Suchergebnisse

"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966. The play belongs to the post Osborne and Beckett theatrical generation in which authors could no longer be pigeonholed neither from the political nor from the stylistic point of view. Stoppard later transformed the play into a film script which won the Golden Lion at the XLVIII Venice International Film Festival in 1990. The reason behind the success of this tragedy is the popularity of "Hamlet". Written during the last years of the Elizabethan era, it shows the gradual dissolving of its core values: the fact that nothing seems to have sense any more is deeply rooted into the Shakespearean tragic hero, and his dilemma mirrors the fear of the modern man of losing his own role and, with it, his own identity. Stoppard re-writes the Shakespearian drama not by altering the plot, but by presenting it through the eyes of two minor characters, thus by performing a 'poetical misunderstanding' of Hamlet – a device that, with its discussion, parody, ridicule, and, sometimes, celebration of the typical values of traditional culture, belongs to the common practices of postmodern authors in their depiction of reality.

Migrations have been inevitable from the earliest history up to the modern times and they have constituted one of the foundations on which today's world has been built. Mostly developed countries encouraged the arrival of migrants who positively impacted the labour market. In last few decades developed countries have reduced the possibilities of legal immigration, while on the other hand crisis focal points all over the world have caused refugee and migration crises; desire to live in richer and more developed societies has been growing. Occasionally, due to events such as the migration crisis in Europe in 2015 and 2016, migrations became the most current issue for numerous subjects – from individuals, states and international organizations – to deal with. Today there are several political parties in the EU member states with very negative attitudes regarding migrants and further immigration in their program, and in some states, they are the ruling parties. Depending on the time, space and context, migrations are perceived, analysed and understood differently. The large migration crisis in Europe in 2015 and 2016 has shown that the European Union is unprepared for major migrations and that many countries, including Croatia, have no official migration policies. It exposed some of the weaknesses other than the lack of official policies and pointed out the advanced radicalization of the social and political scene in some countries, poor implementation of integration policies, misunderstanding of challenges and lack of understanding for the needs of others and "different". It "shifted" the migration issues almost completely to security policies. This paper offers an analysis of these challenges related to the phases of handling them during the crisis, decisions of main actors and suggestions for improving the existing policies and better understanding of migrations challenges. ; Migracije su neminovna pojava od najranije povijesti sve do suvremenog doba, te predstavljaju temelje na kojima je izgrađen današnji svijet. Uglavnom razvijene države poticale su dolazak migranata koji su pozitivno utjecali na tržište rada. U posljednjih nekoliko desetljeća razvijene zemlje smanjile su mogućnosti legalne imigracije, dok su s druge strane krizna žarišta diljem svijeta generirala migracijske i izbjegličke krize, a raste i želja za životom u bogatijim i razvijenijim društvima. Povremeno, zbog događanja poput migrantske krize u Europi 2015. i 2016. godine, postaju najaktualnije pitanje kojim se bave brojni subjekti od pojedinaca, preko država do međunarodnih organizacija. Danas postoji nekoliko političkih stranaka u državama članicama Europske unije koje u svojim programima proklamiraju vrlo negativan stav prema migrantima i daljnjoj imigraciji, a u nekim državama to su vladajuće stranke. U ovisnosti o vremenu, prostoru i kontekstu migracije se različito doživljavaju, analiziraju i shvaćaju. Velika migrantska kriza u Europi 2015. i 2016. godine pokazala je kako je Europska unija nespremna za velike migracije, te da mnoge države, uključujući Hrvatsku, nemaju službene migracijske politike. Spomenuta kriza razotkrila je i neke druge slabosti osim same odsutnosti službenih politika, te je ukazala je na uznapredovanu radikalizaciju društvene i političke scene u pojedinim državama, slabu primjenu integracijskih politika, nerazumijevanje izazova i neshvaćanje potreba drugih i "drugačijih" te "prebacivanje" bavljenja pitanjima migracija gotovo potpuno u okvire sigurnosne politike. Ovaj rad nudi analizu navedenih izazova vezano uz faze postupanja tijekom krize, odluke glavnih aktera i prijedloge unapređenja postojećih politika i shvaćanja izazova migracija.

Issue 65.3 of the Review for Religious, 2006. ; Bei~ Religiofis ~QUARTERLY 65~3 2006 Review for Religious fosters dialogue with Godi .dialogue with ourselves, and dialog4~e with one another about the holiness we tryto live according to gts~ari~s o.f Catholic religious life. As Pope Paul VI said, our way Of being dsurcb is today tlse~, 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 Lindel] Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-633-4610 ¯ Fax: 314-633-4611 E-Mail: review@slu.edu ¯ 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 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ Pontifical College Josephinmn 7625 North High Street ° Columbus, Ohio 43235 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Rdigious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, NIN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©2006 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 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. ~gournalof Catholic ~piri~uality view for religious Editor Associate Editor Canonical Counsel Scripture Scope Editorial Staff Webmaster Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Eugene Hensell OSB Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Clare Boehmer ASC Stephen Erspamer OSB "Kathleen Hughes R$CJ Louis ~nd Angela Menard Bishop Terry Steib SVD Miriam D. Ukeritis CSJ QUARTERLY 65.3 2006 contents prisms 228 Prisms 230 coming together The 2004 Consecrated-Life Congress: A Restrospective Karen M. Kennelly CSJ summarizes the thinking and the participants' interaction at the 2004 Consecrated-Life Congress held in Rome and proposes that some themes should impact local chapters and congregational meetings. ¯ Reflection and Discussion Questions 244 A New Way of Meeting . Rachael M. Harrington SNDdeN describes one carefully planned attempt to capture new life and meaning that might be incorporated into the usual chapter or congregational meeting. 226 255 meeting God Aspiratory Prayer, a Welcome Addition to Contemplative Prayer Ernest E. Larkin OCarm describes the prayer of aspiration, reviews its hisory in spirituality, identifies a few of its main proponents, and suggests ways that we might make it part of our lives. Reflection Questions Review for Religious 272 "Repose Days" during the Ignatian Exercises Philip Shano SJ reflects upon the purpose and use of repose days within the Ignatian thirty-day retreat and raises questions for retreat directors. 283 Gerard Manley Hopkins's "Lantern out of Doors": A Contemplative Response to Loss Charles P. Farrar praises the spiritual theology of Hopkins's sonnet which describes the experience of personal loss with the metaphor of a lantern passing in the night. What first seems subjective and formulaic proves to be psychologically and theologically insightful. 293 3O4 being religious Today's Candidates: Who Are They, What Do They Expect? Raymond R. Ryan OSA allows younger members within the religious congregation to present a snapshot picture of their hopes and desires for community life and mission. These Strawberries Are Divine! Sisters and a Spirituality of Living on Earth Colleen Carpenter Cullinan provides a glimpse of the contributions of Catholic religious congregations of women in founding farms and Earth centers as places to raise organic food and educate people about the deep human connection to God's creation. Prayer / Reflection and Discussion Questions departments 319 Scripture Scope: Reading the Gospel of John 323 Canonical Counsel: Archives of Religious Communities 328 Book Reviews 65.3 2006 prisms Tintroduce the Gospel story of the Annunciation, St. Ignatius Loyola would have us picture the three divine Persons of the Trinity in dialogue about how better to accom-plish the salvation of humankind. We might describe it as the first communal discernment. The meetings that people hold when things are to be decided--meetings sometimes so contentious that they seem "eternally" long--can be seen as human strivings to imitate the wise personal planning of the Blessed Trinity. As our journal's mission statement declares, Pope Paul VI identified dialogue as a way of being church, especially in our time. Our world, with its instant communication by radio, television, Internet, and cell phone, has often taken away from us our black-and-white, simplistic judgments about who is the enemy, about who is being saved, about what other religions believe, about under-standing sexual orientations and various complex life issues, and about the cultural values of a world society. In the Old Testament's Book of Genesis, Cain's question, "Am I my brother's keeper?" has been answered definitively by our Christian faith. Jesus in giving us his one commandment allows for no wiggle room: we are to love God with all our mind, soul, and strength and our neighbor as our-selves. And loving, as all marriages and deep friendships know, takes a lot of dialoguing. We all are aware that our love of God devel-ops through a dialogue called prayer. Mthough there are many books describing some classic Re~iew for Religious forms of praying, usually drawn from the practice and example of the holy men and women preceding us, we still must make our conversation with God our own. We are not on stage, reciting lines written by some playwright. God and we share from our hearts. That is why prayer, even in its quiet moments, is always a dialogue. As in every deep human relationship, the dialogue of sharing never has an end. In fact, this signifies the promise of eternal life with God. For many of us today, meetings seem a way of life. We see it in world diplomacy, we know it in business, we par-ticipate in it in our parishes, in our religious communities, and in our neighborhood associations. Most of us desire fewer meetings, more efficiently run meetings, meetings with clearer outcomes, and meetings which bring about something better for everyone involved. For we are aware of many frustrations in communal dialogue. We have exam-ples on the international scale, on the church level, and in religious-life interworkings where dialogue breaks down or perhaps is never entered into. Just as personal dialogue with God (prayer) portends our relational life with God forever, so group dialogue in meetings, conferences, and religious chapters needs to be valued as our way of enter-ing more closely into the dialogical life of God. "Dialogue is our way of being church." We are the church. Our identity is not just in our prayer; it is lived out in the necessary human interactions of today's com-plex world. In our meetings, conferences, and religious chapters, let us work to discover how God is entering us more deeply into God's own life--a life of shared dialogue. If the incarnation is the result of our trinitarian God's meet-ing, in what ways are God and divine grace present to the world in our human meetings? David L. Fleming SJ 65.3 2006 KAREN M. KENNELLY The 2004 Consecrated-Life Congress: A Retrospective coming together 230] A myriad of thoughts and images come to mind as I look back at the Congress on Consecrated Life held in Rome in November 2004: hundreds of faces, a babble of languages, colorful multinational garb, and icons of the Woman at the Well and the Good Samaritan focusing us on the congress theme, "Passion for Christ, Passion for Humanity." The mixed composition of the congress made it unique. For the first time, leadership from both women's and men's congregations met in an international con-vocation to address a common agenda. Repre-sentatives of the national and international conferences of religious, groups of young religious and theologians, and editors of religious journals joined religious superiors as full participants. Karen M. Kennelly CSJ, a member of her congregation's leadership team, may be addressed at Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet; 2311 S. Lindbergh Boulevard; St. Louis, Missouri 63131. Review for Religious A further note of uniqueness lay in the process used to prepare for, carry out, and follow up on the meeting. Preparation spanned a four-year period involving "envisioning" and "theological summary" groups. The first group sought to achieve consensus on the actual reality of religious life today by eliciting facts and testimonials from around the world. The second analyzed the collected information from a theological perspective and summarized it in a working paper sent in advance to all congress participants. We all had an opportunity to express our preferences for small-group discussions on topics drawn from the working paper. Theologians responsible for composing the paper came from Norway, Spain, France, Italy, the United States, the Philippines, and Burkina Faso. Others, from Mexico, Germany, and Peru, collaborated via the Internet. During the congress a third or "Listeners" group gathered impressions and ideas as they were expressed in papers presented by the major speakers, in written reports from groups, and in comments from the floor. This group's work culminated in a synthesis presented to the congress on the last day. My experience as a member of the Listeners group made me aware of the congress planners' painstaking efforts to be as pluralistic and inclusive as possible, achieving active participation by those present to the extent that numbers, languages, and ~ime permitted. As with the other groups, our membership comprised about equal numbers of women and men, drawn from every continent. From day to day our dialogue grew in intensity as we listened, exchanged impressions and observations, and began identifying common threads among the multiplicity of ideas brought to the floor. The principal speakers brought unique perspectives to the assessment of contemporary religious life, beginning 6~.3 2006 Kennelly ¯ The 2004 Consecrated-Life Congress 232 ] with a joint paper by two Italians, Bruno Secondin and Diana Papa, a Carmelite and a Poor Clare. They invited the 847 participants, gathered at some ninety round tables and aided by simultaneous translations into six languages, to begin the adventure of immersing themselves in the themes articulated in the working paper. Dolores Aleixandre, of Spain, a Religious of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and a theologian, brought scriptural exegesis to the congress's theme, religious life as passion for Christ and for humanity. She saw in the icons of the Samaritan Woman and the Good Samaritan "a call to center ourselves on the essential, to a different way of relating to each other, of supporting each other intercongregationally, of making room for the laity" (cited from her paper as published in Passion for Christ, Passion for Humanity, Pauline Books and Media, 2005, pp. 91-125)--insights that were to be echoed frequently by congress participants in the days to come The Brazilian Jesuit Jo~o Batista Lib~nio brought a sociological and liberation-theology perspective to religious life at the beginning of the third millennium. He spoke of the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience as having significance today only in relation to three elements: an experience of God, community life, and mission. He challenged us to rethink consecrated life from the bottom up in the light of contemporary reality with all its "ambiguity, perplexity, and paradox" (PCPH, pp. 127-171). The British Dominican Timothy Radcliffe asked "what signs religious life offers" in the wake of the World Trade Towers' destruction on 11 September 2001, an event he views as symbolic of the world in which religious life exists today, paradoxically bound ever more tightly together by instant communication and ever more deeply divided by violence (PCPH, pp. 173-189). How, he asked, Review for Religious can religious be a "sign of humanity's common home in God" in a world suffering a crisis of homelessness? What future awaits religious life in a world seemingly offering only a future of violence? What has religious life to offer as the culture of control and the struggle for hegemony intensify? A North American voice was heard in the person of an Immaculate Heart of Mary sister, Sandra M. Schneiders. She picked up on a topic Radcliffe had noted as fundamental but had not explored, namely, the culture of consumerism and our -:~ witness to poverty. Her reflections involved a discussion of how religious incarnate renunciation of the "world" and go about creating "the alternate world generated by the profession of the vows" (PCPH, pp. ' i '~ " ~ ' ' 191-218). Characterizing the . ~ . "' -' ~ . . religious lifestyle as one rooted in the "public, lifelong commitment of the members, as individuals and as communities, to a characteristic approach to material goods, power, and sexuality," she caught the assembly's imagination early in her talk with her arresting statement that she would discuss, not "the future Of religious life," but rather "religious life of the future." Schneiders's imaginative and theologically profound exploration of evangelical poverty as the "economy of the reign of God," and of prophetic obedience as the "politics of the reign of God," gave us much to think about as Vincentian Franc Rod6, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL), brought the series of formal presentations to a close with a recapitulation of major .¢":t~lig!oU~ life,'in a world ~seemingly offering only ~a~tu~e ff v~ole~ce? 65.3 2006 Kennelly ¯ The 2004 Consecrated-Life Congress 234 themes in recent papal documents such as Hta consecrata and Novo millennio ineunte (PCPH, pp. 219-2 3 6). Participants next divided into continental groups to look at sociological factors touching upon consecrated life in their own continents, noting both positive and negative effects these factors were thought to have on the capacity of religious to be passionate for Christ and for humanity. Some of the most acute observations expressed in the congress--whether from the floor during open-microphone time or in the hastily written reports-- flowed from these gatherings. As Listeners striving to perceive the essence of group contributions, we constandy had to make allowances for the great diversity within the somewhat artificial continental categories. The Europeans prefaced their report by describing it as a "communion of intentions" and "truly an exercise in European communion," given the different languages and situations in which Europe finds itself. Asians noted the vastness of their continent and its diversity of languages, cultures, religions, and political and economic systems before commenting on their many shared concerns. The Africans' preface included this in bold type: "Note: in Africa it is not possible to generalize. There is great diversity in the situations." Those from Oceania, the smallest segment of the congress, nevertheless noted the extremes they represented: countries with predominantly Western European lifestyles and countries where the lifestyles are indigenous to Melanesia and the Pacific. Only the North American and Latin American groups dispensed with such cautions and addressed directly their shared task of identifying the impact of sociological factors on religious life as they experienced it. Themes from the continental groups that seem worthy of special attention, whether for their singularity Review for Religious or their commonality, include gender issues; war, violence, and disease; globalization; aging, institution-alization, and rigid structures; and clear signs of new life among religious. Religious from every continent saw gender issues as adversely affecting contemporary religious life. Europeans referred to "the open question of gender" and felt that, "because of the sexual abuse and the impact on the mass media, consecrated life is reduced in energy and its ability to witness: a sense of desolation pervades and passion is suppressed." Asians underscored "male North Americans were succinct in ~their assertion that "the ~ ~,!sociology' within the church is-an obstacle to the passion for Christ and for humanity." domination in society and church" and "machismo and male domination" as sociological factors adversely affecting them. The African report alluded to the problem in rather oblique fashion by noting that "the idea of relations between men and women continues to be very much determined by the culture." North Americans were succinct in their assertion that "the sociology within the church is an obstacle to the passion for Christ and for humanity. The lack of inclusivity . . . results in feelings of displacement in the church, a sense of being marginalized by many, particularly in women's communities." Those from the Latin American (and Caribbean) continental group cited as important values "awareness of the processes of exclusion and the greater involvement of women." They felt they were being called to "generate a feminine 65.3 2006 Kennelly ¯ The 2004 Consecrated-Life Congress religious life with more involvement and responsibility for the building of a new history and a feminine consciousness-raising that challenges the machismo in society and in the church." The Oceania report minced no words in seeing as a problem the "public face of the church: powerful, antiwomen, and hypocritical." It came as no surprise that Europeans were the most forceful in pointing out the "aging of the population, the generation gap in religious life," and "rigidity in structures, even of consecrated life" as sociological factors with negative effects on religious life. In other words, they asserted that the passion of religious for humanity is blocked by the "way in which our structures are closed and in which we are closed towards the world of the laity." Less predictable was the echoing of this view by other groups. The Asians, for example, felt that institutionalization in their region had created a gap between them and the people, "especially the poor, who identify us with the rich," and that "religious structures have stifled the spirit and dynamism of religious life. The young feel restricted and their freedom hindered by structures the old always lean on." A similar concern shows up in the African report; it lists as negative aspects "the weight of tradition" and "a way of seeing authority at the level of leaders, a traditional conception which still dominates both society and religious life." This report speaks urgently of a need for reflection on consecrated life that is distinctly African, a need to find an African way of following Christ. Such thoughts question the worth of structures inherited from a colonial past. These concerns surfaced also in the Asian group, which considered it deplorable that "Asian religious have been uprooted from their rich culture." The report from Oceania, too, alluded to rigid structures when it asserted that "restorationism" in the church, Review for Religious while attracting people looking for security, has caused consecrated life to lose credibility as a radical commit-ment to justice. The Latin Americans saw sociological factors to be causes or occasions of religious being "tamed by the institution [of religious life], tired, with little hope, disenchanted, adapting, living in indifference, [possessing] little consciousness of [consecrated life's] own identity, of its own ability to search, [experiencing] great difficulty in having deep interpersonal relationships with others and with God." They offered the intriguing possibility of countering this loss of the prophetic and mystic elements of religious life by working with the "small utopias which act in favor of humanity and in collaboration with other ecclesial, intercongregational, and extraecclesial groups that search for the same reality/values/things." The impact had on contemporary religious life by war, other forms of violence, and disease was noted by every group but particularly by the Africans, who noted the prevalence of AIDS, malaria, and other diseases and the instability resulting from wars and ethnic and religious conflicts in that continent. "Violence is growing: it questions us," said the Europeans. Asians expressed serious concern over effects of war and violence, especially in the Middle East, and over the "rise of religious fundamentalism, resulting in communal violence." North Americans deplored the "normalization of violence" and what they perceived as its causes. All groups saw globalization as exerting a great influence on society and on consecrated life today. The Africans saw it--along with urbanization, unem-ployment, and migration--as contributing to poverty at various levels. They blamed it for "hindering a deep form 237 ,i 65.3 2006 Kennelly ¯ The 2004 Consecrated-Life Congress 238 of communication" and for contributing to a lack of reflection specifically on African consecrated life. Asians saw "elitist globalization" as having destructive effects on the poor and marginalized, on families, and especially on youth. Latin Americans described "neoliberal globalization" as destroying "what is particular to/in our countries," as especially damaging to young people, and as a spur to migration, with its multiple social dislocations. Oceania observed globalization as affecting the entire region-- countries indigenous in character and countries predominantly Western European--by widening the gap between rich and poor and "elevating greed to the status of a virtue." This summary of.the continental group reports, brief though it is, suggests a major accomplishment and a major flaw of the congress. Those present heard the voices of religious from every corner of the world with a wonderful immediacy and force. On the other hand, we simply did not have time for much dialogue of a more personal kind. Each of the continental reports, however, concluded with a very provocative section on signs of hope and of new life. Groups cited a growing sense of communion among congregations and between laypersons and religious, of the importance of personal relationships, of commitment, of community and of belonging, of greater interiority along with a lessened grip of institutionalism. Europeans made the arresting statement that secularization, despite its negative consequences, is also "causing us to love the world as it is with hope." Asians remarked that our times are ripe with opportunity: "As Asians in Asia, we have our own experience of God. By this, perhaps, we can contribute to the vitality, of religious life. It is time for rebirthing our institutes with our Asian Revie~ for Religious identity." Africans saw themselves as bringing to religious life the gifts of a deep sense of God and of the family which leads to sharing and attentiveness to one another. One young African, during the all-too-brief open microphone time in a plenary session, good-naturedly scolded his European elders for perceiving death for religious life in the future, whereas their "children" from other parts of the world, hoisted on the shoulders of their European parents, can see farther ahead to future life! North Americans ventured the opinion that aging could be looked upon as "saging," an opportunity to draw new life from the wisdom of the elderly. Diminishment, they thought, provides "a freedom to reshape religious life." Participants barely had the continental group reports in hand before moving on to topical discussions in groups ranging in size from six to over a hundred, depending on people's interests: ¯ Justice, peace, and the suffering of humanity. ¯ Inculturation--the embodiment of consecrated life in a culturally pluralistic world. ¯ Interreligious dialogue. ¯ The arts: imaging and expressing a new song. ¯ Mass media and the communication of values. ¯ Liberating the prophetic: solidarity in a world of exclusion. ¯ Liberating the prophetic: celibacy and life-giving relationships. ¯ Tilling the soil of Sacred Scripture. ¯ Thirst for God and the search for meaning. ¯ Ongoing formation for personal conversion and corporate transformation. ¯ Congregational culture. ¯ Community as mission. ¯ Partnership with the laity. ¯ Leadership and authority. ¯ The ecclesial dimensions of consecrated life. Although the time allocated for these discussions was brief, each topic was based on material in the working paper 65.3 2006 Kennelly ¯ The 2004 Consecrated-Life Congress 24:0 distributed well in advance of the meeting. Participants came prepared and were assigned their first choice among the three topics in which they had indicated interest before coming. As a result, they shared many thoughtful insights with one another; a summary appears in Passion for Christ, Passion for Humanity (pp. 237-241). Those of us present for the congress received the somewhat longer reports composed by group reporters on site. Some Conclusions For me, the challenge posed by the congress was at the time and remains today one of assimilation and communication. The rich papers presented by speakers, along with participants' voices as reflected in reports by the continental and topical groups, left our table of Listeners with the nearly impossible task of assimilating content and shaping it into a synthesis at the final session. Our summary, "What the Spirit Says Today to Consecrated Life," compressed into an hour's oral delivery the reflection and discernment that had absorbed us during the entire congress. Rather than repeat that synthesis (see PCPH, pp. 243- 255), I want to share what stand out for me a year later as the two most significant messages conveyed by this unique gathering. The first is that the Spirit is at work among us today, regardless of how old or young we are as religious, no matter how old or young our congregations, and no matter whether we come from north, south, east, or west. The second is that a contemplative approach is required of the members of our congregations if we are to discern what the Spirit is saying to us at this critical moment of our history, some forty years since Vatican Council II invited religious to renew their lives in the light of the gospel, their foundational charisms, and the signs of the times. Review for Religious The Spirit calls us to revive the enchantment, the passion, we had when we first responded, as congregations and as individuals, to Jesus' call to love God and our neighbor with all our heart. The Spirit calls us to personal and institutional renewal, to inculturation and to interreligious dialogue. The Spirit calls us to an inclusive attitude toward the laity, .and this, in turn, calls for new structures and a new language expressive of the inner reality Of our consecrated life. The Spirit calls us to esteem personal relations over structure, and to develop ourselves as religious capable of loving human relationships. We are called by Jesus to be passionate and to exercise ",~ and alfenation,of any kind. compassion toward others, particularly toward all who suffer the indignities of poverty, discrimination, and alienation of any kind. The congress experience brought home to me anew that we are living through, a period of vast and deep change in consecrated life--a sort of gestation period heavy with the promise of new birth. The seeds have been planted in good ground and are being warmed and watered by the life-bearing winds of the Spirit. We have only to tend the garden and pay attention with a discerning eye to the sprouts of new life lest we uproot them as noxious weeds.before they have a chance to flower and bear fruit. 6Y.3 2006 Kennelly ¯ The 2004 Consecrated-Life Congress Our congregations are being called to collaborate with the Spirit in bringing to birth the consecrated life of the future. It was apparent at the congress---its participants a cross section of more than six hundred congregations of women and men from all over the world--that the vision, the hopes, and the sense of urgency are widely shared. The modes of discernment and dialogue will necessarily differ from country to country, depending on culture and opportunity, but the desire for intra- and inter-congregational reflection and collaboration is present among religious in every continent. As a practical matter, I would urge congregations to take advantage of their forthcoming chapters to follow up on major themes explored at the congress. Chapters are periodically convened by every congregation; agendas and processes can readily be shaped to facilitate the kind of individual and corporate reflection we need and desire. Although successful use of this option is not without difficulties, it would seem to offer .the best chance for congregations to address the congress message in a timely way, and to seek the implications of that message for themselves. Clearly there are a few obstacles to surmount if we are to facilitate contemplative chapters that make good use of the theological and sociological perspectives offered at the congress. International congregations, whose members often constitute a microcosm of the multicultural 2004 gathering in Rome, in many cases still experience subtle Western attitudes that prevent the kind of dialogue modeled by the congress. Smaller local congregations may need to push beyond parochial concerns to help members achieve a broader vision and seek greater goals. But all must beware of a tendency toward activism, the preoccupation with doing rather than being that marks our contemporary world. Review for Religious Whether we come from large or small congregations, from apostolic, monastic, or contemplative "families" of religious; whether we can trace our history back for centuries or only a few years; and whether we are Americans, Europeans, Asians, Africans, or Oceanians, we are all called by the Spirit to use the congress and our own experience as a springboard to dive into the deep pool of Holy Mystery in which we religious live and move and have our being. It is for us at this crucial point in our history to delve deeper, to listen, to reflect, to dialogue, and to discern the spiritual realities of the life and mission we share as religious, to ask ourselves how we need to be if we are to do the works of persons passionate for Christ and passionate for humanity. Suggested Reading Passion for Christ, Passion for Humanity, Pauline Books and Media, 2005. Reflection/Discussion Questions 1. As I/we read the responses from the different continental groups regarding the future of religious life, which response gave me/us new insight and which response would I/we want to discuss further? 2. How can we take advantage of the "aging" of religious life members in our country to draw upon their wisdom ("saging') for our apostolic life and direction? 3. What practical steps do I/we need to take in order to adopt a more contemplative approach to listen to and follow the movements of the Spirit within our religious life context? 6Y.3 2006 RACHEL M. HARRINGTON A New Way of Meeting 244 Dissatisfaction with the timeworn chapter for-mula for the meetings of our congregation, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, as an international congregation of pontifical right resulted in a mandate from the 2002 chapter for us, the newly elected congre-gational leadership team, to explore new ways of assem-bling that took account of our multicultural identity. The dissatisfaction focused on the number and variety of pro-posals submitted for chapter discussion, the abundance of paper generated before, during, and after each chapter, and the dominance of the Western cultural model for meeting and discussion. Canon law offers little help. In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, it provides for each institute the right to establish its own legislation for chapters pro-vided this falls within certain norms. Our constitutions, approved in 1989, contain several articles and directives for conducting chapters, no more restrictive, we think, Rachel M. Harrington SNDdeN is a member of the generalate lead-ership team of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. Their address is Via Raffaello Sardiello, 20; 00165 Roma, Italy. Review for Religio~s than many, and certainly tried and tested and not lightly to be discarded. One suggestion, superficially attractive, was to separate the chapter of affairs from the chapter of elections. Our general treasurer pointed out a major flaw in this proposal: chapters are expensive meetings. So we continued to talk and dream. Our directives, or rather the traditional interpretation of them, provide for a "midchapter" meeting,, an inter-national gathering at the midpoint between chapters. Beyond prescribifig that at this time the congregational leadership and the provinces evaluate their implemen-tation of the constitutions, there are no further direc-tives. So, with some trepidation, we determined on this midchapter meeting as our chance to experiment. We decided to offer two sisters from each province the opportunity to experience a different type of gathering. We hoped to stimulate creative thinking to improve the next chapter in 2008. We began in May 2003 by writing a letter to each sister in the congregation, inviting her to respond to three questions. We based the questions on one of the constitutions from the section on chas.tity: Our celibacy, deepened and enriched by God's love and that of our sisters, bears fruit in a love which reaches beyond the limits of family, tribe, or nation. It enables us to be free to go wherever we may be called in the ser-vice of God's kingdom of justice, peacei and love. We asked each sister how she felt that this constitu-tion had been realized in her life and what helps or hin-drances our community had ,given her in reaching "beyond the limits of family, tribe, or nation." We encouraged sisters to respond alone or after group dis-cussion. To avoid burdening province leadership, we sug-gested that all responses be posted uncollated to the congregational leadership in Rome. We assembled an 65.3 2006 Harrington ¯ A New Way of Meeting We wondered how many sisters would take, the troublet~, respond to our lettel~/ and we were overwhelmed by the number Who dld).~ 246 international planning group to help us review the responses. Membership of such groups is often pre-dictable, so we made a point of inviting sisters without previous experience of working on international groups, and, instead of looking for organizational skills, we looked rather for a different order of talents. To our delight, all of the sisters whom we approached accepted our invitation. In October 2004 we met in Rome: an economist teaching in a Kenyan university, a patristic theologian from a British univer-sity, a psychologist from Peru, a theolo-gian from Congo, an artist-liturgist from Britain, a photogra-pher with poetic writ-ing skills from the United States, and a musical-artist-liturgist from Zimbabwe. On our own team we had two cultural anthropologists, from the U.S.A. and Congo, a biblical theologian from the U.S.A., an educationist from the U.S.A., and a canon lawyer from Britain. We needed to give very little thought to the selection of facilitators; we knew whom we wanted. Sister Gabrielle Stuart RSM and Sister Mary Harrington SUSC had run facilitation workshops for leadership in Rome, and we had benefited from their expertise. That they were free and willing to be with us in this experiment was a huge encouragement.1 Traditionally our chapters are held in the U.S.A. or Europe and our midchapters in Africa or Latin America. In 1998 the midchapter took place in Peru, and so we Review for Religious selected Kenya for 31 July to August 2005. We invited a British sister serving there to be the on-site coordina-tor and to attend the Rome planning meeting. We wondered how many sisters would take the trou-ble to respond to our letter, and we were overwhelmed by the number who did, almost half the congregation. Considering the many who were too old or sick, this was way beyond our expectations. We spent the first day of the meeting reading these responses, with a checHist of questions: How do I feel? What do I think? What sur-prised me? What delighted me? What became clearer? What shocked me? What insights did I gain? What ques-tions remain? Reading the responses moved us all deeply. Our sis-ters had responded sincerely, from the depths of their experiences as celibate women working for the poor in a variety of situations. Most acknowledged a deepening of their understanding of the call to religious life as they took risks and endured suffering, separations, rejections, and misunderstanding. All expressed gratitude for the years spent in the congregation and for the richness of life offered by membership in an international group. We compiled our reactions and, after much discus-sion guided by the facilitators, agreed upon a goal for the midchapter meeting: to enable participants to explore, express, celebrate, and live the goodness of God in a love which reaches beyond the limits of family, tribe, or nation. Our foundress, St. Julie Billiart, bequeathed to us the charism of striving to discover and become the very goodness of God in the world, and, as we read the responses of our sisters, we realized how much this was integrated into their lives. A statement made about Julie by a contemporary cardinal in Belgium, "A spark from out the heart of Christ fell upon the heart of a woman who knew how to believe and how to love," somehow 65.3 2006 Harrington ¯ A New Way of Meeting 248!I captivated our thoughts as we read, and we decided to use "Sparks from the Heart of Christ" as the theme of the midchapter meeting. With the facilitators' help, we sorted ourselves into four groups: theologians, social scientists, the "fire department" (the liturgists), and the planners. We drew up questions which, as a result of our reading, we felt needed to be answered, and then we allocated tasks to each group. Everyone with a relevarit area of expertise agreed to present a paper in Nairobi on that topic to stimulate discussion. From April 2003 we spent some time at leadership meetings--held once a year on the Continent and twice a year in the U.S.A.--talking about our hopes for the meeting and encouraging the provincial leaders to choose as representatives one sister from each province who had no previous international experience and was willing to "go with the process." We also wanted one member of each leadership team to attend, so that any implementa-tion or follow-up would proceed smoothly. Although we never used the word '~delegate," and although we stressed repeatedly that this was not a chapter and not a deci-sion- making meeting, not everyone heard this. Shortly after our October 2004 planning meeting, the congress "Passioh for Christ, Passion for Humanity" took place in Rome within walking distance of our gen-eralate. As well as welcoming many of the participants to our home, we were able to access the papers on the Internet in four languages and encouraged our sisters to do likewise. Unfortunately, Internet access across the globe varies considerably, and so not all were able to take advantage of this resource. Attempting to compen-sate for this, we excerpted a couple of passages from the working paper and suggested that sisters meet in groups to discuss how they experienced the charism of our con- Review for Religious gregation in the light of their reflections on these pas-sages. We encouraged those chosen as representatives to bring the fruits of these discussions to the meeting in Nairobi. We hoped that this task would keep interest alive in the proposed meeting and enable the represen-tatives to feel that they were coming prepared. The planning group assembled in Nairobi with the facilitators on 30 July 2005, the day before the others were due to arrive. By this time we had added our gen-eral secretary and the director of our mission office to the group. We held the meeting in the Dimesse Sisters' Centre in Karen-Nairobi. Contrary to our hopes, we were unable to move in until after noon on the day we had hoped to begin. One of our biggest problems, shared by all interna-tional congregations, is that of language. We had arranged local translators for . French and Spanish, but Flemish, Italian, Portuguese, and Japanese are more difficult to provide for, especially as only relatively few sisters speak only these lan-guages. People skilled in simul-taneous translation are expensive, and we also need others who can provide necessary written trans-lations fairly rapidly. We are con-stantly learning in this area and are extremely grateful to those sisters who, proficient in two languages, generously help in translating. We mar-vel at the patient endurance of those who spend days on end listening through earphones. In social situations, as well as during the sessions, many struggled heroically to communicate across the language barriers using gestures and the few words they could manage. We provided play- 65.3 2006 Harrington ¯ ~l New ~Va~ of Meeting ing cards, jigsaw puzzles, and games without words to encourage this interaction. We had invited sisters from Japan, Nigeria, the U.S.A., and Congo to help with translation and secre-tarial tasks, so altogether we numbered sixty. Every day a brief account of the meeting, composed by one of these, was sent out on our congregational Intranet in English, French, and Spanish. Access to computers was limited, but whenever they could most participants sent home enthusiastic accounts of their experiences. As we began the meeting, each province brought some "report" on their reflections about our charism; several of these were poetic or beautifully presented in visual form. During our sixteen days together we had an enormous variety of experiences, most of which involved sharing our thoughts and feelings about specific ques-tions with a sister from another culture. The facilitators guided us into these moments, which were often deep and moving, with rituals involving simple gestures, gen-tle dances, and repetitive chants celebrated around ever-changing focal points in the meeting room. As the days went on, art work created in the course of the meeting was displayed on the walls of our meeting room--pic-tures, words, designs, charts--all reflecting our moods, our perceptions of our province realities, problems we faced, questions that we raised. Over the course of the two weeks, one of our cul-tural anthropologists gave us an illuminating presentation on "unpacking culture"; the other spoke of how African myths speak of God's goodness. The theologians pre-sented talks on the goodness of God from their varied perspectives, as revealed in the Bible, in African forma-tion programs, in living religious life in Congo, and as expressed in community life in the 4th-century church. The psychologist talked on "Chastity: A Love Which Review for Religious Goes beyond the Limits." All were translated later and made available to the whole congregation. Our economist assembled three university lecturers who made brief presentations on Kenya's progress (or lack of it) towards the United Nations' millennium devel-opment goals in regard to health, education, and the environment. A fourth panelist, representing an organi-zation that works with nongovernmental organizations, spoke about the frustrations he faces in his work, where the ideal partnership between aid organizations and gov-ernments falls far short of being realized. The four stayed on for the whole morning to lead group discussions and answer questions. The sisters from each province also spoke about their ministries and tried to communicate the realities of their daily lives. Most moving were the testimonies from the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo and from Zimbabwe. When we had afternoons off, those who wished were taken in small groups to visit various pro-jects in housing and employment, schools (including the famous Starehe boys' school and its newborn sister school for girls), and the homes of people from Saint Mary and Joseph's, the parish where some of our sisters live and work. Other optional outings were to a safari park or to see Karen Blixen's (Isak Dinesen's) home, famous from the film Out of Africa. Two of the most memorable excursions were for Mass. On the first Sunday we went to Saint Mary and Joseph's, where we were welcomed in truly memorable fashion by the parish priest and by the "mother of the parish," who told us we were all their daughters. The dancing was led by small girls all attired in snowy white tee shirts advertising U.S. baseball teams. The choir was amazing and untiring, and the packed church sang along and swayed and clapped throughout the three-hour cel- 6Y.3 2006 Harrington * A New Way of Meeting ebration. The ladies of the parish had prepared dinner, so we moved the benches around to form tables and sat down to a lavish feast of beef stew, rice, and beans. On the second occasion we were hostesses to those who came to celebrate with us the opening of our novi-tiate in Langata, Nairobi, our fourth in Africa, and a real benchmark in the history of the province. We sat outside under awnings during the Mass celebrated by the bishop; afterwards the house was blessed and a flame tree planted. The meal, prepared outside in huge pots over open fires, was enjoyed by all. In the last days of our meetings, we focused on ques-tions that had arisen during our sharings, and we brain-stormed about how to prepare for the next chapter. During the closing In the. last~ days,(~our'tneet.in~s;~rz-~ we focused on"questio~.