now to abide complacently in a pharisaic security that the instructions addressed to "the rest of men" had no rele-x In this paper I will use two abbreviations for the two Council documents that will be most often cited: LG = Lumen gentium, the Constitution on the Church; PC = PerIectae caritatis, on the adapta-tion and renewal of the religious life. Translations will be taken from W. Abbott, The Documents of Fatican H (New York: 1966), but with occasional modifications. ÷ ÷ ÷ Religious Li/e VOLUME 26; 1967 405 4. 4. Edward O'Connor, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS vance for them. If the. religious life is to experience a i:enewal, it is chiefly in the great mysteries of the Word, the sacraments, and the Church that it must tap its sources (see PC 6). A second way in which religious are in danger of cutting themselves off from the Church as a whole con-sistso in their becoming so engro_ssed in the enterprises of their own community as to lose concern for the greater interests of the Church. For. example, they can .promote recruitment to their community in a way that dis-courages vocations to others. They can pursue funds in a manner that hurts the religious sensibilities of the people, making. Catholicism obnoxious. They can strive for excellence in their schools and journals but fail in theeffort required to give them a truly Christian spirit~ Such seeking of their own true or imagined interests can lead particular communities to neglect or even injure the body of the Church In truth, however, a community within the Church can have genuine vitality only in the measure that it espouses the aims of the Church and subordinates it, self to them. History shows that most religious com-munities have come into being in response to some need of the ChurCh and that they have retained their vital-ity precisely in the measure that they continued to re-spond generously to the need that called them into existence. When they begin to protect their particular interests, their dynamism fails and they decline. In mod-ern times, most of the older communities have been losing ground in Europe and, more recently, in America. But the Little Brothers and Sisters of Jesus in France and the Maryknoll Missionaries in America have ex-perienced a spectacular growth; and both have been communities inspired by the will to give of themselves to the need of the Church, the one by way of presence and contemplation, the other by ~missionary endeavor zeal. The Council therefore summons each religious com-munity, according to its own peculiar character, "to make its own and foster in every possible way the enter-prises and objectives, of the Church in such fields as the following: Scriptural, liturgical, doctrinal pastoral, ecu-menical, missionary, social" (PC 2). The areas.named are evidently those in which the needs of the Church are particularly acute today. All religious can take to heart all of these needs and respond to them by prayer; no service to ,the Church is more proper to the religious life than this. But the prayer must be an earnest plea that pierces heaven to get help,, not a perfunctory routine that serves.as a pretext for doing nothing real. And if a community has really taken the. Church's needs to heart, it will also be generous in responding to them with its manpower and human energies when-ever such service accords with its nature and falls within its capabilities. This qualification is important; the Church does not want any community to lose sight of its proper finality or to neglect the prudent limits and moderation necessary to conserve the strength of an organization (PC 2b and 20). Several communities have already become concerned over the harm suffered by their own works because so many of their members want to abandon them for something new. Some sisters' schools report that the quality of their instruction is threatened because too many of the sisters now~ want to spend their time making home visits instead of correcting papers. But there is also a false prudence that will ven-ture nothing unless hedged bya security that leaves little. place for the trust inculcated~by the Gospels. Right de-cisions in such matters are possible only where humble fidelity to the purpose of one's own community is joined with lively zeal for the Church. Incidentally, it should be ,noted that espousing the interests of the Church can itself be a source of renewal of the religious life. The Church evolves as it undergoes new experiences and undertakes new works in each age; a community deeply attached to the Church will be thereby tarried forward with it. II The Council treats the religious life in two main texts. The Constitution on the Church, Lumen !gentium, de-votes Chapter 6 to this subject, after preparing for it, by an important statement ~on the evangelical counsels in Chapter 5, paragraph 42, On the basis there established, the decree, Perfectae ca¥itatis? gives directives for the renewal of the religious life in our time. (The essence of 'this decree is to be found in paragraphs 2 and 3.) As the two documents overlap and supplement one another, it will be advantageous to synthesize them rather than to treat them separately? Renewal of the religious life, says the decree, calls for two somewhat opposite movements: one consists in bringing traditional religious practices up to date, the ~ The title, The Appropriate Renewal o] the Religious Li[e, which is given to this document in Abbott's edition, is a poor translation of the phrase, De accommodata renovatione . The true sense of the Council's expression is surely that which the editor himself suggests in a footnote on page 466: "The adaptation and renewal." (literally, "The renewal brought about through, or involving, adapta-tion. ")., a Note should' also be taken of the paragraphs de~oted to religious in the Decree on Bishops, nn. 33-35, and in the Decree on the Mis-sions, nn. 18 and 40. ÷ ÷ ÷ 407 + 4. Edward O'Connor, C$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS other in a return to the perennial sources of religious vitality. The renewal and adaptation of religious life involves two simultaneous processes: (1) a continuous return to the source of all Christian life and to the original inspiration behind a given institute and (2) an adjustment of the institute to the changed conditions of the times (PC 2). It is the latter process which has monopolized the atten-tion given to this decree, but it is clear that in the mind of the Council Fathers adjusting to the times is not so nrgent a matter as renewing contact with the sources. Since the religious life is intended above all else to lead those who embrace it to an imitation of Christ and to union with God through the profession of the evangelical counsels, the fact must be honestly faced that even the most desirable changes .made on behalf of contemp.o.ra~ needs will fail of their pur-pose unless a renewal of spent g~ves life to them. Indeed such an interior renewal must always be accorded the leading role even in the promotion of exterior works (PC 2e). Ever since the religious life began, periodic renewals have been necessary in order to recall flagging spirits back to the high ideal that originally inspired them; and the renewal to which the Council summons us is basi-cally of this same sort. However, the adjustments made necessary by the conditions peculiar to our age, although of lesser importance, are really necessary. It will be con-venient to consider them first. The ways of life in religious communities have re-mained pretty much the same down through the ages, little affected by the fashions and manners of the chang-ing world. This is only natural in a life that involves leaving the secular world behind and focusing attention on the eternal. A community that kept up to date in every way would be suspect of having forgotten its essen-tial purpose. Furthermore, each religious community is a school of spirituality created through the inspiration of a founder who is almost invariably a saint. The wis-dom of its rule has been confirmed and enriched by the experience of many members and guaranteed by the approval of the Church. One goes to it in order to be formed by it to a life and mentality that do not come naturally. Hence, it is entirely reasonable for religious to hold as sacred those rules, customs, and practices that have become a tradition in their community and, still more, those which also belong to the common tra-ditions of all religious communities. However, each community is in some measure the child of the age which engendered it. Among its ob-servances there are liable to be elements which are not integral to its proper spirituality but merely the deposits of a contingent culture. Some old monasteries of Europe and the Near East still regard bathing as a sensual in-dulgence. The discalced orders reflect an age in which shoes were considered a superfluity. The Capuchins long regarded shaving as a mark of vanity. Maintenance of such idiosyncrasies is in no way bound up with the pursuit of holiness and sometimes becomes a hindrance to the apostolate. It engenders an atmos-phere of weirdness that may make the religious.life seem irrelevant and unreal to modern man. Even truly mean-ingful elements of religious asceticism may, because of changed circumstances, become a burden so grievous as to'absorb energies that are needed elsewhere. Hence the needs, of adaptations affecting "the m~nner of living, pra~iing and working" (PC 3). Perfectae caritatis names three categories of reasons which may make adaptation; necessary: (I) the physical and psychological conditions.of today's religious; (2) the needs of the apostolate; and (3) the requirements of a given culture, including the social and economic con-. ditions it.imposes. The decree does not give any examples, but it is easy to suggest a few. Qne of the physical conditions affecting many. religious today is the fact that their houses are in the midst of cities or otherwise affected by the bustle of modern civilization, making recollection more difficult than it used to be in secluded monasteries. Psychological conditions include the nervousness and tension, also the much-discussed ,alienation, 6f mddern man, and the in-dependence and skepticism of the youth from among whom new recruits for the religious life must be drawn. The needs of the apostolate often make it difficult to practice the externals of the religious life in the form anticipated by the older rules. Thus, the need to be in contact with students in a college, or with classes of society that have been alienated from the Church, or with colleagues in professional societies, interferes with the observance of common exercises of piety and also with the more obvious .forms of separation from the world which have traditionally characterized the reli-gious life. There is also the need to possess books or scientific equipment, or to employ the most modern means and techniques of communication, or to travel for the sake of education or contacts. The reference to the "requirements of a given culture" reminds us that the religious life in the Church has received its forms predominantly from European Ca-tholicism. When it is transplanted to America or Africa or the Far East, it rightly divests itself of peculiarly European (or Americanl) forms in order to penetrate more purely and effectively into die new culture. Other cultural factors to be considered are the: high level of ÷ + + VOLUME 26, .).967 409 ÷ ÷ ÷ l~dward O'Connor, C.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS education of most people today (at least in Europe and America) compared to those of past centuries and. the resultant fact that few young people, in America at. least, are willing to embrace a life of manual or domestic labor. In trying to make the categories of Perfectae caritatis more specific, one should not overlook the priceless illumination which the constitution Gaudiurn et spes (The Church in the Modern World) sheds, on the char-acteristic traits of our times. Some of the features noted there which are particularly relevant to the religious life are: (1) the progressive socialization of human activities due to the growing interdependence of men, (2) the in-fluence of scientific studies and technological achieve-ments (especially in the field of communications) on the popular mentality, and (3) the increase of respon-sible participation, both in theory and in fact, by the members of a community in its common activities. The same constitution also points out some of the leading ideas of modern thought which the Church has to assess according to its own light. The dominant tone of the Council's assessments is one of generous approval (to such a degree that some Protestant commentators objected that it was neglecting its role of critic--an ob-jection that has not often been lodged against the mod-ern Churchl). Among the ideas which the Council sin-gles out, that of the dignity of man is central (nn. 12 ft.). Associated with it are the value of liberty (n. 17) and of interpersonal relationships (n. 23) and the inviolability of conscience (nn. 16 ff.). The latter includes the right to religious freedom expounded in the declaration sig-nificantly entitled Dignitatis humanae. These conditions and inspirations of modern culture affect the mentality of those who become religious as well as that of the world to which many of them are sent as apostles or to which, in any case, they must relate themselves. Religious communities are urged to foster among their members a "suitable awareness" of these conditions (PC 2 and 18). The Council clearly rejects the attitude which has at times had some currency that it is wrong for religious to have any thought whatsoever about the world they have left behind. Those who are sent to evangelize the world must know it. On the other hand, however, the Council does not recommend the indiscriminate seek-ing of knowledge and experience but only that which is "suitable." For not all knowledge of the world is useful for the apostolate. It would even be detrimental if the knowledge of the world were secured at the expense of that knowledge of God which it is the apostle's mission to bring to the world. There is a true sense in which the religious ought not to be concerned with the world he has left behind, and the Council says nothing to dis-credit this principle but rather confirms it. Contem-platives, devoted to a life of prayer and penance in an atmosphere of solitude and silence, are expressly en-joined to maintain "sacredly" their withdrawal from the world (PC 7). The same principle would apply in vary-ing degrees to all other religious also, although no specifications are given. In adapting to the conditions of modern times, com-munities need to reexamine the way they are governed and the official documents that fix the structure of their life: constitutions, directories, books of customs and ceremonies, of prayers, and so forth (PC 3). As to the mode of government, the Council adopted a view---one might almost say, a "mood"--that has been widely expressed in recent literature. Principles that Lumen gentium had previously applied to the hierarchy are here applied to religious superiors. Authority should be used in a spirit of service and charity with respect for both human personality and the dignity of divine sonship in those who are subject to it. This means that the views of the latter be listened to willingly and that they beencouraged to make a personal contribution to the welfare of the community and the Church through an obedience that is active and responsible.' But these recommendations have to do with the mode in which the superior exercises his office and do not imply any diminution of his authority to decide what is to be done and to require that his decisions be followed (PC 14). A list of recommended adaptations for community practice is given in Per[ectae caritatis: elimination of needless class divisions (n. 15), modification of the papal cloister of nuns (n. 16), simplification of the religious habit (n. 17), fuller education to prepare religious for their work and their life, hence also "the careful selection of competent educators and directors for them (n. 18), the federation of monasteries and communities which have a similar spirit or engage in similar work (n. 22), conferences among major superiors of different com-munities (n. 23), and so forth. All of these recommendations are familiar, and most of them have already been adopted by many of the com-munities for which they are relevant. Otherwise, the Council makes no specific recommendations but calls upon each community to determine for itself what adap-tations it needs. This is not due to pusillanimity but ¯ "Successful renewal and proper adaptation cannot be achieved unless every member of a community cooperates . In decisions which involve the future ol~ an institute as a whole, superiors should in an appropriate manner consult the members and ~ve them a hearing" (PC 4). + 4- 4- 4- 4- Edward O'Connor, C,$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS to realism. "l-he adaptations needed cannot be deter: mined by the universal nature of religious comm_unities; they are a function of the peculiar aims, spirit, and cir-cumstances of each (PC 8). Furthermore, we have just seen that it is a cardinal principle of'the Council's whole philosophy-of renewal that all the members of a com-munity ought to have an active and responsible part in its deliberations; it is simply consistent .with that prin-ciple to leave to each community the responsibility for determining what changes it needs. Incidentally, it ought not to be overlooked that this very readiness to leave responsibility to the men in the ranks already represents a major adaptation to the democratic temper of modern culture (~ven while being at the same time a return to a more evangelical spirit). III Besides the sources of spiritual.ity common to the en~ tire Church, each community has a special inspiration of its own, which also is a source of vitality for 'it. The Council wants this, too, to be kept in full vigor: Loyal recognition and safekeeping should be accorded to the spirit of founders, as also to all the particular goals and wholesom, e traditions .which constitute the heritage of each commumty (PC 2). As a result, there is comiderable variation in the fo~ms of religious life, which the Church treasures as coming about from a divine plan and adding to her bea~uty as well as expediting her capacity for good works (PC 1). There was a time when the differences between the orders.were the cause of animosity~ and jealousy. That day is, thank God, largely past; it has been succeeded, however, by an age in which it is more and more difficult to discern the distinctive purpose °and spirit of any but a few of them. In America, especially, as the communities transplanted from Europe have been. severed~om their roots, they have tended to enter into the sa.me works-- schools, parishes, mission bands, journ.als~and to adopt the same spirit. Franciscans and Dominicans, J,esuit,s and Benedictines, if the.y dropped their habits and initials, would be scarcely distinguishable° f_rp~m one another. Without denying the good aspects bf,.this development, the Council nevertheless declares that "it serves the best interests of the Church for communities to have their own special character and purpose." As park of the religious renewal, it calls for "a continuot~s return to. the original inspiration behind a given institute." In practice, this,means that: Communities should faithfully malnt~in and fulfill their proper activities., and abandon whatever activities are, today less in keeping with the spirit of the community and its authentic character (PC 20). While espousing the interests of the whole Church, they must do so in a way that accords with their individual character (PC 2). This is no permit for an inertial perpetuation of the status quo. Continuous effort is required to keep in view the authentic inspiration of a community, and a selfless fidelity and generosity are necessary to make its activities conform to this standard. For example, a contemplative community may be obliged to renounce types of social service that distract too much.from its life of prayer, even though this service is needed by the Church and a source of support for the community. A missionary com-munity may have to give up parochial establishments which were once undertaken as missions but meanwhile l{ave become comfortable sources of revenue. A com-munity devoted to the poor may need to have second thoughts if in fact its schools and other works have be-come chiefly a service of the well-to-do. However, the right decision in such matters cannot always be settled simply by an appeal to the original constitution of the institute. The actual history and achievements of a community are factors that modify as well as manifest its character; divine providence is at work in the unexpected turns of its development as well as in the vision that inspired its founder. Who would advise the Jesuits to give up their schools and go back to the unique intention of working in the Holy Land? Furthermore, the human involvements, both of religious and of those to whom they minister, are so complex that to drop an unwanted work might sometimes do more harm than to continue with it. Thus fidelity to the spirit of the founder is neither an easy rule to apply nor a pretext for indifference. It is a difficult virtue, requiring vitality, discrimination, objectivity, and adaptability, not to mention patience and perseverance. Nevertheless, it is a condition sine qua non of au-thentic renewal. For a religious community is the work of God more than of man. Even though it has not the same sacred and unchangeable character that are attrib-uted to the Church, it is still the product of an inspira-tion of the Holy Spirit by whom the founder was im-bued with the vision not only to recognize a new need but also to await the moment and adopt the means prepared by God. He could not otherwise have fitted together a plan of life that would constitute an authen-tic school of Christian spirituality (see LG 43) in which souls could advance in identification with the one Christ while yet fulfilling the functions distinctive of this com-munity. ÷ ÷ ÷ ~llglous rite VOLUME 26, 1967 413 ÷ ÷ ÷ Edward. O'Connor, ,C.S;C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Not every~ religious receives the charism of a founde;'. Most are called to be formed by the Holy Spirit in the mold of a community alreadyestablished and to transmit the spirit of this community faithfully to others. But the fact that the Church has summoned us to make ad-justments in our traditional way of life can become for many a temptation to a kind of spiritual adven-turism. We need therefore to remember that the Church's summons does not give us the grace of a founder or qualify us to attempt a re-creation. The pur-pose of adaptations is to bring out more effectively the spirit of an existing community, not to lay the founda-tions of a new one. Finally, we must take note of the concept of the religious life which emerges from the documents of Vatican II. This is relevant both to the process of adapting to modern conditions and to that of returning to the sources. Wise adaptations have to be directed by an accurate awareness of the nature and purpose of a religious community: some of the reforms that are occa-sionally proposed today make one wonder what notion, of the religious life has inspired them. On the other hand, the spirit and practices of the religious life .are themselves important sources of spirituality. What the Council has to say about the nature of the religious life will be summarized here rather succinctly. Most of it will be familiar to religious acquainted with the traditional literature. However, it would be a mis-take to dismiss this doctrine as banal and common-place. The traditional teachings, distilled down to some of their finest elements, take on new authority .and holi-ness when they issue from the pondered judgment of the pastors of the Church assembled together as a college, This is no slight recommendation for a body' of princi-ples intended to govern a way of life. Even more, the statements of the Council testify to the substantial correctness of a doctrine which has been as-saulted by many challenges and questionings in recent years. The literature on the religious life, which used to be so conventional (and so dull), began to be quickened only a few years ago with a certain freshness and novelty as new interpretations and recommendations were pro-posed,: by authors drawing inspiration from modern psy-chology and philosophy as well as (or instead of)tra-ditional sources. The word aggiornamento ~uttered by Pope John and the open and inquiring attitude of the" Council did not engenddr this new trend but helped to ignite it into a conflagration that radically challenges almost every element of the traditional ideas of the religious life trom things as basic as poverty, chastity, and obedience to things as superficial as the daily ho-rarium; from externals such as the religious habit to the interior spirit of recollection and renunciation. Some of the new views undoubtedly represent a gen-uine contribution of modern culture to the religious life (though often only in the form of keys that enable the tradition to open doors into its own profound re-cesses and draw more deeply on. its authentic sources). In. other cases, however, the true meaning of the reli-gious life seems to have been lost sight of in some meas-ure by people whose main inspiration comes from mod-ern humanism or existentialism or personalism .rather than from that spirit which engendered the religious life in the first place and which must always be the mainspring of its vitality, however much it may be strengthened by other tributaries. And in some cases, the taste of experimentation and innovation seems to have excited an appetite to make drastic changes simply for the thrill of it. Against such a background, the teachings of Vatican II come as a discriminating and authoritative judgment upon th~ new theology of religious life. Tha~ the Council was aware of the new views and even assimilated some of them is manifest in the documents, as the points re-viewed above indicate. It could hardly have been other-wise 'when theologians such as l~ahner, Congar, Schille-beeckx, and others were involved in the Council as periti and consultants. When, therefore, the Council reiterates traditional teachings, even in the very document in which it calls for adaptation, its action is clearly not a perfunctory repetition of doctrines inherited {rom the past but a deliberate and meaningful affirmation of the enduring validity of things which may not be altered under the pretext of modernization. The fathers saw that for a deep and lasting renewal of the religious life as well as for an intelligent adaptation it is indispensable that the authentic meaning of this life be unambiguously grasped and its essential practices faithfully maintained. (1) What does Vatican II regard as the essence of the religious life? The documents generally avoid speaking in the form of definitions,5 preferring simply to point out those 'values which are of chief importance and furnish the religious life with its raison d'dtre. The dom-inant accent is Christocentric. The opening paragraph of Perfectae caritatis describes religious as men and women who strive "to follow Christ more freely and imitate Him more exactly," and thus "unite themselves 6LG 44 does, however,, declare that "the religious state is consti-tuted by the profession of the evangelical counsels." Religious Life VOLUME 26, 1967 415 Edward O'Ctmnor~ C~S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS to Christ 'through a self-surrender involving their entire lives," and who "devote themselves to the Lord in a special way." 6 Hence, in laying down principles for renewal, the decree begins with the following: Since the fundamental norm of the religious life is a follow-i, ng of Christ as proposed by the Gospel, such is to be regarded by all communities as their supreme law (PC 2a). The following of Christ consists in listening to His word and doing His work (PC 5). The imitation, on the other hand, is realized especially in the counsels: They imitate Christ the virgin and the poor man, who redeemed men by an obedience which carried Him even to death on the cross. (PC 1). Because of this likeness to Christ which ought to char-acterize their state, religious are Counted on by the Church to manifest Christ to the world: Through them Christ should be shown contemplating on the mountain, announcing God's kingdom to the multitude, heal-ing the sick and the maimed; turning sinners to wholesome fruit, blessing children, doing good to all, and always obeying the will of the Father who sent Him (LG 46).' (2) There is a widespread tendency in the new literao tur~ to explain the religious life chiefly in terms of service of neighbor as i{ God were attained only in-directly and implicitly. The Council squarely contradicts this view and repeatedly declares that the religious life is defined essentially by its relationship to .God. The ~elationship to men is important but secondary and consequent upon the theological reference. LG calls the religious life "a state consecrated to God" (n. 45) and describes those who embrace it as "totally dedicated to God . more intimately consecrated to di-vine worship," and as referred to His honor and service by a new and special title (.n. 44). PC declares expressly: The religious life is intended above all else to lead those who embrade it to an imitation of Christ and union with God (n. 2).8 It goes on to add (n. 6): Those who profess the evangelical counsels love and seek before all else that God who took the initiative in loving us; in every circumstance they aim to develop a life hidden with Christ in God. This prior dedication to the things of God is, to be sure, profitable to the Church even apart from any ac- ~ PC 2 and LG 44 speak ~n the same vein. ~ This idea is developed further in LG 42. s See also n. 1, which desdribes the religious life as one "dedicated to God." tive apostolate which the ~reiigious may undertake as the following statement declares; but it is not the motive of helping the Church but rather the intrinsic value of dedication to God which constitutes the primary motive for the religious life. The religious life, by giving its members greater freedom from earthly cares, manifests., the presence of heavenly goods al-ready here below, bears witness to the new and eternal life ac-quired by Christ's redemption, and foretells the coming resur-rection and the glory of the heavenly kingdom (LG. (3) On the other hand, however, dedication to God does not exempt religious from a practical concern for men, but rather "gives rise and urgency to the love of one's:~neighbor for the salvation of the world and the upbui!ding of the, Church" (PC 6). ThErefore, even while i's~eking.Go.d before all things and, only Him," religious should also seek to unite apostolic love with their con-templation (PC 5). Their interior life itself ought to be permeated with devotion to the welfare of the whole Church (LG 44). The conciliar documents are alive with a sense of apostolic urgency. "The missionary spirit is b~ all means to be,maintained in religious communities" declares PC 20. . Mgreover, in those communities dedicated specifically to the apostolic ministry or to works of mercy, these activities are not to he regarded as accidental to the religious life: . In such communities, the very nature of the religious life requires apostolic action and services, since a sacred ministry and a special work of charity have been consigned to them by the Church'~nd must be discharged in her name (PC 8). (4) Although the religious life ~as a meaning that is chiefly positive, it also has a negative side that is indis, pens~ible:, renunciation. The crucified character of this life h~is from the beginning given scandal and provoked 9 ;Fhe terms of this statement ought to be noted 9arefu~ly.It is often heard today that the religious is an eschatological witness, a sign for the faithful of the kingdom that is to come. The Council has not failed to take note of this'aspect of the life. But it puts ih first place ~he witnessing "to the presence of heavenly goods already here below.'; The divine life to which the religious witnesses is not merely a future one that has been promised, bu~ a present one that is given already by grace. Religious are not thos~ who live in a spiritual "desert, buoyed up solel~ by the expectation of the Prom-ised Land; ,they are supported already by a "hidden manna," and have already present within themselves the source and wellspring of life. It is true that all Christians living the life of grace possess this same uncreated Source; but it is the special Vocation and mis-sion of religious to manifest its presence and reality by the joy and peace of their lives amid renunciations wl~ich would otherwise be depressing. The apostolic value and obligations of the religious "life is still furthe'r develoi~ed in the Decree on the Missions, nn. 18 and 40. + + + Religious Lite VOLUME 26, 1967 417 ÷ ÷ Edward O'Conno~ C.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ,t18 attack, and a certain modern humanism tries by every possible means to eliminate it, for example, by reinter-. preting renunciation to mean simply the rejection of sin, without any positive mortification. This view is firmly rejected by the Council as it declares: The members of each community should recall above every. thing else that by their profession of the evangelical counsels they have given answer to a divine call to live for God alone, not only by dying to sin (see Rom 6:11) but also by renouncing the world . Therefore in fidelity to their profession and ~n renunciation of all things for the sake of Christ (see Mk 10:28), let religious follow Him (see Mt 19:21) as their one necessity (see Lk 10:42) (PC 5). There is no contradiction between the stand taken here and the positive, appreciative and friendly attitude towards the world expressed in the constitution Gau. dium et spes. The Council is simply recognizing the validity of the traditional distinction between the re-. ligious and secular orders. The world is good in itself; that is why there can be good secular Christians, as LG shows in devoting a full chapter to "the universal call to holinesS." But the religious is called to renounce the world in witness to a good that transcends it. Likewise, the Council recognizes and even insists on the need of a Christian renewal of the secular or temporal order. But. this renewal is the proper responsibility of seculars, not of religious. "The laity must take on the renewal of the temporal order as their own special obligation," declares the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity (n. 7).1° The specific attention given to the role of the laymen in the Church is one of the distinctive features of the Council. LG devoted a full chapter to the subject, while the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity spelled out. its practical implications. One of the dominant notes of. the Council's teaching was an affirmation of the laity's genuine responsibility for the work of the Church with. the strong recommendation that in those things thai: belong to their competence this responsibility be re. spected. This doctrine is not without significance for the religious state. Since the Middle Ages, the religious and clergy have tended to preempt the role of judgment and decision in the Church. This came about by necessity for want of a sufficiently educated laity. It was also a defensive reaction against a series of unorthodox tendencies of lay origin. But however just and under. standable the cause, the result was the involvement of both clergy and religious in business that was naturally alien to their state. For the past fifty years or more, there has been a growing consciousness of the need to rectify 1o Note that laity, ~s the term is used in this document, denote.~ seculars. this condition. The documents of Vatican II represent a decisive step by the Church in eschewing the excessive clericalism and "religiosity" (if the term may so be used) of past centuries. The purpose of this step is to restore to the laity a more vigorous and healthy function in the Church, but it should also have the important side effect of making it easier for priests and religious to be more simply and authentically priests and religious. (5) The fundamental renunciations of the religious state consist in the evangelical counsels of poverty, chas-tity, and obedience. Not that the primary meaning of these counsels is the negative one of renunciation, but that a renunciation constitutes the material basis of each. In the name of modern psychology, all three counsels, but especially chastity and obedience, are under attack as impeding the maturation and fulfillment of the per-sonality. The Council replies that the very opposite is the case; the counsels make a positive and precious con-tribution to the humane development of the individual person: The profession of the evangelical counsels, though entail-ing the renunciation of certain values which undoubtedly merit high esteem, does not detract from a genuine development of the human person. Rather by its very nature it is most benefi-cial to that development. For the counsels, voluntarily under-taken according to each one's personal vocation, contribute greatly to purification of heart and spiritual liberty. They continually enkindle the fervor of charity (LG 46). (6) Vatican II was not content with a blanket en-dorsement of the counsels as "fostering the holiness of the Church in a special way" (LG 42) but touched deftly and luminously on the special contribution made by each. Both LG and PC give primary attention to virgin-ity and celibacy as more representative of the religious life than either poverty or obedience. This corresponds both to the common sense instinct of the Christian peo-ple at large and to the actual history of the religious life in the Church which began with consecrated vir-ginity and was supplemented subsequently by the other two counsels. Moreover, all Christians must imitate and witness to the self-emptying of the poor and obedient Christ, but celibacy is "a precious gift of divine grace to some" (LG 42). In declaring the value of religious celibacy, the Coun-cil scarcely alludes to the practical advantages often played up by modern writers who see the vow as freeing a man or woman from the cares of a particular family in order to devote himself or herself to the People of God at large. This value is not denied; but the Council stresses rather the properly religious value already pointed out by St. Paul that celibacy frees a person "to ÷ Religious Li]e VOLUME 26, 1967 419 + + 4, Edward O'Connor, C,S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 420 devote his ,.entire self to God with ~undivided heart" (LG 42). It is both a sign and a stimulus of charity, "causing the human heart to burn with greater love for God and men" (PC 12)~ The notion that the Christian virgin is an eschatological witness, while not specifically mentioned by the Council, is cerk~inl~ implicit in °its general commendation of the religious state, which we have seen. Finally, the consecrated virgin is, in a unique' way, a witness to the marriage of Christ and the Church (PC 12), a living sign of the Church's vocation as Bride of Christ. '~ ~ ' (7) Poverty is (unlil(e chastity and obedience) a forrfi of witness especially esteemed by the modern world (PC 13). This gives it a kind of strategic importance in an age in which it is so difficult for the religious life to win appreciation. In a very practical vein, the Cotincil byP othinet sm oeuret tfhaactt tthhea tp ar ascutpiceeri oofr ,sp poevremrtiys siiso nno hta ssa bties.f~iend obtained for the use of material goods. The religiou~ must be poor in fact as well as in spirit, and communities must practice corporate as well as individual poverty. And while repeating the fundamental biblical admon.~- tion to trust in the heavenly Father and to put aside undue concern for material provisions, the Council also recognizes that some of the traditional expressions 'of religious poverty may need to be replaced by more sui~:~ able ones today (PC 13). (8) On the religious meaning of obedience, the Coun-cil is emphatic in its recourse to traditional lahguage to describe the directly theological values involved~ Religious obedience is a "renunciation of 6ne's will," (LG 42) and a total dedication to God whereby one's own self is offered in ~acrifice (PC 14). By sub-mitring to superiors as God's representatives and by being guided by,them in the service of others, one als6 unites himself more firmly to the savin~ will of God and puts his ~ictivity more securel); under the inspirati.on 'of the Holy Spirit (PC 14). In this way religious obedience makes a man a firmer and surer instrument of Cod'in all his undertakings; and only in the measure that hei.~ so can his apostolic activity be effective; Finally, religioui~ obedience commits a man more firmly to die ministry of the Church (PC 14). I~LG 42 gives the following ca~efuliy 'construct~ed deflnidon~of the obedience of religious: "In order to be more ~ully conformed to the obedient Christ, they submtt themselves to men .for the sake of: God in the matter of perfection~ be~orid what is required by pre-cept." Monsignor Gallagher's translatioh~ in The, Documents Vatican H is, in my judgm.ent, quite erroneous. The original., text reads: "illi sdlicet sese h0mini propter Deum in re perfectionis 'ultra mensu~am praecepti subiciunt, ut Christo 0boedienti sese., plenitF~ con formen t Y Thus, the Council sees religious obedience as having the twofold value (1) of sacrifice by which God is directly glorified and (2) of apostolic fruitfulness, by making the would-be apostle the instrument of the interior move-ment of the Holy Spirit and of the external and sacra-mental movement of the Church's ministry. This super-natural vision of the value of obedience has no room for the minimizing tendencies of a closed humanism which looks upon obedience merely as a source of guid-ance for the immature and a means of order in the organization. The Council is, however, ,attentive to .the anxieties of those who fear that a regime of obedience will hamper the development of personal maturity. To avert such a danger, it recommends, not that obedience be diminished in any way, but rather that it be made more personal and radical: Let [religiousi bring to the execution of commands and to the discharge of assignments entrusted to them the resources of their minds and wills, their gifts of nature and grace. Religious obedi-ence lived in this manner will not diminish the dignity of the human person but will rather lead it to maturity, in consequence of that enlarged freedom which belongs to the children of God (PC 14). Obedience does indeed degrade the person when it is merely a passive submission, and still more when it is an unwilling compliance submitted to only reluctantly and under compulsion. But free and spontaneous conformity to the decisions of a competent authority is a genuinely personal and ennobling act, even (and perhaps espe-cially) when disagreement with the judgment of au-thority turns conformity into a crucifying purification of self-will. (9) Finally, the Council makes it clear that religious life is not just a way chosen by men in which to serve God and neighbor on the same plane with any secular profession. It is in the proper sense a vocation; that is, a response to a personal call from God which is not given to everyone: The members of each community should recall above every-thing else that by their profession of the evangelical counsels they have given answer to a divine call (PC 5; see also n.1). Let each one who has been called to profess the counsels take care to remain in the vocation to which he has been called by God (LG 47). Consequently, the religious life is not primarily man's enterprise or man's achievement, but his response in love and fidelity to the personal and loving invitation of the Lord to follow Him in a privileged way. Hence, it is also a special gift of grace. "The evangelical counsels are a divine gift from the Lord to His Church," above all in the case of chastity, "a precious gift of divine grace, ÷ ÷ Religious Lile VOLUME 26, 1967 421 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS which the Father has given to certain ones (see Mt 19:11, 1 Cor 7:7)" (LG 42). Some modern writers, concerned with defending the freedom with which religious profession is made, have tended to:minimize or even deny, in effect, the reality of the special, call from God which this "vocation" origi-nates. The Council is quite sensitive to the exigencies of human, liberty, as we have. already seen; but it will not concede that the freedom of God in "calling whom He wills" 12 detracts from the freedom of man. Rather, the very idea of a call presupposes freedom in the one who is to respond,la (10) In attempting to represent the distinctive holiness of the religious state corresponding to the divine call on which it. is based, popular expositions sometimes give the impression that only religious are seeking perfection whereas seculars are content merely to save their souls. Vatican II energetically opposes such a view by insisting over and over that "all the faithful of Christ, of what-ever rank or status, are called to the fullness of the Christian life" '(LG.40).x4 This emphasis has led some readers to suppose that the Council intended to revoke the long-standing teaching of the Church that the reli-gious life is .in itself a holier state and more conducive to union with God than secular life.x5 Close reading of the documents, however, makes it clear that Vatican II's emphasis on the real holiness accessible in the secular life is not meant as a denial of the special holiness att~cl~ing to religious profession. The latter is presented as a real consecration of the person to the service of God which provides genuine and powerful helps to union with God and as a way of life that manifests with special clarity even that holines~ common to the entire People of God. In addition to the ~See Mk 3:13. This text is not cited by the Constitution but per-tains simply to my commentary. ~ Thus, even though it is God who first calls a man to make p~o- [ession of the counsels, poverty is said to have been embraced by the free choice of the children of God (LG 42). Moreover, as has already been noted, LG teaches that the effect of the counsels' is to enhance inan's interior liberty. l~This' doctrine is developed throughout chapters 5 ("The Laity') and° 6 ("The Universal Call to Holiness") of Lumen gentium as well as in the decree on the apostolate of the laity (Apostolicam actuositatem, where note especially n. 4). ~ Such a doctrine had been defended by the Council of Trent, for example, when it anathematized those who deny that "it is better and more blessed to observe virginity or celibacy than to contract marriage" (Session 24, can. 11; DS 1810). It should go with-out saying that this comparison of states is not a comparison of per-sons. One who is called to a holier state of life is not for that reason clmer to God than someone else in a lower state; and for each per-son the best and holiest flay of life is that to which God calls him, which may not be in itself the highest. texts already, cited above, the following may be noted." The religious life is one "of surpassing value" (PC 1), "fosters the perfection of charity in a unique way" (LG 45). It can be characterized appropriately as "the pursuit of perfect charity through the :exercise of the evangelical counsels" (PC 1) which enable a person to "follow Christ more freely and imitate Him more closely" (PC, 1 and also LG 44). Hence, the holiness of the Church is "fostered in a special way by the observ-ance of the counsels" (LG 42) and "appears in an espe-cially appropriate way" in them (LG 39). As a conse-quence, the religious state "more adequately manifests the presence of heavenly goods here below," foretells the resurrected state, and shows to all the world the power of Christ and His Spirit (LG 44). These teachings do not give religious, grounds for self-esteem and complacency; to take them in that sense would be to ignore the spirit of humility, charity, service and dedication which pervades the Council statements. But they come as a needed tonic in an era of vocation shortage and crises. For given the ditficult renunciations entailed by the religious life, how can anyone be ex-pected to embrace it if other easier and more human ways of life are equally ,good? And how can anyone tempted to discouragement over his vocation be ex-pected to persevere without a strong conviction of the excellence of that to which his life is dedicated? In summary, the renewal envisaged by Vatican II in-volves two simultaneous processes: adaptation to new circumstances and recovery of that which is perennial. It would hardly be just to say that adaptation has to do only with external and superficial aspects of the reli-gious life, since it is to be based on a generous apprecia-tion and assimilation of the qualities of the modern spirit and can even lead to modification in the manner of government of the community. Nevertheless, the Council" clearly .teaches that the es-sential purpose, spirit, and methods of the religious life must remain unaltered; and it insists that the chief proc-ess of renewal will be a return to those sources from which the religious life always has and always will'.draw its vitality. These ar~ of three types: those common to all Christians (~hich~ are the most important of all), those characteristic of the religious life, and finally the dis-tinctive spirit and end of each community. It is to these that religious.must look for the grace to become ir~ fullest fact what they .hlready profess to be. In the religious and Christianlife,. renewal cishsists less in inventing some-thii~ g new than in .becoming something very VOLUME 26, 1967 423 J. M. R. TILLARD, A Point O.P. of Departure J. M. R. Tillard, O,P., is a faculty member of the Do-minican College of Theology; 96 Em-press Avenue; Ot-tawa 4, Canada. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS The conciliar decree on the adaptation and renewal of religious life does not seem Iikely to go down in history as one of the great documents of the Council. It will be judged with a degree of severity; and it will be charac-terized as being somewhat routine and uninspired. If it is compared with the texts on ecumenism, on the apostol-ate of the laity, or on the missions, it is soon seen that th~ authors of the decree did not succeed in deeply penetrat-ing into the implications of the dogmatic constitution, Lumen gentium, which is the doctrinal charter of the Council, nor in drawing from it a strongly structt.~red synthesis of the exigencies ,demanded by the present status of the world's salvation from all forms of the re-' ligious life. There was too much readiness to graft the new perspectives onto the old stock---one that has been deeply enrooted for several centuries. This lack of profundity seems to us to be a serious matter. For religious life is not situated on the periphery of the mystery of the Church but at its heart's center. Hence, it is above all in religious life that there should appear the work of renewal that has been accomplished ¯ by the Spirit of God for the total fidelity of the Church to the salvific plan of the Father. At the heart of the People of God religious should become--and precisely by reason of their vocation--a sort of visible signboard on which the~'e can be clearly read the appeals and in-spirations of Him who d'irects all things to the achieve-ment of the paschal work of Jesus. History shows us how in the course of the centuries the great impulses that have stirred up the life of the Church have most often sprung forth from religious communities: missionary en-thusiasm contributed by the monks and then in modern times by communities of men and women founded speci-ally for this purpose; the movement of conversion to evangelical simplicity initiated in the Middle Ages by the mendicant orders and in our own day by fraternities of the type of the Little Brothers and the Little Sisters of Jesus; the apostolate of the milieux of the poor and the evangelization of the working class or of the rural areas stemming from undertakings such as those of Vin-cent de Paul, of P~re Anizan, and of Jeanne Jugan. This overview shows that the institution of religious life has as its vocation to be a privileged instrument of the Spirit for the perpetual renewal of the People of God. While the hierarchy possesses a charism of pastoral leadership chiefly directed to giving the faithful the essential gifts of life in the kingdom (the word and the Eucharist), the religious institution in its multiple forms seems on the other hand to be destined to welcome and to fructify to the highest degree possible all the different charisms be-stowed on the Church in view of. its constant conversion to the fullness of the gospel. This is the reason why all reform of any depth in the Church should base itself on a renewal both of the pastoral element and of the re-ligious ~ life. P(~$ITIVE ELEMENTS When one finishes reading the few pages that contain the twenty-five numbers of the Decree on Religious Life, it is difficult to keep back a certain feeling of disappoint-ment. Does it really go to the heart of the matter, placing religious life in confrontati~)n not with an abstract Church but with the exigencies of the present status, of the divine plan of salvation? Has religious life been genuinely rethought in a basic way in order to bring it into full harmony with the call of the Spirit in the 'world of today as it actually is? Of what value are the numerous practical counsels which are given in the document and which seem"to be overimpregnated with a kind of men-tality that is still juridical? Is there not at times a tend-ency to be contented with minutiae when from all sides is heard the cry of human beings who are thirsty for sal-vation? The mighty wind of Pentecost which blows through the other texts of the Council has not sufficiently penetrated the lines of this decree. Once this has been ackno,~,ledged and admitted~ how-ever, there must not be any lapse into a pessimism that would relegate this text to the limbo of those ecclesial de-crees destined to remain dead letters by reason of their inadaptation. As it stands with all its considerable limita-tions, the decree still contains essential elements that can enable the different religious families to gradually enter upon an authentic movement of renewal. It even seems to us that the decree, in spite of its limitations, can inspire all religious communities to a large-scale examination of conscience--and this is the necessary prelude to conver-sion. For the degree is presented as an official invitation --often categorical in its expression (see, for example, nn. 3, 18)--that the Council directs to religiohs to refuse to be smugly satisfied but to apply themselves as speedily, ÷ ÷ ÷ Point o] Departure VOLUME 26, 1967 425 + ÷ ÷ ~. M. R. Tillard, O.P. REVIEW F.OR RELIGIOUS 426 as possible to a reform of everything that concerns their life of community as such. To be sure--and this is a matter of regret--it gives only the initial call to this, the perspectives which it opens with regard to this difficult task being lacking in a certain degree of profundity. But it has made the call, and this is what is important. It is true that movements of renewal have appeared here and there in religious life. But they have been chiefly expressed by the appearance of new communities that wish to be fully adapted to the actual circumstances of our times. Outside of rare exceptions, the older congrega-tions have not renewed themselves in depth in order t6 respond better to the concrete needs of the.present time but have continued blissfnlly on their way with their constitutions (often dating from their founder or found-tess), their customs books, their manuals of prayer--all of which have been adorned by the weight of time with an aureole of holy veneration. Hence, there exists a pro-liferation of orders, congregations, and institutes whose numbers are perhaps better explained by a lack of sup-pleness in the older communities in face of the need for a real "conversion" rather than~ by a multiplicity of char-isms. Every reform is made almost exclusively by refer; ence to the primitive rule without sufficient account be-ing taken of the calls that God daily directs to His Church by the events and stirrings of human history. It is for-gotten that the People of God lives its mystery in time, that its members are shaped from within by their social context. Moreover, up until the last years, the advice and coun-sel of the hierarchy as well as the exhortations of preachers and spiritual writers have invariably been di-rected to the personal renewal of each religious. He was asked to seek his sanctification with ardor; one or other method of the interior life was proposed to him. First consideration was not given to the community as such in its entirety, in its profound mystery as a cell of the Church called by the Lord to giv.e the world a common witness of evangelical life. For it was not yet realistically grasped that if the Church is essentially communion of life of all the faithful with the Father and ~mong them, selves in Christ Jesus and that if religious life is inscribed in the heart of this mystery of communion, then religious life must first of all be considered in° its dimension as community, as brotherly communion. The quest for p~rsonal perfection (and this is essential for all religious life) can be situated only in a climate of quest for ec-clesial perfection. The great innovation of the decree on religiou~ life is its insistence on the renewal and adaptation of corn-' munities as such. Even though the section explicitly, con- cerned with common life (n. 15) does not sufficiently express the specific quality of religious-common-life (what is said applies indifferently to every cell of the Church), still the text is penetrated throughout by the intention of promoting first of all the renewal of communities as communities in the light of the renovation of the Church which the Council desired. This is why with its authority as a conciliar document it requires "a reconsideration of the way .of governing religious institutes. Therefore, constitutions, directories, books of customs, of prayers, and of ceremonies, and similar documents should be suitably revised and adapted to the decrees of this Coun-cil, obsolete prescriptions being removed" (n~ 3). This way of speaking seems to us to have important implica-tions. It does not demand merely a simple dusting off of institutions, nor is it satisfied with the removal of certain customs that are outmoded. Rather, it demands that everything be revised in the spirit of the Council itself: this is what has priority. Henceforth, general chapters must orientate themselves towards the Council before occupying themselves with the specific problems of their order or congregation. Conversion to the Gospel But the decree goes further. It makes appear---quietly and at times somewhat disappointingly--the great princi-ple which should serve as the basis for the renewal of religious life. First of all, there must be conversion to the gospel itself (n. 2) which is "the supreme rule for all institutes." This statement needs to be well understood. It does not mean simply that everything (the constitu. tions, customs, and so forth) must be judged in the light of the gospel and that nothing should be retained unless it is found to be conformed to the thought of the Lord. Its principal meaning is that everything ought to be established and structured beginning from the gospel. The nuance here is very important. The gospel is the first and fundamental rule. All the rest, even the constitu-tions, have as their purpose and raison d'etre the applica-tion of the content of the gospel to the special .mode of life demanded by the specific purpose of the community. The constitutions do not add ~to the gospel, they are not alongside the gospel; they are only its commentary for the concrete situation of the institute. Whether a person is a Jesuit, a Carmelite, a Dominican, a Sister of Charity, or a Christian Brother, there is fundamentally the same rule, the gospel. It is necessary that this should become more perceptible; especially in the formation of novices where the study of Scripture should take precedence-- qualitatively and quantitatively--over that of particular rules. The conciliar decree demands in the name of the 4. 4. 4. Point ot Departure VOLUME 26, 1967 + + ]. M. R. Tillard, O.P~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Church that henceforth beginning be made from the gospel in establishing the norms regulating the. life of all communities .Jof all types, including "their way of governing" (n. 3). It must not be thought that this applies solely to congregations that will be founded in the future. All institutes without exception must enter into the move-; ment of profound renewal thatthe Spirit Himself is initiating today in the Church. All, therefore, must turn to the gospel as their supreme rule. Conversion to the Eccl~sial Dimension of Religious Life The foregoing leads to a secohd principle of renewal that is equally present in the decree though it is affirmed in an even less clear way: Religious communities must be ~onverted to the ecclesial dimension of their mystery. This statement must not be interpreted only'in the sense that religious should strive to put themselves more gen-erously and completely at the service of the Church (see nn. 5, 6,. 14)or that they should ende~ivor to share the. Church's outlook (n. 2). That this should be done goes without saying, and for many religious families it will demand a radical change in their methods. When the text is read, the impression is left that the relationship of religious to the Church is situated solely on this .level of service: religious institutes represent a considerable grouping of apostolic energies which should not refuse to let themselves be "utilized"; and anxiety is felt lest there be a.certain deflection of these energies to the profit of overly particularized interests. This danger certainly exists; and at times communities yield to the temptation to close, in upon themselves--a situation that quickly turns into a c0unterwitness to the g6spel. Nevertheless, let us note on the other hand that the hierarchical au-thbrity does not always endeavor to integrate religious in a vital way into past6ral 'effort, too often considering them as being apart. From all this arises a tension which should be resolved at any¯ cost. But the problem of the conversion of religious to the ecclesial dimension of their life is situated on a completely different level, that of sign. The decree makes an allusion to this in its inspiring presentation of the three tradi-tional vows. The religious does not make his profession of obedience, poverty, and chastity for the sole purpose of thereby finding his personal perfection nor simply to make himself more available for the needs of the Church. By his vows and the life which they encompass he seeks to express, to signify, to mal~e more strikingly perceptible to the world, to reveal the inmost nature of the very mystery of the Church. Within the' entir"e People of God the religious community thus represents the p~ivileged place where the Church expresses to herself her deepest being. Religious life is like a living preannouncement of that to which the pilgrim Church is slowly marching. It is from this that there is derived the supreme value of contemplative orders of which the decree speaks one-sidedly when it seeks to justify them on the plane of "service" whereas they are completely orientated to the perfection of "sign." By chastity, for example, the com-munity announces and in a certain way mysteriously actualizes the union of Christ Jesus and His Church. By its poverty, the community proclaims the absoluteness of God, that the possession of the love of the Father is for the Church the one thing necessary. By its obedience, it evokes and actualizes the profound communion between the will of Christ and that of the Father, a communion that is prolonged in actuality in the Church, "the servant of God." Finally, by the law of fraternal charity which bonds together all the members and does so in a zealous quest for perfection, the community as such reveals what the Church seeks to become: the total communion of all those whom Christ has made to pass over in the act of fraternal love of His Pasch. Hence, to say that all re-ligious families should be converted to the dcclesial di-mension of their life is to affirm that they should seek to become in the presence of the world a living and true sign of the mystery of the Church and consequently a con-crete sign of what the gospel seeks to produce in the hearts of men. Therefore, 'the religious community is fundamentally and by its very being apostolic and .missionary. It is use-less, then, to get lost in a maze of many details. It is regrettable that when it sets forth the general principles of renewal, the decree neglects this perspective and limits itself to the level of "ecclesial service" and that even this it places after the return to the spirit of the founder; for what the founder desired could have no sense except as situated in the light of the Church. It is by reason of this inattention to the importance of "ecclesial sign" that the directives of the decree possess a somewhat moralizing perspective lacking in theologal inspiration. A single example will clarify this: in place of saying that participa-tion m the Eucharist immerses the religiot,s daily in the very Source that builds up the Church, the text (n. 6) limits itself to the statement that he thereby sustains his spiritual life. The constitution, Lumen gentiurn, and the constitution on the liturgy were less shortsighted in their presentation. Conversion to Attention to the World Another principle of renewal, often and constantly invoked by the decree, is that of a conversion to attention ÷ ÷ Point o] Departure VOLUME 26, 1967 429 ÷ ]. M. R. Tillard, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS to ,the world. The Church of God, in whose heart is found religious life, does not float about over and beyond the world; on the contrary it plunges i~s roots into the very flesh of humanity. For it is a Church of concrete human beings, and it has been sent by the Father to welcome and save all men and everything that is in man. Now man is not simply soul and body; he is also the intersection point of any number of lines of relationship that link him with his surroundings, his milieu, the past of his race: he is essentially social. In a mysterious way he carries in him-self the world in which he lives--the world which daily shapes him and which in turn he fashions by his labor and his thought. It is all this that th~ gospel redeems and divinizes. Hence, the Church cannot compel Christians to deny or ignore this belonging to the world; it is the con-trary that is true. Somewhat as the Son, of God has fully assumed the conditions of His humanity (even death), of His race, of His epoch, of His geographical context-- otherwise He would not be entirely human--so the Church of God little by little assumes everything human that it encounters on its journey from Pentecost to the Parousia. It is in .this way, moreover, that it truly realizes the mystery of its catholicity. For it is not catholic simply because it ought to extend to all nations and to all pe-riods of history. It is catholic above all because it ought to bring into Christ all human values, all the needs of men, all their efforts, all their sufferings and joys. Strictly speaking, the Church does not adapt herself to history: she assumes it. All the many variations and reforms that the course of the centuries imposes on it are positive acts by which it discards what is humanly finished with in order to welcome and "Christify" the new flowering of the human. Hence, they are essentially acts of its cath-olicity; they are not measures of opportunism--the yield-ing to this would spite the very nature of the Church. Religious life as the living heart of the Church can clearly not remain a stranger to this mystery of the pro-gressive entry of the Church of God into the weft and woof of humanity. As is said nowadays (the expression is .displeasing to us), it too must "adapt itself." A com-munity that refuses to adapt itself sins against catholicity and thereby disfigures the appearance of the Church. The decree is inclined to see this adaptation solely from the angle of apostolic productiveness: "in order that the institutes be able to bring men more effective help" (n. 2); "in order that those dedicated to the active apostolate be not unequal to their work" (n. 18). At times it. even gives the impression of simply seeking to make religious life more conformed "to the actual physical and psychical conditions of the religious., to social and economic circumstances" (n. 3). All of this is important and even radically necessary; it is necessary to open the windows wide and to air out our communities that are still so stiffly bound up in outmoded forms which n9 .longer. fit in with the actual state of health and the attrition of nerves that the agitated life of today tends to cause every-where. Religious life is not to be taken as an enterprise for the destruction of bodies and of intelligences: it is an institution of the mercy of God. But to see adaptation only in these perspectives of the practical order seems in-sufficient to us. Adaptation is above all-a duty of catholicity: If religious life has the function of signify-ing the true appearance of the Church and of showing forth the ideal to which all the baptized tend, then it should feel gravely bound to. this duty. To refuse this duty, or to carry it out without enthusiasm would be to sin against the Church. Conversion to Respect for Persons But perhaps the newest point made by the decree, one that is pregnant with hope for the future, is its emphasis on the necessity of communities experiencing a con-version to respect for the dignity of persons. When the decree asks who is responsible for the realization of re-newal, it answers (n. 4): "In matters that are of interest to the entire institute, superior should in a suitable way consult their subjects and listen tO their opinion." When treating of obedience, it says: "Docile to the will of God in carrying out their charge, superiors should exercise authority in a spirit of service to their brothers in order to express the charity which the Lord has for them. They should govern their subjects by regarding them :as sons of God by respecting them as human persons in order to lead them to a voluntary submission . They should in-spire their subjects to cooperate in the accomplishment of their tasks and the acceptance of projects by an active and responsible obedience. Hence, they should willingly lis-ten to them and encourage their common effort for the good of the institute and the Church, keeping intact, however, their right to decide and prescribe what is to be done . Chapters and councils should faithfully fulfill the mission confided to them; each in its own manner should express the participation and concern of all the subjects with regard to the welfare of the entire com-munity" (n. 14). Since the Church is a communion of wills and lives in the will and life of the Father and since the religious community is in the Church as a cell in ardent quest for perfection, it becomes evident that theexistence of the community should take place completely within a cli-mate of real communion. In a hierarchical society the word, "communion," suggests in fact a double movement, + + Point ot Departure VOLUME 26, 1967 43! 4. 4. 4. 1. M. R. Tillard~ O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS one going from the members to the head, the other from the head to the members. Communion is never unilateral. It must be admitted that until these recent years the tendency has been to recognize in religious life only one of these relations and to refuse to ordinary religious a real right to participate actively in the conduct of the life of the institute. From this came serious defects and a certain note of autocratism discernible above all in com-munities of brothers and of religious women. In fact, however, obedience, that pivot of the religious institu-tion, cannot be fully comprehended except in the light of the Christian mystery of communion. The superior is not placed at the head of the community for the primary purpose of giving orders and of imposing submission to his personal views. On the contrary he is chosen to serve as a "sacrament," as intermediary between the will of the Lord and the concrete community he is charged to direct. His vocation is suspended between two services: that of the Lord and that of his brothers. For each religious has a precise call from God which normally ought to be ac-tualized for the benefit of the gospel. He has joined him-self to other Christians under a given rule precisely in order to find the means of not leaving this vocation under a bushel. The superior is there to permit this call to blos-som forth in all fullness. His is an entirely evangelical charge. Through the decisions he makes and the orders he gives there should be transmitted not his own arbitrary personal decision but the will of the Lord impelling the religious to a generous response. He is to be the instru-ment of a more perfect communion between God and the baptized person whom He calls. Hence and in the x~ery name of obedience, the superior has the imperative duty of taking scrupulous account of each person in his community and of his talents and charisms. He cannot yield to the temptation (this is easy and, let us admit, frequent) of himself framing the ideal of the religious--a standard to which all must conform at whatever cost. Neither can he consider his community merely from a juridical and abstract angle, taking no account of the concrete human beings who compose it just as they are. His first concern must be the divine plan imprinted on each religious, the realization of which he should permit. This requires him to see even the n~itural talents of all his brothers as a primary gift of God. Here we are touching on a delicate problem for which it does not seem that accord will soon be realized but which nevertheless seems to us to be essential. A purely ascetical conception of religious life--a view that still prevails al-most everywhere--does not fear to talk about a renuncia-tion of natural talents considered as often being a source of self-love and an obstacle to a total gift of the will: "It is necessary to die to one's whole self." A more ecclesial view--the essential themes of which are assumed by the decree--reasons in an entirely different way. Instead of first looking at man, it first looks at God. In the divine plan nature is ordered to grace. In spite of sin nature still preserves its deep-seated quality of being a gift of love from the Father. Accordingly, its values must be welcomed with respect and immersed in the purificatory mystery of the cross in order to be drawn out again-not destroyed but divinized and exalted. A religious life built on this conviction realizes to the full its vocation as a total sign of the agapd of God--aia. agap~ already actu-alized in the creative work of the Lord Jesus and brought through the Pasch to its unexpected and disconcerting peak. Are not creation and Pasch united in the person of Him by whom and for whom all has been made, Jesus, Lord of the universe and Head of the Church (Col 1:13- 20)? As the decree vigorously points out, to respect per-sons does not simply mean to keep from hurting them, from tyrannizing them, from considering them as slaves; it means above all that in dialog with them it is necessary to discern their particular gifts, their personal charisms, and finally to render them a hundredfold. In this way the religious community truly becomes the image of the kingdom. The same thing holds on the level of the major deci-sions which regulate the life of the institute. Each reli-gious, even the least, carries within him the vocation of the institute. Daily he actualizes his ideal of it in the very concrete conditions in which his apostolic action is immersed. He pertains to the community just as much as the superior; and the life of the community depends on him just as much as it does on the superior, though in a different way. Accordingly,. in the name of the common good of the entirety and for the sake of a greater faith-fulness of all to the gospel, he has the right to be heard when there is a question of reform and adaptation. This is all the more so since ordinarily superiors by the very force of their situation are led to judge everything from the angle of authority with its specific problems--often de~ply engrossing in nature. To refuse a religious the right to express himself, to give his opinion, to explain his. point of view comes to sinning against the institute itself, against its correspondence to the divine plan. The superior is bound in conscience to reflect on the opinion of his subjects, to take account of it as a word that God addresses to him from his brothers. An autocratic con-ception of obedience sees in this an attack on the very virtue of submission, on the humility of the religious, and a danger that risks undermining authority. An ecclesial conception of obedience, attentive above all to faithful-÷ + ÷ Point o] Departure VOLUME 26, 1957 + ÷ ÷ 1. M. R. Tillard, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ness to the institute of its vocation, sees it on the con-trary as a powerful support. By the communion of the superior and the entire community the structure of the Church is seen more clearly in one of its cells, the plan of the Father is better served, the gospel radiates out its influence. Conversion to Encounter with God in Apostolic Action A final aspect of the decree should be emphasized even though it is touched upon only in a single number (n. 8). The Council asks members of so-called active institutes to convert themselves to a close union between their apostolic activity and their quest for perfection .so that "their entire religious life may be imbued with an apos-tolic spirit and. all their apostolic action impregnated with a religious spirit." On this point a kind of tension and uneasiness exists at the present time. The spirituality given to men and women religious of the active life does not seem adapted to the exigencies of the apostolic life. There has been preserved and transmitted a type of spirituality, of prayer, of common life--the heritage 6f the monastic tradition-- without making sufficient effort at an authentic transpo-sition. From this there results for many a break between the "religious exercises" destined to promote °a living union with God and concrete activity which often ap-pears as the simple radiation of this previously realized union. Hence there are two phases: a phase of contempla-tion characterized as a phase of unitive life with the Lord and a phase of action characterized as a phase of the gift of self to neighbor. The one is a phase in which a person returns to his source; the otfier is one in which he pours out on others the results of this contact with God. From this results the sharp crisis of conscience for innumerable religious whose apostolic task is so absorbing that they reach the point of no longer giving to the time of con-templation all the attention they desire, being exhausted when the hour of prayer or of common adoration comes. Certainly, contemplative prayer is a necessity of reli-gious life; at whatever cost it.is necessary to assure this for all. But we must not refuse to apostolic action its fundamental value as encounter with the Lord; and it is important to introduce religious to the modalities and forms of this encounter in order to teach them to make it an immediate source of praise and adoration. For if it is true that "apostolic activity flows from intimate union with Christ" (n. 8), it is necessary to add that this intimate union is brought to completion in and by apos-tolic action itself. This action is not primarily a danger of distraction from the presence of God ~but on the con- trary is a privileged source of contact with this presence-- on condition that it is a matter of genuine apostolic ac-tion and not one of empty activism. The Christian who is sensitively alert to his faith dis-covers Christ Jesus Himself in the human being whom he loves and serves in the name of the gospel. The short phrase of Matthew, Chapter 25: "What you did to one of the least of my brethren, you did to me," applies not only to love for the poor but to all gift of .self in the service of human beings. Moreover, since every human being is an image of God, to serve him is to serve God in His image. On another level, a religious should be aware that his action is not simply the occasion of gaining merit and of acquiring an ample reward. He is a minister of the gospel; he gives God his labor, his fatigue, and his time in order that the love of the Father may be spread and extended by means of this action. What he day by day accomplishes in the name of his religious profession becomes an instrument of the divine action. There is ample material here for intensifying his deep union with the Lord, andthere is equally present the occasion of genuine and spontaneous acts of thanksgiving. All of this is true, however, on the condition that he has been in-teriorly sensitized to this specific form of encounter with God differing as it doe~ from the encounter afforded by peaceful and silent prayer. Conversion to encounter with God in the heat of action: this is very hard; and it de-mands from theologians, from religious, and from spiri-tual writers an effort of common research in order to establish its principles with precision. And this effort seems to us to be absolutely required for the profound renewal of religious life which the Council wishes. Two SERIOUS LIMITATIONS Thus far we have set in relief the postive elements of the conciliar decree on religious life] In the course of our exposition we have pointed out the deficiencies in the text, its lack of theological amplitude, but ~ill the while indicating the ways that it opens and the possibilities that it offers. ~¥e now would like to conclude this article by noting two limitations (one doctrinal, the other practi-cal) which seem to us to be important. Absence of a Pneumatic Dimension The first limitation is the absence of a genuinely pneu- ¯matic perspective, an absence which explains the little attention given to the ecclesial foundations of religious life which we have already pointed out. To be sure, the Holy Spirit is mentioned: once in the introductory para-graph, seqeral quick references in the second number, in the section that treats obedience (n. 14), and in the one + + + Point o] Departure VOLUME 26, 1967 435 ~. M. R. Tilla~d~ O.P, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS that concerns common life (n. 15). But these allusions are not really integrated into the very substance of the text. They are but slight additions inserted to satisfy the demands of a number of the fathers who were surprised at the radical absence of any mention o~ the Holy Spirit in the schema of the decree. It was thought sufficient to insert here and there stereotyped expressions such as "moved by the Spirit," "impelled by the Spirit," and "under the inspiration of the Spirit." But to sew new pieces on old cloth achieves nothing:, the document re-mains deprived of a real pneumatic vision. From this is derived the impression of juridicism, that the text.still has despite the wonderful gospel overtures that have already been noted and studied, It is entirely centered on the effort of man and is not sufficiently based on the primordial fact that religious life comes from God who by the Holy Spirit daily gives it to the Church. The religious institution represents an original flowering of the Spirit, a permanent charism granted by God to His people. It is a gift of God before being an effort of man towards perfection. And the quest for perfection en-visions more than the individual: its purpose is to mani-fest the Spirit, to achieve a view o[ Him in the flesh of humanity. The profound law of ~His apostolic activity and of His insertion into the world of today (and this is sought for by the decree) can be expressed in. this way: the Holy Spirit Himself wishes to be there where the community lives and to become perceptible by means o1~ it. Our text refers to "the example of the primitive Church" (n. 15). It would have been good to note that this Church was seen by its contemporaries as a semeion, a sign of the power of the Spirit, of Pentecost. For the community exists in reference to the gospel and not to the personal value of its members.: these latter are "filled with the Spirit," and their grandeur comes precisely from the fact that~ they re~pond generously to the mysterious ca/is of His presence among them, Themselves poor-- and here is the foundation of our vows, especially that of obedience--the Christians of the Apostolic community as ideally presented in Acts endeavored before all else to dispose themselves to the impulses of the Spirit and to the difficult work of personal conversion which this demands. Seen in this light, personal perfection and apostolic witnessing become radically inseparable;, and their point of unification i~ found to be the Holy Spirit. At the mo-ment when the Church is welcoming with enthusiasm the apostolic function of the laity and is finding there an essential factor in its renewal, it is necessary to point out to religious the pneumatic dimension of their vocation and to motivate their quest for evangelical perfection by an awareness of th~ rooting of their call in the mission of the Holy Spirit. Their sanctification enters in an es-sential way into the heart of their apostolate because God gives them to the world as signs and witnesses of the Spirit. They are not just apostles in possibility who can be "utilized" because they burn with zeal or are spiritu-ally well trained. They, by their very quest for perfection, are in reality a proclamation in act of the presence of the Spirit in the People of God. A religious is not judged by his productivity but essentially by 'his transparence to the Spirit--a point that explains the apostolic value of the contemplative life. Every authentic movement of renewal should be centered on this transparency. Moreover, in this way there is clearly seen why (with rare exceptions such as those mentioned in the decree) a religious cannot fidly respond to his vocation except in community. It is necessary to stop presenting common life as a means, a support; it pertains to the religious wit-ness as such. For the religious is always in the state of appeal and of openness to his brothers, incapable of truly responding to the Lord if he is cut of[ from them; and here is one of the foundations of religious poverty that theology has not yet sufficiently explored in depth. The Spirit does not arouse atomized religious but reli-gious communities. The vocations which spring up in the hearts of' men He orientates towards communities. Why? Because He is the Spirit of the Church who accordingly creates the community in order that it might exist in the Church (essentially a communion) as a sign and a leaven of the ideal of communion to which He is leading the Church. In its very being the religious community--that is to say, the ecclesial cell bonded together by fraternal charity and seeking to already live in a perfect way the "for God" of its mystery--is an act of the Spirit, a gift of the Spirit tothe Ch

Issue 38.1 of the Review for Religious, 1979. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X) is edited in collaboration with faculty members of the Department of Theology of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. © 1979 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A.: $8.00 a year; $15,00 for two years. Other countries: $9.00 a year, $17.00 for two years. For subscription orders or change of address, write REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor January, 1979 Volume 38 Number 1 Correspondence with the editor and the associate editors, manuscripts and books for review should be sent to REVIEW Fort R~LICIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gailen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19131. "Out of print" issues and articles not re-issued as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 North Zeeb Road; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Review for Religious Volume 38, 1979 Editorial Offices 3601 Lindell Boulevard, Room 428 Saint Louis, Missouri 63108" Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Joseph F. Gallen, SJ. Miss Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is published in January, March, May, July, Sep-tember, and November on the fifteenth of the month. It is indexed in the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index and in Book Review Index. A microfilm edition of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is available from University Microfilms International; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyright © 1979 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Stewardship, Justice and the Religious Purpose in Education William J. Byron, S.J. Father Byron is President'of Scranton Univergity; Scranton, PA 18510. ere are three ideas°ar'ound which I would like toor, ganize this essay. The first two., stewardship and justice, will be relat~ ely brief. The tfiird notion concerns ou~" religious purpose in edu'cation. I holSe to develop it'in~ a way that will make a case for the educ~itional apostolate as'an +xercise of stewardship arid an instrument of justice. Stewardship It has been interesting to obser~ve in the 15as! several°years a renewed' interest in the notion of s~eWardshil5°in the Catholic 'community. We are discove'ring (or rediscoverifig) that"riOt ~0nly is stewardship a simple term, it is also an uncbmplicated~solutioh to significant portions "of some major s~ciai prolSlems. In practice, stewardship is an instrument of social justice. Reflo~ztiOn°ofi'ste~a~dghil~ might begin with the first verse of the Twdfity-fourth Ps~l~a: '"The earth is the Lord's iind"the fulhess thereof." All of material 6reation, as Well as all wealth flowing from it, b~longs to God. Wealth possessed ~r~produced by human persons is owne~ by' God. We own nothing abs0iut~ly; all We have we hold in trust. Thi~ is the ffiith foundation of th6 stewardship perspective. As composites c~f body and soul, we include our intellectual and spiritual resources as part, of the basic endowment which belongs ~to the Lord: Our use of both ~nateri~l and immaterial r~sources is intended to be an exercise of ste,.wafdshio.~ , .~ 4 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 All we have we hold in trust for other~for those who inhabit this planet with us.now, and for those who will live here in the future. Stewardship has inescapable societal obligations. Why do I say all we have is held in trust for others? Why not owned by God and held by me for my personal use? Why the social dimension? Possession of a particular share of created resources may be private, but that private share cannot be used without regard for others. There are two considerations here: one of equity, the other of responsibility. On the equity side I have to ask, "Is my share a fair one relative to the needs and claims of others?" Put another way, does my share represent an unfair gain taken at the expense of others?" The equity issue quite obvi-ously relates more immediately to the possession and use of material re-sources rather than to those that are spiritual and intellectual. It is not necessary for someone to .know less mathematics so that I might know more. My food supply, however, may be held at the expense of someone less fortunate than I. Broadening the equity consideration from the individhal person to a larger group (as, for instance, one's race or nation) one can ask the equity question this way: does my group's share represent an unfair gain taken at the expense of other groups-? The responsibility consideration looks to the future. Are resources being used now in a way that will provide for future generations a secure basis for their existence? Again, this is easier to see with respect to material re-sources. If we depli~e our oil supplies, will they have an alternative source of-energy? If we pollute our lakes and streams, will they have ffater to drink? If we fail to sustain our soil, will they have bread to sustain their lives? What we refer to as "our" resources are also theirs, for they, like us, are sons and daughters of the sole owner, the Lord, who has entrusted his creation to our care and for our use. We are stewards. We own nothing absolutely. All we have we hold in trust. As inhabitants of this earth at this time, we religious educators, like our feilow~ on this planet, have stewardship responsibilities. As members of a religious community, moreover, we possess a tradition, a history, a style, some physical assets and an impressive array of spiritual and intellectual resources. We own none of these absolutely; all of these we hold in trust. We are stewards of this collective religious-community endowment. We face, therefore, considerations of equity and responsibility as we manage our collective endowment. The equity donsideration relates directly to justice and will be discussed in the next part of this article when we have to ask ourselves whether our share of these resources represents an unfair gain taken ai the expense of others. The responsibility consideration looks, as I suggested earlier, to the future. Are we using our resources, particularly our intellec.tual and spir-itual resources, in a way that is likely to enrich the lives of future inhabitants Stewardship, Justice and Purpose in Education of this planet?°The steward is in charge ofla household he does not.own. Is that ho, usehold being maintained by us in a state of apostolic readiness for effective service now and in the future? The story in ,Luke 16:1-8 of the "unjust steward" or "dishonest manager" serqi~s as a reminder that we can miSlase or misapply our heri-tage; we can indeed violate the trust that is ours. Failure to meet our responsibilities as stewards would mean failure to preserve a heritage that the Lord, the dominus, the owner of the householdmay well intend to have available for the service of future generations. To take my own Jesuit household as an example, I would include in my list of the central elements of the heritage that is now ours tb use and to preserve for the future these four: (1) The Spiritual Exercises, (2) development of the intellect, (3) service to the Holy See, and (4) apostolic flexibility. These four elements suggest that the Society of Jesus intends to foster in itself an embodiment of(1) holiness, (2)learning, (3) service to the Church, and (4)availability for necessary service ~an. ywhere in the world. ,~ Further specification of these elements rais'es four disturbing questions and one simple observation. The questions are these: 1. Does the prefer-ence .for poverty which characterizes The Spiritual Exercises also charac-terize the holiness of the Society today? 2. Does the emphasis on learning, present at the origins of the Society, remain an active emphasis in thisstage of the Society's growth and in all stages of the individual Jesuit's growth? 3. Does service to the Church of Christ and to the Vicar of Christ charac-terize our labors now as in the days of our origins? 4. Are we individually and collectively free to move our heritage and our resources in the direction of the greatest need, wherever that may be? The one observation I ~ould want to make in connection with the stewardship of the Jesuit heritage is this: formal education through the operation of schools, although part of the Jesuit tradition, is neither essen-tial to the heritage nor identifiable as an element that characterizes, the origins of the Society of Jesus. Similar reflection~, questions and observations can be directed toward the heritage and "household management" of any other religious commu-nity. " .~ o,~ 7 Justice Justice is symbolized by trays in balance on a scale. We speak of the "scale~ of justice." ~Vhen one tray yields weight to the other and imbalance occurs, the weights have to be adjusted to restore the balance. Imbalance symbolizes injustice; compen.sation makes adjustment (ad-just-ment), '~the achievement of justice, possible. Three years ago it was my privilege to address the New Orleans (Jesu'it) Province Assembly on th~ justice dimension of our apostolates~ In that paper I asked, "is ~our corporate apostolic service compensatory; are we 6 /ReviewforReligious; Volum~e 38, 197911. throwing our weight ~onto .the side of the oppressed?" I went on to say Symbolidally, justice is ~+l~resented by trays in balance on a scale.- The unbaladce of social injustice, where one group's advantage (th 'down tray) is taken at the expense .of another group (the up tray) calls for compensatory action.As a social group, we Jesuits should sh~ft our weight over to the weak stde. We see gaps between r, ch and poor, powerful and powerless, advantaged and disadvantaged. In exercising our min- " istry of justice, by whatever apostolic instruments, we sl~duld, it seems to me. trans- "' late the ideal of the Third Mode of humility into practice by choosing to be with Christ and as Christ---on the short side of all those gaps. Where do we throw our weight? Where do we throw our wealth, our income, our apostolic energy? One of the delegat6s to that assembly was the talented young lawyer-activist Alfred C. Kammer, S.J. In the question peribd following my talk, he expressed his personal view that the Society, as a group, occupier solidly and squarely the down tray in most" of the gap-comparisons that come to mind. In his recent contribution to Studies in the' Spirituality of Jesuitst Fr. Kammer~returns to my question, "Where d6 we throw our weight? Where do we throw our wealth, our income; our apostolic ener-gy?" and addresses it in these words: Th~ activist answers Father Byi'on's question by saying that the Society largely casts ' its weight with the "haves.'"with those who at best "don't care" and at worst are'the oppressors. He sees the institutional and personal weight of the Society lined up with the "haves" in such popular dichotomies as .these: white vs. black white vs. brown male vs. female U.S. vs. Third;World powerful vs. , powerless rich vs. poor . suburban vs. urban well-educated vs. poorly educated And, Fr. Kammer continues, "the,activist concludes that no matter how much Jesuits 'tinker' with their present .institutional commitments to facilitate the entry of some minority composed of the poor or disadvan, taged, th~e,.Society's weight is stii! .cgs.t overwhelmingly on the side of the well-off" (p~p. 10-11). I think Fred Kammer locates us Jesuits correctly. Weigh'ted do~v~ with the advantages of education, nutrition, health care, secure housing and all the other physical things necessary for our work, as well as those things less necessary but useful and convenient, we are on the down. tray, on the side of the well-off. Now_this raises many quegtions. What is the relatedness or relati0nship-between us and those who are less well off, those on the up tray, the disadvantaged. Are we Wher~we are because they are where they are? Has our gain been taken at their expense? With whom do we side when the issue ~" 'Burn-out' Contemporary Dilemma for the Jesuit Social Activist." Vol. X. No. 1, January 1978. Stewardship~ Justice and Purpos~e in Education is ,raised of redressing the balance? Without attempting to answer these difficult questions, I raise another that resurrects the,notion of stewardship. What are we do~ing ._with what we have? Do we manage it responsibly, share its, apply it,to the i,mprovement of life for others now and in the future? The Religious, CommUnity's Purpose in Education Many if,not most of us religious in America are stewarding our resources in an institutional educational environment. Will our stewardship-have anything .significant to contribute to .the promotion of justice? It may well be true that ~tinkering with our institutional arrangements will not shift our weight completely and existentially to the side of the poor and powerless. One need not conclude, however, that we must abandon our advantages. Nor does it follow that the down tray is necessarily the wrong place for' many religious to be. If we de=institutionalized our works, if wee gave away every physical asset we igossess ~nd went to live with the poor, poverty wo(dd be fieither relieved nor ~r~duced. We ar~ ~lo~t,lbcked 'into an adversary rel~ti6h~hip on the side ofth( rich againstth6 po6÷, 0n the side of whites against the blacks, on the side of a@ dominantgroup agaii~st any oppressed minoi'ity. We are in a position to'convert the "versus" linkages into hyphens find to forge connecting links of ~:econciliation between rich and poor, black and white, and other- di~,ided ~roups. A~dmittedly, many if not :most of us, a?e on the down tray. Admittedly, all occupants of the down tray will have to give somethingup if some semblance of balance is to b~.realized, and'most are unwilling to give up anything. And admittedly, the effort tO~'fi'chieve a balance between the trays is uphill and long range. But that is ttie.hatu're of the work we are called to do. Are we'free enough to do l~h~at i,v~b{k well? Central to an~ educational ~ork isthe develop~ment 0f"tiun~a~] potential. Human potential stretches into eternity;~the positive~side toward union with the Creatoi"bf that human p0t.e0[i-hl; the negative side points to the possibil: ity of eterh~i! alienation. , Formai education's inte{ests are coextensive with the entire range of positi~,e p~ssibiliti~s for human development. Recognition of this fact came early in Jesuit historY,. For more th~n four centuries now, we have been choosing formal education as an extr~brdinarily v~luable instrument for our work in the development of hum~.n potential. Many other religious in-sii'tutes have made'the same decision. ,:~ ,,~ ¯ At.this moment in our history, we Jesuits of the United States are faced with a.decline in numbers,'a fairly widespread loss.of nerve, some uneasi-ness ,about the appropriateness of our life-style and our ability, to live harmoniously and work effectively in companionship, and we are also faced with nagging doubts about.the apostolic value of what we are doing in,our schools. Our experience is.not uriique. In addition, we Jesuits have~lSeen challenged to redefifi~ ourselves~.and our mission.in terms of the service of 8 /Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 faith and the promotion of justice: Can this redefinition and concommitant rededication happen without abandonment:of our commitment.to formal educatiori? I think it can. Our Jesuit purpose in education is a logical extension of our stewardship and justice responsibilities.~And the same is true for many other religious. Formal education's interests are coextensive with the entire range of positive possibilities for human development. That is why religious communities choose formal education for their members, and choose to offer formal education to others. Higher education touches that ra.nge" of positive possibilities in a priv-ileged way. Wisdom is areal possibility at the stage of human development associated with higher education. At this level it is the privilege of educa-tors to group themselves into communities of inquiry which may become or beget wisdom communities,. The religious purpose in higher education is to move the minds and hearts of developing persons. The direction of this movement is Godward. The norm is truth. The outcome, it is to be hoped, is wisdom. And wisdom, we would all agree, is a gift from God. As the religious is a faith-committed person, so religious education is intended to be faith-commjttedactivity. If, as faith directs, everything depends on God, then wisdom would suggest that every'thing must be entrusted to God. If such wisdom is present with us at the beginning of religiously sponsored education, it may well be expected to reside with our students at the end of the edpcati0nal experi-ence. Any religious experience involves a search for God's will. This search, in the vocabulary of spirituality, goes b.y the name of discernment. And discernment, as we all know, is a wisdom characteristic. As any Jesuit knows, the Igna.tian way of discernment cannot be learned, from books. It can only be exp,grienced under the direction of a sensitive gpide. Hence, a special task, a privileged opportunity for Jesuits in higher education is to offer the e,xperience' of The Spiritual Exercises to those in .the learning community who want to grow spiritually. In the context o'f the Exercises, as in the classroom, learning should be directed by a motivator-organizer and assimilated by an active participant in the process. As a classroom educator or spiritual guide, the Jesuit, as an instrument of God's grace, is expected to assist the Spirit in moving the minds and hearts of those who want to grow. -' In the domain of higher education, there are many with the potential for wisdom. That is why Jesuits gather there to work. Their task is not only to teach and search for truth in all its forms, but also to share their founder's special grace with those who want to grow the Ignatian way. The Ignatian way toward wisdom is part of the heritage, the endowment over which every Jesuit exercises a stew~irdship responsibility. His antecedent respon-sibility; of course, is to have internalized the Ignatian way. His educational methods :will; not surprisingly, reflect it. Normally, his desire will be to live and work in companionship with others who are familiar with the Ignatian Stewardship, Justice and Purpose in Education way. And the Jesuit's hope, wherever he works, will be to share this way Or see it shared with others. That is responsible stewardship. It is also part of the Jesuit purpose in education. Parallel purposes, hopes and apostolic approaches characterize the work of other religious who are educators. There is much of a practical nature that (ould be said of education-for-justice efforts now underway in Catholic educational institutions. A lot of experience is accumulating. Rather than listing courses, projects and field experiences of demonstrated value, I would prefer to mention only one program that is designed to assist all educators in addressing the world hunger issue. Atthe 1974 World Food Conference in Rome, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger pledged the cooperation of the United States to work with other nations so that "within a decade no child will go to bed hungry" anywhere in the world. In hopes of facilitating contributions from educational institu-tions toward this goal, Bread for the World Educational Fund launched in 1976 a Decade of Commitment on World Hunger (DCWH). The program is designed for institutions of higher education. It provides conference oppor-tunities for administrators, faculty, campus ministers, career guidance counselors and students to share ways of placing and keeping hunger on the academic agenda. Emphasis is placed on four areas within which colleges ~:an deal with the hunger issue: curriculum, research, campus ministry and career choices made by students ("In the face of the world hunger problem, what are.you going to do with your life?").?~ Som~ of.the best work in justice-education is happening in secondary schools. Again I refrain from listing the specifics. I would, however, like to say a word about the person of the secondary educator. To put it more pr.ecisely, I would like to repeat a great theologian's reflections on the value of the person and importance of the work of the religious who is a high school_teacher. The Jesuit secondary educator is the man John Courtney Murray, de-scribed with admiration and affection as "The Schoolmaster." He spoke of the schoolmaster as the grammarian, the person who is knowledgeable in the elements of his subject, whose knowledge is, in this sense, elementary but certainly not superficial. The schoolmaster is devoted to the communi-cation of these elements as a lifetime work. Being a schoolmaster, said Fr. Murray to a Jesuit audience at Woodstock in 1961, is '~being on the growing edge of things, beca.use the growing edge is youth." "We are supposed to be Jesuit ministers of growth," he added, "'ad profectum animarum." "We are supposed to be men of tomorrow. One of "~The Educational Fund, which can also provide worship aids and high school course-materials on hunger, is a separate corporation closely related to the Christian citi~.ens lobby known simply as Bread for the World (207 East 16th Street, New York City 10003). Membership in Bread for the World (annual dues $10) will keep one informed, by means of a monthly newsletter and background papers, about the hunger issue. "10 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 our earliest undertakings was to become schoolmasters, schoolmen. Doc-trina exacta et solida is first the tradition of the Church; it is also the tradition of reason. We are committed to an intellectual apostolate--a min-istry of and io intelligence." The schoolmaster imparts the skills and guides the maturation process. The more fully the religious schoolmaster or schoolmistress has assimilated the basic elements of his or her religious, heritage, the more valuable is he or she as a role model in the 'midst of the young. The classroom teacher's task is largely one of method and motivation; the object is to move both minds and hearts. Inevitably, the response the teacher stimulates will be a response to himself or herself. This is a privileged relationship. If the sct~oolmaster (or the scholar, for that matter) is a person of justice, a sense of justice will be communicated to the students. If the institution-alized set of arrangements known as a school embodies in its procedures relationships of justice, then those who teach and learn there will, in vary-ing degrees, embody in themselves the principles of justice. The religious schoolmaster has, of course, a life outside the classroom. There are pastoral opportunities and citizenship responsibilities. The apostolic base, the school, can and should.be a place from which the religious reaches out to the Christian and civic communities for the service of faith and promotion.of justice. That outreach will, it might be expected, involve both witness and advocacy roles in 'the cause of justice as an expression of faith. Education for justice is a challenge we religious are capable of meeting. We should have no doubt about that. Whether we will. meet it or not is another matter. But we can, if we choose. The educational outcomes, the results of our efforts to educate for justice, depend on powers beyond our own. There is no reason to believe that the Lord will not raise up men and women of justice in our midst and in our times. I recognize that there is no bne method known now to be the most effective in educating for justice. The argument over method goes back to the Aristotelian notion that the one who does justice will come to under-stand justice; and back as well to Plato's view that the one who first understands justice will then act justly. In this important matter of educat-ing for justice, we Catholic educators have a laboratory system in our American schools and colleges. We can try different methods in different situations and compare results. The findings of our experiments in educa-tion for justice can be shared with other educators in other systems. We can make a difference here. As we do it our way, in the intellectual-educational mode, unjust, ex-pioitative, discriminatory and oppressive situations will remain in our world. But in direct proportion to our success in educating fqr justice, future world situations will have a reduced share of injustice. It is a Chris-tian characteristic not to give up on the future. Stewardship, Justice and Purpose in Education / 11 Father BenWren, a New Orleans Province Jesuit whose scholarly inter-ests include Eastern mysticism, tells me that there is a Chinese saying to0the effect that one who is concerned with planning for a year should plant rice; the person interested in planning for a decade should plant trees. But one who wants to plan for a century will surely want to educate people. There.is a religious purpose in education. That purpose is consistent, for example, with our contemporary Jesuit focus on the service of faith and the specification of that service in the promotion ofjustice. The activist impulse suggested by the word promotion is quite congenial with our purpose and style of education. Through education; we can touch both trays on the scalEs of justice. When we work with the advantaged, we should have the disadvantaged in mind. We can challenge ourselves and all others who occupy the down tray to dedicate ourselves in conscience to making life livable for the poorest of the poor. When we work directly with the e~onom-ically disadvantaged, we can assist them in developing the competencies that can help them move toward a better life. The earliest Jesuit schools were free. But never, so far as I can deter-mine, were Jesuit schools exclusively for the poor or exclusively for the rich. Today, we are with the rich,much more than we are with the poor in our educational work. Who can say that we cannot somehow, somewhere in the decades ahead bring our educational energies into more direct contact with the poor? Who can say that we will not, in the meantime, find new and effective ways of bringing the "haves" with wtiom we work to an accept~ ance of their obligations injustice toward the "have nots"? And who woul~l want to take responsibility for disengaging ourselves from the apostolate that makes either option possible? That last question, in my view, highlights the importance of personal and community life-style for those who work in the educational apostolate. We religious in America are perfectly capable of going soft. We can indeed insulate and isolate ourselves from the condition of the disadvantaged masses. We are capable of-violating our stewardship. If that should happen, justice will not be served and the religious purpose in education will have lost its salt. In The American Mind (Yale, 1950), Henry Steele Commager remarks that for Willa Cather, the past was significant for its moral qualities. Her long literary life was, according to Commager, an elaborate remembrance of things past--the past of the pioneers who had built the West, of the immigrants who had carried with them into the New World their sense of beauty and art, of those earlier spiritual pathfinders, the Franciscans and Jesuits, who had served their fellowmen and their God so selflessly. And all her novels and stories., were animated by a single great theme as they w.ere graced by a single felicitous style, the theme was that of the supremacy of moral and spiritual over material values, the ever recurrent but inexhaustible theme of gaining the whole world and losing one's soul (p. 150). Dealing, as she did, with the frontier as the setting for many of her 12 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 stories, Miss Cather apparently found inspiration in the frontier idea and saw it as a setting for clarification, and dramatization of moral issues. Hence, as Commager points out, the passing of the pioneer generation meant, to Miss Cather, the passing of all the old virtues, "and she was incapable of believing that there could be different virtues in a civilization whose standards were those of the countinghouse, whose habits were predatory, and whose rewards were social and ostentatious rather than spiritual and private" (p. 154). Commager cites a tribute to Nebraska writ-ten by Willa Cather in the early 1920's: We must face the fact that the splendid story of the pioneers is finished and that no new story worthy to take its place has yet begun . The generation now in the driver's seat hates to make anything, wants to live and die in an automobile, scudding past those acres where the old man used to follow the corn rows up and down. They want to buy everything ready-made: clothes, food., education, music, pleasure; Will the third generation--the full-blooded joyous ones just coming over the hill--be fooled? Will it believe that to live easily is to live happily.'? (p. 154). Two generations have passed since those words were written. Religious at work in Nebraska and elsewhere in America are prepared to admit that many of us in many different driver's seats have been fooled. Regrettably, some of us, by witness and word, have foolishly encouraged others to believe that to live easily is to live happily. The "new story" thatoWilla Cather was looking for in Nebraska,can be written anywhere in America by contemporary religious educators, if they choose to. I suspect that "the full-blooded joyous ones just coming over the hill" are not now being fooled; they recognize that if we want to live happily, we will want to do what we can to make life livable for the poorest of the poor. Schools alone cannot do it and they certainly cannot do it right away. But without the schools, it will not be done at all:. Discipleship and Loneliness: A Marcan Meditation Michael T. Winstanley, S.D.B. Father Winstanley lectures in New Testament Studies at Ushaw College, the Senior Seminary for the Northern Dioceses of Eng_l, and. He lives in the Salesian community attached to Ushaw College; Durham DH7 9RH; England. His last article, "'Jesus, Poverty and the Kingdom," appeared in the July, 1977 issue. Your vow to remain unmarried for the sake of God's kingdom will draw you into the loneliness of the cross of Jesus and reveal the basic loneliness of every man.1 In his,book The Calvary Christ Gerald O'Collins writes: "Too often a cloud of stale words covers Calvary. Theologians and exegetes can use a language remote from anything we feel. Conventional-religious art asks for our conventional reaction. Tendencies .towards evasion in all of us allow this art to continue and the dull language to grind on. We accept the old fo.rmulas, the familiar crucifixes and the ponderous pronouncements of scholars with a mixture of loyalty and mystification. We need to find and fashi6n ways of reflecting on the crucifixion which can let it speak to us again with. new power.'' How far this statement mirrors our feelings and experience, each indi-viduai must judge. I should like to suggest that one way of reflecting on the crucifixion which can indeed let it speak to us again with new power is to tRulefor a New Brother (London; Darton, Longman & Todd, 1973), p. 16. 2G. O'Collins, The Calvary Christ (London, SCM, 1977), p. ix. 13 14 / Review for Religious, Volume 38,~ 1979/1 take one evangelist's presentation of the passion of Jesus, to meditate on it, and to allow its impact to challenge our lives. For each of the evangelists narrates the story in his own way, with his own particular emphases, highlighting different aspects of the drama, f~cusing different facets of the person of Jesus,.communicating his own theological vision and understand-ing of the significance of the event. Unfortunately, the originality of each approach is often blurred, and the sharpness blunted by the comfortably generalized picture which most of us have. In this article I shall concentrate on one of the motifs which dominates the passion according to Mark, namely the loneliness of Jesus.3 It is this which constitutes his greatest suffering, far more than any physical pain. In fact, Mark, as indeed the other three evangelists, evinces little interest in the physical torments of the Master, laying little stress upon them. Mark's Gospel has been called a passion narrative with a long introduction. This reminds us to view the passion within the framework of the whole Gospel; consequently, in our consideration of some of the elements of the narrative, it will be necessary to refer back to earlier sections of the Gospel. The earliest passion narratives probably began with the arrest scene. "Suddenly, while he was still speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, appeared, and with him was a crowd armed with swords and ~cudgels; sent by the chief priests, lawyers and elders." The man responsi.ble .for the success of the arrest is not one of those whose constant opposition had dogged Jesus' tracks, but "one of the twelve," one of his friends. Our minds flash back to an earlier scene in which Jesus "then went up into the hill country and called the men he wanted: and they went and joined him. He appointed twelve to be with him, to be sent out to proclaim the gospel, with a commis-sion to drive out devils. So he appointed the twelve .-." (3,13-16). Discipleship is primarily a personal call to the intimacy of friendship, a being "singled out" in order to "be with." It is one of these chosen ones who had shared his fellowship who is the traitor; and the sign of his treach, ery is the normal sign of respect and friendship: "When he reached the spot, he stepped forward at once and said to Jesus, 'Rabbi,' and kissed him. Then they seized him and held him fast." The verb Mark uses here means a particularly ~iffectionate kiss, a firm embrace. After a futile act of token resist~ince which served only to emphasize Jesus' defenselessness, "they deserted him and fled, every one of them," including the~youthful follower who narrowly evaded capture. , Mark recounts this Scene with a laconic matter-of-factness that is chill-ingly disconcerting. Earlier that evening, as they walked together from the supper room to the garden, Jesus had predicted their flight: "You will all fall from .your faith; for it stands written: 'I will strike the shepherd down and the sheep will be scattered.'" And Peter, not untypically, had insisted that he would die even, rather than disown Jesus. "And they all said the same" 3cf. Hendrickx, The Passian Narratives (Manila, East Asian Pastoral Institute, 1977). Discipleship and Loneliness: A Marcan Meditation / 15 (14, 26-31). Yet they were not Slow to seek their own safety and leave Jesus to face his fate alone. This flight and abandonment, the memory of which haunted the early Christians, was in fact the culmination of that failure on the part of the disciples both to understand and to accept the messiahship of Jesus which Mark traces throughout this Gospel, especially after Caesarea Philippi in Chapter Eight. On that occasion, in answer to Jesus' questioning concerning people's opinions about him~ and his further probing as to the views of the disciples, Peter, as their spokesman, professed Jesus' messiahship. Jesus responded by speaking openly about his passion for the first time, which provoked a bewildered attempt to dissuade him. At this time Jesus rebuked Peter in ~strong terms for his thinking as men think rather than as God thinks, and proceeded to outline the nature of discipleship: "~nyone who wishes to be a follower of mine must leave self behind, he must take up his cross and come with me" (8,34). A little later in the narrative, as they journeyed through Galilee, Jesus again spoke of his passion, "but they did not understand what he said and were afraid to ask" (9,32). And on their way they argued about seniority and importance and greatness. Jesus predicted his passion for the third, time on the road going up to Jerusalem in terms which were unmistakably clear. The failure of the disciples to understand is illustrated by the next incident, in which the two sons of Zebedee made a bid for the top jobs in the Kingdom. The rest were naturally indignant about this, a row broke, out, and Jesus, in patient frustra-tion, attempted to open their minds to the nature of his messiahship and of his kingdom, and to the real meaning of discipleship in terms of service (10,44-45). It is this inability or unwillingness to grasp and to accept what messiah-ship meant for Jesus when this proved to be different from what the twelve were expecting and hopiag for; this inability or unwillingness to embrace in vision and in lifestyle the kind of discipleship such a messiah demanded, which expressed itself so decisively in their garden choice not to be "with him," to care for their own safety (8,35), to forsake him and flee. The next scene in the passion drama, comprises Jesus' trial before the Sanhedrin and the denials of Peter; the~e two incidents are closely inter-locked in Mark's account. '~Then they led Jesus away to the High Priest's. house, where the chief priests, elders and doctors of the law were all assembling." Already Mark has clearly designated the Jewish leaders as the ones responsible for Jesus' arrest (14,43), and he indicates each section that made up the San.hedrin, the supreme religious and legislative body. For Mark, these are his real enemies. From the early stages of the public ¯ ministry they have consistently opposed him. In Chapter Two, when the paralytic is brought to Jesus, the doctors of the law consider his talk about 16 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 forgiving sins quite blasphemous, and Jesus vainly attempts to open their eyes as he cures the poor man. A little while la.ter, after the call of Levi, when Jesus is at table with tax-gatherers and sinners, the Pharisees com-plain~ to his disciples about the types he"mixes with; Jesus, on hearing this, retorts, not without a touch of irony: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick; I did not come to invite virtuous people, but sinners" (2,17). Mark now records the Pharisees' criticism of the disciples for plucking corn on the Sabbath, a complaint which stung Jesus to challenge their basic tenets in enunciating the principle that people mattered more than sabbath regulations. This incident is followed by an episode which underlines the mounting hostility, the failure of Jesus to win acceptance of the religious ~lite. It is a sabbath and Jesus goes to the synagogue, where there is a man with a withered arm. "And they were watching to see whether Jesus would cure him on the sabbath, so that they could bring a charge against him." Aware of their malicious intentions, Jesus tries to draw them, to make them aware of the perversion of religion, the distortion of the image of God, that adherence to legalistic casuistry entailed. He encountered an obstinate and ominous silence, saddening and frustrating. "But the Pharisees, on leaving the synagogue, began plotting against him with the partisans of Herod to see how they could make away with hirh." Thereafter Jesus is obliged to live and to work under the shadow of this threat. The rift widens as the ministry continues, and eventually, as the conflict approaches its climax, Jesus takes the game into their own court, openly challenging them by expelling the money-lenders and merchants from the temple .precincts. On hearing of this, the chief priests and doctors of the Law "sought some means of making away with him, for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching" (11,18). Not long afterwards Jesus spoke that indictment-parable of the wicked husbandmen. The inevitable result was that -they began to look for a way to arrest him, for they saw that the parable was aimed at them; but they were afraid of the people, so they left him alone and went away" (12,12). As that fateful final week progresses we hear of the attempts by the Phari-sees and Herod's party to entrap him in regard to the Caesar tribute (12,13), and by the Sadducees in regard to the resurrection (12,18-27); and we hear Jesus word-lash the doctors of the Law (12,38-40). And so, finally, as the Passover feast approaches, "the chief priests and doctors of the Law were trying to devise some cunning plan to seize him and put him to death" (14,1). Now these men have Jesus in their power at last. From the commence-ment of the so-called trial or enquiry, their intentions are firm and limpid; with cynical singlemindedness "they sought testimony against Jesus to put .him to death" (14,.56). Mark paints the scene in a few, bold, vivid strokes: the balking incompetence of the false witnesses; the silent, dignified, isolated figure of Jesus; his foes bent unanimously on his destruction. Discipleship and Loneliness: A Marcan Meditation Swiftly the evangelist brings the matter to a head, as the high priest asks Jesus whether he is in fact the Christ. At Jesus' open affirmation, the high priest, with an elaborate dlsplay of passionate horror, accuses him of blas-phemy; and the gathering ends as planned: "they all condemned him as deserving death' '--again Mark emphasizes the unanimity of the opposition, and the utter aloneness of Jesus. Whilst, in an atmosphe.re of frenzied hate and delighted success, Jesus is beaten and mockbd and humiliated, Mark shifts our attention to the courtyard where Peter stands by the fire warming himself in the chill night air. We are familiar with the painful description of Peter's triple denial of the Master. Mark skiifully orders them in a crescendo pattern so that the third denial is the most intense, accompanied by curses and a solemn oath. Some scholars suggest that Peter, still under fire in spite of his first two denials, resorts to the strongest possible manner of dissociating himself from Jesus by actually cursing him; this is the force to be given to that staggering disavowal: "I do not know this man you speak of"--an even more emphatic restatement of his earlier rejection of Jesus' messianic way at Caesarea Philippi. Peter, singled out to be with him, decisively opts in public not to be with him. Mark heightens the effect of this by juxtaposing the incident with the trial .scene: Jesus, true to himself and his mission, affirms what he cannot deny, his messiahship; and he is rejected by the religious leaders of his own people and by his closest follower. Alone and in chains, he is led away and handed over to pagan power (15,1). The rejection and isolation of Jesus is further accentuated in the subse-quent scene when the ordinary people shout for his death. The fickleness of crowds, the fragility of public opinion, is a commonly recognized phe-nomenon. From the statements of the Pharisees cited earlier, it would seem that Jesus continued to enjoy a considerable amount of popularity with the masses. Yet their acclaim was always suspect. Quite early in the Gospel, Mark describes the wave of enthusiasm and excitement sparked by Jesus' miracles and teaching; the people flocked to him with their sick, and hung on his words. But their response went little deeper. For the most part, they misunderstood the nature of his kingdom, the,genre of his peculiar messia-nism. They were not won to faith; they were prone to disappointment and disillusionment, with the resentful antagonism that this engenders. Now, when Pilate in a desperate effort to release him, offered the mob the option of choosing "Jesus Barabbas," as he was probably called, a freedom fighter convicted of murder, or Jesus of Nazareth, the crowd, incited by the chief priests, clamored for the insurrectionist, and screamed for Jesus to be committed to the hideous torture-death of crucifixion. We should not allow our familiarity with the story to dull our sensitivity to the poignant pain of that scene, the dreadful irony as the nation whose whole history pointed to this moment, the nation chosen out of all peoples on the face of the earth to be God's own people (Dt 7,6ff.), disowned their 11~ / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 Emmanuel. Jesus stands there in the open, alone, the impassioned cries of the people that was his people ringing in his ears, as they chant his rejection. His bitter desolation is intensified by a sense of injustice. Even Pilate was convinced of his innocence: "Why, what harm has he done?" Thus he is abandoned tothe Roman soldiery. In his economic description of the crucifixion and death of Jesus, Mark emphasizes the solitude of Jesus by mentioning details which, because of our acquaintance with the versions of Luke and John, we are apt to over-look. After the passers-by had hurled abuse at him and mocked him in his helpless anguish, and the lawyers had jested and gibed, "even those who were crucified with him taunted him" (15,32). At the end the robbers, too, renounce his companionship; Jesus does not belong even with his fellow-sufferers. Similarly, it is only after the death of Jesus that mention is made of the women who had followed him from Galilee, and who "were watching from a distance" (15,40). At the foot of the cross there is no mother, no beloved disciple; Jesus died utterly alone. The searing anguish of his pain and loneliness arid failure is focused and captured in the loud cry from the cross: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" But he died "without a word or a wink from God to reassure him that, whatever the gawking crowd might think, he knew that Jesus was not only innocent, but valid where it mattered.''4 Jesus' sense of total rejection by men is compounded and intensified by his feeling abandoned by the Father,.by his experience of estrangement and alienation that be-longs to our sinfulness. The psalm that Jesus is citing is a psalm of uncon-ditional trust in God's love and ultimate vindication. The last words of Jesus are a radical expresSion of his loneliness, and a "radical expression of a devotion to God which endures in every adverse experience--a devotion which continues to claim God as 'my' God and will not let him go although he can be experienced only as the absent One who has'forsaken the peti-tioner.''~ It is this surrender in love and trust that is our window into the mystery of his personality, for it is the human expression of what.we have come to call divine sonship; it is this surrender in the brokenness of death which, like the buried grain, is the source of our life.6 It is, I believe, true that Mark's way of presenting the passion of Jesus can allow it to "speak to us again with new power," speak to us with hope and with challenge in the center of our experience. All of us know at first hand the meaning of loneliness. I still vividly remember my feelings of desolate helplessness on the occasion of my first day at school as mother walked out of the playground beyond the iron fence. Or years later, when, having spent three years in enclosed quasi-monastic surroundings, I went to sit my finals in London, sporting a large 4L. E. Keck, A Future for the Historical Jesus (London, SCM, 1972), p. 229. ~E. Schweizer, The Good News according to Mark (London, SPCK, 1971), p. 353. ncf. my article "Trust--the Life-Attitude of Jesus" in Doctrine and Life, Nov. "76, pp. 803 ft. Discipleship and Loneliness: A Marcan Meditation Roman collar at twenty-one; everything and everyone seemed to be telling me that I did not belong~°I recall also the numbing sense'of lostness that came over me as' the train hissed noisily to a halt in Wigan station the evening 'my father died. Loneliness has many forms: the jarring sadness of bereavement, the corrosive listlessness of loss and separation, the anguished alienation and shame.of guilt and sin, thedisappointment of failure, the isolation of intense physigal suffering or imprisonment; the d(structive discouragement and paralysis of non-acceptance and rejection, the pain of misunderstanding and estrangement, the gnawing emptiness of unfulfilled longing for intimacy and genuine cbmpanionship, the absence of~God. Loneliness is thic.kly woven into the fabric of our lives, it.is a facet of our human poverty, our poverty of being. But Mark assures us that it is an aspect of being human that Jesus-fully shared throughout his ministry and especially in hi~ final hours. Most of us are anxious to avoid pain, physical pain; our medical and pharmaceutical experts have mercifully developed many varieties of anal-gesic. Most of us, likewise, sedulously attempt to avoid the pain of loneli-ness; and our society has developed a wide range of would-be anaesthetics--from discos to little dog~--to soften the abrasive harshness of our experience. I, for one, am very grateful for the refuge and comfort afforded by the telephone! And yet I wonder whether Mark is challenging us as disciples of Jesus to Cope with our loneliness m. ore creatively. Whilst recognizing with thanks the extent to which he made the experience of loneliness his own, perhaps we are reluctant to recognize that he did what most of us, most of the time, seek to .shun. In spite of gripping fear and instinctive repugnance, he did not run away from it; and his steadfastness transformed it into a life-giving element of redemption. Perhaps it is here that Mark is speaking to us again with new power; perhaps the challenge for disciples of Jesus consists in transforming the pain of loneliness into a source of personal growth and of life for others. It is very important that instead of taking one of the numerous escape roads open to us, we learn to come to terms with our loneliness and listen to our own feelings and struggles, our aspirations and questions, and live themacceptingly. It is here in the unique my.stery'of our personal selfhood, in the depths of our being, that we must have the courage to allow God to find us. It is here that his call is to be heard: "Do not be afraid, for I am with you . " So often God seems absent for the simple reason that we are fearfully evading his loving presence. Loneliness is paradoxically a poten-tial source of enrichment, for it can teach us the meaning of poverty of spirit, which opens us to the gift of God's kingly rule through the Spirit poured into our hearts, that surrender in loving and trusting obedience which is the hallmark of the Master.7 rI'his is developed by Henri J. M. Nouwen, Reaching Out (London, Collins, 1976), pp. 25-101. 90 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 In learning to come to terms with our loneliness, we may learn like Jesus, to love more genuinely, more compassionately. Our going out to others will be legs oriented to answering our own needs for companionship and fulfillment, and will become an expression of authentic service which can liberate and heal and enliven. At Caesarea Philippi, Jesus asked Peter and the other eleven: ~' And you, who do you say I am?" He reiterates this question to each Christian daily. Peter was able to acknowledge J~esus as Messiah, but his response was inadequate, it did not involve a willingness to follow in his way; he jibbed at the implications of discipleship. Loneliness, failure, misunderstanding, rejection are always painful, very painful, and are a constant in our human experience; a constant, however, shot through with hope because of the paschal mystery of Christ. Our answer as disciples to the challenging ques-tion of Jesus must be expressed in our willingness to take up this cross and go "with him." A Lamb Looks Through the Fence (Where the grass appears to be greener) The grass is greener on the other side: At least, it seems that way. Shepherd, give me a heart content To praise, to server to stay. This is the pasture of Your choice, And lessons here await: Calm the longings of my heart And bid the storms abate. For fences also keep us safe, Hedged in with loving care, Provided for and protected from The lion and the bear. Teach me to trust--this humble prayer Removes the restless yen: Some day we'll see from a higher view How green our side has been. Vi~la Jacobson Berg 5 Roosevelt Ave. Malverne, NY 11565 Reflections of a Bishop on Religious Communities Leonard J. Crowley Leonard J. Crowley, Titular Bishop of Mons in Numedia, is Auxiliary Bishop of Montreal. He is Director Of the Office for English Language Affairs in the archdiocese; 2000 Sherbrooke St. West; Montreal, Que. H3H IG4; Canada. n the very fitting context of the Feast of Pentecost last year, two Roman Congregations (The Congregation for Bishops and the Congregation for Religious and for Secular Institutes) promulgated a very significant docu-ment on Directives for the Mutual Relations Between Bishops and Reli-gious in the Church. The statement is significant, for its very existence admits that there is room for growth in understanding between the episcopal office and religious communities. For far too long within the Church's often turbulent history there has been too little fruitful communication between the overseers of the faith and those specialists who have a particular and time-honored gift to share with the faithful. Th~ warning of John Cassian to his monks in the fourth century seems, even today, to express a deep-seated mistrust: "The two groups you must avoid at all times are women and the bishops." The Diocesan/Religious Rivalry This basic antipathy often shows itself as well in the ranks of those from whom the residential bishop is normally chosen in North America--the diocesan clergy. What some may naively call a healthy rivalry between religious and diocesan groups is often~ at root, a basic distrust of one another's real motives and abilities in the exercise of the apostolate. 21 22 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 This recent document addresses itself directly to this sorry condition where it exhorts that "efforts should be made to renew the bonds of fratero nity and cooperation between the diocesan clergy and communities of religious." It even suggests the context of "simple and informal" gather-ings "which serve to increase mutual trust, apostolic solidarity, and fra-ternal harmony" (37). The duty for seeing to it that such fraternal gattierings take place and grow in significance and depth is placed squarely, as it should be, on the shoulders of the bishop. Furthermore, it is the duty of the bishop to so blend the services of diocesan and religious groups that each recognize members of outstanding talent and together support their promotion to positions of service commensurate with their capabilities; for "the bishop should . . . exhort the diocesan priests to recognize gratefully the fruitful contribution made by religious to their Church and to approve willingly their nomination to positions of greater responsibility which are consbnant with their vocation and competency" (55). In basic fact, if we truly are to witness to the mystery of the Lord Jesus in our midst, then there should be no rivalry but only harmony in the service we render. The bishop and his diocesan assistants should rejoice in the presence of specialists who bring a particular talent to minister ina certain area to the People of God. In such a context, "bishops, along with their clergy, should be convinced advo-cates of the consecrated life, defenders of religious communities, promoters of vocations, firm guardians of the specific character of each religious family both in the spiritual and in ihe apostolic field" (28). As a matter of fact, it is the bishop's "specific office to defend consecrated life, to foster and animate the fidelity and authenticity of religious and .~o, help them become part of the communion and of the evangelizing action of his church, acc.ording to their distinctive nature" (52). ~ Difficulties of Identification But herein lies the crux of the problem. Many a bishop would be hard pressed to identify the "distinctive nature" of the religious groups en-trusted to his watchful overseeing. In many instances there seems to have ¯ been a loss of clear identity on the part of religious communities. The bishop i~ fully aware, in most instances, that "the very nature of apostolic action requires that [he] give precedence to interior recollection and to the life of prayer;" but he is also frustrated by the realization that some religious apparently have not taken to heart the realization that they must, "in conformity with their distinctive nature, renew themselves in depth and be assiduous in prayer" (23a). What a bishop must be seeking from religious who reside in or enter his diocese is a specific dedication and consecration to a form of spirituality and to an apostolic witness that is as clear and as vital as it was when the Ruleo that embodies that life was first written. The bishop must be concerned with the future of his flock; but he wants that future founded solidly in the values that have come out of the past. Therefore he must be in search of"religious Reflections of a Bishop on Religious Communities [who], even while showing a particular spirit of enterprise and foresight for the future, [are] intensely loyal to the intention and spirit of their insti-tute." (34). However, the simple fact appears to be that many religious groups have maintained a loyalty to their institute but have lost sight of both its intention and its spirit. The Second, Vatican Council has urged. The Adaptation and Renewal of Religious Life to begin with a sincere return to the spirit and the mind of the Founder and from that unique font to build anew a personal and communal zeal for the spread of the Gospel, in all its richness. It is obvious that many, if not all, religious communities have adapted themselves, their customs, their habits, to the contemporary condition--not without a great deal of soul-searching, painful compromise, and interminable meetings. But adaptation was the easier half of the challenge and directive laid down by Perfectae Caritatis. How many communities have gone on to embrace a radical renewal of their original spirit? For it is in the light of that question that one can honestly ask about the future relevance of religious life. Ignorance of Specific Spirit In many instances, individual religious find it all but impossible to dis-tinguish the uniqueness of their charism from that of other religious commu-nities. Beyond a loyal chauvinism for their own institute, many admit that their vision, their mission, their methodology is essentially the same as evi~ryone else's. The historical reasons that called: the original foundation into existence often are gone now, the needs alleviated, the witness fulfi!led, the expectations satisfied. The more specific the historical reason for the foundation, the more difficult becomes the task of pinpointing its relevance now in the latter part of the twentieth century. This quandary has caused much frustration on the part of dedicated and deeply concerned men and women who recognize the values of their traditions, see a need for apostolic zeal within the mission of the Church, but find it difficult to wed the two into an effective and realistic union within the contemporary con-text. What has happened in the minds of many young religious is to say, "Forget the past. Deal with the present and prepare for the future." But such an outlook definitely isolates one frbmthe ~rich traditions that give reason for the continuing existence of the particular institute. It truly ap-pears that too many religious today are ignorant of the spirit that enkindled the foundation of their community. They may know its historical back-ground; but they have done little to identify with .the charismatic zeal that gives them a uniqueness and an individuality so necessary in building up the full experience that is Church. For there appears today to be little difference between one religious community and another except in terms of an accident of history or geography. Beyond the clear distinctions offered by the stric~tly contemplative and monastic communities, religious orders and societies seem to have Ihid aside those distinctions that called them into 24 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 existence. Many individuals apparently responded to a vocational urging as personified in a particular individual: a teacher, a pastor, a chaplain, a family friend. The specific community to which that individual belonged meant little, except that it was the obvious context within which the indi-vidual was to pursue his vocation if he intended to follow the lead of his childhood hero. Thus many young men have gone in pursuit of the priest-hood, not as a diocesan priest or as a member of a religious community, but as a priest like Father Racine, or Father Joe, or Father O'Brien. Many young ladies simply continued their religious quest in the same context as the academy or the convent school to which they were sent by parents desirous of the best education possible for their offspring and knowing that the "good sisters" would provide just that. Symbol of Identity Of course, as the individual comes to identify with the community to which he has gone, to learn of its traditions and history during his years of postulancy and novitiate, he doubtless grows in love for and identification with the order or the congregation. That identity used to be symbolized .very powerfully in the reception of the religious habit. More than anything else, the habit had been the external symbol of an internal commitment. For many communities of religious women, the bishop was called upon to participate in this very important step in identification with the spirit of the Founder and the vision of the order. But, for many communities today, the habit stands as a symbol of the past. And the search for a clear, contempo-rary sign of identification whereby new members might feel a sense of oneness with the community has been a very frustrating one. Yet, in the beginning, it was not the habit that gave identity; it was the spirit and zeal of the Founder, as these drives inspired the community, giving a clear sense of purpose and single-mindedness to all who embraced the Holy Rule. It is that spirit which must be renewed in religious communities today if the symbols of religious life are to have any role to fulfill within the Church. The Problem of Stability Because many religious communities have been established for the ministry of the Universal Church and not for the local church alone, many within a diocese, often the bishop himself, tend to resent the fluidity of a religious community's commitment to a particular apostolic endeavor. For such persons, whose commitment to the local church is total, there is a very deep-seated hesitancy to entrust the fulfillment of a ministry to a group whose commitment often seems to be as long as its superior's vision is far-reaching. Such an anxiety seems natural and even fortified by the gospel parable about the hireling and the good shepherd. However, what many, whose commitment to the local church is so intense, fail to recognize or to acknowledge is that the purpose of religious exemption is "so that institutes Reflections of a Bishop on Religious Communities carl express their identity more adequately and devote themselves~to ,the common good with special generosity and on a wider scale" (22). If all who work together within the diocesan community have a proper appreciation of the exempt status as "a certain expression of that pastoral concern which unites them intimately with the Roman Pontiff for the universal care of all people," such an awareness "will promote greatly increased apostolic' ini-tiative and missionary zeal in every particular church" (22). ' Of course, every religious community that comes to ~erve the local church, even if it does beloia~ to an institute of pontifical right, "should feel themselves truly a part of the diocesan family" (18b). Therefore their com-mitment should be as deep find their solicitude as pervasive as every other apostolic witness within thediocese. However, in those situations where an institution finds itself "unable to carry on a given undertaking, its superiors should, in good time andwith~confidence; make known the factors hinder-ing its continuance at least in its actual form, especially if this lack is due to personnel. For~his part, ti~e local ordinary should consider sympatheti-cally the re~luest to withdraw from the undertaking and in common accord with the superiors seek a suitable solu'tion" (47). in other words, every local Church must always see itself as a vital organ of the universal People of God under the guidance of the Holy F~ther. None of us can afford to allow our apostolic vision to become so myopic as to blind us to the needs beyond our own backyard. Bishops~ especially, must realize that the zealous service of religious in his pastoral domain is always carried on'with a sense-of ministry to the Universal Church. Such a presence, then, is a blessing as it broadens the horizons of our apostolic perspective and helps us to appreciate more deeply the total concern of the Father for all his children. Thus as religious come and go within a diocese, neither the ordinary nor his diocesan assistants should resent their fluidity but shoiald see, in their willingriess to move as the Spirit calls them, a vivid reminder that we all are a pilgrim people on the move to the home that we can ohly begin to build toward in this world. The Church is larger and more loving than any of us. We must always st.rive to be of humble service to her needs and to free those who feel the ardent call to another vineyard, to another manifestation of the Spirit's solicitude in the midst of the people of God. Future Expectations Religious ~ommunities are ~:alled today to "devote themselves with full awareness and zeal to the task 0f incarnating and manife.sting in the diocese the specific witness and the genuine mission of their institute" (22). This is the value and the service that the bishops, are going to be searching for in the future, all the more so ,as they realize quite clearly that they "are entrusted with the duty of caring for religious charisms . [For] in this way;" by fostering religious life and protecting it in conformity with its own Review for Religious, Volume 38,~!~979/1 definite characteristics, bishops fulfill a real. pastoral duty" (9c). Thus the bi~hopJs going to be in search of and solicitous for those communities that. are responding in the modem day to the needs of the Church after the spirit and .with the zeal of their founders. Quite obviously, then, "religious supe-i- iors have a grave duty, their foremost responsibility in fact, to assure'the fidelity of the members to the charism of the Founder, by fostering :the renewal prescribed by the Council and required by the.times" (14c). The future of religious life will lie in the oab!ljty that each religious community has to move away from the mentali~ty of being an embattled camp; of~asse~ting, by quality of performanceoand depth of, solicitude, the recognition that "every institute exists.for the Church and must enrich her with its.~distinctive characteristics, according~to a particular spirit,and a specific mission" (14b). Eacho!n,stitute-is a shepherd, not a hireling-~.,~but only, ifoit speaks with the voice of its Founder who echoes the voice of the Good Shepherd. "The very charism of the founders appears a_s "an experi-ence of the Spirit' transmitted to their ,disciples to be lived, safeguarded, deepened and constantly developed by them, in harm~gny with the Body of Christ, continually in the process oLgrowth" (11). o. The future of the religious life de, pends, then, on a renewal that will be as much new as it will be re-. Besides a deep appreciation of the~historical origin and vision of one's community, each one,must se, ek innovative and creative ways w~ith which to bringthe wisdom an~t°~technology of contempo-rary society to bear upon the timeless values articulated, by the Lord Jesus and specifi.cally~ pursued within a particular religious context. The more clearly and more wholesomely we can make those value~"'li.~,e in our own day, the more relevant and essential becohaes the role we intend to.fulfillS' That is one reason why the renewal of the religio~us life remains ~such a crucial issue. However, that renewal is feasible only if each in~stitiate ,and every member is clearly aware that"it is necessary to preserve the identity of each institute so securely, that the danger of an ill-defined situation be avoide.d, le§t0religi,ous, failing to give .due consideration to the .particular mode of action proper to their character, become part of the ]if~"of the Ch.urch.in~a vague and ambiguous way" (11). ~_ Personal Reflection' As a bishop, I have been renewed by this document from the two ¯ Congregations, with a sense of the very serious responsibility that I have for the religious communities who minister to the people .I w.atgh o.ver.~I have always hoped that the religious who come into our midst would bring their special gifts and talents to' bea~- however or wherever thei.r apostolic pre~s-ence took them. Now I realize more clearlyothat, together wit.h my brother bishops, !' have a duty to help.directly and distinctly the religious commu~ nities in our midst to remain true to their founders' ideals and to fulfill ~their, specific mission in th.e w_ay that they alone °can do. In other words, 9s bishop, it is my duty to see to it that the apostolic commitment of each ~ ~ ~ ., ~ Refie~ctions.-bf a Bishop on Religigus Communities / 27 community is in keeping with and true to the spirit of their Rule. I must be available to help each religious entrusted to my pastoral care--and that includes every one in the diocese where I ministeruto be true to the specific charism of his or her community. It is my deep hope and confident prayer that religious, for their part, will serve each diocese in which they labor, not as general practitioners of gospel values (nor will: they accept ministries which would expect such an approach), but rather will share the fruits of their own foundations with the whole people of God in the particular and unique way that they are able. Admittedly such an approach demands a restructuring on the part of young and old alike. But that revamping is essential to the future flowering of the religious life and the future fulfillment of the Church. Unity Through Diversity In conclusion, the renewal of every religious community is eventually going to bring each congregation to the realization that we are all struggling toward the day when Jesus will be "'all in all," where there will be no distinct communities because the vision of every founder will finally be focused together in~ the one reality of the Lord Jesus. And there will be'no more religious communities because there will be only one religious Com-munity in the City of Goti; there will be, in the-~0rds of St.'Aug~astine, "one Christ loving himself." Yet, as we move toward that day of fulfillment, we musl move in the paradoxical fashion of human naturemfor~we move toward unity through .diversity. It is that great diversity of religious ingight and,~xp~erience which must be shared.with the Christian Community'in order that its unity might be achieved mor~ effectively and all-inclusively. In order to accomplish that objective; y,oung religious must take gr~at pride in the"tradition to which they ~ commit themselves, a pride that will make them zealous sharers, with all'God's people, of:the girls entrusted by the Spirit to their care. For ,those girls shall be, preserved only if they are generously commu-nicated to and'for the Church. And religious must learn to see in the bishop ,a source of support and solicitude, no longer the "'enemy,''-~but a loving brother, deeply concerned for their well-being and their growth. For the bishop clearly should understand that the future of religiousfife is the future life of the Church. - ~0 As the~Spirit shared the great diversity of his charisms on. that first Pentecost, magi the message that Mother Church has given to her ministers on this past Pentecost Sunday fill all of us ~4ith deep respect and concern for the building up of the girls entrusted to each of us for the life of the Church. Th, en.the grace of the Ho!y ,Spirit will fio~d fulfillment in us all as we bec~me truly one in Christ to the glory of God "the Father. From.""Ministry'' tO"Church Work" The.Fate of Tired Souls Paul Marceau, C.S.C.' " Father Marceau is a doctoral candidate in spirituality at the Graduate Theological Union, .Berkeley, CA. Presently he is on the staff of Moreau Seminary; Notre Dame, IN 46556. n the aftermath of the recen~ papal election a news commentator referred to one of Pope John Paul's distant predecessors who, after assuming the office, said that he spent so much time tending to the needs of others that he was in danger of becoming a stranger to himself. The problem of the threat of'being consumed by the demands of ministry is not a new one. Jesus himself seemed to recognize this danger and from time to,time would draw the disciples aside to rest (Mt 14:13f.). In this articl6 I~will sketch what 1 believe ~to be a particular form which that problem' takes 'in apostolic religious life today: the phenomenon of the over-burdened, under-cared-for religious who is being consumed by apostolic and community work and who, in the process, may be dying a slow and painful death as a human being, a minister, and a religious. As the life of such a person gets frag-mented by the constant demands of apostolic ministry there is a danger of losing one's personal center, and one's relationship with God becomes threatened in the process. Whenthat happens in the life of any minister in the Church I would suggest'that the apostolic activity of such an individual ceases to be "ministry" °and becomes only "church work." Most reiigious in apostolic communities have found (and continue to find) the early years of ministry an intoxicating experience. The apostolic life which they enter after their years in formation is challenging and de-manding. There seems to be so much to be done, so many needs to be 28 From ,"Ministry" to '~Church Work" attended. Within a short time the religious begins to feel needed and ap-preciated in ways that were unknown and perhaps impossible in the years of formation? There. develops a greater sense of self-worth as the person begins to do what he or she could only reflect upon or do only in a controlled and well-regulated way in the years of formation. There is a sense that one is finally fully immersed in ministry and with that comes the sense that one isat last doing something with his or her life, and not simply preparing to do so. A.new dimension of the personality develops and becomes more cen-tral: that of the hainister and apostle. The focus shifts from what ~was, in the years of fOrmation, substantially pr.eparatory, receptive, and to a large degre,e inner-directed and reflective to the active, the outward, the full immersion in ministry. The apostplate in these early years after formation makes heavy de-mands on self and time but most individuals are excited by this and would not want it to be otherwise. With the constant need and cpnstant demand of the apo.stolate, however, there come problems with the m.anagement of one's time and, ,indeed, of one's life. There is less and less time (and perhaps even desire) for leisure, for one's own concerns, for reflection upon one's life. Given the choice between the needs of others and one's "free time"0 (and there doe~ not alw.ays seem to be a choice), the religious often sacrific~es w.tlat .is the e~siest to sacrifice: personal time and space. Prior to the Changes in religious iife'which took place following Vatican I1, time for prayer and reflection was protected, at least in theory,2 by being built into~ the schedule. Such tim(for private ~'ea.ding, prayer, and refl+ction, how-ever, isnow no longer "given"; it has to be found and it seems ~ncreasingly difficult.to find it. Personal prayer and reflection gradually have come to be nudged out of the lives of many by the hectic ~nd busy pace of their apostolic.life. Indeed, there was a time in the past decade when such times aside f(om'ministry were rl.o.t only considered luxuries but were Iobked upon as 'selfish luxuries, as time stolen from the service of others in need. Perso'n~l prayer beco~n"e~, problematic, even for those with the best of intentions. Few, if any.~,fiaiike a conscious decision to give UP personal prayer; it gimply gets~ pushed out by the "more important" and more immediate concerns of Io~,e and service to others. It is a gradual process by which people's lives simply become so overwhelmed by the 9postolic and. qn the past. of course, apostolic involvement during the years of formation w~s minimal. Young religious were protected from such "outside" distractions. As a result, for people trained in such a context, immersion into full-time ministry,provided a shocking change from . their years of formation, The change is less abrupt today since significant apostolic involve-ment is seen as a critical part of formation. Nevertheless, the "full-time" ministry has a dynamic of its own which can really be experienced only in the doing of it, no matter how well one is prepared for it. zWhile time for meditation, spiritual ~'eading, examination of conscience, and so forth, may have been provided in previous schedules, there is certainly enough evidence to wonder to what extent such schedules were ac~tually honored--other than by those in formation. 30 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 community demands that there is simply no time "left over" for oneself., Finding time for' personal prayer becomes a terrible.struggle, the wagingof, ahopeless, losing war. For some, the loss of,,that dimension of their re-ligious life is easily justified by their appeal .to the demands of ministry; for others Such loss is--the Source of much shame and guilt.~ Foi" many, prayer has bedome a time squeezed into'fi hectic and already' cluttered day. It is ~so~ething to be fitted in between Walter Crorikite ahd'~ an evenin~g meeting, or between a dis~tressing hous~ meeting arid the celebration of the Eticharist.:These patterns of prayer-time tend to reflect their livegt prayer time itselfis'9 hectic and bdsy,°'often cluttered, time. Even when the time is fotindfor it, prayer is'filled with the concerns of 0ne's~ day. It is a time full of distractions, a very busy and unfocused time, filled~ with the hundreds of stimuli that the individual brings off ~he street with him: The time which one struggles to have alone'with God becomes a time to do a lot Of religious "business," a trine for pra~,ing for the concerns ministry, .for commending to ~he Lord all the. wounded who ha~d tbuched one's life that day. The time "aside" is really no time aside at'fill but simply a 'diffei-erit'fOi'um for doing what"one had been doing all'day long. " " For"others, the dynamic of personal prayer shiftg from "time aside" to prayer-on-the-i'un, a kind of "are you running ~vith me~, 'Jesus" format. There is sirrligly no 'time to tend to the'personal reli~gidoiums e"n °s i~o'n~ "o:f ~ o' n~e* :s~ ' life, and God is put on "hofoldr "~ n'"creas"~ °ngly lon"g ~er. "p~e ,r i.~ods of time. Not infrequently i'eligious m~ke little bargains with God, prom'ising to return to him at a latCr date when there is more time available: "I'm g?ing tO be very busy this s~'ineste~ and I reall3i won't have mucl~time for prayer ' but I'll get back t'~3ibu at Chris~tmasvacation or during the~summer when things let up a liitle." But Chrqst~n°~s o~:summer vacation corhes along, and when there ts finally t~me for prayer, such individuals find that they can no longer pray as they once d~d because they have fallen out of the habit of personal prayer. The closeness and the ~nt~macy ~s no longer there; God seems to be further away. The more personal, direct and intimat~'relationship~vith God that one might have known in quieter and mor~ peaceful ti~e~ is gone. There is a dis-ea'se about one's relationship to God, and the times alone with him are f0un'd~{o be somewhat strained and uncomfortable. The struggle to fi'nd some t~me aside does not, aftei- all, seem to' be quite worth it because thOre does not seem to be much pbint to it. " ~ Iwshort, given the difficulty of finding times for prayer,~ and the busy and hectic pace we experience,e.ven when they fire found, prayer time becomes~ more and more minimalT"and what there is becomes increasingly lesg satisfying. As a.result,, m~ore and more weight for the spiritual life comes to be put on community, or on "apostolic prayer." Liturgy and'common prayer become the focus and substance of the prayer life .of many to the exclusion of~all other forms. But with that, .there is often felt an, uncom-fortable dissonance between what one says in his~ministry and'what one' From "Ministry" ,to "Church Work" d0es.-,Thus~, although he may preach eloquently; celebrate reverently, discuss the gospel enthusiastically and be complimented and affirmed by his parishioners, students, and fellow community members as being a good priest andreligious, the spiritual dimension of apostolic and community I.ife seems to have no echO;in his ownolife: He believes the message and is sincere when he tblls others about it, but at times it seems very far frorfi what he himselffis experiencing. Neverthe!ess, sharing sacraments,and common prayer~with others is at least a lifeline for many. When there is a dis-ease and a discomfort about being too alone with oneself and with°G0d, one can often find solace in participating in the more formal, more .struc-ttired ,forms of prayer, such as the sacraments and Office, since slach f/arms allow 'one to approach God without being too alone before him. Just as p~ople must build up habits of pr.aYer with time and practice, so it is that they fall out of the habits of personal prayer. Thps, ~hen a pe,rson's life become~ overwhelmed and fragmented by a busy and hectic apostolic ministry, personal prayer becomes difficult not only because of time con-siderations but because the doing of it becomes an uns~itigfying thing. For one who has fallen out of the practice .of personal prayer, moments o~f aloneness can become very frightening, and so instead of struggling tofind such times of alonene'gs and of the oppo~:tunity to foc~us within, the religio0,s may eventually fipd h~mself strugghng to avotd focusing w~th~n for fear of seeing too deeply, with to6"~uch clarity, ~hat may be happening to his fraghaehted life. When tli~it' h~ppens, the 'i~dividual spends an enor~mous amount of time and psychic energy fleeing such moments, protecting him: self from God. P~rsons sensing this dis-ease a, bout the'Jr relationship with God may read about God, talk al~out God, may do'the works of the Church and~ma~ even°hpproach G~d. in the company of othersobut they are often unable to bear facing God' in their aloneness, to be ~ilent before him. If such.is.the fate of n.ot a few apostolic religious in the past decade (and I believe it has b, een), then the task for them, again, becomes one of the struggle t9 av.oid, such moments. The apostolate, itself a contributory cause to this state of affairs, becomes a welcome and easily legitimized.distraction from facing oneself. Religious can throw themselves into their_work and give themselves over to be consumed by the apostqlic need which, as a matter of fact, is always ~,aiting there to be cared for. But this is not the zeal of those early y~ears of their ministry; it is, in fact, just the oppqsite. The work, what one does, is now.no longer ,a way of sharing what is inside, but a way of avoiding it. Instead of zeal andenthusiasm driving one from within to sha~e what.~e .has pers.onally experienced and discovered about'life and about God,,there is flightto the work for its own sake, a flight away from the i,nterior self. ~with diminishing personal energies and resources.tq ~driye and sustain himself, he becomes willingly carried along by the demands of the apostolat~e, .and~ lifebecomes one busy apostolic distraction. When ihat .happen,s, when,a person becomes emptied inside and can live .only on'the 32 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 outside, then he is:no longer engaged in the doing of ministry but.is simply busy about doing what I would call simply "church work." The irony of all this is that a person may be, and very frequently is at this same time in life, just h!tting his professional stride, doing the kinds of things that he always wanted to do in ministry,~with all the requisite pro-fessional training, and receiving very reassuring feedback from others about his ministry--and yet the.re seems to be something terribly missing, and he cannot understand why~ He may be doing very good work, pro-fessionally satisfying, assisting others in. living their lives and yet feel that he.is not doing a very good job of living his own. He might say to himself: "I should be happy but I am not. What is the matter with me?" As one person expressed it to me: "I am good and successful at what I am doing. ! enjPy it and find satisfaction in it--but why do I feel like I am dying?" The constant concerns and needs of others (and the constaht need to be focusing outside oneself), the very things .which used to energize and sus-tain the person in the early years of ministry, now only drain energies and makes the indiviidpal feel th~it his whole life', by choice"or by abdication, is being consumed by the apostolate. The apostolate has become for him a thousand-tentacled monster, constantly making demands, never letting up, constantly draining him of diminished or even exhausted personal energies. For the weary church worker the apostolate becomes a.two-edged sword: it is a welcome distraction protectin.g him from looking too closely within and, at the same time, a drain upon his personal energies even to the point of exhaustion. There is a variation to the above theme ~f the one who allows his life to become c~onsumed by the apostolate~ in order to avoid what may be dying inside, and this variation is marked by the opposite of involvement: with-drawal. For this person the apostolate becomes an eight-hour-a-day (or less)job and he is quite capable of walking away from it in order, as he sees it, to preserve his own necessary personal time and space; Having created sixteen hours of personal time and space of the twenty-four, however, the task he faces then becomes One Of filling up his space and time so that he will dot be left alone with it. In order to defend himself from se6ing the void within, the individual will do anything to fill up that time, to be distracted. He will read novels and magazines for hours (this may be his'version of "'being alone"). He may spend evening after evening watching television without really knowing or caring what is on the screen. He may arrange a heavy social schedule.'He will do anything rather than face the emptiness and discomfort that is within him. The weary church worker's life has become overwhelmed and frag-mented by the consuming demands of today's apostolate. He may be a victim of the work but. in the end; he knows that b,~ ,.'s a willing victim. He m'ay even see himself in the role of a martyr, giving his all that the world rr]ay be saved (or at least a little'more saved). But underneath the hectic and clu~ttered life of today's church worker, there is the danger of building up F¢om "Ministry" to "Church Work" /,33 increasing levels of resentment against those whom he serves. The de-mands never let up and nobody will leave hi~n alone. He may be tired. There may be a lot of suppressed anger and resentment. But worse than either of these, as long as he seems-to be good and successful in his work, is the fact that nobody seems to care about what is dying inside him and how he feels about himself and his ministry. The problem, in fact, is that no one can see what is dying inside him. All the outward signs appear to be good. The iridividual is busy, involved, committed to the apostolate, and actually doing good work there. He is sociable and affable in community, relating well there. No one can see what is happening inside him because no one is allowed to see it. The individual may have a difficult time even bringing himself tO see it and there may be too much shame and guilt to allow anyone else to see it. All the while the person may be saying: "they (superiors, fellow religious, fellow ministers) are themselves too busy ministering to others and I cannot burden them with my problems; I know what I~feel like when one more problem comes my way and I don't want to be just one more problem for' them." There is a final, cruel irony in the situation of the apostolic religious who, by the process described above, has been turned into a busy church WorkeL There is a rehewed interest and concern for spirituality and praye~ in the Church today--and that is w~lcomed. Religious are once more con-cerned about their relationship with God. But, as often a~ not, that concern is a source of guilt rather'than a source of strength. Concern for spirituality and prayer--whether the concern is assumed or imposed~--isjust one more ~lemhnd placed upon the life oLthe already tired religious. Instead of one's i'elationship with God being the source of personal energy and an impetus to ministry, it can become just one more thing to worry about along with.all the others~ one more thing with which the religious has neither the timenor the energy to contend. Instead of being the place of rest where he no longer has to be doing and Working, his prayer becomeg just one more thing to do and to work at. Instead of his relationship with God being the source and center of life, it is thrown in with all the other things which clamor for attention in a life which has lost its center. Apostolic religious communities in America today are running the risk of producing amongtheir members merely weary church workers suffering from battle fatigue. In the long run, however, there will be a price to pay in human suffering and tragedy, as suppressed anger and resentment can be suppressed no longer and begin to surface, Often in indirect but destructive ways. Religious will retire too Soon from the battle, burnt out men and women who will no longer be driven or taken advantage of. They will unclutter their lives of hectic apostolic activity and then turn and fill them up with other more relaxing distractions; but whether busy with apostolate or busy with relaxing distractions, many will be leading lives of quiet desperation because their lives no longer have any focus or center to hold them together. Review for Religious, Volunie°38, 1979/1 There are alternatives, I think, to the way we live apostolic religious life and the way we do ministrytoday. Just ~as~we do no good for a.materialistic society if we ourselves get caught up in its materialistic ethos, likewise we do little good for a society that runs at an insane pace, fragmenting the lives of its people when we ourselves run at; that.~same pace, becoming quite as fragmented in our own lives. A different style and pace of apostolic religious life need not mean that apostolic ministry be less involx;ed, less concerned, or less whole-hearted than it is now. .~ . ~.," Finding the meaning of one's life in one's relationship to God and sustaining that relationship personally through reflection and prayermmany indeed "take time away from others" but it may also allow us to offer them something more than what had been our busy, overburdened lives. G~'ound-ing our personal lives outside of the work we do may both'free us from the apostolate and, at the same time. free us for it. We will be freed from the apostolate not in the sense that we will lose the apostOlic dimension of our life in favor of the comtemplative life but rather in'!the sense that the meaning of our lives, as individuals and as communities, would no longer be tied to this specific apostolate and this particular work. "We would be freed from the works of our own hands to pursue and minister to the needs of people wherever and whatever they may.be, On .the other hand, it may well be that we would be doing the same kinds of. things ,that we are ,doing now,. but the person doing them will be different: still busy, but less frantic, and bringing to those situations a life which is a little calmer, a little more rootedand peaceful. Our apostolic ministry might be less cluttered but, at the same time, more deeply involved; we might be less frenzied, but also more zealous about the things we do. Finding the focus and center of one's life in God and taking time to tend to that dimension of life will give impetus and focus to our ministry. It will take :nothing away from it but will, instead, make ministry all the more importantmand all the more possible. "Promises to Keep"' A Homily for Final Vows J.Peter Schineller, S.J. Father Schineller, ~ member of the faculty of the Jesuit School of Theology in Chicago (JSTC), shared with those who witnessed his final vows in the Society of Jesus the't~houghts and movements that were his then. He resides at 5554 s. Woodlawn Ave.; Chicago, IL 60637. While'I was visiting "my brother and sister-in-law over the Christmas hblidays, as oftenhappens with a new toy, an argument arose betweeh their two children. The younger boy was unwilling to let his big sister play with his new eiectriC helicopter. The conversation went something like this: "It's my t6rn! You'have to let me play ffith~it."" "I don't want to and 1 don't have to." "You have to, and you know you have to." "I don't ~have to,' and I ~on't." "You have to, because you promised!" "Well, OK." My five year old nephew was trapped. He was caught by his promise, and he kne~ it. He knew in his child's wisdom that a prom~ise is something special, something sacred, and not just any old word. Promises make a difference.' "The child in me made promises more than 18 years ago, not about toys, but about how to spend my whole life*; promises not to ariother pers6n, but promises to God, tlie Father of all persons. And here I am this ~evening, to *The Jesuit's "first vows," taken at the end of the novitiate, include the perpetual vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. (Editor)' 35 36 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 renew and to finalize those promises in my profession of "final vows," and to renew the promises with joy and enthusiasm. And so in these last few moments in which I am still a Jesuit scholastic, I would :like to share a few thoughts on 1) how I see these promises, 2) where the inspiration to make the promises comes from, and 3) how it is possible for anyone to make a profession of vows. First of all, what am I promising and vowing this evening? In one sense, it is nothing new, nothing beyond what I promised eighteen years ago, a life of poverty, chastity and obedience in the Society of Jesus. It is not a new turn, a grandiose new option, but rather a public statement of my choice tO continue on the road begun. Yet in another sense, it is a new choosing, because with eyes far more open than 18 years ago, I am saying, "This is the path for me, and I promise to take this path as long as I live." The promises I make tonight are promises that I can only make tonight, and could not have haade five, ten--or eighteen years ago. Much has been written about the meaning of the vowed life. i donit intend'to present a new theory, but let me say briefly how.I see what I am promising. In the vow of obedience, I am saying that I will not try to build ~a career for myself. Rather my life is a responding life in the Society of Jesus, a response to the call of God as seen in the needs of others. In chastity I am foregoing the joys, pleasures and anxieties of building a home and family and thus establishing family roots. My basic community will be the Jesuits I live, work, and move with. In this way I hope to be available for loving service, wherever the good news of God's love is called for. In poverty I am saying that I will look upon my time, talents, education as always God's gift to me, not for myself, but to be shared in the service of others. Finally, I promise to do all of this as a member of the Society of Jesus. That is much easier to grasp and to explain. For it means living, growing, working, enjoying life, and dying with many of the persons you see here. And it is quite a group: young and old, tall and short, from all over the United States, and even from around the world. What do w,e have in common? All of us are engaged in the serious convers.~ition and ctiallenges of Christian life and ministry, in the~.tradition of Ignatius and the many .great Jesuits of the past and present. We are trying-in many different ways to let the good news of the love of God break into this world. ~ Secondly, where do I get the urge or inspiration to make these vows and promises? If it comes simply from my own imagination, then I could make and break these promises without further ado. But years ago, in quiet and diverse ways, the idea crept into my head to be a Jestlit and a priest. The idea came fr.om reading books, from conversation; from the example of my family, parish priests, and from Jesuits who taught me, And so I responded. "Promises to Keep," A,Homily for Final Vows But it was a long time ago that the journey began. Today where do I get the inspiration to make this profession of final 'vows? It seems to me that the process is quite similar. You, so many here, and so many who couldn't be here, in your own ways, have kept ~the vision and ideal of being a Jesuit priest before my eyes. YOU have been sending me signals, challenging, pushing, leading m.e, ~and so I respond. You have been sending me signals,' as I read them, that indicate that what I am about is good, and is from God. Signals have come from the parish at Harvey, Where I help on Sundays, to friends and teachers at the University of Chicago; from Jesuits in New York to students I teach and learn with here at the Jesu.itSchool of Theology; from fellow faculty members, friends of Hyde Park, to those I live with at Jesuit House. And I have to rely on :these signals, signals which have given me hope, courage, and confidence .,that 1 am on the right path. There is one conviction that has grown over the years, that while the vows are finally from God and made to God, it is according to his plan and purpose that the desire and courage to take and renew the promises of vows always comes mediated through.human lives. I sensed today a new insight into, or application of the parable of the last judgment in Matthew 25. If I might dare paraphrase it, I would say, "what I prpmise or vow to you, the least ofGod's brothers and sisters, I am vowing to God himself." But thirdly, how it is ppssible to make and live such promises? Many would say that this way of life is inhuman, psychologically unhealthy, or even un-Christian. How can i be sure that this is truly the will of God for me? How can I avoid the danger of the vows, the danger of being un-loving, irresponsible, the danger of pride in thinking that I have chosen a "better w~y" than n0n-vowed life? How can I'choose or control the future, and say where I wish to be ten or thirty years from now? Am I not fighting against Christian freedom, the freedom of the Spirit? Finally, and most trouble-some, how can I promise to God what he alone can give true obedience, holy poverty, and perfect chastity? These virtues are his gifts, and so how dare I promise or vow them'before God? The answer to these difficulties and°dangers must be an answer in faith, hope, and loving trust. Let me explain: I used to think I could figure it out--and had figured it out. I had what I thought was an adequate view of God, a solid enough view.of myself and the meaning and possibiliti~es of human life. I thought that on the basis of this perspective I could pronounce and keep my vows. They made a lot of sense. Now I see it is ndt so easy. For I see that vowed life, in common with all life, is, to use Karl Rahner's phrase, "a surrender to the mystery and incomprehensibility of God." I can't give a complete and adequate rational account or grounding for vowed life, for myself or anyone else. But on the basis of expei'ience and prayerful reflection, I dare to say that this life is not only.possible, but it is God's will and graced way for me. Living the vows as I have been about and encoun- 311 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/'1 tering the mystery of God in and through them is. their only final justification. Th.ey have been, are, and I say tonight, will continue to be my way to meet God, to be myself, and to respond to the needs .of God's people., Just as the Jesuit-.style of life has shaped my daily existence, so, in a.mysteriou.s way, the vowed life has shaped and formed my faith-filled idea of God himself. The God, revealed to me through the vows is a God I can and must stand before in trust. He is the one. who gives joy, peace, fulfillment, and a sense of purpose and mission far deeper tha~ any that I could create or grasp on my own. Moving to the center of the mystery of the possibility of the vows, I dare to say in and through these vows that God, the incomprehensible one, is not distant, far-off, uninvolved, but rather he is somehow present and working as the one who makes possible these promises in the first place. I find I am almost forced to say that he, in his Holy Spirit, is making the vbws and promises in and through me. And go only on this basis.do I dare to promise what God alone can give as gift. For I am convinced that it is a response to his impulse and urge that pushes me to make this commitment. I began these reflections with the story of a child:s pr~mise at Christ-mastime. Let me conclude with a poet's words on promises. In the midst ofa busy Week in a snow filled winter in Chicago, a pocida of Robert'Frost is perhaps most appropriate, "Stopping by Woods on a Siaowy Evening." It is good that we are here together, pausing; ~stopping not by woo~is, but in the city i~f Chicago in Augustana Lutheran Church.Tlie poet, stopping with his horse and carriage explains, "The woods are lovely, d~rk and deelS." And ~peaking formyself, Isay, yes,the woods I have journeyed through over ,the past eighteen years have been lovely, dark and deep. The woods a~re lovely--exciting, encouraging, adventuresome and challenging years, with beautiful moments of joy and peace, so lovely that~ I gla.dly, freely continue down this path. The woods are dark--filled with the .unexpected, from a pre-Vatican II Church onward towards Vatican III, with the graced paradox of a Jesuit pronouncing his final vows in a Lutheran church. Final-ly, the woods are deep if nottiing else the years of th~ journey have been deep, far too deep for me to understand and explain all that led me here tonight,, and all that is involved in this celebration, far tro deep for me to adequa.tely thank all who have supported and e, ncouraged me. Yes, the woods have been deep--filled with the mysterious presence of God in one humari life. The,,woods I,have journeyed through have been lovely, dark and deep, and I am saying in effect tonight that I would not trade a~0ay this way of, life through the woods for any other way. I say this joyfully, and as strongly as I can. But we can't stop here and pause here too long in-snow filled Chicago. For as the poet reminds us,'and as his poem concludes: "Promises to Keep," A Homily for Final Vows / 39 The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. May God who is Father, Son and Spirit continue to strengthen and guide each one of us on our journeys in the miles ahead. REPRINTS FROM THE REVIEW "A Method for Eliminating Method in Prayer," H. F. Smith, S.J . 30 "An Apostolic Spirituality for the Ministry of Social Justice," M. Oliva, S.J . 50 "CelibateGerhtality," W. F. Kraft . 50 "Celibacy and Contemplatio~n,'~ D. Dennehy, S.J . 30 "Colloquy of God with a Soul that Truly Seeks Him" . 3.0. "Consciousness Exhmen," G: A. Aschenbrenner, S.J. . ~.50 "Hidden in Jesus Before the Father," G. A. Asch~ffbrenner, S.J . 50 "Institutional Business Administration & Religious," Flanagan and O'Connor . 30 "Instruction on the Renewal of Religious Formation;' S.C. for Rel!gious . ~ . .~. . 35 "Prayer-of Personal Reminiscence," D. J,' Hassel, S.J .6.0. '~Profile of the Spirit: A Theology of .Disdernment of Spirits," J. R. Sheets, S.J. ' . 50 "Psychosexual Maturity in CelibateDevelopment," P. Cristatitiello . . . ~ . 60 "Retirement or Vigil," B. Ashley, O,P. .~.3.0 "The 'Active-Contemplative' Problem," D. M. Knight .7.5. "The Contemporary Spirituality of ihe Monastic Lectio," M, Neuman, O.S.B: . ~. . 50 "The Four Momeiats of Prayer," J. R. Sheets, S.J .5.0. "The Healing of Memories," F. Martin . . . 35 "The Nature and Value of a Directed Retreat," H. F. Smith,oS.J . :.° . .35 Orders for the' above should be sent to: Review for Religious Room 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St~ Louis, MO 63108 Destructive Passivity Spiritual Direction in Judith Roemer Sister Judith is a member of the staff of the Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth; Church Road; Wernersville, PA 19565. ecently, I have become aware of the work of Aar.on a.nd Jacqui Schiff on psychological aspects of passivity (T. A. Journal, 1:1, January, 1971). As I read some of their findings, I began to see applications to the situation of spiritual direction. I began to realize how important it is for directors to be more alert in detecting patterns of destructive passivity in their directees. I came to recognize how important it is not to foster such patterns. It.seems to me, then, that noting and examining the categories of these psychologists regarding negative passivity can be highly productive in improving the process of spiritual direction. ~ "Passivity" has long been esteemed in the spiritual life. For that reason, it seems necessary to distinguish clearly from the start precisely what is the subject of this paper. There definitely is a time for activity, and a time for passivity. What seems essential is that passivity, as a way of responding, be carefully chosen. When, after looking at a situation and being in touch with my faith, my intelligence, and my affectivity, I decide to do nothing, I have made good use of passivity. This paper is not about those freely-chosen, well-thought-'out, peacefully and joyfully chosen situations. On the con-trary, this paper is concerned .with a form of passivity which inhibits adult responsibility and substitutes an unproductive way of acting for a decision. Previously I had thought of passivity in terms of "'dging nothing," However, the unproductive types of passivity wear many masks. Along 40 Destructive Passivity in Spirit.ual Direction / lll with "doing. nothing," passivity can take the form of "over-adaptation," "agitation," "incapacitation," and "violence." Each form in turn has many other forms as the category is expanded. In writing about the situation of spiritual~direction, my assumption is that, for the most part, I am dealing with normal, productive adults. Hen~e~ without pushing Schiffs' original categories of abnormal behavior beyond their intent, I suggest that the destructive areas of passive behavior noted by them do have potential tendencies that are also to be~found ~n the situation of directing healthy adults. Both director and directee carl profit by being aware of them. Secondly, I want to show that the Spiritual Exer-cises of St. Ignatius contain some useful tactics for cou.nteracting destruc-. tive passivity. Using these tactics can be the occasion for providing quality decisions for the furtherance of the Kingdom. Doing Nothing In religious circles we often smile knowingly at the self-made martyr; we chide one another with the standard phrase, "Offer it up." We are indignant at the priest and levite who preceded the Good Samaritan and passed by the wounded stranger because it wasn't their business. We scoff at Cain as iii~ asks about being his brother's keeper. All of these are simply good exam-ples of the first category of destructive passivity, of doing nothing. Not quite so obvious is the example of a person who gathers data ad infinitum; waiting endlessly for the perfect insight, the perfect moment, before con-cretizing his dream in decision. Close to him is the example of the person who is caught in speculation to the point of paralysis. His personal intui-tions convolute beyond time and talent, becoming a threatening burden rather than a beaconing light. Substituting one a~tivity for another, washing the car instead of writing the checks, is yet another form of "doing nothing." A quite obvious form is plain indecisiveness. Not quite so easy to detect would be falling into a certain disproportionate balance of activity and passivity in prayer. One of the greatest struggles in prayer is knowing when to let go of activity in order to be quiet. As a person moves from a meditative stance to a contemplative stance, he is faced with the decision to choose or to resist passivity. Instinctively he would tend to resist whatever would challenge his depen-dence on word, fantasy, clarity or concept. In prayer, though, a person at some time is faced with the necessity of choosing the darkness of faith in place of his familiar dependency on thoughts and feelings. In the Exercises of St. Ignatius, the First Principle and Foundation (23) gives a clear direction against ~'doiflg nothingi': "The other things., are created for man to help him . Hence he ought to make use of them insofar as they help., and to rid himself of them insofar as they prove a hindrance." Later, in the Kingdom (91-98) the id quod volo (grace desired) is indicat- 49 /Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 ed in the petition to be "prompt and diligent., not to be deaf." Further on, the Three Classes of Men (149-155) portray sets of persons in the midst of decisions. At one extreme is the destructively passive man, who, filled with hopes, dreams, doubts, and attachments, comes to the end of~ his life uncommitted, not having "made use of any means." At the other end is the man of the ThirdClass who has developed a sense of freedom, a willingness to work with many options "to be better able to serve God our Lord." Many,, times people are unaware that there is any way out of their unproductive passivity, and thus see "doing nothing" as a way of survival. But this neednot be the case. A director who insists on careful discernment encourages his directee to find and develop many alternatives, thus lessen-ing the need for anyone to be locked into a single unproductive mode of ¯ acting. Over-adaptation A second, kind of passivity is over-adaptation; taking another's goal as one's own. Unlike the former category of "doing nothing," this one of over-adaptation appears to be busy and productive. Yet the exaggerated dependency role continues to operate and the results are destructive. Fear and "peace at any price" are common manifestations of over-adaptation in religious life. Yet it is often close to ordinary adaptation, which is a necessary~part of human existence. Hence over:gdaptation is difficult~to spot externally. However, careful listening to a directee can give a director many hints of how the directee is going to excessive pains not to cause trouble, to be nice, to be cooperative. Unfortunately it is not uncommon to hear of difficult or even impossible situations in which a person chooses to "sit" on his thoughts and feelings, to "adapt" rather than confront another person or a structure. The pain is often "offered up," and the unhealthy situation persists lest the individual be considered unmortified, or narrow-minded. Fear, too, can be used to mask over-adaptation. Especially among reli-gious women, being timid sometimes has an air of virtue about it. The timid woman wants to be rescued, preferably by a male spiritual director who will protect, reassure, and comfort her without suggesting that she move out of her unproductivity :and decide, with his help, what she is to do about it. Rather insidiously, this kind ofpassivity can be a mask for a deeper kind of aggression. It is difficult to challenge someone who is "trying so hard" to cooperate. Consciously or unconsciously, it doesn't take too long for the over-adapter to learn how much control can be gained in such a situation. Unfortunately, this kind of over-adaptation is often canonized as "docility." ,. Ironically, gaining control through over-adaptation often proves frus-trating. In the effort to mold, regulate and maintain the climate of safety created by over-adaptation, the directee often cannot hear the voice of the Destructive Passivity in Spiritua[ Direction Spirit. This kind of person has set up an atmosphere in which he does not have to give up his security. In clinging to safety he has substantially cut himself off from the world of inspiration and challenge. Directors often see this in directees who cannot believe that God could possibly be leading them beyond their self-made rules, beyond their self-made security and safety. Directees see this in directors who speak only of asceticism, never of mysticism, who prefer devotions and practices instead of fidelity to the Spirit. In some way those who claim they have no time for prayer as well as those who claim they cannot be involved with their neighbors both have fallen heir to passivity,in the form of over-adaptation. The former have let the rat race rather than their own head, heart and faith decide their destiny. The latter have refused to be molded by the poverty, particularity, and concreteness of the Incarnation.' Lastly, in our day, we often fail victim to concern for public relations. Our assumptions about what the bishop will think, what the lay teachers will think, what our community will think, what the Protestants Will think, what the children will think, and so on, endlessly, often decide the course of important events ?Further, they are used as a justification and motivation for over-adapting, for decisions which are unworthy of our faith experi-ence. Over-adaptation is an excellent example of how the "angel of darkness" comes disguised as an "angel of light" (Ex 332). We are all familiar with the monsters that have arisen in the guise of virtue under such "headings as availability, community, poverty, or blind obedience. Burning the candle at both ends, :navel gazing, stinginess, and the ill-use of human talents are all destructive~and.unworthy of the Kingdom. Those who have suffered these delusions might well look less to over-adaptation and more to considered responsiveness in their future decision-making. The Exercises are intended to be a celebration of one's gift of spiritual freedom. Key to that~disposition is ~ spirit of indifference. 1 can use things when I need them and put them aside when they hinder'rme. I canchoose the one or the other, not being unduly influenced by position, location or advancement. Such a stance demands a sense of presence: pres~ence to myself ag I accept the wonder and agony of who I am; and presence'to God as I accept the reality of Someone beyond'me who loves me, At the peak~ of the Ignatian ,experience, the exercitant becomes a cor~templative-in-action. Again and again, each one of the exercises faces him with the question: "What do I want?" He is asked to identify his desire and pray for what he needs. He is asked to face the reality of what he can do, what he needs to ask for, what he plans to do about it all. As though this were not enough, he is asked to order his de~i~es, prioritize his Iongings, lest he assume the posture of the man of the Secon~l Class (Ex 154), thus leaving himself open 44 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 to compromise and mediocrity, It is comforting to note that over-adaptation is often the easiest of the unproductive passivities to remedy. Most people who are negatively pas-sive have done a lot 0fthinking :to arrive at such a position. They are equally capable of assimilating new. information, though. For this reason, it would be a good thing for a director to confront such negative passivity directly. Thinking seriously about developing more positive options, a director and directee can develop new alternatives that lead to more creative results. Agitation The third category of unproductive passivity is agitation, the repetition of actions that have no meaning in terms of what the individual is seeking. In prayer this often shows itself in the kind of spiritual gluttony that ex-cludes the invitation to the darkness of faith. Most of us who pray consistently catch ourselves at times trying too hard, attempting to "program" a religious experience by learning the new-est techniques, and then clinging to the resultant experience as though it were God. Once an individual has fallen into this, it ultimately comes to him asa surprise to find that faith is~dark. His experience with this darkness then arouses anger, possessiveness, the demand that God come to him on his terms. His first experience with this reality often brings about more agita-tion in the form of worry, fretting, the gloomy exaggeration of his situation out of all proportion to its reality. Many persons tend to drop prayer at this point; "Nothing is happening," they say. Or they become over, involved in new techniques, in more interesting works, or in other people, rather than take the effort to learn to live comfortably with dark faith. Since religious people tend to be idealistic, they tend to strive for goals so high that the gap between the real self and the ideal self creates depres-sion rather than energy. Here is where good direction offers an opportunity for balance. Directors should be on the alert for extremes. Wild imaginings in time of prayer, quickly changing moods of sadness, exuberance, fear, or zeal need testing. It seems unlikely that experiences of being "bugged by God" about small ~hings or "being made to suffer" by God hold up in the pro.cess of good discernment. It is more likely that persons have allowed themselves the "luxury" of agitation as a replacement for the decision to accept fully the implication's of their call. Such a decision, lived, is sobering. Life with God becomes quiet, gentle, strong, and often hidden. One must be willing to give up the excitement of flurry, th.e pride of being a "martyr to the cause," the prestigiousness of extraordinary phenomena. The con-crete decision i.s amazingly simple, poor, and hidden, just as it was when the Word was made Flesh. St. Ignatius has many suggestions for coun~teracting agitation. In the Rules for Discernment for the First W~eek (313-327) he describes the behav-ior that is characteristic of those facing their own sinfulness. He warns Destructive Passivity in Spiritual Direction against secrecy, sadness, false reasoning, restiessness, frames of mind that lead to lack of faith, hope, and love. In the Second Week's Rules for Discernment (328-336) he describes the experience of agitation as "'violent, noisy, and disturbing." These, he counsels, are from the evil one. Again, [the course of thoughts suggested to us] may end in what weakens the soul, or disquiets it; or by destroying the peace, tranquility, and quiet which it had before, it may cause disturbance to the soul. These things are a clear sign that the thoughts are proceeding from the evil spirit, the enemy of our progress and eternal salvation ~333). Unfortunately, many enjoy their agitation. Not only does it substitute for their having to make a decision, but they can often find convincing reasons to suggest why it is actually accomplishing something. However, this would be a dangerous area to cultivate.Little that is long-lasting for the K~ngdom is accomplished through such agitation. Further, the'anxiety that I am arousing can move me into the more destructive aspects of passivity: incapacitation or violence. For the director, little or nothing is accom-plished by cooperating with the agitation ofhis directee. In fact, trying to dialog logically with a person in this state often brings the directee more deeply into a dependency role, delaying a good decision. In these cases an effort should be made by both director and directee to calm the agitation, moving it back to an over-adaptive situation where, temporarily at least, the director can give calm instructions that will provide a better atmosphere for the directee to think of alternatives and decide on more productive options. Incapacitation A more entrenched kind of passivity is the fourth type: incapacitation. 'One of the most common manifestations of freezing or incapacitation tn spirituality is stubbornness, an unwillingness to move one step further until I fully understand where I am going. This kind of stubbornness commonly occurs during the transition from meditation to contemplation. "I don't know what is going to happen, and I will not let go until I do," The result is that I stay where I am, often giving up mental prayer as a result. Hand-maid to stubbornness is scruple, a fear of doing something good lest I be wrong or at least somewhat ill-motivated, Much good can be left undone while a person worries about whether or not he is proud, vain, or ambitious, The Exercises answer this frame of mind. lfl such cases one should raise his mind to his Creator and Lord, and if he sees what fie is about to do is in keeping with God's service~, or at least not opposed to it, he should act directly against the temptation. According to St. Bernard, we must answer the tempter, "" I did not undertake this because of you, and I a.m not going to relinquish it~because of you" (351). Refusing to let go of an emotion, pleasant or agonizing, is another form of incapacitation. "'I can only pray provided it is a high experience." ""Io have grown comfortable with my anger (resentment, low self-image) and 46 / Review for Religious, Volume 38, 1979/1 the atmosphere I create helps me feel secure. I control my environment." Unfortunately, the situation backfires and shields the individual from life, i~ssenin'g the likelihood of his loving or suffering, rejoicing or crying with the rhythms of the real world. Having entrenched himself in his low self-image, he begins to project distorting 'images on God. God becomes the Great Controller, the Life-Taker, the Divine Exactor, rather than the Evoker of Freedom and the Loving Father. Lastly, incapacitation demon-strates itself as an unwillingness, an inability to look at one's blind spots. Fear of losing the security of his images often prevents the individual from being called beyond his own devices to the darkness of faith by the whispers of the Spirit. The Ex~rcises face incapacitation firmly by asking the individual to seek for the gift of knowing that he is deeply loved and ~knowing that he is at the same time sinful. Coupled with that grace is his growing realization of who he i~the wonder and the agonywthat leads him to grow comfortable and free with his own reality. In the protection of this new freedom the person does not.have to struggle for survival. He has experienced love. He knows that he is "precious in his sight" (Is 43:4). The Exercises would stir him out of his inactivity, bidding him to look at his secret stubbornnesses as a "false lover" who readily leaves as soon as he is discovered (326). In #325, I am admonished to face the temptation boldly so that it can be put to flight. My willingness to renounce my incapacitation reaches a high .moment when I honest|y put myse|f before Christ on the Cross "as one friend speaks to another" and hear myself own the answers to the triple question, " What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What ought I to do for Christ?" (53). Paradoxically, the most extreme kind of passivity is violence. In it I give up my responsibility for thinking and loving to vent my energy on destruc-tion. Among religious people the violence is often inward: psychosomatic illness, masturbation, guilt, tortured imaginings. These are a poor substitute for the ecstacy to which I am called. The individual prefers the certainty of destruction to the uncertainty of wonder. Even worse, ,he can cloak the mess he has created in a false rationalization of the Third Degree of Humil-ity (Ex 167),thinking that these passivities are his way of bearing poverty, humiliation, and scorn with Christ. Eventually the fruits of distress and frustration, both in himself and in those who have to live with him, will hopefully bring him to his senses. The fruits of true Christian suffering and a true participation in Christ's life always bring forth peace and joy in the depths of the spirit. Violence can also be outwardly directed. We religious may not throw a chair through a window, but we do impose verbal burdens

