The report examines the applicability of Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System to the City of Winter Park. After briefly describing the character of the city, the goals are identified, the means by which they may be achieved and measure of evaluating progress toward them are given. To show how such an effort might be implemented, specific programs, objectives and effectiveness criteria are provided. These are followed by three examples in which the existing system is described and from which problems are revealed. Next, a brief analysis is performed to pinpoint the difficulty and a solution is proposed. The examples are chosen to illustrate a qualitative problem involving the organizational structure of the government, the next problem is more quantitative yet involves qualitative factors to arrive at a final solution, while the third example is entirely quantitative in nature.
Purpose The purpose of this study was two-fold: (1) to determine the educational needs of the personnel of the five directorates at Hill Air Force Base; and, (2) to design an educational program to meet those needs. Procedure This study consisted of three phases: Phase One. This phase consisted of identifying the behavioral items that we re us ed in developing the Q-Sort instrument. This was accomplished by a review of job requirement data, by an examination of Project Hy Production, and by personal interviews of the Air Base educational specialists. Phase Two. This phase consisted of the development of a Q-Sort instrument to be administered to a random sample of supervisory and non~supervisory personnel from each of the five directorates. The respondents ranked the Q-Sort items into seven categories which had been assigned numerical values by the researcher. Mean scores were computed for each statement. Rank order was then established by using the mean scores. The Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient was used to determine the degree of agreement between the categories of respondents. Phase Three. This phase consisted of the development of the organizational structure of the total program. Included was a specific identification of the areas of knowledge that would best satisfy desired behavior, and an explanation of the general education phase of the total program. Findings 1. The behavioral items identified from the above indicated o sources were many and varied. Each emphasized the need for knowledge in English and mathematic skills. Knowledge of the myriad logistics processes were all mentioned as desired behavior. 2. The rankings by the supervisory and non- supervisory personnel of the vocational statements were also varied but a high level of agreement concerning the importance of the English and mathematics skills was evident. 3. A high level of agreement was evident between supervisory and non- supervisory personnel concerning their opinions of the importance of the Q-Sort items. The correlation coefficients ranged from .832 to .904 for the five directorates. 4. A core area and five specialty areas were developed from the information derived from the Q-Sort instrument. The combined core and specialty areas constituted the major for the total program. 5. The design of the total program was reversed, requiring the student to complete the major first then the general education requirements. The general education phase was designed to allow the student to complete it by independent-guided study. Conclusions 1. All personnel consider a knowledge of English skills highly important in the performance of their jobs. 2. Skill in the use of mathematics and statistics was considered to be of intermediate importance. 3. The personnel in each directorate ranked a knowledge of the vocational skills related to the activities they were currently performing as highly important. 4. There was considerable agreement between supervisory and non-supervisory personnel in their opinions of the importance of the behavioral statements. 5. The educational needs of the government employee could best be satisfied by incorporating the reverse plan and the independent-guided study philosophy into the design. Recommendations 1. A study similarly designed be made at another aIr materiel area to determine the level of agreement between the personnel at the base and those of the Ogden Air Materiel Area. 2. A similar study be made at other government entities to determine the educational needs of the employees of those installations. 3. This study be replicated in approximately five years to determine what changes should be made in this program. 4. A study designed to test the effectiveness of this program be made.
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 33.1 of the Review for Religious, 1974. ; Review ]or Religious is edited by faculty members of the School of Divinity of St. Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copy-right (~) 1974 by Review ]or Religious. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $1.75. Sub-scription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year; $11.00 for two years; other countries, $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be .accompanied by check or money order payable to Review ]or Religious in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent Review ]or Religious. Change of address requests should include former address. R. F. Smith, S.J. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor January 1974 Volume 33 Number 1 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to Review for Religious; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts, books for review, and materials for "Subject Bibliography for Religious" should be sent to Review for Religious; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106. Review for Religious Volume 33, 1974 Editorial Offices 539 North Grand Boulevard Saint Louis, Missouri 63103 R. F. Smith, S.J. Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Editor " Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Review ]or Religious is published in January, March, May, July, September, and November on the fifteenth of the month. It is indexed in the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index and in Book Review Index. A microfilm edi-tion of Review ]or Religious is available from University Microfilm; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyright (~ 1974 by Review for Religious. Documents concerning Religious The following are seven recent documents concerning religious given here in chronologi-cal order and in the English translation provided by the weekly English edition of L' osservatore romano. LETTER TO THE GENERAL OF THE JESUITS To Our Beloved Son PETER ARRUPE Superior General of the Society of Jesus On the solemn occasion of Easter last year you intimated to Us that you were thinking of calling a general congregation of your Society in the year 1974, whose task it would be to explore the most apt ways for the Society to per-form its work in the Church and in the world of today. Importance of the Congregation Our Venerable Brother, the Cardinal Secretary of State, replying in Our behalf,~sent you Our best wishes. Now that you have publicly annoUnced the general congregation, and the provincial congregations are soon to be held for the election of delega.tes and for the preparation of postulata to be proposed to the general congregation, We Ourselves because of the love We bear the Society wish to address Ourselves through this letter to you and your companions to encourage you and to send you Our best wishes for a happy outcome of the congrega.tion. For we are well aware of the great im-portance of convoking it at this time, which could be an hour of decision, so to speak, for the Society of Jesus, for its future destiny and for its task in Church, as it is also for other religious families. 4 / Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 This meeting is a sign--and We are happy to say so--that the Society of Jesus is making a great effort, in accordance with the aims of its institute, to adapt its life and its apostolate to the needs of today's world, which is so constantly and rapidly changing. The Mind ot Vatican II Your desire, in fact, corresponds with the norms of the Second Vatican Council, the proper and careful implementation of which We Ourselves are strenuously trying to attain. Indeed, the congregation is in accord with the opinion of the Council fathers who said: "Effective renewal and proper adap-tation cannot be achieved except with the cooperation of all the members of the institute" (Decr. Perfectae caritatis, 4). However, if that universal Synod was looking for renewal fitting the needs of the present, it did not want this to be brought about through a hazardous experimentation that might be alien to the very character of the religious family, or lead to an abandonment of the primary values of a life consecrated to God. No, it was the mind of that Synod that the common elements of religious life should be confirmed and that they should be allowed to grow and develop. These are: a following and imitation of Christ, "as proposed in the Gospel" (ibid., 2); a renuncia-tion of worldly things so that the religious might live for God alone and for the building up of the Church; a practice of all the human and Christian vir-tues, best achieved by a joyful and constant observance of the vows (cf. ibid., 5), which should lead to the heights of the spiritual life where sublime contemplation is joined with magnanimous action. In Our apostolic exhorta-tion "Evangelica testificatio," which We published later, We explained all this in more detail and dealt with it more fully, using it as a paternal invita-tion to all religious that "they might shed light among men, so that, when they see the good you do, they might give praise to the Father in heaven" (cf. Mt 5:16). The Society of Jesus, especially called to walk in the path of the follow-ing of Christ, should feel itself particularly impelled to review its style of life, testing it constantly in the light of the Gospel, according to the exhortations contained in the words and example of St. Ignatius. Let this be undertaken with a view to actually effecting the renewal begun at the instance of the Council, taking into account new circumstances and needs. This should be done, however, in accordance with the spirit of the Society of Jesus, that is, in fidelity to its tradition which is based on .Christ, on the Church, on St. Ignatius. Hence, that the preparation for the coming General Congregation may not be limited to organizational matters, but give to all the members of the Society of Jesus a proper orientation and win their full commitment to it, they will have to rehearse with penetrating insight, a clear grasp of reality, and a profound sense of duty those principles of the spiritual and apostolic life which for centuries formed, as it were, the very structure that held the Documents concerning Religious / 5 Society together, and which made it a most serviceable instrument for a pastoral, missionary, and educational apostolate involving cultural forma-tion of" the highest excellence. Those responsible for this accomplishment were a large group of men distinguished for holiness of life and love of neighbor. Sources of Strength The foundations of religious formation which were laid in the past should today, even under changed conditions, still be the source of strength of the Society of Jesus. They are: a diligent dedication to prayer, which "has its origin in the authentic sources of Christian spirituality" (cf. Decr. Per- [ectae caritatis, 6); an austerity of life, preventing a person from easily adopting that frame of mind which, casting aside that which is sacred, pre-vails in so many forms of contemporary life and practice; supernatural strength by which apostolic effectiveness is increased, and in the absence of which no action, no matter how excellent on the surface, can yield lasting fruit for the transformation of the human conscience; complete observance of the vows, especially obedience, which is peculiar to the Society and a condi-tion of its religious discipline by which its vigor was always preserved. Hence, there must be no attempt to introduce new methods of deliberation and deci-. sion-making that not only undermine the very notion of obedience, but alter the nature itself of the Society of Jesus. Finally, the ascetical value of com-munity life and the advantages it offers for the formation of character should be kept in mind. To these weighty principles We would also add in a very special manner the fidelity to the Apostolic See, whether in the area of studies and education of young scholastics, who are the hope of your order, or of the students at-tending the great number of schools and universities entrusted to the Society, or in the production and publication of writings aimed at a wide circle of readers, or in the exercise of the direct apostolate. Dangers to Essential Structure of the Order Nor are We ignorant of the fact that over the past few years in several parts of the Society--and it is by no means absent either from the life of the Church in general--certain tendencies have arisen of an intellectual and dis-ciplinary nature which, if fostered and given support, could lead to serious and possibly irreparable changes in the essential structure itself of your So-ciety. As you know, Beloved Son, we have through Our closest collaborators called your attention more than once to these matters, while expressing the hope that the expected renewal will be brought about securely and smoothly. Therefore, on the occasion of the announcement of the gen-eral congregation We express once again Our desire, indeed Our demand, that the Society of Jesus should adapt its life and apostolate to today's con-ditions and needs in such a way that confirmation be given to its characteris- 6 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 tics as a religious, apostolic, priestly Order, linked to the Roman Pontiff by a special bond of love and service, as ratified in the "Formula of the Institute" or fundamental rule of this same Society, approved and repeatedly confirmed by Our predecessors. In the adaptation of which We .speak, experience will be your teacher. It will show what concrete forms of life and action have now become irrelevant and outdated, and what new needs and opportunities pre-sent themselves of work to be undertaken or directed according to the mind of Christ and the nature of the apostolate. We also hope that in the preparation for the general congregation, and later when it is in session, all the religious will be intent on the good of the Society, united in that charity required by your Founder, whose voice can still somehow be heard, in your Constitutions: "Union and agreement among all ought to be sought with great care, and the opposite ought not to be per-mitted; in order that, being united among themselves by the bond of fraternal charity, they may be able better and more efficaciously to apply themselves in the service of God and the aid of their fellowmen" (P.III, c.l, n.18). Final Thoughts~ and Suggestions These,, then, are Our wishes; that they may be heeded we pray to ,the Virgin Mother of God, Queen and Mother of the Society of Jesus; may she support it with counsel, strengthening goodwill, stirring up hearts, and in-spiring all the religious to ever more zealously imitate the Divine Savior in their task of constantly and courageously establishing His reign. What we have written should show you and your companions what is ex-pected of you by Us, who know well what influence the Society of Jesus has, what the task is that it has to fulfill, what confidence it enjoys; all this must be carefully considered, both with respect to the Society itself and with respect to the Church. We wish you to inform your collaborators and all the members of the Society of Jesus of this message, so that each one may see the witness of Our paternal benevolence and of the concern We have for the future destiny of the same Society. For We are convinced that the more faithfully the sons of St. ignatius conserve the Ignatian charism as it appears in the principle docu-ments of the institute, the more effectively will they pursue the glorious work of evangelizing today's world according to their God-given vocation, emulat-ing the example of so many Jesuits who consistently tried-~--and We use the words of St. Ignatius--"to distinguish themselves in the total service of their eternal King and universal Lord" (Spit. Ex., II week). Having made known in writing what is in Our heart, We gladly impart to you and to the whole Society of Jesus the Apostolic Blessing as an'augury of the divine assistance. ~ " From the Vatican, the fifteenth of September, 1973, the eleventh year of Our Pontificate. PAUL VI Documents concerning Religious "/ 7 LETTER ON ST. BRIDGET OF SWEDEN To Our Venerable Brother JOHN E. TAYLOR Bishop of Stockholm In this year marking the sixth centenary of her death, honor is rightly paid to St: Bridget, Flowei" of the North, and rightly are the faithful exhorted to direct their thoughts, with fresh° enthusiasm, so to speak, to the spiritual beauty of this heavenly one, as her memory is being solemnly recalled to mind. This chosen woman had a double fatherland: Sweden, where she was born at the beginning of the 14th century and Rome, where she spent nearly 20 years, and where after her return from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, she de-parted ripe for heaven, to the eternal Jerusalem, on the 23rd day of July, in the year 1373. ~ In that northern region to which the devout mind turns with heightened eagerness on this occasion, the ecclesiastical life was at that time in a fluorishing state, particularly because the Cistercian monks and after them the mendicant orders had introduced a piety that was well adapted to the people. For nurturing this piety, devout pilgrimages, to which Christians were much given, proved very effective. And' when the Scandinavians ad-venturously and with devotion and enthusiasm betook themselves to the holy places:in distant parts of the world, they, as it were,°exchanged spiritual riches with other brethren in Christ whom they met and also experienced in a vital way the unity.of the body of the Church. Wife and Mother Such were the times in which Bridget grew to womanhood. Although she desired to consecrate her virginity to God, she was thwarted in her desire of a Divine Spouse. In,submission to the will of her father, she married Ulf Gudmarsson, an excellent man. As wife and mother she was a shining ex-ample; she lived united to her husband by the bond of Christian love andsh~ reared her' eight 6hildren with discerning wisdom; that is to say, she wished them to grow up to be not only good citizens of their fatherland, but also servants and children of God. And so it came about that the seeds of religious vocation came?to flower among her offspring. Indeed, her second daughter, Catherine, with the aid ofdivine grace reached the heights of sancity. Nor may ewe neglect to mention the charity of St. Bridget lavished on the mem-bers of Christ suffering from poverty or other distress. Following a pious pilgrimage they had made together to the Shrine of St. James at Compostella, Bridget's husband entered a Cistercian monas-tery and soon after he died there. Whereupon Bridget, having set her domes-tic affairs in order, devoted herself entirely to the ascetical life and prepared for her own flights to God, by whom she wa~ richly favored with mystical 8 / Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 gifts. During the two years in which she lived in a retired place near the monastery where her husband Ulf had withdrawn from the world, she was inspired by Christ with the resolve to found a new Order to be named for our Divine Savior, in honor of Mary the Virgin Mother of God. There would be double monasteries housing in separate buildings men and women who had,freed themselves for divine pursuits, but they would constitute onecom-munity, as it were, gathered together in God's name. This order, whose rule Our Predecessor Urban V approved in 1370, began with the foundation called Vadstena. Spiritual Writings There is cause for rejoicing indeed in the fact that this religious family, which almost disappeared at the time when the seamless garment of the Church was pitiably rent, began to flourish again at the beginning of this present century, insofar as its branch of consecrated women is concerned; and a house was established at the Campo dei Fiori, where the mother foundress had formerly lived. That this institute may prosper with a happy increase in this anniversary celebration honoring St. Bridget is the object of our earnest desire. Deservedly extolled also are those works which are entitled "Revela-tions," and which set forth the mystical graces bestowed on St. Bridget. They are records valued besides for their wealth of sacred doctrine, treating of her cult of our Savior's humanity, of His sacred passion, of the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph, and the angels. The spiritual writings and religious art of the 15th and 16th centuries reflect the strong impact of these works. Solicitude for the Church Broadening the range of her concern, however, St. Bridget, like another Catherine of Siena, extended her great and zealous solicitude to the Church and the Apostolic See in that troubled period. As a devoted daughter she sought the reformation of the Church, ihe Mother of all, which, as Vatican Council II says, "is summoned by Christ, as she goes her pilgrim way, to that continual reformation, of which she always has need, insofar as she is an institution of men here on earth" (Decree on Ecumenism, Unitat& redinte-gratio, 6). Like the "valiant woman" she was, Bridget entreated Clement VI, lingering in Avignon, to return to Rome and urged the proclamation of the jubilee year of 1350. This woman, then, who by her life and work united so admirably and beneficially in the one Church her illustrious native land of the North and the See of Peter, corroborates, so to speak, as a citizen of heaven, the gener-ous efforts of those who after a prolonged and lamentable severance are now striving to restore Christian unity. Indeed, Our predecessor Boniface IX ap-pears in some way to have foretold this when in an apostolic letter dated under his seal, 7 October 1391 he said that he declared Blessed Bridget of Documents concerning Religious / 9 happy memory to be a saint "for the unity of the faith and of the Ch'urch" (Bullarium Priv. ac Dipl. Pont., III, Rome, 1741, p. 391 ). Tolally Dedicated Again, we rightly commemorate this singular and exemplary woman be-cause, although she was totally dedicated to God, she was not estranged from her own people. More than this, animated by a Christian love of her native land, she labored for its true progress. Her own family gave 'to Sweden for almost a hundred years kings, among them St. Eric, who were intent upon the good of their people and social justice. And although occupied with household cares, St. Bridget often served as an instructress in royal duties at court and was like a watchful mother to King Eric the Great (or Erikson) and his wife. She gave them a Swedish translation of the Holy Bible, and for this and for her writings mentioned above, she obtained a place in the literary history of her country. May her light shine radiantly, therefore, a light recognized also by those who are not of the Catholic communion. May this extraordinary woman in-tercede with God that He may graciously bestow on the Church the gifts of peace and unity. These obtained, may the faithful of Christ in Sweden and the adjoining northern regions come to recognize that he who is placed over the Catholic Church and exercises the highest apostolic ministry testifies to a singular esteem and brotherly love for them. May the example of this devout pilgrimage ot~ olden days kindle the hearts of those who come to this City in the forthcoming Holy Year, so that sincere repentance and desire for the interior life may bring about a spiritual renewal that will benefit not only in-dividuals but the Church also and civil society. This then is Our message to you in observance of the sixth centenary of th~ death of St. Bridget. In conclusion, We affectionately impart to you and to the faithful under your care the Apostolic Blessing as a token of spiritual strength and joy. This Blessing we desire to extend also to the Abbess Gen-eral and the Sisters of St. Bridget, the Order of our Divine Savior. From the Vatican Palace, on the 19th day of September, in the year 1973, the eleventh of our Pontificate. PAUL VI ADDRESS TO BENEDICTINE ABBOTS The following address was given October 1, 1973, to 270 abbots and con-ventual priors of the Benedictine Confederation led by the Abbot Primate, Dom Rembert Weakland. Also present for the audience were three Orthodox monks and three Protestant monks. From the heart we greet you, representatives of the whole Order of St. Benedict, who, in St. Cyprian's words, have come "to the Chair of Peter and the primatial church, the source of priestly unity" (Ep. 12, 14; PL 3,844-5). You have desired also to pay a visit to us, the successor in the apostolic min- Review for Religious,. Volume 33, 1974/1 istry to that same blessed Peter, in the long intervening line of Pontiffs. We greet also the Priors here present ot~ monasteries located for the most partin Africa and in Latin America, in which areas, with laudable spontaneity you devote your energies to missionary work; that is to say, "you are diligently engaged in implanting there the very rich tradition of your Order" (see Conc. Vat. II, Decr. Ad gentes divinitus, 18). Experiencing God We welcome in addition, recognizing at the same time the high prestige they enjoy, the observers, who, though not full participants in the Catholic communion, are yet striving to follow in the footsteps of St. Benedict. Fi-nally, we receive paternally the abbesses of monasteries and th~ mothers general here present of congregations that adhere to the spirit of this Patri-arch and are called by his name. We know that you are now holding a meeting on a subject of no small consequence; namely, on the mode of experiencing God in monastic life. This topic has various facets, as it were, whether it is considered according to Biblical doctrine, to sacred liturgy, to history, to the conditions and exigen-cies of the present day. We regard this subject as serviceable indeed, if this troubled age of ours is really to return to the great and fundamental reflec-tions that concern human existence itself. For there is danger today that men may banish the sacred from their minds and from their condu& and even presume they can do without God, at least in the use they make'of thoii" lives. Sometimes even those who have given themselves to the divine service and are dedicated to the pastoral ministry can be infected with this secular view. You, however, as monks in appearance, dress, and way of life affirm or should affirm that you belong to the number of those who do not rely upon the vain and passing things of this world, but seek wholeheartedly Him who is the Absolute: whom alone we ca.ll God, God our Highest Good, God Eternal. Here there shines before the eyes of the mind the true concept of religion, whereby man becomes intimately aware that he is ordered to God, Creator, Ruler, Last End, and Author of Salvation, to whom he owes in-terior and exterior worship. Such religion, therefore, encompasses the entire man and obliges him to devote himself to God in wholehearted service. Hence, you who "have chosen the best part" (see Luke 10:42), inasmuch as "your main task is to render the Divine majesty a service at once sim-ple and noble within the monastic confines" (see Conc. Vat. II, Decr. Perfectae caritatis, 9), dembnstrate the excelling power of the interior life for opposing that secular propensity whereby men are induced to abandon their own true center, as it were, and surrender themselves to exterior things. Liturgy of the Hours It should be your concern, then, to be religious who are truly, called so, Documents concerning Religious under a unique title, since you strive to ascend to God, to whom you have been consecrated by the profession of the evangelical counsels, through liv-ing the contemplative life, which you nourish by daily effort. Merely in doing this you express your protest against the neglect of God and against the profane way of life which pervades the world in these times. From our brief exposition, the excellence of prayer to be directed to God is already manifest. Indeed, all the sons of the Church, as you well know, are to adore the Father "in spirit and in truth" (see John 4:23). But since in the world of today prayer is beset by so many snares and threatened by so many perils, to you, who enjoy a more fortunate position, is entrusted the special task of directing your study and efforts to the end that the Church may really appear as the Ecclesia Orans. We are cognizant of the zeal with which you have studied the liturgical aspect in this meeting. We rejoice greatly in your diligence and your ardent desire to make that venerable tradition of yours flourish among you and to preserve that which constitutes the essential part of your spiritual life and which in the course of the centuries has ever enhanced the life of the Church itself. We know also of your solicitude for the vital force, the profound sig-nificance and the benefits which have been derived from the renewal of the liturgy that you brought to pass. Joined to this solicitude of y_ours is appre-hension lest these same benefits be not rightly and duly recognized, the more so because differing inclinations of soul in the great family of- St. Benedict have become evident with regard to the order to be observed in the Liturgy of the Hours; that is, whether this order should be uniform in the various monasteries or particular to each one. Need to Study and Weigh This is a very important question, whether as pertaining to your con-sistent historical and spiritual tradition or to your monastic cohesion which is no longer supported by only one form of sacred liturgy, but is expressed through several different voices, so that in celebrating the praise of God you are no longer "speaking with one voice." Consequently, this question should be studied in such a way as to embrace all its aspects in accordance with the vows made by you, before appropriate norms with the force of precept are laid down. Nevertheless, we wish to state that the difficulties which have arisen should be so weighed, and due account taken of the benefits already ac-cruing, while with joint effort you strive to offer a testimony of fervent and ardent prayer to the world of today with its secular outlook. Assuring you therefore of our fatherly concern for the welfare of your monastic communities, we strongly affirm that we shall take under our eager and careful consideration the outcome and result of the work you have begun on this question, and already at this stage we acknowledge our Review [or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 high esteem for the manner in which, with your wonted wisdom, you are addressing yourselves to this task. However, you are obliged to fulfill not only the duty of liturgical prayer, immensely important as this is, but also that of private prayer. On this sub-ject the Second Vatican Council has given a wise reminder (see Const. Sacrosanctum Concilium, 12), and St. Benedict himself is considered to treat of this point in his Rule, in the section headed. "De reverentia ora-tionis": "Supplication should be made to the Lord God of the universe with all humility and pure devotion" (cap. 20; see P. Delatte, Commentaire sur le R~gle de Saint Beno~t, Paris, p. 217). The exhortations of your founder are by no means inappropriate to this age, in which things progress and change with such rapidity. Just as in former times, so also now, you are to establish "a school of the Lord's ser-vice" (Reg. prol.); in other words, your monasteries should be so struc-tured that those who enter therein learn how to serve God and how to be continuously employed in His service. Such service, however, chiefly com-prises divine worship, by which the virtue of religion is exercised, as we have indicated above, and also holiness. With reference to worship we should like to bring out a special point: in celebrating the sacred liturgy with diligence and piety, as it behooves you to do, let. the sweet voice of the singing Church sound forth and never cease to sound forth in your churches. For men of today also feel the in-effable power of song that uplifts the soul and with gentle modulation gives expression to feelings of adoration, praise, penitence, and petition. Specially Chosen As regards holiness, this thought of St. Augustine should be deeply meditated: "Let not your voice only sound forth the praises of God, but let your deeds be in harmony with your voice" (Enarr. in Ps. 166, 2; PL 37, 1899). Although you have withdrawn from the world, to be occupied with the Lord, you have nonetheless "been specially chosen to preach the good news" (Rom l:l). May that hidden apostolic fruitfulness of which the Council speaks (see Decr. Perfectae caritatis, 7) flow out therefore from your mon-asteries upon the Church and society. May the yeast be prepared in them whereby, through the operation of divine power, the world may be renewed. This holiness, moreover, pertains not only to the life of the soul, but also to what you are doing for the cultivation of natural gifts, inasmuch as, to mention some examples, you devote yourselves to liturgical, Biblical, and historical studies for the common benefit, or, you engage in work, especially manual labor. Indeed, this last, may I add, enables you to go to the assist-ance of those who are suffering from poverty and other hardships, in keep-ing, of course, with the practices of the monastic life. This is in accord with the mind of the Council fathers who exhorted religious "to contribute to the Documents concerning Religious / 13 support of the poor, whom all should love with the tenderness of Christ" (see Decr. Per[ectae caritatis, 13; Const. Gaudium et spes, 42). Finally, not only your own individual life, but the life of the community as a whole, whereby you are joined one to another with the sweet bond of charity, should be adorned by this mark of holiness: that through the fel-lowship of community life directed to God, each individual is assisted in carrying out his service to the Lord, is incited to work for his brethren, is protected from dangers. Thus you will truly bear witness before the world to the holiness of the Church. In short, a community such as this, like a kind of novitiate, prepares religious during their lifetime for the everlasting day. Not without reason did St. Bernard reckon among the aids to good works: "to desire eternal life with all spiritual avidity" (Reg. cap. 4). ~ Example and Exhortation Of all these practices let the abbot give the example and exhort thereto the brethren entrusted to his care. Although the office of governing is ren-dered more difficult at the present time, yet he who "is believed to hold the place of Christ in the monastery" (Reg. cap. 2) should make the utmost effort that the vigor of spiritual life and of monastic discipline be strength-ened, increased, and, if need be, restored. To this end the abbot should en-deavor to maintain an unimpaired union with the magisterium of the Church, like a channel through which living water is drawn off for himself and for the brethren placed in his charge. The foregoing is what we have had affectionately in mind to say to you, and we do not doubt you will strive that your Order may aid the building up of the Church with spiritual forces, also in these times, to the needs of which it should prudently adapt itself. The announced Holy Year should offer you further incentive, since as you know we wish it to be a time of interior renewal. Lastly, as a pledge of heavenly gifts and as testimony of our assured affection, we impart the Apostolic Blessing to you who are here present and to all the members of your families in the Lord. ADDRESS TO THE LITTLE SISTERS OF JESUS The following address was given to the Little Sisters of Jesus at an audience of October 3, 1973. Dear Little Sisters of Jesus, last Friday we had the very sweet joy of meeting you at Tre Fontane, in the eloquent simplicity of your houses and in an impressive atmosphere of evangelical serenity and happiness. Your participation in this audience is like a return feast, for you and for us like-wise. To the thirty-seven Little Sisters who have just made their vows of per- 14 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 petual consecration at St. Peter's tomb, we address our best wishes for fervent faithfulness. But our brief words are also addressed to their families, who have in many cases come from very far away to be present at their de-finitive commitment "because of Jesus and the Gospel." They are addressed likewise to the two hundred Little Sisters at present attending a session of spiritual formation under the direction of dear Father Voillaume. We entrust to you our heart's most ardent desire. We would like you to take all over the world the conviction that a religious profession com-mits at such a profound level that changes of structures and activities have only a relative importance, even if one suffers from them. The essential thing is to keep a very keen awareness of the call of Christ who chooses His friends Himself (see Jn 15:15.) Is not Fr~re Charles de J6sus an example of this faithfulness deepened through different, if not contradictory, situ-ations? It is clear, however, that his mysterious route finds its coherence and its unity in passionate imitation of Jesus Christ, the One Model. Fr~re Charles de J6sus appears as one of the most perfect types of this deep faith-fulness of a human freedom to the freedom and faithfulness of God, who took him far beyond his expectations and hopes. Dear Little Sisters of Jesus, be confiden!! To be faithful does not con-sist in becoming tense over one's promises, but in relying on the Lord to ensure our ~faithfulness. That is why the long hours spent~with Christ in the Holy Eucharist will always be the primary and indispensable source of the friendship, the evangelical testimony you have promised to give in the Church and in the world today. It is with these sentiments that we renew our affectionate Apostolic Blessing to you and to your relatives and to your whole religious family. ADDRESS TO REDEMPTORISTS On October 6, 1973, the Pope gave the following talk to the members of the general chapter of the Redemptorists. Beloved Sons, To you assembled in the General Chapter of your Congre-gation of the Most Holy Redeemer and engaged in deliberations of great importance to the life of your religious family, We extend our affectionate greeting. We desire, moreover, to welcome expressly the new superior gen-eral, who is charged with the office and the burden of guiding your congre-gation through the difficulties of our times--neither few nor inconsiderable --and of conducting it to "green pastures" (see Ps 22:2). Purpose of Chapters A general chapter provides an excellent opportunity--offered to every institute--to 'reflect once more upon the true nature and end set for the institute and to hold discussions that will have a salutary effect on the life of the members. For the responsibility of a general chapter is not discharged Documents concerning Religious / 15 by holding elections and. legislating; .the chapter must also promote the spiritual and apostolic vitality of the whole body (see Litterae Ap. Ecclesiae sanctae, motu proprio, I, 2). Therefore, in a meeting of this kind, the entire family is gathered together in the presence of God to hear His voice and take counsel with regard to its renewal which, as also for the whole Church, "essentially consists in an increase of fidelity to its own calling" (see Conc. Vat. II Decr. Unitatis redintegratio, 6). Your congregation was founded by that most devout Doctor of the Church, St. Alphonsus, in order that its members might sanctify them-selves by an assiduous and faithful imitation of Christ and also engage in apostolic works, above all that special care of souls involving salutary con-tact with the most abandoned. Servants of God Beloved Sons, you are servants of God in the true and primary sense of the word; for "by your vows you are totally dedicated to God through an act of supreme Love" (see Const. Lumen gentium, 44). To be dedi-cated means to be given over to another as his property and possession. You should be followers of Christ as the Universal Synod advised all re-ligious (see Decr. Perfectae caritatis, 2a), corroborating, as it were, and realizing more completely the desire of your Father Founder. Hence each of you must endeavor to order his life to a certain unity and seek Christ daily with a sincere and generous heart. Daily you should put on Christ, an effort which is the beginning and the end and the whole of your life, whether as individual religious or as communities. Thus you truly make Christ present in the world, which is in many instances utterly alienated from Him, its Redeemer. Then those who see you, who speak to you or liave dealings with you may experience a certain mysterious power emanating from our Savior. Thus also you manifest the holiness of the Church, to the world which especially demands holiness in her sons. Life of Charity This daily effort to put on the likeness of Christ constitutes, however, a life lived in charity and motivated by charity. For religious thus "impelled ¯ . . live ever increasingly for Christ and for His body the Church" (Decr. Perfectae caritatis, 1 ). But love truly and properly so called is not for a limited time, is not hedged by conditions, is not rendered less ardent by difficulties, and knows no end. Justly did the Second Vatican Council address to every religious the following exhortation to fidelity: "Let all who have been called to the profession of the vows take painstaking care to persevere and excel increasingly in the vocation to which God has summoned them" (Const. Lumen gentium, 47). The life in which one dedicates himself to God with an undivided heart 16 / Review Jor Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 becomes a means to show forth the love of God for men. Just as God "loved the world so much that he gave his only son" (Jn 3:16), so too a religious who strives to attain the fullness of his vocation is a kind of gift bestowed upon the world. For an apostolate that is enlivened by continual prayer, liturgical and private, by ascetical zeal and the practice of the vir-tues, transfuses the divine life into men and constitutes in its truest sense the service of one's brothers in Christ. Beloved members of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, you have illumined the Church by the sanctity of certain of your brethren, of whom We are pleased to recall to mind the Saints, Alphonsus Mary de'Liguorl, your founder, Clement Hofbauer, Gerard Majella, Blessed John Nepomucene Neumann. By your apostolic labors you have brought the light of divine grace to so many souls. On the occasion of this general chapter, persevere with renewed alacrity in your noble purpose, and if need be give fresh impetus to your zeal and redouble your efforts that the Church of God may reap benefit from you now and in the future as in times past. In fatherly encouragement to you in all these efforts, we lovingly im-part the.Apostolic Blessing .