Inhaltsangabe:Introduction: In the past two decades backpacker tourism has grown vastly throughout both developed and developing world. Particularly to south and Southeast Asian countries the phenomenon of backpacking is not new, so to India, where it dates back to the 60's and 70's hippy drifters, to which backpacking is often associated. It has been since the publication of the Lonely Planet's 'Yellow Bible' ('Southeast Asia on a Shoestring') in 1975 that backpacking has gradually emerged as a mass travel style. Today popular travel-yourself literature cover almost every corner of the globe, serving a steady demand for 'off the beaten path' travel. Thereby to backpackers the developmental background of a destination plays a lesser role than to the mainstream tourist, who is demanding certain infrastructural arrangements. As a result backpackers are found in utmost remote and low developed locations that other tourists never reach. Thus backpacker enclaves have emerged in many places throughout the world, and not without effects on their hosting environments. While social impacts often carry negative connotations, hosting communities do usually appreciate backpackers for their economic contributions. Objectives and Scope of this paper: In recent years backpacker tourism has profoundly been studied in developed contexts, particularly Australia and New Zealand are to be seen the pioneering regions of independent travel research, having undertaken strenuous efforts to study the same within the past two decades. As a consequence both destinations have recognized the economic value of low budget travel to their countries and established backpacker tourism as high yielding segments within their national tourism markets. In both countries backpacking has since undergone shift from de-marketing to a marketing label. Though in recent years international research has made numerous successful attempts to study backpacker tourism in less developed contexts, many tourism officials in third world destinations as yet refuse to accept the economic reach coming along with low-budget travel. Instead a majority of administrative instances promote upscale- and regulated forms of tourism to be the way forward, neglecting any concerns with regard to necessary infrastructure or initial investments. Though only a fraction of developing nations do actively restrict independent travel to their territories (e.g. Maldives, Bhutan), a majority at best tacitly ignores the phenomenon. Other cases have proven forceful discouragement from local authorities and government bodies. India is an example, though having a long tradition as a backpacker destination and as yet well reputing among international travellers, there are strong indications that tourism planners and authorities follow the common misbelieve that low budget equals low revenue tourism and begin displacing backpacker tourism, in particular from designated tourism priority zones. At this point the present paper starts to assume relevance. It aims at proving the economic significance of international backpacker tourism in a third world context, particularly the economic development impacts coming along with this form of travel. Beside setting up an explorative backpacker profile of independent travellers in India it examines the case of a remote Indian traveller enclave including the local and regional economic developments directly and indirectly resulting from budget travel. Basing on empirical research firstly a backpacker profile is being created, providing fundamental quantitative data on travellers in India and the study area itself. A second aim of this paper is to place the backpacker in India into an international context and identify similarities and differences to his counterpart in other regions of the world. Furthermore it follows the question of the existence of different types of backpackers in India. Hence, survey findings are being contrasted with data from other, international backpacker markets, as well as theoretic defining and distinction criteria. The identification of parallels farther allows an application of economic development criteria from other destinations onto the Indian context. The section therewith sheds light onto the demand side of India's contemporary budget travel market. A qualitative approach has been chosen to run down on backpacker economic development impacts on Havelock in the Andaman Islands, representing the study area of this paper. Substantiated by data from the backpacker profile this second section portrays the case of a remote islands enclave, and how backpacker tourism impacts on its local economy. Again findings are being contrasted with a number of theoretic criteria, in order to emphasize their significance to the region. Farther the evolutionary path of backpacker enclaves is being followed and the question whether or not independent travel spearheads organized forms of tourism. This section particularly approaches the supply side of independent travel in India and the area of focus. Finally the paper aims at identifying factors for success of backpacker travel in India and the Andaman Islands.Inhaltsverzeichnis:Table of Contents: 1.INTRODUCTION1 1.1Objectives and Scope1 1.2Structure3 1.3Overall Methodology4 THEORETICAL CONTEXT 2.INTRODUCTION TO THE DESTINATION6 2.1Destination India6 2.1.1India's developmental situation6 2.1.2Geography and climate7 2.1.3Politics and economy7 2.1.4Tourism in India8 2.2Destination Andaman Islands13 2.2.1Geographic facts13 2.2.2Brief historical review14 2.2.3Population14 2.2.4Economy and industry14 2.2.5AN Islands tourism15 2.3Destination Havelock Island16 2.3.1Location16 2.3.2Population16 2.3.3Landscape and infrastructure16 3.BACKPACKER DEFINING CRITERIA TYPOLOGIES17 3.1Cohen's tourist typology17 3.1.1The Organized Mass Tourist17 3.1.2The Individual Mass Tourist18 3.1.3The Explorer18 3.1.4The Drifter18 3.2Riley's defining criteria of independent travellers (1988)19 3.3Defining criteria of contemporary backpackers20 3.3.1Pearce's defining criteria of backpackers (1990)20 3.3.2Ateljevic Doorne's defining criteria of backpackers (2000)22 3.3.3Contrasting Ateljevic Doorne's backpacker types with24 4.DEFINING CRITERIA WITH REGARD TO THE STUDY AREA25 4.1The backpacker enclave25 4.2Forms and types of backpacker enclaves26 4.2.3Urban and Rural Enclaves26 4.2.4Functional and Destinational Enclaves26 4.2.5Concentrated and Dispersed Enclaves26 4.3The evolutionary paths of backpacker enclaves27 4.3.1Butler's Tourist Area Life Cycle (TALC) Model27 4.3.2Papatheodorou's advanced evolutionary approach30 5.BACKPACKER TOURISM ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CRITERIA31 5.1Scheyven's Economic Development Criteria of Budget Tourism32 STUDY RESULTS 6.THE QUANTITATIVE SURVEY – PROFILING THE BACKPACKER34 6.1Methodology of the quantitative survey34 6.1.1Conceptualisation of the survey34 6.1.2Survey execution37 6.1.3Evaluation of data39 6.2Survey findings and discussion42 6.2.1Socioeconomic aspects - who is travelling?44 6.2.2Travel company, itinerary and trip length50 6.2.3Travel motivations56 6.2.4Use of infrastructure61 6.2.5Budgeting and expenses69 6.2.6Organized activities on Havelock Island74 6.2.7Statements to rate regarding India as a destination76 6.3Summary of survey findings78 6.3.1Demographics78 6.3.2Travel company78 6.3.3Travel motives78 6.3.4Itinerary79 6.3.5Use of infrastructure80 6.3.6Spending81 6.4Contrasting study findings with defining criteria of Pearce, Ateljevic Doorne82 6.4.1Comparison of survey findings with defining criteria of Pearce82 6.4.2Comparison of survey findings with Ateljevic Doorne's advanced defining criteria84 7.THE QUALITATIVE SURVEY – ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IMPACTS ON HAVELOCK ISLAND86 7.1Methodology of qualitative interviews86 7.2Study findings and discussion87 7.2.1A temporal review of Havelock's budget tourism development88 7.2.2Economic development impacts on Havelock91 7.2.3The case of Shri Dhananjoy Mondal and family97 7.4Summary of local economic development impacts on Havelock99 7.5Contrasting Havelock's status with Scheyven's defining criteria101 8.DEFINING HAVELOCK'S CURRENT STATUS AS A BACKPACKER ENCLAVE104 8.1Classification of Havelock's status according to Cohen and Howard104 8.2Classification of Havelock's evolutionary status according to Butler Papatheodorou105 8.3Do backpackers spearhead mass tourism?108 9.SUCCEEDING FACTORS FOR BPT DEVELOPMENT110 9.1Resources beneficial to tourism development110 9.2Surrounding conditions beneficial to independent travel development113 9.3Success factors for backpacker travel development in brief118 10.CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDED COURSE OF ACTION119 11.REFERENCES123 12.ANNEX130Textprobe:Text Sample: Chapter 6.3.1, Demographics: The backpacker found to be travelling in India is young, commonly under the age of 30. Males and females are equally distributed and the majority originates a western background (Europe and North America). Remarkable are a very high percentage of young Israeli travellers, constituting the strongest source nation of the sample, was found to be travelling in Andaman Islands. Israeli travellers in particular are young, with a large majority under the age of 25. Age composition of backpackers matches findings from previous surveys. Independent travellers in India are very well educated, either already having a university degree, or still studying for one. Only a fraction of the sample is full time employed, a larger proportion was found to be in an undetermined status - e.g. between two major phases in life - hence 'travelling' best suited their current occupation. Again present findings coincide with findings from earlier studies, from other parts of the world. 6.3.2, Travel company: The minority of backpackers in India travel on their own, the majority seek company of partner, friend(s) or fellow travellers. The result opposes findings from developed destinations, where a majority is found to be travelling alone. The assumption was substantiated, that independent travellers in third world destinations strongly tend to seek travel company. Increased hardship of travel and strangeness of host culture were named to be the most reasonable explanations. 6.3.3, Travel motives: The traveller to India is attracted by a composition of motives, commonly aspects of exploration, excitement and relaxation. A basic drive for the backpacker is a thirst for experience of India's natural, historical and cultural assets. Farther, sun and beach ranks as a top pull drive, as well as India's low overall cost of living and travelling. Rather specific for India is the 'spiritual traveller' who visits holy places and partly participates in meditation or Yoga. A majority of 'spiritual' travellers is of Israeli origin, many of those are involved in drug consumption. The assumption was made that the low living expenses in India strongly promote it to backpackers as a travel destination. At the same time - though being value for money - India does not appeal as a country for shopping. Rather there are indications that India receives recognition as a country for temporary tertiary education. The survey uncovered 3 'study backpackers', a fairly recent phenomenon which had already been reported from Australia. When it comes to Andaman Islands the relaxational aspect of pull factors comes to the fore. Travellers to Andaman Islands seek both, to actively and/or passively relax from strains of travel while exploring tropical beaches. The backpacker to Andaman Islands often follows recommendations from previous visitors (friends, relatives other travellers) and seeks thrill in adventuresome eco-activities. Snorkelling and SCUBA-diving are the most popular ventures backpackers opt for. 6.3.4, Itinerary: Most backpackers visit India for the first time and travel the country as part of a longer trip. Popular countries (intended to be) visited apart from India are Nepal, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. Multiple destination travellers are heading from west to east. The overall trip length averages little above 20 weeks whereof 13 weeks are spent in India. Israeli backpackers commonly travel longer than the average, as they do stay in India. Trip lengths drawn from comparative studies commonly vary. Assumptions were made that the ultimate duration of stay is country specific and strongly depending on framework conditions. Available types of Visa, cost of living and incidental work opportunities would account as such. The backpacker to the Andaman Islands is a first time visitor, substantiating the island's status as a virgin destination. The average sojourn time in the archipelago is three weeks, whereof two weeks are spent on Havelock Island. This supports Havelock's reputation as a backpacker enclave and destination of choice for backpackers. 6.3.5, Use of infrastructure: The backpacker to India commonly travels on budget public transport systems. When compared to other destinations, Indian railway outweighs road based transport (bus). This was said to be due to Indian trains' excelling comfort when compared to (rough) road bound modes, while being value for money at the same time. Remarkably the backpacker to India air travels within the boarders of India at least on occasion. On one hand this was found to be a result of the study's realization on a remote island archipelago, involving a vast majority of the surveyed' in some sort of aviation. On the other hand the existence of hub- and overland backpackers has been substantiated, as well as the triumph of India's low cost air carriers (LCC). Compared to developed destinations rented self drive is only popular in/around enclaves. Travellers on Havelock opt for bicycle and/or scooter. Purchased self drive (e.g. campervan) as common in Australia does hardly exist in India. This has been identified a result of legal obstacles as well as distinct traffic and road conditions. When travelling to Andaman Islands backpackers choose to fly. Again the overall preference for budget housing has been substantiated. Travellers in India tend to stay in private guesthouses, farther quality local hotels or beach shack-type/ bamboo hut housing. Israeli travellers tend to be more rigorous when it comes to accommodation, a large proportion chooses ultra budget staying over comfort where available. Backpacker hostels as found in other destinations do not exist in India, nor do camping facilities or youth hostels. Travellers in India share their counterparts disfavour for upscale housing, as comparison with other studies reveals. Backpackers on Havelock exclusively stay in bamboo huts. This is due to inexistent alternatives in the budget sector, and the prevalent nature of this traditional type of housing. The traveller in India commonly chooses 'authentic' facilities to eat. Of highest popularity are small local restaurants, offering host culture interaction. To buy food from local shops and markets appeals as an option to most travellers. Price consciousness plays an important role and commonly outweighs the setting of a place. Fastfood chains, though increasing in numbers are commonly disregarded. Upscale and A/C restaurants are only being frequented on occasion. Backpackers in India use guidebooks to draw travel information, as they rely on reports from fellow travellers. The assumption was made that third world backpackers rely on information from word of mouth far more often than their counterparts in developed destinations. This has been explained with lacking reliable alternatives. In contrast to other destinations the internet is not as popular, though still used at least on occasion. India's infant stage of web based, travel-related information platforms was identified a possible explanation. 6.3.6, Spending: Despite a low daily budget of only EUR 12,5 backpackers in India each spend a total of EUR 2300 in the country. This was found to be less than in Australia but far more than contributions of average tourists (cf. Section 2.1.4). The largest proportion of the backpacker's daily spending account for basic needs, namely food, beverages and accommodation. In contrast to travellers in Australia those in India clearly do not spend money on shopping and souvenirs. This is outbalanced by those enrolling in organized activities. The backpacker in Andaman Islands does spend a multiple of his average daily spending on exceptional eco- and adventuresome activities (SCUBA diving/ snorkelling excursions). Similar results have been found for Australia and New Zealand.
