Suchergebnisse

Issue 14.3 of the Review for Religious, 1955. ; Review for Religious MAY 15, 1955 Empress of America . c.J. McNaspy The Relicjious Life . Pope Plus Throucjh His Blood . Joseph H. Roh~i.g Community Life . Bernard I. Mullahy Third Mode of Humility. ¯ . . c. A. Heri~st Mary and Joseph Find Jesus . " . . Paul Oent Book Reviews Questions and Answers Summer Schools VOLUME XlV NO. 3 RI Vli::W FOR Ri::LIGIOUS VOLUME XIV MAY, 1955 NUMBER 3 CONTENTS EMPRESS OF AMERICA---C. J. McNaspy, S.J .113 SURSUM CORDA . 122 POPE PIUS XII AND THE RELIGIOUS LIFF_;--doseph F. Gallen, S.d1.23 THROUGH HIS BLOOD~doseph H. Rohling, C.PP.S . 139 COMMUNITY LIFE--Bernard I. Mullahy, C.S.C . 141 TI-IE. THIRD MODE OF HUMILITY---C. A. Herbst, S.3 .1.50 MARY AND dOSEPH FIND dESUS--Paul Dent, S.d .155 BOOK REVIEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS-- Editor: Bernard A. Hausman~, S.3. West Baden College West Baden Springs, Indiana . 157 SOME BOOKLETS . 164 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- ll. Dismissal of Novice without Giving Reason .165 12. Novitiate Extended until Regular Profession Ceremonies 165 13. Mental Patients with Temporary Vows . 166 14. Changing Constitutions in regard to Mail . 166 15. Handbook for Sacristans . 167 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 167 SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS . 168 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, May, 1955. Vol. XIV, No. 3. Published bi- " monthly: ,January, March, May; 3uly~ September, and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary's College, St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter ,January 15, 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Augustine G.Ellard, S.,J., Adam C. Ellis, S.,J., Gerald Kelly, S.3., Francis N. Korth, S.,J. Literary Editor: Edwin F. Falteisek, S.3. Copyright, 1955, by Adam C. Ellis, S.d. Permission is hereby granted for quota-tions of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the author. Subscription price: 3 dollars a year; 50 cents a copy Printed in U. S. A. Before writing to us, please consult notice on inslde back cover. Empress ot: America INTRODUCTION o F the world's favorite Marian shrines it may seem surprising that the oldest is on our own continent. Three centuries before the apparitions at Lourdes, our Lady appeared in America and left her miraculous image in Guadalupe, then a suburb, now part of Mexico City. Every year many Americans join their fellow Catholics of the South in paying homage to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Again and again the Holy Father has joined them in spirit, and ten years ago he proclaimed Our Lady of Guadalupe patroness of America, with the title of "Empress." The outline of the history is familiar to all religious. But not all may realize bow completely reliable and authentic are.our sources, Bishop Schlarman's Mexico Land o# Volcanoes indicates a number of scientific historians who have studied the question. Principal among them are Fathers Bravo Ugarte and Cuevas. In the following pages we present a close English translation of a document that goes back to the very period of the miracle and is accepted as historical. It was written by an Indian, Antonio Valer-iano, a relative of the Aztec Emperor Montezuma. Valeriano com-posed his text in his own language, some ten years after the event (December 12, 1531). It was translated recently into Spanish by Primo Veliano Velazquez, and this translation was made from the Spanish. A word about the style. The original, we are told, is written in the very formal style of the period: the Spanish translator has kept this blend of formality and naivet~. The present translator has tried to preserve some of the charm and simplicity, together with what to us might seem artificiality. But his main effort has been to give a faithful version of the document, even to the point of literalness.--C. J. McNAspY, S.J. ANTHONY'S STORY Herein is told how the ever Virgin Mary, Mother of God, our Queen, most marvelously appeared not long ago in Tepeyac, which is called Guadalupe. First she allowed herself to be seen by a poor Indian whose name was Juan Diego; then her precious image was made manifest before the new bishop, Fray Juan de Zumarr~ga; and then came all the miracles which she has accomplished. 113 EMPRESS OF AMERICA Reoiew [or Religious Te'n years after the capture of the City of Mexico, when war ceased and there was p~ace among the peoples, there began to blos-son the faith and knowledge of the true God by whom we live. In those days, in the year 1531, early in the mon.th of December, it b'appened that tber~ lived a poor Indian, by name Juan Diego, arid as it is related, a native of Cuautitlan, which in m~tt~rs spiritual then belonged to Tlatilolco. Very early on the morning of Sal~ur-day, Juan Diego was coming by in order that be might pay wbrsbip to God 'and perform some errands. He arrived at the hill called Tepeyacac when it was dawn. He heard a singing above the hill, a~ singing which seemed the song.of various precious birds, although at times, when the voices of the singers were silent, it seemed "that the mountain answered them. Their song was very gentle and de-" ligbt,ful, surpassing that of the Coyoltototl and the Tzinizcan and the other beautiful birds that sing. Juan Diego stopped to look and said within himself, Can it be that I am worthy of what I am hearirig? It may be I am dreaming. Did I arise from sleep? Where am I? Am I, perhaps, in the earthly paradise that the ancients, our ancestors, spoke of? Or it may be I am in heaven. 'But as be turned his bead toward the east, above the hill, whence the precious heav-enly song was proceeding, it suddenly ceased; and there was silence; and he l~eard himself called from above the hill, "duanito, duan Dieguito." So he m~de bold to go whither he was called, nor was he fright-ened for a moment; but, on the contrary, happily he climbed the bill to see whence .he was being summoned: and, arriving at the summit, he saw a lady standing there and telling him to come closer. Now wb~n he came inl~o her presence he marveled mU'db bet more than human glory, for her clothes did shine like 'the sun, and the rock on which she stood was struck with splendor and ap-pear. ed like a bracelet of precious stones, and the earth shone like a rainbow. The mezquites, nopals, and other different bushes that are usually there seemed like emeralds, their leaves like fine tur-quoises, and their branches and thorns did shine like gold. Juan bowed down before her and beard bet word, very gentle and polite, as. that of one who is. very attractive and much esteemed. She said to him, "Juanito, thou smallest of my sons, .where art thou going?" He replied, "Lady and my Child,.I .must g9 to thy house of Tlati-lolco to attend to divine matters that our.priests, the delegates of our Lord, give and teach us." Then she spoke to him and told him her holy will~ saying, "Know thou and understand, thou "the least ll~t May, 1955 " EMPRESS OF AMERICA of my sons, that I am the ever Virgin Mary, Mother of the true God, by whom we live; of the Creator by whom all things have their 'being; of the Lord of heaven and of earth. Know thou that it is my strong wish that a church be built here for me, in order that I may manifest and bestow all my love, compassion, aid, and protection; for I am thy loving mother, thine, and .mother of all them that dwell in this land and of those others who love me, call upon me, and trust in me. For it is my will to listen to their cries, grief, and sorrows. Wherefore, in order that I may accomplish this my wish, thou shalt go to the palace of the Bishop of Mexico and relate to him that I send thee to manifest to him this strongest de-sire of mine, that he should build a church for me here; and thou shalt relate to him exactly all that thou hast .seen and admired, and that thou hast heard. And know thou that I will be grateful to thee and will repay.thee, for I will make thee happy and thou wilt deserve much that I should reward the work and trouble by which thou wilt obtain what I ask of thee. Take care that thou hearken to my command, my smallest son. Go and strive with all thy might that thou brin~' it about." He then did reverence before her and said, "My Lady, I go now to fulfill thy command; I leave thee for the present, I thy humble servant." Then he went dowh tO do her command, and he went by the road that leads straight to Mexico. Entering the City, he came straightway to the palace of the Bishop, who was the prelate ~hat had newly arrived and who was called Fray Juan de Zumarraga, being a religious of St. Francis. Scarcely had Juan Diego arrived, when he tried to see the Bishop, asking the servants to go and announce him; who after a good while came to call him, for their Lord Bishop had given order that he should enter. And when he had entered, he bowed and genuflected before the Bishop; immediately he gave him the message of the Lady of Heaven, relating.to him all he had admired, seen, and heard. The Bishop, after he had heard all his words and message, seemed not to believe him, for he ar~swered him thus, "Thou wilt come again, my son, and I shall hear thee more slowly, and I shrill con-sider all from the very beginning and shall ponder the desire and wish with which thou hast come." So Juan went out and grew sad, fbr his message had not been in any way accomplished. Now, on the same day, as Juan returned to the summit of the hill, he came upon the Lady of Heaven, who was awaiting him in the very place where he had seen her the first time. Seeing her, he 115 EMPRESS OF: AMERICA Reoiew for Religious prostrated before her and said, "Lady, thou the smallest of my daughters and my child, I went where thou didst send me to carry out thy cofnmand; with difficulty I entered where the Bishop dwelt; I saw him and presented thy message as thou didst tell me. Sure enough, he received me kindly and listened to me attentively; yet, from what he replied, it appeared to me that be did not believe me. He said, 'Thou wilt come again. I shall listen to thee more slowly. I shall examine from the very beginning the desire and wish with which thou hast come.' I understood perfectly by his manner of answering me that he thinks that it may be I made up myself the story that thou dost wish a church to be built here, and that perhaps it is not thy order. For this reason, I earnestly beg of thee, my Lady and Child, that thou entrust tby message to those who are important, well known, respected, and esteemed, so that he may be believed. For I am dust a little man, a string, a little ladder, jus~ a tail, a leaf, a nobody; and thou, my Child, the small-est of my daughters, Lady, art sending me to a place where I never go. Forgive me for causing thee great sorrow and for falling into thy displeasure, my Lady." The most holy Virgin answered,him, "Listen, my smallest son, and understand that many are my servants and messengers whom I can summon to bring my message and do my will. But it is quite necessary that thou thyself should ask and help, and that my will be carried out by thee. I beg of thee, my smallest son, and I strongly command thee, to go again tomorrow to see the Bishop. In my name tell him my will: that be must build the church that I ask. And remind him that it is I myself, the ever Virgin Mary, Mother of God, who send thee." 3uan Diego rel~li~d, "My Lady and my Child, do not be grieved. I shall gladly go to carry out thy command. I shall not fail in any way to do it, nc,r do I think the way is difficult. I shall go to do thy will; now it may be I shall not be heard agreeably; or if I am heard, it may be I shall not be believed. Yet, tomorrow evening, when the sun is setting, I will come to give an account of tby, message and the Bishop's reply. Now I leave thee, my smallest daughter, my Child and my Lady. Meanwhile, sleep well." And he went to rest in 10is own house. On the following day, which was Sunday, very early in the morning 3uan Diego left his house and came straightway to Tlati-lolc6, that he might be instructed in divine things and there be pres-ent for the roll call, and later go to the prelate. After Mass, the 116 Ma~l, 1955 EMPRESS OF AMERICA roll call having been completed., the people dispersed. Juan Diego immediately went on to the palace of the Lord Bishop. Scarcely had he arrived, when he exerted every effort to see him again, but he saw' him only with much difficulty. Juan knelt at his feet, mourning and weeping as he related the command of the Lady of Heaven. Would that the BiShop would believe his message and the will of the Immaculate One to build her church wh~re she said she wanted it. The Lord Bishop, that he might gather more inl~orma-tion, asked him many things: where Juan had seen her and how it had come to pass; and he told the Lord Bishop everything per-fectly. But though he explained exactly how she had appeared and how mu~h he had seen and admired, and that she had revealed that she was the ever Virgin, the most holy Mother of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ; nevertheless, the prelate did not believe him,, replying that he would not have it to be done on his word and petition alone, but that some sigma was necessary for him to be able to believe that the very Lady of Heaven was sending Juan' Diego'. Hearing this, Juan Diego replied to the Bishop, "My Lord, think of what must be the sign that thou dost ask, for now I shall go "to ask it of the Lady of Heaven who sent me hither." The Bishop, seeing that Juan held to all things without hesitation and retracted no.thing, dismissed him. 'At the same time he com-missioned some men of his house, in whom he could trust, to follow "Juan and watch whither he might go and whomever he might see and with whom he might speak. And this is what came to pass. Although Juan Diego made his way straight and followed the road, those who came behind him lost track of him, where the ravine passes near the bridge of Tepeyacac, and though they sought him every- 'where, they did not see him. Wherefore they returned, not only because they had grown weary, but also because their purpose had been blocked, and this caused them anger. They went to report to the Lord Bishop, urging him not to believe Juan, and saying that :he was but a deceiver and had made up the story, or that he was only dreaming what he had said and asked. Finally they suggested that if Juan should return, they might take him and punish him severely, so that he would never again lie or deceive another. Meanwhile, Juan Diego was with themost holy Virgin, r~lat-ing to her the answer that he brought from the Lord Bishop. And she, having heard, said, "It is' well, my little son. Thou wilt re-turn here tomorrow to bring the Bishop the sign that he has asked. With this he will believe thee, and about this request he will no longer 117 EMPRESS OF AMERICA "Ret~iew .for Religiou, doubt nor suspect thee. And know, my little sonl that I shall repay thy care and the work and weariness that thou hast undergone for me. Well, then, I shall expect thee here tomorrow." But on the following day, Monday, on which Juan" Diego was to bring a sign in order that he be believed, he did not return. For when he arrived at his house he found that his uncle Juan Bernardino had been taken very ill. Straightway he went to summon a doctor and some help. But there were no free moments now, for the ill-. heSS was indeed great. That night his uncle besought him to leave early in the morning and come to Tlatilolco that he might call a priest to come and hear his confession and make him ready, for he was very certain that it was his timeto die and that he would never arise nor be strong again. Early in the morning, Tuesday, Juan Diego departed from his house for Tlatilolco to summon the priest. When he reached the road that was at the foot of the hill'of Tepeyacac, toward the west, where it was his custom to go by, he said, "If I make my way straight, it may be the Lady will see me and will surely stop me so that I may bring the sign to the Bishop as she told me. First, however, let us care for the trouble in hand; wherefore, I should call the priest quickly, for my poor uncle is-surely waiting for him." Then turning to the hill he climbed it and passed over onto .the other side toward the east, so that he might reach Mexico quickly and that the Lady of Heaven might not cause him delay. For he thought to avoid the eyes of her to whom all things fire present in sight. He saw her descending from the hill and with her gaze fixed upon him before even he had seen her. And she came up to meet him at a side of the hill and said to him, "What is it that troubles thee, my smallest son? Whither art thou going?" He was saddened somewhat, or perhaps ashamed or frightened. He 'bowed before her and saluted her saying, "My Child, the smallest of my daugh-ters, my Lady, I hope thou art happy. How art thou this m.drning? Art thou in good health, my Lady and my Child? For I shall bring thee sorrow. Thou knowest,.my Child, that my uncle, thy poor servant, is exceedingly ill. He is stricken by the plague and is on the point of dying. I am now hastening to thy house in Mexico to call one of the priests loved by our Lord to come and hear his confession and make him ready, for we who are born do all await the hardship of our death. And though I am departing to do this thing, yet will I afterwards return hither and bear thy. message, my Lady and my Child. Forgive me. Be, patient for a while. I EMPRESS OF: AMERICA will not deceive thee, my smallest daughter. Tomorrow I shall come and in great haste." After hearing the words of Juan Diego, the most loving Virgin made her answer, "Listen and understand, my smallest son. That Which troubles and afflicts thee is nothing, Do not let thy heart be saddened. Do not fear this illness nor any other illness or anxiety. Am I not here, thy Mother? Dost thou not stand under my shadow? Am I not thy health? Dost thou not rest on my lap? What else then dost thou need? Let nothing make thee troubled or unhappy. Be not afflicted by thy uncle's illness, for he will not die of it at this time. For know that he is already well." (And then it was that she healed his uncle, as was discovered afterwards.) Now, when Juan Diego had heard these words of the Lady of Heaven, he felt a deep consolation and happiness, and asked that she send him without delay to see the Bishop and bring him some .sign and proof, so that he might believe. Then the Lady of Heaven told him to ascend the summit of the hill where he had seen her before. "Climb up, my smallest son," she said, "to the top of the hill; where thou didst see me and I gave thee orders thou shalt find different flowers. Cut them and gather them. Then come and bring them to me." Juan ,Diego straightway climbed the hill; and, when he reached the top, he was astonished to find that thebe had blossomed before their season so great a number of various exquisite roses of Castille; for at that time of the year the ice was very severe. The roses ~ave off a great fragrance and were filled with the dew of night that seemed like' precious pearls. Forthwith he began to cut them, joining them togdther and putting them into his cloak-fold. Now, the top of the hill was not.a place where any flowers grew, for it had many rocks, thistles, thorns, nopales, and mezquites. And even if there had been little plants, at that time it was the month of December in which the frost eats and spoils everything. He clambered down without delay and brought the Lady of Heaven the various roses that he had gone to cut. When she saw them she gathered them in he~ hand and again placed them in his bosom saying, ~'My sr~all-est son, these roses of various kind are the proof and sign that thou wilt bring the Bishop. Thou wilt tell him in my name to see my will in this sign and to carry it out. Thou art my ambassador, worthy of confidencd. I strictly order thee to unfold thy mantle and show what thou art bringing before the Bishop alone. Thou wilt relate everything. Thou wilt say that I told thee to climb to 119 'EMPRESS OF ~IMERICA Review for R~ligious the stimmit of the hill to cut flowers, and all that thou didst see and admire, that thou mightest persuade the prelate to lend his hand in the building of the church which I have.requested." After the Lady of Heaven had given him her charge, be started on the way that leads straight to Mexico, happy and sure of sucdess, carefully bearing his burden in his bosom, so that notbng would fall from his hands, and enjoying the fragrance of the various kinds of beau-tiful, flowers. When he had arrived at the palace of the Bishop, the majordomo and other servants of the prelate came out to meet him. He asked them to tell the Bishop that he wished to see him. Yet none of them was willing and acted as if they had not heard him, because it was very early; or perchance they had recognized him and thought him a nuisance. .Besides, they had h~ard from their dompanions how they lost sight of him when their had followed him the day before. Hence, Juan Diego was there many hours waiting. Afte~ a time they noted that be bad been there a long time, standing, downcast, doing nothing. Noticing that he seemed to be carrying something in his bosom, they came near t6 see what it was and to satisfy them-selves. Juan Diego saw that he could not hide his burden withou~ their molesting and manhandling or beating him; so he opened his mantle a little and showed that it contained flowers. They, perceiv-ing that there were various kinds of roses of Castille and re~ilizing that it was not then the season for them to bloom, were greatly taken aback, especially because the flowers .were very fresh, in full "bloom, fragrant and precious, They wanted to take some, but when they dared to touch them they met no success; for when their hands drew near, they saw no true flowers but what seemed to have been painted or'engraved or sewed on the mantle. They went thereupon to tell the Bishop what they had seen and that the little Indian who had come so many times now desired to see him and that be bad been w~iting a long time. Hearing this, the ,Bishop thought that this would be the proof to certify a'nd carry out what the Indian asked. Immediately he ordered Juan to come in. When he entered, Juan did reverence before the Bishop as he had done before, and again relating everything that he had seen and admired, he delivered his .message. "My Lord," said he. "I did what thou didst order me. I went to tell my Mistress, the Lady of Heaven, Holy Mary, the precious Mother of God, that thou didst desire a sign that thou mightest be able to believe me before thou were to make the church where she requested it. I told her 120 May, 1955 EMPRESS' OF ,AMERIC,~ besides that I had given thee my word to bring some sign and proof of her will, as thou. didst demand. She received thy message and kindly granted what thou dost ask, a sign and proof that her will be done. Very early this morning she told me to come again to see thee~ I asked for,the, sign so that thou mightest believe me, which she promised she would give. Immediately she fulfilled the promise: she sent me to the summit of the hill, where I had seen her before, to cut various roses of Castille. And after I went to cut them, I brought them down and she gathered them in her hand and .again put them into my bosom for. me to bring to thee in. person. For, although I knew that at t~e top of the hill there is no place where flowers grow, for there are onl~ rocks, thistles, thorns, nopale~, and mezquites, .I did not doubt. And when I had reached the summit, I saw that I was in a paradise where were all the varied and exquisit~ roses of Castille, sparkling with dew, and these I began to cut. She told me to give them to thee. And so I now" do, so that thou mayest see in them the sign that thou askest and mayest carry out her will,. and-so that the" truth of the words of my message may be made manifest. Here they are; do thou receive them." Then he unwrapped his ~¢hite maiatle which held the roses in its fold. As they were scattered on the floor, all these differentroses of Castille, suddenly there appeared drawn on' the mantle the precious image of the ever Virgin Mary, Mother of God, as it,exists and is preserved today in bei- church of Tepeyacac, which is .called Guadalupe. When the Lord'Bisbop bad seen this, be and all w.bo were there knelt down and greatly admired it. And when they arose they were sad and grieved, for they had gaZed upon the image with their whole heart and mind. With tears of sorrow the Lord Bishop earnestly begged pardon for not baying carried out our Lady's will and command. When he had arisen he loosed the garment from 3uan Diego's neck, the mantle on which appea~ed the image of the Lady of Heaven. And taking it he Went' to place it ifi hi~ oratory. 3uan Dieg6, therefore, at the Bishop's command, remained one day more in the Bishop'~ house. The next day the prelate said, "Now show where it is the will of the Lady of Heaven that her church be built." And im-mediately he invited all to take part in the building. '3uan Diego had hardly indicated where the Lady.of~ Heaven had Ordered that her church be built when he asked permission to leave. Hewished now to hasten home and see his uncle 3uan Ber-' nar~tino, who had been very ill when bedeparted for Thtilolco to 121 EMPRESS OF AMERICA call a priest who might hear his confession and make him ready, on that day when the Lady of Heaven told him that he was already made well. Yet the people did not permit 3uan to return alone, but accompanied him to his house. And when they arrived they saw his uncle, who was very cheerful and felt no suffering. He was very much surprised that his nephew arrived surrounded and honored, and he asked him the reason why they were acting so and doing him such reverence. His nephew replied that when he went to call the priest to hear his confession and make him ready, the Lady of Heaven had appeared to him in Tepeyacac, that she told him not to be distressed, for his uncle was alrea~ly well, and that he had felt much consoled. She had sent him to Mexico to see the Lord Bishop in order to have a church built in Tepeyacac. His uncle re-lated that he was certain that it was she who had healed him at the moment, for he had seen her in the same way in which she appeared to his nephew, and had learned from her that she had sent him to Mexico to see the Bishop. Then had the Lady also told Bernardlno that when 3uan went to see the Bishop he should reveal what he had seen and the miraculous way in which she had cured him; and that he should tell the Bishop to call her (for it was fitting that her blessed image be so called) the ever Virgin Holy Mary of Guadalupe. Then they brought 3uan Bernardino into the presence of the Lord Bishop, to come and tell the story and give testimony in his presence. The Bishop received them both as guests iri his house several days, until the church of the Queen was built in Tepeyacac where 3uan Diego had seen her. The Lord Bishop also brought the holy picture of the beloved Lady of Heaven to the principal church, removing it from the oratory of his palace where it had been, so that all the people might see and admire the blessed likeness. The entire city was moved and came to see and admire the pious image and offer prayers. They were astonished that it had appeared by a divine miracle, for no person in this world painted her precious image. SURSUM CORDA Sursurn Corda is a new review for priests and religious, published by the Fran-ciscan Fathers. Its second number (February, 1955) contains the Address of His Excellency the Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Carboni, to the First Congress of Religious Women of Australia, New Zealand, and Oceania, held at Rose Bay, Sydney, N.S.W., January 18, 1955. The editorial and business address is: 45 Victoria St., Waverly, N.S.W., Australia. 122 ' Pope Plus XII and !:he Religious Lil:e [EDITORS' NOTE: This valuable compilation of papal texts was made by Joseph F. Gallen, S.3. The first installment was published in our January number, pp. 3-11 ; the second in March, pp. 85-92. In his own iintroduction, Father Gallen ex-plained his selection of texts and his methods of reference. To facilitate reading the present installment, it is sufficient to recall that statements preceded by an asterisk were not made directly and ex.plicitly to or of religious and that all paragraphs ex- ¯ cept number 39 are taken from the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, the first number being the volume, the second the year, I~nd the third the page.] IV. THE VOWS 47. Pouertg. "The law of life itself demands the union of the old and the new that life may be ever the same and yet ever vigorous. Therefore, preserve fully and exactly, that form of religious life for whose observance and expression you have arisen in the Church. Certainly that which your glorious predecessors proposed to them-selves and to their" fellow-religious, also of the future, to be guarded with the utmost exertion, was evangelical poverty according to the law and example of the patriarch of Assisi. What an offscouring .of evils has arisen from the accursed thirst for riches! It is thee cause of wars, seditions, hunger, weakening of morals, of destruction. The abnormal disparity between those of excessive, wealth and those wasted by misery and want gives rise to fatal sources of cor-ruption. An admirable remedy for this calamity and corruption is the example of evangelical poverty. This is the attendant from heaven of the precept of labor, the friend of virtue, the teacher of nations, the protection and glory of the Kingdom of Christ, the most faithful preserver of a better hope. Its glorious standard has been entrusted to your hands; preserve it unstained. It is dishonorable to profess poverty in the dissimulation and fallacies of word and to destroy it in fact. Individual religious institutes, due to their growth and increase, may need more and larger houses. It is licit to secure these, but proper moderation and proportion are to be observed. Do not permit the beauty of poverty that is mani~fest in your habit and clothing to be lamentably clouded by sumptuous dwellings and delicate pleasures and comforts of life nor that your conduct contradict your words." Allocution to Fathers of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, 40-1948-551, 552. *48. "But even here a 'due measure and discretion' is to be ob- 123 POPE PlUS XlI Religious served, lest it ever .happen that those [seminarians] who must be trained 'tb 's~lf'-d£ni~aF and evangelical virtue live 'in palatial houses and luxurimls ease.and comfort. Apostolic Exhortation, "Menti Nostrae," 42-1950-685. *49. Chastit~l. "The pries.tly office demands from you,'We might say, exceptional sacrifices, and of these the: most outstanding is the complete sacrifice of one's self in al'legian~e to Christ by celibfic}. You must examine yourselves! If any find that they are incapable of:'observing .celi~ac3(,, We beseech them to leave the seminary and to devote themselves to another calling i~. which they will achieve a morally upright and fruitful life, impossible for them in the sanc-tuary without danger to their own eternal salvation and of dishonor for the Church." Address to theStudents o[ the Roman,Serninarie.s, Colleges, and Institutions, 31-1939-249, 250. ,. 50. "In tl~is earthly exile nothing indeed is more b~autiful, nothing more lovable than the immaculate splendor of virginity that shines from the face, the eyes and the affections and gently excites directs others to heavenly 'things. If the flame of divine charit-y is added to the brightness of this unsullied integrity, the resul{ 'i's something .that deeply moves the minds of men, powerfully attract~ their wills and inspires'them to the noble deeds that Christian virtue alone Can effect." Carbonization of B. M. Capitan,'o and C. V. Gerosa, 42-1950-418. '51. "Watchful and attentive care must be taken to make~sur~ that recruits for the sacred militia have great esteem for chastity, love and preserve it, since it. is one of the' main reasons why they have Chosen this.type of life and" persevere ih this vocation. The faci that in the course of human contactS this virtue is exposed to such great dangers demands that in those Who are to take upon them! selves the dignity of the priesthood purity :should "be of long stand'-:" ing anddeeply rooted. Hence, not only should clerics be ~ad~ aware at the proper time of the meaning of priestly celibacy and of tl~e chas~ffy they must practice, as well as of the obligatiotis entails, but they should also be warned of the dangers they ma~ encounter. Seminarians should likewise be urged to avoid from their earliest years all dangers to purity b~" recourse to those method~ of restraining the passions that are recommended by the masters of the spiritual life. Their progress in other virtues and the richnes~ of the fruits of their priestly zeal will be in proportion to the firmness and constancy' of thei'r control of their passions. Should h young 124 Ma~!, 1955 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE cleric prove to have a tendency to evil and be unable to break off his bad habit after a suitable time of trial, he should be obliged to. withdraw from the seminary before receiving sacred orders." Apos-tolic Exhortation, 'Menti Nostrae," 42-1950-690, 691. 52. "Therefore this modesty is not to be construed as equi'valent to perpetual silenc~ on matters of chastity nor to forbid in the train-ing of character that a temperate and pru'dent word be ever spoken on this matter. In these things youths are to be instructed with suitable counsels, they are to be permitted to manifest their' problems, to ask questions freely, they are to be given sound, clear answers and an explanation sufficient to impart both light and confidence." Allocution to Teachers of the Order of Discatced Carmelites, 43- 1951-736. 53. "Chastity and virginity (which implies also the interior re-nunciation of every sensual affection) does not make the soul a stranger to the world. It rather awakens and develops the energies for greater and higher duties that surpass the confines of individual families. There are today many teaching sisters and sister nurses who, in the better sense of the word, are closer to life than the or-dinary persons of the world." Apostolic Exhortation to the Inter-national Conoention of Teaching Sisters, 43-1951-741. 54. "Today We wish to speak only to those, whether priests or laymen, preachers, public speakers and writers, who have not a word of approval or praise for virginity vowed to Christ, who for years past, contrary to the warnings of the Church and in oppo-sition to her thought, have in principle given marriage the prefer-ence over virginity and who have gone so far as to present marriage as the only means capable of assuring its development and natural perfection to the human personality. Those who speak and write iri this manner are to take cognizance of their responsibility before God and the Church. They are largely to blame for.a fact that We can mention to you only with sadness. Today more than ever there are repeated requests for Catholic sisters from the Christian world and from outside it, and one after anothe¢ they must be given a sorrowful refusal; at times even works of long standing, hospitals and educational establishments must be abandoned--all because vocations are not sufficient for the needs." Address to the Congress of Mothers General, 44-1952-825. *55. "Here We must add, as the holy fathers and doctors of the Church have so clearly taught, that virginity is not a Christian 125 POPE PIUS XlI Review for Religious virtue unless embraced 'for the kingdom of heaven,' that is, unless its motive is to devote oneself more readily" to divine things, greater security in the attainmefit of eternal happiness and finally greater freedom for a zealous devotion also to the eternal salvation of others. They cannot claim the honor of Christian virginity who abstain, from marriage from excessive selfishness,, or to escape its obligations . . . or to make a proud and pharisaical boast of the integrity of their bodies, : . . a virgin is not to refrain from mar-riage as something ugly but because of the beauty and sanctity of virginity . Accordingly, this is the primary motive, the principal reason for Christian virginity: to strive only for the things of heaven and to direct the mind and heart to divine things, to please God in everything, to meditate on Him deeply, and to consecrate body and soul to Him entirely . It is evidently the love of Christ that persuades the virgin to flee to the cloisters of the mon-astery and to remain there forever that she may more freely and easily devote herself to the contemplation and love of her Divine Spouse; it is the love of Christ that profoundly moves her to un-dertake with all h~r strength and even to death works of mercy for her neighbor." Enc~tclical Letter on Sacred Vlrginit~t, 46-1954- 164, 165, 167. *56. "Before entering on such a very narrow path, all whose experience has shown them that they are very weak in this matter shall humbly heed the warning of Paul the Apostle: 'But if they do not contain themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to be burnt.' There are many for whom the burden of per-fect chastity would evidently be so onerous that it could not be counselled to them. In the same way, priests who have the serious duty of counselling youths who say that they feel drawn to the priesthood or religious life are to urge them to give the mattercare-ful consideration, lest they enter on a way of life that they cannot hope to travel constantly and successfully to its end. Such priests are to give prudent thought to this suitability and, if judged ex-pedient, shall seek skilled advice. If a serious doubt remains, espe-cially if founded on the facts of their past lives, priests shall oblige such candidates to give up the intention of entering on the state of perfect chastity and forbid them admission to sacred orders or religious profession." Enc!jclical Letter on Sacred Virginit~l, 46- 1954-180, I8i. 57. Obedience. "Another effect will be that your obedience will 126 May, 1955 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE be established on a perpetually unshakeable foundation. Your stan-dard, your glory, your strength is your obedience. This above all must make you completely docile to the will of your superiors, with-out complaints, without murmur, without that reprehensible criti-cism, the disease of our age, which enfeebles the strength of men and renders their apostolic efforts sluggish and fruitless. The heavy burden imposed by your austere obedience will become light if you are motivated by charity. If charity is present, God is present, be-cause 'God is charity.' Therefore; let there be in you 'charity from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and an unfeigned faith.' " Atlocution to the XXIX General Congregation of the Societ~t of desus, 38-1946-383, 384. 58. "Indeed some praise as the real peak of moral perfection, not the surrender of liberty for the love of Christ, but the curbing of such surrender. The norm therefore to be preferred in the forma-tion of a just and holy person would be this: restrict liberty only where necessary; otherwise, give liberty free rein as far as possible. We transmit the question whether this new foundation 6n which some are trying to erect the edifice of sanctity will be as effective and as solid in supporting and augmenting the apostolic work of the Church as was the one which through fifteen hundred years has been provided by that ancient rule of obedience undertaken for love of Christ . No one is obliged to choose for himself the counsel of perfect obedience, which essentially is a rule of life whereby one surrenders the control of his own will . But words must be understood and accepted according to their obvious meaning, and if this norm is compared with the vow of obedience, it surely does not possess the same supreme value, nor is it an expression of the wonderful example recorded in Holy Scripture: 'He humbled Him-self becoming obedient unto death.' Therefore be is deceived him-self and deceives others who, forgetting the propensities of the soul and the inspiration of divine grace, offers as a guide to one seeking advice about entering the religious state only that new norm. Hence if it is clear that the voice of God is calling someone to the heights of evangelical perfection, without any besitatior~ be should be invited for the attainment of this lofty purpose to offer freely the sacrifice of his liberty as the vow of obedience demands, that vow, We proclaim, which the Church through so many centuries has weighed, has put to the test, has properly delineated and has ap-proved. Let no one be compelled to this self-consecration against 127 PoPE PlUS XlI Review ~:or Reliyfous his will; but if be.does will it, let'no one counsel him against it; above all, let no one hold him back." Address to the Genera[ Con-gress or) the States of Pe.rfectfor), 43-1951-31. 59. "It is certainly of supreme importance that supernatural obedi-ence, motivated by an ardent love of God, should be firmly, insist-ently and fervently fostered, and prevail, according to the norm of their laws; in religious houses. Doesn't the solid support of re-ligious discipline and life have its foundation here? Isn't the past or future success of the great undertakings that religious have and will accomplish to be .attributed solely to the un'iOn of tbeir force's by obedience? You must therefore recognize, r~spect and gladly accept the salutary yoke of obedience as the burden of the brave. However, in our day, in which the machine holds universal sway, wben the mechanical arts bare penetrated everywhere, absorb us and fashion everything to their image, superiors are to be careful not to treat their subjects almost as merchandise or parts Of a ma-cbine but they are always to respect the human person." Allocution to Teachers of the Order of Discalced Carmelites', 43-1951 - 736. V. PARTICULAR VIRTUES 60. Necessity of it)terror life. "But this also, as far as you can, you sbould accomplisb. . . tbat all wbom you can reacb are to be taugbt that notbing is preferable, nothing more necessary than that all should adorn their souls with heavenly virtues and especially that they should foster the divine life from which such virtues arise and grow. Whoever neglects this interior and supernatural life, v~hicfi is nourished by divine grace, whoe~'er devotes himself only to ex.- ternals, even if praiseworthy and adapted to the times, sooner or later realizes that he has given himself to a sterile and perishabl~ work. You know that 'every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights'; therefore, everythin~g also appertaining to the apostolate will be vain and empty unless moved b'y the spirit that is from God." Letter ob the Fifth Centenar~t of the Death of St. Colette, 40-1948-105, 106. 61. "With the same devotion that you cherish religious poverty in external matters you are to accumulate the v~ealth of a true in-terior life and to acquire spiritual riches: love of God and your ~aeighbor, real penance, a knowledge of sacred sciences, and a burn-ing desire to extend the Ki.ngdom of Christ. It is your duty to be conspicuous by a simplicity of conduct, a splendor of goodnesS, a brightness of holy joy, in your sacred ministry humbly to serve 128 May, 1955 "~HE RELIGIOUS LIFE the humble, especially the poorer, whom now evil men by so many evil arts strive to bind to themselves, to favor and assist." Allocu-tion to Fathers of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, 40-1948-! 552. 62. "The most active zeal can be closely allied with the quest for the riches of the interior life . An eager external activity and the cultivation of the interior life demand more than a bond of fellowship; as far at least as evaluation and willed effort are con-cerned, they demand that they should march along together step by step. With the growth of devotion~ to exterior works therefore, let there shine forth a cor~espdnding increase in faith, in the life of prayer, in zealous consecration of self and talents to God, in spotless purity of conscience, in obedience, in patient endurance of hardship, and in active charity tirelessly expend.ed for God and one's neighbor . The Church insistently demands of you that your external works correspond to your interior life and that these two: maintain a constant balance." Address to the General Con-gress on the States of Perfection, 43-1951-32. *63. Charity. "But legitimate and well-ordered love of our native country should not make us close our eyes to the all-embracing nature of Christian charity, which calls for consideration of others and of their interests in the pacifying light of love." Encyclical Letter, "Sumni Pontit~catus," 31-1939-549. *64. Prayer. Its necessity. "Your divine vocation is to prepare the way in the souls of men for the love and grace of Jesus Christ. This cannot be accomplished unless you yourselves are already im-bued with that love. Enkindle the love of Christ in yourselves by union with Christ in prayer and sacrifice. By uhion, We say, in prayer. If you ask Us what word We have at the beginning of Our pontificate for the priests of the Catholic Church, We reply: pray, pray more ~nd more, and more insistently! By union also in sacri-fice: in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, but not only in the Eucharistic Sacrifice but also in a certain sacrifice of one's self. You realize that one of the effects of the Most Holy Eucharist is to confer strength to sacrifice and deny themselves on those who assist and receive. The various forms of Christian asceticism may continue to differ with regard to many secondary principles but none of them knows any way to the love of God that does not demand sacrifice also of one's self. Christ demanded this of His followers when He said: 'If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up 129 Reuiew for Religious his cross daily, and follow me.' In explicit language He defined the way to the love of God as the observance of the divine ~com-mandments. Finally, especially to His apostles He addressed that wonderful sentence: 'Amen, amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat failing into the ground die, itself remaineth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.' " Address to the Students of the Roman Seminaries, Colleges, and Institutions, 31-1939-249. *65. "For such a formation of spirit We recommend prayer above everything else, as We have already said to the students of the sanc-tuary in their first gathering before Us. Pray, pray, pray; prayer is the key of the treasures of God; it is the weapon of combat and of victory in every struggle .for good and against evil. What can-not prayer accomplish by adoration, propitiation, petition, thanks-giving?" Address to Italian Catholic Action, 32-1940-368. *66. Necessity of mental pra~ter. "Genuine and real piety, which the Angelic Doctor calls 'devotion,' and which is the principal act of the virtue of religion, that act which correctly relates and properly directs men to God and by which they free!y and spontaneously give themselves to everything pertaining to the worship ~f God, needs meditation on the supernatural realities and spiritual exercises if it is to be nurtured, stimulated, sustained and is to prompt us to a more perfect life . Since our hearts, disturbed as they are at times by the lower appetites, do not always respond to motives of love, it is also extremely helpful to allow consideration and con-templation ~)f the justice of God to excite us on occasion to salutary fear and guide us thence to Christian humility, repentance and amendment." Encyclical Letter, "Mediator Dei," 39-1947-534, 535. *67. "First of all, the Church exhorts us to holy meditation, which elevates the mind to things of heaven, draws our thoughts to the supernatural and, once our soul has been inflamed with the desire of God, directs it to Him along the path of right reason . Now it is absolutely essential that sacred ministers should most diligently reproduce in their own lives these examples from the Gospel and the virtues of our Divine Redeemer. But just as bodily food does not nourish, sustain and increase life unless it is digested and be-comes part of our own substance, so also unless the priest by medi-tation and contemplation on the mysteries of our Divine Redeemer --who indeed is the supreme and absolute Exemplar of perfection and the inexhaustible fountain of holiness--lives the life of this same Redeemer, he cannot gain control over himself ~ind his senses, 130 Mag, 1955 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE purify his soul, strive for virtue as be should, nor lastly discharge his sacred duties faithfully, zealously and fruitfully . Where-fore, in all truth must We assert that the special efficacy attached to meditation cannot be supplied by any other means and conse-quently that nothing else can replace the practice of daily medita-tion." Apostolic Exhortation, 'Menti Nostrae,' 42-1950-672. *68. Efficac~t of private pra~ter. "There are others who deny any impetratory powers to our prayers and spread abroad the idea that prayers offered to God in private are of little value. Public prayers, that are made in the name of the Church, are those that really avail, since they come from the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ. Such an opinion is false; for the Divine Redeemer maintains closest union not only with His Church, which is His beloved Spouse, but also with each and every faithful soul in it, and He longs to speak with them heart to heart, especially after Holy Communion. It is true that public prayers, since they are offered by Mother Church and because of the dignity of the Spouse of Christ, excel any other kind of prayer; but no prayer, even the most private, lacks its own dignity and power, and all prayer is immensely helpful to the en-tire Mystical Body." Enc~tclical Letter, 'Mgstici Corporis," 35- 1943-235, 236. 69. "But here also there can be a sin of excess. There are some whose extravagant praise of the liturgical forms of the ancient ages easily leads them to a confempt of those of the later centuries and to despise private and popular prayers. Liturgy, which means all forms of worship established by ecclesiastical authority, is something last-ing and living that grows through the cefituries. An attraction for the youthful years must not result in a contempt for the older years . The essential thing in divine worship and the care of souls is always that the followers of the Gospel in the innermost depths of a good conscience seek God, reverence the majesty and the law of the celestial Godhead, do penance for their sins, confess their sins with sorrow and wash away their punishment with works of mercy, acquire grace and live rightly that they may live forever and happily. There are some who eat solid food and some are nour-ished on milk." Homil~t on the Fourteenth Centenar~l of the Death of St. Benedict, 39-1947-455,456. *70. Individual inclinations in praver. "Many of the faithful are unable to use the RomanMissal, even in their native language; nor are all capable of understanding correctly the liturgical rites and 131 POPE PIUS XII Review [or Religious formulas. So varied and diverse are me6's talents and temperaments that it is impossible for all to be moved and attracted to the same extent by community prayers, hymns, and liturgical services. More-over, the needs and inclinations of all are not the same nor are they always constant in the same individual." Encyclical Letter,. "Mediator Dei," 39-1947-561. "71. Multiplicity of prayers. "Above all, do not cease to incul-cate into the minds of all that the Christian life does not consist in the multiplicity and variety of prayers and exercises of piety but rather in their helpfulness towards spiritual progress of the faithful and constant growth of the entire ChurCh." Encyclical Letter, "Mediator Dei," 39-1947,587. *72. "But it should be noted that piety and genuine and ardent zeal for prayer are worth more than a mere multiplicity of prayers." Apostolic Exhortation, "Menti Nostrae," 42-1950-673. *73. Spiritual routine. "When young men perform the same exercises of piety according to a practically unchanging daily rou-tine, we can fear that their interior spirit may not be entirely in harmony with the external practices of religion. By force of habit this can happen to them all the more easily and even grow worse when they leave the seminary and are engrossed frequently in the necessary performance of their duties." Apostolic Exhortation, "Menti Nostrae," 42-1950-689. *74. Externalism. "It is not merely a question of recitation or of singing [the divine office] which, however perfect according to norms of music and the sacred rites, only reaches the ear, but it is especially a question of the ascent of the mind and heart to God so that, united with Christ, we may completely dedicate ourselves and all our actions to Him." Encyclical Letter, "Mediator Dei," 39- 1947-574. *75. Ritualism and Formalism. "But the primary element of divine worship must be interior. For we must always "live in Christ and give ourselves to Him completely . This recommendation the liturgy itself is careful to repeat as often as it prescribes an exterior act of worship. Thus we are urged, when there is question of fast-ing, for example, 'to give interior effect to our outward observance.' Otherwise religion clearly amounts to mere ritualism and formal-ism . It should be clear to all, then, that God cannot be honored worthily unless the mind and heart are elevated to Him in quest of 132 May, 1955 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE the perfect life." Encyclical Letter, "Mediator Dei,' 39-1947-531, 532. *76. "Besides, sin~e they [non-liturgical practices of piety] de-velop a deeper spiritual life in the faithful, they prepare the faith-ful to take part in sacred public functions with greater fruit and lessen the danger of liturgical prayers becoming an empty ritual-ism." Encyclical Letter, "Mediator Dei," 39-1947-584. *77. Humility. "Let the priest not trust in his own strength, find undue satisfaction in the contemplation of his talents, go search-ing for the esteem and praise of men or eagerly long for higher positions. Rather let him imitate Christ, who 'has not come to be served but to serve'; let him deny himself according to the law of the Gospel and be not inordinately attached to the things of earth, that he may the more easily and the more readily follow the Divine Master." Apostolic Exhortation, "Menti Nostrae," 42-1950-662. *78. Necessity, motive, and purpose of detachment. "He g~ce himself to God and to souls entirely, forever, with no hesitancy, with no reserve. Here is the secret of his heroic training for the supreme victory. To give himself completely, he renounced every-thing . It would be folly to renounce everything and oneself only to make a desert bf oneself. This is not what is done; no one has the right to do it. The motive of renunciation is a greater and holier love. Of this you must be deeply convinced, beloved sons of the Institute of th~ Foreign Missions: for love of God, for love of souls your fellow-member was detached from everything and from himself. This detachment and motive are evidently com-mon to all true apostles, but such love is of varying degree accord-ing to the temperament, charactgr, and natural and supernatural gifts of each." AItocution on the Beatification of Alberico Cris-citelli, 43-1951-165, 167. 79. Penance and mortification. "Not all, particularly in our day, understand as they should this kind of penitential life. Many to-day consider it either of little value or wearisome and neglect it entirely. However, we are not to forget that the lamentable fall ¯ of Adam has infected all of us with the hereditary blemish and inclines all of us readily to the allurements of sin. Penance, there-fore, is.absolutely necessary for us, according to the words: 'but except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish.' Nothing is of greater force in restraining the disordered passions of the soul and in subjecting the natural appetites to right reason. When we 133 POPE PIUS XII Revieto for Religious emerge victorious from this struggle, even though we must follow constantly in the footsteps of Jesus Christ and in a certain manner crucify our own flesh, we shall even in this life possess those heav-enly joys and delights that surpass the pleasures of earth as much as the soul does the body and heaven the earth. Holy penance and voluntary mortifications have their own heavenly consolation that the perishable and fleeting pleasures of life cannot give." Canoni-zation of Marianna of Jesus of Paredes, 42-1950-611, 612. *80. Correspondence with grace and self-effort. "Very truly the sacraments and the sacrifice of the altar, being Christ's own actions, must be held to be capable in themselves of conveying and dispensing grace from the divine Head to the members of the Mystical Body. But if they are to produce their proper effect, it is. absolutely neces-sary that our hearts be rigbly disposed to receive them . Em~ phatically, therefore, the work of redemption, which in itself is in-dependent of our will, requires a serious interior effort on our part if we are to achieve eternal salvation." Encgc[ica[ Letter, "Mediator Dei," 39-1947-533, 53.4. VI. MISCELLANEOUS "81. Government. Excessive bureaucraqt. "Finally We wish you to consider a thought that should guide and illumine all your pas-toral act, ion. Dedicate yourselves to it with all your souls. Give to all your activity the personal character of your spirit and your heart. We mean by this that you should be on your guard against an excessive bureaucracy in the care of souls. It is true that the proper management of the parochial office is strictly necessary. Your parishioners, however, must always and in all circumstances sense the kindness and paternal affection that beats in the heart of the pastor. Each and every one of your faithful should feel it, should be able to approach you easily and find in you the help and pro-tection that will fulfill the expectation of his trust." Allocution to Roman Pastors and Lenten Preachers, 43-1951-116. 82. Maternal government. "And now, dearest daughters, We pass on to give you two pressing exhortations. ;Fhe first is that of maternal affection in the direction of your sisters. It is undoubt-edly t~ue, as the psychologists maintain, that when in authority it is not as easy for woman as for man to find the exact balance between severity and kindness. This makes it all the more neces-sary to cultivate your maternal sentiments. Remember that for 134 Mar , 1955 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE your sisters as well as for yourselves the vows demand a great sac-rifice. They have renounced their families, the happiness of mar-riage and the intimacy of family life. This is a lofty sacrifice and of decisive importance for the apostolate of the Church, but it is none the less a sacrifice. Sisters of greatness of soul and delicacy of sentiment feel this detachment most keenly. The words of Christ, 'He that putteth his hand to the plough and looketh back is not fit for the kingdom of God,' find their full application here, also today, and without reservation. But the order should replace the family as much as it can, and on you, the mothers general, falls primarily the duty of breathing the warmth of family affection into the common life of the sisters. You must be motherly in your ex-ternal conduct, in your words arid writings, even when this de-mands self-mastery. Above all, be maternal in your inmost thoughts, your judgments and, as far as possible, in your feelings. Beg Mary, the Mother of Jesus and our own Mother, every day to teach you to be maternal." Address to the Congress of Mothers General, 44- 1952-825, 826. 83. Union. Federation of independent houses. "The prolonged actual living and experience of a confederation can convince you of the great wisdom of the Supreme Pontiff, Leo XIII, in procuring that the various Benedictine families, commonly called 'black Bene-dictines,' be united by the bonds of a brotherly confederation, with-out injury to their own institutes or norms. By the realization of this plan, the autonomy or faculty of living according to their own laws, the original norm that g'uided your monasteries, was in fact adapted to modern times in a salutary and provident manner, since it was demanded by the changed circumstances and the common good. In ancient and medieval times, when communications were more confined, the care of the faithful restricted to lesser necessities and the pursuit of. learning less extensive, such autonomy was more consistent. Aren't the very congregations of Benedictine religious that have arisen in the course of centuries an evident argument that a.fraternal union of effort is desired for the strengthening and per-fecting of discipline? Isn't this proved also by the wider associa-tions that were formed, for example, of Cluny and Bursfeld? If the individual monasteries had remained entirely alone, the Maurine Congregation of Benedictines could not have acquired such high renown for advancing sacred sciences, and elsewhere also the luster of your outstanding fictixiity and solid honor would have been dimmed. POPE PlUS XII Review for Religious In this age, the greater facility of communications, the will that is found everywhere more prone to united efforts, the desire for wider learning, for counsel, the instriaments of zeal necessary for priests and also for missionaries to fulfill the expectation placed in them require federations, demand union. If autonomy is unreason-ably retained, there will be found perhaps monasteries that are unequal to their purpose because, of the small number of religious, and the discipline of the observance of rule can also be weakened and even dangers can gradually creep in." Homily on the _Four-teenth Centenar( of the Death of St. Benedict, 39-1947-454, 455. 84. "For the circumstances of our age, with its much greater facility of communication, the increase in the sacred duties and the greater learning required of ministers of the Church seem to de-mand a union of members. Indeed, the J~enedictine Congregations erected in the past are a proof that the progress of the religious life demands that brothers unite their labors with their brothers." Approual and Confirmation of the Constitutions of the Confeder-ation of the Benedictine Monastic Congregations, 44-1952-521. 85. "In view of changed circumstances there are now many con-siderations which make it advisable and sometimes even necessary to confederate monasteries of nuns." Apostolic Constitution, "Sponsa Christi," 43-1951-13. 86. Centralization. "When the number of houses had so in-creased, the discerning superioress perceived clearly that it is most difficult to attain a unity of religious spirit and to preserve for any length of time union between different houses completely subject to the ordinaries of the" individual places. She realized that no small utility would accrue to the entire congregation i~ it were ruled by a common and uniform government, in which the strength of any institute and the life of religious discipline almost consist. For the attainment of this purpose nothing seemed to her more oppor-tune and suitable than to subject all the houses, whether already founded or to be founded in the future, to the house at Angers and to place a mother general over th~ entire congregation. This intention, although approved by the Bishop of Angers and other very prudent men, gave rise to a serious controversy . These dissensions could not but greatly sadden Mary of St. Euphrasia but were powerless to break her spirit or weaken her constancy. ¯ . . The Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, on Janu-ary 9, 1835 . approved the intention of the servant of God, 136 May, 1955 THE RELIGIOUS LIFE and Pope Gregory XVI, of happy memory, deignedto confirm this decree in all respects . This same Predecessor of Ours, after the matter bad again been subjected to a thorough examination . solemnly confirmed that decree." Decretal Letters of Canonization of St. Mary of St. Euphrasia, 33-194.1-141. 87. Nuns. Introduction of solemn vows. "All monasteries [of nuns] in which only simple vows are taken shall be entitled to ask for the introduction of solemn vows. In fact, unless there are serious reasons to the contrary, they shall take steps to return to the solemn vows." Apostolic Constitution, "Sponsa Christi," 43- 1951-16. 88. Necessity of at least minor papal cloister. "Papal cloister, either major or minor, is to be regarded as a necessary condition not only that solemn vows may be taken but also that those monas-teries in which simple vows are taken may hereafter be considered true monasteries of nuns according to can. 488, 7°." Apostolic Constitution, "Sponsa Christi," 43-1951 - 17. 89. "If however it appears with certainty that in any monas-tery [of nuns] even the minor cloister cannot regularly be ob-served, that monastery is to be converted to a house of either a congregation or a society." Apostolic Constitution, "Sponsa Christi," 43-1951-17. 90. Unity among rebgious institutes. "Harmony and generous agreement between the different religious families can be very favor-able in attaining such a desirable outcome. Mutual knowledge and encouragement, a holy rivalry cannot but be of mutual advantage. Splendid initiatives are already apparent in this respect; it remains only to perfect them." Apqstolic Exhortation to the International Convention of Teaching Sis'ters, 43-1951-743. 91. Praise of Religious Women. "How could the Church in later and more modern times have fully accomplished her mission with-out the work of the hundreds of thousands of religious women per-formed with such great zeal in education and charity? How could she accomplish it in our day? May your dedication, love and sac-rifices, so frequently hidden and unknown but suffered for love of ¯ Christ to benefit youth, produce in the future, as in the past, a hundred-fold of good! May the Lord reward you for it and pour out on you the abundance of His divine favors!" Apostolic Ex-hortation to the International Convention of Teaching Sisters, 43- 1951-739. 137 POPE PIUS 92. Clerical and religious states. "It is a distortion of the truth to say that the clerical state as such and as of divine law demands .either by its very nature or by some postulate of that nature that the evangelical counsels be observed by its members and that for this very reason it must or may be called a state of achieving evan-gelical perfection . So too, the fact that the priests of the Latin rite are bound to observe holy celibacy does not remove or lessen the distinction between the clerical and the religious states. More-over, a member of the regular clergy professes the state and condition of evangelical perfection not inasmuch as he is a cleric but inas-much as he is a religious." Address to the General Congress on the States of Perfection, 43-1951-29. 93. Exemption. "Again, the exemption of religious orders is not contrary to the principles of the constitution given to the Church by God nor does it in any way contradict the law that a priest owes obedience to his bishop. For, according to canon law, exempt religious are subject to the authority of the local bishop so far as the administration of the episcopal office and the well-regulate~d care of souls require. But even putting aside this consideration, in the discussions of the past few decades concerning the question of exemption perhaps too little attention has been paid to the fact that exempt religious, even by the prescriptions of canon law, are always and everywhere subject to the authority of the Roman Pontiff as their supreme superior and that they owe obedience to him precisely in virtue of their vow of obedience . It is there-fore clear that the primary law of God whereby the clergy and the laity are subject to the rule of the bishop is more than sufficiently observed as regards exempt religious, as it is no le~s clear that both branches of the clergy by reason of their parallel services conform to the will and precept of Christ." Address to the General Congress on the States of Perfection, 43-1951-28, 29. *94. Adequate support. "What is more, Venerable Brethren, We heartily commend the plans that you will discuss to insure that priests be provided not only with means to meet their daily needs but also with assurances of assistance for the future--as We are happy to see done in civil society--particularly for cases in Which they may fall ill, be 'afflicted with chronic ill health, or be weakened by old age. Thus you will relieve them of all anxiety for the future." Apostolic Ex-hor. tation,. "Menti Nostrae," 42-1950-698. .138 Through I-lis Blood Joseph H. Robling, C.PP.S. IF variety is the spice of life in general, it is also, in a sense, the spice of our supernatural life. If, for example, we have been considering certain revealed truths from the selfsame aspect so long that they scarcely impress us any more, it is helpful to con-sider them from some other aspect for a while. Many such variations are possible. Among them is the con-sideration of the truths of faith from the aspect of the precious blood of our Lord. This aspect was adopted very notably by St. Gaspar del Bufalo, who was canonized on June 12 of last year. He is called the Apostle of the Precious Blood, not only because he founded the Society of the Precious Blood in Rome in 1815, or because he fostered the pious union of the same name, but also be-cause in his very effective preaching of missions and retreats in the Papal States over a period of more than twenty years before his death in 1837 he frequently focused the attention of his hearers on the precious blood and from that vantage point drove home his message of instruction and exhortation. For this purpose during his sermons he sometimes held a large crucifix portraying the figure of the bleeding Savior and wore on his breast the now familiar mis-sion cross showing our Redeemer in the act of sacrificing even His own blood for sinners. Considering revealed truths from the aspect of the precious blood, we may profitably reflect, for instance, that no grace whatever comes to us independently of the sacrificial blood of Christ; for no grace is given to fallen mankind except that merited for us by the bloody sacrifice of our Redeemer on the cross. This same sacrifice was fore-shadowed and foretold in the Old Testament and is renewed and perpetuated by the holy Mass in the New. Furthermore, since we receive no grace independently of the precious blood, we also would have no means of grace without it--no Church, no priesthood, no sacraments, no sacramentals, no fruitful prayer. Again, since no one can be saved without grace, we can truthfully say that without the precious blood there would be no saint in heaven nor any soul in purgatory, nor even any just man on earth. Without it there would be neither justification nor salvation for any human .person. The blood of Jesus speaks better than the blood.of Abel (Heb. 12:24). It speaks of our Savior's lo,¢e and foFgivenes.s, of the ~13_9 JOSEPH H. ROHLING reality and extent of His sufferings, of the sacrifice He offered and the price He paid, of the tangible evidence and measure of His love for souls, of the mercy and pardon He holds out to repentant sin-ners, and His nourishing of souls in Holy Communion. It teaches the value of an immortal soul, for with St. Paul every human person can say, "He gave himself up for me" (Gal. 2:20), that is, He sacrificed even His own blood for me. And if our own soul., is so valuable in His sight, so is the soul of every other human being. Therefore, it teaches us zeal for souls and forms a powerful motive for missionary undertakings. It also teaches us the value of suffer-ing. If Jesus was willing to go to the extreme limit of shedding His own blood for me, how can I refuse Him the lesser sufferings and inconveniences and sacrifices He asks of me? Modern man tends to regard suffering as the greatest evil. The precious blood, on the other hand, teaches us that sin is a greater evil, because the Son of God was willing to undergo even a bloody death in order that sin might be taken away. The precious blood also supplies us with important motives for contrition and. amendment, for by sin we offend Him "who has loved us and washed us from our sins in hi~ own blood" (Apoc. 1:5). By committing mortal sin we lose all the sanctify-ing grace purchased for us at the price of our Redeemer's blood. Baptism an'd penance cleanse us from sin and punishment insofar as ¯ they infuse sanctifying grace and thus apply the merits of the pre-cious blood. The sacramental anointing with holy oil in confir-mation and 'extreme unction give supernatural strength to the soul because they apply these same merits in their specific way and for their specific purposes. Holy Orders and matrimony give the special graces for which they were.instituted and in'that way apply the merits of the blood of redemption to the recipients to enable them to fulfill the obligations of their respective states of life. The Holy Eucharist nourishes the recipient on the very blood itself that he may have everlasting life and be raised up on the last day (John 6:56). These examples will suffice to illustrate the manner in which 'we can regard the eternal truths from the aspect of the precious blood. For those who have not been using this approach, it may serve as a welcome variation in their prayer and meditation. St. Gaspar del Bufalo used this approach to great advantage. God blessed his efforts. By canonizing him the Church proposes him as a model for all of us. May we benefit by his example! 140 Community Lit:e Bernard I. Mullahy, C.S.C. yOU often hear it said that one of the principal reasons why there are not more vocations to the religious life is that young people find it hard to give up their social life, or that one of the things young women find most difficult in the convent is the lack of social life. Everyone understands What is meant by this, of course; yet, to suggest that in reality the religious life means a denial of social life is to misunderstand either the nature of the religious life or the true meaning of social life or, more fundamen-tally, the nature of the Christian life and its relation to the re-ligious life. The religious life is not something apart from thi~ Christian life, not even something added on to it; it is the Christian life lifted to its maximum dimensions. The religious life is simply a state which provides the best conditions for living the Christian life in the fullness of its perfection and beauty and splendor. Our religious vows are buta fulfillment of our baptismal vows; and perhaps the fact that so many of us have the habit of renewing our religious vows frequently while .hardly ever thinking of renewing our bap-tismal vows is an indication that we do not appreciate clearly and explicitly enough the vital relation between what happened to us on the day of our profession and what happened to us on the day of our baptism. Religious vocation is a flowering of our original vocation to be Christians, and we would surely have a deeper un-derstanding of the implications of our religious life if we had a fuller and clearer appreciation of the meaning of the Christian life. Now the Christian life is essentially a social life. It is a par-ticipation in the communal life of the Trinity and of the Mystical Body. And it goes without saying that this is the most intimate and intense social life conceivable. If then the whole meaning of religious vocation is to lift the Christian life to full perfection, it follows that one of the main purposes of the religiou's life, particu-larly in its cenobitic form, is to enal~le the Christian to live the sociai life of the Mystical Body and of God Himself in the fullness of its intensity and intimacy. This, it would seem, is the inner meaning of our community life. If we are not sufficiently conscious of this inner meaning, the reason may be that we are in the habit of viewing community life 141 BERNARD 1. MULLAHY Revietv {or Religious too much as a purely disciplinary thing, as something which rigor-ously rules out all singularity; every tendency to withdraw from community recreation and other community functions, every infrac-tion of the common life which might offend poverty in any way: we do not view it in the whole context of the Christian life, nor do we trace it back to its doctrinal and sacramental sources. There are three principal aspect~ of the Christian life: doctrine, worship, and moral action; or, in other words, the three C's: creed, cult, and code. In the spirituality characteristic of our times, there has been a tendency to stress code and moral action in isolation from creed and cult, from doctrine and worship. When this is done the Christian life and the religious life are viewed primarily in terms of asceticism, in terms of spiritual practices which are seen less as acts of divine worship than as exercises to perfect the soul. There is a concentration on sanctifying the will by a pattern of ascetical rules without at the same time illumining and enriching the mind with the doctrinal wellsprings of the Christian life. This tends to make the Christian life a kind of ethical and legalistic thing. Perhaps we have been in the habit of thinking of community life too much from this point of view. Perhaps we have seen it too much in terms of code, and not enough in terms of creed and cult; and it might be helpful for us to try to situate it in its proper context of doctrine and worship. To try to get at the doctrinal source of community life is to ask the question, Where is community life lived in its fullest and most perfect form? The answer, as we have already suggested, is: the Blessed Trinity. The life of the Trinity is essentially a com-munity life. G6d not only has community life, He is community life. He is a community of three Persons whose life,consists in an eternal, mutual outpouring of light and love, an outpouring that is so intense and so utterly altruistic that it constitutes the very per-sonality of the members of the community. Here is community life in its perfection: the personality of each of the members consists in being a living relation to the other members, nothing more, nothing less. Here is the common life in its fullest dimensions: none of the members possesses-anything absolute, anything at all, by Himself alone; everything absolute is shared in common. Here, as in a re-ligious community, the common life is founded on poverty, that mysterious, infinitely rich poverty of the three divine Persons which make it impossible to possess anything absolute as belonging to them personally. 142 Mag, 1955 COMMUNITY LIFE Our religious vows meant an entrance into a community life. So also did our baptismal vows. At baptism a real participation in the infinitely altruistic, communal life of the Trinity was put into our souls; and we were caught up in the intense and intimate social intercourse of the three divine Dersons. From then on we were des-tined to live the community life of the Mystical Body of Christ. From then on our vocation was to live not an isolated or insulated or introverted life, but a life of perfect altruism. This meant that our Christian personality would have to have something of the per-sonality of the three divine Persons; we wduld have to become a living relation to others: our joys, our riches, our prayer would have to be theirs; their poverty, their sorrows, their sufferings would have to be ours. The community life of the Mystical Body is a thing of vast proportions, for it embraces the whole Communion of Saints: the Church militant and suffering and triumphant. The proportions are so vast and the states so different that it is difficult for us while in this life to realize its far-reaching implications. Even if we limit our view to the Church militant, the distances are so great, there is such a lack of immediate contact, and there are so many differences of national traits and cultures and backgrounds, so many divisive forces, that it is not easy for us to have the sense of achieving close social intercourse. The parish is, of course, the natural communal unit in the Mystical Body; but here also differences of backgrounds and occupations and many other things seem to put a limit upon the intimacy and intensity of the social relations. The family, too, has its drawbacks, such as the immaturity of the children, for ex-ample. But in the religious community all these limitations dis-appear; and perhaps we may be permitted to think that one of the principal reasons why God brought religious communities into ex-istence was to provide a state which would have the ideal condi-tions for living the communal life of the Blessed Trinity and of the Mystical Body with the fullest intensity with which it is pos-sible for man to live it here on earth. In the religious state ~ire found the most perfect conditions for reflecting the social life of God. Here everyth{ng is possessed in common, and what belongs to one belongs to all. Here the barriers, the divisive influences, and the differences in interests and o.~cupations so often found in the world disappear. All are inspired by the same common purpose; all are governed by the same religious rule; all are formed in the same spiritual life and .participate in the same spir~ BERNARD I. MULLAHY itual exercises. Here we should expect to find the fullest achievement of social life, the highest form of altruism, the most perfect self-lessness, the least degree' of spiritual introversion. Nowhere should social consciousness be more delicate and strong, more sensitive and refined. Here, as in the community life which is God, there should be a constant outpouring of light and love upon others; and, like a reflection of the members of that divine community, each religious should' be a kind of living relation to all the others. In a word, since the Christian life is essentially a social life and since the purpose of the religious state is to bring the Christian life to its full devel-opment, we should expect to find nowhere more than in a religious community the perfect answer to the prayer of Christ after the Last Supper: "That they all may be one even as thou, Father, in me and Iin thee; that they also may be one in us. I in them and thou in me; that they may be perfected in unity." That this ideal is not always fully realized hardly needs to be mentioned. Everyone knows that, even in the extremely favor-able conditions for social life provided by the religious state, social .maladjustments and social tensions can and do exist, that not in-frequently individualism and spiritual introversion are developed to a high degree. There are undoubtedly a good many reasons for this. But may not one of the principal reasons be, as we have already sug-gested, the tendency to stress the code of the religious state in iso-lation from the whole context of the Christian life? When the religious life is viewed principally in terms of asceticism and dis-ciplinary regulations, when more insistence is placed upon the moral virtues than upon the theological virtues, when the various practices which go to make up the spiritual program are viewed more as exer-cises of the spiritual athlete than as acts 0f divine worship, and when there is more insistence upon self-perfection than upon charity as the goal of the spiritual life, it is hardly to be wondered at if some religious succumb to the temptation to turn in upon themselves and to become spiritually introverted. And, when the official prayer life of the Church suffers at the hands of spiritual individualism and private devotions, when the liturgical life is not lived fully by the religious, and when his community life does not find i~s full and natural expression in the communal worship of the Mystical Body, it seems inevitable that the social implications of this community life will not be brought to fulfillment. Since the Christian life is essentially a social life, it is only natural that the official prayer lif~ of the Christian, the liturgy, 144 May, 1955 COMMUNITY LIFE should be essentially a social worship. And, if the purpose of the religious life is to. bring the Christian life to its ~perfection, are we not entitled to expect that, while each religious society will natur-ally want to insist on its own proper spirituality and spirit, the official social worship of the Church will also be brought to ful-fillment in it? May we not be permitted to suspect that one of the purposes God had in mind in raising up religious communities was to bring about the best conditions for communal worship? It seems incongruous and inconsistent to insist on community life without insisting on communal worship. Yet there are religious congregations which make much of community life in all its minute disciplinary details all the way. along the line (and not infrequently in an all too univocal way which confuses unity and uniformity) until it is a question of worship, and then individualism and sub-jectivism take over, at least to a large extent. We even find paradoxical situations in which private prayer is made public and public prayer private. Nothing could be more. personal and intimate than mental prayer. Yet it is not uncommon to find it turned into a kind of public exercise, with the same subject for meditation read out for the entire community the evening before, and all the same points read out in public during the meditation period the next morning. On the other hand, the greatest public act of worship, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, is often treated like a private devotion. It seems, therefore, that the community life of religious needs a rich doctrinal source in the dogma of the Church and a rich sacra-mental source in the liturgy of the Church. And, of course, the sun and center of the whole sacramental background of corhmunity life is the Eucharist. The Blessed Sacrament is the basic foundation for the common life because, as St. Thomas Aquinas points out, it contains substantially the common good of the whole Church. The community, life of a religious congregation will depend in lar, ge measure upon the way in which the Mass is understood and loved by the religious and upon the way it is participated in by the com-munity. In a very particular way, community life will depend upon the attitude of the religious towards Communion. In modern times there has been a very paradoxical attitude among Catholics. Some, re-alizing that Communion is not necessary to fulfill the obligation of hearing Mass on Sunday have come to look upon it as a purely external addition to the Mass. Others have made it the focal point 145 BERNARD I. MULLAHY Re~ieu] ~:or Religious of the whole Mass, as though the Mass were a Communion service rather than a Sacrifice. This latter attitude is the more common among religious. Comr~union viewed as an intimate personal union between the individual soul and Christ is made the center of at-tention; and, with the notion ~of sacrifice pushed far into the back-ground, the part of the Mass which precedes Communion is spent in a personal preparation for the reception of Christ; and the part afterwards, in a personal thanksgiving. It has not been unknown for religious communities to receive Communion regularly every morning before Mass so that the religious might spend the entire Mass in making a private act of thanksgiving. Fortunately, this sort of thing is becoming more and more rare. Communion can play its proper role in our community life only when it is viewed in its proper relation to the whole Mass, and the Mass in turn is viewed in its proper relation to the whole liturgical life of the Church. Then Communion xvill be seen as a social, sacrificial banquet in which the members of the Mystical Body corporately share in the Sacrifice and by feeding upon the Victim make of themselves one corporate sacrifice with Him. As Thomas Aquinas and other theologians have insisted, Com-munion does not mean merely a personal, private union between the individual soul and Christ: it also means a union of the mem-bers of the Mystical Body. Its proper effect is not merely something personal and individual, but something social and communal. Its purpose is not simply to give spiritual nourishment to tl~e individual soul, but to strengthen and intensify and revivify the manifold social bonds by which the members of the Mystical Body are made .one in Christ. Communion is directly related to the Christian community as a community. And for the religious, Communion is directly related to living the community life. If, as day follows day, the Communion of the religious is not gradually bringing about greater and more .sensitive social consciousness, a fuller and more perfect participation in community life, a stronger and more delicate exercise of fraternal charity, a more mature forbearance of the faults and failings of others, a greater capacity to cope with the misunder-standings and tensions which tend to creep into even the best com-munities, and a more generous acceptance of the many trying crosses which the common life always involves, something is wrong. Dhily Communion sometimes goes on for years withotit mu~b evidence of that growth in sanctity which would normally be ex-pected from° such frequent and intimate:contact with the source 146 ,~la~, 1955 COMMUNITY LIFE of all sanctity. As we have suggested elsewhere,1 one of the chief reasons for this phenomenon might very well be a lack of proper appreciation of the direct and essential relation between Com-munion and community. Because of this relation, any failure to live community life in its fullness will be an obstacle" to the full effects of Communion in our lives. It is not uncommon to find members of communities who by certain standards are considered excellent religious, and yet who seem never to have realized the social implications of their religious vocation. They are faithful to their rule, but in a very legalistic way. They are meticulous about every disciplinary detail; they are generous and sometimes even heroic in the practice of asceticism; and they are obedient enough when any of the obligations of com-munity life are pointed out to them; yet, intent upon their own spiritual life, the goal of which they conceive to be their own personal perfection rather than charity, they live a very individu~l-istic and insulated life. They never seem to enter fully into com-munity life nor to have any spontaneous contribution to make to it. They are socially cold and unimaginative. Just as demanding With others as they are with themselves, they find it difficult to under-stand and to sympathize with certain weaknesses of their fellow religious. Their fraternal charity is a kind of practised, artificial thing, lacking in warmth and mellowness. They are without social sensitivity and find it hard to enter into the feelings of others, to anticipate their wants. They are not thoughtful: and, when others are in need of help or there is some kind of community project to be taken in hand, they are usually busy with other things. All this may very well be due, at least in large measure, to a failure to understand and appreciate the doctrinal and liturgical background of community life in general, and to a wrong attitude towards Holy Communion in particular. These religious have never been made to understand clearly the social implications of Communion and have habitually viewed it only as a personal experience, an exquisitely close and intimate contact between Christ and their soul. Communion is thus but a part of their whole spirit-ually introverted program. It was the social virtue of fraternal charity that Christ gave as the distinguishing mark of the Christian. And, if the purpose of the. religious life is to bring the Christian to his full stature, in plenitudinern Christi, this social virtue should surely shine forth 1 Cf. "The Common Good," Worship, XXVII, No. 7, 345. 147 BERNARD I. MULLAHY Review ~o~ Religious in religious in all its splendor. This is the whole meaning and pur-pose of their community life. .In a sense, community life makes fraternal charity more difficult.because close living together seems to accentuate the many faults and failings of human nature which are often so hard to put up with; but at the same time it provides the most perfect conditions for living fraternal charity in its fullest dimensions. Religious are often anxious, especially at the time of retreats, to find some norm whereby they may assess their spiritual growth. The measurement of spiritual progress is a very complex and an easily deceptive thing, and it is difficult to find a reliable norm to go by. But insofar as there is any reliable standard at all, it is surely the social virtue of fraternal charity. "By this will all men know that you are my disciples." And it is principally in terms of their social life that religious will be judged at the end. "In the eventide of life," says 3ohn of the Cross, ."they will examine thee in love"; and he is merely paraphrasing Christ's own description of the last judgment in which everything is made to depend upon social life: "I was hungry and you gave me to eat." Rooting the idea of community in its proper doctrinal and liturgical sources will help to avoid some of the misconceptions and excesses which not infrequently accompany the common life. One of the most ordinary of these is the confusion between unity and uniformity. The common life is viewed all too often in a perfectly univocal way and any lack of uniformity even in the smallest de-tails is considered a breach of unit~. There results a kind of lock-step existence; short shrift is made of personal initiative and re-sourcefulness, "and the religious "with ideas" becomes suspect. Even in minutiae the religio~s are expected to do only what their elders have done and are doing, and woe to the one who suggests that there might be a better way. Regulations multiply and accumulate in an attempt to organize the life of the religious down to the slight-est detail. Customs which .once made sense because of special cir-cumstances of time or place but which have long since lost their significance and propriety are held 'as sacred and inviolable. The accumulated weight of regulations and customs crushes and stifles' "the liberty of the children of God" which the religious came to the community to find. Community life becomes top-heavy: all initiative comes from the top; local superiors must get directives from higher superiors even in relatively trivial matters; and within the local house all new ideas, if they are to have any value, must orig- 148 Magl, 1955 COMMUNITY LIFE inate with the superior. Such a program is well calculated to pro-duce a standard product, a religious whose.chief characteristics are neutrality, passivity, and automatism. This description is undoubtedly sbmething of a caricature, but does it not point up a real problem? And is not the only adequate solution that broad and, beautiful vision of the corporateness of. the Mystical Body and of the liturgical life of the Church? Here is the closest and most intimate unity, but at the .same time the greatest variety and flexibility. Here is a structure that is not me-chanical and rigid, but organic and supple. Another difficulty in connection with community life is that it often tends to cut the religious off from participation in a broader communal life and thus, paradoxically, to create a kind of com-munity individualism. To what extent non-cloistered religious can and sbould participate in'the communal Christian life of the parish in which they are stationed is a. question that is too complex and too delicate to be treated here; but it is a question which sbotild be faced. For the most part, the community life of the religious cuts them off and isolates them from corporate parochial life, and perhaps it would not be im13ossible.to find ways and means of enabling them .to partidpate, to some extent at least, in the com-munal worship of the parish, which is, after all, the natural social unit of the Mystical Body. The paradox of community" individualism is also found fre-quently in an exaggerated esprit de corps which develops a kind of sectarian spirit among religious. It is perfectly in order for a re-ligious to be proud of the traditions and the accomplishments of his own congregation and to prefer its characteristic life and spirit to that of any other community. All that is part and parcel of his vocation to that particular sodiety. And there is such a thing as a holy rivalry between communities. But it is also possible for a com-munity spirit to become excessive, to canonize too easily the tra-ditions and methods proper to the congregation, to develop a false pride which in many subtle and implicit ways looks down upon other communities and which closeq the congregation in upon itself and makes it impervious to good influences which might come to it from others. Here, as elsewhere the only remedy is that total view of the communal life of the Church found in its doctrine and its .liturgy. St. Augustine's dream of the reign of Christ's love upon earth which prompted him to say, "And there will be one Christ loving 149 c. A HERBST Review For Religious Himself," should find its fullest realization in the community life of religious. Christ is living in each religious; and, when the com-munity is bound together in fraternal charity, there is but one Christ loving Himself. No one can sing the hymn "Ubf Caritas'" with greater truth and meaning than the religious. "Congregat2it nos in unum Christi amor.--It is the love oL-Christ that has brought us together and made us one." The. Third Mode of blumili :y C. A. Herbst, S.3. EACH master of the spiritual life has certain ideals whic.h are distinctive and which he considers of the utmost importance ~n his plan for achievirig perfection. For St. Ignatius of Loyola, the Third Mode of Humility is one of these. He thus pre-sents it in the Spiritual Exercises: "The third is most perfect hu-mility; namely, when--including the first and second, and the praise and glory of the Divine Majesty being equal--in order to imitate and be more actually like Christ our Lord, I want and choose poverty with Christ poor rather than riches, opprobrium with Christ replete with it rather than honors; and to desire to be rated, as worthless and a fool for Christ, Who first was held as such, rather than wise or prudent in this world." In order right in the beginning to get a better understanding of this, it will be well to present a fuller expression he gives in another place. "They must diligently observe, esteeming it of great import-ance and of the highest moment in the sight of our Creator and Lord, how much it helps and contributes to progress in spiritual life, to abhor wholly and not in part what the world loves and embraces, and to accept and desire with their whole strength what-soever Christ our Lord loved and embraced. For as worldly men, who follow the things of the world, love and with great diligence seek honors, reputation and the credit of a great name upon earth, as the world teaches them, so those who are advancing in spirit and seriously follo'w 'Christ our Lord, love and earnestly desire things which are altogether the contrary; that is, to be clothed with the same garment and with the livery of their Lord for His love and reverence: insomuch that if it could be without offence of the 150 Ma~l, 1955 THE THIRD MODE OF HUMILITY divine Majesty and without sin on the part of their neighbor, they would wish to suffer reproaches, slanders and injuries, and to be treated and accounted as fools (without at the same time giving any occasion for it), because they desire to imitate and resemble in some sort their Creator and Lord Jesus Christ, and to be clothed with His garments and livery; since He clothed Himself with the same for our greater spiritual good, and gave us an example, that in all things, as far as by the assistance of God's grace we can, we may seek to imitate and follow Him, seeing He is the true way that leads men to life." (Examen Generale, IV, 4.) We should know what the other two modes .of humility are in order to understand the third. I have the first when I so subject myself to God that I am ready to give up everything, even life it-self, rather than commit a mortal sin. I have the second when I so subject myself to God that I am indifferent to created things and am ready to give up everything, even life itself, rather than commit a venial sin. Subjection to God is the note common to the three; but the third is so different from the other two that there is a dis-tinction not of degree only, but of kind. The idea behind the third mode of humility is perfect imitation of Christ "Who, having joy set before him, endured the cross, de-spising the shame" (Heb. 12:2). We want to imitate Christ per-fectly. We want what He had, even, especially, the hard things. The early Christians ambitioned, and often attained, actual perse- ¯ cution and death. But, when peace came to the Church in the Ro-man Empire after 312 A. D., they could no longer look forvOard to martyrdom. What were the.y now to ambition as the apex of their spiritual ascent? Thence stemmed the doctrine of bloodless martyrdom in asceticism and the religious life. From this stream of spiritual development, the author of the Spiritual Exercises drew his ideal of self-renouncement for Christ. The driving force in fervent souls is to "get to Christ." We have a splendid example of this in St. Ignatius, martyr and apos-tolic father. His motto was: "My Love is crucified." When on his way to martyrdom he wrote: "I am now beginning to be a disciple; may nothing visible or invisible prevent me from reaching Jesus Christ. Fire and cross and battling with wild beasts, their clawing and tearing, the breaking of bones and mangling of mem-bers, the g~ind!ng of my whole body, the wicked torments of the devil--let 'them all assail me, so long as I get to Jesus Christ." (Ad Romanos~ 5; Father Walsh's translation.) "Ignatius of Loy- 151 C.A HERBST Review for Religious ola sensed, so to speak, his spiritual affinity with this man of the early Church when, in honor of this Saint, he changed his name from Inigo to Ignatius and in one of his letters styled him 'that glorious Saint for whom I have in Our Lord, or wish to have, a very special reverential devotion.' " (Rahner, The Spirituality of St. Ignatius Loyola, 59-60.) We might be inclined to think the third mode of humility as beyond our reach, as heroic. Is it heroic? Perhaps. Surely not in the sense explained by Pope Benedict XIV in his great work on the canonization of saints. But it may be heroic in a general and popularly accepted sense of the word. One who gives his life in a cause is commonly considered to be h~roic. A soldier must be ready tO die for his country. This is expected of every soldier. Yet, if he actually die, he is considered a hero. Sainted martyrs gave their lives rather than offer incense to false gods. In that they did only what they were obliged to do; yet they are considered God's heroes, heroic. At confirmation the bishop gives every Chris-tian a slight blow on the cheek to remind him that he must be ready to suffer anything, even death, for the sake of Christ. This sounds as though it is asking for heroism which, however, is pre-sumably within the reach of all. In the same way the heroism of the third mode of humility might reasonably be expected of those who are professionally travelling the high road of perfection. It almost looks as though a religious in making his profession has deliberately chosen as his way of life the third mode of humility. When he says, "I vow poverty," he says, "I want and choose pov-erty with Christ poor rather than riches." By taking a vow of chastity, he may be calling upon himself the disapproval of "worldly men, who follow the things of the world." By the vow of obedi-enc~ be is laying aside his own will by vcbicb be might push on to wealth, honor, and power. By pronouncing his vows, a re-ligious. has professionally taken on that foolishness of God which is wiser than men and that weakness of God which is stronger than men (I Cot. 1:25). He has/aid himself open "to be rated as worth-less and a fool for Christ, Who first was held as such, rather than wise or prudent in this world." ~The third mode of humility is a habit of mind, an habitual disposition of heart. A" striking act of self-abnegation now and then or even a spurt of fervor occasionally is not sufficient. It must become a way of life with us, a place in which we live. Father Considine puts it well in "A Question as to Ideals" when he says: 152 Mav, 1955 THE THIRD MODE OF HUMILITY "Within this region the Saints . . . have occupied sumptuous man-sions, in central and commanding positions, whereas the modest dwelling of any one of us may be no better than a poor cottage on the outskirts. But, poor as this dwelling may be, it must be within the border." (Woodstock Letters, 1908, 363.) Even of our miserable little hut on this high plateau we might say: "Better is one day in thy courts above thousands. I have chosen to be an abject in the house of my God, rather than to dwell in the taber-nacles of sinners" (Ps. 83:11). How I can come to live there is what should be of great con-cern to me. There is close approach to, or passive practice of, the third mode, if we make "acts of sincere th.ankfulness, as often as any little share of the cross falls to our portion. Even supposing that, on one occasion.or another, we have brought some humiliation on ourselves by our own imprudence, we may, while most heartily regretting the fault or error of judgment, no less heartily thank God that we have at least some opportunity of making up for the fault or error, through the patient endurance of discomfort or even (it may be) the contempt which it has brought on us." (Woodstock Letters, 1908, 372.) We need not search far to find ample matter for living this life with Christ, "despising the shame." "The life of a religious is full of occasions in which he is blamed, or forgotten, or scorned, or ridiculed, or humiliated . We must expect little humiliations that fall upon us at any time and in any place--in the form of failure, lack of consideration, disapproval and small acts of ingrati-tude; we must suffer the offense of angry words, words that hurt, words of ridicule; we must bear outright and thinly veiled refusals; our cross may consist in lack of approval, lack of sympathy, scorn or contempt expressed by a look, a gesture, an attitude, or in being left alone while another is made much of; we may be faced with open or hidden criticism which we surmise or discover by accident ¯ . . our meager talent, our character, our health, our appearance." (Vermeerscb, Miles Christi Jesu, 151, 154.) Thomas ~ Kempis says: "What pleaseth others shall prosper, what is pleasing to thee shall not succeed. What others say shall be harkened to; what thou sayest shall be reckoned as nought. Others shall ask and shall re-ceive; thou shalt ask, and not obtain, Others shall be great in the esteem of men; about thee nothing shall be said. To others this or that shall be committed, but thou shalt be accounted as of no use." (Imitation, III, 49, 4-5.) 153 C. A HERBST Reuiev3 for Religious I offer myself to our Lord for all these things. This m~y be .a general offering of futurables but they may be actuated at any mo-ment. Perhaps I am living with some of them right now. At any rate this offering shows a habitual disposition consonant with the third mode of humility, and there lies hidden in it not a little faith and love. When I am passed over or slighted or snubbed, I hope I may be able to bear it at least patiently. I make a great advance when I come to accept such things willingly and even with love for the love of Him who "loved me and delivered himself for me." Wl'ien I come to accept them with joy and even enthusiasm, glad that the Father has placed me with His Son, I 'have travelled far. This offering of myself for humbling things and the patient, loving, joyous acceptance of them should lead me to have the wish to have the desire for humiliations. "For though I burn not with so great desire as Thy specially devout servants, yet, by Why grace, I have a desire of this same greatly inflamed desire, praying and wishing that I may be made partaker with all such fervent lovers, and be numbered in their holy company." (Imitation, IV, 14, 3.) From the desire of the desire we ought, by God's grace, soon to pass on to "desire to be made little of, neglected, passed over, have little influence, even be regarded as suspect, be criticised, reproved, ridi-culed. We ought to have no desire for first place, for the higher offices . . . association with the more wealthy, the more aristocratic, or the leading men, no desire for the larger cities." (Coemans-Germ-ing, Commentartj, n. 251.) This, in a small way, is "to desire to be rated as worthless and a fool for Christ, Who first was held as such, rather than wise or prudent in this world." No motive but love is strong enough to carry one through to the attainment of so high an ideal. Without love even martyrdom of blood is to no purpose. "And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profit~th me nothing" (I Cor. 13:3). It is the same with bloodless martyrdom. And it must be a love of imitation and companionship. "With Me," Christ the King invites. "With Christ I am nailed to the Cross" (Gal. 2:19). "In what place soever thou shalt be, my lord, O king, either in death, or in life, there will thy servant be" (II Kings 15:21). Love always finds a way. I surpass desire when I am on the watch for opportunities and actually seek out occasions for practicing the third mode of hu-mility. There are always the humbler tasks to which no one pays 154 Ma~!, 1955 MARY AND JOSEPH FIND ,JESUS' any attention and to which are attached no praise or glory. Others will gladly let me have them. I can deliberately pass by positi6ns of influence and authority. I can accuse myself of my faults in a loud and clear voice. It may be more humbling dutifully to tell another his faults than to be told my own. The dependence ~ind humility implied in ~sking a permission, especially when I may be refused, is precious. It is sometimes all right deliberately to fail to show off my superior knowledge or ability. Letting others have the nicer place or things and allowing them to pass ahead of me is Christlike, too. In confession I can mention circumstances and motives connected with my faults that will be very humiliating. And so on. Love will find many other ways. This is the positive, aggressive, strong, earnest, eager, enthusiastic way "to be clothed with His garments and livery." Mary and ,Joseph Find ,Jesus Paul Dent, S.d. EVEN Mary and Joseph cannot find You when You choose to be hidden from them. But You mercifully choose to let them find You, too, lest I despair of ever seeing You face to face, 0 Jesus. Mary leaves Joseph for the women's court, thinking prayerfully, "Quam dilecta tabernacula tua, Domine. Concupiscit et del~cit anima roea in atriis tuis.'" A mother passes by, followed by her boy. How like Jesus he is! Mary looks around at her side to compare the two, and He is not there! Disappointed, she thinks immediately, "He must have stayed with Joseph this time. How fortunate Joseph is to have Jesus with him! How unworthy I am to have Jesus with me! With all my heart I want Jesus with me, but still I do not want Joseph to be without Him. I shall be patient and spend the day in loving hope of seeing Jesus at the end." Thus the day passes in loving hope, and it ends in disappointment. For Jesus is not with Joseph either, and now they both bare lost Him--neither of whom had ever lost Him before! But Mary loses no time in self-pity, much less in blaming Joseph. For quite simply Joseph would not be careless about Jesus. Mary realizes at once she is confronted with a deliberate act of God, a 155 PAUL DENT mystery she does not now understand but which God will make dear to her when He wills. Meanwhile they must go immediately to look for Jesus, calmly, hopefully, not frantically. They must go prayerfully, too. God guide their footsteps. Then there come three days, and perhaps nights, too, of looking for Jesus; and it is a search that is con[ident. For He knows of it and will reveal Himself to them when God wills. Mary and Joseph seek Jesus humbl: , too, realizing they are not worthy to find Him, much less to keep Him with them in their own home. They are persevering also in their search, for Jesus, for duty and love drive them on continuously. Duty obliges the world's best parents to give the world's best care to the world's best Child. The love driv-ing them on is that of creation's greatest lover--Mary Immaculate! --and that of her all but equal--glorious St. Joseph !--for Jesus Christ Himself, beloved Son of God. "'Nec lingua valet dicere, nec littera exprimere, expertus potest credere quid sit desum diligere." Or, as convert Father Caswall worded it, "Nor tongue nor pen can show the love of Jesus. What it is, none but His loved ones know." So Mary and Joseph, who have experienced more than others what it is to love Jesus, seek Him lovingly, so lovingly that all they think, choose, say, do, or suffer is just one thing--seeking Jesus lost. If all I think, choose, say, do, or suffer is just one thing, the one thing necessary--a seeking of Jesus lost or of Jesus never even heard of amid the dust and turmoil of the incalculable billions of thoughts, choices, words, actions, and sufferings of the innumerable billions of human beings of the past, present, and future--then truly I am in the company of Mary and Joseph; truly we three are seeking Jesus, and truly not only we three, but very many others whom we help, will find Jesus foreveL Then we shall all sing forever with new understanding and inexpressible joy "'quid sit desum diligece--what it be to love Jesus!" And those other words of this great and tender hymn of the Ages of Faith, this "'desu Dulcis Memoria," will resound forever as our arisen and immortal voices sing sweeter than earth's loveliest ~ing-ing, "Quocumque loco fuero JESUM MECUM DESIDERO! Quam laetus cure int;enero! QUAM FELIX CUM TENUERO~.--In whatsoever place I be, Jesus, I want You there with me. When You I find, how happy I! How blessed when I have You by!" 156 THE APOSTOLATE OF CHASTITY. By Ferdinand Valentine, .O.P. P ). 245. The Newman Press,.Westm~nster, Maryland, 1954. $3.25. ; The vow of chastity is a subject which comes in for much dis-cussion in modern ascetical literature. This interest may be con-trasted with an attitude which prevailed in days gone by that the vow of chastity needed no explanation. The need for an explana-tion of the vow of chastity may differ from age to age and place to place; but there is no doubt, I believe, that religious may profit from a thorough and competent treatment of chastity such as Father Valentine offers. The A)ostolat'e of Chastit~l is both broader and narrower in scope than its ~itle would indicate. It is narrower in that it treats only of the apostolate of religious women. It is broader in its con-cern with other aspects of this vocation. The first chapter, for in-stance, deals with the problem of prcJmoting vocations. Superiors will find some very prudent suggestions concerning the pr.oper at-titude to be taken .toward vocations. The second chapter then deals with some problems of psychological fitness. The rest of the first section goes on to discuss the problerfi of religious adaptation tO modern times. The author dbes not take .up the problem 'of chastity proper until the beginning of the second s.ection of the book. He intro-duces this section with a catechetical treatment of the vow and" virtue of chastity,; and then goes on to what appear~ .tO be the heart of the book--a treatment of the apostolic aspqct. "9.f .chastity. The theme of this section ,would seem to be' that 't.,h~ ~orfian will find in virginal chastity "not an asceticism which rFstrains and represses her natural gifts as woman and mother, but rat~er'.their spiritual elevation and fulfillment . " This is certainly a healthy and a positiye attitu,d,e toward chas-tity, and one which it would be well for religious .women to .under-stand clearly. But there is a tendency among.modi~rn authors to justify virginity by try!.ng to make it look as much like ma~rri.age as possible. There is certainly room for analogy" between perpetual chastity and marital chastity, but there is also a danger to be re.ck-oned with. perpetual chastity, from whatever angle you .yiew it, 157 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Religious involves the renunciation of marriage and haarital privileges. There is a certain negative.aspect of religious chastity, then, which cannot be overlooked, and which it would be foolhardy to ignore. There are forces for which the religious life offers no outlet whether direct or by ways of so-called sublimation. Herein lies the sacrifice of the religious. So, while one must condemn the morbid fear of sex and sin which cripples the apostolate of some religious, one must leave room for a healthy fear. This fear will be based on a clear under-standing of the religious renunciation and the difficulty of controll-ing the forces thus held in check. Such fear, far from doing damage, will protect religious chastity and set a safe limit to the love that may be practised in religion. I believe that the author was aware of all this, but it may be that he thought it beyond the scope of his work to stress it. But religious women will find the book inspiring and stimulating, though at times difficult .reading.-~JOHN R.CONNERY, S.J. FATIMA IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY. By Costa Brochado. Translated and edited by George Boehrer. Pp. 231. The Bruce Publishing Com-pany, Milwaukee, 1954. $4.50. With rare common sense the author of this latest book on the apparitions of Our Lady at Fatima has limited himself to historical analysis, and left supernatural elements to the competence of trained theologians. The translation is lucid and forceful and makes intensely interesting the somewhat tedious chronicle of Portugese history. With inspiring results, the unconquerable Catholic heritage of the country is traced th, rough centuries of political and religious up-heaval. The tragic, yet factual and objective, narration of the havoc initiated by the Marquis of Pombal, and forwarded by the anti-religious iddals of Masonry, reveals a tremendous need for the spir-itual revitalization of Portugal which providentially succeeded the apparitions of Our Lady of the Rosary. Pombal, Mr. Brochado as-serts, was ultimately responsible for shatteiing the religious unity of the country. By such planned offensives as the banishment of the Sbciety of Jesus, severance of relations with the Holy Se~, and open-ing the country to the destructive forces of Protestantism and Latin Masonry, Pombal made it possible for the Triangle to supplant the Cross in Portugal. Assaults on Churches, exile of prelates, state control of religion, secularization of schools, profanations, robber-ies, arson, murder--this is the pitiful picture of the country as it agonized and labored to preserve its Faith against the .enemies of 158 Mag, 1955 BOOK REVIEWS God and all things Catholic. And yet, the influence of the Blessed Virgin was never absent. Two centuries before the definition of the dogma, Portugal had consecrated herself to the Immaculate Conception and had taken a solemn oath to defend and propagate belief in Mary's perpetual sinlessness. Furthermore, the rosary had been for centuries the lead-ing Marian devotion of the portugese people, culminating in a ver-itable "crusade of the Rosary". in the midst of,frightful persecutions immediately preceding the apparitions of 1917. Portugal had not abandoned her patroness in the hour of trial, and our Lady did not forget her heroic fidelity. Since the events of Fatima, the Church's enemies have suffered great defeats in Portugal. The rapid revival of faith and hope in the hearts of the Portugese people is perhaps the surest sign that the Virgin has again triumphed by crushing the head of the serpent. .The reader of this book may feel, however, that Mr. Brochado has taken too local a view of the significance of Fatima. Despite his purpose, as stated in tbe translator's preface, " to "place those events [the apparitions] in their historical setting and to consider their efl:ects on subsequent bistor~l,'" (italics mine) Mr. Brochado barely hints at any world implications. He deliberately avoids all reference to subsequent developments, such as the state-ments of Lucia which involve our Lady's desire for devotion to her Immaculate Heart, the First Saturdays, the conversion of Rus-sia, or the vision of hell with its threat to sinners the world over. Are these developments sufficiently historical to merit mention? The question is admittedly disputed. But inthis reviewer's opinion, the Holy Father's consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart in 1942 and of Russia in 1952 has far-reaching repercussions, at least implicitly connected with the events of Fatima, which should not be ignored. It is noteworthy that Manoel Cardozo, in his pref-ace to Mr. Brochado's book, also seems to have sensed this lack of perspective: "Fortunately for us, Our Lady did not appear for the exclusive benefit of the Portugese (though they were favored above all others)."--VINCENT J. FORDE, S.J. SO SHORT A DAY. By Sisfer M. Eulalia Teresa, S.N.J.M. Pp. 281. Mc- Mullen Books, Inc., New York, 1954. $3.00. This book is the story of Mother Marie-Rose, the foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary. Into the texture of this biography is woven the. inseparable 159 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Reuiew for Religious story of the beginnings of the congregation of Mother Marie-Rose and-i~s first.establishment at Longueuil, Quebec. It has been said that the most objective history, and consequently the best, is written by an author who is indifferent to his subject. Obviously, Sister M. Eulalia Teresa is not indifferent to the.subject of her book. (we would be disappointed if she were) ; and it is al-most as obvious that in places she lets her heart supply for his-" torical documentation. This, it seems, is the chief temptation of hagiographers. It must be said, however, that an indifferent author could not have caught the spirit of this foundress, could not have made it come alive as the author does. If the picture is overpainted in places, it is withal a vivid and inspiring picture. If ~he book is slow to take the reader's interest, it could well be due to the character portrayal and absence of conflict in the firs~ sections. The characters, are almost all painted in the same bright superlatives, and the st6ry lags for want of that conflict, internal or external, from which great souls emerge. Patience on the reader's part in waiting for character portrayal of deeper colors and better perspective is well rewarded. There is a new and welcome candor in the descriptions of the young pioneer sisters whom God called to the congregation of Mother Marie-Ros~ in its early days. Neither can it be said that the second part of the book is v~ithout conflict and the impact of drama:" The trials and persecutions to which the nascent coflgregation was subjected and the vibrant faith by which they were met are the heart of a ver~ real drama. So Short a Day makes this drama, enacted over a hundred years. ago, come back to life. The accomplishment of making history live again, of capturirig the pioneer spirit of this congregation and its saintly foundress is to be highly praised. Mother Marie-Rose died on her thirty-eighth, birthday, only six years after her congregation had been born. To:day her spirit. lives on in the 3,725 professed religious of her congregation and the 252 schools which her sisters direct. So short~ a day, so great a legacy.--JOHN POWELL, S.J. BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS BEAUCHESNE ET SES FILS, 117 Rue de Rennes, Paris. Initiation a. l'Oraison. Par Piere Brunet. His long experience BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS as ' professor at ,the seminary at Nancy has convince~l the author that most books on prayer do not meet the particular .problems,of seminarians fihd the secular clergy since they are written by and for religious. This book embodies his efforts to remedy that situation. Secular priests should find the book particularly helpful since it is written by one who knows their needs and problems. Pp. 326. THE BRUCE PUBLISHING COMPANY, Milwaukee 1, Wisconsin. The Catholic Church and You. By William 3. Grace, S.d. 7Fhe Inquiry Forum at the 3esuit Church in Milwauk'ee, begun in 1945, has attained something of an international reputation for the large mea

Issue 8.2 of the Review for Religious, 1949. ; A,M, D.G;. ~ Review for Religious MAR~H 15, 1949 Beginning Men÷al Prayer . Franc;s P. LeBuffe Nearness of God . : Pafr~ck F. Murray Confidence in God . Edward J. Carney Penitential Insfrumen÷s . Winfrld Herbsf The Hundredfold . Edward Sfanfon Prudence . Albed" Munfsch Adapfafion " J. Cre~sen Book Reviews Communications Questions Answered VOLUME VIII NUMBER 2 .,~ RI::VIi::W FOR RI::LI IOUS VOLUME VIII MARCH, 1949 NUMBER CONTENTS BEGINNING BEGINNERS IN MENTAL PRAYER-- Francis P. LeBuffe, S.J . 57 COMMUNICATIONS . 61 FOR YOUR INFORMATION . 62 THE NEARNESS OF GOD--Patrick F. Murray, S.J . 63 CONFIDENCE IN GOD--Edward d. Carney., O.S.F.S . 70 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 72 RE: PENITENTIAL INSTRUMENTS --- Winfrid Herbst, S.D.S. 73 CANONICAL LEGISLATION CONCERNING RELIGIOUS . 79 ~FHE HUNDREDFOLD---Edward Stanton, S.J . 80 PRUDENCE--A NECESSARY VIRTUE--Albert Muntsch, S.J. 82 ADAPTATION~J.Creusen, S.J . 86 BOOK REVIEWS-- The Lord's Sermon on the Mount;' You Can Change the World . . 96 BOOK NOTICES . 99 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS . 101 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 8. Shortening Canonical Year of Novitiate . 105 9. Postulant Cannot Take Vows on Deathbed . 106 10. Novice under Tw.enty-one Makes Will . , . 107 11. Supplyirig Absence from Meditation . 107 12. Typewritten Annals . 108 13. Use of Cuttings from Altar Breads . 108 14. Published Lists of Apostolic Indulgences . 108 15. Indulgences: for Rosary before Blessed Sacrament; for Renewal of Vows after Holy Communion . 108 16". Negro Candidates for Sisterhoods . 109 17. Trappistine Convent in the United States . 110 REPRINT SERIES . 112 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, March, 1949. Vol. VIII, No. 2. Published bi-, monthly: January, March, May, July, September and November at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary's Co!lege, St. Mary's, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter January 15, 1942, at the Post Of~ce, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis,'S.J., G. Augustine Ellard, S.J., Gerald Kelly, S.J. Editorial Secretary: Alfred F. Schneider, S.J. Copyright, 1949, by Adam C. Ellis.Permission is hereby granted for quotations of reasonable length, provided due credit be gi~;en this review and the author. Subscription price: 2 dollars a year. Printed in U. S. A. Before writln~j to us. please consult notice on inside" back cover. Beginning Beginners in/V en!:al Prayer Francis P. LeBuffe, S.J. MANY of our Sisters, Brothers, and priests know little about" mental prayer, and the majority of them find it difficult. These are facts, and we would do well to face them. It has long been a settled conviction with me that the major cause of thi~ situation is that they have been started off wrongly. This conviction is based on personal observation and on the experience of others, and not on armchair thinking, though I think we might arrive at the same conclusion by that method also. During my thirty-three years of priesthood I have had more or less continual opportunities to know the Sisters and their ways of spiritual living, and have enjoyed the confidencesof many in low and high positions. Moreover for sixteen years it has been my privilege to give a six-hour course .of lectures on mental prayer in the Summer School of Catholic Action. This is a completely elementary course, presup-posing no knowledge of mental prayer and outlining only the bare essentials. Yet time and again trained religious and deeplyspiritually-minded priests have commented on the help they. have gained from it. I always remember the remark of a solidly trained religious, a mem-ber of one of our finest Sisterhoods: "Father, this is the first time I ever knew what it was all about." What a tragedy back of that remark ! I think the major mistakes are that we begin beginners with too long a period of mental prayer, and, secondly, we do not give them adequate or proper instruction about mental prayer before they begin. Let me first discuss the" amount of mental prayer expected of beginners in the postulancy, novitiate, or seminary. Frequently they are asked to begin with a half-hour or even a full hour. It would seem that either is far too long. Why? Because they know little about the principles of religious or seminary life, and not much more than generalities about the life of Our Lord. Being thus ignorant, how can they develop these thoughts and make reasonable application to themselves? Even on the "affective" side, their emo-tions and acts of the will have not solid enough ground on which to be based. i am always reminded of a certain Brother-postulant who had 57 FRANCIsP. LEBUFFE Reoieta for Religious been one of the last pony-express riders of the Rockies. "Points" on th~ Hidden Life had been given the night before by a priest, and the next morning Brother John put in his full hour of meditation. Later on in the day, however, he buttonholed a Brother novice: "Say, let me ask you a question. Father told us last night to ask ourselves three questions in meditation. I remembered the questions and so I asked myself. 'Who done it?' I knew the answer: 'The Lord.' 'What did He do?' I knew that answer too: 'He did carpenter, work.' 'How did He do it?' Well, anybody would know that being the Lord He done it superfine. That took me two minutes. Say what did you guys do with the other 58 minutes?" In mental prayer, we "chew the cud"--I am talking now of dis-cursive prayer, where most beginners begin--and the "cud" to be chewed is our knowledge of things spiritual. Let's face facts and realize that beginners have little or no "cud" to chew--and it is pre-cisely for that reason they are beginners. They are quite in the same position for spiritual meditation as most of us are for a meditation on atom fission. Like Brother John if I w~re to meditate on the atomic bomb, I'd ask myself "What does it mean?" Answer: "Splitting the atom." Period. Because of this, it would seem wise to start" beginners off with the easiest form of mental prayer: meditative reading. Father Lind-worsky, S.J., in his Ps~jcbolog~ of Asceticism, characterizes it as a much-neglected way of .meditating. The advantage of beginning with this simplest form is that it provides the beginner with continuous food for thought; or, to change the metaphor, it provides a continuing anchor for his thinking. From meditative reading the beginner could pass on to that age-. old form of meditation wherein we take each word or phrase of a prayer and try to dig out and spread out the thought that lies hidden therein. Thus we can take the Our Father, meditating on the word "father" and all that it implies, and then checking our findings with all these qualities we find in God. Next, the word "our" with' all "its implications of universal brotherhood. All the while, of course, we warm our hearts and intersperse our thinking with the affective prayer of will and emotions. Of course it is highly advisable to have beginners meditate as soon as possible on the life of Our Lord, for that is truly "the customary food of a devout soul." But here again we must fit the meditation to the one meditating. Most Catholics who have had a Catholic 58 March, 1949 BEGINNING IN MENTAL PRAYER education, can meditate profitably for at least a few minutes on Bethlehem, the Shepherds, the Magi, the Agony in the Garden, the Crucifixion, and so forth. But once they get away from the big, well-known my'steries, their minds are either a completely blank page ¯ or they indulge in specfilations which may be entirely awry or at variance with the true doctrine enshrouded in the mystery. We don't ask high school students to write college essays, and we don't ask college students to write doctorate dissertations. Why then ask of beginners in the spiritual life what can reasonably be expected only of maturer religious? We are not, of course, discounting the workings of grace whereby God can and does freely grant a real gift of prayer to one yet unschooledin asceticism. Nor are we demanding a deal of learned knowledge for meditatiton. Our contention is simply this, that barring an unusual grace from God it is bard to amplify a thought if one hasn't got a thought. The lack of proper instruction preparatory to all attempt at meditation is, as I see it, the second'cause of the deplorable mental-prayer condition among religious and priests. If we begin with the simpler forms of mental prayer, no lengthy instruction is needed. The best way to instruct is to make the medi- ¯ ration out loud with the beginners. Many rules are quite unneces-sary. The instructor meditates aloud with them, always using the personal pronoun "I" and meditating as though he were a postulant, novice, or seminarian himself. This gives "audience identifica-tion" and soon his voice becomes their own audible thinking. ~/Thus Ican beginwithten minutes meditativereading. I read sentence, think it over aloud. Read another sentence and think it over aloud, frequently chatting it out with Our Lord in my own simple way and telling Him exactly how I feel about it. Utter simplicity should be stressed. Time and again I have bad students in the mental prayer classes tell of their suprise and comfortwhen they realized for the first time that they could talk with God exactly as they felt, no matter what their mood, and exactly as they would with mother, father, or any human friend. It makes one wonder whether we have not overformalized our praying and constructed too compli-cated. a machinery for our approach to God. Prayer is truly "rever-ent intimacy with God." I am afraid we have been stressing the "reverent" rather than the "intimacy." That may have been well enough in Old Testament times amid the thunders and lightnings of 59 FRANCIS P. LEBUFFE Revieu., for Rel[qious Sinai, but it does not quite fit in with the called-for approach to the Babe of Bethlehem or the Man of Sorrows. Again, as to the amount of time, it would seem to be wiser to begin with not more than ten minutes a day for at least the first two weeks or longer. Thereafter increase to fifteen minutes a day for another two weeks (or longer). Remember mental prayer is like olives: one must develop a taste and relish for it. In the courses on mental prayer I have always restricted the time of each little medita-tion to three or four minutes. Thus young people are not bored and they find out practically that something worth while can be done in even a few minutes. Only recently I talked on mental prayer to the sodalists of the School of Business Administration of Fordham Uni-versity. I bad time to make only three three-minute meditations with them. The sodallsts were motionless: one could have heard a pin drop. At the end the prefect, a young man, in closing the meeting said: "I never knew prayer could be so warm and natural." Years ago in Chicago at.a S.S,C.A. a U.S. sailor said to me: "Father, this mental prayer is wonderful. It is as refreshing as a glass of cold water from a spring!" The sad result of a bad start in meditat, ing either from an over-dose or lack of proper preliminary instruction is a complete floun-dering in a vacuum of thoughtlessness. And the sadder result is that having made a bad start afloundering, the religious or priest con-tinues for a long time to flounder in a vacuity. It might be well to add two further remarks. The way, of course,, to remedy the beginner's lack of spiritual knowledge is to give him heavy doses of spiritual reading, using only time-tested masters in the spiritual life and lives of Christ which are thoroughly authentic, such as for example, Maas, Fouard, Mescbler,-Le Camus. Fluffy-ruffle spiritual books should find no room on the library shelves of novitiates and seminaries. Spiritually well-read and hence well-fed religious and seminarians will soon have an ample "cud" whereon to chew. Another thing is.to remember that we Americans find thinking difficult. Give us something to do and we are happy. Ask us to remain qui~t and think--well, we soon get restless or go to sleep. (That native trait may be a far deeper cause of our poverty in mental prayer, than the more evident ones I have mentioned.) When thinking of some of our meditations and meditators, I am reminded of the story told by Father William Stanton, S.J. While giving a 6O March, 1949 COMMUNICATIONS mission in a village, he went down to the country store and started chatting with the "regulars" sitting akound the store stove. "What do you men do all day? . Well, Parson, sometimes we sets and thinks, and sometimes we only sets." Wouldn't that label truly many of our meditations? Can't we remedy it? Communica!:ions Reverend Fathers : It occurred to me as I read in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS the discus-sions about worldliness in religious communities that a convent is the best place on earth in which to make a study of unworldliness. From the moment the rising bell rings at the unworldly hour of five in all kinds of weather until taps at ten at night the Sisters have been "on. call." Look at the day's agenda: morning meditation, Holy Mass, breakfast in silence, teaching or nursing duties until lunch time and again until afternoon prayer and spiritual reading, supper in silence, a short recreation period in a common room, study, night prayer-- everything on schedule for nine months of the year. Into the summer vacation are crowded an eight-day retreat, six weeks of summer school either as teachers or students, or teaching a vacation school in a rural district preparing children for first Com-munion and confirmation. This is the routine followed by Sisters who live in colleges, academies, hospitals, parochial school residences, orphan homes. Wherever the Sister's assignment is, her day is a long one and entirely out of harmony with the 44-hour week of women in the world. Sisters haven't time to be worldly. They surely are not worldly in their attire. Their uniforms were not designed for either b~auty or comfort. They are not usually known by their worldly names. The names they are known by are often not their choice, and many times they are not euphonious. They do riot attend worldly amusements. They probably see during the course of the year five or six carefully selected movies in their college or academy hall. Their convent parties are strictly exclusive and unworldly. Now all this does not go to prove that Sisters are ready-made saints. They are human; and it is amazing how, living the common life, each one retains her own individuality through all the years allotted to her. It is my firm conviction that the number of worldly Sisters in any community is a small minority. The rank and file of all Sisters are carrying the sweet yoke of Christ bravely and sweetly.~A SISTER (Golden Jubilarian) 61 Your lnr orrnaUon Reprint Series The last page (112) of the present number carries a definite an-nouncement of the reprint series that was suggested tentatively in No-vember, 1948. We delayed in making this announcement ii~ the hope. that we might find a distributor for the booklets, as we are not equipped for that kind of work. Up to this time, however, we have been unsuccessful in our quest for a satisfactory distributing plan; hence we will do the best we can. Because of our lack of facilities, xve must insist that those who order booklets carefully observe the direc-tions outlined on page 11 Please note the differences between the reprints now available and those listed as tentative in November. Number 2 on that list was made up of articles on the novitiate. Requests for those articles were not sufficient to warrant our reprinting them; in their place we are reprinting the articles on Gifts to Religious by Father Ellis. Number 3 on the tentative llst was to consist of four articles by Father Kelly (two on emotional maturity, and two on the particular friendship). As two of these articles are comparatively short, we have decided to add a fifth article (on Vocational Counseling). This first edition of the reprints is merely an experiment. We are printing only a limited number; and we do not intend to print more unless it becomes quite evident that the project is really worth while. If you wish copies, it would be well to send your order immediately. Summer Sessions . The Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi will conduct a six weeks' sum-mer session, under the auspices of the Cardinal Stritch College, Mil-waukee, for Sisters who are interested in. the care and education of mentally handicapped children. Enrollment limited. Apply to: The Psychological Instiiute, St. Coletta School for Exceptional Chil-dren, Jefferson, Wisconsin. Immaculate Heart College, Los Angeles, California, offers the following special summer features: Reading Clinic for Elementary Teachers; Workshop in High School Administration; Series of Courses on St. Thomas Aquinas; Audio Visual Education; Cerema-ics; The Great Books Program; All-day Conference for Teachers of [Continued on 13. II1] 62 The Nearness of God Patrick F. Murray, S.3. iN OUR DAILY religious life, with its care and duties as well as its monotony, it is so easy to lose sight of the grand purpose of our consecrated lives. We know that deep down within our souls there is a quiet and profound love for Our Lord that has ever been, and still is, the motivating power that keeps us going from day to day. "I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me," as St Paul has expressed it; or again, "The charity of Christ drives us on." But amid the din and confusion a'nd cares that every day brings with it, it is quite easy to become entangled with so many visible duties that they gradually tend to obscure the silent flame of love within our hearts. They would extinguish it altogether if we did .not keep it alive with unrelenting effort in prayer. Constant prayer is the only fuel that can make it burn brightly so that it in turn will continue to motivate our actions in God's service. Great Appeal of Sensible Things The great appeal of things visible is something that everyone who would lead a spiritual life must struggle against constantly. We know that we love Our I, ord. We are eager to work to prove our love, because love proves itself in deeds, But we are so very much creatures of sense. It is so easily possible tolose our clear vision and to become so interested in the work we are doing to prove our love, that soon we come to find ourselves working because we have come to love the task given us rather than because we love our Divine Master. Before we know it, we are seeking praise and honor for our work instead of seeking tl~e praise and the honor of His Divine Majesty, as we started out to do. Our motivation has changed and our super-natural vision has dimmed by constant contact with the visible things around us. With God's gtrace and with constant effort we have to recall painfully that we are not working for a corruptible crown nor for a visible reward; but we are striving for an incorruptible crown from the loving hands of a still invisible Master. Highlg Recommended Practice lOne of the most highly recommended ways of keeping ourselves 63 PATRICK F. MURRAY Re~;iew for Religious on the path of perfection and of keeping our intention pure in God's service is to cultivate the habit of consciously living and working in His divine presence. He is present anyway, whether we think of Him or not; but it will help so very much if we can come to realize His nearness, for "in Him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28). There is no point of our spiritual life more important; there is no easier means of personal sanctification : no means that can be more efficacious; no supernatural truth more fruitful in its results than an abiding and vitalizing sense of His divine nearness. Reward of Angels and Practice of Saints The angels in heaven are very fortunate. They stood up under .trial when the rebel angels fell. Now, while Lucifer and his followers burn for all eternity, the faithful angels possess what we are trying attain--the happiness of being with God forever. The saints are there too; and because they stood up under this trial which we call life, they share the bliss of the angels. The happiness of both the angels and saints in heaven consists in actuallyseeing and enjoying the infinite beauty of God in all the splendor of His divine majesty. Our Lord speaking of the angels said, "Their angels see the face of my Father in heaven" (Matt. 18:10). Among the saints of the Old Testament, a common manner of speaking was ever: "A~ the Lord liveth, in whose presence I stand" (III Kings 17:1). This practice was habitual with them as well as with the saints of the New Law. As David put it: "I kept the Lord ever before my eyes, because He is ever at my right hand, that I may not slip" (Ps. 15:8). Our Reward Also God created us so that someday we might come to stand eternally before Him in heaven and enjoy the sight of Him for all eternity. In this life He would have us attain to some kind of resemblance of that eternal happiness. This we can do by consciously walking in His presence, even though as in the twilight rather than in the full bright-ness of the eternal day. "Now I see as in a glass, in a dark manner; then we shall see Him face to face" (I Cot. 13:12). The. clear vision is the reward, the glory, the happiness that we hope for now. Walking in a spirit of faith in His presence, even though as "in a glass in a dark manner," is one of our best guarantees that we shall eventually come to see Him "face to face." Where Is God? The first wrong idea that we must rid ourselves of is that God is 64 March, 19 4 9 THE NEARNESS OF GOD somewhere away up in the heavens beyond the farthest star; or tha~ He is in some unattainable place that we cannot begin to approach in this life; that He is inaccessible. Of all the beings in existence, God is the easiest to contact. He is right here where you are this very moment, and at the same time He is in every conceivable place in the whole vast range of creation. He fills the whole world. "Do I not fill heaven and earth" (Jer. 23:24) ? He is whole in the world, and whole in every part of the world, no matter how large or how small. He is outside us, within us, all about us. We are living in God; not as part of Him (that would beto fall into the error of pantheism), .but as St. Paul tells us: "He is not far from each of us, since in Him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:27-28). The classic expression of this magnificent truth is David's: "Whither shall I go from Thy spirit; or whithe? shall I flee from Thy face? If I ascend into heaven Thou art there; if I descend into hell Thou art present. If I take wings early in the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there shall thy hand guide me, and thy right hand sustain me. Perhaps darkness shall cover me . But darkness shall not be dark to Thee, and night shall be as light as day." (Ps. 138:7-12.) God is more intimately present to us than we are to ourselves. He is the source of all life; the basic strength of all power; the source of all being and all existence. If it were not" for His omnipotence sus-taining us and every other creature, we would all fall back into the nothingness from which we were made. We are sustained by God, surrounded by God, encompassed by God. Some Comparisons The whole world is full of His presence. St. Augustine tries to give us some idea of what'this means by the illustration of a sponge in the midst of the ocean. It is surrounded by water; soaked with ¯ water, inside and out. But this comparison falls short of the manner in which God is present to us, because the sponge may sink to the bot-tom or be washed ashore; but we can never, in any way, get out of the presence of God. He is immense and infinite as well as omni-present. He is a pure spirit and penetrates us through and through-- something like light filling every particle of a crystal ball; or like an iron bar that has been thrust into the fire and heated to such a degree that it is almost impossible to differentiate the fire from the heated bar. It is white hot and looks more like a bar of fire than a bar of 65 PATRICK F. MURRAY Review [or Religious iron. But God is still more present within us, and to every one of His creatures. Sucb comparisons merely serve to give us some faint idea of the rehlity. God Is Present to Our Eoer~l Thought It is very difficult for the limited human mind to grasp such a concept. We cannot even begin to imagine the nature of such a Being who can be present at all times to every one of His creatures no matter how far apart they may be. Cardinal Wiseman brings this truth out very strikingly in his book Fabiola. In a beautiful passage Syra, the Christian slave, tries to explain the presence of God to bet young mis-tress, Fabiola. "Simple as light is His nature," she says, "one and the same everywhere, indivisible, ubiquitous, unlimited. He existed long before there was any beginning. He wil, l, exist after all ending has ceased. Power, wisdom, goodness, 16ve,--justice, too, and unerring judgment,--belong to His nature and are as unlimited and unrestrained as it. He alone can create; he alone preserve; He alone destroy." But then Syra goes on to the point that is more intimately con-cerned with our consideral~ion. She tells bet young mistress that to watch and note the l~hougbts and actions of every one of His creatures requires no effort or causes no trouble for this Infinite, Being, far less than the trouble it takes for the sun to light up with its ranis whatever it shines on. God is more intimately present to every one of His crea-tures and to the entire universe than light is to the rays of the sun. After pondering these thoughts, no wonder that Fabiola cries out: "What an awful thought t, hat one has never been, alone, has never had a wish to oneself, has never had a single thought in secret, has never hidden the most foolish fancy of a proud and childish brain from the observation of One who knows no imperfection. Terrible thought,.,that one is living ever under the steady gaze of an all-seeing Eye, of~hich the sun is but a shadow, for the sun never enters the soul!" (Ch. 16.) Source of Strength God, therefore, is everywhere; and yet He is so near. No matter what we think, He knows it. No matter what we say, He hears it. No matter what we do, He sees it. This is a thought that can be as consoling for those who sincerely try to serve Him as it can be terrible forthe most secret sinner. A deep realization of God's presence is a source of strength for souls who are naturally timid. Encircled by 66 March, 1949 THE NEARNESS OF GOD His loving presence they are able to present to the world that won-derful combination of timidity and moral courage which can belong to the Christian heart alone. Frequently, such is the explanation of unexpected strength of character in men and women who are not by nature strong and independent; yet when the occasion arises they are able to stand up under very difficult circumstances. They are quietly strong and self-possessed in their deep realization that of themselves they are nothing, 'but God is their'strength and their power. Special Graces of Saints Some of the great saints received special graces which enabled them to imagine Our Lord ever at their side under one form or another, such as Jesus Crucified, or in the power and glory of His resurrection. It requires special graces to carry on with such efforts of the imagination. But for ordinary souls, such efforts of the imagina-tion are not at all necessary. Spirit of Faith Is Necessary All that is really necessary is to accept in a spirit of simple faith that God is present and interested in absolutely everything we do, for such is the truth. Christ Our Lord, as Man, is present in heaven and in the Blessed Sacrament. But as Man, He is not present everywhere. ¯ As Man, He has a definite form and body, and we can imagine how He must have looked when He was on earth. He is also God as well as Man. But God, as God, cannot be imagined. He is a pure Spirit. "No one has ever seen God at any time. The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has revealed Him." (John 1:18.) "The spirit of the Lord has filled the round of the earth" (Wis. 1:7). There is no need to imagine what is not. All that is necessary is simply to believe what is. Simple faith in God's presence is all that is needed ! How in Actual Practice But how is this to work out in actual practice? In his Epistle to the Hebrews, St. Paul says of Moses: "God being invisible, he con-sidered Him as present as if he saw Him" (Heb. 11:27). It is some-thing like being in a very dark room with another person present. We cannot see him, but we know that he is there. He makes his presence known by his actionsfrom time to time. We can know God by faith and by His works. "We see now in a dark manner"; so we may con-sider in a spirit of simple faith that God is present. It is enough to 67 PATRICK F:. MURRAY know that He is here as our most loving Father and Friend, to rejoice in His presence no matter where we may be, no matter what we may be doing at the moment. We cannot see how He is present because we are still in the darkness of this life. We must live with faith in His presence and with hope that on the morrow of eternity He will discover Himself to us in all the magnificence of His divine majesty; and we shall see Him as He is. "When He shall appear, then we shall be like to Him: because we shall see Him as He is" (I John 3:2). Acts of Desire and Looe Most Necessary It is not enough to know that God is ever present to us. We must let such knowledge flow over into acts of the will, into personal acts of desire and love for Him. When we adore Our Lord present in the Blessed Sacrament we do not spend a lot of time trying to figure out how He is present. It is the same with this exercise of taking advan-tage of God's nearness to us. We take it on faith that He is present and walk lovingly in His company. So we "go about our daily duties with a greater zest and cheerfulness, knowing that we are performing every action of the day in His divine presence; knowing, too, that He realizes we are doing our every act, no matter how big or how little, out of love for Him alone. Our reflection from time to time on His presence is a greater incentive to do all things as perfectly as pos-sible with the help of His grace. "Whether you eat or drink, or what-ever else you do, do it all for the glory of God" (I Cot. 10:31). Pray Atu)a~ls Once Our Lord said: "We must always pray, and never give up" (Luke 18: I). There would seem to be no better manner of carrying out this wish of Our Lord than ever walking in His presence, doing all things out of love for Him alone. As St. Paul expresses it: "You are no longer strangers and for-eigners, but fellow citizens of the saints, and domestics of the house of God" (Eph. 2: 19). By living in such a spirit all our dealings and conversation can become a thing not of this earth but of heaven. And we carry out St. Paul's ~urther advice: "Fixing our gaze not on the things that are seen, but on the things that are not seen; for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are unseen are eternal" (II Cor. 4:18). Strength in Temptation Further, we must remember that when we act. in this way, we must not consider God Our Father at some great distance from us, 68 March, 1949 THE NEARNESS OF GOD watching us. He is actually present and interested in everything we do. This makes the practice easy and sweet, and helps us to be on the alert to find new ways to please Him. It is also a great h~lp in temp-tation to realize that He sees us and knows our inmost thoughts and the depths of our souls, reading there the amount of true sincerity we have in trying to overcome the temptations that bother us. He knows our strength and our weakness, and is ever present to help us. It is always a good thing to recall that every temptation takes place in the very presence of God : that every sin takes place right in' His very pres-ence. And when we overcome a temptation and prove our love, we do that, too, right in His very presence; and we are sure of a reward for every battle fought and won for His love. In temptation, call to mind such texts as: "Come to my help, O God; O Lord, make haste to defend me" (Ps. 69:2). Or again, such aspirations as: "O God, my Strength, strengthen me! . Never per-mit me, dear God, to offend Thee." "0 God, may I die rather than offend Thee !" Kinds of Pra~jers to God Present The best and most effectual aspirations, whether in time of temp-tion or in time of loving conversation with God, are those which our own hearts conceive, moved by His grace. In our ordinary prayers or conversations with God so near to us, we should speak about even the most trivial things and the most intimate things as'though with a friend. It is not at all necessary to have a great number of prayers; nor is strain of any kind necessary. One short prayer, provided it expresses the thoughts of our souls, can be r~peated over and over again, and is sufficient. Or again, a Gospel text from the morning meditation repeated over and over again is very pleasing to God, because He knows that you mean it as words of simple and sincere love as you move about on the rounds of your daily life and work in His loving presence. "For what have I in heaven? And besides Thee, what do I desire on earth? For Thee my flesh and my heart have fainted away. Thou art the God of my heart, the God who is my portion forever." (Ps. 72:25-26.) 69 Confidence in God Edward J. Carney, O.S.F.S. WHENEVER his security is threatened, man experiences fear, and he attempts to escape, if possible, the impending evil. Properly controlled this emotion plays an important and use-ful part in developing the 'human personality. For example, one who did not fear the rapidly moving vehicles at a busy traffic intersection would regret his rashness. It is natural, then, for a man to experience fear under certain circumstances. Even Our Lord feared the death decreed for him: "And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee; and he began to be distressed and discouraged. Theri he said to them, 'My soul is sorrowful unto death.' " (Matt. 26:37- 38.) Fear, however, very frequently exceeds its proper limits. An excellent example of this is the worry and anxiety that trouble many" areligious. In a life dedicated to God through renunciation of the world there must be difficulties. Sometimes these are of great con-sequence; more often than not they are the minor crosses ot~ daily life experienced even by lay people. An improper viewpoint in meeting them, consisting in too little confidence in God, destroys the religious' perspective. Hi~ fear becomes pronounced, manifests itself in worry and anxiety, and makes him doubtful of success in his chosen w'ay of life. Some examples from Holy Scripture will help illustrate these points. Lack of faith in God begets fear. When the storm at sea threat-ened to overwhelm their boat, the disciples awakened Jesus, saying: " 'Lord, save us! we are perishing!' And he saith to them, 'Why are ye afraid, O ye of little faith?' " (Matt. 8:i5-26.) This fear coming from mistrust of God's providence makes a man doubtful of his ability to face a situation. "And Peter answered and said to him, 'Lord, if it be thou, bid me come to thee upon the waters.' And he said, 'Come.' And Peter went down from the boat and walked upon the waters and came unto Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was struck with fear; and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, 'Lord, save me.' And straightway Jesus stretched forth his hand and took hold of him, and he saith to him, 'O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt?'" (Matt. 14:28-31.) 70 CONFIDENCE IN GOD An analysis of excessive fears and anxieties will undoubtedly dis-close that insufficient trust in God is a partial cause. The religious fears the demar~ds of obedience, a new charge, a new assignment. "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?" Beset by temptations against the vow of chastity the religious questions his strength. "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?" The mental serenity of the religious is disturbed by daily problems. "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?" If mistrust of God's providence produces fear and worry, trust in God is accompanied by courage and peace. When the apostles cried out in fear as they saw Christ walking on the sea, 3esus immediately spoke to them, saying: "Be of good heart; it is I, fear not" (Matt. 14:27), After the Resurrection the apostles were gathered together in the upper room. Suddenly 3esus stood among them and said: "Peace be to you! It is I. Be not afraid." (Luke 24:36.) The quality of this faith or trust inGod is also indicated by Christ: "And 3esus answering saith to them, 'Have faith in God. Amen I say to you, whoever saith to this mountain, "Be thou lifted up and cast into the sea," and doubteth not in his heart, but believeth that what he saith is to come to pass, it shall be done for him. Wherefore I say to you, whatsoever things ye ask for in prayer, believe that ye have received them, and they shall come unto .you.' " (Mark 11:22-24.) A religious who allows fear and doubt to color his life may unconsciously make the mistake of believing his problems either too great or too small for God's consideration. If he believes they are too great, he approaches God halfheartedly. Reflection on some passages from the New Testament will convince such a person that the miracles of Christ were performed for those who believed in him. Hence even the greatest difficulties are not insurmountable when a person turns to God in loving faith and confidence. Faith in Christ obtained the cure of the paralytic: "And 3esus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, 'Be of good heart, my child; thy sins are forgiven' " (Matt. 9:2). It was a means of res'toring sight to the blind: "And 3esus saith to them, 'Believe ye that I can do this?' They say to him, 'Yea, Lord.' Then he touched their eyes, saying, 'Be it done to you according to your faith.' " (Matt. 9:28-29.) It was required of a father before his child was brought back to life: "But ~lesus, overhearing what was said, saith to the president, 'Fear not, only believe!' . . . And taking the child by the hand he saith to her. 'Maiden, I say to thee, arise!' And straightway the maiden rose and walked." (Mark 5:36-42.) It 71 EDWARDJ. CARNEY won divine pardon for a hardened sinner: "And he said, 'Jesus, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom.' And he said to him, 'Amen I si~y to thee, this day thou shalt be with me in para-dise.' " (Luke 23:42-43.) Not only .the great events of life but even the smallest detail falls under God's providence. "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them falleth to the ground without your Father. But as for you, the very hairs of your hexd are all numbered. Wherefore fear ye not; ye are of greater worth than many sparrows." (Matt. 10:29-31.) "And he said unto his disciples, 'Therefore I say to you, be not anxious about your life, what ye are to eat; nor for your body, how ye are to be clothed. For the life is more than the food, and the body more than the clothing. Consider the ravens, how th~y sow not nor reap, neither have they store-room or barn, and God feedeth them. Of how much greater worth are ye than the birds~ If then the grass in the field, which today liveth and tomorrow is to be cast into the oven; God doth so array, how much more you, of little faith! Seek ye not therefore what you are to eat and what you are to drink . . . your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. But seek ye his kingdom, and these things shall be added unto you.'" (Luke 12:22-31.) This trust in God presupposes resignation to God's will. It ever bears in mind that God is far more effective in directing human events than man, that what seems an evil on the natural plane may really be a means of advancing in God's grace if accepted with the proper spir-itual dispositions. Thus in turning away from unnecessary fears and worries it does not fall into the fault of presumption. Rather it con-ditions the religious to view all things in their proper perspective and to avoid unnecessary fear by turning to God in confidence and resig-nation. It eliminates doubt, anxiety, and worry, and allows the reli-gious to face life at peace with himself and with God. OUR CONTRIBUTORS EDWARD J. CARNEY is superior of the House of Studies of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, Washington, D.C. J. CREUSEN. well-known authority on canon law, is a professor at the Gregorian University, Rome. WINFRID HERBST, writer, retreat master, is on the faculty of the Salvatorian 'Seminary, St. Nazianz, Wisconsin. FRANCIS P. LEBUFFE, for many years on the staff of America, is at present engaged in Sodality work in the East. ALBERT MUNTSCH is a professor of sociology a-nd philosophy at St. Louis University. PATRICK F. MURRAY is a mem-ber of the Jesuit Mission Band of the Maryland Province. EDWARD STANTON is completing his theological studies at Weston College, Weston, Massachusetts. 72 Re: Penitential Instruments Winfrid Herbst, S.D.S. IN A DRAWER in my desk I have a large candy box containing an assortment of penitential instruments, to wit: one large hair shirt made of sterilized horsehair and one hair waistband of the same material; one large and 6ne small discipline made of Spanish hemp as well as one plain and one studded discipline made Of small but e~- cient steel chains; one waist chain and one arm chain made of stainless steel wire, the points of which will bear a bit of filing flat lest they pierce the skin. The set is purely for purposes of study and demon-stration-- visual instruction of a rare kind. Many religious (dare I say "most"?) have never seen the like. I confess that the very feel of some of them makes me shudder; and a young novice who saw them for the first time turned pale, grew weak at the sight, and, knowing that discretion is the better part of valor, sat down on a convenient chair. Among the instruments in this formidable collection (and I sup-pose there are other styles and varieties) I look upon the steel chains and the steel disciplines, especially the studded discipline, as the most dangerous, as apt to cause wounds that in our day of germs could easily lead to infection and medical care. The chains should never be so sharp-pointed as to pierce the skin and should be worn only for brief periods of an hour or so at a time and when one is at ease, as during meditation; and should invariably be removed when one is going to be in any way actively engaged. And the steel-pointed dis-cipline, to my mind, should be used only for display purposes, to show that modern man is not as thick-skinned as his ancestors were. The large hair shirt and the hair band cause me less perturbation. Both can be worn for brief periods, not to exceed an hour, let us say, unless one finds that it is injurious, causing subsequent rash, itch, and so forth. The waistband may be worn over the skin but the large hair shirt is better worn over the underwear or even over the shirt. The one in my collection is a wicked thing and reminds you quite insistently that you are a poor sinner even when worn in this com-promise manner. The hempen disciplines are the simplest and safest instruments in ¯ my interesting collection, provided one reasonably limits the strokes, 73 WINFRID HERBST Ret~iew for Religious both as regards number and force, and lets them fall discreetly on that portion of the body which can best take punishment without real injury, where the proverbial dad (now outdated too) applied the ; strap out in. the woodshed. Those are just my ideas, of course; others may think otherwise but not necessarily so wisely. And I know of religious who have used even the chains (points filed fia!!) regularly several times a week for years and never a bit of harm did it do them, though it was real penance, especially the putting on of the clammy thing on a cold win-ter morning ! Before I go any further, I wish it to be distinctly understood, as shall be several times repeated, that none of the above penitential instruments or others like them may be used without special permis-sion from one's confessor or spiritual director--permission as regard:~ manner of use and length of time--permission that is given only after due discussion of all the factors involved. It is, of course, quite evi-dent that this permission is not necessary in those institutes which prescribe such penances by rule or by legitimate custom, unless it is ,expressly mentioned in the constitutions that one must, even in the case of custom, have the confessor's permission. Nor does this per-mission seem to be necessary for a very moderate occasional use (by way of experiment, for instance), unless.it is evident from the pre-vailing practice of the institute that nothing at all of this nature "may be done without spiritual direction. The question now arises: Is the use of these penitential instru-ments to be recommended at all? That depends. If you are an utterly unmortified religious, an unobservant religious, one who is not even making an attempt to keep the ordinary constitutions-- the answer is, no! You have many more important mortifications to practice before you even attempt these supererogatory practices. You should remember that no source of mortification is more efficacious, universal, and secure than the perfect observance of the holy rule, that its observance is surer and more meritorious than any self-chosen penance. If, however, you are a truly observant religious and are doing all your state of life demands as perfectly as possible--the answer is, yes, with due discretion and the permission of your con-fessor or spiritual director, remembering that these practices are not of obligation. The rules of most religious orderk or congregations do not offi-cially impose any corporal mortification but only suggest ~he idea. 74 March, 19 4 9 RE: PENITENTIAL INSTRUMENTS Thus in various constitutions we read passages like the following: "The chastisement of the body must not be immoderate or indis-creet, in watcl~ing, abstinence, and other external penances and labors, which are wont to do hurt and hinder greater good. Wherefore it is expedient that everyone should lay open to his confessor what he does in this respect." "Since corporal penances contribute much to spiritual advance-ment, their practice must not be neglected by the members." "In the private practice of ordinary mortifications and corporal penances which are not injurious to health the members are guided by the judgment of the confessor alone: for external and public penances, however, they also need the permission of the local Superior." ""With still greater reason each one shall renounce the flesh and its concupiscences, pride and its suggestions, ambition and its intrigues, causing, according to the words of the apostle, 'his members to die,' even though it required fasting, the discipline, and the hair shirt. No austerity, however, is' to be practiced by a religious without the per-mission of his confessor or Director." This last passage, from Directions for Novitiates of the Congre-gation of the Hohj Cross1 by the Very Rev. Gilbert Francais, C.S.C., is commented on at length in that excellent classic. From those pages of comment (40-44) I make the following extracts: "Corporal mortification is more than a humiliation; it is both a humiliation and a physical pain that we very willingly impose on ourselves, either for the purpose of keeping ourselves from sin, or in order to punish ourselves for having sinned, or for the still higher motive of suffering with Christ Who suffered for us. This simple definition places corporal mortification beyond the reach of the silly and unjust ridicule to which the spirit of the world would subject it. The world very readily admits that we may inflict sufferings, may accept sufferings,' or may impose sufferings on ourselves, for the fur-therance of great human interests. It admits, it demands, it requires, that to save the country we shall fast, shall go through painful exer-cises by which the body is worn down and broken; shall accustom ourselves to carry heavy burdens, to make long marches, to put up with hunger, thirst, cold and heat; to sleep on straw or the bare ground, occasionally to pass whole Mgbts without sleep; in a word, to break and discipline ourselves in every way. This is the fate in 1Published by the Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, Indiana. Quotations with special permission of the editor, Father P. d. Carroll. C.S.C., who writes: "The book, how-ever, is out of print and I do not know where you could obtain copies of it." 75 WINFRID HERBST Revieu~ ior Religious store for all soldiers, and the most beautiful names are given to this spirit of sacrifice and mortification in favor of a noble object. "The world even goes so far as to allow its votaries to suffer, to expose themselves to a thousand sacrifices, to a thousand sufferings, for the object of a sinful passion. Not only does it not laugh at these mortifications, but it reads the history of them in novels with intense interest, and in the theatre it looks upon the representation of them with eager avidity. Those mortifications which the world admits and admires when there is question of defending our country, or even of concentrating on a guilty passion--by a strange perversity it ceases to tolerate them and it mocks them when it is a question of defending one's soul against the powers of darkness, of .saving it for eternity, and of following in the footsteps of Christ . There is a serious lesson for us in this, and we are almost guilty when, at the instigation of this thoroughly wicked spirit, condemned irremediably by Our Lord, we blush at Christian mortifications, and when, on this point, we are tempted to return a smile for its laugh--a laugh both stupid~ and shameless. "Corporal mortification is, therefore, most truly noble. This is not all. There may be circumstances, and especially for the Religious who is called to such delicate perfection even in l~is secret tl~oughts, in which it becomes a moral necessity . "Corporal mortification is useful not merely to triumph over exceptional dangers; it serves to avert them, to remove them further and further from" us, and, in a manner, to render them infrequent. It is an act of manly e, nergy and of higher authority towards a body which should be kept in its place as a slave and made to obey. It is an act of justice by which we ourselves, with our own hands, punish ourselves for having sinned; and not only does God approve of this expiation and recognize its value, but He is pleased with us because of our own accord we execute what His justice would require Him to inflict on us in the flames of Purgatory . " 'No austerity, however is to be practiced without the permis-sion of one's confessor or Director.' This condition is wise and necessary, in order to check indiscreet zeal towards one's self, to be sure of doing" the holy will of God, and to add to the intrinsic, merit of the act by which we mortify ourselves the great merit of obedi-ence." I know there are many kinds of mortification: interior, of imagination, mind, will, heart, the passions; exterior, sight, hearing, 76 March, 1949 RE : PENITENTIAL INSTRUMENTS taste, touch, smell, tongue. I know that the mortification of the senses, as St. Francis de Sales says, is more profitable than the wearing of hair shirts or steel chains or using the discipline. "I know that in addition to taking what God sends in the line of sickness and so forth, in addition to doingone's duty,and in addition to the Church's fast and abstinence, the faithful observance of the prescriptions of modesty and good deportment offer an extensive (and, alas! often uncultivated) field for mortification. But in this article I am lim-iting myself to corporal mortifications of the kind suggested by my collection of penitential instruments. In The Spiritual Life by Tanquerey we read (No. 774) : "There are other positive means of mortification which penitent souls inspired by generosity deIigbt to employ in 'order to subdue their bodies, to temper the importunities of the flesh and give vent to their holy desires. The more customary ones are small iron bracelets clasped to the arms, chains worn about the loins, hairshirts, or a few strokes of the discipline when this last can be done without attracting any notice. As to all such practices one must faithfully follow the advice of one's spiritual director, shun whatever tends to evince any singularity or to flatter vanity, not to speak of whatever would be against the rules of hygiene and personal cleanliness. The spiritual director should not give his sanction to any of these extraordinary .practices except with the greatest discretion, only for a time, and on trial. Should it come to his notice that any inconveniences arise therefrom, he must bring them to a halt." As a footnote to this he says: "To resume the practices of corporal mortification is one of the most effective means of regaining lost joy of spirit and fervor of soul: 'Let us go back to our bodily mortifications. Let us bruise our flesh and draw a littl~ of our blood, and we shall be as happy as the day is long. If the Saints are such gay spirits, and monks and nuns such unaccountably cheerful creatures, it is simply because their bodies, like St. Paul's, are chastised and kept under with an unflinching sharpness and a vigorous discretion.' (Faber, The Blessed Sacra-ment, Book II, Section VII.)" It is perhaps this expression of Father Faber's, "draw a little of our blood," which prompted a religious to say to me, when I cau-tioned that one must never cause a real wound in the flesh when using penitential instruments: "But we were told that corporal penance doesn't really amount to much unless we draw a little blood." I vigorously protest. I do not agree. It does amount to much. 77 WINFRID HERBST Rep~eto for Religiotts And it is against the present-day rules of hygiene thus to d~aw even a little blood. Why, even my favorite author Cappello, Italian and ascetic as he is, gives the following rules to be observed as regards corporal morti- £cations.--Such corporal mortifications (macerations) as are too injurious to health are never permitted. The following are among macerations of this kind: (a) flagellations in which the discipline is applied to the more tender parts of the body or upon wounds not yet healed or by using a discipline studded with sharp points that pierce the flesh; (b) hair shirts made of steel thread so thin that the sharp points penetrate the flesh; or hair shirts that are too tight; or hair shirts that are.constantly worn ; (~). th~ privation of sleep, so that the penitent habitually has less than ~'~vdn hours rest. (Please note, you who burn the midnight oil!) A~ regards corpora/mortifications in genera/, we must distinguish between the case in which the penitent asks permission to employ them and the case in which there is no request for such permission. In case there is no request, the confessor may indeed advise some fasting or some other slight¯penances, but not the hair shirt or the discipline. In case the penitent does ask, the confessor usually puts him off with a view to seeing whether or not he will ask again. If he asks again and very ea'rnestly, the confessor may find it well to grant permission, provided that the penitent is very well grounded in humility and genuine wrtue, in which'case he will at first grant permission to prac-tice such and such a corporal mortification for such and such a length of time on certain days. These are the rules ordir~arily followed by a spiritual director. In case of great necessity and of a penitent disposed to do hard things, he may more easily permit macerations or advise them, but always with due prudence and discretion. (Cf. Cappello, De Sacramentis, vol. 2, No. 573, edition of 1943.) And now, in conclusion, I imagine how some of my readers have been following my ramblings with an amused smile. Perhaps they. are saying within themselves: "Evidently the good man doesn't know that we have to lay it on good and heavy, according to the rule. He seems to think that what he calls macerations are out of date." But I do know. And I do not think so. I bow myself out with the following excerpt from The Catholic Encyclopedia, arti41e "Asceticism," in volume one: "In some of the 78 March, 19 4 9 RE: PENITENTIAL INSTRUMENTS orders the rules make no mention of corporal penance at all, leaving that to individual devotion; in others great austerity is prescribed, but excess is provided against'both by the fact that the rules have been subjected to pontifical approval and because superiors can grant exceptions. That such penitential practices produce morbid and gloomy characters is absurd to those who know the light-beartedness that prevails in strict religious communities; that they are injurious to health and even abbreviate life cannot be seriously maintained in view of the remarkable longevity noted among the members of very austere orders. It is true that in the lives of the saints we meet with some very extraordinary and apparently extravagant mortifications; but in the first place, what is extraordinary, and extravagant, and severe in one generation may not be so in another which is ruder and more inured to hardship. Again, they are not proposed for imitation, nor is it always necessary to admit their wisdom, nor that the biog-rapher was not exaggerating, or describing as continual what was only occasional; and on the other band it is not forbidden to suppose that some of tl~ese penitents may have been prompted by the Spirit of God to make themselves atoning victims for the sins of others. Besides, it must not be forgotten that these practices went hand in hand with the cultivation of the sublimest virtues, that they were for the most part performed in secret, and in no case for ostentation and display. But e;cen if there was abuse, the Church is not responsible for the aberrations of individuals,, nor does her teaching become wrong if misunderstood or misapplied .The virtue of prudence is a part of asceticism." CANONICAL LEGISLATION CONCERNING RELIGIOUS The authorized English translation of that part of the Code of Canon Law which governs religious is now available in the United States under the title Canonical Legislation Concerning Religious. The booklet is published and dis-tributed by the Newman Press, Westminster, Maryland. (Pp. 74. Price: 75 cents [paper] .) 