~o you who are present here and to all your members. ADDRESS TO MISSIONARIES OF THE SACRED HEART At the general audience of October 10, 1973, the Holy Father gave the follow-ing talk to jubilarian Missionaries of the Sacred Heart who were present at the audience. Venerable Brothers and Dear Sons in Christ, It is a joy for us to receive you on this occasion which marks the anniversary of your sacerdotal ordi-nation. For forty years you have exercised the ministry of the priesthood, having been called by the Lord Himself and sent out by the Church to preach "Christ crucified" (1 Cor 1:23) and to assist in giving witness to His Resurrection (see Acts 4:33). We can well imagine how many graces the Lord has offered you over the years and how many helps your ministry has brought to those whom you have served with fidelity and sacrifice. On this happy occasion we are glad to offer you our blessing, our felicitations, and our encouragement. We see you as part of a vast number of our brother priests who have been conscious of their responsibility and calling and who have endeavored with God's grace to perform their ministry, in the spirit of St. Paul, as one "worthy of God's approval, a workman who has no cause to be ashamed" (2 Tim 2:15). Today we wish, at this point in your lives, to confirm you in the faith, which you have received and preached, and in the priestly vo-cation that has been your precious gift, high dignity, and important obliga-tion. We urge you at this time to keep alive your hope and to maintain to the end that confidence with which you began (see Heb 3:6,14). To each Documents concerning Religious / 17 of you we say with the Apostle: "God . . . will not forget your work and the .love you have shown him by your service, past and present, to his holy people" (Heb 6:,10). May Christ fill all of you with joy and keep you in his love. On our part we cordially give your our special Apostolic Blessing. Our special greeting of grace and peace in the Lord go to the members of the General Conference of the Congregation of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, gathered together to consider questions of religious life and missionary activity. As we assure you of our paternal affection and en-couragement, we pray that Christ Jesus will make you apt instruments of preaching His gospel with ever greater effectiveness. We pray that you may indeed draw copiously from the riches of His love so as to be able to com-municate this same love in all its fullness "to the praise of his glori6hs grace" (Eph 1:6). Our Apostolic Blessing accompanies you in your im-portant responsibilities. ADDRESS TO THE CLARETIAN CHAPTER On October 25, 1973, Paul VI gave an audience to the members of the Claretian general chapter during which he delivered the following address. Beloved Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary! We express to you our deep pleasure at th!s vi.s.!t you pay us at the con-clusion of the meetings of your general chfi~ter. We hope that the work you have carried out these days will be fruitful. We hope that the dedicated service of the superior general and of the other members elected to form part of his council, will be effective and helpful for the purposes of your religious family. ~ We cannot overlook a particularly, iIluhainating circumstance, ,.which makes this joyful meeting more attractive: yesterday we celebrated the liturgical feast of St. Antonio Maria Claret. You yourselves made known for this reason your desire to visit Peter's Successor. We thank you for this gesture of support, in which we see a testimony of ekquisite spiritual affinity with your founder. How could we fail to recall before his sons the deep de-votion' he felt for the Vicar of Christ? And how could we fail to,venerate his memory in view of his eloquent and moving 'profession of faith in papal infallibility at the I Vatican Council? All that obliges us gratefully to open our mind to you in confidence, so that. you know that it is in perfect har-mony of religious sentiments with your own. THE CLARETIAN IMAGE We are sure that, during these days of your chapter, the protecting and guiding presence of St. Antonio Maria became more intense and exacting among you. And we like to think too that, when tracing the lines of re-newal, you took as your fixed point of reference the most genuine faithful- 18 / Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 ness to the origins of your institute and to the teachings on the consecrated life that the II Vatican Council proposed .and we ourself have repeatedly in-culcated. Allow us to savour with what purity of characteristic features the image of the Claretian presented itself to the contemplation of St. Antonio Maria. We read it yesterday during the lesson: "I tell myself: a Son of the Immaculate .Heart~ of Mary is a man burning with charity who sets fire wherever he passes. Nothing disheartens him; he takes pleasure in priva-tions, meets difficulties, delights in slander, and rejoices 0in torments. He thinks of nothing except how to follow and imitate Jesus Christ, in working, suffering and struggling always and only for the greater glory .of God and the salvation of souls" (El celo, c. I, BAC 188 [1959], p. 777). o See here, projected towards you, a whole program of holiness, based on religious renunciation of oneself, the fruit of its fertile evangelical vitality. It points out to you clearly,, with expressions of clear Pauline dynamism the good to which your personal and community life must aspire: the following and imitation of Christ in impulses of a charity that is always operative. BEARERS OF VALUES If to this program of interior life we add the very special cult of the Blessed Virgin h~ inculcated in you together with the~rimary dedication to the ministry of the Word, ,we have the complete picture of the Claretian vocation and spirituality. These and no others were the motives that gave life and ,meaning to the irrepressible zeal of the son of Sallent. And none other was the stamp of religious austerity that he imposed on himself to make his ministry more worthy of credit and more in conformity with the demands of the divine call. To proclaim the Good News to the point of sacrificing oneself for the good of one's brothers, to teach men the ever new languagel of;charity, characterized his overwhelming pastoral,task as Arch-bishop of Santiago in Cuba. Rightly could~we say of him, as of the Apostle of the Gentiles, that his vigor as '.'herald and teacher in faith and truth" (see 1 Tim 2:7) suffered no decrease in the midst of difficulties. On the contrary, his pastoral cares, his missionary anxiety found a way to express themselves continually in new ministerial initiatives, at home and abroad, inspired and nourished by the spirit of faithful service to the Church. Beloved sons, .appreciate this spiritual patrimony of yours;, spare no effort in tending its roots, if you really wish to be a tree always young and flourishing, able to adapt itself to the environment, to the changing require-ments of the times in order to continue to give ripe fruit to the Church, as it did in the past and continues to do at present, through its most illustrious sons. , At the chapter you have just held you have been able to convince your-selves that you are bearers of certain values that do not grow old because they .are a select part of the heritage and the universal vocation of the Documents concerning Religious /o 19 Church. The Christian community itself asks you for faithfulness and dis-cretion, generosity and disinterestedness in order to accept you and recog-nize you as the living and united sign of its human and spiritual aspirations. We do not wish to expatiate at greater length. Entrusting these thoughts to you, we wish to encourage you in your aspirations to holiness with our prayers to the Immaculate Heart of Mary so that, with the help of her motherly intercession, you may be exemplary sons of the Church. As con-firmation of these desires and as a testimony of particular benevolence we warmly impart the Apostolic Blessing to you and to the whole Claretian family. First Penance and First Communion Sacred Congregation [or the Discipline of the Sacraments and Sacred Congregation for the Clergy The Supreme Pontiff Pius X, relying on the prescription of Canon 21 of the Fourth Lateran Council, decided by the Decree "Quam singulari" issued on August 8th 1910 (AAS 1910, pp. 577-583), that children, once they had reached the age of discretion, should receive the sacraments of penance and Eucharist. That decision, having been put into operation throughout the universal Church, has produced and continues to produce very many fruits of Christian life and spiritual perfection. The "Addendum" to the General Catechetical Directory issued on the 1 lth April, 1971, by the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy (AAS 1972 pp. 97-176) confirms the custom of children receiving the sacrament of penance before Communion: "Having weighed all these points, and keeping in mind the common and general practice which per se cannot be derogated without the approval of the Apostolic See, and also having heard the Con-ferences of Bishops, the Holy See judges it fitting that the practice now in force in the Church of putting confession ahead of first Communion should be retained." The same "Addendum" took into consideration the fact that in certain regions in the Church some new practices had been introduced allowing children to be admitted to first Communion without first receiving the sacra-ment of penance. It allowed such practices to be continued for a time, pro-vided there was "prior communication with the Apostolic See and., they [the Conferences of Bishops] are at one mind with it." Having now carefully considered the matter and having taken into con-sideration the wishes of the bishops, the Sacred Congregations for the Dis-cipline of the Sacrament~ and for the Clergy, by virtue of this present docu-ment, and with the approval of the Supreme Pontiff, Paul VI, now that the 2O First Penance a~nd First Communion two years have passed, declare that these experiments should be brought to an end with the conclusion of the school year 1972-73 and that, there-fore, the Decree "Quam singulari" is to be obeyed by all everywhere. Given at Rome 24 May 1973. ANTONIUS Card. SAMORI~ Praef . JOHANNES Card. WRIGHT Praef . A Note on Intercommunion Secretariat [or the Union of Christians The following text is an explanatory note concerning the "Instruction on Intercom-munion" issued by the Secretariat for the Union of Christians on June 1, 1972; the text of the 1972 "Instruction" was given in Review ]or Religious, January 1973, pp. 12-8. 1. After the publication of the "Instruction concerning Particular Cases When Other Christians May Be Admitted to Eucharistic Communion in the Catholic Church," on June 1, 1972, various interpretations of it were given, some of which depart from the letter and the spirit of the document. To pre-vent the spread of such inaccurate interpretations and their consequences, we think it useful to recall to mind a few points. 2. With this instruction, pastoral in character, the Secretariat for Pro-moting Christian Unity had no intention of changing the rules laid down by the Vatican Council's decree on ecumenism and further explained by the Directorium Oecumenicum. The intenti6n was to explain that the existing discipline derives from the requirements of the faith and so retains its full vigour. 3. The basic principles of the instruction are: a) There is an indissoluble link between the mystery of the Church and the mystery of the Eucharist or between ecclesial and Eucharistic com-munion; the celebration of the Eucharist of itself signifies the fullness of pro-fession of faith and ecclesial communion (cf. Instruction, par. 2, a, b, c). b) The Eucharist is for the baptized a spiritual food which enables them to live with Christ's own life, to be incorporated more profoundly in Him, and to share more intensely in the whole economy of the mystery of Christ (cf. Instruction, par. 3). 4. Within the full communion of faith, Eucharistic Communion is the .4 Note on lntercommunion / 23 expression of this full communion and, therefore of the unity of .the faithful; at the same time it is the means of maintaining and reinforcing this unity. But Eucharistic Communion practiced by those ,who are not in full ecclesial communion with each other cannot be the expression of that full unity which the Eucharist of its nature signifies and which in this case does not exist; for this reason such Communion,cannot be regarded as a means to be used to lead to full ecclesial communion. 5. All the same, both the Directorium Oecumenicurn and th~ '~Instruc-tion," on,the,strength of what has already been said in the Vatican Council,s decree on ecumenism, allow the possibility of exceptions insofar as the Eucharist is necessary spiritual nour!shment for the Christian life. 6. It is the local ordinary's responsibility to examine these exceptional cases and make concr&e decisions. The instruction (no. 6.) recalls that the Directorium Oecumenicum gives the episcopal authority power, to decide whether in these r~re cases the required conditions are present or not. The episcopal authority's faculty of examining and deciding is governed by criteria laid down in the Directorium Oecumenicum (no. 55) and further explained in the instruction (no. 4 b),:. ". admission to Carbolic'Eucha-ristic Communion is confined to particular cases of those Christians who have a faith in the sacrament in conformity with that of the-Church, who experience a serious spiritual need for the Eucharistic sustenance, who for a prolonged period are unable to have recourse to a minister of their own community °and who ask for the sacrament of their own accord; all' this provided that they have proper dispositions~ and lead lives worthy of a Christian." ~. This criterion is observed if,,ail the required conditions .are verified. An object.ire, pastorally responsible examination,does not allow any vof,the con-ditions to be ignored. . ~. ~ ~ It must also be noted that the instruction speaks of particular cases, which are to be examined individually. Hence-a general regulation.cannot be~ issued which makes a catego.ry .o.ut of an exce.ptional case, nor is it possibles.to legitimate on the basis:of, epikei.a by turning this latter into a general rule. Nevertheless, the bishops can in tiae various situations decide what are theneeds that make exceptions applicable, that is to say, what constitutes a special case, and they can determine the manner of verifying whether all the required conditions are fulfilled in such a particular case. When par-ticular cases presen.t themselves fairly often in one region, following a re-current pattern, episcopal conferences can issue some guiding principles for ascertaining that al!,the conditions are verified in particular cases. Normally however it will be within the competence of the local ordinary to judge such cases. 7. For other Christians to be admitted to the Eucharist in the Catholic Church the instruction requires that they manifest a faith in the sacrament Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 in conformity with that of the Catholic Church. This faith is not limited to a mere affirmation of the "real presence" in the Eucharist, but implies the doctrine of the Eucharist as taught in the Catholic Church. 8, It is to be noted that the instruction (no. 5) calls to mind the fact that the Directorium Oecumenicum (par. 34-54) provides for the Orientals not in full communion with the Catholic Church rules different from those regarding other Christians (par. 55-63)o For example, (a) Since they belong to a community whose Eucharistic faith is in con-formity with that of the Catholic Church, a personal declaration of faith in the sacrament will not be required of them when they are admitted: in an Orthodox this faith is taken for granted; (b) since the Orthodox Churches have true sacraments and, above all, by virtue of apostolic succession, the priesthood and the Eucharist, conces-sions for sacramental communion must take account of legitimate reciprocity (no. 43); (c) Justifiable reasons for advising sacramental sharing are considerably more extensive. 9. The question of reciprocity arises only with those Churches which have preserved the substance of the Eucharist, the sacrament of orders, and apostolic succession. Hence a Catholic cannot ask for the Eucharist except from a minister who has been validly ordained (Directorium Oecumenicum, no. 55). 10. The desire to share the Eucharist fundamentally expresses the desire of the perfect ecclesial unity of all Christians which Christ willed. Intercon-fessional dialogue on the theology of the Eucharist (as sacrament and sacrifice), on the theology of ministry and of the Church is pursuing its course within the ambit of the ecumenical movement, supported by the promises and prayer of our Lord; it is stimulated and enlivened by the charity, poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. We express the hope that the ecumenical movement will lead to a common profession of faith among Christians and so allow us to celebrate the Eucharist in ecclesial unity, giving fulfillment to the words, "Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body" ( 1 Cor 10: 17). This note has been approved by the Holy Father, who has authorized its publication. 17 October 1973 JOHN CardinaF WILLEBRANDS President CHARLES MOELLER Secretary Decree on the Holy Year Indulgence Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary A DECREE WHICH DETERMINES WHAT SPIRITUAL WORKS ARE NECESSARY TO GAIN "THE GIFT OF THE INDULGENCE" IN THE VARIOUS LOCAL CHURCHES ON THE OCCASION OF THE HOLY YEAR The Cardinal President of the Central Committee for the Holy Year has asked this Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary to determine what spiritual works are necessary to gain "the gift of the Indulgence," which the Holy Father has promised to reinforce the spirit of reconciliation and renewal which are the characteristics of this Holy Year. Charged by the Sovereign Pontiff, the Sacred Penitentiary grants that, from the 1st Sunday of Advent of this year, until the day when the Holy Year is solemnly initiated in Rome, the faithful of the individual local Churches can gain: 1. The Plenary Indulgence, in the times to be decided by the Episcopal Conferences, if they go on a. pious pilgrimage to the cathedral church, or also to o~her churches determined by the local Ordinary, in which a solemn community function is held; 2. The Plenary Indulgence, likewise in the times to be decided by the Episcopal Conferences, if gathered in groups (for example, families, school pupils, workers, employees and professional workers, pious associations), they visit the cathedral or other churches designated by the Ordinary, and remain there in pious meditation for a suitable time, concluding the visit with the recitation or singing of the Lord's Prayer and the Creed and with the invocation to the Blessed Virgin; 3. The Plenary Indulgence if, prevented by sickness or any other serious 25 26 / Review fo.r. Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 cause, they join spiritually in the pious pilgrimage, offering God their prayers and sufferings. As regards the diocese of Rome, which should rightly be in this matter an example and stimulus for other ecclesial communities, the same Sacred Penitentiary decrees that the times and ways to gain the aforesaid Plenary Indulgence shall be determined by the Cardinal Vicar General of Rome. Notwithstanding any provisions to the contrary. Rome, from the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary, 24 September 1973. G. SESSOLO Regent G. CARD. PAUP1NI Grand Penitentiary COMMENTARY ON THE HOLY YEAR INDULGENCE The following commentary on the preceding document appeared in L'osser-vatore romano, November 29, 1973, page 6. 1. By order ~f the Holy Father, the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary issued, on 24 September 1973, a decree confirming and clarifying what had already been said with regard to the Jubilee indulgence during this first phase of the Holy Year. It establishes::the so-called "work" or "pious practice" to be carried out by the faithful, at given times and places, to acquire the Jubilee indulgence. ~ .' The "work" prescribed is a "pilgrimage" to a designated church, con-cl'~ ding witl~ barticipation in a solemn community servic~ or at le.ast with the i'ecitatign 'of some prayers. Summarizing the decree of 24 September 1973 and keeping in mind both the norms for indulgences and the Holy Father's Letter of 31 May 1973, to Cardinal Maximilian de Ftirstenberg, President of the Central Committee for the Ho!y Year, the following points.may be r~oted. The faithful who, duly,dispoged, approach the sacraments of confession affd communion and pray acco~:ding to the intentions of the Holy Father and the Episcopal C~ollege, are granted, in conformity with the norms in fbrce, the gift of the i91enary indulgence, at the time~'to be determined by the respective Episcopal Conference, beginning from 2 December 1973: (a) if they'take part in a pilgrimage to the cathedral church or to another church #esignated by the local Bishop and participate in solemn comrriunity serVice there; (b) if they go in groups (for example ram!lies, "sc3ools, professignal @orkers, associations) to one of the afpresaid chur'~hes and devote the, m-s'elves for ~/suitable space bf time to pious considerations, concluding them with the recitation or the singing of the Ou{ Fath~" and the Creed and with an invocation to the Blessed Virgifi; (c) if, being unable to take part in'tli~ pilgrimage of their comn~unity (ecclesial, family, or social), because they are pi'evented by illness or any ~Decree on the Holy Year Indulgence / 27 .o, ther serious cause, they join in it .spiritually by offering their prayers and sufferings. 2. We spoke above of the faithful being ."duly disposed." This is a reminder that the '.'gift of. t, he indulgence" must .be merited by fervent prep-aration; it is bestowed to reward° and "strengthen"--as we readAn the re-cent d.e~cree--the spirit of renewal and reconciliation that must characterize the Hgly Year. , For this reason the simple practices that are required to gain the Jubilee indulgence must not be separated from the work of preparation, on which s9 much stress has rightly been laid. The practices themselves are, as ~it were, the point of arrival°and ,tOe exte_r.na_l sign of deep renewal of the spirit and reinvigorated love for God and one's brethren. . No.w, ,,the work of renewal and fervor is 'the most valuable part of the Holy Year, because, great as is the value of the indulgence that remits the te.mporal pen,alty in the case of, those who are disposed, the value of the works proposed when their fulfillment leads,to an increase of charity is in-comparably greater (St. Thomas, Supplement to the Theological Summa, q. 25~ 2, 2 and q. 27, 2, 2). ,. 3. We mentioned above--in addition to the proper disposition and the "work" prescribed~what are commonly called "conditions" for gaining the Jubilee indulgence, namely:sacramental confession, eucharistic,communion, and prayer for the intentions of the Holy Father and the Episcopal College. The three "conditions" mentioned above are also required for every other plenary indulgence, with the only difference that the prayer, according to the general norms, is said for the intentions of the Holy Father, while in this circumstance the Holy Father himself (cf. Letter to Cardinal de Ftirs-tenberg, quoted above) has wished to associate the intentions of the Bishops with his own. For the fulfillment of the conditions (cf. Norms, nn. 27, 28 and 29), the following should be noted: " (a) Communion and prayer for the intentions of the Holy Father and of the Episcopal College should be on the same day on which the pilgrimage is made, but they may be before or afterwards. (b) To fulfill the condition of prayer for the intentions of the Holy Father and the Bishops, the faithful may recite a prayer of their own choice. (c) As for sacramental confession, in order to be able to make it un-hurriedly, it can be made even twenty days before or after the pilgrimage. It should also be remembered that confession must be made even by those who do not feel any serious guilt on their conscience; that it is required on the occasion of any plenary indulgence, but even more so for the Jubilee indulgence because of the particular commitment of purification and re-newal that the Holy Year entails. The confession, in fact, if the penitent so desires and the confessor con-s~ ders ~t useful, may ~nclude not only the s~ns since the last good confession, Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 but also the sins of a longer period of time to facilitate a deeper renewal of life. Furtherra~ore, to facilitate the faithful in making their individual con-fession, the recommendation that there should be confessors available "on the days and at the hours established for the convenience of the faithful" (cf. Normae~ pastorales of the S0 Congr. of the Doctrine of the Faith. 16 June 1972, AAS 64, 1972, page 513), is especially applicable for the Holy Year. (d) During .the Holy Year it is also ct~stomary to grant confessors special faculties in order that, if necessary, they"can absolve penitents in some cases, usually "reserved" to higher authority, without the obligation of re-course to the Bishop or to other competent Superior or to the Holy See. During the first phase of the Holy Year, which is celebrated in the vari-ous local Churches, the Bishops can make provision in this regard by grant-ing, at least to the more experienced confessors, the ample faculties at their disposal (cf. M.P. Pastorale munus of 30 November 1963, n. 14: AAS 56, 1964, p. 8). 4. Mention was also made above, in a generic way, of the "norms in force." It will be sufficient to recall here expressly the following two: (a) Every indulgence can" be applied to the dead by way of suffrage (norm 4). (b) The plenary indulgence can be acquired only once a day (norm 24, 1). Religious Life: Style or Culture? Vincent P. Branick, S.M. Father Vincent P. Branick, S.M., teaches Scripture and philosophy at Chaminade College of Honolulu; 3140 Waialae Avenue; Honolulu, Hawaii 96816. Paradoxically, loneliness has appeared most intensely in communities which have accepted in full seriousness the needs of the individual to express and communicate his unique personality. Groups which have sacrificed rich traditions to avoid the suffocation of their members in a mass of impersonal structures, congregations which have radically reformed their rules in quest of a truly personalized life have found their members suffering an over-whelming sense of isolation and lack of social maturity, to the extent of a serious weakening or even destruction of~their religious vocation. The Loss of Religious Culture Obviously, the ideals of personalism governing these reforms are not false. The evident validity of these ideals has led administrators to hold to the reforms in the face of their congregations' equally evident devitaliza-tion and even extinction. The mistake lies not in the ideals but in an un-recognized consequence resulting from an oversimplified pursuit of these ideals, namely, in the loss of religious culture. Many young people who came to religious life with a profound desire to be religious are leaving for the lack of a religious culture in which they could live. Many older religous are retreating into a comfortable bachelorhood for want of a religious cul-ture in which they could grow. What is this missing culture? Culture in General In its fundamental sense, a culture is a milieu or atmosphere in which 29 30 / Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 the human person can express his heartfelt values and through which he can communicate with others about these values. A culture is a consistent pat-tern of practices and manners which specify a shared approach to life, a familiar environment in which an individual finds himself, in which he can feel "at home." This fundamental sense of culture appears most strikingly in the cele-bration of a folk-festival. A nation celebrating itself gathers up its heritage, dances, and contests as a reminder of all that its members have in common. The songs a people sings are truly its songs. These are the songs which its ancestors sang and which likewise catalyzed its ancestors' sense of identity. Through these traditioned customs a nation can celebrate its solidarity in the present and its link to its past. Thus, a folk-festival is not a celebration separated from daily life, but rather an intensification of elements active in a lesser way throughout the daily life of a people, binding a people together. The stranger can visit and enjoy the celebration, but he can never fully par-ti~ ipate in it. He is not of the same culture. Culture as a Social Reality In its more common meaning as a complex of refinements and sensi-bilities, culture is likewise basically a social concept. The "cultivated" per-son is one whose sensibilities have been refined to perceive the beauty of the art and customs of a nation, to understand and use the language and literature that bind a people together, ultimately to understand the languages and customs that bind all men together. The use of such refinement as a device for. mere self-display produces a grotesque caricature, confusing cul-ture. with snobbery. True culture is essentially a social reality. The cultivated person is one who has mastered.the symbols of a society, the symbols which are the means of communication within that scciety. As a social reality, culture is an extension of the human body's ability to symbolize the soul to others. It is an extension produced by a consistent use of many details of life, perhaps insignificant in themselves but very sig-nificant in the pattern they form together. This extension is accomplished with other persons, who together create a circle of common gestures, lan-guage, dress, and other customs, a circle in which each individual feels at home, in which he can express himself and be confident,of understanding, since he is communicating with others in a familiar medium. The N~ed of Every Man for a Culture Every man needs such a culture in which to grow. The man in society needs to feel a certain rhythm about him which he knows and which he can use as a sounding board for his inner life, allowing him to concretize and control that inner life and, above all, to share it with others. Even the her-mit has taken with him his language and his manners which remain at least an unconscious reminder of the people he knows and which .allow him to Religious Li]e: Style or Culture? / 31 express to himself the life he is leading. The man without a culture is the barbarian, the one incapable of using the symbols of communication, the conventions of sharing; thus he is reduced to grunting his basic needs. Far from suppressing individual persons and ideas, the discipline of a culture provides a man with the means of expressing and developing his individuality. The great poets expressed their genius not by creating new and private languages, but by mastering their mother tongues. Perhaps the great attraction of the "hippy culture" was its success in mediating a solidarity and communication among its members. The pattern of the many external, insignificant details permitted one member to talk to another. The long, slightly matted hair, the beard, the colorful but bleached clothes, necessarily frayed at the edges, the beads, and above all, the vocabulary--these details, insignificant in themselves, formed a culture within which one hippy could understand another. The apparent contradic-tion between the hippy ideal of freedom in personal expression, on the one hand, and the strict conformity in dress and hair, on the other, can be un-derstood in the light of the enormous importance such details have when taken together to form a culture. Religious Culture In the same way the person who enters religious life needs a culture, The person who wishes to live his Christian life in intense simplicity and poverty, the person who seeks a prolonged meditative prayer needs a pat-tern of bodily symbols to concretize his aspirations, a sounding board against which he can objectify his ideals. Furthermore, he needs others who share his spiritual values and with whom he can communicate. He thus needs an atmosphere or pattern in which he can develop this life and communicate with others about this life. He needs a religious culture. It is not surprising to find at the historical origin of religious life the practice of spiritual di-rection, the practice of communicating profound religious insights and val-ues, oa practice which gradually of itself expanded into a pattern of religious customs, into a complete religious culture. Loss ~f Culture by Focus on Style Many communities .today have lost this sense of religious culture 'by focusing rather on the question of style. The emphasis on personal style in religious life has had the value of underlining the individual differences in a community, differences which enrich a.community. Yet, in fact, this same emphasis on personal style has broken down much of the consistent re-ligious patterns and symbols in congregationsland, as a result, much of the communication among the members. Diverse individuals and groups, each absorbed in its preferred style, became isolated from each other. Frequently one religious no longer knew if.another possessed the same spiritual sensi-bilities, the same interests, the same background on which communication Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 could be based. The least common denominator in a particular community became less and less. As religious life became a "life style," attention shifted from "life" to "style," and individuals charted their courses alone, away from each other. Presupposed in this pluralistic approach was the belief that each mem-ber of a community could work out his style of life by himself. The man who wished austerity could rise early by himself, eat frugally by himself, and by himself develop a contemplative form of prayer. Supposedly, the others in the same community who did not wish to share this desert could avail themselves of more bourgois amusements. This presupposition, however, neglects man's need for a culture. In effect, this emphasis on style has led to the introduction into the con-gregations of diversities normally holding among congregations. A particu-lar community could find itself composed of austere Trappists, Christian hippies, and mere professional bachelors, each with his own spirituality, each with his own style. Sharing the same province or even living under the same roof, members of communities began to look like strangers to each other. The fundamental element of religious life, spiritual direction, be-came impossible. Prayer life broke down, not through laziness, but through loneliness, through the inability to communicate with others about one's prayer. Formation of recruits became an impossible task, often involving a series of contradictory instructions as a young person passed from the recruiting community, to the novice master, and on through the stages of formation. Rebuilding Religious Culture At present most attempts to rebuild the bond among the members of a community tend in two distinct ways.', the one "theoretical," the other "recreational." The first consists of an attempt to find and concentrate on "the essen-tials." In the face of a bewildering variety of life styles, many communities have sought to articulate the essence of their life, the core reality that every-one could accept, on which everyone could concentrate, allowing then the accidentals to vary according to individual preferences. The theologians were asked to present in clear terms the essence of religious life. General chapters met and held their breath, waiting for this description of the essence. They will probably continue to wait for some time, because the task of articulating the essence of such a concrete and mysterious reality as re-ligious life appears as an impossible job. Whatever "essential trait" is sei~ed upon, whether some particular vow, the three vows, or community life, there appears in history or in the present some obviously religious form of life that flourished or is presently flourishing without it. The appeal to ca-nonical definitions likewise fails to point out an essence of the life, since Religious Li]e: Style or Culture? / 33 these definitions appear more as descriptions after the fact, more as arti-ficially clear and distinct deliniations required for the legal functioning of the Church than as theological penetrations into the fundamental structure of the life. Like peeling away the successive skins to find the onion, the-ologians peeled away the "accidents" but found little left to identify as an essence. The second method of rebuilding the bond among the members of a community is far more down to earth and consists on stressing "the com-mon fun." While awaiting the perfect theology of religious life, people can do something practical. They can recreate together and in that recreation seek to build a community. Such suggestions as "Let's fire the cook and make our own meals together!" or "Everybody in the club room tonight for cocktails!" often clothe desperate attempts to build community. Certainly this effort has served well by focusing on the real need for sim-ple friendliness in communities (to say nothing of the marvelous cooks pro-duced). Yet the idea of common life meant more to the ancients than our attempts at common fun. Such a shallow basis of life does not attract dedi-cated young people. If all they see is this recreational aspect of our lives, they will hardly be convinced to sacrifice spouse and children for a con-viviality that can never approximate the intensity and warmth of a natural family. The community recreation is important, but it can never form the basis of religious common life. The Need to Reestablish a Religious Culture The isolation and loneliness vitiating communities can be overcome only by reestablishing a whole religious culture, a consistent and relatively stable milieu in which religious can feel at home as religious, a pattern of con-crete practices through which one religious can express his deep spiritual values to another. The precise culture will vary with each congregation. Any form, how-ever, will demand certain general lines. First, a religious culture demands an attention to a multitude of accidental details, many of which when taken alone may appear insignificant and even superficial. Neither the cut of the clothes, nor the simplicity in a house, nor the hour of rising appears worthy of an intense crusade. It is useless to seek a rationale directly behind such details, and the temptation exists to peel them away one by one, to peel them away as though from some essential core. Yet insofar as it is a cul-ture, the essence of religious life may be inseparable from the sum total of the "accidents." A religious culture does not stand or fall with any particu-lar detail, but the simple removal of each accidental reduces by that much the identifiability of that culture. Second, any religious culture is necessarily built around the form of prayer of the community, more specifically, around the degree of con-templation a community chooses to practice. A particular type of prayer 34 / Review for Religious, l/olume 33, 1974/1 often requires an ambience, a degree of calm, a type of simplicity regulat-ing the details of the whole day. Conversely, a particular form of contempla-tive prayer colors all else: personal service, the celebration of the Eucharist, professional work. The type and degree of mental prayer is thus a key ele-ment in any religious culture. Third, religious culture, like any culture, requires a willingness of the members to sacrifice personal preferences for the consistency of a com-munity atmosphere, to place a social culture before a personal style. This is not to say that the culture must take the form of some immobile mass of customs. Customs must evolve. As practices no longer serve to communicate the spiritual inspiration of a community, as gestures lose their symbolic values, they should disappear. However, a culture must change as a culture. It must evolve on,the basis of other more stable elements, not on the basis of members darting off in their own directions, according to the demands of personal style. ¯ Within the context of such a religious culture, the search for the essence of religious life can continue, guided not simply by an abstract analysis, but, .more importantly, by a lived contact with the reality. Since religious life is received by man as gift, not produced by him as invention, since the life is fundamentally beyond his natural powers, he will probably never attain that clear insight into the nature of the life that results in a precise defini-tion. Our speech about religious life will probably always be dominated more by poetic intuition than by abstract concept, a poetic intuition that feels at home with small details and operates from a position within the object spoken of. Likewise, the efforts to improve community recreation should have an important part in the building of religious culture. The simple kindness and conviviality of a community recreation can be a powerful expression of the fundamental value of fraternal love, if this expression is part of a greater milieu. Culture and Personal Development Where the individual religious finds a living and consistent culture, there he will find the medium in which to express his unique individuality. In the expressed solidarity of a group, a member has the means of developing a truly personalized life. There he has the means of expressing for himself and for others his unique riches. A culture which involves even many small details will not stifle individuality. As the expression of the spirit, a culture will function as a guide and an agent of personal development. Only a vibrant culture in religious life will dispel the present loneliness. Size and the Cohesiveness of Groups of Religious Sister Jane Marie Kerns, S.H.C.J. Sister Jane Marie is a faculty member of West Catholic Girls High School and,lives at the Convent of the Holy Child Jesus; 4724 Cedar Avenue; Philadelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19143. ~ Six years have passed since the CMSW undertook the monumental study known as the Sisters Survey in an attempt to delve into the thinking and feelings of the religious who participated. Prescinding from the reported findings, one can suspect that even the launching of such a study had value simply as a consciousness-raising device. Foremost among the areas of re-ligious life that came under scrutiny was the, dynamics of group living that we call community life. Explosive--because it is inescapably personal-- and sacrosanct--because it is integral to religious traditions and the essence of religious life as we understand it, the whole topic of group living by re-ligious is subject to biased interpretations. Why? Perhaps just because celibates need so much from community life. Perhaps just because we de, pend so much on life in community to underwrite the whole structure of the social apostolates in which we engage. Perhaps just because an ideal form of community life promises to make tangible and present the kingdom of God toward which we daily strive. Size and Cohesiveness Whatever the reason, there can be no doubt that community is a prime concern among religious and that size as related to cohesion is a pivotal area. In order to bring empirical objectivity into an issue clouded with un-conscious and often conflicting biases, the author undertook a research 35 36 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 project designed to investigate the effects of size on the cohesiveness of groups of religious living together in local communities. By devising a method to quantify the degree of cohesion exhibited through the affective choices made by members of several large and small communities, it was possible to make a comparison based on evidence more objective than opinion and more concrete than theory. Background The CMSW Survey in 1967 showed that 59.7% of the 125,000 sisters who responded to it felt that there was an optimal size of community groups beyond which it would be impossible for members living together to become a community. (Though the Survey did not define the term com-munity, it is patent from much of the literature of the day that sisters under-stand some special sense of fraternity and solidarity or cohesiveness that should be characteristic of the shared life of religious who live together.) Among the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, who were the subjects of the research project on which this article is based, an even greater majority-- 78.2%--concurred in the opinion expressed on the CMSW Survey instru-ment. In subsequent years a plethora of literature praising small group living has led to a general belief among religious in the therapeutic value of the small local community as the preventative for malformation of personality and as a booster shot for personal fulfillment through the healthy human interaction indispensable for strong ego-building? The impetus for the renewal of religious life given by Vatican II in-corporated much that flowed from the best developments of social psy-chology. In this context the drive to revivify the apostolate of the Church required that religious orders of men and women march in tune with the personalism of the culture of which they are a part. Definition of the Problem From this two-pronged incentive of development in the social sciences and updating in the Church, there arose interest in the applicability of many facets of small group research to religious communities. Focusing on the i~ssumptions that in a given group (1) more frequent interaction conse-quent on smaller nfimbers of members tends to produce more cohesive groups and (2) members of a small cohesive group will experience more strong satisfying interpersonal relationships than members of a larger group, the author undertook an empirical study of eleven groups of re-ligious sisters for the purpose of developing an index of cohesiveness that would enable comparisons to be made between larger and smaller groups, 1Gabriel Moran and Maria Harris, Experiences in Community (New York: Herder and Herder, 1968). This is one of many possible examples. Size and the Cohesiveness of Groups of Religious and thus promise an objective test of the hypotheses involved. In brief, those hypotheses state that community size will have a signifi-cant effect both on the number of members with whom one can have good positive relationships and also on the proportionate number of people in community with whom one can have such relationships. Definilion of Key Words Certain key words must be defined in accordance with their use in this ¯ study in order to provide a common working base. The following appear to be most important: 1. cohesion 2. good, positive relationship 3. group--small, large Because of characteristics peculiar to religious orders, the task of defining terms is more complicated than simply borrowing from highly quoted au-thors in the field. A method of definition by distillation was employed in areas where circumstances required. A prime example was the term cohesion. In consulting authors,~ one is confronted with a notion of forces constraining members to remain in the group. But there is nothing in the literature that seems to correspond to the force of perpetual vows which bind the religious to membership in the re-ligious institute and to residence in specific local communities according to the directives from authorities in the order. Two levels of "force" are in-herent in the situation of the religious. One revolves around the strength of his commitment to the religious life itself and the second around the de-gree of commitment with which he engages in the affairs of the local house in which he lives--a commitment arising basically from a sense of duty toward an ideal based outside of the group in which he lives. A third force, distinct from the levels mentioned above, yet probably to some extent conditioned by his whole approach to religious life, is the at-traction that the local community holds for the religious by reason of the rapport he feels with particular members of that given group at any one time. Since all the groups used in this study operate under the same two forces resulting from religious profession in the order, it appears that the third type of force is more germane to our purposes here. Therefore, cohe-sion in this study denoted ". the degree of attachment (involvement, be-longingness, importance) that members have for the group.":' In this con-text then cohesion refers to the obvious capacity of the group to satisfy the ~The writings of men like Cartwright and Zander or Festinger, Schachter, and Back are typical. :~Clovis R. Shepherd, Small Groups: Some Sociological Perspectives (San Francisco: Chandler, 1964), p. 25. 