Issue 49.3 of the Review for Religious, May/June 1990. ; REVIEW I:OR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at St. Louis University by the Mis-souri Province Educational [nslilule of lhe Sociely of Jesus; Editorial Office; 360~ Lindell Blvd., Rm. 428; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis MO. Single copies $3.50. Subscriptions: United States $15.00 for onc year; $28.00 for two years. Other countrics: US $20.00 for one year: if airmail, US $35.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write: Ri~vn-:w FOR R~uc, ous: P.O. Box 60"/0; Duluth, MN 55806. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to RF:VlEW vok REI.I~;IOt~S; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Ol990 REVIEW voR REt.l~;Iot~s. David L. Fleming, S.J. iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Editor Associate Editor "~ Contributing Editor ~.~o' Assistant Editors Advisor\, Board David J. Hassel, S.J. Sean Sammon, F.M.S. Mary Margaret Johanning, S.S.N.D. Wendy Wright, Ph.D. Suzanne Zuercher, O.S.B. Ma\'/June 1990 Volume 49 Number 3 Manuscripts, books fl~r review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW ro~ REt.l~aOt~s; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the departmenl "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Rich-ard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709-1193. Back issues and reprinls should be ordered from REVIEW VO~ REI.tC;IOt~S; 3601 IAndell Blvd.; St. I~mis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues are available from University Microfilms Internalional; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, M1 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write tn the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. PRISMS . Questions play an important part in our biblical tradition. The first question presented in the Bible is the one which God directs to us hu-man beings, "Where are you?" In the gospels, Jesus" question, "Who do you say that I am?," demands a response from every Christian, per-haps more than once in a lifetime. "Woman, why are you weeping? Who is it you are looking for?" challenges us in our sorrow and our dis-appointments. "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" pricks the con-science of sinner and saint alike. Not all questions are neatly answered. For example, "how does one pray" and "how does one love" have pieces of answers which together make up a simple but intricate mosaic that stretches as far as human ex-perience can reach. Jesus, in trying to share with us his experience of God, seemed to be most at home in everyday images of the living world around us and the parables which capture some basic human experience writ large. Who does not remember a woman sweeping a house for a lost coin? That is the way God searches out each of us in our lost moments. Who has not been touched by a story of a person, robbed and left half-dead by the roadside, and the various passers-by among whom there is one who cares? From such a parable, we all know a little better what it means to be neighbor. Stories, symbols, and images become so often the prisms whereby we gain new or fresh insight into some of our deepest human and divine realities. Some of our authors in this issue are directly led into their reflec-tions by a question. "What is a priest?" led Richard Hauser, S.J., to his considerations on the "Spirituality of the Ministerial Priesthood.'" Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O., is making a report on the Religious Life Futures Project as he looks at the question "Where is Religious Life Go-ing? . Whence Come the Candidates?" stirs Gabrielle Jean, S.C.O., to focus once again on the instrumentation for the screening of candi-dates for the priestly and.religious life vocations. William Mann, F.S.C., raises the question "Brothers, Do We Have a Future?" and enters into his own religious life experience to provide a response. If I could make five wishes for a new novice director, Melannie Svoboda, S.N.D., asks, what would they be? Her answer to that ques-tion is her article "Wishes for a 'Novice' Novice Director." Mary Polu-tanovich, D.C., faces the questions, "do the poor need the artist'? does 321 322 / Review for Religious. May-June 1990 the artist need the poor? how is Christ served and the gospel preached by this charism?" Her reflections are captured in her article "More than Bread: Art, Spirituality, and the Poor." Religious imagination unveils how God may be working in "The As-sociate Movement in Religious Life" according to Rose Marie Jasinski, C.B.S., and Peter C. Foley. Thomas F. McKenna, C.M., seeks out meta-phors as he tries to stimulate our thinking about "Images for the Future of Religious Life." Correcting some metaphors may be important in our understanding of "Obedience and Adult Faith" as presented by James D. Whitehead and Evelyn Eaton Whitehead. Other authors in this issue suggest creative ways to pair a deeper un-derstanding of violence and ministry as a response, the connection be-tween the stages of conversion and the gift of tears as imaged in the spiri-tuality of Catherine of Siena, naming experiences that represent the sur-rendering of ourselves to the Divine Other, discovering the gifts and the pitfalls of praying through a tradition which is non-Christian, and re-flections on the historical sweep of foreign mission involvement and its effect on the renewal movement in women religious congregations dur-ing the past quarter-century. It is true that questions sometimes only lead to more questions. But questions also lead to ways of responding that affect the direction of our lives and our ministry. Some questions can truly affect our relationship with God, with our fellowmen and women, and with our world. Perhaps our authors will raise some of those questions and also provide us with some of those images which will call forth such a personal conversion. The God who asks questions is also a God of surprises. Our Pentecost prayer: recreate in us your own Spirit, Lord. David L. Fleming, S.J. Spirituality of the Ministerial Priesthood Richard J. Hauser, S.J. Father Richard Hauser, S.J. is Chairman of the Theology Department at Creighton University in Omaha. Nebraska. His last article in Rv.\,lv.w FOR R~.L~(;IOUS was pub-lished in July-August, 1986. His address is Creighton University: California at 24th Street: Omaha, Nebraska 68178. [~uring a recent board meeting of the Emmaus Priest Renewal Program I had a disconcerting experience. The discussion moved to the question: what is a priest? For the next hour we worked in vain to come to a con-sensus. In exasperation someone said, '~No wonder priestly morale in the United States is so low. We don't even know what it means to be a priest?" At that point the Emmaus board commissioned me as their theo-logical consultant to put together a five-day retreat on priestly idefitity and spirituality. Immediately I found myself resisting the task, claiming ignorance of the topic. This resistance was even further disconcerting. Since I have been a priest more than twenty years and writing on spiritual topics for almost as long, why wouldn't I have something to say on the spirituality of the priest, supposedly my own spirituality? Gradually I realized that my hesi-tancy had many roots. First I was self-conscious about my identity as priest because rightly or wrongly as a priest I have felt under attack by two very important movements in the Church, the lay movement and the women's movement. As a result I have inadvertently downplayed this aspect of my identity so as not to occasion criticism from these groups. Further as I reflected on the documents of Vatican II, I became more aware that they gave thorough treatment both to the roles of the lay per-son and the bishop in the Church but have said very little about the role 323 :324 / Review for Religious, May-June 1990 of the priest. Though Vatican II did set some new directions for a recon-sideration of the identity of the priest, it did not develop this theology to any great extent. Finally I saw that many currents in the Church have subtly made me hesitant to reflect on the area: the debates on priestly celi-bacy and married clergy, the prevalent--and inadequate--theology of the priest as the "holy man" set apart in a separate caste to "mediate" grace to the laity, the tendency to "clericalize" most ministries in the Church, the ecumenical movement. I should also note that as a priest from a religious congregationl had defined my spirituality almost solely by the charism of n~y order and therefore neglected aspects of spiritual-ity related to my role as priest of the universal Catholic Church. In this I suspect I am typical of many religious order priests. The following reflections are an effort toward a theology of priestly identity and spirituality. I believe the lack of such a theology has had dele-terious effects both on morale of many current priests as well as on re-cruitment of future priests. The American bishops in their statement is-sued 1988 "Reflections on the Morale of Priests" agree that there is a morale problem: " . . it is aiso clear to us that there exists today a se-rious and substantial morale problem among priests in general. It is a prob-lem that cannot be simply attributed to one or another cause or recent event, but its profile and characteristics can be clearly described, and its presence needs to be addressed directly." It is my conviction that one of its causes is an ambiguity about what it means to be a priest. These reflections attempt to address that problem using guidelines from Vati-can II as well as recent documents from the Priestly Life and Ministry Committee of the American bishops. All Christian spirituality flows from incorporation into the Body of Christ through faith and baptism. The priest's spirituality is no excep-tion. Basically, then, priestly spirituality is Christian spirituality. How-ever, since the priest has a special role in the Body of Christ it is appro-priate to discuss how this role specifies the practice of Christian spiri-tuality. But an integral examination of priestly spirituality must first situ-ate the priest within the Body and only then discuss the aspects of spiri-tuality proper to the priest as priest. This article is concerned with priest-hood in the Roman Catholic Church; hence the terms Body of Christ and Church have primary reference to this community. Body of Christ: Priest as Member Priests are members of the Body of Christ. Their dignity as mem-bers of the Body has frequently been obscured by treatment of their spe-cial role within the Body. The Decree on the Ministt3, and Life of Priests Ministerial Priesthood / 325 from Vatican II clearly situates the priest's leadership role through ordi-nation within the priest's membership in the Body through the sacra-ments of initiation: "Therefore, while it indeed presupposes the sacra-ments of Christian initiation, the sacerdotal office of priests is conferred by that special sacrament through which priests, by the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are marked by a special character and are so configured to Christ the priest that they can act in the person of Christ the head" (par. 2). Membership and leadership must be seen together for comprehensive understanding of priestly identity and spirituality. It is significant that Vatican II chose the image of the Body of Christ to discuss priestly identity and ministry. This image highlights both the equality of all in the Body as well as the difference of roles in the Body. The equality of all members within the Body is clear: "There is but one body and one Spirit, just as there is but one hope given all of you by your call. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all, and works through all, and is in all" (Ep 4:4-6). Equally clear is the difference of roles within the Body: "There are dif-ferent gifts but the same Spirit; there are different ministries but the same Lord; there are different works but the same God who accomplishes all of them in everyone. To each person the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good" ( I Co 12:4-7). Furthermore Paul's image of the Body of Christ highlights the Spirit as the source of all life within the Body. Membership in the Body flows from the Spirit received through faith and baptism. Specific roles (charisms) within the Body flow from the special gifts given by the Spirit to different members of the Body for the sake of the entire Body, Finally, the Church as the Body of Christ shares Christ's mission. This mission so clearly presented in all the Gospels is serving the king-dom of God. Each member is called by baptism to assume a share of re-sponsibility by accepting ministry according to his or her specific charisms. This ministry is oriented to serving the kingdom of God both within the Body of Christ itself as well as beyond the Body in the world. The example is, of course, Jesus himself. Jesus ministered to his disci-ples; the washing of the feet in John's gospel is the most dramatic exam-ple of his role of service to his disciples. Still this concern for his own in no way lessened his ministry toward those outside his community of followers; his preaching, healing, and love extended to everyone he en-countered. These reflections presume that the priest's basic identity is that of a member of the Body of Christ and consequently the priest's ba-sic spirituality will be living that identity. 326 /Review for Religious, May-June 1990 Body of Christ: Priest as Leader As members of the Body of Christ priests have received the Spirit incorporating them into the Body and giving them charisms for the ser-vice of the Church and of the kingdom. What, then, differentiates the priest's identity and spirituality from that of other members of the Body? Most agree that ministerial priesthood in the Church implies a permanent office flowing from charism and formally recognized by the Church. The very important statement of 1977 from the Bishop's Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry "As One Who Serves" expresses the consen-sus well: "In summary, the holder of an office in the Church would be (1) a person endowed by the Spirit, (2) with personal gifts (charisms), (3) called to a public and permanent ministry, and this call is formally recognized by the Church" (par. 20). The fact that this office implies a role of leadership in the community is also agreed upon by the magis-terium and by most theologians. Yet there remain theological disagree-ments on the relationship of the priest's role as head of the Body (always with the bishop) to the Body itself. The discussion is focused on a pas-sage from The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church from Vatican II: "Though they differ from one another in essence and not only in de-gree, the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hier-archical priesthood are nonetheless interrelated. Each of them in its own special way is a participation in the one priesthood of Christ" (par. 10). Since this article is concerned primarily with the spirituality of priests as leaders of the Body--an identity that is acknowledged by most--it does not seem necessary to treat the doctrinal disputes. Christian spirituality flows from response to the Holy Spirit, the sanc-tifier. Priestly spirituality is simply the priest's effort to respond faith-fully to the Spirit in living the priestly identity as defined by the Church. The Church teaches that ordination establishes the priest in three new, distinctive, and permanent relationships: with Christ, with the Church, and with the world beyond the Church, This identity today includes-- for both diocesan as well as religious order priests--a call to observe the evangelical counsels. Since observing these counsels affects the living out of the three basic relationships, they must be discussed with them. It should be recalled again that this discussion focuses on those aspects of priestly spirituality that distinguish the priest as priest; it does not fo-cus on aspects of spirituality common to all Christians through baptism. Priest and Christ: Person-Symbol of Christ the Head of Body Through ordination the priest is established in a new, distinctive, and permanent relationship to Christ: the priest becomes the person-symbol Ministerial Priesthood / 327 of Christ, the head of the Church. Priests receive an anointing of the Spirit which enables them to act in the name of Christ the head. Thus priests are empowered to act in persona Christi. "As One Who Serves" makes the crucial observation that priests can be the person-symbol of Christ the head of the Body only because of their membership in the Body: "It is only because of the Church that the priest can be said to act in persona Christi. He is called to be an effective sign and witness of the Church's faith in the reconciling Christ, who works through the Church and through the one whom the Church has sent to be the steward of its gifts and services" (par. 22). It is the Body of Christ that is holy through the presence of the Spirit. The priest, as the preeminent head of this Body, becomes the symbol of the holiness of the Body. And as head of this Body, priests can now act in persona ecclesiae and so also in per-sona Christi. Through ordination the priest is established in a special relationship to Christ. As head of the Body, the priest becomes an "effective sign" or sacrament of Christ's authoritative presence in the Church. All aspects of priestly spirituality flow from this relationship. Since it is the role of a symbol to make present what it represents, the priest is called by the Church through ordination to awaken Christ's presence within the com-munity in all service for the community. Consequently all priestly min-istry to the Church must be done in a way that awakens faith within the community. This awakening of faith in others is possible only if the priest has a deep relationship personally with Christ. The biggest chal-lenge of priestly spirituality is becoming internally the Christ symbolized externally. To a great extent the effectiveness of priestly ministry flows from a heart transformed by the Spirit and then ministering to others. All Christians desiring to follow Christ fully are called to observe the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience within their own state of life. The priest is no exception. However, the priest's ob-servance of the evangelical counsels is orientated toward conforming the priest more closely to Christ and so increasing effectiveness as the person-symbol of Christ the head of the Body. The priest today is called by the Church to celibacy and so to meet personal affective needs in ways con-sonant with the celibate state. Christ is the model of priestly celibacy in his relationships with the Father, his community, and his apostolate. Above all the celibacy of Christ was founded on his relationship to his most dear Father, Abba. From within this intimate and often solitary pres-ence before his Father Christ's entire life flowed. Christ's relationship to the Father is the model for the priest's relationship to Christ. As 328 / Review jbr Religious, May-June 1990 Christ's heart flowed instinctively to the Father, so does the priest's heart flow to Christ and the Father. Love unites without obliterating personal distinctiveness. As Christ was able to say "The Father and I are one," and as Paul could say, "I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me," so the priest prays to become equally one with the Father and Jesus. By em-bracing celibacy the priest imitates Jesus in allowing sufferings of fail-ure, loneliness, and isolation to foster even deeper intimacy with God and with Jesus himself. Christ is the model of priestly celibacy in his relationship to his com-munity. He looked to certain of his apostles and disciples for the per-sonal support he needed to sustain the failures and loneliness of his min-istry. So Christ is the model for priests in developing deep human rela-tionship, especially with fellow priests. Finally Christ's affectivity was also directed toward those he served. We recall how Jesus wept over Jerusalem because he was not able to draw the chosen people of God to himself as a mother hen draws her chicks to herself. In embracing the vow of celibacy the priest strives to imitate Christ in each of these three dimensions of affectivity and so become a more effective person-symbol of Christ as head of the Body. To be faithful to the call of today's Church to live this identity of person-symbol of Christ we priests must ask some basic questions. First, do I see my vocation primarily as a call to become Someone, Christ, and not merely as a duty to perform certain ministerial functions closed to others? The Church today is saying to priests that who we are is more primary than what we do; presence has replaced power. We are being called to be so configured to Christ that our actions radiate his presence and so awaken awareness of God's own love. Have I built into my daily life the rhythms necessary both to grow continually in knowledge and love of Christ and to allow this knowledge and love to permeate my ac-tions? And second, have I actively embraced my celibacy'? Do I cherish my celibacy as a gift intended to foster intimacy with Christ and the Fa-ther and thereby increase my effectiveness as a person-symbol of Christ in my leadership? DO I imitate Christ in meeting my affective needs pri-marily in my relationships with Christ and the Father and with my pres-byterate? Do I allow myself to be supported by and do I support my fel-low priests'? Do I allow the crosses of celibacy to deepen intimacy with Christ? Priest and Church: Servant-Leader of Body Through the anointing of the Spirit at ordination the priest is also es-tablished in a new, distinctive, and permanent relationship to the Church: Ministerial Priesthood / 399 the priest becomes the servant-leader of the Church, the "effective sign" of Christ the head of the Body. As the preeminent leader of the community the priest thereby acts in persona ecclesiae. This leadership of the Body is marked by four functions essential for the community. The priest is called to serve the Church by proclaiming the Word of God, by presiding at worship, by pastoral care of the People of God, and by fa-cilitating the different charisms within the Church. But the priest's lead-ership will take many differing forms depending on the talents of the priest and the needs of the community. The American bishops high-lighted the importance of sensitivity to varying forms of priestly leader-ship with which the Spirit endows priests: "All priests are endowed by the Spirit in various ways to serve the People of God. There are forms of leadership . The gifts differ and each must discern in the Spirit how he has been gifted. No one has all the gifts. Some seem to disap-pear in the history of the Church; some are transient even in the lives of priests" ("As One Who Serves," par. 32). Christ is the model for the priest's leadership of the Church. Just as Jesus' love of the Father impelled him to live for the Father's kingdom, so does the priest's love of Christ impel the priest to live for the Body of Christ. The priest wil.I, furthermore, exercise leadership in the same way Jesus exercised leadership--through service: "The Son of Man has not come to be served but to serve--to give his life in ransom for the many " (Mk 10:45). And through the special anointing of the Spirit in ordination Christ now stands with the priest empowering the priest to be an "effective sign" of Christ in all ministry to the Church. Thus the priest can fulfill the vocation to be the sacramental symbol-person of Christ actually awakening Christ's presence in the community through his .daily service. In a new way since Vatican I! priests are being called to facilitate service and leadership of others within the Church. The role has been com-pared to that of a conductor of an orchestra: "The conductor succeeds when he stimulates the best performance from each player and combines their individual efforts into a pattern of sound, achieving the vision of the composer. The best leader is one who can develop the talents of each staff person and coordinates'all their efforts, so that they best comple-ment each other and produce a superior collective effort" ("As One Who Serves," par. 46). In facilitating ministry of others the priest is not unlike Christ who prepared the disciples and then sent them off on their own. The priest recognizes that the Spirit in baptism incorporates mem-bers into the Body and simultaneously gives them differing gifts of min- 330 / Review for Religious, May-June 1990 istry for the Body. Yet according to the above document the priest re-mains the one "in whom the mission of the Church, and therefore its ministry, finds focus and visibility" (34); thus the priest acts within the community preeminently in persona ecclesiae. To enhance the priest's effectiveness as a person-symbol of Christ, the Church calls the priest to evangelical obedience through the promise or vow of obedience to their bishops or ecclesiastical superiors. This prom-ise or vow of obedience places the priest in special union with the uni-versal Church and so enhances the ability to act in persona ecclesiae. The priest symbolizes the unity of the entire Church in Christ: the local parish or community, the diocese, the national Church, the universal Catholic Church. In addition, the priest symbolizes the continuity of the Church through the ages from the apostles and Peter to the present-day bishops and pope. It follows from this that the priest must fully own this position in the Church by loving, protecting, and defending it at every level and, even when called to prophetic criticism, by doing so with love. While acknowledging the Church's faults and foibles past and present, the priest still believes that it is the privileged place of the Spirit's activ-ity in this world for the kingdom of God: "I for my part declare to you, you are "Rock," and on this rock I will build my church, and the jaws of death shall not prevail against it" (Mt 16:18). The model for the priest's obedience is again Christ. Nothing stood between Christ and doing his Father's will. The priest's obedience is to God. The priest is convinced that the will of God is now revealed through the authoritative structures of the Church. In obeying these structures the priest is obeying the Father. The priest's obedience to the bishop or ec-clesiastical superiors gives eloquent testimony to the belief that Christ continues to work through the ages within the authoritative structures of the Church. By embracing the promise or vow of obedience the priest refuses to allow any personal desire not in accord with God's will as ex-pressed through Church superiors to determine actions. The sufferings of obedience to God's will are accepted and offered to the Father in the same manner as Christ's. To be faithful to living this identity of servant-leader of the Body we priests must reflect on our underlying attitudes toward ministry. First, do I truly see myself as servant to my community, that is, do I radiate the attitude of Christ who came to serve and not to be served'? Do I strive to be an effective servant-leader in each of the four major ministerial roles, that is, teaching, presiding at worship, pastoral care, facilitating gifts of community? Or do I find myself holding back in some particular Ministerial Priesthood / 331 aspects of my ministry'? Have I identified charisms of leadership that are unique to me and used these in a special way for the Church? Do I fully grasp that as a person-symbol of Christ in my leadership role I can trust that Christ stands behind each aspect of my ministry enabling me to be an effective sign of his presence'? Second, do I embrace my promise or vow of obedience? Do ! see it as a gift enhancing my effectiveness as a person-symbol of the universal Church, the Body of Christ'? Do I love the Church and protect and defend it at every leve~? If necessary to criti-cize, do I speak in love? Is my obedience ultimately to the Father? Do I allow the crosses of obedience to conform me more totally to Christ'? Priest and Society: Promoter of Justice in the World Through ordination the priest is established in a new, distinctive, and permanent relationship to Christ and to his Church. Contained in this iden-tity is a new relationship to the world beyond the Church. Because the priest now acts in persona ecclesiae and in persona Christi, the priest becomes the preeminent witness of the Church's and Christ's concern for the world. Vatican II and subsequent documents of the Church both on an international and national level have put increasing emphasis on this aspect of the Church's mission. The statement of the World Synod of Bish-ops in 1971 entitled Justice in the World is apt: ". action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully ap-pear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or in other words, of the Church's mission." The priest today is called to integrate this dimension into ongoing ministry. The American bishops echo this thrust by presenting their descrip-tion of the priestly ministry under four co-equal divisions: To Proclaim the Word of God, To Preside at Worship, To Serve the Christian Com-munity, To Serve Humankind. The last-named section begins as follows: "The Church is called to serve all of society: that is its mission and the hope of its ministry. While the priest may have a certain primary respon-sibility to the Catholic community which he serves, nonetheless he has been sent by Christ and the Church to all people who comprise the larger community in which the parish community exists. The concern for all people gives reality to the presence of the risen Lord" ('~As One Who Serves," par. 50). The priest has a double role in this ministry to humankind. As ser-vant- leader of the Body tile priest is called to be engaged personally in actions on behalf of justice to witness most effectively to the Church's concern. In addition, the priest is called to facilitate action and leader-ship by others for the transformation of society. Church teachings ac- 339 / Review Jbr Religious, May-June 1990 knowledge that time constraints may limitthe priest's personal involve-ment but also point out that the apostolate within society is also most ap-propriate for the laity: "The apostolate of the social milieu, that is, the effort to infuse a Christian spirit into the mentality, customs, laws, and structures of the community in which a person lives is so much the duty and responsibility of the laity that it can never be properly performed by others. In this area the laity can exercise an apostolate of like towards like" (Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, para. 33). In addition to working for justice throughout society, the priest is called to have spe-cial concern for the poor: "Although the presbyter has obligations to-wards all persons, he has the poor and the lowly entrusted to him in a special way. The Lord himself showed that he was united to them, and the fact that the Gospel was preached to them is mentioned as a sign of his messianic a.ctivity'" (Decree on the Miniso3, and Life of Priests, par. 6). Again Christ is the model of the priest in this dimension of minis-try. Jesus' concern for others was not limited to his immediate commu-nity of disciples. He continually extended himself beyond his followers to others. His entire ministry is marked with personal compassion for any person who came to him in need. In addition to his one-on-one concern for others, Jesus also spoke out against society's injustices. At times the condemnation was marked by actual disobedience to laws when he viewed them as contradictory to the revelation he received from his Fa-ther. Indeed, his criticism was so threatening to the establishment that it eventually precipitated his death. And finally the Gospel reflects that Jesus had special care and concern for the poorest of the poor, the out-casts of society. The parable of the Last Judgment testifies to the cen-trality in Jesus' eyes of service to the hungry, thirsty, shelterless, impris-oned. To enhance the priest's effectiveness as a witness of Christ, the Church asks all priests to have special concern for evangelical poverty within their own priestly vocation, diocesan or religious. And again the model is Christ himself. Christ was poor. He let no material desire or possession come between himself and doing the Father's will. He was detached from possessions in order to be more free to serve. And Christ chose to live a simple lifestyle, perhaps to be more approachable by the poor or to witness to the sufficiency of the Father's providence for his material needs, taking his cue from the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. Through embracing evangelical poverty the priest refuses to al-low any inordinate attachment to food, clothing, shelter, possessions to Ministerial Priesthood / 333 affect service of the kingdom either within or outside the Body of Christ. With this inner quality of heart the priest thus becomes an even more ef-fective witness of Christ to the Church and world. To be faithful and responsive to the call of promoting justice in the world we priests must ask whether we have adapted to this rather new dimension of priestly ministry. First, does my ministry include leader-ship in witnessing to Christ's concern for the world both through actual "hands-on" service to promote justice in society as well as through fa-cilitating service of my congregation? Most especially am I an effective sign in witnessing to Christ's concern for the most needy and under-privileged of my parish and my society'? Second, what is my attitude to evangelical poverty? Do I desire to imitate Christ by adopting a simple lifestyle? Do I embrace evangelical poverty as a gift because it conforms me more closely to Christ and so makes me a more effective symbol-person of Christ in my leadership, especially in his concern for the poor'? Do I allow the crosses of poverty to deepen my bonds with Christ'? Ministerial Priesthood: Challenge and Consolation The challenge of priesthood is perhaps greater today than ever be-fore. In the ministry of leadership for the Church the priest is called to become the person-symbol of Christ and so live and serve in a way that awakens awareness of God's continual presence and love both for the com-munity and for the world. A recent document from the American bish-ops catches the immensity of this challenge putting it in the context of the role of the pastor today: "The pastor in the parish today becomes-- whether he knows and likes it or not--a religious symbol to his people. The pastor becomes a religious symbol of tradition, the keeper and speaker of the revealed Word in all of its rich expressions. He becomes the religious symbol of God's care for his people, expressing compas-sion for the wounded and outrage at injustice. He becomes the religious symbol of order, calling the community to an effective stewardship of its gifts and shared use of its resources" ("A Shepherd's Care: Reflec-tions on the Changing role of Pastor," 1988). But if the challenge is immense, so is the consolation. Through or-dination the priest exists in a new, distinctive, and permanent relation-ship to Christ, to the Church, and to society. But like all sacraments the sacrament of orders confers the grace it proclaims and signifies. There-fore, priests have the immense consolation of knowing that the Holy Spirit stands behind them enabling them to live this threefold relation-ship conferred at ordination. In their relationship to Christ, the Spirit en-ables priests to be configured to Christ poor, celibate, and obedient and 334 / Review for Religious, May-June 1990 so be more powerful person-symbols of Christ. In their relationship to the Church, the Spirit enables priests to be effective servant-leaders in the fourfold dimensions of priestly ministry: proclaiming the Word of God, presiding at worship, caring for the pastoral needs of community, and facilitating charisms of the community. Finally in their relationship to society, the Spirit enables priests to be eloquent witnesses of Christ's care for.the world in promoting justice in society and most especially in serving the poor both personally and in their leadership of the Body of Christ. Priestly ministry, like all ministry, is a charism, a gift of the Spirit. The challenge for us priests is living in a way that facilitates the Spirit's action. We must take a serious look at our daily schedules and ask whether they, in fact, foster our living in tune with the Spirit, thereby growing in knowledge and love and Christ and so radiating a Christ-presence in all our ministry. Being fully effective sacramental signs of Christ demands daily attention to our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. And this may require rearrangement of our schedules, especially to assure we have the leisure to grow in an ever deeper union with Christ whom we sacramentalize in our leadership. A recent document from the Priestly Life and Ministry Committee pointedly advises us that the crite-ria for the effectiveness of our ministry ought not be the quantity of our work but its quality: "One of the most probable causes of difficulties with spirituality in a priest'~ life today is simply his ability to find (or at least justify) sufficient time to spend in solitude and prayer. A consci-entious priest, especially when under pressure of incessant demands, can forget that the quality of his work is more important than the quantity. What people are looking for in him more than anything else is a spiri-tual guide and model who will help them come to know the Lord and find his peace. Thus he must be, first of all and above everything else, a man of God's peace. Regular time each day for prayer, meditation, and spiritual reading is a sine qua non for the unfolding in a priest's life of an authentic Christ-centeredness" ("The Priest and Stress," 1982). There are many ministries in the Body of Christ. The priest's is but one of these, yet it is distinctive. Only the priest is called by today's Church to a ministry of leadership whose essence is symbolizing Christ's presence. Hopefully a deeper appreciation of this calling will have its ef-fect on morale of current priests as well as attract many others to this vo-cation. Where is Religious Life Going? M. Basil Pennington. O.C.S.O. Father Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O., is well known for his conferences and writings on centering prayer. His address is Assumption Abbey: Route 5: Ava, Missouri 65608. This is a question that is being asked with concern not only by religious themselves and the Church at large but even by the wider community. One significant indication of this is the fact that a secular foundation has recently given a secular university over a half million dollars to study the question. Lilly Endowment, Inc. has awarded Boston University a $575,000 grant to have its Center for Applied Social Sciences serve as the site to study the question "Factors Influencing the Transformation of Religious Life in the Catholic Church in the United States." This cur-rent research grant follows the successful completion of an earlier $100,000 planning grant. It is almost twenty-five years since the close of the Second Vatican Council which called for an adaptation and renewal of religious life. In that time the average age of members of many religious congregations and monastic communities has increased dramatically while the number of members has decreased just as dramatically. Many traditional works of religious have been called into question. New works have been un-dertaken and the whole understanding of mission reconsidered by some groups. The sense of separation from the laity is greatly diminished. Lay persons take a much greater part in the life and mission of religious and religious generally feel closer to the active lay Catholic. What does all this portend for the future'? More importantly, what must religious do in order to be truly renewed, adapted to the twenty-first century Church, so that they may continue to bring to the Church 335 336 / Review Jot" Religious, May-June 1990 and to society as a whole the gift that they are? The proposal submitted to the Lilly Endowment set forth six basic or broad objectives for the study: I. Identify the interpretative schemes used by reli-gious to describe the meaning structure of their commit-ment and their perceptions of the distinctions of religious life in relation to the other ministerial roles in the Church. The interpretive schemes will be examined from the perspective of the psychological, theological, and or-ganizational changes that have occurred over time, with special attention to the degree to which religious orders are becoming more or less distinct. 2. Describe and analyze the psychological, struc-tural, and organizational changes that have occurred and those yet to occur both in religious life in general and within congregations in order to predict the future shapes of religious life. 3. Identify individual religious who are perceived as the emergent leaders of religious life and explore with them systematically the changes that have occurred and must yet occur if religious life is to remain a vital social and ecclesial reality. 4. Describe and analyze some effects of change and perceptions of religious life on the commitment of in-dividual religious, former religious, and recent candi-dates to religious life. 5. Describe the environmental influences on re-ligious life in the United States, including cultural shifts that influence commitments, the supply and demand econ-omy for religious service, and the enhancement of the role of the laity in the Church within the historical con-text of theology. 6. Provide a paradigm for developing strategies of leadership that will enable leaders to move the pro-cess of renewal that was begun in Vatican II through a process of systematic transformation. The term "interpretive schemes" may not be familiar to many but it refers to a very important factor in religious life. Interpretive schemes are made up of the understanding the members of the group or commu-nity share in regard to the world and their place in it. They are primary Where is Religious Life Going? in drawing the members together, giving them a shared sense of belong-ing. These guide religious as they interpret their own past and look at their present environment, select their value priorities, and allocate their resources. Oftentimes these interpretive schemes are not explicitly articu-lated by a group. They are revealed rather in the metaphors the mem-bers use to describe their community, the stories they tell and the rites they celebrate. Transformation involves a shift in interpretive schemes. The pro-posal describes transformation as "qualitative, discontinuous shifts in organization members, shared understandings of the organization, accom-panied by changes in the organization's mission, strategy, and formal and informal structures." Transformation usually begins with a crisis that unfreezes dominant organizational members' current interpretative schemes by presenting a significant challenge to their validity. The Sec-ond Vatican Council did this to religious. But not the Council alone. The transition from the modern to the postmodern era, one of the three great cultural shifts in the history of humankind necessarily brought on a "cri-sis" for all human organizations. The next step in the transformation pro-ess is the development of alternative interpretative schemes leading to new types of action which in turn leads to changes in the structure of the organization. There is likely to be considerable conflict among the origi-nal and developing interpretive schemes and the subgroups espousing them. Leaders of the community will necessarily have a large impact on the process and its outcome. If they support only one perspective they are likely to decrease the potential creativity of the transformational pro-ess and the sense of belonging and involvement of the members whose perspectives have not been taken into account. If they try to separate out the different perspectives they are likely to perpetuate splints within the community. If they facilitate the interaction among the conflicting per-spectives they will increase the chances of paradoxical outcomes of trans-formation, of new and creative shared understandings, of a truly renewed and vital religious life. During the course of the process members will experience discomfort both with the ambiguities and the confusion. The conflict of understandings and those who espouse them will create ten-sions. But when (and if) a new synthesis is reached that is experienced by the whole group as acceptable, there will not only be a sense of satis-faction but there will be a new force in the community for life. In its study of the factors influencing the transformation for religious life, the study is going to give special attention to two: the environment, 338/Review for Religious, May-June 1990 that is, the factors external to the community that impinge on it in some way and can effect the transformation process by inducing the crisis and affecting the development of new interpretative schemes, and the lead-ership. Two types of leadership within the communities need to be and will be considered. There are formal leaders, those who are designated to see that the roles, resources, and necessary structures are maintained to provide for both the mission and the members. Emergent leaders are members who are generally recognized in the community as complemen-tary to the formal leaders, but distinct from them in purpose and func-tion. These often act as catalysts for new ideas within the community and, as such, are seldom selected by the membership to represent them. The study hopes to explore the underlying changes in interpretive schemes both qualitatively and quantitatively arid at several levels: within the social institution of religious life as such, within individual congre-gations, and within individual members of religious communities. This will involve questionnaires, regional meetings, and individual interviews to be carried out over the course of the next two to three years. The proposal sees as the outcome of the project: I. Identification of the normative beliefs about reli-gious life and how they will likely shape the future of re-ligious life in this country. 2. Build a national comparative data base of all male and female religious that includes current demographic data, membership information, existing and emerging structures, current member attitudes on multiple dimen-sions, and projections for the future. 3. Enable the leadership of religious communities to identify in the current context paradigms of planning that enable transformation, consolidation, merging, or extinc-tion. 4. Label the changes that must yet occur if reli-gious life is to remain a vital social and theological gift to the Church into the next millennium. The results of the study will, of course, be published and generally available to interested parties. But the researchers hope also to work with organizations and groups of religious to consider and further explore the findings. The principal researchers for the project are David Nygren and Miriam Ukeritis. Father Nygren is a Research Associate at the Center for Applied Social Science, a unit of the Graduate School of Boston Uni- Where is Religious Life Going? / 339 versity. He has been a member of the Congregation of the Mission (Vin-centians) since 1968 and has served his congregation in many capacities over the years. He holds six academic degrees. Sister Miriam, a mem-ber of the Congregation of Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondelet, is com-pleting a term as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Harvard Community Health Plan, Boston. She is a clinical psychologist by profession and has served as a director of the House of Affirmation in Hopedale, Massachu-setts. Besides the extensive facilities of the Center for Applied Social Sci-ence, the researchers will be aided by a National Advisory Board which includes Archbishop Thomas Kelly, O.P., the newly elected chairper-son of NCCB's Committee on Religious; Abbot James Jones, O.S.B. of Conception Abbey; Howard Gray, S.J., former provincial of the Detroit Province, five religious women, two brothers, a monk and two represen-tatives from the Lilly Endowment. The Advisory Board will meet regu-larly with the researchers to assess the results of their work and offer guid-ance to the pursuit of the project. The success of the project will, of course, depend largely on the col-laboration of religious, both as groups and as individuals. But the bene-fits that they can hope to reap from it are considerable, so such collabo-ration is well assured. However, they will not be the only ones to profit from the study. Reviewing the expected outcomes it is easy to see why the Lilly Endowment and a community oriented university are willing to make such a considerable investment in this study. If the study does suc-ceed in producing the results it projects, there can be little doubt as to the significance of the contribution it will make not only to the Church but to society as a whole by enlivening and promoting the social outreach which depends so heavily on the leadership and support of the religious communities. Whence Come the Candidates? Gabrielle L. Jean, S.C.O. Sister Gabrielle Jean, S.C.O., last appeared in these pages with her article. "'The Alcoholic Religious Woman," in September/October 1985. Her address is 715 Per-shing Drive: Silver Spring, Maryland 20910. Over the past several years, authoritative articles on the assessment of can-didates for the priestly/religious life have appeared in Catholic periodi-cals. Kraft (1978)~ clearly stated the differential role and competencies of the psychiatrist and psychologist relative to evaluation and treatment of religious personnel. While both professional groups are involved in therapy, the psychiatrist focuses on the abnormal behavior while the psy-chologist deals with a much broader range of human behaviors. The psy-chiatrist's forte lies in his medical expertise and pharmacological arma-mentarium; the clinical psychologist's educational background provides for research and evaluation of human behavior, especially personality as-sessment. Kraft strongly recommended that such professionals have a working knowledge and appreciation of the role of spirituality in the life of religious men and women. Values incongruent with those of the cli-ent could prove prejudicial to his or her ongoing spiritual growth. A more recent article by O'Connor (1988)~- addressed the appraisal of candidates with attention directed to the formation process, the test-ing of the applicant's spirit, assessment of his or her motivation and fit-ness for the chosen institute. The key elements lie in the interactional pro-ess of interview and dialogue. The present article focuses on the instrumentation for the screening of candidates, that is, the psychological tests selected for that purpose. It is intended to inform superiors, vocations directors, and formation teams of the rationale and philosophy inherent in the selection of instru- 340 Whence Come the Candidates? / 34"1 ments; a "model" battery will then be suggested. Do the candidates come from the general "normal" population or from a psychiatric pool? The choice of instruments such as the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory), TAT (Thematic Apper-ception Test) and Rorschach Inkblots reflect the latter since they are stan-dardized or normed on a psychiatric or dysfunctional population. Granted, they provide valuable information (in terms of impairment), but would it not be more helpful for the formation teams to know the strengths and weaknesses of the personality of their candidates? Would they not be in a better position to maximize the psychological and spiri-tual growth of their charges with a positive set of data on them'? If one begins the psychological screening process with scales normed on a psy-chiatric population, the results can only reveal the extent of the pathol-ogy found in that individual when compared to psychiatrically impaired individuals. The strengths of the personality are clouded by the pathol-ogy and the formation personnel are left to ferret for themselves the per-sonal resources of the recruits. Personality measurement is a typically American phenomenon; it originated in the United States and has evolved greatly, especially since the early 50s. Its scope includes both personality inventories (standard-ized on the general population) and instruments designed more specifi-cally to detect the presence and extent of behavior pathology. The re-spective personality theories provide the background for such instruments and caution the user relative to the holistic nature of the person. Because of the importance of the psychological screening process, further clarification seems warranted, especially since Vatican II alerted to the need of heeding the advances made in the behavioral sciences. So-ciology and psychology do shed scientific light on human behavior both as individuals and in groups. Purpose and Ethics Tests are standardized tools for the measurement of individual dif-ferences in intellectual, emotional, social, and motivational aspects of behavior. Personality assessment focuses primarily on the emotional ad-justment, social relationships, motivation, attitudes, interests, and val-ues of the individual. The American Psychological Association has codified ethical prin-ciples to govern psychological testing. Many personality tests are re-stricted to qualified users, and the qualifications vary with the type of test. The rationale is that test scores should be released only by and to persons qualified to interpret them. The candidate is entitled to know the 342 / Review for Religious, May-June 1990 information he or she revealed in the testing. Knowledge of the test scores only may be emotionally disturbing to the candidate; they should be properly interpreted to him or her in a situation that allows for dis-cussion of the results. Many personality instruments and measures of emotional, motiva-tional, or attitudinal traits are necessarily disguised; the subject may re-veal characteristics about the self without realizing that he or she is do-ing so. It is of primary importance that the examinee have a clear understanding of the use that will be made of the test results, who will receive the report, and how long it will remain in his or her file. Quot-ing directly from the Ethical Standards of Psychologists: "The psycholo-gist who asks that an individual reveal personal information in the course of interviewing, testing, or evaluation, or who allows such information to be divulged to him, does so only after making certain that the person is aware of the purpose of the interview, testing, or evaluation and of the ways in which the information may be used." No report should be sent without the consent of the examinee through a "release of confiden-tiality" form. The receiver of such information is bound by confiden-tiality; the information is privileged; if the examinee agrees to release such information, it is because it will be handled as privileged commu-nication. Evaluation: Testing, Interviews, or What? There are many arguments for and against testing, and I wish to share my biases with you; I do so willingly because psychological test-ing is my area of specialization and, therefore, I feel better qualified to support them than I would be in other areas of psychology. The arguments I would advance in favor of a sound testing program are these. First, it serves to provide an appraisal of candidates who feel attracted to the religious/priestly life. Secondly, it can help the candidate gain insight into his or her own behavior. Thirdly, it can serve as a basis for counseling in view of overall personal growth. The reservations I would have to comprehensive testing are many; my remarks here pertain primarily to candidate assessment for the priestly/religious life. ( I ) Psychiatric screening should not be required of all candidates; if the findings on the personality inventory suggest more than average pa-thology, a psychiatric instrument could be used to determine the extent of the pathology. If psychiatric screening is required for all candidates, are we not suggesting that our pool of subjects lies in the "disturbed" group? However, I favor scheduling a psychiatric interview/evaluation Whence Come the Candidates? / 343 for applicants to monastic life. The withdrawal from the world implied in the lifestyle could attract individuals ill-equipped for social inter-course. (2) There is a danger of categorizing people for life, very much like the penal system where no room is allowed for growth and change. (3) In the hands of poorly trained people, these instruments are ex-tremely dangerous. Granted that most formation personnel would not ad-minister the tests themselves, there is still grave danger that reports will be misinterpreted. People with little sophistication in this area tend to put more faith in the instruments than is warranted. (4) The use of test information for acceptance/refusal makes sense only if the results are validated by information from other sources: let-ters of reference, observed behavior, and the like, No matter how good and competent that psychiatrist or psychologist is, the dynamics of grace elude measurement, and everyone involved in the assessment process must be mindful of this fact. (5) I would not advocate involvement in a screening program unless there is a willingness to share the information with the candidate. A good policy is to provide a feedback interview to discuss the test findings with the examinee. Should the evaluation be psychodiagnostic (with the use of psychiatric questionnaires), the feedback would then be provided by the therapist who would be in a better position to decide on the timing for such disclosure. In all such work, Catholic psychologists consciously strive for the fundamental attitude which Pope Pius XII advocated in 1953: 'Psychotherapy and clinical psychology must always consider man as a psychic unity and totality; as a structured unit in itself; as a social unit and as a transcendent unit, that is to say, in man's tending towards God.' ,3 Candidate Assessment We are reminded through the Second Vatican Council documents that the unity of the Church thrives on the variety of gifts in its mem-bers. In Perfectae Caritatis, it is explicitly stated that religious are to bring "to the execution of commands and to the discharge of assign-ments entrusted to them the resources of their minds and wills and their gifts of nature and grace" (PC, Art. I). The text is supported by Paul's I Corinthians: "All these gifts are the work of one and the same Spirit, distributing them separately to each individual at will" (I Co 12:l I). The decree on religious life was intended for all religious men and women, whether in the ranks or in authority. It must be admitted; how- 34"4 / Review for Religious, May-June 1990 ever, that when it comes to acknowledging the "special gift of each," we are somewhat in the dark. The Superior/Director/Coordinator is ex-pected to be respectful of the Giver of gifts by avoiding arbitrary assign-ments. The religious man or woman may be an individualist who feels that one owes it to oneself to fulfill the self in the sense of using one's gifts for personal enhancement and satisfaction; a correct interpretation would lead one to regard all gifts as intended for service to the commu-nity and to the whole Church. A scientific way of arriving at a knowledge of these gifts is psycho-logical testing and evaluation. I would set as one of the primary func-tions of candidate assessment: the identification of the assets of the indi-vidual. There is room for screening out undesirable applicants but this aspect of screening should not supersede the screening in of those who have great gifts of heart and mind to use in the service of the Church. As a marginal note, may I add that it is usually enlightening for the vocation directors (or whoever requests the assessment) to subject him-self or herself to the whole process. It may be an eye-opener as to the anxiety-provoking experience of personality assessment. For some cli-ents, self-disclosure is a very traumatic experience, and counseling may be advised. For most who have been exposed to testing in all forms, the whole procedure is taken in stride. Criteria Used What are we looking for in a good candidate to the priesthood/ religious life? The criteria have generally been clearly stated by the vari-ous religious groups, rectors of seminaries, experienced masters in the formation of candidates, and vocation directors. In general, they can be grouped as follows. ( 1 ) Intelligence I think we are justified in looking for average intelligence or better; without it, a religious professional cannot grasp the import of his or her commitment to Church service within the framework of a religious life-style. During the assessment, the candidate's intellectual efficiency is con-sidered in the light of one's intellectual potential. Does the client oper-ate better in a situation where conformity is rewarded or where auton-omy and independence are viewed as positive behaviors? The individ-ual's cognitive style is also studied along with factors capable of reduc-ing his or her mental efficiency such as anxiety, perfectionism, compul-sivity, or poor thought control. (2) Personality Here, it is important to have inventories/questionnaires standardized Whence Come the Candidates? / 345 on a non-psychiatric population; the candidate is not expected to live in a psychiatric ward! Instruments are usually selected which address prin-cipally the personality characteristics important for social living and so-cial interaction. Attention focuses first on personal integration: the individual's self-concept as covered by such factors as social presence, sociability, self-acceptance, sense of well-being. The candidate's social maturity and re-sponsibility come under scrutiny in a cluster of scales tapping socializa-tion, self-control, and tolerance. Temperamental variables such as per-sistence, cooperation, aggressiveness, tact, moodiness, impulsiveness, and adaptability are given some attention. The motivational aspects of the applicant are usually considered in a separate scale covering the home environment, career, religion, social endeavors, needs, values, and in-terests. A social-religious orientation is usually a more favorable indica-tor of a true call than a political or power orientation. (3) Sexuality This area is considered critical for today's candidates who will com-mit themselves to a celibate life. Projective techniques (disguised tasks) are used in this case to assess the basic sexual orientation of the candi-date and impulse control. The leads provided by the test data are openly discussed with the candidate in view of verification of the findings and subsequent recommendations. Not all information gathered in the inter-view need to be reported; problems resolved earlier fall in this category. (4) Magisterium The candidates are also queried about their attitudes toward author-ity, toward the Church and her teachings, and toward the ministry or apos-tolate. Feedback The feedback interview can be used advantageously to cover impor-tant areas such as interpersonal relationships: at home, at school, and at work, and for the older candidates, relationship to the local church. The individual can be further interrogated relative to anger and hostility: what triggers his or her anger and how is it handled? Recommendations for the proper handling of st.tong emotions are usually in order. The area of sexuality is probed further: orientation, ~,ex education, if given (when, by whom), dating history, the applicant's understanding of celibacy/ chastity, and his or her readiness to make the commitment to a celibate life. The last area tapped in the interview pertains to "spiritual evolu-tion," or the applicant's personal spiritual journey. When was he or she first attracted to the Church, (rites, sacraments, music, service, and so 346 /Review for Religious, May-June 1990 forth) and how did that attraction grow (or lapse) in the course of his or her life? Conclusion It is obvious to whoever has read up to this point that the evaluation/ assessment of candidates is serious business and a time-consuming propo-sition. Is it not worth the effort for a lifetime of service to the Church? The full day of testing and the few hours needed for the feedback/ interview are little when one considers the benefits to be derived through a lifetime of dedicated service to others. It is a rewarding task tbr the examiner who is constantly confronted with the promptings of grace in the life of today's young people. NOTES ~ William F. Kraft, "'Psychiatrists, Psychologists and Religious." R~vw.w FOR RF.LIGIOUS, Vol. 37, (1978), pp. 161-170. 2 David F. O'Connor, "Appraising Candidates for Religious Life or Priesthood," Human Development IX (Fall. 1988), pp. 26-30. 3 Address of His Holiness Pope Plus XII, "On Psychotherapy and Religion," Fifth International Congress on Psychotherapy and Clinical Psychology (April 13, 1953). Converted i come into Your glorious presence Changed, Newly dressed In Your garments, Feeling strangely at home there. Delighted, excited, I am waiting . . . Longing once more For Your kiss of peace. Sister Columba Howard St. John of God Convent P.O. Box 14 SUBIACO 6008 Western Australia Wishes for a "Novice" Novice Director Melannie Svoboda, S.N.D. Sister Melannie Svoboda, S.N.D. is currently dividing her time between teaching and writing. She served as novice director for six years. Her address is Notre Dame Academy; Route One, Box 197; Middleburg. Virginia 22117. For six years I was novice director for my religious community. During those years, the number of novices I had was anywhere between nine and one. As I reflect back on my experience as novice director, especially now that I have a little distance from that ministry, I ask myself, "What advice would I give to a new novice director--to a novice novice direc-tor? What would I wish for him or her?" There are many things I could say, much I could wish for. But if I had to limit myself to five words of advice, five wishes, what would they be? My answer to that question is this article. Warning.t Self-knowledge. Beware.t And give thanks. In my second year as novice director, I made my annual retreat as usual. During my first one-on-one conference, the retreat director asked me what my min-istry was. When I told him I was novice director for over a year, he smiled and said, "Well, well! I bet you've come to a beck of a lot of self-knowledge this past year!" His words struck me. They encapsulated something I had been experiencing, but something I had not yet been able to name: formation ministry has a terrible and marvelous way of en-couraging growth in self-knowledge--and this growth is usually accom-panied by discomfort, confusion, or even pain. Prior to becoming novice director, I had been a successful teacher and free-lance writer. It was easy for me to begin to find a good meas-ure of security in my obvious successes in these two areas. Success has 347 348 / Review for Religious, May-June 1990 an insidious way of leading us into a kind of "spiritual coziness." My success tended to give me the illusion that, indeed, God is in his heaven, I am in my classroom or at my typewriter, and all is well in the world. Formation work, which was both new and challenging, had a way of nudg-ing me (sometimes even shoving me) out of my complacency. I noticed my prayer becoming less pharisaical: "I thank you, Lord, that I am so successful!" and more "publican-ish": "Lord, now what do I do? Help!" As disconcerting as this growth in self-knowledge was at times, I see it now as a very real blessing for me. There is another reason why formation work was such a challenge for me personally. Both teaching and writing have goals and objectives by which one can, to an extent, measure one's success. Are my students learning? Yes. Are editors accepting my articles? Yes. The'n I am doing something right. I am a success. But formation ministry does not have such clear-cut ways of measuring success. In fact, by some measures, I was quite unsuccessful as novice director. Were novices flocking to our novitiate now that I was director? No. In fact, the formation team and I were not even accepting all of the few that did apply. Once they came to our novitiate, did they stay'? No. Some stayed, but many left. And, worse yet, some of the ones that did leave, ! even encouraged to leave. Formation ministry forced me to redefine success. More than that, it caused me to question how much l needed success in order to minis-ter. The ministry of formation challenged me to devote time, energy, and creativity to a work that, for the most part, did not give me the steady encouragement of measurable results. It called forth new kinds of strengths in me--such as patience, trust, letting go, and greater depen-dence on others who could help me. I needed such qualities which might otherwise have remained undeveloped because of apparent outward suc-cess. Decisions, decisions! Shortly after receiving my appointment as nov-ice director, I met my own novice director in the lunch line at our pro-vincial house. She had been a novice director for more than twenty years. Now, confined mostly to a wheelchair, she continues to serve the com-munity in the mailroom and archives. When she saw me in the lunch line, she took me aside, wished me well, and then said, "Just remem-ber: as long as you believe your decisions are right before God, that's all you've got to worry about." In those few words, my novice director had gotten to the core of for-mation ministry: the making of decisions. For me, the crux of being nov-ice director (and I use the word "crux" intentionally) was having to Wishes for a Novice Director I 349 make a decision that affected the future of another human being. Of course, I knew that I was not totally responsible for deciding whether a woman should remain in our novitiate or leave. The novice herself played a paramount role in that decision. I also knew full well that I had other people I could and did consult for valuable advice and input. I also realized that the provincial and her council ultimately were responsible for this decision. But despite knowing these things in my head, I still felt in my heart that the decision whether a novice should stay or leave was essentially mine. For me there was nothing ever easy about making such a decision--one way or the other. And there certainly was nothing easy about being the one to tell a novice that she could not stay--especially if she was unable to understand why. As I told my provincial superior onc+ after the council had decided to let a candidate go, "You're not the one who has to look into her eyes and tell her. I do." For me personally, this was the greatest challenge as novice direc-tor: trying to make the right decision for each individual. It meant I also had to face the possibility that, despite my conscientiousness and my good will, I could, indeed, make the wrong decision about someone. I had to ask myself, "Do I trust God enough that ! can be at peace with every decision I make? Can I entrust even a possible wrong decision to his love and creativity?" I never fully appreciated what a burden this was for me until I no longer bore it. After | left formation work, I was given other big respon-sibilities- among them was being local superior of a rather large com-munity. But, so far, none of these new responsibilities quite compares with the responsibility I felt as novice director: having to make a deci-sion that profoundly affects the future life direction of another person and a religious community. At the risk of sounding pious, this is a burden we cannot bear alone. As my own novice director implied, we make our decisions before God. I add: we also make them with God. With hoops of steel. In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Polonius gives some beautiful advice to his son, Laertes, before he sets out on his own. His words of advice should be given to every new novice director: Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel. l, iii One of the greatest needs of a novice director is friends. Hopefully, most novice directors enter their ministry with a "generous supply" of good and loyal friends. But even if this is the case, a novice director soon 350/Review for Religious, May-June 1990 learns that the ministry of formation has some built-in obstacles to the retention of friends. First of all, as novice director, I was in a ministry all by myself. No one else in my community did exactly what I did. As a teacher and writer, I had enjoyed the camaraderie of other sisters in my community who were actively engaged in the same ministry. We swapped stories, shared ideas, and encouraged each other in our com-mon ministry. But when I became novice director, I suddenly had no one. There is another reason for the sense of aloneness that novice direc-tors sometimes feel. Much of our ministry involves things we cannot talk about or share with others. Even our schedule may prevent us from so-cializing with our friends. For example, as a teacher I looked forward to weekends when I had a little time to "unwind" with my sisters and friends. But as novice director, my weekends suddenly became my busi-est time. That was when 1 had classes with the novices, I tried to see them individually, and I "socialized" with them. These factors cannot be allowed to become excuses fo~" losing touch with our friends. But they are challenges for us to find new and creative ways to "grapple" our friends to our souls "with hoops of steel." Eventually, I did find considerable support from novice directors in other religious communities. Sometimes when we got together, we tended to "talk shop." We found ourselves talking only about problems in formation and expressing to each other worries and frustration. This has its place, of course, but we soon realized we needed each other not merely to "gripe with" but also to "play with." As a new novice di-rector, find ingenious ways to hang on to your old friends, and be ready and eager to make new ones. The wideness of the sea. One of my favorite old hymns says this: "There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea." I think we could paraphrase those words and say. "There should be a wideness in a novice director's life like the wideness of the sea." A nov-ice director could be tempted to live in a very narrow world--a world no larger than his or her novitiate. Do not succumb to this temptation. It is important for a novice director to receive some professional prepa-ration for the ministry of formation. Yes. It is also vital for him or her to keep abreast of developments in the field of formation. Definitely. But we novice directors must not limit our input solely to formation. My ad-vice is to widen your world. Get involved with other groups of people, with issues besides formation and religious life. As novice director, for example, I taught a course in pastoral ministry at our college almost Wishes for a Novice Director / 351 every semester. The course met once a week in the evenings. Teaching that course was extremely healthy and beneficial for me. When I was not teaching a course, I was often taking a course. Some of these courses had nothing to do directly with formation. I also continued to write arti-cles for publication--the vast majority of them riot on formation. I know other novice directors who widened their world by being life guards at swimming pools, music ministers in parishes, volunteers in soup kitch-ens, or teachers in seminaries. As directors, we need ample time for a ministry of formation, true. Bui we also need time to extend our bounda-ries beyond the walls of the novitiate and our religious community. Let them love you. So far I have said nothing specifically about the novices themselves. As novice director, you must love your novices. Sometimes your love will take the form of gentleness and kindness. Other times it will assume the shape of firmness or even apparent hard-ness. Whatever form it takes, love is essential. This goes without say-ing. But there is a flip side to this fact that gets too little attention: allow your novices to love you. Be open to their love. More than that, encour-age it, welcome it. As directors we can become overly conscious of our role as director, as formator. We can shield ourselves from the give-and-take of relationships by setting strick boundaries with our novices. I am director, you are directee. I form you. I love you. Formation becomes a one-way street. When we do this, we are forgetting this great truth about formation: while we are helping to form our novices, they are also helping to form us. If we allow them. My novices helped form me in many ways--sometimes gently, other times almost roughly. They formed me by their honesty and humility-- especially in the one-on-one sessions I had regularly with each one. I was always amazed at how the novices were, for the most part, incredibly honest with themselves. By their honesty, they encouraged me to be more honest with them. During my six years, I found myself trusting the novices more and more. I had always basically trusted other people, I believe, but my six years as novice director only encouraged this atti-tude. The novices ministered to me at times in my need. One time a friend of mine in the community was dying of cancer. I left her infirmary room one night on the verge of tears. Shortly afterwards I ran into one of my novices in the hall. My initial reaction was to put on a cheerful front and hide my tears from her. After all, I was her director. In fact, I was the one who had dried the tears of this particular novice on more than one 359 / Review for Religious, Mav-Jttne 1990 occasion. But when I saw the concerned expression on her face, I was unable to hold back my tears. I cried, "Nadine's dying." Without a word, she took me in her arms and held me for a few minutes, comfort-ing me. In one way, it was a reversal of roles, but I still treasure the mem-ory of that moment when I allowed the novice to minister to me. Sometimes novices will love us in "tougher" ways--challenging our judgments, questioning our decisions, asking us to explain something we would just as soon leave unexplained. As novice directors, we must be open to that kind of love, too. My father, now retired, spends much time growing things on my par-ents' three-and-one-half acre plot of land. He grows apple trees, exotic grapes, peach trees, English walnut trees, and'the like. He once told me, "I get a kick out of figuring out how to help things grow." I would hope that every new novice director could say something similar: "I get a kick out of figuring out how to help people grow." My final wish for the "novice" novice director is this: May you figure out (often through trial and error--plus the help of God's grace) how to help (not "make" or "'force") people grow. And, in the process of your helping, may you yourself grow in faith, hope, love, and much joy! Retreat at Glenstal Abbey I have no preacher here but only quiet trees that pray one solemn silent so-be-it frown cell, from sap, from sinewed standing stem frown bough and branch from twig and sprig all said all summed in this brief silent now. The Master called and with the stars each answered to the limit of every limned lettered lace-like latticed leaf: "Here 1 am." Cothrai Gogan, c.s.sp. Naraiga Catholic Church Box 220 Limuru Kenya, Africa The Associate Movement in Religious Life Rose Marie Jasinski, C.B.S., and Peter C. Foley Sister Rose Marie Jasinski. C.B.S. is currently director of the associate community for the Sisters of Bon Secours and president of Bon Secours St. Joseph Hospital and Nursing Care Center in Port Charlotte, Florida. Peter C. Foley is presently working as a free-lance consultant and facilitator for religious congregations, dioceses, and parishes. Correspondence should be addressed to Associate Membership Office: Sis-ters of Bon Secours: 1525 Marrionsville Road: Marriottsville, Maryland 21104. The task of the imagination, specifically the religious imagination, has been described as naming, even "composing," the real. Another way of saying this is that the religious imagination unveils where God is at work among us. Stories of God at work, and of the unfolding of a real-ity whose scope and power have not yet been imagined were told in May 1989 at the Bon Secours Spiritual Center in Marriottsville, Maryland where more than 100 Directors of Religious Associate Memberships, and associates too, gathered to share the histories of their associate move-ment. It was the first such gathering of lay people and religious designed .just to explore how spiritualities or charisms of the Church, previously identified with particular religious congregations, were being assimilated by groups of lay people who claim the identity, history, and traditions of a particular spirituality as their own. The reality that emerged is that the traditional spiritualities are alive and well, even flourishing, but in ways we had not imagined. Most congregations reported more applicants to the associate program than to the congregation, and some associate members outnumbered the sisters themselves. But even more striking than the rapid growth of associate memberships was the intensity of the 353 Review for Religious, May-June 1990 commitment brought to them. These were not casual or sentimental re-lationships- it was clear that there was great personal significance in be-longing to an evolving spiritual community. This powerful movement has been quietly erupting within the Church for the last ten to fifteen years. Among the groups gathered to-gether in May we discovered associate members of women, men, sin-gle, married, of various professions, of differing faiths and even a few clergy and religious of other congregations. Associate membership tends to look and act differently within individual religious communities. The basic ingredient, however, is a strong emphasis on forming bonds be-tween laity and religious around a specific charism and mission; attempt-ing to live out that spirit and charism in one's particular lay lifestyle be-comes a significant piece of the "bonding" together. An area of richness that was shared by the groups in May was the expressed felt need and desire to journey together toward deeper spiri-tual growth. The word "together" here is significant and seems to be gaining in popularity. While indeed there still lingers the sentiment that "sister is better at this than I am" we discovered also that the notion that "the same Spirit moves among all of us" is gaining ground as well. Of course, this growing sense and desire for "bonding" also tends to blur the distinctions between laity and religious which is a challenge for some and a gift for many. Developing a sense of community was an important and, at times, a primary reason for approaching associate membership. For some it is the lack of community experienced in the local parish setting; for others it is the desire to deepen their prayer life that initiated the attraction. This sense of community and "bonding" that begin to take shape between the lay and religious members is encouraged and strengthened through regular times of coming together to share prayer, ritual, reflections, Eucharist, and other social feastings. Along with these activities the de-sire to have a "significant" role within the religious community is also exerting its influence among laity and religious. Participating in commu-nity decision-making, committee functions, chapter meetings and the like were not an uncommon topic at our May meetings. The area of service or ministry had a broad range of response among the groups. For some it was an integral part of the associates" role; for others it almost appeared as a distraction from the original intent of spiri-tual development; and still others seem to be on a progressive path of moving through spiritual development outward to "mission.'" This brings us to the progression of "gerierations" that is becom- The Associate Movement / 355 ing evident to those people who have been around this movement ['or a period of time. A pattern appears to be evolving within the associate move-ment. The first generation seemed to be people who wanted to be "filled up" spiritually plus a few who just could not say "no" to sister in those communities where the religious extended the invitation to join. In this generation the religious were looked to for the leadership. The second generation seemed to move more deeply into spiritual development in that the laity and religious have journeyed that path together as equals. The third generation emerges as associates become active in, or are in-vited into, various ways of participating in community life itself. Spiri-tuality as well as leadership is shared. A fourth generation seems to be spiritually motivated and supported by a faith community to go out in mission to share the charism. Throughout this progression of generations has remained a growing, though sometimes ambiguous, sense of commitment--ambiguous in that it is not always clear if the commitment is to the congregation, to the lo-cal community, to the associate community, or to individual sisters. And growing in that there are those rich experiences when associate members feel they have no choice but to live the charism--they have become so imbued it is as though "the charism has me!'" It seems most desirable for each group to grow in its own understand-ing and expression of, and comfort with, the focus of its commitment. While all groups expressed uncertainty about the long-term embodi-ment of their spirituality, they were equally comfortable with a sense of journeying together, accompanying ehch other in a life of prayer, shar-ing, and service. This was the area of greatest commonality among the participants. Otherwise their differences were so great that many of our assumptions about the associate movement were exposed and dispelled. Our first assumption was that a healthy associate program needed to be closely knit to the sponsoring congregation, starting with a strong for-mation program (conducted by the sisters), ongoing liaison with or lead-ership from the sisters, and some degree of monitoring of prescribed norms of behavior. Not so. Although many of these chara~:teristics were present in most programs, there were some that were not even started by the sisters, much less "managed" by them. A "healthy" and vigorous program depended more on the quality of the relationship between indi-vidual lay person and sister (living or dead) than on the sophistication of its organization and structures. The spirit or charism of the congrega-tion was passed on most effectively, it seemed, from person to person. In one group, the "formation" program consisted primarily of one-to- Review for Religious, May-June 1990 one storytelling on the part of the retired sisters with the prospective as-sociate. Another had an adoption structure, in which the associate and sister became family with each other. Another assumption was that there were sisters, on the one hand, and associates on the other. But for some, the associate membership con-sisted of lay people and those sisters who chose to join it including, in-terestingly, sisters from other congregations. These groups, obviously, had no trouble "getting sisters involved"--one of the more common problems expressed. The sisters were free to commit themselves to this other expression of their charism, or not. Another surprise was the range of expectations or requirements for associates to "keep up their membership." Many groups had calendars of annual events that included monthly meetings, annual retreats, "home-coming weekends" with all the sisters at the motherhouse, and some even offering weekly prayer meetings. But it was clear, due to geo-graphical movement of both sisters and associates, that the real and ef-fective criterion of memberships for some groups was the intention and commitment of the individual associate. In a movement like this there is a lot of giving and receiving. Who is giving? Who is receiving'? The obvious answer is that the congrega-tion is extending itself to others, including them, giving them something that they could not have by themselves. The opposite seems to charac-terize many of the groups reporting. The more the sisters listened to what was going on in the desires, dreams, and active faith life of their friends and dedicated collaborators, the more they received. Their own appre-ciation of their congregational charism and history was renewed and en-livened. Many sisters reported "receiving their charism back" from their lay associates. And, on a more pragmatic vein, the more the con-gregation included its associates in governance and community struc-tures, the greater the commitment of time and energy of the associates to the religious group. Finally, we had assumed, of course, that we were talking about per-sons of the Christian faith when we were discussing associates. Not so. A number of congregations reported including not only non-Catholic Christians in their associate programs, but also non-Christian persons. How could this be? We did not ask. If we had had the time, we would have asked three other questions: -What human behaviors facilitate the "passing on" of a charism from person or group to another'? -This seems to be more a women's movement than one The Associate Movement / ;357 commonly or equally shared by men and women. If so, how does it relate to the larger feminist or women's move-ment? And, also, how is it related to earlier women's movements in the history of the Church? -Are congregations that have a vital and active associate membership capable of having an equally vital and ac-tive group of "lay volunteers"? We ended the May meetings with no conclusions other than it was very good to get together and share what is happening; that some groups would initiate regional networks: and that we should all meet again in two years to hear the continuing story of the associate membership move-ment. As participants and observers we rejoice and hope to see the continu-ing openness to the Spirit-filled variety of associate memberships in the Church. A variety that may lead us to a fifth generation of associate mem-bers and "religious" sharing community: living together in a variety of many different ways, providing a variety of different services, praying in a variety of different styles--all through the power of one Spirit-- one baptism. Sunrise When the earth tipped its rim this morning, letting the sun in, filling itself with color and.light, You handed it to me; putting my mouth to the other side, I drank the dawn wind, the morning sun rising, dripping with glory. Then handing the cup back to You, I wiped the drops from my mouth, touching my lips again with Your light: Satiated with splendor, so glad of Your love. Sister Columba Howard St. John of God Convent P.O. Box 14 SUBIACO 6008 Western Australia Images For The Future Of Religious Life Thomas F. McKenna, C.M. Father Thomas McKenna, C.M., is an assistant professor in the theology department at St. John's University in New York. He has also served as novice director for the Eastern Province of the Vincentians. His address is Vincentian House: 101-25 104th Street: Ozone Park, New York 11416. One of the signatures of any age is the time-dimension to which it is drawn. At a given period, a culture is fascinated by past, present, or what is to come. For a number of interwoven reasons, religious life in this pres-ent age is taken with the future. The harder times it has fallen upon in filling up its thinning ranks and the upsetting wonder about what forms will take it into the next. century raise questions which only forward-looking answers will give. Add to this the growing appreciation that the origins and, therefore, the identity of religious life lie in visions precisely about what could be, and the reasons for concern about that future be-come all the more apparent. Often enough, these worries and hopes find expression in a search for what is termed "The New Image.'" That taken-for-granted inner land-scape which grounded the operations of a congregation for generations is less and less able to hold the center. Members realize that some new image is required, a different "root metaphor"~ which once in place will again provide that clear prism through which the apostolates, govern-ance, prayer styles, and, indeed, the very self-concept of the order can be freshly perceived. In his book on the meaning of history,2 Theodore White describes the precariousness of trying to peer into the future from the only van-tage point available, the present. He invites the reader into a small boat 358 Images of Religious Life / 359 bobbing up and down on the swells of the mid-Pacific, thousands of miles from any coast. Inside, the waves lifting and lowering the boat feel much the same, but in fact they are not all alike. Some are only surface ripples blown up for a few hundred yards or even miles. Others are surges left from mid-ocean storms out still farther over the horizon. They, too, will smooth out and die. But others still are the tips of deep running transoceanic currents. They were born in the river canyons of continents two thousand miles to the east and will crest on the shores of another coast four thousand miles westward. The historian is the person who thinks himself able to read which of the waves are shallow and so eventually will fade, and which reach to the floor of the sea and so will roll on into the future. While the bases for his judgments are not the kind which can serve up airtight predictions, they are rooted eno'ugh in pres-ent conditions to get him beyond clairvoyance. His knowledge of the cur-rents and tides enables him to give some backing for claims about what will continue beyond the horizon. This article intends to feel for some of those currents. While there are any number of root images which might be the synthesizing meta-phors on which religious life will be carried into the future, there are some which because of their ancient lineage in the religious movement on the one side and their attunedness to present society on the other show promise beyond mere guesswork--though, to be honest, not perhaps be-yond wishful thinking! The metaphors to follow can stand by themselves, but are more use-ful when anchored in the first. Connecting them sequentially allows for a certain priority but also for enough interaction that each can be a cor-rective for the others. The Religious Infiltrators of the Culture The scenario here is one body of people led forward by a common vision who insert themselves into the dead spots, so to speak, of the world of another group. They attempt to work their variant view into the places in the dominant culture which are spiritually empty and hunger-ing for freedom and new meaning. The sportscaster's phrase "in the seams" catches the idea. In a zone defense, players are assigned to cover certain sectors of the field or rink. The weakest points are along the bor-ders of zones because that is where confusions and even collisions be-tween the defenders are most likely to occur. The pass or shot is aimed "in the seams" between the zones; it is put "in the crease" at the edges of the coverage where the system most often breaks down. This analogy places religious among those believers who carry the 3BO / Review for Religious, May-June 1990 cause of Mystery to those border areas in a culture. Into those margins where the prevailing world view has lost its depth or has failed in nerve, religious bring the riches, appropriately enough, of religion. They are the outriders of the culture, the hikers along the margin where moder-nity has unraveled and is dealing death rather than life. The orders are among the entrepreneurs of the Mystery in a resistive society. This last figure brings out the assertive and perhaps even aggressive side of the image. Not intimidated by the muscular idols of the culture, religious purposefully seek out opportunities for evangelization and join with other groups who struggle to inculturate kindred values. They are convinced of the profundity of what they carry and so actively search out the soft spots in a society for chances to penetrate. Opportunistically, they move into the seams. In the description of the mid-ocean sailor, we spoke of the need to justify the use of a particular image. Why does this metaphor show more promise than another'? In this case, what signs of the times recommend the infiltrator over competitors'? Both negative and positive warrants come to mind. The negatives cluster around a foreboding sense of the spiritual bank-ruptcy of certain sectors in the modern world. By modern we connote here modernity, that whole ethos born in the Enlightenment and bred in the industrialized West whose place in history is slipping off its assumed highest perch to a level of one era among others, but one, indeed, whose effects are threatening to annihilate the gains of all the rest. Interestingly, this critique is being mounted by commentators who truly admire many of the accomplishments of the modern era such as freedom, communi-cation, labor saving devices, democracy, and so forth. They counsel not so much a nativist return to some pre-technological world, but rather a move beyond technology. To that end, they make the case that within the soil of the very blessings modernity bestows are sprouting the mostly unnoticed seeds of its own destruction. The most noxious plants on the American scene are being fed by the system of total capitalism. When left unchecked, they poison the very kind of moral character needed to sustain the democratic society in which capitalism flourishes. Among the more widely known critics are Robert Bellah and his as-sociates3 who have detailed the ways in which individualism threatens to remove its communal counterbalance, republicanism, from the ethi-cal arena in American life. A flattened self, the person as a "bag of needs" disconnected from other subjects and unable to collaborate from motives beyond self-gratification is the narcissistic prospect. Barbara Hat- Images of Religious Life / 36"1 grove's depiction of the "New Class" analyzes the ways which the spe-cializing and rationalistic tendencies of the baby boomer culture can shut down its own best possibilities.'~ In a more popular vein are the addresses of Franciscan preacher, Richard Rohr, who of late has been announcing "the death of the liberal agenda."-s An inability to cooperate with any-one besides an elite few, an idolization of personal feelings, and a per-fectionistic search for the fullest experience and/or the flawless process are some of the disturbing undersides he fears now beginning to surface. A more philosophical warning is being sounded by a group known as the Post-Modernists. Taking negative expression in its Deconstruction-ist variety,6 the critique is more optimistically stated by a group who call themselves, fittingly so, the Constructionists.7 Affirming the benefits of modernity, they also desire to move beyond its pitfalls and so join the assault on individualism. Their particular contribution is not only to have analyzed further its pedigree and progeny, but to have proposed means by which it can be overcome. There is an anthropomorphism in the culture, they contend, which immoderately subordinates the whole of creation to its human part. The attitude denies any "inwardness" to what is not human, thereby remov-ing nature's intrinsic value and laying it open to the worst kinds of ex-ploitation. The social counterparts of this dominative style are the patri-archal rules in society, assumptions which prevailed in all ages but get honed to their sharpest edge by the competitive, rationalistic, and ef-ficiency myths of the present.8 Powering everything are the twin dynamos of economism and con-sumerism. The blanket moral pardon granted the so-called side effects of the free market (steered by its invisible hand of self-interest) is ex-tended to all sectors of life. Social, aesthetic, moral, and religious issues are approached as if their ultimate bearings were also supply and de-mand. The pressures to define self by possessions, to regard the public good solely as economic wealth, and to eliminate concern even for one's posterity are some of the more chilling prospects when the profit princi-ple is transmuted into the universal moral touchstone. Such a world, in a Constructionist phrase, has lost its enchantment.9 Emptied of mystery and dulled to the wisdom of the best of its myths, it can no longer re-spond to the deeper hopes and so begins to feed on itself. Modernity's prospects: a superficial and morally spinning world set on a disastrous course that of itself modernity is powerless to change. If the infiltrator metaphor stayed only with condemnations, its indict-ments could have the ring of a culture-bashing fundamentalism which 369 / Review for Religious. May-June 1990 railed against the society but did not involve itself in it. Happily, these critiques are simultaneously stirring up a kind of religious revival or at least the beginnings of one. ~0 In the so-called secular disciplines for in-stance, there is a growing movement to sacralize the world. Proponents in the natural sciences for one, awed not only by the indeterminacy of things but also by their interconnectedness, are proclaiming a newly dis-covered mystery in creation. Various schools of psychology for another are reclaiming a spiritual base. Educational circles are feeling a surpris-ing pressure for more theology and religion courses at secular universi-ties. ~ These and other indications mark a widening search for values which are rooted in something other than the economic. This quest has a prag-matic ring to it inasmuch as the conviction is spreading that religiously grounded foundations are the only ones on which lasting social change can be built. Interestingly, the revival appears to have gathered greatest momentum among Roman Catholics. A 1987 Gallup poll names them as the denomination which feels most able to provide religious leadership in American society because of both the wide backing they accord their bishops' social teachings and because of the stronger communal bonds they enjoy. ~- In sum, there is on a number of fronts a growing unease about the spiritual vacuum in the culture together with initial signs of an initiative to fill it. Motivation for the renewal is not the self-righteous and con-demning sort, but comes from culturally sympathetic people who at the same time sense the dissonance between their own religious experience and the hollowness in key sectors of modernity. This analysis was done to indicate possible points at which religion could be inserted into the culture. Such intersections hold invitations for religious to join with other subgroups in society~3 in witnessing to firmer grounds of meaning. Carrying in their traditions such wisdom as the in-terrelationship between humans and the rest of creation, the universal dis-persion of spiritual energy, the immanence of the divine feminine, and the riches which cannot be packaged as a commodity and which flow out of the acts of loving and hoping, members of orders do not come empty-handed to those vulnerable seams. Nor do they come alone. The infil-trator is meant to work alongside of other servants of Mystery who are soon discovered to be, in Thomas Merton's phrase, "the monks' natu-ral allies in the world.''~4 If this line of thought sounds familiar to the religious reader, it is likely because something of the sacred time of his or her beginnings is hnages of Religious Life / 36:3 evoked. All founding persons were in effect entrepreneurs of religion in a culture. The desert journeys of the monks as response to the dying and brutal fourth-century society, the ingenuity of the mendicants in evan-gelizing a world of new city-states, the missionary fervor of the congre-gations of the seventeenth century reaching across from the Old World to the New--all these were tides taken at the ebb to penetrate a weak-ened and changing society. The crisis of meaning in American culture today and some initial responses to it present new windows of opportu-nity for would-be refounders. What special qualities are required of these so-called otitriders of re-ligion? In an essay on the future of spirituality, ~5 Karl Rahner addressed the situation of believers living in a time of sociological diminishment. Their faith must be sustained by what he termed "a solitary, immediate experience of God." They are to be new types of mystics whose con-viction does not come from any place other than the hearts of their own existence. Infiltrators are, therefore, marked in the first place by a per-sonal experience of God. Their second trait might be called culture-friendliness. Refounding persons exhibit that certain feel for the divine possibilities in society, that willingness to mix it up with the shapers of meaning in the wider world. While they are not uncritical of the age, their more basic desire is to engage it in order to move quickly into the spiritual openings it presents. But infiltrators also have blind spots. A common one is to so con-centrate on the strategy and practicalities of insertion into a culture that they lose sight of the sources of the salvation they bring it. Two further images, each able to stand on its own, speak more pointedly to ways of listening for the Word which religious carry to the world they would serve. The Navigator A type of spiritual sensibility long associated with the religious move-ment is at the core of this metaphor. To arrive at it, we add to Theodore White's image of the boat bobbing in the mid-Pacific the lore surround-ing certain revered individuals in Polynesian culture known as Naviga-tors. Now gone, these adventurers were the last repositories in their so: ciety of the secrets of open ocean sailing. Without modern navigational instruments, they could make landfall on a tiny dot of coral thousands of miles across the seemingly trackless Pacific. Anthropologists found their basic talent to be an ability to read the movements of the waves. Through a long and spiritually intense initiation, they learned to tell the crucial difference between the surface disturbances and the ocean- 364 I Review Jbr Religious, May-June 1990 spanning bottom currents which led in definite directions, changed head-ings with the seasons, and were deflected as they ran past the archipela-goes that speckled the Southern Seas. From their minuscule platform on the raft, they could judge which of the great ocean waves to follow and which to let roll past. In terms we will use, these were the special ones who could read in the present which movements had the long-range prom-ise and which would not reach the far shore of the future. Joseph Campbell speaks of an analogous phenomenon in other primi-tive societies which today might come under the title recruitment. While undergoing the long initiation to adulthood, one of the adolescents suf-fers a kind of nervous breakdown. He seems to take things too seriously. He does not see reality the way his peers do and is not in step with their pace and general rhythms. Observing this, the elders remove him from the group--and make him their religious leader! Their intuition, says Campbell, is that the youngster is picking up the contours of another world. He is reading signals from a different depth and perceiving a pic-ture of the way the tribe could be when at its very best. In the language of the previous example, this person becomes the tribal navigator, not just in sailing but in all things, because he can discern directions com-ing 'back from the future,' directions which the rest of the clan recog-nizes as valuable and even salvific. In this metaphor, religious are among those special ones with sensi-tivity for what of God's future is just over the horizon. Intuiting the source and goal of the divine good working in the world, their faith vi-sion focuses more on the da~vning of God's presence than on its fruition in the present. To paraphrase Karl Rahner, they are among the first to catch the glimmer of the morning light on the far mountain which will eventually turn into the brilliance of day. ~6 Following him again, these are the eschatologically inciined believers whose intimations of God's grace which comes from beyond the world creates the saving tension with those disciples whose more incarnationa[ faith celebrates the pres-ence of that grace already come. ~v Two signs of the times which in an obverse way recommend the Navi-gator are the sleek idol-making machines of secularism and materialism. To those driven by them, all observable ~:eality is explainable in terms of itself, and things (including persons perceived as things) hold the high ground of ultimacy. To counteract this massive message, there is great need for the relativizer, the individual who cherishes the good of this world but who also spots its incompleteness and inability to save. These are the ones who catch the presence of the world-to-come in the midst hnages of Religious Life / 365 of the world-that-is-here and so can accept the graciousness of the pres-ent while rejecting its different pretensions to absoluteness. Groups who can "name grace''~8 because they know the difference between groundings which are ultimate and penultimate help save a world which too indiscriminately mixes the two. And indeed, has it not always been one of the liberating functions of religion to lead people into places where, in one writer's imagery, "they can transcend the mazeways they have known to glimpse new visions of what may be"?~9 If this metaphor again seems an old friend, it is because it carries strains of both a classic description of religious communities and of a strong trait in the spiritual experience of their founders. Magisterial docu-ments depict religious orders as witnesses to the world-to-come, as fore-tastes of the kingdom's fullness, and as apostles of the transcendent.2° The innovative apostolic strategies of founding women and men sprang from their ability to see the world which hemmed in their contemporar-ies against the backdrop of the better one illuminated by the light of the coming kingdom. The ancestry of religious life is heavily eschatologi-cal. Witness to that faith-dimension is needed in every age but for the reasons discussed above crucially so in this one. The community which images itself as Navigator values discern-ment. As a group it not only spots the religious possibilities and then im-plements them, but lays explicit hold of the power and source of its vi-sion. It is a mobile group, able to roam free, and has a lower than usual need for the security and predictability of set roles. Its critique of the status quo will disturb those less attuned to the future and it will line up more quickly with other visionaries in the world and Church. For all its sensitivity, such a community also has its limits. Naviga-tors can so focus on the land over the horizon that they miss some of the places they travel through in the present. Eschatological types have their eyes on the better world ahead and tend to be impatient with the slow birthing process needed to bring that world to light of day. In the lan-guage of psychology, they can be perfectionistic, enamored of the ideal, and intolerant of development toward it. In theological talk, they are tempted to angelism, imagining they can detour around the process of history instead of laboriously going through it.2~ Often enough, naviga-tors need to be brought back down to the agitated ocean surface and re-learn the wisdom of the journey itself. Enter the next image, a specialist in the art of journeying. The Lean and Light Remnant The title draws the scene for this third metaphor. It is the Israelite 366/Review for Religious, May-June 1990 people on a long and ragged trek across the desert. Their march this time is not toward the new Promised Land but toward their old one, having just been released from their captivity in Babylon and now heading back to rebuild a ruined Jerusalem. They have little to carry because recent slaves do not amass many possessions. They rely on no social standing other than the dubious kind of the refugee. Most telling, because so many of their kin fell off the trail on the way to Babylon or chose to remain behind there, their numbers are hardly the kind to pose a threat to world order. For all that, they are grateful for their station because they have learned from their experience and their prophets that dispossession and pilgrimage have a way of opening hearts to Yahweh. They are the Remnant. Not lamenting their losses nor ashamed of their smallness, they are in some measure even glad for them because these deprivations have proved to be better teachers about what counts before their God than the power they wielded generations ago. These travelers have no preten-sions of overwhelming their world with multitudes or even talent. What they have to offer is what they are constan,tly aware of receiving, the di-vine mercy and sustenance. At best, they see themselves as catalysts, tiny enzymes in a large mass, invisible and unobtrusive. They are satis-fied on the circumference of society because their ordeal has convinced them that circumferences can often enough in God's eyes be near the cen-ter. The fit between Remnant and the orders of the 1990s is the obvious demographic one of diminishment. Not just on the way, smallness is al-ready here. To begin to extol the benefits of shrinkage at such a time could be written off as a kind but unreal attempt to console the dying, a thought which most likely occurred to Babylon-bound Israelites as they heard the same sentiment from their preachers. But to at least some of them, the truth of the claim proved itself over time. That proof is being given again today in a number of testimonies to the spiritual good which can come of vulnerability and powerlessness. One especially forceful witness is given by the liberationists who in their own pragmatic way have unearthed the riches at the margins. The poor evangelize the wealthy, the no-accounts unlock the Gospel's mean-ing for people of consequence, the small, ordinary, and forgotten ones are revealed as standing at the hub of the kingdom's activity. The very meaning of insignificant is transposed. Another more quiet testimony comes from Jean Vanier and his years of living with the handicapped.22 These sociologically most invisible of Images of Religious Life / :367 people have their own ways of making very visible the presence of grace in creation. The precariousness of their existence and their survival-need for the compassion of others lays bare the essence of how it is be-tween God and all of humanity. Such little people, when cared for and allowed to progress on their own terms, turn out to be large gifts to the caretakers. Gospels such as these are advancing the claim that diaspora time is the spiritually best time. Facing the onset of their own smallness, reli-gious communities could do worse than take to heart this winter spiritual-ity. In its bleakness they might come to see another kind of beauty and in its silence a call to a more anonymous style of influencing the world around them. Is this not the climate in which most all orders and con-gregations began? In the desert where smallness reveals itself as bless-ing by keeping the group real, minority status does not allow social and numerical superiority to figure in its estimation of success. Pilgrim com-munities of the coming decades will have both grieved the loss of high visibility and learned better to rely on their own inner experience as sus-tainer and guidepost. Like the tiny band of emigres approaching the out-skirts of Jerusalem, they will recognize their smallness as the lean and light condition which best suits them for the task of building their old/ new city. Scripture experts tell us that when the exiles entered the settlement, they found others already there, both their own who had been left be-hind as well as others who over the decades had wandered in. To move to our final metaphor, we add the following piece of imagination. Because the project of reconstructing the Temple and city would re-quire more arms than these pilgrims could supply, they realized they needed the help of the resident aliens. But the Jews also noted that these foreigners possessed building skills different from their own which might add much beauty to the final product. The New Jerusalem could better be built collaboratively. The last image is at hand. The Square Dance The picture here is of a swirling group, moving to the rhythm of the same tune and the shouts of the one caller. The dancers begin as a single couple, then join larger and still larger circles, change to other partners along the way, then come back to the original two--and repeat the cycle again and again. While at the beginning the steps and switches are a bit ragged and the caller's instructions hard to understand, the promenaders do not drop out because the energy spreading across the floor has caught them. They know best the partners they came with, but they also know 368 / Review for Religious, May-June 1990 how much more dance there is when they can join hands with other cir-cles and be part of the bigger whirl in the room. They trade some of the freedom of couple-dancing for the chance to be part of something larger to which they now know they can contribute. The dance metaphor speaks of new ways for the religious communi-ties to be together, both with themselves and with others. Beginning within the circles of their own congregations, they move out to other prov-inces and communities, to laity, to their natural families, couples, friends outside their order, co-workers, to other Infiltrators, Navigators and Remnants both Christian and non. The image encourages them to listen for the rhythm which matches the cadence of their own religious experi-ence no matter where in society it is sounding. With a graciousness, they let go the hands of the community partners with whom they began so that these too are free to step off into the bigger enterprise. But they are also happy to welcome them back when the time for regrouping comes round again. Each member of the congregation sacrifices some independence, convinced that the overall cause is worth the initial unsettlement and risk. The sign of the times for Square Dance is quite simply its present existence. Many congregations have already moved the borders on their maps of inclusion. Associates, service corps, laymission extensions, in-terprovincial apostolates, joint ventures by men's and women's branches of the same order all testify to the shifting sense of what it means to be-long. If the initial enthusiasm for widening circles produced some overly fluid boundaries, it did enlarge perceptions of membership. This stretch-ing permitted groups to recognize certain natural allies outside their walls who were in effect anonymous carriers of the community charism. A more recent attempt to strike a better balance between centrifugal and cen-tripetal forces has sought to tie tighter but still flexible bonds between the members. One fine instance is the recent essay by George Wilson which tracks the sharp change in attitudes of Jesuits about inclusion.-~3 The image of a single closed circle embracing all the spiritual, profes-sional, familial, apostolic, and even recreational aspects of communal life has largely been supplanted by another of many smaller circles, some not connected to each other and most tellingly not to the Jesuit one. Be-longing no longer means fitting everything inside the one ring of total community but rather negotiating between the different circles (for ex-ample, professional societies, local living group, non-Society friends both male and female, the world Jesuit fellowship, and so forth), espe-cially between those of one's primary and secondary commitments. hnages of Religious Life / 369 Useful as it is on the intra-community level, a Square Dance model also serves the wider society, Any truly collaborative venture on behalf of issues other than the group's self-preservation is a prophetic word to a culture so tilted away from the ability to cooperate by the weight of individualism. And could it not also be that arguments within religious communities themselves against widening the circle (phrased at times as the loss of needed autonomy or dilution of our special spirit) are partially an echo of the privatist bias in the wider society? Whatever the case, the move to collaborate for reasons beyond self-interest is not only evangeli-cally countercultural, but hearkens back to that surrender to something greater which gave rise to the religious movement in the first place. People of the Square Dance have a mind for the communal. The op-posite of in-house types who require the safety of same-sex, walled-off environments, they still maintain primary loyalties to their own, Their toleration for fluidity in boundaries is high. They have opted to learn ne-gotiation between different memberships rather than to close ranks around the one. This insight that collaborative communities are in a position to infil-trate the individualistic culture completes the circle. The Square Danc-ers widen the Remnant's sphere of influence. Both look to the Naviga-tors for the source and direction of their projects. And all three join in the Infiltrator's attempt to bring the depth of the kingdom to the shallow places of the world. It is time to conclude. Conclusion Nearly twenty years ago when reflecting on the spirituality of the fu-ture, Karl Rahner predicted that whatever forms it takes, it "will remain the old spirituality of the Church's history."24 He meant that even though the relationship between the different parts of Christian existence will shift, its essential elements (for example, adoring the incomprehensible God, following the suffering and triumphant Lord, protesting the world's forms of wealth, power, and pleasure, living within the Church, and so forth) will remain. In a somewhat reverse way, the same holds true for the different images of religious life with which we have been playing. These paradigms do not submerge those components which the recent Vatican document termed "Essential Elements,''25 but they do recon-figure them. Communal living, for instance, is linked to mission in a much different way in a Square Dance framework than it had been in more tightly inclusive forms of the Augustinian one-heart-and-one-spirit tradition. It is precisely that repatterning which makes all the dif-ference. For it allows religious the suppleness not only to set new courses 370 / Review for Religious, May-June 1990 by the waves of the future moving past them, but also to take conscious advantage of the momentum those waves contain. To return to Rahner, religious life will and will not remain the same. Its refounders are those people who through freshly imaging its possibilities will keep the reli-gious movement intact and at the same time reshape it into its most us-able form for the coming age. The overall interplay between the images seems an apt point on which to conclude. The Remnant calls the Infiltrator to remember the hum-ble conditions under which the message is given; the Infiltrator in turn cautions the Remnant against enshrining smallness as a value unto itself. The Navigator supplies the direction for the Infiltrator; the Infiltrator pow-ers the boat which the Navigator might be content only to steer. All three are vitalized by community living, but now expanded into its Square Dance form. Our attempt has been to suggest culturally relevant paradigms which might anchor 'newly emerging syntheses for religious life. If these par-ticular ones do not speak to individuals or communities, they might at least trigger the power of other imaginations to discover even deeper ly-ing metaphors which can again hold the center for this ancient and ever new blessing in the Church. NOTES ~ Thomas Clark, "Religious Leadership in a Time of Cultural Change," Religious Life at the Crossroads, David Fleming, ed. (New York: Paulist Press, 1985), p. 169. 2 In Search of History (New.York: Harper and Row, 1978). 3 Habits of the Heart (New York: Harper and Row, 1985). 4 The Emerging New Class (New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1986). 5 "Religious Life Of The Future," Origins, Sept. 22, 1988 (Vol. 18, no. 15) pp. 234-239. 6 For a general sketch of this school and its leading proponent, Jaques Derrida, see Religion and Intellectual Life, Wint

Issue 36.5 of the Review for Religious, 1977. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS IS edaed by faculty members of St LOUIS University, the editor,al offices being located at 612 Humboldt Braiding, 539 North Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copyright © 1977 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $7.00 a year; $13.00 for two years; other countries, $8.00 a year, $15.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor September 1977 Volume 36 Number 5 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to REVIEW Fon REL1c~ous; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts andbooks for review should be sent to REVXEW YOn REL~CIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19131. The First Week of the Spiritual Exercises and the Conversion of Saint, Paul Carolyn Osiek, R.S.C.J. Sister Carolyn is on the faculty of Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, where she teaches New Testament. Most recently, she had been Research/Resource Associate in Women's Studies at H~rvard Divinity'School. Her address: Catholic Theological Union; 5401 S. Cornell; Chicago, IL 60615. The title ~ays in a general way the topic of this article. Actually, however, it is somewhat the other way around, for another way of expressing the topic would be: Paul's decisive "First Week" experience, or, the "First Week" in the life of Paul. The present investigation Will be an attempt to focus, examine, and understand the personal experience of Paul which parallels and reflects the process experienced and planned by Ignatius for his followers in what he later came to call the "First Week" of the Spiritual Exercises. There are some obvious limitations to such an undertaking. First, if as is generally accepted, Paul's initial conversion experience took place some-time between 33-36 A.D., and if what is preserved of his Philippian, Ga-latian, and Corinthian correspondence was written between the years 54 and 57 from Ephesus, there is a 20 year gap between the.experience and the description. 1 Second, Paul had no intention of writing an autobiography.' He alludes to his own spiritual experience only insofar as it helps him convey ~The chronology of the letters is disputed. Here I follow J. A. Fitzmyer, "A Life ~Jf Paul," Jerome Biblical Commenthry, ed. R. E. Brown. J. A. Fitzmyer. R. E. Murphy (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:Prentice Hall, 1968), pp. 218, 221. 657 6511 / Review for Religious, .Volume 36, 1.,977/~5 his point to others, usually in terms of the bankruptcy of the Mosaic laW vis-a-vis the grace of Christ--a religious situation far removedin actuality from the experience of most of us, whatever figurative applications can be made. Third, the one source in which Paul's spiritual conversion-is graph-ically and formally portrayed (in triplicate)--Acts 9:22 and 26~could be utilized in a consideration of New Testament theology of conversion, but in the light of modern scriptural source criticism cannot responsibly be used to shed light on Pauline spirituality or spiritual experience. Some of the elements picked up by Luke in.his triple narrative will be used as illustrative of the Pauline experience in the wider dimension of familiar religious symbols, but it must be kept in mind that for Paul they are secondary. This brings us to a statement of the broader scope of the present under-taking. The purpose of the investigation is not historical. If it were, it could well stop with the Pauline data. Rather, the full scope is an attempt to understand Paulis wounding and healing as exemplary of a common spir-itual journey through death to new life for a purpose. The expanded ar- .ticulation of that process is drawn from personal experience as retreatant and as a spiritual director. It might be well to begin by describing the structure of the "First Week' '~ process as it will be treated here. Basically it is a movemrrit of entering into death in Order to have life, of descending into the depths 0nly to find there new inspiration to arise, of going down with the old and familiar and coming up in newness, as the ancient ritual of baptism by immersion so clearly portrays. It is wodnding and healing, alienation and reconciliation as the person comes face to face first with human evil and then with divine good-ness. Precisely where these two currents cross is the point of greatest pain because the comparison becomes nearly unehdurable. But out of the con-flict engen.dered by that pain comes the energy to begin anew, and thus the paradoxical cycle of death and rebirth is once again lived out. Ignatius' term -confusion" is not a bad word to describe the growing sense that something is wrong, both in its literary meaning of "shame" and especially in its more common sense of "losing one's bea.rings." There are three stages that can occur as defenses are stripped away and the sense of confusion sharpens. Ignatius described these three stages one way in n. [63] of the Exercises: first, a deep knowledge of-pers~onalo sin and a feeling of abhorrence; second, an understanding of the "disorder of my actions" and a resulting feeling of horror; third, a. knowledge of the sinfulness of the world ~.and, again, a.sense of horror. Abhorrence and horror are strong enough terms, yet they imply a primacy of activity on the part of the retreatant though, it must be added, the grace to have such feelings is clearly seen as something to be asked of and freely bestowed by God. The terminology used by Ignatius here, at least as we can understand it four centuries later, does not adequatrly desc.ribe the passive nature of the First Week experience as it is sometimes encountered when, without active The Spiritual Exercises and the Conversion of Paul / 659 pursuit of desire for sorrow for sin, and so forth, rational defenses and affective supports ~reviously relied upon suddenly disappear. Disorienta-tion deepens as awareness of sin increases. The revelation of sinfulness progresses; as Ignatius.described it, in three stages. The first is that of felt guilt over specific acts for which the person is respohsible, guilt that has been accumulating perhaps over a long period of time, the full impact of which suddenly bursts forth with unexpectedly painful sharpness as the reti'eatant faces God and himself in solitude. Crnfusion is balanced only by the fi~m witness of the mercy and forbearance of God in allowing the person t~J come to this point. The second stage occurs if the layer of the conscious mind can be sufficiently peelea off to-reveal the underlying basic tendencies to evil for which a perso~n is only partly responsible at the conscious level. The feeling of confusion, pain,, a~nd alienation increases and a ne'w factor eri(ers in: helplessness-sthe inability to do what one Would want to do about vast areas of life. ,;The realization deepens that one is unable to Consciously regulate tendencies to grab for security, love, and control that diminish both victims and subject. The person is painfully aware of not being in control of his own motivation. At this point feelings of guilt mix with a newly discovered fear of one's own innate destructiveness. Mistrust of oneself can be countered by trust in the God who has kept him from becoming worse than he is. In the third stage the probe of the ~pirit goes deeper still until it reaches the 16vel at which personal responsibility is no longer at stake. It is .the experience of total powerlessn~ess, helplessness, total inability to act in any way.to save oneself. The forces of disintegration seem to be triumphing and God seems to have left the person totally to his own resources which have consequently cru'mbled. Here it is no longer a question of guilt and merc~,, but of the ability to live with fear and to cling to some memory of the love of God. The familiar theological maxim that God sustains all things in existence at every moment becomes a crushing reality, for the person is This "confusion." flowing from the sense of being judged by God, is not the result of a rational process: it is total loss of face before a situation which cannot be long endured with the usual supports of reason and prudence. We find ourselves con-fronted by ttie cross of Christ placed in the presence of unmeasuredness itself, that which is "madness to the world" (I Co 1:23).2 Z"La 'confusion.' fruit spirituel de cejugement divin, n'est pas le r~sultat d'une argumenta- 'tign logique: elle est perle totale de contenance, devant une situation qui pr~cis~ment ne peut ~tre plus Iongte.mps support~e avec !es ressources habituelles de la raison et de la pru-dence. ~Nous voici, devant la Croix du Christ. mis ,en presence de la d~mesure m~me, qm est 'folie l~our le monde" (I Cor 1:23) . La premiere semaine des Exercices." Christus, vol. 6. no. 21 (1959), pp. 22-39 (translation mine). 660 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 sure that nothing within himself is preserving his being, .and yet it seems to be God himself wh6 is crushing him. Ignatius understood [53] that only the total powerlessness of Christ on the cross as he is destroyed by force.s beyond human control can give any meaning to this experience, W. de Broucker describes this state of soul in a way that sums up the whole triple movement: It is precisely the attitude expressed by the dying Chris.t that marks the beginning of the movement upward: "Into your hands I commit my spirit." Surrender into the hands of God, the cessation of struggle against the force that seems to be annihilating the self, goes against the basic instinct of human nature. It is natural for us "to fight for life, to hang on tenuously to the familiar. If the shred of self that is left can be given up, a new self can be formed. With surrender comes trust that there is someone or something to surrender to, and that something other than total chaos can result. Once trust has been given, a dim hope can begin to arise, an assurance that dawn will~ome and that a reason for the suffering and death of the experience may be that something greater is coming to birth. With a new confidence given to the force that is at work within, further insight into one's personal responsibility may result. There may be deep-ened realization of how one's total helplessness before God, now a.~vivid reality, creates subconscious defenses in the form of root tendencies to turn away from God in order to avoid pain, conflict, or unwelcome truth. New awareness of personal orientation away from God then leads to a whole new outlook about personal sinfulness. The avoidance, neglect, anxiety, and self-seeking expressed in everyday~life as sin are seen with much more understanding and insight into one's personal motivation.s and weaknesses. At this point a healing of pain and guilt can take place and the mercy of God becomes an invading presence _bringing with it the experience of reconcil-iation leading to a deep sense of peace and eventually of joy. The new clarity of understanding leads inevitably, for the person who remains faithful in following the new way where God is'leading, to a trans-formation of attitude and behavior. This transformation is a psychiC and spiritual change that invades the whole person, btit rarely does it happen all at once. It involves the abandoning of certain accepted values and untried assumptions regarding personal autonomy, perception of truth, or need for affectivity. Realization of what God is asking in these areas and consequent surrender and acceptance of change usually happen gradually over a period of at least several months. What is happening simultaneously is the ac-quisition of a new set of personal values to replace the old ones, values usually founded on sharpened awareness of the fragility and weakness of the self and a deep sense of awe an~d gratitude at the ways that God's power is at work in weakness. Mary Esthei- Harding describes the psychological change that is taking place at this point: The Spiritual Exercises and the Conversion of Paul / 661 Whenever there is an upsurge of highly activated unadapted material into conscious-ness, the task of assimilation becomes urgent. This holds true whether the new material is valuable, creative stuff or merely alchaic phantasy that bespeaks more a morbid exuberance than a prolific creativity. The assimilation of the new material demands a fresh standpoint, which implies a recognition of the relativity of all former judgments. What was formerly considered unqualifiedly good must'now be judged in the light of,the new and enlarged understanding; the same must be done with that which has been considered bad? The whole experience might be summarized as an awareness of: the goodness of God gratitude sinful actions guilt. need for mercy, forgiveness sinful tendencies fear struggle need to experience love of God powerlessness surrender trust hope And a new awareness of: sinful tendencies new awareness of mercy love motivqtion for sinful power of God acts , need to change There follows a healing and reconciliation peace, joy and a gradual transformation of values, attitudeS, behavior As 'was stated at the beginning, the primary focus of this paper is the spiritual experience of Paul, aRd the previous discussion of the process is by ~ay of setting the stage. Patil's change Of heart is classically spoken of as a "conversion;" The limitation inherent in the use of this term is the restricted sense in which the word is most often used: change of faith or religion or, somewhat more broadly, emendation of a wayward moral life, while the root meaning of the word "conversion' ~ is really something closer to an "about face~'--a total turning of the person from one orientation to another. While Paul's "conversions" certainly did entail a change of reli-gious affiliation, though probably not a change of moral conduct, it must be Understood. primarily in the broadest sense of the term, as a complete overthrow and turn-about of personal values. Because of the ambiguities aPsychic Energy: Its Source and Its Transformation, 2nd ed. Bollingen Series X (Washington, D.C.: Pantheon, 1963), p. 285. 662 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 present.in the word "conversion," it might be preferable to ~pe~ak of the "transformhtion" of Paul in his encounter with the li~,ing Christ.4 Contrary to, what much p0pu,!ar arid undiscrimina.ting piety (and perhaps even the a~uthor of Acts)would,have us think, Paul's transformation did not happen.overnight or even in three days as a careless reading of Acts 9:18-30 might suggest. Paul himself speaks of three years (Ga 1:18).~tran~spiring before he began to preach Christ. There is no reason' to suppose that the process moved along with remarkable speed. We tend to clothe Paul's transformation~ixperien~e in'a thick ~overirig of the miraculous, leaning too heavily on the clear triple account of Acts and too lightly on Paul's own illusive comments. The flash of light, the heavenly voice of the reveals/r, Paul's being struck to the ground, and the mysterious three-day blindness are all stock elements of narrations of divine epiph-anies. For some, miraculous revelations are a stumblingblock and a source of conflict. But for most people today, they are something else: an invitation to disregard. And so what happens°is that someone like Paul, who leaps out at us so humanly in his own writings, becomes relegated to the dim past, to the gallery of "saints" who are not quite as human as the rest of us, to the realm of the "supernatural" dichotomized from that realm in which we ourselves live and struggle. The reason for all this is 'not surprising: we do not have to have the uncomfortable experience of seeingourselves reflected in such a "saint." The ways of God with humanity are as varied as are the persons who seek to know them, and yet there are qualities of our common humanity that remain very much the same. It is for this reason that an analysis'of the transformation process a~ given above, and an attempt to see that process as it happened in Paul are worthwhile. We may be able to see something of ourselves in him and so better understand the ways of God in us. It is a mistake to think of Paul as changing f.rom hardened persecutor to egthusiastic mystic, from~his, blind cruelty to a Christian sensitivity, as though: his transformation, were from sinner to saint. Paul was not a hard man; .he was a sincere and generous man. His pursuit of Christians sprang 4An important article or] the structure and Western interpretations o"f Paul's conversion ex-perience appeared long ~go and attracted considerable nOtice in Protestant Scholarly circles, coming as it did out of a Lutheran interpretation of~Paul; I refer to Krister Stendahl'.s "The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West," Harvard Theglogical:Revi~ew 56:3 (July, 1963), pp. 199-215, an article well worth reading. In recent conversation betwe_en the author arid rfiyse!f there was agreement about Paul's "clear conscience" regarding his former way of life in Judaism (see ~specially pp. 200-201); however, I would not want to stress the idea of "introspection" as the search for personal sin, but would rather emphasize the seeking after awareness of God's action within the person. In contrast to Dean Stendahl's interpretation (pp. 204-205) I would distinguish two aspects of Paul's change of ways: first, a personal transformation, and second, the directing of that new energy toward evange Jzat~on of the Gentiles. The Spiritual Exercises and the Conversion of Paul / 663 not from cruelty but from enthusiasm in the service of God. He was the good and tlpright man whom the Lord loved, and because the Lord loved hii~ so much, he called him to give more. Paul says of himself (Ph 3:5-6) that his family and religious credentials were impeccable and that he had done far more than the minimum required to be a son of the Law. He was without fault in itg r~gard,'fully aware of its value as gift bestowed upon Is-rael as a proof bf God's love. Hi~ sincere thirst for justice miast have led him periodically into the self-scrutiny of the just which produces an awa(eness of personal failings anti sinful tendencies that only deepens devotion as it deepens-an ap~areciation of God's mercy. ,.Then something happened. Whether his encounter with the living Christ was as dramatic as Acts 9 portrays it is doubtful, for Paul nowhere alludes to~,,his experie]ace as containing elements of the sensational,but rather de-scribes it qui[e simply: "Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?" (1 Co 9:1); "I did not receive [the gospel] from a human source nor was I.taught by any but a revelation from Jesus Christ" (Ga 1:12); "God who had set me aside from my mother's womb called me through his grace and revealed his son in me" (Ga 1:15; see Is 49:1; Jr 1:5). There is an undeniable sense of personal encounter and ,call, even for a specific mission, but ~very little impression of fanfare. He found himself at point zero, knocked off his horse more internally than externally, with no patterned defenses or conditioned responses to fall back on that had not been stripped away by a new presence that was relentlessly pursuing him. ,When the realization of whathad happened began to take hold of him, Paul knew he had been changed. Luke's image of blindness approximates in physical.terms what must have been his psychic,state for a period of time: confusion, loss, fear, inner chaos, spiritual paralysis, the terrifying~feeling that hig whole world was coming apart. As he began to surrender to the force that was invading him, he would have become aware that it was a new and unwelcome presence that of Jesus of Nazareth, suddenly: intruding upon his well-ordered world. This is in fact the heart of the experience of brokenness: that Christ manifests himself in a new and unexpected way, and before his demanding presence all pre-conceived structures of life must be put aside. '~ Onc~ he had accepted what was happening, he would have begun to see h~ms~lfin a new way, feeling within himself the slowi3i-dawning and terrible realization that he had misplaced his devotion and misdirected his zeal, the frustration of knowing for the first time that he had beeri turned in a di-rection which, in the light of a new awareness, he had to judge as the wrong way. New understanding Would .have brought about new se'lf-knowledge and a new capacity for radical honesty about the movements of his life, enveloped in deepened awe at the sustaining and patient love of God re-vealed in Christ who was now calling into question the whole meaning of his life. ,664 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 The realization that the love of God has been constant when our re-sponse has been anything but constant, that his forgiveness was extended even before we knew for what to ask it, can be a crushing blow from which the security of the ego never fully recovers. The wound inflicted on it is not cured, as if the tearing never happened; rather, it is healed, brought to new wholeness- not in spite of, but because of the rending. As is often the case, Paul's healing and reconciliation with God were not for his sake only., but that he might lead many others to the same point: "The love of Christ overwhelms us when we realize that one died for all., so that the living should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again., for everything is from God who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation" (2 Co 5:14-18). What is cautiously born then is a'self that must undertake the painful task of she~lding and leaving behind as so much debris much that the former self deemed of value, in order to make room for new value to come. In the case .of Paul the reversal which he had to endure to be faithful to newly-given grace was dramatic and loaded with not only personal but also social consequences: "But whatever was formerly gain to me, I have com~ to consider it loss because of Christ; mor.eover, I now consider everything loss because of the overwhelming knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord, for whom I have let go of eve~:ything and consider it rubbish in order to gain Christ and be counted with him" (Ph 3:7-9). For him it meant giving up a worldview, religious affiliation, a certainty of being right, a reputation, family and friends, the whole fabric of personal and social relationships that had formed the pattern of his life. Few are called to so drasti6.a change. Yet the most fundamental change must have been one with which many can resonate: the need to reconstruct from broken fragments.a new self, a much more fragile self, like an earthenware jar hollowed out at the center in which "the overflowing power comes from God and not from us" (2 Co 4:7). It is the need to understand and accept the voice of Christ addressed to the prostrate human spirit, "My grace is enough, for strength is brought to fullness in weakness," and to respond by saying, "Joyfully then I will openly share my weakness so that the power of Christ may be revealed through me" (2 Co 12:8-9). It might be argued that the above account of Paul's conversion .and transformation is a fanciful extrapolation based on insufficient data. Yet the essential human experience underlying it is so basic and .universal that no matter in how many myriad forms it is manifested, a true experience of transformation from one spiritual state to another (as opposed to a super-ficial "conversion" that is only temporary because self-induced) has certain fundamentally similar components. Certainly Paul's experience was a trans-formation of this kind. Though he leaves many things unsaid, the pain and fear, the bewildering search, and ultimately the ecstasy of discovering that it is precisely in crucifying weakness that the power of the risen Christ is manifested, come through in the few literary traces he has left. The Spir!tual Exercises and the Converison of Paul / 665 For Paul transformation meant a radical break with the past, with family, home, and faith. For most of us, the break is not so abrupt, and yet the need to abandon old habits of thinking and feeling to make room for new ones still only dimly perceived is a common element. Spiritual directors are plentiful these days, but guides and models in one's spiritual experience are not always easy to come by. An ability to find echoes of one's own life in the jolting experience of Paul may give encouragement and be a cause for that movement of hope in darkness which affirms with him that no matter how chaotic may be the experience of finding out what we really are, for the person who continues trying to hang on the way Christ has hung onto him neither height of blind pride nor depth of despair--both of which can co-exist in the same person--nor any creature of the imagination can ever wrench us away from the love of God that is expressed to us in Christ Jesus our Lord.5 ~See Ph 3:12; Rm 8:39. REPRINTS FROM THE REVIEW Profile of the Spirit: A Theology of Discernment of Spirits by J. R. Sheets, S.J. .50 Retirement or Vigil by B. Ashley, O.P. .30 The Confessions of Religious Wom~en by Sr. M. Denis, S~.O.S. 30 The Four Moments of Prayer by J. R. Sheets, S.J. .50 The Healing of Memories by F, Martin .35 The Nature and Value of a Directed Retreat by H. F. Smith, S.J . 35 The Teaching. Sister in the Church by E. Gambari, S.M.M. .30 The Theology., of the Eucharistic Presence by J. Galot, S.J. .30 The Vows and Christian Life by G. Greif, S.J. .30 New Reprints° Centering Prayer--Prayer o~ Quiei by M. B. Pi:nnington, O.C.S.O .50 Colloquy of God With a Soul That Truly Seeks Him .30 Prayer of Personal Reminiscence by D. J, Hassel, S.J. .60 Orders for the above should be sent to: Review for Religious 612 Humboldt Building 539 No. Grand Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63103' Please include remittance with all orders less than $5.00 A Theology of the Religious Life Local Church and Ladislaus Orsy, S.J. Father Orsy teaches Canon Law at the Catholic University of America. He resides at Carroll House; 1225 Otis St. N.E.; Washington, DC 20017. The text of this article is the keynote address given in New Orleahs at the annual convention of the National Conference of Vicars for Religious, on March 21, 1977. The notes were added later to try to dispel some ambiguities in the text and, elucidate further the author's mind. Saint Thomas Aquinas introduced one of his famous works with the Sen-tence: "A small error in the beginning leads to a great one in the end.''1 In the same spirit of wise caution we can say that the wrong question ~n thee beginning is likely to lead to the wrong answer at the end. Let us transform, therefore, the terse words of the title, "A :Theology of the Local ChUrch and Religious Life," into a question rightly construed, that can lead us securely in our inquiry toward the ans~ver~s that we do not know at the point of our departure. Indeed, the title breaks up quite naturally into three queries: 1. What is our understanding of the local church? (By under:standing we mean tides quaerens intellectum; faith seeking underst.and!ng. Here we mean the knowledge of the local church that is givew t.hroughfaith, and is deepened through our reflection on the data of faiths)z ° ~ ~ 2. What is our understanding of religious life? (Understanding means, here again, knowledge through faith and reflection.) , 3. What is, and what should be, the right relationship between the two? The questions spring quite natur~ally from the title. Yet, I am still not satisfied with them. They shouldbb focused with more care, sharpened with greater precision. Also, they should impose a limit on our rather broad topic, and thus make the discussion of it more manageable for our specific purpose. Let us try again to set the right questions. 666 A Theology of the Local Church and Religious Life / 667 1. What is our understanding of the fact, of the ~event, of a particular church ? There are two significant changes in this new formulation. We seek a better understanding of the fact or event of the church; that is, our'focus is not on an abstract concept, but on an actually existing community of Chris-tians who form a church, although not the:universal Church. Our focus is concrete and existential. Our understanding will develop more from .the observation of the living body than from the analysis of texts. Also, we substituted the term "particular" for "local." The reason for this isthat local church has a geographical connotation and tends to point to a parish or to a diocese, hardly to more than these. The term "particular" allows greater flexibility; it points toward the natural unity of a group of Christians inside the broad,universal community. Such unity may well emergedn a diocese, .but it may well go beyond it and extend as far as an ecclesiastical province, a region, or a country.~ It may even spread over several countries. To seek the understanding of a "particular" church, instead of a "local" church, frees us from narrow boundaries and will allow us to examine the issue in a broader context? But we must impose a restriction on ourselves. We do not intend to exhaust the mystery of a particular church by investigating all its dimen-sions. We want to understand its life in relationship to religious commu-nities. That is all; but, it is a lot. 2. What is our understanding of the fact and event of religious com-munities? Here, too, our focus is concrete. Our primary interest is not in the concept of religious life, but in the real life.of religious communities.4 With a well-defined limitation: we seek the understanding of the life and work of religious communities in their .relationship to a particular church in which they exist, and where they give themselves to the service of the universal church. 3. What is, or what should be, the relationship between the two, a particular church and religious commutiities, in it? We intend to reflect on the living relationship that exists, or should exist, in the b6dy of the church between two diverse members. We seek ihis understanding in view oflntelligent Christian action, with the intention of ¯ finding norms and guidelines for such action. Let us turn now to the first q,uestion. First Question: How Can We Come to,a'Better understanding of the Particular Church? All understanding begins with the perception of facts. For facts about the particular church we must turn to the awareness of Christians through-out- the centuries, from the beginning to our days. Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 Some historical pointers about the development of the particular church; or, how did the Christian community perceive the particular church throughout its history? In the early centuries, Christian communities developed maihly along the great commercial routes of the Roman Empire. Soon they structured themselves; the bishop presided over the congregation. The local com-munities were closely knit; those were the times when Christians knew each other by name. While they were aware of the universal dimension of their religion, they enjoyed a certain amount of local autonomy,. Yet, right from the beginning, there was a ,movement to bring the smaller communities around the bishop into a larger unity, either under the supervision of a traveling bishop, or under a metropolitan residing in a larger city, usually the capital of a province. Particular churches with their own language, liturgy, discipline and customs, developed, not so much in each~city, but in larger territories that represented a natural cultural unity, They developed different understandings of Christian faith; they created different practices. Of course, those differences did not go so far as to deny or contradict the unity necessary for universality, but they certainly went far enough to give a different character to each of those particular churches.'~ Such trends are clearly discernible well into the Middle Ages. Individual dioceses in most places were too small to give a specific ex-pression to their faith, to create their own discipline; culturally, they were ¯ ¯ absorbed into a larger unity, into the ecclesiastical province or the national church. Thus, the Irish church, from the beginning, wa.s quite different from the continental churches, yet there was not much difference from one diocese to another. The English church, too, had its own characteristics under the leadership of Canterbury. On the Continent, the legal customs of Germanic peoples gave a certain unity to many churches. In Spain, the Mozarabic rite developed and united many dioceses in worship. In France, churches around Lyons formed again a vital unity, distinguished by their liturgy. We could continue the enumeration of such developments, but for the purpose of this article, let us content ourselves with a general statement, that I believe is historically correct. If by particular church we mean a church that has its own specific charisms, its own mind and its own heart within the universal Church, then only a few dio.ceses were truly.particular churches,n Differences in theology, liturgy, and discipline could be found much more between ecclesiastical provinces, regions and territories of nations, than between dioceses. The source of such variety is much more in human culture than in the understanding of faith. With the waning of the Middle Ages, a change takes place. The power of the metropolitan see in the Western church is reduced to a minimu~m. Liturgical worship, preaching, and discipline become strongly unified in the whole Church, even to the point of exaggerated uniformity. The role. of A Theology of the Local Church and Religious Life / 6159 particular churches, be they dioceses, regions or provinces, is reduced to a minimum. Vatican Council II wanted to restore the dignity of the particular church and the bishops sti'essed its importance repeatedly,r ~'et the council was not in a position to do much reflection on the nature of the particular church, on what it has been throughout different periods of.history; it did not tell us how the term should be understood in the future. Indeed,°the developments after the council reflect some confusion, even some contradiction in these matters. In many theoretical writings and commentaries on the council, it is assumed that the particular church is the diocese. Its unity, its specific character, its distinctive vocation are em-phasized. Yet recent developments in liturgical and disciplinary legislation do not give,.much importance to individual dioceses; they give much more power to larger :tinits represented by national or regional episcopal con-ferences. While differentiation on the diocesan level is virtually impossible, ex-cept in insignificant and minor matters, privileges, exemptions, special permissions are easily granted to a larger unit such as a region or a nation. It is clear now that the term "particular church" can be used in two distinct ways. It may refer to an individual diocese, to one congregation around its bishop, or it may refer to a larger unit that comprises several dioceses and possesses a unity that springs from human factors such as culture, history, national inheritance, and so forth. Both uses are legitimate and important. But the meaning ought to be clarified in each case. Reflecting on the relationship of religious communities to the particular church, we cannot sweep away this problem of meaning, calling it purely semantic. The issue of relationship is alive on both levels and brings up different problems that we must face. There is the issue of the rela~tionship of.religious communities to a diocese. But there is also the issue of the relationship of religious com, munities to a larger unit, e.g., ~to the national church, that has its own particular characteristics. In the United States, both issues are alive. Theological reflections on the fact or event of the particular church, or, what is our understanding of a particular church? 1. Christian people throughout their historY were aware of belonging, as it were, to two communities: one, universal, the other, particular. The universal' community is world-wide; it springs from the action of the one Spirit of God, who was poured out on the face of the earth. The entrance into it is through one baptism that is the same everywhere. The particular community is the local one~ For some, the local church means the parish, for some others the diocese, for others again, it may well mean the church in a country. 2. The temptation always existed, and will probably never leave us, to Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 oppose the two to the point that one is considered important at the expense of the other. But any such consideration is wrong because it tears up the visible body .of Christ. When we speak of the universal Church and the particular ones we. do nothing less.and nothing more than to describe an existing differentiation in the social, body of Christ. His body is one, but it is composed of parts; the whole could not exist without the parts;-and the parts have no life .in themselves. Any separation means death for all; any destruction of natural harmony brings sickness to the whole organism. 3. Paradoxes can be helpful inour attempt to understand such complex differentiation. It can be :said that there is both autonomy and dependence in each member of the body. The particular church is autonomous and yet it depends on the universal Church. The universal (~hurch is itself the source of life for all other churches; yet its vitality comes entirely from the local churches. We may think of the autonomy of the heart in bur body. It will not ~ perform well unless all the other organs let it do what its spec!fic task is; any unwarranted intervention with. the heart,may bring subsequent disaster for the whole body. Yet the heart is totally dependent in its function on the whole body. The rhythm of its beat, the strength of its action, are carefully regulated by numerous other factors and agents present in the living body. If they,.cease . to function, no life-giving blood will flow into the heart. We may not be able to reach~a precise definition for the local church, but reflection through symbols and images can give us a great deal of, under-standing. 4. If we ask now what precisely the source.of differences is among the local churches, we find that it is mainly in the humanity of those Christians who form them, that is, not so much in any specific Christian belief, but in th~ human traditions; history and culture of those who believe. Thus, initially, the Jews and the Greeks and the Romans all received the good news equally, but they built up churches that were marked by their own culture, national customs and characteristics. Thus there were soon Jewish churches, Hellenistic Churches, and churches of the Romans, all part of the "same universal Church, yet all different. .Later, the inhabitants of Ireland, of England, of the Iberian peninsula built their churches on the universal elements of Christian faith, worship, " and discipline, and on the particular elements of tl~eir own inheritance. 5. The situation is not much different today. Here and there, an isolated di6cese may be found that has its own distinctive life as a diocese. The Christian community of a Pacific Island may well develop.distinctive traits that no other diocese in this world can possess. But such cases are rare today. More often there is a regional unity. The dioceses of Alaska form a natural unity that is quite different from their sister churches in the South. A Theology of the Local Church and Religious Life / 671 There" might also be a national unity. The dioceses of Japan are not mark-edly different from each other; the strong unity of the culture and traditions on the four islands is manifest in the particular church of Japan. Even a whole contir~ent can display a unity. How many times in recent years we have. heard the churches of South America speaking with voices that were strikingly similar to one another. There are foundations in South America for a specific particular unity that embraces the Christians of many dio-ceses, numerous provinces and several nations. 6. °Such re°flecti0ns and considerations do not leave us with a clear concept'and definition of what a particular church is; but they leave us with a good working understanding of the complex nature of our Church that is both universal and particular at the same time. Our undei-standing reflects the true state of things and.~e do not become captive of romantic ideas that are definitely present in the .post-conciliar writings. Father Karl Rahner himself stresses that there is church whenever the bishop celebrates the Eucharist, surrounded by his community. Such a ViSion certainly corre-sponds to our earliest traditions, but it is simply not realistic today. Few of the faithful ever partake in the Eucharist'celebrated by the bishop, and the size of the dioceses geographically or numerically makes any such cele- I~ration virtually iml56ssible. Our understanding it not in adopting clear theories. It is much more the perception of the changing, shifting realities of the Chi~rch. That is how it should be. The duty of Chri~tia.ns to uphold the particular church; or, how must we confess in word and deed our belief in the particular church? At this point, two facts stand out. One is that there is no Christian Church without particular churches, as~there is no human body withotit members. The other is that there is no Christian who does not belong, somehow, to a particular church, as there is no individual cell that does not belong,to a distinct organ in the human body. No one can; therefore, belong to the Christian Church without assuming the duty to uphold a particular church, although this duty may well be differentiated according to the condition of each one, as we shall see. There is no direct and immediate entry, into the universal Church, since it is the communio of local churches. Interestingly enough, not even the pope him-self, who traditionally has been called the "Bishop of Rome," or the "Uni-versal Bishop," belongs exclusively to the universal Church. He is not residing in a territory detached from all particular churches, as the Presi-dent of the United States resides in the District of Columbia, detached from any allegiance to any state. The pope is the Bishop of Rome and belongs to that particular, church, while he is also the head of the universal Church. The very structure of the (2hurch demandsthat there should be aduty on every single person to uphold his own local or particular church. The support to a,memb.er church must always be in harmony and good 679 / Review for Religious, Volume,36, 1977/5 balance with the belief and support given to the universal Church. There is no precise measure to determine how much a Christian should give tohis particular community and how much to the universal congregation of the Church. Such measure can only be determined by taking into account a call and a mandate: the vocation of an individual person or of a distinct com~ munity. Even in the case of the same person, of the same community, the contribution can be shifting and changing according to needs, and their existing capacity to give. Now we have come to the point where we can speak .more explicitly about the duty of religious communities to uphold the local, particular church. It is a duty from which there is no exception and no exemption. But the duty is not the same in every group. Religious ins'titutes that are exempt from the jurisdiction of the local or~linary and subject to the direct supervision of the Holy See, have a f9ndamental universality, a call and a mandate to go to local churches where the need is greater.8 They are freed from the power of the local,.bishop, not in order to be total free-lancers in the Church, but to be free to serve~ anywhere in any local church. Because of the universal call and mandate of such religious institutes, their world-wide organization, their capacity to move from one place to another should be respected. But once they are settled within the boundaries of the local church or in the territory of a particular church in the broader sense, they must blend into the local scene; they must even strike roots in the local soil in order to bring forth good fruit. They should not be a source of disruption, but a source of strength.9 Similar considerations apply to'various communities of pontifical right. As a rule their vision goes beyond the limits of a particular church, their aspirations often stretch far and wide. But they too, are at some place and have the duty to serve the people of God there. Then there are the institutes of diocesan right. They dedicate them-selves to the service of the universal Church through serving exclusively near a local church. They are not superior or inferior to the others; they simply have their own distinctive vocation and dedication. The duty to respect.and to serve a particular church SpringS not only from a law imposed by God through the structures of the Church, but also from the respect due to differences manifest in our human nature and in our historical traditions. The upholding of the local church originates in a deep belief in the Incarnation; in the blending of divine and h6man elements in the Christian community. The gift of God may be similar all around but it takes different shapes and forms in various ~places. Second Question: How Do We Perceive Existentially, Understand Rationally, and Be at Home Practically With Religious Communities? The question sounds broad but the focus of our inquiry is strictly cir-cumscribed again. We do not wish to reflect over all the aspects of the A Theology of the Local Church and Religious Life / 673 existence and life of religious communities. We want to know, to under-stand and help them in their relationship to the local and particular (hurch. This is the proper scope of our inquiry. A short survey of the development of religious communities in their rela-tionship to the local or particular church will be good grounding again for further reflection. Our survey will be limited to a few facts arising in the history of the Western Church. The birth and expansion of the monastic movement from the sixth into the ninth century can be described in a somewhat unusual way: the au-tonomous monasteries that sprang up first in Italy, and then on the con-tinent of Europe, also in the British Isles, had much of the characteristics of a local church. The monasteries were cities of God, distinguished from the cities of man. The brethren gathered around the Abbot to offer their praise and thanksgiving to God.~° In some places, the bishop exercised a certain amount of power over them. In other places, due oftrn to distance, the monks lived and died Within their own monastery, with no interference from any ecclesial au-thority. By the eighth century however, the weakness of being alorie and not being in communication with a broader ~egment of the Church became manifest. Signs of decline and decay were setting in. The eighth century that witnessed the movement of Cluny also saw an increasing awareness of the need forgreater unity am?ng religious com-munities. Monasteries of different places, provinces, regions and countries placed themselves under the power of the Abbot of Cluny. Such close unity clearly constituted a new relationship to both the particular and universal Church. In fact, without the help of the church of Rome, that is the pope, they could not have achieved what they did. With Cluny, an organizational breakthrough had been made. In the eleventh century, the movement of Citeaux brought about again a new type of union of monasteries built more on a bond of love than on any legal structure. In the thirteenth century, Francis and Dominic were certainly dedicated servants of local churches, but soon they moved beyond this: they em-o braced the whole of Christendom. They brought their own new approach toward serving both the local and the universal Church. They had a strongly developed sense of universality, without, however, turning their backs on local needs. ~ ~ The sixteer~th century is the time when new continents opened up. Discoverers and colonizers set out to conquer new lands. That is the time of the foundation of the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits seemingly had no allegiance to any local church. They were devoted to the pope. But further examination shows that while they set out on their apostolic journeys, often 1574 / Review for Religious, Volume 36~ 1977/5 sent by the pope himself, for the sake of the universal Church, once they arrived, they went to extraordinary lengths to build and to uphold local churches in India, in Japan, in South America. Paradoxically, they left thei,r native churches to become all to the natives in faraway places.~z The nineteenth and the twentieth centuries bring a new development. There are many apostolic foundaiions; some more for the sake of the universal Church, some definitely for the sake ofparticular churches. Both trends are represented: to serve the universal Church, and to work for the welfare of local churches. Here our historical survey ends and our reflections begin. The ecclesial Character of religious communities; or, hdw are they related to the Church? Our .aim here is to articulate with some clarity an understanding of the obvious fact of history that religious communities exist in the Church and they are in the service of our Christian people. 1. The birth, the development, the existence and the work of religious communities is nothing else than a particular manifestation of the life of the Church.~3 A religious com,rnunity, independently .from the ~:hurch, has no life. When a community prospers, it is growing in the life that was given to the Church. This statement should be stressed today ~ince some religious comn~unities have become soinvolved in reflecting on their own life that they hhve lost sight of the source of their life. They work within a- narrow horizon, and never find what they are seeking so anxiously. Also, once we understand the fact that there is no life in religious communities except what comes from the Church, it is easier to understand the history of those communities which once prospered spiritually but later grew old arid died. There is not necessarily any shame~in that. Human persons too. are born, develop, prosper, grow old and die. God may well call a community into existence to provide for the needs of the times; he may well call another one for new needs. We are not privy to his designs. We should give praise for the vocation we have and should not covet what we do not have. Those who are ~nxiously asking whether or not religious life will survive lock themselves in(o the limits of a wrong question. The right question is: is there an abundance of life in the Church? If so, that life. will manifest itself in new ways that we cannot foresee. There will be always foolish persons around, such as were Francis of Assisi, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, to surprise us, to shock us, and to entice us to follow them. If we put our hope. where it naturally belongs, that is, in the Church, our anxieties may well disappear.~4 ~ 2. A religious community may have many goals, all of them good and right. But there is a built-in purpose in .every community that seeks and obtains approval from the Church. They. publicly proclaim that the words of life are with the visible Church. They want to be publicly recognized by the Church, they want to have their way of life authenticated as good enough to follow Christ. A Theology of the Local Church and Religious Life / 675 The legal formalities of obtaining approval for a new religious com-munity have a deep theological significance. As often happens in the Church, the beauty is all within. A community asks for public incorporation into the strtictures of the Church. Such a quest is the fruit of an act of faith in the wisdom and the power of the Church. When such incorporation is granted, behind the test of the document there is a quiet recognition that the Church has seen grace operating in the community. It is an approval of the way of life of the group, of their service to thee community. The foundation. for the understanding of government and obedience in religious commu-nities is their ecclesial character. The Church gives them a public mandate. When they accept it, they obey the call to service.1'~ 3. Ye~, the mandate from the Church does not make all the ]zommunities the same. Each retains its own particular character and personality. Each is called to serve both the universal and local church in different ways. There are and there will be communities Who have their origin and the scope of their life within a local or particular church. There they were born, there they live, work and die. We all know such groups. Their gift is precious beyond telling.In Lesotho, who can serve the local church better than a congregation of native sisters? There are communities whose organization may spread throughout the ~niversal Church. Members are easily transferred from one place to an-other, according to need. Their vocation is to blend the universal mission with service in one place. The Franciscanor Dominican friars or the Jesuits would be typical examples of'suchcommunities. But let us recall that when a Eurbpean is sent to Japan, and takes up some apostolic work there, his mandate is to affirm and uphold through every available means the church of Japan. Missionary adaptation or "incuituration" is really an effort.to-ward building the local church. No matter how universal the vocation of a commu,nity is, eventually service must be given at a place that is the local or particular church. The duty of the Church to uphold religious communi.tiey; or, how can religious communities be "affirmed by the Church? The Church affirms a religious community through the act of public approval. But that is just the beginning. The initial act should be followed by unceasing help and encouragement to promote the integration of reli-gious into the life of the Church, both universal and particular. Respect for the ,way of life of each group should be the fundamental rule that governs the attitude of the Holy See or of the diocesan bishop. There is no single rule to say how this respect should go. , In the case of a contemplative monastery, respect may ~nean the ap-preciation of the prayers~offered by those monks and nuns, of the sacrifice of their lives. In the case of an apostolic community, the situation is dif-ferent; they are taking part in the practical work of evangelization. The 676 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 Church mandates them to preach, and to perform deeds of charity. They should be given an opportunity to share their experience with others. I.n the diocese, they should=be taken into the planning, even into the decision-making, process. Indeed, there is an ancient tradition to invite abbots of independent monasteries and, a newer practice, to invite superiors general of exempt religious, orders, to an ecumenical council. To have religious present at synods, held either on regional or diocesan levels, would be not only fair and just, bfit it would be according to our traditions, too. Such can be the affirmation of religious life in practice. At this point it is interesting to note that the development from synods to episcopal con-ferences is somewhat a departure from the old tradition of the Church. Surely, the episcopal body has a unique position in the universal Church, and the residential bishop is in charge of his diocese. But the bishop needs the religious to carry out well their own mandate received through their consecration. I~t is, necessary for them to be in steady contact with religious who carry so much of the burden of daily work in the Church and the churches. If reiigious share the pastoral work of the bishops, they should also have some part in planning and evaluating the same work.~ Third Question: What Is the Relationship Between the Particular Church and Rer, ligious Communities, and How Should This Relationship Develop? The relationship between a particular church and religious communities is a dynamic living relationship that must be created anew all the time. Legal norms cannot do more than give a framework that is always in, adequate .to generate life, but good enough to protect life that comes from deeper sources. Legal norms by their very nature are abstract, impersonal, and general. They are meant for typical cases irrespective of the persons inv61ved, and of their historical circumstances. But in real life there are only concrete situations and living persons and communities. The relationship depends on the personality of the bishop on the one side, of the religious community on the other side. They must work out their relationship concerning particular issues,lr Perhaps this.relationship is best described through analogies. The ob~,ious analogy of call and response can be used. The bishop calls on the religious community and asks for help to build the Church, to announce the good news, to do the good deeds of charity. When the re-ligious hear this call they must respond out of their own resources. The response of an enclosed community may well be in offering prayers for the needs of the diocese; the response of a group of Dominican friffrs may well be in preaching in' the diocese. The religious too, may call 'on the local church for help and encouragement; they may well need it. A Theology of the Local Church and Religious Life / 677 They may play another role in the diocese. They may call people to a better service of the Lord. They can act as the conscience of the com-munity. Their independence and freedom allows them to do so, provided they can do so without presumption.18 The analogy of the body can be recalled also. The religious community must find its own identity in the body of the church, before it can function properly. The community is a member of the local church, with its own structure and role. It would not be in the interest of the local church to weaken a member group. On the contrary, it must promote their welfare, It must respect theii- identity, must use them properly for the purpose they have been created.19 Such relationship cannot be regulated 'by the rules of justice only, Justice gives birth to rights that must be respected, and certainly should not be bypassed and neglected: Nonetheless, a living dynamic relationship cannot be created if both sides stand on their rights. Such an attitude would lead to a dead end where all the participants become captive to their own rigidity and: dedication to strict justice:2° ~ Good relationships between the local church and religious living and working in it must be created'continuously by both sides. There is no other way of creating it than by charity thiat means to give. Neither side should ask first what is due to them, but rather what is 'it that they can give to-the other. Only then will there be a new spirit that builds the church instead of destroying it; a new spirit that brings unity to the whole body instead 6f fraffmenting it. ~ Conclusion As we reach our conclusion we may well experience contradictory feelings. On the~one side, we experience frustration. After ali we did not succeed in finding precise rules and fixed principles tO determine ihe relationship of the local church and religious communities. We found only changing ,and shifting patterns and the need to create relationships where they do not exist according to our expectations. On the other side we experience contentrhent because we are guided by the Spirit of God and the intelligence of believers rakher than by rigid rules. After all, the Lord himself did not give many detailed instructions to his disciples. He gave them his Spirit to guide them in all. With the help of the Spirit they have built the Church. They were guided more by a person than by words. Our hope, too, is in a person, in the same Spirit of Christ. He is with us, in the local church and in the religious communities. Yet, our hope is also in the dedication and intelligence of Christian people on both sides, in the local church and in religious communities. They; together, can create their relationship anew. 678 / ReOiew for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 By dOing it, they will experiencethe joy of the Incarnation; they will share theagony of the Cross. Yet, throughout it all, they will 'be blessed and will know a contentment that is in a small way the anticipation of the gift of the Resurrection. Notes I. Parvus error in principio magnus est in fine in "De ente et essentia," begin~ning. ~ 2. Such understanding is the fruit of both contemplation and rational reflection. We must first accept the mystery through faith and then seek the understanding of it. 3. We do not intend to down-play the importance of a diocese. It is a natural unit in the church, ,sacramentally and organizationally. Nonethe-less, the life of a given diocese ordinarily does not differ significantly, if at all, from the life of neighb.oring dioceses. But, often enough,.a group of dioceses displays significant differences from the way another group .lives. The local churches of Holland form a unity that is quite distinct under many aspects from the d!oceses of Germany. Organizationally, the division of the universal Church into dioceses is of permanent importance; but, histori-cally, the larger units have played a more importapt role. The term "par, ticul,ar" is used in our text loosely; its meaning is to be determined from the context. At times, it refers to a diocese. More often it refers to a larger unit: to several dioceses grouped together, displaying a common understanding of the mysteries, using similar rites in worship, cooperating closely in apostolic work. 4. The theological principle cannot be stressed enough. We do not begin with a definition; we begin with the contemplation of an event in the history of the Church. We seek to reach some understanding through the con-templative perception of the mystery. Therefore, our vision will never be so complete as apparentlya definition is. Even if we are able to reach a good understanding, it remains incomplete and leaves plenty of possibility for further pr.ogress. 5. As succeeding generations of Christians may focus on different as'- pects of the same mystery, and give practical emphasis to their vision, in a similar way, churches existing in the same historical period may build up differing~understandings of the same mystery, and order their practices acc.ordingly, not in the sense of Contradicting each other, but rather, in the sense 6f completing each other's perception. The same mountain can be looked at. by explorers from the North, and by explorers from the South. Their differing vision of the same mountain is complementary, not contra-dictory. The contemplation of God's mighty deeds in our history, deeds that are certainly permanent, gives rise to perceptions and understandings, that are diStinct and complementary. We see the origin of particular churches in such different perceptions, followed by different practices. A Theology of the Local Church .and Religious Life / 679 6~ At any time of Christian history, a diocese can be called a particular church organizationally. There is one community, with a bishop presiding over it_But beyond any Organization, there is a sacramental unity in the diocese; if the universal Church is a sacrament, so is the diocese. "This Church of Christ is truly present in all legitimate local congregations of the faithful which, united with their pastors, are themselves called,churches in the New Testament" Lumen Gentium, 26. 7." Vatican Council II strongly upheld th6 dignity of, and the right of, the local church.' For instance: "That Church, Holy and Catholic, which is the Mystical Body of Christ, is made up of the faithful .who are organically united i6 the Holy Spirit through the same faith, the same sacraments, and the same government and who, combining into various groups held together by a hierarchy, form separate churches or rites. Between these, there flourishes such an admirable brotherhood that this variety within.the Church in no way harms her unity, but rather manifests it. For it is the mind of the Catholic Church that each individual church or rite retain its traditions whole aiad entire, while adjusting its way of life to the various needs of time and place" Orientalium ecclesiarum, 2. 8. A paradoxical statement; nonetheless it is true; Exempt religious orders mostly used their freedom from local episcopal jurisdiction-to go from,one place to another, either to help the churches most in need, or through missionary activity, to give birth to new churches. Sometimes the privilege of exemption helps specific activities in the service of the universal church, such as, to :sponsor an International School of Theology in Rome or elsewhere. 9.' The strength they give to the local church eventually rebounds to the strength of the whole. 10. To describe the monastic movement in terms o'ffuga mundi, that is flight from the world, only~ is to do injustice to history. Granted that to flee the world was an important motive for people who wanted to join the monastic community, still theii" main motive was to build the city ~of God among the cities of man.°The monastery was as self-contained as the Small cities built on the tops of the hills and mountains of Italy. Yet, there was a difference: praise and thanksgiving were offered, t9 God, day and night. The task of th'e earthly city wasopus hominum, the work of man; the task in the city of.God° was opus Dei, work thai belonged to God. Admittedly, the theme 'of "fleeing the world" is stressed in contemporary monastic lit-erature. But such writings must be contrast+d with documents, such as the Rule of St. Benedict, where the ongoin, g praise of God and his service takes the central place; also, with the fact that the monks did not hesitate to go out into the world "of barbarians in central and northern Europe to bring them the good news of Christ, and to teach them all that they found precious in human culture. A monastery could truly be called a,"local" or "partic-ular" church except, perhaps, for the fact that it was not presided over by 6~!0 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 a bishop. But the monks were dedicated to the service of the universal Church0probably more than they realized. Without understanding their universal orientation, we cannot understand the conversion of Europe. For a wisely controversial book on the rise and fall of religious com-munities, see Vie. et mort des ordres religieux by Raymond Hostie (Paris: Cesclee de Brouwer, 1972). For a classical exposition of the development of religious orders, see From Pachomius to Ignatius by David Knowles (Oxford: Claredon Press, 1966). 11. The Middle Ages, also, saw the foundation of religious orders that were principally devoted to the works of the universal Church. There were orders' to promote the Crusades, or to take part in them; to protect the possession of the Holy Land; to give themselves for the redeeming of the captives, and so forth. 12. Thi~ history ofthe Jesuits shows eloquently that the service of the universal Church can never be separated from the service of particular~ churches, and vice versa. They could not have been more dedicated to the universal Church. They accepted a mandate from the pope, and the pope only. Yet once they established themselves at a given place, they did everything to enter into the culture of the natives. They helped them, in every way that was compatible with Christian faith and the universality of the. Church, to build new churches with strong particular traditions. In China, they devised and fought for specific rites in the vernacular suitable for the Chinese culture and mentality. They attempted to do the .same in India. In South America, they sided with the natives against the con-quistadores, and gave life to local churches within the framework of the so-called "reductions," that is, autonomous Indian settlements leading a strong community life reminiscent, somewhat, of the early church of Je-rusalem. History shows that to serve the tiniversal Church redounds to the good of Particular churches. 13. We like to stress that the life of religious communities is nothing else than a particular manifestation of the life of the Church. There is no such thing as the Church on one side and religious communities on the other, eitherhelping each other inharmony, or being in open conflict. The member is not .separate from the body; all life of the member is the life of the body, Religious life cannot be conceived of as charismatic life independent and separate from the institutional life of the Church. Charisma and structures, although distinct, can no more be separated from each other in the Church than the flesh and blood of a human person can be separated from his bones: The skeleton, ugly and unfriendly as'it is, gives support and proportion to the beauty of the flesh that covers it. Charisma and institutions must work' together. ~ 14. There is no need that is as. great today as the need for purification of our faith in the Church, and the right understanding of what ,kind of A Theology of the Local Church and Religious Life / 681 community Jesus has founded. One conception should be discarded right from the start (in the terms of Karl Rahner, it could be called a "silent heresy"): the Church is a community of holy persons throughout. While it is true that there will always bepersons of extraordinary holiness raised by God among his people, there will always be many in the Church who are sinners, and glorify God by proclaiming his mercy. The Church is a human community, a community of sinners. Yet, because the Spirit of God is faithful to her, she will never lose or corrupt the word of God, provided the proclamation of the word takes place with ~'ull apostolic authority. Human limitations and fragility, however, will always be present and manifest in the Church till the end of time, be it in the hierarchy, be it in the people. To love the Church means to love the community as it is, and above all, to have the internal disposition to give what we can to this community. There is little love in those who continually expect to receive. There is love in those who know how to be compassionate. A religious community is one with the Church if the members are steadily asking themselves what they can give to her so that she can grow in goodness, into a greater likeness to Christ. For a more detailed explanation of these principles, see "How to Be One With the Church Today" in Blessed Are Those Who Have Questions, by Ladislas Orsy (Denville, N. J.: Dimension Books, 1976). Perhaps the best and most rewarding way of acquiring the right theo-logical understanding of the Church is to read and study its history. The real Church, suppprted by the Spirit, is there in its beauty and fragility. A merely conceptual and systematic approach may lead the unwary to a dream--beautiful and unreal. Once a person surrenders to,the dream, he will be frustrated by the harsh and true reality, that is, by the Church as it exists. 15. Indeed, the roots of a theology of obedience in religious life are there in the mandate that the community receives from the Church. There is a sacramental character to such a mandate, since the Church itself is a sacrament. (The seven signs are particular manifestations of the life of the Church.) Obedience to such a.great mandate should not be confused with ob~eying ordinary human rules and regulations that are part and parcel of the life of every community, religious or not. Through the v6w of Obedience, a person gives himself or herself explicitly, visibly, to the Church~ It is the sacrifice of legitimate freedom to accept a mission from the Church in which, behind human~structures, the Spirit of God lives. 16. There are few countries where the health and progress of the Church depend so much on education as in the United States. Much of this ~ork is sponsored, directed, or done by' religious men and women. Yet, when the most important policy-making body for the pastoral life of the Church meets, that is, when the episcopal conference deliberates, or de-cides, religious are absent and are given only a very limited opportunity to Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 contribute before, during, or after the meeting--a lack of balance, and the Church is poorer for it. °17. It is interesting to note that, with all the ingenuity of canon lawyers at .her disposal, the Church never succeeded in working out clear and entirely satisfactory norms to regulate the relationship between the local ordinary anti,religious communities of pontifical right, or those enjoying the privilege of exemption. Why? Because it is easy to state some theological principles such as: the bishop is the supervisor of~all apostolic works in the diocese; or, religious must be free to i'egulate their internal affairs, and to carry out their apostolate according to their constitutions. But, it is difficult t0 make detailed norms applicable everywhere. Nor will the new proposed legislation overcome this problem. If anything, history proves the insuf-ficiency of strict legal solutions. 18. A religious community of international dimensions can do much to bring a local church out of its own isolation, and to make it aware of the universal Church. The very presence of the members of~a community that works world-wide for the Church is a reminder ~to the faithful that they too belong to a community over which the sun never sets. 19. This implies respect for the particular charism of an institute. The local church should not try to use the religious for work contrary, or alien, to their own calling. 20. While it isright to work for justice, we should never lose sight of the ¯ fact that justice is the minimum of charity. Justice can proclaim what is due to each person and group and does establish a balance in the life of a human community. Yet the stability of an organization built on justice only remains precarious.To achieve contentment and happiness, it is necessary to ttave charity all around. By charity, we do not mean charitable handouts, but strong love that consists in giving, not only advice or things, but ourselves. A society in which each vindicates his or her own fights is built on a shaky foundation. A society in which each one is intent on giving what he has to others, is like a house built on a rock. This is obviously true of the Church, but it is equally applicable to any secular society. The great national'heroes of the past were those who were able to give to others, not counting much what they were giving. From what we just said, rio one should conclude that ttie cause of justice is not urgent, and that we should not work for it. Quite simply, as Christians, we must say that justice, in itself, i.s not_enough. The strength and perfection of love is a vital need for every human being and every"human society. The great idea of balance and welfare through the virtue of justice ought to be completedby the foolishness of love that God revealed through his Son. See the Conclusion in Morale Internationale, by Rene Coste (Paris: Desclee, 1964). For general orientation about the great problems of the world, and for spiritual recreation, all at once, see Return to the Center, by Bede Griffiths (Springfield, IL: Templegate, 1977). From the Center will those actions flow that bring love, peace, and justice to all men. Prayer: Adventure Into the Unknown Cecile Godreau, M.M. Sister Cecile worked for eighteen years in Bolivia where she was active in spiritual direciio~ for young religious. Presently she resides with the M.aryknoll Sisters; Maryknoll, NY 10545. Today there is a thrill at the very thought of the unkno~,n. Is there life on Mars, on Jupiter, or on the planets around other suns? If there is life, is it more advanced or more perfect than the life forms we know? What about our own planet? Are there life forms we have not yet explored? What about ¯ those areas on earth where men have never or rarely ventured?.What secrets do they hold? There was a time when the knowledge of the unknown would have inspired us to build protective areas, or at least, to introduce taboos for safety's,sake. Today we want, and are drawn to venture into, the heart Of the unknown. I would suggest to anyone with a bit of explorer's blood, and ~,h~ has a heart desirous of giving beyond what is often a dull, everyday existence (called life), to join me in a consideration of a great adventure. This ad-venture is so unique and so intensely personal that it is different for each -one. It is so thrilling that the one who goes on this journey will need an eternity to finish it to discoger its source. I mean prayer, God's version of p~ayer, called spiritual life by some, mysticism or i:ontemplation.by others. I call it adventure: God calls: maybe, he proffers a mind-blowing call, the kind of call that, as in the life of St. Paul, knocks us down when we are riding high. Maybe it is a call as quiet as an evening calm. Or, maybe it is a call after a powerful experience in a Common pCayer situation because of, or with, an unusually charismatic person's approach to our weak defenses. Again, maybe it is merely the movings quietly within that crumble all our preconceived plans and leave 683 684 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 us stunned by silence, or the slow and burning love that somehow separates us from our past. It is impossible to mention every situation, for from the time of this very conversion, it is different for each. God knows how best to invite us into the great adventure. Once we have been converted, we are left to find our way into God's country. Like the prophet Elijah, we realize that God is not in the con-version, not in the earthquake or thunder, but in the whispered breeze. Even trees, whose job it is to let us know when a breeze is near, are often u~nmoved by the gentleness of a tiny breeze. But we are made with hearts attunedif we will but go into our hearts to see and hear what is taking place therein. Some stop here. It is difficult to go within. Our culture has worshipped the extraverted, the active, the expressed word. Our people are expected to tell the world how they feel about everything. So it is almost impossible to have a silent center within us. We are not accustomed to going deep within where God is waiting for us. We are afraid to find out how it is to meet God in our'hearts. We are afraid to discover life within because someone may think we are not socially-minded. People may think we are not committed. "Alone in our hearts where God resides" has a scary sound to it, or, perhaps, even neurotic. What is God doing inside when we have been shouting to him from afar? Some break through and come to the God within. For them, He is Father, or Jesus, or maybe an inner awareness or "presence." Here we are bound to kneel in silence. Even our vocal prayer and meditations come to a halt. As the silence deepens, we wonder if it is right to be here. And we need help so often to just sit and enjoy what it is to be with God. Here we need often to be assured like children. We are moved to love so deeply, we may think we are a little "different." We search for others to understand. Often there are few around who dare to talk about this. We are alone and happy, deliriously in love, or quietly secure. Our God is like a mother nursing its child, a child being embraced by a loving mother, or held like an infant to a father's cheek. As we settle down like Peter to build tents for our experience, Jesus reminds us it is time to go back down to the bustle of the city. Our first reaction to move on is, "I thought this was it!" We balk at being born, and we refuse to leave this hallowed place. So God "puts out the lights" so to speak. Here many get discouraged. Yes, they lose heart. Why? Because all was so comfortable. Here people try to find other loves and ways. They are frightened because they think they have lost their faith. "Faith," of course, is the name mistakenly put on the experience of God within. Faith,-in fact, is the stepping out into the darkness that God directs us toward. We "explore" Faith by putting our hand into the hand of the resurrected Jesus to go out and discover what it is to be Jesus, Son of God. We are going to have to molt our skins of the intense joy and the security Prayer: Adventure Into the Unknown / 685 that we had, and we realize that we are vulnerable. To put our hand into the hand of Jesus is not a journey deeper within. It is a journey beyond our human limitations. Here Jesus who directs our adventure gives us self-knowledge. We might get discouraged and have the feeling of one who has climbed too far, too fast. We are aware of our smallness. Yet, Jesus who helps us on our journey is intent on leading u~ onward. When we reach the place he means us to explore, he does a very strange thing. He lets us see our world through his eyes. We might find ourselves somehow knowing what Jesus means in his gospel. Somehow, we tread through life as Jesus did. We, little by little, begin to know ~vhat it meant for Jesus to have been driven by the Spirit. Now we no longer seem drawn within. Our eyes are cast out onto our world! How terribly important each person we meet becomes! We are not sure we are loving others as our-selves, or as Jesus, because we are somehow filled with a compassion beyond our own. We are almost sure our small selves are being used by Jesus. Yet, all along the way, we are aware of the difference. Our real selves come to light. We find fewer and fewer excuses for ourselves, and we are driven deeper into our faith. For some this step is done very quietly, almost imperceptibly. Some cry, "I no longer know if it is me or Christ living in me," while others go deeper into faith, knowing only that they must go on seeking a water to quench the thirst of "Everyman." Here each one is given something of Jesus to use for Others. Little by little, the awareness of self is lost in the dream of bringing solace to others. 'Here we lose touch with our world because it claims to do what we, in fact, are made ~over~ tiy Jesus to really accomplish. We talk a different language, and our agony is this language. We no longer speak as men do who have tongues in cheek. Our new simplicity makes us a target for the clever and the powerful. Yet we seem to be drawn to quietly go on. our wills and intellects, no longer bound up in our feelings, are sharper. We are able to see our. way better than before, and our way takes us, like/Jesus, into the Father's will. We delight in our brothers, whether large, smzll, sinful or ~,irtuous. We ar~ at last able to see the God hidden in each. We know what it is to be Jesus. We begin to desire with all our strength to build a temple to our new-found religion. Jesus will be our Master, and we will do our worshipping strongly for a new world. We will be the Jesus of this world. It seems we have arrived, and yet--yet, God has just brought us to a new faith. It is as though all the experiences we have had were pu! in a vast sea, and we were set afloat in the tiny boat of our new faith. No longer do we feel the strength of God, nor see the glory of Jesus. We are asked to ride a stormy sea in a skiff. There is only one thing to do: trust. We are terrified by our nothingness, as we are compared, not with men, but with God. This death experience is the most terrible and the most beautiful experience of our lives~this realization of what we are without 686 ,/ Review for Religious, VOlume 36, 1977/5 him. The deep peace that has seen us through that dark and light of our lives is a must now, and we hope it is real in this stage of our adventure. Here, too, each person is different, and comes to this at different times. Once we have opted for death, we are given a faith that we never thought possible: No longer a faith held up by our deepest feelings, nor one seeing the progress of Jesus in our lives, but the faith that believes because one holds on to God beyond any reason. We go into the darkness to be pulled out now not trusting ourselves, our "faith," our ways, even our religiosity. We are pulled out swinging from a thread like a string puppet. We go from anger, to despair, to surrender. Surrender, which once sounded so terrifying, is the beginning of life. A dark faith is given us. No longer do we explain, or sing to it, orhold it as a precious keep-sake, for we realize.it is simply gift. We are now ready to walk back with a song to our native home. Nothing can really make us fear again. Our wordless love is for God, the Great Unknown. God, who lias been badlyexplained over and over by ourselves and others, takes us into himself. It is as though welook for our small boat, only to see it has disappeared. We are at the beginning of an intense desire. Longing and homesickness set in to show us how intense ourodesire is for God. Yet, he turns us back to live again among his people. He gives us each a seed to nurture, and when grown, to share the fruits with others. Some are so overwhelmed by this that they fall into silent prayer, agonized with the weight of their message. Others are filled with speech, a babbling speech, yet a speech that can be recognized as a song of God. One can open one's eyes and God has grown unlimited. We hasten to meet him, only to find that at this point, he spreads out in all directions. One is surrounded by God, silence, and it will take an eternity to begin to explore, to begin our adventure into this great unknown. How much we desire to begin to go towards our deepest love, and at least arrive at the first steps toward an eternity of ~urprises, peace, and our Source. We are willing to live a thousand years, if that be what he desires. We ~ealize that creation needs our new song which we, like God's trou-badours, will sing, with hearts somehow free and waiting, in this new-found peace, his last call. An Apostolic Spirituality for the Ministry of Social Justice Max Oliva, S.J. Father Oliva is the Director of Social Ministries for the California Province of the Society of Jesus. His special interests are the theology and spirituality of Social justice. He conducts workshops on these two themes as well as on. other aspects of social justice. He is also Associate Director of Field Education at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. He ~resides at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709. Introduction We hear a lot of discussion today about the need to promote justice in economic, social and political structures. It takes only a cursory reading of the Bishops' Synod Statement, "Justice°in the World," tofind the Church issuing this call: Listenihg to the cry of those who suffer violence and are oppressed by unjust systems and structures, and hearing the appeal of a world that by its perversity contradicts the plan of its Creator, we have shared our awareness of the Church's vocation to be present in the heart of the world by proclaiming the Good News to the poor; freedom to the oppressed, and joy to the afflicted) How does one pursue social justice in the light of one's faith? How do we in.corporate and integrate the important ingredients of our own need for personal contact with marginated and oppressed people and the ongoing process of conversion that each of us must undergO? Row do we bring about a balance between our faith and our practical efforts for changing structures? This article offers some reflections on an apostoli~ spirituality for changing social structures, a ministry which can be a part of anyone's life and ministerial vision. The thoughts expressed here are the result of the tSynod of Bishops, 1971, "Justice in the World," page 1. 