~ ~ . h.'afl:~[ ["~ arisen duringour shariftgs, ' and we brainstormed about how, to prepare for the°ne~.t:chapt~e~(.i~ to women after any meeting. We reverently and ceremoniously placed these artifacts on the floor around the centerpiece a mock fire, built around a candle, with sparkles scattered about. Then we were all invited to collect a prayer card and some sparkles and to light a candle from the cen-tral flame. To do this we had to walk toward the center and then away, through the spread-out paintings, pic-tures, charts, designs, and pre.sentations~a sort of sym-bolic acceptance of all that had taken place and been ritual we thanked all planners and participants. We removed the vari-ous artifacts we had displayed on the walls, per-forming the clear-ing- up ritual that is traditionally left Review for Religious shared over the previous two weeks and a commitment to carry the experience home. At the beginning of the meeting we had been reminded that in this meeting no decisions would be taken: we were there to experience what it means to belong to an international, multicultural, multilingual congregation. Nonetheless, some few in their evalua-tions expressed wonderings about the apparent lack of an agenda. We knew this was a risk. There was general dissatisfaction with the three celebrations of Mass which we had together during the meeting days--not the Sundays. Bringing in clergy, out of touch with what we were experiencing together, was felt to be artificial and awkward. Communion services led by ourselves might have proved more meaningful. Some found the days long and tiring. Most wrote that this had been a life-changing experience, creating bonds across cultures and languages, inspiring hope, and providing memories to last a life-time. The deep exchanges about cultural differences gave all of us new perspectives. Throughout we had been dependent on our two facil-itators, whose style pleased all but three of those pre-sent. Every day began with a review of the purpose of the meeting, of our hopes and concerns, and of the val-ues and behaviors we intended to live by during the meeting. After the morning ritual, there was a report on the questions raised, the previous day. At day's end we gathered in our "home groups" (the same multicultural group for the entire meeting), shared our day's experi-ences, and arrived at issues or questions for the coordi-nating committee to resolve. This committee, five members of the original planning group, met with the facilitators each day for forty-five minutes after the evening ritual, discussed the matters arising from the home groups, and planned the next day. When we eval- 65.3 2006 Harrington ¯ A New Way of Meeting uated our work, we realized thatthere were things we could have done differently and better. We had learned from our experience and from the feedback---another purpose of the meeting realized. The big anxiety of all present was how to communi-cate the fruits of the meeting to the sisters at home. We had papers and photographs, but these were two-dimen-sional, having meaning mainly for the participants. Carrying home fragile "sparks from the heart of Christ" challenges each of us to a new way of being, of believing, and of loving so that the sparks will ignite others and kindle new flames to spread the awareness of God's good-ness in all the events and circumstances of our lives. Note ' They can be contacted at GLOIR; 27 Catherine Street; Newry, Co. Down; BT35 6JG, Northern Ireland. E-mail: gloirinstitute@btopenworld.com Glass It's as if Benedict's single ray of light is scattered across the tables like loose jewels or a broken mirror. We sweep and pick through trays of glass, sharp bits of orange and yellow with a blue that's almost black until I hold it to the light, and I am full of a temporary completeness. Even the thunder seems gentle. Alicia Kleiman OSB Review for Religious ERNEST E. LARKIN Aspiratory Prayer, a Welcome Addition to Contemplative Prayer Aspirations (aspiratory prayer) were a treasure in' European Christianity in the late Middle Ages and one of the great legacies of the Touraine Reform in 17th-century France. This reform took place in "les Grands Carmes," the popu-lar name in France for the Carmelites of the Ancient Observance (OCarm). The style of prayer that goes by the name of aspirative or aspiratory prayer, or simply aspiration, is almost unknown in contemporary spirituality. The pre-sent article is a move to fill this lacuna and to suggest how the prayer of aspirations can con-tribute to the contemplative renewal of our times. I will first give an overview of the prayer in tradition and highlight its three outstanding proponents: the 13th-century Carthusian Hugh of Balma, the Franciscan Henry Herp (+1477), and the Carmelite John of St. Samson (1571- Ernest E. Larkin OCarm last wrote in our 64.4 issue (2005). His address remains St. Agnes Catholic Church; 1954 North 24th Street; Phoenix, Arizona 85008. 65.3 2006 Larkin ¯ Aspirator)/Prayer 1636). Finally I shall make some suggestions on how to revive the practice. What Is Aspiratory Prayer? Aspiratory prayer is a warm, human approach to God that is inexorably affective. It proceeds by way of fer-vent desires of the heart. It was considered a shortcut, a direct route, to intimacy and oneness with God. Its struc-ture is simple: frequent and intense desires breathed out to God. It has only one goal, union with God, so it ceases to have a role when mystical union is achieved. Aspirations are not the same as ejaculations, though they are like each other. E aculatory prayer.describes any to this prayer? ,.:Those and all brief prayers sent like darts to heaven for help, thanksgiving, adora-tion, or any other good motive. "My Jesus, mercy" is an ejaculation. Aspira-tions are only and always passionate desires or fer-vent acts of love of God. They are expressed in words or sighs or silence. "My God, I love you" is an aspiration. To aspire means to breathe out, with the con-notation of breathing hard after something. In aspira-tory prayer one breathes out heartfelt desires for God. It is yearning for God, like gasping for God. Aspiratory prayer is simple and focused, though in the beginning it may cover a wide sweep of emotions and feelings. Practice simplifies and unifies the faculties to give them a single thrust, much as the prayer of sim-plicity consolidates the multiple affections of affective prayer into a single attitude of loving presence. Aspiratory prayer sets the heart on one goal, divine Review for Reli~io~ union, and is a positive step in that direction. Not every-body can use it. It is not for beginners, but for those who have come to know God and themselves through Bible reading, reflection, and loving conversations with God. When a person has put her house in order and has come to love God in truth, she is ready for this prayer. For those who love God, it will become as natural as breathing. Catholic teachers in the past were sticklers in assign-ing different prayer forms to different stages of growth. The prayer of beginners was discursive meditation and affective prayer, that is, first much thinking and ~hen many affections. The next stage was contemplative, and it featured forms like simply looking at the tabernacle as in the Cur6 d'Ars' "I look at him and he looks at me," or today's resting in God in centering prayer, or saying the mantra as in Christian Meditation. Today we prob-ably pay less attention to the degrees of prayer, though we still honor them. Centering prayer and Christian Meditation have democratized contemplative prayer. Certainly some knowledge and love of the Lord is pre-supposed for contemplative prayer, but a little knowl-edge and love go a long way. Those who are comfortable with centering prayer and Christian Meditation will be at home with aspirations. Who, then, are called, to this prayer? Those who are fervent and serious about their relationship with God and have a great desire for intimacy with God. They are look-ing for the "more." The classical teaching placed the prayer in the illuminative way as part of the contempla-tive life. Two categories are involved here, and both are second stages: the illuminative comes between the purga-tive and the unitive way, and the contemplative life between the active and the mystical life. The three divi-sions correspond to beginners, the proficient, and the 65.3 2006 Larkin ¯ Aspiratory Prayer perfect. Active life has to do with external behavior, con-templative with inner prayer, and the mystical life with high sanctity. The purgative way is concerned with con-version and purification, the illuminative way with enlightenment, and the unitive with union with God. The three ways and their content are criticized today for being too dependent on Neoplatonic philosophy, the system that canonized the immaterial and denigrated the bodily.' Aspirative prayer rises above this controversy and in fact is a corrective against exaggerated spiritual-ism and minimizing the physical and bodily in the spir-itual life. Aspirations welcome and embrace the emotional and the sensible; these human qualities lead to the highest realms of the spirit. They move the experi-ence of God away from the intellectual and into the realm of affection and love.2 Aspiratory prayer comes out of the same tradition as centering prayer and Christian Meditation. The latter two are contemporary constructions from that contem-plative tradition, a development that aspiratory prayer has yet to find. But all three systems appeal to the same sources, the same authors, and even the same texts for their grounding and justification.3 This fact and their constant location in the middle stage of spiritual devel-opment argue to their commonality. Centering prayer and Christian Meditation seek silent presence and quiet resting in God. At the same time they are active prayer, rightly called meditation of a nondiscursive or contemplative type. They are not clas-sical contemplation in the sense of infused prayer, but are products of human effort and ordinary grace. Aspiratory prayer is obviously active in the same sense. It uses the language of intense, passionate love and expresses the yearning of the heart and delights to rest in the Lord. Review for Religious Aspiratory prayer is more than loving conversation with God. It expresses a strong act of the will that desires to experience God. So it is more than a t&e-a-t&e, even in the loving language of affective colloquy. The differ-ence is intensity. Affective prayer engages the feelings but in a diffuse way, whereas a strong will and urgent longings for intimacy dominate aspiratory prayer. Aspirations fit nicely into the perspectives and prac-tice of "love mysticism," which is a form of relating to God in spousal love. The language of spousal love is very human, amorous, and passionate. Its biblical source is the Song of Songs or St. John's Gospel, and it is a fre-quent feature in medieval women mystics and also in writers like St. Bernard or St. John of the Cross. Janet K. Ruffing has written a guide for the spiritual direction of those called to this way. She gives many examples of its language, one of which is the following conversation in Mechthild of Magdeburg, who says to God: "God, you are my lover, / my longing, / my flowing stream, / my sun, / and I am your reflection." And God replies: "It is my nature that makes me love you often, / for I am love itself. / It is my longing that makes me love you intensely, / for I yearn to be loved from the heart. / It is my eter-nity that makes me love you long, / for I have no end.''4 Aspirative prayer is not limited to spousal love. It is at home with a nonspousal love of God, which Janet Ruffing calls simply apophatic. The mysticism of the more matter-of-fact Cloud of Unknowing features whole-hearted love, often without obvious passion. In this lat-ter case the love is sublimated into disinterested love in a style of relationship that is reserved and controlled. Mystics in this pattern will practice their own brand of aspirations. Aspiratory prayer is thus a technical term, but it is not "one size fits all." Its normal form is sensible-spiri- 6~ .3 2006 Larkin ¯ Aspiratorg/Prayer 260[ tual love. For Henry Herp only this love qualifies as aspi-ration. For him its follow-up, which is pure spiritual love, is not aspiration, but unitive love. John of St. Samson, however, treats pure spiritual love as a form of aspiration, and for him this higher aspiration leads one into the furnace of God's love in transforming union. For both authors the will is the driving force for aspira-tions and for unitive love. In sensible-spiritual love the sensibility is the carrier, but the momentum comes from the will, which makes the love truly spiritual. Do not think that the practitioner lives on a perpet-ual high. The expression Of loving desires for God con-tinues in down days and dryness as much as in times of sweetness and sensible consolation. The feeling element is still there. It must be genuine, not faked or pretended or forced. Th~r~se of Lisieux is a perfect example of the expression of passionate desires of love for God in the darkest moments of life.5 There are degrees of the practice corresponding to the person's habitual love of God and the grace of the moment. John of St. Samson sees it as leading directly into a mystical expression, in which the Holy Spirit breathes out enflamed desires for God. His conditions for practicing this prayer are demanding. Persons who take up the practice must be mortified, humble, and self-effac-ing as well as robust in health. In his view aspirations go beyond the enthusiasm of a newly baptized Pentecostal or charismatic and belong to persons advanced in the love of God and on fire for the summit. The History and Theology of Aspiratory Prayer Aspiratory prayer flourished in the late Middle Ages in northern Europe, especially the Rhineland and France, from the 13th to the 17th century. At the time of the Touraine Reform, the practice was common in popular Review for Religious religious culture. Aspirative prayer appealed to the archi-tects of Touraine because they saw the practice as dove-tailing with their view of the goal of the Carmelite order, which was to live continuously in the loving presence of God.6 Intimations of aspiratory prayer are found in the New Testament, in St. Augustine and John Cassian, who were contemporaries, in St. Benedict and Guigo II, and in other early authors. The first to give aspirative prayer a central place in the spiritual life was Hugh of Balma, whose Tbeologia Mystica exerted wide influence, partly because it was thought to be the work of St. Bonaventure. Hugh of Balina taught the way of the heart, and aspira-tory prayer was its chief expression. First one must know one's weak self and the goodness of God, since anyone filled with self is unable to yearn for God. This knowl-edge prepares one to rise up to God in "anagogic con-templation." Anagogic contemplation means moving from crea-ture to Creator, from the text of Scripture to the living God, enflamed with desire and love. Such is aspiratory prayer. The love is both natural-spiritual and purely spir-itual, and God is the direct object. The love increases with the simplification and unification of the faculties until ultimately there is mystical union with the Trinity in the high point of the soul called the apex mentis. Henry Herp and John of St. Samson will pick up on these per-spectives and expand them with the help of Jan van Ruusbroec's theology (1293-1381). Hugh had many imitators, especially among the Carthusians, who promoted and developed this teach-ing so effectively that Everard Mercurian, an early gen-eral of the Jesuits, warned the Society about "the Carthusian method of prayer" for fear that its popular-ity would marginalize Ignatian prayer in Spain.7 The 6Y.3 2006 Larkin * Aspiratory Prayer 14th-century anonymous English text The Cloud of Unknowing is likely a Carthusian document, both because it can easily be interpreted as a full exposition of aspira-tory prayer and because its anonymous author may well be .a Carthusian.8 A number of familiar quotations from the book are obviously formulas of aspiratory prayer. Henry Herp OFM (+1447) Henry Herp wrote the first synthesis of the whole spiritual journey around the topic of aspirative prayer. His map is the structure of the soul as delineated by the great Flemish mystical writer Henry Herp wrote the first synthesis'of the~ around the topici of ~aspirativ~ prayer. : ~ o o Jan van Ruusbroec. The soul is three concentric circles, each of them representing a different level of human activity. Herp offers a detailed plan for moving through the outer two levels and arriving at the inner circle of highest union with the Holy Trinity. He lays down instructions for each of the phases of the journey, but his chief contri-bution is to show how aspirative prayer moves one through the middle circle. Ruusbroec calls the three circles "spheres" or "uni-ties," whereas Herp names them mansions or dwelling places like Teresa of Avila. The first is the region of the senses, the second that of the spirit, and the third the "fond" or ground, the dwelling place of the Holy Trinity. One must traverse each level to get to the center, and the way is introversion, a concept that goes back to St. Augustine. Herp calls it "ascension." Persons "ascend," that is, they are lifted up by a sweeping action that carries them through the given circle and toward Review for Religious the center; the searcher for God leaves behind the lesser level or part of it in favor of the higher one. This process of introversion means making the powers on each level converge toward the center. The activity of each level is collapsed into the next step. In this imagery the outer circle of exterior behavior is introverted into the mid-dle circle, and in the middle the lower faculties of the irascible and concupiscible appetites, and of reason and free will, are introverted into the spiritual faculties of intellect, memory, and will. These latter will finish the task and bring the soul into mystical union in the center. The introversion or ascension starts with the outer or exterior circle, which represents the active life. The means set down by Herp for this first introversion are "truth and compassion." Truth means understanding the goodness of God and the bankruptcy of the human, and compas-sion is appreciating God's love and attractiveness. The middle level is the field for aspiratory prayer and unitive love. Aspirations address the "interior infe-rior powers," especially the concupiscible appetite, which in Herp's view has a spiritual quality about it. Unitive love is exercised by the spiritual faculties. Understanding guides the process: hence the importance of regular med-itation and of the use of prepared ejaculations that recall the supreme attraction of God and serve to inflame the soul with love. The awakened will moves the sensory faculties to yearn for God, progressively spiritualizing the person for the work of unitive love, For Herp, uni-tive love takes over the task begun in the lower interior faculties. The acts of pure, unitive love finish the task of the introversion of the spirit level and open the way to the center. In the center the love is fruitive love. The contemplative way is left behind, and the soul now lives the "super-essential life" of oneness with the Trinity, a union that is not ontological but psychological. ¯ ,263 65.3 2006 Larkin ¯ Aspiratory Prayer Herp offers some good pastoral advice. The stages are to be addressed in order and none can be skipped. Basic conversion is presupposed for undertaking aspira-tory prayer, and that means an adult knowledge of God and one's self and the acquisition of the moral virtues. Aspiratory prayer begins with rote expressions of love and fervor. According to Herp, these feelings crescendo into what he calls an explosion of love, which has its own danger of entrapping the person in the delightful, sen-sible sweetness. The love is gradually purified and becomes the unitive love that will lead the soul into the center. Unitive love too undergoes its own purifications, and the follow-up experiences may be as dark and dry as the initial entry was exalted. The challenge at this point, as at every point in the spiritual life, is marginal-izing the self, that is, letting go of everything that is not God. The holy soul practicing spiritual love will con-tinue to work at the total gift of self to God, and its tasks are listed by Herp as self-offering, searching for God's will, letting God's love destroy all defects, and being united with God. John of St. Samson (1571-1636) John of St. Samson is an immensely important figure in the Carmel of the Ancient Observance. He was a mys-tic of profound experience, and, in spite of the blindness that afflicted him from the age of three, he was well edu-cated and well read, keeping in touch with currents of spirituality in the very rich 17th century. He has been called the French John of the Cross and is highly esteemed by religious historians like Henri Bremond and Louis Cognet. John of St. Samson lived a century and a half after Herp, but Herp's work was well known to him in the numerous Latin and French translations and in the Review for Religious plethora of spiritual writings that popularized aspiratory prayer. John of St. Samson became expert in the teach-ing of this way, building on Herp but adding his own points of view. There had been a lot of writing, but lit-tle development since Herp. After a careful comparison of the two authors, Canisius Janssen concludes that John's doctrine is Herp in a new packaging. "Certain things have been left out," he writes, "others developed; in short the whole has acquired a new face.''9 John belongs to the same Dutch school of mys-ticism as Herp, both of them appropriating the worldview of Ruusbroec. We come from God as created images in the Uncreated Word, and our life goal is to return to our place in the Word in full consciousness of our unity in God. The goal is put I ," bY engaging oi r feetings t " : and iemo.tions. I as well as'our spiriL rather abstractly as "the state of consummation of the subject in the Object" in a "union without difference or distinction." Such is the transforming union, in which the soul is caught up in the fire of the divine life. The way to the goal is introversion according to the same divisions as in Henry Herp, but with the adaptations in nomenclature. John is particularly eloquent is explaining how spir-itual love guides the whole process of introversion once aspirations become the way. Spiritual love is at the heart of sensible-spiritual aspirations, and it constitutes the spiritual aspirations that lead one into the center itself. Aspirations have the genius of putting our full humanity to work by engaging our feelings and emotions as well as 6~.3 2006 Larkin ¯ Aspirator)/Prayer 266 our spirit. Sensible love is the starter, and it houses the spiritual love in sensible-spiritual aspirations. When the aspirations become "more vigorous, more on fire, and more detached from sense," they are pure spiritual love. This spiritual love, with or without a sensible compo-nent, is the engine that drives the introversion process into the furnace that is God. Aspiration thus has a mystical quality in John, as is clear from the following quotation: Aspiration is not only an affectionate colloquy. ; that is what aspiration is born of and comes forth from. Aspiration, then, is an outpouring of the whole heart and spirit on fire with love. By it the soul quickly tran-scends itself and all of creation, becoming intimately united with God in the intensity of its loving expres-sion. Expressing itself quintessentially in this way, the soul transcends all tender, sensible, cerebral, and com-prehensible love, reaching by the vehemence of God's spirit and its own effort, not just any divine union, but a sudden transformation of its spirit into God. In the abounding and ineffable sweemess of God him-self lovingly embracing one's spirit, it transcends, I say, all familiar and intelligible love. This is the essence of aspiration, in itself, in its cause, and in its effect.1° Heart (that is, the sensibility) and spirit (that is, the loving will) are the framers of aspirations, and heart even-tually recedes in favor of pure spirit. In the beginning there will be multiplicity of thought and feelings, but with growth this richness will give way to ever increas-ing simplicity and a state of pure elevation in God. Intensity is of the essence, since only strong love can break the attachments of the faculties to their natural objects. Frequency is a necessary quality, since the goal is to make aspirations like second nature, as natural as breathing. Humility too is the essential underpinning of all true love. But in all these efforts balance and moder-for Religious ation must prevent any violence or excessive force. John of St. Samson, experienced spiritual director, has good advice on how to begin and how to grow in this beauti-ful practice, and his reflections will help us put our topic in perspective. Who are candidates for this prayer? The prayer is not for everybody. It is not for intellectuals or for shal-low people who live on the surface of things and whose fire burns up quickly like straw. It is for generous souls of strong will who are concerned about their interior life. When to begin? Brother John sees aspirations as a higher form of prayer; hence he is hesitant to promote it indiscriminately. Aware of the dangers of too much emo-tionality as well as its necessary predispositions, he coun-sels against beginning the prayer prematurely. Strain and force must be resisted lest there be physical or psycho-logical harm. It is necessary to guard against a too san-guine assessment of one's love of God. The apostle Peter felt a great love for Jesus that led to presumption and his denial of Jesus in the courtyard. John's basic condition for the practice is a mortified life. He fears the unguarded attraction of the sweetness of this love. So he writes: "To begin this exercise it is absolutely necessary to die to ourselves, to humble ourselves, and to be self-effacing (mepriser)."llJohn is probably thinking of his own novices and their year of novitiate whenhe writes that candi-dates for this prayer should have spent "a good year" in discursive meditation and affective prayer before taking up aspirations. He also warns newcomers that begin-nings will be troublesome, even painful, but practice makes perfect and easy. The process of introversion follows Herp detail for detail. Like Herp, John of St. Samson is lyrical in his descriptions of the outcome of introversion, which is 65.3 2006 Larkin ¯ Aspiratory Prayer entrance into "the marvelous effects and the spiritual inebriation" of touching the fond or ground of one's being, where the Holy Trinity dwells and the essential union with God takes place. This mystical state is trans-formation in the fire that is God. Aspiratory Prayer in Contemplative Life Today It remains to suggest ways in which this body of teaching can be put into practice in today's contempla-tive setting. A first step, and one that is often presented in the literature, is to connect aspirations with the practice of the presence of God. This means to murmur aspirations frequently during the course of the day to remind one-self of the presence of God and to offer up the present task. This is one application in The Carmelite Directory of the Spiritual Life by John Breninger OCarm and in the works of his student Kilian J. Healy OCarm.~2 A second application is to introduce aspirations into one's daily meditation in whatever form that takes. This will be an affective addition in the nondiscursive medi-tation of Christian Meditation, which features the mantra "Maranatha." The mantra itself could be the vehicle expressing love and desire. Bringing aspiration into cen-tering prayer may be a bit more difficult, since this prayer eschews thinking and emoting. Aspirative prayer may be disruptive of the silence of centering prayer. Perhaps aspirations that are expressed without words and in silence can be a friendly addition and add warmth and fervor to centering prayer. A third way to practice aspirations in one's daily prayer is to structure it much like the two disciplines of contemplative prayer. Periods of aspiratory prayer could be cultivated each day, twenty minutes to a half hour in length, with the whole time given over to aspirations. Review for Religious The aspiration could be a mantra, one phrase repeated over and over again, or it could be spontaneous expres-sions of love and desire. The single mantra may be more compatible with the contemplative nature of the prayer than multiple expressions. Whatever the exact structure aspiratory prayer will take, it will usually be prefabricated and perfunctory in the beginning. But it soon becomes part of one's approach to God in mental prayer. Hopefully it will bring the rich rewards promised by the tradition. Notes ~ Philip Sheldrake, Spirituality and History (New York: Orbis Books, 1995), pp.186-189. 2 Aspiratory prayer is more at home with the language of love than with the Greek categories of contemplation. The literature of the Touraine Reform seems to prefer the evangelical language. One of my esteemed Carmelite teachers and mentors over a lifetime, whose life and studies were dominated by Touraine, frequently showed annoyance at the ambiguities of the vocabulary of contemplation. He preferred to speak of "love" and "loving" as the true measure of prayer rather than dif-ferent forms of "contemplation" or "contemplative." Instead of describ-ing Carmelite life as "contemplative," he preferred the simple word ,prayerful." I interpreted his attitude as a reflection of the viewpoint of Touraine. 3 Canisius Janssen OCarm surveys the sources of aspiratory prayer in the first of two excellent articles on the history and theology of aspira-tory prayer, "Oraison aspirative chez Herp et chez ses pr~d~cesseurs," Carmelus 3 (1956): 19-48. It lists the sources of this prayer in earlier times before its first major exponent, Henry Herp. These sources turn out to be the same texts cited in studies on the roots of centering prayer and Christian Meditation. An example of the latter is Robert W. Ginn's defense against critics, "Centering Prayer: Reviving the Ancient Christian Tradition in Modern Times," a manuscript dated 5/26/05 and circulated by Contemplative Outreach. Janssen's second article is titled "L'oraison aspirative chez Jean de Saint Samson," Carmelus 3 (1956): 185-216. I wish to express my gratitude for these two studies and my indebtedness to them in the formation of the present paper. 4 Spiritual Direction: Beyond the Beginnings (New York: Paulist, 2000), pp. 9-10. Christian mystics from Origen on applied the imagery of the Song of Songs to their relationship with God. St. Th~r~se of Lisieux 65.3 2006 Larkin ¯ Aspiratory Prayer belongs to this group, and a dominant feature of her prayer was aspira-tion. See Romero de Lima Gouvea OCarm, "Vivre d'amour: la pri~re aspirative chez Th~r~se de l'Enfant Jesus (1873-1897)," Carmelus 47 (2000): 19-40. s See Ernest E. Larkin OCarm, "The Little Way of St. Th~r~se of Lisieux," Review for Religious 59 (September-October 2000): 507-517, at 514-515. 6 The Touraine Reform is not as well known as its counterpart, the Discalced Reform begun by St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross in 16th-century Spain. Touraine began in Brittany in northwest France in the next century. Like the Discalced Reform, it was a radical return to the primitive spirit of the order. Unlike the Discalced Reform, Touraine did not become juridically separated from the old order, but remained in the trunk and spread to every province as the "strictior observantia." See Kilian J. Healy OCarm, Methods of Prayer in the Directory of the Carmelite Reform of Touraine (Rome: Institutum Carmelitanum, 1956), pp. 15-2 i. 7Janssen, Carmelus 3, p. 27. s This is the conclusion of James Walsh SJ in his introduction to the Classics of Western Spirituality edition of Tbe Cloud of Unknowing (New York: Paulist, 1981). 9 Janssen, Carmelus 3, p. 210. ~°Jean de St. Samson, L'dguillon, les flammes, les fl~cbes, et le miroir de l'amour de Dieu, in Oeuvres completes I, edition critique par Hein Blommestijn (Rome: Institutum Carmelitanum, 1992), p. 98. Aspiration donc n'est pas seulement un colloque affectueux. ; c'est d'icelui que nait et procede l'aspiration. Aspiration donc est un poussement amoureux, enflamm~ de tout le coeur et l'esprit; par lequel l'ame surpasse pronte-ment elle mesme et toute chose cre~e, s'unissant ~troitement ~ Dieu en la vivacit~ de son expression amoureuse; laquelle ainsi .Essentiellement exprim6e, surpasse tout amour sensible, raisonnable, intellectuel et con-prehensible; arrivant par l'impetuosit6 de l'esprit de Dieu et de son effort, ~ l'union de Dieu, non tellement quellement, mais par une soudaine transformation de l'esprit en Dieu. L'esprit, dis-ie, surpasse en lui m~me tout l'amour connessable et intelligible en l'abondante et ineffable suavitd de Dieu mesme, auquel il est amoureusement englouti. Voila que c'est que l'aspiration Essentielle en elle m~me, sa cause et son effet. (The passage is cited by Janssen in the article on John of St. Samson, p. 195. The translation has been made from the text in the c.ritical edition cited above.) li Janssen, Carmelus 3, p. 204. 12 The translation of the Directorium Carmelitanum was made from the Latin by Leo J. Walter OCarm (Chicago: Carmelite Press, 1951). See Review for Religious also Kilian J. Healy, Walking with God (New York: Declan X. McMullen, 1948), reprinted as Awakening Your Soul to the Presence of God (Manchester, New Hampshire: Sophia Institute Press, 1999); see also his chapter in Methods of Prayer, pp. 60-75. Reflection Questions 1. What have I learned about aspiratory prayer as I have read Larkin's article? 2. How might I begin to make aspiratory prayer a daily part of my prayer life? Growing Old The new hearing aid magnifies sounds I've not heard for years and discover I haven't missed. It is not my ears that hear the call to live the soul's desire. I can see tiny print with trifocals but not the messages in everything. I can no longer storm heaven's gates, have lost the need to do so. I am learning to wait gracefully with gratitude for them to open from inside. I am preparing to accept the invitation to eternity. "Growing old" begins with growing. Bonnie Thurston 6~.3 2006 PHILIP SHAN0 "Repose Days" during the Ignatian Exercises A few words by St. Ignatius Loyola in the Contemplation of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (§§91-98) have been .understood to refer to "repose days." 1 Ignatius says, "This exercise [the kingdom] should be gone through twice during the day, that is, in the morning on rising and an hour before dinner, or before supper" (§99).2 George E. Ganss SJ describes this day as "a transitional day of relative repose with only two peri-ods prescribed." 3 It is Ignatius's introduction to the rest of the retreat. In a note Louis Puhl SJ says Ignatius's words show that the "kingdom" day is a "day intervening between the First and Second Weeks.''4 In this study we will look at the historical roots of the contemporary notion of repose days in the hope of raising some ques-tions for spiritual directors to discuss in their planning of Twentieth Annotation (thirty-day) versions of the Spiritual Exercises. Philip Shano SJ is novice director and superior at the Jesuit Novitiate of the North American Martyrs; 1035 Summit Avenue; St. Paul, Minnesota 55105. Review for Religious An early historical reference to a repose day comes from the directory of Father Juan Alfonso de Polanco, Ignatius's secretary. Polanco's directory, completed years after Ignatius's death, is generally considered the finest of those which preceded the official Directory in 1599, pre-sumably because of his closeness to Ignatius. Polanco says of this day during the retreat: "When it is time for the exercitant to move on, he should be allowed to catch his breath by giving him the meditation on the kingdom of Christ to be made twice, once in the morning and once in the evening. On that day nothing else should be given. Then, toward evening, he should be given the exercise on the incarnation to be made the next day at daybreak.''5 Note, the retreatant "should be allowed to catch his breath." Similar words are used in later directories--"as he catches his breath for a bit.''6 An anonymous direc-tory dating from the 1580s speaks of the retreatant tak-ing "a rest from his exertions until evening.''7 The directory of Father Gil Gonzfilez Dfivila, from about 1587, says the retreatant "should rest., without being given the usual load of exercises. He may, however, occupy himself with some easy meditation suited to'this time.''8 Finally, the "Official Directory of 1599" brings together some of the earlier directories: "After their gen-eral confession and Communion, those planning to con-tinue the Exercises beyond the First Week should take at least a day's rest from the intense labor of meditation. However, in the meantime they can think over and apply to themselves the parable of the Prodigal Son or some-thing similar. Moreover, they should be given a prepa-ration for their Communion so that they will approach it with reverence, faith, and spiritual relish. They should be given some suitable meditation for this.''9 A present-day handbook for directors of the Spiritual Exercises suggests that, in order to deepen the grace of 65.3 2006 Sbano ¯ "Repose Days" during the Ignatian Exercises the First Week, it is important to have a day of easier presence to the Lord. "The desirable thing is simply to enjoy the day with the Lord, rejoicing in his love and praising him. This time precedes the meditation on the Call of the King, and it is not a break day. Some directors refer to the day that separates any two major sections of the Exercises as a ¯ - break day. Others call it a day of repose. Whatever the words used, this day provides time for transition from one empha-sis to another. It usually includes . some relaxation ~ ~- from the intensity of the retreat . Relaxing after the First Week and preparing to enter the Second Week, the retreatant con-siders the material in one prayer period before taking the break and another at its conclusion.''1° It is clear from early directories that the idea was to give the exercitant a pause and then, later that same day, to resume the usual rhythms of the retreat. Considering that Ignatius is known for attentiveness to every detail of a retreatant's life, it is my assumption that he did not see any problem with having repose days. Considering that the Exercises were generally given to individuals, it is furthermore my assumption that repose days were dis-cerned together by the director and the retreatant with a view to the retreatant's particular needs at that juncture. That is, director and reteatant were not ruled by a cal-endar date set for the convenience of someone or some Repose days becom important intensity relievers during anyone's Twentieth Annotation experie de of the Spiritual Exercises. group. Review for Religious Repose days become important intensity relievers dur-ing anyone's Twentieth Annotation experience of the Spiritual Exercises, an experience where "the exercitant withdraws from all friends and acquaintances, and from all worldly cares" (~20). These days fit into the Exercises as helpful pauses. They are not a move away from the retreat, but an approach to it from a different angle. In his look at the kingdom, William Peters sJ observes a number of stylistic differences (this "strangely structured exercise") from the other exercises. He sees "Ignatius's rather exceptional way of proceeding" here as a part of Ignatius's intention that "the retreatant is given a day of rest, of repose, a day to recuperate after the strenuous efforts of the First Week." 11 Peters's view on the place of the "rather gentle consideration" of the kingdom exercise within the entire retreat downplays the kingdom.12 He sees the "transition" day as revealing Ignatius's real pur-pose, namely, "the relationship between the unfaithful courtier and his king." 13 For Peters, the exercise is a low-key consideration, destined for a day of repose. Most directors of the Spiritual Exercises include one, two, or three repose days in the structure of the retreat. Days of repose are an integral part of the Twentieth Annotation retreat. On these days, being with the Lord interiorly and yet dealing with some ordinary aspects of life has an intensity that affects retreatants. The repose "day" is a period of the retreat (several hours ideally) when one steps back from the four or five periods of prayer that are normally recommended to retreatants. On a day of repose, individuals take a break or a "pause" from their normal retreat activity. When the retreat involves a group, the day might involve a common out-ing, a picnic or something similar. It does not mean that retreatants do not pray that day. The repose day is a break from the intense prayer of the retreat mode--noth- 65.3 2006 Sbano * "Repose Days" during the Ignatian Exercises 276 ing more. That break from intensity is important. The retreatant may not feel the need for a break, but spiritual directors can perceive from their vantage point that a break is essential for the person, especially if they have prayed with matters of great importance in their lives. In a few cases, individuals make the Spiritual Exercises on their own, meeting daily with their spiritual director. More commonly, individuals make their indi-vidual retreats in a group (at a spirituality center, as a class of Jesuit novices, and so on). Exercitants experi-ence repose days differently when they are alone or in a group. Those making their retreat on their own take a break from the usual prayer pattern, but they may or may not interact with others (such as the host commu-nity, their family, or their religious community). What is crucial is the pause from the intensity of the retreat. On the other hand, those making individual retreats within a group are ipso facto doing more than taking a pause. They are interacting with other retreatants, per-sons who are experiencing diverse spiritual movements. Whether intended or not, such repose days contribute to the good of community-building. Before the repose day, savvy directors ask retreatants not to compare retreat experiences during the repose day, but to restrict their communal conversation to "safe" topics: comical moments they had together, favorite or least favorite meals, the weather, and so forth. Inevitably, however, many make comparisons during that day. "Why is that young man so enthused and gung ho about his experi-ence? Why is that woman so serious and intense about hers? What's wrong with that man who seems so dour and sad? Why does that older man seem so self-assured and so clearly ahead of me?" Regardless of how many times the directors point out that there is no "ahead" or "behind" in the spiritual life (it operates on God's time!), Review for Religious retreatants, especially those in the midst of many interior movements, tend to quantify and measure their spiritual life. Competition in life is not always explicit; often it is beneath the surface. Hardly realizing it, retreatants may ask themselves, "Why am I so blas~ compared with that person's energy and zeal? Why am I so slow compared with that person's apparent pace? Thank God I'm not as disengaged as that person seems to be!" Competition readily occurs whether we recognize it, acknowledge it, give words to it, or not. A common date for a repose day for an entire group of retreatants results from the pace and structure of life today: the calendars of all the spirituality-center workers, all the directors, and all the retreatants and the desire to "make sure it all works out neatly." Whether the directors feel that their retreatants are ready for the repose day or not, the general pattern 6 n n[date or la repqye daY for an entire group of retre tants i r"esuits f orn pace ¯and stru tureoflife today. is to give them all a repose day together and then to work around the movements it causes or interferes with. For Ignatius, the spiritual life was marked by spiritual movements. Whether consolation or desolation or ambi-guity, there is movement. That movement requires dis-cernment. That is why he included so many rules for the discernment of spirits in his text, so many details that seem obsessive to the casual reader. Retreatants in a state of serious prayer are already shaped by movements and stirrings. On a repose day with other retreatants, they will inevitably "breathe in" other persons' movements, regard-less of their director's instructions. They have a way of being almost "allergic" to the movements of others. 