311 / Review [or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 personal needs of its members. It is this connotation that is meant by "strong, satisfying, interpersonal relationships" referred to in the second assumption; and this is the definition of good, positive relationships used in this work. (Though use of the word "friendship" might be a more graceful way of ex-pressing these ideas, its use is being purposefully avoided to.allow for a more open-ended definition of friendship to be employed later in the pre-sentation. ) By small groups, we shall mean groups of between 6 and 11 members and the large groups used in the study ranged from 12 to 29. Procedure The procedure used in the research involved a sociogram-like type of questionnaire in which the respondents were asked to list any number of sisters with whom they had lived during the last year and with whom they would enjoy engaging in a series of activities ranging from purely recrea-tional, to work related, to deeper, more intimate sharing on the religious plane. In every situation the emphasis was on the natural affectivity of one sister for her companions and not any exercise of supernatural charity? Approximately 91% of the sisters responded thus providing the researcher with excellent material from which to construct four measures of cohesion. Three of these stemmed from analysis of who chose whom and how often. By diagrammatically presenting the chain of relationships resulting from tracing the choices of the most frequently chosen individuals as they re-lated to the others in. community, a distance factor was developed. Finally, a study was made of the average number of "good friends" that the sisters INDEX OF COHESION AS DEVELOPED THROUGH THIS STUDY Community z-score corrected distance use of per- average size order ranking z-scores factor sonality votes rank " A 1 1 1 1 1 B 3 2 2 2 2 C 8 3 5 6 6 D 2 5 4 4 3 E 4 7 3 5 4 F 5 6 9 9 7 G 6 4 7 3 5 H 9 10 8 8 l0 I ll 11 6 7 8.5 J 7 8 10 10 8.5 K 10 9 11 11 I1 4For a complete exposition of the steps involved in the research readers are referred to the original work by the author, Sister Jane Marie Kerns, A Quantitative Analysis o[ Size and Cohesion (unpublished M.A. thesis, St. Louis University, 1973). Size and the Cohesiveness oI Groups of Religious / 39 in each house claimed. In this phase of the project each respondent was permitted to define the phrase "good friend" in any way that she felt was adequate and then she was asked to tell how many such "good friends" she had in the~ community in which she lived. Analysis of this section revolved around both the absolute number of good friends claimed and the number proportionate to the size of the community. Interpretation of Results A word of caution is in order here. Before any interpretation of the results can be presented, it must be remembered that this study was de-signed to measure relative cohesion only. It cannot be stretched to comment on disunity, on morale, or on working efficiency of the groups involved; and it must be seen as a measure of natural affectivity--a factor which cannot be assumed to be the dominant motive force for most of the group's activity. This caution is necessary both to maintain a scientific discipline and also to prevent our losing sight of the supernatural aspects of community life that cannot have been explored in this kind of work. Be that as it may, it is still remarkable to notice that the study revealed the presence of no isolates--persons not chosen by any other members of a group--in any of the eleven communities totaling 141 religious. Not only are there no iso-lates, but in actual count there is no, member of any community who was not chosen by at /east 21% of the members of the community who re-plied--- by no fewer than 50% of the members in 7 out of the 1! com-munities. Therefore, it can be insisted that we are justified only in conclud-ing to relatively more or less cohesion but not to any implication of disunity or disaffection. Size as a Significant Factor It can be stated unequivocally that the empirical evidence presented points to size as a significant factor in the study of cohesion. There is every reason to conclude that the smaller, the group, the more the members demonstrate stronger natural choices for a wider segment of the group. But hidden within this general overall conclusion are several important considerations that must be brought to light. Whereas the techniques used here demonstrated the validity of the commonly held belief that small groups tend to be more cohesive, the ques-tion dealing with friendship upset the commonly held expectation that more good friendships are found within small groups and that theoexistence of such friendships is the reason for greater cohesion. From our study the results indicated that such a line o[ r~easoning is faulty. In the first place, smaller houses reported neither a greater number of friendships absolutely nor a greater number proportionately speaking. Hence, friendship and co-hesion are not synonymous nor are they positively related. Rather, it might be concluded that they are alternatives within the group process. 40 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 Two possible lines of thought might be adduced to explain the seeming contradictions posed by the fifth stage of the investigation. First, by de-veloping and combining some of the thought of Simmel~ and of Mancur Olson'~ with regard to small groups, a synthesis can be arrived at which sheds light on the subject. Simmel's contribution springs from his conten-tions that smaller groups have qualities, including types of interaction among their members, which inevitably disappear when the groups grow larger. Olson points to a major difference between large and small groups when he formulates as a principle: ". the larger the group, the less it will further its common interests." Second, by appropriating some of the insights of Sister Joan Michele Rake7 and blending them with the thought of Simmel and Olson, the contradiction of fewer friendships in more cohesive groups is dissolved. Sister Joan Michele draws the boundaries between "engulf-ment" by the community and self-development of the healthy religious who makes good use of the structures of community. Hers is not so much a study of the effect of size but rather a clarification of issues on some of the dynamics at work in any group. The Specifics of Small Groups Consider the relative investment that members of a small group must make in order to obtain the benefits of membership and conversely the mag-nitude of the slack that must be taken up by the remaining members if one member fails to carry his own weight. More specifically, consider the num-ber of functions that must bc performed smoothly if life in the house is to be mutually beneficial. Since the small group enables not only face-to-face rela-tionships but even more importantly, person-to-person contact and consul-tation, many of the decisions reached and the functions implicit in the religious life lived in community are arrived at and disseminated tacitly. For example, each one knows from personal experience that does not need explicitation that communal worship can only be consummated if the com-munity is present and each one knows that in a small house her absence is both noticed and keenly felt. The differential involved is not merely a quan-titative one, but actually a qualitative one. There is a certain unspecified number below which communal worship declines into merely a collection of individuals attending the same liturgical function. And it is this height-ened sense of awareness of the qualitative contribution made by personal participation of each that typifies the small group. Person-to-person contact makes possible agreement--implicit or ex-plicit-- on common goals of a more specific nature than can be formulated '~Kurt H. Wolff, The Sociology o] Georg Simmel (Glencoe: Free Press, 1950), p. 87. ~;Mancur Olson, The Logic o] Collective Action (New York: Schocken, 1968), p. 36. rSister Joan Michele Rake, Friendship in Religious Li]e (unpublished M.A. thesis, Duquesne University, 1969), Chap. 7. Size and the Cohesiveness of Groups o]. Religious / 41 when a larger number of individuals is involved. And converSely, devia-tion from the commonly accepted ideas is more obvious and therefore re-quires more of an expenditure of psychic energy for continued adherence on the part of the deviant and more of an effort on the part of the group as a whole to combat either by modifying the idea or by converting the deviant member. Whether we speak of positive elements that tend to unite or of negative elements that tend to threaten the group's solidarity, there is more immediate response required, a greater expenditure of personal effort on the part of each member in the small group, and a return in the way of benefits of group membership commensurate with the effort expended. The Specifics of Large Groups In the large group the sahae level of return is expected, but the level of expectation of individual participation is lower. Since person-to-person com-munication on. :every issue and between every set of persons is too time-consuming and too indeterminate in the process of seeking consensus, cer-tain abstractions in the form of community mechanisms, offices, and so forth must be established and these become looked upon as the expression of group cohesion that can no longer be immediately and obviously attained. The areas of shared ideas becom6 somewhat more general and, therefore, more readily acceptable to the total group in spite of the greater variety of opinions. In turn these more abstract expressions of relations and more general types of agreements require less commitment on the part of the individual. Though the ideas themselves may be less "radical," less basically rooted in the peculiar characteristics of the group, more generalized, ad-herence to the ideas becomes more radical, more a bare minimum that can-not be sacrificed if group unity is to be maintaini~d. A full complement of the members is not required to constitute a "com-munity presence." Absenteeism is not as noticeable--certainly not as per-tains to the particular individual who is absent, since her personal contribu-tion has in some ways become distanced or formalized in the large group setting. Differences between Small and Large Groups Wha~t results from the above discussion is an argument to the effect that the demonstrably greater cohesion among the small group members results more from a heightened sense of personal investment and personal con-cern, a greater consciousness of the personal element in the affairs of the house, a greater consonance between the individual's own approach to life since his personality enters more fully into the determination of group atti-tudes, a greater sense of the interdependence of the persons in the com-munity in all its affairs---especially because they answer directly to and for each other. In the larger group some degree of personalism is lost as the sheer force of numbers demands some degree of abstraction and the substi- Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 tution of shared symbols that can be immediately present to all when the person-to-person common search for common understanding is not practi-cal, The sense of interdependence is therefore "once removed" with the result that the individual who has to expend less of herself in contributing to and in conforming to more general ideas is then .freer to develop inde-pendently of the group in more areas. Not only is there in larger groups more room for individualism to fluorish and a greater variety of personality types emerging (assuming of course the absence of any rigorous pressure to conform in all respects), but this sharper differentiation among component personalities enables stronger, more particularized dyadic relationships to de-velop out of the shared responses. Hence, we see the application of Simmel's principle that the quantitative increase in size of a group leads to a qualitative differentiation ~on the part of the individuals.8 Simmel holds that an individual tends to maintain a certain balance between the social and the individual aspects of his life. When he is involvi~d in a small group with a high profile for cohesiveness or for strong identity as a group, he has little opportunity to express his own individuality--and little need to do so since there is satisfaction offered in the group. But when he is involved in a larger group with a less ~iell-defined profile, °one that is less consonant with his unique personality since it is necessarily more generalized, he then finds scope--indeed he must--to express his individuality. As the group gains in individuality ~(a situation that pertains to small groups), the individual loses and vice versa. The Question of Friendship Sister Joan Michele believes that wherever the "corporate mentality" is strong among religious--that is, a tendency to look on the group life as an exercise in efficiency--it will be more difficult for 'real friendships to grow. If friendship is ". an encounter between two persons. [which] results in an enduring nonexclusive relation which is lived as a gift of affinity and affection and occasions the autonomous growth of the persons involved,''~ it can only flourish where there is a real encounter of unique personalities --personalities well-developed, mature, sharing a common ground in .their search for truth, and coming, as it were, by chance upoh an unconscious, mysterious affinity that raises comrades, colleagues, and companions. above those levels of association to a new plane that is by no means the necessary consequence of living in community. Precisely what dynamics are generated by the presence of more or fewer dyadic relationships could not be explored in this project since the identity of "good friends" was not revealed; but it has been necessary to digress into these areas ever so slightly, simply to make the point that the cfn-~ 8Wolff, The Sociology o! Simmel, p. 87. '~Rake, Friendship, p. 52. Size and the Cohesiveness of Groups of Religious / 43 clusions reached in this research are quite validly and integrally consistent with the general direction of small group theory. Yet there is real danger that they may lend themselves to simplistic interpretations that do not con-vey the whole picture. The research has confirmed the theory that (1) community size does have a significant effect on the number of members with whom one can have good, positive relationships---both the absolute number and the proportionate number of members; and that (2) the smaller size communities are the ones that exhibit these good, posi-tive relationships more frequently. Equally important, however, are the findings resulting from the question on friendship; namely, the members living in larger groups tend to report both a greater number of "good friends" and to consider a greater proportion of members of the com-munity in the category of "good friends." The above statement when coupled with the theory of writers like Van Kaam, Sister Joan Michele, and even classical authors such as Simmel indi-cates there are ways in which the more cohesive small groups are at the same time more restricted in opportunities for developing friendship and that friendship might actually exist as an alternative to cohesiveness, not as a concomitant element. Practical Conclusions Taking a step beyond the scientifically validated conclusions of the study itself and addressing the practical value of all this for the present-day religious community, there are perhaps two major points to be considered. The first point of practical concern for religious is the importance of the absence of isolates from the communities studied and the commentary this is on the ability of religious who share the overall goals of the religious institute to assimilate members into a community even when religious have no voice in choosing where or with whom they will live. Though this point cannot be pushed beyond the limits mentioned earlier, it can be cited as evidence that the freedom in assigning personnel that has been a plus factor enabling religious groups to function efficiently in the apostolate is not in and of itself incompatible with the desire to provide living condi-tions that foster good interpersonal relationships. The second point to be made is that decisions regarding community size (where circumstances allow for either possibility) might reasonably be made in favor of smaller community groups at a time when the call to re-newal emphasizes our need to search together for a more radical commit-ment to the essence of religious life. If sociologists and psychologists are correct in their assessment of the differential in ability of various size groups to reach consensus at various levels of abstraction, certainly religious would do well to make use of this knowledge in their efforts to re-create 44 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 in the Spirit the shared faith that brought their institutes into being. Further-more, if the members of congregations are appraised of what can and cannot be achieved in groups of various sizes, realistic expectations can constitute solid foundations auguring well for solid progress. Structures of themselves will never cure. But they can facilitate if used wisely, and they can hinder if used poorly or ignored. Size is not of itself a panacea, nor a Pandora's box. Perhaps we have mistakenly held in the past that the same quality of religious life can exist with six or sixty in the community. As we eschew past folly, let us not perpetuate new foolishness by assuming that small size will do more than facilitate the emergence of a faith sharing which will depend for its quality, not on numbers but on the grace of God realized in the lives of those who grow together toward the fulfillment of their covenant with both God and His People. The Liturgy of the Hours in Religious Communities John Allyn Melloh, S.M. Father John Allyn Melloh, S.M., a member of the School of Divinity of St. Louis University, lives at the Marianist Residence; 4528 Maryland Avenue; St. Louis, Missouri 63108. The Liturgy of the Hours should not be looked on as a beautiful monument of a past age, to be preserved almost unchanged in order to excite our admira-tion. On the contrary, it should come to life again with new meaning and grow to become once more the sign of a living community.--The General Instruc-tion on the Liturgy of the Hours, paragraph 273 Reform, renewal, restoration of the liturgy is always one of the paramount concerns of any ecumenical council; Vatican II was no exception. Desirous of "imparting an ever increasing vigor to the Christian life of the faithful" (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, paragraph 1), the Council fathers placed liturgical reform top on the list of their priorities. If the liturgical celebrations of the People of God were to be a "foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims" (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, paragraph 8), then much renewal was needed, lest the pilgrim people of Yahweh seek a new city-~one where celebration was indeed a reality! Restoration of Eucharistic praxis, as well as an updating of other sacra-mental ritual celebrations, was essential for the nourishment of Christian piety and the mediation of the salvific graces to all mankind (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, paragraph 1 !). Equally important for the liturgical life of the ekklesia was the restoration of the Divine Office, the Liturgy of the Hours, the "public prayer of the Church" (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, paragraph 90). In the age of aggiornamento, this "wonderful song 45 46 / Review for Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 of praise" (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, paragraph 84), which had all but entirely disappeared, had to be revived; and a genuine "revival" was needed for the "voice of the bride addressed to her bridegroom" (Constitu-tion on the Sacred Liturgy, paragraph 83) had become mute. This "very prayer which Christ himself, together with his body, addresses to the Father," had become, over the ages, a prayer which Christ, along with a few isolated members--becoming fewer day by day--of His Church addressed to the Father. The opus Dei had become the onus Dei.t General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours Almost ten years later, in February 1971, the Sacred Congregation of Divine Worship issued the General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours. In five chapters, full of good solid Christology, ecclesiology, and spirituality, this document speaks of the Liturgy of the Hours as a viable prayer form for the Church--even in 1973! Perhaps one of the most significant Roman documents issued of late, and certainly the longest and most theological document ever issued on the topic of the Divine Office, the General Instruc-tion makes clear that the intent is the restoration and revitalization of the Liturgy of the Hours. The "ptiblic and communal prayer of the people of God is rightly considered among the first duties of the Church" (General Instruction, paragraph 1), for the ekklesia is most itself, achieves its own special identity, and fulfills its mission when the assembly is together at prayer, especially at liturgical prayer. Vatican II has consciously and firmly asked that~the Liturgy of the Hours once again be prayed, that this prayer form once again be given life by the living People of God--that it may become a living prayer and that the entire Church may "offer praise to God . . . in singing that canticle of praise which is sung throughout all ages in the halls of heaven" (General Instruction, paragraph 16). The New Book of the Liturgy of the Hours A day to be hailed in litui'gical circles was 23 June, 1971, for on that day, L'osservatore romano published Laudis canticum, officially promulgat-ing the new book of the Liturgy of the Hours. The work of Vatican II and its liturgical commission had borne fruit. The new edition of that book once called the "Breviary" had been arranged and prepared in such a way as to encourage the faithful to celebrate the hours. Once again, this necessary complement to Eucharistic worship and sacramental practice was restored so that it would become "the prayer of the whole people of God" (Laudis canticum, L'osservatore romano, page 1 ). At least now there was a chance that should one of the faithful stumble across the Prayer of Christians he might recognize it! In the new edition--albeit interim--of the Liturgy of the Hours genuine reforms were made. Structure of the hours was modified, the cycle of Psalmody changed, intercessor3/prayer introduced--all with a view to pub- The Liturgy of the Hours in Religious Communities / 47 lic celebration of the Hours of Prayer. In its restored form, the Divine Office was to be a "font of piety and nourishment for personal prayer" (Laudis canticum, L'osservatore romano, page 1 ). Toward a Revitalized Celebration The documents of Vatican II, the General Instruction on the Liturgy of the Hours, Laudis canticum--all ask that the prayer of Christ be con-tinued by the members of His Body; earnestly they request that this prayer of Jesus be continued in the revitalized celebration of the Liturgy of the Hour's. It is in our spatio-temporal matrix that groups of praying men and women can continue this prayer of the Lord who lives ever making inter-cession for us (Heb 7:25). Communal prayer will once again take root in the Church at large, replacing, in part, private prayer, especially that form of private recitation of the Office which is a liturgical anomaly. Once again the Church-united may celebrate the prayer of the Hours "to give Him glorious praise" (Ps 66:2). The General Instruction on the Litu.rgy of the Hours, despite the wealth of genuine theological principles and very fine material for meditative re-flection, is rather weak in detailing how the Liturgy of the Hours may "be celebrated in communities--"celebrated" as opposed to "recited," "said," or "read." In the following pages, it is my intent to ,describe how the Liturgy of the Hours is celebrated in our Marianist community in St.Louis, Missouri; likewise, since Evensong was celebrated each evening at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas, during the. 1973 summer session, using the same format of celebration, I would like to include comments from those who participated in those liturgical celebrations. Morning Praise Matins consecrates to God the first movements of our minds and hearts; no other care should engage us before we have been moved with the thought of God, as it is written, "I thought of God and sighed" (Ps 76:4), nor should the body undertake any work before we have done what is said, "I say this prayer to you, Lord, for at daybreak you listen for my voice; and at dawn I hold myself in readiness for you, I watch for you" (Ps 5:4-5).--The General Instruction on the Liturgy o] the Hours, paragraph 38; quotation from St. Basil Morning itself conveys the notion of rebirth and renewal; the gift of God--a new day to be lived out in Christ--stirs the soul of the Christian to prais.e and to supplicationl The character of the Morning Office quite naturally becomes an act of dedication, of preparation, of offering the first fruits of the day's labor to the Lord, in the hope that the entire day will be pleasing in His sight. As Morning Praise is celebrated in our community, a vested celebrant enters the chapel and greets the community after reverencing the altar. A Morning Hymn is sung; this hymn thematically recalls the symbol of God who is light (1 Jn 1:5) and of Christ who is the Sun of Justice (Mal 4:2). Review for Religious, I"olume 33, 1974/1 Praise and thanksgiving for light--both natural and supernatural-colors the sung praise of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A redeemed people, brought from darkness to the kingdom of God's beloved Son (Col l:13), from darkness of idolatry to the light of the Gospel, we praise our God for crea-tion, for redemption--for the light of day and the light of Christ. A brief penitential rite--an offering of incense--follows the hymn. During the incensation of the standing community, Psalm 51 or 63 is sung. St. Basil explains: "When day is breaking, all together, as from one heart, sing the Psalm of confession [Ps 51] to the Lord, each one making his own these words of repentance." John Chrysostom points out that Psalm 63, an ardent cry of longing for the Lord, is also a Psalm of purification, giving voice to the Christian's awareness of his weakness and need for the loving mercy of the Lord. A collect concludes this brief prayer for purification and readies the community for the celebration of the Word of God. The community is seated during the singing of the morning Psalmody. Psalms of praise, especially the traditional morning Psalms 148 through 150, are used. Ordinarily, only one Psalm is sung and the usual mode of singing is responsorial. Psalms are chosen according to themes well suited for a morning prayer. A significant pause for silent prayer follows the singing of the Psalmody. An appropriate Psalter collect, stressing praise of the beneficent God, concludes the sung Psalmody. An adequate rhythm of community prayer is enhanced through the use of lectio continua in Morning Praise. Especially appropriate are Old Testa-ment selections; since the Epistles and Gospels are proclaimed during the celebration of Evensong or the Eucharist. The choice of readings varies with the Church year. After a period of silence of several minutes, all stand for the singing of the Gospel Canticle of Zachary, which accompanies the offering of incense. As a symbol of intercessory prayer "going up" in the Lord's sight (Rev 8:3-4)--a survival of the Temple usages described in Exodus 29 and 30-- the offering of incense is made at the altar, which is then incensed. Intercessory prayer is generally a brief morning litany which concen-trates on themes of renewal, dedication for the work of the day, prayer for God's continual blessing throughout the day. Usually the prayer is sung; and on penitential days the community kneels for this prayer, which is con-cluded by an appropriate collect. The Lord's Prayer, which Tertullian has called the "epitome of the Gospel itself," that eschatological prayer which stresses the primacy of the kingdom and the life of those living in it, can be considered the climax of the Office. The prayer is always sung and the congregation prays it in the usual orans position. A blessing concludes the Morning Office--the prayer of praise of God, of thanksgiving for creation and redemption, and of ardent desire for the life of the Kingdom. The Liturgy of the Hours in Religious Communities / 49 Evensong Our fathers did not think it right to receive the blessing of evening light in silence. Rather, the moment it appeared, they would praise and thank God for it.--St. Basil, Treatise on the Holy Spirit As day is drawing to a close and the evening is upon us, the Christian community gathers to give thanks "for what has been given us during the day, or for the things we have done well during it" (St. Basil, Regulae fusius tractatae, Resp. 37, 3; PG 31, 1015). With an evening light service, the celebration of Evensong commences. To the proclamation: Jesus Christ is the Light of the world! intoned by a vested deacon, the congregation responds: A Light that no darkness can extinguish! During the ceremonial illumination of the church, the lighting of the candles and the lighting of the chapel lights, an evening hymn is sung. Ordinarily the Phos Hilaron is sung in one of its several settings, or another appropriate evening hymn, stressing the theme of Christ our Light, is sung. A diaconal proclamation, an act of thanksgiving for the blessings of light and an act of praise of God, concludes the light service. An evening act of contrition, an offering of incense, follows; and Psalm 141, "The Psalm at the kindling of lights," accompanies the liberal incensa-tion of the community. This offering of incense, an atonement symbol (Num 17:11-3), is a purificatory action. It should help the Christian com-munity recall the "sweet odor of Jesus Christ" (2 Cor 2:14-6) and be a symbol expressive of that saving blood of the Lamb who ever lives to make intercession for us (Heb 7:25). An appropriate Psalter collect is a conclu-sion to this ritual action. Evening Psalmody is sung responsorially. Ordinarily only one Psalm, in addition to Psalm 141, is sung in the evening. Evening themes of thanks-giving for the blessings of the day and repentance for inevitable daily failings can be found in the Psalter. Such Psalms are appropriate for the evening Office. A period of meditative silence of significant length follows the sing-ing, and this period of prayer is concluded with the praying of a collect. The reading from Scripture is taken from the cycle of readings in the new lectionary. Customarily, Epistle and/or Gospel readings are used in the evening. A homily is preached when Evensong is celebrated immediately preceding the community evening dinner. The period of meditative silence is broken by the singing of the Gospel Canticle of the Virgin Mary which accompanies the offering of incense. In line with the use of incense as a symbol of intercessory prayer, the altar is honored with incense to affirm our belief and real participation in the com-munion of saints (Rev 8:3-4). Gospel Canticles, reverenced as the good news of salvation, are always sung standing. A fundamental part of Christian prayer, intercession for the universal needs of the Church and the world, is offered, following the urgings of Paul (1 Tim 2:1-4). The traditional Byzantine Litany of Peace is often 50 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 33, 1974/1 sung as one form of intercessory prayer. Other litanies are also used. One of the most famous and popular of the Eastern hymns is the Tri-sagion, which came into wide usage after the Council of Chalcedon in the fifth century. A hymn of Trinitarian praise and thanksgiving as used with the doxology, it is a fitting introduction to the prayer given us by Jesus. It is essentially of the same prayer style of praise and thanksgiving as we find in the prayer given by Jesus and as such it is a beautiful sung introduc-tion. Expressing an ardent desire for the coming of the kingdom and a solemn plea for the forgiveness of sin and genuine fraternal reconciliation, the Lord's Prayer is a most fitting conclusion to the Christian Office. A solemn blessing, most often tripartite in form, is the dismissal of the community, an invocation of the power of God upon the assembly and a petition for the mercy and loving kindness of the Almighty Lord in whose name we have gathered. At times, the Kiss of Peace is exchanged at the conclusion of Evensong, as a symbol of the peace of the kingdom, that peace which alone can be given by the Lord of that dominion. ' Resurrection Vigil of the Lord's Day Come,O faithful: let us drink a new drink, produced miraculously not from a barren rock, but springing from the tomb which is a fountain of immortality: the tomb of Christ by which we are strengthened. Glory to your holy resurrection, O Lord! Today the whole creation, he~iven and earth and the deepest abysses of the earth are filled with joy. Let the whole universe celebrate the resurrection by which we are strengthened. Glory to your holy resurrection, O Lord! Yesterday I was buried with You, O Christ! Today I rise with You in your resurrection. Yesterday I was crucified with you: glorify me with you in your kingdom. Glory to your holy resurrection, O Lord! Christ is risen from the dead! He has crushed death by his death and bestowed life upon those who lay in the tomb. Glory to your holy resurrection, O Lord! Jesus is risen indeed, as He had foretold: He has given us eternal life and abundant mercy.--Third Ode, Easter Canon of John of Damascus Byzantine Daily Worship, Easter Sunday, page 849 These words contain the spirit of unrestrained joy of the Christian who encounters the Paschal Mystery of the Lord Jesus. The sense of triumph, of joy, of exultation, and of hope permeate this entire text. While the vigil of the Easter celebration of the resurrection is truly "Mother of all Vigils," nevertheless a weekly commemoration of the Pascha of the Lord is in the mainline tradition of the Church. The celebration of the Resurrection vigil of the Lord's Day, which takes place at eleven o'clock Saturday evening, is a wonderful preparation for the Eucharistic Banquet of the Lord's Day. It is a rich and deep experi-ence of the mystery of the passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord and The Liturgy o] the Hours in Religious Communities / 51 Savior Jesus Christ, celebrated communally with hymnody, Psalmody, and readings. The Night Watch, that time when we gather as a community, to recall the resurrection of Jesus and to pray for His glorious return, is a service of the Word celebrated with grandeur. The chapel is in darkness awaiting the appearance of the New Light. A vested presbyter and vested deacon enter, bearing the lighted Paschal Candle. The diaconal proclamation of Christ as the Light of the World begins the celebration, and the ceremonial illumina-tion of the church is accompanied by the singing of the Phos Hilaron. A Byzantine setting of Radiant Light, arranged for three-part singing, is a magnificent hymn of light praising Father,' Son, and Holy Spirit. The Paschal Candle is honored with incense during the singing. The deacon sings Hip-polytus' Easter Hymn or the Paschal Praeconium, giving voice to the joyful thanksgiving of the Christian assembly. The singing of Psalm 141, with its accompanying offering of incense, is polyphonic. While this ritual action is an evening act of contrition, it is nevertheless a joy-filled, because confident, plea for the loving kindness of the Lord who always awaits with eagerness the return of those who have been unfaithful. Concluding this action of repentance is an appropriate collect. At times the singing of Psalm 141 is omitted in favor of using a differ-ent Psalm, one with Paschal overtones. The second Psalm, sung respon-sorially, takes on a Paschal character through the use of alleluia antiphons. The great cry "Alleluia" re-echoes in the hearts of those who have experi-enced the risen Lord and Psalms of praise express the gratitude of the as-sembly for the Great Passage of the Lord. One of the charismatic speeches recorded in Acts with a sung respon-sorial Psalm or an appropriate patristic reading is the First Lesson, followed by a distinct pause for reflection on and assimilation of the text. The Gospel Alleluia is intoned as the Book of Gbspels is incensed. The account of the Resurrection is sung by the d
Issue 26.6 of the Review for Religious, 1967. ; i~onfessions o~ Religious W~men by Sister M. Denis, S.O.S. 981 Protestant Women in Religion by Elsie Gibson 1 O11 ¯ Postulancy, Noviceship, Profession by Jbseph F. Gallen, S.J.~ 1i326 Self-Study for Renewal 0 :: by Benedict M. As.Key, O.P. 1034 The Secular Religious by George B. Murray, S.J. 1047 Renewal in Historical Perspective by Eugene A. L~Verdiere, S.S.S. 1056 From a Johannine Desert by John T. Carrnody, S.J. 1065 Religious Vocation: A Decision by Sister M. Cordula, C.S.A. 1081 Guidelines for Formation by Robert Y. O'Brien, S:J. 1090 Indwelling Summit by T~omas Dubay, S.M. 1094 Paper in Religious Life by Richard M. McKeon, S.J. 1113 The Infused Gift of Humility by Joseph de Guibert, S.J. 1117 Poems 1129 \ Views, News, Previews 1130 Questions and Answers 1134 Book Reviews 1140 1967 Indexes 1163 VO~.UME 26 NUMBER 6 November 1967 NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS On February 1, 1968, P~viEw voR RELIGIOUS will pub-lish clothbound reprints of volumes 21 to 25 (1962-1966) inclusive of the REwEw. These clothbound reprints will cost $7.50 each per volume or $37.50 for all five volumes. However, until January 31, 1968, these volumes will be sold at a special prepublication price o[ $6.00 per volume or $30.00 for the entire set of five volumes, provided that orders are accompanied by lull payment in U.S.,'I. [unds and are postmarked on or belore January 31, 1968. The first twenty volumes (1942-1961) inclusive of the P~v~Ew have already been reprinted in twenty cloth-bound volumes. These normally sell at $6.50 per volume or $130.00 for the set o[ twenty. However, from November 15, 1967, to January 31, 1968, inclusive, they will be sold at the special price of $5.00 per volume or $100.00 for the set of twenty. On February 1, 1968, and thereafter the price of these first twenty volumes of the REvIEw will return to their normal price of $6.50 per volume. Postage and carriage costs will be paid by the R~vi~w when full payment in U.S.A. funds accompanies orders; in other cases postage and carriage costs will be charged to the purchaser. Orders for all the above should be sent to: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 612 Humboldt Building 539 North Grand Boulevard St. Lbuis, Missouri 63103 SISTER M. DENIS, S.O.S. The Confessions of Religious Women INTRODUL'I~ION As was apparent from Part I of this study,* few priest-confessors and sister-penitents are satisfied with the pres-ent situation of the confessions of women religious. Eleven serious problem areas were defined through questionnaires answered by both priests and sisters. The purpose of the second half of this study is to present some practical suggestions towards solving these prob-lems, including fundamental changes in attitude, changes in exterior structures, and modifications in canon law and liturgical rites in an effort to render this encounter of the religious woman with the forgiving Christ as meaningful as possible. The sudden death of Father J. A. Glarmont, C.Ss.R., one of the original co-authors of this study, has affected the viewpoint of the present paper. Many of the ideas contained therein, particularly those pertaining to the role of the confessor, are taken from the notes of and previous discussions with the late Father Clarmont. May this understanding priest, who dedicated many years as a confessor to women religious, continue to guide con-fessors and sisters by his spirit and his intercession with the forgiving Christ. 1. The Problem of Change (a) ,4pproaches to Change. Change for the sake of change or haphazard approaches to change may be of little value and may, in fact, perpetrate much harm. In Part I we have attempted to analyze those factors which tend to render the sacrament of penance less meaningful, thus clearly defining our objectives. In the present paper we shall attempt to apply modern sacra- ¯ The first part of this study appeared in REvmw FOR RELIGIOUS, v. 26 (19fi7), pp. 581-fi03. Sister M. Denis, S.O~q., writes from 62 Hargrave St.; Winnipeg 1, Mani-toba; Canada. VOLUME 26, 1967 981 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 982 mental theology to the existential sittiation. Finally, we shall complement our findings with the many sound positive suggestions from the questionnaires returned by the priest-confessors and sister-penitents. On the part of the priest and sister reader, we caution wisdom to dis-cern what changes can be affected in their own particular situations. Present structures cannot be transformed immediately. Although many of the conditions surrounding the con-fessions of women religious are deplorable, the funda-mental change is a reorientation of one's own attitude through deeper knowledge, prayerful insight, and subse-quent personal renewal. Therefore, the following sug-gestions will derive their greatest practicality from their bearing on current conditions. However, we must avoid the temptation to rest in the present situation. Ultimate reform of present structures by reasonable means and through proper channels should be the concern of every priest-confessor and sister penitent. (b) Means of Effecting Changes. Individuals must never lose sight of the truism that changes ar~ effected by people in the concrete, not ideas in the abstract. The most practical and lasting changes are those which proceed from personal experience, not those which are' imposed from above. With respect to the confessions of women religious, grassroot discussions should take place within each convefit among the sisters concerning their particular problems. The difficulties revealed in Part I of the present study might serve as guidelines for these discussions. Then a frank and open dialogue between the confessor(s) and sisters of a given convent would re-sult in greater mutual understanding concerning the various aspects of this sacrament. The questionnaires revealed serious misunderstandings, primarily due to lack of open communication. With the rapid growth of diocesan synods and diocesan committees of religious, suitable channels are being instituted for effective pres-entation of these problems and suggestions to the re-spective bishops. And finally, the principle of collegiality and the corresponding strengthening of regional con-ferences of bishops augur much hope for efficacious ac-tion in alleviating many of the problems surrounding the confessions of women religious. THEOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS OF PENANCE The familiar parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15) has been cast by Christ in a certain framework which has value for our consideration of the sacrament of pen-ance. Refreshingly free of the juridical elements that have dominated theological thought for centuries con- cerning penance, the parable illustrates the dynaJic and positive aspects of this sacrament. For the sake of Iclarity we shall refer to these aspects as the personal, inierper-sonal, ecclesial or communal, and cultal dimensions of the sacrament of penance. Indeed, these dlmenstons I are blended so carefully in the parable that only~ upon careful reflection can each be distinguished from the others¯ The son has sinned against the father. His sin a d con-sequent remorse, repentance, and conversion are not mere applications of some remote abstraction; t~ey are intensely personal. "! am dying of hunger. I will leave this place.1 have sinned." x As a sinful person, the prodigal presents himself to his father and seeks for-giveness. The immediate drama of forgiveness takes plaice be-tween two persons. In acknowledgang hts sxn the son declared, ". I will go to my lather and say: Father, have sinned against heaven and against you.' "2[ Sin is the disruption of an interpersonal relationship with the Father. Of the father we read: He ran to the boy, clasped h~m xn hxs arms and kissed hlm tend.erly.' The sinful person is received by the forgiving person. In this forgiving encounter the movement is not all one-sided. When the son came into view, the father ~ran to . him. The very acts of repentance and corresp?nding forgiveness with the bestowal of gifts, amid great joy and happiness, flow from an intense love between father and son. It is clear, however, that the act of loving forgiveness goes beyond the re-establishment of relations between father and son. There is a real need to celebrate this event in the community. Announcing the return [of the son to the entire household, the father called for group festivities. The manner or cult of the celebration was c~efully specified. The best robe, a ring and sandals were or-dered for the son. In a common eating of the lfatted calf the entire community, with music and dancing, re-joiced at the return of the prodigal. To the eider son's I angry objections over such a display, the father's answer I indicated that the real nature of forgaveness has per-sonal, interpersonal, communal, and cultal dimensions: "My son, you are with me always and all I t~ave is yours. But it was only right we should celebrate and re- XLk 15:18. All scriptural quotations are taken from T~e Jeru-salem Bible edited by Alexander Jones (Garden City: Doubleday, ~ Lk 15:18. e Lk 15:21. ÷ ÷ ÷ Contessions ol Religious Women VOLUME 26, 1967 983 4, 4, Sister M. Denis, S.O .S REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 984 joice, because your brother here was dead and has come to life; he was lost and is found." 4 In discussing these dimensions as they relate to the confessions of women religious, two errors should be avoided; first, that the apparent divisiveness caused by separating each dimension from the others be not trans-ferred to the unity found in the sacramental encounter; and second, that one dimension be not emphasized to the detriment or exclusion of the others. In no way are we attempting a complete theology of the sacrament of penance. 1. Personal Dimension In ~he past some confusion regarding the nature of penance has resulted from a mistaken notion of the per-sonal dimension of this sacrament. The result of this confusion, in which the words "private" and "personal" were often erroneously interchanged,led to a dichotomy between theory and practice. Theoretically, penance was upheld as a public act of the Church, but in practice it was reduced to a private act of an individual. While always a personal act, penance is never a private act. The personal dimension of penance is essentially a conver-sion. Sin itself is personal. When approaching the sacrament of penance, one comes to accuse, not excuse oneself. Seeing sin as a transgression of a law, a mere external act or even as a failure in one's own moral growth is not to comprehend it as a personal rebellion against God. "The Old Testament. concept of sin is, as it were, the reverse of the Old Testament concept of God." 5 More than a mere act, sin is a state or condition of the person who has turned from his original commit-ment to God. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the matter of the sacrament of penance is the very person of the penitent:6 "Leave me, Lord; I am a sinful man." 7 Before shedding this burden, the sinner must first ac-knowledge it as his own. In the initial acts of the sacra-ment of penance the penitent assumes his responsibility for and accuses himself of this sinful condition. Thus, the religious in the devotional confession approaches the sacrament as a sinful person. Far too much emphasis in such confessions has been placed on the legalistic recital of specific acts and not enough on the condition of the sinner. ¯ Lk 15:31-2. ~ Louis F. Hartman, C.Ss.R., (tr.), Encyclopedic Dictionary oI the Bible (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), p. 415. 6St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae (New York: Benziger, 1947), 3, 84, 1, Reply Obj. 1, 2, 3. 