687 61111 / Reviewfor Religious, Volume 36, 1,977/5 author's reflection on his own ministry, both in inner-city Black commu-nities and in efforts to change social structures,z What do we mean when we talk about changing social structures? The most obvious example of structural change that comes to mind is the effect that a state or federal law can have on a whole range of institutions and the people in them. Take, for example, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, which has had the effect of requiring businesses to hire minority and women workers, in responsible positions, or lose federal contracts or be taken to court in civil action suits. The ordinary citizen's role in promoting such a law might have been to draw attention to the injustices present before the law was passed by some kind of advocacy effort. Another example of structural change, again in the world of business: ~in the 1960's, many companies had as one of the standard questions on their applications forms, "Have you ever been arrested?" To the person ap-plying for work from an economically depressed area, this question was an automatic "No" to a possible job since many had been arrested. However, relatively few people had ever been convicted. Successful efforts were made to convince companies to change the word, "arrested," to, "con- .victed," thus opening the job market to a large segment of the community who had up to then been ex.cluded. Closer to home, changing structures m~ght involve affecting admission policies in a religious school so that more min.ority students might be able to attend, or, influencing a province so that an essential criteria for being a superior would be that she or he is strongly committed to justice. In both of these cases, an individual's action can have results that change the structures involved and thereby affect many people in the process. Basically, structures, systems and institutions of society are the frame-work in which human relationships--personal, political, economic, cultur-al~ take place. Social justice seeks to assess the worth of social structures and systems in view of how they impact the lives of people in them, or exclude people from them, and calls for personal responsibility for these structures. There are many ways to influence social structures, be it through actions to promote just state or national laws, be it efforts to affect international systems, or by way of altering a policy in one's own institution or com-munity. Whatever the means chosen, certain basic dispositions are neces-sary for such efforts to be realistic and, thus, effective. The first and pri-mary disposition is to be on the side of the economically po, or and politically powerless, as an advocate for their rights. In St. Matthew's gospel (15:29-31), we find Jesus sitting on a moun-tainside. There, "large crowds of people came to him bringing with them ~'i'he author is also indebted to Workshop participants who have given valuable feedback to the ideas expressed in this article. A Spirituality for the Ministry of Social Justice / 689 cripples, the deformed, the blind, the mute, and many others besides. They laid them at his feet and hecured them." What is particularly striking about this scene is not so much the cures, though, of course, these are marvelous signs of God's presence, but that Jesus actually, physically, touched these people: the crippled, the deformed, the blind, the mute--the marginated and outcasts of his time. Today, we, because we are Christians, are called to do the same, to touch the poor and oppressed of our day, those who are often different, from us by economic background, by color or culture, by education, perhaps by some kind of physical or mental handicap. To touch these, people means to have some ongoing personal contact with them, in order tolearn from them--their needs, their suffering, their aspirations, and their richness. To touch these people involves, paradoxically, a healing in ourselves, a deliverance from our prejudices, convictions, and attitudes, an escape from apathy, and an awareness that has deep within it a sense of urgency that justice be done. Such personal contact insures that our com-mitment be an "affair of the heart." Such contact is essential if our ministry of changing unjust .social structures is to be realistic, that is, meeting real needs. This ongoing personal interchange with oppressed people and an alert analysis of the structure we wish to change are basic dispositions for a ministry of changing social structures, be our work in schools, hospitals, a parish, retreat house, mass media, social ministry, or whatever,z Some Basic Principles The cycle of poverty is often described as consisting of: apathy--aliena; tion frustration--ignorance--hunger---despair. These words can also be used to describe our own state of mind and heart as we contemplate unjust arid dehumanizing structures. The problems seem so vast, the structures so complex, that we simply despair of moving at all to influence or try to change them. We need to begin our consideration of an apostolic spirituality for social justice ministry by taking a close look at some basic principles: 1. That each of us can be part of the change process for a more just world: by our choices, by our life-style, by our life-stance. No issue is so ambig-uous, no structure so complicated that we are unable to do something to influence it. ,~ 2. That other people--those we live with, those we work with, our stu- 3Personal contact with oppressed people, is also necessary for one-on-one kinds of service, such as spiritual direction, for the purpose of such ministry is to help the person clarify and deepen his relationship with God and challenge, when appropriate, the way the person lives out this faith in relation to the world. The director can be an excellent resource for helping the person being directed to see the intimate connection between faith and social justice and to discover ways she or he might effectively act to change unjust social structures. It is only by realizing this connection in his own life that the director will effectively communicate this message to the one being directed. 690 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 dents, parishioners, retreatants, fellow workers--can be reached and can change in their attitudes, in their values/in their standard and st.yle of life. Why? Because, like us, they are of good will. True, like us, they suffer from ignorance about those who are poor, are often insulated from those who are economically poor and politically powerless, and sometimes accept myths about the poor as truths. Still, they do not deliberately will the destruction and dehumanization of others any more than we do. They, too, seek hap-piness, peace and justice. And, like us, they sometimes get too caught up in self-interest or ignore the social dimensions of their actions. But if we can change, can become more socially conscious, more committed to justice, so can others. 3. That because of God's personal love for each of us, we are each im-portant in the process of building the kingdom of God, a kingdom initiated by Christ and commissioned to us, his followers, to carry on and build, a kingdom which fosters human dignity and equality, and which values hu-man-. development. , 4. That the Spirit is working in and through each of us even as we take small steps to change structures, and can work in ever new ways as we become more resolutely inserted into the world of the marginated and the oppressed. ~. 5. That other people---other religious women and men, diocesan priests, laypeople, Christians of.every denomination, and non-Christians too-are at work, acting for peace and justice, realigning their life styles, taking a critical stance toward the structures of society. This gives us hope. The Center of Our Commitment We are called to this ministry of changing unjust social structures by Jesus Christ, who works with us and whose Spirit is the source of our courage, wisdom, power and hope. God the Father is the center of our lives, the focal point of our identity: his personal love isthe basis of our worth.4 He is our Rock, our Foundation, our Beginning and our End. He is the One for whose sake ultimately we are engaged in the struggle for justice. ~ The more God is our center, the less chance do the idols that attract us and keep us from a commitment to justice hamper our ministry, idols such as popularity, "success," reputation, endless analysis, and the '.;good life." The more God is our center, the more effective will be our ministry of justice, for it will become ever more clearly his work. Because God is the center of our lives, we can develop the kind of apostolic qualities that are necessary for an effective ministry of justice. ~The author realizes that not all people relate to God, as Father,. as the center of their lives. This is the way the author relates to Gbd. To respect this difference, the word "Father" will only be used this once in the article. A SpiritutJlity for the Ministry of Social Justice Let us now consider some apostolic qualities that can help render our actions more fruitful. Apostolic Qualities for Our Ministry of Justice Because God is the center of our lives, we can be radically open: open to growth--intrapersonal, interpersonal and societal (our relationship to human.environments, structures, institutions and processes, especially of asocio-economic-polifico-cultural character). Open to new ~concepts and ideas, such as social sin and social grace, Liberation Theology and the use of Marxist tools of analysis for studying the structures in our socie[y. Open to face uncertainty and fear as we come into personal contact with the marginated and the oppressed people in our society and the environments in which they are forced to live. Open to face our own prejudice, racism and sexism as, they are manifested in attitude and language. Open to face our value addictions as they are reflected in our consumption patterns--the kinds of things we buy and.~why--and in our life style. Open to the pos-sibility of being misunderstood, even rejected, by those ~ith v~hom we speak about issues of justice, be they members of our family, our com-munity, or our constituents. Because God is the center of our lives, we can ~have a capacity for critical reflection such that no ideology, no system or way of life is "sa-cred" (or defines who we are). None can be free of scrutiny, challenge and, if needed, reform, be it: socialism, communism, capitalism, the American way of life and its values, the Church, our own community or the work of our apostolate, Because God is the center of our lives, we are not afraid to face the fact that we are converts to our ideas of justice and the actions we undertake for justice. Thus, we are capable of being ruthlessly honest with ourselves, neither becoming self-righteous nor bitter or cynical. Being honest in this way enables us to have what Thomas Cullinan calls "patient endurance,''~ a uniquely, Christian virtue, which is centered on Christian hope, without losing a sense of urgency that justice be done. Because God is the center of +ur lives, the focus in exercising our ministry of justice is not on "success" as we usually define it. Our success is in the doing or saying what we know we must say to be true to our convictions and the needs of oppressed people. Like the prophets, the doing or not of some word, some action, is not based on peoples' reac- 5Thomas Cullinan, O.S.B,, If the Eye Be Sound (England: St. Paul Publications, 1975), page 121, This is an excellent work of modern spirituality. In particular it uncovers the theological and spiritual foundations on which a socially committed Christianity must be built. Dom Tfiomas Cullihan, O.S.B., is a monk of the Ampleforth community, in England, and a member ¯ of the Commission for International Justice and Peace of England and Wales. Available: Catliolic Institute for International Relations; I Cambridge Terrace; London, NW I, England. 692 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 tions--be they affirmative or negative--not on how many people like us more or not, not on how many people ag~'ee with us more or not, but on being congruent with who we are before God, as we discern it in prayer and consultation. It is the virtue of integrity. Because God is the center of our lives, we can ~possess an habitual facility of discernment. In our ministry of social justice, there are two basic areas of input for our process of discernment. (1) The first element of our input is grasping the "signs of the times," that is, the cries of the poor and the oppressed of our world, their struggles,, their needs, their aspirations, their problems and the causes of these problems. Such knowledge and, more importantly, unders~tanding comes, as we said before, primarily by way'of some ongoing personal contact with economically poor people and those who are politically powerless and is supplemented by books and articles, films, workshops, or whatever means serves to increase our con-sciousness of the problems. Then each of us must lobk closely at her Or his talents, gifts, personality, ministerial strengths and weaknesses, and the kind of ministry she or he is involved in. In a spirit of prayer and with ~:onsultation, then, the discernment-reflection process gradually, organi-cally, and continually enables eiach of us to make action-choices for justice from where we are. For some, such action will involve integrating, social justice into classes taught or into the administration of a school or a hos-pital; for others, it will mean some kind bf political action or public protest. For some, it will mean homilies or retreat talks that show the intimate relationship between one's ~faith and a commitment to act for justice; for still others, it will involve direct service in an inner-city or rural, community or Third World country. Because God is the center of ou~ lives, we can ask him to fashion in us a heart for the oppressor as well as for the,oppressed. Injustice kills the perpetrator since exploitation, tyranny and oppression are sighs of death, spiritual death. We love the oppressor when we oppose with all our strength her or his spiritually suicidal behavior of oppression. With God's help we can enter every heart. For the po. or, we strive to win rights and the freedom to develop humanly; for the rich, we strive to win moral development. It is important to note, though, that the way in which one manifests one's concern for the oppressor will differ according to the kind of ministry one is involved in. The community organizer's way, for example, will be dif-ferent from the high school teacher's. Each develops a heart for the op-pressor in the context of her or his own situation. Because God is the center of our lives, we can have empathy with those who are economically and politically oppressed. Empathy is the'ability'to see life through the eyes of others. In our ministry of social justice it is seeing life through the eyes of the poor. It demands personal contact with people who are poor. It necessitates our taking a "learning stance" in the presence of oppressed people, listening to their needs, their suffering, being A Spirituality for the Ministry of Social Justice / 693 willing to be continu'ally educated by their life experiences and their contact with human misery. Empathy is the key to understanding and thus to be able to demythologize our views on why people 'are poor. Finally, empathy is the way to true solidarity and effective advocacy. Because God is the center of our lives, we can have a freedom from attachment---in the face of anything which is not in line with our primary goal: the will of God and the building of his kingdom, a kingdom which values and promotes human dignity, equality and development. Having our foundation in God allows us to be free from attachment to. any cause or issue, any insight or pre-conceived plan of action, any request, for action, or even our own fear of acting. It is the "single-heartedness" of the Be-atitudes. Finally, because God is the center of our lives, we can have a capacity for suffering--what Jos6 Magafia says in his book Ignatian Exercises: A Strategy for Liberation, "to rejoice in sufferings because they are the hallmark of every ,genuine liberating commitment.''6 Such a capacity en-ables us to make the fundamental Christian option of becoming advocates for the rights of oppressed people. It is also, obviously, intimately bound up with the preceding eight apostolic qualities and with the effort it takes to keep God as one's center. A capacity for suffering is essential for each person~s ongoing process of conversion, and we are all called to conversion: "It is too easy to throw back on others responsibility for injustices, if at,the same time one does not realize how each one shares in it personally, and how personal conversion is needed first.''r Just what is conversion ? One of the clearest descriptions the author has read is the following from Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J, Conversion is getting rid of something so that something else can take its place. It is getting rid of everything that prevents us from being filled with the Holy Spirit. Conversion, then, is a change; a change tfiat takes place deep inside us; a radical change. Let us make no mistake about it: there is nothing supdrficial about conver-sion. It is not, for'instance, deciding, after a somewhat more fervent retreat, to "give something to the poor," or to be a little more generous to one's "favorite charity." This is a praiseworthy thing in its way, but it is not conversion. Conversion is not a giving of something that we can well afford to lose. It goes much deeper than that. It is a putting away of something that we are: our old self, with its all-too-human, all-too-worldly prejudices, convictions, attitudes, values, ways of thinking and acting; habits which have become so much a part of us that it is agon.y even to think of parting with them, and yet which are precisely what prevent us from rightly interpreting the signs of the times, from seeing life steadily and seeing it whole.8 ~Jos6 Magafia, S.J., Ignatian Exercises: A Strategy for Liberation (New York: Exposition Press, Inc., 1974), page 117. rPope Paul VI, 1971, "A Call to Action," page 28. 8Pedro Arrupe, S.J., "Witnessing to Justice" (Vatican City: Pontifical Commission Justice and Peace, 1972), pages 25-26. 694 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 Our call to conversion as we pursue our ministry of social justice is not a one-time happening, it is an essential element of the Cross-Resurrection dynamic that permeates our lives as Christians. And conversion does in-volve suffering as well as joy. With God as:our center, we can have the courage to face our own need for conversion and the suffering that ac-companies it, Such suffering is redemptive. Conclusion We are,' each, called to a ministry of justice, but our ministry must take place in the rootedness of our faith lest we become simply good humanists or philanthropists. Our commitment must be founded in the love of God and the "Good News" of his Son. Although this may seem to be an evident" premise, it is easy to lose sight of once we become involved in actual work. We depend on one another for support, for.challenge and tolerance. And we are nourished in our commitment to act on behalf of social justice by our prayer and the Eucharist: in prayer, for it is here in the quiet moments that we can face the reality of just who our center is-~ourselves or God; in the Eucharist, because it strengthens us to face our timidity and fears, it calls us out of ourselves to be, like Jesus, persons for others. Now Available As A Reprint Prayer of Personal Reminiscence:' Sharing One's Memories with Christ by David J. Hassel, S.J. Price: $.60 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious 612' Humboldt Building 539 North Grand St. Louis, Missouri 63103 Taking the Long View Francis X. Hezel, S.J. Father Hezel is director of the Micronesian Seminar. based in Truk; Caroline Islands; Trust Territory, Pacific 96942 Not too long ago a gentleman visited these islands offering a new eight million dollar college as a gift to the Micronesian people from the U.S. Congress. His offer met with an enthusiastic response almost everywhere. At last Micronesia would soon have its own four-year college! Not a con-ventional college, but one that would be specially tailored for providing training in vocational skills or whatever else is judged to be educationally relevant. I was dismayed by the uncritical enthusiasm that greeted the visitor's offer, well-intentioned though it was. Don't people here know, I asked myself, that the new college will cost almost two million dollars a year to operate? A tidy sum, considering that the total amount of local revenues generated in the Trust Territory is only seven .million dollars at present. Isn't this gesture, I thought, a bit like making a gift to a poor friend of a good-sized German shepherd to guard his house, letting him know as you walk out the door that the animal eats five pounds of meat a day? tin any case, would a new four-year college of any kind help solve the burning question of how to promote economic development? Diplomas abound in the Trust Territory and marketable skills are on the increase. The real problem, of course, is jobs; and this won't be solved by adding another expensive education mill. As long as the goal is to develop Micronesia's resources and make the islands more productive, a new college with an increased capacity can only make a bad situation worse. If you want a person to spend his life in a fishing boat or on a farm, the worst thing you can do is plant him in a chair for another four years. He will very likely never get out of it afterwards. 696 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 Its the old story, I said to myself. Another."gift" from abroad; more hidden costs, social and economic; and the dependency rut gets deeper and deeper. How is it, I wondered,th~at this familiar story is repeated over and over again, even by individuals and groups that profess a commitment to self-reliance? Surely some of them must see the long-range effects of these projects. Consider the response to the Headstart and Old Age Programs, to use as examples two federal programs designed to benefit opposite ends of the population. No sooner was the Trust Territory made eligible for federal funds under these titles than every district opened an office, applied for government money, and began an earnest search for ways to spend it. The immediate benefits of the two federal programs were all too obvious: food for the young and the old, an income for those on the payroll, travel abroad for program directors and their understudies, and the promise of other good things to come. But how about the fact that the~palates of the young were being ha-bituated to breakfasts of tomato juice and doughtmts? What about the danger of families abdicating their strongly-felt traditional responsibility to provide for the elderly? Or the risk of weakening family and community ties, as still another responsibility of theirs is surrendered to a government agency? Then, of course, there is again the matter of furthering the eco-nomic dependence of Micronesia on a global superpower that has military interests to maintain. Somehow these last questions were overlooked in the rush to expand the district payroll and get money rolling in. A paycheck and cases of corned beef are just a bit more real than such intangibles as family bonds and ,psychological dependence. - Do I sound a trifle "anti-progress," or possibly even cynical?.Then let me make a public confession. Neither I nor the staff of the small private school of which I am director have altogether resisted the temptations of "easy money" from abroad. We are receiving federal funds from the six-million dollar Federal Feeding Program, as are virtually all public schools and a good many 'mission schools as well. To understand how an abomination of this sort ~might have happened, you would have tO put yourself in the shoes of a school administrator who is wondering how he will make it to the end of May. without going broke. Local support groups have not come through, the school accounts are just about exhausted, and bills continue to pile higher on his desk. Just then, in walks a federal program officer with a sheaf of papers in hand who proudly announces that he has funds to cover the entire cost of the school feeding program for the year. To the beleaguered school.administrator it is a heaven-sent answer to a pressing problem. Naturally he signs on the dotted line, heaves a sigh of relief, and then settles back to wait for the first check to come. ~ Taking the Long View / 697 That, however, is only the beginning.'A year later the school admin-istrator has to decide whether he shall continue to participate in the feeding program. He knows very :well that the 25 thousand dollars he receives will not raise the nutritional quality of the food one bit. Healthy food is some-thing that teenaged boarding students must have in ample quantity, no matter hbw financially hard-pressed the school may be. He knows that the Feeding Program of which his school is a beneficiary can only further re-inforce the "handout" mentality of a people long accustomed to looking to Washington to pay all their bills. He recalls with a shudder all that he has read and heard about the stifling welfarism of Indian reservations. But he calculates that an additional 25 thousand dollars a year would allow him to build a garage, a maintenance shop and new water tanks which he thinks that the school may need. And so, dismissing the uncomfortable concern he feels for remote consequences, he signs on the dotted line just as he did the year before. Like the others in the examples cited earlier, he has responded to the immediate need and left the future to take care of itself. Micronesia teems with persons like him (or should I say me?) whose decisions are based on answering today's needs at the expense of the future. Jobs, schools, roads and the like occupy our exclusive attention while the hidden costs of these "improvements" and the nature bfthe funds that finance them go uncalculated. This preocc~ipation with the sho~'t-term rewards might be called the national disease of Micronesia and it has infected every part of society. The employee who drinks up his paycheck, on Friday and Saturday to the sorrow of his family for the following two weeks shows acute symptoms of it. So does the fish dynamiter who pulls in his haul, rubs his belly, and leaves the shattered reef to repair itself---in twenty years time. Then there is the young college student who spends the two days before his semestral exams emptying Budweiser cans with his friends, and a week hence is looking for plane fare home from college. Is it simply an accident that a couple of years ago the theme song of the islands seemed to be "Help Me Make It Through the Night?" The people of an island press for Congress of Micronesia funds to erect a seawall, conscious only of the money that will make its way into their pockets, but unmindful of the damage to their sense of community that loss Of locally sponsored labor projects will inflict. Congressmen vote to ap-prove high-cost capital impr6vement projects to be funded by the U.S. knowing full well that the cost of maintaining these facilities will be a financial burden to Micronesia in later years. Top,level policy-makers cam-paign for higher wages for government employees, thereby undercutting any real hope of inducing young people to take up less lucrative but much-needed work in commercial agriculture and fishing. And ,everyone-- parents and educators alike---encourages the greatest possible number of 69~1 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 high school graduates to go off to college without the least idea of how they will occupy themselves when they return. Entrepreneurs with an eye for a fast dollar build supermarkets, bars aid moviehouses, thus helping to send the annual level of imports soaring still higher. Prominent businessmen who are. instrumental in bringing tele-vision into their islands make a killing on sales ofTV sets~ leaving the social consequences anti'the economic effects on families for others to handle. Political decisions, I fear, are made in much the same way. Nothing can convince me that the people of the Marianas, when they signed their Cove-nant with the U.S. two years ago, were as fond of the American Eagle as the dollar on which it 'appears. Yet money buys good things, as I have already ungrudgingly admitted. Whether, however, it will also purchase an enduring social bliss for the Northern Marianas remains to be seen. I have never heard or read a cogent explanation of what any of the separatist districts wants politically and I have despaired of ever doing so, although it is well-known what those districts expect by way of fiscal gains. I can only assume that they desire for themselves whatever their generous benefactors~ desire for them--whether these bene.factors be America, Japan, Nauru, or the Sheikdom of Aden. Surely it would be difficult to maintain that their decisions are. models of political far-sightedness, whatever else they may have to recommend them. But the rest of us are in no position smugly to point an accusing finger at those districts that have sought greener pastures---or, to be more exact, greener bankrolls--elsewhere. Which of the remaining' districts can hon-estly say 'tha~it would not have jumped at the chance to do likewise, had the opportunity been offered? We all seem to have fallen prey to this obsession with the immediate pay-off. It may be that this is an all too human weakness, but it is a frightening irony that our failings should be rationalizedqn the name of "progress" or "development." If development implies anything at all, it suggests a forward-looking approach---one that is as concerned with to-morrow and 20 years hence as with today. With the coming of foreign currency to these islands a century and a half ago, Micronesians were for the first time able to accumulate a surplus, to hoard, to save and invest. Money created the possibility of a "tomorrow" in these islands. By a strange irony, however, foreign money is now being used to freeze us securely into the present and to anaesthetize us against a concern for the future. Not that money, jobs, education, material improvements, and even federal programs are evil in themselves. The real problem is that these and other short-range benefits are so alluring that they overpower more distant considerations. And when they are offered to any of us gratis, their at-traction is practically irresistible. An announcment is made that some new federal program is offering funds to establish national parks, buy library books, or develop curricular materials for teaching the metric system. We Taking the Long View / 699 run to our desks' and concoct a proposal that will enable us to receive our share of the funds. Why not take advantage of a windfall while it lasts, we reason to ourselves. The trouble is that the objectives we set down for our programs can all too easily be inconsistent with or even run counter to broader develop-mental goals in ttie Trust Territory. There's certainly no harm in securing federal money to build a museum in which traditional artifacts will be displayed., or in providing emergency assistance for' rebuilding houses after a typhoon, or in putting up a new sports center at U.S. expense. But we must not be surprised if the cu-mulative effect oUall this on the community is to teach people that Santa Clauscomes to Micronesia every day of the year. Over many a desk in headquarters is posted the inspiring adage: "Give a person a fish and he has a meal today. Teach him how to fish and he has food for the rest of his life." It is very easy to understand how this lesson can be lost on our people today in the face of the mammoth give-away program that enervates our com-munities even 'as it showers on'them its material "blessings." Buyit~g canned federal programs is a lot like buying canned fish. It is inexpensive, convenient and satisfying---an eminently sensible thing to do. But there, are still those hidden costs to be reckoned, as we know only too well. Whether we weigh these costs in making any initial decision or not, they are bound to catch up with us in the end. Those of us who ~take a dim view of ~anned programs funded from abroad---and I include myself hereto so on the grounds that their long-term costs usually outweigh their immediate benefits. These "costs" can be conveniently grouped under three bro~d headings: social, economic and political, although some would want toadd "environmental" as a fourth heading. Let me now suggest a few examples of each. Regarding social costs we may say this. Programs that introduce into a community a substantial amount of money to build a road, erect a com-munity center or feed schoolchildren all too often bring about the pyscho-logical or social impoverishment of the community that they are intended to help. This happens when members of the community decide that it is more profitable for them to sit and wait for things to happen rather than initiate devi~lopment projects oftheir own. At this point, cooperative work by families on community projects sharply declines, and so does what we commonly call "community spirit." When most of its responsibilities are pre-empted by government agencies and alien institutions, the community simply loses confidence in its own effectiveness to achieve anything of real value. The same may be said of the family. As it relinquishes its respon-sibility for feeding toddlers, schoolchildren and the aged, the ties among its members will almost certainly weaken. The obvious question that must be asked of every development project, then, no matter what the source of funding, is whether its effects will be to increase or diminish the social fabric and sense of purpose of the community. 700 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/5 ¯ Micronesians commonly refer to their islands as "poor"--that is, as lacking adequate income to provide for themselves much of what they regard as desirable. For this reason, there is usually a mad rush to obtain whatever haaterial benefit~ the U.S. or any other country might offer by way of assistance. What is often overlooked, however,, is that certain gifts may make us poorer rather than richer. Expensive hospitals, water systems and airports are also expensive to rriaintain year by year--and the future budget of a "poor" group of islands is bound to be very limited. Moreover, some improvements can require an expanding network of expensive facilities and social services to support them (or clean up the social mess they have made). Take,the case of a costly new high school that is built of sufficient size, to allow all school-age youth in the area to enroll. Soon after the new school opens discipline problems multiply, since there are clearly a large number of misfits who have been accepted in the cam-paign to make secondary education universal. To keep the poorer students in school, a special program for potential dropouts is funded through a federal grant. A recreation center is built and new staff is hired to moderate the center's activities. Social therapists are trained---at additional expense-- and hired to counsel "hardcore" problem students. Mental health facilities and referral centers are established through still another program. In short, everything.possible is done, at prodigious expense, to keep in s~chool young people who never wanted to be there in the first place, As social services and physical facilities proliferate along with the pro-grams that support them, Micronesians are gradually led to believe that a society without expensive gadgetry and quackery is entirely impossible. To have a school without sliding classroom dividers or a hospital without sophisticated laboratory equipment becomes unthinkable. It is no wonder that Micronesians have come to believe that they can't live without an extravagant subsidy from abroad! Naturally this means that they will have no recourse but to continue living in the shadow of the American eagle--with all that this implies politically and militarily. Very few decisions today are simple decisions. Most have far-reaching implications on the future social, economic and political order in these islands. We know this only too well, of course, but all of us still must adjust to making decisions at times as if there were no tomorrow. Until all of us learn honestly and openly to weigh the long,term effects of our choices, not just count the immediate gains; we will be deluding ourselves

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

Issue 30.2 of the Review for Religious, 1971. ; EDITOR R. F. Smith, S.J. ASSOCIATE EDITOR Everett A. Diederich, S.J. ASSISTANT EDITOR John L. Treloar, S.J. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS EDITOR Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Correspondence with the editor, the associate editors, and the assistant editor, as well as books for review, should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; 6i~ Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 631o3. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania tgxo6. + + + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Edited with ecclesiastical approval by faculty members of the School of Divinity of Saint Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building ; 539 North Grand Boulevard ; Saint Louis, Missouri 63103. Owned by the Missouri Province Edu-cational Institute. Published bimonthly and copyright (~) 1971. by REvmw Fog RELIO~OUS. Printed in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at Baltimore, Maryland and at additional mailing offices. Single copies: $1.25. Sub-scription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year, $11.00 for two years; other countries: $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order paya-ble to REvmw Yon RELtOtOUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REvmw yon RELIOIOU!L Change of address requests should include former address. - Renewals and new subscriptions should be sent to REvmw FOR RELIOIOUS; P. O. Box I 110; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Manuscripts, editorial correspondence, and books for re-view should be sent to REvIEw FOR RELIGIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to the address of the Questions and Answers editor. MARCH 1971 VOLUME 30 NUMBER 2 BROTHER THOMAS MORE, C.F.X. Religious: Partners for Justice and Peace Within the past few years, Pope Paul VI has established January 1 as a World Day of Peace. For 1971 he has selected the theme: "Every man is my brother." To enlist the support of religious institutes, the Holy See recently sent a document to" all superiors general stating that the World Day of Peace should transcend the limits of a simple celebration and really bring to the world the message of Christ's love. This Day of Peace is an invitation for an examination of conscience; it is an exhortation not to judge or condemn others, but to find out how much we ourselves as individuals and as mem-bers of society are accomplices of evil in this world; it is a means of making us more aware that we are and ought to be the guardians of our brothers. As religious by the very nature of their profession are orientated towards their fellow men, they have special motives for making this examination of conscience. Pious practices are not sufficient to make us good Christians. Christ Himself told us that we shall be judged by our attitudes and acts towards our fellow men. Nor is it suffi-cient that we be on good terms with our fellow religious. In this age, with the mass media keeping us informed about what is going on throughout the world, we cannot say to the Lord: "Where did we see you hungry, or naked, or" in prision. ?" The theme for 1971 looks beyond the present state of hostility in the world to the root of war--a failure to understand the yearning for the recognition of basic human rights by men in all parts of the world to escape from hunger, misery, disease, discrimination, and igno-rance. As long as this festering condition exists in any part of the world, there will always be the threat of war, violence,- and unrest. Perhaps nowhere else have the hopes of this part of mankind been better expressed than in Pope Paul's own Brother Thomas More, C.F.X., is su-perior general of the Xaverian Broth-ers; Via Antonio Bosio0 5; 00161 Rome, Italy. VOLUME 30, 1971 161 ÷ ÷ ÷ T. More~ C.F.X. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS blueprint for peace, Populorum progressio: "Freedom from misery, ~he greater assuranceof finding subsistence, health and fixed employment; an increased share of re-sponsibility without oppression of any kind and in se-curity from situations that do violence to their dignity as men; better education--in brief, to seek to do more, know more and have more; that is what men aspire to now when a greater number of them are condemned to live in conditions that make their lawful desire illusory." It is these men and women in particular whom'the Holy Father wants us to see in the light of Christian charity as our brothers. For only when we do believe them to be our brothers can we be deeply concerned about their struggle to obtain their freedom. This struggle for freedom is given greater emphasis if it is looked at within the framework of three contem-porary issues that are on the front stage of our history. The first is that 20% of the people living in the Atlan-tic world command about 75 to 80% of the world's in-come, investment, and trade. This statement becomes more than a matter of statistics when we realize that the society within this 20% contains a large number of professed followers of Christ who are the inheritors of a Christian tradition. But within this society, "Christianity is invoked in order to lead a sort of crusade against communism. Christianity is invoked in order to combat the wave of hatred, deeprooted re-sentment and terror which is rising everywhere. The 20% who let 80% stagnate in a situation which is often sub-human-- what right have they to allege that communism crushes the human spirit? The 20% who are keeping 80% in a situation which is often sub-human--are they or are they not responsible for the violence and hatred which are beginning to break out all over the world?" x If these words seem to ring with the exaggerated rheto-ric of a prophet, they do come from the heart of a bishop in an underdeveloped section of Brazil to awaken us from complacency. The second contemporary issue is the influence of the younger generation in movements for social justice and peace. It is almost universally agreed that this young generation has a feeling of oneness in human develop-ment and is alive to the increasingly international char-acter of human events.~ Also among the young is a new 1 Helder Camara, "Development Projects and Concern for Struc-tural Changes," IDOC, North American edition, May 23 1970, p. 20. 2John Tracy Ellis notes that in the transformation of the Catholic Church's leadership in the United States from a passive to an active adherence to the social papal encyclicals of John XXIII and Paul VI, the Church had the advantage of the "radically different ap-proach to war and peace" of students in the Catholic colleges, uni-versities, and seminaries, "the vast majority of whom were much radicalism which questiOnS strongly, often violently, the priorities and standards inside the economy and struc-tures of the Atlantic world. "If, say the young, this is the ultimate fine flower of our commercial industrial civiliza-tion, it might be better to blow it up and start again." a The third current issue is the growing awarenegs that we live in a village world, that we belong to a world community. We are all becoming alive to the increasingly inter-national character of human events and associations. There has been a great stir~:ing of conscience on the sub-ject of world poverty in the midst of plenty, on the ques-tion of world peace, and in the matter of racial discrimi-nation, wherever it may be practiced. This stirring of conscience and the awareness of the repercussion of global events have helped to break down parochial and national barriers. People everywhere are catching the vision that sees any deprivation of human rights as a universal crisis that profoundly disturbs the world community. Within this contemporary framework of an unbalanced world economy, the influence of the young generation in social justice and peace movements, and the search for world community, the Holy Father's theme for 1971 has a particularly strong appeal for religious. There is abundant evidence that religious in the United States are aware of these three contemporary issues and of the major social ills of our times. The fol-lowing suggestions and reflections are made as contribu-tion to this growing involvement of religious in arousing the People of God to promote development, justice, and peace in a world where "Every man is my brother." Peace As professed disciples of Christ, we cannot limit our horizon to the internal concerns of our community life. As members of a religious institute, we cannot be satisfied with the missionary efforts of a few of our members in developing countries. Perhaps there was a time when people could feel at ease when they had prayed for peace. In our days, we have an inescapable responsibility not only to pray but also to do something for peace in the world. Peace is an involved and sometimes painful question. It touches us on the emotional level because of our racial, national, religious, social, or educational background, or more sensitive to the papal teaching on peace than their parents and grandparents had been" (American Catholics and Peake [Washing-ton: Division of World Justice and Peace, USCC, 1970], p. 14). a Barbara Ward, The Angry Seventies (Rome: Pontifical Commis-sion of Justice and Peace, 1970), p. 44. + + + Justice and Peace VOLUME 30, 1971 163 ÷ ÷ T. More, C.F.X. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 164 because of other more or less conscious motivations. For the.objective education of ourselves, our communities and those whom we serve in Our apostolates, we have to make a continuous effort to overcome these all too human feelings. We must likewise try to avoid all blind spots of emotional prejudice which prevent us from seeing the real issues. One of the first things to be done .is to seek informa-tion in order to build up a solid basis for judgment. To refuse, either emotionally or through sheer indifference, to become informed is certainly one of those sins of omission which the renewed liturgy has most appropri-ately called again to our attention. The constitution Gaudium et spes (n. 82) gave us a lofty ideal when it stated that "it is our duty to prepare, by all possible efforts, the time when all war can be com-pletely outlawed by international consent." Too often we are not aware of the moral influence which we, as individuals or as a group, can exercise on the political level. War is one'of the major moral concerns of our day --what is our attitude toward war in general? Do we know and appreciate the theoretical and practical impli-cations of moral theories on war and on the use of vio-lence? Does the traditional "just war" theory still hold in our times when the powers of destruction are apocalyptic? Gaudium et spes continues: "Those who are dedicated to the work of education, particularly of the young . should regard as their most weighty task the effort to form the minds of all to the acceptance of a new spirit of peace. Every one of us should have a change of heart." Those religious engaged in the apostolate of education have the opportunity and the duty to give practical direction in this area. In particular cases there should be discussions with students and parents on the implications of "conscientious objection," passive civil resistance, and other controversial attitudes towards war, social injustice, and the like. Moreover, as citizens we have our political rights and duties. On some occasions this may require forthright speech and action, after mature consideration, even against decisions made by the highest authorities. We all respect the attitude of a man like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and of others under the Nazi regime, or of some modern Soviet authors, or of. a man like Hekler Camara. Great and at times heroic courage is needed by such people to stick to their most profound convictions and to suffer for them. In a democratic society similar courage can sometimes be needed. One can appreciate, for instance, the moral fortitude of the American Jesuit provincials who, in a letter to all United States senators, on May 21, 1970, expressed their deep concern about the recent de-velopments in the Vietnam war. Development and Justice We must show every man the esteem, the respect, and love which he deserves as a member of the human family and as a being created by God and the object of His love. We must concern ourselves with the full human develop-ment of the world, to take a global view of mankind and of the human race, to see ourselves as members of a planetary village, where "Every man is my brother." Religious cannot be less sensitive than the younger generation to the worldwide and national obstacles to social justice; nor can they fail to see in these committed young people their fellow brothers and sisters who may be showing religious that evangelical poverty can be the purest expression of Christian liberality. In every religious institute there have been community and chapter debates on evangelical poverty. Some think it has lost its meaning or that it has no place in contem-porary society. But before reaching such conclusions, the individual religious or the community involved should remove from the scene all those obvious unnecessary forms of middle-class comfort upon which so many of them may depend. Perhaps a few bold steps in experi-encing how poor people live might also be considered. Communities and provinces could include special de-velopmen~ projects in their budgets.4 It may then hap-pen that religious will discover alternate options to settling down to a comfortable middle-class existence. This process of "settling down," with its subsequent bourgeois acceptance of a comfortable and secure living, is a corporate sin which religious can fall victim to against the spirit of poverty. And this lack of the spirit of evangelical poverty can prevent religious from being sensitive to the social ills of our society. The greater awareness in our times of belonging to a world community parallels the movement within the re-ligious life for a greater understanding of gommunity. If fuller participation in community is evangelical, if it is the forum 'in which the hope of the Resurrection and the appreciation of the present realities are held in ten-sion, then it will predispose religious to take a global vision of mankind and of the human race. This vision ought certainly to be one of the first fruits of the new religious community. *See Louis G. Miller, C.Ss.R., "The Social Responsibility of Re-ligious," REWEW fOR REI.~CIOUS, v. 29 (1970), pp. 658-61, for a practical suggestion for practicing social consciousness on the prov-ince level by investing funds to alleviate the pressing social crisis in our times. 4- 4- Justice and Peace VOLUME 30, 1971 165 ÷ T. More, .F.X. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 166 Provincial and general chapters need to discuss those issues which profoundly affect the world community and national communities, with the hope that as they face their own internal problems, they will also turn toward those which lie at the heart of our contemporary society. Some of these issues are: racism, minority groups and. human rights, nationalism, .conscientious objection, the so-called theory of "just war," and disarmament in our era of nuclear weapons and missiles. Religious should continue to serve the Third World through their missionary work. However, this commit-ment ought to be incorporated into the new thinking on evangelization-development now taking place in many secular and religious assemblies. As Father Philip Land, s.J., of the Pontifical Commission of Justice and Peace pointed out recently to the superiors genera.1 in Rome, one of the chief contributions religious can make is to un-derstand the development debate, increase their com-mitment to the UN's Second Development Decade, and integrate the activity of their congregation into this global project. As an example of the need to understand the devel-opment debate, Father Land pointed out that real challenges confront religious as regards developing and developed countries in the area of education. With re-gard to the former, it is widely argued that Christian schools produce an education that simply ties their stu-dents to the existing power structures; with regard to the latter, it is questioned whether our schools produce an education conducive to the structural changes the poor nations rightly demand. The final suggestion is that made by Monsignor Joseph Gremillion, Secretary of the Pontifical Commis-sion of Justice and Peace, to a recent assembly of su-periors general: "The initiatives of religious are abso-lutely vital everywhere. Even though conferences of bishops might take certain responsibilities, it is essential that 'free movements' and individual leadership be ex-ercised-- a~d often this is provided by religious, men and women, as chaplains, inspirers, educators, anima-tors." "Every man is my brother": In choosing this theme, the Holy Father's aim is to help people to become aware of the unity of the human family, and thereby to favor a deeper and more sincere solidarity between men by removing from their manner of acting every form of discrimination based on distinction of race, color, cul-ture, ethnic origin, sex, social class, or religion. Are we prepared to play our part for a better, a more human, a more Christian world? JEAN LECLERCQ, O.S.B. Culture and the Spiritual Life I. THE MEDIEVAL MONASTIC TRADITION Learning and the culture which results from it refine a personality by helping it to acquire certain values of humanity which make up the fund of the commonwealth of human nature. In the Middle Ages these were never isolated from a man's religious living: they became part and parcel of his initiation to Holy Scripture, spiritual reading, meditation, prayer; they were determining fac-tors in a man's search for God, a search which, at all times, implies an ascesis not only for the inquiring mind, the intelligence, but for every one of man's faculties. These human values are not independent; they are an-cillary to the more noble values of a sacred humanity, that is, of a human nature and condition penetrated with the grace of Jesus Christ, transformed by the Holy Spirit, and consecrated, set apart for the Father in the Church. For the men of the Middle Ages who sought after God, Christian humanism meant something more than mere assimilation of culture; it implied the growth and self realisation of the person in the totality of his values: the raw material of human nature was never separated from the refining effect of Christian living. Certainly, culture and language had an important part to play in this process of fructification; but they did not, of themselves, bring it about. They favored the assimi-lation of profane literature and allowed the scholar to discern those experiences which were susceptible of being transformed and thus raised to the level of his own lived Christian reality, the level at which he became and real-ized himself by union with God. Thus in order to under-stand the humanism of these Medieval monks we must try to discover the specifically Christian experience lying behind the terms of a language inherited from masters of pagan antiquity. We have, as it were, to guess the per-sonal experience, the desire for God experienced by each + + + Jean Leclercq, O.S.B., is a monk of Clervaux Ab-bey in Luxem-bourg, Europe. VOLUME 30, 1971 16'/ lean Leclercq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 168 writer who loved learning; we must endeavor to unveil in some way the Medieval monastic writer's intimate being in presence of God. Conflicts and Solutions But once we start trying to do this, we perceive the presence of two conflicting parties. According to the degree of sensitivity of a given Medieval period, this conflict situation is experienced more or less keenly, more or less clearly, and expressed more or less frequently in the texts. But the two parties of the conflict are con-stantly in presence and are mutually conditioning. The first conflictual element is the relationship to be established between the spiritual life and the profane realities which one met with when learning Latin; the problem with which students had to grapple was how to remain Christian and become even more so by contact with pagan values expressed in ancient literature. The second element is situated in the sphere of impact be-tween man's fallen state and the nobleness of human nature: man has personal experience of concupiscence waging within him; his experience tells him that he is capable of sinning, and that he actually does sin; but he knows too that he is endowed with a real "capacity" for God--the Medieval man firmly believes that he is capable of throwing open his being to the divine pres-ence, and even that God does already dwell within him. Divided as he is, how can man recover his unity? Let it be noticed that the experience of this conflict situation was not the monopoly of monks: it is inherent to our human condition. The solution to this problem lies, now as then, in the encounter of God and man in Jesus Christ, and in the union between man and his Savior. Yet if we judge by the number of witnesses and their spiritual density, it seems that it was more keenly experienced, in a more privileged manner as it were, in monastic circles. Elsewhere, pastoral or temporal activi-ties distracted the attention. But in the cloisters, there was nothing to alleviate the inner combat; the monk constantly kept the whole of his existence focused on a search for the presence of God. His method was prayer. Nothing hollows a man out as much as the activity of prayer; nothing more than prayer makes him fathom the depths of his own abyss; in prayer man comes up against his own void, he experiences the need he has of God. We see, then, that monks were in the ideal conditions for suffering this conflict more keenly than their fellowmen. They expressed it more frequently than others outside the cloister, but it has always been the common lot of humanity. And humanism is nothing else than th'is conjunction of a given experience and a given culture in a single person. The higher this experience and this culture are, the more the person develops his human capacities. It is not a ques-tion here of mere literary varnish, but of a profound en-richment on the level of the intimate depths where a man meets his God. The humanism of the Medieval monks supposes this alliance of culture and the spiritual life, with all that this implies in ascesis and prayer. The mon-astery offered the means for acquiring culture, and the religious experience which the inmates underwent pro-vided an objective for this culture; the monastery was the workshop, so to say, where man, by the instrumen-tality of culture, attained, over and beyond culture itself, to union with God. The Drama of Christian Humanism Having once grasped the fact of the conflict which the Christian humanist, within and without the cloister, had to overcome, it will be suspected that harmony was not established without a certain drama. And Medieval mo-nastic texts confirm our suspicions. Always, we find the conjunction of the two inalienable elements of Christian experience provoked by honest and cultured reading of Holy Scripture. These two elements are ~emptation and hope: the latter is always predominant and has the last word. Why? Because, as one Medieval writer reminds us: Stat Iesus et dicit.--Jesus is there and He speaks to us. That is just what humanism is: an experience of Jesus Christ present in man. In order to taste, to savor, ~the reality behind words we must not only read but also live. You notice that reading, learning is a primary condition of any religious experience and the result is always inner peace. Between the beginning, the abc, and the end lies a long struggle to be waged between the different values, a struggle between contrary tendencies. Many acts of this drama are painful, but it always ends in light and peace. This supreme and perfect realization of-man, of hu-manism, is none other than the perfect accomplishment of the Incarnation: there is no more lofty humanism than that which leads to perfect union of man with God. In reading some Medieval authors one is tempted to say that for them there is a sort of humanism in God shown by divine care for man which goes so far as to assume humanity into the divinity. The kernel of such a theol-ogy is the justification of the humano-divine situation, the justification of the passion and death of Christ in function of man's reconciliation with God. And what strikes us in Medieval works structured round such theol-ogy is that often, though major stress is laid on God's honor and glory, the primacy of man and his salvation in the divine economy is dominant. For certain Medieval + ÷ + Culture VOLUME 30, 1971 ]69 ÷ ÷ ~ean Leclercq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS theologians it is essential to God's honor and glory that mankind whom he has destined for eternal happiness should be saved. Conclusion Throughout the Middle Ages, the problem in mon-asteries and other Christian seats of learning was not to say "yes" or "no" to culture, but to discern the correct use to be made of it. The monks took the risk of ac-quiring culture, they saw the danger; they overcame the risk in the strength of humility and ascesis: their courage led them to love. Let us, in a sort of review of the conflict situation, see how monks were victorious in suffering and joy. The texts left by Medieval monks prove that it was no imaginary struggle; they help us to grasp the concrete, real, even existential nature of the conflict in the student --it was a struggle for purity of heart and purity of body. It was a real personal problem that the student had to solve; nothing could be further removed than this from a merely speculative, a so-called objective attitude with regard to profane realities. The problem was real and acute. The solution could only be found in Jesus Christ in whom one of the divine Persons, belonging to another world, lived in a man of our own world. The Last Supper and the Resurrection are absolute and undeniable reminders that Christ's pres-ence in this world appropriates even the physical ele-ments of man. And the Medieval person is always per-ceived in a triple relationship to a second self--a superego (t3ber-Ich), a self-surpassing self, if we may so say--to God and His kingdom, and to man's place in this king-dom. Now the ego surrenders itself to a superior power, not, as might be thought, by emptying self of sell but in liberating the potentials for self-surpassing which it con-tains. The aim is not to seek one's own advantage-~one's own pleasure or glory--but to renew the experience of those whom the Bible tells us encountered God, before being in a position to manifest Him. The glory of a creature is to serve the Creator, to refer to Him; and this man is able to do because God has endowed him with reason. Man is not centered on himself but on God, and the Medieval monk cannot construct a doctrine of man on any other foundation than his relationship to God. The monk exists as an individual, and he knows it, he experiences the truth of this reality in moments of temp-tation and on every occasion where he becomes conscious of himself; yet he knows too that he is not autonomous in the sense that he could have any worth independently of God; the monk's self-realization, the development of his personality as such could never be his sole objective nor sut:fice to make him totally happy. There thus coexist in him at all times, and sometimes in a manner which we find baffling, on thb one hand that which is specific to his human nature--his failings, but also his capacity for reasoning, for critical reflection-- and on the other hand faith in a mystery which he cannot grasp, and even belief in the marvelous. The Medieval religious man knows that he carries within himself both greatness and pettiness; heis a sinner, but God comes to meet him, and he in turn goes towards God. The en-counter is perfected in Christ who, as God, created man in the cosmos, and as man situated Himself in this same cosmos. The encounter between God and His sinful crea-ture is also accomplished in the man who lives united to Christ. The Christian man is already, in the kingdom of Christ, a homo caelestis--but not entirely so. Para-doxically, carnal man has still to become the heavenly man which he already is. This transformation, this meta-noia, can only be accomplished within him by the daily fight, by a constant and daily conversion to the Lord. The perfect man, he who is already totally re-formed, even transformed, transfigured, is none other than the saint: from this point of view, it is easy to understand why hagiography has such an important place in Me-dieval monastic historiography. Lastly, just as he is attracted by heaven--which he likes to represent as being open, on the occasion of theophanies for example--the humanist in the monastic Middle Ages is on friendly terms with everything created: the cosmos and animals which he tends to idealize. There is a tension within him, between his own self and the world in its two aspects, earthly and yet already sanctified, and in this sense, heavenly. The solution to all these at-tractions, tendencies, and tensions lies in the mystery of the cross which is figured in medieval representations as a symbol of struggle and victory: in hoc signo. Sometimes the cross is framed by a low doorway, the narrow gate which at once separates and unites, and by which one has to pass freely of one's own will by liberating self, by shaking off something of self --- this is the narrow gateway beyond which we can find self again, and with self every-thing else once sacrificed but now bathed in light. II. A CONTEMPORARY MODEL But now, in order to step beyond Medieval history, let us see how such an ideal can be lived in our own desac-ralized and profane twentieth century. There are many examples of men ~ind women who ally culture with the spiritual life sometimes attaining to high sanctity on the university campus--always under the sign of the cross ÷ ÷ ÷ Culture VOLUME 30, 1971 of Christ. The example we choose to quote here is none other than Edith Stein: the scholar and the saint, as she has been called. Witnesses are never more eloquent than in the testimony of their lives, often translated, in the case of men and women of learning, into writing. We can do no better than let Edith Stein speak for herself in a few carefully selected texts. As we read through her works we notice that there is one major generating principle of energy--a unified ex-istence in which the many activities are brought together as a single unit tending to the one thing necessary to the Christian humanist: the knowledge of Christ crucified and his all-pervading dynamic presence in professional and private life. Edith Stein had grasped this principle. After having spent Holy Week of 1928 at the Benedictine Abbey of Beuron, she wrote: Passiontide and Easter are not meant to express simply a transitory festive mood quickly submerged in the daily hum-drum; no, they are the divine power living in us, which we take with us into our professional life so that it may be leavened by it. This oneness, this unity between apparently contradic-tory, even paradoxical elements of an existence seems to be a characteristic of Edith Stein--the passion and the cross are a single divine power, the fulcrum by which she raised the deadweight of daily humdrum existence. There was a constant dialectic tension within her, a continuous striving to reconcile on a higher level--that of union with God--the realities of life, at home, in school, or on the campus. It is evident that this harmonious unity was not at-tained without a persevering ascesis in order to face squarely and solve peacefully the dilemmas roused by the co-existence of the love of learning and an ardent desire for God. In the present context we cannot develop the matter as fully as we should like; we shall merely illus-trate how Edith Stein harmonized four very important dialectic tensions. + + + Jean Leclereq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 172 i. Harmony between the Spiritual and the Intellec-tual Life In February 1928 she wrote: Of course religion is not just something for a quiet corner and a few hours of leisure; it must be the root and ground of all life, and this not only for a few chosen ones, but for every true Christian. (of whom, indeed, there is always only a small number). It was through St. Thomas that I first came to realize that it is possible to regard scholarly .work as a service of God. Immediately before, and a long ome after my conversion, I thought living a religious life meant to abandon all earthly things and to live only in the thought of the heavenly realities. Gradually I have learned to understand that in this world something else is demanded of us, and that even in the con-templative life the connexion with this world must not be cut off. Only then did I make up my mind to take up scholarly work again. I even think that the more deeply a soul is drawn into God, the more it must also go out of itself in this sense, that is to say into the world, in order to carry the divine life into it. This text shows that Christian humanism is not the pri-vate property of scholars, it is incumbent on every Chris-tian. We also notice that learning, scholarly work, is a service of God. In other letters Edith Stein states the con-ditions for maintaining the balance of power between the spiritual and the intellectual. The keyword is sim-plicity. The scholar has to be simply content with the conditions of life; he has not to be anxious about many and superfluous things. We might almost say that he has to take life as it comes. This is detachment, another con-dition which Edith Stein considered essential for the truly Christian humanist--detachment from earthly riches, but also detachment from spiritual goods: she teaches that we must not be anxious about times for praying---each one must pray according to the possibilities of his professional commitments. Nevertheless a portion of the day should be set apart for God. Edith Stein writes: The chief thing is first to have a quiet corner where one can converse with God as if nothing else existed, and this every day. The early morning seems to me the hest time for this, before the daily work begins. Further, I think, this is where one re-ceives one's mission, preferably for each day, without choosing anything oneself. Lastly, one should regard oneself entirely as an instrument, especially those powers with which one has to work, for example in our case one's reason--I mean as an in-strument which we do not use ~urselves, but God in us. 2. Harmony between the Intellectual Li[e 'and'Every-day Life The scholar must not live shut up in his study from morning to night. The humanist, the Christian scholar, is a person closely linked with human values in and around him; he should have contacts with the world of his fellow men if his learning is to be really a service of God. Christian Iearning, like prayer from which it should never be separated, is a diacony. Here again, Edith Stein has left principles of unifying action, theory which was practiced in her own existence as a scholar, within and without the cloister. She was well aware of the danger of intellectual aloofness as she shows by this extract from an article published in 1931: All of us who live in the universities absorb a little of the "type ot~ the intellectual". But we must be quite clear that this attitude separates us from the crowds. Outside people bat-tle with the daily needs of life in their manifold forms. As soon as we go out they confront us . We are placed among people ÷ ÷ ÷ Culture 173 whom we are meant to help in their needs. They ought not to think of us as strange beings living in an inaccessible ivory tower. We must be able to think, feel, and speak like them, if they are expected to have confidence in us . The intellectual can find the way to the people--and without finding it he can-not guide them---only if, in a certain sense, he frees himself" from the intellect. Here again we notice the principles of Christian soli-darity, humanity, service, and detachment: freedom from self for others. ÷ ÷ ÷ lean Leclercq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 174 3. Harmony between Traditional Culture and Con-temporary Mentality This third dilemma is by no means the least which the modern scholar has to face.For Edith Stein, the patron of existentialism, as she has been called, it meant balance between the past and the present. The favored disciple of Husserl, translator of Aquinas, had to find a way of living progress; she had to realize the Bergsonian principle of progress: the past which advances and amplifies in the present as it'becomes the future. Her well-defined meth-odological principles (betraying an ascetically trained mind) enhanced and structured her art as a teacher and show how she combined the past and the present: Wherever scholastic arguments are our point of departure, we shall first present them in scholastic terminology. But in order to ascertain that we have grasped the actual sense of the matter, and are not just playing about with words, we shall seek to find our own terms, in which to render the pas-sages in question. While doing this we want to think together with the old masters in a vital manner; but not only with the old masters, but also with those who have resumed the ques-tion in their own way in our time . This is the necessary way especially for the present author, whose philosophical home is the school of Edmund Husserl, and whose native tongue, as far as philosophy is concerned, is the language of the phenomenologists. These only too few texts give us a glimpse of the mind and thought of Edith Stein. They hint at the way in which she strove to attain union with God through books and without alienating herself from her fellowmen. Any who is familiar with the work and life of Edith Stein knows that the application of these principles was not always easy: Edith Stein willed her way to holiness as a scholar; hers was no haphazard chance: she collaborated with divine grace with all the ardor of her semitic heart. EXISTENTIAL EXPERIENCE Nothing. happens by chance. Edith Stein contests the formula of Heidegger thrown into existence. In dense and direct sentences she attacks the weak spot of his ex-istentialist philosophy, she attacks the Geworfenheit: With this is expressed above all that man finds himself in existence, without knowing how he has come there . But with this the question of the "whence" has not been abolished. How-ever violently one may try to silence it or to forbid it as sense-less, it always rises again irresistibly from the peculiarity of hu-man being demanding a Being that is both the foundation of the former and its own foundation, needing no other, demand-ing the One who throws that which is "thrown." And with this the "being thrown" is revealed as creatureliness. In this text Edith Stein reveals herself to be truly a humanist: she has a keen and penetrating vision of the human situation. She writes with even greater acuity: The nothingness and transitoriness of its own being becomes clear to the Ego, if it takes possession of its own being by thought . It also touches it. through fear (Angst), which accompanies unredeemed man through life in many disguises ¯. but in the last resort as fear of his own non-being . How-ever, fear is not normally the dominant sensation (Lebensge- [iihl). This it becomes in cases which we describe as pathologi-cal; but normally we walk in great security as if our being was a certain possession . The reflecting analysis of our being by thought shows how little cause for such security there is in itself., the undeniable fact that my being is transitory., and exposed to the possibility of non-being is matched by the other, equally undeniable fact that, notwithstanding this transitoriness, I am and am kept in being from one moment to the other, and embrace a lasting Being in my transitory be-ing. I know myself held, and in this I have peace and se-curity- not the self-assured security of a man who stands in his own strength on firm ground, but the sweet and blissful se-curity of the child which is carried by a strong arm-~considered objectively, a no less reasonable security . Hence in my being I meet another, which is not mine, but is support and ground of my unsupported and groundless being. The dispositions of the unified soul of Edith Stein are revealed in the text we have just read where we notice the words "great security," "peace and security," "sweet and blissful security." The reason for this happy state does not lie in the Ego, but in the lasting Being whom we encounter when we enter deeply into ourselves. It is this encounter in man of God and man which should be the objective of every Christian scholar today, as in the Middle Ages. How can we come to recognize the supreme Being, He who is, in our own finite being? By reasoning or by faith: the latter was the way of the medieval monks; it was the way, too, of Edith Stein: The security of being, which I sense in my transitory being, points to an immediate anchoring in the last support and ground of my being . This is, indeed, only a very dark sensing, which one can hardly call knowledge . This dark sensing gives us the Incomprehensible One as the inescapably near One, in whom we "live and move and have our being," yet as the Incomprehensible One. Syllogistic thinking formu-lates exact notions, yet even they are incapable of apprehend-ing Him who cannot be apprehended; they rather place Him at ÷ ÷ ÷ Culture VOLUME 30, 1971 a distance, as happens with everything notional. The way of faith gives us more than the way of philosophical knowledge: it gives us the God of personal nearness, the loving and merci-ful One, and a certainty such as no natural knowledge can give. Yet even the way of faith is a dark way. This text shows how very close she was to her own age; she proves here that she allied the heritage of ancient masters with the modern mentality, more intuitive than that of Ancient Greece: the intelligence of Edith Stein was semitic, Biblical and it is this Biblical essence which makes her to be kith and kin with Medieval monastic humanists and scholars. THE SCHOLARLY NUN But there is more than a certain way of apprehending God which links Edith Stein to the monastic thinkers of the Middle Ages. Like them she renounced the secular seats of learning to give herself to God as a nun in a Carmelite convent. At first she gave herself entirely to the humble duties of a beginner in the monastic life; but later on, at the request of her superiors, she began to write and study again. One of her two works concerning mysticism has a very telling title: Kreuzeswissenschaft (Science of the Cross). It was written for the fourth centenary of the birth of St. John of the Cross, and in it we discern the insuffi-ciency of pure philosophical thinking for tackling prob-lems of mystical theology. There, too, we recognize Edith Stein--now Sister Benedicta of the Cross--the philoso-pher whose thought was always structured and subtended by rigorous methodological principles indicative of a dis-ciplined mind. A passage from the preface to Science o[ the Cross reveals this: In the following pages the attempt has been made to grasp John of the Cross from the unity of his being, as it is expressed ~n his life and in his works, from a point of view that makes it possible to envisage this unity . What is said there on the ego, freedom and person, is not derived from the writings of our holy Father John. Though certain points of contact may be found, such theories were remote not only from his leading intention but from his mode of thought. For only modern philosophy has set itself the task of working out a philosophy of the person such as has been suggested in the passages just mentioned. ÷ Once more we recognize the unifying [actor which was + characteristic of her own life; unity of being. And this + leads us to the last dilemma which we wish to mention. $ean Leclercq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 176 4. Harmony between Personal Experience and Serv-ice The question set here is how to share with others what we ourselves may have received in prayer: how may we legitimately share with Others our own personal experi-ence of God who reveals Himself to mankind? Divine revelation needs to be grasped by the human reason en-lightened by faith. It is faith alone that allows us to suck the honey out of the hard rock of the Scriptures. Learning is a help to deciphei'ing the letters, bfit the real key to Scriptural exegesis is faith contained in a pure heart--blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God. But the talent received must not be buried, it must be shared with others. Edith Stein writes: It may also happen that a sort of "office of the keys" is conferred on individuals or groups which have received the gift of Scriptural exegesis . To these spirits is given the office to transmit the light they receive . It is their duty to accept the Divine mysteries. . with. a purified mind .and to take charge of them. Th~s also ~mphes preaching and interpreting the Divine Word. Corresponding ~o the different modes and degrees of hiddenness, there are different modes and degrees of unveiling, degrees of office. Conclusion: The Science of the Cross There could be no better summary of all that has been said in this paper. At all periods, there is only one Chris-tian humanism, one Christian way of uniting love of learning with desire for God: the way of the cross, the narrow door of self-denial, the existential imitation of Jesus Christ, God made Man. When a scholar converts to God, dedicates his whole mind and heart to God in the carrying out of his professional duties of study or teaching, then, and only then, will he be a light shining in the darkness. Edith Stein tells us what she means by sicence of the cross: If we speak of the Science of the Cross, this is not to be understood as science in the ordinary sense: it is no mere theory . It is indeed known truth--a theology of the Cross~ but it is living, actual and active (wirkliche und wirksarne) truth: it is placed in the soul like a seed, takes root in her and grows, gives the soul a certain character and forms her in all she does or leaves undone, so that through this she herself shines forth and is recognized . From this form and force living in the depth of the soul is nourished the philosophy of this man and me way in which God and the world present themselves to him. For Edith Stein, as for every great and holy scholar throughout the ages, faith in God and His mystery are primordial: Where there is truly living faith, there the doctrines of the faith and the great deeds of God are the content of life, every-thing else must take second place and is formed by them. This is holy objectivity (heilige Sachlichkeit): the original interior receptivity of the soul reborn of the Holy Ghost. Whatever is brought to her, this she accepts in the proper way and depth; and it finds in her a living, mobile power ready to let itself be ÷ ÷ ÷ Culture VOLUME -~0, 1971 177 formed, and unhampered by false inhibitions and rigidity . If the mystery of the Cross becomes her inner form, then it becomes the science of the Cross. This science is a night, an absence: if we accept to believe in the divine Crucified then our language is silence for "All speaking about God presupposes God's speaking. His most real speaking is that before which human speech is silenced." ÷ ÷ + lean Leclercq REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 178 MARY-ANGELA HARPER A Layman's Response to Contemporary Religious While post-Vatican II laymen bustle about the business of shaping their new, enlarged role in the contemporary Church, many members of another segment of the People of God, the consecrated religious, without much notice from their lay brothers, are quietlyteari'ng themselves to shreds by agonizing selbcriticism. The general cause of this self-destruction seems to be a fear that traditional religious life is anachronistic both in form and purpose. The only hope for survival, these religious have decided, is radical change. To the laity, this "change" has meant new habits and new names and more frequent socializing. For the reli-gious, the speci.fics of change fall into one of two categor-ies: (a) concern with structures and relationships within the community and (b) concern with the function of reli-gious within the Christian community-at-large. On the one hand, therefore, religious .struggle with such questions as size and government, and with legisla-tion pertaining to prayer, work, recreation, and dress. And they scrutinize themselves as individuals to verify their personal authenticity. The criteria for this verifica-tion are contemporary philosophical and psychological definitions of man which emphasize the affective dimen-sion and the primacy of interpersonal relationships in meaningful human development. On the other hand, religious seek to identify the shape and character of their activities in a newly-valued, post-conciliar world that contemporary theologians recognize as not only redeemed but continually sanctified by Christ who abides within it. A genuine Christian mission, they believe, must be one of real involvement with the nuts and bolts of everyday living and a rubbing of shoulders with lay co-workers in the apostolic field that is the world. To be Christian missionaries, then, religious cannot ÷ ÷ Mary Angela Harper is chairman of the philosophy department; Dun-barton College o[ Holy Cross; Wash-ington, D.C. 20008. VOLUME ~0, 1971 179 4" M. A. Harper REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]80 live a less-than-human existence, above and apart from the rest of men. They must purge religious life of any alienating, stereotyped, and distorted image and of out-moded, restrictive characteristics such as traditional vows and lockstep community exercises. These must be re-placed by a new and more democratic concept of reli-gious community which allows each individual to de-velop his own capacities in freedom and love and by new forms of religious activity that permit creativity, sponta-neity, affectivity, and the celebration of a redeemed hu-manity. And all of this is taking place ~vith relatively little public notice or comment from the lay element of the People of God, for whose sake religious toil, and whose acceptance they seek. But more interestingly, these con-siderations, critical as they have been to religious, are of little pressing concern even to the better informed lay-men, who nnderstand and sympathize with the crisis in religious life. As laymen see it, the effectiveness (and, therefore, justification) of consecrated commitment de-pends not upon what religious wear, or what they are called, or on how they organize their daily lives. The layman primitively and primarily cares that religious con-tinue to achieve their unique, specific and indispensable mission--to point to God. Now surely it is presumptuous, if not absurd, for any-one to assume the position of spokesman for the laity-at-large. Every layman responds to the world and to people and to situations differently, depending upon the varia-ble factors of education, spiritual formation, and per-sonal experience. My own response to contemporary reli-gious is indeed conditioned by each of these factors. But it is also and especially determined by a specific view of our post-Vatican II world. The first statement pertaining to this contemporary Christian Weltanschauung main-tains that existence today is an organic, interpersonal complex, in which all individuals, loyal to their unique identities, nonetheless recognize that the perfection of this identity takes place in a process of completion by others. It is with others that each individual achieves his own identity, and together, by mutual interaction, that all attain the perfection of the whole that is our world. This is the characteristic of complementarity. But equally important is the correlative principle which maintains that this organic, interpersonal universe is sustained and vivified by belief in Christ who is God and in a divine kingdom in which humanity will be absolutely perfected. Authentic existence in the real world of today, then, is a life predicated upon interper-sonal cooperation, but simultaneously upon co-commun-ion in Christ as a pledge of the Parousia. All the People of God are bound together by a recognition of the neces-sity of others, which is reinforced and transfused by Christian love--the giving of the self to achieve the oth-er's perfection in Christ. And each thus con.tributes to the integral and absolute perfection of all in the kingdom of God. Now, if this "new look" of a nearly 21st century world turns on such an enlarged principle of complementarity, and if a meaningfully contemporary Christian world is a complex of Christ-loving, kingdom-seeking, mutually per-fecting human spirits, then distinction and difference is as significant as unanimity and wholeness, because with-out these characteristics, we might achieve fusion, but never complementation. Moreover, a lack of unique perfection in any individ-ual component in this interconnected, organic complex, is a loss, not only to the totum, but to all others as individuals. This was the message of Henri de Lubac ten years ago when he wrote of the Church as the "corporate destiny of mankind," and explained that "in the measure of [each one's] strength and according to his own voca-tion- for the gifts of the one spirit differ, and in the unity of one same body, each member has a different function--leach] will labour heart and soul to achieve it. If he fails fall] will feel it as a wound in [their] own flesh." 1 The uniqueness of the individual contribution gives a specific character to the whole Christian commu-nity which cannot be replaced by another. And the perfection of one is the perfection of all. And this is the message today when we use the term witness to identify the Christian mission in a post-Coun-cil world. William J. Richardson, S. J., has analyzed the contemporary notion of witness~ and notes that it "in-volves a double communion--communion, between the witness and the truth, or person to which/whom he testi-fies; [and also] a communion . between the truth/per-son and the tribunal or persons before whom the witness testifies." This double communion is suggested by the formulae being witness and bearing witness. To be a witness, Father Richardson says, is to be so identified with a person or truth that to deny these would be to deny oneself. Moreover, "the quality of witness will be measured by the intimacy of the union between the witness and the one to whom he testifies, the extent to which they become one." To bear witness is to share this person with other per- ¯ Henri de Lubac, S.J., Catholicism (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1958), p. 31. 2William J. Richardson, S.J., The University and the Formation of the Christian, an unpublished manuscript, copyrighted by the author, 1958. ÷ ÷ Layman's Response to Religious VOLUME 30, 1971 18! ÷ M. A. Harper REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 182 sons. And the result of the sharing is that the witness thereby grows more deeply in the communion himself because, within an interacting complex, he now contacts this reality through the communion of others which was heretofore denied him. All witnesses, therefore, enrich one another within the organic whole that is the testify-ing community, and achieve growth and perfection by an interpenetrating exchange of individual identity and meaning. Should the uniqueness of the individual be less-ened or lost, however, the totum would suffer irreparably. In terms of witness, this presence, this communication of meaning would be denied to the Christian community, which becomes radically impoverished. Now, what is the witness of consecrated religious? What do these men and women offer the Christian community and to each individual within it that is unique and indis-pensable, and without which each of us would suffer? Consecrated religious are witnesses, par excellence, to the Pilgrim Church, and to the truth that the Christian com-munity is, in fact, on its way to Almighty God. As Sidney Callahan has observed in Beyond Birth Con-trol, 3 present existence is 9ctually a life of incomplete-ness; perfection and completed history await the Parou-sia. "Those who choose [consecrated religious lives]", she says, "live the sign of incompleteness, of fulfillment to come, of aspiration to a more complete community and pe.rfect unity." By our own distinctive form of existence, we, the laity, witness to a restored creation which James O'Reilly ex-plains in "Lay and Religious States" 4 reveals "the power and goodness of business, marriage ~nd freedom [to] carry us toward the kingdom." By virtue of their distinc-tive state of life, consecrated religious witness to "the limited character of the goodness of property, of spouse [and] of liberty." ~ They give witness to the truth that although possessions and ownership, marital love and total psycho-physical unity, unlimited movement and op-portunity, are good, God is still better. No matter how intrinsically valuable these considerations may be, they do not suffice of themselves to bring human existence to completion and perfection. This can only be achieved by our releasing control and, in Father O'Reilly's words, letting the world "slip into the hands of God," 6 who saves and completes and perfects. Consecrated religious help us laymen to loosen our hold and to let go. 8Sidney Cornelia Callahan, Beyond Birth Control (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1968), p. 80. ~James O'Reilly, "Lay and Religious States," REviEw fOR REU-GiOOS, v. 27 (1968), pp. 1027-52. Ibid., p. 1051. Ibid. Such a minor miracle is wrought by their reminder to us of our need to be pilgrims. And this they effect by their public vow of total commitment to a communal life manifestly lived in poverty, celibacy, and obedience (or whatever language they choose to signify these realities), which reinforce in us the truth that one gain~ by giving. We, who behold such a commitment, and recognize it as the foundation of all human religious development--and who may even be living these values, though in a less concentrated, less explicit form--we look to religious for inspiration and for guidance. And by their spirit of sim-ple frugality, availability, and openness, they sustain us in our efforts to rightfully enrich this world, and to de-velop and fulfill our human personalities, but with hearts turned heavenward. To this end, religious provide us with a working model of persons-in-c~ommunity and of a united humanity. In the day-to-day liv.ing of this value, they confront us with the actual experience of availability and generosity which reminds us of our need for others, and of our obligation to care and to spend ourselves for one another. By their refusal to seek perfection in isolation, manifesting instead responsibility for others within (and beyond) their com-munity, they instruct us that the meaning of authentic human freedom involves limitation and amounts to de-termined- indetermination. And by refusing to choose those with whom they live on the basis of common inter-ests or congeniality, they instruct us that the comm~unity of man must be a gathering together, not for personal gratification, but rather to share and reenforce one an-other in the love of God. Consecrated religious help us to reconcile apparent conflicts between the human and the divine by their pure, simple, and direct vision, which embraces both man and God in a single gaze. And by their evident spirit of prayer, they redirect our consciousness, not exclusively outward to legitimate worldly cqncerns, but inward to the center of our being, where we contact ourselves most truly, and discover here that our own meaning is rooted in a divine source. And they bring us a joy that seems to us to shine forth from the wellsprings of their personal communion with the divine; and we warm ourselves in its brightness, and feel it, somehow, transform us. Nor are these merely psychological phenomena, wrapped around us like a security blanket. We are, I think, well adjusted, often well educated laymen, quite convinced of our dignity as laymen. We are not having an identity crisis. In fact, quite to the contrary, we have discovered ourselves, and the significance of our roles as mature Christians, for the first time in history. But we also believe in the necessity and intrinsic value of a reli-÷ ÷ ÷ Layman's Response to Religious VOLUME 30, 1971 183 + + 4. M. A. Harper REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]84 gious liIe o[ total commitment to God. We acknowledge the indispensable contribution it makes to the Christian community and sincerely belie;ce that this contribution depends upon the preservation of its unique sign-value. Moreover, we hope that it will be meaningfully and truly implemented. Such "true" implementation, in the mind of the lay-men, involves certain conditions, however. First of all, the laity expect religious to be honestly poor. Such pov-erty the layman does not confuse with destitution, but rather understands as involving what the Duquesne Uni-versity Institute of Man program refers to as a "respectful use and celebration of things natural and cultural as gifts of the holy." We appreciate the fact that books, facilities, time, and recreational opportunities are necessary for the religious to function professionally. But we also expect evidence of what Ladislas M. Orsy, S. J. calls "the effica-cious desire to give away [everything] in the name of God's kingdom." 7 All this world's bounty,, therefore, could be employed naturally, intelligently, and happily, but with the evident and effective intention of always viewing the acquisition and use of created goods (including the self) in the con-text of community. Moreover, this intention would em-brace a life-style modeled on that of Christ Himself, whose life was one of frugal simplicity, of reverence for creation, and of availability to all men. Secondly, the laity respond appreciatively to the celi-bate state when it is conceived (to borrow again from the Institute of Man) as involving a "respectful love of self and others as uniquely called and graced by the Sacred." Such love would seek to establish r.elationships of friend-ship with fellow religious and laity, and these would be humanly warm and expressive and unstrained by old fears of compromise and contamination by sexual compli-cations- phobias that have happily been laid to rest.It would presuppose a genuine rejoicing in the goodness of the lay role and the married state and preclude an artifi-cial hierarchical understanding of vocations or distorting comparison of functions based on measures of perfection. And, of course, it would thoroughly dispose of any "mys-tique" of religious life. Celibate love knows that each state of life is necessary to the other, and that each develops in perfection and grace in terms of its counterpart.8 It understands that re-ligious and laity must be wholly open to one another as persons in our contemporary Christian world, because 7 Ladislas M. Orsy, S.J., "Poverty in the Religious Life," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, V. 26 (1967), pp. 60--82. sSee David B. Burrel], C.S.C., "Complementarity," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, V. 26 (1967), pp. 149-60, for a discussion of this point. this is the sine qua non of both human friendship and Christian love. To this end, it welcomes opportunities to join the laity in their homes for occasions of social sig-nificance, and also cordially unlocks the cloister doors so that laymen may breathe of the spirit that uniquely dwells there. But in all these interpersonal relationships, the laymen expects that celibate love will be permeated and directed by a necessary wisdom which is sensitive to the priority of God's relationship to each soul, and efficaciously con-cerned not to frustrate God's plan for it. Thirdly, laymen expect religious, whether they be "subordinates" or "superiors" (or whatever new titles they use) to live a life of genuine obedience. Such a life is nurtured and guided by a r~spectful alertness to what the Institute of Man calls "the dynamics of the life situation as a temporal and local manifestation of God." This means that all elements of a religious community must be finely tuned-in to the real and concrete and changing needs of the world and the Church. It means, in fact, redefining obedience as the act of listening--listening to the will of almighty God making itself explicit through the Scriptures, indeed, but also through the events of the world, the activities of daily living, and through personal contacts with us laymen. In the light of this concept of obedience as listening, the specific authority structures of a religious community seem to us relatively unimportant. What matters is that all members, including "superiors" (and presumably there will always be someone who formally accepts re-sponsibility for the community), to appreciate the neces-sity of others in the decision-making process. They must understand that this imperative follows from the incom-pleteness of any individual in value and operation, and from everyone's need for complementation and perfect-ing. Finally, but actually firstly, the laity expect consecrated religious to be men and women well versed in the art of prayer. We have observed that their prayer life produces an intimacy .with almighty God that penetrates their whole being; and we have often experienced the truth that contact with them is a happy, homely contact with the Divine. Somehow, laymen find it difficult to speak easily or publicly with loving familiarity of God, and tend to tuck Him away for private moments. Yet our hearts respond with almost childlike delight when reli-gious women and men effect His presence in our midst by their relaxed reference to the divine Person who is their friend. But His presentation must also be honest. He must be there as the genuine beloved, or the introduction will .generate resentment and distrust and even, some-÷ ÷ + Layman's Response to Religi'ous VOLUME ~0, 1971 ÷ ÷ M. A. Ha~per times, contempt. And, of course, regular, vital, personal prayer makes the difference--prayer for which action is no substitute. But laymen do expect religious to be action people as well. They expect to find religious present in all situa-tions of want, be these physical poverty, or infirmity, or social injustice, and to support the laity in their human commitment to one another. Moreover, we welcome them to work alongside us in our professions, which we hope and anticipate they will competently enrich by their unique intimacy with and witness tQ. Christ. In all these activities, however, we ask the consecrated religious not to blur their identity with ours. Such blur-ring does not necessarily take place by their choosing ordinary lay clothing instead of traditional habits, though many laymen appreciate some sort of identifiable although contemporary dress or insignia for professional or public appearances, and the reserving of anonymity for private occasions. More to the point is the signaling of God's kingdom mentioned before--the "pilgrim witness" which per-meates the entire personality of the consecrated religious. In the rhythmic, interpenetrating flow of action between the human and the divine in all Christian lives, the lay-man publishes and protects the human. But it is the consecrated religious who points to the divine, and who must give this sign the highest visibility. In days gone by, such visibility was carefully prescribed by rules which governed all aspects of religious life, in-cluding prayer, dress, and general decorum. Today it is a matter of individual responsibility, and each religious must seek ways to radiate God in his own life, and by his own style--a difficult project, indeed, with the old guide-lines gone, and none very clear or precise to take their place. No wonder there have been dark moments of con-fusion, insecurity, and doubts. And the worst may be yet to come as religious-in-transition continue to probe and test their inspirations. During all their struggles, however, we laymen want religious to trust and draw strength from our loyalty and devotion, and from our great confidence that religious will solve their problems and, in their own proper way, continue to mature in Christ. But, most importantly, on every occasion of solicited or unsolicited criticism from us post-Council laymen, we want religious to understand and believe how humanly and eschatalogically, but uniquely, we need them! REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 186 BENEDICT M. ASHLEY, O.P. Toward an American Theology of Contemplation Introduction In* the process of renewal of religious life in the United States no question is more polarizing than the role of "contemplation" in religious life today. Some-how Americans have always had difficulty about this question. At the time of the confused "Americanism" controversy in the 1880's, among other errors supposed to be prevalent in the American Church Leo XIII con-demned the emphasis on the active rather khan the con-templative life.1 In a recent history of the Dominican fathers in the United States, The American Dominicans, Father Reginald Coffey has made very clear how the attempt to transplant the Dominican ideal of "contem-plata aliis tradere" ran into astonishing difficulties which have never been resolved after 170 years of earnest effort.2 What is true of the Dominicans. can be paralleled in most of the other" religious orders who came to this coun-try. We cannot ignore this experience, nor assume that the difficulty has arisen because we just have not tried hard enough. Perhaps the reason is that we have been trying to do the impossible and have not had the intellectual courage to think the whole matter through to a better and more practical solution. We have tried to import into American culture a mode of the awareness of God * This article is based on a talk originally given to a meeting of the Dominican Education Association in Atlantic City, April 2 1970. 1See T. T. McAvoy, C.S.C., The American Heresy in Roman Catholicism, 1895-1900 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 196~). ~Reginald Coffey, O.P., The American Dominicans (New York: St. Martin de Porres Guild, 141 East 65th St., 1968). 4- Benedict Ashley, O.P., is a member of the Institute of Religion and Hu-man Development; Texas Medical Cen-ter; Houston, Texas 77025. VOLUME 30, 1971 187 B. M. Ashley, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 188 which arose in European culture and which can be achieved in our culture only with strain and artificiality. After all, God reveals Himself to men in the way that He chooses; and He ordinarily chooses a mode of revela-tion suited to their concrete experience and style of life. If contemplation is to be vital for us it must arise from a contact with God present in our world, not in the world of the 13th century, nor the 17th nor the 19th, nor in an artificial world created by a romantic love of the past. Just as we realize there is something decadent in building Gothic churches as if God could only be found in a particular style of architecture, so it is deca-dent to seek a form of prayer in a style of life that is only artificially re-created. We need to study our own culture and see whether in its system of values there is room for an authentic contemplative life. Pragmatism The United States of America as a people began with a theological conception of its mission. Our most influ-ential founders saw this country as a promised land, "the land of opportunity" in which God had given mankind a new chance to realize the kingdom of God, freed from the traditional compromises which the Church had made in Europe with tyrannical monarchies.3 This conception of mission was reenforced by the ac-tual experience of the pioneers in possessing the land, then of American government and business in applying scientific methods of organization and technology to the control of the environment and to the mass education and human development of the people. These experiences have given us a particular under-standing of what truth is. Our most dominant philosophy under thinkers like James, Peirce, and Dewey expresses this idea of truth as.pragmatic or instrumental. Some have understood this philosophy to mean that truth is valuable only as a practical instrument. A study of Dewey will show that this is a misunderstanding. Americans do not limit truth to the role of a mere tool of action, but what they say is that unless truth is effective, unless it leads to change, to growth, to progress, to the liberation of man, it cannot be genuine truth. It follows that the traditional Greek idea of "contem-plation" is very hard for an American to grasp. What do you contemplate? If it is the world or ourselves, then to know the world and ourselves is to see something that ~On the concept of an American theology see the symposium Projections: Shaping an American Theology [or the Future, ed. by Thomas F. O'Meara, O.P. (Garden City: Doubleday, 1970); and Herbert Richardson, Towards an American Theology (New York, 1967). needs to be improved and freed from its restrictions. If you say we contemplate God, then the American says: "Why should I look at God from a distance? If I really engage God as a person, then we must do something to-gether. Surely God is not idl~. To be with God is to engage with Him in His work, and His work is with His world and the people who are His people. We can understand working with someone, we can understand playing with someone, but just looking at some one. !" Tradition Americans experience the past as something foreign (Europe, Mexico, the Far East). As such it fascinates us, and the world is filled with American archaeologists and anthropologists and historical researchers digging into the past and the primitive. But the value, of the past for us is that it tells us "how far we have come" and encourages us to change even more. It does not set for us a norm or a stamp of approval on what we are now doing. In fact, we are inclined to be uneasy if we realize that we are still doing what men found useful in the past. If it was useful then, surely it can be only a hindrance now when we live in such a different age. When we do admire something traditional it is precisely b~cause it is still a success. We marvel that its originators could have been so foresighted, but there must be experiential proof that it still works. From this point of view a young American religious can admire the founder of his order for being so "mod-ern" in the sense that for his times he was forward-look-ing. But the reason, above all, that our vocations are few and that so many younger people leave is that it appears to them that the religious orders are not preparing for the future. To speak to persons of this mentality about the "nnchanging essentials" of religious life. and its time-tested means of silence, cloister, Office, and study that have produced so many saints in the past, is precisely to confirm their greatest fear that their order lives in the past. A young Dominican I know once said: "Our Order is no longer the Order of Trutk, since if it possessed the Truth it would be changing to meet the future. Truth is the capacity to change for the future." Thus, if contemplation is a call to withdraw into the silence of the cloister, to spend much of the day in the chapel at Office or in the library studying the documents of the past in order to occasionally preach a sermon or deliver a lecture, it is not easy to see how this fidelity to the "tried and true" methods of tradition is anything but a "cop-out" from problems of the present. It is worse than taking drugs, because the use of drugs is turning people on to new experiences, while the old monastic ÷ ÷ ÷ Contemplation VOLUME 30~ 1971 189 B. M. Ashley, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS methods seem in actual fact to close people up in stale routines. Prophecy There is a kind of divine truth which the American mind can appreciate, the truth of prophecy. Authentic prophecy, in Biblical terms, is an interpretation and criticism of the present, which also has the effective power to produce the future. It is a call to man to act in co-operation with God, and it announces the doom of him who hesitate~. It is a pragmatic truth in the deepest sense. Writers on contemplation generally emphasize that it is a receptivity or openness to transcendent reality. With-out this receptivity human activity becomes feverish, shallow, and ineffective. I think Americans respond with real understanding to this concept of openness. It is no accident that our country has produced in the psychiatrist' Carl Rogers a remarkable exponent of the "art of listen-ing" who has shown that the basis of all human life is the capacity to be really open to the communication of another person, a communication deeper than mere words.4 But notice the great difference between the American idea of openness and receptivity and that of the monastic tradition as we have ordinarily tried to live it. To be open in the American sense one has to be in the midst of the world and of persons, in the situations where peo-ple are interacting and where God is bringing people together. The monastery seems ideally designed to close people off from one another, and hence to God. What the American tends to see in the monastic tradi-tion is essentially a dualism. There is a dualism of the body and the mind, of matter and spirit, of the world and the cloister, the secular and the sacred, the active and the contemplative. What he protests against is not the mind, the spirit, the cloister, the sacred, or contem-plation, but a tradition which seems to force us to di-chotomize these and to prefer one to the other, or even to make one the basis of the other. The American be-lieves that there must be a contemplative, receptive ele-ment in communication but it is part of a rhythm of action and reception, of interaction. It makes no sense, therefore, to argue that "we contemplate in order to give to others." The giving and receiving are joined in a single activity. We are learning about reality as we act to change it or to communicate with it. *Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961), Chapter 1: "This Is Me." Criticism I think I have said enough to show why the.terms in which traditional books discuss the problem of contem-plation make little sense to young Americans and, I would think, to young Europeans also, because in this the American style of thought has taken a lead throughout the world. It is not true, however, that Americans accept this pragmatic attitude without criticism. To see the need of prophecy as a criticism of our times entails also an attitude of self-criticism. In this the American fondness for depth-psychology, "group dynamics," and "sensitivity training" is characteristic. Americans are seeking a pecu-liar mode of asceticism which involves an exposure of hidden motives to the scrutiny of others. The American is haunted by the fear that he cannot change, that he cannot grow because of fixations, because of blindness and illusion. He is anxious, therefore, to uncover in himself the obstacles to growth. At the present Americans are engaged in-deep self-criticism. We realize that in one sense and paradoxically we are the most conservative country in the developed World. The rapidity of change in the United States has driven the "silent majority" of our people into a defen-sive position. The silent majority (if it is that) iti our religious convents is only a reflection of that frightened conservatism which pervades the whole of American so-ciety. This has produced an atmosphere which is near panic and despair. Americans are deeply frightened that at this moment when we feel so desperately the need to meet the future we will be unable to do so, that we are already locked int6 structures (which we ourselves built) and which we cannot dismantle rapidly enough. The racial problem or the poverty problem in the United States is typical. All of us, even the most conservative really admit that racial discrimination and poverty must go; but we are afraid that the strains of accomplishing this will be more [han we as a society can undertake in a short time, and that tomorrow it will be too late. This self-criticism is, therefore, terribly urgent for the American, and it must be radical. It cannot simply be a matter ~f "adaptation," nor can it be a matter of changing the "accidentals" and retaining the "essentials." We do not think in those terms. What we need, we think, is a new model. It may retain many features of the old, but it must constitute somehow a new response to the future. This entails the serious consideration of whether we should retain the traditional forms of religious life or whether it is necessary to begin new ones. This does not entail, please, notice, that Americans ÷ ÷ ÷ Contemplation VOLUME 30, 1971 191 ÷ + ÷ B. M. Ashley, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS a priori want new and American forms of religious life. Our pragmatism is deeper than that. We are perfectly ready to keep the existing orders if they are el~ective, but not otherwise. Inherent in this self-criticism is also the growing reali-zation that American culture is itself quite sick, and that one of its deep sicknesses is activism. Throughout Amer-ican culture in the most unlikely places there is a strong reaction against pragmatism cbnceived as a religion of success and material productivity. These are seen as de-humanizing, as reducing man to a servant of the ma-chine, of things. Thus American pragmatism is taking a new and purified form. It is still a conviction that truth must be effective, but the effect sought is not material; it is rather to be judged in terms of "the quality of life," a widened and deepened experience, a more intimate communication with other persons, a freer realization of man's creative potential. Experimentalism The outcome of this is that young Americans are looking hopefully to pluralism and experimentalism. Theologically this is understood by many young Catho-olics as the liberating work of the Holy Spirit who dis-tributes His diverse gifts to individuals and groups. In religious life this means a diversity of "life-styles" and apostolates. The danger here, of course, is that the unity of a religious community will be completely disrupted. Sociologists are among the first to warn us that the weak-ening structures and symbols of group unity may render a community completely dysfunctional. However, the advocates of this pluralism and experi-mentalism join it with an insistence on communica-tion, evaluation, feed-back: They do not propose a proc-ess of splintering, but rather a rhythm of changing life in which forms are developed through an interchange of experiences and ideas, and then constantly revised in view of ongoing experience and new ideas. In such a conception it becomes hopeless to talk about "essentials" and "adaptations," and the discussion rather takes the form of talking about "the enrichment of values." The Basic Question Perhaps nothing is more crucial in "this question than the diagnosis which each side makes of the "signs of our times." A recent writer on the renewal of religious life, while conceding many pgsitive aspects to the present sit-uation, singles out as our deepest sickness our secularism, and "insensitivity to the transcendent." ~ This means that for him God is primarily the transcendent, and that He is to be found, therefore, by the various monastic tech-niques by which a man turns away from the noise of the world to the silence beyond the world. This, however, is the very point in question. Is God to be known primarily as "the transcendent?" He may have revealed himself in the monastic period" of the Church primarily in that way, and through the practices of silent and cloistered meditation. But is this the way that He has willed to reveal Himself today? After all, to accept an historical view of revelation as most theologians do today, also entails the conviction that God reveals Him-self to men historically in a way specific to the time. Our problem becomes, therefore, to search for God to-day where He reveals Himself and according to the man-ner in which He, as Lord of History, dictates, not ac-cording to some tradition, however venerable. Our younger people have the conviction that somehow this point of revelation is precisely in the secular, in the pov-erty and the need of our world. This need felt by the world is not an explicit religious need. Rather it is a simple human need of justice, of love, and of peace, but it is authentic need, and that is why God is to be found there. After all Jesus Himself said: "I was poor, hungry, ¯ naked, and in prison, and you did not visit me." ¯ Receptivity Are we then to lose ourselves in meeting the social problems of our time? Is there not a real danger that tak-ing the form of our life from the apostolate we will simply become humanitarian activists? We already see many who are leaving religious life to engage themselves as lay persons in the problems of the world and who in a short time seem to have lost all prophetic sense and simply to have succumbed to the dead routine of com-mercial society. How then can we develop a sincere re-ceptivity to the word of God? It appears incredible to our younger people that this is to be achieved by a return to "conventual life" in its monastic form. Nothing in their experience points this way. Nor do they see in us older religious very convincing proofs that this type of life has in fact made us receptive to what God is doing today. Rather they see that the conservative advocates of regular observance were and are closed to the work of the spirit which has manifested itself in Vatican II in a manner whose authenticity cannot be mistaken. ~Valentine Walgrave, O.P., Do~ninican Self-Appraisal in the Light of the Council (Chicago: Priory, 1968), pp. 112-20. ÷ ÷ + Contemplation VOLUME 30, 1971 193 ÷ ÷ ÷ B. M. Ashley, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS The first step, therefore, to a renewal of genuine re-ceptivity to the Spirit, to authentic contemplation, is an awakened sensitivity to the world's needs, to the 15resente of Jesus in the poor, the suffering, and the despairing. There is, however, a danger that concern for social ills will become a mere "cause," an abstract party ideology little concerned with real people, as Marxism has be-come. To be Christian this concern for the poor and re-ceptivity to their needs must be brought close to home and must become a receptivity to the persons in our daily lives. Hence, we cannot achieve a renewal of the contemplative spirit unless we begin with an increased sensitivity to the human needs of those around us, an openness to dialogue, a freedom of communication. This ability to hear others and to respond to them is hindered by our own lack of self-understanding, which al-lows barriers of communication to grow within us. In the past these walls against others have actually been reenforced by the conventual observances so that nnder the guise of seeking to be more receptive to God we have closed ourselves off to our neighbors. The parable of the Good Samaritan summarizes the tragic fact that religious purity can be an excuse for "passing by on the other side." This growth in self-understanding can, of course, lead to self-centeredness, just as the practice of meditation and examination of conscience sometimes did. The remedy for this excessive subjectivity is study. Books cannot sub-stitute for experience, but experience in interpersonal re-lations does not necessarily produce deeper insight unless it is accompanied by study. If we are to be prophetic men and women we must make use of all the knowledge ¯ ~hich modern science furnishes to help us understand man and his condition; and we must push this explora-tion to its philosophical and theological depths. Perhaps our greatest danger at the moment is to settle for a psy-chological view of man which is positivistic in character and which does not push behind positivist assumptions to the basic problems of human existence. When we speak of study, however, it cannot be a study of texts. In America today, more and more the advance of learning is pulling itself free from the printed page and is becoming a matter of the laboratory, the clinic, the symposium, the workshop. A group of men and women, therefore, who are to be a community of study today will not look like a monastic library or scriptorium; but it will be in constant contact with the gathering of empirical data and the debating of theoretical hypotheses. Because in our times a prophet must also be deeply involved in professional life, he can become overly cere-bral, a human computer. He must fight free of getting trapped in the narrow world of scientic and technological rationalism. If religious life is to foster a prophetic open-ness to reality, it must not reduce our energies to the lim-its of efficient work and productive routine. The esthetic, creative, and spiritual components of human personality must be awakened and developed. The dualism which infected Christian asceticism in the past often led to an atmosphere in which we became closed to all reality which threatened the arousal of our emotions. A certain type of Thomism closed us up in a tight world of defini-tions and classifications that excluded much of God's world of beauty, mystery, and experiential insight. If we are to be open to the prophetic Spirit we must make place in our lives for genuine celebration, the praise of God in His world. The Divine Office originated in such a spirit of praise, but that does not mean that it is today a genuine celebration. Nor are we sure that it can be. In any case we have the obligation to find a way to celebrate our community life in God if we are to be a prophetic community. American life today in a country that possesses half of the world's wealth is clear proof that our riches, which could be the solution to world poverty, are the chief cause of our apathy to poverty. This is true also of our search for security in sex and family, in personal au-tonomy and professional competence. We cannot criti-cize this idolatrous American search for security if our conventual life is itself aimed at security. Thank God, we are becoming insecure! Our decline in vocations is forcing us to liquidate our property and to face a doubt-ful future. We are frightened by the decline in apprecia-tion for celibacy. Is not this the payment for our lack of poverty? If we have a genuine eschatological sense of the urgency of the world's problems--if we were expect-ing to go to jail soon for our share in the revolution-- then celibacy would become very logical. This is true also of obedience. Obedience makes-sense when it is a response to a leadership ready to risk all. American Monasticism Does all this mean that there is no place in American culture for monks or nuns devoted to the contemplative life without an exterior apostolate? The life of Thomas Merton was a sign for us that such a conclusion would be too hasty.0 Americans dislike the ancient dualism be-tween contemplation and action, but they do understand the principle of specialization. If contemplation as a ~ Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer (New. York: Herder and Herder, 1969). 4- 4- + Contemplation VOLUME 30, 1971 195 ÷ ÷ ÷ B. M. Ashley, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 196 value is to be vigorous in American life it must have its specialists. We look to such specialists of contemplation, however, for a pragmatic demonstration that is convincing to our times. Merton provided such a test by showing that his life in the hermitage had made him more sensitive to the problems and opportunities of our times than most of us in active life. If the cloister is to draw young Americans, it should not offer them a retreat from the world, but a place to confront the issues of our time in an intense encounter where every illusion is stripped away. Most of us see our times through the TV screen carefully in-terlaced with commercials whose message is middle-class complacency. If we are to have cloisters, they must be places in which contemplatives look reality square in the face. Far from destroying the monastic tradition this would be a return to its original inspiration which, according to Father Bouyer, was not to escape the world and its evils but to confront them in the desert of unflinching truth, like Jesus "who was led into the desert by the Spirit to be tried by the devil." 7 This requires a rethinking of the traditional monastic means of silence, choral prayer, discipline, and the clois-ter so as to make these truly effective means to a profound self-knowledge, a knowledge of ourselves not cut off from the world, but as responsible for it. It means too that the insight achieved must be shared with others by modes of communication that are effective in our society, and it is here that the deep American interest in com-munications verbal and non-verbal must come into play. The Active Religious Communities Those religious communities dedicated to an active exterior apostolate, if they are to root that apostolate in the authentic receptivity of spirit required to hear the word of God calling to us from crisis situations, need to get to work on the following objectives: 1. Our first objective must be to locate and operate our communities in situations where we will be forced to confront the problems of our time. We must seek a form of life which does not permit us to protect our-selves by false securities from the urgency of the situa-tions which make a prophetic witness a constant demand upon us. Our obedience, chastity, and poverty must be-come functional because they are necessary for us in our r Louis Bouyer, The Spirituality of the New Testament and the Fathers (New York: Descl~e, 1963), especially Chapter 13: "The Origins of Monasticism," pp. 300-3. state of emergency. Our security must be in faith and hope in God alone. 2. Our next objective should be to support each other in this common emergency through a community life that is based on a spirit of openness, receptivity/and di-alogue. A pluralism of life styles and points of view must be combined with a vigorous effort for greater unity .through experiment and dialogue. We must encourage the emergence of leadership, and we must foster the gifts of the Spirit in each member of the community. 3. We must break through the current tendency to faddism and a superficial copying of the techniques of scientific positivism to a deeper, prophetic understanding of man and his problems in the light of the Gospel. This demands that our communities be places of research and study where people of different experiences and compe-tencies can meet to raise penetrating questions and en-gage in mutual criticism of opinions. 4. In order to achieve this openness and to be able to meet the conflict involved in the clash of opinions and tendencies we must in our communities seek a profound purification of the spirit. We should not neglect the techniques provided by modern psychology'and sociology to help us overcome immature and prejudiced modes of thinking, feeling, and acting. Beyond this we must by a disciplined simplicity of life and by personal and com-munity prayer open the way to the action of God's grace. 5. We must find the courage for this renewal in a spirit of celebration of the presence of God in the world and in our community through liturgical prayer and through a genuine enjoyment of friendship in the com-munity and with those we serve. The Eucharist and the praise of God must become for us the fundamental life styIe which unites us in a pluralism of expression and activities. Some will ask: When in all this complex of activities will we come face to face with God, alone and in silence? Can there be genuine contemplation without this naked confrontation? There cannot be. But it is God Himself who calls us to face Him. If He does not call, then we cannot find Him. Therefore, the beginning of our contemplative re-newal must be to answer Him where and when He calls ÷ to us. It seems that today in the United States God is ÷ calling us not in a silent cloister, which is hardly to be + found, but in the situations of fear and doubt, in the desert of alienation, and at the gates of hope where Jesus stands side by side with suffering men and women. We must meet Him there with faith. It is my belief that a religious community which takes this step will be Contemplation VOLUME 30, 1971 197 more truly obedient, chaste, poor, charitable, studious, prayerful, receptive of God's word, and urgently driven to bring God's word to others in their need, than a com-munity which applies itself to some illusion of con-ventual observance. What then is my conclusion? Our American experience shows a great need today of a prophetic mission which will enable men to find God at work in the critical situations of our society. No doubt there is also need of men and women who so feel the urgency of this pro-phetic task, that they are willing to put aside economic, family, and individual securities, to work as a commu-- nity to help the larger community of the Church per-form this task better. Such a community cannot fulfill its prophetic mission unless it is deeply engaged in the world's problems, but it cannot be content to meet these problems superficially. It must penetrate them to the deepest level where God reveals Himself. This implies a search for God in our life together in tl~e world made ever more profound by study, dialogue, discipline, prayer, suffering, and celebration. ÷ ÷ ÷ B. M. AshleT, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 198 BERNARD VERKAMP Cultic Purity and the Law,of Celibacy The situation as a whole of the early Church, Jean Paul Audet has noted, was one of tremendous simpli-fication. 1 With this simplification came a general flexi-bility, which also found expression in the early structures of the Christian priesthood. Both in the service of the gospel and the ecclesia, the early Christians broke out of the fixed patterns of a sacral priesthood, and freely adopted whatever structures most suited their work." Thus, to come to the subject of our present concern, while some chose to leave their wives or husbands, others, the majority, continued to pursue their mission out of the context of a married and home life.s What is most sig-nificant, however, is that neither one nor the other style of life was thought to be, in itself, incompatible with service. Both were viable options. And such was to re-main the case throughout the first centuries of Christi-anity. In the year 305, however, nineteen bishops from differ-ent parts of Spain gathered at the Synod of Elvira and issued along with various other very stringent measures,4 the following canon touching upon the marital status of the clergy: Placuit in totum prohibere episcopis, presbyteris et diaconi-bus vel omnibus clericis positis in ministerio abstinere se a 1 j. p. Audet, Structures of Christian Priesthood, New York, 1968, p. 80. "~ Ibid., p. 79. ~ Ibid., p. 41. ~ Canon 13 states that a virgiu consecrated to God and committing a carnal sin could receive communion only at the end of her life and after perpetual penance. Bishops, priests, and deacons detected in fornication were, according to Canon 18, to be denied communion for the rest of their lives. And, according to Canon 71, pederasts were not to be admitted to communion even on their deathbeds (Hefele-Leclerq, Histoire des Conciles, Paris, 1907, 1.1, pp. 212-264). ÷ ÷ ÷ Father Bernard Verkamp, a doc-toral candidate in the St. Louis Uni-versity Divinity School, lives at 3658 West Pine Boulevard; St. Louis, Mo. 63108. VOLUME 30, 1971 199 ÷ ÷ ÷ B. Verkamp REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS '~00 conjugibus suis et non generare filios: quicumque vero [ecerit, ab honore clericatus exterminetur? While stating exactly the opposite, the synod appar-ently meant to forbid bishops, priests, and deacons from continuing sexual relations with their wives.~ Nothing is said about separation of the clerics from their wives; only that they may not relate sexually. There is no ques-tion here of the synod desiring to render the clergy more available for apostolic service. Rather is the prohibition clearly motivated by a concern for cultic purity. This conclusion is further supported by,the phrasing of the canon: ".vel omnibus clericis positis in ministerio." Were this phrase disjunctive, it might have been in-tended only to extend the prohibition to yet another class of clergy, namely, subdeacons. But, in all likelihood,; it is meant to be explicative--with "vel" meaning "id est" --so that the canon must read: "It pleases us to forbid absolutely bishops, priests, and deacons, that is, all clerics engaged in the service of the altarS., from relating sex-ually to their wives and having children." Combining as it does such a variety of elements, it is difficult to say exactly when and by whom this notion of cultic purity was first ushered into Christianity.° But "Canon 1, Hefele-Leclerq, pp. 238-239. " Literally, the canon forbids bishops, priests, and deacons to abstain from intercourse and not to have children. Such a prohibi-tion might have made sense some eighty years later in Spain when the Priscillian brand of Manichaeism was rampant, but not in the Spain of 305. The rigorist tone of all the other canons of this synod would suggest too that the synod did mean the exact opposite of what it actually declared. This conclusion is further supported by the fact that one of the prime agitators for legislation against clerical marriage at the Council of Nicea in 325 was the Spanish bishop Hosius (Hefele-Leclerq, p. 621). 7 See Martin Boelens, Die Klerikerehe in der Gesetzgebung der Kirche, Paderborn, 1968, p~ 39. s p. Harkx, The Fathers on Celibacy, Des Peres, 1968, p. 16, takes "positis in ministerio" to mean "appointed to orifice." But Audet, Structures, p. 13, notes that in the Christian Latin of the period, when referring to pastoral service, the ministerium was generally seen as a sacrum ministerium, that is, as a service of the altar. ~Certainly its introduction was aided to some extent by the disparagement of sex which, despite the Church's rejection of the encratic sects spawned by Gnosticism, began, as early as Athenagoras, to gain ground within Christian circles; see Athenagoras, Supplicatio pro Christi 33, PG 6, 965-967; Minutius Felix, Octavius 31, PL 3, 335-338; Tertullian, Ad Uxorem I, 3, PL 1, 1277-1279; Clement of Alexandria, Christ the Educator 11, "Fathers of the Church," v. 23, New York, 1954, pp. 169f; Sextus, Sentences 230-233, ed. H. Chad-wick, Cambridge, 1959, p. 39. The trend toward sacralization received a major stimulus from Cyprian in the 3rd century; see Letters 1 and 67, "Fathers of the Church," v. 51, Washington, 1964, pp. 3-5 and 232. From Cyprian onward the Old Testament example of the Aaronic priesthood and its laws of periodic continency (Lev 22:3; Lev 15:18; Ex 19:15; 1 Sam 21:5) were appealed to more and more frequently as a model for the Christian priesthood. once introduced, it quickly established itself and became during the next fifteen hundred years the predominant rationale behind the legislation of clerical c6ntinency.1° For more than two hundred years after Elvira, all the legislation regarding the marital status of the clergy in the Western Church11 was solely directed toward pro-hibiting sexual intercourse between the higher clergy and their wives. Not until the Synod of Gerona in 517 did the Spanish bishops require separation. And in other coun-tries such legislation came still later. This fact, in itself, would suggest that throughout those two hundred years clerical continency was motivated almost solely by a con-cern for cultic purity. What other evidence is available supports that conclusion. Outside of Elvira, there was almost no legislation re-garding clerical marriage in the Western Church during the first seventy years of the 4th century.12 But in the 1°This is not, of course, to imply any judgment about the rationale for the chastity of religious men or women during the same period. Our present concern is only with the legislation of clerical celibacy. For a discussion of celibacy in a broader context, J. M. Ford's, ,4 Trilogy on Wisdom and Celibacy, Notre Dame, 1967, is especially good. A recently published work by Roger Gryson, Les origines du cdlibat eccldsiastique du premier au septi~me siecle, Paris, 1970, may also prove helpful. 11 In the East, legislation in this regard took a somewhat different course. At the Synod of Ancyra in 314, it was ruled in canon 10 that any deacon declaring his intention to marry at the time of his appointment might marry even after his ordination and continue in his ministry (Hefele-Leclerq, v. 1.I, pp. 312-313). Without such a prior declaration, however, he could not subsequently marry and still hope to exercise his office. Thus Ancyra already contained at least the germ of the practice eventually adopted by the Eastern Church at Trullo in 692, namely, marriage before but not after ordination. But for all these differences, the legislation in the East was really no less motivated by a desire for cultic purity than in the West, as we shall subsequently see in our discussion of the Synod of Trullo. That the notion of cultic purity was already prevalent in the East in the first half of the fourth century was exemplified by Eusebius of Caesarea when he wrote: "Verumtamen cos, qui sacrati sint, atque in Dei ministerio cultuque occupati, con-tinere deinceps seipsos a commercio uxoris decet" (Demonstrationis evangelicae I, IX, PG 22, 82). Likewise, the Synod of Laodicea, in 350, passed a number of measures which can only be understood within the context of cultic purity. Canon 21 decrees that sub-deacons shall not touch the sacred vessels; canon 44 bars women from approaching near the altar; according to canon 19 only clerics shall be permitted to approach the altar of sacrifice (Hefele-Leclerq, v. 1.2, pp. 1010-'20). On the other hand, however, the Synod of Gangra in 345 sought to check the sectarian thrust of Eustathian asceticism by excommunicating anyone maintaining that when a married priest offers the sacrifice, no one should take part in the service; see canon 4, Hefele-Leclerq, p. 1034. ~2 p. Harkx, The Fathers on Celibacy, p. 17, states that the Synod of Aries (314) reiterated the decrees of Elvira. But, the six appended canons, upon which Harkx bases his conclusion, do not really belong to this synod, but must be ascribed rather to a decretal of Pope + + + Celibacy VOLOME ~0~ 1971 201 last quarter of that century, Popes Damasus I (366-384) and Siricius (384-399) were both very active in initiating a program of clerical continency. Several synods were held at Rome some time around 370, which, while indi-cating a preference for clerical candidates who were not married, nevertheless allowed that someone baptized as an adult and already married might also be ordained, as-suming that he had remained chaste and was a man of one wife ("unius uxoris vir").13 In a letter to the bishops of Gaul, Damasus relayed this and other decisions of the Roman synods along with a discttssion of the reasons for clerical continency.14 A variety of reasons are proffered,1~ but the central argument builds upon the notion of cultic purity.16 The very first synod held at Rome (384) under Pope Siricius, declared in its 9th canon that, because of their daily administration of the sacraments, priests and dea-cons should not have intercourse with their wives.17 In ÷ ÷ ÷ B. Verkarnls REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 202 Siricius: "Weil der Wortlaut dieses Kanons mit den cc. 4 trod 5 aus dem Brief des Papstes Siricius an die afrikanischen Bish6fe fast wortlich iibereinstimmt und wahrscheinlich von dort iibernommen worden ist" (Boelens, Die Klerikerehe, p. 28). The Council o[ Nicea (325) forbids any cleric to mutilate himself (c.1) and also prohibits the higher clergy from having the so-called "virgines subintroductae" in their houses (c.3). But its canons say nothing about clerical con-tinency (see Hefele-Leclerq, v. 1.1, pp. 528-620). Apparently, some of the Council fathers had hoped to require continency of the clergy, but thanks to the saintly Egyptian bishop, Paphnutius, this move was checked. E. Schillebeeckx, Clerical Celibacy under Fire, London, 1967, p. 26, cites Mansi 2, 670, in support of his claim that the Council of Nicea forbade marriage after reception of higher orders "according to an ancient tradition of the church." But the canons of Nicea say no such thing. The only possible support for Schillebeeckx's claim might be the statement of Paphnutius that "it would be sufficient, according to the ancient tradition of the Church, if those who had taken holy orders without being married were prohibited from marrying afterwards" (Hefele-Leclerq, v. 1.1, p. 620). an H. Bruns, Canones Apostolorum et conciliorum veterum selecti, Turin, 1959, v. 2, pp. 277f. a~ Ibid. (The text is also presented in PL 13, 1181-96.) ~'~ The authority of Scripture and the fathers; a good example to the widows and virgins, and so forth: ibid. ~"Denique illi qui in templo sacrificia offerebant, ut mundi essent toto anno in templo solo observationis ~nerito permanebant, domos suas penitus nescientes. Certe idolatrae, ut impietates exerceant et daemonibus immolent, imperant sibi continentiam muliebrem et ab secis quoque se purgari volunt, et me interrogas si sacerdos dei vivi spiritualia oblaturus sacrificia purgatus perpetuo debeat esse, an totus in carrie carnis curare debeat facere?" (ibid). x~"Suademus quod sacerdotes et levitae cum uxoribus suis non coeant, quia in ministerio ministri quotidianis necessitatibus occu-pantur., si ergo laicis abstinentia imperatur, ut possint deprecantes audiri, quanto magis sacerdos utique omni ~nomento paratus esse debet, munditiae puritate securus, ne aut sacrificium offerat, aut baptizare cogatur." The canons of this synod have come down to us through the letter of Siricius to the bishops of Africa, which in the following year, Siricius repeats this injunction in a letter to the Spanish bishop Himerus of Tarragona and further embellishes it with the cultic purity rationale. Those priests who have continued to beget children are wrong, he says, when they appeal to the example of the Old Testament priests. These latter were permitted to have children only because the law demanded that only descendants of Levi be admitted to the service of God. Such is no longer the case. Furthermore, the Old Testa-ment priests were strictly enjoined to have no sexual relations with their wives during the time of their service, so that they might present to God an acceptable offering. Priests, therefore, who want their daily sacrifices to be pleasing to God must remain continually chaste,is The 5th century follows a similar pattern. Sexual intercourse is forbidden between higher clergy (deacons, priests, bishops) and their wives.10 But their separation is not required:°0 Why no intercourse? "Because at any moment," the Synod of Tours proclaimed in 460, "they may be summoned to the discharge of a sacred func-tion." 21 Canon 2 of the same synod notes that while those who break this rule need not be deposed from their office,2-0 they shall no longer be eligible to a higher grade and shall not be permitted to offer the holy sacrifice or to assist as deacons.23 To strengthen such an arrangement between the clergy and their wives, a number of synods began during this turn was read at the African Synod of Telepte in 418, whence the present text. See Bruns, op. cit. I, p. 154. It is to this canon that the 6th spurious canon of the Synod of Aries (314) probably owes its origin; supra, footnote 11. ~ See Boelens, Die Klerikerehe, pp. 43-44. Arguments such as this were echoed repeatedly in ihe writings of Ambrose and Jerome who during this period were combating the "errors" of Jovinian and Vigilantius. 19See canon 1, Synod of Toledo (400), Hefele-Leclerq, v. 2.1, p. 123; canon 8, Synod of Turin (c. 400), ibid., p. 134; canons 23 and 24, Synod of Orange (441), ibid., p. 446; canon 2, Synod of Arles (443), ibid., p. 462. Pope Leo I in 446 included subdeacons under the rule; see PL 54, 672-3. ~0 Pope Leo I wrote that from the ti.me of ordination, the higher clergy must convert a carnal union into a spiritual one: "They must, though not sending away their wives, have them as though not having them" (PL 54, 1204). It will be recalled that during this same period the Church expressed itself as vehemently opposed to any "spiritual relations" between the clergy and the virgines subintro-ductae. .ol Hefele-Leclerq, v. 2.2, p. 899. The cultic purity rationale was also expressed during this century by Pope Innocent I (see Audet, Str~*ctures, p. 89) and by the Synod of Telepte (418) which, as we have noted earlier, took over the Letter of Siricius and its canons regarding clerical continency; see Bruns, Canones, v. l, p. 154. -°:As other synods had suggested, for example, c. 4, Synod of Carthage (401), Hefele-Leclerq, v. 2.1, p. 127. .-a. Ibid., v. 2.2, p. 899. + + + Celibacy VOLUME 30, 1971 203 + + 4. B. Verkamp REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 204 period to require a vow of chastity prior to ordination. Thus we read in canon 22 of the Synod of Hippo (393) that when lectors have attained the age of puberty, they mnst either marry or make a vow of continence.-04 Later, in 441, a synod at Orange declared that "married men shall not henceforth be ordained deacons unless they have previously vowed chasity." "~ The same decree was repeated at the Synod of Arles in 443.-06 Whatever else these vows came to connote in a later period,-07 there can be little doubt that in their original conception, they were meant simply to support the cultic purity arrange-merit. The next major step in legislation regarding clerical continency came with the rule that the clergy and their wives must separate. Here again the initiative came from Spain. In 517, a synod at Gerona ruled that all ordained married men, from subdeacons to bishops, must cease liv-ing with their wives. If they will not do that, they must at least have living with them someone else who might witness to their conduct."s The last part of this decree suggests something of the motivation underlying the rule of separation stated in the first part. The higher clergy were to separate from their wives, not because they would thereby become more available for Church service, but rather to remove them from suspicion of being less pure than was required of anyone serving at the altar. In other words, the rule of separation was simply a strengthening of the earlier no-interconrse legislation. This becomes even clearer as we trace the development of the law of separation in France during the fith century. Some of the first French synods of this century simply reiterated the EIvira legislation and sought to enforce it by strict penalties. Thus in 535, the Synod of Clermont declared that if anyone is ordained deacon or priest, he must not continne marital interconrse. He becomes a brother of his wife. Those who, inflamed by desire, have "cast off the girdle of the warfare," and have returned to their previous condition,"9 must be deprived of their clerical dignity.:~0 A few years later, however, we see the _o~ Ibid., v. 2.1, p. 87. -"~ Canon 22, ibid., p. 445. ,-,a Canon 2, ibid., p. 462. '-'~ See Schillebeeckx, Clerical Celibacy, p. 60t". ="De conversatione vitae a pontifice usque ad subdiaconum post suscepti honoris oflicium, si qui ex conjugatis fuerint ordinati, ut sine testimonio alterius fratris non utantur auxilio: cure sorore jam ex conjuge facta non habitent; quod si habitare voluerint, alterius [ratris utantur auxilio, cujus testimonio vita eorum debeat clarior apparere" (Bruns, Canones, v. 2, p. 19). See also c. 5, Synod of Toledo (589), ibid., v. 1, p. 214. ._~a,,.abjecto militiae cingulo vomitum pristinum et inhibita rursus conjugia repetiisse." ibid., v. 2, p. 190. ao Canon 13, ibid. start of an attempt to remove the cleric from suspicion, which would climax in a rule like that of Gerona (517). In 541, the Synod of Orleans ruled that bishops, priests, and deacons must not have the same chamber and the same bed with their wives, so that they not be brought into suspicion of carnal intercourse,a~ A synod at Tours in 567 went several steps further, and declared that wherever the bishop resides he must be surrounded with clergy,a" And lest the clergy who serve him come into contact with the maidservants of the bishop's wife, the bishop and his wife shonld have separate abodes,a:~ Sim-ilar rules are laid down for the priests, deacons, and sub-deacons. As very many rural archpriests, deacons, and subdeacons rest under suspicion, of continuing inter-course with their wives, canon 19 states tbat the arch-priest must always have a cleric with him, who accom-panies bim.everywhere and has his bed with him in the same cell;a4 tbe remaining priests, deacons and subdea-cons are warned to take care that their female slaves shall always live where their wives do, while they themselves dwell and pray in their cells alone,a~ A priest who lives with his wife, canon 19 concludes, must not be rever-enced by the people, but disapproved of, because he is a teacher, not of continence, but of vice.a~ In 578, the Synod of Anxerre reiterated the earlier decree of Orleans (541) to the effect that no priest, dea-con, or subdeacon was to sleep in the same bed with his wife after ordination,av In 581, the Synod of Mficon added yet another measure: No woman may enter a bishop's chamber unless two priests or deacons are pres-ent? s Finally, in 583, the Synod of Lyon expressly de-manded that priests and deacons not only have separate beds from their wives but that they also cease all daily contact with them.~9 "t Canon 17, ibid., p. 204. .a~ Canon 12, ibid., p. 227. :~ Ibid. ~' But no priest or monk mlJst sleep in the same bed with an-other, in order to avoid every evil suspicion; ibid., p. 228. a.~ Canon 19, ibid., pp. 229-230. ~ Ibid., p. 230. ar Canon 20, ibid., p. 239. ~ Canon 3, ibid., p. 243. a~ Canon 1, ibid., p. 247: "Placuit etiam, ut si quicuniqne u~oribus juncti ad diaconatus aut presbytcratus ordinem quoquo modo pervenerint, non solum lecto sed etiam frcquentatione quotidiana debeant de nxoribus suis sequcstrari." Outside of Spain and France, the law of separation was only much later enacted. Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) expressly rejected the idea of making those already married leave their wives after ordination unless they had promised continency prior to ordination (Letter 44, PL 77, 505-6). The first Roman synod to require separation was probably that of 743 (See canon 1; Hefele- Leclerq, v. 3.2, p. 851). In the East, the Synod of Trullo (692) rnled + + + Celibacy VOLUME ~0, ~971 205 ÷ ÷ ÷ B. Verkam~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 206 It is hard, therefore, to escape the impression that, as stated above, the separation of clergy from their wives was anything other than yet another facet of the same concern for cultic purity which underlay the earlier pro-hibition of sexual interconrse. This impression is further enhanced by the fact that French synods of the same pe-riod were passing a variety of measures which could only quicken the process of sacralization. The synod at Tours in 567 declared, for example, that at Masses, as well as at Vigils, the laity are not allowed to stand among the clergy near the altar on which the holy mysteries are solemnized.4° According to the Synod of Orleans (533), no woman must henceforth be given the benedictio dia-conalis. 41 Nor may a woman receive the holy Eucharist with uncovered hand,42 or touch the pall.4,~ Clerics are not to wear secular garments.44 The next six centuries saw no basic change in ec-clesiastical legislation touching upon the clergy's sexual conduct or marital status. The myriad decrees issued during these centuries either simply reiterate previous legislation or attempt to strengthen the same with more stringent penalties or some other positive measures, or, finally, seek to deal with complications arising out of the earlier laws. Some repeated the earlier demands for a vow of chastity prior to ordination.4~ Others encourage({ the adoption of a vita communis by the clergy.46 While none that if a married priest is consecrated bishop, his wife must go into a convent at a considerable distance (canon 48, Hefele-Leclerq, v. 3.1, p. 569). The motivation behind this measure was no less grounded in a concern for cultic purity than were similar measures in the West. Canon 13 of Trullo states that at the time when they must celebrate divine services, subdeacons, deacons, and priests are obliged to refrain from their wives since it has already been ordained that be who ministers in sacred things must be pure (ibid., v. 3.1, p. 565). The bishops must abstain completely because, unlike the priests and deacons, theirs is a fulltime service of the altar. ~o Canon 4, Bruns, Canones, v. 2, p. 226. ~t Canon 18, ibid., p. 187. ~-" Canon 36, Synod of Auxerre (578), ibid., p. 241. ~ Canon 37, ibid. "Canon 5, Synod of Mficon (581), ibid., p. 243. ~ Schillebeeckx, Clerical Celibacy, p. 60, cites the Fourth Council of Toledo (633) in this regard. But the "professio castitatis" to which canon 27 of that Council refers concerns a vow made after ordina-tion by those about to take up a rural pastorate (Bruns, Canones, v. 1, p. 231), and not, as Schillebeeckx says, a vow prior to ordination. This would suggest, as Boelens has noted (Die Klerikerehe, p. 100), that the conversio prior to ordination required by the Synod of Toledo in 527 had fallen out of practice. Vows prior to ordination were, however, required by the following synods: Worms (868); Bourges (1031); Limoges (1031); London (1102). ~ One of the first to advocate systematically the vita communis was Chrodegang of Metz (d. 766); see Bihlmeyer-Tiichle, Church History, Westminster, 1963, v. 2, p. 108). Synods at Canterbury (969), Rome (1059), Rome (1063), and Winchester (1076) encourage the idea. showed any concern for the care of the clergyman's wife and children after separation, a number dictated what was to happen to these latter if they did not separate from the cleric. Both the wives and the children were made subject to being sold or taken into slavery.47 The clergymen themselves were generally threatened with dep-osition in the event of disobedience; but when this had little effect, the legislators moved to forbid the laity from attending the Masses of such clerics.48 This "separation from the altar" of the incontinent cleric was extended by Gregory VII in 1079 to exclude the cleric from entrance into the church, so that he could not even take a passive part in divine worship.49 The notion of cultic purity, which we contend was operative within all this legislation, was not always given explicit expression.~° Gregory VII (1073-1085) himself, who climaxed the period under discussion, most fre-quently appealed only to the need for obedience to papal authority.~1 But his untiring efforts to separate the in-continent clergy from the service of .the altar, and oc-casional utterances to the effect that God can only be 57 Concerning wives, see canon 5, Synod of Toledo (653), Brtms, Canones, v. 1, p. 280; Synod of Rome (1049), Boelens, Die Klerikerehe, p. 135. Regarding children, see canon 10, Synod of Toledo (655), Bruns, Canones, v. 1, p. 295; Synod of Pavia (1022), Hefele-Leclerq, v. 4.2, p. 920. The inability of the children of clergymen to inherit Church goods had long before been established by the Code of Justinian (529), and by Pope Pelagius (556-561). The synods of Toledo (655) and Pavia (1022) reasserted the same. Pope Gregory VII especially showed himself callous as regards the clergyman's dependents. Boelens writes: "Tatsache abet war doch, (lass die meisten verheiratet waren und (lass sic Frau und Kinder hatten, fi_ir die sie zu sorgen batten. Wie sich die gregorianische Reform fiir sic auswirkte, wurde in den Gesetzcn hie erwahnt. Man vcrffigte nicht, was mit Frau und Kindern gcscbchcn sollten; nut immer wicder das Eine: 'crimen fornicationis' oder 'morbus fornica-tionis clericorum' oder bloss cinfach 'fornicatio' muss strong bestraft werden" (Die Klerikerehe, p. 147). ~8See Synods of Rome 0059), Rome (1063), Gerona (1068), Rome (1074), Poitiers (1078), Piacenza (1095), London (1102). Gregory VII also turned to the laity for support when some German bishops refused to cooperate with his refo

Issue 30.6 of the Review for Religious, 1971. ; EDITOR R. F. Smith, S.J. ASSOCIATE EDITOR Everett A. Diederich, S.J. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS EDITOR Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Correspondence with the editor, the associate editors, and the assistant editor, as well as books for review, should be sent to I~VIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 6:31o3. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pe.nnsylvania 191o6. + + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Edited with ecclesiastical approval by faculty members of the School of Divinity of Saint Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 63103. Owned by the Missouri Province Edu-cational Institute. Published bimonthly and copyright ~) 1971 by REVIEW 'VOg RELIGIOUS. Published for Review for Religious at Nit. Ro\'al & Guilford Ave., Baltimore, .Xld. Printed in U.S.A. Set'ond class postage paid at Baltimore, .Maryland and ,at addithmal mailing offices. Single copies: $1.25. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year, $11.00 for two years: other countries: $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order paya-ble to REVIEW POg RELIOIOGS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Renewals and new subscriptions should be sent to REviEW FOR RELIGIOUS; P. O. Box l 110; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Manuscripts, editorial correspondence, and books for re-view should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; 619 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louts, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to the address of the Questions and Answers editor. NOVEMBER 1971 VOLUME 30 NUMBER 6 JOSEPH F. GALLEN,.S.J. Decree on Confessions of Religious. In a decree dated December 8, 1970, effective immedi-ately, and confirmed by the Pope on November 20, 1970, the Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Instb tutes made the following.changes in the canon law on the sacrament of penance for religious, especially religious women, and on exclusion from a religious institute of one in temporary vows because of ill health. These provisions will remain in force until the new Code of Canon Law is effective. Number 4, e), of the Decree states that the pre-scriptions of the present canon law that are contrary to the new provisions, incompatible with them, or which because of them no longer apply, are suspended. Any provision of the Decree that~ affects novices will apply to those in a temporary commitment other than temporary vows. The numbering of the Decree has been retained in the following explanation. 1-2. The Decree exhorts religious to value highly the sacrament of penance as a means of strengthening the fundamental gift of metanoia or conversion to the king-dom of Christ, and to esteem in the same way the fre-quent use of this sacrament, which debpens ~true knowl-edge of self and humility, provides spiritual direction, and increases grace. These and other wonderful effects, according to n. 2, contribute not only to daily growth in virtue but are highly beneficial also to the common good. 3. All religious, men and women, clerical and lay, ex-empt and nonexempt, should strive to receive the sacra-ment of penance frequently, that is, twice a month. Supe-riors are to encourage this frequency and make it possible [or the members to go to confession at least every two weeks and even oftener, if they wish to do so. In the past, canon law did not oblige religious to go to confession at least once a week. The canonical obligation extended onl~ to superiors, who had to make it possible for their subjects to confess at least once a week. How-÷ ÷ ÷ Joseph F. Gallen, s.J., writes from St. Joseph's Church at 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Penn-sylvania 19106. VOLUME 30, 1971 4" 4" J. F. Gallen, S.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 944 ever, the Code of Canon Law presupposed that an obliga-tion of weekly confession, existdd at least from custom, and very universally the constitutions obliged religious to confess at/east once a week. 4, a). "All women religious and novices, in Order that they may have proper liberty, may make their confession validly and licitly to any priest approved for hearing confessions in the locality. For this no special jurisdiction or designation is henceforth required." The first sentence of this number" gives all women reli-gious and novices, in orders, congregations, or societies of common life, the right always to go to confession validly and licitly to any priest of their choice, whether he is diocesan or religious, who is approved for confessions in the locality of the partic.ular confession. Furthermore, as this number of the Decree also states, the confessor does not have to be designated or appointed, for religious women.' Even in the past there were no canonical norms on the confessions of men or women postulants, who were regulated canonically by the same laws on confession as secular men and women. Religious women and novices are therefore .no longer obliged to go to ordinary or ex-traordinary confessors, eveh when such confessors exist for their houses. The special confessor of a particular reli-gious woman of canon 520, par. 2, no longer exists be-cause a religious woman may go, even habitually or al-ways, to any confessor of her choice. The same reason excludes the supplementary confessors (c. 521, par. 2), the occasional confessor (c. 522), and the confessor of seri-ously sick religious women (c. 523). Number 8, e), of the recent norms on the papal enclosure of nuns permits the following: "A priest [even if he possesses no jurisdiction for confessions] may likewise be admitted to assist those religious suffering from a chronic or greave illness." Mere spiritual direction, unlike absolution, does not require jurisdiction for confessions. Because of the sus.pended canons listed above in this paragraph, canon 2414, the last canon in the Code, is also suspended. This canon reads: If a superioress acts against the prescriptions of canons 521, par. 3, 522, and 523, she shall be admonished by, the local or-dinary; if again delinquent, she shall be punished by removal from office, and the Sacred Congregation of Religious is to be immediately informed of the matter. By reason of the second sentence of this number, spe-cial jurisdiction is no longer required for the valid or licit confessions of professed women religious or novices, whether in orders or congregations, nor for those in the analogons states of societies of women living in common without public vows (c; 675). All of these are now ab-solved in virtue of the same jurisdiction as secular women. Priests ordinarily possess jurisdiction for the con-fessions of the faithful ol~ both sex~esf@hey may therefore, in the locality for which they posses such jurisdiction, valid!y absolve the religious women listed" above any-wherd, in the confessional or outside of it. They may licitly do the latter in a case of sickness or for any other reason of like import (c. 910, par. 1). In the pa.st, to absolve validly and licitly the~ same religious women listed above, special jurisdiction was nec-essary. The jurisdiction was special becfiuse it "~as not contained in the jurisdiction granted for the faithful of both sexes~or for women. It had t3 be given expressly for religious women (c. 876, par. 1). The pres.ent suspension of the necessity of special jurisdiction also implies the suspension of the necessity of the designation of a special spiritual director (c. 520, par. 2) by the local ordinary or the regular superior. The i'eason for the necessity of this designation was that special jurisdiction for confession was granted to such a spiritual director. Lay religious institutes o[ men. According to n. 5 of the Decree, the applicable norms of n. 4 on women appertain~ also to lay institutes of men. Therefore, all religious and novices of such institutes may go to confession to any confessor, as explained above for women (n. 4, a). Be-cause of this right of choice, the special ordinary ~onfes-sor of professed °(c. 528), for whom the permission of the religious superior was° required, no longer exists," as is true also of the supplementary confessors of novices in the same institutes (c. 566, par. 2, n. 3),'and likewise of the occasional confessor of both professed and novices (c. 519). All of canon 566, par. 2, on confessors of novices in lay and clerical institutes of men is also suspended. Clerical institutes o[ men. Nothing is said directly in the Decree on the confessions of members of clerical or-ders' or congregations except that they too Should go to confession twice a month (n. 3). However, the applicable provisions on the confessions of women religious and nomces must also apply to clerical institutes. Otherwise, their members would be in an inferior condition to that of religious women and of the members of lay institutes of men, which has not been their status thus far in the laws of the Church. It is also the sufficiently evident intention of the Sacred Congregation to simplify the law on confes-sion [or religious and to grant greater liberty, and these are also desirable in the laws affecting clerical institutes. Therefore, all religious and novices in clerical institutes may make their confession to any confessor, as explained above [or women (n. 4, a). It would be incredible that clerical religious alone would be excluded from the pre-ceding concession. As above for lay institutes of men, the occasional confessor of both professe.d and novices (c. 519) ÷ ÷ ÷ Conlesslons VOLUME 30, 19TI 945 ~. l~. Gallen, $.~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 946 no longer exists nor the supplementary confessors for novices of canon 566, par. 2, n.3. 4, b). An ordinary confessor must be named for monas-teries of contemplative nuns, for houses of formation of women, and for large houses of women. An extraordinary confessor is to be named at least for the first two types of the preceding houses. The women religious and novices are not obliged to present themselves to either such ordi-nary or extraordinary confessors. The provision for the monasteries of contemplative nuns should in practice be extended to nuns who are doing immediate apostolic work, for example, conducting schools within their monasteries, and also to the houses or monasteries of contemplative congregations of sisters, for example, the Sisters Adorers of the Precious Blood, who have monasteries in the archdiocese of Portland, Oregon and in the dioceses of ~Brooklyn, Lafayette, Indi-ana, Manchester, Ogdensbu?g, Portland, Maine, and To-ledo Houses of formation of women include novitiates and juniorates, although the small number of novices and juniors and other circumstances can in some cases render the appointment of ordinary and extraordinary confessors impractical. There is no canonical definition of a large religious house. The determination of such houses should be made hy the local ordinary after a considera-tion of all the circumstances and even by consultation of its members. It could happen that the members of a very large house in a city can and prefer to go to any confes-sor. The presence or absence of members who cannot go outside the house for confession is obviously an impor-tant factor. Nor is consideration for the confessor to be forgotten, for example, an ordinary confessor who would come every two weeks and find nothing to do. In some cases a priest such as the one Or" ones who celebrate daily Mass in a larger house may be able to handle readily the few confessions that will occur. The fact that no religious woman or novice is obliged to present herself to any of these ordinay or extraordinary confessors follows from the general principle of the decree in n. 4, a), that all women religious and novices may make their confession validly and licitly to any priest approved for hearing confessions in the locality. This number of the Decree commands merely [he appointment of an extraordinary confessor, that is, the confessor who frequently, not neces-sarily at least for times during the year, is accessible that the members of the community may have the opportunity of confessing to another than the ordinary confessor. This was the definition of the same wording in canon 528 on the extraordinary confessor for professed religious in lay institutes of men. The Code explicity commanded the extraordinary confessor of professed religious women and novices (c. 521, par. 1)and of novices in institutes qf men' (c. 566, par. 2, n. 4) to be available atleast four times a year, but this provision is suspended by the Decree, In a liouse of ~formati0n, ord_i.nary .and extraordipar.y_, confeS, sors are to be app0intedl only for those in formation unless, with regard to an ordinary confessor, tbe other members of the house are sufficient to constitute a large house. This doctrine is evident from the fact that ordi-nary and ~xtraor,dinary confessors would not be ap-pointed [or these other members if they were in another house. Therefore, for example, in a novitiate house these confessors are appointed for the novices, not [or the mem-bers of the generalate or provincialate staff residing in tbe same house of formation. 4, c). "For other co.mmunities [in additition to the monasterieg of nuns, houses of formation, and large houses of n. 4, b) immediately above] an ordinary confes-sor may be named at the request of the community itself or after consultation with its members if, in the judgment of tlie ordinary, special circumstances justify such an ap-pointment." The "special circumstances" will be at least very com-monly those that prevent the religious women of a house fi'om going to confession twice a month unless an ordi-nary confessor is appointed. This can arise from the pres-ence in the house of religious who cannot go out for confession, from the location of the house that makes access to other confessors difficult, or that allows such access to only one confessor, for example, the sole priest in the one parish in a small town, and so forth. Lay and clerical institutes oJ men. With the exception of that on monasteries of nuns, the provisions of n. 4, b) and c) immediately above apply also to lay institutes of men by reason of n. 5, and to clerical institutes in virtue Of the arguments given under n. 4, a). It would again be incredible that ordinary contessors would continue to have to be appointed for all houses of clerical institutes (c. 518, par. 1) but only for the restricted number of houses of religious women and lay institutes of men ac-cording to n. 4, b) of the present Decree. Houses of for-mation in Clerical institutes include also houses of study (C. 587) and houses for the apostolic year and tertianship (see Sedes Sapientiae, nn. 48, 51). The judgment on the existence of a large house and on the special circumstan-ces tbat justify the appointment of ordinary confessors in houses that are not houses of formation or large apper-tains in clerical orders and congregations to the religious superior who has the right of appointing ordinary confes-sors according to the constitutions 0f the particular insti-tute. 4, d). "The local ordinary should choose confessors 4. 4. 4. ~. F. Gallen, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 948 ~arefully. They should be priests of sufficient maturity and possess the other necessary qualities. The ordinary may determine the number, age and term of office of the confessors and may name them or renew their appoint-ment after consultation with the community concerned." This paragraph of the decree commands the local ordi-nary to choose the ordinary and ektraordinary confessors of women religious and novices of the tw9 preceding sections with care. The suitability of priests for these two duties appertains to the judgment of the local ordinary. For example, it is no longer required that these confessors be 'forty years of age (c. 524, par. 1). The local ordinary also determines the number of such confessors, and it is no longer demanded that per se only one ordinary and extraordinary confessor be appointed for each house (cc. 520, par. 1; 521, par. 1). The local ordinary may but is not obliged to determine the duration of the term of office of these confessors, for example, two year.s, and may reappoint them immediately and indefinitely after con-sultation with the community concerned. He may also, with the same consulation, immediately appoint an ordi-nary coiafessor as extraordinary of the same commun.ity (see c. 524, par. 2). Clerical and lay institutes o[ men. The ordinary and extraordinary confessors in these institutes from the na-ture of the matter are to be priests suitable for the office. The provisions, however, of n. 4~, d) of the Decree imme-diately above apply only to institutes of women both from their wording, which is based on the canons on confessors of religious women, and from the fact that the present canon law prescribes no qualities for the ordinary and extraordinary confessors in institutes of men, whether clerical or lay. It is evidently permitted to follow such a provision as the previous consultation of the com-munity concerned. The following are the canons specifically on confessors of religious that remain in force: Can. 518, par. 1. In . every clerical Institute there shall be deputed. [ordinary] confessors with power, if it be ques~ tion of an exempt Institute, to absolve also from the cases re-served in the Institute. Par. 2. Religious Superiors, having faculties to hear confes' sions, can, in conformity with the law, hear the confessions of their subjects who spontaneously and freely approach them for that purpose, but they may not without grave reason hear them habitually. Par. 3. Superiors must take care not to induce, personally, or through others, by force, by fear, or by importunate persua-sion, or by any other means, any of their subjects to confess his sins to them. Can. 524, par. 3. The confessors, whether ordinary or extra-ordinary, of religious women are not, in any manner, to inter- fere either in the internal or external government of the com-munity. Can. 525. For all houses of religious women immediately subject to the Apostolic See or to the local Ordinary, the latter selects both ordinary an.d extraordinary ,confessor;. ~o~" those subject to a Regular Superior, this Superior presents the con-fessors to the'Ordinary who will grant them the approval to hear the confessions of'the nuns; the Ordinary also shall supply, if necessary, for the negligence of the Regular Superior, Can. 527. According to the terms of canon 880, the local Ordinary can, for a serious~ cause, remove both the ordinary and extraordinary confessor of religious women, even when the monastery is subject to Regulars and the confessor himself a Regular, nor is the Ordinary bound to make known the reason for the removal to anyone except to the Holy See, if it should require the reason from him; he must, however, if the nuns are subject to Regulars, inform the Regular Superior of the removal. Can. 875, par. 2. In an exempt lay Institute, the Superior proposes the confessor, who, however, must receive jurisdiction from the Ordinary of the place in which the religious house is situated. The preceding are taken from the authorized but unof-ficial translation, Canonical Legislation concerning Reli-gious. Canon 891, which also remains in force, is ~not contained in this translation. It reads as follows: Can. 891. The master of novices and his socius, the superior of a seminary or of a college may not hear the sacramental con-fessions of his students residing in the same house with him, unless the students spontaneously request this in particular cases for a grave and urgent reason. The canons therefore specifically on confessors of reli-gious that remain are part of canon 518, par. 1, and all the rest of this canon; all of canons 524, par. 3, 525, 527, 875, par. 2, and 891. "II The final clause of canon 637 is to be understood in the sense that a religious in temporary vows who, because of physical or mental illness even if contracted after pro-fession, is judged by the competent superior with the consent of his council, on the basis of examinations by physicians or other specialists, to be incapable of living the religious life without personal harm or harm to the institute, may be refused admission to renewal of vows or to final profession. The decision in such cases is to be taken with charity and equ!ty." According to canon 637 a professed of temporary vows could be excluded from the renewal of temporary vows or from making perpetual profession because of ill health ofily if it was proved with certainty that the ili health had been contracted and fraudulently concealed or dissi-mulated before the first profession of temporary vows. The same principle is true of the dismissal of a professed of temporary vows (c. 647, par. 2, n. 2). These canons are not completely logical. The time of temporary vows is Confessions 949 4. 4. 4" J. F. Gallen, S.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 950 one of probation; the canons permit exclusion or dis-missal of such professed for other inculpable causes; and canon 637 otherwise requires only .just and reasona-ble causes for exclusion and canon 647, par. 2, n. 2, only serious reasons for dismissai. These canons also caused serious and, without recourse to the Holy See, even insol-uble problems. This was verified especially with regard to psychological disorders when the subject would not vol-untarily leave the institute. His retention could cause great difficulty to the institute, even intensify his own condition, and cases occurred in which superiors could not in conscience admit such subjects to further profes-sions, particularly to perpetual profession~ It is evident that the decision in these cases of physical or psychologi-cal health is to be made with proper regard and considera-tion for the subject, and, as the Decree states, with char-ity and equity (see REVIEW I~OF RELIGIOUS, 16 [1957], 218-9, 271; 25 [1966], 1104-5). In virtue of the present legislation in II, an exclusion from further temporary or perpetual profession because of physical or psychological illness, even if contracted after the first temporary profession, may be made by the competent superior with the consent of his or her council if they judge, on the basis of examinations by physicians or other specialists, that the subject is incapable of living the religious life without personal harm or harm to the institute. The subject should ordinarily at least be first encouraged to leave voluntarily and this as soon as such a condition is sufficiently ascertained. The new legislation is concerned only with an exclu-sion from further profession; it does not extend to the dismissal of a professed of temporary vows in the same case. This can cause a serious difficulty if the case comes to a head when a considerable part of a temporary profes-sion is unexpired, for example, in the early part of the second year of a three-year profession, and the subject will not leave voluntarily. This case, when it occurs, may be proposed to the Sacred Congregation for a solution. Practical summary o[" the Decree. The~ norm'~f fre-quency of confession is every two weeks. All religious may always confess to any confessor in the locality. Spe-cial jurisdiction is not required for religious women. The only confessors proper to religious are ordinary confessors in monasteries Of nuns and in the following houses of men and women: houses of f6rmation, large houses, and other houses in special circumstances, and extraordinary confessors in the same monasteries and houses of forma-tion. Such confessors of women do not have to be forty years of age. A professed of temporary vows may be ex-cluded from further professions because of physical or psychological illness. CHRISTOPHER KIESLING, O.P. Ministry in the Schools of the Church Religious should get out of Catholic schools. Such schools should not exist.The Church should not be in the business of education, but should devote its resources to the social problems of our day. Moreover, Church schools serve the affluent middle and upper classes more than the oppressed minorities. Religious, ther~efore, should go into other ministries in which they can serve the world, especially the underprivileged. Undoubtedly it is good that religious are venturing into nev~ ministries besides ~eaching or administration in schools of the Church. It is good for sisters and brothers because some have temperaments, inclinations, interests, and talents which equip them much better for other min-istries titan that of the church school. It is good for the Chnrch and the world because both have grave needs which can be met only by the service of highly motivated and generous people such as religious. But while some religious should be encouraged to enter into new forms of apostolate, it would be most unfortu-nate if others were not encouraged to enter Or Continue in the apostolate of the schools of the Church. This apos-tolate is extremely important and even assumes, a ni~wness today by virtue of the many changes taking place in both the Church and the w6rld. As is well known, these schools are threatened with extinction today. The demise of the schools of the Church, however, is a most grievous set-back to the emergence of mature Christian laymen in the life and apostolate of the Church and hence in the Church's mission to the world, especially to the world's social problems. Vatican II expres'~d the int.egral mission of the Church with special clarity. It was compelled to do tiffs in its efforts to describe p, ositively the place, digni_ty, and role of the laity in the Church. The Decree on the Apostolate o] the Laity, for instance, says: 4- 4- Christopher Kies-ling, O.P., is a fac-ulty member of Aquinas Institute School of Theology in Dubuque, Iowa 52001. VOLUME 30, 1971 951 + C. Kiesling, O.P. REVIEW I:OR REI.IGIOUS 952 Christ's redemptive work, while of itself directed toward the salvation of men, involves also the renewal of the whole tem-poral order. Hence the. mission of the Church is not on!y to bring to men tlie message and grace of Christ, but also to pene-trate and perfect the temporal sphere with the spirit of the Gospel (n, 5). Tlie missiofi of the Church, in other words, is not to rescue men from this world for salvation in another world, but to unite men to God in this world and through them permeate human activity, culture, and his-tory with fl~e spirit of Christ, thus cooperating with God in bringing all creation to its divinely intended goal: eternal life and resurrection of the body for men in a new heaven and a new earth. Every member of the Church participates in her mis-sion: For this the ChurCh was founded: that., she might bring all men to share in Christ,s saving redemption; and that through them the whole world might in actual fact be brought into relationship with him. All activity of the Mystical Body directed to the attainment of this goal is called the apostolate, and the Church carries it on in various ways through all her members. For by its very nature the Christian vocation is also a vocation to the apostolate (ibid., n. 2). The Church is the whole body of baptized believers, sent by Christ into the world to bring men his truth and grace and to work for the divinely willed perfection of creation. In order to accomplish this mission, baptized believers nfinister to one a~aother, building up the whole Body of Christ in truth and grace for service to the world for the glory~of tlte Father. Some ministries are purely charismatic, the fruit of the Spirit's quickening believers to particular services to fellow members of Christ's Body for their joint mission to the world. Some ministries are also institutional, that is, in addition to the call of the Spirit, they have a more or less per.manent place and a more or less defined [unction in the structure of the Chnrch as ordained by God in Christ or by the Christian community in the course of history; consequently, these ministries appear in the canon law of the Church. But whether institutional or not, all these ministries are in-cludetl in the Spirit-inspired serf-help which the members of Christ's Body give to one another for the vigorous life of His Body and for its continuing mission and ministry to the world. What is required of the members of Christ's Body if they are to fulfill their apostolic vocation? They need articulate faith, a keen appreciation of the meaning and value of creatures, and zeal coupled with skill for building a better world of truth, justice, love, and freedom for every man, woman, and child. By "articulate faith" is meant a faith with some under- standing of the assertions.of faith, .including recognition of the difficulties which these assertions present to human intelligence today, their historical conditioning, and their need for continual reinterpretation and restatement if they are going to remain vali'd'expression~ of'~tuthentic faith in the midst of constantly changing human con-sciousness of reality. More importantly, articulate faith is aware of itself as.an adventure into ineffable mystery and personal communion with the living God, for which faith's assertions are a means not an end: a gateway, not the end of the road. Articulate faith also includes the willingness, ability, and c6nfidence to talk about what one believes. Because faith is a great adventure toward the fulfillment of men's deepest longing, one is willing, even eager, to discuss matters of faith; and one does not shy away from such discussion for fear of being wrong, because one is aware that faith is response to a loving Person who is more interested in drawing men to per-sonal communion with Him than He is in theological niceties. Vatican II expects the members of the Church to have such articulate faith, in accord with their capacity for it. According to the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, "the apostolate of the Church and of all her members is designed primarily to manifest Christ's message by words and deeds and to communicate his grace to the world" (ibid., n. 6). Noteworth~ in this statement is that all mem-bers of the Church are to manifest Christ's message by words, as well as deeds, and to communicate His grace. The ministry of teaching and sanctifying is not restricted to the clergy's ministry of the word and the sacraments. The decree proceeds to note that one of the ways in which the laity exercise their apostolate of "making the Gospel known and men holy" (ibid.) is through the testi-mony of a good life. But it goes on to say that "an aposto-late of this kind does not consist only in the witness of one's way of life; a true apostle looks for opportunities to announce Christ by words addressed either to non-believ-ers with a view to leading them to faith, or to believers with a view to instructing and strengthening them, and motivating them toward a more fervent life" (ibid.). ¯ In other words, the laity, as well as the clergy and religious, are responsible for building up the Body of Christ in truth and love and [or implementing its teach-ing and sanctifying mission. To fulfill this responsibility, laity, as well as clergy and religious, need articulate faith. A second need which each member of Christ's Body has is for a keen appreciation of the meaning and value of creatures: The Lord wishes to spread his kingdom . In this kingdom, creation itself will be delivered out of its slavery to corruption 4- 4- 4- Schools VOLUME 30, 1971 4" 4" 4" C. Kiesling, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 954 and into the freedom of the sons of God (cf. Rom. 8:21) . The faithful, therefore, must learn the deepest meaning and the value of all creation~ and how to relate it to the praise of God. They must assist one another to live holier lives even in their daily occupations. In this way the world is permeated by the spirit of Christ and more effectively achieves its purpose in justice, charity, and peace (Constitution on the Church, n. 36). In the light of revelation,, baptized believers must see and appreciate creatures in their original goodness and in their relationship to the Incarnation and the eschaton; They should perceive and treasure creatures as the poet does, with awe and reverence for the uniqueness and beauty of each. They should not view them simply with the detached, calculating eye of the technician. Yet tech-nology too is a creature of God, so that Christians should understand and evaluate rightly its place and products in the scheme of things. Especially must the Christian be aware and appreciative of man and the mysteries of his being: the human body, feeling and emotion, love and sex, work and play, community and celebration, art and science, the aspirations of the human spirit~and the long-ings of the human heart--all bathed in the light of God's gracious love. Thirdly, the members of Christ's Body need zeal cou-pled with skill for building a better world: By their competence in secular fields and by personal activity, elevated fr6m" within by the grace o[ Christ, let them labor vigorously so that by human labor, technical skill, and civic culture created goods may be perfected for the benefit of every last man. Let them work to see that created goods are more fittingly distributed among men and., in their own way lead to general progress in human and Christian liberty (ibid.). Baptized believers should also "by their combined efforts remedy any institutions and conditions of the world which are customarily inducements to sin, so that all such things may be conformed to the norms of justice and may favor the practice of virtue rather than hinder it" (ibid.). They need to "imbue culture and human activity with moral values" (ibid.). The question now arises: By what means are the mem-bers of Christ's Body going to develop articulate faith, appreciation of the meaning and value of creatures, arid zeal with skill for building a better world? Can weekly liturgies of the word (including homily) and the Eucha-rist accomplish this end? Even supposing the Scriptures are well read, the homilies well prepared and delivered, and the celebration well carried through, weekly liturgies alone hardly seem capable of generating the qualities which Christ's members ought to have to fulfill their apostolic vocation. CCD classes are not going to yield the needed qualities. They are limited in time. They p~vide little sustained interaction between mature Christians and growing ones over a wide spectrum of life. Their very organization fosters the idea of faith as a gegment of life, [,or Which one sets aside a piece of time each week. Finally, they are impeded in effectiveness by the forced and often chaotic conditions under wliich .they operate. Newman Centers too are very limited in what they can do to develop the necessary qualities in the members of Christ's Body beyond a small circle. Courses in "religiqus studies" are far from adequate means. They are by definition uncommitted, objective examination of religion and religions. They are highly intellectual, speculative, whatever existential and subjec-tive use an individual student may make of them. They are also limited in the amount of time given to them and, being a self-cOntained part of a curriculum, they convey the impression that religion also is a self-con-tained part of life, rather than~a dimension of all life. Adult education does not appear to be the solution. The competition for adults' time and attention is ex-tremely intense. Moreover, dae qualities required of a mature Christian should be well developed before he reaches the age at which l~e would enroll in adult educa-tion courses that are more than remedial. The answer is not Catholic newapapers, magazines, and books. People who love and profit from reading are relatively few in our activist culture, and are becoming even fewer in this post-linear age of happenings and tele-vision in the global village. The Church's recourse to happenings and television will not be much more fruitful than literature for achieving the necessary goal. Once people are gathered, happenifigs and television can be extremely effective instructors, but the problem is pre-cisely gathering the people. Unless people are already rather strongly motivated religiously, they are not going to prefer religious happenings and television programs to their secular coi~nterparts. As for parents as the source of the needed Christian maturity, parents are limited in what they Can do for their children. They cannot ,.lead their children to an articulate faith much beyond their own. They will find themselves limited especially when they come to helping their children develop that keen appreciation of the meaning and value of creation which Vatican iI urges for all members of Christ's .Body. Parents may be able to foster such apl~reciation for the simpler things of life, but they may be at a loss in matters of biology, the physical universe, history, poetry, drama, music. Parents' social consciousness and involvement may or may not be very highly developed, and will almost always be limited in 4- 4- 4- Schools VOLUME .'30, "1971 955 + 4. 4. C. Kiesling, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 956 scope because of family responsibilities and finite human energies. Social services of the Church are not ordered, by defini-tion, to the development of mature Christians, but to relieving the pressing needs which men and women have in their personal and social lives, in order that their lives may meet basic standards of health, decency, dignity, and happiness. It is difficult to imagine any project of the Church which offers the opportunities that schools do for p.ro-viding the members of Christ's Body with the develop-ment of faith, .appreciation of creation, and apostolic zeal and know-how which they need and to which they have a right. Several points are to be noted about this affirma-tion. First, it does not mean that schools alone do the whole job. There is still need for good liturgies, adult educa-tion, and all the rest. Secondly, the schools referred to are not only elementary schools. High schools and colleges are more important. Thirdly, the assertion speaks of schools for providing the needed qualities of articulate faith, appreciation of creation, and apostolic zeal with skill. It does not speak simply of religion courses in schools operated by the Church, though such courses have their rightful place. It is not a matter of the Church going into the education business, so that it can, with ease, slip religion courses into the curriculum. It is, rather, a matter of providing a Christian milieu in which learning to live a full life can Occtlr. Finally, the argument is not based on the actual con-duct or achievements of the Church's schools in the past. Whatever judgment is rendered on the past, the situation has changed so much since Vatican II that the schools of the Church today constitute an entirely new set of oppor-tunities. In recent years new methods of teaching have evolved which make learning boi:h more exciting for students and more in contact with life in society. Lay teachers have become a familiar part of the faculties of the Church's schools. Priests' and religious' styles of life have changed, bringing them into closer contact with ordinary life and with the laity, particularly their students. The ghetto mentality has largely disappeared, so that Church schools are less prone to be instruments of defense and more liable to be openings to the world. The ecumenical spirit enables Protestant, Anglican, and Orthodox Christians, as well as Jews and men of other beliefs, to have some place in the education that goes on in the schools of the Church. Administrators, faculties, and students are more aware of the school's obligations to the civic community in which it exists, All these new [actors mean :that the value of the Church's schools today cannot be judged on the basis of their past conduct and achievements. The opportunities which the schools of the: Church offer do not consist only or even mainly in the possibili-ties for religion courses or religious pract~ices. They con-sist in the possibilities for the young to develop articulate faith, a keen appreciation of creatures, and zeal with com-petence for building a better world by close association in learning and doing with mature Christians who them-selves have such faith, appreciation, and zeal. There is a difference, I would maintain, between what a youth derives from a course in English literature taught with competence and enthusiasm by a Christian whose faith permeates his life, and what he derives from such a course taught by someone else. A course in English litera-ture well taught by a Christian tells a young person that Christianity embraces all of life, that it is willing and able to learn from human experience as well as from revela-tion, that it recognizes the Spirit of God working in the world and speaking to men through human events, per-sonal and social. Besides this non-verbal communication, there can be explicit comparisons between the views of life in English literature and the view of the gospel. These comparisons are opportunities to develop articu-late faith without indoctrination. But even without any explicit mention of Christian faith, this course in English literature is a Christian ministry. As Vaticap II affirmed, Christians should have a deep sense of the meaning and value of all creation. The Church, therefore, has a duty to provide for its members to learn about creation through the arts and sciences illumined by the gospel. It is a precious gift which a Christian teacher gives to a student in patiently helping him to appreciate-a poem, even though faith is not explicitly referred to. If this Christian teacher of English literature is also aware of the world's and ldcal community's problems; if he is involved outside the school in trying to build a better world, if he lets this be known to his students and even involves his students in his social concern outside the classroom, his students will be made aware of another dimension of the Christian vocation and will even gain some knowledge of what they can do concretely to build a better world. If the administrators and teachers in a school of the Church are articulate in their faith, if they treasure God's creatures, if they are socially concerned and involved, if they constitute the nucleus of a genuine, open Christian community into which they assimilate their students, that school offers unparalleled opportu.nities for developing in the members of Chris,t's Body the qualities nece~ssary for + ÷ + Schools VOLUME 30, ].971 957 + 4. + C. Kiesling, O,P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 958 their sharing the mission of the Church to mankind and the world. But, it may be objected, should not such a Christian teacher of English literature or physics or sociology or mathematics be in apublic school? Could he not perform a most valuable Christian ministry there Yes, he could; and such Christian teachers--lay, religious, cleric-- should be in public schools. They would be fulfilling the Church's apostolic mission to the world in a most excel-lent way. But could his pupils derive as much benefit from him in the public school as they could in a school of the Church---or of the Churches, as some would propose in this ecumenical age? In a public school, his pupils could only rarely, and then with the greatest circumspection, explicitly view the subject with the teacher in the light of the gospel. Never could they celebrate their Christian awareness of the subject in worship, liturgical or other, unless they met outside the school and school time. This condition raises the complex problem of finding a con-venient opportunity for such celebration; and it intro-duces a division into the public school community, which could Iead to all sorts of unpleasant complications: More-over, students in a public school would not experience their learning within a known Christian milieu and hence would not see it as part of Christian life and Chris-tian life as embracing it. But is this not the age of anonymous Christianity? Is it necessary for students to examine explicitly a subject in the light of the gospel, to celebrate it in worship, and to see it as part of Christian life and Christian life as em-bracing it? Recourse to the concept of anonymous Christianity is a way Christians have adopted to take the sting out of the widespread de-christianization and secularization that has occurred in modern times. But anonymous Christianity, though a good thing in comparison to being altogether outside the influence of God's grace,'is a humanly imper-fect thing. To be human is to have self-awareness. Man is not only conscious as animals are, but reflectively con-scious; he is aware of himself as animals are not. If man's self is actually graced by God, then his self-awareness should include that fact, otherwise he is not fully self-aware, not fulIy human. Hence it is important, not only for Christian education but for the human education of the Christian, that he see what he learns as part of Chris-tian life and Christian life as embracing it. When one reads carefi~lly the documents of Vatican II in regard to its ideal of what Christian laymen should be in the life and mission of the Church, one cannot help asking how they are ever going to achieve that ideal, and how clergy and religious are going to help them in fulfill- ment of their priestly and religious responsibilities to serve their fellow members in the building up of Christ's Body. What i~ called for is not comprehended under the labels of religious instruction or religious practices. Nor is it adequately described as handing on, preserving, or nourishing Christian faith, What is required is education in the fullest sense of the word, education of the whole man for the whole of life, bnt education with a'Christian quality to it. Of all the Church's projects, its schools offer the most opportunities for such education. With such education, Catholic laymen would exercise their role in the mission of the Church, not by contributing money to a Human Development Fund, of which the hierarchy is the banker, but by becoming involved in human development in the neighborhood, city, state, nation, and the world. This latter is the more authentic fulfillment of the Christian apostolate by which the members of Christ's Body partici-pate in its mission to the world. The schools of the Church will very likely be fewer in number in the future. But they remain unique opportun-ities for building up the Body of Christ for its mission. Abandonment of the struggle to maintain them and, still more important, to exploit their new possibilities under the conditions, which have arisen since Vatican II will grievously set back the emergence of the layman and the mission of the Church to the world. It will promote the tendency of the Church to be identified with the clergy and religious rather than the whole People of God, and to become a club for fellowship in subjective re_ligious experience rather than the leaven in the dough ~of his-tory. Religious' involvement in the schools of the Church remains both~an important and challenging ministry. Schools VOLUME $0, '].97~ 959 SISTER MARY JEANNE SALOIS, R.S.M. Opinions of the Laity on Changes in Religious Life Sister Jeanne is director of research services at the Sis-ters of Mercy Gen-eralate at 10000 Kentsdale Drive, Box 34446; Be-thesda, Maryland 20034. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 960 Literature concerning recent developments in the re-ligious life provide little information on the effects of these developments on the laity. Since the prima.ry pur-pose of adaptation and renewal as stated in the docu-ments of Vatican II is to become more effective in promoting the kingdom of God on earth---"That this kind of life and its contemporary role may achieve greater good for the Church, this sacred Synod issues the following decrees" 1--it should be helpful to know how a section of this kingdom feels about the adaptation they are observing. Such knowledge should contribute sub-stantially to an honest evaluation of the changes being made. This article summarizes the thinking of lay people on adaptation in religious life in seven parishes distributed geographically from the New England coast to mid-western United States. A random sampling of 60 families from each of the parishes listed in Table 1 participated in this study. Treatment o[ the Data: The investigator sent an in-strument entitled "Opinionnaire to Obtain the Lay-man's Assessment of Religious Women in the Church Today" to 420 randomly selected persons. Of these, 220 responded, constituting 53.4 percent returns. Distribu-tion of respondents is shown in Table 2. Eighty-three men and 137 women responded to this opinionnaire. Of these only One was black, the others being white. Age of respondents varied as indicated be-low: 1Walter M. Abbott, S.J., ed., The Documents o[ Vatican II, "Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Life," n. 1. Age of Re~#ondent Number in Category Percent 20-29 16 7 30-39 59 27 40-49 77 35 50-59 42 19 60-69 19 9 70- 7 3 Approximately half of the respondeqts attended a Catholic grade and high school and most of them at-tended college. Most of the respondents indicated they were professional or sell-employed with very few saying they were semi or unskilled workers. TABLE :1 Parishes Participating in Study to Obtain Opinions of Laity on Changes being' Made in Religious Congregations Parish* City and State Our Lady of the Assumption St. Joseph Immaculate Heart of Mary Sacred Heart Immaculate Conception St. James Gate of Heaven Atlanta, Georgia Denver, Colorado Detroit, Michigan Hattiesburg, Mississippi Memphis, Tennessee New Bedford, Massachusetts Dallas, Pennsylvania * Parishes were selected at random from the total list of parishes being served I~y a religious congregation of women. TABLE 2 Distribution of Laymen Who Responded to Opinionnaire New Denver, Bedford, Hatties- Dallas, Colorado burg, Atlanta, Detroit, Memphig, Penn~yl, chusettsMassa" Mississippi Georgia Michigan Tennessee vama No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % ~o. % No.! % 17 58.3 26 43.3 41 68.3 28 46.6 37 62.7 36 Findings from Opinionnaire: Items and comments of respondents will be summarized under the three headings on the instrumefit: (1) The individual's personal contacts with sisters, (2) the religious life, and (3) sisters' aposto-lates. Personal Contacts with Religious Sisters Almost three-fourths (72%) of the respondents at-tributed most of the credit for helping them become religious persons to their parents. Twenty-six percent credited the sisters for having provided them with in-spiration, and 9 per cent mentioned the clergy. When asked how much influence for good religious sisters had exerted on them, participants responded as 4. 4- 4. Laity Opinion VOLUME 30, 1971 961 Sister 1eanne REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 962 follows: A mount of Influence Number Percent Very great influence 58 '26 I~reat influenc'e 54 24 Some influence 63 29 A little influence 29 13 No influence 13 6 Thus, 50 percent of respondents indicated that re-ligious sisters had influenced them greatly for good and 29 percent said sisters had influenced them some. Most of the respondents consider sisters friendly and easy to meet (192 or 88%). Nineteen respondents (13%) consider the sisters unaware of people around them, and four persons said they were unfriendly. When asked if they would go to a sister for help if they had some personal religious problem, 106 (48%) said they would go rarely, 71 (32%) said they would never go, and 38 (17%) said they would usually go to a sister for help. Most respondents feel that sisters show respect for them as persons (all do--61%; some do--36%). Ninety percent of respondents indicated that the sisters they have known spend most of their time in the educa-tion of children. Ninety percent are pleased with this effort, 6 percent are indifferent, and 3 percent are un-happy. Most respondents believe that sisters manifest an in-terest in the welfare of people in general (78%), and 18 percent don't know. Two percent said that sisters do not manifest an interest in the welfare of others. When asked to express their thinking on the age distribution of the sisters serving them, 81 respondents (37%) said age is not important, 74 (34%) s.aid the age distribution was about right, 25 (11%) said they did not have enough younger sisters, and 5 (2%) said they did not have enough older sisters. The Religious Life Two-thirds of the respondents believe there is no difference between the religious life and mariage in so far as thei~ comparable merits are concerned. Seventeen percent believe the religious vocation more pleasing to God, and 25 respondents (11%) said they didn't know. One hundred and twenty-five respondents (57%) said they would respond favorably if they had a daughter who wanted to become a religious, 77 (35%) would be neutral, and 15 (7%)would respond unfavorably. Most of the respondents (93%) said the sisters they have known seem to be happy. Respondents were widely distributed in their thinking on the economic level of religious living. One hundred and nine (50%) of the respondents believe that the sisters are living on the same or better economic level than they are. Sixty-nine (31%) believe they are living more comfortably than~ the sisters, and 41 ~(19%) said they don't know. When asked whether the sisters seem more progressive since Vatican 11, 161 (73%) said they were either out-standing or quite progressive. About 10 percent found them too progressive and approximately the same per-centage considered them not progressive at all. Almost three-fourths (70%) of the respondents pre-ferred to see religious women living in a convent espe-cially designed for them. Fourteen percent prefer to see ~them in a middle-class residence near their employment. Only two persons said they prefer to see sisters in a home in a poor neighborhood, and three persons said in an apartment. Thirty-eight respondents (17%) said they didn't care. Fewer than half (44%) of the persons responding in-dicated that they like to see religious dressed in a habit which includes a veil. About one-third (32%) like to see religious in conservative attire which does not include a veil, and 7 percent like to see them in contemporary clothing with accessories identical to lay women. Four-teen percent don't care what religious wear. Two-thirds of the respondents like to see sisters par-ticipating in all parish activities. Twenty-four percent-wish religious to participate in all parish activities ex-cept those which are purely social, such ,as dances. Seventeen respondent,s (8%) prefer that sisters attend only those activities related to the school, such as home-school meetings. Apostolic Services When asked how they would react if the sisters would decide to withdraw entirely from the school in order to do other works in the parish, 72 percent said they would respond unfavorably. Eighteen percent said they would be neutral, and 9 percent said they would respond fa-vorably to such a decision. Respondents .were asked if they thought the sisters should be 'more active in working with the poor. Re-sponses were evenly distributed with 68 (31%)in the affirmative, 70 (32%) in the negative, and 72 (33%)with no opinion on thismatter. Responses to items which attempted to find out which apostolaies seemed most necessary to the laity left no room for doubt. They strongly endorse the Catholic school concept and wish sisters would continue in this endeavor. In response to an item concerning the services they 4- 4- 4" 4" 4. Sister Jeanne REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 964 would prefer sisters provided for them if they were .in need of such services, 68 percent said they wished them to teach children. Other services given some priority by respondents were to administer to the sick in institutions (12%), administer to the sick in homes (5%), and teach adults (4%). Only one percent wish sisters to teach poor children only. Respondents were asked which apostolic works, if any, sisters should discontinue in which they are presently engaged. Each respondent could list three works. Results follow. Campus Ministry on Secular Campus 32 Diocesan services 92 Social work 19 College 16 High School I 1 Elementary school 10 Hospital 9 Religious Education 5 Respondents were asked to list in order of priority the works which they believed sisters should be engaged in at the present time and in the future. The following priorities were established by.averaging the ranks of the 220 respondents. 