The Need for Re-examination of Industry Structure In rapidly changing and complex environment, the rate of change may be overwhelming. Communication within the firm is crucial to assess weaknesses and strength, make sense of the new developments and reconfigure resources to respond adequately. Firms may have to collaborate with other firms, both local and international, to secure the scarce resources that may enable them to compete with the international companies in a timely fashion as opposed to developing them internally. Such resource-acquisition may require learning the necessary know-how for acquiring and deploying the new technology, or gaining the capability for developing them with others, which may also give them additional intangibles such as collaborative advantages, reputation, brand name by association with others. The discussion suggests that smaller firms may seriously explore the option of becoming a part of a network (or networks) to attain the necessary requirements and accomplish their objectives, even though the costs may be high in the short-run; but they will enable increasing returns in the longer term. In this context, the resource-base view (RBV) of the firm provides a useful framework with which to identify valuable, rare, imperfectly inimitable and difficult to substitute resources (Barney, 1991). It also identifies the investments required to pursue international operations. However, the mere fact of identifying VRIN resources may prove insufficient to ensure competitiveness. The strategic process of renewal should emphasize resource reconfiguration, levering and deploying for catching-up with the international competition rather than mere resource selection as prescribed by the RBV. The focus not only should take into consideration the VRIN resources but also to include inimitable processes, transformation paths and positions that ensure SMEs' global competitiveness at the end, which also parallels the development of dynamic capabilities (Teece, Spence and Shuen, 1997) at the same time. The Augmenting Impact of Networks Smaller enterprises in emerging economies face major challenges in reinventing themselves rapidly and securing resources, which are further amplified due in part to the characteristics of emerging markets. Increasingly, networking is seen as a "primarily means of raising required for coordinating economic exchanges that fall in the continuum between market and hierarchies. Firms face increasing foreign competition in their domestic markets and the institutional inefficiencies that favor larger enterprises. In addition, they still do not have the requisite experience and industrial standards needed to expand into international markets. Joining, or operating through, a network can shield small firms as the network, as a whole, can be viewed as a larger firm in remedying, if not removing, some of constraints associated with the smaller and younger firms in terms of relative inexperience, limited flexibility, poor resources and capabilities . Regarding the necessary capability to navigate through macroeconomic and political fluctuations, or at times the unstable circumstances inherent in the emerging economies, Rauch argues that networks are different from markets because "their members are engaged in repeated exchanges that help sustain cooperation–collusion" and because "network members have thorough knowledge of each other's characteristics, which helps them match with each other or to refer each other to outside business opportunities" (Rauch, 200:1179). The ability to access, commercialize, and act as a broker of new resources, especially knowledge, is key to improving the competitive levels. In the case of RGEs, the concepts, and the associate practice, of social networks and the firm operating in a network are so intertwined in that it is difficult to distinguish one from the other. At the individual level, the entrepreneurs, or the owner-manager, who is the critical resource and the driver of business activities, can draw upon his social network to further enable the firm. At the firm level, the individual linkages can reinforce firm-to-firm or firm-to-network linkages. Etemad and Ala-Mutka (2006) report that the entrepreneurs of the fastest-growing firms in Canada called upon their social networks to help reduce, and even remove, barriers facing them, especially at the earlier stages of their life, at both the individual and firm levels. In the emerging countries, however, the above concepts may assume a different shade. The ownership structure of SMEs in the emerging countries economies, as briefly discussed earlier, owner- managers are likely to be personally involved in most aspects of the operations of their firms. In particular, they tend to centralize important decisions and personally manage the relationships with the key players in their environment. Furthermore, SMEs from emerging markets have been insulated from international competition for a long period of time, which has affected the ways in which their managers conducted business. Neither were managers used to highly dynamic and competitive markets, nor were they familiar with collaborating with their international competitors. Consequently, such managers' perception of independence, individualism and trust plays important roles in their decisions in becoming a member of a particular network. However, their personal ties not only may increase the social capital of the networks, it may also reduce the likelihood of opportunistic behaviors, leading to increased cooperative and collaborative behaviours among individuals and their associated firms over time; but such personal ties are likely to be more national than international. Even those who act as brokers in enlarging the SMEs' opportunity set by creating exchange and sharing information among contacts can benefit from the flow of useful information. Such cooperative relations may enable SMEs to reduce, and even remove, the adverse impact of restricted access to information regarding markets standards, international tax systems, international market opportunities, demand and supply condition, among others, which help to compensate for the lower levels of institutional development in emerging economies. According to Burt (1992: 65), the existence of a "relationship of non-redundancy between two contacts" creates social capital for the actor who is able to link up with network member that possesses complementary resources. These discussions suggest that even redundant contacts can benefit firms as they can provide several benefits: a) increase the political leverage of firms at home, b) overcome institutional and managerial constraints, c) increase the SMEs' leverage in input markets and output markets and also d) facilitate SMEs' access to managerial experience and capabilities available in the network. Bridging the Widening Gap between the Developed and Emerging Economies As discussed earlier, technological innovation is taking place at unprecedented rate. A large part of such innovation is path-dependent by nature as they are the results of firm's long-term research and development (R&D), investment and commitments to cutting-edge knowledge and advancing technology for improving upon their knowledge-based assets, productivity, competitiveness and the consequent economic growth. This is in part a way to respond to the increased competition resulting from globalization, pro-market reforms and open-door policies, among others, which are demanding higher productivity and competitiveness from firms and countries alike. No one is immune: the more competitive and productive firms and countries gain higher market share at the cost to those who are less efficient. Firms and countries are subject to a lot of similar external pressures forcing them to experience instability and flux, continuous emergence and rapid change, and overall uncertainty; but they emanate from different sources and forces. For example, firms face the dynamics of rapidly-changing relations with both the external and internal stake-holders, which have their own motivations beyond the firm's control. Similarly, the relative state of flux and instability is inherent in the change and emergence of complexity in the emerging countries due to the ongoing dynamics of global trade and investment not fully controllable by any given country, or firm, regardless of size and stage of development. However, RGEs have shown the capability and resilience in adapting to enable their growth. RGEs are also characterized by having entrepreneurial mindset, being market-oriented and adapting technology to meet their buyers' and suppliers' needs. They are learning organization in the sense that they constantly acquire, disseminate, and share both the information and its interpretation (Sinkula, 1994) with the final goal of sustaining growth in the long term. Furthermore, there is a common recognition that their growth depends on synergistic collaboration with the member of their supply and value chain. As discussed earlier, RGEs and emerging economies share relatively constrained resources and need to secure them to pursue their activities by devising innovative ways such as becoming a part of synergistic networks (Etemad 2004; Etemad, Dana and Wright 2001a), which forces a trade-offs between independent and interdependent modes of operations for securing access to vital resources to enable further growth. The added advantage of such networks is the possibility of learning from and with others through association as the rapid rate of change, emergence and complexity may not allow a firm or a country or learning by doing. Therefore, the above discussion suggests that RGEs not only are attractive models, and even instruments, for closing the gap between emerging economies, they can also grow faster than typical firms in their respective industries for augmenting growth-rates all around them. We have taken advantage of these similarities to propose a conceptual framework for the emerging economies to deploy, and learn from, RGE-like instruments to speed-up the emerging economies' growth rate. This framework is highlighted in Figure 1.Figure 1 Key Characteristics of Rapid Growing Enterprises and Emerging Economies Conclusion In light of characteristics describe in this paper, the necessary condition for a SME to ensure long-term success in international activities is to aim their sights high, transform their organizational structures for responding to challenges ahead and attain the resources required for expanding to international markets at high rates and on sustained basis. It is also crucial that SMEs expand their knowledge base to meet world-class requirements and standards. Naturally, governments can play crucial roles in at least three influential fronts directly aimed at improving upon firms' productivity, competitiveness and internationalization: a) providing adequate education aimed at the basic tools to face the competitiveness and deal with the complexity of a global economy; b) putting infrastructural support systems in place to facilitate SMEs' transition towards networked firms at home and abroad; and c) Instituting transitional subsidies and inducements for SMEs to transform towards knowledge-based assets and increasing internationalization. Although the higher levels of education allow firm managers and investors to draw resources from a pool of qualified individuals and may also increase the likelihood of transforming inventions into innovations, which is another pillar of success in the international market, it takes some time and effort and will only pay-back in the medium to longer-term; but it needs to be done sooner than later, nevertheless. Similarly, infrastructural support systems are the necessary longer-term investments. However, inducements may be very effective in terms of time and costs as well as initiating an emulative process with high and rapid multiplier effects across the population of firms. The sample of RGEs studied in this paper were young, small, pioneering and innovative firms that commercialized innovations not existing before and thus created incremental employment, income and additional wealth as opposed to resulting from shift in investments. Stated in popular terms, the RGEs presented in this paper enlarged the size of previously non-existing pie as opposed to increasing the size of the wedge of the pie at the cost to others. More importantly, their pioneering efforts set the standards for others to be emulated, thus diffusing the innovation in the allied industry. Stated differently, they rapidly constructed a bridge across barriers to unexplored landscapes that enabled further developments. From a country-level perspective, rapidly-growing enterprise may provide a viable model with an important role to play in rapid income- and wealth-creation. They may even have an important short-term impact on the economic growth of emerging economies while shifting the SMEs' emphasis is shifting from short-term aim of reaching profitability to attaining global competitiveness as soon as possible, which is the necessary condition for sustained growth in employment, revenue, income, tax-base and wealth. The distinction is noteworthy: the former is influenced by the local and short-term orientation of the investors and managers to see results, and probably exit, as quickly as possible; as opposed to international and longer orientation in the latter that invests for the long haul and expanded international opportunities, which reflects the operations of RGEs. By favoring the development of the latter-type of firms, governments will also develop an interesting policy instrument for both creating income and employment much more rapidly than the traditional models, while encouraging modernization in the industry and enhancing long-term competitiveness of the economy. The spill-over effects of RGE-type of operations should have a positive impact on the rest of the economy not only in terms of relatively-faster diffusion of knowledge, technology, best managerial practice and information about new market opportunities; but also on improve the subjective "business environment" of a country at a higher pace and in shorter time period. The demonstrative impact of such virtuous operations may even expand to the rest of the supply chain with a snowballing effect in the rest of the economy in term of improved quality-standards on the input side (e.g. intermediate goods, labor force, etc.) first and soon expanding to the entire economy. References Ala-Mutka, Jukka & Etemad, Hamid, (2006). The Strategies of Global Gazelles: A Theoretical Framework and Evidence from Rapidly Growing and Internationalizing Enterprises from Canada, in Johansson, I. (ed.), Entrepreneurship and Development Local Pro33cesses and Global Patterns, University of West Press, Sweden. 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California: UCLA, Fischer, E. & Reuber A.R. (2003). Support for Rapid-Growth Firms: A Comparison of the Views of Founders, Government Policymakers, and Private Sector Resource Providers. Journal of Small Business Management, 41, 346–365 Kirzner, I. (1973). Competition and Entrepreneurship. Chicago: University of Chicago.*Dr. Christian Keen, Coordinador Académico de Finanzas FACS, Universidad ORT Uruguay
Germany is a country of immigration. This has de facto been the case since the beginning of 'guest worker' recruitments in the 1950s, but Germany only legally acknowledged that it was incorrect to maintain that 'Germany is not a country of immigration' ('Deutschland ist kein Einwanderungsland') only 16 years ago, with a shift in migration policy that affected both the political and the social discourse on immigration and integration. Since 2000, a new Citizenship Act has granted citizenship based on place of birth ('Ius Soli') rather than on descent only ('Ius Sanguini'). In 2005, a new Immigration Act took effect and ad-dressed matters of integration at the federal level (Castro Varela & Mecheril 2010: 25). Debates on successful integration became prevalent in the political discourse, and a national action plan on integration ('Nationaler Integrationsplan' 2006, 2007; 'Nationaler Aktionsplan Integration' 2012) declared measures to improve the situation of migrants in Germany. Among other issues, the plan aims to ease the entrance of highly skilled migrants to the German labour market (National Action Plan on Integration 2012: 20). Through the 2005 Immigration Act, Germany started to foster immigration of highly skilled migrants for the first time since the end of 'guest worker' recruitments in 1973, a series of contracts that encouraged migration to post-war Germany. 'Guest workers' helped to rebuild the German economy and formed the first big migration wave to Germany in the 20th century (Castro Varela & Mecheril 2010), but they were expected to leave after a short period of work and their integration did not form part of the 'guest worker' recruitment. Besides, few of them worked in the highly skilled sector. With the implementation of the new Immigration Act, Germany now invests in the acquisition of knowledge via immigration (Act on the Residence, Economic Activity and Integration of Foreigners in the Federal Territory, Sections 19, 19a & 21), and thereby tries to address the skills shortage (The Federal Government 2014). However, many highly skilled migrants living in Germany did not immigrate as part of the initiative to reduce the skills shortage, but came as refugees, ethnic German repatriates or for family reunification. Although there have been recent initiatives to improve the acknowledgement of their degrees and certificates, various studies prove that their professional potential is not tapped, and that they too often face deskilling (Henkelmann 2012; Nohl, Ofner & Thomsen 2010). This is contrary to research that finds professional integration a relevant criterion for satisfactory integration into society (Peirce 1995; Nohl, Schit-tenhelm & Schmidtke 2014; Pätzold 2010; Brizić 2013). Despite increasing skills shortages in fields such as engineering (e.g. The Association of German Engineers VDI 2016), the knowledge and qualifications of highly skilled migrants seem to have lost significance on the German labour market (Flam 2007: 118). This situation frames the qualitative study at hand. To reveal perspectives on professional skills and career paths after migration to Germany, 17 semi-structured interviews were conducted with immigrant graduates who participated in a requalification project. As part of the project, all participants had enrolled at the University of Duisburg-Essen to obtain a German university degree with a view to enhancing their chances on the labour market. Since they had migrated to Germany 2–20 years before, none of the participants had been able to work in the fields they obtained their degrees in. Experiences of immigrant graduates in the context of their 'insufficient incorporation' (Nohl, Schittenhelm & Schmidtke 2014: 4) into the German labour market have been subject to recent studies (e.g. Nohl, Ofner & Thomsen 2007; Ofner 2011; Henkelmann 2012; Nohl, Schittenhelm, Schmidtke & Weiß 2014; Jacoby 2011), but more research is required on how participation in professional communities is assessed by migrant graduates in the context of their deskilling. Through examining how ideas on professional participation and agency are verbalised in interviews, the study at hand addresses this desideratum. 