7 Lk 5:8. It follows, then, that the sorrow of the sinful ]~erson must likewise be personal: a sorrow which emanate from the sinner's very being, a sorrow which is rooted in the fact of her sinful condition, a sorrow which resul~s in a conversion of the whole person to God. Neither regret nor remorse are adequate expressions of true sorrow. Re-gret applies primarily to actions for which one is not personally responsible. Remorse, on the other h~{nd, is a counterfeit of true sorrow and falls short of the~ mark in that it remains preoccupied with one's own ~ainful condition with no desire for reparation. True sorrow, however, is found in a theologically and psychologically sound understanding of repentance which spnngs from faxth, is sustained by hope, and culminates ~n love." s At the heart of true repentance is a vital movement of hope--that hope which ~nspirIe .s the sinful person to return to the Father who fo~rglves. Within this context of hope the sinful person experi-ences contrition or sorrow of a communal and personal nature--communal because of the evil done to the [Chris-tian community, and personal because of the evil done to oneself by offending the Holy Spirit. Note, however, the other-centeredness' or love-centereOness ot tins repentance. Another characteristic of true repentance is a s~ncere humility in which the sinful person perceives his situation with truth. Essential to the notion of re-pentance is also the desire for reparation--"a ppsitive loving attitude which he must adopt m order to sausfy for the evil committed insofar as that is possible." The whole dynamism of repentahce culminates' in a turning of the whole person to God: Even if there should be no new sins since the previo,~s con-fession or if sin has already been forgiven in previous sacra-ments and contrition, the Christian, e.g., in the devotional con-fession, stillengages in meaningful action: he makes sacrament or sign to God that he is a sinner, contrite and grateful in praise of God s mercy. He witnesses sorrow not merely for sepa-rate acts of sin, but sorrow that he the person has separated himself from the Father's love. He witnesses the turning, re-begun or continued, of his whole person back to the Fatt~er.1° In this sense we speak of the personal dimensioni ~f the sacrament of penance as metanoia or conversion:l"It is not the unconditional absolution, but the 'sacramentali-zation' of the human acts which constitutes, wi~h the pardon certified by the words of the priest, the [ ;acra-s Charles Davis, "Penance," an unpublished lecture deliv red at The Divine Word Centre; London, Ontario, on October 12,11966. ~ Pierre Remy, S.M., "Theolog~ of the Sacrament of P~nance" in M.-B. Carra de Vaux Saint:Cyr et al., The Sacrament of ~enance (Glen Rock: Paulist Press, 1966), p. 69. / ~°Roderick Hindery, O.S.B., "Penance, the Sacrament 6f Con-version," Homiletic and Pastoral Review, v. 65 (1964), p. 205. ÷ ÷ ÷ Ctmtessions oI Religious Women VOLUME 26, 1967 985 ¯ ment of Penance." ix Thus the sacrament of penance is not limited to the confession-absolution encounter with the representative of the Church, but begins with the repentance of the sinful person. Indeed, this very move-ment of conversion, usually prior to the confession-ab-. solution encounter in our present rite, is one of the first fruits of penance: When a person has reached an achieved repentance in the sense of having reached .the moment of charity and the return to God in justifying charit); before confession, yet his con-version still needs to be rendered stable through the comple-tion of its ecclesial expression and in continuing the process of conversion is thus con-solidated, completed, in thus being fully expressed ecclesially. The whole process is sacramental and the sacrament continues to be effective because it continues to em-body and thus consolidates and intensifies the conversion.= ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister M. Denis, $.0.$ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 986 2. Interpersonal Dimension Helpful in alleviating much of the routine that fre-quently accompanies the reception of penance is a deep understanding, enlightened by faith, of the sacrament as an encounter with Christ. This encounter is the very essence of the interpersonal dimension of penance. As stated in the previous section, the personal aspect of penance is essentially a conversion. This conversion is a recognition of, a turning toward Christ. In our sin-fulness we meet Christ, but we refuse to recognize Him. In our repentance we turn toward Christ in the mystery of His death and resurrection. Our actions must ex-press, must symbolize effectually the application of His death-resurrection in our lives. By this metanoia we die to our sin and rise to a new life in Him. The very act of repentance, the beginning of the sacramental process, is an encounter with the risen Christ, who is the source of the sinner's conversion. As a commemora-tive sign, penance actualizes those historically unrepeat-able actions of Christ. In this sense the sacrament brings about the same process of transformation undergone by Christ in His death-resurrection,la The encounter with the death-resurrection of Christ by one's own death to sin finds its fullest expression in the Church. Not only is the human community of the Church the embodiment of Christ in the world today, but the Church, through the sacraments makes Christ's redemptive action present in a particular time and place. Because penance is an action of Christ who embodies forgiveness through the Church's liturgical action and = Dom Claude Jean-Nesmy, Conscience and ConIession (Chicago: Franciscan Herald, 1965), p. 41. = Davis, "Penance." ~ Davis, "Penance." an action of the penitent who expresses sorrow arid re-pentance, it is an intense interpersonal encounter ~f per-son with Person. Charles Davis expresses this sacramen-tal encounter as "a meeting point where mutual personal union comes to fruition in an embrace and is~ thus intensified. Christ is present to us and we to Hiha." In the confession-absolution encounter--be it "com-munal or individual--Christ is present to us through the words and actions of His Church; we are present to~ Him through our words and actions acknowledging our sin-fu~ condition. Too often the interpersonal dimension of penance on the purely human level is either overlooked or Imini-mized. In auricular confession this encounter of Christ and the penitent is externally symbolized by thle hu-man encounter of the confessor and the penitent ~vhich . should be as meaningful as conditions and personah-ties permit. They should be present to one another as persons, not as automatons: "The sinner has ~o be brought into contact with God through his relatlqnshap with his confessor, as one man to another." 15 IJnfor-tunately, the present rite and traditional practices £re-quently militate against this mutual personal presence on the human level. 3. Ecclesial Dimension In considering the personal dimension of penance we have discussed the nature of the sinner's conversion; in examining the interpersonal dimension of penance we have attempted to describe how the sacrament is an en-counter not only with Christ's representative but with Christ Himself. This personal repentance, this personal conversion must be within the context of the Christian community. The sacramental meeting with Christ like-wise, takes place in and through the Church. No~ only as the sacrament of penance a gaft to each andivadual sinner, but it is also a gift to the Church as a ~,hole. Women religious belong to the People of God especially through their respective ~ommunities'bythe evangehcal~ " counsels which "join their followers to the Church and her mystery in a special way." 10 Therefore, the com-munal dimension of penance should have a special meaning for sisters whose mode of life is a visibl~ sign of the community life of the Church. | The current sacramental rite and practices dd not, 1~ Charles Davis; "The Sacraments Linked with Grace," a lecture delivered at The Divine Word Centre; London, Ontario, (Jctober 6, 1966. ~Adrienne von Speyr, Conlession, the Encounter with C ist in Penance(Montreal: Palm Publishers, 1964), p. 209. :e Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, paragraph 44. 4. 4. Conlessions oy Religious Women VOLUME 26, 1967 987 4. 4. 4. $i~ter M. Denis~ $.0.S. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 988 as yet, adequately emphasize the presence of the ecdesial community. Nevertheless, the sacramental actions of re-pentance and the avowal of one's condition of sinful-ness signify the reconciliation and intensification of the penitent's union with the community, the People of God, the Body of Christ. Sound theology has always stressed the ecclesial character of penance: The res or thing, states Saint Thomas, which this sacrament, like the Eucharist, signifies, is ultimately the unity of the Church which sin disrupts, thereby affecting indirectly every member's life and strength in Christ.1. More recently, Schillebeeckx writes: The ecclesial effect of the Sacrament of Penance is recon-ciliation with the Church as the Sacrament of our reconciliation with God in Christ. The Church is the earthly manifestation of God's redeeming mercy, and confession is visible contact with the Church precisely under this aspect. It establishes us in the ecclesial status of penitents who, by the performance of the penance required by the Church and through the mercy of her absolution, become reconciled with God Himself.as From the first part of this study it was evident that many sisters and confessors had little or no realiza-tion of the ecclesial value of penance. The importance of this dimension is a theme which will be repeatedly stressed throughout the second part of this study. The spirituality of religious is shifting from a strongly in-dividualistic piety to a more balanced understanding of their solidarity with their brothers and sisters in Christ. With this deeper understanding of their social involvement, sin and consequent repentance will be re-alized more efficaciously in its relation to the hindrance or promotion of the reign of Christ in His Church upon earth. In the early Church the ecclesial character of pen-ance was so strongly emphasized that private confes-sion similar to the form in use today was not common until the seventh century. Although penance at this time was received only once in a person's life, the char-acteristic features of this early rite bring into sharp focus the communal and ecclesial nature of the sacra-ment. During this time the state of the sinful person corresponded directly to his exterior situation in the Christian community. After a private confession of sins to the bishop and a public avowal of one's interior state the penitent was cut off from participation in the Eu-charistic celebrations and the prayers of the commun-ity. When he attended the Liturgy of the Word, he re- 1~ Hindery, "Penance, the Sacrament of Conversion," p. 207. aSE. Schillebeeckx, O.P., Christ the Sacrament o] the Encounter with God (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), p. 174. mained in sackcloth and ashes at the back of the Church: "In response the entire community prayed for him, join-ing its penance to his. To state it another way, the prayers and penance of the guilty ones were assumed into those of the community." 19 Just before Easter, if the bishop deemed the sinner to be wholly converted to God, he was dramatically ad-mitted to complete reconciliation with the Church. Ab-solution was public and the penitent was led to his place within the faithful where he was once more ad-mitted to communion with Christ and with his brothers. Then, as now, it is "through a corporate action, a rite of the Christian community, that .the Christian's repentance is sealedl consecrated and brought to its con-clusion." 20 In the sense that penance is an action of the Church it is thus a corporate action, not merely the private ac-tion of an individual. Everytime this corporate action is performed the pilgrim Church comes closer to God, and the members within the Church are more united to each other and thereby to God in Christ. In a paper given at a convention of religious canon lawyers of the East-ern United States, Father Cornelius Van der Poel, C.SS.P. strongly recommended that steps be taken to "increase the awareness of the social dimension of the sacrament in which as a community all come closer to God, and each individual becomes more closely attached to the community, since all forgive all for the sake of Christ whose holiness they express." 21 4. Cultal Dimension Often there is a tendency to regard the sacraments only as a means to salvation and to fail to appreciate their value as symbolic acts of worship. Particularly helpful to sisters who make frequent devotional confes-sions is an understanding of the sacrament of penance as an act of worship. Herein lies its cultal dimension. In both the administration and the reception of pen-ance, cultal values are easily neglected because of the emphasis on the individual penitent. Implicit in the confession of one's sinful state is a confession of, a wit-ness to the mercy, justice, and holiness of God. Thus the p~nitent's attitude is directed toward God and does not become wholly immersed in self: "As every sin is anti- 19M.-B. Carra de Vaux Saint-Cyr, O.P., "The Sacrament of Penance: An Historical Outline" in Carra de Vaux Saint-Cyr et al, The Sacrament of Penance, p. 20. ~ Paul Anciaux, The Sacrament of Penance (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1962), p. 9. = Cornelius Van der Poel, C.Ss.P., "The Confessions of Religious," Jurist, v. 26 (1966), p. 226. ÷ ÷ Contessions ot Religious Women VOLUME 26, 1967 989 cultal at its root, a failure of worship, because it makes not God but self the center, so conversion iscultal, an act of worship." ~2 Like the repentant Peter, the sinner's confession is "more than a mere act of self-accusation: it is a confes-sion of love." 23 "Lord, you know everything; you know I love you." ~4 In spite of the pain and difficulty some-times associated with the sacrament of penance, the sister-penitent would do well to reflect upon her con-fessions and see them in their true perspective--within the context of the official cult or worship offered to God by the Church. PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS The theoretical justification of the following sugges-tions for maki~ng the reception of penance more mean-ingful to women religious is based on the theological dimensions of penance just discussed,, and the practical-ity of these suggestions is hopefully derived from the pre-cise areas posed as problems by confessors and sisters (see Table 1). Some of these suggestions can be effected immediately in most ~ituations; others call for modifi-cations which can only be made by those on the admin-istrative or legislative levels. The primary concern of all should be directed toward expressing the full signifi-cance of the sacramental encounter. To this end, recommendations will be made concern-ing the freedom of the individual; sacramental train-ing; the examination of conscience; the whole area of the confessional dialogue including the relationship be-tween the confessor and penitent, the telling of sins, the role of the confessor and spiritual direction; the en-vironment of the confession; and the sacramental rite. + 4- + Sister M. D&enOls.S~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 99O 1. Freedom At the basis of most sisters' problems concerning penance is an almost uniform lack of physical fxeedom regarding frequency,-time, place, and the choice of con-fessor. Immediate steps should be taken to reform pres-ent legislation, that is, canon law and religious rules, and the equally 'binding local customs surrounding weekly confessions for religious in order to insure fxeedom and liberty of conscience. The present canons on the confessions of women re-ligious and their confessors were framed in a specific historical milieu and necessarily reflected the circum- = Hindery, "Penance, the Sacrament of Conversion," pp. 207-8. m B. Hiiring, C.Ss.R., ,4 Sacramental spirituality (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1965), p. ~tJn 21:17. TABLE I Diffr~ulties Encountered by GonJessors and Sisters in the Sacrament of Penance Cited by 66 Confessors Di~culty Routine . Time problems . Lack of freedom . Insufficient training . Examination of conscience. Impersonal relationship . Confessor not understanding. Environment . Rite . Number of Con-fessors 33 12 36 16 30 5 8 35 20 Cited by 133 Sisters Difficulty Routine . Time problems . Lack of freedom . Insufficient training. Difficulty in confess-ing . Impersonal relation-ship . Confessor not under-standing . Parish priest for con-fessor . Lack of suitable di-rection . Environment . ,. Rite . Number of Sisters 53 0, 36 36 51 10" 56 93 38 "23 sisters have their parish priest as confessor stances of the time. Most women religious, to all in-tents and purposes, were cloistered. Even the active orders, the majority of which originated since the eight-eenth century, were relatively sheltered. Since the sis-ters did not normally leave the convent easily, the weekly visit of the confessor became an established institution. Ironically, laws which were made to insure freedom of conscience at one time in history, became tyrannical and inhibiting in another era. The interpretation of canon 595, section 3: "Superiors should see to it that all religious.approach the sacrament of penance at least once a week" has been a moot question. What-ever the true interpretation may be, the fact is that .too often, in too many convents, and to the detriment of too many persons, the canon has been literally interpreted and sisters were forced to approach the sacrament weekly, In January, 1966, the Committee on Religious Affairs of the religious canon lawyers of the Eastern United States unanimously agreed that these sections of the Code of Canon Law should be thoroughly re-vised, an Without waiting for canonical reformation, future chapters of religious women should examine their re- Van der Poel, "The Confessions of Religious," p. 214. 4- 4- 4- Conlessions ot P~ligio~ Women VOLUME 26, 1967 991 Sister M. Denis, $.0~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS spective rules and delete all legislation binding sisters to the reception of the sacrament at specified intervals. Many sisters are disturbed by such passages in their rules which they consider to be binding. What is in the area of personal conscience cannot be legislated for an entire community. In localities where literal interpretation of canon law does not prevail, and the religious rule does not pre-scribe weekly confession, the sisters should not be obliged by custom to receive the sacrament of penance weekly. To the superior, the Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Life enjoins: ".he must make a special point of leaving them appropriately free with respect to the sacrament of penance and direction of conscience." 26 The ~requency of reception should be governed by each sister's needs and desires~both of which are fostered by an intelligent appreciation of the sacrament of penance. As was suggested by many on the questionnaires, the sisters, where possible, should be free to receive the sac-rament of penance wherever they wish and to whom-ever they wish. This would involve a radical departure from the present custom of confessors appointed to come weekly to the convent. Sisters today have great .freedom of movement. To say that they are not able to go out of the convent for confession whenever needed is unrealis-tic. Several cloistered religious expressed a desire for this same freedom. It is deplorable that in existing sit-uations, women religious do not have the same freedom regarding the reception of the sacrament of penance as do lay people. On paper, for example, Quum de Sacra-mentalibus, 1913, sisters are ensured the liberty to con-less outside the convent whenever they wish; but until the whole convent structure of weekly confession is mod-ified, this freedom remains in the realm of theory and is not effective in fact, as most sisters will attest. Instead of the confessor coming weekly to each con-vent for confessions, he could come at regular intervals to be determined at the local level, for a communal penance service. More will be said later concerning a communal rite, but we would here recommend that in ¯ such a communal penance service, private confession be not of obligation for the reception of the sacrament. Such an arrangement would greatly relieve both the overburdened confessors and confessers. Regular ar-rangements for freedom of access to penance could be made locally for sick and infirm sisters. ~Decree on the Appropriate Renewal oI the Religious LiIe, paragraph 14. 2. Sacramental Training In spite of the flood of recent literature on penance, the questionnaires revealed that very few sisters have had any mature training to deepen their knowledge and appreciation of this sacrament they receive so often. Much of the routine reception encountered can be di-rectly attributed to personal ignorance--and invincible ignorance at that. Many sisters expressed a wish to have a better theological understanding of penance, particu-larly as an encounter with Christ and as an ecclesial act. ' Authorities cannot presume sucl~ training or expect that sisters somehow r~ceive the help needed through reading, retreats, or sheer spiritual osmosis. Such a pro-gram must be consciously planned and applied accord-ing to local constitutions and the needs of the sisters. It should be theological in scope and practical in applica-tion. Just as it is hardly realistic to presume that the preparation for one's first confession is sufficient for a lifetime, so also is it unreasonable to believe that a thorough grounding in the novitiate is adequate for one's whole religious life. Indeed, there are novitiates which do not even include in their formation programs a study of penance and its place in the life of a religious. All life is a growth; and a life in and for Christ is no ex-ception. Beyond the novitiate and juniorate, provision should be made for continuing education in this sacrament which plays so important a role in the life of a religious. In addition, to personal reading, the sisters in each house, as a community, could study recent books and articles on the subject. Superiors might provide tapes by prominent theologians; local confessors or compe-tent priests might give dialogue conferences on the sub-ject. Discussions where the sisters of a given house could share their insights and solve their common problems would be another valuable means for deepening one's knowledge and appreciation of the sacrament. The following outline suggests topics to be included in a program of study for religious women on the sacra-ment of penance. Every topic in this or similar pro-grams should bear directly on the individual sister's reception of penance that she may receive this sacra-ment with. greater meaning and hence derive much spiritual benefit. The appended references, which are by no means exhaustive, were selected primarily as basic sources because of their practicality, timeliness, and simplicity of approach. Conlesslons o! Religious Women VOLUME 26, 1967 993 ÷ + ÷ Sister M. DS.eOn.iSs., REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 99,t Program of Study I. Sacramental Theology A. Nature of the Sacraments in General B. Nature of the Sacrament of Penance I. Personal Dimension--as a Conversion 2. Interpersonal Dimension--as an Encounter with Christ 3. Ecclesial Dimension--as a Reconciliation with the Christian Community 4. Cultal Dimension--~'as an Act of Worship C. History of the Sacrament of Penance D.Pertinent Legislation 1. Vatican II Documents 2. Canon Law 3. Religious Rule II. Nature of Religious Life III. Nature of Sin IV. Examination of Conscience V. The Actual Confession of Sins VI. Relationship with the Confessor VII. Spiritual Direction and the Sacrament of Penance Basic References on Penance I. M.-B. Carra de Vaux Saint-Cyr et al., The Sacrament of Penance. Glen Rock: Paulist Press, 1966. Paperback. An excellent compendium of modern theological thought on penance. The following four chapters, containing a good balance of theory and practice, are especially ,helpful: "The Sacrament of Penance: An Historical Outline '--A summary of the changes that have taken place in understanding this sacrament from the early Church to Vatican II. "Theology of the Sacrament of Penance',--Particularly clear and penetrating theological study in which the various dimensions, especially the ecclesial dimension, of penance are investigated. "Con-fession and Spiritual Direction in the Oriental Church"--A study of how the Eastern Church has been more faithful than the Western Church in maintaining a perspective of the sacrament that is closer to that of the early Church. "Toward a New Examination of Conscience"--A modern effort to renew the examination of conscience in a wider vision of a few funda-mental convictions on which the true destiny of man is con-structed before God. 2. Adrienne yon Speyr. Confession: The Encounter with Christ in Penance. Montreal: Palm Publishers, 1964. A non-technical treatment, based on trinitarian theology and the mission of Christ, of the entire sacramental process. Von Speyr thoroughly penetrates the inner meaning of penance and successfully integrates confessibn into the Christian's everyday encounter with Christ. Especially enlightening are the chapters on the confessions of religious, the confessions of contemplatives, the confession in active orders, the practice of confession, and the office of confessor (which includes spiritual direction). 3. Bernard Htiring, C.Ss.R. A Sacramental Spirituality. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1965. A treatise on sacramental theology, simply s~ated, which leads to a prayerful understanding of the sacraments. The section on me grace of confession, pp. 95-106, is one of the most helpful treatises on the cultal dimension of penance. The section on the Church as a "sacrament" of willingness to do penance, pp. 109-118, places the sacramental action in its ecclesial context. 4. E. Schillebeeckx, O. P. Christ the Sacrament of the En-counter with God. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963. Difficult reading, but basic sacramental theology. Par-ticularly helpful in understanding penance as an encounter with Christ. 5. Roderick Hindery, O.S.B. "Penance, the Sacrament of Con-version," Homiletic and Pastoral Review, v. 65, (1964), pp. 203-8. An outstanding popular treatment of the four theological dimensions of penance with practical suggestions for imme-diate and long range implementation. 6. Roderick Hindery, O.S.B. "Confession and Legalism," Sisters Today, v. 38 (Jan., 1967), pp. 157-61; and "The Sacrament of Penance and Cheap Grace" in Sisters Today, v. 38 (Feb. 1967), pp. 188-93. Both articles are directed toward sisters who make frequent devotional confessions. An attempt to dispel former legalistic attitudes by replacing them with a positive theol6gical under-standing of sin, conversion, and penance. 7. Dale Olen, O.F.M.Cap. ',Devotional Confession," REviEw for R~.Lxc~ous, v. 25 (1966), pp. 1030-41. A successful effort to raise routine and mechanical confes-sions back to their proper place as truly decisive moments in the Christian experience. 8. L. J. Lebret and T. Suavet "Examination of Conscience for Adults," Crosscurrents, v. 7 (1957), pp. 289-93. A unique examination of conscience which indicates many deviations and omissions which are not usually mentioned but which tend to diminish the freedom of the individual in his relations to God and man. 9. William Barclay. The Plain Man Looks at the Beatitudes. London: Fontana Books, 1963. Paperback. An examination of the meaning of the beatitudes for modern man in the light of the Old and New Testaments and biblical language. 10. R. Howe. The Miracle of Dialogue. New York: Seabury, 1965. Paperback. Contains penetrating insights for the sacrament of penance if read with the confessional dialogue and the relationship of the confessor and penitent in mind. 11. PSre Gardeil, O.P. The Holy Spirit in the Christian Li[e. London: Blackfriars, 1953. Thomistically oriented, prayerful treatise on the gifts of the Holy Spirit with a chapter on each corresponding beatitude. 12. Dom Claude Jean-Nesmy. Conscience and Confession. Chi-cago: Franciscan Herald, 1965. Especially intended for those who cannot undertake a systematic study of modern historical and theological works on penance. Emphasis is on the concepts of God, others, and future, rather than sin, me, and the past. Pages 113-26 contain an examination of conscience by referring to the New Testa-merit-- not a "list" in the usual sense. 3. Examination of Conscience The whole area of sisters' examination of conscience was viewed with sharp criticism by priest-confessors and with great dissatisfaction by sister-penitents. Unfortu- 4" 4" 4" onfessions ot Religious Woraen VOLUME 26, 1967 995 ÷ 4, ÷ Sister M. Denis, .~: S.O.S. REVIEW FOR REFIGIOUS nately, the examination of conscience tends to dwell on minutiae, on petty violations of the rule and cus-toms; for many it is negative and legalistic, a stereo-typed catalogue of failings, entirely too introspective, pertaining to self and not to social obligations, center-ing on actions rather than on the root causes (the in-ner dynamism which B. H~i{ing terms "acts" 27) or at-titudes of which actions are only the external signs. These criticisms may be reduced to the fact that the sisters' examination does not truly and authentically re-flect her personal condition before God. Rather, atten-tion is deflected to certain external factors--to one's rule, the teaching of the novice mistress, or most often to one of the many current "lists" which purport to be aids. The sister should examine her conscience accord-ing to her lights not her lists. Whatever is patently sin-ful or deliberately.opposed to the commandments of God, the rule, or the vows will be readily apparent without undue scrutiny. The examination, therefore, should be an aid to a healthy self-knowledge and center on one's trends and attitudes. For any real progress, sis-ters have to alter this mentality which is concerned with delineating every little point laid down by some-one else. The human person cannot be put into neat and sharp categories. Keligious, although they live in com-munity, are no exception. One wonders if religious would have such difficulty with the examination of conscience if it were not for the auricular confession that follows. The longer a woman is in religious life, the more intense this problem becomes. Perhaps the answer lies in the following com-ment of Father Louis Monden, S.J.: As the inner life grows stronger, the same phenbm~non may occur for the confession of sins as happens in prayer: it be-comes increasingly poor in ideas and in words.= Certainly the strain would be greatly mitigated by com-munal penance in which th~ sister presents her sinful person for absolution without having to be concerned over suitable verbalization. In the Oriental Church the sinner "does not consider the offence against God or the objective violation of the law in the act of his sin. His own iniquity is the center of his sorrowful meditation and draws forth his tears; he grieves for having distorted the image of God in his heart." 29 However, the fact re- ~Bernard H~iring, C.Ss.R., The Law o[ Christ, v. 1, (Cork: Mercier Press, 1960), p. 89. = Louis Monden, S.J., Sin, Liberty, and Law (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1965), p. 51. ¯ ~* Philippe de Regis, S.J., "Confession and Spiritual Direction in the Oriental Church" in Carra de Vaux Saint-Cyr et al, The Sacrament of Penance, p, 84. mains that auricular confession is still customary in the western Church. Because of the uniqueness of each human per.son, an examination of conscience cannot be taught; its method must be fostered. The principles which follow might serve as a guide by which a sister can develop her own method of self-examination without resorting (o "lists" or confessional aids. At certain times detailed examina-tion lists may be beneficial and should be used. Two such examinationss° are very useful in helping to erad-icate a legalistic mentality concentrating on external detail. These authors have composed penetrating ques-tions which attempt to plumb the depths of the moral personality. A sister would do well to study these lists; then attempt to incorporate this spirit and new direc-tion in her own personal examination. However, slavish adherence to a certain manner of examination is too restrictive and does not leave room for consideration beyond the categories on the printed page. Furthermore, if used, the sister should seek to understand the rea-sons behind certain failings. Many make the mistake of using these lists for the verbalization of confessional matter. Principles Ior a Personal Examination of Conscience: First, the examination ol conscience is based on the New Testament morality of love. At the center of New Testament morality is the person of Jesus Christ. His moral precept which was the fulfillment not the repetition of the Mosaic Law can be summed up in the word "love." And this love was exemplified in His human life: "Jesus went about doing good."al Quite radically, Christ spelled out the moral blueprint for a life of love in the sermon on the mount where He enun-ciated the beatitudes (Mr 5:3-11). Indeed, the remain-der of the sermon on the mount might be consid-ered a further elucidation of these initial principles. Through prayerful meditation each sister could discover the implications of the beatitudes in her ,life; in them are contained the core of Christian commitment,a2 The first beatitude of poverty of spirit could be approached as follows: ~o L. J. Lebret and T. Suavet, "Examination of Conscience for Adults," Crosscurrents, v. 7 (1957), pp. 289-93. P. Liege, O.P., "Toward a New Examination of Consciehce" in Carra de Vaux Saint-Cyr et al, The Sacrament of Penance. 81 Acts 10:38. aUTwo very helpful references on the beatitudes are: William Barclay, The.Plain Man Loolts at the Beatitudes (London: Fontana Books, 1963); P~re Gardeil, O.P., The Holy Spirit in the Christian Li]e (London: Blackfriars, 1953). + 4- 4- Con]essions o~ Religious Women VOLUME 26, 1967 99~ 4- S~t~r M. S.O.S. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 998. Some New Testament Relerences Mr. 6:24 Luke 10:38-42 Mr. 6: 25-34 Luke 12: 33--4 I Th 4:11-2 Jn6:27 Col. 3:23 Related Themes (to be applied in one's own situation) The balance and tension between detachment and involvement. Complete trust and faith in God. Openness to God and His Word encountered in the Eucharist, the Scriptures, and in our fellow-man. Recognition and .appreciation of the goodness in created goods. (Over-possessiveness is basically disrespect for the goodness placed there by God.) Acceptance of what we are and have. Utter dependence on God alone, not on self, law, ritual, or institution. Complete abandonment. Poverty according to our religious profession. Personal responsibility for communal witness of poverty. Another fruitful source for an examination based on the law of love is St. Paul's First Episde to the Corinthians, Chap-ter 13, 1-7. Dora Claude Jean-Nesmy has prepared a positive program, meditative in form, for an examination of conscience based on key texts of the New Testament.TM Second, the examination of conscience reflects the per-son's basic options. Moral considerations have been en-riched by religious psychology with the concept of "op-tion"--" A choice, not with respect to a spedfic object, but with respect to the totality of existence, its mean-ing and direction." a4 At some point in his life a per-son acquires a basic orientation which influences either consciously or unconsciously all particularchoices. Lov-. ing God is a conscious choice of God, so much so that all other choices are influenced by this one--the fund-amental option. This permanent underlying tendency of the will is not necessarily expressly formulated; rather it is implicitly embodied in some particular choice. Once made, the fundamental option gradually deepens and pervades a person's whole moral life. Therefore, one's attitudes should be examined with reference to this basic set of the wilh To what extent has my choice of God been effectual in daily actions? Or the converse: To what extent have my daily actions reflected my funda-mental choice of God above all else? In this way, a religious can examine without undue introspection, the basic trends of his life. In addition to the fundamental Christian option, a sister, by her decision so.lemnly to vow total commit-ment to Christ, makes a further option which we shall term the religious option. By this option the religious ~ Jean-Nesmy, Conscience and ConIession, pp. 113-26. ~ Monden, Sin, Liberty and Law, p. sets her will in a particular direction--as a religious and as a 'member of a specific community. Here the basic orientation is influenced by the vows and the spirit of the religious institute. Here, too, the religious option penetrated the whole being of the person. In other con-texts the religious option is often spoken of as iden-tification with one's community. When a sister examines herself with respect tb this religious option, she is con-cerned with how she has effectually lived this fundamen-tal choice. Observing the vows and the rule are here considered not as legalistic ends in themselves but al-ways in reference to this free and deliberate choice. Finally, the sister's examination of conscience should be based upon what we shall call personal option. Here we are speaking of those intense moments of grace, those charisms by which a person approaches God as an 'T' to a "Thou." For Saint Teresa of Lisieux it was the Little Way. Real progess in sanctity is dependent upon faithfulness to the particular way Christ has called each one. The sister's response to this intensely personal call constitutes her personal option. Her examination of con-science then focuses on the extent of her fidelity to this life pattern. The cultal dimension of penance will thus have more meaning for the sister if she realizes that penance is an act by which these three options are re-newed and subsequently deepened. Third, the examination of conscience goes beyond the personal dimension to the social dimension. Sin and guilt can never be considered in isolation, for no man is an island. Therefore, in examining her conscience the sister must be aware of her solidarity with the hu-man community, the Christian community, and her own religious community. She cannot be concerned merely with her own failure but must bear her part of the im-personal and communal guilt of these three levels of so-ciety. One who criticizes the social group is usually not cognizant of the fact that she is really criticizing her-self. Self-criticism is not a bad thing, provided it does not remain sterile words. If a sister is dissatisfied with certain actions or inaction of her community, then she should examine the cause of her dissatisfaction. If the cause is within herself, then it likely can be traced to a weakening of one's own freely chosen option. If such cause truly rests in the social group, then she herself is, in part, responsible to the extent that she is a mem-ber of that group. In this connection Adrienne yon Speyr writes of a certain tension between one's own sin-fulness and the sinfulness of the group which also fails short of Christ's demands: "We confess as members of the Church, the community, and we have to take the ÷ ÷ 4. Contessions ot Religious Women VOLUME 26, 1967 999 ÷, 4" Sister M~ Den~s, $.0.S. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS I000 community along with us and include it in the ac-tion." s5 We do not wish to give the impression that an ex-tremely thorough examination of conscience is necessary before each confession. By following one or more of the above principles itis hoped that the sister will be able to construct for .herself an examination of conscience that is realistic, reflects the inner dynamism of her own life', and is open to growth in the Spirit. 4'. The Confessional Encounter Much of the frustration experienced by sisters in the confessional would be eliminated when they are given the ~ opportunity to confess whenever, wherever, and to whomever they wish. In spite of the difficulties posed by the present rite and environmental conditions of private confessions (which will be discussed later), .certain sug-gestions can be made in order to make this encounter a. more meaningful one. Since private confession ob-viously involves two people, the confessor plays an im-portant role in helping or hindering this sacramental encounter. If he regards the hearing of sisters' confes-sions as another task imposed on him, one cannot be sur-prised to find a corresponding attitude among the sis-ters. (a) The Relationship between Con[essor and Penitent. "As priest and penitent become aware that they are en-gaged not in an impersonal inquisition, administration, or treatment, but that together and personally they cele-brate the convei:sion of the sinner and the mercies of God, they will seek to express themselves like human persons." ~6 Detrimental to the interpersonal relation-ship necessary between confessor and penitent is a mech-anistic approach in which the confessor is seen as an absolution dispenser and the penitent as some disem-bodied voice in the dark. Each speak their part, in turn, according to a rigid formula and the ritual is over. Rather, a climate of love should pervade the confes-sional atmosphere with both parties manifesting mutual concern and mutual consideration. What Reuel Howe says :at;out dialogue has great significance for the con-fessional encounter:¯ Each must try to speak honestly out of his own conviction, discipline his subjective feelings, seek patiently to keep aware of the other as another person, and try to keep open to the meaning of everything that happens in the relationshipY ~Von Speyr, Con]ession, the Encounter with Christ in Penance, p. 157. ~ Hindery, "Penance, the Sacrament of Conversion," p. 205. ~ R. Howe, The Miracle oI Dialogue (New York: Seabury, 1965), After the penitent has revealed himself, the confessor, through his words of advice, admits the penitent to share in his insights and his life of prayer. Truly the Psalmist's words apply: "Deep is calling to deep." as In this most sacred of relationships dialogue becomes both communi-cation and communion in the Spirit: As each person speaks and responds honestly to the other, each moves toward the other and includes him. This kind of meeting between man and man cannot occur without an im-plicit meeting between man and God. To really see another is to see the Other, and to really love another is to love the Other.~ (b) Confession of Sins. Because of the natural reti-cence in revealing one's inner state, penitents often depersonalize their confession by resorting to conven-tional phraseology. Formalism rather than authenticity prevails. Quite often the penitent's words and inner feel-angs are only remotely similar. Although one should re-late one's sins and/or failings in a straightforward man-ner, indicating the nature of the act and the reasons which prompted it, the neat formula taught in grade school: "L__.about._.____times." is more often a hin-drance than a help in the confessions of mature women religious. In order to promote real dialogue the peni-tent's manner and tone should be conversational rather than recitative. More important than a detailed list of sins as to number and kind is a revelation of the status of one's heart by endeavoring to reveal the roots and in-terrelations of sins. The confessions of the religious should reveal the inner dynamism which guides her life --the dynamism which springs from her basic options. And since the religious is a member of a certain com-munity, her confession should reflect this fact: "The con-fession of a religious must bring out her failure., as a member of a particular order, whose basic character must come to the fore." 40 However, .there is and can be no panacea for the con-fessional act which should be regarded "not as a de-vice for obtaining juridical forgiveness, but as a peni-tential work which makes a truly humble, authentic, personal sacramental expiation of great value." 41 Truly penitential works are always painful and difficult. (c) The Role of the Confessor. Romano Guardini once referred to love of God and love of neighbor as a "live current completing a circuit from God to people, per- ~s Ps 41-2:7. ~ Howe, The Miracle o! Dialogue, pp. 105-6. ,OVon Speyr, Confession, the Encounter with Christ in Penance, p. 128. ,1 Davis, "Penance." ÷ ÷ ÷ Contessions ot Religious ~Vomen VOLUME 26, 1967' 1001 Si~Wr M. Denis, $.0~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 1002 son to person, and back to God." 4~ In the sacramental encounter the confessor completes the circuit between God and neighbor. Because the sacrament is a sign the human element in penance cannot be slighted. Unfortunately, the words "involvement" and "open-ness" have tended to become cliches in modern thought and language. But the reality to which these words point is vital to the sacramental encounter. By his words, ges-tures, and attitudes the confessor must become person-ally involved in the sacramental action. Through him the Spirit speaks. In him the sister-penitent experiences a meeting with the forgiving Christ. As one confessor wrote: I think sisters are looking for more than a kind, well-in-formed, understanding confessor. They are looking for a kind, well-informed, understanding confessor filled with the Spirit of God. If there is a problem because some priests are stupid, there is even a greater problem because we are not saints, men 6f prayer, men who really believe in the power of the Spirit working through us and through the power of the Sacrament. The confessor should listen with complete openness, in-terest, and acceptance, striving to glimpse the unique in-dividuality of the other person. In keeping with modern sacramental theology the confessor should be more aware of his role as mediator and witness to the conversion of the penitent and less conscious of his role as judge. To concentrate only on the validity of the sacrament is to lose sight of the riches of the sacrament. In what very practical ways does the confessor help in making the sacrament of penance more meaningful for the sister? 1. By reciting the required prayers, formulae from the heart and not just from the lips. 2. By not rushing the sacramental encounter. 3. By actively listening to her account and/or problems. 4. By manifesting a sincere interest not only in what she says but also in what she is. 5. By a non-judgmental acceptance of her as a unique person whose approach to God is likewise unique, as a woman whose psyche is distinctly feminine, and as a religious whose sincere desire is to grow in Christ. 6. By offering words of enlightenment as well as words of encouragement. 7. By presenting an opportunity for her to open up but without being too inquisitive. 8. By helping her to delve into the motivation for her Quoted in Thomas Radloff, S.J., "Interpersonal Relationships," REvmw FOR RELmIOUS, V. 21 (1962), p. 547. sins and faults, not being satisfied with a mere cata-loging of sins. 9. By enabling her to see the workings of the Spirit in her life. 10. By endeavoring to embody not only the personal and interpersonal dimensions of penance but also the ecclesial and cuhal dimensions. 11. By creating the atmosphere for ~uitful dialogue in the confessional. 12. By striving to remove all vestiges of formalism. 