1. Teaching religion in Catholic school 2. Administrator in Catholic school 3. Teaching secular subjects in Catholic school 4. Teaching in Religious Education Program 5. Administrator of Religious Education Program in parish 6. Serving in Parish Ministry working with families 7. Staff position in health institution 8. Administrator in health institution 9. Social worker in inner city 10. Rehabilitation of drug addicts 11. Serving in Campus Minstry on secular campus 12. Administrator or staff position in public institution Comments of Laity on Adaptation and Rerlewal of Sisters In their comments on the adaptation they are observ-ing in religious communities, participants expressed di-verse opinions, presenting a kaleidoscopic view of re-ligious congregations. Many respondents praised the sisters for some of the changes they are making and for their continued dedication. Some, accustomed as they are to uniformity within religious communities, are using similarity of dress and dutifulness to t~aditional occupations as the criteria for evaluating renewal in religious life. Some are using normal standards of ac-ceptable behavior and are surprised and scandalized at the extremes to which some sisters are going in their new freedom. To the laity, these sisters seem immature and insincere, wanting the best of two worlds. Thus, much of the renewal effort is suspect to some of the laity, both that being made by large groups of sisters attempting to renew sincerely in keeping with the changing needs of the world and by the small group of extremist whose actions the layman is questioning. The comments below are typical of those made by many respondents. I don't think the'sisters are'adapting to the needs of the Church. Some sisters are radical; some are conservative: Some are in habits; some are not. Some are worldly; some are not. They seem to be divided among themselves. Some seem to act as immature young women wanting the best of both worlds. They ~vant the respect due to religious and the fun and entertainment of single women. They are mainly interested in satisfying their own desires. Opinions concerning the habit differed with many respondents reluctantly accepting the demise of" the traditional habit in favor of some lesser form of identifica-tion. Many emphasized the, importance of a religious identity and regret the loss of respect which the habit has always commanded. On careful analysis, responses seem to set forth the .primacy of "habit" over "person" in the thinking of some lay persons. I feel the sisters should have uniform attire~ even if it is a simple colored dresg with a large cross. They are married to God and should be proud of their vocation. They would also command more respect and be more useful, as people would be aware of their vocations and ask for help seeing the gar-ment, not the per.son. It was surprising to see how the laity identify religious with the traditioffal professions to the extent of con-sidering new occupations completely incompatible with the vocation itself. Sisters should either be in the religio~as vocation, or if they want to do soc.ial work they should not do it under the guise of a religious. Religious have pushed into social care areas where .they are not qualified. They have given scandal, betrayed their com-munity life and their origina! vocation. Sisters should work where they can influence and strengthen the faith and morals of young Catholics. Let others care for their social and physical needs. The laity continues to look for the dedicated, hard-working sister wh6 spends her time going from her work to her prayers in the convent where her physical, and social needs are met. They are surprised when they see sisters becoming more like other women in their use of leisure and in the external manifestation of their fem-ininity. They feel that the purpose o[ religious women was + + + Laity Opinion VOLUME 30, 1971 965 ÷ ÷ Sister Jeanne REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 966 and is to stay in the classroom and teach their children, and that to betray this purpose is to betray their calling as religious. Sisters should do what they have done for many years--see to the education of our future citizens. Most of God's work is just that--hard work--and this is probably the main thing I have always admired about the nuns I have known. They were committed and worked hard with little thanks or praise, and I'm sure they were often discour-aged and unsure of their accomplishments. Some of the laity are interpreting the trend to leave the traditional apostolates as a sign of individualism which prompts one to wish to "do her own thing." I find it disturbing that some sisters, when given the op-portunity to work in the world today, become concerned with their own needs or interests under the guise of making money for their order. Since Vatican II, I feel that many nuns are confused and at odds with their own previous commitment. Teaching sisters now seem to feel social work is their bag, nursing nuns feel that teaching would be more appropriate, etc. Confusion stems, I believe, from a lack of the whole spirit we used to know as dedication to God's work. It is being replaced today in all of society by a personal need to do your own thing. A change very pleasing to the laity where it has taken place is the updating observed in methods of teaching and curriculum. They praise the sisters who are more understanding of child nature than they used to be and who are ready to meet the explosion of knowledge which today's children are experiencing. They complain if these changes are not taking place. Unfortunately, older nuns are not adjusting methods, cur-riculum, and themselves personally to many facts, namely,. that today's children know much more in space and science study than is in textbooks and they often know more than the the teacher herself. The teacher's attitude often becomes bel-ligerent rather than pleased that children are this way. Some personal evaluation seems necessary. The older nuns seem to adapt to the needs of the Church. Younger nuns could learn from them. It is no longer a voca-tion to them, it is ajob. Some middle class lay people feel that religious are now prejudiced against them. They argue .that their needs for the services of religious are as great as those of any other segment of society. We who are just ordinary people--working, living, and .dying--also need the help and example of the religious sister in today's world. We feel that what's the use when our lives and struggles are treated with disdain. We don't want to be applauded, but we feel that by living an honest and decent life and ever-striving to do the works of Christ, that we ought to be considered at least as human as the girls who have il-legitimate babies who you would think had won the grand prize for all the attention they are given. In short, love us too, even though we have never broken a law. I believe ~many sisters aye giving up "their 6wn" to work in the inner cities and for social causes. A poor soul is not .Primarily found in a poor person--the person may be rich, middle 'class or ~poor. We should try to help all equally so all can be saved. Another change taking ~place among religious women which is greatly appreciated by the laity is the attitude of considering all persons as equals. They are happy that sisters have come down from their pedestal and no longer seem to expect deference from the laity. The sisters, I believe, are progressing to include all persons with whom they come in contact as equals. I used to. feel the sisters considered themselves.very special and should be looked up to by all. I think they are more aware of people's needs than previ-ously. They are more sensitive and less untouchable. Some have lost self-respect by playing down to the laity too much. Much of the advice given to religious by respondents argued for the maintenance, of balance in the matter of adaptation and warned against extremes. Don't go overboard! Keep attire and sense of misSio~a in line with Catholic beliefs. If the sisters participate in secular affairs, I feel they should remember they are sisters and uphold the traditions and reputation Catholic sisters have always had. General impressions reported by respondents include the following: I get the feeling they are not of the Church but of the world. Instead of giving up things of the world they are acquiring things of the world. Nuns, in general, appear ito be departing from a way of life which identified them as religious, and as a result of ,this proc-ess, society appears tO have less respect for religious orders. I think sisters are doing a fine job. This is a time for all people to join t.ogether and to remember that God is the father of all, not just the white man, Many so-called Christians have forgotten this. General Statements on Opinions of Laity From the many ideas expressed by the laity responding to this opinionnaire, a few generalizations can be stated: There is little evidence at this time that the changing needs of society, for example, the rapid increase of Catholic students on the secular university campus, have penetrated the thinking of: lay people to any great extent. Criteria used by most of the laity for judging sisters remain the. same today as before Vatican II in spite of the shift toward greater personal freedom and more leisure in society as a whole~ However, a few of .the respondents 4- 4- + Laity Opinion VOLUME 30~ 1971 967 Sister Jeanne REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 968 do seem to comprehend rather accurately the reasons for change in religious congregations. A few religious who, in the eyes of the laity, have seemingly lost sight of the meaning of religious vocation are impeding acceptance of the necessary changes large numbers Of religious women are making. There are certain paradoxes in the thinking of the laity concerning religious sisters at present. The laity are happy that sisters consider them as equals, no longer expecting deference; yet they lament the elimination of' external signs, such as the habit, which commands special respect. The laity give major credit to their parents for being the grea.test influence for holiness in their lives; yet they insist that the sisters are essential to growth of holiness in their children. The laity are happy that sisters have stepped down from their pedestal to walk among them; yet they wish to continue admiring them at a distance when they need help in the solution of their personal religious problems. In summary, respect for religious among the laity in this sample has decreased as a result of the changes made by religious congregations since Vatican II. This loss of respect can be attributed to a failure on the part of laymen to understand the reasons basic to change and their failure to recognize new needs in society for the services of religious women. It is also the result of unwise individual choices which some religious are making in their personal lives. The laity need the assistance of sisters if they are to understand the motives for their new behaviors. Perhaps the greatest need of the laity, as well as of religious, is familiarity with social doctrines of the Church and the emphasis given to these doctrines in the documents of Vatican II. Reflections of the Writer Religious congregations are attempting to implement the new emphases of Vatican II. The laity, familiar with the old structure, fail to understand the inevitable re-suits "of implementing such documents as "Declaration on Religious Freedom" from Vatican II, and Mater et Magistra, the encyclical letter of Pope John XXIII. An example of this implementation is the attention religious congregations are now giving to the dignity of the human person. In Mater et Magistra (215) we read, Whatever the progress in technology and economic life, there can be neither justice nor peace in .the world, so long as men fail to realize how great is their dignity; for they have been created by God and are His children. According to the social teachings of the Church, society is at~the, service of the human person to respect his dignity and allow him to attain his end and his full human development: "Society is made for man and not man for society.''2 Plus XII s~aid: "Man is a personal being, endowed.with intelligent& and free will;" ~a~ being who has the final choice of what he will or will not do," s Enhnciating this principle of the dignity of the human person, the ""Document on Religious Freedom" from Vatican II states: God calls men to serve Him in spirit and in truth. Hence they are bound ih consdence but they standunder n0: Com-pulsion. God has rbgard for :the dignity of the human person who.m He himseff created; man is to be guided by his own judgment and he is to enjoy freedom. . In contemplating these teachings concerning the basic freedoms o[ man and applying them to herself, a religious may conclude that she does not relinguish her innate freedom to govern herself when she enters a religious congregation. She believes that she is responsible to God alone for her actions and that she is responsible for keeping these actions in line with the life she has com-mitted herself to live. If this reasoning is correct, obe-dience in religious life needs to find its meaning apart from the responsibility of one person to govern the life of another. If religious growth takes place through responsible choices made freely, each person must be free to choose in matters pertaining to her personal life. In their efforts to implement tile new emphasis on the dignity of the person and_ her freedom of choice, religious congregations are eliminating rules which formerly gov-erned the personal life o[ each member. Remove pro-hibitive rules designed to channel actions according to a certain pattern which all members are exp6cted to observe and they are going to act as do all other members of the human race uniquely and differently. Some per-sons are going to make unwise choices as is true of persons in other walks of life. Freed from rules which prevent extremes, religious women are going to demon-strate their good taste or lack of it in their external appearance, their behavior, their use of leisure, and in their professional activities. But the end of this process is good the coming to being of a religious who is interiorly motivated to govern herself in a manner suited to her commitment as a woman who has dedicated her life to Christ and the service of His kingdom on earth. The new religious will come to r~alize as never before th~it she has been made = Plus XI,'Divini Redemptoris. a Pius xIi, "Allocution to the Sixth International Congress on Criminal Law," October 15, 1954, + Laity Opinion VOLUME 30, 1971 969 Sister Jeanne REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 970 in God's likeness to imitate His perfection, His goodness, and His love and mercy for men. She will realize that sh~ must 'lift herself up to God freely if she wishes to l~articipate with Christ in life eternal, in the divine life of God and of the Blessed Trinity. This is the destiny of all men, the religious included, and all must freely choose to follow this path, for with Christ there is no coercion, no forcing, no want of freedom. Surely every adult' outside of a religious community reaches the period in her life when she is no longer told what to wear and where to go. The fully committed re-ligious woman who has dedicated her life to Christ and to the service of his kingdom on earth should "be equally capable of" exercising her God-given freedom and of assuming the responsibility for her actions and her destiny. Lay people need to understand that they will be observing some evidence of poor taste as religious use the freedom they now have. Poor judgment is not a monopoly of the laity; it can also be expected of religious. Unless the formation period in the life of young re-ligious provides an understanding of how the gospel message is translated into daily living as a religious, sisters cannot be expected to make decisions in keeping with their form of life. In their uncertainty regarding the preparation which best prepares individual religious to exercise greater freedom, some congregations are ab-dicating their responsibility fbr the formation of young religious. To supose that new members who have not developed an understanding of the religious life will make personal decisions in keeping with it is a rash assumption. If religious congregations are to make wise choices. during this period of renewal and adaptation, they must take time to study the past and realize Gully the import of char~ge on the present and future. Unless changes are in line with the purposes for which the congregation was formed in the first place, the congregation will give way to a new entity or disintegrate completely. In-dividual members of apostolic religious congregations in the past realized their service of Christ in His Church through service of the congregation whose corporate end was this divine service. Today, many religious see them-selves as groups of dedicated individual members with a diversity of tasks. If religious retain the apostolic dimension of their original commitment, the transfer from corporate to individual commitment may be a change of means rather than ends. However, if the apostolic dimension of one's service is lost, the primary purpose of apostolic religious congregations in the Church no longer exists. When no unifying purpose is present, organizational structure becomes meaningless. It has been the purpose of this study to provide some insight on the reaction of the laity to observed change in religious congregations in the year 1971, Hopefully, the opinions expressed in this report will be.helpful to religious congregations as they chart their c0urse'for the future. + 4- 4- Laity Opinion VOLUME ~0, 1971 97! SISTER MARY JOHN MANANZAN, O.S.B. Must I Love You for God's Sake? ÷ ÷ .I. Sister John is a graduate student of the Gregorian Uni-versity and resides at Via dei Bevilac-qua, 60; Rome, Italy (00165). REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 972 Read the title without a pause and with the correct intonation lest you miss the point of this article, it is not an exasperated exclamation like "Must I put up with you, for heaven's sake?" The article concerns itself rather with the question whether we should love others "for the sake of God." This phrase has been so misinterpreted in the past and still also in the present that the word "char-ity" has fallen into disrepute or at least it has acqui~?ed a cold, antiseptic atmosphere. People say "I don't want your charity"--"I will not be an object of charity." In the stu-dent house where I lived while I was studying in Ger-many, the girls were very wary of "nuns" doing things for charity. Once an Idonesian girl living in another house got sick. A German friend of mine announced her inten-tion of driving over. I spontanously exclaimed: "I'11 go with you." She looked at me and cautiously asked: "Are you doing it for charity?" The reason for such wariness is that doing things for charity or for God's sake is taken to mean something like: "Actually you are a nasty fellow and for yourself I wouldn't lift a finger. But I am doing this because I see Christ in you." I don't tbink for a moment that Christ is at all pleased with such pious prattle. And the person concerned rightly feels himself an "object" of charity--a means to some altruistic, humanitarian or still worse to a spiritual ideal. C. S. Lewis in his delightful book Four Loves gives a punchy example of an "unselfish . self-sac-rificing" mother who "just lived for her family." In a remarkable self-deception she literally worked herself to the bone for them but actually what she managed to do was to suffocate each member of her family, because she did not actually see them as persons and did not really consider their real needs; She looked through them to work for her image of being an ideal mother. She used them as means to fulfill her need to be needed. In a similar manner "loving others for God's sake" has some-how taken on the meaning of disregarding the individual person. On this point one can learn a great deal from Kant who has been accused of having never written a word on love. But he actually offers a very solid foundation for what we call "love of neighbor" in his famous (infa-mous?) categorical imperative. This principle has also suffered a very one-sided treatment. The frequently cited formulation is the one that approximates the Golden Rule wearing a grim duty-conscious facial expression. A less quoted formulation however reads: "Act in such a way as to treat humanity whether in yourself or in others never only as a means but always also as an end/' Kant's moral theory is based on the absolute valuation of the person. A person is for him an autonomous subject. He alone possesses the dignity to be happy (Wtirdigkeit, glficklich zu sein). For this reason, a person may never be regarded only as a means but should be willed as a good-in- himself. This absolute valuation of a person manifests itself first and foremost in doing one's duty towards him. Again on this point Kant is frequently misinterpreted. No less than the great German poet Schiller is guilty of this shallow interpretation of Kant when he writes: Gladly I serve my friends but alas I do it with pleasure Hence I am plagued with doubt that I am not a virtuous person. This is answered by a similarly poor interpretation of Kant and a worse poetry: Sure your only recourse is to despise them entirely And then with aversion do what your duty enjoins you. Kant did not mean at all that interest and affection would detract from the moral worth of an action. His term "duty" is a limiting term. It simply isolates the factor which accounts in the last analysis for the moral worth of an action. But once this is ascertained, one can embellish one's action with all the affection one is capa-ble of. I think it is important that Kant makes this em-phasis. There are really people who lavish their affection here and there and everywhere but neglect their elemen-tary duty towards these same persons. It is this forgetfhl-ness of Kant which is responsible for the benevolent tyr-anny in many lands suffering from social injustice, where the rich landlords or employers give to their exploited laborers "in charity" what they owe them in justice. The elementary duty of "love of neighbor" is thus to take the person as an'end in himself and never a means for anyone or anything. Truly? Not even for God? No, not even. God needs no means. He is His own End. He ÷ ÷ Love VOLUME 30, 1971 973 doesn't rely on any means to reach it. What then does loving others "for God's sake" mean? If it means anything at all, it means: one must take the other in his totality. Man is essentially a relation. A per-son is most a person in his relation to God. One can give him absolute value because he has already been radically affirmed by an absolute Person, He is worthy to be loved because he has already been radically loved. One can therefore love him for his own sake if one regards him in the totality of his being rooted in God. But the totality of man also means his being an individual distinct person. Therefore "love of neighbor" means taking this concrete person beside me for what he is and loving him with all his quirks. I think it is one of the characters of Peanuts who said: "I love humanity; It is people that I cannot stand." To love another is to see him. It is to love him "interestedly." "Disinterested love" is no love. It is too pretentious. It is being in love with one's perfectly selfless way of loving. This is the reason why I think foreign aid to developing countries miserably fails in arousing the gratitude of the people it helps. It is literally disinter-ested. There is no interest in the people as persons. No wonder they feel insulted and are resentful. They do not feel loved--they feel that they are objects of love. The same is true in individual relationships. One wants to be loved,' becau'se one is lovable. A boy who tells a girl "I love you, because of your pug nose" is not necessarily being superficial. Maybe he grasps the point of love better than if he were to enumerate the noblest .motives in the world. I think the art of loving is to find something very concrete .in someone (be it a pug nose, a crooked smile, a naughty left eyebrow--whatever it is. There is one in every person aching to be discovered!), to discover this recapitulation of his personality and in this burning focal point of his being, to love him intensely. 4- + Sister John REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 974 TENNANT C. WRIGHT, s.J. A Note on Poverty This is simply a report on a mode of poverty lived at one Jesuit house in Mexico City. The report is drawn from a conversation with several members of the commu-nity there, including the Father Minister who was influ-ential in setting up the program and helps with its ad-ministration. The program seems particularly enlightening at this moment when there is such discussion of poverty and how it fits with a religious' psychological need to feel economically productive and responsible. The Mexican community is made up of Jesuits who receive a salary at one of the Universities (non-Jesuit) in Mexico City. The salary i.s paid by the University directly to the individual Jesuit~ It is turned over by the Jesuit to the community. The community treasury, derived from the salaries, is then divided into three parts: First, there is a common fund for the community, out of which comes such general expenseg as house upkeep, and the room and board of the Jesuits living there. Second, there is a monthly personal amount returned to each Jesuit, an equal amount to each, no matter what his salary from the University. Out of the monthly "allowance" the Jesuit is expected to take care of his or-dinary personal items, such as clothes, recreation, the or-dinary personal necessities of his study and work, his ordinary travel. Third, there is a fund retained by the community for emergencies. As I understand it, the emergencies are gen-erally of two types, each handled differently. There is that personal emergency which arises from the unexpected, for example, an accident, a particularly large medical bill. Such personal emergency expenses are met by the community in a direct payment (not a loan) out of this emergency fund. But this third fund also covers those personal but more expensive items needed by some but not all. For instance, if one of the Jesuits in the course of his work needs some particularly expensive equipment or books or a car, then the community lends to this Jesuit the money to buy the T. C. Wright is a faculty member of the University of Santa Clara; Santa Clara, California 95053. VOLUME .30, 1971 975 special item. The loan is made without interest, but it is gradually paid back to the community out of the individo ual's monthly allowance. This question of loans to the individual for special expenses is crucial. The Mexican community is clear that this is not a case of dominion, of true ownership. Rather it is a more sophisticated way of responsible use. The special item is only purchased after consultation with the superior. The ultimate decision remains with the supe-rior. Although the item is used with the responsible dis-cretion of the individual, when and if his need for it is no longer present it is sold and the money returned to the community fund. Although this three-fold scheme of community use of [unds seems simple and clear in presentation, Father Minister and other members of the Mexican Jesuit com-munity emphasized that the implementation of this mode of poverty has more difficulties and is more complex than its simple outline indicates. 4- 4- 4- T. C. Wright REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 976 W. L. L~CROIX,.S.J. The New Property" and the of PovertY In the past ten years there has taken place a consider-able change in the attitudes of many vowed to the reli-gious life with respect to their "having" material goods. At times, this change in attitude has been reflected by attempts to patch the tearsin earlier lived interpretations of the vow of poverty by talk of a "vow of common life," or something of the sort. By these patchwork efforts, peo-ple have tried to bring within a reflective understanding of the vow such new lived interpretations of poverty that permit individuals to have exclusive control over many more material items (from transistor radios to individual vacations) than were ever previously found acceptable. In this brief essay, I would like to suggest that these efforts are of secondary consequence. I submit that there is a much more pressing problem for the practice of vowed poverty in contemporary America. This more pressing problem emerges from the recent, qualitative leap taken in the lived interpreta)ion of property. If the vow of poverty at all concerns some deliberate taking up of a life style that is designated by its extraordi-nary attitude toward property (this does seem to be the "matter" of the vow), then it is of major importance to talk about that which a political economist might call today the "new property." This concept is both simple and subtle, so let me briefly try to present what lines of thought are involved, and then appraige the implications of "new property" for what I will call the positive "thrust" of the vow of poverty. The "'New Property" Property may be described as a socially acknowledged relation that a person has to what is considered, in the broadest sense, an item of value. Now what is considered of value (except for subsistence in food, clothing, shelter) is to a great extent determined by the concrete attitudes W. L. LaCroix, S.J., is a faculty member of Rock-burst College; 5225 Troost Avenue; Kansas City, Mis-souri 64110. VOLUME 3~0, 1971 ÷ ÷ ÷ W. L. LaCroix REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 978 within a cultural milieu. And what are the manifold ways in which, ordinarily understood, one may acquire rela-tion to items of value are familiar to us all. And so we have our ordinary image of what we talk about when we use the term "property." But this imagining is so easy only because so few have done serious reflection on some significant socio-economic developments of the last fifty years. Many people today. continue to be undisturbedly at ease with talk about property exclusively under the rubric of the individual's possession, use, and control of "permanent" and fixed (real property) or of manipulable or consumable items of value (personal property). In fact, however, with the growth of a corporate society in America, some are able to argue convincingly that this familiar rubric of prop-erty has become at least partially obsolete, and that the part where it is obsolete is the more important part. One major indication of the need for a new rubric is that, in, our society heavily toned by business relation-ships, political economists and businessmen now are will-ing to say that, for most of the large business corporations, there are capital investors, there are top and middle man-agers, there are employees, customers, unions, the govern-ment, and the society at large that are related to the corporate organization, but there are no owners. That is, there are none except the impersonal (albeit legal) entity of the corporation itself. Certainly one reason here is that the business corporation is no longer an item compassa-ble by any individual who might attempt personally to organize and control it, that is, to "possess" it, to have it as private property. This growth to bigr~ess is one that has moved not only vertically in the size of an individual corporation, but hlso horizontally to interlace organizations of diverse kinds into one corporate society. Qualitative alterations have taken place in how and by whom social relation-ships are determined within the individual private orga-nization, in the relations between the individual private organizat~ions, and between these organizations, govern-mental bodies, and the social community itself. Corpora-tional businesses today act less with attention to the com-petitive market and more with attention to a mutual self-interest of the leading businesses, or even at times with a mixture of this and "public interest." Government does not hesitate to curtail initiative from a "private" firm for the sake of "public interest," or, conversely, to subsi-dize private sector business for the "public interest," or to contract out to business and to educational institutions some "public interest" undertaking. Educational institu-tions concern themselves with good relations with the business community and government for financial assist- ance; and with accreditation agencies for professional prestige. In a society composed of such interlaced organ~izations, the sharp distinctions between the public and the private sectors of activities have faded (I will suggest a test for this further on), and all members of society have been drawn into new and manifold relations to all the organi-zations. This means that those items of value, or wealth, which the individual can have as "private property" have become secondary in social significance. From Locke to World War I in Anglo-American thought these items have been the key to civic freedom, self-identity, and individual capacity to initiate effects in society. Now the socio-economic fi'eedom, identity, and initiative--in one word, the social power---of the private property holder are minimal. As a society we have entered an era where the initiative comes from organizations which act for or-ganizational or for "public" interest. And the "public" interest today means .less and less each individual's inter-ests and more and more only organized interests~ As part of a growing consensus on the relations of persons to new items of value today, A. A. Berle, Jr., has spoken of the divorce from older property of the socio-ec-onomic power to make determinations in society. He terms this the distinction between "individual possessory holdings" and "power systems." What is at stake here :is not merely the separation of ownership from socio-eco-nomic control, but the "increasing elimination of pro-prietary ownership itself and its replacement by, substan-tially, a power system." Charles A. Reich has spoken of the new form of wealth which one obtains in a corporational social structure through the relationships one has to various organiza-tions. These relationships gain for one a place in the interlaced socio-economic system of organizations. The new marriage of wealth and power is a union within the blood line of the power structure itself, for the wealth is itself new power. One has this new wealth of socio-eco-nomic place, or power status, in so far as one has actively functional relations to the power systems. As active within the power systems, one individually has the socio-economic power without the need of property in the tra-ditional sense of individual possessory holdings, One only needs to obtain a place, a status in the power systems. To clarify how this change brings in new dimensions in the question of poverty, let me develop briefly how one acquires this power, what the power is, why it is special today, and whether it is legitimate. ~ (How acquired) One enters a place of power not by ownership, but by the possession of whatever credentials the people presently with an active function in an organi- 4- "New Property" VOLUME 30, 1971 979 ÷ ÷ ÷ W. L. LaCroix REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 980 zation designate as required. They in turn designate what matters are required in response to the organization's demand in view of~ its present strength and future fate in the interlaced system. These admission credentials are supposed to, and often do, signify the possession of some expertise, some "know how" in terms of the functions and goals of the organization. One's relations to active power status in an organiza-tion is always conditional. It is forever a trial marriage and lasts only as long as the person's power decisions make things function well for the organizational system. In turn, one is subject to those interchanges of power which constitute the organization to which he belongs directly, and to those interchanges of power by which his organization is interlaced within the American corporate system. One is tied to his organization's fate, which itself is precarious, by one's personal credentials, which are constantly under test. For brevity~s sake, let us call one's conditional relations to this new wealth of power status the "new property" (even though I have modified Reich's use of the phrase). Some kind of status in a community or in a private orga-nization, of course, is nothing new. But the status now at point is no longer simply a social by-product of possessory holdings, ancestry; or profession. The new status is a place of socio-economic power within active organiza-tional power. (What is power) As Berle has noted, we are still philo-sophically immature in reflections on power. For our pur-poses here, let us be satisfied with a simple concept: power allows the wielder to initiate decisions on the transmission, use, and determinations of socio-economic assets for the lives of persons. One who holds power has a "scope of significant choice" (Carl Kaysen) open to his decisions within a corporational social structure that widely and significantly affect the determinations of how one himself and others experience and express human values. Today we have large social and economic organi-zations which depend upon and which generate power to their members. These organizations are managed by non-owners whose decisions and instructions, by the mecha-nism of the organization, are made causative at distant points of application, both inside and outside the indi-vidual organization. Normally one distinguishes "power to do things" and "power over persons," but this distinction often is only in the relative immediacy of the results of power's exercise. And the exercise of "power over" brings a reduction for those affected in the range of personal alternatives in socio-economic activities, and an increase in dependence on the power's exercise. (Why special) As society's organizations become more complex, they become more interlaced and thereby more counterbalanced in their scope of initiative action. This primordial counterbalance, however, is less in terms o~ conflict and more in terms of agreement. As a result, as organizations grow to need each other, they become less counterbalanced in the consequent effects o~ their actions in the public arena. This is an important point. It any-one subject to a function of organizational power is still ultimately free to disassociate himself from .the power, with some but with no drastic repercussions in his total li~e style, then the "power over" that person may be said to be private. Sucb a freedom of the one subjected to private "power over" presupposes other, significantly dis-tinct sources of "power to do" things which produce real options for the one subject to the power system at hand. But if the disassociation, if possible at all, from one power would at best only bring about the substitution o[ tbe one by another qualitatively the same source of 'power over," then the "power over" may be said to be public. From this test of the distinction of the public and tbe private sector o[ society, one sees that the real c~runch of the "new property" power is that, more and more, its consequent effects can no longer be balanced out by deci-sions made by others with power. It is so far forth public. Power status is thus one's place in the organizationally active determination of the quality of people's lives. As holders of "new property," individuals exercise the resultant social power to determine some relations that others will have to the organization or to its products, and thereby to the corporateI society. With an ethical vocabulary based on the old p, roperty rubrics, many sta-tus power people still speak ofI these determinations they bring about in tbe lives of ot[~ers only in terms of privi-leges or options, and not in terms of rights and basic human values. They thereby presume that to deny a rela-tion to the orgamzat~on or to deny a cr~uc~sm of its products is merely to deny a lprivilege or to deny tbe immediate value of certain options. There is no wonder that umvers~t~es, for example, st~ll ~ns~st that students are there not by right but by privilege. When orgamzauons were private, such talk was movie acceptable ethically. But today, when org~inizations both decide upon and, in their interlaced stance, supply thos~ credentials which deter-mine a person in the roles he b~ts in tbe corporate society, the subject's relation to them i~ now public and nearly or completely in the area~of rigltts. We are less and less a society o~ persons who receive entrance into "private" organizations by privilege or lwho use the products of organizations by option. Simp,ly stated, the "new prop-÷ ÷ ÷ "New Property" VOLUME 30, 1973. 981 ÷ ÷ ÷ W. L. LaCroix REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 982 erty" gives not only "power to do," but, more signifi-cantly for human and Christian values, direct "power over" persons. " (How legitimate) Such "power over" persons requires justification. One must question such power that can "make things happen" in respect to basic values in a society and ask if it is legitimate. The question is raised today for non-owned economic organizations and is espe-cially vital for all organizations which by the interlacing of society have had their power effects take on the "pub-lic" quality noted above. Power is a fact, but the persons concerned can ask for the rights to its possession and to its use. By "legitimate" I signify that there are good answers in terms of human values to the questions "How come such and such has power" and "For what purpose does such and such have power." Such questions ask for standards by which to judge the possession and use of power which are extra-neous to the power itself. In a society of fre6 persons, power can legitimately be obtained and legitimately be used only under the aegis of some expression of "public consensus." Berle has sug-gested two phases in any legitimization. (1) People get control, within an organization's power mechanism by some inner organizational ritual established by the orga-nization and accepted at least passively by the public consensus. (2) Such people use socio-economic power le-gitimately if the organizati6n has a [unction to perform within the values of the full society which is acknowl-edged by consensus, and if their use of the power is appropriate to that function. (Of course, few such func-tions are well-defined, but public consensus has positive though vague ideals here of what is acceptable.) Let us stipulate that, ambiguous as it is, power over persons can be legitimate. And let us for convenience designate anybne with legitimate power over persons in our corporate society as one who has "authority," but let us call such authority in the socio-economic structure "authority (P)." By this authority (P) ~ person rightfully can affect others in societal relationships by making things happen [or them, and thus can determine them in respect to some of the values in their lives. Given that individuals are persons, non-counterbal-anced power to affect their lives will be legitimate ulti-mately only if it positively contributes to their develop-ment as individual and as social persons. In our corporately interlaced society, this legitimacy will imply that those who have power will be accountable to all per-sons whose lives the exercise of the power affects. In summary, then, the argument is that today "new property" is identified with the exercise of "power over" in the socio-economic field, d one's "power over" activ-ities, one's authority (P),g ~"ves one's social identity and one's social initiative.°Keep in]mind that, in a true sense, one need not "own" anything [in order to have this "new property." " [ I do not wish to argue here that the concept of "new property" is accurate. This h~s been done forcefully by the political economists. All I need is this brief and un-doubtedly inadequate overview in order to ask for Some reflection on the relation of ~his advent of "new prop-erty" to the vow of poverty in ~eligious life. / The Vow ol Poverty In every activity within the[ corporate society, ,persons make and express their selves as they transact with other persons. Thus each one in deeds gives answers to those questions which are either exp!icitly or at least implicitly in every personal encounter: "~Who are you?" and "What do you mean for me?" ,, The social power that is theI new property' makes one respond in terms of status and function: "I am one who has tlus place m the social sttqucture and "I determine these values for you." Let me at once contrast withlthese responses what I call the positive thrust of the vow of poverty and suggest that tt ~s that wluch would permit one to respond: I am the human being Ch~'ist has made !me, are you such a human being, too?" On~ thereby expresses the message and the challenge of the Good News by one's very life style itself. Usually in activities we express a functional connection between some parts of ourselves and some parts of the supporting socio-economic system. We are teachers, pro-fessors, administrators at such and such an educational institution; we are experts and on such and such commit-tees; we have such ahd such training, such and such de-grees, such and such publications to our credit; thereby we are in such and such relationships to this organization within the complex of interlaced organizations. That is "who we are." By this part-function'ality we conceptually merge a re-sponse to "Who are you" with the response to "What do you do?" or even more broadly "How do you fit into the socio-economic system?" Thus when .asked "Who are you?" or when we ask of others "Who is that?" we really change the meaning of the question in,our minds and then employ functional categories "to handle" other per-sons in our thoughts and to have identification as we are "handled" in the thoughts of others. (We must be taught to do this: a little girl at the border, when asked if.she was an American, replied, "No, my daddy is an Ameri-can. I'm a girl.") 4- 4- + "New Property" VOLUME 30, 1971 983 ÷ ÷ ÷ W. L. LaCroix REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 984 Generally then, and perhaps more especially in a "new property" milieu, one's functional roles in the corporate society determine one's self identity. And this identity is more and more dependent upon the fate of one's immedi-ate organization within the corporate society, and upon. one's acceptance by functional peers and one's perform-ance among functional inferiors. Thus the primary con-cern of the person with "new property" must be organiza-tional. This is antithetical to the thrust of vowed poverty. A second, equally significant factor from "new prop-erty," the socio-economic power endemic to organiza-tional place also jabs at the thrust of vowed poverty. One with "new property" determines the lives of others Jor them because, as functional within and dependent upon socio-economic power, one exercises "power over" per-sons. Those who consider the vow of poverty as significant for Christian religious life can no longer ignore the con-tradiction that occurs when one points only to one's "min-imal individual possessory holdings" and Overlooks one's "new property" holdings. Since many religious in the United States are in education, let us use an example from this organizational area to put the problem strik-ingly. Let us ask: Can one who has a vow of poverty act consistently if he becomes the president of a uniyersity? Even if he lives a most frugal and Spartan private life, one stripped of all but the immediately necessary mate-rial items, can he in deeds live the thrust of the vow of poverty, since 'he has willy-nilly status wealth in the pub-lic socio-economic system and acts constantly with "power over" persons? Can he express the message and challenge ¯ of the Good News in any continuous form coming from his life style itself if he so connects himself with the interlaced set of organizations whose basis is a power to determine for other persons items basic to their values in life? The same questions can be put to the tenured profes, sor, the high .school principal, and so on. Perhaps a test for an opposition to vowed poverty would be: Do the respect and consideration one has from peers and inferi-ors in societal transactions come primarily from one's "new property" functions or not? Some have argued that poverty does not mean the neg-ative "not using material items of value," but rather the positive "sharing of the effects and experiences resultant from any possession and use with the concrete religious community." These values are one's talents, the experi-ences of one's apostolate, as well as the gifts one receives, one's former individual possessory holdings, and so forth. Thus they might argue that one can also use the "new property" consistently without effect on poverty in reli-gious life. I suspect that such an argument misses the qualitative newness of the "new property.~" It also un~terplays the positive thrust in the rentmciation of the old property, suggested in this section's opening. I will stipulate that some of the inward thrust of pov-erty may be in terms of mutual sharing with the commu-nity. But the vow must be ultimately for the life of the Good News in the mission of the whole Christian com-munity. It cannot have for its final term the limited reli-gious community: And ~he outward thrust (and part of the inward thrust itself) of poverty is precisely so that one can respond to contact with others as a (Christian) human person and challenge the others also to be (Chris-tian) human persons. Poverty has been an attempt to remove those identification handles which passively ob-struct the transmission of the Good News which chal-lenges others to be in, deeds what Christ has made them. Perhaps more importantly in our time and place, poverty seeks to remove that public power which actively ob-structs others from determining for themselves their free response to the challenge of the Good News. This mission of the Good News one legitimately .ob-tains and legitimately exercises by the action of the Trin-ity in human history. Let us for convenience designate anyone with the legitimate mission to challenge others with the Good News as one who has Christian authority, but let us call this challenging authority "authority (C)." By this authority (C), a person in encounter~ can legiti-mately challenge others to be consistent with themselves as individual and social persons, but the challenger has no power to determine the others in respect to their values as human persons, because the thrust of one's Christian mission is to leave the others confronted with the Gospel challenge but free to determine themselves, As there is authority (P) which is legitimate power to challenge others by determining to some extent human values for them, so here there is authority (C) ~hich is the mission to transmit a legitimate challenge but with-out any power to determine for the one c.hallenged. Those who live a vow of poverty would seem to want to specialize in ~some continuity of deeds and life style in this Christian authority (C). Of course, it is not impossible for one tO have status property and to exercise the consequent determining power and still,, in addition, to transmit by authority (C) the challenge of the Good News. Christians who do not vow poverty do it every day. But they do not attempt to specialize in a continuity of deeds .which emphasize au-thority (C). 4- "New Property" VOLUME 30, 1971 985 ÷ ÷ W, L, LaCroix REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 986 Some would argue that those with the vow of. poverty also can utilize the "new property" and its logically con-seqt~ ent authority (P) as a means in their life style. They argue that religious do not rest in this "new property" but can have it and remain true to the thrust of the vow because, for example, they use the "new property" to make professional contacts vital to the universalization of the Good News. Let us reflect here not on the strengths of such a defense, and there are some, bnt on its weaknesses. A. Some would say that religious need the status, which is the wealth of the "new property," in order to contact the important people in a society organized around power status on their own level. From the "new prop-erty" gained by administrative, academic, or other cre-dentials, religious can contact the organizational profes-sions of the clay and influence them. But do religious as status members speak to others as trans-status human beings or as co,possessors of power status? Do religious who contact as holders of "new property" contact the whole person and challenge the other with authority (C)? Must religious not necessarily, if they are fellow "new property" holders, speak to others pronouncedly as fun-damental co-members who are equally bound to the power and th'e fate of the structure in dominance in today's corporate society? Remember, unlike the old property, one never "owns" the "new property;" One is always conditionally and precariously subject to the orga-nizations which generate the active power place. One keeps the p.lace only by somehow contibnting actively to a successful exercise of socio-economic "power to do" and "power over." B. Why was not a parallel argument valid for religious to have the "old" property? If it was not valid, what value did Christians place on the vow of poverty in the past that made it so? Was it simply the release from worry over those things which other people must daily worry about? Certainly not. Christians held [or some rea-son that religious vowed to poverty could give a special continuity to the use of authority (C) lrom the very form their life style gave to all their activities. Religious could give this special continuity to the use of authority (C) if they were not the equals of others as holders of individ-ual possessory property, if they encountered the others not in a role of co-wielders of social power from that property, but radically as persons unconnected with a social function category. Can this thrust be realized if religious with a vow of poverty are equal co-holders of social economic public power from the "new property" of today? It is not easy to answer this with a simple "no." Many seem successful in their mission with the Good News to challenge others t(; be "the persons Christ has made them even though these present challengers, vowed religious, or lay Christians, are co-holders with the chall~n~ged of the "new property." X~'hether such success is limited to this period of transi-tion, wherein few are fully .aware of the i.mplicationS of "new property," is a good question. But whether even such success continues to make a religious vow of poverty meaningful is a better one~ ÷ ÷ ÷ "New Property" VOLUME 30, 1971 987 ROBERT OCHS, S.J. Experiments for Closing the Experience Gap in Prayer ÷ ÷ ÷ Robert Ochs is a faculty member of Bellarmine School of Theology; 5't30 South University Avenue; Chicago, Il-linois fi5615. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 988 "Speaking exactly as one friend speaks to another"- these are the words with which Ignatius Loyola character-izes what he calls "colloquies," conversations with the Father, Christ, or Mary which conclude so many of the exercises which make up his Spiritual Exercises. This prayer of conversation, explicitly evoking a personal part-ner, is not the whole of prayer. To try to make it such, to focus on the divine Thou in all our prayer, is a strain which can cut us off from other avenues of divine contact. Trying to force all prayer irito a conversational mold can even short-circuit what it intends to further, by making us hurry past the "impersonal" world of divine power and energy, fire and spirit, not to mention Silence and nothingness. Yet to turn our back on it would be to lose a vital dimension of religious experience. Prayer as conversation, dialogue, or encounter with God has recently become much harder for increasing numbers of Christians, as they have rediscovered God both as transcendent mystery and as immanent Spirit. But, I submit, neither our new awareness of God's tran-scendence or of his immanence is the real cause of our inability to meet God in a face to face encounter. For some reason we are not bold enough, or realistic and imaginative enough, in our use of dialogal prayer. Prayer of colloquy is not nearly "colloquial" enough. Speaking with God "exactly as one friend to another," as Ignatius flatly states it, has yet to be really explored, partly out of a misplaced fear of anthropomorphism, partly because our personal relationships themselves have become so bland that we have forgotten exactly how intimate friends do speak to one another. (I sometimes feel Dr, George Bach's paperback, The Intimate Enemy: How to Fight Fair in Love and Marriage, would be a better aid to prayer nowadays than many books directly on prayer,) Underlying our lack of imagination is a peculiar mind set of ours which renders any boldness in encountering God all but impossible. Until we alter this mind set about where and how God is encountered, about the mediurn of any encounter with God, any modeling of our encounter with God on the model of human encounters will look merely like improved make-believe. The Spiritual Exercises speak a great deal about this medium, what Ignatius calls creatures or .simply "all things." Early in the text~ the so-called "Principle and Foundation" insists on "indifference" to things, using them "in as far as" they help find God. And toward the end, the "Contemplation to Attain Love" reminds us that love manifests itself in deeds and consists in a mutual sharing of goods. Between these two exercises, which span the whole Ignatian retreat, the effort is to make things a vehicle of mutual communication instead .of an obstacle, to make them a locus of encounter and matter for shar-ing. As an introductory school of prayer the Exercises teach us to find God in all things, so that things become the means of exchange for dialogue. The whole effort to encounter God involves us therefore in a vast transforma-tion of our view of things. All this sounds terribly obvious. And yet the shift in point of view we are called on to effect in ourselves is enormous, and if we could do it we could pray. The effort involves, for a Christian who supposedly "already believes in God" but does not yet really live in faith, the overcoming of an attitude about God and things which is perhaps the great obsta_cle to encounter with God in our lives, an attitude I Choose to call Deism. Deism sounds at first a harmless enough term, and that is partly why I have chosen it. Giving a harmless name to what one feels is The Great Obstacle has the advantage that it opens us to look for the obstacle to prayer within ourselves and our own pale Christianity. For much that goes by the name of Christianity is no more than Deism, and Deism is as far removed from Christian faith as ag-nosticism or atheism. At any rate, Deism stands along with agnosticism and atheism on the opposite side of the line dividing belief from unbelief. And it is perhaps more dangerous than those two, because it apes Christianity and obscures it own lack of faith. After all, is it not at least theistic, admitting the existence of God? But it ad-mits a God with whom one does not deal, an inaccessibld God with whom one does not argue or wrestle. From the viewpoint of faith the Deist is worse off than the atheist who seeks an accessible God but cannot find him. It is not true that believing in a Deistic God is better than + ÷ ÷o VOLUME 30, 1971 989 ÷ ÷ ÷ Robert Ochs REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 990 believing in none at all, because to believe in a God who does not enter into intimate relationships with men im-plies giving him certain personal attributes opposed to such relationships, making him aloof, arbitrary, uncon-cerned. While faith says He is our Father. Deism is far from harmless. It is religion without reli-gious experience, religion without encounter and without prayer. It declares God inaccessible. It views the world of things precisely as providing no access to God. It would be profitable to read Ignatius' "Contemplation to Attain Love" as an overcoming of Deism, seeing God dwelling in creatures, "conducting Himself as one who labors" for us in all creatures on the face of the earth. The "Contempla-tion" is the effort to see deeds as potential manifestations of 10ve and all goods as material for mutual sharing. I somewhat regret having to use the term Deism, be-cause it sounds too exclusively associated with the ages of' enlightenment and rationalism. What I mean by it is less a theological position than a state of mind, one which is still very much with us. Deism is a whole sensibility impeding our prayer. One could almost define it as the opposite of finding God in all things, as finding things and supposedly finding God, but not putting these two together except in an awkward juxtaposition. It is what modern thinkers are trying to overcome when they talk of transcendence in immanence and of encountering God in the world. We are Deists when we find God in religion and' not in secular things, and when we admit that reli-gion is more important but more boring than life. We are Deists in our inability to talk about God without using pale language divorced from life, language made more and not less abstract when it becomes pious. We are Deists when we live out our own human growth Odyssey without relation to our spiritual Odyssey. These are old accusations. We are no doubt overfami-liar with these aspects of our Deism. Accordingly, in the following pages I propose taking a look at certain things in which we are not used to finding God. We do not look for God in these things because we think He is already there. We are already aware of the problem of finding God in matter, in the secular, in the ugly. But the things I want to look into with the reader are, briefly, the will of God, our thoughts (especially our religious thoughts), and our images of God and ourselves as we engage God in dialogue. If we looked more for God in these things, .we would be much more able to pray. The best way to take this look is not by direct description, but by watch-ing our spontaneous reactions provoked by certain thought experiments. This way we can uncover the var-ious Deistic mind sets we are caught up in. We should not be surprised by this procedure. The Exercises them- selves proceed often in this same fashion, asking us, for example to imagine three classes of men or to imagine ourselves at tile hour of deatli, or to enter in fantasy into a gospel scene and then ',reflect On myself." The itinerary through the Exercises proceeds as much by uncovering and then healing attitudes of unbelief as by appropriat-ing attitudes of belief. God Present in the Things .That Are His will The second is that love consists in a mutual sharing of goods, for example the lover give and shares with the be-loved what he possesses, or something of that which he has or is able to give: and vice versa, the beloved shares With the lover. Hence, if one has knowledge, he shares it with the one who does not possess it; and' 'so also if one has honors, or riches. Thus, one always gives to the other.--Spiritual Ex-ercises, n. 231. Let us start hy a look at our will-of-God-talk. There is, in fact, a curious anomaly in much recent will-of, God-talk. This anomaly can be expressed in different ways. For example, we seem to be theists in our discei:ning process, and secularists in our carrying out process (and therefore Pelagian Deists all round: Discern as if every-thing depended upon God; act as if everything depended on you). Our talk of discerning God's will sounds more convincing than our talk of God's will once discerned. We do talk rather convincingly (that is, convincedly; with words that at least sound as if we were convinced of the reality we were talking about) about finding God'S will, but our handling of God's will once we have supposedly found it seems to give the lie to such talk. It is not iust that we fail in performance, that we are slow to fulfill what we think we must do, as Christians have always felt themselves to be. It is that the talk that accompanies our efforts to fulfill the wi.l,1 of God sounds as if we were~less than convinced that there was any such thing as a will of God manifested in discernment. In short, our talk gives the impression that we aim at doing more than merely discerning "What the situation calls for," because we in-sist on giving it a theological dimension. And yet once we have discerned "the will of God," we carry on as if this theological dimension were sheer ideology. Various Symptoms point to this, especially Our vacilla-tion and our regrets (and recriminations). Our vacillation during the process of discernment, weighing and search-ing our motives, 'indicates that we take seriously what we are doing. But vacillation after the moment of deciSion indicates rather the opposite. Again, it is not so much vacillation in performance I am talking about, but a kind of vacillation in the belief which governs the perform-ance. (If you are going to believe in a will-of-God uni-verse, an agnostic observer might say, at least take the ÷ ÷ ÷ Prayer VOLUME 30, 1971 991 ÷ ÷ ÷ Robert Ochs REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 992 advantages as well as the onus of your world view, and taste a bit of the joy and enthusiasm that ought to accom-pany such a belief.) For example, a line of action em-barked upon as a result of discernment will be aban-doned with a lightness incompatible with the discern-ment talk which launched it. The project is not adjusted in the light of new circumstances, discerned anew, as we say, but is changed without recourse to any discernment process at all. A project may be entered upon with some sense of vocation, and then abandoned with neither a sense of infidelity to any call, nor a sense of a new version of the call. If it does not work out, it is simply dropped as a misguided enterprise shot through with human fallibil-ity. After this, curiously enough, the whole discernment process may be started again, with'hopes inexplicably undimmed of finding this time the will-of-God project that will not turn sour. This phenomenon makes one wonder if any genuine discernment was ever done at all, especially when one considers that true discernment does not just provide the knowledge of what to do, but the grace to carry it out, the grace not to forget for long that one is about the Lord's business. Nadal remarks that what struck the early companions about Ignatius was his single-mindedness once he had adopted a course of action through discernment. Ignatius especially deplored the failure of spiritual nerve or what he called courage in difficult enterprises. Another index is regret. We have pursued a course under the aegis of God's will, expended our energies on it, and it does not work out, or works only tolerably well. Hindsight reveals all the deficiencies of our original choice--it looks dated, it is not what we would have chosen if we knew then what we know now. We regret, we recriminate, we think rather quickly .that we have been duped, wasted our efforts, labored under a very human delusion. Even though when we made the deci-sion we claimed to be aware that we had no choice but to choose, further postponement of decision being a worse choice than the one we made, yet we have no sense of accomplishment, no sense of having done God's will or even qf having done our best trying. For another index, let us observe our reactions to the account, in Chapter I of Acts, of the drawing of lots to fill up the vacancy left in the Twelve by Judas' betrayal. Matthias and Barsabba

Issue 24.2 of the Review for Religious, 1965. ; The Major Superior an~ Her Subjects' Vocation by Charles A. Schleck, C.S.C. 161 Approach to Mental Prayer by Thomas Dubay, S.M. 188 To Be Samaritans All by Michael M. Dorcy, S.J. 201 The Insecure Junior Sister by Sister Jean de Milan, S.G.C. 209 The Prayer of Christ by Yves M.-J. Congar, O.P, 221 Weep--There Is No Other Way by George A. Maloney, S.J. 239 Nun in the World by Mother M. Claudia, I.H.M. 244 Conte.mplation by Ladislas M. Ors'j, S.J. 248 The Superior as Community Counselor by Sister Angelina Marie, C.D.P. 265 For Teresa, Dying of Cancer by T. J. Steele, S.J. 273 Survey of Roman Documents 274 Views, News, Preview~ 280 Questions and Answers 286 Book Reviews 293 VOLUV_~ 24 NUMBER 2 March 1965 ASSOCIATE EDITORS Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Augustine G. Ellard, S.J. ASSISTANT EDITORS Ralph F. Taylor, S.J. William J. Weiler, S.J" DEPARTMENTAL EDITORS Questions and Answers Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Woodstock College Woodstock, Mar~l~md o~ i63 Book Reviews ~ormtm Weyand, S.J. Bellarmine School of Theology of Loyola University o30 South Lincoln Way North Aurora, Illinois 6o543 ÷ ÷ Edited with ecclesiastical approval by the faculty of St. Mary's College, the Divinity School of St. Louis University. Published bi-monthly and copyright, 1965, by Review for Religious at 428 East Preston St., Baltimore, Md. 21202. Printed in USA. Second class postage paid at Baltimore, Maryland. Single copies: 60 cents. Subscription USA and Canada: $3.00 a year, $5.75 for two years; other countries: $3.35 a year. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order. Checks and money orders should be made payable to Review for Religious in U. S. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to repre-sent Review for Religious. Change of address requesta should include former address. Renewals, new subscriptions, changes of ad-dress and business corres~ondence should be sent to: Review for Religious, 428 E. Preston Strut, Baltimore, Maryland 21902. Manu-scripts and editorial correspondence should be sent to: Review for Religious, St. Mary's College, St. Mary's, Kausa~ 66536. Quesdous and books for review should be sent to the respective departmental editors. MARCH I 965 VOLUME o4 NUMBER ~ CHARLES A. SCHLECK, C.S.C. The Major Superior and the Meaning of Her Subjects' Vocation If* one were to investigate the various pontifical docu-ments having special reference to religious communities, he would find them often referring to these as "fami-lies." This seemingly simple expression contains within itself a whole host of suggestions, and in the end would seem to be the nucleus for the spirit (and this would include even the government) and spirituality of every religious community. For these, as we know, have their existence and strength from their communion and inti-mate connection with the end of the Church itself--to lead men to the acquisition of holiness. And how im-portant they are for the life of the Church has been clearly stated by Pope Pius XII in rather striking and forceful terms: The Church would not fully correspond to the will of our Lord, nor would the eyes of the majority of men be raised to her in hope and joy as a standard set up unto the nations or as a sign standing in the heavens, unless there were found in her some who more by example than by word, were especially re-splendent with the beauty of the Gospel? This role of the religious community is not at all foreign to the economy of salvation established by God. All communication between God and man has tended to adopt a sacramental medium--language, representa- ¯ In the summer of 1962 Father Schleck gave a series of six lectures to the Conference of Major Superiors of the United States. The pres-ent article is a revised version of the first of these conferences. The other five conferences will be published in revised form in later issues of the REVI£W. 1Address to Superiors General, February 11, 1958, in The States o] PerIection, ed. Gaston Courtois (Westminster: Newman, 1962), pp. 317-8. Fr. Charles A. Schleck, C.8.C., teaches theology at Holy Cross College; 4001 Harewood Road, N.E.; Wash-ington, D.C. 20017. VOLUME 24, 161 ÷ ÷ ÷ Cha~es A. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 16~ tion, the written or the spoken word, events, customs, even garb and dress. It is in this work, that is, in bring-ing before men the visible mark of holiness characteriz-ing and setting off the true Church of Christ, that religious superiors, especially major superiors, are as-sociated with the Church and her bishops and sovereign pontiff, either by receiving jurisdiction as is true of ~nale exempt orders, or by receiving dominative power by reason oF the approbation of the rules and constitu-tions peculiar to a religious institute.2 Thus, while it is the work of the Holy Spirit to begin, and to nourish and foster, and to bring to consummation the work of grace or of God's special love for those called to the religious life, still He associates with Himself in this work and service, so-called secondary causes or auxiliary instruments in whom He wishes to incarnate His own power and love and through whom He wishes this to be communicated to others. It is for this reason that the Apostle Peter writes: Whatever the endowment God has given you, use it in service to one another like good dispensers of God's mercy; if one does some service, let him do it with the strength which God sup-plies, so that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ? In you, however, this governing role was meant to take definite shape and form. This is evident from the very nature of a religious community which we have called, just above, a family. For a family is a group of persons ruled or governed by those who have been established over it by God--a father and a mother. And this is most important for our present considerations. For the characteristic virtue of family life is not legal justice, or human activity on a quid pro quo basis, but rather piet)~, a potential part of the virtue of justice, adding to it the modification which is brought about by the intimacies and warmth of family life. It is the virtue of justice, we might say, with a heart. For all of you the manner of governing that is to be looked for and expected by all, both those inside the religious life and those outside, even those who view your communi-ties from a distance, must always be that of a woman, a mother. Indeed the title which all or most of you bear quite clearly indicates this wish and ardent hope of the Church and the entire family oF God. This title is at one and the same time the measure and indicator oF your function and task and also the measure oF the crowning glory which God intends for each of you in assigning you your particular role in the Church. For if it is He who elects you or appoints you to your task as He did Ibid. 1 Pt 4:10-1. the Mother of the Lord, He at the same time, as He did for her, makes available for you all the graces both ac-cording to their extension and intensity that are de-manded in the work entrusted to you.4 God made every woman by nature generous, merciful, and compassion-ate; and He gave her the desire to offer herself for others. He implanted in her as her essential spirit and movement the spirit of giving, of molding, of forming, of clothing whatever she touches, of mothering it, and of loving it. And the most noble aspect of this mother-hood is the lifting up of those persons she calls her children to God. That is why the motherhood officially given to you by the Church is the most sublime that could possibly be given to any woman. In a religious community of sisters the governing power is given into the hands of women that they as mothers might lead those under them to the common goal of the entire Christian community--the eternal participation of the body-person of Christ in the mar-riage feast of the Lamb. The role of anyone entrusted with shepherding others has very well been pointed out by Isaiah: It is thine to restore those bound in darkness to freedom and light; it is thine to pasture the flock of God and provide feeding grounds for them as they make their way through barren up-lands. Under your care they will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the heat of the noon-day sun overpower them. For you will be to them a merciful shepherd that will lead them to welling fountains and give them to drink of life-giving water? In you this shepherding assumes a rather well-defined mode of expression. It is to be accomplished in accord-ance with the precise externalization which human nature takes in its being found in women rather than in men. It is precisely by using the qualities and gifts peculiar to women that you make your service contribu-tion to the glory of God and to the welfare of His Church and of your own communities. And this service contribution which you make to these ends is most im-portant today. For the Church was meant to be a mighty organization, hierarchical, structured, full of honor and dignity, having its laws and penalties and the power to enforce them. But the Church was also meant to be a Mother, patient, kind, gentle, tender, full of understanding and compassion. Both you and your subjects are always at hand to remind the Church of this maternal aspect of her mission. It is more than evident from the many writings that have appeared on the subject in recent years that a woman called to the religious life is not at all deprived See Summa theologiae, 3, q.27, a.4. h 49:44. ÷ ÷ ÷ Superior and Vocation VOLUME 24, 1965 ]63 ÷ 4. ÷ Charles A. SchCle.c~k.C, . REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 164 of motherhood. Rather she is called to exercise this function of her being in a much more intensive and ex-tensive manner than is possible in marriage. It is a motherhood that nourishes and molds and centers its whole activity on the life of Christ. By the grace of her vocation she receives in a single fulfillment the two deepest longings of a woman's heart--her woman's desire for motherhood, and her virgin's desire to be wholly God's, wholly surrendered to Him. All this is quite clear in the case of the ordinary religious sister. But I wonder how often those called to exercise supreme authority in service within religious communities of women realize that they are not at all dispensed from this work of woman but rather are called to exercise a more noble and more universal expression of this same function. They are called by God's providence to exer-cise this same activity in reference to the "more illustri-ous portion of the flock of Christ," those who by God's special predilection and love have been called to the vocation of virginity, which is the marriage of a human person with the Lord. Like the work of the Mother of God in redemption, yours is that of associate, con-tributing under the Spirit and with the Spirit to the work of your subjects' sanctification as Mary did in reference to the Church--as a partner, as a woman, and as a mother. In Christ we are given to see that all is priestly. In Mary we are given to see that all is womanly, all is motherly. Her role in the sanctification of the human race was different from that of Christ. Her "merit," her sacrificial oblation, her ransom, all were those of a woman, a mother. She worked along with Christ her Son, but not as an equal, not as one engaged in the same order of operation. Her office was addi-tional, complementary. It is true that oftentimes this work is most difficult, much more diffficult than the motherhood exercised by your subjects. But the greater the motherhood to which one is called, the more suffering and the more participa-tion in the cross-mystery must she expect to fall to her lot. Nor is this so strange. It will always be true that a mother's greatest suffering is interior, that which cen-ters around the emotions, that which involves anxiety, worry, and concern. And usually it comes only at the end of her function when she finds herself no longer in complete control of the minds and hearts of the persons under her, when she must deal with them no longer as children but as mature adults destined to their own proper creativity and life. Since this is always the situa-tion in which major superiors are called to exercise their office of ministry and service, they know with their election or appointment the rather difficult phase of motherhood to which the5, are called. It was because of this difficulty that the late sovereign pontiff Pius XII attemped to recall the image which the major superior must attempt to cultivate in the eyes of her religious: It is no doubt true, as psychology affirms, that the woman in-vested with authority does not succeed as easily as a man in finding the exact formula for combining strictness with kind-ness, and establishing the balance between them. This is an added reason for cultivating your motherly sentiments. You can say that the vows have exacted from your Sisters as from your-selves a great sacrifice. They have renounced their family, the happiness of marriage and the intimacy of the home. It is a sacrifice of great value, of decisive importance for the apostolate of the Church, but it is still a sacrifice. Those of your Sisters who are the most high-souled and refined, are the ones who feel this detachment most keenly. The words of Christ "no one put-ting his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the king-dom of God" finds its application to the full, and nowadays, too, without reserve. But the religious order must take the place of the family as far as possible, and it is you, the superiors general, who are expected in the first instance to breathe the warmth of family affection into the community life of the Sisters. You must, therefore, yourselves be motherly in your exterior behavior, in your words and your writings, even if sometimes this calls for the exercise of self-restraint; but above all, be motherly in your innermost thoughts, your judgments, and as far as possible, your sympathetic feeling. Pray every day to Mary the Mother of Jesus and our mother, to teach you how to be motherly." It is quite evident that your motherhood is to reflect and in a sense continue to image that of Mary. And Mary's motherhood is one that is pure, stainless, free from every trace of contamination of the shadow, of the terrible aspect of the mother-image, of the destructive wiles of the "anima," of the desire to possess or be un-scrupulous in protecting and reducing to childishness the creative powers of those under her, of refusing to give them up to their destiny which is for them also, each in her turn and each according to her own way, to give fruit to the life of the Church of God. Thus your motherhood centers around women, not girls; and it must never become maternalistic or harmful or destruc-tive to their legitimate growth as distinct persons, to their adjustments to society and adult life. It is the proper task of a real mother to foster her daughter's competence and well-defined independence, rather than their opposites. To accomplish this task many things ought to be found in you. First, there should be a workable knowl-edge of the principles of spiritual theology, of the ~ Address to Superiors General, September 15, 1952, in The States o[ Per/ection, p. 217. 4. 4. Superior and Vocation VOLUME 24, 1965 ÷ ÷ ÷ Charles A. Schleck, C.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 166 history and forms of the religious life in history, an experiential knowledge and almost the founder's or foundress' love for your own religious community, its constitutions, its customs, the authors of its spirituality, and its activities or apostolates. To this there shouId also be added a practical knowledge of the canon law governing religious communities of women, a practical knowledge of feminine psychology, and some principles of guidance. Second, there should also be present a discretion or prudence that is like wisdom, reaching from end to end. This would include tact, winning manners, knowledge of the human heart at its various levels of development--the young, the mature, the mid-die- aged, and the old. This discretion and prudence for our present consideration will also include a motherly vigilance, a dispassionate firmness that is without weak-ness, the ability to foresee and anticipate the needs of soul and body, an unfailing patience, and a zeal that is tem-perate, that knows how to wait and to seek out or receive those who come to you moved by God's grace. A third element or ingredient that you should possess is experi. ence, of the various apostolates, actually exercised if pos-sible or at least vicarious, of the problems and the diffi-culties they normally cause to religious; also an experience and awareness of human failings, not the least of which are your own failings and half-acknowledged shortcom-ings, a grasp of your assets and liabilities which would give you a proper and ordered self-love, with the desire to employ the former and guard against and make up for the latter, through the normal channels of the Christian life, not the least of which is consultation and personal direction. Finally, genuine holiness ol lile is required. For you ought to be not so much a teacher or one who hands out practical rules of life, of doing, and of making, nor just an interpreter of your community's spirit, but first and foremost a master of its life. For it is your privilege and obligation to see to it that the young life which God entrusts to you is begun correctly, or brought to birth in the novitiate, and then formed and made viable in your juniorates, and matured and intensified and deepened throughout the entire course of its existence in your religious family. For the motherhood with which you are entrusted by the Church does not end until you are relieved of your responsibility or until one or other of your subjects closes her eyes in death in order to greet her Lord in life. The perpetuity and continuation of a fervent community (and the life and vitality of the Church depends more upon this than upon numbers) rests with the major superiors' capacity to maintain and deepen in their subjects the spirit of the Church and of the founder or foundress whose exemplary causes they are meant to be.7 In treating of this quality or ingredient of holiness last, it is not my intention to consider it as the least important of all. Second to prudence it occupies the most important place perhaps. Knowledge in itself is not fruitful. It must be united with love. And how else can religious be taught the ways o[ God, schooled in the Lord's service if their own superiors do not possess these? You must remember that your subjects have entered religion in order to seek sanctity according to this way of life. And this is to be learned from those who are set over them in the intinaacy of their community life. It is along this line that much more stress could be laid today. The quality of the teaching of any master of the Christian life--and this is the primary role of superiors: to lead her subjects to sanctity--will be that of her own life. A young and generous soul will find no better way to learn renuncia-tion or surrender through charity than by following in the path of one who herself is practicing these same things. A secret strength goes out from her and is in some way imparted to those who come in contact with her. The ability to love the religious life and to instill this love into others is most important today when it is so easy not only for those outside the religious life, but even for those inside, to be or to become confused in their "vision of the special function and immutable im-portance of the religious state within the Church." s The primary work of a superior is to teach her subjects how to love God, how to make the gift of oneself the surrender of one's personal mystery to God and the service of the Church, a living reality. Since the religious life is essentially a theologal life, a life of faith, hope, and love, and a sacramental repre-sentation of the transcendent goal of the Christian community--the paschal mystery--it is important that these be lived by those in charge. No long dissertation or reasoning or logic will affect others on these points. The superior must live these, for it is only by being a living exemplar of them that she can really hope to exert her teaching on others. As St. Gregory the Great writes: Like Moses, a superior ought to be seen frequently going in and out of the tabernacle and while there caught up in con-templation such that when she comes out she may give hersel[ over to the needs of her subjects and tasks. She must be known as one who truly serves God and His Church.' T See The Gilts o[ the Holy spirit (Notre Dame: St. Mary's College, 1961), pp. 1 ft. 8Address to All Religious, May 23, 1964; N.C.W.C. ed., pp. 6-7. 8Pastoral Care, II, 5 ("Ancient Christian Writers," v. 11 [West-minster: Newman, 1950], pp. 56-8 passim. 4. Superior and Vocation VOLUME 24, 1965 167 + + Charles A. $chleck, C.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 168 Such a life would be appreciated by almost all who saw it. It would be like the light shining on the moun-tain or the city built thereon. And this is as it should be. For while a superior should not seek the praise of others in conducting herself, this does not mean that she should not seek to be loved; but she should seek this in order that this love might prove to be a path leading to the Lord. It is most ditIicult for one who is not loved by her subjects, however well she might preach, or exhort, and provide logic for the life o[ holiness, to find a sym-pathetic hearing from those who make up her audience. "!'his exhortation to holiness is always most timely for anyone in at~thority. Often it happens that when a person undertakes the cares o[ government her heart becomes distracted by the many things demanding her attention. And then she may find that she neglects that which is most important. For when one in authority implicates herself more than is needful with what is external, it is as though she were so occupied with the actual journey that she forgets the destination. The net result is that she becomes a stranger to self-examination and is no longer aware of her own faults and the great harm that is perhaps being given to others. The care of the inner life cannot be relaxed for the sake of pre-occupying herself with external matters. On the other hand respect for the inner life should not bring about any neglect of the external either, for this is also an essential means of her sanctification and her service of Christ and His Church.a° This balance should be main-tained above all by the major superiors of religious communities. Otherwise, it is most likely that the life of her subjects will grow languid because even though they may wish to make spiritual progress, they are con-fronted with a stumbling block in the example of those over them. When the head languishes, it is rather diffi-cult for the members to retain their vigor. It is in vain that an army seeking victory over the enemy follows its leader if she has lost her way. While the office to which you have been chosen by divine providence lays upon you many duties and func-tions- administrator, organizer, pioneer, missionary, counselor, psychologist, financier (a kind of jack-of-all-trades)-- the one which overshadows all and which sub- 10 This need of the major superior, indeed of every superior, is one more reason why superiors should employ the rule of subsidiarity-- the tendency to delegate and subdelegate, especially in large institu-tions. St. Gregory again provides us with the pertinent text: "Subjects are to transmit inferior matters, so that superiors are left to fre-quently attend to the higher things, so that the eye which is set above for guiding the steps of the body may not be annoyed by dust. For all superiors are the heads of their subjects and should look forward that the feet may not go astray" Pastoral Care, pp. 68, ft. sumes them and colors them or affects them is that of being a woman and mother at the service of the com-munity. Only to the degree that this spirit permeates these functions will they be conducive to your own holi-ness, to that of your community, and to that of the Church.lz Of all these various services, however, the one which is most immediately connected with mother-hood by reason of the very nature of the society which you govern and direct is that of seeing to the spiritual development of your religious. In the series of confer-ences that we are engaged upon here, it is this aspect of your special "vocation" within a vocation that has fallen to me. By reason of the limitation of time and the vast-ness of the pertinent matter on this subject, only a few basic considerations along these lines can be taken up. They are meant to serve as directives and approaches which each of you might follow up through reading and prayer and consultation in regard to the same and other topics falling within the scope of this task. It was sug-gested by one of the members of the executive com-mittee that the areas of the vows, especially the positive aspects, and that of the apostolate might be treated. As a result the following general topics have been chosen, each, of course, with its necessary further delineations: (1) the major superior and the vocation of her subjects; (2) religious poverty and sanctification; (3) virginity and sanctification; (4) religious obedience and sanctification; (5) common life and sanctification; and (6) the apostolate and sanctification. In following out these considerations it will be my intention wherever possible to treat them both from the point of view of theory and practice, at least along general lines, such that the practice may be seen to flow out of and be governed by the theory of the topic dis-cussed. It is true that most of the problems which you encounter in the course of your ministry are of a practi-cal nature, demanding practical and concrete or down-to- earth decisions. Still it seems to me that unless you are acquainted with the directive principles which pru-nA similar idea was indicated by Pius XII in reference to the spirit which should underlie the use of canon law: "Canon law like everything else in the Church is wholly directed to the care of souls, so that by the aid and guidance of laws, too, men may secure the pos-session of the truth and grace of Christ, and may live, grow, and die in holiness, piety, and fidelity to faith. Whether in the administration of ecclesiastical affairs, or in the exercise of judicial functions, or in giving the benefit of his advice to the sacred ministers, or the faithful, the canonist should constantly recall to mind that he must render an account for the welfare of souls to whom he can render great services, but to whom he can also do great harm" (Address on the Fourth Cen-tenary of the Gregorian University, October 17, 1953, in The Catholic Priesthood, ed. Pierre Veuillot [Westminster: Newman, 1957], bk. 2, pp. 270-1). ÷ ÷ ÷ Superior and Vocation VOLUME 24, 1965 169 4, + + Charles A. Schleck, C.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 170 dential judgment has to follow in coming to a decision affecting an existential here-and-now situation, it is very easy to be or to become confused (especially by reason of the complicated circumstances of today's religious life) and so arrive at a decision which would not be the best. Such a decision could easily inflict a sometimes serious harm, if not immediately at least in the future, to the lives of not only individuals but also that of your entire community and to the very life of the Church itself. It could also harm the image and therefore the effectiveness of the religious sister who occupies a more respected place here in our own country than perhaps in any other place in the world. The Major Superior and the Meaning of the Vocation of Her Subjects It is axiomatic that the whole order of grace has been ordered by God and is communicated to man in accord-ance with the nature he possesses. Thus the subject or person receiving divine communication will incarnate it and make it visible, will show its effects in a way that is patterned after the very nature of the subject. The very nature of God and His love-relationship to man were meant to be reflected not only in Christ but in all of those who would be incorporated into His body-person, the Church. For the Church is the sacramental continuation of Christ who is the perfect self-expression o~ the Father. She is His body, flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone, as we find foreshadowed already in Genesisa2 and stated by St. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians.~3 While human nature is essentially or fun-damentally the same in both man and woman, we find it existing in each of them with profound differences and modes of expression. And this foundation and the deepest significance of this sexual polarity originates not just in nature alone or from God as the author of nature, but in the supernatural sphere or from God as the author of man's supernatural existence. According to the Bible, it is in the polarity of man and woman where we find the image and likeness of God, in fact so much so that only in man and woman taken together do we find and discover what one author has called "the blessed icon of God." In fact it would seem that we must conclude that the physical and biological differences which we find exist-ing between man and woman indicate or point to some-thing much more profound, and that is the difference of soul or human spark, the difference of personality, which exists on all and every level of their being-- ~ Gn 2:23. ~8 Eph 5:22 ft. intellectual, volitional, and emotional, as well as physi-cal and biological. Consequently, when God's grace-communication incarnates itself in woman it takes on a shape and form different from that found in man, and it expresses itself along very well-defined lines. Thus, to understand and to be able to guide or direct or form or shape or mold the life and dynamism of the woman in the order of grace, demands that one know what she is in the order of nature.14 If we were to analyze or look into the overall makeup of woman on all the levels mentioned above, we would see first of all that she is much more alTective or love-directed than man in her approach to reality. It is for this reason that she tends towards the personal and the living. To cherish, to keep, and to protect what is per-sonal and living--this is her natural, her authentically feminine propensity.15 She was created by God to be the complement of man, subject to him in domestic or family life. She was to be the heart and soul of man, of the human race, its vital force, like the human heart that moves the hnman body to action. She has received and she possesses human nature in such a way that its loving force, its receiving capacity, its conserving capacity, its pondering capacity, and its formative, molding capacity are rather strikingly manifest. Indeed it is because she possesses these capacities that she by reason of her entire personality, her body, her soul, her powers of under-standing, her capacity for love, her almost inexhaustible devotion, is made to mother the human race in one capacity or another. She is made to know it as only a mother can know it, in all of its depths, its sublime potentialities, and also in its most embarrassing and material and temporal needs. It is for this reason that God has endowed woman with a family instinct, a maternal instinct, which can be used to build a human family or something far more extensive, the family of man or the family of God. A woman is potentially mother not only in reference to individual beings, but in reference to nature as a whole, to the whole world. And this is rather important for us to recall. For once stress is laid upon this view of woman, her need and power to create in cooperation with man, it can be seen that this need and power is something that can quite easily go beyond the limited confines of the husband-wife couple and encompass all the relations existing between men and women in reference to the human family. This direct and intimate relationship with persons rather x'See F. X. Arnold, Man and Woman (New York: Herder and Herder, 1963). The entire work is excellent on this point. ~ The Writings o] Edith Stein, ed. Hilda Graef (London: Peter Own, 1956), p. 161. ÷ ÷ ÷ Superior and Vocation VOLUME 24~ "1965 '4" 4. Charles A. Schleck, C.$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS than with things tends to make her world compact, which is not to be understood in the sense of narrow, but rather as a concentration on what is near at hand. And this is usually true even in her professional world if she lives in such, where she might happen to be an educator, a doctor, a social worker, or a nurse. She brings to this compact world where she functions warmth and a new atmosphere. From all this it should be clear that it is not right for woman to dodge or side-step this mission, to isolate her interests, to make her life too self-centered. She exists for humanity such that every talent she has received must be put at the dis-posal of the hnman family. This analysis of woman would also show that she is in.tuitive, that she has received human nature in such a way that its intuitive ability would be rather clearly set out. She was made to understand the deep sense of the inner values of things, of their spiritual content as well as or even more than their material or temporal con-tent. Thus in the sphere of her intelligence we find a profound difference between her and man. She usually has a finer perception, a better taste, a greater potenti-ality for sensibility and tact. She possesses a greater ability for visual perception, for the visual understand-ing of the world. Her senses are more open to external attractions. In fact it is this very power of observation that is a necessary complement of her intuition, since her judgment (good or bad) is formed by a rapid, almost simultaneous, look into and through the elements of a situation. It is because she is more intuitive that she was made to reveal the deep and the more profound levels of our being which she knows not so much by cold reason-ing or by speculation or by theoretical analysis, as by intuition, by instinct, by connaturality, by an identifica-tion, by a deep and warm knowledge that understands humanity much more intimately than does man. It is her mission to understand humanity, its weaknesses and infirmities, even its sins. It is her mission even to sympa-thize with these without ever, however, consenting to them. It is her mission to encourage, to prevent, to direct, not so much by governing or dominating--for in dominating she destroys both others and herself---as by being, by example, and by living. Thus the role of woman because she is intuitive is to suggest and inspire, not to be an activist principally, but rather a contempla-tive. She is expected to be intelligent but not opinion-ated, submissive but able to lead especially by urging to activity, unassertive but capable, intuitive but clear thinking, not over-active yet quietly efficient. It is in these ways that she is meant to redeem every situation by coming forward with her immense power to heal humanity by being its seer and its poet, and by so act-ing to achieve her place and fulfill herself. An analysis of woman would also indicate that she is more emotional than man; that the emotional side of her life is an essential part of it; that it is an integral part of her so-called "passivity"; that it is the goal, whether conscious or otherwise, of much of her en-deavor and striving. She is frequently preoccupied with surface agitation because of her need to give emotional satisfaction to others and to receive it in turn from them. It is this very deep need for receiving emotional satis-faction that also brings to the fore woman's need for another. She is dependent on others because she hopes to gain from them the security which satisfied emotional needs and wants effect in her. Unless a woman has found this other source of emotional satisfaction, or unless she has sublimated it in relation to a higher person and his interests, she becomes restless, unsatisfied, and frus-trated. She is made to love and to be loved, and she cannot find her sufficiency in herself. That is why a woman who is selfish and self-centered is an anomaly that is more distressing to encounter than a selfish man. For she has denied her nature, as it were, when she ceases to exist for others; and in doing this she has dried up at its source the possibility of those emotional experiences so vital to her person. This need for emotional satisfaction would also seem to account for the woman's impulse of self-surrender, her capacity to yield or to open herself to one who advances towards her with love. Deep down in her being woman knows that her role is one of submission, that only by renunciation can she become her true self. That is why an essential part of her person and her emotional need moves her to submit since this is fulfilled by such a re-sponse. And unless a woman can find one to whom she can submit in love, she will find that her love will not flower and that her emotional need will not be satisfied. This ingredient of self-surrender so evident in the woman's makeup must not be confused with pure pas-sivity as some often think. Woman is actively passive. Her activity is directed more towards the emanation of her personality, in her protection of and care for what she has received and conceived. Thus her person im-plies an active yielding and acceptance of what comes to her in love. It is this very quality which makes woman a unifying force in God's plan. For she is meant to act as an icon or image of humanity's attitude toward God. It is for this reason that we have running through the whole of salvation history the image of the woman pointing out again and again that humanity must be-come feminine before God, open to His advance, ready 4- + Superior and Vocation VOLUME 24 1965 4, 4, 4, Chades A. Schleck, C.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]?4 to be receptive, ready to yield to His every word and request. Thus it is the woman and not the man who is the archetype of humanity's relationship with God. She is symbolic of the only power which man has in reger-ence to God's love. Thus the childlike quality that we often find among women saints is not to be confused with a weak and playful infantilism. It is rather the longing for and the expression of that security which we can recognize as a rather profound condition of the finest women in history. Its essence is innocent confi-dence, based on that childlikeness which the Lord de-mands for the kingdom of heaven. It is the magnani-mous surrender of oneself, the total sacrifice of self, and unlimited confidence in God's power and fatherly goodness. Thus woman is a sign of faith taken in its biblical sense, faith which expects nothing from man, but relies wholly on God. When these ingredients of woman are found per-fectly in an individual, they would seem to present us with a picture of the divine idea of a human nature that is perfect and truly complete at least in reference to God. And they are found in one person, one woman, the Mother of God. Our Lady provides us not merely with a prototype or archetype of woman redeemed, but of mankind, humanity redeemed. This is the meaning of the Immaculate Conception. It is merely the revela-tion to us of the human being when still unfallen, of the undesecrated countenance of the creature man, of the perfect image of God in man as it existed when the "'fiat" of God's creative activity rested upon him in the dawn of his creation. Indeed what would seem to come from prolonged meditation on the purpose and image of Mary, what seems to sum up her entire personality is her simplicity, which is not so much a virtue as rather the culmination of her perfect and balanced harmonious activity. It is the expression of a real inward unity and purpose. It is opposed to multiplicity and diversity of aims and in-tentions. It is a life entirely directed to God. And sim-plicity is a mark of divinity or of the divine. Mary had a nature that was incapable of pretense, of going too far, or of stopping too short of the mark. She never added anything to what had to be said or done, nor did she ever subtract anything. That is why what we find most attractive in Mary is her complete self-possession in spite of the plethora of grace and divine favor that was given to her as the Mother of God and as the archetype of humanity. She always and everywhere preserved what was natural to her feminine makeup.16 That one person, one woman should be able to l~Ibid., p. 125. transcend the differentiation of the sexes before God is not an entirely unusual phenomenon. It has been said that many important personages such as geniuses and saints have been able to stand above this differentiation in sex, that they have been able to unite in themselves the qualities of both man and woman in a creative harmony. And we may well ask ourselves whether this transcending of natural barriers is not perhaps the highest effect of the workings of grace. If we were to study the treatise on God the Trinity, we would soon discover that the image of woman reflects rather closely that of the Third Person in the Godhead, the Holy Spirit. He is called Love, Breath or Kiss, Gift, and His operation in the economy of salvation is that of a mother-principle. He is called Love, the Person of Love in the Trinity because He proceeds by way of volitional activity in God. To fall into the realm of metaphysics for a moment, we might say that the pro-cession of love or rather that which proceeds through the activity of love proceeds as spirit; spirit, however, signifies or expresses a certain vital or life-giving move-ment and impulse. The activity of love produces an inclination or an out-going or a giving, and this is no less true in the case of the activity of love in God. Thus the Holy Spirit is movement, secret mysterious activity in His very Being, just as is love as found among crea-tures. That is why, perhaps, when He is described in Sacred Scripture it is always in terms and ideas and ex-pressions implying motion or movement--spiritus, that is, wind, breath, or breeze; or He is compared to a river or fountain that flows from the throne of the Lamb.17 It is for this reason that the fathers of the Church are fond of referring to the Holy Spirit as the breath or kiss of the Father and the Son, the most secret but sweet kiss. And this is quite correct. For a kiss is an expression of unity and a means to it. And if anywhere there is not only oneness of love, but also oneness of life be-tween persons, if anywhere lovers are of one spirit and are one spirit, surely this is true within the mystery of the Godhead. Between the Father and the Son there are not merely two lives that melt into one; there is only one life and one heart, one love-producing activity. Thus the breath or the kiss of the Father and the Son cannot be merely a vehicle or medium to procure unity of life in God; it is rather its expression. Hence the Father and the Son do not pour out their breath of life into each other by their kiss, but from the interior of their common heart they pour it into a third Person, one in whom the oneness of their love and their life is ~'See Jn 3:8; 7:38-9; 20:22-3; Ap 22:1 ff. Superior anal Vocation VOLUME 24, 1965 175 ÷ ÷ ÷ Charles A. C.$.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 176 manifested and made visible or expressed.IS It is pre-cisely because He proceeds by way of love and is Love that the Holy Spirit is the most mysterious of the Per-sons in God. Love is much more ineffable than the activity of the mind. For while the latter produces a definite term, a word or an idea, the former, love, pro-duces no term but only a movement toward, an out-going. This is the reason why as soon as we try to de-scribe love we must have recourse to metaphors and similes as we find in the Canticle of Canticles or in the Sequence for the feast of Pentecost. Yet for all this note of movement which is attached to the Person of the Holy Spirit, He is never to be considered as restless or feverish in His quest for any object. Like the other two Persons of the Godhead He possesses all objects, being eternally within them. And like them He is "semper agens et semper quietus" to use a phrase of St. Augustine, always active and yet always at rest. Again, the Holy Spirit is called Gift, One who is to be possessed by the one to whom He is given. This implies that He Himself possesses an aptitude and readiness to be given or the ability and desire to give Himself. A gift, however, implies a free and gratuitous and unreturnable donation the motivating force of which is love. Thus the first thing that we give to another whom we truly and genuinely love is that love by which we wish what is most conducive to his personal well-being. Personal love, therefore, is the first gift that we give to another; and it is the root of all the other gifts that we might impart to this other, for example, the use of one's body in mar-riage. Thus in the life of grace, the first thing that God gives us is Himself, as Personal Love, as Gift, that can be possessed and enjoyed and freely so. From this it should be clear that in speaking of the Holy Spirit as the Gift, we do not intend to deny that in a sense the Word of God also can be said to be God's gift to man in the incarnation and again in the mystery of the divine indwelling. Yet the title would not be as properly the Word's as it is that of the Holy Spirit. Gift is that which proceeds by way o{ love activity, which notion as we have seen is proper to the Holy Spirit. Finally, when the Holy Spirit is sent on mission we see that it is always as sign and mother-principle. He is a sign of the divine renewal that takes place within us as a result of God's love--purity and charity; and He is also the forming principle uniting those who have been created according to the image and likeness of God with their Creator and Father. He is the Sanctifier or the bond linking up man with God. Thus His prerogatives ~s M. J. Scheeben, The Mysteries of Christianity (St. Louis: Herder, 19t7), pp, 183-4, 188, of Love and Gift are most strikingly evident in the work of man's sanctification. It is for this reason that one of the scholastic theologians mentions that when the hu-man person embraces God or surrenders himself to Him in grace, He receives the kiss of God's mouth and the breath of His Spirit. The powers of the person are made perfect and they are elevated to a higher plane of activity. And when this conversion or this turning to God or surrender to Him is intense, then this kiss is so completely efficacious that the individual drinking in God's Spirit becomes totally transformed by Him. And it is then with sobriety and modesty that this individual allows its love and giving to overflow on others according to their worth and necessity, not giving itself wholly over to them nor seeking them for itself but only for God. This we see in the case of the Church. For she was begun by the kiss of the divine mouth, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the mouth of God and embracing in His kiss the Father and Son. And she in turn exists only for one purpose--to communicate the kiss of the divine mouth to others.1~ From this it would seem logical to conclude that there is a very definite affinity or similarity, not perfect in every or all respects to be sure but at least in many, between the woman and the Holy Spirit, such that her mission when actually and really lived even in the natural order would partially imply her being a reflec-tion of God as Personal Love and Gift or Subsistent Breath. The ideas of love and gift and breath imply movement, an outgoing or communicating activity. And the woman is known for her ability to love and to give herself, to sacrifice herself for the benefit of others, to surrender herself in total donation. And she is also known for her ability to urge on gently, irresistibly, and persuasively, like a soft ocean breeze bellying a ship's sails and moving it to port. Certainly this is the work of the Holy Spirit through His gifts and His own presence in man; and this would also seem to be the role of woman--to be a strong yet gentle impulse urging the whole of humanity on to its last goal, communion with the beloved. And finally the woman is mother-principle, or the one to whose lot it falls to communicate flesh and blood or to be at the service of life; and what she gives, life, she is meant to give in a permanent and unreturn-able sort of way. Consequently, we can say that partially at least the woman's vocation and mission is to imitate and con-tinue through space and time as a sign or symbol and cause the mission of the Holy Spirit--to lead humanity 4- 4- 4- Superior and Vocation ~John of St. Thomas, The Gifts of the Holy Ghost (New York:VOLUME 24, 1965 Sheed and Ward, 1954), pp. 37-8. 177 Charles A. SchCl.eSc.Ck., REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 178 back to God by showing it that God is a God of love and of gift; by showing it that its duty is to find God, to go back to Him, to love Him by an unreturnable gift of self in the darkness and mysteriousness of a deep faith and trust. And I believe we might say that the woman would represent and personify the Holy Spirit not partially, but wholly, not merely in her origin, but also in her nature, if, without being wife and mother, she could be the center of love between father and son in a family as a virgin. When we come to the consideration of the religious sister we should not expect her vocation to be contrary to her fundamental vocation of woman. Rather we would expect it to lie along the same lines. And yet because of the increased perfection of her vocation in the order of grace we would expect it to lie much further along the road, such that it would enable her to realize and achieve or fulfill her vocation of woman much more profoundly. And I believe that even a rather brief analysis of the sister's role or place in the Church would bear this out. She is given to the Church as a sign, a visible sign of not one but rather of several realities. And because she is a sign, because she acts as a visible and public witness in the Church, she is given to the Church and to the humanity intended to belong to the Church as a visible parable, or a graphic picture, or model or icon or type, for all to see, of the intimate rela-tionship which the whole of humanity is meant to have with God. We mentioned above that all communication between God and man has tended to adopt a sacra-mental or sign-medium--either that of language or events or representations or personifications (for exam-ple, Judith, Moses, the Virgin Mary). And this is no less true of the sister's vocation. Because her role with rela-tion to man is sacramental, everything about her should indicate what she stands for---her dress or garb, the houses where she lives, the entire rhythm and disposition of her life. She is meant to indicate publicly that man belongs entirely to God, that one day he will have to live only for Him and only with Him. She is meant to indi-cate publicly that man belongs entirely to God, that one day it will have to live only for Him and only with Him. She is meant to indicate perpetually not in herself alone, but in the institution which she gives life to during the course of her earthly life, that man is called to experience God's personal love, that he is intended to receive His special attention, that he is called to enter into a relation-ship with God that can best be signified by the bridal rela-tionship, by the union existing between man and wife. Thus the sister is meant to be revelatory in the fullest sense of this word. There is a tradition which runs through revelation, as we mentioned, placing the woman firmly on this side of heaven and identified with God's chosen people, His Ecclesia. It is the feminine image or archetype, which stands for the whole of humanity, for God's chosen and elect. In this role she is not meant to be wife to husband in the sense of being merely an object for masculine projections. She is meant to indicate that the whole of mankind especially in the order of grace is the object of God's special predilection, that it receives all that it has, especially in this order, uniquely from God, as a woman, the body-person of her husband, receives her glory and her name from her husband. This would seem to be at least something of the theological mystery or the reli-gious significance of the woman consecrated to God within the framework of a religious community. And it is for this reason no doubt that her ever further unveil-ing so often means the breakdown of her public mission and of her mystery or sacrament before the People of God and before all called to belong to this People. Per-haps we might identify this unveiling today with the contemporary trend that attempts to prove or demon-strate that woman can make her best contribution to human progress by being not merely equal to man, but identical with him, instead of by being herself. There is a common desire and a legitimate curiosity within the human race to see the goal to which it is divinely destined, to catch while still here on earth a glimpse of itself in glory. And this is given to it in the vocation of the religious sister. This is part of the mean-ing of the reception of the habit assigning her a public mission in the Church and before humanity--to be a sign of humanity's belonging to God as His bride. It is in this way I think that the Sister is meant to be a sign permanently and visibly present in the world of the sublime privilege and compulsory destiny of the whole of humanity--to be open and docile and obedient to the plan of salvation, as a bride is open to her husband.2° How important this is for the vocation of your sub-jects can be seen from the fact that woman insofar as she is directed toward man and toward the love of man re-tains her bridal character throughout her entire exist-ence. Thus a wife in her attitude toward the husband she loves remains a bride throughout her entire life. For the bridal quality of the woman is merely a repre-sentation of her love in its undying and unending re-newal. If this is true of the ordinary woman, it should be even more true of the virgin who is consecrated to Christ. For she by special commission of the Church ~ ¥ictor White, O. P., Soul and Psyche (New York: Harper, 1960), pp. 12 ft. ÷ ÷ ÷ Superior Vocation VOLUME 24, Z965 ]79 + 4. 4. Charles A. SchCle.Sck.C,. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]80 pronouncing on her call from Christ is set aside to be a permanent and symbolic or sacramental renewal in sign of the Church's and of each person's bridal rela-tionship to the Lord. In a much more visible way by her virgin's vocation and by her habit is her bridal quality renewed and her wedding day continuously and daily represented and repeated before humanity. And how perfectly this function and mission or public assignment corresponds with the ingredients of her natural vocation. Surrender to another in personal en-counter is the deepest longing of a woman's heart. When a woman makes this surrender to another creature she is underestimating her worth; and she is, perhaps with-out knowing it, making demands which no creature can possibly fulfill. Only God can receive us in such a way that He fills the quasi-infinite and inexhaustible demands of the human heart to love and to be loved. That is why the aim of the religious life--complete surrender to God--is also the one adequate fulfillment of woman's longing. From this we can see why the "fiat" of the Mother of God at the Annunciation, and its continuation throughout her entire life, and the profession of the religious sister is a visible symbol of humanity's essential religious quality, surrender to God, openness to Him. In a very special way then tlfis atti-tude is truly the special charisma, the ecclesial function of the sister in the Church. And she should not forget that the idea of charisma means not the working out of one's own career designs, but rather the obliterating of one's own person to the point of its becoming an instru-ment of service to the ecclesial community and to hu-manity as a whole. In addition to the religious sister's being a sign of the relationship of humanity with God, she is also meant to be a sign of God's relationship to the world of man. And this is one of love and concern. Thus she is meant to assume the interests and concerns of Eternal Love, or she is meant to reflect and place before the whole of humanity the personal and intense and warm love which God has for it. And she reflects these concerns and interests, even anxiety, in a light that is peculiarly her own; that is, in a maternal light. Thus the religious woman's love dynamism is not only not annihilated in her being called to assume her ecclesial function; it is rather given new life and becomes far more extensive that that of "she who hath husband." 21 It is meant to assume the status and the proportions of the God-man Himself. Thus God by calling her to the religious life communicates to the woman together with the grace of her vocation something that was not there before. This is .o~ Is 5-t: I. a divine dynamism or vitality which makes her every ac-tivity, her every response to God a form of fruitfulness and motherhood. Even though her apostolic work may be rather quiet and performed in relative hiddenness and obscurity, it is still a dynamic power or force that transforms and gives life to all that it touches. That is why her woman's natural desire is not at all annihilated. Rather, it is made to expand as she assumes more and more fully the perspectives of a daughter of the Church. The woman who is called sister is a mother in the high-est sense of the word. This was very strongly asserted by the late sovereign pontiff, Pope Pius XII, in an ad-dress given in May of 1956: The Catholic Church, depository of the divine designs, teaches the higher fruitfulness of lives entirely consecrated to God and to neighbor. Here the complete renunciation of the family should make possible the completely disinterested spiritual ac-tion which proceeds not from any fear of life and its responsi-bilities, but from the perception of the true destinies of man, created to the image and likeness of God and in search of uni-versal love, which no fleshly attachment can limit. That is the most sublime fecundity and the most desirable which man can seek, the fecundity which transcends the biological order and reaches straight into that of the spirit.~ This truth is more important for us to recall than ever before. There is no such thing as a woman's right to a child. There is only the right of the child to a mother. For a woman to be a physician, a guardian, a teacher, or a nurse is not a profession in the masculine sense of the word. It is the form which her spiritual motherhood is to take in God's designs. Thus a profes-sion is not just a substitute for the unmarried woman's lack of physical motherhood. Rather it is the working out of the never failing motherliness that is in every genuine woman. And this is the more true, the more her motherhood turns around those things which are regarded as the timeless possessions of humanity, the cultural and religious values of the human race. Thus in the Church by reason of her religious mission and her apostolate as mother, the sister has her place beside the bearer of religious fatherhood, beside the priesthood of the man. And in this respect she is like the Church who in her character as mother is a cooper-ating principle with the one working within her, Christ Himself. Perhaps it is in this vision of her vocation where we discover the fundamental reason why it was fitting that the priesthood was never entrusted to the woman. The priesthood could not be confided to a woman because then the very meaning and significance which she communicates to man would be annihilated. ~ Address to Doctors on Fertility and Sterility, May 19, 1956; see The States o] Perfection, p. 288, n. 624b. 4. 4. 4. Superior and Vocation VOLUME 24, 1965 ]8] REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS She is excluded from the hierarchy not becanse she is unequal to man but because she is not identical to him. This exclusion is a recognition of the distinctiveness and individuality of the woman. It is a witness to the fact that there are distinctly feminine tasks in the Church which demand the presence of women. Thus this exclusion far from being motivated from any dis-dain for woman springs from a reverence and respect for the true nature of woman, for the peculiar talents and gifts which God has given humanity in her. In fact in her not being capable of the priesthood she renders the priesthood its most outstanding service. For she teaches it by that very fact that the priesthood institnted by Christ is a service rather than a lordship and that it is a service of joy. Its object is agap~ or charity, brotherhood and the bond of love. And charity is above all not a matter of organization, but one of interior disposition of faith that is active in love. Here we find the special domain of the woman's devotion and gener-osity and youthful unselfishness.~3 It is these same thoughts which prompted Plus XII to write in 1957: We do not have to reaffirm Our certainty that Religious women are indispensable in many fields of the Catholic aposto-late, particularly in the field of education and scholastic activity, no less than in the field of charity. The Church's missionary work would for a long time now have been unthinkable without the participation of the Sisters; and in many fields, where the sacred hierarchy is in charge, the labors of the Sisters are indispensable for the well-organized care of souls. Without their help, the Church would have been compelled to relinquish many op-portunities for progress, and many positions, already painfully won, would probably have had to be abandoned. With the aso sistance of your maternal hands, beloved daughters, the Church is able to support the aged in their declining years; with your warmth of heart the Church is able to warm the hearts of tiny orphans; with your fervor of self-dedication, the Church is able to minister to the sick." The Limitations and Weaknesses of Woman In all this analysis of the woman's vocation and mis-sion in nature and in religion, we are not to forget that in the present fallen order of the human race, these ideal qualities and expressions of her image are always the goal or end after which she is constantly striving, a goal that has been ideally reached only by one indi-vidual, the Virgin Mother of God, and this only through a most special and singular grace. The reason for this need for constant effort stems from the fact that the fall withdrew a unifying force which would have kept in Arnold, Man and Woman, passim. Address to Nursing Sisters, April 25, 1957, in The States o] Per- Jection, pp. 286--7. harmony and balance and unity the various ingredients mentioned above. Thus your subjects must be made aware of these different limitations during the course of their formation and also afterwards, since they mani-fest themselves at different age-levels of our human existence. This education should be geared in such a way as to make them aware of the particular spiritual opportunities which are offered to religious women through the presence of these limiting factors and to make them aware of the various protections available against the spiritual decline to which they are then exposed. Without attempting in any way to present an exhaus-tive list of these limitations and weaknesses, the follow-ing thoughts in reference to them might prove to be helpful at least by way of area analysis. We mentioned above that the woman tends toward the personal and the living, toward the whole of things; that she tends to cherish, to keep and protect; that she tends not so much toward the abstract but rather to the concrete. This tendency toward the personal and living and con-crete can, however, become unwholesomely exaggerated. On the one hand she is inclined to be at times extrava-gantly concerned with her own person and problems and to expect the same interest from others, in the case of sisters, their superiors and fellow sisters. This brings about the tendency to anxiety, to depression, the desire to be recognized, to be given attention, to be loved. This situation can be increased when there is question of slight or serious emotional instability, or even by simple glandular disturbance, or by the rhythm of the woman's body activity. It is from this lack of and yet desire for security and acceptance that there can come diffidence, shyness, timidity, even hostility. On the other hand, this over-concentration on the personal can lead to an unmeasured interest in others, which mani-fests itself by way of curiosity, gossip, indiscreet longing to penetrate into the more intimate part of the lives of others, fellow sisters, pupils, and so forth. Again the tendency which she has toward wholeness can lead to an "explosive" use of her energy, to a superficial nib-bling in all directions without any real unifying end or goal. The tendency which she has to cherish, to keep, and to protect can lead to a possessiveness that far exceeds anything required by her work or associations with others. And finally her tendency to the concrete in preference to the abstract can easily cut off from her vision those things which lie outside her immediate environment, or from the broader view which she ought to be taking of things. Added to these there are other weaknesses which can 4. + + Superior and Vocation VOLUME 24, 1965 183 ÷ ÷ ÷ Charles A. Schleck, C.S.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]84 find their way into the life of woman, such as her tend-ency to an anthropomorphic idea of God which could lead to an over-familiarity with Him or to a sentimen-talized relationship with Him such that she would lack the true reverence for Him which she ought to have. Again, we find that she has an inclination to seIf-de-lusion and to suggestibility; that she is easily persuaded and influenced by appearances rather than by reason and logic. In fact it was this tendency that made Shake-speare have one of his female characters remark: "I have no other but a woman's reason: I think him so because I think him so." Likewise because of her strong emo-tional needs we find that at times when these are not satisfied, she can be capricious, moody, unstable, extrav-agant, unpredictable, and rather weak of will. And lastly, but certainly not the least important weakness which can be found in woman is the peculiar expression which her conflicts with authority assume. Generally speaking a thorough analysis of such conflicts would usually indicate that they are not so much with the concept or notion of authority as rather with persons in authority. This would seem to follow from the woman's being occupied more with persons than with abstract ideas.~5 While all these things might seem to pertain more to the realm of mere human psychology and to be espe-cially due to the irresolution of the normal crises of human life--those of vocation, identity, intimacy, par-enthood, integrity, and prayer and action,~6 you should attempt to make your religious see that they provide them with the normal channels through which God Himself works out their salvation. They should be seen as the ordinary "dark nights" through which most religious must pass to come closer to God. Just as He makes use of human instruments to effect our holiness, so too does He make use of the ordinary happenings and situations of human life--physical, biological, emo-tional, moral, and intellectual crises--to lead us closer to Himself. Such an attitude, of course, cannot be achieved unless your subjects are educated to and constantly re-minded of the fact that they must regard the circum-stances of life--at all levels--as given and provided for by God. It is through these very ordinary events of life that grace is made visible and available for them in these rather human "sacramental" forms. It is in this way that you can hope to impress upon your religious ~nW. Demal, O.S.B., Pastoral Psychology in Practice (New York: Kenedy, 1955), pp. 54 ft. ~ For an excellent treatment of these crises, see Barry McLaughlin, S.J., Nature, Grace, and Religious Development (Westminster: New-man, 1964), pp. 1-128. the fact that they are women and that they possess some or all of the weaknesses of women in our fallen economy; that this is something they should not only accept, but in a sense respect and even reverence, seeing in them the peculiar destiny and glory which God Him-self has singled out for them. It is only in this way that the whole of life can become one continuous sacra-mental encounter with God who continues to reveal Himself through the things that are made and through the things that happen. It is only in proportion as they learn to see these things in this light that they can hope to receive in exchange for their surrender to them the life and deepening faith which He promises in return.27 Conclusion While it is impossible for major superiors to person-ally form all their subjects in reference to what has preceded, still it would seem that they would contribute greatly to the spiritual improvement of their communi-ties if they saw to it that these notions of the woman's vocation and mission in the plan of God were system-atically communicated to their religious throughout the years of their formation. It is only in this way that they can expect their religious (1) to make their precise and proper contribution to God's plan, to the work of the Church, to the apostolates o~ the community, and to their own sanctification; (2) to protect themselves against their weaknesses and the harm these could cause to the realization of the various ends and goals of their ecclesial mission; and (3) to make them aware of and able to use for encounter with God the rich gifts and humbling limi-tations of their own personalities. It is only in this way that they like Mary and the Church whom they continue to embody can provide humanity with a concrete theology of mankind or humanity redeemed. It is for this reason that I would suggest that in your visitations and personal interviews with your subjects, these ideas be frequently presented and recalled. By yourselves knowing and appreciating and loving the woman's and the sister's vocation, public function, and problems, and by making this quite evident to your communities, you will show your maternal interest in them as a family and as persons. And once this becomes evident in you, there is greater hope that the family image which ought to characterize the religious life will become an actual reality. There is greater hope that each and all of your subjects will combine all the voca-tions open to woman and reflect the virtues that are proper to them. For as virgins they must continue to ~ Adrien Yon Speyer, Meditations on the Gospel o[ St. John (Lon-don: Collins, 1959), p. 43. + + + Superior and Vocation VOLUME 24, 1965 185 ÷ ÷ ÷ Charles ,4. $chCle.cSk.C, . REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 186 reflect Mary's humility, her simplicity, her naturalness, her silence, her thoughtfulness, her reflectiveness, her caution or reserve, her complete dependence on grace, and her profound faith both in the world of the present and in that of the future. As spouses of Christ, they must practice a perfect personal fidelity to the one they have chosen; for this is the essential relationship existing between bride and bridegroom reflected so strikingly in Mary, the image or archetype of the Church standing at the foot of the Cross. To maintain this fidelity in-violate will at times demand heroic fortitude in the face of the difficulties that come not only from without but most often from within. And finally as mother, they are to practice or cultivate a sense of and use of the social virtues, of the deep interest and consideration and concern for the needs of others. For motherhood implies an encompassing care and attention, the giving of nourishment and shelter, an activity that is marked by its tenderness and gentleness yet firmness, for the weak and fragile things that are being brought forth in Christ. It demands the exact opposite of selfishness and undue self-interest, of worry and anxiety about oneself and one's personal needs, it is rather characterized by self-sacrifice, by resourcefulness, by the ability and desire to give of one's time and energy to and for others, and by laying at the disposal of the race whatever gifts and qualities God may have given her. Your task today is of gigantic proportions. For how evident is our need for a new Pentecost, for the reign of the Spirit and of His influence and His gentle rule; for love of God and obedience, submission, reverence and a sense of the sacred; for purity, warmth, and fresh-ness; for spontaneity, poetry, and the Godward force-- all of which are presented to us in the picture of the woman redeemed. In a sense we can truthfully say that the greatest need in the modern world is for the truly feminine. For to be wise, to learn wisdom, demands that one be feminine to reality, to let reality flood in, to be molded by reality and so achieve a certain fullness from our absorption of it; to rest in reality, and so achieve a certain peace. In the Consolation of Boethius it is a woman who leads him to Wisdom. Her mission is to tell him, a prisoner in the dungeon, that if he had not cast away the weapons she had given him, he would have been invincible against the attacks of evil fortune. And then she attempts to lead him gently back to the realization that not in gaining possession of anything, but only in obedience and love to and for God, will we find eternal happiness and peace. And the world has need of this collaboration. It has a profound need for women who know how to say to God "fiat," to keep all things in their hearts; it has need for women who can bring the world back to a sense of unity, of religion, and of peace. It must return to the simple things, the human things, to the mystery of life and death, of birth and redemption. And it will find these in the woman who reflects in her very body the constant rhythm of nature itself, who holds the secret of life and who knows instinctively that esse is better than agere, being is so much more than doing. That is why she is a sign of the eternal. Again, we can say that woman has need of women who are genuinely themselves. For she has been and is still attempting to find her role too much in the world of man. The world without women is more the world of adolescents than the world of men. It is a world that easily shakes off its transcendental ties. The all-too-masculine activity of self-reliance and self-redemption has dimmed man's vision of the transcendent. Before this will be rectified, mankind must once more become feminine; that is, receptive of the "Word" which con-stantly seeks entrance into its womb. The profound consolation that woman can bring and give to mankind is her faith in the immeasurable ac-tivity and efficacy of forces that are hidden and invis-ible. For the divine creative force can break forth from God to renew the face of the earth only on condition that the earth lifts up its face with its single contribu-tion: "Be it done to me according to thy word." This is the feminine power which Mary shares with all her sex who will follow her in her love and renunciation. Every woman is made for mercy, love, understanding, and mediation. But it is only when all these are ele-vated by grace that they give her a mission and a mean-ing no longer merely human and terrestrial, but divine and infinite. That is why mankind will find its way to paradise only when it meets the loving woman whose eyes rest in and on God. From all this, one thing stands out quite clearly: To be a woman is a vocation with peculiar and profound responsibilities not only to oneself but to the whole of humanity. Woman is still and let us hope she will re-main the eternal mystery. We would not want to find the solution to her in the discovery of scientific facts alone. For it is from the mystery which she is and which she has received from and in God that human-ity's ideals and inspirations arise and that the super-natural civilization which is the work of the Spirit will finally be achieved. This is your supreme task--to see to it that this is brought about in the women under your charge. And the fact that in God's plan the highest human person is a woman should only serve to spur you on in the accomplishment of your special ecclesial mission. ÷ 4, ÷ Superior and Focation VOLUME 24, 1965 18'/ THOMAS DUBAY,S.M. Psychological Considerations in Our Approach to Mental Prayer ÷ ÷ Thomas Dubay, S.M., is spiritual director at Notre Dame Seminary; 2001 South Carroll-ton Avenue; New Orleans, Louisiana 70118. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 188 If we wish to get a man to visit and speak with a friend of ours, we talk not about the theory of conversation but about our friend. Rudimentary psychology suggests that men and women alike are inclined to communicate not by understanding abstract theories of communication but by being drawn to attractive personalities. Yet in teaching mental prayer to our young religious in postulancies, novitiates, juniorates, and seminaries we often introduce them into a supremely interpersonal familiarity through impersonal conceptual analyses and pointed outlines. We are not wholly unlike a man who in order to get Jim to date Joan explains what dating is about rather than what Joan is like. We propose in this essay to advance the thesis that a psychologically natural and humanly appealing approach to instruction in and the practice of mental prayer is through a scripturally and theologically orientated appre-ciation of the mystery of the Trinity indwelling in the souls of the just through charity. We feel that once a young novice or seminarian (or veteran, for that matter) grasps the astonishing God-and-man intimacy implied in the in-dwelling mystery as Sacred Scripture presents it, the whole concept of mental prayer will not only appear to be a nor-mal, expected next step but also an appealingly attractive occupation. And surely it is a chief function of any teacher to make his subject appealing, interesting, challenging. If, however, the divine inhabitation is presented to in-telligent young people for the purpose of moving them to a living of it, we feel that the teacher should avoid isolated approaches: merely speculative on the one hand or merely pietistic on the other. Few are moved by the former alone and no one is much enlightened by the latter alone. Hence, we prefer to begin by a study of Sacred Scripture, first the Old Testament and then the New. The Ancient Intimacy A careful research into the scriptural deposit dealing with God and man relationships will convince one that the theme underlying the whole divine message is an al-most incredibly beautiful desire on the part of God to be familiar with man. A demonstration of this fact is too vast a project to present exhaustively here, but if one studies Deuteronomy, the prophets, and the wisdom literature thoughtfully, he cannot fail to be impressed with the re-markable expressions Yahweh uses to indicate His desire to love and cherish and even fondle His people. Though we cannot attempt a complete exposition of this truth within the confines of our present discussion, we do wish to suggest a few illustrations of what we mean by the divine desire for interpersonal intimacy with man. These illustrations will serve to exemplify our intent in speaking of a scripturally orientated appreciation of men-tal prayer. Somewhat as the fully bloomed flower is contained in the tightly enclosed bud, so is the interindwelling mys-tery (the New Testament does not speak merely of an in-dwelling) of divine intimacy in the new dispensation con-tained in the many themed God-and-man familiarity of the old. Yahweh prepared the human family for the super-natural divine inhabitation by the gradual unfolding of His desire for a tender and mutual love between Himself and His intellectual creatures. In the Old Testament God uses several concrete images to make clear to the Hebrews how deep is His love and concern for them. He declares that His love is like a mar-ried love: He who has become your husband is your Maker. For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great tenderness I will take you back . With enduring love I take pity on you, says the Lord your redeemer (Is 54:5,7-8). Then He says that His affection is like parental affection: + It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, who took them into my arms; I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I ÷ fostered them like one raises an infant to his cheeks. Yet, though + I stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I was their Approach toMental healer . How could I give you up, O Ephraim?. My heart is Prayer overwhehned, my pity is stirred (Hos 11:3-4,8). It would be difficult in any language to express a more concerned, a more touching, an even fondling intimacy. VOLUME 24, 1965 189 ÷ ÷ ÷ Thomas Dubay, S.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 19~ Further, the divine love must be returned, a privilege that is also an obligation, an obligation enunciated with unusual solemnity and insistence on its being taught and remembered: Hear, O Israeli The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! There-fore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today. Drill them into your children. Speak of them at home and abroad, whether you are busy or at rest. Bind them at your wrist as a sign and let them be as a pendant on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates (Dt 6:4-9). Tender concern has its root in love. A mother is anx-iously solicitous for her sick child precisely because she loves. Yahweh is at pains to convince Israel of His touch-ing concern because He loves with an inconceivably greater love. He uses the image of a father's strong care for his son: You saw how the Lord, your God, carried you, as a man carries his child, all along your journey until you arrived at this place (Dr l:~l). The divine eye is set even on the steps of a man and on each of his bones: His eyes are upon the ways of man, and he beholds all his steps (Jb 34:21) . He watches over all his bones; not one of them shall be broken (Ps 33:21). He cannot forget His human children: Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you (Is 49:15). It can come as no wonder, then, that the pious Hebrew responds with an utter and intimate trust toward this loving-kindness of his God. He piles image upon image to express it: I love you, O Lord, my strength, O Lord, my rock, my for-tress, my deliverer. My God, my rock of refuge, my shield, the horn of my salvation, my strongholdl Praised be the Lord, I exclaim, and I am safe from my enemies (Ps 17:2-4). His trust is implicit: I believe that I shall see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord with courage; be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord (Ps 26:13-4). His confidence is optimistic: Come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord; let us acclaim the rock of our salvation. Let us greet him with thanksgiving; let us joyfully sing psahns to him (Ps 94:1-2). This loving trust brings a man very close indeed to his God, willing to pray to Him, eager to find fulfillment in Him: One thing I ask of the Lord; this I seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may gaze on the loveli-ness of the Lord (Ps 26:4). Even in the old dispensation we may note how strikingly these interpersonal relations brought man near to God. No less than six or seven times in one short prayer does the Psalmist declare his proximity to his Maker: With you I shall always be; you have hold o[ my right hand; with your counsel you guide me, and in the end you will re-ceive me in glory. Whom else have I in heaven? And when I am with you, the earth delights me not. Though my flesh and my heart waste away, God is the rock of my heart and my portion forever. For indeed, they who withdraw [rom you perish; you destroy everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me, to be near God is my good; to make the Lord God my refuge (Ps 72:23-8). One must agree that this is a far from an indirect prep-aration for the indwelling mystery. Finally, we may not omit the yearning for God and the solid joy in the Lord themes so characteristic of any con-templative soul. If we can instill into our novices and seminarians a never to be lost sense of the Hebrew ve-hemence in pursuing God in prayer, whatever else we may do toward their proper formation, we have succeeded in planting their steps firmly and probably perpetually in a prayerful approach to the religious life. To us one of the most remarkable traits of Psalter spir-ituality is this vehemence of the Psalmist's longing for God. By any standard of judgment it is extraordinary. It betrays a lofty sanctity, a deep sense of the divine reality, a vibrant awareness that only Yahweh is the health of the soul. And this too is exactly what our young religious need to learn first in their initial meeting with mental prayer. One likes to imagine what kind of pray-ers we would turn out of our novitiates if we could merely begin to instill the following sentiments into their young hearts: As the hind longs for the running waters, so my soul longs for you, 0 God. Athirst is my soul for God, the living God. When shall I go and behold the face of God?. 0 God, you are my God whom I seek; for you my flesh pines and my soul thirsts like the earth, parched, lifeless and without water . As with the riches of a banquet shall my. soul be satisfied, and with exultant lips my mouth shall praise you. I will remember you upon nay couch, and through the night-watches I will meditate on you: that you are my help, and in the shadow of your wings I shout for joy. My soul clings fast to you . I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like parched land . I gasp with open mouth in my yearning for your commands. How lovely is your dwelling place, 0 Lord of hostsl My soul yearns and pines for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God . I had rather one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere . You will show me the 4, 4, 4, A tfl~roach to M~ntal Prayer VOLUME 24, 1965 191 + ÷ + Thomas Dubay, S.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 192 path to life, fullness of joys in your presence, the delights at your right hand forever . Only in God be at rest, my soul (Ps 41:2-3; 62:2-3,6-9; 142:6; 118:131; 83:2-3,11; 15:11; 61:6). If we religious sincerely possess these sentiments, not much more is required. It seems to us that this magnificent Old Testament invi-tation to intimacy with God (developed, of course, at greater length) is the psychologically sound introduction to mental prayer. Nothing is so appealing as Sacred Scrip-ture and nothing so compels a man to want to converse with another as the realization that this other loves him and is actually yearning for a conversation. And such is precisely the Old Testament story. It needs to be mastered by our formation personnel and presented to our young candidates. The New Interinclwelling Intimacy The new revelation uttered by the Word expands the old dispensation familiarity into the divine inhabitation in the souls of the just. If one examines the Gospels and Epistles without presuppositions stemming from diverse schools of theology, he will conclude, we submit, that however one looks upon the indwelling mystery as the New Testament presents it, he must characterize it as closely bound up with interpersonal relationships between the Trinity and the soul. The matter is not primarily spatial or local. God is naturally present everywhere, and the Jews who listened to Jesus knew that fact well from the clear statements of it in their sacred books. A new, supernatural presence seems to leave out of direct con-sideration-- but by no means denies--the natural immen-sity of God, His omnipresent power and His all-pene-trating knowledge. Hence, a priori we might expect that if God is present in the rational creature in some new manner, the newness may be an interpersonal affair, not a mere stark, physical location. Such it is. The indwelling of the Trinity in the souls of the just according to the new revelation is a super-natural, personal familiarity revolving around a mutual knowing and loving, an intimacy tailor-made for initiat-ing and fostering a life of mental prayer and recollected converse. Some Illustrations We may with profit examine a few instances of what we mean in saying that the indwelling presence revolves about the interpersonal relationships of mutual love and knowl-edge (and, consequently, delight). 1. The mutual love relationship. Of all interpersonal relations the most intimate and satisfying is a two-way love. Now it is surely no accident that according to the New Testament love is both a condition and a conse-quence of the Trinity's new supernatural presence in cer-tain men. I[ you love me, keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate to dwell with you forever . He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him . I~ anyone love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him . The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us . God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him (Jn 14:15-6,21,23; Rom 5:5; 1 Jn 4:16). Whatever the indwelling mystery means, it surely in-cludes some marvelous mutual love relationship between God and man. And what better preparation for grasping the concept and raison d'etre of mental prayer could one ask than a vivid realization of this fact? 2. The new knowledge relationship. Love presupposes knowledge. A carrot cannot love even on a sensitive level because it cannot know. We would expect, therefore, that if the new supernatural God and man intimacy demands a new love, it would imply a new knowledge. And so it does. In indwelling contexts we find in the New Testa-ment more than one reference to God somehow manifest-ing Himself to those who love Him. We learn that the indwelling Spirit somehow instructs His temple, that a man who does not love cannot really come to know God. You shall know him [the Spirit of truth], because he will dwell with you, and be in you . He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him . You, however, are not carnal but spiritual, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you . The Spirit himself gives testimony to our spirit that we are sons of God . In this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us . Everyone who loves is born of God, and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love (Jn 14:17, 21; Rom 8:9,16; 1 Jn 3:24; 4:7-8). Again, how could we better prepare a young religious for a life of contemplating divine Truth than to help him understand this facet of the divine inhabitation, namely, that the Spirit of truth Himself is pouring out the light by which the soul progressively grows in an appreciation of divine reality? The more the young sister, brother, and seminarian realize this communal aspect of mental prayer the less they are inclined to take the dim view that their meditation is an individualistc, isolated, futile experience. 3. The interpersonal relations implied in "abiding, dwelling, temple." There is a vast difference between a stark, naked, merely material presence of one thing to an-other and a warm, personal, mutual knowledge-love-joy presence. If I take a bus trip with a total stranger at my + ÷ ÷ A ~rt oach to Mental Prayer VOLUME 2,~, 1965 193 ÷ ÷ ÷ Thomas Dubay, S.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 194 side (who will not communicate with me), I am alone even though the bus be jammed with fifty passengers. If, how-ever, I journey with a dear friend, the situation is totally changed even though the rest of the bus be empty. For in-tellectual beings spatial presence is only a condition for full presence; and full presence is effected by mutual know-ing, loving, enjoying. It is significant that when the New Testament speaks of the divine inhabitation the words used usually imply much more than what we have called a stark, naked, material presence--as water is present in a jug. They imply a local inbeing, of course, but, much more, they imply the knowl-edge- love-delight presence of persons. In revelation Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are said to abide, dwell, to be given to us, to be in a temple, to be a joy, to be tasted. He will give you another Advocate to dwell with you for-ever, the Spirit of truth . We will come to him and make our abode with him . Abide in me and I in you . He who abides in me, and I in him, he bears much fruit .Abide in my love . These things I have spoken to you that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full . The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us . Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?. Do you not know that your members are the temple of the Holy Spirit? ¯. Crave as newborn babes, pure spiritual milk, dlat by it you may grow to salvation; if, indeed, you have tasted that the Lord is sweet. Draw near to him . He who abides in love abides in God, and God in him (Jn 14:16,23; 15:4,5,9,11; Rom 5:5; 1 Cot 3:16; 6:19; 1 Pt 2:2-4; 1 Jn 4:16). Why are these words significant? Furniture is in a house, but it does not abide there; it does not dwell; it is not given to the house; nor is it a joy to the house. Persons, however, do abide and dwell in the house. They possess the building that may be given to them and they are a joy to one another. God is in an atom, a tree, a star. But they are not His temple, nor does He abide and dwell in them. And they in turn cannot enjoy and taste Him since they cannot know. God is also in the sinner and the pagan. But they are not his temple either, nor does He dwell in them. While both can know intellectually and the sinner may even pos-sess faith, neither possesses the unifying force of love. Nei-ther can taste and see how good the Lord is. Now all this, too, is immensely significant [or teaching and appreciating mental prayer. If this God Who is sought in prayer is so close that He can be tasted, so interested that He indwells, so good that He is given, He becomes a very easy to talk to God, a very easy to love God. And this is precisely what we are trying to get our young religious to do: to converse familiarly, to love ardently. At this point one may ask where he may find reference material on these interpersonal and indwelling relations in the Old and New Testaments. We are not aware of any work on the indwelling mystery that does what we here envision. We have ourselves for some considerable time been working on the interpersonal relations between God and man in the old dispensation and the indwelling mys-tery in the new. This much at least is now apparent, that if one does justice to the data available--and we mean scriptural and theological data--he will have a suitable introduction to an appreciation of mental prayer. We see no reason why novice mistresses and seminary professors cannot with patient study construct adequate courses on their own. 4. Activity of the Trinity within. Most of us conceive mental prayer chiefly as man's activity. God is principally an object reached by our reflections and affections, a lis-tener to what we have to say. It is we who reflect and seek and say. There is a partial truth here, namely, that man does think and will and attain his God. But it is only partial because all of his thinking, willing, attaining originate from the Fountain of all that is and operates. The children of men, we are told, have their fill of the prime gifts of your house; from your de-lightful stream you give them to drink. For with you is the fountain of life, and in your light we see light (Ps 35:9-10). This Fountain pours out life and light from within the soul. He is not a far away God acting at a distance. He is so close He is within; He is dynamically present giving every act in mental prayer, every act of any virtue: The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your mind whatever I have said to you . He who abides in me, and I in him, he bears much fruit: for without me you can do nothing . The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us . Whoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God . In like manner the Spirit helps our weakness (Jn 14:26; 15:5; Rom 5:5; 8:14,26). Both the young novice and the seasoned contemplative should realize that their prayer is anything but a solo flight to God. Their very seeking to pray is a gift given by ÷ their indwelling Guests. All the more are their acts of ÷ faith, hope, charity, adoration so many outpourings of the ÷ Fountain within, Approacl~ to MenUg Prayer for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself pleads for us with unutterable groanings. And he who searches the hearts knows what the Spirit desires, that he pleads for the saints according to God (Rom 8:26-7). VOLUME 24, 1965 Thoroughness in Instruction Introductory instruction for our religious in the inter-personal relationships implied in the indwelling mystery cannot, in our opinion, be adequately given in a twenty-or thirty-minute explanation--not even in two or three half-hour conferences. We feel that our brief discussion in this article is not sufficiently developed for instructional purposes except insofar as it points out a general direction. To leave a deep impact not easily forgotten, the novice master or mistress should develop the indwelling mystery scripturally and theologically for perhaps eight or ten conferences. The novices will then be intellectually and psychologically prepared to see clearly that mental prayer is nothing other than a knowing-loving-delighting inter-personal familiarity with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit dwelling within their very beings. They are much less likely to get lost or entangled in the intricacies of points and methods, and much less subject to imagining that mental prayer is a refined sort of intellectual study period in matters spiritual. Thoma~ Dubay, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 196 Methods and the Indwelling All this suggests a further question. If mental prayer is essentially an interpersonal converse on deeply intimate terms, what becomes of "points for meditation," intellec-tual considerations, truths thought out in a discursive manner? And especially if higher mental prayer is a sim-ple loving attention to the three divine Guests, why should the beginner be encouraged to engage in reflections? It is not our intention to add to the perhaps too volu-minous literature on meditation methods, but we do wish to offer several observations regarding them in the light of what we have thus far said. Once we grant that mental prayer is an interpersonal familiarity with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, then over-board immediately goes the notion that discursive medita-tion is a kind of study period in the spiritual life or, even less, that it implies a time for an elaborate examination of conscience. No doubt the beginner does learn about God and himself through meditation. And this is good. No doubt either that he does occasionally examine his con-duct in view of his reflections and aspirations. Good also~ provided this is kept within bounds. But, and this is im-portant, mental prayer is not primarily aimed at learning or at examining. It is primarily directed to yearning after, desiring, praising, loving God. The Psalms are inspired prayers. How much specula-tion do we find in them? How much examination? Very little. But we do find a large number of variegated expressions of praise, admiration, petition, gratitude, trust, love, long-ing--- expressions that disclose a sublime degree of sanctity in their authors. To illustrate our point we may remind ourselves of the Psalmist's ardent pining after God so im-portant to anyone who is to progress rapidly. We ask the reader to recall the strong words and the brilliant imagery the Hebrew spontaneously used to express his need for Yahweh. If before the intimacy of the indwelling presence was known men could be so vehement in their longing for God, we are hardly expecting too much when we look for the same vehemence after the revelation of the mys-tery. Beginners and the Intellectual Element These observations that mental prayer is neither mere speculation nor self-examination would seem to suggest that our instruction of novices should play down the cog-nitive elements in meditation and emphasize the affective. And this would seem especially to be the case with young sisters whose feminine nature is less inclined to specu-lation. This inference is only partially valid. For the typical be-ginner, masculine or feminine, we may not rule out dis-cursive reflection. Neither our comments nor feminine nature require that we treat human nature, even feminine human nature, as though it were not human. It remains true in prayer and it remains true for women that nothing is willed unless it is first known. This point we shall dis-cuss from the point of view of the young sister, for what we say of her applies a fortiori to the brother or seminar-ian. To say that the vast majority of young sisters do not or should not use their imaginations and reasoning power (discursive procedure) in meditation seems to us to sup-pose that the feminine psychology of cognition-appetition is not a fully human psychology. This position seems to suggest that by some sort of angelic, non-discursive intui-tion the young sister knows her prayer relations to God, while the young seminarian or brother must laboriously reason about and conclude to them. We readily grant that some young religious women even as novices are not inclined to discursive procedures at prayer but rather tend to an affective and at times highly simple prayer. But to us this does not prove that young sisters in general can dispense with imagining Christ in His human nature and with reasoning to proper motiva-tion in practicing the theological and moral virtues in meditation. All this proves is that God leads some souls more rapidly than others or, in other cases, that the young woman already understands through instruction and spir-itual reading the motives for seeking Christ and practicing ÷ ÷ ÷ A l~t~roavh to Mental Prayer VOLUME 24, 196.5 ]97 + ÷ ÷ Thomas Dubay, S.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]98 the virtues. In either case the religious feels no need for discursive reasoning. We doubt, however, that these cases are typical. Being human, women cannot be essentially different in their mental processes from men. And if we urged most young women in our novitiates to dispense with discursive re-flection and get on to affections immediately, most of them would be operating in a vacuum. Without solid intellec-tual basis their prayer could easily degenerate into mere emotionalism. St. Francis de Sales and St. Teresa of Avila (both of whom understood feminine psychology to no small degree) supposed that the ordinary young woman imagined and recalled and reasoned in her early attempts at meditation. The former in his Introduction to a Devout Life (a work originally composed for women) tells Philothea how to make considerations at her mental prayer (Part 2, Chap-ter 5) and in the meditations he actually offers Francis presents many truths for reflection. St. Teresa, a genius both in feminine psychology and in mental prayer, told her sisters that it was good for them to meditate on God's works if they could, and this, she sup-posed by the advice she gave, was the usual case. When she speaks of beginners in prayer, more than once she refers to meditation on the life of Christ. We may note, for example, Chapter 11 in her Life and Chapter 2 of the First Mansions of the Interior Castle. A novice mistress, there-fore, needs a good deal of tact to know when to allow ex-ceptions to the rule, when to permit a young sister to omit imagination and reasoning and when to urge them. A psychological approach to instructing in mental prayer through the indwelling mystery does not require that we abandon the cognitive elements in discursive med-itation; but it does require that we see them in a proper perspective: not mere speculation nor self-examination but as a human requirement for the interpersonal relations of knowing-loving-enjoying the Trinity within. The young religious reflects on reasons for yearning after God not merely for the sake of understanding the divine goodness but for the sake of actual yearning. And the same is true of praising, sorrowing, thanking, wondering, loving, and all the rest. For the beginner discourse in meditation is a means to the end. It is not the end. Advantages of the Indwelling Approach There are several reasons why formation personnel should begin instruction in mental prayer with the divine familiarity-indwelling themes rather than with concep-tual analyses and methodologies. First of all, what we have proposed is realistic and there is nothing so effective as measuring up to reality. Prayer is converse. Not study. Not examination. And God is near, so near He is within. We do not speak with the Father, His Son, and their Holy Spirit by a supernatural telephone line. To teach mental prayer merely as methodology or examination is to teach either artificiality or particular examen. Secondly, when the young novice or postulant first hears about meditation set in this framework, it appears as nor-mal, warm, human. It is appealing, what one would ex-pect. l'Vho is not attracted to conversing with a charming person--and especially when this charming person is like-wise longing to converse? One of the obstacles facing some young men and women just leaving the world is the feel-ing that God is distant, uninterested, or, more likely, dis-pleased with them. Sometimes these youngsters have a vivid recollection of their past unfaithfulness; and they consequently experience difficulty in looking upon God as close, concerned, caring about them. This approach to prayer life through the divine Word itself can do much to break down distrust and fear. Thirdly, our proposed instruction should get the nov-ices immediately into the heart and purpose of mental prayer: the exercise of the theological virtues and the virtue of religion. If it is true that meditation is not pri-marily aimed at learning what the spiritual life is about (classes, conferences, and spritual reading take care o[ that), a method of mental prayer is commendable insofar as it leads one to acts of faith, hope, charity, and the praise of God. To begin instruction by the various methods and points seems to be saying to young novices: "I am going to show you how you can learn more about God and about yourself, so that you may apply this knowledge to your daily life by uprooting your faults and practicing the vir-tues in action." This is good, to be sure, but misdirected all the same. Genuine mental prayer does aid mightily in uprooting faults and practicing virtues, but this result comes preponderantly through growth in love. Here we may add a parenthesis that is by no means ir-relevant. Why do so many priests later give up any serious practice of mental prayer and why do veteran brothers and sisters sometimes find this exercise almost meaningless? Although the chief reason is a neglect of grace somewhere along the line, yet we suspect that a partial culprit is in-struction that presented meditation as virtues to be ac-quired rather than a lovable God to be pursued. One can get tired of reflecting on and even practicing obedience, humility, purity for abstract reasons, but he cannot get tired of pursuing someone he loves. Even in deep aridity the faithful soul who has been pursuing God finds an ir-resistible charm in intensifying the pursuit: O God, you are my God whom I seek; for you my flesh pines Approach to Mental Prayer VOLUME 24, 1965 ]99 ÷ Thomas Dubay, $.M. and my soul thirsts like the earth, parched, lifeless and without water . For your kindness is a greater good than life; my lips shall glorify you . I will remember you upon my couch, and through the night-watches I will meditate on you. My soul clings fast to you (Ps 62:2,4,7,9). Our fourth reason for suggesting this supernatural in-timacy- indwelling approach to mental prayer is that the moral virtues automatically develop once a man or woman is rightly ordered to God. Experiencing through prayer the patience and gentleness of the divine goodness to man is a powerful spur for a man to be patient and gentle with his fellows. And contemplatives know from experience that the indwelling Spirit gives more humility through infused love than they could acquire in months of medita-tion on their own lowliness. A soul which is on intimate terms with God is a soul rapidly shedding its faults. Our approach to mental prayer is aimed precisely at developing this intimacy. The final reason is the most basic and ultimate of all. The indwelling approach being utterly real is a beginning of the end. It is an intrusion of time into eternity. Man's final, inexpressible destiny is a knowing-loving-enjoying absorption in the Trinity: This is everlasting life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and him whom thou hast sent, Jesus Christ . We see now through a mirror in an obscure manner, but then face to face . Beloved, now we are the children of God, and it has not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that, when he appears, we shall be like to him, for we shall see him just as he is . Eye has not seen or ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for those who love him (Jn 17:3; 1 Cot 13:12; 1 Jn 3:2; 1 Cor 2:9). Pope Leo XIII has observed that there is no substantial difference between the indwelling of earth and that of heaven. The diversity is one of state or condition: now we believe, then we see; now we love and enjoy imperfectly, interruptedly, then we love and enjoy perfectly, without interruption. Man's occupation with God on earth, there-fore, should resemble that of heaven insofar as his condi-tion permits. Living the indwelling mystery in the young religious' prayer Iife should be the beginning of an eternal intimacy: "Mary has chosen the best part, and it will not be taken away from her" (Lk 10:42). REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 900 MICHAEL M. DORCY, S.J. To Be Samaritans All We are all occasionally stopped by the embarrassing question put by others or by our deeper selves: "What is this thing called Christianity all about?" One begins pawing through the prolific--perhaps too prolific-- thematic variations to discover the underlying theme. Incorporated, often encrusted, as it is in its so many varying articulations, the essential Christian message becomes a forbidding complexity. But at its core the Christian message is disarmingly simple, although the living-out of it may be far from a simple matter. For the early Christians the Christian message was the good news, the best news yet. Paul called for a simple acceptance of Christ dead and resurrected. His epistolary explanation of the Christian vocation addressed to the saints at Ephesus has its beauty in the straightforward way in which Paul says: In those days there was no Christ for you . You were strangers to the covenant, with no promise to hope for, with the world about you and no God. But now you are in Jesus Christ; now through the blood of Christ, you have been brought close, you who were once far away. (Eph 2:12-13). The Christian today who remains attuned to his call stands out against his non-believing fellows as one who believes that life is neither absurd nor its own explana-tion, an end in itself. For the Christian, temporal existence has a meaning and a value of its own; but he is at the same time aware that life has another side to it, a side that opens out onto eternity. And he realizes that the temporal ultimately derives its value from the presence of the Eternal within time itself. For the Christian, his-tory is the concrete unfolding of the wisdom and love of God. He believes in a God who is basically a family, who authored life out of love and who labors now in time, trying to end the rift between Himself and man for which man is, and feels himself, responsible. This God, revealing Himself as a God who cares, has in the pivotal event of human history finally, physically entered time in the flesh-taking activity of the Second Person of the divine family, whose life, death, and resurrection evi- Michael M. Dorcy, s.J., is a fac-ulty member of Marquette Univer-sity High School; 3401 West Wiscon-sin Avenue; Mil-waukee, Wisconsin 53208. VOLUME 241 1965 201 Michael Dotty, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 202 dence and effect a plan whereby all men are joined to Him and would live as adopted sons within the family of God. In short, the Christian's God has said: "I have loved you, man! I love you now. This only do I ask in return: Love me." And man fumbles for a response: "God, You tell us to love You. But how do we love You?" God an-swers simply: "If you have seen, really seen, your brother, you have seen God. If you love your brother, you love Me." The Christian confronted with God's tale of love tries to answer by carving his own love story in time. But love is not an easy notion either to understand or to live by. In the New Testament which is the text for the school of love one finds passages which are more helpful than others for discerning what is precisely Christian about Christian love. One such place is the parable of the Good Samaritan where one finds in a compactness perhaps nowhere else equalled in all of Sacred Scripture the es-sentials of the love that was Christ's. Here we have the type of the Christian, of the man whose life completely revolves around authentic love. In the person of the Samaritan, Christ draws a portrait of Himself. Significantly, once when accused by some of the Jews of "being a Samaritan and possessed," Christ an-swered: "I am not possessed" (Jn 8:48-9). The Samaritan of the parable is described in terms which elsewhere throughout the Gospels the evangelists have reserved for Christ. The Samaritan is moved to compassion (literally, stirred in his inwards) as was Christ when He saw the multitudes and took pity on them, or when He melted away under the tears of the widow at Naim (Lk 7:12-3). The story itself is simple, but forever new and rich in meaning: A man was once traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. Bandits attacked him. They stripped and beat him and left him to die. A priest chanced by, going along the same road. He saw the victim but went to the other side and continued on his way. Then a levite came by. He too saw him but went on. A Samaritan was also journeying by. Drawing near, he saw him. And he was touched to the heart at the sight. He went up to him, bandaged his wounds, and applied oil and wine to them. Then he put him on his own mount and brought him to an inn where he cared for him. The next day he gave two silver pieces to the innkeeper. "Take care of him," he said, "and whatever it costs I'll pay when I return." "Which o[ the three, in your opinion, acted as a neighbor to the man who had fallen into the hands of the bandits?" He answered: "The one who showed him mercy." "Go," Jesus told him, "and do the same." The Cast of Characters: The Man Without Qualities One can derive much from looking in turn at the characters who make up the story. We know next to nothing (and everything) about the man who was done in by the robbers. He is Oudeis No-Name, the man without qualities (or rather, a man deprived of all but the most insignificant of qualities, that of situs: he was "journeying from Jerusalem to Jericho"). Without name, or race, or nationality, or status in society, quali-tatively denuded of all, he is left physically naked, al-most lifeless by the wayside. He is man in the raw, any one of us, a pilgrim, homo viator, man-on-the-make, man-on-the-move, a fellow traveller on the road of life. To give him any qualities, to endow him with some de-terminations, as we instinctively try to do, is to limit the extensiveness and inclusiveness of the notion of love that is being presented. The Priest and the Levite: The Fatality of Conscious- Hess The priest and the levite are the type of those who fail in the school of love. Representative, first of all, of the twofold division of the tribe of Levi, they are the em-bodiment of the hierarchy of the old dispensation, a dispensation devoid of real freedom. They are actually men enslaved, clutching their alien gods which go by a thousand different names. They are enslaved to the various tyrannies of categorical and legalistic thinking, to idealisms which overlook the here-and-now individual in the name of futurity or collectivity. Here are the Pharisees who rejected Christ because He eluded those preconceived, static, and depersonalized archetypes which they had of the Messiah. Here, too, is the misguided spectator-priest of today who passes by life in the names of celibacy, intellectual pursuits, prayer, and a host of other things. Here is the religious man who has offered himself to God, so wrapped up and tightly closed that God Himself, as Claudel says somewhere, would break His fingernails trying to pry him open. Here is the re-ligious who has detached himself from everything except his detachment. Here is that devastating brood, the im-personal apostles of personalism, and those in love with "love" and nothing more. Here are those who are caught in what Pope John called "the fallacy of overlooking the little good at our disposal in the name of the unrealiza-ble 'better'." Here are men dedicated to "tomorrow" and who use and abuse today for their own ends; men who labor tirelessly for a vague, amorphous, impersonal "Society" and who step all over the people who live next door. Here are the men who will be charitable when things are set, conditions right--men who will dictate their own circumstances, name their own times. Here are men whose effectiveness is dissolved into nothingness because in the name of religion they flee the "world," Samaritans All VOLUME 24, 1965 203 Miclmel Dotty, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 204 forgetting that the spiritual exists for the world and that the function of the Church is to embrace the world much as a lifeguard does a drowning man or much as the Samaritan did the wounded wayfarer. These are men, in short, who have never really learned to say "we." They are those who would leap from the temporal, blind to the fact that God works immanently under their very noses, in the very next face that they meet. It is significant that the priest and the levite are repre-sentative of a class which today we would label "intel-lectuals." Here is the type of man minutely portrayed by such contemporary thinkers and writers as Thomas Mann and Andrd Malraux. These are men who are un-able to bridge through action that gulf of detachment which necessarily follows upon consciousness. In a sense it is man's fate, but paramountly it is the intellectual's scourge. For unlike the animals whose response is quick and instinctual, man with his withinness can, even in the thick of the most violent physical activity, reflect and debate and prolong to eternity that increment be-tween impulse and act. The man who is unable to bridge the gap, who becomes isolated on his "magic mountain," ultimately becomes a man who is untrue, since he neg-lects the truth of his convictions and commitments which can come only in the completion afforded by the act itself. The Samaritan: Spontaneity and Commitment The actions of the Samaritan have much to tell us about true love. The love that was his, that was Christ's, and that Christ would have our own, is a love marked by compassion, spontaneity, personal and lasting commit-ment. The Samaritan was a man who traditionally had in-herited and experienced apartheid---of locale, of creed, of social and political relationships. It should be remem-bered what sentiments the mention of a Samaritan would have evoked on the part of a first-century Jew. The Samaritan was the archetype of the alien, the Stranger, the heretic, the lost-one: in just the preceding chapter (9:52) Luke relates how the Sons of Thunder wanted to call down fire upon a Samaritan village; Christ's dealings with the woman at the well (Jn 4:5) were viewed askance by the disciples. But the appearance in the Gospels of the Samaritans as real individuals en-countered by Christ defies any categorical imposition of traits. A Samaritan was the only one of the ten lepers who returned to thank our Lord (Lk 17:17). He was a man committed, and a man who remained lastingly committed as did the Samaritan of the parable. The Samaritan woman at the well On 4:5) was a woman immediately attractive to us because of her honesty, simplicity, openness, and spontaneity. She wanted to share the goodness that had come her way. She brought others to Christ, and "they heard and believed for themselves." The Samaritan of the parable is a man marked by the spontaneity of his reaction. Both his emotional re-sponse and its resultant action are quick and full. Un-like the priest or the levite who stand for intellectual detachment, the Samaritan is instinctive, but in a thoroughly human way. He is a man who has cultivated receptivity. He is attuned to his entire surroundings. He does not channel or restrict the arena of his purview or of his action. He is open to all. He takes in all he passes by, ready and alert to act. He realizes that his first re-sponsibility is always to that which is at hand. He is completely arrested by the sight of affliction in another human being. "He took pity on him": the Greek word (esplagthtdso-mai) suggests a very human, a very physical emotion. Literally, he was stirred in his bowels (splfigthnos). It is a strong emotion, a pure emotion. And it is a loadstone to action. At times it must override the strict logic of justice or the dictatorship of a false prudence. Another name it has is mercy. What we see is a physical, particular, defi-nitely directed reaction to a particular and concrete in-stance of human affliction. The result of this spontaneous compassion is a spon-taneous recourse to action. The action is immediate and adjusted to the circumstances; it is the "little good at one's immediate disposal." Perhaps the Samaritan was later moved to take positive action towards effecting legislation for better and safer road travel. But this vi-sion of the "better," of the long-range good, did not obliterate the definite and immediate need of the robber victim. And primarily interested in conveying the dis-tinctive, primary, and essential note of Christian charity, Christ did not think it important to incorporate the long-range notion within the parable at all. That is not where the difficulty lies. The visionary can, as the priest and the levite had, blind himself to the live-a-day world in terms of which he is summoned to live out his vocation. The larger view, the looking-toward-tomorrow, are noble and necessary operations. Yet, they are never to be assumed as surro-gates for the immediate needs of today. The prompt and immediate action of the Samaritan protects him from the self-deceit endemic to the vision-ary. A man can easily deceive himself as regards his re-lationship to God, but he cannot as easily do so about his treatment of his neighbor. The truth of love lies in ÷ + + Samaritans All rot.urgE 24, 1,~,5 205 Michael Doroj, S.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 206 its "deed" (1 Jn 3:18). And St. John further warns us about self-deceit in this matter: "If any man boasts of loving God while he hates his own brother, he is a liar. He has seen his brother and has no love for him; what love can he have for the God he has never seen?" (1 Jn 4:20). These are harsh words in all but the ears ot~ the Samaritan. The Samaritan is remarkable for the sense of commit-ment he shows as he accepts the challenge and responsi-bility which the priest and