'Agency' and 'participation' are main factors in the analysis of the data presented in this thesis, and their definition builds on the assumption that '"doing" is at the heart of identity formation', linking action to processes of identity formation (Pratt 2012: 26). The present study suggests that expressions of agency and participation reveal how professional identities are discursively constructed in interviews. This leads to two research questions: 1. What kind of strategies did the interviewees use to support the discursive con-struction of their professional identities? 2. How did the respondents demonstrate agency in discursive constructions of professional identities? To analyse the data for strategies of identity construction, a qualitative content analysis (Mayring 2010, 2014; Kuckartz 2014, 2014; Schreier 2012) was carried out. Thus, the data was structured according to the aforementioned research questions (Mayring 2010). This was achieved by assigning text units to categories that were formed deductively from research about the notion of professional identity and its construction (Turner 1991; Pratt 2012; Ashforth, Kreiner, Clark & Fugate 2007; Caza & Creary 2016), as well as inductively from interview data. Hence, the result of the coding procedure was a number of text units that were filtered with the help of categories and that showed different types of strategies for the construction of professional identities. The filtered text units were then examined according to how agency was demonstrated within them. The analysis showed that various types of discursive strategies were located. These strategies helped to construct, deconstruct or maintain professional identities. The strategies involved agency to different ex-tents. Whereas resigning and adapting strategies showed only little or no agency on the part of the interviewees, regaining and disclosing strategies involved more agency in the construction of professional identities. These findings are discussed with regards to two aspects. The first aspect is how the typol-ogy of discursive strategies relates to the theoretical framework of the study. It can be shown that participation in professional communities increases agency and supports the construction of professional identities, while unsatisfactory participation is reflected in a lack of identification as a professional. The construction of professional identities is clearly linked to participation in actual or imagined professional communities. The validation of these actions contributes to the construction of confident professional identities (Pratt 2012: 26). Moreover, comparing and contrasting (Kelle & Kluge 2010) discursive strategy types shows how metaphorical references to power (Lakoff & Johnson 1980) support the processes of constructions of professional identities. The second aspect is the validity of the findings. It will be demonstrated that although the qualitative approach of this research project includes the subjective perspective of the researcher, there are certain quality criteria such as the transparency of the analysis process and a second analysis procedure at a different point of time that ensure a satisfactory level of internal validity (Malterud 2001: 484). The transferability of the findings to other contexts is outlined in the conclusion. More specifically, the findings can be transferred and applied to further research in two different ways. Firstly, a similar analysis should be conducted with the same participants at a different point of time. The hypothesis that professional participation enhances the construction of professional identities could then be re-evaluated after a longer period of employment in the field of graduation. Secondly, this hypothesis could be transferred to a different migration setting, for instance to Australia, to test whether the construction of professional iden-tities changes according to the context of another immigration country. ; Deutschland ist ein Einwanderungsland. Faktisch ist es das seit Beginn der Anwerbung von sogenannten "Gastarbeitern" in den 50er Jahren. Juristisch gesehen ist die Aussage, Deutschland sei kein Einwanderungsland, erst vor 16 Jahren durch eine Veränderung der Migrationspolitik wiederlegt worden. Die Auswirkungen dieser Veränderung betrafen sowohl den politischen als auch den gesellschaftlichen Diskurs um Migration und Integration. Nach dem neuen Einbürgerungsgesetz aus dem Jahr 2000 wird die deutsche Staatsbürgerschaft nun unabhängig von der Staatsangehörigkeit der Eltern an Kinder vor allem aufgrund des Geburtsorts verliehen ("Ius Soli"), und nicht mehr ausschließlich basierend auf Abstammung ("Ius Sanguini"). Die Verabschiedung eines neuen Einwanderungsgesetzes im Jahr 2005 bedeutet gleichzeitig die erstmalige Verwendung des Begriffs Integration auf Gesetzesebene und die Einführung des Diskurses darum auf Bundesebene (Castro Varela & Mecheril 2010: 25). Damit wurde im politischen Diskurs die Debatte um erfolgreiche Integration vorrangig, und in der Folge wurden in einem Nationalen Aktionsplan Integration (2012) bzw. dem Nationalen Integrationsplan (2006) Vereinbarungen zur Verbesserung der Situation der Migranten in Deutschland erklärt (Nationaler Aktionsplan Integration: 2012). Durch das neue Einwanderungsgesetz begann Deutschland zum ersten Mal seit dem Ende des Anwerbungsstopps der "Gastarbeiter" 1973, gezielt Fachkräfte anzuwerben. Die Anwerbung der "Gastarbeiter" war durch eine Reihe von Anwerbeverträgen erfolgt, die zur Migration in das Nachkriegsdeutschland motivierten. Die "Gastarbeiter" trugen dort maßgeblich zum Wiederaufbau der deutschen Wirtschaft bei und formten damit die erste große Einwanderungswelle, die Deutschland im 20. Jahrhundert erreichte (Castro Varela & Me-cheril 2010). Nichtsdestotrotz wurde erwartet, dass sie nach einer kurzen Arbeitsphase das Land wieder verließen, weshalb nur wenig zu ihrer Integration beigetragen wurde. Außerdem arbeiteten sie zumeist nicht im Hochqualifiziertensektor. Mit der Verabschiedung des neuen Einwanderungsgesetzes investiert Deutschland nun erstmalig gezielt in die Anwerbung von Wissen durch Einwanderung (Gesetz über den Aufenthalt, die Erwerbstätigkeit und die Integration von Ausländern im Bundesgebiet, §§ 19, 19a & 21), und begegnet damit dem Fachkräftemangel (Die Bundesregierung 2014). Viele hochqualifizierte Migrantinnen und Migranten, die in Deutschland leben, sind jedoch nicht im Rahmen der Initiative zur Reduzierung des Fachkräftemangels, sondern als Flüchtlinge, Spätaussiedler oder aufgrund einer Familienzusammenführung eingewandert. Obwohl es seit einiger Zeit Bemühungen zur verbesserten Anerkennung ihrer Abschlüsse und Zertifikate gibt, belegen zahlreiche Studien, dass die beruflichen Potenziale von Mig-rantinnen und Migranten nicht ausgeschöpft werden, und dass sie sich oft der Dequalifizierung ausgesetzt sehen (Henkelmann 2012; Nohl, Ofner & Thomsen 2007). Dies konterkariert Erkenntnisse, die darlegen, dass berufliche Integration maßgeblich zu einer erfolgreichen Integration in die Gesellschaft beiträgt. Trotz des steigenden Fachkräftemangels beispielsweise in den ingenieurwissenschaftlichen Bereichen (vgl. Verband deutscher Ingenieure VDI 2016) scheinen das Wissen und die Fertigkeiten von hochqualifizierten Migranten auf dem deutschen Arbeitsmarkt an Bedeutung zu verlieren (Flam 2007: 118). Dies bildet den situativen Rahmen der vorliegenden Arbeit. Zur Darlegung verschiedener Perspektiven wurden 17 Interviews mit eingewanderten Akademikerinnen und Akademikern über deren wahrgenommene berufliche Fertigke-ten und Karrierewege nach ihrer Migration nach Deutschland geführt. Alle Interviewteilnehmenden waren gleichzeitig Stipendiaten eines Nachqualifizierungsprojektes. Im Rahmen dieses Projektes hatten sich alle Teilnehmenden an der Universität Duisburg-Essen eingeschrieben, um einen deutschen Universitätsabschluss zu erwerben und damit einen besseren Einstieg auf dem Arbeitsmarkt zu erwirken. Seit ihrer Einwanderung, die zwischen zwei und zwanzig Jahren zurücklag, war es keinem der Teilnehmenden möglich ge-wesen, in ihrem Fachbereich eine entsprechende Anstellung zu finden. "Handlungsfähigkeit" und "Teilhabe" werden deshalb in der Analyse der vorliegenden Arbeit als Hauptfaktoren betrachtet, die auf Basis der Annahme "doing is at the heart of identity formation" (Pratt 2006: 26) definiert sind, und somit den Prozess der Identitätsbildung mit konkreten Handlungsmöglichkeiten verbinden. Die vorliegende Forschungsarbeit geht davon aus, dass Äußerungen zu Handlungsfähigkeit und Teilhabe darlegen, wie professionelle Identitäten diskursiv in Interviews gestaltet werden. Das führt zu zwei Forschungsfragen: 1. Welche Strategien wurden von den Interviewteilnehmenden eingesetzt, um die diskursive Konstruktion ihrer professionellen Identitäten zu unterstützen? 2. Wie haben die Interviewteilnehmenden ihre Handlungsfähigkeit innerhalb ihrer diskursiven Konstruktion beruflicher Identitäten dargestellt? Um die Interviewdaten mit Blick auf Strategien von Identitätskonstruktionen angemessen auswerten zu können, wurde eine Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse (Mayring 2010, 2014; Kuckartz 2014, 2014; Schreier 2012) durchgeführt. Somit konnten die Daten mit Bezug auf die genannten Forschungsfragen strukturiert werden. Bei diesem Schritt wurden Textbestandteile Kategorien zugeordnet (Mayring 2010), die sowohl deduktiv von Forschungen zu beruflicher Identität und ihrer Konstruktion (vgl. Turner 1991 Pratt 2000; Ashforth, Kreiner, Clark & Fugate 200; Caza & Creary 2016), als auch induktiv aus dem Interviewmaterial heraus entwickelt wurden. Aus der Kodierung ergaben sich eine Reihe von Textstellen, die durch die Anwendung der Kategorien aus den Interviews herausgefiltert worden waren und die verschiedene Strategietypen zur Konstruktion von professionellen Identitäten aufwiesen. Diese herausgefilterten Textstellen wurden dann in Bezug auf die Darstellung von "agency" untersucht. Es konnten verschiedene Strategietypen lokalisiert werden, die zur Konstruktion, dem Verwerfen und dem Aufrechterhalten von professionellen Identitäten dienten. "Agency" wurde hierbei in unterschiedlicher Ausprägung gezeigt. So war "agency" in resignierenden und anpassenden Strategietypen gar nicht oder nur in sehr geringem Maße repräsentiert, während die aufdeckenden und aufholenden Strategietypen einen deutlich höheren Anteil von "agency" an der Konstruktion professioneller Identitäten seitens der Interviewteilnehmenden aufwiesen. Diese Ergebnisse werden mit Blick auf zwei Aspekte diskutiert. Der erste Aspekt betrifft den theoretischen Rahmen der Arbeit und die Frage, wie dieser sich in deren empirischen Ergebnissen wiederfindet. Es wird deutlich, dass die Teilhabe in professionellen communities den Faktor "agency" erhöht damit die Konstruktion professioneller Identitäten unter-stützt, während sich unzureichende Teilhabe in einem Mangel an professioneller Identität wiederspiegelt. Damit ist die Konstruktion professioneller Identitäten klar an Teilhabe in tatsächlichen oder imaginären professionellen communities gebunden. Die Bestätigung solcher Teilhabe trägt ebenfalls eindeutig zur Konstruktion selbstbewusster professioneller Identitäten bei (Pratt 2012: 26). Darüber hinaus zeigt der Vergleich und die Gegenüberstel-lung der diskursiven Strategietypen (Kelle & Kluge 2010), wie metaphorische Verweise Machtverhältnisse (Lakoff & Johnson 1980) die Konstruktionsprozesse professioneller Identitäten unterstützen. Der zweite Aspekt ist die Validität der Forschungsergebnisse. Es wird gezeigt werden, dass obwohl die qualitative Ausrichtung des Forschungsvorhabens die Subjektivität der Forscherin in den Forschungsprozess mit einbezieht, ein zufriedenstellendes Maß an Validität innerhalb der Arbeit (Malterud 2001: 484). Durch die Anwendung verschiedener Qualitätskriterien wie der Offenlegung des Analyseprozesses und einem zweiten, zeitlich verschobenen Kodiervorgang erreicht werden konnte. Die Übertragbarkeit der Ergebnisse der vorliegenden Studie in einen anderen Kontext wird im Schlussteil der Arbeit aufgezeigt werden. Die Ergebnisse können mit Blick auf zukünftige Forschungsvorhaben vor allem in zweierlei Hinsicht übertragen werden: Zunächst kann eine Analyse mit einem ähnlichen Kodierrahmen von Strategietypen anhand von Interviews mit den gleichen Teilnehmenden zeigen, ob die Hypothese der professionellen Teilhabe als konstituierender Teil der professionellen Identitätsbildung bestätigt werden kann, wenn bereits eine längere Beschäftigung auf Niveau des Hochschulabschlusses besteht. Des Weiteren kann diese Hypothese auf andere Migrationssettings übertragen werden. Ein Vergleich beispielsweise mit Australien könnte darlegen, ob die Konstruktion professioneller Identitäten in anderen Einwanderungsländern divergiert.
1. L'enjeu de la recherche Le but principal de la thèse est l'analyse de l'apport du De regno de Synésios de Cyrène à la transmission de l'idéologie politique antique aux Ve et VIe siècles de l'époque byzantine. Il s'agit, avant tout, de définir l'idéologie politique de Synésios, dans le cadre de sa paideia alexandrine néoplatonicienne et chrétienne ; puis, de déterminer l'apport de son ouvrage à la formation de l'idéologie impériale et de la rhétorique politique du Ve siècle et de l'âge de Justinien. Afin de déterminer le rôle du De regno de Synésios dans la transmission de ces topoi, on veut analyser les rapports entre cet ouvrage et les œuvres les plus représentatives de la littérature politique des Ve-VIe siècles : le Panégyrique pour l'empereur Anastase de Procope de Gaza , la Scheda Regia d'Agapetus le Diacre , l'anonyme dialogue philosophique Sur la Science politique dédié à Justinien et le traité Des magistratures de l'Etat romain de Jean le Lydien . 2. L'état de la recherche 2.1. Le débat sur la valeur historique et la chronologie de l'œuvre Les premières notes chronologiques au De regno, dans le cadre d'une reconstruction générale de la chronologie des opuscula de Synésios, sont dues à Otto Seeck (op. cit.), qui datait le De regno des années 399-402. L'intérêt pour les aspects historiques et politiques de l'œuvre est dominant dans la critique italienne des années 1920-1940, à cause de l'utilisation idéologique de la figure de Synésios pendant la colonisation italienne de la Libye. La première monographie sur l'activité politique de Synésios remonte à 1938, de claire inspiration fasciste, rédigée par Giulio Bettini ; en 1944 est publiée l' édition critique du De regno, par Nicola Terzaghi . Cette édition constitue la base pour les études suivantes. Pendant la deuxième partie du XXe siècle, l'approche historique est encore prévalente, comme on peut le voir dans les pages consacrées au De regno dans la monographie de 1951 de Christian Lacombrade et dans son introduction à l'édition du De regno datant de la même année. On doit attendre les années 1970 pour relever un renouvellement de l'intérêt pour l'œuvre. En 1973, Antonio Garzya publie une traduction italienne du De regno, intégrée dans son édition des opera omnia de Synésios de 1989, avec quelques notes de commentaire. Dans les années 1980 la critique recommence à interroger spécifiquement cet ouvrage du Cyrénéen, encore selon une perspective chronologique. On débat de la question de la datation du De regno. La querelle oppose ceux qui le datent des années 399-402 (Denis Roques , suivi par Antonio Garzya ) et ceux qui proposent une datation plus haute, dans les années 397-400 . Le débat se développe sur la base d'une différente interprétation des témoignages autobiographiques sur l'ambassade à Constantinople que l'on trouve dans le corpus même de Synésios : (Syn., De regn. 3 Terzaghi) l'occasion du don de l'aurum coronarium ; (Syn., Ep. 61 Garzya-Roques) un tremblement de terre cause la fin du séjour constantinopolitain de Synésios ; (Syn., Hymn. I 428 – 433 Terzaghi ; De insomn. 14 Terzaghi) : le séjour de Synésios à Constantinople dure trois années. En plus de l'intérêt purement chronologique, pendant les mêmes années, se développe la recherche sur la valeur plus généralement historique et idéologique du De regno dans ses rapports avec le contexte de la semi-barbare cour constantinopolitaine et de la Cyrénaïque tardive . Dans ces contributions ne manquent pas quelques sporadiques références aux aspects littéraires du De regno. Beaucoup d'importance est, par contre, donnée à la forme rhétorique du discours dans l'introduction à la dernière édition critique du De regno (pp. 26-35), publiée par Jacques Lamoureux et Noël Aujoulat en 2008 . 