65.3 2006 Stsano ¯ "Repose Days" during the I~natian Exercises 278i In twenty years of directing the Spiritual Exercises, I have rarely encountered an aware and prayerful per-son who returned from a repose day without being moved interiorly in some way. How do retreatants and their directors discern these movements? Many retreatants can acknowledge the movements and get back to the business of the retreat. Others get "hooked," whether on consolation or desolation. It may be a momentary enthusiasm or aggravation or, on the other hand, a movement that goes to the very heart of who the person is. A wise director needs to be attentive to this and find ways to deal with it head-on. One wants to ensure that the movement does not interfere with the significant movements that Ignatius is seeking in the discernment of the Second Week. Sometimes it is movement that is important to the per-son's prayer, for instance, an insight into a way of pro-ceeding in relationships. Sometimes it is an unhelpful distraction, taking the person "off course" with a con-versation about church or state politics. Many directors fail to ask enough questions about the repose day and its movements in people. They may say to themselves, "Well, both of us have had a good break and now we can move on to the Second Week," and fail to find any deeper meanings in it. Ignatius would want some probing, as he implies in the Sixth Annotation .when he urges directors to ask about the supposedly peripheral aspects of the day (§6). The day of r.epose may easily have caused the retreatant to go into a tailspin, one that could last for several days. Directors who are unsavvy may assume all kinds of reasons for the discouragement, tepidity, or lethargy. The reasons could be much closer to home. The movement could, indeed, reveal important aspects of how God is working with the person. It could also be a move-ment that distracts the person from the ways of God. Review for Religious Communal interaction is good, but, like any "good," it needs to be discerned. One can easily be deceived by its seeming goodness, but sometimes the movement on a repose day can be advantageous to a retreatant. The woman who was apathetic or tepid up till then may com-pare herself with others and realize that she has to get more serious about the spiritual life and her patterns of prayer. The man who was too intense and racing may real-ize that he needs to be more discreet, deliberate, and paced about his prayer. I refer to these movements as "the grace of the repose day." It can spur a tepid person or slow down a fast-paced person. But there can also be serious disad-vantages. What if the movement is artificial? What if the movement from the repose day interferes with movements that were already going on in a person's prayer? What, then, are some of the things that wise and cun-ning spiritual directors need to be aware of when they direct individuals of a group making a retreat, one that includes repose days that may come along at times that are inconvenient to their retreatants' natural movements? First and most essential is the need for discernment. Directors should not think that they are wasting their time, but that they are helping.the exercitant to appro-priate the repose day's meaning for their prayer. Many directors recommend, or even guide retreatants through, an examen of consciousness to discern exactly what the repose time included: life-giving or life-draining con-versations, feelings of gratitude or impatience, of hope or ennui. Quite often the fifth rule (§3 3 3) of the Rules for the Discernment of Spirits for the Second Week is men-tioned. There Ignatius has the retreatant look at the whole course of events pertaining to a spiritual move-ment-- the beginning, middle, and end. Perhaps the exercitant can be asked to read other Rules for Discernment as well. 65.3 2006 Sbano * "Repose Days" during the Ignatian Exercises A second thing regarding a scheduled day of repose for the individuals of a group is that some individuals are ready for that repose day and some are not. If all make it, comparisons will be made regardless of directors' urging not to make them. Directors should ask them-selves, "Should this particular retreatant do the repose day or not? Considering where the person is, will a repose day help or hinder the movements he or she is experiencing?" We can easily be caught by "groupthink" and assume that a ~ o. ~ :' .~.'~ person should havea ,question ~ repose day simply " ~ because the calendar lists it for the conve-nient operation of the retreat center. The truly discerning question is whether or not the individual is ready for a breather. For the per-son who takes part in the repose day (or does not), what instructions should be given? I would recommend not giving the retreatant a repose day just because everyone else is doing it. Directors should ask, "Will this retreatant benefit from the repose day?" The Spiritual Exercises are for the retreatant. Retreatants should not have to bend to accommodate themselves to the schedule of the spirituality center or the team of directors. Third is the structure and length of the repose day. The early directories do not give the impression that there Was a full day of repose. Yet the increasingly common practice is to lengthen the day and perhaps forgo the daily direction period. Teams of directors need to ask carefully what they will suggest for the day. One retreat center's Web site says that a repose day is a good day for an out-ing to a local mall. The cynical mind would see this activ- The truly disce?nihg is whether ,or not the individual is ready for.a breather. 280 Review for Religious ity as giving the retreatant suitable prayer material for the Two Standards meditation coming in just a few days, as if retreatants do not have enough data already. Another director might wonder what a trip to a mall could offer someone who is praying for poverty and the Third Degree of Humility. The length of the day also requires team dis-cussion and discernment. What is the right length--for time to breathe but not go into a tailspin. The practice of repose days is often taken for granted. Directors and teams do not ask enough questions about it. The aim of this article has been to encourage ques-tioning. Notes ~ This note on "repose days" was inspired by three Jesuit novices whose retreat I directed. By their experiences, openness, and questions, Vincent Strand nSJ, Brian Rademacher nSJ, and Christopher Krall nSJ never stopped quietly calling me to move forward in faith. I offer them these words in gratitude. 2 Spiritual Exercises, §99. Unless noted, all quotations to the Exercises are from the translation by Louis J. Puhl SJ, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1951). 3 George E. Ganss SJ, The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius: A Translation and Commentary (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1992), p. 159. 4 Puhl, p. 177. s Number 62 in "Directory of Juan.Alfonso de Polanco," in Martin E. Palmer SJ, On Giving the Spiritual Exercises: The Early Jesuit Manuscript Directories and the Official Directory of I Y99 (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996), p. 131. The Latin text is: "Peracta confessione generali, cum ulterius progrediendum est, ut respiret qui exercetur, meditatio de regno Christi ei proponetur, quae bis fiet, mane scilicet et vesperi; et pro illo die alia non proponantur; deinde sub vesperam Exercitium incar-nationis proponetur, postridie faciendum in aurora." 6 Number 81 in "Directory of Father Antonio Cordeses," in Palmer, p. 275. 7 Number 60 in "A Short Directory for Giving the Society's Exercises Effectively," in Palmer, p. 212. ~ Number 87 in "The Directory of Father Gil Gonz~ilez Dgvila," in Palmer, p. 250. 65.3 2OO6 Sbano * "Repose Days" during the Ignatian Exercises 9 Number 140 in "The Official Directory of 1599," in Palmer, p. 318. 10 Marian Cowan CSJ and John Carroll Futrell SJ, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola: A Handbook for Directors (Denver, Ministry Training Services, 1981), p. 69. 11 William A.M. Peters SJ, "The Kingdom: The Text of the Exercise," Way Supplement 18 (Spring 1973): 9. ~2 Peters, pp. 16 and 11. ~3 Peters, p. 13. 282] Tinsel in August Scraps of it, in the evening grass, Left over from last Christmas's tree Dragged by its stump to its shreddedness, Casting garlands and crowns on its path, Still catch moon-sparks - like the cat With tinsel eyes, going forth into night With glitter afoot from May's prom-party Dress, and June's wedding gown, that drifted Crystal and spangles over the family pets, Over carpeting, over dancers and through cracks In the house. Overhead now, the tinsel Of summer stars slowly shreds with the sullen Advance of thunder and sheet-tinsel garlanding Horizons far to the West. Cat-tag tinseling, Lucifur comes home wet from his tryst. Nancy G. Westerfield Review for Religious CHARLES P. FARRAR Gerard Manley Hopkins's "Lantern out of Doors": A Contemplative Response to Loss Seometimes the clearest way to describe an experi-nce is metaphorically. When an experience is unique and mysterious, we link it to something more common to make it more understandable. According to its Greek roots, metaphor means "to carry across." A well-conceived metaphor carries meaning across from one plane to another, thereby elevating the reader's con-sciousness. Metaphors have always been effective in the deft hands of writers of good spiritual theology: they suggest insights about God. The English Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) was a master of the spiritual metaphor. His poems' everyday images elevate readers' minds to fresh spiritual understandings. In the follow-ing sonnet a lantern conveys the experience of loss. Charles P. Farrar works as a hospital chaplain in Detroit. His address is 1930 Piper Drive, apt. 204; Rochester Hills, Michigan 48307. 65.3 2006 Farrar ¯ Lantern out of Doors 284, The Lantern out of Doors Sometimes a lantern moves along the night. That interests our eyes. And who goes there? I think; where from and bound, I wonder, where, With, all down darkness wide, his wading light? Men go by me whom either beauty bright In mould or mind or what not else makes rare: They rain against our much-thick and marsh air Rich beams, till death or distance buys them quite. Death or distance soon consumes them: wind V~at most I may eye after, be in at the end I cannot, and out of sight is out of mind. Christ minds: Christ's interest, what to avow or amend There, dyes them, heart wfnts, care hfunts, foot f611ows kfnd, Their rfnsom, their rescue, find first, ffst, last frMnd.1 The metaphor here, developing gradually through the two quatrains and the first tercet, is wonderfully subversive. What we think is a lyrical reflection about an ordinary event surprisingly turns out to be much more. The speaker leads us from a concrete observation (a nighttime lantern moving through the speaker's vision), to a more abstract observation about how the lives of beautiful people "go by" him until they disappear from view. What Hopkins is "carrying across" is the striking similarity between the way nighttime travelers pass by on the road and the way peo-ple come and go in our lives. But that is not all. In the last tercet he carries us to another plane of meaning, making a beautiful Christological statement: that Christ can do something which we cannot. He can keep up loving friendships with all those people whose departure from our lives had sad-dened us. This metaphor has carried us contemplatively from an everyday observation to--presto!--the healing of that sadness of ours. Review for Rdigious The first line and a half moves smoothly enough. Then we are jarred by "who goes there?" Suddenly the speaker becomes aware that the moving lantern implies a person. In lines 3 and 4 he drifts into a reverie about the whence and whither of the person "wading" like a lantern through a sea of darkness. All he knows of the person are the few moments of light present amid o.bscurity. The second stanza reflects on the beauty of certain people in the speaker's life, whether physical or internal beauty ("in mould or mind"). Such people are "bright" and "rare," like lanterns in the dark, like "rich beams" that "rain" against the "marsh air" of our mundane life. Notice how subjective this is. He is not primarily describ-ing the beauty in these people or the brightness in the lanterns. Rather he describes how these qualities affect him. (In this way Hopkins follows the tradition of Romantic poets like Wordsworth, Keats, and Rilke.) Consequently, when in line 8 these people leave the speaker's ken by "death or distance," they, for all intents and purposes, cease to exist. The word "quite" in line 8 seems to mean "completely." They disappear com-pletelyJhow tragic! The next tercet (lines 9-11) is a bit twisty to under-stand. And appropriately enough, for the action is the speaker's vain effort to keep these people in view as they go down a winding, twisting road. The Hopkins scholar Peter Milward says: "How eagerly soever he follows the winding steps of such men as they recede into the dark-ness, he cannot 'be in at the end'--that is, follow their subsequent history to its end.''2 The speaker concludes this thought with the clich6"out of sight is out of mind"--as though he is too numb emotionally to come up with a fresh phrase. We cannot help being struck by the loneliness of all this. The poem tells us nothing about these beautiful 65.3 2006 Farrar ¯ Lantern out of Doors The poem tells us nothi 2,861 lantern-like people. It does not reveal any empathy toward them; there is no relationship here. All that mat-ters is how the speaker feels: he sees them as "interesting," "beautiful," "bright," and "rare," and his seeing falls short. It seems he is psychologically trapped inside his own emotions. Notice how, for emphasis, Hopkins chimes the "I" sound three times in: "I about" thkse behut l may eye after, be in at the ¯ "~"~v~,~ia'tern*liv°'~a'i~ ~,,, end / I cannot." To find any happiness, he must be rescued from this solipsistic sighing. The rescue comes quickly in the last three lines. Simply by the sound of them, the reader senses that the speaker's mood has picked up. Thanks to Hopkins's "sprung rhythm," it all bursts to life sis-boom-bah. After lamenting that the beautiful persons disappear from his own mind, the speaker quickly adds that in Christ's mind they live on. Christ, too, is "interested" in those beauti-ful people, but his interest is objective, not subjective. He is interested, not in his feelings about them, but in their welfare. He never fails to "avow" all that is good in them, and he works to "amend" whatever they fail in. The words "~yes them, heart wfints, care hfiunts, foot f611ows kind" run together breathlessly,3 demonstrating an urgency of concern. This urgency, however, comes, not from last-ditch hopes groping in the darkness, but rather from the desire of Christ's heart. It comes from Christ's unconditional interest in them, not because of some particular beauty in them, but simply because of God's unfailing love for them. Christ can succeed where the speaker of the poem fails. His omniscient vision "eyes" all people without Review for Religious interruption. The speaker gladly acknowledges that from heaven our Lord gazes on them perpetually. And his "foot" can "follow" them without interference. This phrase "foot follows kind," incidentally, is a remarkable terse statement of the mystery of the incarnation. Thanks to the Son's taking on a human nature, he can "follow" us, as of one "kind" with him.4 As Hebrews puts it, "since the one who saves and those who are being saved have a common origin, Jesus does not hesitate to treat them as a family.''5 Being divine, Christ can follow us; with a human nature, he cannot help following us. From this, the sonnet's last line flows smoothly, both in its music and its logic. Being our "rescue" (the Messiah saves us from death) and our "ransom" (his sacrifice itself saves us), he has proven himself to be our "first, fast, last friend." Friendship is what the lantern-seeker yearns for but is denied. Abiding friendship, however, is precisely the promise which Christ fulfills.6 From the speaker's existential, self-absorbed lament about his unfulfilled affection for certain beautiful people, he arrives at a place of peace. His conviction that Christ's love for these peo-ple is complete, unlike his own, consoles him. One apparent weakness in the argument of this poem is that the conclusion seems to have been reached too facilely. It seems superficial or unreal that the speaker could assuage his sadness simply by calling Christ to mind. A study of Hopkins's life, however, suggests that the bur-den of this poem was likely learned and earned through a real personal struggle. One episode in his life shows how this sonnet may be somewhat autobiographical. In the winter of 1865, when he was a twenty-year-old Oxford student, he met a young man several years his junior named Digby Dolben. Dolben's cousin Robert Bridges appears to have asked Hopkins the favor of help-ing the younger man gain admission into Oxford. Dolben 65.3 2006 Farrar ¯ Lantern out of Doors was unforgettably vivacious and artistic. The two young men shared a passion for religion and poetry composi-tion. According to Hopkins's celebrated biographer Robert Bernard Martin, Dolben must have made a pow-erful impression on Hopkins's soul.7 His feelings, how-ever, were ambivalent: he relished this friendship, but also struggled with his desire to deepen it. When cir-cumstances required that Dolben move away later that same year, Hopkins was left feeling empty. When he learned of his friend's tragic drowning two years after-wards, he was devastated. Although Hopkins did not elaborate on these feel-ings in his letters or journals, there is a laconic journal entry from 1873: "I received as I think a great mercy about Dolben." This line was written immediately after a ten day spiritual retreat. It is remarkable that this per-son, with whom he had enjoyed communication only for a number of months, would be on his mind all these years later. It is more remarkable that the memory would surface as a consolation after a time of intense prayer. What had been going on in Hopkins's mind all this time? I believe the "Lantern out of Doors" provides a key. The connection between this episode and the sonnet-- albeit speculative--is compelling. Dolben's passing through Hopkins's life was much like the poem's lantern. In Hopkins's quiet and introverted life, Dolben's effer-vescent personality and artistic sensibilities must have been "rich beams" glinting in Hopkins's "marsh air." Moreover, Dolben's departure, first by "distance," then by "death," probably left him feeling much as the poem's first eleven lines leave us readers feeling. We can speculate that Hopkins tried to cope with this predicament psychologically. At this time he was embarking upon an earnest spiritual journey, one which would lead him first to become Catholic and then to join Review for Religious the Society of Jesus. It was a fertile time for him, spiri-tually and artistically. His journals and letters give ample evidence of a soul immersed in wonder and contempla-tion. Hopkins's Ignatian spiritual formation inspired him to seek God's presence in all things. Doubtless, his sad-ness about Digby Dolben entered into his contem-plative exercises. That journal entry referring to the mercy he received about Dolben was most likely a fruit of these devotions. The inspiration of the last three lines of the sonnet might, then, have flowed quite naturally. In a moment of contemplating Christ, the consolation mer-cifully came to him concerning Christ's invincible friend-ship with Dolben. If we could indulge in further conjecture about this sort of contemplation, it is reasonable to suppose that a key might be found in St. Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises. For Hopkins as a Jesuit, this text could have been foun-dational; any experience of consolation could well have been understood in its light. One teaching in the Exercises stands out. The fourth point of the Contemplation to Attain Divine Love instructs the exercitant "to consider how all blessings and gifts descend from above. My lim-ited power, for example, comes from the supreme and infinite power from above. In like manner, justice, good-ness, pity, mercy, etc., descend from above just as the rays from the sun, the waters from the spring, etc.''8 Here one is being directed from a consciousness of blessings and gifts toward a contemplation of the God from whom they descend. It is plausible to imagine the 65.3 2006 Farrar * Lantern out of Doors 290 young Hopkins--still staggered by the radiant gifts that Dolben had brought into his life--in an effort to come to terms with his loss, contemplating the infinite power of Christ, who made these gifts shine through his late friend. And would this not have inspired Hopkins to trust that Christ's light will continue to shine upon and through Dolben for all eternity. Whether Hopkins can see it or not, he can still experience the healing which comes from the conviction that his friend is in very good hands. As Peter Milward elegantly puts it, "the last word 'friend' emphasizes the truth that the 'lantern out of doors' has its end in the love of Christ.''9 Perhaps many of us have had similar struggles and breakthroughs. I, for one, am constantly reminded of feelings of attraction toward the lantern-like people in my life: and also of the helpless sadness of separation. One example comes to mind, which arose out of my work as a hospital chaplain. I responded to a patient's request to visit him. Let us call him John. We enjoyed a rich conversation, about an hour long, about his spiritual his-tory, his family, his hopes for the future, and the mean-ing of life in general. It was the same the next two days. These visits were very fulfilling for me. It was no trou-ble for me to squeeze my schedule to find time for John. On the fourth day, to my surprise, the bed was empty. I discovered he had been discharged just a short time ago. A flood of questions came to mind: What did this mean? Was he feeling better? Why didn't he tell me he was leaving? This last question vexed me most. Like the sonnet's lantern-watcher, my thoughts were more on my letdown than on John's welfare. I felt guilty about that. I also felt guilty about getting so close to a patient. I remembered the hoary old adage of Clinical Pastoral Education: "Be careful about letting the ministry be a satisfaction for your personal needs." Review for Religious But why should I deny the good feelings that these visits with John had given me? They made me feel valu-able as a chaplain, and I wanted more. Like Hopkins contrasting the "much-thick and marsh air" of his mun-dane life with the "rich beams" some people's lives send forth, I wanted to feel that light. It helped me feel com-petent and useful. It gave my ministry an emphatic sense of purpose. I felt connected with this patient and wanted to connect some more. Then, like a lantern in the night, he was gone. I wish I could say that I rebounded immediately and arrived at a profound conviction akin to the insight of the last tercet in Hopkins's sonnet. But to this day I still feel some emptiness about John. As I later spoke with a friend about this, I realized how much emptiness there is in my heart about the many interesting people who have passed into and then out of my life. While I may not have "gotten over" the various sorts of grief occasioned by these losses, I often experience moments of consola-tion about them. I will find myself in the Liturgy, in prayer, in a conversation with someone, or reading, for instance, when some kind of assurance mysteriously comes. It is a consoling belief that Christ is watching over all God's children, that somehow they are all safe in his care. My attempts to analyze or describe these moments of consolation invariably, end in futility. What I can say is that they give me peace. I suppose what hap-pens is that my attention graciously moves from my own self-centered emptiness about the loss to a contemplation of where these individuals are in Christ's perspective, that is to say, watched over, loved, cared for by him. They are welcomed into friendship by their "first, fast, last friend." There are manifold ways to deal therapeutically with loss. Books teaching cognitive techniques consistently 65.3 2006 Farrar ¯ Lantern out of Doors find their place on bestseller lists. Granting the effec-tiveness of these techniques, I hope that believers will also consider the simple insight offered by this lovely poem. I hope we will forever keep our hearts open to seeing that those who have journeyed beyond our eye-sight remain within our Savior's. And there is a consol-ing corollary, that Christ watches my lantern too. Notes 1 Norman H. MacKenzie, ed., The Poetical Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), no. 113, p. 40. 2 Peter Milward, A Commentary on the Sonnets of G.M Hopkins (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1985), p. 62. 3 This effect is aided by the fact, as Milward (p. 63) observes, that the accents are on the verbs. 4 "Kind" has a double meaning here, nature and benevolence. These meanings are especially lovely in contrast to the rhymes (1) "mind" in the phrase "out of mind" and (2) "wind," the speaker's futile visual pursuit of the lanterns' apparent windings. The suggestion in the word "kind" is that the remedy for the speaker's sadness is that Christ is of a kind with us and is kind as well. s Hebrews 2:11, from Eugene H. Peterson, trans., The New Testament in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2002). 6 See John 15:13-15. 7 Robert B. Martin, Gerard Manley Hopkins:/1 Very Private Life (London: Harper, 1991), pp. 80-170. 8 The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, trans. Anthony Mottola (New York: Doubleday, 1964), p. 104. 9 Milward, Commentary, p. 63. Review for Religious RAYMOND R. RYAN Today's Candidates: Who Are They, What Do They Expect? Occasionally, as I try to explain to interested questioners what is going on in the novitiate, their eyes glaze over and I hear them internal-izing W.C. Fields's famous comment, "There's less here than meets the eye." Actually there is much more here than meets the eye. Formation today is dynamic, not static; not only for "them," but also for "us." Otherwise it is only a game, a series of hoops to be jumped through with blithe disregard for the future. Concern for that future, however, has prompted a great deal of research on the char-acteristics of today's candidates for religious life and priesthood. Perhaps a few findings from that research will help us better understand our new-comers, our novices. The fall 2004 issue of Touchstone, the official publication of the Raymond R. Ryan OSA, a former novice director, writes from the Augustinian Provincialate; 20300 Governors Highway; Olympia Fields, Illinois 60461. being religious 65.3 2006 Ryan * Today's Candidates ConversiOff iS ctnii iuou s through: initia[ a nd formation, and.it n ver s opS.i National Federation of Priests' Councils, features an arti-cle by Dominican Andrew Carl Wisdom: "Why Every Generation Matters in Preaching." He indicates that every congregation is made up of four or five distinct commu-nities: Builders (1901.-1924), Silent Generation (1925- 1942), Baby Boomers (1943-1964), Generation X (1964-1981), and Millennials (1981-present). He chal-lenges preachers to be aware of this intergenerational phe-nomenon and address homilies to each generation. It is not uncommon for a novitiate class or a postnovitiate for-mation community to have three generations represented. One of those younger men puts it this way: "I am not simply in formation, but in a real sense in re-for-mation. I am already someone with a full life, commitments, and deeply held con-victions. I don't know that the order is all that ready for people like me." Another, reflecting on his for-mation experience, remarks: "It is understood that we all have faults and reach various levels of maturity dur-ing different stages of our li~'es. However, it is of par-ticular concern when . . . one who has a reasonable, relatively healthy sense of self is now in formation with others who are considerably younger or much older, or have not yet resolved such pressing identity issues as their own sexuality. A formation team must be equipped to recognize and address such disparities within a for-mation community, rather than treat everyone with a one-size-fits-all approach." These observations make us aware that formation today is quite a venture. The two brothers quoted had Review for Religious good insights. One looks for re-formation. For the other, one-size-fits-all formation can be deformation. Obviously, intergenerational living with various levels of maturity and immaturity not only is a challenge, but can be a heavy cross. We who are supposedly "formed" can attest to how adult immaturity adversely affects our communal life. Before mentioning some formation components as they relate to today's candidates, I quote Msgr. Dennis Sheehan, senior Catholic chaplain at Harvard University, regarding some current candidates: Today's seminarian is older and more experienced . My fear is that at times we will form a priest accord-ing to all the directives and requirements. But, if he has not tracked that with the ongoing conversion of his intellectual, moral, and religious life, we are likely to find a formed priest who is only a partial Christian. ¯ . In this generation, when so many come to us chronologically and psychologically older, it is far more difficult to change basic assumptions. They will learn the Scriptures and theology and pass examina-tions . . . but then what? Often enough they can become a canonical enforcer. The collaborative can-didate becomes a clerical Caesar. (Seminary Journal, fall 2004) While Msgr. Sheehan is concerned with priesthood can-didates, his observation can also apply to candidates for religious life. His concern is that both initial and con-tinuing formation be considered matters of unending conversion, a quite Augustinian outlook. Life is a con-tinuing call to change and grow. Conversion, then, is continuous through initial and continuing formation and it never stops. For this reason, today's formation programs have both a strong programmatic component, which presents the elements of Catholic, Christian, and Augustinian (or Benedictine, Franciscan, and so forth) spirituality, and a 65.3 2006 Ryan ¯ Today's Candidates 296 personal/communal component. The latter has four interconnected goals, asking each candidate to: ¯ know himself and his stow; ¯ commit to building and sustaining healthy intimacy in his life; ¯ learn, or continue to learn, and understand that integration is a lifelong process. The gospel calls us to work at continuing conversion and to invite others into that lifelong and life-giving call from the Lord; ¯ allow himself to live in the tensions encountered, accepting that these are a part of integration. We cannot always reconcile tensions or "fix" things. God's presence is experienced just as surely in darkness as in light. The practice of solitude brings perspective, sometimes peace, but always a centering in Jesus, self, and others in our actual circumstances. These goals are spelled out more concretely in some of the following ways. Candidates have spiritual directors at all levels of initial formation. Directors meet those in formation monthly. The history and continuing stoW of God's call is a part of these discussions. When I was in a peer supervision group while novice director, our facil-itator, a Dominican sister with age, wisdom, and grace asked us, usually at a time of conflict or self-doubt, "And what's going on in you right now as you relate your stow?" I did not like the question, even after four and a half years in the group. Why? Because it forced me to clarify what I did not want to face or did not want to integrate into my life. Indeed, sharing ourselves brings deeper self-knowledge and a deeper realization that, the more personal the problem, the more universal it is. Formation today, along with the previously men-tioned personal elements, encourages the communal dimension, in ways perhaps strange or at least fleetingly uncomfortable to some. The "climate check," which we Review for Religious in our province used, is helpful. It is a simple statement of some truth about ourselves, our families, and our lives; it helps us "tune in" to each other--or perhaps find our-selves "on the same page," discovering a commonality of experiences. When community members suffer from misunderstandings or hurts, they are encouraged to meet together. One-on-ones, especially in conflict situations, can help them work through interpersonal difficulties. Sometimes things do not work out as hoped; that can be helpful too. We can ask what this tells us about each other and ourselves: "What's going on in us right now?" Postnovitiate formation invites all of the community members to attend house chapters and community meet-ings-- our more formal community structures. These can effectively introduce newer members into our time-hon-ored ways of being together. Contemporary Augustinian formation encourages personal and communal sharing. This is done not because psychologists have invaded our mid

Issue 4.4 of the Review for Religious, 1945. ; " GRACE AND ~BEAUTY~--G'. AuguStine Ellard, S.J" . 217 ENEMIES OF FAITHmF. X. McMenamy, S.J . " . 229 NEWMAN AND THE RELIGIOUS LIFE Walter J.On.g, S.J. y : . ~'230 ¯ WHY DOES FATHER ASK QUESTIONS? Gerald Kelly, S.J. Bo~JKs RECEIVED . , . .~252~ PERFECTION IS UNION WI*FH,GOD .~Aug, ustine .Klaas,. S.J. ., 253, PAMPHLET NOTICES ,:~ . .-. . OUR LADY;S PARENTS Francis L. Filas, S.J .~ . .OUR' CONTRIBUTORg / . ' ~ . ~ ~- 270 QUEST~IO,N~ AND ANSWERS~. , 35. Blessed Ashes and Things Put in Sacrar~um- " (.' 271° ~ 36. Jurisdiction o~Mother Generiil and ,Local~Superior . ~7. Bo~y of Deceased Sister in Community Chapel . 38. Permission to Close Religious House . . . . . : . 272 ~ 39.~ Rosaries of String for fi.rmed Forces Only. .° . . ,: . . .o .~273 ~40.~Vows and Status of Reliigious.with Mental Disorder .-. '2_.73) ,41. Anticipating Date of Perpetual Vows .- . : .' .-'. , 275 42. ,Su.pterior's Obligation t6 Pro¢ide Monthly Conference COMMUNICATIONS ' ' ~ " ~77 ' ~BOOK 'REVIEWS~ :7 ' ~A'Dynamic World Order; That You May Live: Too S~nall a Wo-rld: The Hope of the.Har4es~; The Nu'rse:. Handmaid of the DivineoPhysi-." _ ¢ian;.Enjoying the NeW Testament . ~: . . . ' 28.2 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, July, 1945. Vol.IV, No. "4. Publishdd-bi- 'monthly: January, March.May, July,S¢ptemb,er, ahd N0ve~ber at the College Press. 606 Harrison Street, Topeka, Kansas, by St.'Mary's College, St., Marys, Kansas, with ecclesiastical appr.obation.' Entered as second clas~ matter January 15 1942'; at the Post Office, Topeka,,~Kansas, "under the act bf March 3, 1879: ' "~ Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis. S.J., G~ ~ugustine Ellard, oS.J., Gerald Keily~ S.J. Editorial Secretary;: Alfred F, Schneider, S~J.2 Copyright, 1945, by'Adam C. Ellis. .Permission is hereby granted'for quotations of, reasonable length, provided due credit be given this r~view an'd the autt~'b~. Subscription pride: 2 dollars a ~'ear. ~ ~ Pilnted in U: S. A. Before writing to'us, please consult notice on Inside fiack cover. G. Augustine Ellard, S.,J. AN EFFECT of sanctifying grace that does not seem to get as much mention and consideration as it deserves is the beauty that it possesses .and adds to the soul. And yet beauty, with truth and goodness, is the object of the principal aspirations of every spirit. Moreover, beauty is an important element,in the value of grace. A clearer .knowledge of the beauty of grace should lead to a highe~ appreciation of it and a more eager desire for it. I. One could hardly hope in the present stage of the evolution of esthetic.philosophy to propose a for.mal defini-tion of beauty that would be generally acceptable. For-tunately, it is one of those things of which nearly every-body feels that he has a fairly satisfactory empirical notion, even though he could not set it forth in words. Among the definitions of beauty current among those who have studied the matter in the light of Aristotellan br Thomistic philosophy .we find : "the spl~ndor of truth" (attributed to Plato); "the splendor of order" (St. Augustine); "the effulgence of form in material elements definiti~ly limited and proportioned, ok in different forces or actions" (S~. Thomas); "the goodness of a thing inasmuch as when known .by the mind it gives delight" (Kleiltgen, [3ung-mann); and "the perfettion of a thing that makes it pleasing to behold" (Gietmann). Some would place beauty in truth, others in the goodness of a thing, arid still others in both truth and goodness together . Even when it ¯ is embodied in material objects, the perception of it i~ essentia!ly spiritual: animals give no evidence of,having a sense of the beautiful. 217 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD Reoietu for~ Religidus Beauty may be either physical or moral. !V~oral beauty is found only:iiri th~ character or moral activity of persons; when one's characte,.r or action,i~ such that the very sight or thought of it ~tit~S delight and admiration, then it is morally.beautiful. Many insta.n.ces of heroism are examples :of it." All 6thOr beauty is physical. This may be material o~ sigiritual. About the material 'ther~ will be rio difficulty, and about the spiritual there need be none. It is simply that beauty which belongs to spirits, as material beauty belongs to visible things. To see and appreciate it properly is poss!ble, of course, only to ~pi~its themselves; but wecan have an analogous knowledge and enjoyment of it. It is very evident that angels must perceive one another and that that perception, of itself, must bring pleasure, in fact, great ¯ pleasure, betause prest~mably the beauty of angels is pro-poi: tionate to. their general ~perfection. Therefore one (good) angel viewing another and finding him pleasant to behold would be ~xperiencing What is meant by physical ~spiritual beauty. 'The angels now in heaven possess, as a matter of fact over and above the beauty that follows their angelic nature, the supernatural beauty of grace. Being g.ood, they exhibit also, of course, moral beauty. Simi-larly, human souls or spirits now i'n heaven and adorned with grace give pleasure to all who see them, both by reason of the natural perfection .and beauty of the. human spirit and because of the love!iness of their grace. It is well to¯note that to please ordelight, the. beautiful need not actfially be seen. It is sufficient that it can be seen, or hgs" been°seen, or can be ~epresented in quasi.-vision before the mind, A young man 'enjoys his belov.ed's beaut~, even when she isabsent: A living human soul in graOe is an object of actuAland full complacence to ~whoever sees it;. therefore c~rtainly to God, most probably to one's guardian angel, and perhaps to all the blessed. In heaven its beauty 218 duly, 1945 GRACE AND BEAUTY will add to the joys of all the angels and saints. Meanwhile there can be great satisfaction in really bein~l beautiful, though that beauty be all hidden.within, and in expecting the future manifestation of it. II. Other works:of God are beautiful; therefore, grace. is beautiful. In view of the extension.of beautyih God's works and the intensity of it in His greater creatures; this argu, ment from induction or analogy, seems to be legitimate. "The firmament on high is his beauty, the beauty of heaven with its glorious shew . The glory of the stars is the beauty-of heaven; the Lord enlighteneth the world on high . Look upon the rainbow and bless him that made it: it is very beautiful in its brightness." (Ecclesiasticus 13 : 1, 10, 12.) If the Supreme Artist has produced beauty so widely, and so profusely throughout His creationm -in natural scenery, inthe forms of crytallization, in flowers, in birds, in the human form and face, and in the angelic nature--it is not likely that He l'ias d~nied a high degree of it to wha.t is in a very true sense one of the greatest of all His productio.ns, namely, sanctifying grace. III. A consideration of the nature of grace confirms the conclusion indicated by induction or analogy. Sanctifying grace is essentially a participation in the divine nature, .that is, in what is in God the fundamental principle of the activity that i~s most characteristic of Him, namely, the direct intuition of infinite truth. Now God Himself must be supremely beautiful. He is the first author of all that is beautiful in His universe, in inanimate scenery, in the stars of the heavens, in the vegetative k.ingdom,. in animals, in men and women, and in the angels. "Let them [men] observing the works of the Creator know how' much the Lord of .them is more beautiful than they: for the first author, of beauty made all tho~e things . For by the greatness of the beauty, and of the creatures, the Creator of 219 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD Review fo~'" Religious them may be seen, so as to be known thereby." (Wisdom 13: 3, "5.) Moreoverall the beauties of human art are ultimately.His creations. As a matter of fact God is not only the origin of all beauty; He is Beauty Itself, absolute, infinite, ineffable beauty, without the slightest admixture of anything that could detract from it. That beauty must be infinite, because the~being, truth, and goodness upon which it is founded are immeasurable. Though all perfec-tions are there, they are unified in the highest degree in abso-lute simplicity, and thus they. exist in the most admirable harmony. God is Hisown uialimited light, brightness, and brilliance. Long ago St. Augustine wrote of the beauty of God: "Consider the whole universe; the,heavens, the earth, the sea, all that is in heaveh or on earth or in the sea: how beau-tiful, how marvelous, how well and wisely arranged it al! is! Do these things move.you? Of course.they move you. Why? Because they are.beautiful. What then of Him. who made them? You would be stunned, I tt'iink, if you saw the beauty of the angels. What therefore of the Creator of tt~e Angels?" ($erm. 19, n.5: ML. 38, 136.) And St. Basil the Great: "Is there anything, I ask, more wonderful than the divine beauty? . .What thought is.there more delightful and pleasant than the magnifice ,rice of God? ¯. Altogether ineffable and indescribable is the brilliance of the divine beauty. Speech cannot make it known, nor ear receive it. Even though you should, think of the splendors of the morning star, the brightness of .the moon, or the light of the sun, everything beside the glory of that beauty. is insignificant and dark, and compared with the true light .is more distant from it than the depth of a gloomy and moonless night from the clearest noonday sun." (Reg. Fus. Tract.; Inteccog. 2, n. 1; MG. 31, 910.) Comprehensively to knox~T the magnitude and fascina£ 220 tibn of Beauty Itself and the enrapturing~effect ofbeholding it is pos~ibl'e only to one of the Bli~ssed Trinity. To.have some proper conception of itand how it feels subjectivdly to. see it is: possible only to those who have experienced the beatific vision, and even they c~uld not express itin human lariguage. Surely it is most significant that, giventhe pres-ent superna~u'ral order oi~ things, nothing on earth or in heaven except the .sight of God can quite satisfy, and quiet the' aspirations of the human spirit. But the sight of infinite truth, goodhess, and beauty is sufficient to beatify even the. divine spirit. Even though the beauty of God must remain concealed from us while we are burdened with the veils of mortality, it is so great that for some contemplatives it can ¯ become a source of the most exquisite delight and ecstasy and a most potent stimulus to di~'ine love. ~, Now sanctifying grace, being a participation oi: the divine nature~ and hence of the divine beauty,' must itself be correspondingly beautiful. Or, in other terms, grace is an assimilation to the divine nature and a resemblarice to it, and must slSar'e in its beauty as a'copy partakes of the excel-lence of a masterpiece. With the sonship to God which grace confer~ it must also brihg something of the paternal lineaments and features. -_,~ St. Cyril of ~Alexandria, speaking of the effect 6f grace, wrote: ".Is it not the Spirit thi~t carves the divine image upon us and like a seal imprints upon us a beauty su.perior to any in the world?" (Dial. 7 De Trin., p. 683.) .Again: "All of us who have :believed and become c6nforrned to God have been made, through union with the Son and the Holy Spirit, paiticipants of.thee divine nature, not only in name but in very reality in as much as we have been glori-fied with a beauty that is above all creation. For Christ is fashioned in us.in a manner that is indescribable, not as one 6feature in another, but as God in created nature in.that He 221 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD Revieu~ for Religious has transformed our created nature through the Holy Spi.rit into His likeness and raised us to a dignity surpassing that. of all creatures." (De Trin. L. 4.) "The Spirit does not, like a painter, reproduce the divine substance in us as if He were extraneous to it, nor does He in .this way bring us to the likeness of God: rather He Himself who is God and pro-ceeds from God is .invisibly impressed upon the hearts of those wh6 receive Him like a seal upon wax, through com-munion and likeness to Himself, again painting our nature with the beauty of its original model and manifesting the divine image in man." (Tfiesaur., MG. 75, 609:) St. Basil: "Man was made according to the image and likeness of God, but sin destroyed the beauty of that image ¯. Let us return to the original grace from which we were ~alienated by sin. And let us beautify ourselves in the like-ness of God." (Serroo Ascet., MG., 31, 869.) Similarly St. Ambrose: "You have been painted there-fore, O man, and painted by the Lord thy God, You have a good artist and painter; do not. spoil the good painting, resplendent, not with color, but with the truth; expressed not~ with wax, but with grace," (Hex. VI, 47.) And St. Augustine: "Human nattire, When it is justified by its Creato~r, is changed from ugliness and deformii:y into a lovely and beautiful form" (De Trin. XV, c. 8, n. 14). IV, Grace also gives one a share in the beauty of Christ. Among the three divine persons of the Blessed Trinity .bea'uty is appropriatedparticularly to the Word, as "being the flashing-forth of" the Father's "glory, and the very .expression of his being" (Hebrews 1:3)i, or, in Knox's yersion, "who is the radianc~ of his Father's splendour, and the full expression of his being~" Even the created beauty of the humanity of Christ, natural and supernatural, physical and¯ moral, material andspiritual, is very great indeed and an object of the keenest delight to all the angels 222 Jul~, 1945 GRACE ,~NI~ BEAUTY and saints who see it. The Church in her liturgy often proclaims that .beauty: "Thou art beautiful above the sons of men: grace is poured abroad in thy lips . With thy comeliness and thy beauty set out, proceed p~osperously, and reign." (Psalm 44:3-.5.) Commenting on this passage St. Augustine. wrote: ',He is beautiful as God, the Word with the Father; He is beautiful i~ the womb .of the Virgin, where He assumed human_ity and did not lose His divinity.; He is beautiful as .a new-born babe and silent Word (infar~s Verbum) . Beautiful therefore in heaven, beautiful~ on on the earth; . beautiful .in His miracle~, beautiful in the scourging; beautiful while callii~g to life,~ and beautiful in not caring about death; beautiful as He lays down His life,.and beautiful in taking it back: beautiful on t.he. cross, beautiful in the sepulcher, beautiful in heaven . Let not, the imperfections of this body turn your eyes away from the splendor of His beauty. (In Psalm. 