79 The I-lundredt:old Edward Stanton, S.J. 44~ND everyone who has left house, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting" (Mr. 19:29). If this expression, "the hundred-fold," is read out of context, it can easily be misunderstood. Actually, in the earlier verses of this same chapter in Saint Matthew's Gospel we read that our Lord had offered "treasure in heaven" to the rich young man on condition that he would accept the invitation to "go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor . and come follow me": there also we read His comparison between a camel struggling through the eye of a needle a'nd a rich man squeezing through the gates of heaven. In the light of these two observations which Christ made on the hazards of wealth, it would seem quite inconsistent to have Him, in verse twenty-nine, speaking primarily of a return in kind of the very things He invited religious to renounce in order to imitate more closely His example of detachment, poverty, submission, and obedience. It may be helpful, then, to consider briefly what various Fathers of the Church and some modern exegetes have had to say about Christ's promise of the hundredfold as it applies to those who have answered His call to the cloister. Saint Jerome, whose opinion in interpreting the hundredfold Venerable Bede followed three centuries later, stresses spiritual goods almost to the exclusion of material pos-sessions. He speaks of peace of heart, joy, divine consolations, and other gifts and graces with which God comforts His servants and which He lavishes upon them. These gifts are the rich rewards of a life of consecration to God's service, "for they surpass all earthly goods and joys far more than a hundred exceeds unity." In much the same way, Saint Ambrose (In Ps. cxix) understands by the hun-dredfold God HimselL and consequently the whole world which is God's possession. To such as leave all things for God's sake God is father, mother, wife, brother, sister, and all things--"because," remarks the saint, "he who has left all things begins to possess God, and He is, as it were, the perfect reward of virtues, which isreckoned not by the enumeration of a hundredfold, but by the estimation of 80 THE HUNDREDFOI.D perfect virtue." He cites the example of the tribe of Levi which by God's command was deprived of its portion of the Holy Land. How-ever, the Lord Himself promised that He would be its portion and inheritance. And from this he concludes: "He who has God for his portion is the possessor of all nature. Instead of lands he is sufficient ¯ to himself, having good fruit, which cannot perish. Instead of hquses it is enough for him that there is the habitation of God, and the temple of God, than which nothing can be more precious. For what is more precious than God? That is the portion which no earthly inheritance can equal. What is more magnificent than the celestial host? What more blessed than divine possession?" Saint Augustine (Epist. 89, quaest. 4) declares: "The whole world is the riches of the faithful." And Saint Gregory (Horn. 18 in Ezecb.) writes in the same vein: "He shall receive a hundredfold becauke God shall take care that such a one shall rejoice far more in his poverty, or his renunciation of his goods for the love of Christ, than rich men rejoice in all their riches and advantages." Father Cornelius a Lapide, referring to a parallel passage in Saint Luke's Gospel, explains the hundredfold as "many times more." More recent commentators, such as Fathers C. L. Fillion. F.C. Ceulemans, J. M. Lagrange, and J. A. Petit, in their com-mentaries on these words of Christ, lay special emphasis on the spir-itual rewards of peace, joy, and consolation even in the midst of sufferings and persecutions. The words of Father Alfred Durand in the Verbum Salutis series are worth quoting: "The hundredfold will not be given without persecutions (Mk. 10:30) ; this is a new proof that in this present life it should be bestowed for a religious purpose and not for a purely earthly advantage. This is what Saint Paul (2 Cor. 6:10) has summed up in a wo~d, speaking of himseIf and of the other Apostles: 'as having nothing, yet possessing all things.' "It goes without saying that the promise of the hundredfold thus understood, comprises . a tacit condition: unless it pleases God to dispose otherwise and that in our personal interest. Is there any need to add that a means given by God for the temporal support of the "ministers of His word' should not be considered as an end in itself? That would no longer mean renouncement but a miserable calcula-tion. Moreover, the hundredfold does not mean wealth." The request the mother of the sons of Zebedee made of Christ: "Command that these my two sons may sit, one at thy right hand, and one at thy left hand, in thy kingdom"; the question the dis- .8l PRUDENCE--,/si NECESSARY VIRTUE ciples put to Christ after His resurrection: "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"--and many similar statements in the New Testament appear to us today, to have sprung from a background of ignorance. We conclude immediately that the ones who made these requests had forgotten Christ's words: "The king-dom of God is within you," and again: "My kingdom is not of this world." Yet, are there not some religious who at some time .or other have sighed the lament o-f the disciples on the way to Emmaus: sperabarnus, "we were hoping"? Could it be that we were disap-pointedin our hopes because they were founded on our own fanciful dreams, rather than on the words of Christ? Of this we may be sure, that God, our "reward exceeding great," will infallibly make good His word that those who, in their zeal "for the better gifts," have left house, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's" sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting." Prudence--A Necessary Virtue Albert Muntscb, S.d. DO NOT the very nature of the religious calling and the many safeguards it offers its followers protect the latter from impru-dent ways and methods? Unfortunately, no. In religious life much is left to the good judgment of the individual, and he may easily adopt manners and fall into habits which do not harmonize with the high ideals of his profession. In other words, lack of pru-dence may vitiate well-formed plans and purposes, at least in their execution. Today, especially, when there are many occasions which bring religious persons into freer association with worldlings and worldly practices than was formerly the case, the virtue of prudence should accompany them like a guardian spirit. It is all well to say that new duties demand new methods of approach; but they do not call for laying aside the splendid poise and bearing, the recollection and exterior reserve that should always characterize the soul which has exchanged the trappings of the world for the livery of Christ. Those .who think they have larger privileges to imitate worldly 82 March, 19 4 9 PRUDENCE--A NECESSARY VIRTUE ways and to follow worldly patterns are precisely the ones who need most the protecting strength of Christian prudende. The world bestows an approving smile upon all who fall into its ways and fol-low its changing patterns; but in secret, it ridicules and condemns. Would that this were n~)t so. But the wise and thoughtfM, who hold fast to the way of the rule and regulations sanctiofied by higher wis-dom, need not be convinced by a telltale list of "the preceding proved by example." Prudence is an indispensable part of the armor of every religious. It is required in the classroom. The illustraiions and examples, the applications and iomparisons used to explain texts and principles need not be such as to suggest familiarity with the follies of the idle rich nor the pastimes of the degraded proletariate. No doubt, more than one Christian teacher has been savagely criticized in the home circle precisely for such lack of prudence in the classroom. Prudence is required in caring for the patient in the hospital. The inhibitory powers of tl~e sick and convalescent are often lowered, and they may unwisely and unfairly expect a degree of attention-- perhaps of affectionate care--which is not within the right of any religious to bestow. In such cases guidance by the spirit of the rule, if not by the letter, may be the best preservation from ugly conces-sions. The prudent religious will look at the crucifix in the sick room and will hear the voice of the Master counseIing conduct based on the fear of the Lord. "Blessed is he who offendeth not in speech." Prudence in con-versation with those not of the community, and especially with those not of the household of the faith, is a gift to be prized. Let Christ be our model both in what is to be said and, more especially, in what is to remain unsaid. In the recorded conversations of Christ you find no insinuation of base motives. Only a brave, fearless, outspoken denunciation of hypocrisy, sin, deceit, and hardheartedness; and then only when it was necessary and would prove beneficial to the offender or the bystander. And there is the important matter of friendship--both in and outside of the community. What is of God? What springs from the cravings of lower nature? Is the friendship founded on the real supernatural motive of charity? Would it be approved by Christ if He were present in person and you could lay the case before Him? Weighty questions these, whose answers entail a goodly amount of prudence, prudence based on Christian faith and charity. 83 ALBERT MUNTSCH Review for Religious There remains the vast field of personal attitudes, likes, dislikes, preferences. Is it wise to manifest them to one and all at the slightest provocation? Are others really interested to know of them or do they care to hear of them? Prudence cautions wise restraint. Some religious tell their hearers loudly: "I just hate such a thing and abominate such and such conduct!" Is this confession not apt to act as a boomerang which will bring sharp criticism for the uncalled for manifestation of your attitudes? St. Paul, in his ep!stle to the Ephesians, (chapter 6), describes what has come to be known as "The Christian Armor." This Chris-tian panoply includes the breastplate of justice', the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation. But can we not say that the virtue of prudence is to guide every Christian in the use of these powerful spir-itual weapons? Prudence is one of the four cardinal virtues, which are defined as, "the four principal virtues upon which the rest of the moral virtues turn." A careful reading of the lives of the saints, as well as recollections of Catholic missionary activity in foreign lands, show how all-important is the virtue of prudence. It was at times the only guide to' success in the Christian warfare, andprepared the way for the entrance of the Gospel of Peace in foreign lands. Take the case of the famous Jesuit missionary Robert de Nobili (1577-1656). He labored in Madura, Mysore, and the Karnatic. In his day the system of caste was perhaps more rigorous than in our time. In order to gain over the Brahmins, he decided to follow some of their ~igorous modes of life. The cry arose that the missionary was adopting pagan customs, and that his example was apt to lead the native Christians astray. In the controversy which followed, one virtue was above all necessary. This was prudence. Should the mis-sionary discontinue his practice and so lose the golden opportunity to convert the higher caste Brahmins? Or should he consult the well'ire of the weaker brethren who would not be able to understand the meaning and motives of his procedure? Prudence justified him in continuing to adopt these foreign customs. He was later officially directed to cease these practices; but in the decision finally given, De Nobili was justified insofar as the customs which he upheld were distinctly cultural and had no necessary connection with worship of the Supreme Being. As stated in a preceding paragraph, the virtue of prudence is per-haps more necessary today when religious have so many opportunities 84 March, 1949 PRUDENCE--A NECESSARY VIRZFUE of coming in contact with people in the world. @he writer recalls a meeting of a scientific society several years ago when a member of a religious community arose several times to present some opinions on the questions under discussion. On one occasion especially this reli-gious embarrassed the audience by presenting views which apparently no one could follow and which seemed to be utterly wide of the mark. Finally, at the suggestion of one of the delegates, the religious ceased from further speaking. We leave it to the judgment of the reader to decide whether or not the virtue of prudence would have prevented this embarrassing incident. Is it not.significant in this connection to recall that one of the great saints of the New Testament--St. Joseph, the Head of the Holy Family--is referred to in liturgical hymns, as "'uir prudens et fidelis." Prudence guided him in his,first associations with the Mother.of God; and the Holy Scripture refers to his embarrassment so delicately, in a delicate situation. It was his prudence that directed him in such a way that won for him the approval of the evangelist. The three great model saints of Catholic youtb--Aloysius, Stanislaus, and John Berchmans--were each one distinguished in his own way for the prac-tice of Christian virtue. Yet each one of these distinguished members in Christ's army wa.s guided by that necessary virtue, prudence. If this virtue bad not been present, they might easily have become offensive to their fellow religious and might have failed to become models for youth in aftertimes, t3ut prudence kept them on a path which exemplified the highest type of spirituality and the greatest love of God, and yet made them dear to and worthy of imitation by those who saw their bright example. These are only a few simple thoughts on a virtue which is apt to be pushed aside like Cinderella in order to give scope to the practice of "heroic virtue." Heroic virtue--that is what we all need and desire-- is to be found in the daily practice of little duties in the spirit of faith, with eyes fixed on God, but above all in the spirit of sweet charity towards all of God's children. Let us then realize that this cardinal virtue is a most potent weapon for shielding us from many pitfalls and for aiding us to a higher degree of perfection in the life of religion. 85 Adapt:at:ion J. Creusen, S.J. Translated from the French by Cla.rence McAuliffe, S.J. [This article first appeared in Reuue des Communaut& Religieuses, XVIlI, 97. It is translated and printed here with the author's permission. The author, though a recognized expert on the religious life, would not want his suggestions to be taken as the last word on the subject of adaptation. Discussion of many of the points in the article, especially as they might apply to the United Sates, is desirable: and we shall welcome communications of this nature.--ED.] ADAPTisAa proTblemIOthatNbesets every age, but- it be- ~omes particularly pressing at times of rapid and,far-reaching social changes. That ours is such a time is beyond all question. When the religious life comes under scrutiny, the probl~m may be posed somewhat as follows: Is it expedient that religious life be adapted to the new circumstances of our times, or must novices and young religious adjust themselves to those demands that are looked upon as essential to genuine religious, life? In this article we intend to try to give the broad outlines of an answer to this extensive question. To adapt oneself means to conform one's life and conduct to a new set of circumstances. If a person travels from one climate to an entirely different one, he must adapt himself to the latter in matters of food, clothing, and work. He must in other words adjust his habits in such things to the requirements of heat and cold. A person must know how to adapt his ways of speaking, of teaching, of nursing the sick, and so forth to the diverse circumstances in which he is placed. Adaptation, therefore, involves change; but not from a mere desire for change in itself, or from fickleness, but from a desire to be able'to live or to act more profitably. Since surrounding circumstances do nor remain fixed, every living thing is compelled to make some adaptations. Just as winter imposes its own special demands, so also does summer. Once a being becomes incapable of adaptation, it is doomed to destruction. Acts that are devoid of adaptation are ineffectual and, as a consequence, usele.ss. Religious life, too, since it is a form of living and acting, cannot be an exception to this law. Apart from the basic applications of sovereign moral and ascetical principles, religious life imposes obliga-tions and norms of conduct that owe their rise to the exigencies or 86 ADAPTATION conditions of special circumstances or of a particular epoch. We need not dwell on this truth which is irrefutable and called into question by scarcely anybody. II The Church, while always remaining faithful to principle, pro-vides us with .striking examples of adaptation. She does not alter by one jot the dogmatic truths which Christ has entrusted to her. Truth does not change with the passage of time. It remains immutable, though the formulas expressing it may vary because of the evolution of human language. For this reason the Church does not alter her moral principles. She condemns contradictory heresies, not only those which unduly exalt human freedom or the worth of creatures, but those also which profess io deny the goodness of the divine work even in material creation. While proclaiming the superiority of per-fect chastit~ over conjugal chastity, she rejects the error of those who condemn marriage. While reminding us of the heroic mortifications practised by the saints, she does not prohibit or dissuade anyone from drinking wine temperately. Did not Christ choose wine as the mat-ter/ from which His greatest Sacrament would spring? ~ta The Church aiso keeps intact, insofar as possible, the fundamen-ls of her liturgy and even of her discipline. To maintain sacerdotal celibacy in the Latin Church, she has had to bear the brunt of recurring attacks. Even within recent memory Pope Benedict XV took occasion to declare that the Holy See would not relax her dis-cipline in this matter even though her failure to do so might prompt some priests to schism. Yet, only an'ecclesistical law is at stake, and its abrogation would imply no loss of essential doctrine. However, bowing to demands arising from circumstances of time and place, the Church does modify, either temporarily or perman-ently, certain disciplinary decrees even though they may date back to the very beginning of her history. Her legislation regarding fast and abstinence both during Lent and on Ember days, and particularly on vigils; has undergone remarkable relaxations. It should be noted, too, that some of these modifications even preceded the war of 1914-1918. Moreover, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century the secluded or segregated aspect of religious life passed through a total transfor-mation. This was, so to speak, thrust upon the Holy See because many religious congregations had already contributed to it by the adaptations which they themselves had espoused. Again, within 87 J. CREUSEN Relaiew for Religious recent years we have witnessed a considerable extension of the liberty accorded to religious in the choice, at least periodically, of their con-fessors. The Holy See has regarded this as an inevitable consequence rio.wing from the abandonment of rigid seclusion, from a more pro-nounced awareness of freedom of conscience, and from'the new legis-lation about frequent Communion. The first decrees of Plus Xupon this last subject were greeted with vigorous opposition. But even though the highest superiors of some of the most distinguished orders remonstrated, they could not shake his resolve to grant this adapta-tion. Does not the Holy See guide us along the same road when it approves the most diversified forms of religious life? An enormous distance has been traveled from the day when Plus V wanted to oblige all religious to papal enclosure and solemn vows to the present time when approval is extended to religious societies whose members do not even live in community. On the other hand, the Church is prudent in her approach to such adaptations. She undertakes them gradually; she looks about for guarantees of their worth; she often delays until isolated experiments have demonstrated the harmlessness, the usefulness, and the need of the proposed change. Notice, too, how certain devotions, such as the devotion to the Sacred Heart, have passed through progressive stages of approbation. Again, are we not eyewitnesses of the transformation in some liturgi-cal practices? However, in matters liturgical, regardles~ of who may assert the contrary, the Holy See by no means allows priests, bereft as they are of all authority, to introduce changes as they please. Liturgi-cal practices emanate from the authority of the Holy See, which has reserved to itself exclusively the right to pass judgment on their pro-priety. Hence, without special authorization a priest may not cele-brate Mass while facing the congregation. It is no excuse to plead that such an adaptation is required by liturgical progress. III Objects of Adaptation 1. It is perfectly clear that no change can be made in the basic principles of the spiritual life which our Savior taught in His gospel. No matter what development of ideas or of customs may take place, self-abnegation and the way of the Cross will always remain the indispensable means of acquiring and fostering that perfect charity which unites us to God. To prove this we have at hand the explicit 88 March, 1949 ADAPTATION and unequivocal teaching of the gospels, the sum-total of tradition, the testimony and practice of all the saints. Against this solid truth, only specious arguments could be advanced. For instance, someone might contend that a person must necessarily revel in creatures in order to raise himself to God by their instrumentality. The genuine mystics, however, keep telling us that long and rigorous privation and self-denial are the gateway to contemplation and the fruition of God through the enjoyment of creatures. The religious spirit, diametrically opposed as it is to the spirit of the world, must be preserved. The new generation no less than the old must renounce the world--its ease, its dissipation, its spirit of independence and of criticism. The characteristic spirit of each insti-tute is also a treasure that should be jealously guarded. Is not this spirit the handiwork of divine grace operating in the souls of founders and foundresses? Moreover, the primary applications of general prin-ciples of Christian asceticism will remain unchanged or but slightly modified. For instance, certain safeguards of chastity, since they are required by the ingrained weakness of human nature, are always valid and are not out of step with variations in custom. Thus the practice of consulting a retreat director only in the confessional, or possibly in the parlor but not in his private room, will be maintained. Parlors where priests converse with religious women, whether young or old. should have doors panelled with glass. No need or legitimate reason exists for altering this usage. 2. Some adaptations are absolutel~t necessar~t. A. By reason of changes in ecclesiastical legislation. We have already mentioned the comparatively recent laws dealing with confessions of religious men and women. At first some supe-riors objected to these laws because they believed that this new lib-erty, unknown as it was to the earlier history of their institute, engendered a real danger. Today we can hope that such a state of mind has disappeared. The custom of exposing the Blessed Sacrament during Masses of some slightly greater solemnity than usual had ~o cease when the decree was issued allowing exposition only during Masses within the octave of the Feast of Corpus Christi and during the Forty Hours. Again, the Congregation of the Sacraments has very clearly expressed its desire that freedom to abstain from Holy Communion should be facilitated by every means in those communi-ties or social groups that receive Communion at a specified time. The habit of approaching the Holy Table in order of seniority, whether 89 J. CREUSEN Review for Religious of profession or of age, is certainly an obstacle to such freedom. Moreover, this ancient practice has been eliminated in some of the most famous orders. Communion is received without any regard for the position one occupies in the chapel or in the community. We have nothing but praise for this adaptation. It might even be con- , sidered as obligatory insofar as it can be done, because of the directives of the Sacred Congregation. B. By reason of the growth of the institute. When an institute spreads beyond the borders of its native coun-try and branches out into many foreign lands, the time has come when religious of other nationalities should be granted their rightful place in the government of the institute. This is particularly true when the foreigners outnumber members belonging to the native land of the founder or foundress. The foreigners, therefore, should be represented at general congregations or chapters. Just as the Holy Father chooses cardinals from all countries and from all nationalities, so should a general congregation be truly representative of the entire institute. This procedure, moreover, is necessary in order to forestall the temptation to separation from the institute. When religious bodies of men, and especially of women, find themselves systematically excluded from the government of their institute, they fall an easy prey to this temptation. Unfortunately, too, this temptation is often induced and kept alive by some of the local clergy who are anxious to exert a more direct and more extensive jurisdiction over the religious in their own country. The day may well come when thought must be give'n to forming a new province from a group of houses which have grown in number and importance. Similarly, the wisdom of suppressing a province must also be weighed when it has a dearth of members and cannot anticipate a fresh increase of novices for a long l~ime. If such a prov-ince is not suppressed, a general chapter will not have a jr/st propor-tion of representatives from various sections of the institute. As a result, certain groups get.the definite impression that they are gov-erned by superiors and chapters that ignore or neglect their own special interests. A more delicate question comes up, but we cannot waive it. Some institutes keep their communities stamped with a truly international character. In such cases it should not be surprising to find that the superiors of these communities are not citizens of the country where the house is established. O~her institutes, on the contrary, by reason 90 March, 19 4 9 ADAPTATION of the very necessities of their apostolate, must choose local superiors from persons who are either natives of the country or at least speak its language. It is easy enough to understand why authority should be exercised for a long time by superiors (we speak here particularly of communities of women) who are natives of the country in which the institute had its origin; but this state of affairs should not be pro-longed indefinitely. The time comes when it is fitting to appoint English or Irish superiors in England, American superiors in the United States, Belgians in Belgium, and so on. Omit this adaptation and the institute presents a foreign appearance in the country. This is damaging both to the recruiting of novices and to union of spirit. In addition, it furnishes the clergy of the land with a pretext or reason for inducing the native members to withdraw from their religious family and to found another of exactly the same kind, but one that is independent and better suited to the requirements of local conditions. On the other hand, the hearts of all become attached to the institute when confidence is reposed in those who are foreign to the country of its origin: C. By reason of the swift euolution of ideas and custbms. It is evident that the first condition for the proper direction of novices and young religious is to understand them. This supposes personal contact with, as well as experimental knowledge of, the external conditions in which they have been reared and educated. Sometimes masters and mistresses of novices, though quite elderly, understand modern youth perfectly because they have been in constant touch with it for many years. A true youthfulness of spirit results from this uninterrupted contact. However, when a successor has to be appointed to this office, it is important to select someone who is young enough to have retained memories dating from recent times and also youth's natural gift of facile adaptability. These qualities make it possible to understand the ideas, impressions, reactions, and mistakes of the young souls who are to be guided; and such understanding is a requisite condition for exercising 'influence and inspiring confidence. The same qualities should be found in prefects or directors of studies, and also in the superiors of certain houses. The physical condition of modern youth should enter into our consideration no less than its psychological dispositions. The war has radically affected the nervous systems of most young men and women who knock at the doors of our novitiates. This fact must be taken into account- seriously when matters concerning diet, length of 91 J. CREUSEN Review for Religious sleep, and the amount and kind of recreation are determined. When the garden is not sufficiently extensive, physical exercises can be very much in place.1 They afford relaxation from the overconstraint brought on by the religious habit, the practice of modesty, and a life that is too sedentary. In some countries it is perfectly circumspect for religious to enjoy the refreshment of a bath in a,swimming pool or in a pond located on the conveht grounds. In other countries, however, public opinion will hardly allow religious or clerics to swim even in a pool of their own. It is clear that public opinion must be reckoned with in this matter. D. B~] reason of special local circumstances. Most institutes having houses in hot climates have gradually adapted their religious garb to the climate so as not to wear out their subjects prematurely. Again, doctors scarcely allow religious nurses to enter the operating room unless their clothing is adapted to the functions to be performed there. Some cornets or headdresses have to be ruled out because they hinder freedom of bodily action too much. A white dress or apron will also have to be slipped over the religious habit. We need not insist on this because it causes no difficulty, and all institutes willingly consent to it. 3. Some adaptations though not necessary can be very suitable. Hence they are more or less important or urgent. The rational grounds underlying them resemble those we have mentioned above. A. The Liturgical Movement, for instance, will prompt the taking of a more intimate and active part while assisting at the Holy Sacrifice. All members of the community will be provided with a missal so that they can follow the prayers of the priest. On certain days, perhaps, the dialog Mass will be held. Some of the set prayers recited in common might be profitably replaced by others borrowed from the liturgy. One community, for example, has introduced the custom of reciting Compline as its evening prayer. B. Today quite a few candidates for religious life bring along a personal formation which their elders did not always have. This is explained by the modern abundance of spiritual literature, by more frequent confessions, and by more carefully organized closed retreats. Such candidates, of course, have new needs with regard to partictilar modes of the spiritual life. Would this not be a reason for doing lln the text Father Creusen seems to recommend calisthenics provided religious have not the facilities for other forms of exercises. His recommendation is hardly a sug-gestion to establish a regular regime of calisthenics, obligatory on alI.--ED. 92 March, 1949 ADAPTATION away with the custom, still widely in vogue, of reading the points of meditation every evening for the entire community? Would it not lead at least to the elimination of their rereading in the morning? Complaints about this matter are voiced quite often and they seem to be well-founded. After some time a suitably formed religious soul should be able to prepare for itself the matter of its prayer. It will feel drawn toward~ such or such a subject. Why compel such a one to listen in the morning to an entirely different kind of subject mat: ter? Sometimes even the manner of presentation does not correspond to the state of such a person's soul, to say nothing of its failure tO correspond to the mentality of the majority in the community. It is one thing to supply subject matter for morning prayer to novices for a time, or to provide the same help to the lay Sisters. It is quite a different thing to foist such subject matter' on persons who are already fuIIy formed both intellectually and spiritually. It would be absolutely intolerable, of course, for religious to lose their appreciation for the Rosary or for the beautiful invocations o~ litanies which are approved by the Holy See. But no need exists to' inspire a kind of distaste for these devotions by their overmultiplica-tion. It is hardly necessary to add that superiors should see with jealous care that fidelity is always maintained to the mental prayer prescribed by the constitutions. Sometimes, the length or number of vocal prayers recited in common infringes noticeably on the morning or evening meditation. C. Demands made b~t teachir~g. How many young religious men and women today must prepare for two, three, or four years to take examinations that require a considerableamount of knowledge as well as extensive laboratory exercises. The daily order should be adapted to this kind of work. To repeat certain courses intelligently or to put certain compositions in final form calls for. undisturbed and protor~ged study. Such students, therefore, should have at their disposal quite lengthy periods of study and should not be obliged to interrupt their study to attend to exercises of piety or manual labor. Some daily orders were formulated at a period when the preliminaries before class took practically no time or effort, especially after several years of prac-tical preparation. They are not at all suitable to present-day require-ments in the matter of study. The same holds true of preparation for examinations. Not forgetting, therefore, that some more elderly members may also be included in the dispensation, these young reli-gious will be dispensed from certain observances. Other members of 93 J. CREUSEN Reoieto for Religious the community who have more time either by reason of age or work, can continue to keep them. The Holy See sets the example here, for in the great monastic orders it allows exemption from choir to stu-dents of philosophy and theology. D. Technical progress. In a house of some size a house telephone system saves a considerable 'amount of time and eliminates many fatiguing trips and distractions. Telephones are p'erfectly in order in the rooms of the superior, the assistant, the treasurer, the prefects of study and of discipline, as well as in the kitchen, the infirmary, the tailor shop, and so on. How many runnings to and fro would be avoided, how many conversations shortened, what an asset for con-tinued and peaceful labor! An outside telephone evidently brings up different problems. Its use should not be permitted to the free choice of the members of the community. Simple prudence and sometimes the observance of poverty demand some limitations. Here again a wise adaptation is very much in place. The same should be said of the use of automobiles. A visitor was told in a kind of boasting way that in a house of studies there were at least fifteen typewriters. "How does it happen," he said, "that there are only fifteen? Each professor and most of the students should have their own typewriters." We submit this answer to the reflection of superiors. It is certain at any rate that a typewriter is no longer an object of luxury and can be strictly necessary for a teacher or a writer. Even the organization of work in some religious houses would profit much if it were inspired by the modern methods pursued in enterprises of considerable scope. An industrialist who had become a religious told us one time: "What an extravagance of personnel, what losses of time, what a lessening of the effectiveness of our work because we are not rationally organized." We might mention by way of example lack of adequate space, manual tasks imposed on eminent religious because they do not have secretaries to help them in their work, the lack of suitable instruments for work (furniture, index files, and so forth). E. The growth of the Institute brings up another very delic~ite question: Is it proper and, if so, when is it proper to transfer the gen-eral headquarters of the institute to Rome? To begin with, let us say that, although the Holy 'See wants to see a house of every institute at Rome, the Sacred Congregation does not urge all institutes to transfer the mother house there. When a mother house has been a cradle of 94 March, 19 4 9 ADAPTATION the institute; when it has been sanctified and made famous by the vir-tues and sometimes even the miracles of the founder or foundres~;' when most cherished memories are connected with it; we can readily understand that truly valid reasons are wanting for its removal. This is true even though one of the suggested reasons for removal is the advan'tage of baying the mother house in the center of Christianity. Proximity to the Vatican is not an indispensable condition for fos-teringdeep attachment to the Sovereign Pontiff and for acquiring a truly Catholic spirit. However, it can happen that the mother house by reason of the spread of the institute can lose its prestige in the minds of very many members; whereas the actual presence of the superior general's house in Rome certainIy lends to a congregation a mark of universalism and a feeling of union with the Holy See, both of which promote devotion in all members of the institute to those who govern it. Consequently 'it might be well to ask if such a project should not be submitted to the deliberations of a general chapter. IV How should the adaptation be carried out? 1. With prudence. To adapt means to change; and we know that changes do not always take place without shock. Sometimes they cause surprise. Oftentimes ~they inspire spirits of lesser con-stancy and prudence with a desire to introduce other changes which no good reason counsels or commands. Once a change is made it is often difficult, even impossible, to retrace one's steps. Hence a choice should be made in. the alterations to be introduced. Sometimes the unfavorable aspects of a change are perceived only after it has been made. This is an additional reason for seriously considering all possible consequences beforehand. A religious once suggested to his superior that a door be installed at a certain spot in the coiridor. The superior answered: "My dear father, in such and such a year a door was put there; some time later, another superior had it taken out. Later on it was replaced, and then it vanished again. Don't you think it is better to leave things as they are?" Hence counsel should be sought, but not solely from those who are so set in their ways that they cannot imagine or accept any change. It will be helpful to get information .from religious men or women of other institutes. What works well in one institute of the same kind may prove advantageous and beneficial in similar circum- 95 BOOK REVIEWS Review For Religious stances. When feasible, an experiment should be made without offering the change as permanent. 2. With decision. Prudence does not require an indefinite delay before introducing beneficial or necessary changes. Such delay easily engenders restlessness and regrettable criticism. Once the utility or the need of a change has been recognized, it should be introduced with-out complaints, without laments over the evils of the time, without harking back continually to the advantages of the former system. Such a policy might disco.urage souls of good will, or embitter those less favorably disposed. Above all the principle, "That was never done before and things went along all right" should be avoided. Such reasoning simply and categorically closes the door to all progress. Dis-tinction must be made between healthy tradition, custom, and row. line. The first is, generally spea.king, to be kept; the second can and sometimes should be changed: the third should be unequivocally condemned. ook Reviews THE LORD'S SERMON ON THE MOUNT. By St. Augustine. Translafed from the Latin by John J. Jepspn, S.S. Pp. v~ -f- 227. The Newman Press, Wes÷mlns÷er, Maryland, 1948. $2.75. The editors of "The Ancient Christian Writers" seri?s, Dr. Jo-hannes Quasten and Dr. Joseph Plumpe of Catholic University, have again succeeded magnificently in presenting to the English-speaking world an excellent translation of an important work of. Augustine. The entire work is a pithy, thorough analysis of the most challenging of all messages, the Sermon on the Mount, the party platform of Christianity. The work is divided into two books. Book One delves into the meaning of the sermon. Book Two establishes the truth that it is humanly possible to put the Sermon on the Mount into practice, that this sermon is not a moral code for a select few but a perfect pat-tern of Christian living, that it does not contain only counsels for a better class of Christians but rather also for every follower of Christ. The intimate relation between ethics and religion as it appears in this sermon intrigued the great mind of Augustine, and he set himself 96 March, 1949 BOOK REVIEWS to explore this relationship. As a result, in this volume we meet Augustine the moral theologian rather than Augustine the- dogmatic theologian, the ethics master rather than the metaphysician. As a result too, the book is easier to understand, more pleasant, even more devotional at times, as compared with his heavier dogmatic works. The cases handled and the learned discussions concerning them prove Augustine to be the greatest exponent of moral theology in Christian antiquity. In this work he 'made an impoftant contribution both to the science of ethics in general and to that of moral theology in particular. Several of Augustine's comparisons make for instructive and pro-vocative reading. He compares the Beatitudes with the Gifts of the Holy Ghost; and be concludes his book by comparing them to the seven petitions of the Our Father, saying that the first seven Beati-tudes are stages of grace that correspond to the seven petitions of the Our Father as they ask for the coming of the Kingdom of God. The treatment of the Our Father has excellent material for prayerful reflec-tion. One final asset of the book is the copious notes that clarify difficult passages and correct dubious solutions.--V. P. MICELI, S.J. YOU CAN CHANGE THE WORLD! The Chris÷opher Approach. By James Keller, M.M. Pp. xlx q- 387. Longmans Green and Co., Inc., New York, 1948. $3.00. The opening message of this book is that "the United States is being effectively undermined by less than one percent of the people of our country," who are fired by "a militant hatred for the basic truths upon which this nation is founded," and. who, in order to poison the minds of many, "make it their business to get into one of the four in-fluential spheres of activity which touch and sway the majority of the people." The challenge that immediately follows this message is that an equal number of people, fired by a love of Christian principles, desirous of enlightening the minds of the many, can enter the same influential spheres and save the country. And, since this parallel can be extended from country to country, the Christ-bearers (Christo-phers) can save the world. This, however, is only a part of the chal-lenge, for the emphasis of this whole Christopher movement is on the you (singular) ; and it says to every Christ-bearer, "'You can save the world." I will not attempt to give a complete outline or criticism of Father Keller's book. As a matter of fact, it is not a book in the ordinary 97 ]~OOK REVIEWS Reoiew for Religious sense; and anyone who wishes to read it as a book will very probably punish his-head mercilessly. It is a manual, a detailed plan of action covering the four major spheres of influence--education, government, labor-management, and writing--in which every individual who at least believes in God and in the fundamental moral truths can help to counteract the anti-God campaign that is now wrecking the country and the world. It does not stop, however, at these major spheres. It goes into the library, into business, onto the campus, and into the heart to convince every individual of good will that be can do some-thing and to point the way to do it. Because of this extensive scope and the multiple suggestions contained under each head, You Can Change the World is intended more for piecemeal pondering accbrding to one's own circumstances than for reading straight through. A large percentage of our readers can use Father Keller's book very effectively. It could make a fine basis for a discussion of various apostolic works; also for a consideration of various avocations (~nd sometimes of vocations). _And I might add that one can hardly read the opening chapters without being urged to pray for the world, and particularly for the Communists. One reader of the book said that he had not finished five pages before it suddenly came home to him that it would be better to pray for the Communists than against them. If Father Keller accomplished nothing more than to throw emphasis on conversion rather than destruction, on love rather than hate, his book and the whole Christopher movement would be more than justified. In one respect this book treads on what I might term "theological thin ice." Father Keller's message is addressed to all men who hold to the moral fundamentals, irrespective of their religious affiliations, and he encourages all to communicate what truth they have to others. This is a dangerous message and it must be phrased skillfully. The appeal to all men independently of religious attachments can readily connote-religious indifferentism; and the charge to spread what truth they have can lead to communicating the errors woven into the parr tial truths. On the first stretch of thin ice (the appeal to all men of good will) Father Keller is in the very safe company of Plus XII. The second stretch is more dangerous; yet it seems better to risk a plunge into the cold waters of misinterpretation by a positive and encouraging approach to those outside the Faith than to remain (freezing, more or less) in the so-called safety zone of negativism. As a matter of fact, my general impression is that Father Keller crosses 98 March, 1949 BOOK NOTICES even this very perilous patch with remarkable skill and courage. He makes it perfectly clear that his book and the Christopher movement are under Catholic auspices: he does not water down the fact that only Catholics possess the fullness of God's truth; and, in drawing up a minimum plan for the spiritual life of a Christopher, he wisely lim-its his suggestions to Catbolics.---G. KELLY, S.J. BOOK NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL WEDLOCK, A LENTEN COURSE OF SEVEN SERMONS, by the Reverend Clement H. Crock, includes the best ideas from many sermons on marriage prepared by the author over a long period of years. Compiled in response to requests of bishops and priests for a series of concise, up-to-date Lenten sermons on matrimony, couched in simple, straightforward language, and pleasantly sprinkled with an abundance of apt illustrative examples, these seven sermons drive home .the fundamental doctrine which should be known by those already married and those preparing for marriage. They are easily adaptable for long or short sermons, and should prove very useful for all preachers. (New York City: Joseph F. Wagner, Inc., I948. Pp. 64.) THE JOY OF SERVING GOD by Dom Basil Hemphill, O.S.B.,con-talus twenty chapters, eacl4 of which deals with some important vir-tue or practice of the religious or priestly life. As usually happens, these time-honored subjects, such as humility, charity, spiritual reading, suffering, obedience, silence, detachment, derive new fresh-ness from their treatment by another personality. The book, there-fore, is worth adding to the community library. It is hard to see. why the author omits chapters on the vows of poverty and chastity since they are basic elements of the religious life. A few inaccuracies mar the book. For instance, very few theologians would want to defend this sentence: "All the venial sins of our past life for which we are sorry are forgiven by every absolution, whether they have been mentioned or not" (p. 162). Neither is it correct to say that one of the constitutive elements of the sacrament of penance is the "performing our penance" (p. 157). The meaning of the "imprimatur" on a book is not expressed clearly enough (p. 170). It is also surprising to find silence described as the "twin" of obedience 99 BOOK NOTICES Reoiew for Religious (p. 15). It is rather an atmosphere in which all virtues flourish. But despite these flaws, which after all take up but a few lines of the vol-ume, the book by its simplicity of style and general soundness will provide enlightenment and inspiration for many. (St. Louis, Mis-souri: B. Herder Book Company, 1948. Pp. x + 194. $2.50.) As its title indicates, OUR LADY'S DIGEST contains Marian articles chosen from Catholic magazines and books. It follows the familiar pattern of the Catholic Digest and other similar magazines, differing from them only in subject matter. The articles are frequently very good; but the stories, which are few in number, are with some excep-tions below average in literary quality as are also the poems. The various issues to date (the magazine has been in publication for almost three years) are uneven in quality, but in general are im-proving. With good editing the publication should develop into a very valuable and interesting magazine. (Olivet, Illinois. 11 issues per year. $2.00.) OUR LADY'S HOURS, by Mary Ryan, discusses the meaning and the beauty of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin. This discussion is preceded by two chapters on "Liturgical Prayer" and "The Divine Office." The book should be of great value to Sisters and others who say the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin. (Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Book shop, 1948. Pp. xv + 195. $2.50.) THE IMITATION OF MARY contains brief chapters with Marian thoughts selected from the writings of Thomas ~ Kempis and edited by Dr. Albin de Cigala. Each "thought" is followed by applications made by the compiler. The book does not approach the appeal of The Imitation of Christ, but it contains a fair number of interesting thoughts. The attempt to arrange the material to fit the fifteen mys-teries of the Rosary is not successful. The work was translated from the original French by a Dominican Sister. (Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1948. Pp. 114. $1.00 [paper] : $2.25 [cloth].) RELIGIOUS TEACHING OF YOUNG CHILDREN, by S.N.D., has four parts. The first is historical and highlights the chief events in Our Lord's life. The second is doctrinal, corresponding roughly to the Creed. The third and fourth parts deal with the child's first steps to God: prayer, confession, and Communion. The narratives and instructions are simple and adapted to the tiny capacity of the very young. Religion is presented, not so much as a stern Creed, Code, 100 March, 1949 BOOK NOTICES and Cult but as an attractive and lovable person whom the child is drawn to follow. The copious suggestions and devices after each les-son are practical aids to help the child live, love, and serve Christ, his best Friend, twenty-four hours every day--on Monday as well as on Sunday. Parents and teachers will discover in this charming book the secret of that most difficult of arts--introducing a child to the Lover of little children. (Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Bookshop, 1947. Pp. 173. $2.25.) BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS. [We have been receiving more books than we can possibly review. Because of this we must make a decided change in our policy. In future we shall list each book received and shall in most cases include a brief descriptive notice of the contents, in so far as this can be estimated from a glance at tbe book, the jacket, and the pub-lisher's announcement. This is the most that we can guarantee for any book. Some books, of course, will be reviewed later or will be given a more complete and critical notice. We can make no guarantee at all for booklets and pamphlets. The list of books announced here supplements the list included in our January number, p. 56. This list, together with the reviews and notices published in this issue, is a complete acknowledgement of all books received up to February 10, 1949, and not previously reviewed.] BENZIGER BROTHERS, INC., 26 Park Place, New York 7, N. Y. Our Lady of Fatima, Queen of Peace. By Joseph Delabays; translated by John H. Askin. Pp. xv + 197. $2.75, A fairly full history of the Fatima story, fol-lowed by nearly fifty pages of prayers to Mary, Five illustrations. BRUCE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 540 N. Milwaukee St., Milwaukee I, Wis. Vade Mecum for Teachers of Religion. By Sister M. Catherine Frederic, O.S.F. Edited by the Rt. Roy. William F. Lawlor. Pp. xvi -'k 344. $4.00. A grade school teacher's reference book containing material on the liturgy, the Mass, a glos-sary of ecclesiastical terms and abbreviations, and brief lives of class patron saints recommended for study. The Watch. By the Most Rev. Alfred A. Sinnott, D,D., Archbishop of Winni-peg. Pp. vii -5 155. 1947. $2.50. Contains fourteen Holy Hours for use each month of the year, for Holy Thursday, and for Forty Hours. CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA PRESS, Washington,-D.C. The Provincial Religious Superior. By Rom~eus W. O'Brien, O.Carm. Pp. x q- 294. Adissertation on the rights and duties of provincials in religious orders of men. EVANS-WINTER-HEBB, INC., Detroit, Mich. No Greater Service. By Sister M. Rosalita, I.H.M. Pp. xx q- 863. The history of the Congregation of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Mon-roe, Michigan, (1845- 1945), with a foreword by His Eminence, Edward Cardinal Mooney. Achievement of a Century. By the same author. Pp. xiii -Jr 299. An account of the mother house and missions of the congregation. Both volumes pro-fusely illustrated. $15.00 for both volumes. Order From: Publications Office, Saint Mary's, Monroe, Michigan. FATHERS OF THE SACRED HEARTS, 4930 South Dakota Ave., N.E., Washington 17, D.C. 101 BOOK NOTICES Review For Religious Father Damien: Apostle of the Lepers. By the Most Reverend Amleto Giovanni Cicognani. Pp. 47. $.50 (paper). THE GRAIL, St. Meinrad, Indiana. As Others See Us. By Henry Brenner, O.S.B. Pp. 117. $1.25. Presents the Sacred Humanity of Christ as the mirror in which we may see ourselves. The Mass Year. By Placidus Kempf, O.S.B. Pp. 124. $.30. A daily Mass guide for 1949 with liturgical reflections on some of the SeCrets. The Virgin's Land. By the Young .Monks of St. Meinrad's Abbey. Pp. 97. $.50 (paper). B. HERDER BOOK COMPANY, 17 South Broadway, St. Louis 2, Mo. Where We Got the Bible. By th," Rt. Rev. Henry G. Graham. Pp. xii q- 166. Paper. $1.00. Tells how the Catholic Church preserved the Bible. A reprint of a work that has not been available for several years. Meditations For Evergman. By Joseph McSorley, C.S.P. Volume II. Contains. meditations for each day of the liturgical year from Pentecost to Advent; also a handy index of the Scripture texts on which the meditations are based. Pp. vi 211. $2.75. Dante Theologian, A translation of and commentary on The Divine Comedy, by the Rev. Patrick Cummins, O.S.B. Contains an English version of the encyclical on Dante, the text of The Divine Comedy, commentaries, and a dictionary of proper names. Pp. 604. $6.00. The Three Ages of the Interior Life. Volume II. By the Rev. R. Garrigou- Lagrange, O.P. Translated by Sister M. Timothea Doyle, O.P. Pp. xiv -[- 668. $7.50. The present volume discusses the illuminative and the unitive ways and extraordinary graces. Second Latin. By Cora Carroll Scanlon and Charles L. Scanlon. Pp. vi -1- 270. ' $3.50. Intended for students who can devote only two years to the study of Latin and who must be prepared to read Latin textbooks of philosophy, theology, and canon law. The Well of Living Waters. By. Pascal P. Parente. Pp. viii -t- 335. $3.50. Excerpts on spiritual topics from the Bible, the Fathers, and the masters of the spiritual life. P. J. KENEDY ~ SONS, 12 Barclay Street, New York 8, N. Y. Another Tu2o Hundred Sermon Notes. By the Rev. F. H. Drinkwater. Pp. ~ii -t- 210. $4,25. Provides from two to five outlines for each Sunday of the year, as well as a choice of themeS, for a large number of feasts and occasions when a pul-pit talk is in order. L'IMMACULI~E-CONCEPTION, 1844 est, rue Rachel, Montreal (34), Canada. Lumiire et Sagesse. By Lucien Roy, S.J. Pp. 301. A study of mystical grace according to the theology of St. Thomas. LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., INC., 55 Fifth Ave., New York, N. Y. You Can Change the World. By James.Keller, M.M. Pp. xix -b" 387. This is the story of "The Christopher Approach"-~of how the ordinary man can do a great job ifi changing the world for the better. $3,00. Transformation in Christ. By Dietrich yon Hildebrand. Pp. ix -b 406. $4.50. The theme of the book is the operation of the supernatural life in the sphere of personal morality. Lord, Teach us to Pratl. By Paul Claudel. Translated b~" Ruth Bethell. Pp. 95. $2.00. De La Salle: A Pioneer of Modern Education. By W, J. Battersby, Foreword by A. C. F. Beales. Pp. xix + 236. $3.50. 102 March, 1949 BOOK NOTICES Sermons and Discourses: (1825-39). Pp. xviii q- 348. $3.50. --- Sermons and Discourses: (1839-57). Pp. xvli-b- 382, $3,50,--Two more volumes of the new series of the works of John Henry Cardinal Newman. Edited by Charles Frederick Harrold. MACMILLAN COMPANY, 60 Fifth Avenue. New York. Mary o[ Nazareth: A True Portrait. By Igino Giordani. Translated by Mother Clelia Maranzana and Mother Mary Paula Wiltiamson. Pp. xlx + 185, $2.75. MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY PRESS, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Peace Proposals of Plus Xll in the Writings of David Lawrence. By Sister Cath-erine Joseph Wilcox, S.P. ,Pp. xi q- 95. A dissertation. THE MARYKNOLL BOOKSHELF, Marykn911, N. Message of Fatima. A unit of work for intermediate grades. Lithographed. Pp. 103. How the People o[ the Andes Live. A new unit of study on Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Assembled in loose-leaf binder. $1.50, .THE MERCIER PRESS, Cork. Communism and Ireland. By Sean P. MacEaoin. Pp. 132. Paper: 3/6d. Westward by Command. By Maire Cotter. Pp. 159. $2.50. A life of Mother Cabrini. THE MISSION PRESS, 1502 West Ashby Place, San Antonio 1, Texas. The True Concept of Literature. By Austin J. App, Ph. D. Pp. v -1- 110. Paper: $1.00. NATIONAL CENTER OF THE ENTHRONEMENT. 4930 So. Dakota Ave., N. E. Washington 17, D. C. Proceedings of the'First National Congress of the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart in the Home. Pp. 92. Paper: $1.00. Contains much conference material. THE NEWMAN PRESS, Westminster, Ancient Christian Writers, No. 6. This volume comprises The Didache, The Epistle of Barnabas, The Epistles and the Martyrdom of St. Polycarp, The Frag-ments of Papias, The Epistle to Diognetus. Newly translated and annotated by James A. Kleist, S.J. Pp. vi + 235. $2.75. Meditations on Christian Dog.ran. By the Rev. James Bellord, D.D. Vol. I: Pp. xxv--[- 369; Vol. II: xiv -[- 363. $7.50 for the set of 2 volumes. The medita-tions cover the whole of dogma. Two pages for each meditation. They seem very solld. This is a Newman reprint of a work that has not been available for a long time. The Vell Upon the Heart. By George Byrne. S.J. Pp. viii q-- 103. The book treats of private prayer. Thy Light and TbU Truth. By Rev. Robert Nash. S,J. Pp. 197. $2.50. A book of meditations. A selection of the Spiritual Book Associates. The Old Testament and The Future Life. By Edmu, nd F. Sutcliffe, S.J. 2nd. edition. Pp. vii q- 201. $3.50. Surveys the development of the doctrine of the future life as it is found in the Old Testament. The Way of the Mystics. By H. C. Graef. Pp. 160. $2.75. A study of the mystical life in various mystics. Christ ls All. By John Carr, C.SS.R. Pp. 143. $2.25. This is the fourth impression; the Imprimatur is dated 1928. According to the author's preface, the book is of a moral and devotional nature and is intended to make Cath,olics' belief in Our Lord more vivid and practical. The Mystical Body, the Foundation of the Spiritual Life. By Father M. Eugen~ 103 BOOK NOTICES Revieu~ for Religiou,~ Boylan00.Cist.R. Pp. 130. $1.75, cloth: $.90, paper. This was the April (1948) selection of the Spiritual Book Associates. The Liturgical Year. Volume I: Advent. By Abbot Gu~ra, nger, O.S.B. Pp. x + 520. The price of the present volume is $4.00. Subscribers to the entire set of 15 volumes are entitled to a discount of 25 per cent. Another Newman reprint of a classic work. Catechism Stories. By the Rev. F. H. Drinkwater. Pp. xxxv ÷ 480. $3.'50. Contains nearly seven hundred stories, each designed to drive home some point of Catholic teaching. Written originally as a companion to the English catechism, this American edition has references to the appropriate sections of the Revised Baltimore Catechism No. 2. Diocesan Censures "Latae Sententiae" and Reseroed Sins in the United States. Compiled at Woodstock College, Woodstock, Md. Pp. 38. Paper: 50 cents per copy; 6 or more copies, 20 per cent discount. A handy booklet for students of canon law and for priests in the ministry. A Retreat Souvenir. By Father Victor, C.P. Pp. 79. Paper: 30 cents. A translation of the French. Intended primarily for girls and young women who have made an enclosed retreat. Platform Replies. By the Very Rev. J. P. Arendzen. Volume 1. Pp. 199. Paper: $1.75. Answers to questions on ethics and religion. Companion to the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. By Aloysius Ambruzzl, S.J. (Third edition.) Pp. xiv + 348. $3.00. First Steps in the Religious Life. By Bernard J. Kelly, C.S.Sp. Pp. 127. $2.50. A planned series of instructions on the religious life. Hidden Fields. By Sister M. Rosalia, M.H.S.H. Pp. viii + 55. $1.50 (paper). A brief sketch of the life of Mother M. Demetrlas, foundress and first superior gen-eral of the Mission Helpers of the Sacred Heart. The Liturgical Year: (Christmas, Book I, 4th ed.). Pp. vii + 456. $4.00. --The Liturgical Year (Christmas. Book II, 4th ed.) Pp. x ÷ 522. $4.00.-- Both by Abbot Gu~ranger. O.S.B. Translated by Dora Laurence Shepherd. The Lord is mg Jog. By Paul de Jaegher, S.J. Pp. 182. $2.50. Describes the relationship between happiness and holiness. The Mother of Jesus. By Father James, O.F.M.Cap. 'Pp. viii + 159. Chapter Headings: Portrait, Vocation, Immaculate, Pre-Ordained, Virgin-Mother, Media-tion, Queen. Nazareth. By J. K. Scheuber, O.S.B. Translated by the Venerable Archdeacon M. S. MacMahon. P.P., V.F. Pp. xiv + 278. $2.50. A pocket-size book of counsel and prayer for the married. Readings and Addresses. By the Reverend F. H. Drinkwater. Pp. vi + 190. " $2.75. For the Holy Hour and other occasions. Religious Teaching of Young Children. By S. N. D. Pp. 173. $2.25. A book for teachers and parents. A Spiritual Aeneid. By Monsignor Ronald A. Knox. Pp. v + 263. $I.00 (paper) : $3.00 (cloth). The author's account of his conversion. This Age and Marg. By Michael O'Carroll, C.S.Sp. Pp. viii + 158. $2.50. FREDERICK PUSTET COMPANY, INC., 14 Barclay Street, New York 8, N.Y. Ave Maris Stella. By Max F. Walz, C.PP.S. Pp. vii + 70. $1.50. Each chapter handles a stanza of the "Ave Maris Stella" hymn in the manner of the sec-ond- method-of-prayer. The Shepherdess of Souls. By a Sister of Mercy. Pp. ix + 125. $1.50. Each of the thirty-o.ne short considerations consists of a quotation from some book about 104 March, 19 4 9 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Mary, some thoughts about the event in her llfe, followed by a moral application to the reader's llfe, concluded with a prayer to Mary, and an appropriate poem. RADIO REPLIES PRESS, St. Paul I, Minn. The Singing Heart. By Rev. Lawrence G. Lovasik, S.V.D. P. 144. Sto~y of girl named Antoinette Marie Kuhn. ROSARY COLLEGE (Department of Library Science), River Forest, Ill. The Catholic Booklist: 1948. Pp. 110. $.60. The Catholic Booklist: 1949. Pp. 86. $.65 (paper). ST. ANTHONY GUILD PRESS, Paterson, New Jersey. The Book of Genesis. The first of a new set of translations of the Old Testa-ment. Work is done by scholars of the Catholic Biblical Association and is spon-sored by the Episcopal Committee of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine. Pp. vi + 130. THE SENTINEL PRESS, 194 E. 76th St., New York 21, N. Y. The Eucharist and Christian Perfection. Parts I and II, translated from the French of Blessed Julian Eymard by Mrs. Amy Allen. Part I contains two retreats: one given to the Brothers of St. Vincent de Paul: the other to the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament. Part II contains a retreat given to the Blessed Sacrament Fathers. PartI:Pp. vi + 327; PartII, xii + 236. Each, $2.00. Month of St. Joseph. Translated from the French of Blessed Peter Julian Ey-mard. Pp. xxvi -1- 131. $1.50. Contains thoughts for each day of March. In the Liqht of the Monstrance. Translated from the French ol~ Blessed Peter Julian Eymard. Pp. vii + 248. $2.00. This volume contains miscellaneous writings of Blessed Eymard that represent the basic principles of his spiritual doc-trine. The compiler is the

Issue 42.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1983. ; Rt vtFw I-or Rvt IGIOU~, (ISSN 0034-639XL published every two months ~s edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St Lout,, Umverslty The editorial offices are located at Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd.: St. Louis. MO 63108. REVIEW FOR REI.IGIOtJS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Instltute of the Society of Jesus. St. I.ouis. MO. © 1983 by REVIEW FoR REI.IGtOtJS, Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis. MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A.: $9.00 a year: $17.00 for two years. Other countries: add $2.00 per year (postage). For subscription orders or change of address, write: REVIEW VOll RELIC, IOUS: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Daniel T. Costello, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Book Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor Jan./Feb., 1983 Volume 42 Number I Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGtOt~S; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; Jesuit Community; St. Joseph's University; City Avenue at 54th St.; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REVtE'W EOR RELtGtOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108, "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Review for Religious Volume 42, 1983 Editorial Offices 3601 Lindell Boulevard, Room 428 Saint Louis, Missouri 63108 Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Daniel T. Costello, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Miss Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Book Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is published in January, March, May, July, Sep-tember, and November on the fifteenth of the month. It is indexed in the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index and in Book Review Index. A microfilm edition of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is available from University Microfilms International; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyright © 1983 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Signs of Hope in Religious Life Today Stephen Tutas, S.M. Father Tutas has been Superior General'of the Marianists. and is now assigned to their forma-tion center in California. The September-October, 1982 issue carried "Preparing for the 1983 Synod." Father Tutas resides at the Marianist Formation Center. 22622 Marianist Way: Cuper-tino, CA 95014. One of the most important contributions religious women and men can make to the Church in any era is to be signs of hope, encouraging others in their own response to Gold's call by a witness of joyful dedication. This call to religious to be signs of hope is as urgent today as in any other time in the history of the Church. The preparatory document for the 1983 Synod of Bishops states that "the dominant characteristic of our era s~ems to have become that of tensions and divisions., situations of incomprehen~ion, of estrangement, of conflict, of schism, of reciprocal condemnation . " In response to this, 1 believe it is absolutely necessary that we religious today strive to be outstanding men and women of hope. We must really believe--and show our belief--that the Holy Spirit is active in the Church today, and that this active presence of the Spirit is the basis for our hope. Points of Convergence For some time now, ! have been especially sensitive to the signs of hope found in religious life. I was privileged to see some of these signs of hope as 1 met with other superiors general of both men and women religious congrega-tions. The various formal and informal meetings in Rome and elsewhere were for me inspiring moments when we were able to share with each other what we experienced in our visits to communities. It was very heartening for me to see how many points of convergence there were as we discussed the main themes of religious life and were able to refer to so many encouraging examples of 4 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 what was actually being realized on a day-by-day basis in religious communi-ties throughout the world. My personal experience included contact with communities of the Society of Mary (Marianists) in thirty one countries on all the continents. As I found in my exchange of views with others, my experience reflected well the general thrusts in religious life as 1 came to identify these through visits and reports. Obviously, not all that I experience is positive and encouraging. I am painfully aware of the inadequacies in my own life and in the lives of others. It ,is always true that the Church "is at the same time holy and always in need of being purified."~ But while recognizing our failures as religious, I believe it is much more life-giving to look at the signs of hope so evident in the lives of many religious women and men and build on these so that together with other members of the Church we can move forward to the third millennium in a spirit of hope. I often pray in the words of Pope Paul VI that "the world of our time, which is searching, sometimes with anguish, sometimes with hope, be enabled to receive the Good News not from evangelizers who are dejected, discouraged, impatient or anxious, but from ministers of the gospel whose lives glow with fervor, who have first received the joy of Christ, and who are willing to risk their lives so that the kingdom may be proclaimed and the church established in the midst of the world."~ After completing my terms of service as Superior General, 1 was privileged to have several months to devote to prayer and reflection before taking up my new assignment as Director of the Marianist Formation Center in Cupertino, California. Most of this time of prayer and reflection was spent in the Mother-house of the Dallas Province of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Irving, Texas, where I served as chaplain under ideal conditions that made it easy for me to look back with gratitude and to look forward with hope, while sharing my experience of gratitude and hope with the community as I tried to live fully in the present. Now that 1 have taken up my new life and work in California, With the specific responsibility to promote continuing formation in the Marianist Prov-ince of the Pacific, I would like to share with the readers of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS a gummary of the signs of hope that I see in religious life today. Ten Signs of Hope I have selected ten signs of hope that I find particularly striking. It is evident that these signs do not exist everywhere. And where they do exist, the signs .vary in clarity and intensity. But these signs do exist, and my daily prayer is that they become ever stronger and more general throughout the Church, I hope the readers of this article will find in the list a confirmation of their own experience, and a further encouragement to continue working to make these signs ever more clear and ever more general. 1. A strong commitment to ongoing renewal, emphasizing: - personal and communitarian prayer, making union with God clearly the Signs of Hope in Religious Life Toda.v / 5 basis for religious life: - the building of community, recognizing this bonding in view of a shared ideal as the sign of being a true follower of Christ; - the concern for a greater simplicity of life: - the positive understanding of celibacy as a way of loving rather than as a simple renunciation of marriage and of family. These four points constitute a truly radical change in religious life which is often unnoticed as we ourselves go through it. It is not that the value of prayer, community, simplicity and celibacy were lacking in the past, but that we have been able to give new expression to these values in a changing world. I have selected these four characteristics of renewal as being the most life-giving. First and foremost, of course, m,ust be the contemplative dimension of religious life. I find it significant that the "Conclusive Document"just issued by the Vatican as a follow-up to the 1981 International Congress of Bishops and Others Responsible for Ecclesiastical Vocations declares, in speaking of religious states, that "the contemplative dimension is the true secret of spiritual renewal and apostolic fruitfulness in religious life.'~ All renewal programs begin with this contemplative dimension. Efforts are also being made to emphasize community as a sharing of faith: faith is given expression in a concern for simplicity of life: the commu~ nity of faith is always being urged to look beyond itself. These are outstanding fea-tures of various renewal programs. Perhaps never before in the history of religious life has so much attention been given to providing assistance for continuing formation. This itself is certainly a great sign of hope. 2. A rediscovery of the relevance of the founding charism, along with a renewed interest in the person of the founder or foundress, and also a renewed understanding that the founding charism is just as important for the Church of our time as it was at the time of the actual foundation of the community. The document, "Mutual Relations between Bishops and Religious," is an important encouragement for us religious to renew the offering of our cha-risms to the local church, and this with a renewed awareness that we are needed and wanted for the specific gifts God has entrusted to the various religious families in the Church. General chapters, especially in writingconstitutions in response to the Second Vatican Council, have expressed very forcefully how the founding charism is able to meet the urgent needs of the Church in our time. 3. New directions in evangelization, in continued response to that great docu-ment of Pope Paul VI, Evangelization in the Modern World, which followed the 1974 Synod of Bishops on Evangelization. 1 found it very rewarding to read Archbishop Robert Sanchez' address to his .fellow bishops at Collegeville last summer in which he gave heavy emphasis to the dynamic orientations implicit in Pope Paul's statement, saying that "it 6 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 would be difficult to exaggerate the importance that this document will have in revitalizing and prephring the Church for the future . -4 For us religious, this Apostolic Exhortation has sparked and encouraged a gratifying transition from concern about ourselves--even about our survival-- to a greater sense of mission and outreach. 4. The greater insertion of religious corhmunities in the local church and a more ecclesial thrust in solidarity with other religiotls and in collaboration with all others in the local church. As we look back over the past twenty-five years we can appreciate what dramatic changes have taken place in terms of greater collaboration among religious themselves, but also in terms of the active involvement of religious in the life and structures of the local church. The Unions of Superiors General and the national conferences of superiors have provided excellent leadership in this regard. At the same time, more and more bishops are recognizing the unique contribution religious communities can make to the life of the local church. Here, as with the other signs of hope, much needs to be done, but the first step in making this sign clearer and more general is to acknowledge the great strides that have already been realized. 5. The increasing concern for the promotion of justice and peace. 1 am temp~ed to write more extensively aboiat this sign than any other because, as President of the USG Commission Justice and Peace during most of my years as Super-ior General, I was able to witness first hand the response religious have made to the call of the 1971 Synod's document on Justice in the World. Perhaps the simplest statement is best: if the movement to promote.lustlce and peace has developed so strongly in our time. it is in great part due to the courageous initiatives on the part of so many religious throughout the world. 6. The promotion of the laity. It may be surprising to some that ! ha~,e chosen to underline the promotion of the laity as a sign of hope for religious. But ! believe the attention that has been given to the vocation of the laity since Vatican II has served to clarify even more the specific vocation of religious men and women in the Church. Among the significant consequences of this clarification has been greater attention by religious to the witness they give by the quality of their religious life. There is a definite priority given today to being. Religious life, theh, will not be evaluated simply in terms of doing. As important and vital as our work may be, the first and most important contri-bution we religious can make to the Church is in terms of our life. This emphasis religious give to being is a wonderful response to the call of the Church in our time, as this was stated so clearly by Pope John Paul 11 shortly after his election: "What counts most is not what the religious do, but what they are, as persons consecrated to the Lord."5 I also find it encouraging that more and more r~eligi0us ar,e emphasizing a greater collaboration with the laity, recognizing the unique values that each Signs of Hope in Religious Life Today can offer the other. One of my hopes, as a consequenge of the last Synod of Bishops on the Christian Family, has been for a more effective collaboration between the community of religious and the Christian family in the local church. 7. Collaboration in the promotion of vocations. Ever since the Second Vatican Council, the Church has been calling upon all Christians to work together in promoting all Christian vocations. The Conclusive Document referred to ear-lier is an excellent guide t9 help toward the realization of this objective put forward by the council. What I find as a heartening sign of hope is that so many religious communities are making well-organized efforts to collaborate with each other in the promotion of vocations rather than seeking unilaterally to promote their own vocations. Religious who see clearly their responsibility to promot~e a sense of voca-tion in the lives of all, and who offer their own charism to those whom God may call are themselves great signs of hope for the Church in our time. 8. Trends' in .formation and government that assure the best conditions for human development, such as: - concern for affective maturity; - emphasis on freedom and personal responsibility; - endorsement of animation as a way of exercising authority; - general application of the principle of subsidiarity; - appreciation of collegiality on all levels. Each of these points is itself a sign of hope. Taken together, these trends offer great promise for the future of religious life. 9. A reassessement of the role of religious life in the churches of Africa, Latin America and ASia, featuring both a new thrust (from missionary to collabora-tor) and new foundations to implant various expressions of religious life for greater and longer-lasting service to the local church. The kind of thinking sparked by Buhlman's "The Coming of the Third Church" has been both challenging and stimulating for many religious communities. The transition from missionary to collaborator is not easy, but it is being done. and done very well, in so many places. The new foundations, despite the overall decline in numbers and the stead-ily advancing age of communities, are remarkable signs of confidence in God's Providence, that a generous response to the evident needs of God's people is the only way to live. 10. The spirit of hope that is evident in so many leaders of religious today. I am strongly convinced of what 1 like to call "the apostolate of administration." There is nothing more life-giving than a religious leader who is a man or woman of hope and is able to share that hope with others. We religious are blessed in having many women and men of hope among us at this time in the history of religious life. I! / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 As I look at these ten signs of hope, I sense in religious life today a real desire for a way of life that, in the words of Cardinal Pironio, is committed, serious, profound, fraternal, ecclesial. Something really tremendous is happening in the Church today, and this amid the tensions and struggles of life. And so it is very life-giving for us religious to look beyond the day-to-day struggles, the evident failures and shortcomings, to see how God is at work in our lives and to share this experience with each other. Not all that is happening in religious life can be attributed to the Spirit. There is need for continual discernment. But the good that is evident in religious life is a sign of the Spirit at work among us and deserves to be recognized and proclaimed. We are in an age of transition as we experience the death of much of what was familiar and as we experience the birth of a new era in the history of religious life. May our constant prayer be for the grace to believe in the potentiality of our religious communities, recognizing that religious life does have a great mission in the Church today, and that each religious community is called to serve the Church in a special way, offering.its particular charism to be incarnated, adapted and enriched in so many different people. NOTES ~ Lumen Gentium, n. 8. 2Evangelii Nuntiandi, n. 80. 3The Conclusive Document, p. 53. *Origins, Sept. 2, 1982, p. 181. 5October I, 1979. quoted in The Conclusive Document, p. 53. Our Images of God Michael T. Winstanley, S.D.B. Father Winstanley's "The Eucharist as Light and Life" appeared in the issue of November/ December, 1982. He continues to live and teach at Ushaw College: Durham DH7 ORH: England. This is eternal life: to know thee who alone art truly God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent (Jn 17:3). The quality of our praying and living, and of the service we offer to others, depends a great deal on our image of God. The words of Jesus quoted above provoke me to ask: Who is this God whom 1 am invited to come to know genuinely, to whom 1 pray, for whom 1 strive to live? A correlative question follows: What image of God do I communicate to others, do we communicate as religious, as Church? We all have our image of God, though perhaps we have never paused to articulate that image in words. And whether we advert to it or not, we "reli-gious" people cannot avoid conveying an impression of our God to others. We do so, for instance, by the way in which, as parish workers or priests or headmistresses or nurses, we treat the people to whom we minister. And simple, ordinary things can speak loudly about our image of God, things like the architectural design of our churches (especially the position of the altar), the siting and decoration of our community houses, clerical dress, our style of worship. Since all religious have their particular image of God, it is obviously important that, as followers of Jesus, our God be the God of Jesus, the God whom he came to reveal, the God to whom he prayed. It would be rash to presume that his God coincides with mine! It would be equally rash to pre-sume that the image of God we project coincides with the God of Jesus! 9 10 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 Recently, I attended a lecture by the retired Anglican theologian, E.L. Mascall. He was discussing the role of theology in the university. Theo-logy is a word about God. He questioned whether the word about God that was declaimed in the lecture theater was verified in its turn by the word about God so eloquently proclaimed by the life-style and structures of the Theology Department--an interesting question, one that is capable of being transposed to our Churches, hospitals, classrooms, religious communities. A recent con-tributor to this review maintained that the structures and patterns of seminary life have considerable influence (for the worse) on the students' image of God.~ This in turn has a negative effect on their prayer. From what do we fashion our image of God? Later in this article I shall attempt to share with you some reflections on the Scriptures' image of God. With my head ! can acknowledge it as accurate and authentic. But deep down I have another image, a "gut-level image," and this is the image that so often seems to determine my living and my praying. 1 sometimes feel as though I'm watching a slide show in which two projectors are being used and the slides fade into one another. There are the scriptural slides, and then there are the "experience" slides. Sometimes the transitions are smooth and corroborative: at other times there are conflicting and distorting idol-images. One of my friends is a keen golfer. Over his fireplace hangs a picture of a little man in a flat cap who has hit his ball into a bunker and is having difficulty in extricating it. He is just about to move it by hand--ever such a little--when he looks round at the skies and sees a vision of God: an elderly gentleman, with long, flowing beard, his finger waving threateningly. I find it easy to identify with the little golfer. I had a marvelous relationship with my father. I was always sure.of his love and understanding and help. l knew he was on my side; I could trust him implicitly. On the other hand, when 1 was about ten years old, l went for a holiday to the seaside. We were staying with a Catholic family, and they had two children of my own age. On Saturday evening we went to confession. 1 hadn't too much to say, and as I was preparing, l read through the pages of sins which, according to my prayer book, Catholic boys could commit. As a variation on the usual lies and disobedience, I thought I'd add something from the section on the sixth commandment. After all, l had kissed the little girl we were staying with, and maybe that was adultery! The priest behind the grill in that dark box was not amused, but tore strips off me, making me feel utterly evil and rejected by God. When we returned to the hotel, 1 broke down in floods of tears. The scar remains. That slide often fades on to my screen. Maybe God is like that--just maybe. An acquaintance of mine told me that when he wa_s young, he never felt sure of his mother's love. If he was naughty, she gave the impression of withdrawing her love. This made him fearful and anxious and unsure, desper-ately keen to please and not to make mistakes. Our Images of God / "1"~ It is factors like these that have helped to fashion our "gut-level image" of God. Figures like parents, teachers, priests, novice-mistresses have made it easier or more difficult to accept and make really our own the scriptural revelation of God, the Christian image of God. One writer says: "1 am con-vinced that one of the basic reasons for the current difficulties in both Chris-tian and religious life and practice is that we have .lost touch with our God."~ By "our God," he refers to the God of the Bible. So let us explore a little this biblical image of God. The Loving Faithfulness of Yahweh One of the deepest convictions of the people of Old Testament times was that their God, whom they .had come to know as Yahweh, had come out of his distance and mystery, and had approached them, spoken to them, and inter-vened in their history. "At various times in the past, and in various different ways, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets. (Heb I:l). The story began with the call of Abraham--way back somewhere between the nineteenth and seventeenth centuries B.C. Abraham risked changing his whole way of life in leaving behind homeland--and all that was familiar to him--livelihood, status and security, and migrated to the land of Canaan under the impulse of God's engaging presence in obedience to a promise. The most dramatic intervention of God in their history, chiseled indelibly into the national memory, was the Exodus event. This theme recurs like a leitmotiv throughout the various movements of Old Testament literature, and was made present again in the annual celebration of Passover. In one of the descriptions of the call of Moses, the prophet chosen to play such a key role in God's purposes, we read: I am Yahweh. 1 will free you of the burdens which the Egyptians lay upon you. 1 will release you from slavery to them, and with my arm outstretched and my strokes of power, I will deliver you. I will adopt you as my own people, and I will be your God (Ex 6:6). And Yahweh, they believed, did in fact deliver them in dramatic and exciting fashion from their oppressors. In the ensuing.events of Sinai this motley grouping of nomads received a new unity and identity as God's own chosen people, specially favored and uniquely privileged. Yahweh's relation-ship with them and theirs with him were sealed in the Covenant. One of the salient features of the Old Testament writings is the profound consciousness which Israel evinces continually that she belongs to Yahweh, that she is his community, his people. An extract from Deuteronomy provides ideal expression of this awareness: You are a people consecrated to the Lord your God: the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people of his own possession out of all the peoples that are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love upon you and chose you. for you were the fewest of all peoples: but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath which he swore to your fathers . 12 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 Know therefore that the Lord.your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations (Dt 7:6-9). Israel was called, then, because of the love of Yahweh and his enduring faithfulness. And she was called to respond in love and faithfulness to him: this is the meaning of covenant pledge. Again Deuteronomy expresses this in language which is amazing for the height of its idealism and the totality of its commitment: Hear, O Israel, you shall 10ve Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might (Dt 6:4-5). Unfortunately, however, Israel did not in general respond very well. Time and again throughout the undulating course of her history, she turned away from Yahweh, falling far short of the demands of love and fidelity, wanting rather to be like the other nations and to follow their ways. Her infidelity is mirrored in the catastrophes which befell her, like the fall of the N. Kingdom to the Assyrians in 721. But the tragic experience of failure brought growing insight into the nature of her God, the kind of God Yahweh really, is. This insight is spelled out most. movingly and beautifully by her prophets. These men were sensiti~zdy awareof Yahweh, of Israel's special calling, of the demands of the Covenant; they were deeply distressed by her waywardness and infidelity. Their image of God, their understanding of him, can be summed up in the twin concepts of love and faithfulness which we have already met. Does a woman forget her baby at the breast. or fail to cherish the son of her womb? Yet even if these forget, 1 will never forget you. See, I have branded you on the palms of my hands. (Is 49:14-16). For the mountains may depart, the hills be shaken, but my love for you will never leave you and my covenant of peace with you will never he shaken (Is 54:10). I will betroth you to myself forever, betroth you with integrity and justice, with tenderness and love: I will betroth you to myself with faithfulness, and you will come to know Yahweh (.Ho 2:21,19,22,20). I have loved you with an everlasting love, so I am constant'in my affection for you (Jr 31:3). And with this realization of God's constancy amidst their failure is born a firm hope for the future. As Jerusalem was about to fall to the Babylonian troops, Jeremiah proclaimed: Our Images of God / 13 Behold the days are coming, says the Lord. when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah . I will put my law within them. and I will write it upon their hearts: and I will be their God and they will be my people. And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and teach his brother, saying '~Know the Lord," for they shall all know me. from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord (Jr 31:31-34). And there are those inspiring words of Ezekiel: Then I am going to take you from among the nations and gather you together from all the foreign countries, and bring you home to your own land. I shall pour clean water over you and you will be cleansed: I shall cleanse you of all your defilement and all your idols, l shall give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in you: I shall remove the heart of stone from your bodies, and give you a heart of flesh instead. I shall put my spirit in you, and make you keep my laws and respect my observances. You will live in the land which I gave your ancestors. You shall be my people and I shall be your God (Ezk 36:2513. Yahweh, then, is constant: he continues to be present with his people, present in love, and in faithfulness to his choice and to his promise. The Loving Failhfulness of Jesus Centuries later, a man was wandering through the towns and villages of lakeside Galilee, preaching and healing and exorcising. From amongst those who were interested in him, he singled out twelve, as Mark says (Mk 3:!3-15), "to be with him," to share his friendship, life, ideals, and "to be sent," to share his mission. But these men consistently failed to understand him and his message, they were unable to accept the implications of discipleship. They continued to foster the old expectations, to cherish the old dreams, to think in the categories of success, political and nationalist liberation and prosperity, power and glamor. They failed to grasp the meaning of the kingdom he constantly talked about. They lacked insight to perceive who he was, this Jesus from the backwoods of Nazareth. But Jesus did not go back on his choice. One evening, as they were at supper in Jerusalem around the feast of the Passover, he spoke to them with sadness in his voice, telling them that one of their number would shortly betray him, and another, their natural leader and spokesman, would deny all knowl-edge of him. He went on to say that they would all run away and desert him in the end. At the same time, as head of the table, he broke bread and shared it with them as a sign and pledge of his love and friendship. And he offered the cup of wine, and spoke of the longed-for new covenant, the new fellowship with God, his Father, that would be sealed in his own blood. And one of them did, in fact, betray him very soon: Peter denied all acquaintance with him, cursed him even: and the rest of them took to their heels in flight, to a man. The Roman authorities executed him by the hideous and shameful torture-death of crucifixion. The God whom he had proclaimed to be near seemed very far away. 14 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 But early on the Sunday morning, some women friends found that his tomb was empty. Shortly afterwards, this Jesus appeared to Peter and then to or'hers of the group, and they came to know that the Father had raised him from death. Thus, their Risen Lord brought together again his disillusioned and scattered band, whom he loved still, and forgave, and whom he still looked on as his. his chosen ones, to whom he was fai'~hful still. And he breathed his Spirit into them, and constituted them the nucleus of the new covenanted People of God, a God whom, like him, they could now address as Father. These men came to realize that in Jesus they had encountered the love and faithfulness of God present in their midst, enfleshed. The Loving Faithfulness Which is The Spirit The Farewell Discourses of John's gospel provide us with valuable insights into the way in which the love and faithfulness of the Lord are expressed in the age of the Church: It was before the festival of Passover. Jesus knew that his hour had come. and he must leave this world and go to the Father. He had always loved his own who were in the world, and now he was to show the full extent of his love (13:1). After washing their feet as an expression of his loving service, a prophetic sign of his self-giving on the cross, Jesus returns to recline in their midst. Judas departs into the night. And Jesus opens his heart to his friends: "My children, for a little longer I am with you . . . where I am going you cannot come" (13:33). There is an atmosphere of sadness, of impending loss and bereave-ment: "You are plunged into grief because of what 1 have told you" (16:6). Jesus seeks to comfort and reassure them: "Set your troulSled hearts at rest. Trust in God always: trust also in me" (14:1). Jesus' love for his friends is palpable. Evident, too, is his strong desire to remain with them, faithful to those whom he has chosen. They are his friends, not servants. He has disclosed to them everything that he has himself heard from the Father. He has shared with them all his secrets. His willingness to lay down his life is token of his love for them. "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Dwell in my love" (I 5:9). The manner in which Jesus shows his faithfulness and love (and therefore continues to reveal the nature of the Father as Faithful Love), and also con-tinues to be present with them after returning to the Father, is through the gift of the Spirit, the Paraclete: If you love me and keep my commandments, then at my request the Father will give you another Paraclete to be with you forever. He is the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot accept since it neither sees nor recognizes him: but you do recognize him since he remains with you and is in you (14:15-17). For John, the mission of Jesus is to reveal the Father and to give life. The Paraclete is almost another Jesus. His role is to continue Jesus' mission, to be his presence now that he is absent. He functions as teacher and guide, and as Our Images of God / 1'5 witness to the disciples and to the world (see 14:25-26; 15:26; 16:7-11; 16:13-15).3 A similar understanding of the Spirit's role is to be gleaned from the letters of Paul. When writing to the Church at Corinth, he says: And if you and we belong to Christ, guaranteed as his and anointed, it is all God's doing: it is God also who has set his seal upon us. and as a pledge of what is to come has given the Spirit to dwell in our hearts 12 Co 1:21-22). As in the Old Testament, we find again an emphasis on the free, elective love and initiative of the Father, bestowing that profound reality and sense of belonging, and pledging his enduring faithfulness. It is the Spirit dwelling within us who grafts us into Christ and assures us of a future. In Galatians Paul tells us: "To prove that you are sons, God has sent into our hearts the Spirit of his Son, crying 'Abba, Father!' You are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then also by God's act an heir" (4:6). Through the Spirit we are caught up in the relationship of Jesus and his Father, and so come to know God as love, as Father, just as Jeremiah and Ezekiel promised. The fact that we are God's children, and therefore heirs, means that this relationship has a lasting future, that God is faithful. in that magnificent hymn in the Letter to the Romans we meet those lines which celebrate the heart of the Good News that God is love and faithfulness; If God is on our side, who is against us?. Then what can separate us from thelove of Christ?. For I am convinced that there is nothing in death or iia life, in the realm of spirits or superhuman powers, in the world as it is or the world as it shall be, in the forces of the universe, in the heights or depths--nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (8:31-39). ISon¢lusion The God of the Bible is best understood as Faithfulness and Love. In this way Yahweh reveals himself in the Old Testament period. In his ministry and passover, Jesus reveals the love and faithfulness of the Father~ In the post-resurrection time, the Holy Spirit takes us up into the enduring love and faithfulness of Father and Son, enabling us to know and to live in that mystery. We find, then, a threefold expression of the faithfulness and love which is our Christian God. Returning to our starting point, we need to ask ourselves whether this is in fact our image of God, whether we genuinely know God in this way. "Have I been all this time with you, and you still do not know me?"(Jn 14:9). We must ponder the interaction in i~ur lives and prayer between this biblical image and those many other images which the experiences of our past have fashioned and which tend to become superimposed, creating a distorted picture, preventing us from seeing the God of Jesus in sharp, life-giving focus. Why do we find it so difficult to surrender fully to this God in loving trust? We stand in such great need of healing and integration. 16 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 And what about the image of God which we communicate to those with whom we live, those we meet in our work? Partners in Christian marriage are meant to show forth, the one to the other, something of the love, acceptance, forgiveness, tolerance, understanding and faithfulness of God--for Christian marriage is a sacrament, is a sign of God's faithful love. Their experience together is intended to be a window into the mystery of God, to be revelation. The high incidence of marital breakdown amongst Christians is a tragedy! In a similar way, we in religious and Church communities are called to mirror to one another the authentic face of the God of Jesus. Communities where there exist intolerance, lack of care and compassion, refusal to forgive, authoritarianism, selfishness, harsh judgments, are actually idolatrous; they betray their whole raison d'etre. Parents, we know, have a vital part to play in shaping their children's understanding of God. Whilst making the demands necessary for growth to maturity, parents must convey to their children a sense of being valued for who they are (and not for what they can achieve), a sense of being loved with a love they cannot lose. Sadly, the imperfeciions of parental love can so easily impart an unfavorable image of God. Likewise, in our ministry within the Church and our mission to the world, we religious are constantly and inevitably (albeit at times quite unconsciously) projecting an image of God to those we meet. We need to be alert to and critical of those aspects of our dealing with others, and of our life-style, those facets of our structures, institutions, regulations, forms of leadership and min-istry, which give the lie to the joy-filled Gospel we announce, which present to our world instead an image of God which is a travesty, perpetuating idols of power, success, security, possessions, which instills fear, guilt, anxiety and hopelessness. Jesus prayed to God as Father. The kernel of his preaching was the kingdom, God's nearness to us in acceptance and saving love. He described the prodigality of God's forgiveness in his parables. More importantly, his own way of living and relating proclaimed in language more powerful than words the palpable reality of his mercy and love, especially for the poor and outcast. The source of Jesus' remarkable freedom, his intuition into what in life is really important, his prophetic overturning of so much that had been acceptable in the society, politics and religion of his day, his breaking down and crossing of so many barriers that kept men apart, was, 1 believe, his image of God. Because Jesus knew that God is Father and is very near, and because he surrendered to the exigencies of such a vision, he could serve others in deep compassion and healing care, he could be near to them in self-gift with a courage and faithfulness that did not balk at death. In killing Jesus, men sought to destroy his God, for they perceived that such a God was too uncom-fortable to live with, and the implications of accepting him were too challeng-ing and demanding, calling as they did for radical conversion in outlook, attitude and way of living. Our Images of God / 17 Perhaps there is still much in our Church and in our religious communities to suggest that we perpetuate the attempt to deface and destroy the God of Jesus, and present instead to our world a caricature, a dreadful distortion. In John's gospel, Jesus, in a moment of controversy with the Jews, exclaims: "I was sent by the One who truly is, and him you do not know . It is the Father who glorifies me, he of whom you say, 'He is our God,' though you do not know him!" (7:28; 8:54)--words which leave us much to ponder. But Jes~s also speaks these words of great reassurance and challenge: If you dwell within the revelation I have brought, you are indeed my discip~.es: you shall know the truth, and the truth will se~ you free (8:31-32). NOTES ~Stephen Happel, "The Social Context of Personal Prayer in Seminaries," REVIEW FOR REI.I-GIOUS 39 (1980), pp. 846-854. 2Francis J. Moloney, Disciples and Prophets (London: DLT, 1980), p. 19. SR.E. Brown. The Gospel According to John (London: Chapmans, 1972), pp. 1135-1143. Discovery Why do ! find so much of me within a wood? As if I stumbled on that part of me most pure and good. There, 1 am wise and simple: I know and am understood. (Why do I find so much of me within a wood?) Why in a wood is my soul set free, - Where my eyes like wild things the silence see And ears hear color marvelously. Why in a wood am 1 free? Why in a wood is truth so true And ! in a wood shot trembling through With a worship terrible, ancient, new? Perhaps ! find in a wood---not me-- but You . Sister Ann Maureen, I.H.M. 11201 Academy Road Philadelphia, PA 19154 Scripture: Literary Text and the Word of God Emmerich W. Vogt, O.P. Father Vogt is a doctoral student of the University of California, Berkeley, and the Graduate Theological Union. He is enrolled in a joint program of these institutions in Near Eastern Religion, focusing on the Old Testament. He is also an instructor at Holy Rosary College (Fremont), and resides presently in the Berkeley Priory: 2401 Ridge Road: Berkeley. CA 94709. With the rise of the modern critical sciences and the subsequent and grow-ing concern for scientific critical study, the historical character of the Bible has again and again been called into question. In their scientific investigations, scholars concede that the biblical narratives are not necessarily factually accu-rate. Some narratives, though perhaps based on actual historical events, are themselves fictional. Moreover, literary and form criticisms have shown evi-dence of various literary techniques and genres, such as mythological lan-guage, present in various narratives. To many, this scholarship has led to a certain skepticism regarding the revelatory character of Sacred Scripture and its reliability as the Word of God, something which has been proclaimed by Christians throughout the centuries. Some are led, on the one hand, to deny any authenticity to Scripture as revelation, while others, more fundamentalist in their approach to Scripture and seeking to preserve their faith in it as the Word of God, become hostile towards all historical and literary critical endeavors. The person of faith, having neither the expertise to make a scholarly inquiry, and lacking sufficient instruction from local pastors or religious educators (who themselves are often confused as to the nature of biblical literature), i~ lbd to reject either his or her faith or the methodology of the modern critical sciences. And this situation is present among both clergy and laity. In essence it is a dilemma which stems from a lack of understanding regarding the nature of Scripture as at once a 18 Scripture: Literao, Text and the Word of God / 19 reality of literary language and the Word of God. An illustration of this dilemma can be seen in the life of John Ruskin, a renowned nineteenth-century English art critic. Raised as an Evangelical Christian, from an early age he was taught devotion to Scripture as the Word of God. However, as a grown man in his thirties he lost this faith largely because of a conflict he saw between Scripture and science. He confided this to a friend, Henry Acland, in 1851: You speak of the Flimsiness of your own faith. Mine, which was never strong, is being beaten into mere gold leaf, and flutters in weak rags from the letter of its old forms: but the only letters it can hold by at all are the old Evangelical formulae. If only the Geologists would let me alone, I could do very well but those dreadful Hammers! I hear the clink of them at the end of every cadence of the Bible verses.~ Geology had been successful in weakening the faith of many Victorians, cast-ing doubt on biblical stories such as the Flood. It is very odd, indeed, that an artist and art critic like Ruskin would have had this difficulty. As an artist he "asserted that art itself must be regarded as a 'universal language,' which spoke not to the connoisseur alone but to the whole of modern mankind: a work of art was closely linked with all the other aspects of contemporary civilization.'"- What Ruskin failed to realize was that Scripture is the Word of God in human garb. It is art, it is literature. It is the Word of God, but the Word incarnated in human language. We have come a long way since Ruskin's time in our understanding of both science and of Scripture. Today we are much more accepting of Scripture's true nature as literature. Yet, we hesitate, and for that very reason, to accept Scripture as the Word of God. "We somehow are under the mistaken assumption that if God were to communicate with us, he would have to do so in exact, scientific terms, revealing to us scientific realities. Recognizing the mythopoeic nature of Scrip-ture, we are inhibited from accepting this as a valid means of divine communi-cation. This was Ruskin's problem, which led him to deny Scripture as the Word of God. An examination of the nature of literary language and its prevalence in human culture, however, will manifest its suitability to express the Word of God. The Nature of Literary Lanaguage The preacher captures the attention of his congregation with a moving story that illustr~ites a certain belief. What holds the interest of the listeners is not abstract religious truths bt~t rather religious truths conveyed in image or story forms. What the artist does with images-in-colors the preacher is able to do with images-in-words,~ and the result is a captivated audience. The human person is intrigued by such story-telling. We are image-form-ing people, and this phenomenon is clearly understood, appreciated, and pur-posely exploited by the artist, whether he be painter, song-writer or storyteller. Colorful images and not sterile abstractions are what captivate the human mind. This is illustrated by Erich Fromm in his study of dreams. 20 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 Let us take a mood in which you feel lost, deserted, where the world looks gray, a little frightening though not really dangerous. You want to describe this mood to a friend, but., you find yourself groping for words and eventually feel that nothing you have said is an adequate explanation of the many nuances of the mood. The following night you have a dream. You see yourself in the outskirts of a city just before dawn, the streets are empty except for a milk wagon: the houses look poor, the surroundings are unfamil-iar, you have no means of accustomed transportation to places familiar to you and where you feel you belong. When you wake up and remember the dream, it occurs to you that the feeling you had in the dream was e~actly the feeling of Iostness and grayness you tried to describe to your friend the day before. It is just one picture, whose visualization took less than a second. And yet this picture is a more vivid and precise description than you could have given by talking about it at length.4 This phenomenon is not something new to the human experience. "The ability to make images is:primeval, and it is no accident that the earliest records of human activity show men making pictures."5 The us~ of literary language, however, involves insight, and our endeavor, if we are to fully enjoy and appreciate the artist's creation, is to elucidate the insight the imagery is meant to convey. The words used, the structure within which they are expressed, and so forth, are all carefully laid out by the designer. Luis Alonso Schoekel makes this point in reference to the literary language of Scripture: In literary language, words have an absolute importance, and they are sought with the greatest care~ They are not merely a way of saying something completely separable from what they say. Words are important for their sound quality, for their rhythm in a phrase, for their aura of associations, and for their resonances in the periphery of our consciousness . 6 The choice of words, the creation of moods through images, the ability to effect "resonances in the periphery of our consciousness" give literary language a charism not possible with philosophical abstractions. However, since the modern world has been so greatly influenced by the scientific mind, oftentimes the value of literary language is not appreciated as a valid means of conveying very real truths about human existence. Nevertheless, human literary achieve-ments give witness to this charism: The power of stories, parables and literal untruths to give us information can well be illustrated in the case of proverbs and "cautionary tales." The tales of the Hare and the Tortoise, the Monkey and the ,lar of Nuts, the Ass in the Lion's Skin, and many others like them, have lasted for centuries, passed from one culture to another, and still appeal today. They have survived not just because they are good entertainment, but because they each have a credible point--that life is like that. The same is true of popular proverbs, "The early bird catches the worm," "Too many cooks spoil the broth," "Empty vessels make the most noise". We test them, not by verification of their literal sense, but through living by them and finding them to work out in experience.7 Trained to search for precise, scientific data, however, the modern mind often misunderstands the nature of mythmaking and storytelling as a valid means of teaching morals or handing on true insights drawn from our com-mon experience. "For the philosopher of the age of reason, myths are barbaric superstitions that grossly befogged the mind of man . -8 Scripture: Literary Text and the Word of God / 2"~ An example of this mentality can be seen in an incident related by John Knox about a man who thought an error had crept into the text of Shakes-peare's As You Like It which reads, "books in running brooks, sermons in stones."~ This man thought that the lines must have originally read, "sermons in books, stones in running brooks." Reflecting on the man's observation, Knox remarks: A work of art is called "truer when it effectively embodies a real vision or mood of the artist, though its correspondence with any objective reality is remote indeed. Even in such a case, however, it would be rash to deny any kind of objective reference. When one calls a work "true,"does one not imply, at the very least, that the vision or mood is to some extent or at certain moments shared by others besides the artist and is therefore not entirely subjective? And does one not probably imply that there is something in the real situation of man in the world which gives rise io, or answers to, the artist's feeling? ¯ . . In other words, when we say there are "books in the running brooks," we are making a statement which, if we regard it as true at all, is for us objectively true--quite as much as the statement that stones are there. We mean that "running brooks" have something to teach us--that they really do.t0 The imagery used in a story possesses a certain power--a power not possessed by mere clear and distinct ideas as such--todraw the mind to truths by way of the imagination. However, clear and distinct ideas expressed in conceptual language is thought by many to be the only valid means of com-municating truth, as we can see from the words of the eighteenth-century philosopher, David Hume: If we take in our hand any volume of divinity, or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain quantity or number? No. Does it contain an experimental reason-ing concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it to the flames. For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.~ This mentality fails to grasp that the nature of literary language is such that stories created by the imagination, while not factual in themselves, nevertheless present the reader with certain truths about reality. It is the "kind of language that can somehow work upon men and lead them to insight and even action, where a more conceptual language might fail."12 Fiction can contain truth precisely as imaginary; it can be expressive of reality.13 The human mind is not drawn by abstract reasoning alone, and man's life entails more than ideas. We come to learn from sense experience, and such experience cannot be conveyed adequately in abstract reasoning. This charism of literary language was not understood by the rationalist, Humian mind. To misunderstand this charism is to "alienate man from his own nature," a point stressed by Edward Schillebeeckx: We might say that it is empirically demonstrable that man is alienated from his own nature if he thinks he has finished with the symbolic thinking of the religious conscious-ness . But in our one-track Western culture we can also demonstrate that the exclusiveness and absolutism of purely, scientific and technological thought., allows whole areas of our humanity to die out or become stunted, and precisely in doing so alienates man from himself.~a 22 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 A ~:lose look, however, at the literary compositions appealing to popular society will reveal that, despite the tendency to downgrade the role of literary language in expressing truths, this charism of language is very prevalent in our contemporary world. Contemporary "Rock," for example, manifests the artist's expression of "truth through images." Simon and Garfunkel's famous song, "Bridge Over Troubled Water," uses such imagery to tell of devoted friendship in a time of personal struggle. Elton John, whose mu.sic appeals to millions of people throughout the world, expresses in ima~gery an autobio-graphical situation from his early adult life in a song entitled "Someone Saved My Life Tonight." In the song he speaks of his former relationship with a woman he describes as "a princess perched in an electric chair." By way of such imagery, he conveys to the listener something of the reality of that relationship. And many articles have been written about the great influence of the Beatles' songs on contemporary society.15 Their songs abound with colorful literary expressions~ It is by way of such imagery, and not in spite of it, that their message is conveyed. These are but a few examples from contemporary popular imagery-in-music that demonstrate the usage of imagery and symbol to convey thought. "People cannot live by abstractions alone"~6 but ~appeal time and again to the image, and this appeal is perennial. It is found not only in contemporary music but in contemporary literature. The current popularity of the writings of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien is evidence of the charism of literary language in contemporary culture. Those who read them are well aware of their fictitious nature, as are those who flock to see the Star Wars sagas and or.her such science-fiction marvels. "Our knowledge that the stories are not factual is neither here nor there. For the stories themselves have power to arouse certain moral attitudes . In addition to its function of allowing the human mind to be creative in conveying truth through story, there is another reason why the .human person seeks to express himself in some medium other than with clear and distinct ideas and conceptual language. This was touched upon.above in the quotation from Erich Fromm: oftentimes we cannot adequately express ourselves through conceptual language alone. Furthermore, not all of our experiences are capable of such expression. Such is the case with re!igious experience. Some other form of expression is needed. Mythopoeic Thought and the Charism of Literary Language Because of the charism of literary language, linguistic expression can be given to that part of reality which escapes scientific scrutiny but which is, nevertheless, real and a part of our existence. Such is the case, for example, with our human urge for survival, for justice, for happiness. These urges, which are universal, experienced by people of all cultures and generations, come into conflict with the historical, existential living out of our lives.~8 The desire for survival is our common experience. We do not desire life for a given Scripture: Literao, Text and the Word of God / 23 number of years only, but eternally; if given a choice we would not have our lives terminate. Whether by witch doctors or miracle vitamins, we seek to prolo.ng our lives, to avoid aging and death. The same is true regarding happiness: we seek happiness not for a predictable number of years but for all our years. We do not want finite happiness as contingent beings, but infinite happiness as immortal beings. The conflict arises when we find ourselves cruelly thwarted. The experience is traumatic. Answers to queries arising out of this conflict escape the scientist; they evade his scientific scrutiny. From the experience of ourselves as contingent, we realize that "man cannot ground the possibilities of his own existence, his knowledge and his ability in his own planning and his own reflection."19 Out of the conflict arises the question of God, and a merely scientific, conceptual language is not adequate to deal with such a reality as God. The human person, being at home with imagery pre-cisely as a human person, resorts to mythopoeic thought to give expression to queries such as the origin of evil and injustice; man's loss of immortality which he so ardently desires; "the origin of the world and of man; the nature of deity; the origins of society and of social institutions; the ultimate validation of moral principles; the purpose and direction of human existence."z° Incapable of being adequately expressed in conceptual language, such queries find expression in mythopoeic thought. Because the language of conversation rarely enables us "to share all the wealth of an experience, or to communicate the richness of what we live within ourselves,TM mythopoeic thought finds expression in and through the charism of literary language. Although the religious experience deals with "problems that lie beyond sensible experience,"~2 the mind can nonetheless give expres-sion to this experience. John Knox saw this need for mythopoeic expression in religious language: In a word, we find ourselves dramatizing or mythologizing. Use either of these terms you will or find some other: bul however you want to say it, the main point is clear and undeniable: we are no longer speaking factually or literally. We cannot speak so when we are speaking of God, for our speech can use ,only the terms provided by our human .experience and thought, and God transcends both. The divine, however near to, even pervasive of, the human it may be, is still essentially transhuman or superhuman.2s God-talk by its very nature den~ands an expression beyond that of the discursive language of the philosopher, an expression that transcends the philosophical. Schillebeeckx cautions that although our talk of God may be inadequate, that is no reason.for silence: Unless linguistic expression is given to the reality which escapes us but grounds our being, even though this may only be through the "poverty" of symbolic expressions, it threatens to disappear into forgetfulness.24 What the person of faith "has experienced," however partially or brokenly, and therefore needs to affirm is, in its fullness or at its source, 'out of this world.''~ When we read the Christian mystics, we notice their frustration at attempting to find words adequate enough to convey their religious experien- 94 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 ces.26 The very stating of the experience seems to make it something less than it is. This demonstrates that the mythopoeic form of expression is not simply an entertaining way of speaking, as in fairy tales, but is necessary if we would convey all of our experience of reality. If we are going to appreciate the language and literature of the Bible, we need to understand mythopoeic expression and how it was used by the peoples of the ancient Near East. Out of the cultures of the ancient Near East came the literature of the Bible, which we call sacred. Literary Language in the Ancient Near East For many centuries the literature of the Bible had to be studied and interpreted simply on its own merits since no extra-biblical literature was known that could elucidate its past. For example, there was no corresponding historical material to enable the scholar to judge the nature of the historical books of the Old Testament. Did they contain history properly understood by modern terms? Knowledge from the cultures of Israel's past was greatly lack-ing, knowledge that would help answer such questions. This situation has changed drastically over the last century due to the discovery of a great number of ancient Near Eastern texts relating to the Hebrew Bible that not only predate it, but bear some strong resemblances to its subject matter. The ancestors of Israel's traditions did not live in isolation but were greatly influ-enced by the predominant cultures of their day. Pius XII, in his encyclical on the study of Scripture, recommends the study of those ancient cultures: It is absolutely necessary for the interpreter to go back in spirit to those remote centuries of the East. and make proper use of the aids afforded by history, archaeology, ethnol-ogy and other sciences in order to discover what literary forms the writers of that early age intended to use and did in fact employ.27 By discovering the literary forms used by Israel's literary ancestors, we better understand the nature of the biblical literature. Innumerable parallels between the cultures of the ancient Near East and the Scriptures have been documented by scholars.28 The wealth of ancient Near Eastern texts discov-ered since the middle of the last century has revealed, among other literary genres, such genres as "epics and myths, hymns and lamentations, proverbs and 'wisdom' composition,"~9 and these from texts of various cultures: Egyp-tian, Mesopotamian, Hittite and Ugaritic.30 Mythopoeic expression was common throughout the ancient Near East. Would this have had an influence on the literature of Israel, even though this latter is said to include the "Word of God"?. Nahum Sarna explains that there was such an influence, and the influence was no slight one: In actual fact, no advanced cultural or religious tradition has ever existed in a vacuum; it cannot therefore be studied in isolation. This is all the more true of the people of Israel. who strode upon the stage of history at a time when the great civilizations of antiquity had already passed their prime . The ancestors of Israel originated in Mesopotamia, wandered through Syria and Canaan, and settled for a prolonged stay in Scripture: Literao, Text and the Word of God / 25 Egypt . The land of Israel enjoyed a location of unique strategic importance as a corridor connecting Europe. Asia and Africa, as well as a window to the Mediterranean lands. Through it crossed the arteries of international communications, and into it flowed the powerful cultural and religious influences of surrounding civilizations. It is no wonder that the culture of Canaan was a mixed one. for its geographic position perforce imparted to it a richly international character that impeded the maintenance of individuality and the development of cultural and religious independence. In view of all this. the discovery of numerous parallels between Israel and her neighbors should hardly occasion surprise and chagrin?~ It can be said, then, that Israel and her literature were certainly influenced by the dominant cultures of her past, just as the world today is influenced by dominant cultures: McDonald's golden arches are found in Paris; Levi jeans are worn in Africa; and Shakespeare is read in Polish. Israel utilized those methods of expression common in the ancient Near East. and she borrowed from their subject matter and imagery, all the while, however, making it her own. Her literature, then, can no longer be naively regarded as a "dictated" Word of God as if somehow removed from human experience and the modes of expression utilized by the human community. Rather, it is the Word of God mediated through a rich literary language. Literary Language in the Bible Although great progress has been made in our understanding of the Bible since the discovery of ancient Near Eastern texts, a confusion has resulted. Sarna remarks that ¯. the modern student of the Bible has at his disposal a formidable array of primary and secondary tools, the fruits of a century of intensive scholarly endeavor. Excellent new translations into modern English, a deluge of popular works on archaeology, a plethora of enyclopedias, dictionaries, historical atlases, reliable non-technical commen-taries of recent vintage, all deprive any literate person of the excuse of ignorance . But the crux of the matter is that in the eyes of modern, secularized man, the Bible has very largely lost its sanctity and relevance?2 ~ We seem to meet with two extremes among readers of the Bible: those who accept the results of the modern critical sciences and have come to understand the true lite'rary nature of Scripture, but as a result do not regard such litera-ture as inspired, and, on the other hand, those.who, intent on maintaining their faith in Scripture as the Word of God, reject the results of the methodologies of the critical sciences when applied to Scripture. Why is this? The predominance of evolutionary theories, the general awareness of the findings of modern science regarding the "birth" of the universe, and the results of comparat.ive studies showing the influence of ancient Near Eastern mythol-ogies on Scripture--all this has had great ramifications regarding the inspired character of the Bible. Genesis has lost its credibility, having been understood literally for so long and by so many. The modern critical sciences have done much to shed light on the literary characteristics of this literature. As a result of such studies, we know that Scripture expresses its message not simply through 26 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 historical narrative, but also by way of poetic narrative. Because the Bible is great literature, it may contain such literary genres as myth, fairy tale, fable, saga, legend, etc.33 For Jews and Christians the Old Testament is sacred and canonical. Faith proclaims that it is inspired: it is the Word of God. Now, when the modern critical sciences discover the presence of mythopoeic expres-sion in Scripture, should the person of faith regard these sciences as a challenge to his or her faith? Or does the Word of God in revelation find expression in and through the charism of literary language? In studying what he calls "the immanence of transcendence: the possibility of expressing the reality of revelation,''34 Schillebeeckx maintains that "trans-cendence lies in human experience." Revelation itself is not a reality apart from human experience: it can be expressed only in and through the medium of human language in such wise that God's revelation comes in the form 'of human ideas and words. This emphasis on the human situation will help us underStand just how God has acted to communicate his word to the human community. As Thomas Aquinas taught, "In the divine Scriptures, divine things are conveyed to us in the manner to which people are accustomed.''35 We experience reality. What is our common mode of expressing that expe-rience? Oftentimes. imagery and mythopoeic expression. If this is the manner to which we are accustomed, and the manner to which people of the ancient Near East were accustomed, should we be surprised, or our faith challenged, because the mythopoeic nature of some of the biblical narratives is made apparent by the modern sciences? Or should we be surprised that God would use this means, to which we are accustomed, to communicate his Word? On the contrary, such an understanding can only serve to enhance our apprecia-tion of that sacred literature. To lack this understanding is to misinterpret and invalidate the scriptural message. "The devastating effect of all this upon faith, when faith was exclusively identified with a literalist approach to Scripture, is abundantly obvious.''36 If for no other reason, Scripture has lost its credibility because modern man has failed to understand that God's word has come to us precisely in our human garb, the human garb of our language, so to speak. It is a failure on the part of the Christian to commit himself or herself to a living and pervading faith in the Incarnation. Scripture is the Word of God mediated through a mythopoeic expression, and richer by that very mediation. NOTES ~George ,P. Landow, The Aesthetic and Critical Theories of John Ruskin (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1971), p. 266. "-The Ent:vclopedia Americana. 1978 ed. s.v. "Ruskin, John." -~Mhson Olds, Stor.v: The Language of Faith (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America. 1977). p.5. '~Erich Fromm, The Forgotten language: An Introduction to the Understanding of Dreams. Scripture: Literary Text and the Word of God / 27 Fairy Tales and Myths (New York: Rinehart, 1951), p. II. ~Gerardus van der l,eeuw, Sacred and Profane Beaut),: The Holy in Art (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. 1963), p. 155. 6Luis Alonso Schoekel. The Inspired Word: Scripture in the Light of Language and Literature (New York: Herder & Herder. 1965), p. 160. 7peter Donovan, Religious Language (London: Shelden Press, 1976). p. 29. 8Philip Freund. Myths of Creation (New York: Washington Square Press, 1965), p. 20. '~John Knox, Myth and Truth." An Essay on the Language ~?f Faith (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1964). p. 19. The reference is to Shakespeare's As You Like It, Act II, Scene I. ~Olbid., pp. 20 & 21. ~Donovan, Religious Language. p. 16. ~2John MacQuarrie, God-Talk." An Examination of the Language and Logic of Theology (New York: Harper& Row. 1967), p. 205. MacQuarrie is citing from Hebert's The Bible From Within, p. 176. ~JDonovan, Religious Language. p. 29. ~'~Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ." ~he Experience ~f Jesus as Lord (New York: Seabury Press, 1980), p. 58. ~See, for example, 77me. Dec. 22, 1980. ~rRene Wellek and Austin Warren. Theory of Literature (New York: Harcourt, 1956), chapter 12. ~TDonovan, Religious Language. p. 26. ~SThe following are ideas expressive of those heard in a class at the Graduate Theologic~il Union from Professor Kevin Wall. This notion of the conflict between a person's expected desires or urges and his actual, existential situation of life lived in the world is referred to by Professor Wall as the "myth/history conflict." ~gSchillebeeckx, Christ, p. 47. -'°John L. McKenzie. "Aspects of Old ~estament Thought~" Jerome lh'blical Commentary 77:23 (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1968), p. 740. -'~Alonso Schoekel, The Inspired Word. p. 159. 2~McKenzie, "Aspects," p. 740: -'-~Knox, Myth and Truth. p. 5. ' 2'~Schillebeeckx, Christ. p. 55. ~SKnox. Myth and Truth. p. 81. ~'Such was the case, for example, with St. Catherine of Siena. During a mystical experience brought,on in prayer, Raymond of Capua (her confessor) heard her say, Vidi arcana Dei: "1 have seen the secret things of God." Raymond recounts that, "When, after a great length of time, she returned to her bodily senses sh,e kept repeating the expression Vidi arcana dei. Wishing to know the reason for this 1 said, "Mother. why do you keep saying the same thing over and over again. instead of drawing out for us as usual the meaning o,f what you say, or of adding a word or two of explanation?' 'Because,' she said, '1 find it quite impossible to say anything else. or put it into other words.' "But why,'~ I asked. 'do you find this so now, when you never did before?". 'Because.' she said, 'on this occasion ! am so conscious of how inadequate human words are to express .what I saw. I should feel as if I were only belittling God, and profaning him, by any words I could say. When the mind is rapt in God. and is granted the light and the ability to fix its gaze on him. what it contemplates so far surpasses anything that can be put into words that the one thing seems to be the negation of the other. No: this time I cannot attempt to give you even a faint idea of the things 1 have seen. They cannot be encompassed within the limits by which human speech is bound'" [emphasis added]: Raymond of Capua. The Life of Catherine of Siena, tra,ns, by Conleth Kerns (Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1980), p. 179. ~TPius XII. Divino A.fflante Spiritu. EB 560. -'SNahum Sarna, Understanding Genesis (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), p. xxvi. ~S.N. Kramer, Sumerian Mythology: A Study ~f Spiritual and Literary Achievement in the Third Millennium B.C (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1944). p. 13. ~0See Walter Beyerlin. ed. Near Eastern Religious Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Phila-delphia: Westminster Press, 1978). -~Sarna. Understanding Genesis, pp. xxvi-xxvii. -~'-Ibid. p. xx. ~-~See John I. McKenzie. "The Literary Characteristics of Genesis 2-3," Theological Studies 15 (1954). p. 546. See such scriptural pas'sages as I K 17:7-16; 2 K 4:1-7: 14:9: Nb 22:22-35: and the story of Sodom in Gn 19. ~Schillebeeckx, Christ. p. 55. 35St. Thomas says, "In scriptura autem divina traduntur nobis per modum quo homines solent uti. "Comm. on Heb. ch. I, 1,4 ,quote0 in Alonso Schoekel, The li~spired Word. p. 44. Images of Job Jesse Nash, O.S.B. Brother Nash resides in St. Meinrad Archabbey; St. Meinrad. IN 47577. Every age has its heroes. Religious ages venerate saints and martyrs. Rebellious and turbulent ages tend to venerate rebels and even anti-heroes. Our age is curious in that it is characterized by both tendencies. One would naturally suppose that the heroes of traditional religious groups will sharply clash with those figures idolized by more secular, non-traditional groups in our society. Ahd such is typically the case. What the religious imagination sees as'a virtue, the non-religious or secular imagination disdains. Rarely do both camps find themselves prizing the same figure, whether histori-cal or legendary, as a hero. But the literary character Job is an example of such an exception. Both the traditional religious imagination and the contemporary imag-ination, which includes rebellious religious persons as well as non-religious ones, claim Job as their own. It is the oddity of this dual claim which has prompted this essay. The Book of Job as a Story Like an intricately designed puzzle, the book of Job frustrates the scholar and exegete. It is difficult, some say impossible, to translate. As to how the book came to its final, present form, which is a combination of poetry and prose, scholars are not in agreement. Nor are they in agreement as to how the various parts of the puzzle should really be fit together into one harmonious whole. The questions the book raises are legion. In spite of scholarly difficulties ,with the book of Job, the character of Job has been for centuries a hero of the religious imagination. For Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Job the man has been a hero to be imitated.~ More specifically, .lob was thought to be a model of patience in the face of a~Jversity. St. James represented all Images of Job / 29 three of these great religious traditions when he used Job as an example for his congregation to imitate: "You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, and how the Lord is compassionate and merciful" (5:11). In more recent times Job the man has become a hero of another sort altogether for both the religious and the secular imaginations. Job as a model of patience has been replaced with the model of Job the rebel. Job has even been adopted by the existentialists as one of their own. Today the Job who shakes his fist at the heavens in outrage and the Job who broods over the meaning of life is of more fascination than the older, more traditional view of Job. Scholars and. laity alike are more attracted to Job the impatient than Job the patient? How, we might ask, could two such contradictory models be constructed around the same literary figure? One reason for this difference in models lies in the structure of the book of Job itself, which looks something like this: 1. Prologue chapters I-2 11. Job's Laments and Debates chapters 3-27 111. A Hymn to Wisdom chapter 28 IV. The Debates Continued chapters 29-37 V. The Divine Speeches chapters 38-41 VI. Epilogue chapter 42 In the prologue and epilogue, the book is basically in prose. The rest of the book is mostly poetic in style. In the prologue Job is patient, and at the end of the divine speeches he surrenders to God, repenting in the end (40:3-5: 42: I-6). From these sections of the book the model of Job the patient was constructed. A different picture of Job is found in his laments and in his argumehts with his friends--here Job is not only impatient, he is rebellious. Thus we have the two models. Of course, the problem with either model is that it relies only on sections of the book congenial to the desired model. The book as a whole is often ignored. When this happens we are only given a glimpse of one image of Job when in fact there are three distinct images of Job in the book: one of patience, one of impatience or rebellion, and one of repentance. The images, at first glance, appear to be contra-dictory. How do we reconcile Job's rebellion with his final repentance? Some have chosen to ignore the repentance as though it were out of place in the book. But as Bernhard Anderson has pointed out, the fact that Job repents is the key to the book as a whole.3 Several scholars, along with Anderson, have stressed that the book of Job should be read as a story.4 By reading the book as a story with each of the various sections belonging together, we find that we do not have to choose between the model of Job the patient and Job the rebel. Neither model really reflects the whole story, so to speak. To choose ,lob the rebel over Job the patient or repentant (or vice versa) neglects the fact that in the book we catch glimpses of at least three moments in the life of a literary figure as he attempts to understand himself, his suffering, his world and his God. To read the book of Job as a story is to read the 30 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 movement of one person from self-assured patience to open rebellion to finally repentance and reconciliation with God. From Patience to Impatience In the prologue, chapters I-2, Job is presented as a successful family and business man with considerable wealth in terms of land, livestock, and servants, He was also blessed with many children. Both the extent of his wealth and the number of his children were signs of God's blessing in the popular piety of the day. Of course, the reason for this blessing was Job's righteousness. He was "blameless and upright, one who feared God, and turned away from evil" (I:1). 'The depth of his piety can be seen in his concern for the spiritual welfare of his children: ¯. he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said. "lt may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts." Thus Job did continually (1:5). Such a description not only serves to draw attention to Jo.b's piety, it also points to his wisdom. Although his children had every reason to be contented and thankful to the Lord. the possibility of alienation from God was always present. When misfortune did strik~ Job's children, servants, and property, he reacted as a wise man should. He mourned his loss and worshipped God (1:20). He was steadfast, as St. James said. and reconciled his loss with his faith in God: Naked I came from my mother~ womb, and naked shall 1 return: the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord. In all this he did not sin or charge God with wrong ( 1:21-22). Even when Job himself is afflicted with sores over his body, he remains stead-fast. To his goading wife, he retorts: "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil" (2:10)? Job's so-called patience was maintained because of his conviction that come what may, good or bad, it comes from God. Thus suffering was something to be endured. This too was part of the popular piety of the Ancient Near East (see Pr 3:1.1-12). ' Needless to say. Job's patience does not last long. As Job's patience ends in the story so does the prologue and thus begins Job's poetic lamentations and debates with his friends. Still, Job does not curse God. Rather. he curses the gift of life: "Let the day perish wherein 1 was born, and the night which said. 'a man child is conceived'" (3:3). His friends protest his outburst. Life. as a gift from God, was sacred to these people. Moreover. and here is a point often missed. Job's outburst is out of character for him. Eliphaz chides him: Behold, you have ,instructed many, and you have strengthened the weak hands. Your words have upheld him who was stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble.knees. But now it has come to you, and you arc impatient: it touches you, and you are dismayed (4:3-5): Images of Job / 31 Having helped others, Job now finds himself unable to cope with his own suffering and pain. He is forced to admit he hasn't the strength to be patient (6:11-13).~ Sheol is a nicer alternative than his present life (3:13-19). Sense of God and Sense of Self Job's patience and wisdom crumble before his pain. He is not being true to form, his friend Eliphaz notes. He becomes rebellious and argues with his friends. Claiming that he has not sinned, he argues that he does not deserve to stiffer in such a way (6:10). His outbursts are directed against God as well: "Why hast thou made me thy mark? Why have 1 become a burden to thee" (7:20)? Being bold in his anger, he would even presume to argue face to face with God to defend himself and the record of his life (13:3-5). Such a posture from Job has led John Bowker to think that Job's "sense of God" has been radically altered. Job no longer knows what to expect from his God, who is supposed to reward the righteous and not punish them.5 But is this actually the case? Did Job's experience of suffering cause him to question the very God he worshipped in the prologue? This question is crucial because'on it hinges the model of Job the rebel. Roland Murphy sheds some light on the question. He notes that Job is expe-riencing "the dark side of God.''6 This side of God'is not new to Job or the reader of the book. In the prologue we are told that God is going to allow Job to be tested (1:8-12: 2:3-6). This is the Hebrew way of saying that God is not above such a thing. The reader is almost immediately confronted with "the dark side of God," Job himself in the prologue relates his misfortunes to the hand of God and claims that evil as well as good should be accepted from God. And in his laments Job never doubts the existence of this side of God. The God Job worships in the prglogue is the same God he rages against in his lamentations. True, Job does rebel, but he rebels because he himself has become a victim of this side of God. Where before he counseled and consoled the victim, now he is one himself. Ironically, he asks: What is man. that thou dost make so much of him, and that thou dost set thy mind upon him. dost visit him every morning, and test him every moment? (7:17). Job has always been aware of this side of God, the testing side. But now that he personally is affected by it he questions the rationale .behind this possibility of the God-human relationship. Becoming more rebellious, he even questions the ration-ale behind punishing sinners: "It~ I sin, what do I do to thee, thou watcher of men" (7:20)? It is Job's "sense of self" that has radically shifted. He complains about the nature of a person's sojourn on earth in general--it is like that of a hired-hand (7:1). Old age also stares at him: "my life is a breath" (7:7), he tells his friends. Angrily, he is forced to conclude that suffering is only an additional complicating factor in the problematic nature of a person's life. 32 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 Job's sense of self is shattered by the greeting he gets from his social world. His friends wrongly associate his affliction with sin. His affliction (remember, he is covered with sores) has ostracized him from his natural acquaintances (19:13-19). Worst of all, "I am repulsive to my wife" (19:!7). His frfistration and rage are exemplified in his protest to his friends: "Why should I not be impatient? Look at me, and be appalled, and lay your hand upon your mouth. When I think of it I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my flesh" (21:5-6). And while all this has hap-pened to Job, the wicked prosper and grow old peacefully (21:7-21). Tested by God and shunned by his social world, Job rebels. One can under-stand his preference for the peace and rest of Sheol (1:13-19). What one cannot understand is how Job got the reputation over the centuries for being patient. But neither is Job's rebellion the last word in the story. To Repentance Job demanded a face-to-face showdown with God so as to resolve the issues he had raised. Yet when God does appear, much to the surprise of the reader, God does not defend himself by resolving the issues. In the divine speeches (chapters 38-41) God is on the offensive, asking some questions of his own: where was Job at creation or can Job control creation? Job is overwhelmed and concludes: "Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer thee" (40:4)? And finally, "I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee: therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes" (42:5-6). But why does Job repent? God does not actually absolve Job as he had demanded. Instead, Job is given a whirlwind tour of, in G. K. Chesterton's famous phrase, "an idiotic universe," a universe in which the wild ass (39:5ff), the wild ox (39:9ff), the ostrich (39:13ff), Behemoth or the hippopotamus (40:15-24), and even Leviathan or the crocodile (the subject of all of chapter 41) are the wonders that attest to God's glory and power. God here literally sings a hymn of praise to the ostrich, the hippopotamus, and the crocodile, creatures ugly or dangerous to humans. But these are the wonders of the universe according to God. He even seems proud of his "idiotic universe." God's description of the wonders of the universe catches Job off guard, so to speak. "What is man that you make so much of him?" Job had asked earlier. God replies by making much of creatures ugly or dangerous. The divine speeches force . Job to realize that he is not the center of the universe and that humans are not the only concerns God has. In regard to the meaning of the divine speeches, Robert Gordis notes: "The universe was not created exclusively for man's use, and therefore neither it nor its creator can be judged solely by man's standards and goals,w ' Job's rebellion was against his world and his God. God appears and shows him how little Job actually knows and understands. To demand to know the reason for suffering is to ask for more than is possible for humans. But God does not himself offer an easy answer. He confirms Job's suspicions that he has indeed created "an Images of Job / 33 idiotic universe." Nevertheless, a person's first obligation is not to understand but to give glory to the creator come what may.8 By his rebellion Job has caused an imbalance in the divine-human relationship. His repentance restores that relationship. onclusion Perhaps the unnerving thing about the book of Job for the reader of any age is that Job does repent. God in his confrontation with Job never addresses the problem of the suffering of the righteous or even the problem of ordinary living, both of which came to frustrate Job. Rather, God in the divine speeches accepts the world as his creation. He lays claim to it in spite of how crazy the world may appear to us. Job repents, but God declares to his friends that Job had spoken correctly of God (42:7). By his repentance Job accepts God in spite of unanswered questions and "an idiotic universe." Herein may lie a model worth our imitation, a model more challenging than those of Job the patient or the rebel. NOTES ~Nahum N. Glatzer, The Dimensions of Job: A Study and Selected Readings (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), pp. 12-34. 2Qoheleth has also been appropriated by some as a rebel or as an existentialist. For a critique of the use of Job and Qoheleth in such a manner see Robert Gordis, Koheleth-- The Man and His World. 3rd ed. (New York: Schocken Books, 1968), pp. 112-28. 3Bernhard W. Anderson. Understanding the Old Testament, 3rd ed. (Eng!ewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1975), p. 559. 4See Glatzer, p. 4: Robert Gordis, The Book of Job: Commentao', New Translation, and Special Studies (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America and KTAV, 1974): William J. Whedbee. "The Comedy of Job," in Semeia, 7 (1977), pp. 1-39. 5John Bowker, The Religious Imagination and the Sense of God (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978), p. 100. ~'Roland E. Murphy, The Psalms, Job, Proclamation Commentaries (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977). p. 79. 7Gordis. The Book of Job, p. 435. SAnderson. p. 558. A Word On Tomorrow's Renewal M. Helen Hardebeek, O.S.B. Sister Helen has been a member of the Benedictine community of Boerne, Texas. since 1960, and is presently working with Benedictine Sisters in Mexico City. She has attended both public and private universities. She writes "influenced by the totality of these experiences . prompted by a strong desire to encourage my sister and brother religious to see the long-range nature of our renewal efforts." Sister Helen may be addressed at Rio Bamba #870: Delegaci6n Gustavo Madero: Mexico 14. DF. 07300. Tired of talking about renewal? Want to know when we are finally going to settle down? You may be in for a shock: we've only just begun. The thing about renewal is that it never should have stopped happening in the Church in the first place. But stop it did--and that fact stands to warn us that stop it can again. We are made of the same weary bones and tired blood and change-resistant mentalities as those who first began to settle for the routine churchiness which provoked John XXIII to call for an opening of windows in the 1960's. Fifteen to twenty years later, most American Roman Catholic religious communities have lived through renewal processes; whether they have lived through renewal experiences remains an open question. Ask a representative religious (if you cannot find a representative religious; ask just any religious you come across), "How is your community renewing itself?." The answer very likely will be, "We already did." Thus do we set ourselves up a~ marvels of.grace or as paragons of delusion. It is a little like asking, "Are you looking forward to springtime?" and being told, "l've already seen one." Members of a community may feel that they have "renewed"just because they have studied and revised constitutions, set up group-defined goals and objectives, and established committees to evaluate the results of the efforts directed toward achieving those goals and meeting those objectives, While 34 A Word on Tomorrow's Renewal such efforts do indicate a willingness to travel toward renewal, they are no indication that renewal has indeed taken place. True, many aspects of our communities have changed, but l~t's face it: not all change is in the direction of renewal, and we are not always wise and clever and alert enough to catch the difference right away--although we may be scandalized at the thought that for all our prayer and sincerity, We, as groups, actually can make mistakes. Perhaps one of the biggest mistakes we are tempted to make is that of canonizing ourselves before our time, thinking that because we have asked the Spirit to guide us and have trusted the Spirit to guide us, thereby we must have made excellent decisions. The truth is that we--none of us--are immune from the probability of making some mistakes--even in prayed-over group deci-sions. We get together, trust, and do the best we can with the information and inspiration at hand. Nevertheless, it can turn out that, with the best will in the world, groups have made decisions which ultimately do not result in the authentic renewal of ministries and of lives that was intended. And~that does not say that the Spirit hds not been with us! After all, whole masses of populations lack success, lack necessities, lack knowledge, even though the working of the Spirit in their lives may be pro-found-- so profound, in fact, that our age probably will not know what groups and which actions have been truly effective in renewing the face of the earth. Looking at the poor and the oppressed and the ignorant~ one could judge that all they do and have done is to make mistakes! But we don't know. And we don't know about ourselves~ either. So one day we may discover that we have made some bad decisions. Does that mean that the Spirit is not with us, "or was not present at the time of the decision-making? Let us transpose the questions to another level: Is the Spirit not with prayerful poor or oppressed or ignorant persons? H~ive we made successful results to be our criteria by which to judge the value of prayer? It is-not necessarily success that characterizes the value of our renewal efforts. True renewal is characterized by love--a love that keeps growing in the same Spirit~regardless of success or failure, a love that does not allow factions to develop--factions made up of those who knew better all along, those who should have known better in the first place, and those who, in the clear light of hindsight, can now tell us better. Is renewalactive within the hearts of the cOmmunity members? If.so, then renewal is active within the fiber of~the community, and that community will be renewed. Ask ~f the community is loving, open, to the ideas of each person, or are there m(mbers whose ideas are always disregarded a priori because, for example, they "talk all the time without thinking!" Some people, unfortunately pei'haps, think by talking: as a result, much of what they say gets tuned out. Yet, in a "controlled-process situation," where solitary reflection is insisted upon as a pre-requisite to the sharing of insights, the tuning out of anyone by any6ne else is definitely a sigff of bad will, and a hindrance to the renewals process. 36 / Review.for Religious. Jan.-Feb. 1983 Another instance: does a clique of judges hold court privately on the inner workings and outer behaviors of the group? Thoughtful dialogue about per-ceived problems and weaknesses can be a sign of a loving community because thoughtful dialogue imp!ies a sincere desire to include ever more intensely Christ who is present where two or three are gathered in his name; but carping criticism is as different from thoughtful dialogue as chewing gum is from eatirig a hearty meal. Attempts at dialogue with chronic complainers are a wrong-way drive down a one-way street--just that pleasant, and just that effective. On the other hand, dialogue, which includes elements of constructive criticism, can be useful and invigorating. is the community loving? Does every person feel free to express opinions and to raise questions, knowing that the opinion expressed will be valued, and that questions asked will be seen not as signs of stupidity, but rather as signs of sincerity? ls the community loving? Or would a member cringe who has to ask for a substitute to wash dishes, a driver to the doctor, a helper on a project which is running late. So many indications of love, or its absence, could be listed--and most of them come down to simple, everyday acts which indicate an unselfish-ness, a lack of self-importance, a kind way of thinking. The process of renewal should, of its nature, be !ight, joyful, and exciting. What was old is becoming young again! What was broken is being healed! What was listless is being invigorated! When renewal is experienced as tire-some, dull, irksome, something is wrong. The mark has been missed. Better to stop and play a game or put a vase of flowers on the table: to sing a song or have an ice cream party. If we are truly renewing, we are becoming more and more like the happiest people who have ever lived: Jesus, whose awareness of the Father kept him headed toward the breathtaking experience of Resurrec-tion; our founders, whose glimpses of what it means to help others come into contact with Eternal Beauty made their lives adventure stories. Our founding documents brim with the possibilities open in life for you and for me. If we are not filled with happy thanksgiving for creation, not convinced that life is a splendid opportunity for sharing a magnificent message, then we still need renewing. How do we become and stay renewed? A lot depends on attitude. We can go through a group process and come out animated or disgusted--it depends on attitude. Any process can fail if those who come to it are disgruntled because they have to work in small groups, or because they had to stop what they were doing to come to "another meeting," or because they have convinced themselves that processes are for the purpose of manipulation. If process after process results in a heavy, sarcastic atmosphere, it may be time to say, "Per-haps we are not going to be renewed. Maybe we are going to die." And a funeral service could well be the next process--to lay to rest the hopes and dreams of the founder, the hopes and dreams that this group had been ¯ intended to realize today. A Word on Tomorrow's Renewal As we have seen, negative attitudes can sabotage renewal efforts. Positive attitudes, however, can enliven these efforts with ease and graciousness. Con-sider, as an example, the study of revised constitutions. As mentioned earlier, a study does not, in itself, guarantee or signify renewal--but the spirit in which a study is undertaken can be, indeed, a sign of renewal, if the corporate and individual qualities of Christian love highlight the interaction as the members explicate their documents together. Usually revised constitutions are couched in current theological terms-- which undoubtedly are interpreted differently among the membership. A study of these terms and of the varying understandings can be a fruitful "grassroots" source of reflection; and when it turns out that interpretations do differ, perhaps drastically, that is just fin!! Why not? Go through your community's constitution by yourself sometime. Is every phrase crystal clear? Is every underlying assumption apparent and familiar to you? Do you have a suspicion that there is more being implied than a cursory reading indicates? Or do you have other suspicions: that you know exactly what particular passages mean to certain others of your group and that your own interpretation differs vastly from theirs? The process of revising constitu-tions was intended to provide a theoretical framework wherein renewal could take place. The riches of our revised documents may be far greater than we realize, especially if we have not given ourselves the benefit of taking a close look at the fine print, and more especially, if we have not taken advantage of the opportunity to share our insights with others, and of learning from their impressions and reactions. Firm understanding of our own thought takes time; firm understanding of one another's thoughts is an even slower process. It is also tricky in that we must constantly allow for change (growth) in our own and in the other's thinking. However, if we are to know both ourselves and our documents, we may need to face up not only to the inspirational aspects, but also to the hard questions that result when differing interpretations are discussed openly. Did anyone ever say not to question our documents? The asking of searching questions may be a great source of renewal, particularly the asking of searching questions by our own Companions, within the context of our own communities. If we are fortunate enough to belong to a group that is honest, open, and tolerant, we can increase in our appreciation of the elusive nature of truth. As we ponder truth's way of moving past our present understandings, its way of surrendering itself only to the most persistent of pursuers, we can grow in our appreciation of the ongoing nature of truthful renewal--and we will not grow tired. On the contrary, we will grow livelier as we support one another as individuals, as we contribute to the cohesiveness and effectiveness of our communities, and as we witness in our ministries that ongoing efforts are needed if we are to become an ever-renewed people on our way to an ever-new God. Am I Growing Spiritually? Elements for a Theology of Growth Matthias Neuman, O.S.B. Father Neuman is a Professor of Theology at St. Meinrad Seminary. An earlier article, "The Contemporary Spirituality of the Monastic Lectio." is still available as a reprint. Father Net~man may be addressed at St. Meinrad Seminary: St. Meinrad, IN 47577. ecently a student at our seminary expressed his judgment about the quality of the theological and spiritual training offered to him: "Because of the many talents, and abilities of our faculty I am sometimes overwhelmed by the,vast-ness of what one should know and be. This has contributed to .a feeling of insecurityand incompetence on my part in tackling pastoral duties and spir-itual responsibilities." In a later conversation this student indicated that the variety of theological disciplines, the pluralism within each discipline, and the multiplicity of personal spiritualities forced him toward too many choices and subsequently a stalled indecision towards his professional and spiritual devel-opment. This young man. rather sharply reflects the problem that confronts many people today. The American religious scene corrals a grab bag of inter-ests, from mysticism to social action, from pure rationalism to biblical funda-mentalism, from family-c~ntered religion to process cosmology. The spiritually minded individual, fortunately or unfortunately, gets exposed to most of these religious trends at"some time or other. Besides being intellectually confusing this incredible mixture tends to stall one's personal integration, growth and competence in the spiritual life. In this article I wish to explore the possibility and issues of a viable "theology of spiritual growth.L' I would like to search out some concrete directives by which a Christian adult might seriously look at his or her life and give a satisfying response to the question: "Am ! growing spiritually?" 38 Am I Growing Spiritually? / 39 This tremendous concern of faith-minded adults for their o~,n spiritual growth cannot be separated from the larger thrust of American religion into the realm of interiority and spirituality. At the outset it would be good to take some time to clarify what is meant by the two terms spirituality and spiritual growth. At least in Roman Catholic circles, and I suspect beyond, spiritualio, has become a "hot" subject in recent years. Books, workshops, prayer seminars and directed retreats proliferate and vie for the increasing crowd of concerned believers intent on deepening their faith. This movement in spirituality high-lights a number of concerns in American religious practice. There is, first, the desire to break through the abstractions and formalismsof religion to gain a personal, immediate contact with God. This desire also wants to go beyond the generality of scriptural l~hrases such as "life in the Spirit" and "following the Lord." These are certainly important but they need to be fleshed out with a commonsense language of our time and culture. Second, prayer is viewed,as "being-in-the-presence-of" the Divine rather than an obligatory addressing of the Deity; it is personal communion with God. Third, by means of spirifuality people wish to free their emotions and use their real-life experiehces as their primary religious foundation in place of theoretical dogmas. And, lastly, the spirituality thrust calls each man and woman to develop a very persOnal and intimate religious practice. These concerns convey some of the flavor of the spirituglity movement, but they do not make precise the structured shifts that take place in the religious practice.of people. Fo.r this we need to know the basic elements of any spiritu-° ality. I would like to suggest four constitutive elements which are always operative, either explicitly or implicitly, within a given spirituality9 I. The point at which God touches people in their dai~v lives. The~real, generating source of any spirituality is found where the person oi" per~ns s~e~nse the p,resence of Mystery or of the Transcendent in their everyday lives. Wher-ever we sense that a power beyonff draws us out of ourselves and gives us a feeling of awe or of selfless love (the Holy), then a spirituality begins.2 Those everyday moments, places, events or persons which join us to the Transcen-dent ground the structural origin of any sPirituality. 2. The supports constructed to protect and nourish this experience of Mystery. The instinctive reaction to an experience of the Holy is to surround it with activities: derived from our best abilities, which are intended to'shore up and protect, and thus contribute to the likelihood that the Mystery will appear to us again. Whatever form these follow-up activities take, they constitute the intrinsic "devotions" of the spirituality. 3. A method of.focusing one's attention,for the renewed encounter with Mystery. Such styles of "attending" are, in fact, methods of prayer. From a phenom, enological perspective, every style of prayer--meditation or contem-plation, communal or ritual movement--reflects a particular way of organiz- 40 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 19~3 ing and stimulating consciousness to prepare for Mystery. 4. A method of growth and conversion. Every spirituality encloses some plan for extending the benefits and riches of one's contact with God into all other areas of one's life. To meet the Transcendent must rearrange values, and that rearrangement must automatically push itself into all other parts of a person's total !ife-world. A spirituality, then, inherently implies some kind of spiritual growth. This last item of the structure of spirituality needs development, thus bringing us to the major concern of this paper: a theology of spiritual growth. Our American culture is obsessed by the need for progress. People feel compelled to constant growth--intellectually, personally and spiritually. Not unlike so many consumer products that we buy, each year (we feel) we should be able to measure ourselves as "new and improved."This often rabid quest mirrors the ethos of American modernity itself, the cumulative result of indus, trialization, technology, mass media and the.myth of prbgress.3 This cultural storm has flooded into the religious milieu of America as well, engulfing all the branches of the Christian tradition. The myth of contin-ual growth, the American dream, has ever so forcefully incorporated itself into our religious practice and hopes. People feel an intense need to be able to measure and plot their progress toward God. They ask for special courses and practica in spirituality, faith formation and prayer. They seek out spiritual directors with whom to identify evidences of their spiritual growth. This state of affairs generates a plethora of problems. First of all, few people seem to have any clear idea or conviction about what "spiritual growth" really consists of, or how to measure it. Like myths about sex, views of spiritual growth get passed around from popularized article to popularized conference. Countless people strive constantly to improve, to grow, but end up terribly frustrated because they aren't sure if they are getting anywhere-- because adequate criteria and a coherent theory are lacking. Marshall McLuhan once wrote: "The price of eternal vigilance is indifference,TM an ominou~warning for so many who cast themselves headlong into plans of spiritual regeneration. This presents us with a serious problem in Christian spirituality today. In the remainder of this article, I will try to indicate some componen~ts of a theology of spiritual growth which might assist Christians to make a better evaluation of their lives in their journey towards the Mystery of God. Three points, will be specifically addressed: i) the necessity of a critique of cultural theories of human growth; 2) a better use of Christian religious rcseurces as a foundation for valid spiritual growth; and 3) the importance of increasL,g *he role of personal responsibility for one's spiritual growth. The Necessity of a Critique of Growth Theories In the last quarter century, under the onslaught of the psychological revo-lution, an ~er-increasing array of theories of human growth have established Am I Growing Spirituall.v? / 41 themselves as elements of the American cultural scene. Philip Rieff's prophetic warning has ~come of age: Psychological Man lives by the ideal of insight--practical, experimental insight leading to the mastery of his own personality. Psychological Man has turned away from his Occidental preoccupation with transforming the environment and converting others. Rather. he now more nearly imitates the Oriental ideal of salvation through self-contemplative manipulation.5 Some perception and schematizing of human growth has traditionally bei:n a part of all folk wisdoms and religious traditions. The transition from child to adult was always hcknowledged, and a large portion of folk literature dealt'with the shifts in behavior, attitude and community-esteem that attach to the passage from boy to man or girl to woman. Similarly, religious traditions Of every kind have alwa3)~ sought to understand the fundamental ~hifts that occur in the course of human life and how this changes the individual relation-ship with God; the Hindu schema of Student-Householder-Wanderer-Holy Person serves as a typical example.6~However, these traditional understandings of human growth have been sharply accentuated and developed in our hyper-psychologized milieu. Not too long ago psychologists began to delineate more precise stages of growth--down to year-by-year and month-by-month. In addition to more narrowly identifying the temporal sequence, they also expanded the list of means by which such growth should occur. One fairly recent book lists a sample of the ways available to contemporary Americans, offering us growth by means of play, breathing, extended perception, smell, taste, touch, sex, family, encounter groups, peak experiences, gestalt therapies, LSD dreams, meditation, training intuition, psychedelic experiences and-- finally--relaxation .7 In such a supercharged atmosphere, is it any wonder that people start Worrying about "having to grow"?. They check themselves month by month to keep tabs on the normalcy of their progress. A man in a parish once told me of his anxiety that his mid-life crisis hadn't started on time! People can get abnormal trying too hard to be normal. A good theology of spiritual growth ought to address this issue head-on. Available theories are legion in our society. Just consider the complexities of balancing together Piaget's cognitive development,8 Erikson's psycho-social theory of growth,9 l~ohlberg's stages of moral development,10 Richard Jones' structuring of imaginal growth,~ Daniel Levinson's modeling of adult life-transitions, 12 and Elizabeth Kuebler-Ross' enumeration of the stages of dying.~3 Apparently the negotiation of one's way through that maze begins with the first month of life and never ends until the final breath. It would be a grim and determined individual who would seek never to sway from the tough road of.such normalcy: "Narrow is the path that leads to life and few there are who follow it" (Mt 7:!4)! What I find distressing is how easily and totally those growth schemas are imported wholesale into spiritual thinking and writing. Piaget and Kohlberg 42 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 are assumed to present ready-made outlines for faith development.14 Erikson's schema is accepted as the basis for identifying the major steps of adult religious conversion.~5 Levinson's adult life-transitions provide the hidden key to a mid-life "spirituality of crisis."16 . 1 would like to suggest that a theology of spiritual growth ought to provide a much deeper and more detailed critique of these'theories of human growth and their uses for spirituality. While there is much excellent research in these cultural theories of growth and development,and while they certainly offer a mine of insights to be tapped for a theology of spirituality, there is still a need for religious prudence in the acceptance of them.' Too often, for instance,, one encounters the feeling that the accurate following of this or that theory becomes binding ,for human happiness. "Normalcy" equals happiness and fulfillmen!! A theology of spiritual growth should exercise some critical defla-tion of such expectations. ,. Again, readers of psychological theories frequently assume~that a particu-lar age-related growth pattern can be made the target of personal decision and attacked forthwith. They forgetthat the most such schemes can accomplish for any individual is to provide possible awareness-points along the way toward long-range programs and decisions, points which might possibly help people to locate the source of some of their present blockages in one or other unre-solved issue of their past lives. There are, in other words, no instant panaceas. In seeking for balance in the utilization of these chronological growth patterns, a theology of spiritual growth would do well to brush off discarded philosophy books, rehabilitating, for instance, the existentialist notion of "event."~7 In the making of a human life, the setting of attitudes, actions and hopes is as much the result of the particular and unique events which happen to an individual as it is of the unfolding of any chronologically structured growth scheme. Most life events occur without our previous consent,'even though others may be defiberately planned and executed. The powerful exis-tentialist insight into event, however, has recently been smothered, philosophi-cally, in the waves of' structuralism. Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers from Prison provide a good example of one man whose mind, heart and vision had been irrevocably changed and shaped by his unplanned prison experience.~8 Other areas cannot be developed here. But let me suggest that any ade-quate theology of spiritual growth must incorporate and develop four basic d~,namics of human and spiritual deepening. I have drawn these from a theory that combines social phenomenology and cultural anthropology. ,I. Chronological Growth Stages. This dynamic encompasses the many theo-ries that seek to explain how the structural human being (mind, emotions, sociality, and so forth) moves through the trajectory of life. Its purview.is the time line, and it locates the person as moving successively out of. oqe set of structures into a future set. Most of the growth schemas menti.oned above-- Erikson, Kohlberg, Levinson, and so forth--are good exp?sitors of, this Am I Growing Spiritually? dynamic of human growth. Knowing these chronological stages can give us some positive insight into how we have negotiated the human need to cope With emotional maturity, sociality, intellectual responsibility, and so forth. We need to know this, and it can serve as a fundamental indicator of our spiritual growth toward the mystery of God.19 2. Cultural Exposure. Just as significant for a basic human and spiritual deepening is the dynamic of cultural expression to which a person has been exposed. Here growth opportunities point to a richness or expansiveness of social, personal and religious experiences of life. This may be the. most ne-glected of all the basic areas of human and spiritual growth. Americans espe-cially hax~e been provincial---even to the point of denigrating the cultural riches of other peoples. Yet we have ,to realize that there are many ways of meeting the fundamental issues of life in family and society, of entering into interper-sonal relations, and so on. To limit oneself exclusively to the learned patterns of one:s own family or culture is, in effect, to deny the possibility of other ways of growing that God has offered to the human race. Cultural openness is also a means of grasping more profoundly just how God's life me~rges with our own. A personal example may illustrate what I mean here. 1 was raised in a small midwestern town, in a culture strongly shaped by traditional Germanic values. A cardinal belief of that culture was: You never get something,for nothing. That limited experience kept me from really understanding and inter-igrizing the New Testament notion .o.f charism--a gift of God freely bestowed. It wasn't until I had lived in another culture (Italy)~.f.or four years that the cultural expression of pure gift became an experienced part of my reality, enatiling me to interioriz_e this New Testament meanin.g. I doubt that this could have happened if 1 had clung rigidly to my inherited convictions. A broadbased cultural exposure can be a vital dynamic of both human and spiritual growth. Not only should we recognize this, but we should be ,willing to let ourselves be challenged by it. 3. The Depth of TranSformational Possibilities. This dynamic considers'to what extent the indivi~lual recognizes the opportunities that are available for changing one's life~ The previous element cab present numerous possibilities and values to test One's ability to go~ beyond and enrich one's inherited and socialized culture. This dimension of human deepening, though, looks far mor+ r~dically and openly to the future hnd to the goal of humanization than do the previous two areas. It incorporates the hope and realistic expectation that 6ur live~ can actually be reshaped and renewed into a creative new pattern that combines inherited values and newly-learned cultural expressions. The full reality of spiritual growth, then, must internalize the possibility that the true spiritual person will be the result of a creative religious act.2° 4. Integrative and Creative ~)ecision. This final dynamic specifies that unique moment when the three preceding dimensions are brought into mutual interac- 44 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1983 tion. Chronological growth, cultural possibilities, and projected changes are balanced and ready to be creatively merged by free decisions. This truly inte-grative dynamic of spiritual deepening is the traditional meaning of Wisdom. Christian theology has also called it "discernment in the Spirit of the Lord."!t is an axis of human and spiritual growth which reaches far beyond the simple importation of cultural growth theories into religious spirituality. These four elements of spiritual growth ought to provide at least a basic framework that would take us beyond a simple application of the chronologi-cal growth stages. Spiritual directors and reflective Christian adults should examine all four areas for material to answer the question: Am 1 growing spiritually? Christian Resources and a Theology of Spiritual Growth Having considered the problem of understanding growth in contemporary spirituality and the human social sciences, we must further inquire." Does the Christian religious experience offer any special contributions to this issue of spiritual growth? Does the Christian tradition add any unique perspectives in ascertaining the precise goals, means or methodological steps of authentic spiritual deepening? First, let us acknowledge that Scripture surely affirms some kind of reli-gious maturation. The Apostle Paul gently reprimands his congregation at Corinth: "I treated you as still infants in Christ. What I fed you with was milk, not solid food, for you we.re not yet. rea.dy for it" (I C° 3:1, 2). In another passage he contrasts the ways of Children with those of adults as a norm for spiritual deepening (! Co 13:9-12). Paul further notes the real possibility of regression or backsliding on the" spiritual journey: "! am astonished at the promptness with which you have turned away from the one who called you." (Ga 1:6). Along with other biblical writers (see Jn o16:12) the Apostle of the gentiles presents a definite conviction of the need for growth or deepen-ing on the spiritual journey. But we will look in vain for any systematic description of a life-pattern of holiness in the Scriptures. Alas, no biblical Erikson has appeared to lead us into this Promised Land. At best we can discern religious situations, spiritual responses to the situations, and recogni-tions that people have not progressed as far as they should have. Secondly, from a purely linguistic and cognitive viewpoint the Scriptures complicate the matter of trying to formulate a coherent theory of spiritual growth. This complication results from the cultural and religious pluralism that lies behind the,early Christian writings: this pluralism results in a variety of central symbols--all concretizing the same Christian wa~y.2~ The New Tes-tament encompasses a variety of goals in the spiritual process: the pascha~l pattern of Christ in us (Paul), the kingdom of God (Jesus), the holiness of God (I Peter), the life.and ministry of Jesus (synoptic gospels). Similarly diver~e are the means to attain these goals: aft active moral love (Paul), the new com-mandments (Matthew), loving knowledge (John) and personal conversion Am I Growing Spiritually? (Jesus). As if this were not enough, one fails to find the least evidence of any systematizing method which would trace the step-by-step procedures of spiri-tual growth through the means to the end. While many later Christian writers have attempted to formulate systematizing examples, they all impose a later schema on the earlier texts,z2 The absence in the New Testament of a step-by-step explanation of spiri-tual deepening should be understandable in a moment's reflection: these canonical writings are occasional pieces, not systematic expositions. Moreover, in the cultural milieu of their composition, subjective spiritual growth was not a high priority: it is our modern viewpoint that has elevated it to a primary concern. And yet the richness of spiritual experience in the Christian heritage does possess an immense wealth in its own right, one that need not be clipped or stretched to fit within our cultural categories of human growth. Methodo-logically, this suggests that a revisionist method of theology, such as the one outlined by David Tracy, should be introduced more forcefully into the realm of spirituality.23 The Christian heritage should challenge" contemporary culture, as well as vice-versa. I would like to suggest one issue which might be pursfiEd in this dialectical exchange. The question should be raised: Does the Christian religious vision even allow that spiritual growth have any single necessary ground-plan? Ought we not consider as a real possibility that the reason it is difficult to find a methodo-logical statement of spiritual growth in the Bible is because there isn't supposed to be one? These writings are open-ended! They provide no abs61ute goal of spiritual growth: they offer no absolute means of holiness: they organize no steps in an absolute methodological pattern. Taken as a collection of accumu-lated experience these writings simply give us a variety of examples of men and women who are "on the spiritual way." Like the parable of the Good Samari-tan which avoids a direct answer to the question: "Who is my neighbor?" the wholel import of the scriptural collection deliberately leaves a great deal of latitude for people to choose their own path. The implied message of the Good Samaritan story, "Be loving and you will recognize your neighbor," may be symbolic of the entire scriptural message. Paul's great theme of freedom in the Galatian letter forcefully accents that same open-endedness. "Before faith came, we were allowed no freedom by the Law . The Law was to be our gua~rdian until Christ came . lqow that that time has come we are no longer under that guardian" (Ga 3:23-25). That warning may be spoken against any absolute plan (including a growth plan) that would shackle human freedom. When Paul pleads with his hearers to be guided by the Spirit (5:26), he is admonishing people to remain open and a