Issue 42.3 of the Review for Religious, May/June 1983. ; Notes on LitUt~!y REVIEW FOR REIAGtOUS ( ISSN 0034-639X~, published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis, MO 63108. REVU-:W FOR REI.IGIOt~S is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO, © 1983 by REVIEW FOR RE~.~G~O~JS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S,A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A.: $9.00 a year: $17.00 for two years. Other countries: add $2.00 per year (postage). For subscription orders or change of address, write: REVIEW I.'OR REI,W,~OtrS: P.O. Box 6070:, Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Daniel T. Costello, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Book Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor May/June, 1983 Volume 42 Number 3 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELtGtOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's University; City Avenue at 54th St.; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVIEW t'O~t RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. "Out of print" issues and attic, s not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Kierkegaard on Purity of Heart Paul J. Joncas Rev. Joncas, whose M.Div. is from the Northwestern Lutheran Theological Seminary, is pres-ently pursuing doctoral studies at Fordham University. He describes this paper as an exposition of Kierkegaard's Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing in which each discourse carries a consistent theme of Complexit'y and Simplicity as opposing modes of life. Tracing each of these modes through the book provides a picture of the style of life that Kierkegaard regards as exemplary. Rev. Joncas may be addressed at 102 Washington St.; Morristown, NJ 07960. When a woman makes an altar cloth, so far as she is able, she makes everyflower as lovely as the graceful flowers of the field, as far as she is able, every star as sparkling as the glistening stars of the night. She withholds nothing, but uses the most precious things she possesses. She sells off every other claim upon her life that she may purchase the most uninterrupted and favorable time of the day and night for her one and only, for her beloved work. But when the cloth is finished and put to its sacred use, then she is deeply distressed if someone shouM make the mistake of looking at her art, instead of at the meaning of the cloth; or make the mistake of looking at a defect, instead of at the meaning of thk cloth. For she could not work the sacred meaning into the cloth itself, nor could she sew it on the cloth as though it were one more ornament. This meaning really lies in the beholder and in the beholder's understanding, if he, in the endless distance of the separation above himself and above his own self, has completely forgotten the needle-woman and what was hers to do. It was allowable, it was proper, it was duty, it was a precious, duty, it was the highest happiness of all for the needlewoman to do e~brything in order to accomplish what was hers to do; but it was a trespass against God, an insulting misunderstanding of the poor needlewoman, when someone looked wrongly and saw what 321 322 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1983 was only there, not to attract attention to itself, but rather so that its omission would not distract by drawing attention to itself.1 The needlewoman of this story serves as an example of what Kierkegaard sets out to develop in his book Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing. In her concern for the work that is set before her the needlewoman approaches it with a reverence, straightforwardness, unity of thought and purpose, and simplicity that speaks not of her, but of the duty which she was fulfilling. The viewer who looked on her work as something more than she had intended is the example of what it is to be guilty, as we all are, of double-mindedness and thus unable to see the beauty of what lies before them. It is my purpose in this paper to examine the guilt of the viewer in terms of a life of Complexity. This life is filled with double-mindedness, duplicity, evasion, attention to "the crowd," and a denial of the self. All of this is set up by pride which presents the person with many difficult pitfalls. There is also another side to what Kierkegaard has to say in his book which will be discussed in this paper. That is the story of the needlewoman, or the person who wills one thing. This is evidenced by a life of Simplicity. This life unfolds as one which is a unity, through which the "individual" is capable to "will one thing" and have a knowledge of self that enables the person to take risks. The result of this life is a sense of humility which is transparent, pointing to the "Good." I will discuss these two opposing modes of life under the titles 1 have assigned to them: Complexity and Simplicity. After describing how they each have an influence upon us, 1 will conclude with some more general observa-tions about the two categories and their relationship to one another. Complexity Throughout his book, Kierkegaard remains true to the Lutheran notion that humanity by nature is sinful. This sinfulness is lived out within the tem-poral order of the creation, and has a natural resistance to the "Eternal." In resisting the Eternal we are confronted with a multiplicity of life choices that may give the appearance of leading us to the "Good," but they are only delusions and actually hide the true, the Eternal from the seeker. We are led down the blind path of complexity that cuts us off from that for which we were created and we attempt to postpone what we know to be inevitable in our journey toward God. Alas. the temporal order and the press of busyness believe that eternity is so far away. And yet not even the foremost professional theatrical producer has ever had all in such readiness for the stage and for the change of scenes as eternity has all in readiness for time: all--even to the least detail, even to the most significant word that is spoken; has all in readiness in each instant--although eternity delays? Busyness, the continual search for meaning in the temporal order, the continual search for permanence in what is only transitory, the constant run- Kierkegaard on Purity of Heart ning in search of what is already before the seeker. It looms over the entirety of life and "clouds the heart, keeping it ever unknowing and bound to the tem-poral. We look on the procession of life and see the changes that occur in relation to the temporal. The fear that feeds the life of Complexity reminds us over and over that we are approaching the end. We turn in upon ourselves and try to find the key to not changing. We live with the false hope of delaying that which, in view of the Eternal, never happens. "For in relation to the Eternal, a man ages neither in the sense of time nor in the sense of an accumulation of past events."3 In.relation to the Eternal we are set free from the burdens of temporal existence and begin to see the Good and in turn the Good becomes visible through us. This temporal life is characterized by double-mindedness which draws us into an endless maze of dead ends that prevent us from apprehending the Good, the Eternal. Kierkegaard calls this double-mindedness by many names: pride, passion, denial of sell fear, cleverness, self-deceit, despair, impatience, the "crowd," evasion, and false humility. They are names of conditions we all know intimately. Kierkegaard shows us his magisterial knowledge of the human condition by naming those things which we all share in common, those things which tie us all together in our state of sin, and lead us down the path away from God. In order to understand the gu.ilt of the above mentioned viewer, and ourselves, we need to take a close look at the life of Complexity and the conditions that define our human situation. Pride 1 begin with pride because it appears in Kierkegaard's system that pride sets us up to fall into the other traps of double-mindedness. Once we have established what we consider to be our worth in the world we can begin to evaluate all our other actions in light of this worth. In this fashion the lazy man always has a disproportionate power of imagination. He thinks immediately how he will establish himself, and how fine it will be for him when now this and now that is done: he is less given to thinking that he should do this and that. And in reflection this logks very inviting, but when he must step out upon the road (for reflection is up above the road) then all is changed.4 Once the road is entered upon and the true demands of the journey are seen, as prideful people we begin to reassess our position and conclude that the course we are undertaking is act.ually beneath us. Pride plays to our predilec-tion to overvalue ourselves. It whispers to us ever so quietly, "Oh, you poor soul, just see what the world is asking of you. You have more important things to be involved with. Why go about wasting your time on what is trivial?" In listening to this voice we become further enamored with ourselves and we fall prey to grandiose dreams of what we can give to the worl~d, as if we had anything of our own to give. He wills that the Good shall triumph through him. that he shall be the instrument, he 3~4 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1983 the chosen one. He does not desire to be rewarded by the world--that he despises: nor by men--that he looks down upon. And yet he does not wish to be an unprofitable servant. The reward which he insists upon is a sense of pride and in that very demand is his violent double-mindednessP We exhibit our sinfulness since we do not just want to be an instrument of the Good in the world, but we want to be the instrument. We insist that God's will should be our will, his way should be our way--and we stretch the dis-tance separating us from God even further than before. That is the only power we have. The power to drive ourselves further away from God and think that we are drawing ever nearer. Kierkegaard does not let up in his insistence that the greatest damage we do is, above all, to ourselves. The grandness of our dreams, to be more than what we actually are, is the banner of our sinfulness that we carry into eternity. Pride widens the gulf between humanity and God by its pervasive nature: It creeps into every facet of our existence and tricks us into thinking how right we are when we are actually wrong. This is the self-deceit which pride leads us toward, and after we have already turned our backs on God, we begin to turn the tables on ourselves. For when hate, and anger, and revenge, and despondency, and melancholy, and despair, and fear of the future, and reliance on the world, and trust in oneself, and pride that infuses itself even into sympathy, and envy that even mingles itsdf with friendship, and that inclination that may have changed but not for the better: when these dwell in a man--when was it without the deceptive excuse of ignorance?. This ignorance is called self-deceit. : And to be ignorant of the fact that there is one thing and only one thing, and that only one thing is necessary, is still to be in self-deception.6 Self-deceit exists as a precipitate of pride. It is the only thing that is left after the ashes rendered by pride are sifted. Self-deceit has a way of turning everything upside down and it tries to give us the excuse we need when our efforts come to nothing. This overturning by self-deceit is much like the words of St. Paul "For the good that 1 wish, I do not do; but 1 practice the very evil that I do not wish" (Rm 7:19).7 This self-deceit has a way of masking our efforts so they may appear noble to ourselves when they actually bring about harm. Not only harm to others, but harm to ourselves. We are open to the suggestions of the world and hear a voice that appeals to our pride and thus we deceive ourselves again. But there is a wisdom which is not from above, but is earthly and fleshly and devilish. It has discovered this common human weakness and indolence; it wants to be helpful. It perceives that all depends upon the will and so it proclaims loudly, "Unless it wills one thing, a man's life is sure to become one of wretched mediocrity, of pitiful misery. He must will one thing regardless of whether it be good or bad. He must will one thing for therein lies a man's greatness.TM It is in the willingness to do even what we know to be bad that we start the process of selling out to whatever whim or fancy the world throws before us and we enter deeper into the self-deception that has already grasped us. The greater our self-deception the more we become oblivious to the "Good" and we enter into the next realm that dominates our earthly life--fear. Kierkegaard on Purity of Heart / 325 Fear And spiritually understood there is a ruinous illness, namely not to fear what a man should fear: the sacredness of modesty, God in the heavens, the command of duty, the voice of conscience, the accountability to eternity.9 Our pride and self-deception have led us to the point of forgetting the things which we know to be desirable and the absence of these elements in our lives is not viewed as a great loss. The eternal element of our life is gone and we no longer understand what true fear is all about. Our concept of fear becomes entangled with what we perceive to be punishment. "For punishment is indeed not what a man should fear. He should fear to do wrong.''~° The concern we have is not for our eternal life but for our temporal life. "Yet double-mindedness seldom dwells on eternity's punishment. The punishment it fears is more often understood in an earthly and temporal sense."~l How often do we find ourselves doing things, not out ofthe goodness of our hearts, but out of fear for the punishment that may be inflicted upon us if we do not do it. This type of fear seems to be inbred from childhood when parents gladly point to the threat of punishment in order to get even a small degree of cooperation from the child. A full life cannot be lived from a defensive posture and God's attempts to break through our self-protection fall on ears that are deaf. Kierkegaard is trying to show that in taking away the will for the "Good" the person lives a second-class life that inhibits the individual in all rela-tionships with and in the world. What a terrible existence it would be to fear every action we take not knowing if we will receive accolades or be stoned. Kierkegaard rightfully puts this condition into the category of illness. But then, in a spiritual sense, there is another illness, a still more destructive one: to fear-what a man should not and ought not to fear. The first illness is defiance and obstinacy and willfulness. The second is cowardice and servility and hypocrisy.~' We are slaves to our fear and jump to its command. We are cowards in our actions, afraid to take any risks that may bring about punishment. We are hypocrites who smile in order to disguise our fear, thinking that we are being judged by the world while at the same time we are judging and condemning it. Kierkegaard wants to make clear the incredible power that sin can have over us in this world, it has a way of creeping into our lives silently, and just as silently tears our lives apart. We soon start to exhibit another means of self-defense which is not to risk anything. Another says, "1 have not the strength to risk all." Again evasion, an evasion by the aid of the word "all." For the Good is quite capable of reckoning and computing its demand in relation to the strength that this man has.~-~ We are unwilling to take risks because we cannot adequately judge the scope of the task. We do not truly know the risk that we are called upon to take since we stand in fear of what may happen to us if we do take the risk. Our lives are paralyzed by fear and that which is in us to lead us to the Good begins to atrophy. The result is to take even more desperate measures that lead us further away from the Good. 326 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1983 Cleverness The above mentioned evasion is not solely a device to escape risk but also starts us on ihe road to thinking we are very clever. By the help of evasion, namely, one does not come into danger, and neither does he lose his honor by running away in danger--on the contrary one does not come into danger--that is one advantage. And one wins great honor as being especially clever-- that is a second advantage.~4 In our cleverness we have the ability to weave a complex of schemes that isolate us from the world. We are able to construct an ivory tower out of our plotting and slowly raise ourselves up in the eyes of the people who see us. Our cleverness allows us to look down upon the world below and gives us the illusion of achievement. The other poor souls we look down upon are seen as a threat, but as a threat that is a long way off. These same schemes also play into one of the primary traps of cleverness. Alas, there is in every man a power, a dangerous and at the same time a great power. This power is cleverness. Cleverness strives continually against the commitment.~5 Since we are not committed we give the appearance of being free but that is all we have, the appearance of freedom. We have no idea of what we may have lost in exchange for this appearance. We are not free as a true Christian enjoys freedom. We live in a cloud that, like a drug, keeps us temporarily sedated until it dissipates. The lack of commitment through cleverness does not affect the temporal life alone. Kierkegaard sees an even greater danger ahead. If he uses cleverness to hinder commitment to the Eternal, he is double-minded. He is and he remains double-minded, even if temporal help did come and he did revel in the Cleverness by which he managed his shrewd escape: yes, one should still believe that it was a calamity that he cleverly managed to evade commitment to the Eternal. Com-mitment to the Eternal is the only true salvation.~6 We have now achieved the dubious distinction of having temporarily escaped from a moment of danger and at the same time cutting ourselves off ¯ from salvation. What is left for us? Do we simply wander aimlessly through time being free from any commitment or does something else arise to take the place of this commitment to the Eternal? Kierkegaard would say that there is something else that fills in the gap created by lack of commitment and that is the passion that lives inside each of us. For if passion continues in a man, it changes his life into nothing but instants and as passion cunningly serves its deluded master, it gradually gains ascendancy until the master serves it like a blind serf.17 We are now slaves to our passions and are led about without regard for the people around us. Our passions consume us like a ravenous wolf that leaves the refuse behind. What could be left for us once we have descended to these depths? It seems that we have lost the last thread of our humanity, but there is still something more towards which Kierkegaard points the reader. Kierkegaard on Purity of Heart Despair Now that we have been blinded by our passions we no longer see what lies before us. We are now ready for the final descent. We have left the world behind and our attention is turned to the only place left for us, that is, totally into ourselves. When the attention has been focused within, it brings with it the danger of not being able or willing to accept what is found therein. It is as if our attention has been focused to the point of a laser and it holds the potential to destroy. In our nonacceptance we find that we are "at variance with our-selves." Kierkegaard uses the.following example of the gravity he sees in this moment of "variance." ¯. at each man's birth there comes into being an eternal vocation for him, expressly for him. To be true to himself in relation to this eternal vocation is the highest thing a man can practice, and. as that most profound poet has said: "Self-love is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting." Then there is but one fault, one offense: disloyalty to his own self or the. denial of his own better self.~8 We have now reached the point where there is nothing else to which we can turn. We have reached the point in our "double-mindedness" when we can go no further. We have reached the point of despair. "Is not despair simply double-mindedness?'n9 In denying ourselves have we not abandoned ourselves, who we are, our purpose for existence? Will you in double-mindedness of mind despair? Have you considered what it is to despair? Alas it is to deny that God is love! Think that over properly, one who despairs abandons himself (yes, so you think); nay, he abandons God!20 There it is! The terminal point for the life of complexity, the abandonment of God! There is nowhere else to turn. We could turn to the "crowd" but that is just a delaying tactic., a dead end. "For many fools do not make a wise man, and the crowd is doubtful recommendation for a cause.TM In Kierkegaard's estimation, to follow this mode of life is to take the path to eternal death, to be forever outside of the love of God. Now that the discussion of the life of Complexity has been finished as Kierkegaar&has outlined it in his book it is possible to look at the opposing mode of life--Simplicity. Simplicity It would be a dangerous mistake to think that the life of Simplicity is a life characterized by naivete. There is no room for an unsophisticated meandering through life. That would only serve as an invitation to the elements of double-mindedness in the world, alerting them that a pigeon is on the loose. A life of Simplicity has many facets to it bht it is "simple" in the fact that all of these facets are present for the cause of the' Good. The Good is the all-consuming goal of the person who lives a life of Simplicity. Our every atten-tion and energy is directed toward the Good and finds its telos in eternity. The move from Complexity to Simplicity is not just a shifting of gears but rather: 3211 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1983 It is indeed like a changing of raiment to lay off manyness, in order rightly to center down upon one thing: to interrupt the busy course of activity, in order to put on the quiet of contemplation and be at one with oneself. And this being at one with oneself is the simple festival garment of the feast that is the condition of admittance. The many-hess, one may see with a dispersed mind, see something of it, see it in passing, see it with half closed eyes, with a divided mind, see it and indeed not see it. In the rush of busyness, one may be anxious over many {hings, begin many things, do many things at once, and only half do them all. But one cannot confess without this at-oneness with oneself.22 Kierkegaard in giving his advice for preparation to confess points out that it is necessary to leave behind the manyness that presses in and confuses us in our moment of examination. It is necessary that we become focused, simple in our thoughts, in order to come to our confession as whole persons. His notion of "a changing of raiment" is not merely to do so for the moment, but rather, in the fashion of metanoia, it is a complete change of direction. Life is trans-formed and our life takes on the same shape as that of the above-mentioned needlewoman with all of its attendant expressions, The life of Simplicity is not as easy to dissect as that of Complexity. The categories that exist in this life overlap a great deal, with each one helping strengthen the other. Since they all combine to form a unity, a oneness of purpose, a simplicity of expression, any attempt to categorize wouid be arbi-trary and would not remain true to the method of presentation used by Kierkegaard. In view of this, the life of Simplicity will be dealt with as a whole. It is a mode of life that stands in opposition to the life of Complexity and as such it does not exist as a positive response to a negative stimulus. It is a distinct mode that stands on its own without need of outside impetus beyond the call of God to the sinner. In Kierkegaard's schema of the life of Simplicity it becomes clear that the style of life we live reflects the internal unity or disunity we are currently experiencing. True Simplicity reflects an attention to life and the things that are necessary to be done and it does not allow us to be overcome by the miasma of Complexity. We are able to stay in the world without needing to be exclusive in our relationships. We find what is good in life and participate in it fully. Do you live in such a way that this consciousness is able to secure the time and quiet and liberty of action to penetrate every relation of your life? This does not demand that you withdraw from life, from an honorable calling, from a happy domestic life. On the contrary, it is precisely that consciousness which will sustain and clarify and illuminate what you are to do in the relations of life. You should not withdraw and sit brooding over your eternal accounting. To do this is to deserve something further to account for. You will more and more readily find time to perform your duty and your task, while concern over your eternal responsibility will hinder you from being "busy" and busily having a hand in everything possible--an activity that can best be called: time-wasting.23 As we have seen, busyness for Kierkegaard is another expression of double-mindedness. This double-mindedness captures our will and makes the will captive to its perceptions of time available and the talents that we have at our command. We have a distorted view of the task at hand and soon think we Kierkegaard on Purity of Heart / 329 do not have the time needed to do the Good. The life of Simplicity will not stand for this sort of distraction because it is God who calls us to this life and it is God who is left behind in pursuit of the manyness of life. But to will one thing, genuinely to will the Good, as an individual to will to hold fast to God, which things each person without exception is capable of doing, this is what unites.24 Unity is important in order for us to continue in willing the Good. Without this unity it is not possible for our life to become a reflection of the Good nor is it possible for us to "unconditionally serve the Good in action." As persons who are united, there is an awareness of the freedom in our lives for service and commitment to the Good. We no longer fear for what may happen to us since we are now united to the Good, and our concerns have been turned from the temporal to the Eternal. "He that wills the Good in truth even hopes for the punishment;"~5 and this serves as an indication that we have beenset free from the fear that has prevented service and commitment to the Good. Once freed from fear we are empowered to act in a manner that is consistent with our new understanding of duty in relation to the Good. If, then a man in truth wills the Good, then he must be willing to do all for it or he must be willing to suffer all for it.~6 Our commitment to the Good is visible through action or suffering. Suffer-ing in this context does not have the same power it holds over the double-minded person. Suffering is understood in a different way because we now live in a new relationship to the world. It is not something thrust upon an unwilling victim. It is accepted in the knowledge that what happens to us in this world is insignificant when viewed in relation to the Good. When the sufferer, on the other hand, willingly takes up his appointed sufferings, he is willing to suffer all for the Good, that is, in order that the Good may be victorious in him.27 Suffering is not a badge worn before others in order to win accolades. It is worn as a simple garment, It is quietly endured and quickly forgotten." When we suffer for the Good we know deep within ourselves that it is the Good which is being accomplished through us and that our God is right here with us in our suffering. ~ Oh, you sufferer, alone and abandoned as you are by the generation to which you belong, know that you are not abandoned by God, your creator. Everywhere you are surrounded by his understanding ~,hich offers itself to you at each moment. In it you unite your will to the Good. And the edifying contemplation is always ready to remind you of that presence; and its very existence is a source of security to the living.28 As sufferers who "will one thing" we live in the world knowing that what we are experiencing will be long forgotten in ~he realm of the Eternal,, and in this knowledge we receive consolation while still in the temporal order. This is the only reward we are willing to accept because the "understanding of God" is sufficient. There is nothing more necessary since, in time, everything will be 33[~ [ Review for Religious, May-June, 1983 finished for us in the temporal order. If we are forgotten by the world, that is no problem. If we are rejected by others, that is no problem. If we lose all that we have in service to the Good, that is no problem. For this world's memory is like the moment: a series of moments. Eternity's memory, that he is certain of. When he leaves the world, he leaves nothing behind him, he takes all with him, he loses nothing, he gains all--for "God is all to him.'~9 The total focus of energy is toward God and God alone. The will is a complete unity with itself and with the Good which resides in the Eternal. We have now reached the point when our unity also reflects a purity of thought and desire. When this point is reached, Kierkegaard begins to talk about the roles of hope, faith, and love in light of "death's decision." And it is here that the evidence of a life that is truly Christian may be seen. Yet sad as it is with the wish, how joyful it is with hope! For there is a hope that is born and dies; a shortlived hope, that tomorrow is forgotten; a childish hope, that old age does not recognize; a hope that one dies away from. But then--in death, in death's decision, a hope is born in death. By this hope the sufferer, under the pain of the wish, is committed to the Good. So it is with the hope in which the sufferer, as though from afar off, reaches out toward the Eternal . With faith it is still more joyful. For there is a faith that disappoints and vanishes; a faith that is lost and is repented of; there is a faith, which, when it droops is like death. But then--in death, in death's decision, a faith is won that does not disappoint, that is not repented of, that does not die: it seizes the Eternal and holds fast to it. By this faith, under the pain of the wish, the sufferer is committed to the Good. So it is with faith in which the sufferer draws the Eternal nearer to himself . But with love it is the most joyous of all. For there is a love, that blazes up and is forgotten; there is a love, that unites and divides--a love until death. But then--in death, in death's decision, there is born a love that does not flame up, that is not equivocal, that is not--until death, but beyond death, a love that endures.~° All of life is understood in terms of the Eternal and the very being of the individual is grounded in eternity. All of the trappings of this world are seen for what they are in their impermanence. A new permanence is given to be understood by us in our new found unity and depth of being. We no longer seek for anything for ourselves in this world and it is that which seeks nothing for itself that is truly transparent and pure. The Good alone is visible in and through us. The entirety of our being is bonded with the Good. For commitment to the Good is a whole-souled decision, and a man cannot, by the craft and the flattery of his tongue, lay hold of God while his heart is far away. No, for since God is spirit and truth, a man can only draw near to him by sincerity, by willing to be holy, as he is holy: by purity of heart. Purity of heart: it is a figure of speech that compares the heart to the sea, and why just to this?. On this account we compare the heart with the sea, because the purity of the sea lies in its constancy of depth and transparency)~ To achieve true depth of mind, true depth of will, true depth in unity, is to be transparent as Kierkegaard regards the true Christian to be. Everything is done for the sake of the Good ~ind it is, at the same time, a complete uniting of the will with the Eternal, and the will has reached its telos with the Eternal. This is the end point of the life of Simplicity, bringing us to wholeness in the Kierkegaard on Purity of Heart / 331 presence of God as opposed to losing "self" in the manyness of the "crowd" as in the life of Complexity. Conclusion Kierkegaard wrote his book as a collection of addresses which could be read at different times, with the reader still finding them of value. The result is that many of the same themes are used over and over. Although each section has a distinct flavor, it is also connected to all of the others. This makes it difficult to identify any clear line of development from the beginning to the end of the book. However, general comments about both styles of life can be made, now that the pattern within each mode has been made clear. For the life of Complexity there is a general shape that could be described as an inward and downward curve. This characterizes a concern to find mean-ing within the person. There appears to be a reliance upon the natural abilities of a person as a means of self-justification. This self-justification is indicative of the notion that everything a person needs for life can be found just by looking inward hard enough to locate it all. Schleiermacher could be used as an example of a theologian who placed a great amount of emphasis on the person being able to find God by looking inward. This mode of life is dependent on the belief that there is an intrinsic value to the person as a separate entity. Once the search is conducted and, as Kierkegaard believes~ the person comes up empty in the inward search, there is a sudden reversal of direction, and the search continues by looking to other people. It is hoped that what could not be found within the person may be found in the "crowd." Once again the empha-sis is on what human beings are capable of doing for themselves, and to Kierkegaard that is unacceptable. The natural shape of the life of Simplicity would be outward and upward. This time there is an emphasis on God, who is outside of humanity, as the basis of movement on the path toward the Good. God provides all that is necessary for the journey and God gives the person value in his sight and at the same time in the eyes of the world. There is no need for justification beyond that which God has given. In the life of Simplicity God is sufficient for the person who "wills one thing." Movement toward the Good is a long, slow process since it is not natural to humanity. On the other hand, movement toward double-mindedness comes easily since it does not fit our sinful nature like a well-worn glove. The tension between the two of them is intense because Complexity has a way of imitating expressions of the Good. Life is not looked upon as a black and white matter. Life has immense areas of grey that the person depends upon God to be led through. There is another contribution that Kierk.egaard makes in his book. There, he preserves the integrity of what it is to be human and, at the same time, acknowledges the absolute sovereignty of God. We do not need to be more than what we are as persons. There is no call to greatness beyond the greatness 339 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1983 that we have as creations of God. The holiness of our existence is a gift of God to us. We are attracted to God because of the love he has shown for us through his Son. Our humanness has been blessed, and yet God has not been com-promised in any way. Many of the theologians of Kierkegaard's day looked for justification within humanity or within creation as represented by the natural world, but this was not something Kierkegaard could accept. He took on the difficult task of pointing to God who stands over and above all creation, and to humanity, which held a special place in the created order. Kierkegaard was clearly Lutheran in all of his basic presuppositions, and remained consistent in this position. I would suggest that an area for further study would be to see how these modes of life carry over into Kierkegaard's other writings and perhaps into his own life. NOTES ~Soren Aabye Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing. trans. Douglas V. Steere (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1948), pp. 27-28. 21bid. p. 107. 31bid. p. 38. 41bid. p. 116. 5Ibid. p. I00. 7New American Standard Btble. 9Ibid. p. 80. ~2Ibid. p. 8 I. '~Ibid. pp. 126-127. ~81bid. p. 140. 2~Ibid. p. 191. 241bid. p. 206. ~71bid. p. 148. 3°Ibid. p. 150-151. ~Ibid. p. 52. SKierkegaard, Purity of Heart. p. 63. ~°Ibid. p. 79. '~Ibid. p. 88. ~31bid. p. 129. ~4Ibid. p. 127. ~6Ibid. p. 168. ~71bid. p. 51. ~91bid. p. 61. "-°Ibid. p. 151. nlbid, p. 47. "-31bid. p. 197. ~lbid. p. 93. ~6lbid. p. 122. 2Slbid. p. 158. ~91bid. p. 147. 311bid. p. 176. Withstanding Sunbelt Sectarianism David K. O'Rourke, O.P. Father O'Rourke is Associate Director of the Family Life Ministry for the Diocese of Oakland, CA and Adjunct Professor of Pastoral Theology at the Graduate Theological Union of Berkeley. He may be addressed: 2446 Estand Way: Pleasant Hill, CA 94523. In recent months two of America's leading scholars have made statements that bring the current direction of education for religious life seriously into question. Both of them, professors at the University of California at Berkeley, speak out of personal scholarship and accomplishments so respected that their comments merit a hearing. Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association of Colleges in Boston, Professor Charles Muscatine, a Chaucer scholar and, from our point of view even more important, one of the most respected university educators in the United States, noted that American education has abandoned its proper role of teaching students how to make ethical judgments in favor of a concern with technical skill teaching. Speaking of the bachelor's degree, Professor Muscatine said it has become a "marvelous convenience for a mediocre society, putting passive acceptance.ahead of questioning, and propagating the danger-oias myth that technical skills are more important than ethical reasoning." His address received favorable comment in a New York Times editorial.~ The editorial continued "What am lherefor? is the student's and the teacher's perpetual question. To gain and give life skills and a glimpse of life's larger possibilities seems an appropriate answer to each of them." in a recent article in Commonweal~ Robert Bellah, Ford Professor of Sociology and Sociology Department chairman, described a structural change in American religion. Using categories of Ernst Troeltsch, which are com-monly used by students of religion, he notes that there has been a shift from the "church type" of religion, which ". we may briefly characterize as an 333 3311 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1983 organic conception of the religious institution for which the defining metaphor is the Pauline image of the Body of Christ," to the "sect type" which ". views the Church primarily as a voluntary association of believers." and which sees itself"., primarily as the gathered elect and focuses on the purity of those within . " This shift, he says, parallels other shifts. There is a shift from the civic and religious ideals which provided the underpinnings to the social ameliorization we saw in our past history in the United States to an "ever growing dominance of bureaucratic individualism." There is the shift in American political power from the eastern establishment to the sunbelt capitalists of Texas and California. And there is the shift in importance from the heavy industries of the north and east to the "technologically innovative industries of the south and west." I believe that we can synthesize the statements of these two scholars into a picture of a culture, both religious and civil, that is changing the religious life we see herein the west. It is also producing the candidates for religious life we are receiving here. And because of California's influence through its control of the media it is influencing the entire United States. The dominant influence in religion is a view of church life that is religiously subjective, personally pious, politically uninvolved, technically skilled and culturally unlettered. I believe that this view can be summarized as sunbelt sectarianism. Living, teaching and ministering in Berkeley for the past fifteen years, I have had the opportunity to see the rise of this new phenomenon. In October of 1966 I joined ten other Dominicans in establishing the first Catholic com-munity at Berkeley's pioneering Graduate Theological Union. Since that day hundreds of other men and women have come here for studies. The Berkeley venture has, itself, become a model for religious, theological and pastoral studies and formation. Those studies and formation, I believe, are more and more becoming a mastery of those same technical skills that Professor Musca-tine described, and less and less a development of the art of ethical reasoning which he sees as the goal of all education. Make no mistakeabout it, the level of skills he is referring to is high, in-deed. The University of California has few equals in its ability to train men and women in the scientific, social and professional skills that make our society run. However, as the Times editorial suggests, it is far less well equipped to teach its students how to answer the question "What am I here for?" The ministerial skills we are teaching in our pastoral training centers are also of high caliber. The art of working in the community as an effective leader and on the one-to-one level is taught at least as well as in other professions, like medicine and law. Current understanding of Scripture is well taught. Tech-niques in liturgical design and performance are also taught. The broader questions, however, like the one posed by the editorial writer of the Times are not explored in a way which allows the Church's traditional answerings of the question to be brought into the discussion. 1 do not dehy Withstanding Sunbelt Sectarianism / 335 that they are answered. I suggest that they are answered from within the context of sunbelt sectarianism. They are not explored within the context of church as Body of Christ. The questions are answered in light of the individual's personal religious experience, frequently an experience that led to entering into religious life. They are not explored in the light of the Catholic theological tradition to which the individual is exposed after his or her arrival into theological educa-tion. The latter may be used to establish some theological foundations for ministry. It is not really used, in my experience, to establish the theological foundations for the minister. These remain what they were when the man or woman arrived. Professor Bellah points out that each of the definitions of church that he uses in his article, including the idea of the organic church and sectarianism, has found a welcome within the Christian tradition. That is true. But within the Roman Catholic tradition the view of the Church as the Body of Christ comes closer to the religious and theological tradition that lies at the heart of the Church's life than do any of the other views of church. I am suggesting, it should he obvious, that we religious have followed much the same route as the universities. In our case, however, the deviation from what we should be about is more serious. An argument could possibly be made for universities devoted to transmitting technical skills. Less°argument can be made for Catholic religious orders that are not concerned, first and foremost, with answering the question "What am I here for?" and trying to answer that question, at least in part, by drawing on the Church's theological tradition. I would like to look a bit more into the situation described by Professors Bellah and Muscatine, especially as it can be related to education for ministry and religious life, by examining three sets of opposed values drawn from their statements. The opposed values are skill mastery versus life purpose explora-tion; creativity versus passivity; ethical reasoning versus affective moral intuitionism. 1 will begin discussing skill mastery versus life purpose exploration by illustrating the differences with a story. When I first began my theological studies many years ago I was taught by one of the country's leading moral theologians. Nearing retirement age, he went on instead to become editor for the moral theology section of the Catholic Encyclopaedia. In his years as a teacher he was respected for his ability to bring speculative principles to bear on concrete issues. We were all gathered in the lecture hall for the first class of the year, and he entered the room and climbed the three steps to the large platform from which the professor lectured. Since this was the first day of class we were all waiting for him to outline the course of lectures he was to deliver. Instead he did something quite different. After walking back and forth, and pausing to look out the window obviously thinking about something, he turned and just looked at us. Then he began to talk. "Increasingly in profes- 336 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1983 sional education, and commonly in seminaries, it is the practice to give the student enough training and adequate skills so that he can go about his work with competence and confidence. Here," he added, "we are trying to do some-thing fundamentally different. We are trying to provide you with a framework, conceptual and personal, within which you will be able to make sense of your own lives. Then we hope that you will be able to go out and help others do the same." And then, without further comment, he began his lecture. The difference between mastering a curriculum and making sense of life can also be seen as the difference between fitting into a world of someone else's design and establishing the moral and ethical parameters of your own world. I believe that this difference is also the difference between a skilled technician and a religious leader. 'Within the context of religious education it is the difference between accepting someone else's priorities for life and recognizing the need to establish your own, and ~oing this not as a duty but as a real, personal need. Professor Muscatine's statement, translated into the context of pastoral training and religious education, would say that specialization as a self-defini-tion has replaced religious and ethical probing as a means to self-definition. And skill training for ministry has replaced learning the art of making ethical judgments as the model for education itself. The second set of opposed values, passivity versus creativity, follows from the first. The individual learning technical skills begins his learning recognizing that what he wants is the possession of another, the mastery of a technique. What is of value, the particular skill or technique, is in someone else's hands, and the student works to gain what he does not yet have. The message communicated by the learning medium values the technical master's knowl-edge, not the student's lack of that knowledge. Life-purpose clarification, on the other hand, values the student's ability to probe and explore, and assumes that, here and now, he or she possesses creative abilities. In the process of trying to make sense of life all are equal participants. While some are further along in the attempt, and the teacher, in principle, has achieved some mastery of these human arts, all have the oppor-tunity to be creatively involved. The third set of opposed values is ethical reasoning versus affective moral intuitionism. Learning to reason ethically, as opposed to an affectively directed intuition of right and wrong, let it be said, is a supremely difficult task. Deciding what to do through a rational process of assessing the proper goals and the means to those goals is a far cry from deciding, based on feelings. In effect, it means abandoning a non-effort--intuiting right and wrong, based on how the individual feels about it--for the difficult effort of establishing internally coherent and systematically logical principles of human action. 1 submit that this is an effort of prime intellectual and personal asceticism. I believe that in our education for religious life and pastoral work we are institutionalizing affective intuitionism in the place of ethical reasoning, passiv- Withstanding Sunbelt Sectarianism ity in the place of creativity, and skill mastery in the place of life-purpose exploration. I am not so naive as to suggest that the replaced values were realized goals in the past. What I am saying is that they were stated values. Further, I believe that we are moving from these stated values to the newer ones in response to the influence of the current view of the Church as sect. We are living with a view of church in which it is effectively defined, as Professor Bellah describes it, as a voluntary association of believers. The difference between the two views can both be pictured and symbolized by the differing means of entry into each. In the Church seen as the body of Christ new members are baptized into a community of believers and become members of Christ. They are members in the root meaning of the word, a physical part of an organic body. In the Church seen as sect the new members make a decision for Christ, and are members in virtue of that decision. The membership is not organic as much as voluntary. The new values we are institutionalizing in our training for ministry and religious life fit comfortably within the definition of church as sect. They are at odds with the view of church as an inclusive body, the Body of Christ. The values being replaced fit comfortably within the view of church as Body of Christ. They do not fit within the functioning of a church defined as sect. There are obvious advantages to the view of the Church as sect. It draws clear lines between those who will live by its values and those who do not. So it is equipped to judge those who belong and those who do not. And in an age of clashing values, it helps to know who is with you and who is not. The function-ing of the Church as sect fosters clarity of values. Greys are washed out to the advantage of the stronger blacks and whites. There are also disadvantages. A church which distinguishes between the elect and the sinners will leave the sinners behind. Placing a value on the process of making that distinction will also surface a means to do so. Since the traditional theology of the church maintains that the distinction cannot be made, an extra-theological means will have to be found, like an affective in-tuitionism. And such systems, like a zealot's hunches, can prove unreasonable. The organic view of the Church, the Church seen according to the Pauline model of the Body of Christ, has many disadvantages. It is an inclusive Church, and an inclusive church is morally muddy. Combine this moral muddiness with the emphasis on moral decision making which I advocate, and which I admit is an art very difficult to master and beyond many people, and it can be a disheartening combination. It means that we will live beset by the suspicion that our moral decisions may not be definitive. But it is also quite possible that it is this very suspicion which has led religious leaders in the past to stress the importance of learning how to make ethical decisions. Technical skills can be mastered in a way that ethical decision ' making cannot. And this fact may lead some to see skill mastery as a more worthwhile goal than moral decision making. Our current education for reli-gious life and ministry seems to embody this view. But 1 would suggest that 3311 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1983 religious leadership can be,benefited more by an emphasis on moral decision making, an emphasis that is more at home in the Church seen as Body of Christ than in the Church seen as sect. NOTES I Jan. 22, 1982 2Dec. 3, 1982 The Coming Down ~Going up to Jerusalem . . ." I got used to-- There was such a dearness to it. A digging-in, yes-- A putting-t he-face-to-t he-wind . Going up to Jerusalem had its hardness. But, oh, the coming down . Coming down from Jerusalem The purpose is gone And even the trees forget their bareness and bloom again As if my journey had not been-- As if I did not leave my Love to the wind and the stars Under the snow--on a hillside . "Going up to Jerusalem." had its price, But, oh, the coming down (alone) Is beyond the counting . Sister Ann Maureen, 1.H.M. 11201 Academy Road Philadelphia, PA 19154 Jesuit, Catholic Higher Education: Some Tentative Theses Michael J. Buckley, S.J. Father Buckley gave this as a paper at the annual meeting of Jesuit academic vice-presidents in 1982. This year Father Buckley is Barman Scholar in Residence at the University of Santa Clara, on leave from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. Introduction In the pages that follow, 1 have tried to suggest certain reflections around the general and troubled topic of the Jesuit, Catholic university. I do so because 1 suspect that a central problem for many administrators of such institutions lies within the vagueness or even chaotic understanding of this governing issue: what it is that they are administering. What do you mean by a "Jesuit university"?. Is it basically the same sort of thing that any Catholic university is--something clear enough in purpose, however imperfect in reali-zation; but at the same time something variant, in that the Jesuit university is staffed in part by a different religious coterie and marked by a particular historical tradition, so that one speaks primarily about "Jesuit presence" when one talks about these institutions? Or are we talking about something that is radically different when we talk about a Jesuit university? Are we talking about a university with a cultural orientation and a peculiar set of emphases that make it profoundly different from other Catholic universities, granted any number of similarities among them all--differences and similarities which the administrator should be at pains to foster? Or is there something in between? When one assumes administration of such an institution, it is not unreas-onable for such questions to be asked. Especially in a university, there is a unique value in knowing what you are doing! 339 ~141~ [ Review for Religious, May-June, 1983 Appropriate as such a set of questions is, however, it presupposes too much. It presupposes that the content of "Catholic university" is itself already determined--a "cluster concept," at least, which all can recognize, agree upon, and discuss within. I think, though, that this presupposition is false. I think that "Catholic university" is as much of an ambiguity as "Jesuit university," and that many of the problems in understanding the latter stem from an incoherence in this more fundamental premise. Since that is my conviction, 1 have structured the theses of this article accordingly. 1 have first set down a series of statements which I think are true about Catholic universities in general, and then I have stated how I think these either have been or could be realized in the Jesuit university. The normal difficulties of such a task of description or definition are increased enormously for American Jesuits by a second fact, one which also touches the presuppositions for a series of questions on the nature of Jesuit higher education: American Jesuits are almost universally unaware of, or indifferent to some central foundational documents in their tradition. A strik-ing example of this was provided by a remark of Father George Ganss~ on the initial options posed byProject One:2 The second feature of Project One (Volume 4) which strikes this writer is the virtually total lack of references to or use of Part IV of Ignatius' Constitutions, the locus where he most succinctly, clearly and authoritatively enshrined his educational theory or rationale. That theory is his own application of the dynamic and apostolic world view towards which God led him . In Part IV of the Constitutions, he applied it to the formation of Christian persons in the secondary schools and universities which he founded and administered.3 In a subsequent discussion with Father Ganss, a prominent Jesuit educator remarked that the Fourth Part of the Constitutions was not only absent from the written reports of Project One, but from almost all of its discussions as well. It would be instructive, perhaps, to discover how many Jesuits have some knowledge of the characteristic elements which Ignatius placed in the Fourth Part of the Constitutions, as distinct from those which subsequent Jesuit educators specified in the Ratio studiorum.4 If Jesuits do not know the unique genius of their own origin in education, they cannot define a present stand for themselves in education by "dialoguing with their tradition." They are left to follow in their adaptations: (a) usages within their own memories and (b) the patterns and directions they find in American secular education. Perhaps the reason for the repeated failures of commissions, conferences and programs for Jesuit higher education is that these have represented individual or collective initiatives at particular periods, but initiatives without continuity with the organic development of the Society. Isolated from this continually evolving tradition, these initiatives lived briefly and died. Whatever be the accuracy of this reading of our present awareness of our Jesuit, Catholic Higher Education / :341 historical meaning, 1 have tried to formulate the theses of this article with one such central foundational document in mind--the most important document, in my opinion: the Fourth Part of the Jesuit Constitutions. 1 do so, not because 1 think that American Jesuits of the twentieth century can or should copy or repeat these individual provisions, but because these spell out in the concrete Ignatius' view of higher education. Perhaps by looking at what might seem, at first blush, quaint or antiquated, the contemporary Society could sketch more perceptively an outline of what it is about today and enrich its self-understanding by drawing from its tradition some of its unrealized possibilities. The difficulty of any de~nitional inquiry is that its language must be prescriptive as well as descriptive, i.e. it must say something about what this thing is to become as well as describe what it de facto is. Consequently, any discussion of the idea of a university will always suffer from the accusation of irreality. But the value of such prescriptive discourse is that it can present something of a vision of what the institution might become and a goal towards which human beings might marshall their efforts. Finally, these theses are insistently entitled tentative. They are my first attempt to do something along these lines, and I am anxious to obtain modifi-cations, corrections, and suggestions of alternatives. The value of the Renais-sance "thesis method" was that positions were laid down which reflected a serious judgment and were stated with a precision and in a common language which made discussion and disagreement possible. The liability of the thesis method was that it tended towards defensiveness, polemics, and inflexibility. Let me attempt to allow for these deficiencies by positing these theses as "exploratory," as being a number of statements that I think are true and which are stated as directly as possible in order to invite the reflections of the reader. Hence, to speak again from the customs of an earlier time: "salvo meliore iudicio . " 1. The Nature of a Catholic University Thesis 1: The problem of the Catholic university is falsely stated if it is framed as if this university and the Church were two distinct, though inter-connected institutions. Counterposition: Father Timothy Healy, S.J., in "Belief and Teaching," Georgetown Magazine (January-February, 1982), p. 3: How does the Church live within a university? How do the two institutions interact on common ground?. The Church also lives here [in a Catholic university] in two distinct ways: first, it leads its own life on our grounds; secondly, the Church joins in, shares and influences the life and the work of the university itself. Comment: Such an understanding does not do justice either to the historical nature of the Catholic university or to its intrinsic uniqueness. Father Healy's "two distinct ways" could describe the presence of the Church within any major secular society, such as the City of New York. Catholic universities, in 342 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1983 contrast, are institutions founded by the Church, supported by the Church, and oriented to a unique service of the Church. Such a university is "Catholic" in a way that no city or state could be. Thesis 2: The Catholic university cannot be defined simply as a university where there is a strong Catholic presence. Counterposition: Father Ladislas M. Orsy, S.J., "A Catholic Presence," Amer-ica, (5 April 1969), p. 397: A human institution is not transformed into a supernatural one; it simply offers an opportunity to persons with religious belief to share the life and the work of a university community--in freedom and sympathy that supports them . The quality and intensity of their presence will make its mark on the university . To have a Catholic university, then, means to have a Catholic presence at the university. Comment: The same cricitism could be offered of this understanding as of the first, with the added remark that it is actually a description of a secular university with an active and influential Newman or Catholic Faculty Club. Both this and the previous descriptions attempt to determine the Catholic university as being a university in which the Church is one important element. Thesis 3: The Catholic university cannot be described as Catholic simply through the activities of campus ministry, the presence of religious and Catholic lay faculty, and a requirement in religious studies. Counterposition: "Goals and Guidelines of the University of Santa Clara," January, .1979: If we are to honor our heritage, we must assure that Santa Clam remains a Catholic and Jesuit university in more than name only. We do this now in many ways: the activities of the Campus Ministry Office: the involvement of Jesuits and campus lay people in all areas of campus life: the presence of spiritual counselors in the dormitories; the com-mitment of men and women in the Christian Life Community to service of God and mankind; the exposure of all undergraduate students to courses in the Department of . Religious Studies; and the role of the Mission Church as both the symbol of Santa Clam's heritage and a dynamic focus of Christian activity. Comment: In this understanding, the purpose in the Church which the Univer-sity of Santa Clara is to serve is not articulated. Most of the presence of the Church is assigned to campus ministry and segregated off from the formally academic integration of the university and its more general intellectual life. The university exists for mental culture, but, aside from religious studies, Catholic reflection and theology are allotted no pervasive place within the development of such a culture. Thesis 4: The Catholic university is one form of the Church, one of the communities which are integral to the universal Church, as much a Catholic community as is the parish, the monastery, the family, a secular institute, a communidad de base, and a diocese. These differ radically among themselves, each having its own members, constitu-tion, government, origins and purpose. Jesuit, Catholic Higher Education / 3113 Comment: "Such an ecclesial origin of the university cannot have been fortui-tous. Rather it seems to express something more profound. But why does the Church need the university?. The reason for this need should be sought in the very mission of the Church. In fact, the faith which the Church announces is a tides quaerens intellectum: a faith that demands to penetrate human intelligence, to be thought out by the intellect of the human person. Not by placing it alongside what intelligence can know by its own natural light, but by permeating from within this same knowledge" (Pope John Paul II, "The Church Needs the University," March 8, 1982, L'Osservatore Romano, Eng-lish edition [3 May, 1982], p. 6). In the same address, the pope refers to these institutions as a necessity for the Church. Thesis 5: The Catholic university is that Catholic community in which the Church "strives to relate all human culture to the gospel of salva-tion" (Gravissimum Educationis, no. 8). This relationship is con-cretely to be realized both in the development of its students and in the advancement of this integral knowledge by its faculty. Another way of making this claim: "Secondly, the university is Catholic in its deliberate determination to render the Church this unique service: to be a forum where in utter academic freedom the variant lines of Catholic tradition and thought can intersect with the most complex challenges, contradictions and reinforcements of contemporary thought, moving towards a unity of world and Word, that all things be assimilated into the Christ. No other institution within human culture can render this critically important contribu-tion to the Christian community (as a whole), and without it the commitments of faith disintegrate into sectarian polemics whose only strength lies in their isolation from contradicting contact" (Michael J. Buckley, S.J., "The Catholic University as Pluralistic Forum," Thought 46:181 [June, 1971], p. 208). Comment: The Catholic university, then, essentially includes within itself the presence and the unique contribution of non-Catholics as well as the academic freedom which makes open discussion possible. Without the presence of vari-ant tradition it would be impossible that the Church could sponsor this rela-tion of the Gospel with "all human culture." Both Catholic and non-Catholic faculty have an appropriate contribution to. make to the advancement of the life of the Catholic university, and what is asked from faculty and students is not a particular credal affiliation, but that they be willing to enter into the conversations about those questions which constitute the formal academic character of the Catholic university (theses I 1 and 12 below). This integration of the Gospel with .culture demands especially the presence and contribution of non-Catholic Christians whose perspectives p~sh the radical questions about what Christianity really is, and what it really means, in the contemporary world. This means that the Catholic university is not the Church nor a microcosm of the Church nor even a community composed only of believers. Such a 3l~l~ / Review for Religious, May-June, 1983 university is, however, rather one modality or form which the Church in-ternally develops in order to reach its full stature, in order to become what it must be. It is an assimilative sub-community of the Church, i.e. one that assimilates into the reflection consequently upon the Gospel the vast pluralism of persons and persuasions representative of"all human culture,"a community whose institutional determination is to render to the Church universal this unique service. The autonomy of the Catholic university from controls that would be properly exercised over a diocese or a parish is essential. This academic freedom from external controls is essential not only for its authen-ticity as a university, but for that comprehensive, free discourse which alone can offer the Church serious, disinterested, and uninhibited inquiry. Thesis 6: Hence, the Catholic university as a unique Catholic community is, like any Christian communit.v, essentially sacramental, i.e. that community which, with historical continuity and tangible percepti-bility, makes present for all human beings now the realit.v of Christ drawing all human culture to himself. Another way of making this claim: It is in and through the Catholic university that the mission of Christ to draw all human culture to himself is given historical continuity and visibility in the twentieth century. Comment: The Catholic university is not a university in which the Church has a strong presence. The Catholic university is itself, and as a whole, a presence of the Church. Thesis 7: The manner in which this understanding of the university is mani-fested in the Jesuit Constitutions is by (1) stipulating that the entire college[university is a residence of the Society, i.e., the entire college/university is a Christian, religious community (Formula of the Institute (5), (8)," Const. 289)," (2) orienting both the schools of humane letters and of natural science to their integration with theology (446-452); (3) insisting upon the Christian service for which these studies are undertaken, often concretized as .future teaching, and generalized as "the glory of God and the good of souls" (Const. 440; 289-290; 351; 446; 622). Comment: This orientation towards service received striking expression by Ignatius on December I, 1551: From among those who are now merely students, some in time will depart to play diverse roles--one to preach and carry on the care of souls, another to government of the land and the administration of justice, and others to other occupations. Finally. since young boys become grown men. their good education in life and doctrine will be beneficial to many others, with the results expanding more widely every day (Monu-menta Historica Societatis lesu. Epp. Ign. IV. p. 9). II. The Administration of a Catholic University Thesis 8: The academic leadership or administration within a Catholic uni- Jesuit, Catholic Higher Education / 345 versity is essentially a religious ministry. By "religious ministry" is meant something quite specific, namely that it is the. responsibility of the administration that the sacramental finality of the Catholic university be realized: the integration of human culture and the Gospel. This ministry is intellectual leadership, but that does not make it less religious. It bears directly upon the intellectual service of God, a pervasive ministerium verbi (Ministry of the Word), in which the Word is translated into varying cultures, in which a more accurate understanding is gained by its encounter with and advancement of these cultures and in which a new synthe-sis is obtained between faith and all forms of knowledge. This ministerium verbi is the first ministry which the Formula of the Institute lists in its enumer-ation of Jesuit apostolic commitments. The universities have a unique function in this ministry: to advance and to synthesize the Gospel and all forms of human culture. Comment: Thus the president, the academic vice-president, the deans, the provost--whoever de facto preside over the life of the university have a pro-foundly synthetic religious leadership as their primary task. Their leadership is not "religious" as opposed to "academic" or intellectual"---that is precisely the dichotomy that the university is to deny. But it must be stated that if the leader of any Christian community--be it a Catholic university or parish or family or monastery or hospital--is not persuaded of the appropriately religious charac-ter of his or her leadership, then the community drifts into secularization. Thesis 9: The manner in which this understanding of university[college administration is manifested in the Jesuit Constitutions is by the insistence upon the personal religious character of its rector (423) and upon the religious quality of his leadership, with learning and Christian life placed as a single finality (424, 490). Comment: There are no grounds for asserting that separate incorporation removes the essentially religious nature of Jesuit university leadership. It is not the case that the division of functions between rector and president meant that one was religious and the other secular: The rector of the community is the religious leader of the Jesuit commu-nity, and his function is to govern it in such a way that it is Jesuit in its life and supports this apostolate to which it is committed. The president of the Jesuit university is the religious leader of the univer-sity, and his function is to administer it in such a way that its life promotes that intellectual and moral integration of all human culture with the Gospel which is its purpose. See Pedro Arrupe, S.J., "The Image of the Jesuit University President," (August 8, 1975) Documentation 27/2. III. The Formal, Academic Catholic Character of the Catholic University Thesis 10: The formal character of any" university is not constituted by the 346 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1983 elimination or by the presence ~f any particular discipline. Comment: A university, to be a university, should include whatever passes as serious and disciplined knowledge. The exclusign of theology from a particular university does not mean in itself that it has excluded religious commitment; per se it means that it has fallen that short of being a university. On the other hand, the presence of Catholic theology on a university campus does not necessarily indicate that the university is Catholic; it indicates that it is just that much more a university. Thesis 11: The formal, academic character of any university is constituted by the order of the questions which are entertained and by the kind of knowledge which is considered most worth having. Comment: One would not expect restrictions upon discourse and study at the University of California at Davis, or at MIT, or at the University of Santa Clara. But the priorities in the issues to be investigated or the knowledge considered either fundamental or most important will be different in these different institutions. This trait will constitute the difference among them. " Thesis 12: The Catholic academic character of a university will be constituted by the quality and the influence of its theology, i.e. by the depth, rigor, and thoroughness with which theological inquiry is con-ducted and by the integrating influence of theology upon all of the other disciplines taught in the university. A Catholic university is one in which Catholic theology acts as an architectonic wisdom, one which draws the arts and the sciences and the engagements of the professional schools into an ongoing conversation about pre-suppositions, consequences, and common themes. Thesis 13." The Constitutions exhibit this understanding of the Catholic aca-demic character of the university primarily in the principal empha-sis which they give to theology (446). Literature, natural sciences and philosophy are oriented to this theological wisdom: their study prepares the students for the serious engagement in theology; theology unifies knowledge into a single understanding of the world, into a wisdom; the orientation of all learning tends to the same end ultimately as theology (447-451). Comment: The place of theology given by the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus is really quite different from that allotted to it by, say, Newman's Idea of a University. In Newman, theology would be one element among others in a circle of knowledge which forms the "philosophical habit of mind." In Igna-tius, theology is the principal and governing discipline in which the humane letters and sciences reach their natural completion (446, 450). Thesis 14: The formal academic curriculum of a Catholic university must be sustained by the surrounding presence of a more general Catholic culture that makes the daily life of the university itself. Jesuit, Catholic Higher Education / 347 Comment: Examples of this "more general Catholic culture" would be found in the quality and seriousness of its worship, the character of its collective morality and social concerns, the pastoral care of one member for another, the seminars and general lectures which it fosters, the atmosphere of intellectual and religious interests, and so forth (see Const. 481-489). IV. Agents of Integration of Faith with Culture Thesis 15: Granted this integrating function as the primary work of the administration, the principal administrator must be aided in his responsibility by subordinate officials whose ministry it is to see that this integration permeates the intellectual life (the Academic Vice-President), the social life (Vice-President for Student Affairs), and the religious life of the university (the University Chaplain). Thesis 16: Such an integral view of the Catholic university can never be realized if "campus ministry" is only or principally composed of those who are not part of the academic community and who confine themselves to the ob.viously liturgical and pastoral en-gagements of the university, i.e. if campus ministry confines itself to a "sacristy" or even to an "activist "function. Thesis 17: "Campus ministry" should be that interdepartmental committee whose function it is to assist the president in some aspects of his religious ministry to the Catholic university, i.e. the integration of faith with culture/life. Such a staff or committee is necessary because too many of the possibilities for such an integration can-not be realized in the present departmental divisions: members of the various departments should be invited to become members of this interdepartmental staff, composed of the University Chaplain and members of the university faculty, and full-time staff members. These are some implications and possibilities envisaged by this thesis: 1. The head of "campus ministry" should be the University Chaplain of the school, with the rank of vice-president to assist the president in his general religious ministry of the integration of faith and culture. 2. The majority of the members of the "campus ministry" committee or staff would also be members of other departments and schools. 3. Areas of religious integration which are open to such a "campus ministry" would be for example: a. Sponsorship of a religious/academic bookstore which would be a cen-ter of regular discussions, lectures, and seminars on the integration of faith and culture. b. Introduction into the campus of the great range of prophetic and intel-lectual movements within the Church, such as the Catholic Workers, Charis-matics, liturgical groups, Pax Christi, Rural Life Conference, Christian Family Life, Jesuit Volunteers--for the possibilities both of critique and of assimila- 341~ Review for Religious, May-June, 1983 tion into the life of the university. c. Sponsorship of prolonged engagements in Christian service which would be planned, supervised and reflected upon for their Christian elements and which would be of such an academic quality that the theology department could recognize them as legitimate courses. d. Through the presence of campus ministry on various academic commit-tees, planning groups, and other representative bodies, a continual source of the questions about the integration between these plans or programs and the purpose of the university. e. Through their presence within placement offices, career planning and counseling centers, a challenge to the university community, that the teachers would understand their lives and the students plan their futures as vocations rather than simply careers,.i.e, as a way of life and service within the world which is a response to the call of God in their lives, rather than a positive evaluation of obvious and secularly justifiable options. f. Organization of a rich and full liturgical life, which embodies such possibilities as the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church, a eucharistic liturgy which follows the variations and harmony of the liturgical year, a series of "university sermons," etc., and which so integrates the university as a whole at certain solemn occasions that it is the university, as this form of the Church, which is at prayer. Thesis 18: To act as an architectonic wisdom, Catholic theolog.v must be restored as an integral discipline, distinct both from the more gen-eral "religious studies "and from an eclectic amalgam of disparate courses in Scripture or ethics or spirituality. "Theology "is here understood as an inquiry into the natu~'e, influence and claims of God as revealed in Christ, and "religious studies "as an investiga-tion of the nature and varieties of religions or confessions which have emerged in human history. Comment: As the architectonic discipline which integrates and marks a Catholic university, theology should be in constant interchange with the other sciences and arts, with the other schools, studies, and activities of the univer-sity. Theology gains in content and in method in its encounters with other disciplines; the other disciplines are drawn beyond themselves into a general academic unity by their discussions with theology. What kind of presence or curriculum-order is necessary to obtain such a dialogue can only be deter-mined by experience, but it should be of such a character as (a) to maintain theology as a serious and systematic study and (b) to constitute it in a synthetic unity with all the other aspects of the university. Thesis 19: Thus both theology and "campus ministry" have an integrating function within the university. Everything within the university is the object of the theological faculty as it attempts to move towards a synthetic vision which is a Christian wisdom, and of "campus Jesuit, Cathofic Higher Education Thesis 21: ministry" as it attempts to introduce that vision into practice and expand it in areas not under the purview of various departments. The manifestation of the sacramental nature of the Catholic uni-versity, i.e., of the historical presence of Christ drawing all human culture to himself, is to be found in every aspect of the university: in the priorities among the questions investigated and in the knowl-edge thought essential," in the quality of the intellectual, moral and religious life on campus; in the criteria by which decisions are reached and investments made; in the kind of recruitment informa-tion, of students admitted, and of faculty hired, and so forth. The Jesuit community is that local community of Jesuits who both collectively and individually minister to this kind of university. How it does so would be the subject of another twenty theses,t NOTES ~The Reverend George E. Ganss, S.J. is the distinguished translator and editor of the English version of the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. 2Project One was an attempt of the American Jesuits, initiated in 1973 and extending over the next four or five years, to identify and evaluate their goals and efforts in the apostolate of education. 3Project One, Volume #5, pp. 194-195. 4The Ratio Studiorum is the successively revised Jesuit plan of studies, an organization of curricula and of instructional methods rather than an exposition of educational theory. "What Should I Wear Today?" Thomas Ryan, C.S.P. Father Ryan is associate director of the Canadian Centre for Ecumenism. He is the author of Fasting Rediscovered: A Guide to Health and Wholeness for Your Body-Spirit and Tales of Christian Unity (Paulist Press). He may be addressed at the center: 2065 Ouest, Rue Sherbrooke; Montreal H3H IG6; Canada. I got up this morning and stood before my closet and asked: "What should I wear today?" Not so long ago the question felt like a helpful freedom; more and more it is feeling like a bother, and I frequently find myself resenting the loss of time and energy as I stand there in morning grogginess trying to answer the question. Where 1 live we probably face it more than would be the case elsewhere, yet Quebec is certainly not the only place in North America where the religious uniform has been traded in for secular dress. The history here is unique, but some of its consequences are shared with the rest of the continent. Some twenty years ago in a cultural revolution in Quebec, Canada, the Church was perceived to be too friendly with a government that had permitted the English to keep the key positions of economic influence and kept the French down on the farm. Both the Church and English economic dominance were thrown off like unwanted and resented yokes by the increasingly nationalistic French majority. Education and the university became the new place of worship and the leaders of the Parti Qubbbcois, the new high priests of the society. In the period of anticlericalism that followed, the French clergy traded in their clericals for ties and turtlenecks, and the sign of contradiction was reduced to a cross on a suit-coat lapel. "The anticlericalism was so pronounced," explained one sister who lived through it, "that at any public meeting we would go to, we were condemned by our apparent association with the Church before we even opened our mouths. We priests and sisters began dressing in 350 "What Should 1 Wear Today?"/ ~151 civies just to get a fair hearing and have what we were saying evaluated on its own merit." Among the English clergy in Quebec, there are enough "ties" or enough "collars" present to leave one genuinely feeling free in either direction. In other words, there is an unpressured climate for each person to sort through the value questions involved and make a choice, knowing the "tie" will not mean "radical" nor clericals mean "conservative." When I said jokingly to a confrere this evening that 1 was going to submit an article to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS entitled "What Should 1 Wear Today?" he immediately responded, "Oh, you mean, 'Who am I going to see today?"' He was quite right, and that's part of what bothers me. When l'm going to be meeting with Orthodox clergy, I wear black. When l'm going to be meeting With Protestant clergy, ! wear a tie. When they're both going to be there, 1 find myself playing one off against the other in my mind in a kind of who's-more-important- to-me game. What I am uncomfortable with is that it's my projection of the other's reaction to me that guides the decision. Where are my own convictions in the matter? 1 was thrown back on that question because I caught myself feeling like l'd made the "wrong" (political, not moral) decision. One day I put on a suit and tie to speak at a clergy study-day in the neighboring province of Ontario. When I arrived and saw all the collars and religious habits I was reminded again of what a different world Ontario is from Quebec. "Are you a local minister?" (he meant Protestant) asked one clerically-attired person who turned out to be a permanent deacon. The irony was rich. So I asked myself on the way home, "What are your values on this question?" Some years ago I was in an identity group of seminarians as part of a training program for counselors at the Center for Religion and Psychiatry in Washington, D.C. We spent a few sessions on the question, "What does it mean for me to wear or not wear a collar?" It's certain that not all of the participants drew the same conclusions from those discussions, but the operating principle that evolved for me from our reflections was a variation of "The habit does not make the monk." Dress that identifies me as a religious person is a means. If it will be likely to help advance some pastoral situation, use it. If it is likely to get in the way (as may be the case on college campuses with university students), don't use it. During that formative period, the important thing seemed to be secure enough in my own identity that I didn't need the collar as a crutch. Satisfied that my identity as a priest and religious was anchored within, and not in what I wore without, I proceeded to live these past years with no consistent external mode of dress. Yet, the question is not settled with me. Where the above rationale breaks down is in the presumption that I can always accurately project which mode of dress will be a pastoral asset or liability. In our secularized society, there is a growing Catholic consciousness of our mission for evangelization. We are becoming more aware of the importance of each of us witnessing, according to 359 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1983 our occupation and way of life,to a faith-centered existence. This awareness is perhaps renewing our appreciation of sacramentals and their potential to be an occasion of reflection for the casual passerby. To the extent that a mode of dress conveys a religious meaning, it qualifies as a sacramental. On this question of sacramentals, Sacramentum Mundi notes that "the statements of the Constitution on the Liturgy point to an emphasis on their character as a sign. But they do not answer the fundamental question, whether the sacramentals are not part of a special religious world which may be outdated by. the present-day experience of existence in the world. This [question]. has particularly far-reaching consequences for the usage of the sacramentals and hence for their theology, which must concen-trate fundamentally on their apt and proper use . Religion must not be seen in purely transcendental terms or merely as a dimension in depth. It must be classified in the category of a sphere of religious manifestations . The difference between nature and grace, and between the present and the coming age, justifies the existence of an order of sacred signs which express and manifest this difference." The habit, the collar, the cross, have not lost their power to be a sign of transcendence or of contradiction, a symbol that casts a question. But I do not always have the courage or the desire to stand apart. Or sit apart, for that matter. When I'm on the bus, I've noticed people will generally not sit next to "a collar" if there's another choice. On a plane, where people don't know who they're choosing to sit next to, 1 often feel more-than-the-usual hesitancy on the part of the other to normal social discourse. Or the reverse happens and one finds oneself in a not-so-private counseling session. And on the street corner while waiting for the light, I try not to notice the out-of-the-corner-of-the- eye glances that indicate one is being coolly appraised: "Hmm! What is a young (median clergy age today: 50!), intelligent-looking (well, at least my sister says that my receding hair line makes me look more 'intellectual'), athletic (I confess: it is getting harder) person like that doing in the priesthood?" When 1 was living for a time with a family in France, the mother said to me one day, "If you catch our guests kind of staring at you sometimes, don't take it personally. It's just that for us a young priest is, well, a very curious beast." What I'm coming to recognize is that there's going to be a negative reaction on the part of some people whichever way one dresses, and a positive reaction on the part of others. Furthermore, the guideline, "What will help or hinder my pastoral effectiveness in any given situation?" seems more and more presumptuous to me. Who can ever really know what happens in the hearts and minds of people when they see a priest in his clericals? If presumptive guesses about what others want, will be pleased by, or will derive benefit from are unreliable, then what is there to guide me? My answer is: my desire to make my life an articulate sign of the gospel I am trying to live. I am closer now than 1 was five or seven years ago to seeing how religious symbolism in dress can be an effective concretization of that desire. But as long "' What ShouM I Wear Today?"/ 353 as religious garb is connected with actions or life-styles that do not clearly reflect gospel living (which will always be the case to some extent), clericals or a religious habit will never be an entirely reliable symbol of communication. Thus it is that my choice on any given day is made with a certain flexibility and tentativeness, and with a sense of its built-in limitations in either direction. I was recently in a conversation with a group of priests and one of them told a story on four of the others that illustrates the point. "When I met you at the port on the first stop of your Caribbean cruise, 1 was surprised to see you were all wearing clericals," said the recounter of the tale. "Ah yes," one of the four affirmed, "we were not pleased with the cabins we'd been given, so we were trying to influence the ship's captain." "And?" "Oh it worked quite nicely. For the rest of the trip we were given any available suite." That's why many of the priests in. Montreal have switched to ties and coats. But I wonder sometimes on the buses and subways and street corners whether anybody sees that little cross on their lapel, and I wonder if we're using all available means of witnessing to the presence of God in a society hungering for meaning and ready to respect people who stand for something. If you and I should meet, what will I be wearing? Well, I'll probably be wearing the question inside and wondering if I made the best choice that day! The Incarnation and Chariots of Fire Halbert Weidner, C.O. Father Weidner published an account of the spirituality of the Oratory in our issue of November, 1979. He continues to reside at South Carolina's Oratory, the mailing address of which is P.O. Box 11586; Rock Hill, SC 29370. The Liturgy of the Hours has been enriched with an appendix of poetry and among the most recent poets represented there are the remarkable British pair of Edwin Muir (1881-1959) and Kathleen Raine (born in 1908). Muir is a poet much admired by such different writers as T.S. Eliot and Thomas Merton. Kathleen Raine's work on William Blake remains current and widely read. Her poetry, autobiographies, and critical works have drawn much praise and attention. Both authors are religious writers in the most profound sense of the term and, as poets and pilgrims, have something to say to both believers and unbelievers. Muir is relatively unknown in this country despite a sojourn at Harvard and, with his wife Willa, being established as the first and most popular translator of Franz Kafka. Muir is not a consciously modern poet. In fact, his devotion to tradition and accessibility may put off the professional literati. Still, T.S. Eliot said of him: He was first and foremost deeply concerned with what he had to say--and by that l do not mean that his purpose was ever didactic or that he was striving to convey a "message." But under the pressure of emotional intensity, and possessed by his vision, he found, almost unconsciously, the right, the inevitable way of saying what he wanted to say.~ The best introduction to the poet is his own story, An Autobiography. He was born in the Orkney Islands, off the north coast of Scotland, and so is claimed by Scots. Muir himself says his native language was really a mixture of Incarnation and Chariots of Fire / 355 Norse, Scots, and Irish. Indeed, such words as creels (fishing baskets), bannocks (a fiat, unleavened bread), and byres (cow-sheds) are evenly woven into the narrative of his childhood. For Muir, the islands were not on the edge of the world, but were the "heart of civilization." The seasons nurtured each their own phase of an ancient culture. The Winter gathered us into one room as it gathered the cattle into the stable and the byre; the sky came close; the lamps were lit at three or four in the afternoon, and then the great evening lay before us like a world: an evening filled with talk, stories, games, music and lamplight? This winter time gave Muir his first introduction to poetry. The early ballads sung in the home came from an oral tradition about James V and Sir James the Rose. These songs were sung with full voice and personal confidence. Other ballads, late in the tradition, were "chanted in a literary way, in honor of the print in which they had originally come, every syllable of the English text carefully pronounced, as if it were an exercise."3 Spring carried the sacred rituals of breeding and killing--both aspects of farm life his mother tried to prevent him from seeing. He made sure, of course, that he saw both--though the activities of the bull and cow were not understood and the excitement was all in the activities of the men directing the affair. He did not, in the slaughtering, pity the animals, but somehow touched the terror and the need which were inextricably bound up in the process. "There was a necessity in the copulation and the killing which took away the sin, or at least, by the ritual act, transformed it into a sad, sanctioned duty.TM The spring, a series of vivid happenings, gave way to the summer, its opposite: a "motionless blue" in which "nothing happened." This nothingness demanded acceptance as the pivot marking the time of growth. This in turn gave way to the hard work of autumn and the feasts that defined the line between harvest and the winter. And so it went with each winter being favorite season of the farmer's child because it was the family time for play and song and story. The family religion was a fundamentalist Calvinism which combined early baptism with the stern demands for a later conversion and personal claim to being born-again. Muir's conversion, under severe pressure from his family, was sincere, but barely a prelude to his lapse from Christianity. His disbelief was, moreover, also the result of pressure. This time the strain came from the deaths of his parents and of two of his brothers when the family moved, in hopes of better employment, to the industrialized city of Glasgow. It was as if the Muir family in a few short years had been required to pay the price of the industrial revolution's whole century of devastation. "All that time," Muir remembered, "seemed to give no return, nothing but loss; it was like a heap of dismal rubbish in the middle of which, without rhyme or reason, were scattered four deaths.''~ The great city of free enterprise could not replace the agricultural community that once bridged birth and death with faith and ritual. As a young man forced out early on his own, Muir moved just south of 356 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1983 Glasgow to earn his living in what might have been the Checkpoint Charlie of hell: a bone factory. "The bones," he tells us, "decorated with festoons of slowly writhing, fat yellow maggots, lay in the adjoining railway siding and were shunted into the factory whenever the furnaces were ready for them." There was only one major problem: "There were sharp complaints from Glasgow whenever the trucks lay too long in the siding, for the sea gulls could gobble up half a hundredweight of maggots in no time, and as the bones had to be paid for by their original weight, and the maggots were part of it, this meant a serious loss to the firm."~ Thus necessity introduced the factory's most important ritual: a shotgun blast into the air over the trucks each half hour. It was in this atmosphere that Muir began a ferocious personal quest which included reading philosophy seriously. This led to Nietzsche and to a kind of socialism. He abandoned the tough Christianity of his family for a soft belief in "process." "Be hard' was one of Nietzsche's exhortations," Muir tells us, "but I was not hard enough to give up Nietzsche." Muir's hunger for ideas, as well as for communicating them, attracted the attention of A.R. Orage, editor of the New Age and a genius for gathering talented, left-wing, and sometime elitist writers. Muir had a high opinion of Orage, but a low one of his own work for him. Muir's column, "We Moderns," revealed, said Muir, that "whenever I hit upon a paradox which lay conveniently near the surface I took it for the final truth."7 Still, Muir was the rarest of twentieth-century beings: a non-university educated revolutionary. A marriage, "the most fortunate event of my life," led to a move into London for economic reasons. Eventually journalism and translation work allowed them the adventure of moving to Prague. This city became for them what Paris was for American expatriates: a city riding the crest of a billowing tradition and arriving at the edge of revolutionary changes. Now in his mid-thirties, Muir began writing poetry. "I had no training; 1 was too old to submit myself to contemporary influences; and I had acquired in Scotland a deference towards ideas which made my entrance into poetry difficult. Though my imagination had begun to work I had no technique by which I could give expression to it." He was a poet in the middle of life caught between a change in poetic consciousness. "There were the rhythms of English poetry on the one hand, the images in my mind on the other. All I could do at the start was to force the one, creaking and complaining, into the mould of the other."s In Muir's case, the distance provided by his experience of Prague as the far country, and some early psychoanalysis and dream work, led to a recovery of the childhood geography and the roots engendered there. If poetry incarnates meaning, as Muir believed, then this geography literally provided the ground for Muir's poems. He acknowledges this in his life's last poem: I have been taught by dreams and fantasies Learned from the friendly and the darker phantoms And got great knowledge and courtesy from the dead Incarnation and Chariots of Fire / 357 Kinsmen and kinswomen, ancestors and friends But from two mainly Who gave me birth? This healing recovery of his roots and reconcilation with much of his unconscious gave birth to his poetry at the very time that Europeans were destroying their past: "They were lost and on the road to greater loss, and ready to accept any creed which would pull their lives together and give them the enormous relief of finding, even under compulsion, a direction for their existence, whether it had a spiritual meaning or not.''~° Muir saw the political left and right taking over the violent spirit of his native country's religious past: they were like the old Scottish covenanters who went into battle with banners reading "Christ and No Quarter." During the time of no quarter, Muir returned to Britain and began his eight-year association with the British Council, an organization promoting British culture. Prior to the war, Muir's office in Edinburgh set up houses for refugees and introduced them to British life. During this time Muir wrote more poetry in the midst of administration and the central issues of the day than he had in previous and more solitary jobs. British Council work eventually led him to Rome and his first major encounter with cultural Catholicism. It was here that he had his encounter with the Incarnation: During the time when I was a boy I attended the United Presbyterian Church in Orkney. I was aware of religion chiefly as the sacred Word. but nothing told me that Christ was born in the flesh and had lived on earth. [But in Rome] that image was to be seen everywhere, not only in churches, but on the walls of houses, at cross-roads in the suburbs, in wayside shrines in the parks, and in private rooms. I remember stopping for a long time one day to look at a little plaque on the wall of a house in the Via degli Artisti, representing the Annunciation. An angel and a young girl, their bodies inclined towards each other, their knees bent as if overcome by love, "tutto tremante," gazed upon each other like Dante's pair; and that representation of a human love so intense that it could not reach farther seemed the perfect earthly symbol of the love that passes understanding.~ Before Rome, a friend had pointed out to Muir that he was Christian in his images and his metaphysics. It had not occurred to him, but he accepted it. What the encounter in Rome did for Muir was to support him in his conclusion that mystery was at the source of life, that it lived and touched us, incarnate in what were not "mere" symbols, but the final reality. Symbols, which Yeats said united the "sleeping with the waking mind," also unite us to each other and to the generating reality that cares for all, past and present. Incarnation was a delight and good news to Muir, for whom nothing airy and abstract could hold the truth: "A religion that dared to show forth such a mystery for everyone to see would have shocked the congregations of the north, would have seemed a sort of blasphemy, perhaps even an indecency. But here it was publicly shown, as Christ showed himself on the earth."12 In the conclusion to his autobiography, Muir anticipated the theologians of our time in their interest in the theology of story: ~1511 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1983 As I look back on the part of the mystery which is my own life, my own fable, what 1 am most aware of is that we receive it from the past, on which we draw with every breath, but also--and this is a point of faith--from the Source of the mystery itself, by the means which religious people call grace.~3 When we read of this mystery in Muir's poems, we are struck by the plain language. But the poems demand rereading before the light that comes from the depths of human experience begins to dawn. One poem in the Liturgy of the Hours is called "One Foot in Eden" and may be taken as an example. It is composed of twenty-nine short lines of ordinary words~ but in it Muir has communicated a highly developed reflection on the necessity of choosing experience over innocence and then given depth to the Easter cry of O Felix Culpa.t Muir's Eden is both a place of innocence which must be given up and an impossible Utopia which must not be succumbed to. The world outside Eden awaits a judgment for its failings, but also attention to its special value: Blossoms of grief and charity Bloom in these darkened fields alone. What has Eden ever to say Of hope and faith and pity and love. Strange blessings never in Paradise Fall from these beclouded skies.~4 The other poem in the Hours collection is "The Killing." In it there is a remarkably graphic description of death that reaches back to Muir's childhood memories of farmyard slaughters. Muir suggests in the poem that an incarnate God is not what people want, and they will kill in their disappointment. The Incarnation, rather than being an easy myth that a longing humanity desperately creates, is really an affront and a capital crime. The poem ends with the question of an agnostic, a stranger, who wonders if, in the very act of dying, an incarnate God crossed his path. The wonder is a real enough grasp of the mystery and a crack for grace to move through. Muir did not come to a church and an orthodox form of Christian faith. But his insistence that meaning can only reach its fullness in the real world of flesh and blood, and his embrace of the world in beautiful language can certainly help us ordinary Christians to remain orthodox. Muir's acceptance of limits and his belief in their necessity so that there can be both definition and a grace that can take hold is a challenge to any spirituality that wishes to escape the human condition. This poet from the North Sea islands could, then, help us to purify and enrich the language of our prayer and our pulpits and lead us to embrace, and be embraced by the Word made flesh. Kathleen Raine If Muir i~ the poet of the Incarnation, Kathleen Raine writes of the Transfiguration. She is a pilgrim like Muir and now a stranger to orthodox Christianity though she had joined the Catholic Church for some years. She presents an interesting problem. Her experiences have led her to believe more rather than less, and so she moved away from Catholicism: Incarnation and Chariots of Fire / 359 To me it seemed absurd to find one aspect of a total symbolic event less acceptable than other parts: mythical events (so I thought) are not to be verified (did they or did they not take place) but rather to be understood, as is poetry. If anything, I still continued to find the Christian myth, as comparett with the pagan richness of symbol, too meagre, and welcomed any addition.~5 She means here, of course, no denigration of the Christian faith by calling it poetry and myth. For her, the truths of existence cannot be expressed any other way. This is a position that she fought to get to and promote all her life. To get to it, she had to overcome the assaults of a narrow Christian upbringing and an even narrower philosophy at Cambridge University where she studied science. Writing of the Christian poet Vernon Watkins, who came to Cambridge at about the same time, Raine says: "Years later Vernon Watkins wrote a ballad on Abram and Sodom; but at the time acted like Lot and quickly left a town past praying for. He was not deceived by the prestige of ignorance in high places."~6 The scientific materialism prevailing in the university spilled over into a Marxist politics in one direction and into an analytically dry and thin literary criticism in the other direction. While at Cambridge, Raine began to write poetry that was in a romantic and mystic vein, twin heresies, which Cambridge literary leaders tried to tear out. She did have two great privileges in her time in the scientific Sodom. She was in the audience when Virginia Woolf came to read her manifesto for feminists, A Room of One's Own, and, because he was unpopular and unread there, she discovered T.S. Eliot on her own. Kathleen Raine's poetry is obviously based on her experience of the sacred, and in her three autobiographies, she is plain about some of these ecstatic and enlightening encounters with nature. What is reassuring to Christians is that her hints of the transcendent are not limited to impersonal experiences, but are also to be found in encounters with other people. What is constant in both is her belief that poetry and imaginative truth are intimately related in both experiences of nature and persons. Her devotion to the imagination as a voice and a revelation echoes a favorite quotation from William Blake, whose works Raine has really helped to make popular in our own century. Blake tells us: If the Spectator could enter in these Images in his imagination, approaching them on the Fiery Chariot of his Contemplative Thought . . . or could make a Friend and Companion of these Images of wonder, which always intreat him to leave mortal things (as he must know), then would he meet the Lord in the Air, then he would be happy.~6 Raine quotes Bede Griffiths, now a monk in a Christian ashram in India, to the effect that "the function of art is. to evoke the divine presence."17 She not only quotes the insight, she believes and preaches it fervently in her criticisms of much modern literature. Materialism and naturalism, she says, betray the material and the natural. She believes that the peasant had it right when he answered the question, "How can bread be God?" by replying, "What else would it be?" Of course, the difficult side to Raine is the superfluity of belief. She 360 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1983 remembers with joy the seriously considered polytheism of her old friend and Nobel prize winner, Elias Canetti. He told her, "If I believed in one God, I should be obliged to hate him." He would, she says, "rather watch supernatura supernaturans than relegate the supreme gods of all the ages from gold or stone to iron and the machine, to the ethnological section of any museum, or the files of case-histories."~8 Perhaps Cardinal Newman's dictum that the superstitious are infinitely closer to the truth than the rationalists might help us understand Raine's extremism. Extreme or not, in the poem "Word Made Flesh" is captured some of Raine's ability to convey an experience that uses Christian symbols well, even if they spill outside of Christianity. "Word" is described over and over in eight short stanzas: "Word whose breath is the world-circling atmosphere. Word traced in water of lakes. Word inscribed on stone. Grammar of five-fold rose and six-fold lily, Spiral of leaves on a bough, helix of shells. Instinctive wisdom of fish.and lion and ram. Flash of fin, beat of wing, heartbeat, beat of the dance." And finally: Statement of mystery, how shall we name A spirit clothed in world, a world made man?~9 The descriptions are all authentic application of the word or "logos," and challenge the Christian to find a more beautiful poetic expression of the Cosmic Christ of I Corinthians 15:28. Another test of authenticity is Raine's real ability to conjure the evocative power of language, not in the mechanical control of formula or the mystification of gibberish, but in the power which comes from the choice of images that resonate with the inner nature of things around us, including all and excluding nothing. One of the poems in the Liturgy of Hours comes from the 1952 collection called The Year One. The book title comes from a friend who said the historical applied only to humans and their toil because for nature "it is always the year one." The title of the poem is Northumbrian Sequence IV. Northumbria is a border county of wild weather, moors merging into seascapes and the site of Hadrian's wall built by the Roman emperor to keep out the barbaric Scots. The poem offered as possible food for prayer begins: Let in the wind Let in the rain Let in the moors tonight. The storm beats on my window-pane, Night stands at my bed-foot, Let in the fear, Let in the pain, Let in the trees that toss and groan, Let in the north tonight. The evocation continues to the heart of the matter: Let in the nameless formless power That beats upon my door. Incarnation and Chariots of Fire / 361 Let in the ice, let in the snow, The banshee howling on the moor, The bracken-bush on the bleak hillside, Let in the dead tonight. The poem continues to link individual aspects of nature with even more powerful figures symbolic of various dark sides of humanness. Then there is a question and a short response: Oh how can virgin fingers weave A covering for the void, How can my fearful heart conceive Gigantic solitude? How can a house so small contain A company so great? Let in the dark, Let in the dead, Let in your love tonight. The answer must be a gentleness and pity that understands the immensity of the forces at hand and does not shrink from them: Gentle must my fingers be And pitiful my heart Since 1 must bind in human form A living power so great, A living impulse great and wild That cries about my house With all the violence of desire Desiring this my peace. Whether an interior demand of self or of others, here is a promise of a presence that cannot be articulated or tamed, but is full of promise. The poem concludes with this stanza: Let in the wound, Let in the pain, Let in your child tonight. This conclusion is at once crushing and comforting: the alien forces so powerful, so destructive, so all-inclusive are nevertheless one child to us in need of father-mother. These forces, these other presences are not us, and yet are as close to us as possible, and so we need to claim them. The spell Raine invokes brings them home as one child. As in Muir, the acceptance of all promises pain. Raine is, in fact, afraid of anything that would take away the pain: "Buddhism;" in her view, ~"offers'release from suffering;~C- hristianity the Cross, heavy with all the anguish of the world, to be lived arid known as the very heart of a Mystery. I wished to understand that mystery, not to be freed from it."~0 In the other poem to be found in the Hours, we read: Sorrow is true for everyone--a word That illiterate men may read By divining in the heart God's human name, and natural shroud. 369 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1983 In that last image, perhaps we have the echo of the hard-won wisdom of another woman of sorrow, Cornelia Connelly, who saw in "accepted suffering" that "one simple remembrance of his presence that unwraps all the windings of the heart and makes us true as he is true." Kathleen Raine's poetry is grounded in earthliness and suffering, but she also sees more burning bushes than we do, and she seems to be constantly taking off her shoes in awareness of the sacred and the spiritual. She is a reminder to those with other vocations about the nearness of the transcendent and how the Word evokes its presence in a terrible beauty. NOTES ~T.S. Eliot, Preface to Selected Poems by Edwin Muir, London, 1965, p. 10. 2Edwin Muir, An Autobiographov, London, 1980, pp. 30-31. 3Ibid., p. 30. 4Ibid., p. 36. ~lbid., p. 104. 61bid., p. 130. 7Ibid., p. 151. Slbid., p. 205. 9Edwin Muir, Selected Poems, p. 96. ~°An Autobiography, p. 229. ~lbid., pp. 277-278. ~21bid., p. 278. ~31bid., p. 281. ~4Selected Poems, p. 80. ~SKathleen Raine, The Land Unknown, New York: 1975, p. 183. ~6Kathleen Raine, Defending Ancient Springs, London: 1967, p. 55. tTQuoted in Kathleen Raine, The Lion's Mouth, London: 1977, p. 25. ~81bid., p. 49. ~gKathleen Raine, Collected Poems: 1935-1980, London: 198 I, p. 20. ~°The Land Unknown, p. 188. Currents in Liturgy Notes on Liturgy Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Father Diederich has been professor of liturgy at St. Louis University School of Divinity and at Weston Jesuit School of Theology. He is presently an associate pastor at St. Francis Xavier Church; 3628 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. I want to offer a service in the area of liturgy to the readers of the REVIEW by furnishing them with a survey of current literature not easily accessible to them. I intend to focus on issues which are likely to be of greatest interest, namely, those dealing with the relation of present day liturgical practice to the forming and nourishing of Christian piety and spirituality. In the present survey in addition to calling attention to the themes of the national and international liturgical meetings of 1983 about which I have information at this writing, I have focused on articles and books dealing with concerns which have arisen around what I might call our post-conciliar, popular eucharistic practice and interior spirit. Unless I have overlooked some significant articles, I found in my reading that almost all the articles on the Eucharist were something of a critique of present popular eucharistic practice and theory, sometimes imply-ing, sometimes stating explicitly that it is somewhat unbalanced. By way of introduction to the survey of the articles on the Eucharist, I have summarized current evaluations of the overall liturgical reforms and their effect. I have also included a very brief, perhaps overly simplified sketch of the eucharistic piety and practice of the last one hundred years. National and International Liturgical Meetings of 1983 December 4, 1983, will mark the twentieth anniversary of the Constitution 363 364 / Review for Religious, May-June, 1983 on the Sacred Liturgy. This has set the spirit for some of our national liturgical meetings. From April 19-22, 1983, the Sixth Annual Pastoral Musicians' National Convention took place in St. Louis, Missouri. The title given to the convention was, "Remembering Into the Future." It was intended to help ". musicians and clergy of the United States and Canada to step back and look at the past twenty years--the changes, controversies, and developments of the American musical scene" (quoted from the program). A special feature of the program was a survey of the history of American liturgical music for the last twenty years, with presentations in five different sessions by a liturgist and a musician. The Notre Dame Liturgical Conferences are well-known for their uniform high quality presentations. The Twelfth Annual Conference, June 13-16, 1983, has as its theme, "Renewal! Perspectives on Twenty Years of Liturgical Change." Boston College is sponsoring a National Liturgical Consultation, June 19-22, 1983, with participation by invitation only. "The purpose of our meeting, expressly called a "Consultation," is to appraise the present liturgical situation in the light of (I) the pioneering efforts of the "40s and '50s, (2) the directives of Vatican 11, and (3) the experience of the last twenty years, with an eye to those measures that might be adopted in the immediate future" (from the program). The names of 16 participants appear on the pages sent with the program. It promises to be an important gathering, with a significant number present who were involved in those "Pioneering efforts of the '40s and '50s." The theme of the International Congress of the Societas Liturgica, August 18-22, 1982, in Vienna, Austria, is "Liturgy and Spirituality." When the topic for the 1983 Congress was discussed in Paris in 1981, the need was expressed for greater prayerfulness in our liturgical celebrations. We need to identify the spirituality of the liturgy because, "Spirituality, the life of grace in those who seek to live anew in Christ, finds communal expression in patterns of worship, ministry and service--in a word, in liturgy . In short, worship and piety, liturgy and Christian life.are tightly interwoven" (quoted from the program for the Congress). The 1983 Synod of Bishops is not a liturgical meeting, but its topic should have important consequences for the liturgy. The topic is, "Reconciliation and Penance in the Mission of the Church." The Synod Secretariat at the Vatican sent out a kind of working paper to all the bishops on the theme and invited the national bodies of bishops to reply to some questions which were enclosed. The paper deals explicitly with sacramental penance but does this within the broad context of the Church's mission of reconciliation. We can expect a good bit of writing on the topic after the Synod.~ It is clear from the themes of the national meetings that there is a strong pastoral urge to evaluate our experience of the liturgical reforms, We remember the vision given us through the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. Notes on IJturgy / 365 The active participation at which it aimed is now in place in all the major sacramental rites of the Church. The changes have given us a new house of prayer. At least it has been renewed, remodeled, and rehabilitated. The ques-tion in the minds of many is whether the post-conciliar liturgical reforms are really renewing the Church. We were very optimistic that it would twenty years ago. We had hoped that the renewal of the liturgy would be the renewal program for the whole Church. Now the existence of so many different renewal programs in parishes in our country makes us doubt that it was. A possible answer, of course, is that we are not giving enough energy and effort to the liturgy. In 1980 the NCCB Committee on Parish Development reported to the U.S. bishops. The Committee stated, "The central responsibility of parish leadership is worship and the spiritual development of the people . In spite of this, the parish activity least often directly addressed in the parish development programs we have reviewed is liturgy . It appears that we do need to adopt a more direct approach to the development of liturgy and preaching."z Pope John Paul II still thinks that liturgical renewal should renew the whole life of the Church: "A very close and organic bond exists between the renewal of the liturgy and the renewal of the whole life of the Church" (Letter to All the Bishops of February 24, 1980). The Societas Liturgica Congress should be a stimulus to all liturgists to take a second look at how the promoters of the liturgical movement in the first decades of our century tried to make the celebration of the liturgy the primary and indispensable source of the true Christian spirit, as St. Pius X said that it was. His pastoral judgment that active participation in the liturgy is the pri-mary and indispensable source of the true Christian spirit, spoken near the beginning of his pontificate, November 22, 1903, has proved to be the most durable of all authoritative pastoral judgments made about the liturgy. It inspired the beginning of the liturgical movement in 1909. It seems to challenge us still. The theme chosen for the Societas Liturgica Congress bears this out. Evaluation of the Liturgical Reform There has been a significant trend in the liturgical journals during the last ten years to evaluate the ongoing experience of the liturgical reform. An Italian liturgist, Domenico Sartori, C.S.J., has done us the great service of making a brief summary of each of these evaluations.3 After summarizing them he identifies their converging points. First, he says that the writers agree that the enthusiasm and pastoral fervor with which the reforms were received in their first stages has waned and that now we find a certain weariness, routineness, and even downright regression in the communities which have implemented the reforms. Secondly, all are basically positive in their evaluation of the reforms themselves. There is convergence around what their positive elements are. These are the emphasis given in the reforms to salvation history and to a dialogical conception of the liturgy, to its ecclesial dimension, to the principle of adaptation, and to the relationship between faith and sacrament. They also ~166 / Review for

Issue 50.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1991. This is a special 50th anniversary issue on Ignatian spirituality. ; Review for Religious Volume 50 ¯ Number 1 January/February 1991 Ignatian Spirituality Ellard ¯ Grace ¯ Barry ¯ Ong ¯ Klaas Murphy ¯ Divarkar ¯ Cannon ¯ Fischer Fleming ¯ Flynn ¯ Townsend ¯ Wickham REVIEW FOR R~;Uc~OUS (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at St. Louis University by the Mis-souri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus; Editorial Office; 3601 Lindell Blvd., Rm. 428; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535-3048. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis MO. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to REVIEW FOR Rr:LI(;Iot,sP.O. Box 6070; Duluth. MN 55806. Subscription rates: Single copy $3.50 plus mailing costs. One-year subscription $15.00 plus mail-ing costs; two-year subscription $28.00 plus mailing costs. See inside back cover fi)r subscription information and mailing costs. 01991 Rv.w~.:w voa RELII;IOUS. David L. Fleming, S.J. Philip C. Fischer, S.J. Micheal G. Harter, S.J. Elizabeth McDonough, O.P. Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David J. Hassel, S.J. Mary Margaret Johanning, S.S.N.D. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Sean Sammon, F.M.S. Wendy Wright, Ph.D. Suzanne Zuercher, O.S.B. January/February 1991 Volume 50 Number I Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editnr should be sent to Rt:\'~t:w t't~a Rt:u~aous; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. lamis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Eliza-beth McDonough, O.P.; 5001 Eastern Avenue; P.O. Box 29260; Washington, D.C. 20017. Back issues shnuld be ordered from Rt:w~:w voa Rt:~J~;~ous; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. la~uis, MO 63108-3393. "Oat Df print" issues are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. Review for Religious Volume 50, 1991 Editorial Offices 3601 Lindell Boulevard, Room 428 Saint Louis. Missouri 63108-3393 David L. Fleming, S.J. Philip C. Fischer, S.J. Michael G. Harter, S.J. Elizabeth McDonough, O.P. Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS iS published in January, March, May, July, Sep-tember, and November on the twentieth of the month. It is indexed in the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index and in Book Review Index. A microfilm edition of REVIEW FOR REL~GOUS is available from University Microfilms International; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyright© 1991 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. A major portion of each issue of R~wEw FOR RZL~G~OUS is also regu-larly available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually im-paired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. PRISMS. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS begins its fiftieth year of publication with this issue. To celebrate, we are dedicating this entire issue to contemporary reflections on Ignatian spirituality, the spirituality that enlivened and in-spired the three founding editors--Augustine Ellard, Adam Ellis, and Ger-ald Kelly, all Jesuit priests. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS has never been identified as the publication of a particular school of spirituality or of one religious-life tradition. In the vision of the founding editors, the journal was to serve all religious-life communities and at the same time to be a forum for the wide exchange of ideas and developments in the spiritual life and apostolic mission of the Church itself. Over the years all religious groups and spiritual-life traditions have been represented among the authors and through the arti-cles found in the pages of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. The strength and the ap-peal of the journal have been in its broadening of our horizons for both understanding and developing our Catholic spiritual and apostolic lives. To use the imagery recalled in the title of this foreword, the authors and articles have given us various prisms through which we can view from various angles the Christian calling to be with Jesus in the bringing about of the reign of God. This issue, however, in one sense narrows that focus and centers on lgnatian spirituality, not just as a tribute to the founding editors, but also as a particular contribution to the celebration of the lgnatian anniversaries~50 years from the founding of the Society of Jesus and 500 years from the birth of Ignatius Loyola. The contribution which Ig-natius has made to the spiritual vitality of Christian life is especially evi-denced in the widespread retreat experience of laity, clergy, and religious according to the method of the Spiritual Exercises. At its beginnings, lg-natian spirituality played an important role in the Church renewal stimu-lated by the Council of Trent. In a similar way, since Vatican II the lg-natian tradition of discernment has been key to religious chapter renewal and choice of apostolic mission, in addition to personal and parish re-newal. Because of the widespread influence of this lgnatian tradition over the centuries on both the Christian devotional life and the de-velopment of religious-life forms, the decision was made to let this is- Review for Religious, Janua13,-February 1991 sue take its "Ignatian" shape from various unsolicited articles recently submitted for possible publication and from a few "classical" Ignatian articles reprinted from earlier issues. One of the founding editors, Father Augustine Ellard, S.J., provides us with an overall review of the elements of Ignatian spirituality; when the article was originally published in 1952, it was one of a series on vari-ous religious-life spiritualities. Two other articles drawn from early past issues deal with the meaning of the A.M.D.G. motto and its directional value for our living (written by Walter Ong, S.J.) and with the retreat movement as influenced by the Ignatian Exercises (written by Augustine Klaas, S.J.). Parmananda Divarkar, S.J., touches upon the apparent Ignatian para-dox between a growing sense of personal freedom and an ever more bind-ing loyalty to Christ and to his Church; he finds his reflections embod-ied in the former superior general of the Society of Jesus, Father Pedro Arrupe. In a similar way, William Barry, S.J., traces the development of a freeing experience in the self-and-God imagery of Ignatius as a possi-ble model for our own growth. In their two articles, David Townsend, S.J., and David Fleming, S.J., consider two different aspects of the lg-natian prayer tradition captured in the contemporary phrases of "find-ing God" and "centering." In two articles which specifically consider the Spiritual Exercises, John Wickham, S.J., introduces us to a deeper appreciation of the com-munal dimensions involved in the Ignatian Exercises, while Dr. Helen Murphy shares her experience of familiarizing people, particularly col-lege students, with the movements of the Exercises. William Barry, S.J., proposes an understanding of discernment as particularlyrelevant to the spiritual crisis of our time. Then in two articles reflecting on ministry today, David Fleming, S.J., points to the "secret" of an Ignatian way of ministering, and James Flynn, S.J., reviews the contemporary collabo-rative effort to share the lgnatian spirit among all the parties who make up a complex apostolic institution, such as a Jesuit university. What Ig-natian spirituality, especially in the form found in the Christian Life Com-munities, has meant to lay people is reflected in Mrs. Ligeia Cannon's article. How deeply intertwined Ignatian spirituality is with the Church's devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus inspires a fresh and invigorating re-examination by Edmond Grace, S.J. The book-review section, too, centers on Ignatian spirituality. Be-sides the reviews of three recently published books dealing with Ignatian spirituality, with the Spiritual Exercises in daily life, and with the per- Prisms sonal diary of the Jesuit John Eagan, Philip Fischer, S.J., provides a sum-mary introduction to the many publications of the Institute of Jesuit Sources since its beginning in the 1960s. He also calls our attention to some of the books dealing with Ignatian themes which have recently ap-peared or have been published consistently by certain other publishing houses. We hope that the authors and their articles in this unique issue pro-vide all our readers with a way to share in the celebration of the Ignatian anniversaries and the fiftieth anniversary of this journal. The editors also want to express our deep appreciation for the cover design produced by Thomas Rochford, S.J., and Michael Harter, S.J., which sets off and marks this issue as special. For those who may want to share this issue with others, individual copies can be ordered from the editorial offices in St. Louis at $3.50 plus $1.50 for postage and handling. Ad multos annos! David L. Fleming, S.J. Ignatian Spirituality Augustine G. Ellard, S.J. Father Augustine Ellard, S.J., along with Fathers Adam Ellis, S.J., and Gerald Kelly, S.J., is a founding editor of REvw.w FOR RF~.~C~OUS. These three Jesuits re-mained the editorial board for the first fifteen years of the journal. The following article was published in the May 1952 issue. Although some of the militaristic stress of Ignatian spirituality would be mitigated by commentators today, the article re-mains an excellent summary of lgnatian principles. Father Ellard died on February 17, 1970--the last of the founding editors to die. I Ignatian spirituality is one of the modern schools. It acknowledges its jun-ior status, and gladly and gratefully accepts the rich inheritance that the older schools of Catholic spiritual tradition have put at its disposal. Fa-ther Dudon, in his St. Ignatius of Loyola, devotes the whole of chapter twelve to showing that just when he was working out his own ideas and ideals, St. Ignatius was under the influence of a rather large number of different currents of spirituality. The two principal instruments of his con-version were the Life of Christ by Ludolph of Saxony and the Lives of the Saints by Jacopo de Voragine. The former was a Carthusian, and the latter a Dominican. Ignatius often thought: "St. Dominic did this, St. Francis that; should not I also do as they?" As a matter of fact, for a time he thought of becoming a Carthusian. His favorite book through-out life was Thomas ~. Kempis; thus he put himself in debt to the "De-votio Moderna" that the Brothers of the Common Life and the monks of Windesheim were propagating. These three works were major forces in his formation. In addition to these he came under the personal influ-ence of the Benedictines at Montserrat, of the Dominicans with whom he lived at Manresa, of the Franciscans, of the Hieronymites, of the Cis-tercians, and probably of others also. It is the opinion of at least one man who has made a very special Ignatian SpiritualiO, / 7 study of Ignatian spirituality, namely Boeminghaus, that Ignatius fused two streams of spirituality which before him had come down in more or less parallel lines (Boeminghaus, Die Aszese der lgnatianischen Exerci-tien, 10-34). These traditions were those typified by Thomas fi Kempis and St. Francis of Assisi. During the later years of the Middle Ages the school of spirituality that was most fresh and vigorous was that of the Christian Renaissance, just referred to under the Latin name that it usu-ally goes by, namely, "Devotio Moderna." It marked a reaction against excessive speculation in piety and stressed the supreme importance of be-ing practical in one's religious life. In particular, it tended to put more method into the spiritual life and especially into the mental prayer that should animate and vivify it. In a word, one may say that its asceticism was that which we are all familiar with from the Imitation of Christ. The second stream was the Franciscan. It taught pious souls to take the Gospel literally, to seek evangelical simplicity and poverty, to look to Jesus in his human nature as he really existed in time and place, to respond to him as a person with love and devotion, to keep united with him as intimately as possible, and finally to live and work with him. Hence vitality, enthusiasm, and personal response characterize it, as prac-tical method and earnestness marked the other. Boeminghaus sums up his idea in suggesting that, to a great extent, St. Ignatius took his method from the Christian Renaissance group and the content of his system from the Franciscan tradition, and then united them in his own original way. In these pages Ignatian spirituality is taken to include not only the teaching of St. Ignatius himself, but also that of his order. For the saint's own doctrine the primary written sources are, besides his Spiritual Ex-ercises and the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, his Spiritual Jour-nal and some of his letters. Certain letters are very important and do not always get the attention they deserve by those who profess to present his doctrine, especially on mental prayer. Some of the letters, too, are equiva-lent to little didactic treatises; examples are the celebrated Epistle on Obe-dience and the letter on perfection to the students of the Society at Coim-bra (May 7, 1547). The spiritual teaching of the Jesuits is to be found partly, in certain official documents, for instance, letters of the Fathers General, and principally in the numerous published works of Jesuit as-cetical and mystical authors. Moreover, Ignatian spirituality is understood to comprise both that according to which Jesuits themselves try to live, including a certain con-ception of the religious life, of the vows, and especially of obedience, and also that which they propose for others who accept their instruction. Of course, it is not implied in presenting Jesuit ideals that all Jesuits Review for Religious, Janua~3,-February 1991 fully realize them. Basic Ideas The fundamental element in any school of spirituality is the theory or set of ideas underlying it and giving it life and direction. There must be some definite conception, for example, of God, of Christ, of human nature, and of the world. Different initial views on these fundamental re-alities or their relations necessarily give rise to different attitudes of will and divergent practical principles. St. Ignatius's mentality ,was not at all theoretical. Hence the general intellectual outlook in his system is simple and concrete. It is decidedly akin to that of the Synoptic Gospels rather than to St. John or St. Paul. It is not learned or theological, like, for instance, that of the Dominican Fathers or of the French Oratory. God is conceived mostly as a great and good king, as a grand mon-arch on the divine scale. It is emphasized especially that he is the crea-tor and hence the sovereign lord of all. St. Ignatius liked to refer to God as "His Divine Majesty," or "the Supreme Goodness." Among the di-vine attributes liberality is often singled out for mention. God is not thought of as "All in all" or as "Prime Mover" or as "the Divine Spouse." Christ, the God-man, is so rich in various aspects that no one person or group of his disciples could exhaust them all. Hence different schools of spirituality emphasize different phases of the great reality that he is. One could consider him as an adorable divine king sitting at the right hand of the Father, surrounded by a heavenly court of angels and saints, and receiving the homage of prayer and work from devout men on earth. Another could concentrate attention and affection above all on the scenes of the crib and the cross. A third, utilizing the concepts of theology, could make much of the Word Incarnate. St. Ignatius sees Christ mostly as the son of the divine King, and a king himself, but with a kingdom still to be conquered. He is a crusading king, at the head of his army, announcing his intentions, and inviting men to volunteer for service. The peculiar temper of a school may depend much on how it con-ceives human nature, to cite an historical example: ancient Alexandrine spirituality took intelligence rather than any other faculty to be the great thing about being human and accordingly it stressed the place of con-templation in the perfect life. The modern French School (Cardinal de B~rulle) is noted for its pessimistic conception of human nature and the effects upon itof original sin. St. Ignatius is characterized in this matter by a certain optimism and voluntarism. Human nature is indeed some- lgnatian Spiritualio, / 9 thing that needs chastening and training, but basically it is good and to be developed and put to work in the cause of Christ. If all creatures have their value, afortiori human nature has; in fact a human being is the end and purpose of all other things. Bodily strength is not t6 be diminished by indiscreet austerities, but to be brought under control and made ef-fective for service of God. The voluntarism of St. Ignatius is abundantly illustrated throughout the Exercises; he never ceases to refer to "what I wish." The Ignatian view of the world, too, is rather distinctive. Unlike many ascetics of old he did not look upon it as something evil to be fled from and shunned as much as possible. Nor like St. Bernard did he con-sider it better to avoid creatures than to use them. He did not share St. Francis's tender sentiment toward lowly creatures as brothers and sisters. St. Bonaventure and many holy people of the Middle Ages stressed the fact that all things are likenesses of God and should be looked upon as enlightening us about him and attracting us to him. St. Ignatius is more utilitarian and practical. For him everything in creation is a means to help people to work out their destiny; everything is to be regarded and treated solely with reference to that purpose. Corresponding to the ideas that one conceives of God and of human being will be one's ideal of perfection, that is, what one takes to be the completely right relation between God and us. Of course, the followers of St. Ignatius would be entirely submissive to their Creator and Supreme Lord. They would make God's ends their own and seek to achieve them by the means that God prefers. To the divine liberality they also respond with magnanimous liberality. Enrolled in the apostolic campaign with Christ, they endeavor to associate themselves as closely as possible with their great leader, to work with him as effectively as possible, and to imi-tate him in all respects, but especially in bearing poverty and humiliation nobly. Thus in everything they strive to love and serve the Divine Maj-esty. They conform their will altogether to that of God. "What I wish" becomes precisely what God wishes. Leading Principles Logically and naturally the basic ideas of a system of spirituality, in themselves more or less theoretical, give rise to practical principles in-dicating the appropriate action that should follow. The Divine Purpose and Plan The first and supreme principle of lgnatian asceticism is to seek the end for which God created one. "Man is created to praise, reverence, Review for Religious, Januat3,-FebruaO, 1991 and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul": the "First Principle and Foundation" in the Spiritual Exercises (23).(Quotations from the Exercises are from Louis J. Puhl's translation: the figures refer to the paragraph enumeration introduced by the editors of the critical edi-tion, Madrid, 1919.) As God begins, and we may also add, ends, with a certain definite purpose, so does St. Ignatius, and so too will his disciple. In fact, we are invited to intend just what God intends. Between God and us there are to be no cross-purposes. Moreover, and especially, one should seek, not a part of what God intends, but all of it, and to work it out always by using precisely the means and method preferred by God: what is this but to have just the same plan as God? Praising and reverencing God is substantially the same as glorifying him. Striving for the greater glory of God, "Ad majorem Dei gloriam," is very probably what the name of Ignatius is most apt to suggest to most people who have some knowledge of him. It is well known that when-ever St. Ignatius wrote or dictated he was constantly referring to the glory of God. In the little book of the Exercises the glory or praise of God is proposed as the end no less than 33 times. In the Constitutions of the Society the reference occurs about 135 times in 247 pages (the edi-tion of 1937; so Lawlor, "Doctrine of grace in the Spiritual Exercises," Theological Studies, 1942, 524). Nor was the expression always on his lips only. Seeking to make God better known and loved was ever in his thoughts and aspirations and supremely strong and dominant among them. Hence explicit and uninterrupted aiming at the greater glory of God is a conspicuous mark of Jesuit spirituality. A similar and more or less equivalent idea that was a great favorite with St. Ignatius and occurs still more frequently is "service." "Lo-cutions such as 'to the greater service of God,' 'to the greater service of God and the help of souls,' and their like, are repeated 157 times in the Constitutions" (Ibid). Serving God is, of course, the same as work-ing out his purposes or extending his glory, and it may be said to be cen-tral in Ignatius's whole conception of what our relations and activities toward God should be. Some religious leaders would no doubt put prayer or even mortification in the central place; for Ignatius, everything, prayer, recollection, self-abnegation, and so on, must be subordinated to the glory and service of God. Intending what God intends, seeking his glory, serving him, all this implies the need and use of means. St. Ignatius is broad enough to re-gard all created things as these means. He is insistent, too, that they are Ignatian Spirituality to be used neither more nor less than in the measure of their utility with respect to the final end. In no way or degree are they to be sought for their own sake as goals if they be pleasant and attractive, and no repug-nance to a useful but disagreeable means is to be allowed to interfere with using it. To the noblest end the best means is always to be chosen. Hence, another celebrated term and idea of Jesuit spirituality: namely, indifference. Association with Christ A second leading principle in St. lgnatius's system is "Associate yourself with Christ as closely as possible," or "Know, love, and imi-tate Christ as far as possible." The divine purpose and plan become more specifically the program of Christ. All Christians, of course, strive to as-sociate themselves with Christ, or to know and love and imitate him, but not all in precisely the Ignatian way, that is, in the spirit of "The King-dom" and the "Two Standards." As we have seen, St. Ignatius likes to consider Christ as "Our Lord, the Eternal King," a prince who is organizing a military expedition or crusade, to conquer the whole world and bring it back to loyal submis-sion to its divine sovereign. He summons all good people to become re-cruits in his army, to share his warfare, and then to rejoice with him in the fruits of victory. Both the royal commander and his soldiers are to live and fight under the same conditions of toil, combat, and suffering, that subsequently they may enjoy the same glories of victory together. The motives for enlisting are considered so attractive that nobody with good sense could decline; one would at least join the expedition as a com-mon soldier. But with this degree St. Ignatius is not at all satisfied. In view of the singularly magnetic qualities of the Leader and the ex-cellence of his cause, any with a spark of spirit about themselves will volunteer for distinguished service. They will be glad to show their love and affe~ztion by offering themselves for deeds of greater value beyond the call and strict.requirement of duty. They will i~ot wait to be attacked, but will themselves take the offensive and carry the war into the enemy's territo'ry ("acting against"). In particular they will first make a perfect conquest of their own interior foes, and aggressively overcome their own "sensuality and carnal and worldly love." They will profess themselves ready to imitate their great king in bearing humiliations and poverty. It is, therefore, a cardinal principle of Ignatian spirituality that to the sum-mons of Christ the King one should respond with all the magnanimity and generosity that one can muster. The eager new recruit soon gets lessons in the basic principles of strat- "12 '1 Review for Religious, January-Februat3, 1991 egy of the leader and also of the enemy chief. These are presented in the colorful exercise called "A Meditation on Two Standards." They are further developed and enforced in rules for the discernment of spirits. Lucifer's tactics are to be understood well, and since they are insidious one is ever to be on guard against his deceits. His general ruse is first to seduce people into an inordinate ques~ for riches and honor, these be-ing indifferent, and then into pride and finally into all vices. The inten-tion of Christ is just the contrary, that is, by example and precept he in-duces people to cultivate the spirit of poverty, or even actual poverty it-self, to conceive "a desire for insults and contempt," to acquire the virtue of humility, and thus then to attain all the different virtues. It will be noticed that St. Ignatius makes great efforts to have his discipline look especially to two aspects of Christ's moral character, namely, his pov-erty and his humility. In the Constitutions of his order and in certain of his letters he adds a third great virtue, that is, obedience. At least for the members of the Society this gets so much emphatic commendation and insistence that it is in a sense the point in which Jesuits are supposed to specialize. The Third Mode of Humility The "third mode of humility" is so highly characteristic of St. Ig-natius's whole doctrine and so important in itself that it should, it seems, be proposed as a third leading principle. It is presented in the Exercises as the last disposition to be sought in the ideal preparation of soul to dis-cern and choose the will of God in ordering one's life. It is also the high-est point that one could reach in conquering self, in achieving the vic-tory over one's disorderly and rebellious impulses, and in bringing them into that order which the divine plan and the program of Christ require. In the first mode of humility one submits to God in everything that is of serious obligation. The second degree disposes one so to submit as to avoid not only venial sin but also every defect of indifference and hence all positive imperfections (failure to carry out counsels). In the third kind "whenever the praise and glory of God would be equally served, I desire and choose poverty with Christ poor, rather than riches, in order to imitate and be in reality more like Christ our Lord; ! choose insults with Christ loaded with them, rather than honors; I desire to be accounted as worthless and a fool for Christ, rather than to be esteemed as wise and prudent in this world. So Christ was treated before me" (Ex-ercises, 167). In a word, the perfect associate of Jesus makes oneself like him as far as possible, in all virtues, but especially, other considerations being equal, in poverty and humility. Evidently reverence and love and lgnatian Spirituality devotion to him can go no farther. Practically one prefers just what Christ prefers. To Love God A fourth leading principle in Ignatian spiritual training is "in all things to live and serve the Divine Majesty" (Exercises, 233). Every school of spirituality, merely to be Christian, must keep in the forefront the primacy of love. Some people have been disappointed that in express-ing the end for which God created the human person St. Ignatius did not mention love. True, it is not named there; but as surely and as fully as it enters into the divine plan and intention, it is there by implication. The constant desire, too, to choose only that which is most conducive to the end would involve much love for God. Even in meditating upon hell it is St. Ignatius's mind that love should have a certain priority: one prays "that if through my faults I forget the love of the eternal Lord, at least the fear of these punishments will keep me from falling into sin" (Exer-cises, 65). Throughout the second, third, and fourth weeks of the Exer-cises the prevailing general objective is to achieve, with an intimate knowl-edge and exact imitation, an ardent love for the God-man. The climax is reached in the celebrated "Contemplation to attain the Love of God" (Exercises, 230-237). Love shows that it is genuine by "deeds rather than words." It con-sists especially "in a mutual sharing of goods." On his part God pre-sents us with the whole gamut of creation, the totality of his external goods, and then in addition "the same Lord desires to give himself to" his beloved "according to his divine decrees." In grateful and gener-ous response one breaks out into the "Suscipe," relinquishing to the great Infinite Lover the complete possession and disposal of oneself. Every word in this magnificent exercise prepares one to love the ineffa-ble Divine Goodness literally with all the energies of one's soul and body and to demonstrate the truth of one's affection by really doing everything that pleases God and nothing that could displease him. Before working out the Constitutions for his Society St. Ignatius laid it down as the first principle thai it was not any exterior regulations that were to guide the order, but rather the interior law of love and charity that the Holy Spirit inscribes in the human heart. One of the Society's first rules is that its members should strive in all their acts to serve and please the infinitely good God for his own sake and with a view to re-paying his love and his immense liberality to them. Hope for rewards or fear of punishment are to have only a secondary role. God is to be loved in all his creatures, and conversely too they all in him. Review for Religious, January-FebruaO, 1991 A distinction has been drawn between two philosophies of love: one, called physical, emphasizes the tendency of love to base itself on unity and to proceed to ever greater union; it is seen for example, in the desire to be with one's parents or relatives. The other, termed ecstatic, empha-sized duality or division and the inclination in certain cases for a lover to go outside of oneself, as it were, or to give oneself up for the sake of the beloved; it is exemplified in the self-sacrifice of mothers for their children or of soldiers for their countrymen. Likewise attention has been called to two theological conceptions of charity: one, that of personal desire, we might say, considers the act whereby one wills the Infinite Good to oneself to be charity; so, for instance, St. Bonaventure. The other, that of pure benevolence, regards this act as belonging to hope and excludes such self-reference from charity; so Suarez; it would love God simply and absolutely for his infinite goodness or for himself. Corresponding to the'se two philosophical and theological views one may discern two general types of spirituality: the first centers around the direction of seeking greater union with God. It would find gospel war-rant in the text: "That they all may be one; that, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I am in Thee, they also may be one in us" (Jn 17:21, Spencer version). It would like to save its life. A mystery of predilection for it is the Incarnation, the supreme union of God and man. It is illustrated in the lives and doctrines of Saints Augustine, Thomas, Teresa, John of the Cross, John Eudes, and many others. It makes for contemplation, and would like to "taste" or "enjoy" God. The second type of spirituality takes rather the direction of self-giving. It gets inspiration from the text: "Greater love has no one than this--that one should lay down one's life for one's friends" (Jn 15:13). It is glad to lose its life (Mk 8:35). Naturally the passion and death of Christ are favorite mysteries. Martyrdom would be its great consumma-tion. Representatives of this type are St. Francis of Assisi, Thomas a Kempis, Francis de Sales apparently, and certainly Margaret Mary Alaco-que. St. Th6r~se's idea of love was "to give all, nay, to give oneself!" Clearly with these latter, exemplifying the ecstatic tendency of love, and the pure-benevolence conception of charity, and the self-sacrificing type of spirituality, St. Ignatius and his school are to be ranged. The whole tenor of his spirit, with its climax in the third mode of humility, or in serving the Divine Majesty in everything, is not toward union, but serv-ice; not toward enjoyment, but sacrifice; not toward rest in God, but work for him (See De Guibert, ~tudes de Th~ologie Mystique, 239- 281). lgnatian Spirituality Union and Familiarity with God Finally, a fifth major principle in St. Ignatius's general method con-cerns union and familiarity with God. He was wont to formulate it in some such terms as these: "to seek God in all things"; "to find God in all things"; to be a pliable "instrument" in "the divine hand." In the Constitutions, IX, 2, St. Ignatius gives a rather long and par-ticularized account of what the ideal general of the Society should be. Naturally this picture is at the same time a characterization of the Saint himself. Among the qualifications required in a future general the first is as follows: "that he should be most fully united with God our Lord and familiar with him, as well in prayer as in all his actions." Similar prescriptions are made for others who are to be appointed to lesser of-fices (Epitome Instituti, No. 740). Thus the Founder showed his supreme concern that above all else members of the Society should cultivate the closest and most intimate union with God. The large place which work holds in the Jesuit ideal and the relations between prayer and work in it are highly characteristic. In no other school, as far as I know, is there so great a tendency to favor work at the expense of prayer. A deep foundation of mortification and solid vir-tue being presupposed, from, say, the novitiate, or some similar train-ing and including a thirty-day retreat, prayer is to be cultivated until one has the proper disposition, that is, the will to love God with all one's heart and to carry out the whole of the divine design for one. But then, in view of the grave necessities of souls and the needs of the Church, one should leave prayer and give all one's energies to doing God's work, saving and sanctifying others, long ago pronounced to be, of all divine things, the divinest. When one goes about one's work precisely as God's, doing just what he indicates, because he wills it, and in the manner that he wishes, it is relatively easy and natural to pass back and forth between prayer and work. Striving to do God's work according to the mind and in the spirit of God may be said to be itself not the least form of prayer. Faithful disciples of St. Ignatius are "contemplatives in action." To illustrate the union that should exist between one who works for God and God himself, a favorite comparison of St. Ignatius was that of instrumental adaptation. The human worker should be a completely pli-ant instrument in the divine hand. A perfect personal instrument would be fully sensitive and responsive to all the motions of that hand. To give one such instrumental flexibility is, according to St. Thomas, the ten-dency of the gifts of the Holy Spirit (I, II, 68, 3). The most exquisite docility to the Holy Spirit is a capital aim in the doctrine of one of the Review for Religious, Januat3,-Februat3, 1991 Society's most distinguished spiritual masters, Fr. Louis Lallemant. Distinctive Practices Certain practices are characteristic of Jesuit asceticism. Nowadays some of these are more or less universal in the Church. But in origin, or at least in their wide diffusion, they are due largely to the influence of Ignatius. Spiritual Exercises, Retreats Perhaps the practice that is most obviously distinctive of those who follow the Jesuit school is that they make retreats and attach great im-portance to them. And more particularly, they do it according to the scheme and sequence of exercises sketched out long ago by the knight-convert at Manresa. The Exercises were originally calculated to last for a solid month, and in this integral form they are made by all Jesuit nov-ices and again by Jesuit priests and brothers toward the end of their train-ing. Other Jesuits regularly repeat them in a condensed form for eight days every year. So also, for varying periods, do many who do not be-long to the Society and still make use of its spiritual aids. The numerous students in Jesuit high schools and colleges throughout the world make annual three-day retreats. Moreover many devout lay men and women make Jesuit retreats annually. St. Ignatius himself did not advocate regular retreats. The custom gradually grew in the Sogiety and was made a matter of rule only in 1609. It is very largely due to Ignatius's influence, directly or indirectly, that now the practice of making annual or regular retreats is for relig-ious and clerics a point of canon law and a received ascetical usage in the Church. The Particular Examen Another practice that was originally most characteristic of the Igna-tian approach is the particular examination of conscience. Essentially it is nothing else than using in the war with one's faults that ancient prin-ciple of strategy: "Divide and conquer!" In more modern and universal terms one might say that it exemplifies the rule: "Specialize! Concen-trate on a limited field!" The particular examen was always a great fa-vorite with St. Ignatius. It is now one of the common techniques of Catho-lic asceticism. Sometimes it is censured by men who concentrate all their scrutiny of it upon some minor detail or other in the method and over-look what is substantial about it. On the other hand, even some of the minor features of it have of late been getting commendation from sci- lgnatian Spirituality/17 entific psychologists. Direction A third practice that is distinctive in its way of Ignatian spirituality is its idea of direction. St. Ignatius considered it especially useful, if not necessary, to prevent one from falling victim to the illusions that may come either from one's own imagination and emotions or from the de-ceits and snares of the evil spirit. As compared with the older schools, St. Ignatius advocates, if I mistake not, a more thorough-going and a more methodical use of it. On the other hand, he did not employ it like St. Francis de Sales or others in seventeenth-century France. The Exer-cises were originally designed to be made individually with a private and experienced director and the exercitant was urged to be very frank and open with the director. In the Society it is expected that subjects should make themselves, even their innermost consciences, all their good and bad points, culpable or inculpable, fully known to their superiors or con-fessors and in return receive individual paternal guidance. Any eager ad-herent of Jesuit asceticism will, if possible, seek constant expert direc-tion from another in the problems of one's interior life. Complete can-dor of soul and docility toward a director or superior fit in very well with certain qualities of character that were particularly dear to St. Ignatius: namely, his preferences for mortification that is interior, of judgment and will, for prudence, humility, discipline, and obedience. Mental Prayer An outstanding mark of any system of asceticism is its doctrine on prayer. If one compares the modern theory and practice of prayer with the ancient or the medieval, one will notice great differences in the rela-tive positions of vocal and mental prayer. The changes had been coming of necessity in the historical evolution of the spiritual and the religious life. In determining the actual extension and form that they have taken since the sixteenth century the influence of St. Ignatius, direct or indi-rect, was a major factor. In making the Exercises and then later in striving "to arrive at per-fection in whatever state or way of life God our Lord may grant us to choose" (135), it is considered most vital that one's soul should be filled with "the intimate understanding and relish of the" great Christian truths (2). Often enough people refer to the first method of mental prayer in the Exercises, the one there named from "the three powers of the soul," as "the Ignatian method." As a matter of fact, in that little booklet the Review for Religious, Jamlao,-February 1991 Saint proposes at least six methods, and this one, used for the consid-eration of abstract truths, is almost immeasurably outnumbered by the "contemplations," according to persons, words, and actions, that deal especially with the life and passion of Christ. Except when misconceived by ill-informed critics or misused by ig-norant persons, Ignatian methods of prayer do not hinder liberty of spirit or stand in the way of the Spirit's inspirations. It is the most rudimen-tary principle of Jesuit spirituality to keep the end clearly in mind, to pre-serve liberty with respect to the means, and to select and use the most apt of the means. Even in the Exercises, written especially for beginners, to aid them in the specific and passing task of rightly determining their vocation, the admonition is given: It "should be noted: . . . I will re-main quietly meditating upon the point in which I have found what I de-sire, without eagerness to go on till I have finished" (76). And again later on: "If in contemplation, say, on the Out" Father, he finds in one or two words abundant matter for thought and much relish and consola-tion, he should not be anxious to go on, though the whole hour be taken up with what he has found'" (254). Incidentally, one may notice that thus from the start St. Ignatius promotes the tendency to pause in contempla-tion rather than to busy oneself with discursive or analytic reflections. Outside of retreat time Jesuits and their followers may and should cultivate those forms of mental prayer, including the highest degrees of contemplation, that will most effectively advance them in loving God and in executing his designs. Naturally, of course, the prayer of apos-tolic workers will differ from that of cloistered Carmelite nuns. Similarly the inspirations of the Holy Spirit will be in harmony with one's divine vocation, not contrary to it. St. Ignatius was a great mystic himself, as his Spiritual Journal am-ply attests. In others as a rule be looked to solid virtue and mortification rather than exalted states of prayer. If we may generalize from a letter to Francis Borgia while the latter was still the Duke of Gand~a, that form of prayer is to be considered best in which divine favors are received most liberally: "The best thing for each particular person is that in which God our Lord communicates himself most freely, bestowing his most holy gifts and spiritual graces, because he sees and knows what is most suitable for him, and, as knowing all, he shows him the way . These gifts I take to be those that are not within our power, to have when we wish, but rather they are pure presents from him who gives and can do all that is good; for example . an intensification of faith, of hope, of charity, delight and repose of spirit, tears, intense consolation, eleva- lgnatian Spirituality tion of mind, divine impressions and illuminations, with all the other grati-fications and spiritual feelings ordained to such gifts" (Monumenta His-torica Society lesu, lgnatiana, Series i, Epist. et Instruct., 1548-50, 233- 237). With respect to mysticism, as in Catholic spirituality generally, so also in Jesuit spiritual teaching, it is possible to distinguish two histori-cal currents, the one decidedly mystical, and the other rather ascetical. To the first belong, for instance, St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, De la Puente, Alvarez de Paz, Caussade, Grou; to the second, Rodriguez, Roothaan, Meschler. Of the masters in mysticism the one best known is Louis Lallemant (France, 1587-1635). He was followed by a number of noted and influ-ential disciples. The work which presents his teaching, The Spiritual Doc-trine of Louis Lallemant, has traditionally been used in the Society to form its young priests in their year of third probation in much the same way as the ascetical Rodriguez is used for the instruction of the novices. Certain spiritual writers of the Society have been considered anti-mystical; among them are Mercurian, Rodriguez, and in a way, Scara-melli. When their statements are viewed against the historical back-ground, properly interpreted with allowances for changed terminology, and compared with the utterances of other authorities of their times, then the significance of the anti-mystical bias is seen to be more apparent than real. In any case, no matter how great it should seem to be, it is com-pletely outweighed by what other Jesuits have done for the cause of mys-tical contemplation. Moreover, no Jesuit ever went so far as to deny that one should fully develop his gifts of the Holy Spirit, welcome every in-fusion of grace that God should wish to give him, and then eagerly make the most of it all. In the recent controversies over the nature of infused contemplation, its place in the general economy of the spiritual life, and the call to it, there have been Jesuits on both sides. Self-Abnegation The lgnatian and Jesuit practice of mortification is very different from the ancient and medieval austerities, and it in turn appears to have had great influence in determining what the use of it should be in the mod-ern Church generally. Now, evidently, bodily penances do not occupy so prominent a place in the total scheme. They are more consciously and more narrowly subordinated to the greater and superior elements in the spiritual life. The employment of them is muchmore under the control of directors and confessors. There is far greater tendency to seek the nec-essary self-abnegation in the hardships of community living and espe- 90 / Review for Religious, Januarv-Februar\, 1991 cially in laborious work for souls. The body is spared much punishment and in exchange it is expected to become a more effective instrument for the spirit. In principle lgnatian mortification is as austere as one could wish. The indifference of the Exercises implies that one should be willing, when-ever the divine purpose or plan requires it, to forego the most pleasant means or undergo the use of the most unpleasant. Self-conquest and self-control are to be so complete that no movement of the lower propensi-ties can draw the deliberate will after it. Asking Christ, crucified for one's own sins, what one should do for him and then giving the decent answer to one's questions also includes the utmost degree of self-crucifixion. The noble knight's response to the summons of Christ the King and Captain involves the fullest oblation of self, and in particular the firm determination to take the offensive in waging war on one's own sensuality and worldliness. Finally the climax of self-abnegation is reached in the third mode of humility: preferring, other things being equal, the poorer and humbler things just to be more closely united with Christ poor and humiliated. One of the rules that St. Ignatius left for his sons is that their chief pursuit should be to seek in the Lord their greater mortification and, as far as possible, constant self-abnegation. In dispo-sition of will he exacts as much as St. John of the Cross does, but his manner of doing it is much less forbidding, as it in turn is harsher and less attractive than that of St. Francis de Sales. In applying the principle or in practice St. Ignatius would have disciples be careful not to injure their health or diminish their bodily forces and interfere with their spiri-tual development or ability to work efficiently. The outcome has been that Jesuit direction and influence have tended greatly to moderate the use of corporal inflictions by pious people. The interior mortification of the mind and will, in perfect obedience, for example, is assigned a large margin of priority. Devotion to the Sacred Heart A practice that is very prominent in modern Jesuit spirituality and cannot be said to characterize the original asceticism of St. Ignatius is devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In the revelations made to St. Mar-garet Mary, Christ expressed the desire that cultivating the devotion and propagating it as widely as possible among all the faithful should be a special charge of the Society of Jesus. The Society, whether in its supe-riors or its members generally, has always felt that this commission was peculiarly in keeping with its primitive spirit, and hence has been glad to do whatever it could toward making the heart of its great Leader and Ignatian Spirituality/21 King better known and loved¯ Any means to win hearts to Jesus is wel-come, and this devotion to his loving but neglec ted heart is a most at-tractive and effective one. Fostering and deepening their own dedication to the heart of Jesus ts considered by all Jesmts to 15e one of the best meas-ures that they can take to sanctify themselves anld. to vivify their apos-tolic activity. One could not be a student in a Jes,6it school or amember of one of their parishes without being under a certain constant urging to honor the heart of Christ. Great multitudes of the faithful daily make the offering of all their works and sufferings in union with the intention of that heart¯ Nor could one read very far in modern Jesuit spiritual litera-ture without finding much that gives it all a turn toward loving the heart of the Savior. Distinctive Traits Modernity is a mark of Jesuit spirituality, obviously in the chrono-logical sense, and especially also in that its genius is not ancient or me-dieval, but in harmony with the modern Catholic mentality. Negatively, and by way of "going against," it has animated men who were in the forefront of the Church's war against Lutheranism, Calvinism, Jansen-ism, and Quietism. Positively it possesses certain points of affinity to mod-ern social conditions. In contrast to the Middle Ages, Catholics now are in a more hostile milieu, and an aggressive type of spirituality befits them. Men and women cultivating the supernatural life now as a rule get less help from cloistered seclusion, live in the turmoil of large cities, are required to give more attention to action and less to contemplation, and lastly must be educated as well as devout. For the loss of the cloister Jes-uit spiritual training compensates in various ways, all designed to make up in interior individual strength for the external aids that had to be given up. From "the Kingdom" and "the Two Standards" on, it is thor-oughly orientated toward living and struggling in the midst of groups. Its connections with the active life in the Church and education need no comment. Another note of Ignatian asceticism is its high degree of organiza-tion. It is hardly conceivable that one could become well acquainted with the Spiritual Exercises or the Society of Jesus and their spiritual system without remarking what a complicated but strictly unified order or method characterizes all three of them. No other school of spirituality is so consciously methodical and insistent about prudently arranging means to ends. From a military office one might expect well-thought-out strategy. However, the aim of it all being union of the human spirit 99 / Review for Religious, Janttat3,-Februat3, 1991 with the divine spirit, there is nothing mechanical about it. Ignatian spirituality is conspicuously and eminently apostolic. Typi-cal is the injunction said to have been given by him to St. Francis Xavier when dispatching him to the Orient: "Go, and inflame the world!" Jesuit asceticism is eminently practical. There is nothing theoretical about it. It emphasizes above all the actual accomplishment of the divine will and purpose. Doing the will of the Father is always possible, feasi-ble, and most fruitful. The directives given are clear, precise, and am-ple, but not more restrictive than the divine plan itself. Personal initia-tive is encouraged, and it is suggested, with both St. Augustine and St. Thomas (In Mt XXV, 15), that where there is more effort, there also there will be more grace. Natural means are cultivated and exploited to supernatural ends. A peculiarly distinctive mark of lgnatian spirituality is the milita~3, and chivalrous note that runs through it. Don lfiigo Lopez de Loyola was born and brought up an aristocrat. By profession he was an army officer. Early sixteenth-century Spain was still tense with the spirit of the crusades. Upon the soldier's conversion divine grace sublimated to the supernatural sphere his knightly ideas and ideals. The very title of the Exercises states that they prepare one for "the conquest of self." Of all those exercises his two favorites were "the Kingdom" and "the Two Standards," both of them thoroughly military and crusading in in-spiration. The Society of Jesus is dedicated to "waging war for God un-der the standard of the Cross." It was conceived as a sort of shock troop to be thrown into battle wherever the Church's danger seemed to be worst. Its name originally was, and as a matter of fact in several lan-guages still is equivalently, "the Company of Jesus." It was its first su-preme commander's great aim to be himself, and as far as possible to make everyone else, "a noble knight of Jesus Christ." Another note that appears to characterize lgnatian ascesis is a cer-tain dynamism; that is, in a special sense it is marked by force, power, energy. There is not much about it that is gentle, tender, or mild. St. Ig-natius himself was naturally a virile personality of great earnestness and intensity. He came into the history of the Church at a most critical turn-ing point. In particular, the early Protestants were preaching the depre-ciation of good works. An emergency situation called for the most vig-orous reaction, and that is just what the Saint's magnanimous nature in-clined him to. In our days he has been reproached by Henri Bremond with being, "not a master of prayer, but a professor of energy." He would have his disciples share in God's own eagerness to communicate lgnatian Spirituality/93 his goodness and in the Eternal King's ardor to conquer all souls. The feeling dominant in the Jesuit spirit is not one of seclusion and peace: rather it is a sense of war and battle. Nor is it one of quiet study or contemplation: it is rather an air of tenseness and activity. Nor is it one of want or suffering: instead it is an eagerness to make use of things and to get a great task done. "Ad maiorem Dei gloriam" suggests this fact: it points to the incessant, irrepressible, dynamic, straining for ever greater and greater accomplishments for God that the Jesuit sets as his goal. Finally, to conclude, we might sum up Ignatian and Jesuit spiritual-ity in some such terms as these: the first and basic principle is to pursue the divine purpose and plan; the central principle, to know, love, and imi-tate Christ as fully as possible; and the last and highest, "in all things to love and serve the Divine Majesty." ANIMA CHRISTI--aTraditional Prayer Soul of Christ, sanctify me. Body of Christ, save me. Blood of Christ, inebriate me. Water from the side of Christ, wash me. Passion of Christ, strengthen me. O good Jesus, hear me; Within thy wounds hide me; Suffer me not to be separated from thee; From the malignant enemy defend me; In the hour of my death call me, And bid me come to thee, That with thy saints I may praise thee Forever and ever. Amen. Spiritual Exercises I Loyalty as Liberation: Ignatius of Loyola and Pedro Arrupe at La Storta Parmananda R. Divarkar, S.J. Father Parmananda Divarkar, S.J., served as one of four General Assistants to Fa-ther Pedro Arrupe, who was Superior General of the Society of Jesus from May 1965 to September 1983. Father Arrupe was well-known among all religious since he served as President of the International Union of Superiors General for five consecu-tive terms. Father Divarkar can be addressed at St. Marys: Mazagaon: Bombay 400010: India. The last public statement of Father Pedro Arrupe, which may well be re-garded as his testament, is the homily that was read out for him at a sol-emn Eucharist on the 4th of September 1983. "It is in many ways fit-ting," the text begins, "that at the conclusion of my ministry as Su-perior General of the Society of Jesus, I should come here to La Storta to sing my Nunc Dimittis--even though it be in the silence imposed by my present condition." The little chapel at La Storta, on the outskirts of Rome, is tradition-ally associated with a very special experience of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, "that God the Father placed him with Christ his Son," while on his way to offer to the Pope the services of the group of young men that had gath-ered around him. This chap, el and the memories it evokes were for Fa-ther Arrupe an inexhaustible source of inspiration and strength in the midst of the many challenges he had to face in the difficult period fol-lowing Vatican II. Ignatius recounts his experience in what is popularly known as his autobiography but is, in fact, an untidy collection of reminiscences cov-ering just one third of his life. He did not actually write anything but spoke out his story, in bits and pieces and under trying circumstances, 24 Loyalty as Liberation because of the insistence of his disciples who desired that before he died he should compose an account of his intimate dealings with God, which might serve as a model for future Jesuits. Such a document, he was told, would be his testament, and to produce it would be truly to found the Society of Jesus. In the language of today, the demand was for an authori-tative statement of the charism of the founder--and that is what stands out clearly in an otherwise clumsy text. All through the narrative one sees that Ignatius had a veritable gen-ius for loyalty--even a felt need to be loyal, to find a person or cause that might claim his total devotion. As a young man he is constantly get-ting caught up in unrealistic ambitions, and not even the sobering expe-rience of a shattered leg can break the spell that holds him captive. But some accidental reading reveals to him the true object of his ceaseless quest: it is Christ. In his encounter with Christ, Ignatius experiences the paradox of loyalty as liberation. Loyalty is something that binds, but loy-alty to Christ is a liberation from all that hampers true and total growth. For through intimate union with Christ one comes to share in his own experience, of God as Absolute and all else as relative. This is the truth that makes for freedom. As the story proceeds, each succeeding situation brings to Ignatius the realization that commitment to Christ carries with it other commit-merits-- which may seem to tie him down once again, to be a restriction, but are experienced as a further release, as new opportunities calling forth fresh generosity: loyalty to Christ means loyalty to the Church, loy-alty to the Church means loyalty to the Pope . After many adven-tures, accompanied by singular graces, the process of bringing his loy-alty into ever sharper focus comes to a peak point in a mystical experi-ence at La Storta, of the Father placing him with the Son, of the Son bear-ing the cross and inviting him to service, of a promise that the power of God would support his little group in Rome. This group of recently ordained priests, who had earlier called them-selves Friends in the Lord, took it for granted that once they had fulfilled their resolution to be at the disposal of the Pope for any task he might entrust to them, their fellow~ship would end in dispersion. But, at the very point of parting, they realized that their mutual loyalty, the bond that held them together, had never been a bondage but rather a liberation of their latent talents and the very condition of their availability for serv-ice. So they decided to remain united both in spirit and as members of one body, even when they scattered. Paradoxically, the very thing that would have separated them--their commitment to the Pope--became Review for Religious, January-February 1991 "the basis and chief foundation" of a new religious order, compact but mobile: so the Society of Jesus was established on the principle of loy-alty as liberation. Father Arrupe has an intuitive grasp of this principle, and a lived ex-perience of its validity. Herein is the clue to the distinctive feature of his personality that stands out among all his admirable qualities and charm-ing traits: an unshakable attachment to whatever is'fundamental and a fear-less openness to all that is relevant. This it was that put him so finely in tune with the formula for the renewal of religious life proposed by the Second Vatican Council: fidelity to the foundational charism and adjust-ment to present circumstances. It explains his great popularity and ef-fectiveness as a spiritual leader in the post-conciliar Church--as well as the incomprehension and rejection he met in certain quarters. Not all could understand that adherence to the old and acceptance of the new were not two things for him. So some were alienated by what they perceived as inconsistency, while others followed him erratically, without the delicate balance and unflinching loyalty that characterized Arrupe himself--who was free, bold, and innovative, not in spite of be-ing traditional, but precisely because he held on so tenaciously to the sources of his being. Speaking at a thanksgiving on the completion of fifty years as a Jes-uit, he made a simple profession of the triune loyalty that ruled his life-- to Christ, to the Church, "and to the Society of Jesus. He named them in reverse order and called them his loves: three loves, flowing one from the other, feeding each other, and united in one loyalty that embraced everything and everyone. It pained him to see people, Jesuits especially, caught in a conflict of loyalties. Conversely, he could not hide his joy in the midst of sor-row on the several occasions when his men met with violent death in fi-delity to their mission among the poor. His big concern as General was to bring the Society to an ever greater fraternal unity and apostolic fruit-fulness through a deeper understanding and a more meaningful practice of Ignatius' ideal of loyal service. A small but significant expression of this concern was his desire and effort to get Jesuits all over the world interested and involved in the proper renovation of the chapel of La Storta, which had been badly dam-aged and poorly repaired during World War II. He had the joy of seeing this satisfactorily accomplished just as he retired from office. But the oc-casion was signed with the cross--as was the original experience of Ig-natius. Father Arrupe's closing years are marked with many kinds of suf- Loyalty as Liberation / 97 fering. It is a bittersweet consolation, and a potent inspiration, to think that what he did not entirely succeed in achieving in a decade and a half of earnest striving, he in large measure obtains at the end through the manifold pain he bears with such fortitude and submission. When in the wake of his crippling stroke there came the papal in-tervention in his government, many people--Jesuits and others-- thought that the move would split the Society of Jesus--indeed would splinter it, with bits flying in all directions. Nothing of the sort happened. Rather the contrary: the reaction, led by Arrupe, but universal, was one of faith and fidelity. There was a renewed sense of belonging together, and a rallying around the banner of the cross "to serve the Lord alone, and his Bride the Church, under the Roman Pontiff." For countless Jesu-its, the challenge to identify themselves with a Society that lay in sor-row and humiliation was a supremely purifying and enlivening experi-ence: an experience of loyalty as liberation, with a wholesome impact on the whole Church--a parting gilt, a legacy from their much-loved Gen-eral, who said at the conclusion of his homily at La Storta: What was for Ignatius the culmination and summing up of so many spe-cial graces received since his conversion, was for the Society a pledge that it would share in the graces of the Founder in the measure in which it remained faithful to the inspiration that gave it birth. I pray that this celebration, which is for me a farewell and a conclusion, be for you and for the whole Society represented here, the beginning of a new period of service, with fresh enthusiasm. May the collaboration of the whole Society in the renovation of the chapel of La Storta be an abiding sym-bol and an unfailing inspiration for a united effort at spiritual renewal, trusting in the graces whose memory is enshrined in La Storta. I shall remain at your side with my prayers. The Changing Self-God Image of Ignatius of Loyola William A. Barry, S.J. Father William Barry, S.J., is currently rector of lhe Jesuit community at Boston College. His address is Jesuit Community: Boston College; Chestnut Hill, MasSa-chusetts 02167. ~]~'e have become accustomed to describing the developing relationship of a person with God in interpersonal terms. I have tried such a descrip-tion in a monograph on Jesuit formation where I spoke of prayer as con-scious relationship and then attempted to describe the development of that relationship in terms of the dynamic of the Spiritual Exercises. ~ Those of us who use such a framework often use a form of what Freudi-arts call "object relations theory" and apply it to the relationship with God. According to this theory, we all carry around with us self-other sche-mata learned in our interactions with significant people. With these sche-mata we approach all new people. Such a theory serves to explain in-stant likes and dislikes. A new person is assimilated to an image of some-one in my past life whom I liked or disliked. The theory is also used to explain how people get into repetitive destructive relationships without ever learning from experience. These schemata are self-other psychic structures; they are relational in nature because they are learned through relationships. In other words, the images with their associated feelings and thoughts are of the self in relation to another and others. All our self-images are relational. According to this theory, we also meet God with learned self-God schemata which derive from our relationships with parents and others, from teaching about God, and from past experiences of the Mystery we call God.z These schemata are always distorted and untrue to the reality 28 The Changing Self-God hnage / 29 of who God really is for us. In other words, our experience of God is impoverished because of our self-God schemata. We could say that the development of the relationship with God consists in the learning of pro-gressively more realistic images of self and God in relationship through the actual encounter with God in sacraments, prayer, and life in general. The development could be seen as a process of losing our idols or false images of God (and self) through the encounter itself just as the actual encounter with a new person in our life will teach us something new about ourselves and that person if we let the relationship develop. While these ideas have become more and more commonplace for those of us steeped in the psychological culture of our age, we do not expect such psychological theories to color the descriptions of older spiri-tual writers. The question is: Can their experience of the relationship with God be understood in terms of such a theory? Recently I had occasion to read The Autobiography of St. Ignatius of Loyola3 with some under-graduate students in a class on Jesuit spirituality. I believe that the expe-riences Ignatius describes in the first three chapters of that work can be understood in terms of Ignatius' progressive education about his relation-ship with God. In other words, the changes he describes can be under-stood as changes in his self-God schema. In the course of demonstrating this thesis we will discover that Ignatius, who calls himself the pilgrim in the Autobiography, shows himself to be a pilgrim from an impover-ished image of God to an image of God as Lover pat" excellence. In the process his own self-image changes as well. First, let us note that Ignatius' initial conversion experience came about through noticing the difference between two sets of daydreams as he convalesced from his wounds and the leg operations those wounds en-tailed. In one set of daydreams Ignatius spent hours on end imagining the great deeds he would do, the fine words he would say to win the heart of a great lady. In the other set Ignatius spent equally long hours dream-ing of the great deeds he would do for Christ in imitation of saints like Dominic and Francis. He notes that there was a difference in the two ex-periences. When he was thinking about the things of the world, he took much dclight in them, but afterwards, when he was tired and put them aside, hc found that be w~s dry znd discontented. But when he thought of going to Jerusa-lem, barefoot and eating nothing but herbs and undcrgoing all the other rig-ors that he saw the saints had endured, not only was hc consoled when hc had these thoughts, but even aftcr putting them aside, hc rcmaincd content and happy. Hc did not wonder, howcvcr, at this: nor did hc stop to ponder Review for Religious, January-February 1991 the difference until one time his eyes were opened a little, and hc began to marvel at the difference and to reflect upon it, realizing from experience that some thoughts left him sad and others happy. Little by little hc came to recog-nize the difference between the spirits that agitated him. one from the de-mon, the other from God."~ In these two sets of daydreams the same vaulting ambition, the same vivid imagination are at work, but to different ends. The reading of the life of Christ and of the lives of the saints piqued Ignatius' interest and fired his imagination much as did the romantic literature he so enjoyed and would have preferred to read during his convalescence. Finally he noticed that the two sets of daydreams have different emotional conse-quences in his heart, and then he discerned that one set is from God, the other from the demon. With this decisive discernment Ignatius was set upon a new path, but he was not yet a new person. The rather amusing story of his encounter with the Moor on the road to Montserrat shows how far he was from be-ing a man of discernment.5 He and the Moor, both riding donkeys, got into an argument about whether Mary was a virgin after the birth of Je-sus. Perhaps the Moor felt that Ignatius was getting hot under the collar; at any rate, he spurred his mule on at a fast clip so that he was lost to view. Ignatius began to wonder whether he had done enough to uphold Mary's honor, whether he Should have struck the Moor with his dagger. He could not decide whether to follow the Moor and strike him or leave him alone. In his quandary he decided to let the mule make the decision by letting the reins go slack. The mule did not follow the i'oad the Moor took. We will never know what turn history would have taken if the mule had followed the road to the Moor. What was Ignatius' image of himself in relation to God at this time? A telling phrase occurs in the passage where he recounts his desire to enter the Carthusian house in Seville. But when he thought again of the penances he wished to do as he went about the world, the desire to enter the Carthusians cooled; he feared that he would not be able to give vent to the hatred that hc had conceived against himself.~' That self-hatred tells us much about his image of God at this time of prepa-ration for the journey that would end up in Manresa. If Ignatius hates himself so violently, we can speculate that he harbors an image of him-self before an implacable God. Not long after his arrival in Manresa we hear ominous hints of where such a self-God image can lead. Each day he begged alms in Manresa. He did not cat meat or drink wine, The Changing Self-God hnage / 3"1 even though they were offered to him. Hc did not fast on Sundays, and if they gave him a little wine, he drank it. As hc had bccn very attentive in taking care of his hair, as was the fashion at that time (and he had a fine head of hair), he decided to let it grow naturally, without combing or cut-ting it or covering it with anything by night or day. For the same reason he let his toenails and fingernails grow because he also had been attentive to this.7 He began to attack his body and his former attitudes with reckless aban-don to the point where he did permanent harm to his health, as he notes later. It is at this point that he mentions the serpent-like image that "gave him great comfort." "He found great pleasure and consolation in seeing this thing, and the more he saw it the more his consolation in-creased. When it disappeared he was saddened."8 Ignatius did not make the connection with his earlier discernment when he noted that the day-dreams of doing knightly deeds delighted him during the dreaming, but left him sad afterward. Moreover, he notes that around the time when this vision began, "a harsh thought came to trouble him by pointing out the hardship of his life, as if someone was saying within his soul, 'How will you be able to endure this life for the seventy years you have yet to live?' "9 With this temptation began the great swings of mood which led him into the terrible bout of scruples which he so poignantly de-scribes in the following pages of the Autobiography. The agony of his struggle with these scruples brought him to this point. Once when he was very upset by them he began to pray with such fervor that he shouted out loud to God, saying, "'Help me, Lord, for I find no rem-edy among men nor in any crcalurc, yet if I thought I could find ih no labor would be too great for me. Show me, O Lord, where I may find it: even though I should have to follow a little dog so he could help me. I would do it. "" While hc had these thoughts, the temptation often came over him with great force to throw himself into a large hole in his room next to the place where he was praying.~° The self-hatred has taken a very violent turn. What kind of image of God lies behind such scruples? It has to be a God who, in the words of the psychiatrist J.S. Mackenzie, "is always snooping around after sin-ners." ~ Ignatius felt that he had not completely confessed his sins. At one point a confessor ordered him not to confess any sins of the past "'un-less it should be something very clear. But inasmuch as he thought all those things were very clear, this order was of no benefit to him . "~- God must be a terrible judge ready to pounce on every sin. Finally, Ig-natius had a couple of days in which he felt free from scruples. 39 / Review for Religious, Januao,-February 1991 But on the third day, which was Tucsday, while at prayer hc began to re-member his sins one by one, and he went on thinking about one sin after the other out of his past and felt he was required to confess them again. But after these thoughts, disgust for the life he led and the desire to give it up came over him. In this way the Lord wished to awaken him as from a dream. 13 , Ignatius, we can speculate, has realized that the image of God with which he has operated thus far in Manresa was a product of the demon, and not an image of the true God. From the lessons God had given him hc now had some cxpcricncc of the di-versity of spirits, and he bcgan to wonder about the means by which that spirit had come. He decided very clearly, therefore, not to confess anything from the past anymore: from that day forward he remained free of those scru-ples and held it for certain that our Lord through his mercy had wished to deliver him.~'~ God is not implacable, but merciful, and Ignatius can count on this God. Thus he need not continually grub around in his mind for possible un-confessed sins. Immediately after recounting this discernment Ignatius describes how he rather easily discerned God's will in two matters which before would have led to agonizing indecision. He prayed for seven hours each day, but when it was time for bed, he was overcome with great spiritual con-solations which cost him much sleep. Wondering about this at times hc thought to himself that he had assigned much time for converse with God and all the rest of the day as well, and he began to doubt, therefore, whether that enlightenment came from a good spirit: he concluded that it would bc better to ignore it and to sleep for the appointed time. And so he did.~5 How his image of God has changed! In the next paragraph he describes how an experience of the image of meat compelled him to abandon with-out any hesitation or doubt his firm practice of never eating meat. Even when his confessor asked him to consider whether this was a temptation, Ignatius could not doubt that the good spirit was the source of the im-age. He then says: "God treated him at this time just as a schoolmaster treats a child whom he is teaching,''~6 and goes on to describe in five points the ways God revealed himself, culminating in the description of the extraordinary enlightenment on the banks of the Cardoner. After this experience he recognized the image of the serpent-like figure as a temp-tation. The final demonstration that the encounter with God changed lgna- The Changing Self-God hnage / 33 tius' self-God schema comes from the very next paragraphs where Igna-tius describes three instances when he faced death. The first occurred at Manresa when a fever brought him to death's door. He was convinced that he was about to die. At this a thought came to him telling him that he was just, but this caused him so much trouble that he rejected it and recalled his sins to mind. He had more trouble with this thought than with the fever itself, but no matter how much he strove to overcome the thought, he could not do so. Somewhat re-lieved of the fever so that he was not at the point of expiring, he began to cry out loudly, calling him a sinner and reminding him of the offenses hc had committed against God. ~7 Contrast this experience with the next one he describes. He was on ship from Spain to Italy and in a storm everyone on board was convinced that death was inevitable. At this time, examining himself carefully and preparing to die. he was un-able to be afraid of his sins or of being condemned, but he was greatly con-fused and sorrowful, as he believed he had not well used the gifts and graces which God our Lord had given him.~s Now Ignatius knows that he is a sinner, and that knowledge saddens him but it does not frighten him. He trusts in the mercy of God. The self- God image seems to be that of a person who is convinced that he is a sinner loved and forgiven by an all-merciful God. Then Ignatius describes a time in the year 1550 when he and every-one else were convinced that he was about to die of a fever. At this time, thinking about death, he felt such happiness and such spiritual consolation at having to die that he dissolved entirely into tears. This hap-pened so continually that he often stopped thinking about death so as not to feel so much consolation.~9 Now Ignatius seems to be enamored of God, totally caught up with the desire for ultimate union with God. Thoughts of his sins do not seem to arise. The self-God image seems to be that of beloved to lover. God has taught Ignatius the ultimate lesson of who God really is for Ignatius, and for all of us, Loverpar excellence. Fidelity to the relationship with God has changed Ignatius' image of God as well as his image of himself. Ignatius urges the one who directs the Spiritual Exercises to "per-mit the Creator to deal directly with the creature, and the creature directly with his Creator and Lord."2° In that encounter with God the retreatant can learn a new and more realistic self-God schema. All of us have sche-mata that impoverish our experience of God and, thus, of ourselves. In Review for Religious, January-February 1991 his Autobiography Ignatius shows himself as a pilgrim from a small view of God to one of God as Lover. Ignatius believed that the same change can happen to us. NOTES ~ See William A. Barry, "Jesuit Formation Today: An Invitation to Dialogue and Involvement," Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits, 20/5 (November, 1988), pp. 5- 8. 2 See Ana-Maria Rizzuto, Birth of the Living God: A Psychoanalytic Study (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979). 3 Translated by Joseph F. O'Callaghan and edited by John C. Olin (New York: Har-per & Row, 1974). '~ Ibid, p. 24. 5 Ibid, pp. 30-31. 6 Ibid, p. 25. (Italics mine.) 7 lbid, p. 33. 8 Ibid, p. 33. 9 lbid, pp. 33-34. ~0 lbid, p. 35. ~ Quoted in Henry Guntrip, Psychotherapy and Religion (New York: Harper, 1957), p. 195. ~2 Ibid, p. 35. ~3 lbid, p. 36. ~'~ lbid, p. 36. ~5 Ibid, p. 37. ~6 lbid, p. 37. ~7 lbid, p. 40. ~8 /bid, p. 40. 19 lbid, pp. 40-41. 20 Louis J. Puhl, trans. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius (Chicago: Loyola Uni-versity Press, 1951), No. 16. A.M.D.G.: Dedication or Directive? Walter J. Ong, S.J. Father Walter Ong, S.J., well-known writer of articles and books and long-time pro-fessor at St. Louis University, wrote this article for the September 1952 issue. His reflections on the A.M.D.G. motto remain just as timely today. His address is Jes-uit Hall; 3601 Lindell Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63108. By a kind of irresistible momentum, as an expression becomes more and more widely circulated in the form of a byword or motto, it tends to lose its original identity. There is an externality attendant on all human com-munication, which is involved with the external senses and spoken words, and this externality becomes only aggravated on the lips of a crowd. By the time an expression becomes widely quoted, its sense tends to be controlled not by the purpose of those who originally drafted it, and gave it. its identity, but by the shifting kaleidoscope of external con-ditions. Thus Polonius' "Though this be madness, yet there is method in't," when it is quoted today, takes its meaning from the current signification of method as fixed by our interests and way of living, not from what Shakespeare meant when he wrote it and what his contemporaries under-stood. Today it is generally taken to mean that Hamlet's madness was directed to some ulterior purpose. But Shakespeare was referring rather to the interior organization of tl-ie speech Hamlet had just uttered--mad as it sounded, this speech gave evidence of being coherent, of being logi-cally organized in the way speeches should be. Literary history is strewn with stock 6xpressions whose meanings are lost in such easygoing misinterpretations.' This is true of secular litera-ture, but perhaps more of spiritual literature, for the fortunes of a spiri-tual expression are even more precarious as the very terms it deals in are 35 Review for Religious, Januat3,-Februat3, 1991 more elusive and fraught with deeper implications. When we try to give them close attention, to discover their real iden-tity, spiritual sayings have a way of tripping us up unawares--and the tripping up is done not only by what we might take for recondite spiri-tual maxims but by what are downright spiritual commonplaces. It comes as a shock for us to realize that the particular manner in which we em-ploy even so basic a motto as the Ad majorem Dei gloriam, or "To the greater glory of God," associated with St. Ignatius of Loyola does not quite correspond to the older use of the term. More and more, this phrase has come to be used as a motto or de-vice which is affixed as a sort of dedication to objects--to books, per-haps, or to banners or to buildings. Certainly, against such procedure no valid theological or ascetical objection can be urged. But it is worth not-ing that this procedure does represent a significant shift in emphasis. It represents a kind of externalization, as A.M.D.G. becomes a dedicatory motto for public proclamation. In such cases, the A.M.D.G. is felt as applied to the thing, used as a sort of spiritual rocket attachment to shoot the creature off Godward. Certainly, this is as it should be. Still, it does not quite represent the basic lgnatian use which reserves the phrase rather for interior applica-tion and prefers others .for publicity purposes. While it is true that the A.M.D.G. has roots in Christian tradition far older than St. Ignatius, so that we cannot expect his use to control the whole economy of the maxim, nevertheless, since the maxim as it is used today traces chiefly to him it is worth noting the nature of the current divergence. To do so, we may start with an actual incident. Some years ago, a non-Catholic friend of mine admonished me for not putting A.M.D.G. at the head of my letters to him--as, he said, all the other Jesuits who corresponded with him always did. Of course, in my letters to him I have used the initials ever since, but not without wondering whether the other Jesuits used to bludgeon me into the practice have not themselves been dragooned into it first by this intrepid promoter of Jesuit conformity. For the fact is that not a one of the Jesuits I I~now normally writes A.M.D.G. at the head of his letters--not when he writes to me, at any rate. It is simply not the general practice of Jesuits todo so, and apparently never has been. A strange fact, if A.M.D.G. is to be taken as a dedicatory motto. The reason is to be sought in history and tradition. As is well known to readers of her correspondence, St. Teresa of Avila had the practice of writing "Jesus" at the top of her letters. An odd motto, we may A.M.D.G. / 37 think. Not even a phrase. Just one word. Still, this, and not A.M.D.G. is the motto with Ignatian antecedents. It occurs over and over again at the head of St. Ignatius' letters published in the Monumenta lgnatiana, as A.M.D.G. does not. Similarly, the seal of the Society of Jesus from earliest times im-pressed or printed on books or documents or other objects bears not A.M.D.G. at all, but again this simple word "Jesus," abbreviated in its first three letters which, written in the Greek alphabet, are simply the "IHS" known to everyone as the monogram of our Lord. It is the seal, this "Jesus," on the title pages, and not the A.M.D.G. which serves to identify early Jesuitica. "Jesus" is the dedication which is applied to objects. Things, like men, are to put on Christ. This is one dedication, it should be remarked, or one motto, which is both easy and thought-provoking. What is more, as one simple, mys-terious word, it defies distortion. A second word might offer a purchase for applying pressure to this one and thus make distortion possible. But left alone, the mysterious Name retains its self-possession. Unalloyed, isolated, the name of Jesus becomes proof against the externalization which threatens everything that human expression touches. Thus, Jesuits fail to use A.M.D.G. to head their correspondence to-day because such usage has no place in their tradition from the very be-ginning. But this is far from saying that the A.M.D.G. is not central to the Catholic tradition of spirituality which flows through the Society of Jesus. On the contrary, the expression has its principal relevance and ap-plication at the very heart of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, which define this tradition. The relevance here is deeply interior, for here the Ad majorem Dei gloriam is referred to the individual soul at what we may call its extreme depth. It concerns the crisis within the individual consciousness which is the moment of decision, the moment when we make up our mind, the crisis so deep as to precede not only exterior ac-tion but even interior action as well, the crisis in which is set the act of the human will--"the selfless self of self," as Gerard Manley Hopkins has it, "most strange, most still." As their title is at pains to explain, the entire Spiritual Exercises are focused at these strange, still depths of decision within the soul. They have as their purpose to enable a man to make a decision as he should, without being swayed by things he should not be swayed by--"without being determined by an affection which might be badly ordered,~' the title of the Exercises states. St. Ignatius is at his most painstaking when, after the first two "weeks" of preparation, he finally comes to discuss 38 / Review for Religious, Janua13,-Februal3, 1991 how, in order so to make a decision, the individual must keep his eyes fixed on God. The discussion comes in the part of the Exercises called "Three Sorts of Humility," which bulks so large in his mind that Igna-tius does not treat it as a simple meditation in the way in which the ma-terial up to this point has been treated. Rather, introducing it here, he says that this material on three sorts of humility is to be pondered over the whole day through. This material is the last item in the Exercises before the "election" itself, the making of the decision toward which the whole Exercises are oriented. As the exercitant leaves the three sorts of humility to embark on the election itself, the state of mind which he has, with God's grace, prepared for himself is such that he is now to take his clue from God, and from God alone. In the last of the three sorts of humility he consid-ers, St. Ignatius envisions this preoccupation with God in all its present richness, at the point at which the depths of the individual soul are touched by the depths of revelation and of the Incarnation itself, which hereupon becomes an inseparable part of the Christian's way of making a choice. In the last analysis here, so much is the soul to take its clue from God and from God alone that the fact that God has decided on the Incar-nation, which means on a way of doing things more difficult than might otherwise have been, predisposes the soul to clutch to itself the difficul-ties rather than the easy things it encounters. The great manifestation of God to the world, the Incarnation, as St. Paul insists (Ph 2:6), began in an emptying-out of the Word, a step toward difficulty as, for the first time, one of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity became capable of suf-fering. The soul, eyes only on God, can never forget this initial determinant and dominant factor in the whole of the Redemption. The resulting state of mind can be called indifference in that it regards directly God alone, and not creatures. But in a sense, it is not indifference, because, in this vision of God, seen in terms of faith and the Incarnation, created reality is now included by virtue of God's own choice--Christ's body and soul are in the direct line of vision. They are testimony to the fact that, for reasons we cannot fully comprehend, God himself was not indifferent-- he chose to "empty" himself into a human body and soul, chose to be able to suffer when this was not necessary at all. The soul wants to copy God, since God is the End to which means are to be adapted. Regarding creatures as means in the light of natural reason alone, it can be indiffer-ent to them. But regarding them in the light of revelation, the soul sees A.M.D.G. / 39 that Christ's use of means involved more ,~uffering than seemed neces-sary. The result is a permanent torque boira s~ i,n the soul, an inclination toward what is difficult after the manner of Christ--an inclination justi-fiable nevertheless, curiously enough, as indifference on the score that it is a torque induced not by the means at all, but by the End, Christ, who is God. The inclination is mysterious and cannot be discussed fully here, but its authenticity is certified by the fact that the difficulties we have in explaining it parallel those we have in explaining God's choice of means to his end in the Redemption. This inclination cannot quite translate itself directly into action, for suffering is necessarily passive, and the activity involved in the direct infliction of suffering, even on self, is not what St. Ignatius has in mind, for he says nothing about it here. But the inclination is none the less a positive inclination, for in the meditation on the "Two Standards" al-though there is question of being received in the band of those who en-dure actual poverty and of bearing injuries and embarrassments, St. lg-naiius directs the exercitant to pray positively and actively to be allowed to undergo these things. The mixture of activity and passivity is of a piece with Christ's passion, which was utldergotle by Christ, not inflicted on himself, but for which he offered himself positively by an act of his human will, and which was thereby a welcome means when it was pre-sented to him. Ultimately, the mystery here traces to the fact that the end is not suffering, but God, and that by the Incarnation God became in-volved personally in suffering. This inclination or bias toward what is difficult is the matter of the third sort of humility envisioned by St. Ignatius, and it is when the exer-citant has thus descended deep into the mysteries of Christianity to find the framework for the making of a proper choice that he encounters in full force the prescription Ad majorem Dei gloriam. Two ways of mak-ing the election or choice are reviewed by St. Ignatius, and in both the exercitant is counseled to let the determinant in the balance be God's greater glory. In the first way, the soul is to consider before God con-cerning the alternatives it is faced with, "what tends more to his praise and glory." In the second, it is again to consider what, in a similar case of various alternatives, it would counsel another to do "for the greater glory of God." "Greater," it will be seen here, enters into the scheme precisely be-cause there is question of comparing alternatives. The famous expres-sion is thus as central as it is to the tradition that comes to us through 40 / Review for Religious, Januarv-Februar\, 1991 St. Ignatius because it is inseparably engaged with the focal Ignatian ac-tivity of making a choice. That the expression is thus polarized as a prin-ciple of decision rather than as a dedication of existing reality can be con-firmed in this same part of the Exercises concerning the "election." For, in this very context, when Ignatius comes to speak of something other than the making of a choice, he drops the "majorem" to say that man exists "for the glory of God" ("ad Dei gloriam" in the "Vulgate" ver-sion, that rendered by Father Andr~ de Freux, S.J., into Latin accept-able to Renaissance humanists, which Ignatius could not write, but gone over and approved by the Saint himself) or "to praise God our Lord" ("ad laudandum Deum Dominum nostrum," in the "Literal" version made to keep close to St. Ignatius's Spanish by Father John Roothaan). Because of the focus of the phrase as a principle of choice, in the "To the greater glory of God," it is the "greater" and not the "glory" which receives the psychological stress, the glory being in a sense taken for granted: any action, and more particularly any action done for God, adds to God's "accidental" glory, that is, adds something to created re-ality and activity which can be referred to him. This reference of the "greater" is eclipsed when the phrase is understood simply as a dedi-cation, and a puzzle easily results. For, simply as a dedication, how can "To the greater glory of God" be preferable to the simple declaration "To the glory of God"? If an object is devoted entirely to the glory of God, what more can be asked. The puzzle here can give rise to strange answers, expressed or implied. There is an American city in which a large Masonic temple standing opposite a much larger Catholic university bears on its facade the dedi-cation "To the glory of God." Most of the Catholic university's stu-dents are conscious of the more familiar "To the greater glory of God." Do they fix their attention on the "greater" so as to construe the uni-versity's commitment to this motto as a brag, a gesture vaunting the uni-versity's activity in the face of that of the Freemasons across the street? Nothing could be further from the truth or from the spirit animating St. Ignatius, but the interpretation is inviting insofar as the fact is lost sight of that A.M.D.G. applies primarily to the depths of one's soul. Even there, it is a principle for making choices, not for congratulating our-selves on past choices we have made. The Spiritual Exercises are the earliest of Ignatius' own major writ-ings, and they determine the case of his further written work, as of his whole life. This determination makes it possible to observe the workings of the phrase Ad majorem Dei gloria~n on an even larger field than that A.M.D.G. / 41 of the Exercises themselves. The lengthiest of St. Ignatius' written works are the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, and in these the Ad majorem Dei gloriam occurs so often as to become almost a refrain. It does not lose its primary orientation here. This orientation toward the choice of one among various alternative means is patent enough when the phrase occurs in a place where the Con-stitutions do not determine a procedure in detail but leave the determi-nation to be made by the superior or by the subject in terms of the indi-vidual case--a thing they do far more often than persons who do not know them might believe, for St. Ignatius had a great distrust of strait-jacketed procedure. Here the Ad majoreJn Dei gloriam comes into its own, for it is posed explicitly as the instrument and directive for action, for meeting a time of decision and making a choice. For this, it avails in great things and in small. It is to be the princi-ple for decisions taken in the General Congregation of the whole Soci-ety of Jesus, which meets only on such important occasions as that of the election of the General (Constitutions, VIII, vii, I). But it is also a principle of ordinary day-by-day life. The Jesuit in his studies, wonder-ingjust what mixture of literary and spiritual conversation would be best with the other students he is thrown with, is told that he must measure his decision here, as the General Congregation must measure its deci-sion, by what in each individual case is "ad majorem Dei gloriam" (Con-stitutions, IV, iv, 6). Instances of like sort can be multiplied from through-out the Constitutions. The Ad majorem Dei gloriam is similarly oriented toward choice when it occurs in the Constitutions in places where the alternatives are not left free but a definite policy decided upon. This becomes clear when the phrase is seen in the light of what the Constitutions are and how they were written. The Constitutions are not meditations or doctrinal instruc-tions, but directives for procedure, and as such they are of their very na-ture determinations, matters on which the mind is made up, a decision taken. But if they are decisions, someone had to draft them in the first place, and it was St. Ignatius to whom the task fell. The accounts of St. Ignatius' life leave no doubt that the making of these decisions was not easy for St. Ignatius. In his own autobiography, as recounted to Father Luis Gonzales, he tells how he spent forty days coming to a decision on just two points alone, and how at these tires he was preoccupied singu-larly with God. Once the principle of choice is given and accepted in the full, it may still take labor to decide wha~ God's will really is, although we become more adept at this by spiritual maturity and by prayer. Hence, 49/Review for Religious, January-February 1991 when the Constitutions prescribe--as they do so often that it is superflu-ous to list passages--that a thing be done this way rather than that way "for the greater glory of God," we have in the phrase a reminiscence of the labor of St. Ignatius, an echo of the deliberation prefaced to this act of choice, which is protracted permanently in the Constitutions. Here it does seem that the phrase becomes almost a dedication, and, in a certain sense, it really does insofar as a dedication represents a kind of protraction of an act of the will made in the past. But if it is a dedica-tion, it is one of a special kind which arises out of what we may call a choice-situation. The apparently tautological "more" is a permanent re-minder of this fact. In this sense, the phrase is a useful reminder of a decision made for God, a means of protracting the decision and of keeping our attention on him. In this sense, too, used as a motto, the A.M.D.G. is perhaps a little disconcerting in the way it points to the interior of our own hearts. Inscribed on a building, it does more than point to the building and more than point the building to God. It points to our own interior life. In ef-fect, it says that this object represents somehow a choice we have made with our eyes on God. So long as this fact is kept in mind, the motto will notbe a perfunc-tory label. We cannot reverse the evolution of the use of this phrase, even if we should want to. Changes in emphasis such as this evolution repre-sents correspond to altered emphases within the reality around us and have behind them psychological and sociological drives which we would be hard put to counter. But the drift toward externalization here is some-thing we must always be ready to resist. It is good to remind ourselves that the A.M.D.G. is basically a directive concerned with something deep within us, with a focus of our being which none but God and our-selves can touch. It applies primarily not to buildings nor to books nor to letters, but to the brink of decision within us. "To the greater glory of God" is not a mere label, but the baring of one's soul. Finding God in a Busy Day David Keith Townsend, S.J. Father David Townsend, S.J., a member of the British Province of the Society of Jesus, is part of the staff of St. Beuno's Spiritual Exercises Centre. His address is St. Beuno's; St. Asaph, Clwyd; North Wales LLI7 0AS; Great Britain. [~]any of our current Western prayer-forms were first elaborated in earlier times, when people lived in an atmosphere of faith, and in a Europe which was Christendom. Such is the case with the examen. Until quite recently, in English-speaking countries, the examen was known popu-larly as The Examination of Conscience. Despite all attempts to modern-ize, rename, and generally rehabilitate the examen, by calling it the Con-sciousness Examen or the Daily Review of Life, its origins lie in an un-divided Christendom. Moreover, the examen owes much to its use by St. Ignatius Loyola, the sixteenth-century founder of the Society of Jesus, in his book the Spiritual Exercises. We do well to remind ourselves that we are not sixteenth-century Christians living in Europe at a time when an undivided Christendom was being rent asunder. Then, despite the religious quarrels, the vast major-ity of the citizens of Europe were Christian believers. The majority of those who were not Christian believers would tliemselves have been be-lievers in the One God. The existence of God was generally acknowl-edged to be real both in public as well as in private relationships. God was explicit. The Divine Reality was woven into every aspect of life, and at every level. The World of Today's Christian The God-pervasiveness of the past is totally unlike the atmosphere in which the twentieth-century believer lives. At least, it is quite unlike 43 44 / Review for Religious, January-February 1991 the secularism and individualism prevalent today in First World coun-tries. In earlier eras God was part of the atmosphere breathed. Then the reality of God did not have to be positively fostered. God was palpably present, not least in the hearts and minds of the people and in the shrines strewn throughout both town and countryside. Today, in the developed countries of the West, God is excluded from public relationships, except, perhaps, for great state occasions and other similar formal and cultural events. Perhaps, too, God is excluded in ef-fect from the majority of private relationships. There is a prevailing at-mosphere, if not of unbelief, then, certainly, of the suspension of belief. The atmosphere is not one of faith. At best, and perhaps for the most part, God is an irrelevancy. God rarely enters into the considerations of a person or of a group concerning the living of life or the making of decisions. For the major-ity today there is little awareness of the involvement of God in each and every aspect of life. For so many, it is not God-mindedness that lies at the center of their world and universe. Therefore, for the majority there is little attempt to discover what God might be doing in our own times. Neither individual Christians nor whole Christian communities are exempt from the effects of this lack of God-mindedness. Individual Chris-tians and whole Christian communities are not removed from the pro-cesses at work in society at large. Whatever can be said regarding sociopo-litical processes and their effect on the individual Christian applies with perhaps even more force to the churches and to any.groupings of Chris-tian people. The contemporary believer, as an individual and as a mem-ber of a particular Christian community, is not spared being influenced by the prevalent atmosphere which would relegate God to particular places, to particular times and circumstances, to particular types of per-sons, even, perhaps, to complete oblivion. Reality being what it is, a Christian's first task today, and the first task of any Christian group, is the fostering of a positive awareness of, and a sense for, the reality of God in life. Believers need to ensure that they bring into each and every aspect of life a faith in God's involve-ment in the world. The individual believer, together with others, can then strive to read the signs of the times. It then becomes possible to know what God's activity is, in the wider world, and in the more personal worlds of both individual Christians and the groups to which they be-long. Today Christians have to do battle lest practical unbelief increasingly and negatively affect their manner of living with God. As always, life Finding God in a Bus), Day / 45 itself will be the reality check on the truth of such a "faith-full" God-centered life. The truth concerning the centrality and authenticity of the Christian group's faith, as that of the individual Christian, will show it-self in action: in the quality of the decisions made, in the values inform-ing those decisions, in the relationships formed, and in the quality of the attitudes informing those relationships. These qualities will show them-selves as much in the public spheres of life as in the private. The examen itself can so easily degenerate without the explicit, posi-tive fostering and nourishing of this element of belief in God being pres-ent and at work in all of life, both personal and communal. It can de-generate either into that kind of harsh moralizing which does not need God and which suffers from the absence of the God of compassion. Or it can degenerate into an un-christian and self-centered form of self-improving. The experiences of those brought up in the past on the examination of conscience suggest that both forms of degeneration can all too easily occur. Both forms of degeneration are differing forms of idolatry. The idol has no place for the life-giving, creative Trinity. The True God is effectively ousted. Something humanly created attempts to replace the uncreated Trinity (see Psalm 135:14-17). With the self focus, of course, the examen ceases to be God centered, and so ceases to be prayer. The examen becomes barren. Hardly surprisingly the result was frequently a total abandonment of this particular prayer exercise. The Day: Divine Meeting-Place A help in this crucial self-composing in faith is to consider the day as the privileged place for the moment-to-moment meeting with God. Likewise, the day is the place where that meeting with God can fail to be effective. Then, in this latter case, although there is the presence of God to the believer, this presence is neither acknowledged nor recipro-cated. There can be then no specific and concrete awareness of the pres-ence of God to the believer. There can be then no specific and concrete awareness of the presence of the believer to God. What is said here of an individual Christian speaks with greater force when applied to whole Christian communities. Christians believe that God is being revealed continually. The work of creation and salvation does not cease. The divine activity continues in and through the places, the events, the groups, and the people of the day. If this is the case, it does seem rather important to look at this day in which Christians and Christian ggoups meet and fail to meet God. The day is the providential vehicle for this meeting. It is by means Review for Religious, Januap3,-Februat3, 1991 of this daily providence that an individual's commitment to God finds, and fails to find, its expression and reality. It is, after all, in the day that believers live out, and fail to live out, the appropriate response to that particular calling of God which we name "vocation." It is in the day that a Christian family, or other Christian group, lives out, and fails to live out, its appropriate response to its "vocation." The day is where God moment-to-moment exercises loving provi-dence over all, including this believer and this believing community. The day is where Christians allow, and do not allow, God to work the divine desires for them. The day is the place where believers respond, and do not respond, to the moment-to-moment calls to the love and service of those around. The day is where the Christian community lives out, and does not live out, in concrete detail, the implications of its own special calling and vocation. With the viewpoint and the perspective of a faith in God present and at work in the world and among all the peoples of the world, the succes-sion of days allows the believer to see whether and to what extent the various human communities, including that believer's own Christian com-munity, are responding to the calls to justice, love, and service. The in-dividual believer, challenged by the Gospel of Jesus, will sense how his or her own desire is touched. The Gospel stirs in the believer desires to respond to personal and world events in a more Christ-like way. That Gos-pel challenge and the promise of Jesus, shared with others, will revital-ize the Christian community, for the life of the world. How can a person, or a group of people living and working together, grow in awareness and sensitivity to the God living and working in their own world and life? The simple answer: Look back over the day.t Not just to look back in general terms, but to look back expressly seeking to find where God has been active for that individual in his or her own world and life that day. To look back to see where concretely and spe-cifically God has been present and active for that community. To look back, to see, and to share with others what is seen. The examen is a way of initiating and facilitating this inner dialogue for each individual. The examen can become a communal experience of God's goodness and presence when shared in the family or other Chris-tian group. The examen challenges the individual and the group as if to say, "How can you say you are living a Christian life, if you never re-flect on it?" Or, "How can you say you are doing God's will if you never look to see what it is that you really are doing'?" Or, "How can you say you believe in God present and active in the world for all peo- Finding God in a Busy Day / 47 pie if you never reflect on the divine meaning of each day?" Or, "You say you want to serve Christ, and you want to live a more Christ-like life; well then, reflect on how your day has been, and let the experience of that day teach you what it will." Believers and Christian groups claim that they have faith in God work-ing through the Spirit both in their lives and in the world. Unfortunately, only very few seem to reflect positively on this crucial fact. The examen is a short prayer exercise which can assist in developing in a believer, and within a Christian community, a greater positive awareness of and sensitivity to the presence of God. There develops a sense of the con-crete ways God has been working in him, her, or them during the day. This greater positive sense of God can lead the believer, and that be-liever's community, to a more accurate and to a more immediate re-sponse to the initiatives of God's presence as they occur moment-to-moment during the day. Christians can become much more finely tuned to the presence and activity of the divine, moment-to-moment during the day. The deeper sense of the divine allows the Christian and the com-munity to respond so as to become molded according to the desires of the Trinity, to become "God's work of art" (Ep 2:10). The examen, therefore, becomes a particular application of the Con-templation To Attain The Love Of God, found at the end of the book of the Spiritual Exercises (see Ex. 230-7). There, having made the full Spiri-tual Exercises, the retreatant prayerfully becomes aware of and contem-plates the reality of the Trinity present and at work in all of creation, in the struggle, in the effort, and in the disappointment, as much as in all else. In the offering "Take, Lord, and receive" (Ex. 234), of the Con-templation To Attain The Love Of God, the retreatant makes a commit-ment to live out that contemplative presence to the divine in ,the actual realities of daily life. The examen can become an examination of the extent to which the person's actual response to this moment-to-moment divine presence, ex-pressed in that offering of the Contemplation To Attain The Love Of God, is rooted or not in the realities of actual daily living. When, by the shar-ing of individuals, the examen is allowed to become the prayer of a peo-ple, a family, a community, a church, that Christian group will be con-stantly recommitting itself, from within its contemplation of the love of God present and at work in its communal life, to a profound communal service. In our own day We experience the godly social challenge and influence exercised by such Christian groups, for example the base Chris-tian communities. 48 / Review for Religious, January-February 1991 The examen can also indicate just how inclusive or exclusive is the life of an individual Christian or the corporate life of a Christian com-munity. A community's world, like a person's world, can be larger or smaller, embracing more or less, more self-centered or more other-centered. The examen can throw light on just how much or how little of the world is allowed by believers to reveal the Trinity at work. The examen, therefore, can be the instrument whereby a Christian or the Christian community is invited by God to widen the area of peo-ple, groups, places, and circumstances in which the love and justice of God, and the God of love and the God of justice, can be found. The ex-amen can become the instrument whereby the individual Christian and the Christian group are invited to make an ever larger self-offering. The examen can be an aid to believers becoming more greatly involved in the ever wider love of God wherever it is found. The love of God urges Chris-tians as individuals and as communities to a greater concern (see 2 Co 5: 14). Traditionally, there have been five aspects or moments to the ex-amen. On any individual occasion one or more of these aspects will pre-dominate. That being so, it is enough to say here that these five aspects are not a syllabus to be plowed through relentlessly on each occasion. On any one occasion of praying the examen, the believer, and indeed a Christian group praying the examen together, gives to any of these as-pects the time needed and desired. The examen is prayer. Therefore, the one praying the examen remains in the aspect where he, she, or they find what is sought without trying to hurry through the other aspects. The First Aspect: Gratitude Thefirst aspect is the fostering of an attitude of thanksgiving, or grati-tude. For the person or group developing such an attitude, there is noth-ing that has not been given. Here, therefore, Christians are not being thankful merely for those aspects of the day that have given pleasure whilst remaining unthankful for those aspects of the day that have not pleased. The believer is not picking and choosing what to be thankful about, in the sense of choosing some things, events, or people, but rejecting oth-ers. Some aspects of the day may, indeed, stand out positively from the rest. Here Christians, as anyone would, will be grateful for such aspects. But such thankfulness for what is gratifying does not exhaust what is meant by gratitude. In praying for gratitude Christians are asking to be responsive to a God whose nature it is to givel and to give freely and constantly. This Finding God in a Busy Day / 49 is the attitude of true humility and of spiritual poverty. The believer, the believer's family, the Christian community, and, indeed, the whole of creation, is always on the receiving end of gift. The believer has noth-ing except what is given. What is given is given to be enjoyed and to be shared. In gratitude for such gift, the Giver is received. The Christian will be trying to foster this sense of gratitude in her or his own personal life experiences. The Christian community likewise will be trying to foster a communal sense of gratitude in its life experi-ences. Those areas of life, of persons, groups, places, and events, which seem to lack gratitude will stand out in contrast. Into these areas the per-son and the community will endeavor to bring both thanksgiving and the God who is thanked. Christians will not restrict the fostering of gratitude to personal life experiences. Christians will want to foster an ever wider sense of grati-tude that will embrace larger society. Such positive social fosterings of gratitude in Christian people will raise an awareness of that lack of grati-tude which is part of the fabric and organization of wider society. Christians will notice where ingratitude, where possessiveness and greed, where pride and arrogance are at work in the world, in political and social decisions, in the way corporations and public life are orga-nized. Believers will see where God is excluded effectively from public life. Believers will notice who are the ones who suffer in consequence. Believers will see the destructive effects of communal avarice and ag-gression on the life of the very world which God has given as gift to all (see Is 45:! 8). Again the person of faith and the faithful community will endeavor to bring both thanksgiving and the God of gifts who is thanked into these social areas of life. The believer, in his or her own person, is God's most crucial gift. He or she is the gift by which all other things can be known, and known as gifts. The believer is the gift in which, and by which, the person's own giftedness can be known. Gratitude, or thanksgiving, is the attitude in which the believer acknowledges, and expresses, his or her own di-vine giftedness. Gratitude allows the believer to be gift in such a way that the Giver of the gift is also received. Without thanksgiving the individual will belittle himself or herself. When the creation which is that individual is despised, so too is the Crea-tor despised and excluded. It is obvious how important it is that grati-tude and thanksgiving be the very essence of a Christian community's shared life together. St. Paul's letters to the churches are full of such ref-erences. The Christian community's great gathering and centering of life 50 / Review for Religious, January-February 1991 is called the Thanksgiving, Eucharist. Persons with faith in the goodness of God cannot but want to prize that same sense of gift in others. Seeing the God-who-becomes-incarnate in any and every human face can have the effect of helping oth-ers to believe in themselves. Individual Christians with such awareness will be less likely to denigrate another. Christian communities with such awareness will be less likely to denigrate either individuals or other com-munities. Perhaps, even, the other individuals or other groups concerned will be less likely to denigrate themselves. Individuals, whether Chris-tian or not, with a sense of gratitude in themselves are less likely to ac-cept the denigration of others, since their affirmation and encouragement comes from "the God of all consolation" (2 Co !:3). This sense of one's own personal worth, together with the sense of worth of every other individual, as being God's handiwork and being made in God's image (see Gn 1:27), will automatically throw in relief the areas in private life and in public life where such worth is lacking or where it is being withheld. Again these areas are going to relate to particular kinds of people, particular groups, particular places, and par-ticular activities. Believers will notice the cruel effects of this version of ingratitude which would try to denigrate and undermine the sense of gift and the sense of worth in a human being, or, indeed, which would try to dispar-age whole categories of human beings. All too often we, as individuals and as members of groups in society, give worth and withhold worth ac-cording to our own immediate advantage and benefit, both as individu-als and as members of wider society. Only a God-given gratitude for all will inspire and challenge individuals and larger groups to a wider, less selfish, and less self-centered vision. It is in this moment of thanksgiving that believers spend the time that is required to become aware of their need to be grateful: to savor and be in touch with the giftedness of their own lives and living; to savor and be in touch with the God who gives, who gifts. In a world that has little practical use for God, and where aggressive consumerism, productivity, success, and achievement color all, this orientation of gratitude, in faith-ful receptivity to giftedness before God, the Giver of all good gifts (see Jm i :17), is all the more important. The very effort to become aware in gratitude helps counter any tendency to be God-forgetful. Gratitude, in fact and in desire, can help stop a person or a group of people relating to themselves, to other people, to other groups, to the events and to the places of the day in a largely self-centered manner. Finding God in a Busy Day / ~ As the effects of gratitude develop, so too does the awareness that social and political decisions affect people in similarly self-centered ways. There may grow in believers a practical commitment to greater jus-tice for all in society. Gratitude centers a person and a community on the divine reality. The individual, that individual's injustices and self-centered gratifications, and the selfishnesses of that individual's society can no longer form the center of the world. Similarly that individual's family, group or community, together with that group's own self-centered gratifications, selfishnesses, and injustices can no longer form the center of the world. Christians are opened to seeing gift in the unex-pected. Such people can be surprised by the God of surprises. This first aspect of the examen also helps put believers in a better perspective before all that has been going on in the course of the day. The attitude of thanksgiving helps center Christians on the Trinity at work moment-to-moment in the day. The word "Trini.ty" reminds Chris-tians that God is "community." To be caught up into the life of the Trin-ity is to be caught,up into the lives of all aspects of creation. To be caught up into the life of any part of creation is to be caught up into the life of the Trinity (see Mt 25:31-46). So Christians will become aware of the Trinity at work not only in private life, but in the wider life of society. Gratitude allows believers and believing communities to include more and more of life and society under the challenge of the divine benevo-lence and goodness. As gratitude, or the desire for it, touches people, so those people can enter into gratitude, and respond to it in ways that seem appropriate. It may be that an individual or a community will feel drawn to make a con-crete commitment to gratitude in some public or social manner. In some way that is real to an individual or to a community, an appropriate re-sponse will be expressed to the Trinity, to the God who gives: Father, Son, and Spirit. The Evangelist St. Luke puts the Magnifica~t (see Lk !:46-45) on the lips of Mary, the Mother of the Lord, as her appropriate response to her exulting in the great things the Lord has done for her, and following her "yes" of acceptance to the invitation of God's good-ness to be at the service of the Word. The Second Aspect: Light The second aspect is to ask for light. Since believers receive all from the gifting of the Trinity, believers ask from the Trinity the gift of wis-dom, the gift of being open to seeing as the Trinity sees. The