44, 3.) Clement of Alexandria thus extolls the.attractiveness of Christ: "Our Savior surpasses all human nature. Indeed He is so beautiful that ' He ' alone deserves to be loved b31 us, if we desire true beauty; for He was the truelight." (St~r,om. L. 2, c. 5.) ' . ~ All who receive sanctifying, grace are adorned after the model of Ch~:ist: "For all Of you who were bapt.i~zed into Christ, have pu~ on Christ" (Gala.tinny3:27):1 "My children witt~ whom I am again in tra.~ai.l,~ until Christ be formed in you" (Ibid. 4: 19) : "Those Whom he hath fore-known, them he hath predestined to bear a nature in the ima~ge of his Son's, that he should be first-born among many brethren" (Romans 8:i9). The Fathers of the Church like to emphasize the 1New Testament texts quoted in this article are from the Westminster Edition. 223 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD Retffeu~ for Religious ?esemblance even in appearance between Christ and Chris-tians., Thus St. Cyril.of Alexandria writes: "Nor should we be sons by. adopti.on and inlikeness if there were no real and true son; to His form we are fashioned; to beilike Him we are transformed with a certain art and grace" (Tbesaur. MG., 75, 526). "One is molded to become a son of God according to an excellent model . This beauty is spiritual. ~ By participation in the Holy Spirit they ar~ fashioned in Christ as it were, according to Him as a model . Christ is indeed formed in us, the Holy Spirit impres.sing upon us a certain figurel ~hrough holi-ness and jusgice." (In Isaiarn; IV, II; MG.; 70, 936.) Sim!larly St. Gregory'Nazianzene writes: "Since the day -when y'ou were changed by baptism, all your old features have disappeared, .and one.f°rm l~as been imlSressed upon you all, namely, that of Christ" (Or. 40 In Sancta Lurn., n. 27). V. According to the analysis of the beautiful made by St. Thomas., and followed by many Catholik savants, there are three chief elements that concur to make a thing ¯ beautiful;- integrity, harmony, and brightness. Evidently integrity or completeness, in all parts is neces~'.~y. A person who has lost, say, an arm or a leg would ~:i~ly be a candidate for a beauty prize, nor could a buil'd~.~bf w.,,.hich some integral part has been destroyed exemplify architec~,ural beauty. It is deaf too that .har-mony, taken.in~;. ,,a~.~bgr,~o a,_d sense so as to include symmetry, proportion,, oraer, aria in general proper agreement, is required. All the different components that enter into the constitution of a thing ~bat has beauty~for instance, a cathedral~must have appr6priate size, mutually sui~ one ~nother, be suitably arranged, and all in all so fit together into one.coherent whole as really to mak~ a unit and con-vey .a unified impressioia. Order in some sense is so essential 224 dul~t,.1945 . GRACE AND BEAUTY to beauty that disorder and ugliness are almost synony-mous. = It may be noticed in passing that the name "cos-mos" for the uni~rerse as an ordered system of ,things and th~ term "cosmetics," the art of improving ,:feminine beauty, both come from the same old Greek word for "order." ¯ There is an order that we may call static; it is illus-trated, ¯ for example, in the disposition of an artistically planned pai'b]ti.ng 0r building. Dynamic order is found wherever different movements or actions are subordinated to one purpose: for instance, in the.mecbanlsm of an auto-mobile or in the multitudinous movements of an orches-tra. Order is in a peculiar sense the offspring of intelli-gence; and wherever it is found'and in.whatever degree, it gives satisfaction to the mind that p~rceives it. Though variety is said' to please, no great degree of it is necessary if there be sufficient'richness of content,' as, for example, in the finest silks or velvets, similarly certain single colors and tones, if they be sufficiently pure,, rich, and clear, seem t9 be beautiful. '~The e~y,,e admireth at the beauty of the whiteness thereof tsnow] (Ecclesiasticus 43:20). ~. , The third elen~ent required for the beautiful °is,!bright-heSS. Perfection of being, which is otherwise ~ibl~ to delight one who simply considers it, can hardl,y rfiake much of an impression on one who does not se~ it iclearly. Relat.ively to us, therefore, at least, a ~certain clari~ty of presentation is necessary. J,udged by these three criteria., namely, integrity, har-mony, and brightness;.grace has a right to be called beau-tiful. That it possesses integrity, or in other words that it has all that pertains to its perfection, may be inferred from its spirituality, and also from the fact that it is a creation of the .Divine Artist exclusively. He could not leave one. of 'the highest and noblest of His works incomplete nor 225 G, AUGUSTINE ELLARD Review for Religious inferior in appearance. There is an admirable harmony or order about sanc-tifying grace. To begin with, it sets a person in just the right essential_supernatural' relatiori to God, and thus, :at ~least indirectly, with respect to all other persons and things. Grace is alsoa prindple of order within a man himself inasmuch as it is a source 0f supernatural moral, order and propriety, and hence of .beauty, in all his con-duct. Moreover sanctifyin~ gr.ace'possesses order within itself in the sense that it brings with itself and keeps in proportion all the infused moral virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. All these taken together constitute the supernatural organism, the anatomical basis, so to speak, of the supernatural life, and this organism must have a proportion and symmetry and harmony equal to its gen-. eral excellence. Being spiritual, it must be superior to whatever is material; being of itself immortal and incor- ~uptible,,its beauty should be corr.espondingly great and lovely. Not only this, but since it is supernatural, its attractiveness should be higher 'and better than merely natural spiritual beauty. Oftentimes one of the principal sources of,the satisfaction found in the esthetic contempla-fion of works of beauty is the perception df how the artist has really reached or approached the ideal which was evidently before his mind. In grace, Which is a super-natural likeness of the divinity_---in fact the highest pos-sible likeness of it---~.the in'tended correspondence between the model or ideal and the real must be perfe.ct and com-plete since God Himself is the artist who ~produces it. That grace possesses brightness and adds. a certain light to the soul that it adorns is.abundantly evident from the fact that in all the literature on grace, whether ancient or modern,, light is one of the analogues most commonly used to explain it. Thus the Catechism of the Council of Trent 226 dul~t, 1945 GRACE AND BEAUTY says that grace is "a certain splendor and light, which blots out all.the stains of our souls and makes thos~ souls them- . selves more beautiful and splendid'.' (Or: Balatisrn, 50). Grace, therefore, has its own spir.itual and supernatural ¯ integrity, harm.ony, and brightness, and as such is beautiful or fair to behold. ¯ VI. Beauty as ~an effect of grace was a favorite theme with St. ¯Bonaventure. He liked to conceive grace as making one a sort of spouse of God. Hence it was natural for St, Bonaventure to emphasize the adornment that grace confers and that high and special kind of beauty' which becomes a spouse of God. It makes one so attrac-tive and lovely in the sight of God that one become.s a fit object of divine complacence. "The .king shall greatly desire thy beauty: for he is the Lord thy God, and him they shall adore" (Psalm 44:12). "How beautiful art thou, and how comely, my dearest, in delights" (Canticle of Canticles 7: 6). VII. Among the lekser eventual effects of grace will be the resurrection and the beauty of the glorified body. "Then 'shall the just.shine forth a.s the sun' in the king-dom of their Father" (Matthew 13:43). "The Lord 3esus 'Christ. will tr~lnsform the body of our lowliness, that it may be one with the body of his glory, by the force of that power whereby he is able tb subject all things to himself" (Philippians 3:21). The physical beauty of the glorified body will be yer~ great indeed, even in the case of those in whom it will be least, for instance, in the bodies of b~ptized infants who entered paradise with the lowest measure of grace, or in those sinners or converts who barely squeezed in fit the last moment. "There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies; but the glory of the heavenly is different from that of the earthly'" (I Corinthians 15:40). Oftentimes, 227 G. AUGUSTINE ELLARD 'R~vieu~ [or Religious if not too often, mortal human beauty is enough to enchant and transport men.It is the product of a merely natural process or of the cosmetician's art. Immortal human beauty Will be the creation of the Infinite Artist Himself and such' as befits the final and crowning state of His uni~rerse. The human beauty that we see here is o. nly.too evanescent; celeso tial~ human beauty will be eternal,, forever adding to the delight of all who behold it. Human beauty in this life is granted indiscriminately to the good, bad, and.indifferent. with the advantage rather in favor of the indifferent or bad. -at least because they are more gi.ven to cultivating it. Glorio fled b~au~y is~ reserved for God's. own elect and favorites. Beaut.y here .issuch as becomes this vale of tears; beauty there must be great enough to harmonize with the mag-nificence of the ~elestial mansions and theexcellence of the" persons who form the celestial society. The least beautiful glorified body should be at the minimum, it would seem, incomparably more.lovely than the. most beautiful body not yet glorified. .'What then of the most beautiful men and women in heaven? The personal physical beauty, not only the spiritual, but particularly now that of the glorified bodies of the ~lect, will, like the beatific vision itself, be proportion~ate to~ ~the. amount of grace with which they entered heaven. "There is the ~!ory o~ the sun, and the glory of the moon, and the'glory of the star~; for star differeth from star in glo,ry. And so it is with the resurrection of the dead."" (I Corinthians. 15: 41, 42.) "In the final state such will be the subjection'of t.hebody to the soul that even the quality of the body will. follow the excelience of the mind: whence according to the different degrees of merit, one soul will be more Worthy than another and one body more glorious, than another" (St. Thomas, In II Dist. 21, q. 2, a. 1). VIII. The practical conclusion from all these consid-. 228 GRACE AND BE/~UTY erations is that one who desires to possess the optimum quality and the maximum quantity of beauty, natural and supernatural, physical and moral, spiritual, and b6dily, who wishes to let the greatest number of the best persons enjoy.it, and who would retain all that beauty for the !onges.t time, should devote oneself to accumulating the highest possible measure ofsanctifying grace. Moreover, the more grace one has, the keener will be one's Vision and fruition of the infinite beaugy of God Himself and of all the finite beauty, whether in persons or things, in heaven and throughout the whole universe, and that eternally. ENEMIES OF FAITH The enemies of faith are tw, o and .they are closely related to each othe, r, sin and worldliness, All sin but especially habits of sin obscure spiritual v~sion: make it hard for the mind to see God's full truth. Sin is a thing of darkness, and it loves the darkness to hide its sham~. Worldliness, however, is perhaps the greater enemy of a living faith because more common, more plausible, more insidious seeing that its manifestations are not'always obviously sinful. Worldliness is!a cast of mind and a habit of will that ignore divine adoption: the blight of a naturalism that vitiates one's appraisals, one's likes and dislikes, all of one's habits of life as though one.~were not a son of God. Gradu-ally but surely does it extinguiih the ligl-it bf th~ new knowledge to end in darkness and sin "and disrelish for prayer and the beautiful realities of God.--F. X. MCMENAMY, S.J., in Alter Christus. 229 ' Walter J. Ong, S.J.- MANY religious, sensing beneath the writings of John Henry,Cardinal Newman a character sympathetic to their way of 1if,e, must have asked thdmselves: Why did Newman not become a religious? In this centenary year of his conversion, many will recall that for some time after Newman was received into the Church'on October 9, 1845~ heithought seriously about the religious life as a vocation for himself and for others of the group of Anglicans who came into the Church with him. ~ In a .sense, he finally' decided both for and against the religious state. A year and ~ half after his conversion, he chos,e, in the life devised by St, Philip Neri for his Ora-torians, a place for himself half-way between that of the religious and~that of the diocesan priest. For members of an Oratory of St. Philip Neri are priests, and assisting lay brothers, who live under obedience in a ~ommunity. Never-theless, they are not religious, for they live thus without public vows. The Oratorian community, compared to a religious community,.ii thus very !oosely knit. Each mem-ber in great part provides for his own material needs out of his own resources, and each is free to leave should he wish to do so. Why. did. Newman settle upon this kind of life? Appeal of Religious Life? Was it because the religious life did not at all. appeal ,to him? Some might suspect this. Indeed, owith all the "230 NEWMAN AND THE RELIGIOUS LIFE writing there is about Newman', it would not .be surprising if ~omeone who likes to spade around in the subconscious has turned up a theory that Newman did not become a religious because the re.ligious life demanded too much self-abnegation. Perhaps someone has. Int~res.ting and even amusing texts could be quoted to support the theory. Let us quote a few. Reactions to Religious Observance? In 1846, the year after their conversion, and before their ordination to the priesthood, .Newman and his fellow-convert Ambrose St. John were to go to Rome, where they hoped to mature some definite plans for their future activity in the Church. At Rome they.would s.tay at the Co.llegio di Propaganda, a seminary conducted by theRoman Con-gregation of the Propagation of-the Faith. In this.semi-nary,, or. college, studies were made by many of tbose destined for the priesthood in missionary countries, among which countries England, like America, was classed ~at the time. From a former stud_ent. 'at the Collegio, a Dr. Ferguson, Newman had wormed out an advance description of the life there.'His letter to St. John reporting wh~t Dr. Ferguson b, ad to say s.bows interesting reactions to matters touching the religious life: Every quarter of an hour has its work and is measured-out by rule. It i~ a Jesuit retreat continued through the year. You get .up at half past five, having slept (by compulsion) seven and a half hours, at quarter to six you run into the:passage and kneel down for the Angelus. Then you finish your dressing. At six you begin to meditate--the prefect going up' and down and seeing you are at your work. Three mihutes off the 1half hour a bell rings for the col-loquium. At the half hour (hal'f past six) mass--which every ond attends in surplice. Seven breakfast, some bread and some milk and (I think) coffee. Then follow schools--at half past e1~ven dinner and so on. A dompulsory walk for.an hour and a half in the course 231 Reoieto for Religious of the day.x Newman calls' attention to some details closely related to common life: Recreation an hour after dinner and supper--but all recreate together ~--no private confabs. In like manner no .one must enter any other .person's room. (Corollary. It is no good two'friends going to Propaganda.) . Further, your letters are all opened, and you put the letters you. write into the Rector's hand. To continue--you must not have any." pocket money . "Then there is no good," I asked, '"in taking money." "No," said Dr. F., "none at all." Next, you may not have clothes.of your own--the RectOr takes away coat, trousers, shirts, stockings, ~c. ~c. and gives you some of the Propaganda's. Although the Collegio was run to train not religious but diocesan priests, the details which Newman here singles out for comment includ~ many which remain more or less a permanent part ~)f the religious life~ From the rueful tone of Newman's letter, one might gather that such details 'are listed because they show where the shoe pinched the most unbeara,bly. Little wonder, one would say, that Newman did not' become a religious. The life plainly did not at all appeal to him.' "They give you two cassocks," he goes on, "an old one and a new one." (Newman's own italics). ' "To complete it, he [Dr. Ferguson] said that I should be kept there three years and that I shouid have to read Per- .rone." Reading Perrone seems to have been ~ associated 'iri Dr. Ferguson's mind only with.feelings of the greatest ter-. ror. Perrone, well-known Italian theologian, Was laterto be Newman's friend and champion. But now Newman passes over Perrone's name without comment, having asso- Ciated with the name nothing but the iinister overtones of xWilfrid Ward, The Life of John Henry Cardinal Netoroan (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1913), I, 132. All quotations from this work are with the kind permission of. the publishers. . 232 , Ju1~,1945 NEWMAN AND THE RELIGIOUS LIFE Dr. Ferguson's woeful recollections. "Meanwhile . . . we heard that at Rome . . . 'apart:. ments' have been'got ready at Propaganda for Dr. Wiseman and' me." Newman must have shuddered as he~ wrote "apartments": at least he put~ the word in quotes. "The only allowanc~ I extracted from Dr. Ferguson," be continues, "was that you might bare private papers in your writing desk . Dr. F. said one thing was provided gratis--snuff ad libitum and I should be allowed to take a snuffbox." In the event, Newman was not subjected to the rules here described for the young seminarians. According .to our projected theory, this should pro.re that he had no stomach for any life restrained by strict rule. His.sub-conscious repugnance to restraint asserted itself here, and be somehow automatically edged his way around even temporary regular observance--this enterprising theory would hold. Other evidence could be scraped up. ofit of " Newman's letters to give body to such proof. For instance, shortly after his conversion he writes of a visit just paid to the Catholic college at Oscott:. ChaHes Woodmason and I . . . arrived here on the fe.Xstival of St. Cecilia . We found the passage crowded and no servants to answer the bell, and bad to poke in as we might, leaving our 1Bggage at the entrance. I say they perhaps were" scandalized, for they have the most absurd notions about us. I think they fancy I never eat, and' I have just lost a good dinner in.consequence. After returning from Birmingham walking and hungry, I literally have had to pick up a crust from the floor left at breakfast and eat it,. from shame at asking again and again for fhings.2 Does this hankering for servants 'and victuals Show the spirit of abnegation which the re!ig~ous life demands? And, the letter gets worse instead of better: 2lbid., I, 103-104. 233 WALTER J. ONG Review for Roligious . Wall, we were ushered into the boys' dining room--the orches-tra at the end, and the table~ plentifully laden,for all hearers with cake and (pro pudor)" punch~a very sensible w.ay of hearing mu.sic. They certainly were scandalized at my d~tecting the pu.nch--for they said again and again that it was made of lemon and sugar. All i~can say is that ours.at the high table was ~emarkably stiff,.and that I was obliged to dilute it to twice or thrice i~s quantity with water. More of this kind of thing ~ould be dug from New-man's correspondence, and one could turn it all to account to explain quite ~eadily Newman's turning away from the religious state. His unconscious self had said from the first, "Don't be a religious,'.' adding with standard subconscious ¯ hypocrisy, "but talk sometimes about the religious life So you'll get the credit for being interested in it." Thus New-man's attraction, to the religious state was sham--the the-ory Would conclude. A good conclusion, if only it 'were true. Such a con-clusion, hoWever, would not be founded on fact, but rather on a wild misinterpretation of some of Newman's pleasant-ries. Indeed, the last passage just quoted hints that people bad associated with Newman, not. mere talk, but definite habits of abstemiousness quite in accord with the little sac-rifices demanded by religious life. Newman's Self-Abnegation. )ks.a matter of fact, Newman had such habit~. An appetite for quite real s~lf-abnega~ion in .imitation of Christ had worked itself out very practically in Newman's lifd even before he entered the Catholic Church. In 1842 he had retired from Oxford to the neighboring town of Littlemore, where he gathered some of his Oxford friends. Here he became a Catholic 'and here he continued to live until February,. 1846. We have an account of the place of retreat at Littlemore in a letter in the Tablet shortly after Newman's conversion written by Father Dominic, the 234 July, 1945 NEWMAN ~AND THE',RELIGIOUS LIFE Italian Passionist who received him into the Church. "Littlemore," Father Dominic explains, is a village about :two or three miles from Oxford. It presents nothing charming in its aspect or situation, but is placed in a low, flat country; it exhibits no delightful vill.as, nor agreeable Woods and meadows, but one u~nvafi~d uniform appeara.nce, rather dull than pleasant. In the midst of this village we meet with a building, which has'more the look of a barn than a dwelling:house; and in reality, I think it formerly was a barn. This unsightly.building is "divided by a number of walls, so as to forni so many little cells: and it is So low that you might almost' touch the roof with'your hand. In the interior );ou will find t.h.e most beautiful specimen of patri-archal simplicity and gospel i~overky.8 The Italian was iensitive to the vagaries of the English weather and impressed by the sombrene.ss ofEngland's dark, damp days. Failure to take measures against such conditions was to him a sign of real mortification: To pass from one cell to another, you must go through a little out-side corridor, covered iladeed with tiles, but opeln to all inclemencies of the weather. At the end of this corridor, you find a small dark room,'whi.ch has served as an oratory. The furnishings and diet impressed him most of all. In the cells nothing is to be seen but poverty and simplicity-~bare walls, floors composed' of a few rough bricks, without carpet, a straw bed, one or two chairs, and a few books, this comprises the whole furniture ! !-! The refectory and kitchen are in the same style, all very small and v.ery poor. From this description one may easily guess what sort of diet was used at table: no delicacies, no wine, no .ale.,'no liquors, but seldom meat; all breathing an .air of the strictesk poverty, such I have never witnessed in any religious house in Italy. or France, or in any other.country,where I have been. A C~ipuchin monastery would appear a great palace when compared with Little-more. It is the "best geniuses of the Ang!ican. Church" who. have retired, to this house, Father Dominic goes on, and have lived there--persons "of birth, learning, and pie~ty,. Slbid.o I, 106,107. 235 WAETER 3. ONG Review [or Religiou~ who possessed, or at least might have possessed, the richest livings and fellowships which the Church of England can bestow." And yet it had been said that their living as they had at Littlemore was due to singularity and pride! "Those who entertain such an idea," the good father continues, "might in the same way calumniate our Blessed Saviour; his Apostles, and all the followers of the Gospel." Foroit was plain to any open-eyed observer that the life at Little-more was undertaken in imitation of Christ. The. ho!y and simple Italian priest, as Newman's biographer Wilfrid Ward calls Father Dominic, gets so excited at the blindness and malice of Newman's critics that he breaks into a regular, litany of puns: "O men, O English-men," he almost chants as he concludes his letter to the Tablet, hear the voice of Littlemore. Those wails bear testimony that the Catholic is.a little more than the Protestant Church, the soul a little more than the body, eternity a little more than the present time. Understand well this little more, and I am sure you "will do a little more for your eternal salvation. This is .apparently what made Newman, who was undoubtedly embarrassed by t.he good father's letter, remark that no one at Littlemore could read the letter with a grave face. Bu~ Newman does not contest the facts which Father Dominic had set down. Newman and the English Scbne Littlemore shows in some ways a .greater attraction to a life of self-abnegation and self-surrender than perhaps most religious exhibit before their novitiate. But Little-more provides us as well with the key to Newman's final decision against the religious life. For Littlemore was the place wh~re Newman retired to learn God's will in his regard, and there, were good signs.that the will of God called him elsewhere than to a r.eligious institute. 236 dulyo 1945 NEWMAN AND THE RELIGIOUS LIFE Had he been at the time of his conversion a young man, Newman might perhaps have entered a religious institute and let his life be shaped there, just as Gerard Manley Hop-kins was to do. Hopkins, an Oxford man like Newman and destined like, Newman to become a great figure in nineteenth-century literature, was converted at the 'age of twenty-two. But Newman. (who incidentally, was to be the one to receive Hopkins into the Chu.rch in 1866) was forty-four when he became a Catholic. He bad already cut himself a niche in English life. He had been the leader of a party which had split open the intellectual .world of Oxford and with it the Anglican Church; and, although the party had finally b~een .badly routed by the liberal Anglicans at the. time it lost many of its ,leaders to Rome, Newman's place in the Oxford movement had made him a marked man in England. And here we have the basic reason why New-man did not turn to. the religious state: he felt that his value to the Church, a value already fixed by his place in Eng-land's life, could not be best exploited the~e: ~ Being Taught God's Wilt .W.riting many years later to young Edmund Froude, who had rather precipitately made up his mind to be a religious, Newman sald, "I know you are a prudent boy, and I wish you gravely and continually to pray God, that you may. be taught His Will as regards you. For we must persevere in prayer, if we would learn it.''~ Newman him-self had had to persevere in prayer-to be taught God's will in his regard and this not only with regard to entering the true Church. For a year and a half after his conversion there was an interval of prayerful searching, as both New-man and his friends, eager to find what place God ,had marked out for them, felt their way about the edifice of' the 4Gordon-Huntington Harper, Cardinal Newman and William Froude, A Correspondence (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press. 1933), p. 169. ¯237 ~rALTE~ ,~. ONG ReOiew [or Reti~iou, s Church,'in which they Were at the same time.very much at home and strangely unconversant with many ordinary thifigs. They were at home because they were indeed in their Father's house, about whichthey, had been reading all their ~lives in the Scriptures and in patristic writings. But, how-ever much at home they felt, the fact was, their Father's house or no, they had never been in it before. Forthis rea-son Newman and Ambrose St. John went frorfi~England to Rome in 1846 to imp.rove their knowledge of the Church from the inside. It is a little amusing to see them cautiously smelling out different theological schools at Ro~e or still indulging in themselves something of the amazement of the benevblent Protestant who has just found thht the Cath-olic clergy are not such a bad lot after all. In this vein, Newman, en route to Rome, writes delight-edly from Langres in France to his friend Frederick Bowles that the French clergy are a merry, simple, affectionate set--some of them quite touchingly, kind and warm-hearted towards me, and only one complaining, as I think he did, of English heaviness (our stomachs were in fault) . M. La~ont is Very cheerful, hnd talks Latin well, which few of "the other clergy.do. The Dean does, and is a kind warmhearted person.5 During this time when he was gaining familiarity with the Church from inside her doors, Newman was in close contact with many religious-TDorninicans, Passionists, Jesuits, Franciscans, and others. He bad a Jesuit confessor at Rome. And Newman was certainly thinking of the various religious institutes in terms Of his usefulness in Christ's cause: "'It i~ ,one especial benefit in the Catholic ~burcb," he writes from Rome to Henry Wilberforc~, that a person's usefulness does not ~lepend on the accident of its .SWard, Life,~ I, 136. 23'8 ,lulg, ~94~ NEV~MAN AND THE RELIGIOUS LIFE being found out. There are so many ready-formed modes of'us~ful-hess, great institutions, and orders with great privileges and means, of operation, that he has but to unite himself to one of them, and it is as if Pope and Cardinals took him.up personhlly.° Newman adds a remark which shows that he was ~hinking of the religious life as a sort of r~fuge from pos-sible ecclesiastical honors: Since, I am in for it, I will add," what (as ~far as Io know) I have. never told to anY0ne--thai, before now; my prayers have been so earnest that I never might" have dignity or station, that, as they have been heard as regar.ds the English Church, I think their will be heard now also. They were~ No honors threatened for m~n)~ weary years; but rather failure and misunderstanding. Special Responsibilities But from the time of his conversion Newman was con-scious tl~at he might have "special responsibilities" which .would not'leave his choice of a State of,life entirely free. He was afraid that these responsibilities might not be discov-ered for him evenin Rome. "I can't tell as yet," he informs . Wilberforce in the same letter, what they will make of me here, or whether they will find me but. It is very difficult to get into the mind of a person like me, especially considering so few speak English . . . and I can say .so little in Italian. Newman and St. John had indeed picked up Italian only in their leisurely journey down through Italy to Rome picked it up not without some disaster, as when, mehning to tell a departing Italian acquaintance in Milan that he hoped to.see him in the winter., St. John blunHered confi~ dently, onto the word inferno for inverno and succeeded only "in leaving the startled Italian with the understanding that the English visitor hoped to see him s6on in hell. Newman was delighted at this occurrence, for St. John Olbid., I, 151. " ¯ 239 WALTER J, ONG Review [or Religious was the greater enthusiast for the language. But when they got to R6me arid Newman could pick his way only rather gingeriy through an Italian ~onversation, he fel'tthat he w~s greatly handicapped in his efforts to find his prope,r place within the Church. Newman wanted information and advice. But "what can people know of me?'" he goes on to Wilberforce, . I don't expect people will know me. The consequence will be, that, instead of returnihg with any special responsibilities upon .me, any special work to do, I Should on my return slink into some re~ady-formed plan of operation, and if I did not become a fi~iar or a Jesuit, I should go on hiamdrumming in some theological seminary or the like. Thus Newman felt that, /:or him; fitting into a ready-made plan might indeed be "'slinking" dodging the "spe-cial responsibility." In accordance with this line of thought, the conviction that he should not join a religious institute finally won out, as it had threatened to do from the first. He writes to Dalgair.ns from Rome on the last day of the year 1846: I have'the greatest fear I am bamboozling nays.elf when'I talk of an order: and that, just as Anglicans talk of being Catholics butdraw back when it comes to the pgint, so I, at my time of life, shall never feel able to give up property and take to new habits.7 But the repugnance to giving up property was no greater,. certainly, for Newman than for many who have embraced the religious life, and it was not this, repugnance which decided him in the course he took. He goes on: -Not that I should not do it [enter a religious institute], had I a clear call--but it is so difficult to know what a. clear call is. I do not know ~nough of the rule of the different ~ongregations to haste any opinion yet--and again I do not think I could, religiously, do any-thing that Dr. Wiseman disapproved. 71bid., I, 170. 240 July, 1945 NEWMAN AND THE RELIGIOUS LII::E Final Reasons for the Orator~t Even with this protestation of ignorance concerning the rules of religious institutes, Newman sbts down' at this time ¯ the reasons which were ultimately to d~termine--indeed, we[e already determining--his choice. In thinking of a. .regular life, he continues, a great difficulty . . . is my own previous history: When it comes upon me how late I am trying to serve the Church,the obvious ahswer is, Even saints, such as St. Augustine, St. Ignatius, did not begin in earnest till a late age. "Yes, but I am much older than ~hey." So then I go on to think and to trust that my past life may form a sort of aphorme [base of operations] and a ground of future usefulness. Having lived so long in Oxford, my name and person are known to a very great many people I do not know--so are my books--and I may have begun a workwhich I am,now to finishl Now the ques-tion is whether as a regular I do not at once cut off all this, as becoming a sort of instrument of others, and so clean beginning life again. As a Jesuit e.g. no one ~ould know that I was speaking my own words:" or was a continuation, as it. were, of my former self. Newman goes on to.set down a notion which he,had thought worthwhile ment.ioning to Bishop Wiseman, that he and his associates should be a group or college in Eng-land dependent on Propaganda, which still administered England in place of a regular hierarchy. "This," Newman concludes, "would not be inconsistent ~ith being Ora-torians." By the beginning of the year 1847 Newman and a group of his friends had fixed on the Oratory of St. Philip as their place in the Church--the place where prayer and common sense and the wishes of their eccclesiastical supe-riors made it plain that God wanted them. In the spring of t847 Newman, St. John, W. Goodenough Penny, J. D. Dalgairns, Robert Coffin, Richard Stantc~n, and F. S. Bowles began a brief novitiate at Rome, and in January of the following year the first English Oratorian ~ommunit~r 241 WALTER J. ONG began tO assemble at Birmingham under a rule adapted slightly to the demands of life in England. Newman's Choice and Prbvidence The event proved that Newman's calculations were {ralid, that his patient and' prayerful search had effectively laid his life in the hands of Providence. For it was to the best interests of Christ's Kingdom that Newman should remain preeminently an individual in the minds of the English people. The English never succeeded in under-standing Newman the Catholic. They would never even have tried to understand Newman the religious---the mem-ber of some weird and superstitious'posse of the Pope's. But with Newman the individual they could at least try to sympathize. And that is how Newman won his countrymen in his ,.Apologia pro Vita Sua, diverting the currents of feeling which swirled confusedly about him into channels friendly to the Church. In 1845 and 1846 and 1847 Newman could not see ahead to the Apologia, in which he was to l~iy bare the history of his religious convictions and jus-ti. fy his conversion to Catholicity. But in the Provi-dence of God, which calls some to one kind of life ai~d some to another, "disposing all things sweetly," he took the step in 1847. which made the Apologia possible and turned his life from a long series of failures into.a great spiritual suc-cess. Had he become a .religious, Newman would have had the same story to tell as he tells in the Apologia. But, as he shrewdly foresaw in 1846, no one would have belie~'ed that he was speaking his own words. In the Oratory of St. Philip, only loosely tied to his associates, he remained .in the popular mind Newman, the individual Englishman. That made" possible the work which God bad for him to do. 242 Why Does Father Ask Questions? Gerald Kelly, S.J. DURING the years of his seminary training,, the young priest-to'be is thoroughly instructed in the duties of those who go to confession anal is also made acquainted with some of the principal difficulties that his future, peni-tents might experience. ' This is as it should be, The priest should be able to help and sympathize with his penitents. But that is only one side of the picture. The confessor-. penitent relationship .is "mutual; and, particularly from the point of view of the penitent, it is, perhaps the most pro-f0u. ndly intimate relationship in the world. The penitent often reveals things to the confessor that he Would not dis-close to anyone, else, even his dearest friend.It seems logical, therefore, that the penitent ought to know something of the duties and problems of the confessor. Catholics do know, in.a rather vague way, something of the confessor's duties and difficulties. They know that he ~ears their sins as the ambassador of God and that he is bound by the most rigid and sacred secrecy possible. And they can readily understand that long hours in the confes-sional must be tiresome and must create a. spei:ial :difficulty with regard to the practice of such virtues as patience and kindness. But there are many things that they do not understand" and one of these seems to be the asking of questions by the.confessor.~ If we may judge from remarks heard in conversations about confession, we may conclude that penitents fall into three rather general classes with respect to being questionbd by the confessor. Some penitents rather like it because it 243 GERALD KELLY Reoieu~ for Religiou~ makes their own task easier and makes them more satisfied that their confession was good. Others definitely resent ~luestioning; they want to say what they have to say and then be allowed to go in peace. Still others neither like nor resent the questioning, but among these many wonder why questions are asked. All these classes of penitents--and of course all who teach catechism and instruct others how~ to go to confession--would very likely profit by-a knowledge of som'e of the reasons why the priest questions °~hem; and if they ~kriew these reasons they would very likely try to improve their methods of going to confession and thus avoid the necessity of questions. As a judge in the placeof Christ, the priest gives abso-lution to a worthily-disposed sinner and refuses absolu-tion to the sinner who is not sufficiently disposed. This is the most imporl)ant office of the confessor; but it is not his only.' function. He is also a pb~tsician., with the duty of healing the wounds of sin.and prescribing remedies for the "future; he is, to some extent~ a teacher, with the duty of instructing the ignorant; and he is the spiritual ~:atber to his penitent, with the° duty of giving paternal admonitions, counsel, affd e.ncouragement. In each and' all of these capacities, the priest might tinct reasons, for questioning pe.nitents. I" cannot discuss all these reasons here; but I should like to call attention to those tbat might be most common or most important. Sut~cien't Matter? For the instruction of. seminarians and for the help. of priests, moral theologians sometimes prepare ~¢hat thev call "case books"--that is, books of practical problems that ~the priest .is likely~ to encounter in.his ministry. To make the problem concrete, it is proposed in the form "of a ficti-tious incident. The student is to,decide what he would do 244 ,lul.q, 1945 \VllY DOES FATHER ASK QUES'I~IONS? under the circumstances; then he can check his solution with the solution offered by the author of the book. I can illustrate the first reason why a priest might ask questions by two s.ample Confessions taken from one of these case books. The first confession is that of a devout woman named Eudoxia. "I never detract others, as many women do," EuSoxia tells her confessor. "I have had to listen to men blaspheme, but.I told them I disapprove of their language. And I forgot to say my morning prayers several times.". That, according to the case book, is Eudoxia's entire confession. Not. a real sin is mentioned; and there is no concluding accusation of the sins of her past life. So far as absolution is concerned, Eudoxia might just as well be a newly baptized baby. But there is this l~rofound difference between Eudoxia and the baby" the baby has not sinned, whereas Eudoxia--unless she has the special privilege given to Our Lady--most certainly has committed some small sins, at least in he.r past life. The confessor's problem is to get her to confess a sin. "Perhaps you have told some small lies, or given way to impatience, or committed some other small sins; like sins of vanity?" the confessor asks Eudoxia. Most of us, I am sure, would call this an easy, safe approach, Tl~ere is" nothing particularly opprobrious about these .sins,.and even very good people occasionally fall into them. But not Eudoxia! "Far be it from me, Father," she replies firmly, ever to commit any of those sins!" With that we can leave Eudoxia to her confessor. He may try to explain to her how all people commit some small, sins, and that in her case it is just a matter of recog-nizing the sins and perhaps of examining her conscience more carefully. He might even indicate that she could get some valuable information abmit herself from. those "other 245 GERALD KELLY women" of whom she spoke in her confession or from those men who blasphemed in her presence. But he may not and cannot give absolution until he knows, there is something to absolve. Virtues, mere imperfections, involuntary acts, and doubtful sins (for example: "I accuse myself in so far asI amguilty") arenot sufficient matter for absolution;' and if a confessionconsists entirely of such things~ the con-fessor simply has to ask questions. ¯ Anbther sample confession, taken from the same case bbok, will illustrate the problem of insufficient matter under a slightly different aspect. This time the penitent is a man, .whose Latin name is best translated by Goodfellow. "'Father," runs Goodfellow's confession, "I haven't anything to confess except that I frequently had impure thoughts, and once, when I was traveling, I missed Mass on Sunday." That is the whole of Goodfellow's confession. He seems tO be a man of few deeds and fewer words. The prin-dipal difference between his and Eud0xia's confessions is that Eudoxia deaily confessed no sins, whereas Goodfellow may be confessing real sins. Every confessor learns, after some little ~xperience, that the accusation, "I had impure thoughts," does,not necessarily mean sin. It could mean that the penitent committed a mortal sin against purity_; but it could also mean that the penit.ent was merely tempted against purity--in other words, that the thoughts were entirely involuntary and not at all culpable. And the same may be said for Goodfellow's failure to hear Mass. Devout people sometimes confess "missing Mass," even when they had. a broken leg. They. do not really mean that they sinned; they merely feel better when they tell the confessor aboutoit. Goodfellow might be one of these devout people; perhaps his journey made it impossible to .hear Mass and lie knew this .was no sin. 246 dul~,IP45 WHY DOES FATHER ASK QUESTIONS? If Goodfellow's impure thoughts were involuntary and he had a good excuse or thought he had a good excuse 'for missing Mass, his confession is the same as Eudoxia's: it Gontains no real sin. Strictly speaking, things like this should not be confessed unless one wishes to get, some advice about them; but if the peni.tent does confess them, he should indicate .that they were not sins and should ' include in his confession some other matter for absolution. Otherwise the confessor must ask questions. Mortal or Venial Sin? Even if Goodfellow's impure thoughts were really sin-ful, there would still be a further problem for the confessor. He has to judge, in so far as this is reasonably possible, whether the penitent ~ommitted a venial sin.or a mortal sin: and this judgment is particularly difficult .to make with regard to such things as internal sins. As I said before, the accusation, "I had impure thoughts," may refer merely to a. temptation, in which case it would be no sin at all. But it could also mean that the penitent was guilty of some negli-gence in getting rid of impure thoughts--and this, though it would be a venial, sin, is a far cry from full consent and deliberate mortal sin. All of us learfied (or were supposed to learn) in cate-chism class that a full-fledged mortal sin must have three. elements: serious matter, sufficient ~eflection, and full con-sent of the will. In some types of[accusations a confessor can readily presume that all these elehaents were present;but in many other~ be must ask a question or tWO to determine whether the matter was really, serious or whether there was sufficient reflection and full consent. It is often very difficult, even after questioning, to.forma judgment regarding reflec-tion and consent; and it can happen that both the penitent and the confessor will have to leave the judgment to God. 247 GERALD KELLY Review for Religious But they are not supposed to "leave it to God" without r~aking some reasonable effort to decide it for themselves. I might mention here that the judgment concerning d~gree of guilt is not nearly so important as the judgment ~oncerning sufficiency of matter. A mistake concerning sufficient matter (for example: if the confessor judged that the confession contained real sin when not even a real venial sin was included in thea c'cusa"tion) would make the abso-lution invalid, even though the penitent, being in good faith, would commit no sin. But a mistake in judging the degree of guilt (for example: by judging a sin to be mortal when it was only venial, or vice vers)~) would not affect the validity of the absolution. The Law or: Integrity Reminiscing on catechism days will also bring to our minds the la~ of Christ that all mortal sins must be con-fessed according to species and number: in other words, the ekact kind of ~in committed andthe exact number of times each sin was committed, in so far as the penitent can tell these details, must be confessed. If the priest notices that this law is not being kept, he must prudently help the penitent by questions. The man who has committed mur-der does not satisfy this obligation by merel.y saying that he violated the Fifth Commandment, because there are many ways of violating that Commandment; and if he murdered his brother he would not satisfy his obligation by saying that he had killed a man, because homicide and fratricide are different kinds of sins. Finally, if we make the wild supposition that he bad seven brothers and that he mur-dered them all, he would not fulfill the law of integral con-fession by simply saying that he had murdered his brothers, because he "is Supposed to tell how many mortal sins he committed. 