Issue 21.2 of the Review for Religious, 1962. ; FRANCIS J. WEBER The Relics of Christ The spiritual value of a relic is directly proportional to the devotion it inspires in those who venerate it. Apart from this spiritual significance, the relic is merely a his-torical curiosity. It may or may not be of archaeological value to the museums of the world. The official attitude of the Church regarding individual relics is one of extreme reserve. In most cases, the Church prudently withholds definitive judgment on even the most demonstrably ancient relics. In fact, while reluctant to proclaim the authenticity of a particular reli.c, the Church has not infrequently withdrawn from public Veneration relics whose claims were found to be dubious or spurious. In recent memory, this has happened in the case of "St. Philomena," center of a devoted cult for more than a cen-tury, though she had never been formally canonized and nothing actually was known of her life. Despite the many miracles attributed to the relics of this supposed second century martyr, unearthed from a catacomb in 1802, mod-ern research shed doubt on the authenticity of the re-mains. It should be noted that the decree of the Sacred Congre-gation of Rites in 1961 dropping the feast of St. Philomena from the liturgical calendar did not touch on the validity of the miracles attributed to her intercession. They may well have been genuine miracles performed by God be-cause of the faith and devotion of those who prayed for them. The oldest and most cherished of Christian. relics nat-urally are those reputed to have been connected with the holy person of Jesus Christ Himself. Those few that are still extant, for the most part, have sufficient historical documentation to merit scholarly attention. It must be borne in mind that the honor and veneration given to these objects is directed primarily to Christ. Hence, in, some cases where documentation establishes only doubtful authenticity, the Church is certainly jus-tified in remaining silent, if it is understood that in so doing the Church is not giving positive approval and if 4, 4. Francis J. Weber, a dPiorcieesste o of ft hLeo As rAchn-- geles, is presently assigned to Catholic University, Wash-ington 17, D.C. VOLUME 21, 1962 79 4. 4. Francis ~. Weber REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 80 greater honor and glory are thereby rendered to Almighty God. Our approach to this obscure and sometimes contro-versial subject is that of the historian, who presents only the facts, leaving conclusions to the reader, The True Cross The Cross on which our Savior died has been tradi-tionally the most precious of all Christian relics. Tiny splinters of the True Cross have been so widely distributed that, in the words of St. Cyril, "the whole inhabited earth is full of relics from the wood of the Cross." St. Helena is credited with discovery of the True Cro:;s in 327 A.D.1 Early testimony of the fathers, among them Ambrose, Jerome, Sozomen, and Theodoret, recounts this marvelous event in copious detail. The Cross was found in an abandoned cistern near Mount Calvary. Identifica-tion as the True Cross, according to St. Ambrose, was easy enough since the titulus was still affixed. To commemo-rate this great occasion, St. Helena orderd a magnificent basilica to be erected over the H61y Sepulchre. She gave it the name of St. Constantius in honor of her son, the Roman emperor. When Helena returned to Rome, the relics were placed in the Sessorian Basilica, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. A substantial segment, of the. Cross-was left in Jerusalem where it annually attracted thousands of devout pilgrims. It was captured in the seventh century by Khosru II, the Persian conqueror. When the holy relic was returned by Heraclius in 628, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross was instituted. The Jerusalem relic was divided many times. When certain of these fragments fell into the hands of the Mohammedans, the Crusades were inspired to restore them. An extensive and intensive study of the True Cross was made and published in 1870 by Rohault de Fleury. After examination of all extant fragments claimed to be from the True Cross, he drew up a minute catalogue of them, with precise weights and measurements. His findings proved that if all known pieces of the True Cross were put together, they would consitute less than one-third of the original Cross. This effectively silenced skeptics who had scoffed that the total of supposed fragments was bigger than the Cross itself. De Fleury's calculations2 were based on a cross of pine wood weighing an estimated 75 kilograms. The volume of 1 Louis de Combres, The Finding of the True Cross (London: Trubner, 1907). = Charles Rohault de Fleury, Mdraoire sur les instruments de la Passion (Paris: Lesort, 1870), pp. 97-179. this. cross would have been approximately 178 million cubic millimeters. Known volume of the existing relics does not exceed ,t0 million cubic millimeters. 0 Crux ave, spes unica! The Title of the Cross There are many fanciful legen~ls associated with the dis-covery of the True Cross by St. Helena. The manner of distinguishing the True Cross of Christ .from those of the two thieves is usually related with colorful if not his-torically accurate circumstances. However, St. Ambrose testifies there was no problem in identifying the True Cross as the titulus or title-piece was still intact. Other writers corroborate this account, notably Sts. Cyrils and Jerome. As has been the case with so many holy relics, the titulus was divided into seveial pieces. The Diary of Etheria lo-cates a piece of the titulus in Jerusalem in 380 A.D, Helena undoubtedly brought a part of the title back to Rome with her. Regrettably, there is no further documentation avail-able on the fate of the Jerusalem relic, For some reason, very likely to protect it from invaders, the Roman relic seems to.have been walled up in an arch of Santa Croce by Placidus Valentinian III in the fifth century. In the twelfth century it was accidentally un-earthed by Gherardo Caccianemici, titular cardinal and later Pope Lucius II. The future pontiff placed his seal on the reliquary and replaced it in its hiding place. In 1492 Cardinal Mendoza of Toledo rediscovered the relic which he immediately presented to the then Holy Father, Innocent VIII. A papal bull, Admirabile Sacra-mentum, was issued, after which the titulus was exposed for public veneration in Santa Croce. The title-piece is of wood, about nine by five inches in size, and comprises two-and-one-half lines of faded in-scription. Hebrew, Greek and Latin characters are dis-cernible, all of which axe printed in reverse, a practice common with the Romans of the time of Christ. The Shroud of Turin It is recorded in Chapter 27 of St. Matthew how Joseph. of Arimathea wrapped the body of Jesus in a "dean linen cloth." No further mention of this funeral shroud appears in Christian literature until the time of St. Nino4 (d. ~38), who relates how Peter removed the shroud from the tomb shortly after the Resurrection. The fourteenth century Byzantine historian, Nicephorus Callista, tells how this 8Philip Gonnet, De Sancti Cyrilli Hiersolymitani Catechismt~ (Paris: 1876). ¯ Edward Wuenschel, C.Ss.R.0 Sell-Portrait oI Christ (Esopus, New York: Holy Shroud Guild, 1954). ÷ ÷ ÷ Relics ot Christ VOLUME 21, 1962 81 4. Francis $. Weber REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Holy Shroud, soaked with the blood of Christ and bearing an image of His holy face, found its way to Constantino-. pie: "Pulcheria, Empress of the East, having built a basil-ica. at Blachernes in 436, piously deposited there the fu. neral linens of Our Savior, which had just been rediscov-. ered and which the Empress Eudoxia had sent to her." Eyewitnesses to the presence of the Holy Shroud at Con-stantinople are recorded in the Annals of 631, 640, 749, 1157 and 1171 A.D. During the Fourth Crusade, the Holy Shroud was sur. rendered in recompense to Otho de la Roche, Duke of Athens and Sparta. The Duke in 1204 sent the prized relic to his father in France. Soon after, it came into possession of the Bishop of Besan~on. A fire caused minor damage to the shroud in 1349. Later that same year, it was stolen from its case in Besan~on Cathedral and given to King Philip IV who in turn gave it to Geoffrey, Count of Char., ney and Lord of Lirey. There is documentary evidence ¯ that it was at Lirey in 1360. During the Hundred Years War, the Holy Shroud wa:; handed over by Geoffrey's granddaughter to the House of Savoy for safekeeping. In 1454, Pope Sixtus IV directed the Duke of Savoy, Louis I, to build a shrine for the shroud at his Chambery residence. During the troubled war years of the sixteenth century, the Holy Shroud was moved from town to town in France. It narrowly missed being destroyed a second time by fire in 1532, and in fact its corners were noticeably singed. At the request of the aged Charles Borromeo, the shroud in 1578 was brought to Turin where it has re-mained for the past four hundred years. It is presently preserved in the black marble chapel specially built for it behind the city's beautiful fifteenth century cathedral. Several pronouncements by the Holy See leave litth: doubt regarding the Church's official attitude toward the Turin Shroud. An Office and a Mass were formally ap-proved by Pope Julius II in the bull Romanus Ponti[ex issued in 1506. Sixtus IV had previously stated that in thbl Holy Shroud "men may look upon the true blood and portrait of Jesus Christ Himself." A remarkable discovery was made in .1898, when a pho-tograph of the Turin Shroud revealed the faint, blurred image on the ancient linen to be an actual "negative" produced by vapors from a human body covered witll spices. The negative of the modern photo~a negative of a negative, thus producing a positive--offered a far more pronounced picture of a human face than was previously recognizable. ChemiCally, this "vapograph" was caused by the am-moniacal emanations from the surface of the body after an unusually violent death. It has been proved experimen-tally that these vapors are capable of producing a deep reddish brown stain which would vary in intensity with the distance from a cloth soaked with oil and aloes. Hence the image of Christ's face on the shroud is a natural nega-tive. This modern evidence, together with the identification of human bloodstains, prompted Dr. Paul Vignon to read a brilliant paper before the Acaddmie des Sciences, in which he suggested that any explanation denying the authenticity of the Turin Shroud would be scientifically inaccurate. It might also be mentioned that, the impression on the shroud of the Grown of Thorns is in perfect conformity with the "helmet type" of crown displayed at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Further, the nail wounds are not in the palms of the hands but in the wrists. It has been re-alized only in our own times that this was a physical neces-sity, for nails in the palms .of the hands would not have been able to sustain the weight of a human body. One of the major opponents and critics of the Turin Shroud was the anti-pope Clement VII, first of the Avig-non Pretenders. His opposition apparently stemmed from a vague charge made by the Bishop of Troyes that the shroud was the work of a local craftsman skilled in the subtle art of simulating antique handiwork. Other shrouds, thirty in all, each purporting to be the genuine article, have turned up through the centuries. Most notable are thosestill preserved at Besan~on, Ca-douin, and Champiegne. These shrouds likewise bear im-pressions alleged to be those of Christ's face and body. However, the preponderance of ,historical evidence seems to leave no doubt that among all the claimants, only the Shroud of Turin has a valid pretension to au-thenticity. The Pillar of the Scourging The column of the Praetorium to which Christ was bound during His scourging was discovered in the For-tress of Antonia in 373 A.D., according to a chronicle penned by St. Ephrem. St. Paulinus of Nola,5 writing after 409, refers to several relics of the Passion, among them "the pillar at which He was scourged." Philip of Brosserius saw the pillar in the Church of the Holy Se-pulchre in 1285. Some time before the end of the four-teenth century it was broken and one part was sent to Constantinople. An interesting Christian" tradition, dating back to .the See Letter 310f Paulinus. ÷ ÷ ÷ Relics o] Christ VOLUME 21, 1962 83 ÷ ÷ ÷ F~ancis $. Webe~ REVIEW I:OR REI.I~IOUS 84 fourth century, holds that Christ was actually scourged twice. St. John Chrysostom tells us this second flagellation took place at the house of Caiaphas after the mock trial. This tradition finds prominent mention in early chroni-cles. The pillar used for the second scourging was reserved in the Church of Mount Sion, the Cenacle, where St. Jerome reported he saw it. During the Persian invasion, it too seems to have been broken into several pieces. The portion left at the Cenacle was lost in 1537. The other part was returned to a church subsequently erected on the sit~ of the house of Caiaphas. Here it was venerated until the fourteenth century, when it completely disappeared. In 1222 A.D., Giovanni Cardinal Colonna, papal envoy to the Orient, returned to Rome with a fragment of the Pillar of the Scourging, apparently given him by the Sara-cens. He enshrined it in his titular church of St. Praxedes, where it may be seen today. The Roman pillar is of mar-ble, about two feet four inches high. It is.probably one of the parts of the Praetorian column. Its counterpart in Jerusalem is of a different material and may have formed the lower part of the pillar. The Holy Stairs Among the many treasures brought back from the Holy Land by St. Helena was the marble staircase from the palace of Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem. It is still extant,e The stone steps number twenty-eight and are said. to have been sanctified by the feet of Christ himself when He as-cended this stairway at the Praetorium. The stairway, reconstructed in Rome, originally formed part of the old Lateran Palace, leading into a chapel dedi-cated to St. Sylvester. When the Lateran Palace was torn down by Pope Sixtus V in 1589, the stairs were moved to their present location. Today the Scala Sancta constitutes the entranceway to the Holy of Holies~ an old private papal chapelY In its present site, the Scala Sancta is flanked by additional stair-wells on either side. Traditionally the Holy Stairs are ascended only on one's knees. The last pope to ascend the stairway in this fashion was Plus IX on the eve of his exile from Rome in 1870. Pope St. Pius X decreed a plenary indulgence for those who devoutly ascend the Scala Sancta on their knees as testimony of their love for Christ. Replicas of the Scala Sancta have been erected at Lourdes and other centers of pilgrimage. e Herbert Thursfon, The Holy Year o] Jubilee (Westminster: New-man, 1949). ~ Philippe Lauer, Le trdsor de Sancta Sanctorum (Paris: Leroux, t~o~). The Soldier's Lance Mention is made of the soldier's lance in Chapter 19 of St. John. In his account of the Savior's death, St. John re-lates that "one of the soldiers opened His side with a spear . " The first extra-Biblical.~mention of~,this relic seems to be by Anthony of P~efiZ~, who wrot~'~a~;he saw the Crown of Thorns and "the lance with which He was struck in the side," in the Basilica of Mount Sion.s A miniature of the renowned Syriac manuscript, illu-minated by Rabulas.in 586, assigns the name Longinus to the soldier whose lance pierced the crucified Christ. Gas-siodorus and Gregory of Tours speak of a spear venerated at Jerusalem, which was thought to be identical with that mentioned in Scripture. After the fall of Jerusalem in 615 A.D., several of the major relics of the Passion fell into the hands of the Per-sians. The Chronicon Paschale relates that a piece of the soldier's lance came into the possession of Nicetas, who enclosed it in an icon and presented it to Santa Sophia in Constantinople. In 1241 the Holy Lance was given to King St. Louis for Sainte Chapelle in Paris. No trace of this part of the lance has been found since it was lost during the French Revolu-tion, some time after its removal to the Bibliothkque Na-tionale. The second and larger part of the shaft of the soldier's iance was reported seen by Arculpus in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem about 670 A.D. Later it was taken to Constantinople, where Sir John Mandeville writes about it. It was sent to Pope Innocent VIII in 1492 in return for favors shown to the captured Zizin, brother of Sultan Bajazet. At request of the French hierarchy, during the pontifi-cate of Benedict XIV an investigation was conducted to ascertain the .relation, if any, between the two relics, one at Paris, the other at Rome. A papal brief, issued after the inquiry, concluded that both relics were originally parts of the same shaft. Several other supposedly genuine Ho!y Lances are pre-served in various treasuries of Europe, but none of the others offers a valid claim to authenticity. Even the story told by William of Malmesbury about the Holy Lance given to King Athelstan of England is historically in-accurate. Since the tragic loss of ihe Paris relic, only the Roman lance remains. It is exposed each year for veneration dur-ing Holy Week by the Archpriest of St. Peter's Basilica. 8 Francois Martin, Reliques de la Passion (Paris: Lethielleux, 1897). 4- 4- 4- Relics of Christ VOLUME 21, 1962 85 + + + F~ancis ~. Webe~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 86 Veronica's Veil According to the historian Eusebius in his commentary on the Legend of Abgar and according to remarks con-tained in the apocryphal work Mors Pilati, several au-thentic portraits of Jesus Christ were made at various times during His lifetime. The oldest and most authenticated of these images has been known to Romans for centuries as the Vera Icon or Veil of Veronica. So highly has this image been held in Roman esteem, that a Mass celebrating it was composed and inserted into at least one of the early Augsburg Missals.9 There is no reference in Scripture to a woman offering her veil to Christ during His Sacred Passion. But it is highly plausible that there was such a compassionate soul among those who followed Christ on His way to Mount Calvary. The incident itself is undoubtedly worthy of some credibility, since it has found its expression since very early times in the Christian devotion of the Stations of the Cross. Apparently the holy woman in question, known in pious legend only as Veronica, found her way to Rome, where she presented her Vera Icon---True Picture--to Pope Clement I. The veil, ostensibly bearing the image of the suffering Jesus miraculously pressed into it, was vener-ated in several places until the pontificate of John VII who had it enclosed in an ornate reliquary. During the ensuing centuries, the Holy See has exhibited particular solicitude for this precious relic. It had been reserved to the Pope's own chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, where it is ex, posed briefly during Holy Week for veneration by the faithful. The Holy Grail A whole cycle of romantic legends has been woven about the theme of the Holy Grail,1° but the legendary quests, inspiring though they may be, add nothing to the few slim historical facts available. Of the two notable "pretenders" to genuine Grailship, one alone merits se-rious consideration. And while tl~e chalice displayed at Valencia is not generally accepted as genuine by histo-rians, its proponents present a tolerable case in its behalf. An account by Bishop Siuri of Cordoba relates that the chalice used by Christ at the Last Supper was brought to~ Rome by St. Peter soon after the death of Mary. It was used frequently at Papal Masses until the pontificate of Sixtus II. During the persecutions of Valerian, St. Lawrence sent the chalice to his native Huesca in the northern part of o Sainte Veronique, apostre de l'Aquitaine (Toulouse: 1877). a0 Nutt, Studies o[ the Holy Grail (London: 1888). the Spanish peninsula where the Holy Grail remained until 713 when it was removed to San Juan de la Pena for protective custody during the Moslem invasion. A deed of exchange, dated September 26, 1399, testifies that King Martin acquired the Holy Grail for his private chapel in the Palace of the Aljaferia. About 1424 .the chalice was moved to Valencia by King Alfonso V. The chalice has remained at Valencia since the fifteenth cen-tury except for a brief period during the Spanish Civil War when part of the cathedral was burned by the Com-munists. It was restored to its chapel in the Metropolitan Cathedral at Valencia by the Franco government in 1937. Artistically, the Holy Grail is Corinthian in styling,ix made of agate or Oriental carnelian. The handles on ei-ther side are common appurtenances for drinking vessels of its period. The costly pearls, rubies, and emeralds were added much later. The Crown of Thorns St. Paulinus of Nola, writing early in the fifth century, is the first of the chroniclers to mention specifically "the thorns with which Our Lord was crowned." Other early writers allude apparently to this relic of the Passion, but their comments are vague and inconclusive. Writing about 570, Cassiodorus speaks of "the thorny crown, which was set upon the head of our Redeemer in order that all the thorns of the world might be gathered together and broken." The pilgrimage of the monk Ber-nard establishes that the Crown Of Thorns was still at Mount Sion in 870. According to fairly recent studies, the whole crown was transferred to Byzantium about 1063, although many ot the thorns must have been removed at an earlier date. The Latin Emperor of Constantinople, Baldwin II, offered the Crown of Thorns to St. Louis in 1238. After lengthy ne-gotiations with the Venetians, the r(lic was taken to Paris and placed in the newly built Sainte Chapelle where it remained an object of national devotion until the French Revolution. For security, the crown was placed in the BibliothOque Nationale during the bloody days of the upheaval. In 1806, it was restored to Notre Dame Cathedral. It was en-shrined in its present rock crystal reliquary in 1896. All that is left to be seen today is the circlet of rushes, devoid of any thorns. What remained of the original sixty or seventy thorns were apparently removed by St. Louis and deposited in separate reliquaries. The king and his successors distributed the thorns until nothing remained at Paris but the circlet. The Holy Chalice o/the Last Supper (Valencia: 1958). 4. 4. + Relics o] Christ VOLUME 21, 1962 Francis J. Weber REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 88 Reportedly there are more than 700 "holy thorns" scat-tered around the world. But only those traceable to St. Louis, to one of the emperors, or to St. Helena are genu-ine. Such authentic thorns aCe at Cluny, St. Praxedes in Rome, Santa Croce, and at Aachen, to mention but a few. The Nails There seems to be little agreement among Biblical scholars on the number of nails used to fasten our Blessed Lord to His Cross. Religious art of the early Middle Ages almost unanimously depicts the crucified Savior with four nails~ In the thirteenth century, however, it became in-creasingly common to represent the feet of Christ as placed one over the other and pierced with a single nail. Either of these methods is compatible with the informa-tion we have about the punishment of crucifixion as practiced by the Romans. The earliest authors, among them St. Ambrose, speak only of two nails.12 And it is a point of interest that the two oldest known representations of the Crucifixion, the carved door of Santa Sabina in Rome and the Ivory Panel in the British Museum, show no signs of nails in the feet. The most commonly accepted opinion is that there were three nails that actually touched the body of Christ. This is borne out by the evidence of the Shroud of Turin. In addition, there were probably another three nails used for the titulus, the seat block, and the foot rest. St. Ambrose and St. Jerome speak of the discovery of the nails in Jerusalem by Constantine's mother, St. Hel-ena, in the third century. Sozomen notes in passing that St. Helena had no trouble identifying the nails. One of the nails was fashioned into an imperial diadem for the emperor. This Iron Crown of Lombardy is now at Manza. Another nail was made into a bit for the imperial horse. This relic is believed to be the same as the one at Carpentas. A third nail was venerated for many years in Jerusalem before being moved to Rome's Santa Croce by Pope Gregory the Great. Several European treasuries claim to possess one or more of the true nails, but their, authenticity is clouded with the passage of time. Most of the confusion regarding the thirty or more known spurious nails can be traced to the well-intentioned Charles Borromeo who had reproduc-tions made of the nails and gave them out as memorials of the Passion. Conclusion These, then, are the more commonly accepted relics as-sociated with the holy person of Jesus Christ, our Savior. u De Combres, op. cir. If they have served to increase devotion to Almighty God, they have fulfilled their noble purpose. A saintly priest was once heard to exclaim: "Our Savior's greatest bequest to His children was not a treasury filled with mere material relics, but a golden tabernacle in which He Himself resides to be our fo6d~f6r all ~tei'nit~.!: 4. Relics ot Christ VOLIJME 21, ~962 89 EDWARD J. STOKES, S.J. Examination of Conscience for Local Superiors ÷ Edward J. Stokes, S.J., is Professor o[ Canon Law at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, Munde-lein, Illinois. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 90 In the summer of 1961 Father Edward J. Stokes, s.J.0 was asked to conduct the annual retreat for a group of local superiors. One of the projects he asked them to do during the retreat was to compose on the basis of their own experience an examination of conscience to be used by local superiors at the time of the monthly recollection, the annual retreat, or at any other suitable time. The ques-tions submitted by this group of local superiors were syn-thethized by Father Stokes who then submitted them to the REvmw. The questions were further revised by Father John E. Becket, S.J., of the editorial staff of the REw~w; the final version of them is given in the following pages. Readers, whether superiors or subjects, who have ideas for the improvement of this examination of conscience either by way of addition, deletion, or emendation are urged to submit their views to the Rzwvw. If enough of such improvements are received, a newly revised version of the examination of conscience for local superiors will be published in a later issue of the R~viEw. Personal Religious Li[e 1. Do I strive to come closer to Christ by leading the life of union and interior peace with Him? Do I do everything in, with, and for Christ? 2. Am I afraid of sanctity because of the demands that it will make on me? 3. Have I forgotten that if I live better, I will pray bet-ter, and that if I pray better, I will live better? 4. Am I firmly convinced of our Lord's words: If you love me, my Father will love you and we will come to you and make our abode with you? 5. Am I convinced that this office of superior, when ful-filled to the best of my ability, is a source of sanctification for me? 6. To be a superior means to carry a cross. How often do I thank our Lord for the privilege of suffering with Him? 7. Am I a superior truly aware of my ownnothingness? 8. When I suffer discouragement, is it because I have not succeeded in doing God's will or because I have not succeeded in pleasing men? ~-,, . ~ °~' ~ 9. Am I deeply convinced that if I have done my best to fulfill God's will, I have succeeded? 10. Do I accept as personal any recognition, privilege, or service accorded me by reason of my office as superior? 11. How often do I make a Holy Hour in petition for the solution of a problem or to obtain a special grace for my fellow religious or myself? Ever a Holy Hour of thanks-giving? 12. Do I make the Sacred Heart of Jesus the King and Center of our religious house and Mary its Queen? 13. Do I take St. Joseph as the advocate and the pro-tector of the interior life of each one dwelling in our house? Personal Recollection and Prayer 14. Am I convinced that recollection is an absolute ne-cessity for any progress in the life of prayer? 15. Is my spirit of recollection such that it provides an atmosphere conducive to prayer? 16. How do I prepare the points of meditation in the evening? 17. What special meditation has drawn me closer to Christ?_ 18. Do I sometimes excuse myself from my prayers by telling myself that this or that duty must take first place? 19. Have I given full time. to my prayers or have I hur-ried through them in order to get to my other work? 20. Does the demand for great activity cause distractions in my prayers or perhaps lead me to neglect prayer; or does it rather make me realize my dependence on God? 21. Have I said common vocal prayers reverently and not annoyed others by my haste? 22. Am I observant of recollection immediately after breakfast? 23. Do I make a special effort to keep recollected on the days when it seems especially impossible? 24. Do I ever revert to God's presence in me throughout the day, to adore Him, thank Him, love Him, speak to Him about the needs of soul and body, my own, and those of my fellow religious? Confession 25. Do I make it a point to confess my added responsi-bility by reason of my office when I confess criticism of su-periors or priests? ÷ ÷ ÷ local Superiors VOLUME 21, 1962 91 4, 4, E. ]. Stokes, $.1. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 92 26. Do I make it a point to confess my added respons.i-bility as a superior when I confess failure to exercise ju:~- tice or charity in dealing with my.fell0w religioug? 27. Do I take advantage of my weekly confessions to re-ceive spiritdal direction? 28. Have my confessions been hurried due to an in-efficient planning of my time? Particular Examen 29. Is my particular examen specific? 30. Do I make a tie-in of retreat resolutions, the particu-lar examen, and weekly confession? 31. Do I make a daily examination of the motives that govern my external life? 32. Do I make my particular examen a vital part of my day as a religious? Mortification 33. Do I realize that my chief mortification is to tie found in the justice and the charity of my dealings with others? 34. Am I willing to perform one interior and one exte-rior act of mortification each day in order to obtain the blessing of our Lord on my community? Charity 35. Is love for others the outstanding virtue in my life? 36. Have I deliberately practised acting towards Christ in each person I meet? 37. Do I appreciate the importance of my personal charity to this community as a cell of the Mystical Body? Faith 38. Are the mysteries of Christianity the basis of my re-ligious life? 39. Have I made the connection between these mys-teries and the Rule, or have I let concern with the Rule obscure my reliance on broader Christian principles? Hope 40. Am I aware of the need for Christ's help in sanctify-ing myself by governing others? 41. Do I realize that Christ is able to utilize my faults in sanctifying others? Principles of Government 42. Do I realize that the most exalted duty of a su-perior is care for the spiritual life of his subjects? 43. Do I seek to serve God by serving my fellow re-ligious always and everywhere? 44. Do I pray regularly for the spiritual well-being and growth of those in my house? 45. Do I try to help each religious to develop a deep inferior life by my words and by my example? 46. Do I give my fellow religious an example of the love of regularity? . 47. Do I try to help my fellow religious develop a ready and loving acceptance of God's holy will by the example of my own acceptance of it in all my difficulties, trials, and failures as well as in my joys and success? 48. Do I realize and am I firmly convinced that seeing, accepting, and willing all that God wills for me in every circumstance of my life is the essence of sanctity; and do I teach my fellow religious this? 49. Am I trying to establish in my fellow 'religious a sense of the Mystical Body so that they are able to com-municate spiritually one with another? 50. Do I look for Christ in the problem religious? in the impudent child in the classroom? Do I see Him looking at me through the eyes of all my charges, seeking my love and devotion? 51. How often have I passed a fellow religious in the hall without noticing and greeting him? 52. In making use of the aspiration, "Praise be to Jesus Christ" during the periods of recollection, do I really try to see Christ present in that person?' 53. Did I personally visit at least one sick person of the parish or community, or delegate a religious to do so? 54. Have I in any way, by actions or words, shown a mere toleration for lay persons associated with our work? Or have I accepted them as allies in our work? Community Exercises 55. Do I faithfully observe the daily order? 56. Do I realize that as superior I set the tone and the spirit of the house, in recollection, cheerfulness, peace, hospitality? 57. Do I let human respect interfere with the duty I have as superior to insist on charity and the observance of the rules in my community? 58. Do I miss or am I late for spiritual exercises unless for a grave reason? 59. What community exercises have I missed in the past month? My reasons? Did I make them up at another time, or did I let them go through neglect or carelessness? 60. What can be done to make the chapter of faults more effective? 61. Do I create a family spirit? 62. Is my recreation self-centered? Do I do what I want and not talk or .do too much of the talking? Local Superiors VOLUME 21, 1962 95 ]. Stokes, FOR R~:LIGIOUS 94 63. Do I endeavor to make community recreation an exercise of wholesome family spirit? 64. Is my house truly a religious house or does it have the impersonality of a modern railroad station? Personal Qualities 65. Am I even-tempered? 66. Do I show true joy in my work? 67. Have I betrayed immaturity and lack of courage by disproportionate manifestations of disappointment and discouragement? 68. Do I allow my feelings to regulate my actions? 69. Do I have a good sense of humor? 70. How much self-pity does my countenance mirror when things go wrong? 71. Am I approachable? 72. Do I try, as far as possible, to treat all my fellow re-ligious in the same way--not showing any partiality or favoritism? Have I excluded any or passed them over iu the sharing of responsibility or favors? Are the same few always near me? 73. Do I treat as sacred anything that a fellow religious tells me in confidence? 74. How many times in the past month have I been im-patient with my fellow religious? 75. How do I act or react when I know that one of my fellow religious has offended me? Do I~take it in a Christ:- like way or do I hold-a grudge? Do I consider violations of rule as offenses against me? 76. Do I as superior always show exterior peace, calm, and happiness? I must do this if I am going to be the un-derstanding, religious superior that I should be. 77. In the presence of outsiders do I always show great loyalty to each and every member of my community? 78, Am I as reserved as I should be while visiting in the parlor? 79. Am I kind to all lay people, regardless of how much they can, orhave helped financially or otherwise--look-ing to the good of their souls first and foremost? Government 80. Do I run a disorganized house so that my subjects tend to say: "We never know what we are going to do next"? 81. Do I get all the facts before I make a decision? 82. Do I hesitate in making the decisions that I must as superior? Do I harm my fellow religious by my habit of procrastination? 83. Am I under someone's influence in the decisions that I make, an older religious or a former superior? 84. Do I contradict my orders, thus making it difficult to know what is my will? 85. Am I available to my fellow religious? 86. Am I open to suggestions? 87. Do I delegate responsibility and do I trust those to whom I have delegated it? If a duty is not being done as I would, do I give it to someone else or take over myself rather than try to help? Do I show interest without in-terfering? 88. Do I give authority as well as responsibility to re-ligious when I give them a job? 89. Am I a politician in dealing with my fellow religious instead of a Christlike superior? 90. Am I unnecessarily secretive in trivial matters, keep-ing the community guessing? Do I not see that this will cause bad feelings? 91. Do I talk uncharitably or show displeasure to one of my subjects about another subject in the house? 92. Should I not close my eyes to many insignificant petty things? Should I not use tact and by my example bring it about that these failings and imperfections will vanish--al'though perhaps not totally? 93. How have I controlled the conversation at table? Was I alert always to see to it that it never became un-charitable or critical, especially regarding students? 94. Do I initiate conversation regarding worthwhile reading? 95. Do I give the required instruction time to the young religious? Do I conscientiously prepare these instructions? 96. Do I complain about fnoney? Am I overly anxious regarding finances? 97. What is my attitude toward the suggestions, deci-sions, or orders of extern superiors in the institution in which our community works? Fellow Religious 98. Do I as superior treat my subjedts as mature, dedi-cated persons? 99. Do I trust my fellow religious and have confidence in them and show them that I do by the way I treat them? 100. Do I correct all when only one needs the correc-tion? Do I not see that this causes much criticism and irritated discussion? 101. Do all the members of the community feel that they belong and are an important part of the whole? 102. Do I give my fellow religious encouragement and show them gratitude for the good work that they are doing? A pat on the back does not cost much but it means a great deal especially to those inclined to get discouraged at times. 103. Have I within the last month made it a point to 4. Local Superiors VOLUME 21, 1962 95 .÷ ÷ ÷ E. ]. Stokes, .S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 96 compliment or praise or show attention, at least in some small way, to each religious in my charge? 104. Has each of my subjects received some word of praise (not flattery) from me recently? 105. Do I encourage group discussions so that all the community can express themselves? Do I see that such discussions are well-prepared and stimulating? 106. Do I see to it that the rest of the community share,,i in the rich contributions that some of its members can give, those, for example, who have had special oppor-tunities for studies? 107. Do I seek to serve God by serving my fellow re-ligious always and everywhere? 108. Do I show concern for the trials and crosses of my fellow religious? 109. How often do I check and consider the welfare of ¯ each of my subjects--spiritual and physical? 110. Is understanding the essence of my charity? Do I try to put myself in the subject's place and realize his emotions, attitudes, and difficulties--or is my charity based solely on my own attitude and outlook on life? He might not always want done to him what I would want done to me. I must try to understand his viewpoint. 111. Is each religious an individual to me? 112. Do my fellow religious.feel wanted and valued by me? 113. Do my fellow religious find the quality of thought-fulness in me? 114. Do I make it a habit to direct my attention to each religious individually at least once during the day? 115. Have I tried to satisfy each one's basic need to be accepted, the need for belonging? 116. Have I made use of each one's talents (all of them), or do I level them down to an equal share from each? Do I, then, expect only three talents from one who has and can give ten talents? 117. Do I take too much ~or granted the conscientious and well-balanced religious who does not demand my at-tention? 118. Do I give each individual religious my undivided attention regardless of who he is and how often he may come to me in a given day? 119. Do I make a sincere effort to speak to each re-ligious some time each day? 120. Do I give a sufficient amount of time to those who need to talk over with me the question of students who may be a problem to them? This could be a problem of behavior or some method that would help teaching. If a teacher is weak in discipline, this is a good means of gently getting across the fact that the child is not always at fault. 121. How well uo I "listen" when religious come for permissions, advice, and such? With preoccupation? With patience? With haste or annoyance? And this especially at difficult times? Or am I gracious, patient, helpful, Christlike? Have I shown impatience with those who come to me with trifles? Which of them? Do I r~ally listen when a religious is telling me something---or am I finish-ing up this job or starting another? 122. Have I treated each religious the same behind his back as I have to his face? 123. Do I control my hurt when one of the religious tells lies about me to religious of our own house? 124. Can my subjects sway my will by flattery? 125. Do I afford my subjects the opportunity of sug-gesting spiritual reading books? 126. What have I done to encourage professional read-ing on the part of my subjects? Do I give them an ex-ample in this regard? Do I ever check,up on them on this point? 127. Do I seek to prepare my fellow religious for fu-ture responsible positions in the community? ÷ Local Superiors VOLUME 21, 1962 97 KATIE ROCK Restoration, with a Difference 4. + 4. Katie Rock lives at 200 Oak Street, Falls Church. Vir-ginia. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 98 Washington, D.C. is a city of contrasts. There are beau-tiful green expanses and there are dark, depressing alleys. There are massive monuments and tremendous buildingsl and there are rows and rows of shabby, run-down homes. Happily, there is city-wide slum-clearance consciousness; and already in some parts of town the monotonous rows are being converted into magnificent Town Houses with every modern feature. Restoration is taking place for many reasons, but unfortunately the power and profit motives seem the big reason. It is therefore refreshing to know that some are bringing their talents and inspiration to the restoration simply because they want to have part in "restoring all things to Christ." An assignment enhanced by my own curiosity took me to Foggy Bottom, the latest dilapidated section to be-come the site of intensive re-making. Situated only one.~ half mile from the White House, it is bounded roughly by Georgetown, George Washington University, the new State Department Building, and the Potomac River. This was my first visit to Foggy Bottom since it became "fash-ionable," and I was so fascinated as I walked down the narrow streets that I stopped to browse a bit. Gradually tiny broken-down row houses are being transformed into confortable city homes. Interesting colors, small but per.; fect gardens, unique combinations of contemporary and forsaken styling are attractive and appealing. Among the private homes there are apartment hotels arising. ¯ It was fun to speculate about the insides of these color., ful homes as I walked along the old brick sidewalks. Oc.; casionally a brass plate revealed an M.D. was occupant, or a navy captain, or a professor. A baby carriage in a tiny yard indicated there is new life in Foggy Bottom, too; When I arrived at my destination, the corner of H and 25th Streets, I stopped in wonder and admiration. Be-fore me was a turreted three-story structure of brick, painted a soft yellow with black trim which offsets awe-somely the octagon-shaped tower, dormer, and windows. There is a terrace in front, a landscaped yard, and I peeped onto a sheltered patio. A lacy black iron fence surrounds the property and a brass plate announces that this is the home of Melita god~ck,~A.I.A, g: Associates. I was welcomed inside by Melita, who introduced me to her assistant, Bernice, and after' being made to feel at home, I settled down to hear the story of a wonderful new venture into the new frontiers of our faith. Who is Melita? The decor and art work and religious atmosphere of this first floor indicate an unusual life. Melita was born in Milan, Italy, and educated at Vienna Polytechnic. She is a convert to Catholicism. Although she is an artist and sculptress, her professional experience and livelihood have mainly been centered On architec-ture. Twelve years were spent with other firms. Included in her work with those firms were high schools in Arling-ton, Virginia, and Rockville, Maryland, commercial buildings and a shopping center, a drive-in restaurant, hospitals.and the huge Medical Center of the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and many government buildings ranging from a missile base to renovations of Post Offices. Since establishing her private firm about three years ago, Melita has designed the Queen Anne's Lane Town Houses in Foggy Bottom valued at :~1,000,000 (and which won for her a Goid Medallion award), many residences, the Consolata Missions Semi-nary in Buffalo, New York, the Ayles~ord Retreat Center in Chicago, and remodeling of churches in southern Mary-land. For the Government, among other projects, she modified a hangar at Andrews Air Force Base. There is another facet to Melita's background. Dur-ing the 1940's she worked for four years in the Harlem Friendship House, engaged in interracial work, apolo-getics, and the practice of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. During this time she had rich experi-ences. She undertook a formal course in philosophy un-der Jacques Maritain. She learned the principles of social justice from the best of its exponents, Father John La- Farge, S.J., Baroness Catherine de Hueck Doherty, the Sheeds, and others. During these years, she developed a great love for liturgical music through the influence of other wonderful visitors to Friendship House, one of whom was Professor Dietrich von Hildebrand. More and more, as years went by, Melita!s ability in. architecture and her various artistic talents became an integrated venture. And the motivating force in her life was her religion. Her love of designing, composing, creat-ing, on the one hand, and her love of God and her fellow-man on the other were beginning to congeal into one idea. + + + Restoration VOLUME 21, 1962 99 ÷ ÷ Katie Rock REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS I00 In 1956, Melita took several months off from work to take a trip around the world, studying and observing the architecture of many lands and plans of other countries to meet the changes of modern life. Her first stop was Australia where she visited her brother, an engineer there. Then she visited the Philippines, Thailand, and India, observing certain unique and desirable aspects of Far Eastern architecture. From India she proceeded to the Holy Land, and this part of her journey provided a re-treat, as she put the world out of mind and became ab-sorbed in the life of our Lord. Her travels continued in Turkey, on to Italy where she lingered in Rome, then to Spain and France. In Germany she studied problems in-volved in regional planning for mining. Because of a serious interest in necessity for inter-diocesan planning, Melita was deeply interested in the episcopal planning bureau in Belgium, by which city churches and rural churches and schools are planned according to needs of city, suburban, or rural life. Here in Belgium, Melita observed the tremendous effect of "Young Christian Workers" in Catholic activity. The last stop was England, then home to sift and appraise the ideas and inspiration from her round-the-world journey. In 1958, Melita began her own firm, specializing in providing for her clients complete architectural, engi-neering, and planning service combined with interior decorating. The firm has the services of excellent consul-tants in engineering and financing. When the firm was first Organized, .Melita and Bernice lived and worked in the Potomac Plaza Apartments. One day a For Sale sign went up on a deserted, dilapidated dwelling across the street from the apartment. Curiosity and vision sent Me-lita on an inspection tour. The unusual lines and the lovely view of the Potomac from the third floor tower captured Melita's heart. And the creaky stairs, plaster-bare walls and cobwebs provided a challenge to Melita's pro-fessional ability. The house today seems to say it was joy as well as work that restored it to its immense liveability and unusual beauty. So much for Melita, the architect, for she is more than an artist and an architect. Melita has vision and percep-tion and appreciation for beauty not touched by human hands. Designing is not only a business with her but a God-given talent in which she expresses the love of God in her soul. Creative art, Melita told me, is the remedy man needs in this age of technology, assembly lines, and automation. These things, cold and impersonal, produce ragged nerves and tensions and strike at man's very soul, leaving him unmindful of the purpose for which his Crea-tor put him on earth. Into all forms of art--painting, poetry, music, and so forth---goes one's own personality, reflecting a personal relationship with the Heavenly Father. The closer to God man is, ~the truer his work, and the more he will choose a good and proper use of ma-terials. In the arts a man may find peace and contentment for he may use his.creativ.e ability' to transform his inner energy in a satisfying manner,~, ~, Happily, Melita sees her obligation to use her creative ability to promote a Christian society, a Christian com-munity life. Melita is taking the giant step of using her profession solely for the glory of God and for love of her neighbor with no profit except the profit of peace in her own heart. Others have done this; for example, Dr. Albert Schweitzer and Dr. Tom Dooley and Geo.rge Washington Carver. Her heart and will having been entrusted to God some time ago, Melita began sifting ideas about putting her philosophy into practice. Then ideas had to be translated into blueprints, and these blueprints needed and received approval from her auxiliary Bishop, Most Reverend Philip M. Hannan, chancellor of the archdiocese. Then came discussions with many wise and prudent friends: spiritual directors, teachers, fellow artists, other archi-tects, and even mothers of children who are awakening to the needs of our frustrated society. Far from relying solely on her own ideas, Melita sought and listened to ~he counsel of all. The result was a plan to begin a secular institute of the design professions to be called Regina Institute. A secular institute is an association of lay people living in the world but bound by the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, performing duties suitable for their talents for the love of God. Though popular and plentiful in Europe, secular institutes are just emerging in our coun-try. Their specific purposes vary widely. In Madonna House, for instance, workers live among the poor, teach-ing crafts and catechism, nursing the sick and feeding the hungry. In the Company of St. 'Paul, members teach, work in the Government, and so forth. This is a quiet life~ there is nothing in their dress to indicate they are an organization dedicated to Christ. Members simply strive to live as "Christs" among those needy in goods or in spirit. Regina Institute is taking another direction. First of all, Melita is concerned with the arts in the service of the Church's liturgy. She would like to assist in setting stand-ards for the quality of sacred art just as Benedictines have set a standard for sacred music. Second, she is endeavor-ing to bring the Incarnation into society by bringing Christian attitudes into the building professions and in-dustry and into city planning. The Christian philosophy of man and the social teachings of the Church are being Restoration VOLUME 21, 1962 ]0! Katie Ro~k REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 102 applied, thus supporting such contemporary projects as open occupancy, adequate housing, and so forth. Third, Melita and associates try to teach all of us the visual arts and their spiritual and cultural values. My visit showed me a great deal about the practice of these ideals and the life of this infant group. Melita and Bernice filled in a picture of a day in Regina House, tak-ing me on a tour of the house as they talked about their Rule. Recently Gwen moved in with Melita and Bernice. For the present they are living according to the Rule of the Third Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Melita has served as novice mistress of the St. Therese Chapter in Washington for eleven years. The Rule seeks to instill in its followers the spirit of constant prayer and love. Early each morning the group leaves for St. Stephen's Church nearby for a halfihour.of.meditation before 7:30 Mass. Breakfast follows, then they recite in ~ommon Prime, Terce and Sext from the Little 01~ce. (On.nice days they do so on the patio which they call their "clois-ter.") At 9:00 work begins. Lunch is at 12:30, followed by None and Vespers, then free time. At 2:00 they go back to work until dinner. At 7:30 comes Compline, Matins, and Lauds, and after that there is recreation-- long walks in nice weather, singing or reading at other times. One day of each.month is spent in retreat. There are three floors in l~egina House. The first con-tains the dining area and kitchen opening onto the patio, Bernice's office, and a music area. Melita plays the piano, and there is also a stereo arid many fine records, including Gregorian chant and classical music. On the second floor, we entered a work and study spa.ce. I was fascinated with the dozens of books and their range of subjects, from the culture of the Far East to the philosophy of Frank Lloyd Wright. There are books in German and French and Spanish, books on philosophy, Catholic Action, and the liturgy, books on ancient architecture and books on mod-ern design. Attractive chairs and a lovely view are invit-ing. Melita's bedroom, also on this floor, shows all her separate interests united in her one endeavor. There are beautiful religious objects, side by side with a drawing board (she is currently working on a dental laboratory) and there were several sketches in process, both water colors and oils. On the third floor are more drawing boards. This floor also serves as a workshop for other projects. Bernice finds time to make beautiful cards by a linoleum process fea-turing Melita's impressionistic designs. Bernice has a talent for dress designing and sewing; also she does lovely ceramic tile work. I noticed several clay models of build-ings as well as wooden models; Melita explained these help her visualize her ideas. Certainly the first purpose'of this institute is sanctifi-cation of its members. Theystrive for a four-fold contact with Christ: Christ the Life, through prayer.and the sacra-ments; Christ the Truth, through study and meditation; Christ the Way, through i~bedience; and Christ the Worker, through creative human effort for love of God. Melita invites young people inclined towards the design arts, who would like to dedicate their service to God, to talk to her. Regina House is large enough to house several women. If men apply, perhaps a home close by will be found for them, while work and prayer will be centered in Regina House. The necessity for meals and housekeep-ing means the Institute must attract also "artists" of the kitchen and "masters" of the broom. In fact, Melita is ready to consider anyone who is willing to share her ideals and approach, and invites those interested to con-tact her at 801 25th St. N.W., Washington 7, D.C. So sold was I by my visit that I was ready to apply-- but Melita just won't take a mother of eight growing children. Reluctantly I said "good-bye" and went out the big black door and the lacy iron gate. I looked back with new appreciation at Regina House which today so sur-passes in beauty and liveability its original design. From the ordinary it has become majestic. I left, believing that Melita's plan for it also far surpasses the ordinary Chris-tian way of living and that its tower truly points to Heaven and its eternal history is just beginning. ÷ ÷ ÷ Restoration VOLUME 21, 1962 103 WALTER DE BONT, O.P. Identity Crisis and the Male Novice Walter de Bont, O.P., is a member of the faculty o! the Catholic University in Nijmegen, Hol-land. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 104 Beginners' Failings Father Lacordaire,1 the day after his entry into the novitiate, confided to the master of novices: "Father, I can't stay here; these young men are childish and quite silly. They think everything is funny," "It would be a shame," the priest answered, "if the former preacher of Notre Dame of Paris should, by a hasty departure, give the world the impression that his entrance into religion had not been thoroughly consid-ered. Wait a while, then." Three weeks later the master of novices asked him, "When are you leaving?" "But I do not wish to go, so long as you are willing to keep me." "But what of your young companions who are so silly?" "Father," said Lacordaire, a little embarrassed, "I am the silliest of them all." In all the novitiates of the world since the beginning of monasticism there h~tve been young men, and some not so young, who were "a little silly." No matter how more or less normal they were a few weeks.previously, before they had left "the world," here they become affected by a whole series of strange phenomena which spiritual authors call "beginners' failings" (see especially St. John of the Cross, Dark Night, 1, 1-7). Using the material furnished by the experiment described below, the following section will give a rapid and pseudonymous portrait of certain "types" who betray the curious behavior encountered among be-ginners. *This article is translated with permission from the original article, "La crise d'identit~ du novice," which appeared in Suppld-ment de la Vie Spirituelle, 1961, pp. 295-325. The translation is by the Reverend John E. Becket, S.J. Passing Vagaries Brother Clement suddenly develops a phobia for drafts; underground currents beneath his bed keep him from sleeping; he wonders whether the spinach from the garden has enough iron to supply his needs; the light bulb on his work table endangers his eyes; and so on. No one has de-scribed more humorously than St. Teresa of Avila this kind of hypochondriac novice who seems "to have entered the cloister solely to labor at staving off death." She her-self, for that matter, knew this temptation of seeking "not to lose one's repose here below and still to enjoy God in heaven." John is a real gourmet--in search of spiritual delicacies. All his efforts are aimed at getting the satisfaction of a very sensible devotion from' prayer; In his :better moments he feels inundated with grace and spends hours in the chapel. When consolation no longer comes to him, he is desolate and lamentsin the blackest sorrow. At such times he passes the time of meditation breaking in books. Guy fears to embark on the road to perfection, excusing himself as one who was not meant to accomplish great things. He even thanks God for not making him too in-telligent. Comparing himseff with others, he has already lost all courage. Some suffer from quite peculiar sexual problems. At the very moment of prayer, confession, or communion, sexual feelings and reactions surge up. Cassian has already spoken of a brother "who enjoyed constant purity of heart and body, having merited it by reason of his circumspection and humility, and who was never afflicted with nocturnal emissions. But whenever he prepared for communion, he was sullied by an impure flow in his sleep. For a long time fear kept him from participating in the sacred mys-teries" (ConIerences, 22, 6). And then there are the pilgrims of ,the absolute with pure and perfect ideals. They are so punctual in their ex-ercises that you can set your watch by them; but they easily forget that the rule is merely a means to love God and their neighbor better. Burning with enthusiasm, they seem to have sanctity within their grasp. Lacking patience, they try to force the ascent toward God with Draconian measures. The novitiate is the decisive year in which holi-ness must be achieved. For them profession is a final set-tlement and not a decisive beginning. Or else there are the grim ascetics. In his enthusiasm for purity, Henry Suso did not scratch, nor even touch, any part of his body. Throughout the day he abstained from all drink. In the evening at the sprinkling with holy water, he opened his dry lips and gaped toward the 'sprinkler, hoping that a tiny drop of water would fall on his arid 4. + + Identity Crisis VOLUME 21, 1962 ]05 4. W. de Bont, OJL REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 106 tongue. At the age of forty, luckily, when "his whole na-ture was so devastated that nothing was left for him but to die or leave off his austerities," he opted for life and threw his whole arsenal of instruments of penance into the lake. For most of these novitiate "follies" are only temporary. Sooner or later good sense reasserts its rights, and the spiritual life of the subject becomes more balanced. St. Teresa had already clearly sensed that this bizarre conduct of the novice-beginner was somewhat forced and not genuine: Anything which gets the better of us to such an extent that we think our reason is not free must be considered suspicious, for in that way we shall never gain freedom of spirit, one of the marks of which is that we can find God in all things even while we are thinking of them. Anything other than this is spiritual bondage, and, apart from the harm which it does to the body, it constrains the soul and retards its growth (Book of the Foun-dations, Chapter 6, from The Complete Works ot Saint Teresa oI Jesus, translated and edited by E. Allison Peers, Volume III, p. 32 [London and New York: Sheed and Ward, 1946]). If "our reason is not [completely] free," then we are not fully on the plane of moral defects, but partially on that of psychic determinisms. And it is precisely the psychic aspect of these, phenomena that we propose to study in this article which has no other aim than to throw some light by the help of modern depth psychology on this strange being whom the masters of the spiritual life have been ob-serving for centuries, the beginner par excellence, the novice, and on his imperfections. The perspective of this article must, then, be clearly emphasized. This is not a work of spiritual theology. The theologian contemplates the events of the novitiate with the eyes of faith; he sees there the hand of God and the conflict between grace and sin. The perspective of this article is much more modest; it is, to put it simply, psychological. Without in any way denying the workings of grace, we shall systematically ab-stract from them; for the designs of God and the ways of grace are not apprehended by the purely human ways of kno~ving which alone are at the disposal of the psychol-ogist. While leaving aside the supernatural aspect of the growth of the novice, we are bound to point out that this aspect tias been amply clarified by the masters of spiritual theology from Cassian and St. Benedict to St. John of the Cross and contemporary authors. Working Hypothesis and Methodology To initiate the psychological study of the novice and of his "imperfections," we took as "subjects" twenty-eight male novices belonging to two quite different communi-ties. We asked for volunteers only, but in each novitiate everyone volunteered. The age of our subjects varied from eighteen to twenty-two years. The level of their previous instruction was for the most part uniform, and they were about equally divided between those, from rural and those from urban backgrounds. The experiment was made dur-ing the fourth month of the/novitiate. i~ A double series of tools was used, since our aim was to clarify certain problems of the spiritual life. of the sub-jects by a study of their personality in the course of evolu-tion. a) For the study of personality, projection tests were used, especially the Rorschach and the Thematic Apper-ception Test (T.A.T.), since these two tests are universally recognized as highly useful for this purpose. The admin-istration of the Rorschach was preceded by the drawing of a human figure, so that the subject might implicitly per-ceive that a creative effort was expected of him. b) For the study of their spiritual life, the novices were asked to write a four-page essay entitled "The Ideal and the Difficulties of My Spiritual Life." c) To complete our information from the character-ological as well as the spiritual side, we conducted inter-views of about an hour with each subject, his master of novices, and the assistant to the master of novices. It was striking, especially in going over the Rorschach protocols, to see the number of signs of anxiety, of ten-sion, and of disintegration. Equally striking, however, were the efforts at synthesis. Given the age. and the situa-tion of our subjects, this called to mind the psychological situation described by Erik Erikson under the name of "identity crisis" (see Erik Erikson, "The Problem of Ego Identity" in Identity and the Lqe Cycle, volume one of "Psychological Issues" [New York: International Univer-sities Press, 1959]). As a matter of fact, the novice is a young adult, around eighteen to twenty years of age. As others become doctors, engineers, and fathers of families, he, at the end of his adolescence, chose in a more or less definitive way the role he wanted to play in adult society: that of religious or priest. This role is the result and syn-thesis of his entire previous development. In this connec-tion, Erikson uses the word "identity" because in this role the young man ought to be able to accomplish the best he is capable of while at the same time promoting the aims of society. The novitiate is his first serious testing of this role; he is vested in the religious habit and he follows the rules of his community as they are adapted for re-cruits. What does this identity of pries.t-religious become in the novitiate? Is the young man able to realize it here in the way in which he dreamed of doing? Does the com-munity he has chosen respect this identity? If these ques-tions receive a more or less negative answer, .a crisis oc- VOLUME 21, 1962 curs, an identity crisis because it is the novice's identity that is brought into question. As with every crisis it is manifested by certain symptoms; and one may assume that the imperfections of beginners are precisely the signs of this crisis on the religious plane. Our hypothesis then is this: The novitiate induces in the young religious a crisis about his identity, about the role he wishes to play in life, a role which is the end prod-uct of all his previous development; this crisis comes from the fact that this role is threatened by the novitiate; and the imperfections of beginners are the symptoms of this crisis. In order to understand this hypothesis better, a more ample presentation must be made of Erikson's notion of identity. This will be done in several of the following sec~ tions. ÷ ÷ ÷ W. de Bwnt, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 108 Identity, Synthesis of the Personality During adolescence all the impulses of earlier life re-appear accompanied by a strong genital drive. It is the characteristic work of the male adolescent to subordinate this chaos of impulses under genitality and find them their proper object, a girl. But this adjustment of one's infan-tile heritage to one's new acquisitions does not confine itself solely to the level of impulsive life; it equally con-cerns the other functions of the personality, the ego and the superego and their identifications. For the young man. must subordinate his previous identifications to a new kind of identification, an ultimate identity learned in so-cial contacts and competitive apprenticeship with his equals. These new identifications no longer have the ca-priciousness of infancy or the experimental fervor o youth; with extreme urgency they impel the young indio. vidual toward choices and decisions which progressively conduct him to a final definition of himself, to an irrev-ocable configuration of rol~s, and then to lifelong com-mitments. The normal adolescent performs this reintegration him. self, using spontaneously chosen adults and older adbles-cents as his models. But the age at which this synthesis is completed varies considerably. The more complicated a civilization is, the longer it takes its members to integrate their personality and find their place in society. At the bee ginning of our era people were married at Sixteen, a thing that rarely happens today. Suso entered the novitiate ar thirteen, whereas nowadays even canon law considers thi.~ too early. Moreover it would seem that workers or farm people come to adulthood before members of the profes. sional classes who have more to integrate and spend a longer time in training. Finally, the presence of acute conflicts can make this integration even more difficult and slow. At the worst, they may even render such integration impossible and the subject becomes neurotic or psychotic. Identity, a Psychosocial Reality This ultimate identity of which we have been speaking is unique for each individual because no two ,develop in identically the same way. '~Id~e'~,er, it is fa~'~O~ being individualistic. A person becomes himself only in a given society and in order to live in that society according to that identity. Ideally, identity implies that one is most oneself when one is most in relation with others and that our personal values and ideals coincide for the most part with those of the environment which is accepted by the person and in which he feels himself accepted. It is of ex-treme importance for the formation of the identity of the young man that society respond to him and that he receive a function and a status which integrates him into the community. In order to take his place in society the young man must acquire the skillful use of his principal ability and fulfill it in some activity. He should enjoy the exercise of this activity, .the companionship which it furnishes, and its traditions. Finally he must receive a setof teachings which allow him to see the meaning of life: religion, philosophy, or some ideology. Speaking psychosocially, the'h, identity is the role, integrated into the character, which the indi-vidual wishes to play in society and for which he expects the approbation of society in order to give meaning to his life. After the psychosexual delay of the period of latency there must, in consequence, be another delay, adolescence, so that the already sexually adult young man may, by freely experiencing different roles, find himself a place in some section of society, a place which in its definiteness seems made uniquely for him. The Genesis o[ Identity Identity must not be confused with identification. The simple addition of infantile identifications (the child act-ing like his parents, his brothers, his uncles, his teachers, his friends.) never results in a functioning personality. These identifications are too disparate and too contra-dictory; they are, moreover, often far from being socially acceptable or realistic, since the child's imagination dis-torts the image of his. parents or other models to suit his own needs. The final identity which emerges in the course of adolescence and which at the end of its development is largely fixed, is rather a new configuration which includes all previous usable identifications while transcending them all. They are transformed to make a whole which is unique and reasonably coherent. This new configuration ought to be achieved in such a way that in it the physical 4. VOLUME 21, 1962 ]~9 ÷ ÷ W. d~ Bont, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS constitution of the young man, his affective needs, his best liked capacities, his effective defense mechanisms, and his successful sublimations find their rightful use. The formation of personal identity, then, has its roots in the most distant past of the individual, a past often lost in the clouds of the unconscious. It begins with the first introjections and projections of the baby whose relative integration depends on a mutually satisfying relationship between the child and his mother. For it is she who must give him that basic trust in himself and in others which is at the foundation of any process of becoming social. Then follow the different identifications of childhood which will be the more successful according as.their proto-types show themselves to be both loving and firm. The last step of the formation of the ultimate identity begins when the usefulness of identifications is over. It consists of the repudiation of some infantile identifications and an absorptive assimilation of others of them into a new configuration, which in its turn depends on the proc-ess by which a society (or the subgroups of a society) "identify" the young man by recognizing him as someone who ought to have turned out as he did and who is ac-cepted as he is. Society in its turn feels "recognized" by the individual who demands to be accepted, or profoundly and aggressively rejected by the individual who seems un-interested in any social integration. Identity manifests itself, then, in the role which the young man is going to play in society. Identity Crisis When the young man, emerging from.adolescence with his newly acquired identity, does not find in society the place he needs in order to continue to be what he has been and to develop still more, he runs the risk of a crisis. His ambitions may be too vast, society too different from his ideal; certain aspects of his identity may be poorly de-veloped in relation to what is demanded by the customs of his milieu from the viewpoint of sex, occupation, or in the area of academic or athletic competition. This constitutes a failure, at least a partial and provisional one. The at-tempt to enter into a relationship with society will piti-lessly reveal any weakness up to now latent in his identity. There results a state of confusion with the following symp-toms: a feeling of isolation, a breakdown of the feeling of personal continuity, shame, inability to enjoy any ac-tivity, a sense of enduring life rather than of actively living it, a distorted perspective of time, and finally, an extreme mistrust of others as if society were in opposition to what the subject wants to be. But no matter how many neurotic or psychotic symp-toms may be discovered, an identity crisis is not a sickness. Rather, it is a normal crisis, that is, a normal phase of sharp conflict characterized by an apparent wavering in the strength of the ego, but also by great possibilities for growth. Neurotic and psychotic crises are characterized by a tendency to perpetuate themselves because o~ a loss of defensive energy and ~i deep social isolation.~ A'grOWth crisis, on the contrary, is relatively more easy to overcome and is characterized by an abundance of utilizab!e energy. This energy, doubtless, causes the reawakening of dormant anxieties and engenders new conflicts; but it supports the ego in the functions it has newly acqtiired or developed during the search for new opportunities or for, new rela-tions which society is more than ever ready to offer. What appeared as the .onset of a neurosis is often only a quite acute crisis which dissipates itself and helps more than it harms the formation of the subject's identity. Some cases, however, reach a less fortunate outcome: derangement, suicide, or a confirmed case of nerves. We have already briefly mentioned the characteristic symptoms of the identity crisis, now it will be worthwhile to give a more ample description of them by contrasting them with the dimensions of an ultimate identity success-fully achieved. The Dimensions of Identity and Its Crisis At each stage of man's psychosocial, development cer-tain criteria allow us to see whether the individual has passed through this phase successfully or whether he has failed. So it is with the baby's crisis of trust (in the oral stage of development); with the crisis of autonomy at the age of two (during the anal phase); with the crisis of in-itiative around the age of five years (the age of the Oedipus complex); with the assimilation of work during the time of schooling; the crises brought about by marriage and the birth of children; and the problems posed by maturity and old age. What interests us here are the criteria which let us evaluate the identity crisis in the passage from puberty to adulthood. Erikson gives eight criteria which show whether the young man has succeeded in building up for himself in accordance with his possibilities an ultimate identity which is both balanced and accepted by his environment, or whether he remains at grips with an outgrown identity which is deficient and replete with conflicts. As has just been said, each growth crisis reawakens sleeping anxieties, the relics of old battles in former crises which were buried but not done away with. In the identity crisis certain con-flicts of preceding stages of psychosocial development are reawakened. This reawakening evidently does not bring these conflicts forward under the shape which they had when the subject was still a baby or a small child, but in a Identity Crisis VOLUME 21, 1962 ÷ ÷ W. d~ Bont, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS way that is colored by his current development. The first four dimensions of the identity crisis mentioned by Erik. son are reawakenings of former crises which, as we have mentioned, have to do with trust in o~hers and in oneself, personal autonomy from others, the ability to take the ini.~ tiatives by which one becomes "someone," and the ability to do one's work well. But the young man is not formed by his past alone; he is also stretching towards the future; The last three dimensions of the identity crisis are then foretastes of the problems which he will have to resolve later on in his life when he marries, when he becomes a fafher, or when he .reckons up the balance of his whoh: life. ¯ Here then are the eight criteria or dimensions of the identity crisis: a) Presence. or absence of a perspective in life. The young man in the grips of an identity crisis manifests a confused attitude toward time which may be more or less grave according to the case. He sees no prospects for him-self in life. Since his identity is not well defined and he is fully confused with regard to his place in society, his con-fidence in the future is completely overturned. He is in despair, even if this shows up as a headlong precipitancy with which he tries to reach his goal, like the student who, for an elementary examination in biology, studies only the most advanced articles. This is a derivative revival of the impatience found in the child who has not yet realized that all human activity realizes itself only gradually in obedience to the progressive nature of time rather than all at once as if by magic. When the young man resolves his crisis and begins 'to become himself, when he synthesizes the different aspects of his character and finds his place in society, this co:a-fused attitude toward the temporal element of his life is changed into a rich diversity of prospects; at the same time he becomes open to the temporal dimension as indispen-sable for every building up of his personality. Moreover, through the temporal dimension of the ideology which it offers him, society can help the young man to rediscover the feeling that his past and his future have a meaning. Most religions, philosophies, or political doctrines teach that there is a meaning and a direction to life. Even though such an ideology may not be altogether realistic and may represent a certain simplification of the order of things, still, in such a situation its pedagogical usefulness is real. b) Self-certainty or self-consciousness. The young man going through an identity crisis is characterized next by insecurity, by a doubting of himself accompanied by shame at what he is or has been. What reappear are the social characteristics of the anal stage. Once he has regained at a higher level the balance which he had achieved before, the new sense of his own meaning gives him the necessary assurance to face life and to assume his chosen role in society. Here again, in the recovery of assurance, social surroundings can be a powerful aid by the uniformity of conduct, arid ,sometimes of~:clbthing, which they impose, often without even demanding them by an explicit code. With the help of this uniformity, the young man, though in a state of confusion, may tempo-rarily hide his shame and his doubts until his identity is sufficiently reestablished. c) Free experimentation with roles or its absence. The healthy young man's entrance into adult society is char-acterized by the provisional adoption of a great variety of roles and initiatives, each of which is tested by a process of trial and error in order to .decide which is better for him so that he may make a final choice which will determine the principal content of his adult life. This is a prolonga-tion of the child play of the Oedipal age in which the child sought to overcome anxiety by his identifications; the child of four who plays at driving a bus attains, in this way, at least in his imagination, equality with the adults he fears, especially his parents (the castration complex of classical psychoanalysis). But in certain cases, especially if adoles-cence is unduly prolonged, the opposite of this free ex-pe. rimentation with roles is found. To characterize this other extreme, Erikson speaks of negative identity, that is, "an identity perversely based on all those identifications and roles which, at critical stages of development, had been presented to the individual as most undesirable or dangerous, and yet also as most real" ("The Problem of Ego Identity," op. cit., p. 131). The 'young man whose mother is always saying, "If you act that wa~ you will turn out like your uncle [a drunkard]" can end up precisely that; he identifies himself with what is forbidden because it is more real for him than the positive ideal which' his mother never spoke of with such eloquence. According to some recent research (that of Adelaide Johnson and her staff) juvenile delinquency (in the area of aggressivity)and perversion (in the sexual area) are frequently the result of such largely negative education. But there are still other ways to renounce a free experimentation with roles; for example, the renouncement of personal identity in an ex-treme conformism which tries to root out everything which goes against even the excessive demands of the en-vironment. Here again the different segments of society offer the young man initiations or confirmations which are apt to encourage the spirit o[ initiative while channeling it and allaying the reawakening of Oedipal guilt. "They strive, within an atmosphere of mythical timelessness, to com- . 4- 4- 4- VOLUME 21, 1962 113 ÷ ÷ ÷ W. ~e Bo~t, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS bine some. form of sacrifice or submission with an energetic guidance toward sanctioned and circumscribed ways of action--a combination which assures the development in the novice of an optimum of compliance with a maximum sense of fellowship and free choice" ("The Problem of Ego Identity," op. cit., p. 144). d) Anticipation of achievement or work paralysis. The next characteristic of the adolescent who is initiating him-self into society is the anticipation of success. He feels able to accomplish something, to fulfill his function in the. community in such a way that the other members will re-pay him by their esteem. This is a prolongation of the ap-plication to school work during the period of latency. When things go poorly, the subject, instead of feeling him-self able to assume his role, is paralysed in the work he is doing either because his ambitions are too vast or because his environment has no place for his special capacities or does not give him the recognition he hopes for. Or he risks everything to gain everything and throws himself." prematurely into an intellectual or social activity which is extravagant and rigid and which may in the end com. pletely destroy his personal happiness, if not his physical existence: At the root of ~ill these forms of work pathology we find, according to Erikson, a reawakening of Oedipal competition and of the rivalry with his brothers or sisters. The different segments of society help those who are the process of learning and of trying out their social role by offering them .a certain provisional status, that of ap-prentice or student--with all that these imply of duties, competition, freedom, and also of potential integration into the hierarchy of jobs and of classes, as in associations for young adults (for example, political parties have their sections for youth which act ~s an initiation into adult life). e) Identity or confusion. The most general character-istic of the young man who has not yet achieved interior and social balance is confusion. This is the global result of all the imbalances set up by the reawakening of old conflicts and of all the confused attitudes which come from the fact that the ~oung man is still unable to take his place in the community of adults. A multiplicity of contradic-tory roles results. Two souls come to exist in one body, as the hermit and the power mad man did in Francisco Jimfinez de Cisneros (Le Cardinal d'Espagne), or ~2z~chiely and Tenebroso-Cavernoso in Father Joseph, the grey emi-nence, "combining in his own person the oddly assorted characters of Metternich and Savonarola" (Aldous Huxley, Grey Eminence [New York and London: Harper, 1941], p. 128). Nevertheless, when the conflict has been crystal-lized, that is, become irreversible, we no longer speak of an identity crisis or of confusion, but of neurosis (sympto- matic or characterological) and of psychosis in which the 'T' has become someone else in the complete collapse of the sense of oneself, as in the case of the novice who, having divested himself in choir, appeared on the altar before the community piously assembled for a ho.ly hour and said, "I am the Immaculate C6nceptiofi."'~ The opposite of this confusion, which emerges in a more or less definitive way at the end of a successful ado-lescente, is identity. It is the feeling of having integrated into one's person all the valuable elements of one's child-hood heritage in order to give oneself with all one's forces .to love, to work, and to the social commitments, of adult life. We need not develop this sinc~ it has already been treated in previous sections of this article. f) Sexual identity or bisexual.conIusion. We come now to the ch~aracteristics of the identity crisis which are not derived from old, preadolescent' conflicts reawakened by physical maturation, but which are rather the precursors of conflicts which will find their climax and their.resolu-tion later in the ages of preadulthood, adulthood, or ma-turity, The proper task of the preadult period is intimacy, es-pecially sexual intimacy, with a partner. According to Erikson the "utopia of genitality" ought to include: mu-tual orgasm with a loved partner of the opposite sex with whom one is willing and able to share mutual responsibil-ity and with whom one is willing and able to adjust the cycles of work, procreation, and recreation in such a way as to assure their offspring a similar satisfactory develop-ment. As for the celibate, "a human being should be po-tentially able to accomplish mutuality of genital orgasm, but he should also be so constituted as to bear frustration in the matter without undue regression wherever consider-ations of reality and loyalty call for it" (Erik Erikson, Childhood and Society [New York: Norton, 1950], p. 230). Whoever fails at this stage becomes an isolated personality. In the identity crisis the precursors of these extremes are seen. The one who will later succeed in entering into a true intimacy with another is the one who succeeds in integrating into his personality the true characteristics of his sex, who sees himself both consciously and uncon-sciously as pertaining to his sex, and not more or less to the other sex. In those periods when the personality is less structured, and especially in irreversible pathological cases, there is a clear incapacity to assume the role proper to one's sex, a confusion of masculine and feminine traits which exceeds the relative confusion which' is normal at the beginning of adolescence. Intimacy presupposes, therefore, a sense of one's iden-tity, a capacity to be oneself on the sexual level as on other levels: "The condition of a true twoness is that one must ÷ ÷ VOLUME 21, 1962 115' 4. 4. 4. W. de Bont, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS first become onself" (Erik Erikson, "Growth and Crises of ~he 'Healthy Personality' " in Personality in Nature, So-ciety, and Cultizre, C. Kluckhohn and H. Murray, eds. [New York: Knopf, 1956], p. 222). Anyone who has .not achieved his own identity can not have intimate relations with another. He will take refuge in a sterile isolation for fear of losing himself completely; or else he will turn him-self over to another body and soul borrowing the identity of the other to fill up his own void, in this way vainly seeking to resolve an identification which was not success- [ul in childhood. Different societies have very different means of helping through these difficulties the young man who is already physiologically, though not socially, adult: by demanding complete sexual continence; or by permitting sexual ac-tivities which do not lead to definitive social engagements; or by stimulating sexual play without intercourse (pet-ting). The purpose of this prop is to stimulate and to strengthen the ego and its identity. g) Authority: orientation or conIusion. The adulthood of a truly healthy man ought to be characterized by pro-. creativeness; this means assuming responsibility for' the. next generation by parenthood or by other forms of al-truism and creativity. A failure along this line means that' one is absorbed in his own problems instead of placing his energy at the service of others. This is a victory for narcissism: "Individuals who do not develop generativity often begin to indulge themselves as if they were their own one and only child" (Erikson, "Growth and Crisis of the 'H~althy Personality,' " op. cir., p. 223). What forecasts this approaching procreativeness in the young man is the ability to be either a leader or a follower according to circumstances. The attitude of the subject {n everything that conc(rns authority (exercising it or obey., ing it) is realistic. Any future failure of procreativity be-trays itself in the inability to lead or to follow when one of these two relationships is required. It is especially in sub-groups of his.companionsthat society gives the adolescent the opportunity to try out this strength in the area of aw thority. h) Ideological orientation or conIusion o] ideals. When he has arrived at maturity, the normal man has the sense of having completed his task as far as possible. He accepts responsibility for what he has made of his life and of his personal abilities. Having helped others to become them-selves, he can now pass on this responsibility to the next generation and withdraw from the scene. The man, on the contrary, who has not realized his potentialities for the service of others will experience despair and disgust with himself. He would like to begin his life over but realises that it is too late. His life is a failure whether he admits it to himself or hides it by projecting the blame onto others. This was the case with Father Joseph, that "grey emi-nence" whose double identity was mentioned above. At the end of his life, he felt the bitterness and frustration of a man who has seen God, but who, through his own fault, has lost Him in the attempt t6i'ser~ two mastersJ~loser to us, we have the story of, Sister Luke' and of all those who leave their communities around the age of forty. These two possible attitudes which can emerge at the crisis of maturity are foreshadowed with the'young man by an ideological orientation, "a choice among many val-ues of those which demand our allegiance"; or on the con-trary, by a chaos of ideals without connection or sy.nthe-sis. Society helps the young man here by proposing a variety of ideologies each of which may be useful to him in proportion to its internal consistency. The above paragraphs are a brief presentation of the eight criteria which, according to Erikson, show whether and how the young man succeeds in constructing an iden-tity of his own. If in one or other of the eight areas listed he does not succeed in extricating himself from the confu-sion engendered by this indispensable maturation of his personal identity, he risks becoming the victim of a more or less profound psychic derangement, which may assume the shape of one of the classical forms so thoroughly stud-ied by clinical psychology: symptomatic neurosis, charac-ter neurosis, delinquency, psychosis, and so on. In spite of the interest there might be in studying these personality troubles as functions of the eight dimensions enunciated by Erikson, it is more to our purpose to apply the light of what has been said about the identity crisis of the young man to a study of the problem of the novice, of his quest for identity, and of the crises which this quest may involve. Identity Crisis in the Novitiate The young man who arrives at the door of the novitiate already possesses a certain identity which is more or less well-founded. It shows itself in the choice he has made: to become a celibate instead of marrying; instead of becom-ing a doctor, engineer, or grocer, he aspires to a function in the Church. Moreover, he has chosen this particular community rather than some other. All these factors (cel-ibacy, priesthood, community) are so many aspects of the role which he wishes to play in life. Vaguely he sees him-self in the future as such and such a person, with a more or less specific function, whether it be that of preacher, pro-fessor, pastor, or diplomat attached to a nunciature. This role is the end product of the candidate's total past life, the synthesis of his previous psychic development, But after four months of ttie novitiate (the stage at which the novices who were the subject of our experiment had arrived), the ÷ ÷ ÷ Identity Crisis VOLUME 21, 1962 W. d~ Bont~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS great majority o[ novices are plunged into a more or less pronounced Crisis o[ identity. Signs oI the Crisis In the tests a considerable number of confusion symp-toms were.found, many more than in a group of students of the same age and background who were beginning their studies at a university. We cannot enter here into the more minute d~tails of these symptoms because of their too tech-nical nature; nevertheless, the following should at least be mentioned: a) The universal presence of a considerable anxiety. Anxiety is always an experience of the disintegration of the sell when old conflicts renew their attack. b) Equally striking was the great number of poor in-terpretations in the Rorschach, although they ought not to appear in a normal protocol. Even by using the Ameri-can scoring system of.Klopfer who tends to diminish their number, twenty-two out of twenty-eight novices gave them. This indicates a certain loss of contact with reality which is experienced as too hard, a retreat into phantasy which accompanies the identity crisis. c) Almost all the novices suffered from bisexual con-fusion with a reemergence of feminine traits. This was not manifested in overt sexual responses (except in two cases),, for the novitiate for the most part suppresses overt manifestations of sexuality. But it was visible, for example, in the defective sexual identifications given to the human figures on the Rorschach.cards and those of the T.A.T. (sixteen novices out of twenty-eight). d) Besides, seventeen out of twenty-eight subjects had a deficient image of their own body, according to their drawing of a human figure. This should not be surprising, for the image (more or less unconscious) we have of our own body is a visualisation of our identity. It is very sen-sitive to the influences of the environment; for example, to the interpretative power of clothing. The substitution of the religious garb, a skirt, for lay dress (masculine) has, from this point of view, a profound effect on one's sense of one's identity. "We identify ourselves with others by means of clothes. We become like them. By imitating their clothes we change our postural image of the body by taking over the postural image of others. Clothes can thu:; become a means of changing our body-image completely" (Paul Schilder, The Image and Appearance ol the Human Body [New York: International Universities Press, 1950], p. 204). The great number of deficient images of the body means that our subjects were in a siate of transition between their former identity (the "old man") and their new one. At the level of conscious behavior the crisis betrays it- self in all kinds of sentimental, per~ectionistic, depressive or even mildly paranoid traits. Brother Claude feels sad-dened by the November weather; another is not at ease working with the lay brothers in the garden; Robert thinks that his companions have something~against him when his prayer is not going well; Josephofeels depressed because he may not go out; and the imagination of John-Paul takes refuge in the past. As' for authority, almost all had a poorly balanced attitude, falling either into an exaggerated sub-missiveness or into revolt, or ifito indiscreet exercise of their own authority. Examples of these will be given later. The majority of the novices, then, manifested the two dimensions of the identity crisis which are at the heart of the religious life, for they relate to the vows of chastity and obedience: bisexual confusion and confusion with re-gard to authority. Catalysts of the Crisis The causes of the identity crisis can be summarized in this way: There is crisis, confusion, and disintegration be-cause the novitiate calls into question the initial identity with which the young man came to the novitiate. a) The young man already had a certain role in life before his entrance into the novitiate; he was president of his class, a member of Catholic Action, a well-known foot-ball player. He had a status in his environment, and be-cause of it he enjoyed the esteem of others. Entrance into the novitiate puts an end to all this. He changes his envir-onment and he must remake his reputation. Former modes of satisfaction no longer exist. A whole network of rela-tionships is broken; and it was precisely within this net-work that he found his own place, that he had realized, provisionally but really, his identity. All this he has to do over again. The impossibility of living out his identity in the old way almost inevitably causes a disintegration. The aspirations of the subject and almost their entire psychic substructure remain in suspension until they can be replaced by others or be reaffirmed. Before his novitiate Claude was in love with a some-what maternal girl who was a great help to him in his dif-ficulties. She forced him to become open, although in his own words he had tried to kill his sensitivity. She made an opening in his armor; he could communicate his ideal instead of pursuing it all alone. Separation from her at his entrance into the novitiate was difficult for him. His mem-ories of tenderness keep him alternating between melan-choly and aggressiveness. Arthur, the son of a farmer, is a young man whose strong ambition was enough to assure his success in stud-ies at the rural high school he attended, though from time to time he got on the nerves of his companions. In the ÷ ÷ VOLUME 21, 1962 ll9 novitiate he is more or less forgotten, for the smarter city boys leave him in the shadows. They take in with ease and naturalness everything that he had to fight hard for with an unremitting labor which had in turn cut him off from his modest origins. He can no longer play the role into which he had thrown all his energy. He has lost his place in society. He becomes depressed, grows still more ambi-tious in doing the Work of the novitiate, and becomes over sensitive to the least remarks of others. As for John-Paul, the role he wishes to play in life can be adequately summed up as that of an important priest, very esteemed by his people. Already at college he had to be first in the class to get admiration; and later, feeling himself crowded too closely by the other students, he plunged himself into extracurricular activities for the same reason. But the novitiate, the first step toward the realization of his identity as a priest, becomes a place of frustration and crisis. There he is far from college where he played a role of the highest rank and equally far from a friend whose affection gave him a sense of personal value. Here no one knows him. Hence his homesickness. During meditation he thinks of his friend, of past times, especially of those scenes in which he played an eminent role; or else he thinks of the future, he sees himself in the pulpit as a preacher. Evidently John-Paul is hypersensitive to the impression which he makes on the other novices; for example, in his reading at table. He takes great care with his hair, gives it a real coiffure, and contemplates himself in the mirror. b) Entry into the novitiate not only deprives the sub-ject of a part of his previous identity, but the community also wishes to change the candidate who comes to it in order to make him into a man who bears the community'.~ image and likeness; in other words, a religious with the spirit of his order. It is far from accepting the candidate as he is. The community has quite fixed ideas about what its members ought to become. Certain aspects of the nov-ice's previous identity, therefore, are necessarily destined for elimination while others must be developed to a more considerable degree. This is a changing of habits with its intellectual accompaniment--indoctrination. The conditions necessary for all indoctrination are (see Erikson, Young Man Luther [New York: Norton, 1958], p. 134): Isolation from the exterior world: family, friends, the old environment. Restriction of the sources of sensory stimulation and an immense value-increase in the power of words. The elimination of all private life, emphasis being placed on common life. Common devotion to the leaders who constitute and represent the community. The novitiate is a closed society; no influence is toler-ated there which would compromise the work of reforma-tion and indoctrination. Consequently no girls, no going out, no radio and television,.rio~,p6cket moridy~V~i~y~ ~ew visits. As for papers and magazines, only the more pious and serious ones will be allowed, In order to occupy the mind of the novice now emptied of worldly concerns, it is filled with spiritual teaching. So that he may be put on. the right road, the candidate is submitted to a daily pro-gram that is rigorous and unchanging and thateventually forms his mind as drops of water wear away stone. He is required to judge his own failings in the twice-daily ex-aminations of conscience. He may have no other company than that of the people who embody or partake of the desired ideal: the master of novices, his assistant, the other novices; there is no other model with whom he may iden-tify. The novitiate is, then, a dosed society in which the voice of indoctrination reverberates like an echo in an empty cave. For a change so profound must be brought about in the young man that once he has set out into the world upon his apostolic mission his' new identity must be the one which prevails over all previous attachments. He must himself become a representative and an incarnation of the spirit of his institute. That the "old man" feels uneasy in this hothouse should not be surprising. For example: Brother Yves states that: the isolation from people causes me some trouble, for I feel the need to be fully accepted as I am and also to be understood . My greatest fear about religious life and particularly about common life is that I may cease to be myself in order to fall into line. I fear a conformity in which all would be superficial and artificial, in which nothing would be assimilated, made per-sonal. I do not desire conformity, uniformity, stoic equanimity in my life. Here we discover an interesting difference between the two novitiates we have studied. In one, spiritual forma-tion is much more intense than in the other. The novices give reports of their spiritual progress to the master of novices, who follows and directs them very closely. The other master of novices, on the contrary, is a proponent of less exacting methods. In the "tight" novitiate, certain of the young men regressed to a point that was not reached by comparable novices in the more relaxed novitiate. Their crisis was more violent, for inevitably the less ac-ceptable aspects of their old identity were attacked with greater force. c) A third cause of the identity crisis in the novitiate ¯ comes from the fact that the previous ideas of the young man about the community of his choice are rarely real- 4. 4. 4. Identity Crisis VOLUME 21, 1962 121 ÷ ÷ ÷ 1¥. 4~ Bo~t, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 17.2 istic. Most often they are based on an idealized image of certain members of the community whom he knew before he entered either personally or through reading. He may imagine that every Franciscan is a Poverello, every Jesuit a Teilhard da Chardin, and every Dominican a Sertil-langes. He wishes to become like them. But he finds out very quickly that most of the members of the religious community are far from being the incarnation of this ideal, and then the novice frequently wonders whether his place is in the institute he has chosen, since it is of so little help to growth in his present identity. When Brother Irenaeus triumphantly ascertains that certain of the old fatheks do not practice what is demanded of the novices, his pride and his mistrust are the means by which he pro-tects his own high ideal. Francis, on the other hand, criti-cizes his fellow novices: they should be more perfect. He can't understand why they should be looking out the win-dow, why they should quarrel, or why they slip apples into their pockets after dinner to eat them in .their rooms. All this is personally disgusting to him. "If they entered religion to act like that . " And he is sorry that "medi-ocrity is not only found in the world, but also in the cloister." His excessive criticism is a means of defending himself against the temptation to do what they are doing, a temp-tation which is inadmissible because of a too rigid con-science. d) Finally, most communities have a great number of ministries to perform. It is often the decision of superiors which determines what role will later be assigned to the novice; whether he will be a missionary, a professor of apologetics, a parish priest, a teacher of the young, or the treasurer of the house. For one who has set his heart on the role of missionary, for example, obedience may create from the novitiate on a climate of uncertainty, a doubt about the possibility of realizing his role in life, his iden-tity. For we must not forget that one's identity is a synthe-sis of all one's previous development and hence it is not changed as one changes clothes. The novice ought, never-theless, to leave himself open to the possibility that the vow of obedience may make altogether a different thing of his life than what he thought. So it is that John-Paul wonders whether his superiors will let him go to the mis-sion where "the pagans, once converted to the faith of the gospel, will know better than the people of this coun-try the value of a priest." For he seeks everywhere the love and security he has up till now not found, and it was this quest which impelled him toward the priesthood. These four inevitable factors provoke an identity crisis in the novice which can go just "short of psychotic dis-sociation" (Erikson, Young Man Luther, op. cit., p. 134). This is a kind of fragmentation of the ego, a breakdown of the personality synthesis in a clash with the new en-vironment. The breach which the impact of this environ-ment makes in the synthesis is always located at its weakest point; that is, in certain conflicts Of the past Which Were poorly dealt with. In this serise,, the novitiate,brlngg .OUt the worst in oneself; the combined pressure of competition, adaptation to the level of the environment and the very rigid mode of life causes even the smallest weakness in the identity of the novice to burst fortl~. Beginners' Faults as Dimensions of the Crisis We can now parallel" the faults of beginners with Erik-son's eight dimensions of the identity crisis; for, according to our thesis, these faults are their equivalents in the re-ligious domain. As a matter of fact, it is not only the sogial life of the candidate which is troubled, but his spiritual life; all the more so since this constitutes the principal content of the life of the group and its members. We re-peat, we are studying the spiritual life here only under its psychological aspect and not at all under its theological aspect. a) Loss of perspective, the first of the dimensions of the identity crisis, betrays itself on the spiritual plane by a lack of patience, by a failure to apprehend that religious development has both its heights and its depths as does any other human evolution. This quest for the immediate is evident in spiritual gluttony and in its counterpart, dis-taste for spiritual realities when they do not procure a sensible satisfaction. It is equally to be found in those who wish. to push precipitously ahead. In his spiritual life Brother Mark seeks the love and consolation he did not receive enough of when he was little. In high school he created an environment for him-self which answered more or less adequately to his needs. But the change of environment deprives him of this sup-port and obliges him.to seek it elsewhere, in God. He seeks "the divine presence, a mysterious presence which I try to locate in myself without success. Each of my members dis-covers new sensations at this moment.". But when the quest does not succeed, "I feel a kind of di~sgust without reason or apparent motive. At such times Jesus does not seem to satisfy me; I thirst for something else too vague to be men-tioned or clearly defined." For Andrew, the need to rush ahead and a false apostolic zeal arose when common life and the demands of the no-vitiate for a change in his habits simultaneously reinforced a precocious superego and the unacceptable impulseg he was trying to harness] The unrealistic demands proper to these last two "imperfections" cause this novice not to feel at home with his less demanding comrades and his father ÷ ÷ ÷ Identity Crisis VOLUME 21~ 1962 ÷ W. de Bont, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS master who are themselves far from accepting with benev-olence this excess of zeal. To novices who have such difficulties the religious com-munity provides a helpful balancing factor in the per-spective of the future it opens to them. They are told of the various stages of the spiritual life; in the religious life there is a step-by-step education over several years (no-vitiate, philosophical and theological studies, ordina-tion.). There is a daily program set up in detail and firmly enforced. Finally, the candidate is promised cer-tain success in this world or in the next if he perseveres. b) Lack of assurance manifests itself in all those im-perfections which seek to hide certain defects by an im-moderate reaction: excessive shame for faults, a too literal adherence to the rules, indiscrete mortifications. Two ex-amples have already been given (B~'others Irenaeus and Francis). The novitiate offers the novices a provisional protection against their initial clumsiness in the unifor-mity it imposes in observances, clothing, spirituality. With this protection the novice is able to regain little by little the confidence in himself which was upset by the causes listed above. c) Pusillanimity in the spiritual life can be considered a failure to experiment with various roles; and certain forms of jealousy (of the progress of others) and of hypo-chondria (in connection with fasting, for example) can be considered as derivatives of Oedipal conduct. So it was that Henry, who was not able to identify with his dead father in order to attain, at least in his imagination, a superiority over his brothers which would give him a spe-cial title to the love of fiis mother, wished to carry on his apostolate in such a way that "after my departure people will forget completely that I was ever around, and that it was I who handled mattersY Fearing competition he does not dare to push himself forward. By always doing exacdy as the others, by effacing himself, he denies that he is dif-ferent, jealous, guilty of favoritism. In this case, the novitiate tries above all to encourage him to attempt one role, that of the apprentice religious. The novitiate is nothing else but an initiation into this role, begun with the taking of the habit as an exterior sign of the status which will be had henceforth in the com-munity and continued every day in the life of the novice. d) Paralysis about work clearly reveals itself in the dif-ficulties which the novice has from time to time in his spirit.ual exercises, meditation, examination of conscience, recitation of the Breviary. For Henry, for example, exami-nations of conscience remain at the surface of his person-ality. He fears lest his jealousy and anxiety come to the surface. Religious educators do everything in the noviti- ate to allow positive fulfillment, by teaching the novice suitable methods for achieving success in this domain. e) Lack of identity or confusion of roles manifests itself in a vague feeling of not b.eing at home in the novitiate, by nostalgia for the past, by the impo.ssibility of finding a place and a role in the communi~y: Examples Were" given above. The novitiate seeks to remedy this by encouraging the recruit to identify with his community by proposing to him in an exclusive way the spirit of the congregation or the order. f) Bisexual confusion manifests itself by all sorts of dif-ficulties with sex: the sexualization of religious life, for example, in sexual impulses at the moment of communion or confession; in particular friendships unddr the cloak of a spiritual relationship; in scruples about ~bad thoughts." Brother Guy, for example, transfers to Christ and St. John his tender feelings about a friend whom he has left in the world: You must have embraced very tenderly, as gently as do two beloved people spontaneously when one has acquired the other's special admiration; when one wishes to protest more deeply his profound joy in and friendly respect for the other. I would have liked to spend with the two of you those long evenings beneath the stars, as I had the happiness to spend them with James, speaking no doubt of Your ambitions, become those of Jol~n s~nce You loved him so tenderly, and he loved You. This transfer is meant to fill the void left by the impos-sibility of continuing an earthly friendship. What the novice should learn here, with the help of his spiritual director, is to renounce the exercise of his sex-ual faculty while at the same time .developing his manli-ness. This is impossible unless this renunciation is in-spired by valid and for the most part conscious motives ("for the kingdom.of God'i)and as little as possible af-fected by fear, shame, distaste, or guilt. g) The lack of reasonable attitudes with respect to au-thority is expressed by a crowd of symptoms: an extrava-gant docility, revolt against authority, a kind of freezing up in relations with superiors; too great a zeal to convert others where the aim is much more to resolve one's own problems than to help one's neighbor. 'Michael, for ex-ample, is so docile as to worry the master of novices some-what. He wants to be told what to do; he never resists; he has the spirit of. sacrifice; anything may be asked of him. If he is nettled, he gives a start and then merely smiles. His spiritual ideal is~ complete abandonment to God. He wishes to forget himself in order to be concerned only for God and His interests. Michael is a young man Whose mother thwarted him in his desire :for masculine inde-pendence. At the conscious level he submitted but uncon-sciously he rebelled against her. In the novitiate obedience 4. 4. Identity Crisis 1~5 4- REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is a most important matter and there are very few possi-bilities for aggressivity (for example, sports) left open to him. His problem, then, is accentuated. It may be under-stood, then, that for him God and the master of novices are conceived after the image of his mother. Peter's sense of his priestly mission still has "some end other than a supernatural one." The reason for this is that by a slightly megalomaniac identification with pater-nal authority, of which he makes himself the prophet, he is protecting himself against a feeling of persecution. The image he has of his father is split into two, and his feelings are equally divided. Everything good about his father is projected into God, everything bad into the devil. Accord-ingly, to save the world by his apostolate means in fact to preserve the connection with the good parent (God) and to eliminate the bad (the devil). Since the novitiate is a completely masculine society and at the 'same time by it.~ nature demands obedience, it further accentuates the con. flicts about sexuality and authority which underlie thi:~ apostolic identity (according to psychoan.alytic theory, the paranoid personality is rooted in homosexualized relation-ships with the father, the representative of authority in the family); but at the same time it makes the experience o[ the apostolate impossible for the time being. One may not go out during .the novitiate, and so the balance of forces in Peter is upset. The master of novices will have the difficult task of teaching the novices the just mean between the docility of a sheep and revolt at the barricades, as in the case of the novice who barricaded his door when the superior knocked to get him to rise (he always got up late). To give the novices certain opportunities for leadership frora the novitiate on may contribute to the development of the orientation which is desirable in this domain. h) Finally, a confusion of ideals is the most obvious thing about the novices who do not yet know whether they want to stay or leave the novitiate to return to the world or who hesitate to choose among several communities, Brother Mark has grave doubts about his perseverance because he is torn between a "worldly" past made entic-ing by the admiration he commanded at school and tile frustrations of his present conventual life caused by the lack of tenderness and esteem received from others. Spir-itual training here seeks to take away all ambivalence by presenting the novice with the ideology of his order and excluding all other ideologies (newspapers are ban-ishedl). A certain simplification results from this which sometimes becomes a caricature; one novice will think he is living the "pure gospel" because he walks .around in sandals as the apostles did; another will think he has found the perfect balance between contemplation and action because in his community Compline is sung in common before sleep. When the new identity of the nov-ice is sufficiently established, this simplification will no longer be necessary. Psychologically speaking, the faults of beginners are merely attempts to maintain'. Or to reestablish 15rovision-ally the psychic equilibrium which has been upset by the impact of the environment, an impact which has struck the novice at the weakest points of his former identity. As Father Mailloux has said, they are not "typically pathological reactions per se, but rather.irrational modes of expression, upon which the psychic apparatus will normally fall back whenever an individual is unable to cope with a stressful situation in some rational man-ner" (Rev. Noel Mailloux, O.P., "Sanctity and the Prob-lem of Neurosis," Pastoral Psychology, 10 [February, 1959], 40). For in successful cases the novice readjusts; he incorporates the identity elements offered him by the religious environment into the best which his identity al-ready has and gets rid of the less acceptable elements. Having provoked the crisis, a well-directed novitiate helps also to heal it. And once the adaptation is made and the novice has regained his place, this time in the community of his choice, his beginner's faults disappear like hay fever when the season has passed. In less successful cases, there is a failure. Concord be-tween' the identity of the novice and the demands or the support of the environment remains impossible: The reasons may come from two quarters: a lack of flexibility in the subject consequent upon an identity too charged with conflict as with the brother of the barricades cited above who left his community a little later,, or on the part of the community which is unable to Offer the novice the place which he seeks for his gifts and his particular abilities as in that sufficiently large novitiaite where .eighty percent of the novices left because of a master of novices still living spiritually in the nineteenth' century. The shock was the greater for them as their previous educa-tion was the more liberal. Conclusion We have studied in this article the psychological side of this night of the senses which the novitiate arouses by its very nature. By uprooting the candidate from his for-mer environment, it deprives him of the support which his identity enjoyed before in order to invite him to a higher spiritual balance. Our perspective, it is true, has been a restricted one; we have described only what the novitiate may have in common with any identity crisis studied by the psychologist. On this plane, the crisis of the novice resembles that of a young man who prepares 4. ÷ Identity Crisis VOLUME 21, 1962 W. de Bo~t, 0~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ]28 himself for army service at West Point, or who leaves hi.q small-town home to go to a large, university--although course the crisis has a different content according as concerns military formation, the situation of a student, or religious training---celibacy and examinations of con-science do not figure largely in a military perspective. For methodological reasons we have left aside that which con~ .stitutes the very essence of the life of the novitiate: the introduction to the life of consecration to God to which by His grace He has invited the novice. It is this properly spiritual aspect which masters of novices are best ac-quainted with, and they can guide themselves in this by a solidly established spiritual theology. Our only inten-tion has been to draw their attention to the psychological side of this introduction to sanctity, a side which it 'is better not to be totally ignorant of. The "follies" of nov-ices should not be seen as faults which are exclusively in the moral order, as pride, for example, considered as the capita) sin. There is question rather of provisional, and unsuccessful efforts to adapt oneself to a new situation; hence they are normal phenomena which always arise under one form or another when a man must remake the synthesis of his personality. Nevertheless, they are real difficulties and not imaginary, often very painful for the subject who undergoes them and annoying for those around him. The wisdom of an alert master of novices will assuage much of this human pain, and this the more so as he knows better the identity of the novice in ques. tion, with its strong points and its weak. This present article is limited to describing the iden-tity crisis of the novice. It does not pretend to furnish the elements of a possible prognostication. If almost all nov, ices undergo this crisis in some degree or other, how, among so many of the "imperfect," can those who will persevere be singled out from those who will leave or merely mark time for the rest of their lives? This is an important question, for the novitiate terminates with a profession which, even though it be temporary, repre-sents a real and very profound commitment. Certain re-marks of St. John of the Cross (Dark Night, 1, 9) coukl provide us with a point of departure for such a consid- ¯ eration; but this task must be reserved to a later article. PAUL W. O'BRIEN, S.J. Introducing the Young Sister to Prayer One of the problems facing the young sister is learning to pray. She h~is probably been pra

PRIZE ESSAY NUMBER. i i ~ JUSTE, 1904 IY6L, XIII. HO. i GETTYSBURG COLLEGE GETTYSBURG, PA. i w. V N. C. UARBKMENH, OCTTTOBUflS II n w i HELP THOSE WHO HELP US. The Intercollegiate Bureau of Academic Costume. Chartered igoz. Cottrell & Leonrard Albany, N. Y. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA WWWWWWWWWWWW Makers of Caps, Gowns, Hoods AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA A. B. BLACK, Gettysburg College Representative. Come and Have a Good Shave, E. A. Wright's or HAIR-CUT at Engraving House, Naffy B. SeftOll's 1108 Chestnut St. PHILADELPHIA We have our own photograph gallery for half-tone and photo engraving. Fashionable Engraving and Stationery. Leading house for College, School and Wedding Invitations, Dance Programs, Menus. Fine engraving of all kinds. Before ordering elsewhere com-pare samples and prices. New Tons:)rial Parlor's, 35 Baltimore St. BARKERS' SUPPLIES A SPECIALTY. Also, choice line of fine Cigars. Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, *^ A, L, Menbeck, Agent, COLLEGE. IF YOU CALL ON C. 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Parties visiting quarries will leave cars at Brownstone Station, on the P. & R. R. R. DO YOU NEED PNEY TO GO TO COLLEGE ? [FROM COPYRIGHTED STEREOGRAFH BY UNDERWOOD AND UNDERWOOD] Happy Land of t :e R* staff Sun where Song Unceasing Flows. Stereoscopes * and * Stereographs K\ can furnish it fo.' you during the Summer Vacation, Many New Subjects for this season: Russian-Japanese War, Panama Canal, Balti-more Fire, President Roosevelt, Gettysburg Battlefield: New Comic Series; Stereo-scopic Tours, accompanied by patent maps and interesting descriptive books- Write for particulars- Underwood & Underwood 3 AND 5 W. NINETEENTH ST., COR. FIFTH AVE., NEW YORK. REPRESENTED AT PENN'A COL. BY E- G- HESS- The CDcFGury. The Literary Journal of Gettyburg College. VOL. XIII. GETTYSBURG, PA., JUNE, 1904. No. 4 CONTENTS "DE SAPIENTIAE PROFESSORIBUS "—POEM, . . 128 ANDROMACHE ET DECIDIANA. RUSSIAN AGGRESSION—Pen and Sword Prize Essay, . 130 PAUL B. DUNBAR, '04. A MODERN FAUST, 136 "X. Y. Z.'' SOCIALISM ,137 JOSEPH E. ROWE, '04. THE SABBATH AS A CIVILIZER, 144 Miss HELEN WAGNER, '06. THE COURSE OF THE U. S. GOVERNMENT IN CONNECTION WITH THE PANAMA REVOLUTION, . 146 CHAS. W. HEATHCOTE, '05. A HUNTER OF MEN—POEM, 148 "BRIDGET." .'THE PATH OF DUTY IS THE WAY TO GLORY," . 151 POEM, 154 EDITORIALS 155 EXCHANGES, . 157 w 128 . THE MERCURY. «DE SAPIENTIAE PROFESSORIBUS." ANDROMACHE ET DECIDIANA. HOW dear to our hearts are those days when at college We studied and wept o'er the classics of yore; The Latin, the Greek, and the terrible German, And brain-splitting ''Math" which we used to deplore. To-night as we sit in the glow of our fire-side, And think of those days and the pleasures of old, Our hearts fain would turn to our former professors, Who gave to us learning, much better than gold. The fire burns low in its smouldering ashes, The faces appear that we once knew so well, Some pleasant and jovial, and others more solemn, But of each, in his turn, we will .now try to tell. Oh Muse ! pray be kind and remain standing by us, And give to us freely and with no restraint, That much sought for gift, the true power of description, So each one may know whom we're trying to paint. The first who appears in the fast dying embers, Is one who made culprits shake clear to their toes ; He'd rap on the desk with a frowning expression, And quell all confusion, just how, no one knows. His eyes were as blue as the azure of Heaven, His hair was inclined to a faint auburn shade, His stature was tall, and this mighty Apollo Was reverenced alike by each man and each maid. And now we behold one so tall and so handsome, Who led our young minds 'round the fair walls of Troy, Who oft would propound his fav'rite assertion That 'there should be guardians for maidens so coy.' And next to him standing, a man of small stature, Whom feline protectors all look on with dread; He bears in his right hand a tight-covered basket, Just lift up the cover ! Out pops a cat's head. Our dear 'Roman Senator' now looms before us, As tall as a dignified 'senex' of old. He too bears a basket, but it's full of good things, And as a 'rear guard' he has 'Waggles,' the bold. The next that appears to our far-seeing vision Is one who seemed stern tho' at heart he was ki-nd. His friends the}' were num'rous, his travels were many, But ever to "Dutchland" his heart was inclined. THE MERCURY. 129 Scarce had his form disappeared in the ashes, When two more professors came into our sight. A halo of gas, (H2S), was around them, Which ever had been their fond joy and delight. How often we shivered when into their class-room We went in dread fear that we might not come out. A "fiss" and a "bang" and a "crash" would oft greet us; And then the stern question, "What are you about?" And now comes a face that so quietly greets us, He led 'little boys' in the way they should go. He taught them politeness as well as sound doctrine, And stirred to high ideals instead of to low. And last but not least comes that jolly, good "Sap'ens" Who once taught us "Math" and a great deal beside, For he used to tell all the jokes of the season, And solved weighty problems discussed far and wide. The fire dies out and we sit there reflecting On those pleasant days and our teachers of old, And we would not sell our fond recollections For all the rich treasures the deep sea could hold. And so let us close while the dark shadows gather, Which hide from our vision each loved noble face. We hope they still walk through those fair halls of learning, And for many years yet each may keep his old place. 130 THE MERCURY. " RUSSIAN AGGRESSION." [Pen and Sword Prize Essay.] PAUL B. DUNBAR, '04. THE discussion of a subject of world-wide importance can-not fail to be influenced by preconceived prejudices. It seems to be natural for Americans as a whole to entertain strongly such a prejudice against Russia. This is probably the result of our instinctive sympathy for the weak in a contest with the strong. The attempt will be made in this paper, how-ever, to set forth as impartially as possible the facts of the Rus-sian Advance. Having studied these carefully, Russia's motives will be discussed, and finally the probable results of these ag-gressive movements will be briefly summed up. A glance at the map of Russia, her possessions and spheres of influence, shows over how vast a region the Empire of the North holds sway. From the Baltic on the west to the Sea of Okhotsk and the Behring Sea on the east, the Russian territory extends in an unbroken stretch—five thousand miles of steppes and mountains, rivers and inland seas, burning deserts and bar-ren tundras. On the broad plains of Siberia are sections of wonderful fertility practically undeveloped and in its mountain ranges are untouched stores of boundless mineral wealth. This entire region is subject to the most diverse climatic conditions, seasons of extreme cold alternating with intervals of almost tor-rid heat. Such is the Empire of the Czar, embracing more than one seventh of the land surface of the globe and support-ing a population of one hundred and thirty millions. Today we see the Great Bear reaching out ready to seize in his powerful clutch territory after territory. The stress of pres-ent events draws our attention especially to the Far East. There we see the Muscovite pressing relentlessly upon the territory of China, and now by the test of battle it must be decided whether Korea also shall be Russian. The Far East is not the only object of Russia's advance. Slowly, silently, by stealth of di-plomacy, plans are being laid, forces set to work to widen Asi-atic Russia to the southward. During the last forty years; THE MERCURY. 131 , •% . — Britain has watched with apprehension the southward advance of the Bear toward her Indian border. Never for an instant dare she relax her vigilance against the encroachment of the Czar. Russian advisers ever ready to advance the interests of their master hold the ears of many of the native border princes. But yesterday came rumors of Russian influence in Tibet, of a treaty of that country with Russia, and the presence of envoys in the Tibetan capital whose purpose is to forward Russian in-terests in opposition to those of England. Turkey and the Balkan States feel this powerful hand and Sweden and Norway look with alarm toward the borders of Finland. What is the history of the growth of this giant among nations ? Three hundred and twenty years ago Russia was a small and semi barbarous state whose advance posts were scarcely eight hundred miles east of St. Petersburg. In the closing years of the sixteenth century, however, there came to the throne a ruler distinguished for severity even in that stern age. Ivan the Ter-rible, by the very cruelty of his rule, inaugurated the eastward movement of that Slavic invasion which now after three cen-turies of alternate advance and retreat is now approaching so terrible a crisis. Rebellious subjects of the Czar fleeing from pursuing troops were forced to take refuge in the unknown, frigid wilderness to the eastward. As they retreated, they easily overcame the scattered nomads who inhabited these regions. Then by turning over the conquered territory to Russia, they obtained the pardon of the Czar Ivan. This was the first step —the entering wedge—in Russia's eastward advance. The tide thus setting toward the Pacific flowed on slowly but resist-lessly, unopposed by rival nations, for the region was to them unknown. A century passed and another mighty figure ascended the Russian throne. Under Peter the Great came further aggres-sive expansion. The northern ocean presented an insurmount-able barrier but in other directions the advance continued. Southward the Muscovite ruler forced his way and to the west-ward Sweden and Poland felt the force of Russian aggression. Thus year after year, under ruler after ruler, the slow policy of 132 THE MERCURY. expansion has gone on. Wherever opportunity offered the Great Bear forced his entering wedge. West and south felt the advance, but it was toward the east that he moved most steadily. As has been said, Russia aims to follow the line of least re-sistance. The vast plains of Siberia, frozen in winter, parched in summer, were a part of the world's surface uncoveted by the earth-hunger of Europe. So while other nations fought and wrangled over other portions of the globe, the Empire of the Czar silently absorbed this mighty region. Thus by slow movements or sudden leaps, by treachery or by diplomacy, by fair means^or foul, Russia at last reached the Pacific—the ocean outlet which she has always desired. Here was encountered an unsurmountable difficulty. Russia, having apparently overcome all obstacles in her march to the sea, was now met and held by the strength of perpetual winter. The ice bound harbors of northern Asia were valueless. Warmer waters must be reached and, having come thus far, Russia was not to be baffled. By a sudden, bold move the Amur was made the southern boundary. Then in i860, subtle diplomacy obtained from China the strip of coast upon which is built the port of Vladivostok. It is significant that the name of this city is the Russian phrase for " Control of the East." As a seaport Vladivostok is a vast improvement over Petropaulovsk, the first Russian port in Kamtchatka, but still there is not en-tire freedom from the disadvantages of winter. Russia still hungered for a warm-water port. The Trans-Siberian Railway was built—five thousand miles of single track reducing the in-terval of transit between Moscow and Vladivostok to only fif-teen days. Events now began to move rapidly in the Far E^ast. In 1894, the close of the Chino-Japanese war left Japan in possession of the valuable harbor of Port Arthur. On the plea that the possession of this port by Japan threatened the in-tegrity of China, Russia forced the retrocession of Port Arthur to its original owner. Two years later, a Russian squadron entered this harbor ostensibly to winter there. Ere many months the world was startled to learn that Russia had leased Port Arthur from China. The integrity of the latter country THE MERCURY. 133 seemed no longer a consideration. Immediately came military occupation of the city and the erection of tremendous defensive works. Russia had obtained her warm-water harbor; but was she satisfied ? Between Port Arthur and the Siberian frontier lies the rich Chinese province of Manchuria. In it have settled many native Russians. What could be more natural than that the Great Bear should covet this prize also to make his possessions com-plete? Asa preliminary step, a Chinese concession was ob-tained for shortening the route of the Trans-Siberian Railway to Vladivostok by a line across Manchuria. Russia had at last obtained a foot-hold south of the Amur. The erection of branch lines to the borders of Korea and the very gates of Pe-kin was but a short stride. In every case the right of garri-soning the railroad was included in the concession. In 1900, came the Boxer Rebellion. Its close saw Manchuria held by an immense Russian army of occupation. In concert with the allies, Russia agreed to withdraw from Chinese territory, but months went by and the Manchurian'army lingered., The wily Muscovite concluded a treaty with China providing for the long-promised withdrawal, but it soon became evident that before this would be carried out new concessions were expected. The Russian representative in Pekin even went so far as to demand that all the Manchurian concessions be granted to Russians. This was but one of Russia's diplomatic attempts to gain a controlling voice in Chinese affairs. China, however, was al'ive to the true state of affairs and refused to commit herself to any further agreements. As a consequence, Russia is still in mili-tary possession of Manchuria. Nominally her troops were kept there solely in pursuance of the treaty-right of protecting her railroad interests. In reality, the whole line was turned into an armed camp by the establishment of forts garrisoned by all branches of the Russian army, and today Manchuria is practically a Russian province. • We now reach the final chapter in the history of Russian aggression—final because it brings us to the present time, cer-tainly not because it marks the end of the advance. With hr's 134 THE MERCURY. grip firmly fixed on Manchuria, the Bear now turned a longing eye to the little kingdom of Korea. The possession of this choice bit of the world was now his aim. Even before the Chino-Japanese war Russia was laying her subtle plans to this end. In 1893 or early in 1894, she made a generous present of rifles to the Korean army and even furnished a Russian drill-master to train Korea's seven thousand soldiers in European tactics. At the same time swarms of Russian agents entered the country. The fruit seemed almost ripe for plucking. But now an opponent faced Russia. Japan had long watched this onward march with jealous eye. In this move toward Korea she saw a positive menace to her existence. Nothing remained but to throw down the guage of battle and to begin the contest whose result is being awaited by the entire world. What are Russia's motives and what her ultimate policy ? Her statesmen would have us believe it is a simple one. Says M. Witte, the former chief of Russian finances and now presi-dent of the Committee ot Ministers : " History measures not by years, but by centuries ; and from this point of view, by the building of the Chinese Eastern Railway to Port Arthur and Dalny.a mighty work is completed, a historical problem is solved, and one of the last steps is taken in the advance of Russia to the Far East, in her effort to find an outlet to the open sea, to the ice-free shores of the Pacific ocean." This is indeed Russia's principal object, but its fulfillment means also the control of northern Asia. And since the de-velopment of her railroad policy has done so much already for the advance of Russian territory, there is no reason to believe that it will not be made the occasion of further advance. We have the word of M. Witte that Russia's object is to obtain a warm-water port. This is in the main a legitimate object and has been partly fulfilled by the acquirement of Port Arthur. But it must be remembered that Port Arthur is not wholly a Russian possession. It is, therefore, obvious that the Russian wishes will not be entirely satisfied until that port is Russian beyond a doubt. The same is equally true of the whole pro- THE MERCURV. 135 vince of Manchurfa. Then, too, it is more than probable that the desire is to reserve the acquired territory for Muscovite trade alone. It is true that Dalny is an open port, but Port Arthur is closed and foreign merchants find much difficulty in meeting Russian competition in Manchuria. As a recent writer puts it: The Russian motive may be viewed from two stand-points. Russia herself would have us believe that it is benevo-lent. She is building a railroad through unopened territory, erecting modern cities and valuable mills in the wilderness, and setting up an orderly government in the place of misrule. The outsider acknowledges all this, but what, lie a;ks, will Russia demand in return for these enormous expenditures? The an-swer is apparent. It has already been given. She has the right of protecting her interests and now demands a complete monopoly. Such are Russia's complex motives. What will the outcome be? If Russia be successful in the present contest, will her aggressive plans be concluded without opposition ? Will the world witness the spectacle of Korea and China absorbed or will the Powers step in to fix a limit to further expansion ? If they do so, will their strength be sufficient to restrain the Bear already flushed with victory ? If Russia be vanquished, will the settlement thus arrived at be permanent ? Will little Japan continue to be an efficient barrier, or will returning strength again put in motion the tide setting toward the Orient with overwhelming volume ? Will the gallant Island Kingdom perish or may it look for help to Europe and America? Time alone can bring an answer. Here prophecy has often failed and will fail again, for as has been well said: "Russia's state-craft is not of the months or of the years; it is of the ages. It is not of monarchs, but of a dynasty, and it is less the policy of the dynasty than it is the need of a people and of a land." 136 THE MERCURY. "A MODERN FAUST." (BEING A BIT OF TRUTH MASQUERADING AS NONSENSE.) ONCE upon a time—during the twentieth century—there lived a young man who had been but three years out of college. Having entered the greater University of the World, he had been hailed by his fellow Freshmen as a comrade, had been hazed by Sophomores, patronized by condescending Juniors, and deluged with advice by venerable Seniors, even as he had been in college. But he was a restless and adventure-some youth. The monotony of the office palled upon him, and, for relief, he experimented in Mysticism and Christian Science. One momentous evening he conceived the idea of putting his knowledge to the supreme test, by summoning be-fore him the Prince of Darkness. Thereupon he took down his LeConte and. his Mary Baker Eddy from the shelf and set to work. And in very truth, gentle reader, in less than half the run-ning of an hour glass, Mephistopheles himself stood before him. faultlessly attired in evening clothes—for the red cap and mantle had succumbed to the spirit of progress in Hades even as the simple sins of our forefathers have given place to the more delicately refined and ingenious vices of to-day. But in this one respect was the Devil unchanged. For no sooner had the usual conventionalities been exchanged than lie attempted to purchase the soul of the youth in the most approved man-ner. He showed him visions of fair women, even as he had shown them to the Faust of old. But the youth was unmoved; he smiled and shook his head, for he was a wise youth. And the Devil promised him great riches and power. But the youth, for he was wise, replied, "If these things were worth while, O Lucifer, I could attain at a lesser price, even hard work. It is not enough." T,hen did the Devil promise a most miraculous thing, "For," said he, "if thou wilt give thyself to me, Grover Cleveland and William J. Bryan shall make a truce and be as brothers. Shoulder to shoulder they will fight for thee and nominate thee for the Presidency on the Democratic THE MERCURY. I 37 ticket. Thou wilt be the most talked-of man in the Nation." But the youth, being wise, replied : "Am I not own cousin to the Proprietor of Pennsylvania, and is it not agreed that I shall be the next State Treasurer? And is not this better than to be President, much less a candidate for President mid on the Democratic ticket? Go to, it is not enough." Now the Devil was almost vanquished, but he was also wise and he thought deeply, and he said, "I can then offer thee nothing more than again to make thee a reckless, carefree Sophomore among thy former classmates. Think! Is it not enough?" And the youth meditated within himself; he knew there were no days like those days; he longed again to be carefree and thought-less, recognizing no higher authority than his own sweet will and the majority action of his class; his heart called out for those friends who, too, had dwelt in Arcady. And he replied, "It is enough." For he was a wise youth withal. MORAL—Eat, drink, and be merry, ye Seniors, for to-mor-row ye die. "X. Y. Z." • SOCIALISM. ( Written for the Pen and Sword Prize Essay Contest.) JOSEPH E. ROWE, '04. THE word socialism was first used in 1835 in connection with an organization founded by Robert Owen of Eng-land. This society was given the grandiloquent appellation of the Association of all Classes of all Nations, and its purpose was to secure "Social improvement and reconstruction." Since that time the word socialism has been applied rather incautiously, and,as a consequence, it is an exceedingly difficult word to define with precision. According to some writers there is a growing tendency to regard as socialistic any inter-ference with property undertaken on behalf of the poor, or any measure promoted by society to limit or modify the working of the economic principle of laissez-faire. Roscher defined socialism "as including those tendencies which demand a greater regard for the common-weal than consist with human 138 THE MERCURY. nature." John Raeof our day declares that it is common to describe as socialistic "any proposal that asks the State to do something lor the material well being of the working class, or any group of such proposals, or any theory that favors them." Janet defines it as "every doctrine which teaches that the State has a right to correct the inequality of wealth which ex-ists among men, and to legally establish the balance by taking from those who have too much in order to give to those who have not enough, and that in a permanent manner, and not in such and such a particular case—a famine, for instance, or a public calamity." But these definitions and all others describe only phases of the question. For instance, in order for any measure to be socialistic it need not proceed from the State; it may emanate from individuals just as well; in fact the earliest socialistic measures proceeded from individuals. There was socialism in colonial times when they had a common storehouse from which each one received his equal share of goods; the instituting of a wider system of public schools is a highly socialistic measure ; an equal distribution of profits between two partners, or among the many members of a company is also socialistic; and yet it is just as proper and usual to describe as socialistic the so-called "strikes," or the assassination of million-aires by dynamite. It is, therefore, evident that socialism em-braces a great deal; at the same time, we must remember that all these are only different phases of the same great question. All socialists are alike in attempting to secure a more equit-able distribution of wealth, or in endeavoring to equalize op-portunities for acquiring it; but the salient points upon which they differ are the ways and means of accomplishing their ends. Some maintain that the State, by managing industry and controlling land, could best promote the commonweal; others very emphatically declare that there should be no cen-tral government at all. The more radical of the first class try to get control of the government; those of the latter class en-deavor to destroy it. Unfortunately in the present age the most influential forrfl of socialism is of the most radical and revolutionary character— THE MERCURY. 139 that which desires no government at all. Alexandria II. of Russia and our late President McKinley fell victims to this outrageous doctrine. Nihilism and anarchism are its more specific names. Yet we cannot afford to consider as danger-ous all socialistic measures of today. Upon exactly this prob-lem a great amount of useless discussion has taken place. Politicians of late years have made very effective use of the ambiguity in the word socialism. Whenever an opponent could accuse a candidate for public office, of promoting socialistic measures, no matter how benevolent or beneficial they might have been to the people, the mention of that word together with the prevalent misconception of it in its better sense, was generally the most derogatory charge brought against him in the eyes of the ignorant working classes—the very persons whom worthy socialistic principles would benefit. Although every writer has made his own classification of so-cialists, they all directly or indirectly acknowledge the four following classes: (1) large-hearted and thoroughly benevo-lent men whose feelings have been touched by the unjust op-pression of laborers ; (2) those who are revolting against cruel oppression; (3) those who are discontented with their positions in life, principally because they fail to realize their limitations; (4) the lowest class whose adherents are characterized by a covetous, selfish, and utterly lawless spirit. The first of these classes consists principally of nothing more than ardent sympathizers with the socialistic movement in its better meaning. According to good authority more than a half million of such men are found in the United States. Many ministers of the gospel and other benevolent men as well as the members of philanthropic and humanitarian orgini-zations belong to this class. They sympathize deeply with the oppressed laborer and endeavor to alleviate his misery by every peaceable means. Others of this class" become so impressed with the necessity of social and industrial improvements that they have devoted their lives entirely to the cause. These are quite liable to be-come extremists, and notwithstanding the fact that their inten- 140 THE MERCURY. tions are of the most noble character, more harm than benefit results from their efforts, chiefly because the lower moral and mental capacities of those whom they influence are not vigor-ous enough to prevent the latter from becoming radical, desper-rate, and fanatical. Hall Cane has pictured such a man in his "Eternal City" in the person of Dr. Roselli or of David Rossi, especially in the latter; but the futility and evil consequences of their efforts are also portrayed in a striking manner. It is only natural that there should be such men especially in a Christian nation. When one considers the extremely low wages for which laborers had to work at certain periods of our history, the condition of some of their homes even in our day, the company store and the extortion ot overwork from them by overseers, it is not very strange that large hearted men should bestow their symapthy. No doubt, these conditions have been vastly exaggerated by some writers, but that they exist to a reasonable extent cannot be doubted. The oppressed or those who imagine themselves to be in such a condition, constitute the second class of socialists. Only men who work come properly under this divisicjp; those who become discontented and quit work will be considered later. Labor Unions consist almost entirely of such men; if they suspend labor, it is only temporarily, and is for the purpose of bringing about better conditions. Occasionally the labor union-ists content themselves by merely putting a stop to production, but more frequently, almost invariably, they manifest quite "an omnivorous spirit of destruction." The whole cause of the unreasonable demands made by Labor Unions seems to arise out of ignorance. They claim that the whole production of their labor belongs to them, on the ground that wealth belongs to those who make it. In a certain sense this is true, but not according to the interpreta-tion of it given by these laboring men. They understand it to mean that the entrepreneur, landlord and capitalist have no natural right to a portion of the wealth produced, forgetting that in the modern differentiated and specialized form of in-dustry these—especially, the entrepreneur and capitalist—are THE MERCURY. 141 absolutely indispensable. The socialistic idea of the State's ownership of land could probably do away with the landlord, but to attempt the abolition of entrepreneur and capitalist in our present industrial system is absurd. Another very prevalent kind of socialism arises out of the fact that a great many men, failing to realize their limitations, complain of the more advantageous opportunities of other in-dividuals. They claim that the world owes them a living, but as some one has said, "are too lazy to collect the debt." It is this sort of socialism which is the "besetting sin" of our age. Ambitious people now-a days are so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of "sticktoitiveness" that only a few failures leave them practically undaunted. Having been taught, as Dr. Furbae says, such precepts as "There is always room at the top," encouraged by such maxims as "Try, try again," and cautioned to aim high instead of directly at the mark, they continue to strive for positions to which it is impossible for them to attain and for which, if they did reach, they would find themselves wholly unfitted. Many a proud father and fond mother, either because they have wished to encourage a son, or because of the blindness of paternal love, are respon-sible for a young man's superabundance of self-esteem by their having told him that he is not like the average person, and then he goes forth into the world only to consider his efforts unsuccessful because he cannot do as much as some one else who probably has much greater talent. It is this tendency of the individual's failure to realize his true place in life and his proper relation to others that has produced in our age so many dissatisfied, petulant, and cynical socialists. The last and most dangerous sort of socialism is that which manifests itself in murder, vandalism, and other lawless practices. It is exactly synonymous with anarchism. The number of such persons in the United States is as astounding as the awful doctrines which they promulgate. Some years ago President Seelye of Amherst College, declared: "There are probably 100,000 men in the United States to-day whose animosity against all existing social institutions is hardly less than bound- 142 THE MERCURY. less.' In 1881 their press consisted of 19 journals with a cir-culation of about 80,000, and since that time their numbers and the powers of their press have vastly increased. The fol-lowing are statements from some of their papers. "Religion, authority, and state are all carved out of the same piece of wood—to the Devil with them all!" "Dynamite is the power which in our hands, shall make an end of tyranny." "War to the palace, peace to the cottage, death to luxurious idleness." "You might as well suppose the military orginizations of Eu-rope were for play and parade, as to suppose labor orginizations were for mere insurance and pacific helpfulness. They are organ-ized toprotect interests, for which, if the time comes, they would fight." This last, taken from a socialistic paper of Chicago, pro-bably shows, to a great extent, the true relation between Labor Unions and socialistic tendencies of the most awful character. Such socialists probably began their careers as oppressed working men, or as men who failed to realize their true posi-tions in life, and later under the influence of violent socialistic journals or the lectures of an Emma Golden, became fanatical. A great number of them are foreigners who, having become disgusted with the absolutism of Europe, have come to Amer-ica to carry out their nefarious designs. Several great movements of the past two centuries have conspired to inspire socialistic propensities in men. The foun-dation of the American Republic, with the annunciation of her principles—-such as, "all men are equal and possessed of cer-tain inalienable rights such as, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"—paved the way for ideas which, carried to extremes by the ignorant and mischievous, resulted in socialism. In the same way, the French Revolution radiated its evil influences; and the Proclamation of Emancipation by Abraham Lincoln had its baneful as well as its worthy effects. But more influential than any of these has been the greatly increased profits of the rich. How would a poor down-trodden laborer look upon the following statement which occurred in a paper of 1880 ? "The profits of the Wall Street Kings the past year were enormous. It is estimated that Vanderbilt made THE MERCURY. 143 $30,000,000; Jay Gould $15,000,000; Russel Sage $10,000,- 000; Sidney Dillon $10,000,000; and James R. Keene $8,- 000,000. Is it strange if the working man thinks he is not getting his due share of the wonderful increase of national wealth ?" How do men to-day regard a rise in the price of coal-oil and the next week read in all the papers that the larg-est stockholder of the Standard Oil Company has made a be-nevolent gift of several million dollars ? The assassination of rulers and millionaires, the wanton des-truction of property by strikers, and the inconvenience accru-ing from a stoppage of production are not the only bad results of socialism. It tends to ruin the Church as well as the State. Infidelity and skeptacism follow closely in its tracks. In a so-cialistic convention at Pittsburg not many years ago the follow-ing nefarious resolution was unanimously adopted: "The church finally seeks to make complete idiots of the mass, and to make them forego a paradise on earth by promising them a fictitious heaven." "Truth, a socialistic journal of San Fran-cisco says : "When the laboring men understand that the heaven they are promised is but a mirage, they will knock at the door of the wealthy robber, with a musket in hand, and de-mand their share of the goods of this life now ! " What could have a more disasterous effect upon discontented humanity than to read such doctrine ? The socialist of this order denies the existence of God on the ground that if there would be one, wealth, happiness and opportunities would be more equally shared ; they forget to see that the rich are as often unhappy as the poor, and that God sends "his rain upon the just and unjust." Although an attempt to solve a problem of such magnitude may appear absurb, there is, at least one, feasible solution— a more general acceptance and use of the principles ot Chris-tianity. "Socialism attempts to solve the problem of suffering without eliminating the factor of sin." That all suffering caused by our industrial system is the result of sin, either on the part of employer or emplyee, or of both, there can be no doubt. If the spirit of the Golden Rule were put into practice, it "would 144 THE MERCURY. dictate such arrangements between capitalist and laborer as will secure to the latter a fair return for his toil." As Dr. Fisher says, "It will check the accumulation of wealth in a few individ-uals. And the Christian spirit, as in ancient days, will inspire patience and contentment, and a better than earthly hope, in the minds of the class whose lot in life is hard." THE SABBATH AS A CIVILIZER. Miss HELEN WAGNER, '06. WHEN God said, " The seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God, in it thou shalt not do any work, thou nor thy man servant—," He surely had more ends in view than the mere refreshing of man and His own glorification. Besides achieving these results the Sabbath has other far-reaching in-fluences. Chief among these influences we see its power as a civilizer, as an educator and a refiner. It has long been an ac-knowledged fact that Christianity pnd education go hand in hand. In the accomplishment of one we necessarily attain the other. The influence of the Sabbath is like the atmosphere—it sur-rounds every one it touches, whether with that one's approval or not. The most violent atheist would be no more likely to scorn the influence of the day set apart chiefly for the worship of the God he ignores than would our staid old deacons. It has been proven that no civilized country can exist without the aid of the soothing influence of the Sabbath on the passions ot men, in the observance of its laws. Because the influence of the Sabbath is so all-prevailing and must be felt everywhere, no man can or does escape it. Christians, of course, are those most directly affected by the Sabbath. They come into immediate contact with some of its most potent influences. A true Christian never misses the Sabbath—he spends . it in the worship of God and for rest as was commanded. And so he reaps not only the physical bene-fit but the intellectual as well. One of his chief duties and THE MERCURY. MS '* pleasures is a regular attendance upon divine worship. Thus while being spiritually fed and elevated he assimilates some of the best literature and art of the world as it radiates from the pulpit and the organ loft and the temple of God itself. But the people who do not come into direct contact with the Sabbath influence, feel it just as surely. They must breathe it with the very air. One cannot go anywhere on the Sabbath Day without being made very conscious that this day differs from all others. In the cities and towns the stillness imparted to the streets, noisy and hustling on other days, by the aspect of the closed stores and shops and the absence of the clattering dray and shouting venders, and the quietly passing inhabitants with their peaceful, serene countenances and their fresher, more artistic raiment, and the sweet music of the church bells—all have a subduing, refining influence on the sensibilities and pas-sions of men, not easily thrown off. And out in the open country away from church bells and changed surroundings one feels an unwonted peace and calm—one breathes with the very air which draws one a little nearer Mother Earth—and thus is made to appreciate her beauties and truth a little more fully. Besides these maternal, physical influences there is another, more subtle, ever advancing influence—the influence of man upon man. Usually the Christian does not need the Sabbath environment for purposes of self-education and refinement, but those with whom he associates or with whom his friends come in contact may and are more helped, as they imperceptibly absorb from him a finer sense of right and wrong and a better general knowledge, than they would be by any numbers of over-zealous instructors and noisy evangelists. I46 THE MERCURY. THE COURSE OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERN-MENT IN CONNECTION WITH THE PANAMA REVOLUTION. ( Written for the Pen and Sword Prise Essay Contest.) CHAS. "VV. HEATHCOTE, '05. PANAMA has an area of about 31,500 square miles and a population of almost 300,000. When Panama revolted a short time ago, it was not the first time she attempted to throw off the yoke of Columbia. In 1885 a similar revolution took place. Columbia promised various reforms which checked the revolution. However, Columbia failed to carry out these reforms. Columbia established a centralized form of govern-ment which caused Panama to lose the privilege of a state. For years the idea of building a canal across the isthmus has been in vogue. The French Company, which attempted it a few years ago, failed miserably. It remains for the United States to carry out the plan. The Panama and Nicaragua routes were suggested. The need of the canal is very evident. If the canal had been built when the Oregon made her long run around Cape Horn the United States government would have been saved much expense. Then, the American interests in Porto Rico, Cuba and the Pacific possessions strongly urge the construc-tion of this canal. For a time the Nicaragua route was favored. A bill was drawn up and unanimously ratified by both Houses of our Na-tional Legislature. The main idea of this bill was that when the canal was completed it was to remain neutral under the protection of the great European powers. However, delay over this part led the people to favor the Panama route. Fi-nally, upon the recommendation of the Walker Commission, the Panama route was chosen providing it could be bought from the old French Company for $40,000,000. However, to keep our word with Nicaragua, the Spooner compromise was passed which instructed the President to select the Panama route pro-viding the necessary arrangements could be made. If, not the Nicaragua route was to be chosen. About this time Columbia became very much interested in THE MERCURY. 147 the canal affairs. They gave the United States every assurance that a treaty favoring the Panama route would be ratified by their Senate. However, after much delay, it was unanimously rejected. Columbia was to receive $10,000,000 for certain con-cessions. Columbia thought the United States was an easy mark and refused to ratify the treaty unless $20,000,000 was given to them. In all these proceedings the Columbian politi-cians refused to consult the wishes of Panama. Panama knew the value of the canal. That the Columbian politicians were working for their own interests was very evident. Conse-quently Panama's hatred for Columbia grew more intense. When the revolution broke out the world was not surprised. The revolution was virtually bloodless. The republic was soon recognized by the United States, France, Germany, Russia and many other powers. In a short time a treaty was drawn up and signed. By this treaty the United States gained complete ownership of the canal and received much more territory than she would have received had Columbia-not acted in such an ugly manner. The course of the United States government has met with general approval by all well-thinking people. All the foreign powers sanctioned the action. Many people tried to condemn the course of the government because the warships were or-dered to prevent any of Columbia's troops being landed to bring Panama to time. How often in the South American rev-olutions the lives of our citizens and likewise their property have been endangered. Many times before this the United States marines and sailors were landed to protect the property of our citizens. American interests are better developed in Panama than in any other South American state. American capital runs the whole railroad system on the isthmus. What good is a government to its people if it fails to protect them ? Then again Panama had been recognized by the United States and for that reason alone her action was justifiable. Some people in criticizing the government forget the action of Presi-dent Polk in the way he started the Mexican War. His action cost the United States' thousands of lives and dollars in order to maintain the national honor. Today all people recognize 148 THE MERCURY. that the addition of Texas to United States territory is a blessing. The idea that the government's course is a stain up-on the history of our country is erroneous. The government has upheld our traditions by being the champion of the weak and helping young republics maintain their standing. "A HUNTER OF MEN." "BRIDGET." WITHIN the forest depths I wandered far, O'er the great battlefield, where bloody war Had made upon our land a loathsome sore, Healed now, but still retaining its deep scar. At last, upon a wooded hill was found, what I had sought, A monument, commemorating strife With victory and loss of life, The boon God-given, A monument for heroes, dearly bought, A witness unto Heaven. Upon a natural rock, like those which on the hillside lay, Was carved the figure of a man; Not as the Knights of old, with upright pose, And fearless eyes, he faced his foes, at bay, But crouched and hid him, midst the trunks of trees, And with a deadly purpose, did the hillside scan. 'Twas here I rested me, A dream I dreamed, Which, to my wand'ring fancy, even seemed A waking dream, a reverie. Within the homestead of an old Virginian farm, A mother sat one sunny summer morn, Holding, within the shelter of her arm, A little babe, her son, her own first born. Oh! what a wondrous grace was in those words,, "her own," What sword could pierce the soul of such a one ? A soul, so full of hopes, before unknown, The deed too cruel, to be planned or done. THE MERCURY. 149 A glorious future lay before her boy, All fashioned with her mother love and care, A future, full of happiness and joy, Devoid of sin, the bait of Death's dread snare. "Her own," but ever since the earth wastrod By her, above all women blest of God, In honor of her wondrous motherhood, The soul of womankind has felt the sword. He grew into a handsome, stalwart youth, Beloved by many, and disliked by few, Then came the blow; her soul was pierced in truth, And he went forth to die, as sons of all brave mothers do. To die, but could he kill his fellow-man? This was the question that had haunted him, Upon the day of march, and in the nightly din Of dreadful dreams, bloody with warfare's ban. A marksman of sure eye, and hand unfaltering, Far-famed was he, And many a woodland voice had cased to sing Through death, from him, its untaught melody. So, when night's dreams were changed to day's reality, Not placed in ranks that fought an open war was he, But called of men, a sharpshooter, lay low, Upon the hillside's brow, to slay the unwary foe. #**#*#***♦* The sun comes flickering through the whispering leaves, Casting their shadows on green moss and fern, A birdling, from a nest above, moves restlessly, and grieves, In dismal chirpings, for its mother's late return. The noonday calm is over hill and glen, Save for the distant sound of battle's roar, There, where a multitude of bravest men, Fight onward for their country's noble fame, for honor more. Then with a rustling sound, the calm is broken, The underbrush is parted by a man in blue, A moment's pause; no warning word is spoken, To tell him "Death is waiting now for you." And he, whom destiny ordained to give to Death her prey, One instant hesitated, in his covert lay Sickened by fear, of his dread deed alone, Then aiming fired and it was done. ISO THE MERCURY. Quickly his weapon casting on the ground, He bounded fearless, down the wooded slope, His boyish eyes, all bright with unshed tears, For in his soul remorse fought hard with hope. And Hope, how soon 'twas vanquished in the fray, A boy, scarce older than himself, his victim lay, Dying in agony upon the sod ; No word he spoke, but with great eyes of pain, Looked up into his face, who had his brother slain, And then, just as the birdling fell to earth, His spirit met his God. 'Twas then a red mist rose before his eyes, a mist of blood ; Concealing the poor body of the slain, from which the soul had fled, He climbed once more the hillside's weary road, Determined to repeat his deed of dread. At sunset, when the wounded mother-bird Returned, to find her nestlings gone, No sound, upon that dark hillside she heard, To tell her of the deeds that there were done. Yet, 'midst the underbrush, there silent lay What had been seven brave men, And he, who watched the little bird's dismay, Red-eyed and haggard, envied each of them. But God is good, his day of darkness o'er, A wandering bullet claimed him for its own, And his sad soul, its struggles knew no more, No more did yearn for murder to atone. As from my dream I woke, my heart was torn With pity, for the " Man of Sorrows " who, Upon another hill, in distant clime, Gave up his life " hunter" for such as you. " Oh, God Omnipotent! " aloud I cried, " For His dear sake forgive the crimes, Committed in the name of Liberty, and dyed With heroes' blood, the curse of warlike times." THE MERCURY. 