Issue 29.2 of the Review for Religious, 1970. ; ASSOCIATE EDITORS Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Augustine G. Ellard. S.J. ASSISTANT EDITOR John L. Treloar, S.J. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS EDITOR Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Correspondence with the editor, the associate editors, and the assistant editor, as well as books for review, should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 631o3. Questions for answering should be sent to -Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's Church; 32~ Willings Alley;,Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ~9~o6. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Edited with ecclesiastical approval by faculty members of the School of Divinity of Saint Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis. Missouri 63103. Owned by the Missouri Province Edu-cational Institute. Published bimonthly and cop':'rlgi~t ~) 1970 by R~-:w~-:\v at 428 East Preston Street; Baltimore, Mary-land 21202. Printed in U.S,A. Second class postage paid at Baltimore, Maryland and at additional mailing ot~ces. Single copies: $1.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $5.00 a year, $9.00 for two years; other countries: $5.50 a year, $10.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should b~ accompanied by check or money order paya-ble to REVIEW FOR RI~LIGIOUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to p~rsons Change of address requests should include former address. Renewals and new subscriptions, where a¢com. panied by a remittance, should be sent to R£VlI~W ~on Rtt.tetous; P, O. Box 671; Baltimore, Maryland 21203, Changes of address, busine~ correspondence, and orders not accompanied by a remittance should be sent to R£vl~w R~I~o~s ; 42B East Preslon ~treet; Balfimo~, Mawland 21202. Manuscripts, editorial cor-respondence, and ~oks for review should be sen~ ~o R~v~w roa R~mvs; 612 Hum~ldt Building; 539 North Grand ~ulevard Saint ~ouis, Mi~ouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to the address the ~u~fioas and ~we~ ~itor. MARCH 1970 VOLUME 29 NUMBER 2 Meditative Description of the Gospel Counsels Introductory Statement" Framed* in words and concepts Iamiliar to the last third o[ the twentieth century, this meditative descrip-tion oI the vows accents the pgetic nature of religious li[e: the "more than" dimension to a faith-existence; the contemplative, "'being" aspect oI religious consecration; the "useless" character o] anything which is an art, any-thing which is beautiIul. RELIGIOUS VOWS We share the richness of the lived experience of vowed commitment, as an institute and as individual members. Because of the radical and rapid changes occurring in society, we are called upon to re-think and re-articulate the meaning and purpose of religious consecration in today's world. It is a fact that we are now living our promises differently; therefore, there is a present need to speak of them differently. Today, more than ever, we need a positive explana-tion of the vows. Renunciation and detachment will always he valid and essential elements of this radical, total commitment. However, we must presently seek greater understanding of the YES aspect--the CHOICE OF LIFE. A spotlight on religious communities should reveal real people who live fully, love deeply, give totally, and enjoy life immensely. The three vows of consecrated celibacy, poverty, and obedience manifest the centrality of commitment to Christ in community. All three vows are facets of this ¯ This-meditative essay on the counsels was written at the request of the special general chapter of the Sisters of Mercy of the Union in the United States. Four sisters o~ the Union cooperated in writing the essay: Sister M. Catherine Daly, R.S.M.; Sister Patricia Smith, R.S.M.; Sister Marjorie Bosse, R.S.M.; and Sister M. Evangeline McSloy, R.S.M. The essay is printed in the R~v~w through the kindness of the superior general o[ the Union, Sister Mary Regina Cunningham, R.S.M.; Sisters of Mercy Generalate; I0000 Kentsdale Drive; P.O. Box 34446, Bethesda Post Office; Washington, D.C. 20034. + + ÷ The Counsels VOLUME 2~ 1970 193 The Coimsei~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 194: same reality. They are means to unity---community-- with God and with one another. Our vows can open us to all reality and, at the same time, help us to transcend, to .go beyond persons--to Person. CONSECRATED CELIBACY Chri~to~entric in inspiration and in direction, con-secrated celibacy, like all Christian values, has many dimensions. It is community-oriented, gift, faith-grounded, directed to the work of Christ, sign of what creation is and is called to be. In today's function-cen-tered, production-conscious society, the "waste" of celibate living signs to the absolute worth of the human person, to the being (as distinct from the doing) of man. Practica~ly and theologically, the celibate should be the universal pilgrim--moving on, challenging, opening up .narrowness, questioning preconceptions and vested interests. The religious, supported in her celibate com-mitment through community, signs beyond herself to the possibility of community. CONSECRATED CELIBACY is a free gift, a charism to be like Jesus Christ-- motivated by love [rom and for God to give undivided attention to the things of the Lord (I Cor 7:35) and to share in realizing God's kingdom. The celibate woman is sustained in faith because of God's promise to be ever faithful (Jr 31:33, 1 Pt 2:10; and so forth), experienced and nurtured in the dying-rising of the Paschal nlystery, trusting that there is a "more than" dimension to human life, to all reality. In her being and doing, the celibate stands as a sign of , God's love and active presence. By her being, she signs a~ a pledge, promise of harvest, hope (Key 14:4-5) to the proclamation of God's primacy in creation, to the reign of God as absolute, creative, fulfilling in her life, to the "already but not yet" tension between Christ'S first and final cosmic victory, to God's power in human weakness. Her consecration of her entire person to God, over and above any functional value she may offer, signs to the absolute worth of the human person in a tech-nological, bureaucratic world as a challenge to the priorities of that world. By her doing, she moves as pilgrim dynamically resdess, challenging preconceptions of ~'normality," the defini-tion of what it is to be human, and what it is to love humanly-- stepping in faith beyond the immediate to the uni-versal, signing to the personal, non-exclusive, non-possessive, and growth-giving love of God ¯ Bound to no one small circle, as Gospel woman ~he lives the Good News of Jesus Christ calling the whole human race, challenging any idol-atry of a particular nation, culture, religion, and so forth, free (and freeing others) for servi~ce, availability, heal-ing. Her use of her body signs that woman's sexuality is to be dedicated to many things; that to be woman is to be sensitive, kind, to speak truth, to share an interpersonal love . The celibate religious woman lives in a community built not on blood ties, ~ ~ but on a mutual drawing of person to person, and persons to Person, on ties of shared faith in divine power (Lk 1:49), shared vision of all that creation, under the Lordship of Christ, can be, shared support in her commitment to celibate lovingm witnessing to the possibilit~ of unity in a cosmos where men are searching to be one. VOWED POVERTY Christian history from its earliest beginning to the present day holds poverty to be a necessary part of the ~u'isdan life. It is a living out of the Gospel message: a genuine pilgrim people, humble and serving. Today more than ever before, however, poverty needs to be un-derstood in this true Christocentered approach. The "poor of Yahweh" must be grasped before visible ways of witnessing to poverty will be found. No longer can legislative interpretations be the guide to sharing in the poverty of Christ. P, eligious are living poverty differ-ently today and need to give expression to it in a whole new style of life---in a whole new manner of being; and of giving and sharing. The following statement is a simple meditative ap-proach to poverty which may hopefully stimulate a con-temporary thrust toward a creative reality of poverty in the lives of religious women vowed to poverty. The Counsels REVIEW FOR,RELIGIOUS 196 POVERTY is a dynamic human attitude toward life uniquely personal in expression seeking less to have than to be, and, in being to give expressing, personally and communally, a deep rever-ence for persons and things. Living in the manner of Jesus Christ, one vowed to. poverty accepts her total condition empties herself (Ph 2:1-I 1) seeks out the neighbors in need, using her gifts to serve them works in the same condition as people work today-- for a living. The woman truly poor, strives through her promise to trust fully in God as provider of all, even of life itself (Mr 6:25-34) to live without the assurance of tomorrow, in the glad-ness of today to accept humbly whatever God calls her to, to free herself of all unfreedoms, that she may share her person to offer all: voice to speak hands to touch~ heart to love openhandedly, to God's people through community In community, one vowed to poverty shares in the work of Christ: building the kingdom in an effort to affect more just distribution of wealth in personal responsibility for being collectively poor in the fruits of ordered minimalness: peace, joy in the present; hope, faith for the future In community of mercy, those vowed stand together corporately committed to simplicity of life possessing only to serve as a public sign before the world of Christ's all-sharing love stewards of the Master's goods held in trust-- feeding thepoor healing the sick teaching the uneducated visiting the needy, and so forth-- conscious that all things are theirs, that they are Christ's that Christ is God's (1 Cor 3:23) RELIGIOUS OBEDIENCE This description of obedience attempts to penetrate the meaning of an attitude much praised in Scripture: attentiveness to" God and readiness to do His will. Such an attitude is characteristic of the person who seeks out the ultimate meanings o[ things and goes beyond limita-tions: the person who lives by faith. This kind of person seems quite welcome in our contemporary world, par-adoxical though this might seem, agonized as this world might be over its own failures to promote human life, despite its marvelous successes in science and technol-ogy., athirst as it might be for those ultimates, those "beyonds" that give real meaning to life. OBEDIENCE is the power to seek out, to listen, and to hear the will of God. and the responsiveness, the readihess, to do it. Christians seek God's will in the leading of the Spirit speaking in the Christian community (Jn 1:29-51) Christ promised that the Father would send. "the Paradete, the Spirit of truth" (Jn 16:7-15) And they try to live as He did, whose very food was "to do the will of the Father" (Jn 4:80-8; 6) Religious vow to look for the Spirit,s promptings, and to do God's will with that community in which they have given them-selves, sure in faith that God will reveal His will among them, through the initiative and submission of all of them. through their personal struggles and mutual efforts to keep open to the truth in each one, accepting, appreciating, rejoicing in the different gifts among them, sure in faith, that He will make His will known ac-cording to role and need. Religious in positions of authority try to discern God's will by actively using all channels. It is a new insight on an old truth that the one governing is most in need. of the power to Obey. to listen., to hear. The call to leadership is a call to unify. Religious today realize anew, as did God's people in the Old Testament, that the Spirit speaks to the whole humart family through other signs, the "signs of the times": conditions, like afttuence and poverty, awareness of human dignity, racial tensions; events, like flights to the moon, assassinations and crime, team-work, celebrations, protests and dis-discoveries; people, like Eichmann and Ghandi, John Kennedy + + ÷ The Counsels VOLUME 2% 1970 and Martin Luther King, Jr., Dag'Hammarskjold, Dorothy Day, Jolm the XXlII, Darwin, Einstein, and Marx. PARADOXICALLY, The person who is growing in genuine obedience ~ 'becomes more and more humanly free (He who loses His life shall find it, Mt 10:39) Such a person becomes more and more attuned to the transcendent, alive to community, available for service, responding always anew ("God, here I aml I am coming to obey your will,'" Hb 10:7) + ÷ + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS GENERAL CONCLUSION The basic affirmation of Christian life: that God is our end, that all else is means, lies at the core of our under-standing of the vows. Ways of channeling our baptismal commitment, they proclaim publicly a choice of avail-ability, service. They point toward possibilities---of hu-man commitment, enduring fidelity, growth in process, becoming. They speak of and call us to live---a mystery. RELIGIOUS VOWS are means, signs of a personal choice: a commitment in faith to the God who is both among and beyond His people; a life orientation toward possibilities fo~ human actualization and for apostolic service; a radical attempt to incarnate the gospel message by living like Jesus Christ. Framed in terms of covenant, the vows intensify the God-man covenant made at baptism; acknowledge God's greatest gift--that He first loved us in Jesus Christ; express a human response to that gift; include the covenant relationship between God and the person, the person and her community. Public in nature, ecclesial in character, religious vows boldly proclaim as a "splendid and striking witness": a stance of constant presence before God, constant openness to the Holy in human life; an attitude of constant striving for more total avail-ability to God and to His people; gratitude for the mercy continually received from God through His people; communal commitment to the kingdom and to its com-ing. In a cosmos and among men viewed in terms of "proc-ess," religious vows attempt to express certain hu-man possibilities: of total self-giving, both in being and be~:oming; of fidelity amid change; of commitment not sterilely binding but creative; of growing in oneness in a fragmented so(Jety; of living mystery, in and through the Spirit, in a prob-lem- solving world. VOLUME 2% 1970 199, SISTER MARY FINN "Live--Do Not Be Overtaken by Death" ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister Mary Finn of the Home Visi-tors of Mary lives at 356 Arden Park; Detroit, Michigan 48202. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS I spend my evenings in an abandoned store a few blocks from our home in Detroit. The store is in the black community and is opened as a center for teenage boys. Last Spring we placed in the window a large pic-ture of the Black Christ. Invariabl~ every young man who stops and stands before the picture and looks--even for an instant--straightens up, puts his shoulders back, and stands tall. What loftiness is stirred whenever a man is faced and inspired and called beyond himself by an-otherl Great spirit and dignity and grace rise up when-ever a man stands before life. In looking up to this beau-tiful Black Christ young men are meeting the One who says: "I come that you may have life--more abun-dantly." A word today for someone who has life is "soul." When a black teenage dropout exclaims "Jesus has soul, man," he means very reverently what the Gospel means when Matthew says: "Jesus was led by the Spirit," or "Jesus is the way, the truth, the life," or "Jesus came that we might find life." Is there anything the ghetto searches for more than life? Anything the affluent, the student, the addict is more desperate for--than life? Our entire culture is hungry for life. Death prevails and abounds all around. We are men and women enclosed in a machine-centered world; encapsulated by professionalism and technology and humanitarianism; asphyxiated by accumulation of things and manipulation for power and craving for pleasure. Where does a man turn for life? What are the alternatives? Who are the sources of life in a technolog-ical culture? Religious are a people consecrated--really consecrated --to life in the midst of death. If ever our American culture needed religious people and institutions it is now --to show the individuals and institutions of our society that there really is an alternative to death., specifi-cally death.by-power, and death-by-wealth, and death- .by-pleasure. The alternative to dea.th-by-wealth is my vowed life of poverty. The alternative to death-by-power is my vowed life of obedience. The alternative to death-by- pleasure is my vowed, life of celibacy. This is the glory of religious life--that in ~/day when man is seduced unto death there are men and women and institutions consecrated to life. The glory of religious life is to bring men and institutions to LIFE. There are people in the world with a profound sense of life and people in the world with a deprived sense of life---life lovers and death lovers; people who lift up and people who cast down. I am a strange mixture of both. There is the death lover in me and the life lover in me: Reality is almost always experienced in the form of people, things, events. The death lover in me is fasci-nated by what is lifeless. I am scared and frightened by the wonder and mystery of life; so to protect myself from living I have all sorts of ways of exploiting people. The death lover in me handles people, manipulates them, disposes of people mechanically. I crave my own suc-cess and safety and will suppress a person who threatens me.The "music teacher" in Death at an Early Age is so threatened by the life, the artistry of 6th graders that she finds multiple ways to protect herself from life--to the point of kindly:killing creativity in the chil-dren. She squeezes the life out of one child, then another, and another, and finally brings about their death and the institution's death--all for her own safety. Only when she feels successful and becomes "master" of the child and has the child "under her control"--only then can she "praise" him. She literally kills the child; she desecrates life, snuffs inner life right out of a youngster because she herself is so deathly afraid of life. The death lover can't possibly be celibate with people because death-centeredness is violent and irreverent with life and to be celibate means to revere life--to initiate, foster, sustain life in a wonderful varie, ty 0f ways. This is'how the death-lover in me relates to people. Toward things the death lover in me is possessive. I ollect,~,hoard, and secure every little creature I desire, I'm threatened by what .I'm unable to possess and up-tight and" upset when. my "things" are slightly out of order. The woman in the Old Testament, who falsely claims to be mother of the child, is typical of the pos-sessiveness of the death lover. She prefers a properly divided dead child than to allow, the true mother pos-session of her living child. The,death lover can't possibly be poor because poverty VOLUME 29, 1970 ,REVIEW FOR REL[G[OUS 20~ is freedom from domination by things and liberation from enslavement to things. The death lover in me is possessed and "run by dead things." Toward events the death lover in me is fearful and forceful. I am dominated by a compulsion to control and master; power-hungry. My supreme values are power and order and having the situation under control--so well under control there is no room for variety or growth or spontaneity. The death lover in me runs the world like a great big machine. The death lover can't possibly obey because obedience means to listen and be responsive and available to the voice of life all around me. There is also the life lover in me, and the life loving me has special attitudes toward reality. As life lover I have a profound reverence for life--for people, th!ngs, events. I experience people with great joy and have a sense and belief in their almost unbelievable and won-derful individuality. For the life lover, every person is a special presence to be encouraged and brought more and more deeply to life. The death lover in me makes the individuality and uniqueness of the other a target--to be picked at and shot down. There is a lot of the sniper in the death lover. The life lover has a profound rev-erence for the life and specialness and individuality of the other, and when the other appears as unique the life lover in me becomes even more alive by coming to the support of the other who is being born in a new way. I foster and nourish the individuality of the other to be-come even more herself--more unique and individual. The death lover in me is scared and frightened and threatened by the specialness of the other so I become insecure with my own individuality. The life lover in me admires and promotes the specialness of the other and is at home and responsible for both the extensions and limitations of my own individuality. The attitude of reverence for my own individuality and the specialness of the other person is beautifully ex-perienced and expressed and sustained by vowed celi-bacy. My celibacy is an alternative to death-by-pleasure; a fundamental reverence for people--my own self and the self of other people. To be truly celibate means to be touched by life, to be brought alive by the uniqueness of the other and to bring others alive by my own unique-ness. To be celibate means to be a lively individual. It means I pulsate with vitality and generate an abiding attitude of personal and interpersonal reverence. The celibate in me is the great lover of life--re-creating life all around by my own wholehearted presence to life. Celibacy has a great lifting power. ToXbe celibate means not only to be at home with my cwn individuality and the individuality of the other, but to be creative even in unveiling the individuality of myself and the other. It means providing the truest con-ditions for unfolding life and immediately and ulti-mately manifesting the Lord Jesus. To be celibate has a lot to do with privacy and with being alone. Celibacy means I am able to be alone and to bring Out the individuality of the other who is alone. I feel my aloneness from my friend much more deeply than my aloneness from people less near, but if I really mean it when I say I respect the individuality of the other than I am able to "leave the other alone"--not to tamper or handle or seduce the other. My sense of alone-ness is an awesome sense of life and vibrancy, but in it I have moments of feeling my tendency to "prove" or "test" the closeness of the other to me. As soon as I do this--as soon as I try and touch and overhandle the intimacy of the other or overexpose my own intimacy --then I violate and betray my celibacy, and life disinte-grates- like a bubble. Being celibate and intimate with the other is more like two open hands cradling sand than clutching sand in my closed fist. Christ went about touching people--but what a difference in His touch and mine. Christ never touched anyone for His own sake-- to prove or test anything for Himself. He touched people only for the sake of their growth and life--for the sake of the Lord God. My sense of aloneness is a supreme moment of celibacy because it places me in an awesome experience of being born and coming to life. My celibacy is both a separation from "death" and communion with new life. As a life lover I also have a rather special experience of things. A great and wonderful multitude of things appear in my daily life: the things of technology--water that refreshes, clothes that adorn, vehicles that trans-port, gadgets that facilitate, books that illuminate; and all the wonderful things of nature--the enduring of a mountain, calm of a sunset, strength of water, grace of a flower, splendor of a leaf, gentleness of a meadow, free-dom of a bird. When things become more and more ap-pealing and plentiful and available the death lover in me looks and grabs and clutches. With some things I be-come overinvolved, infatuated, indiscriminate, cluttered. With other things I am cold, passive, uncaring, reckless. The life lover in me has a profound reverence for things and relates to them as a source of life and inspiration and celebration. The attitude of reverence and gratitude and joy for the gift of things is beautifully expressed and sustained by vowed poverty. My poverty is an alternative to death-by-possessiveness. Fundamentally poverty is reverence for things. To be poor in spirit VOLUME 4. 4. 4. $ist~,~ Ma~ Finn REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 204 is to be treed and serene and gra.ceful in the presence or absence of things. This experience of poverty redeems me from death, frees me trom domination by things, liberates me from enslavement to things. Poverty heals the break and rupture between myself and my posses-sions and restdres me and gives me a sense of wholeness and unity and harmony. The life lover in me has vision that penetrates and goes beyond the surface of things and enters into a communion with the inner meaning and life of things. Especially in a technological world this lively, delight-ful, restful relationship with things is not often found. It is fashionable to have and collect useful things, but not so fashionable to enter into the deepest meaning of things. To really commune with the heart of a. thing means I must take a kind of distance from its im-mediate usefulness. I can't rejoice when I look upon things too closely. Closeness in this sense suggests at-tachment and possessiveness. Possessiveness fills me with anxiety. Anxiety confines my spirit and ties me to the outer, superficial layer of the thing. When I stand back and am detached from the thing, then I become un-cluttered, unencumbered, and free to enter into the heart and mystery of the thing. It's when I come to the heart of the thing--to the center and the mystery of what the thing is--that I come to the moment of free and fruitful enjoyment. My poverty releases my spirit and my spirit breaks forth. I enter into and transform and bring to life whatever thing I touch. My poverty draws man toward great and abundant joy in things through detachment and reverence. Besides people and things reality is encountered in the form of events. The lover of life experiences events with a loose, playful, graceful spirit. We are confronted with all sorts of events---everyday. Events of nature: a storm, headache, double chin, expanding waisdine, gray hair. And we are confronted with the wonderful and fearful events of culture: change and growth and decay; and power and militancy and reactionary, traditional-ism; institutions and structures and systems. The death lover in me stands before events of change and growth, for example, with fear and suspicion--somewhat cold and calculating, overcautious and hesitant. When I move I move to control and enforce and restrain and master. For this I have need of power so I invoke "law and order." The death lover stands before events with a sense of fate and despondency. The life ldver is called to newer and greater and more profound life. by events of culture and nature. The profound reverence the life lover experiences for events is beautifully manifested by. vowed obedience and is a very precise alternative to death-by-power. Obedience means, fundamentally, .my reverence for events. Obedience means I am in communion with the deepest and most hidden and secret meaning of events-by listening. To obey means to quietly discover and listen to a secret. When I listen to reality I am born, raised up, and brought to life. Not drugs or inter-personal dynamics--but obedience--expands my con-sciousness, extends my horizons, uncovers my depths, brighten my vision, enables me to stand tall. When I listen to the mystery at the heart of a cultural or natural event I come into touch with myself at a new level, with the secret at the heart of the event itself, and ultimately and finally into touch and consciousness of the Lord Godmpresent and acting somewhere and somehow in the event. Each event then--when I am a lover of life--each event is a sacred event; a salvific event; redemptive. There is no event, no change or in-stitution or structure or sickness that is unholy. An event is not unholy. Unholiness is when I enter into an event in an unwhole or death centered manner. The obedient person is so much in love with life that she consecrates herself, vows to listen to the deepest voice of life all around her. She submits herself to the voice of reality in her culture and in nature in order to foster unity and reverence and serenity in the world. This listening experience of obedience is altogether different ~om the controlling experience. Listening is expecting.Controlling is handlingmtill there isn't any life left.' Neither of these attitudes toward reality comes in a pure form. In other words, the pure form of death lover or life lover is rare. The pure death .lover is insane. The pure life lover is a saint. Most of us average people are a blend. What matters is that I know and am aware and discerning of both movements within myself. Becauge of the profound need in our culture, and for the preservation and enrichment of the truest values of the society itself, and especially by the very real but simply unexplainable mystery of God calling me and touching my life in the way He does--I am one whose way is meant to be an alternative. I am consecrated to life in the midst of death, poverty in the midst of plenty, celibacy in the midst of pleasure, obedience in the midst of power. This is my call. It is a profoundly personal experience of the living God forever calling me to abundant life, forever faithful to me. I cannot ex-plain my call to another. I am able to describe some moments of it--but never explain it. It is mystery. I can only live it. The deepest moments of life are always born and unfold in mystery. But forever, somewhere in VOLUME 29, 1970 ÷ ÷ ÷ RL~VIE'~ FOR RELIGIOUS 2O6 my heart, I know well I am called by One who is faith-ful. His call to me is enduring. I experience His fidcli:.y as well and as really as my own infidelity. I may repress my call, cover it up, run from it, hide--but forever it is my experience to be called to center my life prhnarily and consistently around the living God. In fai,h and quiet readiness and humble awareness I am able to do this. In a predominantly technological and function cen-tered culture my religious life, then, individually and institutionally, is a radical departure from the system and the establishment and superficial values and struc-tures. "Radical" means "deep within" not "way out." Religious life is truly radical. By centering life (in this machine and man centered world) primarily and con-sistently around the Lord I take a radical stand toward reality. A function centered culture has its special at-titude toward reality. It prizes and gives priority to pos-sessing things, pleasing people, controlling events. To live in the midst of things with an attitude of poverty, and in the midst of people with an attitude of celibacy, and in the midst of events with an attitude of listening says in a radical way to the members and institutions of my function centered culture that there is another way, that there is an alternative. The religious is the alternative. She offers love of life as an alternative to death centeredness and ultimate religious meanings as an alternative to superficial and' peripheral meanings, and releases the Spirit as an alter-native to fixation on the material: God centeredness as an alternative to the merely humanitarian. This life may actually appear a bit too radical, too threatening for a culture so permeated and centered around values of possessing things, pleasing people, and controlling situations, and consequently may draw a kind of ridicule. The culture may do to us what we find our-selves doing to whatever we can't cope with. We either don't see it or we ridicule it. When this happens it be-comes quite difficult for certain personalities to remain available and receptive to the mystery of poverty, celi-bacy, obedience. They want to "rename" the experience something else, or explain away the mystery of religious living, or so rationalize their life that they become un-able to remain faithful. I may be tempted to question my call and to shift m~t centeredness to what is super-ficial and peripheral. To go on living, however, and to become the gracious recipient of misunderstanding and ridicule bestowed by a function centered culture--to be chastened and purified and to endure the ambiguity of it all--this is the "price" as Kierkegaard says of "willing one thing." The One Thing---or the One the religious wills is Christ Jesus. I make my willingness explicit by my vowed reverence for reality, and this very reverence is a profound alternative to the death and violence that thread through a culture where values are primarily and consistently functional. Religious community is a beautiful means of fostering and sustaining, religious centered life and discovering and manifesting the most radical and religious mean-ings of life. Religious community is radically different £rom other kinds of community just as religious centered living is radically different from function centered living. Reli-gious community is "where" religious life and centered-ness are born and sustained and enriched. Religious community is where we provide a home for each other and room for each one to be a special individual, where we joyfully engage ourselves in Christ's life and call each other to life and urge each other to go through the Pass-over togethermthe ultimate experience of life. Religious community is where we transform the life and attitudes, where we "expand the consciousness" of each other, where we are purified and healed and transfigured, where we enable each other to live as uniquely and fully as possible. Religious community is where each of us is marvelously engaged in telling one another the good news, inspiring each other to uncover the living God dwelling in her own heart, calling one another to un-cover her religious heart by her own special presence, encouraging one another to be a special individual and to share with each one in a grand variety of ways one's own special religious experience. Being together in religious community is being together in Christ. Christ is the center of our religious life, so together we initiate, form, and sustain a Christ centered life. We speak to each other by our religious living together: "Keep in mind Jesus Christ." In religious community there are all sorts of room for tremendous diversity--diversity of personality, inclina-tions, cultures, races, expectations, ages. Wonderful unity is born out of this diversity. Religious community is a heartfelt experience of Christ initiating and accomplishing redemption in me. I need His touch of redemption in my doublemindedness and indecisive conformity to peripheral values. I am inclined to betray life, to shift from religious to less ul-timate and radical living. But in religious community my sisters urge me out of darkness and death and sus-tain me in light and life. This fills me with a sense of joy and enables me to speak my courageous "yes" to live life religiously, to unfold my attitudes of expectancy and enthusiasm for life, my roominess and fxiendliness, VOLUME 29, 1970 207 ÷ 4- ÷ REVIEW FOR REL;GIOUS 208 my pioneering and prophetic spirit. Religi6us commu-nity gives my spirit direction, inspires me to face God and my sister and fellow man as an individual of great peace and inner unity and decisiveness to life whole-heartedly. My sisters call me toward the Unknown. They name me "sister" and ask me to share with them--not just what is external, but the hidden treasures of my heart. I need their light to quicken my desires and their help to form my consciousness and their inspiration that I may be graced with the ability to leave life alone and not overhandle and extinguish the breath of any living spirit. Religious community is where I make a home for my sisters and communicate to them the radical and ulti-mate meaning of life and my own radical consecration and identity. Religious community is life centered but not the center of life. When the community is actually religious the Lord God is our one Center. Community is a means of initiating, forming, and sustaining our God centered life. The purpose of religious community is to speak "Father, . Son," "Spirit"--to say to each participant: "K, eep in mind Jesus Christ; keep in mind your life center." If the community "says" anythingelse it is not religious community. If the community claims to be religious but in reality says: "I am the center of life," it lies and cheats and creates confusion and becomes more dead than alive. Religious community is reaIly meant to say--very simplyPto all its members: "Pray"; "be holy"; "be alive to the call of God in Christ jesus." Members of our culture who feel the call to live more radically--artists and students and black people-- look all about them for alternatives. When they look toward the establishment they see power, greed, pleasure. What are the alternatives? Where are they? Or rather-- who are the alternatives? The celibate me is a radical alternative to a. passion centered and pleasure centered culture. The poor me is a radical alternative to a pos-session centered culture. The listening, obedient me. is a radical alternative to a power centered culture. I betray the brightest, most creative and sensitive and radical people of my culture when I betray my poverty and replace it with preoccupation and fascina-tion with budgeting, clothing, entertainment, traveling. I betray these same people when I replace my obedience and creative listening with a preoccupation and fascina-tion for management, control, manipulation, domina-tion. And I betray them when-I substitute my celibacy with preoccupation and fascination with personal corn- fort and appearance, with pleasure, popularity, and maneuvering to be "in." A second remark by way of conclusion concerns replacements for the living God. There are all sorts of replacements. We e~ich have our own preferred variety, our own little gods and golden calves and plastic idols. One of the golden calves is humanitarianism. In place of Christ at the center of my life I put myself and humanity. In place of consecration I put commitment; in place of prolonged contemplative prayer, endless drawn out dialogue and interpersonal relationships; the institution and mass identity in place of the individual's uniqueness; majority rule in place of self-determination. In place of self-surrender I put self-consciousness; in place of life, death; in place of spiritual reading, study ~ind learning and the daily paper; in place of liturgy, secular celebrations; in place of intuition, measurement; in place of asceticism, ease; in place of mystery, proof; in place of recollection and withdrawal, overinvolvement; in place of the unknown, the' known; in place of dis-cernment, public opinion; in place of faith, ration-alism; in p/ace of insight, behaviorism; in place of re-sponsibility, conformity; in place of internalizing and personal appropriation, objectification; in place of in-spiration, explanation; in place of decision, discussion; in place of celibate community, personality compatibility; in place of harmony, specialization; in place of spiri-tuality, sociology and psychology; in place of spiritual direction, group dynamics. My fascination with nature may even become a re-placement and substitute for the living God. The touch of nature, the beautiful and artistic may well dispose my heart for the Lord God--or may become a substi-tute. Theology may become a substitution or replacement for spirituality. They are quite unalike., as different as Karl Barth and Thomas Merton, as different as Tan-querey and Teresa of Avila. Another golden calf is the crowd--which becomes a major replacement or substitution for religious com-munity. The crowd is the great killer of life and prayer and wholeness; the great and gigantic intruder upon the ground of the Lord. Crowd is different from reli-gious community. Community which is religious ini-tiates, fosters, sustains religious centeredness. The crowd protects me from the most radical depths of meaning because it deprives me of that authentic aloneness and true individuality necessary to go very deep. Crowd squeezes the life out of me and becomes a divisive and shattering force against my consecration. It is especially the task of the religious in the culture ,,L~,~ ~09 to be radically set aside from the crowd, to become an alternative and to inspire the peaceful individuality of the others. The religious is the one who is able to be profoundly alone and profoundly related to others. She is able to stand, to live outside the crowd around her by uncovering the uniqueness of her own life and re-specting the life of the other. The celibate religious stands in the culture, in the midst of men, as the one so consecrated to life that she refuses to exchange her cen-teredness around the Lord for assimilation and death in the crowd. I betray my call and my religious community and the entire culture whenever I avoid or repress or replace commtinion with the Lord God with any other com-munion. Religious are meant to stir up loftiness and great spirit and dignity and grace so that those who look upon religious life, even for an instant, may straighten up, throw their shoulders back, and stand tall because they have found life abundantly. Religious are meant to say to the culture in which they live: "Receive the touch of the Lord and live. Do not be overtaken by death." ÷ ÷ ÷ ~.~ter Ma~ F~nn REYIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 210 EDOUARD POUSSET, s.J. Human Existence and the Three Vows The Gospel texts* contain a threefold call con-cerning the kingdom: chastity, poverty, and the humble service, of others in obedience to the Father. Every Christian must necessarily reach a point where he real-izes that he is personally involved in this call and that he must, within the limits of his own vocation, conform his life to it. When this call makes itself heard in a man's life it penetrates to the very heart of his existence and invites him to make what can only be described as a staggering conversion. Everything that counts for a human being is, in fact, directly involved: marriage and a family and the possessions which his work and his freedom of action obtain for him. Whoever hears this call is obliged to reorientate his life and it can happen that a man will go so far as to renounce, . through a death and resurrection which transform him, the essential values of his existence: ¯. there are eunuchs who have made themselves that way for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can (Mt 19:12)¯ . sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come follow me (Lk 18:22). ¯. anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be slave to all (Mk 10:43--4). It was in this way that all forms of consecration to the Lord which include the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience were born in the Church. These three vows do not in any way consist in marginal practices and devotions. Chastity renews the heart out of love for God and creatures. Poverty establishes a new re-lationship between man and the riches of this world. ¯ This article was first published in French in Vie consacrde, vol-ume 41 (1989), pp. ~-94. The translation was made by William Russell, S.J.; St. Joseph's Abbey; Spencer, Massachusetts 01562. 4" Edouard Pomset, S.J., is professor philosophy at Lea Fontaines; ~O-Chan-tilly, France. VOLUME 2% 1970 4. 4. 4. Edouard Pou~set, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Obedience converts the desire for power and by so doing initiates man into true [reedom. The wows are man's very existence as it is lived out. in accordance with the death and resurrection o[ Christ.1 That is their greatness. But the renunciation which they entail has so direct, an effect" on the living sources and, the very structures of existence that today many are asking themselve.s if they do not doom those who pronounce them to live a life which is inhuman. And let us be honest about it, thi~ is a risk. What are these living sources, these fundamental structures of man's very existence? What does the gospel call to perfection entail? In what way are the vows a risk? How does someone live the vows? How can the risk involved be overcome by dying and being resur-rected jn Christ here and now in this world? Human Existence Man makes his appearance on the scene of life and advances in existence by a triple dynamism which un-folds in three essential activities. By means of these activities h~ develops a human s6ciety and thereby comes to understand what he is. First, there is the amorous desire which directs a human being towards his counterpart: man towards woman and woman towards man. It is this desire which is at the origin of the conjugal and familial society. Secondly, there is the power to transform and ap-propriate for oneself the natural universe which is the extension of one's body. By his work a man takes possession of this world and establishes' an economic society iri which the relationship between all the mem- XThis definition presents a difficulty, namely .that of being ap-plicable to every Christian life and not restricted to the religious life as such. Nonetheless, inasmuch as we are attempting to situate the religious life in its relationship to human existence in general and not to the life of Christians who are not religious this difficulty is of no consequence in this context. Those who would like a more precise treatment of this point may wish to consult Karl Rahner's article, "La thfiologie de la vie religieuse," in the collec[ive .work, Les religieux au]ourd'hui et deraain, Paris: Cerf, 1964, pp. 53-92. The fullness of Christianity--the perfection of love for God and man-can be attained without the vows. But religious life, because of the renunciation which it entails, "makes apparent in a very evi-dent manner and incarnates in an obje.ctive reality the faith in the supernatural grace of God which transcends this world." It is quite true that a Christian who marries, possesses his goods, and enjoys his independence can integrate the values of this world in a life of faith and thereby reach perfection. But because his existence (mar-riage, wealth, freedom) already has a value discernible by this world, independently of faith, "it does not make the transcendence of grace and faith evident in such an impressive way" (pp. 79 and 8~). And this is exactly what religious life accomplishes. bers strengthens the individuality of each one and each one's individuality strengthens the relationship which exists between the members. Thirdly, there is the desire to be independent, which is man's way of asserting his freedom when confronted by his counterpart, and his ability to conduct himself rationally. This desire is at the origin of the political society where interdependencies take shape which are the conditions of each one's freedom. Man is a being of nature, he is part of nature, but he is not, as is the animal, merely immersed in nature. He is consciousness, which implies that he can stand up to nature, look upon it as the object of his under-standing and his action, and so dominate it. A careful analysis of the relationship which man maintains with the world by sensible and intellectual knowledge would show that he is able to hold his own with everything that exists: the earth and sky and all they contain as well as what they cannot contain. The universe is his property, the object of his consciousness, and it is his vocation to make this universe---even though he is com-pletely exiled from it when he first appears in the world--his own. When he has emerged from nature, all of nature has at one and the same time been gathered together in him and remained entirely ex-terior to him. Both present to and absent from him, the universe is for him the object of a fundamental desire. And this sitiJation renews itself each time a human being is born. An infant is different from an animal in that the latter has particular, selective in-stincts, whereas the child reaches out for everything and puts it in his mouth. Everything is his. Because he is desire, the human being is desire to dominate and possess. But by coming in contact with others and experiencing the things of nature he is forced to adjust this desire both to the resistance he discovers in things and to the comparable desire he finds in others. The master finishes by finding his own master and .at times he even finds him,. in the servant he first sought to enslave. The oppositions and the struggles result in humanizing men by bringing them. little by little, to know themselves~ for what they are, to respect one another, and to get along with each .other. But because, he is desire, the human being, at the same time .as he is desire to dominate and to possess, is also the secret aspiration to find in another a subject simi-lar to himself who recognizes him without being forced 2 To I~ow onesell (se reconaRre): a precise phrase whose meaning is very strong. By mutual recognition each one sees and appreciates in the other what he is and even contributes to the creation of this value within him. 4. 4. the Vows VOLUME 2% 1WO 21~ + ÷ Edotmrd Pousset, S.]. REVIEW FOR REL|G[OUS ~14 to do so and who enables him to exist as subject as well. Without this aspiration no mutual and brotherly recognition would result from the play of forces and violence. It is this aspiration which, coupled more or less with the desire to dominate and to possess, sets man and woman in motion one towards the other: Man and woman are drawn by their very desire to seek in the other the subject, the 'T' which is able to affirm their own subjectivity, so that their harmonized reciprocity must converge in union . If man and woman succeed in giving themselves in a gift of mutual and equal assurance they can then embrace and merge in an act which establishes their unity? We have all known engaged couples and we know only too well to what extent the meeting between a young man and woman and the promise which they make one to another can transform them and develop in them potentialities which were hidden up to that time and cause them, as it were, to blossom. An un-questionable sign that they are, one for the other, be-coming more human. The relationship between a man and his wife results in the conjugal and familial society. By the union of the sexes the desire of the human being to possess nature and be recognized as a person by another person is fulfilled in a way that is partial and yet which takes the form of an intense communion. What con-stitutes the attraction of this relationship is not so much the pleasure, in the trivial sense of the term, but rather the intense communion with nature and with men. By his body each spouse recapitulates for the other all of nature, and this body is at the same time a free subject who gives himself to another subject whom he recognizes as being worthy of this gift. All the devia-tions and all the failures which can be blamed on the desire to dominate and to possess which is mixed in with the love drive do not erase the grandeur and the beauty of this mystery. Man and woman come to know one another and out of their union a child is born. By him they become father and mother. Paternity and maternity are not added on to their respective beings much like a particu-lar and accidental function; it is a re-creation of them-selves by themselves, and by their child. By this re-creation man and woman reach the fullness 6f their masculine and feminine beings, and no one who has seen a young mother bending over the crib of her little child or heard a father announcing the birth of his son could ever doubt this. All those who have 3 Gaston Fessard, "Le myst~re de la soci~tfi," Recherches de sciences religieuses, 1948, pp. 168-9, and again in L'actualitd historique, vol-ume I, Descl~e de Brouwer, 1960, p. 164. consecrated themselves to the Lord by the vow of chastity know these things, they think about them-- at times with nostalgia--and they would like to be no less man and woman, within their own vocation, than their married brothers and sisters. Nevertheless, we must not lose sight of the fact that the relationship between man and woman con-ceals an antinomy: that of love (the disinterested de-siring of good for the other and the hope of being recognized by him) and that of selfish desire to domi-nate and to possess for oneself. In marriage this antinomy is resolved but by a fragile balancing which is easily put into question. However successful family life may be it is the success of a particular group. Even harmonious--supposing they are so--family relation-ships retain the stamp and the limits o[ their origin: a biological generation which, of itself, produces only the particular bond of blood. But the human being requires a more universal society so as to become fully himself; this explains why the child once grown up leaves the family circle and enters a larger society, that of work, where he comes in contact with other men. This transition is brought about by a necessary movement: even before he experiences the narrow-ness of the family circle man must work to live and this work gives rise to relationships which are more universal than those of the family. To work is to confront and transform nature so as to take exclusive possession of it by adapting it so that it becomes one's own. Whether it be the first gathering together of things by the cave man or the building of a space capsule it is always man appropriat-ing nature, By his work he procures the goods which satisfy his needs (consumer goods) and which extend his individual body into the world (tools, equipment). This appropriation of the world by man is not only r~ecessary for his sustenance; the strengthening of his individuality depends on it as well. Even supposing that he has what he needs to satisfy his animal need to eat and drink, man, without his house and the objects with which he fills it, without the tools of his work, would scarcely be a man at all. He needs to possess these things so as to reinforce his existence in the world. Without them he is a poor creature indeed. Step by step he must possess the entire universe. The world, t~ansformed and organized by work and tech-niques, is man's body. To make the world and its riches one's own is a human act as spontaneous as it is necessary; it stems from a need, itself as undefined as the desire behind it. It is this need---the limitless ÷ ÷ ÷ VOLUME 29, 1970 ÷ ÷ ÷ Edot~r. , d Pousset, REVIEW. ~FOR ,RELIGIOUS 21,.6 multiplicity of needs and their satisfaction--which gives birth to the economic society. By means of his work man extends his intelligence and his strength .into a produ.ct Which he fashions as he distances himself from nature. This produtt, the re-sult of his work, is at first exterior to him, but in a second time it must return to him in one way ,or an-other so that he might consume it and thereby satisfy his needs. This is the circuit which takes shape: work stemming from a need; the producing of an exterior object; the appropriation and satisfaction of a need by consumption. But as he works within this circuit man comes into contact with other men as well as with nature and these men, in turn, are also at work. Their meeting gives rise to an indefinite and indefi-nitely more complex development of this circuit: in-stead of consuming the product of his work directly he exchanges it for the product of another. Exchange is a factor of progress and by it, so long as one is also a producer, one can obtain things under the best of conditions and at the lowest costs. The more a society develops the more the rate of exchange is intensified within that society and the contrary is equally true. But the desire to dominate and possess which is at the very heart of man enters into this circuit of produc-tion and exchange and throws of[ the mechanisms thereby causing all sorts of disorders and frustrations to the detriment of one and all and even to entire classes of society. This desire is at the root of the social conflicts which periodically disrupt the life of a nation. No economic system has yet found the solution to the contradictions which arise within human activity. When a solution is introduced at a given point, as in the socialist system which deprives private property of the means of production, difficulties spring up at some other point. The economic sodety does not possess the means of resolving the problems it generates. In addition, the economic society' exists only Within another .sphere, the political society, which comes into being as a r~sult of the relationship of one man ~o another. Man, as he emerges 'from animal nature, comes in contact with another "man and a domination of one over the other is the consequence of their encounter. WithOut this dominatiori of a "master" who forces his "slave" to work, the elementary needs which the hu-man being feels would have led him only so far as to~ instinctively gather up things or to hunt and this would not have been enough to draw him out of his animal nature. If the young schoolboy was not~ obliged by his teacher .to make straight strokes beiween the lines of his notebook or to decifer the marks in his school book he would never do much more than scribble, he would never learn to read and write and he would not become intelligent. At the root of all human and humanizing activity there is a discipline, a law, either one which man's reason imposes upon himself once he has become reasonable or one imposed on him by an-other in those areas where his reason has not yet at-tained full competence or efficiency. When a man comes in contact with another, author-ity is made apparent, as is obedience. The one and the other are necessary for the development of ]reedgm which is, in the final analysis, the value with which the political society is chiefly concerned. Whether it is a question of a band of thieves or a group of disciples which a saint gathers about himself, the authority of the leader is asserted and accepted as a fact. It is then legitimized by the feel and concern for the common good of the group which is evident in the person of the leader. This will be the very basis of the obedience of the members of the group. The dialogue between leader and subordinates stems from this mo'tivation" of the common good, and it is this dialogue which defines the obligations and rights of each one. Thus the flee dom of each member keeps pace with political society as it develops, whether it be a gang, a clan, a nation, or an empire. It is in political society that the desire of each one to be free and responsible for his conduc( takes shape. This determination, as in the case of the love drive and the act of making the world one's own, comes from the very depths of man, from what I have referred to above as desire. It is inalienable and s6 powerful that it is capable of setting in motion entire peoples fighting for their independence, for. and against anything and everything. It is good in itself but it can deteriorate both in an individual and in societies into a desire for power and a sense of pride which affect political relationships more or less seriously and at times provoke the most violent of conflicts be-tween individuals or peoples. Such, summarily analysed, is this third sphere of human experience, that of the relationship of man to man as he is taken as a human being independent of the man-woman distinction. It is the political society which attempts to integrate with-out destroying and to unify without confusing the two preceding spheres: the family and the economic so- .ciety. Amorous desire, the power to appropriate the uni-verse for oneself, the determination to be independent, free, and responsible are three "drives" which can giv, e birth to three passions or sins: the inordinate desire of the flesh; the thirst for riches and for self; the desire. t ././././~. l,'otus VOLUME 29,~1970~. ~ '" . Edouagd Pousset, $.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS for power and pride of spirit. The gospel call is not only addressed to these three capital sins, however, but reaches us at the very heart of our existence, inviting us to live according to the paradox of death and resurrection and thereby to go beyond ourselves towards the Love which is the life of the Holy Trinity. The Gospel Call The gospel call to chastity is one addressed to all. Some live chastity by remaining single while others-- by far the greater number--live it within the ~amework of a monogamous and indissoluble marriage. On this point Christ. preaches more by His silence and His own example than by what He has to say. Yet He also speaks of it in these terms: . there is no one who has left house, wife,¯ brothers, parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not be given repayment many times over in this present time and, in the world to come, eternal life (Lk 18:29-30). These words were first addressed to a man who had heard Jesus, the messenger of the good news, and who in turn desired to be God's herald. He had to be ready to leave everything at a moment's notice for the sake of the kingdom. "Because of my name" Matthew writes. This phrase from Luke quoted above sums up what is essential: to follow Jesus for the sake of the kingdom which, for some at least, includes the two conditions of detachment and freedom of action. In another pas-sage of St. Luke we find a similar warning but in this instance it is worded in the form of a far more general requirement: "If. anyone comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple" (Lk 14:26). And our Lord adds: "Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another is guilty of adultery and the man who marries a woman divorced by her husband commits adultery" (Lk 16:18). Finally, at the conclusion of his teaching on the prohibition of divorce which so puzzled his disciples, Our Lord sets the price even higher when he speaks of "eunuchs who have made themselves that way for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who canV' (Mt 19:12). Some have supposed, perhaps rightly so, that Jesus was referring to examples familiar to His listeners, John the Baptist for instance. They ask themselves if, in this comparison, He was thinking of perpetual con-tinence. Are we reading into these texts if we find in ¯ In parallel texts neither Matthew nor Mark make mention of the wife. them what Christ taught about the freedom r.equ, i~ed,, for following Him? Or does this interpretation take the edge off the point of our Lord's statement? J.-P. A,udet, who is not one to exaggerate the meaning of texts, asks himself these very questions and finds it ,preferable "to consider that Jesus was effectively thinking of the free choice of perpetual continence." 5 In the light of the example of our Lord tradition has interpreted this declaration as a. call to religigus chas-tity kept for the sake of the kingdom. Though the call to poverty recurs in numerous tex~ts, it appears at times to be addressed to very few: "If you wish to be perfect, go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow reel (Mt 19:21). And yet this call is re-echoed in a warning against riches which is addressed to all: "How hard it is for those who have riches to make their Way into the king-dom of Godl" (Lk 18:24). In their primitive context these calls and warnings are to be understood as con-ditions for greater freedom necessary for one who car-ries the good news to others. They do not imply the condemnation of riches, even if they do underline the possible obstacle riches can be for those who hope for the kingdom. These calls become, in other passages, very general requirements which have to do with every disciple: Sell your possessions and give alms. Get yourselves purses that do not wear out, treasure that will not fail you, in heaven where no thief can reach it and no moth destroy it. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Lk 12:33-4). One must be careful not to hoard: "Watch and be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for a man's life is not made secure by what he owns." (Lk 12:15). Free with regard to the goods of this world the disciple abandons himself to providence: "But you, you must not set your hearts on things to eat and things to drink . Your Father well knows you need them" (Lk 12:29-30). Poverty is not sought out for itself; it is desired for that confident abandonment which prepares us for the intimacy of the kingdom. By poverty man becomes like unto God, a child o[ the king-dom; he follows the lead of the Son who is supremely poor (and thereby rich) in His relationship to His. Father. Because of one's poverty which makes~ him a child of the kingdom the hundredfold is repaid him here and now. As regards obedience, which is not the object of a for- ~ J.-P. Audet, Mariage et cdlibat dans le service pastoral de l'Eglise, Paris: Orante, 1967, p. 58. . ¯ . 4. 4. 4. Existence the Vows VOLUME 29,,1970 . 219 mal call in the gospels, it is, as seen in the Son of Man, the very heart of His mystery: "My aim is to do not my own will, but the will of him who sent me" (Jn 5:30). But the will of the one who sent Him was that the Son give His life for many: "For the Son of Man himself did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mk 10:45). He calls to a service which He Himself has fulfilled in obedience to the Father: to become the slave of all as He did whose "state was divine, yet., he emptied himself to assume the conditions of a slave., even to accepting death, death on a cross" (Ph 2:6-8): 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, anyone who wants to be-come great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be slave to al'. (Mk 10:42-4). This is how a man enters into life: "I have come so that they may have life, and have it to the fulF' (Jn 10:10). By religious profession this threefold call becomes the institutional norm of those who are called to this vocation.6 But confronted with what man is ac-cording to the dynamism of his nature, namely desire, the power to dominate and to possess the earth, and the determination to be independent, this gospel call institutionalized by the vows raises a problem felt very keenly in our times. Is it human to renounce the carnal expression of love, to renounce all goods, and to submit one's will to the power of another? Does the renunciation called for by the Gospels succeed in opening man up or does it accomplish just the opposite by imposing frustrations, on him? The Risk Involved in the Vows If the renunciation spoken of in the Gospels leads to a resurrection in this world it will be seen that it e Even if life in a religious institute is not the vocation of all, the renunciation called for in the Gospels does concern everyone in that all are called to perfection, to the kingdom of God, and to love, Man and wife, as they enter into a fruitful union and thereby collaborate by marriage in the creative work of God have to make their way as Christians towards the resurrection. They must be attentive to the grace which will perhaps predispose them and permit them to un-fold by choice, here and now, into the life of the Kingdom "where men and women do not marry" (Mk 12:25). Even those whose voca-tion is to make the earth bear fruit and to organize existence in this world are invited to become poor with Christ who was poor. Finally, in accordance with the diversity of states of life all Christians have to share the mystery of the Son who "'emptied himself., even to accepting death" (Ph 2:7-8) by living in such a manner as to make it apparent to all that they are disciples of the Master who "did not come to be served but to serve" (Mk 10:45). re-creates man and that it will not work against him except insofar as it enables him to be fulfilled over and above what he might have otherwise attained. But does this renunciation spoken of in the Gospels actually lead to a resurrection here in this world? Isn't it, for many who have embraced it, merely putting up with a num-ber of frustrations? Isn't it rather a question of slipping into and getting bogged down in mediocrity? Faced with this question one can first point out that the human being becomes human only to the extent that he exercises a certain interior asceticism over his spontaneous drives and converts their instinctive vio- ¯ lence into reasonable behavior. Without this the love drive, the power to make the universe one's own, and the desire to be independent are neither human nor hu-manizing. Yet it is quite true that the renunciation of the Gospels goes beyond this interior asceticism. Not only does it discipline nature, in a sense it contradicts it: to die so as to be reborn, yes, but to die, and in a very radical sense. If this is lived out in an awkward fashion it can give rise to harmful repressions and frustrations. This is the risk involved in the vows; this is why they are sometimes said to be "inhuman." But this does not tell the whole story behind the vows and the renunciation requested in the Gospels. If such were the case we would be left with the as-surance that they are both bad and harmful. Nor is this, generally speaking, the initial experience of those who embrace the religious life.7 But it is one aspect of the truth; it is a moments in Christian growth and development as the experience of religious life shows us when the daily ordinariness is felt over a period of 7 Most young people who respond to a call to a religious or priestly vocation experience their consecration as a fulfillment rather than as a profound contradiction or frustration of their being. Generally speaking di~culties arise later on in their religious life. s,,Moment,, implies a "stage" or "point" within a development. What is characteristic of a "moment" is that it contains all the re-ality which a development will eventually produce but without as yet making it apparent in an adequate way. Reality at this stage is seen under one or several of its aspects but not as yet in its totality. Therefore at a given moment when the renunciation spoken of in the Gospels and the vows themselves are felt to be "inhuman" we have an example of a partial truth overshadowing a more complete one: that the vows do not contradict man's fundamental dynamism except insofar as they enable him to outdistance this very dynamism and so fulfill him in a higher order of reality. To the extent that the religious will enter into this higher order of reality the more clearly will he recognize that the vows, far from being inhuman, are actually eminently humanizing. In certain periods of crisis or de-pression this more total truth can be entirely obscured. At such a time the partial but very real aspect of the truth--that the vows contradict human nature and can in a sense be said to be "inhuman" --is sometimes felt very acutely. the Vows VOLUME 29, 1970 221 Edouar d : Pousse t, REVIEW. F.O.R RELIGIOUS 222 -:years, when one finds it difficult to accept events, situa- ~tions, others, and even oneself, when disappointments .and deceptions begin to weigh on us. But this reality is. no scandal. For. those 'who have experienced the ups and. downs of their religious existence it is, in a sense, liberating. One can actually profit from such an ~experience by carefully evaluating it and seeing it as it ~eally is: limited, partial, and always there in the background. . This "inhuman" side o[ renunciation and the vows is especially noticeable when one confronts the celibate religious with the essential dynamism which draws man and woman one to the other and which finds its ¯ growth in the unity of a fruitful love. In the marriage .state ,perfectly happy lives are, without doubt, less numerous than those would have us imagine who are :sooyery alert to the failures or half-failures of religious life and who place, the cause of these " failures squarely on celibacy. It is nonetheless true that when we ~consider the physiological and psychic make-up of man .and woman, human love and its carnal expression .oppear as both the means and the goal of their ful-fillment ¯ here on earth. Human beings develop through :relationships;. and the richest, the most fruitful, the most humanizing of relationships seems to be that of a .man and woman united in a love which generates free-dom and responsibility. In marriage even those who are not destined to enjoy "the tomorrows that sing" experi-enc_ e,, at least in the beginnings, the joy of loving and ~being loved, the unfolding of an immense hope and .fll. e certitude of having found it. When their sexual attraction, diffused up to that time, is centered on a chosen being, man and woman, by the exercise of their freedom, reach maturity and enter concretely into a di~alogue which creates an even greater freedom. Their love~ in its carnal expression, because it is pledged ac- .cording to the concrete conditions of this freedom where each one is, for the other, a permanent appeal for a gratuitous love, must of necessity rule out whatever is ambiguous and whatever causes the possessive and domi-nating instinct to weigh heavily upon it. This may or may: not be the case; love can renew itself each day or it can slip into the trite and the ordinary; freedom can either grow or, on the contrary, become an alienato i~i~': force. The precise conditions of this creation and gr.o.wth 'are, however, given' to us: a man and a woman who choose one another accept whatever a life lived t6gether .entails, the grandeur as well as the risks of a frutiful union. /OppOsed to this is the notion that one who remains celibate or who chooses celibacy deprives himself of the very means of reaching maturity. He will, in any case, probably be longer in reaching that maturity. And doesn't the universal availability of the celibate conse-crated to God, an availability which does not link him to any one person in particular, mask an escape? Doesn't it place him outside the real conditions of af-fective life?° Finally, doesn't the ,sexual drive, contra-dicted in celibacy, run the risk of being kept under control by being repressed inasmuch as it does not find, it would seem, an expression which channels it, disciplines it, and makes it fruitful in directing it to the service of a creative love? These questions are by no means merely theoretical. Religious poverty gives rise to problems which are probably not so delicate as those raised by chastity. Poverty has to do with things and reaches the human being less directly. What would create a problem today is not so much religious poverty as the lack of it. We question ourselves more about the way of living poverty than about the means of remedying eventual inconveniences. Among possible inconveniences we should perhaps mention infantilism or the failure to fully realize what is involved in money matters or at least a superficial attitude which produces and sustains ir-responsibility in matters of purchasing and budgeting. He who has vowed poverty expects and in fact receives everything from his community without for the most part having to experience the price of things directly. These are serious lacunae. They indicate that we have neglected to face up to this objective and fundamental problem: that of work and remuneration or, to put it another way, that of the exchange of specified services. A child can expect everything from his parents; but an adult, if he is to avoid falling into infantilism, cannot expect unlimited services without asking himself the question of reciprocity and remuneration, the question of ,paying back. Money, in this sense, is not seen in a sinister light. It is a precise and very respectable in-strument of adult behavior. A poverty which would keep the religious on the outside of financial problems would be quite vain and perhaps even ambiguous, especially if it were based on a contempt for money. Poverty at times gives rise to another inconvenience. It consists in asking one's superior or his or her delegate ~A psychoanalyst asks this question: "How can we speak about the affectivity of someone who has put himself in a position where he will not be affected by anything or anybody?" Even though his question does not correspond exactly to the reality of the situation it does serve to focus our attention on still another aspect, that of the celibate consecrated to God who is not dependent upon a loved one--husband or wife--who might eventually betray him. .4, E~istence and the Vows Edouard pou'sset, . Sd. REVIEW ~FOR REI.IGIO~J~ :224 .fbr; everything and a bond of dependence is thereby created: poverty of dependence. If this dependence is strict and experienced down to every detail and for things insignificant in themselves it can result in a minuteness and a niggardliness entirely opposed to gpiritual freedom. To be able to pay for what one finds pleasing or what answers .a need favors a certain autonomy of the person which is in line with the human order of things. Close dependence on this point with regards to another can conceal a repressed and petty enviousness completely lacking in dignity.1° As regards the vow of obedience it too, as in the case of chastity, reaches the person at the heart of his human 'existence. Some, dreaming of a fraternal society with-out a "father," do not understand that a human being cannot become himself and assert himself without a relationship of authority. Such people look upon the vow of obedience as one of the most inhuman of aber-rations. But even when One admits the necessity of authority and of interior asceticism for converting instinctive drives, the vow of obedience, inasmuch as it pushea this asceticism to the very renunciation of one's own will, will seem to go too far and fall,, by excess, into something inhuman. Such a person will be unable to see that the sacrifice of one's will makes us die so ag 'to be reborn to the will of God, to the will to at-tain the kingdom of love where each one is truly him-self, above and beyond that which he might want very much. But if the secret of this death and resurrection is not clearly seen it is because it is something difficult to live. Because of their deficiencies religious are fre-quently the cause of the objections formulated against 'their way of life. It is so difficult to live freely accord-in~ g to the spirit of the kingdom of God in complete renunciation of one's own willl It is so very difficult to 'die to self so as to be rebornl Quite a few of those whb have made the vow adopt a middle-of-the-road solution~ which lacks both human and religious truth-fulness. Some, in fact, take their obedience lightly and .SO put themselves in a false situation. Others enter ¯ materially into the behavior required by obedience or tolerate a type of guardianship and even at times con-. form themselves to the will of superiors but without being able to renounce in depth their own will and judgment. This is not what is meant by dying so as to rise again. Rather ~hey live in a state of subjection which only frustrates them. It happens that the per-sonality is more or less stifled--only a moulage is left-- 1°This is perhaps more evident in communities of religious women. ~nd if at times iio bitt~tlless is felt ~of6 often thatt not the religious harbors secret resentments. Are the vows for or against mah? On the factual level the reply to this question is not all that evident. And this very situation favors the opinion of those who consider it hazardous or prejudicial to go against the fundamental dynamisms of human existence so completely. Living the Vows As impressive as the obj.ections are which one can raise against the vows, the strength and clarity of the gospel' call do not allow us to put into question the consecration to God by chastity, poverty, and obedience. In addition, the experience of those who are living the vows does not in any way lead them to think-- except perhaps in a moment of crisis or prolonged de-pression- that they are on a dead-end street even if in terms of human or spiritual success they still have much ground to cover. They see only too well the difficulties and even the risks involved in the religious life but they do not experience them as dangers ~rom which there is no escape or as barriers thrown up along their path. Many, by far the majority, are convinced that they were not deceived by the youthful eagerness of their early years in religion and the spontaneous joy of their first gift to God. But let us consider those religious men and women who have not yet attained the heights of perfection and who have not yet penetrated into the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ. These religious know and feel that their vows have made them men and women with hearts full of love and wills that are free. They are frank and honest in their way of thinking as they go about converting all the relation-ships which constitute their human existence in society. What type of life do they lead? In our communities many attain a fundamental ad-hesion to the will of God, one which frees them from whatever tends to imprison their human intelligence and will. They owe this freedom to their obedience. In their superior they find a presence which helps them to see clearly. On their part they reflect and explain their reasons to him and his agreement confirms them in truth. If it is "no"--and they are ready to hear and accept this "no" without bitterness---they see themselves as being caught up in the search for a truth which is, for the time being, still beyond them, one free of self, of self-affirmation, self-seeking, self-interest. They know that they are no better than anyone else; to some degree their desire for power is still a factor to be reckoned ÷ ÷ ÷ Ethx~i sote Vnocwe s~and .'. " VOLUME 29, 1970. :.:., Edot~rd Pmuwt, SJ. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS with and their zeal, as generous as it is, still runs the risk of being warped by an instinct to possess and to take pleasure in things for themselves. This instinct is, in their eyes, a devouring weed even if it does not spread into everything they do. They do not dramatize their situation though they know that the most contra-dictory conceptions of the world and the most ruinous enterprises take root in this very desire for power and in this appetite for enjoyment. By allowing themselves to be converted by obedience they further the canse of peace and unity among men before God. For them to obey is to enter into the action of the all.powerful Master who renounced His power to the point of be-coming a slave and once a slave He did not attach Him-self to existence, as is ordinary in the case of a servile being, but rather accepted death through obedi-ence. This two-fold action is reciprocal as well: the God who becomes human uproots all desire for power of the "master" in us who wants to impose himself, and the man who is God frees the slave (ourselves) from his subservient attachment to life and enjoy-ment. Whether it is a question of moderating their tendency to dominate a discussion and so fall in line with the superior's will or not treating themselves to a cool drink on a hot day these religious are allowing them-selves to be transformed by this double and reciprocal action of God made man which is, in act, the salvation of the world. This is hard and mortifying on certain days, though their sacrifices are not without their hu-morous side, and as they are thereby reborn they are also called to die a little. Christ said that "my food is to do the will of the one who sent me" (Jn 4:34). It is a joy which nourishes us with the feeling that we are participating in a day to day way in the very mystery of the Son of God and in His lifel At times we protest against this obedience of judg-ment and yet it is this very obedience which com-pletely converts the relationship of force and inequality which, in all authority, exists between the leader and his companions. By this obedience they share the joy of serving the same Lord together, in a friendship which draws them close to each other and makes them equal. But as long as the judgments of the superior and his brother religious have not become as one--the su-perior accepting an attentive exchange with the religious and the latter in turn making known his reasons only so that he might better enter into a plan which may not, at the outset, be his own--a relationship of domination and submission persists. The decision reached under these conditions will be one in which the religious who obeys will be changed by the will of the ~superior. but his own judgment will remain outside their re: lationship. If, on the contrary, he is able to share the. judgment of his superior, all trace of submission ,dis-appears, leaving place for the communion of the two in truth as they both see it: a communion in joy and friendship. Obedience does not always lead to this, friendship and joy which are the ultimate truth of all authority, but there are those who experience it in their communities or in their .small apostolic groups. Others are still looking for .and hoping to attain this "friendship which draws close . " It is quite, true that those in authority who are narrow and .who do. not. possess all the necessary qualities continue to create. situations which we would hope never to see agkin in, religious life; but the sufferings of those who put up with these situations in no way cancel out this joy and hope for even there where no solution is apparent the mystery of the Master become a slave who ac-~ cepted death carries on its work of life. To die so as to be reborn: that is the mystery of. obedience. It is also the mystery of poverty. The poverty of the Gospels is a prophetic call inasmuch as it is set down as an absolute requirement for .entrance into the kingdom of God. The statements concerning it are uncompromising, categoric; they, too, are but a part of an incarnation which liberates. At first glance this call does not appear to take into consideration. the building up of this world by man who must con-tinue the work of creation. Immediate, material poverty, the literal conformity to the call of the Gospels: "Go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor., then come, follow me" (Mt 19:21) will quickly knock the supports out from under those who hold to some archaic fantasy or to a form of parasitism in this regard. When he vows poverty man does not thereby escape from the conditions of a creature who has needs. If he did he would become the parasite of those who possess because they work in lucrative enterprises. Perhaps he, too, would work, but in a gratuitous way by devoting himself to an activity which would not assure the satisfaction of his vital needs. Even if the work he is doing is being done out of his concern for the kingdom of God, the. fact remains that he would not be earning his livelihood; he would have to have some-one richer near at hand so as to be able. to live in his poverty. There are those among us today who have eXperi-enced the scandal of rich religious institutes or at least of institutes whose poverty is not meaningful for our times. These religious have heard the call of the Gospels 4, Existence'. Und ,.~ VOLUME !29,, 1970 :,.;~ ' 227 REVIEW POR RELIGIOUS aga~ln but they want neither fantasy nor parasitism. They feel that there is a disinterestedness with regards to the problem of money which can be a misunder-standing of precise human obligations. They have con-formed to "Go and sell what you own" but they are also clearly aware of the content of ". then come, follow me." For them to follow Jesus in poverty is to set out on a road of patience along which one takes into consideration the conditions to which he is sub-jected by his nature as a being who has needs. If they are to follow Jesus they must first submit with dis-cernment to the economic laws of their own historical context, .a context which can and does change. By their personal renunciation--"go and sell what you own"--they are in a way prophets as was the Messiah who had no place to lay His head. By humbly accepting to bear with the machinery of an economic system they are being faithful to Jesus who lived among men. And if this system should oblige them, if not to be owners at least to enjoy social rights and to receive benefits due them because of these rights, they accept--not re-luctantly, as if it were a crack in their wall of poverty, but willingly, recognizing in this the concrete form of their condition as men. Inserted in social structures which do not allow them to be, to the letter, "the beggars of Jesus Christ"--and, in point of fact, the parasites of others--they live poverty according to their own times by submitting to a precise system of economic exchanges where rights and benefits have as their coun-terpart services to be rendered and services actually rendered, all carefully defined. And yet they still feel free to serve over and above what is required of them, gratuitously, without counting the cost. Gratuitouslyl And it is at this point that they feel they are in a way prophets of their times because eco-nomic activity and its apparent and unrelenting law of "nothing for nothing" needs gratuitousness: The practice of gratuitousness is an everyday happening. In order to extend industrial production it is essential that dis-interested activities create a flow of applicable inventions and innovations and that the market be surrounded by a network of hopes and expectations (Father Perroux). Poverty is not a technique for resolving the contra-dictions of the economic society so as to assure its good functioning. Nevertheless, the poor religious does not feel himself to be unimportant in this society. His poverty, which contradicts the spirit of profit-at-all-cost and outdistances the rigidity of "nothing for noth-ing" is, in fact, in step with the society in which he is moving. Finally, the religious discovers that it is society which allows him to have access to the kingdom of God and in addition enables him to make the world his own. Because he does not possess things as does someone who owns an original oil painting by a famous artist and valued at a considerable amount of money his poverty frees him to see, hear, touch, taste, feel, in a word "make his own" the universe of things and beings just as a free and cultured man makes his own the work of art he goes to contemplate as connoisseur in a museum where it is for everyone. Poverty creates a new rela-tionship with things. The detachment it entails creates an availability for disposing of the world according to what it is, according to its beauty rather than its mere immediate utility. In this way the poor man pos-sesses the earthl Obedience and poverty liberate man but it is chastity which allows him to taste supreme freedom. Whoever has converted desire within himself loves God for God. This love satisfies within him the need which every creature feels because of the very way he is consti-tuted, but from this moment on what was carnal desire is now ardent adoration. He loves others as he loves God and this is why his choice can be shared among many without being, divided. The vow of chastity is the vow of friendship and love. There are many men and women among us who are not yet Francis of Assisis or St. Clares who know this to be true. They have known the joy of their initial eagerness and of their first gift. There was someone sleeping deep within them whom the Lord awoke. Springtime of lovel Then they entered religious life and discovered the weight of institutions and the ordinariness of daily life. It was no longer spring, but the love they had for Jesus Christ, rehewed each day, strengthened the delicate fragility of their youth. They grew strong and re-mained young. For them--for each one of us--the first step on the road of love was the break with the world. The love of God does not admit of a sharing and so they began by giving up many things. Some will perhaps speak of frustrated affections and sexual difficulties which can re-sult but these are but mishaps along the road. Men and women anxious to give themselves entirely to God do not look upon them as irremediable. To give up a human love for the Lord implies that one accepts to be momentarily "off balance" but this is part of human nature. They accepted this; this was their first authentic gift of faith. A second step followed this which was the Lord's doing. They were chiefly responsible for the first step ÷ ÷ + VOLUME 2% 1970 229 ÷ ÷ Ed6uard Pousset, " $.1. REVIEW!FOR.RELIGIOUS when they answered His call and actively committed themselves. In this second step it was the Lord who worked ~leep within them and detached them so as to attach them to Himself. They may have met others and discovered human love along the way. This is their secret. At. the point they had reached there was a great danger that the seduction of this human love might win out over their attachment to the Lord which was not yet fully rooted in their being. They alone can appreciate the sacrifice they had to make but one thing is certain: they grew because of it. At this same stage in their ,lives they also knew what fraternal life could offer: emulation in things spiritual, intellectual, and apostolic built strong friendships among them. which the passing years have not wiped away. They still have much to discover, much progress remains to be made, btit these friendships have enabled them to understand that there are not two loves, the love of God and the love of creatures, but only one. No one who has heard a simple word spoken by a friend which opened his heart and brought him in contact with God's love will ever be able to doubt again that this is so. There are not two loves. Love and freedom--that is the resurrection whose price is the renunciation spoken of in the Gospels and as it is practiced by the vows. But many reading these lines will ask themselves: where do I figure in this? Am I the one just described? Yes, you are there along with the others, but in religious life as in life in general there are stages and they are lived one after the other once one has a strong hold on what is essential. It is difficult, certainly, inasmuch as today community life which is the fruit of what is essential as well as the means of living it is something we are still attempt-ing to pin down. But the fact that we are still seeking cannot leave us in doubt as to the essential: to die and to be resurrected. The following experience invites us in a very simple way to self-forgetfulness: Community life is so "up-in-the-air" at this time that one doesn't really know what to say about it. From my own experi-ence I feel that the real benefit of living a vowed life in com-munity has been a difficult but rewarding school of self-forget-fulness. ,When this seed is planted and when it finds the soil healthy and productive (that is, a living, fraternal community) the vows enable us to develop and unfold with no danger of repression. Don't many of the problems we face today stem from the fact that we forget' the essential "virtues" common to any life in society, to any life lived in common? We neglect them because other things said to be more important have been given priority: dialogue, responsibility, "adult" religious life. . And so we set.aside the small favor done with a smile, the concern of making conversation at table interesting for the one next to us, in a word, a good disposition, and an ease, nothing more, which we all need. I may be tklking too down-to-earth here but it does seem to me that we can fool ourselves so easily. The vows are like a delicate flower which will not give forth it.s full bloom unless the sap runs into the stem and the stem is rooted in good soil. From the very first step we take in religious life until such time as we reach the summits it is always a ques-tion of this unique mystery: to die and to be resurrected. But the more we advance the more the question be-comes more precise and insistent: how do we die and how are we resurrected? I will attempt to tie to-gether the ends of everything said so far so as to focus on this one question. What I have to say doubtlessly presulSposes that a certain amount of ground has been covered. Nevertheless the question and the reply can be understood by each one according to the point he has reached. In the spiritual life there isn't a time for "more practical virtues" and a time for "more radical experiences"; those making their way through the former need, at times, the enlightenment provided by the latter--even if they are not exactly their own experi-ences-- and the latter still need the former as well. To Die and to Be Resurrected Religious life, as in the case of marriage though in a different way, enables us to discover litde by little that we must die. Chastity is mortifying as are poverty and obedience. When with the experience gained over the years the religious comes to feel to what extent his state in life dooms him to die the real danger, the only one for him, is not to know how to die or not to be able to die sufficiently. The resurrection comes only through death and no one is resurrected until and un-less he dies. Even though the religious committed him-self freely to this way of renunciation the death he must undergo does not depend on his good will. This impossibility for a man of good will to die to himself in Jesus Christ is at one and the same rime the problem and the key to that problem. It is the problem in that the price of the resurrection is death and if this death is impossible for him he is not resur-rected and his vows place him in the dangers men-cloned above. It is also the key to the problem in that the impossibility experienced in dying to self, namely to change and convert oneself so as to live the perfec-tion of the gospel message, is the basic condition for decisive progress along the road which leads to death and resurrection in Jesus Christ. Christ said this very clearly to His Disciples who, disturbed and confused by His teaching on poverty, asked Him: "In that case. who can be saved?" And he replied: "For men it is + + + fMaence and th~ Edouard Pousset, REVIEW FO, R.R~L~GIOUS impossible., but not for God, because everything is possible to God" (Mk 10:27). The question, then, is not to know if the vows are practicable or not. In all their strictness they are not. Nor is it whether there might not be a risk of "dehumanizing" man. The vows do, in fact, 'admit of this risk. The only question is to know if once one has reached the realization that he is unable .to live the perfection of the gospel message the Christian consecrated to God by vows is going to allow himself to be taken by his Lord, to die in Him so as to be resurrected with Him. Or better still, the question is to know how this can be accomplished. First of all, to reach this realization that "for men it is impossible" indicates that one has follov~ed Ghrist for a long time and sought to imitate Him with all the zeal and generosity which said "yes" without reserva-tion to His call. It is here that the importance of a certain inner asceticism is evident even if this asceticism is not, in itself, decisive. Many do not enter seriously ¯ into the paths of union with the God who is responsi-ble for their death and resurrection because they have not been energetic enough with themselves. This asceticism will mortify the desire to dominate and to possess which troubles the living sources of our nature. But there is more to it than this. Because of the religious state itself, these living sources are contradicted by the very fact that the vows impose a renunciation on vital poir~ts. But by itself this asceticism will not result in ~forgetfulness of self or humility; by itself thi~ renuncia-tion .will, not assure us of a peaceful balance nor will .it bring about the joy of being resurrected with Christ in this world. What the religious seeks actively by asceticism and renunciation can only be received as a gratuitozts gift. For of themselves neither asceticism nor renunciation through the practice of the vows make us die sufficiently. What we can learn from them and .what is their most authentic contribution is the ad- .mission that the perfection of the gospel message is im-possible. But before this precious fruit of the spiritual life has .matured by long experience the religious is exposed to certain serious errors along the road on which he so generously set out. If he remains negligent, not meas-uring sufficiently the importance of asceticism and what his vows require or, more correctly, what the Lord requires of him, it is evident that he will never die to self. Nor will he do so if he goes ahead courageously along a road of voluntary self-denial. At least it will .not be because of his courage. In the first instance he runs the risk of practising an abnegation which is on a merely human level and in addition there is the danger of falling into a voluntariness which is always in-operative when it is a question of killing our own will, our ego, that desire so essential to us of loving and be-ing loved,ix An abnegation which stems too unilaterally from man's good will and courage runs the risk of end-ing up in a violent forcing of the will by a suppression of desire. In addition to all these reasons find to many others weakness or, on the contrary, poorly guided energy can slip quickly into all the complications which accompany a mishandled psyche: The years pass and it happens that a kind of spiritual heaviness settles in and the beginnings which were so full of promise empty out in insignificance. Little by little the feeling of a half-failure or an incurable mediocrity spread through one who so generously gave himself to God. Then he reaches the critical hour of possible discouragement or of "wisdom" which, from then on, will keep him on a "good middle course." Most fatal of temptationsl But it can also be the hour of setting out anew, the hour of a "second conversion," for it is then that he fully realizes from personal experience that he is unable to convert himself, he is unable to die so as to be resurrected. This, then, is the hour of gracel The need to die remains but now we understand that the only way we can die is by God's hand. We must die on the cross and it is .Jesus Christ who carries the cross and who dies upon it. It is in Him and by the same death that we must die. Strictly speaking this is not the result of asceticism or voluntary abnegation. When it is a ques-tion of asceticism and self-imposed abnegation, our capacities are limited; they offer no solution other than the personal determination of going against our-selves. They are necessary, certainly, but we know how difficult it is for us to practice them with faith and good sense without a giving in on the part of some or a voluntariness on the part of others. The death out of which we are reborn implies the passivity of the creature under God's hand, and this is very different from an ascetical effort and quite the opposite of psychological depressions. God takes it upon Himself to have us live this passivity by means of the trials of existence but there are a thousand and ¯ one way~ of taking the trials of hfe poorly~ and there is very little chance that one look upon them and ac-cept them with peace of soul. If one has not [so disposed himself well in advance it is very difficult io keep the n It is important not to forget that in killing our own will and desire we do so for a very precise purpose: so as to be r~surrected and not so as to destroy them. Existence and the Vows VOLUME 29, 1970 $4. REVIEW FOR REI.IGIOUS kingdom and this death which leads to resurrection always in mind. What disposes to this passivity in faith is the realization we experience that the perfection of the gospel message is impossible for men. Coupled with this awareness is prayer.12 The cross which brings about our death is not within the reach of our initiative; prayer is. Prayer is both to take and not to take the initiative. Experience, as painful as it is beneficial, of our radical incapacity to imitate Christ in His chastity, His poverty and His obedience bears fruit in patience and simplicity, In this climate prayer leads us to union with Jesus Christ carrying His cross; it establishes us in Him and makes us die His death. He who prays in the peaceful admission of his weak-heSS is no longer he who lives, it is Christ who lives, dies, and is resurrected in him. First, it is Jesus Christ who lives in him--not yet in the fullness of transforming union which is the full par-ticipation in His resurrection but by a loving adhesion of the creature to his Creator and Lord by whom he is encouraged and sustained as he progresses. This loving adhesion reproduces in each one the experience of those who, in the history of Israel and later those who gathered around Jesus, attached themselves with all their force to the Lord. It is not yet the resurrec-tion; it is the life shared with the Lord made man along a road leading to the cross. At the price of this shared life the disciple, by a direct experience, enters into the mystery of his relationship of creature to Creator. Plung-ing himself in prayer and patience he hears the word of God as if it were being spoken to him: "In these words the Lord spoke to Jacob whom he created and to the Israel whom he himself fashioned: Do not be afraid; I have paid for you, I have called you by your name, you belong to me" (Is 42:1). Prayer not only enables us to realize that we are creatures, it also brings us in contact with the Lord as Beloved. There are those who know the Lord through the intermediary of people or books and there are those who have met him in another way, having been found by Him. They allowed themselves to be taken and from then on they belong to Him. The love of Jesus Christ penetrates into all the zones of personal-ity, intelligence, will, affectivity; and one day or an-other they understand that this love has become the X~Not just any form of prayer but certainly not discursive medi-tation which is still much too "active"; rather a very simple, loving prayer such as I have described elsewhere ("Pri~re perdue, pri~re retrouv~e," Vie consacrde, 1968, pp. 148-64). This form of prayer is possible only to someone who has at least begun to realize that the life of the Gospels is impossible for man. ver,y substance of their .being. They feel sure that the objections raised against their vow of chastity have little by little lost all their force as far as they are cdncerned. This universal availability which some will claim does not bind them to anyone in particular is, in f~ct, a. passionate adhesion to Someone. There is, they realize, no risk of being deceived or betrayed by this Someone and yet in spite of the certainty of their relationship with Him they .do not feel "settled in." The love of God is to .be created every dayl God is someone who has his views and his ways of doing things ~nd this sbmetimes adds a note of the unexpected to life. Those, then, who allowed themselves to be taken by Him do not have the feeling of "having been put i.n a position where nothing and no one will affect them." Having grown used to God a day comes when, in a silence which fulfills them, they sense the first signs of transforming union. This feeling of Presence which is not so much felt as it is experienced as something beyond all doubt is the beginning of this death and resurrection as they are lived conjointly, one within the other. For they know--and 'they live it in very precise encounters--that life with the Lord leads them to His' cross and on to the joy of rising with Him as well. This death of Jesus Christ in which baptism plunged them sadramentally now becomes their very existence. It is at this moment that they die to their immediate desire to love and be loved, to .their fleed to possess, and to their own will. What neither voluntary abnegation' nor interior asceticism--ivhich they prac-tice continually--could do, loving prayer accomplishes within them. They are in the morld, dead to the world, to themselves, and to others, and yet in direct propor-tion to this death they "are renewed, resurrected by an intense presence to the world through service, friendship, and love: I shall give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in you; I shall remove the heart of stond from your bodies and give you a heart of flesh instead. I shall put my spirit in you, and make you keep my laws and,. sincerely respect my observances (Ez 36: 26-7). Resurrection The vocation of those who have embraced chastity, poverty, and Obedience is to anticipate the resurrection here in this world. It is likewise the destiny personally pro-posed to all. Let those accept it who canl Dead and resurrected, the religious--and every Chris-tian as well "to whom it is granted" (Mt 19:11) by God-- receives the outpouring oi universal charity. The Lord first .became for him the Beloved who introduces him ÷ + ÷ Existence and VOLUME Zg, 1970 by faith into the secret of an intimacy which is his joy. He has heard the word of the Psalm: "Listen, daughter, pay careful attention; forget your nation and your an-cestral home" (Ps 45:11). He listened and the Lord spoke to his heart: "I have loved you with an everlasting love and so I am constant in my affection for you. I build you once more; you shall be rebuilt, virgin of Israel" (Jr His joy is not his joy, it is God's joy; and he can in-crease it merely by allowing himself to be loved and filled. From that moment on the promise of God is no longer a promise: "I shall be their God and they shall be my people"; x3 it is a present reality: "I am my Be-loved's and my Beloved is mine" (Sg 6:3). The others, according to the diversities of divine grace, become his beloved as well.x4 The religious loves them dearly. The friendship which he vows them is no longer something in addition to his love for God; it tends, at least, towards total unification with this love. These others are not enveloped as it were in a universal charity which would deny them any particular atten-tion. He loves them all and he loves each one for what he is. He does not love Peter and John in the same way. And it is only fitting that God placed this preference for one or another in our hearts. Because of this exceptional grace he reaches almost without effort the end he hoped for and worked so hard to attain. In one and the same act he loves his unique Savior and the creature who truly becomes for him the sacrament of the presence of God. He was obliged to live his consecration to God in renouncing human affections because, in fact, his heart was divided. From now on he lives only one love and it seems to him that he understands the friendship of Ignatius for Xavier, of Francis of Assisi for Clare, of Bernard for William. He does not need someone to tell him this marvelous story; it has become the story of his own life. He is poor and yet he possesses the earth. He no longer has his own will and yet God Himself does what-ever he requests: "If you ask for anything in my name, + + + Edot~ard Pousset, $.1. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ~ This phrase is found throughout the Old Testament. u Friendships and human affections can and do exist in those who are consecrated to God by the vows but have not as yet reached that intimate knowledge of Love. Ordinarily these commitments are not very profound and this is for the better for as long as the heart is, in fact, divided between God and creatures. There are other friendships and human affections which are, however, quite differ-ent from those just described. I am speaking of those which have God Himself as their initiative: those where He has made Himself the principle, the bond, and the end. These presuppose the intimate knowledge of Love and they take possession of the whole heart so that there is no division whatsoever between God and creatures. ][ will do it" (Jn 14:14). He seeks only the kingdom of God and yet everything else is given to him over and above this. At this stage joy and the cross are lived as one. He does not talk about it because he knows that he can hardly explain it to himself. Some will see only his suffering; others will not see beyond his surprising free-dom. But his hope knows no limits; he does not see that what he has been given gratuitously should not be given to all. He reveals his secret without telling it: it is to have believed. I do have faith, Lord. Help the little faith I havel 4. 4. 4. £~ten~e and VOLUME 29, 1970 237 cYRIL VOLLERT, S.J. The Interplay of Prayer and Action in Teilhard de Chardin ÷ ÷ ÷ Cyril Vollert, S.J., is a professor of theolob, y at Mar-quette University; Milwaukee,. Wis-consin 53233. REVIEW,FOR RELIGIOUS The theme underlying Teilhard de Chardin's ideas concerning the interplay between prayer and action is well stated in his essay, "The Heart of the Problem." a He wonders why Christianity, with its tremendous power to attract, is not more successful in the modern world. Not only have energetic missionary efforts in Asia, Africa, and elsewhere produced meager results, but the great masses of workers over the earth, as well as most scientists, have found little to interest them in the Church. Teilhard believes that he knows the answer. Any at-tempt at solution must take into account the changes that have marked men's thinking for over a hundred years. We now know that the universe is not static; our cosmos is a cosmogenesis. And man himself is involved in the evolutionary process; mankind is an anthropogenesis. Man is still being shaped, and the human race is heading toward social unification. In the past, religion has sought to perfect man by directing him upward, toward God, and has been little concerned with purely human prog-ress. But men of our time are convinced that they can complete themselves by moving forward. So the vital question is this: is the salvation of man to be achieved by looking above or by looking ahead---or by both to-gether? Failure to face this question squarely results in religious apathy. Teilhard proposes to face it. Why should anyone wish to choose between the Up-ward and the Forward? Teilhard contends that we must not make any such choice. We must combine the two 1 In The Future o] Man (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), pp. 260-69. movements. If Christianity were to ignore the new aspira-tions of mankind, it could not hold its own adherents, much less win over the unconverted. Without human faith and love, Christianity is cold and unattractive to contemporary man. The Christian faith must be intensely interested in the values of the world and of matter, for the simple reason that it is rooted in the Incarnation. In pre-evolutionary ages, Christianity perhaps assigned too subordinate a function to man and the earth. But just as the Incar-nation did not take place until our planet was socially, politically, and psychologically ready for Christ, so now, in the evolutionary perspectives opening up before us, we can see that the kingdom of God will not come until mankind in its anthropogenesis has reached collective maturity. The supernaturalizing Christian Upward must be incorporated into the human Forward. In this way faith in God will recover all its power to attract and convert, for we can believe wholly in God and in the world. We can do this because Christ, Savior and Re-deemer, is carrying evolution both forward and upward to its final goal. Teilhard thoroughly believed in his own program and, while stir a young man, consecrated himself to it: As far as I can, because I am a priest, I would henceforth be the first to become aware of what the world loves, pursues, suffers. I would be the first to seek, to sympathize, to toil; the first in self-fulfilment, the first in self-denial. For the sake of the world I would be more widely human in my sympathies and more nobly terrestrial in my ambitions than any of the world's servants. That is why I have clothed my vows and my priesthood (and it is this that gives me my strength and my happiness) in a determination to accept and to divinize the powers of the earth? Christians have different but complementary voca-tions; they devote themselves in varying degrees of in-tensity to action or to prayer or to both together. God's call, which Teilhard likens to the star of the Magi, "leads each man differently, by a different path, in accord with his vocation. But all the paths which it indicates have this in common: that they lead always upward." a The world, too, has its vocation; it is destined to attain its perfection in the fullness of the incarnate Word, in the cosmic Christ. Teilhard's own vocation was manifested in two truths which God had let him see: the universality of God's magnetism and the intrinsic value of man's undertakings. He was eager to spread far and wide a knowledge of these two truths. And so, on the day after ~Hymn o] the Universe (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), p. 128. 8 The Divine Milieu (New York: Harper, 1960), p. 120. + Prayer and Action VOLUME 29, 1970. 239 ÷ ÷ ÷ Cydl Voll~t, $.]: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 2,4O his final religious profession, in a meditation on his priesthood, he offered his life to God: "And I, Lord God for my (very lowly) part, would wish to be the apostle --and, if I dare say so, the evangelist---of your Christ in the universe." ~ This he regarded as his "special vocation," and he was faithful to it to the day he died. Such a vocation is carried out in action. Teilhard in-sists that all Christians have the duty of building the earth. Even the increase of leisure, fostered by technical. progress, ought to be consecrated to research. Teilhard tried to show that human efforts to promote intellectual, technical, and social advances must bring about the nat-ural conditions of maturity necessary for establishing the kingdom of God. But the urge to action must be directed and sustained by prayer. The Christian must work; but he must Christianize his work. The supernatural con-summation of the world cannot be accomplished by merely natural powers; the world must be sanctified and supernaturalized.5 Therefore a life of prayer and con-templation has a high efficacy, indeed, a "creative power': for the world. Seeing the mystic immobile, crucified or rapt in prayer, some may perhaps think that his activity is in abeyance or has left this earth: they are mistaken. Nothing in the world is more intensely alive and active than purity and prayer, which hang like an unmoving light between the universe and God. Through their serene transparency flow the waves of creadve power, charged with natural virtue and with grace.° The health and integrity of the Church depend on the care exercised by its members in carrying out their functions, which range from worldly occupations to vocations that call for penance or the most sublime contemplation: "All those different roles are necessary." 7 Christians .who devote themselves to prayer have been singled out for the task of carrying the world above its concern for pleasure and enjoyment toward higher goals. They are like miners laboring in the depths of matter; or, to change the figure, they supply the air which their brothers need to breathe. Along with the sick and the suffering, they become "the most active agents in the very process that seems to sacrifice and crush them." s Purity (here understood as the rectitude brought into our lives by the love of God), faith, fidelity, charity, and hope must accompany the most earthly of our actions. But these virtues flower in contemplation ~ Hymn of the Universe, p. 151. s H. de Lubac, S.J., Teilhard de Chardin: The Man and His Mean-~ ing (New York: Hawthorn, 1965), pp. 123 f. O Hymn of the Universe, p. 154. ~ The Divine Milieu, p. 75. ~ L'energie humaine (Paris: Seuil, 1962), p. 64. which, in spite of its apparent immobility, is the highest and most intense form of life.9 In response to God's grace, which is "always on the alert to excite our first look and our first prayer," we are led "to posit intense and continual prayer at the origin of our invasion by the divine milieu, the prayer which begs for the fundamental gift: Lord, that I may see." On saying this, Teilhard at once utters his petition: Lord, we know and feel that You are everywhere around us; but it seems that there is a veil before our eyes. Let the light of Your countenance shine upon us in its universality. May Your deep brilliance light up the innermost parts of the massive obscurities in which we move. And, to that end, send us Your Spirit, whose flaming action alone can operate the birth and achievement of the great metamorphosis which sums up all inward perfection and towards which Your creation yearns: Send forth Your Spirit and they will be created, and You will renew the face of the earth?° Teilhard is quite cognizant of the prayer that is in-herent in the duties of a person's state of life. Such duties, faithfully and well performed, put us in contact with God: Let us ponder over this basic truth till we are steeped in it . God, at his most Vitally active and most incarnate, is not remote from us, wholly apart from the sphere of the tangible; on the contrary, at every moment he awaits us in the activity, the work to be done, which every moment brings. He is, in a sense, at the point of my pen, my pick, my paint-brush, my needle--and my heart and my thought. It is by carrying to its natural completion the stroke, the line, the stitch I am working on that I shall lay hold on that ultimate end towards which my will at its deepest levels tends.'~ However, in addition to the prayer that may be in-volved in our work, explicit prayer is indispensable if our action is to be effective for constructing the kingdom of God. Teilhard is very insistent on this truth. He pgints out that unless we maintain direct contact with God by prayer and the sacraments, "the tide of the di-vine omnipresence, and our perception of it, would weaken until all that was best in our human endeavor, without being entirely lost to the world, would be for us ~niptied of God." But if we safeguard our relation to .God who is encountered in prayer, "there is no need to [ear that the most banal, absorbing, or attractive of oc-cupations should force us to depart from Him." Be-cause of the creation of the universe by God, and par-ticularly in view of the Incarnation, "nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see." Teilhard strongly exhorts us: "Try, with God's help, to perceive ~ H. de Lubac, La pensde religieuse de Pdre Teilhard de Chardin (Paris: Aubier, 1962), p. 318. Io The Divine Milieu, pp. 111 [. v. Hymn oI the Universe, p. 83 f. ÷ ÷ ÷ VOLOME 29; 19~0 241 4- 4- 4- REVIEW, FOR ,RELI~IOU$ the connection-~even physical and natural--which binds your labor with the building of the Kingdom of Heaven." We should never do anything without realizing its constructive value in Christ, and pursuing it with all our might.12 In line with his perception of the harmony between faith and science, Teilhard endeavored to integrate his own prayer and his work. He became increasingly aware that he had to develop in himself and impart to others "the sort of mysticism that makes one seek passionately for God in the heart of every substance and every ac-tion." He saw dearly that "God alone, and no personal effort, can open our eyes to this light and preserve this vision in us." He well understood that the "science of divinizing life calls for the diligent co-operation of every form of activity . It needs the sacraments, and prayer, and the apostolate, and study." 18 If we wish the divine milieu to grow around us, we must steadfastly "guard and nourish all the forces of union, of desire, and of prayer that grace offers us." 1~ Success cannot crown so great an enterprise unless prayer issues in work: "I know that the divine will will only be revealed to me at each moment if I exert my-self to the utmost." 1, The Christian must preserve his union with God by prayer; but he must also respond to all the demands of grace: "To win for himself a little more of the creative energy, he tirelessly develops his thought, dil

Issue 45.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1986. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. REVIEW [-'OR REI.IGIOOS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. © 1986 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single,copies: $2.50. S(~bscription U.S.A. $ I 1.00 a year; $20.00 for two years. Other countries: add $4.00 per year (postage). Airmail (Book Rate) $18.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editor Jan./Feb., 1986 Volume 45 Number 1 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW FOR REt.tGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department ~Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Richard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindeli Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. ~Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, M! 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. Review for Religious Volume 45, 1986 Editorial Offices 3601 Lindell Boulevard, Room 428 Saint Louis, Missouri 63i08-3393 Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S~M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editor REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is published in January, March, May, July, September, and N6vember on the twentieth of the month. It is indexed in the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index and in Book Review Index. A microfilm edition of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is available from University Microfilms International; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyright © 1986 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. A major portion:of each issue of REVIEW FOR REEIGIOOS is also regularly available on cassette.recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. The Price of Poverty Donald Macdonald, S.M.M. Father Macdonald is well known to our readers for.his frequent contributions. He continues to reside, and may be addressed at ,.St."Jo,seph's; Wellington,Road; Tod-morderi, Lanc.; OLI4 5HP; England. /~ n elderl~ lady came to the sacristy after Mass and gave (f9r her) quite a large sum of money to the priest "for shoes.for that poor man whoread at Mass,today." The reader was in fact a Unive.rsity lecturer with an income, way beyond anything the lady .hadever known, who chose .to" dress shab-bily with down-at-heel sandals. He had more choices ,as ,to lifestyle than the lady who pitied him. Similarly, one has heard a religious conducting a seminar on poverty, forcibly arguing that if one is to be true to the Gospel and the founder's charism, rootlessness i~ really what is meant. The word poverty is too weak to enshrine the concept. He himself wasoenjoying a prbfessional salary with his own bank-account, not one penny of which ever went to his congregation. ~ It is not just .or even,chiefly a matter of human fallibility, but of unreality which is an ever present risk in discussing evangelical poverty. So often the appearance bears no relation to the fact. Even the possibility of discussing poverty argues a degree,of unreality, as most people are either born into or forced into the poverty trap by. circumstances. One can see this in. a third-world context where, paradoxically, evangelical.poverty is almost impossi-bly difficult to live since the blistering reality is so obvious, and the main thrust of.society is to .race away from it. Perhaps G. K. Cheste_rton offers a way into the discussion in suggesting that humanity is the basis for under-standing poverty. He believed that a man ought to know something of th~ embtions of an ihsulted maff, not 4 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1986 by being insulted but simply by being a man. And he o.ught to know something of the emotions of a poor man not by being poor, but simply by being a man. Therefo~'e in any writer who is describing poverty, my first objection to him will be that he has studied his subject. A democrat would have imagined it.~ Statistics obviously have their place, but are no substitute for fellow-feeling. Religious,_ asked "to be poor both in fact and spirit" (Perfectae Caritatis 13) can, therefore, consider a genuinely poor person in the con-temporary world as a touchstone of reality. Contemporary Poverty A young woman, a soldier's wife was counting the hours until her husband came home on leave. He did come. He had a woman with him whom he sat-.on a settee while he went upstairs and packed a suitcase. He came down and said to his wife: "Well, that's that then; I am off." Such w~is the end of her married life. The biblical type of weakness, vulnerability and poverty is often seen in a woman on her own. 1 cannot see that.the pattern is fundamentally different today. The religious who wants the feel of poverty could do worse than examine her experience. Ratherothan spend days and dollars in meetings discussing th~ topic, much better siarely to visit such people who, regrettably, are to be found within walking distance 6f so °many religious houses. Why talk when we can walk and meet the reality in person?-Poverty is first felt, not discussed. ; That woman is truly poor. She loved her husband and wanted his childre~n i~n a lifetime together, but she was told in the crudestpossible way that her love was worth nothing. She was .nobody to him. "In practical terms she had ceased to exist. She did not even rate,.a letter.or word of understanding or explanation. Yet he was everything to her. One can glimpse'~the emotional-poverty in a person with an immense capacity for love who is unable to express it as she is unwanted and rejected. She is, therefore~, porr in her very identity as her love, which is essentially herself, is apparently woi-thless. ~ As a married woman growing into the ~role, she ~knew who she-was. It was no part-time occupation she had chosen, but a full-time:life to which she had given herself. In view of her particular rejection, inevitably ques-tions must surface as:to her personal worth. Who amq now?Is the best I liave to give worth nothing? Failure. of any kind c~in bring humiliation. Here is a woman who could not keep her husband'. Friends who 6nee welcomed her into their homes as a married woman are now less keen as she is on her own. People will talk about her, scarcely handicapped .by knowing tittle of the true situation. The , ~e Price of Poverty self she once saw and recognized is now seriously shattered, and it will take more than cosmetics to put the pieces together again.-Could she~be worth less? Clearly emotionally impoverished., she is, too, almost 9ertainly econom-ically poor.:.Can she continue living in her ,house? Once budgeting with her husband's income as together~, they tried to build a home, now the home which she helped furnish~ and in which she may have expreSsed her own ta,ste, has ,to beobroken up. Perhaps even the physical fabric in which, to a degree, she~had invested herself will have to go too. She has been literally .uprooted. Her future is a lottery. Have her career or work prospects been handicappedin marrying? How ~nd where is she to five? What is she to do? C~ntemporary Questio.ns _ For anyone seriously wishing to understand poverty with~a, view-to .living it, inevitably the q,u, estion must arise, if this is poverty what am I living? Arriving at that woman's house what would I say to her? Is~the level of religious poverty such that, without ~iving a personal history, one can communicate with her at quite a deep level? Does the religious have expe-rience of rejection and failure? Has the ~reoligious ever felt worthless? Ever lived inca loveless house? Ever been~unable to express love? Has the religious ever been lost in the pre,sent and afraid of the future? By the same token, has one received such warmth, love, affection and security that one can ,,only feel for someone ,who quite ol~viously has not? " Self-respect might suggest that.if she is a poor woman What am I? On the deeper level of~emotion where all of us fu, nction, does religious p, overty sugges, t.that ! came from Sinai with a tract or from life.with fellow-feeling? The religious who has attempted to live "poor both in fact and spirit" will speak the POOr w.oman's language owit.h an immediacy which is first felt rather than~expressed. Poverty means limitation. In aworld where destitution is rampant the meaning of poverty may be obscured. De~stitution means absolutely no choice, and is indefensible as a wa~y of life. Poverty implies limited oppor-tunity. The former has no choice, the latter hasAittle. ~o Chesterton, in the essay mentioned earlier, felt it necessary to say that -"a poor man is a man who has not go~ much money." This seems self-evi-dent to the point of banality, butJif it is su.ch a truism why does it appear to have escaped the lifestyle of so many religious? If that was taken as a rule of thumb, possibly much of the rat!onalizing of evangelical poverty might go. "If a poor persbn can afford it I can consider, it. If not, I can't." It may be that a limited budget with a need to count the pennies should be built into any realistic framework of poverty as a way of life, which, of cours.e, is not 6,/ Review for Religious, Jan:Feb., 1986 .the same.as penny-p.inching. If'circumstances'don't dictate it,.those who freely chorse such'a life should. -.- With whom does one identify? Whatever "evangelical" means, it cannot mean otinreal. The link between religious life imd poverty should be pro-gressively instinctive fo~ the mature person. It was a young married woman caught in the poverty trap who 'summed it all up! "You get to the point that you" doh't.think about things you can't afford." Horizons inevitably narrow. °A poor person with limited opportunity has presumably little choice as to the people be4ives among. He cannot choos~ his neighb0rh~0od, as many testify ~ho would give heaven and .earth to get out of a district if only to give the,children a better chance, "but cannot. For those who find work it is often a dead-end job. Educational and culiural opportunities, vacations and recreations are .similarly limited. If such is not bifilt irito the fabric of evangelieal~poverty we geem to have missed much of the point. Poor people tend to be marginal people in terms of statm, influence 'and opportunity. One bf the gt:eatest tragedies of poverty, it has been noted, is the'inability of'so many people to make afy contribution to society since so m.u.ch potential ig never given the chance to develop. This does not just disqualify many from co.mpeting in whatis called "the rat race," Where the prizes, however won, are strictly personal,-but limits their contribution to life in general and their family and neighborhood iia partic-ular. "Why, therefore, should the religious gibe at being subject to'such limitations, perhaps iffbeing i/~nored, used or patronized? Poverty feels like" that. The very insecurity of contemporary religirus life could be a chance to identify with such marginal people. There are so mar~y marginiil people even in the affluent sqcieties of Western Europe and theUnited Sta'trs, and surely the religious should not leave them behind. InSecurity is in the air. Li~,ing within such limits; the religious will be treated as such. In any case he can do no other. He has no choice. If his place in the pecking order determines how he is treated, in choosing poverty hr'ha~ chosen (o be last. Wh3~ should anyone choose such a~qife? To play at it is one thing, but to choose to live permanently within such limits is something else:~ After all anyone who has ever lived in India, for ekam~le, will have se~n there many "MotherTe'resas," as no doubt they'are to be found all over the globe, but. it can still be puzzling as to why the average ~:eligious might choose that road. Most people,,sensibly, want to widen their horizons, so whychoose limitation in t~rms 'of relationships, lifestyle, dress, travell OlS~orttinity? When poor people used to say that "pove'rty's no disgrace, but 'tis a great inconvenience," someone wh'o grew up as one of them thought the com-ment too rriild for what was ih'fact "a hampering drag upon them.''2 Most resist being pushed to'thb mai-gin so why. would anyone want to live there? 1he Price of Poverty It is hard to see a.nyone choosing this, oti~er than as'a voluntary, short-term contract, yet, apparently, religious have chosen this frr life. Unless this choice is und~rpinned by an integrating vision which can give it worthwhile meaning, any such lifestyle wilLsurely fragment under the age-old tension of catering to champagne tastes on a beer income. It is not in unredeemed human nature to choose less arid be content. There is in much of religious poverty as lived today a close analogy with Parkinson's Law,3 ih as much as affluence expands and is seen to be necessary,as goods and money, become available. Yet if one lives on a figed income in an economic climate of inflation, one cannot spend money.as if there is no tomorrow. I cannot entertain as perhaps I .would like. Not can the°main consideration of "tra'Jel abroad" be a valid .passport. Limitation will be Written into whatever I do. Basically the choice of this lifestyle is made because the.religious choose Christ who chose a stable in preference to a palace and consistently l~eld to that even in death.-It is said that the best fighter.is the hungry fighter, and whoever really wants 'God in Christ must train.to sacrifice anything that gets in the way. The point of poverty, then, is to remove the clutter and tension which would tend to crowd God out. The Methodist sbholar Gor-don Rupp underlined this in a general point: "Never had so many men so" many great possessions as in our modern affluent societies, and what Jesus said about these things no Bultmann has ever been able t0 demythologize. If these things blind the spirit, and if the pure of heai-tsee, then I should find a thousand within the Church on the road.to perfection for every hundred outside."4 The outlook of the consumer society can suffocate feeling for God. The point of evangelical poverty is made more'specific in-an instructive misprint in my copy of the breviary, where St. Paul is m.ade to say of, Christ that "rich as he was, he made himself poor for your: sake in order to make you rich by means of his property (sic)" (2 Co 8:9). This is undoubtedly the logic which appeals to the printer andthe rest,ofus;.but what St. Paul said, of, course, was that it,was in his total poverty that Christ enriched us. "Here everything has been lost in translation. ,In an at.tempt to make sense of the text, nonsense has been made of the Gospel. To see the influence, of this insight on St. Paulqn that same second letter to the Corinthians can be of immense practical help in assimilating, the reason for evangelical poverty and~so nourishing its continuing dynamic. First Put On Christ Invariably Paul~ begins with Christ. Seeing him in his conversion, bap-tism and daily life--"even if we did once .know Christ in the flesh, that~ is I! / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1986 not how w6knox~.him'now" (2 Coo5:16) he isso enthralled by what he sees that he can only, compare its effect on,him to the creation of light: "For it is the God ~who said, "Let light .shine out Of darkness,'~vho has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of:God on the face of Christ" (2 Co 4:6). He knew his world and himselLto be literally re-created anewin Christ:~ Reality,- no matter how it presents itself, now comes to him in the face ooLChrist, _so he comes to see what God is like in a sacramental world and,progressively, becomes lik~ what he sees. Whatever happens to ,Paul is always in Christ. So illumined, life is shot' through with Christ as he sees God giving himself in the happenings of every day. The more he reflected on God giving .himself to us in Christ the more he was possessed .by what he saw: "For the love 6f Christ overwhelms us when we reflect." (2 Co 5:14). To think that Christ had givenhis life for Paul.in the absolute poverty of crucifixion and death! He,could refuse;Paul nothir~g. Living in such a world, helogically believed that the response of Christians.should be "to. live no longer for themselves but for ,him who for their sake died and was raised" (2 Co 5:15): In other words, the selfish, self-centered core in all of us, which can imprison us in self as cruelly as a child in a ~chbol playground without an adult present, has now been broken up. In Christ, one moves from self to selflessness: Onelives now for Christ as the wholeness of his sacrifice registers, and one comes to realize what an enthralling discovery one has in this unprecedented gift. Even atomic calculations cannot quantify this: So seismic ig the effect on one who.glimpses the reality that Paul can only see .the person given that insight as a wholly new type of being, since, "for an~,one who is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old creation has gone, and now the new .one is here" (2 Co 5:17). One's outlook, value-sys-tem and life itself are now a response to God giving himself.in Christ. That this can take place in the ordinary, everyday world of pagan-Corinth Paul is assured, since.~'for our sake God made the sinless one into~sin, so that in him we mi.'ghi become the goodness of God" (2.Co 5:21). In human nature at~lts worst seen in the,cruclfix~on and death of the s~nless Christ, our-Lord plumbed the depths of human evil and weakness insofar~as one person could, and so enables Paul to see that everything is redeemable in the death and resurrection_of Christ. Nothing can hold .us in Christ. CruCified as his° Mother stood and watched, and buried in ,another man's grave, this it is~ that roots the experience of Christ in the humanity of every age, not least our own. What of course was h.appening was "God in Christ was reconciling the world to himself, not holding men's faults against them. : ." (2 Co 5:20). Glimpsing this, Christians like Paul become "ambassadors for Christ :. as The Price of Poverty / 9 though God were appealin~ through us" (2 Co 5:20). The message, of course, is,simply to "be r~conciled to God" (2 Co 5:20). Ideally the Christian reaches the point of so assimilating Paul's o]nsight that he/she can do no other 'than share it. For the religious, poverty is part ofth6 price paid t,o'preserve that insight. AllLelse gradually falls'away, no longer seen as having any real claim on us in'the light of Christ: "And we, with our. :. faces reflecting like mirrors the brightness of th~ Lord, all grow brighter and brighter as we are turned into the image that we reflect" (2 Co 3:18). All of this takes place not in some Gnostic, esoteric enclave, but in the streets of wherever the Christian happens to be, since "this is the work of the Lord.who is Spirit" (2 Co 3:18). The first and continuing step for anyone who would live genuinely evangel-ically poor, therefore, is to ~put on Christ. Contemplation is clearly primary. First recognize what it is to be christened, and poverty for the sake of Christ becomes a logical necessity. Whatever obscures that vision must go. In Everyday Life While it is true that Paul "was caught up into paradise and heard things which must not and cannot be put into human language" (2 Co 12:4), the second letter to the Corinthians makes it all too plain that' he does'not stay there. It is in the present, in the unpredictability of everydaY life that he sees Christ, and this is marvelously encouraging for anyone attempting to.live poor for Christ. Rich as he was in Christ, people and circumstances will so often combine to subject Paul to an experience not unlike that of the contemporary poor woman mentioned earlier. So often he will be stripped of. everything but his faith (see 2 Co 1:8). -For some, Paul's "all would not be enough. He invested not just the Gospel but his self in Corinth "For my own part, I will gladly spend and be spent on your sohls' behalf, though ~you should love me too little for loving you .too well" (2 Co 12:15). The man wh'o brought Christ to them at such physical and emotional cost is i'educed to writing them a letter in an attempt, to-establish himself again (see 2 Co "3:1-3). "Someone said, 'He writes powerful and strongly-worded letters, but when he is with you, you see only half a man and no preacher at all" (2 Co 10:10). It is not just gratuitous rudeness nor personal dislike, but Paul's nonacceptance as a genuine apostle that is at issue, sohe is afraid that "your ideas may get corrupted and turned away from simple devotion to Christ" (2 Co 11:3). Paul and his Christ are not accepted. His very identity, therefore, is questioned. In an attempt to try and reestablish some lost status he is humiliated into having to give something of his own'record to show that he was not in it for himself, as was suggested neither a naive, misguided 11~ / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1986 convert nora "con-man" taking advantage of them: "lashes. beaten. stoned.:., shipwrecked., false brethren., sleepless., hunger, thirst. cold., anxiety for all the churches" (2 Co I 1:23-29). Was all this for nothing? He gave everything, yet had not made first base with an influential, articulate group in the Corinthian church. He has deceived no one, yet if a man's good faith is questioned, as was Paul's, he is really poor, for, without that, he, has no currency left. Corinth and life generally.taught Paul that,.such paradox is of the essence of an apostle's life: "We are treated as imposters, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and ~behold weolive; as punished, and yet .not killed; as sorrowful, yet always .rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything" (2 Co.7:8-10). Read as experience,and not liter.ature, in these passages 9ne will come close to the mind and life of a poor Christian man. Integrity, reputation, achievement, personality, wealth and so much more that can give a. person self-respect and a worthwhile life are so often taken, and the individual is then dismissed as worthless. Even obvious achievement is seen as a mirhge. To be poor feels like that, seemingly unable to make a contribution though one gives one's all. Paul is so aware of the power of the Gospel and the'powerlessness of the Christian as he tries to communicate it, that it would almost seem a contradiction in terms had not his life followed that pattern since first he gave himself to ~Christ. Perhaps he was never closer to his Lord than in this powerlessness. If the Christ he preached, the faith they received, the life he lived does not suggest integrity, he has ,nothing to offer except an appeal: "Open your hearts to us; we have taken advantage of no one" (2 Co 7:2). . To be reduced to speaking like that, one must be poor indeed. Against that background, too, incidentally, Paul is trying to collect money to help the impoverished Jerusalem church! (see 2 Co chs. 8-9): Part of the cost of becoming a Christian in those da~s may have meant, for ma.ny, broken family and community ties resulting in real poverty at so-many levels. Paul was also economically, poor in Corinth:. "When I was with you and ran out of money I was no burden to °anyone" (2 Co 11:9). For whatever reason he judged it best not to accept help from the Corinthian church. This led. to further misunderstanding, not least.in leading some to assume that his message must .be as ,cheap as its presenter. As so often with the really poor person it seems to be "heads you win, tails I lose," whatever way the coin falls.- Whenever he could ,t~oVmake ends meet, "I robbed other churches by accepting Support from them in.order to serve you" (2 Co. 11:8): These were the other communities in Greece Paul had set up on his way south to ¯ 7he Price of Poverty Corinth, and it must Surely have been an additibnal burden when he was aware of being helped by people who had little enbugh themselves, since "the troubles they have been through have tried them hard, ~,et in all this they h.ave been so exuberantly happy that from the depths of their poverty they .have shown themselves lavishly openhanded" (2 Co 8:2). Evidently poor themselves, they were so eager to help the poor in the Jerusalem church "begging and begging us for thefavor of sharing in this service" that in so doing, "they offered their own selves'first to God and, under God, to us" (2 Co 8:4-5). Such are the people helping Paul; so at one with the mind of their Lord ~that.they, too, from'their poverty, are helping to make others rich. ~' Think ~of the effect oon Paul of such behavior--the bread~he e~its he owes to ~them, ~is also their faith builds up him and so many. They have learned much in a short time. It must be the experience of so many religious across the world that it is largely because of the faith and generosity of such people today that they are able to,live and work. Sucl~ support should.have a marked effect on the way we live. Personal Limitations Emotionally and ecohomically poor in a world in which any religious can. find himself; St. Paul also works within the limits of a ~human frame. The most individual of:men, he is always recognizably himselL Even those who tend to lay all that~is wrong with Christianity at. Paul's feet might acknowledge~that there is something, much or little, in their own characters that they might wish to change, if only to be more effective witnesses to Christ. Paul knows this too. One of the greatest benefits of time spent in Paul's company is to see him operate within the'limitations ~of a genuinely human personality - which is just another expression Of the intrinsic poverty which everyone shares. After each one of us was made they broke the mould. Paul is ever conscious of "a thorn in the flesh" which so bothered him that he pleaded ~;ith God to remove it (see 2 Co 12:7-8). Whatever~ it was, Paul knew he woifld be:.so mhch more effective if only he could b~ rid of it. His .prayer was notanswered. Instead, he was given one of his greatest, most encour-" aging insights, which can help anyone conscious of the poverty of his or her . own resources: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Co 1~2:9). Paul was fine as he was. The fewer his reserves the more must God supply. The~greater his personal inadequacy the ~more pressing his claim on God: So the ultimate paradox for Paul was that when he looked at himself in 12 / Review for-Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1986 the mirror of his apostolate and saw much that he could wish changed, he saw what was really there, a poor individual man with all his limitations, loved by.God in Christ. His obvious weakness was a claim on God's power. So he could relax and learn contentmeht at a very deep level: "and t.hat is wh~ I am quite content with my weaknesses, and with insults, hard~hips, persecuti~ons, and the_ agonies I go through for Ch_rist.'s sake. For it is when I am weak that I am strong" (2 Co. 12:10).~ The religious inevitably oware of some of his limitations would do well to assimilate that insight. As someone yowe.d to. poverty, he can even integrate his own limitations within,the co~mforting simplicity of that Gospel perspective, perhaps coming to see why Paul could s~y "No wonder we do not lose heart~ T]3o~ugh our outward.humanity is in decay, yet day by day we are inwardly ren~ewed" (2 Co 4:16). As ever, the o~,erriding.belief in God gi.'ving himself in Christ in.the present moment is the dynamic of evangelical pove~y. o Repeated experience w.as to teach Pgul this, even when he felt shattered as his identity as a .genuine apostle is queried, pioneering a way for the Gospel, or facing the growing pains of an expanding Church. Often he finds himself as a leader withotit an army, let down by people from whom he had expected support. Because of his fighting polemic Paul ran the risk, not always successfully avoided; of being unfair to others and no doubt had the chance to repent at leisure ,The physical and emotional strain at times must have been severe~ but it is again all part of carrying the treasure of the Gospel withinthe heart of a poor man. So,he saw that "we are r~o better than pots ofearthenware to contain this treasure, and this proves th~it.such transcendent power does not come from us, but is God's alone" (2 Co 4:7). o~What is attractive is that in circumstances which would liave discouraged ¯ many of us, or have us return home to lecture, write our memoirs, or dine. out on our experiences for Christ, Paul never gave up.-He went forward into the situation, and there found God in Christ with a security,given only to those who give up everything for. him. His life as glimpsed in this letter. shows that "human indeed we are, but it is in no human strength we figlit, our battles" (2 Co 10:3). He expresses this superbly when he admits that "we are in difficulties on all sides, but never concerned; we see no answer to our problems, but-never despair;., persecuted, but never deserted; knocked down but never killed" (2 Co 4:8-9). Again, one should not let the literary construction mask the human reality. Paul is not some superman (canonization is invariably posthu-mous), but a man in Christ, which is why problems, mistakes, anxiety and fear never ultimately crush him since they are seen as reflecting Christ. He ~he Price of Poverty / 13 is always in Christ and so in circumstances where our first move might be to the doctor, the bottle, the cotinselor or the return ticket, Paul's is always to Christ. So when he is in trouble, he sees what is happening to him." ~Always, wherever we may be, we carry with us in our body the death of Jesus" (2 Co 4:9). He lives in Christ as Chrisriives in him, not least in suffering and heartbreak. So real is this that "the sufferings of Christ, it is true, overflow into bur li~,es~," and in that.very experience as Christ is there, "there is overflowing comfort, too, which 'Christ brings" (2 Co 1:5). Up against it, seeing no way through, Paul believes Christ to be an indwelfing presence not a distant model. He shares the experience, often nailed to Christ through people and circumstances beyond his control. So a man, who, like his Lord and so many on earth, knew much of failure, tears and poverty, at the same time, in the pow.er and love of the r~sen Christ,'sees that in his suivival~ though so powerless, "the life Of Jesus; too, may al.ways be seen in our body" (2 Co 4:10). The poverty-stricken Paul~is enriched, in Christ, even using suffering and failure to help reconcile him and his world to God. -,; . ~ Nothing in his experience, therefore, is pointless. Successive centuries have no doubt learned more from the failures of Paul and his Lord than from the successes of their commentators. So a poor man, with at times scarcely a hold on life--"we were so utterly, and unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself" (2 Co 1:8)--learned to rely on the richness of God. He must have found much time for prayer and reflection or he could: never have read so much into the poverty of the human condition, these passages do not read .as emotion recollected in tranquillity so much as the discovery of the presence of God in Christ when all seemed lost in a harsh, uncaring world. Under God, Paul learned that lesson well. And so, from his own experience of poverty, at many levels, he was anxious and able to pass on what he had found, thanking "the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any. affliction, ,with the.comfort with which we ourselves are comforted byGod" (2 Co ! :3-4). Paul seems hypnotized by the word comfort, since the experience was so real in the.middle of his at times frightening poverty~ The religious lookingfor the vision and stamina to be "poor both in fact and spirit," would do well ~to spend time in the company of such a man who found so much of richness in his own poverty: "For what we preach is not ourselves, but J~us Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servant for Jesus' sake" (2 Co 4:5). In any consideration of the vast topic of evangelical poverty there is both a community and an individual dimension. This article is simply meant 14 / Review for Religious, Jan,-Feb., 1986 as an aid to personal reflection. The Benedictine histbrian David Knowles, in the epilogue to.one of his classic studies of English medieval monasticism, was of the opinibn that property and wealth were contributory factors in its decline. No groups nor individuals could do much about it, as wealth "clUng like pitch." This is surely a human development, not especially a medieval one: If a corrective cannot be found for the individual religious in the Gospel,.a founder's manuscript ru!e, and a contemporary poor person, it is doubtful if le~slation and discussion wiil make it real. It is for the individual to see. , o NOTES -~G. K. ~hesterton, "Slum Novelists and the Slums," in _Heretics LondOn 1905, p. 277. 2Florri' Thompson, Lark Rise to Candleford Penguin Books 1973, p. 31. ~C. Northcote Parkinson, Parkinson's Law: "W0~k e~pan'ds so as to fill the time available for its completion." 4Gordon Rupp, The Old Reformation and the New, Epworth 1967, p. 60. On Silence There is the silence that nurses a sleeping child and the silence that is violence without equal. There is the silence that purifies the notes of birds and the silence that betrays the noise inside our lives¯ There is the silence that comes wrapt in a piece of sky .and the silence that is overcast and threatening. -There is the silence that nourishes our sensitivity to life and the silence that is shattered by soul-destroying work. There is the silence in the dew drop's other world and the silence'thff( is manufactured and pressure packed. ~There is the gilen~ that is tl~e gentlest of friend~ and the silence that is filled with loneliness. There is the silence that takes us by thb hand and: leads us deep into the heart of'Peace. "~ N0el Davis 257 Abercrombie Street Red fern EO. Box 130 Chip~aendale, N.S.W. Australia Harvesting Silence: A Desert Spidtuality Anthony Wi.eczorek, O Praem, ~Father Wieczorek writes: "The very times when life and prayer seem to have fallen apart may well be God's attempt to get our attention and make us face the sort of ~hings we all too easily hide from with our busy and carefully structured lives." His previous article, "Cominitment: Dying and. Ri~ing to S~lf," appeared in the issue of July/August, 1985. Father Wieczorek may be addressed at St. Joseph Priory; 103 Grant Street; De Pere, Wisconsin. 541.15. How does a person go about harvesting silence? The question is an impoflant one to people who find themselves standing amid acres of the stuff. How does a pe~,son gather' together silence," emptiness, and stillness? They creep up.so unobtrusively that their coming is unfioticed until, that is, it is too late. The life that had been so filled with purpose:and people and things to do has .grown distant, separated by a moat of 'silence. But no watery moat is this. It is a moat, rather, of sand and arid wastes, of emptiness and stillness, for silence grows only in desert conditions. What is there, then, to harvest in a desert? . What ,grows there? What value, what purpose can it have? These questions are more pragmatic than they sound: What is. to be: made of life that had been lush with' activity, that has been filled with.purpose when suddenly the activity is gone o seems meaningless and unnecessary? What value has an existence that has lost the art of awareness? What can be made of a life whose dreams and plans and goals have all shriveled up in a blast of desert air so that life seems lost and out of control? The desert, though, is not a punishment to endure. The silence and stillness is a gift that must be received, a crop that must be harvested. 15 16 / Review for" Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1986 I I have never been in a real, geographical desert but the image of one that pictures provide and that emerges in my imaginings is that of an endless expanse of sand and sky. In the desert that I imagine and inwhich I make my anchorage, there is literally nothing to see. Oddly enough, that is its whole point. A desert is a most carefully constructed work of art. Nature, and God, have taken great effort and artistry fo create an empty backdrop, a single sandy sheet. From the looks of it, it was time well spent; for a desert is not only beautiful, it is functional as well. The desert has an anonymous function that is carefully hidden. In the desert's emptiness there is nothing to hide behind, nothing to conceal; there is nothing to distract. By the very fact of its emptiness, the desert is a perfect place for revelation, a perfect place for confrontation. Hosea spoke of God luring Israel back into the wilderness so that it would once again have to deal with God's revelation. What makes a desert is precisely its paucity of distractions. There the silence is both vocal and visual. It was to such an environment that God called Israel. God called Israel to the desert lJecause it is a place of confrontatitn. = A desert is not geographical; it is an attitude, a cond.ition, a state of the soul. Nor are deserts fixed areas of terrain. Deserts-lie waiting beneath the sarface of skin and sou!. They bubble up, from time to time, like springs of sand that rush out and flood into life. Deserts can appear overnight or sometimes in a~single, often climatic, moment. We close our eyes one unsuspecting night to the lush greenness of our lives only to awake., to nothing, to a howling empty expanse of sand and sky. Deserts are works of art, created not without some little effort. They do not appear randomly or-by accident. God creates deserts in our lives whenever God's patience runs dry. God creates deserts out of thelushness of our lives to force an issue we have otherwise avoided. M~ike no mistake, our lives are indeed lush, not with vegetation, but with things to do, thoughts to ponder, problems to solve, people to meet, greet, to make love and war with. Duti.es, tasks, responsibilities, projects are the trees, plants, shrubbery that have been planted within our lives but which have grown and multiplied at a rate and in a density that isall their own. Many of us, however, have allowed them to grow out of control. The lush foliage that .fills our days and lives~is our alibi. There is so much to perceive, so much to do, so much to read and consider and wonder at, can anyone, human, or divine, blame.us for atleast being selective with our attentiveness? For missing,something here and there? We have so many revelations to deal with in even a single day, how are we to know which is the most impOrtant, the most necessary? We have attempted, though, to cover, not only our Harvesting Silence / 17 tra.cks ~with all our foliage,but God's as well. Prepare ye, then for the dr~ught Whereupon God shall create:in and a~ound us,-from the chaos of our lives, a single, simple desert from which shall emerge in bold silhouette the real, the. true, the ,necessary. Dfteo when I am in a. desert there are two passages that frequently come .to mind. One passagd is from Ursal Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea. It is a story about a young man struggling to become a wizard. At one point in his training he. is given this sage bit of advice: ¯ ~ You thought, as a boy, that a mage is on6 who can do anything. So I , thought, once: So did we all::And the truth is that as a man's real power . ~grows and his khowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows nar-or. ower:- until at last he chooses n~thing, but does only find wholly what he must do . ,~ The trick, it would seem, is to find that must do. It is easier said than done. But difficult though it may be, it~ strikes me as being nonetheless true. ~The key to the finding seems to revolve around getting in touch with limitations, the paucity of resources and talents wherein lies our realistic avenue of . growth.-The desert seems a fitting place for recognizing one's limits, the truth about oneself. ." ¯ .The other.passage that comes'to mind treats the same theme, this one from Annie Dillard's Teaching a ~Stone to Talk: I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you. W.hat a blessing it would be "to ~asp your one necessity," if only, that is, one knew what-it was. To speak of doing what one "must do" is the same as sp6aking of what is "necessary,"~ and both require the same str~uggle, namely, hacking thr6ugh the jungle of options, choices and aliernatives in ~vhich ~we find ourselves. Times of decision, be they 'great or small, would be so much easier if only we could, perceive the necessary from all the possibiliti.es. There are simply too many choices, too many ways. In such times it is important io disentangle the seemingly necessary from the truly necessary. The de,eft is an excellerit place to do so; the desert is a refuge from the unnecessary. In the.desert one learns quickly what is involved .in returning to riecessity. One of the fi~'st things discovered is l~recisely how necessary the desert is. In the silence and starkness of the desert the unnec-essary has a way of shriveling up a.nd falling away or, in its self-ordained has~tb, of passing usoby. And when it does so, when all is finally quiet and deserted, when we stand surrounded by void, then look and listen well. What emerges from the stillness is that which we seek. I sit in my desert and watch a parade go by. There are clowns and 111 / Review for ,Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1986 bands, important people in convertibles smiling and waving, Each one wants those on the sidklinesto join them, to take up ranks bohind them, It is the parade,of the unneceskary. Right now I am watching it pass by. I am waiting for"the still, small voice I've heard follows, behind." Sometimes amid: all the noise it goes by unnoticed. Clowns, bands, and crowds make almost as mubh~ noise as winds,, earthquakes and fires. T6 hear it, .then, one must wait and listen attentively. : ~ ~ " ~ ~. ~ . While I wait I notice something about the parade; Us~ually parades move along slowly, butnot 'this one. I ~vonder if it doesn't resemble more a race, a marathon,'than a parade. It reminds me of the joke ab6ut the airline, pilot who was hopelbssly lost but making excellent time:° I wonder ¢vhere the parade/race ends? I don't think it does. It looks a little funny but obviously it isn't~ Everyone heems so serious. I'm beginning to feel guilty and irresponsible just sitting here. ~But l haven't heard the yoice yet, the. still, small one. Actually, I'm:rather glad they ~'e rushing on. They all make me nervous., ~ Gradually the parade moves on. And still I sit, silently waiting. I think the voice is also shy. lt figures; small, still things usuallyare. There are two possibilities: one, it's watching me to see whether l'm safe b~efore it,co, mes out; or, two, it doesn't know that I'm here. Either way, I'll.wait. It will be along sooner or lat.er, that is, if it's necessary. A desert is anything but empty; despite all appearances t9 the ontr~ary, it is filled with an i~i~ense silence. It is so silent and Calm and stilithai~every breath, every heartbeat booms. It is incredibly difficult,oif not impossible, to be uhawat~ in a desert. The sparcity of gcen~ry seems somehow to cleanse the senses. The silence that is both vocal and .visual! Washes over the eyes an~l ears and all the'other senses. In fact, so acute does sensing become that, it can assume an alfiaost paranoic nature. The irony is that.';vhile we imagine things that' are not there, we tend to deny whak is. We struggle in the intense desert silence,~struggle with wafiting to believe with all our hearts "it is'only a mirage," yet haunted by the question "Was it real? Is it~iteal'? The desert silence makes~us realize that, havir~g been so dulled by the Sens6ry:"blitz of life, we hav~ 10st the art of l~erception. There is so muchto see and hear and behold that we noqonger.know.how: Either We have learned to sc?eeh so effectiv~ely, the noise and pace of our lives orwe are blinded an~i:deaf~ned by it all: in either event, once in'the'desert' with so little to sye'and hbar we find we really do not know h6w {o do ~either; But then, that is the°poini"of being in the desert. Harvesting Silence / 19 The desert is a place for not. only confronting things divine; it is first, and perhaps primarily, a place for encountering things human. In a desert wh~t first.is confronted is consciousness. What better way to appreciate sight and Sound than to have,them takenaway. In the desert., where there is nothing, to .see, we learn again how~ to see. In the desert, where there is nothing tohear~but the howling of the Wind, we learn how to listen to ~the spirit. But what" we see and .hear first with our rediscovered senses is ourselves. In the°desert~ in becoming Conscious of ourselves, we paradoxi-cally discover that self-consciousness is the antithesis of consciousness. I do not mean by self-corisciousness the knowledge and recognition of the truth ~about~ourselves. The Christian tradition is adamant about self-knowledge as the starting point in-the search for God. Hear, for example, the iestimony of St. Isaac of Syria, a sixth-century desert father: i~' Enter eagerly into the treasure-house that'lies within you, and so you will see the treasure-house of heaven: for the two are the same, and there is but one single entry into ihem both. q'lie lhdder that leads to the kingdom is hidden within you. Dive into yourselfand :in your soul you will discover the rungs by which to ascend. ° Or, for example, ten centuries later,Teresa of Avila writes in a similar vein: It is no small pit~; and'should cause us little shame, that, through bur own fault, we do not .understand ourselves, or know who we ate. Would ~it not ¯be a sign of great ignorance, my daughter, if a person were asked who he o o was and could not say, and had no idea who his fatheror mother.was, or from what country he came? BecOming conscious of ourselves, both for its own sake and as a means to union with God, is indeed well aitested in theChristian~traditi0n. What is not as-well documented, or.at leastnot as talked about; is the adverse effect self-crnsciou~ness has on ou~ i~bility to be conscious and aware, to perceive not 0nly God, but~the world in which we live. It takes great ignorance, great childlikeness to be consciously aware. On the other hand it is quite impos~sible to be both self-crnscious and child-like at the same time; people are'either one or the other. For example, a child does riot care how he or She looks to oth(rs. This unself-cohsciousness so characteristic of children 'we call innocence. 'It is innocence. It is inno-cence that allows a child to be enthralled when an adult's self-conscious concern for propriety and dignity would compel them to be less conspicu-ous, though'also less perceptive. Annie Dillard-calls innocence "the spirit's unself-conscious state at any momenl~°of pure devotion to any object. It is at once a receptiveness .and total concentration." How.many adults have ¯ the freedorri, the unself-co'nsciousness it takes to coricentrate with recep- 20 /~Reviewfor Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1986 tiveness and devotion? Those, to be sure, who are most childlike in attitude and orientation. And is this not the point behind the command to :'die to self" in order to follow Christ? Can Christ live in us if we are filled with our self?. Perhaps, too, only children.can enter-the kingdom because it takes a child's unabaslied ability to see and hear to perceive it. Children are life's tourists. They walk about gaping and gawking at every thing and eve.ry one. We permit:.them to do so, to look foolish because they are, after all, only children, who don't yet know any better. But we_ deprive ourselves of the same ability and freedom to stand and behold the ordinary and extraordi-nary things in our lives and in our selves. We let self-consciousness interfere with satisfying our thirst to be truly conscious and aware of the hidden mysteries of life, hidden because to see them we must get down on our hands and knees with our backsides exposed for all to see and crawl about or simply sit motionless for minutes and hours and wait as life unfolds according to its own whim or inner law. To be ~ruly ~ware, truly, conscious of any thing°or any one, let alone God, we must be willing and able toleave ourselves and enter into the reality of the thing or person we are with. Counselors call it attending, the rest of us call it listening, the ability to truly be with another, to share that person's experience; to enter into that persoi~'s life. To attend, toe listen, like any form of consciousness, takes self-emptiness. The desert,s unself-conscious silence is paradigmatic of the emptiness we~need to emulate in order to be aware. We cannot find the. emptiness to be truly receptive, truly devoted, truly conscious, if all our senses are already filled to overflowing with se/f-consciousness. ~ Outside my window and down a little hillside, used to stand se.veral ~trees and different sorts of unruly shrubs. When the trees had bee~n cut down and .the shrubs cleared away, lo, there all at once appeared the river that had hid behind them. In a similar sort of way, self-cons.ciousness comprises much of the lushness that blocks off our ability to see beyond ourselves, to perceive the almost insanely mysterious world we live in. The desert, though, is much too hot and dry to produce much vegetation. The aridity of the desert similarly bakes away our own self~onsciousness. We sit and sweat in our deserts until our senses open like pores and we once again can perceive the horizons we obscured ~with ourselves. ~ In the desert we learn unself-consciousness through a form of sensory deprivation. ,There is so little to see and hear in ~the desert, so little to do that we become deadly bored, even with ourselves. As a result., we launch out a ravenous hunt for something or,~anything to see or hear. For ex~ample, fa:sting cleanses t.he palate. After even a~day 9f fasting.e.ven~ the simplest broth tastes remarkably good. So in the desert, when our senses fast, we Harvesting Silence rediscover the beauty of the little and unnoticed things of life, thingS otherwise lost in all the lushness; ~ III There is another quality to deserts, they are excellent places to get lost. There are very few land' marks in a desert. Ev6n the sand dunes shift. That is why people who iraverse the desert wastes often do so at night, when they can at least rise the stars as navigational guides. All of' this is quite distressing, especially to those exp~e~'ienced with desert lifel IQlost of us have lives With Paths well worn from da.ily routines, habitg, and regul~roPatterns of behavior. We seldom stray from those paths and so'seldom face the reality of gettirig lost. For all our-fi~eedom of will and actionl most of us are likg trains committed to a given track. BUt at least that way. our lives are fairly stable, regular, an~ predictable. At ~uch and such a time we do this and that, and th6n the next routine is followed-- a.nd God help those who try to disrupt the pattern. And so we mbve quite confidently and assuredly ~tirough our lush little jungle lives. At any given moment we~kno~v where we are and what comes next. One way of knowing that we have b~en spiritually teleported ~nto a d~sert is when ~the old routine no longgr works. The stability has become ihstead sterility. Or we may find ourselv.es ina degert as a resultof_some "derailment," some experience or event that thro~vs-us off the carefully laid pattern of our lives. Our first response to this is¯ frequently anger, then panic. The anger is a response to the realization of how thin the veneer is to the ¯ iJlusion that we are in control of bUt lives, that we indeed are not the masters ~t:bur destiny. Then come~ the ~anic when we find our lives are increasin.gly Without purpose or direction. The former goa!s no longer seem as satisfying or even worth the effort. The sense of aimlessness grows and deepens until we rffust adfiait that we, our lives, are lost. The trumpets have all died nbw. Their ruckus.was only to set the stage, .like the wihd, earthquake, ahd fire, for "what is to follow. Before the duthority of the trumpets all other sounits quail. Before their power all else stands dumb in awe. The silence of the other sounds forms an open fieldo that draws all attention.to a sblemn, solitary figure. Bravely and boldly I shout out, "The ti~e has come! I hi~ve grown up. Now I am¯ ready to go oui in ~earch of my destiny! I am going out in search of myself to myself. I am laundhing'an expedition whose ~oal it is to discover and encounter ~ / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1986 God!? Secretly and equally as silent, the ramparts surrounding the king-dom of heaven make ready for this new assault. But don't mistake the actions, they do not raise new battlement, nor do they send out patrols and war parties. Rather, they assemble and make ready the rescue crews that will search for this new expedition's survivors. Many o~us, at one time Or another, do strike out in search of our lives. Our main goals are past exp~.riences of mastery over earlier tasks and duties. Ultimately, these expeditions, sooassured of success, all wind up in the ~me pla, ce~ h.opelessly lost in some or another desert. Our prey, whether pu.rpose, mea0~ ing, desti ~ny, br God had led us.on unexp~ectedly to a place we never intended to go. We followed it fearlessly into l~he desert and sud.denly find it is too late, too late tO go back, too lost to go ahead. Our careful plans, otir former experience~ had not pl:epared us for this. We are lost, empty, alone; well do we fit into the environment of the desert. At times when we mhy feel this way, lost and empty, without meaning and control, in desperate need of guidance and direction, we should not lament, for the strategy is Working. Th~ strategy of ~ear~hing for God is simple: get yourself so hope.lessly lost that God fias nochoice but to go out and find you~ This much is simple, and most p.eople accomplish it without even trying. Unfortunately, it is only half the str.ategy. The rest is much more 'distas~teful but becomes easier to swallow the longer and more hope-l~ sly we. remain lost. The remainder of the° sti'ategy is this: we must be willing ~0 be found'and (this is the clincher) we m~t agree to being found~i on God's terms. The whole magnific~'nt adventure, whether we entered upon it willingly or found ourselves thrust into it, has this as its purpose: agreeing to God's terms for being found, recognizing and. accepting our dependence upon God. I've wandered around in circles for a longtime ~ithout wanting to be found. It's not that I like being lost, it's just that I'm not ready to accept the terms for being found. Don't forl yourself, God's magnanimity is not without its own sort of conditions. God's conditiOns, however, arise not out of stubbornness; they are mediated by necessity. If, for example, a person wants to become an Olympic athlete, one of the conditions that must be met to fulfill that dream is submitting to the rigors of training and practice. Faced 'with those conditions, that person may opt to observe the games rather than participate in them directly: It's not enough to. wants.to be found; one must need it so m~uch that he or she is wilting to le.t go of other things and embrace willingly. ~he ~necessary conditions. 0.ne of the hardest conditions to accept is letting go of the way I would like to go and follow instead the way ! feel led. The reason mhny peoPle get. Harvesting Silence lost to begin with is because they didn't follow the directions they were given. I want my life to lead in this direction but by following it the feeling of hopelessness and aimlessness only-continues more strongly. My alterna- ¯ tives are two: keep going the way I want even if it means staying lost, or giving in and following with greater commitment the way I feel compelled to go. In my ingenuity I present to God a third plan: "Couldn't we both wander around my path together? That way I could go in the direction I want and you would be with me so I wouldn't feel lost. It may not be the waY home but at least it's easier and more scenic than the way you want to go." No,l don't think so. When we find ourselves in a desert, it may be that we need to reassess the path that led us there to begin with, the routines and habits we so blindly foJlow, that we assume are so necessary. The desert silence and emptiness are not a punishment; they are created as the location for finally confronting the truth about our lives. In the desert, God lives and acts and interacts accord!rig to God's own rules and pace of life. The harvest the desert offers may well be a different,'more spontaneous; a freer and more conscious way of life. It may not be as stable and predictable or as important as one of our own choosing, but it may be more conducive for perceiving clearly the necessary presence of God speaking and poking through our well-~orn paths at unexpected times. The ironic thing about deserts is that they are excellent places to be found. In contrast to our often harried lives, deserts are so bleak and stark that God has no trouble finding us.o ° Waiting for Warmth: A February Poem The water's running cold as 1 stand before the mirror waiting for it to warm before I wash and shave and comb my hair. l'm waiting, too, for something else to flow, for a coldness in me to go, warmed in the light of a love that won~ run out as 1 grow,o.ld. ~Neath my winter stillness something stirred. My eyes pooled with melting fears. A quiet spring cleared my doubts away whi!e.washing "my f~ce with tears. Jerome Schroeder, O.EI~I. Cap. Martin Fraternity 843 West GarfieldBlvd. Chicago, IL 60621 Toward a Theology of Health Care Robert A. Brungs, S.J. Father Brungs is Director of the Institute for Theological Encounter with° Science and Technology; His article is based on an address delivered to a meeting of the Health Care. Province of the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration on the occasion of a week-end of prayer and reflection. Father Brungs may be addressed through his office: ITEST: 221 N. Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 63103. There is always a temptatio.n, when speaking about the role of a specific group in a larger group, to become quite general, or even utopian. I am deliberately trying to turn my back on that temptation to.day. I cannot and will not adequately address the "role of women in the Church"; the most significant reason for this incapability is that I am not a woman. What I hope to do is to set up a rough framework really a set of boundaries --that should be determinative in any discussion of the role of anyone in the Chin:oh. There is an easy language now in vogue. We glibly speak about our "role in the Church": the role of men, the role of ttie women, the role of the priest, and so on. I would submit that the language is inexact, blurring the reality and therefore dangerous to, and possibly even subversive of, our service to God. We do not "play" or "fulfill" roles in the Church; we live our lives in the Church. The Church, as we ~would all agree, is the developing kingdom of God~ It is that seed 'of the final, blessed kingdom which as St. Mark tells us "is sprouting andgrowing;how he [we] does not know. Of its own accord the land produces first the shoot, then. the ear, then the full grain in the ear" (Mk. 4:27-28). "Sh6 [the Church] becomes on earth," as Vatican II states, "the initial building fbrth of that kingdom [of Christ and of God]. While she slowly grows, the Church ~trains toward the consum-mation of the kingdom and, with all her strength, hopes and .desires [italics 24 Toward a Theology of Health Care mine] to be urfited in glory with her King" (Lumen Gentium, 5). I am stiggesting here that our relationship in and withthe Church is absolute. "Our life in the Church" is precisely and only that, namely, our life, our only life. The Church. is not an association of people in which we fulfill some function but which we can leave to perform another function in some other association. It is not like a man or a woman working in a business, and aiso living apart in a family. The Church demands as she must demand--total commitment and total dedication. Once we have put our hand to the plow there is no turning back, no alternative except betrayal. "Role-language," I fear, can finaliy obscure that rock-bottom, basic commitment. Our lives as religious are intrinsically apostolic (and therefore "service") lives 'not roles. That is the promise we have made to God and to which we have bound ourselves by'vows. Having said that, let us look again at our world, our universe in Which Church is, in which we live. We live in a real universe that has (God-given) boundaries. The universe, created and redeemed by God, has a structure, and structure impliesdimit. This universe in which we live, of which we are a part, is limited, even though what we see as its limits may not be the true ones. °We live, because of Christ's life, death, and resurrection, in a new creation: "And for anyone who is in Christ,'there is a new creation; the old creation has gone, and now the new one is here. It is all God's work" (2 Co 5: 17-18). That world in which we live is created in and through the 'Word of God, and the world and all mankind finds its end and goal in the fullness of the Word-made-flesh. This first fact offaith°~bsolutely undergirds and specifies our understandir~g of ourselves/as-human as men and women since that meaning is found'in, and founded upon, the meaning of Christ's humanity. ~ ~. To understand the meaning of our lives in 'the° meaning of Christ's lifr, we must also.understand the meaning of the Christian community, of the Church: "Even if we did once know Christ in the flesh, that is not how we-know him now" (2 Co 5:16). We now know Christ~ sacramentally, in the Church which° is his body. Thus, an understanding of the Church is necessary, along with a spirituality that consciously, prayerfully, and lovingly recognizes the communal aspects ofour lives as Christians. In this community of God's people we undergo the transformation frorri self-absorption (doing our own thing for our own ends), through the cross (the painful death to our own desires), to the resurrection (the loving conformity of our wills to that of.the~Father). Our life in the Church is.the uneven, painful.but joyous response to that most fundamental commandment Christ Jesus hasgiven us: "You must therefore be perfect just as y~ur heavenly Father is perfect'~ (Mt 5:48). Jesus Christ as Lord is the goal, the 26 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1986 destiny of the entire race as an interpersonal community. The community of Christ's people of which we each are members .in union--is not merely a sociological grouping; it is the sacrament of Christ.present in the world, a prix;ileged community sacramentally, symbolically, representing, fulfilling, and manifesting the goal to. which .we are all directed, namely, the fully established kingdom of God. "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a consecrated nation, a people set apart to sing the praises of God who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light" (1 P. 2:9). A second fact of fait.h is our membership in a chosen people, in a community set apart to serve and praise the Lord. There are many w.ays of approaching the mystery of Christ and its meaning for an understanding of.our humanity, and, of course, our sexuality. Since we live in a fallen world redeemed, indeed, but not yet t.otal!y so the best we can do as humans, and that haltingly, is to live sacramentally. The authentic human is integral; and we are not. Much of our search for a meaning of the human is a search for an integrity not given us. here. Our physical reality, as sacramental, as symbolic, points to a reality~that it does not contain. We live not in terms of fruition but in hope. We.cannot now co.reprehend the truth of the fully human; we can only live toward it. To seek a non-fallen expression.of ourselves as human in a yet-to-be-fully-redeemed world is to seek for that which will not be given. This, t~en;js a third fact: we are dis-integral, still seeking our fulfillment as human in the full and final kingdom of God. But, looking ahead.to that final kingdom, there are some things we can say. The~ Scriptures offer us no systematic definition of the human, nor.do they intend to do.so. Full unders~tanding of our humanness is to. be had only in that final kingdom which is still shrouded in mystery. But we can say some things even though their full meaning eludes us. ,.They ca~ at least serve as. guides~. For e.xample, in the fulfilled kingdom of God we shall be integrally human. We don't understand what human integrality is, but we do know some things it is not. We shall not be beasts, nor shall we be angels. The Catholic doctrine is that we shall have bodies, identifiably and recogniz~ably our own and, therefore, specific. We shall remain enfleshed. The imperfections and disabilities that are ours in this world will fall away. We have no detailed knowledge of the risen body, and both Saints Paul and A.ugustine remind us of the futility of speculation in this realm. Biat we know that we are not seeking a return to some "golden age'--back to the Garden of Eden in .order more fully to understand ourselves. Adam and ¯ Eve are not the models of our final humanness. Rather, Christ and.Mary the second Adam and second Eve as integral humans, integrally related and united, contain all the meaning of our authentic humanness. Toward a Theology of Health Care Thus we have a fourth fact: our fullmeaning will be found in Christ.and Mary integrally united with each other. In summary: in any discussion of our lives in the Church, we must remember some facts of faith: (l) our understanding of ourselves is to be found in the meaning of Christ's humanity; (2) that.~neaning includes our membership in a community set apart to serve and praise God, as he wills it; (3) in the present course of salvation history, we are disintegral and seek ¯ our fulfillment elsewhere, in the final Kingdom of God; (4) our full meaning as humans--as individual specific human beings incorporated into God's community' -is to be found in Christ and Mary, in the integral unfallen r~lationship between them. At this point, you might well be asking if I have indeed avoided the tempta~tion I mentioned at the beginning. These are general statements, it is true. But I believe they are necessary to locate our discussion. What they say, essentially, is that we do not live in a vacuum. Our lives, our options, and our meaning are not unlimited. There are precise, significant limita: tions in ourattempted service of God. These limitations are summed up in that term we use so often: "The Will of God." Yet the Will of God most often remains mysterious as it must, Since it is only in fulfillment that we shall know as we are known. But the mystery is not one of total ignorance. The boundaries in which that Will is to be followed have been :revealed to us, and the four facts I have mentioned above are a part of that boundary within which.~ we are:to act. Still, we must get more specific. You are not just women; you are Consecrated women. More, you are not just consecrated women; you are members of" the Franciscan Sisters Of Perpetual Adoration, and then, laboring in their Health Care Province. These facts also act as:bouridaries within which your .service of .Christ and of his Church occur. They are not restrictions in that service; rather they are charismatic delineations of your promiseit service. They represent ybur response to the needs of the community of God's People, a response prompted by the Charism of your foundress. That spirit is a determining factor in how you face the future of your apostolic commitment to ~the growth of God's kingdom qn the Church. But as we all know a charism is given to an individual for the good of the community, for the growth and' strengthening of the Lord's Body. And within that Body ~ there is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit; there are all sorts of services to be done, but always to the same Lord;oworking in all sorts of different w.ays in different people, it is the same God who is working in all of them. The particular way in which the Spirit is given to each person is ,28 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1986 for a good purpose. One may have th, e gift of preaching with wisdom given him by the Spirit; another may have the gift of preaching instruction given him .by the same S.pirit; and another the gift of faith given b~- the same Spirit; anot ~her again the gift of'healing, through this one Spirit; one, the power of miracles; another, prophecy; another the gift of recognizing spirits; another the gift of tongues and another the ability to iiaterpret them. All these are the work of ofie and the same Spirit, who distributes different gifts to different'people just a'~ he chooses" (1 Co 12:4-11). St. Paul goes on to discuss the Body of Christ, and says: "Now you together are Christ's body; but each of you is a different partof it'(12:27). We are each of us unique, a unique gift of Godto his Church and finally to his fulfilled kingdom. Each of, us I, you, each human .being has a unique, irreplaceable, never-to-be-repeated history with God. Each of us has been given an unrepea~ble set of talents and lack thereof, perfections and lack thereof, strengths and concomikant weaknesses. And each of us .has responded to God out of this being which is ours alone. Each.of us has lived in a perfectly irreproducible history, with relationships to other humans, to other segments of creation and to God. Each, in brief, brings to the Church and to God irreplaceable, unique gifts that cannot be substituted for by anyone else. And it is as individuals that we live in and help make up the commun, ity of God. We live in that community, bear responsibility in it, live out our love in it so deeply that our being a member of that community becomes an irreplaceable part of us and we of it. Although it may seem paradoxical, we are finally "communal individuals." As with each of us as ,individuals, so with those consecrated families of men and women within the Body of Christ. Each religious family--as with each Christian family has its own unique history in the Church, and unique gift to the Church, and unique service to the .People of God. In discussing our role in the Church, we must combine our'individual gifts and history with ~the mission that our religious family has offered to the Body of Christ and which that Body has accepted. We cannot, in brief, deny our gifts nor our history. This weekend you will be praying and Speaking fromoyour own history as a religious comm.unity and from your own gifts particularly your gifts of being women--and there I can be of no help to you. But I believe I can say some things of value with regard to your apostolic charism. And it is to a discussion of this apostolate that I intend to move now. It would be well to consider the place of the healtti care apostolate in the life of the Church. The Health Care Al~ostolate In the ninth chapter of thb Gospel according to St. Luke we. read: Toward a Theology of Health Care / 29 ~He [Jesus] called the Twelve together and ~gave them power and authority over all devils and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. ~ This gives a clear link between proclaiming the kingdom of God and healing. Thus it is very important for us to articulate and specify the reasons for the Church's institutional presence in and through you and your partners and helpers in the apostolate of health care, or bett~r, of heating and caring. If the Church is going successfully to face decisive changes in health care, and if you are goings,to continue, and deepen, your service to the Church in caring and curing, it is necessary for us to understand as fully as possibie the Catholic dimensions of health care. What are the reasons for the Church's long and deep involvement in health care an involvement that has been so eloquently witnessed by the Work of your community for a century? Is health care--or let us say it better, the care of the sick, the aged, and the weak--is this care something that the Church entered upon historically because no one else was doing it? Or is there something in the very heart of Christian reality that calls forth no, demands such activity? I believe that each one of us here wouldin.stinctively, and rightly, respond that the care of the sick, the weak, and the aged is not peripheral 'to the Gospel. Rather we instinctively know that it is a duty imposed on us by the Lord. There are at least three central reasons for the Church's emphasis on the healing.apostolate that I would like to mention today. They are not exclusive in the sense that there are no others, nor are they cleanly separable from each other. But each of them is very important to our fuller understanding of what the. health care apostolate means to the Church. And each may be helpful as you discern your role of mission in, to, and for the Church. Tl~e ;Great Commandment .First, we have the "second greatest" commandment that our Lord passed on to us: to "love our neighbors as.we love ourselves." This, as we all know, is given a very concrete specification in chapter twenty-five of St. Matthew's gospel:. "For I vbas hungry and you gave.me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and yo.u made me welcome'; naked and you clothed me, sick and'you visited me, in prison and you'came to see me . Insofar as you did this to one of the leasLof these brothers of mine, you did it to me.