248 dulg, 1945 WHY DOES FATHER ASK QUESTIONS? I realize that homicide and fratricide are not the regular subject-matter for confessions. A Commandment that would probably touch the lives of ordinary people more ¯ closely would be the Sixth. And the confession of sins against this Commandment present~ special difficulties for both penitent and confessor. Penitents find the confession of sins of impurity embarrassing, and they would naturally 'like to keep their accusation as general as possible. Further-more. they often do not know just how to express them-selves, perhaps because they feel that they do not know the proper terms to be used in the confessional. As for the con-fessor, it is easily seen how he might find the questioning of penitents concerning sins of impurity a particularly delicate matter. The best solution to' the mutual embarrassment problem is to have the penitent try to keep the law of .integrity by confessing in his own words the kind of sin he committed. The confession should be brief and to the point. The confessor can hardly fail to understafid: and thus the need of questions, at least on this score, will be avoided. Of course, there are 15enitents who prefer to be questioned in this matter because they find it too difficult to express themselves without help. These penitents should at least mention their inability to the confessor and asl( for his assistance. True Contrition? A very important--in fact, an essential--judgment to be made by the confessor concerns the penitent's disposition. Practically speaking, tbis means that before giving absolu-tion the confessor must judge that his penitent has. true contrition, at least imperfect contrition. Absolution can-not be ~'alid if the penitent has not this minimum'disposi-sition. ¯Generally speaking, of course, the presumption is that 249 GERALD KELLY Review for Religious ¯ people do not confess their,sins unless they are sorry for them. But this presump.tion admits of many exceptions, as the moral theologiai~s are careful to point out. For instance, there is thecase of the penitent w, ho has been prac-t. ically forced to confession by wife, m0ther~ br teacher. It is true that even under such circumstances a good confession can be made; but there is a very real danger that such con-fessions might be insincere and that genuine contrit.ion and desire for absolution mil~ht be lacking. Another difficulty tha't might make for defective contrition is lack of instruc-tion. Great moralists like St. Alphonsus' Liguori point out that many simple people are a~t to get the habit of going to confession without really appreciating the need of contrition; especially with reference to purpose of amend-ment. In all.cases like the above, where the confessor has a reasonable .suspicion that-contrition is lacking or defective, he must ask a question or two. And besides these general difficulties there are certain sl~ecific problems concerning which he must be especially careful. Among these specific cases a m6st important one .is that of the penitent with a habit of serious sin. . The habitual sinner is apt to have a very vague and ineffective purpose of amendment. In. a general way he wants to break his habit, but he fails to decide on any deft-nite way of doing so. Strong habits are not broken in that way. One must.try to find the reason for his habit and try to remove that reason. The habit may be the result of his own weakness; and in this case he must take some means to strengthen himself. Or the habit may be connected with an occasion of sin; and in this event some very drastic measures may" halve to be taken, with regard to the occasion. These are basic points concerning habits of sin; yet the penitent may be ignorant of them and unconscious of his need for 250 J~,ty, 1945 Wl-iy DOES FATHER ASK QUESTIONS? help. And even if he feels his need very acutely, even if h~ is dreadfully discouraged--a not uncommon effect of habits of impurity---~ he may be too timid to ask for help; hence, if the .confessor does not takethe initiative, great harm may result. Even when a habitual sinner shows good Will his pr6b-lem is apt to be a'difficult one, because.it is not always easy to determine the exact ~ause of the trouble and to prescribe an immediately effective remedy. But the difficulty is much more serious when the penitent manifests a lack of sincer-ity: for example,, if he returns to the same confessor again and again without having made any attempt to follow advice, or if he goes from one confessor to another in order to find an "easy" one or to avoid the .need of giving an account of himself. Human nature is prone, to seek the ehsy ¯ way, and the very law of the Church which allows peni-tents a choice of confessors can be abused in such a way ~s to defeat the purpose of confession. Knowing these things. the confessor cannot omit questions when he notices or has a solid reason for suspecting that his peniten( is insincere. Other Reasons :or Questions. Thus far I have given the principal reasonswhy a con-lessor might feel obliged to ask questions: namely, to determine if there is sufficient matter foi absolution; to decide the degree of sinfulness; to help the penitent to make'- a complete, confession; to test the penitent,'s disposition; and to give needed advice and encouragement. Another very important reason is his desire to correct a false con-science. .These and similar purposes all fall within the scope of his sublime office as minister of the sacrament-- as judge, physiciah, teacher, and spiritual father. And to these we might add the simpler and more natural reasons, such as the fact that he does not hear what is.said, or that 25! GERALD KELLY . he is, not 'sure h.e catches "the penitent's meaning. And finally, the confessor is not exempt~from such difficulties as distractions and sleepiness. His mind may wander, and.his head may nod! If penitents were to keep all these things i'n mind, they would not resent questions, bfit they would try to make their confessions sufficiently clear and complete to allow the confessor tom keep his questions to the mini-mum. No doubt-it is true that occasionally unnecessary and even useless questions are asked: but this is'not the rule. Questioning penitents is seldom pleasant. Books Received ¯(From A~rll ZO to ,lune 20) " " LONGMANS~ GREEN. AND CO., INC., London, New York, Toronto. Enjoying the Neu~ Testament. By Margaret T. Monro. $2.50. THE BRUCE PUBLISHING CO. Milwaukee. A Dynamic 1~7or/.d Order. By Rt. Rev. Msgr. Donald~A. Mac Lean, A. M., S.T.L., Ph.D. $2.50. Weapons for Peace. By Thomas P. Neill. $2.50. CATECHETICAL GUILD, St. Paul, Minn. That You Mug Liue. By L. F. Cervantes, S.J. $2.00. SOCIETY OF SISTERS OF THE HOLY NAMES, Marylhurst, Oregon. The Hope of the Hart, est. By a-Sister of the Holy Names. $4.00 (plus postage). FREDERICK PusTET CO., INC., New~ York. Meditations on Eternitg for t~eligious. By the Venerable Mother Julienne Morell, O.P. $2.50. B. HERDER BOOK CO., St. Louis. A Retreat for Religious. By Rev. Andrew Green, O.S.B. $2.00. Christian Denominations. By Rev. Konrad Algermissen. $7.50. MOTHERHOUSE OF IMMACULATE CONCEPTION, Cdnvent Heights, New Britain, Conn. D,n'l~) Progress in Religious Virtues. By Rev. John Pitrus, S.T.D.'$1.60. 252 Perl:ecfion Is Union wish God Augustine Klaas, S.3. WE OFTEN HEAR it said.that spiritual perfection is union with God .and that~ the moreintimate this union is, the greater our perfection. The statement is true;but is there not frequently some haziness of mind as to just what is meant by. union With God and how it per-tains to perfection? Let .us examine variouskinds of union with God and their relation to spiritual perfectionl Hgposti~tic Union with God 'The closest union of our human nature with the divine is had in Jesus_Christ by rdason, of the hypostatic union, that is, the union of the divine and human natures of Christ in the Person of the Word. One Persofi, the Son of God, having a divine nature from all eternity, took to Himself a human nature like our very own from. the flesh of Mary, and by a viriginal birth became also .the son of Mary. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt' among us" (John 1 : 14). ~Or as. Pope Saint Leo the Great graphically expresses it: "the Wisdom of God built a house in the flesh, whkh He took from a human being, and which He animated with a -rational soul." The human nature of.Christ ever remains distinct from the divine, but the two natures, are subs[an-t~ iallg united in the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. This is the closest possible .union of our human nature with God. Such an intimate, substantial union of the human and the divine is had in Jesus Christ alone, for revelation tells of only one hypostatic union. It were blasphemy to say that in our pursuit of perfection we could ever attain to such an 253 AUGUSTINE KLAAS for Religious immediate union with God. We cannot even understand its character fu!ly since'it is an ineffable mystery. Before it we can only bow our heads in faith, in adoration, and in grati-tude, too, because from the hypostat!c union comes not only our sublime Model of perfection, but also from it, as from a fo~antainbead, flow all our grace, justification, incorporation into the Mystical Body, spiritual perfection. and ultimately our everlasting:union with God in heaven. Union with God in Hea~)en The blessed Jn heaven are intimately united to God. This union of our human nature with ,the divine is not substantial, like the previous one, but only accidental. Called the beatific vision, it is an immediate intuitive p.er-ception of the essence of God ~esuking in 10ve, and a sati-ating joy and bliss that Will last forever. Aided .by the "light of glory; the blessed see God face to face. .'.'We see'nqw, ,through a glass in a dark manner.; but then fa~e to face" (I Corinthians 13" 12). And because of this direct vision of God the blessed love God to' their utmost and are supremely happy for all eternity~ They can neither increase nor diminish this union, since their time of probation is over. They are home at last in their Father's house. ¯ However, union with God in heaven is not had by all the blessed in the same degree, for "there are many man-sions" in our~elestial abode. What determines its degree? The degree o.f our vision of God and of our capacity for love and happiness .hereafter is indirect proportion to the sanctifying grace, merit, and spiritual perfection we have acquired in this l~fe. In other words, the degree.of our union with God in heaven is measured wholly by the degree of our union with God on earth. Union with God on Earth On earth we are united to God' by sanctffging grace. 254 dul~,1945 PERFECTION IS uNIoN WITH GOD Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical on the Holy spirit explains this union as follows: No. one can express the greatness of this work of divine grace in the souls.of men. Wherefore, both in Holy Scripture and in the Gritings. of the Fathers, men are styled regenerated, new creatures, partakers of 0the Divine Nature, children of God, godlike, and similar el~ithets. Now these great blessings are justly'considered as especially belonging to the. Holy Spiri.t . . . He not only .brings to us His Divine gifts, 15ut is the Author of them and is Himself the supreme Gift . To show tile nature and e~icacy of this gift it is.wel! to recall the explanation given by thee Doctors.of the Church of the words of Holy Scripture. Tfiey say that God is.present and exists in'all thin, gs by His. power, in so far as all things are sub'ject toHis power; by His presence, inasmuch a's al! thin~s are uncovered and open to His eyes; by His essence, inasmuch as He is present to all.as the cause of their being (St. Thomas, Summa Tbeologica I, Q. 8, Art. 3). But God is' in ma.n, not just as. in lifeles~ things, but in the.furthe.r way thaf He is also known and loved by him, since even by nature we spontane-ously love, desire and seek after the good.~ Moreover, God by'grac~ resides in the justsoul.as in a temple, in a most intimateand peculiar manner. From this proceeds that union of affection by which the soul adheres cl~sely to God, mor~ so than the friend is united t6 his most lovi.ng and beloved friend,' ~nd enjoys God in all fulness and sweetness. Now this wonderful union, which is prop~ly called "indwelling," differing only in degree or state from that with which God beatifies the saints in Heaven, alt1~ougl4 it is most certainly produced by ~the presence of the whole Blessed Trin-ity--" We {vill come to him, and will make .our abode ,with him" (dohn 14: 23)--nevertheless' is attributed in .a peculiar manner to the Holy Spirit. " Habitual union with God present in the~soul in a pecul-iar way through sanctif)fing, grace is of. the very essence of spiritual perfection in this world, since without sanct.ifying. grace we are supernaturallyand spiritualIy dead. On the other hand, the more sanctifying grace is increased in our souls by the worthy r.eception of the sacraments, especially of the Holy Eucharist, and by the assiduous practice of .the 255 AUGUSTINE KI~AAS Review [or Religious virtues, principally charity, the more, intimate becomes our habitual union with God and "the greater our spiritual.per-fection. When We shall have.acquired the maximum sanc-tifying grace we are capable of, granted our particular, indi-vidual opportunities of nature and.of grace, then.we shall hard attained to the closes~ habitual union with God and tbe highest perfection. This fundamental, essential perfec-tion spiritual writers sometimes call static, perfectior~. There is still another union with God flowing almost spontaneously from the'preceding'one-active union. Ac-tive union with God is called d~cnamic perfection and is what we ordinarily mean when we speak of spiritual per-fection. It consists in union with God by mind and will activity. Union with God b~t Mind Activity Active union with God" through intellect is had by thinking of God, by acquiring more and more knowledge of Him and His divine attributes fromthe .double source of reason and supernatural faith. Such knowledge of God is highly praised in Holy Scripture: "For to know thee is perfect justicei and to know thy justice, and thy power, is'tbe root of immo~tali,ty" (Wisdom 15:3). And Saint Paul: "Furthermore I count all things to be but loss for the ' excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ my lord (Philippians 3:8) . in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:3). Among the Fathers of the Church, did not Saint Augustine epitomize the whole of the spiritual life as an ever increasing knowledge of self and of God? By knowledge of God is here meant not. merely theo-retical knowledge, scientific knowledge, knowledge of God acquired chiefly by the study of philosophy and theology, book knowledge, if you will. Practical knowledge of God. 256 July, 1945 PERFECTION I$ ~JNION WITH GOD that is, knc~wledge inducing will activity, , is still more important. Let us evaluate knowl~dge of God with refer~ ence to perfection. Theoretical knowledge of God is excellent. It can be, .and frequently is, a puissant help and incentive' tospiritual perfection. However, it must be asserted that while such knowledge provides a useful soiid basis for perfection, it does not constitute our spiritual perfection, nor even.indi-care the degree of perfection we may possess. Have there ¯ not been saints, like Benedict Labre and Bernadette Soubi-rous, whose scientific theoretical knowledge of God was ¯ very meager? On the other hand, do we not sometimes see students of theology, who have a verst superior knowledg~ of God and work at it all day long; leading imperfect liveR? The fallen angels have an excellent theoretical knowledge of God, but they are the very opposite of perfect. Eminent theologians warn us that perfection "does not consist in union with God by mind activity alone, even a great deal o~ it. "Tell me, dear Father," said Brother Giles one day to the learned Saint Bonaventure, "can a simple, uneducated person love God as much as a scholar? . Yes," replied Bonaventure, "a simple, little old grandmother can love God more¯ than a master of theology." Whereupon, we are told, guileless Brottier Giles rose up, rushed out ¯ th?ough the garden and along the streets of the town crying at the top Of his voice: :"O poor, ignorant, simple old grand-mother, love Gri!! You can still overtake Brother Bona-venture." If this is true, what the little old gran.dmother probably bad was not so much a theoretical as a practical, a '~realized" knowledge of God, a knowledge leading to,the firm judgment.and deep conviction:' "I must value and 10ve God above all else." ¯UpOn this pract!cal mind activity can be built the loftiest perfection, but in itself it still is not the union with God that is equated with spiritual perfection. 257 AUGUSTINE "KLAAS Reoiew for~ Retigiou; Hence, .while we must greatly esteem knowledge of God, both theoretical ~nd practical, and strive constantly and perseveringly to incre~ise it, by meditation, .by spiritual reading, by delving deeper into the truths of faith, by ofien recalling the presence of God. by recollection, and the like, we must not remain content with only that. If we would be perfect we must pass from union with God by mere mind activity to something b~yonfl, to something still more. pre-. cious, to union witb God' by will activity,by~love. Saint Teresa of Avila says t.hat clearly when discussing union with God in her Foundations (chapter 5): "The soul's advancement, does not conist in thinking much; but in loving much." Our spiritual perfection .is measured, .therefore, not by our knowledge of God, even though it be the knowledge of strong supernatural faith, but rather by" our~active lo~¢e of Him. That is why Saint Thomas can say that "the love of those things which are above us; and especially of God, is to be preferred to the knowledge ~f them: Wherefore charity is more excellent than fafth" ¯ (Summa II-II. Q. 23, Art. 6). A'nd so the little old grand~ mother could probably never overtake the saintly Doctor of the Church by her mind activity, even hi~r practical mind activity: she could overtake him by her will, by her union with God through will acti~;ity, by her active love of God. : Union with God by Will Actiuitg Presupposing in the soul a-close union With God through sanctifying grace and a certain necessary union with Him through mind activi(y, we maintain that spir-itual perfection consists above all in union with God by will activity, that is, by active love of God. Supernal~ural faith and hope must be present in the soul, but we are per-fect in proportion as we love God more; and when we have 258 du1~,1945 PERFECTION IS UNION WITH GOD attained the maximum.activelove of God we are capable of with the assistance of grace, then we have reached the very summit of the mount of perfection. Active love is th~ norm and gauge of spiritual perfection. We are just as perfect as we are united to God by active love of Him. Such is the unanimous teaching of Catholic theologians. as for instance, Saint Thomas, who states in his Perfection of Spiritual Life that "the spiritual life consists principall~r in charity. He is simply perfect in the spiritual life who is perfect in charity."° It is' the teaching of the Fathers of the Church who agree with Saint Augustine when he informs us in. his work On Nature and Grace that "incipi-ent charity is incipient justice [justice here means holiness] ; advanced charity is advanced justice; great charity.is great justice; perfect charity is perfect justice." It is the teaching of Saint Paul (I Corinthians 13). It is the explicit teaching of Christ Himself: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and withlthy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greates.t and the first com-mandment. And the second-is like to th~s:.Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." (Matthew 22:37-39.) And again: "Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). And Saint ~John explains: ':God is charity. '" (I John 4: 16).1 Degrees of Union with God Spiritual masters have made many attempts to give us ~he ascending scale, of degrees in this unifying love of God and the characteristics that mark each degree. They are at ,variance in detail; fundamentally, however, they are in accord, for the main landings on the grand stairway leading to the highest love of God are p.retty well known and agreed upon by all. There are three suchlafidings or degrees of 1For. a fuller treatment of this point, el. Revi'eto for Reliyious, Vol. I, pp. 238 sqq. 259 ¯ ~,UGUSTINE KLAAS union with God through love. In the first the soul is so united to God and loves Him to such a degree that it habitually avoids all mortal sin and the occasions of grave sin. It has a nascent but still feeble desire for greater perfection; it still commits many venial sins, but it struggles valiantly and successfully against strong temptations. Penance for the past, purification, and mortification characterize this rather negative degree. Its prayer is mainly discursive meditation on the .fundamental truths of faith, particularly the four last things. This is the degree of beginners in the life of perfection and it is called the Purgative W.ay. in the second degree, the soul not only avoids all mor-tal sin, but habitually rejects deliberate venial sin. It makes advances in detachment from creatures and has an inc.reasing desire for perfection. The degree is more positive than negative, since the emphasis is on the acquirement of the virtues, especially by the imitation ot~ and assimilation to Christ, "the way, the truth, and the life." The prayer in this degree tends to be predominantly affective. It is the degree of those ad.vancing in perfection: it is called the" Illuminative Way. Presupposing the habitual practice of the other two, the third degree is marked by the struggle to reduce semi-deliberate venial sins and imperfections to the minimum. The soul has made great strides towards heroic detachment and is now intent on the maximum practice of the counsels and works of supererogat!on. Its manner of praying becomes more and more simple, contemplation of God's attributes being a favorite form in this degree. Intense charity permeates all its activity, since it now lives for God alone. This is the Unitive W.ay. Of course, these degrees cannot be rigidly delimited. Nor does .the soul. leave one degree and proceed to the next 260 July, 1945 PERFECTION IS UNION WITH GOD mechanically: it may. be and generally.is ~to some extent in all degrees at once. For example, in.order.to keep onese!f babitually from mortal sin, does one not have to observe a certain number of.the counsels? ~.Is the soul in the third degree exempt from doing penance? The Whole matter is one 0f emphasis, and according to the predominance of the va.rious.qualities noted above, a soul.can be easily placed in one of the tb?ee degrees. Moreover, tb~ third degree admits of indefinite progress, since we can neverlove God as much as He can be loved, and hence; our unions with Him can ,ever become more., intimat~ ag long as we live on this earth. Perf.ect and Imperfect. Love of God From the restricted viewpoi.nt of, nobility of moti~ce .two kinds Of active love of God may be distinguished. can love God above all else because He is good to us. Such is the love of God .indicated by the Psalmist when .be exclaims: "For thee my flesh and my heart hath fainted away" thou art the God of-my b.eart, and the God that is my portion forever" (Psalms 72:26). And again: ."I will ¯ love thee, O Lord,my strength.: the Lord, is-my firmament, my.refu'ge, and ~my deliverer . " .(Psalms 1'7:2). Our Lord appeals to thismotive when He proposes "treasure. in bea'Oen. '~ tbe"bundredfold," and "life e.verlasting." Because of the less perfect nature of the motive this love of God, called "imperfect love" or "i.nterested love" of God. it is already a great deal and should by no means be contemned or slighted, but there is a higher love of God springing from a nobler motive: "perfect. love," or as it is sometimes called "disinterested love", of God. "Perfect love" of God is had when We love Him above all else not so much for the good He so generously bestows on us, but for Himself, because He is all-good in Himself. , This "perfect love" is known as the love of benevolence and 261 AUGUSTINE KL&AS Revietv /:or Religio~s friendship. In its exercise we prescind from our own inter-ests or at least subordinate them to Him, since we love God simply for Himself,, and not for our own advantage. "Fhis highest of motives makes this the highest type of love of .God. In it we take complacent delight in God and in His perfections; we ardent!y desire to glorify Him; we actively give glory to Him by conforming our will as much as pos-sible in all. things to His: we .bring others to glorify Him. And all tl~is simply because God is God,.because God is all-good and all-lovable in Himself. The love Of benevolence affd friendship: is perfected extensively when we embrace by our lov~ more of the per-fections of God and more of His creatures; it: is perfected intensivelty when we make the acts of love more vehemently and more constantly until we develop a solid habit of the perfect love of God. W'hen the love reaches the maximum we are capable of then we are simply perfect. M~/stic Union with God Finally, there is still another union with God for which the union by rhind and will activity is an indispensable preparation. It is mystic union, a special gift of God's grace to His favored friends. Mystic unidn with God, an earthly union which approaches that of theblessed in heaven, is not necessary for spiritual perfection, but it is a potent means to it because it results insublime and intense acts of the perfect love of God. The precious gift of mystic union generally presupposes in him who receives it an advanced degree of union with God by active love, espe-cially perfect love. Conclusion To conclude by way of.summary: spiritual perfection is union with. God. It is union with God by a maximum 262 July/, 1945 ' PERFECTION IS UNION WITH GOD of sanctifying grace, called static perfection. It is unio.,n., with God. by a certain am.ount of necessary supernatura'[ mind activity, theoretical and practical. It is union with God by a maximum of supernatural will activity, a maxi-mum of the perfect love of God, called dynamic perfecti.on. This earthly union with God .whkh is our perfecti6n merits for us and is the measure~of our Union with God in "heaven, our ultimate, inamissible perfection. All our union with God, both in heaven and on earth, all.our spiritual perfection, we owe to the hyp0static union with God had in Jesus Christ, since He as God-man merited them fbr us by His life, passion and death. Moreover, He is the peerless Model of all spiritual perfection and union with God. PAMPHLET NOTICES It seems that religious institutes in increasing numbers are issuing pamphlets and other material to attract aspirants to their ranks. This is as it should be. One such pamphlet comes from South Africa and bears the title, Priestly/ and Religious Voca-tion. After giving a brief account of the m. issionary activity of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the author, Father T. F. Kelly, O.M.I., describes the nature and signs of vocation both in relation to the priesthood and to the religious life. He con-cludes with an earnest plea to the generous young people of South Africa to heed' the call of Christ. The pamphlet may be.obtained from the Oblate Novitiate, 44 Park-hill Road, Glebe, Germistou, Transvaal, South Africa. With the same purpose in mind the Sisters of Loretto, Lor~tto M0therho~se, Ner~inx. P.O., Kentucky, have issued a folder entitled "Congratulations Pegg~It."' Written in the form of a letter to a young woman about to enter the novitiate it gives us a brief account of the founding, the history, and the ~vork of the Lorettines in the Uuited States and in China. Some good photogral~hs depicting houses and activities of the congregation greatly increase the value of the folder. Father Albert H. Dolan, O.Carm., the zealous promoter of devotion to St. Therese of Lisieux, has issued a pamphlet, St. Therese, Patroness of the Mis-sions. In 16 pages he sets forth the reasons why SL Therese was chosen as Patron-ess of the Missions and urges her devout clients to follow her example of prayer and unfemittipg sacrifice for the missions. The pamphlet may be obtained from The Carmelite Press, 6413 Dante Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, or 55 Demarest Avenue; Engie~ood, N.J. Piice: ten cents. 263 Our,.Lady's Parents Francis L. Filas, S.3. MUCofH thaes p waree Wntso.u lodf l iOkue rt o,L'kandoyw, w thee c aacnt"u afli nlidf en-osttohriyng directl'y concerning them in the Gospels. However~ Holy Scripture gives us some information in stating that Christ was promised to Abraham and to 3acob, ~nd that He came out of the tribe of 3uda.1 This means that 3esus was a son of David and a son of Abraham, not only legally ~hrough St. 3oseph but also naturally through the Blessed Virgin, and therefore through her parents, 3oachim and /~nne. Various Scripture scholars have proposed a rather ingenious theory tO show that Luke set forth the genealogy of Mary rather than of 3oseph when he.wrote, "And 3esus Hi.resell, when He began His work, was about thirty years . of age, beingmas was supposed--the son of 3osdph, the son of Heli . : . the son of David . . the son of Adam. who was the son of God" (3:23). According to this the-ory the text is phrased differently so as to read, "3esus. being--as was suppbsed the son of 3oseph--the sori of Hell," and so,forth. Thus the person of Heli is identified with the person of 3oachim. Even further, the two names are said~ to be the same, for "Hell" ~Eli) is taken as a shortened form of "Eliachim." Both "Eliachim'~ and "3oachim" are interchangeable, meaning in Hebrew, "God sets up." Unfortunately, so charming a .theory is far from being accepted by all Scripture scholars. From earliest times the ¯ genealogies of Matthew and Luke have usually been inter- XGenesis 18,22, 28; Luke 1:32; Romans'l :3; 2 Timothy 2:8; Hebrews 8. 264 OUR LADY'S PARENi'S preted as giving the 1,egaI ancestry of Our Lord through St. Joseph and not through Mary. This has been the gen-eral tenor of opinion even thoug,19 no one theory fits per-fectly in further explaining th~ problems connected with the two varying accounts. Because of this silence ofthe Gospels we must turn to the only other possible sources of information concerning Mary's parents: the Iegends of Joachim and Anne. The Legends of Joachim and Anne At first sigh~ it might)seem a worthless task to have recourse to a legend to seek data about historic personages. Yet in the case of Joachim and Anne nothing else exists. We must at least consider what' was said about them, even if we cannot a~cept it all as true. The earliest account in which they are mentioned.-is Called the Protoeoange! of James, a work pretending to be a history of the birth of Mary and of the early events in tl~e life of Jesus. 'Having originated about 150 A, D., it is 0nly a hundred years younger than the Gospels and thus enjoys a reputation of antiquity. .- In common with other apocryphal literature ,of its type the Protoeoanget of James was apparently based on snatches of true tradition--a sort.of 'pious gossip---con-cerning Christ and those who were near to Him. Some~ thing like our modern historical novel, the Protoevanget wa~ meant to fill in with plausible details the gaps where the curiosity of the faithful was left unsatisfied by the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke~ and John. But unlike "these Gospels the Apocryphal tradition was of purely human origin. It was neither divinely inspired when com-posed nor providentially kept pure when transmitted. Accordingly, as it was.repeated again and again in word and writing, it accumulated more and more exaggerations, 265 FRANCIS L. FILAS R6biew for Religious and additions, so that at the present day we have no way of determining what is genuine and what is spurious in ~its content. The Chur~ch never accepted this imitation of the true Gospels, but early branded it as apocryphal'(as, for example, in .the Decree' of Pope Gelasius in 495). The majority of early Fa,thers of the Church, as well as later ecclesiastical writers, likewise recognized it as counterfeiL None the less, popular authors in the Middle Ages and afterward borrowed .extensively from .the legendary, source in order to stimulate the great ~levotion of the Ages of Faith. In all this spurious devotional literature the ques-tion of lying or passing on a lie was seemingly not attended to; rather, generous hearts uncritically sought and eagerly accepted every means to gain mbre knowledge, of the lives of desus and His saints. Two enlargements were made of the legend of ,loachiin and Anne as it appeared in the Pt'ptoevar~gd of da~es: namely, the Gospel of Pseado-Matthev~ (about 450 A. D.) and the Gospel of the Nativity/ [~f Mat'V (exact date unknown). As is evident, there is more likelihood of truth in the original, the P, rotoevar~get, than in any of its suc-ceeding variations. This is the substance of the original account: Joadhim is a rich and generous shepherd. He and his Wife Anne are deepl.y grieved because they have no chil-. dren. V~rhile Anne is lamenting tl6e curse of her sterility, an angel appears tO her with the Words, "The Lord hath heard thor prayer, and thou shalt conceive, and shalt bring forth; and thy seed shall be spoken of in all the world." At the same tim~ a similar vision is granted Joach~m ~hile tending his flocks~ In gratitude to God, Anne promises to consecrate.he~ child to the divine service in the Temple. Upon the birth'of the child, who receives the name of 266 dulg, 1945 OUR LADY'S PARENTS l~ary, the happy mother breaks out into a canticle of thanksgiving. Later, when she is three years old, Mary is .brought to the,Temple and joyfully remains there to praise and serve God. Such is the g!st of the early chapters of the Proto-evangel of James. In the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew :the story is given more imagingtive coloring: Joachim's gen-erosity is described at greater length. He distributes his riches to the poor and to those "who' worshipped God"' before taking ashare for himself. At 15 he is already a wealthy shepherd" and at 20 be marries Anne, "the daughter of Acbar, of his own tribe, that is,. of the tribe of 'Juda of the family of David." The couple's childlessness lasts for twenty years, after which the angels appear to Anne and Joachim. The rest of this tale merely develops the story of the Protoevangel, adding more details, greatek emphasis, and .particularly more frequent miraculous inter-ventions. The third and final form of the legend is contained in the Gospel of the Nativitg of Maw, a charming though unhistorical con~pilation of the preceding tradition. This Gospel does not'add substantially to the tale of th~ Proto-evangel, but rather edits it.so that the poetical beauty of the narrative is heightened and made more sublime. ~What Is True of Joachim and Anne? The task of separating the true' from the false in the old Apocryphal legends is most difficult, if not impossible. Yet, though we have no historical norms by which to judge, we can at least, attempt to determine what is definitely interpo!ated and what can perhaps be a vestige of the orig-inal correct tradition. ' In the first place, the special i'niracles of the angelic appa-ritions are quite doubtful. Such momentous divine inter- 267 FRANCIS L. FILAS Review for Religiods ventions in the lives of the parents of Mary would certainly have &awn so muchattention should we say notoriety? .-=to the Blessed Virgin that the obscurity which a-ccom-panied her life with doseph and desus would have given way to constant public notice. Moreoyer,- the Proto-evangel of dames, like all the Apocrypha, has a'very explicit tendency to scatter miracles with a bountiful hand through-out its narrative. Perhaps the most cogent reason for denying credibility to the miracles of the,Protoeoar~gel is the evident modeling of these prodigies on genuine miracles related in Holy Scripture. All the writers of Apocryphal legends are eager to have their accounts placed on a par with the canonical Gospels. They not only copy typical Gospel stories, but even plagiarize directly from th~ inspired text. In thecase ofdoachim his forty days" fast as a prayer. to obtain a child is based on the fasts of Moses, Elias, and Christ.~ Even more striking is the parallel between Anne~s prayer to (3od and theprayer of ,~dnna, mother of Samuel, that the Lord "would give to His servant a man-child.''3 Again, the canticle of thanksgiving of Anne, wife of 3oa-" chim, .is suspiciously similar to.the canticle of her earlier namesake and, .to some extent, to the Mayrffficat of the Blessed Virgin.4 In contrast to the few imi~ortant details given by the Gospels, the legends go to great lengths to set forth trivi-alities. -That is why the familiar details concerning Joa-chim's prosperity must also be re]ected. They constitute precisely the information which the Apocrypha were invented to supply. o The least~doubtful of all the data in the legend is the correctness o.f. the names Joachim and Anne. It seems UExodus 24:18, 34:28; .3 Kings 19:8; Matthew. 4:2. al Kings 1:9,18. 41 Kings 2: Luke 1:46-55. 268 dulq, 1945 'OuR'LADY'S PARENTS likely that,the name "Anne'~ (Anna: Hannah) reminded the early writer of Hannah, mother of Samuel, and thus led him to introduce the direct divine announcement of the forthcoming birth Of M~ry, modeled on that of the annouficement of the birth of Samuel. On the other hand, "Elcana," the name of the father Of Samuel has no resem-blance to "Joachim," the name of the father of Mary. Neither the names nor the circumstances related of Joachim and Elcana are similar. Finally, we must not forget that in all Christian centuries "Joachim" and ".Anne" were accepted as the names of the parents of Mary even while.the other details of their legend were discarded by the majority of Church scholars. While we .can prudently, doubt the authenticity of the legends of 3oachim and Anne, we know with absolute cer-tainty that God gave them every grace needed for their posi-tion as father and fiaother of the Mother Of God: The all-perfect and sinless Mary could hardly be born of any but the most saintly parents. In granting Joachim and Anne the title of saints, the Church has acted wisely and con-si~ te.ntly. The devotion v~hieh it sanctioned does not strand or fall with the correctness or falsity of the iegends. Rather, it represents the honor that is logically paid to the two per-sons ;¢¢hom the Eternal Father chose to bring forth the Mother of God. Just as J~sus sancti~fied Mary and Jose.ph by.His close relations with them, so must Mary .have sanc-tiffed h~r father and mother by her intimacy with ~hem in the years durir~g whi(h God was preparing her for her career as mother of the Savior and as the mother of all redeemed mankind. , The words of St. Peter Damian best express the atti-tude we ought to cultivate with regard to the details of the lives of Mary's parents. "There are s~ome," he writes, "who ¯ w~shing to know what is useless, seek with vain and exces- , 269 ¯ FRANCIS L. FILAS sire curiosity to find who was the father and who ¯ mother of Mary. They seek. to discover in vain¯What the Evar~gelist deemed it superfluous to ~elate. Had this knowledge been necessary, so noble a historiafi would not have neglected to give it to us, inasmuch as it is the constant practice of the sacred writers never to say .what can injure and never to omit what it is useful for us to know.''" If the greatness of the Blessed Virgin stemmed from. ,Joachim and Anne, the Gospels would have described them fully to us. But the case is actuallythe opposite. Mary is the light in whose reflected glory her parents shine. That is sufficient for Our interest. With absolute assurance we know the greatness of Mary from the revealed word of God. This fact again is more than enough to deduce the greatness of her parents. Our piety and devotion do not rest on an old tradition which cannot be authenticated and might one day be proved false in its'entirety. They are based on the truth demonstrated again and again during nine'teen cen-turies of Christian history--nearer to Ma~y means nearer to God. OUR CONTRI.BUTORS AUGUSTINE KLAAS, Professor of Sacramental Theology at St. Mary's College, is the author of several previous articles on the nature of perfection. (~. AUGUSTINE ELLARD and GERALD KELLY are members of our Editorial Board and Professors of Ascetical Theology and Moral Theology respectively. WALTER J. ONG is a stu-dent of theology at St. Mary's. FRANCIS L, FILAS, who has recently been ordained to the priesthood at West Baden College, West Baden Springs, Indiana. has con-tributed several articles to earlier i~sues of the REVIEW. ~Hom. 3 in Natio. B.V,M. .270 ( ues ions and Answers 35 Many sacristans would be grateful ~o you if you would publish these qu6stions and the answers to them in Review for Religious: (I) Must blessed ashes left over Trom Ash Wedn~e~day be put into the sacrarlumT. (2) Please llst all things that should be put into the sacrarlum. 1 ) Yes, it.ls proper to put the blessed ashes into the sacrarium, or else to throw them into the fire. (2) We cannot guarantee to give a list of all the thifigs that should be put into the sacrarium. Here are some of them: used baptismal water, other .blessed water, the.contents of the ablution cup kept near the tabernacle, the water used in washing the altar linens (palls, purificators, and corporals), and the water left in the taoabo dish after Mass. Please outlln~ the respective jurisdiction of the mother general and the local superior in a motherhouse in .which there is alsoa novitiate. What authority should each exercise with regard to (I) Sisters residing habitually in the house, (2). Sisters visiting the motherhouse, (3} occasional, events.~ The mother general goverias the institute as a whole; the local superior governs the local community just as any .other local superior does. Hence the Sisters residing habitually in the house, as well as Sisters visiting the motherhouse, are subject to the local Superior as they would be in any other community. As to occasional events, these have reference either to the local community or to the institute as a whole. In the first case they are under the direction of the local superior, in the second case under that of the mother ~eneral. The novitiate i~ directly under the care and supervision of the mistress of ndvices. Canon 561, § 1 clearly indicates this: "The master (mistress) of novices alone has the right and the obligation of providing for.the formation of the nbvices; he alone is charge.d with the direction of the novitiate, so that no one, under whatever pretext, may interfere in these matters, except 'superiors who are permitted to do so by the constitutions and the canonical visitors; as to the gen-eral discipline of the house, the master (mistress),. together v~ith.the novices themselves, is subject to the (local) superior." 271 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Review for Religious In two of our cqnvents there has been a bng-standlng custom of taking the body of a deceasi~d Sister to the communlty.chapel on the afternoon before the day of the funeral. I recall either hearing or reading that only the body of a deceased bishop, priest, etc., may be left in the church or chapel befor~ the burial Mass. What is the affltude of the Church on this point? Has canon law any provisions regarding.this maffer? There seems to be no positive, legislation either prohibiting or permitting the body of a deceased person to be brought to .the church or' chapel the day before the funeral and to remain there overnight. o Hence it would seem to be determined by local custom. In places where such a custom has been observed for a long time it may be con-tinued, but it .should not be introduced in other pkices without first consulting the local ordinary. 