151 "THE PATH OF DUTY IS THE WAY TO GLORY." NO one will deny me the fact that our present age with all its hurry and hustle, its energy and propelling-force, its competition and its competitors, is an age for the success of in-dividual purpose. Having granted this concession, it follows that individuals must exist with specific purposes, carrying out and fulfilling the obligations which are imposed on them. Be-lieving that no man has ever been created without a purpose, which results in a duty or obligation to his Creator, and when he fulfills this obligation or carries out this duty he has a for-tune worth more in realistic and spiritual value than all the Rockefellers, Carnegies, Vanderbilts or any other gods of gold that ever lived—believing this, I ask you to come with me to the rich meadow-lands of Connecticut, where on Oct. 5, 1703, a man was born who graduated from Yale University at the early age of 16 and set out into the world following the paths of duty and therein was his fortune, a legacy far richer than any earthly inheritance the world could have given him. It was during his boyhood days that a problem of extreme importance began to trouble him, and the solution of this was the determining of his course in after life. From that time he became a man that had an end in view, a something to say and he said it. A bold, fearless, ardent and consistent advocate of his belief; a man with a conscience so clear, so pure, and so unbiased that all the world loved him though he sought not for their favor; a man with iron-clad precepts, not for others, but for himself and he lived them; a man that has come down through two centuries, spotless, to live in the hearts of all man-kind, and who dares to say that his glory shall not live till the sun shall cease to rise and set and until time shall be no more ! This man of purpose or duty has been the father of a very illustrious progeny. Among his descendants more eminent men have been numbered than have been recorded of any other man in American history. They have been most promi-nent in the ministry, in education, in law and a number have sat on the bench. Let me mention some of them: Dr. Jo-nathan Edwards, Aaron Burr, Vice-President, Prof. Park, of Andover, President Woolsey and President Uwight, of Yale, 152 THE MERCURY. not forgetting the elder President Dwight. Three Presidents of Yale are his descendants. Could any man be more signally blessed or have a richer inheritance in the hearts of his child-ren ? He was also a born naturalist, and there is hardly any doubt that had he not become our greatest theologian he would have been our father of Natural Philosophy. As a boy he dis-covered facts which have been handed down to the naturalist of today as most valuable information. Who can set the limit for his discoveries had he devoted himself to this branch of science with his purpose and ambition ? Jonathan Edwards as a man, as a theological and philosophi-cal writer, as a naturalist and as the broadest and grandest man the American pulpit has ever produced, stands out in lines so bold, in verse so tender, and in character so spotless as to thrill with admiration and awe every American youth of today. Who would not love to be what he has been ? Who would not exchange all the wealth he possesses—I care not whether it be millions—for the place Jonathan Edwards holds in the hearts of the people and in the history of his country ? His life is a story that should make any young man enthusiastic and his success has been such as would turn the heads of thousands had it been theirs, but not his for he had a purpose, a convic-tion, a duty to the world and his fellow-man and until that should be accomplished his labor was with him incessantly. Truly he knew the paths of duty and just so surely his glory followed. In two centuries from today how many men's 'names of the present generation, lives and characters do you suppose will have been handed down to posterity ? Where are our Long-fellows, our Emersons, Whittiers, Bryants, Lincolns and Far-raguts of today ? Are we producing any such ? Indications from the past decade and more do not show them and it is believed that unless a change in the ambitions of the young of today is brought about, America will have none to record in her history. The lust for gold is the keynote to this dearth of noble manhood. Men are willing to sacrifice anything—prin-ciple, creed, honor, friends, self, anything—no matter what to obtain the riches of a Carnegie or Morgan. THE MERCURY. 153 Says B. O. Fowler, "if this, our republican form of govern-ment is to stand we must have men" and he means more men like Jonathan Edwards. The U. S. Senate has grown to be a rich man's club, the offices of the government are filled and controlled by political graft with men who are unable to cope with the issues demanded of them. Oh for a few fearless preachers of duty and loveliness, for a few men like Jonathan Edwards; men with purposes, men with a sense of duty and honor, men with the love of a superior being in their hearts ! Our nation must have these men and she is going to get them. Whether they come from Connecticut or from Florida, from California or from Pennsylvania it matters not; they must come. Would you have this, your free form of government turned into a monarchy? Indications point us to the fact that it is gradually being done and there is only one sure method of making the wrong right. This threatening evil can only be averted by finding men who are willing, if need be, to die for a correct principle. Nothing counts so much as principle and nothing tells in a man like purpose. If you would have a for-tune, have a principle, and if you would have the love and esteem of your fellow men live a principle. In all the history of the world there never was a grander period in which to live than the present. Never was there so much to do, so many chances, so bright an outlook, but it is only for the man with a sense of duty. The nation wants men, but she wants them stern, tender and fearless, full of duty and loneliness as was this missionary to the savages, this first of American naturalists, this explorer of philosophy and theology. If for no other vir-tue we should love and revere the memory of Jonathan Edwards today because of his devotion to stern duty and to no other cause can we attribute his success and glory. If asked to write his epitaph I would have inscribed on his monument the sub-stance of his acts done on earth : "The part of duty is the way to glory." "C. E. B. '05." 154 THE MERCURY. POEM. ( Written by a quondam High School pupil.) We come before you this evening, To tell of our High School days, And while our stories we relate, Don't criticize our ways. We started the fourth of September The ladder of knowledge to climb, While the months were rapidly passing, Marking the flight of time. While our work was thus progressing. The holidays drew near, And through all the glad and happy days Were pleasures, unbedimmed by tears. We studied hard to reach the goal, We scholars of Number Ten, And now to the fullest we realize " Laborum Dulce Lenimen." The friendships, sympathies and all That were our life in school, Are meshed with memories of the hall, Which was our working tool. 'Tis sad to part with friends so dear, With whom so long we've been. Try as we will, the briny tears Will come, and sight bedim. School life, so dear, is over now, On life's broad wave we speed, May God 'ere guide our journey through, And we His warnings heed. To one and all we bid farewell, As now are separated The many friends who proved us well, And joys anticipated. Farewell to many undone tasks, To victories not yet won ; May all unfinished work In heaven, if not on earth, be done. * f THE MERCURY Entered at the Postoffice at Gettysburg as second-class matter VOL. XIII GETTYSBURG, PA., JUNE, 1904 No. 4 Editor-in-ch ief C. EDWIN BUTTER, '05 Exchange Editor CHARI,ES GAUGER, '05 Business Manager A. L. DILLENBECK, '05 Asst. Business Managei E. G. HESS, '06 Associate Editors H. C. BRILLHART, '06 ALBERT BILLHEIMER, '06 H. BRUA CAMPBELL, '06 Advisory Board PROF. J. A. HIMES, LITT.D. PROF. G. D. STAHLEY, M.D. PROF. J. W. RICHARD, D.D. Published each month, from October to June inclusive, by the joint literary societies of Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College. Subscription price, one dollar a year in advance; single copies 15 cents. Notice to discontinue sending the MERCURY to any address must be accompanied by all arrearages. Students, Professors and Alumni are cordially invited to contribute. All subscriptions and business matter should be addressed to the Busi-ness Manager. Articles for publication should be addressed to the Editor. Address THE MERCURY, GETTYSBURG, PA. EDITORIALS. LOYALTY TO Probably no force, power or influence among ALMA MATER, the graduates of a college is felt so much as Loyalty. We all believe that a college can be only what her Alumni wills her to be. If she is to spread her influence through-out many states; if she is to wax strong and command a place among the leading universities and colleges of the world; if she is to grow and prosper as she should, and as so many col-leges are doing, she must have your support, Alumni. Loyalty to Alma Mater must be your watch-word day and , night. Be eager, ready and enthusiastic at all times and you will be surprised beyond measure how much you can do for her. The very fact that you are a graduate is proof of your obligation and should be a sufficient incentive to rouse your earnest endeavors on her behalf. I56 THE MERCURY. Every college, no matter where or how situated, has its own reasons for producing loyal Alumni. It is, indeed, a sad day for the old mother when liar son turns his back on her, and it is a sorry day for Gettysburg when an Alumnus forgets her love and devotion. Perhaps a true indication of the success a man will make in the world is the spirit and vehemence with which he accomplishes his college work. If the undergraduate does his very best and is loyal to the core, the college cannot be without loyal Alumni. He who sings most lustily his Alma Mater'a songs, who has again and again made his throat raw with a "heike" for the orange and blue, who fervently loves every spot of this historic ground, he is the fellow who usually counts for something. Tis to the devotion and love and in-terest of such men that Gettysburg pays tribute. Loyalty to Alma Mater means the preaching of her charms to every boy who expects to go to college, and to many more who have never had a thought of a college course. Loyalty to Alma Mater means doing one's best and a keen and lively interest in all her affairs. Loyalty to Alma Mater means your unbounded support, Alumni, to your college publications. Gettysburg wants love and devotion and loyalty from every Alumnus. How much will you do for her in the next year ? Shall we, undergraduates, believe your efforts to be commen-surate with your love ? It is the only criterion we have with which to take your measure. Are you one of the many who are always so busy that when an appeal comes you must beg to be excused ? If you are made of such stuff, Gettysburg has no use for you, and the noise you will make in the world will never cause a disturbance. Our dear old college has many loyal alumni who have fought, bled and died in her interests, and to them, we, her sons, give all the honor and reverence for what she is today and for what she gives promise of in the not far distant future. Sooner or later in the life of many a young person the ques-tion comes, "To what college shall I go after I have prepared myself in the academy or high school?" It is thrusting itself upon a great many young people in this month of June, as the THE MERCURY 157 colleges and universities are sending out their scores and hun-dreds of graduates and the preparatory schools are finishing up the share of- the work that properly belongs to them. It is a serious question, one that will mean much in the life of the in-dividual, one that should not be decided without grave con-sideration. Shall he go to the college having the most successful ath-letic teams ? or to the one having the greatest reputation ? or to the one which makes the greatest promises ? These are some of the questions usually taken into consideration by pro-spective college students. But how many stop to ask them-selves and to consider the vastly more important question, "Which college lays the greatest emphasis upon the training of its students in the duties of good citizenship and the devel-opment of Christian character?" This, after all, is the important consideration. Not how great a reputation do the athletic teams have, not how much does it seem to promise, but how much importance does it attach to the development and training of that which really makes character ? H. C. B. -^> EXCHANGES. " Criticism is essential to good work. True criticism is both appreciative and corrective, but it is not so essential that a writer receive perfect criticism after all. Public judgment, fav-orable, adverse or perverse, is instructive and leads us to correct our errors, improve our style, sharpen our wits and pay more attention to the perfecting of our work, line by line. Have you a thought, the plot of a story, the idea of a poem ? Write it in your best and freshest moments and lay it by until the frost of cool evenings has chilled it, and it has become a thing apart from yourself. Then criticize it, remodel it, with your best impartial judgment. Never doubt that the English lan-guage has the right word ; and the right words rightly and ar-tistically constructed, make famous literature of the thought of men."—The Bowdoin Quill. I58 THE MERCURY. V The Otterbein Argus contains a rather interesting story en-titled " Character Painting." It pictures quite vividly the con-dition of many a poor child in the mining districts of our coun-try and portraying the effect produced by refinement and wealth upon so uncultured a mind as that of the heroine. While this story is good in the main, it is the only article of a literary nature in the journal. We cannot feel that such a meagre amount of literary matter does justice to a school which styles itself an university. The editorial pointing out why students should remain for commencement, whenever it is at all possible, is timely and well worth putting into practice. Commence-ment exercises are the crowning events of the year, and cer-tainly, whenever possible, the student should avail himself of this privilege to enjoy the happy closing of the school-year and also to bid farewell to the graduating class for whom it means so much. Remember that you yourself expect to be in a similar position some day, then perhaps you can better appreci-ate its significance. The best part of the World's Fair number of The Wabash is its "exchange pickings." The exchange editor is to be com-mended^ for his judgment and selection of clippings. We quote a few of them. " Are you Hungary ? Yes; Siam. Well, come along ; I'll Fiji." Again : " It is said some girls are pressed for time ;—others for the fun of it." " If college bred is a four-year loaf (The Smart Set says its so.) Oh tell me where the flour is found For us who need the dough !" —The Acorn. TEACHER—Johnny, repeat after me " Moses was an austere man and made atonement for the sins of his people." JOHNNY—" Moses was an oyster man and made ointment for the shins of his people." MM » "THE MERCURY. 159 "Usefulness is the rent we are asked .-to pay for room on earth. Some of us are heavily in debt." The May number of the Manitou Messenger \s a credit to the new staff. The oration "The Public Service of Church and School" is a well written and logical development of the power exerted upon the state by church and school. " Chaucer's Hu-mor" is a terse estimate of one side of his nature, as seen in "The Canterbury Tales." We are glad to welcome the Bucknell Mirror to its long va-cant place on our table. The only literary article, "The Col-umn to the Right of the Doorway," is an interesting and amusing reminiscence of a college prank fifty years ago. An increase in amount of literary matter would greatly improve the paper. The Buff and Blue contains a number of short articles. Among them "The Assassination," while an interesting recital of an imaginary college joke, it might be much improved by a smoother style, less abrupt and " choppy " sentences. The article on "Fiction" gives a brief history of its beginning, de-velopment, present use and abuse. " Ninety-Seven," an episode of an undergraduate who was determined to win his race in an indoor meet, is well written and worth reading. The Red and Blue is always among the best journals of fic-tion on our table. The June number is no exception. Roses bloom and roses fade, Flowers bloom and die. Life is made of sun and shade, ' Laughter and a sigh. Heigh-o ! sun and shade, Laughter and a sigh. Love is like the roses red, Fading in a day ; Soon 'tis dead, its sweetness fled On the wind away. Heigh-o ! soon 'tis dead— Pluck it while you may.— The Haverfordian. ■ The Susquelianna contains a well written article on Jonathan Swift, setting forth his true character. It calls attention to the fact that the vulgarities in his writings, on account of which he ■ i6o THE MERCURY. is not read, are no index to his real character. The spirit of the age demanded writings of such a nature, hence his contri-bution. "The Midnight of the Revolution" gives us a good resume of the condition of affairs in our own country during its struggle for birth. The writer has well digested the his-torical facts relating to this period and gives them to us in terse and unbiased form. In The Western Maryland College Monthly, "Old Man Knowl-ton's Greenbacks " is quite an interesting narrative of how an old miser was robbed of his greenbacks by rats. We think the story might have been told in a more interesting way. The break in the story, caused by shifting the scene to events in the court room, detracts from the narrative; while, on the other hand, were the style in which the story is begun continued, the produc-tion would be much better. The other articles are good. On the whole, the paper is worthy of commendation. The Pharetra contains a sort of parody on " The Raven " (under the title of " Easter Vacation "), which begins well, but soon loses rythm and at times whole lines are entirely devoid of any claim to poetry. However, considering the production as a whole and its probable intent, it is fairly good. SPRING TIME. The cro- cusses As the bull rushes O'er the grass-blades 'Neath the " bloomin' shades ' Of trees which are short For the cro-cusses frolicking sport. —Ex. PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS. Weaver Organs Weaver Pianos Used by Gettysburg College Y. M. C. A. 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Issue 15.2 of the Review for Religious, 1956. ; MARCH ]5', 1956 VOLUME XV NUMBER 2 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS VOLUME XV FEBRUARY, 1956 NUMBER 2 CONTENTS MOTHER CORNELIA CONNELLY--Mother Mary Eleanor, S.H.C.J.57 THE MYSTICISM OF OBEDIENCE-~--Bernard Leeming, S.J .6.9. SUMMER SESSIONS . 90 SISTERS' RETREATS--II--Thomas Dubay, S.M .9.1. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 9. Entrance Fee for Postulants and Novices . 97 10. Residen~ Chaplain as Confessor . 98 11. Legal Protection Against Remuneration for Services . . . 99 12, Correspondence with the Vicar Also Exempt .100 13. Washing of Purificators, Palls, and Corporals ., . .: . . . :. 101 14. New Rubrics for Little Office of the B.V.M .1.0.1 15. Sending Letters to Superior General .102 16. The Meaning of a Plus Book . 102 BOOK REVIEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS-- Editor: Bernard A. Hausmann, S.J. West Baden College West Baden Springs, Indiana . 103 CATHOLIC ALMANAC, 1956 . 112 OUR CONTRIBUTORS . 112 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, March, 1956. Vol. XV, No. 2. Published bi-monthly: January, March, May, July, September, and November, at the College Press, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St. Mary's College St. Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter, 2anuary 15, 1942, at the Post Office, Topeka, Kansas, under the act of March 3, 1879. Editorial Board: Augustine G. Ell~d, S.3., Gerald Kelly, S.3., Henry Willmerlng, S.3. Literary Editor: Edwin F. Falteisek, S.J. Copyright,'1956, by Reoieto for Religious. Permission is hereby granted for quo-tations of reasonable length, provided due credit be given this review and the ahthor Subscription price: 3 dollars a year; 50 cents a .copy. Printed in U. S. A~ Before writing to us, please consult notice on inside back cover. The Myst:ici m of Obedience Bernard keeming, S.J. ALL great things are simple. God is great and God is simple. If we are united with God's will, we are uiaited with God,. because God's will is" God. And if we are united with God, we are united with F~ither, Son, and Holy Ghost; for the Trinity is simple also. Obedience is a great thing and obedience is simple. "If you love me, ke~p my commandments" (John 14: 15). If you wish to be perfect, just~ do as y~u are told. "He that keepeth my commandments, is he th~at loveth me, and he that loveth me, ~hall be loved of my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him" (John 14:2.1). In obedience we truly receive a revelation of Christ. St. Teresa gives several rexamples Qf what she thought sim-plicity or ":innocenc'e" in obediende. At Avila, she, says, "One thing I remember, which is this: once'in the refectory we had cucumbers given us'for our portions, and to me a very small one, "rotten within. Pretending not to l£e aware of. thi), I called a sister, one of the most able and sensible in the h'ouse, and, to try her'obedi-, ?nce, told her to go and plant it in a .little garden we had. She asked me Whether it was to be planted endways or sideways. I told her sideways, She went and planted it, without thinking that it could not possibly fail to die. The. fact that she was acting under obedi-ence made her natural reason blind, so that she believed that what she did was perfectly right" i( Foundations, ed. Lewis, p. 6). And, probably at Toledo or Mailagon, she narrates: "To a prioress came a nun, and showed her a very large worm, saying, 'Look how beautiful it is!' The prioress in jest replied 'Then go and eat it,' She went and fried it. The Cook asked her why she fried a worm, and she answered, 'To eat ;it,' and would have done so. Thus thro,ugh a great carelessness of that prioress that nun might have done herself much barni" (ibid., p. 161)." For my own part, fear I wonder if the two nuns in question were quite so simple as St, _Teresa imagined they were! However, not to delay on planting cucumbers or frying worms, there are four considerations we make about obedience which show that there is a great mystery in it, and a great reality' Of union with God. , 69 BERNARD LEEMING Review for Religious 1. Our Saviour's obedience to His Father reveals to us some-thing of the eternal relations of the Blessed Trinity. 2. Through obedience we attain union with Christ and with His Father in the Holy Ghost. 3. Our Saviour's obedience sums up the mystery of the Re-demption of mankind. 4. Through obedience likewise we "cooperate with Christ, in a true sense make one with Christ, in His redeeming and saving mlSslon. CHRIST'S OBEDIENCE AND THE BLESSED TRINITY Nothing is dearer in the Gospels than that Christ is one with the Father in understanding, willir~g, accomplishing, and in very being. Christ's teaching was at once His own, and yet in a sense, not His own but the Father's: "My doctrine is not mine, but His who sent me" (John 7:16), that is, the teaching is not Christ's alone, but'equally the Father's: it is not' Christ's as separated from God. "He who sent me is true, and the things I have heard of Him, these same I speak in the world . I do nothing of m;fself, but as the Father has taught me, these things I speak" (John 8:26, 28). Even the Father does not judge alone: "Neither doth the Father judge any man, but hath given all judgment to the Son" (John 5:22); and yet the Father does judge with the Son: "Arid if I do judge, my judgment is true: because I am not alone,but I and the .Father that sent me" (John 8:16). Hence it is that acceptance of Christ is acceptance of the Father: "He that believeth in me, doth not believe in me, but in him that sent me . I have not spoken of myself; but the Father who sent me, he gave me com-mandment what I should say and what I should speak" (John 12: 44, 49). Incidentally, the same is true of the Hol~ Ghost: He, too, "shall not speak of himself: but what things soever be shall hear, he Shall speak . . . he shall glorify me, because he shall receive of mine" (John 16:13). Only the Father has knowledge without origin; the Sod and the Holy Ghost bare the same identical knowledge, but from the Father. In the same way, Christ says that He did not come to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him. None can doubt that Christ's will was for the salvdtion of men: "I am~ the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep . . . therefore doth the Father love me, because I lay down my life 7O March, 1956 THE MYSTICISM OF OBEDIENCE that I may tak~ it again" (dohn 10:il, 17). And yet He says: "I came down from heaven not to do my own w, ill, but the will of Him that sent me" (3ohn 6:38 andcf, v. 30). The heart of Christ is not more compassionate nor more tender than the heart of His Father: "For God so loved the world, as to give His only begotten Son: that whosoever believeth in him,' may not perish, but may have life everlasting" (John 3:16). The will of the Father and the will of the Son for the salvation of the world is the same, "for God sent not his "Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world might be saved by, him" (John 3:17). This unity of will is touchingly manifest.on the death of Lazarus. Jesus had wept, "and the Jews said, "Behold bow be loved him." And when the stone was removed, lifting up his eyes, He said: "Father, I give thanks that thou hast heard me. And I know that thou hearest me always; but because of the people who stand about I have said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me." Then He cal.led the dead man out of the tomb. He knew His Father's will was to do what He wished. They willed the same, and Christ's human will was perfectly in accord with His Father's divine will. Christ's power is the same as His Father's. "The Son cannot do anything of Himself, but what he seeth the Father doing: for what things so ever he doth, these the Son Mso doth in like man-ner. For as the Father raiseth up the dead and giveth life: so also the Son giveth life to whom he will" (John 5:20). "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not" (John 10:37). The works, of course, referred pri'marily to the miracles: stilling the storm, feeding the five thousand, giving sight to the blind man, raising Lazarus from the dead;, but they include all that Christ did. "Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I speak to you, I speak not of myself. But the Father who abideth in ,me, he doth His own works" (John 14:10). But the unity of power is most clearly showia when Christ speaks of protecting His sheep: He knows His sheep and they follow Him and He will give them life everlasting. "No man shall pluck them out of my hand." Whence this absolute confi-dence that no created power can steal away His sheep? "No one can snatch them out of the hand of my Father. I and the Father are one" (John 10:29, 30). His power is the same as His Father's All that Christ'has is given. Him by the Father; and the Father holds nothing back from the Son, not even His own life. His dis- 7.1 BERNARD LEEMING Review /:or Religious ciples wh~ weke,faithful to Him were given Him by His Father: "Thine they were, and to me thou gavest them" (John 17:6). deed, all the Father has, is the Son's: "All my things are thine, and thine are mine" (John 17:1Q). "The Father loveth the Son, and he hath given all things into his hand;' (John 3:35). And . before the washing of the feet, perhaps surprisingly~ St. John tells us: "Knowing that the Father had given him all things into 'his hands, and that he cache from God and goeth to God: he "riseth Trom sup-per, and layeth aside his garments, and having .taken a ,towel, girded himself'" and put the water into a basin and began to wa~sh ¯ ,the feet of the disciples (John 13:3 ff.). His knowledge that all He had was of the Father is perhaps the very reason why He wished to inculcate humility; since the Father kept back nothing from Him, He in turn wished to give His service and to show that such humble service is a reflection of the very life of God. But the Father gives even His own life: "As the F'ather hath life in himself, so be bath given to the Son also to have life in himself" (John 5:26). "The living Father has sent me and I live by the Father" (John 6:58). "Philip, he that seeth me, seeth the Father also. How sayeth thou, Shew us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?" (John 14:9, 10.) Hence it is that Christ is the Utterance of God (John 1:1), the Image of God (II Cor. 4:4), the Radiance of God's splendour and the very expression of His being (Heb. 1;3), the Light of God (John 1:9), the Way to God: "No man cometh to the Father but by me" (John 14:6). Yet in spite of this perfect equality, the Son is sent by His Father, and receives commands from His Father. "Do you say of him whom the Father. hath sanctified and sent into the world: Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God?" (John 10:36.) "Thou hast sent me into the world" (John 17:18). After the conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, the apostles urged Him to eat: "But he said to them: I have meat to eat; which you know not. The disciples therefore 'said one to an-other: Hath any man brought him to eat? Jesus said to them: M_y meat is to do the will of him that sent me, that~I may perfect his work"' (John 4:32-35). His very life, His sustenance and strength consisted in d, oing His Father's will and work. The Father even commands Him; at the very end of the discourse about the Good Shepherd, our Lbrd said: "This commandment have I re- March, 1956 THE MYSTICISM OF OBEDIENCE ceived bf my father," (John 10:18), and the commandmbnt ap-pears to be that He should be the Good Shepherd, who lays down His life for His sheep. Just before going, to Gethsemani, He said: "But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father hath given me commandment, so do I: Arise let us go hence" (John 14:31). And Of his whole sojourn in the. world, at the end He said: "I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gav, est me.to do" (John 7:4). Now, of course, the giving of a command can only be because Christ is man; and. yet the commandment, like the sending, reflects the eternal relation between Father and Son. It is the Son who is sent, not the Father: not sent as a servant by a master, nor even as a king might be sent to war by advisers and counsellors; but sent somewhat as a flower is sent forth by a .plant. The temporafl sending, with its resultant presenc,e in a different way--f.6r Christ as God is present everywhere, but as man only in Palestine--re-flects the eternal relation of origin from the Father (St. Thomas, Summa, 1, Q. 43,-a.1). The Father could not be sent, because He is Father; and, although all that He has is the Son's, neverthe- .less that "all He has" and even the divine being is the Son's, al-ways with the relationship of originating from the Father. As of the sending, so too of 'the obedience. That too arises naturally from the eternal relationsh'ip between Father and Son; for as the 'Son originates from the Father in very being, so too do all His thinking and His willing. What our Lord wanted was what or-iginated in the Father, and He could not want anything whatever' which did not originate in the Father. Thus His obedience reflects his eternal relationship to ,the Father and is a manifestation to us of that. mysterious unity of being and nature which yet admits distinctive of persons. Through our Lord's unity with God by obedience in his incarnate life, we are led on to know his unitY with God in His divine life. , OUR OBEDIENCE AND OUR SHARE IN THE LIFE OF GOD Very often obedience is thought of as a matter of our owrl effort, something we must do, and do with striving and resolution. We must, indeed; nevertheless, obedience is a gift of God. As the Father gave all things to His Son," even t6 having absolutely the same will, so, too, if we are to have absolutely the same will as our Father and as Christ, we must receive it of the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Ghost. For to have the same will "as God 73 BERNARD LEEMING Reoiew for Religious means that we become sharers in God's nature, as Christ our Lord truly was God and showed it by doing the works of His Father, -while yet remaining a distinct person. There was unity of nature, ot: doing and accomplishing: they willed absolutely the same and tl~is willing the same reflected the unity of being which was theirs. So too our, coming to bare the same will as God can only arise from a unity of being. God's will" IS Himself: He does not change, to-day wanting one thing, tomorrow another; but from all eternity He is His will; and, 'though in time His will is accomplished in different acts, those acts only reflect the will that was unchanging from eternity and conform the changing to the Eternal. "The Father who abidetb in me, He dotb the works" can become true of us, likewise, but only because of the gift of God of Himself, the gift of His abiding in us. And that God should abide in us, surely that is His free gift to us, which no effort of our own could at-tain and no prayer of ours--apart from His desire told to us-- could aspire to ask. God is God and man is man, but His surpass-ing gift is that we should truly become sharers in the divine nature (II Peter 1:4) and hence sharers in His divine will, sent forth from Him as Son and Holy Ghost are sen,t forth, yet completely and utterly one with Him always. This is one of the greatest gifts that God gives us in our vo-cation as religious, to enable us~ to share in that complete self-giv-ing which is the life of the Blessed Trinity, to be enabled to give to Him our last self-possession, our own will and judgment, and by giving it to Him, to receive it back from Him glorious, and divinized,.part even of Himself. "And the glory which thou hast given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, as we also are one: I in them, and thou in me; that they may be made perfect in one" ~Jobn 17:23). "To leave the world and give up exterior pos-sessions," says St. Gregory, "is possibly easy to some; but for a man to give up himself, to immolate what is most precious to him by.surrendering his entire liberty is a much more arduous task; to forsake what one has is a small thing: to forsake what one is, that is the supreme gift" (Horn. 32, MPL 76 col. 1233). And it isthe supreme gift, because it most reflects the life of the Blessed Trinity. Our obedience is grounded upon faith. Military obedience-- aport from the subjective motive of individuals--is based upon practical necessity and utility: someone must decide, and there is not. time to explain the reasons for the decision to each soldieL Without obedience, there would be confusion and defeat. Never- 74 March, 1956 THE MYSTICISM OF OBEDIENCE theless, military obedience has its limits. Of certain soldiers who refused to obey it was said that "they were to~ intelligent to get themselves killed just to prove that some general was a fool." That is one reason why General M~ntgomery in his book on generalship declares that "it is part of the art of command to inspire and main-tain confidence in the soldiers, and why in his battles he explained a great deal of his plans to the soldiers. But religious obedience has a different basis. It is true that obedience does make for efficient work, for order, for unity. But this is not the reason ultimately why religious obey. We obey because we belieoe, believe that it is God who speaks to us in the person of our superior, and that, consequently, when we do the superior's will, we do God's will and hence are united to God. In this sense, obedience is not a means to an end; it is an end in itself; for by faith we believe that in uniting ourselves to the superior's will we unite ourselves to God's own will, and unity with God is not a means to anything else. This, naturally, supposes that we obey from love of God, git)ir~q ourselves to God in obedience; and thus the utility of doing what we are told to do does not enter in; whatever the effect of what we do, here and now by obeying I am united to God; and, in the absolutely ultimate result, the effect must be good, no matter what the immediate effects. Obedience is like faith. Often, though we know it is fully reasonable to believe, the obscurity of faith comes home to us: hoto can it be that Christ is present beneath the appearances of a wafer? How can a good God permit so many evils? Neverthless, this ob-scurity does not shake our faith, though it may afflict the imagina-tion and the power of reasoning. We know that He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and that His dwelling is in unapproach-able light; no human eye has ever seen Him or can ever see Him (I Tim. 6:16). We know that "my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways: for as the heavens are ex-alted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts" (Isaias 4:8, 9). Nothing could shake our faith, because it is God whom we believe. Now, similarly, our obedience like our faith involves obscurity. How could God be represented by one so ignorant, prejudiced, and unlikable? How could God ratify so stupid a policy, one based on complete ignor-ance of the conditions? How can God permit this situation to con-tinue, when His own interests are at stake? Such obscurities may indeed trouble our imaginations and even our powers of reasoning; 5 'BERNARD LEEMING Review for Religio-s nevertheless they cannot shake the deep conviction that in obeying this superior, in this policy, in this mariner of proceeding, I am obeying God Himself; I am doing His will, arid notthe ignorant, stupid, or prejudiced will of any creature. My obedience rests on the faith that believes God does act thro,ugh creatures, that He is immanent to creatures and-not afar off. St. Margaret Mary had revelations from our Lord, revelations approved by the Church afterwards; and yet our Lord said to her that she should prefer th'e will of her superiors to a'fly command of His. W~e' look with ey,es of faith, not upon a weak creature, but upon the infinitely holy and infinitely wise God of all consolation, who acts in and through the creature. Blessed Claude de la Colombi~re once wrote: "A Superior may 'govern badly, but it is impossible that G~d should not govern you well by means of him. My dear Sister, let that be your deepest conviction. For if you do not', base yourself firmly on this prin-ciply, you are losing your time in religion: for your whole life is nothing but obedience, arid this obedience.is meritless unless offered to God in the person whom He has put in place of Himself. A:nd we certainly do not turn our gaze on God when we undertak'e to judge, examine and above all to condemn what is commanded us. When it is the Holy Ghost who possesses us, He inspires us with the simplicity of a child who finds everything good and everything reasonable; or. if you prefer, with a divine prudence which discov-ers God in everything,' and recogmzes Him in. all those who rep-resent Him, even in those who are poorest in virtue and in natural and supernatural qualities." (Oeut;res, VII, 109-10, 1853 ed.) = ,In those words Blessed Claude expressed part of the gift of obedience: the inspiration of the Holy Ghost to make us simple, to give us supernatural prudence to see God truly in superiors. St. Catherine of Siena, in her delightful Dialogue ot~ Obedience (trans-lated by Algar Thorold). insists greatly on faith being the means of obedience and teaches likewise that we may progress in obedi-ence. God speaks and says to her: "Now I wish thee to see and know this most excellent virtue in that humble and immaculate Lamb, and the source whence it proceeds. What caused the great obedience of the Word? The love which He had for My honour and your salvatiofi. Whence proceeded this love? From the clear vision with which His soul saw the divine essence and the eternal Trinity, thus always looking on Me, the eternal G6d. His fidelity obtained this vision for Him, and most perfectly, ~ which vision you 76 March, 1956 THE MYSTICISM OF OBEDIENCE imperfectly enjoy by th~ light,of holy faith" (Ch. 135). And thig vision both comes through obedience and fosters obedience. "Does the weight of obedience," she asks, "cause the obedient man pain? No, for he has trampled on his own will and does not care to ex-amine or, judge the will of his superior, for with the light of faith he sees My will !in him, believing truly that My clemency causes him to dommand according to the needs of his subject's sal-vation" (Ch. 140). "Obedience gives a !ight in the soul, which shows whether she is faithful to Me and her order and superior, in which light of holy faith she forgets hersel£; for by the obedience which she has ac-quired through the light of faith, she shows that her will is dead' to its own feeling, and seeks the advantage of others and not her own. Just as the disobedient man who examines the will, of his superior, may ju.dge~it according to his own low opinion and dark-ened knowled~ge instead of judging his own perverse will which' gives him death, the truly obedient man, illumined by faith, judge's ~the will of his superior to be good, and therefore does not examine it, but inclines his bead and nourishes his soul with the odour of true and holy obedience. And this virtue increases in the soul in proportion to the shinin~.l of the light of fhith, with which the soul knows herself, and Me, whom she loves, and humbles her-self; and the more she loves Me and humbles herself, the more obedient she becomes, for, obedience, and her sister patience prove whether the soul is in truth Clothed with the nuptial garment of charity, which is necessary to enter into eternal life" (Cb. 44). St. Teresa of Avila also declares that obedience is something like a treasure in a mine, Which can only be. dug out gradually and progressively. Speaking of the treasure of complete union with God, she says: "Bellevue me, then there is no better way of finding this treasure than that of toiling and digging so as to draw it forth from the mine of obedience; for the more we dig the more we shall find, and the more we ,subject ourselves to men, having no other will but that of those who are over us, the more we shall master our will so as to conform it to the will of God:' (Foundations, Ch. 5).,~ St. Ignatius of ~oyola puts three degrees of obedience: the first, when wi actually do what we are c6mmanded; the second, when wedo it willingly; and the third, when we submt.t our understandL ing to the superior's and come to have the,lsame judgment as bis: Now these are not necessarily stages through iwhich we hi~ve to pass, 77 BERNARD LEEMING Review for Religious though indeed they.may be kinds of stages through which we pass; but they clearly indicate divisions into which obedience may fall. It is possible to do what we are ordered but to rebel interiorly, or even to grumble and complain and yet carry out the order. It is possible also to cajole a superior into agreement with what we want. This is indeed a certain kind of obedience. Then there_is willingness ,in obedience: to do the thing promptly, perseveringly, and putting our best efforts into it to make it suc'ceed. But the highest degree is' had when we agree with the superior's mind and have the same view and ~outlook on the thing aS he has. It is clear that this last most closely approaches to the obedience of'Christ to His Father: His docffine, was not His own, but His Father's. He judges with the Father; He does not speak of Himself, but as the Father gives Him to speak; and He is the very word of the Father, the expression of the Father, the very mind of the Father: He and His Father are one. If the superior represents God for us, then no lower standard than our Lord's obedience to His Father can content us. How is it possible to be united in mind with a superior who is stupid," unwise, and imprudent in his commands? Christ could obey His Father absolutely because His Father was absolute truth; absolute wisdom; but how can we conform our minds to one who is by no means absolute truth or wisdom? The answer is that where the superior commands, we unite our wills and minds with his exactly insofar as he commands, not necessarily insofar as his command is designed to attain a particu-lar purpose. The purpose of the command is not part of the com-mand. For instance, a provincial superior may order a local superior to be indulgent, or to be severe, with a particular s, ubject. The local superior may on natural' grounds be convinced that i.ndulgence, or severity, is injurious to the subject, that the provincial superior is mistaken in his estimate of the method required. It is here, partly, that the mystery enters; for the theory of obedience holds that the judgment about success or failure is irrelevant: who can tell what, in God's eyes, is success or failure? The order must be obeyed, and in the spirit, with trust in God's over-riding providence: He will bless the obedience, although we cannot see how. For me, I see Christ in the command and that is enough. What does it matter, in the last analysis, about the "success" or "failure" of the policy? God must look to that; and I can leave it to Him, doir~g so the ¯ more trustfully the less I see how He can draw good out of it. 78 March, 1956 THE ~MYSTICISM OF OBEDIENCE How do we progress in obedience~? Ver~y gener1a1 y at the be, ginning of our religigus life obedience on theI whole is not difficult; there may be strange customs, repugnances to be overcome in ac-commodating ourselves to different points of the Rule. But on the whole, obedience is likely to be taken more or less for granted as part of the religious regime. Nevertheless, sooner or later trials are likely to arise. A superior may not understand us, ol may dis-approve of us; and then obedience can be a very arid affair indeed. There is small comfort in it; and, if one takes literally the superior for God, one is inclined to imagine that a superior's disapproval means God's disapproval. This is not, of'course, strictly irue; for a superior is not judge of our spiritual state, but takes the place of God in telling us what to do. Nevertheless, a superior's disapproval may be a searing trial, especially for some characters; and it is then that one must walk by blind faith, hoping against hope, as it were, that God will bring all right, possessing our soul in patience and bending our minds and wills as best we can. This may be only a purifying trial: to wean us from our purely natural obedience, to prevent us thinking obedience is within our own natural power. Then we can only be faithful, be patient, andtrust God: believing still that He is acting in the superior. But, if we are faithful, the light will surely break through: there can come a certain sense of reverence for God, even in this superior: a sense that we are really held captive by God, and so a certain peace in obeying which is not upset by surges of feeling, whether of depression or of irritation or of rebellion. God is there in spit~ of everything; and somehow fears begin to vanish: in sick-ness or in.health, in success or failure: "For I know whom I have believed, and I am certain that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him, against that day" (II Tim. 1:12). Our trans-formation into Christ proceeds; and His obedience begins to seem a reality to us, and self-will, self-settlement, self-judgment begin to fade away. The memory, the imagination, and even the reason-ing powers may play tricks; but the calm conviction remains that it is good for me to cleave to the Lord, and that at the head of my book it is written that I should do Thy Will, O God. And here it may be well to return to another aspect of Christ's obedience; an aspect which shows how obedience made Him our °saving Victim, and how obedience will unite us to Him in a u~nion truly trarisforming. , 79 BERNARD LEEMING Reoiew for Religio'us CHRIST'S OBEDIENCE AND.THE REDEMPTION OF MANKIND Our Saviour's obedience was neither negative nor passive; He did not merely abstain from forbidden things, nor-did He, as it were, merely wait on events and allow Himself to be governed' by them. It w, as not the case that He came to endure death, and in consequence merely waited for the Jews to come and kill ,Him. On the contrary, His obedience was positive and active. 'He knew in-deed the inevitable end, but He knew that end was to come only as'a consequence of His active obedience to His Father's command to be the Good Sh.epherd. He journeyed from Nazareth to Caphar-nauru through Galilee, up to Cesarea Philippi, nearer Damascus than Jerusalem, and to Bethsaida, and through Sar;aaria, and to Jericho and Jerusalem, probably more than once. Pharisees were attracted to him from every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem (Luke 5:17). He gathered twelve apostles and seventy-two d~isciples and instructed them. He ,taught the people in the synagogues, in the tqwns, in the fields, on the mountain sides, by the lake sides, His energy and His force, the power he had, roused the fear of thd chief priests and the Jews, and they said: "Do you" see that we preva, il nothing? behold the whole world is gone after him" (John 12:19). He rebuked their hypocrisy fiercely and fearlessly. He drove the buyers and sellers from the temple, "and the disciples remembered that it was written 'The zeal of thy house hath eaten meoUP' " (John 2:17). The Jews put spies to report His words, and to lay traps for Him (Luke 20:19-20). "This command 'have I received'frdm my F'athe~," a command to spread the truth and the charit,y of His Father, even if in ful-filling that command He was to provoke the enmi'ty of the wicked and to draw down death unto Himself. About ,this obedience of Christ, St. Thomas puts the objection: ,"The will of God is not for the death Of ,men, even of sinners, but rather for their life, as Ezechiel ~ays:'I will not the death ofthe sinner but tl~at he should b~ converted and live. Much less then could it have been thd will of God the Father that the most perfect of .all men should be sub-jected to death." And ~he answers: "Although the will of God is 'not for the death of any man, nevertheless God-wills the virtue by which a. man bravely endures death and from charity exposes him-self to the peril of death. And in this.sense was the will of God for the death of Christ, in as much as Christ incurred the risk of death from charity and bravely endured death" (Contra Gentiles, 4, 55, ad 15). "As the Father has given me commandment, so 80 (¢larch, 1956 THE MYSTIC.ISM OF ~)BEDIENCE do I." Christ incurred the risk of death-not by passivity,' but by an activity which provoked opposition, by an actiVity which upset the whole of 3udaea and Palestine. Thus our Lord's obedience was vibrant with energy and was most complete.ly in accord with the mind and intentions and desire of His Father. He and the Father were one, in very being, though not in person; and when the Son became man among men there was One who gave to the most loving God the rndst energetic and loving service and praise, and gave it not on.ly for God's sake, but. for man's sake. It was by His obedience that Christ redeemed the world: "for as by the disobedience of one man," says St. Paul, "th~ many were made sinners; so also by the obedience of one, the many shall be made just" (Rom. 5:19). Surely a great mystery, that the destiny of us all should be so linked with the obedience or dis-obedience of two men: a mystery reflected in minor degree by the mysterious fact that we are all to some degree dependent upon one another in so many ways. It was because of obedience that Christ received the name Jesus. St. Paul tells us" that God in his fore-knowledge of the obedience unto death had given Him the name above all names (Phil. 2:8, 9).; and the angel ordered St.Joseph "and thou shalt call Hi~ name Jesus, ~for He shall save his people from their sins" (Matt. 1:21). Because He was obedient unto death, therefore He has that name above all names: Jesus the obedi-ent, Jesus the Saviour. And because of that same obedience He is a priest forever. Our redemption was accomplished by the sacrifice of Christ, pr.ecisely because that sacrifice was an expression of the 'most ab-solute submission of the will of the Incarnate Son of God to the will of God. St. paul puts it in chapter ten of his letter to the Hebrews: "For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin. Hence he saith When entering into the world: Sacrifice and offering thou hast not desired. But thou hast pierced ~ars for me (a body thou hast prepared for ine). In holocausts and sin-offerings thou hast taken no pleasure: Then I said: Behold I am come (In the volume so it is written of me) To do, O God, thy will. In virtue of this 'will' we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all" (Heb. 10:4 ff., Boylan's, transla-tion in the Westminster versiorl). The line quoted by St. Paul from Ps. 39: "thou has pierced ears for me" is given thus in the Hebrew and in the Douay: but St. Paul probably quoted from the Septuagint. The piercing of ears 81 BERNARD LEEMING Review for Religiod's means the power of listening to God and hence of obeying Him. We find the same usage in English. Children are told by their mothers, "You will not listen to me"--you will not accept my advice nor do what I want; and children in turn think it wrong "not to listen .to me muther." What pleased God in Christ was the complete acceptance of His divine will: the highest offering to God is the offering of the whole b~ing to do His will; and, because it was a divine Person who made that offering with the uttermost perfec-tion as a man on earth, and made it for our sakes, to fulfill God's will that we might be .sanctified, we therefore all receive the power of being made holy through the sacrifice of Christ. There is yet another m~stery in this obedience of Christ: al-though He was God's own Son and knew perfectly His Father's will and loved that will, nevertheless He feels repugnance in the actual carrying of it into effect. One might perhaps imagine that' one so infinitely holy as our Lord would be so lifted up that there would be no feeling of recoil or repugnance from whatever His loving Father willed. Yet we know it was not so. When He was riding to Jerusalem just before the last Passover, certain Gr.eeks wanted to see Him, and He spoke of the underlying mystery of His life and death: "Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal" and then, mys-teriously, "Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I sa.y? Father, save me from this hour. But for this cause I came unto this hour" (John 12:27). How can He pray His Father to save Him from the pain and suffering and death, when it was precisely to endure them that He came? And yet, His very soul is distressed; it is an anticipation of the agony in the garden, when He "began to fear and t6 13e heavy, and he said to them, 'My soul is sorrowful even unto death' . . . and he fell flat on the ground; and he prayed, that.if it might be, the hour might'pass from him. !~nd he sayeth, Abba, Father, all things ar~ possible, to thee: remove this c~halice from me; but. not what I will, but what thou wilt" (Mark 14:33-35). What His Father willed was not to be fulfilled directly between Him and His Father, but through people like Judas, Annas, Caiphas, Pilate, the Jewish mob, and the Roman soldiers; and it means not only physical suffering but denial of justice, denial of a fair bear-ing'of what He had to say, and. to say not so much for Himself 82 March, 1956 THE MYSTICISM OF OBEDIENCE but for His Father, for God; 'it meant acceptance of that humanly mysterious providence of God which_ permits so much evil. Our Lord was a real man, with all a man's feeling, instincts, natural reactions: His divinity did not derogate in the least fro'm the full-ness of His humanity. Consequently, He experienced the ifistinc-. tive recoil of the feelings against pain and against death; further, even His natural reason and intellectual choice judged that death and rejection were hateful and in themselves to be avoided, and so His prayer was "if it be possible; let this chalice pass." St: Thomas tells us that our Lord prayed so to show us the reality of His human nature and to show that it is permissible, according merely to natural impulses to wish what God does not wish ("ut ostenderet quod homini iicet secundum naturalem affectum aliquid velle quod Deus non vult," Summa, 3, (~.21,a.2). Nevertheless the absolute choice; when all is conside.re.d, goes out straight to God's will, however repugnant to instincts and feeling and merely natural judgment (Summa, 3, Q. 18,a.6), and is in a sense the more united to God's will, because with His human will He ap-proves the instinctive reluctance of human 'nature, is glad to find it hard; and thus He can make the offering .of submission most truly as a man and with the fullness of His manhood. Not, in-deed, that these natural recoils against the horrors of the Passion in any way divided Christ in Himself, or lessened His glorious ac- ¯ ceptance of His Father's will, or blurred in any way the clearness of His vision--as fears and hopes and emotions do in us; never-theless, He felt the difficulties, even mental, just as acutely and more acutely than we could do, just as He could suffer physical pain as we do, and feel it more acutely. St. Paul spea.ks of Christ's obedience in a,way in which per-haps we might hesitate to do; he says: "Christ during his earthly life, offered prayer and entreaty to the God who could .save him from death, not without a piercing cry, not without tears; yet with. such piety as won him a hearing. Son of God though be was, he learned obedience in the school of suffering, and now, his full achievement reached, he wins eternal salvation for all those who render obedience to him" (Heb. 5:7-9, Knox tr.). St. Thomas, in his commentary on this text, makes this ob-jection: "To learn things, presupposes that one is ignorant of them. But Christ from all eternity~ being God, and even a's man from the first instant of His conception knew everything and had the fullness of knowledge. Consequently, since He knew every- 83 BERNARD LEEMING ~ Reoieto for Religious thing, how can it be said that He learned ,things?" . St." Thom, as answers': "There is a double kind of knowledge, the first being simple awhreness of the truth, and in this sense~Christ was ignorant of nothing. But there is also the knowledge begotten of experience, and according to this Paul says 'He learned from what He suffered [or in the school of experience]',' that is by actu-ally °experiencing. And the Apostle speaks thus because he who learns anything must willingly put himself in a position to learn it. Now Christ willingly took to Himself our weakness; and hence Paul says 'he learned obedience,' that is, how hard it is to obey, becauseoHe obeyed in most onerous and difficult matters, even to the death of the cross. And here he shows how difficult it is to attain the good of obedience. Because they who have not experi-enced obedience and have not learned it in difficult matters, believe that to obey is very easy. But in'fact to grasp what obedience really is, one has to learn to obey in difficult affairs, and he who has'not learned by'obedience to be subject, never knows how to command well and be a superior. Christ, therefore, although from eternity he knew by simple awareness what obedience was, nevertheless learned by experience obedience from what He suffered, that is, in. actual difficulties, through suffering and death" (Cornmentartl in Hebrews, ad loc.). But there is yet a greater myster~ here. The prayers of Christ, His tears, His entreaty to God who could save Him from death, these are not merely individual: they are His as head of the body, as forming one with us. He prays, entreats, weeps, ~uffers .for us and with us. S~. Gregory~Nazianzus says that w.hen Christ prayed upon the cross: "My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?'" He spoke in the person of all mankind; and adds that this text about learning obedience must be understood in the same way: ':Having taken the nature of a slave, He condescends to enter fully into the life of His fellow-slaves and of slaves generally; and assumes a form different from His own, bearin'g the whole of me and all that I am within Himself, in order that in Himself. He may melt away my lower self, as fire the wax and the sun the morning mists, in order that I, through fusion with Him, may take in exthangeall that is His. Hence in very deed does He honour obedience and make trial of it in suffering. For the mere intention was not enough, just as it is not enough for us, unless we 'carry it out in act. For the act is the proof of the intention. Nor would it be far wrong to" understand that. He experienced our obedience and measured all 84 March, 1956 '~. THE MYSTICISM OF OBEDIENCE human things by, His own sufferings, and did so because of ,His affection and love for men: so that He.can estimate our experiences by His own, and reckon by suffering and weakness how much to demand of us and how much to yield to ,our infirmity" (Oratio Theologica 1, n.6; Migne Patres Graeci, 36, col. 109, 112). It was not He alone who was saved from death, but,the whole Of mankin~l who are united to Him, for whom He prayed, for whom He obeyed, "and offered His sacrifice. St. Leo says that the cross was the altar on ~vhich "through that saving victim the of-fering of the whole of ,human nature was a, ccomplished" (Sermo c.3; M.P.L. 54, 324). He ,bears "the whole of me and"all that I am within Himself" and offers His obedience for me to make up for my failures, to transfuse my dull and murky obedience with the radiance of His infinitely glorious obedience; and to* do the same for the, whole of mankind, becoming "hostiam. puram, hostian~ sanctam, bostiam immaculatam'" a sacrifice wholly sincere, holy, immaculate, and hence utterly acceptable to God for all of us. OUR OBEDIENCE AND OUR UNION WITH CHRIST THE SAVIOUR Our Lord is very explicit that "I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me." .It is only Christ who sends the iSpirit of God (John 16:7) and even the Spirit of God "receiveth of Christ's and shows it to us (John 16 : 15). "And because you are sons God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts'" (Gal. 4:9). "God has sent his only begotten Son into the world that we may live by him" (I John 4:9). There is no way in which we can go to God except in. Christ. There is no right manner of praying which neglects the Incariaate Word, or so tries to dispense with images or use of the imagination 'that-it passes over Jesus of Nazareth. There is no true mysticism save that Which is based upon faith in Jesus Christ. Now our Lord greatly commends obediencd to us. "Whoever shall do "the will of my Father, 'that is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother" (Matt 12:50). Even His own dear~other was dear to Him most of all because she "heard the word of God" and kept it (Luke 9:28). "Fie that bath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me. And he that loveth me shall be lox)ed of my Father: and I will love Jaim': and will manifest myself to him." Our Lord could not make us a greater promise than to be~loved of His-FatheL to be Ioved.by Him, and to receive a manifestation, a re;celation of our Lord" Himself. BERNARD LEEMING Review [or Religious Based~upon these promises, to our Lord, the saints most strongly commend obedience to us'. St. Teresa says: "I believe that since Satan sees there is no road that leads more quickly to the highest perfection than this of obedience, he suggests many difficulties under the colour of some good, and makes it distasteful: let people look well into it, and they will see plainly that I am telling the truth. Wherein lies the highest perfection? It is clear that it does not lie in interior delights, not in great raptures, not in visions, not in the spirit of prophecy, but in the conformity of our will to the will of God, so that there shall be nothing we know He wills that we do not will ourselves with our whole will, and accept the bitter as joyfully as the sweet, knowing it to be His Majesty's will" (Fodndations, ch. 5). The reason for this statement, that our, union with God is in ~vill rather than in any perceptions that belong to our intellectual fac.ulties, seems to be this: anything that we know, we know accord-ing to our o.wn mind; the object known comes into our mind and necessarily to some extent takes on the shape of our mind, and hence shares in the limitations of our mind. The mind assimilates to itself the object known, and in so doing limits the obje'ct in some way. Consequently, we can only know God by means of comparisons, indirectly: in this life we cannot see God directly as He is, because be is too great for our minds to take in. -But the will is different from the intellect in that it does not ~bape the object by drawing the object into itself, but ,rather goes out to the object as it is in itself; the will therefore does not limit the object by its own limitations as the mind do~s. It follows from this, tb_at, although we cannot know God, in this life, exactly as He is, nevertheless we can love God Himself exactly as He is, be-cause our minds can get to God truly ~nd hence our wills can go out to God insofar as He is truly represented in oflr minds, and not insofar as the mind obscures God by imperfect, indirect knowl-edge. I can love a person, even though I do not knov¢ him thor-ougbly: I can know him enough to love him, and it is he himself that I love, and not my own imperfect conception of him. Hence, in this life our union with God is primarily a uni6n of will, although since man is one whole, that union of will reacts upon the intellect and upon all the powers of the soul, and bell~s to greater perception and awareness. One cannot be united to God in will without somehow coming to be aware of that~ fusion of wills and thus coming into almost direct contact with God Him- 86 March, 1956 THE MYSTICISM OF OBEDIENCE self. St. Catherine of Siena was told that "the truly obedient man , always retains the desire of submission, and that this desire is like an inward refrain of music" (quoted by Marmion from the Dialogue~ on Obedience : Christ the Ideal of the Monk, p. 262). In this way, obedience is really a form of contemplation, simple, easy, and effective; and not wearisome to the bead. "This is what I am or-dered to do. It is God's will for me. I do it. That is God. That is all." Nor is this hindered if our obedience is very active, even if in obedience we must use initiative and ingenuity and resource. It is then that the very powers of the mind are given to God, wl~at intelligence we may have, what force of character, what gift of imagination, even what magnetism we may have to attract others. These are given to God, through the hands of the human beings who represent Him, and used gladly as we are directed~ because there is great security in using all our gifts as the mind of God, represented by a human superior, directs. Nothing could be m6re mistaken than to take the comparisons 9ften used by the saints, of a d~ad body, or an old man's staff, and apply them beyond their real application. They are not used to indicate complete passivity, but to indicate that we make no resistance to being moved from this house to the other, from this post to the other, or, even, that we are content if obedience makes no use of our talents at all. They in-dicate that we are completely dead and nothing but a walking stick as regards our own peculiar ideas when they clash with the su-perior's. Perhaps if the saints bad known of bose pipes, with a strong and full pressure of water in them, they might have used the comparison of a hose pipe which could be turned in this direc-tion or that, made to'give a heavy stream of water or a narrow jet, according as the bands holding it directed. The comparisons mean that the force and power which God may- bare given us is placed utterly in the control of the superior, as representing God; and that by faith we believe that the only good result will come from the union of that force and powe.r with the will of God as interpreted to us by His representative. . Here, too, enters what is called blind obedience. Now to inter-pret blind obedience as unintelligent, stupid obedience would be itself unintelligent and stupid. The more intelligent people are the more they must use their intelligence in order to obey well. The blindness only comes in after all due representations bare been made --and it is part of the duty of obedience to make reasonable repre- BERNARD LEEMING Review for Religious sentations, even to make them forcibly on .occasion-- and the su-perior orders us to do something with which our natural reason does not agree, for which we cannot see the reasons or the reason-ableiaess. It is then that we must be carried by an impulse of the will, blind to natural reasons, desirous only of conforming the understanding to the mind of the superior. And mtich can be done in this way: to close our mental ears to contrary reasonings, to look at it from the superior's side, and to make ourselves well af-fected to our superior. We cannot, of course, assent contrary to the known truth; but often the truth about the wisdom of a course of action can be perceived differently according to the antecedent state of mind in which we train ourselves, and according to the way we allow our minds toact. If we have opened our minds to the reve-lation of 6ur Lord beneath the deficiencies of the human agent, then it is easier to see God's will in what may naturally only look like ignorance, prejudice, favouritisrri, or vanity, So often it happens that lack of the spirit of obedience leads to narrow and restricted views. Obedience can and does take the ,long view. God's providence works oddly. Perhaps God sometimes 'wishes a poor superior, an incompetent superior, in order to use them as a lesson for subjects, or perhaps one special subject, a lesson to teach them what to do, and ~hat not to do, when they themselves are superiors! And to oppose that superior, to magnify his defects, to allow feelings to become ruffled, or depression to take possession of the 'spirit--this is Clearly to oppose God Himself, contrary to what we have promised Him." Perhaps God wants a certain 'work to fail, and to fai.1 precisely through our most obedient efforts and strivings, in order'to obtain some greater good of which we cannot be aware. In this sense, it is perfectly true that obedience, although. its proper fruit may seem to be to perfect the will, :nevertheless also perfects the understanding: it gives the understanding length and breadth and depth, conforming it to the infinite wisdom and knowl-edge of God. Often only in retrospect are we able to see that it was not only virtuous to obey, but was very wise, also. "Because you are conscious within yourselves," says St. Ig-natius of Loyola, "that you have undergone this yoke of obedi-ence for the love of God, to the end that you might, in following the Superior's will, more assuredly follow the divine, will; doubt not, but that the mgst faithful charity of our Lord continually directs you and .leads you in the right Way" by the hands of those whom He gives you for Superiors.''~ 88 March, 1956 THE MYSTICISM OF OBEDIENCE This yoke of obedience: it can indeed bear heavily, it ban chafe and sometimes cut, and force us to go on and on dragging a weari-some burden. Christ Hirhself'felt the burden, and even prayed that it might be lifted from Him. And yet to Him, His Father's charity was faithful, most faithful; and even through the hands of Annas and Caiphas, of Judas and of Pilate, that faithful charity of His Father led Christ in that right way that led to our salvation. Christ obeyed for me. Christ }rusted His father for me. Christ loved me and delivered Himself for met delivered Himself for me not only that my sins migh}: be forgiven, that grace might come to me, but als'o that to me might come the honour of sharing His obedience with Him, of offering the noblest part of me to His Father with His offering, even of making myself one with His self-giving for the redemption~ of mankind. Nothing so unites us to Christ as Obedience;. for perfect obedi-ence gives to Him our liberty, our memory, and our very under-standing. What more" have we that we can give? And this giving is the most perfect charity: if you love me,. keep my commandments. Yet we give them in such simple, often almost commonplace, ways: doing what we are told, be it great or small, be it important or un: important, be it hard or easy. Nevertheless, if we do gi.ve our whole selves to Him in this simplicity of obedience, be sure that His most faithful charity does stay~ with us. Gradually He ta.kes us all: our remnants of self-contentment, our rags of pride, our dirtiness of devious self-seeking; of all these and suchlike His faithful charity gradually strips us: a pain at once and yet a joy, He is meek and humble of heart, even in His purifying of us to make us more fit to share with Him in His unutterably pure sacrifice to God. ,,He fills us with His own love of His Father. He gives us sometimes to feel something of that. joy with which He went to His Father. He allows us sometimes to see that His saving work goes on, even thrbugh me, even through me: but yet not through me, only through Him, and I spoil it, and yet He does not let me Spoil it quite, because it is truly He who obeys in me, and His obeying is of infinite love, even God's own love, The mystery of obedience: it is the mystery °of Christ; the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, in whom all is one, even to the blessedness qf giving of the WhOle and yet" receiving, of the Whole". And yet, it is quite simple: "If you love me, keep my command-_ ments. BERNARD LEEMING To conclude, then: ! 1. Obedience is a good in itself, and not for any utilitarian purpose, because obedience in itself unites me to God; and unity with God is an end in itself. 2. Obedience reflects the unity of Christ with His Father and reflects the divine life in Him. So it does likewise in me. 3. It is through obedience, as such, and not through human advantages secured by obedience, that Christ redeemed us. It is through obedience that we share His redeeming mission, share His power to save souls. 4. Progress in obedience means progress in union with Christ and means, too, greater accomplishment in our redemptive union with Him. With Christ we are co-workers in redemption; but that co-working (s, first and middle and last, union in His obedience. 5. Conkequently, let us pray for opportunities of obedience: that we may do each task because God commands it, that we may find our love and our life in doing His will. If the commands are simple, thank God; if they are difficult--perhaps removal from an office, perhaps subordination to an uncongenial senior--thank God more, for what else" are we for but to obey? SUMMER SESSIONS The Institute for Religious at College Misericordia, Dallas, Pennsylvania (a three-year summer course of twelve days in canon law and ascetical theology for siste.rs), will be held this year August 20-31. This is the first year in the triennial course. The'course in canon law is given by the Reverend 3osepb F. Gallen, S.2'., that in ascetical theology by the Reverend Daniel 2. M. Callahan, S.2., both of Woodstock College, Woodstock, Maryland. The registration is restricted to higher superiors, their councilors, general and provincial officials, mistresses of novices, and those in similar positions. Applications are to be addressed to the Reverend doseph F. Gallen, S.2., Woodstock College, Woodstock, Md. Gonzaga University offers three summer institutes for religious women only. These institutes were inspired by the recent emphasis on the religious formation of sisters. The topics and dates for the institutes are: moral direction for others~ dune 19-30; understanding human nature, 2'uly 2-13; personal holiness, 2.uly 16-27. Gonzaga also offers two institutes for priests only; one on sacred eloquence, the other on-the psychology of the adolescent. For further information write to the Reverend Leo 2". Robinson, S.3., Gonzaga University, Spokane 2, Washington. 90 Sist:ers' Ret:reat:s--I I Thomad Dubay, S.M. APPROACH TO SUB3ECT MATTER |N this second article on our sisters' retreat survey, we will discuss I the retreat master's approach to his subject matter. The first of the questions asked the sisters dealt with the technique the re-treat master uses in setting forth his tea.ching. We can convey what is here meant~ in no better way than by, reproducing the question just as it was asked.To avoid needless repetition, we will indicate the sisters' choices together with the statement of the survey question. Which of the following emphases in meditation exposes do you usually prefer? __many quotations from Sacred Scripture . 27 4.0%) __intellectual explanation of doctrine, principles, etc .115 16.9 %) __emotional approach (stress on beautiful images, language, etc.) .o . :'. . 4 .6%) ____combination of first and second . 195 (28.6%) ¯ __combination of first and third . 16 (2.3%) __combination of Second and third . 28 (4.1%) __mixture of all three . 297 (43~.5%) Further comment: (space p.rovided) From this data several conclusions seem unavoidable: 1. Almost none of the sisters (.6%) want stress placed on the emotions alone. 2. The group of sisters who want any notable stress placed on the emotions is decidedly small (7%). This conclusion is reached by combining categories 3, 5, and 6. 3. The vast majority (91.3%) want emphasis placed on solid intellectual content whatever the combination of emphases might be. This con, clusion is obtained by combining groups 2, 4, 5, and 7. 4. A large minority (45.5%) prefer no emotional appeal mixed in with the intellectual. This can be seen by uniting the results from categories 2 and 4. 5. The frequent use~of Sacred Scripture follows the intellectual approach in popularity among the sisters. The comments of the sisters on this problem are both interest-ing and enlightening. All three, but the emotional element ought to be relatively small. If the intellectual explanation is ignored, women's piety tends to becom~ soft, enervated, spineless. A thought-provoking, solid presentation with enough of the emotional to make it spiritually palatable appears best to me. 91 THOMAS DUBAY Reuieu~ for Religious I believe that principles for religious life should be based on .Holy Scripture. It is only too late that one finds the beauty and worthwhile passages in Holy Scripture. Personally, I have, found myself living in close union with God by just one passage studied in the New Testament at meditation or spiritual reading. Let's have intellectual explanation. If the priest has the ability to express his ideas well so much the better. The use of Scriptu.re must be an overflow from the medi-tative life of the speaker. There has been too much emphasis on' the emotional approach, so why not get meditation on a solid basis for a change? Intellectual and emotional--I don't mean sentimental. God made things t0 be beautiful. Why not~ talk about those beautiful things? A balanced mixture with no excess in any one. Flowery language annoys more than appeals, I think, Father; however, a correct, flfient style helps much--language from the heart to the heart--without being dramatic or emotional. Mixture of all. A retreat group made up of different personalities, characters, men~ talkies, etc. needs meditation exposds that will to a certain extent reach all. Beautiful thoughts stay in the memory much longer than cold cut and dry ones. Women love beautiful things, why not give them to us? I dislike retreat masters who key their meditations to the emotions. Probably they do this because they have been led to think women prefer this. I do not find the e~otional approach "stands up" under the r~alistic test of a year in the religlous life, Exposition of the Sacred Scriptures appeals to me as most fruitful for meditation. (Texts on Public Life of Christ.) Some emotion has its place, undoubtedly, but I think to be effective it requires the most complete sincerity on the part of the retreat master--otherwise it only makes one uncomfortable. Some emotional stress helps, but I resent having my emotions obviously played upon. Besides, the emotional effect is most iikely to wear off. I would like to add emotional approach in the original meaning of appeal to the emotions or affections, not sentimentality, but with much intellectual and doctrinal support. Never emotional. ,Meditation becomes more fruitful, more satisfying as knowledge, of the Scriptures and doctrine increases. Quotation from Scriptures is fine IF that quotation is explained. Content thoroughly intellectual. Manner of presentation depending on the indi-vidual's broad reading, conversations, and own conviction and realization (we need some variety here!). Structure stemming from Scripture. All three. ~owever, oratory (?), (shouting, whispering, and dramatic pauses) can be omitted in ALL exposes. God forbid! (emotional approach) It is amazing how all three sprinkled in can provide the "oil" for my own "ma-chinery"-- in other wolds, "the Holy Ghost can work through all three approaches to fit the individual--don't limit the approach and.keep 'em happy! and thinking. 92 March, 1956 SISTERS' RETREATS "---II IX view of the sisters' observations just given and the numerical data previously noted, it appears that retreat masters should attempt to tailor their techniques accor~ling to the conclusions we have al-ready indicated. AMOUNT OF THEOLOGY We approach now a much-bandied-about question in the circles of sister formation interests: theology. Here we shall view the problem from the vantage point of retreat content, which, of course, touches upon in-service sister f6rmation. The amount of theology desirable in a retreat and the degree in which the sisters un'derstand it were the objects of two questions, the first of which follows: Do you think that the amount of theology ordinarily presented in retreat meditations is __ekcessive '.2__~too little __about right Further comment :__ A notable majority, 486 (72.6 %), of the sisters are well sails-fled with the amount of theology they ordinarily receive in their rdreats, although a sizeable minority, 171 (25.6%), decidedly think they hear too little. A v~ry small gr0ui~, 12 (1.8%), feel that too much theology is presented. The pres~ent writer has the impression from reading the many replies that the more completely educated sisters tend in greater ,.numbers to want more theology in their retreats, whil'e those with less formal training tend in greater nu~nbers to feel satisfied with the status quo. These tendencies are not, however, universal, for there are sister-teachers in college who are satisfied with retreat theology as it stands and some domestic sisters who desire more. The sisters offered the following comments on' their answers: Representative of those who think the theology is excessive: Excessive because of mixed groups of domestic sisters, etc.; otherwise it would be about right. Sisters who think the theology too little: ' Too much "dry" repetition of elementary data on the fundamentals., Religious should be mature and treated as such. o ¯ The more the better. We need it for .our teaching preparations. I have found it of great advantage when theology was much presented, since I only had an elementary education. Superiors should be advised to give books of theology to read to their sisters, if the confessor appr6ves of it, when a sister desires .it. ' 93 THOMAS DUBAY Revieu~ for Religious \ Many sisters are starved for real spiritual meat which can be satisfied only through theology. For many of the sisters retreat time is the only time they get a chance to get some theology. I don't think xve can get too much! Much too little. In some God is hardly mentioned except as author" of this or that law. And the Holy Ghost not so much as heard of. "Religious who think the amount of theology about right: Some tend to overdo it, but I think it appears excessive only if the retreat master uses too many abstract technical terms. I like points of theology brought out since I never studied it as such. Although it is not too little, there could be more as a number of us have the oc-casion to use it daily, Depends on retreat master. I find retreat masters about right; too little usually. Also depends on individual. It differs from a great deal to too little. Perhaps it could be more in most cases. I am satisfied with just the Personality of Christ according to Gospels. Retreat days ought not be a course in theology. If necessary, this should be taken care of otherwise. Some give more, others less, so that on the whole I'd say it evens up about right. As far as I am concerned, a deep theological retreat would be out of place. The mental training of our sisters is too varied to admit of excessive technicality in meditations. Sound, simple explanation of dogma is always welcome. Rather excess than defect. Sisters need solid dogmatic principles always. Do much harm a,mong those taught if they lack principles. Sometimes it is very excessive, but usually about right. However, they often presuppose more theological knowledge on our part than many of us actually possess. For our younger sisters who have had many courses in theology, it may be about right. For our older people and those who because of the work they do, do not continue.their education, it is probably excessive, except where the retreat master takes the trouble to clearly explain his points. Distinguish: amount of theology usually presented--O.K.; skill in bringing out theological implications, e.g., in a meditation on the Passion, without getting dry and classroomish--tbis is rarer. Too much, I believe, would dishearten the less intellectual; too little would make it impossible to form a foundation for the convictions necessary in living a spir-itual life. In coming toa satisfactory conclusion on this whole problem of theology it seems that the retreat m~ister must keep two cardinal points in mind: the sisters' background and his own treatment. March, 1956 SISTERS' RETREAT'S--II Both of these points are so relative that no possible suggestion to be adopted by all retreat masters can be given here. What is excessive for one community (or for one group of. sisters within it) may be too little for a second and about right for a third. Likewise, the same theology in the mouth of one priest may be excessive; in that of another, too little. To adjust the first relative element the retreat master might conduct a careful investigation of the sisters to whom he is going to give his retreat. He could write the provincial superior requesting information on the education and works of the sisters making the retreat and then adapt his methodology accordingly. An appraisal of the second element (the priest's treatment of theology) could be effected by. a simple, one-page questionnaire given by the retreat master to the sisters after his retreats. He could ask whether he had given enough theology, whether his e~planation was simple and clear, and any other question that might contribute to greater efficiency. This information would not benefit the sisters who furnished it, but it could be most helpful in subsequent retreats given by the retreat m~ister. /SISTERS' UNDERSTANDING OF THEOLOGY The sisters were next asked if they thought that the theology that was presented in their retreats was understood. Do you think that the sisters can understand the theology that is presented at least fairly well? __.most of them "do __some do __few do Further comment:__ The breakdown of the answers to this .query is percentage-wise quite close to that of the preceding question. The presence of too many diverse factors, however, prevents us from asserting that this correlation is really significant. For example, on this question some of the sisters answered in an unexpected way. These few indicated that the amount of theology discussed in retreats is too little and then in the present question chose the response ""some do" rather than "most do." Of the sisters ans.wering this question, 517 (76.2%) "think that most understand the theology, 153 (22.5%) that only some grasp it, and 9 (1.3%) that few sisters understand it. For this question it does not seem necessary to divide the sisters' further comments into categories, for their meaning is clear enough as they stand. 95 THOMAS DUBAY I'm not anything when it comes to brain power, but 1 can say. that I understood everything I've heard so far. Most sisters with high school or. colleg'e education can understand. Sisters with elementary education who have grown old with hard manual labor in homes or seminaries cannot. All in my community understand what is presented,, and most do it better than "fairly well.'~ I don't know how other sisters feel about it, but I like it. I think perhaps most of the priests think we have had more theology than we really have had. I certainly feel the sisters would be capable of receiving more if it were given. Before retreat begins we are able rather accurately to predict the outline of the con-ferences, if not .the matti~r of each conference. No challenge! ,. Very poor foundation in theology obtained in thee novitiate. Since most sisters either have a college education or are receiving it, they can under-stand considerably more than is usually offered, i believe. The fact that they might not [understand] would seem to indicate a further need for it. Too often I feel that the retreats are directed prima,rily to the teachers and the others find it difficult to follow ot:' gain much from it. Most' of them do, but not all like it. There is a certain type of nun who likes simple retreats. I do not believe it is a case of sisters failing to understand theology, but a case of retreat masters failing to present theology. Sisters have often gone through retreats without deriving much practical help. All sisters do not have a high inte!ligence and need more explaining. Much depends On the master's ability to make theological truths clear and mean-ingful, A retreat master should conduct the retreat on as high a theological, philosophical,. ascetical, and even mystical a plane as he is able. He should give sisters exactly the same substantial content as he would give to other priests. He need have no fear that they will not be able to understand and live what he himself understands and lives. He should deliver his message however without scholarly verbiage, Latinisms, and all the other .trappings~which' serve to impress rather than to clarify. Through no fault of 'their own, sisters do not have the information to cgpe with this. It is a great m'istake however--and sad to say a common one--to confound a sister's lack of technical theological learning with a lack of intelligence. It is the priest's task to make the technical comprehensible to the non-theologian. This of course demands much more unde~rstanding than does a presentation in the language of the manu'als. Most retreat masters present a very thin spiritual gruel by comparison with what they could give if they. had greater respect for the potentialities of the sisters. ~ The suggestions appended to our discussion of the immediately preceding question would appear to apply to this present problem with equal validity. 96 ( .uesHons and Answers [The following answ,ers are given by°Father Joseph F. Gallen, S.d., professor of canon law at Woodsiock College, W, oodstock, Maryland.] tI,t 9 ' Ih our concjrecjatlon of :sis ers here is a fee c~harcjed for the expenses of the postulancy and noviceshipI. Recently a novice had to have an op-eratlon for append|c,tls. Are tile expenses of th,s operat,on included ~n the fee, or are her parents obl,cjed to pay them? As permitted by can. 570~ § 1, and found at least frequently in all types of religious institutes', the constitutions of nuns and sisters ordinarily d~mand that the ca!ndidate brin~ prescribed clothing and personal effects with her to the postulancy and pay an established sum for the expenses ofthe" Ipostulancy and noviceship. The ex-penses for which payment mawr be demanded are only the ordinary and common expenses of food and clothing. The cost of the medi-cines and similar personal necessities that are usually required may be included under food. The I . ~ordmg of the canon does not permit an exaction for lodging nor for the cost of formation. Much less does it permit that the sum be~ established also for the profit of the institute, as if the,subject wer,e a student of an academy or college. The spirit of the canon is rather that nothing should be demanded if such a polic3r is a practical conform to this spirit at least readiness to grant necessary di Extraordinary expenses, e. g., serious illness, are not inciucJ The institute may rightfully that such expenses be borne b3 cases can readily and frequent'~ dent or inconsiderate to urge possibility~ Superiors should and do the extent of a prompt and cheerful pensationL whether whole or partial. those of :a surgical operation or of a '.d in this fee for ordir~ary expenses. demand, as in the present question, the subject or her parents. However, ~" occur in which it would be impru-his right: If the postulant or novice leaves or is dismissed, the insti}ute is entitled to payment of ex-p~ nses only for the time spe~nt in'the institute. 'Some aspects of the practice should be studied for possible re-vision. The list of things thalt the candidate is to bring with 'her should ,not be so massive as to]dismay a~ay-girl. Perhaps this is male ignorance, but it does not seem efficient to have each candidate bring such objects as towels, sheets, blankets, napkins, and silverware. I should think that uniformity of size and quality would be desir-" QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Re~iew for Religious able in such objects, that the institute could purchase them at a lower price, and that it would be more efficient to increase the fee somewhat. Despite any ancient authority that may be cited for this and similar.practices, I cannot see how personalized silverware contributes to speed in setting up a large refectory and much less to the supposed simplicity and humility of the religious life. Although extraneous to the present question, I would hold the same for a train on the religious habit, which appears to me to be neither simple nor humble and to be at least dubious in the field of hygiene. The customary practice of requiring that parents continue to supply during .the postulancy and noviceship things such as soap and toothpaste and articles of clothing that have been exhausted or worn out is the deceptive economy of money saved, but with un-noted spirit, ual depreciatiofi. The practice does not manifest a gen-erous spirit on the part of the institute and is not apt to engender a spirit of devotion and loyalty in the subject. It may also be the primaryreason why so many professed secure necessities from ex-terns. The psychology of religious infancy can be more lasting and tenacious than that of human infancy, and the usual correlative of stinginess of superiors is stubborn infidelity of subjects to. the ob-ligations of the vow and the laws on poverty. It is evidently con-trary to the quasi-contract of profession for an institute to exact payment from parents for expenses incurred after profession. Free gifts may be accepted. Expenses for food and clothing should not be charged for any period in which the postulants and novices are 'fully applied to the external works of the institute, e. g., as full-time teachers or nurses. It is conservative to state that few parents of religious are wealthy. Many have exhausted their financial capability in giving a son or daughter a high school education. They have sac-rificed any return on a child's earnings by the entrance into religion. Further exactions should not be imposed on them without at least careful and considerate thought. Finally, it is always to be remem-bered that it is extravagance, not~generosity, that is incompatible with religious poverty. ~0 Is it true that a resident chaplain should never hear ÷he confessions of ~'he sisters of the convent of which he is chaplain'? A chaplain as such is not the ordinary, extrhordinary, nor a sup-plementary confessor of the community. He may be appqinted as such. I believe that many would agree with me .in the statement that it is better not to appoint him as the ordinary" or extraordinary 98 March, 1956 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS c~nfessor of the c6mmunity. Anything alSproaching authority, mere friendship, and frequent soc"la 1a1n d b u s'iness contacts can be harmful to the greater efficacy of confeIs s. ion. It is therefore bettek not to ap-point a priest such as a chapla~in or one teaching in the school' with the sisters as their ordinary or extraordinary confessor. Since the confession will be the choice of the individual sister, no such reason exists against his appointment as the special ordinary of a sister or as a supplementary confessor of the convent of which he is,chap-lain. In the latter case he is evidently obliged in virtue of this ap-pointment to hear the confession of any sister 6f the convent who approaches him for confession when there is a just reason and for as long as the just reason continues. There is no question that he will be willing to hear'the confession of a sister in danger of death¯ Inasmuch as he possesses confessioIial jurisdiction for women, he can be both an occasional and a confessor of seriously sick sisters¯ As such he is obviously not to usurp the duty of the ordinary confessor of the community, but he should be willing to hear the confessions of sisters who reasonably request him to do so. He cannot be un-mindful of charity, and his study of moral theology and can6n law should have convinced him that cases of real spiritual necessity occur in all states of life. Furthermore, the Sacred Congregation of the Sacraments has emphasized the principle with regard to the members of any type of community: ". what is especial, ly important, that they should have the opportunity to make a confession also shortly before the time of Communion . . . where frequent and daily Com-munion is in vogue, frequent and daily opportunity for sacramental confession, as far as that is possible, must also be afforded¯"' (Bous-caren, Canon Laco Digest, II, 210.) The Sacred Congregation could not have been unaware of the fact that the only priest who is cus-tomarily present in a house of lay religious daily, especially immedi-ately before Mass, is the resident chaplain or the priest who says the daily Mass. II We are a diocesan concjregation. Sometime in the past we had a particular sister who left; if she had not left, we would have tried to dis-miss her. She was a most difficult and peculiar subject. On leavlncj, she threatened to sue us for the work she had done in the concjrecjation. How could we have protected ourselves.'! Relig'ious progression contains two elements, the taking o;f the vows and a quasi-contract between the subject and the institute. One of the elements of this quasi-contract is that the religious gives 99 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERff Review for Religious over all her. labor to the institute. For. this reason can. 580, § 2, logically declares that anything given to a religious for his work belongs to the institute~ With equal logic can. 643, § 1, declares that a professed religious who leaves or is dismissed may not seek com-pensation for services rendered to the institute. This Canon is in-serted in constitutions approved by the Holy See. It is also under-stood that the same dedication of services applies to postulants and novices. The Holy See in approving constltut~ons adds a provision to can. 643 § 1. This provision enacts'that aspirants on their admis-sion to the postulancy must signa civilly valid document in which they dechlre that they will not demand any remuneration for serv-ices given in .the institute if they leave or are dismissed. The Holy. See of late has also been requiring that this declaration be renewed at the time of perpet[~al profession. It is understood that this pro-vision applies also to the postulancy and noviceship and is to be so wprded. To avoid any future difficulty, "such a provision should be made, even if it is not prescribed in the constitutions. The reason for the renewed declaration prescribed at the time of perpetual pro-fession is to make certain that the declaration will be made at a legal age, since .perpetual~ profession cannot be validly made until the day after the twenty-first birthday (c. 573). -12 Is correspondence'with the vicar for religious exempt from the in~pec-tion of superiors? Canon 611 exempts from inspection correspondence °with the local ordinaries to whom the religious is subject in matters in which the religious is subject to the ordinaries. It is probable that this same exemption extends to corresigondence with the priest delegated by l;h.e local ordinary to take care of the affairs of a igarticular community or of some or all communities of the diocese, since in fact such a priest i's handling the matters that appertain to the ordinary. It can be objected that the canon does not say, "to the local ordinary or his delegate," and fi superior could licitly deny that the exemption is proved.' However, it would be the part of prudence at least' not to subject such mail to any inspection. Religious ~bould be instructed not to be quick td write to the Holy See, the cardinal protector, " the apostoli~'deleg~ite; or the local ordinary, or his delegate. Such letters derriand a serious m~itter that cannot be resolved by recourse to one's own religious, suPeriors. °External authorities and dignitaries'should. 100 March, 1956 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS n6t,be annoyed by, needless a'nd extraneous correspondence; and do-mestic grievances, especially if purely personfil' or subjective, are to be confined by the family walls. How many "washings must alprlest do of the puHficators, palls, and corporals? Purifactors, palls, and cor~orals~ used in the sacrifice of the Mass are to be washed by. a cleric in major orders ,before being laundered by lay persons. The water of thls first w, ashing is to be poured into the sacrarium. The cleric in m~jor orders is obliged to only one ritual .washing; he may'do three if l~e wisbes to do so. The first washing may not be done even by rehglous women without an indult from the Holy See. The local ordinaries in mission countries have the power of granting such perm~ssmn to religious women. Cf. c. 1306, § 2; Cori3nata, Institutiones Iu~is Canonici, II, n. 887, 2*; J. O'Con-nell, The Celebration of Mas's, 256; Collins, The Church Edi[ice and Its AppOintments, 219-2~: Britt, Church Linens, 32; Murphy, The Sacristan's Manual, 12-13; Winslow, A Cornrnentarg on the Apostolic Faculties, 61. " Does the general ~decree on ~he simplification of the rubrics apply to the Lfffle Office of the ELV.M.? The decree of the Sacred [Congregation of Rites is confined to the rubrics of the Divine Office, and Mass, but from analogy the norms on the beginning and ~nd of the hours nSay be licitly used in both the choral and indivi~tual recitation of the Little Office of the B. V. M. The following, is a summary of the ~.ertinent parts of the decree. In beginnin~ both the pub(ic and private recitation c~f the canoni-cal hours, the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Apostles' Cr~ed are omitted; and the hours begin~ absolutely as follows: Matins from Domine, labia mea aperies; Cc~mpline from Iube, dorone benedicere; all others from Deus, tn adtut~orturn. In both public and private recitation, the canonical hours end as follov~s: Prime with Dom~mus nos benedicat; Complin~ with Benedicat et custodiat; all others,including Matins if recited pri-vately, with Fideliurn anirnae.~ The office ends after Compline with the recitation of the ,custo-mary antiphon of the B. V-. M., which is said here only, and Divinum auxiliurn. The indult and indulgences granted for the recit'ation of QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Sacrosanctae are attached to this same final antiphon 6f the B, V, M. Cf.~ M.'Noir0t, L'Arni du C!erg~, August, 1955, 512, note 2. 15 I wished to send a letter ,÷o ~he superior general, and I believed there was a serious reason why'th~ sehdincj of this letter should hive remained completely unknown to the local superior. How c,oulc~ I have accomplished this without violating our regulations? Correspohden~e with-higher superiors is exempt in virtue of c. 611. Exemption means the right to send and receive determined let-ters without permission, to receive them u~aopened, to send them uninspected, and probably the right to send and receive ttSem com-pletely unknown to the superior. Therefore, a superior is not to open sfich letters; and they are to be sealed before being presented to a s'uperior. The probable right o.f sending and receiving them com-pletely unknown to the superior is founded on the wording of c. 611, which states that exempt letters .are subject to n6 inspection. Article 180 of the Normae of 1901 aflir;ned that th~se letter~ were free of any inspection. It can be argued, at least with probability, that they would be subject to some inspection if they had to be presented to or received by the superior. Ordinarily there will be no special reasons against transmitting these letters sealed through the local superior. However, it should be possible to obtain a stamp unknown'to,the.superior; e." g., by having some stamps in the custody of the local.assistant or another religious. If a subject cannot so ob-tain a ~tam. p and wishes to send an exempt letter free of all inspec-tion,° he may obtain a stamp from other sources. He is to avoid all disedification in such.an act. It is not necessary to go to the ex-treme of having the porter separate all exempted envelopes and hand them immediately to the individual religious. ~16~ Our constifutlons state that the reading at table is to be from a pious book. What is the meaning of a pious book? This article of the constitutions is based, on article 182 of th~ Normae of 1901, which specified that the reading was to be from "some 16ious book." This does not demand that. the .reading be always from~ a ~spiritual book; the interpretatior~.is that the reading should be spiritual or useful. Therefore," the reading mgy be also from su{h book~ as" ecclesiastical histories, histories of'religious in-stitutes, e~clesiastical biog~aphies,'etc.,, and, also from instructive and hppropridte secular works. Cf. Battandie'r, Guide Canonique, n. 303. 102 90o! Reviews [All material for this department should be sent to: Book Review Editor, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, West Baden College. West Baden Springs, Indiana.] THE MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST AS THE BASIC PRINCIPLE OF SPIRITUAL,LIFE. By F~iedr[ch Jurcjensmeler. Translafed by Harrier G. Sfrauss. Pp. 379. Sheed and Ward, New York. 1954. $5.00. If ever there was a work of love; it is Father Jurgensmeier's The Mystical Bod~l of Christ. This is flue not ~nly of its subject matter but also of its authorship" an4 translation. The author, rector of the Archiepisocpal Seminary of Paderborn from 1938 to 1946 and martyr of necessary overwork, wrote only this one book, spending years on it and seemingly integrating his whole life, thought, and reading in it. The translator, Harriet G. Strauss, a convert, worked intermittently for five years under 'the direction of Provost Heinrich Seidler of Dresden putting the book into English. The first part of the book. is a comprehensive synthesis df Pauline "texts concerning the Mystical Body, a synthesis which both leads "the reader to the conclusion that the living union with Christ in the MysticalBody is the core of St. Paul's message and makes him anx-ious to read through the Epistles of St. Pa'ul to discover for himself ,their.wealth ~of meaning~ This section is followed' by a difficult dogmatic_ exposition demonstrating that whether one traces the dogmatic path leading from man to God or the one leading from ¯ God through grace to man, one nevertheless ends up at the same place, union with Christ in the Mystical Body. Thus the Mystical Body dogma, because of its central and fundamental position in dogmatic theology, ,is also the basic prificiple for the ascetical life. The last and most rewarding part of the book shows how the Mystical Body doctrine, 'as the fundamental principle of the as-cetical life, not only balances the roles of grace and human effort in" asceticism, but centers attention on Christ rather than on peripheral matters. It does this because it clearly-shows union with Christ as the center and source of all spiritual life; because it focuses atten-tion on the'sacraments as forces integrating us into the structure of the~Mystical Body of Christ and uniting us more closely with Him; because it regulates private devotion and'the liturgy,: and co-ordinates them into .the sacrificial action of Christ the High Priest;- because without neglecting the moral virtues it emphasizes the the- 103 BOOK REVIEWS Review for Retigiou~ ological as uniting with Christ, because it reveals suffering as the finest living of Christ's life and charity as the chief duty in one united with Christ; because it spotlights the fact that each one of us, no matter how insignificant, has a unique and important personal work to accomplish' in Christ's Mystical Body. ° If there are three strata of knowledge in theology, the topmost for the experts, the middle for eager students, and the lowermost for the average Catholic, then Father 3urgensmeier's work would be on the second level sinc,e it demands concentration and study. The translator-edftor is to be lauded for her work in bringing this book into conformity with Pius XII's~M~stici Corporis, but sh~ has not succeeded in all respects. For example, Father Jurgensmeier's errors concerning the extent of and conditions for incorporation in the Mystical Body, though removed in mor.e evident passages, still persist in less noti.ceable ones. Nor are the quotations from M~stici Corporis always apt in selection and textual integration. Father Jurgensmeier himself has complicated the task of the translator by using the same terms in two senses, sdmetimes within the same sen-tence, wiihout warning the reader. Further, in praiseworthily en-deavoring to clarify the meaning of that special mystical identifica- 'tion with \Christ, he has ambiguously described it as a personal character. But these,qualifications, though meant as a warning of caution too the reader, are not intended as derogatory to this magnificent work. Rather it should be considered, as Archbishop Cushing notes in the Foreword, o"a spiritual masterpiece" which can be reread and reread always with g~eater profit. DAVID d. HASSEL, S.J. I AM A DAUGHTER OF THE CHURCH. A Practical Synthesis of Car-mellfe Splrifuality. Volume II. By P. Marie-Eucjane, O.C.D. Trans-la÷e~: l by SMer M. Verda Clare,: C.S.C. Pp. 667. Fides Publishers, Chicacjo 10, Illinois. 19SS. $6.75. In 1953 Fides Publishers produced the first part of a synthesis of the teachings of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross (with examples from the life of the Little Flower) under the title 1 Want to See God. The present work brings to a close this bril-liant and compendious study, explaining as it does the; soul's prog-ress from the beginning of supernatural contemplation in the fourth" of the Teresan.mansions to ~the~ ultimate union °with God in the seventh, .104 March, "1956 ." BOOK REVIEWS Anyone interested in the various stages of supernatural and mystical prayer will find this work of great assistance. The author's genius for synthesis--abundant quotations woven together "with commentary into an orderly development--is evident as he treats in turn supernatural recollection and the prayer of quiet, contem-plative dryness, the dark night of sense, union of the will, the dark night of the spirit, and, finally, transforming union of the soul with God in perfect love. His deft reconciling of apparent divergences in the doctrines of St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross is especially notable. Two short sections of the book stand out significantly for souls whose vocation is to be apostles in the modern world, whether or not God has raised them to the higher mansions. The first is Chap-ter X of Part IV, "The Mystery of the Church" (pp. 186-201). Upon reaching a state of union of the will with God (fifth man-sion), Teresa says that the soul is seized with an intense concern for the salvation of other souls. Its eyes are opened to thee.mission it must fulfill in' the Mystical Body. This is what Fath'er Marie- Eugene terms the soul's "~iscovery of the Church." At this point, tvhaetnio, nh eto s kbeet cehffeesc atend e bxyc e~lltehnet usnuimtimnga royf oafll t mhee dni vtoin Ce hprliasnt, oinf sthale-. Mystical Body--a program which dominated' St. Paul's thinking, and which he called the mystery. In Chapter IX of Part V, "The Saint in the Whole Christ" (pp. 606-62), the author b.egins by stressing the exalted and im-perious demands the lov~ of God makes on the soul raised to the sixth and seventh mansions to help in saving other souls. Then in a section'which is almost wholly original, though strictly in har-mony with Teresan spirituality, Father Marie;Eugene discusses the place of contemplation in the lives of modern apostles. It is this section of the book which, he says in the introduction, "he was tempted toe expand. What he has written is most valuable; we may hope that he is able to develop his ideas in their fullness in a future work., Among other sections which may attract special interest., are those on extraordin.ary.favor~ (pp. 243-97), which a.mounts to,a concise treatise on the~subject, and the. lengthy explanation of the dark night of the spirit (pp. 300-506): The publisher .has rendered a distinct .service to American read-ers by presenting these books in English, The typography is well chosen (save, I would say, for the title page and table of contents). 105. BOOK REVIEWS Review [or Religious A handy summary of Teresan spirituality, according to, the char-acteristics of the seven mansions, is printed inside the front cover. The inclusion of a combined index for both volumes would have enhanced the book's value even more. A final word of congratulation must be reserved for the trans-lator, who has produced as smoo.th and' forceful a translation as if the work had been written originally in English. May she turn her hand to other works where less skilled translators" fail to tread! --THEODORE W. WALTERS, TRUE MORALITY AND ITS COUNTERFEITS.' A Critical Analysis of Ex-is÷en÷ialisfic E÷hics. By Diefrlch yon Hildebrand wi÷h Alice Jourdaln. Pp. 179. David McKay Co., Inc., New York. 195S. $3.00. This book, after a brief introduction in which the author clearly states his object and method, contains nine chapters dealing mostly with "circumstance ethics." An appendix, "Allocution du St. P~re d la Fdd~ration. Mondiale des deunessbs "F~minines Catboliques'" (April, 1952) forms the conclusion. As far as can be seen, the book is the work of Von Hildebrand alone. We have ~here a vigor-ous attack both on "situa~tion or circumstances ethics" as well as on "sin m~rsticism." The former, already analyzed and condemned by the Pope in the allocution above referred to, is subjected to a ldnger analysis here. The results are the same--a ringing condem-nation of "situation ethics." The author grants the complexity ~of the individual moral situation, details the pertinent f~ctors'at play therein, but insists with the Pope upon the primacy of universal moral laws. Th~ exaggerations, even the unchristianity, of "~itu-ation ethics" is shown.- The final chapter is a positive statement of Christian ethics. Of more interest and originality, perhaps, are the parts which deal with "sin mysticism," a phrase taken from the German the-ologian, K. Rahner, S.d. This is a.kind of lived .application of some of the principles of "situa~tion ethics" manifested especially in liter-ature. It con'sists in the exaltation'of the tragic~ sinner over the self-righteous, mediocre, or merely conyentionally moral man. Von Hildebrand fi, nds traces of this tendency, in varying~ degress~ in' Catholic writers like Mauriac, Greene, Gertriad~ yon Le Fort and others. Since these Catholic authors~ are read by our students on the college level, at least, teachers of literature will want to read the indictment. Von Hildebrand is certainly not unsympathetic 1.06 March, 1956 ' " BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS towards these writers; he admits~ what he considers the truth they contain, recalls several necessary dtstlnctlons from Catholic ethics, but, in the end, is driven to condemn this tendency in them. --JAMES d. DOYLE, S.J. BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS )kVE MARIA PRESS, Notre Dame, Indiana. Spirituality for: Postulate, NoOitiate, SchoIasticate, l~y Jar~es F. McElhone, C.S.C., is a book on the spiritual life written ex-plicitly fo~ beginners. It !is not a complete treatise on the religious life but alms to lay a solid foundation for such a life. It fills a need long felt by directors of young religious. Pp. 196. $3.00. THE B'RUCE PUBLISHING COMPANY, Milwaukee 1, WiSconsin. Helps and Hindrances to Perfection, by Thomas J. Higgins, S.J., is a sequel to the author's Perfection Is.for You. The readers for whom it is intended'are all ~he members of the Mystical Body of Christ, for each is bound to tend toward perfection. All can find in these pages help and inspiration. Houses where closed lay re-treats are conducted would do well to add both these volumes to the r~treatants library: .Pp. 258.$4.50. CARMELITE THIRD ORDER PRESS, 6415 Woodlawn Ave., Chicago 37, Ill. Mary and the Saints of Carmel, By-Reverend Valentine L. Boyle, O.Carm. This is a book of meditations on the feasts of our Lady and the saints of the Carmelite Order. Each meditation con-sists of a hundred-word biographical sketch, a one-sentence appli-cation, and the prayer of the-saint from the Carmelite missal. It is profusely illustrated in black and white. Pp. 185. $1.50. Carmel--Mary's Own. A History of the Carmelite Order. Part I. The Elian Origin o? Carmel. Pp. 64, 25c. Part II. The Golden Age of Car~el. Pp. 70. 25c. Part III. Carmel in Modern Times. Pp. 68. 25c. CLONMORE AND REYNOLDS, LTD., 29 Kildare St., Dublin. The Spiritual Teacl~ing of Venerable Francis Libermann. By Bernard J. Kelly, C.S.Sp. Founders of religious orders and con-gregations receive many. special graces from God to enable them to guide wisely in the paths of perfection those ,whom God gives them as followers. That is why the writings of. such founders are esteemed and treasured. The Venerable Francis Libermann, founder. 107 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Review for Religious of the Congregations of the Holy 'Ghost and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, left his followers many valuable documents. Father Kelly has put these in the framework of a treatise on the spiritual life and so has made the wise counsels of the founder of his congrega-tion available to a wider circle of readers. Pp. 201. 13/-. DAUGHTERS OF SAINT PAUL, Old Lake Shore Road, Derby," N. Y. In The Daily Gospel we bare a harmonization of the four G~s-pels due essentially to Father Szczepanski, S.J. A portion of the Gospel is presented for each day of the year. Each selection is fol-lowed by a pertinent quotation from the fathers of the Church and a reflection. The reflections were compiled by John E. Robaldo, S.S.P. The text of the Gospels is the Confraternity version. Keep this book hand~; on your desk and nourish your soul with the Words of Life. Pp. 495. Paper $3.00. Cloth $4.00. Bible Stories for Children. Written and illustrated by the Daughters of' St. Paul. The book contains twenty-six stories from the Old Testament and fifty from the New. Each story is illus-trated with a full page attractive picture in four colors. Pp. 165. Soft cover $1.75. Cloth $3.00. St. Paul Catechism of Christian Doctrine. Prepared and illus-trated by the Daughters of St. Paul. There are six books in the set, one for each grade from one to six. They are richly illustrated in four colors. "Each lesson is divided into three parts: Catechism, Sacred Scripture, and Liturgy. Single copies retail for from 30 to 60 cents. DESCLEE COMPANY, INC., 280 Broadway, New York 7. A Short Histoql of Philosophg. By F. J. Thonnard, A.A. Translated by Edward A. Maziarz, C.PP.S. This is an excellent philosophical presentation of the major trends, schools, and leaders of Western philosophic thought. The intrinsic connection between the presuppositions, basic principles, and doctrines of the major philosohers is emphasized and their thought is briefly evaluated in" the light of Thomistic principles. The. work has excellent bibli-ographies and a valuable doctrinal table. This Efiglish translation, though faulty, will be welcome. Pp. 1074. $6.50. DOYLE AND FINEGAN, Collegeville, Minnesota. The-Simplilication of the Rubrics. Text of the Decree toitb Commentar~.1. By Annibale Bugnini, C.M. Translated by Leonard J. Doyle.~ Father Bugnini's commentary is by far the best that 108 March, 1956 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS has appeared so far and will do much to give a better understanding of the new rubrics. Pp. 131. $1.50. Order for Office and Mass, 1956. This is an English Ordo written for those who say the Divine Office in Engllsb. Pp. 115. $1.25. FELICIAN SISTERS, 600 Doat .St., Buffalo, N. Y. Magnigcat. A Centennial Record of the Congregation of the Sisters of Saint Felix. The appearance of this book announces the happy completion of a century of growth and progress of the Felician sisters. All religious will find this book both interesting and in-spiring. To learn what others have done and are doing for the love of God is an external grace which stimulates to greater and more generous efforts in the following of Christ. It is a .valuable his-torical do.cument that every Catholic library should have. Pp. 155. GRAIL PUBLICATIONS, St. Meinrad, Indiana. Religio Religiosi. By Aidan Cardinal Gasquet, O.S.B. Though published in England in 1923, this little volume is not very well known in this country; and it should be better known. If all who have to face the problem of a choice of a state in life 'would read this book, vocations to the religious life would be multiplied. Pp. 120. $2.50. True Christmas Spirit. By Reverend Edward J. Sutfin. Here is a °book on the Christmas liturgy written at the request of edu-cators to assist them in teaching liturgy to children. It draws on the treasury of world literature and custom. Religious devoted to teaching will find this book most helpful. Pp. 154. $3,00. The Help of His Grace. The Storg of a Benedictine Sister. By Sister Jean Marie, O.S.B. This booklet is a new addition to vo-cational literature. Girls who wish to decide whether they have a vocation to the Benedictine way of life will find it most helpful. Pp. 108. $.50. ~ B. HERDER BOOK COMPANY, 15 South Broadway, St. Louis 2, Mo. The Names of Christ. By Louis of Leon, O.S.A. Translated by Edward J. Schuster. The author of this book was a professor of the University of Salamanca and a contemporary of St. Teresa of Avila and of St. John of the Cross. His spiritual doctrine is well summed up in the present volume. It is the sixth in the Cross .and Crown Series of Spirituality. Pp. 315. $4.75. The Church Teaches. Documents of the Church in English 109 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Reoiew [or Religious Translation. By the Jesuit Fathers of St. Mary's College, St. Mar~;s, Kansas. The gratifying growth of the departments of religion in our-Catholic colleges and universities makes bool~s like the pres.ent volume a necessity. The argument from tradition will always be a major argument in all religious questions. Hence the necessity of translating the documents enshrining this tradition into English, since a knowledge of Latin and Greek can no longer be presupposed in tb~ students of religion. This book is a "must" for teachers of "rel'igion. Pp. 400. $5.75. :" Introduction to the Philosoph~t of Animate Nature. By Henry J. Koren, C.S.Sp. Teachers of philosophy will welcome this ne~i addition to Catholic texts on rational psychology. There is more 'than enough material for a three-hour one-semester course. An ap-pendix .contain~ a list of review questions and suggested readings. Pp. 341. $4.75. An Introduction to the Science of Metapbgsics. By Henry J. Koren, C.S.Sp. This clear, understandable, and orderly textbook, giving the traditional Thomistic doctrine of being, is divided into two parts: being in general (,its nature, its transcendental properties and its limitation), and finite being (its nature and multiplication, its categories, and its causes). For a three-hour one-semester course some selection of material will be necessary. Pp. 341. $4.75. THI~ NI~WMAN IaRI~SS, Westminster, .Ma'ryland. An Hour with Jesus. Meditations for Religious. By Abbe Gaston Courtois. Translated by 'Sister Helen Madeleine, S.N.D. Religious women whose work is education will find enlightenment, encouragement, and many practical, suggestions in this volume. Used as an aid for meditation, the book should do much to advance its users in. the art of mental prayer. Pp. 161. $3.00. :'"Cleanse mg Heart. Meditations on .the Sunda~t Gospels. By Vincerit P. McCorry, S.J. Readers of America will be familiar with Father McCorry's liturgical column "The Word." They will be pleased that one year's offerings have been given a more permanent form in the present volume. Pp. 179. $2.75. Graceful Living. A Course in the Appreciation of the Sacra-ments. By John Fearon, O.P. This is a book on the theology of the sacraments written in a popular vein to catch the interest of the ordinary Catholic and so help him to a fuller Catholic life. It was a selection of the Spiritual Book Associates. Pp. 160. $2.50. Leauen of Holiness. Conferences for Religious. By Reverend 110 March, 1956 BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS Charles Hugo Doyle. Those who have read Father Doyle's first book of conferences for religious, In Pursuit of Perfection, will find in this volume the same freshness of style and vigor of presentation. Pp. 242. $3.50. Meditations Before Mass. By Romano Guardini. Translated by Elinor C. Briefs. Despite the title, this is not a book of medi-tations. It is rather a collection of conferences given originally before Mass to enable the congregation to enter fully into the divine action. Its purpose is to teach a greater appreciation of and participation in the holy sacrifice. Pp. 203'. $3.00. THE PRIORY PRESS, Asbury Road, Dubuque, Iowa. Beginnings: Genesis and Modern Science. By Charles Hauret. Translated and adapted from the 4th French edition by E. P. Em-mans, O.P. and S.S.Prolyta. There can be no conflict between faith and science since God is the author of both. Yet there may be ap-parent conflict. Father Hauret, a scientist in his own right, squarely faces the problems posed by the account of creation in the first three chapters of Genesis and the findings of modern science. If you teach religion, this is a book you should read. You will learn much about the Sacred Scriptures as well as about modern science, and you will be in a position to give satisfactory answers to modern doubters. Pp. 304. $3.25. SAINT CHARLES SEMINARY, 209 Flagg Place, Staten Island 4, N. Y. Father to the Immigrants. dohn Baptist Scalabrini, Bishop of Piacenza. By Icilio Felici. Translated by Carol della Chiesa. On June 1, 1905, John Baptist Scalabrini, Bishop of Piacenza died a holy death. He was a remarkable man, and his memory is honored particularly for his heroic labors in behalf of Italian immigrants in both Americas. He came to their aid by founding the Society of St. Raphael, a lay organization, to alleviate their material wants; by founding a society of missionary priests, now popularly known as the Scalabrinian fathers, to care for their spiritual needs; by starting a congregation of sisters to care for the orphaned and the sick among them. It. was be who came to" the rescue of the Mis-sionary Zelatrices of the Sacred Heart, when it seemed that they must disband, and interested them in work for immigrants. It was he too who urged Mother Cabrini to choose America rather than the Orient for bet field of labors. This is the first full-length bi-ography in English of this saintly bishop, a milestone on the way to his beatification. Pp. 248. $3.00. BOOK ANNOUNCEMENTS SAINT PAUL PUBLICATIONS, 2187 Victory Blvd., Staten Island 14, N. Y. The Perennial Order by Martin Versfeld is a book on Catholic philosophy which is not a textbook. It will be read with interest and profit even by those who have had the usual courses in philo-sophy, for it deals with many topics not mentioned in the conven-tional courses. It is an apostolic book in the sense that it is written also for non-Catholics. It should do much to answer many an in-tellectual difficulty of the sincere inquirer and so prepare the way for conversion. Pp. 250. $3.00. SHEED AND WARD, 840 Broadway, New York 3. Su)ift Victory. Essays on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. By Walter Farrell, O.P. and Dominic Hughes, O.P. It is perhaps no exaggeration to say that most Catholics know so little of the gifts of the Hoiy Ghost that they cannot even name them all. The reason possibly is that they are not something to strive for, but something freely granted to those who love God. Every Catholic should know more about these treasures which are his. Pp. 211. $3.25. In Soft Garments. A Collection of Oxford Conferences. By Ronatd A. Knox. This collection was first published in 1942. The present reprint is in response to popular demand. Pp. 214. $3.00. TEMPLEGATE, Springfield, Illinois. Loue of Our Neighbor. Edited by Albert Ple, O.P. Translated by Donald Attwater and R. F. Trevett. This book is the report of a symposium on charity in which this virtue was dealt with from many angles. Part one deals with charity and Revelation. Part two treats of the theology of this virtue. Part three has such chapters as "A Philosophy of Relation to Others," "Psychoanalysis and Love of One's Neighbors," "Love of Our Neighbor and the Economics of Giving." Part four consists of an outline of what a complete treatise on the love of our neighbor must be if it is ever to be written. Pp. 182. $3.95. CATHOLIC ALMANAC, 1956 The 1956 National Catholic Almanac, a very valuable reference book, is now available at the St. Anthony Guild Press, 508 Marshall St., Paterson, New Jersey. Cloth, $2.50; paper, $2.00. OUR CONTRIBUTORS MOTHER MARY ELEANOR teaches at Rosemont College, Rosemont, Penn-sylvania. BERNARD LEEMING is a professor of theology at Heythrop College, Oxon, England. THOMAS DUBAY teaches theology and homiletics at Marist College, Washington, D. C. 112 InJ:orma!:ion [or Subscribers BUSINESS OFFICE ADDRESS: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas. SEND ALL RENEWALS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS TO: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas. NOTICES OF EXPIRATION have been mailed to all sub-scribers whose subscriptions expired with Jan., 1956. We hope that those who have not yet done so may find it convenient to renew at an early date. When renewing please return the postal-card notice sent to you. It is of great assistance to us in making prompt and ac-curate identification of renewals. EARLY RENEWAL of subscriptions enables us to prepare our ~-~.mailing list for tl~ next issue and avoids delays incurred by later additional mailings. 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Part one of an interview with John Clementi. Topics include: Memories of John's father, Sandro Clementi. His father's work history and how he became an executive in the plastics business. His father's business contacts in Italy. How his father brought new designs to his company and how the company grew. His father owned a pool hall. John's memories of the family trips to Italy they would every summer when he was growing up. What Italy was like around 1960. Speaking Italian in the United States and in Italy. Italian dialects. John's thoughts on discrimination. John's experiences at Leominster High School and at Deerfield. How John went to Boston College Law School. John left litigation work and joined his father at Plastican. How he met his wife. What Latvia, his wife's homeland, is like. How John and his father divide tasks at Plastican. What sort of products the company makes. The ethnic diversity that exists within the company. ; 1 LINDA ROSENLUND:This is Linda [Rosenlund] with the Center for Italian Culture. Today we're with John Clementi, a [Plastican] located on Industrial Road in Leominster. And today is Thursday, December 13, 2001. John is the son of Sandro Clementi and brother of Anna Canlangelo. So, John, um, could you tell about, first of all, your father, your -- you were telling me before I turned the microphone on that he's really… JOHN CLEMENTI: Yeah. Um, he, um… you know, I think that people that know him, that have known him for any given amount of time would, um… what I think, would all agree that he's just a, an extremely talented, um, gifted person, uh, has the ability to, uh, look beyond the present. He, he, he has a remarkable gift for, for being able to predict trends the way that, that the world is heading. He has a wonderful knowledge of, uh, human nature, um, which is [unintelligible - 00:01:14]. And he – and he's just a very talented executive. I think he has, um, he possesses all of the skills that one would think of in terms of being a very, very effective, uh, executive. Um, and, and I, I think he, he's been able to… exhibit those skills in all sorts of different situations and venues. [Unintelligible - 00:01:34] remain a constant, at least in my experience, having worked with him over the course of the last, uh, 25 years or so. LINDA ROSENLUND:Growing up, was, was he the owner of the… JOHN CLEMENTI: Well, um, growing -- no, I think that he… Plastican really wasn't formed until, um, late '60s, early '70s. Uh, I remember my dad in various roles. I remember him as the proprietor of a, um… of a pool hall. Um, and, and going with him on Sunday mornings, uh, to go clean the pool hall up. I remember him, um, as a, um… as a foreman in a plastics factory, um, working at the [unintelligible - 00:02:21]. And, uh, him sort of coming home, um, eating dinner and then go work another job, so, you know. I 2 think I -- my first true recollections of my dad are probably in that capacity. I still remember the blue uniform and the, you know, the grease and the plastic chip. I mean, I was at an age, I think at that time, I was probably maybe four or five years old. And if he did, then I wasn't old enough to understand. I clearly remember is that, you know, he would come home briefly and back. It's still sort of a joke. At the time, the Mickey Mouse Club was the popular children's show. They came on at five o'clock. And if you would ask my father, to this day, Mickey Mouse, he sort of has this negative psychological reaction because it was sort of his signal that it was time to go to work to the other job. And so that's sort of the way I remember my dad coming home and spending with us, you know, a brief amount of time around dinner and then going back out to work another shift. LINDA ROSENLUND:Asking him how it was that he became involved with Plastican, and it's my memory that he was perhaps worked in sales? JOHN CLEMENTI: Yes. I think we need to kind of go back before Plastican. His first involvement with a proprietary company was with Yankee Plastics. And that would have been back, I think, in 1956. And I think that's where the story comes in about the real estate agent and being made aware of this particular company. It would be around the time that I was talking about earlier. He was working in a plastics company anyway. He was working at Star Manufacturing Company as a shift supervisor. And as such, he more or less had to know the ins and outs of operating the plow from -- I mean, even as a child, in those days, he was literally hands-on. He would come home, as I say, covered with grease and plastic dust in his hair and on his clothes and so forth. He knew intimately the details of running a plastics operation. 3 He was also fortunate, you know, I think he would tell you that he was, in that the owner of that company was an Italian himself. And his name was Nick Dimassa, D-I-M-A-S-S-A. And Nick had been in the United States for a long time. He was the kind of person who -- you know, he was a boy, he was a very elegant figure, you know, just sort of the [block] of white hair and always had a [unintelligible – 00:05:25]. He was a successful manufacturer back in those days and my dad worked for him. And my dad often tells me the story that… you know, I think Mr. Dimassa told him, you know, that instead of making money for him, for Mr. Dimassa, that at some point maybe… well, because he was too talented to work for other people. Then the opportunity arose with this company, Yankee Plastics, which was a small action molder or custom molder that manufactured the kinds of things that are really no longer manufactured in the United States anymore. And by that, I mean… LINDA ROSENLUND:Making that no longer made. JOHN CLEMENTI: Right. So… LINDA ROSENLUND:Like what? JOHN CLEMENTI: Like, you know trinkets and giveaway items—small, little things. And basically for other companies, for other people. It wasn't a proprietary line. It was a line of products that were manufactured for the others. And the product line, from what I could tell, at least at that time as a child, you know, seem to have evolved and that the things that he made were bigger. You know, [unintelligible - 00:06:32] larger. And that line seemed to evolve from the kinds of things that we were just talking about into things like pitchers. And the company evolved into a proprietary housewares manufacturer. And I think probably the turning point for that company, for Yankee Platsics, happened to… in the early '60s, that probably had emerged as a leader in 4 design, especially in plastic design. Because I think it's safe to say that plastics is an ersatz material, a substitute for something else—wood or net, or -- in a sort of view it's a surrogate, whereas in Italy, at the time, emerging from the war, plastics was a new material. It was different. It had a higher value to most people. And subsequently, extraordinarily talented designers in Italy were designing plastic housewares, and my dad saw that and realized that very mundane items were being designed to be extraordinarily beautiful, and brought some of those designs to the United States and began to manufacture them on a proprietary basis, and began selling them to companies that were at the time, you know, the equivalent of the big-box retailers that we know of now as K-Mart or Walmart. It would have been a Woolworths or WT Grant. And so he started manufacturing these products for those kinds of companies, and I think that's really where the company began to assume a different… LINDA ROSENLUND:Now, did he hire anyone from [ideas forward]? JOHN CLEMENTI: Well, it was interesting at the time. From around 1960 on, we would spend a good part of our summers in Italy. We would go back to the ancestral town, Corfinio, and the whole family would. And, you know, while we were there, my dad made business contacts in the north of Italy, Turin and Milan, where the plastics business was happening—not only just for Italy but for Europe, in a way. And he made contact with various designers, the most prominent of which was a house called Leonardo, and had some designs done for plastic housewares. And I mean mixer, decanter design, that was just kind of thing where, if you saw it today, it would be just as beautiful today as it was. You know, classic, modern design. And he picked up on that. And, you know, purchased some designs from that house and began to sell them, manufacture the products and sell them. 5 He didn't even know the process but continued, I think is… you know as we continue to maintain a relationship with Italy in terms of going there in the summer, I think he was probably more aware of what was going on in Europe, both by way of Danish and Swedish and Finnish. Right from the very start his proprietary line probably had an edge in terms of quality. I think he was probably… he was a leverage, I think, pretty much to the Hilton those days. But I think that what happened was, once these designs hit, they were just enormously successful. In fact, there was one item, I think if you ask him specifically, there was one item that really was all the [doctoring gamble], which item was sort of a revolutionary item. It was the decanter that now I think we all probably recognize, the one with the measuring lines on the outside and the flip top, little spout on the top, you know, where you take the soft lid and put it on top. And now it's an archaic item, but in those days I think it was a bit revolutionary in that it replaced, you know, the glass pitcher that lemonade would go in, for example. That, I think, was probably the item that provided most of the working capital to go ahead. I would say that was the most significant item. LINDA ROSENLUND:Ask for a design they have an idea of art and then they make contact with? JOHN CLEMENTI: Well, in those days there was a—and there still is, in fact—a national houseware show in Chicago. And I believe that they saw it in Chicago, because my dad would exhibit with everybody else. And I think they saw the item and liked it and tried it on, and it became wildly successful [unintelligible - 00:11:42] a springboard for other items. In fact, I think that was the first, and then the items from Italy that were really high fashion came later. So that, I think that was probably the item that really made the difference. And of course, you could -- the world thinks that 6 came from that. In other words, you had the decanter, now you make the tumblers that go with the decanter, and it sort of becomes a set, and off you go. And there are other sets then, you know, that… pitchers and tumblers, you need bowls, and so you make bowls. And then you need colanders. You know, all of that sort of houseware items that we've come to realize is sort of … you know, the staples of plastic housewares—laundry baskets, lace baskets, all of those things. The line eventually evolved and grew so that it went from things like small tumblers to wastebaskets and trash receptacles, big, 34-gallon trash receptacles. The company evolved, such that from, let's say, from, 1967 it went from a small custom molder to a full-blown housewares manufacturer with a proprietary line. There's a real difference. I mean, custom molder, you're a job shop working for other people. And then as a proprietary line, you are a brand name, and you are manufacturing for yourself. And I think that was a crucial revolution, really, as far as… LINDA ROSENLUND:After more… JOHN CLEMENT: Yeah, I think -- you know, in Leominster, where in those days there were scores of custom molders, custom molders being people who manufactured items for other companies. You know, I think everybody's dream was to have their own proprietary line because you could essentially control you own fate. And my dad was… you know, enough of a visionary to realize that even early on, and thus the importance of coming up with designs that were at the time, at least, you know, innovative and different and would provide an [entrée] in places like Woolworths, for example, that he might not otherwise ever be able to get into given the existence of companies like Rubbermaid at the time. So I think that was a big, a major factor in, you know, being successful going forward. 7 No. Mr. Dimassa was the owner and chief executive of the company called Star Manufacturing, and that's where my dad was a shift foreman, where he learned the art and science of plastics. And he left Star Manufacturing to purchase Yankee Plastics, which was not much more than a garage type operation, very small manufacturing plant with, you know, with not much in terms of sales and not much in terms of machines. But he left Star Manufacturing to buy Yankee Plastics with his life savings and start, you know, in the business as a proprietor. I heard them talk about it. And I heard my dad talk about it and… basically say, I think, with a lot of admiration, that my mother just -- my mother never ever reminded him of what he was doing and what the risks were involved and, you know, the potential downside. Basically, she was there to support him in whatever he felt he needed to do, and that she always basically had faith in what he was doing. She never had much doubt that it was going to be successful. Yes, yes, yes. LINDA ROSENLUND:… while he was at Star Manufacturing? JOHN CLEMENTI: I'm not sure of that, but I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure that he was doing both, yes. He was working two jobs at the time. LINDA ROSENLUND:I never really understood… JOHS CLEMENTI: Well, I think it's… again, I hate to speak for him in that regard, but I think it's because it was a [solicit] income that didn't require a tremendous amount of sophistication if terms of the language, in terms of, you know, business relationships, banks, regulatory agencies. You know? It's a pool hall. People put down money and play pool, and that's that. So it's fairly straightforward, easy kind of business to get into. That doesn't mean you're necessarily successful at it, but it's… you know, if I had to guess, I would think that was the reason. 8 LINDA ROSENLUND:Well, I don't want to put words into his mouth or your mouth either, but I can remember, when asking him about social clubs, he said, "Oh, no. I never belonged to a club," but I got the impression that the pool hall was… JOHN CLEMENTI: I don't know. I don't know about that. I think he probably met a lot of people that way that he might not have met otherwise. But I never had any impression from him that it was a social thing. To me, it was strictly, from what I could tell, a business thing. And it wasn't… again, from what I could tell, the clientele there was not… Italian. It wasn't Italian American. It was just at the pool hall in another town and, you know, in the early '50s. And my dad would always say that, you know, was unfortunate, but pool halls always did well when economies didn't do well. Because people were laid off and had time on their hands, you know, what do you do? And, you know, the pool hall is strictly, from what I could tell at least, an economic thing. LINDA ROSENLUND:At the pool hall, when he fought Yankee… JOHN CLEMENTI: I believe he did. You know, I'm pretty sure that he did. In fact, I think that it was before he did that, and it wasn't simultaneous in my recollection. LINDA ROSENLUND:Are there any differences in your whole life… JOHN CLEMENTI: Gee, you know, to tell you the truth, no. My life, my social life was more or less the same as it always was, which is substantially different from the way things are nowadays in a sense that, you know, people visited each other unannounced. You know, people would show, you know, the Italian talking about the Italian, relatives and friends and acquaintances. There was certain informality, you know? It was not unusual maybe a couple nights a week to have people show up at your house for coffee after dinner and talk, or in the summertime to show up and sit up on the porch or whatever. You know, and that continued 9 right on through. So to that extent, nothing really changed. My dad had been working a lot of hours anyway, so he continued to work a lot of hours. And really, our lives… you know, at least for a child, which is what I was, really didn't change. I mean, I think it's fair to say things, you know, things got moved. When I was in the second grade, we moved to another house that was newer and nicer. But substantially, not different from what it was before. So I can't say that life really changed at all at that time. Again, I didn't perceive that anything had changed. The big thing that would've convinced me as a child that we, you know, that we were doing well and that, you know, my dad was a successful person, was, you know, the trips that we would take to Italy in the summertime. Because at a certain point, I realized that not everybody went to Europe every summer. You know, as time went on I realized what a big deal that really was. LINDA ROSENLUND:Were you going to… JOHN CLEMENTI: At the beginning… I can't remember exactly. I don't think she was still living there, but we had -- we just had lots and lots of relatives there. And we have -- the ancestral home was there, and it's still there, the house that my dad grew up in. And at the time, there was sort of a ritual that happens with Italian immigrants from Central Italy and Southern Italy that have kind of gone on this, you know, sort of the… the exodus from Italy, especially in the post-war. They returned in the summertime, usually for the month of August. And it's a little known fact, but there are… tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of Italian immigrants in places like Australia, Argentina, Canada, huge number of Italian immigrants. France, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium. And these people in the summertime returned to Italy because, among other things, it's vacation in Europe the whole month of August in Italy. No one works. It's a vacation month. 10 And people -- it's kind of a class reunion for everybody. And so, for example, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that our little town of a 1,000 people becomes a town of maybe 3,000 people in August. And so this became sort of a ritual with our family that we would go back for the month of August and… you know, my dad would basically see the people he grew up with, his classmates, his friends, his relatives. And my mother too, because obviously my mother was brought up there as well. And so, you know, it sort of became, as I said, a ritual, or something that was expected. Of course, in the meantime, my dad was, you know, was also doing business, going to design houses, mold makers and talking to the people in the business in Italy who were sort of making it happen over there. And, you know, would build some tools in Italy, get some ideas et cetera. SPEKAER 1: Do you want me to stop this? JOHN CLEMENTI: Yeah. And as I say, for my dad it was business and pleasure, you know, well… nice for me because it afforded me a chance to see cities like Milan and spend some time in big cities whereas… you know, outside of the usual tourist traps, if you will, and get to visit, you know, some companies, and to see Italy as an economic entity as opposed to a tourist entity. And I have to say it was a significant education to me. Because among other things, it allowed me to keep the language, which, you know, was usually lost at some point. But that became I think a very important part of our lives, because for 10 years, I'd say from 1960 to 1970, I think we went every year. Yeah. And just last year my daughter, who is now a senior at Dartmouth, learned Italian and spent a term in Sienna. And we were able to visit her there and that was just a real joy. I was thrilled that she decided on her own that Italian was the language she wanted to learn. And so that was sort of gratifying. But we, 11 the family has been back to Italy, and… I think they enjoy very much and I think they're proud of that side of the family that it's of Italian heritage. I hope that they, you know, continue on and will… learn more about Italy and become more involved with the culture. But that's something they almost have to do on their own, simply because having married someone who is an Italian, it becomes a little bit more difficult. LINDA ROSENLUND:… recruit some of his friends in Italy that have come to America? JOHN CLEMENTI: No. I think… interesting, going back to Italy in those years… I never perceived an overwhelming desire on anybody's part at that time to come to America. Because I think by then, it was pretty much over. Italy was enjoying an economic boom. People were doing well. There was a migration in Italy. People from the south went to the north to work—places like Turin and Milan—to work for companies like Fiat, you know, Pirelli. You know, big companies. And so, there was very little impetus at that time for anybody to come to the United States. I think that was pretty much over. LINDA ROSENLUND:Now, when you… JOHN CLEMENTI: All the time. And it was, it was sort of a wakeup call, because when we first went to… Italy in 1960, it… it was a lot different from what it is today, in many ways. Our little village was primitive. There were maybe three automobiles. There were only a couple of television sets, and they belonged to fraternal organizations. There was no television before until eight o'clock in the evening. It was just so different from what we as Americans expected in terms of lifestyle. Most of the houses didn't have full indoor plumbing. Animals—horses, oxen—were used for transportation. People worked in the fields largely with their own physical labor. It was a very rudimentary agrarian 12 economy, much like what you would see in a third world country today. It would be unfair to call it a third world country because there were obviously other things going on in the big cities, et cetera. But for a ten-year-old child, it was a real eye opener. It was very exciting in many ways to be able to be stepping back in time. But by the same token, I realized that it was a life that was substantially harder than what I was used to. And the natural result of that was to think, "Boy, if we didn't come to the United States, this is the way we would be living now." LINDA ROSENLUND:… back to the village? JOHN CLEMENTI: Well, extraordinarily well. All of our relatives and friends were happy to see us. I mean, they really couldn't have done more for us. They were very lavish in their hospitality and would just about do anything for you to the point of almost being an embarrassment. And so to that extent it was just wonderful. For me, it was a lot of fun because, as I said before, at that time there was a language gap. I'd learned Italian before I learned English, but then I went to school, and, like most American kids, children of immigrants, you don't want to speak the language in public. And so the Italian, while you could understand it, you were always hesitant to speak it. And so when I got to Italy, if I wanted to communicate, I realized that I got to try to speak it as well. And… they had some fun with me and, you know, my brand, my version of the dialect that's spoken in our little village. But we got along well and we had a lot of fun, and it just sort of drew from there to the point where when I was in high school, going back -- I don't think that it was sort of like, "Oh, he's back again." And, you know, I knew everybody and they all knew me, and it was sort of like going to a summerhouse, like [unintelligible - 00:29:35] or something. It was, it became that kind of thing. 13 LINDA ROSENLUND:… dad must have spoken the dialect as well? JOHN CLEMENTI: Yes. LINDA ROSENLUND:So how did he communicate with the businessmen…? JOHN CLEMENTI: Oh, it's interesting, this whole notion of the dialect. I think you'll find, even in Italy today, that some sort of switch goes on and off when you enter the region or when you enter the village. You speak dialect, but when you're anywhere else you speak Italian. It's a phenomenon that I don't think exists here in the United States, where people speak both pure Italian and dialect. And this is true wherever you go. And I noticed this when we do business, as we still do today, with companies in Italy, especially up north. We communicate in Italian or in English, but I know that the people that I'm dealing with, the principals, they'll communicate with their employees in their dialect, which I absolutely don't understand. And if I communicated with my relatives with them present, they wouldn't understand me either. LINDA ROSENLUND:I thought that was more of a recent… JOHN CLEMENTI: I would think, and I hate to speak for Italians, but I think what they would tell you is that people who -- descendants of peasants, say, for a lack of a better term, when they would go to the big city, would speak relatively poor Italian, simply because they spent all their time speaking dialect. But they would know, they would know what they should be saying. And so as time has evolved and education became such that everybody is literate, everybody in Italy speaks the same language. But when they go home, they speak their dialect. And it's a really interesting phenomenon that I don't think as an American I would ever come close to understanding if I didn't go over there to see it firsthand, how someone could be extremely literate. Well, for example, I have a cousin who has written a book—actually, I think books—about classical history, Julius Cesar et 14 cetera. Extremely literate in Italian, and yet when he walks down to the piazza to talk with the guys, boom. He speaks dialect, and just as quickly can go in and out of that mode. So it's a phenomenon that I think still exists, probably to a lesser extent, because I think young people with mass media, watching television, listening to the radio, the Italian becomes modernized, and it is what it is. LINDA ROSENLUND:… now there find it difficult being [unintelligible - 00:32:44]? JOHN CLEMENTI: It's in central Italy. LINDA ROSENLUND:But did he found it difficult going to the north and being taken on seriously by the businessmen up there? JOHN CLEMENTI: You know, I don't think that occurred because… let's not forget, I mean, in the business world he was American. And it was an American company. And even though he spoke Italian, speaks Italian, knows the culture, you know, I think that's the way he was dealing. I think he was always taken very seriously. However, that doesn't discount the fact that there is a, to this day, a dichotomy between north and south. There is a certain… I don't know how to put it, but there's a definite culture clash between the north and the south of Italy. And the northerners view themselves as much more sophisticated, refined than the southerners. And as the southerners, you know, have a similar view of themselves compared to the northerners. In fact, there was actually a movement in the north of Italy to secede from the country. There were this movement, as recently as four or five years ago, for people from the Po Valley to create a country called Padania and secede from the country of Italy. And it doesn't look like it could be real, but I assure you, very real phenomenon. But that was there, and I think that's still there. But I don't think it ever affected my father's ability to do business there. 15 LINDA ROSENLUND:What about accent? JOHN CLEMENTI: You know, again, I think that America has been remarkably fair and welcoming to my father and people like my father. I've probably been -- you know, my father, and people like him who have accents that become self-conscious about it and so forth, I think my dad would tell you that he's been treated fairly, you know, by banks, local banks, who had faith in him early on. And I don't think he's ever forgotten that. I honestly believe that when it comes to discrimination, I think it's there, but I think that to be fair about it, I don't think it's ever been an impediment to me or to meet people, Italian Americans who have a certain sensibility, a certain sensitivity, you know, that it exists. I mean, you know, there will always be… you know, the untoward comment, the, you know, the references, you know, the mafia references that [unintelligible - 00:36:02] me personally. LINDA ROSENLUND:Not even at… JOHN CLEMENTI: Not even at Deerfield. In fact, particularly not at Deerfield. And that's one of the reasons why I personally love the place so much. Because, you know, I think everybody knows and everybody knew at the time, you know, Deerfield was sort of the quintessential Yankee. But the headmaster at the time, Mr. Boyden, Frank Boyden, who's sort of a giant in secondary education, he treated us all the same, and I never… certainly institutionalized from Deerfield. You would get a wise comment from a kid here or there, you know? I chucked out to the usual ignorance that you would find in a high school. I felt that Deerfield, to me, was crucial in my life. I think it was the single most important… Well, let's see. The ethos at Deerfield then and even now was, work hard, play hard. And a certain discipline at the place. By discipline I don't mean a military style discipline, but there was a 16 lot of work to do. It was hard. It was a real interaction between the faculty and the students. And I often tell people, we were as students probably respected by the faculty far more than we deserved. And the place sort or inculcated a sense of responsibility, a sense of giving back to the community. You know, a sense of [unintelligible - 00:37:50] your affairs in a courtly manner. You know, being mind and being understanding. You know, I don't think that was necessarily happening in high school for me. I think it just took my… just took who I was and sort of took me to another level, sort of challenged me, stretched me. I often feel I could've graduated from Deerfield and not gone to college, I'm not sure how much of a difference… It was mine. I mean, I was just going through my sophomore year. You have to realize, it was 1966, and the world was sort of getting to be a little topsy-turvy. You know, the drug culture had made [unintelligible – 00:38:38] in Leominster. And, you know, it was just a confused age. I was doing well in school, at least in terms of grades, but I didn't feel I was achieving very much. But I was probably doing well in a group of… really doing all that well. I thought I was just going through the motions, to tell you the truth, and I felt this sense of malaise about it that, you know, that hammer is going to fall here sometime. And you know, I don't like the way this… and, you know, I just started researching prep schools. I just thought I need to get out of here, down to Deerfield. There were kids that I'd gone to school with who had left and gone… More than anything, what happened was I went --when I was feeling this malaise, I just decided to go to the library and pull out catalogs, where I can get some catalogs. And, to tell the truth, they were very exciting. You know, [area in Dover], 17 Deerfield, you know, the idea that you could play sports on any level, you could study subjects that weren't necessarily offered in high school, and I think the idea of being away from home. I wasn't afraid of it because I've, you know, gone to Europe. It was kind of all of those things put together. I mean, my parents were a little bit taken aback, "Why do you want to leave? What's this all about?" But, you know, after going through the process, the tours and all of that, I think they kind of said okay, and so off we went. LINDA ROSENLUND:So you apparently knew… JOHN CLEMENTI: Yeah. But at time it was fairly clear that we could afford it. I think I knew that in my mind. After all, as I said before, we've been going to Italy now for, you know, at that time, seven, eight years, six, seven years. And so I didn't doubt that that was the case, so… LINDA ROSENLUND:… get the sense that your family was very successful and perhaps -- so [unintelligible - 00:40:58] the other students. JOHN CLEMENTI: [Unintelligible - 00:41:01] at Leominster High? I mean, I had that sense, you know, occasionally, but it really wasn't an overriding factor. I mean, I was pretty much of a happy camper in a way. I had a lot of friends, I loved sports. I was on teams with people. I never felt different, I never felt singled out, I never felt exceptional. It was really… as I said before, it was more a question of worrying about sliding down the slippery slope, if you will. Because, you know, I knew friends that, you know, one year were afraid to go to a dance and in the next year were dropping acid. So it became a kind of thing where I really felt that I wasn't going to progress hanging around. I thought I needed a change of venue. You know, I mean, the factual answer is yes. But I never -- it was important in a sense that they monitored my grades and spoke to my teachers and made sure 18 that I was doing what I ought to have been doing. But I think as time went on, as I got into high school, I think their ability to influence what was going on became less and less, simply because the issues I think became more and more complex. And, you know, they were dealing with them was less and less, simply because now instead of talking to a teacher, you have to talk to every one of these teachers and you need to have a better knowledge of what was going on. I think another thing that I've realized quite honestly is I think is the reverse of what you were asking. I was a sophomore in high school. I believe there was a switch for my philosophy of tracking students to a philosophy of open classrooms. And I have been attending school with same group of kids more or less since seventh grade. And as a sophomore, all of a sudden I realized I was in classes with kids that I'd never been in classes with before. And I think I came to the realization, and then I looked around and I thought it was me, and I thought, "Oh, I'm no longer in the top group. I'm now in the lesser group." But then I realized there were another two, three kids that I knew were very bright, that I knew were, you know, smart as anybody in the class, if not smarter, that were with me, but that there were classes where all the kids were bright. I don't know if this is true, but I surmised that if your parents were on the ball, if your parents knew what the score was in school, that they knew who the good teachers were. And along with the program, then you would be one of the guinea pigs in the open classroom. And this is sort of getting back to your question, "Why did you go to Deerfield?" I think what really set me off was an English class that I was in, in which… it was pretty clear that the class remain in the [gamut] from the brightest kids in the school to probably the least talented in the college curriculum. And the class 19 became a series of same kids putting up their hands, coming up with the answer, being ridiculed by the kids that didn't have the answer, who felt insecure and [badly]. And then what would happen is you would just realize this wasn't advancing the knowledge of the class. And so I thought: "If this is the way it's going to be, then it may be time for me to…" that was another; that was a pretty important fact that I neglected to mention, but… I felt badly for the teacher. Because what happened was she just started teaching to the mean. It all fell apart, in my opinion. [Laughter] SPEKAER 1: And I'm talking about… during high school. JOHN CLEMENTI: You know, I hate to speak for him, but wouldn't have surprised me if he did. I think he probably did. LINDA ROSENLUND:Did he push you for an education to go to college, or… JOHN CLEMENTI: Oh, I don't think he ever did. I don't think he ever expected me not to go to college. And by that time, having gone to Deerfield, you know, that was a totally different culture. And, you know, everybody was going to go to college. In fact, the game changed when I went to Deerfield. Another big reason why I went to Deerfield is in those days I really wanted to go to an Ivy League college. Go to on Ivy League college? Well, interestingly, my sophomore year in high school I was on the debate team, and we had a pretty good debating team in those days. And we went to [unintelligible - 00:46:37] which were up at Dartmouth and Hanover. And I remember to this day, because it was in February and it was classically Hanover, snowing all day long. But… I just, you know, I want to do it, this is where I want to go. You know, I want to go here. At that point, I think that kind of finalized the decision to leave Leominster, because my ability to get there would be seriously stained. And so, you know, I started applying to these other places, [unintelligible - 00:47:11] whole 20 thing evolved. My parents had interestingly -- it's funny, because I had a discussion with my dad about it. You know, my dad, his recollection is he sent me there. My recollection is I wanted to go there. Because really, we have no relationship to any of those kinds of schools. Back to funny story. When I… about that time, and it was in the winter, was in February, I think, I had applied to all these schools and I was now on my schedule. And my dad was still working, you know, hands-on. And I'll never forget, we had an interview at Phillips Andover Academy. And my dad was still, you know, he picked me up, he was still dressed in his work clothes. We went to Phillips, sitting in the admission's building. You know, there's old piano, old room, books, and a fireplace roaring. And it was really warm, and dad was just exhausted. And he just fell asleep. Officer was critiquing my [laughter]. And so, you know, that was kind of my recollection of that episode, which now I think is really funny and is really kind of -- but now I think about it, it's like, "Sure, he was tired. The guy was working really, really hard. He was exhausted." I mean, I dragged him out of the plant to come to this… I knew what was going on, you know, in those days. Not then, you know, they didn't know. They kind of got it from other people, it's the kind of deal was, you know, Philly, you know, that kind of thing. And I think in Deerfield they kind of started to get the idea, because Deerfield was the soul, it really still is. It's just, you know, [unintelligible - 00:49:12]. And don't forget, it was 1966. You know, [GI dye] shirts, long hair, the whole bit. Boom, Deerfield, you know? Coats and ties, suits, you know? You think they were kind of blown away by that. I think they thought to themselves, "This is the best thing that ever happened." You know? My mother tells me now that it broke her heart when I left. 21 LINDA ROSENLUND:What were parents' weekends like or parents'…? JOHN CLEMENTI: It was… it was fine. You have to realize, going back, in a way. And so, you know, I think that kind of went away. There's a kid growing up and that's why I see these Hispanic people working here a lot, and I really emphasize. I know what it's like. You know, they want the same things we want. We all want the same things. But Deerfield was… my parents, I think they're very proud of Deerfield. They… it's something I wish they had, gone to public schools, but quite frankly, I just… in this day and age I just never felt… I just didn't feel that public schools were living up to -- I went to Bancroft school in Worcester, and then they went to Deerfield. My girls went to Deerfield and my son is at Deer- -- I have a long Deerfield tradition. LINDA ROSENLUND:You keep the tradition? JOHN CLEMENTI: But I can get them to go elsewhere but they keep following me. So [unintelligible - 00:51:06] letters at Dartmouth. I have senior and freshmen, both of whom went to Deerfield. They've had wonderful careers. Now I have a son, Alex is a freshmen at Deerfield, and… yeah, I think when I went it was $3,700 a year. It really is. It's a… LINDA ROSENLUND:Follow up with you a little bit, then you decided to pursue a law degree? JOHN CLEMENTI: Yeah, I went to law school. You know, it's something I wanted to do from when I was in high school, really. And you know, it was… I went to Boston College Law School. But, you know, I had to decide what I wanted to do—did I want to go to a big city and, you know, could I come back here. I'd been interning here for this firm that I eventually joined. And they liked me and I liked them, and so when it came to, you know, the time to figure out what I wanted to do for a living, I'd lived in Boston at that time for three years. And that was great, but I -- there was a 22 chance to, you know, make an impact going back to my hometown and going to a small town all the time. You know, all the time. And, you know, I think it was just… have a guaranteed job in the city and all that stuff. I thought that that's what I wanted to do. So I joined the law firm and… I enjoyed it and had fun. I liked the people a lot and I liked the law a lot. And it was really a joy with people I met in the law. And at the time I was doing mostly litigation. I was mostly in court doing mostly criminal work. And… that was fun. But at a certain point I realized that's not what I really wanted to do for the rest of my life. And just about at the same time I came to that conclusion, this company, Plastican had been formed and had been a going concern for about… seven or eight years. And… we had a plant; you know, in Leominster, about 70,000 square foot plant, and there was potential to get it bigger and to do other things. But my dad, at that point the jobs and so forth became much more specific in a point became this, "Listen, there's a lot to do here. There's a lot of potential here, but I'm at the age where I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to go [unintelligible - 00:53:56] all over the United States to do what we need to do." And so, I thought about it and realized that it was exciting, it was a lot of upside potential, and so I left the law and joined the company, and in sort of a COO, beneath my father. And the first task at hand was to set up some sort of a operation in the west, and so I went out and scouted the west and decided upon Dallas. And we… at the warehouse operation there we built a plant, begin to manufacture product there, and established a plant in Dallas in Texas. That was in 1978. And off we went. And then, a few years later, we realized that we had a plant in the east, a plant in the west, but there was a lot of business in the southeast. Florida 23 was a growing state. Georgia, the Carolinas. We really needed a place, a plant there. And so I, you know, we did the same thing, and I went down to and scouted the Southeast and came upon Macon, Georgia after much research and lots of trips to Georgia. In the meantime we add it on to the plant in Dallas, and since add it on to the plant in Macon. And then three years ago we built, we purchased a plant in Phoenix, Arizona, and so now we have a plant in Arizona. As for the Plastican side, we have four plants, and we're selling people coast to coast, so to speak. LINDA ROSENLUND:Now, you get an experience with the plastic industry? JOHN CLEMENTI: Oh, yeah. You know, in high school was the summer job, you know, was… you know, before it was time to go to Italy, in June, July, we worked in the plant, and so… but it was all about in terms of how it works and what you do. I had experience with that. I was here all the time in the summer, so I knew everybody and I knew everything that was going on. Well, you know, that's interesting. Yes, because I did have a part time job after school working at a local accountant's kind of doing arithmet- that was sort of after school from, like, 2:30 to 5:00. So I guess the answer is yes. I don't know how that happened, but I did have a part-time job, yeah. I think it was just the winter, because I didn't play any sports in the winter. LINDA ROSENLUND:… that you were [soft]? JOHN CLEMENTI: No. To be honest with you, I don't remember. I think I probably wanted the money. You know, in high school you could use a little more money. Yeah, I played baseball. It's the sport I cared about most. And I played football too. And that was another reason actually that I went to Deerfield, because Deerfield had great baseball, got my hand at another level. And so that was another impetus. 24 I think they just assumed that that's what kids do. It's interesting because… my parents never saw me play. You know, my dad was always working and my mother, you know, didn't really care, which was fine with me. And… it's another story. My dad saw me play the last game I ever played on the parents' weekend, right before graduation. And it was interesting, because he… you know, he was sitting in the stands and so forth and so on. And… so, we played the game and that was at that. After the game he said to me, "You know, I was talking to this really nice man in the stands, and he said that he thought you were a pretty good player." "Well, that's nice," I said. He said, "Well, you know, it's interesting. His name was DiMaggio." Well, it wasn't Joe DiMaggio, and I don't know if he was related to him. As it turns out, it was Dom DiMaggio, who played for the Red Sox, played centerfield for the Red Sox, and his son Paul was in my class. And, you know, it was kind of funny that, you know, Dom DiMaggio tells my father that kid's pretty good. Who's that kid? And he says, "That's my kid." And it was the only game he ever saw me play. And to this day, I have this sort of… conflict, you know, when I see, you know, soccer moms and little league parents and so forth. I think myself, all the fun I had playing, my parents weren't there. And I'm thinking, "You know, maybe I had a lot of fun because they weren't there." And I didn't have to do anything for anybody, you know? You know, I played, and whatever would happen, happened. And inevitably I had fun, and that was at the end of it. You know, I didn't have any dad telling me what I should have done or mom screaming at me for doing something or -- you know, it was kind of -- I left it there. So when I talk to parents now about that whole thing, you know, who feel compelled to see every single game, the every single practice. And I personally don't feel that way; I just don't 25 feel that way. I go to watch my kid play football, but, you know, if I don't go I don't feel it as a big deal. I don't have to do it. You know, that's another story. And so, the Dom DiMaggio thing was really, was a fun thing, to this day. LINDA ROSENLUND:Did you ever feel like you could go beyond? JOHN CLEMENTI: As I got older I realized how far I was away from going on. At Deerfield I played with guys that went to the major leagues. And, you know, I realized what the difference is. There's a difference, you know? [Laughter] LINDA ROSENLUND:… like who? Who played in the major league? JOHN CLEMENTI: Well, there's a guy who's now the coach at Brandeis, a guy named Pete Varney who's a footnote in history because he was the fellow that caught the famous pass in the Harvard-Yale game, 29-29 tie with the… the headline in the school paper was: "Harvard defeats Yale: 29-29." They scored I think, 26 points in, like, three minutes to tie the game, and he caught the extra point that tied the game with no time left on the clock. So Pete Varney was a footnote in history. But he played for the Chicago Red Sox and, you know, he's a big, strapping guy that could really hit. And the, [Ralph Teiner], the announcer of the [unintelligible – 01:00:45] for the Giants was at Deerfield. You know, just the slew of kids. A kid named Willie Roberts who played for the Houston Oilers and footballer Gary Bonner who said, "All the Russian records are…" you know, you can tell. I mean, there's a difference. I wasn't a very good athlete. I was a good player because I really liked the game and I knew how to play it, but I didn't have the ability to become [laughter]. I wish I did, but I didn't. LINDA ROSENLUND:And getting back, we talked about this just a little bit before I turned the recorder on.26 JOHN CLEMENTI: Oh, well. I mean, I ask the same question you were asking me. Because their kids, you know, they were… people from our village, from Corfinio, that are living here in Leominster who gave their children Italian names—Sandro, Pulino, Vega, Rosana—I mean, real Italian names, which are lovely and I love -- you know, I love them. And I said, "You know what's this, John? Why not Giovanni?" And dad and mother both said, "No! We named you John on purpose so you wouldn't get stuck with one of those names." Kind of interesting that they were thinking that way. To me it was kind of surprising that they were thinking that, because, you know, I think about it now, my dad was 22 and my mom was 21. It took a little bit of thinking, you know? No, I was born… LINDA ROSENLUND:But coming in, I thought you were born in Italy. JOHN CLEMENTI: Well, that's kind of interesting the way life works too, because she is very similar to me in the sense that her parents immigrated at just about the same time. And they were born in Latvia and were displaced people because they were invaded by the Russians, and then by the Germans. And they were taken to war camps in Germany. And her parents met in the war camp in Germany. All of these people who were displaced people were given the option of returning to their homeland or [remain there]. And because Latvia had been occupied by the Soviet Union, by the Russians, the word had gotten out as to what life was like on the other side. They decided not to go back to Latvia, and I guess were able to immigrate to the United States through the auspices of a church group, essentially as refugees, but even more so. So my wife was born in Germany. They didn't emigrate until… they immigrated though. It's interesting, you know, marrying a Mediterranean, marrying a [unintelligible - 01:03:52], 27 essentially in Nordic culture. But I think the common bind, you know, bound, being bound together by the immigrant thing, we understand a lot of the same things. You know, the bit about all of that stuff. All of the things, the feeling awkward, the sharing understanding of those things. Grew up in New Jersey. And it's really funny, you know, I've… her dad was a very successful contractor. And… she and her siblings all went to private schools. She went to private school. It was sort of like the same thing. The same thing happened, you know. You think you're unique and you realize you're far from it. LINDA ROSENLUND:How did you meet her? JOHN CLEMENTI: Blind date. Blind date. It was the Feast of St. Anthony in the North End. And law school at the time and a friend of mine who was living in Boston who said, "J, you know, my girlfriend has a friend, you know, up from New Jersey," and, you know, "would you like to go out with her?" "Sure, why not?" In those days, and I guess still today, every week in the summer there's some feast or another, and I go up there. It was a bit of a happening, and so… we had a blind date, and that was that. LINDA ROSENLUND:[Unintelligible – 01:05:29] JOHN CLEMENTI: Yes, it's really… I think back now, and it really is. Because you know, immigration, from Western Europe was over for the most part, by then. You know, there were very few immigrants that came to this country, you know, much after, 1948, '49. I meant, from Western Europe. I mean, they came from other places, from South America and Asia, Africa, but not many from Western Europe. So, it was -- yeah, it was… I think so. Yeah, definitely. You know, I guess, of the heart, it doesn't work that way. [Laughter] LINDA ROSENLUND:And a different religion. 28 JOHN CLEMENTI: Yes, she's a Lutheran. Yeah, I think it… my parents were remarkably disciplined in bearing, in that regard. And so were hers. They were both smart enough to know that, you know, if this has been what's… you know, go along and let's respect the choices and… you know. You know, it's been fine. It's really interesting. They feel both. As I say, my oldest one speaks Italian. My middle one really looks Italian. And my little guy, you know, I think he's at that age where, you know, he doesn't really feel -- but, we went to Latvia last summer, visited Latvia for a week. And it was great because I wanted to go, I wanted to see one of these former Soviet countries and see what life is like there. But it was good for them to see where their grandparents came from and, you know, to really get -- when I say, you know, they've been to both places and I think it's fair to say they feel a real affinity for both places. It really was… the impression you come away with is that it's a country that's really trying hard. Very interesting. You see construction cranes everywhere in the capital city, which is Riga. And very interesting phenomenon there. The country is divided in half ethnically. Half of them are ethnic Russians and half of them are ethnic Latvians. Who are, the Latvians are basically Teutonic in what they are, you know? They're very Germanic. And the Russians are Russian. And there's a real split there. And there's a great deal of resentment left over from the Soviet occupation. And there's resentment both ways. And the leadership of the country is very interesting, because when the country was liberated, children of immigrants -- and immigrants could come back as citizens. And so the prime minister of Latvia is a Canadian woman. And all of the signs in Latvia are written in three languages: Latvian first, English second, and Russians are not too thrilled about that. But the Latvians understand that, 29 you know, English is the -- it's really interesting. I mean, it's just, watching the country develop. You know, the average income there is, like, $250 a month, you know? They email some in Latvia. They're fully aware of everything that's going on in our culture, movies, CNN. Kind of, like… community is in sort of a weak fog, everything that's happened in the last 20 years up an away, and kind of bringing the country into the modern period without having to go through all the baggage of what has gone before. So, it's a real eye opener because all of the vestiges of Soviet domination are still there. I mean, these horribly snotty apartment buildings that are so depressing. You know, it's depressing architecture. And on the other side, avant-garde, hard music. It's a country that is leaping, you know, just jumping right out of the '40s into the, you know, the 2000s without anything in between. And it's happening. LINDA ROSENLUND:Are you hoping to do business…? JOHN CLEMENTI: Honestly, we don't export much of our products, so I never really thought -- on a personal level, no. I think it's just the… it's interesting. You fly through Frankfurt, boom. You know? Connect to Riga. Yeah, it's only an hour. Then from Riga we went to Stockholm, Sweden, which is only an hour. And there's a flight to Estonia. LINDA ROSENLUND:From Stockholm? JOHN CLEMENTI: Mm-hmm. Probably. We were in Stockholm this summer ourselves, we were in June, been there in June. LINDA ROSENLUND:Is there actually, by Stockholm, it was the… JOHN CLEMENTI: Yes, I was surprised. I don't know why I was surprised, but Stockholm just impressed me massively. It's a really beautiful, beautiful city, very impressive. You know, they have that magnificent park across the bridge, really impressive to me. LINDA ROSENLUND:… all of a sudden they've been able to…30 JOHN CLEMENTI: Infiltrate [laughter]. You know, that's a funny kind of situation. By the time that I became a member of the club, I think there was no longer any need to infiltrate. I think that that had changed completely. I remember a very dear friend of mine who was a member at the time—I was a lot younger—asking me if I wanted to be a member. Really hadn't given it much thought, and I said no. And since I've spoken to Jewish people, it was a real thing there. You know, there was, there were clear notions of the time when a Jewish person couldn't be a member. And I think some of those people sort of said, "Well, you know, that was then. This is now." So, you know, to me, I kind of view it as a… doesn't have nearly as social significance it might have had 20 years ago, or 25 years ago, when it really [unintelligible - 01:12:13]. It's no longer relevant to me. I don't think it's any longer a symbol of anything. I don't think so. LINDA ROSENLUND:No? JOHN CLEMENTI: No, I really don't. No. I think those days are long gone, honestly. You know, they may exist somewhere, you know? In the South, or you know, New York. Maybe it's important what club do you belong, but I don't think it's important at all. SPEKAER 1: … product these days at Plastican? JOHN CLEMENTI: Five-gallon bucket is and always has been the most important product. It's the workhorse of the rigid packaging industry. You know, we package everything from swimming pool chlorine, driveway sealer, paint, driveway, drywall compound, detergents, industrial chemicals, you name it. And back then it's five-gallon buckets. So it's a staple item. Lots of them, but that's the good news. The bad news is there are lots of us doing it, and so it's a very competitive business. You know, technology has always been an important part of what we do, and so…we try to keep on the cutting edge in terms 31 of technology. And only can make them quickly but also to make them well, so that the quality of the product is consistent over time. Packaging products get transported vast distances, and so it's important that the seal is really good and that the product is real good. We purchase recycled resins, and so we manufacture product out of recycled plastic, reclaim containers from customers that want us to so that we can assist in closing the circle. We have a very interesting product, which is the curbside recycling bin, the blue boxes you see on the side of the road. We manufacture those as well, and we manufacture those for the state of Massachusetts. And what we do there is we use recycled resin to manufacture the recycling bins, and so it's kind of -- well, I don't know. The way we kind of divided the tasks in the end, I basically run the day-to-day operations. I'm [unintelligible - 01:14:42] marketing personnel, human resources, purchasing, for the most part, the day-to-day operations of things. My dad, on the other hand, is concerned with things like capital purchases, big machines, molds. And he purchases raw material, resins. You know, the raw material. That's kind of the way we divide things. So, you know, the day-in-day-out headaches are mine. And [unintelligible - 01:15:19] aspect is his. That way, you know, we're constantly talking, so it's… we're always engaged in a dialogue about how we should do this how we should do that. And when one of us is on vacation or away, obviously the other takes up the slack. You know, I think it will continue to be more competitive going forward, you know? With globalization and consolidation, there are fewer and fewer companies to sell to. And this is an issue, that more and more purchasing power. And so the only alternative is to become more and more competitive. So… you know, I will be focusing our efforts on ways in which 32 we can make the company more competitive and more user-friendly to the buyers. One of the things about consolidation is with the added mass these companies are adding, what they do is they expect their vendors to provide more and more by way of service. Whereas you might have had good quality and good price, I think going forward that might not be enough. We have some products for the swimming pool industry in particular that are really innovative. "How I get these darn things off?" And with consumers [unintelligible - 01:16:50] is that you have to make sure that they don't come off. And so if you run into a conflict -- but we think we designed some products that make it easier to take the lid off and put it back on while making sure that nothing leaks in the meantime. So that's where -- I think that's the most exciting item that we're introducing. For those who have a one-gallon paint can, that has revolutionized things as well. LINDA ROSENLUND:Packaging? I mean, do you do everything on…? JOHN CLEMENTI: R&D? Marketing, mostly. So yeah, I will do that here. So this is our latest baby. LINDA ROSENLUND:Is that on the market yet? JOHN CLEMENTI: No. Not yet. LINDA ROSENLUND:… revolution. I think the other… JOHN CLEMENTI: Maybe. [Laughter] LINDA ROSENLUND:Well, you never know… JOHN CLEMENTI: You never know. SPEKAER 1: Is security an issue here? JOHN CLEMENTI: In terms of intellectual property? Yeah, it's an issue everywhere. So far so good, though. I mean, our products have been patented. We spend a lot of time and effort. I think we're pretty secure, but who knows? Here, I think in Plastican we have about 300. I think companywide we -- I think we have a very good 33 track record. I mean, I'd bet that fact that four employees that are going to be celebrating 30 years with us in a couple of months. We have very little turnover management, almost none. As far as our shift employees are concerned, the day shifts are very stable. It's really the -- it goes with the nature of the beast. When you're running 24 hours a day, there are some people that would only work 11 to 7 and 11. And there are other people that would never do it. The toughest shift tends to be 3 to 11, because it's kind of in the middle of the day and… that shift. But other than that, we're pretty fortunate with turnover here. Yeah, I think it's safe to say that we're no different from any other manufacturers in the Commonwealth. We have a lot of people of Hispanic -- I think we have a cross section of the people who live here. LINDA ROSENLUND:Can you mention that again? JOHN CLEMENTI: Yeah. Well, we have a lot of Hispanic employees. I'd say it's probably the major ethnic group that we have. And we also have a lot of Asians—Koreans, Vietnamese, Hmong. And so it's pretty much the reflection of the people that live in our area. I would hope so. I'd like to think that we've give people opportunities to advance themselves, you know, professionally, economically. I too provide opportunities to people. As I said before, we've been fortunate in that our recruitment and retention, we've just been very successful people come here. But I think everybody wants to leave a legacy of fairness and opportunity, and I hope to do the same./AT/lj/es