13. By relating to the penitent as a person to a person. A word of caution is in order here. As indicated previ-ously in this study, the problems and their respective solutions surrounding the confessions of women relig-ious are interrelated and interdependent. It is apparent that the confessor cannot exercise his role properly un-less certain other structures and attitudes discussed in this study are modified. (d) Spiritual Direction. In speaking o[ spiritual direc-tion in the confessional, we are referring to the exhorta-tion or counsel offered by the confessor following the penitent's manifestation of conscience. The distinction between the sacrament of penance and spiritual direc-tion, even in the narrow sense described above, must always be maintained. The role of the confessor qua confessor is to set free from sin; the role of the confessor as director is to foster growth in Christ. Although the primary purpose of penance is the forgiveness of sins with absolution being the central act of the confessor, nevertheless, words of counsel traditionally have been an important and expected adjunct to the sacrament. In the age of assembly-line confessions, of necessity, con-vent confessors tend to minimize or neglect this area of pastoral guidance, but the need for spiritual guidance remains. The confessional is usually not the place for detailed and protracted spiritual direction, although the need may be discovered in the confessional. When speaking words of counsel to the penitent, the confessor must be conscious of his instrumentality. The manner in which he speaks is uniquely his, marked by his own personality, and is a self-revelation of his own life of prayer; but the content of his message comes from the Holy Spirit: His words, while uttered in the Spirit, must also convey his own personal involvement, his knowledge, his designs. He must manifest the fact that he acts along with the Spirit, and not speak in a languid, indifferent manner . The priest is there present at a process which makes a sinner into a saint, and his words must serve to accompany this transformation, in fact to lead the sinner to it; consequently, they must be so tender and + + + Conyessions o~ Religious Women VOLUME 26, 1967 1003 yet so telling, so penetrating, that the change is effected simultaneously with their utterance.'~ In proffering counsel to the sister-penitent the confes-sor should avoid two extremes: first, basing his exhorta-tion only on the weekly liturgy, becoming impersonal and contributing to routine reception; and second, re-ferring only to the matter just confessed, becoming sub-jective and unduly isolating the penitent's situation. Rather, he should seek to combine these two avenues by first commenting on the penitent's confession objec-tively, pointing out aspects and motives unnoticed by the penitent, always with a view to enabling the sister to draw practical conclusions herself; then, by relatir~g the penitent's situation to the broader spectrum of the Church, showing its relevancy to a point of doctrine or the current liturgy. The sister-penitent then sees her-self in the proper perspective of an individual before God and as a member of the Christian community. Even though spiritual direction in the usual sense of the terms is advisable for most sisters, the plain fact re-mains that suitable directors are few and far between. The confessor should be aware that, for many, the con-fessional exhortation, however brief, is the only source of personal advice. Therefore, his words should be chosen with care, knowing that the sister-penitent has come to intensify her union with Christ by the sacra-mental deed and its accompanying intimate personal as-sistance. ÷ ÷ Sister M. Denis, S.O.S. REVIEW ~oR REI.IGIOt~S 1004 5. Environment On the subject of the confessional environment, one confessor wrote: "It's difficult to experience the life-giving power of the sacrament in a vertical casket." Practically half of the priests and sisters who cited the environment as a problem wished improvements in the traditional confessional; the other half desired an open confrontation in a counseling-type room. Any improvements or changes in present confessional structures should reflect the theology of the sacrament, respect the penitent's right to anonymity, insure com-plete privacy, and provide for ordinary human com-fort- materially and psychologically. Women today, especially sisters, are very sensitive to their position in the Church. They should have the same right as men to confess wherever they wish and not be re-stricted to places approved for the confessions of women. Such rules do not apply to personal spiritual direction, oftentimes more intimate than the confessional encoun- ~Von Speyr, Confession, the Encounter with Christ in Penance, pp. 209-10. ter. Sometimes the sister would like to receive the sacra-ment of penance during a period of spiritual counsel-ling, but present legislation prevents this outside the approved confessional. When an individual sister desires to go to confession, she should be given the freedom to confess elsewhere, as for example, in a parlor. An ideal environment for the convent confessional would be a separate counseling room--bright, cheery, and airy--with a less formal atmosphere where one could go with openness and joy. Provision could be made for those who desire anonymity by having the tradi-tional confessional screen on one side of the room. On the other side, comfortable chairs could be provided for those who wish to see the priest directly (see diagram below). Thus both priest and penitent could converse in a normal tone without fear of being overheard. The merely psychological effect of space and light would strengthen the sacramental significance of renewal, of resurrection. Proposed Confessional-Room (Not drawn to scale) Left Side: Arrangement for an open confrontation with desk and chairs. Right Side: Arrangement for anonymous confession: (1) Screen (2) Confessor (3) Penitent. Since the ideal is usually far from the real, present convent confessionals should be examined carefully by the sisters concerned. The solutions to these problems are contained in the very recognition and acknowledg-ment of the problem, as indicated in Part I of this study. Where there is darkness, let there be light; where there are .poor acoustics, let there be soundproofing; where there is a curtain on the grill, let it be optional. The ingenuity of the sisters who use the confessional, not necessarily the architect who designed it, will pro-duce the most practical suggestions. Most sisters will answer any request for suggested improvements like the Sister who wrote: "Just give me a paper and pencil and a ruler, and I'll show you." 6. Rite Since most changes in the rite of the sacrament are beyond the scope of either the priest-confessor or the ÷ ÷ ÷ Contessions ot Religious Women VOLUME 26, 1967 1005 ÷ ÷ Sister M. $.0.S. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 1006 sister-penitent, we shall discuss the present private rit-ual, a communal ritual permitted by current legisla-tion, and finally, proposals for a communal ritual not yet permitted by Church legislation. The guidelines have been established by Vatican II: "The rite and for-mulas for the Sacrament of Penance are to be revised so that they give more luminous expression to both the nature and effect of the sacrament." 44 (a) Private Celebration of Penance. In October, 1966, the Bishops of Canada in a statement on the Liturgy of Penance wrote: "Individual or private celebration of the sacrament of Penance still retains all of its value: through personal contact and through the attitude of the priest, the penitent can truly experience the mercy of God." 45 Although the present rite leaves much to be desired in its signification of the various dimensions of penance, nevertheless, the penitent and confessor can seek to embody the significance of penance in mean-ingful words and actions. A slavish recitation of the "Bless me, Father . " formula only begets routine and is a hindrance to dialogue with the confessor. The peni-tent should simply ask the confessor for his blessing that she may have the grace to express her sinful condi-tion before God and His Church. The priest should wait until this request is made before giving his blessing with sincerity of expression. Then the penitent states the interval of time since" her last confession and any necessary information regarding her state in life before beginning the revelation of her state before God. Father Hindery suggests that the penitent endeavor to express the ecclesial and cultal aspect of the sacrament by be-ginning one's confession of sins with the words: "I con-fess to Almighty God and to the whole Church through you, Father, that I am a sinner and that God's mercy in renewing my. conversion is worthy of great praise." 40 If the penitent keeps in mind the value of her act as a personal conversion to God, and the intensification of her union with the community, she will have less diffi-culty in expressing herself. The confessor then offers a suitable exhortation bearing on the penitent's confes-sion, emphasizing the importance of this act as an en-counter with Christ. Instead of the usual three Hail Marys, some confessors are asking their penitents to do an act of kindness toward someone less fortunate. The penance, a means of reparation, should bear some apparent relation to the sins confessed. In some areas " Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, paragraph 72. ~"The Liturgy of Penance," a mimeographed statement from the Canadian Hierarchy, Ottawa, October, 1966. ~ Hindery, "Penance, the Sacrament of Conversion," p. 207. the confessor asked the penitent to suggest a suitable penance for herself. (b) Present Communal Celebration. Earlier in this pa-per we recommended that communal penance be cele-brated at regular intervals. Under present legislation where both confession and absolution must be private and individual, communal celebration would be more meaningful from the ecclesial-and cultal viewpoint but would not relieve the overburdened confessor. For greater effectiveness these communal celebrations should be brief, consisting of a few opening words by the con-fessor, a carefully selected reading from Scripture, a brief homily bearing on the Scripture and the sacrament of penance, the singing of an appropriate Psalm, the redta-tion of the Confiteor (which is an admirable communal acknowledgment of one's sinfulness), a kiss of peace and mutual reconciliation, and individual confession and ab-solution. The kiss of peace and a suitable dosing hymn may be delayed until after the individual confessions are heard, particularly in a small group. (c) Proposed Communal Celebration. It is one of the main theses of this study that the liturgy of the sacra-ment needs to be completely revised so that it will an-swer real needs and become a vital sign: "The sacra-ments are immutable in their substance, for it was Christ who fixed once for all the central core. But the outer shell can vary according to the needs of time and place." 47 To this end we propose that sisters have ac-cess to a communal celebration of penance in which the individual ~onfession of sins be optional and be not necessary for the reception of the sacrament. Those who wish to confess privately should have the opportu-nity to do so at this or another time. For this celebra-tion, which could be more elaborate because of few or no private confessions, the celebrant would prepare a very timely homily from which the sisters could derive spiritual help. A public examination of conscience, directed by the confessor, with time for private exami-nation might be also included. Absolution would be communal. The solemn rite of the sacrament of penance, al-though archaic and omitted from recent editions of the Roman Pontifical, was rich in expressing the unity between God, the Church, and each Christian. A com-pletely communal celebration would witness to the sol-idarity of the Christian community. By her very pres-ence the sister proclaims her sinful condition before God, before the Church, and before her community. Together. with her community she becomes recondled to ,7 Carra de Vaux Saint-Cyr, The Sacrament o] Penance, p. 4. ÷ ÷ ÷ Conyessions ot Religious Women VOLUME 26, 1967 1007 God and to her sisters whom she. may have offended. As a corporate body they worship God in celebrating the sacrament of penance by praising His m~rcy. In the National Catholic Reporter Father Hindery lists six advantages of communal penance which stresses: 1. Less emphasis on our own sorrow and a greater re-alization of the forgiving action of Christ. 2. Greater expression of sorrow by an awareness of one's solidarity in sin and in the sorrow of others. 3. An intensification of penance as a reconciliation with God. 4. An accent on the full liturgical or worshiping dimen-sion of penance. 5. A restoration of Christian tradition which was prac-tically universal until the year 589 A.D. 6. An alleviation of the problem of rote and haste which breeds formalism.4s One can only hope that liturgical advances will has-ten the day when communal celebration of penance is possible in the manner outlined above. Theologically, there is very little problem with a communal absolution and the dispensation of individual confession (where grave sin has not occurred). To worship God publicly with our fellow Christians as a sinner and precisely in this character of a sinner is one of the most authentic acts we can perform. It is not sufficient to know and to realize the various theological dimensions of the sacra-ment of penance; one must be able to experience them effectually in a truly meaningful communal celebration. Slsger M. Denis, S.O~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 1008 CONCLUSION In the introduction to his book, Conscience and Con- ]ession, Dom Claude Jean-Nesmy included a comment which applies equally well to. the impetus of this en-tire study on the confessions of women religious: "One cannot just choose to ignore the very frequent, precise and distressing complaints about the difficulty of con-fessing and about the deplorable conditions in which this sacrament is sometimes administered." 40 In order to ascertain the extent and seriousness of these complaints as objectively as possible a survey-questionnaire was sent to a crosscountry sampling of priest-confessors and sis-ter- penitents. That there were problems~serious prob-lems-- was established beyond doubt. The common de-nominator of these problems seemed to be a deadening routine. Both confessors and sisters indicated that lack ~s Roderick Hinder),, O.S.B., "Communal Penance in the Renewal of the Sacrament--Towards Fullness of Sign," National Catholic Reporter, v. 2 (October 19, 1966), p. 6. ~0 Jean-Nesmy, Conscience and Con]ession, p. ix. of freedom, time problems, insufficient training, unsuit-able examination of conscience, difficulty in confessing, an impersonal relationship, the confessor's lack of un-derstanding, spiritual direction, the environment, and rite were all contributory factors to this all-pervasive routine. The obvious interrelation of these problems calls for solutions which are likewise interrelated. In turn, inter-related solutions demand cooperation of all persons con-cerned from the sister-penitent to the priest-confessor to the bishop responsible for the pastoral care of his people. If the fundamental problem in the devotional con-fessions of religious is routine, then the basic solution is to counteract routine by bringing about a more mean-ingful celebration and reception of this sacrament. But a mere change in rite and externals is not sufficient. There must be a change in attitude. For the individual sister, this calls for a sound theo-logical knowledge of the nature and effects of penance. Her sacramental training must continue beyond grade school preparation for first confession and should be cen-tered on her state as a religious. In her examination of conscience and the subsequent confession of sins she will endeavor to reflect the inner dynamism of her life, not merely taking refuge in a stereotyped, deper-sonalized multiplicity of unrelated minutiae. The confessor's attitude toward administering the sac-rament of penance in general and toward each sis-ter- penitent in particular has a great effect on the meaningfulness of the sacramental encounter. Indeed, his role is so important, that should all other circum-stances be unfavorable, his openness, understanding, and helpfulness will result in much benefit for the sis-ter- penitent. His brief exhortatory remarks will be per-sonal enough to apply directly to the confession just heard, yet universal enough to lift the penitent out of herself into the wider perspective of the liturgy. Both participants should be aware of one another as unique persons striving for the fullness of the Christian life. From a healthy interpersonal relationship on the human level, both confessor and penitent will realize a personal encounter with the forgiving Christ. The sacra-ment, though of divine institution, is a human sign. Three factors, the rite, the environment and freedom of access, at the present time beyond the immediate con-trol of either the individual confessor or the individual penitent, contribute greatly to a more significant cele-bration of penance. The present environment should be a more effective symbol of life than of death. In ad-dition to a redesigned confessional room, which would + + + Ctmless~ns of Religious Women VOLUME 26, 1967 1009 allow for either anonymous confession Or an open con-frontation, the sister or any woman should not be lim-ited to "approved places." As the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (paragraph 72) noted, the present rite needs to embody visibly and experientially the theolog-ical dimensions of penance. The present crisis can be traced to certain deficiencies, which have been perpetrated for centuries, in .the ad-ministration and reception of penance. In turn, these deficiencies on the practical level can be traced to cer-tain limitations in theological thought stemming from the seventh century when the notion of the sinner's rec-onciliation with the ecclesia was de-emphasized by an overstress on his personal reconciliation to God. However, the first step in any solution to the many problems surrounding the confessions of women reli-gious is a rescinding of compulsion--either by law or by custom--to confess at stated intervals, in a stated place, to an appointed person. When sisters are given the re-sponsibility concerning their own sacramental needs, much of the routine and dissatisfaction will disappear both for the frustrated penitent and overburdened con-lessor. It was the ardent hope of the authors of this study that the su~estions and recommendations contained therein will not remain sterile but will be openly discussed by those concerned and followed by concrete action. Vati-can II is not over; it has just begun. The urgency ex-hibited by the conciliar documents is not limited to the hierarchy but is directed toward the People of God--- collectively and individually. Effective reform must be preceded by objective recognition, honest acknowledg-ment and open discussion of the problem. Then posi-tive suggestions will be fruitful: It we labor to re-establish the proper perspectives., then Penance, far from seeming a tiresome task which must be post~, poned to the last possible moment, will reveal itself as one of t~he most ei~cacious and most constant means by which we can be restored to a purifying and life-giving contact with the Church, with Christ, and with God.~° ~ Jean-Nesmy, Conscience and Conlession, p. xvii. $t~ter M. Denis, $.0~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS lOlO ELSIE GIBSON Protestant Women in Religion Catholic sisters and Protestant women minist.ers ten sense an underlying kinship when they become ac-quainted on college campuses or in dialogue groups,. Both have vowed .themselves to the service of God through Christ and the Church. True, the promises are different but the central intent is the same. Is there any similarity between our sense of vocation and that which moves nuns and priests to the religious life? How do our churches receive and direct our aspirations? What is our daily work? To find answers I sent a questionnaire to apprbxi-mately 300 ordained women most of whom belong to Churches engaged in the Consultation on Church Un-ion. There were no check lists, no multiple choice que-ries. My purpose was not to gather statistics but rather to gain a knowledge of persons, to discover what their experience has been and is, to learn what they are thinking today. One hundred fifty-eight responded to the questions. In addition, ten letters were received ex-plaining why the recipients were unable or unwilling to respond. Replies came from thirty-two states and. two from Canada. Differences do not run along denomina-tional lines but are within denominations. Generaliza-tions based on such an approach are, of course, impos-sible; nevertheless,'tentative impressions are made, and it is these which I shall try to convey in this article. The. first question was: (a) Why did you go into the ministry? (b) Why did you choose to be ordained? Please answer a, b, or both. Almost everyone answered both inquiries. I have grouped the replies loosely without trying to force their meaning into a preconceived mold. They over.lap and in a number of instances could have been placed in more than one category. ÷ ÷ ÷ Elsie (Mrs. Royal J.) Gibson lives at 197 Oxford Street; Hartford, Connecti-cut 06105. VOLUME 26, 1967 lOll 4" 4" "+ Elsie Gibson REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 1012 1. Many went into the ministry because the Church was their life. They had never considered a vocation apart from the Church. "My earliest remembrance was in the direction of the ministry," says one. "My father was a circuit-rider then, and my mother helped him, teaching and preaching herself. My favorite game was playing deaconess (a Methodist order). Church work was as natural as breathing." Another reflects, "As I see it now, my call to the ministry was implicit in my coming to know God when I was eleven. At any rate, through my.high school years, I haunted the church so much that when I came home from some event I was greeted, 'Well, did you lock the church tonight?' It was a beauti-ful building to haunt, and the people I met there were excellent folks for a teen-ager to idealize." A third says that she was influenced by parents who were active church people: "Mother was Superintendent of the Pri-mary Department for 25 years and I worked with her when I was a teen-ager. Grandfather was a Presbyterian minister and missionary among Indians. I wanted to go, into foreign missionary service but was not accepted health-wise." "1 played minister rather than dolls, nurse or teacher," says another who never thought seriously of any occupation save the ministry. 2. A larger number trace their motivation to a "call." This word covers a variety of meanings and not every woman explained her use of it. One terse reply said merely, "God's call.'" The majority, however, wrote a paragraph or more. "Originally I went to seminary with the intention of becoming a director of religious education. During the two years required in the School of Religious Education, the call to the parish ministry gradually began to germinate. I had several deeply re-ligious experiences during this~ time which had more to do, I think, with the [ellowship with other students than with the actual courses I was taking. I fought hard against any idea of going into the parish ministry, know-ing that there would be a great deal of opposition from my family and having my own particular antipathy toward women ministers! Nevertheless, by the time 1 received the M.A. in Christian Education, I had de-termined to stay on an additional two years to earn a B.D. I still had in mind the possibility of the teaching nfinistry, and how I actually wound up as a parish min, ister I really do not know. It just happenedl As each opportunity has presented itself to me, I have taken this as an indication of the ways in which God would have me serve, and have always found such service to be very satisfying to me." Another offers this interpretation: "I went into the ministry because I felt a definite call from God. I would like to explain that I am a member of the Friends Church, and we do not ordain ministers. Our belief is that only God ordains: it is a work of the Divine and man cannot ordain. Thus, according to our Friends Faith and Practice which is similar to the statements of doctrinal beliefs and organizational practices of other denominations, a minister of the Gospel is 'recorded.' Actually the process of recording of a minister in the Friends Church is equivalent to that of ordination in other denominations." An interesting underscoring of her point is found on page 147 of Faith and Practice, sent to me by another Friends' pastor: "And, since the Friends' concept of the recording process is the Meet-ing's recognition of one's Christian character and grace in the ministry, it appears quite outside the Quaker spirit and temper for any one to 'ask' to be recorded a minister! Such a request would seem to be fairly clear evidence to a Monthly Meeting on Ministry and Coun-sel that the time had not yet arrived for action." So, even in a Society as free as the Friends, it is the Church that decides. A Disciples of Christ minister writes: "I think I can say that, although I'm convinced I was called of God, it was through a series of circumstances over a number of years that led me to the final decision to enter the min-istry. I'm sure that if I had been a man, friends in the church would have suggested it much sooner." This explanation is given by a woman in the United Church of Christ: "I did not intend to become ordained when I sought my B.D. but the urging of the minister under whom I worked and the Dean (of the Seminary) made me think of it and I finally got to the point when I had to say 'Yes' rather hoping ! would not be ac-cepted by the association as I was not going into the pastoral ministry. But they--and my advisers--seemed to think I should find a rich pastoral ministry on the college campus and I must say I have. Chaplains are usually men and both men and women at times need a woman for consultation, confession, reassurance." Others said, "An experience of personal revelation too dramatic to relate in a questionnaire," and "a strange compulsion which I never quite understood" but which "as I look back on it now, I believe was the way that God 'called' me." An element of resistance to God's call runs through a number of the responses I received. Choices which in-volve risk are easy for no one. Women heading toward the ministry may face family disapproval or resistance on the part of the church and society with corresponding economic pressures. Years must be given to education with little assurance of the rewards that usually fol- 4" + ,4- Protestant Women in Religion VOLUME 26, 1967 1013 Elsie Gibson REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 1014 low such effort. So it is not. surprising that crucial de-cisions were postponed. One woman, moved by a ~ollege course in New Tes-tament to devote herself to the Church, did volunteer so-cial work and served as pastor's assistant. She then took nurses' training and spent a year in Public Health nurs-ing which "confirmed me in the conviction that the basic and most urgent need of all sorts and conditions of men is spiritual, and made me want to spend my life in seeking to minister to that need through the church." She is now a pastor. After serving ten years as a professional worker in both YWCA anal Girl Scouts, another relates that she "felt a real need to combine my professional skill in Camping with nay concern for Christian Education. It was recommended to me by both local and national" leadership of my denomination that I should seek, there-fore, the BD degree instead of the MRE." One who was working on her doctorate in mathe-matics turned instead to the ministry with this account: "There were two elements in this choice: the feeling of the need of people for what the Gospel could offer and a definite sense of 'call.' Without this sense of call, I'm not sure that I could have persevered. This has been a basic continuing element and accompanied by just as certain a sense of being guided. Both are hard to de-scribe. They do not make for any constant self-assured certainty on the conscious level but rather for a deep sense of urgency and commitment." 3. The third group makes no mention of a divine call but possibly the same summons has come through the voices of the world's need: "Desiring to go into the ministry but knowing my inadequacy to be a pioneer I delayed taking this step until I was almost fifty years, old. I delayed even after I graduated from Seminary. Then I was asked to preach in an isolated situation where i was needed. The experience of preaching con-firmed my belief that I ought to become a minister. Ordination naturally followed this." Another "felt drawn to full time Christian vocation and after a summer in the mountains of Virginia I saw a need for women ministers. The parish never had a trained minister because it could not support a man and family. I also observed the work of an Episcopal deaconess in the area and she did the practical work of a clergyman save for the sacraments." A pastor in Arkansas was "impelled by an overwhelm-ing desire to win souls for Christ and to minister to the needy--the sick and unfortunate. After some very ac-tive years I found it inconvenient to send for a man, minister to administer the Sacraments, to baptize and marry my parishoners. I have ministered in some more or less isolated areas and sometimes had to wait far be-yond reasonable time to get the help I needed," This woman, retired now after fifty-six years in the ministry received a certificate of honor from her denomination. "I have worked in the backwoods areas where I have assisted in making caskets for the dead and have been by the side of the doctors when the babies arrived," she recalls. At the age of seventy-eight she is preaching in churches that would otherwise be without services and making hospital calls where people confront major sur-gery. A number in this group were pressed into service dur-ing the war years by denominational officials who knew their gifts and potentiality. There are no typical replies, for every situation was different. 4. The vocations of man and woman sometimes merge when a couple meet in seminary and decide to marry. If the responses I have received are at all characteristic, this does not mean the disappearance of the woman's vocation though it may be so interpreted because she is not always listed in an independent position after the marriage. A United Church of Christ woman says: "My husband and I were ordained together in the first parish we served after leaving Seminary. I have never intended to b~ an ordained minister. But at that time it seemed to us that we wanted our ministry to be a partnership in service. We felt we could serve most effectively together if we were both ordained. I believe it has proved to be so." This woman has not been "employed" since her marriage. Their four children are either engaged in or preparing for full-time Christian service. A unique reply comes from a Baptist minister's wife who had had experience as assistant pastor in one church and as youth director in another: "I entered the pastor-ate because my husband was going to travel in his new position (denominational fund raising) and we had three small children whom I could not take around the coun-try, moving every couple of months." She was asked to remain in the church to which she was giving interim service and has been there thirteen years. The three chil-dren were in school at the time the decision had to be made. Their little son told his teacher: "My father is a preacher of funds; my mother is a preacher of the Gos-pel." 5. Those whom I shall include in this group have gone into the ministry through suffering--physical, in-tellectual, or spiritual. Two, giving specialized minis-tries, are victims of cerebral palsy. Others have been through agnosticism, loss of faith, or questionings so in-sistent they entered seminary to try to find answers a~ad ÷ '÷ "÷ Protestant Women in Religion VOLUME 26, 1967 1015 ÷ ÷ Elsie Gibson REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 1016 ended with a vocation. Significant work is being done by widow~. One, now in her eighties, was widowed with five children at the age of thirty. Although she was a chnrch member, she found no consolation in her re-ligion; but she was slowly led, thr6ugh a combination of wise pastoral guidance and despair of her ability to go on, to such confrontation with Christ that she became a person of vital faith. In gratitude she offered her serv-ices, almost on impulse, to a home missionary of her church. She was appalled when opportunity became con-crete but has been outstanding in her devotion to New England rural churches. She took them into the work of the world long before The Secular City appeared and has been the recipient of four honorary degrees. "An early test came when she was called in the night by a parishoner whose wife had been murdered. Her minis-try in this circumstance had to be given simultaneously to the father of the man who, after committing the mur-der, took his own life. Another widow with four grown children is giving full time as a trained chaplain in two large city hos-pitals. Still another is teaching chaplain and minister in a home for unwed mothers. Other 'widows, whose hus-bands were ministers, have finished the necessary train-ing and are pastors of churches. II ~e have seen some of the factors that influence Prot-estant women to devote their lives to the Church. Since religious orders in Protestantism are small and limited to a very 'few denominations, they do not present an alternative to ordination to the woman who desires a full ministry. But how do churches receive a woman's Wish for ordination that she may serve more freely? The (then) Congregational Church met this question in an acute form in 18't7 when Antoinette Brown faced the authorities of Oberlin Theological Seminary ~ith her desire to become a candidate for the ministry. They' were horrified. Armed with unflagging courage and such biblical texts as Joel 2:28 (". I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall proph-esy," reaffirmed by Peter at Pentecost), she persevered and was ordained in 1853. The free churches have long recognized the ministry of women although the propor-tion of women to men remains small. When the Evangelical and Reformed Church entered into conversations with the Congregational Christian Churches, prior to the formation of the United Church of Christ, it had no ordained women. A woman of E. and R. background writes: "I felt drawn to the ministry as powerfully as an object is drawn by a magnet. I wanted to be ordained and enter into the full-time .min-istry, but. I believed our church would not ordain women., because there were none ordained . One of my professors whom I deeply admired and respected opposed ordination for women." She married a minister and served as fully as possible for ten years following her graduation from Seminary because "I was interested in serving the Lord and not in promoting ordination for women." When she learned that the absence of or-dained women in her denomination was due to the fact that none had applied rather than to the Church's re-fusal to ordain them, she made application, was ac-cepted without difficulty, and serves as associate pastor with her husband. Another woman, the first to be or-dained in a different denomination, says: ."My purpose in seeking ordination was to enable me to serve in and through the church better.'. It was only a means rather than an end." The Methodist Church, always strongly committed to the effort to recognize gifts bestowed by the Holy Spirit, faced problems with its women in the early twentieth century. They had been seeking an outlet for what the Spirit seemed to be saying within them. Due to its polity, the Methodist Church faced a more complicated problem than the free churches had confronted. But in 1919 women were granted local preachers' licenses and in 1924 provision was made for their ordination. They could not be admitted to an annual conference, how-ever, so they were not assured of placement in a local church. In 1919 the American Association of Women Ministers was formed under the leadership of Miss M. Madeline Southard and Mrs. Ella L. Kroft, both Metho-dists. An article by Miss Southard which appeared in a 1923 issue of The Woman's Pulpit says: "The original purpose .of our Association was to bring women who preach into fellowship with each other . Another pur-pose that developed as we planned and prayed was to secure equal opportunity for women in the ecclesiasti-cal world . The third purpose as stated in our con-stitution is to encourage young women whom God has called to preach." This group, including women ofo six-teen denominations with "others applying," refused to impose rigid doctrinal or educational tests for mem-bership although a large proportion of its women were college graduates, some with master's and doctor's de-grees. They also refused to make distinctions based on race. Men have been welcomed as associate members and are free to attend any meetings. The Association is small today, including only a frac-tion of ordained clergywomen. There are a number of reasons for this. Women of the nineteenth and early 4. 4. 4. Protestant Women in Religion VOLUME 26, 1967 1017 Elsie Gibson REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 1018 twentieth centurihs were crusaders~for suffrage, tem-perance, abolition of slavery, and ecclesiastical status. The mo~lern woman does not want to enlist in the war of'the sexes; she wants cooperation with men in church and society. W. A. Visser 't Hooft, former general secre-tary of the World Council of Churches, has put it well: "The reason for the emancipation of women in the Church is not the barren fight for the r~ghtg of women, but the fruitful discovery of their spiritual gifts, of their full creative contribution." 1 The old image lingers in the Association but is changing under the influence of women, young and old, who see the new picture. Though probably not a member of the Association (I do not know), one woman expressed the new attitude of her sister ministers' thus: "I am a rather unorthodox member of the clan because I do not class myself as a woman minister, but as a minister. Woman minister seems as artificial to me as negro minister, tall minister, blonde minister, etc:" M~mbership in Methodist annual conferences was not opened to women until 1956 which means that they were not assured of placement until that time. To have this full participation, however, they must meet stiffer educational requirements. Some women are so well es-tablished and have been so successful in pastorates that they do not need to rise above the classification of "ap, proved supplies"; younger women will doubtless be go-ing on to become full members of annual conferences. The Presbyterian Church did not admit women to the preaching ministry at all until 1956. They were permitted to become ruling elders before that time: So ordained Presbyterian women are still having pioneer experience. One says that, in her first year as pastor of a church, "two situations were difficult: out of towners who Came to a local cemetery for interment preferred a man of another denomination to a Presbyterian woman pastor." Also, "a girl of my own congregation who was consulting about a wedding confessed she would not 'feel married' unless a man did itll We arranged with a Congregational minister. We both had a part in the service tho I would have preferred to be excused. The long-term results were good, however. The father later became a trustee of the church during my pastorate." She emphasizes the need for patience and t~ct during the period of transition and has had many gratifying ex-periences along with the difficulties which were un-avoidable. Another who, as an associate pastor was to share all 1 Quoted by Elsie Thomas Culver, Women in the Worl~t o[ Reli-gion (Garden City: Doubleday, 1967), p. 212. responsibilities with the senior minister, remarks: ". parishoners were somewhat nervous about a woman's preaching. I was, therefore, in the parish eleven months before preaching my first sermon. However, once I had preached there was no longer any opposit!on and even considerable enthusiasm about my preaching. There was salary discrimination against me as a woman. I regret to report that this continues in my present job." It is one thing for a denomination to permit the or-dination of women, but it is quite another thing for them to find assured acceptance in a local church. So-cial and psychological attitudes vary according to re-gion and according to the economic and educational background of the parish. A denominational official can recognize a woman's gifts and ability, and give her his full backing.He cannot, however, save her from pain-ful experiences growing out of the immaturity of those she goes to serve. It is for this reason that seminaries feel obliged to caution women against placing their hopes too high. One who teaches religion in a college says that the Pres-ident of her seminary told her she "would have more satisfying opportunities to preach (as a guest) if I be-came a college professor than if I went into the parish ministry." She found this true and others indicate the same advice and outcome. Those responding to the questionnaire, however, have been drawn to many types of vocation within the min-istry. Some are called to educational work and are easily guided into a teac.hing position. Others, wanting only to be useful, can adapt ~themselves to varied situations. But there are those who feel they must become pastors at any cost. "I was told in Seminary," one such a per-son says, "that because I was a woman, I could never expect to be called to a church of any size. I did not expect to, realized this, and have been content with churches under two hundred. Observation has shown that there are hundreds of men in the same sized churches and smaller. I cannot complain of the treat-ment I have received." Another says: "Since I had a real sense of mission I did not mind taking a small church and working at making it into a strong one. This has been my pleasure several times." No one admires self-pity and least of all in a servant of Christ, Many Christian men are trying to make it possible for women to accomplish the .work to which they believe God is calling them. A number of women voice their appreciation of this fact, one stating: "I have always accepted the fact that, being a woman, I ~vould not have a chance to serve in the 'desirable' parishes, but that has not bothered me, since I am + 4. 