3. L'idéologie impériale de Synésios de Cyrène dans le Discours sur la Royauté Le De regno s'inscrit dans la tradition de la littérature antique sur la royauté, qui a fleuri dans les milieux académiques et stoïciens, que nous connaissons par des auteurs comme Plutarque, Dion Chrysostome, Thémistios, mais qu'illustraient aussi des auteurs perdus comme Ecphante, Diotogène et Sthenidas. Son auteur avait également une connaissance approfondie des théories monarchiques judaïques, transmises en particulier par Philon. Le Cyrénaïque ne semble pas non plus étranger aux polémiques théologiques dont il a sans doute été le contemporain : la connaissance directe de Jean Chrysostome et le voisinage des patriarches d'Alexandrie ont dû contribuer à la formation d'un néoplatonisme chrétien singulier, qui s'épanouira dans les années de la maturité et de l'épiscopat. Synésios dérive de la philosophie politique d'Eusèbe, nourrie de topoi issus de Dion Chrysostome et Thémistios, une conception de l'Empire comme don de la divinité au βασιλεύς. Celui-ci est tenu de préserver ce don à travers l'ἄσκησις continue de sa propre vertu. Une autre pierre angulaire de l'idéologie impériale sinésienne est la supériorité du νόμος sur la manière dont le βασιλεύς conduit sa propre vie. La vie de l'Empereur, qui a valeur exemplaire pour ses sujets, est elle-même le reflet de l'Idée d'une loi transcendante, respectueuse de l'ordre cosmique et providentiel. L'idée de l'Empereur comme νόμος ἔμψυχος n'est formulée qu'implicitement par Synésios, alors que l'idée du souverain μιμητὴς τοῦ θεοῦ, sur laquelle la première se fonde, est tout à fait explicite. Imitateur de Dieu, le souverain est son homonyme. Il partage ses attributs, mais pas sa nature. Les vertus que le souverain doit démontrer, φρόνησις e ῥώμη, sont tout à fait classiques, de même que les attributs de la royauté, à savoir bonté, piété et autarcie, dont la possession est garantie au souverain par la relation d'homonymie qui le relie à la divinité. Ces vertus ont une valeur universelle mais pas absolue, dans la mesure où elles existent seulement selon une relation de cause à effet entre la divinité et l'objet qui en expérimente les qualités. Sur cette justification du principe de l'ὁμοίωσις τοῦ θεοῦ, l'influence de la métaphysique aristotélicienne est évidente avec l'ontologie du premier principe, auquel Synésios fait une allusion efficace et directe, tout en la conjuguant avec l'idée néoplatonicienne de la divinité surabondante et dispensatrice de bienfaits. Dans le De regno, le thème de l'autarcie du souverain est investi d'une force particulière grâce à la théorie platonicienne de l'âme complexe. L'autarcie constitue le fondement du bon gouvernement, dans la mesure où le roi est celui qui parvient à réunir sous l'égide de la raison le peuple agité, esclave de ses propres passions (De regn. 10). L'esthétique de la royauté joue un rôle paradigmatique et fonctionnel dans la transmission de l'eusychia divine au monde. L'exemplarité de la vie du souverain exige qu'il communie avec l'ensemble de la vie sociale, que ce soit avec les fonctionnaires qu'il a choisis, à travers la φιλία comme vertu, ou avec l'armée, par le biais de l'ἔρος que fait naître au sein des troupes la vision du souverain comme membre d'une seule et même famille. Un autre aspect important de la théorie politique sinésienne est la conception unitaire de l'Empire, dont témoigne le recours fréquent à l'adresse conjointe à Arcadius et à son frère Honorius, expression unique d'une institution universelle dont la division entre la partie orientale et la partie occidentale est seulement administrative. Chargé de faire la paix comme la guerre, conformément aux topoi du genre du logos basilikòs, le souverain aura pour tâche primordiale de maintenir sa vertu philanthropique, l'amour du genre humain. La valeur de psychagogie que revêt la philanthropie impériale, et dont dépend le salut de l'État, est elle-même un dérivé de la philosophie comme vertu suprême, et traditionnellement attachée à la royautén (Syn., De regn. 29). La définition de l'Empereur comme philosophe drapé dans la pourpre, formulée par Thémistios, n'est pas reprise dans la royauté sinésienne en raison d'une opposition vigoureuse au luxe d'inspiration cynique que l'on trouve chez Synésios. En revanche, l'amour de la philosophie et du cursus de la paideia classique devient chez lui la cause et la fin de la royauté. 4. L'influence du De regno de Synésios sur l'idéologie impériale byzantine des Ve et VIe siècles L'analyse des rapports entre le De regno de Synésios et le Panégyrique pour l'Empereur Anastase de Procope de Gaza, la Scheda Regia d'Agapet le Diacre, l'anonyme dialogue Sur la Science politique et le traité Sur les magistratures de l'état romain de Jean le Lydien nous a permis de tracer des pistes de l'influence de la théorie politique de Synésios sur le developpement de l'idéologie politique suivante, sourtout pour ce qui concerne les topoi du roi loi vivante et imitateur de Dieu. L'examen approfondi que nous avons réalisé au sujet du De regno de Synésios nous permet de considérer que cette œuvre occupe une place centrale dans l'histoire des idées politiques byzantines, et qu'elle marque le passage d'une idéologie de la royauté comprise et représentée selon les topoi de facture classique et hellénistique à une théorie politique qui enrichit ces topoi d'arguments métaphysiques et ontologiques néo-platoniciens d'un côté, de l'autre d'éléments moraux, universalistes et eschatologiques de plus en plus chrétiens. Sur le genre de discours auquel il appartient, le De regno de Synésios semble avoir exercé une influence importante, y compris sur la définition de la finalité de la littérature Περὶ βασιλείας : la pluralité des formes rhétoriques analysées (le panégyrique, le speculum principis en forme d'acrostiche, le dialogue philosophique, le traité) traduit la recherche d'une forme d'expression qui puisse véhiculer un contenu philosophique et instituer un rapport de type pédagogique entre l'auteur et son destinataire. Il est difficile de dire avec certitude dans quels milieux culturels et géographiques le De regno a circulé entre le Ve et VIe siècles. Il est toutefois certain que les auteurs qui se réfèreront au De regno ont tous été en lien avec le courant du néo-platonisme chrétien. Alexandrie, Gaza, Constantinople, Antioche ou Beyrouth deviennent à cette époque des centres de propagation d'une nouvelle culture réunissant dans de nombreuses créations les apports de l'hellénisme, de la tradition politique romaine et de la morale chrétienne. Le De regno de Synésios constitue un apport remarquable à cette nouvelle culture et constitue l'une des œuvres les plus représentatives de la Spätantike.
Issue 36.4 of the Review for Religious, 1977. ; REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS IS edited by faculty members of St Lou~s Umverslty, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Btnldmg, 539 North Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. It is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute; St. Louis, Missouri. Published bimonthly and copyright (~) 1977 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Composed, printed, and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louisa Missouri. Single copies: $2.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $7.00 a year; $13.00 for two years; other countries, $8.00 a year, $15.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should be accompanied by check or money order payable to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to persons claiming to represent REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. Change of address requests should include former address. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Robert Williams, S.J. Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Questions and Answers Editor Assistant Editor July 1977 Volume 36 Number 4 Renewals, new subscriptions, and changes of address should be sent to R~:v~w yon RELiGiOUS; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, Minnesota 55802. Correspondence with the editor and the associate editor together with manuscripts and books for review should be sent to R~vmw roe RELIGIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boule-vard; St. Louis, Missouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's College; City Avenue at 54th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsyl-vania 19131. In Process: John the Baptist Mary Catherine Barron, C.S.J, Sister Mary Catherine, whose last article appeared in the March, 1977 issue, resides at 91 Overlook Ave.; Latham, NY 12110. ¯ Are you the one who is to come, or have we.to wait for someone else? (L.k 7,: 19). It seems that John the Baptist spent his-wtiole life.waiting. As such, he was an extremely patient man. Somehow, through the centuries, ~ though, we came to have his story wr6ng, and tend to name him solely as messenger and prophet. In doing so, we miss the mighty impact of his questions and the overwhelming witness value of the answers he accepted. He must have learned something vital---early on--in the, womb, as he expectantly waited for the moment of his birth. Again, we tend to ascribe that birth to a certain day and hour.when,."the time of fulfillment came for Elizabeth to have her child." Actually, it happened earlier, some three months past, when John first met Jesus and greeted him with joy: The symbolism of that encounter must have haunted the heart of John even as its vestiges traced a pattern through the years. In the darkness of confinement John felt divine intrusion and in a mystical leap of faith, he assented to vocation. And then divinity withdrew and John, was left to wait. Had he known that waiting period was to be not months, but years, he may not have had the courage. Had he known it would end in another dark confinement and another mystical leap to another divine intrusion, he may not have had the strength. But Yahweh was merciful and John was content to grow. And he did so slowly through the years, in ~the shadow of the question: "What will this child turn out to be?" Neighbors asked it first, but its overwhelming import must have~g,radually fashioned the contours of his life, drawing him like a lodestone into the current of salvific process. Surely, in. the desert, it must have echoed, in the wind and the force of 497 4911 / Review [or Religious, Volume 3~6, 1977/4 its persistence must have, at times, lured John to fear. "Suppose it is all myth? Suppose I am only a deranged desert'man, wa~iting for a prophecy never to .be sent, waiting for a mission never to be given? Suppo'se I am to be like the shifting desert sand--blown back and forth relentlessly by an overwhelming passion? Suppose I am deluded and my life is just a waste?" What impels a man to wait in the face of such a doubt? What causes him to stand expectant and receptive? What constitutes the tenacious re-silience of his heart? Perhaps it was only the glimmer of remembrance, the flash of light and grace that had exploded in his soul the day his cousin first had come. Who knoffs the value we posit in the memories of love? Or the power they have to summon us? So John was summoned, probably in much the same elusive fashion that he had been beckoned all along: a change of mood, a passing desert flower, the way a bird called, the different shape, of sky--and suddenly he knew the~time had come~ and he was ready. "And so it was that John the Baptist appeareOd., proclaiming a baptism ' of repentance" ~Mk 1:4). This is where we get things all confused. This is where we miss the prophetic message. We are so used to reading all'that John announced that~we never get to,discerning.all that John was asking. You~see, he lived in mtich the same condition .that we do'--waiting for 'a Someone whia is,to come. And he did not know any more than we, when that Someone would emerge nor how he could be known~ And so, the discipline of his river days was as intense and all embracing as the discipline of his wilderness. Nothing much had changed except that life was less his own. What had shifted was responsibility. Now he was em-powered to,convert and to baptize and this authority made him responsible for the followers he engendered. So that is why we find him sometimes a bit harsh--loud and somewhat strident, demanding and even fearsome. He was impelled to trumpeting because he was so needy. And the quality of his message derived from solitary waiting. ~ The gospel.tells us that "a feeling of expectancy had grown among the people" (Lk 3:15). How much more so had it grown within the heart of John? ~ ~ ~ The anguish of that wait must have been unbearable. "Is this the day? Is that the Man? Am I where I should be? What if 'he never comes? And 'why do all these people think 1 may be he? Am I?" ' We ~will never know the . terrible questions John kept buried in his heart but ~his flailing words indicate their power and their~ pain . : "Brood of vipers, who warned you to fly from the retribution that is coming? Even now the ax is~laid to the roots of the trees. Any tree which fails td'.'produce good fruit.owill be cut down and thrown into the fire'~ (Lk .3:7-9). In Process." John the Baptist /_499 And the flame of his own vigilant spirit burned without being con-sumed. Then, one day, He came. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he strode across ~the hills and asked for baptism. The relief which floods John is almost pathetic in expression. The force of vindication overwhelms him and in torrential words he iterates: This is the one I spoke of when I said: A man~is coming after me who ranks be'fore me because he existed before me. I did not know him myself, and yet it was to reveal him to .Israel that I came baptizing with water . I saw the Spirit coming down on him from heaven like a dove and resting On him. I did not know him myself~ but he who sent me to baptize with water had said to me: 'The man on whom you See the Spirit come down and rest is the one who is going to baptize with the Holy Spirit.' Yes, I have seen and I am the witness that he is the Chosen One of' God. (Jn 1:30-34). The ph'rases are haunting: "I did not know him myself, and. yet it was to reveal him to Israel that I came baptizing with water . I did not .know him myself., and yet I am the witness that he is the Chosen One of God.~ . John does~not verbalize the implied question but it resides: "Why did I not know him? Shouldn't I have known him? How could I be.asked 'to ~witness within such total darkness?" His only uttered protest, however, is humble simplicity::~ "It is I who need-baptism from you and yet you come to me" (Mr3: 14). His only answer received is to "Leave it like this for the time being; 'it is fitting that we should, in this way, .do.all' that righteousness demands." It is another womb experience: in darkness John feels the divine intrusion and in a mystical leap of faith, he assents to his vocation. And then divinity withdraws and John is left- to wait--"for all that.righteousness demands." . Certainly, if John had little foreknowledge,.of preceding~ even'tS, he has even les~ .cohcerning those to come. His mission apparently is fulfilled; his prophecy is verified; his baptism is authenticated. What more is there to do? For what does he still wait? What yet will "righteousness demand"? And then in mounting disbelief, John begins to see, the route---the :winding way. he must tread after straightening other ~roads; the~rough trail he must walk after smoothing other .paths. He never asks the question "What will become of me?" He merely waits,for it to be fulfilled. The womb, the wilderness and the rivet will meet,,within the prison. Sensing, this, John begins divesting. , What a lonely figure he becomes etched against the hills hand out-stretched, finger pointing towards-that elusive Someone;~''Look, there°is the Lamb of God" he,urges his disciples--and watches.as they walk away to follow a greater prophet. Even.when some faithful friends balk,, at such diminishment, John refuses consolation~and speaks of growing smaller. It is his life played backwards to confinement. It is the full cycle of seed 500 / Review ]or Religious, "l/olume 36, 1977/4 and flower and. seed. Cynics choose to call it the terminus of life. Some others, more graced, name it a beginning. All that John perceive~ is that, again, he lies in readiness, awaiting a delivery. Deep within the bowels of earth, he languishes in prison, formulating the tormented question that rings acrbss the ages: "Are you~the one who is to come or have we to wait for someone else?" It is a valid death cry. A man should know, shouldn't he, the reason for which he dies? If angering kings on moral issues involves the risk of life, shouldn't One" be assuaged in kho~ving the risk to be well taken? rAndso John awaits an answer from his removed, and distant Cousin-- some sort of vindication for the truth that he has uttered. It is a lonely wait made lonelier by the answer: "Go back and ~tell John what you have seen and heard: The blind see again, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear; the dead are raised to life, the Good News is proclaimed to the poor--~nd happy is the man who does'not lose faith in me (Lk 7:22-23). Jesus tells John nothing more than that he is to wait--to wait and see the signs fulfilled--signs which John foretold. He sends this message know-ing well that John will never behold any of that for which he preached and forowhich he will give his life. And with an utter emptiness, John accepts the answer, urged to a fidelity of heart ratified in faith. The rest is just the spectacle--bringing all things to fulfillment--"all that-righteousness demands." Thus, in one sense, John's life ends whim-sically, of no account or importance weighed against a girlish dance. And yet, in another ~ense, it ends with abrupt savagery, brutal and unpredictable asia woman's.rage. In the darkness of confinement John feels divine intrusion and in a .mystical leap of faith he assents to his vocation, And 'then divinity with-draws, and John is left to wait--to wait for his disciples to place him in the earth. And so, he does not hear, of course, the tribute he is paid: "I tell you, of all the children born of women, there is none greater than John" (Lk 7:28,). For he is still awaiting the ultimate birth, when Jesus the Messiah will deliver him from death. His. life is prophetic, not because of what he said, but because of how he .lived. The irony is that he did not know this. He was a man in process, with a heart full of questions, with a tongue full of words, with a head full of visions. He could never quite integrate the visions and the questions and the words because he lived in mystery. All he could do was wait~-- wait in silence and °darkness and faith--for the words to be uttered, for .the questions to be answered, for the vision to be fulfilled. And in this hi~ is our brother--and very near to us. Towards a Sacramental and Social Vision of Religious Life Philip J. Rosato, S.J. Father Rosato teaches theology at St. Joseph's College and also to the novices of his province (Maryland). He resides at St. Alphonsus House; 5800 Overbrook Ave.; Philadelphia, PA 19131. Today there are signs that the crisis which has marked religious life since Vatican II is waning. Religious watched the pendulum swing from an overly institutional conception of vowed life during the pre-conciliar period, to an overly individual condeption of the vows during the period directly after the Council. If the one conception was so communal that the individual religious suffocated due to a lack of personal freedom and self-worth, the other was so intensely individualistic that the religious froze due to isolation and loneliness as each one sought separately to gain freedom and identity. The one extreme was God-centered almost .to the detriment of the human; the other was man-centered almost to the point of excluding the divine. Now a new synthesis of these opposing conceptions is emerging. There is a felt need to correlate the spiritual and the human, the ecclesial and the personal, the eschatologic'al and the psychological? Thus a more sacra-mental understanding of religious life is in the air. Today's religious 'are struggling to keep God-centeredness and man-centeredness together in fruitful tension, just as the two foci of an ellipse, though distinct, form one ovular figure. This paper will aim at developing some of the dimensions of this new turn in the theology of the religious life. 1This search after a synthesis is evident in the Documents o] the XXXil General Congregation o[ the Society o[ Jesus (Washington: The Jesuit Conference, 1975L the central theme of which is stated as "Our Mission Today: The Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice," pp. 17-43. 