ÖZET10 Kasım 1938 tarihinde Mustafa Kemal Atatürk'ün hayatını kaybetmesi ile bir-likte Cumhurbaşkanı olan İsmet İnönü ülke yönetiminde en yetkili kişi haline gelmiştir. İnönü'nün CHP ve ülke yönetimindeki adete tek kişilik hakimiyeti ( Milli Şef ) Celal Bayar başta olmak üzere dönemin CHP'li milletvekili ve yöneticilerinde tepkiye neden olmuştur. Bir şahsın parti ve ülke yönetimindeki hakimiyetine İkinci Dünya Savaşı'nın da etkisiyle halkın büyük çoğunluğunda oluşan ekonomik sıkıntının ve iktidarın halkın muhafazakarlığı ile çelişen eğitim ve sosyal alanlardaki uygulamaları CHP ve dışındaki siyasi çevrelerde ve halkın büyük bir bölümünde muhalif bir tutumun oluşmasına neden olmuştur. Bu süreç hükümetin birtakım radikal uygulamaları ile birlikte örgütlü bir mu-halif hareketin doğmasına neden olmuştur. Yukarıda belirtilen nedenlerden kaynaklanan ve açıktan açığa bir söylem ve ey-leme dönüşmeyen CHP milletvekillileri içindeki bireysel tavırlar ilk defa Çiftçiyi Top-raklandırma Kanunu teklifi sırasında ortaya çıkmıştır. CHP milletvekilleri Celal Bayar, Adnan Menderes, Fuat Köprülü ve Refik Koraltan, 14 Mayıs 1945 tarihinde bu kanun teklifinin TBMM'de görüşülmeye başlaması ile birlikte hükümetin bu uygulamasına karşı tavırlarını yaptıkları konuşmalar ile ortaya koymuşlardır. Fakat esasen bu kanun tasarısının TBMM'ye sunulmasından önce CHP içinde muhalif bir grubun oluşması Tevfik Rüştü Aras'ın evinde yapılan perşembe toplantılarıyla başlamıştır. 1945 yılının Nisan ayından itibaren Tevfik Rüştü Aras'ın evinde bir araya gelen Emin Sazak, Adnan Menderes ve Fuat köprülü CHP'nin, İsmet İnönü'nün otoritesi altında olduğunu ifade etmişler ve bu durumu değiştirmek gerektiği üzerinde durmuşlardır. İkinci defa bir ara-ya gelen Adnan Menderes ve Fuat Köprülü demokratik bir merkez oluşturma konusun-da görüş birliğine varmışlardır. Daha sonraki toplantılara Refik Koraltan da katılmıştır. Adnan Menderes, partide ve toplum içinde etkili olan Celal Bayar'ı bu gruba katmak gerektiğini açıklamıştır. Celal Bayar ile yapılan toplantı sonunda o da gruba dahil ol-muştur. Grup üyeleri 18 Mayıs 1945 tarihinde yapılan toplantıda CHP Meclis Grubuna vermeyi düşündükleri Dörtlü Takriri hazırlamışlardır.Takrir verilmeden önce TBMM'de 1945 yılı devlet bütçesinin oylamasına katı-lan üç yüz yetmiş üç milletvekilinden İzmir Milletvekili Celal Bayar, Aydın Milletve-kili Adnan Menderes, İçel Milletvekili Refik Koraltan, Kars Milletvekili Fuat Köprülü ve Eskişehir Milletvekili Emin Sazak bütçeye karşı aleyhte oy kullanmışlardır. Cumhu-riyet Dönemi'nde ilk defa bir bütçeye karşı aleyhte oy kullanılmıştır. Böylece muhalif tavırlarını ikinci defa ortaya koymuşlardır. Grup üyeleri 7 Haziran 1945 tarihinde Celal Bayar, Adnan Menderes, Fuat Köprülü ve Refik Koraltan'ın imzası ile Dörtlü Takrir'i CHP Meclis Grubu Başkanlığı-na vererek muhalif tutumlarını somutlaştırmışlardır. Takrirde CHP'nin işleyişinin de-mokratik ilkelere uygun hale getirilmesini ve TC. Anayasası'nda var olan vatandaş hak ve hürriyetlerinin tanınması talep etmişlerdir. Bu takrir 12 Haziran 1945 tarihinde CHP Meclis Grubu'nda görüşülmüş ve red-dedilmiştir. Takririn reddedilmesi ile birlikte devam eden süreçte bu kadronun CHP içinde siyaset yapma imkanı kalmadığı gibi takrirde talep edilen bir düzenin kurulma-sının CHP içinde mücadele edilerek olamayacağı ortaya çıkmıştır. Takririn, CHP Meclisi Grubuna verildiği günlerde Cumhurbaşkanı İsmet İnönü, Rauf Orbay ile görüşmüş yeni parti kurulması fikrini ona açmıştır. Bu görüşmeden, İnönü'nün yaptığı diğer konuşmalardan cesaret alan grup üyelerine karşı CHP'li yöne-tici ve milletvekillerinin olumsuz tavrı, partinin yayın organı Ulus gazetesindeki ağır sözlerle dolu yazılar grup üyelerinin CHP'den ayrılmalarına neden olmuştur. Zaten Adnan Menderes ve Fuat Köprülü Vatan gazetesinde yayınlanan yazıları nedeniyle CHP Divanı tarafından 25 Eylül 1945 tarihinde CHP'den ihraç edilmişlerdir. Diğer isimlerde istifa etmişlerdir. Partisiz kalan grup üyeleri parti kurma çalışmalarına başla-mışlar ve Demokrat Parti 7 Ocak 1946 tarihinde resmen kurulmuştur. Demokrat Parti, Dörtlü Takrir'in imzacıları: Celal Bayar, Adnan Menderes, Fuat Köprülü ve Refik Koraltan tarafından kurulmuştur. Demokrat Parti'nin simgesi "DP", genel merkezi ise Antalya Milletvekili Cemal Tunca'nın Ankara Sümer Sokaktaki sekiz numaralı binası olmuştur. Demokrat Parti'nin kuruluş gerekçesinde ve programında Türkiye'de demok-ratik bir rejimin kurulacağı, TC Anayasası'nda demokrasiye aykırı kanunların kaldırı-lacağı, vatandaşların hak ve hürriyetlerinin anayasal teminat altına alınacağı dile geti-rilmiştir. Muhalefet yıllarında ise CHP ve iktidar demokratik olmayan tutum ve davra-nışlar sergilemekle itham edilmiştir. Muhalefet yıllılarında iki parti arasında demokra-siye aykırı birçok olay yaşanmıştır. Hatta 7 Ocak 1947 tarihinde gerçekleşen Demokrat Parti Birinci Genel Kongresi'nde kabul edilen Hürriyet Misakı'nda TC Anayasası'na aykırı olan kanunların kaldırılması ve demokrasiye uygun kanunların yapılması talep edilmiştir. Bu istekler yerine getirilmez ise Demokrat Parti Genel Yönetim Kurulu'na sine-i millet kararı ( TBMM'den çekilme ) hakkı verilmiştir. Demokrat Parti yönetici-leri iktidara gelmeleri halinde vatandaşlara hak ve hürriyetlerinin tanınacağı, demokra-siye aykırı kanunların kaldırılacağı ve TC Anayasası'nın demokrasiye uyumlu hale ge-tirileceği sözlerini vermişlerdir. 14 Mayıs 1950 seçim faaliyetlerinde aynı vaatler tekrarlanmıştır. Hatta 2 Nisan 1950 tarihinde Kasımpaşa'da konuşan Demokrat Parti Genel Başkanı Celal Bayar, grev hakkının demokratik hak olduğunu ve demokrasinin olduğu ülkelerdeki gibi toplumsal düzene ve ekonomiye zarar vermeyecek biçimde işçilere grev hakkının verileceğini ifa-de etmiştir. Seçimleri kazanan Demokrat Parti adına Adnan Menderes 22 Mayıs 1950 tarihinde hükümeti kurmuş ve 29 Mayıs 1950 tarihinde hükümet programı TBMM'de onaylanmıştır.Hükümet programında partinin seçim beyannamesinde olduğu gibi iktidar deği-şikliğinin ülkede maddi ve manevi hiçbir sarsıntıya yol açmasına imkan tanınmayacağı ve özellikle devri sabık yaratılmayacağı vurgulanmıştır. Programda, TC Anayasası'nda vatandaş hak ve hürriyetlerine ve millet iradesine dayanan kararlı bir devlet düzeninin gerçekleşmesini sağlayacak düzenlemelerin yapılacağı ifade edilmiştir. Ayrıca CHP hükümetlerinden ( tek parti dönemi ) kalan, demokratik olmayan kanunların, alışkan-lıkların ve anlayışların değiştirileceği vurgulanmıştır. Programda, işçilere grev hakkının sosyal ve ekonomik düzeni bozmayacak şekilde tanınacağı açıklanmıştır. Demokrat Parti İktidarı Programı'nda sadece vatandaşlara tanınacak haklar yer almamıştır. Ayrıca o tarihlerde azınlıkta olsa da bazıları tarafından hak olarak görülen faaliyetlerin yasaklanacağı da yer almıştır. Cumhuriyet'in ve inkılapların korunması için aşırı sol akımlara ( komünizm ) izin verilmeyeceği ve bunlarla etkin bir biçimde müca-dele edileceği ifade edilmiştir. Bunlara karşı kanuni tedbirlerin alınacağı çünkü bu tür düşüncelerin günün şartlarında fikir ve vicdan hürriyeti olarak görülmediği vurgulan-mıştır. Bu fikir akımların hürriyet maskesi altında yayın yapmalarına izin verilmeyeceği çünkü bu düşünce akımlarının amacının özgürlükleri ortadan kaldırmak olduğu iddia edilmiştir. Komünizm fikir akımının yanı sıra irticai hareketlere de asla müsaade edil-meyeceği vurgulanmıştır. Demokrat Parti Dönemi'nde iktidarın sivil toplum kuruluşları ile ilişkilerine özetlemeden önce sivil toplumun örgütü tanımını yapmak yerinde olacaktır. Sivil top-lum kavramı farklı biçimlerde tanımlanan bir kavramdır. Özellikle devlet ile sivil top-lum arasındaki ilişki farklı tanımlamalara neden olmaktadır. Bu tanımlardan bazılarında sivil toplum, devletten tamamen bağımsız, devleti kontrol eden ve hatta devletin alter-natifi olan örgütlü bir güç olarak tarif edilmiştir. Diğer tanımlarda ise devlet ile sivil toplum arasında bu kadar keskin bir ayrılığın olmadığı, sivil toplumun devlete top-lumsal katılımı sağlama amacının var olduğu ileri sürülmüştür. Modern anlamda sivil toplum kavramı "Non Govern Mental Organizations" ( devletten bağımsız örgütlen-meler ) olarak tanımlamasının yanı sıra "gönüllü kuruluşlar", "kar amacı gütmeyen ku-ruluşlar" gibi ifadelerle de tanımlanmaktadır. Sivil toplum tanımını yaptıktan sonra Demokrat Parti iktidarları öncesi sivil toplum örgütlenmesine devletin müdahalesinin ne zaman kaldırıldığına kısaca yer verelim. Türkiye'de 28 Haziran 1938 tarihinde yürürlüğe giren 3512 sayılı Cemiyetler Kanunu ile Osmanlı Devleti döneminden kalma 1909 tarih ve 121 sayılı Cemiyetler Kanun'u ve bu kanunda yapılan 353 ve 387 sayılı kanunlar yürürlükten kalkmıştır. Bu kanunun dokuzuncu maddesinin h bendiyle "aile, sınıf, ırk, cins" esasına dayalı der-neklerin kurulması yasaklanmıştır. Bu madde ile sendika ve birçok derneğin kurulması yasaklanmıştır. Bu kanunun kabul gerekçesinde, o dönem de bazı ülkelerde var olan ko-münist ve faşist rejimlerin ülkenin yönetimin ele geçirmesini önlemek olduğu ileri sü-rülmüştür. İsmet İnönü'nün 10-11 Mayıs 1946 tarihinde CHP Kurultayı'nda yaptığı konuşmadan sonra 5 Haziran 1946 tarihinde 4919 sayılı Kanun ile dernek kurma işle-mindeki izin alma formalitesi kaldırılmıştır. Sınıf esasına dayalı dernek kurma yasağı da kalkmıştır. Bu kanunun kabulü sırasında Demokrat Parti adına bir konuşma yapan Adnan Menderes, kanunda yapılan değişikliği demokrasiye giden yolda önemli bir aşa-ma olarak adlandırmıştır. Sivil toplum örgütlenmesinin önündeki engeller Demokrat Parti İktidarı öncesinde kaldırılmıştır. Demokrat Parti İktidarı döneminde sivil toplum kuruluşları ile ilişkiler iki bölü-mde ele alınabilir. Birinci bölüm hükümetin sivil toplum alanında yaptığı düzenleme-lerden oluşur. İkinci bölüm ise iktidarın sivil toplum kuruluşlarına yaklaşımı yani onların faaliyetlerine karşı tutumu, ülke yönetimi ile ilgili alınan kararlara ilgili sivil toplum kuruluşlarının tepkileri ve sivil toplum kuruluşlarının kendi alanları ile ilgili alınan kararlarda bu kuruluşların isteklerinin ve itirazlarının dikkate alıp almamasından oluşur.Demokrat Parti İktidarı döneminde sivil toplum alanında birçok düzenleme yapılmıştır. Hükümetin yaptığı bu düzenlemelere günümüzün demokrasi düzeyi ile yaklaşmak zamanın koşullarını ve demokrasi kültürünün oluşum sürecini dikkate almamak anlamına gelir. Hükümetin sivil toplum alanında yaptığı ilk düzenleme 5680 sayılı Basın Kanunu'dur. Kanunun kabulü demokrasi ilkeleri ile bağdaşan bir uygulama olmuştur. Bu nedenle basın ve basın-yayın örgütleri bu yasayı doğru bir adım olarak görmüşlerdir. Hükümetin sivil toplum alanında yaptığı ikinci kanuni düzenleme 5844 sayılı Komünizm İle Mücadele Kanununu çıkarmasıdır. İktidarın programında komü-nizm fikir akımına ve komünist yayınlara karşı mücadele edileceği, bu fikir akımlarının faaliyetlerinin demokratik bir fikir ve vicdan hürriyeti olarak görülmediği aksine de-mokratik rejimi ortadan kaldırmaya yönelik bir tutum ve tavır olduğu vurgulanmıştır. Muhalefetin de bu konuda iktidarla aynı düşünceye sahip olması bu kanunun çıkarıl-masını kolaylaştırmıştır. Demokrat Parti İktidarı'nın bu tür düşünce akımlarına ve onların faaliyetlerine izin vermemesini değerlendirirken zamanın koşullarını ve demok-rasi kültürünün oluşum sürecini göz önünde tutmak yerinde olacaktır. İktidarın sivil toplum alanı ile ilgili yaptığı bir başka uygulama ise 5816 sayılı Atatürk Kanunu'nun çıkarılmasıdır. Atatürk'ün kişiliğine, ilke ve inkılaplarına saldırıların sonucunda kabul edilmiş olan bu kanun günümüzde de geçerlidir. Bu kanunun çıkarılmasına Atatürk'ün kurduğu parti olan CHP'li milletvekillerinin karşı çıkmış olmaları ise üzerinde durul-ması gereken önemli bir husustur. Hükümetin sivil toplum alanında gerçekleştirdiği bir başka düzenleme ise 6761 sayılı Vicdan ve Toplanma Hürriyetini Koruma Kanunu'nun kabul edilmesidir. Kanun, irticai hareketlerin artarak rejimi tehdit eder hale gelmesinin sonucu çıkarılmıştır. İrticai hareketlere izin verilmeyeceğini, demokratik rejimi koruya-cağını programında ilan eden hükümet bunun gereğini yerine getirmiştir. Dinin siyasi veya diğer çıkarlar için kullanılması ve bu tür örgütlenmelerin kurulmasını demokratik ilkelerle bağdaştırmak mümkün değildir. Hükümetin sivil toplum alanına bir başka müdahalesi Neşir Yolu ile veya Radyo ile İşlenecek Bazı Cürümler Hakkındaki Kanun'u çıkarması ile 6732 ve 6733 sayılı basın kanunlarının bazı maddelerini değiş-tirmesi ile olmuştur. Bu kanunlarda yer alan kişilerin şikayeti olmadan savcıların ya-yınlar ile ilgili kendiliğinden harekete geçebilmesi unsuru haber alma ve verme hür-riyetini engelleyen bir koşul oluşturmuştur. Yine gazetecilerin yaptıkları haberler ve köşe yazarlarının yazdıkları yazılar nedeniyle şikayet edilmeleri halinde kendilerini müdafaa edebilmeleri için ispat hakkının onlara verilmeyişi bazı konularda ( iktidar ve mülki amirler ile ilgili yolsuzluk vb) haber yapmalarına, yazı yazmalarına engel olacak ortamı oluşturmuştur. Ayrıca, halkın haber alma özgürlüğüne, gazetecilerin özgür ve bağımsız çalışmasına engel olmuştur. İspat hakkı verilmediği gibi bu tür yazı ve haberler için cezaların arttırılması basın hürriyetini ortadan kaldırmıştır. Bu nedenle bazı basın mensupları hareket içerikli haber ve yazıları nedeniyle ceza almış olsalar da hükümetin politikalarını eleştiren onlarca basın çalışanına hapis cezalarının verilmesi vatandaşlara hak ve hürriyetlerini vereceğini ve devri sabık yaratmayacağını söyleyen Demokrat Parti İktidarı'nın bu uygulamaları onun söylemleri ve adıyla çelişmesine ne-den olmuştur. Hükümetin sivil toplum alanında yaptığı bir başka kanuni düzenleme 6771 Sayılı Toplantılar ve Gösteri Yürüyüşleri Kanunu'nu çıkarmasıdır. Kanun, siyasi partilerin seçim varmış gibi çok fazla miting yaptığı ve bu mitinglerde konuşanların hükümeti ağır bir şekilde eleştirdiği ve hatta bazı hatiplerin hükümet üyelerine ağır sözler söylediği gerekçeleriyle kabul edilmiştir. Bu kanun ile partilerin miting ve kapalı alan toplantıları seçim zamanı ile sınırlandırılmıştır. Bu nedenle bu uygulama demokrasiye aykırı bir düzenleme olmuştur. Bir parti veya dernek kanunlara aykırı hareket etmediği sürece istediği zaman izin almak koşulu ile miting yapabilmelidir. Hükümetin sivil toplum kuruluşları ile ilişkilerine baktığımızda ise olumlu ve o-lumsuz tutum ve uygulamaların varlığından söz edebiliriz. İktidarın sivil toplum kuru-luşları ile ilişkileri dernekler, sendikalar ve basın teşkilatları ile olmak üzere üç ana bö-lüm halinde ele alınabilir. Derneklerle ilişkilere baktığımızda öğrenci dernekleri ile iliş-kilerin daha yoğun olduğunu söyleyebiliriz. Özellikle TMTF ve MTTB gibi öğrenci dernek federasyonları yönetimleri ile ilişkiler öğrenci dernekleri ile ilişkilerin en önemli bölümünü oluşturur. Bu konuda partilerin bugünde devam eden derneklerin yönetimle-rini elde etme isteği Demokrat Parti İktidarı'nın da faaliyetlerinden birisini oluşmuştur. Muhalif olan yönetimleri değiştirmek için çeşitli çalışmalar yapılmıştır. Bu doğrultuda Demokrat Partili dört milletvekili tarafından öğrenci derneklerine hükümetin verdiği ö-deneği dağıtma ve gençlik sorunlarını çözmek amacıyla kurulmuş olan Gençlik Bürosu' nun TMTF ve MTTB'nin yönetim kurulları seçimlerine müdahale etmesi ve sonrası yaşanan olaylar demokrasi ilkeleri ile bağdaşmamıştır. Ayrıca Türkiye Milli Gençlik Teşkilatı adında bir gençlik derneği varken Türk Milli Birliği'nin kurulması ve böylece geçliği farklı cephelerde örgütleme isteği gençliğin birbiri ile kavgalı hale gelmesine ne-den olmuştur. Radyo Dinlemeyenler Cemiyeti'nin İstanbul Valisi Ethem Yetkiner tara-fından kanunsuz bir biçimde kapatılması, Ankara Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Dekanı Turhan Fevzioğlu'nun görevden alınması nedeniyle eylem yapan öğrencilerin gözaltına alınması ve mahkemeye verilmesi, İTÜTB'nin üniversitedeki yemek boykotu nedeniyle öğrencilerin gözaltına alınmaları, mahkemeye verilmeleri ve hükümet yetki-lilerinin bu konuda yaptıkları açıklamalar demokratik bir iktidar sivil toplum kuruluşu ilişki tarzına aykırı olmuştur. Tahkikat Komisyonu kararları ile örfi idarelerin kurulması ve öğrencilerin tepkilerinin engellenmesi de demokrasi açısında doğru olmayan uygula-malar olmuştur. Kiracılar Cemiyeti'nin istekleri dikkate alınarak Kira Kanunu'nun ka-bul edilmesi, tüccar, esnaf ve sanayicilerin derneklerinin talepleri dikkate alınarak Milli Korunma Kanunu'nda yapılan değişiklik ve kredi imkanlarının artırılması gibi karar-larda dernekler ile ilgili hükümetin olumlu yönde uygulamaları olmuştur. Ayrıca hükü-metin irtica ve komünizm ile mücadeleleri de dernekler tarafından olumlu karşılan-mıştır. Hükümetin sendikalar ile ilişkilerine baktığımızda ise grev hakkı tartışmalarının en önemli sorun olduğunu söyleyebiliriz. İktidarın seçim vaatlerinde ve programında olan grev hakkı ile ilgili sendikalar tarafından onlarca talep gelmiştir. 1951 yılında bir tasarı hazırlanmış olmasına ve ilgili bakanların bu hakkın verileceğini yıllarca söyleme-lerine karşın grev hakkı verilmemiştir. Çalışma bakanları grev hakkının verilmeme ne-denini, genellikle iktisadi ve sosyal düzenin bozulabileceğine dayandırmışlardır. Ayrıca, grev hakkı verildiğinde işverene lokavt hakkının da tanınması gerektiği için sendikala-rın mali gücünün bunu kaldıramayacağını ve işçilerin zor durumda kalacağını iddia et-mişlerdir. Bu nedenlerle grev hakkı için acele edilmemesini dile getirmişlerdir. İşçiye grev hakkının verilmemesinin yanında işçi mitinglerinin yasaklanması; kanunsuz grev nedeniyle bazı sendikaların kapatılması; işsizlik rakamları açıklamaları nedeniyle Çalışma Bakanlığı ile tartışmaya giren bazı sendika birliklerinin Sendikalar Kanunu'nun sekizinci maddesinde yer alan ayrı ayrı iş kolundaki sendikaların sendikal birlik olama-yacağı gerekçesiyle kapatılması; işçi seminerlerinin yasaklanması ve burada konferans verenlerin cahillikle, komünistlikle ve siyasi propaganda yapmakla ile itham edilmesi; Zonguldak Maden İşçileri Sendikası ikinci başkanının muhalif açıklamaları nedeniyle görevden alınması ve sendikanın kongresine müdahale edilmesi gibi olaylar demokratik olmayan tutumlar olmuştur. Kolektif İş Akdi tasarısının TBMM'ye getirilmesi, işçiler için ev yapılması, yıllık ücretli iznin verilmesi, tatil yapamayanlara çalıştıkları gün için yevmiye ödenmesi, sendikal faaliyet nedeniyle işten çıkarılmaların kanunla yasaklan-ması, işçi sigortalarındaki düzenlemelerde işçilerin ve sendikaların lehine olan demok-ratik uygulamalar olmuştur. Basın ve onun teşkilatları ile ilişkilerine baktığımızda Demokrat Parti, muhalefet yıllarında ve iktidarının ilk üç, dört yılında basının büyük bir bölümü tarafından destek- lenmiştir. Fakat hükümet politikalarındaki değişmeler ve ekonomideki kötü gidiş bası-nın büyük bir bölümünün hükümete muhalif olmasına neden olmuştur. Bu nedenle bası-nının muhalif partilerin eylem ve söylemlerini sayfalarına taşıması; hükümet politikala-rını eleştiren yazılar yayınlaması hükümetin yukarıda aktardığımız kanuni önlemleri al-masına neden olmuştur. Bu kanunların kabulüne bazı gazetecilerin hükümet üyeleri ile ilgili eleştirinin boyutunu aşarak hakaret içeren yazıları kaleme almaları da etkili olmuş-tur. Özellikle 1958 yılından sonra basın kuruluşları ile hükümet üyeleri arasında ilişkiler gerginleşmiştir. Basın sanki bir muhalefet partisi gibi muhalefeti hükümete karşı tek cephede birleşmeye çağırırken hükümette basını reklam ödeneklerinin azalması nede-niyle bu yönde hareket etme ve meşru hükümete karşı halkı ayaklanmaya teşvik etmek-le itham etmiştir. İsmet İnönü'nün ve CHP'lilerin yurt gezileri ile Osman Bölükbaşı'nın Kırşehir'i ziyareti ve tutuklanması sırasında bazı gazetecilerin polis tarafından tartak-lanması, fotoğraf makinelerinin ellerinden alınması, gözaltına alınmaları, yargılanma-ları, bu olayların yayının yasaklanması hükümet ile basının ilişkilerini daha da gergin-leştirmiştir. Bu olaylar nedeniyle basın örgütlerinin tebliğler yayınlamaları ve bu tebliğ-lerden birisi nedeniyle İstanbul Gazeteciler Sendikası'nın siyaset yaptığı gerekçesiyle kapatılması ve Beynelmilel Basın Enstitüsü'nün Türkiye'deki basın hürriyeti ile ilgili açıklamasının yayınının yasaklanması basınla iktidarı karşı karşıya getirmiştir. Bu olay-lar bazı gazeteci örgütlerinden istifa edenlerin Demokrat Parti'ye yakın gazeteciler ile radyo ve Anadolu Ajansı'nda çalışan gazetecilerden oluşan Matbuat Kulübü'nün kurul-ması ile sonuçlanmıştır. CHP'nin son olaylar nedeniyle halkı iktidara karşı isyana teşvik ettiği ve silahlı hücreler kurduğu gerekçesiyle Tahkikat Komisyonu'nun kurulması ve bu olay sonucunda örfi idarelerin ilan edilmesi bazı örfi idare kararlarına uymadığı ne-deniyle bazı gazetelerin kapatılmasına neden olmuştur. Tabi ki sadece hükümetin basın-la olumsuz yönde ilişkileri olmamıştır. Başbakan Adnan Menderes birçok kez bazı ga-zetecilere ziyafet vermiş, onların teşekküllerini ziyaret etmiş ve istek ve sorunlarını din-lemiştir. Özetle Demokrat Parti İktidarı Türkiye'de demokrasi kültürünün oluşmadığı ve Cumhuriyet'in ilanının üzerinden çok fazla zamanın geçmediği bir dönemde işbaşına gelen bir iktidardır. Bu nedenle devri sabık yaratılmayacağı ve demokratik hak ve hürriyetlerin tanınacağı, TC Anayasası'nın demokrasi ilkelerine uygun biçimde tanzim edileceği sözleri tutulamamıştır.ABSTRACTOn November 10, 1938 with the death of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Ismet Inonu country, the management of which the President has become the most authoritative person. İnönü, CHP and the state administration dominated by single units (National Chief), especially the period of Celal Bayar reaction caused CHP deputies and managers. Direction of the party and the country is a party to the Second World War due to the domination of the majority of the people and the power of the economic distress of the people in conflict with conservative political circles and outside the CHP applications in educational and social fields, and a large part of the population has led to the formation of an oppositional stance. In conjunction with this process, the government organized a number of radical opposition movement has led to applications.Due to the reasons stated above, and openly turned into a discourse and actions of individual behavior within the CHP has emerged during the bid for the first time legislation for land reform. CHP deputies Celal Bayar and Adnan Menderes, Fuat Koprulu, and Refik Koraltan, May 14, 1945 with the start of the discussion in Parliament on the proposal of this law the government's attitude towards the application put forward by their speeches. However, prior to the submission to Parliament of the draft of this law is essentially a dissident group within the CHP meetings began Thursday in the home of the formation of Tevfik Rüştü Aras. Aras Tevfik Rüştü since April of 1945 came together at home Emin Sazak sure, Adnan Menderes and Fuat Koprulu CHP reported that they were under the authority of Ismet Inonu and focused on the need to change this situation. Fuat Koprulu Adnan Menderes coming together for the second time and agreed on establishing a democratic center. Refik Koraltan later participated in the meetings. Adnan Menderes, the party and in the community should join this group Celal Bayar has announced that effective. The meeting with the group at the end of Celal Bayar, it has been included. Group members at the meeting held on May 18, Calm before the Turkish Grand National Assembly without a vote of the state budget of 1945 three hundred and seventy-three deputies involved in İzmir deputy Celal Bayar,Deputy Aydin Adnan Menderes, Mersin deputy Refik Koraltan, Kars deputy Fuat Koprulu and Eskişehir deputy Emin Sazak used negative vote against the budget. Against the budget vote against the Republican period was used for the first time. Thus, the attitudes of the opposition put forward a second time. 1945 was prepared by the CHP Parliamentary Group Quartet Motion to think.Group members on June 7, 1945 at Celal Bayar and Adnan Menderes, Fuat Koprulu and the CHP Parliamentary Group of the motion hazard with the signature of President Rafik Koraltan'ın attitudes explicitly put forward by the opposition. The operation of the CHP's proposal to be brought into line with democratic principles and the TC. Recognition of citizens' rights and freedoms of the Constitution claimed that exists.CHP Parliamentary Group on June 12, 1945 This resolution was discussed and rejected. Calm in the ongoing process of this staff within the CHP with the rejection of the possibility of politics as no event requested a proposal to establish an order could not be fighting in the CHP has emerged.The proposals given in the CHP parliamentary group, recently President Ismet Inonu, the idea of establishing a new party he has met with Rauf Orbay. This meeting, the group ventured İnönü his other speeches negative attitude against members of the CHP managers and members of parliament, the party organ of the Nation newspaper articles full of heavy words to leave the group members has led to the CHP. Already published in Homeland Adnan Menderes and Fuat Koprulu writings were expelled from the CHP CHP by the Court on September 25, 1945.Other names resigned. The remaining members of the group began the work of establishing party-Party and the Democratic Party was formally established on January 7, 1946. The Democratic Party, Four signatories to the motion: Celal Bayar and Adnan Menderes, was founded by Fuat Koprulu, and Refik Koraltan. Symbol of the Democratic Party, "DP", is headquartered in Ankara Antalya Deputy Cemal Tunca Sumerian has been building street number eight.The justification of the Democratic Party establishment of a democratic regime in Turkey to install and program, contrary to the laws of democracy, the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey removed, will be guaranteed by the constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens are expressed. In opposition to the CHP, and the government has been accused of exhibiting non-democratic attitudes and behaviors. The opposition between the two parties yıllılarında many events occurred against democracy. Even the Democratic Party, which took place on January 7, 1947 the First General Congress of the abolition of laws which are contrary to the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey adopted the Convention on Freedom and democracy has been requested to the appropriate law. These requests are not adhered to given the right to withdraw from the Parliament of the Board of Directors of the Democratic Party. If the Democratic Party came to power managers to recognize the rights and freedoms of citizens, democracy, contrary to the laws of the Republic to remove the words of the Constitution gave making them compatible with democracy.May 14, 1950 election activities, the same promise was repeated. Even speaking Kasımpaşa on April 2, 1950 Democratic Party Chairman Celal Bayar, that democratic rights and democracy in countries where the right to strike as the social order and stated that the economy will not harm the workers the right to strike. On behalf of the Democratic Party won the elections on May 22, 1950 the government of Adnan Menderes set up and on May 29, 1950 the Parliament approved the government's program.The government program as well as the party's electoral declaration is no shock of the moral and material change of government in the country the possibility to open the account will not be recognized, and in particular sorulmayacağı previous government was emphasized. In the program, the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey is based on the will of the citizens' rights and freedoms and the nation are expressed in stable arrangements shall be made to ensure the realization of a state order. In addition, the governments of the CHP (single-party period) and the remaining non-democratic laws, habits, and understandings change is emphasized. In the program, the workers explained to recognize the right to strike will not disrupt the social and economic order.Programme of the Government of the Democratic Party would get only the rights of citizens were not included. In addition, even though at that time by some of the minority rights in the banned activities took place. Reforms for the protection of the Republic and the extreme left movements (communism) and will not be allowed to deal with them effectively unless otherwise indicated. Legal action will be taken against them because such conditions, the ideas and thoughts of the day is not seen as freedom of conscience is emphasized. This idea will not be allowed to broadcast under the guise of freedom of currents currents of thought because it has been claimed that the purpose of eliminating freedoms. The idea of communism would not be allowed to flow as well as the reactionary movements never be emphasized.Democratic Party Period Before summarizing the power of civil society in its relations with non-governmental organizations would be appropriate to define the organization. The concept of civil society is a concept defined in different ways. In particular the relationship between the state and civil society leads to different definitions. Some of these definitions, civil society, completely independent of the government, which controls the state and even the organized power of the state, which has been described as an alternative. Other definitions of the state and civil society is not so much a sharp separation, has the purpose of ensuring the participation of civil society, the state has been suggested that social. The concept of civil society in the modern sense "Non Govern mental Organizations" (independent of the state organizations), as well as the definition of "voluntary organizations", "nonprofit organizations" as well as the terms are defined. After the definition of civil society non-governmental organization prior to the governments of the Democratic Party has been removed briefly when you let the government's interference.Turkey Associations law no. 3512 came into force on June 28, 1938 and 1909 by the Ottoman Empire era and societies act no. 121 and no. 387 to the law and the law was abolished 353. This is the ninth article of the law bendiyle h "family, class, race, gender" on the basis of the establishment of associations is prohibited. This material association with the trade unions and the establishment of many prohibited. Accept the justification for this law, existing at the time of communist and fascist regimes in some countries to avoid taking over the administration of the country suggested that.Ismet Inonu, 10 to 11 May 1946, after his speech to the CHP congress of the law no. 4919 on June 5, 1946 permitting process and formalities to freedom of association has been removed. Class on the basis of the ban on freedom of association disappeared. Time of the adoption of this law, gave a speech on behalf of the Democratic Party of Adnan Menderes, the change in the law is an important step on the road to democracy, termed. Removed the obstacles to the organization of civil society ahead of the Democratic Party Government.Relations with non-governmental organizations in the Government of the Democratic Party can be considered in two parts. The first part consists of the Regulation in the field of government, civil society. The second part of power approach to civil society organizations, that is, their attitude towards the activities of the country, on the decisions taken on the management of non-governmental organizations and civil society responses in decisions related to their field consists of absence from these organizations to take into account requests and objections.The Governments of the Democratic Party made many regulations in the field of civil society. The government's approach to his time with the level of democracy in today's terms of these regulations and take no account of the formation process of a culture of democracy means. The government's first regulation in the field of civil society Press Act no. 5680. The adoption of the Law has been a practice incompatible with the principles of democracy. Therefore, the press and media organizations saw this as a step towards the law. The second legal regulation in the field of civil society, the government's Struggle Against Communism Act 5844 to issue no. The idea of communism and communist publications program flow of power to fight against the idea of a democratic currents of ideas and activities seen as contrary to freedom of conscience to abolish the democratic regime is emphasized as an attitude and demeanor. Opposition to have the same thought on this subject, power and facilitated the removal of this law. İktidarı'nın Democratic Party not to allow this kind of thought currents and their activities in terms of assessing the time and would be wise to keep in mind that the process of the formation of a culture of democracy. Another application is related to the field of civil society that the government is the removal of the law no. 5816 of Atatürk. Atatürk's personality, principles and reforms of this law which has been adopted as a result of the attacks also applies today. This law established by Ataturk party, the CHP deputies opposed the removal of the need to focus on to be an important consideration. If the regulation is carried out by the Government in the field of non-governmental No. 6761 is the adoption of the Law on Protection of conscience and the right to freedom of assembly. The law was a result of the arrival of fundamentalist movements become increasingly threaten the regime. Harekelere reactionary allowed the democratic regime of government that proclaimed the need to protect the program fulfilled. The use of religion for political or other interests is not possible to reconcile democratic principles and the establishment of such organizations. Another area of civil society through the intervention of the government or the Radio Broadcasting to be covered by the Act on Certain Felonies by extraction with replacement of some provisions of the laws of 6732 and 6733 has been no press. Without these laws, prosecutors publications related to the complaints of the people pass the element of self-motivation has created a condition that prevents the freedom to receive and impart news. Again, journalists, columnists wrote articles for their news and to be able to prove that the right to defend themselves if they are complaining verilmeyişi them on some issues (related to power and corruption, governors, etc.) make news, the media has created to prevent writing to write. In addition, the public freedom of information, has been hampered by journalists to operate freely and independently. Proof is not given the right to increase the penalties for press articles and news like this kind of freedom is eliminated. For this reason, some members of the media even if they are convicted of moving content, news and articles critical of the government's policies, press the dozens of employees and the transfer of prison sentences would be given rights and freedoms of citizens who have no former Democratic Party İktidarı'nın these practices conflict with the name of his discourses, and from what has been . Any other legal regulation in the field of civil society that the Government No. 6771 Law on Meetings and Demonstrations landing. The law of political parties and election rallies like there's a lot of rally speakers heavily criticized the government and even some harsh words said to the members of the government on grounds of orators were adopted. With this law, meetings, parties, rally and off the field is limited to election time. Therefore, this application has an arrangement undemocratic. Act contrary to the laws of association, unless a party or get permission at any time be able to rally with the condition.If we look at the government's relations with civil society organizations can talk about the existence of positive and negative attitudes and practices. Power relations with non-governmental organizations, associations, trade unions and the press offices of three main parts: can be handled. When we look at the relations of relations with associations, student associations say that more intense. Student associations and federations, such as TMTF MTTB especially relations with governments creates the most important part of relations with student associations. Management of associations in this regard the parties desire to achieve, which continues today İktidarı'nın Democratic Party, one of the activities occurred. Various studies the management of the opposition to change. In this respect the government of the Democratic Party the benefit of four deputies student associations established to solve the problems of deploying and youth, the Youth Bureau's board of directors MTTB'nin TMTF and after the elections and the events in the intervention was not consistent with democratic principles. In addition, while Turkey's National Youth Organization is a youth association, and thus the establishment of the Turkish National Union geçliği different fronts at loggerheads with each other to become the youth organization has led to the request. Radio unlawfully by not obeying the closure of the League of the Governor of Istanbul Ethem Yetkiner, Dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences, Ankara University, Turhan Fevzioğlu'nun dismissal of the action because of the detention and court-students who, due to the boycott of food İTÜTB'nin university students detention, without trial and government officials and their explanations in this regard the relationship of a democratic style of government, non-governmental organizations has been inconsistent. Research Commission decisions and the establishment of the legal authorities and the students' reactions have been prevented by applications that are not correct in terms of democracy. Requests, taking into account the adoption of the Law on Lease Tenants Association, merchants, tradesmen, and taking into account the demands of the industrialists' associations, and credit facilities amendment to the Law on Protection of National Associations of decisions, such as increasing the government has applications in a positive way. In addition, the government struggles with fundamentalism and communism was welcomed by the associations.If we look at the government's relations with the trade unions the right to strike is the most important problem söyleyebiliriz.Hükümetin election promises and program discussions with the trade unions on the right to strike has been requested by the dozens. In 1951, a bill has been prepared and the relevant ministers would say that for many years, but the right to strike were not given this right. The right to strike or not to study the cause of ministers, generally relied on the economic and social order can go wrong. In addition, the employer is given the right to strike or lock-out should be recognized the right of the workers to handle this difficult situation will remain the financial power of the trade unions have claimed. For these reasons expressed not to rush to the right to strike. An employee is not given the right to strike of workers rallies next to the prohibition of certain trade unions due to the closure of illegal strikes, unemployment figures into the discussion with the Ministry of Labour for comments eighth article of the Law on Trade Unions located in some of the trade union trade union trade union unity can not be separate business line on the ground, working seminars ban and ignorance of those who lecture here, to be accused of being a communist and political propaganda; Zonguldak Mine Workers' Union and the second president of the union congress to intervene in the dismissal of the opposition, such as descriptions of events were non-democratic attitudes. The introduction to Parliament of the draft collective employment contract for workers to home, paid annual granting of a permit, work groups not on the payment of per diem for the day, because of the dismissal law, the prohibition of trade union activity, labor regulations, workers and trade unions in favor of insurances has been democratic practices.Look at the Democratic Party's relations with the press and its agencies, the opposition and the government die in the first three, four, supported by a large part of the press in. However, changes in government policies and the economy is going bad, the opposition to the government has led to a large part of the media. For this reason, the actions and rhetoric of media sheets to carry the opposition parties and the government to publish articles critical of the government's policies have quoted above, has led to take legal measures. The adoption of this law, the size of some of the criticism of journalists, members of the government to submit written papers has been effective in overcoming-round insulting. Especially in 1958, after the tense relations between members of the press and the government. Press it as an opposition party, the opposition to unite against the government calling a single front to move in this direction due to the decline in government appropriations media advertising and the people to revolt against the legitimate government has been accused. . Ismet Inonu and CHP foreign trips and a visit to Kirşehir Osman Bölükbaşı some journalists during his arrest by the police, beaten, deprived cameras, detention, trial, media relations with the government banning the publication of these events gerginleştirmiştir. This is due to the events of press organizations publish papers and one of the papers due to the closure of Istanbul, on the grounds that the political Union of Journalists and the international Press Institute press freedom in Turkey, the prohibition of publication of the statement on the power of the press has faced. These events are close to the Democratic Party, who resigned some journalist organizations, journalists and radio and printed documents of journalists working in the Anatolian Agency resulted in the establishment Club. Due to recent events in the CHP encourages people to revolt against the government and the armed cells, and this event as a result of the establishment of the Commission of Inquiry on the grounds established by customary authorities declared martial law in some of the decisions of the breach has led to the closure of some newspapers. Of course, only the government's relationship with the press has been negative. Some reporters several times Prime Minister Adnan Menderes feast, I have visited their formations and listened to requests and problems.In summary declaration of the Democratic Party Government of the Republic of Turkey, the culture of democracy are generated does not exceed too much time in power, which came to power at a time. For this reason, touched and democratic rights and freedoms recognized representatives of the previous government, the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey promises to be devised in accordance with the principles of democracy has not been realized.

Issue 32.4 of the Review for Religious, 1973. ; 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 © 1973 by Review ]or Religious. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri. Single copies: $1.25. Sub-scription U.S.A. and Canada: $6.00 a year; $11.00 for two years; other countries, $7.00 a year, $13.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order 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 July 1973 Volume 32 Number 4 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. The Testament of Unmeasured Love Congregation [or the Discipline o[ the Sacraments The following is an instruction on the Eucharist dated January 29, 1973, but not publicly released until March 29, 1973. The Latin title of the instruction is lntmensae caritatis; the translation is that which appeared in the English edition of Osservatore ro/~ltltlo. Christ the Lord has left to the Church, His Spouse, a testament of His im-mense love. This wonderful gift of the Eucharist, which is the greatest gift of all, demands that such an important mystery should be increasingly bet-ter known and its saving power more fully shared. With the intention ot~ fostering devotion to the Eucharist--the summit and center of Christian worship--the Church, moved by pastoral zeal and concern, has on more than one occasion issued suitable laws and appropriate documents. Present-day conditions however demand that, while the utmost reverence owing to such a Sacrament~ is constantly maintained, greater access to Holy 1See the Council of Trent, Session 13, Decretutn de SS. Eucharistiae Sacramento, c. 7; DB 880 (DS 1646-1647): "If it is not fitting .for anyone to approach any sacred functions except in a state of holiness, then certainly to the extent that the holiness and godliness of this heavenly Sacrament is more and more known to the Christian, all the more must he take care that he does not come to receive it without great reverence and holiness, especially because of the fearful words of the Apostle which we read: 'A person who eats and drinks without recognizing the Body of the Lord is eating and drinking his own condemnation' (I Cor 11:29). Thus the following precept should be recalled to the one desirous of receiving Holy Communion: 'Let a man so examine himself' (1 Cor 11:28). Ecclesiastical custom declares that the proving of one's self is necessary so that no one, conscious of having committed mortal sin, though considering himself contrite, should approach the Holy Eucharist without first having made a sacramental confession. This Holy Synod declares that this must perpetually be observed by all Christians, even by priests whose duty it is to celebrate Mass, as long as there is an availability of confessors. If in the case of urgent necessity 721 722 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 Communion should be made possible so that the faithful, by sharing more fully in the fruits of the sacrifice of the Mass, might dedicate themselves more readily and effectively to God and to the good of the Church and of mankind. First of all, provision must be made lest reception become impossible or difficult owing to a lack of a sufficient number of ministers. Provision must also be made lest the sick be deprived of such a great spiritual consolation by being impeded from receiving Holy Communion because of the law of fast, which they may not be able to observe, even though it be already very moderate. Finally, it seems appropriate to determine in which circumstances the faithful who ask to receive sacramental Communion a second time on the same day may be permitted fittingly to do so. After a study of the recommendations of episcopal conferences the fol-lowing norms are issued in regard to: 1. extraordinary ministers for the distribution of Holy Communion; 2. a more extensive faculty of receiving Holy Communion twice in the same day; 3. mitigation of the Eucharistic fast for the sick and elderly; 4. the piety and reverence owing to the Blessed Sacrament whenever the Eucharist is placed in the hand of the communicant. Extraordinary Ministers of Communion There are various circumstances in which a lack of sufficient ministers for the distribution of Holy Communion can occur: --during Mass, because of the size of the congregation or a particular difficulty in which a celebrant finds himself; --outside of Mass, when it is difficult because of distance to take the sacred species, especially the Viaticum, to the sick in danger of death, or when the very number of the sick, especially in hospitals and similar insti-tutions, requires many ministers. Therefore, in order that the faithful, who are in the state of grace and who with an upright and pious disposition, wish to share in the Sacred Banquet, may not be deprived of this sacramental help and consolation, it has seemed appropriate to the Holy Father to establish extraordinary ministers, who may give Holy Communion to themselves and to other faithful under the following determined conditions: I. Local ordinaries have the faculty to permit a suitable person indi-vidually chosen as an extraordinary minister for a specific occasion or for a time or, in the case of necessity, in some permanent way, either to give a priest will have celebrated without previous confession, he is to make a confession as soon as possible." See also Sacred Congregation of the Council, the decree Sacra "Tridentina Synodus (December 20, 1905), AAS, v. 38 (1905-1906), pp. 400-6; Sacred Congregation for the Do(trine of the Faith, Normae pastorales circa absolu-tionem sacramentalem generali modo impertiendam (July 31, 1972), Norm 1, AAS, v. 64 (1972), p. 511. The Testament of Unmeasured Love / 72:1 the Eucharist to himself or to other faithful and to take it to the sick who are confined to their homes. This faculty may be used whenever a) there is no priest, deacon, or acolyte; b) these are prevented from administering Holy Communion because of another pastoral ministry or because of ill health or advanced age; c) the number of faithful requesting Holy Communion is such that the celebration of Mass or the distribution of the Eucharist outside of Mass would be t~nduly prolonged. II. Local ordinaries also have the faculty to permit individual priests exercising their sacred office to appoint a suitable person who in cases of genuine necessity would distribute Holy Communion for a specific occasion. III. The above-mentioned local ordinaries can delegate these faculties to auxiliary bishops, episcopal vicars, and episcopal delegates. IV. The suitable person to whom numbers I and II refer shall be desig-nated according to the following order: lector, student of major seminary, male religious, woman religious, catechist, Catholic man or woman. This order, however, can be changed according to the prudent judgment of the local ordinary. V. In oratories of religious communities of either sex the office of dis-tributing Holy Communion in the circumstances described in number I can fittingly be given to a male superior not having major orders or to a woman superior or to their respective vicars. VI. If time permits, it is fitting that the suitable person individually chosen by the local ordinary for administering Holy Communion, as well as the person appointed by a priest having the faculty spoken of in number II, should receive the mandate according to the rite annexed to this instruc-tion; they are to distribute Holy Communion according to the liturgical norms. Since these faculties are granted only for the spiritual good of the faith-ful and for cases of genuine necessity, priests are to remember that they are not thereby excused from the task of distrib.uting the Eucharist to the faith-ful who legitimately request it, aid especially from taking and giving it to the sick. The person who has been appointed to be an ~xtraordinary minister of Holy Communion is necessarily to be duly instructed and should distinguish himself by his Christian life, faith, and morals. Let him strive to be worthy of this great office; let him cultivate devotion to the Holy Eucharist and show himself as an example to the other faithful by his piety and reverence for this most holy Sacrament of the Altar. Let no one be chosen whose selec-tion may cause scandal among the faithful. Communion Twice in the Same Day According to the discipline currently in force, the faithful are permitted to receive Holy Communion a second time: 724 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 ---~n the evening of Saturday or of the day preceding a holyday of obli-gation, when they intend to fulfill the precept of hearing Mass, even though they have already received Holy Communion in the morning of that same day'-'; --at the second Mass of Easter and at one of the Masses celebrated on Christmas Day, even if they have already received Holy Communion at the Mass of the Paschal Vigil or at the midnight Mass of Christmas:~; ---likewise at the evening Mass of Holy Thursday, even if they have re-ceived Holy Communion at the earlier Mass of the Chrism." Since, beyond these circumstances which have been mentioned, there are similar occasions which suggest that Holy Communion might fittingly be received twice in the same day, it is necessary here to determine more pre-cisely the reasons for the new faculty. The norm which the Church, a most provident Mother, has introduced according to venerable custom and included in canon law by which the faith-ful are permitted to receive Holy Communion only once a day remains in-tact nor is it permitted to be set aside merely from motives of devotion. To a simple desire for repeated reception of Holy Communion it should be an-swered that the power of the Sacrament by which faith, charity, and the other virtues are nourished, strengthened, and expressed is all the greater to the extent that one more devoutly approaches the sacred table.~ For, from the liturgical celebration the faithful should go out to the works of charity, piety, and apostolic action so that "they may hold fast by their conduct and life to what they have received by faith and the Sacrament.''" Special circumstances, however, can occur when the faithful who have already received Holy Communion that same day, or even priests who have already celebrated Mass, may be present at some community celebration. They may receive Holy Communion again in the following instances: 1. at those Masses in which the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Anointing of the Sick, Sacred Orders, and Matrimony are administered; also at a Mass at which First Communion is received~; 2. at Masses at which a church or altar is consecrated; at Masses of religious profession or for the conferring of a "canonical mission"; '-'Sacred Congregation of Rites, the instruction Eucharisticum mysterium (May 25, 1967), n. 28, AAS, v. 59 (1967), p. 557. :qbid. q.bid.; see also Sacred Congregation of Rites, the instruction Inter oecumenici (Septem-ber 26, 1964), n. 60, AAS, v. 56 (1964), p. 891; and the instruction Tres abhinc annos (May 4, 1967), n. 14, AAS, v. 59 (1967), p. 445. ~See Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 3, q. 79, a. 7 ad 3; and a. 8 ad 1. ~Sacred Congregation of Rites, the instruction Eucharisticum mysterium (May 25, 1967), n. 13, AAS, v. 59 (1967), p. 549. rSee Missale romanum, "Institutio generalis Missalis romani," 329 a; p. 90 in the "editio tipica" of 1970. The Testament of Unmeasured Love / 725 3. at the following Masses of the Dead: the funeral Mass, the Mass celebrated after notification of death, the Mass on the day of final burial, and the Mass on the first anniversary; 4. at the principal Mass celebrated in the cathedral or in the parish on the feast of Corpus Christi and on the day of a parochial visitation; at the Mass celebrated by the major superior of a religious community on the oc-casion of a canonical visitation, of special meetings, or of chapters; 5. at the principal Mass of a Eucharistic or Marian Congress, whether international or national, regional or diocesan; 6. at the principal Mass of any congress, sacred pilgrimage, or preach-ing mission for the people; 7. in the administration of Viaticum, in which Communion can also be given to the relatives and friends of the patient; 8. also local ordinaries may, besides those cases mentioned above, grant permission "ad actum" to receive Holy Communion twice in the same day, as often as they shall judge it truly justified by reason of genuinely special circumstances, according to the norm of this instruction. Mitigation of the Eucharistic Fast Above all it remains firmly decreed that a person to whom Viaticum is administered in danger of death is not bound by any law of fasting,s Like-wise remaining in force is the concession already granted by Pius XII whereby "the sick, even if not confined to bed, can take non-alcoholic drinks and medicines in either liquid or solid form before the celebration of Mass and the reception of the Eucharist without any restriction of time."" In the case of foods and drinks taken for the purpose of nutrition, that tradition is to be respected according to which the Eucharist should be re-ceived, as Tertullian said, "before any food""' so as to indicate the excel-lence of the sacramental food. In order to appreciate the dignity of the Sacrament and to prepare with joy for the coming of the Lord, a time of silence and recoliection before the reception of Holy Communion is opportune. In the case of the sick, how-ever, it will be a sufficient sign of piety and reverence if, for a brief period of time, they turn their minds to the greatness of the mystery. The period of time of the Eucharistic fast or abstinence from food and alcoholic drink is reduced t+ approximately one quarter of an hour, forthe following: 1. the sick in hospitals or in their own homes, even if they are not con-fined to bed; 2. the faithful advanced in age who must remain at home because of age or who are living in a home for the aged; ~See canon 858, § 1. 9Motu proprio Sacram Communionem (March 19, 1957), n. 4, AAS, v. 49 (1957), p. 178. ~OAd uxorem, 2, 5; PL, v. 1, 1408. 726 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 3. sick priests, even if not confined to bed, and elderly priests, who wish to celebrate Mass or receive Holy Communion; 4. persons looking after the sick and the aged as well as those relatives of the sick and aged wishing to receive Holy Communion with them, when-ever they are unable to observe the fast of one hour without inconvenience. Reverence During Hand Reception Since the instruction Memoriale Domini was published three years ago, some episcopal conferences have sought the faculty from the Apostolic See to allow the minister of Holy Communion to place the Eucharistic species in the hands of the faithful. As that instruction recalled, "the precepts of the Church and the documents of the Fathers amply testify that the deepest reverence and the greatest prudence have been shown with regard to the Holy Eucharist,''11 and should continue to be shown. Especially in this man-ner of receiving Holy Communion some points indicated by experience should be most carefully observed. Let the greatest diligence and care be taken particularly with regard to fragments which perhaps break off the hosts. This applies to the minister and to the recipient whenever the Sacred Host is placed in the hands of the communicant. Before initiating the practice of giving Holy Communion in the hand a suitable instruction and catechesis of Catholic doctrine is necessary con-cerning both the real and permanent presence of Christ under the Eucharistic species and the reverence due to this Sacrament.lz It is necessary to instruct the faithful that Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior and that the same worship and adoration given to God is owed to Him present under the sacramental signs. Let the faithful be counseled there-fore not to omit a sincere and fitting thanksgiving after the Eucharistic ban-quet, such as may accord with each one's particular ability, state, and duties.1:' So that participation in this heavenly table may be altogether worthy and profitable, the value and effects deriving from it for both the individual and the community must be pointed out to the faithful in such a way that their familiar attitude reveals reverence, fosters that intimate love for the Father of the household who gives us "our daily bread,''1'~ and leads ~lSacred Congregation for Divine Worship, the instruction Metnoriale Domini (May 29, 1969), AAS, v. 61 (1969), p. 542, which remains in force. lzSee Vatican Council II, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Con-cilium, n. 7, AAS, v. 56 (1969), pp. 100-1; Sacred Congregation of Rites, the instruc-tion Eucharisticum mysterium (May 25, 1967), n. 9, AAS, v. 59 (1967), p. 547; and Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship, the instruction Memoriale Domini, which states: ". all danger of the spreading of irreverence or false opinions concerning the Holy Eucharist is to be avoided," AAS, v. 61 (1969), p. 545. 13Paul VI, the address Ad membra Consilii Eucharisticis ex omnibus nationibus con-ventibus moderandis habita, AAS, v. 64 (1972), p. 287. 14See Lk 11:3. The Testament of Unmeasured Love / 727 to a living relationship with Christ of whose flesh and blood we partake.'~ The Supreme Pontiff Paul VI has approved and sanctioned this instruc-tion by his authority and directed that it should be published, decreeing that it should enter into force on the day of its publication. Given in Rome, at the Sacred Congregation for the Discipline of the Sacraments, 29 January 1973. A. Card. SAMORE Prefect ¯ J. CASORIA Secretary l~See Heb 2:14. Documents on the 1975 Holy Year Paul VI At the general audiences of May 9, 1973, and of May 16, 1973, Pope Paul VI an-nounced a Holy Year for 1975. Previous to May 9, 197'3, a set of directives for the celebration of the 1975 Holy Year had been drawn up and was published in the English language edition of Osservatore romatto, May 16, 1973, page 11. On May 9, 1973, Monsignor Enrico Bartoletti and Monsignor Wladislaw Rubin gave a Vatican Press Conference on the 1975 Holy Year. These four documents are given below in the translations published in the issues of May 16 and May 24, 1973, of the English language Osservatore romano. ALLOCUTION OF MAY 9 Today there is something we would like to tell you, something which we believe is important for the spiritual life of the Church. It is this: After having prayed and meditated we have decided to celebrate in 1975 a Holy Year when the interval of twenty-five years fixed by our predecessor Paul II in the papal bull inefJabilis providentia of April 17 1940 will haveexpired. The Holy Year, which in canonical language is known as the "Jubilee," meant in the Biblical tradition of the Old Testament a year of special public observance, with abstention from normal work, a return to the original distribution of land, the cancelation of existing debts, and the freeing of Hebrew slaves (see Lev 25: 8ft.). In the history of the Church, as you know, the Jubilee was instituted by Boniface VIII in the year 1300 for a purely spiritual purpose. It consisted in making a penitential pilgrimage to the tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul. Dante was among those who took part in it and he gives a description of the crowds thronging the city of Rome (see Inferno 18, 28-33). Later in 1500 there was added to the Jubilee the opening of the Holy Doors of the Basilicas which were to be visited. This was intended not only to facilitate the influx of penitents but also to sym-bolize easier access to divine mercy through the gaining of the Jubilee indulgence. 728 Documents on the 1975 Holy Year / 729 We have asked ourself if such a tradition should be continued in our times which are so different from times gone by and so conditioned both by the style of religion given to ecclesial life by the recent Council and by the practical lack of interest .of many parts of the modern world in the ritual expression of other centuries. We have, however, been convinced that the celebration of the Holy Year not only can be consistently fitted in with the spiritual line adopted by the Council itself which it is our responsibility to develop faithfully-~but can also be very well harmonized with and con-tribute to the tireless and loving efforts being made by the Church to meet the moral needs of our time, to interpret its deepest aspirations, and to ac-cept honestly certain forms of its preferred external manifestations. Essential Concept of the Holy Year In view of the variety of purposes it is necessary to stress what is the essential concept of the Holy Year. It is the interior renewal of man: of the man who thinks and who in his thought has lost the certainty of truth; of the man who works and who in his work has realized that he is so extro-verted that he no longer fully possesses communication with himself; of the man who enjoys life and who so amuses himself and has so many exciting ways to gain pleasurable experience that he soon feels bored and dis-illusioned. Man must be renewed from within. This is what the gospel calls conversion, penance, and a change of heart. It is the process of self-rebirth. It is simple, like a clear and courageous act of conscience and at the same time complex like a long, instructive, and reforming apprenticeship. It is also a moment of grace, and usually one does .not obtain grace without bowing one's head. And we do not think we err in detecting in modern man profound dissatisfaction, satiety coupled with insufficiency, unhappiness produced by false formulas for happiness with which he is intoxicated, and dismay at not knowing how to enjoy the thousand and one pleasures that civilization offers him in abundahce. In other words, man needs an interior renewal such as that hoped for by the Council. The Holy Year is oriented precisely to this personal and interior renewal, which under certain aspects is also exterior. It is an easy and at the same time extraordinary therapy which should bring spiritual well-being to every conscience and indirectly, at least to some extent, to the attitude of society. This is the general theme of the next Holy Year which, however, will also be centered upon another and special theme that is oriented to practical living: reconciliation. Reconciliation The term, "reconciliation," evokes the concept opposite to that of a break. What break would we have to mend in order to reach that recon-ciliation which is the condition for the desired renewal of the Jubilee? What break? But is it not perhaps enough to use this word reconciliation, which 730 / Review 1or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 involves a whole program, to realize that our life is disturbed by too many breaks, too much disharmony, too much disorder to be able to enjoy the gifts of personal and collective life according to their ideal finality? We need above all to reestablish a genuine, vital, and happy relationship with God, to be reconciled with Him in humility and love, so that from this first basic harmony the whole world of our experience may express a need and acquire a virtue of reconciliation in charity and justice with men to whom we im-mediately give the new title of "brothers." Moreover, reconciliation takes place in other vast and very real areas: within the ecclesial community it-self, in society, in the relations among nations, in ecumenism, in the sphere of peace, and so forth. If God permits us to celebrate the Holy Year, it will have many things to tell us in this regard. Local Churches First Let us now limit ourselves to pointing out an important aspect of the structure of the next Holy Year. According to the centuries-old custom, the Holy Year has its focal point in Rome. And it will still be so, but with this innovation. The conditions prescribed for acquiring special spiritual benefits will this time be anticipated and granted to the local churches so that the whole Church spread throughout the world may be able to profit immedi-ately from this great occasion of renewal and reconciliation. In this way the entire Church will be better able to prepare for the climax and conclu-sion of the Holy Year, which wil~ be celebrated in Rome in the year 1975, and which will give to the traditonal pilgrimage to the tombs of the Apostles its traditional~ meaning for those who are able and wish to make the pil-grimage. And this important and salutary spiritual and penitential move-ment, which involves the entire Church and which will be accompanied by the granting of special indulgences, will begin on the coming Feast of Pentecost, June I0. On former occasions, the extension of the Holy Year came after its celebration in Rome; now this extension will precede the cele-bration in Rome. Everyone can see how this innovation also includes an intention of honoring with more evident and effective communion the local churches which are living members of the one universal Church of Christ. This will suffice for the present. But by the grace of God we shall have many other things to say on this matter. May our Apostolic Blessing be with all of you. ALLOCUTION OF MAY 16 Last week we announced to our visitors at the general audience that there will be a Holy Year in 1975, but with an opening in the local churches, that is, in the various dioceses and therefore in the individual parishes and ec-clesial communities, on the forthcoming Feast of Pentecost on June 10 [1973]. In this way all the faithful in the world will have the time and the opportunity to take part in this great exercise of religious and moral renewal Documents on the 1975 Hoiy Year / 731 even before it is celebrated in Rome in the year that has been established. Thus the spiritual benefits can be obtained even by those who will not have the happy possibility of coming on pilgrimage to the tombs of the Apostles in, the "Eternal City." Interest in the Event The announcement has aroused great interest in the world as a fact which, because of its extension, concerns in various ways the entire earth. It has. also, as is natural, aroused great interest in the Catholic Church. It is an event which concerns every one of her members, renewing in her the spiritual vibrations of years and centuries of her past history and bringing back the tide of renewal of the recent Council. It provides a motive and a strength for her perennial evangelizing discussion with human society, per-vaded in our days by deep and restless changes. This first welcome of the sound of the Jubilee trumpet (the term, "Jubilee" refers in fact to the trumpets with which the seventh, or sabbatical year, and the beginning of the fiftieth year were announced among the Jews in ancient times) gives us great pleasure and reason to hope for the positive outcome of this recurring ecclesial initiative. Among many voices, we must single out as highly significant and authori-tative that of Cardinal Marty, Archbishop of Paris, who on his own behalf and on 'behalf of all the French bishops, w~lcomes our decision with jo~, and makes it ~his own, all the more willingly in that it coincides with his own pastoral concerns. So too we warmly thank the Italian Episcopal Conference for having at once echoed our invitation with its fervent and promised support. We tell you this, beloved Brothers and Sons, and dear Visitors, and together with you all those who may hear of this comment of ours on the announcement of the forthcoming Holy Year, to exhort all of you to give this announcement its due importance. It must really be taken seriously. It does not concern a fleeting moment of our journey in time; it concerns an orientation of our modern life at the end of the twentieth century. It does not refer to a particular aspect of our mental and moral behavior but invests our entire way of thinking and living. Two Principal Realities It is a question, in other words, of an overall examination of our out-look with regard to two principal realities: the religion that we profess and the world in which we live. Religion and the world; faith and mundane experience; the Christian conception of life and a conception without light, principles, duties, and hopes transcending our journey in time which leads inexorably to temporal death. The time has come to measure our adherence to Christ in the conflict which it must wage with forms of thought and action that disregard the gos- 732 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 pel and its salvation. The moment is ripe for a complete act of conscience about supreme values and subordinate values; it is time for a choice that is not only practical and submissive, but also pondered and binding about the general character we wish to imprint upon our existence: Is it Christian or is it not? And this means ultimately, is it really human or not? We could prolong this interrogation by proposing so many other alternatives, or rather so may other antitheses, such as: Do we want to be real followers of Christ or just mere names on the' register of the baptized and therefore freewheeling hypocrites condemned by the principles and exigencies that we ourselves claim to profess? Do we want to make God and Christ the center that conditions and harmonizes our fife with its drama of redemption and its un-failing present and final happiness, or do we wish to place in ourselves, in our absorbing and fallacious selfishness, the hinge of our every movement? Do we want to embrace in love and solidarity our brothers, near and far, or do we wish to close the circle of our social outlook within narrow self-interest, walled up in a bitter individual or collective selfishness, and there-fore armed with hatred and struggle, incapable of real love? And so on. A New Synthesis We wish that this the Holy Year may constitute a general balance sheet of our ideas, of our conception of our higher duties, and our real interests, and that it may guide us to a new synthesis of our ancient faith, living and necessary, and the pressing program of modern life, not so much in a supine compromise, but rather in an intelligent Christian harmony, admittedly demanding certain renunciations and austerities but yielding fruits of sincere humanity and authentic happiness. In a word, it is the philosophy of life that is at stake, that which recog-nizes, with Bergson, that the greater the progress of scientific, technical, economic, and social development today, the more man needs a "spiritual supplement" in order not to fall victim to his own conquests. It is the theology of life as outlined by the Council which, ten years after its conclusion, challenges our faithfulness to its renewing word and our capacity to reconstitute our personal conscience and our society in justice and peace. For the moment we thank the Lord who breathes upon the world, upon the Church, and in our souls these majestic thoughts; and we pray to Him that they may enlighten and bring life to you, to everyone, according to His Spirit. And we bestow on you our Apostolic Blessing. DIRECTIVES FOR THE 1975 HOLY YEAR On May 9 the Holy Father will make the preliminary announcement of a Jubilee Year for the interior renewal of men. In Catholic tradition going back to the year 1300, the Holy Year has a purely spiritual meaning and Documents on tJ~e 1975 Holy Year / 733 has always been seen as a manifestation of profound piety and of the unity of the Church expressed especially in the widespread practice of going on pilgrimage to the tomb of Peter in Rome. Particularly in the difficult periods of the Church's history, it constituted a privileged time of concord and an occasion of abundant grace offered to the People of God. In the present circumstances the coming Holy Year takes on a special significance in that it coincides with the tenth anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council, which was meant as a solemn appeal of the Church to all her members to undertake for the salvation of the world a profound renewal of spirit, structures, and pastoral organization. This indeed was the message of the constitution Lumen gentium which recalled that Christ has made us sharers in His Spirit in order that we may continually be renewed in Him. It reminded us also that although the Church is, through her divine calling, holy and without spot, she is in her members defectible and "continually in need of conversion and renewal" (no. 8). For this reason she misses no_opportunity of calling to penance, in order that she may remain the "worthy spouse of her Lord" with the aid of the Holy Spirit "so that through the cross she may attain the light that knows no setting" (no. 9). Necessily of Penance The Church is aware that a return to God is indispensable in order to also attain the reestablishment of Christian unity and in order to give peace to all men who are striving for tranquillity in the midst of disquieting events. She therefore invites everyone, non-Catholics included, to have re-course to the sources of salvation; and "she does not cease to pray, hope, and work, while exhorting her children to purify and renew themselves in order that the image of Christ may shine forth more clearly in her counten-ance" (no. 15). She likewise asks mankind to turn "with renewed spirit to true peace" (Gaudium et spes, no. 77) since the "reform of hearts" remains the principal path for the attainment of this reform. The Second Vatican Council has inculcated the necessity of penance so that man, by freeing himself from evil, may cling wholeheartedly to Christ, "the model, master, liberator, savior, and lifegiver" (Ad gentes, no. 8). The apostolic constitution Poenitemini of Pope Paul VI has expla.')ned the meaning and the truly Christian value of penance in the affirma,'~ion that only through "the profound affd total transformation of the whol~ man, in all his feelings, judgments and acts" is it possible t'o reach the kingdom pro-claimed by Christ (Poenitemini, no. 5). By virtue of these salutary messages and in order to ascertain in what measure they have borne fruit, the coming Holy Year will have as its funda-mental purpose the Christian's commitment to an act of profound conver-sion, metanoia, that brings him closer to God and affects the ecclesial com-munity and temporal communities as well. It will be a great penitential act 734 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 involving the whole People of God and leading it, through meditation, prayer, and the celebration of the Eucharist to a deeper and hoped for personal and community reform. This testing of the genuineness of one's personal life of faith, the fruit of a total interior change in the voluntary exercise of acts of penance "over and above the renunciations imposed by daily life" (Poenitemini, no. 12), will lead to reconciliation at all levels. This is meant to be the central and operative theme of the entire Holy Year. Levels of Reconciliation Evangelical conversion and every penitential practice that accompanies it lead essentially to reconciliation with God in Jesus Christ and to recon-ciliation with one's brethren. They lead to reconciliation within the Catholic Church herself and in her relationships with the other Churches, to recon-ciliation in society among all men, over and above every difference of class, race, nation, and degree of economic, social, and cultural development. They lead to reconciliation as the path to that unity which is realized in Christ, the restorer of all things on earth, the unifier of heartg through the sacrifice of His Blood, the unfailing fount of life and salvation (see Eph 2:11-4). The Holy Year will offer to all men the opportunity for genuine reflec-tion upon the basic values of life directed towards a new seeking for Christ. The Holy Year will be concerned more with the interior life of the spirit than with external manifestations; it will be directed towards the world that the Church wishes to serve, that the world may believe: ut mundus credat: It will call for and promote works of piety, penance, and charity as signs of renewal in faith and as the condition for gaining the indulgences granted in the name of and as the gift of the infinite and almighty saving mercy of the Lord. With this a{m in yiew, the coming Holy Year will be conducted in such a way as to offer the greatest possible number of people the chance to share fruitfully in the Jubilee. Therefore, unlike previous Holy Years, which were celebrated in Rome and then extended to the other communities and dioceses, it will be first proclaimed for all the local churches in harmony with the spirit of the Second Vatican Council'and finally to avoid the situa-tion in which it would become a privilege of the category of people who have the means to go to Rome. Pilgrimages to Rome As the culmination of the whole process of reflection and as the fruit of the work of renewal carried out in the local churches, pilgrimages to Rome will be held in 1975. This will constitute the final point and conver-gence of the penitential activity. The influx of the faithful to the Eternal City should be representative of the local churches from which the various groups come; these latter will Documents on the 1975 Holy Year / 735 be aware of the spiritual burden which they fraternally undertake. They will have contact with the most significant traces of the ancient Church; and they will meet the Church of Rome and above all its bishop, the pope, to whom they will give the witness of their faith in his evangelical mission and in his primacy. In the pope they will see the one who by confessing the divinity of Christ, the indispensable foundation of the Christian faith, has become, by Christ's mandate, the living cornerstone of the entire divine economy, the rock of the Church. Of this, St. Leo the Great gives the follow-ing illustration: "In the whole Church Peter daily says: 'You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God' and every tongue which confesses the Lord is filled with the teaching of this voice" (Serrno 3; PL, 54, 146c). In the pope they will find the bond of unity of all the local churches, the safeguard of the plurality of their pastoral and cultural experiences, and the animator of the universal charity of the Church which today more than ever before is concerned with the evangelization and integral development of peoples in the spirit of charity because "only love is worthy of trust." The Holy ~Year and the Local Churches In order that the Holy Year may have the hoped for results, it will be appropriate, as soon as the Holy Father makes the announcement on May 9, for the local churches to give thought to the immediate initiation of ac-tivities directed toward this movement of conversion and renewal on a parochial, diocesan, and national basis. Each church must seriously employ its resources at all levels to stir up in the faithful a serious and authentic penitential act. The episcopal conferences shall seek ways most suited to the mentality of their peoples of ensuring that they understand the ecclesial importance of the event and realize what interior and exterior results are expected from it. The objectives of the work to be done would seem to be especially the following: 1. To explain the purpose of the Holy Year proclaimed by the Holy Father and the documents which will be issued on this theme. 2. To prepare the faithful sp.iritually with extensive preaching in all its forms of the Word of God for personal and communal penitential acts which will be promoted to bring about reconciliation in Christ. 3. Toorganize appropriate liturgical celebrations in accordance with the Second Vatican Council for promoting the sense of prayer in the com-munion and participation of the graces of the Holy Year. 4. To select the churches where the Jubilee indulgences can be gained, inserting the indulgences into an integral process of interior renewal and hence of sanctification. The cathedral is to be preferred since it is the meet-ing point of various liturgical and pastoral movements so that it may be clearly seen that the entire ecclesial movement has as its center the bishop 736 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 who is coresponsible with the pope for the spirtual renewal of the whole People of God. 5. To point out the connection--in the ways that the episcopal con-ferences deem most suitable and effective--between the movement of spiritual renewal, which will culminate in the Holy Year in Rome, and the reflection of the ecclesial community on the theme of the next general as-sembly of the Synod of Bishops (1974): "Th~ Evangelization of the Modern World." 6. As far as possible to secure the participation of the separated brethren in the initiatives undertaken for the celebration of the Holy Year in order to have cooperation in the areas of piety, charity, and penance. It is in these spheres that there is more easily found, through the conversion of hearts, unity in Christ, and thus reconciliation in the Church comes to maturity (see the decree Unitatis redintegratio, no. 7). Similar attention shall be given to those belonging to non-Christian religions. 7. Care shall likewise be taken to give to the celebration of the Holy Year a radiating expansion reaching the widest sectors of humanity, includ-ing those Who do not believe, by involving them at least in those initiatives that have as their common purpose reconciliation and peace. 8. The pilgrimages to Rome in 1975 shall be carefully prepared. Central Committee for the Holy Year These initial directives will be followed by others. A Central Committee for the Holy Year will be set up which will maintain close contact through the episcopal conferences with the local churches in order to inform them of the various initiatives which will be promoted in the doctrinal and liturgi-cal fields and in order to provide possible clarifications. THE VATICAN PRESS CONFERENCE OF MAY 9 Remarks of Monsignor Enrico Bartoletti At the general audience today the Holy Father announced the proclamation of a Jubilee Year which will have its culmination in Rome in 1975. The peculiar characteristics of this Jubilee Year which the Holy Father outlined do not sweep the Holy Year off the course of its centuries-old tradition but wisely gear it to the modern socio-cultural context and set it better in the framework of the ecclesiology of Vatican II. Tl~e first and most conspicuous variation that characterizes this Holy Year is that it will take place first in all the particular churches or dioceses scattered all over the world and then conve~:ge and culminate afterwards at Peter's See in the Church that is the mother of all the churches. The difference from the past may seem only an exterior one. Previously, the Jubilee was celebrated in Rome for the whole of the Holy Year, and only there could the Jubilee indulgence be obtained. Only at the close of Documents on the 1975 Holy Year / 737 the Holy Year were the spiritual favors extended to the whole world, thus reaching those who had not been able to enjoy them. Now, on the contrary, the Jubilee year is to be celebrated first all over the world, later reaching its conclusive climax and the fullness of its signifi-cance at the tomb of the Apostles Peter and Paul. The difference, therefore, is not just an exterior one, on the purely chronological and organizational level. It deeply modifies the meaning of the Holy Year and highlights its value as a spiritual and ecclesial move-ment intended to involve the whole of the Lord's Holy Church or, as people prefer to say today, the whole People of God on its pilgrimage in the world. The particular churches and all the ecclesial communities of believers and of the baptized are thus highlighted and urged to renewal, while unity of faith and fellowship is reaffirmed and solicited in the convergence upon Peter's See which is their permanent source and foundation (see Lumen gentium, no. 18). Conversion and Reconciliation In this way the Holy Year takes on the configuration of an intense and universal Church movement, not triumphalistic but pastoral and spiritual, personal and communitarian, aimed at realizing and checking that process of continual and permanent "conversion" which is the fundamental message of the gospel and which was admirably echoed by Lumen gentium and the whole of Vatican II. The goal and purpose of this ecclesial movement is indicated in the very theme of the Jubilee Year: Reconciliation; The itinerary to reach it, which the whole Church is invited to follow, is that of "metanoia," that is, repentance or change of mentality, effort of purification, commitment of charity. It is, in fact, along this path of repentance that man, in Christ, by virtue of the Holy Spirit, is reconciled with God and becomes capable of reconcilia-tion with his brothers. It is this brotherly reconciliation, ecclesial and human and therefore also civil, which becomes at once the fruit and the verification of reconciliation with God, while it is in many cases the premises and beginning of it. And it is in this sense that the Holy Year takes on a value and a dimen-sion that is not only intraecclesial but also ecumenical and universal. Thus the connection of the Holy Year with Vatican Council II becomes not only chronological and exterior but also deep and consequential. On the tenth anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council, the theme of the Jubilee Year and the itinerary of repentance that must characterize it will be nothing but a renewed ecclesiological reflection and a renewed commitment to carry out what the Spirit told the Church of our times at the great Pentecost of the Council. From Lumen gentium to Gaudium et spes, from Pacem in terris and 738 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 Poenitemini to Octogesima adveniens and the Synodal documents of 1971, the pressing appeal to the Church has constantly been that of conversion and reconciliation. The celebration of the Holy Year, ten years after the Council, will be a verification and a common examination of conscience of the whole Church with regard to the fruitfulness of those salutary messages and the faithful-ness of our response to the voice of the Spirit. The Holy Year and Evangelization There is a clear connection also between the celebration of the Holy Year, especially in the particular churches, and the subject of the next Synod ---evangelization in the modern world--which will also have to stimulate the reflection, the effort and the commitment of the whole People of God. Monsignor Rubin, the Secretary General of the Synod, will explain in detail the convergences of content and commitment. Let it be enough to point out here that the whole spiritual movement of the Holy Year will be a process of evangelization inside and outside the Church, in the awareness that she exercises her evangelizing mission not only through what she says but also through what she is. Holy Year in the Local Churches and in Rome Witness, especially in the secularized world, is an integral part of evangelization. The first phase of the celebration of the Jubilee Year will take place, therefore, in all the particular churches. The solemn announce-ment will be made by the pastors in those churches on Pentecost Day (June 10) and the spiritual and organizational movement will be started. The center of convergence of the various catechetical, liturgical, and pastoral initiatives will preferably be the cathedral. There it will be possible to obtain the Jubilee indulgence; there the ecclesial movement will find in the bishop its visible center and foundation of unity and fellowship with the universal Church. The climax of the whole pro.cess of renewal, the sign and seal of recon-ciliation in the unity of faith and in the charity of fellowship, will be the pilgrimage to Rome which will take place from December 1974 throughout 1975. The crowds of the faithful who will flock to Peter's See will have to be representative of the particular churches. Therefore, more than pil-grimages of individuals or groups, it will be diocesan and regional pil-grimages or the pilgrimages of whole episcopal conferences with their pas-tors that will be of importance. The need for representativeness and the necessary sign of ecclesial and brotherly charity will prompt initiatives of mutual help so that the less well-to- do, the sick, and the young will be present in large numbers in the pil-grimages to the Church of Rome which in her bishop "presides over charity." It will also be necessary for the pilgrimage to °Rome to be distinguished from Documents on the 1975 Holy Year / 739 the tourist trip. Regaining its old meaning as a Christian pilgrimage, it should be a real spiritual itinerary to find again in Peter's successor "the one who everyday proclaims in the Church faith in Christ, the Son of the Living God." In this way the particular churches will find once more in the pope the bond of their unity, the guarantor of their itinerary of faith, the animator of their charity. Remarks of Monsignor Wladislaw Rubin The "essential features of the central theme of the Holy Year" stress the existence of a connection between the movement of spiritual revision dictated by the Holy Year and the reflection of the ecclesial community on the subject of the next General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops (in 1974): "The Evangelization of the Contemporary World." The Holy Year and Evangelization It is useful to indicate the reasons for this connection: 1. The first link to emphasize is the one with the growing participation of the episcopate in joint responsibility toward the universal Church and her task in the world. The Synod of Bishops is a particularly evident expression of this collaboration since it is the central ecclesiastic organism in which ¯ the world episcopate expresses its concern to cooperate with the sovereign pontiff for the solution of the most serious problems 'that emerge and challenge the ecclesial community, It is, therefore, the place of confluence and convergence of the local churches which live in an attitude of listening comparison, adherence, and availability for the influences of the Holy Spirit and the service of the good of the universal Church. ,The approach to the Holy Year--different from the traditional and cen-turies- old approach of preceding celebrations--which consists in initiating the celebration with the local churches and giving the world episcopate more direct participation in the celebrations in Rome corresponds to the line of renewal that the institution of the Synod of Bishops represents in the Church. 2. Then there exists a deeper link between the idea of the Holy Year-- which is repentance--and that subject chosen for the next Synod, that is "The Evangelization of the Contemporary World." It can be said that the reflection of the ecclesial community on the subject of the Synod is, from this point ofview, preparation for a correct celebration of the Holy Year. The Synod of Bishops, proposing the subject of evangelization in all its radical instances, will urge believers to an inner conversion which is indis-pensable to be able to prove one's readiness to follow Christ and to com-mune with Him. We all know the Gospel text which directly connects the proclamation of the gospel with the appeal for repentance: "Repent, and believe the gospel!" (Mk 1:15). Repentance. therefore is necessary for conversion and 740 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 adherence to Christ, as the Second Vatican Council says. Repentance is the first stage of evangelization, of conversion of the heart, and of the renewal of the individual and of mankind for which all men of good will long. 3. The celebration of the Holy Year--as we read in the "essential fea-tures"-- offers all men the possibility of genuine reflection on the funda-mental values of life, open to a new search for Christ; it is addressed to the world that the Church wishes to serve in order that it may believe: ut mundus credat. Renewal of Faith The Holy Year, therefore, wishes to be a "renewal of faith." Never, perhaps, in the history of the celebrations of the Holy Year has the ecclesial community felt this need so strongly as now. In modern society, space for God's word is constantly and progressively reduced and it does not reach its efficacy; it is listened to little, understood and lived little. It is necessary, therefore, to revise method and contents thoroughly and to multiply efforts in order that God's word may have its place and its role of primacy in the chorus of men's messages. The subject of the next Synod, "The Evangelization of the Contem-porary World," commits the whole ecclesial community to careful and deep reflection on the message of Christ, liberator and savior, to be communi-cated with every effort and every means to the men of our times. It is to be hoped that the effort of the Synod of Bishops will be sup-ported by a deep awareness of the whole People of God, accompanied and followed by a multiplicity of initiatives capable of bringing to maturity reflections and exigencies in vital terms of faith. 4. The specific subject proposed by the Holy Father for the 1975 Holy Year, that is, reconciliation, meets one of the main concerns of the episco-pate expressed in the preceding Synods which aimed at ensuring constant progress for the Church and for mankind in an atmosphere of peace and love in conformity with the teaching of the gospel. The world episcopate is the qualified witness of all the peoples it repre-sents who suffer from the conflicts and lacerations that exist on the political, social, and religious planes. The Synod, which will have to study how to bring the gospel of love and peace to the world of today, will aim at reaching, through evangelical con-version, this reconcilation with God and with our human brothers. Address to. Religious Women Paul VI On May 12, 1973, Pope Paul VI gave an audience to the women religious partici-pating in the General Assembly of the Union of Major Superiors in Italy. On the occasion the Holy Father delivered the following talk printed here in the translation given in the English language Osservatore romat~o, May 24, 1973, page 3. It is a happy and refreshing parenthesis for us today, willingly agreeing to your request, to receive you, the major superiors of Italy, who have taken part in the General Assembly of the Council of Presidency and of the Cen-tral Council of the Union. We greet the newly elected superiors, and those who have ended their term of office; and we welcome all of you, as well as your fellow sisters whom you represent. Be Confident We are glad to pause, if only for a short time, among you because you bring before our eyes the image of the ranks of Italian religious women who, on all fronts--teaching, support for the priestly ministry, missionary cooperation, physical and spiritual works of mercy, and so forth--offer the Church irreplaceable assistance and the community of brothers a continual lesson of kindness, disinterestedness, and self-sacrifice. We thank you for this "evangelical witness'~ given as it is with total fervor; and we address you a word of consolation: Be confiden!! At this moment when many things are questioned, though in the praiseworthy in-tention of rediscovering and following your own "identity" in conformity with the gospel and with the origin of each religious institute, there is need of a higher certainty to guide and illuminate this effort of absolute au-thenticity. 741 742 / Review for Religious, l/olume 32, 1973/4 Confidence in the Religious Vocation Yes, be confid~nt! 1. Be confident in the choice of the religious vocation which you made in full freedom and in serene response to God's grace by g!ving the highest and deepest significance to Christian life. What is religious life if not the carrying to their extreme consequences--death to sin and its roots, dedica-tion to God, union with the risen Christ--of the instructions of baptism? Is it not the bringing to complete maturation of the seeds received in that decisive sacramental meeting with the Trinity that loves us and saves us? This was the ancient teaching that the recent Council recalled when it said that in religious life every member of the faithful "in order to derive more abundant fruit from this baptismal grace intends by the profession of the evangelical counsels in the Church to free himself from those obstacles which might draw him away from the fervor 6f charity and the perfection of divine worship. Thus he is more intimately consecrated to divine service" (Lumen gentium, no. 44). You, therefore, with faithfulness to the gospel taken literally indicate that the realities that count, the ones that will remain beyond the contingent flux of time are the spiritual ones. Religious life is a sign and a presence of the eschatological reality of the kingdom of God. In this l!ght your lives as consecrated women take on full significance in their forms, in their essen-tial commitments represented by the three vows, in their strong, happy, sacrificed, loving, welcoming style, guided only by the thought of the love of God and of your brothers, particularly those most abandoned, as well as in spiritual growth fed at the crystal clear fountainheads of prayer and union with God, of silence and contemplation, and especially of the Eucharist and the liturgical life according to the points that we developed in the apostolic exhortation Evangelica testiJ~catio. We invite you to meditate on this docu-ment more and more because .it was dictated solely by the desire to facilitate that renewal of religious life which was among the most conspicuous fruits of the Second Vatican Council. Confidence in the Church 2. Then be confident in "Mother Church" who has given you her full confidence in the first place. You have a particular relationship of love for the Church, as you have for Mary. The .mystery of Mary and that of the Church are closely linked and illuminate each other: "The Church . . . be-comes herself a mother . For by her preaching and by baptism she brings forth~ to a new and im. mortal life children who are conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of God. The Church herself is a virgin who keeps whole and pure the fidelity which she has pledged to her Spouse. Imitating the Mother of her Lord and by the power of the Holy Spirit, she preserves with virginal purity an integral faith, a firm and sincere charity" (Lumen gentium, no. 64). Address to Religious Women You are closely linked to these realities which, mysteriously, must be reproduced and continued in your consecrated lives. Hence you must al-ways feel moved to a particular love for the Church. The fervor of ecclesiological studies, in the light of the teaching of the Council, and, above Jail, personal reflection in the life of prayer must stimulate in all sisters a new esteem, a new reliance, a new confidence in the Church. All in-stitutes, becoming more and more open and available, should be animated to seek new services so that the Church may reach everywhere in the world, bringing it the sacrament of love with which God meets mankind in Christ and save it in every age and in all latitudes. Confidence in Our Times 3. And finally be confident also in our times, so full of aspirations and tensions, greatness and wretchedness, needs and hopes. The conciliar con-stitution Gaudium et spes highlighted them in a precise synthesis which must be kept in mind by all those in the .Church who wish to serve the needs" of the world. Your vocation puts you in a special relationship with the world which has, as you know, so many sufferings and sores but which also possesses so many secret richeswin the advance of new generations, in the faithful-ness of families, in the sacrifices of workers, in the sorrows of the sick and the old. Before them you must be "sign posts." .And in this you have a great responsibility. People watch you and judge if your faithfulness to the gospel is genuine and sincere. For them you must be in the world the sign that the gospel is alive, that the kingdom of God is amongst us (see Lk 17:21). Moved by this concern, we called you to this commitment of witnessing in our recent exhortation when we wrote that "this world needs, today more than ever, to see in you men and women who have believed in the Word of the Lord, in His Resurrection and eternal life, to the extent of committing your earthly life to bear witness to the reality of this love which is offered to all men . Is not this gra.ce, for the man of today, a kind of life-bringing breath from the infinite, a kind of liberation from himself, in the prospect of eternal, absolute joy?" (Evangelica testificatio, no. 53). The Coming Flame of Light and Grace In this triple invitation to confidence, then, we wish the Union a renewed effort in order that these instructions may be lived with growing awareness by all Italian sisters. This is demanded by the state of consecrated life; it is required by the duty of the hour when a great flame of light and grace is about to pass over the local churches in preparation for the Holy Year. Be in the front line in the work of reconciliation and inner renewal as well as of revision of your own social life in the kind of reaction which we expect from all the faithful of good will. The forthcoming Pentecost will be the beginning of a new effusion of the Spirit upon the whole Church: Get ready 744 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 for it and help in a special way the various categories of persons you serve to understand this hour of grace and to give it their support. We thank you; and in token of the special protection of the Holy Virgin, an incomparable model of complete dedication, we willingly impart the special Apostolic Blessing to you and to your fellow sisters in your institutes. Prayer and Life Edward Carter, S.J. Father Edward Carter, S.J., is associate professor of theology at Xavier University; Cincinnati, Ohio 45207. There is an intimate connection between prayer and life. It can be no other way. Prayer, a function of the Christian life of grace, has an undeniable con-nection with the human condition because the Christian life itself does. The Christian is not one-half natural and the other half supernatural. Although grace and nature are distinct, they do not exist separate from one another as if grace is placed atop nature like a kind of,superstructure. Karl Rahner observes: "The nature of a spiritual being and its supernatural elevation are not opposed to each other like two things which lie side by side, so that they must be either kept separate or confused. The supernatural elevation of man is, though not due to him, the absolute fulfillment of his being . Grace and the Authentically Human The Christian is one graced person. The Christian life does not in any way destroy or lessen anything which isjauthentically human. Rather the Christian life gives human nature a deepened capacity for fulfillment. In our elevation through grace, we possess a deepened capacity for love, for joy, for suffering, for peace, for happiness. Whatever we do, as long as it is authentically human, is also meant to be Christian. St. Paul reminds us: "The fact is that whether you eat or drink--whatever you do~-you should do all for the glory of God" (1 Cot 10:31). The Christian life, then, is divinized human life. It is man and wife deeply and tenderly loving one another. It is friend sharing with friend. The Christian life is a nurse caring for the sick, a mother rearing her children, 1Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, Volume 4 (Baltimore: Helicon, 1966), p. 183. 745 746 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 a businessman serving his customers, a teacher communicating with his students. Life in Christ is sharing a meal with loved ones, enjoying a movie, taking a refreshing swim, quietly watching the falling white snow gently covering the hillside, or being buoyed up by the greenness of spring. The Christian life is the thrill of being loved, the ioy of success, the satisfaction of completing an important task. It is a concern for one's neighbor, an at-tention to his needs. The Christian life is experiencing failure, being mis-understood, feeling unloved, experiencing the slight pains of life, but also occasionally the deep suffering which makes one weep. No, there is nothing really human which is alien to our graced existence in Jesus. Jesus Himself has gone before us indicating the connection between the human condition and the life He came to give. Jesus redeemed us, not by fleeing the human condition, but by relating to it properly according to His Father's will. Jesus loved life, and He beautifully used human existence to give us the possibility of becoming more perfectly human. As Jesus achieved objective redemption within the framework of the human condition and His own human existence, so also must we assist Him in the ongoing work of subjective redemption. We receive the life Jesus came to give us within the human condition and the confines of our own humanity or we do not re-ceive it at all. This is also the way we help give this Christic life to others. Prayer and Human Life Prayer, since it is a very important exercise of this Christian life we have been describing, has an obvious relationship with the human condition. Prayer is deeply interrelated with life. From experienci.ng life I am led to seek prayer, and frbm experiencing prayer I am led to seek life. Thomas Merton, because he was a Trappist monk, was not directly involved with certain aspects of the temporal order. But in the manner his Trappist voca-tion permitted, he was deeply immersed in life. He was deeply interested in his fellow human beings. He was deeply concerned with the agonizing prob-lems of modern man. Precisely because he was a man of profound prayer, he understood contemporary man and the human condition go well, and his writings are a legacy of wisdom helping modern, man to achieve successful and happy living. In one of his books he i'eminds fis of the connecti6n which must exist between prayer and life: A false supernaturalism which imagines that "the supernatural" is a kind of Platonic realm o~ abstract essences totally apart from and opposed to the concrete world of nature, offers no real support to a genuine lif~ of meditation and prayer. Mediation has no point and no reality unless it is firmly rooted in liJe.,,Without such roots, it can produce nothing but the ashen fruits of disgust, acedia, and even morbid and degenerate introversion, masochism, dolorism, negation. Nietzsche pitilessly exposed the hopeless mess which results from this caricature of Christianity.''z 2Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer (Garden City: Image, 1971), p. 39. Prayer and Li[e / 747 Prayer is intimately bound up with life in that it helps us to find our-selves and our role in life. Prayer shows us how to live. Prayer helps us achieve self-identity, and in achieving self-identity we see what our relation-ship to God and our fellowmen should be. One of the gravest issues facing contemporary man is the problem of alienation. Modern man feels alienated from himself, from God, from the society of men. Prayer helps cut across these inroads which alienation has made. As prayer develops self-awareness, it develops and deepens one's love relationship with God and the society of men. Prayer and the Quest for Self-identity We have said prayer aids in the quest for self-identity. The contempo-rary man of i~ndustrial-technological society to a large extent finds himself in a very ironical position. With his fantastically advanced knowledge, he has increasingly controlled and shaped his material world. He has achieved knowledge to a highly precise degree of what we might call the identity of the material world. But modern man's own self-identity more and more elud6s him. In directing so much of his quest for knowledge at the material world outside himself, he increasingly has become a stranger to his own self. He has failed to look within. He has failed to know himself. Some, in a desperate attempt, as it were, to make quick amends for modern man's failure to know himself, have taken the misleading route of psychedelic, drugs in the quest for self-identity, inner unity, and integration. But this is an abortive attempt, because it violates the laws of gaining true self-knowledge and integration. In prayer, self-awareness is not achieved in an isolated, self-enclosed fashion. Self-identity is achieved through encounter with God. The psy-chologist Sidney Jourard tells us: "And it seems to be another fact that no one can come to know himself except as an outcome of disclosing himself to another person.'''~ If I need an encounter with a human person in order to grow in self-knowledge, much,~much more do I n~ed encounter with God in prayer to achieve self-identity and self-integration. God is the origin of my life. He is also the goal of my life. He knows and understands me per-fectly, so much more intimately than I know and understand myself. He has created me. He has created .me unique, and therefore, there is no one who can tell me more about my unique self than God. There never has been anyone like me in the pasl~. There is not now, and there never will be any-one like me. God has c~'eated me in His own image, and I reflect Him more perfectly the more I become myself, the more I develop my God-given uniqueness. The God-life, the grace-life, which is given in baptism, deepens ~Sidney M. Jourard, The Transparent Sel! (2nd ed.; New York: Van Nostrand Rein-hold, 1971), p. 6. 748 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 my uniqueness. The more Christian I become, the more unique I also be-come, and the more I become myself. I become more God-like, more Chris-tian, more myself in, with, and through Jesus. Jesus mediates God's gift of a share,in Trinitarian life, and He mediates our response, our living this life. There is no other way I can develop my graced uniqueness except in Jesus and according to the pattern of His life. Rahner states it very succinctly: "And yet every grace has analogously the same structure as its source, viz. the structure of the Word become man . In prayer God shows me all this. He shows me all this as He allows me to realize that He loves me. I begin to really be, really to achieve my true self-identity when I begin to realize how much God loves me. God helps me achieve my self-identity and self-integration by showing me what I uniquely am, what I am called to be. He shows me through the light of prayer that my existence and quest for self-identity must be rooted in a love-relationship with Him. He tells me that the more I open myself to His loving Self-communication and the more I respond with a love of my own, the more I become myself, the more my self-image becomes finely honed, the more I become what He wants me to be. Prayer and My Evil Dimension Achieving self-identlty through encounter with God in prayer is not a completely painless task. The light of prayer shows me my uniqueness, my particular talents and gifts, the good I have already achieved, and the future possibilities for further growth in Christian holiness. But God, through the light of prayer, also shows me my evil side. He shows me how I have failed Him, how I have wasted opportunities to love Him and others, how much my search for self-integration and union with Him has been obstructed be-cause of my selfishness. How deeply the light of prayer can penetrate one's being and uncover the unpleasant side of nature is graphically attested to by some of the saints. As they grew in prayer, the ligtit of prayer illumined pockets of selfishness and pride that had previously escaped their awareness. The light of prayer, then, helps one achieve self-identity and self-integration by illuminating both the good and evil dimensions of one's existence. Finally, this illuminating encounter with God in prayer always has a thrust of bring-ing me into closer union with Him. The light of prayer shows me my unique self, shows me more what I should become, shows me that I am made for God, shows me how lovable this God is--and all this is intended to deepen my love relationship with God. In turn, as I come closer to Him, I become more myself. I achieve a greater existential hold on my true self-identity. 4Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, Volume 2 (Baltimore: Helicon, 1960), p. 33. Prayer and Lite/ 749 Some say that this encounter with God in prayer is a risk. They say that if we really pray we do not know what might be asked of us. If prayer is a risk, it is a risk for happiness. God gradually, and tenderly, and lovingly, shows me myself and shows me Himself so that I may be increasingly ful-filled. Of course, as God shows me myself and Himself in prayer, as He shows me how to become more myself as directed by His loving will, all this will involve a certain suffering. A price is asked of me if I am to grow. There is no other way. But what God asks of me in prayer is always aimed at my greater fulfillment and happiness. Again, if prayer is a risk, it is a risk for happiness. In one of his earlier writings, Thomas Merton observed: "It is becoming increasingly evident that the only men in the world who are really happy are the ones who knowhow to pray.''~ Prayer and Immersion in Life As God shows me myself .and Himself in prayer, and shows me how my quest for self-identity is rooted in a loving relationship with Him, He shows me how the process of self-integration is connected with life. He shows me how it has a relationship with daily living in all its myriad and diverse di-mensions. He shows me that I must become more my unique self--lay greater existential hold on my self-identity--through authentic immersion in life. This immersion in life can differ so widely--from that of the inner city worker to that of the Trappist contemplative--but immersion in life there must be. Prayer, then, thrusts me into life. Authentic prayer gives me a taste for life, a desire to be and to become by situating myself properly, and ac-cording to my uniqueness, in the world of men. Conversely, my immersion in life thrusts me back to prayerful encounter with God. The more honest I am with myself, the more clearly I see that if I am properly to be and to become through my encounter with life, I need the light and strength of prayer. There is this cycle of prayer and life, then. From experiencing prayer I am led to seek life, and from experiencing life, I am led to seek prayer. Much of my imme~:sibn in life concerns itself with my relationship with human persons, both in a general manner and in a more particular way re-garding those relatively few individuals with whom I am especially close. Not unexpectedly, then, prayer shows me how my being and my becoming are inextricably bound up with loving relationships with my neighbors. God inexorably shows me through the light of prayer that my achieving self-identity through a love relationship with Him is inescapedly connected with my love relationship with my fellowmen. The light of prayer gradually, gently, but so persistently, increasingly engrains upon my being those well-known words of St. John: ~Thomas Merton, "The Contemplative Life: Its Meaning and Necessity," Dublin Review, v. 223 (1949), p. 32. 750 / Review [or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 If anyone says, "My love is fixed on God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. One who has no love for the brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen. (1Jn 4:20) Prayer and lhe Love of Neighbor Prayer sustains me in the gift of myself to my fellow human beings. The light of prayer allows me to see the priceless dignity of each individual. Prayer shows me how each person is truly made in the image and likeness of God, how each has been touched by the redemptive blood of Jesus. Prayer not on!y shows me this; it also gives me the strength to live accord-ingly. Prayer sustains me especially when it is so difficult to live according to this faith vision--when others do not love and appreciate me, when some even hate and ridicule me. Prayer enlightens me and strengthens me in the daily struggle to be generous in my service of others at those times when self-interest and self-comfort pull me the other way. And as indicated earlier, prayer shows me that if I am to love others properly, I must love them as they are actually situated in this real world of ours, a world with so much beauty, but also with a great deal of ugliness; a world with so many great accomplishments and future possibilities, but also a world with a staggering number of the gravest problems. Prayer also shows me that if I truly love my neighbor, I have to be concerned with all this according to my vocation, my talents, and my opportunities. Prayer and Close Relationships ~ In God's providence, the love of neigl~bor leads one to relatively few close relationships. To cite certain examples, husband and wife, parents and children, friend and friend, are engaged in a particular kind of intimacy that is absent from their general encounters with others. This closeness can be the occasion of simple joys and the greatest happiness, but it can also give rise to frustration, anger, disappointment, and even deep anguish oc-casionally. Prayer is a great source of light and strength relative to these close relationships. It sustains a person in working at the proper development of these encounters--to enjoy them as one should, to profit from them ag one ought. Prayer sustains a person when he or she is tempted immaturely to flee the suffering involved in these relationships. Prayer keeps one there, enables one to endure the pain, enables one to see the value of these rela-tionships for Christ and the world. Pray6r shows the person that the pain properly endured and assimilated will lead to a greater love. Prayer and Life / 751 Conclusion The Christian, then, seeks the solitude of prayer not in order to flee the presence of others. Among the reasons he seeks out the quiet of prayer is that he may better find people. He seeks prayer so that he may be for them more, become for them more, suffer for them more, do good for them more. He seeks prayer so that he may simply love them more. Prayer and life, life and prayer--these are inseparably interwoven. As I pray, and grow in prayer, I see this connection with deeper penetration and conviction. Prayer shows me that it can be no other way. Prayer leads me to seek life, and life leads me to seek prayer. The Five Steps of Prayer Manuel J. Costa Father Manuel J. Costa is the pastor of St. Bernard's Church; Post Office Box 999; Eureka, Calil~ornia 95501. Many people in the post Vatican II Church are feeling estranged from God. They do not experience the same secure closeness to Him that they had in former days. A number of times just this past year I have had parishioners complain to me in words like these: "I reach out for God, but He doesn't seem to be there anymore. I want to be in better touch with Him, but I don't know how." Doubtlessly, we have all been distressed, perhaps more often than we care to admit, by a sense of God's absence from our lives. But the way to feel His presence is not so much to "reach out" for Him as to reach in. We must learn to take the inner journey of prayer to find the living God who dwells within us. We can be so concerned about trying to find Him that we miss Him where He is--right under our noses: "The kingdom of God is within you" (Lk 17:21). A religious philosopher little known in Catholic circles, Henry N. Wieman, has written a brief but illuminating analysis of prayer, which is quoted in the anthology, The Choice Is Always Ours, edited by Phillips, Howes, and Nixon (Harper and Row, 1948). Wieman sees prayer as hav-ing five steps and speaks of it as a means of "reshaping ourselves in such manner that we as personalities with all our behavior can serve as connect-ing links between disconnected parts and thus enable the integrating process of the world to fulfill itself" (p. 206). In prayer, he says, we become "circuit-closers" and find the way to join ourselves with God in His work of wider and richer integration. 752 The Five Steps of Prayer / 753 Waiting for God The first step in prayer, according to Wieman, is "to relax and to be-come aware of that upon which we are dependent, that which sustains us in every breath." As I begin prayer, then, I should not strive to ttiink about anything in particular, but should rather enter into an attitude of waiting for God, of letting Him fill me with a consciousness of His all-encompassing, sustaining, integrating Being. So this first step can be described as tuning into the Presence; being open to the Other; acknowledging that which is beyond myself; letting go of my many preoccupations in order to focus on Him who is the Source and Ground of Being; clearing the circuits on my interior switchboard, moving, Advent-like, into the darkness and waiting for the Light; becoming aware of the integrative process, both within me and outside me, that God has already started. God as Working for the Good Wieman's second step in prayer is "to call to mind the vast and un-imaginable possibilities for good which are inherent in this integrating process called God." Before I can actualize these possibilities for good in my life, I must first renew my faith that they exist, that God is truly mov-ing both the world and myself forward--slowly, painfully, but surely. In this moment of prayer, I try to become intensely aware that God is working in ways that I do not understand and, in fact, cannot even imagine. I affirm the reality of unimaginable possibilities for growth and wholeness. Just what these possibilities may be remains unknown to me; all that is re-quired now is that I acknowledge them. This kind of openness to what the day wants to be in me will demand a radical willingness to change what needs to be changed, to stretch, to choose, to struggle, to let go of my egocentric patterns in favor of larger values. During this second step in prayer, I make a positive decision to opt for whatever will be growth-producing this day without seeking to determine now just what that will be. I resolve to choose as consistently as I can for life, to seize each opportunity to become more than I am, to help others to become more than they are, and to do all this now, since today with all its particular circumstances will never again exist for me. But if I am to be as open as I can to the unknown, "vast and un-imaginable possibilities for good," I must face whatever in me prevents the thrust forward. In other words, what are the Ways in which I am most pulled by a disintegrative process rather than the integrative process that Wieman speaks of? Might it be that I let myself get overinvolved in busy work and trivial things that make me stay on the surface of life rather than plumb into its depths? Am I always responding to outer events and demands in order to avoid confrontation with my own inner depths? Or perhaps I permit my-self to be sucked into role expectations, doing what I think others want me 754 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 to do rather than what I see is really best for me. Maybe for me the dis-integrative pull takes the form of saying, "I can't do that" or "why put out the effort--it won't do any good anyway" or "I'm too tired" or "I'll do it tomorrow when I have more time." Or is it that I am unwilling to sacrifice pleasure,and comfort for truth and growth? Do I crowd my days so much with people and things and work that I fail to leave breathing spaces for reflective evaluation and prayer? Do, I, fall into the trap of making up my mind beforehand that someone or some event is superficial or unimportant and thereby miss the meaning that they could proffer? Am I just plain lazy about cultivating an interior life, about trying to conceptualize and give expression to what I think and feel? It is extremely important that I seek to understand as much as I can about the God I be-lieve in and the process by which He works in me and in my world. I have a better chance of joining in with the process if I know what it is: "Blessed is he who knows what he does." Facing My Problem Wieman's third step in prayer is "to face the chief problem with which we are struggling., in its entirety and get it in its true perspective." If I do not take time to pray and to bring my problem before the Lord, then I will very likely be distracted by some pressing detail of the difficulty rather than face it in all its fullness. I will get taken in by what only looks like the main problem. This third step helps me to relate my problem to the total situation of my life, to look at it objectively, to assess all the data about it that I possi-bly can. For every problem has a body of facts to it that I must examine, sift, and integrate. I must creatively explbre the possibilities for good and for growth in my problem. I must be convinced that it really does have all kinds of positive possibilities and that I can join even my problem to the integrative process called God that is hard at work in me and in the entire universe. Prayer gives my problem a wider frame of reference. It stretches my perception so that I begin to see that what is bol~hering me contains some light and goodness in addition to darkness and evil. I can then begin to ac-cept that my problem has an aspect of mystery to it, that it is not so neatly packaged as I had previously thought. When I enter into this movement of prayer, I can. take a religious atti-tude toward whatever is troubling me. I will learn to regard it as an "inner brother" to whom I must first go and be reconciled before I offer my gift at the altar (see Mt 5:23-4). When I deal with my problem in this reconcilia-tory way, I rob it of its power to be infectious on the day and on its possi-bilities for good. The Five Steps o] Prayer / 755 Changing Myself Wieman presents the fourth step in prayer as "self-analysis to find what change must be made in our own mental attitudes and personal habits." Usually I expect the people around me, or my environment, or some aspect of my problem to change. Prayer enables me to see that I am the one who has to change. In prayer I come to see where the outer and inner problems lie.~Then I can decide where I ought to go. During this fourth step I can ask myself: "What are the facts of my life today? What am I to be present to?" Then I invoke God's help and strength so that I can adjust my attitudes and habits to meet the reality of the moment. Reality as it actually exists is the only arena in which I will meet the Lord. Prayer enables me to discern what my reality is, to discover what changes are required of me in order to live in that reality, and to work those changes in me. Prayer helps me to develop right attitudes. From these will flow right behavior. Verbal Formulations of Readjustments The fifth step in prayer is "to formulate in words as clearly and com-prehensively as possible the readjustment of personality and behavior which I have discovered is required of me if I am to close the circuit between cer-tain disconnected factors in the world around me." Wieman emphasizes that this verbal formulation should be affirmative, not negative, for in prayer "we are not primarily trying to break a connection but to establish a con-nection." When I can put my resolution into words, I concretize and channel my prayer experience. Otherwise, it may easily remain vague and undefined, with the result that I may lose much of the power that could come from my encounter with the Lord. Taking the time and trouble to put a feeling or an insight into words makes that feeling or insight more truly my own. It brings them to fuller and more explicit consciousness. Words do much more than label a reality; in a very true sense, they c~'eate the reality. The philospher Martin Heideg-ger says that man does not create language; rather language creates man. The effort required in expressing an inner experience in words makes that experience arise out of unconsciousness into consciousness. In this way, I am "created," that is, more integr~ated and more whole. Besides, it is good for me to make myself say things, even if only to my-self. For when I actually say them, there is, the terrible danger that I will really hear them and do something about them. So, for example, if during my period of prayer I discover that I am acting too much because of role expectations, or for "image" reasons, I may formulate my resolve in this way: "I will strive to act in accordance with the truth of a situation and in relationship to the Source of truth who is within me." Wieman suggests that we repeat our resolution often during the day. Such repetition wild gradually establish the needed readjustment of our at- 756 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 titude deeply and firmly in our beings. And in this way our conscious thoughts, feelings, and behavior will be more surely connected to God and his integrating process in the world. We will become thereby better instru-ments of wholeness both in ourselves and in our environment. Conclusion While certain similarities are obvious between Wieman's five steps and more traditional Catholic methods of meditation, like the Jesuit and Sulpi-cian forms, the originality and uniqueness of the five steps seems to lie in the effort to join ourselves with God in his work of integration. It is a form of prayer which has its unifying insight that each of us can serve as con-necting links between the disconnected parts within ourselves and in our world. We thereby consciously press ourselves into the service of our God who ever seeks to make all things one in Him. Intercession and Community Development Anthony ).° Kelly, C.Ss.R. Anthony J. Kelly, C.Ss.R., is the chairman of the Department of Theology at the Yarra Theological Union in Melbourne and lives at the Redemptorist Monastery; Majella Court; Kew, Victoria 3101; Australia. In recent times we have seen the emergence of many quite sophisticated techniques and exercises for the development of community. These have been applied with considerable effect to religious communities and other Christian groups. A greater intensity and variety of involvement in decision making, shared programs of learning, sensitivity and encounter groups have been commended. All this is the outcome of a genera[ effort to promote growth together, to promote acceptance of healthy diversity within the genuine community. Emotional and intellectual conflicts have been sifted out into more manageable proportions. Conflict itself, once located, identi-fied, and properly handled, has been appreciated as a positive factor in com-munity development. Then, and most of all, there is the almost over-developed theology of community which continues to inspire and challenge. In such an ongoing context of community endeavor, the following re-flections on intercessory prayer are offered. I will commend intercession as a basic form of belonging, creating and redeeming all our other relation-ships to those with whom we share the life of the community. Intercession and Our Relationships First, there is a general remark to be made. The value we put on the prayer of intercession depends on the way we see our relationships with others. For instance, do we grasp ourselves "from the beginni.ng" to be in-volved together, "chosen in him before the foundation of the world" (Eph 757 758 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 1:4)? A prior appreciation of our co-humanity in Christ disposes us to believe that we are governed by quite surprising laws of solidarity. How-ever, if there prevails another kind of understanding of the human world that would divide humanity off into self-enclosed monads where each one is goaded into building risky bridges to the rest of the world, the value of intercession cannot be expected to have much antecedent weight. It is too general and facile. Community suffers violence, and only the violent will achieve it. The correct theological emphasis would be in the direction of a great original solidarity. We are already together "in Christ," already irrevocably ¯ part of the one ultimate world. Such a unity has been offered as a gift, not attained as the outcome of an effort. To be realistically open to this more gracious view of reality would mean an attunement to intercession as a deeply obvious and elemental feature of our existence. We have received grace together; and the first grace is this being together in Christ. Aware-ness of our given co-humanity would mean that intercession follows as a natural ecstasy of our being whereby we make ourselves and others more receptive to the grace at work in our world. Intercession of Christ The above general remark invites us to enter the form of the prayer of Christ in whom we are called. St. John reveals Christ to us as the One who is related to us in the power of prayer, His priestly prayer for Unity: ". that they may all be one, even as thou Father art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us" (Jn 17:20). The unfailing answer to Christ's prayer is the emergence of the Church. The unity of the Spirit embraces our union with Christ as it does His with the Father. As the risen Christ "lives to make intercession for us" (Heb 7:25), the force of His whole new humanity is to be for man, that we might all grow in the unity 0f the Spirit. Our inter-cession derives from the intercessory existence of Christ Himself. It is enter-ing into His risen consciousness, participating in His colnmunicative ex-istence, we come to share in the power of His risen life by being for others in the way He is for them. With Him, the Christian who prays for others breathes the Spirit that unites, heals, and enlightens. Intercession is in the interests of a more abundant life for all. Intercession of the Church The presence of the Church to the world is basically intercessory, being for the world by praying for it. St. Paul gives his pastoral injunction in the letter to Timothy, to pray for the world, "first of all": "First of all then, I urge that supplications, prayers and intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all men . . . this is good and acceptable in the sight of God.our Savior who desires all men to be saved" (1 Tim 2:1-5). There are a lot of people who work for the world, but there is only the Church to pray for it. The Intercession and Community Development / 759 stress on the intercessory presence of the Church to the world does seem a little odd today. All of us as Christians feel the need for a deeper, more active, perhaps even violent engagement to aid the underdeveloped, to find some kind of justice for the oppressed, in doing to death all forms of dis-crimination on the basis of color, sex, race, ideology, and so forth. How-ever, it is precisely at this point that the Christian approach to intercession bears some thought. There is no need to introduce a cleft stick that will eventually snag our thinking. Clearly, there is always going to be some kind of praying for others, some kind of charity, some kind of particularized ser-vice. The point is to find the most comprehensive and creative activity that governs our being in the world. How does Christian love most radically express itself? Community and Interaession Let us now reflect more directly on the community implications of inter-cession, now that we have indicated a certain theological perspective. It is hardly original thinking to note that many of our problems of com-munication are the result of not being honestly and reverently open to the reality of "the other." What dominates communication is a fixed and truncated image of the unknown reality of the other person. If such a domi-nating kind of communication prevails, dialogue is destroyed. Communica-tion must therefore be approached more redemptively. The affirmation of the existence of the other is the vital factor. It reduces to having a real hope for' the other, in accepting the other person as finite, indeed, yet unfinished. A creative relationship to the other must imply that he or she can change and that we are willing agents of such a growth. We need to transcend all our preconceptions about the other for the sake of an acceptance that allows for this person as the outcome of a particular past and on the way to a spe-cial future in which we are involved. It is a question of consenting.to their total existence, not of abridging it in some way as though they had been finished by the past, or were locked irreversibly in the present. In respect to such an affirmative attitude, what does intercession imply? What basic stance am I taking up in relationship to the other? When I truly pray for you, what do I mean by "you"? Openness 1o lhe Mystery of the Other The activity of intercession is not any kind of affirmation or openness. It is the positing of a religious act: I pray to God for you. The divine di-mension is the living space of this ~elationship of praying-for. In this sense, it is the most open kind of bpenness, the most total kind of affirmation of the other person. To pray to God for someone else is to affirm, accept, and hope for the existence of theother, not as defined by my-self, but by' the gracious freedom of God. The beginnings and end of those for whom we pray are lost in the divine mystery, in the expanse of God's 760 / Review for Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 creative love that bursts our preconceptions and transcends our categories. When I pray for others, I accept them as related to the ineffable mystery of God Himself. At least, then, prayer for others means this: we avoid summing people up, and affirm the fact of their future. It is not some kind of neutral open-ness, but a hopeful acceptance of the mystery of the other even if I cannot grasp it. Though I do not know the real name of the other person, though "it has not yet appeared" what he or she will be, I want this other to have a name and to enter into the fullness of a particular personal existence. Hence, prayer is an expression, a religious expression of respect for the other, and a total kind of acceptance. It is a readiness for dialogue and realistic communication. Intercession and Self-Statement If praying for others means that we are saying something about them, it also means that we are stating something about ourselves. Intercession as a sincere personal act will lead to its own moment of truth. For we are affirming something irrevocably about ourselves: we belong with those for whom we pray. There is an identification implied; a belonging in God; a co-humanity. Before intercession wants anything or makes any petition, it affirms our desire for communion, that we belong with those for whom we pray in the unity of the Spirit. Intercession must mean that we have time for this other. seemingly trite aspect. But the triteness will vanish when we how seldom it is that we really make time for others in the of their existence. Even if we are doing something for them, often distracts us from them. But when we pray for them, we are really making time for them, having time for them. Intercession of its nature does not admit a distraction from the reality of the other since it is such a deeply personalized activity. There is no "something to be done" to cloud the pres-ence of the other to me. It is being-for the other in an intense manner. Now this is a ask ourselves total mystery - the something The Seriousness of Intercession There is a deeper aspect. We pray to God for others. This is to say that we are relating to them in the deepest seriousness of our being as we stand before God. Before God we are "with" them. Whatever words we speak to them in the ordinary circumstances of life, whatever we do for them or to them, however we affect them, it is through intercession that we enter into the most all embracing and deeply founded relationship. To pray for others is an act of relational existence. When we intercede we are caught up in the dynamism of Christ's being-for others. He is ever giving Himself for the many. His flesh and blood, the symbols of His whole being are ever available to men. He is the food and drink of real life. For us to be united to Christ as we enter into His being-for others through intercession means Intercession and Community Development / 761 that we too begin to nourish the existence of others with what we are our-selves. It is true that intercession does not always appear to have such a grandeur and intensity about it. Considering it, nonetheless, as a central value in Christian life, we are invited to sense the shape of Christian ex-istence as Christ reveals it, and thus to enter more deeply into what we should be. What we call "praying for others" often enough is a rationaliza-tion for doing nothing for our neighbor. But this is not authentic interces-sion: being-for others in the unity and power of the Spirit is always action and always leads to further action and service. It is,-after all, entering into the prayer of Christ. Intercession and Our Work for Others There are' many ways in which this prayer of intercession may be an-swered and appear as an effective force in Christian existence. Perhaps the most obvious result of praying for others is our enablement to act more creatively and sensitively towards them. It would take a brave person to state categorically that his or her service for others, be it pastoral care, teaching, nursing, administration, or social work, was utterly selfless. Are we capable of being quite so certain about the authenticity of our existence-for- others? We know a good deal today about the subtle dynamisms of manipulation and rationalizing. So often our "selfless" work aims at ex-tending our own little empire of dependents. We need to affirm our position of power and status. We need others to need us. Prayer for others works to redeems us from the frailty of our not quite selfless service. When we pray for others, especially those we work for, we are "purifying our motives" as the old phrase had it. We are building into our service of others that total kind of self-giving already referred to. That special kind of being-for-others in prayer gradually pervades our more ex-ternal activity. It makes that strange forgetfulness of the other less likely, because in praying for them we are concerned with the ultimate mystery of their being. A service of others that is nourished by intercession is much more complete. In short, intercession makes our work for others more open, sensitive, creative, and free: open in that we are drawn out of our limiting precon-ceptions; .sensitive because we are concerned with the real mystery of the other; creative because we are putting ourselves in the position to see ever greater possibilities of service and support; and free in the sense that we are not turned in on ourselves in our activity but concerned for others in a Christian kind of love. Intercession and Witness There is a second grace following from intercession. It is that of a more effective witness. No doubt, there is a certain discretion implied in one's 762 / Review [or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 prayerful concern for others. However, this can be overdone. It is surely part of the confession of our faith to give some expression to our interces-sion for others. The problem is often our own lack of conviction rather than the reaction of the people for whom we might pray. Whatever the case, the experience of the prayerful concern of others for us is a beautiful aspect of our experience of grace. When we hear someone saying with sincerity and simplicity, "I am praying for you," we sense something of the real delicacy and power of Christian love. The one who prays for us reveals himself as concerned with the most fundamental and hopeful affirmation of our being. In the horizon of our ultimate development, someone is with us and for us. The redemptive love of God finds a simple and tangible expres-sion in this intercession made for us. There remains the main question of the efficacy of ihtercession. It changes us in relation to the other for whom we pray. It is a strong yet delicate witness of love. But is it more effective, and if so, how? The Effectiveness of Intercession The effectiveness of intercession is bound up with the effectiveness of all prayer. It is part of the deep Christian question of how our asking is always receiving, of how our searching is always finding, of how our knock-ing is always admittance into the home. The assurance of the gospel is there. It is this extraordinary assurance that theology always seeks to penetrate in an effort to understand the inner dynamic of prayer. The best explanations bear on a thorough acceptance of the 'two ele-ments, the sincerity of God's gift and the genuineness of man's freedom. The Spirit makes us more active and open in our great desires. We are led to consent to the grace of God and make ourselves receptive to it~ There is no question of changing God who has already done His utmost, but of being changed ourselves, of becoming receptive to the gift of God: "If you but knew the gift of God!" It is man who is limited in his redeptivity to God, and so part of the experience of grace is to ask, to seek, to knock to en-large our responsiveness to the availability of the Lord. There is no need to employ a completely different explanation to come to some understanding of the effectiveness of intercession. For it is still a matter of man becoming more open to God, but now the setting is com-munitarian. We share a solidarity with one another in Christ, a communion of saints that bears on the personal fulfillment of each of us as individuals. We are bound together in the new humanity in the unity of the Spirit and in mediation. When I pray for others, I am acting out my solidarity with~them in Christ. I am recovering a fundamental dimension of my existence. Inter-cession is not some unwarranted intrusion into the life of the other, but the affirmation of our mutual belonging in Christ. Christ is not~only the mediator between man and God, but also between man and man. Intercession and Community Development / 763 Our free acts of praying for the other are, in the design of God, the condition of the Spirit's deeper penetration of ore" world. Salvation can come to us only insofar as we accept it in faith and prayer. By our inter-cession our world is made less impervious to the grace of Christ, more open to his healing redemption. We do not in any sense constrain the liberty of those we pray for. The ultimate effect of our prayer must be understood to serve the mystery of God's dealings with each individual: it is ultimately part of the mystery of God coming to the personal mystery of each of us. The practical point for our present reflections is that our intercessory concern with others makes our one world more open to the healing and transforming power of grace. Clearly, then, intercession must be a depth dimension of the vitality of any Christian community. The deepest kind of relationship to the other is that of praying-for, because it is an explicit relationship in God. Through the Spirit of Love we abide in God and in one another. Thus, we are prepared to express more particular relationships of communication. We are redeemed from the brittle, limited, forcing aspects of our communica-tion: mutual acceptance is grounded in its real foundation; our fiope for each other is enlarged to its real dimensions. A sharing of intercessory prayer heals polarizations and provokes honest, respectful communication. Intercession and Dialogue And so true dialogue becomes a possibility. It is not only a question of the community that prays together staying together. Doubtless, there is much merit in this hallowed dictum. Our more precise point is this: a community can begin the patient exercise of dialogue and open out a whole spectrum of redemptive relationships only when there is an atmo- Sphere of intercession. This means that not only does the individual pray for the community and the individuals in it, not only does the community pray for the individual, but that this attitude and activity is seen and felt. Then, the particularized relationships of mutual support and the psychological attitudes of accepta,nce and lov~ have their foundation in the most fundamental kind of co-humanity, that based on our common life in Christ, in the love of the Spirit that unites us: "Pray at all times, asking for what you need, praying in the Spirit on every possible occasion. Never get tired of staying awake to pray for all the saints . " (Eph 6: 18-20). The Vowed Life" Call, Response, Mission Anthony Tambasco, S.M.M. Father Anthony Tambasco, S.M.M., teaches in the Department of Theology of St. Louis University and lives at 3927 McPherson Avenue; St. Louis, Missouri 63108. One of the basic doctrines inculcated in religious life is that the vows are a deepening of-~the baptismal promises and a perfecting of the life of baptism. At this present time in the Church when stress is put less and less on religious life as a "more perfect way," and more and more on the vocation of every Christian to perfection, the religious begins to wonder what value there is in his vowed life. What can be added to the richness of baptismal life? Does not a "perfectifl'~,~ of baptism imply that baptism is really not quite enough for wholehearted sanctity? And implied behind these questions is often the unspoken, "What am I doing as a religious ~'hat I could not be doing as a good Christian lay person in the community?" Perhaps the answer to these questions lies in reappraising what has always been our basic affirmation concerning vows and in reconsidering how they relate to baptismal life. lncarnational Dimension The crux of our study will focus on the incarnational dimension of the three vows. Poverty, celibacy, and obedience do not add anything to the baptismal commitment as such, nor do they even deepen the essential commitment of baptism. Man is and .always remains given to the Lord in virtue of baptism, and that sacrament itself is a constant source of power, growth, and maturity of life. The value of the vows is not in adding to baptism, but rather in facilitating the full power of the sacrament, Their value lies in their incarnational witness, that is, they put into flesh and blood realities, into everyday human experiences, all that the sacrament 764 The Vowed Lile: Call, Response, Mission / 765 of baptism is trying to achieve. This is by no means an insignificant point. Man operates in the flesh. The more he can function as an enfleshed spirit, the more can the whole man penetrate the richness of life. Baptism is itself incarnational, since that is the very nature of a sacrament. The vows are intended to extend that incarnational dimension. They do not replace baptism or supersede it. They remind us of what baptism is doing. They point to it and thus facilitate its activity and creativity. It remains for us now to show how all this comes about, which leads us to consider the key words in the title for this article. They are chosen as summary themes behind what is really going on in baptism, and conse-quently as summaries also of what the vows should do. Before we focus in on the vows themselves, we should convince ourselves once again of just what baptism is doing. Let us take a few moments, then, to sum up the activity of baptism in terms of call, response, and mission. Baptism as the Call of God It is a common place of Biblical theology that all of salvation history begins with the divine initiative. This is most often expressed in the call of key figures at each stage of that history. Salvation events do not occur because man sees fit to undertake them, but because God has seen fit to call men to them. Now the same principle applies to each individual's salvation history. It all begins with the call of the Lord. This is the first basic .reality expressed by giving baptism. It signifies the call, the divine initiative in man's life. We may find numerous reasons for being Chris-tian: part of our heritage, the influence of some fine Christian friend, random hereditary selection, and so forth. All of these are not the ultimate source; baptism makes it clear that there is ultimately and continually an invitation of the Lord to new life in Him. A search through Biblical history reveals that there was not an epoch of that history which did not involve at the same time the call of significant personages by Yahweh. Most of the events could undoubtedly be explained by the natural flow of normal history; most were ordinary events of their time. But the Bible stresses constantly that the underlying truth was the call of God behind all the events. This remains the underlying truth expressed in baptism. By it, we hear the call of the Lord. Baptism and Response to God If this basic truth of baptism is clear, there is still another. No call is really effective if there is no response. Once again we see it clearly in all Biblical history. God breaks nobody's arm. Man remains free. In every epoch God awaits man's reply and consent. It is interesting to see the re-actions of various individuals in the Old Testament. Isaiah is overcome with awe at the encounter with the transcendent. His exclamation is "Woe is me!" Jeremiah is defensive and much concerned about his inability to 766 / Review Jor Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 meet his vocation. His reply is: "I am too young, Lord, send another" (Jer ,1:6). Ezechiel, on the other hand, is delighted with his call. When the Lord asks him to take in his words--to eat the scroll--the prophet says they are sweet as honey (Ez 3:lff). One is probably ~able to find the gamut of human reactions to the Lord's call in the various people of Old Testament history, including the reactions found in oneself. One thing is clear, nevertheless. Each man worked through his reactions to a total re-sponse to the Lord. The exercise of freedom was different in different men, but it was exercised. The response came through different attitudes and over different obstacles, but the Lord awaited a response. This same reality is present in baptism. The sacrament is designed as a response as well as a call. For one thing, the new rite begins with a request for baptism, and there is ample provision for man's reply to all that the Lord is doing and asking in the sacrament. In fact, every baptism requires an act of faith, at least on the part of the Church in the name of the person if the one baptized cannot do so himself. Baptism, then, becomes the beginning of man's re-sponse to the call of God. It is the beginning of faith life. Baptism and Mission A complete view of baptism demands one other theme or key word, that of mission. The very baptismal ceremony expresses an incorporation into a Church. It puts us in essential need of one another. It tells us that we cannot even hear the call of the Lord except with and through others, nor can. we respond except with and through others. Baptism begins and ends with a Church, a community within which one lives, and which one strives to share. A Christian is automatically a missionary; he has no choice, He has received his call and made his response through others, and he qn turn is the instrument for the call and response of others. No man is an island. The continual reality of baptism is hearing the call and making the response as a shared experience with others. There is call and response, but that is already mission. We have dwelt somewhat at length on what seems obvious, but the ob-vious is often what is overlooked. At any rate, if we can summarize baptism in terms of these three basic themes, then we have a convenient outline for seeing how the vows facilitate these functions of the sacrament. They become the incarnate realities of what baptism is doing. As we approach the vows, we could show how. each vow makes us more aware of each of the three aspects. We can sense the call of the Lord, for instance, behind material' goods; love of others, and our own personal.values and goals. We facilitate response in terms of our possessions, our affections, and our mind and will. We realize a mission to creation, to our own self-growth. Nevertheless, it seems that each vow has a special function' with. relation to one of the main aspects of baptism. I would like to suggest that each vow highlights one of the themes in a special way: poverty focuses on our The Vowed Life: Call, Response, Mission / 767 call from the Lord, celibacy on our wholehearted response, and obedience on our mission. Let us now consider each of these points in detail. Poverty and the Call ot the Lord The heart of the Christian life, we have said, begins in baptism with a call. Now if we take a deep enough and wide enough view of poverty, we will see how it reminds us constantly of the call of the Lord. I say deep and wide, because we must go much farther than a simple considera-tion of money or material goods. These enter in, and we will give thought to that aspect, but first we must have a broader view. When we speak of poverty, it is Biblical poverty, the spirit of anawim. We are talking of a concept that evolved over a long period of time in the Old Testament and culminated in a rich theological concept. The anawim were the physically poor to begin with, but under the influence of the prophets they came to be seen also as those whom Yahweh favored, who were his faithful rem-nant. In other words, there was another ingredient added to the sheer notion of being poor; the anawim were those who learned from their poor con-dition. Poverty became an occasion to learn dependence on the Eord, openness to His grace, trust in His love and providence. Isaiah sums that up when he says: "A remnant of Israel, the survivors of the house of Jacob, will no more lean upon him who struck them; but they will lean upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth" (Is 10:20). When we talk about poverty, we are talking about an attitude. It is man who can stand naked before the Lord, who is empty, not only of money and goods, but of true power and influence, of reputation and esteem. He is the man who can see with the eyes of truth thathe is not self-sufficient, but that his sufficiency comes from God. He leans on the Lord. The point that we are making is that the man with such an attitude and disposition is the one who hears more easily the voice of the Lord. He is beloved of the Lord, the one constantly being called by the Lord. Zepheniah warns Israel that the Day of Yahweh is coming, a day of judg-ment, but he holds out a promise: "Yes, at that time I will deal with all who oppress you: I will save the lame, and assemble the outcasts; I will giv~ them praise and renown in all the earth, when I bring about their restoration" (Zeph 3:19). Isaiah reminds us.again and again that the Lord reaches out to his poor: "A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse . The spirit 'of the Lord shall rest iupon him . He shall judge the poor with justice, and decide aright for the afflicted" (Is 11:1ff). The Lord Himself continues in that thqught of Isaiah when He describes His own role as the call to the poor. De says He fulfills the words of the prophet: "The spirit of the Lord is up, on me, because the Lord has anointed me: he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the lowly, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners" (Lk 4:17if). 768 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 32, 1973/4 Material Poverty In the light of all these statements, it seems to me that the vow of poverty is to put us in a condition where we can more readily hear the call of the Lord to love and life. In a very tangible and human way, in an incarnate way, it helps us realize the favor of the Lord by making us one of his beloved poor. This should lead us to take the vow seriously. It means a level of poverty, even on the material side, so that the vow will not be an empty formula. This leads us to the consideration of money and goods. However, we must keep the goal toward which the vow is aimed, that is, the attitude of dependence on the Lord. No level of poverty is going to be effective if one does not learn from that poverty as the anawim of the Old Testament. We do maintain, then, that material poverty is in some way a necessary ingredient of the vow, but we should also see why we cannot decide on one uniform standard of poverty for all. Each one has his own psychological and physical make-up. For each one in a different way, a certain level of poverty will teach dependence and openness, but a further level will destroy or preoccupy to the point of hindering a view of the Lord. Not all of Israel's poor were the anawim in our theological sense. Not all of Israel's poor in a theological sense were indigent. I be-lieve that there are some common traditions for community poverty, but I also believe that in most matters pertaining to personalities of individual religious, the community should be broad enough to allow various life styles and various levels of poverty. The most harmful approach to poverty today is to compare one's own life style and level of poverty to another's. If one religious has banners or an enjoyable painting, then all should, according to this approach. Or if one can live in the poor style of the inner city, then all can. In truth, one's poverty is not another's. Let each religious live in a way that will teach true dependence and openness to the Lord and hence will make him more aware of the voice of the Lord calling him from bap-tism, but calling him in the flesh and blood realities of his daily life. Celibacy and Consecration In considering poverty as emphasizing the call of the Lord, we have also seen how that already involves a response or an attitude of dependence. Now we can turn to celibacy to see how that vow stresses man's response of baptism and reinforces the attitudes described in poverty. When we talk of celibacy, we are talking about consecration. Once again, it is not that full consecration cannot be.made in baptism. It is rather that celibacy is more of a visible, incarnational expression of that consecration. It points out that the whole man, body and soul, is given to the Lord, and becomes a constant reminder of that fact. Inherent also in the vow of virginity is the concept of a direct relationship to the Lord that it bespea~ks more em-phatically than a life style of marriage. The Old Testament already had some notion of consecration of this type in the temporary vows of con- The Vowed Lile: Call, Response, Mission / 769 tinence to be practiced by soldiers engaged in a sacred war, or priests engaged in solemn temple worship. Rabbinic tradition speaks of how Moses separated from his wife after he had had the vision of the burning bush. Nevertheless, the full value and meaning of celibacy did not and could not come until the New Testament. Only with Christ did the defini-tive kingdom come. Only in Christ has God made his entrance into history in a final and evident way. From that point on, there is a new and enduring love existing in this life, a love that is now accessible and a love that is the culminating point toward which all love is headed. This is the love of Christ the risen Lord, present to us and communicating a love that enters into the divine itself. With the advent of Christ, history has been so trans-formed and so elevated, that man no longer remains tied solely to human history; he reaches the Lord also by .way of transcendence. He attains the love of Christ more directly and more immediately than was ever dreamed of in the Old Testament. This seems to be what Paul had in mind when he said the virgin is worried only about the affairs of the Lord, how to please and serve him, while the married person is worried about the affairs of the spouse. It is not that marriage is bad, nor that it is even wrong to worry about how to serve one's spouse and please him. Nevertheless, marriage is indirect and through the mediation of another, while celibacy gives one to the Lord directly and without mediators. Celibacy is itself a mirror of what the Church herself must be. Paul writes in 2 Cor 11:2: "I am jealous of you with the jealousy of God him-self, since I have given you in marriage to one husband, presenting you as a chaste virgin to Christ." This phrase applies to all Christians. All love must eventually arrive at Christ. However, there are man3; ways in which that love can be achieved, and there are some who strive to achieve that love of Christ as it is literally described by