~ The care of the ~sick, then, is one of the ways in which we Christians ~ / Re?iew for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1986 carry out that new and solemn command of Christ, given to .us on the night before he died to heal us all: "This is my commandment: 'love one ~nother as I have loved you." Before it is anything else, then, the care of the infirm is an immediate, direct response in charity to the love that our Lord has shown to us. In itself, this would be reason~ enough for the Church's presence in health care. But there are at least two other important aspects basic aspects, really to her involvement in this apostolic work as well. Messianic Sign The first of these'other-reasons can be found in the seventh chapte.r of St. Luke's gospel. The pertinent passage is solemn enough to permit a rather long citation: ,~The disciples of John gave him all this news [the healing of the centurion's servant and the raising from the dead of the.son of th~ widow of Nain, which Luke mentions immediately prior], and John, summoning two of his disciples.~, ~ent them to the'Lo'~-d to ask, "Are you the one who is to come, or must we wait° for someone else?" When the men ieached ~Jesus ¯ they said: "John the B~aptist has sent us to you to ask, 'Are you the one °°°who is to come or have we'to wait for someone else?" " It was just then that he cured many people of diseases and afflictions and of evil spirits, and gave the" gift ~of sight to many ~. who were blind. Then he gave the messengers their answer: "Go back and tell John what you have seen and .o heard: the blind see again, the lame walk, lepers are Cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, the Good News is proclaimedto the poo.r an.d happy is the man who does not lose faith in me." In this passage Jesus is, in effect, telling John the Baptist that he (Jesus) is doing that~work which Isaiah foretold would accompany the presence of the Messiah among his~ people. Thesd acts of healing were the oOnly credentials he would give to the one Who was to go before him. The blind seeing, the lame walking, the deaf hearing, and so on, all these are witnesses to the presence of the Messiah among his people. Th'ey are the living witnesses to the da~vning of. the messianic times--the only witness John would receive. But now the Messiah arid Lord is still present to his people sacramentally in the Eucharist. And the Church~the .Bride in her health~ care apostolate, in her working to heal the sick and care for the infirm, witnesses to that eucharistic presen~ of the Lord. In her work to help~the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers be cleansed in all that-~-she says to us, and to the world, that the Messiah and Lord is still among-us. Thus, caring for: and healing the sick is a quasi-sacramental, witness .to the continuance of the messianic times inaugurated by Jesus Christ and continuing in the Church until he finally returns to us-in glory to make all Toward a Theology of Health Care things fight. The distress in the world illness~ decay, and death--which revelation tells ug is the result of sin, is slbwly being overcome in the Church, and will indeed be overcome completely in heaven. It is the task of the Church to witness to the life of him who is her life. By her existence she witnesseg to'his existence. By her involvement in the care for and healing of the ill, the oppressed, and the poor-:through your commitment and your devoted work--she says both that the Lbrd is still with us sacrfiment~illy, andthat; when he returns to us in all his glory, we shall all be healed of all our infirmities. Your work in hospitals, then, is a profound statement of our belief that the Lord is with rus still. Thus, on this score as well as that of a direct response in charity, the health care apostolate--since it witnesses to the messianic presence of Christ and to the sacramentality of the present age is central"t6 the faith, to Christian living. It is one of the mbst important .~iays we have to say that "ther6 is a new creation, the old creation has gone, and no~ the new one is here." A Church, that did not witness to the presence of the healing Christ through the~'caringfor and°curing the sick, would be radically unfaithful in her proclamation of the Good News of God's saving presence to his people. SO, let no one disturb you as to the importance, to the centrality to the faith, of your ~apostolic commitment. witness to the Last Time , Thirdly, through you who are engaged in health care as well as in other ways, the Church witnesses to her faith that.°ur bodies will rise to glory through God's powerful gift to us. The resurrection of ohr bodies is one of the great truths entrusted to the Church. It is also one of the truths that we h~,i,e great difficulty'~with, as did the Jews and Greeks. The Jewish Sadducees rejected the notion of the resurrection of the body, and the Greeks were content to.snigger and mock it. In the aftermath of St. Paul's speech in the Areopa~gus in Athens (Ac 17:30-33) we see this nonbelief: God overlooked that sort of thing [thinking that the deity looks like anything in gold, silver, or stone that has been carved and designed by a man] when men were ignorant, but now he is telling everyone everywhere that they must repent, because he has fixed a day when the whole world will be judg&d, and judged in righteousness, and he has appointed a man to be the judge. And God 'has publiciy proved this by raising this man from the dead.- At this mention of rising from the dead, some of them burst out ~ laughing; 6thers said; "We. would like to hear you talk about this again." But it is that ill, corruptible, even corrupting body in the doctor's office ¯ or in the hospital bed that will ris6 into glory! It is that body which you ~2 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb:, 1986 wash or soothe or treat that will be with God forever. There is a serious need right now for the Church to make her instincts on the meaning and significanc~e of the human .body !n our salvation and glorificatio.n more But even now, despite our ignorance, there'are still some things we can s.ay, though not as ~well as we should b~ able. We are not, for exam~ple, saved and glorified in g.eneralities, but in our particularities. We shall, be saved~and glorified as men or. women, as white, black, yellow, or red, as persons of a definite time and place and ethnic background. Our glorified bodies will not be some kind of "generalized matter." These bodies of ours mine and each of yours--are the only. way in which our spirits are manifested in created reality. Our bodies are, and will continue to be, the unique material signature 9four spirits in creation. My spirit,.y0ur spirit., cannot manifest themselves in any old body, but only in my body, on.ly in your body. The union of body ~and spirit that is I--that unique harmony that alone is I is very specific, now and in heaven. This conclusion comes directly from the Church~s dogmati~ position that we shall rise phy.sic.ally, and recognizably ourselves. The health care apostolate--the care of specific people with specific problems, real people who.hurt is one of the most impo .r?tant ways that the Church, the Bride of Christ, has of proclaiming the truth that our bodies, in all their particularities, are sig0ificant, are good, are holy, are-to be saved, are to be glorified. We shall return to this ~notion later on, but for now let us merely say that this belief in, and witness to, the resurrection of our own bodies gives a further intrinsic meaning to the (~hurch's institu-tional concern with and commitment to the healing of the body and caring for the sick. You are saying, by your touch, that this body is significant to salvation and glorification. Changes in Mi~dical Practice ~o ~ It needs no stating here that, as in many other areas of Catiaolic life, there are quite severe stresses in the Catholic health apostolate. This should corrie as no surpris~ to any of us. In fact, if these stresses were not present, we could only conclude either that our health institutions were not providing modern health care, or .that these institutions were no longer Catholic. Since neither conclusion is true, stress is inevitable. Tensions and problems arise from many sources: from profound changes in medical practice itself; from a growing shortage of nuns in ~the health care apostolate; from. a.loss of control of hospital administration and policy; from increasing governmental intervention in health care; and, finally, °from some of the same confusion that is present in the rest of Catholic life. Toward a lheology of Health Care Here, I shall consider only some of the profound changes in medical practice that have occurred in the last quarter century, Even within that relatively narrow area I intend to mention only two aspects, hardware and attitudes. We are aware of the growth of technological medicine which has placed so much new hard~vare between the patient and the doctor, and has raised the cost of medicine so much. This does not imply that technological medicine is bad or is inappropriate, merely that it is different. But the new technology does tend to separate the doctor or nurse from the patient. It tends to emphasize "cure" as "care." It can make the practice of medicine seem more .mysterious and less tiuman to the "patient.' Finally, the proliferation of hardware could (although not necessarily Will) lead the health care professional to an unconscious, indeliberate attitude ~that~the patient is some sort of a "thing" to be "repaired." The growth of this kind of attitude toward patients is but a part of the growth of a technological point of view foward human beings that is occurring in almost all phrts' of western societY. A question for health-care professionals, as for all of our society, is whether or not we are beginning to "lo0k oh human beings as some,things, to be manipulated at whim. The increase in medical technology,.of "hardware," between the patient and the health-care professional demands our attention, but it is not the greatest change inthe practice of medicine in the past twenty-five years. ,Up till now, the greatest impact of this increase in medical technology has probably been in the realm of cost. But the attitudes that can be engendered should not be overlooked. We cab leave this for~a moment so as to look ata far more'profound, and far less discussed, change in medical practice. A ,New Def'mition of Health 0 . Several years ago the ~World Health~Organization (WHO) developed ~and promulgated a new definition of health that reflects a significant shift in 'medical practice. To an extent, this shift is the source of much of the stress in the health-care apostolate. I used a relatively, neutral term--~ reflects--to describe the activity of WHO. To say that the WHO definition caused the shift would be an overstatement. Probably it would be more accurate to state that the WHO definition reflected a Change in attitude already well begun. Whatever cause and effect may be, there is a significant difference between the WHO definition and what most of us lay people think medicine (and health care) has been and ought to be. WHO defined "health" as a state of complete physical mental and social well-being. With a new definition of "health" can new definitions of .34 /.Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1986 "health care" be far behind? There are several key words in the WHO definitio~n th.at ought to be looked at carefully since ~hey imply a shift even a radical shift in our understanding of health care. The first word that needs consideration is "complete." "Complete" contains a very c.urious notion indeed. This word would have us believe, against all available evidence, that complete well-being is available in °this life. If one were so inclined, one could find in the concept of complete well-being a.denial of many Christian beliefs, from a denial of original sin to a denial of the existence of heaven. Christianity, through its teachingon original sin, warns us against expecting complete well-being on any level, in this world. It is only in heaven that total human justice and well-being will be achieved. The WHO definition, at this level, becomes a salvational statement, premised on the notion that salvation (complete healing of our ills) is achievable somehow through human knowledge. But let's not pursue this aspect any further here.Just on the pragmatic level, we all live with the knowledge that we are all going to die sometime. That knowledge in itself is incompatible with "complete well-being." Perhaps the word "complete" was thrown, into the definition just to make it look better. Still, in a world where health-care resources are at best gravely limit~ed, and where costs are. extremely high and getting higher, the notion of "complete. well-being" is nonsense. More, it is, as has been stated, anti-Christian if it is taken seriously. Health as Social Well-being Perhaps the most significant concept in the definition, insofar as it impacts on Catholic health care, is the relation of "health'~' to "social well-being." This statement reflects probably the greatest single shift in medical practice over the last thirty years, and the one of most immediate concern to the Catholic understanding of health care. It is centered in ttiose "medical" practices that have most agitated Catholics in health care;. the wide-spread dispensing of contraceptive medications and mood-altering drugs, abortion, and contraceptive sterilizations. They all find their rationale in the phrase "complete. social well-being." Most dispensation of contraceptive pills, IUD's, and so forth, have had very little.to do with the physical state of the women to whom they were given: The same, of course; can be said of abortion, contraceptive sterilization, and of course, the pervasive use of mood-expanding and mood-depressing drugs.¯ More often than not, the contraceptive and abortive technologies are resortedto for socio-economic reasons, or simply because the "patient" (or should we say "client"?.) did not~esire another baby. The use of these technologies, in by° far the largest number of cases, .does not serve the-pursuit of physical Toward a Theology of Health Care health, but rather the woman's (or her consort's) quest for convenience, the absence of distress, material possessions, and so f6rth. In a word, the health care profession has efitered--with seemingly little reflection into the "happiness-business." "This means," as George Will has stated in an article in The Washington Post, "that happiness is a medical commodity; happiness is the doctor's business. That, in turn, means almost everything is the doctor's business, so. medicine becomes a classification that excludes nothing, and hence does not classify." This change of attitiade in medical practice is of enormous implication" and concern for Catholic health care. Is the Catholic health concern to be directed exclusively to the removal of pathological barriers to good health and/or to 'the alleviation'of physical painand distress? or is it to be directed to "happiness," to "complete. social well-being"? This is~an immediate and very seribus question. And it is a questi.6n that is going to grow even more urgent in~,the future. Here, it might be well to look ahead just a bit to get a wider perspective of what these questions imply for Catholics, both individuals and institu-tions, in the rest of this century. . Future Questions There is a very good chance that the notion of"health" as "complete. social well-being': could easily become, within the next twenty-five years, the "complete. :. well-being of society. "This is not atall as farfetched as it may seem at first blush. Letus look at this carefully because it will have an almost unimaginable effect on the Church herself and, hence, on her institutional health care apostolate. We are now facing the greatest technological (as well as cultural and especially religious) challenge we human beings have ever know~f: the growing capacity technologically to master ourselves: For the first time in human history we.face a technological Challenge so powerful that it will have to be met primarily in terms of human ends; not merel3~ in t~rms of' techniques, means, and instrumentalities. These new techniques are so "powerful that any overreliance upon "bioethics," or even medical-moral theology, will be misplaced. The grave problem both for society and for the Church is one of meaning, not one of means. Among other things, any understanding of medical practice--in the light of emerging biotechnologies and bio-industries--must include the contemporary scientific-technological frame of mind out of which value judgments are most likdy to be made. The scientific-technological frame of mind is basically instrumental, since it has grown out of a mathematical worldview. That frame of mind looks on all things, human beings included, as essentially quantifiable and ~16 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1986 manipulable. Michael Zimmerman has stated it most succinctly: "For us [contemporary humanity] to be means to be re-presented, or transformed and rearranged, according to. our desires and projects." As science and technology increasingly turn. toward knowledge of and power over the human., this spirit of transformation, applied to society on a broad scale, will become increasingly worrisome. Will our society feel that these new technologies will achieve their l~otential on an ad hoc, individual level? It seems doubtful. Rather, it seems° more likely that it will be decided that the full potential of biotechnology and bio-industry .can. be achieved only through systematic application across the society, i,e., by a methodical and methodological application. A~ .systematic technological intervention into the human requires some con-trolling ideological consensus of what it means to be human. These new p0we~, to be applie~d systematically on a society-wide basis, must be tied to some dominant notion of the human. It is important to discover which systdm is likely tO be dominant. With biotechnological capability, the dominant notion of medicine will no longer be returning people to some generally accepted norm of health, but rather the creation of new norms of health. That is to say that these new capacities will be directed finally to building new human beings. Th~ principal reason for any society-wide application of biomedichl or biogenetiC technologies is more order, less randomness, in the human situatibn. In consid~ering changes in the human to be passed on to future generations in order to develop new norms of health, one is really talking about eugenics. It is necessary for us to realize that the proposals being made for the use of biotechnological power will be directly aimed at buildi~ng a eugenic, society. Any.s0ciety-wide advance in improving the human stock will inevitably demand new criteria for social (and medical) judgment. As we move from con~ei'n for the physical health of individuals to the well-being of society, br 6f the species, what criteria will be applied to the medical use of bio-scientific discovery? It is most likely one is tempted to say necessary that the criteria for the social applications of, bioscience will be,the basic canons of-experimental science0wedded to the desires and demands.of the dominant cultural system. The three canons of experimental science are simplicity, predictability and reproducibility. In the. technological mode, "simplicity" becrmeso efficiency. Any rational attempt at eugenics demands a "predictable" product. Without such a predictable result, one might as well be content with what we have now. Moreover, if these predictable results are not "reproducible,~' eugenics must remain a fleeting dream, because random- Toward a Theology of Health Care ness will not have been overcome. As the philosopher, Charles Frankel, has stated: The most astonishing question of all po~ed by the advent of biomedicine, . probably, is why adults of high intelligence and considerable education so regularly, give themselves, on slight and doubtful provocation, to unbounded plans for remaking the race . Wight unites the Puritan radicals, the Jacobins, the Bolsheviks, the Nazis, and the Maoists is the deliberate intention to create a "new man," to redo the human creature by design [italics mine] . The partisans of large-scale eugenics plannings, the Nazis aside, have usually .been people of notable humanitarian sentiments. They seem not to hear themselves. It is that other music that they hear, the music that says that there shall be nothing random in the world, nothing independent, nothing moved by its own vitality, nothing out of keeping with some idea: even our own children must not be our progeny but our creation. This "nothing random," "nothing ind.ependent" is the hallmark of experimental science. In the laboratory, the. system under investigation must be as tightly closed as possible. No random variations can be tolerated if the results are to be,reproducible. If the variables cannot be accounted for and controlled, no valid experimentation is possible. The systematic social application of biotechnology based on the canons of experimental science demands the closing ~of the social system and demands that no random, uncontrolled variations take place. In brief, the social system will have to become :the laboratory. Laboratory science is necessarily based on quantification and requires complgte freedom to transform and rearrange the 15asic structure of matter. If such science is to be applied to human beings in any kind 0f a collective fashion, it will demand the unrestricted control of social life. Judging from proposals now being made by many social planners not .to be confused with sociologists these technologies will be used in such a systematic fashion. We,can already see an example of this in the "culling process" in the widespread practice of abortion for :'fetal indications" to remove the burden of the care of such persons from society. The widespread socially orientate°d application of biotechnology~ will not be directed toward individual therapy, as medicine has been in the past. At best such application can be said to be "therapeutic" for society, for the "good of the species," or for some other abstraction. The notion of "nothing random in the world, nothing independent, nothing moved by its own vitality, nothing out of keeping with some idea" should alert us immediately to the source of the dominant social ideal being presented to us as the basis of the social use of these novel technologies. We have here~ ~11 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1986 in fact, a Gnostic salvation scheme that is essentially anti-Christian: "Gnostic" is taken from the Greek word for knowledge and refers to all those heresies that would provide salvation through human knowledge. Here we have anothel in a long list of salvation schemes oriented toward that final state When justice, .achieved solely through human effort, ~ will pervade the eiirth in historical time. It postulates the temporal perfectibility of the human and of creation. Biotechnology ra.ises questions that have to do with ends and purposes,~that depend on a deep understanding of the human. !n recent "advances," the question has always been set by the "innovator." The question has always been posed in favor, of the specific short term goal of the innovator; usually in a sentimental form. Take the three great reproductive ~technologies of the last twenty-five years: contra-ceptibn,~ abortion, and °"test-tube babies." In none of the issues has the question been posed beyohd short-term individual effects. Thes~ questions (with the answer almost~given) have been: "How can you think of denying people the techhology available to regulate and control the number of children they will have?" ',How can you deny a woman the ~right to those technologies.that will guarantee her control over her own body?" "How can you deny a~marfied couple, deeply in love,.a biological child of their own?" There is a thread common to each of these questions. They ignore history. They take for granted that individual acks of people ("between consenting adults, and so forth") are self-contained and have no relevance either for society or history. Nonetheless, the broadei" questions, must posed. The. meaning of the technology involved in things like contraception, abortion, and in vitro fertilization is critical in any approach to Catholic health care. Across the biotechnological spectrum we have moved from "sex without babies" (contraception and abortion) to "babies without sex" (in vitro fertilization and cloning.) ~ ~ The separation of sexual union from procreation (through contracep-tion and abortion) was, and is, necessary to build a social attitude willing to consider a~ human being as a product of technological achievement, as we now have with the successful birth of a "test-tube baby.," We 6annot allow ourselves to look at these new technologie.s only in themselves, without connection either to What has come before and what is most likely coming in the future. To treat them only in-themselves is to forego qiving in history,~ As has been stated several times, the essential question facing us in' the advance of biological science, technology, and industry (along with its implication for rriedicine) is ~-what it means to be human. We must face squarely whatever costs to human freedom and dignity that might be Toward a Theology of Health Care involved in these new technologies. In vitro fertilization, for instance, is not only some benign new technique that' will be used only to help"~ some Unfortunate, infertile couple have its own biological child. It can provide such an opportunity, but it is also the linchpin in the construction of a fully orchestrated eugenics program. We would be naive, even blind, if we ignore the eugenic probabilities thus opened up. o : Our society and this is especially needed in the Catholic approach to medicine--still has the opportunity to decide what description of "the human" it wishes to call its own. A society based on:laboratory models and techniques is not inevitable unless'we choose either the description of the human as essentially malleable, tO be transformed; to be rearranged, to be disposed of at Will, or else choose not to. think about these things at all; There is already sufficient momentum built into biotechnological advance to arouse serious anxiety unless we clearly and cleanly face ~in issue whose outcome is so momentous to our society and especially to the Church. To do nothing in:this matter-is a powerful statement in favor of'this momentum. And the apostolate of health care will be the first to feel this challenge. '~ ~ What Now? :When St., Paul was dragged before the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, he exclaimed: "It is for our hope in the resurrection of the dead that° I am on trial'~ (Ac 23:6). And it is for our belief in the resurrection of the body that we are .on trial today. And nowhere does this trial have a greater impact than on those religious whose life is dedicated to the care and cure of the sick and the infirm. As was mentioned earlier, one of the faith-bases of our health care apostolate as an institutional involvement of the Church is the witness to ther meaning, the significance and dignity, 6f the human body in our salvation and glorification. We are not spirits using a body that we will some day leave behind, nor bodies merely moved by a spirit. We are the harmonious union of body and spirit. Neither "aspect of that union can be enhanced at the expense of the' other; neither can be mutilated 'for the sake of the other. Much of our .medical. (and social) attitudes toward the body are at least implicitly dualistic. We speak and act as though we were "persons" (somehow really disembodied) using a body. Often enough we seem to consider our personality as purely spiritual. This simply is not true! Our personalit3~ is spiritual-material. We are not,: nor will we ever angels. We cannot treat our bodies merely at whim without inflicting severe damage on ourselves. Many (if not all) of the reasons given for the nontherapeutic practices in medicin are couched in terms expressive of the 40 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1986 dualism of "using my body" or having "control over my body.", This is true, by the way, even of the majority report of the Papal Birth-Control Commission prigr to the issuance of Humanae ~Vitae. Despite its overwhelming concentration on the body, the modern attitude, even the medical attitude, is basically spiritualistic. This is seen even in the use of "person" in. liberation rhetoric. In essence, it is a call for "neuterization.'. There are no "persons"~ in this sense in which the word is so often used. There are rather on.ly womenoand men~ Persons are by nature specifically bodies, as men or women, as black,° yellow, red, or white, with a specific ethnic backgrgund, and so on. We are not,going to be saved and glorified as a "human~_nature.'' We are going to be saved as ourselves and this includes our accidents as well as our substance. The Catholic Premise It is n_ecessary for us as Catholics to develop a deeper,, more explicit u~nderstaiading of our bodies. This burden of enriching the Church falls on cache.of us, but most urgently on theologians (the~ theoreticians) and on those health-care professionals (the practitioners) working together in a communal defense of the Church's very profound instinct about the holiness and sacramentality of our bodied existence. It is in the area of ah explicit doctrinal understanding of that.sacredness and sacramentality that our approach to, such~questions as technologies of contraception, abortion, contraceptive sterilization and laboratory conception must be made. Here especially, male and female, practitioner and theoretician, we must all work together in a fruitful, enlightening, enriching defense of the sacramentality and holiness of bodied life. Together,-we must recognize~ defend, and enrich the Church's instinct that we worship God only as the bodied creatures he made us. Continually the Church i~ accused of "physicalism" in her understanding of sexual morality .--~-~ and, let's face it squarely, most of the complaints raised about the Church's, position on many medical practices are concerned with reproductive technologies of one kind or another. ~VCe hear very few, if any, complaints about the Church's position on the use of prosthetic devices artificial limbs,:pacemakers, or (sometime in the future) the implantation of microprocessing chips in the brain to enhance our calculational ability. No, the .real arena, of struggle is reproductive medicine. And here the Church is.accused--both by doctors and moral theologians, or ethicists as they like.to be called now of physicalism because it defends "the natural.,," But what is really involved in this "defense of the natural" is not a blind anti-technological stance, nor is it prudery, nor is it physicalism, nor.is it some kind of old-fashioned nostalgia. Rather, it is the Church's realization Toward a Theology of Health Care / 41 that, male and female, we are in the image of God, and that our sexuality is absolutely tied to our worship of God. The Church's stance is not anti-technology, but it is pro-worship. This has many :more doctrinal ramifica-tions than we can go into here, but it at least means that we cannot technologically interrupt or short-circuit the woi'shipful communication of life-giving potentiality. This is not some old-fashioned "physicalist" view, as some moralists would have us believe. The Church's view is rather hopeful proclamation that we spiritual-material creatures can escape the narrow-ness and absurdity that comes from the consideration of our bodies as "secularized," without sacramental, life-giving, value. Thus, both on the level of dedication to health care and as women, you have the burden and opportunity of enriching the Church's understanding of our bodied life. This is one very significant aspect of your lives as women in the Church. Your vocation places you at the point of conflict on two whole sets of issues. The first is the true exaltation of the feminine both in the Church and in society. The second is health care: The world is telling us that the prime function of the body--and especially of a woman's body---is pleasure. It is saying equivalently that it is an elegant toy. But as Christian men and women, we must say that it is far more than that. Apart from anything else it is a vehicle of the sacramental imparting of the Holy Spirit. Not even God can affect us without some, bgdily medium--(though perhaps 1 had better be careful about saying what God cannot do!) Mar~ ~s Model In terms of your lives in the Church, I would venture only one suggestion, andl I will cast that in a paraphrase of St. Paul's statement to the Philippians: "Let that heart be in you that w.as in Mary." I believe this is tremendously important. The place of Mary in salvation history has not been as fully developed as it can be; It has not been sufficiently pondered. She has, on the contrary, been treated in a very shallow, even if chivalric fashion--"One just can't say enough nice things about Mary." So much of the writing (and praising) of Mary could .almost be summed up in the words of the song "Oh, look at her; ain't she pretty?" But the Mary I'm suggesting to you is one with a terrible, vocation; to stand at the foot of the cross and accept that horror and pain into,her life, There was nothing sweet or sentimental.about it. She had to accept that her Son, part of her,~ was dying. In a sense, she had to ratify in her life the fulfillment of Christ's life on earth (death and resurrection) as she had ratified his humanity (in the Incarnation). Let us look to Mary. As the Fathers of Vatican II have stated (Lumen Gentium, nn. 55-56): 42 Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1986 She stands out among the poor and humble of the Lord, who confidently await and receive salvation from him. With her, the exalted Daughter of Sio.n, and after a long expectation of the promise, the times were at length fulfilled and.'the new.dispe~nsation established. All this occurred when the Son of. God, took a human nature from her, that he might in th~ mysteries of his flesh free man from sin~ ~ ° The Father of mercies willed that the consent of the predestined mother sliould precede the Incarnation, so that just as a woman contributed to death, so also a woman should contribute tO life. This contrast" w~ verified in.outstanding fashion by the mother of Jesus. She gave to the world that very life which renews all things, and she was enriched by God with gifts befitting such a role. The unity inherent in the "two-in-one flesh" theme (see Gn 2:14 and Ep 5) is the unity of Christ and-his mother at the moment of the Incarnation the unity by which the Holy Trinity is truly present in history. That unity is the creation of the Church at Pentecost in which the Holy Spirit is truly given. The Church is constituted, as Mary is constituted, by the~presence of the Spirit which is the gift of Christ, a creative Spirit. That unity is constituted also in the worship of the Church in. which the Church comes to be by the presence of her Risen Lord in that sacrifice by which he saves. That statement may seem on a first.hearing to be somewhat vague and abstract, so let'stry to make it clearer. Mary's place in'God's saving history was to be asked to accept God's New Covenant with his people. She said "Yes." And that New Covenant that God offered was the Son of God-made-flesh.' Mary's accepta~nce was not merely passive. Her receptivity was creative; the.humanity of Christ was her gift--remember the Council's words "The Son of God tOok a human nature from her. "' At that point Mary and Christ enter into a relationship of the masculine and the feminine that is integral (both are sinless), total, and which will endure forever. It is that relationship (again of masculine and feminine), that "two-in-one-flesh" unity of Christ and Mary, which provides the meaning of the fully redeemed creation. Please note several things here:°we are not putting Maryand Christ on the same level, either as though Mary were divine or Christ"only human; we are not talking about a relationship that we Understand ° it is a union that is integral, i.e., fully redeemed. We don't understaiad this, but we can make some statements. Mary is the ideal and exemplar (see Lumen Gentium, n. 63) of the Church now and of the whole creation ultimately perfected. Mary is the true and full splendor of the created order. She stands in a relationship with Christ in terms of her femininity. Because she is the mother of God, Toward a Theology of Health Care Theotokos, she is understood as the model and archetype of the Church. If creation in Christ (creation fully reestablished and conformed to the Father's will) is the meaning of creation, then Mary is the one complete creature ever created. Her constitution as immaculate expresses the truth not only of the feminine but also of creation and of the Church, a °truth summed up in the term "Mother of God." Or again as Vatican II says (Lumen Gentium, n. 68): In the bodily and spiritual glory which she possesses in heaven, the Mother of jesus contihues in this present world as the image and first flowering of the Church as she is to be perfected in the world to come. Likewise, Mary shines forth on earth, until the day the Lord shall come (see 2 P 3:10), as a sign of sure hope for the pilgrim People of God. Finally, .let us note one more thing. We usualJy associate Mary's virginity with God himself being the Father of Christ; that is to say, the fact of no human male intervention in the birth of Christ accounts for her virginity. But that is merely a factual explanation that does. not even approach the depths of this mystery. It is of enormous importance for us to note that Mary's virginity is fruitful in a child. This is something that we less-than-integral, sinful, creatures cannot yet understand. But if Mary is indeed the exemplar and splendor of creation--and as the mother of the Body of Christ in all its aspects, she is--then somehow fruitful virginity will be the final human posture in the perfected creation. Somehow or other, as fulfilled in Mary, the splendor, the fullness of creation is feminine. Please remember that what I have been talking about is terribly mysterious, and none of us knows any detail, nor, indeed the full reality. In a sense, I have been. discussing poetry rather than a well worked out theology. But that theology has to come; the truth of the feminine depends on it. And it has to come from the prayerful, feminindy devoted lives of women in the Church. Conclusion Well, then, where does all this leave us? Particularly, where does it leave women in the Church who have promised their lives to Christ in the mission of healing? It leaves them precisely where most of us would rather not be, namely, at the intersection of those two lines of severe conflict that I mentioned earlier. They stand with, and in some way as an extension of, Mary, at the foot of the cross. This was her sublime call, to accept within her life first that child whose Incarnation in her was the will of the Father. Then she had to accept within herself the death of that one whose life she had spent her life serving. 44 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1986 I do not believe that it is old-fashioned or wrong-headed to state that women's love is especially creative. It is the life of the woman to accept, and having accepted, to nurture new life. We are waiting for that continuing new life in the Church. All that I have offered here is another invitation to the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. All I can say about this is that there is a good precedent for the offer. To fulfill their lives as women in the Church committed to the service and healing of the ill, the aged, the infirm, religious women in the health-care profession witness to the radical importance and significance of womanhood and the healing love of God. On both accounts they will be reviled by the contemporary world. God offered the First Covenant and the Last Covehant to women: to Eve who refused to nurture it and so brought no new life to the world, and to Mary who did accept it and brought forth and nurtured that new life who is the Christ. Adam's ratification of Eve's refusal brought death; Christ's ratification, of Mary's ac~ceptance brought life. (Note that both the male and the female are involved in both covenantaloffers). The cross! I remember vividly one of the.episodes that Fr. Teilhard de Chardin wrote about in one of his books. He was writing of his life as a chaplain in the French army at Verdun in 1916. On one afternoon there was a more than usually brutal battle for a small hill called Froideterre. Shortly afterward in a moment of quiet, Teilhard reflected in his diary on the battle of Froideterre. He mentioned the total absurdity in which all these young men died. Then he thought to himself that someday the French government would erect a monument on that hill and wondered what that monument ought to be. It occurred to him that, in view of the horror and absurdity of that battle, only a cross could memorialize that battlefield; only in the Cross could such absurdity be redeemed. In our own lives, too, the absurdity can be redeemed only in the cross. Only there shall we find any meaning for ourselves. The Lord God never promised us anything in this world save a share in his Cross. I hope I have intimated that there are enormous riches embedded in the Church's demand that we consider our bodied lives as worshipful and worhipping--that we take ourselves, spiritual-material creatures, as seriously as God. Our bodies are not toys; they are temples of the Spirit of the living God. There are no answers presented in these statements. The only real answer we can give is our lived response to God's offers to us. It is here, and only here, although it requires much faith and effort, that we can base the health care apostolate and your womanly lives in the mission of healing this sadly abused world and its people. Unoriginal Sin and the Grace of the Ordinary Rachel Callahan, C.S. C. In the issue of March/April, 1985, Sister Callahan contributed her article, "The Grace of the Ordinary." Now she takes up the theme again. Sister may still be addressed at the C.S.C. Consultation Center; P.O. Box 1521; Adelphi, Maryland 20783. Sin and grace. There is a paradox in how these two separate, not only distinct but apparently contradictory realities are so enmeshed in the human experience. This article is written out of a profound sense of grati-tude that everything, including our sinfulness, can be "grace" because of the transforming touch of a God who calls himself Love. When I was a child growing up in a small New England town which still had its ethnic parishes, one of my Irish aunts always used to go to the Italian parish for confession. I asked her why she did this. She laughed and told me that no matter what she said to the old Italian pastor he always listened and said in his still broken English: "Now for you penance, once the beads--and go and sin some more." The man was legendary in town as a down-to-earth, holy person who reached out to everyone. While his send-off from the sacrament might at first sight :seem a little unorthodox, it was profoundly real. My aunt never thought it was broken English but only good human sense. When we stop to reflect on the human experience, sometimes it's hard to separate sin and grace. My most gracious actions which genuinely further the kingdom are tainted by motives of selfishness or pride. My most secret or frightening sin carries seeds of grace. Human motivation is so complex that to try to sort out categorically all the sin from the grace can sometimes lead to an inward-turning self-absorption so that energy for 45 46 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1986 the-kingdom gets lost. This is in no way meant to deny the reality and efficacy of discernment of spirits but only to suggest that in the complexity of human experience we try not to be too judgmental even witli ourselves. The Lord reminds us that the wheat and the chaff grow together till the harvest. Becoming a grim reaper of the weeds will also damage the wheat. In a splendid little book, What Are They Saying About the Grace of Christ?, Brian McDermott, S.J., offers this observation: we need to acknowledge in our quest for social justice and systemic change that to eradicate sin completely from the social structures would in all probability destroy the structure with whatever limited capacity it might contain for good. This doesn't suggest any less dedicated commitment to social justice but simply the reality that in human experience sin and grace are often embedded together. In order to look at this a little more closely let's examine the notions of grace and sin as developmental phenomena. McDermott looks at grace through five vantage points which might be considered developmental stages, certainly not static events. The first moment is grace as accep-tancemi. e, that bed rock, deliciously wonderful good news that God loves us unconditionally, just as we are, no strings attached. This quite over-whelming good news is from our beginning but often our awareness of this is gradual. The deepening, ongoing realization of this reality is the lifelong gracious project that our faithful God has for us. ¯ The second moment of grace is conversion. When Jesus came to his public ministry, the people that drew his special attention were the sick, the sinners, and the Pharisees. Wonderful news he ate with sinners, with the outcast! McDermott points out two foci of conversion. The conversion that we ordinarily think about is Jesus' offer of gracious liberation to the sinner to be converted from his/her sin and the guilt which weighs down, demeans, focuses in on self in condemnation. McDermott highlights another kind of invitation to conversion,-one quite startling. Jesus offered to the Pharisees the invitation to be converted from their goodness. The Pharisees are portrayed as preoccupied with their own goodness, claiming it as their own, and profoundly self-absorbed in their own righteousness. It is a somewhat jarring notion to consider being converted from our goodness. After all, isn't that precisely what we are called to become: more and more "perfect'--(only Lk 6:36 says "compassionate"). But the point is that our focus needs to be on the good God. We are invited to let God be God, i.e., Love, and not be terribly pre-occupied with our spiritual bank accounts. God's grace can never be overdrawn! Both of the movements, the conversion from sin and the equally important conversion from good-ness move us away from self-absorption towards un-self-focused celebration. Unoriginal Sin / 47 God ,saves us and sets us free from both our sin and our goodness. The next three moments of grace ar6 closely linked--discipleship, community, and service. Being learner, student of Jesus, listening, hearing in n~w ways is never finished. As the gracious God works with me I become a "we" person, ministering to and being nourished by the most ordinary kinds of human interactions so that finally the good news of how much I/we are loved gets fleshed out in service. What is amazing is how patient God is in all of this and how impatient we can be. We often try to "run" in his service before we let ourselves "be held" by his acceptance. Early experience of call and vocation often appeals to the desire to serve at a time in human development when we dream great dreams of doing great deeds. And years later, as we live into our limits and learn more and more that all is grace, we learn that God's love is what counts more than our own generosity. Now how does sin fit into this picture. Do we dare think even meta-phorically about sin as grace? First of all, I am using the word "sin" in the biblical sense. One common biblical notion of sin means essentially "miss-ing the mark." Jesus knows how proficient we are at missing the mark. We are by very reason of our human-ness "missers-of-the-mark." Each of us carries not only the generic woundedness of being sons and daughters of Eve and Adam but we ~lso carry what I observe as a psychologist: our own "personalized original sin"--those deficits or traumas in our back-ground that predispose each of us towards brokenness and missing the mark. Let's look at a few examples. Early deficits in parenting, not because of parental malice but because of parental limitations, .or circumstances such as death, illness, or poverty can leave a person bruised or perpetually "hungry." Ordinary needs for nurturance and attention are experienced more intensely, leaving a person feeling very vulnerable or very entitled. Unconscious wishes to make up for deprivation in this area can lead to difficulties in relationship. Either clinging, "take care of me" behaviors or an "I don't need anybody" stance can create interpersonal~problems. And until a person understands and works through this he or she is somewhat captive to these unconscious pulls. Another example of this personalized original sin is genetic makeup. The longer that I work with individuals in therapy the more respectful I become of genetic realities which impact personal!ty as well as hair color. Some persons are more predisposed towards depression, which is a psy-chobiological reality, not simply an emotional state. Studies show a famil-ial pattern in this which suggests both nature and nurture at work. We know that how we think can influence how we feel, and that persons suffering from depression often have to do some work to correct crooked 411 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1986 thinking, But we also know that this phenomenon is a chemical reality and often needs chemical intervention, much in the same vein that a person with diabetes or malfunctioning thyroid needs medication to balance the system. Anyone who has ever struggled with the day in, day out miasma of a real depression knows that it is not only very painful but also that, despite the fact that many people carry on their lives reasonably effectively, when depressed, one often feels himself or herself to be no good, doing nothing right. Since sometimes we make the mistake of confusing feelings with reality--e.g., "I feel like a bad person, therefore I am a bad person"--these negative feelings about self produce guilt and hopelessness, and it's easy to magnify one's sense of sinfulness in ways that are paralytic. Fortunately combinations of cognitive therapy, exercises and medication, if needed, are very effective in reversing this condition which has a genetic

Issue 45.4 of the Review for Religious, July/August 1986. ; Volume 45 Number 4' July/August, 1986 REVIEW FOR REt.~G~OUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. REVIEW FOR RELiGiOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. © 1986 by REVIEW FOR REI, IGIOUS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, M O. Single copies: $2,50. Subscription U.S.A. $11.00 a year; $20.00 for two years. Other countries: add $4.00 per year (postage). Airmail (Book Rate) $18.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editor July/August, 1986 Volume 45 Number 4 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELtGtOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindeli Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Richard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVtEW FOR RELtCtOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N.Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, M! 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. A Letter to Priests: The Example of St. John Vianney John Paul H As he has done each year of his pontificate, Pope John Paul addressed a letter to priests for Holy Thursday, which is, par excellence, the Feast of Priesthood. The text is taken from L'Osservatore Romano, 24 March, 1986, pp. 1-3. Here we are again, about to celebrate Holy .Thursday, the day on which Christ J.esus instituted the Eucharist and at the same time our ministerial priesthood. "Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end."~ As the Good Shepherd, he was about to give his life for his sheep,2 to save man, to reconcile him with his Father and bring him into a new life. And already at the Last Supper he offered to the apostles as food his own body given up for them and his blood shed for them. Each year this day is an important one for all Christians: Like the first disciples, they come to receive the body and blood of Christ in the evening liturgy that renews the Last Supper. They receive from the Savior his testament of fraternal love, which must inspire their whole lives, and they begin to watch with him, in order to be united with him in his passion. You yourselves gather them together and guide their prayer. But this day is especially important for us, dear brother priests. It is the ¯ feast of priests. It is the birthday of our priesthood, which is a sharing in the one priesthood of Christ the mediator. On this day the priests of the whole world are invited to concelebrate the Eucharist with their bishops and with them to renew the promises of their priestly commitment to the service of Christ and his Church. As you know, I feel particularly close to each one of you on this 481 482 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 occasion. And, the same as every year, as a sign of our sacramental union in the same priesthood and impelled by my affectionate esteem for you and by my duty to confirm all my brothers in their service of the Lord, I wish to send you this letter to help you to stir up the wonderful gift that was conferred on you through the laying on of hands) This ministerial priest-hood which is our lot is also our vocation and our grace. It marks our whole life with the seal of the most necessary and most demanding of services, the salvation of souls. We are led to it by a host of predecessors. The Matchless Example of the Cur~ of Ars One of those predecessors remains particularly present in the memory of the Church, and he will be especially commemorated this year, on the second centenary of his birth: St. John Mary I"ianney, the Curb of Ars. Together we wish to thank Christ, the prince of pastors, for this extraordinary model of priestly life and service which the saintly Cur~ of Ars offers to the whole Church, and above all to us priests. How many of us prepared ourselves for the priesthood or today .exer-cise the difficult task of caring for souls, having before our eyes the figure of St.John Mary Vianney! His example cannot be forgotten. More than ever we need his witness, his intercession, in order to face the situations of our times when, in spite of a certain number of hopeful signs, evangeliza-tion is being contradicted by a growing secularization, when spiritual disci-pline is being neglected, when many are losing sight of the kingdom of God, when often even in the pastoral ministry there is a too exclusive concern for the social aspect, for temporal aims. In the. last century the Cur~ of Ars had to face difficulties which were perhaps of a different kind but which were no less serious. By his life and work he represented for the society of his time a great evangelical challenge that bore astonishing fruits of conversion. Let us not doubt that he still presents to us today the great evangelical challenge. I therefore invite you now to meditate on our priesthood in the pres.- ence of this matchless pastor, who illustrates both the fullest realization of the priestly ministry and the holiness of the minister. As you know, John Mary Baptist Vianney died at Ars on August 4, 1859, after some forty years of exhausting dedication. He was seventy-three years of age. When he arrived, Ars was a small and obscure village in the Diocese of Lyons, now in the Diocese of Belley. At the end of his life, people came from all over France, and his reputation for holiness, after he had been called home to God, soon attracted the attention of the universal Church. St. Plus X beatified him in 1905, Pius X1 canonized him in 1925 and then in 1929 declared him patron saint of the parish priests of the A Letter to Priests / 483 whole world. On the centenary of his death, Pope John XXIII wrote the encyclical Nostri Sacerdotii Primitias, to present the Cur6 of Ars as a model of priestly life and asceticism, a model of piety and eucharistic worship, a model of pastoral zeal, and this in the context of the needs of our time. Here, I would simply like to draw your attention to certain essential points so as to help us to rediscover and live our priesthood better. The Extraordinary Life of the Cur~ of Ars Preparing for the Priesthood The Cur~ of Ars is truly a model of strong will for those preparing for the priesthood. Many of the trials which followed one after another could have discouraged him: the effects of the upheaval of the French Revolu-tion, the lack of opportunities for education in his rural environment, the reluctance of his father, the need for him to do his share of work in the fields, the hazards of military service. Above all, and in spite of his intuitive intelligence and lively sensitivity, there was his great difficulty in learning and memorizing, and so in following the theological courses in Latin, all of which resulted in his dismissal from the seminary in Lyons. However, after the genuineness of his vocation had finally been acknowledged, at twenty-nine years of age he was able to be ordained. Through his tenacity in working and praying, he overcame all obstacles and limitations, just as he did later in his priestly life, by his perseverance in laboriously preparing his sermons or spending the evenings reading the works of theologians and spiritual writers. From his youth he was filled with a great desire to "win souls for the good of God" by being a priest, and he was supported by the confidence placed in him by the .parish priest of the neighboring town of Ecully, who never doubted his vocation and took charge of a good part of his training. What an example of courage for those who today experience the grace of being called to the priesthood ! His Love for Christ and for Souls The Cur6 of Ars is a model of priestly zeal for all pastors. This secret of his generosity is to be found without doubt in his love of God, lived without limits, in constant response to the love made manifest in Christ crucified. This is where he bases his desire to do everything to save the souls ransomed by Christ at such a great price and to bring them back to the love of God. Let us recall one of those pithy sayings which he had the knack of uttering: "The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus.-4 In his sermons and catechesis he continually returned to that love: "O my God, 1 prefer to die loving you than to live a single instant without loving you . I love you, my divine Savior, because you were crucified for us. because you 484 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 have me crucified for you."5 For the sake of Christ, he seeks to conform himself exactly to the radical demands that Jesus in the Gospel puts before the disciples whom he sends out: prayer, poverty, humility, self-denial, voluntary penance. And, like Christ, he has a love for his flock that leads him to extreme pastoral commitment and self-sacrifice. Rarely has a pastor been so acutely aware of his responsibilities, so consumed by a desire to wrest his people from their sins or their lukewarmness. "O my God, grant me the conversion of my parish: I consent to suffer whatever you wish, for as long as I live." Dear brother priests, nourished by the Second Vatican Council which has felicitously placed the priest's consecration within the framework of his pastoral mission, let us join St. John Mary Vianney and seek the dyna-mism of our pastoral zeal in the heart of Jesus, in his love for souls. If we do not draw from the same source, our ministry risks bearing little fruit! The Fruits of His Ministry In the case of the Cure of Ars, the results were indeed wonderful, somewhat as with Jesus in the Gospel. Through John Mary Vianney, who consecrates his Whole strength and his whole heart to him, Jesus saves souls. The Savior entrusts them to him, in abundance. First his parish--which numbered only two hundred thirty people when he arrived--which will be profoundly changed. One recalls that in that village there was a great deal of indifference and very little religious practice among the men. The bishop had warned John Mary Vianney: "There is not much love of God in that parish, you will put some there." But quite soon, far beyond his own village, the cure becomes the pastor of a multitude coming from the entire region, from different parts of France and from other countries. It is said that 80,000 came in the year 1858! People sometimes waited for days to see him, to go to confession to him. What attracted them to him was not merely curiosity nor even a reputation justified by miracles and extraordinary cures, which the saint would wish to hide. It was much more the realization of meeting a saint, amazing for his penance, so close to God in prayer, remarkable for his peace and humility in the midst of popular acclaim and, above all, so intuitive in responding to the inner disposition of souls and in freeing them from their burdens, especially in the confessional. Yes, God chose as a model for pastors one who could have appeared poor, weak, defenseless and con-temptible in the eyes of men.6 He graced him with his best gifts as a guide and healer of souls. While recognizing the special nature of the grace given to the Cur6 of Ars, is there not here a sign of hope for pastors today who are suffering A Letter to Priests from a kind of spiritual desert? The 1Vlinistry of the Curb of Ars Different Apostolic Approaches to the Essential John Mary Vianney dedicated himself essentially to teaching the faith and to purifying consciences, and these two ministries were directed toward the Eucharist. Should we not see here, today also, the three objectives of the priest's pastoral service? While the purpose is undoubtedly to bring the People of God together around the eucharistic mystery by means of catechesis and penance, other apostolic approaches, varying according to circumstances, are also neces-sary. Sometimes it is a simple presence, over the years, with the silent witness of faith in the midst of non-Christian surroundings; or being near to people, to families and their concerns; there is a preliminary evangeliza-tion that seeks to awaken to the faith unbelievers and the lukewarm; there is the witness of charity and justice shared with Christian lay people, which makes the faith more credible and puts it into practice. These give rise to a whole series of undertakings and apostolic works which prepare or con-tinue Christian formation. The Cur~ of Ars himself taxed his ingenuity to devise initiatives adapted to his time and his parishioners. However, all these priestly activities were centered on the Eucharist, catechesis and the sacrament of reconciliation. The Sacrament of Reconciliation It is undoubtedly his untiring devotion to the sacrament of reconcilia-tion which revealed the principle charism of the Cur~ of Ars and is rightly the reason for his renown. It is good that such an example should encour-age us today to restore to the ministry of reconciliation all the attention which it deserves and which the Synod of Bishops of 1983 so justly emphasized.7 Without the step of conversion, penance and seeking pardon that the Church's ministers ought untiringly to encourage and welcome, the much desired renewal will remain superficial and illusory. The first care of the Cur~ of Ars was to teach the faithful to desire repentance. He stressed the beauty of God's forgiveness. Was not all his priestly life and all his strength dedicated to the conversion of sinners? And it was above all in the confessional that God's mercy manifested itself. So he did not wish to get rid of the penitents who came from all parts and to whom he often devoted ten hours a day, sometimes fifteen or more. For him this was undoubtedly the greatest of his mortifications, a form of martyrdom. In the first place it was a martyrdom in the physical sense from the heat, the cold or the suffocating atmosphere. Second, in the moral Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 sense, for he himself suffered from the sins confessed and even more the lack of repentance: "I weep because you do not weep." In the face of these indifferent people, whom he welcomed as best he could and tried to awaken in them the love of God, the Lord enabled him to reconcile great sinners who were repentant, and also to guide to perfection souls thirsting for it. It was here above all that God asked him to share in the redemption. For our own part, we have rediscovered, better than during the last century, the community aspect of penance, preparation for forgiveness and thanksgiving after forgiveness. But sacramental forgiveness will always require a personal encounter with the crucified Christ through the media-tion of his minister,s Unfortunately it is often the case that penitents do not fervently hasten to the confessional, as in the time of the Cur~ of Ars. Now, just when a great number seem to stay away from confession completely for various reasons, it is a sign of the urgent need to develop a whole pastoral strategy of the sacrament of reconciliation. This will be done by constantly reminding Christians of the need to have a-real relationship with God, to have a sense of sin when one is closed to God and to others, the need to be converted and through the Church to receive forgiveness as a free gift of God. They also need to be reminded of the conditions that enable the sacrament to be celebrated well, and in this regard to overcome prejudices, baseless fears and routine.9 Such a situation at the same time requires that we ourselves should remain very available for this ministry of forgiveness, ready to devote to it the necessary time and care, and I would even say giving it priority over other activities. The faithful will then realize the value that we attach to it, as did the Cur~ of Ars. Of course, as I wrote in the post-synodal exhortation on penance,~0 the ministry undoubtedly remains the most difficult, the most delicate, the most taxing and the most demanding of all---especially when priests are in short supply. This ministry also presupposes on the part of the confessor great human qualities, above all, an intense and sincere spiritual life; it is necessary that the priest himself should make regular use of this sacrament. Always be convinced of this, dear brother priests: this ministry of mercy is one of the most beautiful and most consoling. It enables you to enlighten consciences, to forgive them and to give them fresh vigor in the name of the Lord Jesus. It enables you to be for them a spiritual physician and counselor; it remains "the irreplaceable manifestation and the test of the priestly ministry." ~ The Eucharist: Offering the Mass, Communion, Adoration The two sacraments of reconciliation and the Eucharist remain closely linked. Without a continually renewed conversion and the reception of the A Letter to Priests / 487 sacramental grace of forgiveness, participation in the Eucharist would not reach its full redemptive efficacy.~2 Just as Christ began his ministry with the words "Repent and believe in the Gospel,"~3 so the Cur6 of Ars gener-ally began each of his days with the ministry of forgiveness. But he was happy to direct his reconciled penitents to the Eucharist. The Eucharist was at the very center of his spiritual life and pastoral work. He said: "All good works put together are not equivalent to the sacrifice of the Mass, because they are the works of men and the holy Mass is'the work of God."~4 It is in the Mass that the sacrifice of Calvary is made present for the redemption of the world. Clearly, the priest must unite the daily gift of himself to the offering of the Mass: "How well a priest does, therefore, to offer himself to God in sacrifice every morning!"~5 "Holy communion and the holy sacrifice of the Mass are the two most efficacious actions for obtaining the conversion of hearts."~6 Thus the Mass was for John Mary Vianney the great joy and comfort of his priestly life. He took great care, despite the crowds of penitents, to spend more than a quarter of an hour in silent preparation. He celebrated with recollection, clearly expressing his adoration at the consecration and communion. He accurately remarked: "The cause of priestly laxity is not paying attention to the Mass!''~7 The Cur6 of Ars was particularly mindful of the permanence of Christ's real presence in the Eucharist. It was generally before the tabernacle that he spent long hours in adoration, before daybreak or in the evening; it was toward the tabernacle that he often turned during his homilies, saying with emotion: "He is there!" It was also for this reason that he, so poor in his presbytery, did not hesitate to spend large sums on embellishing his church. The appreciable result was that his parishioners quickly took up the habit of coming to pray before the Blessed Sacrament, discovering, through the attitude of their pastor, the grandeur of the mystery of faith. With such a testimony before our eyes, we think about what the Second Vatican Council says to us today on the subject of priests: "They exercise this sacred function of Christ most of all in the eucharistic liturgy." ~8 And more recently, the extraordinary synod in December, 1985, recalled: "The liturgy must favor and make shine brightly the sense of the sacred. It must be imbued with reverence, adoration and glorification of God . The Eucharist is the source and summit of all the Christian life."19 Dear brother priests, the example of the Cur6 of Ars invites us to a serious examination of conscience: What place do we give to the Mass in our daily lives? Is it, as on the day of our ordination--it was our first act as priests!--the principle of our apostolic work and personal sanctification? What care do we take in preparing for it? And in celebrating it? In praying 41111 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 before the Blessed Sacrament? In encouraging our faithful people to do the same? In making our churches the house of God to which the divine presence attracts the people of our times, who too often have the impres-sion of a world empty of God? Preaching and Catechesis The Cur~ of Ars was also careful never to neglect in any way the ministry of the Word, which is absolutely necessary in predisposing people to faith and conversion. He even said: "Our Lord, who is truth itself, considers his Word no less important than his body."20 We know how long he spent, especially at the beginning, in laboriously composing his Sunday sermons. Later on he came to express himself more spontaneously, always with lively and clear conviction, with images and comparisons taken from daily life and easily grasped by his flock. His catechetical instructions to the children also formed an important part of his ministry, and the adults gladly joined the children so as to profit from this matchless testimony which flowed from his heart. He had the courage to denounce evil in all its forms; he did not keep silent, for it was a question of the eternal salvation of his faithful people: "If a pastor remains silent when he sees God insulted and souls going astray, woe to him! If he does not want to be damned, and if there is some disorder in his parish, he must trample upon human respect and the fear of being despised or hated." This responsibility was his anguish as parish priest. But as a rule, "he preferred to show the attractive side of virtue rather than the ugliness of vice," and if he spoke--sometimes in tears-- about sin and the danger for salvation, he insisted on the tenderness of God who has been offended, and the happiness of being loved by God, united by God, living in his presence and for him. Dear brother priests, you are deeply convinced of the importance of proclaiming the Gospel, which the Second Vatican Council placed in the first rank of the functions of a priest.2~ You seek, through catechesis, through preaching and in other forms which also include the media, to touch the hearts of our contemporaries, with their hopes and uncertainties, in order to awaken and foster faith. Like the Cur6 of Ars and in accor-dance with the exhortation of the council,22 take care to teach the Word of God itself which calls people to conversion and holiness. The Identity of the Priest The Specific Ministry of the I~iest St. John Mary Vianney gives an eloquent answer to certain question-ings of the priest's identity which have manifested themselves in the course A Letter to Priests / 4119 of the last twenty years; in fact it seems that today a more balanced position is being reached. The priest always and in an unchangeable way finds the source of his identity in Christ the priest. It is not the world which determines his status, as though it depended on changing needs or ideas about social roles. The priest is marked with the seal of the priesthood of Christ in order to share in his function as the one mediator and redeemer. So, because of this fundamental bond, there opens before the priest the immense field of the service of souls, for their salvation in Christ and in the Church. This service must be completely inspired b.y love of souls in imita-tion of Christ who gives his life for them. It is God's wish that all people should be saved and that none of the little ones should be lost.23 "The priest must always be ready to respond to the needs of souls," said the Cur6 of Ars.24 "He is not for himself, he is for you."25 The priest is for the laity. He animates them and supports them in the exercise of the common priesthood of the baptized--so well illustrated by the Second Vatican Council--which consists in their making their lives a spiritual offering, in witnessing to the Christian spirit in the family, in taking charge of the temporal sphere and sharing in the evangelization of their brethren. But the service of the priest belongs to another order. He is ordained to act in the name of Christ the head, to bring people into the new life made accessible by Christ, to dispense to them the mysteries---the word, forgiveness, the bread of life--to gather them into his body, to help them to form themselves from within, to live and to act according to the saving plan of God. In a word, our identity as priests is manifested in the "creative" exercise of the love for souls communicated by Christ Jesus. Attempts to make the priest more like the laity are damaging to the Church. This does not mean in any way that the priest can remain remote from the human concerns of the laity. He must be. very near to them, as John Mary Vianney was, but as a priest, always in a perspective which is of their salvation and of the progress of the kingdom of God. He is the witness and dispenser of a life other than earthly life.26 It is essential to the Church that the identity of the priest be safeguarded with its vertical dimension. The life and personality enlightening and vigorous illustration of this. Configuration to Christ and Solidarity with Sinners St. John Mary Vianney did not content himself with the ritual carrying out of the activities of his ministry. It was his heart and his life which he sought to conform to Christ. Prayer was the soul of his life: silent and contemplative prayer, gener- 4~0 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 ally in his church at the foot of the tabernacle. Through Christ, his soul opened to the three divine persons, to whom he would entrust "his poor soul" in his last will and testament. "He kept a constant union with God in the middle of an extremely busy life," And he did not neglect the Office or the rosary. He turned spontaneously to the Virgin. His poverty was extraordinary. He literally stripped himself of every-thing for the poor. And he shunned honors. Chastity shone in his face. He knew the value of purity in order "to rediscover the source of love, which is God." Obedience to Christ consisted, for John Mary Vianney, in obedience to the Church and especially to the bishop. This obedience took the form of accepting the heavy charge of being a parish priest, which often fright-ened him. But the Gospel insists especially on renouncing self, on accepting the cross. Many were the crosses which presented themselves to the Cur6 of Ars in the course of his ministry: calumny on the part of the people, being misunderstood by an assistant priest or other confreres, contradictions, and also a mysterious struggle against the powers of hell, and sometimes even the temptation to despair in the midst of spiritual darkness. Nonetheless he did not content himself with just accepting these trials without complaining; he went beyond them by mortification, imposing on himself continual fasts and many other rugged practices in order ''to reduce his body to servitude," as St. Paul says. But what we must see clearly in this penance, which our age unhappily has little taste for, are his motives: love of God and the conversion of sinners. Thus he asks a discouraged fellow priest: "You have prayed . you have wept . but have you fasted, have you kept vigil?"27 Here we are close to the warning of Jesus to the apostles: "But this kind is cast out only by prayer and fasting."28 In a word, John Mary Vianney sanctified himself so as to be more able to sanctify others. Of course, conversion remains the secret of hearts, which are free in their actions, and the secret of God's grace. By his ministry, the priest can only enlighten people, guide them in the internal forum and give them the sacraments. The sacraments are, of course, actions of Christ, and their effectiveness is not diminished by the imperfection or unworthiness of the minister. But the results depend also on the dispositions of those who receive them, and these are greatly assisted by the personal holiness of the priest, by his perceptible witness, as also by the mysterious exchange of merits in the communion of saints. St. Paul said: "In my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church."29 John Mary Vianney in a sense Wished to force God to grant these graces of conversion, not only by his prayer but by the sacrifice of his whole life. He wished to love God for those who did not love him and even A Letter to Priests / 491 do the penance which they would not do. He was truly a pastor completely at one with his sinful people. Dear brother priests, let us not be afraid of this very personal commit-ment-- marked by asceticism and inspired by love--which God asks of us for the proper exercise of our priesthood. Let us remember the recent reflections of the synodal fathers: "It seems to us that in the difficulties of today God wishes to teach us more deeply the value, importance and central place of the cross of Jesus Christ."30 In the priest, Christ relives his passion for the sake of souls. Let us give thanks to God, who thus permits us to share in the redemption, in our hearts and in our fles!! For all these reasons, St. John Mary Vianney never ceases to be a witness, ever living, ever relevant, to the truth about the priestly vocation and service. We recall the convincing way in which he spoke of the great-ness of the priest and of the absolute need for him. Those who are already priests, those who are preparing for the priesthood and those who will be called to it must fix their eyes on his example and follow it. The faithful too will more clearly grasp, thanks to him, the mystery of the priesthood of their priests. No, the figure of the Cur6 of Ars does not fade. Conclusion Dear brothers, may these reflections renew your joy at being priests, your desire to be priests more profoundly! The witness of the Cur6 of Ars contains still other treasures to be discovered. We shall return to these themes at greater length during the pilgrimage which I shall have the joy of making next October, since the French bishops have invited me to Ars in honor of the second centenary of the birth of John Mary Vianney. I address this first meditation to you, dear brothers, for the solemnity of Holy Thursday. In each of our diocesan communities we are going to gather together, on this birthday of our priesthood, to renew the grace of the sacrament of orders, to stir up the love which is the mark of our vocation. We hear Christ saying to us as he said to the apostles: "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends., I have called you friends.TM Before him who manifests love in its fullness, we priests and bishops renew our priestly commitments. We pray for one another, each for his brother and all for all. We ask the eternal Father that the memory of the Cur6 of Ars may help to stir up our zeal in his service. We beseech the Holy Spirit to call to the Church's service many priests of the caliber and holiness of the Cur6 of Ars: In our age she has so great a 492 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 need of them, and she is no less capable of bringing such vocations to full flower. And we entrust our priesthood to the Virgin Mary, the mother of priests, to whom John Mary Vianney ceaselessly had recourse with tender affection and total confidence. This was for him another reason for giving thanks: "Jesus Christ," he said, "having given us all that he could give us, also wishes to make us heirs of what is most precious to him, his holy mother.'S2 For my part, I assure you once more of my great affection, and with your bishop, I send you my apostolic blessing. From the Vatican, March 16, 1986, the fifth Sunday of Lent, in the eighth year of my pontificate. NOTES ~Jn 13:!. 2See Jn 10:11. ~See 2 Tm 1:6. aSee Jean-Marie Vianney, Curb d' Ars, Sa Pensee, Son Coeur, presented by Abbe Bernard Nodet, Editions Xavier Mappus, Le Puy, 1958, p. 100. Henceforth quoted as: Nodet. 5Nodet, p. 44. 6See 1 Co 1:28-19. 7See John Paul II, post-synodal apostolic exhortation Reconciliatio et Paenitentia (Dec. 2, 1984): AAS 77 (1985), pp. 185-275. sSee John Paul I1, encyclical letter Redemptor Hominis (March 14, 1979), no. 20: AAS 71 (1979), pp. 313-316. 9See Reconciliatio et Paenitentia, n. 28. ~°.See ibid, 29. ~'John Paul II, Letter to Priests for Holy Thursday, 1983, No. 3: AAS 75 (1983), Pars I, p. 419. ~2See Redemptor Hominis, n. 20. ~JMk 1:15. ~4Nodet, p. 108. ~5Ibid, p. 107. 161bid, p. 110. ~7Ibid, p. 108. taSecond Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, n. 28. 191I, b, b/1 and c/l; see LG n. 11. 2°Nodet, p. 126. 2'Second Vatican Council, Presbyterorum Ordinis, n. 4. ~See ibid. 23See Mt 18:14. 24Nodet, p. 101. 2~Ibid, p. 102. ~6See Presbyterorum Ordinis, n. 3. 27Nodet, p. 193. 2SMt 17:21. 29Co1 1:24. 3°Final Report, D/2. 3lJn 15:13-15. 32Nodet, p. 252. Religious Life: God's Call and Our Response Christopher Kiesling, O P. Father Kiesling is professor emeritus of systematic theology at Aquinas Institute in St. Louis, and former editor of Spirituality Today. He may be addressed at liis residence: 97 Waterman Place, Saint Louis, Missouri 63112. What is religious life--an institution of life? Actually, it is both, but it does not make a difference how we view it primarily. From an observer's point of view, it is an institution, an organization of life to achieve a specific goal by particular means. From a participant's perspective, it is life which, as it unfolds, assumes a pattern. If we think of religious life first as an institution, emphasis falls on the organizational elements. It then appears as a more or less fixed framework existing "out there" into which people must learn to fit. On the other hand, if religious life is perceived primarily as life, the stress is on the religious development of the people who constitute a community. This article considers religious life from a participant's viewpoint and describes it as a call from God to which we respond, both call and response mediated by Jesus Christ, the Church, a religious congregation, and personal history. A call is something with which we are familiar. People call us to catch our attention when they want us to do something. We receive telephone calls. A call comes from outside of ourselves. It enters into us and evokes a response of attention or rejection and, if attention, a further response of action or refusal to act. Religious life'is aptly regarded as a call. We commonly refer to religious 493 4~1 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 life as a vocation, which means "call." We religious are aware that our religious life comes from outside of ourselves, that is, our controlling ego, whether we imagine the call as coming from above us or from the depths of our being. We can explain to people why we are religious. But even as we offer reasons for our choice of religious life, we are conscious that even the totality of answers does not adequately explain our choice. The "why" of our religious life always contains an element of mystery. In the light of faith, we attribute this mystery, not simply to our ignorance of our com-plex and often subconscious motivations, but to God's call as the ultimate and inexplicable reason for our being religious. God's call to choose this way of life has entered our controlling ego, caught our attention, and won a response of action from us. God's call is enduring. It continues to invite us to renew radically our choice of religious life or to choose activities which confirm our radical choice. God's call is effective. It accomplishes what it asks, provided that we do not place obstacles in the way. God called creation out of nothingness, Israel out of Egypt, Jesus out of death. So to say that religious life is a call from God is not to affirm only that it begins with God's catching our attention and proposing a way of life for our choice. God's call enables us to attend to it and to respond to it initially and continually. Our religious life, in other words, is God's work in us. Yet we freely choose religious life; it is also our work. One reason why explanations for our choice of religious life seem inadequate is that they do not amount to an absolutely compelling set of motives for our choice. We could have done, and even now can do, otherwise than follow this way of life. If we follow it, we have freely chosen to do so. Hence religious life is both God's efficacious call at work within us and our response freely given: it is life issuing from our own hearts as well as from God's call. As the call is enduring, so is the response in the form of periodic radical renewals of our choice of religious life and in the form of daily choices of activities confirm-ing the radical choice. How religious life can be the result of both God's efficacious call and our free response is, of course, a mystery which theologians over the centuries have not been able to illuminate, much less explain, in a way agreeable to all. It is a mystery we are forced to acknowledge, however, for we cannot deny our experience of freedom and respons~ibility on the one hand and, on the other, the necessity of God's grace for us sinners to live a life pleasing to God. Our response to God's call to religious life is not only.free but is meant to embrace the whole of our lives. Religious life is life. It is more than a Religious Ltfe: God's Call / 495 particular organization of life and more than a job to be done. It embraces our bodily being, sensible perception, emotional functioning, and spiritual operations. Following Bernard Lonergan's lead,~ we can list a host of activities which we can attribute to our spirit, a spirit of inquiry, and which we constantly perform as we go about daily living: we experience, observe, note, gather information, seek insight, discover intelligibility, conceptualize, find words to express our ideas, check our ideas against reality (that is reason about them), judge them to be true or false in comparison with what is, evaluate the goodness or badness of what we find in reality, decide whether or not to choose this or that good, choose, and act to carry out what is chosen. These activities prompted by the spirit of inquiry engage, it should be noted, not only intellectual operations (e.g., questioning, seeking insight, reasoning) but also bodily activities (e.g., experiencing, observing, noting), emotional reactions (e.g., evaluating), and operations of the will (e.g., choosing, acting). So the response which constitutes, with God's efficacious call, religious life is very comprehensive. Religious life as response to God's call entails the whole of life in several ways. It involves giving of the whole of ourselves to God, all the components of our persons and personalities. We are called to give the whole of our-selves wholly, that is, to direct all our energies to the giving of the whole of ourselves to God. And we are called to give the whole of ourselves wholly for the whole of life, for the vocation is not to a training period in religious behavior, or to an extended retreat, or to a supervised experience of com-munity living (as valuable as such experiences may be for some people), but to religious life. To achieve, or rather approach achievement, of such totality of response to God's call is a lifetime task. Religious life as composed of God's call and our response is, then, ongoing dialogue and interaction between God and ourselves. It is event, something that happens, a dynamic reality. It is highly personal. It is not a relatively rigid framework into which everyone must fit in exactly the same way, but cooperative,activity between ourselves and God. It assumes insti-tutional form because it is social and occurs in community. But it always overflows its organization because it is first of all life adapting itself to changing circumstances in dialogue and interaction with God. Periodic congregational and provincial chapters required by canon law are recogni-tion that religious life is primarily engendered in dialogue and interaction with God in changing situations, rather than being relatively unchangeable institutional organization. The Bible contains numerous stories of God's call to various persons and their responses. We think of God's call to Abraham (Gn 12:1-9), Moses (Ex 3:1-4:17), Joshua (Dt 31:14-15, 23; (Jos 1:1-9), Gideon (Jg 6:11-24), 4~6 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 Samuel (1 Sam 3:1-21), Saul (1 S 9:1-10:24), Isaiah (Is 6:1-13), Jeremiah (Jr 1:4-19), Ezekiel (Ezk 1:3-3:15), Joseph (Mt 1:18-25; 2:13-15, 19-23), Mary (Lk 1:26-28), Jesus (Mt 3:13-17), Simon, Andrew, James, and John (Mt 5:18-22; Lk 5:1-11), Matthew, or Levi (Mr 9:9), and Paul (Ac 9:1-19). These accounts of God's call and the initial response of certain biblical figures together with further narratives of their carrying out their response are a source of reflection for religious. They alert us to the variety of ways in which God calls people and the diversity of responses that are possible. They help us to hear God's call to us today, to interpret it, and to answer it appropriately. God's call is not a divine shout or whisper which we hear with our ears, or even an interior imagining of such a vocal invitation. God's call--and our response also--are mediated. They are mediated first of all through Jesus Christ. God's call comes to us in the urging of Jesus to follow him (Mt 4:18-22; 8:19-22; 9:9-13; 10:37-38; 19:16-30 and parallels in Luke and Mark). Religious life is rooted in Jesus' call to become his disciples, for religious life developed in the Church as a way of responding to Jesus' call to discipleship. The scriptural passages recounting Jesus' invitation to come after him are, therefore, important for religious to meditate on because in them they "hear" Jesus' call and, through that call, the call of God whom Jesus addressed as Abba (Father)? God's call is mediated not only by Jesus in his earthly life remembered in the Scriptures but also by Jesus in risen glory. The basis for saying this is the continuance of Jesus'. followers' discipleship after the resurrection (Ac 1:3) and their being sent by the risen Lord to forgive sin (Jn 20:21-23) and to preach his message throughout the whole world (Mt 28:18-20). Another basis is the resurrected Jesus' call of Saul on the road to Damascus (Ac 9:3-6). Still another foundation is the conviction of religious through the centuries that Jesus' call comes to them not merely in the memory of his earthly life recorded in Scripture, but that Jesus the risen Lord calls them personally now as he once called his followers after his resurrection in Palestine nearly two thousand years ago. Our response of religious life is also mediated by Jesus. By his self-offer-ing on the cross, Jesus reconciled us to God, removing the obstacles between us and God, and giving us access to God. His sacrifice won for us the divine help, grace, whereby we are enabled to live for God. The risen Jesus now "forever lives to intercede for us" (Heb 7:25). He prepares a kingdom, which includes the lives of religious, that he will hand over to his Father at the end of time (1 Co 15:24-25). He lives in us, making our discipleship in religious life a reality (Jn 15:4-5; Ga 2:20; Ep 4:16; Col 1:27). Jesus is the mediator of our response to God's call also in the sense that Religious Life: God's Call / 497 his life is the model for the kind of response we as religious seek to make to God's call. Our religious life, then, is like our liturgical worship: it is "through Christ our Lord," in regard to both God's call and our response. Jesus' call to religious life, both the earthly and the risen Jesus' call, is mediated to us by the Church. The celebration of the word and the sacra-ments in the liturgy, evangelization, catechesis, preaching, religious educa-tion, theology, pastoral counseling, spiritual direction, doctrinal teaching regarding faith and morals, dogmatic definitions--all these ecclesial activi-ties recall the memory of the earthly Jesus, convey the action of the risen Lord through his Spirit, and so extend God's call in Jesus to discipleship and thus to religious life. Not less worthy of consideration are the activities of parents, school teachers, religious sisters and brothers, parish priests, Newman chaplains, and others who in various ways make Jesus' call to discipleship a particular invitation to us. The Church, we must absolutely not forget, consists of all the baptized faithful, not only the clergy, or the bishops, or the pope, or the Roman curia. The Church's mediating Jesus' call to us is experienced chiefly in the direct encounters we have with a variety of Church members at a local level. The mediation of the Church is a crucial factor in God's call coming to us. The faithful gathering of God's people through the centuries for wor-ship, for care for one another, for all the needy, and for the reform of society has had an impact on people. It has raised questions in people's minds about the purpose of life and the value of their occupations. It has thus led to the discovery of God,s call in Jesus to discipleship and life with the Father and all his children. At times parts of the Church, whether among the clergy or the laity or the religious, have not been very edifying in their lives or credible vehicles conveying the call to follow Jesus. But God overrides these obstacles and somehow uses them, faulty as they may be, to quicken the life of his people. God raises up saints, canonized and noncanonized, in every age. Even the unchurched depend upon the Church, for if they have faith in Jesus Christ, if they treasure the Bible, if they seek to imitate the conduct of Jesus, they have inherited all these values from the community of the faithful, from the Church, which has preserved them over the centuries through times of unity and division, fervor and laxity, freedom and persecution. As we religious think of the Church as mediating God's call through Jesus, we ought not to romanticize our idea of the Church, but accept it in all its weakness, defects, and even sins. Despite imperfections and even perversities, it remains a vehicle whereby God communicates to us the divine word and the power to renew our lives. Through the Church we tlgl~ / Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 have access to God. The Church may be a besmirched sacrament of God's union with humanity and of all men and women with one another--a sacrament badly in need of being cleansed and polished. But it is still that sacrament and our need of it is profound. And it may not be as badly besmirched as many people take for granted in this era of suspicion towards all institutions. The Church civilized barbarian Europe, preserved the vestiges of classical culture, and provided for the sick, handicapped, and poor until the modern state developed and could take over social concerns. Even now it is the Church, along with other voluntary associa-tions, which cares for people who fall between the cracks of social welfare in modern society. Not only is Jesus' call to religious life mediated by the Church but also our response. Founders of religious orders and congregations, the ancient commentators on monastic life, preachers of retreats, congregations' chap-ters, and canonical legislation over the centuries have interpreted the so-called evangelical counsels, laid down rules to safeguard their practice, and confirmed the constitutions of orders and congregations. Religious respond to God's call in Jesus by using this interpretation, these regulations, and these constitutions in the guidance of their lives. The Church, moreover, prays for religious. This is eminently obvious in the liturgies for religious profession, but appears also from time to time in the general intercessions at Mass and in the Liturgy of the Hours. Many members of God's people, such as parents or friends, pray for religious in unofficial ways. All these prayers intercede for religious, not simply that they be called by God, but that they cooperate with that call by responding with the gift of their lives. The apostolates which religious engage in are approved by the Church, or assigned by the Church, or carried out in the name of the Church, and serve the needs of the Church, both in its inner life and in its mission to the world. Insofar as the ministry of religious constitutes part of their response to God's and Jesus' call, that part of their response is also mediated by the Church. We religious need to be increasingly appreciative that the ecclesial life in which we participate is a concrete way of saying yes to God's call through Jesus Christ. God's call and our response, constitutive of religious life, are further mediated by a religious order or congregation. The call through Jesus and the Church comes to an individual through some community whose members, ideals, apostolate, and lifestyle attract attention and evoke a desire to participate. Perhaps only one religious community has ever been enticing, or several may have proved interesting but eventually one is singled out as the concrete form of God's call and of personal response. Sometimes the religious congregation that draws a person is one encoun- Religious Life: God's Call / 499 tered first in childhood; sometimes the one known most recently in adult-hood embodies God's call. The contact with the religious group may have been initiated through vocational literature or through acquaintance with some members of the congregation. The admissions procedure and basic formation program of a religious community mediate God's call either to that community or to some other group, or even to another way of Christian life. A community's constitutions, its chapters' decisions, and its ministries are all further mediations of God's call to the community's members. The congregation's life and mission, taken up and lived by the members of the community, become the concrete form in which they say yes to God's call through Jesus Christ mediated by the Church. Religious life as life which flows from the depths of persons toward God assumes a pattern of organization which characterizes a particular religious group. Hence the importance of appreciating one's congregational history, life, ministry, constitutions, and members, for they all convey concretely, existentially, in a down-to-earth way both God's call and our response through Jesus Christ and through the Church. Finally, God's call is mediated through our personal history. It is not difficult to see our response to God's call as mediated through personal history, for our response is precisely our living out in time our personal religious life. But personal history also mediates the call from God. Our temperament, character, personality, neuroses, talents that incline us to find religious life attractive and a particular congregation congenial have been inherited from parents, family, teachers, friends, and other significant people in our lives. The social environment in which we grew up, the schooling we had, work experiences, and events which made deep impressions on our psyches have all left traces in us which contribute to making religious life appealing and this order or congregation attractive. In religious life many similar factors enter into our history to confirm our continuation in that way of life. Still other factors peculiar to religious life support our further dedication, such as agreeable experiences of com-munity, enjoymeht and success in ministry, satisfaction of the desire for prayer, and the gratifying sense of helping others in need. Since we believe that our lives are guided by divine providence, we believe that all these factors which make religious life attractive and fulfill-ing are indeed God's call to us to follow Christ in religious life. Self-knowl-edge, then, plays an important role in discerning God's call to religious life and in assessing the quality of our response to that call. Why do we need to consider these mediations of God's call and our response? The answer is: to be realistic and avoid false idealism. We need to recognize that the mediation of God's call through Jesus, especially as 500 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 further mediated through the very human realities of the Church, a religious community, and personal history means that the call is now always going to be clear. At times we may scarcely "hear" it; at other times it will seem obvious. On some occasions it will appear to be a certain path on which to follow Jesus; but at other times it will seem risky, a gamble, of dubious value. The mediation of our response will sometimes be exciting, adventur-ous, a joyful and deeply satisfying enterprise; at other times it will be prosaic, routine, dull, and even boring; and at still other times it will be chaotic, exasperating, and exhausting physically and emotionally. So fidelity to the moments of obvious call and fulfilling response must tide us over times of obscurity and dullness. Young religious in particular are apt to idealize elements of religious life. They expect more from religious community than it can actually provide. Unrealistic expectations of the change that they can effect in the lives of individuals and society through their ministry can lead to disap-pointment and discouragement when those expectations are not fulfilled. But if we understand that even in these less satisfying and less brilliant moments of religious life God is efficaciously calling us and we are working out our response, some value can be found even in the commonplace and unsuccessful. Indeed, those situations can purify our motivation. We hear and answer God's call because it is God's call and we wish to give our lives to God, not because we find delight or satisfaction in the particular form in which God's call comes or in which our response is given. God's call is mediated through Jesus. Jesus referred to God as his Abba (Father) and so distinguished his person from the person of Abba. Our call to religious life, and the one to whom we respond, is ultimately the first person of the Trinity, the font of divine life in the Trinity, the origin without origin among the three divine persons. Jesus as Son is the image of the first person of the Trinity and in his humanity conveys to us the Father's call to share in the divine life. The Son incarnate also provides for us the model for sharing in the life of the Trinity, namely, to receive all we have from the Father and return it to the Father. We are enabled to regard the first person of the Trinity in this way and to have faith in the Son incarnate as conveying God's call to us and exemplifying for us our response because Jesus' Abba and the risen Jesus have poured forth into our hearts their Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. The Spirit is the love binding Father and Son together in the divine life, and the Spirit then binds us into the triune life through the life which she engenders in our hearts. God's call and our response which constitute our religious life entails Religious Ltfe: God's Call / 501 our being related to each of the three divine persons of the Trinity: being called by the Father, responding by the power of the Spirit, hearing the call and making our response through the Son. NOTES ~Method in Theology (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972), pp. 2-20. 2For studies of these scriptural passages in relation to religious life, see Francis Moloney, Disciples and Prophets (New York: Crossroads, 1981) pp. 9-12, 19-31, 62-63, 89-90, 105-14, 133-54; John M. Lozano, Discipleship: Toward an Understanding of Religious life (Chicago: Claret Center for Resources in Spirituality, 1980), pp. 5-18, 31-38. Christ the Center of Our Vowed Life b.v Boniface Ramsey, O.P. Father Ramsey's three articles on the vows of religion are available as a single reprint: i - The Center of Religious Poverty ii - Christocentric Celibacy iii - Cruciform Obedience Price: $1.75 per copy, plus postage. Address: Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. .St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Expectations in Religious Community James Fitz, S.M. Father Fitz is a member of the provincial administration of the Cincinnati province of his community. Prior to that, he was director of novices for six years. He may be addressed at the Marianist Provincialate; 4435 East Patterson Road; Dayton, Ohio 45430-1095. In the Old Testament, God and Israel are major partners in covenant. God has certain expectations of Israel; Israel has certain expectations of God. These mutual expectations become a source of security for Israel and a call for Israel to be what it is capable of becoming. The very nature of covenant implies life-enhancing expectations. In the New Testament, we, the Church, have become the people of the new covenant. Again expecta-tions are part of the covenant. For example, "This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you"(Jn 15:12). Faithfulness to the cove-nant is one of the characteristics of our God; unfaithfulness has often been our response. However, God continues to call us, his people, to all that we are capable of becoming. Our God is faithful even when we are unfaithful. Covenant is the basis of our commitment to one another in religious communities. We join communities because we can do some things in community that we cannot do alone. In community we find the support and challenge to be the disciples of Christ that we are called to be. The Christian call is a continual call. We are made to be in union with others; none of us is complete in ourselves. Since we are made in the image and likeness of our God who is loving, generative and faithful, we will not be fulfilled unless we love, give life and are faithful. In the covenant communities we form as religious, we too have expec-tations of one another. Although expectations are not the only ingredient 502 Expectations in Religious Community / 503 for good community, I have learned during the past nine years in a leader-ship role in religious community the important role expectations play in building community and also the problematical role of hidden and unreal expectations. There are two important dynamics in terms of our expecta-tions in community. First, it is important that members of communities identify their expectations of one another in order that hidden expectations do not lead to unnecessary tension and conflict. Secondly, after expecta-tions are identified, it is important to sort out which are life-enhancing and which are not. It is important to identify expectations that we are capable of meeting, which call us to be the persons God calls us to be, and in which it is worth investing our energy. I have found it helpful to understand clearly what are fai? and realistic expectations. These expectations are based on who we are and what we are capable of becoming. On the one hand, we cannot expect from others something that is not truly possible for them to be. On the other hand, our expectations should call them to be the best that they can be. Since our expectatigns are to be fair and realistic, there are some things we cannot expect. We can hope that they happen, but we cannot expect them. An example may be illustrative. We can hope that we will have a deep friend-ship with each member of our local community. However we cannot expect or demand that each becomes our friend. Friendship is a gi~ that must be received, not an expectation that can be demanded. Fair and realistic expectations, clearly stated, are the building blocks for a Gospel community of one mind and one heart. With obvious room for forgiveness for human failings, it is important in covenant community that we invite and challenge each other to meet the fair and realistic expectations we have set in our covenant. If we grant that clear expectations are important to community, then it is important to identify the realistic expectations we can have in Christian community. What are the expectations that call us forth to build together the community of one mind and one heart that is the invitation of the New Testament Scriptures? There are probably many that could be listed. My experience has surfaced five important expectations: respect, honesty, care, forgiveness and faithfulness. Respect The dignity of the human person is one of the basic principles of Catholic social thought and an important basis for building Christian community. Therefore, the mutual respect of the dignity of each person is an important expectation in community. Members of a community will never bring their human potential to actuality unless there is a true respect 51~4 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 of that potential and the invitation to use it. There are many ways that we can demonstrate respect for one another in community. For example, it is important that we listen to one another when we speak. We do not have to agree with others, but the Gospel calls us to give others our full attention when they speak. For example, do 1 try to hear another's concern? Do I listen well enough to be able to feed back that concern, or am I busy formulating a response before I really hear what is being said? Do I try to be sensitive to nonverbal as well as verbal messages? Another form of respect would be to respect one another's privacy and .need for quiet, to respect one another's personal belongings. Examples of respect could be multiplied. It should be clear that without a mutual respect, little can be done to build a rich community experience. Honesty Honesty is one of the basic elements for building any type of relation-ship but especially a trust relationship. Since some level of trust is necessary for community, honesty is an important covenant expectation. The honesty about which I speak is not a harsh, brutal honesty but an honesty that proceeds from a loving and compassionate heart modeled on Jesus. It is an honesty based on the conviction that the truth will set us free (Jn 8:32). I find that the lack of honesty in community is one of the principal obstacles to real growth in the common heart and soul to which we are invited by the New Testament experience. Religious, in my experience, often have difficulty expressing and dealing with their true feelings, whether positive or negative. Fearful of phony affirmation, some religious are afraid to say what they like about their brothers and sisters. Others of us have difficulty accepting positive affirmation when it comes our way. We also have problems with negative feelings. Somehow we hope that they will go away or no one will notice. However, as we know, negative feelings generally do get expressed, sometimes in passive-aggressive behavior. I sometimes marvel at how long it takes us to express our negative feelings when a discussion of them could eliminate a great deal of tension. Our fear of confrontation can lead us to hold onto our negative feelings. But have we not also learned that the honest and charitable discussion of our feelings can lead to deeper and more understanding relationships? Some of my best friendships have come to fruition because I have honestly shared some negative feelings in a desire to create deeper relationships. Even when honesty has not led to deeper, relationship, the mutual understanding and respect has most often led to the lessening of tension. One of the greatest hurts for me in community is hearing criticism second hand. It bothers me Expectations in Religious Community because it means the possibility of deeper relationship is blocked. When we care enough for others to affirm and confront them honestly, there is a possibility of deeper relationship and for a union of hearts. Compassionate and loving honesty is not the only ingredient for unity in community. But no community can develop without it. Without an expe-rience of honesty, we can never feel secure enough to trust one another, and share on the level that bonds more deeply in our mutual covenant. Care The expectation of care flows from the call of the Gospel: "Whatever you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do unto me" (Mt 25:40). We are called upon to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick (notice the Gospel does not say we must be attracted by them). We are asked to care. In community we should care about each of our brothers and sisters. We should care about their spiritual growth, their physical health, and their other needs for full life. It would be a tragedy in my mind if a brother in my community were in the hospital and none of us had the time to visit, if a brother was struggling with his commitment to celibacy and no one cared enough to talk to him about the issue, or if a brother was drinking himself into the grave and no one intervened. It is true that if we are not careful some can manipulate us in this area by trying to lay guilt on us. But that should not stop us from honestly giving of ourselves in care of others. In fact our care should lead us to challenge the manipulating brother or sister; it should lead us to challenge him or her firmly and compassionately to adult living. In order to avoid unreal expectations, it is important to distinguish care from friendship. Care and friendship are not the same. We can honestly care for a brother or sister who is not a friend. Friendship is a relationship of mutual attraction, sharing and trust. In Christian community, we can reasonably expect some care when we are sick or hungry or lonely. How-ever, we cannot demand friendship. We can offer the gift of care, love, and trust and hope for a response to that gift, but we must remember that these can never become a demand. Forgiveness Forgiveness is also an important expectation in community. We are all imperfect human persons in process towards fullness of life; we are reli-gious on a journey. Like St. Paul, we do the things we do not want to do and do not do the things we want to do. Therefore, we must be willing to forgive our brothers and sisters when they ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness does not necessarily mean to forget as some popular wisdom has it. But it 506 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 does mean to heal the events of our lives. Some of the hurts in our relationships with fellow community members may be hard to forget but healing will lead us to remember the events in a new way. We can grow to view these events as moments of grace in our relationship and remember them in that way. They become moments of reconciliation. So we need to forgive others and to forgive ourselves; we need others to forgive us. Both dynamics are necessary if we are to grow together in the common heart and soul of the New Testament ideal. Faithfulness Finally, I .feel we can expect faithfulness in community since we are made in the image and likeness of a faithful God. This faithfulness is expressed, for example, in community agreements and in the community mission. If, for our growth as a faith community, we agree to pray together in the morning and evening, then it is fair to expect members of the community to be present. If we agree to meet on Monday evening to develop and coordinate our common mission, then it is fair to expect that we will all be there for the meeting. If we decide to live simply by sharing the cooking, then we can expect all to share the task. Obviously we can make exceptions to an agreement. But those with whom we have made an agreement have a voice in the exception. For example, if we have agreed to do the cooking, and one member finds it difficult or impossible to do, he or she should share that with the community either at the time the agreement is made or when he or she finds out that it is impossible to fulfill the terms of the agreement. Then we can renegotiate the agreement in some way satisfactory or at least acceptable to all involved. We are made in the image and likeness of a faithful God; we should invite and challenge one another to be the faithful people we are capable of becoming. Conclusion There are probably other expectations that are fair and realistic in covenant community. But the ones developed in this article are essential if our community life is to have a healthy sense of security and is to be life-enhancing. Communities can even agree to more expectations of one another (times of prayer, sharing personal faith, simple living statements, and so forth). The important thing for developing a community of one mind and one heart is that expectations be as clear as possible. Without clear expectations we create an environment for tension and conflict. Clarified expectations will not lead to deep community life. This is only a start. As I mentioned at the beginning, expectations are not the only ingredient in good Christian religious community. I have found that good Expectations in Religious Community / 507 community goes beyond expectations. There are many attitudes that con-tribute to good community life: trust, generosity, patience, and so forth. In focusing on expectations, the most important attitude to keep in mind is generosity. "If your brother (or sister) asks you to go one mile, go two" (Mt 6:41). We should not count in community. We should not first be concerned about how others perform. We should examine our own per-formance. "Remove the plank from your own eye first; then you will see clearly to take the speck from your brother's (sister's) eye" (Mt 7:5). Our God is faithful to us even when we are unfaithful. To be a creative agent of community we must remain faithful to our covenant even when our brother or sister is unfaithful. We should be generous as our God in heaven has been generous with us. "Love one another as I have loved you" (1 Jn 15:12). God has taken the initiative in our lives; we are called to do the same for our brothers and sisters. If everyone is giving generously in community, we have the foundation on which deep Christian community can develop. We have the strongest foundation for a life of one mind and one heart. Friendship It seems but a word on this page. It cannot, does not, describe-- a patient listening, a gentle touch; soft, comforting nearness, forgiveness--waiting ready before the hurt, hilarity shared together (Snoopy-dancing--you are a crazy person, you know!) tears--hard-coming, yet trustingly dampen my heart, insights, thoughts, dreams, ESP?. yes! remembering--in prayer, close to my heart honest, pulling and dragging (sometimes fearfully) each the other-- forward, closer, faithful It cannot contain--my friend, my other self., this mere word Love. Sister Mary Therese Macys, S.S.C. 2601 W. Marquette Road Chicago, Illinois 60629 ToSee the Other Side. George J. Schemel, S.J. Father Schemel is founder and director of the newly formed Institute for Contempor-ary Spirituality at the University of Scranton (Scranton, Pennsylvania 18510). An earlier article of Father Schemel was "In Time of Consolation." which appeared in the issue of January/February, 1985. The need for enabling and empowering structures for groups increases as the group's complexity increases. There are just and unjust structures right within our own apostolic and community operations. To be insensitive to our own unjust structures and processes makes us less believable when we address such structures in society at large. The injustice is found in the very process of coming to decision. It is this unjust process that allows us to walk over the deeply held personal values of another. It is truly a personally oppressive structure, inefficient in method and leading to poor apostolic decisions. Yet it passes unnoticed and uncorrected because of ignorance and lack of awareness in this area, though often little personal culpability is involved. The objective wrong is great, however, and cannot be condoned just because of ignorance or lack of awareness. The average community meeting, with its amorphous structure and ill-defined processes is often a nightmare of unjust structures. In general there are few, if any, haphazardly just structures. What just structures and processes there are, flourish because of much examination, evaluation, and consistent implementation. Not to be consciously structured is usually to be unjustly structured. It is my observation and experience that most unjust structures in religious life, both on the one-to-one interpersonal level and on the level of . 5O8 To See the Other Side. / 509 the group apostolate or community, come from lack of "thinking" as this is understood in the Jungian perspective. This notion of thinking is character-ized by discursive logic and the isolation of variables. There are other sources of injustice in our apostolates and community life, of course,~ but none is so pervasive as this lack of thinking. The orientation and cast of our religious apostolates and communities are so overwhelmingly affective that the lack of formal thinking is not even noticed directly. We become aware of it only in its effects; the disruption and confusion caused by processes which largely ignore the thinking function. It is taken as axiomatic in the realm of interpersonal relationship that we must not hurt anyone's feelings. It is my contention that one's thinking is due the same respect and care; this is far from obvious in most religious circles today. I would like to present a proper process of coming to decision that will be just, efficient and phenomenologically correct. Reflecting on the process will also help "convict and convert" attitudes; unjust processes and atti-tudes will show up in high relief. The process will involve achieving consen-sus on different levels of an issue and moving through to a final decision. It will move from an assimilation of pertinent facts and data, through an appreciation of the interrelatedness, interconnections, and potentialities of the data and facts, through a discursive rationality of necessary causal nexus, to final judgment of fittingness and suitability. It will follow the functionally sequential "gradient of more difficult consensus." S--N--T--F In order to establish an adequate vocabulary with which to talk about this problem, I would like to call on the matrix of psychological types elaborated by C.G. Jung and its current popularization by the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). I will give only a short summary here, and refer those interested in a further development of psychological types and the MBTI to other sources where a more complete understanding may be pursued.2 Those already very familiar with type theory may want to skip to page 513. Type Theory In order to account for certain consistencies and inconsistencies in behavior that he observed among different types of people, Jung elabo-rated his theory of psychological type. The theory, in essence, sees all conscious mental activity as reducible to two main processes, perception and judgment. Perception is a process of "becoming aware of."; of gathering data, taking in information. It is a non-rational process. We do this work of ~$'10 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 taking in data in one of two ways: either by "sensation" or by "intuition." Actually of course we use both these functions, Sensation and iNtuition, to gather in information, but we have a decided preference for one way or the other. We cannot take in data by both Sensation and iNtuition at the same time. At best, they can operate sequentially, but one way will be decidedly preferred to the other. (Note that it is common usage to indicate Sensation by "S" and intuition by "N'; 'T' is reserved for Introversion). Sensation is perception or data gathering by the concrete singular. It takes in specifics, by use of the five senses. It perceives things one at a time. Sensation is tolerant of routine, sameness, specified procedures. Sometimes it can't see the forest for the tree. Sensation has a present-time orientation. The other form of perception is intuition. It perceives in terms of patterns, relationships; intuition sees possibilities, interconnections, impli-cations. It is perception by way of the unconscious. INtuition likes variety, challenge, is future-time oriented. Sometimes it can't see the tree for the forest. Besides the non-rational perceptive functions Sensation and intuition which simply take in information and gather data, there are two rational functions, Thinking and Feeling. The rational functions prioritize, rank, sort out the data taken in. They hierarchize the information and make judgments on it. They come to closure on perceptions. These are the two judging functions whose work it is to come to conclusions about the data taken in. They are opposing ways of judging, and cannot proceed at the same time. At best they can be sequential.3 Thinking moves to conclusion from principles, logically attending to necessary connections and cause-effect relationships. Consistency and validity are important, and principles are applied objectively, "whether I like it or not." The value sought is "The True." Thinking has an a-temporal and un-contextualized time orientation. Feeling comes to conclusion by an associative process, by analogy, comparison, association. Harmony and suitability are important, and are judged from a more subjective stance. The value orientation is toward "The Good." Feeling has a past and traditional time orientation. One of these, either Thinking or Feeling, will be much preferred to the other for making judgments and coming to conclusions. It is important to note that we cannot use opposing functions at the same time. Sensing halts Intuiting; Intuiting halts Sensing. Thinking halts Feeling; Feeling halts Thinking. Neither can we perceive and judge at the same time. Judging halts perceiving; perceiving halts judging. Nor do we use all four functions with equal skill and confidence. Yet quality decisions are made only with the adequate contributions of all four functions. Indi- To See the Other Side. / 511 vidually and especially in groups, it is important to implement structures which assure the application of all four functions to any given issue. Since the natural autonomy, even antipathy, among the four functions precludes their being applied at the same time, they must be applied sequentially. A person will have an attitude toward the outside world that takes its cue from the judging functions (Thinking or Feeling) and will be called a Judging attitude, or he or she will have an attitude toward the outside world that takes its cue from the perceiving functions Sensation or iNtui- " tion) and will be called a Perceiving attitude. Note that both these attitudes, J and P, are toward the outside world. This attitude toward the outside world J or P is not to be confused with Extraversion or Introversion, which indicates the person's "preferred world." The preference for the world inside oneself--the world of ideas and thoughts and inner feeling is known as Introversion. Its opposite, a prefer-ence for the world outside oneself--the world of people, events, happen-ings, objects--is known as Extraversion. Both introverts and extraverts have an attitude, either J or P, toward the outside world. For a treatment of Extraversion and Introversion see Gifts Differing. A person's type is constituted in large part by his or her preference for one of the two perceiving functions, S or N, and one of the two judging functions, T or E The possibilities are: ST, SF, NT, NE One perceiving . function plus one judging function constitute the preferred functionality of the person. Of these two functions, however, one will be favored and preferred over the other. One will be the "boss" function, and the other the helper function. So an individual will be one of the following: ST, ST, SF, SF, NT, NT, NF, NF, where the underlined function is the "boss" or Dominant function and the other is the helper or Auxiliary function. The dominant function is the real rudder or kingpin of the psychological type. In "conflict of interest" cases, the dominant always gets its way. For an understanding of the Judging and Perceiving attitudes and the Extraverted and Introverted attitudes, which also throw much light on meeting dynamics, see some of the literature cited. There is a dangerous misunderstanding current concerning the Feeling function--"F"--among those who use the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the psychological matrix of C. G. Jung which undergirds it. It is widespread even among those who administer and teach the instrument. It is doubly dangerous because it leads to a misunderstanding of the correlate of Feeling, which is the Thinking function, "T." One frequently hears the (mistaken) pronouncements: "Feeling is interested in values, Thinking is interested in principles and logic." "Feeling is personal, Thinking is impersonal." Both of these statements are half- 512 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 truths, and therefore very dangerous and misleading. Let us analyze the Thinking and Feeling functions for a more accurate understanding than these too-easy assessments afford. To say that Feeling is interested in values and Thinking is interested in principles and logic is to compare apples and oranges, process and product. The value that attracts Feeling is "The Good." The value that attracts Thinking is "The True." The process used by Thinking is objective (in that sense impersonal) proceeding from principles, using logic and cause-and-effect relationships. The process of Feeling is a subjective (in that sense personal) associative process, a process of comparison, analogy, using per-sonal association and past experience. Neither Thinking nor Feeling in the first instance says anything about emotion. Emotion is the first register of value in the human person, whether that value is seen as coming under the aegis of "The Good," (Feeling), or as coming under the aegis of "The True" (Thinking). Both Thinking and Feeling according to Jung are rational functions. They both hierarchize, rank, come to closure, judge on the basis of the value that attracts them: The Good for Feeling and The True for Think-ing. Ideally, or one might say transcendentally, both The Good and The True are the same. But each person has a particular and delimited appreci-ation of that higher unity according as he or she judges by Thinking or by Feeling.4 An example may further help clarify and distinguish the Feeling func-tion from its first register of value, emotion. (The first register of value for the Thinking function is also emotion.) St. Thomas Aquinas addresses the question: "Whether Christ's mother remained a virgin after his birth?" (S.T. Ilia, Q.28, a.3) St. Thomas cites several well-known texts from Scripture that would indicate that Mary had other children after the birth of Jesus: Mt 1:18, 1:20, 1:24, Rm 8:29, Jn 2:12, Mt 27:55, Jn 19:25. He then puts together these last two texts to form an argument that Mary had other children after the birth of Jesus. Mt 27 says: "Many women were there [that is, by the cross of Christ] watching from a distance, the same women who had followed Jesus from Galilee and looked after him. Among them were Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee's sons." Thomas puts this together with the Jn 19 text: "There stood by the cross of Jesus, Mary his mother." It follows that if Mary the mother of Jesus who was standing by the cross and the Mary who was the mother of James and Joseph was the same Mary, then Mary had other children besides Jesus. St. Thomas takes care of the exegetical questions adroitly enough, so that Scripture is not gainsaid. The clinching reasons against Mary having other children after the birth of To See the Other Side. / 513 Jesus, however, are Feeling reasons, in the true sense of Feeling. He says it is unthinkable that Mary would have other children besides Jesus, because, ". as he [Jesus] is in his divine nature the only-begotten of the Father and his Son, perfect in every respect, so it was fitting that he should be the only-begotten of his mother, as being her perfect offspring." Another rea-son Thomas gives--a Feeling reason--is that it would make Mary seem ungrateful, not to be content with such a Son. Note that these are not the same kind of reasons given for Jesus not being the only child of Mary: If the Mary of Mt. 27 (mother of James and Joseph) Is the Mary of Jn 19 (the mother of Jesus) Then Jesus was not the only child of Mary. This is "T"--Thinking rationality. But ". as he was the only-begotten of His Father, so He was the only-begotten of His Mother" is not "T," Thinking rationality, it is "F," Feeling rationality. It is a reason from fittingness, appropriateness, seemliness; it is ~'becoming" that Jesus be the only child of Mary. This is the meaning of Feeling in the Jungian matrix and the Myers-Briggs. It is not emotion or feeling in the common parlance, but a judgment of fittingness, seemliness, becomingness. It is brought to bear after the Thinking judgment has done what it can with the data, not before Thinking or instead of Thinking. It is the ambit of "F," Feeling rationality, to historicize and contextual-ize the a-temporal judgment of "T," Thinking, but not replace it.5 Feeling needs to be fed and focused by the objectivity of Thinking. Otherwise one has inauthentic Feeling and a too subjective Feeling judgment. Thinking needs the completion of another rationality, one not necessitated by logic and cause-effect relationships, but personalized/subjectivized and opened out to a wider gestalt. Feeling, without the backbone of Thinking behind it, is purely subjec-tive, personal and, therefore, not interpersonal. It can indeed become emo-tion and not be a rationality of fittingness or suitability, but mere whim or fancy. This is what is meant by a "mood," which is not a personal expe-rience. The mood has the person rather than the person having the mood. It is the opening door to projections and confusion, especially in a group. Application to Meetings Equipped with this understanding of psychological functionality, let us reflect on the relatively unstructured or poorly structured meeting. The purpose of most group meetings is to come to some kind of consensus. That is why the meeting is held in the first place. Many come to a meeting assuming there is already a consensus on a given issue. This is 5111 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 often more counterproductive than assuming that there is not. A consensus is a delicate affair; it is a "con-sentire," a "feeling-together-with." An assumption either that there is a consensus on a given issue or that there is not, is vastly disruptive of the possibility of arriving at a consensus. Since a consensus is a delicate affair, it must be wooed, as a lover is wooed. One has to have the tact to know where to begin to discover what consensus is there already, and to raise it to the level of insight and usabil-ity. An attempt to "build a consensus" on a given issue is counterproduc-tive. Rather, one first discovers what consensus actually exists, and brings that to consciousness and articulation. Once that consensus is recognized and owned, the scene is set to pass on to a higher level of "con-sentire." The process of arriving at consensus is not a "building"; this has too much the connotation of hammer and nail, muscular effort to persuade, even coer-cion. Rather, the process of arriving at consensus is one of discovery and articulation. Once a group (meeting) articulates a true consensus, it has already passed beyond it, and it is ready for the next discovery, the new and higher level of consensus. It must be, however, the articulation of a true consen-sus. It must not be assumed. It must be articulated and all must agree to the lower level of consensus before attempting to arrive at a higher level. Perhaps this will come as a surprise, after saying how delicate is the matter of arriving at consensus, and that one should not assume that there is a consensus on a given issue. There is, however, always a consensus in a group! Perhaps not on a given issue, or on the level of consensus one would like, but there is always a consensus in a group. Otherwise the group would not be meeting. This is the key assumption that I am making. A moment's thought will indicate that if a group (not a "crowd" or a "gang") comes together, it is coming together for a purpose. Implicit in this broad purpose are concrete points of consensus and a desire for further consensus. There already exists the consensus that "we want" a "con-sentire'" if at all possible. There is the further shared hope that we can arrive at a consensus on some particular issues. There are many other points of concrete consensus in the group also. (Deficiency in these attitudes will indicate the highly controlling or manipulative person.) The place to start looking for consensus on pro-gram level issues is here, among the patterns of consensus that already are resident in the group. A group does not arrive at a consensus by building from the top down any more than a construction company builds a building from the top down. One starts from the bottom up. One begins at the bottom and works up. Whenever a group can articulate a consensus, it has already passed beyond it and is ready for the next level of insight and consensus. Once it To See the Other Side. / 515 has articulated and owned that next level of insight and consensus, it is ready for the next, and so on. Thus the group is moving toward its limit of consensus consciousness bit by bit--by articulating known levels of con-sensus and allowing the group to find its way to ever higher and more specific and programmatic levels of con-sentire. A functional, structural way to help a group move from a lower and perhaps largely unconscious level (myth level) of consensus to an ever higher level of programmatic consensus is to follow the natural order of perceiving, then judging. The schema herein suggested implicitly takes into account dominant and auxiliary functions and introverted and extraverted functions. Since coming to a consensus judgment implies a need to perceive in order to judge, there is a "natural" sequential order to arriving at quality decisions, whether personal or group decisions. Perceiving comes before judging. In attempting to unearth any resident consensus in the group and free it to move toward higher levels of programmatic consensus, the natural sequential dependence of the functions should be followed: S--N--T--F The group, just as an individual, will have a strong bias to spend time and energy in its Dominant and Auxiliary functions. It sometimes wants to wallow in its Dominant, without using even its Auxiliary, let alone using its non-preferred functions. It is here too that many religious groups with a preponderance of people with a preference for "F" rationality unwittingly thwart their own process of coming to consensus. Almost always they begin looking for consensus on the "F" level. This is to begin the process at its end-point! Each individual has a preference for one of the two perceiving func-tions (either Sensation or iNtuition), and one of the two judging functions Thinking or Feeling) already established in the Dominant and Auxiliary (with an inclination more toward perceiving or more toward judging). Most often, the importance of the other perceiving function and the other judging function is not recognized. Yet these less preferred functions are also necessary not only for quality decision making, but even for adequate decision making. Thus a person who is an NT will naturally prefer to do his perceiving by iNtuition and his judging by Thinking; but he needs the help of Sensate perception and Feeling judgment if his decisions are to be quality decisions, reflecting the objectivity and contextuality of sensate perception and feeling rationality. So with all the various preferences. 516 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 Both Sensate and intuitive perception are necessary for judging. Intui-tion depends on Sensate details, however slightly noted, for registering Intuitive connections and possibilities. The Sensate process may be less conscious, but the Sensate function is always at work recording sensate impressions. The Intuitive process may be less conscious, but the intuitive function is always registering connections and relations among sensate data perceived. Even when the Thinking function is not preferred or developed, the Thinking function first examines intuited connections and possibilities and determines inevitable cause-effect consequences. Whether carefully attended to or slight and unobserved, the Thinking function provides the Feeling function with an an.alysis of what has been perceived. The Feeling function receives what has been thus perceived and judged, and examines it in the light of contextual suitability. Whether carefully attended to or slight and unobserved, the Feeling function completes the judgment of present per-ceptions and present consequences in their historical context and in terms of the rationality of suitability, appropriateness, fittingness. Just as each individual has her profile and preferences, so a group has its profile and its preferences. The group profile is the sum and extrapola-tion of the profiles of the individuals who compose it.6 The disciplined group asks its members to first "S" it on a given issue, to use the Sensate function. Get the raw data. Get the concrete informa-tion. While doing this, those who naturally prefer "S" as their perceiving function are in their element, and the Intuitives are asked to stretch a bit, as the whole group strives .to assimilate the Sensate data. Once that task is accomplished, the Sensate data is handed over to intuitive perception to see the possibilities inherent in the data; to see the interconnections and implications and future potentialities. During this part of the group's task the iNtuitives will be in their element and the Sensates will be required to do the stretching now. But it is a temporary inconvenience for a permanent improvement; the group now knows "what it is talking about." The issue has been perceived with no prejudice as to function; all perceptions have been honored. We have moved thus in the natural sequence: S~N Now comes a big moment. It is time to hand over the matter perceived to judgment. Here the group must be very careful that it does not get into the final Feeling judgment. It is not yet asking the final question, the "go or no-go" decision. It is not asking yet "what will the traffic bear?" Or "should we do it or not?" It is asking for the Thinking judgment of the group to be applied. It is looking for inevitable consequences, cause-effect relation- To See the Other Side. / 517 ships, what are the necessities involved. Symbolically it can be represented like this: S--N--T Perceiving is finished, and the group is entering into the first stage of judgment, Thinking judgment. Now all are asked to "T" it--to use Think-ing judgment. Here those who naturally prefer Thinking judgment for coming to closure and conclusion are in their element, and those who prefer Feeling judgment are asked to stretch a bit. If this phase is neglected, even those who naturally prefer the Feeling function for their decision making will feel restless and insecure in their Feeling judgment. It will be almost intolerable for those who naturally prefer the Thinking function for their decision making if this phase is slighted; as intolerable for Thinkers as it would be for Feelers if no Feeling function were ever brought to bear. A Thinker might well be feeling: "I won't hurt your feeling if you don't hurt my thinking." That is, there are certain aspects of rationality that must be taken care of or the Thinker is "stuck"; he can't go forward. He cannot proceed to a "con-sentire,"a feeling-together-with, to a fruitful and con-textualized judgment of fittingness--the Feeling judgment. Having done its perceiving by both Sensation and intuition, and handed the matter thus perceived over to the first phase ofjudgment--"T" rationality, the group is now ready to pass on to the final and most difficult phase of consensus seeking, that of Feeling rationality. S--N--T--F In this phase the judgments of fittingness, suitability, appropriateness are in order--but not before this phase. This is the ". all things consid-ered, this is where I am" time. But a group should not be in that time unless it has passed through the previous three phases in sequence. This is in accord with what was said above--letting the group move upward from consensus to consensus from the lower to the higher "con-sentire." Note that moving according to the sequential dependence of the functions: S--N--T--F is following "the gradient of more difficult consensus." The easiest area to find consensus is in the sensate data. It is the area most open to "consensus consciousness." Sensate data is available to the five senses, is the most objective kind of perception and is least open to subjective and idiosyn-cratic interpretation. There is no judgment involved; it is simply reporting "the facts." Next in order of ease of arriving at consensus consciousness is 5111 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 still perception, but now iNtuitive perception. INtuitive perception takes in many things that "are not there" for Sensate perception--interconnections, relatedness, future possibilities--yet which can be assimilated by Sensation rather easily once they are pointed out. Now comes "the great divide." Moving into the area of judgment poses a new level of difficulty in coming to consensus consciousness. Though Thinking judgment, the fir~st phase of rational judgment, is more objective than Feeling judgment, it is still a quantum leap in trying to arrive at consensus here over against consensus in perception. Still, there are cause-effect relationships and necessary consequences, and a compelling logic to help find the consensus in this area of Thinking rationality. S--N--T The most difficult area for consensus consciousness to emerge is in the area of Feeling judgment. This is the most personal-subjective area of judgment--the judgments of fittingness, suitability, appropriateness-- "what I like"; "what I want." Still, a true suitability and appropriateness can unify and focus a group, especially if the prior phases of Sensate and iNtuitive perception and Thinking rationality have prepared the way. S--N--T--F The various levels of consensus, of con-sentire, are, again, not some kind of equality in emotional states, but an experience of union in the proper object of the function S or N or T or F. It may, further, be an experience of union in the transcendental concern of that function--The One, The Beautiful, The True, The Good. This latter was briefly treated in the Essay on The Constructive Use of Differences. Thus, to go against or violate the "gradient of more difficult consensus" is self-defeating. Many religious groups immediately jump in to the area of Feeling judgment in considering an issue, and try to begin the consensus seeking process at its end-point. They move directly against the gradient of consensus. They go against traffic on a one-way street, and leave all kinds of mayhem and injustice in their wake. If a group hopes to focus and harness the energies and commitment of its members in a consensus decision by a process that does justice to all, following the gradient of consensus, S -- N -- T ~ F will prove a graced and productive structure. Summary In this article 1 have tried to point out: 1) Religious groups that are composed mostly of people who prefer To See the Other Side. / 519 Feeling rationality to Thinking rationality should be especially careful to employ structures that invite the contribution of Thinking rationality to decision making. Truly unjust structures can ensue from this neglect. 2) Feeling judgment in the Jungian and MBTI matrices is not emotion or sentiment; it is a judgment of suitability or appropriateness, and has noetic reference. Emotion is the first register of value for both Thinking and Feeling. 3) Consensus is a "con-sentire," a "feeling-together-with." There is always a consensus in a convening group. This resident consensus is the place to start in seeking further consensus. By the process of articulating what consensus is present in the group, the group has already passed beyond that consensus and is moving toward a new and higher level of consensus. 4) Following the sequential dependence of the functions, the "gradient of more difficult consensus" S -- N -- T -- F is a graceful structure in group work, and its understanding and application can greatly help the attitudes and contributions of those involved. NOTES tOne thinks of course of projecting our own neglected psychic concerns on others, stereotyping, transferences, and so forth. These are always present, especially, but by no means exclusively, where men and women work together. 2See Isabel Briggs Myers, with Peter B. Myers, Gifts Differing, (Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologists Press, 1980); Isabel Briggs Myers, Introduction to Type, (Gainsville: Center for Applications of Psychological Type, 1980); George J. Schemel and James A. Borbely, Facing Your Type, (Wernersville: Typrofile Press, 1982); C.G. Jung, Psy-chological Type, vol. 6, Bolingen Series XX, (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1971). 3"Rational judgment is based not merely on objective but also on subjective data. The predominance of one or the other factor, however, as a result of psychic disposition often existing from early youth, will give the judgment a corresponding bias. A judg-ment that is truly rational will appeal to the objective and the subjective factor equally and do justice to both. But that would be an ideal case and wouldpresuppose an equal development of both extraversion and introversion. In practice, however, either movement excludes the other, and, so long as this dilemma remains, they cannot exist side by side but at best successively. Under ordinary conditions, therefore, an ideal rationality is impossible." C. G. Jung, Psychological Types [644]. 4Noting the correspondence of the four transcendentals with the four functions is not Jung's observation, but my own. The One--Sensation; the Good--Feeling; the Beauti-ful- Intuition; the True--Thinking. See Facing Your Type, pp. 3 and 4. 5George J. Schemel and James A. Borbely, Facing Your Type, (Wernersville: Typrofile Press, 1982), pp. I l- 12. 6See Facing Your Type, pp. 17-20. Religious Charism: Definition, Rediscovery and Implications Jean Marie Renfro, S.S.S. This article is based on a talk given by Sister Renfro, of the Sisters of Social Service, at a regional meeting last fall of California's Catholic Conference (CCC), the CMSM and the LCWR. Sister Renfro may be addressed at her residence: 1120 Westchester Place; Los Angeles, California 90019. We are indebted to Paul of Tarsus for putting the word charism into our religious vocabularies. We are indebted to Paul VI for giving the expression a specific meaning for us as religious women and men.~ Although Paul the Apostle used the Greek charismata a number of times, and it was often translated into Latin as "gift" or "grace," the most striking use of the word is in his first letter to the Corinthians? The classic passage speaks of (a) the great variety of gifts, (b) which the Spirit gives, (c) each one different from the other, (d) each given for the common good, (e) each given for the building up of the Body of Christ. The apostle makes a key point: he is not speaking of the baptismal grace of the presence of the Holy Spirit which belongs to all baptized Christians, but of special gifts given people with special missions. The passage is not so much about gifts as it is about the Spirit who gives the charismata. That Spirit is the one whom Jesus describes as wind which blows where it will; that Spirit whom Luke says is like a dove, a bird which takes off and flies; that Spirit who in Acts is fire and in John is living water. Now wind, fire, water are hard to contain, hard to pin down. In speaking of religious charism the underlying, fundamental premise is that Religious Charism / 52"1 we are in the realm of that unpredictable Holy Spirit. Charism was not a commonly used word down the ages, but it did strike a chord in the hearts of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council, who used it in the same sense as did the Apostle Paul. By choosing the expression a number of times, although never in relation to religious life, they made it quite clear that the special gifts of the Spirit are not restricted to the apostolic community. Having defined the Church as the People of God, Lumen Gentium points out that there are special graces of the Spirit ("apart from the sacraments and the ministrations of the Church") which are distributed "among the faithful of every rank," gifts which make the people "fit and ready to undertake the renewal, and whether these charisms be very remarkable or more simple and widely diffused., they are fitting and useful for the needs of the Church." At the end of the passage bishops are charged with judging the genuineness and proper use of these charisms and at the same time they are reminded that their office is not to extinguish the Spirit.3 The renewal of the Church then, while under the guidance of the bishops, is truly the work of God the Holy Spirit. Religious Charisms Now if charisms are given "to the faithful of every rank," it follows that religious must also receive the Spirit's special grace. In November 1964 that seemed an obvious enough statement and it caught no one's attention. Neither Lumen Gentium's Chapter VI on religious, nor Perfectae Caritatis (October 1965) specifically used the word charism in relation to religious life; however, the concept of charism, of special gifts given for the development of religious life, was not new. For centuries there had been a common belief that the founding persons of religious communities were the recipients of special grace. The Jesuit, Jerome Nadal, writing in 1554 said: When God wants to help his Church, he first raises up a person and gives him or her a special grace and impulse under which he or she may serve God in a particular manner. This is what he did in the case of St. Francis: God gave him a particular grace for his personal growth as well as for his companions . In the same way he raised up Ignatius and granted him a grace, and through him to us . ,,4 For a millennium, pope after pope had commented on the unique gifts given to this founder, and (after a few centuries) to that foundress. This concept, together with the direction the council documents had taken, surely paved the way for the expression used by Paul VI in his Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelica Testificatio, On the Renewal of Religious Life. The Pope said that religious who wish to be faithful to the teaching of the council are those who, seeking God before all else, combine contempla- 522 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 tion with apostolic love. He continued: "By the former they cling to God in mind and heart; by the latter they strive to associate themselves with the work of redemption and to spread the kingdom of God. Only in this way you will be able to reawaken hearts to truth and to divine love in accordance with the charism of your founders, who were raised up by God within his Church."5 (Emphasis mine) The expression has been used again and again in subsequent papal docu-ments. Evangelica Testificatio was dated June 29, 1971, and countless communities were already well into the work of renewal. To understand what that phrase, "charism of your founders," meant and has come to mean to us, it is necessary to look for a moment at religious life in the 50s. The Leveling of Religious Life for Women The following observations may not apply to men's communities. They flow from my own experience of two dozen women's communities with whom I worked closely and sometimes stayed between 1953 and 1968. If anything can be said of religious women when the council began, it must be that we were faithful. We were faithful to the Church, to the pope, to our foundresses, to our constitutions, and to our communities. We meticulously kept the rule, performed our apostolates, learned to walk, to write, to speak and to dress exactly as Mother Mary Someone did one hundred, or perhaps two hundred years before somewhere in Europe. We kept her customs to perfection, whether or not they made any sense in our culture, because we believed that was what God and the Church asked of us. Consider one example among many. Visualize a group of healthy American women, some with Ph.D.s, sitting at table in silence, passing around a pan of suds to wash their dishes. No wonder we were the quaint little nuns! We reverenced everything about our lives. And everything had equal value. The special gifts which the Spirit gave the foundress were on a par with how people in her culture peeled potatoes. We were equally careful about both. Everything was leveled. Our special charism, our uniqueness, our gifts from the Holy Spirit were lost in a sea of trivia. We could have invented Trivial Pursuit. Nor was that totally our fault. In a sense the whole Church behaved in that way. We were taught to give the same credence to the teaching on Limbo and the doctrine of Resurrection. Recently I had an experience which let me see in an instant how communities lost sight of their charisms. I went to Sequoia National Park on a field trip with a geographer, who on the way up pointed out character-istics of various trees to be found in the forest we would visit. He described the giant sequoias, the biggest, the oldest trees in the world. Trees which live for two thousand years, but trees with a very shallow root system, Religious Charism having roots which extend from the trunk for yards, but always very near the surface. Because of this shallowness the sequoia needs a fire from time to time to clear the surface brush so that its roots can get the necessary nutrients. The tree itself is protected from fire by a very heavy bark with a high content of tanic acid. The sequoia is totally different from the juniper, which has an extremely long tap root, quite capable of making its way through granite, thus allowing the juniper to live on the edge of a precipice, to survive comfortably where the sequoia would never take root. Each tree has a wholeness in itself, its own beauty, its own reflection of the creative magnitude of God. I had been thinking about charism for a long time and the parallel was obvious. A few hours later I was walking in the forest, caught up in its lavish-ness. For a moment I was alone, in silence and in awe, when the silence was broken by a voice coming from the trail below me. Someone said, "Oh, sequoias, junipers, cedars--to me they are all just trees!" In an instant that person had leveled the wonders of that forest to just trees. Gone the marvelous integrity of each species. They were all just trees. That is what happened to women's communities before the Council called us to search for our own charism. We were all leveled to be just "the sisters." First everything in our lives was of equal importance, and secondly, we might as well have been one gigantic community. We knew we were different from one another and meant by God to be different, but it was an intuitive kind of knowl.edge, with not much to support it. To the rest of the world we were distinguished from one another only by some aspect of our dress. (And when we started studying the Gospels we found that the only group distinguished by its clothing had broad phylacteries and long tassels.) Frequently we did not even have a name. People, including our clerical brothers, simply said, "Sister," and we replied. Canon law leveled us still further, qqaere were pages and pages of canons that required communities of women to do things in a uniform way. Communities founded in the twentieth century ended up with virtually the same constitution as all the others, with only a paragraph, or at best a page which pertained to itself alone. I once indexed our constitution and was astounded that a Society called Sisters of Social Service had only one reference to social welfare. One final word about the leveling process. The Vatican Council, in telling us to find our own integrity, our own identity, called a sudden, sharp halt to the leveling, at least for a time. But it does continue. People find it easier to deal with, or perhaps to dismiss, the quaint little nun in her medieval garb than they do with many of today's religious women. We have educated ourselves about our charisms and their implications, but we 594 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 have not educated others. Having gone through much to discover and attempt to be faithful to our own charisms, it is painful to have people-- sometimes those who should understand--seemingly seek to level us again. For example, while I greatly admire Teresa of Calcutta, it is problematic to see her work and her way of life held up as the ideal for our day. It is the leveling process at work again; we do not all have the same charism. The Call to Renew In 1962, when the Holy Spirit and John XXIII convoked the Council, most of that amorphous mass called "the sisters," absolutely dedicated to faithfulness to the Church, were quite ready to do as we were asked--to undertake an interior renewal and to make exterior adaptations suitable to our own time. No one .yet spoke of "charism" as the Council Fathers presented us with the now famous steps to renewal. First, since the "final norm of religious life is the following of Christ as it is put before us in the Gospel, this must be taken as its supreme rule by all institutes." In other words, we were told to go back to Scripture and make it, like the Eucharist, our daily bread. Secondly, the Council Fathers were at pains to point out in several passages that there is a "wonderful variety of religious communi-ties," and that variety needed to be reemphasized. To bring about renewal we were to seek the authentic spirit of our individual founding persons, but what exactly did that mean, and how were we to go about it? Finally, since the whole Church had to learn to read and respond to the signs of the times, certainly we did, too. But how were we to adapt our lives to the changed conditions without destroying ourselves, since we saw our lives as a seamless garment. Entering into the work renewal asked of us, sparked a variety of responses in the early days. Some said we do not need to renew; we have never departed from the vision and way of life of our founder. Some women's communities, desirous of becoming fully competent in ministry, were already into Sister Formation, and were hungry for what renewal promised. We were at various stages of our journey when in 1971, Paul VI, in Evangelica Testificatio, spoke of the charism of your founders. The expression was noticed immediately because it shed great light on our search for the authentic spirit of the founder, for ''the primitive inspira-tion of the institute." By definition, charism is gift from the Spirit, generally for the good of others, but sometimes a personal gift as well. Charismata, if accepted and freely given back to the People of God, build up the Church. The concept of "charism of the founder" narrowed the focus of our search from the founder's whole way of life to how God worked in him. It led us to concentrate on the way the Spirit gifted the foundress, rather than on the Religious Charism / 525 accidents of her culture. To be told by the Church that the cultural mores of another age were not essential to our vocation was at once startling and freeing. Never again could everything about our life be valued equally. It now became urgent that we rediscover our unique identity, that we sort out the charism from the cultural traditions. Simultaneously we searched the past and the present. I suspect many communities shared the experience of my own community, the Sisters of Social Work. It seemed perfectly evident that if there is such a thing as a community charism, then it must somehow be lived by us, its members. We looked around and we were/are all so different. We asked what do we hold in common? What we shared was so obvious that we missed it at first. We did not know that we knew who we are. We did know that we were founded by women already working to alleviate and prevent social evils, and we knew we would die out if we ever ceased to fight contemporary social problems. We knew that since we often work alone on uncharted paths our ministry demanded an attentiveness to the Spirit. We knew that we were not Benedictine sisters, yet our spirit is powerfully influenced by the Benedictine tradition. We knew we were not Religious as such, but rather members of a Society of Common Life (now "Apostolic Life"). Different as we were, we shared these elements with each other; gradually we realized they came from our foundresses and define us. The late 70s were a time when many communities, struggling to find their true identity, finally understood that they did know their own unique essence, that they did know more of their own integrity than they could easily verbalize. But first many questions had to be answered. Charism and the Gospel One of the first questions with which we had to come to grips was how the Gospel, now the supreme rule of our lives, related to our charism. Some of us, overwhelmed with a new reading of the Word of God, asked why do we need anything more than the Gospel? Is not everything necessary for renewal right there? It was an honest question, for indeed it is all there. But everything needed for a holy life in any lifestyle is there. The G0spel points the way for all invited to Christian baptism, not just for religious. Then it became clear. No one person, no one community could manifest all the attributes of the Lord. Each religious family reflects a particular aspect, or a particular combination of aspects of the Gospel. Margaret Slachta, the foundress of the Sisters of Social Service, some fifty years ago, spoke of the concept of charism, although she did not name it as such. She said: God has all perfection. It's as if the perfections of God are a great globe 526 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 and religious communities are a thousand mirrors reflecting one or other of the divine attributes. The Franciscans reflect the spirit of poverty to a world always attracted to riches. The Dominicans reflect truth to a world ever flirting with error, while we reflect the sanctifying love of God to a world which does not know the Spirit.6 All of us need the Gospel as the final measuring rod of our lives, but each community needs its own special gift or specific combination of Gospel attributes or gifts from the Spirit to give it its own identity. The Founding Charism A unique gift or combination of gifts was originally the special charism of our founding mothers or fathers. That raised many questions which needed answers.7 What aspects of the Gospel were especially attractive to our founder? What ignited a flame in the heart of our foundress? What combination of Christian characteristics makes this religious family different from that one? These questions sent us scurrying back to our earliest documents, back through legend and history to the flesh-and-blood men and women through whom God gave us life. To clearly describe our founding charism it was necessary to go back to the founding person's historic life, necessary to learn the culture, the social and political situation in which the founder awoke to a personal call from God. It was necessary to see how the foundress responded to the signs of her times. We searched our primary sources with new eyes as we sought to find how the Spirit of God was manifested to our founding persons. What was the conversion experience from which there was no turning back? Was it in a cave like Subiaco or Manresa, or as with the foundress of my community, after coming home from a colorful, exciting ball in a luxurious salon in Budapest? How was the challenge met? How did the person read the message? What did Benedict or Francis or Dominic or Ignatius or John Bosco intend as they gathered disciples, as they structured a way of life which would allow their disciples to experience God as they had? What was the intent of Angela Merici, Louise de Marillac, Catherine McCauley, Elizabeth Seton, Frances Cabrini, or Margaret Slachta as they found like-minded women and began to pray with them, began to prepare them to attack some grave need felt by the People of God? We found life-giving answers to our questions. We discovered the why our founders did what they did, and the how was no longer so important. Most of their customs were the ordinary customs of their day. Take clothing for example. Many founding persons, both women and men, in many different centuries and different places wore the oridinary clothing of the poor or of the common people of their time. What they wore was the least Religious Charism / 527 of their concerns. Of course the "why" and the "hows" of the past brought us up sharply to the present and another set of questions. How does the present moment relate to what the founder was all about? In our great faithfulness to the foundress, to her customs and her way of doing things, did we lose sight of her vision? What would the founder do if called by God to begin the community now, today? Which of the foundress' gifts are being incarnated in the members of the community today? We have become very aware that the heart of the charism given our founding person must be enfleshed in our time or we have no deep ties with our roots. In our communities we are very conscious of our diversity, of the richness of personality of our members. Each of us comes with valued and often unique gifts from the Spirit which become the treasure of the whole community, yet we are also aware that we share, and in a radical way, the attraction, the charism of our founding person. Personal Charism of the Founder/Foundress Most communities discovered that the charism of the founding person was somewhat different from the charism of the community itself. Some gifts of the Spirit were for the foundress alone, some aspects of the founder's charism necessary only to the work of foundation, some strengths needed to give life to the new group in its formative years. In seeking out our own individual roots many of us became very conscious that the founder's specific time in history was so unlike our own, that the foundress brought the community to life often out of a specific need of her culture which does not exist in our technological age. Again it became evident that customs, manner of responding to need, which were a part of the initial environment in which the community was created, may have been a part of the personal charism of the foundress, but were not a part of the community's charism. If the charism is at the heart of the community's identity then the charism must transcend both the time and the culture in which the community was founded. Elements of Religious Charism The charism of a religious community is that gift or combination of gifts which God the Holy Spirit gave to the founding person so that the community might come into existence in the first place. The gifts reflect certain attributes of God, or in more contemporary language, aspects of the Gospel which the founding person lived out in her or his life. The gifts were given for the common good, to build the Body of Christ in the time in which they were first manifested. This gift, or special combination of girls, 5211 / Review for Religious, July-August, 1986 is not limited by time or culture and is found in, and is enfleshed by, the present-day followers of the founding person, enabling them to live his or her vision in our own time. The charism gives the community its basic identity, provides it with its own wholeness, gives it its own unique meaning within the total family of religious institutes. Because the charism is the gift of the Spirit, its expression is never static, it can lead a group in unpredict-able ways, and as the bishops were told in Mutuae Relationes, Mutual Relations Between Bishops and Religious, sometimes it can be quite trouble-some to deal with.8 Founders, foundresses and their religious communities have generally discovered that following one's charism usually involves a risk, always a challenge, and not infrequently, misunderstanding. As initially the primitive charism did not bring riches, honor, power, neither does its rediscovery. Charism and Daily Life If we want a wholeness about our lives, consciously or unconsciously we take our charism into consideration in all that we do. Formation personnel should be very clear about the community's charism, should test candidates precisely in the area of the charism. In the matter of the vows which the new members will take, we profess the evangelical counsels within the context of a particular religious family with its own particular charism. We understand our vows and live out our vocation as the com-munity understan

Issue 31.6 of the Review for Religious, 1972. ; EDITOR R. F. Smith, S.J. ASSOCIATE EDITOR Everett A. Diederich, S.J. QUESTIONS ANI) ANSWERS EDI'I'OR Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Correspondence with the editor, the associate editor, and the assistant editor, as well as books for review, should be .sen.t to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; 612 Humboldt Build-ing; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S,].; St. Joseph's Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106. + + + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Edited with ecclesiastical approval by I~dculty members of the School of I)ivinity of St. Louis University. the editorial offices beihg located at 612 Humboldt Bnilding; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute. Published bimonthly and copyright © 1972 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Printed in U.S.A. ¯ Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $1.25. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year, $11.00 for two years; other countries: $7.00 a year. $13.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or r~encwal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S.A. cur-rency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Renewals and new subscriptions should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; P.O. Box6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Manuscripts, editori-al correspondence, and books for review shonld be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; 612 tlumboldt Building; 539 North (;rand Boule-yard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to the address of the Questions and Answers editor. NOVEMBER 1972 VOLUME 31 NUMBER 6 CAttAL BRENI)AN DALY, D.D. Prayer in the Modern World [Cahal Brendan Daly, D.D., is the Bishop of Ardagh and lives at Bishop's House; St. Michael's; Longford, Ireland. The article was a lecture at the Carmelite College; Castlemartyr, County Cork and was first published in Mount Carmel, Spring 1972, pp. 204-12; Summer 19"72, pp. 23-35. The article is reprinted here with the kind permission of the editor of Mount Carmel. ] In the New Testament we not only find the example of prayer given us by Our Divine Lord, and the discipline of prayer as it existed in the first Christian community, but we find above all a theology of prayer. In fact, we find the whole message and mission of our Lord Himself presented to us in a context of prayer. The New Testament is, if you like, a whole theology of prayer. It is usual nowadays in modern theology to speak of Christ as the Man for others, and of course He certainly is; but we must not forget that before and above all else Christ is the Man for the Father. Christ is the Adorer of the Father; and it is only then and because of this that He is the Man for others. This is reflected in the commandments given by our divine Lord Himself in the form: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God" - this is the first commandment; the second, like to it indeed, but nevertheless, second to it, is the commandment to love our neighbor. In an age of horizontalism we do not need to remember this. But there is a crisis of prayer at the present time. It is a crisis, I think, which goes deeper than prayer, affecting faith itself. The contemporary religious crisis is one that involves our very sense of God, the reality of His transcendent Being, and of our relationship with Him. It could hardly be denied, l am afraid that through a one-sided emphasis on this-worldly values, we may be neglecting the direct service of the wholly Other who is God - the rights of man perhaps coming to rival, if not eclipse, in our consciousness, the rights and claims of God. But surely the first thing required of a People of God is "Godliness" - the sense of God which that untranslatable old English word "Godliness" conveys. Worship is God's "Worthship," our acknowledgement of what God is worth, it is our avowal that God is worth a lifetime of our praise, and admiration and adoration, and service and thanks - our attempt to pay tribute to the "worthness" of God. Is the crisis of prayer not just the obverse side of a decline in this recognition of God's "worthship"? But there are several prevalent themes of modern discussion which are contributing, I think, to the modern crisis of prayer. It is suggested, for example, that prayer should be spontaneous and not rule-regulated; that it should be communitarian rather than individual; that it can take the form of a dialogue and service among our fellow men, rather than of silent personal converse with God. The Bishop of Woolwich Perhaps one of the best known exponents of some of these themes is the former 902 Review fox Religious, Volume 31, 197216 Bishop of Woolwich, above all in his book Honest to God. This has a chapter on prayer - a chapter which contains many beautiful and profound things, including as I remember it, the opening sentence which is that "Prayer and Ethics are the two sides of one and the same coin." This I think is a very profound thought, that Christian morality is simply our prayer applied to living and our living is our prayer carried out in act. There are other helpful thoughts as well in that chapter. But the general thrust of the Bishop of Woolwich's thinking is away from the idea of personal withdrawal and aloneness with God: away from the contemplative aspect of prayer at least, to prayer as engagement, prayer as involvement, as dialogue and as service. The Bishop would, I think, regret having to withdraw from the world and the neighbor into what he might be tempted to call the ghetto of aloneness in order to pray. He would prefer to find God and to serve Him and to worship Him in the neighbor, in dialogue and service with the neighbor. Now this of course is excellent, but nevertheless one needs to ask some questions about this. It seems to me that some very penetrating questions have been put to the Bishop about this by a fellow Anglican called Martin Thornton in a little book, which is very impressive to my mind, called TheRock and theRiver. In this book, Martin Thornton remarks that while reading Honest to God,and, above all, this chapter on prayer, he finds himself on practically every page, scribbling in the margin cryptic letters "Y.B.H." and he said almost certainly if his books were being looked over after his death by his executors (or anyone else) they would wonder what on earth "Y.B.H." could mean, but he tells us that they mean "YES, BUT HOW?" The point that he wants to make is that it is magnificent to be able to find God in our neighbor; it is wonderful to be able to be conscious of the presence of God in the neighbor, and to be conscious of the presence of the adorable God in our work, in our apostolate, in whatever. It is possible, but very difficult. How are we going to arrive there? Then Martin Thornton goes on (because he is himself a specialist of the spiritual life, and of the history of mystical theology), to remind us that this is in fact what traditional spiritual writers called habitual recollection or the habitual sense of the presence of God. But, he said, you will find that the saints and the great doctors of prayer have all of them warned us that this is a culmination, a climax of the spiritual effort. It is what mystical writers and saints might hope to arrive at and to achieve fitfully and partially at the end of years and years of disciplined effort. Whereas he fears the Bishop of Woolwich thinks that anyone can do this at the drop of a hat. He says that this is too naive by half- it just does not happen that way. Spontaneity and Discipline The title that Mr. Thornton gives to his book, The Rock and the River, is deliberately symbolic. The river for him is the spontaneity of prayer - the habitual sense of the presence of God always, not requiring certain periods set apart for it, but coming spontaneously and naturally in the course of doing other things. This for him, spontaneity, is represented by the river - the river of the continuous novelty and joy of the finding of God. But the river flows from the rock - a deep Biblical theme - and the rock is fidelity; the rock is constancy; the rock is the discipline of fidelity and constancy in our relations with the constant and faithful God. He insists that all experience, including our own, will tell us that unless we practice this discipline, which Mr. Thornton calls the Rule, the Regula, and unless we are faithful to that discipline, we won't have the spontaneity either. By the regula, he is referring in a general way to the rules of disciplined prayer that have Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 903 been left to us in all the great spiritual traditions and religious families. Surely he is faithful to human pyschology and pedagogy in that insistence. Surely in this as in any other spiritual domain spontaneity does not come naturally, it doesn't just happen - spontaneity is acquired. If you want to acquire spontaneity in your practice and your love of music, you've got to go through the hard monotonous humdrum discipline of practice. If you do, but only if you do, then you will eventually arrive at an informed but spontaneous enjoyment of music. So it is surely with any other human skill. Spontaneity is acquired by discipline. We should not contrast the spontaneity with the discipline. Similarly it is only at the price of disciplined, controlled and persistent prayer life that we will arrive at habitual recollection, or have joy in the moments of our prayer. The Example of Jesus This is true, as I said, psychologically; it is true pedagogically. But what is much more important is to approach this problem of prayer from the standpoint of the New Testament itself, and what it tells us about the practice of our divine Lord Himself, and the insights it gives us into the place of prayer in the life of Christ and in the life of the Christian. A careful study of Christ's own personal prayer life in the Gospels shows that He adhered strictly to a daily discipline of rule-regulated prayer. The rules were precisely those prevailing in contemporary Jewish piety; but Christ deepened and extended their observance as he did with every detail of Jewish religious practice. Every pious Jew, for example, in Jesus' time recited the Shema, or the Jewish creed, first thing on waking and last thing before sleeping. The words are based on Deuteronomy: "The Lord our God is the one Lord - you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength." Jesus observed this custom faithfully as did all his disciples. For instance, when the rich young man asked our Lord "What must 1 do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus had only to remind him of the prayer he said that morning. This is what He does in fact when He says to him: "What is written in the law? How do you recite this?" (because the Jew normally recited his prayers aloud). Our Lord was simply asking him: "Do you remember your morning prayer? Do you remember what you said this morning?" This practice of morning and night prayer was regarded as an absolute minimum of religious practice and it is significant that in Jewish thought to omit morning and night prayer would be, in effect, to cut oneself off from the religious community. It was a minimum of recognition of God, a minimum of witness to the transcendence of God, without which one could not be regarded as a member of the praying community, the priestly community, which was the People of God. The pious Jew was further obliged to pray at least six times every day, and this of course is the basis of the Breviary, the Office, the Prayer of the Church, with its afternoon and evening hours. The many references that we find in the Gospels to Jesus' prayer are to be understood in relation to this rule of prayer. When Jesus impresses on the disciples the need to pray continually and never to lose heart, he is not referring, strictly speaking, to acquiring the sense of the habitual presence of God. The word "continually" has a technical meaning. Our Lord is referring to the regular, disciplined, rule-regulated periods of prayer in the course of the day; what He is requiring of them is faithfulness to the daily discipline of fixed times and rules of daily prayer. It is interesting that it is in that very same paragraph of St. Luke's Gospel that Jesus so poignantly asks "When the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith upon the earth?" a question which challenges every one of us always, but 904 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 above all now at this time of crisis. It seems to follow from this conjunction that to find faith on earth, according to the teaching of the Gospel, is one and the same thing as to find persevering prayer on the earth. It is also full of deep significance that each single one of Jesus' answers to the temptations of the devil are taken from the Biblical prayer-formulae prescribed for the daily prayer of the Jews. Every one of them is part of what one might call a domestic or personal liturgy of the pious Jew. The lesson surely is that prayer is our defense against the temptations which the devil continually brings against our faith. The Jewish Practice of Prayer We have in recent years had tremendous new light shed upon the prayer life of our Lord from a somewhat unexpected source - a Jew who knows very well the cultural tradition of the Jewish people. That is to say, it has been brought to public attention, because this man I am going to refer to has been of course depending a great deal on the research of more primary scholars. He is himself a more popular writer, but nevertheless one of impressive stature. He is a French Jew called Robert Aron; and he has written a number of books based on his knowledge of Jewish tradition and Jewish religious practice, to illuminate for us the pages of the Gospel. His two best-known books are: Les annbes obscures de Jksus (The Hidden Years of Jesus) and Ainsi priait J~sus Enfant (This ls how the Boy Jesus Prayed). Both are published by Grasset. Now Aron has shown how the whole life of the devout Jew in Jesus' time was saturated with prayer. One of the interesting quotations he gives us from Jewish tradition is: "Whoever enjoys anything whatever in this world without first saying a prayer commits an untruthfulness." The prayer or blessing which preceded and which followed every important act of the day would have been taught to Jesus as a child by His holy Mother and would have been part of His whole human religious psychology. The Apostles were faithful to Jesus' example and to His precepts. The Acts of the Apostles frequently referred to the observance of the fixed hours of daily prayer. St. Paul again and again talks of praying continually, praying without ceasing, praying day and night, praying always. He urges his converts to keep praying, to be "persevering in your prayers." Again I repeat, St. Paul is not talking about habitual recollection. He is talking about fixed and undeviating hours and rules of prayer. What he is urging in all these passages is fidelity to the regular hours of prayer. Indeed the whole of the day was, as I have just said, consecrated for the faithful Jew by prayer; there were prayers of thanksgiving or blessings to accompany every action, function, and happening, whether of work, leisure, or recreation, in everyday life. We know from the Gospels how Jesus observed these blessings, these prayers before and after meals, before journeys, before arrivals, before seasons, before preaching or teaching, before acts of healing, miracles, and so on. St. Paul followed His example when he bids us to be always and everywhere giving thanks to God who is our Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a certain disaffection now from prayer of this kind, from the practice, for example, of blessings before and after meals, before and after journeys and undertakings; but it is salutary to remember that it came directly from Christ our Lord Himself. Of course it certainly is not part of the essence of our faith that we observe a particular set of fixed rules of prayer. Many of you know that this insistence could and sometimes did become a sort of legalism and a sort of spiritual burden which hindered rather than helped progress in prayer. One can bind heavy and insupportable burdens in this matter of devotions, trimmings, added to essential Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 9O5 liturgical prayer. Nevertheless, it is vital that there should be recalls of the presence of God in the course of one's day, and that in the course of one's life there should be moments of withdrawal from human contacts in order to be alone with God. This I think is absolutely fundamental in Christian life, both from psychological and from deeply theological reasons. Here again the contrast between spontaneity and regulation has been exaggerated and the contrast between love and law in this, as in many other spheres, has been overdone. After all, love creates its own self-imposed laws; and in any sphere you like to take of human relationships, you can easily see this. The man who says he is too busy earning money for his family, or for his wife or fiancee, to have any time to recall her birthday, or to remember her anniversaries, or to think of giving her a present, would be a humbug. Love is made of thoughtfulnesses of this kind. Love is the willing acceptance, the joyful acceptance, of certain patterns of conduct, which manifest our fidelity and which make our love to be real rather than just verbal. Law is the expression of love, and when it is, it is no longer felt as law, it is no longer felt as a burden. This perhaps is why some prayer practices became burdens, because they could not be assimilated into one's love of God. Nevertheless that there should be time for this withdrawal is indispensable, to remember what life is about, and what we are here for, to remember that we are a People of God. Those of us who are committed to the following, the exclusive following of Christ, have special need for these regular moments of intensive recall of who it is that we have chosen, or rather, who He is who has chosen us. Prayer and Eschatology A very meaningful contemporary way of expressing this is to say that these moments of withdrawal are necessary in order to give us an eschatological dimension, an awareness of what it is to be waiting for the Lord to come in glory. Schillebeeckx has some very interesting remarks in his book on celibacy. He suggests that the deepest meaning of celibacy is that a man who is really waiting for the Lord to come in glory has not time to be bothered with all the distractions and so on that are necessary to have a courtship and a marriage and to look after a family. He is too completely absorbed in the thought of the coming of the Lord and in the need of preparedness for the coming Lord to be bothered with anything else but the affairs of the kingdom. This 1 think is a very valid phenomenonological and existentialist explanation of the meaning and the relevance of celibacy. In passing, Schillebeeckx remarks, and 1 think that this too is profound, that this in fact is the basis of the Church's practice of fasting and of self-denial generally. Someone who is really intensely, excitedly waiting for a tremendous event to break through can't think of anything else, he can't think of eating, he doesn't even feel hungry. The Church, knowing that as an eschatological community we ought to have this feeling of excited waiting, on tip-toe of expectation for this great thing to break through, adopts the external behavior-pattern (e.g. not eating)which corresponds to the inner feeling. If we were really waiting for something important to happen, or for someone really loved to come, we couldn't be bothered to be hungry. The Church feels that we can as it were invert the process, induce the appropriate feeling by adopting the relevant behavior. Now it seems to me that in a similar way fixed times and moments of awareness of God are indispensable if we are to have the mentality of a people of faith, of a people of hope, of a people constantly aware that we have not here a lasting kingdom, but we seek one that is to come in Christ, "who is, who was, and who is to come." 9O6 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 Jesus, however, was not content with the rule-regulated prayer of the Jews; He deepened it, and He stressed the need for personal commitment rather than conformity, and for interior sincerity rather than routine. Jesus reinforced the rules, but He wrote them on the heart rather than as the Pharisees did on the palm and the forehead. You will remember what seems to us the incredible foolishness of the Pharisees in taking the words of Deuteronomy literally. Deuteronomy says: "You are to write this law on the palm of your hand and carry it perpetually before your eyes so that you shall never waking or sleeping, forget this law." The Pharisees did just that; they wrote sentences of the Law out on bits of paper and carried them in the palms of their hands and wrote them out on a phylactery, and carried it in front of their eyes and thought that this was carrying out the Law. But Jesus wanted the rules to be written on the heart, to be assimilated into our lives, rather than carried out legalistically. He told us therefore to pray to the Father in secret. Jesus' Solitary Prayer Jesus also extended the fixed hours of prayer, turning the regular evening prayer of the Jews into night-long vigils ending only with the dawn. The Gospels are at pains deliberately to emphasize that these were vigils of solitary prayer. The Gospels make a special point of remarking that Jesus left the crowds behind even when they needed Him, even when they clamored for Him and followed pathetically after Him, looking for His help and His healing. Jesus deliberately turned His back on people that needed Him, in order to be alone with His Father - this we must never forget. Here is how St. Mark described it: "That evening after sunset, they brought to Him all who were sick and those who were possessed by devils; the whole town came crowding around the door. In the morning, long before dawn, He got up and He left the house and He went off to a lonely place, and He prayed there. Simon and his companions set out in search of Him. When they found Him they said 'Everybody is looking for you.' " Later, St. Mark continues, after the miracle of the loaves, He Himself sent the crowds away, after saying good-bye to them: "He went off into the hills to pray, and about the fourth watch of the night, He came to His disciples." This was about 3 to 6 a.m. He came to His disciples after hours of vigil, hours of solitary prayer alone by night. "He came to them walking on the water." St. Luke is even more explicit. St. Luke says: "I-Iis reputation continued to grow, and large crowds would gather to hear him, and to have their sicknesses cured, but he would always go off to some place where he could be alone and pray." Not just once, not just a few times, but regularly, habitually, he would "always" go off "to some place where He could be alone and pray." Again, St. Luke writes: "He went out to the hills to pray and He spent the whole night in prayer to God." This was before the vocation, the calling of the disciples. "When day came, he summoned his disciples and he picked out twelve of them and called them Apostles." It is not fanciful, it is theologically accurate, to say that the vocation of each one of us was involved in that vocation of the twelve, for our vocation is only a prolongation of theirs; therefore, our vocation too was included in the prayer of Christ. St. Luke's Theology of Prayer St. Luke shows Christ's whole life as spent in an atmosphere of prayer. Indeed he interprets Christ's whole mission in terms of a theology of prayer. St. Luke's Gospel begins, remember, with prayer in the temple, and it ends with Jesus ascending into Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 907 lleaven in the posture of prayer, in the gesture of blessing. The blessing is not just any blessing, it is the blessing of the Holy Spirit and the promise of the Father. It is Jesus' prayer that brings this promise to fulfillment; it is Jesus' prayer that brings down the only true blessing, the gift of the Holy Spirit to the world. Then let us never forget that there is a continuity between St. Luke's first Gospel, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and what we might call his second gospel, the gospel of the Church and of the Holy Spirit, which is the Acts of the Apostles. There is a parallelism of structure between the two. St. Luke's Gospel, his gospel of Jesus Christ, begins with prayer in the Temple and with the Annunciation and it ends with waiting in the temple for the promise of the Father to be given by the blessing of Jesus. The Acts of the Apostles begins again in the Holy City and the Temple where they are to remain continually in prayer, praising God all the time and waiting for the power from on high and for the mission which in the power of the Spirit will send them to the ends of the earth. There is a parallelism between the conception of Jesus and the conception of the Church in St. Luke which is most striking and is theologically very profound. The Gospel begins with prayer in the Temple and the coming of the Holy Spirit, which makes Mary the Mother of Jesus. The Acts of the Apostles opens with a description of the Apostles joined in continuous prayer with Mary the Mother of Jesus waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit to give birth to the Church. In truth we have to say that St. Luke has a clearly developed theology of prayer in which Jesus' whole life and work are explained in terms of prayer. Now this is not just a personal idea of St. Luke. This is divinely revealed and inspired instruction about the mystery of Christ as a mystery of salvation consummated in prayer. This revelation occurs with particular intensity at four points in St. Luke's Gospel: the Annunciation, the Baptism of our Lord, the Transfiguration, and the Ascension. Now there are remarkable parallelisms between these four scenes, these four theophanies if you like, in St. Luke's Gospel. These elements are constant throughout the Synoptic Gospels of course, but they are presented with particular vividness and explicitness in St. Luke. In each of these scenes we note the manifestation of the shekinah, the cloud of divine glory which everywhere in the Bible marks the awesome presence of God. Again, let me remark in passing that there has been a lot of nonsense talked about the "myths" of the Gospel and the need to "demythologize" the Gospel in order to get at its fundamental truth. Often this turns out to be a parabolic kind of truth, which has nothing to do with facts but is simply a subjective conviction of being addressed by God now, in my existential situation in the present. But what we have in the Gospels is not myth at all, but a technical, theological language. You couldn't expect the sacred writers to use our kind of language wltich has developed in our sort of Greco-Latin culture. Inevitably what they had to use was the theological language of a Semitic culture and particularly of a Biblical people. They used the theological language of the Old Testament. But make no mistake about it, the language of the Bible is not just the simple anthropomorphic talk of a people who knew no better; it is the work of a highly sophisticated and developed theology, with its own clearly recognized theological symbols. One of these is the cloud. The cloud is a theological description of the presence of the all-holy God. We have this cloud of divine glory in all of these scenes that I talked about. One could of course write a whole library of books about the theology of the shekinah in the Old and in the New Testaments. This cloud of divine glory marks above all God's presence in the Tent or Tabernacle where He dwelt among His people in the desert and it marked His presence in the 908 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 197216 Holy of Holies in the Temple of the Holy City. The Transfiguration Now, with this background, let us look first at the scene of the Transfiguration. St. Luke is careful to point out in all these passages that our Lord was in prayer, before the manifestation of the cloud of divine glory occurred. St. Luke is careful, for example, to point out that it was to pray that Jesus took Peter, James, and John up the mountain of Transfiguration, and that it was as He prayed that the fulguration of divine glory pervaded His body. So St. Luke is not telling us only about the actual event in the life of our Lord. He is also, in parenthesis, implicitly telling us about our prayer life as Christians. Here again we have an instance of the great blessings and graces that modern exegesis has brought to the Church. We can see now that the New Testament writers were all the time recalling the actual words, the actual events of the life of our Lord in the context of the Church, in the context of the life of the Church, in the context of the liturgy, and above all in the context of the Holy Eucharist. Therefore we are getting two messages all the time in the New Testament, one about what our Lord did in the past, and one about how the Church experiences her Lord in the liturgy of today. That is one of the reasons why the Gospels are never merely an account of what did happen once, long ago in history. They are always also a revelation, an unveiling, of what is happening now in our liturgy of today, which is essentially the same as the liturgy of the early Church. To return to this scene of the Transfiguration. This was the epiphany of God made one with human flesh in the body of Jesus, and it reveals Jesus as the new Tent, the new Tabernacle, the new Temple, replacing the old Tent, and replacing the existing Temple, and becoming then and for all time the only place where God could be encountered and worshiped in all future history. This incidentally, is why St. Luke smiles as it were at the nffive foolishness of poor old Peter - Peter said: "Let's make three tents." St. Luke is telling us in part: "Poor Peter, don't mind him. He didn't know what he was saying, he didn't know that there is only one tent, not three. There is only one tent where God dwells with men, the Tent of Christ's Body." We enter that Tent in prayer; and every time we pray in the name of Jesus, we enter already into the glory of God present in the Body of His Son. That's why it is good for us to pray. It is good for us to be here in prayer with Jesus in the glory of the Father. Never are we more praying in the name of Jesus than when we are praying in the Mass or before the Blessed Sacrament, because this is the transfigured Body. The Body of Christ in the Eucharist is the Temple, the only Temple of access to the Father. After the radiant glory of God had transfigured Christ's body, the cloud became a dark shadow enveloping Jesus along with Moses and Elias who stood by to acknowledge Him as the author of the new and eternal covenant. Not only here, but frequently, in fact habitually, you find this ambivalence about the cloud of divine glory. It is at once light and darkness. It is radiant blinding light, but also impenetrable, mysterious darkness. These are not contradictory. God's glory is darkness by excess of blinding light. When the light of the sun is at its most luminous, it is fatal to look directly into it, for example during an eclipse. So it is with the radiance of God's light. That is what it means to say God is mystery. At this point, out of the cloud comes a voice - the voice of the eternal Father: "This is my Son, the Chosen One, listen to him." Now we know why the cloud is Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 909 dark. The darkness is the same as the darkness that covered Calvary at the time of Christ's death. This is not just an astronomical phenomenon; this is mystery, this is revelation, this is the language of Biblical theology. It was the cloud of God's glory that covered Calvary when Christ was dying. Here, in the dark cloud of the Transfiguration we have the revelation of the coming Passion. These words "This is my Son," are taken from the prophet Isaiah and they refer to the Suffering Servant, not just the Son, but the suffering Son. When we are told to listen to Him, we are being told to listen to the lesson of His Passion. Here we have the revelation that Jesus is God's Temple precisely in and because of His Passion. It is because Jesus suffers that He enters into glory and brings us with Him into the Father's glory. Jesus the True Temple This theology of the Temple is, again, a tremendous new insight of recent exegesis and of recent theology. Take for example something that always puzzled us, 1 think, namely the question of what it means that, at the death of Christ, the veil of the Temple is rent in two from the top to the bottom. We must recall that in the Jewish Temple there were separate compartments for different categories of worshipers. There was one for the women who were not allowed to come more than to just the outer precincts. Beyond this there were the ordinary priestly people, the lay men. Beyond this was the place set apart for the priests. Finally beyond the inmost veil, was the Holy of Holies where only the High Priest himself could enter, and he only once a year. Beyond this veil the High Priest dared to enter only backward, for fear of looking at where the glory of God dwelt. But when Christ dies, the veil is torn apart, the curtains are all drawn back. There are no separations, no boundaries, no barriers, any more. We can all come up without distinction, without exclusion into the very presence of divine glory. We do this every day in our Mass and at our Holy Communion. This is one example of the central importance of the theology of the Temple in the reading of the Gospel. But, to return again to the Transfiguration; here we are entering into the heart of the mystery of Christian prayer. When we pray we are made one with Jesus in His prayer. This means we become one with Jesus in His divine Sonship; and over us when we pray the same voice of the Eternal Father is spoken "This is my Son, my Chosen One." Again, another example of the supposedly mythological, but really theological language of the Bible is to be noted in the words, "the heavens were opened." This means that the separation between God and man which sin is, is abolished by the redemption of Christ, and that in Christ we already share in the life of heaven, we are already admitted into the presence of the Father. That is what the opening of the heavens means. This happens in Jesus Christ and happens in our lives every time we pray. Every time we pray, the heavens are opened over us and around us, and we are enveloped with Jesus in the same love with which the Father loves His Son. It is not so much we who pray then, as the Beloved Son who prays in us. Or, as St. Paul says, it is the Spirit of adoption, it is the Spirit of the Son making us sons, who is given us by Christ to pray in us with groanings that are ineffable. All that we have to do when we pray - because we do get discouraged in our efforts and we feel we are making such a poor fist of it - but really all we've got to do is to try to remove the distractions which impede Christ from praying in us. We have only, as it were, to stand back and let Christ pray in us, let the Holy Spirit pray in us, to remove the distractions which impede and try to create the conditions which permit the Son and the Spirit to pray in us. The word "pray-in" is familiar now, but all Christian prayer is really Christ's "pray-in" in us. Christian 910 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 prayer is essentially Christ praying in us, and the Spirit praying in us. Therefore in us and through us as we pray glory is given to the eternal Father by the Son in us, through the Holy Spirit in us, as it was in the beginning and is now and ever shall be for ever and ever. St. John's Theology of Prayer We note in passing that this revelation of the meaning and the mystery of Jesus and prayer in St. Luke's Gospel agrees completely with the Gospel of St. John. In the very prologue of St. John's Gospel, we read: "The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us." We know that these words are again a reference to the cloud of divine glory and the Tent of God's dwelling, because the words really mean "He pitched His tent [God's Tent] amongst us." These words are not just a description, but also a theology. Christ becomes in His very flesh the temple of true prayer, prayer which really encounters God, really gets through to God, really opens the heavens for us and reconciles man to God; and this is made possible through Christ's Passion. Note that the very first act of faith in Christ is that which is given by John the Baptist immediately afterwards in St. John's Gospel in the form "Look, there is the Lamb of God." This is the first act of faith in Christ, and we repeat it every day at Mass. Another reference to Christ's Passion is found when Jesus later says to the Samaritan woman that worship will not any longer be in any privileged place, but "true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth." A certain Protestant tradition, not a universal one, but a certain Protestant tradition has tended to interpret this in an anti-institutional and anti-liturgical sense. Worship in spirit and in truth would be something like Quaker worship where there would be no priesthood, no liturgy, and so on. This could not be further from the thought of St. John. St. John is the most sacramental, the most liturgical, the most eucharistic and the most ecclesial of all the evangelists. The words "spirit and truth" refer not to some disembodied deinstitutionalised form of spirituality; they refer to Jesus' own risen Body. There is no contrast between body and spirit. All the related contrasts, so often made nowadays between spirit and institution, between spirit and structure, are alien to the thought of St. John and indeed of the whole of the New Testament. Christ's Body is spirit, Christ's risen Body is life-giving spirit. To worship the Father in spirit and in truth is to worship the Father above all in and through the Holy Eucharist which is the Body of Christ. "Spirit and truth" is Christ's own risen and glorified Body become life-giving spirit. Here St. John is absolutely one with St. Paul. What Jesus is saying here is that His risen Body is the only Christian temple, and that it is only through His Body that we come to God. Therefore, the apex, what the Constitution on the Liturgy calls the source and the summit, of all Christian spirituality, is the Holy Mass, where God's Spirit (in the words of the Eucharistic prayer), "comes upon these gifts to make them holy so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ." This is the moment when the words of our Lord to the Samaritan woman are realized and we become "true worshipers of God, the kind of worshipers the Father wants, worshiping Him in spirit and in truth." The Baptism of Our Lord Now, let us turn briefly to the Baptism of our Lord which contains another revelation of the mystery of Christian prayer. St. Luke again characteristically tells us that Jesus, after His own Baptism, was in prayer when heaven opened, and the Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 911 Holy Spirit came down upon Him, and the voice of the Father sounded over Him: "You are my Son, the Beloved, my favor rests on you." The mystery of our baptism is included in that of the Baptism of our Lord. We are baptized in order to pray - it is as siraple as that. We are baptized in order to pray in union with Jesus and indeed in His very person. Baptism, which the more traditional way of speaking called christening (a much more beautiful terns: christening) is our "oneing" with Christ. "One-ing" is another of those untranslatable old English words which you find in the medieval mystics - oneing with Christ. That is what our baptism means. We never realize this oneness with Christ more than when we pray. When we pray, as the Council puts it, we are "sons in the Son," and the voice of the Father is say-ing over us when we pray, as it said over Christ when He prayed - "You are my Son, the Beloved, my favor rests on you." Prayer is the highest exercise and the supreme fulfillment of our baptism. The baptized People of God are before and above all a praying people. The Ascension Finally we come to the mysteries of Ascension and Pentecost. The Ascension is another manifestation of the mystery of prayer. Jesus ascends to the Father enveloped in the cloud of divine glory. Remember the disciples were not interested in what the weather was like on the day when our Lord ascended, and the whole cloud is not something that happened to be there because it was a nice summer's day. The cloud is also the theological description of the glory of the Father into which Christ entered when He left earthly vision. Jesus ascends to the Father, therefore, enveloped in the same radiant cloud of divine glory that we have seen at the Annunciation, at the Baptism, and at the Transfiguration. He ascends in an attitude of blessing, the attitude of prayer which He keeps forever in heaven in the Father's presence. His blessing is above all else the gift of the Spirit, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The priest at Mass is acting in His name, vicariously giving Christ's own Ascension blessing to Christ's people when he says "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." In a sense - in a very true sense - the liturgy, the Eucharist above all, is the proof that it is all true. After His Resurrection, Christ invariably greets His people, His community, with the words "Peace be with you." If in our liturgy we can be greeted by His representative with the words "Peace be with you," this is the proof that it is true that Christ has risen and is with us. Nobody can give us peace, nobody has the right to say "Peace" except Christ. Therefore, if peace is given to us, if it is present in our liturgy, this is the proof that it is all true and that Christ is living and is here. Pentecost and Prayer The coming of the Holy Spirit on the infant Church is also linked with prayer. This time it is prayer "together with Mary the Mother of Jesus." 