501 502 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/4 Religious Life and Contemporary Theology: Living the Third Section of the Creed One way of schematizing the different theologies behind each of the ex-tremes noted above would be to look to the Apostles' Creed, a key statement of Christian belief and a touchstone of all theology. Previously religious life was too Father-centered, too centered on the first section of the creed. The vows took on such an ethereal and transcendent dimension that many religious stifled their humanity in order to live out their promise to the Father. The other extreme, centered solely on the second (Son) section of the creed, resulted in an incarnational or Christ-centered theology of religious life. In this model the humanity of the individual religious could find breathing room again; Jesus of Nazareth was seen as a paradigm of human freedom and self-possession. This Son-centered spirituality, though a corrective to the first model, proved in the end to lead many religious to such an affirmation of the human person that the need to lose one's self and to qualify self-centeredness through radical openness to the divine dimension was overlooked. Many religious ceased to pray, viewed com-munity life as a denial of their freedom and the institution of the Church and of their own congregation itself as a hindrance.to social relev~ance and engagement as well as to self-fulfillment. As religious search for a new balance today, it might be possible that a theology of the Spirit, that is, of the third section of the creed, could offer them a new model by which to combine Father, centeredness and Son-centeredness.'-' If the Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son, it may be that Spirit-theology could lead to a synthetic theology of religious life which, grounded in love for God and man, avoids stressing either God's transcendence over his immanence, or Godls immanence over his transcendence. A Spirit-centered theology of the religious life could well bring religious back to the kind of balance which is currently being sought in the mainstream of theological speculatiofl today.:' " Why is this so? The third section of the creed links the Spirit with the pneumatic life of the community, with sacrament, service and mission. "I believe in the Holy Spirit, in the one, holy catholic and apostolic Church. I believe in the communion of saints." According to the Spirit-model~ religious life would be viewed as a specific way of living within the com-munion of the saints.The third section also affirms the reality of forgive-ness and of grace: "I believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sins." If this were underlined, religious life could be seen as 9 special way of living out the Christian life of forgiveness and of being totally dependent on ~Karl Barth and Hans Urs von Balthasar, Einheit und Erneuerung der Kirche (Frei-burg: Paulusverlag, 1968), p. 12. aAvery Dulles, Models o[ the Church (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1974). pp. 58-70, where Dulles discusses the Church as a sacrament, a model which balances visible and invisible aspects of the Church most directly. Towards a Vision of Religious Life / 503 baptismal grace? Finally, the third section stresses the eschatological hope .of all Christians for themselves and for the whole cosmos: "I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting." According to this phrase, religious must be marked as men and women of daring, of vision, of hope. In short, a~ theology of religious life based on the third'section 0f the creed ,would be pneumatic, ecclesial, apostolic, dependent on grace and eschat-ological. Inca word, it would be sacramental; it would take both the divine and the human most seriously and keep them in continual tension. But sacramental means more than bringing the divine and the human 'into a synthetic vision. Sacrament in this context also has to do 'with the sign-function which makes religious life distinctive. Religious live from grace more~ visibly and more unmistakably, that is, more sacramentally, than other Christians. Their life is not better than that of the baptized layman or laywoman, but it is less ambiguouS a sign, a pointer, a witness to the 'reality of grace? Religious live at the center of the Church and yet point to its eschatological edge. They live in the world as much as lay people do, but they are fascinated by the frontier, by the "not yet" of the promised kingdom of God. Religious life thus has a prophetic and end-time char-acter. This particular form of ecclesial life gives unmistakable and visible expression to the pneumatic, enthusiastic and eschatological elements of faith which are essential to the whole Church. Religious manifest God's victorious grace in the world by pointing beyond the world: The com-munity of religious humbly gives witness to the reality of paschal grace for 'all~ men and women by living~totally from forgiveness and from hope. Sacramental thus means that religious unmistakably witness to the divine and to the human in Christ and in his Church, and that Christ!s restless dynamism and his restful faithfulness to. God a~d man are most clearly symbolized in the ~world through the lives of religious in the Church,'~ The religious as such are at rest and yet restless, very human and very close to God as Christ was. This is the sacramental, Spirit-cgntered quality of re-ligious life. , It would be wrong, therefore, to separate the sacramental character of religious life from its 'social character. For the social and the sacramental go hand in hand. The vows ar~ ~not private promises; they are public signs in the midst of the world which offer prgmise to all men and women of the ultimate alleviation of want and pain at the eschatological fulfillment of the human and of the natural world. Too often in th+ past the theology of the vows had tgo little to do with the poverty of the world, with its loneliness 4Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, trans, by J. R. Foster (New York: The Seabury Press, 1969), pp. 257-259. :'Karl Rahner, "The Life of the Counsels," .Theology Digest XIV (1966) 224-227. "Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Otttline, trans, by G. T. Thomson (New ~York: Harper & Row, 1959), p. 148. 504 / Review [or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/4 and search for love and intimacy, with its desire for independence and free-dom. Poverty, chastity and obedience were, as it were, divorced from the real needs of others. Today :it is important to view the vows in light of the social and human problems of the whole community of men and women,r Only in this light will religious life maintain its true sign-function. In the midst of human poverty, voluntary poverty says no to man's injustice and lack of concern for the brokenhearted and the hungry. In the face of the sexual loneliness and frustration of contemporary society voluntary chastity says no to man's search for warmth merely through uncommitted pleasure. In the midst of a world crying out for freedom, voluntary obedience says no to man's use of brute power and violence to bring about a more inde-pendent future. Today the sign-function of religious life, its sacramental witness to the power of the Spirit of God, must be seen as most .relevant to the social problems of the day. The more identical religious are to their vows; the more relevant they will be to society in its deepest yearning for liberation,s The future of religious life, therefore, must be more sacramental and more social. The rest of this p.aper will try to spell out these two themes by.examining each of the three vows. One preliminary question, however, still remains. Which of. the vows, by its very nature, is most clearly pri-mary, in that it best ,demonstrates the sacramental and social dependence of religious on grace? It would seem that obedience is primary, since, though many Christians may live a poor and a chaste life, only religious live out poverty and chastity in the context of obedience to other members of the communion of saints in their particular religious institute? Religious find God's will for them by discerning the needs of the world with the help of the religious superiors in the community. Furthermore, obedience is the hallmark of Christ's own relationship to the Father; he humbled himself to the conditions of his human existence and became obedient unto death. In what follows, therefore, the main stress will be put on obedience as the distinctively evangelical way of living in the communion of saints. Then poverty and chastity will be seen in light of obedience, Finally community life itself will be viewed as resulting from the three .vows" and as essential to the prophetic and critical apostolate of the religious, in the world. In this-way it is hoped that a view of the religious life of the future will be rDocuments o] the XXXII General Congregation o] the Society o] Jesus, p. 13. sJiirgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross o] Christ as the Foundation and Criticism o] Christian Theology, trans, by R. A. Wilson and J. Bowden (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), pp. 7-18. 'aKarl Rahner, ',A Basic lgnatian Concept: Some Reflections on Obedience," trans, by Joseph P. Vetz Woodstock Letters 86 (1957), pp. 302-305. As opposed to others, such as Ladislas Orsy whose work is cited below, Rahner chooses obedience and not chastity as the central vow, and sees poverty and chastity as two ways of living out the total commitment to grace which obedience signifies. Towards a Vision of Religious Life / 505 presented which is both more balanced and more relevant, more sacra-mental and more social. Obedience and the Human Cry for Freedom: Becoming Independently Loyal Religious When the early Christian communities came together, they were known for their desire to discover God's will for them through corporate discern-ment which had as its aim a concerted effort to preach the gospel and min-ister to the needy. Each member of the community was aware of his or her own gifts and was allowed to exercise them in the common task of wit-nessing to the grace of Christ in the world. Yet each individual was also loyal to the whole community. This type of fruitful balance between indi-viduals and the institution led the early Christians to see the relevance of their life-style for those outside the community who were searching for freedom as well as for unity."' For too long religious superiors in the Church did not allow individual religious to be independent, to exercise per-sonal responsibility or to find ways of making religious life relevant to the hunger for freedom in the world which marks the history.of modern man. As religious look into the future, it seems that obedience is a possible waY of expressing both the sacramental and the social dimension of being a Christian. Obedience is not the loss or relinquishment of personal freedom, but the means by which religious are more open to grace and more sensi-tive to the cry for liberation which is being heard throughout the globe.11 Through obedience religious give witness both to. the interrelation of the divine and the human in the world, and to the freedom of the gospel which has profound significance for the liberation which is so desired by all today. The religious obedience of tomorrow must therefore become more sacramental, that is, more unmistakably a sign of the divine and the human dimensions of freedom. The religious must become an independently loyal 'person. This means that more personal freedom on the part of the indi-vidual should lead to greater corporate fidelity and commitment rather than to less. If before, obedience either constricted religious or left them so free that they were not working together in a concerted way, obedience in the future must combine a healthy sense of individual inde.pendence with a pronounced sense of corporate responsibility for the preaching of the gospel and for the service of the whole human community. The more self-deter-mined and independent a religious is, the more ready he or she should be to accept the discernment of the community as it decides how the aposto-late can be carried out effectively. Thus obedience in the future should not 1°See-Martin Hengel, Poverty and Riches in the Early Church (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974). 11Karl Rahner, "A Basic Ignatian Concept: Some Reflections on Obedience," pp. 299 and 308. 506 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/4 be understood as submission to traffic laws which govern the well-being of the community, but as a quality of ecclesial existence which is not an end in itself but which exists for the concerted apostolate of witness and ser-vice. 1'-' The individual charisms of religious should be fostered so that the ecclesial service of the whole congregation is intensified. In tfiis way obedience will have a pneumatic and eschatological character and be an unmistakable sign that the Church depends totally on grace by discover-ing God's will through a genuine listening to the fellowship of the saints. Once religious obedience regains its original sign-value by producing men and women for the Church who are independently loyal, this vow will no longer be seen as simply a private matter between the individual religious and God through his or her superiors. Obedience will be a sign to the whole society in which the religious lives and works. It will broadcast the fact that a life of faith has tremendous ,import for the liberation movement.13 What all men and 'women seek is a way of being free individually and cor-porately; in their scepticism over whether such a realization of corporate freedom is possible, they turn away from Christian revelation ~and ground their freedom on some other basis. Religious who can' live in obedience and who are still free to contribute their talents and energies to the human task of building' up the world in expectation of the coming kingdom of God offer the broader society around them a paradigm of human freedom in brotherhood. This societal dimension of religious obedience is not as emphasized as it should be. Religious tend to view themselves in abstrac-tion from the world which is searching for a genuine form of freedom. The eschatological sign-function of obedience, however, is that it speaks not only to. 'those in the Church and in the congregation, but also to those out-side it who yearn for liberation. In the future religious obedience must be so conceived .and so lived that it becomes a beacon of hope for those who hunger for independence in the context of interdependence.14 In this way religious obedience is itself an invitation to faith in Jesus Christ and to hope in him and his Spirit as the guarantors of man's search for liberation within a community. Poverty and the Human Cry |or Justice: Becoming Self-possessed, Sharing Religious , ~ ~ As was the case with obedience, religious poverty was often presented as an ascetical norm by which an individual religious could attain detachment from the world and lean towards God alone. This concept of poverty, how- 12Ladislas M. Orsy, Open to the Spirit: Religious Li]e alter Vatican 11 (Washington: Corpus Books, 1968), pp. 159-160. 13Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology o] Liberation: History, Politics and Salvation, trans. by Sr. Caridad Inda and John Eagleson (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1973), pp. 104-105. 14Avery Dulles, The Survival'o] Dogma: Faith, Authority and Dogma it~ a Changh~g World (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1971), pp. 52-57. Towards a Vision o[ Religious Li[e / 507 ever, had two debilitating effects: it made religious doubt their own self-worth by~ creating in them guilt feelings concerning their use of material things, and it isolated religious poverty from real poverty and thus deprived the former of its relevance for the latter. Many religious lost all sense of their own personal dignity by never becoming responsible in their use of possessions. Often they were not taught how to 'treasure and protect the goods at their disposal. Poverty was more a matter of not using something than it was of sharing goods with the needy and the hungry. As religious look to the future, it seems that religious poverty will be a way of becoming self-possessed and yet sharing persons.1:' This vow should not make religious childishly dependent on superiors, but responsible Christians who share all they have and are with others. Religious poverty should open the hearts of religious to the cry of the poo.r for bread, for protection and for justice. The vow of poverty can only do this if it becomes more sacramental and more social. The religious poverty of tomorrow must take on its original sign-func-tion. It must be an eschatolog!cal sign of hope in the midst of human want. It can only do so if religious freely choose to identify with the poor in order to bring them to faith in Christ's promise to be with them in their hunger and' to alleviate their misery. Religious are not destitute, but they freely elect to be like the very poor, so as to share whatever excess goods they have with their brothers and sisters in poverty."~ In effect religious pattern forth a model, of a sharing. Christian community to the whole Chuich. In this way religious poverty regains its prophetic and end-time character. It urges the whole Church tO be equally concerned with the hungry and encourages those who live 'in unjust' circumstances to hope. in the Christ who became poor,for their sake and who is preSent to them through the love of religious. The poverty of religious is 'therefore not an end in itself, but a form of ecclesial life for the destitute, so that they can hear .the gospel and taste its power. Religious who are self-possessed, sharing people give witness to their dependence on grace in the use and possession of material goods. They are an unmistakable sign to the world that the Christian community does not exist for itself and is. not insensitive to human misery,lr Religious poverty is a catalyst which makes the whole Church bring the grace of Christ into the homes and the hearts of the poor. Religious poverty, as a.sacramental sign,,mustrediscover its sociological roots as well as its theological significance. Just as the Eucharist is a meal l~Horacio de.la Costa, "A .More Authentic iPoverty," Studies in the Spirituality o[ Jesuits Vlli (1976), pp. 56-57. 16David B. Knight, "St. Ignatius' Ideal of Poverty," Studies it, the Spirituality o[ Jesuits IV (1972), pp. 25-30. lrPhilip Land, "Justice, Development, Liberation and the Exercises," Studies itl the International Apostolate o] Jesuits V (1976), pp. 19-21. 508 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/4 which has social as well as re!igious dimensions, since Christ cannot be recognized in the eucharistic bread if he is not first recognized in the poor and the hungry, so religious poverty presupposes that the religious choose poverty because they recognize Christ's presence among those who are in ghettoes, in prisons, ;in nursing homes and in soup kitchens,is Byobeing poor, religious,,also identify with Christ in the helpless, the confused, the power-less, the uneducated and the injured even in the midst of affluence. This identification is not, as the Marxists claim, the way in which Christians sanction injustice. Rather. the religious chooses to be identified with the poor so that Christ's promise of ultimate liberation from want becomes a present reality for the destitute. The charity which being voluntarily poor makes possible is nothing else than the religious' desire to feed the poor in the name of Christ and thus to bring them more than bread, shelter, technical assistance and organizational techniques. The religious witnesses to God's grace in the face of the evil that does more than deprive the poor of food and power, but also deprives them of dreams and hope?"' Chastity and' t.he Human Cry for Warmth and Fidelity: Becoming Sexual and Celibate Religious At a time when the sexual revolution is sending shock waves through the institution of marriage, religious celibacy certainly ~akes on a different character than it did only a decade ago. In the past most people viewed the religious as asexual people who lacked human affection and warmth. This critique was partially justified. Many religious were taught to suppress their sexual feelings and even more their sexual identity, The beauty of human sexuality was often underplayed in formation, and religious were encouraged to live as though they did not have bodies, feelings, sexual roles or psychological needs for intimacy and friendship. Recently religious have rediscovered how to be at peace with the fact that they are sexual beings, and are now learning tO live with their sexuality by making it a vital source of energy and enthusiasm in their apostolates,'-"' Yet there is a deeper mean-ing to religious chastity which is opening up to religious in the face of modern man's frustration and loneliness in an age of sexual liberty. Many people feel isolated even in the most intimate of relationships and are exaspe{ated when the experience of marital love disintegrates into infidelity, separation or divorce. As religious become more aware of the need for bal-ance in their daily lives as celibates, they must also become more aware of the social significance of their total dependence on grace in the matter lsPhilip J. Rosato, "World Hunger and Eucharistic TheologY,," America 135 (1976), pp. 47-49. ~"JiJrgen Moltmann, Man: Christian Anthropology in the Conflicts o[ the Present, trans, by John Sturdy (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), pp. 116-117. ZODonald ,Goergen, The Sexual Celibate (New York: Seabury Press, 1974), pp. 115- 116. Towards a Vision o[ Religious Li]e / 509 of sexuality as this speaks to those who .are unable to make any kind.of lasting commitment."' There is no doubt that the religious chastity of tomorrow must be more sacramental than it ever was before. Religious must' be human and warm as well as genitally pure. The more their bodies and hearts belong to Godi the more they must be at the service of the love and the friendship of Christ. Celibacy .can no longer be an escape from affectionate relationships which can lead others to faith.'-'-~ A sacramental conception of chastity means that religious must be more free to give witness to the depth of divine love by practicing human love faithfully, Religious can only do this not by sup-pressing, but by channeling their sexual feelings and needs. Religious celibacy must not be seen as a relinquishment of sexual identity, but as a free renunciation of valid, though ambiguous, human intimacy and ex-clusiveness. Human sexuality is therefore an important force in the Church since it gives men and women the power to introduce others into the loving relationship with God which is the end of all love.'-':' A sacramental religious chastity would.~aim to combine a true .love ot~ God with a true 10ve of' other men and women. Often the sign-function of religious chastity is lost wlaen religious fail to love deeply on a human level precisely because they do not love deeply on the supernatural level. A proper balance of both affectionate love for God and affectionate love~for others is the challenge of being both sexual and celibate. Only if the religious loves genuinely, does he or she witness to the eschatological goal of all hum~in love when Christ will return in glory to lead to completion the men and women of all ages who have ¯ sought to reach out to others and commit themselves to him through them. The sacramental, then, cannot be seen in isolation from the social. If religious free themselves from exaggerated 6goism in the form. of self-serv-ing gratification which results in insensitivity to the needs of others, it is only for the sake of the kingdom of Christ and for the sake of others who are lonely, frustrated, unfree sexually or subjected to sexual abuse and lack of fidelity.:4 There is thus a very legitimate social aspect to religious chas-tity. This vow is not simply a matter,of private devotion; it has by its very nature a sociological function. This function is not simply critical in that' it protests against the excesses which result from sexual force. The sociological -°x John C. Haughey, Should Anyone Say Forever?: On Making, Keeping and Breaking Commitments (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1975), pp. 101-105. -°-~Ladislas M. Orsy, op. cit., pp. 94-97, where Orsy develops his thesis that virginity is the source of all other aspects of religious consecration. See also: Vincent O'Flaherty, "Some Reflections on Jesuit Commitment," Studies in the Spirituality o[ Jesuits 11I (1971), pp. 42-46. '-':~Donald Goergen; op. cit., pp. 220-223. See also: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), pp. 81-86. '-'~John 0. Meany, "The Psychology of Celibacy: An In-depth View," Catholic Mind LXIX (1971), pp. 18-20. 510 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/4 function of religious chastity is also positive. The religious models forth a pattern of human love which is not merely a blind effort to distract,man from death through embracing sexual pleasure. Christian love, as the religious :livesoit, symbolizes God's unswerving love for all and thus lends to, human love the character of a relationship with the source of all affection and warmth--God!s own trinitarian community of love. Just as obedience offers the human .search for independence an ultimate vindication, and just as religious poverty offers human want ultimate hope, so religious chastity has a social significance. It Offers the lonely and the frustrated, ~.who see human love as the only escape from absurdity, a vision of love which ultimately vindicates their own disillusionment over ,human. infidelity and hard-hearted: ness.~'~ In the person of the religious a type of faithful human love is ex-perienced which points to divine love and which thus attests that there is ~a deep, meaning to human tears and-hurt. In this sense religious chastity is sacramental as well as social. ,Religious Community and Christian Mission: the Locus of Healing Criticism o The basic thesis of this paper is that, just as religious faith in geheral has a sociological dimension in that it is concerned with justice, so also does religious life. The more identical religious are with their own tradition, the more able they are to criticize the society around them when it fails to live up to its responsibility to heal broken men and women.'-'~' Just as the whole Church serves faith by promoting justice, so the religious community lives out its prophetic and end:time sign-function by bringing the healing presence of Christ to the unfree, the poor and the lonely. The other theme, which has been woven into the first, is that religious can only be signs'of a critical and healing love if they themselves are balanced, Only if religious channel human talent and divine grace into an on-going sacramental.synthesis, can the~, carry out their call to be Christ's healing presence where men and women .harm each other by not living according to human,, and religious values.° The quest for personal identity which many religious are going through today is not irrelevant to the quest for the social relevance of the whole Church which is more pressing.:~ This paper would qike to assert that a more sacramental type of religious life would lead to a more socially relevant, precisely because socially critical, understanding of vowed life. -~Peter L. Berger, A Rumor o] Angels: Modern Society attd the RedisCovery o] the Supernatural (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1969), pp. 53~75. "~Pedro Arrupe, "The Hunger for Bread and Evangelization: Focus on the 'Body of Christ, the Church' in the Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice," Interna-tional Symposium on Hunger: The 41st International Eacharistic Congress (Phila-delphia: St. Joseph's College Press, 1976), pp. 21-24.o -°:John Courtney Murray, The Problem o] God Yesterday and Today (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964), pp. 119-121. Towards a Vision o[ Religious "Li]e / .511 -, In effect~ this paper is advocating that a Spirit-centered Christology~be the mrdel for an understanding of the sacramental, that is, the spiritual and the social, significance of religious life today. For. the Spirit-filled Jesus did not allow himself to be categorized or to be understood solely in terms of any of the typical expectations which were prevalent' in his time. Instead he insisted on his identity as the one who proclaimed that the kingdom of God is near. The close identification between Spirit-theology and eschatology in the Scriptures leads us to see that Jesus' eschatological message was the fruit of his Spirit-filled being.~ In him God's future broke into the world time. God's kingdom dawned upon man and offered the whole cosmos the ability to head towards a new future that was guaranteed to it by the fully Spirit-filled and glorified Jesus. A Spirit-filled person and a Spirit-filled community, therefore, is esgentially a critical one; it is restless until the c~osmos is complete, until the kingdom'of God breaks definitely int6 its rriidst. Yet it,is also at rest because that kingdom is already a present phenomenon through the Spirit's activity in the ecclesial°community spe-cifically and in the whole cosmos as well.~' Religious who live together at the heart of the .Church are particularly the locus where the Spirit's activity everywhere is made most visible and most inc~indescent. A religious com-munity is a critical'community because it is not totally at peace until the kingdom is manifestly present. This critical function of religious communities in the Church adds a special~character to all of the vows, to their life-together and to their apostolate. As indicated in this paper, all of the vows are eschatological, and therefore critical, by nature. Th(y do not criticize society for the sake of criticism, but in order to awaken all men and women tb the'presence of God's kingdom which is already hiddi~n among them. Religious are also 'critical of each other since they are corhpelled to urge their brothers and sisters to live in the presence of the coming God and to view all things, and especially the community itself, as elements ~of an as yet incomplete cosmos which needs the healing and purifying presence of the Spirit.:"' If religious are critical of many aspects of 'their community 'life, it is not because~ they are discontent by nature, but because they long for the ever-fuller manifestation of the kingdom in their community, and thUg call their ¯ fellow religious to be what they are meant to be: a sign of the eschatological promise of God in the every-day life of the world. Re, ligious witness to God's coming in the midst of~ man's coming and going. The same is true of the zsC. K. Barrett, The Holy Spirit in the Gospel Tradition. 5th ed. (London: SPCK Press, 1970), pp. 153-156. :gWolfhart Pannenberg, The Apostles' Creed in the Light o] Today's Questions, trans. by Margaret Kohl (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1972), pp. 139-143. aopierre Teilhard de,Chardin, The Divine Milieu, p. 112. See also: Avery Dulles, "The Church, the Churches and the Catholic Church," Theological Studies XXXIII (1972), pp. 222-224. 512 / Review ]or .Religious, Volume 36, 1977/4 apostolate. Religious seek to make their work a sign, of the eschatological promise of God. If any work loses this end-time character and does not sign forth to others a longing for God's ultimate fulfillment of all creatures, it,has. Ios!