4. Protestant Women in Religion VOLUME 26, 1967 1019 ÷ ÷ ÷ Elsie Gibson REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 1020 somewhat missionary minded anyway. I have found that there are a small minority of men, in the ministry and in administrative positions, who have the same crusad-ing feeling about women's rights in the ministry that I have about civil rights, and I have been fortnnate in that one or two have usually been around to fight my battles for me." The mores of any society yield slowly; and while men are doing the fighting, women must exercise patience un-der scrutiny at all levels in the Church as their efforts are watched and examined and the fruit of their work evaluated. "I think it is by performance rather than pressure that women will come to be accepted as min-isters," one of them says, summing up the situation; and another observes: "Since my ordination I have found that generally speaking if one goes about one's work without fuss about 'difference' one is generally respected and usually accepted." III We turn now from the motivations and opportunities of these women to the work they are actually doing. First, a summary of the questionnaires. Eighty-0ne are serving local churches, 52 as pastors, 13 as associate or assistant pastors, one as nfinister to youth and 15 as ministers of education. Eight hold posts in Christian ed-ucation on the state or national level. Two hold execu-tive posts related to women's work. One serves as as-sociate minister of a conference. Eight teach: one is in a private school, serving also as chaplhin; four teach re-ligion at the college level; three teach in seminary (two other respondents having retired from seminary posi-tions). Two are full-time chaplains. Three are evange-lists. Five have gone back to school for further graduate work, one being in her last quarter of clinical pastoral training. Seven have a writing ministry, four of these having passed retirement age. Sixteen are wives whose work it is hard to classify because of its variety (married women also appear in earlier categories). Sixteen are re-tired, some being quite advanced in years but all re-maining as active as possible in interim and supply preaching, writing, and small group ministries. Seven are serving in institutions closely allied to the Church. Two might be said to have left the ministry but are still within the Church. The work of a Protestant pastor differs considerably from that of a priest. Baptism and Holy Communion are the only sacraments in most Protestant Churches and they require a rather small proportion of a minister's time. Weddings and funerals, not usually associated by Protestants with a sacramental ministry, do not take much time except in large churches with inadequate staffs. So the Protestant pastor is engaged in study and sermon preparation, conducting worship, pastoral call-ing, administrative work, and community service. He tries to visit the sick and to introduce the Church to newcomers of his own or perhaps no denomination in the locality, especially when such persons have appeared at a Church service or their need has been called to his attention by a parishoner who knows of their desire to see a minister. He may do counseling at the Church. He spends hours with lay persons who hold responsible positions--Sunday School teachers, deacons and deacon-esses, trustees, youth sponsors, and others. He works also with small groups meeting for Bible study and prayer, leadership education, and youth activities. This would comprise the week's schedule for a woman min-ister also. Reading between the lines of my responses, I dis-cover that eight women are supporting themselves by secular employment and doing as much of the above work as possible in the churches they serve. One clerks in a grocery; another is visiting lecturer in science at a university. Teaching, nursing, and social work are men-tioned. The majority of pastors, however, are giving full time to the Church. Protestant people prefer the ministry of a married man if they can support him, so most women minis-ters will be found in struggling churches or churches which find it hard to get married ministers for other reasons. One writes: "I believe that there is a place in Protestantism for a celibate ministry. There are parishes in which a single person can work where it would not be practical for a family to live. The parish I now sei've is one that has a very hard time keeping a minister; it is a depressed coal mining area where ministers' wives do not want to bring up their children, and I don't blame them--I would not bring up children here either; but since I am single I have been able to stay on a small salai'y and do a work that really needed to be done." In 1941, a Methodist bishop asked a young woman to go and see if she could revive a church which was dis-integrating. She found a building with every window broken and no heating plant. On the pulpit was a note: "There are no members and no money. Here's the key." A school official told her: "Go back where you came. Even by police statistics it is a frightful area." She called from door to door and faced an empty church for four Sundays. Then two women came, bringing their children, and she started a Sunday School. At the end of fourteen years she was able to give up secular employ, ment; the church could support her. Now, after 26 + 4. + Protestant Women in Religion VOLUME 26, 1967 1021 + + + Elsie Gibson REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 1022 years, she serves the same church with a membership of 1,094. It has sent out one missionary, four ministers, has another graduating from seminary and still others looking toward full-time Christian work. Her r~sponse on the questionnaire as to why she entered the ministry was: "The Methodist Church needed me." Doubtless any bishop would endorse that statement. This woman may have unusual gifts of administration. --they have had an excellent building programmbut many from whom I heard seem able to manage the af-fairs of a parish well. A Michigan woman writes: "I have to date served three parishes and we have built a new church building in each place. I would have been happy to have let the men do that, though." Others felt they were not equipped to handle such projects and pre-ferred to work on a multiple staff where they would not have administrative duties. When women are assistant pastors they usually carry heavy responsibility in Christian education, pastoral calling, or both. Twenty-five years ago, schools or de-partments of religious education were separate from the theological, divisions of seminaries though on the same campuses. The education courses were taken mainly by women. They demanded extensive study of educa-tional theory and practice as well as field work but a minimum of theology. The theological sections, in which nearly all the students were men, did little or nothing in the way of training for educational work. Tension resulted between the male minister and the female director of education, the pastor thinking the woman did not know what she was trying to impart and the director of education feeling that the pastor was a dismal failure when it came to imparting anything ex-cept to adults. Since the woman had had fewer years of graduate study and was in a subordinate position on the staff, as well as from the cultural angle, she felt frus-trated. This picture is changing. A widow who serves as a director of Christian educa-tion has expressed the matter clearly: "I was ordained because at the time I was in seminary it seemed to me that there was quite a gulf between people working in the Christian education field, which I had prepared to do, and the ministry of the church. In other words, all too often the clergy did not interest themselves in edu-cation, because they felt that it was the 'field of the edu-cator, and in fact, they did not bother to find out too much about it. The person in Christian education went about his duties and the minister about his and they were each in his separate world. This led to misunder-standing and at times situations where there was rivalry and outright antagonism. By completing the full three- year course for the B.D. degree and by being ordained, I wished to show my belief that ihe work of the church is one; that whatever I did I wanted to do with the wel-fare of the total church in mind; that I was prepared to understand the work of the ministry in its widest scope and to see my task in the broadest terms." Another woman explains her desire in seeking ordination: "Be-cause it is my conviction that one who works profes-sionally in the educational ministry of the church should have the same training and status as those who are min-isters of Word and Sacrament. The ministry is one; the preaching and teaching ministry cannot be separated." Women with this full preparation frequently become associate pastors rather than assistants and their views are treated with appreciation and respect in the area of their special competence. The church school is under their direction, also adult education projects and leader-ship training of various kinds. They-may have respon-sibility for morning wors.hip when children or youth are involved. The ministers of the church work as a team, associates having been interviewed by the senior pastor so that he carl determine whether additional staff have points of view which will make it possible for all to serve together happily. The women from whom I heard in such situations were glad to participate in a team minis-try. Others who share responsibility, particularly in pas-toral calling and counseling, felt a multiple staff should always include a woman. A number in such positions said there were problems a woman would not discuss with a male minister, and vice versa, so that the pres-ence of a woman on the staff gave members of the congregation a choice. One respondent mentioned that a minister of another denomination had sent a dis-turbed woman to her for counseling even though he "did not believe in women ministers." Several who have had experience in chaplaincy work feel that it is a mis-take for men to counsel emotionally disturbed women and girls and vice versa. Older women often find satisfaction in a special min-istry to senior citizens, shut-ins, those in nursing homes and hospitals. This frees the senior pastor from all ex-cepf. the most urgent calls. The woman assistant or as-sociate takes Holy Communion to the sick and others who cannot come to the church. She conducts worship in nursing homes and often preaches in the absence of the senior minister. Thirty-four ministers' wives responded to the ques-tionnaire; thirty-two respondents are married to men who have other vocations. Unless economic circum-stances demand it, they do not leave the home when 4. 4- + Protestant Women in Religion VOLUME 26, 1967 1023 ÷ ÷ ÷ E|sle Gibson REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 1024 their children are below school age; but this does not mean they have "left the ministry." A mother of four children whose husband is in business says that she con-tinued her work until their fourth child came: "I have found that a full-time parish is too much for me to manage while the children are young. I have every in-tention of returning to the parish ministry as soon as the children are all in school, and able to be a little less de-pendent on me." In the meantime she is able to supply pulpits and conduct Christian education workshops. Another minister's wife who is serving a church part time says: "I am devot.ing all the time I feel I can to my parish duties because my family takes precedence . Fortunately, the church I currently serve does not ask for more. But in any case, until the youngest child is in school, I could not do more. If I fail my children, I fail--period. However, with these limitations I am giv-ing supportive help to a small congregation of aging persons (mostly single .women) and there doesn't seem to be anyone else around who could bother with them at the moment." Other wives, while accepting interim and supply work, do not serve as pastors and do not expect to do so. They are absorbed.in the work their husbands are do-ing, giving him assistance in tasks for which they have special gifts. The parish he serves is actually receiving the service of two ministers "for the price of one." Such churches make no de,rnands upon a woman's time but gratefully receive whatever assistance she can give. This will vary with the age and number of her children. She may give practically full time as they grow older. Protestant churches are often unaware of the work done by ministers' wives above the local level and es-pecially in ecumenical circles. I recall a large board meeting where the que.stion was suddenly asked: "How many here are ministers' x4ives?" Nearly all the women were, and it was laughingly decided that some-thing must be done abont such a situation for "what if all our husbands were to move at once?" One min-ister's wife writes: "Our little boy is just a year old so I will not be working professionally for a while. However, I am very much involved in our Church Women United gronp, and feel that the witness i am making now is perhaps greater than the witness I was able to make as a professional Christian education person." In various ways a number observed that a Christian home at the heart of the parish is in itself a form of witness. A young minister's wife states: "I've found thai often women will talk their family and marital problems over with me first. Often they want to talk to both of us. When a woman needs to break down and have a good cry, she'll often come and cry with me." Another expresses an idea which I have pondered myself: Are women led into specialized ministries? Certainly many of us who are mar-ried are so engaged. We are doing work that in many in-stances requires ordination but that others have neither the time nor the financial support to do. A young woman, ordained and having to decide whether her ministry will be given as a single or married person, writes: "I think that women were made to stand along-side men in the family, church and society." She rejects stereotypes of women as do most of those responding to my questionnaire. It seems to me that the role of woman in the Church is an nnsolved problem. Their gifts and abilities are numerous, and they cannot be forced into one of half a dozen molds predetermined by society. T.hey must have sufficient freedom to become what God intended them to be. They need the help of the men of the Church, but not their domination, to find where they belong. One woman cannot generalize for another what the ideal wife and mother must be and do. There is as much variety within this "order" as within any other. I think that perhaps the greatest need of the Church in our generation is a deep interior listening to what the Holy Spirit seems to be saying, not only to our-selves but through others. The natural human tend-ency is to try to shape others either to our own vocation or to our mental image of the calling he thinks he has. There is a bewildering multiplication of vocations to-day when almost everyone is some kind of specialist. But we are reachiug out toward mt~tual understanding. Years ago, the founder o1~ the American Association of Women Ministers chided me for my interest in the Roman Catholic Church. She could not fathom it. Aged and infirm now, unable to fill out the questionnaire, she rose from bed and scribbled a brief note which in-cluded the words: "I have found very real fellowship with Catholic Sisters both here and once when I was ill and they took me in almost as one of them. 'Just like us' I overheard one of them say to another of me." Our feelings may be ambivalent at times as we consider the radical differences in our separate states; but faith in Christ leads us to affirm that we will yet be one Body---even in the eyes of the world. + 4. + Protestant Women in Religion VOLUME 26, 1967 1025 JOSEPH F. GALLEN, S.J. Directives on the ¯Postulancy, Noviceship, and Temporary Profession ÷ + ÷ Joseph F. Gal-len, s.J., writes from St. Joseph's Church; 321 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Penn-sylvania 19106. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 1026 In an address to the International Union of Supe-rioresses General, given in Rome on March 7, 1967, Archbishop Philippe, Secretary of the Sacred Congrega-tion of Religious, communicated the following new ori-entations or directives of the Sacred Congregation of Re-ligious on the postulancy, noviceship, and temporary profession in apostolic congregations of religious women. These directives had been p.reviously approved by the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation, Cardinal~ Antoniutti. The directives should obviously be studied by all institutes, also of men. These new orientations are di-rectives, suggestions, the thinking, the mind of the Sa-cred Congregation. They Were not imposed as obliga-tory. The norms of the motu proprio Ecclesiae sanctae (nn. 6-8) remain in full force. The general chapter therefore has the authority to change the constitutions experimentally provided the changes are not contrary to canon law and the purpose, nature, and character of the institute are preserved. Prudent experiments con-trary to canon law, if judged profitable, will be freely i~er-mitted by the Holy See, but canonical changes are effec-tive only if and when they are permitted by the Holy See. The general council has the same power of experimenta-tion in the periods between chapters according to condi-tions to be determined by the chapters. See Rv.wEw for RELXGmUS, 25 (1966), 957--65; 26 (1967), 5--18. The new orientations of the Sacred Congregation are listed below as directives. The remarks are my explanatory comments on the directives. DIRECTIVE I. PRE-POSTULANCY NOT RECOMMENDED. A pre-postulancy would be a period before the postulancy spent in one of the houses of full external activity, in which therefore the aspirant would be in contact with the actual life of the institute, would know the life she is to live when her formation is completed, and a more realistic judgment of her vocation could be made. The thinking of the Sacred Congregation of Religious is that this purpose should be included in the postulancy and not that there should be an added and special pre-postu- .lancy for all. Remarks. The directive of the Sacred Congregation stated above would not preclude the imposing or recom-mending of such a pre-postulancy to a particular aspi-rant or aspirants before admission. Some institutes of sis-ters are now demanding or tending to demand a year of work after high school, two years or the completion of college before entrance. All such requirements are based on what is stated to be the fact of experience, that is, that greater maturity than now had is at least advisable before entrance. Such experimental require-ments should be carefully thought out and, if put into effect, their results are to be accurately observed and studied. Maturity is an individual matter, and some high school graduates are sufficiently mature for entrance. A partial or complete college education is not a guaran-tee of maturity, Contact is to be maintained with the applicant during the period of any such delayed en-trance, e.g., by the vocation director. The psychological and personality testing of applicants should help the judgment on sufficient maturity. DIRECTIVE II. POSTULANCY. Necessity. In religious in-stitutes of women of.perpetual vows, there is to be a postulancy for all of at least six month~ but not longer than a year (c. 539, § 1). Prolongation. Whether the pre-scribed postulancy is six months or longer, as above, it may be prolonged but not more than six months (c. 539, § 2). Place. The postulancy may be made in the novitiate house or in another house of the institute where the discipline prescribed by the constitutions is faithfully observed (c. 540, § 1). Manner. The postulants are to make the postulancy as a distinct group under the spiritual guidance of a mistress (c. 540, § 1). Pur-pose. The postulancy is to remain, as now almost solely viewed, a period of spiritual and religious initiation for the noviceship, but it may also be considered and em-ployed as a time of probation and trial in the works of the institute. It may be made in one of the houses of full external activity. Consequently, the postulants would be in contact with the actual life of the institute, would know the life they are to live when their forma-tion is completed, and a more realistic judgment of their vocation could be made (c. 540, § 1). Authority ]or Directives VOLUME 26, 1967 1027 4" 4" 4" Joseph F. Gallen, .S.L REVIEW: FOR RELIGIOUS 1028 changes. The institutes themselves may make these changes because none of them is contrary to canon law and therefore does 'not demand the authorization of the Sacred Congregation of Religious. Remarhs. It is not a canon but the practice of the Holy See in approving constitutions that has excluded a postulancy longer than a year. Canon law did not and does not forbid either study or occupation in the ex-ternal works of the institute during postulancy. Canor~ 540, § 1 permits that the postulancy be made in houses of full external activity "where the discipline prescribed by the constitutions is faithfully observed." DIRECTIVE III. CLOTHING OR RECEPTION OF THE HABIT (BEGINNING OF THE NOVlCESHIP). Type of ceremony. The mind of the Sacred Congregation of Religious is that the clothing or reception of the habit should be reduced to a purely community ceremony, held in the chapel of the novices or of the religious house, without the pres-ence of the families or ecclesiastical authorities, and especially without solemnity. Reason. The reason is to accord the due and superior importance to religious pro-fession, which in many institutes of religious women was given less solemnity and appeared to have less impor-tance than reception. The Commission for the Imple-mentation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy is preparing to formulate a ceremonial for religious pro-fession. Remarks. The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, n. 80, states: Moreover, a rite of religious profession aml renewal of vows shall be drawn up, in order to achieve greater unity, sobriety, and dignity. Apart from exceptions in particular law, this rite should be adopted by those who make their profession or
Issue 30.5 of the Review for Religious, 1971. ; EDITOR R. F. Smith, S.J. ASSOCIATE EDITOR Everett A. Dledertch, 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 Rxvmw FOR I~LIOXOUS; 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; 3~21 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 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 VOR RELIC;IOUS. Published for Review for Religious at .Mr. Royal & Guilford Ave., Baltimore, Md. Printed in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at Baltimore, .Maryland and at additional 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, $)3.00 ~or )wo 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 FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S,A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW Fog RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Renewals and new subscriptions should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; P. O. Box 1110; 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. SEPTEMBER 1971 VOLUME 30 NUMBER 5 EDWARD J. FARRELL The Journal--A Way into Prayer If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent If the unheard, unspoken Word is unspoken, unheard; Still is the unspoken woriJ, the Word unheard, The Word without a word, the Word within the world and for the world; and the light shone in darkness and against the Word the unstilled world still whirled about the centre of the silent Word --Ash Wednesday, T. S. Eliot. Prayer is a hunger, a hunger that is not easily quieted. Today the cry, "Teach us to pray," echoes and reverber-ates from many directions. One of the ways I have learned to pray is by writing. I began by copying favorite passages from reading, then thoughts and ideas of others and fi-nally came to jotting down my own insights and reflec-tions from the prayer and experiences of each day. This prayer journal at times seems like my own biography of Christ, a kind of Fifth Gospel. Writing makes me think of the Evangelists' experience. Why and how did Mat-thew, Mark, Luke, and John begin their writing? What happened in them? What kind of grace was affecting them? Certainly their experience in writing was a prayer, an entering into the mind and heart of Christ. I wonder if the evangelists' experience is not to be a more common experience for many Christians. We know that God has expressed Himself in a unique and privileged way in Scripture, and yet He continues to reveal Himself and ourselves to us in the events of our ~everyday life. His written word is fresh born each morn-ing and He appeals to us: "Harden not your hearts this day as your fathers did in the desert" (Ps 95). We dare to ask Him each day: "Give us this day our daily bread," knowing that it is not by bread alone that man lives but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. The Father continues to communicate to each of us through E. J. Farrell is a faculty member of Sacred Heart Semi-nary; 2701 Chicago Boulevard; Detroit, Michigan 48206, VOLUME 30, 751 ÷ ÷ E. ]. Farrell REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS the Spirit of His Son, "for the Spirit reaches the depths of everything, even the depths of God. After all, the depths of a man can only be known by his own spirit, not by any other man; and in the same way the depths of God can only be known by the Spirit of God. Now instead of the spirit of the world, we have received the Spirit that comes from God, to teach us to understand the gifts that he has given us" (1 Cot 2:10-2). Rahner somewhere writes: "There are things which theologians try to explain. The Lord has other means of making them understood." Christ speaks to us each in a unique way. I think and pray and speak to Him in a way no one else has ever spoken to Him. He speaks to me in a way that He has spoken to no one else. Moments of depth and rare in-sight, of meeting with God, the sacred, are to be treasured and pondered within the heart. What photography is to the visual, writing is to the intuitive and moment of light. Paul wrote: "If you read my words, you will have some idea of the depths that I see in the mystery of Christ (Eph 3:4). Writing enables us to see into the depths. It is not a simple recording of thoughts already finished; it is crea-tive in its very activity and process. Writing is a journey, exploring the countries of the mind and heart, the never ending revelatory Word spoken once for all time. Little attention has been given to the value of writing as a way into prayer, an openness to contemplation, as a celebra-tion and remembering, as discovery, as centering. Deep calls to deep and the deep conscious level responding to the deep, not yet conscious reality of our being. In the beginning was the Word and He had to become incar- Ilate. There is I hope something of the Evangelists' grace for each of us, the grace of writing, of incarnating, infleshing the word in our self and imprinting it and making it our word. None of the Evangelists were "writers" in the pro-fessional sense; yet their writings were a deep communi-cation with God, with themselves, with others. Our Lord frequently asked His listeners: "What do you think?" He constantly compels us to think, to contemplate! How sad it is that so often we lose our capacity for truth, for depth; numbness, overload fuses out and shortcircuits our perceptive facuhies. Writing creates an opening in the stream of uncon-" sciousness and breaks up the automatic pattern of our life. One awakes to the newness that comes so unexpected each day. Our eyes see differently as through the wonder of a new camera. One becomes aware that ihis is the only moment like this that I shall ever have. The first con-scious thought of the day becomes an exciting experi- ence. As a person writes he begins to recognize an extraor-dinary relation between the hand as it writes and the mind and heart, like an ignition. What is written is not as significant as what happens to us in the process. Some-thing is growing within; hidden capacity gently reveals itself. New sensitivities unfold. The horizon sweeps back, the veil lifts, and we experience Emmaus: "Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us and explained the scripture to us" (Lk 24:32). Rollo May describes creativity as "the encounter of the intensely conscious human being with his world." Writing is an experience of creativity immediately availa-ble to everyone: "To write one has but to begin, to take the risk, to take it seriously enough to play with it, for it is by walking that one creates the path." It is so easy to live outside of ourselves, to be unaware of the inner center, the inner dialogue, the inner journey. But once a man begins, he experiences the' thrill of his own unique thoughts and insights. He begins to descern his own words from the borrowed words of others. What an ac-celeration to discover the "hidden manna" and He who gives him "a white stone, with a new name written on the stone which no one knows except him who receives it" (Rev 2:17). T. S. Eliot expresses it so simply: With the drawing of this Love and the Voice of this Calling We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Writing is a way into what is going on and developing within ourselves. It can become a powerful way of prayer, a key to self-understanding and inner dialogue. The power in writing stimulates the very inner process that it is engaged in describing, drawing the process further inward. It is not a passive retelling of events, or a de-scribing of an experience. It becomes one's own experi-ence. Nor is it a self-conscious analytical introspection. Expressing oneself in words is rather an active and con-tinuing involvement in a personal inner process through which one is drawn into an expanded understanding of the reality in his own existence. For example, most peo-ple pray the Our Father every day. One can hear Christ's words and then suddenly hear what his own heart is saying: "Hallowed by my name, my kingdom come, my will be done." This inbreaking of understanding can be-come just another forgotten inspiration and lost grace or by getting it down it becomes specific, focused, and deci-sive. If one writes regularly, no matter how briefly, a con-scious thought, insighL prayer, reflection,he will find that 4- + + The Journal VOLUME ~0, 1971 753 ÷ ÷ ÷ E. J. Farrell REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS "/54 it becomes a cumulative enrichment. It is tuning into what is going on, seeing the connection and relationship, capturing that which is behind the consciousness. Writing and contemplation tend to merge. We know the saints best who found themselves compelled to write---Augus-tine, Bernard, Catherine, Teresa, and our own contem-poraries John XXIII's Journal of a Soul, Dag Hammar-skjold's Markings. In this day of so much glib talk, when we are daily inundated and assaulted with unending words and speech, when everyone is correspondingly articulate on every-thing, the written personal word is increasingly impor-tant. Such words come out of silence and expand silence. They reestablish privacy so rare today, and a comfortable sense of solitude. They beget the dialogue between one's known self and one's deeper, unknown self that is coming into being. One begins to hear the wordless dialogue be-tween one's deepest sel{ and God. Christ taught His Dis-ciples through the deep questions--"Who do you say I am? . Do you love me? . What do you think?" We can-not but respond to His questions and imperatives with our own questions and responses: "Is it I, Lord? W.here do you live?" As never before, each of us has to personalize our faith; we must initial it with our own name and make it ours. We must be able to give reason for the faith that is within us. People do not ask about the formal teachings of the Church. They want to know your experience, what you think, what difference does Jesus make. Here are some of the questions that I. have been asked and that I write about in order that I may be ready to speak His word in me for others: "How do you pray? . Who is Jesus for me?.When do you believe? .W. hen do you love?" "How? .When have you experienced penance? .W. hat difference does the Eucharist make in you? . What do you expect of you? .How does your vineyard grow?" "What is your charism? .W. hat is your sin? .W. hat would it take for you to be a saint now? . What is Jesus asking of you today? . What effect are you making on your world?" These questions demand thinking; they demand contemplation. Answering the questions in spoken words may avoid the implications of their personal meaning. Thinking is so diffused, unformulated, scattered, easily distracted. To write an answer for one's self is to drive deep; it disciplines, focuses, and brings one to face Christ with his conviction. A journal is a journey--the journey of today--both words are from the French word "le jour"--today. The journal is the coming into possession of life this day in the written word, capturing its secret, its mystery. The written word is perhaps more like a kiss than a possessing as in the words of Blake: He who bends to himself a joy Doth the winged life destroy But he who kisses the joy as it flies Loves in Eternity's sunrise. The journal calls for honesty, for a search into meet-ing. It is a discipline in a day when discipline is rare: "But it is a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to life, and only a few find it" (Mt 7:14). Time set aside to move from the outer to the inner, to discover new depths, to see new connections, to perceive fresh insight--surely this work is prayer. It is at times unselfconscious poetry and contemporary psalmody. The journal is a putting into words the praise of God that leaps from the transparencies of life which the light of faith illumines for us. Each of us has our own nnique psalms; the journal helps us to find the words which in turn we share with those He sends to us. Each must honor the desire to express one-self or not. Every person has his own inner rhythm, and each must have his own way of getting to it. Writing Together When people come together and are silent, something in addition becomes present: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Mt 18:20). As a group turns their focus from outside to inside, to a level of depth, something else be-comes present and makes other kinds of experiences pos-sible. This contact with ourselves would not happen by oneself. A cumulative atmosphere of depth allows us to come to new depth within ourselves. One of the more fruitful group prayer experience that I have worked with is using a three-hour block of time. A gronp of six to ten sit in a small circle in the presence of the Eucharist or with the open Scripture and lighted candle, in the center. The first hour is a prayer of adoration, of silent witness to the Presence in the presence of each other. This hour is an experience of silence and hiddenness with the Father: "You are dead and your life is hidden with Christ in God." The second hour is the hour of writingmthe quantum leaps from nothingness into creation--the power of a word pulling many things into understand-ing. Out of the silence the word comes forth. A field of energy is generated by the concentration of the others around oneself, and one is supported by the current of their efforts. The hour of writing is more than a remem-bering the hour in silence. It is an unfolding experience in itself that carries new dimensions of perception with it. The third hour is one of sharing, of speaking the word 4- + + The .lournal 755 to one another. The sharing is at a depth level because of the common experience of the previous two hours--it is no longer an exchange of words and ideas, it is a meeting of persons. In some dim way these three hours are a Trinity experience--the Father in the hour of silence, the Son in the hour of writing, and the Holy Spirit in the hour of sharing. God speaks! We are compelled to etch Him upon our hearts in writing; and then we are ready to bear witness unafraid and we dare to say with Paul: "If you read my words, you will have some idea of the depths that I see in the mystery of Christ" (Eph 3:4). EDWARD HAYES, O.C.S.O. Probings into Prayer One of the purposes of transactional analysis is to liber-ate people from unheahhy negative feelings about them-selves and others. To do this, one endeavors to evoke the same original sitnation wherein the "child" made a feel-ing decision from the experience. Once the original expe-rience is evoked, one has to re-decide, perhaps years later, at a feeling level, to liberate oneself from sulzh unhealthy negative feelings. In short, one has to return to the origi-nal injunction and re-decid~ on a feeling level. It is al-most a cliche in some circles: go back to childhood, to one's origin in order to understand one's present situa-tion better. ,'1 Wider Concept o[ Prayer To better nnderstand prayer it is also beneficial to return to its origins.1 St. John tells us: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was toward God and the Word was God" (Jn 1;I). The Word was "toward God" sounds strange. We usually translate it by "with God," "near God," changing the meaning of the Greek, "pros theon." " The evangelist wants to express a mystery that our translation ought to respect. "Toward God" implies relationship, motion. From eternity the Word was turned toward the Father, the Word's Personality, His divine gaze, was totally addressing the Father--a Thou. An un-ceasing movement drew the Word toward the Father. Prayer is a movement toward Another, a responding rela-tionship. St. John, in describing the origin of prayer, is telling us something of great import: to become fully conscious you need only to look with love on another-- on a "Thou." And this is what the Word does from all eternity--turning totally toward His Father. Prayer de-scribed as this means it is relational, a moving toward Another. Responding to my life situation is a "moving 1Jean Galot, s.J., La pri~re (Bruges: Desclfie de Brouwer, 1965); throughout this article I am indebted to this hook. '~ I. de La Potterie, "De interpunctione et interpretatione versuum Job. 1:3, 4, I1," Verbum Domini, v. 33 (1955), pp. 193-208. 4- Edward Hayes is a staff member of the House of Prayer at Durward's Glen; RR 2, Box 220; Baraboo, Wisconsin 53913. VOLUME 30, 1971 757 4. 4. °4. Edward Hayes REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS toward the Father," is prayer, is an earthly embodiment of the Eternal Word's incessant prayer. In this sense of prayer as a "pros theon" movement, prayer is as wide as life. Saying yes to the summons in one's daily circum-stances is a "pros theon" movement, is saying yes to ulti-mate Responsibility, God Himself. In this way man is again and again opening himsel[ to the summons availa-ble in his life, seeking to respond to it with courage and generosity. Although not in a specifically religious exer-cise, not even with a supernatural intention, man, in answering the appeals in his daily secular experiences, is moving toward the Fathei', is at prayer. Formal prayer, then, simply clarifies and intensifies the moving toward the Father wherever people try to become more truly themselves. Another example o[ this wider concept o[ prayer as a movement toward, as a dynamic thrust toward Another, is at the end o[ the prologue. "No one has ever seen God, it is the only Son who is into the bosom o[ the Father, he it is who has made him known" (Jn 1:18). Verse 1 and verse 18 together make an inclusion to the prologue. The prologue begins and ends with the Word's (Son's) dy-namic movement into the Godhead. Here in verse 18, "eis ton kolpon," literally, "into the Father's bosom," is trans-lated like its counterpart in verse 1. Translations hesitate to express the original and prefer, "He who is in the bosom of the Father." Ke.eping the awkward translation makes evident the expression of movement, "into the bosom of the Father." Here is a dynamic thrust, a vital relationship of the Son toward the Father. From eternity, the authentic core of His Person is addressed and called forth in filial love. True prayer is being summoned and responding, a reality as wide as life itself. Beyond Professionalism It has been pointed out to us that many in pastoral care take special training because of their need to be more skillful in their pastoral relationships,z The increas-ing number of pastoral training centers witnesses to the great desire to find an answer to the "how-to-do-it" ques-tion. How to relate to hippies, to young radicals, to stu-dents, to those in crises. Those in pastoral care do look to the masters of behavioral sciences to give them answers [or their urgent questions. Certainly, the assistance o[ these social sciences is o[ tremendous importance. Yet there is a unique dimension which goes beyond the ex-pertise o[ the behavioral sciences, that goes beyond pro- [essionalism to the internal dynamism of one's faith. We n Henri Nouwen, "Pastoral Care," National Catholic Reporter, v. 7, n. 20 (March 19, 1971), p. 8. are referring here not to techniques but to one's spiritual quality, to one's inner thrust, to one's conviction and authenticity to be communicated in encountering others. Jesus Himself cared for souls and their individual needs, for Magdalene, for the woman at the .well, for Nicode-mus. Jesus was skillful in His relationships with them and was not afraid to use His insights into the stirrings of the human heart. But when asked about the source of His knowledge He said: "My teaching is not from myself; it comes from the one who sent me" (Jn 7:16), This exemplifies going beyond techniques and skills and plunging into the heart of relationship to Another. Another text indicating the relationship between inner depth and one's mission, skillfully relating to others, is: "No one has seen God except the only Son who is into the bosom of the Father. He it is who has made him known" (Jn 1:18). "Into the bosom of the Father" means that the Son penetrates into the deepest secrets of the Father. Prayer, as was mentioned, inv~)lves a filial dyna-mism wherein the Holy Spirit, like di~cine energy, seizes the Son, carrying Him into the bosom of the Father. But then John adds: "He [the Son] it is who has made him known," marking the relationship between prayer and one's mission. To make known the Father, to be witness, one must give witness not only for Someone but to what one has seen. The only Son has made known what His divine gaze, in moving deeper into the secret recesses of the Father, has grasped and contemplated. All one's wit-nessing value issues out of a dynamism which has carried him, first of all, into the bosom of the Father. Again we are going beyond professionalism. Making known the Fa-ther, accomplishing one's apostolate, is to issue out of or be blended with searching into the inner recesses of the Father, that is, prayer. If one ceases to "wonder" in the silent reflection of his inner loneliness, if one has not yet begun to imbibe the Spirit by letting Scriptures speak to him, if one rationalizes his way out of praying together with a handful of friends who mediate the Spirit to him --this apostle has not gone beyond professionalism and can scarcely bring hope and ultimate meaning to the lives o£ others.4 Again we can approach the same matter by looking further into the meaning of "into the bosom of the Fa-ther." It means attaining the secret depths of God, plung-ing deeply into reality where God is hidden. Human experiences have privileged moments of disclosure where the infinite Thou is unveiled from within the finite 4 Gerard Broccolo, "The Priest Praying in the Midst of the Fam-ily of Men," Concilium, n. 52 (New York: Paulist, 1970). 4- 4- ÷ Prayer VOLUME 30, ).971 ÷ + + Edward Hayes REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 760 thou.~ Searching into the bosom of the Father can mean a sensitivity for the deeper and transcending element that is experienced as co-present. We call this ultimate and hidden depth of human experience "Person" or "Father." The divine presence is hidden in the deepest dimension of human experience and so moving "into the bosom of the Father" can also mean contemplating God's work with man, distinguishing with a growing sensitivity the light and darkness in the human heart. Prayer, in this sense, is the ongoing disclosure of the deepest dimension of reality to us, revealing both God's light and man's darkness. In this perspective, our apostolate is never lim-ited to the application of any technique but ultimately goes beyond professionalism. It is the continuing search for God hidden in the life of the people we serve. Prayer, moving into the bosom of the Father, means searching and finding the God we want to make known in the lives of the people to whom we want to reveal Him. Prayer and Sell-identity ~Arho am 1? Do 1 think of myself as isolated, as exposed to the coincidences of every day, as placed in a universe withont meaning and without a fi~tnre? There are indeed moments in my life when I experience myself in this way. In faith I acknowledge nay new self-identity: I am a son and therefore given a destiny. I nnderstand myself as placed in a context where meaning and purpose are avail-able to me. This destiny makes me someone. In faith, therefore, I acknowledge nay own worth, not because of the efforts I make but because, as a son, I am accepted. In faith, there is no reason for me to be ashamed of myself. As son I rejoice in myselfY This filial identity is expressed and intensified by prayer. When the Son leaves the bosom of the Father and enters human life, his eternal "pros theon" movement is embodied at moments of prayer so that there is, in the evangelist's mind, a certain bond between Christ's prayer and manifesting His filial identity. For instance, at His Baptism there is a solemn declaration of His divine filia-tion by the Father as a result of Jesus' own prayer: "Now when all the people had been baptized and while Jesus after his own baptism was in prayer, heaven opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily shape, like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, 'You are my Son, the Beloved; my favor rests on you' " (Lk 3:21-2). It was in the midst of His prayer that the Spirit's descent and ~ Fons d'Hoogh, "Prayer in a Secularized Society," Concilium, n. 49 (New York: Paulist, 1969), pp. 42 ft. ~ Gregory Baum, Faith and Doctrine (New York: Newman, 1969), p. 18. the Father's proclamation took place as if the Father was awaiting the filial dlan of His son, which prayer embod-ies, before declaring Jesus' divine filiation. Recognizing in Christ's words and gestures the authentic expression of sonship, the Father proclaimed with power that this man is His beloved Son. Notice the bond between Christ's prayer and revealing the true identity of Christ as Son. Again, at the Transfiguration, prayer plays the same role: "He took with him Peter and John and James and went up the mountain to pray" (Lk 9:28). The purpose was to pray and only during the course of their prayer did the incident of the Transfiguration take place. Jesus inwardly gazing upon the Father suddenly makes Him appear visibly what He is in reality: the resplendent glory of the Father (Heb 1:3): "As he prayed the aspect of his countenance was changed and his clothing became bril-liant as lightning" (Lk 9:29). As at the Baptism, by pray-ing Jesus adopts a filial attitude and in this "pros theon" movement the proclamation of divine Sonship is heard. Again, the bond between prayer and His self-identity as Son is seen. Finally, at His death, Jesus prays: "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" (Lk 23:46). By beginning with "Father," Jesus changes the Psalmist's prayer of the Old Testament (Ps 21:6) into a filial prayer. The Psalmist was crying out to Yahweh but Christ trans-figures the Psalmist's prayer by saying "Father," making it a filial prayer. That cry was His last testimony as Son. At the supreme moment Jesus pulls Himself together so that fi'om the very ground of His being there arises the strength to proclaim what is closest to Him, His Sonship. This is the most moving revelation of His Sonship, so moving that it convinces the pagan centurion: "In truth this man was the son of God" (Mk 15:39). In the three most privileged moments wherein Christ is revealed as Son of God we are aware of the role of prayer. At the Baptism, at the Transfiguration, and at His death it was prayer that evoked the manifestation of Jesus' filial identity. In turning toward the Father in prayer Jesus is acting as Son and this gesture provokes on the part of the Father the proclamation of Christ's Sonship. This sponta-neous gesture belongs to the revelation of the mystery of His person. Whenever in prayer, Jesus is unveiling His divinity under a filial form. In Him there exists a bond between prayer and revealing the quality of sonship which allows us to say that prayer manifests and intensi-fies our self-identity as sons. If you are traveling on a train it occasionally happens that the steady clicking of the rails and the movement of the train begin to put you to sleep. When the train slows down and comes to a halt the little jolt involved in stop- Prayer VOLUME 30, 1971 ping awakens you. As-we move from one day into the next, often the sameness in daily situations can put one into a spiritual somnolence. It is when we stop that rhythm by breaking off for the sake of reflection that an awakening of inner life happens. Prayer, reflection, is an awakening to your deeper self, recalling you to what is the most basic dimension within you, to the reality as son. Prayer is discovering what you already are. You do not have to rush after it. It is there all the time. All that is needed is time for it to unfold. If you give it time it will make itself known to you. Christ established a new principle of human life: man becomes his true self espe-cially in prayer. Grace hides a filial identity and it is prayer which reveals to a human person that which is the deepest and truest nobility within onself: the quality as son of the Father. This turning toward the Father affirms and (leepens one's self-identity as son. Like Jesus Himself, man in prayer, continuing the mystery of the Incarna-tion, can become fully aware of what he really is, son. + + + Edward Hayes REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS PETER BYRNE, C.Ss.R. Teilhard de Chardin and Commitment There is now incontrovertible evidence that mankind has just entered upon the greatest period of change the world has ever krlown.