38 Some years ago we opened a mission house in a diocese distinct from that in which our motherhouse is located. We obtained permission from both bishops to do so. We now wish to close this house, because of serious difficulties. Is it necessary to informboth bishops of our intention to dis-continue our services in that particular parish? The closing, of a religious house is provided for in canon 498 which reads as follows: "No religious housel whether formal or not, belonging to an exbmpt institute, can be suppressed without apostolic authority; a house belonging to a non-exempt congregation approved or commended by the Holy See can be suppressed by the.supbrior gen-eral with the consent of the local ordinary; if it belongs to a diocesan congregation, it can be suppressed by "the mere authority .of the local ordin.ary after consultation with the superior of the congregation, subject however to the prescription of canon 493 if there be questio,n of an only house, and preserving the right of recourse with suspensive ~ effect to the Apostolic See." "' .Hence we must distinguish three cas~s: (1) The house belongs to an exemp.t institute, that is, to an order (which is exempt by law) or to a congregation which enjoys:a special privilege of exemption. In this case the permission of the Holy See must be obtained in order" to close the house. (2) The house .belongs to a congregation approved or commended (decree of praise) by the Holy See. In this case the superior general can close the house with the comenr .of the local ordin.ary, that is, the bishop of the.diocese in which, the house to 272 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS be closed is located. If' the bishop does not igiv.e his consent, the house cannot b~ closed by the su15erior general, o But the perrnissibn of the bishop of the diocese in which the motherhouse is located is not required to close a house in another diocese. (3) The house belongs to a diocesan congregation. The local ordinary alone can close it after consultation with the superior general of the congregation. The superior 'general cannot close the house: odly the bishop can do so. He must consult the superior general, but he does not need the consent o~ the latter. However, if the superior general thinks the house should not be closed, he may appeal to the Holy See against the decree of the bishop. Until the Holy See decides the case the decree remains sus-pended. ~ ~ m39~ On page 306 of the September, 1944, issue of t.he Review, you have an' article on rosaries made of string. We are eager to learn if anyone use these rosaries and gain the indulgences, or is their use restricted to those who are in the armed forc'es? May~ the rosary indulgences be gained by using the rosary plaques which have a kind of notched bead effect forming a decade around the plaque? These have been advertised in some Catholic reviews. ~ From the fact that this extraordinary privilege of blessing rosaries made of string was granted only to chaplains of the British and Allied Forces for the duration of the war, provided they already enjoyed the privilege of blessing and,indulgencing rosaries, it wo.uld seem to follow that the use of such.rosaries is confined to members of the armed forces. It is very doubtful whether others may use them and gain the indulgences ;ittached. In order that it may be blessed and enriched with indulgences,'a ¯ rosary must be made in the form prescribed.by the Church, that is, it must consist of five, ten, or fifteen, decades. The Sacred Congrega-tion of Indulgences explicitly declared on January 20, 1836, that gold or silver rings upon which ten beads had been embossed could not be blessed with the indulgences of the rosary. Such devices as ¯ rings and plaques may be a help for counting Parers and Ayes, but one would not gain the indulgences attached to the recitation of the beads by using them Is a religious institute justified in refusing perpetual vows to a religious who from the first year of her temporai'y profession began' fo manifest' .273 QUESTIbNS AND ANSWERS Review [or Religioug sym.ptoms of a psychosis (dementia praecox h/pc)?' The doctor s!ncerely believes that the cause and perhaps some minor symptoms may have been present heft;re her first'profession (unknown to the relkjious herself). The doctor also recommends that the individual return to the world because she will have a better chance of maklncj' a normal adjustment outside the environs of the cloister. The answer to this case is contained in canon 637: '"Those who have ,made profession of temporary vows may, when the term of the vows has expired, freely leave the institute: likewi'se, the institute, for just and reasonable motives, cab excltid~ the rehglous from renewin~ the temporary vows o_r~from~,making profession of perpetual~vows, nbt however because-bf ili health unless it be clearly proved that the religious, before profession, had fraudulently hidden or dissimulated the.illness." The institute, therefore; may not refuse perpet.ual vows to the religious in question if she did not fraudulently conceal her illness. The religious, however, is free to leave at~th.e expiration of her tem-porary vows, and a dispensation would readily be g'ranted by the proper a.uthority before the temporary vows have expired. It would be advisable, therefore, to have the doctor inform the Sister frankly of her condition and of the prospect of recovery outside the cloister, and to have him suggest to her that she should ask for a dispensation from her temporary vows, or at least leave of her own accord at the expiration of her temporary vows. If the Sister insists on staying, however, the institute may not send h~r away but must allow her to take perpetual vows if she is mdnt~lly capable of doing so. With reference to those who may be incapable of pronouncing final vows, it may be useful to introduce here two answers regarding the treatment and status of a religious who loses his mind during the period of tempbrary vows. The answers were given by the Sacred Congregation of Religious on Februars; 5, 1925, with the approval of His Holiness, Pius XI. "Whether one who is professed of the simple vows in an order or congregation, and who during the three years loses his mind, even incurably according, to the judgment of physicians, can at the end of three years be sent ,back to his relatives or into the world, or whether he must be kept in the religious institute?" The answer given: "In the negative'to the first part; in the af~rmative to the. second." To the further question: "What is the juridical condition of such 274 1945 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS a religious, and what are the obligations of the religious institute in the matter?" the reply was: "The' religious in question belongs to the religious institute in the state in which he was when he lost his mind. and the institute has th~ same obligations towards him that it,had at that time." ~41-- A certain mother superior of a concjreoafio~ in which temporary vows are taken for a year at a time for three: years preparatory to perpetual profess!on availed herself of the permission granted by canon 577, § 2 to "anticipate the renewal of temporary vows by one month. Thus, suppose the Sisters who made their first temporary profession on August IS, 1942, were permiHed to renew their vows for a year on July IS, 1943, and again on June IS, 1944, and final!y were'allowed to take their perpetual vows on June 15, 1945. Would such perpetual vows be valid? No, the perpetual vows .would not be valid because canon 572 requires that a period of three years x~ith temporary vows precede the profession of perpetual vows in order that it "may be valid. The Sis-ters in question had temporary" vows for only two years and ten months. Hence their perpetual vows were invalid. The mother superior misunderstood the permission granted in canon 577. This allows the renewal of temp,orary vows to be antici-pated ¯ by some days but not beyond one month. It does not take away any of the time required for temporary vows. When the Sis-ters took their first vows for a year, that year expired on the same recurring day one year later, August I15, 1943. Hence the vows which were renewed for another year on duly 15, "1943 did not begin to bind until'August 15, 1943, and did not ,expire until August 15, 1944. That this is the only meaning which canon 577 can have becomes evident if we read canon 34, § '3, 5° which tells us how time is to be computed in this case: "When there is question of acts to be renewed at stated times, for instance, a period of three years after temporary profession up to perpetual prof,ession, the'~ime ends on the same recurring day on which it began, but th~ new act may be placed. at any time on ~bat day." Hence perpettial profession may not be made until the same calendar day three years.after the first tempora(y profession ~was made. As w~ have seen above, this complete period of three .years is require.d bE canon 572 for the validit~l of the perpetual. professio.n. 275 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS --42-- Wh~t ;s the ob~J;ga~fion of the local superior wlth regard to conferences to be given to the community from time to time? How often should they be given? Must they be 9;yen by a priest? What is to be done if no priest ;s available? Canon 509 prescribes that "the local superiors shall take care . . . to have given at least twice a month . especially in lay institutes, a pious exhortation to all the members of the house." This exhortation is something.different from the catechetical instruction pre.scribed by the same canon for lay Brothers ahd l~ay Sisters (that separate class of religious devoted-to domestic duties), The purpose of the exhorta-tion is not principally to instruct but to renew the religious spirit and to urge the members of the commu.nity to even greater efforts in the observance of religious discipline and in the acquirement of religious virtues. These exhortations should be given to the community twice a month. Several eminent authors are of the opinion that they need not be given during the summer vacation. The law says that Superiors shall take care. This is a milder form of precept than the ordinary must se'e to it. It requires serious diligence on the part of the superior to have these exhortations given tO the community twice a month. If after diligent care has been exerted' the exhortation, cannot be had, the law is not violated.~ The exhortation may be given by the superior himself or by some other religious of the community tirovided he is capable. In !ay con-gregations an effort should be made to have a priest give these exhor-tations, at least from time t6 time. In case a, priest Or a capable reli-gious cannot be had to give these exhortations, it is recommended that a conference be read in place of the exhortation. Within kecent ¯ years excellent conferences written especially for religious have been published by Fatherg Skelly, Muntsch, Gabriels, and others. They will serve as a substitute for the exhortation as far as subject matter is concerned. This substitute, however, cannot be strictly imposed, since a pious reading is not the juridical substitute for an exhortation. However, in practice, when nothing better can be had, such pious reading of a conference dealing with a subject relating directly to the religious life will.he.lp to attain the puypose of the law, namely, to stir up the religious spirit' and to renew religious observance. 276 ommunicatdons Aga~ns~ "Formalism" " Reverend Fathers: In your last issue a Priest Religious objected to a pointa Sister brought upin the question, "Is there not too much formalism in our life?" The Sister had a point that should make all superiors examine their own governing of their communities. Is adherence to any com-munity rule more important than charity to the laity? 'But that is only by the way. I'd like to answer in my own humble way some of the arguments he proposes in' answer to her question. He begins by saying that we religious are professional people and can't be expected to be on call twenty-four hours a day. Well, if we are professional people, what is our profession? Unless" the religious is in a cdntemplative order, i~n'.t it the saving of souls by persor/al dealings with them? Helping souls to heaven by teaching, preaching, administering the sacra'merits, leading souls closer to Christ by our own'example, especially charity--not only in spiritdal mat-ters but in mundane matters as ~well? We should thank God that the people trust us enough to come to us with their e~rery day troubles, andif these .things make ours a twenty-four-hou,r-a-day job, then that's what it should be. It will be a sorry day for us if they ever do lose this trust in us, and we are not helpingmatters by refusing to even see them. It would be pretty difficult to imagine Christ or the Bles-sed Virgin setting up office hours for those who wanted to talk to them. The story of Christ and the little children gives us some idea of what He would d6. The Priest Religious then goes on to say tha't religious orders would be wrecked over night if their members were at the mercy of every whim and caprice of undisciplined souls that want us to be serv-ants of the pe~ople whenever their impulse suggests. From what I understand of religious life, we're supposed to be servants of the people even when their impulse doesn't suggest it. And as to-the first part, if any order can be wrecked because people want advice, comfort, or even a "hand-out," from the individual members of.the order, it would probably be" for the" good of the Church if it were wrecked. 277 COMMUNICATIONS Reoiew for Rel!yiot~s I know of no such order; but if any exists, its foundations are cer-tainly very shallow--its members are not. at all Christ-like, and they don't give the correct picture of the "Love thy neighbor" policy that Christ preached and that they should practice. The Priest Religious' then goes on to say, "any priest or religious who i~ at the continual call of unreasonable people . endangers his health." That sou,nds as if the average priest or religious has a line of unreasonable people waiting to see him or her all day long. .I've worked' in a large city parish and no one of the five priests there, no matter how popular, ever had more than four different parties waiting for him. It might take him a couple of ho.urs to see them all, but isn't that our job? Not only God, but even the laity expect us to do more than say Mass, hear confessions, run sick calls, teach in the school, and conduct a couple of sodalities. Then too, the average caller at a rectory or convert( is not unreasonable. Certainly., there are.so.me. and we can't expect to be immune. But bnly one out of ten could be called truly unreasonable. The rest of the time isn't the priest or Sister the unreasonable one when he or she objects that the parlor call is taking them from something else? His letter then goes oh to say, "One means of taking care of this situation is to have an intelligent doorkeeper who can "judge when there is a real need." Heaven help us! Why not tell the house-kegper to call us only for sick calls. People usually come to see a priest, not a housekeeper. I've only been ordained nine years, but even I.can see t~e'spirit of anti-clericalism that is growing even among our own people. Much of this is our own fault." Too often we see or hear of a priest or religious who i~ so high-handed that he makes himself inaccessible to the people. That isn't exactly what Christ had in mind when He called us .to be "fishers of men." No, I'm afraid I can't agree with this Pries~ Religious. If we have people storming the doors of our rectories because they want to see the priest, good for us!! True, our health may be endangered by this overwork, but what greater way to become ill tha~by serving the people, reasonable or unreasonable, as Christ would waht us to? In conclusion, to the Sister wl~o asked, "Is there not too much formalism in our life?" I'd like to say, "There certainlyis, Sister, and not nearly enough charity." A Diocesan Priest 278 Jul[t, "19 4 ~ COMMUNICATIONS Delayed Vocations Reverend Fathers: I remember a few years ago a Catholic weekly began to tun a page ~ for the men in~ the.service. Soon the women in the service com-plained that nothing was done for them. Perhaps they will make the same complaint When they realize that' something big is beihg done for the men to keep alive the grace of a vocation to the religious and (or) priestly life, or to enkindle such a vocation. No doubt there are women in the service whom Christ will favor with the call to serve Him as Sisters; women Whom He will want tO continue their marvellous work of caring for the ~eedy and the sick and of educating children, but not without consecrating their lives to ¯ Him in religion as His Spous,.es. These women will bare bad training in rather rigid discipline: they will have learned that it is possible to live contentedly in a uniform that is not made of silks and satins; they will know what it mean~ to make sacrifices for others. It would certainly' be of great heip for them to follow the inspi-rations ot: grace if they would receive positive encouragement from the Sisterhoods, if they .knew they are really wanted. Sisterhoods that are interested in such vocations should let the women know that they are willing to accept them. My attention was called to the Little Flower Mission Circle, Inc. (321.E. 156tb St., New York 55, N. Y.) for the promotion of vocations to all religious communities. It publishe.s a quarterl3~ chlled Come, Folloto Me. Perhaps this could serve the purpose. Or, a bulletin similar to lntroibo could be printed. Centers might be designated where such candidates could meet, either in a schoolc or in the parish hall, or perhaps even in the convent parlor. Tber~ they could come in direct contact with the Sisters. It seems that' such a venture would be most pleasing to Christ and quite profitable to religious communities and to the Church. Religious Priest [EDITORS' NOTE: Upon "receipt of the preceding communication we wrote to the Editor of lmroibo and asked him to tell us something about this publication. We received the following answer--with permission to publish it if we wished.] Reverend Fathers: lntroibo is a mimeographed bulletin that has had three issues since 279 COMMUNICATIONS . Review [or Religlous January and will have five mbre each~year? It is sent to any service-man who writes to Introibo, 19 Eye St., N.W., Washington 1, D.C. It is meant for servicemen who plan to be diocesan priests, religious priests, or Brothers. It makes no difference.what diocese the men will belong t%,or what religious institute they intend to join. The bu

Issue 4.6 of the Review for Religious, 1945. ; ¯ for " " ' NOVEMBER 15, 1945 ";Joseph's Jubilee, ¯ , . Francis Latin Psaffer . Michael J. ~ ;nce of Rel;9;ous . ~,dam Consider ,~n~ic~ris~? . A.gusfi, C. I:~:No÷ of TMs Fold . Job. S. Co~( s from fhe C~ounci] of Trent . A., ~)~0ne but Jesus" . Charles F. Theology for Everybody . '. Gerald Co~municafions Ouesfions Answered.' ¯ Decisions of the HolySee 'Books Reviewed Index t"o Volume Four " EVlE FOR RELIGI VOLUME IV NOVEMBER 15, 1945 NUMBER, CONTENTS ST. JOSEPH'S JUBILEE Francis L. Filas. S.J . TI~tE NEW LATIN PSALTE'RNMichael J. Gruenthaner, S.J . 365_'~ BOOKLET NOTICES . ". ~ . 372 CORRESPONDENCE O'F RELIGIOUS--Adam C. Ellis, S.J . 373~. WHY'NOT CONSIDER ANTICHRIST?Augustin C. Wand. S.J. STILL NOT OF THIS FOLD~-John E. oogan. s.J . CONCERNING COMMUNICATIONS . 398 S.PiRITUAL READINGS FROM .THE COUNCIL OF TRENT IIN Augustine Klaas; S.J. " . 39,~ "NO ONE BUT JESUS"-~Charles F. Donovan. S.J . 4~5~' BCOKS RECEIVED .~. .'; . 409 LITURGICAL PROCEEDINGS .~. . : . MORAL THEOLOGY FOR EVERYBODY.---Gerald Kelly, S.3. DECISIONS OF THE HOLY SEE . 421" NEW CONTRIBUTORS . 422. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS-- 47. Sick Sister Requests Comm.union_ . . 48: Number of Siiters in United States .° . .423 49. Superior's Duty to Demand Salaries . 423 50. Apostates from Religion Exi:ommunicated .424 51. Right to Introduce New Devotions . BdOK REVIEWS-- Christian Denominations: Further Discourses on the. Ho!y Ghost: Moral Theology; The Ho.ly Sacrifice: Augustine's Quest for Wisdom .425~ INDEX TO VOLUME IV . ~ . ~ . 429 REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. November. 1945. V61. IV. No. 6. Published bi-monthly : ,January. March. May, July, September. and .November at the College Pres.s, if 606 Harrison Street; Topeka. Kansas, by St. Mary's College; St. Marys, Kansas.l with ecclesiastical approbation. Entered as second class matter January 15. at the Post Office, Topeka. Kansas. under the act of March 3, 187,9. Editorial Board: Adam C. Ellis. S.3. G. Augustine Ellard. S.3., Gerald Kelly, Editorial Secretary: Alfred-F. Schneider. S.J. " Copyright. 1945. by Adam C. Ellis. Permission is hereby granted for quotation: of 'reasonable length, provided 'due credit be given this rewew and ,the authoi, Subscription price: 2 dollars a year. // Printed in U. S. Before writin~ to u~, ple~se"consult notice on Inside back cover. .:(. ~, St. Joseph's Jubilee Francis L: Filas, S.J. ~N DECEMBER 8, seventy-fivE years ago, Pope Pius IX, acceding to the wishes of hundreds of bishops and thousands-of priests and faithful, declared St. Joseph Patron. of the Universal Chtirch. This action on the part of the Holy Father marked, the end of the era of ~t. Joseph's obscurit~y and ushered in'a period ~when the humble, lovable foster-father of-Jesus was honored to an extent far.beyond th~ most optimistic hope~ of the early proponents.ofhis devotion. The prese.nt sketch purposes tO relate how and why St. Joseph obtained his outstanding ,position in the devotional life of/he Church. .~ ¯ Pope Leo XHI in his encyclical, Quamquam Pluries, su~cinc-t[y set forth the basis for Joseph's p.atronage: ' The Holy Family which Josepl~ governed, as with paternal authority, so he.wrote, contained the beginnings.of the new. "Church. Here was Mary, the Mother of God, who was to become the m6ther of all Christians when she bore them 6n .Ca!vary amid the sufferings of her Redeemer Son. At. that same time ,Jesus-became the firstborn of Christians, ~is brothers by adoption~ and redemption. Consequently Joseph, tl4e "watchful defender of Christ" and "chaste guardian of the Virgin,'.' .cherishes with singular affection the multitudes who make up the Church of his foster Son: Over this multitude "he rules with a sort of paternal authority, because he is the husband of Mary and the father of Jesus Christ. Thus, it is conformable to reason and in every .way becoming to blessed Joseph that as once it was his sacred trustto .guard with watchful care the family of Nazareth, no matter what befell, so now, by .virtue of his 361 FRANCIS L.FILAS Reoie~v for Religious heavenly patronage, he is in turn to protect and defend the Church of. Christ." This concept of~ Joseph's patronage lay.hidde~ and unnoticed for centuries. Probably the first to propose it was John Gerson, the chancellor of the University of Paris, who described it in a sermon to the members of the Council of Constance on September.8, 1416. Gerson'~ sermon had ¯ for its purpose the adoption of a feast of the espousals of Joseph and Mary. With deep anxiety ~he chancellor noted the disastrous results of the great Western Schism bf 13 78, a woufid which-was still unhealed. He asked for approv.ai - of the feast of the. espousals "in Order that through the merits of Mary and through the intercession of so great, so powerful.ahd in a certain way so omnipotent an intercessor ~ith his b~ide., the Church might be led to her only true and safe lord, the supren~e pastor, her spouse in place~ of Christ." The suggestion made by Gerson Was not acted upon,. but once it had been put forth, the idea continued to recur to friends of St. Joseph. What really began to receive marked emphasis .was Joseph's part as guardian of the H01y Family. The full understandink of this role contained the: idea of ~Joseph's further guardianship of the Church. It Was next elaborated in the Summa of the Gifts of St. doseph, a pioneeringbook written by the Dominican. Isidor de Isolani in 1-522. His work gathered the various materihls that.had already been published about St.Joseph and told of the Saint's life, wrtues, blessings, and. glory in Heaven. Isolani also d~ew a glowing picture of Joseph's future glory_on earth. While depicting the exceptional hbn-ors he felt sure would be granted his Saint, he had this to say: "For the honor of His name God has chosen St.-Joseph as head and special patron of the kingdom of the Church, Militant." _ 362 November, 194.5 ST. JOSEPH'S JUBILEE, The theme of St. Joseph's guidanceof the Holy Fam'ily and the Church ~ontinued to run.through the,d~votion as it flourished up to the middle of the 18th cenl:ury. Here, in common with t-he fortunes of the; Church, it suffered a relapse; but with the reign of Plus IX, a hundred year~ later, i~t again surged forward. During t.he 1860's various 'petitions from~ bishops,, priests, and the faithful were~sent to the HolySee, askin~ for St. Josephls full. glorification in the liturgy, and for the declaration of his patronage of the Universal Church. Three special.petitions were presented to the Vatican Council in 1869-70. It seems, that these three were the petitions that moved Pius IX to n~ake his declaration on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in 1870. Qer~on's purpose was. ~chieved; St. ~Jos~ph was offi- ~ cially proclaimed Patron Of tl~e Universal ,Church--and how sorely the,Church needed that help! Plus had already ' been stripped of his temporal holdings. In a score of countries rampan,t anticlericalism was riding apparently unchecke~t against a Church which the infallible savant~ of that "progressive" era declared dying if not already dead. ~The stre.ngth of the papac~y h~d been c6mpletely broken. so they said; the prestige of the prisoner of the Vatican was shorn from him and his successors for .all time. But as usual with enemie~ of ~he Church, they forgot Christ's promise to be v~ith His Church forever. They forgot the power of its.~mother, of her who was conceived without sin-~in fact they merely laughed at and disregarded the "out-dated" dogma about ~hero which the Pope had expounded. Probably they did not even kn6w of the .Holy Father's action reg,arding St. Joseph on that momentous Feast of theImmaculate Conception in 1870. Now, seventy-five, years later, what is. the prestige of the Churc~ St. doseph protects? Or what is the power.of 363 FRANCIS L. FILAS the Pope, so intangible, yet so compelling, ~hat kept the. Nazi invaders from settin~g foot on the territory of Vatican City? The world press invariably seeks the reaction of the Holy Father on every moral issue that-arises. The ChurCh "is daily recognized as a stable force, if not the or~ly stable force, in a world going somewhere towards" progress "or destr_uction'with, awesomerapidity. It is hard to dismiss i~his resurgence of the Church since. 1870 as mere chance. St. ,Joseph's patronage has shown its effects. Nor hasthe Church been ungrateful t6 its protector. In the last seventy-fi~ve years the popes have lavishly show-ered liturgical honors on St. ,Joseph. He alone of all saints except our Blessed Lady has~been given two feasts of excep-tional r~ink, a spe.cial preface in the Mass, a l!tany, in his ~ honor, separate invocation in the prayers for the dying, and particular mention in the Divine Praises. Now, as the Church is facing a continued crisis in its own and in-the world's history, ,Joseph isoagain the standard-bearer, spear-heading the campaign against atheistic communism, the threat of our times. His name is ever linked with those of ,Jesus and Mary. In all these tributes the mind of the Church can be discerned implicitly: St. ,Joseph is worthy of sp~cial.venerati0n~ second only .to Mary and above the veneration granted any other angel or saint. As we commemorate the 75th anniversary of his patronage of the Universal Church, we should humbly thank Almighty God for ~having given St. ,Joseph to us. and thank, too, our protector for his services to the Church just as Mary and ,Jesus thanked him ~or all he did at Betfi-lehem, in Egypt, and-at Nazareth. 364 The New Lat:in Psalt:er Micfiael J. Gru~nthaner,'S.J. THAT tl~e Psalms are. endowed with unu~uaI .poetic beauty and spiritual powe~ is concedeffby all; Cath~ olics and non-Catholics alike. They reveal to us the glorious attributes of the divinity; they speak ~o us of the sufferifigs and the triumph of the Messias; they recount to us the events and lessons of Israel's h!story; they instruct, us. in the ~ays of true wisdom. Their chief attraction, how-ever, lies in the fact that so manyof them depict .to us the anguish of thehuman heart struggling with almost every imaginable phase of .adversity and rising to heights of hero-oiSmby unshaken confidence in God and persevering prayer. ~Each Psalm, therefore,~ is a gem of religious thought. Its power to enlighten the mind and warm the. heart springs , not only from the wisdom and artistry of its human author but pr.incipally from the Holy Spirit, who inspired its pro-. duction. Need weowonder, then,.that the Psalms formed the favorite private prayer of the devout Jew in the Old .JTestament and that not a few of them,were sun. g in the Temple to enrich and spiritualize¯-the sacrificia, l.Lritual? Under the c!r~cums.tances,_~it seems but natural that the Psalms should.be ,repeatedly quoted by: Christ and° the Apostles and~that the Church should, prize them as a pre-cious heritage from the Old Dispensation: So highly did she esteem them that she allotted them a commanding poSi-tion in her liturgy. Full enjoYment of .the spiritual treasures contained within the Psalms has, however, been barred to many. The reason is that the early Church received the Psalter in an unskillful translation from the Greek, which inits turn 365 MICHAEL J. GRUENTHANER Revieu~ for R~ligious .was an imperfect tendering of the original Hebrew. St. Jerome,.to whom the Church owes so much. for his labors in behalf of the Scriptures, ameliorated ~he situation slightly by revising the Old Latin version extant in his day in accordance with better Greek manuscripts. His first emendation of the Psalter appeared in Rome about 383 and was adopted by the churches of the Eternal City; for this reason it is known as the Roman Psalter. In 386, while residing in Palestine, he published a second and more extensive revision of. the Psalter based, like the former, exclusively on the Greek or Septuagint verson. Because it first gained great popularity in Gaul, it is called the Gallican Psalter. Ultimately, it became the version current in the Latin Church and was incorporated in the Vulgate as the OfFicial translation of that Church. To facilitate religious discussion between Jews and Christians, St. Jerome also translated the Psalms directly from the Hebrew, but this so-called Hebrew Psalter never c~iptivated the ordinary ¯ clergy and the laity; it remained restricted in use to scholars. Histor~t o[ the Neu~ Version The Gallican Psalter, therefore, found in the Vulgate and the Roman Breviary, retains some of the defects of the Old Latin together with all the weaknesses of the Septua- - gjnt, its archetype. These deficiencies became ever more apparent with the progress of biblical studies in modern times. It was noted., that .the meaning of the Psalms had been obscured not infrequently and that much of their artistic merit bad evaporated in the course of the double trans, lation to which they had been subjected. To bring outthe full significance and poetic.beauty of the. Psalms, Catholic.scholars in xiarious countries began to publish translations of the Hebrew text in th~ vernacular. These proved to be so conducive to a fuller understanding and 366 November~ 1945 THE NEW LATIN PSALTER~ keener appreciation of these inspired poems that a move-ment arose among priests and religious to have a Latin ver-sion of the Psalter more consonant with the original than the official Vulgate or Gallican Psalter. ¯ This desire became so widespread that our reigning Pontiff, Pius XII, corn- " missioned the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome to pre-pare a new version of the Psalter in harmony with~ all the most~ approved methods of textual criticis~m. The task of preparing this translation was confided to six professors, each of whom was a specialist in one or more of the branches of bibllcal science bearin.g~ on the subject. Begun in ~lanuary, 1941, the prdject was completed after thre~ and a half.years of intense labor. The Holy Father found, the manuscript of the new version~ so satisfactory that he ~ommanded it to be printed. In accordance with this command tvco books were published by the Vatican Press in 1945" a Liber Psalmorum, and a liturgical edition in which the Psalms oof the new version are arranged according to the system followed in the breviary. The Liber Psalmorum contains a new version not only of the Psalms but also of the canticles ot~ the Old and New Testaments usually° recited in the breviary. Each of them is headed by a suitable title; the text is preceded by a short analysis exhibiting the nature and interrelation of its tho.ught. Brief footnotes have been added, explaining difficult expressionsand ideas, as well as setting forth the reasons for the translation adbpted. These notes supply the absolute minimum required for the comprehension of the text; they are not intended to supplant the more exten- o sive commentaries which supply a complete exposition of all tbd problems presented by a particular Psalm. The 'book is also provided with a brief introduction de. aling with the nature, origin, and history of the Psalms; essentials 9nly are considered and controversial issues are avoided. 367 MICHAEL J. GRUENTHANER Review [or Religious A notable feature of the book is the Morn Proprio of Pius XII, In cotidianis precibns, which is concerned with the new version. It recounts its history, character, alad purpose, and grants permission to all those who so desire to substitute the New Psalter ~for the older one in the pub-lic or private recitation of the Divine Office; this permission is to be valid as soon as the liturgical edition shall have been published. The New Psalter, therefore, has the same official standing as the Vulgate version. This is, unques-tionably, a momentous step; for the latter has been used exclusively i.n the breviary for so many centuries" it is intimately-interwoven with the writings.bf the Fathers, as ~-~the Sovereign Pontiff notes in the Motu Proprio; it has been declareff authenti~ by the Council oi: Trent. The motives ~prompting the Pope to introduce so startlin~ an innovation are well set forth in his Motu Proprio: That all may hereafter derive greater light, grace, and consolation from the recitation of the Divine .Office, so that, enlightened and impelled by these, they may in these most, difficul~ times of the Church be fittedmore and more to imitate the models of sanctity shining forth so egregiously in the Psalms and that they, may be moved to nourish and foster anew the sentiments of divine love, strenuous courage, and piou.s 'repent~ance which the Holy Spir'~t excites within us when reading the Psalm~. Basic Text ot: the New Version An attentive scrutiny of the New Psalter'shows .that: it fulfills, the ~ishes of the Holy Father. First of all, it is based upon a corrected Hebrew text; in this respect it sur-passes any of the ancient ~'ersions. The text found in our present Hebrew Bibles cannot be. accepted without reserve. It is not derived immediately from~the autograph manu-scripts of the sacred writers but from copies which in their ttirn depend on a long line of ancestors. But a text which has come down to us through so many centuries of succes-~ 368 November, 1945 THE NEW LATIN PSALTER sive copying~nec~ssarily contains a :great variety of scribal err6rs. Furthermore, the .primal text of the Psalms ~was written in consonants .only," some oL which bore a close resmblanc~ to one another; in addition, .individual words were not separated from one another as clearly, as ,in. our printed books. Consequently, copyists made not a.few mis-takes by confusing similar letters, by combining: or dividing consonants illegitimately, and by :adding ,vowels that were not approprjaSe~. ° - The New Psalter hassucceeded in eliminating not afexO of these lapses by comparing the Hebrew text with the ver-sions and. by an intelligent application of other laws of textual criticism. How the text.has been improved inthis way may be seen from a few illustrative.examples. Psalm 28:8 in the Vulgate reads: "The voice of ~thd Lord pre-pareth the stags, and he will discover the thick woods.". This puzzling sentence is now replaced by the following: "The voice of the Lord con_torts oaks and strips forests." The much debated verse ini,Psalm 109:3, "From the womb, before the daystar, I begat thee" becomes more. intelligibly, ':Before the daystar, like th~ dew, I begat thee." More examples cannot be given here; it will suffice to say 'that all the resources of modern, scientific textual criticism have been e,mployed~to approximate.as closely as. possible the wording of the Psalms as it left the hands of their inspired authors. Greater Accuracg at~d Claritg Since the principal author of the Psalms is the Holy Spiri.tl the translators strove to reproduce their thoughts .and sentiments with the greatest precision. As a result, some ~bf the statements in the Vulgaye which were difficult to understand either in themselves or in thei~ .c0~ntext, have become lucidly clear. The ,enigmatic utterance of Psalm 63:7,. "Men shall come, to a deep heart, and God sl~all be. 369 MICHAEL J. GRUENTHANER Revleu~ for Religious exalted" takes quite another 'form in. the New Psalter, "They thihk up "evil schemes, they 'conceal the plans which they.have formed, for the mind and the heart of ~ach are deep:" .The passage refers to the evil intrigues of the god~ less againstthe good; ithas no reference to the heart of God, aS the Vulgate suggests. Similarly,- psalm 44:14' in the Vulgate. implies that the glory of t.he royal bride consists in .internal virtue, b~it the new Version renders correctly, glorious, the king's daughter hnters the palace." Th~ verse merely descbibes theoutw:ird appearance of the king's bride as she enters the palace in the.wedding procession. A marked advance in clarity has been achieved by the correct translationof the Hebrew tenses. Th6ugh there are but two of them, a Perfect and an Imperfect; they can-not be translated mechanicallyby the Past and the~Future. respectively, as the Greek attempts to do, without impairing the sense. The New Psalter, on the cofitra,ry, gives each tense its proper shade of meaning. ~ Thus in Psalm 42:3 the Psalmist d~clares in the Vulgate, ~'Sehd forth thy light and thy truth: they have conducted me and brought"me unto thy holy hill and into thy tabernacles." If isevident from the context, however, that the Psalmist is far from Sion; that he is, in fact, a prisoner in the vicinity of Mount Hermbn. The LiberPsalrnorum removes the incongruity by rendering the tenses more correctly, "May they lead me, may they guide~me" to thy ho!y hill and to thy tabernacles." Other sources of confusion in the Vulgate are the slavish rendering of _certain Hebrew idiomatic expressions,. the servile adherence to the letter of the Greek protgtype, and the translationof some geographical names. Needless to sa~y, these infelicities, of tran?lation have been emended in the Liber Psalmorum. Poetic Chara~cteristics Another laudable featureof the New ~salter is the care 370 November, i945 THE NEW LATIN PSAETER , with which itendeavors to conserve the poeti~ chracteris~i~S of ~he original. Forceful metaphors "and othel poeti~ devices indicative of a vivi~l imagination ~ind :strong emo- 'tion are not denatured b3i colorless or. insipid rendering's. Thus'in Psalm 17:3 God is addressed as a rock, a fortress,. a shield, and a tower; the ,forcefulness of these epithe.ts is much attenuated in the Vulgate. Again, in Ps'alm 23:7 the New Psalter correctly bids the gates to raise: their heads in order that tl-ie king of glory may enter; the Vulgate, however/avoids this vivid personification.by addressing the command" to the princes. Even the word-painting which is occasionMly found in the P~alms has been skillfully imitated in the new Ladr~ "version. Conspicuous examples_may be ieen in Psalm 28, in which a thunderstorm passing through P~lestine is desribed and inPsalm 92: 3, 4, which pictures the tumult of the waves breaking upon the seashore. The Liber Psalmorum also attends to the outward form - of Hebrew poetry, The verses are printed in stichs and trheefriar icnosm, abninda tthioen a lipnhtoa b,settriocpahl:e.s sitsr uincdtuicrea toefd .c eRretapient iPtisoanlms,s are also made clear to the reader. .Improved Latinit~ Aquality of the New Psalter which will appeal tO many is its improved Latinity. Expressions and, construc~i0ns which" entered the Vulgate from later Latin and from ,the conversfional .language of the people have been ex~ludedl Instead, the vocabulaiy, style, and grammar of the classical period have been adopted, without, however, disrega;ding the venerable tradition of the. Church; for the discarded words and pl~rases have to a large extent been replaced by others v~hich are classical and which are at'the same time found in other books of the Vulgate and the liturgy. Certain 371 MICHAEL J. GRUENTH~NER words, however, which have acquired adistinct.ively Chris-tian meaning, such .a~ $aluator, gr.atia; dilectio, .have been retained, even though the significance attached-to them has no support in classical usage. Though classical, the style is no~ involved: it is simple, smooth, ~lear, suitable for th~ r.ecitation of the Psalms in public. The LiberP~almorum is noW available in an American edition (Benziger Brothers), and the. liturgical edition will soon be reprinted in the United States. There can° be 'no ,doubt that the study and use of the New Psalter will con-tribute much towards a proper appraisal of the .unique literary qualities of the inspired lyric poems which it trhns-lares so felicitously; it w_ill,prove, above all, ~to be a power-ful means towards the attainment of that ideal of spiritual perfection w.hich 'is ever before the eyes of the devout priest hnd religious, whose life in God draws so much of its sus-tenance from the recitation of the Divine Office. BOOKLETS Maryknoll Mission Letters, Volume i, 1945, contains letters' from China, Latin America, and Central America. Besides the usual wholesome mission news. the volume outalns'mahy inter.estlng items: for example, the story of a snake charmer, an encounter with a tiger, and how it feels to be stung by a scorpion. Price $.50. Order from: Field Afar.Press; 121 East 39th St., N.Y. Let's Look at 8ancti{~!ing Grace, by Francis P. Le Buffe, S:J., contains the sub.- stance of lectures given at the Summer School of Catholic Action. It is a dear-cut, s]istematical, .and simple presentation of a, difficult and involved subject. Readers will l~ke the homely examples and the naive diagrams. The first part of the bobklet deals with grace; the secofid part with the sacyaments, ,channels of-grace". A small bibliography is. suggested. Price $.10. Order from: ~The Queen's~Work, 3742 ¯ West Pine Bl~'d., St. Louis 8, Mo. Fa_ther.Albert A. Murray, C:P~S., informs us that many religious wrote for the booklet, Holy Hour for Conversions, after we announce.d it in our January number (p. 47). He wants our re_aders to know that the booklets are still available, free of charge. Write to: The Paulist Fathers, 911 South Wabash Ave., Chicago 5, Ill. 372 C6rrespondence ot: ReligiQus Adam C. Ellis,. S.J. [~DITORS' ~NOTI~': As a number of quesuons regarding the correspondence of reli-gious have been riceived by the Questions and Ans~vers Department of,.the REVIEW, it. was thought desirable to publish an article on this important subject. The answers to the qu9~tions received will be found in the follow.'ing article.] ~'VERY man has a natural right~ to keep_.his secrets jt~st ~ as he has a right to hold and possess'p'roperty. Since man by nature isa s~cial being,, it frequently becomes necessary to communicate secrets in, writing, and his natural right~ to secrecy then ~xtends to all s.uch writings. This point is most practical :in regard to correspondence or letter writing, and moral theologians tell us that one who reads the letters of another contrary to his wishes violates "a nat-ural secret and may sin .gravely ~gainst justice. .,- When a man unites with his fellow men in any kind Of society, he usually does so in order to share in the benefits to be derived from such a.union benefits which hecannot conven!entiy obtain by himself but which are.the fruits of mutual efforts and of the pooling of individual resources whether these beomaterial objects or the higher and better things of, mind and heart. Experience teaches that in pro-portion to the benefits derived from such common enter~ prises, the individual members must give up certain rights which are not compatible with the common ~good aimed ~t by the society: In a word, if the members of a society wish to share in the benefits which are inherent in the organiza-. tion, they must comply with the conditions laid down for member~ship; and these conditions ~almost always curtail individual rights to a greater or less degree. Such is the reason for and the source of limitations put upon religious in regard to letter writing. Practically every re!igious institute in the Churc~h lays down certain condl- - 3.73 ADAM C. ELLIS Reoielo For Religious tions for such correspondence, and the candidate who applies for admission implicitly accepts all the limitations and restrictions contained in the rule and constitutions in order that he may share .in. the benefits to be derived from membership in the religious society. It will be helpful, therefore, both for superior~ and for subjects, to study, in detail the rights and obligations of both in regard to this matter of correspondence. The Law and Its Purpose Before the Co'de was promulgated,' there was ,no general ilnacwom oinf~g. tahned Couhtugrocihn gr emqauiilr tion gth ael lc ernesliogrisohuips otof tshuebirm suitp teh-.eir riors. Nevertheless, in practically all orders, and congrega-tions, .this was required by the constitutions or .by custom. The Norroae of 1901; which established the standards of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops" and Regulars for the approval of constitutions of new institutes with simple-vows and Which were based upon the practice of the same Congregation during the preceding fifty years, contained two articles on the'subject. Art.