~ its salt. Religious community, therefo.re, is not a haven of peace, but a place where members of the communion of saints strive to be ever more Church, ever more a community of pilgrims who await the coming of the Lord and work to prepare his way.:"- In the end religious communities, like the Lord whom they follow, canno~t, be categorized since they have a unique mission. That' mission is service.of men and women in the world with the specific intention of open-ing them to the Spirit who, is the bringer of the kingdom. Religious are not private individuals with an interior depth and an exterior way of life which facilitates and disciplines their co-existence for its own sake. Religious are social beings whose religious commitment is a public sign of God's promise. Their life is sacramental because it is a confluence of the material and the spiritual, the social and the religious, ~just as the being of Jesus was and remains sacramental.:~ Life in the third section of the creed is essentially sacramental life. A visible community of men and women exist in unity, in holiness, in universal openness and in apostolic service. They proclaim for-giveness and look to hope; they allow the Holy Spirit~to work among men, so that he can create a human body of men and women who are joined in word and sacrament to Jesus Christ. They are living signs in each genera-tion of the Church that the Spirit-filled Jesus will return and that he is in-deed already among men and women who wait in hope for him. The special form of life in the communion of saints and of life in the context of the third section of the creed make religious a healing and yet critical presence in society. As independently loyal, as self-possessed and sharing, as sexual and celibate persons who live in commun.ity and witness to the social dimension of the gospel, religious are a model Church in minia-ture, a local congregation of believers who have a sacramental as well as a social function.:':~ Their very existence is a visible sign that Spirit-filled indi-viduals in community can heal the brokenhearted and at the same time criticize the social institutions which are indifferent to the unfree, the poor and the lonely. In light of the thesis which forms the underpinnings of this paper, namely that religious life is both sacramental and social, it can be sa~!d that to deny either element would be to .lessen both the identity of religious life and its sociological relevance. The vows of religious make them into a community which can heal as well as criticize. Religious stand up in the cen.ter of the Churqh and, like Jesus at Nazareth's synagogue, .~lAvery Dulles, Models o] the Church, pp. 149-150. a~Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ, the Sacrament o1 the Encounter with God (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963), pp. 13-20. 3aKarl Rahn~r. "The Life of the Counsels." Theology Digest X1V (1966), pp. 226-227. Towards a Vision of Religious Life / 513 identify themselves with the words from Isaiah which he chose to define his own mission: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord (Lk 4:18-19). This is the sacramental and social function of religious life. The vows speak to the world in a way which reminds all men and women of the healing work of Jesus of Nazareth and which causes them to gaze into the future and to be critical of the present, since they wait for the promise that "the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ" (Rv 11:15). Deep within "becoming seed," sheltered in soil of fertile earth, life stirred-- and broke the barrior of crusted shell. Rooting down and pushing up, till tender shoot, warmed.by sun and washed in r~in, ., ~ budded :i prelude of l~idden beauty among foliage of natured kin: ,Serenely being, silently becoming, patiently maturing-- flowered sleep---still heavy and cloistered. Gentle wind touches, but bends not the bough: Storm pellets thee earth, but yields vanquished to supple strength of maturing bloom. Nature's war ended, beauty emerges, uniqu~e witness of silent fidelity-- of woven strands of love, a flower unlike it~ kih-- beyond and beside all others. Humble~herald of "terrestial otherness," prophetic vision of "Celestial bliss." Sister Mary Nanette 'Herman', S.N.D. 1600 Carlin Lane McLean, VA 22101 The Kingdom of God --Our Home Donald McQuade, M.M. Father McQuade is stationed at the residence of the Maryknoll Fathers; Box 143; Davao City, Philippines 9501." Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala. Seeing his mother and the-disciple he loved standing near her, Jesus said to his mother, 'Woman, this is your son.' Then to the disciple he said, 'This is your mother.' And from that moment the disciple made a place for her in his home (Jn 19:25-27). The Catholic Church has traditionally seen in this passage of John's gospel the role of Mary as the spiritual mother not only of the Church, but of each individual Christian--each of us who share by the mystery of grace in the very life of Jesus himself, Mary's son. In going beyond this basic insight, the pas'sage also reveals the incredible depths of the love of Jesus for all of his brothers and sisters, ~and perhaps in a particular way fbr those who, like "the disciple he loved," have responded to his invitation to leave all things and follow him completely,, and who continue today to stand with him by the cross. JesuS' words--and the graceful gift they contain-- spoken to John on Calvary, l~ave been repeated to all of his disciples and friends down through the. ages. They too, like John, are to "make a place for Mary in their home." But just where is the home of a disciple in which Mary is to live? It is obviously more than any physical reality. Even a "~,arm ~ind healthy milieu of loving human relationships, though necessary and contributory, still do not completely encompass the reality of a disciple',s home. For the home of a disciple must ultimately be conCerned with the depths of his faith, his hope and hi~s lov.e. It is there at the very roots of his being, where he comes in touch with God :an~l where the Spirit moves and breathes the life and the Word within him, that a disciple is truly "at home." 514 The Kingdom o[ God." Our Home / 515 Quite,simply, the home of a disciple is the kingdom of God. And the kingdom is ,within us (.Lk 17:21). A disciple makes .himself at home to the. extent that ~he: shares in the kingdom, to the degree ~that.the Lord lives within: him. And so, a chosen friend of our Lord is really meant to. be at home.:anywhere in the world. ~ On the night, before he died, Jesus promised his friends his parting gift of,~peace and joy in the Spirit (Jn 14:27)~ To be at peace and full of a deep and abiding joy; to be so free in today's regimented world that a ~disciple can be completely and fully himself---to others, to God, and to him-selfLto trust in the .Lord's care totally; to have a joyous and real hope .in life; to see the miracles of creation-and, of .God's loving providence con-tinually unfolding in the world about him despite the evil, the suffering, the sin.; to love deeply; and in turn to know and feel oneself incredibly loved .--this is a disciple's home; this is the kingdom of God on earth. However, the gift of a home in our Father's house which was prepared for~and given to us by Jesus (Jn 14:2) is, like,all his gifts, not an exclusive or selfish right for the disciple alone: It is given to be shared. It grows more loving and more profound to the extent that others are invited to enter into itnf0r we are compelled by Jesus,.himself to.invite our brothers and sisters into our home, into the kingdom. This is an invitation desperately"neede~d in~the.world today--the witness of men and ~women whose lives' reflect the peace and love of Christ and become an,, unspoken invitation t6 "come and see" the Source of such joy. So much has been written in recent years (and which can be readily seen and experienced all around us) of the alienation and loneliness of the men and women of our times. Threatened, on edge, never truly relaxed, so often without faith or a deeply meaningful .reason for life, many people today live, in Thoreau's phrase, "lives of quiet desperation." Increasingly, relief is sought in an excessive dependence on alcohol, in drugs, perhapg in hedonism or some other temporary escape. But the haunting and ultimately deadly loneliness, isolation and meaning-lessness of much of modern life always returns. This experience, so common today, of loneliness and despair, of never really feeling at home in the world is captured perfectly in Jesus" parable of the prodigal son. After the son has squandered everything he had in-herited on a life of debauchery, he is left totally alone, abandoned by his friends, reduced to a job of feeding swine while he himself is starving. In despe.ration he decides to return to his father, now emptied of all his former pride and arrogance, tremendously ashamed and feeling absolutely worth-less, a broken man, but a man who admits to being what he is--a sinner. He now seeks only enough to keep alive; and so he turns, to go home. In his state and in anticipation of meeting his father, he comes up with a prac-ticed, rather stilted request: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be your son; treat me as one of your paid servants." So he left the place and went back to his father. While he 516 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/4 was still a long way off,~ his father saw him and was moved with pity. He ran to the boy clasped him in his arms and kissed him tenderly (Lk 15: 18-21). The.son hesitantly ~begins to recite his rehearsed line, "I no longer deserve to be your son . ".but the father doesn't even hear him in his overwhelming love and desire to give back to his son all that he has. "My son was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and is found." "My son, after so long a time in lonely and desperate searching, in suffering and being shattered by despair. -. my son who was lost has.come home." Thankfulness, joy, peace--there is really no word to describe the feel-ing of a man or woman who has deeply experienced the infinite and tender love of God our Father personally. Nor can any words ever adequately con-vey the fullness of the kingdom of God--the loving home into which the Spirit leads us even now. The whole life of Jesus has been an incredible gilt to us. At the very end of it, on the cross, he gave us the gift he held most dear in this world --Mary his beloved mother, to be our mother. We are "to make a place for her in our 'home." For she truly belongs in o,ur home, in the kingdom of God within us. This home needs a mother; the kingdom is incomplete without her. For our home, the kingdom, is in the final analysis the life of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, within us, and concerning the mystery of his life, upon which all creation hinges, Mary his mother most definitely has a very special place. Mary: Type and Model of the Church Barbara Albrecht Translated by St. Lucia Weidenhaven, O.D.(7. Doctor Barbara Albrecht has studied Catholic and Protestant theology, philosophy and Christian social studies at Marburg, Ttibingen, Freiburg and Miinster, receiving her doctorate in Catholic theology. She is head of the Training Center for Parish helpers ¯ in both Bottrop and Miinster. This article originally appeared in Christliche Inner-lichkeit II, I. Sister Lucia is a member of the Carmelite Convent; N. unnery Lane; Darlington; Co. Durham, England D13 9PN. It is not particularly fashionable to speak about Mary. But for the sake of the Church, which we are ourselves, it is necessary--one could even say urgently necessary--to swim against the stream. What is our situation? Hans Urs von Balthasar hits the nail on the head when he says: "The post-conciliar Church has largely lost her mystic features. She has become a church of permanent dialogues, organizations, commissions, congresses, synods, councils, academies, parties, pressure-groups, functions, structures and changes of structures, sociological experi-ments, statistics: more than ever before a ma!.e church." Without Mary the Church becomes "functional, soul-less, a hectic brganization without resting-point, alienated . . . and because in this male world one new ideology replaces the other, the atmosphere becoines polemical, c~itichl, humorless, and finally dull, and people leave his Church in masses.''1 There are many reasons for ~this state of things. Let us disentangle a single thread and think for a while about it. Let us ask ourselves whether, perhaps, a sometimes excessively isolated Marian piety, no longer rooted in the theology of Christ and of the Church, has not contributed to this IK/arstellungen (Freiburg, 1971). 517 5111 / Review for Religious, Volume 36;~ 1977/4 situation¯ Not without reason does the glorious final chapter of the Dog-matic Constitution on the Church of VatiEan II point out that true devo-tion to Mary must grow from true doctrine. But this question we only wish to ask in passing. Our aim is to speak of Mary herself: to contemplate not so much what she is, but how she is what she is: anima ecclesiastica--the clear, transparent type and model of the Church. Mary as type of the Church: thus she was seen and loved esp~ecially by the Christians and theologians of the first centuries who pondered on the tremendous challenge this implies. If we moderns wish to know what it means to be the Church, we, too, have to think about her .again, because in Mary the Church's attitude is exemplified in crystal purity. We can here only sketch a few outlines of this Marian-ecclesial attitude. Mary--Type of the Obedient Church Let us recall the beginnings of our whole Christian and ecclesial existence: Nazareth; a young woman, Mary, taken into service by God as receptacle for his eternal Word the mighty, infinite Word; Mary, wholly listening, all openness, space for the Holy Spirit, type of a Church not regarding herself, not centered around herself, but always orientated towards God: at his disposal in unconditional obedience, lovingly bpen to his Word, and putting no limit~ in his way. l~either man,'nor the Church, but only God has all the right. Mary is surrendered to him "in strength and in weak-ness: in the strength of one who is ready for anything God or~dains, and in the weakness of one who has already been taken possession of completely, weak eno~ugh to recognize the power of God.''~ "My grace is sufficient for thee, for power~is made perfect in infirmity" (2 Co 12, 9). This directive is not only given to Paul, it is given to Mary, to the Church, to every single one of us. And whfit is the word which God addresses t6 Mary? The word of the good news of the coming of God, of the I~irth of the Lord among men, an-nouncement of the joy that shall be for all the people. The~Angel says t0 her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, the power of the Most,.High~ will overshadow you. You shall conceive and bear a son." He does not ask cautiously, "Would you be ready to receive the word of G0dT' No detailed explanations are given, but it is stated very definitely: so it shall be! This is an absolute divine command. Th9 weight of the grace that God should allow a human being to cooperate in the salvation of the world falls on Mary. Not her action, but the action of God "not her~'rea~li-ness, but that of God, is the first thing for man. The initiative rests with God, not with man. Mary's action, the cooperation of the Church, is accomplished in receiving, in the acceptance of the saving-act of God.oTh6 s~mple wholehearted Yes of obedient love is the answer. "I am the hand- 2Adrienne von Speyr. Mary: Type and Model o[ the Church / 519 maid of the Lord, be it done unto me according to your word." Uncondi-tional readiness for God's demand, obedience that cuts into the flesh; a response that is a plunge into an abyss, because it is God alone who gives fullness and content to this response, and to any genuine response in the Church. There is no margin left for any possible and justifiable ifs and buts. "You shall . " And on Mary's part there is no demand for ano.explana-tion, h new exegesis, as it were, for God could'not possibly have meant what' he said!--There is only Yes or No, surrender or refusal. The word is clear as crystal, and, so is the answer of obedience. We are at the origin not of a "stretched" or "colored" obedience, but at the origin of the "uncolored obediences" to use an image,of Adrienne von Speyr. "In self-evidence, be-yond all,discussion, all rationalization.":' Here lies the source given and received as grace--of the possibility to dare to say Yes to the complete discipleship, as Church and member of the Church. Here, in the obedience of Mary the Church begins to be the handmaid of the Lord--confronted with the total demands of the cidl of God. Here is the source, the spring of the clear sound of the Fiat rnihi which in numberless variations has been repeated and maintained in the. Church of God throughout the ages, and must be continued throughout time to come: an echo resounding eternally. The .prayer of St. Ignatius, for example, ig. one such variation, which has influenced the history of the Church: Sume et accipe . Take, Lord, all my,,freedom.' . One could~equally mention the life and prayer of a Charlesde Foucauld, an Adrienne von Speyr, an .Edith Stein, a Mother Teresa, or other ardent members of the Church in our day, They all live in the Church in the sign of Mary, obedient to the Father's will and open to the Holy Spirit. " Nazareth-remains all through Church history as the focal-point where freedom and obedience meet; where the spotlight is thrown on the invisible grace which makes it possible to say: "All freedom unfolds from surrender and the renunciation of unrestraint. A~i:I from this t~reedom in subjection," from the obedience of those totally committed to the Lord, "proceeds every kind of fruitfulness and holiness in the Churt:h."' It is for us .to ask ourselves whethe~r we have not forgotten these fundh-mentals. MarybType of the Church Fiile~d with the Holy Spirit The attitude of listening obedience toward God the Father, the attitude of openness and receptivity to the Word which is the Son, is at once also absolute openness to the Holy Spirit. Mary allows herself to be filled, be-albid. 