Issue 22.3 of the Review for Religious, 1963. ; JOHN XXIII Allocution to Spieitual Directors Our meeting todayI immediately precedes the week of retreat by which We intend to prepare Ourselves for the opening of the Ecumenical Council. You can imagine, then, what is going on in Our soul at this moment as We welcome you who have been chosen for one of the loftiest and most delicate services that exist in the Church. As perhaps you already know, We Ourselves exercised this same ministry at the Seminary of Bergamo shortly after World War I. This precious priestly experience permits Us to understand better the feelings of your own hearts, and at the same time it makes Our conversa-tion with you more intimate and more immediate. Before every thing else, beloved sons, We extend to you Our gratitude for the hidden but invaluable work which you are carrying on in an area that is rich in hopes for the apostolate. Dioceses depend on you; it can even be said that the future fate of the Church is to a large extent in your hands. It is true, of course, that the forma-tion of seminarians must be achieved by the harmonious collaboration of all superiors under the judicious and in-terested direction of the rector; nevertheless, the most important part of this formation pertains to you because your work is executed in the depths of conscience where deep convictions take root and where is effected the real transformation of the young men who are called, to the priesthood. It is the impulse of the Spirit of the Lord that initiates this transformation and brings it to completion; ordinarily, however, a young man will have difficulty in knowing how to follow the impulses of the Spirit without the expert control of the spiritual director. 1 This is an English translation of the allocution Questo incontro given by John XXIII on September 9, 1963, to a meeting of spiritual directors of the seminaries of Italy. The original text is given in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, v. 54 (1962), pp. 673-8. $il~irltual Directors VOLUME 22, 196~ John XXII1 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 258 We can imagine your daily sacrifices, your trepidations, and your silent sufferings. And God knows with how many prayers and efforts and perhaps anguish you daily pay for the graces of light and perseverance which you implore for your spiritual children. In manifesting to you Our gratitude, We feel that We possess the senti-ments of Christ Himself who, by entrusting to you His most precious treasures, has called you to labor with Him in this sublime work of His grace. /1 Dil~cult and Delicate Task We also wish to express to you Our satisfaction with your meeting and the good results to be expected from it. The education of the young--it is never out of place to repeat this--is a very arduous mission which is justly referred to as the art of arts. This is even more true when it is a question of young persons who in the greatness of their hearts are.giving themselves to the priesthood. The educator of seminarians is well aware that his personal preparation for this lofty ministry should continue throughout the length of his service. He must study the psychology of the students in the seminary; he must live with his eyes open to the world which surrounds him; he must learn from life. But he must also learn from books, from study, from the experiences of his colleagues, and from the progress of pedagogical science, especially from the texts and authors recommended by the Congregation of Seminaries. We cannot disguise the fact that in the matter of edu-cation there have been and are errors that are cloaked by the facile excuse that for the discernment and formation of vocations it is sufficient to have good sense, a sharp eye, and above all experience. We say this with a feeling of sadness. A more enlightened spiritual direction would have spared the Church the priests who do not live up to the greatness of their office, while at the same time it would have procured for her a decidedly higher number of holy ecclesiastics. Moreover, all of you are aware that every age en-counters and meets characteristic difficulties in the edu-cation of youth. In your own case you cannot forget that seminarians today belong to a generation that has ex- + perienced the tragedy of two tremendous world wars and that they live in a world which is evolving with amazing ÷ rapidity. Because of this you may at times be bewil.dered by various manifestations of a personality still unformed, by aspirations and exigencies which seem to be far from the mentality that was present only twenty years ago. This might lead one to conclude that the traditional formation has had its day and that new ways should be tried. On this point We would like to give candid ex-pression to Our thought. While in the matter o[ seminary [ormation it is not good to maintain outmoded ways o[ doing things, still it is necessary to be thoroughly convinced that fundamental principles retain all their~value; without thei~'o~he entire edifice would collapse and [all into ruin. Hence it is nec-essary to care[ully avoid the danger that marginal re-forms, however important and perhaps opportune they may be, should distract attention from what is the central problem o[ all seminary education. Your efforts must be principally directed towards creating in your charges an evangelically integral conception of the priesthood as well as a keen and vibrant consciousness o[ the obligation to tend towards holiness. Unchanged Value o] Fundamental Principles Beloved sons, the problem of personal sanctification was the point of honor and of joy o[ your and Our youth-ful years. Those called to the priesthood in this second half of the twentieth century can have nothing else more at heart both before the priesthood and during the years of its flowering and maturation. They must be persuaded of the emptiness of every apostolic effort that does not proceed from a soul in the state of grace and tending to-wards holiness. You must also take care to guide seminarians to a knowledge and a comprehension of the world in which they are called to live and to work; teach them to sancti[y everything good, sane, and beautiful that progress offers. This does not mean any compromise with a worldly spirit and much less does it imply a lessening o[ the importance of mortification and renunciation. A misunderstood mod-ernization that is preoccupied only with softening semi-nary life or with flattering nature too much would create a personality the direct opposite of Christ, Priest and Vic-tim. On the contrary, a really adequate adaptation to the needs of the times must result in a deeper assimilation to the personality of Christ and Him crucified. It is neces-sary to endow seminarians with a love of the self-denial of the cross in order that they may be able to love the con-dition o[ poverty in which the clergy must o[ten live and be able to meet with courage the renunciations and ex-hausting labors of the apostolate. Firm Discipline and JoyIul Dedication to Sacrifice At times one hears the expressions "autoformation" and "autodomination." It is certainly true that a person is not well formed if he does not know how to control himself; educators are justly concerned to give seminari-ans a practical and progressive exercise of freedom which 4. 4. Spiritual Directors VOLUME 22, 1963 259 4. 4. 4. John XXlll REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 260 will strengthen them to control themselves in determined circumstances and which prepares them better for the life of the ministry. But this cannot be disjoined from firm discipline. A young man will never learn to be mas-ter of himself if he has not learned to observe with love a strict rule that exercises him in mortification and in will power. Otherwise, later in the full exercise of the ministry he will not be prompt in a full and joyful obedience to his bishop; he might even undergo the temptation to as-sume an independence which, while it may not take the form of open rebellion, may nevertheless be manifested in personal action not in harmony with the plan of pas-toral activity suggested and proposed by his superiors. Finally, there can never be too much insistence on the importance of example. And it is you, beloved sons, who give this; it is older priests who give it; and We wish that We could say that all give it. Example is the most elo-quent and persuasive language for the young. Example will draw down an abundance of fruitful graces from the Lord; and from it seminarians will learn in an almost spontaneous way things that frequently are difficult to explain in words. Zeal /or Carrying Out the Decisions o/ the Council Because of the spiritual director's frequent and confi-dential contacts with seminarians, he is one of those per-sons who are incised into the memory; he can, therefore, if he is truly edifying, be one of the most effective sup-ports of future perseverance. Many times the amazing exuberance of Christian life in a diocese finds its true explanation in the silent work of a holy spiritual director who by his example and his teaching has been able to form a generation of holy priests. As We come to the end of Our reflections on this seri-ous and lofty matter of the formation of seminarians to whose good will the reinvigoration of ecclesiastical fervor in the entire Catholic world has been entrusted for execu-tion with the help of heavenly grace and by the applica-tion of conciliar legislation, We willingly give Our hom-age in these solemn circumstances to the sacred memory of those priests, now resting in the eternal light and peace of the Lord, to whose ministry as confessors and spiritual guides you and We entrusted the intimacy of our con-science at the various stages of our life. They are fully worthy of our commemoration. These elect souls who, having entered into eternity, now rejoice in their lofty goal or who~and they too are all holy and blessed--still wait entrance into that goal are according to the teaching of the Church participants in the events of the Church militant; they give her help especially at more important times such as this of the Ecumenical Council. It was the grace of the Lord which gave them on earth the meritorious work of the sanctifi-cation of priests in the past; may that grace now bring forth an abundance of fervor for the new birth which the Council intends to consecrate to the triuml~h of the kingdom of Christ the Lord: "ln holiness and justice be-fore him during all our days" (Lk 1:75). A Shining Example: Vincent Pallotti Beloved sons, the office of spiritual director bristles with difficulties and responsibilities, for it is concerned with the formation of souls into the image of Christ the Priest. It is a divine, not a human work. But this, far from discouraging you, constitutes the foundation of your con-fidence. You have a greater reason to abandon yourselves to the merciful omnipotence of the Divine Artisan who deigns to make use of you. Among the pleasing things of the new fervor which the Ecumenical Council is producing, it gives Us a lively sense of gratification to be able to look forward to the honors of the altar which are being prepared for some of the venerable Servants of God and of the Blessed who are a part of the universal constellation of the holiness of the Church spread throughout the world. We espe-cially look forward to the canonization of Blessed Vincent Pallotti. He was an edifying priest who knew how to unite the spiritual direction of the young clerics of the Pontifical Roman Seminary and of the students of the College of Propaganda with the founding of the Pious Society of Catholic Apostolate. This latter was the first movement in Rbme of Catholic Action in the proper sense of the word. And today we admire the flourishing condition of Catholic Action and its application to the important task of penetrating modern society with the Gospel. The entire activity of this outstanding priest was de-voted to the sanctification of the clergy and, as he himself put down in writing, to the defence of the faith and the spread of charity among Catholics; the one and the other he hoped to propagate in the entire world so that shortly there would be but one fold and one shepherd. He was the apostle of that manifold liturgical celebra-tion which still remains as an outstanding memorial to his far-sighted apostolic piety; this is the celebration of the Epiphany octave which is held each year in the Church of Sant'Andrea della Valle and which serves as a vigorous call for the development of missionary aware-ness in the Christian world and for prayer for the unity of the Church among all the peoples of the world. 4- 4- Spiritual Directors VOLUME 22~ 1963 26] Beloved, here for you to see are the words and example by which under the tutelage and impulsion of grace you can carry out the great work of fashioning the hearts of future priests according to the Heart of Christ. We have a serene assurance that Christ our Highpriest will make Our words to you fruitful. As a pledge of heavenly favors, We give to you and to all the. seminari-ans entrusted to your care Our apostolic blessing. ÷ ÷ ÷ John XXIII REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 262 L. LEGRAND, M.E.P. The Spiritual Value Of Virginity According to St. Paul In his pleax for virginity in Chapter Seven of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul insists on the greater spiritual freedom it gives: I would have you free from care. Now the unmarried man cares for the things of the Lord; his aim is to please the Lord. But the married man cares for the worldly things; his aim is to please his wife and he is divided. And the unmarried woman or the virgin cares for the things of the Lord; her aim is to be holy both in body and in spiri.t. But the married woman cares for the worldly things; her a~m ~s to please her husband (1 Cor 7:32-34). Detachment from the world, complete self-surrender to the Lord, sanctity of life: those are the reasons for which Paul prefers virginity to married life. We have studied elsewhere the "holiness" of virginity.2 It remains now to consider the other two causes which, in the eyes of Paul, make for the superiority of continence. Freedom from the World The language of the Apostle seems plain enough: celi-bacy is good becauge it is care free. The celibate is ame-rimnos, literally "careless." It goes without saying that this "carelessness" is not that of the inveterate bachelor for whom celibacy means only selfishness, attachment to comfort, privacy, and his idiosyncracies, aloofness, and dryness of heart. Paul makes it clear that what he extols is dedicated celibacy. Worldly worries are set aside so as 1 This article is reprinted with permission from Indian Ecclesiasti-cal Studies, v. 1 (1962), pp. 175-95. ~ See L. Legrand, "The Sacrificial Value of Virginity," Scripture, v. 14 (1962), pp. 67-75. 4- 4- 4- L. Legrand, M.E.P., is a faculty member of St. Peter's Seminary; Bangalore 12, In-dia. VOLUME 22, 196~ 263 4. 4. 4" L. Legrand, M.E.P . REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS to allow a singleness of purpose in the spiritual life which would be impossible in marriage. But is that explanation as satisfactory as it seems? Robertson and Plummer see a striking parallel to Paul's exhortation to virginity in saying of Epictetus: Is it not fit that the philosopher should without any dis-traction be employed only on the ministration of God, not tied down to the common duties of mankind, nor entangled in the ordinary relations of life;~ This parallel raises a problem. I1 the parallelism of thought is real, is it not compromising for Paul? Does not make of the Apostle, at least in this instance, a Stoic philosopher rather than a disciple of Jesus; and of celi-bacy an inheritance of Hellenism rather than a genuine element of Christianity? Towards the end of the Old Testament and the begin-ning of the Christian era, the main trends of Hellenistic thought, deeply marked by Platonic influence, saw an opposition between matter and spirit, between the pres-ent temporal condition and .the ideal world to which be-longed God and the eternal reality of things. The body was considered to be a jail which man had to leave to soar through knowledge and contemplation into the se-rene sphere of immutable eternity. An ideal of continent life would have been in the logic of that system. Actually it did not develop in Hellenism as it did, on almost simi-lar premises, in the Hindu systems of the Ashrams and in Buddhist monasticism.4 In fact, the full consequences of the Greek dualism were drawn only by such Christi;tn heretics as the Gnostics, Encratites, Donatists, Cathari, Albigenses, and the like. They condemned marriage as unclean and made of celibacy the necessary condition for salvation. But they were heretics. The Church never con-demned matrimony. Following the biblical view of the world, Christian thought cannot accept the Hellenistic dualism. The material world is a creation of God; hence it is good and so is the human body with all its functions. The order "to grow and multiply" was given by the Crea-tor Himself (Gn 1:28), and in the New Convenant mar-riage has been even raised to the dignity of a sacrarnent (Eph 5:25-32). St. Paul does not' condemn marriage in Chapter Seven SDissertations 3, 22, quoted in A. Robertson and A. Plummer, Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians (Edinburgh: Clark, 1911), p. 158. 'Yet there were a few Stoic and Neoplatonic philosophers to consider celibacy as a higher state of life. See Epictetus, Disserta. tions 3, 22; 3, 26, 62. See also A. Oepke, "'Gun~," Theologische.; W6r. terbuch zum Neuen Testament, v. 1 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1933), p. 779. But those views never resulted in a wide movement, creating special institutions as was .the case in India. of the First Epistle to the Corinthians; yet is he not in-fluenced by Hellenistic thought when advocating vir-ginity? What does he mean by the "freedom from the worldly cares" which virginity makes possible? Is it not the indifference and the disengagement from the material world which the philosophers, advocated?. Isqt not closer to the Stoic ataraxia or Neoplatonic ekstasis than to the Christian agape? Before attributing to Hellenistic infiltrations the argu-ments of Paul in the seventh chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, one should observe that such an ex-planation runs counter to the general patterns of Paul's thought and life. Paul did not consider salvation and re-ligious life as an escape from concrete realities. He has experienced ecstasy, but like all the genuine Christian mystics, he was more disturbed by it than proud of it.5 If he mentions his raptures, it is only to prove that he has a personal knowledge of what the boisterous charismatic Corinthians used to boast of. But himself, he would not glory in such things; his only pride is in his share in the humiliations of the cross (2 Cor 12:1-10). Ecstasy and deliverance from the material world were not Paul's ideal. His soul took easily to contemplation; yet he did not make of disengaged contemplation his su-preme goal. His life was surely not carefree in the sense that he had nothing to do but to meditate on the unseen realities, for was he not the missionary who had to carry "the daily burden, the worry for all the churches" besides "the labors, exertions, and persecutions" supported in carrying out his apostolate (2 Cot 11:23-27)? When he gave himself as an example of celibate life ("I would like that all of you should be like me" [1 Cor 7:7]), he did not set up a model of carelessness: "Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is scandalized and I am not on fire?" (2 Cor 11:29). Those were not the words or the attitude of a man indifferent to daily realities, lost in a nirvana of radi-cal abstraction. It is therefore a priori unlikely that the freedom from care which St. Paul saw in virginity had anything to do with the philosophical detachment from the material world. He does consider married life entangled in the world to be opposed to celibacy which is concerned only with the Lord. But does that contrast correspond to the Greek opposition of matter and spirit, kyl~ and nous? The answer must be negative. The biblical antithesis between the world (or the flesh) and God (or the Spirit) cannot be reduced to the philosophical dualism of matter and spirit. In the Bible the opposition of the world to s See C. Baumgartner, "Extase," in Dictionnaire de spiritualitd, v. 4 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1961), col. 2187-89. 4- 4- 4- Virginity VOLUME 22~ 1963 265 4. 4. 4. /. M.~.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 266 God is not ontological but moral: the world is not es-tranged from God by essence but by choice. Between the world and God there stands not a contradiction but a re-volt. Such is the clear teaching of the first chapters of Genesis. It is true that on account of man's sin, the whole order of the cosmos has been shaken: suffering and death have entered the world in the wake of sin. Yet though deeply marked by the curse of sin, the cosmos is not evil in itself; the trouble is in the heart of men, not in things.6 For centuries the prophets strove for the restoration of the original order through conversion; if only man would repent, he would recover "life" which is the harmony and peace of the original divine plan. When man proved too stubborn, the prophets understood that he was doomed. Sin was too deeply engrained in the world; death had to do its work; the present world with all its institu-tions had to be carried away. Yet since God is a God of mercy, hope remained. But it .turned into the hope of a new creation, of a salvation beyond death (Is 51:6; 65:17- 20; 66:22; Ez 37:1-14). It is this expectation of a world to come that the New Testament inherited. But that "world to come" or rather "the age to come," according to the exact meaning of the Hebrew phrase, is not the ethereal sphere of "ideas." Salvation does not consist in escaping the world but in passing from one world to another, from "this age" ruined by sin and enslaved by the "Powers" (Gal 4:3), to the "age to come" animated by the power of God's Spirit and irradiated with the divine glory. The aim of life is not "ecstasy" that would snatch man out of his body and above matter and time; it is an Exodus that takes him, body and soul, above the present condition and the corruption of sin. The image of the Exodus was frequent in the later prophets (Is 41:17-19; 43:19-20; 52:11-12) and passed to the New Testament (1 Cor 10:1- 11; Heb 2:1-4; 3:1-3; Apoc 15:1-5). Christian life is a pilgrimage (1 Pet 2:11). The Christian is a refugee run-ning from a doomed city to a place of shelter. Yet what he flees is not the flow of time but the contagion of sin and his refuge is not his spiritual self but God's kingdom. These were also Paul's views and they constitute the background of his apology for virginity. He does not op-pose marriage and continence as matter and spirit, good and evil. What he does contrast is the age to come and the present age. Virginity embodies the spirit of the king-dom; 7 marriage is rather an institution of this worhl. As Paul sees it in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, a,,For evil comes not out of the earth, nor does distress spring out of the g~ound. But man himself begets misery as sparks fly up-wards" (Jb 5:6-7). ~ See L. Legrand, "The Prophetical Meaning of Celibacy," REwEw voa l~tzc*ous, v. 20 (1961), pp. $$0-46. matrimony belongs to the "things of this world." It is not bad indeed but it is intimately connected with the present transient order. It shares in the inconsistency of this or-der; and like it, it is "subject to vanity," "enslaved to cor-ruption" that marks everything belonging to the present era (P, om 8:20-21). The world and its spirit are deeply ingrained in marriage; they enter married life through the very necessity for husband and wife "to please" each other (1 Cor 7:33-34). The verb "to please" in this context has a very strong meaning,s and Paul's thought cannot be properly grasped unless this meaning is recognized. For the modern reader, the words "to please one's husband and wife" evoke merely the sentimental show of affection and possibly of coquetry which expresses and fosters conjugal love. Con-sequently, when the text goes on to say that the married man "is divided" (v. 33), we think spontaneously of a heart divided in its affections in the modern romantic sense of the term. The difficulty for the married man would be that two different objects, Christ and his wife, appeal to his heart and that therefore he would be in the awkward position of being unable to give his love fully to either. This would be a very shallow explanation that hardly does justice to the views of the Apostle. After all, the love of God is not a matter of sensitivity; it belongs to a higher level and does not conflict with human natural feelings. God does not stand as a rival of His creatures if they do not try to usurp His place. The danger in wed-lock does not arise from a normal sentimental attachment to the partner; it lies elsewhere. The real meaning of the verb "to please" points in another direction. In a world which had little concern for chivalry and romanticism,0 more than coquetry and a show of affection were required "to please." The wife "pleased" her husband by giving him the children, he wanted (and birth control was not unknown in the Greco-P, oman antiquity10) and by con-a The Greek verb aresk6 may be very strong. Its connotations are not merely sentimental. In 1 Cor 10:13 Paul's desire "to please everybody" does not mean that he aims at popularity or that he avoids hurting the feelings of others. It expresses Paul's readiness to oblige, almost to serve all. It means about the same as "being all to all" (1 Cor 9:22). See W. Foerster, Theologisches W6rterbuch zum Neuen Testament, v. 1 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1933), p. 455. ~ See J. Carcopino, Daily Li]e in ~lncient Rome (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1956), pp. 94-5; W. J. Woodhouse, "Marriage," Encyclo. pedia o[ Religion and Ethics, v. 8 (Edinburgh: Clark, 1915), p. 444. 10 See A. E. Crawley, "Foeticide," Encyclopedia o] Religion and Ethics, v. 6 (1914), pp. 55-6. Child exposure also was not uncommon. Polybius attributed the decline of Greece° to the oliganthropia caused by those practices: "In our own times the whole of Hellas has been afflicted with a low birth rate or, in other words, with de-population, through which the states have been emptied of inhabi-tants with an accompanying fall of productivity, and this in spite of + + + Virginity VOLUME 22~ 1963 267 ducting the household efficiently (with the concessions to the ways of the world which business implied),xl For the husband it was a matter of securing [or his wife wealth, comfort, and social consideration. "Pleasing" each other covered all the aspects of the conjugal life, everything that made a marriage successful. It is easy to understand that such worldly success implied all sorts of compromises with the spirit of the world. Through the desire "to please," "the worries of the world" (v. 33) entered mar-ried life, those worries which, according to the parable, combined with wealth and pleasures, choke the growth of God's word (see Lk 8:14). If St. Paul is reticent with regard to marriage, it is not because it distracts the heart but because it tends to shoot deep roots into the present age of sin. Those roots are so deep that it is very difficult to cut oneself free, to keep in wedlock the soul of a pilgrim and to live the Exodus. Conjugal affection is not contradictorily opposed to Chris-tian requirements; but great is the danger of remaining bogged down in the present condition of considering 4- 4- 4" L. Legrand, M.E.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 268 the fact that we have not suffered from any continuous wars or epidemics . The people of Hellas had entered upon the false path of ostentation, avarice, and laziness and were therefore becoming unwilling to marry, or if they did marry, to bring up the children born to them; the majority were only willing to bring up at most one or two, in order to leave them wealthy and to spoil them in their childhood; and in consequence of all this the evil had been rapidly spreading. Where there are families of one or two children, of whom war claims one and disease the other for its victim, it is an evident and inevitable consequence that households should be left desolate and that states, precisely like beehives, should gradually lose their reserves and sink into impotence" (History 36, 7 as given in A. J. Toynbee, Greek Civilization and Character [New York: New American Library, 1954], p. 73). Modem authors have confirmed the judgment of the old historian: "The misery of a few districts in the third and second centuries B.C. would not suffice to explain the excesses of malthusianism; indeed it had always been a part of Greek manners; but at that time it took frightening proportions. Though we should be cautious in giving a general value to a few figures known only through epigraphy, they are not without sig-nificance. At Miletus, for seventy-nine families which received the citizenship between 228 .and 200, we find only one hundred forty-six children, out of which only twenty-eight were gifts; among those seventy-nine families, thirty-one have two children and thirty-two only one. In the course of the third century at Eretria, one out of twelve families and at Pharsalus one out of seven has more than a son; out of six hundred families known through the inscriptions of Delphi, six only have two girls. Seeing that, we cannot doubt the accuracy of the famous statement of Poseidippos: 'Even a rich man always exposes a daughter'" (R. Cohen, La Grdce et l'helldnisation du monde antique [Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1948], p. ~80). n See the rather blunt statement of the Pseudo-Demo:;thenes (59, 122): "We have heterae for our pleasure, concubines for the daily care of the body, and wives to beget legitimate children and to have somebody who can be trusted with the care of the household." pleasure, family welfare, and honor as 'the absolute goal, of letting matrimony degenerate into a mere worldly af-fair. What one would attempt if one were alone, one dare not do for the sake of the other so that, actually, through the other party it is the world and its spirit which enter the family. Conjugal harmony is: kept at the c0st of con-descensions to the weakness found or supposed to exist in the other. It is harder still in wedlock than in single life to behave already now as a citizen of heaven, to follow the ideal of the beatitudes, to be poor and meek, to bear persecutions happily, to accept being famished and down-trodden. How rare the spiritual harmony that enables a whole household to meet the challenge of the kingdom joyfullyl As Bacon said, "he that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune" and "children sweeten labors but they make misfortunes more bitter.''12 It may be said that this picture of matrimony is one-sided, that Christian matrimony is not only "a thing of this world." It has also a reference to the world to come by its sacramental value. This is true and the point will be considered later.13 It is clear that to give a complete and balanced theological appraisal of matrimony, Paul should have said that it is in the measure in which it is not transformed by the di-vine agap~ that conjugal love divides the soul. He should have explained that for husband and wife the desire to please each other is wrong only if and as far as they rep-resent for each other not Christ but the world with its devious judgments and seductions. But in the seventh chapter of First Corinthians Paul does not intend to give a full theology of marriage. Either because he was still to appreciate fully the positive Chris-tian value of matrimony14 or simply because--as he often does--he simplifies his thought to express it more clearly, he considers only the "worldly" aspect of married life. This worldly aspect does exist. For all its sacramental value, marriage has one side turned towards the present age. It must have that worldly side to be a sacrament at all, to be a sign. And there is always a risk that it is only this aspect that will be seen by men and that they will set their heart on the sign instead of reaching out to the signified. Sacramental realities can also be veils. Thus ~ Quoted in A. Robertson and A. Plummer,°First Corinthians, p. 154. 13See the second half of the present article. l~This is the view of C. H. Dodd in New Testament Studies (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1953), pp. 113-17. The opposite stand is taken by O. Cullmann, The Early Church (London: SCM Press, 1956), p. 173; and by X. Leon-Dufour, "Mariage et con-tinence selon S. Paul," .4 la rencontre de Dieu: Memorial .41bert Gdlin (Le Puy: Mappus, 1961), pp. 319-28. 4. 4. 4. Virginity VOLUME 22~ 1963 269 4. 4. L. Legrand, M.E.P . REVIEW I:OR REI.I~IOUS 270 when receiving manna in the desert or the miraculous loaves of Jesus, the Jews considered only "the food that perisheth" (Jn 6:27) and dreamt of an earthly kingdom with an unlimited and toilless supply of bread, They failed to perceive in the bread the power of God's word feeding them unto the "life of the ages to come" (Jn 6:26- 40). Thus, as experience proves, married people are easily tempted to set their heart upon the present tenor of marriage and lose sight of its sacramental dimension. In First Corinthians, Chapter Seven, Paul referred to that common experience which had taught the Corinthians that married life is not easily a clear and limpid reflec-tion of the divine agape. Concretely, the necessity for husband and wife "to please" each other often entails compromises with the world; for, as St. Paul and the Corinthians knew well, it is hardly possible "to please" both man and Christ (Gal 1:I0). Hence appears the significance of the contrast Paul saw between marriage and virginity. Marriage is rooted in this world. Virginity belongs to the age to come. Marriage is not condemned. It does not embody the evil of this world; it can be redeemed and transfigured. Yet it is discouraged. This is not because it multiplies earthly obligations and petty worries restricting the men-tal freedom to meditate and contemplate. Neither is because it proposes objects of affection other than Christ. It is not wife and children which disturb men but their worldly--real or supposed--requirements. The danger of matrimony is that by the whole force of circumstances which surround it it tends to remain a "thing of this age" and to enfold men in the spirit of this world. By contrast, virginity is .the ideal condition of the pil-grim who wants to progress swiftly and unencumbered across the desert. Lightly shod and with loins girt, he goes on his Exodus; he leaves the world behind and strives after the world to come. He is undivided. This does not mean that his heart has nobody to beat for but Christ. On the contrary, his love for Christ will have to take on the dimensions of the whole Body of Christ and will have to encompass the world. It means that no human love, no necessity "to please" man, will oblige him to side with the world and place him in the stretched condition of one who belongs to both sides and is torn between two loyalties, two spirits, and two standards. He is free; he has no cares, at least no cares pertaining to this world. He does not know concerns which settled family life is almost bound to cause, concerns for wealth, comforts, safety, fame. He has not the problem of secur-ing welfare and tranquillity for his dear ones in a shaken world that runs to its ruin. The Christian celibate has none of these worries. This again does not mean that he has no cares at all and that he has nothing else to do than to devote himself to intellectual or ascetical pursuit. He has his cares, the "cares for the things of the Lord" (vv. 32, ~4). "The things of the Lord" which should l~'d the virgin's only concern are not the suprasensible ideas reached by contemplation. The "Lord" in St. Paul is the risen Christ, endowed with power a~d glory after His Resurrec-tion. 1~ "The things of the Lord" are therefore the whole order which has the risen Christ as its center, the new creation, the kingdom, and, here on earth, the Church.I° As in the case of the Apostle himself, the concern only for "the things of the Lord" will not mean ataraxia, in-difference. The Christian celibate will not be spared the heavy world and the burning preoccupations of his serv-ices to the Lord. But they will be only the outward mani-festation of his devotion to his Master (see 1 Cor 9:19). Such is the freedom of the virgin. It is not the indiffer-ence which is reflected, for instance, on the serene fea-tures of the gods of Phidias, with their clear eyes that ignore the turmoil of the world to rest on the harmony of the changeless ideas. We could rather feature the Christian dedicated to virginity as the Moses of Michel-angelo (without the gigantism which is the artist's own); there is no indifference in him; he looks firmly at the children of Israel who surround him and his eyes reflect the love of God for the chosen people but also the divine disappointment and wrath. Beyond them, he sees the Holy Land-or the mountain--where he must lead them. His muscular body strains towards it; his face glows with the glory that dawns upon it. Union with Christ The typology of the Exodus does not cover entirely the reality of Christian life. At the same time as it is an ~5,,This designation expresses as does no other the thought that Christ is exalted to God's right hand, glorified and now intercedes for us before the Father" (O. Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament [London: SCM Press, 1959], p. 195). See also the several studies of L. Cerfaux gathered in Recueil Lucien Cerfaux (Gem-bloux: Duculot, 1954), v. !, pp. :~-188. A synthesis may be found in Cerfaux's Christ in the Theology of St. Paul (Edinburgh: Nelson, 1958), pp. 461-79. 1o The Vulgate and the Latin fathers have."idealized" the opposi-tion between marriage and virginity by reading in v. 32 "quornodo placeat Deo" (instead of KyriO of the Greek text) and probably understanding similarly in v. 34 Domini of God instead of Christ (as Knox has done in his translation). By doing this, they bring the contrast closer to Platonic thought. For Paul, the contrast is not directly between the world and God, creatures and Creator, but be-tween the world and the "things of Christ," that is the present world and the new creation which Christ contains in Himself. ÷ ÷ ÷ girginity VOLUME 22, 1963 4. L. Legrand, M.E.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Exodus, Christian life is also life in the Land of Promise. We are still in the desert; yet the glory of the new Jeru-salem dawns already upon us. We are still in the flesh and in the world; yet we live already in Spirit and are the citizens of heaven (Phil 3:20). Correspondingly, virginity does not belong only to the desert but also to the new Jerusalem. It does not show only the tenseness of the pilgrim who wants to be unim-peded in his progression; it marks also the joy of the ar-rival when the soul has found at last what it longed for. Celibacy is not only total detachment from "the things that are upon the earth"; it is also total communion in "the things that are above"; it is life, "hidden with Christ in God" (Col 3:1-8). Free from the world, the celibate ties himself to Christ with bonds of love. Having no wife or husband "to please," the celibate is at liberty to dedi-cate all his care "to please the Lord" (1 Cor 7:82). Here also, when St. Paul says that the aim of the virgin is "to please the Lord," we should beware of giving the phrase merely sentimental significance. "To please the Lord" does not mean simply to comfort and console the Heart of Jesus. In First Corinthians "to please the Lord" is set in parallelism with "to please his wife." This paral-lelism invites us to give the same strong meaning in both cases. In the context of matrimony, the verb "to please!' expressed the interdependence and mutual belonging husband and wife. When applied to the celibate, it must describe the loving enslavement to Christ which gives continence its value. The virgin belongs to Christ as the wife belongs to her husband. To please her husband, the wife must share entirely in his views and wishes. To please the Lord, analogically, the virgin must be totally dedi-cated to Him and take His stand in everything. The theme of the spiritual marriage lies in the background. The construction of the whole passage points 'to that theme: by balancing in parallelism virginal life and con-jugal union, Paul suggests that to some extent Christ is to the virgin what the husband is to the wife.lz ~ See X. Leon-Dufour, "Mariage et continence," pp. ~22-24. In a penetrating literary analysis of 1 Cor 7, the author shows that the very construction of the chapter expresses the mutual belonging of virginity and matrimony. The chapter is built on a scheme A-B-A' (two corresponding parts divided by a digression), quite common in Paul's epistles. Part A (vv. 1-16) is addressed to married people and part A' (vv. 25-40) to the unmarried. Now we notice that in both parts the progression of the thought is disturbed by considerations belonging to the antithetic section: A speaks already about virginity (vv. 6-7) and A' cannot but evoke matrimony "as if the continence to which Paul invites his flock could be given its full significance only in relation with married life" (p. 323). Thus "the very literary and psychological trend of the chapter shows marriage and conti-nence as two inseparable realities contrasting with and yet complet-ing each other" (p. 324). The theme of the spiritual marriage figures explicitly and is connected with virginity in Second Corinthians 11:2: I am jealous for you with a divine jealousy. Fo~ I betrothed you to one husband that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. This verse is a short allegory comparing the Corinthi-ans to a betrothed girl taken to the bridegroom by her father or by the mesit~s, the go-between who arranged the marriage. The image derives from the Old Testament where Israel is frequently called the bride of Yahweh (see Hos 2:21-22; J1 1:8; Is 54:5-6; 62:5; Jer 3:1; Ez 16:6- 43). Admittedly this text does not refer directly to the question of virginity. As in the Old Testament, the bride is not an individual but a community, here the church of Corinth. Moreover, the marriage it alludes to will be celebrated only at the Parousia; for the time being, the Church is only "betrothed." In that context "virginity is nothing else than a metaphor expressing undivided dedi-cation to Christ.''is Yet it is not insignificant that Paul uses the comparison of a "chaste virgin" to describe the union of the Church with Christ. It implies that virginal life is a living likeness of that union. What was a mere metaphor in the Old Testament takes flesh and blood in the person of the virgin. She embodies fully the mutual belonging of Christ and the Church. The "marriage feast" of the Parousia is anticipated in her life. She is given to live in all its integrity the undivided attachment of the Church for her Head. In her shines the agap~ which joins the bride to the Bridegroom and makes them "one body." Virginity is agape; it has all the intensity of love; it is not primarily disengagement and withdrawal. It is unqualified dedication to the "one husband" Christ. It shows forth the exclusiveness of that unique attach-ment. As St. Paul says, using the language of human pas-sion, it is a "jealousy," a love impatient of any alien al-legiance. Christian virginity is a spiritual marriage with Christ. It is true that Paul himself did not use the phrase. Neither did Luke when explaining the relationship of the Virgin Mary with the Holy Spirit in the Gospel of Infancy. The reason is probably that Paul and Luke avoided sponta-neously words which, in the world they lived in, were too heavily loaded with pagan connotations. The hieros gamos, the sacred union of a god with a woman had been a common feature of mythology from Sumerian times on-wards and had its ritual representation in the cult and in the mysteries. In the frame of nature worship or of a ~sSee G. Delling, Theologisches W6rterbuch zum Neuen Testa-ment, v. 5 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1954), p. 835. ÷ ÷ ÷ VirginRy ÷ ÷ L. Legrand, M.E.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 274 pantheistic religion, it symbolized the fecundity of na-ture. There is obviously no relation between the pagan fertility cult and the Christian ideal of continence fol-lowed by Mary and tl:te virgins. And it is understandable that Paul and Luke refrained from using the phrase "spiritual or divine marriage," since it could too easily be understood as another case of hieros garnos. That their prudence was justified is proved by the wild conclusions which the comparative school of exegesis, from the times of Celsus till our days, has drawn from the discreet allu-sions they made to the Biblical theme of God's alliance with Israel. Yet it is the allegory of marriage, stripped of any asso-ciation with nature worship, which accounts best for the Pauline and Christian doctrine of virginity. The doctrine of virginity branches of[ from the doctrine of matrimony. We must, therefore, see what marriage meant for Paul to understand what "spiritual marriage" might have meant for him if he had used the words, what he had actually in mind when he wrote of the "chaste virgin presented to the one husband Christ." It is in Ephesians 5:25-32 that the Apostle explains most fully the Christian significance of matrimony. It can be said that if the sev-enth chapter of First Corinthians pictured wedlock as it is in fact, Ephesians 5:25-32 shows it in all its ideal sacra-mental beauty. But the "lofty sacrament" opens on to the prospect of virginity. In Ephesians 5:25-32 as in Second Corinthians II:2, the Church is compared to the bride taken to the bride-groom for the nuptial celebration: Husbands, love your wife as Christ loved the Church: for her, he gave himself up, sanctifying her, cleasing her by water aild word, so that he might present the Church to himself all glori-ous, with no stain or wrinkle or anything of the sort but holy and without blemish. Thus men should love their wives. In this text there is no go-between. Christ Himself prepares His bride and there is a stress on the point that she was not pure but was made so by the cleansing love of the divine Spouse. That love which cleanses through the laver of baptism springs forth from the cross; the words "savior" and "he gave himself up" show the sacrificial background of Paul's thought. The cross was already the marriage function which Second Corinthians 11:2 had seen in the frame of the Parousia. It is on Calvary that the bride, cleansed by the love of her Spouse, W:lS em-braced by Him to become "one body" with Him. The greatness of Christian matrimony derives from its relation to the union of Christ with the Church which was realized on the cross. Conjugal love, that mysterious power which tears man and woman away from their fam-ily to draw them together (v. 31) was a sign, a "mystery." It had a hidden significance. In a secret way, it prefigured the love, the agap~ that seals together Christ and the Church and makes them one body (v. 32). The Old Testa-ment did not know this mysterious orientation of the conjugal union but now the mystery is revealed. If placed under the influence of 'the,sacrifice of Christ', that is, if it is lived in the spirit of unselfishness and dedication which breathed in the sacrifice of Christ, conjugal love sym-bolizes the bond of charity which unites the Church with her Head and contains the life flowing through their joint Body (vv. 23, 30). Penetrated with the spirit of Christ, matrimony enshrines the divine agape; it con-tinues the sacrifice of Calvary and its efficacy. By that sacramental efficacy and in the line of that symbolism, each party represents, for the other, Christ and His re-quirements of self-denying charity: husbands love their wives as Christ loved the Church and wives obey their husbands with the same joyful abandon which animates the Church (vv. 33, 22-25). In the measure in which con-jugal affection accepts to turn into charity, wedlock is holy and "has a relevance to Christ and the Church" (v. 32); indeed, it is a part of their mysterious union. Now, "lofty" as it may be, the "mystery" of Christian matrimony remains a sign, imperfect and inadequate as any sign. After all, in Ephesians 5:25-32 it. is not said that Christ loved the Church as a husband loves his wife, but rather that husbands should love like Christ: Con-jugal love does not explain the union of Christ for'the Church; on the contrary, this union reveals the latent significance of marriage. The agap~ of Christ is set as the ideal norm of human love: it is the reality whereas matri-mony is only its sacrament. Though the "mystery" it contained has been revealed, matrimony keeps its existence and its consistency of sign, as if the veil had not been removed but only pierced b~ a powerful light. The light shines through, the veil be-comes the medium of communication of the light; but it is still there; and, transparent as it may be, it may still absorb some of the light. Containing a significance and an efficacy pertaining to the world to come, matrimony keeps its earthly solidity and persists in its "this-worldly" existence. At the same time as it announces the eschato-logical marriage feast of the Lamb, it remains union in a flesh not yet transfigured by the Spirit.19 :~The point can be expressed technically in the theological lan-guage which distinguishes in the sacraments between the sacra. mentum tantum, the res tantum, and the reset sacramentum. In matrimony, the res is the divine agap~ sealing the unity of the Mys-tical Body as it seals Me conjugal cell. The sacramentum tantum is the conjugal union. Christian marriage is reset sacramentum: there is intercompenetration of the symbol and of the spiritual reality. Christian virginity on the contrary is the res tantum of matrimony. 4- 4- Virginity VOLUME 22, 1963 275 4. 4. 4. L. Legrand, M.E.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS We saw that it is that "worldly" aspect of matrimony which is responsible for its spiritual opacity.2° The spirit-ual reality may be absorbed in the worldly thickness of the "sign" and even in the most favorable cases when it is the most transparent, matrimony remains a sign, a re-flection, not the light itself. This sacramental value of matrimony is at the same time its greatness and imper-fection. The "mystery" is at once revealed through the screen, yet hidden in its worldly folds. Or, to take an image which is Paul's, it reflects the agap~ of the cross, but only in the cloudy and confused way of the old mir-rors of polished metal (see I Cor 13:12). Because it is a closer participation in the sacrifice of the cross, virginity represents better the agap~ which ani-mated it. It not only reflects that love, it embodies it. Virginity is not a sacrament. It does not set the screen of any sign between Christ and man. In it, the divine love is not refracted through the mediation of any "worldly" feeling. There is nobody who stands for Christ to repre-sent Him; the contact is direct between Christ and the bride. Matrimony is turned towards the agap~ of the sacrificed Christ as towards its fulfillment; virginity com-munes directly in that agap& The agap~ lived in matri-mony was mediated charity; virginity is agap~ reaching directly its object. In the words of the Roman liturgy: While no prohibition lessens the dignity of marriage and while the nuptial blessing resting on matrimony is safeguarded, nevertheless there will be nobler souls who, spurning the carnal union entered into by man and wife, strive after the mystery it signifies ([astidirent connubiura, concupiscerent sacramentura). Without imitating what takes place in matrimony., they devote their entire love to the mystery signified by marriage (nec imi-tarentur quod nuptiis agitur, sed diligerent quod nuptiis pr~,e-notatur).~ 1 Virginity is the plentitude of agapO; it shows forth the reality that matrimony contains only in a veiled way. It is the full revelation of the "mystery" still half hidden in sacramental marriage.22 Like the love of the Spouse in the Canticle, the agapd of the celibate is a blazing fire, a flame of Yahweh (see Cant 8:6).23 This fire of love makes of virginal life a holo- ~o See the first part of the present article. .-a Preface of the Consecration of Virgins in the Roman Pontifical. We fellow the translation given in L. Munster, Christ in His Conse-crated Virgins (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1957), pp. 131-2. ="To be living images of the perfect integrity which forms the bond of union between the Church and her divine Bridegroom is assuredly the supreme glory o~ the virgin" (Plus XII, Sacra Vir-ginitas). = We follow for this text the translation of A. Robert, L~ Can-tique des cantiqu~s (Paris: Cerf, 1951), p. 58. caust in which the "flesh" is burnt up and with it any sign, any reality of the present world. Virginity is love impatient of the mediation of any symbols. In that re-spect too, it is analogous to the sacrifice of the cross: the death on the cross was a sacrifice without rites because in its utter despoliation all the.symbolical realities of the world came to an end; there remained only the naked corpse on the bare wood in a total holocaust of anything belonging to this world. Virginity too is a festivity with-out rites, a marriage feast celebrated without any exter-nal rejoicings because, as the cross and in it, this marriage is consummated and consumed in a holocaust of self-denying love that raises it above this world. It is in that sense that virginity is a spiritual marriage. It is a marriage: in the phrase "spiritual matrimony," the adjective does not obliterate the noun. Virginity is a thing of love, total communion to the divine agap~ which is the essence of the life of Christ and of life in Christ. That marriage is spiritual. Spiritual does not mean metaphorical. The spiritual union of Christ with the vir-gin is not a vague likeness of the conjugal union. It is rather the opposite; virginity gives the true picture of real love in all its intensity and purity. Neither is it spiritual in the Platonic sense of the term. It does not correspond to a chimerical dream of abolition of the flesh. In virginity the flesh is accepted as it was in the Incarnation. But it is sanctified, transformed as the flesh of Jesus was in His glorification. The glorification does not delete the Incarnation; it fulfills it. Virginity is no negation of the flesh but its consecration. The virginal union with Christ is spiritual in the bib-lical sense of the term. It shows man's transformation by the power of the Spirit. The Spirit, the divine force that animates the new creation, takes possession of man's body and soul, freeing them from "the shackles of corruption" to give them "the glorious liberty of the children of God." And the transforming force which the Spirit implants in the virgin is the charity of God (Rom 5:5), the flame of love which, coming from God, consumes the flesh of the virgin and transmutes it into the likeness of the "spiritual flesh" of the risen Christ (1 Cot 15:45-49). The New Testament does not explicitly call virginity a spiritual marriage. Yet its doctrine of marriage and its exhortations to virginity converge towards that theme because both states of life refer to the mysterious con-nubial union of Christ and the Church which marriage prefigures and virginity embodies. Linked by that com-mon relation to the mystery of Christ, virginity and matri-mony are intimately connected. Matrimony moves to- + + + Virginity VOLUME 22, 1963 4. 4. 4. L. Legrand, M .E.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS wards a virginal type of love as towards its fulfillment, and virginity is nothing but the full realization of that which is prefigured in marriage. The best exposition of the spiritual meaning of Chris-tian virginity would be, therefore, a Christian transposi-tion of the Canticle of Canticles, the nuptial song of the Old Testament.~4 The liturgy, the fathers of the Church, and the mystics have understood it spontaneously and have repeatedly made of the Canticle the epithalamium of the Christian life dedicated to the Lord. From Origen's homilies on the Canticle to the com-mentary of St. Bernard and the Spiritual Canticle of St. John of the Cross, it would be easy to compose a mag-nificent anthology in which the best of Christian elo-quence and lyricism would figure. As a sample of what this anthology would contain, it is difficult to resist the temptation of quoting at least extracts of the hymn with which Methodius concludes his Symposium on Chastity. The Ten Virgins who have taken part in the symposium conclude their discussion with the triumphal chorus: For Thee, I keep myself chaste, and with a lighted torch in hand, 0 my Spouse, I come to meet Thee. And the stanzas follow each other, composed by Thecla, the most eloquent among them: From above, O virgins, there came the sound of a voice that raises the dead. It says: Hasten to meet the Bridegroom in white robes and with lamp in hand. Turn to the East. Arise lest the King should precede you at the gates. [Chorus:] For Thee, I keep myself .'. For Thee, O King, spurning a rich home and the embrace of mortals, I came in spotless robes, to enter with Thee within tile bridal chambers. [Chorus:] For Thee, I keep myself. In my eagerness for Thy grace, O Lord, I forget my own country. I forget the dances of my companions, the desire even of mother and kindred, for Thou, 0 Christ, art all things to me. [Chorus:] For Thee, I keep myself. 0 blessed bride of God, thy couch do we adorn with hymns. And we praise thee, O Church, immaculate virgin, pure like snow, wise, undefiled, lovely. [Chorus:] For Thee, I keep myself. Open thy gates, O resplendent queen, and take us too within the bridal room. O spotless and triumphant bride, breathing ~ Such transposition is not too distant from the literal sense if it is accepted that in its literal sense the Canticle is an allegory of the convenant relationship of Yahweh with Israel. See A. Robert, Le Cantique, pp. 7-23; also A. Feuillet, Le Cantique des cantiques (Paris: Cerf, 1953). beauty, behold we stand round Christ, clad like Him, singing thy nuptials, O happy maiden.~ The canticle of Methodius weaves a web of biblical themes. The bride of the Canticle and of Psalm 45 has joined the Bridegroom of the parable (Mr 27:.!-13). The voice that arouses the Ten~Vii-gihs is tha(.~vhich had called Abraham and invited him to leave "home and kindred" for the first Exodus to Canaan (Gn 12:1). It is also the voice that raised Christ from the dead. The nup-tial procession is at the same time an Exodus and an As-cension that takes the Church and the virgins to the bridal chamber of the King. There is more in that text than fanciful allegory; the profusion of biblical allusions shows a thought deeply rooted in biblical ground. The hymn echoes Paul's call to virginity, Though amplified, the exhortation of the Apostle is rendered faithfully. The attitude and the bliss of the Ten Virgins corresponds exactly to the ideal proposed by Paul to the Corinthians of a life "free from worldly worries" to be spent "waiting upon the Lord without distraction" (1 Cot 7:35). ~Patrologia Graeca, v. 18, col. 208-9. A substantial part of the hymn is quoted and translated in J. Quasten, Patrology, v. 2 {Utrecht: Spectrum, 1953), pp. 4, ÷ ÷ VOLUME 22~ 196;~ 279 SISTER MARY CELESTE, S.M. The Virtue of Mercy Sister Mary leste, $.M., is on the faculty of the Col' lege of Our Lady of Mercy; 2300 Ade-line Drive; Burlin-game, California. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS As the good news of Christ continues to be heralded, classrooms in Catholic schools rapidly mushroom into being and innumerable extra rows of desks are squeezed into innumerable older rooms; CGD classes flourish; hos-pital beds are filled; homes for the aged, the mentally ill, the delinquent, the abandoned and helpless have long waiting lists; clinics are daily crowded to capacity. The works of mercy are literally endless. Yet precisely for that reason, their true purpose must be all the more clearly understood if the pitfall of activism is to be avoided. This is especially necessary for the sister whose community is officially sent by the Church to bear witness to Christ in the ministry of mercy. She is responsible, in whatever way her individual position allows, to see to it that the works are authentically merciful ones--that they are per-meated through and through with the spirit of Christ's mercy. This means that she must know well what mercy is and how it is incarnated in her own apostolic action. If we follow the fruitful approach of St. Thomas in striving to gain. some insight into the nature of mercy, we will begin not with an abstract definition of it but rather with the concrete existential situation in which a merciful person finds scope for his activities. We may then analyze the kind of response that is given in such a situation, and finally we may ask what kind of person is needed for these works--one who will respond merci-fully. Since mercy, according to St. Thomas, is a virtue,1 this last question involves asking about the particular habit-patterns of virtue which must be integrated into the personality of one who is merciful. But since it also entails a rather complex group of associated virtues and supporting habits, we must examine this structure in some detail in order to find out precisely what kind of effort is needed to build such habits and thus to develop most effectively the virtue of mercy. Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.30, a.3. Starting-Point: the Misery of Man First, let us turn to the concrete situation. Where does a person inspired by mercy find a ready field for the driv-ing impulse of this spirit? Always~ it is in a need. But it is not just any need; not physical need alone, although this may be part of it. There must be a specifically human need: a situation in which man finds himself in misery, falling short of what he needs to attain his human fulfill-ment. 2 Ultimately, this fulfillment lies in his beatific union with God; and therefore his most radical misery is his sinfulness. All unhappiness stems from this. But in addition to guilt before God, human misery vitiates every facet of existence: it is the old problem of evil in the world of the sons of Adam. The stimulus for mercy, then, is human distress. It is man faced with the impossibility o[ attaining the true happiness for which he is destined,n It is Job buffetted by Satan; it is the unfaithful wife of Hosea in her willful waywardness; it is the thief dying on the cross. In our own day, in a far more sophisticated and complex civili-zation, the misery of man takes on the most piteous of forms--all the heavy trials that burden man's physical life and his mind and spirit; inadequacy and weakness and guilt of all kinds; confusion of the young who idealis-tically grope for vague goals yet are shackled by luxury and habits of indecision; bitterness, bewilderment, neg-lect and persecution, even just punishment; and espe-cially, the despair of those who have given up the search for happiness. It is man in misery, lacking what he needs for the fulfillment of his humanness in union with God. The Works of Mercy: Response to Misery What response does misery evoke in the merciful? It inspires and stimulates the work of carrying out into ef-fective action whatever will i-eally remove the defects which stand in the way of another person's happiness. God Himself is called merciful because oust of His loving kindness He actually takes away the miseries of man.4 Especially by His redemptive Passion and Resurrection, Christ delivered man from the greatest of miseries; and in this act God showed more abundant mercy than if He had forgiven sins without asking satisfaction, for He actu-ally went to the trouble, as it were, of doing something personal and positive to remedy the situation.5 So, too, a merciful person does all he can to dispel the misery of another. *Summa Theologiae, I, q.21, a.4. Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.30, a.1. Summa Contra Gentiles, 1, c.91. Sumlna Theologiae, 3, q.46, a.l, ad 3. ÷ ÷ ÷ Mercy VOLUMI: 22, 1963 2~! + Sister Mary Celeste, S.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 282 This means that certain external works are necessary in order to communicate the good things which the dis-tressed person lacks,e St. Thomas classes these works un-der the heading of "almsgiving," and divides them ac-cording to the kind of need that cries out for relieL Some needs are concerned with the maintenance of physical life: food, clothing, shelter, care in sickness, freedom from slavery of all sorts. But man is not merely a physical thing; so proper respect must be given the body destined for resurrection, and his spiritual needs must be relieved by prayer, instruction, and counseling. The sorrowful must be encouraged and the wayward corrected and pardoned.7 It is within the context of the active life, therefore, that the merciful person directly ministers to the needs of his neighbor.S He carries out into the realm of action the teaching of St. John to love not in word or tongue only but in deed and in truth (1 Jn 3:18). Such response to misery in the works of mercy is easily observable in the lives of the founders of religious insti-tutes which flourish today. We are so familiar with the details of our own founder's work that we tend to forget the amazing range of misery with which he was con-fronted. In fact, no individual, however energetic, can possibly cope with the vast extent of human ills that come within his vision. Thus it was a natural development that, under the leadership of a great person, others shar-ing his spirit formed themselves into a group in order to accomplish what they could not do as individuals. The work of schools, hospitals, institutions for the care of the poor and aged and delinquent in turn necessitated the organization of a religious community which would be inspired by the vital spirit of its founder and would as-sure continuity to the works. A community of itself, however, is not enough. Though the outward forms of human misery may change with time and place, its essence is as universal as wounded hu-manity itself. And in her universal compassion, Mother Church incorporates the community as a living member within herself. Through the major superior as her repre-sentative, the Church receives the vows by which an in-dividual religious is totally committed to Christ. In turn, she gives to the community an official mandate to carry out the works of mercy as part of her own universal apos-tolate of bringing all men to union with God in Christ. This goal is identical with that of the perfection o1! hu-man happiness for all men, the ultimate obliteratic.,n of human misery. Therefore, every member of a community nSumma Theologiae, 2-2, q.32, a.5. Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.32, a.2 and 3 ~Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.188, a.2; De Caritate, a.8; De Per- [ectione Vitae Spiritualis, c.13. whose very raison d'etre is the Church's works of mercy must be essentially dedicated to the active life of service. Within the framework of her religious life, the sister must minister to the poor, the sick, those in need of instruc-tion and care. If she does not carry out her share with complete personal dedication,, she .not only,, fails to be a merciful individual and thwarts the united endeavor of her community but in a real sense hinders the very work of Christ in His Church. The Merci]ul Person As active religious, then, it is essential that we become the kind of person who will respond to human misery in a way that will really bring about its relief and thus ef-fect the happiness of our fellow man in his union with God. Our vocation is to be a merciful person. What is meant by saying that we want to become a certain kind of person? It is a fact that at entrance into religious life, we are already possessed of a distinctive personality; and personalities vary greatly. Of course, these differences will remain. But when we become a re-ligious, we do intend to become someone in a way that we were not before. We intend to grow into an attitude, to take on a new quality and direction of endeavor which is characteristic of our community. We express this in-tention by saying that we want to have the spirit of the community, to incorporate into our personality that par-ticular aspect of Christian spirituality which is best suited to the apostolic work proper to this community. This means that we consciously try to cultivate those habitual ways of acting which characterize the merciful person. We want, in other words, to acquire the habit, the virtue of mercy.° Human virtue, according to St. Thomas, is an opera-tive habit disposing a man to good action.1° As strictly human, it cannot be merely an automatism which, oni:e acquired, allows us to carry on action in a quasi-mechani-cal and unthinking way, like tying our shoelaces,it Virtue is a mastery-habit, demanding attention and free adher- ~ In this discussion we are speaking of moral virtue as perfecting human powers insofar as it is acquired by our own efforts. It is commonly taught that, in addition, there are "infused moral vir-tues," which complement the acquired ones and come with sanctify-ing grace and charity. lOSumma Theologiae, 1-2, q.55, a.2 and 3. 1, Servais Pinckaers, O.P., "Virtue Is Not a Habit," Cross Cur-rents, v. 12 (Winter, 1962), p. 68. "To define virtue as a habit would seem necessarily to be making man into a pure automaton, and to be depriving his action of its properly human value." The author here clearly limits his meaning of "habit" to "automatism,,' and does not take the word to include "mastery-habit" as we have done here. ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister Mary Celeste, S.M. REVIEW FOR REL[GIOUS 284 ence of the will, manifesting an interiority and personal commitment in each action.12 The virtues we acquire be-come, as it were, a second nature to us, wellsprings of good actions which strengthen and dispose our human powers for realizing their specific goodness. Thus, without sacri-ficing individuality, members of a community strive to acquire a perfecting habit which exercises a distinctive influence as the "spirit" of their work. As soon as we begin to ask what mercy is, it becomes obvious that we cannot deal with it as an isolated virtue. In the practical order, of course, this is true of any virtue. Mercy in action requires a whole complexus of related virtues, a patterned grouping of habits to support it. It requires at the same time a principle of unity by which these habits are integrated into the structure of one's per-sonality and can function in cooperation for a common end. Because of the many strenuous and complex de-mands made by the external works of mercy, a sister whose life is dedicated to such worlds will be gravely en-dangered by a lack of unity in her person. But conversely, her life will be all the richer and more fruitful if it is consciously balanced and ordered toward a unified goal. This is especially crucial for a woman. Psychologically, a woman's strength lies not so much in the mastery of a single field as it does in the integrating power which weaves a widespread variety of human activities into a coherent wholeness. In the life of a sister engaged in works of mercy, the pattern of wholeness--that is, of those vir-tues and habits of action which are consciously acquired during the formative years of religious life--is specifically focused on the kind of situation which should evoke mercy: namely, that of human misery. In the responding compassion of the merciful woman, every power of her human personality is engaged. For one whose vocation it is to be thus dedicated and whose calling as religious includes the essential obliga-tion to strive for maturity and full effectiveness in the apostolate, it is important to know clearly how her pow-ers can be unified and perfected for merciful action so that such action comes as it were by second nature, ha-bitually. Everyone has the powers. The crux of the mat-ter is the question of virtue and of the subordinate good habits conducive to virtuous action. Here finally we come to the virtue of mercy in its plenary context: as a kind of master-habit toward whose perfect operation the ac-tivities of other human powers are directed by subordi-n See George P. Klubertanz, S.J., The Philosophy o! Human Nature (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1953), pp. 272-97. The content of this paper owes much to further developments of these ideas in a course on Thomistic theory of moral character given by Fr. Klubertanz. nate habits. The mature personality of the religious is stabilized (but by no means stereotyped) and made apt for merciful action by the unified structuring of these interrelated habits. The Perception oI Misery The initiation of actual response to misery is the recog-nition of it. This seems obvious. Yet there are facets of misery which are not so obvious that they are recognized by everyone; and there are degrees of awareness among those who do recognize that there is some need. The sister who aims to acquire the virtue of mercy must ask: How can human misery be most keenly perceived? How ca, n insight into unhappiness be developed and deepened? There is no question, first of all, of "training" our eyes and ears; whatever we see, we see, and getting glasses to perfect our vision is not habituation at all but only an aid to the proper actual functioning of our sense o1: sight. The perception of unhappiness is rather a matter of noticing, of paying attention to those elements within our range of vision which carry meaning. To do this, the powers of imagination, sense memory, and estimative sense must be developed under the guidance of reason so that one habitually notices the kind of detail that is rele-vant. Some accumulation of experience is necessary here. For a young religious endeavoring to build the needed habits, it will be very helpful to have the guidance of an experienced person who can direct her interested atten-tion to the minute aspects of a human situation that bear on unhappiness--the tensing of a cheek muscle, the slight threadbareness of a sleeve, the brittleness of a laugh. What is sometimes vaguely referred to as "intuition" or "hunch" is, more precisely, the focusing of awareness on the material hints and expressions of poverty, ignorance, guilt, pain, confusion, weakness, of any form of human evil. Watching for these hints and observing others more adept at noticing them, we may improve and control our sensitive knowing powers for discerning and evaluating concrete situations of misery. But human misery is not something that can be sensed. It is an intelligible reality that must be understood and judged. A sharpened sensitivity to the material signs of misery will develop only with the growing realization of their meaningfulness in the lives of those we desire to help. In order to read the language of these signs, then, certain acts of intellectual understanding must concur with the functioning of the sensory powers. A mutual re-lationship exists here: by our intellect we comprehend the imeaning in the material image, and this understanding in turn is a guideline for our imaginative and estimative + ÷ ÷ VOLUME 22, 1962 285 + ÷ ÷ Sister Mary Celeste, $.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS powers to furnish and elaborate precisely those images which bear a meaning-content relevant to merciful ac-tion. How is facility for such intellectual acts acquired? It seems evident that there must be some serious and con-sistent meditation on the human goal of beatitude and on the nature of sin which is the chief obstacle to achiev-ing that goal. The object of mercy is hierarchized accord-ing to the goods which God loves in man and "desires" for him; hence, there must be true judgments about the relative value of various deficiencies in such goods. Sin is the supreme evil, and effective compassion for the sinner is the most merciful act. After this come the many ills concomitant with the sinfulness of man--injustice, preju-. dice, war, poverty, oppression. To judge of these evil~; clearly, a study of the social and behavioral science~ would seem at least highly desirable if not necessary. Complementary to these disciplines, the development of an appreciation for great literature will aid the sister in observing concrete instances of misery and its tragic ef-fect in human lives. In short, a truly liberal education with theology as its core ought to contribute much to tile degree in which the object of mercy is perceived. To keep the proper perspective, we must renew these judgments with conviction until they crystallize into our permanent outlook. But it is not only the object of mercy which must be judged; we ourselves must reflect on how we stand in relation to the action that we are doing. A realistic evaluation of our own position, motivated by concern for the one in need, must include the conviction that we likewise are immersed in the conditions of hu-manity and that therefore whatever good we are able to communicate to others is first a gift to us. The lack of this conviction is pride; and the vice of pride is a direct ob-stacle to the practice of mercy. The proud are without mercy, St. Thomas tells us, because they despise others and think them deserving of the sufferings they have to undergoA~ John Kuskin has stated well the kind of self-judgment that a merciful person makes: I believe that the test of a truly great person is humility. I do not mean by humility doubts about his own ability. But really great men-have a curious feeling that greatness is not in them but through them and they . see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, and ~ncred~bly merciful. Sensitivity to Suffering Though perception of misery is the first requisite of the act of mercy, its essence is in the affective response to misery. For the clarity of perception itself depends basi- Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.30, a.2 ad 3. cally upon the concern we have for aiding another. Now concern for another is a matter of love. Human love, like human knowledge, is a unified act engaging the whole person, spiritual and physical. To love someone humanly, it is natural that our feelings should concur with our willing of his good However, there is an initial difficulty in the matter responding to unhappiness: the first impulse in the face of misery is to shun it, for we are naturally attracted to what is pleasant and try to avoid what is evil. Do the sen-sitive appetites, then, have any part in the act of mercy? First of all, we may note that the perception of someone else's misery may provoke one of two contrary attitudes in us. There may be a detached unconcern for an evil that in no way affects us at present, together with the hope that the unpleasantness of seeing another suffer will be quickly removed and forgotten. On the other hand, there may be a reaction of sympathy, a feeling of sorrow for the distressed person. This latter movement"of the sensitive appetite is the act of pity.1~ Now considered on the sensitive level alone, an act is neither virtuous nor morally bad because it is not yet a human act. Can we say, then, that it does not matter which attitude a person has, as long as he is influenced by spiritual love? And further: might it not be better to remain, as far as pos-sible, emotionally uninvolved? If we let our feelings run away with us, there is danger that' sentimentality will govern our actions; and this is not a good. To answer the question of the role of sensitivity in mercy, we may first point out a negative aspect. The dangers of sentimentality should not be minimized; there is a definite risk taken. There is a kind of undesirable emotional involvement which consists in identifying one-self with the patient or one in need to the extent that his anxiety, confusion, and helplessness are communicated to us instead of being relieved by us. This would be equiv-alent to becoming a beggar in order .to .help beggars, and thereby cutting off the very possibility of saving anyone from the misery of beggarhood. Because of warnings about such risks, young religious sometimes fear to admit to themselves that they do feel grief or anxiety for others, that they are really affected by seeing suffering and pov-erty. It would be helpful, when such is the case, to reflect on the consequences of this outlook. Fear of danger leads naturally to avoidance of the dangerous occasion. In this instance, the sister may unconsciously tend to avoid those situations which arouse her feelings of pity, and in so doing is avoiding the very misery toward which mercy is 1~ Sum~na Theologiae, 1-2, q.35, a.8. ÷ ÷ ÷ Mer~y VOLUME 22, 196~ 287 ÷ ÷ ÷ Si~ter Mary Celeste, S.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS directed. This obviously is not the way to develop the virtue of mercy. A further reflection on the conditions sentimentality would help to alleviate her fears. For pity will never degenerate into sentimentality when its exer-cise is buttressed with the clarity of intellectual vision and intensity of spiritual love required by an act of true mercy. Emotional involvement with those in misery, when incorporated into this virtuous (and hence, controlled) act, will never cause a loss of interior peace, patience, and trust in divine Providence. From the positive point of view, sensitivity to suffering of others should be regarded as a real asset, integral to the practice of mercy. St. Augustine says that mercy is heartfelt sympathy for another's distress, impelling us help him if we can.15 The Latin word for mercy, miseri-cordia, denotes sorrow of heart (miserura cordis) or com-passion for the unhappiness of another as though it were one's own.1. Of course, temperamental dispositions differ and solne persons are more sensibly affected than others; but the emotion of sorrow is a universally human one, and to some extent every human person feels it. Being moved with sorrow for another, we are more likely to do an act of mercy for him. Freely to take on sorrow for a misery that is not our own, to let ourselves be hurt when this is not a necessity, requires a special habit to strengthen our natural sen.,;tendency to fear and reject evil. The virtue of forti-tude is this habit, enabling us to face and accept the diffi-culties of personally assuming the suffering involved compassionate response to misery. This virtue is at the same time a guarantee against sentimentality and a bul-wark to fortify us throughout the consequent difficulties of carrying mercy into practical action. Courage to sympathize, to co-suffer with the unhappy, results also in a keener insight into the depth of misery. One's personal experience of vicarious suffering is the basis for a connatural knowledge which cannot be had on a purely speculative level. No matter how much we contemplate the social conditions of poverty and the par-ticular details of this family's wretched plight, we cannot really know what their misery is unless it affects us in our whole being: unless our judgment is swayed by a concern that is at once a willed and a felt love. In order to under-stand how the redeeming love of God works providen-tially in the "crooked lines" of evils in the human con-dition, we must feel ourselves within this condition. An habitual sensitivity to the suffering of others, habit of pity, is therefore an integral part of the total St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei 9.5. Summa Theologiae, I, q.21, a.3; 1-2, q.35, a.8; 2-2, q.30, a.l. pattern of mercy because the feeling of compassion is al-ready the directing of the sensitive appetites toward the object of mercy.1~ While not itself a virtue in the com-plete sense, pity contributes the "matter" as it were of the total response, being given its "form" or determining specification as virtue by the complementary tendency of merciful love in the will. Because of the dynamic influ-ence of this love, channeled and controlled by right judg-ment, the emotion of pity as a fully human response is truly virtuousJs It gives an intensity to the impulse of mercy to relieve the distress so keenly felt. Charity: the Source ol Mercy Formally and essentially, the act of mercy is a special kind of willed love. Whatever may be the absence or presence, the strength or weakness of supporting habits and virtues in other powers, the absolute requirement for mercy is the free and deliberate choice to love another who is in need. We make this choice as the radical orien-tation of our lives in accepting a religious vocation to an institute whose commission from the Church is to carry out her works of mercy. Thereby we accept the solemn obligation to reinforce by repeated acts what is implicit in this orientation: that is, to develop the habitual facility or virtue for good and effective action most properly be-longing to such an institute. What kind of love is the essence of mercy? In the first instance, this love must be benevolence: a willing of good for the sake of the person about whom we are concerned. It must be completely other-directed, outgoing. Religious are greatly aided in developing unselfishness in love by the numerous opportunities in community living to show thoughtfulness and consideration for others. The mani-festations of such concern are by no means of merely pe-ripheral importance, for a deficiency in love is a defi-ciency in the essence of mercy. Even on the sensitive level, pity is directed not to oneself but to another,a9 A selfish act is a disordered love-choice not only different from but contradictory to the choice of loving mercifully. There-fore, any habitual selfishness, no matter how slight it is or how trivial its object, will be a direct obstacle to de-veloping the virtue of mercy. The subjective aspect of benevolence--that is, true de-sire of good for another--must be complemented by its objective counterpart: desire for another of what is truly 1*St. Thomas notes that the reason why God forbad cruelty to animals in the Old Testament was that even pity for the suffering of animals makes a man better disposed to take pity on his fellow man. Summa Theologiae, I-2, q.102, a.6 ad 8. XSSumma Theologiae, 1-2, q.59, a.l ad 3; 2-2, q.$0, a.$. ~ Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.30, a.l ad 2. 4. + 4. VOLUME 22, 196~ 289 ÷ ÷ Sister Mary ~eleste, $3tL REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS good. Ultimately, the true good of man is his perfect hap-piness in union with God. When we desire that a person have what is needed for this, our benevolence toward him is charity. It should be remembered that the dual precept of charity in no way detracts from its nature as a single virtue; by charity, God is loved both as supreme good in Himself and as the goal of human striving. Thus when we love another in charity, we desire for him the beati-tude toward which we also aim. The attainment of this common goal, uniting us in a social bond as fellow viatores, is hindered by our misery. Therefore, if we love God and desire that all men be united with Him, our charity will (as nearly as this is possible) be a love patterned on His. We will not seek in others what we lack and not merely respond to a goodness in others which we find there. Rather, out of the abun-dance of love, we will be able to confer on others a good-ness which we do not find, which we ourselves only hold as a gift in the first place. We will aim to relieve their misery. This is Christian love. If Christianity has been a civilizing influence in the world, it is because, as Da-ni~ lou writes, civilization is "a state of human life in which individual man is accorded his due of respect and love, being loved the more in proportion as he may be defenseless, lonely, or unlucky.''20 Since charity is the essence of Christian perfection, it is afortiori the virtue par excellence of the religious who is bound by vow to strive for Christian perfection. In the religious state, the vows are means to this goal. The pur-pose of poverty is to free one's love from attachment: to material things, for our finite human affections cannot be fully concentrated on God if they are tied down. by many physical concerns. Charity is also hindered by an excessive craving for pleasures of the flesh which prevent the development of spiritual love. Chastity does not stamp out or distort the humanness of love but univer-salizes it so that the concern of the heart may extend to all persons. Charity is hindered most of all by the in-ordinate willing of one's own independence. Obedience especially makes the sister a sharer in community effort which is part of the Church's mission of mercy i'n the world. Thus the specific way in which charity is de-veloped in a religious is intrinsically influenced by the spirit and virtue of poverty, chastity, and obedience as directly oriented to the perfecting of spiritual love: The immediate effect of charity as the benevolent love by which we desire for others their happiness in union with God is our own bond of union with them, a special and personal kind of belonging. "It is the nature of di- Jean Dani~lou, Lord oI History (Chicago: Regnery, 1958), p. 66. vine charity," St. Thomas writes, "that he who loves in this way should belong not to himself but to the one loved.''zl In belonging to another, we take on vicariously whatever is his lot, suffering included. We feel it our-selves even though the misery is'not radically our own.m Thus God Himself is said~to pity us because of His love by which He regards us as belonging to Him33 This note of belonging to the one loved may be re-garded from another aspect also. We see that the virtue of charity is perfected in three "dimensions." First, its extent must be universal, including all persons.destined for beatific union with God. Secondly, its intensity is measured by the hardships one is willing to endure for the sake of those loved, even to the point of laying down one's life. Finally, its effects are seen in the gifts of good-ness bestowed: not only in material things, not only in spiritual benefits, but even in the total personal dedica-tion of oneself.~4 Pondering this last "dimension" of charity, we recall that human love is humanly symbolized in gift-giving. The extent and intensity of love is externally shown by the value of the gift bestowed. There are degrees in the alms of mercy just as in any gift, for mercy is always freely given love, Ministering to the physical needs of another is the first and most evident degree, siv.ce man cannot fittingly strive for spiritual goals if he does not have what is needed materially for a decent human life. On a higher level, there are spiritual benefits which do not exceed the natural human capacity for giving: for instance, the com-munication of truth reached by human insight and evi-dence. But of more value still are those goods which are truly supernatural, such as divinely revealed truth or the grace of the sacraments. One who bestows on others gifts of this kind practices a singular perfection of brotherly love, for it is directly by means of these gifts that man at-tains union with God.2" A gift, however, remains but a symbol. That which is signified is the interior disposition of love which is in the person the motivating source from which his action flows. The true worth of a gift can only be judged by the extent to which the giver's love has been concretized in the per-sonal act of donation. The more fully the whole person must be involved in this act, the more apt this particular kind of action is for expressing an intense and universal love. Now the works of mercy not only give scope for a De Perlectione Yitae Spiritualis, c.lO. Summa Theologiae, 9-2, q210, a.2. Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.30, a.2 ad 1. Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.18,1, a.2 ad 8. De Per]ectione Yitae Spiritualis, c.14. ÷ ÷ ÷ Mercy VOLUME 22~ 196.~ 291 4. 4. 4. Sister Mary Celeste, $.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 292 complete engagement of the giver, but when they really spring from charity they absolutely require this total dedication. For merciful love is redemptive. It means taking on the misery of another in order to heal and strengthen and lift up; and this can only be accomplished by the involvement of one's whole being and energy. For a woman, this total personal dedication to serving the needs of another is the fulfillment of her essential role as mother. In the apostolate, it is a maternal love which inspires the sister to reach out with compassion to all who, like the child, need care and protection. She sees not only the poor, the sick, and the aged as represented by the child, but all those who are ill in mind and heart, those who are poor in the goods of the spirit. Her work of the fulfillment of professional duties is a form of spirit-ual motherhood. By this very fact, her mission in the Church is closely associated with an essential quality of the Church herself. It must be the vocation of the reli-gious woman to impart to others something of the uni-versal healing compassion of Christ, effecting a true nur-turing and growth of human life Godward. Prudence Directs Merciful Action The love-inspired insight of a mother detects the weak-ness of her child and knows instinctively what is the best thing to do. This connatural knowledge has its exact parallel in the act of mercy, the impulse to action in which there is a giving of one's whole self. Knowledge of the most effective action in a concrete case cannot be a matter of intellectual understanding alone when this knowledge is based on an intense concern for the welfare of the person for whom the action is being done. Judg-ment about such action must be governed by the habit of prudence. Thus the life of one engaged in works of mercy requires that prudence be the directive intellectual habit. This virtue is further perfected by that docility to the motion of the Holy Spirit which is called the gift of counsel.2e For this reason, St. Thomas states that the beatitude of mercy specially corresponds to the gift of counsel, the gift which directs the act of mercy.~7 The concrete circumstances of human misery are sub-ject to changing conditions; but the principles applied in the variety of instances do not themselves change. Mer-ciful action is always a means to bring about human hap-piness; the choice of a best means to achieve a goal is always the concern of prudence. The prudent person is equipped to know what should be done in the concrete so that his decision and effort are suited to the needs of Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.52, a.2. Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.52, a.4. the kingdom of God. Thus the prudential judgment nec-essary in the act of mercy must take into account both the needs of the recipient and the potentialities of the donor. Although spiritual alms are of more value objec-tively, it is sometimes a greater immediate need to relieve physical distress; "to a hungry man, food is more neces-sary than instruction in truth.''2s Since our humanness limits the amount of good we can do, St. Augustine coun-sels us to consider those who are nearer to us in time, place, or other accidental condition as the first recipients of our mercy.29 If the act of mercy is not merely hap-hazard, if it springs from the virtue of mercy, it must, then, be directed by prudence. Unity of the Virtues Related to Mercy Among the great variety of circumstances in which misery appears and within the myriad personalities who are called to a special dedication for responding to mod-ern needs, the stabilizing influence of a common spirit is to be found in the basic structure of virtues and habits within which this spirit is translated into action. The master-virtue of mercy has a characteristic pattern simple in its essentials yet comprising all the human powers in total personal engagement. First, because an act of mercy is concerned with con-crete human misery, the initial perception of the situa-tion will be a unified act including both sensory aware-ness of physical detail and intellectual understanding of the meaning-content incarnated in this detail: that is, its relevance to human happiness. Thus the merciful person will notice, will habitually listen and see, use imagination and memory to retain and supply impressions that help this awareness. She will use her estimative power under the control of reason to evaluate in each particular case a lack of what is befitting the dignity of man. She must be able to judge the social evils of the contemporary world with an adequate comprehension of what they imply for human living. Finally, she must be able to see herself as an instrument, a steward entrusted with a gift which is to be transmitted to others; this is her humility. In other words, all her human knowing powers are operative in the perception of what is relevant to unhappiness. Secondly, because an act of mercy is essentially an out-going response to a real situation, the merciful sister acts by the dynamic tendency of her appetitive powers. These will include a sensitivity to suffering that is called pity, a willingness to accept difficulties and to suffer for another that is called courage, and that benevolent love which in Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.32, a.3. St. Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana 1.28. ÷ ÷ ÷ Mercy VOLUME 22, 1963 293 Sister Mary Celeste, S.M. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 294 the supernatural order is called charity. Just as human nature is a body-spirit unity, and just as human knowl-edge is the perception of meaning in the material sign, so too there is a parallel in the appetitive order. The uni-fied act of sorrow for another's unhappiness, the interior act of mercy, is the spiritual love of charity incarnated and expressed in the feeling of compassion. Although supernatural in its cause, charity, mercy is thoroughly hu. man in its mode of operation. Thirdly, there is a kind of reflective moment of both knowledge and love in the act of mercy. Encountering someone in misery, a merciful person experiences a deeper level of awareness by reason of the dynamic orientation of pity and love. This is what St. Thomas calls a knowl-edge of connaturality. In the light of her love which unites her by sympathy to another, the. sister who is mer-ciful can perceive meaning in details which would pass unnoticed by a detached onlooker. This perception in turn strengthens the driving forces of sensitive pity and willed love, impelling her to judge prudently the action that is most effective and committing her to carry out this action courageously without regard to inconvenience or pain. In mercy, therefore, there is required a totality of personal dedication to serving one's neighbor in order that he may together with us come to beatific union with God. Finally, the charity-love by which we will this goal not only the source from which mercy flows forth but is the unifying principle of every virtue and subordinate habit related to mercy. The ultimate goal of man is beati-tude, union with God. It is this goal which mercy, by re-lieving unhappiness, aims to procure. The goals of other virtues and habits are only proximate and intermediate ones which can be subordinated to this primary human end. So charity, qualifying the will, permeates all activity under the influence of the will--all free actions, just as life permeates the whole living organism in all its parts. In a body, all the particular members and organs func-tion for the good of the whole; so in a life of charity, all particular activity is directed toward the supreme good of the whole which is man's union with God.~0 Every virtue and every habit of a merciful person are drawn into the powerful stream of this love. "If a man is merciful," writes St. Gregory of Nyss;,, "he is deemed worthy of divine beatitude, because he has at-tained to that which characterizes the divine nature. Thus is the merciful man called blessed, because the fruit of mercy becomes itself the possession of the merciful.''zx Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.23, a.8; De Caritate, a.3. ~lSt. Gregory o£ Nyssa, The Beatitudes, translated ~rorn PL Mercy is most properly a divine attribute, manifesting the power and goodness of God's redemptive love.82 As source of the exterior works of mercy done by human hands, this virtue likens us to God in similarity of works and is the highest perfection of the active life.s3 As an interior effect of divine charity,.in us, companion of joy and peace and zeal, it is the greatest Of virtues which re-late to our neighbor,a4 Its effectiveness will end only when there is no further human misery left to cry out for heal-ing. 44:1193-1302 by Hilda Graef, "Ancient Christian Writers Series" (Westminster: Newman, 1954), p. 139. ~ Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.30, aA. ~Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.30, aA ad 3. ~ Summa Theologiae, 2-2, q.30, a.4 ad 3. VOLUME 22~ 1963 ALAN F. GREENWALD Psychological Assessment of Religious Aspirants 4. 4" Alan F. Green-wald is director of psychological serv-ices for the Seton Psychiatric Insti-tute, 6420 Reisters-town Road, Balti-more 15, Maryland. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Psychological testing has become increasingly more useful in the selection of suitable candidates for religious life and in the recognition of emotional illness among seminarians prior to ordination. A growing number of seminaries and religious communities are utilizing psy-chological services to assist superiors and seminary direc-tors in arriving at decisions about the psychological suit-ability of prospective candidates for the priesthood. In view of the desirability of a close working relationship between the psychologist and the clergy, it seems advan-tageous to review briefly the methods, strengths, and weaknesses of psychological assessment procedures as they apply to the screening of applicants for religious life. The two extremes--exceptionally well-qualified extremely poor prospects--may be identified easily within the seminary with or without benefit of formal psycho-logical testing. It is the seminarian who is making a mar-ginal adjustment--just "getting by" academically, with-drawn from others, quarrelsome, experiencing difficulties in attention, concentration, or ability to study, yet still able to conform to established minimum standards of conduct--whose symptoms are less flagrant and whose future is far less predictable. These divergent behavior patterns may represent only a transitory disturbance or they could be the forerunner of a more serious mental dis-order. In either case the psychological referral will help to clarify the situation. The psychological suitability of a candidate for the priesthood is not a black and white issue. Rarely, except perhaps in the extreme cases where a young man presents a remarkable array of talents or on the other hand dem-onstrates bizarre, pathological behavior, can a simpl~ de-termination of "suitable" or "unsuitable" be made. The human personality is too complex to permit such a casual oversimplification. Rather, it is necessary to evaluate a broad spectrum of behavior in order to identify con-vergent drives and patterns as well as divergent attitudes and reactions. The primary question usually asked of the psychologist by the seminary is, "What can :you tell us about the psychological suitability of this seminarian for the priesthood?" In response to this question;,the~psychol-ogist seeks to determine the personality assets as well as the nature and degree of any emotional disturbance which may exist. The psychologist learns early that there are no accepta-ble "canned" or cookbook interpretations of behavior, no universals in test analysis, and a notable lack of .un-equivocal prognostic signs today. No test is infallible, and as yet we have not developed the test which can predict with great accuracy how an individual will behave in complex situations. To use less than the most compre-hensive and sensitive instruments available for personal-ity assessment would be a disservice to all concerned. Con-sidering the present state of the art, there still remains honest disagreement as to what constitutes the most valid test battery. But most clinicians favor the projective tech-niques. Projective techniques provide subtle, indirect methods of personality assessment which permit the subject to re-veal his basic pattern of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Because these relatively unstructured tests are less subject to conscious and unconscious distortion and permit greater freedom of expression within a standardized framework, projective techniques such as the Rorschach Inkblot Test, Thematic Apperception Test, Draw a Per-son Test, and Sentence Completion Test are generally preferred to the paper and pencil personality question-naires, for example, the Minnesota Multiphasic Person-ality Inventory. However, Bier,1 Vaughan,2 and others have used the MMPI extensively and developed norms for use in screening seminarians. While it is true that paper and pencil questionnaires have the advantage of ease in administration and scoring and provide quantitative measures of personality charac-teristics, the additional behavioral information elicited by a projective test battery would seem to merit the in-creased expenditure, of professional time and effort. Many 1 W. C. Bier and A. A. Schneiders, eds., Selected Papers [rom the American Catholic Psychological dssociation Meetings of 1957, 1958, 1959 (New York: Fordham University, 1960). W. C. Bier, "Test-ing Procedures and Their Value," Proceedings o] the 1959 Sisters' Institute of Spirituality (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1960), pp. 263-95. W. C. Bier, Description o! Biers Modified MMP1 (Mimeographed; New York: Fordham University, no date). ~ R. P. Vaughan, "Specificity in Program of Psychological Exam-ination," Guild o[ Catholic Psychiatrists Bulletin, v. 8 (1961), pp. 149-55. 4. Psychological Assessment VOLUME 22, 1963 297 Alan l:. G~een~ald REVIEW FOR REL[G]OUS investigators prefer the neat quantitative personality pro-file which the MMPI yields, but too often we find in the behavioral sciences a tendency to follow our sister sciences in attempting to reduce subject matter to numbers and statistics. Behavior does not lend itself readily to this treatment. Even with projective techniques there are ob-jective signs which, unhappily, fail to describe adequately the person they represent. The goal of a psychological screening program is to provide an accurate, reliable pic-ture of the person and not to reduce him to a mass of in-teresting or perhaps not-so-interesting statistics. Many significant test results are qualitative rather than quantitative in nature. Through projective testing, we are able to detect an unwholesome or conflictual, motiva-tion for religious life as well as underlying problems which may interfere with the seminarian's future adjust-ment. Test evidence which relates to motivation, causa-tion, and purposefulness of behavior can prove invaluable in revealing potential difficulties which a seminarian may encounter in his pursuit of a religious vocation. A reli-gious aspirant who demonstrates human sensitivity, strong drive toward achievement, and a desire to serve mankind has significantly different and healthier motiva.- tion than another whose entry into the seminary provides a means of escape from a world perceived as cold, hostile, and threatening to him. Bowes,3 in evaluating nearly 7000 seminarians, has found these major problem areas in order of frequency: (1) purity, (2) interpersonal relationships, (3) scrupulos-ity, (4) mother fixation, (5) obsessive compulsive person-ality, (6) depression, and (7) affective disorders. Becat, se most of these problems do not exist at the level of con-scious awareness, they may go undetected until they g~:n-erate enough anxiety to produce feelings of personal dis-tress and interfere with the person's ,capacity for work and his ability to meet the demands of reality. Often psy-chological testing may detect the presence of abnormal drives or conflicting motives and permit the seminarian to work through the conflict with the assistance of his spiritual director prior to ordination. Psychiatric aid may be rendered when indicated. This coordination of reli-gious and professional services can lead ultimately to a lower incidence of mental illness among the clergy. The use of psychological test procedures with religious introduces the need for specialized handling and inter-pretation. In order for any test results to be meaningful, they must be correlated with the activities, values, and * N. T. Bowes, "Professional Evaluation of Aspirants to Religious Life," a paper delivered in a seminar conducted at St. Mary':~ Semi-nary; Roland Park; Baltimore, Maryland in April, 1962. demands imposed upon the individual by his way of life. One hardly expects to find the same mental mechanisms and hierarchy of needs and values existing in a group of combat marines and in a group of seminarians. Similarly, as Vaughan indicates, all religious cannot be stereotyped and regarded as one. Different orders and assignments within the Church make special demands--intellectual and/or emotional--upon their members, so that prereq-uisites for a Jesuit university professor may differ from those of a Trappist monk. One personality may be better suited for the active, another for the contemplative life. Thus, notwithstanding the elimination of persons with severe emotional illness from the seminary, one needs to understand the circumstances and particular environ-ment in which the candidate will function in order to offer the most intelligent clinical judgment of his over-all suitability. A clear need remains for the development of psychological test norms applicable to candidates for re-ligious life. The experienced clinical psychologist approaches his task with humility, recognizing both the strengths and limitations of his tools. It behooves those who utilize his services to develop a set of realistic expectations in order to derive the maximum benefit from the referral. A word of caution seems in order to avoid overreliance by superiors on test results without giving due weight to traditional methods of selecting religious candidates. The decision regarding a religious vocation should never be made on the basis of test findings alone. The psychologi-cal test should be regarded as a supplementary source of information rather than as a replacement for existing practices. Psychological tests are being applied more widely in the evaluation of religious aspirants. Although no tests are infallible, projective techniques have demonstrated their effectiveness in the study of personality and in de-termining within limits the psychological suitability of persons seeking a religious vocation. Early detection and disposition of seminarians making a marginal adjustment can help to avoid subsequent major disturbances. Psy-chological assessment can be a useful supplement to tra-ditional selection procedures, but there is a need for behavioral scientists to develop a more definitive psycho-logical concept of, as well as test norms for, those aspiring to religious life. ÷ ÷ ÷ Psychological Assessment VOLUME. 22# 1963 299 SISTER M. DIGNA, O.S.B. Uses of Information in a Screening Program ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister M. Digna, O.S.B., is a faculty member of the Col-lege of St. Scholas-tica, Duluth 11, Minnesota. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 300 Psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychometricians, as well as others, subscribe to the assumption that objective information about a candidate's fitness for the priesthood or religious life may be assessed by valid and reliable in. struments in terms of intelligence, personality, and inter-ests. Following the principle that a good, valid test serves as a Geiger counter in detecting intellectual and person-ality assets and liabilities, the Sisters of St. Benedict have utilized test findings for over the past ten years. Having found that a correlation does exist between test data and subsequent religious adjustment, the policy has been initiated of administering the tests prior to admission. ~ln some cases, considerable time, effort, and expense have been saved by a wise use of this information. All favorable findings are referred to a Catholic psychiatrist for further consultation and confirmation. If there is doubt, the in-dividual is given an opportunity to "try religious life." The first type of assessment is that of the applicant's intelligence. Here intelligence is considered from a purely operational viewpoint. The empirical fact is that some people show higher abilities than others. Measurement is an attempt to objectify cognition (intelligence) by eval-uating sensory acuity, perception, memory, reaction-time, and reasoning. Originally the testing program included two scores of mental ability, one based upon the Ameri-can Council Psychological Examination and the other on the Otis Self-Administering Test. The reasons for select. ing these two tests were the availability of the ACE and the ease of administering and interpreting the Otis. Completion of high school has been a basic require-ment for admission into the community. All the sisters at one time or another matriculate at the local college. Since the ACE scores are recorded in the registrar's office, they are accessible for use. However, the ACE scores are not too meaningful in determining the kind of intelligence the individual possesses. For this reason candidates were ranked percentage-wise among all other high school sen-iors or college freshmen tested and placed in the top fourth, lower fourth, and so on. Furthermore, the ACE is highly weighted with verbal factors so that the picture is not too complete. Then too, novice and candidate mis-tresses found difficulty in interpreting 224/81 or still more confusing 127/13. The Otis intelligence quotient was, therefore, a more satisfactory measurement. During the last five years the California Short Form Test of Mental Maturity has been used. This test yields information on total mental factors, language factors, non-language factors, spatial relationships, logical reason-ing, numerical reasoning, verbal concepts, average grade placement, mental age, and intelligence quotient. The following examples illustrate the use of the Cali-fornia Short Form Test of Mental Maturity. Applicant A was a young woman who applied at several communities. Because her educational background was limited to the eighth grade of a small country school, she was rejected. At the time she made contact with the local community, she was working as a domestic in a private home and had taken her vacation to make the lay women's retreat. She was advised to reapply and took the tests with other ap-plicants. The summary data scores indicated that the young woman had intelligence quotient scores in terms of total mental factors of 138, language factors of 141, and non-language factors of 129. Her intelligence grade place-ment was at the 90th percentile for total mental factors and language factors, and at the 60th for non-language factors using the norms for college graduates. The per-centile ranks at her chronological age (C.A.) were 80 for spatial relations, 99 for logical reasoning, 95 for numeri-cal reasoning, 99 for total verbal concepts, and 95 for non-language factors. The young woman was accepted. In one year as a postulant she easily completed two years of a collegiate preparatory program. At the end of her novi-tiate she completed two more years of high school and did very well in college. Her average was A minus or B plus. She is gentle, refined, humble, and modest, but above all deeply spiritual. Surely it is a courtesy to God to recog-nize and utilize His gifts to such a girl. The results of the California Test of Mental Maturity were important factors in the rejection of two applicants, B and C. The intelligence quotients obtained by appli-cant B were 86 for mental factors, 106 for language fac-tors, and 66 for non-language factors. Applicant C's in-telligence quotient, measured in terms of these three factors, were 82 for mental factors, 97 for language fac-÷ ÷ ÷ Screening Program VOLUME 22, 1963 $1~t~ M. Digna REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 302 tors, and 64 for non-language factors. Although the pre-diction of subsequent adjustment in religious life was not too promising on the basis of these scores, the applicants were not rejected merely on this basis. These scores led to a more thorough investigation of their backgrounds. As a result, the mother prioress felt that the applicants were not intellectually equipped to meet the demands of a community that stressed teaching and nursing as an ex-pression of its apostolate. Although information regarding intelligence is very important, the submerged four-fifths of one's personality is just as important as a predictive factor in adjustment to religious life. Originally, the Minnesota Personality Scale was used to discover problems with which the indi-vidual was confronted. This scale was helpful in deter-mining poor social adjustment, family conflicts, and emo-tional problems. Although the scale was structured, the evaluation results merely scratched the surface of the in-dividual's personality. According to Furst and Fricke (1956) a structured test is nonprojective in the sense that users can agree completely on the individual's score; they are projective in the sense that individuals can project personal meanings into the stimuli. Although very losv scores on the Minnesota Personality Scale were clues to more deep-seated troubles, most of the findings were of the obvious type. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) has proved a better instrument since the items, the interrelationships, and the scales all afford information stemming from feelings and emotions. I*: is often possible through careful item analyses to determine the root of emotional experience and to discover hidden attitudes and traits. Supplementing the use of the MMPI, Modified Form, are life histories, ratings from direct ob-servation, and introspective reporting. Because of the MMPI, the psychologist secures a deeper understanding of the individual's problems. The items are structured, and the interpretation from them is deter-mined a priori. For example, if the psychologist or psy-chiatrist wishes to discover whether a person has phobias, he asks questions relating to the individual's fear of snakes, crowds, high places, and so forth. One criterion of phobias is a morbid, exaggerated, pathological fear of some object or situation. The basic assumption is that an individual who has many fears will answer questions per-taining to objects and situations of which the individual is afraid, and he will admit these fears. The test items of the MMPI have to be assembled into scales based upon the principle that the psychologist building the test has sufficient insights into the dynamics of verbal behavior and its relation to the inner core or personality that he is able to predict beforehand what certain sorts of people will say about themselves when asked certain types of questions. Structured personality tests may be employed in a purely diagnostic, categorizing fashion without the use of any dynamic interpretation of the relationship among scales or the patterning of a pro-file. The discrete scores on.': the' Minnesota Personality Scale are an example. The MMPI makes possible more "depth" interpreta-tion. On the basis of the MMPI and other information, some applicants have been rejected. As a typical example, the profile for applicant D demonstrates the use of the results of a personality inventory as a clue to possible poor adjustment to religious life. Although her intelligence quotient scores were average, applicant D presented a poor personality profile. She had two high triads (pairs of threes) above the normal range (30 to 70). Six of the nine scales for this profile ranged from T-scores of~71 to 108. The F score was high. According to Welsh and Dahl-strom (1956), high F scores tend to invalidate the sub-ject's responses. A schizoid may obtain a high F score owing to delusional or other aberrant mental state. The high score for the other scales represented such areas as hypochrondriasis, hysteria, psychopathic deviate, para-noia, schizophrenia, and hypomania. This young woman was not admitted but was counseled to see a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist to whom she was referred discovered that the applicant had previously been institutionalized. A recent follow-up revealed that she had returned to a mental institution. Applicant E was screened out because of her emotional pattern. This young girl was sixteen years old. Her in-telligence was average but her personality picture was not good. The young woman entered, was tested, and the test material with the following comments was filed in the mother prioress' office: This individual has high scores on the psychopathic deviate, masculinity, and psychasthenia scales. If she shows the follow-ing tendencies or traits it would be very wise to refer her to a psychiatrist: inability to profit from a mistake, attention-getting devices, concentrating on a younger girl in an objectionable manner, having so-called "crushes" on an older woman; any compulsive behavior like hand washing, phobias, fears, and anxieties, depression, worry, lack of confidence, and inability to concentrate. When the young woman began to manifest undesirable traits, her testing material was referred to for counseling purposes. Despite counseling, she fortunately left the community, but unfortunately has not sought psychiatric help. T-he care needed in interpreting test scores may be em-phasized by the responses of applicant F. This young ÷ ÷ ÷ Screening Program VOLUME 22, 1963 ÷ ÷ .÷ Sister M. Digna REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 304 women's profile was unreliable. Unknown to us, the ap-plicant had previously been in two communities. In tak-ing the test, with her high intelligence, test-wiseness, and general sophistication, she presented a pattern falling within the normal range. Fifteen items of the MMPI are designated subtle items because their psychological sig-nificance would not normally be detected by individuals taking the test. Applicant F was able to discern the im-plications of test items and answer them to put herself in a favorable light. This young woman had an opportunity to "try religious life." She received counseling before en-trance, after entrance, and for two years after leaving until she settled down to complete her third year of col-lege, receiving A's in courses she liked, F's and D's in those she didn't. She does not accept God's will in her rejection. Recently, the writer received a letter from a state institution where the young woman has been for the last several years. Applicant G has average intelligence, a fairly well de-fined primary interest pattern, but an unsatisfactory per-sonality pattern on the MMPI. This applicant was tested after entrance and advised to leave. In all cases of dis-missal, the applicants have an opportunity to see a Catho-lic psychiatrist. Through a knowledge of their fields of vocational interest and job placement services, these young women often make a better adjustment as a result of their brief experience in religion. It might be inferred from these data that applicants to religious life have low intelligence or are emotionally disturbed. However, concomitant with the screening out of these "atypical" cases, eighty-one applicants were rld-mitted into the community. In most cases these candi-dates were young women who desired to serve God aad whose intellectual and emotional patterns were not de-terrent factors. Of the eighty-one, six wavered and left. Four of the six have been re-admitted and are making ex-cellent adjustments. Having seen her strengths and weak-nesses, the candidate herself often feels reassured that she can give herself to God if she is generous enough to make the sacrifice and to depend upon His divine grace to assist her. Illustrative of a good profile is that of applicant H. The California Test of Mental Maturity, interpreted in terms of intelligence quotients and grade placement, are at; fol-lows: for mental factors, the intelligence quotient is 118, grade placement, 15.6; language factors, 131, grade place-ment, 70th percentile of students graduating from col-lege; and non-language factors, 105, grade placement, 12.5. Her MMPI falls within the normal range, and her Strong Interest Blank reveals a well-defined interest pat-tern. Her primary occupational interests are in elemen- tary teaching and office work, and her tertiary interests in business education and home economics. It might be wise to say a few words about the use of the Strong Vocational Interest Blank. There rare two forms, one for men and ond for wbmen. The test has been useful in helping the community identify.strong positive and negative interest patterns. About ninety per cent of the reli

Issue 57.6 of the Review for Religious, November/December 1998. ; Review for Religious is a forum for shared reflection on the lived experience of all wbo find ~bat the church's rich heritages of spirituality support their personal and apostolic Christian lives~ Tge articles in the journal are meant to be inforntative, practical, bistorical, or inspirational, written front a tbeological or spiritual or sometimes canonical point of view. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-mouthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone:314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: FOI~PI~MA@SLU.I~I)U Manuscripts, hooks for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP 1150 Cedar Cove Road ¯ Henderson, NC 27536 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious - P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for informatiou on subscription rates. ~1998 Review for Religions Permission is herewith gra,ated to cop}, any ,naterial (articles, poe,ns, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the li,nits outlined in Sectious 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this per,nission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. for relig i ous Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial S~aff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. FischEr SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth.McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm J~an Read James and Joan Felling Kathryn Richards FSP Joel Rippinger OSB Bis.hop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ David Werthmann CSSR ' Patricia Wittberg SC Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1998 ¯ VOLUME 57 ¯ NUMBER 6 contents 566 578 religious vocations Common Threads: Are We Weaving or Unraveling? Catherine Bertrand SSN~D surveys the terrain of apostolic religious life regarding attitudes and concerns about future membership. The Decline in Religious Vocations: ¯ A Weberian Perspective Shanti P~beyasingha cssR looks at effects of the "routinizing" of a foundational charism and then peers beyond them with a hope that embraces new risks in changed circumstances. 588 595 ,life in the spirit Spirithil Maturity John Blake More reflects on some of the qUalities of a spiritually mature person. A "Spiritual Turn" for Catholic Moral Theology Dennis J. Billy CSSR explores some of the ways in which a deeper understanding of the relationship between spirit and reason has =oncrete implications for the_future of moral theology. consecr.ated life 605 ~ Consecrated Life: Anointed with Joy Regis J. Armstrong OFMCap presents.ways of understanding joy and its intrinsic relationship to consecrated life. Review for Religious 622 The Future of Authority in the Religious Community John Carroll Futrell SJ describes what authority needs today as it exercises its ministry of making an apostolic community of love. spiritual limitations 628 Ground of Grace Marie Beha OSC uses the parable of ~he seed in looking at the limits we bring to the transforming action of grace. 640 Guigo I 'on Avoiding Suffering Kenneth C. Russell offers us some of the homely wisdom of an early Carthusian regarding the ensemble of this world and the ,next. departments 564 Prisms 650 Canonical Counsel: The Evangelical Counsel of Obedience: ConcreteExpression and Practical Consequences 656 Book Reviews 666 Indexes to Volume 57 November-Deconber 1998 prisms T imagery of the Holy Spirit as an iconographer"holds an age-old place in the tradition of the Eastern churches. The Hol~ Spirit is painting us in the image and likeness of Goff~ But, of course, we acknowledge Jesus Christ as THE image of the invisible God (Col 1:15). Consequently, in working with us as a painter does with an icon, the Holy Spirit continues throughout our life to bring out in us another face of Jesus, As we enter the Advent preparation for Christmas, this way of understanding our relationship to the S'pirit seems especially appropriate. The Holy Spirit is always laboring to bring to birth within us a fuller identity with Jesus. Our life can be understood as an Advent season in which we are being prepared over the span of our earthly life for the reality of our life-with-God 'forever in Christ. At the same time, from our meditation upon the Gospels and from our following in Christ's footsLeps, our daily life can be seen as one spent living in imitation of the hidden and public life of Jesus. With every stroke of his painter's brush, the Spirit inspires, encourages, and strengthens us to live "like Jesus," to live as Christ-ians. For the Spirit, according to Jesus' promise, is the one who "remains" with us, the one who will "be within" us (Jn 14:17). From the Gospel of St: John, we learn that the Holy Spirit is a gift to us--Jesus' "gift to us of "another Paraclete" (that is, one who functions just like Jesus him-self, who is our first Paraclete) or, perhaps stated with more theological precision, a gift from the "us" of Father and Son. Fumblingly struggling to say something about Review for Religious the identity and life of our triune God, our theological tradition at times expresses it in this way: The Father gives himself over fully to the Son, and the Son gives himself over fully to the Father, and the fullness of the Love shared between them is a Gift-Person, a Love-Person. As a result, our Trinitarian God is caught up in a life of relationship, of total giving, of total sharing--a God who is Love, a God who is all Gift. The Spirit, whose very relational identity within the Trinity is Gift and Love, plays this same role in God's outreach to cre-ation- for example, the imagery of the brooding of Spirit over the waters of creation and the Spirit's overshadowing of Mary in the' an~aunciation scene. From revelation and from our experi-ence, we know that God relates to us through all of creation as "gifts"--gifts that are meant to help us to know, to love, and to serve God by our proper appreciation and use of these gifts. God relates to us through Jesus as gift of identity with us as human. jesus is called the new Adam because we human beings in the Jesus-Gift have .become truly new and original. God relates to us in baptism, confirmation, and all the sacraments and sacramentals of our Christian life in the gift of the one we~call the Holy Spirit. The process of our growing in grace or~ as the Eastern churches say it more daringly, the process of our divinization continues as God's Spirit-Gift stays with us. We CFiristians, made newly human in Christ, have come to understand God in a new and original way: a triune God, a Gift-God, a God of Love. At Christmas, then, we see again, with eyes of faith, God's gift of identity with us through Jesus. Year after year, all the won-der of this gift seen and remembered as a baby fills the heights and depths of our soul. But, in this year dedicated to the Spirit, we recall anew, especially in this Christmas season, how much the Holy Spirit--God-Gi~---keeps giving us the way to be Christ for our times. We pray to the Spirit to bring forth more fully in us the icon of Jesus each of us is created to be--~.made in the image and likeness of God. David L. Fleming SJ That the Spirit paint his icon more fully across the fabric of your life is the Chris~as wish fro,. all of us on the staff of Review for Religious. .November-Dece~ltber 1998 religious vocations CATHERINE BERTRAND Common Threads: -,Are We Weaving or Unraveling? In the last year, as I have traveled nationally and interna-tionally, tit has become clear that certain "threads" are shared, by a considerable number of congregations of women and men religious, especially those that describe themselves as active or apostolic. This article, examining some of these "threads," asking some questions, and offer-ing some answers, is not the last word. There are no sweeping statements to capture the experience of every religious. Rather, I hope to generate further discussion among congregational members as they together examine their own reality and explore what their own future might look like. Many active or apostolic congregations were founded one or two hundred years ago in .,response to particular ministerial needs in various parts of the world. The found, ing purpose often had'more to do with ministry than with a particular spirituality or rule. These congregations, with some help from Vatican Council II, are struggling with the articulation of their charisms and the interpretation of their founding purpose in light of today's church and world. This has often caused the various congregations to remark more' similarities than differences among them- Catherine Bertrand SSND is executive director of the National Religious Vocation Conference (5420 South Cornell Avenue, Suite 105; Chicago, Illinois 60615). Her article was first pub-lished in its quarterly journal, Horizon. Review for Religious" selves, Given this observation, what are some of the common threads evident in these congregations as they look toward, the future? Deepest Longings , Sociologists have noted that the two unmet desires of our age, the deepest longings expressed to~tay by peopl~ of all ages, are for.spirituality and for a sense of belonging. Vocation ministers in both. women's 'and men's congregations can validate these find-ings in their work with potential candidates. Consistently those considering religious life express their reasons as having to do ,with a longing for God and a desire for community life. Meanwhile, longtime members of these congregations seem to be asking themselves whether this in fact 4s .what religious are about, or what their life has to offer today. A thread common to English-spea.king countries worldwide is discussion of the need to take another look at quality community life. Some religious will contend that it is yet to be discovered what that means for active/apostolic congregations whose very foundation and history were overshadowed and strongly influ-enced by monastic rules and traditions. Be that as it may, not only are new members and potential candidates asking for quality com-mon life, but longtime members as well are saying they need to take another look at this. My guess would be that there are as many ideas of what community life could look like as there are people discussing it. There is no going back to what was, although some members ~ would desire that: Others, who have experienced community life in the past as uniformity and sameness, fear that this could become the case again. Some feel that"the struggle to be in a ministry that Is satisfying and in a living situation that does not take every ounce of energy has been long in coming: "Leave it alone!" Others, especially those who entered after Vatican 11,,came because of the common life and shared ministry, and continue to seek ways to have that happen. Some believe community can happen only under one roof. Others believe that such a configuration of community has nothing to do with the direction for the future. Some question~the value of vowed membership, while the expe-rience of others tells them that only when there is clarity about vowed membership does any other way of associating make sense. November-Decentber 1998 Bertrand ¯ Common Threads Although some oflthese concerns differ.in various communities, and may take on different nuances in men's and women's con-gregations, the common threads, the similar questions, are there. Fundamental Changes and Different Realities Over recent years, some definite realities in religious life have given community.life a whole new look. The following paragraphs attempt to describe some of those changes. Space, or how space is regarded, has changed how ~relikious live in community. Many local communities ofwomen'~ congre-gations suffer from limited living space. For a variety of reasons, including some very healthy ones, there.has been a move to smaller living spaces, with fewer people. Unfortunately, religious often end: 'up--mostly for economic reasons--in crowded places with little common space beyond their own bedrooms. There is no room for guest, s, potential new members, or even one's own community members. There is no space, for common prayer, and no room to welc0m~e groups of guests. Religious congregations are not family; they al:e communities of adults; for whom the family model is not helpful. To live simply does not necessarily mean that there can be .no space. Although men's communities may have more space, rJaey seem to be challenged to look at how eas-ily the members can become independent, developing a board-ing- house mentality. Governance, too, has changed how religious live together. Many local commtinities have been trying a more circular model of leadership wherein various responsibilities of leadership are shared. Men's communities seem to 'be less dialogic, to function more expeditiously. No form of governance, however, seems to go without challenge, and no one model is ideal. , Age has also made a difference in how religious live together and ~relate to each other. There are more older members, and fewer new ones. The tendency to settle in bectmes stronger unless deliberate efforts fire made to retain vitality, ' which has little to do with.,age. New members help a community to keep growing and changing. Difference in community size calls for different skills. The abil-ity to b~ self-discl6sing is critical. Where it may once have been considered the. greatest of virtues to be silent, now it is crucial in community to be able to articulate one's thoughts and feelings in Review for Religious an appropriate manner. The smaller the group, the more essen-tial to have healthy members who are able to enter into this kind of sharing. Professionalism and ministry demands certainly affect community life today. Because urgent needs demand responses and because mission is the ov~rriding concern for many religious congrega-tions, this is where most time and energy are spent. The nature of ministry, especially with many women religious now in parish settings, places new demands on quality time in community. Self-Definition Countless efforts among religious focus on the identity and image of religious today: who religious are and what they are about. It appears that often religious define themselves by the work(s) they do. They seem to fall sho~rt when it comes to know-ing how to share some of the other elements of their lives that grow out of the communal dimension: Is' there clarity about those essential elements? Are the spiritual and communal elements of their lives seen as having the power to attract others, not just to new vowed membership, :but also to the varibus ways people can be in part-nership with religious 4ongregations? To religious who are concerned that potential candidates seem to focus only on God and com-munity and have little Or no sense of mission, I offer this thread. From interviewing and assessing candidates for priesthood and religious life, I have found, that among them service is a given. They deeply desire to be of service~ They may not always understand how to direct that generosity within a particular congregation, but what draws them to religious life is a unique context in which to offer service. Most candidates come assuming that Jesus, the Eucharist, and a link to the universal church are foundational to religious lif~. The community they seek is not a warm nest or surrogate family, but a group that will help them serve in a way that they could'not do alone. New members ,help a community to keep growing and changing, What Attracts Young Adults When two hundred young' adults from all over the United November-December 1998 Bertrand ¯ Common Threads States joined more than five hundred vocation directors at the 1996 National Convocation of religious vocation ministers, they spoke to the questions of what was attractive and unattractive . about religious life today. On their application forms they were asked to describe any of their .current involvements in volunteer work, paid ministry, civic activities, and so~forth.Their responses were both amazing and impressive. The candidates that religious congregations would hope to attract are already engaged in ser-vice. They told us that ministry alone will not draw people to religious life. They come because of the community context in which the ministry is situated. They also see community life as happening under one roof. Many times they have no clear idea of w~hat they are asking for When they speaLof their desire for com, munity, but they clearly do not envision it as a "let's get together now and then" experience. Another thread I see in numerous congregations is the sincere desire of many religious to respond to that desire expressed by young people. Most congregations want to have a future and therefore are serious about attracting new members. A thread that is becoming more common in many congregations is being spun in conversations about being local communities of hospi-tality. Much as congregations would like it, this phrase does not describe every local community. Newer members are~well aware of struggles to find suitable, community situations to live in, Longtime members, too, know all too well thee feeling of panic when it comes to finding a local community upon Changing min-istry locations. Some congregations are creatively encouraging some of~their most "life-giving" members to consider housing situations that would allow for an extra room so that communities of hospitality become realities. These delibera~te efforts by some are invitations to all congregational members to take seriously the responsibil- -ity for hospitality. Community as Ministry Religious take seriously their commitment to ministry. Who can argue with that? But is mission understood as being synony-mous with the work they do? I 15elieve that one of the strongest sections of Vita consecrata deals with this very question. It states that community life plays a fundamental role in the spiritual jour- Review for Religious ney of religious, both for their constant renewal and for the full accomplishment of their mission In the world: [The church] wishes to hold up before the world the exam-ple of communities in which solitude is overcome through concern for one another, in which communication inspires in everyone a sense of shared responsibility, and in which wounds are healed throu~gh forgiveness and each person's commitment'to communion is strengthened. The life of communion in fact "becomes a sign for all the world and a compelling force that leads people to faith in Christ . in this way communion leads to mission and itself becomes mission"; indeed, "communion begets communion: In' essen~.~e it is a communion that is missionary." (§§45-46) Do religious believe that community life itself is key to the mission and their ministries? For active/apostolic congregations it seems to be an ongoing struggle. How do congregations arid individuals integrate or balance that healthy or not-so-healthy tension between ministry and community life? Have religious come to define active/apostolic religious life only by works, and often very individualized ministries at that? In many ministry situations there may b~ only one person of a particular congregation on the scene. A developing scenario seems to be that it is in ministry that one receives the greatest affirmation and.the deepest satisfaction, that one's affective needs are met, and that the most creative energy arises. This poses a sharp contrast to the less than life,giving local community situa-tion that religious often describe. Another dimension in this sce-nario is that today religious~ have less knowledge about or understanding of each other's ministries and therefore have fewer opportunities, to be supportive and affirming, ~ ~" : Another thread deserving further consideration is the amount of time and energy given to ministry. I have heard younger, newly professed religious comment that they came from homes where they were aware that everything, including family, always came second to their parents' dareers. They are often surprised to find that in religious life they have that same sense. They seem to respond in one of two ways. Either they quickly fal.1 into the work mode, or they choose to leave. On one occasion a speaker address-ing an audience of religious suggested that, if a congregation is serious about new membership, it may need to reevaluate its min-isterial commitments. Even to think about it brought an audible gasp from the audience. November-December 1998 Bertrand ~ Common Threads Often religious try to accomplish with fewer people what was once done by many more people. No doubt women and men reli-gious are responding to urgent needs in our church and world in creative and heroic ways. Many times, it seems, the very people who top the list as wonderful community members are also the most overextended in ministry. Where is the balance in all of this? What choices are congregations making in addressing these challenges, not just f~or the sake of new members, but for the sake of present membership? . . Some congregations are responding by honestly saying to each other and to others that they prefer to go onliving and working just as they are. Other congregations see a need for some changes. I have attempted to name some of the common reali-ties in religious life that have had an impact on community life. These include models of governance, ways of praying,' living space, aging members, and ministry demands. I would contend that, to the extent that realities in religious life have changed, religious are. invited to develop new skills for living contemporary religious life, giving new shape to religious community life. Skills Needed What are some of the skills to be considered?~ The following list is neither definitive nor exhaustive, but I offer it as a help toward further consideration and dialogue: ' ¯ The need for self-disclosure heads the list, in part because this element of religious life has changed radically in recent years. The change affects not only how one,share~ in dialogue, but also how one participates in prayer with one or more persons. There is an increased need both for sharing and for keeping a healthy sense of boundaries. . ¯ Skills for other-centeredness are key. It is no small challenge to be able to enter into the reality of another, to be generous, to listen. It means taking time for people and situations in commu-nity that may not always be one's first choice of how to use time and energy. It may mean not allowing ministry demands to always come first. ¯ Hospitality As an "in" word these days, but in some situa~- tions it may be as basic as developing social and conversational skills that make life better as occasions arise for religious to invite others into their homes and into their lives. This is particularly key Review for Religious in attracting new members. People cannot choose or ~upport what they do not know, unders(and, or experience. ¯ Skills for healthy sexuality and intimacy are critical elements in the life of any person, and these impact,community life. They affect the way individual religious express who they are, how "at home" they might be as loving, intimate, sexual human beings. They assist religious in having .a sense of self that can support o~hers in their celibate choice and can help still others under-stand celibacy as a viable option. A healthy sexuality includes developing friendsl~ips within and outside community life. It also involves doing whatever is necessary to be a physically and psy-chologically healthy person, someone with whom others would like to share community. ¯ A healthy spirituality is another key element in quality com-munity life, having both a communal and individual dimension. It means looking for ways to be supportive of the spiritual life of others in community, participating in the liturgical life of the church, and expressing the shared spirituality of a particular con-gregation. It also means finding ways to participate in the ongo-ing revelation of God through individuals and in community. ¯ Skills for shared living involve negotiating living space, being attentive to the little .things that can make or break community liv-ing, These skills make it possible for religious to choose to live with one or more fellow religious when it would be easier to live alone, or they may suggest ways of creatively sharing life with others if particular circumstances' demand living alone for a time. They help one to be open to sharing life with a variety of people, in a variety of ways, ways that are life-giving, not death-dealing. ¯ To be attentive to ongoing learning and enrichment demands that one strive to be updated about religious life, spirituality, the, ology, and so forth, in: addition to fulfilling~"professional" demands for ongoing education. It also means being attentive to one's development as an "interesting" person who can contribute.to community discussions and learning. It means taking time for enrichment, alone and with others. ¯ Friendship in community also involves skills, though no one can make friendship happen. One must look for ways to come to know the people .with whom one shares life, and must do whatever one can to create a community to.which people want to come home. Friendship skills include being able ~nd willing to cele-brate people .and events 4n the company of others. November-December 1998 Bertrand ¯ Common Threads ¯ Leadership ski'lls need to be nurtured in every community member even though such skills will be expressed in many dif-ferent ways on a variety of levels. These skills include taking indi-vidual responsibility within a community of adults, having a voice and being honest and up-front in using that voice for the good of the whole, getting involved in the workings of the congregation ~3n the local level and beyond, and keeping actively in touch with congregational leaders. ¯ Conflict-management skills invite the convictitn that each person is worth the time it~takes to live together well. They involve being honest as well as kind with feedback, being account-able for any effort or lack of effort at being a positive presence in a community. Conflict management calls for a healthy sense of self that allows one to deal with issues, not destroy persons. These are some skills that seem key to living contemporary community life. Some Other Threads .There continue to be questions. Are religious setting them-selves up for failure,and disappointment in taking another look at quality community life, another look at that particular thread? Is this a challenge beyond them? No one can make 'a significant responge alone, not the. congregational leader or any individual member, not a new member or potential candidate, not the voca-tion director. A significant response requires the efforts of as man, y as possible--many interwoven threads. There are people among us who lack either the desire, the aptitude, or both for living community life in this day and age. There are ministerial situations that demand different ways of being community. But in many congregations a substantial group of peo-ple have both the desire and the aptitude to make co.mmunity life work, even under one roof. Community life takes time and energy. There 'is no way around that, even in the best-case scenarios. If congregations want the future to be different, some radical decisions must be made in the present-'if not always big deci-sions, then some smaller ones that are no less radical: These are the ones that touch the day-to-day living of the entire community. How willing am I to be "inconvenienced" for the sake of our future, ~for the sake of not just new members, but also present members? This question is screaming for anoanswer.from indi=' Review for Religious vidual religious and from congregations. The answer may mean reclaiming community as ministry, community as mission. The final thread I will touch upon is perhaps stating the obvi-ous. Vocation ministers, who are some of the most hopeful peo-ple around, indidate time and again that in their work the greatest challenge 4s their own congregational members' lack of aware-ness and response. They do not assume ill will, for they see that people are very busy, involved in many things. How, then, are communitymembers to be made more alert to ways of promot-ing vocations? Congregational leaders are critical players 'in these efforts, b~t congregational members are no less important. Do we pas-sionately desire another generation of religious for the sake of God's people? Are we willing to invite new generations to consider religious life as a viable option, or by our silence have we made the decision for them? The responses to these questions cannot be postponed, to be considered at some other time, Our only time is ,' Questions for Individuals and Communities Something to do now is raise some of the ,following questions in the privacy of your o~n mind and heart--but also to raise them in discussion with other religious in your own congregation, in your own local community, or in any number of other settings.,~ Skills for Self-disclosure What in your life indicates that you have a sense of legitimate boundaries, your own and those of others? What enables .you to express your thoughts and feelings in dialogue and in faith shar-ing? How do you nurture mental and emotional health that allows you to be self-disclosing? How do yob develop healthy self-esteem, self-confidence that allows you to share yourself with others? What gives you the sense that others enjoy being with you? Skills for Other-cehteredness How do you balance self-maintenance with generous pres-ence and service? What gets most attention and energy in your local community? How do you foster local' community life that reaches beyond itself?. What enables you to enter into the re~ility of another? How do you present religious life as a viable option Noventber-Decentber 1998 Bertrand ¯ Common Threads for someone else? How do you share ministry with each other, even if you are in different settings? What sharpens your ability to be a good listener? Skills four Hospitality What do you do to develop social and conversational skills? How are you willing to be inconvenienced for the sake of wel-coming others? What do you do to encourage, potential new mem-bers and to invite them, and others as well, into yo~ur life and into your home? How do you cope with diversit'v? What prevents you at times from being hospitable and welcoming? Skills/:or Healthy Sexuality and lntimaey How would someone, describe your outlook on life? What helps you .to be happy and hopeful? How do you express that sense? How do. you express your celibate choice? How do you describe it? How are you generative in your celibate choice?. What steps do you take to develop and sustain healthy friendships? How does the way you live speak to health and wholeness? Skills for a Healthy Spirituality How :are you faithful to personal and communal'prayer? What other elements of your life indicate a seritusness about your rela-tionship with God? How do you participate in the liturgical life of the church? How does your prayer life reflect the .spirituality of your congregation? How does your spiritual life reflect and support a concern for others? ~ Skills for Shared Living How does the shared living space where you live facilitate quality community life? When are you~generous or territorial in your useof common space and, goods? How are you attentive to the "litde things" that can cause friction or tranquillity in a shared living space? How willing, are you to negotiate, and sometimes settle for conditions that are not to your liking? The persons you live with--what keeps your expectations of them realistic? Skills fo, r Ongoing Learning and Enrichment ~ What steps do you take to keep updated regarding religious-life trends, spirituality, theology? How do you make time for cur-rent reading, awareness of world issues, which can be shared in Review for Religious community? What do you do for enrichment and leisure, indi-vidually and as a local community? What are some of the best ways to "waste time" together? Skills for Friendship in Community What helps you to come to know and appreciate the people with whom you share community life? How do you reflect an openness to potential friendship in community without demand-ing it? What about you would give other people a desire to live in community with you? What about local community makes it a situation to which you want to come home? How do you make choices for quality community time in the face of ministerial demands? How do you celebrate people and events in your local community? How do you share your family and friends with your congregation? How do you give yourself and others a sense of freedom in community relationships? Skills for Leadership What is the role and understanding of leadership in your local community? How do you participate in those responsibilities? What is your expectation of those in congregational leadership in relating to local communities? In what ways do you take ini-tiative in your local community? Sk(lls for Conflict Management , What helps you to be honest and up-front in dealing with conflict in community? How do you give helpful feedback to peers, and how, do you receive it from them? To whom do you hold yourself accountable for trying to live quality community life? For you, what elements of local community can become sources of conflict? What are the most effective ways for you to resolve conflict in your local community? Are you, are we, weaving or unraveling? November-December 1998 SHANTI ABEYASINGHA The Decline in Religious Vocations: : ,A Weberian Perspective y-783 _ religious life, that many who join religious congregations give up halfway, and that some leave even after final profession are things that merit inquiry. For many a religious congregation, vocation questions and vocation promotion are top priorities. A superior of a women's religious congregation told me that she and the sis-ters were trying desperately to get young girls to join because comphter statistics had shown that the congregation would die out if a hundred or more new persons did not come in every year. Deaths each year were outnumbering the entrants, and, accord= ingly, aging.itself had become a more serious~problem too. There are instances where some congregations in the West have come to Asia, Africa, and Latin America (places with more .vocations) in search of candidates. The phenomenon of men;'and women religious coming from the West to work as missionaries also seems to be a thing of the past. In fact, the reverse process seems to be taking place. Religious congregations with branches in Asia, Africa, and Latin America are asking them to come up with volunteers for missionary work in other lands. These instances and others would seem to indicate that religious life is in disarray. Shanti Abeyasingha CSSR has held administrative positions in his order, has done socioeconomic development work in Sri Lanka, and has con-ducted retreats and missions in Sri Lanka, India, and Malaysia. His address is: Redemptorists, Santa Maria; George E. de Silva Mawatha; Kandy, 20000; Sri Lanka. Review for Religious The interesting thing, however, is that the problem of a lack of vocations, which many modern-day religious congregations are facing, was seldom an issue for the founders and foundresses ofireligious congregations~ They do not stem to have had diffi-culty getting people to join their ranks. As their histories often tell us, .people were attracted to the particular work they started and to their commitment and deilication. Many a °person was ready to give up everything and join them. God's Fidelity and Religious Congregations' Continued Existence The Bible speaks again and again about the faithfulness of God. Evenothough we humans are unfaithful, God is shown as the one who is ever faithful to his pr~mises. Along with his faith-fulness, his caring love is always there, ever ready to come to our aid. This' love is brought out clearly in the Exodus experience. The words "I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry 'because of their taskmasters; I know their suffering, and I have comedown to deliver them" (Ex 3:7- 8) expresses it all. vWhen God makes his covenant with the Israelites at Mount Sinai, the people experience and~ understand their God precisely as one who always intervenes on their behalf to alleviate suffering and oppressiom All through human history we encounter human suffering and misery. These are vestiges df sin and .are manifest in the self-ishness of persons who do not care 'for their brothers and sisters. God continues to care for these unfortunate persons all through history. He continues to prove his faithfulness .and concern by raising up women and men who dedicate their lives in the ser-vice of people whom others oppress or ignore and even history forgets. These charismatic personalities emerge especially in moments of, crisis and,decadeffce in society. They, like Moses, are inspired to do God's bidding on behalf of his people. They are in line'with ~the prophets, who denounced oppression while at the same time announcing to the people the good news of liberation and deliverance. In the line of the prophets, these founders of congregations interpreted the signs of the times and responded vigorously. They highlighted something ~hat answered a need in society. They manifested through their actions the faith~lness andthe ¯ November-DecembD" 1998 L -79 Abeyasingba * The Decline in Religious Vocations caring presence of God as he continues to come down and deliver his people from their bondage. Here we have the actual reason for the beginning and the continued exi~stence of religious congre-gations, namely, t~o be extensions of God's presence in the world. The "Routinization" of a charism Max Weber has something to say about such charismatic lead-ers. He says that charismatic leaders are creative and do things that are not in line with the normal run of things in society. He is quick to add, however, that such charismatic leaders do not last. They are a passing phenomenon in society. They appear at cer-tain times in history to answer particular needs of the time. In the course of time, especially after the death of the charismatic leader, his or her original insight becomes traditi~nalized or ratio-nalized or both.~ Weber adds: "It is only in the initial stages, and so long as the charismatic leader acts in a way which is completely outside every day social organization, that it is possible for his followers to live communistically in a community of faith and enthusiasm.''2 Thus, according to Weber, it is only a question of time before the initial charism of the leader becomes "routinized.''3 Usually this takes place after his or her death. In this transformation into a permanent routine structure, one of the first things altered is the anti-economic character of the original charisma.4The followers pursue security and economic stability (as part of security) to. make up for the absence of the founder. Everyday needs and the ordi-nary details of administration necessitate such an adaptation. This process took place even in the church after the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. With routinization comes an attempt to preserve the leader's thought and way of life. Normally this takes the form of pre-serving his or her letters, instructions,- documents, and sayings, along with eyewitness reports, accounts from the~first companions, and so on. Guidelines are set for the training of future followers. These are usually spelled out in documents such as rules, consti-tutions, and statutes, which are updated from time to time by general chapters and by special commissions appointed by them. The result is a system of organization different from that which existed during the time of the charismatic leader. During the leader's lifetime, the way of making decisions, the way of act- Review for Religious ing, and in short the whole way the group functioned could be said to have been somewhat arbitrary and unpredictable. There was no formal or well-defined way of doing a particular thing. The leader's personality was the key factor, and it overshadowed what-ever structures and procedures were already in place, regarding the community and its mission. Max Weber says that "the routinization of charisma also takes the form of the appropriation of powers of control and of eco-nomic advantages by the followers,or disciples and of regulation of the recruitment of these groups.''5 In other words, the rou-tinization process in a congregation includes the manner and the basis of choosing leaders, the training or tests of eligibility of the new recruits, the way of governing the members, their rights and duties, and so on.6 Also, it is very much akin to the adaptation that constantly takes place in economic life--for the economy is on~ of the principal and continually operating forces in everyday life. In the whole question of routinization, the economic condi-tions play a leading role'and do not constitute merely a dependent variable.7 Bureaucratic Org.anization and Religious Life From the foregoing it will be clear that accompanying the whole process of the routinization of a charism is the attempt to coordinate activities. Weber calls this the process of rationaliza-tion or the process of bureaucratic organizatipn. He goes on to say that this is a distinctive mark of the modern era. Bureaucracy has shaped modern politics, the modern economy, modern technol'- ogy, and modern church life and religious life too. Max Weber considered the bureaucratic organization to be technically supe-rior to all other forms of administration. He says' also that only through this device, namely bureaucracy, has large-scale planning of the modern state and the modern economy become possible,s The main characteristics of a bureaucratic organization are: ¯ It is organized according to rational principles: rules, con-stitutions, and statutes. (This is something that developed in religious congregations.) ¯ The offices are ranked in a hierarchical order. (Religious congregations, too, have a hierarchical order, that is, gen-eral, his or her consulto~rs, the different secretariats, provin-cials, vice-provincials, and so on.) Novetttber-December 1998 Abeyasingba * The Decline in Religious Vocations Efficiency has hhd the effect of making religious congregations inefficient in answering the changed needs of the times. ¯ The operations (of offices) are characterized by imper-sonal rules. (The various offices in religi~ous congregations, too, have clearly defiiaed procedures.) ¯ The members are governed by methodical allocation of areas of jurisdiction.(Today the members of religious con-gregations fire allocdted 'into provinces, vice-provinces, regions, and so on.) ¯ Appointments to offices are generally made according to specialized qualifications. Those who can fit into the bureaucratic administrative set-up are the ones who are normally considered for s~h offices. Just as bureaucracy has its advantages, it also has its draw-backs. Its very strengths are also its weaknesses. Because of its rationalized organization, bureaucracy sometimes becomes unwieldy and even stultifying in dealing with individual cases. Modern rationalized and bureaucratized systems find themselves incapable of dealing with particularities. In other words, the individual's initiative and creativity are submerged under a deluge of reasons that are derived mechanically from the 0 code of behavior.~° Depersonalization is another result of bureaucratization. The organization seems to take precedence over the personhood of the individual." In the last analysis, although bureaucratization and rationalization may have increased the efficiency of the o.r, ga: nization, this very efficiency threatefis to dehumanize its ere-ators. 12 In such a setup, 0there is little room for charismatic personalities to emerge. , From what has been said, one sees the implications of bureau-cratization for the functioning~of religious life. While on the one hand it has organized and systematized administration, on the other hand it has stifled some new initiatives and new thinking. Persons who propose changes in hitherto :accepted ways of doing things could very well find themselves isolated or labeled rebel-lious or considered excrescences that need to be removed because they are a hindrance to the smooth running of the ihstitute. Worse still would be the sad refility of some finding themselves outside the institute because their ideas do not find acceptance with the Review for Religious administration. To put it in another way,. this very efficiency has had the effect of making religious congregations inefficient in answering the changed conditions and changed needs of the times. Understanding Vatican II's Renewal Guidelines Something that should not be forgotten is that the intention of these charismatic leaders was to answer particular needs in society. They were answering a local need. What took priority was the need of the people, not the organization of a group with rules and. regulations. Only much later, as numbers increased and in some cases lived far from the original local area, did the group give ,special attention to its own formation. This fact should be kept in mind when we speak of the inspiration of the founder or foundress. As has been explained, with the death of the charismatic ,leader, the routinization process took. over,' bringing .to the now more organized institute a corresponding sense of securityoand stability ,among the members. This in turn created a certain insen-sitivity to the actual needs of the people, espec!ally the poor. It is in this context that one has to understand the appeal made by the Second Vatican Council: The appropriate renewal of religious life involves two simul-taneous pr%cesses: (I) a continuous return to the sources ~ 9f all Christian life and to the original inspiration b~hind a given community and (2) an adjustment of the community to the changed conditions of the times. Clearly, the council envisaged two simultaneous processes for the renewal of religious life. It went on to enumerat.e certain princi-ples in accord with which such renewal was to proceed: to follow Christ, to participate in the life of the church, to seek to identify the institute's,particular character and purpose, and to be aware of contemporary human conditions and of the needs of the church. Renewal in the Context of Max Weber's Routinization With such an impetus given by the council, one could have noticed certain initiatives taken by various communities. Many congregations set up commissions to study their roots, going into the history of their founding inspirations. General chapters made it their chief objective to redraft their respective rules and con- Novonber-Dece~nber 1998 Abeyasingba * The Decline in Religious Vocations stitutions according to the mind and spirit of the documents of the Second Vatican Council. That the various congregations made a sincere effort to adjust themselves to the changed conditions of the times cannot be denied. In the renewed constitutions one could notice that provision was made for individual initiatives. Furthermore, units of the congregation in various countries were given the freedom to adapt and change according to their par-ticular situation. These were praiseworthy changes indeed, which by and large were done after a general consultation of all the members. One could not help noticing, however, that the final outcome was worked out within a bureaucratic setup.which was hierarchical in its composition. Any new efforts were to be tried out within a certain organizational framework of the congregation. Furthermore, the starting point of such ventures was a position of economic security. This meant that the inSecurity, the uncertainty. the risk--very much a part of the life and experience of the fouflders when they first set out to answer the need of the hour!- was not there. Also~ the Vatican Council's guidelines for adjusting the com-munity to the changed conditions of the times were not followed fully. There was a general move towards a more simple lifestyle. Institutes made changes in their religious garb, in food customs, in their cloister regulations, and so forth. There was, however, no sign of a change of structures in keeping with what the founders had had during their lifetime. Changes took place only within confines that ensured that the boat would not be rocked too much. It had to be so, inasmuch as the process of roudnization was firmly entrenched. Adjusting to the changed co.n.ditions of the times (at the coun-cil's direction) was, then, not an easy task. In practical terms, con-gregations, in spite of all their goodwill and efforts to be relevant in the present day, found themselves up against a bureaucratic system incapable of providing room for the charismatic figures who might have renewed them by making the necessary paradigm shifts. By and large this could be attributed to the routinization of the charism that religious congregations underwent after the death of their founders. As a result, the religious-life renewal that the council proposed could not be realistically achieved. If the needs of people in the various areas had been met, there would have been no dearth of vocations in the religious congregation. In Review.for Religious other words, there is no need for advertising a product that is selling and is in demand in the market. Efficiency or Effectiveness ~Max Weber's sociological observations, when applied to a reli-gious institute, do indeed seem to throw some light on the reasons for the'almost universal decline in religious vocations. As long as a bureaucratic way of life governs religious congregations, they will almost always manifest a certain efficiency in whatever work they do. The work, however, ma3i not be effective, for such a system of administration does not always respond in a vigorously prophetic manner to the urgent and crying needs of the people. ' The history of the church shows that ~hange has often come from areas off the beaten track, where some indi-viduals had found a way for themselves. In modern religious cong.regations, organized in the way they are, it is almost impossible to accommodate such trailblazing elements. It can be noted historically that only the dark eras of history witness the emergence of new religious congregations. Critical times almost always bring about a breakdown of existing systems, but it is .in these chaotic and confusing situations that charismatic per-sonalities seem to apEear out of nowhere. The late Mother Teresa's Missionaries of:Charity were such a response to a chaotic situation in one of the most populated and crowded' cities in the-world, Calcutta. Her prophetic voice of compassion and kindness to the poorest of the poor cut through such barriers as caste, religion, and class. Her living witness and work proclaimed to all people the dignity of each and every per-son, which a world had lost sight of in its quest for power and wealth. Her response had a universal and global character. Her message is clear, something that religious congregations could ponder as they rethink their charisms while they and the world step into the 21 st century. The decline in religious vocations is not an entirely negative thing. A search through the crisis will make us see the reasons It is in chaotic and confusing situations that charismatic personalities seem to appear out of nowhere. L5"_S.5"__ Noventber-December 1998 Abeyasingba ¯ The Decline in Religious Vocations why such a situation has come to pass. Instead of looking at pres-ent- day confusion with tunnel vision, one should see it in.a global perspective and as a precursor of growth. Mother Teresa's e~tam-pie could help towards such a rethinking. So also could the obser-vations made by Max Weber. They can facilitate taking stock and analyzing the present situation of religious congregations. From thls starting point religious congregations could proceed to make the drawbacks and weaknesses that are found in current struc-tures irrelevant. They could make themselves ready to face the challenges of tomorrow. Weber's.Ansights, by helping us learn the truth about ourselves, can ready us to proceed to generatiye and creative actions. They can challenge us to do some honest and humble soul searching about our present situation, In St. Paul's words (2 Co 12:10), "When I am weak, then Iam strong." Notes l Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organizqtion, trans. A.R. Henderson and Talcott Parsons (U.K.: William Hodge~ and Company, 1947), p. 334. :2 Weber, Theory, p. 337. 3 "Routinization" is Max Weber's term for the phenomenon of an original idea (here, that of the charismatic leader) becoming organized a~d conceptualized in the course of time. This is the result~of the interpret-ing, analyzing,, rationalizing, and so forth that take place when congre-gations study the writings of their founders, the accounts, of' their immediate companions and a.ssociates, the recollections of others Eho knew them, and so forth. 4 In their initial insight, almost all charismatic leaders are anti-eco~ nomic; they set t~p almost no economic system for collecting or raising funds. It is the personali.ty of the leaders that attracts others~' td them and also brings in donations and gifts. The aim of charism~itic le'aders is to achieve a special goal (filling a need of the society at that time, usually serving the poor), not to meet their own day-to-day needs. SWeber, Theory, p. 337. 6 The original basis of recruitment was the founders' personal charism. A .charism is something that can only be ;'awakened" and ".tested," not something that can be taught and learned. Novitiates arid houses of for° marion, however, tend to assume a teaching stance. See W~eber, Theory, pp. 337-338. 7 Weber, Theory, p. 342. s When religious congregations spread beyond their original geo-~ graphical area and the routinization process had been set in motion, there was no preventing a bureaucratic organization. Review for Religious o Lewis A. Coser, Masters of Sociological Thought: Ideas in Historical and Social Context (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), pp. 230- 231. 10 Reinhard Bendix, Max Weber, An Intellectual Portrait (Garden City, N Y.: Doubleday, 1960), p. 421. ~ Bendix, pp. 421-422. 12 Coser, Masters, pp. 231-232. ,3 Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of the Religious Life (Perfectae caritatis), §2. the departed say we are not dead see ohr faces hear ohr voices when you leadt expect like neighbors visitihg unhnnounced we are'some~lace ~ withih view within earshot like others in your house but we are, at liberty to come and go without weight.or circumscription like winds in harp strings like real answers to your real questions Avis Kunca Kubick Novetttber-Decetttber 1998 JOHN BLAKE MORE Spiritual Maturity ife.in the spirit Reading my first Thomas Merton book back in my early twenties, I came across the phrase "spiritual maturity," an expression that delighted and fascinated me even though I had no clue of what it was designed to express. I won-dered about it for several months and even reflected on its possible meaning, but then it receded into the less acces-sible regions of my consciousness and enjoyed untroubled slumber for some time. But not forever. Over the years, as I have become more life-mature and more di'scernibly chronologically mature, the phrase "spiritual matur!ty" has--through reading, conversation, and simple observa-tion- returned to my sight and consciousness many times, to haunt me but also to stimulate me to explore further its possible meanings and its probable connections to every-day life. What would.a spiritually mature person look like or act like? Am I a spiritually mature person? Is it possi-ble for me to become one? Do I know any spiritually mature persons? All this questioning and thinking over the years has led me to formulate tentatively some answers, some ideas that I think have helped me and that I want to share with others. Some of these ideas are derivative: I got them from other folks. Others are either original or synthetic, fash-ioned from items found in reading and conversation and from observing the behavior and attitudes of people I meet. John Blake More, new to our pages, writes from Tejtn 34 - Sm. 20; Cancfin Quintana Roo; 77500 Mexico. Review for Religious A spiritually mature person is probably creative. At least one religious tradition holds that we are made in the image and like-ness of God, and, if we ask ourselves in what this image and like-ness really consist, we naturally come up with the notion that we are like God because we are creative as he is creative. We are ere- ~tive because God made us that way. He made us free and there-fore creative. As humans we show our creativity in at least three 'important spheres (and here I follow Paul Ricoeur): having, power, and valuing. Having. In the exercise of creativity all people, even the spir-itually mature, need to have some material.goods for their own use. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. But the major religious tradi-tions and the spiritual values they represent do not seem to place much importance on the acquisition of wealth, do they? In fact, they see great riches as a disvalue. So spiritually mature persons are not much concerned with acquiring wealth and possessions beyond what they need to get along decently in life. On the other hand, people who have lots of possessions have greater opportu-nities to be creative. They can create new jobs for others, build libraries ~nd museums, or Simply give some of their excess money to .people who need it to survive. In itself; possessing wealth really seems to be spiritually neutral. If one sees possession as steward-ship, it can be something positive. If, however, people believe they are the outright owners without considering that God has entrusted them with these possessions and that they must appor-tion them responsibly, then they are probably not much con-cerned with growth in the Spirit. ~ 0 Power. Spiritually mature persons are probably aware of their own need for power, but are also conscious that everyone else has the same need. We need, in the first place, power over ourselves: self-determination to decide where to live or work, who our friends and associates will be, what kind of lifestyle we will adopt or develop for ourselves. We also need to be able to exercise power over others, but this must be legitimate power, the kind of power society assigns to us and expects us to exercise intelli-gently for the cbmmon good. We have to make choices for, our children. We have to determine the ~activities of our employees if we have any. But, in these activities and others like them, if we allow strength and power to become force and coercion, we can be pretty sure we are not much interested in becoming spiritually mature. We are dismayed when we read of dictatorial aggression, November-December 1998 More ¯ Spiritual Maturity ruthless kidnappings, tribal wars, but force and coercion can occur in little things of daily life and they can have the appearance of being extremely civilized and in the best of taste. :Valuing. In the sphere of valuing, we show our creativity by making determinations about the relative worth of things and activities. Nowadays it is out of fashion to be what people call "judgmental" "because, if you tell p6ople they are doing some-thing wrong, like putting a round peg into a square hole, the~ may feel threatened or embarrassed, feelings which may be owing to a kind of paranoia rather than to comments one may offer con-structively. Spiritually mature persons seldom if ever "condemn," but th.ey must in certain situations be judgmental.Th'at is why ¯ we':haSte crii:ical faculties: to make decisions about what is worthy and what is not, to be ab!e.to distinguish between the junk and the good stuff. And that is what prophecy is all about: shouting from the housetops when you see injustice and abuse.The spiritually mature person, then, distinguishes between healthy and modest criticism done in a spirit of love, and foolish or malicious remarks made in some other spirit. We must evaluate or criticize our cul-ture, our government, our friendships, and of course ourselves. While smiling permissiveness is no virtue, it is also true that unwavering tolerance and spiritual maturity have .always been on the closest terms. One good sign of spiritual growth is a weakening of our most cherished prejudices. When we hate, fear, or feel threatened by another person simply because he is different from us, then we are failing to appreciate the image and likeness of God in that person. These are three general areas that merit consideration as we ponder the nature of spiritual maturity, but other things, too, should be looked at. Frie.ndship is of great importance in the spir-itual life. All the grea( figures of the .important religious tradi-tions, those who had the ,primal mystical experience that gave .rise to those traditions, had friendships with other people. They loved their friends dearly and openly. We, too, are right to treat, our friends lovingly, with tenderness. We look forward to seeing them and spending time with them. We talk with them about'our desires and aspirations, and we confide to them our fears and failures. We inspire them and corisole them.Sometimes we revive ~them when their spirits droop. ,Some people who are mature in the spirit experience some' difficulty in maintaining, friendships for reasons of transport, distance, or schedule, but such difficulties are ! Review for Relig4ous not insurmountable. People can ha-be a firm and meaningful frien'dghip by correspondence. Sure, by mail. Why not? If you know someone whose values and outlook are compatible with yours, you can have an ongoing correspondence with him or her that will be significant for both your live~, and also enriching. You do not have to write anything world-shaking or mind-bog-gling. Writing takes a little more time and effort than a face-to-face chat, and it does not offer the same consolations and pleasures as real face-to-face togetherness, but it is still something of great worth. Growth in the spirit is closely connected to skill in the ~ine art of listening. When I told a friend that some-one had said I was a good conversationalist, he answered that what she really meant was that I am a good listener. I wonder how right he was.'The plain fact, though, i~ that people do like to be listened to, and the spiritually mature person is a master at listening lovingly, corn-" passionately, but also selectively. By this I do not mean the kind of selective listening that'~ filters all I hear through my own ego supports in order to register only those things that satisfy or interest me. Although an interchange between friends may involve a recounting of events or a descrip-tion of facts, when I listen to a friend I am not trying to acquire factual information. I am trying to get a sense of his or her state of mind and soul. This is not always easy, in view of personality differences and of people's varying ability to articulate their inner dispositions. But~ When we listen, we need to care mostly about the person we are listening to. Spiritually mature persons have a delightful sense of child-like wonder that makes everything new. Sophisticated people who have seen it all and done it all, or just do not want to get involved, area lov less fun to be with than men and women who have a deep spiritual sense of wonder. Wonder leads to openness and surprise, contentment and faithfulness, curiosity and enthusiasm. It also brings an appreciation of the uniqueness of each person along with a sense of brotherhood and equality. " Surprising as it may seem, spiritually mature people are hardly ever highly disciplined people. This is because they are loving persons. They do everything that has to be done, they do it at the appointed time, and they 'do it right--not because they have discipline, but because they have love. They are.motivated to read Friendship is of great importance in the spiritual life. November-December 1998 More ¯ SpiritualMaturity Surprising as it may seem, spiritually mature people are hardly ever highly disciplined people. books and wash floors and get to work on time because they live out Augustine's dictum "Love and do as you please." A sullen-faced p4rson probably has too much discipline and too little love. When the persons I am talking about look out at the world, they-see a lot of ambiguity and they embrace it heartily as a major component of human life. If the Creator is good, why does he allow us to suffer so much? Why should I help the poor if poverty is not eradicable? This kind of ambiguity is embraced and accepted by mature .persons of all spiritual tradi-tions, and in the case of Christian spir-ituality there is the model of the ambiguity of the cross. Why should I forgive these people if they are killing me? Why should I ask my Father for help if he has abandoned me? And, putting the two questions together, why should I ask my Father to forgive these people who are killing me if my Father has already abandoned me? For the spiritually mature these are actually non.questions, even as they represent realities that have to be faced. Not because maturity pro-duces historical or social blindness, but because serious consider-ation of such issues leads to acceptance of reality. Such questions, when formulated as questions, are not answerable. And even here ~here is a further ambiguity: how can I accept the reality of drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, rampant poverty and ignorance, and on and on, and still work to change all these social ills, to provide some alleviation to all the suffering they cause? Does "That's the way the world is" mean "why try to change it!"? Language use, too, has to be considered in connection,with spiritual maturity. As little children we learn to use language as an instrument to further our own designs and to get others to behave in ways that promote our own interests. If we learn this skill well as children and then refine it as adults, we become wonderful manipulators or even politicians, and this is why. spiritually mature people hardly ever go into politics. They lack skill in using lan-guage instrumentally. They say what they mean and they mean what they say. They use language to inform or to persuade, but never to.manipulate. Modern societies view independence as a positive andhighly desirable virtue. Mos't parents say they want their children to Review for Religious become independent. We admire the "independent spirit." Actually, such independence is a fiction and a most undesirable one. In reality, each of us is highly dependent on at least a few other humans, and we should be. Living in human society means being interdependent: I depend on you and you depend on me. This is an important ingredient in the cement that holds human society together and promotes the development of culture. Instead of~insisting on their independence, spiritually mature persons consider themselves autonomous--which suggests the ability to live and act in freedom from outside control, coercion, or manip-ulation. That is different from independence because in my free-dom I acknowledge that I depend--sometimes radically--on others, and they on me. In our day most of us are aware (sometimes painfully aware) that the subject matter of life (the real business of human exis-tence) is change and that, in the best case, change takes the form of transformation of the person into an ever more human creature. Being human is a good thing and does not mean, as the cynic 'believes, unremitting egotism and venality. Before he started feel-ing hi.s oats, Adam was so perfect that he had conversations with God as they walked "in the cool. of the day." Being human should mean changing arid becoming perfect, as our Father is perfect. Since most of us consider such perfection an unrealizable ideal, persons who think about becoming spiritually mature prob-ably have a set of unattainable goals that they take quite seriously and adhere to assiduously. They have probably formulated a set of precepts which relate to these goals and which articulate their creatureliness and humanness during their inner conversations with themselves and with' the Spirit of God. In my own thinking about becoming mature in the Spirit, I have come up tentatively with three precepts that reflect my own human creatureliness, but are also ordered toward my capacity to become a "partaker of the divine naturE." I use them to talk to myself. Let me offer them here. Deepen your understanding of reality. Try to get a good grasp of reality by asking the ~right questions. The right questions always have three distinguishing characteristics: they.are unanswerable, they always lead to other and better questions, and they almost always begin with why. Acquiring knowledge requires study and learning from good teachers and good books, along with the will-ingness to undergo the suffering involved in replacing stale beliefs November-December 1998 More ¯ Spiritual Maturity with new data. It also dem'ands increasing connectedness to the culture in which I live and awareness of how life is lived in other cultures. What I should be looking for are meaning and connec-tion: the ultimate unity of all being and its essential oneness with the Absolute. ' Refine your tastes. Begin by distinguishing the merely attractive or pretty from the truly beautiful. If you were brought up on rock music, Mozart probably leaves you cold. Praxiteles probably has little to say to you if you think Schwarzenegger and Stallone are beautiful, Biat we should perhaps not consider ourselves less wor~ thy humans if we are drawn.to the merely attractive or pretty. ' This happens in the best of families, doesn't it? As young peo-ple, when we are most curious about the world and our place in it, we are bombarded with sounds and images and esthetic val-ues from the popular culture. Butwe eventually grow out of that; we ~"put away the things of a child," as St. Paul says. Evil is, of course, the ultimate ugliness, and our involvement in it dimin-ishes our humanity and tarnishes the image of God in us. ~ Formalize your ethics. Here we make a distinction between for-mal and material moral norms. Material norms deal with specific actions and decisions such as killing, steal!ng, and lying (not rec-ommended); and with praying, respecting authority, and being faithful (highly approved and even urged). There is only one norm for those who follow the way of formal ethics: Always seek the good and avoid what is evil. This norm is assimilated and interi-orized by spiritually mature persons to the ext~nt that it becomes part of their nature. In all their decisions and actions, attitudes and dispositions, they keep both eyes on the truly good: good for themselves, their family, their society, their nation, their 151anet: The more this single norm gets imprinted on their souls, the less they have to run through a mental checklist of material norms (do's and don'ts) to see what is prohibited and what is approved. "Seek what is good and avoid what is evil." 'Finally, spiritually mature persons are surely happy persons who radiate to o~hers their joy at living in this world with other people and at spending periods of time in prayerful silence com-muning with the Absolute. Their joy is increased by the knowl-edge that whatever spiritual maturity they may have attained is in fact a free gift from a loving and gracious God. Review for Religious DENNIS J. BILLY A "Spiritdal Turn" for Catholic Moral Theology MGY first encounter with Bernard H~iring,'ithe renowned erman Redemptorist who wrote such significant w. orks as The Law of Christ (1954)~and Free and Faithful in Christ (1978- 1981) and whom many have hailed as the father of contemporary Catholic moral theology, came during a' congress of Redemptorist moral theblogians held at Aylmer; Quebec~ 26-30June 1989. Or/ the second day of the congress,, after he had given an insightful presentation to the general assembly on the state of moral theol-ogy since Vatican Council II, I found myself sitting next to him at lunch as hemused out loud in his weak, barely audible voice (from his long and difficult battle with throat cancer) on the future of moral,theological reflection within the Catholic tradition. Then, as now, a single thought stood out from all the rest: "We have lost sight of the Holy Spirit. In the future, moral theology must give more emphasis to the role of the Spirit. Otherwise, all is lost." Hiiring was so insistent on ~his point that he stated it out-right .at a later session in a rare personal intervention from the floor, For more than eight years, I hav~ been p~ndering the mean-ing of these quiet, unassuming words perhaps in ways which he himself might not have accepted. Retrieving the Spirit Given the vast varieties of pseudo-mysticism in the history of Christianity and the great facility with which the name of the Dennis J. Billy CSSR, a frequent contributor, writes again from Rome, where his address is Accademia Alfonsiana; C.P. 2458; 00100 Roma, Italy. November-December 1998 Billy * A "Spiritual Turn" for Catholic Moral Theology Spirit can be and has been invoked as a way of avoiding critical moral reflection, it is easy to understand how, quite early on, within orthodox circles a latent (and sometimes overt) suspicion grew of anything that even vaguely resembled a charismatic ren-dering of truth by a small "Spirit-filled" elite. To a large extent the church's magisterial structure (that is, its emphasis on apostolic succession and the role of tradition) took shape as a result of its struggle against the esoteric (and sometimes laxist) tendencies of Gnostic mysticism, on theone hand, and the rigorist tenets of Montanist spiritualism, on the other (to name two of the more prominent examples). Historians point to the church's institu-tionalization of the Spirit in the office of the episcopacy and its subsequent control of the sacramental life of the Christian faith-ful as the predominant means by which, down through the cen-turies, it has safeguarded itself from similar threats. One of the unfortunate by-products of this process of insti-tutionalization was the gradual marginalization of the Spirit from the inner workings of Catholic theological reflection. As the mag-isterium became more and more centralized, it consolidated its hold over what it considered the "authentic" utterings of the Spirit and helped to create an atmosphere in which theologians were constrained to pursue their goals within increasingly limited notions of rationality. The gradual shift in Western hermeneuti-cal thought from allegory to syllogism to induction gives evi-dence to this effect, as does the roughly parallel movement in rational theory from analogy to univocity to equivocation. By most counts, this momentous restructuring of the rational pro-cesses of Western thought was as much a function of rising mag-isterial control of the sacred as of an ever changing philosophical terrain (as witnessed in the successive preeminence of Neoplatonic, Aristotelian, and Nominalist thought patterns). Localizing spiritual authority in ecclesiastical institutions, in other words, had the unforeseen .effect of gradually .disassociating ratio-nal discourse from its roots in the intuitive dimension of human existence, that side of human nature most likely to sustain a close experiential rapport with the Spirit. To speak in broad historical terms, the "despiritualization" of human reason had barely begun in the patristic and monastic traditions of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages (when the centralization of ecclesiastical power was hardly underway in Rome), had made recognizable progress during the early Scholastic period (near the time of the Gregorian Review for Religious Reform and the Investiture crisis), was in full swing with the rise of Nominalism in the early 14th century (not long after Boniface VIII's proclamation of Unam sanctam in 1302), and had reached its highest stage of development during the Age of the Enlightenment (just before Vatican Council I's proclamation of papal infallibility). Putting aside the more difficult task of discerning which histor-ical progression was influenced by which, and recognizing the probability of a circular relationship between the two (as well as the likely involvement of other discernible historical factors), one cannot help wondering if the present-day postmodern disillu-sionment with human reason--itself a reaction against the failed hopes of Reason's .coming of age--will herald an attempt to retrieve reason's lost association with the spiritual. If so, one would also have to wonder if the present tendency in the governing structures of Roman Catholicism toward increased centralization is nothing more than a momentary stay in a larger process of decentralization, the forces of which were at work long before the opening of Vatican II and will probably continue. An Anthropological Turn t Such a retrieval or "reinvestment" of reason's ties with "things spiritual" must proceed from the ins'~ghts of a sound Christian anthropology. In the present circumstances, the Pauline body/soul/spirit arrangement as formulated in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 proves especially helpful: "May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your ~spirit and soul and' body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Here Paul provides an anthropology that construes the human person as a union of three distinct (albeit intimately related) ele-ments: body (soma), soul (psyche), and spirit (pneuma). These ele-ments exist together in the human person and cannot be isolated one from another (as if a human body can be separated from the soul and spirit and still be examined intact). So closely are they related, in fact, that one cannot speak of spirit outside the context of soul and body, and vice versa. Since Paul proposes these anthro-pological terms while addressing the community of believers in the church at Thessalonica, care must be taken not to isolate his understanding of human existence from either its inherent social context or the life of faith. Account must also be taken of the fact that, although he insists on their intimate union in the human m Noventber-Decentber 1998 Billy * A "Spiritual Turn" for Catholic Moral Theology person, he actually says precious little about how body, soul, and spirit relate to one another in the concrete circumstances of daily living. Given these significant contextual details (or lack thereof), the following claims appear generally continuous with the main lines of Paul's anthropological vision and offer correctives to pres-ent- day exaggerated emphasis on the rational. (1) In addition to body and soul, a person can also experience his or her spirit. ,(2) A retrieval or "'reinvestment " of reason's ties with "things spiritual" must proceed from the insights of a sound Christian anthropo!ogy. The mutual relationship between body. and soul suggests a similar rapport between soul and spirit. (3) The spirit touches ~he body through the medidtion of the soul.~(4) Generally speak-. ing, the Holy Spirit touches an individual by communicating its grace first to a person's spirit and then through the .spirit to the person.'s soul and body. (5) God and the human person can enjoy a close interpersonal rapport by.virtue of their communing spirits. (6)People relate to one another on the level of body. soul, and spirit. (7) The Spirit unites the Body of Christ, the church, not only theologically (that is, to God), but also anthropologically (that is, among its members). (8) It does so primarily on the .level of human spirit and only secondarily on the other dimensions of human existence. Elicited from the Paulin4 anthropology of 1 Thessaloni~ns 5:23, these anthropological claims provide the parameters by which a discussion abo,ut reason's "spiritual renewal" may pro-deed. Key to this discussion is the need for all theologians (and moral theologians in particular) to recognize the competence (and the limits) of reason's rule. Just as reason extends to the body through its ordering of the passions (and is thereby "enfleshed"), so the spirit extends to the soul (the seat of the rational faculty) by means of its quiet in.tuiting presence. Clearly, both movements have moral significance that must be taken into account for the future of moral theology. The Criteria of Reason's Spiritual Rebirth What,might such limits be? Without exhausting the possi-bilities, the following list provides some guidelines for discerning Review for Religious the genuine ways in which reason and spirit mutually influence one another. 1. An anthropological relationship of circularity exists between spirit and reason; that is, the insights of one complement the scope and competence of the other in such a way that, when taken together, their interaction generates a field of understanding unique to themselves and which neither would be fully capable of penetrating on its own. Spirit .brings intuition and moments of keen insight to the movement of discursive thought; reason artic-ulates through language something of the inexpressible utterings of the human spirit. Authentic theological reflection taps into this relationship of circularity and allows it to open up for each succeeding generation the meaning of the symbols of the Christian faith, ~. 2. The spirit influences the mind through prayer, and vice versa. When a person.'s spirit communes with God's Spirit, there is a natural reverberation (however slight) in the other, anthro-pological dimensions of human existence. This subtle influence, which will become a veritable overflowing (redundantia) in the beatific vision, strengthens the transcendent orientation of an individual's rational operation. A "spiritua!" person tends to Con-centrate on holy things and seeks to view all things with th'e mind of God. The person?s prayer (contemplative prayer in particular) plays a transforming rather than merely ancillary role in reason's spiritual homecoming, 3. The human spirit is not "irrational," but "supranational." It does not ask reason to go against its own internal principles, but seeks continually to broaden reason's, scope by providing intu-itions that challenge previously unquestioned (and possibly falla-cious) arguments. When reason is in tune with wholesome human spirit (and even more so whefiit is in touch with God's Spirit), it is. constantly prompted to reach beyond itself and to stretch the boundaries within which it normally functions. This extended x~ange is a welcome corrective to that narrowing univocity which nowadays often masquerades as the sole legitimate face of ratio-nal inquiry. ~ 4. Theologians who reintegrate spirit and reason demonstrate a guarded yet profound respect for church authority. The gradual marginalization of spirit from the center of theological reflec-tion, which came at least in part as a result of magisterial cen-tralization and control of the sacred, does not mean that a November-December 1998 Billy ¯ A~'Spiritual Turn"for Catholic Moral TheoloKF .--7- 600 "respiritualized" reason will ignore or, worse, openly disdain the valuable hermeneutical role the magisterium has played in the history of the Catholic tradition. On the contrary, a reintegra-tion of spirit and reason should bring about an even closer work-ing relationship between theologians (in. their concern for reasoned clarity and the e.xploration of' the faith) and the magis-terium (in its concern for the preservation and purity of the faith). While neither will always agree with the other, a close working relationship between them will provide helpful correctives against the extremes of overrationalization and pseudo-mysticism that can all too often get in the way of and even obscure sound theo-logical reflection. 5. A closer working rapport between spirit anal reason will require a reintegrated understanding of the various theological disciplines, especially dogmatic, moral, and spiritual theology. The unfortunate breakup of theology in recent centuries into sep-arate and highly specialized disciplines can itself be understood as a symptom of reason's ongoing despir, itualization. A renewed or "respiritualized" understanding of reason will operate success-fully only in a context ~at seeks to preserve the unity of theology in the midst of its highly specialized and sometimes .seemingly disconnected parts. 6. Renewing reason's link with the spirit will also move a per-son's sense of vocation to the center of theological reflection. No longer will theology, be construed as something existing "in the abstract," as if proceeding outside the theologian's own personal and communal faith experience. Any presentation and consequent systematization of the symbols~of the faith will be valid only to the extent that it remains faithful to and. authentically expresses the deepest sense of a,person's call in life before God through the church and in the world. One's reflection on God, in other words. must tak~ place in the context of one's sense of self in the presence of God and the community of believers. 7. The reason/spirit relationship sheds greater ligh~ on the importance of there being a continuity between theologians' pro-fessional work and their moral behavior. Sound theological reflec-tion stems from a stable interplay between spirit and reason. It reflects the contours of individuals' calls from God in this life and reaches its fullest expression when it is enfleshed in the con-crete circumstance~ of their daily existence. This cannot happen, however, if reason is deprived of all access to the nourishing roots Review for Religious of the spirit, where the human person communes with the Spirit of God through a grace that is freely given and freely received. Sound theological reflection challenges the theologian to int~- grate reason and spirit, theological discourse and personal sanc-tity. The church needs theologians who want to be saints, who admit this desire without false humility, and who bring this desire to the forefront of their theological inquiry. 8. Finally, a reintegration of spirit and reason would sustain within theological reflection a healthy tension between "theol-ogy as science" and "theology as art." Reason's desire to ver-ify corfipl~ments the spirit's yearning for m3?stery, and vice versa. Together they provide useful correctives to the ten-dencies of overrationalization and exaggerated rhetoric, which lessen theology's scope by seekings to turn it into something it is not and should not be, Theology is more than science and mole than art, It Future moral,theological discussion will have to develop a greater sensitivity to the ethical content of humanity's symbolic xpressions. is science and.art, a rare "field-encompassing" discipline which touches all areas of human knowl-edge in its attempt to convey the meaning of the Christian faith to each successive generation.1 By preserving this tension, theo-logical reflection retains a ~.ay of expressing the faith ever anew yet always ina~cord with th~ church's theological tradition. New and creative insights emerge from the tradition precisely in this way, .thereby allowing it to expand its theologic.al horizons and to move 'forward. Implications for Moral Theology The above criteria represent just some of the ways in which a deeper understanding of the relationship between spirit and reason would change ~he way in which theology itself is conceived and carried out. As one might expect, they have very concrete implications for the future of moral theology. 1. Moral theology would be challenged to break out of its hylomorphic rendering of the human (that is, moral) act that has "get the parameters for serious discussion within the Catholic tra- Noventber-December 1998 Billy ¯ A "Spiritual Turn" for Catholic Moral TbeoloKF ~dition since the time of Aquinas. A human action is more than just an expre~ssion of body (as the object of the external action) and mind (as the internal movement of deliberated will). Greater sen-sitivity mu~t be given in futur, e moral-theological reflection to the influence which a person's spirit brings to moral action. A good place to begin would be to apply the insights of Aquir~as's teaching on grace (which, intere~stingly, he considers under the New Law at the end of his treatment of the fundamental princi-ples of morality, that is, Summa tbeologiae, I-lI, qq. 109-114, to the Pauline rendering of 'human anthropology as body (soma), soul (psyche), and spirit (pneuma). 2. Eor ~this to occur, a shift must take place in the under-standing of the nature and role of rationality in current moral-the-ologiEal reflection. In its attempt in recent years to model itself after the empirical and social sciences, theology in general (and moral theology in particular) has adopted a univocal understand-ing of rational inquiry that prevents a balanced interplay of rea-son and spirit from entering into the legitimate bounds of serious theological refledtion. The result has been an unfortunate nar-rowing (some would say "impoverishment") of theology's rightful scope. The current deadlock in the deontologist/proportionalist discussion is but one symptom of this reductive theological under-taking. 3. Since the spirit expresses itself more .through images than in the "clear and distinct" ideas of rational discoul:se, future moral~ theological discussion will have to .develop a greater, sensitivity to the ethical content of humanity's symbolic expressions. To modify Aristotle's definition: Man is not just a rational but also:a symbolic animal. In developing this sensitivity, moral theology will draw closer to the arts than ever before (at least within recent memory) and begin to effect a transformation of the genres and literary style in which it expresses itself. It will also spark a renewed interest in the ethical Content of the images and sym-bols found in the Scriptures and the church's liturgy. 4. Future moral-theological discussion will develop close ties with the three levels of Christian spirituality: (1) the experien-tial, (2) the sapiential, and (3) the analytical.2 Ethical kngwledge will be understood as something to be-garnered from the whole of human experience (that is, throughout the body/soul/spirit continuum) with special emphasis given to the social .aspects of human moral-spiritu.a! discourse and to the role of prayer and~ Review for Relig4ous discernment in moral decision making. This heightened awareness Of the spiritual aspects of its theological heritage will give moral theology a deeper awareness of its own most distinctive traits and enable it to make serious contributions in discussions with other ethical traditions. 5. Given its decision to approach moral knowledge through a reintegrated understanding of the rapport between spirit and rea-son, Catholic moral theology would do best to enter into future dialogue with other ethical traditions--be they philosophical or theological--not by seeking a least common methodological denominator (usually fully acceptable to neither side), but by maintaining without compromise its position on the close anthro-pological (and hence ethical) connection between human reason and human spirit. It is precisely on this level that an answer to the question of the existence of an autonomous Christian ethics will be found. An I~tegral U, nity, a Spiritual Turn" No longer can the Christian life be artificially divided into the way of the law and the way of ~erfection. Precept and coun-sel, .commandment and beatitude, virtue and gift are,all bound together in an integral, inseparable unity. If moral theology is to give more emphasis to the role of the Holy Spirit (as H~iring sug-gests), it must first retrieve' its lost ti~ with the inner movements of the human spirit--the place within the person where the divine and human meet. Only by including th~s neglected anthropolog-ical dimension in moral-theo!ogical reflection will the human perspective of those concerned be broad enough to allow foFa proper discerfiment of the divine. The future orientation of Catholic moral theology will depend to a large degree on how its spokesmen, both magisterial and pro-fessorial, construe (or perhaps "reconstrue") the relationship between rationality and spirituality. Reintegrating these key aspects of the tradition would have two important theological and institutional effects. On the one hand, moral decision making would evidence a notable swing toward prayer and spiritual dis-cernment in helping to solve the dilemmas of conscience that arise among the faithful. This marked "spiritual turn" would move Catholic moral theology away from its present fascination with the problem-solving machinations of quandary ethics to a relational November~December 1998 Billy ¯ A "Spiritual'Turn"for Catholic Moral Theology paradigm rooted in the divine-human encounter. Bishops and theologians, on the other hand. would move away from their all too often adversarial positions to a more collaborative, mutually supportive stance. The changed dynamics would show the impor-tance of rooting moral-theological reflection in the fullness of human experience (that is, body, soul, and spirit) while at the same time highlighting the complementary ways in which the magis-terium and church theologians elucidate the tradition. What is the future of moral theology? The answer to this question is as elusive as time itself. For the moment, let it simply be said that, while the moral theology of the~future will invariably include many things, it cannot afford to exclude or marginalize "the life of the Spirit." In the present context the latter phrase refers to rational theological reflection rooted in a profound awareness of the human spirit as it opens itself up to God's Spirit and allows the word of God to take shape and utter itself, however softly, within the cor~fines of the limited words and deeds by which ¯ we construct our human exp, erience. Such a word, however spo-ken, would resonate with authority and not return in vain. Notes t The notion of a "field-encompassing" discipline comes from Van A. Harvey, The Historian and the Believer: The Morality° of Historical Knowledge and Christian Belief(Philadelphia: Westminister Press, 1966), pp. 81-82. A similar application to spirituality appears in Sandra M. Schneiders, "Spirituality in the Academy," Theological Studies 50 (1989): 692. 2 These levels of spirituality are developed under a slightly different nomenclature in Walter H. Principe, "Toward Defining Spirituality," Studies in Religion/Sciences religieuses 12 (1983): 135-136. See also The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality, ed. Michael Downey (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1993), s.v. "Spirituality, Christian,", by Walter H. Principe. Review for Religious REGIS J. ARMSTRONG Consecrated Life: Anointed with Joy A passage once "noted with pleasure" by the New York Times Book Review was one by Albert Camus, whose writings express a strong current ofthe, pessimism in EuroPe in the wake of.World War II. It contains these words: "One of the temptations of the artist is to believe himself solitary. But this is not true. He stands in the midst of all, in the same rank,' neither highe~ nor lower, with all those who are working and struggling. His very vocation is. to give a voice to the sorrows and the joys of all."~ . Artists whose vocation is "to give a voice to the sor-rows and joys of all"--this could well be a description of consecrated persons standing with "all those who are working and struggling." It is a description of people called to identify deeply with the mission of Jesus, who came among us and stood in. the midst of all,,.giving voice to their sorrows and joys. How does one assume the stance of "artist" of some-thing so elusive, inexpressible, paradoxical, and fragile? To become such an artist demands entering into the pathos of life and experiencing compassion deeply, that is, as com-passio, suffering or feeling deeply with another. How does one give voice to joy at all? "Silence is the perfectest her-ald of joy," Shakespeare's Claudio says wisely in Much Ado Regis J. Armstrong OFMCap presented this paper (here some-what revised) at the annual conference of vicars of religious held in San Antonio in March 1998. His address is St. Fidelis Friary; 7790 Country Road 153; Interlake6, New York 14847. consecrated life November-Decentber 1998 Armstrong * Consecrated Life About Nothing.2 Joy, thenl is perhaps best ex~pressed transparently, whether one's focus on so paradoxically universal and personal a subject be psychological, sociological, cultural, philosophical, the- 916gical, spiritual, or liturgical. Perspectives From a biblical perspective'~ joy is an incredibly rich theme. In the Old Testament, profound joy is the chosen people's response to Yahweh's redemptive presence or, in the lager tradition, to Yahweh's ever present hesed or lovi'ng mercy. Various forms of the word joy appear in the Old Testament well over a hundred times, giving an inkling or anticipation of the New Testament, of Mary's proclamation of joy in "God my Savior'; and Paul's dramatic exhortation to the Philippians "Rejoice in the Lord always." Over and over agaifi Luke colors his Gospel and Acts with joy:'"To the poor he proclaimed the good news of salvation . and to those in sorrow, joy." If Yahweh is the supreme joy and the greatest delight for the pegple of the Old Testament, the self-giving of God in Christ provides those of the New Testament an essential quality of life, joy. The Holy One of Israel is now incarnate in the person of Jesus: the unfathomable, ineffable joy at the heart of God is now tangible. The Dictionnaire de Spiritualit~ Asc~tique et Mystique offers a variety of perspectives from which to reflect on joy. In its entry on joie, the reader can find, in addition to biblical considerations, summaries of the different theologies.3 There are considerations ' of people such as the early theological giants Origen .and Augustine, the. medieval mystics Bernard of Clairvaux and Francis of Assisi, and the much later doctors of the church Francis' de Sales and Thdr~se Of the Child' Jesus. Each of these writers, the author maintains, offers a different interpretation of the same reality. For Origen, knowledge of the gospel was a source of joy, a joy epitomized in the reaction of the aged Simeon when hd had the Infant in his arms.4 Augustine found joy in the Lord's ever-for-giving mercy, but saw its fullness in the eternal bliss of heaven;5 while Bernard repeatedly disEovered it in God's love.6 Francis of Assisi sang its praises in' hiE descrip.tioia of True Joy,7 and Francis de Sales urged his audienc~ to find joy by putting aside the plea-sures of this world and focusing on those of heaven,s Thdr~se wallowed in the joy of faith when her Beloved seemed most Review for Religious absent,9 From that vantage point alone, Franqois Bussini, author of the Dictionnaire's study, offers a variety of rich ways of study-ing joy, that is, through, the different traditions of,spirituality that provide insights into the meaning and gift of joy. ~' Gaudete in Domino Bussini might easily have added one significant name to his list of "theologians of joy": Paul VI, the author of the first papal doc-ument on the mystery of Christian joy, Gaudete in Domino, 9 May 1975., From his days as cardinal archbishop of Milan to the address of hi~ very last audience on 2 August 1967; four days before his death, joy was a leitmotif of his, a theme to which he continually returried. He offered an insight into the reason for this when he rhetorically asked the people of Milan:: "Have you ever met a saint? And, if you have, tell me: What is the characteristic you found in that soul?" His response to those questions suggests how closely he associated joy with~ the pursuit of happiness: "It will be joy [that you have found], a happiness so tranquil, so pro-found, so simple, but so true. And it is this transparency of joy that makes us declare: That is truly a good soul, because he has joy in his heart.''1° It is not surprising that as pope he took the opportunity to write a major statement on the Christian pursuit of joy. In addition to being an exhortation to pr~y for tile gift of joy, Gaudete in Domino expre~ssed in the mid- 1970s the pope's firm belief that peoples throughout the world desperately desired this "fragile and threatened" gift. ¯ Paul VI introduced his apostolic exhortatiori with a simple description of the need for joy in the contemporary ~orld (GD §1) and con'cluded with three others describing the cry of humanity, especially of the young, for the gift of joy. "We should be atten-tive to the appeal tliat rises from the hearts of humanity," Paul exhorts, "from the age of wondering childhood to serene old age, as a presentiment of the divine mystery" (GD §1). From this atten-tiveness or focusing on the joys of our hearts, Paul discovers an While never losing sight of the fact that joy is a ~timension of human life, Paul Vl found that the mystery of the Incarnate Word transformed its meaning. November-December 1998 Armstrong ¯ Consecrated Life energy and enthusiasm to share the reason for our joy with oth-ers. "In no way," he says, "can [joy] encourage the person ~vho enjoys it to have an attitudd of p.reoccupoation with self. [It] is the result of a human-divine communion, one that aspires to a com-munion ever more universal." In retrospect, Gaudete in Domino provided an insight into the call of Evangelii nuntiandi issued seven months later, which many. consider the Magna Carta of Paul VI'S papacy. There he dramatically exhorted all Christians, and espe-cially religious: "The privileged means of effective, evangeliza-tion" is to proclaim with joy "the joyful news of the fulfillment of the promises of the covenant offered by God" (EN §§69 and 6)~ At the core of the seven brief chapters of Gaudete in Domino, written in his elegant poetic style, Paul sketched the biblical foun. dations of both the Old and New Testaments and the enduring heritage bf Christian joy found in the lives of the saints. The pope may well have had Bussini's article before him,.-especially as he reflected on those saints who expressed joy in their lives and writ-ings. But it is striking how, in addition to Francis of Assisi and Th&~se of L!sieux, Paul draws special attention to the joy of the Conventual Franciscan Maximilian K01be, whom he had canon-ized a few years earlier: "His interior peace, serenity, and joy somehow transformed the place of suffering [Auschwitz]--which was usually like an image of hell--into the antechamber of eter-nal life, both for his unfortunate companions and for himself" (GD §4). While never losing sight of the fact that joy is a dimension of human life, Paul vI found that the,mystery of the,Incarnate Word transformed its meaning: Jesus himself knew, appreciated, and celebrated a whole range of human joys. More wonderfully, how-ever, Jesus revealed the s'ecret.of the unfathomable joy of.the "secret life of the Trinity," that is, the joy of living in God's l~ve (GD §3). "The ~ather is seen here," Paul teaches, "as the one who gives himself to the. Son, without reserve and without ceas-ing, in a burst of joyful generosity, and the Son is seen as he who gives himself in the same way to the Father, in a burst of joyful gratitude, in the Holy Spirit" (GD §3). The joy revealed by Jesus of Nazareth, then, "is the reverberation in human consciousness of the love that he has always known as God in the bosom of the Father" (GD §3). As the Incarnate Son of God, Jesus revealed a new, infinite dimension of joy, one that makes the human soul restless and ever eager to partake of its fullness. "In essence," Review for Religious t Paul e~iplains, "Christian joy is the spiritual sharing in the unfath-omable joy, both divine and human, which is in the heart of Jesus Christ glorified" (GD §2). But, more ~than reflecting on the rev-elatory dimension of Jesus' joy, the pope accentuates its paschal dimension as he underscores that by his death and resurrection Jesus poured the Spirit into the hearts of believers. "The Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son and is their mutual love, is henceforth communicated to the people of the New Covenant and to each soul ready for his secret action. Together with him the human heart is inhabited by the Father and the Son" (GD §3). This, then, is experience of a joy that is truly spiritual, the fruit of the Spirit's presence and a characteristic of fill Christian virtue (see GD §3). Shortly before his death Paul VI shared with John Magee, his secretary, "the secret of my spirituality": .I have to recognize God the Father's action in his Son in my regard. Once I acknowledge that God can work in me through his Son, he gives me grace, the grace of baptism. After the grace of being reborn to God's life, my life becomes a tension of love with God drawing me to him-self. Always, in all of us, there is this tension betwe.en my mise-ria and God's misericordia. The whole spiritual life of every one of us lies between these two poles. If I open myself to the action of God and the Holy Spirit and4et them do with me what they will, then my tension becomes ioyous and feel within myself a great desire to come to him and receive his mercy; more than ever I recognize the need to be for-given, to receive the gift of rnercy,l~ This passage offers a m~arvelous insight~in,to'Paul's preoccupa-tion with the gift of Christian joy. That "tension of love" that stretched or expanded his entire life and made him continually aware of his sinfulness and the overwhelming love of God became joyous and made him ever more desirous to possess the joy of God's presence. Evangelica testificatio, Paul VI's apostolic exhortation on the renewal of the religious life, was significant in this regard. It expresses his conviction that the joy radiating from religious com-munities would be proof of the validity Of religious life. Joy, he maintained, would be "proof to everyone that the state of life which [religious] have chosen is h~lping [them] to realize the greatest possible expansion of [their] life in Christ." Moreover, November-Decentber 1998 Armstrong ¯ Consecrated Life it would be a magnet attracting the young to understand the appeal of Jesus, and be "the most effective invitation to embrace ttie religious life" (ET §55). Vita Consecrata Twen~ty-one years later John Paul II published his postsyn-odal apostolic exhortation Vita consecrata. Curiously, Vita conse-crata contains only scattered references to joy, fourteen in all. There are certainly echoes of Paul VI's Evangelica testificatio in phrases such as "the joyful witness [of consecrated life] to [God's] loving concern for every human being" (VC §16). Unlike Paul vI, however, John Paul II seems more concerned with the dwelling on the foundations of consecrated life. He only touches on the joy that the consecrated life brings through monasticism (VC §§6, 2.7), virginity (VC §7), and common life (VC §51), rather than off the dynamics of a spirituality of joy. Does .this mean that Vita con-secrata does not assist us in understanding consecrated life as being anointed with joy? No, but Michael Novak's observatior~ into the thought of John Paul II is apropos. The pope, Novak claims, is an artist at home in the world of the intellectual as well as in.that of the poet. To understand these dimensions of his thought, it is important to remember that he is a phenomenologist. "Simply put," Novak maintains, phenomenology is a sustained effort to bring back into phi-losophy everyday things, concrete wholes, the basic expe-riences of life as they come to us. It wishes to recapture ~those quotidian realities from the empiricists, on the one hand, who analyze them into sense data, impressions, chem-ical compositions, neural reactions, etc., and from the ide-alists, on the other hand, who break them 6p into ideal types, categories,and forms.12 -.To understand his thought, then, demands being attentive to both his language and the underpinnings of his thought. In addressing religious communities and consecrated persons "in the introduction to Vita consecrata, the pope writes of the "dif-ficult and trying period" .and of the "time of tension and struggle" in which they live. By referring to,Acts 15:31, he expresses his hope that consecrated women and men will receive the document as 'the Christians of Antioch did; by being joyful at the hope and encouragemen't which it gives. Immediate!y, however, he turns Review for Religious his attention to the entire people of'God and expresses his hope that the document will increase their joy as they become more aware of the consecrated life and, as a result, "thank almighty God for this great gift [of consecrated life]" (VC §13). Does this mention of consecrated life as a "great gift" provide a hint at the underpinnings of John Paul's understanding of what it means to be "anointed with joy"? Even a superficial reading of ¼"ta consecrata reveals John Paul's view of the consecrated life and the evangelical counsels as gifts. This perspective undoubtedly flows from his per-ception of Vatican II's emphasis on the profound reality of ecclesial communion, "in which all gifts ¯ converge for the building up of the Body of Christ and for the church's mission in the world" (VC §4). Seventy-three times he writes in Vita conse-crata of the gifts of consecrated life, of the evan-gelical counsels, of the radical gift of self for love, of the gifts of consecrated communities that com-plement one another, and so on. From John Paul's perspective, then, an awareness of the great gift of consecrated life, an awareness of being gifted; is a source of joy as well as a reason for thanksgiving". Thus Vita consecrata clearly offers an under-standing of conse, crated life that clearly supports seeing it as "anointed with j6y," for consecrated women and men have been gifted, have been sin-gled out as recipients of a special love tha~ brings joy. Fourteen times these gifts are specifically attributed to the Holy Spirit, a reminder that adds an extra note of joy~ Joy'flows from a conscious-ness of being loved--and thereby gifted. The joy of consecrated life flows from a consciousness of being '.'plunged into the fir~ of love which burns in them and which is none other than the Holy Spirit" (VC §26). It implies being gifted with an energy that pushes them beyond any joy this world offers. Like all joy, it leads to two things: a fuller.dove or union and a more profound eagerness or restlessness tha't this love be expressed and known. The joy of consecrated life demands, in the pope's words, that consecrated life "become one of the tangible seals which the Trinity impresses upon history, so that people can sense with longing the attrac-tion of divine beauty" (VC §20). From J~ohn Paul's perspective, then, an awareness of the great gift of consecrated life,. an awareness of being gifted, is a source of joy as well as a .reason for thanksgiving. Novetnber-Decen*ber 1998 Armstron~ ¯ Consecrated Life Were we to attempt a summary of John Paul's understanding of the consecrated life, we might choose this one sentence of Vita consecrata: "This special way of 'following Christ' expresses in a particularly vivid way the Trinitarian nature,of the Christian life and anticipates in a certain way that eschatological fulfillment toward which the whole church is tending" (VC § 14). Expressing those two dimensions of consecrated life--the Trinitarian and the eschatological--seems to form for John Paul lI the challenges of consecrated life and the foundations for joy. To live that conse-crated life as anointed with joy implies doing the same: reflecting in a joyful way the inner life of God in which we are caught up and, at the same time, expressing our restless pursuit 'of the full-ness of joy that will be achieved only in heaven. Our contempo- "rary struggles in rethinking the role of consecrated life in the mystery of-the church suggest two fundamental questions. First, have we plumbed the depth of the gift of the Holy Spirit that ¯ consecrated life is? And, second, have we developed a passion for the ~onsecrated life that makes it "a daring adventure of love" driving us to "that eschatological fulfillment toward which the whole church is .tending.''13 Answering those two difficult ques-tions has not been an easy enterprise. The answers seem to be as elusive as the full meaning of "anointed with joy." The Trinitarian Nature of Consecrated Life The contemporary sensitivity to inclusive language has under-scored a fundamental problem of contemporary Christian spiri-. ,tuality, namely, the failure to pay adequate attention to its Trinitarian underpinnings.14 If this is the case, focusing on the joy inherent in consecrated life through the prism of the gift of the Holy Spirit, which demands reflecting on the Trinity, might bor-dernot on being risky, but on being reckless. Language becomes a mjnefield not only because of images, for example, masculine and feminine, but also because of the elusive, transparent, incon-spicuous nature of the Spirit itself. Wind, power, light--these are some of the poetic images used to express its presence. Never pointing to itself, the Spirit cries,out "Abba!" and "Jesus is Lord!" While it is our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, the Spirit pos-sesses us and catches up our unique spirits as its own. Following the teaching of Augustine, medieval theologians remark that within the mystery of.the triune God there is an Review for Religqous energy or quality expressed in two words: esse ad, "to be to" or "to be for" the other.~5 The phrase is undoubtedly another way of expressing that God is love, but it implies that that love means being present to or for another. Richard 6f St. Victor and the relation-oriented theology of the 12th century paved the way for Bonaventure, who identifies the Holy Spirit as the nexus or the bond joining the Father and the Son, the power of mutually being to or for the other. The Spirit is the love with which the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father. Therefore, the Spirit brings to both Father and Son the fruit of its presence, joy. It makes them esse adl present, to and for one another. Bonaventure goes a step further. The Spirit, he maintains, is the love with which the Father and Son love us: It is that power of love or, as Paul vI describes it, that "tension of love" which draws us into the infinite love of the triune God. It is that which enables us to respond to that divine love with the same love. Being overwhelmed by and responding to love--that is the meaning of a graced or gifted life; It makes us restless for the perfectioh of love. It is that which lifts us above ourselves, challenges us to let go of everything and be filled with love. Of necessity it calls all J Christians to a mystical embrace'of God', one that flows from the knowledge that the gift of the Spirit sweeps those who are gifted into the very heart of God. As Thomas Merton writes in Life and Holiness, "To be a Christian is to be committed to a largely mys-tical life,., to live within the dimensions of a completely mys-tical revelation and communication of the divine being." 16 What this means, of course, is dependent on the mystery of the ~ncarnate Word, for he is the revelation of the triune God. What it means to be loved by God is dependent on our knowledge of h~ow Christ reveals he is loved. As John Paul II tells us, "In the countenance of Jesus, the 'image of the invisible God' (Col 1:15) and the reflection of the Father's glory (see Heb 1:3), we glimpse the depth of an eternal and infinite love which is at the root of OUl~ being" (VC ~ 18). What it means to respondto that"love depends on our awareness of the kenosis, the self-emptying of Jesus. It makes our struggle as Christians--and, more to the point, as con-seerated women and men--to be essentially this: being Christ-centered. Understandably, then, Vita consecrata speaks of those called to consecrated life as persons called to "let themselves be seized by this love [to the point of] abandoning everything" (VC §18). He speaks of them devoting themselves "with undivided 1-6-1"November-December 1998 Armstrong ¯ Consecrated Life heart" (VC §1), making a "choice of total ~elf-giving to God in Christ" (VC §2), and expressing themselves "in a radical gift of self for love of~the Lord Jesus Christ" (VC §§.3,.12). This becomes a never ending recognition of philokalia, or the love of the divine beauty revealed in Jesus, and a progressive following of the Spirit's lead,to conformity with Christ (see VC §19). E~chat~logical Dimensidn of the Consecr~ated Life This ~focus onthe revelation of God's love in.the person of Jesus, however, leads John Paul to the secon~d dimension of con7 secrated life: its eschatological charhcter. "It is the duty of,the consecrated life," he maintains, "to show that the incarnate Son of God is the eschatological goal toward which all things tend, the splendor before which every other light pales, :and the infinite beauty which ~alone can fully satisfy the human heart" (VC §16). Here. too the gift of the Spirit is of quintessential importance. It enables "new men and women;to recognize the appeal of such a demanding choice, . . . awakens .the desire to respond, fully, . . . and guides the growth of this desire" (VC §19). "By allowing them-selves to be guided by the Spirit on an endless journey of purifi-cation," the pope maint~ains, "they become, day by day, conformed to Christ, the prolongation in history of a special presence of the risen Lord" (VC §19). In Vita consecrata John Paul II speaks of the Holy Spirit ninety-five times. The Spirit of Vita consecrata is power unlimited (VC §25), ,works without ceasing (VC 921), continually animates (VC §25) and gives strength (VC §30), and shapes and molds the hearts of those who are called (VC §19). The work of the Spirit as it guides us on its purifying journey is clearly one of calling, us beyond ourselv~es and beyond our limited experience of God's love~ Although ¼"ta consecrata clearly expresses this traditional, oth-erworldly spirituality, the pope also sees that the ardent expecta-tions of those consecrated persons demand an expression in the world in which~they live. Since "here we have no lasting city" (Heb 13:14), their longing "expresses itself in work and mission through a spirit capable of giving rise in human society to effec-tive aspirations for justice, peace, sglidarity, and forgiveness" (VC~ §27). These are the ones who "bring.hope to their brothers and sisters who are often discouraged and pessimistic about the future, . . . ~ hope founde~ on God's promise con~tained in the revealed Review for Religious word: the history of humanity is moving toward 'a new heaven and a new earth'" (VC §27). The hope they have discovered in the mystery of God's love, in other words, makes them eager to encourage others. And so their eschatological spirituality calls for active and renewed involvement in programs of systemic social change that are sensitive to the signs of the times, to the prefer-ential option for the poor, and to the promotion of,justice (see VC, §§81, 82). "Eschatological expectation becomes mission," John Paul teaches, "so that the kingdom may become ever more fully established here and now" (VC §27). Above all, however, this eschatolog- ~ ical thrust is oriented toward the future, a theme the pope introduces fourteen times in his exhortation. "By their charisms," he states, "consecrated per- ,~ sons become signs of the Spirit point-ing to a new future enlightened by.faith and.by Christian hope" (.VC §27), Thus the gift of the Spirit:is always prompting (VC §§1, 19, 22, 25), guiding (VC §§19, 63), awakening desire (VC §19), and teaching the hearts of those who are ca!l.ed, ~for it is the "educator par excel-lence of those who are consecrated" (VC §60). The Spirit's role in shaping the~future of consecrated life is perhaps best captured in the phrase "the creative guidance," in a section that speaks of the future (V.C §63). The phrase is similar to another, "creative fidelity," found earlier in the. document where the pope invites consecrated women and men to propose anew and with courage the enterprising initiative, creativity, and holi-ness of their founders and foundresses in response to the signs of the times,emerging in today's world" (VC §37). The Spirit's creative energy, then, flows throughout ¼"taxonsecrata, as the pope sees it, fashioning new expressions of consecrated life (VC §§ 10, 12), pointing to a new future (VC §27), and rejuvenating the Bride of Christ by the consecrated life (VC §64). "You haveonot only a glorious history to remember and recount," he declares, "but also a great history still to be accomplished" (VC §110). There is a built-in dynamic here. Rahner called it "The Dynamic Element in the Church" and suggested that it could very easily be a point of tension between the hierarchy and consecrated religious. Recent The Spirit's role in shaping the future of consecrated life is perhaps best captured in the phrase "the creative guidance.'" November-Decentber 1998 Armstrong * Consecrated Life history has shown us that it can easily be a point of tension among consecrated religious themselves, especially between the more traditional and the more creative brothers and sisters or between those without grounding .in the tradition, frequently older mem-bers, and those willing to "try anything" new without the tradi-tion's guidance. "Proposing anew the initiatives, creativity, and holiness of founders or foundresses" or developing "a dynamic fidelity to their mission" is easie'r said than done. Nevertheless, it is this very energy of the Spirit that John Paul II understands as revitalizing consecrated life and enabling new men and women to recognize its appeal. In this context, too, itis striking that John Paul writes of "the perennial youth of the church" and sees it integrally tied to "the new spiritual and apostolic impulses" of "new or renewed forms of the consecrated life" (VC §12). VChere is joy in all this? Perhaps it is found best in John Paul's image of "the perennial you. th of the church." No one could ques-tion the pope's concern for the young; his repeated meetings with and addresses to young people throughout the world are proof of that concern. The prerogative of the young, he frequently reit-erates, is to be concerned about the future, to dream about its unfolding, and to be excited about its shape. Is it not precisely in their dreaming and excitement that they find joy, a joy that is contagious and that enlivens even the more depressed? An echo of"ad Deum qui laetificat iuventutem meam" may be heard here, "to God who gives joy to my youth." As G.K. Chesterton observed, "The ~arpe diem religion is not the religign of happy people, but of very unhappy people. Great joy does not gather the rosebuds while it may; its eyes are fixed on the immortal rose which Dante saw. Great joy has in it the sense of immortality; the very splendor of youth is the sense that it has all space to stretch its legs in." 17 The pope's eschatological vision wisely notes the perennial youth that flows from the energy of the Spirit and keeps it ever young. With that alone comes joy! Tucked away among the more mystica! passages of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets is one that is appropriate here: "The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation." 18 Eliot reminds his readers that the incarnation, is the only prism through which "to apprehend the point of intersection of the timeless with time ¯. something given and taken." A marvelous description of Con-secrated life! The Johannine tradition undoubtedly offers' the strongest Review for Religious :hints about the mystery of joy. The term chara, joy, occurs nine times in the Gospel of John and once each in the three Letters. Of all the references to joy in the Gospel, all but one are in the Last ~Supper discourse (15:17; 16:20-24; 17:13), where it is a future possibility opened up for Jesus' followers by his victorious death and th

THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY The Literary Journal of Pennsylvania College Entered at the Postofice at Gettysburg as second-class matter VOL. X GETTYSBURG, PA., OCTOBER, 1901 No. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Nature's Chain, . 137 The Survival of the Fittest, . . . .138 Man Was Not Made to Mourn, . . . 143 Some Important Deductions from a Comparative Study of My-thologies, . . . . . . 147 The Thunder Storm, . 1SS Editorial, . . 157 Resolutions of Respect, . . . . 158 Oration: The Character of Our Early American Forefathers, . 159 James Russell Eowell, . 165 Exchanges, . . . . . 170 NATURE'S CHAIN [From the "Essay on Man"] Look 'round our world; behold the chain of love Combining- all below and all above, See plastic nature working- to this end, The single atoms each to other tend, Attract, attracted to, the next in place, Formed and impelled its neighbor to embrace. See matter next, with various life endued, Press to one center still, the general good. See dying vegetables life sustain, See life dissolving, vegetate again; All forms that perish other forms supply (By turns we catch the vital breath, and die); Eike bubbles on the sea of matter borne, They rise, they break, and to that sea return. Nothing is foreign; parts relate to whole; One all-extending, all-preserving Soul Connects each being, greatest with the least; Made beast in aid of man, and man of beast; All served, all serving; nothing stands alone ; The chain holds on, and where it ends, unknown. —POPE. ^•jataut HHOMIHIHHBBHHHmBIBH 138 77/^ GETTYSBURG MERCURY THE SURVIVAL OF TME FITTEST D. C. BURNITE, '01 [dies Prize Essay—First Prize] "Ivives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime." —Longfellow. TV/fANKIND is like the face of a mountainous country. As we -*■'*■ view the human landscape, here and there, like peaks which rise above the plain and rear their snow-crowned heads among the clouds, appear, in bold contrast to the ordinary level of their fel-lows, the mighty men whose lives are the pages of history. And as we contemplate these epoch makers, there wells up in us, and quite naturally, too, a strong spirit of emulation. We admire them and would be like them. Of course, not every one of us can be a Napoleon, or a Wash-ington, or a Franklin, or a Grant; but each has abundant chances of becoming a less conspicuous, but yet quite prominent, feature in the plane of humanity. And it is the existence of such chances that prompts the youth of today to ask himself and others how best to pursue success. Geologists tell us that peaks owe their existence to their dur-able qualities. The surrounding material, by the action of aqueous erosion, has been carried away, leaving these tall projections which have been able to resist for ages the frictional action of water. Upon this same principle rests the success of the "makers of his-tory." Certain things in their make-up have enabled them to stand firm against the attrition of such circumstances as have swept their less sturdy fellows into the "realm of innocuous des-uetude." Their success is the result of the operation of the prin-ciple of the survival of the fittest. Ever since the world began, the principles and causes which have resulted in such changes as have been mentioned have al-ways been the same, and are the same, as those in operation to-day. And this is true of human affairs; so that the young man must realize that the same principles and causes which determined the success of great men, still operate. Ere he can resist the downward pressure of the busy, indifferent world about him, and, as Greely says, "bulge out over the top, where he is sure to be seen," it is necessary that he follows the same plan to secure suc-cess as that which has enabled others before him to become emi- THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 139 nent. Just as they have survived innumerable discouragements and scaled the heights of fame because they have made themselves the fittest, so must the youth, in order to reach a high place, develop in himself those things which will render him, too, fit to combat opposing forces. And what are the elements of that fitness which has led to the success of men? Rvery person expects to be or do something, some day; that is, all have purposes. Yet most of these are more or less vague. But what we who would get on in the world must have, are defi-nite purposes. A race without a fixed goal is nothing. Without a definite end to strive for, life is a mere "struggle for existence," and existence is all we get. But life is more than this. The fu-ture holds out many prizes to each of us, to be won only by those who decide definitely for what prize they shall strive. The trav-eller must know, if not to what distance he desires to go, at least what is the bearing of the course he wants to pursue, or he may travel in a circle. If we want to move from our present positions, we must have purposes which, though they are not necessarily limited in extent, yet in direction must be definite. Napoleon, at the very outstart of his brilliant career, aimed at the rulership of the French nation. Lincoln had a definite intention, formed early in life, to do good to others. And how signally he suc-ceeded when he liberated those millions of sufferers! And to rise as these men did, we too must adopt this important element of their fitness,—a definiteness of purpose. Besides the fact that great men have had definite intentions, we observe that they all show elements of fitness in the characters they possessed. All the truly great—and we mean by truly great, not a Nero or Lord Byron, but those whom the good admire,— have been men of high morality. And the more elevated their moral traits, the more we admire them. High moral qualities are a part of the equipment which has bsought them, and will bring us, success. As a possessor of such characteristics, "Old Abe" stands pre-eminent,— a veritable personification of honesty; an honesty which did not allow him to support the unjust, though legal, side of a question; an honesty which made him lose in purse, but gain in esteem, till as a result of this quality he attained a world-wide re-spect, which will last as long as man and memory exist. Lincoln's is real fame, and the young man can do nothing better than adopt 140 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY \ I in his character the prime element which brought renown to "Honest Old Abe." True courtesy is a moral quality, based upon thoughtfulness and consideration for others. Men must be gentlemen, if they want to make progress. Great men are not always polished models ot etiquette, but courtesy has always been a mark of their fitness to occupy the positions at which they have aimed. ' 'Jeffersonian simplicity" did not hinder the third President from reaching the place to which he was helped by Jeffersonian courtesy. Eet us avoid error, and imitate in ourselves this essential quality of fit-ness to advance. Impure and intemperate habits invariably destroy all chances of complete success. Neither Burns nor Poe have secured all the glory which steadier lives would have brought. Irregular habits undermine and weaken all the qualities of body, mind, and spirit, and under their influence complete triumph is impossible. Better adopt the kind of habits which rendered long and useful the lives of Greely, Bismarck, and Gladstone. Their temperate lives are models from which men may safely mould their conduct and there-by place themselves among the fittest to survive. Morality is admirable, but when heightened by the influence of Christian principles, it becomes sublime. Men like Luther and Washington, who have worked under the rule of Christianity, stand at the very summit of human esteem. Elijah Morse once said: "Young man, a good character; yes, and a clean, religious life, are the foundation stones for success." But the moral and religious traits we have spoken of are not all that bring success. It is true that they are the "foundation stones," but upon these there has always been built a structure of other materials, which have made their possessors able to sur-vive opposing forces. The extremely pious are not always re-membered, but those whomwe admire most and shall never for-get have linked their piety, as we should do, with other things essential to render them fittest to endure. L,et us speak also of these. Josh Billings says- "Energy is what wins. Many men fail to reach the mark because the powder in them is not proportional to the bullet." Men must have "vim," or they fail to remove what to them seem insurmountable obstacles. The Alps were no barrier to the vigor of Bonaparte. Neither must the young man THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 141 of to-day lack this same sort of energy. It will enable him to sur-vive in the conflict with whatever comes between him and victory. The life of the man who would "fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer," testifies that the aspirant must try to imitate that in Grant which, in vulgar parlance, we call' 'sticktoitiveness.'' He must have a spirit of assiduity. Pluck cannot get along with-out Plod. Those who have become eminent have done so because they have hung to their purpose till triumph has crowned their persistence. Sir Isaac Newton, although met by what would seem to most men an impassable barrier, worked on for thirteen years before he was able to give the world the correct theory of gravity. The pursuit of success is up-hill work and a halt on the slope is fatal. Not one of the world's great men would have been able to survive the friction of ever-appearing hindrances, without this quality of persistency. Neither can any others who lack it hope to appear among the fittest. "Eternal vigilance is the price of success." It was on this principle that Mark Twain worked while becoming famous as a Mississippi River pilot, and later, while rising to his present lit-erary status. He himself testifies to the importance of this trait, when he gives this advice: "I say, young man, put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket \" We must "Stop, look and listen !" for the multifarious dangers we are liable to en-counter. It was the "Father of the New York Tribune" who turned failure into success by following the principle he himself puts forth in these words: "Do the very best you can where you are!" Concentration and thoroughness have marked the lives of those we desire to emulate. We have all made a practice of doing one thing at a time, and doing that well. It was John Wanamaker who once wheeled the delivery barrow of a dry-goods firm through the streets of Philadelphia; and he did it well, too. Concentrated effort in one direction led him finally to make for us an excellent Post-Master-General. And we also can follow his plan and rise. Close attention to little things enabled Watt to notice and use the principle he saw in the movement of his mother's tea-kettle as the means whereby his steam-engine could be impelled. It is of little things the big are made. Nothing we see or experience is too small to receive attention. Andrew Carnegie knows all the details of his immense business,—none too small to be important \ i ■ I i 142 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY to him. Nor must the youth who would succeed act differently from those whose fitness to rise included attention to little things. The best recommendation for the importance of a good educa-tion comes from those who have never had this advantage. Lin-coln's life-long regret was that he had not had a college education, and it limited his powers in many directions. However, self-taught men like he was have managed to climb the steep and reach the level of greatness without it. But just as one member of the body becomes stronger when its mate is injured, so such men, in the absence of higher education, have developed a substitute in the shape of great common sense. This we must have, or our fit-ness to survive the impositions of more shrewd men is impaired All these principles, and many, many others under which great men have worked, we must adopt if we want to aim at true great-ness. However, all cannot reach the topmost places. But an honest attempt to make the conditions in our lives conform to those manifested in the lives of successful men, will, at least, en-able us to rise far above mediocrity. Just as mountain peaks are formed of material most suitable to stand the wear and tear of ages, so must we young men be made of such stuff as will help us to throw off, without injury, those things which would keep us down, and rise till we attract the no-tice and elicit the worthy commendation of our fellows. Yet, let us not forget that the principle of the survival of the fittest extends farther than we have mentioned. For, away back, twenty centuries ago, there appeared a Great Man, a Model such as we find nowhere among the thousands of earthly great. He is the fittest and His survival is everlasting. Would we survive all the ills of this life, would we be classed among the truly fit, would we attain to higher praise than men can give,—heavenly praise ? Ifso, let us emulate him, the Model of all models, the Ideal! Then can we be like Him and join Him in the eternal survival of the fittest. "How void of reason are our hopes and fears 1 What in the conduct of our life appears So well designed, so luckily begun, But when we have our wish, we wish undone." DRYDHN. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 143 MAN WAS NOT MADE TO MOURN J. B. BAKER, '01 [Gies Prize Essay—Second Prize] OOBERT BURNS is the author of a varied and numerous array A * of beautiful poems. As a song writer he is the world's greatest. As rusticity's artist he ranks well with Shakespeare. His heart was great and his genius commensurate, winging its way to loftiest heights and recognizing the meanest things. He has been called the most directly inspired of all the poets. While the fame of other immortals rests upon the matured product of a life study, his finds its basis in the product of an hour. He goes out into the couutr)', disturbs a field mouse and ad-dresses it on the spot in quaint poetic style. A limping hare, a bank of flowers, a winding brook, a chilly blast, a neighbor's weal, a neighbor's woe, all appealed to his sensitive nature and won immediate response in verse. Such an one, however great he be, is in danger. Second thoughts, even in a Shakespeare, are preferable and it is neither a reflection upon the author nor a mark of conceit upon anyone to deferentially differ from him in a passing thought or hastily written verse. Burns said, "Man was made to Mourn.'.' The poem is sub-lime in its pathos but false, we believe, in sentiment. It shows the leaden sky but not the bow of promise. To study the end to which man was made we must ask time to turn backward in her flight for a moment or two and bring up the past. Oliver Wendell Holmes said we ought to begin a man's biog-raphy one hundred years before he is born. We would begin with generic man already when the idea of his creation was first formulated in the Divine Mind, for the idea of creation and the object of existence must have been coeval. They are concomitant notions and of a twin birth. What then was the mood of that pregnant mind at the event-ful date ? That question answered and our query is practically solved, for created things invariably bear the marks of their Creator. The readers of the world know the character and object of a literary production of a known author, before they open the book. They would not expect the sweet placid flow of an Irving from I I 144 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY the rough and rugged Cooper. Nor would they hope to hear the strains of Whittier coming from Virgil's lyre. Neither could have produced the works of the other. Their gems, in prose and song, were merely the externalization of their own minds and they could not have written otherwise because they could not have externalized that which had not already had an anterior internal existence. Precisely so, in our crude, fragmentary, symbolic fashion must we conceive of the Alpha of all reality. We are wooed to believe that everything in this central universe bears marks of kinship with Him, and particularly do we believe it to be true of man. We are like Him. Is He glad or is He sad? Does He mourn? That is the question upon the solution of which depends the pur-posed end of man's existence. To attempt an answer to a question like that, however, involv-ing as it does, eons of time and a Being unfathomable, might ap-pear a bit presumptuous, but a little reflection will prove the con-trary. We cannot escape it. The question abides with us through every period of our rational life. It presses upon us as atmos-pheric air upon our frames. It fills the human mind as star dust fills the sky. We must think of God, but without attributes that is impossible. What then are the qualities discoverable in his na-ture to give us an antecedent probability that man was made to mourn? Those qualities discoverable by us and those recognized by ages before us are wisdom, power and goodness and these in an unlimited degree. The gradual unfolding of orderly arrangement, hitherto unknown, reveals the wisdom. The spangled robe of night reveals the power. While the goodness, as for it, it shines from His very nature as light from the noon-day sun. How One possessed at once of Omniscience, Omnipotence and Infinite Benevolence could ever be sad and in mourning is beyond the grasp of human reason. Mourning implies regret at something that has happened and surely nothing could grieve Him who had the ability and fore-sight to avert the offending cause. Mourning is incompatible with the idea of Divinity as held by the majority of men to-day. But some are disposed to call these qualities into question. Not a few thinkers of eminent ability and indubitable integrity find themselves unable to predicate them of Him. I | El l SOME IMPORTANT DEDUCTIONS FROM A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF MYTHOLOGIES C M. A. STINE, '01 [Gies Prize Essay—Third Prize] THE meaning of the word mythology is, literally, a treatise of *■ myths, or a writing composed of a number of fables. The term is applicable to the writings descriptive of ancient systems of religious beliefs, their various deities, and the attributes and the relations of these deities. Just as the child peoples the world about it with fairies both good and evil in their intentions toward human beings, so in a somewhat similar manner, the early races personified the phenom-ena of nature and sought to render intelligible the workings of nature thrust upon them for explanation, and which were to them otherwise inexplicable. Out of these explanations arose the vast bodies of legends descriptive of the various deities, their origin, adventures, attributes and relations. These personifications of nature with their body of attendant prerogatives arose from two principal causes: the necessity of pro-viding a cause for an observed effect, and the necessity of supply-ing a want felt in every human soul. Every human soul feels the need of a deity upon which to rest its faith and to whom it may look for aid. Whether the production is evolved by the human soul without a divine revelation does not concern us at present. To arrive at some explanation of the nature of the world, and the operation of those natural laws otherwise unintelligible, as well as of his own genesis, man invented the host of gods and demi-gods. The higher attributes ascribed to the divinities—their more purely spiritual qualities, arose out of man's need. Man is con- 148 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY scious of those forces which we call good and evil. He realizes the constant antagonism between the two, and the ethical super-iority of the former. He feels that according to his sense of jus-tice good should be rewarded and evil punished; yet his experience teaches him that such is not always the case. Hence there arises a feeling of the need of some force which may be supernatural, and which will reconcile the apparent contradictions, and fill the hiatus which is felt to exist. Thus there is the necessity of a god and a future existence. The study of ancient mythology with a comparison of the dif-ferent systems, serves a number of purposes. We gain a knowl-edge of the varying degrees of complexity of the different systems of belief, the height of their spiritual conceptions, and their degree of knowledge of the true God—that is their relation to Monothe-ism, the resemblance of the different creeds in the attributes as-cribed to the different divinities, and the similarity in their names. First. We may judge of the character and location of the people—whether agricultural, pastoral, commercial, peaceful or warlike, inland or maritime; and as to the climatic conditions, and natural features of the territory occupied. Secondly. We may judge as to the degree of civilization at-tained. An enumeration of what is included in the term civil-ization may be in place. By civilization we mean the knowledge of the arts and sciences, mechanical and political; also the degree of purity of religious conception. Upon the true or erroneous ideas of God depends man's treatment of his fellow-man, his real-ization of the principles of universal brotherhood, and divine fatherhood, and all the altruistic impulses. There is certainly but little civilization where these latter are lacking, and upon the extent of the realization and adoption of these principles depends the greater or less degree of excellence to which a civilization may lay claim. Thirdly. A comparison of these systems affords a means whereby the knowledge of the common origin of various branches of the human family may be gained. In our consideration of ancient mythology, the chief form of belief to which we wish to devote our attention is that held by the Indo-Germanic family. The systems of mythology which we shall briefly study, are those of the Greeks, latins, Norse and THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 149 Old Germans, Hindoos and Egyptians, as affording the best illus-tration of the principles enumerated. The system of mythology held and constructed by the Greeks is the one of which the most complete knowledge is attainable, excepting perhaps that of the Latins. But the resemblance be-tween these two is close, and the Greek may be taken as typical. Upon these, therefore, we shall base our conclusions. A study of Greek mythology reveals the following as to the character of the people, their location, and the climatic conditions of the territory occupied. The Greeks were an imaginative people, judging from the vast collection of myths relating to their deities, their doings among men. Every tree, blade of grass, fountain, streamlet and river; every breeze that blew and every raging storm, had its own particular presiding spirit. Gods, demigods, nymphs, satyrs, dryads and hamadryads are multiplied without number. The stories of the gods based upon nature, are given a vast body of detail, and an amount of local coloring which displays the workings of a national imagination of great activity and scope. The race seems also to have been somewhat mercurial in tem-perament. All of the earlier races are susceptible to changes in the seasons, and to the alternations of day and night, but the Greeks were particularly so. The approach of spring was heralded with the most extravagant rejoicings and sacrifices to various gods, especially to Dionysos. From the character of the deities worshiped they must have been a people engaged in pastoral, agricultural and commercial pursuits. We arrive at this conclusion because the people wor-shiped deities who were presumed to have the care of shepherds and their flocks, of farmers and their harvests, and of sailors. Some of the gods are themselves shepherds. Apollo is so repre-sented, although his flock is made up of the clouds in the fields of ether. Demeter is the goddess of the harvests. Hermes is the guardian of the sailor. The Greeks were extremely careful to preserve the favor of their gods, and maintained their sanctity to the last of their na-tional existence. They are extremely afraid of offending their deities, and must have been an exceedingly pious people. But all their piety did little for their morals. In all their business trans-actions we have evidence that they were a lying and a tricky I ; 'f. 150 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY i people. Hermes, the god of liars, the protector of the knave, was greatly venerated. From what we have already said we would infer that the land of the Greeks was suitable for the pasturing of flocks and for the cultivation of the vine. Wewouldalso infer thatit was contiguous to the ocean. It must also have been alandsubject to the change of the seasons, for we have already seen that the festivals com-memorating the change of times and seasons, formed a part of his worship. That he made much of physical excellence is evident from the fact that he prayed often to a god whose chiefprerogativewasthe care of the athlete. Mythology and history are heartily agreed upon this point. He was evidently highly intellectual and capable of abstract thought; for he worshiped a goddess who was the personification of mind and intellectuality. Her attributes are those of mind and she is above the physical desires and passions that enslave. From this recounting of the physical enviroment and the in-tellectual attainment of the Greek we can readily determine the degree of civilization attained. We admit right here that myth-ology is not our only source of information, but we do maintain that we can determine the degree of civilization from the mythol-ogy of the people. Because the Greek engaged in commerce he came in contact with other nations, and thus acquired a knowledge of their arts and sciences. The Greek had his organized household, and was far in ad-vance of the wandering tribe; but not one of his deities is repre-sented as presiding over domestic life. The L,atins with their Lares and Penates, seem to come much nearer to the conception of our modern home. The number of muses presiding over the various forms of lit-erary composition, and the completeness of attributes, together with the veneration in which they were held, indicate literature to have been one of the chief pursuits of the people. The high degree of excellence attained in this respect confirms our position. The degree of his intellectuality is evinced in his conception of the goddess Athene. Then, too, if there had been no artists and sculptors there would have been no deities to inspire that class of men. The same may be said of government and the deities that preside over magistrates. ta THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 151 The worship of a deity supposed to aid in the right government of a state, and to have the oversight of the fulfillment of the ends of justice presupposes a well organized system of government. All this is indicative of the degree of civilization of a people. But all these things are the mere externalities, the polish of civilization rather than the vital principle. Civilization of the heart, that is purity of life and worship, are the fundamental prin-ciples of civilization, and these are attained or not attained accord-ing to the character of the conception of the one true God. It is uncertain in how far the Greek attained to the idea of one God. Very high attributes and lofty conceptions were had by the Greeks, of divinity. This is plainly shown by attributes assigned to their different divinites. In a few cases Zeus is represented as exercis-ing a sort of supreme power over the other gods, which somewhat approaches the conception of the Bible of God and the angels as ministering spirits. As already stated, the Greek was pious in the extreme. His life was one of constant anxiety lest he offend, voluntary or involuntary, some one ofhis numerous deities. The names he applies to his deities are not those which would be ap-plied by a loving creature to a gracious Creator. In Aeschylus we find the words: "Zeus, wherever thou art, by whatever name it please thee to be named, I call on thee and pray." The Greeks made a constant effort to flatter and propitiate the gods, who were regarded as enemies of human happiness. Prob-ably the only god whom the Greeks truly loved was Dionysos. He was thought to rejoice in the happiness of men, and to his worship, in the festivals, the Greek surrendered himself with de-light. He was probably the only deity whom they worshipped from motives of affection rather than fear. Whilst many of the stories related of the various deities are incompatible with our conception of God; it must nevertheless be remembered that many of these stories are mere allegories created to typify and explain analogous happenings in nature. Thus they lose their revolting character. For a long time this was remem-bered by the worshipper himself, but it is feared that in later national history the Greek often gave himself up to excesses under the impression of divine sanction. Whilst many of the stories of the deities are revolting, many are very beautiful, and come close to the Christian conception of right conduct. Therefore there must i 152 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 1 i have existed a high ethical conception in the souls of many. But these conceptions are, after all, the exception and not the rule. The Greek's conception of life was largely fatalistic. Ananka, Necessity, loomed as a vast incontrovertible force from whose decrees there could be no escape. When a crime of any sort was committed the Erynys dogged the unhappy perpetrator with an awful insistence, and at some time, sooner or later, the crime was avenged. The conception of the hereafter as imagined by the Greek was gloom}' in the extreme. The spirit of the ordinary mortal passed at death to a domain of dimmest twilight, to the land of Hades. Here the shadow of the body lived an existence surrounded by in-tangible spectres, in the gloom of the mighty underworld. Only the souls of heroes and those semi-divine beings who were espe-cially, favored of the gods attained the happiness of the sunlit Elysian fields. The soul of the criminal passed to a region beneath Hades, to Tartaros, a place of torment and woe. The immortality of the soul held no joy to the mind of the Greek. His mythology gives us no reason to believe that he had the slightest conception of a hereafter portrayed in the bible. This affords us a complete understanding of the Greek mind. Polished in intellect, beautiful in body, in many ways possessing a refined nature, yet in this one essential the civilization of the Greek fell short. Self-sacrifice and unselfish devotion, whilst here and there in his mythology dimly hinted at, yet to the mass of the nation unknown, never animated the every-day life of the Greek. Thus in this cursory glance at the Greek nature we have pointed out the application of the first two principles enunciated at the beginning of this paper; but these same principles are equally well illustrated in the mythology of other peoples. Whilst our knowledge of the Norse and old German Mythol-ogies is much less complete, since the people were not literary, and preserved their traditions largely in memory and not in books, yet this mythology upon examination, is found to yield the same results as the Grecian. The conception of the god Odin for in-stance, shows the same conformity and coloring which that of the Greek Zeus exhibits. We cannot in this article enter into a de-tailed description of the mythology of the Latins, the Norse and old German, the Hindoo and the Egyptian, yet they all equally THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 153 well serve to show the condition of the peoples who originated them. Let us now pass to the third fact, namely, that by a considera-tion of the mythologies of the peoples a knowledge of their common origin is obtained. No student of mythology will deny that in all the religious beliefs of the different nations there is a certain similarity. The Aztec system with the great god at the head and with its crowd of lesser deities, the North American Indians' conception of the Great Spirit with the host of lesser deities, in common with the nations of the Indo-Germanic family, had a degree of resemblance in the wider facts of their mythologies. The consideration of the conceptions of belief and worship of all the peoples and nations we have studied drives us to the conclusion that these peoples had a common origin. Let us glance at a few of the more marked resemblances which appear. Odin of the Norse, Zeus of the Greeks, Jupiter of the Latins, and Atmer of the Hin-doo- Brahmin systems are all alike personifications of the life-giv-ing properties of the air of heaven. The Egyptian system seems to be much farther advanced at the period with which our record begins, than the other systems enumerated. In fact it had reached a more metaphysical development. Consequently there is greater difficulty in the comparison of the Egyptian conception with the others, but in this system we notice the same overlapping of the attributes of one deity with those of another, and in some degree, an identity of attributes. Zeus is the father of the muses and Odin is the father of Saga, the goddess of poetry. Thor or Donar, another Norse divinity, is the god of thunder. As the god of thunder he resembles Zeus, and as the thunder bolts of Zeus were forged by the smith-god Hephaestus, who dwelt below ground, so the hammer of Thor was forged by the dwarves (Zwerge), or black elves who dwelt within the earth. Thor and Odin are identified with one another much the same as Vishnu and Indra in the Hindoo system. Thor and Vishnu go on foot to the councils of the gods. Vishnu is represented as traversing heaven in three strides. The Norse god, Tyr, is a personification of the brightness of the heavens. He is also named Zui and Saxuot. Here there appears a striking resemblance in names. Zui is iden-tical with the root meaning to shine. Sanscrit, Dyaus, the Greek Zeus, the Latin, Deus. Among the Vedic gods, Dyaus is the god of the shining heavens in the same way as Zeus of the Greeks. 154 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY Dyaus-pater is the same as Jupiter, the dy being displaced by the J in the L,atin. Indra, of the Hindoos, who hurls the thunder-bolts, and is "the cloud compeller," corresponds in these func-tions with Zeus and Thor. His beard of lightning is the red beard of Thor. The goddess Ushas is the goddess of dawn among the Vedic deities. She corresponds to the Greek Eos. We notice the striking similarity between the two words, indicating deriva-tion from a common root. Thus we might go on multiplying in-stances and giving examples of this similarity. The attributes of the Egyptian deities are to a large extent interchangeable with those of the Greeks and the Norse. The Egyptian conceptions are arrived at by the same personifications of the powers of nature, and in their attributes represent the same mingling of the mater-ial with the spiritual, as do the Grecian, I,atin, Norse and Hindoo. They all represent the occurrences of nature under similar anal-ogies of deeds performed by the divinities. Their names have similar physical meanings. For in the resemblance thus illus-trated and existing to a much greater degree than we can stop to point out, we derived unquestionable proof of identity in the origin of these peoples. It is probable from the very close simil-arity of the I^atin and the Greek systems, that these two nations were less widely separated after the first division than were the other nations, or else that the separation of these two branches took place at some time after the original body had divided and migrated to different points of the compass. From this hasty glance at a few of the ancient systems ot mythology and a review of a number of their points ofresemblance, we obtain an idea of the vast importance which this study may assume. In conclusion we must remark what is palpable to every stu-dent of mythology, that the Christian religion could never have been evolved out of these systems. In its sweet simplicity, its purity and truth, it over-reaches all others in their utmost stretch. Of a truth there is no god but God, and no revelation but the bible. There is a majesty in simplicity which is far above the quaint-ness of wit.—Pope. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 155 THE THUNDER STORM C. W. WEISER, '01 [Gies Prize Essay—Honorable Mention] Upon a sultry August noon The scorching sun came beating down, And all was wrapt in smoky haze Swelt'ring 'neath the withering rays. Above the rugged mountain brink Arose a cloud as black as ink; Dark and motionless it loomed, As if the peak itself were doomed To bear the threat'ning, murky mass, Towering o'er the narrow pass. Then arose a sullen roar, A sudden rush and down it bore Along its path, As tho' in wrath It meant to take, To bend, or break; Destruction carry, Doom, or harry. Now on its course, In mutterings hoarse, It came with rumble Loud, and grumble. A peal, a mutter, A flash and flutter, And on it swept with dire confusion, And in its wake in swift profusion Came other clouds as swift, now dark, Then livid with old Vulcan's spark. Thro' the whirling and the roar Now the rain began to pour In torrents loud upon the roof, And the pine-tree tops aloof, Dashing 'gainst the shanty walls In a way that most appalls, Beating loudly oh the pane Were the dashing drops of rain. Flash of lightning Heavens bright'ning, Peals of thunder Fill with wonder. Crash ! we hear the loud report, Crash ! returns the dread retort. Heavens lighten, splinters flying 156 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY From the mighty trees outlying ! Crash ! Flash ! Flash ! Crash I Rumble ! Roar! Crash ! Flash ! Hurling death and doom, destruction— Crash ! Flash ! in loud convulsion— Upon the forest, peaks disheveled, Rain-tossed, sighing, lowly leveled; Filling all with consternation At this freak of old creation. Flash !—growing dimmer its existence. Crash !—a pealing now in distance. Rumble, rumble, roar and rumble, Mutterings dull and muffled grumble; Rumble, rumble, rumble, roar, Down the dell, the mountains o'er. Gently now the rain is pattering, On the roof and windows clattering, While below the brook is gushing, Muddy wild and roaring, rushing. Clouds are flying, sky is clearing, The storm has passed, and sun appearing Smiles upon the world again Thro' the crystal drops of rain. i A populous solitude of bees and birds, And fairy-form'd and many colored things, Who worship him with notes more sweet than words, And innocently open their glad wings. Fearless and full of life, the gushing springs And fall of lofty fountains, and the bend Of stirring branches, and the bud which brings The swiftest thought of beauty, here extend, Mingling and made by love unto one mighty end. —BYRON. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY Entered at the Postoffice at Gettysburg as second-class matter Voi,. X GETTYSBURG, PA., OCTOBER, 1901 No. 5 E. C. RUBY, '02, Editor-in- Chief R. ST. CLAIR POFFENBARGER,' 02, Business Manager J. F. NEWMAN, '02, Exchange Editor Assistant Editors Miss ANNIE M. SWARTZ, '02 A. B. RICHARD, '02 Advisory Board PROF. J. A. HIMES, A. M., LIT. D. PROF. G. D. STAHLEY, M. D. PROF. J. W. RICHARD, D. D. Assistant Business Manager CURTIS E. COOK, '03 Published eacli month, from October to June inclusive, by the joint literary societies of Pennsylvania (Gettysburg) College. Subscription price, One Dollar a year in advance; single copies Fifteen Cents. Notice to discontinue sending the MERCURY to any address must be accompanied by all arrearages. Students, Professors, and Alumni are cordially invited to contribute. All subscriptions and business matter should be addressed to the Business Manager. Articles for publication should be addressed to the Editor. Address THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY, GETTYSBURG, PA. EDITORIAL '"pHIS issue of the MERCURY is made up largely of essaj's which *■ were in the Gies Prize Contest last year. Had it not been for this supply the editor might have had considerable difficulty in finding enough material for this number. We are looking for-ward to the future of our literary publication with a great deal of hope and firmly believe that our hope can be realized. We cer-tainly have among our fellow-students many who possess consid-erable literary talent, and others who desire the opportunity for development in the literary field. To such we would suggest that they should not neglect the opportunity which the MERCURY ex-tends to them. We shall be glad to have all who are interested in literary work place into our hands any manuscripts for publi-cation. We shall carefully examine them and always exercise 158 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY I i our best judgment in the selections we make for presentation to the public. Fellow-students, it will depend largely upon the in-terest which you take in this work whether our hopes for the suc-cess of the MERCURY shall be realized or not. Let us not forget that this is a matter which pertains to the institution and not to any particular individual. By doing our duty towards this pub-lication we are making it a true index of the work that is being done in the literary departments ot our Alma Mater. RESOLUTIONS OP RESPECT CLASS VV7HEREAS, God in his divine wisdom has seen fit to sum- " mon from our midst to his eternal home one whom we most highly esteemed as a classmate and companion, Theodore Frank McAllister, Therefore, at a meeting of the class of '03, Pennsylvania Col-lege, September 7th, 1901, be it unanimously Resolved, That by this untimely visitation of Divine Providence we have lost one of the most worthy members of the class, one whose Christian character was such as to call forth universal ad-miration, whose amiable disposition gained the friendship of all whom he met, whose abilities as a student pointed to a most use-ful career; and also Resolved, That though we be saddened by this bereavement in the midst of our collegiate course, we humbly submit to the will of Him, who knoweth and doeth better than we, believing that our loss is his gain; and also Resolved, That by his death, by its great effect upon us, we have been led to a greater seriousness in the work of life; and also Resolved, That we extend to the family in its bereavement our sincere sympathy, and pray that God and Saviour, who has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, to comfort them in their afflic-tion, and also Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the sorrow-ing family, and to the college journals and town papers. DAVID S. WEIMER, ROSE E. PLANK, EDWARD B. HAY. THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY Y. M. C. A. 159 WHEREAS, it has pleased Almighty God in his all-wise provi-dence to remove from our association our friend and faithful co-worker, T. Frank McAllister, be it Resolved, That in his death the association has lost a member whose manly virtue and consistent Christian life were a help and inspiration to all, and be it Resolved, That the college has lost a faithful student and an en-thusiastic man in all college affairs, one who lived for the better-ment of his fellows and was happiest when promoting their wel-fare, and be it Resolved, That these resolutions be published in the town and college papers. WILBUR H. FLECK, FRANK DAYMAN, F. GARMAN MASTERS, Committee. nMHMWMHIWiill^HflUllil IHl|i|IMBillililll|H|IH 1v t jj 1 111 J GQgj ORATION: THE CHARACTER OP OUR EARLY AMERICAN FOREFATHERS P. H. R. MULLEN, '01 "PAR from me and my friends be such frigid philosophy as may ■*• conduct us indifferent, and unmoved, over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery or virtue. That man is little to be admired whose patriotism would not gain force on the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Ionia." These noble words from the pen of Dr. Johnson express a sen-timent that ought to find a response in the heart of every Ameri-can citizen. We cannot visit the spots forever hallowed by the valorous deeds of enduring worth, wrought by the makers of our early history, without a sense of gratitude and profound reverence. To dwell upon such a theme without a thrill of emotion, would augur a spirit undeserving of the great legacy bequeathed to us by those venerable personages of the past. If the Greek could boast of an illustrious ancestry we can boast more; if the Roman could linger at the forum to hear the orators lavish their loftiest flights of eloquence upon the rising glory of the "eternal city," we may declare with great emphasis that its ■ 160 THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY splendor grows dim before the rising sun of our national glory, as the moon pales with the advancing day. No other nation has had such a beginning. The early history of every other great nation has a vague outline that marks its transition from lawlessness and barbarism to civilization, but America, comparatively speaking, sprung into being full grown, as "Athena from the brow of Zeus." We are alone among the nations of the earth in having such colossal founders. We need only mention the Pilgrim Fathers, and there is suggested a host of associations. At what a critical period in the world's history did they appear! They shattered the power of a dominant ecclesiasticism and gave to the world re-ligious freedom. We see them committing themselves in a frail bark to a "cruel, crawling sea," uncertain whether they should not all begin their long sleep, and fill a "wandering grave" beneath its restless bil-lows, before they should set foot on American soil. But, guided by their adored Jehovah, through the trackless waters, they at length disembark upon a rock on a desolate shore, and we hear their com-mingled prayers of gratitude break the monotonous voice of the sea. From this rock they go forth to sow the seeds of a mighty nation. We hear the blows of their axes against the primeval forest, ringing out on the frosty air like the pealing of liberty bells. In the light of their burning villages we see a band of savages danc-ing in taunting glee. With unabated zeal they resurrect another village from the ashes. From a miserly soil is forced, by untiring energy, a comfortable livelihood, and the "wilderness blossoms as the rose." A noted statesman has fittingly said: "We shall not stand unmoved on the shore of Plymouth while the sea con-tinues to wash it, nor will our brethren in future time forget the place of the nation's establishment till their river shall cease to flow by it. No vigor of youth, no maturity of age will lead the nation to forget the spots where its infancy was cradled and de-fended." The years of our nation's infancy were truly the most "sad and sublime'' in history. We have dwelt at some length upon the achievements of the Pilgrim Fathers because their deeds are the best interpreters of their character. It is a noteworthy fact, much to the credit of the Pilgrims, that they were the first colonists with sufficient "staying power" THE GETTYSBURG MERCURY 161 to establish a permanent colony in North America. Repeated efforts had been made in Mexico and in Florida, by the Spaniards, but those colonists had as often retreated in the face of unexpected difficulties, without accomplishing anything except the squander-ing of the resources of the borne government. France, likewise, had been unsuccessful for several reasons, chiefly because of the temper of her colonists. Several companies of English colonists also had attempted to take up land in the New World, but had repeatedly failed. It remained for the Pilgrims to be the honored founders of our great Republic, and their final success is fraught with great significance. They were constituted of ' 'sterner stuff'' than their predecessors and had an unchangeable purpose to prod their spirits in the presence of discouragement. To them physical pain was decidedly preferable to spiritual bondage, and they suffered on, unflinchingly, uncomplainingly, to the bitter end. "Religious Liberty" were the two words emblazoned upon the banner of the Pilgrims, and many times were those words des-tined to be written in blood before that banner was to be free from assault. They had, however, one harbor to which they repaired in every time of storm, one fortress in time of danger, one harbinger of hope in time of gloom, one source of truth amid the duplicity of oppressive and corrupt governors—the Bible, from which they received iron into their blood. This book was the Pilgrim's hope, his song, his prayer, his guide. The Old Testament, with its honor roll of immortal heroes, furnished the Pilgrims an ideal for their conduct in persecution and trial. The New Testament was the eternal pledge of final victory, an unfailing reward, an un-fading crown. The Puritans were characterized by a total lack of effeminacy. Their character was sturdy and masculine. No amusements were tolerated that had a tendency to destroy the severity and intensity of life. Severely religious, strict to a degree of intolerance, sternly resolute, stubbornly persistent, implicitly obedient to the dictates of conscience, the Puritans exhibit a massiveness and rugged grandeur of character that has never been surpassed. They were men of unblemished integrity, as distinguished for private pur-ity as for public virtue.'' We have never contemplated a group of men whose faults were so few, whose virtues so many, whose honor was so stainless, whose characters were so untarnished, as Stationery, Blank Books, Amateur Pho-tographic Supplies, Etc., Etc. BALTIMORE ST. R. fi. GULP PAPER HANGER, Second Square, York Street. COLLEGE EMBLEMS. EMIL ZOTHE, ENGRAVER. DESIGNER AND MANUFACTURING JEWELER. 19 S. NINTH ST. PHILADELPHIA SPECIALTIES: Masonic Marks, Society- Badges, College Buttons, Pins, Scarf Pins, Stick Pins and Athletic Prizes. All Goods ordered through A. N. Beau. A. G Miller Job Printer Students' Trade Solicited Best of Work Guaranteed Meneely Bell Co. TROY, N. Y. MANUFACTURERS OF SUPERIOR BELLS The 2000 pound bell now ringing-in the tower of Pennsylvania Col-lege was manufactured at this foundry. PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS. The Pleased Customer Is not a stranger in our establish-ment— he's right at home, you'll see him -when you call. We have the materials to please fastidious men. Jf. D. LIPPY, Merchant Tailor 39 Chambersburg- St., Gettysburg, Pa. L Try My Choice Line of , High-Grade Chocolates ¥¥ at 40c per lb. Always fresh at CHAS. H. McCLEARY Carlisle St., Opposite W. M. R. R. ^ Also Foreign and Domestic Fruits p Always on Hand. L. D. Miller, GROCER Confectioner and Fruiterer. Ice Cream and Oysters in Season. 19 Main St. GETTYSBURG City Hotel Main St. Gettysburg. Free 'Bus to and from all Trains Thirty seconds' walk from either depot Dinner with drive over field with four or more, $1.35 Rates $1.50 to $2.00 per day John E. Hughes, Prop. Capitol Cits Cafe Cor. Fourth and Market Sts. HARRISBURG, PA. First-Class Rooms Furnished. Special Rates to Private Parties. Open Day and Nig-ht. European Plan. Lunch of All Kinds to Order at the Restaurant. ALDINQER'S CAPITOL CITY CAFE. POPULAR PRICES F. Mark Bream, Dealer in Fancy and Staple Groceries Telephone 29 Carlisle St., QETTYSBURQ, PA. .Photographer. No. 3 Main St., GETTYSBURG, PENNA. Our new effects in Portraiture are equal to photos made anywhere, and at any price. - J PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS Manufacturers of High Grade Fraternity Emblems Fraternity Jewelry Fraternity Novelties Fraternity Stationery Fraternity Invitations Fraternity Announcements Fraternity Programs . Special Designs on Application. 140-142 Woodward Avenue DETROIT, MICH. Send for Catalogue and Price List MOTEL GETTYSBURG LIVERY GETTYSBURG, PA. LOING & HOLTZWORTM, Proprietors Apply at Office in the Motel for First-Class Guides and Teams THE BATTLEFIELD A SPECIALTY Qhe Bolton Market Square Ibarttsbura, ff>a. Large and Convenient Sample Rooms. Passenger and Baggage Elevator. Electric Cars to and from Depot. Electric Light and Steam Heat. J. M. & M. S. BUTTERWORTH, Proprietors Special Rates for Commer-cial Men "EZ 1ST IMMER CUT ET WAS ZU WISSEIN." These are the words of Goethe, the great German poet, and are as true in our day as when uttered. In these times of defective vision it is good to know something- about eyes. A great deal has been learned about the value of glasses and their application since Goethe lived. Spectacle wearers have increased by thousands, while at the same time, persons losing their eyesight have been greatly diminished. If your eyes trouble you in any way let me tell you the cause. Examination free and prices reasonable. We grind all our own lenses and fit the best lenses (no matter what anyone else has charged you) for $2.50 per pair and as cheap as SO cents per pair, or duplicate a broken lens if we have one-half or more of the old one, at a reasonable charge, returning same day received. .E. L. EGOLf. 807 and 809 INorth Third Street, MARRISBURG, PA. PATRONIZE OUR ADVERTISERS. II ^entpol }4otel, ELIAS FISSEL, Prop. (Formerly of Globe Hotel) Baltimore Street, Gettysburg, Pa. Two doors from Court House. MODERN IMPROVEMENTS. Steam Heat, Electric Light and Call Bells all through the House. Closets and Bath Rooms on Every Floor. Sefton & Flem-ming's Livery is connected with this Hotel. Good Teams and Competent Guides for the Battlefield. Charges Moderate, Satisfaction Guaranteed. Rates $1.50 Per Day. GET A SKATE ON And send all your Soiled Linen to the Gettysburg Steam Laundry R. R. LONG, Prop. Horace Partridge & Co., BOSTON, MASS. Fine Athletic Goods Headquarters for Foot Ball, Gym-nasium, Fencing and Track Supplies. Send for Illustrated Catalog-. 84 and 86 Franklin Street R.W. LENKER, Agent at Penna. College. JOHN M. MINNIGH, Confectionery, lee, .andlee Gream:o>^j Oysters Stewed and Fried. No. 17 BALTIMORE ST. The Leading Barber >Sf)op (Successor to C. C. 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Issue 28.6 of the Review for Religious, 1969. ; EDITOR R. F. Smith, S.J. ASSOCIATE EDITORS Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Augustine G. Ellard. S.J. ASSISTANT EDITOR John L. Treloar, S.J. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS EDITOR Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Correspondence with the editor, the associate editors, and the assistant editor,.as well as books for review, should be sent to I~VIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 631o3. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's Church; 32~ Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania + + + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Edited with ecclesiastical approval by faculty members of the School of Dt, imty of Saint Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building, .539 North Grand Boulevard, Saint Lores, Missouri 63103. Owned by the Missouri Province Edu-cational Institute. Published bimonthly and copyright (~) 1969by REVIEW FOg REmnlous at 428 East Preston Street; Baltimore, Mary-land 21202. Printed in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at Baltimore, Maryland and at additional mailing offices. Single copies: $1.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $5.00 a year, $9.00 for two years; other countries: $.5.50 a year, $10.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order paya-ble to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Renewals and new subscriptions, where accom-panied by a remittance, should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; P. O. BOX 671; Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Changes of address, business correspondence, and orders not accompanied by a remittance should be sent to REVIEW RELIGIOUS ; 428 East Preston Street; Baltimore, Maryland 21202. Manuscripts, editorial cor-respondence, and books for review 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. NOVEMBER 1969 VOLUME 28 NUMBER 6 BROTHERS THOMAS MORE, C.F.X:, AND LEO RYAN, C.S.V. Development: A New Challenge to Religious In a majority of the articles written these days in religious journals, the emphasis has been largely on areas which are of great concern for those seeking ways to achieve renewal and adaptation in the religious life. As a result, new and valuable insights have been gained in such areas as government, the evangelical counsels, prayer, community, personal responsibility, the aposto-late, secularization, and formation. There is, however, one significant movement which has yet to be fully treated in journals written for re-ligious. And because this movement could elicit from the religious families in the Church a response corre-sponding to that which characterized the great move-ments in the past, we want to draw the attention of religious to this phenomenon so that it" can become a + growing part of the literature on renewal and adapta- + tion. This movement can best be described as development. Because development is still more or less in its infancy stage, only gradually emerging into a full-blown move-ment in society and in the Church, it is not our in-tention to give here a definition of the term. Instead, we want to describe a number of events and programs which will illustrate not only the potential dynamism of de-velopment but also the implications which it has for religious institutes. On January 6, 1967, Paul VI issued the motu proprio Catholicam Christi Ecclesiam setting up the Pontifical Justice and Peace Commission. The objective of this Commission would be "to arouse the people of God to 869 Thomas More, C.F.X., is superior general of the Xa-verian Brother~; Antonio Bosio 5; 00161 Rome, Italy. Leo Ryan, C.$.V., is general councilor of the Viatorian Fath-ers and Brothers; Via Sierra Nevada 60; 00144 Rome, Italy. VOLUME 2B, 1969 + 4. 4. Brothers More and Ryan REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS full awareness of its mission at the present time, in order on the one hand, to promote the progress of poor nations and encourage international social justice, and on the other, to help underdeveloped nations to work for their own development." 1 Shortly after establishing this new curial organ, Paul VI issued his famous encyclical, Populorum progressio, which is the charter of the Pontifical Commission and its basic text. The call of the encyclical is to all the Church, which is to be educated, stimulated, and in-spired to action by it. Cardinal Maurice Gilroy of Quebec, president of the Pontifical Commission, and Monsignor Joseph Gremil-lion, its secretary, set about the arduous task of travel-ing throughout the world to create national commis-sions for justice and peace witkin bishops' corr[erences. After this work had been completed, the commission turned to the Union of Superiors General in Rome to solicit its support. Monsignor Joseph Gremillion per-sonally addressed the Union, urging it to establish con-tact with the Commission and to take an active role in the promotion of the aims of development within all the religious families of the Church. in May, 1968, the Union unanimously approved the writers of this article as its official liaison with the Pontifical Commis-sion. Now that the liaison committee has been in existence for one year, it is in a position to discern a number of trends which indicate the response religious institutes will make to development in the immediate future. The remainder of this paper will be devoted to an elabora-tion of these trends and a brief description of the more important programs from which these trends have is-sued. At the present time we see four trends in development which have significant implications for religious insti-tutes. It is very dear now that development has an ecumenical character. Second, because of the nature of development, religious institutes will be looking for- 1Father. Arthur McCormack makes the following clarification: "The name Justice and Peace must be understood in the following way: Justice means social justice within and between nations so that every human being should have conditions of life in keeping with his human dignity, which will enable him to progress towards a fully human development--to the fullness of a more abundant life~ and enable him also to make his contribution to building a new and better world. Peace is to be understood, not in the sense of main-raining peace or working for peace in the political or diplomatic sense, but in the sense of building peace--the new name for peace is development--producing the conditions that are fundamental for peace, a more just, humane, better world in accordance with para. 76 of the Encyclical, Populorum Progressio" ("The Pontifical Com-mission Justice and Peace," World Justice, v. 8 (1967), pp. 435-55). ward to training specialists in planning, sociology, tech-nology, and social justice. Towards this end, some re-ligious institutes are establishing within their general administration a secretariat for development, Third, there is a growing spirit of collaboration within re-ligious institutes, since it is evident that no religious family can tackle the problems with its own resources. Finally, there is a search for a new theology of develop-ment. 1. Ecumenical Character oI Development In the spring of 1968, the Pontifical Commission of Justice and Peace, the Catholic .Rural Life Society, under the direction of Monsignor Luigi Liguitti, SEDOS, FERES, and ISS2 sponsored a two-day seminar on the Church in developing countries at the theologate of the Oblates of Mary, Rome. This seminar was arranged specifically for superiors general and their curias to acquaint them with development. However, interest in the meeting was so great that it turned out to be a cross-section of some of the most important European bodies having a Third World orientation. At the meet-ing were representatives from several Roman Congrega-tions, the German mission-sponsoring agencies Adveniat and Misereor, Caritas Internationalis, Protestant ~6b-servers, sociologists, and a number of developing organi-zations from Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, and Hol-land. The Catholic-Protestant team under the direction of Canon Houtart (FERES) and Professor Egbert de Vries (ISS) gave the audience a report of their three-year Ford-funded study of the Churches' work in the four developing countries of India, Brazil, Indonesia, and the Cameroons, in the areas of education, medicine, and social work.3 But of far greater importance than any of the socio-logical findings of the three-year study of FERES-ISS was the ecumenical character of the study and the seminar. The meeting was tangible evidence of the growing spirit of collaboration between the Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches, especially in an area which was once the most sensitive one in ~SEDOS (Servizio di Documentazione e Studi) is a cooperative documentation and research venture on the part of about thirty superiors general in Rome. FERES (Federation Internationale des Instituts Catholiques de Recherches Socio-religieuses) is the inter-nationally well-known research center in Brussels. ISS (Institute for Social Studies) is the Protestant counterpart of FERES and is lo-cated at The Hague. 8 A report of this seminar has been published by SEDOS under the title, The Church in Developing Countries;.Via dei Verbiti, 1; Rome, Italy. ÷ ÷ Development VOLUME 28, 1969 871 4" 4" Brothers More and Ryan REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS the past--the developing countries. It is not surprising, then, that one of the most important conclusions ac-cepted by the superiors general was that cooperation between the different denominations be extended. Moving quickly from theory to action, the superiors general of several congregations devoted to medicine shortly after the seminar entered into discussions with the Christian Medical Commission, a semi-auton-omous organism related to the World Council of Churches. As a result of a number of meetings between Mr. J. McGilvray of the Executive Committee of the CMC, Geneva, and these religious congregations, the CMC Executive Committee reached the important con-sensus this past March that five Roman Catholic con-sultants would be appointed to the Commission after nomination by the Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity. These consultants were present at the Commission's general assembly in August of this year. A third example of ecumenical cooperation in de-velopment is of far greater significance, since it was mounted on a larger international stage. In 1967 the World Council of Churches and the Pontifical Commission of Justice and Peace formed the E~ploratory Committee on Society, Development and Peace (SODEPAX) as an experimental instrument for ecumenical collaboration. Father George H. Dunne, S.J., formerly of Georgetown University, was appointed by Dr. Eugene Carson Blake and Cardinal Maurice Roy as joint secretary of this committee. SODEPAX held a conference in April, 1968 on world cooperation for development in Beirut, Lebanon, to which it invited sixty specialists from all over the world. The participants were Protestants, Orthodox, Catholics, observer-consultants from intergovernmen-tal bodies, and two participants from the Muslim com-munity of Lebanon.4 The conference was the first attempt on the part of the World Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church to jointly study and plan the involve-ment of the Christian bodies for the betterment of society. It is a concrete example of the way churches will unite their moral forces towards achieving human dig-nity and world peace. One of the conclusions of the meeting states this objective in terms which make an appeal to all religious: This Report has suggested many ways in which the Churches, acting together, can foster development programs both in ¯ A report of this conference has been published under the title, World Development, the Challenge to the Churches; Publications Department; The Ecumenical Center; 150 Route de Ferney; Geneva, Switzerland. the advanced and developing countries. Joint action for de-velopment will serve basic Christian aims. To work for devel-opment is to express in particular measures the aspiration for brotherhood and human dignity for every individual. And it can also be a significant contribution toward a more orderly and peaceful world. Development can gradually reduce the gross imbalances which promote instability; working together can encourage a wider sense of community among mankind; and the strengthening of international agencies will create structures for common effort and order. These three examples of ecumenical collaboration in the field of development are growing evidences of the need for all religious institutes to work together with other Christian bodies to concert their actions for play-ing their part in the long task of building a more stable international order of well-being and peace for the whole human family. This ecumenical spirit should be built into the thinking and planning of general and provincial chapters, constitutions, formation programs, and the apostolic work of religious families. It should also be the concern of national conferences of re-ligious institutes. The work is of too vast proportions to be left to the interest of those few religious who have up until now been involved in development. 2. Specialists and International Vocation The second trend in development in religious com-munities is the deployment of personnel to act as specialists in the Third World, along with the estab-lishment within general curias of a secretariat for de-velopment. Shortly after the seminar on the Church in develop-ing countries, Misereor approached the superiors general with an offer to provide funds for the training of some specialists who would assist bishops' conferences in de-veloping countries in setting up offices of trained experts in planning. The offer came as a result of the dis-cussions at the seminar concerning the lack of the skills of planning for the proper deployment of dwin-dling personnel, the retooling of personnel for meeting the new needs of the day, and the necessity for co-operating with governments in national planning. The time had come, it was agreed, for religious com-munities to become deeply involved in this modern approach and to train experts who would have com-petency as well as apostolic zeal. After many months of discussions with the superiors general, Misereor agreed early this year to provide funds for the training of highly qualified development experts for the countries of Indonesia, East Africa, and the Congo. Other countries would be added as the pool of experts becomes larger. As the agreement was finally 4, 4, Development VOLUME 28, 1969 873 Brothers More ¯ and Ryan REVIEW FOR ~ELIGIOUS worked out, the funds are in the form of a scholarship for 'the trairiing of experts in the fields of social ac-tion, science, communication, cooperatives, trade unions, medicine, agriculture, and technology. These experts would be seconded to central advisory and coordinat-ing bodies in the selected countries and would devote themselves specifically to the analysis of the problems, the planning of a strategy, and the coordination of pro-grams with national planning. This new type of service would be rendered by the religious ~ommunities only at the invitation of interested bishops' conferences of one of the three countries. This proposal clearly indicates that as the religious communities become more involved in social action, they will need more experts in this field. It also be-comes increasingly clear that religious congregations will now turn their efforts towards promoting and edu-cating a corps of highly qualified men and women who will act not for their individual communities alone but in teams for ihe good o[ society. This task force con-cept of highly competent religious from different in-stitutes could be the most dramatic response of religious congregations to the challenges provided in the Third World. From what we have just said, it is evident that re-ligious will have to respond more promptly and in-telligently to what we would call the apostolate of internationalism. To act as specialists in the Third World, to become globally involved in development, re-llgious will be entering more actively into what Barbara Ward calls our planetary community, a community which. cuts across all the lines and barriers of nations and races. In such a community, religious ought to feel very much at home, especially since the vision of all founders of religious communities extended beyond the hori-zons of a particular country or culture. That spirit which inspired founders to send their men and women to meet the needs of mankind in all parts of the world must now impel their followers to send trained and competent personnel to participate in international bodies which are working to achieve the humaniza-tion' of mankind. This apostolic thrust could be as dramatic and far-reaching as the missionary journey of Francis Xavier to the Indies. There are a number of religious currently engaged in this international apostblate. Those we have met or know of are: Father John Schutte, S.V.D., who was recently appointed by Pope Paul as assistant to Mon-signor Joseph Gremillion, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission of Justice and Peace; Father Arthur Mc- Cormack, M.H.M., special consultant to the same Com-mission; Father Philip Land, S.J., Gregorian University, Rome; Father George H. Dunne, s.J., SODEPAX Joint Secretary, Geneva; Father Thomas F. Stransky, C.S.P., Secretariat for Promotion of Christian Unity; Mother Jane Gates, Superior General of the Medical Missionary Sisters, who is working with the World Council of Churches in the field of medicine; and Father Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C. The first indication we have of a religious institute becoming serious about development and the promo-tion of the international apostolate is the derision of Father Pedro Arrupe, superior general of the Jesuits, to establish a secretariat for development within the curia of his general administration. Father Francis Ivern has been appointed by Father Arrupe to head this secretariat. Similar offices could be set up in many of the larger congregations of men and women. In the case of smaller units, it is quite possible that interested and competent religious could be, as a matter of policy, trained to take their place in general curias. Others could be as-signed to work on task forces, national bishops' con-ferences, international or national research centers, na-tional conferences of religious, and the pontifical or the national conferences of justice and peace. 3. Spirit of Collaboration It is quite evident from what has been said above that there is growing within religious congregations and institutes a greater spirit of collaboration to make the response called for by Populorum progressio and the objectives of the Pontifical Commission of Justice and Peace. Since the work of development is of such gigantic proportions, no one rellgious institute can unilaterally plan its involvement in it. No one individual religious, or even a cadre of them, can shoulder the heavy re-sponsibility of this new apostolate. It must be the work of all religious, or the efforts for the humanization of mankind will be considerably weakened. One model of collaboration already exists in Rome. It is an organization to which we have already re-ferred many times, namely, SEDOS. This voluntary organization of a number of superiors general, formed only six years ago on the initiative of a few missionary congregations, has in a short time given proof of the results that can flow ~om the spirit of collaboration. Within a span of just one year, for imtance, SEDOS has held a seminar on development, a symposium on the theology of development and mission, and a con-÷ ÷ ÷ Developme~ VOLUME 28, 1969 875 Brotmheurl s. RM~oarne REVIEW FOR.RELIGIOUS terence on intermediate technology. As noted already, it has worked out an agreement with Misereor to finance the education of a number of specialists for developing countries. It is also actively engaged in es-tablishing guidelines for a mutual exchange of ideas between the World Council of Churches and medical missionary congregations in the field of medicine. SEDOS is unique in a number of ways. Its member-ship consists of both men and women religious. Its ex-ecutive secretary is Father Benjamin Tonna, a secular priest from Malta, who is a professional sociologist. The director is Miss Joan Overboss, a multilingual expert from Holland. But its uniqueness lies principally in its spirit of co-operation among the superiors general in facing the new problems evolving from the Third World. Since there was no structure among religious institutes or in any Roman curial congregation to help religious fami-lies prepare themselves for their involvement in the work of development, superiors general united their forces to establish a documentation and research center which would enable them to convert from a family business to a modern and efficient concern. Thus, for the first time in the Church's history, religious congre-gations have banded together at the highest level to make their contribution in an area in which the Church in recent years has focused its principal at-tention. This same spirit of collaboration is evident in such countries as the Congo and Indonesia, where religious are working together with bishops' conferences in es-tablishing planning secretariats. Quite recently we read an appeal by the East African conference of religious to its membership to turn itself to the question of de-velopment and to form a task force that would assist the bishops' conferences in establishing a secretariat for development. If religious congregations are to involve themselves in this apostolate, this spirit of cooperation must con-tinue to grow. Many religious want to see their in-stitutes take decisive measures to execute the social objectives of Populorum progressio and to work actively to achieve the goals of the Pontifical Commission of Justice and Peace. The younger generation of religious also want to become actively engaged in working to create conditions within and between nations that are in keeping with the human dignity of man. But they need some concrete programs to give them direction. As a step towards establishing some programs, con-ferences of religious and individual institutes could give attention to the following suggestions made by the Pontifical Commission of Justice and Peace at the end of its first plenary meeting of March, 1967: 1. That Bishops' Conferences, teaching orders and all those concerned with education should be encouraged to include the teaching of international social justice in the curricula of schools, seminaries, universities and all institutions of learn-ing. 2. That retreats, sermons and specifically religious instruc-tion should emphasize the discussion of world justice, ~. That such curricula should be, where possible and suit-able, worked out on an ecumenical basis. 4. That competent study groups, again when suitable on an ecumenical basis, should continue the work of elaborating a doctrine of world-wide development and justice. 5. That lay groups of all kinds be invited to include world justice in their programs of adult education and, when com-petent to do so, assist the Commission in suggesting programs for the mass media. 4. A New Theology ot Development A concern very often expressed at the seminar on de-velopment alluded to above was that what was needed was an honest exchange of views on the theological foundation of development. In fact, one of the prin-cipal resolutions of the seminar asked the Congregation for Evangelization to put the theology of development on its agenda for its next meeting and for eventual presentation to the Holy Father as agenda for the next Synod of Bishops. Another resolution requested a sym-p. osium on mission and development. These two actions reveal that a theology of develop-ment has become a matter of urgency for religious. So long as the effort of missionaries was expended 'within the limits of a parish or a diocese, no special problem presented itself. But today the organization of develop-ment has become a much more complex affair; it has assumed the dimensions of whole nations, of entire continents, of the planetary community itself. While such a task calls for specialists, the ordinary missionaries run the danger of no longer seeing and understanding the role they are called on to play in the task of de-velopment. They stand, then, in perplexity when faced with the contradictory opinions of theologians. If some theolo-gians insist on the irreplaceable character of the proc-lamation of God's word and of the sacramental ministry, missionaries taken up with the tasks of development be-cause of the demands of the situations in which they find themselves and the concrete needs they daily encounter are troubled by an uneasy conscience. If other theologians stress the primary role of development, then those mis-sionaries whose tasks are those which belong to the more + + + Developmem VOLUME 28, Z969 8?7 traditional patterns of the apostolate begin to question the value of what they are doing. It was in response to this perplexity that the superiors general of SEDOS held a mission theology symposium in Rome this past April. Theologians from Europe and other parts of the world were invited to tackle this prob-lem first among themselves, and second in open discus-sions with the generals and their staffs.~ This symposium's importance lies in the fact that it has brought before religious congregations the theologi-cal dimensions of development, while adding to the growing literature on tlfis subject. This hard confronta-tion with the realities of development is a hopeful sign of growth within the Church and religious institutes. And instead of standing before the reality with perplex-ity and bewilderment, religious institutes, with their sense of global dedication, ought to be in the vanguard of working out a new theology of development. This mission theology symposium should set the pace for all religious families of the church. It has been our intention in this paper to draw the attention of religious to the phenomenon of develop-ment so that it can become a growing part of the litera-ture on renewal and adaptation. As a contribution to this literature on renewal, we have pointed out four major trends we have noted over the past year in the field of development as they affect religious institutes. The contribution religious can make to development, we are convinced, is enormous. The single attempts being made here and there must spring into a massive effort that will engage religious in a venture that has taken the center stage of the Church. If development is the new word for peace, it is a new challenge to religious. ~ Preparations are being made for the publication of the pro-ceedings of this symposium in various languages. The English edi-tion will be published by Maryknoll Publications. Brothers More and R~an REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS JAMES A. CLARK Placing U. S. Personnel in Latin America Once a bishop or provincial decides to give manpower assistance to Latin America, he quickly discovers the dif-ficulties of attempting to find the wisest way to assign priests, brothers, or nuns to projects in Latin America. Since few authorities can agree on proper priorities for such placements, a superior is wise to recognize im-mediately that optimum, effective assignment of per-sonnel throughout Latin America represents an unat-tainable goal. In the past, assignment of American religious in the southern half of the hemisphere resulted from acciden-tal factors. The high ratio of Americans in Peru derived from the efforts of a zealous nuncio who welcomed them warmly. The large numbers of Americans in Guatemala result from a statistic that indicated that Guatemala had the worst proportion of priests to peo.ple of any Latin American country. Bewildered superiors anxious to respond to appeals of the Vatican to send missionaries to Latin America seized on this fact as a reason to send their subjects to Guatemala. Localized concentrations of Americans usually can be traced to a friendship begun at the Vatican Council between North and Latin Ameri-can Church leaders or through the bonds of a religious community existing in both halves of the hemisphere. The complexity of properly placing people in Latin America appears as a new problem because previously the allocating of workers to missionary lands did not require any accommodation with a structured Church in the foreign situation as is the case now in Latin America. One locale appeared as needy and worthwhile as another for apostolic laborers. The presence of a viable and strong Church in Latin America demands :extreme delicacy in interposing foreigners to serve that Church. Yet the need is so general and widespread in Latin America that from a spiritual point of view it has be- 4- ÷ James A. Clark is a staff member of the apostolic delegation at The Manor House in Rockcliffe Park; Oto tawa 2, Canada. VOLUME 28, 1969 879 come impossible for even the indigenous Church to ar-rive at a generally satisfactory set of realistic and valid preferences. Priorities which have aided in the distribution of financial grants are applicable in part to the appoint-ment of people even. though this latter commodity, people, raises mnch more profound questions since it is so much more precious and scarce in Latin America. This dilemma especially concerns diocesan priests be-cause the international 'religious communities already have a functioning system for distribution of their mem-bers. This arrangement, made under the auspices of the Holy See, has served for generations and enables provincials to provide staff for missionary areas without an agonizing analysis in each case. Those communities without Latin American branches and bishops entering the field for the first time find the subject distressingly difficult. The. Most Reverend Marcos McGrath, Second Vice- .President of the Bishops' Council for Latin America (GELAM), has encouraged even the religious communi-ties to refuse to cling to traditional apostolates and to become open to new forms of ministry: Priorities of needs in the churches of Latin America can be determined most effectively when undertaken by a national episcopal conference. Deciding who comes first is a difficult exercise in the spirit of collegiality because each bishop would like to see his diocese at the top of the list. But it is a necessary exercise and is of great assistance to those from abroad who want to know what the bishops as a whole think about the needs of their country. A listing of priorities may indeed be prepared, by a special committee named by the local bishops. Such an arrangement has been requested in some instances by various organizations of assistance. CELAM's continental sec-retariat of the Latin American bishops may indicate some gen-eral priorities of needs through its specialized departments. ÷ ÷ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Several complex plans have been proposed to resolve the problem of placement. The secretariat of the U.S. Bishops' Committee for Latin America once devised a coordinating committee of ten expert advisers to counsel bishops on the proper method of allocating personnel for Latin America. However since the ten could not agree among themselves on how to achieve best results the committee never met and the plan died. The secretariat received requests from most of the ecclesiastical jurisdictions in Latin America (more than 600) and circulated these to bishops and superiors of religious houses. However, no attempt to provide criteria for selecting one petition over another ever appeared. Standard policy urged superiors to.visit potential recipi- ¯ ent areas personally, a rather unrealistic suggestion for harried superiors already overstocked with requests for their manpower. Naturally, bishops prefer to retain jurisdiction over their priests. For this reason the concept of a military ordinariate type structure to recruit, train, and appoint personnel in Latin America failed to receive widespread acceptance, since experience .with military chaplains alerted bishops to the fear of losing control of their sub-jects for the major portion of their ministerial lives. Several prominent churchmen, support attempts to permit diocesan priests to serve in a religious community on the missions through a temporary connection with a religious order. Only diocesan priests who have lived for any length of time in the house of a religious society can foresee the difficulties of this plan. In spite of abundant good will on the part of all involved there is no escaping the feeling on the part of the secular priest that he is a "junior" or "non-incorporated" subject, without status and without the possibility of participation in decision making sessions. Likewise, this association causes the priest to lose identity both at home and abroad as a diocesan priest serving temporarily on the missions. The entry of diocesan priests with previous parish ex-perience into missionary areas revealed the value of these men over those who went directly to the missions upon ordination without any experience in a normal parish situation to use as a barometer for their missionary en-deavors. A diocese-to-diocese setup is not workable because one diocese in the States cannot properly provide for train-ing, support, leave time, illness, vacations, and so forth of overseas staff. Yet a method must be found which preserves the interest of the home diocese which usually provides the financial wherewithal enabling the Latin American mission to function. Other proposals include appointing men for a time to a national conference of bishaps in a given country, in-cardinating priests temporarily into a Latin American diocese, or assigning them to the U.S. Bishops' Com-mittee for Latin America, which, in conjunction with the U.S. and Latin American bishops involved, could arrange for training and distribution of priests. Two countries have established national offices to deal with this issue, and bishops assigning men to either Chile or Brazil need only refer to the national offices for ad-vice. Several methods of providing diocesan priests to Latin America have sprung up among the 76 dioceses involved in this effort. 24 dioceses merely permitted priests to go to Latin America. 17 assumed responsibility to support the volunteer priests during their term of Latin Ameri- 4- 4- 4- Latin America can service but they make no provisions for the assign-ment of these priests. 34 accept the task of supporting a parish or several parishes in Latin America. In Boston, Richard Cardinal Cushing founded in 1958 a society to bring these diocesan priests together. Currently this St. James (the Cardinal's middle name) Society counts slightly more than 100 members from 30 dioceses in the U.S. and several European countries. This corps pro-vides pastoral services to a half million people spread across Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. It represents the best vehicle currently available for sending diocesan priests to Latin America. A similar organization for pooling nuns going to Latin America received attention at an inter-American meeting of Bishops at Georgetown University in 1959 but has failed to be implemented. In attempting to establish priorities, the national conferences of Bishops in Latin America have proved to be a boon although usually the primatial archbishop in a country tends to see his own needs first and with good reason for he usually presides over the largest metropoli-tan portion of that country. But rural bishops complain about the criteria when they witness most foreign ar-rivals remaining in the capital city. Both CELAM and the Pontifical Commission for Latin America have sought to provide a solution in this sensitive area but without success, as most attempts at coordination cause disputes over the choice of one diocese over another as beneficiary of American clerics. Originally the Pontifical Commission offered the facili-ties of the nunciatures throughout Latin America as clearing houses, but a.fear of Roman control of the en-tire movement impelled both donor and petitioner dioceses to bypass quietly any Commission services. As a former nuncio in Panama, the late Archbishop Paul Bernier commented on this question during his tenure on the Canadian Bishops' Commission for Latin America: lames A. Clark REVIEW FOR'RELIGIOUS I think there is a strong feeling against forming a society of any kind. Most of the bishops, if I understand well, insist on having and keeping an effort of the secular clergy as such with no affiliation, neither to the diocese ad quam nor to any particular religious or semi-religious society but to keep all of them [the priests] incardinated in the diocese a qua. If they don't want to stay there for more than five years, or if for any other reason they cannot remain, they come back to their own diocese just as if they were never out of it. I think that in Canada at least the impression of the bishops would be rather contrary to affiliating or incorporating our diocesan ~nd secular priests to any particular society. Most bishops would be willing, however, to send according to their abilities one or two, five or ten priests, to some form of, not a society, but a responsible organization which in the last analysis would be in the hands of the Episcopal Committee for that. Whoever accepts responsibility for such appointments will have need of some priorities or guidelines since the priestly requirements of Latin America could not be fulfilled if every priest in. the United States went to Latin America. Some principles to follow in this area would include the following points. The i~rst choice to be made is a selection of a category of work for a religious volunteey, that is, shall I send my priest (or brother or sister) to work as a catechist, teacher, parish worker, or what? The departments of CELAM indicate the critical apostolates which normally will have first call on foreign services: education, medi-cine, social service, relief, charity, seminary/vocational work, catechetics, student/university apostolates, and service to laborers. Next the superior must choose a geographical classifi-cation, that is, shall I send him (her) to serve on the con-tinental level with CELAM, or on the regional or na-tional level with the conferences of bishops, or to the diocesan and local level. Foreigners often function best in posts removed from the intimate personal relation-ship of priest-to-parishioner which reqmres sensitive cul-tural perception. Usually their North American organi-zational talents achieve widest impact on a broader scale at the continental, regional, or diocesan levels. Also a decision must be made as to whether to send personnel to the rural or urban locations. Many Mary-knollers in Latin America have regretted the decision made many years ago to spread Society members across the mountain ranges. The impact of an individual is broader in the cities. On the other hand Cardinal Cush-ing says that the revolution in Latin America will be born in the mountains and the Church ought to be there. At one time it was thought preferable to assign North Americans to dioceses with North American bishops at the helm. This principle has been subsequently disre-garded since it leads to a danger of creating a church within a church, one foreign and one native. The monster parishes which have arisen in Latin America as a resuh of abundant American material and personnel aid have become a source of distress for Latin Americans and embarrassment for North Americans. Parish A flooded with American assistance can only re-flect poorly on parish B which is struggling along with local resources only. OccasionaIIy a choice arises between placing people in projects underwritten by private industry or govern-÷ ÷ ÷ Latin America VOLUM~ 28~ 1969 883 4- 4- REVIEW FOR,RELIGIOUS 884 ments, for example, a company hospital or a state nor-mal school. These opportunities sometimes permit the assure, ption of responsibilities which would otherwise be financially prohibitive; on the other hand, alliance with a government or industrial concern can be severely det-rimental to the Church image and impact. .One essential requirement demands that the project given help be integrated into the local church structure. For this reason each local request must be approved by the national conference of bishops to insure that it co-ordinates with the national pastoral plan. From the viewpoint of the candidate to be sent to Latin America, if he or she speaks one of the languages of Latin America or has studied or served in a particular country naturally it is logical to assign the person to that place. All attempts to satisfy reasonable personal preferences will reduce the inevitable cultural shock suffered by v, olunteers. A first principle of sending people into Latin America is that they be sent as members of a team effort and never individually. The ability of the subject offering his services will sometimes be the final determinant of assignment; a seminary professor will not serve best in a slum parish nor will a Trappist normally function well in a mass communications program. Due to the profound social division in Latin America there is a need to predetermine whether personnel are to be placed in projects serving the wealthy or the im-poverished. In the latter case a realistic plan for external financing will normally be required. Projects which provide some hope of eventual self-sufficiency in regard to their staffing needs should be selected rather than those which will require permanent foreign workers. Realistic approaches to provide new solutions to basic religious problems of Latin America deserve special con-sideration. For examples, the novel approach to slum parish work of Father Andres Godin, a Canadian Oblate, in Lima, Peru; or that of American Oblate Edmund Leising who has developed a remarkable program in Brazil for promoting parish self-support through Ameri-can fund raising procedures; or the renowned apostolate of Father Leo Mahon in San Miguelito parish in Pan-ama who has discovered an entirely new process for parish effectiveness. These offer novel and successful approaches to stubborn problems. Similar examples of projects managed by Latin American priests themselves could be cited. Most superiors have the background to recognize that adequate and detailed financial arrangements must be agreed upon in advance by both sides to prevent animos-ity from developing on obscure financial responsibilities. The overall plan an agency presents ought to be ex-amined carefully to learn if it is realistically conceived. Experience in Latin America reveals that ill.constructed, idealistic proposals soon collapse. Those of us familiar with the problem of positioning personnel in Latin America are aware of the difficulties superiors face in this field. Hopefully some of the above remarks will assist the ongoing dialogue in this area and be of some assistance to those who seek to serve the Church by releasing people for work on the only Catholic continent of the globe. + + ÷ Latin America VOLUME 28, 1969 885 JOSEPH F. GALLEN, S.J. Comments on tl e Instruction on Formation Joseph F. Gallen, S.J., writes from St. Joseph's Church; $21 Willings Alley; Philadelphia, Penn-sylvania 19106. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Prepostulancy Nothing is said in the Instruction on a prepostulancy period. Number 4 states that it would be worthwhile to consider whether the practice of going directly to the novitiate from such places as aspirancies, apostolic schools, or minor seminaries should be continued or whether an interval of probation should be had to develop the human and emotional maturity of the candidate. In the case of those obliged to a postulancy by canon 539, § 1, this development can be taken care of during the postulancy, which can last up to two years and also be made while residing outside any house of the in-stitute (n. 12). There is nothing in the Instruction for or against such places as aspirancies but, as is clear from what was said above, number 4 presumes that they will continue to exist. Postulancy (nn. 4; 10-2; 33) Importance. "Hence it follows that all institutes, even those that do not prescribe the postulancy, must at-tach great importance to this preparation for the novice-ship" (n. 4). Purpose. This is to judge the suitability and aptitude of the candidate; to give a preparation that will enable the noviceship to be made more fruitfully; to provide a gradual transition from secular to religious life; and to verify and complete, if necessary, the religious knowledge of the candidate (nn. 11-2). "Tentative" in number 11 of the Vatican English translation is not in the Latin text and "to formulate a. judgment" is to form a judgment. Power of general chapter. In institutes in which the postulancy is of obligation by common law (in insti-tutes of perpetual vows: all women but in those of men only lay brothers) or by the constitutions, the gen-eral chapter may keep in mind, for a better adaptation of the postulancy~ the following norms (n. 12): Duration. In institutes in which the postulancy is not obligatory by common or constitutional law, the general chapter may determine its nature and duration, which can vary for different candidates but should not be too brief nor ordinarily longer than two years. In institutes in which the postulancy is obligatory from common law, it must last at least six full months (c. 589, § I), and this minimum time is more probably retained in the Instruction; but the general chapters of these institutes may also follow the two-year limit, the principle that the time may vary for different candi-dates, and probably that the minimum time may be less than six months (n. 12). 1 do not think the right of canon 539, § 2, to prolong the postulancy for six months extends to a postulancy of two years. A postu-lancy longer than two years would not be very rea-sonable, especially since it can be varied within that time for the individual. Place. Preferably not in the novitiate house, and it can be profitable for it to be made wholly or in part outside a house of the institute (n. 12). The postulancy may therefore be so organized that the postulants con-tinue to reside in their homes or in such another place as a college. See also numbers 4 and 11. The latter speaks of a "gradual transition from lay life to that proper to the noviceship." Director. The postulants, wherever the postulancy is made, are to be under the direction of qualified re-ligious, between whom and the master of novices there is to be sedulous cooperation (n. 12). Dross. The determination of the dress of the postu-lants appertains to the general chapter (n. 33). How-ever, canon 540, § 2, had required simply that the dress of the postulants be modest and different from that of the novices. It could therefore have been secular but modest; special and uniform, but this was not neces-sary; religious, but different from that of the novices. Noviceship (nn. 4-5; 13-33) Maturity requisite Ior beginning noviceship (n. 4). The noviceship should begin when the candidate is aware of God's call and has reached that degree of human and spiritual maturity which will allow him to decide to respond to this call with sufficient and proper knowledge and responsibility: "Most of the difficulties encountered today in the formation of novices are usually due to the fact that when they were admitted they did not have the required maturity., it must ÷ ÷ ÷ Formation VOLUME 28, 1969 887 ÷ ÷ ÷ $. F. Gallen, S.l. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 888 be affirmed that the age required for admission to the noviceship should be higher than heretofore" (n. 4). Place. The noviceship for validity must be made in a house legitimately designated for this purpose (n. 15) by the superior general with the consent of his council and according to the constitutions (n. 16). The superior general with the consent of his council and after consultation with the interested provincial may in a case of necessity permit also many novitiates in the same province (n. 17). When the small number of novices is not sufficient to promote community life, the superior general should, if possible, establish the novitiate in a community of the institute capable of aiding the formation of such a small group of novices (n. 18). To better meet some demands of their formation, the superior general may authorize that the group of novices be transferred during certain periods to another house of the institute designated by himself (n. 16). In particular and exceptional cases, the superior gen-eral with the consent of his council may permit that a candidate validly make his noviceship in a house of the institute other than the novitiate house, under the direction of a qualified religious acting as a master of novices (n. 19). Duration. For validity the noviceship must last for twelve months (n. 21). A continuous or interrupted absence from the noviti-ate group and house that exceeds three months ren-ders the noviceship invalid (ft. 22). In lesser absences the higher superior, after consulting the novice master and considering the reason for the absence, may in individual cases command an extension of the noviceship and determine its length, and this matter may also be determined by the constitutions (n. 22). Formative activity periods outside the novitiate house must be added to the required twelve months, nor may they be begun before a novice has spent three months in the novitiate (if the contrary is done, the noviceship be-gins only on the completion of the formative activity period) and must be so arranged that the novice spends a minimum of six continuous months in the novitiate, re-turns there at least a month before the first vows or other temporary commitment, and the time of the whole novice-ship extended in this manner may not exceed two years (n. 24). The noviceship amplified by such formative activity periods may not exceed two years, but this does not abrogate the right given to higher superiors in canon 571, § 2, to prolong the noviceship up to six months in a doubt about the suitability of a candidate. Such a prolongation is permitted in a noviceship of two years without formative activity periods. A higher superior for a just cause may permit first profession or commitment to be anticipated but not beyond fifteen days (n. 26). Formative activity periods. The general chapter by at least a two-thirds vote may experimentally enact, in keeping with the nature of the institute, one or more periods of formative activity outside the novitiate house, the number to be determined in practice accord-ing to the judgment of the master of novices with the consent of the higher superior, for the formation of the novices or, in some cases, for a better judgment of their aptitude for the life of the institute. Such periods may be used for one, several, or the entire group of novices. If possible a novice should not be assigned alone to these periods. In these periods the novices are under the direction of the master of novices (nn. 23, 25). "It must be emphasized that this formative activ-ity, which complements novitiate teaching, is not in-tended to provide the novices with the technical or professional training required for certain apostolic ac-tivities, training which will be afforded to them later on, but rather to help them, in the very midst of these activities, to better discover the exigencies of their vocation as religious and how to remain.faithful to them" (n. 5; see also n. 25). Separation of novices. There must be some separation between the novices and the professed religious, with whom, however, and with other communities, the novices may have contact according to the judgment of the master of novices. It appertains to the general chapter to decide, according to the nature of the institute and particular circumstances, what contacts may be had between the novices and the professed of the institute (n. 28). The use of the term "professed re-ligious" in the second sentence makes it sufficiently clear that there is no prohibition of contact between the novices and the postulants, as might be feared from the word "members" in the other two sentences of number 28. Studies during the noviceship. The general chapter may permit or command certain studies during the nov-iceship for the better formation of the novices, but doctri-nal studies should be directed to the knowledge and love of God and to the development of a more profound life of faith. From the twelve months of noviceship of number 21 all studies, even theological and philosophi-cal, made for obtaining diplomas or for acquiring a formation directed to preparation for fulfilling future Formation VOLUME 28, 1969 889 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 890 duties are forbidden (n. 29). Provided doctrinal studies are directed to the spiritual life, as prescribed in the first sentence, it is probably not forbidden to receive credits for such studies when these can be had but the studies are not to be directed to the attaining of credits. There is no doubt that the prescription on doctrinal studies in this first sentence also applies only to the twelve months of noviceship of number 21, as is also true of the canonical legislation in canon 565, § 3, on this point, "even though the Latin text says "during the time of the noviceship," not "during the regular novitiate year," as in the English translation. The latter also has "all formal study programs" in the second paragraph whereas the Latin reads "all studies." Dress o] the novices. It appertains to the general chapter to determine the dress of the novices (n. 33). Number 33 speaks of the "habit of the novices and of other candidates for the religious life." It certainly had not been the practice nor is there any tendency to give a religious habit to postulants, and the meaning here of "habit" is "dress." No limitation is placed on the power of the general chapter to determine the dress of the novices and postulants. Canon 557 commands the wear-ing of the habit during the whole time of the noviceship, but it has also been maintained that the noviceship is an uncertain time and that the habit, to retain all its significance, should not be given to the novices. Noviceship lot another class. Unless the constitutions determine otherwise, a noviceship made for one class is valid for another (n. 27). The constitutions may de-termine the conditions regulating a transfer from one class to another (n. 27), Novice master. The novices are under the direction of the novice master who may seek the aid of other skilled helpers (n. 30). This is to be kept in mind with regard to a formation team. See also numbers 5, 12, 15, 23, 31, 32. Temporary Bond (nn. 2, 6-9; 34-8) A different temporary bond may be established and ]or all. Number 34 gives a faculty, not a precept, but in general language: "The General Chapter, by a two-thirds majority, may decide to replace temporary vows with some other kind of commitment as, for example, a promise made to the institute." The same general lan-guage is found in numbers 2, 6, 10, 24,' 37-8. The pos-sibility of the extension to all in the probation after the noviceship is not certainly excluded by other num-bers of the Instruction. A dil~erent bond should be introduced only a]ter most careful thought. The reasons are (1) number 34 demands a two-thirds vote of the general chapter to in-troduce a different bond and (2) number 7 explidtly re-quires such careful thought: "No institute should de-cide to use the faculty granted by this Instruction to replace temporary vows by some other form of commit-ment without having clearly perceived and weighed the reasons for and the nature of this change." A different bond in fairness, prudence, and proper regard [or sound spirituality should be introduced only [or those in whom the special immaturity exists. The reasons are (1) by vows a special consecration is had according to number 2: "Thus it is that religious pro-fession is an act of religion ~nd a special consecration whereby a person dedicates himself to God." (2) Be-cause according to number 7 temporary vows are com-pletely in harmony with the greater response to God so important at the beginning of the religious life and also enable the candidate to make the consecration proper to the religious state: "For him who has heeded the call of Jesus to leave everything to follow Him there can be no question of how important it is to respond generously and wholeheartedly to this call £rom the very outset of his religious life; the making of temporary vows is completely in harmony with this requirement. For, while still retaining its probationary character by the fact that it is temporary, the profession of first vows makes the young religious share in the consecration proper to the religious state." (3) Because immaturity is the sole reason given (n. 7) for substituting another temporary commitment: "In fact, more fre-quently now than in the past, a certain number [quidam] of young candidates come to the end of their novitiate without having acquired the religious ma-turity sufficient to bind themselves immediately by re-ligious vows, although no prudent doubt can be raised regarding their generosity or their authentic vocation to the religious state. This hesitancy in pronbuncing vows is frequently accompanied by a great awareness of the exigencies and the importance of the perpetual religious profession to which they aspire and wish to prepare themselves." (4) Possibly also because the desire for the different commitment was true only of some institutes (n. 7): "Thus it has seemed desirable in a certain num-ber o[ institutes that at the end of their noviceship the novices should be able to bind themselves by a temporary commitment different from vows, yet answering their twofold desire to give themselves to God and the institute and to pledge themselves to a fuller preparation for perpetual profession." Since the Instruction describes temporary vows as a consecration that is special, proper to the religious state, and in harmony with the greater ÷ ÷ ÷ VOLUME 28. 1969 89! + ÷ .~. Fo Gallen, $J. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 89~> response to God, it at least seems unfair, imprudent, and without regard for sound spirituality to deprive a novice of temporary vows when he has all the quali-ties requisite for making them, that is, when he is not affected by the special immaturity described in number 7. ¯ Some observations on this immaturity. Is this im-maturity proper to the young or is it the emotionalism that is today found in many older religious, and which the young often manifest only after continuous contact with such older religious? Isn't there a movement at this moment in the United States to give the vote to those who are eighteen years of age because the young are now more politically mature? In more than thirty states it has been the law that a girl of eighteen may marry without the consent of her parents. Is there any widespread tendency at present to change this very general law because of the immaturity of the ~young? Don't some hold that the greater physical development of modern youth argues to a greater psychological de-velopment? Does one frequently and without indoctri-nation encounter a novice who is judged to have a certain religious vocation (see also c. 571, § 2) but is too immature to take temporary vows? What factual and ob-jective investigations were made in the United States to prove the existence of such immaturity? Isn't it true that such immaturity would occur with regard to the temporary vow of chastity, not of poverty or obedience? Prescinding now from the obligation of the different commitment, don't the commandments of God still bind such a candidate and under serious sin in a violation of chastity? The simplest and most appropriate different com-mitment would be a promise to the institute to observe poverty, chastity, and obedience because (1) neither the form nor the object of the different commitment is determined in the Instruction (see n. 34) but (2) in numbers 7 and 35 the Instruction at least says it is fitting that the dit~erent commitment should in some way refer to the exercise of the three evangelical counsels, for example in number 7: "Whatever form such a temporary commitment may take, it is in keeping, with fidelity to a genuine religious vocation that it should in some way be based on the requirements of the three evangelical counsels." and (3) more directly and even categorically in number 13 the Instruction apparently says that the novice is to make profession of the evangeli-cal counsels at the end of the noviceship by temporary vows or other temporary commitment: ".that a novice.may implement the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience, the profession of which 'either by vows or by other sacred bonds that are like vows in their purpose' he will later make." This number of the Instruction is talking of a novice and therefore o[ the first consecration, which can be either vows or another temporary commitment. There is no alternative for the profession of perpetual vows. Other forms and objects of commitment are possible. The form and object of members in the strict sense of secular institutes is: "By making profession before God of celibacy and perfect chastity, which shall be confirmed by vow, oath, or consecration binding in conscience, according to the constitutions; by a vow or promise of obedience.by a vow or promise of poverty." (Provida Mater Ecclesia, February 2, 1947, Art. III). Some of the different forms of commitments in societies of common life without public vows are annual private vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience and the service of the poor; private perpetual vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience; promise of fidelity to the observance of the rule and constitutions; perpetual promise of observ-ance of common life and poverty; perpetual agreement to obey the rule of the institute; perpetual oath of perseverance and obedience; and perpetual oath and promise of perseverance and obedience,x The societies of common life more £requently encountered are the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, Eudists, Josephites, Maryknoll Missionaries, Oratorians, Pallot-tine Fathers, Paulists, Precigus Blood Fathers, Sulpicians, Vincentians, and White Fathers. Is one who makes a di1~erent temporary commitment in a state of perfection, in the religious state, a re-ligious, and a member of his institute? This is at least a very basic question and with wide implications. The negative arguments are that the Instruction nowhere says that one who makes a different temporary commit-ment is a religious and that canon 488, 7°, demands public vows to constitute a religious. On the other hand (1) vows are required only by canon law, not by divine law or the nature of the matter,2 to constitute a re-ligious, and the Instruction derogates from this canon law, as will be seen from the following arguments: (2) number 36 states absolutely that the subject is united with his institute and absolutely that he is obliged to observe its law; (3) the Instruction throughout does not differentiate between such a commitment and temporary vows (see nn. 2, 6, 10, 24, 34, 37-8); (4) num-ber 10 states explicitly that the temporary commitment is not the noviceship. If an entirely new state were being 1 See also Beste, lntroductio in Codicem, 497; Guti~rrez, Gora-mentarium pro religiosis, 38 (1959), 312-3. =See Goyeneche, De religiosis, 10-11; Guti~rrez, op.cit., 29 (1050), 72-3. ÷ ÷ ÷ VOU, JME 25, 89~ REV;EW FOR RELIGIOUS introduced distinct from that of the noviceship and temporary vows, this should have been dearly stated in the Instruction. (5) The probationary periods can last for thirteen years. This seems in itself to be un-reasonable if the subject does not become a member of the institute until the end of such time. The professed of temporary vows are members by first profession. The present canon law does not permit a duration of tempo-rary vows longer than six years, and canon 642, § 2, likens a professed of six years of temporary vows to one of perpetual vows. (6) During this prolonged time the institute would not be held in the case of such a subject to the norms of dismissal for professed but could dismiss him almost in the manner of a novice, whereas the pro-fessed of temporary vows would have also a right of sus-pensive recourse against his dismissal. Nor would canon 643, § 2, on the charitable subsidy apply, nor canon 646 on an automatic dismissal. (7) There would be an evident distinction in the rights and obligations of these subjects and the professed of temporary vows even though both would be in the same factual state of proba-tion. It is true, as number 7 states, tl~at "the profesz sion of first vows., makes the candidate share in the consecration proper to the religious state." Such a consecration, however, is required only by canon or human law, which can therefore enact that other suitable forms of commitment would also constitute a candidate in the religious state and make him a re-ligious, as also because such a candidate is always des-tined for this proper consecration in perpetual profes-sion. Religious women are nuns and their institutes are religious orders even though no one in fact has solemn vows provided at least some are destined for solemn vows from the particular law of the institute. Public vows would also remain proper to the religious state and to religious institutes since they are not had either in societies of common life nor in secular institutes. I therefore believe that the subject in a different temporary commitment is in a state of perfection, in the religious state, is a religious, and a member of his institute, but the question should be authoritatively serried by the Holy See. In the contrary opinion, those in a different temporary commitment are in a state that is neither noviceship nor profession, one also for which we have no parallel, and consequently a state of deep obscurity at least juridically. Determination o~ details b) the general chapter (n. 36). In virtue of canon 543 only a higher superior is competent to admit to the noviceship and to any re-ligious profession. The same canon demands a vote of the council or chapter for admission to the novice- ship, first temporary, and perpetual professions. The gen-eral chapter should require the deliberative vote for admission to the first temporary commitment and pre-scribe for renewals and prolongation of. such a com-mitment the same vote as is enacted in the constitutions for these acts with regard to temporary profession. The same policy should be observed concerning the superior competent for permitting an anticipated renewal of the temporary commitment, for exclusion from renewal or from the profession of perpetual vows (c. 637), and for the vote of the council in this case. The superior general with at least the advice of his council should be given the faculty of consenting to the dissolution of the com-mitment by the subject, to so consent to the request of the subject at any time during a commitment, who can then be immediately admitted to temporary vows, and with the consent of his council from the institute. Reception of ment is not necessary because it (c. 1308, § 1), and the consent of to dismiss a subject the different commit-is not a public vow the institute was suf-ficiently given and expressed in the admission to the commitment or its renewal. The general chapter could prescribe reception since such a repeated consent of the institute is not contrary to common law. The formula of the vows will have to be changed for a different commitment, for example, a promise will be to the institute, not to God as is a vow. Even if the new com-mitment does not have obedience as its express object and is therefore not productive of another obligation of obedience, superiors, as the head of the institute or of its parts, possess at least the same authority that they have over a novice and, if the Holy See decides that a different commitment is on the same juridical level as temporary vows, they possess the same authority as over a professed but without the added title to exact obedi-ence from the vow (c. 501, § 1; 502). Ganons whose application is obscure. The applica-tion of the following canons to those in a different temporary commitment should also be decided by the Holy See: responsibility for debts, 536, §§ 2-3; canonical examination, 552; dowry, 547-51; making of cession and disposition regarding personal patrimony and a civilly valid will, 569; retreat before first profession, 571, § 3; profession of a novice in danger of death. Requisites for a valid profession, exclusive of recep-tion, the necessity of three years of temporary vows, and understanding the derogations regarding a valid novice-ship in the Instruction, 572; age for profession, 573; deliberative vote for first profession, 575, § 2; written declaration of profession, 576, § 2; no intervals between renewals or perpetual profession, 577, § 1; 575, § 1; ÷ ÷ Formation VOLUME 28, 1969 895 ~. F. Gallen, S.