~ 179 required that "all-letters to be sent by the religious, as well as all letters sent to them, shall be given to the local superior who may read them at his discretion. Superiors, however, shall use this facultY with that moderation which prudence and charity dictate, and they are bound to secrecy regarding informa-tion thus-obtained." Art." 180 Stated that all letters" addressed to higher superiors (general and provincial), or to the local ordinary, or to the Sacred Congregation, and all letters received from these same persons, were free from such inspection and censorship. These provisions of the Normae were incorporated in all :constitutions approved by the S~cred Congregation during the past forty ye, ars and" more. 374 . b[ooembero 1945 CORRESPONDENCE OF RELIGIOUS The Code of Car~on Latu,.promulgated in~ 1917, has only one canon (No. 611 ) regarding the correspondenci~ of religious. This ca~on, ,which we shall consider presently, does not give sup~biors the right to read the letters of their ~ subjects. Rather it .supposes that this right is contained in the constitutions br, customs of individual institutes, to which it leaves the positive statement of all regulations con-~ "cerning letter writing. ° ~ The purposd of all rdstraint put upon the corresPond-ence of religious is the same as that of the law ofenclosure "--to shield the religious from the temptations, the cares, hnd the distractions of the world which religious have for-saken by their religious profession. There may be no qess danger in communication,with externs by means of letters ~h~in in conversation with them either in the parlor of the religious house or in the homes of secular persons. The religious who has heeded Christ's call, "Come, follow me," has fr.eely renounced the pleasures he might have enjoyed lawfully in the world, in order to follow Christ more closely by striving after perfection through the observance 6f the vows and the constitutions within the security of the cloister. Mere physical s~paration from the world will not attain this end if religious are allowed unrestrained contact with pe/sons in the world by means of correspondence. Hence it is evident that some kind of restraint or super-vision over such correspondence is necessary fob the protec-tion both of the individual and of the community. Rights and Obligations o~: Superiors " The constitutions and customs of each institute deter-mine what rights a superior has in regard to the cokre-spondence of his subjects. More often, especially in con. gregations of Sisters and Brothers, the constitutions pre, scribe what was stated in the Normae mentioned above. Let 375 ADAM C. ELLIS' Review for Religiou,~ us ~take these prescriptions as.a, starting point. All letters. written by-religious and. all letters addressed to religious must pass through the hands of the local supe riot; who has the right to r~ead, them. Thi~, means ~first of all that the 16cal superior isentrus~ed with the task of expediting:.,the mail of the community. He should~see to it, therefore,,,th;it all outgoing lett.drs are mailed promptly after they, ' have" been censored and that incoming letters are delivered-to the persons tO whom they .are addressed within a reasonable time. The right to read the letters of his subjects does not impose an obligation on the superior to do .'so, unless the constitutions impose it specifically. Hefice superiors are to -use their discretion. They-shou!d be fnore careful to read th,e letters of younger religious since these are in a period of sp!ritua! formation, and 'should be trained to use.modera-tion and prudence in regard to their correspondence both as to subject matter and~as, tochoice of persons. However, Superiors may well be more~ready to trust older religious whom;they know'by experience to be prudent in this mat-ter. , Such a0policy is.in,conformity with the moderation recommended by. the Normae. This moderation is to be based on a prudence and charity which will.prompt supe-riors to.instruct,those subjects who are imprudent.in-their " correspondence, pointing out tO them their defects and. .imprudences.so that they,~ may learn-.the norms of religious" moderation. This,-of coarse, should be done in such marl,. ner. as to a,void giving offense and:t0 "convirice. the subject that the only motive the super!or has in checking his cor-respondence'is hi~bwn'. flood afid'th:it of the"~ommunity. The Oblig[~tior~ or: Secrec~/. All commentatorson th~- subject 'of the ~orrespondence of religious.emphasize the. fact that the superior is bound by'the natural la,w to-k~ep Secret whatever information he 376 Nouember2,1945 CORRESPONDENCE OF .RELIGIO~S acquires by reading the letters of his subjects:- This obli-ga. ti~n binds in conscience and~ is of its: natureserious when the subject mat~ter is serious. Superiors, therefore, have,no right to communicate to others information obtained, by reading the correspondence of their subjects, nor may they themselves make use of such information except to prevent harm to the religious himself or to the community. ¯ It is tbe;duty of every superior to safeguard the welfare of individual subjects and of ~the community as a whole. Hence occasion~ may arise when it becomes, necessary, to make known to.higher superiors information received from reading letters. Whendver ~his is-.necessary, the superior may use such knowledge since in taking his vow of obedi-. ence according to the constitutions .the religious freely, giyces the superior the authority to do so. -Prudence and discre-tion Will be the twin guardians of the secret-and will indb care to the superior.the cases in which he should make use of his know!edge and the precautions .which should protect all ievelations of-this kind for instance, not-to make known too're than is necessary. Keeping in mind:the purpose'of all restrictionsregarding correspondence, namely, the protection of religious from the temptations, the cares, and the distractions of the world, superiors will more readily abstain from reading lettdrs" written by corresponddnts who have a spiritual, outlook and spiritual ~hilos0PhY. of life. This will be ~he case especially in regard to the correspondence of pious parents, brothers, and sisters of the religious. We believe that, as a general rule, superiors'should not rea'd letters received by older religious from the members of their immediate family; and. they may also show. their confidence- in'younger-reli-gious by not reading such letters unless some special circum-stance demands it, as in the case of parents who areopposed "to the vocation of their child and who may endeavor to 377 ADAM C. ELLIS Review for Religious ~nduce him to return to the family circle. While it is trde that parents and relatives of religious are usually aware that their correspondence is subject to inspec-tion by the religious superior, an'd that they have confidence in their discretion, nevertheless occasions will arise when they wish to communicate family secrets to their children and tothem alone. If they mark such a letter '-'personal," the superior should neither open it nor read it. If in some rare case h~ has good reason for. suspecting an abuse, he may refuse to give such. a letter to the religious to whom it is ~iddressed. In regard to correspondents of religious who are una-ware of the restrictions imposed upon 'communications by the constitutions and whose letters contain matter which the superior considers undesirable for the religious, the natural .right of the sender would seem to demand that the superior should not simply destroy such a letter, but rather return it to the ~ender _with an explanation of the regula-tions regarding the correspondence of religious and with a warning to desist from-se_nding such letters in the future. Usually it will be more prudent and less offensive to the unsuspecting correspondent to have the religious write hir~ and explain the situation to him. Rights and Duties of Subjects To begin, witl~, religious should .not look upon the restrictions placed upon letter writing by the constitutions as an unjustifiable restriction of their natural rights, but rather as a wise protection from the sp!rit of-the world which they have freely abandoned in order to serve God more perfectly in the religious life. As they grow older and become more experienced, tbey'will obtain a greater realization of the need to pro.tect, their reputatio~l as well as the good name of the communi'ty in which they live:, 578 November, 1945 CORRESPONDENCE OF RELIGIOUS Regularly permission must be obtained to write letters, either for each individual letter, as is usually the cas.e with novices; or a general permission is given which is.renewed from time to time. After the letter is written it is put unsealed into the superior's mail box. Similarly all letters addressed to the members of a religious community are first given to the superior before' they are distributed. The superior may open them and read them befor~ passing them on to the religious to whom they are addressed. Except for privileged letters---of which more will be said presently-- all correspondence of religious is thus subject to the authority of the superior according to the regulations con: tained in the constitutions and customs of each-individual institute. Some are. more strict than others, depending upon the spirit and particular end of each institute. While it. is true that these regulations of the constitutions regarding correspondence have the same binding force as ¯ other prescriptions and normally do not bind under pain of sin, it is likewise true that secret correspondence carried on contrary to the provisions of the rule is dangerous and can readily become sinful. Religious'should learn to be circumspect when they write letters, especially to people living in the world. Con-sciously or unconsciously such,people have a high regard for the religious state, and sometimes their expectations of reli-gious are even. higher than are those of religious superiors. They have never heard of.the distifiction that religious have not as yet ac~luired perfection, but are in the state of acquirifig it. Hence they are not a little surprised, to say the least, to find a religious writing about matters which are ~worldly, or uncharitable, or gossipy. Furthermore a reli-gious,- especially when he writes to members of other com-munities, must remember that individual communities as such also have a right to their secrets and that a religious 379. or o ADAM C, ELI~IS ¯ who Without rhyme or re~ison retails-.local difficulties and happenings which are not edifying offends againsvcharity, if not against justice. _ -, .: . Ex~eptions contained in Canon. 611 " -°° "All religious,-whetJ~er men or-women,, can fr@dy" send 161~e~s, exeml~t from all control (nulll obnoxlas.lnspectionl), to the Holy See and. its Le~gate in the cou~ntry,~to their Cardinal Protector, to their own h;cjher supe~r;ors, fo ~he super;o~ of their house.when absent, to the local ordinary to ~hom they are subject, and, in the case of nuns subject tO the jurisdiction ~f regularS, to the.higher.superlors 6f-th~ order; and from all these p~rsons the religi~us;'~ne~ or ~vomen, can also receive leffers which' r;obody has a right to open.:-(CanOn 611.) These exceptions may be.divided into two classesi let-ters Written to certain ecclesiatical superiors, that is, to the Holy See, the Apostolic Delegate, the local ordinary; ~nd tO the Cardinal Protector. While the l~st mentioned is not, strictly speaking, an ecclesiastical superior,, still he has specialrelation to the congr~g~ition orinstitute and fre-quehtly,, takes care of its correspondehce witl~ the Holy See: The second class of-persons mentioned in the exc_eption are certain religious superiors, that is, all higher superiors .(superiors .general and provincial superiors) and one'.s own local superior ~hen.that superior hap'pens to be absent, from the community. Every religious h,as a strict.~rigl~t to send letters to any~of these persons and to receive letters from them and such letters are not subject, to inspection. It may be well to compare the persons mentioned in the canon with those mentione'd in the Norrnae. There are three notable, differences: (1) the Normae.did not include the Cardinal Protector, the Code ~loes; (2) the Norrnae included councillorsand assistants, the. Code omits therri; (3) the Norrnae meritioned only the S. Congregation o'f -Bishops and Regulars, the Code includes a_ll the Roman Congregations in the term "Holy See." Neither the Norrnae nor the Code grants the right of free correspondence with. ~380 November, "I 9,15 CORRESPONDENCE 6F RELIGIOUS the confess0r~. The ~constitutions~ ~ay~ of course, extend the liberty .g~anted by the Code to' other persons ,not men-tioned in the canon, for instance, to the general ouncillors~ but unless .they are ~xplicitly mentioned in th~ constitu~ tions, these persons are not entitled to the privilege under the Code., ' " . What is meant by the term "free from all inspection"? ¯The authorized English translation of the canons of :the Code which pe~rtain to religious, publishe.d .,by the Vatican Press, translates it by "exempt from all control." The least that one.can conclude from the text.of the Code .is that every religious has the right to send such letters sealed with, out aski.ng .any permission ,from superiors. Although 'the literal interpretation of the Latin text of the Code would seem to require that all "such correspondence must-.pass through, the hands-of superiors, even though they.may not ope~ or read them, still the phrase employed in the author~ ized translationo, e"x e m "pt from all control," would seem to permit the sending and recdving of such letters withou.t their passing through file hands of the local superior. :This opinion was defended even before the Code by canonists who knew the .viewpoint of the S. Congregation of Reli- " gious and is held today by a number of authoritative com-mentators. Their reason for~ this opinion is that otherwise tht liberty granted .~ by the'Code would be restricted, and religious would not bd free in such correspondence. Does this mean that.a religious may send such letters throtigh any intermediary whatever, and that he may pro-cure stamps from anybody in Order to mail such privileged letters freely? - 0pinionsdiffer in this matter,, and a reason-abl. e reconciliation of divergent views seems to be as follows. °Whenever their rights are sufficiently protected hy having such sealed letters pais through the ordinary channels, reli- .g~ous should ~foll0.w this method: Usually there.will be, no ADA~ C. ELLIS " Review for Religious inconvenience in sending ~ealed letters to high'e~ superiors through .the hands ofthe local superior. Bht if the ~religious has a good reason for not wanting his supe.rior to know that he is writing to higher superiors, especially to ecclesi, asti~al superiors, he may mail the letter personally or have someone else mail.it, being careful to select a prudent person who will not be astonished at his request. It i.s customary in some communities for the assistant superior or some older religious to provide stamps for' this purpose, and this is a laudable custom: A religious, therefore, who for good reasons obtain~ a stamp "from ~a prudent person and sends an exempted letter without havingit pass through the hands of his superior violates neither the rule nor his vow of poverty. The permission" of the Holy See is implicit in the ~authorization to send such a lette~ freely~. Such cases will occur rarely, and if the restrictions above laid down are observed, there, will be little danger of abuses. These can occur, of ~ourse, but the fear of. an abuse does not take away the right granted by the law. R~!igious seldom send le~t-ters to the local ordinary, much less to the Holy See, with-° out a serious reason; and if it be necessary, these high authorities will curb any excess on the part of indiscreet correspondents. ¯Letters of Cdt~science As we have seen a.bove, neither the No~rnae nor the Code allow free correspondence with th~ confessor or spiritual director~ and canonists who are intimately acquainted with the mind of the S. Congret~ation.of Religious tell us that the S. Congregation judges that such correspondence can easily lead to abuse, especially in communities of religious women; hence it will never allow the constitutions approved by it to include the confessor among the persons excepted. On.theother'~hand it recommends that superiors use their discretion in individtial cases, and grant permi& 382. November° 1945 CORRESPONDENCE OF RELIGIOUS sion for such letters when it ~s reaso.n~ably requested. ;While it is true that superiors are not bound" in strict justice to do so, nevertheless, in'certain cas.es they will .be b6und by charity to bring ~elief to the spiritual need of their subjects. If the superior has granted permission for letters of conscience, he may not read them,-nor the answers received to them. This p~rmissiQn, however, does not give .the sender~the right to mail such lette/s without the knowledge bf the superior~ In these cases it is customary to use two envelopes. The letter is placed in the inner envelope, .sealed, and marked "conscience matter." This isthen, placed in an outer envelopi~ containing the address and. is pu,t unsealed .into the superior's mail box. If the superior has not granted permission to the reli-gious to send a letter of conscience, and the" subject writ,es such a letter, that letter is subje~t to the ini;pection of th~ superior. If an incoming, letter is marked "conscience mat-ter," the superior may not read it; but, as prudence dictates, he may or may not give it to the religious subject to whom it is addressed: ,If he deems, it necessary to refuse to give the letter to the religious,-he.should return it to the sender unopened, warn him that such correspondence is not per-mitted and that any such letters .sent in the future w_ill be opened or destroye.d. Religious on. their part should be reasonable in their requests to send such "conscience" letters, and they should ¯ realize that it is preferable to receive spiritual direction by word of mouth rather than by letter. The. director is able to ask questions, and obtain information necessary to give sound direction, and the religious has the oppoitunity t6 ask for further information or advice. Thus he can be'cer-tain that he clearly understands the direction given. In a letter; however, a religious may find it difficult to express himself clearly and fully so as to .give a complete pic.t.ure to 383 ADAM C. ELLIS R. euieu~ for Religious the direct'or and to avoid giving a false impression Which may lead to wrong advice. It is also possible for a religious to misunderstand or misinterpret the advice given by the director in a letter. Then there is tlde possibledanger, that' a letter may be lost, or opened by others, oreven that it be Published. Conclusion " In conclusion it may be well to sum up briefly what has been said on this subject~. (1) The Code of Canon Law does not give religious superiors the right to read the correspondence b.f their sub-jects. This right comes from the constitutions 0f the indi-vidual institute or.from custom, and is stiictly limited by them. (2) The superior who has the right and the duty of _inspecting the correspondence of his subjects-is strictly bound by. the natural law Of secrecy in regard to the con-tents of such correspondence. He may refuse .to send out certain letters Written by religious, and he may refuse to deliver undesirable letters addressed to religious, but if be has read them he is bound to secrecy in regard to, their contents. (3) Canon 611 gives the religi_ous the right to corre-spond freely with certain ecclesiastical and religious supe-riors. Such letters are free from all inspectio.n on the part of superiors, fis are all replies received to them. Superiors may neither open nor read such letters. (.4) Normally religio.us should mail such exempt let-ters'. after their have sealed them; through their superiors. For a good reason, however, religious may get stamps from a prudent person and mail siach letters directly without the knowledge of their superio.r: (5) As tO letters Of conscience, they are not en.cour-aged, and may not be sdnt or received without.the permis- 384 CORRESPONDENCE OF RI~LIGIOUS 385 s~on of th.e superior. However, once permission is granted for such letters, the superior¯ may-neither .open" hotread .them or the replies received to them. (6).In regard to ordinary letters received by religious, superiors should be moderate in the use of the powers granted to them by the constitutions. This is especially the case in the correspondence of religious with their parents and nea~ relatives. Superiors should not iead such letters when it is evident that. they contain family secrets. (7) When a letter is received from an undesirable.cor-respondent, it will be mor~ prudent for the superior to return it to the sender, or, preferably, to. permit the reli-gious to Whom it was addressed to write to the correspond-ent explaining the regulations of the institute in th~ n4atter and warning him to desist from sending such letters in the future. (8) Re_ligious should not look upon the restrictio~ns placed upon letter writing by the constitutions as an intol-erable burden or as an oldfashioned restriction .of~ rights, but rather they should consider them as a protection for themselves and their reputation, as well as for the good name of the communi[y in which they live. (9) Religious should learn to be prudent and mod-erate in writing letters, especially to people in the world-. The latter normally have a very high esteem for the reli-gious life andfor religious in general, and they are apt to be stfrprised at finding a religious expressing himself in his let-ters regarding matters which are wor~ldly, or uncharitable, o or just gossipy. (10) Religious communities as such also have a right to their secrets, and religious should show their loyalty by carefully abstaining from revealing in their letters any untoward, happenings which might ngt, be edifying to members of other communities, much less to externs. /'hy Not: Consider An!:ichrist ?" Augustin C. Wand, S.J: THE theme of the Antichrist has for many Catholics an air of the mysterious, the legendary, and the bizarre. If it is mentioned at all it is apt to be shrugged off as unreal and distantly removed. Not even its broad outlines and salient features enter into the thought-and life either" of, the ordinary Christian or bf the seeker for the higher things of the Spirit. It is,. as it were, taboo among serious Christians, whilst the rationalist critics treat it as a bit of Yet it w~is not always thus. The Fathers of the Church abound in direct statements and in allusions to the person and~the career of this opponent of Christ. The earliest of these found a well developed tradition on the subject~' among the Jews, as a careful study of the so-called Old Testament Apocrypha has show.n. ~ This tradition was somewhat clarified and fixed by St. Paul and St. John. From these writers we c'an see that in its primary and proper sense Antichrist is a definite person in whom hatred for Christ and opposition to His Worl~ i's, as it were, per-sonified. The term "Antichrist" is not a proper ~name but a descriptive expression for which also several other words are used. St. Paul tells the Thessal0nians jn his second let-ter that before Christ's return an6tiqer person will appear who-leads a great rebellion against God and tries to be treated as God himself. A great deceiver himself, he is likewise equipped by the devil with great powers for wbrking "signs and lying wonders," so that many who are incautious and ove.rconfident in themse.lves will be seriously misled. After having had his way in working evil for a 386 WHY NOT CONSIDt:R ANTICHRISTI tirrie this great seducer will be overcome by Christ (II Thess. 2:3-12). St: otohn gi~;es us the name Antichrist and fells about the helpers and the spirit of this terrifying indi-vidual.~ ([ 3ohn 2: 1.8-22: 4:3 : II John, 7). These are the main traits which the "New Testament writers have left us regarding the cartier of'the man whom St. Paul names the "man of sift': and the "son of perdition:" Aided and directed by these and other revelations the early Christian writers dwelt often and at length on the subject in learned;works, in sermons to the people, in Com-mentaries on the Scriptures, and in poetical, compositions. Already in the Doctrine of the Ttoeloe Apostle~ and in the so-called Epistle ot:Barnabas, in St. 3ustin, in Irenaeus, and in Tertullian numerou~ allusions to Antichrist a~e found and lessons are drawn from the theme.In the third cen-tury St. Hippolytus wrote a special treatise on the subject. He also spo_ke at length on it in his Commentarg on Daniel, as did St. Jerome and Th~odoretus. Victorinus of Pettau enlarged on it when interpreting the Apocalypse, St. Greg-ory the Great when explaining the Book of ,Job, Rhabanus Maurus.when handling the Bo.ok of dudges and the el:?istles of St. Paul. The poet Commodian and the rhetorician Lactantius spin long passages, filling in from the sibyls and other apocryphal sources, The. theme was, therefore, a familiar one during the whole of the patristic times. The subject thus bequeathed to the Middle Ages fur~ nished a stimulating, topic for tbi vivid imagination of ~hose"sti'rring times. About the middle of the tenth,cen-tury the abbot Adso wrote a tract for the queen Gerberga. In the main this repeated the traditional teaching but 'it added'also a few sibylline verses. Two centuries later we find a Ludus de Antichristo, showing that drama had seized upon the subject. About the same time another movement started which was to have. fateful consequences: 387 AUGUSTIN C. ¯WAND " Reoieu~ for Religious The abbo~ Joachim of Flora-thought ~to find the 'various epochs°of the history of the Church depicted in the suc-cessive visions a~nd figures of the Apocalypse. The spark thus lighted soon caused a conflagration~ .During the r~li-gious controversies of the late Middle. Ages feelings ran high. Some followers of Joachim thought t6 find Anti-christ in this or that pope of the time. Wycliffe and.Huss carried this tendency to new extremes. Along these paths the sixteenth-century reformers went to greater lengths: From Luther onwards the cry resounded that "the Pope is Antichrist." Thus it continued with greater Or lessuinsist- -ehce until well into the nineteenth century. John Henry Newman, while still an Anglican, wrote a lengthy essay in which he surveyed the history of this party cry and acutely pointed out the baleful conclusions that might be drawn from such a slogan) The din of this noisy campaign has, perhaps, led Cath-olics to fight shy of the subject of Antichrist.~ I~ is true that such leading-theologians as Suarez, Bellarmine, and Lessius wrote learned treatises On the subject; but these did hot reach the people and the later Scholastics soon. forgot about -them~ So we ring that preachers and spiritual writers, compilers of meditation books, and even at times the authors of theological textbooks have had little or nothing to say concer~ning Antichrist and the lessons that .can be drawn from the subject. - .0 - At the same time ~rationalists have seized upon the theme and have enervated it by their speculations. For them it is a bit of curious folk-lore. Its roots they trace to the ancient mythologies and its development is explained through various fortuitous h~ippenings. Nothing Super-natural has entered into this strhnge and curious story. So 1J.~H. Newman, Essays CriticalTat~d Historical II, 112-185. 388 WHY NOT CONSIDER .ANTICHRIST? "much have these critics:had the field ~t~themselves that Bousset, a leader in t.his ~investigation, has not found.it worth w, hile; either in' his book or in: several larger treatises in encyclopedias, to mention that there is another concep,. tion of 'this phenomenon. ' r YetCatholics should bear in mind that, if God found it worth while to make a revelation concerning events that are to precede the second coming of .Christ,_He :did this~for . a definite, and seri6us purpose~ Cardinal.~ Newman remarks. on this subjecti o- . - If dreadful scenes still~await the ChurCh, if~t_hey have been fore, told, and foretoldth~it christians may be prepared for ,them, no,calam-ity can be~greater than a belief that they have already ,been fulfilled, and that there is nothing to look.out for or fo fear: no devic~ of Satan can be more crafty than to make us think that they are not to come.2 The tone with which our Lord, St. Paul, and, St. ,John spoke was that of serious concern. Difficult.ies there are in understanding their language and obscurities ~emain but; as Father Martindale remarks, "The upshot . is not to make, us careless. We have to obey the reiterated command~" to Watch . We have. [not to] lap Ourselve~ in false security precisely because [ the' horrible revelation ] has not come." The fullest ~and clearest statement of the d~octrine on Antichrist, though the term is not mentioned, is contained in the second epistle of St. Paul: to the Thessalonians (2:3- 12), which has already been summarized. However we are warned in the very text that the teaching is not mean~ to ~0e clear on all points. St. John uses the term Antichrist and gives some additional points in.his epistles (I, 2:1 22; 4.'3; II:7). Yet he speaks more about the followers of Antichrist than about the leader hinise~lf, The Apo~a- 2--1. c. p. 113 f. *C. C: Martindale, Antichrist, p. 24. 389 lypse;of :St.3ohn certalnly,has some matters that belong to the subject. Of Antichrist but the use of this book is b~set with difficulties and calls for the guidance of an experienced hand. The Fathers of the Church often spoke at length.on the subject. However in reading them a few cautions will be needed. Most of them stood too r~ear to the Roman Em, pire to .disengage themselves from the thought that the fate of,the world and of the Church was bound up with the destiny of that grand old institution. As is often the case with prophecy, the course of events has helped to clarify the. meaning to a certain extent: we now know that Rome has passed and still thegreat conflict has not cbme to an end. Our vision has been directed to a more distant futur~ but that does not impair the absolute truth of the predic[ion. ~ndependently of any reference to a particular political power, St. Augustine has indicated the prospect i1~ a few terse sentences: The first persecution of the Church was violent . the-second persecution is deceptive, sucl~ as is now being carried on by heretics and false brethren of .every description: the third through the agency of Antichrist is still to come, than Which there is nothing more dangerous, as it will be both violent and deceptive. Its force will rest onpolitical power, its deceit on miracles.4 Cardinal Newman has summed up the teachings of the Fathers in a series of lectur~ that will prove very handy2 The best introduction to the subject in English pr6bably is the pamphlet of Father C. C. Martindale, S.J., called Antichrist and published by the Catholic Truth Society of London. ~ 4Enarr.in Psalm. IX, n. 27: MPL. 36, 128. 5j. H. Newman, Discussions and Arguments on Various Subjects, 44-~108. "~90 S ill 0t: This Fold John E. Coogan, ~.J. THEODORE Maynard remarks in his,,Storb, of Ameri- .can Catholicism that there still is a mysterious leth-argy" in our Negro apostolate. Despite the heroic work done by individuals and groups, both clericai and lay, the'work of winning our thirteen million N~groes to the Church does not seem to get under way. The battle for the soul of the race still remains to be joined: so far all tha~ can be found is local skirmishes. Most of Negro A~merica even today remains absolutely unchurched. The two-hundred and fifty, varieties of Protestantism claim something less than one-half of Negro America, frequently to merely -nominal. affiliation. Negro Catholics represent only some two per (ent of the racial group. We Catholics publish slightly more favorable statistics from time t'o time; buc little jus.tificati9n is shown for the reputed rise except that where things are so bad, inevi'table change, must be an improvement. After all, some are being converted; and it is easy for us to fail to count those~ who are falling away. The Church in America has shown in other fidds than the race apostolate that, when we really make up our minds, things happen. For example, our Catholic school system taken as a whole, from kindergarten to university, is an achievement without precedent elsewhere. True, it teaches only half our Catholic students; another half still throng the halls, of Horace Mann. But the educational achievement of double-taxed Catholics is tremendous. Proportionate success in .the race apostolate would recall the, mass conversiqns of the primitive Church. .This statement is the more clearly true because there is 391 JOHN E. COOGAN Repieu~ ?or Reliyiofis no large group in America. that responds so r.eadily to sin-cere, he:irtfelt Catholic'. effdrt; seldom has fruit hung so ripe bn the tree, seldom were fields so ready for the harvest. "The mere announcement bf the opening, bf a Catholic school in o the corner of an old warehouse in. a Negro neighborhood has brought children by the hundreds, eager t6 be taught the things, of Holy God. Last year four thousand children applied for admission to 'a midweste~rn colored Catholic s~hool that could accept only one in ten. Another school was forced to ~u~rn away six hundred disappointed children for sheer lack of room. During thepast summer a nearby vacation school was so en~thusiastically attended that the opening-day teaching staff: had hastily to be doubled, and yet one-hundred and fifty children had to be sent~home. Evidence of whole-souled Catholic interest in the colored - brings an explosive response. ¯ ' The apparent explanation of our slight progress in the Negro apostolate is ,that the collective heart of Catholic America has not been touched. The Holy Father could say, six years ago, We confess that We feel a special paternal affection, which is cer-tainly inspired of Heaven, for the Negro people dwel!ing among you; for in the field of religion .and education We know that they need special care and comfort and are very deserving of" it. We therefore invoke an abundance of heavenly blessing and We pray fruitful suc-cess for those whose generous zeal is devoted t6 their welfare. (Sectura Laetitiae, America Press edition, n. ~14) And in 1942 the American hierarchy, speaking, through the Administra~ivej Board of the National Catholic"Welfare Conference, could say of "our .colored fellow-citizens," "We.fully appreci,ate their many native gifts and aptitudes which, ennobled and enriched by ~ true Christian life, will make them a powerful influence in the establishment of a Christian social order." But the Catholic masses are largely heedless, and little is done. 392 Nooernber, 1945 STILL NOT OF THIS FOLD The eminent non-Catholic Negro historian, Dr. Ca~- ter Woodson, has described racial prejudice as Teutonic and Protestant. Dr.'Louis Snyder, of the department of his-tory of the College .of the City of New York, makes it con- ~equent upon "the division between Church and Statb during the Reformation and the developing territorial con-solidation and rise of national states." In confirmation of: these explanations, last year in Chicago the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church tldus confessed Protestant responsibility 'for racial prejudice: It is a sorry and alarming fact that Anglo-Saxon white Protestants seem to be imbudd with more feeling of racial superiority and are guilty of more arrogant snobbery toward those of another color than any other people. The church has apparently not succeeded in incul-cating humility in English-speaking whites. Equal candor would,, however, compel CatholiCs to acknowledge that here in North Americ&,-almos~ alone in all the Catholic world, many of us have become infected with this same intoldrant spirit; .we too seem to feel that we so-called ~whites are made of finer stuff, and that the Negr~ is definitely second-rate. And although we would be willing to go to some expense for the conversion of such a second-rate' people living in some remote region of the earth --say in the Congo or Uganda--we do °not want many such converts here if they are going to move in on us and use the same religious facilities. We might hear with a sort of mild. cosmopolitan satisfaction the story of the conversion of the King of Bungo; but we would not want to have to look past his kinky head to see our parish altar. Africa~is the dark continent, the land of the primitives; and America is a white man's country! . All right, all right! We'll ~tolerate a Negro or two on a side aisle of the.church, or back near the door. Certainly we understand: Catholic means. world-wide, for all. But do you suppose we want Negroes 393 JOHN E. COOGAN Review for Religio~zs coming, in here just like us? Perhaps in another hundred years; more likely, a thousand. B°ut not nbw! It's all right ¯ to love your neighbor, but we've got to be practical. This impression of Negro ~inferiority extends princi-pally to his intellectual and moral powers: "'He is a recent primitive, unfortunately dragged from his benighted jungle life into the world of white men with mind. s sharpened and deepened by two thousand years of civilization. The Negro is mentally in the childhood of the race." This manner of reasoning°implies'a process of mental evolution, a "trans-mission of acquired' characteristics" that is al.toge.ther unknown to s~ience. Presuppos.ing a similar environment, there is nothing that can. be taught to a white child that cannot be taught to a colored. In interesting confirmation of this, a Catholic. army chaplain, recently returned from Nigeria, reports the native children positively superior in educational performance to his prize parish school pupils in the States. Even the Congo pigmies have been found altogether normal mentally. Professor Ellsworth Faris, of the University of Chic~ig9, declares fron; personal experience amon.g them that he was impressed by their "keenness 6f intellect, native shrewdness and essentially high mentality." Obviously a pigmy father less_than four feet tall and weighing about seyenty-five poundsm 'to supply elephant steaks to his.hungry family must use his wits. - " Argum,ents to African dullness c~rawn from thei~ crude native cultur~ ignore the ruins of.ancient cities scattered about their continent, memorials of their achievements in days when our northern European forefathers were lurking in' cayes, clad in the skins of wild beasts. It is thought-provoking to find Cicero then advising Atticus:."Do not obtain your slaves from Britain b~cause they are so stupid and so utterly incapable of be!ng taught that they are not 394 November', 1945 STILL NOT OF THIS FOLD fit to, form a part of ,theh~usehold of Athens." ' The fact is that all' isolated areas are likely to be culturally stagnant. Inhabitants of our southern hill country are of the stock that gave greatness to early American life; but, ocut off from the busy world, they actually deteriorated culturally. The isolation of. the African continent was far more~ enduring and even more complete. For a variety of topographical reasons, the dark continent is almost impenetrable. When to this is added its long list of fierce animals, poisonous insects, and ~deadly tropical diseases, it is easy to realize the difficulty~ of either boir0~ing foreign cultures or building up one's own. But in America, we may be reminded," education is'free; why has not the Negro risen intellectua:lly to the white man's level, if his innate powers are not inferior? Who does not know that it is only a.long lifetime that the edu-cation of the Negro has been thus even nominally free? And even now,.thro.ugh the" regions of densest Negro concen-tration, four years of slip-shod schooling are still a for-tunate experience. But the fact that Ohio Negroes men-tally out-scored the whitest.of four other states in draft tests for World War. I suggests how dependent mental achievement is upon intellectual opportunity. The whole question of the relative innate mental pow-er~ of ~he several races had better, be left to experts. May it siaffice, then, to say that the United States Government Advisory Committee on Education reported in i939, It is the .consensus among America's most eminent psychologists, educationalist.s, sociologists, and anthropologists, based upon their critical appraisal of investigations of racial differences, that there is no adequate evidence to ;support an assumption of inferior native learning ability on the part of Negro children. Even more impre.ssive is the dictum of" the American A~thropological Association, the unanimous judgment of 395 JOHN E. COOGAN Review for Religious the two-hundred and eighty members,present (led by Father John Cooper, Ph.D., of the Catholic University) at-its 1938 convention in New York "Anthropology pro-vides no scientific basis for discrimination against any people on the grounds of racial inferiority . " The second major point of supposed Negro inferiority that we proposed to discuss here is that of his moral pow-ers: "He doesn't seem to possess the white man's powers of sublimation and self-control!" That dbes sound rather pharisaical, doesn't it? Despite the greater ease with which the economically more privileged conceal their.vices, peri-odic bevelations of life in ~ertain strata of whiteosociety give one a flashlight picture of an "explosion in a sewer." Con- _fess~dly, there is among our colored much" vice arising from sheer ignorance;.it must be remembered that for ~everal centuries our slave lav~ did not recognize their unions as legal marriage. Frequent shifting of partners was not merely tolerated or encouraged, but-often even required. As the competent historian, John Spencer Bassett, reminds us, the Negro slave was a chattel: "He could, according to the popular theory, be "bought, bred, worked,-neglected, marked, or treated in any other respect as a horse or a cow~" It is precisely the Negro's awareness of the moral damage suffered by his people that makes him hunger and "thirst for Catholic truth when once he sees it. Usually the ,only sort of religion he has ever really known was the emo-tional kind that enabled him to forget for a time the stern realities of life in a white man's world. It satisfied the yearning to "participate in s.or~ething bigger than himself,"~ but it offered him little aid or inspiration" to more godly; living. The Catholic Church alone could offer in its full-ness "the way, the truth, and the life," and she" usuall3r remained for him either unknown or apparently a "white° ¯ man's church.''~ And for him she commonly retains that 396- November, 1945 STILL NOT OF THIS FOLD -a.ppearance even today. Hopes for a racially better day lie largely with re.ligious, especially teachers. We religious can teach young Catholic America--our future °priests and laymen alike--what Christ meant when He proclaimed, "I am the Vine, and you are the branches" ;. and what St. Paul meant when he spoke of a Mystical Body of which we are the members and Christ the Head. And we can show how inevitable th'en it is that "As you do unto the least of these My brethren you do unto Me." The Catholic Church. is for the Negro---as indeed for the whole world--the only port in. the storm. Her emblazoned cross must arrest his wanderings and guide him home. If a naked continent can become for the world's deprived a "Land of Opportun~ity,'' then what can not Mother Church mean to an orphan pe6ple ~and'a lace oppressed? Upon .the base of the Statue of Liberty, in New York harbor, ~the s~ulp~or has carved these lines: Give me your tired, you; poo?, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore; Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door. Such is the invitation of America. The invitation of the ~tholic Church goes still deeper and promises more: Come all you who are weary and heavy laden, And you shall find rest for your souls. The Negro will come if only our Catholic masses are taught by us to echo the welcome of ~h.e Holy Father and of our hierarchy, and to treat him as a brother; he will come with a feeling of proper pride in his human dignity and in the battles be has fought to make it respected. It will be an inspiration for us then to hear him sing 'in his Nationa! ,Negro Anthem, "Lift Every Voice And Sing": 397 God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, . _~ Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way; Thou wfTo hast by Thg" might~ Led us into the light; Keep us forever in the pdth, we pray. Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee, Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we ~orget Thee, °~ Shadowed beneath Thy hand, May we forever stand, True to our God, True to our native land. ¯ °,. CONCERNING COMMUNICATIONS "Diocesan Priest," who wrote the letter against formalism in the Ju!y number (IV, p. 277) 'has sen~ another excellent communication. Unfortunately we have not space enough.for the letter, but we Wish to digest its essentials. Agaifist "Hos-pital Sister" (of. p. 355) he defends the action of the Sister who sent the first communication on formalism (of. p. 132) : "She was citing a case where formalism was carried to an extrehae, and then put the point up for discussion. Isn't that one of the purposes of the 'Communications' section of the REVIEW?" Also in reply to "Hospital Sitter" he points out that the discussion did not concern religious women only; for "Religious Priest" clearly included religious~men in his part of the discussion. Having taken care of these minor points, "Diocesan Priest"goes on tb say that both pries(s and religious do hav~ visitors who call for perfectly valid and important reasons and cannot always choose their own.time for calling. ~$uch visitors hardly be said to be "importuning" anyone. It is possible to treat these people-- and others to--harshly by adhering to the word of the rule rather than to its spirit. "Christ could have left the miracle at the marriage feast of Cana go unper-formed because His 'time had not yet come,' but kindness and charity for His fel: lowman were more important . Don't misunderstand me. I do not advocate the destruction of all formalism. I imagine that I am only one of thousands of parish priests who really envy; religious the order in their lives. I merely agree with the Sister in saying there can be too much formalism."' We regret that we can print only this brief survey of "Diocesan Priest's" let-ter. It seems to us that his two letters brought out excellent p~ints and manifested a Christlike attitude. It is possible for us religious to be¢ome~so much attached to regularity that we resent any interference with it, even for a good cause, just as it is (Continued on p. 428) .398 Spiritual Readings t:rorn t:he Council of Treni: -Ii* ' Augustine Klaa.s, S.J. Hotg, Sacrifice of the Mass SINCE under the former Testament, accOrding to the testlmony ~ of the Apostle Paul, there was no perfection because .of the. weakness of the Levitical priesthood, there was need, God the Father of mercies so ordaining, ihat .another priest should ~ise according to tb~ order of Melcbisedech (8 3), ou.r Lord Jesus Christ, who might perfect arid lead to perfection as many as Were to be sanc-tified. He, therefore, our God and Lord, though He was by His death about to offer Himself once upon the altar of the cross to God the' Father that He might there accomplish an eternal redemption, nevdrtheless, "that Hi~ priesthood might not come to an end with His death (84), at the last.supper, on the night He was betrayed, that He might leave to His beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice, such as the nature of man requfire'_s, whereby that bloo~ly sacrifice once to be accomplished on the cross might be represented, the memory .thereof remain even .to the end of the ~orld, and its salutary effects applied to the remission of those sins which we d.aily commit, declaring Him-self constituted a priest forever according to the order of Melchise-dech (85), offered up .to God the Father His own body and .blood under the form of bread and wine, and under the forms of those same things gave to. the Apostles, whom He then made priests of the Ne~v Testament, that they might partake, commanding them and their successors in the priesthood by these words to do likewise: Do this 'in commemoration of me (86), as the Catholic Church has always understood and "taught. For having celebrated the ancient Passover which the multitude of the children of Israel sacrificed in memory of their departure from Egypt° (87), He instituted a n~w Passover, namely, Himself, to be immolated under visible signs by the Church through the priests in memory of His own passage from this world to the Father, when by the shedding of His blood He redeemed and delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into his 83) Hebrews 7:11 85) Psalms 109:4 rinthians 11:24 f 84) Hebrews 7:24 86) Luke22:19; ICo- 87) Exodus 13 *Selected from H. 3. Schroeder, O.P., Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, (~t. Louis: Herder, 1941). 