1 have said in passing already that it is certain that St. Luke intends to call attention to the analogy between the conception of Jesus which he describes in the Gospel and the birth of the Church which he describes in Acts. In both the glory, the glory of God and the overshadowing of the spirit, marks the end of the separation between God and man, and it shows that in Christ, in the Church, God has come to live in the very midst of His own and in prayer we infallibly meet Him in Christ and in the Church. Mary the Mother of Jesus is there, with an indispensable place in the mystery of salvation and with an irreplaceable part in the prayer of the Christian. In 912 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 passing it might be worth asking ourselves to what extent some of the problems and troubles in the Church today are linked with the manifest and deplorable decline' in devotion to our Blessed Lady. The Our Father I have said that the People of God is above all a people that prays. Now this is shown very clearly in the Evangelists' account of how Christ gave a special prayer, the "Our Father" to His disciples. The disciples had just watched Jesus praying, and when He finished one of them said: "Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples." For the Jews in that particular cultural situation a religious group was identified by its specific form of praying. So the disciples are really asking for a prayer which will mark them as members of Christ's new Messianic people, partakers already of the coming kingdom of God. In answer Jesus gives them the Our Father. Its most striking word is the word Father. Jesus never once prayed without calling God "Father." But what is not usually recognized is that neither the Old Testament, nor Jewish tradition ever addressed God as Father. This is a remarkable fact. It has been brought to our notice by (among others) a Lutheran exegete called Joachim Jeremias. This vocative use of the word "Father" in praying to God is new and unique in the prayer of Jesus and in that of His followers after Him. What is even more striking is that Jesus uses a special term for "Father" in speaking to God, the word "Abba." This is a family word, a child's endearing word for father, "my dear Father." It would be going too far and would suggest something childish to say that He called God "Dada" - "Abba" is a familial, not a familiar term - "my dear Father." Never before in history did any man dare to speak so intimately and so affectionately to God. Jesus in the Gospel, according to Jeremias' count, uses it 177 times. This term is something characteristic of Jesus' own prayer and of Jesus' own attitude to His Father. Jeremias in one of his books called The Central Message of the New Testament regards this as perhaps the central message and says that even if we had nothing else than this to prove the special, absolutely unique Sonship, the divine Sonship and therefore the Divine nature of Christ, His use of the term "Abba" for Father would be enough. This is the supreme manifestation of the unique filial relationship between Jesus and His Father. The disciples never ceased to be amazed at this way of addressing God. They were even frightened by it. They couldn't bring themselves without an effort to repeat the words after Him. The touching effect is that when they say the words after Jesus they always repeat his own words "Abba" in the very language that Jesus used, Aramaic, even when they didn't use or know the language. This explains the odd sort of repetitions, or duplications that you get in St. Paul, "Abba," "Father," the two words mean the same thing; but the disciples could not say "Father" to God without reminding themselves that Jesus said "Abba" and that He ordered them to say it after Him. This was as though to say: "We couldn't say it unless He did and He told us to do so." This is the explanation of our own introduction to the Our Father in the liturgy: "Because of the divine command and following the divine example we dare to say Our Father." I am afraid the translation that ICEL have given here is not a good one. "We pray with confidence." This is not enough. It does not convey the full force of the Latin words, "audemus dicere": "We make bold to say," "We dare to say." This is what the Church has always meant by this introduction to the Our Father. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 913 But the Our Father is not just a prayer that we say; it's a prayer that makes itself true as we say it. God becomes our dear Father, and we become His favorite children, in and through and with Jesus Christ when we pray. That is what our prayer is, our sharing in the mystery of the Divine Sonship, our entering into the unique relationship between Jesus and His Father which is expressed by His use of the word "'Abba" - "'my dear Father." The Our Father is the realization of our salvation, it is the proof that we are saved. If we were not baptized we could not say it. That is why every baptized person in the early Church was given the Our Father to learn by heart (which is perhaps a commentary on a certain reaction at the present time against prescribed forms of prayer for children). Here is what St. Paul says to the Galatians: "The proof that you are sons is that God has sent the spirit of his son into your heart, the spirit that cries 'Abba Father,' and it is this that makes you a son." The whole theology 1 have been trying to suggest to you is contained in that sentence - "the proof that you are sons is that God has sent the spirit of his son into your heart, the spirit that cries 'Abba,' 'Father,' and it is this that makes you a son." The kingdom has come when we pray Our Father. The glory of the final coming is already present and we share in that glory in the very heart of the blessed Trinity. Jeremias has said that the Our Father is eschatology making itself true as we say it - eschatoiogy realizing itself - a very profound thought. Infallibility of Prayer 1 have said that the Our Father, and indeed all Christian prayer, makes itself true as we say it by the power and in the person of Christ. Now we are bound by Our Lord's own words to believe that prayer is infallible, that every true prayer is infallibly heard. What then are we to say of unanswered prayer? There can be no answer to this problem, in the light of the Gospel, other than that no prayer is unanswered if it is in the name of Jesus. What Jesus Himself said was: "Whatever you ask the Father in my name, will be granted to you." Note the qualification, "in My Name." If a prayer is in His name truly, truly and really in His name, then it must be answered by the power and promise of our Divine Lord Himself. Jesus said something even stranger; He said: "Whatever you ask the Father in my name, believe that you have already received it, and it will be given to you." Is this some curious, almost pathological form of auto-suggestion? It cannot be. But there is a mystery here and it is the New Testament which gives us the key to this mystery. No prayer is unanswered, because every prayer admits us to the presence and the glory of God. In heaven's name, what else have we to pray for but that? What else do we want but that? Is God not enough for us? Every prayer gives us oneness with Christ, and again, in heaven's name, what are we praying for but that? What do we want, but that? What do we need but that? Is Christ not enough for us? St. Paul said "Since God did not spare his own Son but gave him up to benefit us all, has he not also with him given us everything." Is there anything he has refused? Like Jesus Himself, then, we can thank the Father before our prayers are answered. You remember our Lord, before the raising of Lazarus, said: "I thank You, Father, because You have heard my prayer." Prayer is our privilege before it is our duty. The same is true of our faith. Karl Barth says that what we should be saying now is not, "You are bound to believe," but "You are permitted to believe." The faith is a privilege, not a burden, and so is prayer. All our prayers are answered in Christ - Christ is the answer to our prayer. All our prayers end with "Amen." The word 914 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 does not mean so much "may it be so," but rather "it is so." It is so in Christ. Christ is God's Arden to our prayer. St. Paul says: "With Him it is always "Yes" and however many the promises God has made the "Yes" to them all is in Him." And He goes on to say: "That is why it is through Him, that we answer "Amen" to the praise of God." Prayer is in crisis in the modern world. T. S. Eliot in "The Rock" says: Endless invention, endless experiment brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness knowledge of speech but not of silence knowledge of words but ignorance of the Word all our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance. The cycles of heaven in twenty centuries brings us further from God and nearer to the dust. There is a certain truth even though a certain pessimism in what Eliot says. But it is consoling to recall another great man of our time, the outstanding humanist and servant of humanity who was Dag Hammerskjold. It was prayer and specifically the Our Father which inspired Hammerskjold to give his life for others. "Murderous Angels" notwithstanding, Hammerskjold was a very great man. "The only value of a life," says Hammerskjold, "is its content for others; and therefore in my great loneliness, to serve others. How incredibly great is what I have been given and how meaningless is what I have to sacrifice. 'Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done.' You wake from dreams of doom and then for a moment you know beyond all the noise and the gestures, you know the only real thing, love's calm unwavering flame in the half light of an early dawn." In this Carmelite setting, I am happy to end by suggesting that this is a contemporary echo of St. Teresa's epilogue of her life of prayer, written on a scrap of paper found after her death in her breviary in 1582: "Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you, All things pass, God never changes, Patience attains all that it strives for. He who has God is lacking in nothing. Only God is enough. Solo Dios Basra." SISTER MARY GARASCIA, C.I'P.S. Prayer and Spirituality ISister Mary Garascia is a member of the Theology Department of Gerard High School; 2252 North Forty-fourth Street; Phoenix, Arizona 85008.1 Introduction It is Fall as these thoughts are being written, and across the nation the past summer produced the usual spate of chapters and meetings which will in turn generate programs and conferences and discussions in the community houses of American religious this apostolic year. Private prayer continues to be one of the most frequently discussed topics, demonstrating the persistent concern felt by many sisters with this area of their religious life. The statements which follow are not a systematic development of the nature or methods of prayer; neither are they original. They are, it is hoped, things which are said too softly or too seldom, and which may help to give discussions of prayer and spirituality a certain perspective. Perspective on Prayer: Prayer as Positive Perhaps the idea that is most often not uttered at the beginning of prayer discussions is that prayer is supposed to be a positive human experience. It should be, in general, enjoyable and easy. Prayer is an experience of contact with God, and the God of Christianity is the Approachable One. Both the Old and New Testaments present God as a departure from the magical-mysterious pagan gods and the philosophical-mystery gods of the Greco-Roman world. God is revealed, instead, to be lover, friend, father, savior. Because that is the way God is, Jesus could respond with the simple and natural Our Father when someone asked Him how to pray. Certainly at times prayer will be difficult because life itself is, at times, difficult. But the times when prayer is a deeply rewarding experience should predominate. A God who must be sought in tortuous ways is not lovable or attractive, nor is He the God of Jesus. The "dark night" of the mystics is not meant to characterize the spiritual life of man. It is only a temporary stage, as all suffering and dying is temporary and is oriented toward resurrection and future life. Probably the first rule of prayer should be to enjoy God, to relax and pray naturally. It should be clear, whenever prayer is discussed, that behind all the words there lurks a God of nearness, approachability, and overflowing generosity. Perspective on Prayer: Prayer and Autobiography Possibly one reason why prayer becomes unnatural or strained is that it becomes separated from autobiography) Each person writes a story with his life. The story IMichael Novak, Ascent of the Mountain, Flight of the Dove (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), pp. 43-87. 916 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 is sequential and hopefully has direction and meaning. If a person is religious, his story is also religious. In other words, if he were to tell his story to another, he could not tell it merely in terms of vital statistics, places of residence or employment, achievements, and so on. All these things would be seen by the religious person in terms of a greater reality: the times, places, and experiences when God entered his life, the development of his own religious consciousness. Prayer needs as its ground an awareness and appreciation by the praying person of his own religious story. The person prays not to an unfamiliar God, but to a God whom he has come to know in a process of time and experience, to a God whom he can take for granted on the one hand, and yet to a God who enters his life so constantly and insistently that their relationship is a continual source of awe and rejoicing to him. With this consciousness of story, prayer takes place at the meaning core of the person. It can never become an exercise or a duty because it is always an extension of experience. It will more often be affectively rewarding, as it should be, and natural. An underlying assumption of this point of view is that a person is willing to trust himself and his own religious experiences. This is not to say that man never errs, becoming proud, presumptuous, idolatrous, or that it is not important to imitate others or seek guidance. But there quickly comes a point when the praying person must accept the fact that God has spoken to him, is really calling him in a unique way. Unless he accepts God in this way, believing and accepting his own experience of God, prayer will tend to be marked by insecurity, darkness, distance. Perspective on Prayer: Prayer and Conversion The notion of trusting one's religious experience in order to pray leads to considering how important the quality of religious experience is. All the methods, spiritual systems, directors, and rules with which prayer gets surrounded have only one purpose: to lead the person toward certain basic conversion experiences. These are the peak experiences of the person's religious story, the turning points when the person begins defining himself in terms of his relationship with God, the point of decision to believe in the face of insufficient evidence, the assent to take seriously certain gospel precepts. These conversion points are absolutely essential if prayer is to be more than a passing phenomenon. Once certain conversions have been experienced, changes in the cultural underpinnings of prayer, such as theological upheavals or the declining influence of organized religion, are not perceived as basically threatening to prayer life. Pseudo oppositions like work and prayer, God and neighbor, resolve themselves into situations of healthy and prayer-supporting tension, if they continue to be of concern at all. Preoccupation with how to pray or with the quality of one's prayer tends to disappear, and the person begins, in freedom, to seek out for himself his own prayer rhythm. Finally, through conversion the person becomes capable of handling suffering, the great testing-point of anyone's spiritual life. It is hard to stop being concerned about methods, rules, spiritual systems because of the recent past history of ascetical training which, unfortunately, came to be dominated by the personal spiritualities of Saints Teresa and John of the Cross. Thomas Merton, one of the most serious pray-ers of contemporary America, also said some of the most freeing things about prayer: Systems are fine, up to a point, but all they are for is to help you get to the point where there is no more system, where you deal with God absolutely in your freedom and his Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 917 freedom.2 There is really no opposition., between praying alone and being with people. Both are true, both are right, and you don't divide one against the other and say it's purely horizontal or purely vertical. It is both horizontal and vertical, and you should follow what is right for you at a given time. When you are dealing with people for as long as it works, go on dealing with people; when you get tired of dealing with people, go pray alone. There comes a time when you just get tired of a particular prayer form unless you have a charism of never getting tired of it! All right, that is your charism, your thing. But most of us should simply follow the natural rhythm of the way we are constituted, and follow the Holy Spirit. There is a time and a place for everything,a Sometimes statements such as Merton's are accepted up to the "yes-but" point. Yes, but is it not possible, if a person really lets himself go, does his own thing, that he may cease to pray, or pray very infrequently? Yes, of course, it is possible, because man always has the option of choosing things which bring him death instead of life. The reasonable person will be aware of the possibility and take reasonable precautions. However, this possible catastrophe will certainly be the unusual and extraordinary case. Every person who walks along a street risks being hit by a car, but only the neurotic stay home. Perhaps this statement sounds facetious, but it is based on some of the assumptions already developed: that prayer is, basically, a happy and rewarding experience and therefore even very busy people will come back to it with the naturalness of a man seeking recreating leisure; that prayer is an outflowing of religious experiences so deep that the idea of a converted man forgetting God would be as unthinkable as the Jews forgetting Jerusalem during the exile.'* Finally, fidelity is not something that can be produced by following a regimen: Fidelity does not come out of a personality we have safely banked. Fidelity arises from our inter-relationship with the flow of life. It is something that comes out of a person who is mature enough to deepen his convictions in moments when they are severely challenged. Fidelity, in other words, is not something that exists because we stay the same. It is a dynamic quality that exists because we are capable of growth and constructive change,s Out of the desire for God and the pleasure of his company will flow a certain discipline. Prayer will be chosen over other things because it is important, at the core of the meaning system of the person. The search for God will seem worthy of time and energy. The person who has experienced conversion will find it hard to forget the experience; he will tend to remain conscious of the possibility of future conversions and will work to keep himself open to conversion. Any worthwhile human endeavor has its built-in asceticism. Someone once pointed out that there are three ways of viewing man: as evil, as good but with certain dangerous impulses which need caution, or as growth-oriented. Everything written above opts for the growth-oriented view of man, who relates to a God of abundance and nearness, and a prayer life which feels good and is guilt free and peace-filled.6 2Thomas Merton, "Prayer, Tradition, and Experience," Sisters Today, February 1971, p. 28"/; see also the same author's "The Life That Unifies," Sisters Today, October 19"/0, p. '71. 3Thomas Merton, "Prayer, Personalism, and the Spirit," Sisters Today, November 1970, pp. 133-4. 4 Psalm 13"/:5-7. 5Eugene Kennedy, In the Spirit, in the Flesh (Garden City: Doubleday, 1971), p. 85. 6George A. Lane, S.J., Christian Spirituality (Chicago: Argus, 1968), p. 92. 918 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 Spirituality in Crisis For some time, even years, there has been talk of a prayer crisis; and certainly the universal and continuing concern with prayer among religious would point to the existence of many problems in this area. However, there is another way to see the situation. All types of prayer are problematic these days, personal private prayer, group prayer, formal liturgical prayer. It is possible that the reason why prayer problems are so resistant to solution is that there is an underlying spirituality crisis. There have been so many fundamental changes in Church and culture that prayer has been placed in an impossible position: it is expected to help the person combat secularism, to support his faith, to keep him from becoming lost in work, to save him from mere humanism, to aid him to achieve emotional calm and survive crises, to give meaning to his life, to put him in contact with God, and so on. No wonder there is a prayer crisis. Prayer is carrying the whole burden of what should be the shared task of a viable spirituality. Prayer has come to dominate spirituality when actually prayer is only one function or aspect of a man's spiritual life. Perhaps the best solution to prayer problems is to forget them for a time and turn to the task of finding paths to God which cut through and join together all the reaches of the world of the praying person. Space does not permit a description of forces which have caused a breakdown in spirituality, a discussion of schools of spirituality, or even a definitive definition of the word. As a working definition, spirituality can be thought of as a particular style of approach to union with God,7 an approach which encompasses elements like prayer, penance, activity, and so forth. Personal spiritualities will differ in accord with personality, level and type of intelligence, perception of reality, life experiences, and other individualizing factors. Yet much of a man's approach to God is shaped in common with other men out of the culture in which he lives. Today man's life is the product of a period of cultural erosion of faith and spirituality, and he confronts a world deprived of a generally accepted integrating principle. Many people have come to accept as normal a schizoid world of oppositions:8 individual-community, freedom-law, service-prayer, human-divine, and so on. The need is to seek a more unified approach to God, one in which the whole life of man, rather than mainly his prayer, becomes the point of interaction between man and God. This task belongs to the whole Church, to dialogue, and to time. Below are listed some rather obvious and not at all original areas where the discussion could begin. The reader will want to add others. Sacramentality "To be, so to speak, submerged by the 'divine milieu' of the whole universe., is the fundamental gift for which man can only pray: Lord, that I may see.''8 Seeing the world as a sacrament is a very Christian thing to do, for the Incarnation has transfigured all nature starting with the unique sacredness of the Son of God. A sacramental spirituality is probably the only answer to a world of increasing secularity since the sacramental order of things does not set itself in opposition to the secular order. Man needs, therefore, to come to experience the secular world as 7james Carroll, Prayer from Where We Are (Dayton: Pflaum, 1970), p. 16. 8Thomas Sartory, "Changes in Christian Spirituality," in Life in the Spirit ed. Hans Kiing (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967), p. 82. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 919 a sacred sign. How can this happen? How can man's awareness of and receptivity to signs be increased? In addition to answering these questions, the search for a viable spirituality needs to speak to the problem of evil, suffering, death, frustration, anxiety, and the other negative elements of life in order that these, too, may be sacred contact points. Work Jobs in American society today are regarded as mainly functional: they supply the money to take care of the person's needs. Few people claim to have any great feeling of reverence for or dedication to the goals of their employers. In addition there is an enormous distrust of the society's institutions, a distrust which increases even as more and more people are employed by them. Religious up to the present time have stood in sharp contrast to this picture. However, in the face of open placement, vacations, increased freetime, higher salaries, doubt about institutional apostolates, and so on, there is a need to reaffirm a spirituality of work. Work is not just a means to purchase leisure. The work of a religious is dedicated work. It must be seen as and really be redemptive and fiealing. Religious can bring a permanence of dedication to their work. They are capable of being neutral persons, free of the need to seek power and to manipulate others, a freedom facilitated by the vows. If work is perceived as redemptive, it will no longer divide the spiritual life of the person; it will nourish it. A Renewed Asceticism "To continue to make ourselves present to others requires a possession of ourselves and a sensitivity to our own complexity that all too few people develop.''9 "Growth in maturity requires death to selfishness, irresponsibility, undisciplined instinct so that we may rise to a new life of mature, generous, and trusting freedom.''~° Man today is helped to have deep insights into himself through the advances and availability of education and psycholog)). These resources should make it increasingly possible to choose a way to God which fits the particular personality structure of each individual. But living spiritually requires a tremendous amount of self-discipline which is perhaps not obvious to those who set out to "do their own thing." A person has only a certain amount of time and psychic energy. If these are used on self-defeating or self-destroying activities, there is no possibility of praying well or serving well. Living spiritually means, for example, declaring all out war on the moods and depressions which Americans love to indulge in; it means forsaking jealousy and infighting and competition for status; it means facing old age gracefully; it means ceasing any form of manipulation of others; it means really forgiving other community members for things that happened at their hands in the past; it means facing reality about ourselves. If a person is to be a sign of Christ, he must first be a fairly attractive human person. Christian spirituality should help the person to be in tune with himself and to accept himself and to direct his self. "Prayer, then, takes place by a man's believing acceptance of himself, by laying hold in a discriminating and yet reconciling way, of all the levels of his life, including feelings, sexuality, and the body, to hear the music, not of his own making, which is sounded at the root of his being." i ~ 9Kennedy, In the Spirit, p. 42. 10Andrew Greeley, "The New Agenda," Critic, May-June 1972, pp. 4 I-2. Gregory Baum, Man Becoming (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970), p. 83. 920 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 A Communitarian Spirituality Spirituality flows from community. The Biblical concept of salvation is of a saved people and of individuals who work out their holiness within the salvation community. The sociology of knowledge reveals the disturbing truth that man never knows God definitively but only God as he is perceived and defined by men today. Peter Berger says that under the immense array of human projections there are indicators of a reality that is truly other, and that it is important to turn to all religious traditions, past and present, to recapture their "moments of truth," the sacred contact points of each age, their signals of transcendence.12 A spirituality which moves away from absolute and changeless conceptualizations must become grounded in a deep trust in the presence of the Spirit in the living community. Theqe must also be a corresponding willingness to expose oneself to the community for the guidance which saves a spirituality from becoming magical or singular or presumptive, and a willingness to share one's spiritual riches with the community. A communitarian spirituality will be especially needed as the pressing moral issues of the next decade arise, issues for which there are no adequate precedents or philosophical principles and about which Christians cannot afford to remain neutral or undecided. Finally, the spirituality of today must be concerned with creating a society in which the next generation will find it just a little easier to seek God. It is, in fact, within the energy-sapping fight to build a better world for mankind that some of the most profound contacts between God and men take place. Conclusion What has been said about prayer and spirituality is incomplete and ignores most aspects of both topics. Prayer is basically a joyful, simple openness to God, no matter what else it is made out to be; but prayer is in turn dependent on the whole of the spiritual life style of a person. "I have one longing only: to grasp what is hidden behind appearances, to ferret out that mystery which brings me to birth and then kills me, to discover if behind the visible and unceasing stream of the world an invisible and immutable presence is hiding." ~ a 12peter Berger, A Rumor of Angels (Garden City: Doubleday, 1969), pp. 59, 99-112. 13N. Kazantzakis, Saviors of God (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), p. 51. JOHN WILCKEN, S.J. Religious Life in the Church I John Wilcken is a professor of theology and lives at 175 Royal Pole; Parkville, Victoria 3052 ; Australia. ] it is probably true to say that religious life has always been a problem in the Church. I do not find this fact either surprising or alarming. I think religious life is of very great importance in the Church -- I am thinking here primarily of the Catholic Church - and it has a tremendously important part to play in the Church's life. Briefly, religious must keep the Church faithful to the radical demands of the gospel. But inevitably religious will sometimes - perhaps often - be unequal to this task, and then their lukewarmness and infidelity will be a source of serious harm in the Church. For both these reasons, that is, the importance of their task and the inevitability that they will at times be unequal to this task, religious are always likely to be a problem in the Church. Where religious are in earnest, they are a problem because they are challenging "vested interests"; where they are lax, they are a trial to those who have the welfare of the Church at heart. Whatever they do, religious must resign themselves to being a problem. This problem was well to the fore in the debates and behind-the-scenes struggles of Vatican I1. The struggle crystallized in what might seem to be a relatively unimportant procedural question, namely whether there should be in the Constitu-tion on the Church a separate chapter on religious) The European group of bishops and theologians who had the leadership at the Council - men like Karl Rahner and Cardinal Doepfner - wanted religious life to be dealt with in the general chapter on the holiness of the Church. Thus they hoped to avoid perpetuating the impression that there are two standards of holiness in the Catholic Church, namely the following of the evangelical counsels in religious life for those who aim at perfection, and the following of the commandments in secular life for those who simply aim at salvation. But the bishops who had been religious and the major superiors of religious orders felt that this would be an undervaluing of the importance of religious life and pressed for a separate chapter on religious. On paper the religious superiors won - there is a separate chapter on religious - but one might consider that the result was really a compromise, since Chapters 5 and 6 of the Constitution on the Church are really one long chapter with an artificial division in the middle. It has been constantly pointed out that the theology of religious has not yet been satisfactorily worked out and that Vatican 11 has certainly not said the last word in this matter. The main treatment of the subject is in paragraph 44 of the Constitution on the Church, a paragraph which is somewhat confused in its Isee the discussion of this in R. M. Wiltgen, The Rhine Flows into the Tiber (New York: Hawthorn, 1967), pp. IO3-9. 922 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 structure. It makes a number of different statements not very clearly connected with each other and remains finally somewhat unsatisfactory. One might take from it two propositions which are helpful. The first is this: Furthermore, it [i.e., religious life] not only witnesses to the fact of a new and eternal life acquired by the redemption of Christ. It foretells the resurrected state and the glory of the heavenly kingdom. Religious life is here presented as a form of kerygma: it is a sign of God's kingdom. The second proposition is: Thus, although the religious state constituted by the profession of the counsels does not belong to the hierarchical structure of the Church, nevertheless it belongs inseparably to her life and holiness. The close connection between religious life and the Church is here emphasized; and it is pointed out that the connection is not with the institutional structures of the Church, but with "her life and holiness." There is another quite illuminating reference to religious life earlier in the Constitution on the Church, namely in paragraph 31 where the Council is distinguishing the special contribution of lay people in the world from that of clergy and religious. Here we are told that "by their state in life, religious give splendid and striking testimony that the world cannot be transfigured and offered to God without the spirit of the beatitudes." Once again religious life is presented as a form of kerygma: it is a sign indicating how the world is to be transformed and offered to God. There is also a helpful reference in paragraph 18 of the decree on the Church's missionary activity. It reads: Right from the planting stage of the Church, the religious life should be carefully fostered. This not only confers precious and absolutely necessary assistance on missionary activity. By a more inward consecration made to God in the Church, it also luminously manifests and signifies the inner nature of the Christian calling. This reference I find particularly significant. Once more religious life is seen as kerygma, but the vital importance of this sign is brought out. One gets the impression that the true nature of the Church cannot be manifested to people in mission lands unless religious life is there to reveal her inner life. Once more religious life is seen as belonging inseparably to the Church's life and holiness. Moreover, there is here a mention of diakonia: "precious and absolutely necessary assistance" is conferred on missionary activity. Vatican II has helpful things to say about religious life, but scarcely provides an adequate theology. The close connection between religious life and the nature of the Church is mentioned, but this ecclesiological view is not sufficiently developed. The Council in general tends to adopt a kerygmatic approach to theology and in speaking of religious life stresses the kerygmatic aspect. The aspects of koinonia and diakonia do not get adequate treatment. The term "religious life" is a rather odd-sounding one, and it has recently come trader considerable attack, for example in the book Experiences in Community by Gabriel Moran and Maria Harris.2 The word "religious," meaning someone belong-ing to a community of sisters, brothers, or priests, is simply a translation of the Latin religiosus or religiosa, and perhaps the word is more bearable in Latin. Canon 487 of the Code of Canon Law, which came into force in 1918, gives this description: 2(New York: Herder and Herder, 1968), pp. 54-7. Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 923 "Fbe religious state is a stable manner of living in community, by which the faithful undertake, besides obedience to the commandments which bind everyone, also the ob~rvance of the evangelical counsels, by vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty. This description comes from a body of law. It portrays a state of affairs that had already existed for many centuries and codifies legally a life structure which had first been worked out in practice. Moreover this description - which is over 50 years old - reflects a theology that is now out-of-date. The clearcut distinction between those who merely seek to obey the commandments and those who undertake the practice of the counsels was rejected by Vatican II which saw the whole people of God as called to perfection {Lumen gentium, no. 40) and recognized that the practice of the evangelical counsels is not restricted to those in religious life (Lumen gentium, no. 39). Briefly, the Code of Canon Law describes a way of Christian life which had in fact existed in the Church for many centuries and describes it in accordance with theological ideas which have now been superseded. The aim of this article is to reflect theologically on this phenomenon known as religious life which exists in the world at the present time and has existed in the Church in varying forms for many centuries. The approach is theological, rather than sociological, although 1 think my conclusions would to a considerable extent be in harmony with the views of such sociologists as Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch.3 So the starting point for reflection is religious life as it actually does exist and as it has actually existed for so long. It seems to me that what makes religious life important is that in this state of life the gospel message has been lived out in a radical and thorough-going way, thus giving leadership and inspiration to the rest of the Church. This radical interpretation of the gospel need not, of course, be limited to those in religious life. But it has happened, as a matter of history, that in the Catholic Church this thorough-going acceptance of the gospel demands has been a feature of religious life in particular. Those wishing to respond in a special way to the call of Christ have, very frequently, found themselves drawn to religious life, and have seen this kind of life as giving them scope for the following of Christ's call. Now there are, of course, Churches today which do not encourage religious life, and presumably the radicalism of the Gospel message is preserved in them in some other way. I am speaking of those Churches in which religious life is in fact encouraged, notably the Catholic Church. The matter might be expressed in another way. There are certain very important values in the New Testament which have, in fact, been preserved in the Catholic Church largely by means of religious life. Whether they will continue to be preserved in this way may seem uncertain to many people. Clearly the styles of religious life are changing rapidly; and a new form of dedicated Christian life that of the secular institute - has appeared. What seems quite certain is that the fundamental values of the gospel must be, and will be, preserved somehow. Leadership must be given by those who are willing to follow Christ so whole-heartedly that the pattern of their lives will be radically changed. In this way the complete dedication of the whole Church to Christ will be both signified and strengthened. Moreover, the unity of the human race which Christ brought about by His death and resurrection will be exemplified in a community life that triumphs 3See, for example, J. Milton Yinger, "The Sociology of Ernest Troeltsch," in An Introduc-tion to the History of Sociology ed. H. E. Barnes (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1948), pp. 311-2. 924 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 over differences of background, character, and natural interests. And the service of mankind which Christ the suffering servant came to render will be continued. That is, leadership will be given in the kerygma, the koinonia, and the diakonia of the Church. To put it another way, the faith, the charity, and the hope of the Church will be strikingly manifested. First, let us consider the role of religious in the kerygma, or proclamation of faith, of the Church. There is, I think, a fairly general consensus among New Testament scholars that the center of Jesus' preaching was His proclamation of the kingdom (or reign) of God. He declared that the definitive intervention of God in history, to wttich the Jews had looked forward so eagerly (see Daniel 7), was near at hand and, indeed, already beginning. God was acting decisively in the world through the preaching and work of Jesus Himself, and men were called to accept this preaching in faith. But the acceptance of this preaching was no small matter because Jesus made radical demands on people, involving a marked change in their way of life. The demands of the Sermon on the Mount were drastic enough, but particular people also received individual calls - Peter, Andrew, James, and John had to leave all to follow Jesus; the rich young man was asked to sell all his goods and give the money to the poor. The followers of Jesus were promised hardship and persecution. Loyalty to Christ had to come before the closest family ties. The Apostle Paul, who is perhaps the New Testament figure about whom we know most, found that his meeting with the risen Christ changed his life out of all recognition. He regarded all his earlier religious privileges as worthless. He led an apostolic life which involved constant labor, hardship, and persecution; and he seems to have regarded his sufferings as precisely the visible guarantee of the genuineness of his apostleship (see 2 Cor 11). He remained unmarried to devote himself fully to the Lord (1 Cor 7). In the apostolic period and during the early centuries of the Church, martyrdom was often looked upon with longing as the crown of the Christian's life. Paul wanted "to be gone and be with Christ" (Phil 1:23). Ignatius of Antioch implored the Roman Christians not to intercede for him with the civil authorities lest his martyrdom be prevented. Cyprian's letters reflect the persecuted Church's extra-ordinary esteem for the glory of martyrdom. Thus the early Church had this consciousness that Christ's preaching called for a radical response - a response that could even be so total as the sacrifice of life itself. This spirit of total self-giving was seen as essential to the Church's life. But the Church was not always persecuted. The possibilities of martyrdom grew less - especially after Constantine had guaranteed to the Christians freedom of worship, and even more so by the end of the 4th century when Christianity had become the sole accepted religion. But the spirit of total self-giving still had to be preserved in the Church. Leadership had to be given by those who undertook the radical living out of the gospel message. The Church's willingness to renounce everything for the sake of Christ still had to be signified and exemplified. St. Anthony, in the middle of the third century, set the example of the renunciation of earthly goods for the sake of Christ. Hearing the gospel of the rich young man one day at Mass, he felt that the words were addressed directly to himself, and he carried out literally the command of Christ. He lived a solitary life in the desert as a hermit. By the beginning of the 4th century, organized religious life had begun with the monastery of St. Pachomius. Thus when the age of persecution was passing and the possibility of martyrdom becoming less, a new way was being discovered of making a total response to the gospel message, namely the living of the monastic or Review for Religious, Volume 3 I, 1972/6 925 eremitical life. This kind of life must be seen entirely in the context of the Church. With the acceptance of Christianity by civil society, there was the danger of too much accommodation to comfortable living. The Church's way of safeguarding itself from this danger was to demonstrate in a striking way that the following of Christ makes total demands on the person. This was signified and exemplified by the monks and hermits. The monastic and eremitical life might be looked on as a social manifestation of the Church's faith in Christ. And there is an added reason why one should see religious life as belonging to the Church as a whole. Recruitment to religious life must come continually from the ranks of the whole Church. A sect can propagate itself, since children born into the families of the sect will presumably follow the beliefs of their parents. On the other hand, monasteries of celibate monks and nuns must draw their recruits continually from the Church as a whole. Thus religious life is a function of the whole Church, manifesting the Church's faith and proclaiming the radical demands made on mankind by the Gospel.* Next 1 want to consider the role of religious in connection with the Church's koinonia. Vatican II speaks of the Church as the sacrament of union and unity: By her relationship with Christ, the Church is a kind of ~crament or sign of intimate union with God, and of the unity of all mankind. She is also an instrument for the achievement of such union and unity (Lumen gentium no. 1 ). There are two aspects of the Church's sacramentality mentioned here: the Church is the sacrament firstly of union with God and secondly of the unity of mankind. The Church must first of all remain utterly obedient to God and closely united with Christ. The vine and branches image brings out admirably the necessity of union with Christ: "I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty; for cut off from me you can do nothing" (Jn 15:5). This union with Christ, which is based on faith and love, must be nourished by prayer: the Church must be a praying community. And 1 want to discuss now the union (or koinonia) with God through prayer. The Gospels speak surprisingly often of the prayer of Jesus Himself. Even Mark's account of the early public ministry of Jesus, with the impression it creates of intense activity and of the crowds continually pressing on Jesus(see Mk 1:45; 3:9; 3:20; 4:1), includes several references to His prayer. After the evening of cures at Capernaum, Jesus went off to a lonely place early in the morning and prayed there (Mk 1:35). Again, after the first miracle of the loaves, Jesus sent the crowds away and went off into the hills to pray (Mk 6:46). Matthew and Luke give an account of Jesus' instructions on prayer and record their versions of the Our Father (Mt 6:7-15; 7:7-11 and parallels in Luke). Luke in Acts describes the early Church as a praying community. For example, there is that verse at the end of Chapter 2 which is almost a definition of the Church: "These remained faithful to the teaching of the apostles, to the brother-hood, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers" (v. 42). After Peter and John had been released by the Sanhedrin, Luke describes the prayer of the community (Acts 4:23-31). Paul, in Chapter 12 of Second Corinthians speaks of his mystical experiences when he was caught up into the third heaven (2 Cor 12:1-6). He frequently speaks of his prayer of thanksgiving at the beginning of his epistles (e.g., 4On religious life as sign, see Karl Rahner, "The Theology of the Religious Life" in Religious Orders in the Modert~ World by Gerard Huyghe and others (London: Chapman, 1965), pp. 41-75. 926 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 Rom 1:8; 1 Cor 1:4); and he tells the Thessalonians to "pray constantly" (I Thes 5:17). The Church must be a praying community. It must be in union, that is, in koinonia, with the Father and the Son. The Church must be the sacrament of this koinonia, that is, its sign and instrument. But prayer, as we all know, is difficult, and leadership must be given in this matter. In Chapter 7 of First Corinthians Paul at least hints at where this leadership might come from. "An unmarried man can devote himself to the Lord's affairs, all he need worry about is pleasing the Lord" (v. 32), he writes, and a little later he adds, "In the same way an unmarried woman, like a young girl, can devote herself to the Lord's affairs; all she need worry about is being holy in body and spirit" (v. 34). The one freed from earthly cares can devote himself or herself more fully to those of heaven. Then again, the author of First Timothy writes of widows as people who can give themselves fully to prayer: "But a woman who is really widowed and left without anybody can give herself up to God and consecrate all her days and nights to petitions and prayer" (1 Tim 5:5). In fact profound prayer has always been seen as one of the absolute essentials of religious life - and this is true also of the orders founded specifically for external apostolic works. For example, a characteristic phrase to describe the Jesuit is, "contemplative in action," and this phrase indicates that the Jesuit, for all his outside activity, is meant to be a man dedicated to prayer. And of course the great contemplative orders of the Church, Cistercians, Carthusians, and so on, have been centers of prayer and sources of teaching on prayer for the whole Church. Thus one of the vitally important roles of religious life has been to give leadership in prayer, or koinonia with the Father and the Son. The second aspect of the Church's sacramentality mentioned by Vatican II is to be a sign and instrument of the unity of mankind. This function of unifying mankind through the grace of God is very solidly founded in the New Testament. When Jesus was asked, "And who is my neighbour?" He replied with the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10), thus indicating that there is no place in Christian love for any kind of bigotry or prejudice. In the Fourth Gospel Jesus speaks of community charity as the sign of Christian discipleship: "By this love that you have for one another, everyone will know that you are my disciples" (Jn 13:35). Presumably, this love must triumph over natural causes of division, such as differences of temperament, interest, background and so forth. Paul brings out explicitly the fact that Christ has rendered unimportant the natural distinctions between people: "All baptized in Christ, you have all clothed yourselves in Christ, and there are no more distinctions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, but all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:27-8). Thus Christ came to bring mankind to the unity of charity in spite of the natural causes of division in the world. Vatican II sees the Church as the sign and cause of this unity. I would like to give two illustrations from the New Testament of how this koinonia function of the Church was lived out in practice. One is Paul's collection of money for the poor of the Jerusalem Church. As is well known, this was not simply an act of charity on the part of the Gentile Christian Churches. It was a "peace offering" to the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem, Paul's effort to heal the deep division between the Jewish and Gentile wings of the primitive Church. If the saints of Jerusalem accepted this money offering, Paul hoped that this would represent their full acceptance of the Gentile Christians as brothers in Christ. Differences of culture and tradition could not be allowed to divide the Christian Church. This was a striking and wonderful example of Christian koinonia, and Paul Review for Refigious, Volume 31, 1972/6 927 labored untiringly for its success. The other example of early Christian koinonia is the description in Acts of the primitive Jerusalem community. Luke describes the early Christians as living together, sharing their goods, owning everything in common, and being united heart and soul. Certainly this is an idealized picture. Even the account in Acts gives hints of the divisions that were there from the beginning. There is the Ananias and Sapphira episode, and, more significantly, the dispute between Hellenists and Hebrews in Chapter 6. One might have expected that the Greek-speaking Jews, who had had experience of living outside Palestine in the broader context of the Hellenistic world, would have found it hard to get on with their fellow-countrymen of Palestine, who knew nothing but Jewish culture and tradition. The division seems to have been so sharp that it resulted in the setting up of a separate organization for the Greek-speaking Jews, namely, the appointment of the Seven. Nevertheless, in spite of the very real natural divisions that were there from the beginning, Luke sees this earliest period of the Church's history as exemplifying in a remarkable way the unity and charity that Christ came to bring. Even the division caused by private property seems to disappear, and there is the sharing of possessions and the common ownership of property. There is a joy and fellowship in this group of believers that is seen as a direct result of Christ's resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit. The implication seems to be that Christ has destroyed division in the world and brought unity to the human race. Even the account of Pentecost at the beginning of Acts,Chapter 2 confirms this: the coming of the Holy Spirit has destroyed the language barrier. And this fact of the restoration of the unity of mankind does not remain hidden. The phenomenon of tongues at Pentecost was apparent to all and remarked on publicly (Acts 2:7-1 I). Luke tells us a little later that the community of believers was "looked up to by everyone" (Acts 2:47). The infant Church is the sign and the beginning of united mankind. The radical manifestation of this in Luke's account is the sharing of goods and the common ownership of property. What actually happened in this matter of property in the early Church is not clear. Certainly Luke looks upon common ownership as an ideal for the Church, as something that occurred back in the Golden Age, in the Church's first fervor. Presumably, there was some basis in fact for the traditions that came down to Luke. But the practice of common ownership did not last long in the Church at large. The exercise of charity in the matter of material goods certainly did last, and the Christians continued to show strikingly their love and concern for one another: "See how they love one another, and how ready they are to die for each other" (Tertullian). But it is easy for fervor in these matters to grow less: the pull of material possessions is strong, and the causes of division in mankind are both manifold and powerful. Yet the Church must continue to be the sign and cause of unity in the human race. Christ came to make mankind a community of love, and the Church must strive constantly towards this goal. Those who want to give wholehearted obedience to Christ's call to unity and koinonia have felt themselves drawn to community life within the Church. There, property is no longer a division, and the choice of one's fellows is entirely in God's hands: one does not choose one's companions in religious life, but must accept in love the brothers or sisters whom God sends. The love of Christ and the common vocation must triumph over natural differences and antipathies. In this way the koinonia of the Church is lived out in a radical way, and an example of community life is given which may be an inspiration to others. 928 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 This is the task of religious. Of course, they often find themselves unequal to the task. There can be bitterness and division in religious communities, just as there can be anywhere else in the world. But the structure of religious life is one which, of itself, calls for a radical living out of Christian koinonia, of Christian charity: one accepts in love the companions whom God sends, regardless of natural antipathies. Christ's love must triumph over natural inclinations. One other point could be mentioned in this connection. Religious are often spoken of as an eschatological sign. For myself, I do not find the relationship of religious to eschatology particularly enlightening - unless one is simply referring to the fact that the Church is essentially an eschatological community and that religious life "belongs inseparably to her life and holiness" (Lumen gentium, no. 44). But it is significant that both the examples of koinonia in the New Testament which I mentioned do seem to have an eschatological dimension: Paul does seem to have seen his collection for the saints of Jerusalem as being in some sense an eschatological event, and the primitive communism of the early Christians was no doubt largely due to their expectation of an early Parousia.5 However, I do not want to stress too much this aspect. Suffice it to say that religious life is essentially eschatological precisely because the Church is essentially an eschatological com-munity. The word diakonia is heard a great deal in theological discussion these days, and the Church is being thought of more and more as the "Servant Church." This function of diakonia is connected with recent writing on the theology of hope and "political theology.''6 The servant Church, the Church concerned with the renovation of the present social order in the light of its hope for the future, necessarily enters into the public life of mankind. The Church can never remain a purely private organization, just as Jesus of Nazareth could not remain simply a private person. The preaching of Jesus - His denunciation of legalism and hypo-crisy, His stress on rightness of heart before God and genuine love of neighbor,His proclamation of the kingdom of God and call to repentance - this preaching soon brought Him into conflict with the upholders of the established order. And His own manner of life - His going out to the sick and the distressed, His forgiveness of sinners and table-fellowship with tax-collectors, His acceptance of the outcasts of society - this manner of life was a disturbance of the normal social order. Yet His great popularity, the crowds that came to hear and be helped by Him, showed that He was a force in the land to be reckoned with. The gospelHe preached, the human values He stood for, made Him into a "radical" in the best sense of the word: one who got to the roots of the problem. He manifested in His own life of service God's universal love for mankind, especially for the sick and suffering. His life and preaching were a dynamic force which was in fact to transform human society - and it was to do this by being continued in the life and preaching of the Church. It is not easy for the Church to preserve this true Christian radicalism. Again, leadership must be given - and in fact it has always been given, for example by many outstanding bishops of the patristic period. But this leadership in social radicalism came to be taken over, to a considerable extent, by religious orders. For example, the Benedictine monasteries gave stability and order to a world falling 5See the discussion of Paul's enterprise in K. F. Nickle, The Collection: A Study in Paul's Strategy (Naperville, Illinois: Allenson, 1966), pp. 129-42. 6See J. Metz, The Theology of the World (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), especially Chapter 5, "The Church and the World in the Light of a 'Political Theology.' " Review for Refigious, Volume 31, 1972/6 929 into chaos after the decline of Rome. The Franciscans brought the spirit of the gospel and of poverty to a medieval Church weakened by wealth and power. The many teaching and nursing orders founded since the Reformation were established precisely to care for children and sick people who were being neglected. Mother Teresa's Missionary Sisters of Charity were founded to meet the problem of utter destitution in our contemporary world. Meeting the real needs of people who cannot help themselves requires dedication and self-sacrifice; yet it is a vital task for the Church. This task has often been carried out by religious orders. In fact, this is how religious orders came to be founded. A great need is recognized, a gifted founder or foundress gathers together a group of dedicated people, and thus a new religious order arises - this is the general pattern for the foundation of religious orders. And this pattern implies the giving of leadership in the Church's task of reforming and renewing society. It is a manifestation of the Church's hope - hope in the possibilities of this world's social institutions, and confidence that God is in fact working to transform our world. 1 am not saying, of course, that religious orders are the only groups of people that give leadership in this matter of renovating society. Nor would I claim that all religious orders today are clear on their social task - this is far from the case. But I do wish to claim that the essential thrust of a religious order - seen especially at its foundation - involves leadership in the renovation of society. And this, I think, is true even of contemplative orders. They too, in their own way, deeply influence social life. The heart of the Church's life can, I think, be summed up in those three words: kerygma, koinonia, diakonia. Vatican 11 states that religious life belongs inseparably to the Church's life and holiness (Lumen gentium, no. 44). 1 have been trying to expand this statement by showing that the task of religious orders is to give leadership in the Church's kerygma, koinonia, and diakonia. To put it another way: the Church proclaims radical renunciation for the sake of the kingdom, a union with Christ resulting in a living together of human beings in charity despite human divisions, and a service to the world that transforms society. Religious orders were founded precisely in order to give leadership in the putting of this program into practice. Whether an order should survive or not depends, 1 suppose, on whether or not it is still giving this leadership. I would like to make a couple of further comments before going on to a brief discussion of the future of religious life. What I have said about religious may possibly give the impression that it is all a rather emotional affair, and very grim and serious. This is, of course, simply not true of religious life as it is actually lived. Like all Christian living, religious life must be characterized by sober wisdom and a spirit of Christian joy. The New Testament does not have a great deal to say about wisdom - except to say that Christ is our wisdom (Jn !:1-14; 1 Cor 1:30) -and we have to go back to the wonderful sapiential books of the Old Testament. Monastic spiritual writing through the centuries has in fact been filled with healthy, down-to-earth commonsense, and this surely is one of the things that has made possible the survival of religious life. One might mention also the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus, written with such prayer and labor by St. Ignatius Loyola. These have been so influential over the last few centuries precisely because they are so realistic, practical, and wise. Then, in the matter of Christian joy, religious life has been able to survive also because of the spirit of deep happiness that has been preserved there. Trials and problems abound, as they do everywhere in this world, but those who really have a divine call to religious life find in it a joy that they have 930 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 never known elsewhere. One might cite St. Teresa of Avila in this connection. In spite of the incredible trials and hardships of her life, she remained a very merry soul, a source of joy and happiness for the communities in which she lived. Finally, something should be said about the future of religious life. There are certainly the prophets of doom. For some people, the age of religious life in the Church is simply over. I do not myself share this view. No doubt there are more stormy days ahead for religious orders in the Church; and they will, of course, continue to change - this is essential if they are to survive. Those that refuse to change, or to change soon enough, will be in a dangerous situation. But it seems to me that religious life in its essentials corresponds so fully to the Gospel message that it will last as long as the Church lasts. No doubt the Christian values preserved and encouraged in religious life could be preserved in other ways; but, given the Church's actual traditions, I cannot see this particular way of preserving them dropping out altogether. Keeping in mind the analysis given in the body of this paper, I would like to outline what seem to me to be the essential elements of religious life which must be preserved in the various changes that are taking place. The first is the celibate life. Jesus called for the willingness to make radical renunciations for the sake of the kingdom even to the extent of changing the whole pattern of one's life. Paul saw the celibate state as extremely helpful for the full dedication of oneself to God (I Cor 7). In fact, throughout the centuries of Christian history people have felt themselves called to make this radical renuncia-tion for the sake of the kingdom. I do not anticipate that this vocation will cease in the Church. Although the eremitical life had its vogue in the early centuries, the Church has found by experience that life in community is more helpful. Not only is there mutual support, but a demonstration is given of the power of Christian love which can transcend the natural barriers between people. But the existence of community immediately raises also the problem of authority. These communities will have to demonstrate to the world that the kind of authority described in the Gospels (e.g., "anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant" - Mk 10:43) can be lived out in practice. Those called to celibate community life will need to be sustained by a deep spirit of prayer, and their communities will need to be centers of prayer for the whole Church. Prayer is difficult, but essential. The whole Church needs inspiration and instruction from these communities. Property is one of the sources of division among people. Wealth, against which we are so constantly warned in the Gospels, seems constantly to bring with it pride, lack of concern, selfishness, harshness. These communities will need to guard against these dangers by the sharing of possessions and moderate living. Finally, there must be essentially an outward look. These are communities of the Church, peopled by vocations from the Church at large. Religious must give leadership in the humble service of mankind, especially where the needs are greatest. To sum up the picture: celibate life, in community, under an authority of service, prayerful, moderate in style of living, not divided by property barriers, existing for the service, of mankind. In this picture I am merely trying to describe the evangelical essentials. Many other elements will have to come in - such as wider; even world-wide, organization. But if we try to keep our eyes fixed on the essentials, which are firmly based in the New Testament, we are in a better position to see that the changes which do take place are in the right direction. JOIIN CARROLL FUTRELL, S.J. Living Consecrated Celibacy Today [John Carroll FutreU, S.J., is the Director of the Spirituality Program of the Divinity School of St. Louis University; 220 North Spring Avenue; St. Louis, Missouri 63108; an Indonesian translation of this article has appeared in the October 1972 issue ofRohan£ I The meaning and value of consecrated celibacy as a Christian way of life has been severely challenged during the last few years, not only by Freudian or secularized mentalities, but also even by priests and religious who at one time made the permanent commitment to a life of consecrated celibacy. It has been argued that a life of consecrated celibacy is unnatural and inhuman, and that, consequently, no celibate can attain true personal fulfillment and human maturity. The life of celibacy has been attacked as an at least implicit belittling of marriage as a Christian way of life, as contempt for a less perfect vocation for those who are incapable of living the "perfect" life of virginity. The law of the Latin rite which requires celibacy of its priests has been attacked as an unjustifiable act of tyranny denying the basic human right of human fulfilhnent through sexual union to men who wish to be ordained. Undoubtedly, these arguments have had influence upon some persons who have left the priesthood or the religious life in order to marry. These theories also brought about the aberrations of the "Third Way" a few years ago, which was a naive attempt to enjoy affective fulfillment in an exclusive relationship with another individu',d of the other sex through all the bodily expressions of love short of sexu',d union. The purpose of the following reflections is not to discuss or defend the law of celibacy for priests in the Latin rite. This law has been studied and controverted in many books and articles during recent years. It is well to recall, however, that any community has the right and the duty to demand certain qualifications of those members of the community called upon to carry out specific functions within it. A "job description" always includes the qualities which the community feels the persons who are to serve it in particular capacities should possess. It is not, therefore, a violation of human rights that for historical reasons the Church decided that its priests in the Latin rite should be chosen from only those among the faithful to whom the charism of virginity has been given. Whether in the light of contemporary pastoral needs it is a wise decision to retain this law universally is another question. But the issue is one of pastoral discernment, not of violated human rights. The following reflections are concerned, rather, with the meaning of consecrated celibacy as an authentic Christian alternative, a specific and valuable vocation within the Church both for individual persons and for those called to celibate communities. After recalling the basic motivation for celibacy as a Christian way of life, some practical considerations will be offered on the particular challenges in the contemporary world to those persons who feel called to live their lives as 932 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 consecrated celibates. First of all, it should be recalled that celibacy is a charism - a special divine gifting of the Holy Spirit to individual persons for the service of the whole People of God and of all mankind. Christ said that only those can make themselves "eunuchs" for the sake of the kingdom of heaven "to whom it is granted" (Mt 19:10-2). In his First Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul, in his instructions on marriage and virginity, after remarking that he would be happy if all remained as himself celibate, adds that, nevertheless, "everybody has his own particular gifts from God, one with a gift for one thing and another with a gift for the opposite" (7:7). The Holy Spirit pours out a variety of charismatic gifts upon the members of the community of the faithful for the good of the entire body. The foot needs the hand, the hand the eye, the eye the ear (1 Cor 12:12-30). Thus, those who receive the charism of celibacy are given a gift from the Spirit which is authentic and valuable for the whole people. To discern that one has been given this charism and to choose to accept it and to live out its consequences is not a priori~ to destroy the possibility of true human fulfillment and maturity. This depends upon the way a person integrates his celibacy into his growth as a person. Human maturity and fulfillment are no more automatically achieved through sexual union in or out of marriage than they are through consecrated celibacy. There is abundant human evidence to demonstrate this fact. Human beings are totally sexual beings, and to come to human fulfillment we must assume our sexuality in our personal integration through a growing maturity of loving, finally leading us to the full expression of our deepest urge to love - totally self-giving love - which is also what gives human meaning to physical sexual union. But human sexuality is not identical with genitality. There are other authentic ways to express the deepest meaning of human sexuality, which is to enter into personal union with other persons through self-giving love. It is the experience and the expression of personal, self-giving love which is the fulfillment of human sexuality, whether this expression is through physical sexual union or through a life of consecrated celibacy. To discern that one has received the charism of celibacy and to choose to accept it is not a belittling of marriage, whatever may at times have been the mistaken attitudes of certain individuals. It is not as a matter of fact to show contempt for marriage if otte recogtttzes that cottsectated celibacy ts a Christian alternative (chosen by Jesus and by St. Paul also) and that one is called to it. Whether one Christian vocation is "better" or "more perfect" than another is at best a theoretical question, the answer to which depends upon the norms one uses to establish his hierarchy of values. For the individual person, this question is always concrete, existential, and relative: "What is better for me? What am 1 called to through the gifting of the Holy Spirit to me?" The fundamental motive to live a life of consecrated celibacy is the experience through the charismatic gift of celibacy of being called to give all one's love totally and personally to Jesus Christ and to symbolize the totality of this love by foregoing the physically sexual expression of love during one's whole life. Consecrated celibacy, then, is grounded in an all-encompassing personal relationship of love with Jesus Christ, whatever other secondary values it may involve, such as mobility and freedom for apostolic service. The functional value of celibacy cannot be the fundamental reason for living it. For one thing, in certain circumstances. good functional arguments can be given for non-celibate apostles. Furthermore, merely functional motivation will be inadequate for most ~persons to live con- Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 933 secrated celibacy authentically and deeply for a lifetime. Their celibacy must be experienced as the full exercise of their love for Jesus energizing their love for all other persons. Only a celibacy which is the human expression of deep personal love for and identification with Jesus Christ, Himself a celibate for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, can bring the consecrated celibate to true growth as a mature human person who gradually experiences progressive self-fulfillment through his personal relation-ship with Jesus and his life of witness and service to mankind. He grows to authentic personal development through the experience of being like Jesus and with Jesus a "man for others," who gives away his life in love to all other men and women through his celibacy. Consecrated celibacy, then, is a sign embodied in a human life of the true meaning of all personal love which in every case, including marriage, is realized only through self-giving to the other. Consecrated celibacy also has a unique value as a striking, visible witness to mankind of the depth of the faith and hope of the People of God in the complete fulfillment of the kingdom of God when the Lord Jesus will come again and God will be all in all in the Parousia. Those who, following a charism from the Holy Spirit "bar themselves from marrying for the sake of the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 19: 12), give the same testimony of their whole lives and of all their love to belief and hope in the Paschal good news of Jesus Christ which a martyr gives through his death. Through his life-time fidelity to his commitment of love, the consecrated celibate is a living sign of the Church's belief in the irrevocable promise of God, in His eternal fidelity. The celibate's renunciation of the physical expression of love is proclamation in one human life of the Church's hearing of the word of the Lord that love will never end. Consecrated celibacy is perhaps the most telling testimony of faith in Christ's promise of everlasting life, of life after death. Men can feel that the celibate is a fool, but they must confess that the faith and hope of Christians is powerful indeed, since it can inspire men and women to such a life, to such a love of Jesus who is encountered only in faith, to such a hope in God as the Absolute Future of man. The first practical challenge to the person who feels called to the life of consecrated celibacy is to discern authentically that he truly possesses this charism, a discernment which must be confirmed by the community if his vocation is to enter a religious congregation. A charism is known by its visible effects. The presence of the charism of celibacy is discerned, therefore, by evaluating the psychological, emotional, and spiritual maturity of a person for indications that he is capable of living a life of authentic celibacy. At the beginning of such a life, it is necessarily a matter of judging the foundation within the young person for growth into a full life of consecrated celibacy. One important evidence of possessing this foundation is the fact that he has no great emotional or moral problems in living a chaste life already. It is necessary also to ascertain that his motivation for chastity is based upon a true appreciation of human sexuality at the person's level of human maturity and spiritual development and not upon fearful anxieties or false notions about sexuality. Since the fundamental motive for freely choosing to respond to the charism of celibacy is personal love for Jesus Christ, it must be discerned that the person's desire for this life is rooted in his faith experience of the person of the risen Jesus. The growth and depth and permanence of this charism depends upon the growth and depth and permanence of his personal relationship with Jesus in love, which depends upon his continuing and deepening life of prayer. Thus, he must have 934 Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 initiated already an ongoing practice of profound personal prayer and be convinced of the need of continuing it and growing in it throughout his lifetime. The second practical challenge to the consecrated celibate is the authentic living out of the consequences of his commitment. Each individual must possess a realistic recognition of the necessary consequences in his concrete life style of commitment to consecrated celibacy. That is to say, he must conduct himself in his interior, personal life and in his external behavior and in his relationships with other people in a way that will guarantee constant and loyal authentic living of his celibacy. The individual exigencies of such a life style are relative to the great variety of temperaments and the psychological and physiological conditions and experiences of individual persons. Therefore, it is impossible to give more than a few very obvious general prescriptions. What is required of each person is absolute honesty with himself before God in discerning his concrete actions in here and now situations, so that he does not permit himself to behave in a way that will "chip away" at his authentic celibacy, rather than in a way that will deepen it and strengthen it. To guarantee this honesty in such a delicate area of life, true openness with a competent spiritual director is of great importance. Particularly, the celibate must be sensitive to "non-verbal" communication - the risk of sending messages to other persons which go counter to a relationship of truly celibate love, even when the verbal conversation is quite in accord with it. A truly honest person who prayerfully reflects upon the authenticity of his living of celibacy develops this sensitivity and will be aware when a relationship is beginning to be dangerous to his own celibacy or detrimental to another person. Most celibates will at times experience "falling in love" with someone. Perhaps even more often, at least after several years of authentically living celibacy, they will experience others falling in love with them, when this is not reciprocal. Here, the celibate's temptation may well be to a subtle form of seduction or manipulation of the other person because of the flattery he enjoys. Any of these situations must be confronted with the means honestly discerned as those demanded in order to maintain true celibacy and true charity. These means might range all the way from non-verbal communication, through discussing the situation with the other person, to the necessity for completely breaking off the relationship. Once more, true prayerful discernment and the help of a spiritual director are necessary to discover what actions are called for in each concrete situation. The consecrated celibate must accept the fact that in freely choosing to respond to this charism he is deciding to live the rest of his life in tension with "the couple that might have been," just as any person who makes a life commitment to a specific personal identity must live in tension with what he might have chosen to become. The "couple that might have been" may be one face or a succession of faces. At certain moments of life, this tension will be felt as a heavy burden, a true cross, especially when one wants to share a great joy or a great grief with another person in the way of sharing that can only develop within the uniquely intimate relationship of marriage. It is perhaps in moments such as these that the celibate is aware of making the least falsified act of love of God that he will make until his ultimate act of love on his owrt death bed. A third practical challenge to the consecrated celibate is to achieve true, human, affective fulfillment within his life of celibacy. Human, affective fulfillment is developed only through the self-transcending experience of love with other persons. Thus, the celibate must have truly complementary relationships of love with other human persons - celibates and non-celibates, men and women. The "incomplete- Review for Religious, Volume 31, 1972/6 935 ness" that seeks completion through self-giving love relationships with other persons is at the root of human sexuality, and the integration of sexuality into consecrated celibacy requires such complementary relationships. What is renounced by choosing to respond to the charism of celibacy is the relationship of exchtsive complementarity with one other human person, as happens in marriage. The celibate must experience the relationship of exclusive complementarity in his personal love relationship with Jesus Christ encountered in faith. This means that the celibate must have a deep pr

Issue 45.5 of the Review for Religious, September/October 1986. ; REVIEW FOR REI.IGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices ave located at Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. REvIEw FOR REIolGIOUS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. © 1986 by REVIEW FOR REt,IGIOUS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A. $ I 1.00 a year: $20.00 for two years. Other countries: add $4.00 per year (postage). Airmail (Book Rate) $18.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write i~vlr~w FOR I~LtG~OUS: EO. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel E X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editor Sept. / Oct., 1986 Volume 45 Number 5 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to I~v~Ew FOn REt,tG,OUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Richard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVIEW ~Oa REL~C~OUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell . Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, M! 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. Dominican Mission and Apostolic Common Life Mary A nn Fatula, O.P. Sister Mary Ann is the Chairperson of the Theology Department of Ohio Dominican College (1216 Sunbury Road; Columbus, OH 43219). Her last article, "Trusting in the Providence of God," appeared in the issue of January/February, 1986. In company with other religious orders, we Dominicans have placed a great amount of energy into reclaiming our mission of apostolic preaching in the Church. Yet even as we have become increasingly competent and profes-sional in our ministries, more than a few of us have sensed that something is radically missing from our reappropriation and that our mission requires far more of us than the total dedication of our energies to ministry. If we are honest, we must admit to a growing pain which we too easily push aside because we fear the cost of facing its implications. We find our ministries consuming us, sapping our energies and perhaps making very little real or lasting impact on others in spite of our hectic lives. At the same time, we see that the women and men drawn to Dominican life do not come to us for the sole sake of ministry. In many cases they already have been successful in a ministry and are looking for a committed community which will nourish their prayer and service in the Church. Yet we know in our hearts that precisely what these young people desire and have aright to expect from us we seem unable to offer them. In addition, our study of Dominic shows us that his vision entailed not simply a task to be accomplished but the far more comprehensive and demanding reality of a life to he lived. As we catch glimpses of these truths, we are beginning to suspect that our desire for "something more" in our life together expresses 641 642 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 the Spirit's own cry within us for the very life to which this same Spirit has called us: a life of preaching as the apostles did, out of a rich communion not only with the Lord but also with one another. The Relation Between Dominican Mission and Apostolic Common Life Many of us may not have reflected on the importance of community when we entered religious life, and yet we probably experienced its value, at some level at least, simply because we could not escape its structure. Today, however, we often have local settings in which hardly a semblance of com-munity life exists. On weekends no one is around; on weekdays it is difficult, if not impossible, to find one evening during a given month when even a small community is present in its totality at a supper meal. In many instances, not much binds us together except the TV set. We know by experience that simply promulgating laws does not make us choose something, no matter how valuable it is. We make free commit-ments because we have experienced the beauty of the reality held out to us, or because our hearts and minds reach out to claim a value when its beauty becomes apparent to us. Perhaps we do not experience the beauty of common life today--quite the opposite. But a deepened understanding of what common life can and must be for us could inspire us to consciously claim it anew. Far from providing "icing on the cake" to pep up our mission, so to speak, apostolic common life is literally a matter of life and death for us: if we do not reclaim it, we will perish. The interior communion and interdependence at the heart of Dominic's vision is something no structure or law can deliver to us; no outside force will hold us responsible for living it unless we ourselves do. Dominican apostolic common life, and thus the Dominican mission, will survive only if living men and women freely choose to devote their energy to living it. As M.H. Vicaire points out, Dominic renewed the apostolic life in its fullness precisely because he founded the outer element of missio upon the inne~ element of communio. The mission of itinerant preaching of God's word, the very ministry that founds the Church, was to flow from the rich interior life the Dominicans lived through prayer, the evangelical counsels, community and study. Far more than the task of merely verbal or written preaching, Dominic's mission entailed living the Word we preach with our mouths and pens, preaching in fact with our very lives. "I have come to cast fire on the earth" (Lk 12:49). We know the differ-ence between the preaching of mere words, and the kind which enlightens and sets fire to us: "Were not our hearts burning within us as he spoke to us on the way" (Lk 42:32). Dominican preaching is meant to be both light (or the mind and warmth for the heart because that preaching Dominican Mission / 643 comes from fire in the heart. This constitutes the Dominican mission in the Church, inseparably Word and Spirit, truth and love, light and fire--the fire of loving communion lived and put into words. The Spirit of communion anointed Jesus himself in the word he proclaimed (Lk 4:18); gathering a community around him, he preached not as an isolated individual but united to his Father and also to the twelve: "Let usgo to the next towns that we may preach there also, for this is why I came out" (Mk 1:39). When Jesus sends the apostles to preach, he sends them not one by one, but two by two (Mk 6:7). A witness at Dominic's canonization process in Bologna testified, "his words were so moving that most of the time he himself and his listeners were stirred to tears." We ourselves weep when something in a speaker's heart sets fire to our own hearts. Dominic wept when he preached because he spoke of what he loved and lived in his communion with the living God and with brothers and sisters. Jordan of Saxony writes of him that his "fre-quent and special prayer to God was for the gift of true charity." In a marve-lously creative synthesis Dominic combined the itinerant preaching of the apostles with the communio of the early Church. Preaching formed the purpose of the Dominicans' prayer, study, and community; but even more, the apostolic life they lived together, the reality of their love and communion with one another in the Lord, constituted the loudest and clearest word they preached. "Living Together," Community Life, and Common Life We have learned to distinguish between mission and ministry; our mission of preaching entails living the apostolic life in its fullness, preaching what we live, while our ministries express that mission in concrete and diverse ways. In a similar manner, we can distinguish between simply living together, community living and common life. Most of us perhaps know the first reality, "living under the same roof." Like ships in the night we greet each other but have no real connection to or interaction'with one another. Some of us may know, too, the deeper reality of community life, concrete sharing of goals, interests, work, prayer, responsibilities. But the words "common life" in fact translate the Latin word communio denoting an interior reality, a union of hearts and minds which only the Spirit can effect. Certainly this communion must be expressed in concrete forms, yet its reality is far more deep and inclusive than what "living together" or even "community life" denotes. We can share many things in community and still not share the deepest reality for which we are called together, the Lord whose love makes us one. The Hebrew and Christian Scriptures which, inspired Dominic's vision 644 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 portray preachers as people joined together to receive and to proclaim the Word expressing the very life they live in communion with others. Recalling how communities gathered around the Hebrew prophets, the author of John 17 places on the lips of Jesus the following prayer: May they "be one, as you, Father, in me, and I in you." May they all "be one in us, that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them." These words hint at the truth that no mere human effort can bring about communio. We have already tried human plans, projects, laws and programs, and we still find that we cannot achieve by our own efforts alone the kind of communion to which we are called as Dominicans. Only the Spirit gives life, and only the Spirit can offer us the power to live the kind of communion to which our vocation calls us, a human sacrament of the unspeakable com-munion at the heart of the triune God. When we ourselves love, we find that the closer we come to another, the more the union causes a bitter-sweet pain precisely because we cannot achieve the kind of oneness we desire. Because we cannot literally have one mind and heart with another; there remains always that final place in us which no one else can know or enter. But the Father, Son and Spirit live literally one life; in their communion no hint of division or separation exists. Our call to communio, to the common life, invites and urges us to be in some way a sacrament of this trinitarian communion. The Acts of the Apostles describes this reality among the early Christians: "The company of believers were of one heart and one soul in the Lord . . . they had all in common" (Ac 4:32). Here common life signifies not simply the sharing of material goods but ultimately the interior bond which makes them of one mind and heart in the Lord. Precisely because of this communion, the early disciples share everything in a "common life." This apostolic communio described in Acts 4:32 clearly inspired Dominic's own vision. The Rule of Augustine which he adopted for his Order opens with the proclamation that those gathered together have been called by the Lord precisely to live with one heart and mind in the Lord. And the primitive Constitution of his Order begins with this prologue: "Because a precept of our Rule commands us to have one heart and one mind in the Lord, it is fitting that., the uniformity maintained in our external conduct may foster and indicate the unity which should be present interiorly in our hearts. "" The earliest constitution of Dominic's Order thus identifies preaching not as a mere speaking of words, but as the expression of unity in the Lord which even in their diversity binds the members together in the apostolic common life. Dominican Mission / 645 The Basic Constitution adopted at River Forest in 1968 emphasizes this theme anew. The first three paragraphs speak of the mission of proclaiming God's Word, but the fourth paragraph makes clear the very heart of this mission: "Because we share the mission of the apostles, we follow their way of life as Dominic conceived it. With one soul we live in community." This distinction between the interior communion and the concrete expression of it in community life has important implications. Those who for serious reasons are unable to live in Dominican community may yet be truly living in the communion that binds us together with one heart and soul in God. Communio does have to be lived out in concrete ways, and community life is one of them, but Dominican communio is lived out also through study, prayer and ministry that flow from our interior union with our brothers and sisters in Dominic's family. We are called to foster one heart and soul in the Lord--a mystery far more deep and demanding than simply living under one roof. The Holy Spirit at the Heart of Dominican Apostolic Communion We address Dominic as "Preacher of grace" precisely because his procla- ¯ marion came not only from grace, from the Spirit's fire, but also spoke about grace, the supremacy of God's mercy and power in our lives. The Dominican mission calls us to preach from the fullness of our own experience of this mercy, our own realization that finally God's work and not our own will save us. In our attempts to renew and to live this communion among us, we are thus brought to our knees; the word of grace we are called to preach to others becomes only a "noisy gong and clanging cymbal" (1 Cot 13:1) unless it is also the word of grace we ourselves live together. In writing of love, Aquinas stresses how the activities of knowing and loving expand and enlarge us by uniting us to reality beyond ourselves. The process of becoming mature adults entails the ability to extend ourselves outside of our own limited being to others around us. Knowledge takes reality into us, so to speak, but in also lov!ng what we know we reach out in an "ecstatic" movement outward toward what we love (ST I, 16, 1). In love, we put others in place of ourselves and regard their good truly as if it were our own. The ecstatic nature of love's union in this way truly enlarges our being, increasingly actualizing us as human persons. Thomas distinguishes, however, between self-gratifying love and the love of friend-ship. In self-gratifying love, although we seem to be drawn out of ourselves to good outside us, the movement of love remains within us and focused on ourselves; we desire the good of others not for their sake but for our own (ST I, 28, 3). The love of friendship, in contrast, loves others as equals and directs 646 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 our affection outside of us to their reality precisely as other. True union thus happens only when we reach out of ourselves in an unselfish move-ment of love toward others' own uniqueness. Yet as experience itself teaches us, our own efforts alone cannot effect this kind of love. Precisely for this reason, "the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us" (Rm 5:5). Most of our communities have engaged in some program of helping us to appreciate and to tap our own resources, especially the gift of one another. But the gift we have left most untapped is the very person of the Spirit. Aquinas notes that the Spirit's name as Gift denotes gratuitous, unreturnable bestowal, with no expectation of return. And because a gift is presented to us only so that it may belong to us, the Spirit given to us is truly ours, our possession, our gift, our Spirit (ST I, 38, 1). Dominican women especially are called upon to renew this awareness of and reliance upon the Spirit's power in our life and ministry together. If we would claim our affinity for the Spirit's tender mercy and strength within and among us, we could become ourselves a new gift in and for the Dominican family, a living gift of women who live and speak the anointed word. For the word we have preached as Dominicans too often has not conveyed or come from the Spirit's anointing. This seems to me a special contribution which Dominican women can make to the Order today: to live and to proclaim the word of truth warmed with the fire. of life. Aquinas stresses that the Word cannot be divorced from the Holy Spirit: because the Son eternally breathes forth the very love between him and the Father, the living person of the Spirit, the Word is always Verbum spirans amorem-- the Word breathing forth love (ST I, 43, 5, ad 2). Only when we internalize this truth will we live out our call to be preachers not simply of the Word but of the anointed Word. Our mission to preach the Word by its very nature thus demands our increasing submission to the Spirit of God in whom we are to find the motiva-tion and power for our life together. "Ask, and it will be given you . . . if you who are evil know how.to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Fath.er give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him" (Lk 11:9, 13). We need to call down upon our life together the Spirit who alone can effect the interior communio at the heart of our preach-ing mission. As Aquinas stresses, the charity at the heart of our union is a created participation in the very person of the Spirit (ST II-II, 24, 2). This is a profound and radical insight, it seems to me: the bond of love we share is in some sense nothing less than the very reality of the Spirit, the divine person of love. As a participation in this Spirit, charity heals and enlivens our capacity to love one another truly as other. Again as Aquinas Dominican Mission / ~147 comments, charity of all the virtues has the strongest inclination to its act, for it reaches out to live in a spontaneous movement of pleasure and delight (ST II-II, 24, 5, ad 3; II-II, 23, 2). Since the Spirit's own person dwells in us by charity, making his power of love in some sense our very own, charity is specifically the same act whereby we love God and also one another. The movement of selfless love that binds us to each other thus of its very nature binds us also to God (ST II, 25, 1). The interior communion at the heart of our preaching mission calls us to reach out to one another's joys and sorrows, but we know how difficult it is to do this. We may be physically in the same room, apparently speaking and listening to one another, and yet we know in our hearts how often we are not present to one another's concerns. This kind of communion can happen only when the Spirit opens us to one another. As William Hill points out, the Spirit--and not just some effect of the Spirit's activity--is the very bond in some way uniting us in apostolic communion.' Perhaps we have had tastes of this communion at a time when we were bound together in a community sorrow or joy or at a time of deep prayer and celebration. We may have experienced this interior bond when the group was lost in silence and we had an intimation that our common life is not simply words we say or tasks we do for another. As Hill notes, when the Spirit "lays fast hold of us, we begin to live from a personal center that is our own self.''2 This last insight suggests that Dominican apostolic common life is possible only at the price of a profound continuing conversion on the part of each of us. W~ are called to live not from a center of narrow interest and self-concern, but from the abundant love of the Spirit who enlarges our hearts by making room in them for the truth of one another, In the depths of our being, the Spirit "lures us to the self-transcendence" of interdependence in the midst of our diversity: "The proper domain of the Spirit is not life in isolation, but in communion.''3 Neither Jesus nor Dominic sent our people one by one to convert the world, to be individual leavens in many places. This is a valid call, but it is not ours as Dominicans. If we are to live our charism in the Church, our preach-ing must express the fire of love that we live first of all in communion with one another. Individual men and women may have 1o minister alone in special cases, but their ministry also is called to give voice to the communion at the heart of the Dominican mission. If we are truly to live what we preach and preach what we live, the word we proclaim as Dominicans must express the apostolic communion we live with one another. The apostles' own preaching had such power because it overflowed with the Spirit's love lived in communion with one another, Because the Spirit inflames and anoints our preaching only to the extent that this same Spirit 648 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 binds us in love in one another, we will rediscover what it means to be fire in the Church, as Dominic was, only when we rediscover the absolute central-ity of apostolic communion. In many instances we still do not preach and minister out of the abundant communio we live with one another. And to the extent that we do not, we are insipid in the Church, a "noisy gong" and a "clanging cymbal" (1 Cor 13:1). Each of us is called to beg the Spirit's grace in our individual life and in our life together that our preaching would in fact give voice to the communioh we live with one another. Renewing Common Life Through Renewing the Four Elements of Dominican Life Because the Spirit's grace entails the mystery of both God's activity in us and also our free human cooperation, perhaps our most significant task in deepening our communion is to give renewed attention to each of the four elements which comprise Dominican apostolic life. And for both Dominican women and men, it may well be not simply a question of reclaim-ing but also of claiming these elements as our own in a way we have never done before. With regard to the first of the elements, prayer, we realize that our preach-ing is meant to flow from the abundance of our contemplation: "'contemplata aliis tradere. "" Yet too often we find ourselves saying, "My work is my prayer; the demands of my ministry prevent me from devoting explicit time to prayer." But as Vincent de Couesnongle, former master general of the Order, commented in an address at Providence in 1982, "People quickly distinguish the preachers who speak of the Friend with whom they constantly live, from the preachers who speak of him as of a stranger and try to pass him off as a companion with whom they are on familiar terms. The first know how to speak about God, because they are in the habit of speaking to God." People are thirsting to find in us women and men of God, and they recognize our pretense when we do not pray. And because this is so, what we most owe others in our ministry is precisely what we do with our time when we are not with them. Experience itself teaches us the paradox of grace: that God accomplishes wonderful things through us when we do not devote one hundred percent of our time to ministry, when we devote ourselves also to adoration before the living God in prayer. Many of us are perfectionists who think that our time must be consumed by projects to make our ministry more effective. Without belittling these efforts, more than a few of us are discovering that redirecting some of our " energy from compulsive busy-ness to time in prayer and fostering contempla-tive peace in our lives effect far more profound results than our efforts alone could have accomplished. What we do with our time when our people do Dominican Mission / 649 not see us often bears the deepest gifts for them when they do see us. We owe the people to and with whom we minister a consecration of our time to prayer so that they will find in us living evidence that God's presence and mercy fill the world. With regard to the second element of Dominican life, we are beginning to suspect the radical nature of our call to study. Dominic identifies as the crucial element at the heart of his Order the sacred study which opens us to contemplation and preaching. And is this not what we most lack in our lives today? Again, in his 1982 Providence address, de Couesnongle stresses, "It is a systematic, deepened and persevering study that we need to under-take . If this is not the case, then spiritual suffocation awaits us. The experience of each one of us shows this sufficiently." De Couesnongle com-ments that he stopped congratulating members of the Order for working so hard precisely because "people are overworked., they believe that one has to work like this. And thus, an unbalanced life results" whose equilibrium can be regained only by "stressing more a basic study that is at once serious and prayerful." Without prayer and study, we do no real preaching. We women especially must claim as never before our call to profound study; if we think we have no time for this because of our ministry's demands, we fool ourselves. No one will force us to study; this is a priority choice we ourselves must make. We come now to the third element that fosters communio, our com-munity life. In 1980, de Couesnongle noted in his report to the General Chapter meeting at Walberberg that he too easily believed the common life could be renewed simply by insisting on meetings and rules, as if these would automatically bring results. He came to see that true community life flourishes only to the extent that each person freely chooses to commit herself or himself to a real interest in the community members and to sharing what makes up his or her own life. "The newspaper and TV . . . will simply not suffice to excite and nourish an authentic community life. How many of us know how to share with outsiders what is best about ourselves, but become soeechless with our sisters and brothers?" We need to become, as never before, women~and men of the Word shared with one another, choosing to live what Dominic asked of us by speaking to and about God with one another. Is this not what we so little do? Because very few structures foster our communio, community life will cease to exist unless we freely choose it. We easily blame those in authority for the erosion of our life together when in fact we ourselves are responsible for its life or death. If our communities die, each one of us is responsible. We must begin to speak the Word to one another, to pray together, to speak to one another of deeper matters than simply the weather. 650 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 Because mission is our purpose, our community life and sharing of the Word with one another cannot be a matter of adding more time requirements to our already busy day; our commitment to one another must be in terms of quality rather than quantity time. Even if we are fortunate enough to experience a measure of community life, it is often not communio, our shared faith in the living God, that binds us together. But by taking advantage of the opportunities we already have for quality time together, we can take the risk of improving the level of conversation at table and of sharing the Word at our prayer and house meetings. And instead of harboring anger and resentment, we can begin to speak the truth in love to one another, for even honest fights do far more to foster communio than polite silence. Candidates to our communities who may have tremendous gifts for preaching and prayer and yet do not value the commitment to communio show by this very fact that whatever call they do have, it is not to Dominican life. And we who have already consecrated ourselves to this life must con-sciously choose today what perhaps we have never really chosen before, a true commitment to the community life that fosters the communio at the heart of our Dominican mission. De Couesnongle noted in his 1982 Provi-dence talk that as we have abandoned structures, individualism and non-par-ticipation have grown, and these are the "enemy number-one of community life." "Community life demands interpersonal relationships. Are we not too easily secretive. Do we not spontaneously hide what we are?. We bottle ourselves up and dodge compromising questions." He also notes the radical nature of our present call to community, precisely because so much today militates against a true union among us. We have become as secula-rized as the world, as filled, perhaps, with a selfish individualism that makes it increasingly difficult for us to reach out of ourselves to one another. Just as we ourselves must ratify our own baptismal vows, we Domini-cans are called to make a personal choice to live in fact what we say we are living. We can no longer escape facing ourselves with the question: "Why am I here? If I want to preach as a Dominican, my preaching must come from a true communio I myself concretely live." Unless each of us squarely faces this question and lives out its implications, we will surely die as com-munities, because we will fail to live our charism in the Church. Since the Dominican tradition has always treasured the richness of plural-ity, there are and will be diverse ways of living our call to communio. Our being bound together with one heart and mind in the Lord will express itself in different ways according to the character of each local community. And if for some serious reason a Dominican must live alone, he or she can still live out the Dominican call to communio-missio by fostering in whatever ways possible a true communion, a oneness of mind and heart with the Dominican Mission / 651 brothers and sisters. As our congregations decrease in numbers, we will be forced to cooperate with one another in the kind of collaboration that the Dominican family asks of us. Increasingly we are called to minister together, to provide options for living in communities of other Dominican congrega-tions in order to preach and minister from a communio concretely lived. And we need to actively work toward these new kinds of configurations. We consider finally the relation between communio and ministry. We Dominican women especially are growing to realize that our mission is not simply ed.ucation but Dominic's mission, the preaching of God's Word through our varied ministries. Each of us needs to take personal responsi-bility for the extent to which her ministry concretely expresses this mission and to ask ourselves how we can best focus our varied gifts in the service of proclaiming the Word. Perhaps more than a few of us are called to re-examine whether the ministry to which we are devoting our energies is the one to which God is calling us now, the ministry which best utilizes our gifts for the mission of proclaiming the Word. We need also to ask ourselves whether we have allowed our ministries to consume and master us, rather than to free us in joyful service. When we fail to live the Dominican call in all of its elements, when we cheat other dimensions of our life to devote all of our energy to ministry, we find our-selves in an inevitable burnout, ministering not out of the abundance of our communion with God and with one another, but out of our own emptiness. Not every possible ministry is meant for us as Dominicans. If we are not ministering from the fullness of a contemplative peace and in a way that fosters this peace in others, we need to face the hard question of why this is so. If all that we bring to the world as Dominicans is more busy-ness, more hectic activity, we have nothing to contribute. What others need from us is not more unpeacefulness but the witness of men and women who minister from the depths of contemplative peace. This is one of the chief ways we are called as Domincans to be counte~:-cultural. When our ministry no longer fosters this peace within and around us, when it drains us end-lessly and yields nothing but unpeace, we need to take a second look at whether God is not calling us to another ministry more at the heart of our mission to proclaim the Word. De Couesnongle points out in his 1982 Providence address: "Work is not prayer., in saying we lack time we find an easy excuse. Do we have the right to present ourselves as religious whose word proceeds from the abundance of contemplation? Time is needed, if we are to pray. Let us find this time and give it to God . . . This is my dream for the Order: contemplation and preaching., preaching ex abundantia contempla- 652 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 tionis. "' This is also Dominic's dream for us. But a dream becomes reality only when we ask it as a gift from God and then with all of our hearts make a conscious choice to commit ourselves to its realization., together. In his 1970 commentary on the Fundamental Constitution, Vicaire stresses that our one profession, our one vow, integrates us "'into the communion, and it is the communion which has the mission. "" Our vow consecrates us not only to God but also to one another, for it consecrates us to be a "reli-gious community of life vowed to preaching." Our Dominican life itself "is an apostolic mission in the Church" that springs from the communion we live with one another. Vicaire continues: we are not "just a team engaged in a common task." We are "a community of life, centered essentially in faith's response to the Gospel and in the seeking for God together." Our call to the common life is the heart of our specific mission in the Church, for our preaching as Dominicans is meant to flow from our communion with God and with one another, the communion that makes us in truth of one heart and mind in the Lord. "This requires that we be a true community. We are in it for better or for worse, as in the conjugal community, until death." We need to take seriously this "conjugal" relationship not only with the Lord but also with one another, for as married people can and do tell us, real communion happens only at the cost of personal time and energy and commitment. Our Dominican mission will again bring fire to the Church and world only to the extent that it springs from and expresses the communio we live with one another. As ! write these words, 1 am conscious of how little I live them. But I also know that to run from the truth is to sell our very soul. May the words de Couesnongle spoke in Providence in 1982 about the common life as the indispensable well-spring of our preaching mission in the Church continue to knock at the door of our minds and hearts: "Each of us must feel herself or himself responsible for this. We have to pay out of our own person . Alone and in community, let us have the courage to confront this problem and then, 'Do what he tells you.' " NOTES ~William J. Hill, O.P., The Three-Personed God (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1982), p. 303. 21bid, p. 288. 3lbid, p. 307. Active and Monastic: Two Apostolic Lifestyles George A. Aschenbrenner, S.J. Father Aschenbrenner is well known to our readers especially for the series of yearly surveys in spirituality he authored from 1980 through 1985. For the past year he has been Director of the Spiritual Formation Program at the North American College in Rome, where he may be addressed (00120 Vatican City State). This article originally appeared in the USIG Bulletin (Rome: no. 70, 1986), and is reprinted with permission. The spirited beauty and gracefulness of Jesus Christ has inspired the minds and hearts of women and men for centuries. They have been stirred, at times, to feats of missionary heroism all over the world. At other times, they have found encouragement for quiet, hidden faithfulness to the daily duties of a very ordinary state in life. In all these different types of heroism the moti-vation is the same: an enthusiastic love of Jesus Christ. In some way, then, Christian spirituality is always one and the same. Its beginning and end, its motive and energy always focus on that one whose words still echo in hearts today: "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life" (Jn 14:6). But over the many years, this one, central essence of Christian spirituality has taken expression in many different forms, some of which, at times, have seemed almost irreconcilable. Whenever these different forms are misunderstood and their common rooting in one basic Christian spirituality is forgotten, then they can become competitive or even truly at loggerheads. The interrelationships of each form with the one fundamental Christian spirituality, and of the various forms among themselves, have not always been easy and clear. But as long as we are careful to maintain a lively familiar-ity with and a genuine belief in Jesus Christ as the root and foundation of 653 654 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 Christian spirituality, we can speak of numerous Christian spiritualities. The following quotations are good examples of two very different dynamics within the one basic Christian spirituality: The Carthusian life rests upon a deep foundation of silence which you know and love, and it is in that depth that the Eternal Word is born for each one of us. There lies our whole vocation: to listen to Him who generates the Word and to live thereby. The Word proceeds from Silence, and we strive to find Him in His Source. This is because the Silence here in question is not a void nor a negation but, on the contrary, Being at its fullest and most fruitful plenitude. That is why it generates; and that is why we keep silent.~ Take down your lantern from its niche and go out! You may not rest in firelight certainties, Secure from drifting fog of doubt and fear. You may not build yourself confining walls And say: 'thus far, and thus, and thus far shall I walk, And these things shall I do, and nothing more.' Go out! For need calls loudly in the winding lanes And you must seek Christ there. Your pilgrim heart Shall urge you still one pace beyond. And love shall be your lantern flame.2 Though the dynamic of expression is different in these two instances, the core of the matter is the same: a heart afire with God's love in Jesus. But there will often be a very significant difference in the details of the daily living out of these two dynamics. And though the difference is never so profound asto destroy a common essence and a genuine bond, yet it is significant enough to prevent an easy identification of these two forms. My concern in this article is to describe and distinguish further these two different charisms or spiritualities, without endangering their basic rootedness in the tradition of Christian spirituality. Often in the past the Christian tra-dition has distinguished between monastic and apostolic spiritualities. I would like to suggest a further refinement of that distinction--a nuance that seems to me to be important and clarifying in these present times of struggle to understand the essence and expression of apostolic spirituality in religious life and throughout the Church. After some comments on the essence of all Christian spirituality as being apostolic, I will describe at some length what I will call two different apostolic lifestyles, charisms or spiritualities: the monastic and the active. Among the ancient world religions Christianity is unique in its strong Two Apostolic Lifestyles / 655 incarnational quality. In the Christian religion, at its center, is the claim that the Son of God became a full human being. Neither a deceptive illusion, nor a passing hallucinatory appearance, Jesus of Nazareth intimately, pre-cisely, awesomely gives flesh in our midst to the God who lives, beyond beginning or end, in unapproachable light and holiness. In Jesus, there can be no doubt that God is turned toward us forever in loving forgiveness and is ineluctably involved with and committed to our world evolving in time. In fact God is the decisive source and gentle sustainer of all being and crea-tion. And so we find in Jesus someone who enters our world confidently and profoundly, someone who lives and loves tenderly, courageously, thoroughly, and yet whose center of identity is never fully of this world. His God, addressed so intimately as Abba, "my dear Father," focuses his heart far beyond all of this world. On Calvary an apparently absurd and horrendous death can be desired, even chosen, precisely because his identity, though fully lived within this world, is not finally rooted here. And this identity is then fully revealed by God in the blessing of resurrection. The God of Christian religion always far transcends in being, beauty and life anything of this world. And so the Christian God is never fully identified with or by anything of the here and now, but, in Jesus, stands forever committed in loving forgiveness to all of us and to our created uni-verse. Fired by the same Spirit of God, all disciples of Jesus must learn to find an identity resonating in God far beyond this world while they live and love with a profound joy and hope that implicates them seriously within this world--but never so as to confine their identity to what they can see, taste and know here and now. And this balanced integration of the seriously incar-national with the transcendently eschatological has never been easy for any disciple of Jesus. There must never be any doubt of Christianity's healthy, creative and serious concern for this world. In the sense of a serious commitment to and involvement with our world, every disciple of Jesus must be intensely apostolic. Not to be apostolic, in this sense, is simply to betray Christian discipleship. For this reason, any facile distinction between apostolic spiritu-alities and monastic spiritualities may confuse, and may even deny the healthy, creative and serious concern--the apostolic concern--with this world that must be part of monastic spirituality. Nevertheless, as the central point of this article will make clear, there are two different ways of living out Christianity's serious, loving concern for this beautiful, anguished world. A central assertion of this article is that the essential apostolic orientation of Christian spirituality can be expressed in either a monastic or an active lifestyle. And these two quite different apostolic lifestyles are the result of God's Spirit at work in the hearts of men and women. This distinction, then, 656 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 is not something simply of human invention. Over centuries, as believers have struggled to be faithful to the Spirit of God inspiring their hearts, apostolic concern for our world expressed itself in a variety of ways. The evidence for our distinction here has resulted from God's love stirring human hearts down the ages. This distinction between the two dynamics of a monastic and an active relationship with the world cuts across the whole Church. It can name the experience of lay men and women as much as it can describe different types of religious congregations. And the Church has not always found it easy to acknowledge and respect these different apostolic charisms among women and men. Today, however, as a result of Vatican II, we are in a better position to recognize and cooperate with the different ways that grace stirs human hearts to express themselves and to be present.to God. To confuse or blur these two distinctive apostolic dynamics runs the danger of not respecting God's call in human hearts and of not cooperating properly in the formation of an appropriate apostolic Christian presence. The monastic and the active styles of Christian apostolate are not meant as hard and fast divisions. Rather, they express tendencies, movements of grace in our hearts. For many people and for many religious congregations, the challenge is to achieve the proper blend of these tendencies. We are speak-ing here, then, of a whole spectrum of development, from the highly monastic with little mixture of the active, right through to the highly active with a similarly small mixture of the monastic. It is like a long clothesline, and every individual and every group in the Church may be imagined as a clothespin that God attaches to some part of the line. As we consider these two different apostolic dynamics and tendencies of grace in the human heart, the issue centers on nothing less than identity-- either the identity of an individual or the corporate identity of a religious congregation. To avoid spiritual schizophrenia and identity confusion, no pins ought to be on the clothesline in the exact center. People who try to focus identity on this central point of the spectrum attempt the impossible balance of a life in apostolic faith of exactly equal monastic and active proportions. Religious congregations that referred in the past to themselves as semi-cloistered have been invited after Vatican II more carefully and decisively to interpret their identity with clear priority for either the monastic or the active style. The semi-cloistered balancing of exactly equal monastic and active dimensions is not possible. And such identity confusion, besides the damage done an individual or a religious congregation, also wreaks havoc in the ministry which, as the product of such identity confusion, must also be con-fused and weakly focused. Before moving now to a description of each of these two apostolic dynamics and lifestyles, two further comments are in order. First, no priority Two Apostolic Lifestyles / 657 of one style over the other is intended. The claim is that the monastic and the active are different and distinctive. There is no claim that they are superior, one to the other, in any way. Second, in describing each dynamic I will center on groups or on individuals who legitimately embody each tendency in a fullness and a clarity--with little qualification and nuance. When seen in such simple clarity and fullness, the dynamic in question can be better appreciated. But it should be understood that for many individuals and reli-gious congregations, the precise challenge is for them to qualify and nuance both dynamics so as to achieve an appropriate and identifying blend of each one.3 The Monastic Apostolic Dynamic I will describe six aspects of the monastic charism. These aspects are not disparate realities that stand on their own; rather they coalesce into a whole sensibility and way of life. As integrated and unified, they make up the monastic experience of God and the monastic vision of reality. These aspects are rooted in a distinctive dynamic at work in human hearts and comprise what, in the Church's long history, is usually called monastic spirituality. 1. Formal prayer is the primary determining influence. In the monastic apostolic lifestyle, the formal prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours and the Eucharist, and any other private contemplation resulting from the liturgy, has a clear and decisive primacy in the development of the Whole way of life. These times of formal prayer are the first items placed in the daily schedule. They literally determine the schedule and the contour of the life. As regularly spread throughout the day, this experience of formal prayer clearly determines, not only the schedule, but the very structure of monastic spiritu-ality. The heart of the monastic person is primarily and thoroughly rapt in the contemplation of God. And simply everything reveals this primacy. 2. Order, routine, regularity and schedule are central. Because of the clear priority of the Liturgy of the Hours and the Eucharist, the monastic life reveals and requires a regularity of order and schedule. Often, only Sundays"and special feasts will vary the fundamental routine of monastic life. An active prejudicefor variety as the spice of life should not lure monastic people away from a profound regularity of life in which the monastic heart is purified and disciplined for docility to the spon-taneity of God's Spirit. The disorder of any inappropriate irregularity is serious enough to trivialize the monastic experience of God. 658 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 3. Being set apart from the world in order to be part of the world. The monastic dynamic always requires an appropriate withdrawal from the world. This being set apart from the world can never become an end in itself, nor an uncaring protection from the world. Should such a lack of concern develop, the monastic life would have lost that apostolic commitment to this world which is essential to all Christian discipleship. But for the monastic heart, it is precisely through being set apart from the world that a care and concern for the world grows and is appropriately expressed. This monastic withdrawal from the world can serve as a reminder for all disciples of Jesus. "If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but the reason that the world hates you is that you do not belong to the world for I chose you out of the world" (Jn 15:19). These words of Jesus profess a type of separation from the world without which serious Christian discipleship can never be possible. The monastic separation from the world-- never meant to be a frightened disinterest, but rather a sharing in God's passionate care for this world--serves as a reminder of Jesus' words for every Christian disciple. This monastic separation from the world is expressed in many different ways. Some monasteries are situated literally out in the middle of nowhere. Others are situated in the midst of an inner city, still crumbling or now being redeveloped. Sometimes the monastic person is set apart from the world in a small, simple apartment-hermitage. Especially in experimentation after Vatican II, monastic women and men have rediscovered that the cloister of the heart contemplatively fascinated in God is the central issue, much more than any grilles and cloistered spaces. And yet, unless there is an appropriate external separation from the world, the monastic heart will be distracted and become trivialized in its simple contemplative focus on God. 4. Stability, solitude and peace figure prominently in the monastic life. From the outset, in discussing the importance of each of these three qual-ities in the monastic life, key distinction must be made between the quality considered as a profound inner reality of heart and as an external expression of that same interior reality. When stability is viewed as a profound, inner quality of heart, it typifies and would be expected of any mature believer-- and not just of the monastic person. Interior stability, as dependability and responsibility before God, always entails the refined sensitivity which dis-tinguishes God's word of true love from the many other seductive words of apparent and fallacious love heard at times within the human heart. This inner stability and refined insight comprise the core of faith maturity and, therefore, would be at the very heart of both monastic and active apostolic lifestyles. Two Apostolic Lifestyles / 659 But there is an appropriate external expression of this inner stability of heart that typifies the monastic lifestyle and not the active. Vowed stability in a monastic congregation, though surely a profound reality of heart in all the members, also unites them in this specific place with a communal bond that facilitates their ongoing search together into God. This kind of external stability, while stimulating profound communal experience of God in the monastic life, obviously interferes with the mobility of the active life. To appreciate the necessary role of solitude in the monastic life, the same distinction must be applied. A regular experience of solitude alone with and in God is another sign of every mature believer, whether called to the monas-tic or the active life. Without such experience of God in solitude, we remain superficial and immature, in our experience of life, ourselves and God. One of the dangers that could weaken the Church's ministry today, especially in the active form, is the situation in which active apostles become too busy for regular prayer in solitude--with the result that their faith becomes immature, superficial and indecisive. But for the monastic heart there must be an appropriate external expression and atmosphere of quiet solitude if one is to maintain a live witness within the Church of an inner solitude with God, a nourishment for which all our hearts year9 and are made. In a similar fashion, peace, as a deep inner quality of heart, is Jesus' gift to every serious disciple. Beyond this mature, inner experience of Jesus' peace, the monastic apostolic lifestyle also provides an external expression and atmosphere of peace, without the disruption and distraction of the active lifestyle. This distinction between inner quaiity of heart and external expression is very helpful in describing both the overlapping and the distinctiveness of these two apostolic lifestyles. I will make use of it later in describing the active style of being apostolic. 5. The apostolate of formal prayer is most typical of monastic spirituafity. The formal prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours and the Eucharist and of individual contemplation is the chief and primary apostolate or ministry of the monastic heart. No other secondary ministry should be practiced except insofar as it relates to and does not interfere with the monastic life of con-templation alone with God. To blur or confuse this ministerial primacy of formal prayer could, once again, trivialize the monastic experience of God. The monastic heart always senses a salvific radiation emanating from its contemplative adventure alone in God. 6. Importance of physical presence in the formation of monastic community. Christian community is usually easier to define than to live. Wherever 660 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 it occurs, it is a union of minds and hearts primarily focused by a shared faith vision. Though many other elements, like similar age, training and interests, may facilitate union of minds and hearts, nothing is more important than a genuinely corporate faith vision regularly experienced and appropri-ately expressed. In the monastic style of Christian community, physical pres-ence, often in silence, plays a very important role in developing and maintaining the unity deriving from a corporate faith vision. A physical togetherness in prayer, reading, eating, sleeping and recreating are further aspects of the monastic dynamic at work in human hearts--and they are not unimportant ones in the living of monastic community. The Active Apostolic Dynamic Contrasted with the monastic, the active apostolic lifestyle is rooted in a different dynamic in the heart, and it also takes a different expression. This difference becomes obvious in the first of the six aspects that I will now describe. 1. Ministry is the primary determining influence. Vatican II, when describing this active dynamic in terms of religious life, speaks of communities in which "the very nature of the religious life requires apostolic action and services.''4 When this active charism is given either to a whole community or to an individual believer, it is ministerial involvement, rather than formal prayer, that determines the contours and the schedule of daily life. This is an important but very subtle point, which requires further eluci-dation, lest it be seriously misunderstood. To give primacy of influence to ministry is not meant to deny the absolute importance of quiet contemplation for the active apostle. Henri Nouwen states clearly the importance of formal prayer for ministry when he says: "If the minister wants to minister 'In the Name' he must live in the Name and speak and act from there.''5 Without mature prayer, mature ministry just is not possible. To deepen their regular contemplative experience is a great challenge today for active apostles, so busy and fatigued with responding to our modern world's needs. Let me be firm and clear in asserting this radical importance of formal prayer for the busy minister. The point to be stressed here, while not denying the importance of regular prayer, concerns the influence that ministry has on the whole makeup of the active life. The legitimate demands of ministry form the schedule of the day. When people enter a new ministry, with the intention of maintaining a past set time for private prayer which now will clearly interfere with availability for the new ministry, this violates the dynamic of the active apostolic charism. Two Apostolic Lifestyles / 661 To have a schedule of formal prayer already in place before entering into the new ministerial situation is backwards for active apostles. Rather, they must first insert themselves into the new ministry and get an honest sense of its reasonable demands. Only then can their conviction about regular contemplation determine the specifics of when, where and how long they should pray each day. That there be regular contemplation is beyond doubt, regardless of ministry. But the determination of the specifics of regular contemplation depends upon the demands of the new ministry. For the active apostle, ministry, then, while not a substitute for regular contemplation, is the primary determining influence in this whole way of life. 2. Flexibility for change is central. Because busy ministry and service of others is essential to active spiritu-ality, a regular routine scheduled around formal prayer is not possible. A flexibility of heart and spirit is called for, in order to respond to the challenges and needs of a world so often in great upheaval and unrest. The earlier distinction between a profound reality of the heart and its external expression is important here again. Flexibility of heart is not some-thing that only active apostles know. A profound inner flexibility of spirit makes possible genuine docility to the spontaneity of the Holy Spirit--and is always a sign of spiritual maturity, both for monastic and for active people. Responsible involvement in complicated and unsettled situations, something not usual in monastic life, calls forth in the active apostle a distinctive external expression and practice of this mature flexibility of heart. The struggle and anguish involved in much of our response to Vatican II reveals how hard it is to change a routine and how prone many of us are to find our security in a rather rigid routine rather than in a faithfully loving God. As indicated above I believe that a routine is not only healthy, but necessary for living out the monastic charism. But, while a certain routine is necessary for all human life, the active apostle must always resist the escape into an overly monastic routine and must learn to trust the gift of flexibility that is always part of the active apostolic dynamic in the Church. 3. Ability discerningly to find, be with and serve God in all activity. Someone in a busy, active life can become very scattered and distracted. One's attention almost constantly flits from one thing to another. One's energy and concern are poured out in one situation after another. Drained and running, one loses a sense of focus, of unity and maybe even of funda-mental meaning. As life gets more and more hectic and chaotic, burnout of body and spirit sets in. Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 Moments of special religious experience in formal prayer cannot, all by themselves, stem the tide of this heightening discouragement and tension. More than regular formal prayer is needed. Despite a great desire for unity and integration, human consciousness is capable, often without being aware of it, of various compartmentalizations. One of these is the split between formal prayer and the activity of life. In such a split, the surge of religious experience in private prayer ebbs in the face of all the busy activity of the rest of the day. The frantic, frenetic business of the day often calls forth and reveals in the apostle little sense of God. Private prayer is stubbornly main-tained in an attempt to keep religious experience alive. But such an ebb and flow of religious experience actually saps the apostle's energy and finally fails in accomplishing the desired integration in which all the activity of a day contributes to, rather than interferes with, a person's unifying religious experience. The proper balance of regular prayer and discerning involvement in the business of everyday can simplify and purify the focus and commitment of a heart so that the compartmentalized split of human experience into sacred and secular is gradually healed in a unity whereby all human experience bbc0mes religious--and finds God. In my own opinion, this is the greatest challenge still facing active apostolic spirituality. Often, past religious for-mation produced a compartmentalized relationship between prayer and activ-ity. Religious formation, in many ways, is still struggling to help active apostles find the proper interior integration that facilitates, and actually makes possible, the religious experience of finding, being with and serving God in all activity. Active apostles need a reflective sensitivity, in order to recognize the subtle but real difference between a selfish manipulation of others that finds self and a generously humble service of others that finds God. Only a genuine experience of the intimacy of God's love as beyond all other love and inviting a radical abandonment of self in love to God, together with a rigorously careful discernment of inner affective experiences, can make possible a human, loving presence that finds God in all activity and dealings with others. Vatican 11 makes a similar claim when it says that, for com-munities in religious life whose very nature requires apostolic action and services, "their entire apostolic activity should be animated by a religious spirit.''~ 4. Mobility and apostolic availability are key in active spirituality. Because mission and active ministry are so central to the active apostolic dynamic, mobility of body and spirit are important. Any rigidity in a person can interfere with the fruitfulness of this charism. In an active religious corn- Two Apostolic Lifestyles / 663 munity, the members come together precisely in order to be sent out on specific ministries, each of which shares in God's mission of salvation in Jesus. Any stubborn selfishness or immature insecurity will always corrode that mobility for mission which should characterize active spirituality. Apostolic availability is a readiness of spirit born of a freedom radically fascinated with a loving God's faithful commitment to us. Because of the inevitable limitation of human weakness and sinfulness, this freedom never perdures perfectly in a human heart. It must be won and received again and again. But the more this precious freedom grows in a human heart or in a whole congregation the more an availability of spirit allows the person or congregation to be thoroughly committed to a present ministry, but always with a readiness for wherever God's love may lead in the future. 5. The prayer of the apostolate is most typical of active spirituafity. The phrase that typifies monastic spirituality is reversed here. Granting, once again, the absolute value of regular contemplation in any serious spiritual life, the typical and more important prayer of the active apostle is a distinctively prayerful presence in and through all activity. This is related to. the third element above, i.e. the need to find, be with and serve God in all activity. The prayer of the apostolate should not be misunderstood as that claim and practice that many of us struggled with through the 1960s and 1970s: "my work is my prayer." Most of us now know the heresy.of such a claim, even though active apostles who would not want to profess an identification of work and prayer can still easily be pressured into living such a heresy. We have learned again over recent years that for no one does work become prayer, unless that person regularly stops working--and prays. So the prayer of the apostolate does not mean any simpliste identification of work and prayer. Rather the prayer of the apostolate involves two mutual and integral movements. The first is an appropriate, regular involvement in contempla-tion, which gradually spills over and renders pi'ayerful everything the person does, says and is. The second is an involvement in activity which stirs a desire for, and sometimes provides the subject matter of, formal contemplation in private. As one grows faithful and sensitive to these two movements, a pres-ence in all activity develops which is prayerful--a presence which is the Spirit of God praying and which reveals those clear signs of the Spirit mentioned in chapter five of Galatians. ¯ 6. A unity of mind and heart extending far beyond physical presence. Whereas the corporate faith vision of those sharing the monastic charism 664 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 requires much physical presence with one another, the active apostolic dynamic, because its very nature requires apostolic action and services, does not depend as much on the physical presence of the members to each other. It can foster a union of minds and hearts among members missioned all over the world in various ministries. Obviously, this corporate bond is not auto-matic. It is not the effect of any one person's fiat. It cannot be something superficially external. Rather, a unity rooted deeply in the hearts of all mem-bers will always require a profound attitude of heart on the part of each member, a distinctive type of missioning process and the careful practice of certain human, symbolic means. To say that the active charism depends less on the physical presence of the members than the monastic does certainly does not mean that physical presence can be simply disregarded in active communities. It is inhuman to imagine that members of a local live-in community, whatever the size, can develop a union of minds and hearts if they never gather together in quality physical presence. However, without disregarding the need for some such physical presence, we must not conceive the communitarian dimension Of the active charism according to monastic norms. Many active congregations today continue to struggle in local communities with how much physical presence of all members and what quality of presence of each is needed if there is to be a genuine, faith union of minds and hearts. If this struggle is not better resolved soon, increasing numbers of active religious, caught in the tension between involvement in an exciting ministry and the boring frustration of no shared vision in the local community, may well find celibacy too heavy a burden to bear alone. The De-monasticizing of Active Religious Life As religious have seriously responded to Vatican II's invitation to return to "the original inspiration" behind their own institute, a greater realization of the clear distinction between the differing and graced dynamics of the monastic and active has grown among us. In the wake of this growing clarity there also comes the realization that in the past we have not always respected this distinction with enough care. A major part of the renewal of religious life, therefore, has involved the de-monasticizing of institutes which were, in their founding, and which should, with greater fidelity over the years have continued to be, actively apostolic rather than monastic. This de-monasticizing process has not been easy. Mistakes have occurred. At times, inevitably, overreaction has set in. And many individuals have experienced great personal anguish in the midst of the confusion and turmoil of critiquing and of chang-ing, through experiment, revered and long-standing practices. But this process, although most painful, was unavoidable. To avoid it Two Apostolic Lifestyles / 665 would have been as serious a refusal as to violate the reverent d~cility due the Spirit of God who invites us to be faithful to the genuine, graced identity of our religious institute. In the past twenty years much headway has been made in realigning the fundamental conception, formation programs, ministerial practices and daily living of communities according to their rediscovered, original identity. Though the process is surely not finished, we are presently involved, appropriately enough, in a period of careful assessment of the fruits of this renewal process.7 A successful evaluation can help us to sift the precious wheat of fidelity to the essentials of religious life, as incarnated in appropriate contemporary expressions of the original founding charism, from the deceptive (though often attractive!) weeds of contemporary develop-ments that either destroy a necessary continuity of identity or shortsightedly try to defend older forms, which are now, and ought to be, simply dead. Vatican II reminds us of the importance of fidelity to the unique charism and identity of each religious community. "It serves the best interests of the Church for communities to have their own special character and purpose."s In line with this directive Thomas Merton cautions us against confusing the monastic and active dynamic: "The monastic life must not be evaluated in terms of active religious life, and the monastic orders should not be equated with other religious institutes, clerical or otherwise. The monastic community does not exist for the sake of any apostolic or educational work, even as a secondary end. The works of the monk are not justified by their external results but only by their relevance to his monastic life alone with God.''9 In conclusion, let me point to three results of respecting the clear dis-tinction between the active and monastic dynamic. First, we must be careful how we make use of the Liturgy of the Hours. In the monastic community the Liturgy of the Hours is a primary determinant and focus of the whole day, at which the physical presence of all is expected. In the active commu-nity, a regular communal prayer besides th.e Eucharist seems necessary. Some use of the Liturgy of the Hours may serve as an appropriate regular com-munity prayer. On the other hand, some other type of communal prayer may better serve a particular community. If something o.f the Liturgy of the Hours is used, it should not become a primary determinant and focus of schedule, to the detriment of the members' ministerial involvement. So, depending on the size and variety of the local community, the physical presence of all members is neither expected nor possible. However, the active community would be deficient in its unified faith vision if each member did not share the same desire to pray together regularly--which desire would always take expression in physical presence, except for ministerial reasons. But for an active community to use the Liturgy of the Hours in a monastic fashion would be to violate its God-given charism. 666 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 Second, members of active communities cannot avoid a natural monas-ticizing tendency as they get older. As the biological breakdown of old age sets in, religious become less and less active, they settle into a much more regularized pattern, and the apostolate of prayer becomes more predominant in their daily lives. If we are careful of certain presuppositions, this natural monasticizing tendency will not necessarily violate the active apostolic nature of a community. But the older members, whose lifestyle is now understand-ably more monastic, must not claim that this monastic lifestyle is the genuine identity of the whole congregation. Another subtle change of attitude could be entailed here. If a section of the motherhouse is located where many of the older, retired sisters are living, then naturally the style and schedule of life for that part of the house will be more monastic--as it should be. However, we must then be careful .that this more monastic schedule and style not be idolized as typical for all other houses of the congregation, an image that motherhouses often in the past have projected. Such a misunderstanding would be a serious interference with the unity and ministerial effectiveness of the whole congregation. In fact, it can be downright demoralizing and dis-torting for younger members. Furthermore, though these older members are much more inactive than earlier in their lives, they must be helped to keep the active zeal and concerns of their hearts alive and peacefully integrated with their bodily inactivity. These older members must also have a live sense of the ministry of old age and retirement. They must be helped to realize how valuable and necessary for the whole congregation's ministerial effectiveness is their own ministry of prayer and sacrifice. So often older religious think they have retired from ministry. I cannot stress enough the need for the elderly, and for everyone, to realize that while the aged and the sick must humbly retire from active involvement they never retire from ministry. The final and most important ministry is dying. If these concerns are not forgotten, then the natural monasticizing tendency of old age 'will not interfere with the active, apostolic nature of a religious community. Third, in the long history of women's religious congregations, for various historical reasons which are beyond my simple point here, the Church has had great difficulty in recognizing the active charism at work in the hearts of various foundresses. Angela Merici, Mary Ward, Marguerite Bourgeoys and Louise de Marillac and their followers are but a very few examples of the suffering this confusion has caused. In some ways the Church still continues to struggle today with this issue of more fully acknowledging and facilitating the active charism within communities of women religious. It is very clear that the Church's welcoming approval of valid contemporary forms of active spirituality among women religious--and without imposing any additional, Two Apostolic Lifestyles / 667 illegitimate, monastic expectations-- will enormously enrich God's mission of justice and love in our world. This article has described two different charisms, two different apostolic lifestyles, the active and the monastic. The Spirit of God has created and kept these two charisms alive in the Church. In a recent talk to the American bishops Michael Buckley, S.J., summarized the treatment of charism in the document "Directives for Mutual Relations Between Bishops and Religious in the Church": "Charism always involves three factors: It is an enabling gift of the Spirit which so conforms the recipients to Christ that they build the Church.''~° Three things, then: a gift of the Spirit, intimacy with Jesus, for the sake of the Church. As we come to appreciate further the active and monastic lifestyles in the Church, it is the hope of this writer that we will not confuse or corrupt these different charisms, but cooperate with what God intends, through them, for the unity of the Church, the holiness of its members and the service of a faith-filled justice in our world. Paul's words to the Corinthians both confirm and stimulate our hope: There is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit; there are all sorts of service to be done, but always to the same Lord; working in all sorts of differ-ent ways in different people, it is the same God who is working in all of them. The particular way in which the Spirit is given to each person is for a good purpose (1 Co 12:4-7). NOTES ~They Speak By Silence, a Carthusian (Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor Inc.), p.3. 2One Pace Beyond--The Life of Nano Nagle, M. Raphael Consedine, P.B.V.M., (Moorabbin, Victoria: L.R. McKinnon & Co., 1977), p. 7. 3As a result of their study of the document "Essential Elements in the Church's Teach-ing on Religious Life as Applied to Institutes Dedicated to Works of the Apostolate," Franciscans are investigating and proposing the evangelical life as the best description of their charism. It remains to be seen whether this evangelical life is a third type of spirituality different from what I am calling the monastic and the active, whether it is its own unique blend of the active and monastic, or whether it is a particular version of an active spirituality. 668 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 4Vatican 11, "Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Life," #8. 5Soul Friend, Kenneth Leech, (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1977), p. viii. 6Vatican II, "Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of Religious Life," #8. 7See my two articles "Assessing and Choosing Even as the Journey Continues," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, March/April 1984, and "Come Let Us Talk This Over: Issues in Spirituality, 1985," Part 1, 'REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, July/August 1985, and Part II, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, September/October 1985. 8Vatican II, "Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Life," #2. 9The Monastic Journey, T. Merton, (New York: Image, 1978), p. 213. ~°See "The Charism and Identity of Religious Life," REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, September/ October 1985, p. 661. From Tablet to Heart: Internalizing New Constitutions I and II Address: by Patricia Spillane, M.S. C. Price: $1.25 per copy, plus postage. Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Canonical Considerations of Autonomy and Hierarchical Structure Elizabeth McDonough, O.P. Sister McDonough is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Canon Law at The Catholic University of America (Washington, DC 20064). This article is based on a presen-tation she made to the LCWR convention in New Orleans last September. In the Middle Ages--from the grips of which many people suspect canon law has never been freed--canonical discipline was known as "practical theo-logy." That is, it was not a separate science as it is today, with specialized formulators, practitioners, codifiers and interpreters. What people did on a regular basis became operative norms of action. By authoritative interven-tion or by custom these operative norms of action eventually became recog-nized as laws in the technical sense of the Aristotelian/Thomistic construct, that is: An ordinance of reason formulated and promulgated by one charged with care of the common good. At that point in time the reasonableness of the norm, the intelligence of the individual, and each person's freedom of choice were paramount. Also in the Middle Ages--from the grips of which many people like-wise suspect religious life has never been freed--the ancient monastic and recently discovered mendicant ideas of religious life held sway. By that time the former was already highly clericalized, feudally land-based, rather well-off, and subject to frequent reforms. The latter was a new notion capitalizing on mobility, the development of towns, the discovery of trade, the rise of universities, and renewed lay piety. It, too, soon became rather clericalized; comfortably land-based, economically well-off, and in need of frequent reforms. 669 670 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 Nearly three centuries later at the time of Trentmfrom the grips of which most people are quite certain canon law and religious life have not been freed--canonical science was heavily influenced by nominalism, voluntarism, legalism and emerging casuistry. At that point in time the reasonableness of the norm, the intelligence of the individual, and one's freedom of choice were no longer paramount. The then recognized forms of religious life were suffering badly from the mediocrity and compromise and half measures that commonly accompany the waning of initial fervor, the dissipation of energies, the loss of resources, the monotony of the ordinary, the discovery of personal interpretation, and the sometimes misplaced convenience of dis-pensation, exception and privilege. Similarly, all of society was in flux: notions of political power, emerging nations, methods of warfare, forms of communication, frontiers of exploration, monetary systems, philosophical reasoning, theological conclusions, and ecclesiastical structures all experienced incredible upheavals and alterations. And in the midst of this social and ecclesial melange, the desperately needed "new idea" of apostolic religious life was conceived by Angela Merici, Ignatius Loyola, Mary Ward, Louise de Marillac and Jane de Chantal. These charismatic individuals were fol-lowed in a few centuries by Catherine McAuley and many others. Perhaps it was a failure of imagination on the part of the ecclesiastical establishment that perpetuated the ancient, cloistered, monastic model in theological reasoning and canonical practice for women religious. But reli-gious life itself simply continued to develop. Eighty percent of the religious groups ever founded became established between Trent and the twentieth century, and non-cloistered, non-solemnly vowed, apostolic religious life for women was finally universally recognized, but not until 1900. Canon law-- retaining some remnant of its medieval ',practical theology" identity--could not ignore the reality of the "new idea" in religious life forever, although recognition came rather slowly by our standards. Relating to the Present But what precisely is the connection of all this with the topic at hand, namely "Canonical Considerations of Self-Determination, Just Autonomy and Hierarchical Structure"? The connection is this: At the moment recog-nized forms of religious life are suffering badly from the mediocrity and compromise and half measures that commonly accompany the waning of initial fervor, the dissipation of energies, the loss of resources, the monotony of the ordinary, the discovery of personal interpretation, and the sometimes misplaced convenience of dispensation, exception and privilege. Similarly, at the present time all of society is in flux: notions of political power, emerg-ing nations, methods of warfare, forms of communication, frontiers of explo- Canonical Considerations / (171 ration, monetary systems, philosophical reasoning, theological conclusions, and ecclesiastical structures are all experiencing incredible upheavals and alterations. We are clearly in a post-conciliar era incredibly comparable to the late Middle Ages and to post-Tridentine times. In the midst of this social and ecclesial melange, religious life is again in need--perhaps desperately in need--of yet another "new idea." But those of us who are currently members of established communities, more than likely, are not the bearers of this desperately "new idea." At best we are perhaps--or certainly have the opportunity to be--artisans of a transition. And with proper understand-ing and use, this writer contends that canon law can be a great aid in this transition. Fostering a Transition To illustrate the transitional role of contemporary religious institutes, let us for a moment take the medieval methodological approach of canon law as "practical theology" and look at what current "theology in practice" in the 1983 code suggests about this life we call "religious." To begin, the new law talks about life: an identifiable form of life, a substantive form of life, a stable form of life. It speaks of a life clearly understood and freely chosen: a life of following Christ, a life of total dedication to God. It con-siders this life a particular state in the Church undertaken by profession of the evangelical counsels and lived in accord with the supreme law of the Gospel as expressed in the proper law of one's institute. It is a life involving some fixed organizational structures, certain obligations and rights, various spiritual exercises, some restrictions on personal and apostolic activities, numerous clear procedures for admission and departure, and a public con-nection to the local and universal Church. From the point of view of "practical theology" the new code requires proper law specification in seventy-four out of the one hundred fifty-three canons that apply to religious institutes. In other words, in nearly half of the canons concerning religious, the institute itself must or may determine specific elements of the life of its members, both individually and collectively. Thus, widespread distinctions in practice are not excluded by the universal law requirements for common life, identifiable superiors, necessary forma-tion, apostolic limitations, departure procedures, and the like. The prin-ciple of subsidiarity is canonically incorporated in the new code, and opportunities for practical variations are amply provided. How well or to what extent these are utilized depends entirely on one's proper law. Proper-law revision, or the writing of constitutions, as experienced during the last two decades in the life of religious institutes has been no easy task, however. In some instances the process was carried out in an ambience of 672 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 internal polarization that fomented contentions among members as each retreated to his or her corner courageously defending the truth for the sake of God. In other instances the formulation of an institute's truly representa-tive legislation was complicated by a certain lack of contemporaneity in institutional and hierarchical Church structures themselves. Nevertheless, these difficulties do not negate the fact that it is precisely the revision of proper-law wherein lies the opportunity for institutes to incorporate new ideas and new experiences of religious life. Good proper-law revision allows them to accomplish this without having to shoulder the burden of being the initiators or receivers of the desperately needed "new idea" mentioned above. Moreover, incorporating new ideas and experiences in proper-law to the greatest extent possible now, can help pave the way for later canonical acceptance of other, newer ideas and experiences, however long that may take. Institutionalizing Charisms Backtracking momentarily before going on, let us note that the phrase "new idea" is entirely inadequate. Ideas have consequences, but they are not the only realities that have consequences. And religious life is never primarily or merely an idea, an intellectual endeavor. It is a gift of the Spirit to, in, and through the Church. Charisms are like seeds planted in particularly fertile soil in a specific historical context. They are shaped and reshaped by the exigencies of history, by the fortunes and misfortunes of the passage of time. They are nourished and grow and evolve in the context of everyday life with everyday people--interspersed here and there by those we happily refer to as "saints" (while being equally happy we never had to live with them). Charisms are never captured in constitutions or any collection of fundamental and secondary documents. Charisms live in people or they do not live at all. Legal norms, on the other hand, are externally formulated and externally measurable. They can never totally express internal motivation. Thus, the basic import of any constitutions and any collection of fundamental and secondary documents is not merely their juridical perspective and canoni-cal determination. The legal heritage of an institute, capturing as best it can the articulated charism, is always conditioned by the emerging values of real life as experienced by those inspired to embrace the charism. People are, you see, an undeniably important element of the canonical system. On another level, the institutional Church, which in some form or another has been with us for nearly two millennia, must itself occasionally reach out and embrace a genuinely new charism. In such instances the ecclesial structure must fracture its preset boundaries, redefine its established cate-gories, and reorient its institutional life in order to incorporate, that is, take Canonical Considerations / 673 into its structures, a new breath of the Spirit. This reaching out and embracing a charism has probably happened only three times in Church history: for Benedictine monasticism, medieval mendicancy, and post-reformation apostolic orders. In each instance, institutional embracing of the new charism occurred quite slowly, required numerous adjustments and experienced set-backs over the years. The time may very well be ripe for another institutional embracing of truly new charisms of consecrated life in the Church. If so, this too will occur slowly, require adjustments, and experience setbacks. And, if history can offer us any objective insights regarding the process and its effects, one might be cautioned to note that once the institutional Church reaches out and embraces a genuinely new charism, the rest of the story is that of the charism's institutionalization. It is simply a matter of time and human nature: initial ideals are eventually dimmed or forgotten; initial fervor is slowly chilled or lost; initial Gospel goals are gradually subordinated to preservation of the new institution. Suffice it to say that the readers of this article are, more likely than not, part of already established, already institutionalized charisms and, as such, are not the first wave of any new movement in religious life. Limiting Self-Determination and Autonomy The parameters of ecclesial embrace and the exigencies of historical evolu-tion are the primary limiting factors in the "self-determination"aspect of any religious founder or foundress, of any religious institute. Self-determina-tion is never absolute. It has always been far from so for religious life, and still is. But this is also the case, for example, regarding members of the Christian faithful in general. In the new code all Christians are entitled to form associations (c. 215). All Christians should lead holy lives and promote the building up of the Church (c. 210). All Christians have the right and duty to work towards announcing the Gospel of :salvation (c. 211) and to undertake apostolic activi-ties (c. 216). But no Christians are obliged in any way to seek official recog-nition for these :activities in 'any canonical form unless they choose to do them in the name of the Church '(c.301,). And no Christian is obliged in any way to choose any form of consecrated life (c. 573 §2). Yet the self-determination of any Christian (which is never absolute to begin with) is quite circumscribed and channeled--limited, if you will--by either of the above choices once made. As individuals we cannot be both teachers and nurses at the same time. As communities we cannot be both monastic and apostolic at the same time. As institutes we cannot be both Ursuline and Franciscan at the same time. Thus, in an era that prefers to deal with "both/and," we are sometimes faced with an inevitable "either/or" because 674 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 no self-determination is absolute. Similarly the "just autonomy" of any institute is always and only to be considered within the context of ecclesial embrace and historical evolu-tion. Philosophically speaking, autonomy refers to freedom from external control and censure. It guarantees room for action and reflection without disruption, but it includes necessary coordination in reference to the whole. Nevertheless, any auto nomos, from the Greek to be self-normed, is funda-mentally limited by creation and redemption: by our realistic situation of being creatures in an ambience of and affected by evil. As individuals we have from the start only limited independence that remains always relative: so, too, with religious institutes in the Church. Appreciating the Role of Obligation Here it may be important to digress somewhat to consider the bias that supports the current canonical system. It is a philosophical/theological con-struct characterized by valuing status, common good and obligation. This is so in contrast to more recent philosophical/theological constructs character-ized by valuing human dignity, individual advantage and personal rights. Neither need be mutually exclusive of, or in direct contradiction to, the other. But both have often appeared so. Even with the advances of the last few centuries and the affirmations of recent popes and the articulations of Vatican Council II, the former con-struct is the one that clearly underlies the new law. In the new code, the communal context of "status" constantly qualifies any affirmations of equality in dignity. In it, the common good--perceived as a set of conditions enabling the attainment of reasonable objectives for the sake of which individuals have decided to collaborate--is clearly prior to independent, indi-vidual advantage. In it, rights are subordinate to and conditioned upon duties intrinsic to the Gospel and to our social nature. In it, the protection of rights is for the sake of fuller participation in one's evangelical and social obliga-tions. And in it, patriarchal paradigms and male-dominated linear images still predominate. But what of the alternative constructs? What of, for example, the philosophical and theological mind-set that emerges from the social contract and human rights theories of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau? These are to a great extent the basis of our constitutional republic and the foundation of American civil law and jurisprudence. Prescinding from their equally patriarchal paradigms and male-dominated linear images, note that social-contract and human-rights theories appear to posit the pristine existence of free, independent but highly vulnerable individuals willing to ransom a portion of personal autonomy for collective security. Rights are the "playing Canonical Considerations / 675 cards" or the "poker chips" of the barter: some cannot be relinquished (these are termed "inalienable"); others can be relinquished but can also be recalled (in breach of contract). It may appear, at times, that the institu-tional Church would be much better off with a healthy dose of American civil liberties incorporated into its legal system: with a civil rights basis; with non-hierarchical checks and balances; with protection by administrative pro-cedures; with guarantees of prior notification, due process, provision for counsel, and the like. And, for the most part, this is probably not only an accurate observation but also a viable possibility and partial reality. Witness, for instance, the numerous appeals boards and administrative tribunals that already exist in many religious institutes and dioceses to complement the heavily hierarchical Church system. Indeed, it is clear that these two systems are not, and need not be considered, contradictory or mutually exclusive. Nevertheless, there is a significant difference between the Medieval and Enlightenment mind-sets, and the difference is crucial for ecclesiastical law and especially for religious institutes. Social-contract and human-rights con-structs, while very affirming of life and dignity in theory, are singularly inept at guaranteeing life and dignity to the individual from the community in practice. This is because one finds in them no legal locus of obligation. They are based, if you will, on the implicit myth that somewhere there exists a Utopian world of perfectly free humans who have no alienated or usurped rights and who experience no unresolved conflicts, individually or collectively. Reality is not quite so Utopian. So, for example, in the American social-contract/ human-rights systems, suppose you are .walking over a bridge beneath which there is someone in the water drowning. Note that, even though the drowning person has affirmed rights to life, education, suitable housing, equal-opportunity employment, a just wage, and more, there is absolutely no civil-law focus of obligation for anyone to come to his or her aid. This is not to say there is no moral obligati?n to come tothe person's aid, but there is no legal one. In fact, the legal system--because of numerous possibilities for litigation--at times seems even to militate against fulfillment of one's moral obligations in such situations. And note that we are not discussing here the medical/moral/legal subtleties of prenatal life or of the terminally ill. We simply have a recognizably fully alive human being with numerous affirmed rights who ends up quite dead because of lack of legal obligation in the system itself. In sharp contrast, the Aristotelian/Thomistic system of law, and even further back the Judaic/Talmudic system of law, are based primarily on obligations: common, mutual, reciprocal obligations that arise from a cor-porate experience. The Hebrew, the Christian, the religious is chosen-- passive voice--be it at Sinai, through the Last Supper, or by a call to conse- 676 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 crated life. We are chosen. This is not to suggest that we, therefore, have no responsibilities; but rather, to highlight the fact that the initiative is God's. Only the response is ours. Thus it is the beginning of our system's notion of legal obligation that becomes the crucial difference in the end.~ We do not begin by bartering away any pristine "rights." We receive a gift, with consequences. The legal constructs of our lives relate to divine events in and through which everything necessary for the eternal salvation of everyone for all ages has somehow already been given, in some sense even commanded. They are the same divine events in and through which we have freely assumed personal perpetual obligations. And they provide for an amazing absence of Utopian myths. For there is in salvation history ample evidence of human failure, outright betrayal, personal and collective infidelity, repeated digressions, and an uncanny unwillingness to live up to our part of the bargain. In contrast, on the part of God, there is ample evidence of long-suffering patience, relentless forgiveness and unswerving fidelity to the promise of mercy. Moreover, if we do not read the Gospel too selectively, even after having done everything expected, you and I have no basic right or even a distant claim to any reward whatsoever, although we are assured in the end of attaining the greatest possible goal. Situating Obligation in Hierarchical Structures The importance of proper law--the law that obtains for one's own insti-tute- has already been mentioned in regard to fostering the current transition in the paradigms of religious life. Proper law is also crucial to any element of self-determination and just autonomy within the Church's hierarchical structure. And the central element of ecclesiastical proper law, as well as ecclesiastical universal law, is the locus of incumbent obligation. This is what gives our laws content and objectivity for assuring the protection of values and the exercise of rights, even if these values and rights are not directly named as such. In fact, whether or not the values and rights are actually named in the law is of minimal importance. Perhaps at this point an example is in order. There is an ancient principle of Roman Law which states: Where there is a right, there is a remedy (Ubi ius, ibi remedium). It is in the logical contrapositive that we more readily recognize the truth of the principle, namely: If there is no remedy to be found for violation of an affirmed right, there is really no right at all. With this in mind, let us proceed to the example. It is an example not taken from ttie~ law for religious so that the content will not distract from the point intend~dl. Chnon 22'1! §'2',of~ the 1983 code states: If the Christian faithful are sum- Canonical Considerations / 677 moned to judgment by c6mpetent authority, they have the right to be judged in accord with the prescriptions of law applied with equity. It sounds wonder-ful. But what is there to guarantee that this will, indeed, be the case? The answer: incumbent obligations and opportunities to insist on their fulfill-ment as provided in the canons on judicial procedures. °The affirmed right of c. 221 §2 can be vindicated because all tribunal personnel must take an oath that they will fulfill their functions properly and faithfully (c. 1454). All tribunal personnel must disqualify themselves from involvement in cases concerning: (1) persons with whom they have a first-cousin or closer relationship, (2) persons for whom they are guardians or trustees~ (3) persons with whom they have a close friendship or for whom they feel a great animosity, as well as (4) those instances in which they desire to make a profit or avoid some loss (c. 1448). And if the tribunal personnel do not disqualify themselves, the parties in the case can lodge an objection (c. 1229) to which the court must attend before the trial can continue (c. 1451). All tribunal personnel are forbidden to accept any gifts whatsoever for the performance of their duties (c. 1456). And any tribunal personnel are subject to penalties, including loss of office, if they refuse to deal with a case for which they are competent, or attempt to deal with a case for which they are not competent, or violate the law of secrecy, or inflict damage on the parties out of malice or serious negligence (c. 1457). In other words, these procedural canons--specifying as they do the legal locus of obligations and providing the opportunity to insist that the obliga-tions be fulfilled--are really what give canonical force to c. 221 §2. But the point is this: These canons, albeit with different numbers, were also in the former code. The affirmation of current c. 221 §2 was not. How much this newly affirmed "right" would mean without these related obligations is questionable, for indeed: If there is no remedy, there is really no right. And how much this newly incorporated right actually adds to the related, already long-standing procedures still remains to be seen. All the foregoing in norway intends to ignore the fact that. even in the best of legal systems incumbent obligations can upon occasion be observed primarily in the breach. The intention is, rather, to provide a clear under-standing of the importance of obligations in the Church's legal system in order to investigate more meaningfully the numerous obligations contained in the canons concerning religious institutes. Religious Institutes and Obligations To begin our discussion, as well as to illustrate the complexity of the: interrelationships among canons, let us consider thosecanons contaii~ed under the title "Obligations and Rights of Institutes and of their Members,." cc. 678 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 662-672. As often as one might comb the (official Latin) text of the canons, there is not one strict right (ius) to be found. But at this point in the presenta-tion, such a discovery should be no great surprise: It is the locus of incumbent obligation, not the affirmation of rights, that is the substantive base for our legal system. Moreover, listed in these canons there are numerous obliga-tions from which it is clear that what other legal systems call "rights" will be respected even though not mentioned by name. To pursue the practical content of obligations/rights in the code as related to self-determination, just autonomy and hierarchical structure, we will isolate one of the canons in this section and investigate its canonical consequences. Perhaps the most important obligation listed in this set of canons is that of c~ 670: Each institute must (debet) supply for its members all those things necessary for attaining the end of their vocation. The debet is canonically preceptive language. The subject, object, and matter of the obligation are, respectively, the institute, its members, and necessities. Proper law should certainly address itself to the objective meaning of "necessities," and the meaning should have some reference to what is justly judged so in an equit-able manner by competent authority within the norms, structures, and resources of a particular institute. There is some problem, to be sure, with relating mandated necessities to the end of one's vocation when that end ultimately transcends temporal realities and, thus, is effectively precluded from the possibility of practical evaluation. But consequences of the mandate in c. 670 are extensive and have already been addressed by canonists.2 At the very least, this obligation on the part of institutes is interpreted as requiring those in positions, of government to provide for, and as giving members a corresponding right to: (1) sound, complete, approved proper law, (2) structural provision for general chapters, superiors and councils, (3) systematic formation, (4) stable community life, (5) suitable options for apostolic action or internal work in accord with the institute's mission, and (6) appropriate material goods and .opportunities for ongoing health care, formation, work and renewal. Note that none of the mutual obligations/rights in this list are meaningful except as connected to a coherent legal system that can guarantee their fulfill-ment. And recall that in Church law the locus of incumbent obligation is what provides objective content and procedural safeguards for affirmed or unaffirmed rights. It is the locus of incumbent obligation that is the basis for whatever down-ward or lateral accountability might exist in our hierarchical system, which Canonical Considerations / 679 operates primarily on the intrinsic principle of upward accountability. That is, in fulfilling well the obligations it has towards its members (i.e., its down-ward accountability), any institute is also more than likely fulfilling its obliga-tions towards the other elements of the hierarchical structure (i.e., its lateral and upward accountability). Simply put, an institute cares for downward accountability by attending to the legal obligations it has towards its members. It does this by providing for at least the six categories mentioned as flowing from the requirement of c. 670. But in so doing the institute is not only protecting the rights of individual members. It is also establishing itself on a sound operational basis for relating to equivalent juridic persons, such as other religious institutes, in lateral accountability. And it is likewise con-tributing to its own just autonomy in the upward accountability of the insti-tute to higher authorities in the hierarchical structure. Thus, all of the mutual obligations/rights that derive from c. 670 are directly or indirectly related to the question of an institute's existence and just autonomy. But the motive for action and the locus of accountability in c. 670-- fulfilling obligations toward members--shift the focus for the institute from that of accepting the collective imposition of alien restrictions to that of guaranteeing the possible pursuance of someone's response to having been chosen. It is possible to approach this accountability from an entirely different perspective, namely: from the recog-nition of just autonomy for religious institutes in c. 586. Indeed, the result of beginning with c. 586 might even be somewhat similar, as will be seen in the next section. Yet the basis for action in the former approach is probably more canonically sound. Religious Institutes and Just Autonomy Canon 586 states that it belongs to local ordinaries to preserve and protect (servare ac tueri) the autonomy of each institute. In the same canon "just autonomy of life, especially of government" is recognized by universal law. The canon goes on to describe this "just autonomy" as that by which insti-tutes enjoy (gaudeant) their own discipline and have the power to pre~serve (servare valeant) their patrimony3 intact. The patrimony of an institute of consecrated life is described in c. 578 as the intention and purpose of the founders/foundresses, sanctioned by competent ecclesiastical authority, con-cerning the nature, end, spirit and character of the institute as well as its sound traditions. The canon adds that this patrimony is to be faithfully preserved (servanda est) by all. Elsewhere, in c. 631 § 1, the general chapter is given special responsibility both to protect (tueri) the institute's patrimony as described in c. 587 and to promote its appropriate renewal (accommodatam renovationem). Still elsewhere in c. 587 §1, institutes must (debent) incor-porate into their constitutions .whatever is established regarding their 680 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 patrimony in order to faithfully protect (ad. fide#us tuendam) the voca-tion and identity of their instutute. Another set of canons is also pertinent to the investigation at hand: cc. 675 §1, 611 #2, 677 §1, and 671. The first states that in apostolic institutes apostolic action is part of their very nature (ipsam eorundem naturam). The second states that a bishop's consent for canonical erection of a religious house includes the right (ius) to exercise the works proper to the institute according to the norm of law and within any restrictions contained in the consent. The third states that superiors and members of institutes should faithfully retain (fide#ter retineanO and prudently accommodate (prudenter accommodenO the mission and works of their institute. And the fourth states that members may not undertake pgsitions outside of those proper to the institute,without the permission of legitimate superiors. Both the language and the interplay of all these canons are significant. The patrimony of any institute, or, if you will, the meaningful heritage or expres-sion of its charism, is somehow to be contained in its proper law. Note that this is the same sound, complete, approved proper law to which membe~-s have a right by reason of the obligation in c. 670. And this patrimony is to be preserved by all--an unqualified and inclusive all--according to c. 578. Con-stitutions (c. 587), general chapters (c. 631), and local ordinaries (c. 586) are each required (using some form of the same Latin verb, tueor) to protect the institute's patrimony. Chapters have the responsibility to renew it (c. 631), while superiors and members have the ability to retain and accommodate certain aspects of it (c. 677). Now for the sake of example, let us suppose that an institute has been founded whose nature is apostolic, whose purpose is to practice the corporal works of mercy, whose spirit is non-monastic, and whose character, because of its purpose, is for the most part one of commitment to individual rather than to collective apostolates. Let us also suppose that the instutute is of pontifical right, that it has three canonically erected houses in three dioceses, and that its members are present in seven other dioceses in which the institute has n6 canonically erected houses. Finally, let us suppose that a member of this institute, with appropriate permission from internal authorities and fulfilling the norms of universal and proper law, is exercising an apostolate which the diocesan bishop does not wish this person to exercise in the diocese entrusted to his care. The stage is set, is it not, for the play of tensions commonly experienced between just autonomy and hierarchical structure? Without being facetious, let me suggest further that the script for this act of the play commonly has the religious entering stage left, the bishop entering stage right, and all defini-tive action coming Deus ex machina from above. The entire performance Canonical Considerations / 681 is usually viewed only through the opera glasses of a communications media well known for its ability to distort the factual while filling lacunae with unfounded conjecture. When the curtain falls, there are inevitable winners and losers, but who belongs to which category most often depends on where you were seated--center orchestra, third balcony, backstage, or in the wings. And usually the real issues have neither been well addressed nor even partially solved, while genuine Christian values, not to mention Christian people, have more than likely been forgotten or neglected or badly battered during the performance. As a canonist, this writer holds there are viable alternatives to the above scenario. For, if law does nothing else for us in the Church, it ought to at least be able to function as the impartial arbiter in cases of conflict. How well it can do this for cases such as the above, however, depends on how clearly and thoroughly obligations are both delineated in proper law and fulfilled by those responsible for them. But, to return to the case and the question at hand: Can the bishop prohibit the religious from exercising the apostolate in the diocese entrusted to his care? If you view it from the per-spective of the religious--to use familiar phraseologywthe "bad news" is that he probably can, because ultimately all religious are subject to the power of the bishop in apostolic works (c. 678 §1). The "good news" is that such a prohibition would be very difficult in some circumstances. Needless to say, if you are looking at this case from the vantage point of the bishop, the content of the answer is exactly the same: The prohibition is probably possible but possibly very difficult. The law, you see, is rather objective and can be an impartial arbiter in such matters, even though the "goodness" or "badness", attributed to the content would probably be reversed (and logically so) in the judgment of the bishop. Why is it probably possible but possibly very difficult for the bishop to forbid the religious from exercising an apostolate in the diocese entrusted to his care? The answer, to be canonically sound, requires a careful investi-gation of the canons previously mentioned. If the institute is an apostolic one, then apostolic works are part of its nature by law (c. 675). The nature of an institute as sanctioned by ecclesiastical authority is part of its patri-mony to be preserved°by all (c. 578) and contained in its constitutions (c. 587). The power to preserve this patrimony is part of an institute's legally recognized just autonomy of life, and local ordinaries are to preserve and protect this autonomy (c. 586). Regarding just autonomy of life, on the one hand, it cannot be restricted merely to internal matters or only to government. If autonomy is restricted to internal matters, then the understanding of religious life under universal law would be a dichotomized, compartmentalized one. The code takes great 682 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 pains to indicate that this is clearly not the case, and especially for the apostolic activity of apostolic institutes (cc. 662, 673, 675). Furthermore, if autonomy is restricted to the institute's internal government, then the just autonomy "especially of government" recognized in c. 586 is a meaningless phrase even canonically. On the other hand, if any apostolate is fundamental to an institute and if any autonomy in regard to this apostolate is to be recognized, then the apostolate must be clearly articulated in the institute's constitutions. If it is clearly articulated in the constitutions, and if the institute has a canon-cially erected house in the diocese, then this includes a strict right (ius) to exercise proper-law apostolate(s) of the institute from this house (c. 611 #2). Note, however, that while the institute has this right, each and every member of the institute is not necessarily free to exercise the right. Canonists do agree that, in granting consent for a religious house, a diocesan bishop can restrict some of the institute's activities for all of the members or all of the institute's activities for some of the members. But they also agree that he cannot restrict all of the institute's activities for all of the members. If he judges this extreme restriction necessary, he simply ought not to grant consent for establishing the house. Thus, in response to the case, if: - there is a constitutionally established apostolate - exercised by a member of the institute -~with proper internal permissions ~ according to universal law (i.e., legally) -. from a canonically established house -to which no general or specific apostolic restrictions have been attached, it would be very difficult for the bishop to prevent the religious from continuing the apostolic activity. The prohibition would not be impossible, however, because it is provided by c. 679, that if: - the bishop judges there is a most grave cause - after having referred the matter to the major superior - and if the major superior does not take appropriate action - the bishop can prohibit the religious from remaining in the diocese. But this action constitutes a penalty (c. 1327 §1) which means that -the procedure for application of penalties is to be followed (cc. 1341-1353) - no steps may be dispensed with (c. 87) 7 all wording must be interpreted strictly (c. 18) - the constitutions of the institute may not be violated (c. 1327 §1) and - the bishop must immediately inform the Holy See of his action (c. 679). Canonical Considerations / 683 Whence, the answer given above must contain an important qualification: The prohibition is probably possible but possibly very difficult only if the initial legal obligations regarding apostolate, houses and constitutions have been fulfilled by the institute to which the member belongs. But such is not usually the case, is it? For the most part situations arise in which it is clear that one or many of the above legal obligations have not been fulfilled and, consequently, the rights involved are not well protected. It often happens that the institute has no canonically erected house in the diocese. Then there is simply no right for the institute or any of its member to exercise any apostolate there. If they do so, they do so at the good will of the bishop who can subsequently forbid what he has previously permitted. The written agreements between diocesan bishops and competent superiors, which are now required by c. 681 when entrusting works to religious, might possibly give the religious a cause for civil-law action in the case of a breach of contract, but this could only occur if the agreements were poorly composed canonically in the first place. One might add that adhering to the require-ment for these written agreements, which are supposed to include the type of work involved, could possibly identify potential conflicts such as the above case in their incipient stages. It also often happens that a particular activity exercised by a religious is not mentioned--or at least not referred to in a specific enough manner--to definitively include it in the constitutionally approved elements of the insi-tute's apostolate. The competent internal authority by making a practical interpretation in the course of good government may judge that this specific activity is included within the constitutionally approved elements of its aposto-late. But if this practical interpretation is challenged and recourse is had to the competent external authority, the interpretation of the authority who approved the constitutions in the first place is the one that prevails. Another common occurrence is practical accommodation of an institute's mission and apostolic works by the superiors and members in accord with c. 677. An institute may adapt its apostolate from educating orphans, for instance, to educating Blacks or Hispanics. Or, again, an institute may relin-quish nursing in hospitals in order to serve in home-nursing ministries. Some-times these accommodations are not subsequently or accurately incorporated into one's constitutions by a general chapter. But legal affirmation of such adjustments is both the obligation and prerogative of general chapters accord-ing to c. 631. If general chapters do not fulfill their obligations by providing an adequate update of an institute's proper law, the "good news" and "bad news" for the religious will be rendered as mentioned above. Three other forms of apostolic accommodation are also common and can be far more problematic, namely: 684 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 (1) defining the institute's mission and apostolate in so generic a manner that almost any apostolic activity can be included in them, (2) including in the institute's mission and apostolate some activities that appear to be only indirectly connected with its patrimony, and (3) including in the institute's mission and apostolate those activities which relate closely to those prohibited for religious in universal law. It would be unrealistic--if not grandiose--to attempt a treatment here of the specifics of each of these instances, but all three can certainly be recog-nized as occasions for another play of tensions between just autonomy and hierarchical structure. In the process of approval of constitutions, competent ecclesiastical authorities often perceive these instances as fostering generic vagueness or minute inclusiveness or institutional challenges: Their response is usually to request or to mandate adjustments in wording and/or content. This is often viewed by the institutes both as a violation of their just auto-nomy and as a negation of their renewal experiences. There is no doubt that the attitudes of those involved in the dialogues concerning constitutional revision are crucial to the results. In the first case just suggested, there can be--but need not be--a real danger of dissipating an institute's resources by too extensive a diversification within a generic category, such as education or health care or social justice. In the second, there can be, but need not be, a noble attempt to "legitimize" the activity of every member, however diversified, by incorporating it by name into the institute,s proper law. In the third, there can be, but need not be, a genuine and necessary prophetic challenge to the gradually institutionalized: restrictions on Gospel imperatives. Whether competent authorities and reli-gious institutes approach these and similar situations from a stance of polari-zation and confrontation or from a stance of pluralism and constructive compromise alters the "flashpoint" of the matter involved. A "flashpoint" is the degree of flammability of combustible materials. Most readers will probably be aware that there have been many tenuous "flashpoints" approached and passed by the interaction of hierarchy and religious--as well as among religious themselves--throughout history. Such opposition and conflict, indeed, utter conflagrations at times, have been regrettable and are certainly not to be excused.4 But in the interaction of religious charism and ecclesial institution they will always be potentially present. Suggestions are sometimes made that religious institutes experiencing great charism/hierarchical tensions might opt for what is referred to as "non-canonical" status. Legally speaking "non-canonical" is a misnomer as well as an almost impossible option. Religious institutes are by law public juridic persons (c. 634, 116 §2). Canonical Considerations / 685 This means they automatically have a "canonical status" which can also be described as legal standing or public authentication within the ecclesial structure. This status is understood to guarantee the soundness of the insti-tute's charism and traditions, to empower the duly elected officers of the institute forgoverning, and to confer a mandate on the institute (and its members) for apostolic activities. It is quite clear in Church law that only the appropriate ecclesiastical authorities--namely, Diocesan ]~ishops or the Apostolic See--can erect religious institutes (cc. 576, 578-579, 589), can approve and accept the charisms of founders and foundresses (c. 578), and can officially interpret and moderate the practice of the evangelical counsels (c. 576). Any public juridic person in the Church is by law a "perpetual" entity and can be legitimately extinguished only by competent authority (c. 120 §1). The Apostolic See alone is able to suppress an institute of consecrated life once it has been canonically erected (c. 584). On the occasion of such sup-pression, the disposition of the goods of the institute, which are by law "ecclesiastical goods" (c. 1257), belongs to the Apostolic See (c. 584) unless the approved statutes of the public juridic person (i.e., the institute's proper law) provide otherwise (c. 123). Thus, the material possessions of any religious institute, as well as the final decisions regarding what is to be done with them, do not belong ultimately to the institute or to its members but to the institutional Church. Moreover, religious institutes are "collegial" public juridic persons (c. 115 §2) andas such continue to exist (unless suppressed) as long as there is one surviving member, upon whom all the rights and obliga-tions of the institute devolve (c. 120 §2). For two major reasons, therefore, it is not legally realistic for a religious institute as such to become "non-canonical" in response to the tensions experienced in the interplay of the institute's charism and hierarchical struc-tures: (1) suppression of a religious institute is difficult to accomplish and (2) truly non-canonical status is almost impossible to find. First, an institute does not have the authority to suppress itself; and it is rare that all members of an institute might opt for requesting suppression by the Apostolic See. If such were the case., however, the juridic person could totally cease to exist. But if even a few chose to remain and were allowed to do so, these few would then enjoy all the rights and assume all the obligations of the still existing original religious institute. The ecclesiastical goods of the institute would also be subject to the care and control of the remaining members according to Church law? In other words, the mem-bers of any religious institute cannot simply decide to self-destruct the juridic person and head off into the sunset, each fortified with his or her own "piece 686 / Review for Religious, September-October, 1986 of the (institutional) rock." Second, even if an institute were sup