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 896 enjoyment of the same indulgences, privileges, spiritual favors, and suffrages, obligation of observing rules and constitutions, active and passive voice and computation of time for obtaining either, 578; illiceity and invalidity of acts contrary to the vows, 579. Acquisition of property by a professed of simple vows, change of cession and disposition, 580; renuncia-tion of personal patrimony, 581; 583, 1°; change of will, 583; 2°. Common obligations of clerics in canons 124-42, 592; obligation of common life, 594; obligation of wear-ing habit, 596; cloister, 597 ft.; religious duties, 595; right of exempt correspondence, 611; enjoyment of privileges of first order by nuns, 613, § 2; enjoyment of clerical privileges of canons 119-23, 614. Transfer to another religious institute or monastery, 632-5; 544, § 5; right of professed of temporary vows to leave at the end of a temporary profession, 637; ex-claustration, 638-9; effects of secularization, 640-3; compensation may not be sought for services given to the institute, 643, § 1; charitable subsidy, 643, § 2; laws on fugitives, 644, § 3; 645; 2386; automatic dismissal, 646; dismissal of a professed of temporary vows, 647-8; provisional return to secular life, 653. Six professed constitute a formal house, 488, 5°; precedence from first profession breaking a tie in elec-tions, 101, § 1, 1°; first profession as date of computing eligibility for office, 504; 559, §§ 1-2; prohibition of being members of third orders secular, 704; prohibi-tion of being a sponsor in baptism and confirmation, 766, 4°; 796, 3°; special jurisdiction necegsary for the confessions of religious women, 876; funerals of religious, 1221; 1124, 2°; permission for writings, 1386, § 1; punish-able for violations of common life, 2389. Obligation o[ observing the evangelical counsels. If the Holy See decides that a different temporary com-mitment is on the same juridical level as the profession of temporary vows, the evangelical counsels must be observed at least with the same obligation as the con-stitutions, no matter what be the object of the different temporary commitment because (1) not only does num-ber 36 impose after the new commitment "the obliga-tion of observing the Rule, constitutions and other regulations of the institute" and therefore a fortiori also the obligation of observing the evangelical coun-sels as more essential and important for a state of complete Christian perfection but also and more pro-foundly because (2) the observance of the evangelical counsels is necessary from the nature of a state of per-fection, as can be seen from the following direct and clear statements of only three Popes and Vatican II: "The religious orders, as everyone knows, have their origin and raison d'etre in those sublime evangelical counsels, of which our divine Redeemer spoke, for the course of all time, to those who desire to attain Christian perfection" (Leo XIII, December 23, 1900). "When the only-begotten Son of God came into the world to re-deem the human race, he gave the precepts of spiritual life by which all men were to be directed to their appointed end; in addition, he taught that all those who wished to follow more closely in His footsteps should embrace and follow the evangelical counsels" (Pius XI, March 19, 1924). "It is true that by the apostolic constitution Provida Mater Ecclesia we declared that the form of life, which is followed by secular institutes, is also to be accepted as a state of perfection publicly recognized, because the members are bound in some way to the observance of the evangelical counsels" (Pius XII, July 13, 1952).3 Vatican II affirmed: "Thus, although the religious state constituted by the profession of the evangelical counsels does not belong to the hierarchical structure of the Church, nevertheless it belongs in-separably to her life and holiness." 4 Moral obligation of a new temporary commitment. It might seem that a general chapter could also completely determine this (see n. 36), but number 34 gives a promise to the institute as an example of such a com-mitment. We are to presume words in such a document are being used in their proper sense, and in such a sense a promise produces a moral obligation. In a merely private promise to God or man, the one making the promise can oblige himself only to a light obliga-tion in light matter but in serious matter he can assume either a light or a grave obligation. May a general chapter, therefore, define the moral obligation of the new temporary commitment, for example, a promise to the institute, as only light? It could do so if it is decided by the Holy See that such a commitment is not on the same juridical level as temporary vows. Could it do so if the level is the same? Such a definition is not excluded by the nature of a commitment or promise purely in itself nor by the explicit wording of the Instruction. The light obligation can also be urged from the reason for permitting a different commitment, that is, the immaturity of a candidate. It would not 8Courtois, The States of Perfection, Dublin: 1961, M. H. Gill and Son, nn. 33, 130, 403, 474; see also Schaefer, De religiosis, n. 125; Beste, op.cit., 328; Padri Claretdani, II diritto dei religiosi, n. 3; Fanfani, II diritto delle religiose, n. 2; Bastien, Directoire canonique, nn. 9, 14; Creusen, Religious Men and Women in Church Law, nn. 4-5; Guti~rrez, ibid., 63-4, 67. ' Abbott-Gallagher, The Document~ of Vatican II, 75. 4" 4" 4" Formation VOLUME 28, 1969 89~ ]. F. Gallen, $.$. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS seem very practical to enact that such a candidate does not have to take the added serious obligation of a re-ligious vow if he must assume the added serious obli-gation of another form of commitment. On the opposite side it can be well maintained from the nature of the matter that it would be incongruous for the funda-mental obligations of a permanent state of life to be only light. Above all there is a reply given by the Sacred Congregation of Religious, May 19, 1949, in an entirely parallel case and in general language to the effect that the bonds assumed by the members of secular insti-tutes cannot be light in their general nature.~ The pur-pose and nature of secular institutes are given as the reason for this doctrine. A secular institute is an apos-tolic state of complete Christian perfection, and the reasoning of the Sacred Congregation appears to me to apply, at least equally, if not afortiori, to religious in-stitutes. In effect this would mean, in the promise we have advocated to the institute to observe poverty, chastity, and obedience, the same light or serious obliga-tion that is had in the religious vows. The document reads: 1. The obligations which are contracted by members in the strict sense (Art. III, §§ £ and 3) for the full pursuit of the juridical state of perfection in secular institutes (Art. III, § 2), if they are to correspond to the purpose and nature of the institute, cannot be light in their general nature and under every respect (ex genere suo atque ex omni parte). 2. On the other hand, the bonds on which this state of perfection rests, are considered so to oblige in conscience that the obligations thus produced must be called grave in their general nature (ex genere suo). 3. In individual cases, an obligation must be considered grave only when its matter must be considered as certainly grave according to the constitutions and the common teaching regarding equal or similar bonds. Moreov,er, according to the well-known rule of law (Reg. 30 in VI°), 'In obscure matters, one is obliged to Iollow only the least obligation," it cannot be affirmed in a doubtful case that an obligation is grave or more grave, for example, on the ground that an obligation arises from or is reinforced by the formal virtue of religion. 4. Just what is the nature of the bonds assumed in individual institutes and what is the precise mode of obligation---e.g., in addition to justice and fidelity, is there also and, if so, to what degree, an obligation from the virtue of religion--must be learned from the constitutions, which should give an accurate presentation of the matter, and from the formula of consecra-tion or incorporation in which the bonds are expressed. 5. Even when it is certain that there is a formal obligation arising from the virtue of religion, since there is question of vows or bonds which, although they are not fully private, nevertheless, in law, cannot be called public in the strict and specific sense and do not effect a public consecration of the' "Bouscaren-O'Connor, Canon Law Digest /or Religious, 167-8; see also Commentarium pro religiosis, 28 (1949): Larraona, 199-200; Fuertes, 292-8. person, the malice of sacrilege must not be attributed to their violation. Duration oI probation after the noviceship. The gen-eral chapter is to determine this but it is to be no less than three nor longer than nine years (n. 37). I find it difficult to see why a period longer than five years should be generally prescribed (n. 6). The total possible probationary period, that is, 2 years of postulancy, 2 of noviceship, and 9 of temporary commitment, can thus be 13 years. This would ordinarily mean perpetual profes-sion at the youngest only at the age of 30 or 31 years. Would we advise marriage only at 30 or 317 The gen-eral chapter may permit a prolongation in individual cases of a prescribed time, e.g., five years, up to the full nine years or may limit the power of prolonging, e.g., to only one year (n. 37). Precise length of dil~erent commitment. This may be made in the one act for the full length of the interval before perpetual profession, for example, five years; or for a briefer period, for example, three years, to be re-newed for two years on its expiration or to be followed by temporary vows (n. 34). The provision of canon 577, § 2, of permitting a renewal of temporary vows to be an-ticipated but not by more than a month may be also applied to the renewal of a different form of temporary commitment. Such an anticipation is permissible £rom the nature of a commitment and is not excluded by the Instruction. Must also a di~erent temporary commitment be ac-companied by the intention of renewing and of admit-ting to a renewal on its expiration? If the decision of the Holy See is that the juridical level of temporary vows and other temporary commitments is the same, the answer is in the affirmative. The explanation of the necessity of this intention in temporary vows has been the following. The religious life has ever and now de-mands stability or permanence. From its concept it is a state of life in the same way as the clerical or married state. A state of life is something that contains the note of stability or permanence. The exact permanence re-quired is defined by the Church as follows: solemn vows or simple perpetual vows are sufficient but not neces-sary; the minimum requisite is simple temporary vows. Therefore, an institute in which all the members make only annual professions of poverty, chastity, and obedi-ence fulfills this requisite. The Church further requires that temporary vows be renewed on their expiration (c. 488, 1°). This implies an intention on the part of both the religious making temporary profession and the superior admitting to this profession that, iI no obstacle ÷ ÷ ÷ Formation VOLUME 28, 1969 899 ]. F. Gallery, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 900 occurs in the meantime, the vows will be renewed on their expiration. It is evident that the same necessity of this intention and its explanation apply to a different temporary commitment since the necessity of the inten-tion is required not from vows as such but from the fact that the religious state is 'a state of life and demands stability.6 Lastly, such an intention is required in secular institutes, in which the bond can be vow, oath, consecra-tion, or promise: "The bond by which the secular insti-tute and its members in the strict sense are to be united must be: 1o Stable, according to the constitutions, either perpetual or temporary but to be renewed at its expira-tion (c. 488, 1°) . ,, 7 ConIusion on temporary vows. Tkis is the appropriate place to mention the extensive confusion that has existed on temporary vows in this whole matter of a different commitment. Many talked as if a temporary vow were a most unusual and even a contradictory thing. Evidently they did not know that temporary vows were mentioned in canon law (c. 131.1) as also in practically any manual of moral theology and in canonical works that included the treatment of the vows. It was also frequently stated that the intention of renewing and of admitting to renewal on their expiration was a contra-diction of the temporary duration of such vows. This again was ignorance. The intention was not and could not have been absolute, which would have been clearly contrary to the probationary nature of the period of temporary vows. It was a conditional intention to renew the vows i[ no obstacle intervened in the meantime, S and this obstacle, if not always, would practically always have been the discovery by the institute or the subject that he or she had no vocation. There was almost an equal number of statements that a temporary profession was invalid if at the time a religious had the intention of not renewing or a superior of not admitting to a renewal on the expiration of a temporary profession. Canon 572 does not list such an intention among the requisites for a valid religious profession. Canon 488, 1°, does not append an invalidating clause to the necessity of this intention as required by canon 11. A requirement for liceity only will also sufficiently fulfill the required stability. An invalidating law according to canon 15 does not exist in a doubt of law, and there is certainly a doubt o See Larraona, op. cit., 2 (1921), 137, 209; 28 (1949), 205; Schaefer, op.ciL, n. 128; Jone, Commentarium in Codicem iuris canonici, I, 387; Padri Clarettiani, op.cit., nn. 3, 6; Vermeersch-Creusen, Epitome iuris canonici, I, n. 580; Goyeneche, op.cit., 9-10; De Carlo, Jus religiosorum, n. 2. ~ Provida Mater Ecclesia, Bouscaren-O'Connor, op.cit., 151. aSee Larraona, op.cit.o 2 (1921), 209 and note 81; 28 (1949)~ 205; Guti~rrez, ibid., 90. of law in the present caseP There was also a great deal of talk merely about promises, as if a vow were not a promise. Nor was there too much knowledge of sanctity of life and of the relation of the evangelical counsels and of vows to this sanctity. Sacred orders may not be conferred belore perpetual profession (n. 37; c. 964, 4°). For a just reason a higher superior may permit that a first profession be made outside the novitiate house (n. 20). The Instruction does not mention the commitment presumably because it is held that the prescription on place of canon 574, §1 applies only to vows. Readmission of one who legitimately left either after completing temporary vows or other commitment or a[ter being [reed from either. He may be readmitted by the superior general with the consent of his council, who is not obliged to prescribe another noviceship, nor an-other postulancy (c. 640, § 2), but is obliged to enjoin a previous period of probation and also a period of tem-porary vows or other commitment not less than a year nor less than the time that remained to be spent in this temporary probation before perpetual profession when the subject left. The superior general may prescribe a longer period of temporary vows or other commitment (n. 38). Immediate preparation for perpetual proIession and similar periods during tbmporary vows or other commit-ment. It is desirable that perpetual profession should be preceded by a sufficiently long immediate preparation something in the manner of a second noviceship. The duration and other aspects are to be determined by the general chapter (nn. 9, 35). It is also desirable that periods of withdrawing to prayer, meditation, and study be established during the time of temporary vows or other commitment (n. 25). Section IlL Application of the special norms. The par-ticular provisions axe called norms because they have been enacted for experimentation (VII). They are in effect from January 6, 1969 (VII). The norms and direc-tives of the Instruction appertain only to religious in-stitutes; other institutes of common life may but are not obliged to follow them (n. 3). Common law (canon law, laws enacted after the Code of Canon Law, laws of Vatican II, and postconciliar laws) remains in effect un-less derogated by this Instruction (I). The faculties granted by this Instruction may in no way be delegated g See Schaefer, op.cit., n. 128; Jone, op.cit., 387; Guti~rrez, ibid., note 65; Vermeersch, Periodica, 31 (1932), 122 ft.; Goyeneche, Corn. mentarium tyro religiosis, 16 (1935), 315-6; Vidal, De religiosis, n. 9, holds for invalidity. 4- 4- ÷ VOLUME 901 ~. F. Gallen, $.]. 902 to another (II), but they may be used by those who legiti-mately take the place of the superior general when there is no superior general or he is legitimately prevented from acting (IV). The same principle is true of the vicars of other higher superiors since they are actually exercising the office of the higher superior when accord-ing to the constitutions they take the place of a higher superior, such as a provincial, in the vacancy of the office, in his absence, or when he is otherwise impeded from fulfilling the duties of his office. There is nothing of such importance in the faculties granted in the Instruc-tion to higher superiors that would merit the exclusion of vicars from the exercise of such faculties. An abbot at the head of a monastic congregation is also to be understood under the name of superior general in this Instruction (III). In the case of nuns dedicated exclu-sively to the contemplative life, special norms shall be inserted into the constitutions and submitted for ap-proval, but the norms in numbers 22, 26-7 may be ap-plied to them (V). I[ the special general chapter has already been held, the superior general and his council acting collegially,x° after a careful study of all circumstances, are to decide whether a general chapter should be convoked to deliber-ate on the faculties granted to it or whether it would be preferable to await the next general chapter (VI). If they decide against the above convocation but also that the use of the faculties granted to the general chapter is urgent for the good of the institute, they, again acting collegially, have the power of putting all or some of the same faculties in use until the next gen-eral chapter provided they have previously consulted all other higher superiors and their councils and have ob-tained their two-thirds affirmative vote. These other higher superiors should have it at heart to consult previ-ously the professed of perpetual vows. In institutes with no provinces, the superior general must consult the l~rofessed of perpetual vows and obtain the affirmative vote of two-thirds OgI). The following appertain to the general chapter: with a two-thirds vote: to introduce periods of formative ac-tivity in the noviceship (n. 23) and a different tempo-rary commitment (n. 34); with the vote prescribed by the constitutions: to make determinations for the pos-tulancy (n. 12); to decide on the permissible contacts of the novices (n. 28); to permit or command studies during the noviceship (n. 29); to determine the dress of the novices and other candidates (n. 33); to determine the duration of the probation between the noviceship See REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, 19 (1960), 131-2. and perpetual profession and other aspects of the same probation (nn. 35-6-7); and experimentally to enact other matters that imply a change in the constitutions, for example, in numbers 16, 22, and 27. The following appertain to the superior general: with the consent of his council: the institution of a novitiate (n. 16) and of many novitiates in the same province, having consulted the interested provincial (n. 17); the making of the noviceship in a house that is not a noviti-ate house (n. 19); the readmission of one who legiti-mately left either after completing temporary vows or other commitment or after being freed from either (n. 38); alone: to permit the group of novices to reside for a time in another house designated by him (n. 16); to per-mit a small group of novices to make their noviceship in a house more suitable for community life (n. 18); with the council acting collegially: to decide on the calling of a general chapter to implement the Instruction or to permit, without a general chapter, the use of the facul-ties granted in the Instruction, after consulting all other higher superiors and their councils and having obtained the affirmative vote of two-thirds of them or of the pro-fessed of perpetual vows when the institute does not have provinces (VI). The following appertain to higher superiors: alone: to permit first profession outside the novitiate house (n: 20); to permit that first profession be anticipated but not beyond fifteen days (n. 26); after consulting the master of novices: to decide on a supplying of absence of a novice of less than three months (n. 22); and it is rec-ommended that higher superiors below the superior general previously consult the professed of perpetual vows on the use of faculties of the Instruction without having a general chapter (VI). Spiritual principles of the Instruction. In the intro-duction to the Instruction, the Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes stated that the reason Vatican II gave no small measure of attention to reli-gious was that the Church might have a greater abun-dance of spiritual strength and be better prepared to proclaim the message of salvation to the men of our age; quoted Lumen gentium, numbers 44-5, to the effect that the state of the evangelical counsels appertains to the sanctity of the Church and that the practice of these counsels is uniquely effective for the perfection of the love of God and of the neighbor; spoke of the duty of religious institutes to renew their spiritual, evangelical, and apostolic lives; recalled that no loss was to be per-mitted in the basic values of the religious life; and de-clared the necessity of defining again the principal as-pects of this life. Formation VO'LUME 28, 1969 9O3 I. F. Ga//en,~$.l. REVIEW FOR REI.~G~OU$ 90; In the first section, which treats of principles and criteria, the Sacred Congregation reaffirmed that pro-fession of the evangelical counsels is a total consecration of one's person to God; that both from the teaching of the Church and the nature of this consecration the vow of obedience appertains to the essence of religious pro-fession; that by this consecration the religious exercises the perfection of apostolic charity, even though the apostolate is not the primary purpose of religious pro-fession; and that it may not be said that the nature of religious profession is to be changed or its proper de-mands lessened. The Sacred Congregation stated that the noviceship retains its irreplaceable role in formation; that novices are to be taught the cohesive unity that should link contemplation and apostolic activity; and that this unity is one of the fundamental and primary values of apostolic institutes. The achievement of this unity requires a~proper un-derstanding of the realities of the supernatural life and of the paths leading to a deepening of union with God in the unity of the one supernatural love for God and for man, finding expression at times in the solitude of inti-mate communing with the Lord and at others in the generous giving of self to apostolic activity. Young reli-gious must be taught that this unity, so eagerly sought and toward which all life tends in order to find its full development, cannot be attained on the level of activity alone, or even be psychologically experienced, for it resides in that divine love which is the bond of perfec-tion and which surpasses all understanding. The attainment of this unity, which cannot be achieved without long exercise of self-denial or without persevering efforts toward purity of intention in action, demands in those institutes faithful compliance with the law inherent in the spiritual life itself, which con-sists in arranging a proper balance of periods set aside for solitude with God and others devoted to various activities and to the human contacts which these in-volve (n. 5). The Sacred Congregation maintained that suitable maturity was required that the religious state be a means of perfection and not a burden too heavy to carry, as also the desirability that the perpetual con-secration to God of perpetual vows be preceded by a sufficiently long immediate preparation spent in recol-lection and prayer that could be like a second novice-ship. The second section of the Instruction is on special or particular norms and contains the following spiritual ideas and principles. The novices are to develop that union with Christ which is to be the source of all their apostolic activity; conformably to the teaching of our Lord in the gospel, the formation of the noviceship con-sists especially in initiating the novices gradually into detachment from everything not connected with the kingdom of God; that they learn to practice humility, obedience, poverty, to be instant in prayer, to maintain union with God, along with a soul receptive to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, and to be mutually and spiritually helpful to one another in a sincere and un-feigned charity; they are to study and meditate on Holy Scripture; to be formed in the spiritual doctrine and practice required for the development of a supernatural life, union with God, and the understanding of the re-ligious state; they are to be initiated into the liturgical life and the spiritual discipline proper to their own in-stitute; they are to be given the occasions for striving to preserve faithful union with God in the active life; for the novices there is to be a balancing of periods of ac-tivity and of those given to recollection in prayer, medi-tation, and study to stimulate them to remain faithful to it throughout life, and a similar balancing is desirable during the years of formation before perpetual profes-sion. The Instruction reaffirmed the principle of the spiritual life and of Perfectae caritatis, number 8, that apostolic activity must have its source in intimate union with Christ and that therefore all the members should seek God only and above all, and unite contemplation by which they adhere to Him in mind and heart with apostolic love, in which they are associated with the work of redemption and strive to spread the kingdom of God; that novices are likewise to be formed in purity of intention and love for God and man; to learn to use this world as if they did not use it; realize that devotion to God and man demands a humble control of self; culti-vate the necessary human and spiritual balancing of the times given to the apostolate and the service of men and of the properly prolonged periods, in solitude or in com-munity, dedicated to prayer and to the meditative read-ing of the Sacred Scriptures. By fidelity to this most necessary and important program in all such institutes, the novices will gradually develop a peaceful union with God, which comes from conformity to the will of God. They must learn to discern the divine inspirations in the duties of their state, especially those of justice and charity. A mutual confidence, docility, and openness are to be fostered between superiors, the master of novices, and the novices that the master may be able to direct the generosity of the novices to a complete gift of themselves to God and lead them gradually to discern in the mys-tery of Christ crucified the demands of true religious + + + Formation VOLUME 28, 1969 905 obedience, and in this manner inspire them to an active and responsible obedience. The Instruction affirms with sufficient emphasis that the religious s~ate is different from secular institutes and from the state of the laity. ~. F. Gall~, $.1. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS SISTER MARY PATRICIA NORTON A New Form Community oJ Religious Government The custom that has been traditionally followed in women's religious communities of focusing all authority, responsibility, and decision-making in one person at the local, regional, and generalate level has, we believe, been a custom that grew up as a result of historical circumstances. When some of the original women's re-ligious communities were founded, there was a com-paratively small number of the members that were well educated. There has, of course, always been a local, regional, and general council to assist and advise the superior; but in actual practice the superior has gen-erally led an overburdened existence, weighed down by the responsibility of major decisions. Since the founding of the early communities, the pic-ture has changed dramatically. The rank and file sisters are no longer uneducated followers. Vatican Council II has told us that the Holy Spirit breathes up ~rom below, that is, He speaks and points out the way through the person of each and every member of the community. In the summer of 1967, the 48 Maryknoll Sisters working in Korea, considering the problems of the past, the directions of the future, and the urgings of Vatican Council II (that "all members of the community have a share in the welfare of the whole community and a responsibility for it"--~om the Decree on Ap-propriate Renewal o[ Religious Life, n. 14), began to draw up a new plan for regional government. This plan was to provide for sharing more broadly the burdens of responsibility, participation of every member in the decision-making and planning of community affairs, and to foster in each member a mature spirit of initiative and involvement. The experiment is at present under way with three elected members now jointly sharing the responsibilities that had previously belonged to the regional superior. 4, 4, Siste~ Patricia Norton is missioned at the Maryknoll Hospital; P.O. Box 77; Pusan, Korea. VOLUME 28, 1969 907 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOU$ (Note: The work of the Maryknoll Sisters in Korea is designated as a regional unit.) No one of these is superior to the others in authority or responsibility. Each one is responsible in the area that has been allotted to her: Personnel, Administration-finance, and Planning-research respectively. These three sisters are known as the Regional Team. Although each one has her area of responsibility, she does not bear this burden alone. Each of these team members has a corresponding committee of 4 regular members and one alternate member. Each committee meets once a month and the results of these meetings constitute the agenda for the meeting of the Regional Team (the three team leaders). The Regional Team also aims at meeting monthly as high priority has been placed on the value of close and frequent communications. It is felt that real participation of each and every mem-ber of the region is dependent on the thoroughness of these communications. In addition to the monthly meetings of both team and committees, good communications are fostered by availa-bility of the minutes of the Regional Team, of each of the three committees, and the publication of the agenda before each meeting. With the publishing of the agenda, each sister is invited to respond with her ideas, sugges-tions, objections, and so forth to any item on the agenda. This is one technique to insure participation by every individual. Furthermore, all those sisters who are neither mem-bers of the team nor of one of the committees become members of an interest area. The latter means that the sister has indicated her interest in one of the areas, follows the activities of that committee in par-ticular, and is ready at any time to fully participate. The Maryknoll Sisters are divided among six houses in Korea. In the event that one of these houses does not have a particular committee member, one of the in-terest area members acts as contact person for that house. Planning for this experiment began in early Fall of 1967. It was formally inaugurated at a regionwide work-shop in October of that year. Since that time it has undergone several evaluations resulting in both minor and major changes. What so far have been the advantages and disad-vantages in regard to this experiment? Some of the disadvantages: ---outsiders who have contacts with the Maryknoll Sisters do not understand it; --it is expensive (train travel and postage) and time consuming; ---it deprives the other sisters of that leisure they used to have while the superior did all the work. Some of the advantages: --it takes the heavy, burden from the shoulders of one person and spreads it" out over the shoulders of all; --it provides for the utilization of the ideas, inspira-tions, and talents of each person rather than just two or three; --it provides for decisions to be made at the level at which they are carried out; --it helps to uncover and develop leadership qualities in a wider spectrum O[ persons; ---it allows for a more truly Christian li[e [or each sister as a completely participating person, con-scious of her own role of responsibility for the success or failure of Maryknoll works in Korea; ---it cuts down dissatisfaction and provides a channel for rectifying any dissatis[actions that may occur. The comment was made by one observer: "It deprives the religious of that necessary sacrifice involved in obedience to a superior." Those who have been living ¯ this experiment would strongly differ. Obedience is not a vanished thing. It is merely the focus that has changed. Decisions are made through group-to-group or individ-ual- to-group dialogue and the individual remains open and ready to obey the results of this dialogue. It is now two years since the initial idea for this type of government was discussed. Since that time there have been many pros and cons, many wrinkles to be ironed out. It has been said by informed sources that such an arrangement Without ultimate responsibility resting in one person can never be a success. The Maryknoll Sisters are willing to concede that this may be true. But they are not willing to concede without an earnest trial. ÷ ÷ ÷ VOLUME 28, 1969 9O9 WILLIAM A. HINNEBUSCH, O.P. Origins and Development oJ Religious Orders William A. Hin-nebusch, O.P., teaches ecclesiastical history at the Do-minican House of Studies; 487 Michi-gan Avenue, Waahington, D.C. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 910 An# attentive study of the origins and history of reli-gious orders reveals that there are two primary currents in religious life--contemplative and apostolic. Vatican II gave clear expression to this fact when it called on the members of every community to "combine contem-plation with apostolic love." It went on to say: "By the former they adhere to God in mind and heart; by the latter they strive to associate themselves with the work of redemption and to spread the Kingdom of God" (PC, 5). The orders1 founded before the 16th century, with the possible exception of the military orders, recognized clearly the contemplative element in their lives. Many of them, however, gave minimum recognition to the apos-tolic element, if we use the word "apostolic" in its pres-ent- day meaning, but not if we understand it as they did. In their thinking, the religious life was the Apos-tolic life. It reproduced and perpetuated the way of living learned by the Apostles from Christ and taught by them to the primitive Church of Jerusalem. Since it was lived by the "Twelve," the Apostolic life included preaching and the other works of the ministry. The pas-sage describing the choice of the seven deacons in the Acts of the Apostles clearly delineates the double ele-ment in the Apostolic life and underlines the contem-plative spirit of the Apostles. The deacons were to wait on tables; the Apostles were to be free to devote them-selves "to prayer and the ministry of the word" (Acts 6:~4~). ¯ This is the text of an address given to the annual meeting of United States major superiors of men religious held in June, 1968, at Mundelein, Illinois. x I use the words, "order," "monasticism," and their derivatives in a wide sense to include all forms of the religious life. In its strict sense "monasticism" applies only to the monks and does not extend to the friars and the clerks regular. There were, however, exceptions to the general rule that monks did not engage in the ministry. An Eastern current of monasticism, influenced by John Chrysostom, viewed missionary work as a legitimate activity of the monk; and, as we shall see, many Western monks shared this conviction. Nevertheless, missionary activity did not become an integral part of monasticism. Even after most monks became priests, they considered their vocation to lie within the monastery where they could contemplate and dedicate themselves to the service of God. Since the clergy did not embrace the religious life, with the ex-ception of those of Eusebius of Vercelli and Augustine of Hippo, the ministerial element remained generally absent from the religious life until the development of the canons regular. In itself the life of the monks was exclusively contemplative. "Tradition assigns no other end to the life of a monk than to 'seek God' or 'to live for God alone,' an ideal that can be attained only by life of penance and .prayer. The first and fundamental manifestation of such a vocation is a real separation from the world." Yet in the thinking of the monks and of the friars, who integrated apostolic activity into the religious life, their prayer, contemplation, and example were mighty forces working for the upbuilding of the Body of Christ. Foundation o[ Monasticism Though other Scriptural elements contributed to the origin of monasticism, the concept of the Apostolic life was the decisive force. This truth has been demon-strated by historians who have been studying this point for over half a century; it has recently been dis-cussed scripturally by Heinz Schiirmann, professor of New Testament exegesis at Erfurt. The historians show how the life of the Apostles and the primitive Christians influenced the origins and growth of monasticism; Schiirmann makes clear that the constitutive elements of the religious life were taught to and demanded of the Apostles by Christ. Religious life is rooted in the key Biblical texts that record the calling and formation of the Apostles. These passages determine the character of the Apostolic office and the relationship of the Apostles to Jesus. They are to be with Him, listen to Him, and follow Him. His call is rigorous and imperious. He demands commitment without reserve. Negatively, this requires a complete break with one's previous life: family, wife, home, and oc-cupation; positively, it establishes the Apostles in a state of total availability. Abandoning their possessions, their means of livelihood and, like the lily and raven, trusting completely in divine providence, they follow Christ, + ÷ ÷ Religious Orders VOLUME 28, 1969 9]] W. A. Hinnebusch, 0~. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 912 putting themselves in a student-teacher, servant-master relationship to Him. All .the features of their new life with Him are already conveyed in brief in Mark's ac-count of their call: And going up a mountain, he called to him men of his own choosing, and they came to him. And he appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them forth to preach (3:13-5). In this text, too, we find the first s~atement of the contemplative and apostolic elements that reappear in the religious life. They are "to be with him." Here is the contemplative element. They are "with him," devoting themselves to the "one thing necessary"--listening to His word. Yet in hearing and learning .they are made ready so "that he might send them forth to preach." As Schiirmann summarizes it: First they hear and learn, then they teach and act: "Preaching isonly one part of their life and its follows from the other." The Apostles enter irrevocably into a community of life with Jesus. They share His life and destiny: eat with Him, walk the dusty roads with Him, serve the people with Him, undergo His trials, conflicts, persecu-tions. They must be ready to hate and even to lose their lives for His sake. He wants total obedience, one based on their "faith in Him who calls and proposes the word of God in an entirely unique fashion. Their following of Christ becomes understandable only as a permanent state of profession of faith., fit] opens up a new pos-sibility of existence, a new manner of being-in-the-world, a new 'state' of life." Though the Apostles take no vows, their life is that of the three counsels. Christ imposes no greater moral de-mands on them than on all the other believers, but they alone live this close community life with Him. Not all who declare for Christ are chosen by Him to follow Him in this intimate, permanent way. Obviously Mary, Martha, and Lazarus do not. Others asked to be ad-mitted into the group of disciples but were not accepted. Mark (5:18-19) describes one case: As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been afflicted by the devil began to entreat him that he might re-main with him. And he did not allow him, but said to him, "Go home to thy relatives, and tell them all that the Lord has done for thee, and how he has had mercy on thee." (See also Mt 11:28, Mk 3:35, Lk 12:8-9, 10:38-42, 9:61-2.) Being with Christ constantly, hearing His word, com-pletely obedient to His wishes, separated from family, home, and occupation, the Apostles enter a new form of existence that signifies. The prime purpose of their spe-cialized following is to declare themselves openly for Him, so that all might come to believe in Him. In a strikingly visible way their intimate following pro-claims to the Jewish world that the one thing necessary is to hear the word of Christ and to keep it. Their visi-ble, stable following becomes a sign to the world. Only after they have made this permanent commitment are they sent out to preach and to act. At every step in monastic history, whether in its ori-gins, renewals, or creation of new forms, the Apostolic life taught by Christ to the Twelve, and by them to the primitive Christian community of Jerusalem, was the leading and most powerful influence. The Gospel texts and those in the Acts of the Apostles that describe the primitive community were decisive in creating the con-cept of monasticism and in fashioning its life and usages. In the Jerusalem community we find fraternal unanim-ity, common ownership of possessions, fidelity to the teachings of Christ, common public prayer, intense pri-vate prayer. The following passages embody all these features: Now the multitude of the believers were of one heart and soul, and not one of them said anything he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common (Acts 4:32). And they continued steadfastly in the teaching of the apostles, and in the communion of the breaking of bread and in the prayers. And all who believed were together and held all things in common. And continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread in. their houses, they took their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and being in favor with all people (Acts 2:42-7; see also 1:14, 3:1, 6:4,34; Mt 10:gff). The ministry of the word, evangelical preaching of salvation, was c~irried out by the Apostles (Mk 6:6-13; Acts 6:4), a mission that entailed indefatigable journey-ing (Mt 10:7if; Mk 6:6-13; Acts 6:4). Only the pre-dominately lay character of early monasticism delayed the full realization of the ministerial mendicant orders. For centuries monks examined and lovingly scruti-nized the texts. The power that they exercised over monastic founders is illustrated by the passage where Athanasius describes the origin of Antony's vocation in his Life of Antony: As he was walking along on his way to Church, he col-lected his thoughts and reflected how the Apostles left every-thing and followed the Savior; also how the people in Acts sold what they had and laid it at the feet of the Apostles for distribution among the needy; and what great hope is laid up in Heaven for such as these. With these thoughts in his mind he entered the church. And it so happened that the Gospel was being read at that moment and he heard the passage in which the Lord says to the rich man: "If thou wilt be perfect, ¯ go sell all that thou hast, and give it to the poor; and come, follow me and thou shalt have treasures in heaven," 4- 4- Religious Orders VOLUME 28~ 1969 W. A. Hinnebusch, O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS As though God had been speaking directly to him, An-tony left the church, sold what he had, gave it to the poor, and went into the desert. During subsequent centuries the Scriptures lost none of their influence over monasticism. The Apostolic texts led to much more than the abandonment of riches and fleeing the world; they provided a complete program of life in community. Explaining the origins of monasti-cism about 1122 A.D., Abbot William of Saint-Thierry shows how the meditation of hundreds of years had sys-tematized the Scriptural influence: We come to this spiritual sbciety of which the Apostle Paul spoke to the Philippians (2:1-5; 3:17) in praise of the regular discipline and of the sublime joy of brothers living together in unanimity. To do justice to this discipline it is necessary to return to its beginning in the time of the Apostles, since it was the Apostles themselves who instituted it as their own way of life, according to the teaching of the Lord. Unless it was the grace of the Holy Spirit which gave them power from above to live together in such a way that all would have but one heart and one soul, so that everything would be held in common, and all would be continually in the temple in a spirit of harmony. Animated by a great !ove for this form of life instituted by the Apostles, certain men wished no longer to have any other house or any other lodging than the hbuse of God, the house of prayer. All that they did they did according to a common program, under a common rule. In the name of the Lord they lived together, possessing nothing of their own, not even their bodily strength, nor were they even masters of their own will. They lay down to sleep at the same time, they rose up together, they prayed, they sang Psalms, they studied together. They showed the fixed and changeless will of being obedient to their superiors and of being entirely submissive to them. They kept their needs to a minimum and lived with very little; they had poor clothes, a mean diet, and limited everything according to a very precise rule. Influence o[ Cassian Soon after Antony went into the desert, the influence of the Scriptures on monastic origins was enhanced by a misconception of Eusebius and Jerome, who mistakenly believed that the Apostolic life of the primitive Jerusa-lem community was followed in Alexandria, Rome, and other centers. Writing a century later, Cassian developed this misconception and found in it th~ explanation of the rise of monasticism: The conversion of the Gentiles forced an abandonment of the Apostolic way by the ma-jority of Christians, even by the clergy. More zealous souls refused to give it up and founded communities to perpetuate it. This theory was very fruitful in its effects when it was coupled with the example of Antony and Pachomius, the founder of the cenobitic life, who were inspired by the Scriptures alone. This fusion constituted a powerful op- erative force in the development of monasticism for many centuries. Scarcely any monastic 'author was read so continuously as Cassian. As late as the thirteenth cen-tury, St. Dominic was reading his Conferences. Con-stantly read and reread, Cassian's books [ashioned the medieval--and our ownnmonastic life. The Holy Spirit at Work in the Church The truth underlying Cassian's error is the almost simultaneous appearance of the religious life everywhere that the Church took root. The origin of the monastic life was a spontaneous manifestation of the Holy Spirit impelling Christians to live the life of the counsels taught by Jesus. Antony was merely the first to emerge, thanks to Athanasius, from the anonymity that conceals the virgins, celibates, and ascetics who preceded him. The impetus of the Spirit is seen particularly in the early acceptance of the virginal life by both men and women as a prime means of following the Master. From the end of the first century there are references to ascetics who lived continently "in honor of the flesh of Christ." After the third century virgins were looked upon as "the most illustrious portion of the flock of Christ" and were considered the spouses of Christ. Perfect continence, to-gether with voluntary poverty and austerity of life, was a constitutive element of the ascetical life that began to develop in the second century. Though these ascetics lived in their homes, sometimes holy women, widows, and virgins formed small communities that were marked by considerable personal freedom. The general reverence of the Church for chastity when Antony became a hermit about 300 A.D. accounts in large measure for the immediate wide diffusion of the eremitic and cenobitic forms of monasticism throughout the Christian world. The dynamic power of the Holy Spirit has been con-stantly operative during the history of the religious life. Here again there is a link with the early community of Jerusalem. These Christians, as we find their record in Acts, were very conscious of the action of the Spirit in their lives and apostolic works. Theirs was a life lived in the ~lan of the Spirit, as Vicaire remarks. ImmediateIy after describing the primitive community, the Acts of the Apostles goes on to say: "And great grace was upon them all" (4:33). This grace made itself visible even by miracles: "And many wonders and signs were done through the apostles" (2:43). When William of Saint-Thierry, whom I quoted a few pages back, described monastic origins, he manifested the awareness the monks had that the charismatic power of the Spirit was at work among them. In William's think-ing it was the "grace of the Holy Spirit which gave [the ÷ ÷ 4. Religious Orders VOLUME 28, 1969 W. A o Hinnebusch~ O.P. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Apostles] power from above to live together in such a way that all would have but one heart and one soul, so that everything would be held in common . '~ Cen-turies before, Gregory the Great, writing his Dialogues within fifty years of the death of Benedict, described the great patriarch of Western monasticism as the ideal "man of God," the spiritual father who was entirely under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The attention paid to the miracles worked by the founders and great figtires of monastic history is not merely a thoughtless emphasis on the secondary but was motivated by. the belief that the true monk, living in community, possesses an extraordinary grace for radiat-ing sanctity and contributing to the upbuilding of the B6dy of Christ. He can even receive from the Spirit the power of working miracles. The present-day interest in the charismatic character of the religious life and the charismatic founders is a legitimate, more explicit, recognition of the power of the Spirit working through all the years of monastic history. His role in the religious life deserves more attention and should awaken in us a great hope in the future of the religious life. Antony the Hermit Monasticism entered the pages of history close to the year 300 A.D. when Antony, the great hermit, gave away his possessions and retired to the Egyptian desert. The holiness and ordered discipline of his life, characterized by solitary contemplation and a severe but lofty and well-balanced asceticism soon brought other hermits to him for direction. Great colonies of solitaries arose under Antony's direction, especially at Pispir, where he lived, and at Nitria and Scete. These disciples lived alone like their master. Antony found so many imitators because of his moral greatness at a time of growing wickedness in the contemporary world. When Constantine ended the per-secutions and began to favor Christianity, the consequent lowering of the moral level of Christian life stimulated the development of a powerful ascetical movement, in-spired by the Gospels, on the ~ringes of the populated world. Antony became the model of the movement, especially after the appearance of his Life, written by Athanasius in 357 A.D., a year after Antony died. Gre-gory of Nazianzen called it "a rule of monastic life in the form of a narrative." Athanasius, who had known Antony personally and had seen him often, considered "the life of Antony an ideal pattern of the ascetical life." He intended to hold up Antony as the exemplar of the consecrated life and induce his readers to imitate what they saw. The work enjoyed a~tonishing success and was shortly translated into various languages. Antony, earnestly desiring to die the death of a martyr, went to Alexandria in 311 A.D., when the persecution of Maximin Daja broke out, to minister to the confessors in the mines and prisons, not thinking it justified to turn himself over to the authorities. When his hopes were dis-appointed, Antony returned to his desert cell where "he was a daily martyr to his conscience, ever fighting the battles of the faith. For he practiced a zealous and more intense ascetic life." With this short passage Athanasius enriched monasticism at its very birth with a positive view of asceticism and the renunciations involved in the life of the counsels. Antony's life in the desert was a substitute martyrdom and the monk the successor to the . martyr, a concept that remains alive to this day. Pachomius the Cenobite The weakness of the ei:emitical life lay in the minimal opportunity for practicing charity. Pachomius remedied this defect when he formed a genuine fellowship based on the communal charity inherent in Christianity. He composed the first monastic Rule, in it establishing the economic and spiritual bases for the common life and providing for community government. A younger con-temporary of Antony, Pachomius first served an appren-ticeship under the hermit Palaemon. Then about the year 320 A.D. he established a monastery at Tabennisi on the right bank of the Nile. Other monasteries soon followed, so that when he died, nine for men and two for women were under his guidance. These foundations were large settlements of monks who were organized into smaller groups according to the kind of agricultural work they did or the crafts they practiced. They lived a disciplined life, practiced individual poverty and de-tachment in essential matters, supported themselves by remunerative work, gathered for prayers morning and evening, and observed the three counsels, though they took no vows. Numerous biographies testify to the esteem in which Pachomius was held and the extent of his in- ~uence. Basil the Great The eremitical and cenobitic types of monasticism spread quickly both in East and West. Basil the Great, who benefited from the experience of the previous half century bf monastic experience, became the lawgiver of Eastern monasticism when he wrote his Longer R

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

Issue 69.1 of the Review for Religious, 2010. ; The ApostolicI Visitation Adapting the Ignatia~i Exercises From Ygung and Old " Prac~tic'al Wisdom QUARTERLY 69.1 2010 Review for Religious fosters dialogue: with God, dialogue with ourselves, and dialogue ~with one another about the holiness we try to live according to chariSms of Catholic religious life. AS Pope Paul V! said, our way of being church is _ . today the way of dialogue. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published quarterly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-633-4610 ¯ Fax: 314-633-4611 E-Maih reviewrfr@gmail.com ¯Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2010 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library" clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This permission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribution, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. Editor Associate Editor Scripture Scope Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Ehgene Hensell OSB Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Paul Coutinho SJ Martin Erspamer OSB Margaret Guider OSF Kathleen Hughes RSCJ Louis and Angela Menard Bishop Terry Steib SVD QUARTERLY 69.1 2010 contents prisms 4 Prisms 6 16 the apostolic visitation The Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious: A Visitator's Perspective M. Clare Millea ASCJ explains the purpose and process of the apostolic visitation of the U.S. institutes of women religious and its intended impetus to apostolic witness and vitality. The Apostolic Visitation: An Invitation to Intercultural Dialogue Kathleen Hughes RSCJidescribes the intercultural dialogue that provides the best framework for the apostolic visitation of United States women religious, a useful habit of heart, and some possible hope-filled outcomes. 31 47 adapting the ignatian exercises Discovering What Ignatius Does Not Say J. Thomas Hamel SJ examines the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius to point out the subtle but consistent ways in which retreatants become authors of the Exercises, putting their own experience into words. Revisiting St. Ignatius's Kingdom Meditation Louis M. Savary expands the reading of St. Ignatius's Call of the King meditation through the incorporation of ideas from the Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Review for Religious 63 71 from young and old ~1 Gleanings from My First Ten Years Ann Marie Paul SCC celebrates her profession of perpetual vows after living religious life for ten years by sharing eight pieces of wisdom she has learned. Monasteries of Meteora Mary Frances Coady gives her visual and spiritual impressions of ancient traditions kept by Eastern Christian monastics on a rocky peninsula of Greece. 77 practical wisdom ~ Kindness, the Everyday Virtue " James H. Kroeger MM delves into kindness's depth of meaning and inexhaustible potential for increasing goodness anywhere. 90 Ten Ideas on Priesthood George Olivera OFMCap offers ways to consider our Christian priesthood that may be helpful to priests and for those who pray for them and who enjoy their ministry. 97 102 departments ~ Scripture Scope: Praying the Psalms as Songs of Praise Book Reviews 69.1 2010 prisms T Apostolic Visitation of Women Religious in the United States has elic-ited a lot of speculation about its purpose and intended outcome and roused various emotional responses from religious and laity alike. Some speculation allows for an honest effort on the part of the Vatican offices to eval-uate the Vatican II-inspired renewal efforts of U.S. women religious, their discerned change in choices of ministry or ways of ministering, and the reality of their meager vocation recruit-ment. Most people, even among the critics, acknowledge that U.S. women religious took seriously the renewal call issued by Vatican II and responded more wholeheartedly than the men religious and the rest of the U.S. church. Realizing that certain ministries no longer required the massive effort of sheer numbers, women religious followed the church's lead and their own original charisms by seeking to serve those marginalized in our current society makeup--the poor, the handicapped, women in dire straits--and by advocating for justice in many spheres. While many more needy people were being served, women religious often lost the visibility that accompanied their corpo-rate mission in schools and hospitals. Among a Review for Religious number of factors in American family life and culture, vocational recruitment suffered from the positive secu-lar possibilities of the feminist equality movement and from the continued limits imposed on women's roles and leadership in the church. There is no doubt that the U.S. church is as strong as it is because of the work and witness of women religious through the 19th and 20th centuries. Many are the veri-fied accounts of bishops and local pastors using and mis-using the work of religious women in their own chosen endeavors. The generous sacrifices of women religious in the U.S. church are documented and unforgettable. What now needs to be honored in the current, often still hidden and unacknowledged, ministry of women religious is their being the church's arms reaching out to a world-in-need. The witness of their apostolic lives cannot now be measured by institutions, corporate devotional emphases, or monastic garb. Apostolic reli-gious life cannot be well evaluated by monastic criteria, which seemingly inspire the current study. The theology of religious life has never adequately explained the breadth of religious-life development because it has retained monasticism as its norm. Church leadership has consistently found apostolic religious life to be second-class and deficient as measured against the monastic ideal. Perhaps the Vatican s~dy will be the occasion for a breakthrough in the understanding and acceptance of the breadth of apostolic religious life in the church of the 21st century. U.S. women religious will have offered the worldwide church a most precious gift of wisdom and insight into the true living of the Spirit-given charism of active religious life. David L. Fleming SJ 69.1 2010 the . a, postol c Visitation M. CLARE MILLEA The Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious: A Visitator's Perspective How many times in our lives, while living through a particularly challenging situation, we reflect on earlier situations in which we felt stretched beyond our own limited resources and abilities. Unable to do anything but rely upon God in surrender and trust, we later realize that not only did the Lord sustain us beyond our imagining, but those very expe-riences taught us the relational and practical skills we would need in far more challenging circumstances to come. I have reflected often during the past year about how many of my personal experiences have shaped and honed the gifts I hope to bring to the Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious in the United States. M. Clare Millea ASCJ is the superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Her U.S. address is Mt. Sacred Heart; 295 Benham Street; Hamden, Connecticut 06514. Review for Religious During my early years in religious life, I learned to see beyond external limitations--such as those of the mentally challenged children and adults I lived with and served--and was able to truly respect and cherish, as they do, the inner beauty of each unique person. Much later, as the newly elected superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and before beginning dialogue or canonical visitation with each of my more than 1200 sisters, I made a whirlwind tour of the communities in the fourteen nations in which my sisters are missioned. I was welcomed into every faith community by lively music, colorful dance, lovely handmade gifts, and much jovial hugging. At one point, exhausted by travel, extreme changes of climate and cul-ture, and the strain of communicating in various lan-guages, I tearfully confided to a priest my difficulty in responding with enthusiasm to these endless outpour-ings of love. Father gently explained to me that his peo-ple needed to use exuberant gestures to express their joy and gratitude for visible signs of God's presence so that they would not succumb to the weight of their daily struggles for survival. That simple explanation was a truly graced moment for me, a key to entering into the world of those faith-filled people and many others whom I would later come to know. Moments such as these throughout my many years of congregational service have intensified in me the desire to synchronize the beating of my .heart with the heart of the other person, to understand, accept, and lovingly embrace her in her uniqueness. International living and travel have strengthened in me the liberating conviction that "my way" is not the only valid way or necessarily the best way to be or to do. While I still struggle at times to succinctly articulate my congregation's unique 69.1 2010 Millea ¯ Tbe Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious charism of witnessing that God loves each person with the human and divine love of Jesus, I am continually awed to sense the charism coursing through the veins of every Apostle of the Heart of Jesus throughout the world. I feel constantly renewed and challenged by my sisters to authentic religious living while at the same time I try to discover with them how we can grow in personal holiness, effective gospel witness, and fruitful ministry in communion with the church. My recent appointment as apostolic visitator to the institutes of women religious in the United States, the first instance of a woman religious being delegated with apostolic authority to carry out such a service to the church, seems ovei'whelming at times. While my affir-mative response to this mandate from the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL) requires considerable per-sonal sacrifice, I have embraced it as a joyful expression of that unconditional assent to the divine will that I freely offered to God, to the church, and to my supe-riors on the day of my religious profession. Personally and through the religious who assist me in carrying it out, I sincerely endeavor to encounter with holy respect the members of each of the religious institutes involved in the apostolic visitation. The Church's Pastoral Concern for Religious Life In the apostolic exhortation Vita consecrata, Pope John Paul II clearly affirmed that consecrated life, with its variety of charisms and institutions, is a treasure which has its origin in the example and teachings of Jesus Christ. It is a gift of God the Father to the church through the Holy Spirit, a precious and necessary gift for the present and future of the People of God, and an Review for Religious intimate part of the church's life, holiness, and mission.1 Women and men freely choose to live in institutes which are canonically erected by the competent authority of the church. Through the profession of ~ ,~ vows or other sacred bonds, according to the institute's proper law, they profess the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience and, through the charity ~ to which the coun-sels lead, are joined in a special way to ~ the church.2 On her - ~ part, the church has the duty of clarifying the identity, the vocation, and the particular mission of religious institutes and promoting their ecclesial communion? The apostolic visitation of institutes of women religious in the United States was promulgated with the express approval of Pope Benedict XVI.4 In a recent address to the members of the council for rela-tions between CICLSAL and the men's and women's International Unions of Superiors General, the Holy Father noted that religious communities are not exempt from the increasing difficulty encountered in proclaim-ing and witnessing to the gospel in our modern global-ized society. While acknowledging the difficult crisis that has affected many congregations by reason of the aging of members, a more or less pronounced decrease in the number of vocations, and a certain "spiritual and charismatic weariness," he indicated that the Holy Spirit The Church has the duty of clari~ing the identity, the vocation, and the particular mission of religious institutes an~d promoting their e~clesial communioh. 69.1 2010 Millea ¯ The Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious continues to inspire a new commitment to fidelity in long-established institutes and in new forms of religious consecration as well. He pointed out that authentic actualization of the founders' charism has resulted in a promising new ascetic, apostolic, and missionary impe-tus for many congregations.5 The current apostolic visitation can rightfully be seen as a pastoral desire of the Apostolic See to journey with religious congregations as they respond to Pope Benedict's renewed invitation to "start afresh from Christ.''6 In open and honest dialogue with the univer-sal church, the visitation is a means for congregations to evaluate their present reality with courage and truth, to rediscover their founding charism, and to live it in a more authentic manner appropriate for the present time. In particular, it offer~ major superiors and their sisters a privileged opportunity to present to the Apostolic See their congregation's unique charismatic identity, as well as their communal and ministerial expression of religious life. It likewise affords the Apostolic See a way to listen to the joys, accomplishments, hopes, and concerns of the sisters and, together with the religious themselves, to seek strategies for enhancing the vitality of the individual institutes. In order to attain beneficial results, the dialogue with the Apostolic See must begin with an honest self-evaluation of the congregation's lived fidelity to its internal norms and to universal church law. The grace of the apostolic visitation can only occur in a climate of prayer, docility, open dialogue, and collaboration, with a sincere desire on the members' part to examine the congregation's strengths and weaknesses and to effect changes which would enhance the expression of its charism and ecclesial identity. Review for Religious Phases of the Apostolic Visitation The apostolic visitation is being carried out in four phases. In Phase 1, which lasted from April through July 2009, more than 75 percent of the superiors general whose institutes are included in the visitation responded to the invitation of Cardinal Franc Rodd, prefect of CICLSAL, to enter into personal dialogue with the visitator. Attentive and respectful listening to the hopes and dreams of those wonderful congregational leaders deepened my esteem for the women religious who courageously and faith-fully witness to their foundresses' and founders' spiritual patrimony and spend themselves in generous service to the church. The major superiors' love for and pride in their sisters were clearly evident as they shared their collective stoW and vision. These interviews and letters helped me formulate more precisely the objectives and procedures of the visitation. In July 2009 the Instrumenturn laboris7 or working document for the apostolic visitation was released, out-lining its nature, purpose, and procedures. Major supe-riors were encouraged to use the reflection questions contained in the working document to engage their sisters in a. process of self-evaluation regarding their congregation's unique identity, their present experience of community life, their mission and ministry, and their hopes and concerns for the future. During Phase 2 of the apostolic visitation, major superiors were asked to complete a questionnaire regard-ing fundamental aspects of their congregation's identity, present lifestyle, and future projections. The questions were similar in content to those already suggested for community reflection in the Instrumenturn laboris and were based on the model of religious life proposed in post-Vatican Council II documents on religious life8 69.1 2010 Millea ¯ The Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious and the Code of Canon Law. The questionnaire was composed of three sections. Part A requested statistical data about the congregation itself, the demographics of its members, living arrangements, care for elderly and infirm members, and ministerial presence. Its results have been collected by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), which will prepare an aggregate report of the findings for all reporting institutes, respect-ing the ahonymity of the individual congregations. The questions in Part B of the questionnaire offered the major superiors the opportunity to share with the Apostolic See the unique reality of their congrega-tion, They were designed to permit the major superi-ors to express each congregation's unique way of living the evangelical counsels, in accord with their founding charism and their own fundamental documents, approved by the church. The questions also sought basic informa-tion regarding governance, vocation promotion and for-marion policies, the spiritual and common life, mission and ministry, and financial administration. In addition, major superiors were invited to offer further explanations or comments to express their reality more completely. In Part C of the questionnaire, major superiors were asked to submit basic and supplementary congregational documents, such as constitutions, ancillary norms, for-marion plans, and chapter decisions. A complete copy of the questionnaire is available on the Apostolic Visitation website.9 The canonical model of religious life which under-lies the questions does not fully correspond to the lived reality of certain institutes. The questionnaire extended an invitation to those communities which appear to be evolving into a new form of consecrated life to describe their emerging expression of vowed living.1° Honest and Review for Religious respectful conversation between the institute and the Apostolic See could predictably lead to greater clarity of purpose and identity. During Phase 2 the apostolic visitator also extended an invitation to bishops and individual members of reli-gious communi-ties to share their observations. Input from any persons whose lives have been affected by women religious is also welcomed. All such contributions are assured confi-dentiality. A core team of religious who are aiding the visitator is currently evaluating the data received in preparation for the subsequent phases of the apostolic visitation. The third phase will begin in the spring of 2010 with on-site visits to a representative sample of institutes con-ducted by teams of religious visitors who will act indi-vidually and collectively in the name of the Apostolic See. The visitors were chosen from among the many fine religious nominated by superiors general and others and represent a variety of congregations and areas of exper-tise. Before conducting the on-site visits, all potential visitors will have participated in an orientation workshop during which they will pronounce the public profession of faith and the oath of fidelity to the Apostolic See that are made by those assuming offices to be exercised in the church's name2~ This profession carries with it a special grace which will strengthen the visitors in their delicate i~c: ,Adore~,team of religious who are ~aiding the visitator is currently ,,evaluating the data received in ~:preparation for the subsequent phases of the apostolic visitation. 69.1 2010 Millea ¯ The Apostolic Visitation of Institutes of Women Religious task. It will assist them to faithfully carry out their role in communion with the sound teachings and practice of the Catholic Church and not according to their own private judgment or subjective ideology.'2 The on-site visitors will engage in dialogue primarily with the members of leadership teams and a representa-tive group of the sisters, eliciting their vision of the joys, challenges, and obstacles the religious face in seeking to live authentically their charismatic identity. The details of the on-site visit will be arranged with the congrega-tions to be visited in such a way as to afford the visitors a broad and objective picture of the life and mission of the congregation and its impact on the local church. The visitation team will formulate a report for the apostolic visitator in which they will seek to articulate the accom-plishments, the key strengths, and the challenges of the institute as revealed in their dialogue and will include any recommendations which they consider appropriate. In Phase 4 of the visitation, drawing from the data gathered in the previous phases, the apostolic visitator will prepare for CICLSAL a summary report of each of the participating congregations, whether or not they will have received an on-site visit. Each of the congrega-tions will receive feedback for the purpose of promoting their charismatic identity and apostolic vitality in ongo-ing dialogue with the local and universal church. There is much good news to tell about the history and present reality of religious life in the United States. There are also great challenges to be faced so that reli-gious may continue to offer selfless service to the church and to the people who long for our unique witness to Christ through our lives, works, and words. May the fervent prayer of the church sustain women religious on the path of ongoing conversion and renewal that they Review for Religious may be a more vibrant presence and effective instrument of evangelization into the future. As did Pope John Paul in the conclusion to VTta consecrata, we entrust all reli-gious to the Virgin of the Visitation, that the church may always be gifted with generous women who, as lov-ing consecrated persons, will continue to bring Jesus to the poor, the hungry, those without hope, the little ones, and all who seek Jesus with a sincere heart.13 Notes ~ See John Paul II, Vita consecrata, §§1 & 3. 2 See Code of Canon Law, c. 573, §2. 3 See Vita consecrata, §4. 4 Decree, Prot. N. 16905/2008, at . 5 Benedict XVI, Address to Members of the Council for Relations between the CICLSAL and the USG and IUSG, 2/18/2008, at . 6 Ibid. See also CICLSAL, instruction Starting Afresh front Christ (2002). 7 To obtain a complete text of the Instrumentum laboris, see . 8 See especially John Paul II, Vita consecrata (1996); CICLSAL, Starting Afresh from Christ (2002); CICLSAL, The Service of Authority and Obedience (2008). 9 See and . ~0 See Questionnaire, Part B, Section 1, E: "Is your institute mov-ing toward a new form of religious life? If so, how is this new form specifically related to the church's and your institute's understanding of religious life?" ~' See ; Origins 28 (1998): 163-164. 12 See Lumen gentium, §25. ~3 See I/ita consecrata, §I 12. 69.1 2010 KATHLEEN HUGHES The Apostolic Visitation: An Invitation to Intercultural Dialogue EOtxrar owrodmineanry r etliimgieosu.s in the United States, these are In February 2009 Cardinal Franc Rod~, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL), stunned American women religious by announcing "an Apostolic Visitation of the Generalates, Provincialates, and Centers of Initial Formation of the Principal Religious Institutes of Women in the United States of America." The pur-pose of the visitation is, according to Cardinal Rod4, "to look into the quality of the life of apostolic congre-gations of women religious in the United States.''1 Kathleen Hughes, a Religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, former professor of Word and Worship at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and former provincial of her order's United States prov-ince, is currently a mission consultant in the Network of Sacred Heart Schools. Her address is 541 S. Mason Road; St. Louis, Missouri 63141. . Review for Religious Scarcely had this news been absorbed when a second announcement compounded the surprise and confusion of United States women religious. In March 2009 the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) was informed by letter that Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, had initiated a doctrinal investigation of LCWR's activities and initiatives, particularly citing the tenor and content of various addresses given at the LCWR annual assemblies in recent years. While the visitation of women religious and the investigation of LCWR are distinct, their simultaneity was not lost on many observers, and it has been reported that Cardinal Levada's decision to investigate LCWR was made while in communication with Cardinal Rod~. These two initiatives stirred up questions, a variety of feelings, and--given that those principally affected did not participate in the planning of these investigations--a broad range of speculation about motivations and pos-sible (or probable) outcomes. This article will focus on only one of these initiatives, the Apostolic Visitation. The first section will consider the process of the visitation and the storm that arose as knowledge of it spread across the country. The second section will offer a perspective with which to understand and prepare for the visitati6n, namely, as an invitation to intercultural dialogue. The third section will suggest a habit of heart which may prove useful for visitors and visited alike. The concluding section will propose some potentially beneficial outcomes of the visitation. The Visitation and Initial Responses to It On the face of it, the visitation is a fairly straight-forward two-year process. Cardinal Rodd appointed 69.1 2010 Hughes ¯ Tbe Aposto.lic Visitation The visitation "is intended to comprehensively assess and encourage the growth of Catholic institutes of women religious in the United States who engage in apostolic works." Sister M. Clare Millea, superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to oversee the visitation. Sister Clare announced three phases for the visitation. The first phase, completed in July 2009, offered major superiors of orders of women religious in the United States the opportunity to meet with Sister Clare in per-son or by phone or letter to express their hopes, ioys, concerns, and other observations about their orders; approximately fifty-two percent of them did so.2 The second phase was a question-naire, completed in November 2009. This questionnaire solicited a wide range of empirical data from every apos-tolic order of women in the United States, and asked for whatever observations and aspirations they wanted to express. Compliance with this second phase varied widely across the country. Because of concern expressed by many major superiors, the request for personnel and financial information was dropped from this phase.The third phase of the visitation, on-site visits of "a rep-resentative sample of religious institutes,''3 will begin in the spring of 2010. For this phase Sister Clare will be joined by other religious, women and some men, who will form teams of visitors. After on-site visits are complete, Sister Clare will send Cardinal Rod4 a confi-dential report summarizing all the information gleaned Review for Religious from the visitation's three phases. In addition, individual confidential reports of all congregations will be pre-pared for the cardinal. The reports of those congrega-tions receiving on-site visits will be more extensive. The visitation's website (www.apostolicvisitaton. org) offers both the reason for the visitation and its objective. The visitation "is intended to comprehen-sively assess and encourage the growth of Catholic institutes of women religious in the United States who engage in apostolic works." Why a visit? Because "reli-gious life has passed through challenging times. The Congregation for Consecrated Life is aware that many new congregations have emerged in the United States while many others have decreased in membership or have an increased median age. Apostolic works have also changed significantly because of societal changes. These and other areas need to be better understood and assessed in order to safeguard and promote consecrated life in the United States.''4 It sounds so benign. Why the furor from so many quarters? The anguish of many people, religious women and a throng of their supporters and friends as well, springs from the very nature of an apostolic visitation, some-thing generally intended for the correction of abuses. The lack of participation of major superiors in the visit's design, the secrecy about those chiefly responsible for it, and wonderment about its conclusions--all of this causes concern. What abuse exactly is this visitation meant to correct? Most women religious believe they have been living faithfully that form of religious life which emerged from their obedience to the church's mandate for renewal at Vatican Council II, and which is distilled in the congregations' constitutions--rules 69.1 2010 Hughes ¯ Tbe Apostolic Visitation of life previously approved by CICLSAL, the very con-gregation now mandating the visitation. Furthermore, congregations have built into their governance certain internal structures (general chapters, for example, or the periodic visits of those in leadership) for the protection of their spiritual heritage, for evaluation of their fidel-ity to their constitutions, and for assessment of people's needs in the light of the gospel so as to establish min-isterial priorities. Women religious in the United States have also embraced a pattern of discernment and decision-making which welcomes the participation of every member. For many religious congregations, transparency and collegi-ality have become a way of life. Why, then, a visitation initiated without the collaboration of those being vis-ited, lacking collegiality, shrouded in secrecy? The apos-tolic visitation of women religious and the concurrent investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious make many feel beleaguered, others fearful, others suspicious or angry. There are other voices being heard, of course. Some think it is high time someone examined what is hap-pening among women religious--whether the vows are being lived, whether prayer is still the core of religious life, whether women religious should be working out-side institutional church structures, and whether women religious should be advocating for those on the margins or promoting issues of justice within and beyond the church. Still others believe that the visitation provides an opportunity for women religious to go more deeply into issues of substance. The forty questions posed by the visitation's Instrumentum laboris, that is, its working paper, touch on everything from charism, vows, lead- Reviem for Religious ership, formation, spiritual life, and community living to mission, ministry, and financial administration,s For many women religious today, conversations on these topics happen less frequently than they would wish because of the multiple demands placed on their time and energy. There is always the danger that values taken for granted or left unarticulated become inoperative. Conversations on the essential elements of religious life may help participants discern anew where the Spirit is leading. These conflicting voices and divergent responses mirror the church at large not only in response to the visitation but on __ myriad issues large and small. Clearly, we need to find a way to talk together, to speak with integ-rity and honesty about matters of substance with those who may not share our worldview. Above . all, we need to find a way to reframe the conversation which this visitation invites us to have among ourselves and with our visitors. Even though the visitation is limited to the United States, and visiting teams will be formed from members of U.S. orders, the visitation is sure to find a range of "cultures" among us because of differing generations, theologies, spiritualities, forma-tion experiences, educational opportunities, and so on. The growing discipline of intercultural dialogue may We :need to find a way to talk together, to speak with integrity and honesty about matters of substance with those Who may not share our worldview. 21 69.1 2010 Hughes ¯ Tbe Apostolic Visitation provide the best framework and some guidance for our exchange. Intercultural Dialogue: A Definition and Some Guidelines Choose any Internet search engine and you will find thousands of entries on intercultural dialogue, offering various definitions of it and rules for engaging in it. The following definition is representative: Intercultural dialogue is an open and respectful exchange of views between individuals and groups belonging to different cultures that leads to a deeper understanding of the other's global perception. In this definition, "open and respectful" means "based on the equal value of the partners"; "exchange of views" stands for every type of interaction that reveals cul-tural characteristics; "groups" stands for every type of collective that can act through its representatives (family, community, associations, peoples); "culture" includes everything relating to ways of life, customs, beliefs, and other things that have passed on to us for generations, as well as the various forms of artistic creation; "world perception" stands for values and ways of thinking.6 Intercultural dialogue invites all interested parties to an open and respectful exchange with a view to deeper mutual understandings. Intercultural dialogue promotes esteem for diversity and insists that "different" does not mean "deficient." It fosters mutuality in the face of unequal power relations and forges partnerships in a common cause. And surely the most profound outcome looked for is the transformation of all who take part-- interior conversions that make room for changed forms, images, and behaviors and the freedom to see new pos-sibilities and to make choices that promote growth. Revie~v for Religious Among some simple rules for intercultural exchange, the most important is that of active listening, listening to one another with respect and openness, indeed with reverence. Each religious community being visited has a unique history shaped by the founder and her or his culture and circumstances. Each order has a unique charism and spirit, a set of traditions, beliefs, customs, even a particular "vernacular language" shaped over the years from the teachings and writings of members who have gone before, prophets and mystics among them, who have had a formative influence on the institute. Each order has a rule of life which is precious to the members, having been carefully composed and then gradually finding its way into their hearts. There may be a common set of questions in the Instrumentum laboris and a range of issues to be explored during on-site visits, but the answers will be as varied as the wonderful variety of religious communities which for almost two millennia have grown up in response to the Spirit's prompfings regarding particular needs of the day and the place. There are no "right" answers, but there will be many ways that sisters will express their following of Christ within a particular rule of life. The visitors, too, will have specific and precious religious heritages that shape their understanding and expecta-tions of religious life. Active listening--listening that is open to the hearts of others in the dialogue~is required of visitors and the visited alike. A second rule for the dialogue is to speak from one's own experience, not in the language of "they" or even "we," but "I." I believe, I think, I choose, I struggle with, I have come to appreciate, even I don't know or I am not sure. The living of religious life is an imprecise science, dependent as it is in the last analysis on each 69.1 2010 Hughes * The Apostolic Visitation 24 one's intimate and unique relationship with God. We grow into our understanding of prayer, the vows, com-munal life and mission during the course of years of choices made before God, in the power of the Spirit, and in communion with one another. Each member's experience and expression of religious life has been shaped by so many different influences, chief among them prayer, community life, ministerial experiences, and wise guides along the way. Rarely, if ever, can we read one another's mind or heart. Best, then, to speak only our own truth. A third rule for the dialogue is not to fear differ-ences but to welcome a respectful challenge, a thought-ful follow-up question. Particular external choices of lifestyle--for example, regarding housing options or ministerial options or the use of money--are less impor-tant than the reasons such choices have been made, the communal discernments which prompted this or that decision. In some instances clearly life-altering decisions have been made by local communities or whole con-gregations after long and serious prayer and reflection. These choices do not admit of true or false, yes or no, but require a reflective exchange whose eventual reward will be deeper insight. A fourth rule of intercultural dialogue is to come to common agreement about the scope of the conversa-tion. Both the Instrumentum laboris and the question-naire of phase two of the visitation present a wide range of topics for personal reflection. Not all of these topics, however, were appropriate for comment in the ques-tionnaire of phase two, especially if major superiors were in possession of information gleaned in personal manifestations of conscience, nor should some topics be included in the on-site dialogues of phase three. Review for Religious There are canonical norms which govern the extent of the dialogue. Subjects such as the frequency of one's sacramental participation are more appropriate to the internal forum and, in any case, are beyond the scope of the visitation. Furthermore, any questions with poten-tially incriminating consequences may also be politely deflected. Participants in an intercultural dialogue must know and accept the boundaries of the conversation; in an apostolic visitation, the boundaries are demarcated in canon law.7 Finally, intercultural dialogue is best and most fruitfully employed when all the participants have had an opportunity to shape the dialogue and accept the rules which bind the par-ticipants. In the case of the apostolic visi-tation, certain rules have been imposed from the outset which are troubling to some of those expected to partici-pate. Especially neu-ralgic among women religious who are used to openness ¯ Participants in an intercultural dialogue must know and accept the .boundaries of the conversation; ~in .an apostolic visitation, ithe boundaries are ~,~demarcated in canon law. and transparency is the secrecy surrounding the visita-tion's motivation and its final reports. Some opportunity for participants to negotiate the rules of the visitationt[ would be a good-faith gesture to women religious who ~ welcome courageous, gende, and respectful dialogue as partners with a church they love. 69.1 2010 Hughes * Tbe Apostolic Visitation A Useful Habit of Heart The habit of heart I want to recommend in prepara-tion for the visitation comes from my own experience of an earlier visitation. More than twenty years ago, I was part of the first apostolic visitation of seminar-ies and houses of formation in the United States. In 1981 the Holy See appointed Bishop John A. Marshall of Burlington, Vermont, to serve as apostolic visitator for this process, which took nearly seven years from announcement to formal conclusion. At the time of the visit, I was a member of the faculty of the Catholic Theological Union (CTU) in Chicago, teaching in the department of Word and Worship. Bishop Marshall himself led the party of visitors to CTU, and I was invited by the administration to meet with him. My visit with Bishop Marshall was not a happy expe-rience for me, perhaps because intercultural dialogue had not yet been discovered. Upon my being asked "What are you doing here?" my half hour was spent, about equally, in parrying questions about the alleged behavior of oth-ers on the faculty and staff and in defending my inter-pretation of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal and other liturgical norms. Too quickly our conversation ended, and I realized almost at once that I had not had a chance to communicate my appreciation of CTU, its extraordinary faculty and student body, and its commit-ment to educating faithful ministers for the post-Vatican II world church. Furthermore I had been given no oppor-tunity to speak of my own contribution to the mission of CTU. I asked for and was granted a second visit. Why put myself through that experience twice? The words of 1 Peter 3:15 express it best. "Always be pre-pared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gen- Review for Religious tleness and reverence." I wanted to give an account of my hope, based on a faculty where intellectual rigor and faith, were wed, on a student body of women and men from all over the world preparing to commit themselves to a life of service of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and on the local church in Chicago, where the leadership of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin gave extraordinary witness to the very qualities of holiness and gospel service we were trying to nurture in ourselves and instill in our students. For many women religious, hope is what has kept us faithful to this privileged journey in the midst of the numerous challenges of these last several decades. Changing demographics, underfunded ministries, elder care decision-making, conversations towards merger, cus-toms no longer viable, and ministerial needs forever out-stripping our human and material resources--all of these realities have tested congregations and their leaders. At the same time, that basic love and longing for God which brought us to the threshold of religious life still drives us, together, to seek and find God in contemplative prayer, in a life of common purpose, in zeal which keeps even the oldest among us focused on mission. Hope is the glue in religious life today. That hope must be the undercurrent of every exchange during on-site visits. If our visitors discover little else, they should leave with the conviction that hope is why we came to religious life and why we stay and why we get out of bed each morning and why, despite all the challenges and limitations we experience, we try every day to be God's heart on earth. "Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence." How wise of 69.1 2010 Hughes ¯ The Apostolic V'~itation the author of First Peter to link hope to gentleness and reverence, two other habits of heart which we do well to foster. If we do so, the intercultural dialogues in our future will accomplish in all of us, visitors and visited, great transformations of head and heart and mission. Hopeful Expectation What might be expected at the conclusion of this apostolic visitation? Approximately three hundred forty communities of apostolic women religious will have con-tributed to a composite picture of religious life in the United States. Sister M. Clare Millea has the unenviable task of summarizing all the information and impressions gleaned from her visits with major superiors, from the empirical data tabulated from many questionnaires, and from the reports of numerous on-site visits to moth-erhouses and houses of formation. This composite report together with individual reports of the religious orders will be presented to Cardinal Franc Rod~ and the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. It is to be hoped that major superiors and their councils will have had an opportu-nity to see these reports, to correct factual errors, and to participate inthe assembling of recommendations before their formal presentation to Cardinal Rode. Then what? Here are some possible hope-filled outcomes, first on the institutional level. The Instrumentum laboris poses some thoughtful questions about institutional sponsor-ship, care of the elderly, ongoing formation resources, and so on. In the course of the visitation, it is possible that some "best practices" might emerge--the kind of information that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious has worked to surface and circulate among its Review for Religious members for many years. While respecting the auton-omy of each institute, congregations with similar proj-ects or needs might be invited to consult with other congregations that have addressed similar issues with success. Another institutional prospect might be that those communities no longer viable because of a lack of either personnel or financing might be given the sup-port they need to make decisions for their future. On the personal level, the visitation could have a profound outcome. The Instrumenturn laboris for this visitation has a long series of thoughtful questions for personal study and prayer. These questions touch on the essence of religious life with two serious omissions: contemplation and other forms of solitary prayer are not mentioned, nor is there any reference to the quality and tone of community life, only to religious exercises performed in common. Apart from those lacunae, the document together with its numerous citations of other documents from the Apostolic See is, on balance, a rich resource for reflection and prayer and for conversa-tions within and across communities and congregations. Whether a congregation receives an on-site visit or not, this process has the potential for renewal among us. It also has the possibility of instilling in us a deeper real-ization of our place in the church and a deeper appre-ciation of our work as collaborators with our ordained and professed brothers in the public life of the church. And is it foolish to hope for one last outcome? Is it possible that this Apostolic Visitation might conclude with a resounding "thank you" to nearly sixty thou-sand women who have lived religious life as faithfully as nature and grace could achieve, making God's love known through their ministries and by their very lives? For this, let us pray to the Lord. 29 69.1 2010 Hughes ¯ Tbe Apostolic Visitation Notes ~ Letter of Cardinal Franc Rod~ to the Superiors General of Congregations of Women Religious in the United States, 2 February 2009. 2 Of approximately 340 eligible communities, 177 responded through visits or letters to Phase One. See the Apostolic Visitation web-site "Update on the Progress of Phase 3 See Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Instrumentum Laboris for Apostolic Visitation of the General Houses, Provincial Houses, and Centers of Initial Formation of the Principal Religious Institutes of Women in the United States of America. Protocol No. 16805/2008. 4 The Apostolic Visitation website, Frequently Asked Questions. s A copy of the Instrumentum laboris is available on the Apostolic Visitation website. 6 European Roma Information Office, White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue. 7 See the Resource Center for Religious Institutes, The Apostolic Visitation of Women Religious in the United States: A Canonical Reflection. 9 March 2009. Review for Religious j. THOMAS HAMEL Discovering What St. Ignatius Does Not Say Having accompanied a number of people on retreat for quite a few years--the ordained, the married and single, religious of various congre-gations-- I continue to delight in seeing that people unacquainted with Ignatius's little book actually mirror it in their own retreat experi-ence. Along with those who are quite famil-iar with Ignatius's words ("Divine Majesty," "God our Lord," "Creator and Lord," "Two Standards," and so forth), they have a retreat experience that is personal, profound, and Ignatian. In this way the Spiritual Exercises show themselves to be primarily oral. The "annotations" that introduce them appear to be the result of conversations throughout the four Weeks of retreat. What happens to the retreatants is usually the very thing Ignatius j. Thomas Hamel SJ last wrote for us in 2008, in our 67.2 issue. His address remains College of the Holy Cross; 1 College Street; Worcester, Massachusetts 01610. adapting the ignati.an exercises 69.1 2010 Hamel ¯ Discovering What Ignatius Does Not Say How Jesus Christ is present in creation is how he: is present in the Eucharist. hoped would happen. Retreatants become authors of the Exercises, putting their own experience into words. Enlightened by graces asked for and received, and lis-tened to by their director, they gradually own the experi-ence they has been graced with. "For it is not so much knowledge that fills and satisfies the soul, but rather the intimate feeling and relishing of things.''1 Being led to search out and find in ourselves the desires and ways of God is the touchstone of the Exercises. Ignatius's sober language actually encour-ages us to go beyond his words, and yet at times his notes and suggestions seem like an overload. He takes note of our waking up and going to sleep. He comments on the way we take meals. He pays attention to the warmth of the sun in winter and the effect of closing the shut-ters of our room. His interest in physical posture seems as modern as yoga lessons, not to mention his sensitive and insightful responses to inner changes and emo-tions, high and low and in between. In the end, how-ever, Ignatius does not tell us what to do. He will not interfere with God's coming and communicating (§ 15). Like John the Baptist at Jesus' baptism, Ignatius simply disappears so that retreatants may (like Jesus) hear the Father's voice and feel the Holy Spirit descending like a dove (Mk 1:10-11). A striking instance of Ignatius disappearing in the Exercises is the Principle and Foundation: "The human person is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Review for Religiotls Lord and by so doing to save his or her soul . One must use created things insofar as they help towards one's end, and free oneself from them insofar as they are obstacles to one's end. To do this we need to make ourselves indifferent to all created things" (§23). A subtle glory radiates from the name "God our Lord." It refers to the Trinity, and we know from Ignatius's "autobiography" or Reminiscences~ what great devotion he felt when praying to the Blessed Trinity, often,.with prayers and sobs (Rent §28). If this happened when he saw three keys on a keyboard, what might he have experienced before the triad of praise, reverence, and service of God? What Ignatius does not say here is revealed in the poetry of a mystical experience at Manresa. There is only one way he looks upon the gift of creation: "Once the way in which God had created the world was repre-sented in his understanding, with great spiritual joy: it seemed to him he was seeing a white thing, from which some rays were coming out, and that God was making light out of it" (Rent §29). He also saw "with his interior eyes some things like white rays which were coming from above as the body of the Lord was being raised at Mass" (Rent §29). How Jesus Christ is present in creation is how he is present in the Eucharist. The One who alone can praise, rever-ence, and serve the eternal Father is Creator and Lord (§5). Annotation 5 was traditionally given along with the Principle and Foundation at the beginning of the retreat, and so the glory of Jesus, Creator and Lord, pervades the Principle and Foundation. How appropri-ate that Ignatius would tap our generosity and openness at the beginning of retreat by having us offer our desires and liberty to our Creator and Lord! 69.1 2010 Hamel ¯ Discovering What Ignatius Does Not Say When Ignatius first arrived at the Benedictine Abbey of Montserrat, he made a general confession that lasted three days. Just how long was his list of sins? If one thing stands out in the First Week, it is the repeated reference to many sins: "How many times I deserved to be damned forever on account of my many sins" (§48). "Numberless other people have gone to hell for fewer sins than I have committed" (§52). "I look at myself. the source of many sins and evils" (§58). Rather than making a theological statement about sin, Ignatius seems to be pointing to his own spiritual journey, without actually saying so. So aware of the mal-ice of sin, he cannot but put into stark language the hor-ror of even one grave sin against one's Creator and Lord. M1 the while, Ignatius never loses sight of God's power, justice, wisdom, and goodness (§59). Suddenly we have a picture of Ignatius hugging himself in sheer wonder and joy before the whole range of created beings. Who are we, prayed over by angels and saints? Who are we, kept alive by earth and sky, stars and sun and moon and " the animal kingdom? (§60). What to do but talk to our Creator and Lord about mercy, and thank God for giv-ing us life to this very moment. When Ignatius left Montserrat after making a gen-eral confession, little did he realize that his own First Week was just beginning. Manresa was not in his plans, but it surely was in God's. There in Manresa the chiv-alrous ex-knight had to be knocked down by scruples. Slowly and painfully he had to learn he was no lon-ger in charge of anything, not even his own sinfulness. Instead of feeling duty-bound to keep on confessing his sins, he had to leave them to God. We can only wonder how many times Ignatius felt that the Lord "willed that he wake up as if from sleep," ever so slowly learning Review for Religious "the difference in kind of spirits through the lessons God had given him," so that at last "he decided, with great clarity, not to confess anything from the past any more. Thus from that day onward he remained free of those scruples, holding it for certain that our Lord in his mercy had willed to liberate him" (Rein §25). "As if from sleep" aptly describes Ignatius recu-perating from the wounds of Pamplona in his home at Loyola. He was given over to daydreaming. Tales of chivalry would foster his fantasies, but the only books available to him were Ludolph the Carthusian's Life of Christ and Jacobus de Voragine's account of lives of the saints. For the first time, in the Flos Sanctorum (or Golden Legend), Ignatius read about the knights of God who did great deeds in the service of the eter-nal Prince, Christ Jesus. Ignatius, it seems, woke up to hear the call of the eternal Lord and King of all people everywhere. Seeing "with the eyes of the imagination the synagogues, towns, and villages where Christ our Lord went preaching" (§91) leads us to see our world here and now immediately present to the risen Lord Jesus calling each of us in particular. The geography of the Kingdom goes from the Holy Land to the world at large and ends up "before your infinite Goodness, and before your glorious Mother and all the saintly men and women of the court of heaven" (§98). The grace not to be deaf to his call is an enormous grace. Summoned to know, love, and follow Jesus of Nazareth means a life-time journey that includes being with Jesus suffering and dying, rising and ascending. The desire to distinguish oneself in loyal dedica-tion is itself a grace. But where does such a desire come from? Before the Kingdom meditation, the last use of the phrase "infinite Goodness" was in the context of sin: the 69.1 2010 Hamel ¯ Discovering What Ignatius Does Not Say Ignatius does not e~cpect that this offering of oneself will happen right away. horror of sinning "against the infinite Goodness" (§52). Here we find "before your infinite Goodness." The Lord's favor and help are clearly at work in the prayer of oblation (§98). Surely Ignatius himself is among those who desire to distinguish themselves, though he does not say this. David Fleming captures the energy and emotion of the prayer: "Those who are of great heart and are on fire with zeal to follow Jesus" (~97).3 Of course, Ignatius does not expect that this offer-ing of oneself will happen right away, or even in the same words. What is of great moment is the coming together of desire, feel-ing, and imagination, radiating in some myste-rious way the glory of the risen Jesus. Imagine the change of feeling from having sinned against infi-nite Goodness to having a ~ heart on fire with zealous . desires and seeing in faith the Mother of Jesus in glory along with all the saints waiting to hear what I want to say. Among the saints that Ignatius read about at Loyola was St. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch. The account of his life opens: "The name Ignatius comes from the Latin ignem patiens, which means being on fire with love of God.''4 For Ignatius of Loyola ignem patiens describes the Second, Third, and Fourth Weeks of the Exercises. In contemplating the mysteries of Jesus' life, I am reminded of the Song of Songs: "How right it is to love you" (Sg 1:4). Such assurance is the fruit of inte-rior knowing nourished and fed by desire, feeling, and imagination. In the Second Week the fifth of each day's Review for Religious prayer periods highlights the imagination. In the prayer of the senses, we are to imagine what the three Divine Persons are saying, what our Lady is saying to her new-born at his birth (§123). In this way we are further drawn into their pres-ences, where we may pause to imagine what we could say to the Holy Trinity, or to the Mother of Jesus, or to the Newborn. During the retreat we speak from different positions, whether as friend, servant, or sin-ner (§54), not to mention as child, as beloved, and so forth. In our prayer of the senses and in the colloquies we make, an oral history is taking shape. The same is true of repetitions. In contrast to all that Ignatius says about preparation for prayer, along with detailed aids to prayer, he has very little to say about the repetitions. He clearly expects, however, that something will happen. These are his words: After the preparatory prayer and two preambles, repeat the First and Second Exercises, noting and dwelling upon the points where I have felt greater consolation or desolation or greater spiritual relish. (§62) After the preparatory prayer and the three pre-ambles, the repetitions of Exercises 1 and 2 will be made, attention always being given to any more important places where one has experienced new insight, consolation, or desolation. (§ 118) Two repetitions will be made on the First and Second Contemplations at the times of Mass and Vespers. (§204) Listening to the "sounds" of movements is at the heart of repetition. The peace and quiet that flow from a sense of being so loved by God is like hearing water falling upon a sponge; agitation, disturbance, any resistance to God is like hearing water fall upon a stone (§335). In the meditation on the Two Standards, Ignatius has 69.1 2010 Hamel * Discovering What Ignatius Does Not Say a great deal to say and little is left to the imagination. Lucifer is described as "sitting on a throne of fire and smoke in Babylon, while in a great plain of the region of Jerusalem stands Christ our Lord, his appearance comely and gracious" (§§138, 140, 144), who "selects apostles, disciples, etc. and sends them out over the world spreading his sacred doctrine" (§145). Christ our Lord, leader of all good, draws us to spiritual poverty and to the surprising joy of being chosen to imitate his humility and so to come to know the true life. In the first contemplation of the Second Week, a battle was already alluded to with people living in great blindness, wounding, killing, and going to hell, etc. (§106). The enemy of human nature is clearly at work sending demons to every region of the world to get peo-ple to crave riches and honors, thereby ending up with swollen pride. In contrast are the goodness of spiritual and actual poverty and the consolation of being allowed to share in the insults and rejection that Christ suffered. Could it be that here is the seed of the Suscipe prayer? When growing up in Nazareth, did Jesus himself begin to pray the Suscipe and Ignatius heard it? May we imag-ine the Suscipe becoming the song of the beloved dis-ciples when they are fishing on the Sea of Galilee, or all the more when they are sent out to preach? (§281.3). They were to travel without gold or silver, and Ignatius adds the abbreviation "etc." (Versio Prima text). It is noteworthy that "etc." occurs over forty times in the Exercises, chiefly in the Vulgate text, and thirteen times in the Reminiscences. The et cetera's in the Exercises may be nothing more than space savers. They might, however, also be an invitation to complete a thought, a sentence, or a scriptural quotation. In the opening days of the Second Week, the autograph text mentions "etc." Review for Religious twice, while in the Vulgate text it occurs fourteen times. "The Blessed Virgin burst with joy in this canticle: 'My soul magnifies the Lord, etc.'" (§263). It would seem that we are being invited to complete her canticle. At the birth of Jesus "all of a sudden a multitude of the celestial militia joined the angel, praising God and saying: 'Glory to God in the highest, etc.'" (§264). The words "and on earth peace among those whom he favors" are left to us to sing, all the while imagining ourselves as poor servants waiting on Mary and Joseph. Another unnamed angel comes to the shepherds nearby: "I announce to you a great joy, etc. Today a Savior is born for you, etc. After their visit they returned, 'giv-ing glory and praise to God, etc.'" (§265). Later, in the temple, Simeon took the child in his arms, blessed God, and said, "Now, Lord, let your servant go, etc." (§268). As we complete his Nunc Dimittis, are we holding the Child? Later still, after the unexpected night journey, etc., into Egypt, the Holy Family is back in Nazareth, where the Child grows in wisdom, age, and grace etc. (§271). These texts, replete with et cetera's, nourish our desires, feelings, and imagination in reflecting upon the mysteries of Jesus' early life. During all those years at Nazareth, I wonder if Jesus ever climbed Mount Tabor, which is fairly close by. There came a day on that mountain when Jesus was transfigured in the presence of his three dearest dis-ciples, Peter, James, and John. Upon hearing a resound-ing voice from heaven announcing "This is my beloved Son, etc., listen to him," they were frightened and fell to the ground, but Jesus came and touched them. He said, "Get up and be not afraid, etc." (§284). Why would the beloved disciples fear the Father's voice of intimacy? How many books have been written about the fear of 69.1 2010 Hamel ¯ Discovering What Ignatius Does Not Say Is it by mere chance that comes immediately after "be not afraid"? Ignatius leaVes that to us. God? Is it by mere chance that "etc." comes immedi-ately after "be not afraid"? Ignatius leaves that to us. In the Third Week, Ignatius focuses more on Christ our Lord's interior sufferings than on his external suf-ferings. In this way he simply allows the Gospel nar-ratives to speak for themselves as we strive to remain at Jesus' side every step of the way, imagining what he might be saying to his Father. On the first day of the Third Week, Ignatius wants us to nttice whether the road from Bethany to Jerusalem is "broad or narrow, level, etc.," and similarly to notice the place of the sup-per (§192). On the morning of the same first day, Ignatius again considers the road from the place of the supper, Mount Zion, to the valley of Josaphat, "and also the garden, whether - - -- wide, whether long, whether of one form or another" (§202). "With the eyes of the imagination" he sees the road from Nazareth to Bethlehem, its length, whether flat or through valleys or over hills; and also the place of the grotto of the nativ-ity, how big or small, how high, and what is in it (~112). Roads, of course, lead to a place, like the grotto or the garden or the upper room. One would expect, then, another consideration regarding the length and breadth of the Via Dolorosa, but that is left to our imagination. We are even encouraged to imagine ourselves seeing Jesus eating with his disciples (while we eat, §214), and this is the event that opens the Third Week. Jesus says, Review for Religious "Take and eat, etc." (~289). His supreme sign of love in the Eucharist creates the church community. "Take and eat" will be heard until the end of time. Nothing is spared in asking for the grace proper to the Passion. From grief, brokenness, and tears to this interior suffering, how he suffers for my sins, etc. (§197). This particular "etc." lifts us into Jesus' heart, where we are reminded that his "labors, weariness, and grief began at the moment of his birth" (§206, re Addition 6, §78). Once the Lord is put in bonds, his name is only Jesus, as in his early life. From then on, Jesus is silent until he speaks from the cross. Through all his silences we may imagine what he was saying to his Father and in turn what we want to say to his Mother, to him, and to the Father in the triple colloquies. From house to house Jesus is led back and forth. It seems worthy of note that the Third Week does not end at the tomb of our Lord's burial but at the house where our Lady went. The seventh day of the Third Week is spent with our Lady in her loneliness and grief, and, on the other hand, on recalling the bitter loneliness of the dis-ciples (§208, 7th day). There is no scriptural reference to our Lady's loneliness and grief, and when the risen Christ appears to his Mother there is no mention of the doors of her house being closed. Oral tradition, not Scripture, supports the Lord's appearance to her. She is the perfect instance of our Creator and Lord communicating himself to a faithful soul, "inflaming her in his love" (§ 15, reading abrasdndola for abrazdndola). Curiously enough, for those who may doubt, Ignatius quotes a line of Scripture: "Are you also without understanding?" (Mt 15:16). After we have spent a whole day with our Lady in her loneliness, what can compare with experiencing her exultation upon meeting her Son risen from the 69.1 2010 Hamel * Discovering What Ignatius Does Not Say tomb? His appearing to her is the first of many appear-ances. Ignatius seems to delight in recounting every single appearance of the risen Christ, just as he seems to relish seeing us present to our Lady's great gladness and rejoicing over our Lord's glory and joy (§221). Her house is transformed, her oratory is the new sanctuary of an infant church, of which she is the sign. The Holy Spirit is newly present in these Fourth Week mysteries. The disciples are given the Holy Spirit. Jesus has said to them: "Receive the Holy Spirit; whose sins you will remit, they are remitted, etc." (§304.3, Vulgate text). The infant church itself is in need of reconciliation in the person of the apostle Thomas. It happens on the eighth day of the resurrection. Cyril of Alexandria writes: "With good reason we are accustomed to having sacred meetings in churches on the eighth day" (Commentary on the Gospel of John). The church proclaims, "When we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus, until you come in glory." The apostle Thomas, who all too keenly experienced the death of his Master, has to wait until he comes in the glory of his wounds. So Jesus says to him, "Put your .finger here and see etc., and be not unbelieving but believing" (§305.2, Versio Prima text). Christ the Lord .is living within his new church when he appears to Thomas and to ourselves in our unbelief before the mystery of the resurrection. Christ lives on in his church, appearing again to Thomas and six other disciples on the shore of Lake Tiberius. He is Lord of the sea as well as Lord of the Sabbath when he brings about a huge catch of fish. Who counted all 153 of them? Of the fish they had just caught, Jesus "gave them some bread and fish, etc. (§306.3, Vulgate text). Did Jesus first bless the bread, Review for Religious then break it? And were there leftovers? After the hot breakfast, there is one more catch: three times Jesus asks Peter "Do you love me?" and each time tells him to feed his sheep. Jesus commissions his new church to feed his flock, chiefly with the Eucharist. To hear Thomas's confession "My Lord and my God," to hear Peter's confession "Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you," to hear the Lord of Mount Tabor say "Go and teach all peoples" (§307): this is already to hear the Suscipe being sung. Do we hear Mary, Mother of the risen Lord, Mary Magdalene, the other Marys, the couple on their way to Emmaus, the fishermen of Tiberius, other disciples behind closed doors, the five hundred brethren together, St. James, Joseph of Arimathea, and St. Paul all singing the Suscipe? Is that not one of the ways friends experience consolation, including Jesus himself, who is the glory and generosity of the Father? With what affection and with what great love may we hear him say: "All that I have and possess you gave it all to me; to you, Father, I give it all back" (§234). The great joys of gratitude are all found in the Suscipe. With what great desires would God our Lord, the angels, and the saints want to hear us repeat the Suscipe? Participating in this prayer may fittingly be one of the "holy effects of the most holy resurrection" (§223). The Suscipe may not even be the last word. Ignatius leaves it to our creativity to consider some other way of thanksgiving that we feel to be better (§235). And what we may feel to be a better gift can only be due to God at work giving being, conserving life, granting growth and feeling, etc. (§236). "For it is not much knowledge but the inner feeling and relish of things that fills and satisfies the soul" (§2). Ignatius 69.1 2010 Hamel ¯ Discovering Wbat Ignatius Does Not Say was fond of concluding his letters by saying: "May His perfect grace be granted to all of us always to feel and fully accomplish His most holy will.''5 Although love is shown more in deeds than in words, Ignatius for his part is more wordy than usual in the Contemplation to Arrive at Love (§230). His words seem to carry the weight of deeds. This is evident in the first point of the Contemplatio where Ignatius refers to "particular gifts" (§234). Naturally these particular gifts are individual and personal; and yet, without say-ing so, it appears likely that Ignatius had in mind "the true bride of Christ our Lord, our holy mother, the hierarchical church" (§353), which--like our Lady as the new temple of the Lord's dwelling--humbly gives thanks to the Divine Majesty (§108). A vision of church rather than of the individual arises in the fourth point of the Contemplatio. The church's power, her goodness, her sense of justice, piety, mercy, etc. reflect the supreme and infinite power, goodness, justice, loving kindness, and mercy of her Lord and eternal King (§237). I am reminded that, when Ignatius traveled to the Holy Land, he did not have time to see Nazareth, watch sun-beams sparkle across the Sea of Galilee, or climb Mount Tabor. But he did see these holy places in his imagination, where his desires and dreams appeared. Later in Rome, seeing Christ "like a sun" as he had in Manresa (Rein §99), he saw the pilgrim church of the disciples go forth and teach all people, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (§307). Likewise it is the story of Jesus that invites, challenges, and informs our ser-vice in the world. It is not by accident that the majority of Ignatius's et cetera's follow upon a biblical text. Just as the Scriptures never come to an end, there is no last medita-tion or contemplation in the Spiritual Exercises. Review for Religious Ignatius says goodbye to retreatants (as directors do), but seeking and finding seem to become a never ending duet. There is no final step, nor does the music have any final note. Providence goes on giving birth to God's deeper presence within us and even to our pres-ence to ourselves. As Karl Rahner wrote, "God speaks us to ourselves.''6 In some analogous fashion, is this not what Ignatius also does? As we make the Exercises, per-haps Ignatius is speaking each of us as their author. Notes ~ Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Personal Writings: Reminiscences, Spiritual Diary, Select Letters, including the text of The Spiritual Exercises, ed. and trans. Joseph Munitiz and Philip Endean (London: Penguin Books, 1996), §2. Hereafter I will refer to the Exercises by giving the paragraph number in parentheses. ~ Reminiscences, §28. Hereafter I will refer to this text with Rein and the paragraph number in parentheses. 3 David L. Fleming SJ, Draw Me into Your Friendship: A Literal Translation and a Contemporary Reading of the Spiritual Exercises (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996), p. 87, §97. 4 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, 2 vols., trans. William Granger Ryan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), I:140. 5 Personal Writings, Select Letters #38, p. 275. 6 Harvey Egan SJ, Karl Rabner: Mystic of Everyday Life (New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 1998), p. 84. Questions for Personal and Group Reflection Hamel points out that the Ignatian Exercises in their language structure call for the retreatant's involve-ment. As you have experience retreats, have you felt the freedom to follow the promptings of God's grace? 4Y 69.1 2010 Hamel * Discovering Wlzat Ignatius Does Not Say 2. Can you give some examples of certain scripture passages that continue to open up new meanings .and insights for you? Transformation Behold the glory of a rose. All it has to do is be. From tightly closed bud to emerging blossom to exquisite flower - it happens so slowly that very few notice. The gentle rain, the warming sun, the nurturing soil - all contribute to the life within. Holy Spirit, the power of your love is my source of transformation. All I have to do is be in You. Mary Frances Herkender SND 46 Review for Religious LOUIS M. SAVARY Revisiting St. Ignatius's Kingdom Meditation at Ignatius is primarily trying to do in the ¯ ¯ Kingdom meditation, and many miss the point, is to create a major shift in the retreatant's mind. The shift is necessary in order to have a proper mindset for the Second Week of the Exercises. It is a mindset quite different from that of the First Week. Theologically, it is a shift in how one sees one's purpose in life. The shift goes from simply seeking one's own salva-tion, which is probably the purpose of most believers, to committing oneself to a divine project on Earth. Ignatius has Christ refer to the divine project as "the work" (SpEx §96). In committing to this work, one's attention and energy shift from personal salvation to involvement in the divine project. For the retreatant, this shift is from avoiding sin and getting to heaven to a new goal: accepting responsibility for helping change the human face of the earth.1 Louis M. Savary has given many lectures, workshops, and classes on the spirituality of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. His address is 3404 Ellenwood Lane; Tampa, Florida 33618. 69.1 2010 Savary ¯ Revisiting St. Ignatius's Kingdom Meditation After the retreatants' First Week preoccupation with Christ's forgiving their sins and enabling their salvation, the Kingdom meditation may come as a surprise--when its meaning dawns on them. It presents retreatants with a new and grand "horizon," as the Jesuit philosopher Bernard Lonergan might describe it. Their attention expands from a narrow spotlight on their personal life to a horizon as big as the world. In this meditation Ignatius wants retreatants to begin thinking globally, looking toward "a much larger horizon than they had been living within" during the First Week.2 The Divine Project Christ's project, as we read in Ignatius's Kingdom text, involves nothing less than transforming the "whole world." It will certainly call for hard work ("share the labor with me"), and will require great generosity of ser-vice ("make offerings of greater worth and moment").3 Ignatius wants retreatants to recognize that in this medi-tation Jesus is inviting them to join him in a special proj-ect, initiated by God, which is so important that it needed God's own Son to reveal it clearly and accurately.4 Many ordinary Christians, those who try merely to save their own souls, fail to hear this call. Ignatius hopes to find "worthy knights" who hear Jesus' call to establish the reign of God on earth and who want to work with others to make it happen. He recommends that the one giving the Exercises be sure that the retreatant is ready to hear this call and has the generosity to respond to it.5 Jesus, in the Ignatian text, is clearly.proposing and working toward a historical result. His project has to do with what we humans, with his help, are meant to accomplish here and now for a better planetary future. It has to do with changing history and how people live Review for Religious and interact on earth. The project is far bigger than simply baptizing as many people as possible. As the hymn to the Holy Spirit puts it, humanity's true pur-pose with the Spirit's help is to "renew the face of the earth." It is a project that goes far beyond keeping the commandments and avoiding sin. In this meditation we enter into Jesus' vision and dream for humanity. Joseph Tetlow says Ignatius wants you to "feel the excitement of a call to transcend everyday concerns.''6 A New Purpose in Life Most people live their entire lives concerned about food, shelter, and clothing. They may think about the future, but mostly about everyday concerns. Their life purpose is to take care of daily wants and needs--food, grooming, safety, security, accep-tance, approval, belong-ing, esteem, and personal development. They see no '4' larger horizon than that. Speaking of everyday concerns, Jesus said, "All these things the pagans seek." He adds, "Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides" (Mt 6:32-33). Jesus calls his hearers to a new life purpose: finding out what the worldwide kingdom project wants from you ("seek first the kingdom of God"), carrying it out, and letting God take care of the rest. This worldwide transformation, the divine project, begins in individuals with a special kind of repentance, Repentance in this context " much closer to a change :" lifepurpose, 69.1 2010 Savary ¯ Revisiting St. Ignatius's Kingdom Meditation a change of heart, which is quite different from sorrow for sin. Repentance in this context is much closer to a change in life purpose. "Repent for the reign of God is among you.''7 Most Christians do not really spend much time meditating on this simple, foundational statement. When understood, it calls for a new way of looking at ourselves, the human family, and all of creation; it means establishing the reign of God. Individually, the "work" calls for a change in mind-set because it requires people to begin thinking about transforming all of humanity and the planet rather than simply saving their own soul. It also calls for a conver-sion of heart because Jesus asks us to love all people and to accept responsibility for everyone, rather than limiting our responsibility to our own life and immediate family. Instead of merely waiting for the gift of salvation from God on high, Ignatius hears in the call of Christ an invita-tion to shoulder the creative responsibility of "living for others."8 Instead of the abstract virtues or commandments required for salvation, Jesus emphasizes the practical contributions each person's talents and abilities can bring to this divine project on earth. Once we under-stand Christ's divine project, says Tetlow, "each of us, with God, must create our own response.''9 Jesus in his teachings and miracles is announcing what Juan Luis Segundo calls a "project-Christology" that is "centered around the reign of God on earth.''I° In the light of this project, we each have a destiny, a part, that we alone can fulfill. Love Is Central in God's Plan Jesus reveals that God is unconditional love and that this love is active and plan-centered. In other words, Revie~v for Religious God's love is not just responsive to individual and col-lective human needs as they happen to occur; it is also forward looking, proactive, and evolutionary. God has had a loving plan for his creation since the beginning. It was enunciated by Christ. It is spelled out in Jesus' teachings, and it is all about love. Psychologically, we know that love blossoms and matures where the lovers have a shared project and a shared dedication to it. We are invited--no, com-manded- by Jesus to love one another. We may be invited to join the ranks of the "knights" who follow Jesus, but once we join we are commanded to love one another. Nothing less than unconditional love for all humans and all of creation will suffice. The love Jesus (and Ignatius) is talking about is no infatuation or emo-tional attachment. It is a mature love that thrives on sharing the responsibility for a project--"that they may be one as you, Father, and I are one" (Jn 17:20-23).13 Each individual is called to become God's coworker (synergos in Greek; see 1 Co 3:8-9, 21-23) in establish-ing God's reign on earth. Kingdom as Reign Many scripture scholars emphasize this Christological project by suggesting that Jesus' use of the word "king-dom" is less about physical boundaries and more about God's reigning. To reign is to do something. When you talk about a king "reigning," you are referring to his plans for the future of his people and the ways he wants his wishes to be carried out. Such reigning includes the effective fulfillment of the king's will in the structures of society under his charge. It means carrying out the king's program or "standard.''~ As the divine "stan-dards" (such as the beatitudes) become more and more 69.1 2010 Savary ¯ Revisiting St. Ignatius'~ Kingdom Meditation established on earth, there will be ever-increasing love. From this will follow conditions of freedom, justice, equality, peace, and so forth for all human beings and respect for all creation. So, in this meditation, when people think the call of the temporal king (to conquer infidel lands) applies directly to the call of the divine King, they need to note that Ignatius's words refer to a conquest, not by the sword, but by covering the planet with people full of unconditional love. It is only love that will conquer all. It is probably appropriate to say that the Kingdom med-itation is really a parable about the power and attraction of real love on the human heart, more than about kings and knights.12 An Evolutionary Viewpoint of the Kingdom Pierre Teilhard de Chardin reminds us that the divine project did not begin with Jesus' public ministry two thousand years ago. It started about fourteen bil-lion years ago at the Big Bang. Creation itself has been a book of divine revelation that we are just beginning to learn to read with the help of science. According to Teilhard, God implanted his love in every particle that burst forth at the first moment of creation. Everything that exists lives in what Teilhard calls a Divine Milieu of love, and this Divine Milieu is the Universal Body of Christ On 1:3). As St. Paul says, "In him we live and move and have our being" (Ac 17:28). In studying the evolution of the universe, Teilhard dis-covered a law that has been operative since the Big Bang. He called it the Law of Complexity-Consciousness.13 Expressed more completely, it is the Law of Attraction- Connection-Complexity-Consciousness.14 It asserts that the universe is not static or cyclical, but has always been Review for Reli~ous on the move. Furthermore, its evolutionary movement has a direction. From the beginning, it has been mov-ing toward higher levels of complexity and conscious-ness-- or to higher levels of interiority, if you wish. ~s In simple language, the law of attraction is at work everywhere. All units, from atomic particles up to human beings, are attracted to other units to form con-nections. In first-year chemistry class, you learned about the Table of Chemical Elements. These connections of subatomic particles that evolved over time are listed on the Table from the simplest to the most complex. Connections are, by definition, more complex than the elements that make them up. Vvnnen evolution is looked at over eons, it is clear that this law of attraction-connection-complexity has been at work, especially on our planet, in generating forms of life. After about a billion years of trying, Earth finally evolved single-celled creatures. And over another billion years the continually evolving Earth gave birth to life forms with increasing complexity--insects, plants, trees, flowers, fish, reptiles, birds, mammals. Consciousness and awareness appeared and increased. Starting about a hundred thousand years ago, the Law of Attraction-Connection-Complexity-Consciousness generated not only human beings on Earth, but also societies, cultures, arts, and sciences. For Teilhard, this Law is universal. It applies not only to biology, but to all levels of existence. Over many millennia, psychologi-cal, social, and cultural evolution has been happening and keeps happening, following that same divine law. As Henry Kenney puts it, for Teilhard "there is only one cosmically integrated evolution. Physical and social evolution are an essential part of this one evolution.''~6 Can this understanding of evolution help us to 69.1 2010 Savary ¯ Revisiting St. Ignatius's Kingdom Meditation understand the divine project? If that general law of divine love that Teilhard discovered studying the book of creation is accurate, then it is clear how we can foster the divine project. We simply follow the universal evo-lutionary law. We do it, first, by making ourselves attrac-tive for more connections and relationships. Second, we welcome connections and the complexity they bring to our lives. Third, the struggle to live lovingly in that complexity will bring us, fourth, to greater consciousness of who we are, who we are meant to become, and how we can respond to the call of Christ. Teilhard's law does not contradict any of the laws Christ gave; it merely applies them more broadly in our scientific world. For example, it allows people to see in their professions and careers how their work contributes to the divine project and promotes the reign of God. Kingdom and Cosmos God's divine Word has been breathing into the universe the divine creative Spirit for almost fourteen billion years. During all these eons, God's wisdom has been watching creation grow and evolve in complexity and consciousness. This ever-expanding cosmos, which God loved so much that he sent his only Son to become one with it and to show us that love, must be a special part of the Kingdom of God. This evolving cosmos is the original and continual blessing God has been giv-ing to us since the Big Bang. God has been waiting for us to emerge from within it and become conscious of its almost infinite temporal stretch of divine revelation and blessing--and become conscious of the divine law of love that Teilhard identified. God not only has immersed us and all of creation in this Divine Milieu, but also has written upon our hearts Review for Religious the desire to know, love, and care for the cosmos (and everything in it)--as God knows, loves, and cares for it. To do this with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength is to love as God loves. To learn to love God passion-ately, we must learn to love the cosmos passionately.~7 With the incarnation, God has doubly sanctified this cosmos. Not only is the cosmos one single immense entity beloved of God and living in the Divine Milieu; it is also, in Christian lan-guage, living within God's own Son, as part of his Body, the Total Christ. All of creation lives and moves and has its being in this Universal Christ. With these ideas Teilhard introduces us to an evolutionary way of under-standing the Kingdom meditation. ' :With the incarnation, Godhas doubly sanctified 'i this cosmos. A Prelude to the Kingdom Meditation A quotation from the jacket of a recent book may best provide an Ignatian "history" prelude a for new century's Kingdom meditation: The dawn of the twenty-first century has witnessed two remarkable developments in our history: the appearance of systemic problems that are genu-inely global in scope, and the growth of a worldwide movement that is determined to heal the wounds of the earth with the force of passion, dedication, and collective intelligence and wisdom. Across the planet groups ranging from ad-hoc neighborhood associa-tions to well-funded international organizations are confronting issues like the destruction of the envi-ronment, the abuses of free-market fundamentalism, social justice, and the loss of indigenous cultures. They share no orthodoxy or unifying ideology; they 69.1 2010 Savary ¯ Revisiting St. Ignatius's Kingdom Meditation follow no single charismatic leader; they remain sup-ple enough to coalesce easily into larger networks to achieve their goals. While they are mosdy unrecog-nized by politicians and the media, they are bringing about what may one day be judged the single most profound transformation of human society.18 According to the author of that book, Paul Hawken, there are at least two million organizations worldwide working toward ecological sustainability and social jus-tice. This vast collection of committed individuals does not constitute a traditional "movement," nor does it have one charismatic person inspiring or directing it. It is a global, leaderless conglomerate that reaches every corner of the world. Hawken says it is "dispersed, incho-ate, and fiercely independent. It has no shared manifesto or common doctrine, no overriding authority to check with.''~9 It is taking shape, however, in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, companies, deserts, fisheries, slums, and hotel rooms. From an evolutionary perspective, the movement is the most complex collection of human beings ever assem-bled. Most people know only the organization or two they chose to link with, but the movement's overall global database is mammoth. This collection of organizations is tackling issue~ that governments are failing to face: energy, jobs, conservation, poverty, and global warming. Its function as a coherent system is mysterious. Compelling, coherent, innovative, organic, self-organized congregations involving tens of millions of people are dedicated to change. "What I see," says Hawken, "are ordinary and some not-so-ordinary indi-viduals willing to confront despair, power, and incalcu-lable odds in an attempt to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.''z° According Review for Religious to Hawken, while in the past most people filed griev-ances only with respect to themselves, this new move-ment involves millions of people working altruistically on behalf of strangers. Individually and together they think and speak for the planet. For them, healing the wounds of the earth in this way is a sacred act. This unnamed movement is a healing life force striv-ing for social justice and planetary welfare under and through and around national boundaries. All these small and large groups are intertwining, creating worldwide a web of relationships that are increasingly conducive to life. Perhaps this perspective can serve the Kingdom meditation. An Evolutionary Kingdom Meditation Part One: Ten Thousand Earthly Leaders First Point. Perhaps, instead of an earthly king, Teilhard might ask us to imagine ten thousand leaders spread all over the cities and villages of the earth, people of all races and classes, of all religions and no religion, young and old, rich and poor, in storefronts and board-rooms, in homes and churches, in classrooms and picket lines, in jungles and around campfires, in laboratories and offices. These leaders represent ten thousand dif-ferent groups, all rising above their daily difficulties, finding ten thousand different ways to improve the earth and the beings on it. These "activist" groups are committed to bringing human rights to all. They con-front local injustice or seek multinational solutions to world hunger and poverty. Scientists seek new drugs to alleviate suffering. Authors and journalists suggest solu-tions to local and world problems. Educators concern themselves with literacy and other areas of knowledge. Some people try to solve employment problems. Some 69.1 2010 Savary * Revisiting St. Ignatius's Kingdom Meditation address ecological concerns. Some are philosophers and theologians, some are concerned parents. Some people have dedicated their lives to meditation and to prayer for world peace, for an end to war and terrorism. Every field or life path you can imagine is represented by these ten thousand leaders. Second Point. Imagine yourself standing in this crowd, not knowing where to turn or whom to speak with, and one or two of these leaders approach you. You discover they are persons just like you working in the same area of interest. They describe their work and their aim to improve the lives of others in their circle of influence. You feel their excitement and enthusiasm. It is contagious. They may even suggest ways that you could uniquely help them pursue their purpose. Other leaders are approaching other persons like you who have found their way here. In stages-of-consciousness language, these leaders would be encouraging people to grow beyond their egocentric and ethnocentric stages of development and commit themselves to anthropocentric and geocentric mindsets.21 Anyone failing to support and find a way to actively participate in one or more of these programs might be considered an unworthy or unconscious citi-zen of the earth. Part Two: The Universal Christ While you imagine yourself still standing amid these ten thousand leaders, you can imagine Christ speaking to you as a voice heard in your heart: You see all these people representing thousands of small-to-large organizations worldwide, each doing its own small part to transform the world. They and all their groups live and move and have their being in me. They were meant to come into being and work Review for Religious in peaceful and loving concern for the betterment of all. Each small and large group has been part of the Creator's plan and vision from the beginning of time. That vision is to bring all creation together in one supreme loving union. These people love Earth and all of creation. I invite you to find the individuals and groups that you are most attracted to and most qualified to help, and commit yourself to supporting them. For we all have a long evolutionary way to go to fulfill the Creator's plan. When you hear these leaders speaking to you, realize that it is I speaking to you. When you work with them, realize that it is I working with you, alongside you. Those who want to be more devoted and signalize themselves in service of the Body of Christ will not only offer their persons to the labor required for the Creator's project, but will also make offerings of greater value 'and greater importance, saying:22 Eternal Creator of all things, I make my oblation with your favor and help, in the presence of your divine Son and in the presence of our compassionate Mother and all the saints of heaven: I want and desire, and it is nay deliberate choice and determination, with all my heart and mind and soul and strength, to be an instrument of your love and healing in the world. I beg for energy and clarity,23 so that I will contribute in all the ways I can, whatever the cost, to building up the Universal Body of your divine Son on earth as long as I live. Summing Up and Going Forward The job of achieving world peace and justice in today's world is too big for any one person or orga-nization. It is the work of thousands of organizations and individuals worldwide, rich and poor, cooperating in achieving a world at peace and an environment, a milieu, where life can be safe.24 69,1 2010 Savary ¯ Revisiting St. Ignatius's Kingdom Meditation Teilhard offers us a fuller picture of the "work" of God's reign. It integrates fourteen billion years of divine revelation that science is teaching us how to read. In the Law of Attraction-Connection-Complexity- Consciousness, he offers people in every walk of life specific ways of cooperating in the evolving divine plan. He shows how the global humanitarian movements coming up everywhere are organically inspired by the Divine Milieu. They represent an instinctive collective response of the human spirit, inspired by God, to many different needs and challenges around the planet. What these people and groups are in effect telling us, perhaps still unconscious of what they are saying, is that the Body of Christ is alive and well in our day.25 Notes t George Aschenbrenner SJ points out that Ignatius uses words like "all" and "whole" to emphasize that this meditation takes retreatants beyond their individual selves. It is a call to universal salvation. See his Stretched for the Greater Glory (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2004), pp. 68 and 98. 2 Joseph A. Tetlow SJ, Ignatius Loyola: Spiritual Exercises (New York: Crossroad, 1992), p. 90. 3 See Tetlow, Ignatius, pp. 95, 97. 4 See John 3:16-21. Jesus' project--actually it is the Father's project--encompasses the cosmos, the universe. It includes "living the truth" about creation--what it is and where it is going. s Tetlow, Ignatius, p. 90. "Ignatius would not continue an exerci-tant into the next three Weeks unless the exercitant had a great desire to go into them. That desire--to continue in the Spiritual Exercises a search for something more--itself comes as a gift from the Spirit of God." Aschenbrenner, Stretched, p. 66, makes the same point. 6 Tetlow, Ignatius, p. 91. Aschenbrenner, Stretched, pp. 66-68, sug-gests three prerequisites for truly grasping the call of the Kingdom. The first two are "a desire to know Jesus in your unique vocation" and "a capacity for intimacy." The third is "some personal lived expe-rience of the need for salvation and liberation in the social dimension of our world." Review for Religious 7 The theme of John the Baptist's preaching was "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand"; Jesus does not modify that message at all (Mr 3:2 & 4:17). John and Jesus are talking about the same divine project. Jesus merely enlarges upon it in his other sermons. s See Rm 14:7, 20-23; Mt 25:34-40. 9 Tetlow, Ignatius, p. 92. ,0 Juan Luis Segundo SJ, The Christ of the Ignatian Exercises (Maryknolh Orbis Books, 1987), p. 96. ~ This seems to be Ignatius's intent in using the word "standard" in the Two Standards. His king's "standard" stands for his plan and its fulfillment. ,2 See Aschenbrenner, Stretched, pp. 66-67, 72-73. ,3 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin SJ, The Phenomenon of Man, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), p. 300. ,4 See Louis M. Savary, The Divine Milieu Explained (New York: Paulist Press, 2007), pp. 29-30. '~ See W. Henry Kenney SJ, A Path through Teilhard's Phenomenon (Dayton: Pflaum Press, 1970), pp. 60-64. 16 Kenney, Path, p. 70. ,7 While Aschenbrenner, Stretched, says the grace for this medita-tion is to "fall in love with Jesus" (p. 66), Teilhard would have you also ask for the grace to fall in love and become "intimate" with the cosmos. While Ignatius focuses on Christ of the Gospels, Teilhard focuses on the Cosmic Christ. ,8 Paul Hawken, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming (New York: Viking, 2007). You may enjoy a short video: http://www.blessedun rest.com/video.html ,9 Hawken, Blessed, p. 3. 20 Hawken, Blessed, p. 4. 2, Here egocentric would imply caring only about my own salva-tion. An ethnocentric stage would imply putting a high value on pro-tecting and caring for my family, my tribe, my country, my race, my gender, my religion. The anthropocentric stage would mean desiring to protect and care for all human beings, seeing them as my brothers and sisters under God our Father. A fourth stage, geocentric, is emerg-ing around the planet; it means extending my care and concern to all living things. We all share one planet. 22 SpEx §98, adapted. Ignatius sometimes suggests specific col-loquies, but a colloquy must always come from each one's heart. 69.1 2010 Savary ¯ Revisiting St. Ignatius's Kingdom Meditation Aschenbrenner, Stretched, p. 74, says, "You must make the offering that is in your heart." He notes, though, that a major function of this colloquy is to lead the retreatant into the exercises of the Second Week. 23 VChile Ignatius suggests that the retreatant ask for "injury, affronts, and poverty," Teilhard feels that there will be plenty of unwanted "diminishments" to endure if one commits oneself with energy and clarity to the divine project of building the Body of Christ on Earth. See Teilhard's Divine Milieu (New York: Harper & Row, 1962, 1968), Section Two, "The Divinization of Our Passivities." 24 Ignatius does not identify the Kingdom with the Roman Catholic Church, but sees Christ's reign as including all people and all the world. Teilhard might say that Christ inspires everyone with the desire to promote the loving unity of all beings, but that many of us are not yet conscious of that desire, and that many of those who are conscious of it have not yet followed that desire. Evoking that commitment is the purpose of Ignatius's Kingdom meditation. 25 Hawken, Blessed, pp. 4-5, says: "We must also remember that humans are frail and imperfect. People are not always literate or educated. Most families in the world are impoverished and may suffer from chronic illnesses. The poor cannot always get the right foods for proper nutrition, and must struggle to feed and educate their young. If citizens with such burdens can rise above their quotidian difficulties and act with the clear intent to confront exploitation and bring about restoration, then something powerful is afoot. And it is not just the poor, but people of all races and classes everywhere in the world." Review for Religious ANN MARIE PAUL Gleanings from My First Ten Years It is still difficult for me to believe that the time passed so quickly. July 2009 marked ten years since I entered the Sisters of Christian Charity, and August 2009 saw the profession of my perpetual vows. Shortly before that, I was asked what advice I would give to those just starting out. Although fully cognizant that I s611 have much to learn, I came up with pieces of advice that were too numerous to count. After omitting many important items (includ-ing emptying trash cans and filling the car's gas tank), I have committed myself to the fol-lowing tidbits. Be grateful, no matter what. A few years ago I lived in a convent with a sister who was commemorating the 60th anniversary of her entrance into the community. I asked her, Ann Marie Paul SCC wrote as a novice an article we pub-lished in 2001. Her address is Divine Providence Hospital Convent; 1100 Grampian Boulevard; Williamsport, Pennsylvania 17701. from young and old 69.1 2010 Paul ¯ Gleanings from My First Ten Years "What do you have to say on this auspicious occasion?" Without skipping a beat, she answered, "Three words: Thank you, Jesus!" What a lesson for me and for all younger religious-- Be grateful, no matter what! Living community life calls for gratitude in abundance. The five convents where I lived during these ten years have provided numerous reasons for expressing gratitude. I am grateful for the welcome I received from the sisters and the guidance they gave me--everything from where to find extra toilet paper to how to persevere in living my vows. I am grate-ful for the extra effort these women expended not only in making me feel at home but also in making me who I am today. I am grateful for the way they live and love in community and the example they have been for me. But that is the easy part of thankfulness--being grateful to those who have loved you. The "no mat-ter what" enters in when we are grateful to those who have found it hard to love us or those we have found it hard to love. Remember that not everyone will find it easy to love you and you will not always find it easy to love everyone else. These are the people who will teach you the most about loving as Jesus loves. Be grateful to them, although it might take time and distance for this gratitude to manifest itself. Forgive early and often. Forgiveness, it has been said, is the scent that the rose leaves on the foot that crushes it. The scent we leave when we are "crushed" by or when we "crush" someone else is most important. No matter how Christlike you strive to be, you are human, and so are the people with whom you live. Your com-munity will never be perfect, and neither will you. You will make mistakes (~ometimes big mistakes), and so will they. Sometimes your mistakes will hurt people deeply. Re~iew for Religious Learn early to forgive yourself and others, and to ask for forgiveness frequendy and quickly, so that everyone comes up smelling like roses! It is not a mathematical coincidence that, when asked about how often we should forgive, Jesus says, "Not seven times, but seventy-seven times" (Mr 18:22), or "seven times in one day" (Lk 17:4). The number seven is symbolic of perfection or totality. So, when Jesus uses the number seven (or seventy-seven, for real emphasis), he is saying that our forgiveness should be limidess. That is a tall order, but one that is absolutely essential to living community life. Be the community you want to see. Mahatma Gandhi is widely quoted as having said, "Be the change you want to see." These words apply to many situations in diverse regions of the world, but they can apply just as easily to your situa-tion in your local com-munity. To be sure, at some point you will rea'ch the conclusion that your community does not live up to your not meet your needs, !:: f! st.a k yourself if you have :g!ven enough, of yourself yoUr:Community. expectations. Do not let your disillusionment get the best of you. If your community does not meet your needs, first ask yourself if you have given enough of yourself to your community. That is, have you been the community you wish to see? When I hear younger sisters complain about what their community does not do often enough (or does too often), I usually ask, "What have you attempted to initi- 69.1 2010 Paul ¯ Gleanings from My First Ten Years ate in your community recendy?" (In the interest of full disclosure, I have been asked that very question a few times, too.) If the answer revolves around waiting for an elusive "someone else" to initiate an elusive "something else," warning flags should go up. Such a complaint is rarely about "them"; it is usually about "me." Own these complaints and use them as springboards to action. Be as foolish as God. Whenever you make deci-sions, always choose the most loving thing. On the surface, this looks blatantly obvious for someone in religious life. However, if you had been responsible for making practical, efficient decisions before entering your community, you will have to reprogram yourself toward making loving decisions. This is not to say that religious life lacks practicality and efficiency; it simply means that what is practical is not always what is loving. Many times the loving choice will go against your culturally pro-grammed response toward practicality and efficiency. If you have trouble figuring out what the loving thing is, turn more deeply toward the Gospels. There we find a God who is foolish in the eyes of the world-- encouraging the payment of a full day's wages both to those who worked a full day and to those who worked only one hour; leaving ninety-nine sheep in the des-ert to search for one lost sheep; and welcoming back a repentant child who had left saying "I wish you were dead" with "Let's throw a party!" So, when you are given a choice, be as foolish as God. Try not to miss too many community meals. As you struggle to find and honor your own rhythm in religious life, be aware of the rhythm of.your commu-nity, especially as it pertains to meals. Because of various schedules and commitments, the community meal (and the accompanying preparation and cleanup) may be the Review for Religious only meaningful contact we have with each other as a community on some days. That is where the debrief-ing of the day occurs, where the stories are told, and where bonds of community are formed. When you miss too many community meals, you run the risk of losing touch with the rhythm of the community. So, if you have ministry commitments that prevent you from shar-ing the community meal on Monday and Wednesday, it is probably not a good idea to accept an invitation to dinner from a friend on Tuesday or Thursday of that same week. That would make it quite difficult for you to regain your place in the rhythm of the community. Be a servant. You entered religious life to serve, but you probably lacked an understanding of the precise types of service that would be required of you. Perhaps you had an idea of service as going out to the poor and doing wonderful things for God. While that is an admi-rable goal and one that you still hope to accomplish, the actual service we are asked to do rarely matches the enchanting stuff of our imaginations. John 13 tells us that, after Jesus has washed his dis-ciples' feet, he says "As I have done for you, you should also do." Note that Jesus does not say that his disciples should follow his example only when it is convenient or when they are not tired. He does not tell the disciples to think about it; he simply says "Do it." The example of Jesus' service should be foremost in our minds as we listen to a sister tell about her day when we would rather watch the evening news; car pool when we would rather drive alone; and' go to a community meeting when we would rather have a relaxing weekend. These are the times when our service, although less glamorous than we originally envisioned, answers the call that Jesus issued to his disciples shordy before he died. 69.1 2010 Paul * Gleanings from My First Ten Years If we do not take the time ~o let God in through attentive praye, r, we may block God from~ .~ ~ working through us, ~ 681 Pray, pray, pray. This is another piece of advice that seems fairly obvious for someone in religious life. However, as we leave the novitiate, we run the risk of our prayer life taking a back seat to all the other good things that we can choose to do. As we become busier with many things, we sometimes try to convince our-selves, "My work is my prayer." While our work--that is, what we do-- ~, certainly is prayer, prayer is also who we are. If we do not take the 6me to let God in through attentive prayer, we may block God from work-ing through us. We cannot give what we do not possess. My awkward translation of the advice of St. Francis de Sales on prayer goes something like this: "You should pray thirty minutes each day, except when you are very busy. Then you should pray for an hour." In our initial formation, we spend time praying, reading about prayer, and being taught many things about prayer. We have heard what some saints have said about prayer, and most likely we have studied what our founders said about it. In 1851 the founder of my com-munity, Pauline yon Mallinckrodt, said, "What water is to the fish, prayer is to the religious." On the surface, this is a nice saying about prayer. But looking more deeply gives us a much truer picture. Try to remember the last time you saw a live fish out of water. Maybe it was a goldfish as you cleaned the bowl or a larger fish you caught in a lake on vacation. Review for Religious Do you remember the desperate flailing and gasping of that fish? Now try to think of yourself without prayer as that fish. When you flail and gasp while living your religious life without prayer, it will become apparent to those around you and will quickly become an obstacle to living a meaningful life in community. Do whatever it takes to dive back into the "water" of prayer. Talk to your spiritual director, your soul friend, or any of the various support people available to you. But do not stay out of the water for so long that you cannot be revived. Remember that we are all in this together. Religious life is a wondrous journey filled with joy and sorrow, surprises and banality, times of deep joy and times of darkness. As in other walks of life and voca-tions, people will "wow" you and disappoint you; you will have times of complete connectedness and utter loneliness. Through it all, remember that you are part of a community of people called by God to follow Christ more closely in this particular way of life. Every mem-ber- from the one who most annoys you to the one you most admire--was called to your community by God at a particular time for a particular mission. Avoid wasting time questioning how God could have ever intended this seemingly motley group to do anything together, let alone live in community and witness to God's love. Instead, praise and thank God for the wondrous diver-sity in which you are privileged to participate, and think of all of these persons as doing their best. When you think you have had enough and cannot go on, remember what "the call" was like for you. Think about what it was like to say "Yes," no matter how long ago it was, and begin again to follow Jesus more closely. Ask others, if you are comfortable doing so, to share 69.1 2010 Paul ¯ Gleanings from My First Ten Years their stories with you. Shared vocation stories not only create unity, but they also give us the possibility of hav-ing something to whisper in each other's ears when our memories fade. What--and how often--we whisper is a testimony to our commitment to God and to each other. We are all in this together, and our communi-ties' futures depend on how well we witness this to each other and to those who seek to join us. Ten years have passed. That is a minuscule amount of time, given the years of service of most of the mem-bers of our communities. Every year of service, how-ever, consists of distinctive days, hours, and minutes in which we strive to live in grace-filled fidelity to our vows and trusting commitment to our religious community. Whether we have done this for one, ten, fifty, or eighty years, each day we have the responsibility of living in ways that bring ourselves, our community, all those we meet, and the entire church closer to God. Keeping the present moment--the dailyness--at the forefront of our prayer and consciousness aids us in doing God's will in our lives. The ideas I have shared above are, I think, some of the many things that, gathered together, can help us be who God calls us to be. Review for Religious MARY FRANCES COADY Monasteries of Meteora a n the chapel of St. Stephen's Monastery, set high mong the giant outcroppings of rock that stand before the Pindos Mountains in central Greece, the nuns' chanting of Vespers goes on and on as evening turns into night. Their voices, singing in a minor key of mournful solemnity, become a drone, the unfamiliar sounds an incantation. The nuns themselves, draped in black cloaks, their faces flamed with severe black bands, sit motionless or move about freely from one icon to another--strange, fearsome paintings of,Christ, Mary, and various saints--across the top of the chapel. Lighted candles hang from brass chains. There is no other light--only shadow, and black figures moving, and incense hanging sweet and thick in the air, and a heavy feeling of enclosure. Sleep begins to overtake me, despite the discomfort of the hard benches we are sitting on. To shake myself awake, I shift my body and cross my legs. Immediately a nun glides over Mary Frances Coady writes from 35 Cowan Avenue; Toronto, Ontario; M6K 2N1 Canada. 69.1 2010 Coady * Monasteries of Meteora to me, gives a light tap on my knee, motions with her hand, and looks at me with deep blue eyes. Her face is a mixture of kindness and unquestioned authority. Like a child caught in mid-mischief, I uncross my legs. And the chanting goes on and on . Later, in the nearby town of Kalambaka, we sit in the taverna drinking wine. Red and white checkered cloths cover the tables, and pictures of blonde American movie stars line the walls. In the darkness outside loom enormous rocks, called Meteora, a name derived from a word meaning high in the air. Bare and gray and phal-lic- shaped, they stand like a monstrous fortress. Hidden among them, as if suspended between earth and heaven, is a series of medieval Greek Orthodox monasteries. A handful of these, including the one where we have just attended Vespers, are still inhabited. This is desert land, the abode of ascetics. I wonder aloud why these monasteries were built in the first place and why anyone these days would want to return to such a medieval way of life. "You've got it wrong if you're thinking medieval," says my compan-ion, taking a sip of wine. "You've got to think Eastern." Eastern: the fierce mysticism, that is, of Byzantine Christianity. In the 1 lth century, hermits first came to Meteora seeking refuge from "the world." Here the caves and clefts of the forbidding rocks seemed the perfect home for those who sought to retreat from society and who strove to punish their bodies with rigorous practices so that they might purify their souls. The landscape was an exact mirror of their desire to disregard the things of earth and attend to heavenly matters. Once they had found their way up the rock face and had established their niche, the hermits remained Review for Religio~s undisturbed and free to pursue God in the silence of their own hearts. They fasted for days and even weeks on end, depending on the kindness of local peasants for their meager sustenance. They went years without washing, for this was one of the signs of a holy man (and indeed these early hermits seemed to be only men): one who disdained his body so much that even as his clothes rotted on top of him he remained lost in the contempla-tion of the eternal, oblivious to his own stench. In succeeding centuries, wars forced the hermits to group together for protection. In the 14th century the monk Athanasius arrived from Mount Athos, the group of monasteries that stretch over a fifty-kilome-ter peninsula jutting into the Aegean Sea southeast of Thessaloniki. With nine other monks he established the first Meteora monastery. As at Mount Athos, women were strictly forbidden to visit the monasteries, and the monks were instructed not to give food to a woman even if she were dying of hunger. (At Mount Athos, not even female animals were allowed. Athanasius himself, his early biographer tells us, never allowed the word "woman" to sully his lips.) At the height of the Middle Ages, the monasteries grew in number to twenty-four. Only three are now still inhabited: Transfiguration (Great Meteoron), All Saints (Varlaam), and St. Stephen's. It is not known exactly how the ascetics reached their lonely habitations, or how they got the materials hoisted up to build the monasteries. The likelihood is that they hired local hunters and goatherds who were intimately familiar with the passes and crags in the rock. The biographer of Athanasius says only: "And taking a certain climber, he put him on a stone, and building a hut he remained there a long time." Up until the early 69.1 2010 Coady * Monasteries of Meteora In 1961 the oldest monastery became a monastery for women. decades of this century, men who visited the monaster-ies either climbed by rope ladders, which were often frayed and barely secured, or were pulled up in net bas-kets, swinging precariously over the abyss. Visitors were instructed to avoid dizziness by closing their eyes as the creaking pulley lifted them up, and to chant a hymn in order to keep calm through the ordeal. In 1920 the monks began cutting steps into the rock leading up to the buildings, and in 1948 a paved road was completed, making the still-inhabited monaster-ies accessible by car. In the same year, permission was granted for women to visit the monaster-ies. (In these matters Meteora has sur-passed Mount Athos in modernization. At the entrance to the Holy Mountain, as Mount Athos is called, a sign still stands forbidding women to enter. Up until the late 1950s, wheeled vehicles were also forbidden, the only access to the Mount Athos monasteries being by foot or mule. The decision to build roadways still remains a controversy among some of the monks. Apparently no such controversy has yet arisen regarding the ban against women visitors.) In 1961 St. Stephen's, the oldest monastery and the only one visible from the road below, became a "nun-nery," or monastery for women. It is the most accessible of the monasteries; an eight-meter footbridge over the chasm brings the visitor face to face with the monas-tery's imposing iron door, which opens onto a sunny courtyard, the stark austerity softened by the presence of azalea and bougainvillea bushes and flowering plants Review for Religious in earthenware pots. This is the peaceful setting where the spiritual quest takes place in the stillness and soli-tude of the heart. Here nuns of all ages--a surprising number of them young, with smooth complexions and sparkling eyes--labor with rolled-up sleeves and easy smiles. A nearby plaque, however, refers to "the church of Christ" as the "new ark" that is saving the world from the "cataclysm of sin." The pleasant courtyard and happy faces can be deceptive: there is nothing sunny about the work that is carried out here. That work, here on a spot suspended between earth and sky, is nothing less than a lifetime spent in con-templation of the eternal--or, in other words, an inner search for what is essential and lasting. To carry out this quest, one leaves one's place of comfort and moves to a barren land where outward distractions have been left behind and the interior struggle begins. Anyone who has been on such a desert quest will tell you that the experience demands a healthy respect, and it is not to be undertaken lightly. In the ~adition of Byzantine Christianity, the search is carried out within the con-text of liturgical prayer, where one prays with the whole body, chanting, bowing, signing oneself with the cross, gathering in spirit the whole of humanity. We leave Meteora on a Sunday morning, driving past a church where men in well-pressed suits con-gregate outside, smoking cigarettes. No women are in sight; they are perhaps already inside, lighting tapers and placing them in a vat of sand at the back of the church. They too will pray with their bodies, moving about the church, bowing in front of icons, lighting more candles, moving their lips in prayer as bearded clerics in gold brocade vestments chant the prayers of the sacred liturgy. 69.1 2010 Coady ¯ Monasteries of Meteora Their sisters on top of the monastic rocks continue their lives of unceasing prayer. For them, Sunday is a solemn feast, and this means that there is more than the usual amount of liturgical prayer. There will be more chanting, more bowing, more lighting of candles. All that can be said, perhaps, of this stark way of life is that here there is a spiritual continuity, a sense of ageless prayer, a de