399 AUGUSTIN~ KLAAg Reoieu~ [or Religious kingdom. (88) And tliis is indeed that clean oblation ,which cannot be defiled by any unworthiness or malic~ on the part. of those'who offer it: which the Lord foretold by Malachias was to be great amon~ the Gentiles (89), and which the Apostle Paul has dearly indicated when he says, that they who .are defiled by partaking of the table of devil~ cannot be partakers of the table of the Lord (90), under-standing by table in each case the altar. It is, finally, that [sacrifice] which was prefigured by various types of sacrifices during the period of nature and of the law (91), which, namely, comprises all the good things signified by them, as being the consummation and perfection of them all. Mass Propitiatory for the Living and Dead And inasmuch as in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner the same Christ who once offered Himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross, the holy council teaches that this is truly propitiatory and has this effect, that if we~ contrite and. penitent, with sincere heart and upright faith, with fear and reverence, draw nigh to God, ~e obtain merc~./ and find grace in seasonable aid. (92) For, appeased by this sacrifice, the Lord grants the grace and gift of penitence and pardons even the gravest crimes and sins. For the victim is one and the same, the same now offering by the ministry of priests who then offered Himse, lf on the cross, the manner alone of offering being different. The fruits of.that bloody sacrifice, it is well understood, are received most abundantly through this,unbloody one, so far is the latter from derogating in any way from the former. Wherefore, acco.rding to the tradition of the Apostles, it is rightly ~ offered not only for the sins, punishments, and other necessities of the faithful who are llving.,.but also for those departed in Christ but not let fully purified. The Real Presence " First of all, the holy council teaches and openly and plainly.pro2 fesses that after the consecration of bread and wine, our Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true man, is truly, really and substantially con-tained in the august sacrament of the Holy Eucharist under ~the 88) Colossians 1:13 90) See I Corinthians 89) /~lalaehias 1:11 10:21 400 ' 91) Genesis 4:4:12:8 92) Hebrews 4:16 November, 19: 5 READINGS FROM TRENt appearance of those ~ensible things. For there is no repugnance in this that our Savior sits always 'at the right hand of .the.i Father in heaven according to the natural mode of existing, and yet is in°many other places sacram~ntally present to us in Hi.s own substance by a manner of existence which, .though we can scarcely express in words, yet with our understanding illumined by faith, we can conceive a~a'd 6ught most firmly to belie,~e is possible to God. (93) For thus all our forefathers, as many as were in the true Church of Christ and who treated of this most .holy sacrament, have most openly professed that our Redeemer instituted this wonderful .sacrament at the last ~supper, when, after blessing the bread and wine, He testified in clear "and definite words ,that He gives them His own body and His own blood. Since these words, iecorded by the holy Evangelists (94) and afterwards repeated by St. Paul (95), embody~that proper and clearest meaning in which they were understood by the Fathers, it is a most contemptible action on the part of some contentious and wicked men to twist them into fictitious and imaginary tropes by which the truth of the flesh and blood of Christ is denied, contrary to the universal sense of the Church, which, as the pillar and ground of truth (96), recognizing with a mind ever grateful and unfor-getting this mostexcellent favor of Christ, has detested as satanical these unt~utl~s devised by impious men. Institution of the Holg Eucharist Therefore, our Sav.ior, when about to depart from this woHd to the Father, instituted this sacrameiat, in wh~ich He poured forth, as it were, the riches of His divine love towards men, making a remem-brance of his wonderful works (97), and commanded us in the par-ticipation of it to reverence His memory and to show forth his death until he comes (98) to judge the world. -But He wished that this sacrament should be received as th~ spiritual food of souls (99), whereby they may be nourished and strengthened~ living by the life of Him who said: He ~tbat eatetb me, the same also shall live bg me (100), and as an antidote whereby we may be freed from dail~r faults and be preserved from mortal sins. He wished it furthermore fo,be a'pledge of our future glory and' everlasting happiness, and thus be a 93) Matthew 19:26i Luke 18:27 94) Matthew 26:26- 28: Mark 14:22- 24; Luke 22:19 f 95) See I Corinthians 98) Luke22:19: ICo- I 1:24 f rinthians 11:24- 96) See I Timothy 26 3:15 99) Matthew 26:26 f "97) Psalms 110:4 100) John 6:58 401 AUGUSTINE KLAAS symbol of that one body of which He is thehead (I01) and to which He wished us to be unite~d as members by the closest bond ,of. faith, h, ope and charity, that we might all speak the same rhino an, d there. might be no schisms ambng us. (1,02) ¯ Excellence of the Holg Eucharist The most Holy Eucharist has indeed this in common with the other sacraments, that it'is a symbol of a sacred thing and a visible form of an invisible grace; but there is found in it this excellent and peculiar characteristic, that the other sacraments then first have tbe power of sanctifying when one uses them, while in the Eucharist there is the Author Himself. of sanctity before it is used. For the Apostles had not yet received the Eucharist from the hands of the Lo~d, when He Himself told them that ~vhat He was giving them is His own body. (103) This has always been the belief of:the. Church of God, that immediately after the consecration the true body. and the ~rue blood of.our Lord, together with His soul and divinity exist under the form of bread and wine,, the body under the form of bread and the blood under the form bf wine ex vi verborum; but the same body also under the form of wine and the same blood under the form of bread and the soul under both, in virtue of that natural connection and concomitance whereby the parts .of Christ the Lord, who hath now risen from the dead, to die no more (104), are mutually united. also the divinity on account of its admirable hypostatic union with His body and soul. Wherefore, it is .very true that as much is contained under either form as under'both. For Christ is whole and entire under the form of bread and under any part of that form; likewise the whole Christ is present under the form of wine and under all its parts. Transubstantiation But since Christ our Redeemer declared that to be truly His own body which He offered under the form of bread (105), it has,. there-fore, always been a firm belief in the. Church of God, and this holy council now declares it anew, that by the consecration of the bread and wine a change is brought about of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the 101) See I Corinthians 102) See I Corinthians 104) Romans 6:9 11:3; Ephesians 1:10 105) Luke 22:19: John . 5:23 103) Matthew 26:26; 6:48 if; I Corin- Mark 14:22 thians 11:24 402 ¯ Nooember, 1945 READINGS FROM TRENT whole substance 'of the wine into the substance of His blood. This ch.ange the holy Catholic Church properly and appropriately calls transubstantiation. Worship and Veneratio.n There is, therefore, no room for doubt that all the faithful of Christ may, in accordance with a custom always received in the C~ath-olic Church, give to ttiis most holy sacrament in veneration the wor-ship of latria, which is due to the true God. Neither is it to be less adored ~or the reason that it was instituted by Christ the Lord in order to be received. (106) For we believe that in it the same Go.d is present of whom the eternal Father, when introducing Him into, the world, says: And let all the angels o~: God adore him (107) ;. whom the: Magi, failing down, adored (108); who, ,finally,' as the Scrip-tures testify, was adored by the Apostles in Galilee. (109) The holy council declares, moreover, that the custom that this sublime and venerable sacrament be celebrated with special veneration and solemnity every year on a fixed festival'day, and that it be boine reverently and with honor in processions through the streets and pub-lic" places, was very piously and r~ligiously introduced into the Church of God. Eor it is most reasonable that some days be set aside as holy on which all Christians may with special and unusual demon-stration testify that their minds are grateful to and mindful of their common Lord and Redeemer for so ineffable and truly divine a favor whereby the victory and triumph of His death are shown forth. And thus it/deed did it ~behoove the victorious truth to celebrate a triumph over falsehood and heresy, that in the sight of so much splendor and in the midst of so great joy of the universal Church, her enemies may either vanish weakened and broken, or, overcome with shame and confouhded, may at length repent. Worthy Reception If it is unbecoming for anyone to approach any of the sacred functions except in a spi.rit of piety, assuredly, the more the holiness 'and divinity of this heavenly sacrament are understood by- a Christian, the more diligen.tly ought he to give heed lest he receive it without great reverence and holiness,~especially when we read those terrifying words of the Apostle: He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth 106) Matthew 26:26 107) Hebreffs 1:6 -108) Matthew 2:11 109)'Matthew 28:17; Luke 24:52 403 AUGUSTINE KLAAS , ~ .and drinketh judgment to himself, not ,discernin9 the bod~l of the Lord. °( 11 O) Wherefore, he who" would communicate, must recall to-mind his precept: Let a t~an prove himself¶ (111 ) ~ Three. Wa~ls of Receiving the Hol~l Eucharist As to the us~ of this holy sacrament, our Fathers have rightly and wisely distinguished three ways of receiving it. They have taught that some receive it sacramentally only, as sinners; other's spiritually only, namely, those who eati.ng in desire the heavenly bread set before them, are by a lively faith which worketh by charit~l (I 12) made sensible of its fruit and usefulness; while the third class receives it both sa~crameritally and spiritually, and-these a~ethey who so prove and prepare' themselves beforehand that they approach this divine tabl~ clothed with the wedding garment. (I 13) As regards the reception ofthe sacrament,, it has always been the custom, in the Church of God that laics receive communion from priests, but that priests when cele-brating communicate tl~emselves, which custom ought with justice and reason to be retained as coming down from Apostolic tradition. (1.14) Finally, the holy council with paternal affection admonishes, exhorts, prays and beseeches through the b6Wels of the mercy of our GSd, that fiach and all who bear the Christian name will,nov/at last agree and be of orie mind in this sign of unity, in this bond of charity, in this symbol of concord, and that, mindful of so great a majesty and such boundless love of our Lor.d Jesus Chri~st,. who gave His own bel~)ved soul as the price of our salvation and His owri flesh to e~it (1 15), they may believe and ~renerate these sacred mysteries of His body and blood with such cofistancy and firmness of faith, with'such devotion of mind, with such piety and w~rship, that' they may be able to receive frequently that su~ersubstantial bread and that it may. truly be to them the life of the soul and the perpetual health of their mind; that being invigorated by its strength, they may be able after the journey of this miserable pilgrimage toarrive in their heavenly coun-try, there to ~eat, without any veil, the same bread of angels (1 16) which they now eat under sacred veils. 11.0) See I Corinthians 112) Galatians 5:6 115) John 6:56 ff 11:29 113) Matthew 22:11 116) Psalms 77:25 111) See I Corinthians 114) Hebrews 5:3:" 11:28 7:27 404 -"No One Dut: Jesus" Charles F, Donovan, S.J. IN ST. MATTHEW'S account of the Transfigerati0.n ~ occurs ~ seritence which "could serve as an epi.tome of-the religious life, a slogan for those in the path of. spiritual perfection: ~"Neminem viderunt nisi solum desum'" (They saw no one but Jesus). Peter and James. and John beheld' the glory of Christ, "His face shining like the sun and His garments becoming whiteas snow," and they saw Him talking to Moses and Elias. Then the voice of God spoke from the cloud': '~'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; to Hhn.o then, listen." When the apostles heard this, they fell to the ground in fright; but Jesus touched them and told tl~em hot to Bear. When they lobked up, they saw no one but Jesus, ¯ In its context, this little clause, "They saw no 6ne but Jesus," merely means that whereas a moment before the apostles had seen others conversing with Christ, now'.Hg stood before them alone. But taken from its context and considered by itself the sentence can have a variety of spir-itual applications. For instance, it can be taken to sum up the single-minded loyalty, the controlling purpose~ the unfaltering interest, the clear courageous vision of Jesus,. that should dominate oui lives as religious from the time of our entrance to the time of our death. ~ Either of the alternative titles of ~ Kempis' classic gives the gist and the essende of the way of perfection. The busi-ness of ~erfection is on our part a following of Christl an imitation of Christ. And as is obvious, if we are to fol-low the Leader, we must keep our eyes on Him; if weate to ¯ 405 Review for Religious -~,copy thee Model, w.e must never lose sight of Him. All . sorts of-substitute leader'--fakes every one of them, no matter how. attractive--~ry to,win our attention and lo~r- ¯ alty fro~ Christ. For a time we may follow popularity or ease or success or human respect. When we do, we are on dead-end roads¯ because we are not following the one Way t9.perfection: ~f in the big and the trivial crises of life we ¯ imitate Christ, at least to the .extent. 0f asking ourselves .~utomatic~lly, as by second nature, "How would Our Lord act or react in this .situation?" we are doing much. By c.ohStantly appealing to and applying that standard, we are ¯ walking in the fgdtsteps of the saints, those who most suc- ¯ ~.e.?sfully and u;adeviatingly saw noone but Jesus. - "They saw no one but Jesus." This motto is not pro-pbied, of .course, as a justification for a sort of.spiritual dsc~ipism, a flight ~from people and prosak reality to the gonsgling company of Christ. It is not a prop for the asocial, or a defense for those who wish -to reject com-munity life; because it. imports not an exclusive vision of J~sus, but a vision that includesall else in Christ, an ecu-menlcal, all-embracing vision of Christ. If,we live up to this ideal, it means that in all our plans and fun and strivings and world, Christ has the leading role; it means that~for us there is no interest, no pleasure, no effort, no jo.y that is not dominated by Him. When we sa~r that we should see Christ in all men and all men in Christ, that is not just a trick of speech; nor does the phrase recommend a trick of conduct on our part. We are not supposed to play m'ake-bdlie~re and substitute the attractiveness of Christ for the irritating or dull personality of our neighbor.' We don't have to pretend Christ is in our neighbor, especially when that neighbor is a religious, joined to Christ by grace, by mutual choice, and by vow. Christ has told us again and a'gain ,that He is one with, 4O6 " N?~emS~r, 1945 ":'No. ON~ BUT-~JE~US!' identified with, the just soul. Our lover therefore;~fdr~ou} companions, a love of them in Christ and of Christ- in them., involws no pretense, no mental juggling.° It must, like Christ's love fbr all of us, be genuine and sincere. It isa 'lovd with a particular character upon it, a particularbias; a special core and inspir~ition. For in all otirdealings with others, in Our devotion, our service, and our companion-ship, there is one starting point, one term, one focal object~-- Christ, our and their Lord and Lover. "They saw no one but Jesus." This watchword is of ~lpplication and help in various small but not unimportant by-ways of the religious life. For instance, take.~hat saboteur of the spiritual lffe[ distradtions in prayer; We spend .the time of praye.r planning the day's work (work that i~n't half as big to Christ as would be our .loving con- ~rersation during meditation), or grieving for the ~isitors who didn't co.me (visitors whom we left at home, r'emem-. ber, because of our love for Christ), or dreaming of the hap, piness we would have in ~a different community (although Christ is in, this community as well as that, and wants~. me here with Him). Such wasteful dissipating mind-wanderings Would not bother us and spoil the most valu, able partof our day if Our Lord really ruled our heart. We wouldn't be noticing~s0-and-so's absence, ~his one's pos- ¯ ture, or that 6ne's habit at Mass or other common exercises if our eyes, mind, and heart were riveied on the One. All our life we are going to hlive trials. We know that. Certainly we didn't enter religion to get away from them, to get a soft life. And it is in trials that our faith, ofir prac-tical faith in Christ is tested. It's easy to follow Him when things are going smoothly. It's pleasant to walk with Him on cool green.Galilean hills. BU.t the particular following that He enjoined involves a cross. "Take up your cross and follow Me " Whatever it is that gets us down, what- 407 CHAI~'B$' P. DONOVAN ' Revieu~ foroRdi~llous eve~ ,happens to be our cross, whether it is sickness ~or mis-understanding or failure or temptation of our own disposi, tibn or an unaccountable desolation or .spirituals sluggish-ness, whatever form our crosses take, we can bear them courageously,, even lightly, if in them and through them all .we See only 3~sus. ~ Remember those Sisters whom Father De Smet, him-self one of God's heroes, was bringing from'l~urope to America.The boat trip was unusually hard~ and long (they.had to go around South America to reach the west cdast in those days) and the poor Sisters began to compl~in. Father De Smet made this beautiful reproach: "I offered you an opportu.nity and you are making it a sacrifice." For the moment the Sisters viewed the arduous crossing with natural eyes only. Although they were going to America' to work for Christ, they could not see Christ on the way, upon the tossing waters o~ the Atlantic or of the Pacific. :NO doubt, after their holy ~ompanion's reminder, they saw ,Jesus again and cried in their hearts like St. ,John upon .other waters, "It is the Lord." ~ Why do we lose the clear perspective, the selfless~purity of intention that was .ours on entering religion? St. Thomas More says°somewhere that a man who gives up authority and fortune to follow Christ in the way of religious life may soon be striving anxiously for any powe.r he can gain, even if it is nothing more than the high office of tolling the bell. The SiSter who three years ago ~vas ready .to follow Christ's call to the ends of the earth, whatever the cost in suffering or 'humiliation~ to~la~ is disconsolate and bitter because she is given the third instead of the .fourth grade. Ambition, rivalry,]ealousy, c~liques--these ready and time-proven tools of Satan, chillers of fervor, spoilers of happi-ness for individuals and communities ~--get a foothold for only one reason: Christ getsp~ashed to one side, is ~ometimes 408 " ° 1945- "No ONE BUT JESUS" even pushed out of sight. And as the old saw has it, out of sight, but of mind. . . " Life becomes complicated and tense and emotionally snarled only when we lose thfit ciear vision. -Wh~ wea~ri-ness; the 'fever, and the fre~ of which the poet speaks are °inevitable where little idols of selfishness, false gods of ambition or self-indulgence are ¯set up in the place, of Jesus on the altar of out thoughts and desires. Noviceship sirn-plicity, youthful joy,., deathbed clarity are ours as long as we remain true to that .ca.pitul~tion to Cl'irist which we made at.the start of our religio.us, life. There is b~Jt on~ anchb£ one goal, one beacom one spouse for usHe of ¯ .whom the Father says, to us as to the apostie~, :'This, is.my beloved Son in whom i am well ple~ised; to Him,. theft, listen." BOoks.Received " (From¯ August 20 to'October 20) " FREDERIC PUSTET CO~, New York and Cincinnati. ¯ . . , dourney 'in the Night. By Rev. Father Brice, C.P. $2.50. Stars, By Rev. Gile~ Staab. O.F.M.Cap. $2.00., LONGMANS, GREEN ~ Co., New York and Toronto. The Heart.of Man. By Gerald Vann, O.P. $2.00. . THE BRUCE PUI~LISHING COMPANY, Milwaukee. " The Wool Merchant of Segooia. By Mabel Farnum. $2.00. The Life of Our Lord, By Sister 3aneMarie, O.P., and Sister Anne Catherine, C.S.J, $1.00 (Paper). Speech Models. "Selected and Edited by William R. Duffey a~d Aloysius Croft. $2.5.0. Tl~e Religion Teacfier and ll~e World. By .Sister Mary Rosalia, Rev. 3ohn J. Considine, M.M., and Sister Mary Julian Bedier. $1.00 (Paper.). " Heads abooe the LITURGICAL PROCEEDINGS ,~ - National Liturgical Week: 1944 is a record of the Fifth Annual Liturgical Week held.in N~w York last' December. It con'~ain'-s all prepared papers, ~ead at the meeting and brief summaries'of the discussions. Also includ~'d ire five papers read at the Liturgical Conference meeting held at St. Meinrad's the previous October. There i& a notable foreword by His Excellency, Archbishop Spellman. A reading list and an index complete the volume, which is published by The Liturgi~ cal C6nferehce,¯605 No. Michigan Blvd., Chlcago~ . ~. Moral TheOlogy t:or,l:verybody Ge')a~ld Kelly,,S.J~. THE occasion formy present remark~ is the publication ¯ !n i~nglish .of Father Heribert Jone's Moral" "The, ology,1 which it'is my not unpleasant task to review. In writing my review I am taking a cue from the" jacket of the book, which commimds it to pastors "as a. quick and convenient means for rendering, decisions in cases of con-s_ cience," to young priests and seminarians "to facilitate the repetition of Moral Theology,'-' and to the educated laity to. help them "in solving many of ~the .minor problems of' conscience that occur in their daily lives." For pa_storsl for other priests (young and old), and for seminarians who-have begun their Course of theology, my review can be very brief. Father Jone is ~/first-class moralist an~t canoeist. In.his c(~mmentary off The Code (Geset.z-buCh) 2 and in his one-volume .moral theology he has mani-fested toe a remarkab!e degree the power of' selecting impor.tant things and Of presenting his.material in a clear, ,br'ief fashion. Ndt the least of his accompiish~ents is a wholesome "modernizing" of certain sections of moral the- ' ology. For instance, he sketches the pathological obstacles to human activity a,nd he bas_es his necessarily brief remarks on scrupulosity on recent psychological, data. Father Urban Adelman's translation preserves the goodqualities,of the original German, and his adaptation of certain sections (for example, justice and marriage) to the needh bf the American priest is. especially commendable. The boSk is ne.atly pririted and the size is very handy. ~See the. "Book Review" section, p. 426 foi d~tails concerning publisher, l~ric~, etc. '~his has not been translated into English. 410 MORAL THEOLOGY FOR EVERYBODY All this does not mean that the~book is 100 percent flawless. It has its defects; but my impression is that they are few and df re.latively minor importance. For example, a p~iragraph is out of place in'the section on legal adoption; a few opinions seem to be represented as.having more value than they really have; and, though the date of the book .1945, some recent and very important decisions of the Holy See are not referred to. When the book is reprinted it would be well to include an extra page or two indicating the sub~- stance of these decisions. . ~ The jacket also recommends the book to the "educated laity." I trust that I am not misinterpreting the word "laity" in assuming that in the context it refers to all who. are nqt clerics and that it would, therefore, include non-. clerical religioui,- both men ~nd women. At any rate, I am mainly interested in the question of moral theology for religious, and I think that this is an "appropriate 0dcasion for discussing that topic in something more than a super-ficial manner. My remarks on the subject will touch upon these" four questions: should non-clerical religious an~/ moral theology? how much should they, know? and how are they to.get this knowledge? and finally, will the mere reading of Father Jone's book satisfy their needs? Meaning o~: Moral, Theologg Before answering these questions it seems advisable to indicate briefly what moral theology is. An adequate defini-tion may be briefly phrased thus: moral ,theology is the sci-. ence of obligatorg Christian perfection. Moral- theology deals specifically wi'th what we may roughly designate-as the,first two degrees of Christian perfection,3 whereas ascetical theology, according to the more common opinion 8For a description of the three degrees of perfection, confer Father Klaas's, article. "Perfection is UniOn with God," in REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS, IV, i~P. 259-261. 411 Reuiew for ~eli#ious hdd today; is specifically con~cefned with~the third degree. Moral theology is the science of Christian obligation;~ ascet-ical theology is the science of Christian superero'gation. :. "Obligati6n,~' xherefore; is.-, the moral theologian's/ sphere. He discusses-, the comm~nds of God, of the Church, and of civil~s~ociety that give rise to obligations. He" e~lains the meaning of these precepts, the degree ~ind thee k{nd.of obligation they impose, the way they are to be ful-filled,- the pehalties' for violation, and so forth. He examines the subjective side of obligation: the human conscience and all the factors that concern responsibility before God. Under ~he .same aspect-~obligation--he treats of the divine and ecClesiasticallaws governing :the use of the sacraments, the sacramentals, and indul~gences. Value for Teachers From this thumbnail outline of the scope of moral tbe-ol. ogy it is obvious that at least those religious who have to .teach ,Christian doctrine could profit greatly-by some knowledge-of moral theology. For Christian doctrine inc,!udes the Commandments of God, the precepts of the Church, and certain obligations relative to the sacraments. These are moral subjects. Even in presenting them to small children the teacher who knows something of the science underlying them has a great advantage over_the teacher whose own knowledge is more or less elementary. If we consider merely the formal teaching of Christian doctrine, we may safely say that religious, particularly Sis-ters, are among the most influential "moralists" in the Church in America. They play a most important role in the formation of'c~nsciences. - "Sister says that's wrong. ¯ Sister says we must do this," how. many times have not " such statements become principles of action in the lives of ch!ldren and rehaained so even through adtilt life? That is November, 1945 MORAL ~THEOLOGY FOR EVERYBODY what I mean by '~'influence'"; and it-~cannot be'denied that religious who teach children, exercise such- influenc.e, on oa large scale: And~ I might add here that~ I have no great sympathy for the pe~ssimistic, destructive attitude.that con-centrates on the blunders .:made' by teaching° Sisters and attributes practically all. the harm of malformed consciences to them. The good they have accomplished is tremendous and far~ outweighs the harm done by occasional blunders; ¯ but this good could'be increased and the blunders could ~b~ diminished if the. religious teacher were given some training in the science of Christian morality. ~The moral teaching done by religious is not confined to the religion class. Questions are asked outside of class and advice is sought; and through the answers and the counsel given, consciences are ,,influenced perhaps even more than in the classroom. This is~as if should be. Religious are not mere instructors; their schools are not merely classrooms. The human relationship between the pupil.°and .the reli-gious teacher is,very intimate. If it were not,so, our apos-tolate of teaching would be a very dull one indeed. But with-this extende~ sphere of teaching there is also a~n extended field of opportunity, and. this implies a greater degree of responsibility to be prepared to answer the ques, tions, and to give advice. Since I have touched upon the subject of informal stu-dent counseling I may be pardoned for expanding slightly on that topic. Warm, personal relhtionships between students and teachers are the logical outcome of our system of education: This is. true in all spheres: the elementary. school, the high school, the college, and in so far as reli-gious and priests come in contact with the students--even in the universities. It is perfectly natural, foi i,n~tance, that a high schbol or college girl should place special confidence in a certain Sister; that a boy should have confidence in a 413 GERALD K~LI~Y "'" " ~ Review for Religious Br0t[~er; And because of this confidence they wilt-refer their personal 'problems to the Sister or Brother. ~. The p~rsona~l problems of youth are, of course, quite vari~d;~but certainly many of them pertain to morali[y. The question" of .likes and dislikes, of hot tempers, of char-acter weaknesses, of falling in love, of dean conversation, g!ean reading, clean thinking, conduct at dances and par-ties-~- the~e are but indications of their moral problems. They get puzzled or worried over their moral obligations, and they' will speak about these things to the reli~gious in whom they have confidence. And it seems to me that, Whenever possible, the "religious should be prepared, to answer them. The old cry, '~You'd better see your confes-sor about that," can be overdone. Boys and girls are not able tO talk to everyqne--nor are the rest of us, for that matter--and it may happen t.hat the only confessor avail-able is someone they cannot "open up to." Hence, at least in' those problems that~ do not strictly require the specialized judgment of the priest and the sac~ed priva.cy of the con-fessional, religious teachers ought to think twice before closing their lips with one hand and pointing to the con-fessional with the other. In the problems that I.have indi-cated- the ordinary problems of young people religious who have good judgment and the proper training can give .~veryhelpful counsel. But they must have some training,. some knowledge of the moral principles to be applied. - It will be noticed that in indicating the personal prob-lems of youth I said nothing about the purely physical aspects of sex. I purposely omitted mention of this because I am convinced that it is a special problem. The pa'rents are supposed to give physical sex instruction; but in defect of the ~arents religious are sometimes called upon to sup-ply the needed knowledge. A religious should not do this without an understanding with the parents, if they are 414 November, 1945 ]~'IORAL THEOLOGY FOR EVERY~ODY alive, and without the knowledge and approval of his own superior. Grave misunderstandings can result from a failure to observe these safeguards. Moreover, not every/- one is qualified to give such instruction. Those who do give it should have, not only a.knowledge of the subject, but also a wholesome professional attitude. Otherwise ~they Will manifest a morbid interest, or will be crude in their expression, or will blush and stammer--and all these are fatal mistakes in giving physical sex enlightenment. Before leaving this point of the desirablity of some moral theology for teaching religious, I should like to put the matter in a slightly different wa~. The.imparting of moral instruction, whether formally in the classroom or informally in conversation, calls for an attitude l!hat may b~ characterized as positive, moderate, and objecl!ive. The positive attitude contributes inspiration; it makes moral precepts appear in their true light, as conducive to beauty, harmony, and peace, and nor as balls-and-chain on the feet of joy. The moderate attitude steers the middle course between rigorism and laxism; it overemphasizes neither the divine nor the human elements in the life of Christian per.- fection. The objective attitude removes, as the name implies, the blight of subjectivism in moral teaching and counseling. Not what we as individuals think is right wrgng, but what the Church, through her official do~cu-ments or'approved theologians, teaches is right or wrong-- that is what we are to teach; and that is the one thing with which the truly objective attitude is concerned. The attitude that I have just described may be to soine extent the result of temperament; but only to a relatively slight extent.¢ It is attained chiefly through correct knowl-edge and appreciation of Catholic morality; hence the desirability and even need of some training in moral the-ology for teachers and counselors. 415 ,G~RA~-~D KELLY " : . Review [or Religious ,: . Personal Advantages :. ¯ :The preceding paragraphs,give at l~ast an indication t'hat some knowledge of moral theology is, decidedly bene-ficial for religious ~ngaged in the teaching apostolate. The. sa.me reasonswould apply tO any other apostolate in which the:religious might reasonably be expected to answer ques- .tions about moral matters or to give counsel: for example, n.ursing, and social service. I cannot dwell here on the needs of these other apostolates; but°I should like to say a wo'rd about the value of moral theology in the personal " lives.of the religious. In doing so, it seems advisable to deal'~rst with certain objections that are often voiced when the: question;of moral theology for religious is proposed. . We sometimes hear it said: "Religious lead an ascetical life. They are not s'upposed to live according to the norms of moral, theology." This objection is not asstrong as it is sometimes made to appear. The religious life is certainly an ascetical life, a life dedicated to the perfection of the counsels; and as~ such, the science of it belongs to ascetical the01og~r. From this I am justified in concluding that reli- 'gious ought to know some ascetical theology; but'I am noe justified in concluding that they should not know any moral theology. The f~llowing of Christ in the observance of the counsels does not free religioqs from the obligation of observing the commandments Of "God and precepts of the Church. Religious have the same obligations as. other Catholics, plus a host of other duties. The explanation of these obligations is the function of moral theology. Hence, t.hough it would not be correct to say that-the aim of the religious life is entirely contained in moral theology, it correct to say that it is partially treated there.- And in so far as it is t/eated in .moral thet)logy, this science can ben beneficial to religious. Another obj.ection which is not at all u.ncommon runs 416 ¯ November, 1945 MORAL THEOLOGY FOR E~iERYBOI~Y as follows: "If~you t~acb religious moral theo~logy you, will " be teaching them how far they can go, without cohamitting mortal sin., And they will take advantage Of that knowl-edge and commit many venial sirfS they would otherwise not fiiave committed."., I might m~ntion in passing that the phrasing °of this objection" shows a thoroughly negativ~ and- ~rror~ous concept of m'~ral theology. However, I ~vill not delay on that h~re bUt'~will merely poin~t out a m~ch more fundamental error in this 6bjectibn: namely, it s,fiows a complete lack of confidence in religious idealism. If this obje~fi0ii were really true,'Z'then I believe I could logically conclude that the religious life is°failing in its purpose. _For surely the purpose of the religious" lift is. to-keep alive in us the desire of imitating Christ even beY0n.d the sphere Of, obligation; and.if ev~fi this "desire is lacking in the majo,rity of us, ou~ institut~ have fa~iied~miserably. ~- As a matter of fact, the .objection-may have some weight in the case of a.few; it certhin, ly'does not apply to. religious as a group. If We-consider all religious, we might epitomize tile effects of moral theology on their personal lives somewhat as follow~. For a certain numbei:, th~ effect is entirely n_eutr~il; ~heir lives are neither, better'nor worse for the kiaowledge. In the, case of a comparative few the effect may be evil; they apparently 'abuse the knowledge. -E;cen in these cas~s; however, I doubt if the k~nowledge of moral theology lowers th~ir, ideahsm. Rather, their ideal-ism is already lowered, and the newl,y acquired knowledge helps them to salve their consciences. I ¯believe that.if ~these few had been taught, some moral theology while they were still fervent, it would have had no evil effect on them. Finally, in the case of the majority of religious, the effect of some knowledge is decidedly beneficial. ¯They Understand their own spiritual objectives better and they are able to dis-cuss them ~ith directors and ~onfess6rs more intelligently. 417 "~ERALD KELLY Review 'fop Religious They are fre.ed from needless worries: and many of the averiues that lead to scrupulosity are blocked off. How Much? Granted that most religious would profit by some knowledge Of moral theology, it is quite logical to ask: how much ought they to know? I can hardly give a. perfectly exact general answer to this question, but I can indicat'e certain general norms that might be of service. The first is a negative norm: they do not need a confessor's knowl-edge. _h fair percentge of the matter treated in the ordinary seminary course would be useless for non-clerical religious. On the other hand, speaking positively, it would be Very helpful to know: the fundmental principles, with the more practical applications; the main points considered under each of the Ten Commandments; the ecclesiastical precepts of fast, abstinence;' and the observance of holidays; the' obligations of the vows;, the obligations.pertainlng to the reception 'of the sacraments, particularly of the Eucharist and penance. That is a general 0utlin~. Those engaged in special work might need a bit more. Fbr instance, those teaching in college and the upper grades of high school. might well know something about the Church laws~ con-cerning marriage; nurses would need special training in medico-moral problems; social workers ought to have an acquaintance with the social aspects of Catholic morality. How to Get It? .A mother superior or brother superior might stop me at this point with the pertinent query: '"Fatherl I begin to see that some knowledge of moral th.eology would be "use-ful to many of my subjects, especially the teachers. 'But ple~ise tell me fi6w. they. are going to get this knowledge." That, in the radio parlance of the day, is the $64-question; and, since I led up to it, I ought t.o try to answer it. 418 November, 1945 MORAL THEOLOGY FOR EVERYBODy Religious can learn .some moral theology by reading, especially if the topics are well-developed and more or less self-explanatory. The main disad~vantage of this method is that it is too passive; it affords no practice in the actual solving of problems. Furthermore, if the reading is not directed by someone who knows the needs and the capacities of the religious, much time may be lost; and if the reading matter is very technical, erroneous notions may result. A secbnd method is the lecture system: a professor lec-tures, and the religious listen. A great deal of information can be assimilated in this way and, if.questions are allowed, . many practical problems can be answered. But like leading /it is too. passive. One does not have a real grip on moral principles until one has learned through actual personal effort how to use these principles in solv~ing cases. When I speak of the disadvantages of reading and .the lecture system~ I do not mean to say that they have no value. Properly used, they do impart some knowledge and they furnish a.general idea of the way moral principles are established and applied to concrete problems. But the ideal method is an active class--a class in which the professor explains the main points thoroughly, and the students have time for working problems personally, discussing questions among themselves, and consulting with the professor. Of course, this ideal method takes time. In te.aching Sisters during the summer I have found that it takes two or three 6-week sessions, with a double period each day, to cover the general program I outlined above. And I realize that, consider.ing other needs and the pressure for credits and degrees, very few religious can spare all this time for one subject. Consequently I am not expecting to see reli- ¯ gious swarming~to summer sessions of moral theology with plenty of time for discussions and problems. But surely a few can be spared now~, and there is no harm in hoping and 419 GERALD KELLY planning for future.programs. As a matter of factl in the last decade or two we have made~ great progress~in providing various advanced religion courses for teaching. ~eligious. Personally, I °hope to see the da~i. when a sort of,stream'- lined seminary co~rse-~compris!ng Sacred Scripture, the various branches of theology, and the essentials "of canon law' wili be readily available for many religious. Ea~her Jone's Book What I have said prepares the way for a brief estimate of the ~ralue of.Father Jone's book fo} non-clerical reli-gio~ s. The mere reading_of the book will undoubtedly ft~rnish much valuable information; it is a complete volume moral theology. It is a good book for ready refer-ence when one wants, answers to various problems that are treated explicitly by-the moral theologians: and for this reason it'is a handy book for the community library. But we sh6uld be careful that we do not look for too much from the mere reading of a book like this. Though. it does cover all of moral theology, it is only a compendium. Its full value can be realized only by one who has had a regular course in moral theology. ¯ For one who is just learning it is too brief; so brief, in fact, that, while solving some "minor problems of Consciende" it might .easily create others. In moral theology, as in other subjects, a little knowledge is sometimes a dangerous thing.' A fitful word about the value of the book for the laity in general. I believe that the claim ofthe publisher--that it will help them to solve their minor problems of con-science is true, with the ~eserxiatio'n mentioned above: ._namely, that the brevity of treatment may create o.ther problems. Therefore, they ought to.be in a position to supplement :the~ reading with consultation and discussion. 420 :.Decisions. o,C 'he I-Io1 .See Forb/years ago, on December 20, 1905, Pope Pius X issued the Sacra Tridentina S~jnodus, the hist0ry-making decree on frequent Communion. To recall the anniversary, we are r~printing here the hi.he articles that form the positive and practical part of the decree. The Q,ernadrnod-m (referred to in articl~ 7) forbade superiors .to interfere with the reception of Holy Communion on the-part of sub-jects. The obligation of reading this decree ahnually (see article 8) no longer exists, as its contents have been incorporated into the Code. 1. Frequent and daily Communion, as a thing most earnestly desired by Christ Our Lord and by the Catholic Cliurch, should be ope~n to all the f~ithful, of whateverrank and condition of lifd: so that no one who is in the state of grace, and who approaches the holy "table with the right intention, can lawfully be hindered therefrom. 2. A right intention consists in this: that he who approaches the holy table should do so, not out of routine, or vaing]ory, or human re~pect, but for the purpose of pleasing God, of being more closely ¯ united with Him. by charity, and of seeking this divide remedy for his weakness and defects. 3. Although it is more .expe.dient that thos~ who communicate frequen,tly~.or daily should be free from venial sin, especi;qly from . such as are fully deliberate, and from any affection thereto, never-theless it is ~ufficient that they be free from mortal °sin, with the purpose of never sinning .mortally in the future; and. if they. have this sincere purpose, it is impossible but that daily communi~nt~ should" gradually emancipate themselves from even venial sin~, and from all affection thereto. 4. But whereas the Sacraments of the New Law, though they-t~ ke dffect ex opere operato, nevertheless produce a greater effect in proportion as the dispositions of the recipient are better; therefore care is to be taken that Holy Communion bd preceded by very serious preparation, and followed by a suitable thanksgiving according to each one'~ strength, circumstances, and duties. 5. "lbhat the practice of frequent and daily Communion.may be carried out with greater prudence and more abundant merit, the con-fes~ or's advice should be asked. Confessors, however, are to be care-f~ l hot to dissuade any one from frequent and daily Communion., DECISIONg OF THE HOLY SEE provid.ed that be is in a state of grace and' approaches with a right intention. : . ~--. ~ ~- o - o 6. But since it is plain that, by the frequent Or daily reception "of thee Holy Eucharist, union with Christ is fostered, the"spiritual life more abundantly sustained, the souimore richl# endowed with~vir-tues, and an even surer.pledge of everlasting happiness bestowed on th~ recipient; therefore parish priests, confessors and preachers in accordance with the approved teachings of theRoman Catechism (Part ii, cap, 4, n. 60) are frequently, and with great zeal to exhort the faithful to this devout and salutary practical. ~7. F.requ~nt and daily Communion is to-be promoted e.speciallv in religious orders and .congregations of all kinds: with regard .to which, however, the decree Quernadrnodum,'issued on the 17th De-cember, 1890,.by the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars is .to' remain in force. It is also to be promoted especially in ecclesias~ical~ seminaries, where students are preparing for the service of the altar: as also in all Christian establishments, of whate~er kind, for training of yotith. , 8. In the case of religious institutes, whether of solemn or simpl~ ;cows, in whose rules, constitutions, or calendars, Communion is a~ssi~ned to certain fixed days, such regulatio.ns are to be regarded°as directive and not preceptive. In such cases the appointed nfimber of Communions Should be regarded a.s a minimum, and not as setting. a limit tothe devotion 6f the religious. Therefore, freedom of access to the Eucharistic table, whetiaer more frequently or daily, must always be allowed them, according to the principles above laid d~wn in this decree. And in .order that all religious, of. both sexes may c!early, understand the provisions of this decree, the Superior of each house is to see that it is read in community, in the verna~ular, every year ~¢ithin the octave of the Feast of Corpus Christi. " 9. Finally, after the publication of this decree, all ecclesiastical; writers are to cease from contentious controversies concerning the dispositions r