~ These stirring words were first uttered in 1936 by Tell-hard de Chardin, and they bear scrutiny today more than 30 years later when change seems to be not only taking place but seems to be the most constant feature of life. In fact change occurs so rapidly in these times that soci-ologists tell us that a new generation rises every 5 years. Practically, this means that the mores and values of any age group five years ago seem to the equivalent age group today to be dated. It may seem strange, but while all agree that rapid and radical change is taking place there is very little agreement as to the fundamental nature of the change itself. The symptoms of radical discontent with the past are apparent; but historians, philosoph.ers, theo-logians and scientists hardly dare to guess what will be the shape or appearance of the future, This paper is an attempt to find something constant at the heart and center of the changing world. It will at-tempt to answer the question of man's responsibility to direct and control change, and finally it will say some-thing about the part that religious rnust take in this dy-namic and changing world. We can list the symptoms of change under two head-ings, namely, destructive and constructive. On the de-structive side we witness the breakdown of authority and consequent concern about law and order as traditionally understood. Protest marches and demonstrations are the order of the day and often lead to violence and death. The establishment everywhere is under fire from young people demanding change, relevance, and recognition. I Teilhard de Chardin, Building the Earth (Wilkes Barre, Pa., 1965), p. 22. ÷ ÷ Peter Byrne gives missions and re-treats and can be reached at P.O. Box 95; Bacolod City, Philippines. VOLUME 30, 1971 763 Peter Byrne REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 764 Every year brings a new record of abortions, murders, suicides, and violent deaths. Add to this the ever increas-ing number of drug addicts and drop-outs from society, the wars that rage in three continents and that are a constant threat to peace and order and established gov-ernment. This very age which we call the age of progress seems to be also the age of progressive estrangement from God. "Eclipse of the light of heaven, eclipse of God, such indeed is the character of the historic hour through which the world is passing." _o So wrote Martin Buber and man's loneliness and isolation from his fellowmen predictably led to isolation from God who was variously described as absent, silent, or dead. On the constructive side man has also something to show. In the short span of a few decades modern man has learned to fly, invented radio, telephone, and television; he has set up worldwide communications network, trans-planted hearts, harnessed electric and atomic power, pro-longed life expectancy, probed the secrets of the heavens, and landed on the moon. The new style of Christian life already in vigor in the world may be described as "more commitment and less devotion, more spirit and less super-stition, more autonomy and less authority, more society and less herd, more concern and less worry, more sponta-neity and less guilt, more creativity and less rote, more joy and less fear, more humanity and less pomposity, more thought and less testament." :~ Are we picturing only the sunny side of life and shut-ting our eyes to the horrors of life? "Men still merely understand strength, the key and symbol of violence in its primitive and savage form of war.''4 Have we forgotten Nagasaki, Biafra, Dachau--symbol of a Christian nation methodically with the aid of modern science exterminat-ing five million Jews and (often forgotten) six million Christians? This.age .of "civilisation" shows a record of at least one major war every decade leading to direct or in-direct killing of millions. A discussion of the comparative strength of nations means not their power to construct a better society and raise the standard of living, but rather their military resources in terms of minutemen, warheads, rockets, bombs and all kinds of fighting equipment. A well-known writer has said that he always reads the sports page of the newspaper first and the front page last be-cause the former contains the record of man's triumphs and the latter his defeats. We do not ignore the grim ~ Martin Bubcr, The Eclipse oJ God (New York, 1957), p. 23. ¯ ~ Leslie Dcwart, The Foundations oJ BelieJ (New York, 1969), p. 486. ~ Building the Earth, p. 73. reality of the turmoil in the world; it must enter into any view of the total human situation. Before going on to give interpretations of the trend of the human race and to theorize about its final end, we can make one observation here which I think will be accepted by all as true. At any stage of the history of the human race we can put down side by side the best and the worst features of the age, the constructive and the destructive elements that made up the human situation of the time. Numerically they may often seem to cancel each other out, leaving us to ponder the question of Sartre whether progress and life are not finally absurd. However, the good and bad elements of human history differ markedly in one important respect; namely, the bad pass and the good remain. To clarify--the natural disasters like plagues, famine, earthquakes, fires, floods; the man-made calamities of war, murder, and scientific destrnction, which directly and indirectly have claimed millions of lives, we have survived all these (though by no means paid the debt of expiation). Not only has the human race survived all disasters but established a world opinion that seems to make a recurrence of the worst of these virtually impossible. Not only has the human race survived and grown more and more enlightened but the products of man's skill and inventiveness spread further every day and be-come more and more available to people everywhere-- medicine, transportation, communication, education, all adding up to man's conquest of matter and coming to enjoy greater personal fi'eedom. It does seem that general history shows that the good things of life survive while the less worthy perish and pass into comparative oblivion. This is not to say that there were no exceptions to this general rule. Many of the ancients showed skills in archi-tecture, sculpture, acoustics, writing, whose secrets have been lost. This paper is concerned with the future and the pres-ent rather than with the past. What we say of the past has value mainly for our extrapolated assessment of the trend of progress in the future. The attitude that we adopt to-wards the world and towards life is determined by our philosophy, our theology, or simply by our experience. People who have had firsthand experience of war often lose faith in human nature and faith in God Himself. If God exists and is good, how can He permit the sense-less killing of innocent human b(ings? Sartre reached the conclusion that man is utterly alone: "With no ex-cuses behind us or justification before us, every human being is born without reason, prolongs life out of weak- + ÷ + Teiihartl and Commitment VOLUME 30, 1971 765 ÷ ÷ ÷ Peter Byrne REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 766 ness and dies by chance." "~ For Sartre God did not exist and life was absurd. This does not do justice to Sartre nor do we intend here to dwell on him because it does not seem possible to build a philosophy of hope for the fu-ture on the premise that life is absurd. I should like to contrast here two attitudes towards the future of the earth---one is found in what may be loosely called traditional Catholic spirituality and the other in the works of Teilhard de Chardin. The traditional Catholic expression of the purpose of our life is contained in the oft quoted words of St. Ig-natius Loyola: "Man was created to praise God his Lord, to give Him honor and so to save his soul." 6 The helleni-sation of Christianity brought into clear relief the dis-tinction between body arid soul and practically the mes-sage of salvation as preached was preoccupied with saving the soul which was imprisoned in the body. The great enemies of salvation were the world, the flesh, and the devil. The question was asked: What does. Jesus say to teach us that saving our soul is more important than anything else? And the answer: Jesus says: "What doth it profit a man if he gains the whole world but suffers the loss of his own soul?" 7 If the world posed a threat to the salvation of the soul, the proper attitude towards it was one of detachment if not positive conflict. It should be used to sustain life but never developed for its own sake. It could be used also to store up merit through labor: "Labor as the fulfillment of God's will is a source of merit, atoning for sin and lay-ing up glory in heaven. Through it I work out my own salvation and contribute to the good of my neighbor, both spiritual and material good." s Distrust of the flesh easily led to distrust of human emotions and heavy emphasis on the necessity of asceti-cism. Penance was exalted and a luxurious life frowned upon. Scientific advances were often judged not by bene-fits they conferred but rather by the threat that they posed to a way of life that should be sealed with the cross of Christ. Taken all in all, this world and even the human body was man's temporary prison from which the true Christian looked forward to release for his entry into his true home in heaven. Of course, it was a matter of emphasis acquired little by little as the Church tried to meet the challenges that she had to face. And how does traditional Christianity appear ~ H. J. Blackman (cd.), Reality, Man and Existence (New York, 1965), p. 325. ~A Catholic Catechism (New York, 1963), p. 2. z Ibid., p. 299. s Leo Trese, Guide to Christian Living (Notre Dame, 1963), p. 345. to modern man? He sees it as indifferent if not actually hostile to science, no leader in the world but a deserter, scared of personalism and love; a religion of death, pov-erty, suffering, sorrow, that knows how to weep at the crucifixion but incapable of joy at the resurrection; with no adequate theology of work, success, joy, marriage, youth, hope, life, or love. Young people today are looking for a presentation of Christianity that will endorse their admiration for sci-ence, their love of the workl, and their hopes for the fu-ture. It is Teilhard de Chardin who seems to give Chris-tianity the particular emphasis necessary to meet these aspirations of our time. In contrast, the traditional preaching of Christianity seemed to be more interested in the past than the future; it seemed cold towards science and detached from the earth. This of course was reflected in the practical lives of Christians, causing Christianity to be dubbed as irrelevant. Let us see how Teilhard un-derstood the trend of evolution and the implication of his views in terms of commitment: The situation which Teilhard entered was one in which materialists asserted that everything in this world is governed by blind purposeless determinism; while christians too often were simply fighting a rear-guard action against them, trying to resist as long as possible any scientific theory which seemed to conflict with traditional ideas.° Teilhard was at the same time .a devoted priest and a devoted scientist. His closest friends included unbelievers, agnostics, skeptics--many of them outstanding scientists for whom Christianity was an outdated monolith indiffer-ent to progress. Teilhard wanted to find a way of giving expression to the faith that was in him in a way that the scientists would listen to. And so he began by speaking the language of the scientist in terms that held their attention and commanded their respect because of his diligence in research. However his life work was not intended merely as an apologetic for others but because he felt also within himself the anguish of trying to reconcile progress on earth with the christian ideal of detachment: This has always been the problem of my life; what I mean is the reconciliation of progress and detachment---of a passionate and legitimate love for this great earth and unique pursuit of the kingdom of heaven?° ÷ And so he set out to try to reconcile in a single synthesis + these two. He believed that they could not be opposed + but must in some way complement one another. To effect Teilhard and the synthesis he did not begin with revelation but with Commitment ° Fr. John Russell, A Vision o/Teilhard de Chardin, p. 9. ~°Christopher F. Mooney, Teilhard de Chardin and the Mystery Christ (New York, 1966), p. 28. VOLUME 30, 1971 767 + ÷ ÷ Peter Byrne REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 768 what can be observed by human perception. He was not afraid of what science might discover. "We christians," he said, "have no need to be afraid of, or to be unreason-ably shocked by, the resuhs of scientific research . they detract nothing from the almighty power of God nor from the spirituality of the soul, nor from the supernatu-ral character of christianity, nor from a man's superiority to the animals." al For Teilhard the whole world was in a state of becom-ing. It has very obviously developed from a state of chaos to a state of order. It may have taken five billion years to reach its present state. In the course of those years the earth cooled and became gradually disposed to produce and sustain life. Even prior to the emergence of life on earth a very important aspect of evolution is observable, namely, complexity. Electron, atom, molecule--these show not only. succession in time but gradual growth in complexity organized about a center. Teilhard calls this centro-complexity. This process is carried further in vi-ruses and further still in cells which are the first bodies that beyond doubt possess life. Still further tip the scale of development are plants and animals which have their own order of complexity. But Teilhard observed also that growth in complexity is accompanied by a gradual intensification of conscious-ness. By means of the mechanisms of reproduction and association, life on earth moved forward in time and upward on the scale of coxnplexity. Man made his appear-ance one million years ago which in terms of the age of life on earth is quite recent. The thin line of life that has survived and developed on earth ~loes not amount to one millionth of the leaves that have sprouted on the tree of life. Complexity is a measure of time and this complexity in the various forms of life helps us to differentiate the time of their emergence in the course of evolution. But complexity alone does not mark one stage of evo-lution from another. A new element enters in, conscious-ness. The more complex a being becomes, the more centered it is on itself and the more aware it is. This aware-ness gives the being spontaneity of action and the ability to adapt and to dominate. This consciousness is further accompanied with the growth and refinement of the nerv-ous system. Matter achieves the break-through into con-sciousness through the complexification of the cells which produced the nervous system. The "within" of a thing grows more intense as the external o~'ganisation of the nervous system grows more complex. This "within" of things is a spiritual energy that was latent in matter im-n Teiihard de Chardin, Science and Christ (New York, 1968), p. 35. pelling evolution upwards in a glorious ascent. It is called by Teilhard "radial energy" and is that ever vibrating and vital force that has maintained the evolutionary process despite the unimaginable hazards that the process has encountered in the course of its millions of years of duration. A new threshold in the evolutionary process is crossed after due process of divergence, convergence, and emerg-ence. The final emergence is a new development in con-sciousness, something old because it came from the po-tential in the antecedents and emerged through creative union. Nevertheless, the new .emergence can be called new because it cannot be reduced to anything that was there before. Thought was the sign of a new emergence. In primates nature concentrated on the development of the brain. This is the process of cerebralisation. An increase of con-sciousness is in direct proportion to the degree of cere-bralisation, that is, increase in the complexity of brain structure. Among the primates when a certain advanced stage of brain development had been achieved, thought was born and with thought man was born. So that is the position of man in the evolutionary proc-ess. He is not the offshoot of a runaway evolution but the supreme culmination and product of the process itself-- the result of development and effort that covered aeons of time. Man is a person and he personalizes the world. He penetrates the world by his creative thinking and organizes the world-around himself. Man is not only conscious but also self-conscious; he can think and reflect on himself. He can survey the whole length of his own past history; he can see the process of successive emer-gences by which he himself has come to be. He sees the ever enduring quality of "radial energy" that still drives the process onward and upward. Comparing his present state with the state of evolution prior to man he asks the question: Where do we go from here? And then realizes that he does not only have the question but that the answer also is up to man himself. The new quality of the present stage of evolution is that it is under man's control. All stages prior to the emer-gence were at a subhuman level and therefore outside man's own control. In a certain sense man is the creator and not merely the passive recipient of the next stage of evolution. Before determining what are our obligations to the future we must continue the scientific process of observa-tion and try by extrapolation if we can know the trend of evolution for the future. The process leading to emer-gence must continue and this is leading mankind ~o ever greater and greater unity. This socialization of commun-÷ ÷ ÷ Teilhard and Commitment VOLUME 30, 1971 769 4. 4. Peter Byrne REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ity is truly the crucial phase of the whole evolutionary process, and the deepest longing of the human heart is that it will never end but that it will reach fulfillment. This fulfillment cannot destroy thought or consciousness or personality. On the contrary it must eternalize them. Teilhard's idea of final synthesis becomes clearer when we contragt it with Bergson's idea that the elan vital (his name for what Teilhard calls radial energy) would finally issue in plurality and divergence: Bergson chose the plurMity and divergence. According to the Jewish philosopher, the world is evolving towards dispersal. As it advances its elements acquire greater autonomy. Each being is to achieve its own utmost originality and its maximum freedom in opposition to others. Perfection, bliss and supreme grandeur belong to the part not to the whole. From this dis-persive point of view socialisation of tb~ ".-.roman masses seems to be absurd regression or servitude. ~Lssentially the universe spreads like a fan; it is divergent in s :~cture."-' Teilbard's conclusion from science was that the universe has a goal and that this goal will be achieved because if the universe bas hitherto been successful in the unlikely task of bringing human thought to birth in what seems to us an unimaginable tangle of chances and mishaps it means that it is fundamentally directed by a power tbat is eminently in control of the elements that make up the universe.'" This power is the omega that must be personal, im-manent, and eternal. The answer to this need felt by the scientist is in the Christ of revelation. "By itself science cannot discover Christ--but Christ satisfies the yearnings that are born in our hearts in the school of science." 14 This is the achievement of Teilhard--to show how sci-ence and Christianity can join bands in accomplishing the final destiny of mankind. "Humanity," he says, "evolves in such a way ;is to form a natural unity whose extension is as vast as the earth." a~ Greater planetization, greater socialization, greater unity in love, this is the stage of development that we have reached. This conclu-sion is compatible with science and doubly borne out by our faith. "A passionate love of growth, of being, that is what we need." ~ (These sentiments were echoed by Pope Panl Vl in Populorum progressio when he said of the underprivileged: "They want to know more, and have more, because what they really want is to be more.") Love is the most universal, formidable, and mysterious of the cosmic energies; and Teilbard defines love as "the '~ Francisco Bravo, Christ in the Thought o] Teilhard tie Chardin, p. 15. ~.s Science and Ctirisg, p. 41. ~ Ibid., p. 36. ~s Ibid., p. 93. ~" Building the Earth, p. 108. attraction which is exercised upon each conscious element by the center of the universe." ~7 "The age of nations is past. The task before us now, if we would not perish, is to shake off our ancient !)rejudices and to build the earth." ~s Therefore Teilhard's contribution in respect to the fu-ture is to show us where the radial energy at the heart of evolution is driving us. We are tending towards not a meaningless annihilation, but, through interaction and love, towards the blending into one commnnity and even into one consciousness of all humanity. In fact, Teil-hard says that the crisis of the present time is a spiritual crisis in the sense that men "do not know towards what universe and final end they shonld direct the driving force of their sonls." ~'~ But we Christians know that prog-ress is leading to the restoration of all things in Christ. History, science, anthropology can systematically ennmer-ate the timeless longings of the human heart and can list the various endeavors to accomplish tlteir fnlfiIlment. The endeavors failed for it is only Christ who meets the demand of the alpha and the omega. Teilhard was able to show that science does not have to eclipse religion or vice versa. In fact both of these need each other if total harmony in the world is to be ac, hieved. Of science Tell-hard said: "The time has come to realise that research is the highest hnman ftmction, embracing the spirit of war and bright with the splendor of religion." '-'~' And of religion he writes: "Out of universal evolution God emerges ill onr consciousness as greater and more neces-sary than ever." ~1 Teilhard summed up his convictions succinctly when he wrote in The Divine Milieu: . three convictions which are the very marrow of christian-ity, the unique significance of Man as the spear-head of life; the position of Catholicism as the central :~xis in the convergent bnndle of human activities; and finally the essential ftmction as consummator assumed by the risen Christ at the cemer and peak of creation: these three elements have driven and con-tinue to drive roots so deep and so entangled in the whole fabric of my intellectual and religious perception that I could now tear them out only at the cost of destroying everything.~ He says that a challenge is put to a C/n'istian to be ac-tive and busily active "working as earnestly as the most convinced of those who work to build up the earth, that Christ may continually be born more fnlly in the world ~ Ibid., F- 45. ~8 Ibid., p. 54. "~' 'S Bciueinldcien agn tdh eC Eharirstth, ,p p. .1 5061. -"r Ibid., p. 59. '-'-'Teilbard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu (London, 1968), p. 38. + + 4- Teilhard and Commitment VOLUME ~0, 1971 + ÷ ÷ Pete~ Byrne REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 772 around him. More than any unbeliever never outstripped in hope and boldness." Teilhard spoke also of the task that confronts theolo-gians to think through the implications of evolution so that a new proclamation of thegospel may herald the new era in which we live. For the Christian this world is not only an antechamber to heaven but a task and a vo-cation. He wants Catholic doctrine to be given a dynamic aspect and a universal, cosmic, and futurist dimension34 The turmoil that we witness in the Church today may well be the birth pangs antecedent to a new emergence of Christianity not merely in the shadow of the cross but, more relevant to the hope that is in us, in its shining light. Leslie Dewart expresses the same hope when he writes: "Christian belief may yet become the leading cultural force contributing to the conscious self-creation of the hnman world." For Teilhard religion fixes its gaze not on the past but on the future which offers us the snre promise to make all things new: His concern was to blaze a trail for the new type of christian of his dreams---one in whom love for the task of living here on earth in an evolving world would coincide with a love for Christ, goal and crowning glory of that world; a christian whose vision would be focused upon the future and whose faith would take full account of the world's new dimensions; a christian in whom openness toward all mundane values would be matched with an unconditional commitment to God."~ It is important to note that involvement with the world and commitment to God if properly understood do not produce any dichotomy in man. It rather answers to the dual natnre of man "slime o~ the earth made into the image and likeness of God." ~ Modern psychology and related sciences now show that for mental health it is absolntely necessary to preserve these two in a fine bal-ance. "Moral norms," writes Erich Fromm, "are based upon man's inherent qualities, and their violation results in mental and emotional disintegration." zs If we do succeed in achieving the balance required it will be due not only to knowledge but also to faith and hope and the Holy Spirit. We are in the world not merely to foster evolution at a natural level: "In the life of the individual Christian as well as in the life of the Church as a whole there is an immediate and transcendent relationship to the Person of Christ which is independ~ent of all human ~ Science and Christ, p. 68. " N. M. Wildiers, An Introduction to Teilhard de Chardin (Lon-don, 1968), p. 123. '-'~ Leslie Dewart, op. cit., p. 689. '¯-'~ Wildiers, op. cit., p. 161. .,r Genesis 1:27. = Erich Fromm, Man ]or Hirnsel! (Greenwich, Corm, 1968), p. 17. progress and which cannot be reduced to any mere hu-man energy." .~9 Teilhard's pre6ccupation with his particular point of view and the particular purpose of his synthesis may have led him to understate the radical nature of the Incarna-tion and Redemption as a free gift of God apart from creation. Yet again it may be merely a question of empha-sis. He expressly left it to theologians to think through the implications of his theories for Christian doctrine as a whole. In this connection it would be interesting to ask what Teilhard thought of the religious life, aml how it fits into his world vision. He did not treat of the subject explicitly at any great length but we can gather some of his ideas on the subject, We can state at once that, in spite of many trials from superiors, Teilhard remained faithful to the Society of Jesus and even said: "The faintest idea of a move to leave the Order has never crossed my mind." ~0 He saw fidelity to the Order as the only reasonable course for him. We can go at once to the heart of the matter by stating that the bond of union among men in the final stage of evolution is love, and love is also the pnrpose and the essence of the religious life. According to Teilhard it is only with man that love appears on earth. Sexuality ap-peared first in the evolntionary history of the world as an exclusively physical phenomenon h~ving as its primary function the conservation of the biological species. But with the coming of man sex begins to manifest a spiritual dimension which is ever expanding. The personalizing function of sexual love is becoming more and more prominent. Teilhard uses sexual love in a much wider sense than the merely genital: "Sexual love is rather the personal union in oneness of being achieved by a man and a woman, an interpenetration and constant exchange of thoughts, dreams, affections, and prayers." al He says that there is a general drift of matter towards spirit in sexual love the ideal of which is found in Christ who authenticated celibacy, "a human aspiration that had been maturing in the human soul." :v, Celibacy is the evidence of humanity's ability to affect the transcendence to which it aspires. Speaking of his own witness to this he says: To the full extent of my power, because I am a priest I wish from now on to be the first to become conscious of all that the world loves, pursues and suffers; I want to be the first to seek, ~ Christopher F. Mooney, op. cit,, p. 209. ~Teilhard de Chardin, Letters to Leontine Zanta (London, 1969), p. 33. ~t Charles W. Freible, S.J., "Teilhard, Sexual Love, and Celibacy," R~w~w ro~ R~L~C,~OUS, v. 26 (1967), p. 289. ~'~ Ibid., p. 290. 4- 4- 4- Teiihard and Commitment VOLUME 30, 1971 773 to sympathise and to suffer; the first to open myself out and sacrifice myself--to become more widely human and more nobly of the earth than any of the world's servants.= By his vows he wished to recapture all that was good in love, gold, and independence. The religious therefore, far from being a deserter is the witness to the final end of man's striving, to his aspira-tion for spiritualization and complete Christification of his life. Christ preaches purity, charity, and self-denial-- but what is the specific effect of purity if it is not the concen-tration and sublimation of the manifold powers of the soul, the unification of man in himself? What again does charity effect if not the fusion of multiple individuals in a single body and a single soul, the unification of men among themselves? And what finally does christian self-denial represent, if not the deconcentration of every man in favor of a more perfect and more loved Being, the unification of all in one.~ The religious is precisely the especially chosen to show forth in'his life the joy of the new resurrection to which the whole of humanity tends. Finally, the consummation in glory that mankind awaits is not merely the dream of a distant future. The transformation and divinization of the universe occurs sacramentally in the Mass when the bread and wine rep-resenting mankind and mankind's universe become Christ. The Euchararistic consecration renders present the final victory for mankind which will bring a new heaven and a new earth and Christ will be all in all. The Divine Mih'eu, p. 105. Science and Christ, p. ~4. + + + Peter Byrne REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 774 SISTER MARY HUGH CAMPBELL The. Particular Examen-- Touchstone of a Genuinely Apostolic Spirituality There is perhaps today no prayer-category considered so lifeless, so vulnerable to attacks of "formalism," so rejected as a lure of regression into an exclusive and introverted Jesus-and-I existence as is the particular ex-amination of conscience. Yet it held pride of place in a spirituality characterized as one of dynamism, initiative, and filan--that of Ignatius Loyola, a spirituality pecul-iarly suited, it would seem, to attract adherents in our last third of the twentieth century, when man has finally admitted his basic call to be a movement out of himself to serve that brother who has now displaced the sun as the center of his universe. The ideal of Ignatius was first and last apostolic: "To serve Christ through the aid of souls in companionship." 1 And to attain it, "he seemed to count primarily on the examens of conscience, exercises from which he never dispensed." "' One of his early followers, Louis Lallemant, the master of novices who formed Isaac Jogues, echoed Ignatius in his insistence upon the apostolate as the sum-mit of the spiritual life: "The last reach of the highest perfection in this world is zeal for souls." s And to attain this ideal, he prescribed the same "slow work of purifica- 1 Cited by John C. Futrell, S.J., Making an Apostolic Community o] Love (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), p. 14. -"Alexandre Brou, S.J., La spiritualitd de saint lgnace (Paris: Beauchesne, 1928), p. 23. aCited by Francois Courel, S.J., ed., La vie et La doctrine spiri-tuelle du P~re Louis Lallemant (Paris: Descl~e de Brouwer, 1959), p. 25. Subsequent references to Courel are references to his intro-duction; when the work itself is in question, Lallemant will be cited. Sister Hugh is a member o~ the Di-vinity School of St. Louis University; 3825 West Pine; St. Louis, Missouri 63~08. VOLUME 30, 1971 ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister Hugh REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 776 tion and discernment." 4 Francis de Sales, accorded new relevance todi~y as having been among the first to sense the need of a spirituality adjusted to life in the secular sphere, himself a product o{ Jesuit training, taught Phil-othea in his Devout I~i[e that the examen, which he called the "spiritual retreat," was "the great heart of de-votion," which on occasion "can supply the lack of all other prayers." '~ Each of these was a man of ~nvolvement; and for each of them Lallemant's dictum held true: the attention he paid to external things, instead of weaken-ing his union witlt God, served rather to strengthen it, because in the last analysis, the equilibrium of the apos-tolic life was a matter of the love which was to be exer-cised in everything. And for each of the three, the partic-ular examen--by whatever name--held primacy of place among spiritual exercises. The word "discernment" is enjoying a new vogue at the moment; it is vaguely sensed that the notion is cen-tral to the spiritual life in a century of acceleration, and that in some nebttlous way it means a form of prayer-in-activity for which many are searching. This is very true. Yet the term has a disciplined precision of meaning: it is the name for the entire, dynamic process of discovering and responding to the actual word of God here and now.~ It is the core of Ignatian spirituality. Within it--and one might add, only within it--"the practice of daily examens of conscience is completely intelligible." ~ A life of discernment is one in which one's core experi-ence of self-identity as openness to Christ personally known is the ground of all his conscious choices. Each significant decision is made after prayer and a careful weighing of all available evidence (a vahtable element of tire latter being often the counsel of another), and con-firmed--~ tlways, of course, in faith--by the peace which testifies to its affinity with one's primordial experience of being possessed by Christ. Gradually even lesser decisions are sttccessively, almost instinctively, submitted to the same process of alignment until one ends by finding Christ everywhere, as willing and accepting this concrete service of love. Discernment is not ttnderstood, however, as the sum toted of prayer: moments of distancing from the human situation are essential if one is to give expres-sion to his faith-experience of union with Christ, an ex-pression without which it cannot know new illumination or deepening. Only in this way can he be assured of ~ Courel, Vie, p. 24. '~ Cited by Aloys Pottier, S.J., Le P. Louis Lallemant et les grands spirituels de son temps (Paris: Tequi, 1928), pp. 342 f. passim. 6John C. Futrcll, S.J., lgnatian Discernment (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1970), pp. 47-52. r Ibid., p. 81. finding Christ in more ambiguous choices, and in those even more painful decisions in which he discerns the paradox of absurdity to be the condition for his finding him. The increasing incalculability, if one may so term it, of man's evolving universe might alone render discernment a delicate, even a hazardous, process. Personal notes of Ignatius reveal the prolonged tension which important decisions produced in him, and the slow, painful groping for certitude which followed them. Yet difficult as these were, he very realistically saw that man had within him sources of darkness which could render any discernment at all impossible. Another element was necessary before one could hope to make decisions in the clarity of truth: personal freedom from anything that could close him to the light. As Lallemant, who followed him, was later to call it, the other pole of discernment was "the study of purity of heart." 8 An illuminating study might result from a search into the imagery by which saints and theologians throughout the ages have inscaped man's frightening potency for evil. Olier's "stagnant pool," Marmion's "depth of our way-wardness," Rahner's "deadly abyss of [utility"--all alike point to a reality which it is impossible to dismiss. Lalla-anant wrote very candidly of the "muddy well" in which "a multitude of desires are unceasingly fermenting," a well "full of false ideas and erroneous judgments." ~ To assign to each of these its local habitation and its name-- to say them as they are in us--is the cotmterpoise of discernment, and an exercise at least as painful as the former. Examination of conscience, then, is a proviso, a sine qua non. And Lallemant recognized that "the heart re-coils from nothing so much as this search and scrutiny. all the powers of our soul are disordered beyond measure, and we do not wish to know it, because the knowledge is humiliating to us." 10 To dispense with it is, as P. de Ponlevoy incisively saw, to rester darts le vague.11 On the contrary, one who "submits to the real" has given up the dreams which kept him marking time, because he finally found the real to be truer and less deceiving than dreams,v' Seen in this light the examen becomes a disci-pline of authenticity, a sharpening of the pole of purity of heart which ensures gentfineness of docility to the Spirit. Lallemant saw a direct correlation between super- Courel, Vie, p. 81. Lallemant, Doctrine, p. 140. Ibid., pp. 141-2. Cited by Pottier, Le P. Louis Lallemant, p. 344. a~Antoine Delchard, S.J., "L'filection darts la vie quotidienne," Christus, v. 14 (1958), pp. 206-19 passim. ÷ ÷ ÷ Particular Examen VOLUME ,~0, 1971 4" 4" 4" REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 778 ficial examens and lack of sensitiveness tt~ the guidance of the Spirit; on the other hand, he was convinced that "they who have applied themselves for three or four years to watch over their interior, a.ud have made some prog-ress in this holy exercise, know already how to treat a multitude of cases with address and absence of all rash judgment." 1.s It would be difficult to label as "formalism" the exigen-cies of Lallemant's asceticism: "guard of one's heart; deep and prolonged examens; progressive purifications contin-ued for years." 14 He defined purity of heart to mean "having nothing therein which is in however small a degree opposed to God and the operation of His grace." 1.5 And he went so far as to say that this was the exercise of the spiritual life against which the spirit of evil directed most opposition. He urged those under his charge to guard themselves carefully from any deliberate resistance to the Spirit by venial sin, to learn to recognize the first disorderly movements of their hearts, to watch over and regulate their thoughts, so as to recognize the inspirations of God--so as to be able, in other words, clearly to discern the word of God in the concrete situa-tions which presented themselves. He declared that "we never have vices or imperfections without at the same time having false judgments and false ideas." a0 And yet he insisted that this work of moving toward ever greater openness and freedom be done calmly, and especially that it be joined to a deep devotion to the person of Christ: examination was never to become the cult of itself. Such constant, increasingly more honest surveillance is taxing; he admitted this. Actually, in the words of those he directed, "he required nothing else ]rom us but this constant attention." His ultimate counsel was that of Christ: Vigilate--watch; until n~thing should escape one's attention, until the inner roots from which egotism took its rise were destroyed. He expected, in the end, spontaneity without strain, sureness of discernment, readiness, in the service of souls, for the cross. And among those who listened, noted, and demanded of himself this most to be dreaded of all disciplines, of all confronta-tions, was Isaac Jogues. Many have been alienated from the exercise because they conceived the medium as the message; the little check-list of "G's," familiar from the Exercises, was iso-lated from the spirit--so absolutely aware of the needs of his own temperament, yet so absolutely respectful of the freedom of others--of the Basque soldier who drew it up Lallemant, Doctrine, p. 262. Pottier, Le P. Louis Lallemant, p. 168. Lallemant, Doctrine, p. 80. Ibid., p. 101. for his own searing symbols of an utterly blunt honesty with himself. His strategy had the labored realism of one for whom the calculated small gains of military planning had been a fact of daily experience; and if his proposed concentration upon one fault at a time has impressed many as me.chanistic and rigid, it has been suggested that their preference for prolonging sterile efforts endlessly is hardly less painful.17 And Ravignan notes, in this connec-tion, "How strong one is, when he concentrates all his energy in unity. To think of only one thing, wish only one thing, do, finally, only one thing is the secret of all power." 18 And in the mind of Ignatius, this "one thing" was response in freedom to the word one had clearly discerned. In the end, it had become quite simply his life. No less than the check-list, the well-known "five points" of the two daily examens have been misunder-stood and exteriorized. Ignatius saw three different times of day and two examinations to be involved when he advocated the practice; but the laconic outline in which he explains them must be seen in the light of his final "Contemplation to Attain the Love of God," especially in its close where he sees God as a fountain from which all goodness pours out on him, a light in which everything bathes. Gerard Manley Hopkins has, in an unfinished lyric, given rich expression to Ignatius' simple prose: Thee, God, I come from, to thee go, All day long I like fountain flow From thy hand out, swayed about Mote-like in thy mighty glow. What I know of thee I bless, As acknowledging thy stress On my being and as seeing Something of thy holiness . '~ This is why the first point is a prayer of gratitude for the goodness and forgiveness which are man's twofold debt. Louis du Pont has probed the familiar method in order to discover its marrow: the optimism which pre-scribed gratitude first, thus guarding against sadness; the realism of seeing that the memory is so unfaithful, the mind so darkened, and the will so loveless that there is deep need of prayer for light. The examination itself, the third point, is a sincere acknowledgment of good, where this is recognized; and in the admission of sin or failure there is a counsel to do this in a spirit of the untranslata-ble douceur--that gentleness which refrains from turning bitter reproaches against itself, but rather grieves over the H. Pinard de la Boullaye, S.J., La spiritualitd ignatienne (Paris: Plon, 1949). Cited by Brou, Spiritualitd, p. 93. W. H. Gardner and N. H. MacKenzie, ed., The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins (Oxford: Oxford University, 1970), n. 155, p. 194. + + Particular E~amen VOLUME 30, 1971 779 + ÷ ÷ Sister Hugh REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 780 injury to One who has poured himself out, as fountain and light, in such generous giving. After the expression of perfect sorrow, one is urged in a fifth point to an efficacious resolution--so, practical as to foresee and so circumvent future failure. Previsioned when rising, this exercise is to be made at two different times of the day--at noon, and again after the evening meal,.and this in addition to a final, general examination made before retiring. Such a discipline can only confirm the fact that, throughout the Exercises, Ig-natius "supposes that one knows where he is going and wants to get there, and is ready to take the best means, then to examine those which present themselves, to weigh them, to choose them with knowledge of the cause." 20 In a word, lie s~pposed that one was ready to discern, among many means, that one whose cause was the inspi-ration of the Spirit; through long experience with his own peculiar cast of egotism, he would swiftly dismiss false weights. And those who followed this profound psy-chologist- saint did know where they were going, and did want to get there: the summit of apostolic zeal. Such a man as Claude de la Colombi~re, to take a single exam-ple, vowed never to pass from one occasion to another without a backward-forward look: from self-scrutiny to discernment. Again, from these particular exercises, described as j;ournalier, Ignatius never dispensed: "The importance accorded these examens is the touchstone of truly igna-tian spirituality." '-'x And the ~ournalier--"daily"--has been interpreted by some as actually occupying the whole day. For such a man as Lallemant, it actually did. He described as one of the greatest of all graces that of being "SO watchful that the least irregular movement rising in the heart is perceived and immediately corrected, so that in the space of a week, for example, we should perform very few external or internal acts of which grace is not the principle."'-'" Particular examen and discernment thus become arsis and thesis of a single life, until finally "some have no need of making a particular examen, be-cause they no sooner commit the least fault than they are immediately reproved for it and made aware of it; for they walk always in the light o~ the Holy Spirit, who is their guide. Such persons are rare, and they make a par-ticular examen, so to say, out of everything." 2~ All the energies of the person are concentrated in a single care not to sully the light which ponrs into and then from him, an instrument entirely at the service of Christ. Such ~ Brou, Spiritualitd, p. 83. .-t Pottier, Le P. Louis Lallemant, p. 335. = Lallemant, Doctrine, p. 228. '-"~ Ibid., p. 229. men have reached that fullness of the apostolate which is the summit of the spiritual life, discerning as they do in entire freedom that which is most conducive to the reign of God. So conceived, the examen is possible under an infinite number of forms; endlessly supple, it can be adapted to a variety of conceptual, cultural, and temperamental differ-ences. But always it is a sincere and considered pursuit of an ideal which is one's own most personal name given him by God: "The particular examen, practiced by a soul which has begun to climb, is sacrifice which has reached the stage of being one's rule of life." ,.,4 Far from having become "irrelevant" in spiritualities vowed to the genu-ine only, it is rather the infallible touchstone of their authenticity. -"~ Brou, Spiritualitd, p. 96. ÷ ÷ ÷ Particular Examen VOLUME 30, 1971 78] JAMES C. FLECK, S.J. The Israeli Kibbutz and the Catholic Religious. Community: A Study of Parallel Communal Life Styles j. c. Fleck, S.J., lives at Apartment 208; 150 Driveway; Ottawa, Canada. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS The kibbutz movement in Israel consits of about 250 agricultural-industrial collectives. They have a popula-tion of 90,000, slightly tinder 4% of the Jewish popula-tion in the State of Israel. This population includes full members (Jewish men and women, nearly all married, who have completed their military service and have been accepted by the kibbutz after a trial period of a year or two), the children of the kibbutz members, selected lead-ers of the Jewish youth movement abroad who plan even-tually to join a kibbutz, U1pan students (predominantly Jewish) who combine study and work on the kibbutz for periods ranging from six months to a year, and volun-teers (predominantly non-Jewish) who volunteer to work on the kibbutz for at least a month in return for room, board, and a very small amount of spending money. The first kibbutz was founded in Israel in 1909. The largest period of growth was prior to and immediately after the Second World War. In this period the kibbutz population represented nearly 10% of the nation. In the past fifteen years there has been no significant growth in the number of kibbutzim. The slightly increasing num-bers of kibbutzniks is accounted for primarily by internal growth, due to an increasing average family size. There are four federations to which nearly all kib-butzim belong. Each one is delineated by the political party to which it is or was affiliated. One, the smallest federation comprising 4,000 members (3% of the total kibbutz population), is religious, consisting of practicing Orthodox Jews. The other kibbutz federations shade fi'om non-religious to anti-religious. The land tilled by the kibbutzim is owned by the Is-raeli government throngh the Jewish National Fund. The original physical plant is financed by the govern-ment on low-interest long-term loans. When a kibbutz becomes operationally profitable it pays regular corpora-tion taxes. In addition, the kibbutz must pay a national consumption tax on the living expenditures of its mem-bers comparable to the personal income tax paid by the general public. The purpose of this study is to examine parallels in the life style between the kibbutz movement and Catholic religious orders. Wbile the common life in the two insti-tutions are often merely analogous, they are in many instances equivalent. Thus, a knowledge of the kibbutz movement can provide valuable insights in examining religious orders. The Kibbutz as a Religious Sect The basic motivating factors that built the kibbutz movement are: (l) Zionism, (2) Marxism, (3) the German Youth (Wandervogel) Movement. The founders of the kibbutz movement rejected the religion, the life style, the family structure, and the business interests of the Euro-pean Jewish community of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Wandervogel Movement fostered a spirit of youth peer group identity, a desire to return to nature, and a spirit of travel and adventure. Marx offered a model of productive and consumptive collectivism in a secular society. Zionism offered an escape from European anti-semitism and a positive aspiration of nation-building.~ The Pristine "'Religious" Values Based on the Boy Scouts, the Wandervogel Movement had basic principles which were incorporated into the kibbutz ideology. They include: truth, loyalty, brother-hood, dependability, a love of nature, obedience to the group, joy in living, generosity in work, courage, and purity in tbougbt, word, and deed. This latter was inter-preted to mean opposition to drinking, smoking, and sex-ual relationships. The Youth Movement believed all the pettiness and sordidness of human behavior was a func- ~ Melford E. Spiro. Kibbutz, Venture in Utopia, New York, pp. 44, 48, 175 ft. 4- 4- 4- Kibbutzim VOLUME 30, 1971 783 ÷ ÷ J. C. Fleck, S.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 784 tion of city living with its concomitant luxuries and false conventions." Consequently the early kibbutz movement was marked by asceticism. There was a rejection of material comfort, abstinence from alcohol and tobacco, no "ball room" (lancing, no motion pictures, simple housing and cloth-ing, no children (since they would pnt a financial burden on the community), communal property, common toilets and showers, dormitories, common dining hall, simple and inexpensive food, an emphasis on hard physical work and menial tasks. The Faith of the Kibbutz Marxism is the religion of the kibbutz. The basic maxim is: "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need." Initially the kibbntzniks hoped to find a form of collective salvation in withdrawal from the world and the re-establishing of a microcosm o{ the per-fect society based on fellowship. It next blossomed into a militant sect devoted to converting the world.:~ Today the kibbutz movement has returned to its pristine withdrawal state of conversion by witness. Karl Marx has been the prophet for this faith. His writings served as intellectnal fare, inspiration, sacred and therefore infallible norms.4 The attitude of the So-viet Union vis-a-vis Israel has had the effect of diluting kibbutz Marxism. Bnt in the early years Marx was dog-matic truth. Human failings could be tolerated, but not political differences. Even today, deviations from either basic Marxist concepts or pristine kibbutz ideals offer occasions for schisms and deep polarizations within a par-ticular kibbntz. Faihlre of a given kibbutz to vote "cor-rectly" in a national election is cause for its ejection from the basic kibbutz federation and political party to which it is allied. The Vows Chastity--While there is no binding force of conscience eqnivalent to the traditional religious vows, membership in a kibbutz implies a permanent but not binding commit-ment. Members are free to leave if they lose their "voca-tion," and their departure is mourned in the same way a religious regrets the departnre of a close friend from the Order. The "apostate," however, is welcomed back if he wishes to return. But with this exception of personal freedom for departure, permanent commitment to the group ideal is a sine qua non for a happy kibbutz life. The sexual idealism in the kibbntz movement has II)id., p. 43. Ibid., p. 180. Ibid., p. 184. never been consistent. The Boy Scout concept of purity derives from the Christian ideals of its European and American proponents. The Jewish founders of the kib-butz movement experienced tiffs value as a rejection of the romantic sexual conduct of the European society o~ their youth. They wanted to change the false sexual mo-rality of the city, the patriarchal authority of the male, the dependence of the child on his father, and the subjec-tion of women.~ The sense of "organic community" that the early kib-butzniks experienced as young men and women is related to their freedom from the restrictions imposed upon sex-uality by their contemporary society. They practiced a trial and error, sexual code that included polygyny and polyandry. Mating was entered into at will. But as the original founders aged, their sexual attitudes have be-come surprisingly conventional.6 Pre-marital sex among the school children is actively discouraged. Marriage is today a formal, and often religious, event. Patriarchal ties have returned. The relative affluence of the kibbutzim has ended the era of few or no offspring. This change has been augmented by the population growth stimulus instituted by the Israeli government in response to military manpower requirements connected with national security. Yet casual sex has no moral stigma within kibbutz life, and abortion requests are routinely handled by the kib-butz medical committee. These seeming contradictory ex-periences can be understood only in the context of the general Jewish belief that sexuality is a personal matter, not one of group concern, unless the sexual activity has consequences affecting the community. The Spartan attitude toward sexual abstinence ended when the young men and women who founded the kib-butzim experienced the eroticism engendered by "organic community." This youthful abandon has subsequently matured into a conventional sex-marriage code no differ-ent from that of the general Israeli populace. And with the lack of privacy in the kibbutz as well as the dispropor-tionate amount of social damage that infidelity wreaks in a small community, kibbutz sexnal morality approximates that of any small village. Poverty--Just as sexual morality has had an erratic path in the kibbutz history, so too their attitude toward the possession of material goods. The pristine attitude of the founders was .essentially a negative reaction to the bour-geois mentality of their forefathers in the Jewish communi-ties of Enrope. Ostracized in many instances by the Gentile majority, the Jew was unable to compete for social and n Ibid., p. 54. ~ Ibid., p. 110-117. 4- 4- 4- Kibbutzim VOLU~E 30, 1971 785 J. C. Fleck, S.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 786 economic prestige with his non-Jewish counterparts. As a result, the ghetto Jew attained personal ego satisfactions in business acumen, especially in areas connected with money where traditional Christian restrictions on usury opened up opportunities. Intellectual pursuits leading to l~rominent positions in the professions were a later development of the 19th and 20th centuries. But the possession of land and agricultural interests were not part of the self-image of the pre-Israel Jew. The rejection of materialism and capitalism are an integral part of the developing kibbutz ideal. The found-ers, were, almost without exception, intellectuals. The idealization of common labor was for them a cultural revolution. Raised in a tradition of prestige and aspira-tion for upward mobility in society, they deliberately chose the reverse. Instead of aspiring to "rise" in the social ladder, they chose to "descend." 7 Having to do without material possessions was both a concomitant of this conscious decision and a result of it. The early kibbutzniks had what Melford Spiro calls "two moral principles." These were (1) the sacral nature of work and (2) the communal possession of property. Labor was to be a uniquely creative act and an ultimate value. Through labor man would become one with himself, with society, with nature.8 The early kibbutzniks experienced this sacral nature of work in their conquest of the desert and the swamps which were the only lands made available to them by the Arab landowners prior to 1948. Those kibbutzim estab-lished after Israel became a State were often located in similar agriculturally disadvantaged areas for strategic reasons. Personal sacrifice and "doing without" were per-sonal virtues that made possible the economic success of the group effort. All personal aspirations and creature comforts had to be subordinated to the common good. With the exception of a few struggling new kibbutzim along the post-1967 borders, this period of sacrifice has passed. Although limits on the amount of water that can be used for cultivation and a crop surplus condition in Israeli agriculture have imposed ceilings on land use, many collectives are maintaining and increasing profita-bility by operating factories which in turn have increased the kibbutz standard of living. The communal facilities that were an economic necessity in the pioneer era have given away to luxury apartments, a private social life, advanced education, extended vacations, and other phe-nomena related to economic well-being. Ideological ascet-icism is not an operative principle in contemporary kib-butz life. Not surprisingly, a great number of the contem- 7 Ibid., p. 14. s Ibid., p. 12. porary problems in the kibbutz movement stem from the vast discrepancy between the physical privations of the early kibbntzim and the high standard of living and expec-tations of the present members. Obedience--In a first glimpse of the organizational strncture of a kibbutz, one would discern little there that reflects the monarchical authority structnre that pervades both Catholic ecclesiastical organizations and the religious orders. The ideal of the kibbutz is total democracy. Execu-tive authority is a delegated power, revocable, and subject to a constant change of personnel. The executive branch functions only to implement group decisions. Each indi-vidual kibbutz is essentially autonomous from the federa-tion to which it belongs. The officers of the federation have no direct antbority over the activities of any mem-ber kibbutz. All decisions are made at the local level by vote and the majority opinion is binding on tbe minor-ity. But no majority is irrevocable. The minority may campaign for a reversal. There is a minority compliance "by necessity" but nothing resembling the "submission of tile understanding." Tile will of the majority has to be obeyed for pragmatic reasons, to preserve the common good. But any decision can be, and often is, reversed. Even certain "essentials" of the founders can be changed if the kibbutz members no longer consider them a cur-rent value, or if the life of the kibbutz itself is at stake by continued adherence to an outdated fundamental princi-ple. The typical kibbutz is closer to the Benedictine model of religions life than to the Jesuit form. Membership in a particular kibbutz is akin to monastic stability. The his-toric connection between the monastery and its fields is similar to the main kibbntz economic enterprise. The kibbutz, like the monastery, has a self-contained cultural environment; library, music, beautification of the grounds, locally produced music and entertainment, and the chapter. Unlike the monastic uadition, no kibbutz has a perma-nent official like that of a life-tenured abbot. Nor do office holders have the long terms allowed by canon law. The kibbutz executive personnel pool is rotated from one ex-ecutive task to another with short interim periods as com-mon laborers. Executive efficiency is somewhat reduced by such rapid turnovers, but the movement prefers this to an entrenched hierarchy. Fnrther, it increases the partici-pation of the membership in decision-making operations of the kibbutz. The nsual term for a kibbutz office is one year.° For a few highly specialized tasks, for example, the treasurer, it runs two years, no more. ~ Ibid., p. 78; see Dan Leon, The Kibbutz, a New Way of Life, Oxford, 1969. 4- 4- Kibbutzim VOLUME 30, 787 ÷ ÷ ÷ J. C. Fleck, S.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS '788 In a remarkable number of ways the kibbutz resembles traditional Catholic religious life. A messianic ideological basis of membership is parallel to both.Being a kibbutz-nik is "a way of life" comparable to a religious vocation. The inOividual is expected at times to sacrifice his per-sonal ambitions and opportunities to the group needs. The members' meeting has many of the aspects of a com-munity liturgy, as do the secular celebrations in the kib-butz of the national and religious holidays. Each kibbutz follows a common style of life and the kibbutz is often referred to as an extended family. Aspirants must try out the life and be accepted. They usually must dispose of their material wealth upon admission. There is security for the ill and the infirm. Members are not rewarded economically for their productivity or profitability. The federation to which each kibbutz belongs resem-bles to some extent the province of the religious order. Recruiting of youth leaders, new members, Ulpan stu-dents and vohlnteers are bandied at tbe central level as are contacts with the government and the army. The federation has an internal tax system to equalize income discrepancies between richer and poorer kibbutzim. Most federations have produced a model constitution for their member kibbutzim. Each kibbutz is taxed a number of its members to staff federation offices and overseas re-cruiting posts (missions). The federation, in union with the national trade union, handles both buying and sell-ing cooperatives, runs research centers and regional high schools for kibbntz children.1° Today the federations have joined toget_her to found a centralized kibbutz uni-versity to provide for the increasing number of kibbutz youth who want both a university education and an envi-ronment in which their kibbutz values will be preserved. The arguments used for establishing this new educational effort are ahnost identical to those used in the 19th and 20tb centuries for Catholic high schools and universities. Charity Fraternal love, over and above its function as a crite-rion for true Christianity, has been considered a hallmark of religious life, and a sine qua non of common life. In the "organic community" which the founders of the kib-butzim experienced in their pioneer days in Israel, this same basic group fellowship and fraternal love was pres-ent. The movement was small and each person knew every other member well. They were economically and socially interdependent. Their lives depended on mutual security. They were, as a group, alone in a foreign and (langerous land, cnt off from outside aid. Their bond of friendship was solidified in a common ideology, in oppo-a" Op. cir., Leon, p. 158. sition to the false value system of the world, and in a common enemy, the Arab. These same three basic princi-ples have beeu present in every religious order; some concrete vision of Christianity conceived by their found-ers, the false value system of a pagan or barely Christian world, and the enemy, successively the devil, the pagan Romans, and finally heretics. The passage of time and aging has effected major changes in the first ardor of the kibbutzniks, as it has on the members of many long established religious orders. One kibbutznik reported to Spiro: "The evening meetings, (lances and song, group conversation, and the sharing of experiences--these are the phenomena of youth. The retirement to their own rooms and the substi-tution of private for group experiences is not the result of the influx of stangers . It represents . an inevitable retreat on the part of middle-aged people from the group-centered activities of an adolescent youth move-ment, to interests which are more congenial to their own age--children, friends, and personal concerns." ~x The kibbutz movement has faced up to a reality which hitherto has destroyed practically every ntopian society ever attempted by man, except possibly the Catholic reli-gious orders, the inability to re-create a new man in the institutiug of a new way of life?e Some of the larger kibbutzim have nearly 2000 residents. Only a handful are less than 100. Universal friendship is obviously impossi-ble. Deep interpersonal relationships are cuhivated be-tween husband, wife, and their immediate family. Other close friendships are built around those in neighboring apartments or those whom they meet in work fnnctions. Relationships to other kibbutzniks is functional not per-sonal. Nor does the kibbutz attempt to abolish natural indi-vidual aggressive tendencies. It merely channels them into socially acceptable substitntes. Gossip and petty criti-cism abound. Quarreling, but no physical violence, is common. Skits at community entertainments satirize non-conformists. Aggression is channeled into pride in one's own family, work ability, success of one's economic branch in the kibbutz, and participation in national politics?:~ If universal charity were an essential prerequi-site for the successful functioning of kibbutz society, the movement would have failed long ago. The system has been devised to operate without it, subordinating indi-vidualism to the common good, and substituting for char-ity the personal involvement of each kibbutznik in group decision making. Op. cit., Spiro, p. 216. Ibid., p. 236, 103. Ibid., p. 103-107. + Kibbutzim VOLUME 30, 1971 789 ÷ ÷ ÷ ~. C. Fleck, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 790 Generation Gap One of the "essentials" of the early kibbutz movement was the communal raising of children. Immediately after birth, the child was placed with his peers and raised by a community appointed nurse. This same system was fol-lowed throughout childhood. Boys and girls of the various kibbutz parents were raised as brothers and sisters. This accounts for the lack of a normal amount of pre-marital sexual activity among young people who live in close proximity even after puberty. Sex activity between boys and girls of the same age groui~ would be incest, an almost unheard of problem in a kibbutz. However, as the young people raised in this communal manner have returned to their kibbutz as full adult members, they have generally asked for a major change in the system. They want to raise their own children at home. Throughout the entire kibbutz movement this issue has been raised. In every federation except the one which is most Marxist-oriented the young people have endetl the absohlte commtmal rearing of the children, Since the young couples were ntu.nerically outnumbered, the process by which they won over the majority opposed to their demands for a revolutionary change proves en-lightening. The kibbutz at Kefar Blum recently under-went such an experience.~4 When the young people pro-posed this radical change they were voted down by an 80-20% vote. When the results were tabulated the young people decided they would leave this kibbutz and found one of their own with their rules. This would eventually lead to the death by attrition of the older kibbutz. Recog-nizing this, the older members formed reconciliation committees designed to keep up the hopes of the young and change the minds of the old. A new vote was taken several weeks after the intial setback. This time the youngster's proposal won by an 80-20 vote. As the government is anxious to form new kibbutzim in border areas, young Israelis can easily become founders of a new kibbutz, sharing the same challenges and oppor-tunities their elders had in the pioneer years. To over-come this possible source of defection of younger mem-bers, most kibbutzim practice rapid advancement of tal-ented young people into positions of responsibility. There is no waiting for years while the entrenched old guard dies off before the young people can achieve posi-tions of authority and adopt new policies in keeping with the needs of the clay. James c. Fleck, s.J., private notes taken during a study of the kibbntz movement, Israel, October-November, 1970. Employment outside the Kibbutz This is a growing phenomenon in the kibbutz move-ment paralleled by an increasing number of religious men and women employed in apostolic work and employ-ment not part of a corporate apostolate. For a kibbutz member to undertake such work he must have commu-nity approval. While many working outside the kibbutz are employed in various federation projects, an increasing number are engaged in "secular" activity, outside indus-try, government, and teaching. Their salary is either paid directly to the kibbotz or turned in to the kibbntz treas-nrer by the individual. One factor not present in snch kibbutz outside employ-ment is the gradual diminishing interest of the individual in his collective during the months and years the man may be working outside the kibbutz. Since Israel is very small, the outside employee almost always lives on the kibbutz with his family and returns there after work. In the case of those stationed in more remote sections of the country, or working in the government or in the army, they return to the kibbutz each Friday night on the Sab-bath eve. This same holds true of kibbutz students study-ing at the university or the technical institute. The mem-bers do not endanger their commitment to the collective way of life by prolonged absence from their kibbutz. Use o~ Money The strictness of control over independent use of money varies according to which federation the kibbutz is affiliated with. Ha Artzi, the most Marxist, is also the strictest. No one may possess any outside money nor is there an internal money system. The other federations are more flexible. In some each member is paid "script" or "kibbutz money" each month to use in lieu of Israeli currency at the kibbutz store for personal items. In others the members have a charge accotmt credited against a monthly allowance. The Ha .drtzi kibbutzim also require all new members to dispose of all property and money they possess after the intitial trial period. Other kibbutzim permit mem-bers to retain previously acquired wealth and even use the money independently of the kibbutz so long as the member does not use any of the money for improving his own life style in the kibbutz. Some demand that members deposit such funds with the kibbutz on a non-interest bearing basis. The money is returned if the new member ever leaves the kibbutz. In most kibbutzim today individual members are given a monthly credit covering items over which he may exer- 4- 4- 4- Kibbutzim VOLUME 30~ 1971 791 4. 4. 4. J. C. Fleck, S.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 792 cise individual discretion, such as clothes, a household allowance, food for one's apartment, and the annual va-cation. In most instances the individual can make substi-tutions that better reflect his own tastes, more money for vacation and less clothes for examples. Housing In the early kibbutz days housing was primitive and inadequate. Many members lived in tents even during the winter months. Toilet and shower facilities were to-tally communal and produced a camaradarie not unlike that of army barracks life or that in athletic teams. Today the norm in most kibbutzim is a 2½ room apart-ment for all married members which usually includes a modern bathroom and also a kitchenette. As individual families are allowed to raise their own children this hous-ing allocation will have to be increased depending on the size of each f;imily, end~mgering the traditional equality of housing facilities. The newest apartments are allocated on a seniority basis which takes into account both the age of the member and the number of years he has belonged to the kibbutz. Expulsion Like any other communal society, on occasions mem-bers whose activities or ideas are not compatible with the group ideal are expelled from membership hy the kib-butz voting at a weekly meeting. Since most dissidents leave freely, expulsions are rare and several kibbutzim report that they are willing to allow expelled members to 'eturn after a probationary period. This tolerance is probably necessary in a communal society where the hus-band and a wife are both members of the kibbutz and when only one of them is expelled from membership. While normally the couple would leave together after expulsion proceedings, it is not unknown for one member to stay on alone since the remaining member's rights are not affected by the expulsion of the spouse. Vohtntary Departures The abandonment of a kibbutz "vocation" almost al-ways involves dissatisfaction on the part of the wife. As women usually work in the institutional housekeeping tasks, they enjoy the least modal satisfaction in their daily work. In many instances, too, the wife has come from outside the kibbutz movement, having married a kibbutz boy she met in the army. Spiro found that nearly every man leaving a kibbutz is prompted by his wife who ulti-mately prewfils in convincing her husband to leave.1'~ '~ Op. cit., Spiro, p. 223. Automobiles There are relatively few automobiles in a kibbutz car pool, since most of the motor vehicles are used for farm work. While most of the equipment consists of trucks and tractors, there are usually several private cars for officials whose work takes them into the city and for those mem-bers working outside the kibbutz. When not being used for official business, these cars are available, theoretically, for common use. Some abuses have been reported in the area of private possessiveness by those assigned private cars, but there seems to be no. widespread dissatisfaction. This is attributable in part to the convenience of public transportation throughout the country as well as the kib-bntz tradition of attending outside social functions as groups, transported by trucks fitted out with temporary seats, When an individual does have the use of a commu-nity car he is charged a mileage fee. Each member is allocated an annual kilometer allowance. He may pool this with other couples for extended trips and usually may transfer other credits from his monthly allowance toward a larger mileage usage of the private car. Mileage is charged only against personal use of the car, not for travel on kibbutz business. Clothing The federation Ha drtzi follows a policy of specifying in detail the clothes members may receive each year. A man gets a coat once every five years; a pair of pants, sweater, or jacket every year; a shirt every year. These rations are for Sabbath or dress clothes. Work clothes and shoes are issued as needed. The kibbutzim of the other federations normally assign a cash allowance for clothing, permitting the members to decide for themselves the kind of clothing they prefer. In the early days of the kibbutz movement each kib-butz had a common stock of clothing. The clothing was distributed without regard to sizes and washed without laundry marks. Each person wore what chance provided. But variations in size presented insuperable problems. The system was changed to grant each member personal possession of his own clothing. Radio and TV At first every kibbutz had a communal radio room. But as radios became cheaper, more and more members re-ceived them as gifts and kept the radios for their own private apartments. Today, a radio is considered a per-sonal item. Now there is in each kibbutz a TV room. As TV has become a part of the Israeli cnlture attendance in the TV + + + Kibbutzim VOLUME 30, 1971 793 4" 4" ~. C. Fleck, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 794 lounge is large. Bnt the limited broadcasting schedule and restriction of available channels has not yet made ¯ selection of the program to be watched a major commu-nity concern. There is, nonetheless, growing pressure for permitting members to have their own TV sets in their private apartments. Illness, Old Age, Death All kibbutzniks are covered tinder the national health service. In case of extraordinary expenses, such as special-ized foreign medical treatment, the kibbutz pays all costs for its members. In one sitnation recently at kibbutz Kefar Blum where open heart surgery bad to be per-formed in the United States on the daughter of one mem-ber and the kibbutz income was below normal, the ment-bets voted to meet the high surgical costs by voting out the annual household improvements and vacations and to substantially rednce the cigarette expenditures. Women are given rednced working hours during preg-nancy, and the required daily hours of work are progres-sively reduced as members age. But no one, except the infirm, is every really retired. Every member, as long as he lives, is expected to remain economically productive to the extent that his health allows. This minimum may be simply the caring for the roses in front of his apartment, but it is expected. Recently many kibbutzim have established actuarial funds to provide cash income for members during their old age. There are two reasons: (1) they believe there is a psychological need for infirm and retired people to feel that they are not a financial drain on the younger mem-bers; (2) there is concern over a possible future age imbal-ance. Since every member is always free to leave, some internal crisis in the kibbutz conld result some day in all the younger and productive members leaving the kibbutz, thus depriving the aged of the "living social security" provided by the younger members. At death members are buried simply in the kibbutz cemetery. Luxuries The tents and the tar-paper shacks that once housed the kibbutzniks have given way to modern concrete apart-ments, some with air-conditioning. The housing and fur-nishings for the average kibbutznik compare favorably with those of comparably skilled workmen in Israel's cit-ies. Depending on tastes and family skills, some kibbutz apartments approach lfigb fashion in their appearance. The women have modern stoves and refrigerators to feed their families at home when they wish. There are, as yet, no private telephones, TV, or automobiles. Work Tasks Ill general, inembers are allowed and encouraged to work in the particular department that they like best. The actual assignment is made by the work manager, but great care goes into making sure each member is happy. ~,'Vork assignments, like everything else in the kib-butz, is subject to the scrutiny of the weekly meeting. Assignment to disliked tasks sometimes has to be made by collective action. The individual assigned to such is expected to subordinate his own wishes to those of the community. In most cases the onerous jobs are assigned for short periods of time and given to a wide segment of the membership. Some tasks, such as kitchen clean-up and waiting table, are so universally disliked they have to be allotted in strict rotation. Candidates [or membership, tile U/pan students, and the temporary volunteers are almost always assigned to those tasks the regular members most dislike. Committees The Executive is a committee consisting of those mem-bers holding key administrative jobs and some "ministers without portfolio." The term of office on the Executive coincides with the term of their administrative job, one or two years at most. Tile Executive consists of six or seven members. These members are drawn from a pool of the acknowledged leaders in the kibbutz who rotate in and Out Of the more important leadership posts. Besides this top executive committee, there are myriad others covering every aspect of kibbutz life. Approxi- ~nately 50% of the members of a kibbutz are serving on some committee at any given time. Over a three year span, practically 100% of the membership participates in some committee work. There are a few who have opted out of this participatory democracy and refuse to serve on any committee. These few have narrowed their kibbutz lives to their work and their immediate family.~ The Apostolate The kibbutz serves two specific economic functions. It is both a commtmal productive society and a communal consumptive society. These two functions are coalesced into one organic community. There is in Israel another type of collective called the Moshave, where there is a communal productive system but private ownership in the consumption area. But for the kibbutznik the Marx-ist axiom "from each according to his ability and to each according to his need" dictates that their communal so- ~" Up. cit., Leon, p. 67. ÷ ÷ Kibbutzim VOLUME 30, 1971 795 + + + J. C. Fleck, S.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 796 ciety must combine the collective control of both produc-tion and consumption. Kibbutzim have been tried in the past in the cities where the members worked totally in outside industry and the kibbutz was formed primarily as a consumption society. Every attempt along this line has failed. There is in Jerusalem at this time a group who are hoping to organize a commune of professional people as a consump-tive kibbutz. But kibbutzniks do not expect this move-ment to succeed. They view the total integration of the community into both production and consumption as necessary for the survival of community life. The kibbutz in Israel is primarily an agricultural eco-nomic movement. The success of this movement in at-tracting and holding members can be attributed to the historical conditions which led the original founders to abandon the metropolises of Europe. They became en-chanted with nature, an enchantment which anyone who has ever had a hackyard vegetable garden or even a flower pbt in a window will understand. The grower as well as what is grown becomes in some psychological way a part of the basic life cycle of nature. Akin to this is the psychic reward a teacher sometimes feels as he watches his students grow and mature. The farmer, and to some ex-tent the teacher, become united to the invisible power of life itself. In recent years the kibbutz movement has added facto-ries to increase the standard of living, otherwise limited by crop quotas and water restrictions. These factories also provide a more satisfactory employment for those mem-bers technically inclined who would otherwise abandon the farm life of the kibbutz for industrial employment in the city. There are, however, fewer modal satisfactions in this type of work. Marx and a host of other analysts have noted the inherent alienation process at work in the fac-tory system. To some extent the kibbutz factories have disproved Marx's theory that this ~ense of alienation ex-perienced by factory workers can be overcome by com-munal ownership. Like the disliked jobs in the kitchen, most dull assembly line duties must be filled with hired casual labor or low cost volunteers. The External Enemy In traditional Catholic terminology the enemy of Christianity and therefore of Catholic religious orders was the world, the flesh, and the devil. In each era these primordial forces are concretized into existential realities. As such they are a motive for both joining and remaining a member of a religious order. It should be noted that this is a negative motive, and almost always found in conjunction with a positive aspect, namely the apostolate. The kibbutz movement has had equiwdent motivation: anti-semitism, the European bourgeois society, capitalism, the false wdue system of the city, Hitler, Nasser, and the Arab world. These are the kibbutz's world, flesh, and devil. There seems to have been a direct relationship between the presence, or perhaps more accurately an awareness of this presence, and the motivation for mem-bership in the kibbutz. Membership figures in kibbutz history show a positive correlation between increased membership and the danger from some facet of the exter-nal enemy. Since 1967 the kibbutz membership has shown its first marked increase in nearly two decades as the government, in the wake of the Six Day war, has begun to establish new kibbutzim in Syria, along the Jordan river in former Arab territory, and in the Sinai. Conclusions The ideological fervor of the early kibbutz movement that Spiro connected so intrinsically with classical Marx-ism has withered considerably in the Israeli kibbutzim. The kibbutz has become a desirable form of agricnltural life, not gracious but certainly pleasant. This is especially true for the Sabra, the young children of the kibbutz who accept kibbutz life as a natural and wholesome place to live, work, and raise their families. They are not espe-cially ideologically motivated despite great efforts by the kibbutz educational programs to continue the motivating principles of the kibbutz founders. Kibbutz membership still adds lustre and prestige to politicians and military leaders, something like the "log cabin" birth-place of 19th century American presidents. But the increasing "westernization" of Israel is rapidly diminishing the ego satisfaction of kibbutzniks, whose vocation was once considered the national ideal. The increasing standard of living is also having its effect. Except for work and meals in the common dining hall, there is little "common" living on an Israeli kib-butz. The family has replaced the commune as the center of interest of the members. The replacement of com-munal showers and toilets by private ones is a sign of increased privatization. The trend away from communal ownership in the consumptive sector is clear and likely irreversible. To some extend the Marxist Ha Artiz federation has most successfi~lly resisted these individualistic tendencies. But Marxist ideology has been so closely associated with the now discredited Soviet system (discredited not for intrinsic principles but because of Soviet foreign policy in the Middle East), that there is little evident grass-roots Marxist ideological fervor among the Artzi members. Thus the basic Messianic ideology is no longer an opera- 4, 4, 4- Kibbutzim VOLUME 30, 1971 797 + + + ]. C. Fleck, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 798 tive principle in the kibbutz movement, although some lip service is still paid to it in the literature of the move-ment. The religious fervor is gone; and, as has been shown in tiffs study, the ascetic principles of the Wandervogel Movement have also slowly eroded. Only the presence of a dangerous external enemy remains as a major factor in maintaining the kibbutz as kibbntz. For the kibbutzniks, there is a growing interest in the Israeli culture outside the barbed wire barriers of the kibbutz boundaries. Tel Aviv, Jernsalem, the beaches at Asbkalon, the symphony, the movie theatres, and jobs in outside industries are no longer an evil "world," an eneiny to be avoided. With both Hitler and Nasser dead, the Arab masses remain a clearly perceived danger, and a sufficient cause justifying the sacrifices intrinsically connected with living a com-munal life. The increasing toleration of personal prop-erty by kibbutz melnbers shows that the original kibbutz asceticism was a necessity of the moment, a means not an end. Taken altogether these factors indicate a shaky fu-tnre for the kibbutz movement in the long rtm. Only the miniscnle religious federation seems to have the tran-scendent valnes that will hold this gronp of kibbutzim together. This segment of the kibbutz movement has a proven long-run ideology, their Jewish Orthodox Faith and perduring external enemies, the secular Israeli state. For Roman Catholic religious gronps these principles of the kibbutz movement can indicate the hazards of certain contemporary trends in Catholic religious com-munities. There seems to be a serious drawback to any community in ending the integral connection between the conamunity apostolate and the common life, between the production and consumption activities. X,Vbatever the legal advantages of separate incorporation of the apos-tolic endeavor, it appears such a change may prove dys-functional to the best interests of the community unless some psychological identification can replace the legal one tying the commonity members to a common aposto-late. Otherwise the religious will become mere employees of their former vocational apostolate. Like kibbutz asceticism, the vows, traditional forms of Cbristifin asceticism, are also increasingly seen as merely ~neans which can and in some instances should be aban-doned as a condition for membership in the group, or for individnal apostolic effectiveness. The trend in substitut-ing community for poverty as the true significance of this evangelical counsel, presages many of the problems the kibbutzim have experienced in their trend toward more and more priw~tization and increasing personal property. At the moment Roman Catholics have no apparent "external enemies" of snfficient threat to bind members and aspirants to religious communities to the requisite personal sacrifices basic to any communal effort. Ecumen-ism has replaced enmity in relating to Protestantism. In-carnational theology no longer sees the world as a "valley of tears." Unity of doctrine is no longer a characteristic of the orders, or even theChurch. Increasing numbers of religious seek employment in secular jobs or outside the order's organized apostolates. The religious life no longer commands the prestige it once bad among the faithful. Tbe kibbutz movement has also shown several possibil-ities that have been traditionally lacking in Catholic reli-gious orders. A communal society of married conples is clearly possible and in some cqntemporary aspects possi-bly superior (in personal fulfilhnent and interpersonal love) to the celibate life. While the structures of existing religious communities do not seem likely to encompass this facet of communal life, it would not be surprising to see new communities of married religious come into exist-ence in the not too distant future. Another wdue of the kibbutz movement is the seeming success of communal groups based on a total democratic process. There are already some indications that the traditionally monarchi-cal religious orders are already moving swiftly to a capi-tular form of government. In most cases the founders of the majority of the Israeli kibbutzim are still alive and to some extent still reflecting the charism that marked the foundation of their commu-nity. Yet it appears that the "routinization of their cha-risma" is not likely to be overly successful. The ideological and "religious" sonrce of the kibbutz movement has al-ready given way to a rapid "secularization" of values by the second generation whose devotion to the kibbutz is either pragmatic or cultural. The positive inspiration of Zionism that has so effec-tively supported the establishment of a Jewish State will certainly diminish in time. Antisemitism is not a motive in a Jewish state, and thus not operative on the Sabra. If and when the Arab situation is normalized, the Kibbutz "external enemy" will also have disappeared. The pris-tine Marxist ideology has been snbject to constant revi-sion, and a wide range of personal and public views are now tolerated among kibbutzniks. The long range prognosis for the kibbutz movement is one of no sizeable growth and more than likely a rapid diminishing of the movement once peace comes to Israel. The small number o[ religious kibbutzim should remain active, as well as a limited number run by convinced Marxists. But the kibbutz movement as a whole will likely prove to have been a temporarily significant social structure in Israeli history due to the particular condi-tions that Jews faced in the 19th and 20th centuries. ÷ ÷ Kibbutzim VOLUME ~0, 1971 799 If this analogy between the kibbutz movement and Catholic religious community life is correct, and if the same present trends continne in both institutions, there is a reasonable predictability that many if not most of the present religion,s commonities may be viewed from some future historical perspective as having served the Church's vital needs effectively up to the end of the 20th century. "!" 4" 4- J. C. Fleck, S.J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOI, JS 8O0 SISTER CHARLOTTE HANNON, S.N.D. DE N. The Graying of America The far left, the far right, the in-betweeners, the libs and the cons, the silent majority and the articttlate mi-nority have reached a consensus on one point at least-- they all agree that "Darling, you are grown older." Laughingly we sing the line at birthday parties and re-unions, but behind the laughter there is the realization that okt age and retirement are major concerns that warrant major consideration. If Toeffler in Future Shock has clone nothing else, he has alerted ns to the need for planning ahead. Last August and November the Finance Retirement Committee of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur of the Maryland Province sent out 415 questionnaires to religious communities across the country. The returns are interesting and informative as the following table indi-cates: Questionnaires sent out . 415 Questionnaires returned . 271 Retirement Plans in operation . 100 No Retirement Plan in operation . 171 Most of the communities in the last category are anxious to know what others are doing about retirement planning, and they indicate a need to begin making plans as soon as possible. Retirement Age and Status The majority of congregations state that they have no "fixed" age for retirement. They agree that the person himself, his state of health, his vitality, mental and physi-cal stamina--all these factors mnst be considered on an individual basis. Although 65 years is mentioned as a possible age/'or part-time retirement, 70 is the time when most religious begin to think seriously abont retiring. Studies show that the life-span of religious exceeds that of the ordinary layman by five to nine years. If there is difference of opinion about a specific age, there is deft-nitely consensns on retirement status. All agree with the statement from the "Older Americans Act," Article 10: 4- 4- Sister Charlotte is Director of Re-search and Funding for the Sisters of Notre Dame de Na-mur; Ilchester, Maryland 21083. VOLUME ~0, 1971 801 + ÷ ÷ St. Charlotte REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 802 "Older Americans or Senior Citizens should be permitted the free exercise of individual initiative in planning and managing one's own life for independence and freedom." Such thinking, of course, originates in the basic Christian