41bid. 520 / Review for Religious, Volume 36; 1977/4 come a dwelling-place for the Spirit, gives him room within herself. Be-cause it can be.said of her par excellence: '~I live, now not I, Christ lives in me," it can equally be said of her--and it should to some degree be said of us, the Church--"But. not I, the Spirit lives in me." One conditions the other. Both demand of Mary to be a human being totally given over to God: her whole heart, her whole soul, and all her strength. It is a matter of total identification with the Fiat once pronounced. Partial identification is in-sufficient. The source of Mary's mission is that her being is filled with the Holy Spirit by the Son. This is reflected in the story of her visit to Elizabeth. The Spirit within her makes her rise. He is the finger of God that leads her and she allows herself to be led. He is the impulse and moving-power of Maryqthe Church---on her way to bring the Son as the One who is to come, to men. The Spirit, one with the Son, communicates himself like a spark to Elizabeth, moves the child ~ within her and allows Elizabeth to recognize: the Lord in Mary. The encounter between the young and the old woman takes place in the Holy Spirit--through the Son. and on behalf of the Son. And the Spirit urges both to joyful praise of God. "There are few other examples which make it so abundantly clear how grace always over-flows and ne~ver remains alone. It goes from Jesus--in the Spirt--to Mary, from Mary to Elizabeth, from Elizabeth to John, in order to be poured out here more fully, and return to its divine origin, thus increased?''~ It becomes clear that the Church can only be fruitful and enkindle the joy of the gospel in others, her apostolate being only then efficacious when it springs from the total identification with the initial Fiat mihi and all it implies. "One whole person is more efficacious in the Church than 'twenty half-hearted ones," is a saying of Adrienne von Speyr. And further: ecclesial apostolate is only fruitful when it is service to which the Spirit sends. Should our energies be exhausted in multil~lying schemes and activities, without the Holy Spirit everything we do is empty and shallow. ' Mary--Type of the Praying Church What is it that enables Mary to walk in the obedience of faith, without understanding what is happening to her? It is prayer. "Be it done unto me according to your word," is her prayerful answer to the Word of God. It is not day-dreaming. It is rather her extremely wakeful "amen" to God's speaking. Prayer does not begin with man, but with God. But we cannot hear God if we begin at once .to speak ourselves. It needs silence. Only in silence can Mary, can the Church, and can we perceive what God is saying to us, and then try to conform to it completely. Mary's prayer is objective, simple, childlike submission, not a prayer of many words and considera-tions: hers is the direct answer that God expects. And the uniting factor in ~lbid. Mary." Type and Model oJ the Church / 521 this exchange is again the Holy Spirit. Through him, God's Word comes to life and grows to maturity in her, Thi,s again is only possible because Mary continues to cooperate prayerfully. Her entire activity is envelrped in contemplation. "Mary treasured 'this word' in her heart" (Lk 2, 19 and 51 ). She ponders and savors it. This contemplative pondering over the Word in the heart of Mary does not only begin with the word addressed to her by the shepherds. It begins with the conception of the Word in her womb. It even precedes it. And this "treasuring" includes everything not yet under-stood, everything beyon.d her comprehension and possibilities. This treasuring and pondering of the Word of God is something like the Church~s womb. of. contemplation, without which there can. be neither spiritual vocations, nor spiritual life, nor theological perception. Adrienne von Speyr once called prayer "the key to theology that always fits.'~' We are inclined to forget this today. And that is why the Church, losing sight of Mary, often becomes, as Hans Urs von Balthasar sketches her: a church of activism, of many and shallow words, a church without silence, where theological knowledge can-no longer mature in patience, a church without lasting fruit. The Spirit overshadowing Mary is the Spirit of obedience and at the same time the Spirit of prayer; silence, and therefore of wisdom and knowl-edge, the Spirit of counsel and of all the other gifts necessary for the service of missionary witness and ecclesial theology. No one can grasp the Marian° ecclesial mystery or any other mystery of faith with his own unaided intel-lect. They remain veiled. But they can be encompassed "by the Spirit of faith, by that intuition of love, that sense for the mystery''~' that is given to the soul in prayer. This Marian attitude is necessary for the theologian of today more than ever before: the renouncement of possession, the renounce-~ ment of a neatly fitting truth, which he has grasped.What he needs most is not intellectual theorizing but "a committed surrender in faith and docility." Humility and recognition of one's poverty: this is theology as service in love, not proving what it believes, :but witnessing tO it in the strength of the in-sight into the mysteries of God which prayer alone can give. MarymType of the Believing and Hoping Church Mary is not onlythe type of the unconditionally obedient Church, bringing forth fruit for the glory of God. Nazareth is also the beginning of a way through the darkness over which one has no control, a way in Advent-faith, a concrete unfolding of Mary's fiat in time, and a preparation for the way of the Son. She allows things to take their course. She goes the way of being tested in everyday life--without angel, without light. "Mary did not say 'yes' once, in a great moment; she has carried this 'yes' through patiently, in silence Glbid. 522 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/4 and constancy.''r Mary has to live 'in concrete terms what it means to be-lieve, not only until the birth of' her Son, but at Cana and in the strange rebuffs of her Son and at the ~foot of the cross; to cling to that God whose thoughts are not our thoughts, and whose plans are mysteries; to be content that God is always greater, that. he is and thinks and acts as the quite other than .ourselves, To live faith as conformity, not arguing With God, but al-ways keeping step with him--always and everywhere, not for a time, but for-ever. o - Mary's Advent-r~ad of faith is one of hope, that does not rely on any strength of. her 6wn but on God's grace; a hope not without the wavering that is ours when we become aware of the ever greater God and his demands. For our effort is not made null but is fully necessary; hope that knows the fearfulness of wondering, whether: one will come up to the expectation; never; however, leading to discouragement but always aware that power is made perfect in infirmity. Mary--the Church--can never see herself other-wise than as the lowly handmaid of the Lord; a Church not powerful, but powerless, a Church .that disappears behind her. service, that is not self-regarding. And Mary is the absolutely positive model of this ChOrch. Here is also the place where we point to the silent and suffering Church and her fruitfulness in endurance. The silent Church has the deepest share in the Advent mystery of hope on this pilgrimage through time. Because she perseveres in patience, she bears much fruit. She brings forth her chil-dren after the model of the woman of the twelfth chapter of Apocalypse, in whom the ChurCh has always seen Mary: Mary not~ only as Mother of the incarnate Son of God but as "mother" in the universal sense: mother of many children whom she brings forth in pain. Mother and children are exposed to the Adversary, ~the' Evil One. Because he cannot touch the Son, and because he cannot destroy Mary and the .Church with his hatred; he 1falls upon the individual Christians--the "other childi'en" whom the "woman" brings forth. He makes war against them~ This war against the confessors and saints who "ke~p God's commandments and hold on to the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Rv 12, 17), has many faces: sub-human ones, inhuman ones, those Of the serpent, those of the dragon. The Adversary, the dragon, has been 'vanquished by Christ forever. That is why his last despairing efforts are still so powerful that "his tail wipes off one-third of the stars:from the sky" (Rv 12, 4). The power of evil does:not only reach the earth, it is capable of darken-ing the sky, since one-third of .the stars are swept away. It can extinguish hope, devour faith, and obscure love. This is a terrible possibility, and into this situation Mary--the Church--has been placed, into these eschatological sufferings for the world, a blind world without hope: Is this not th~ time for rKarl Rahner. Mary: Type "and Model of the Church ~/ 523 us .who are children of this Mother ;to support, today, in this hour the ".woman" giving birth, Mary--the Church--by trying "to. ,fulfill :the com-mandments of God and hold on to the testimony .of Jesus. Christ"? God's help does not exclude but includes the help of her children! .~This~help of God which ~sustains us is. also spoken of in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse. °God is near to the ,"woman," ,to Mary and the Church. He comes--he, is with her, protecting her in the midst of the battle. He,carries her on, the strong wings of his love. He prepares a place for her. Fiat mihi. This place is not one chosen by herself, in palaces and safe castles, but in the desert, in poverty~ in silence. There God is present. There he feeds her "for a time and two times and half a time." God feeds his Church. in every new today, so that she can continue to walk in .the strength of this food: on.the road that is her destiny. ~ All this:~ the battle, the endurance:of tribulation, the bringing forth of fruit in patience and suffering, the testimony held on to, the desert, biat also the 19ying protection of God who is our hope--all this is also demanded ot~ us and promised to us, who are the Church of today. . ¯ Mary and the (~hurch in Advent We have spoken of Mary as the type of the obedient, believing, hoping, Spirit-filled, praying Church. Like a luminous thread through this little meditation ran the thought: Mary on the way, on the road of hope and faith, on the move to encounter Elizabeth. Nowhere do we read that Mary's road was an easy one,. without obstacles or eclipses, without fears and hesi-tations. On this same pilgrim journey, the Church continues to travel, to meet the coming Lord, that great Advent which presupposes the first com-ing of God in the flesh, uniting the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. He is the One who ever was and who is to come and who, hidden under the veils of his presence as he w~s hidden in Mary's womb, determines every present moment, including every moment of our own lives. He is there, Emmanuel, God with us and.for us, even though we are still on the way, in faith, as Mary was during her ~earthly pilgrimage. He is Emmanuel,' even tho~ugh'we are engaged in battle with the adversary, even should this battle 3~et grbw~fidrcer. The Loi'd walks, battles and stiflers with us, because he has made our battle~ ahd sufferirigs his own in a~ unique., way. He is~already the victor, carrying and protecting us, and he will always be with,us, On this road, the Lord takes Mary, the Church and each single one of us into his service: Our mission is to~ be witness and our witne~s is our mis-sion- no one i§ excluded. Everyone C'an and may and must.-.take ~art in the work of b~ingihg God to ~en, of making him present t9 men. The Christian has an Advent task. He is called to cooperate in kindling the hid-den longing for God which is in every man, just as it took place between Mary and "Elizabeth. Through human beings, through the Church, God wants to show his presence, and bring his joy into the darkness of our 524 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/4 prayer, our faith, and our hope. "God wants His own in joy.''8 And he wants his Church to proclaim the great joy, the good news, on the way. But we have to remember that joy is born from the obedience of the Fiat mihi, from a surrender that day after day commits itself anew to the unpre-dictable God, to his unfathomable and demanding will. It is a joy that does not ~o much look back at something that is complete and behind us but that looks forward and makes men raise their heads to look for the One to come. He conies in every "new today--in the midst of the desert of our times. But the Church--and that is all of us---can live this joy in obedience, in faith, in hope, in suffering and in praise only when she shakes off her for-getfulness and allows the Spirit."to remind her again of all things," in order to ponder and treasure the word of the Lord again in her heart. This alone will re-awaken in us Christians the longing for the final coming of Christ, and make us cry out again in the Spirit ahd in love: "Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!" SAdrienne von Speyr. -o It should give woman a feeling of exaltation to know that she--particularly in the " virgin-mother Mary--is the privileged place where God can and wishes to be re-ceived in the world. Between the first Incarnation of the Word of God in Mary and its ever new arrival' in the receiving Church, there exists an inner continuity. This and only this is the decisive Christian event, and insofar as n~en are in the Church, they must participate--whether they have office or not--in this comprehensive femininity of the'-Marian Church. In Mary, the Church, the perfect Church, is already a reality, long before there is an apostolic office. The latter remains secondary and instrumental in its representation and, just because of the deficiency of those who hold office (Peter!), is so made that the grace transmitted remains unharmed by this defi-ciency. He who has an office must endeavor, as far as he can, to remove this defi-ciency, but not ~by approaching Christ ~as head of the Church, but by learning t6 express and live better the fiat that Mary addressed to God one and triune. Hans Urs von Balthasar ¯ L'Osservatore Romano, Feb. 24, 1977, p. 7. Chapter: A,Community's Call to Conversion Colette Rhoney, O.S.F. Sister Colette is involved in the ministry of prayer, spiritual direction and retreat work. She resides~at 1340 E. Delavan Ave.; Buffalo, NY 14215~ While examining the technical aspects of a chapter and ways of imple-menting its decisions, it is also necessary to examine the results of a com-mun. ity's chapter as lived by the individual members of the congregation. Father Conleth Overman, C.P., recently presented a thorough development of.chapters from the "imposition chapters through the .liberation chapters into the. planning chapters."' The lived experience of this development and the future involvement of members takes place in the on-going conversion of each individual sister. In order to implement the plans, the mission and the decisions of a chap-ter by. the.members of a community, these members must recognize that a call to conversion becomes part of the spiritual dynamics of the chapter. :This call to conversion remains through the months and years ~that follow a chapter in the daily death and rising of each member of the community. It becomes an essential element in the process of community life, making each member aware of her attitudes toward the community in general and toward members in particular. The summons to continued growth leads each one to examine her response to the Spirit who bids her grow. Basically, conversion is a change of heart and attitudesmit is taking on the 'mind and heart o~ Jesus Christ. Within the religious congregation, con-version lies in our openness to experience God's calling us forth through 1Conleth Overman, C.P., "Chapter--An Opportunity," Sisters Today, June-July 1976, pp. 651-655. 525 526 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1~977/4 ~ the power ~f the Spirit, to ~examine, as our foundresseS did, the life of Jesus and to find a modern response to his salvific ministry. The successful chap-ter is not one that ends with a written document, but one that leads to con-tinuol discernment and growth in personal conversion. The elements of this conversion would seem to be those of penance, healing, reconciliation, and confirmation. Penance Penance fundamentally involves the grace of change, and so also do most new constitutions formulated by a community's chapter. Penance 'is centered in conversion, in metanoia, an admitting one's own sinfulness before God, self, and neighbor. It is a turning to God and self and neigh-bor in a serious attempt to grow in the knowledge, love and will of God. The grace of a new-found trust in God's fidelity amid our own infidelity leads us to an openness before the Spirit. This openness graces us with the desire and courage to surrender to the voice of the Spirit as expressed in the documents of the chapter. Metanoia is continual, a constant, thorough, on-going, despite the human weakness which We all carry with us. ~The belief, in hope, that God-with-us can do marvelous deeds, impo~sibie ones, moves us on even in the midst of our woundedness. Healing Those who have experienced the"healing p0~,er'that is possible anibng chapter members who have been gifted by.grace and trutti in the S~irit, the community and each other-~can bring themselveg" to believe and to work for the healing Of the whole community. The day~ ankl w(eks follow-ing a chapter are seeded with opportunities for th~ healing of memories, of personal and comhaunal hurts sustained during the long hours of debate, dialogue, and discussion. There is a time for everything; and"the period immediately after chapter seems to be an appropriate time for the healing of the mistrusts and mistakes made in the process Of chapter, i3od's saving action in our lives heals our wounds through Jesus--=and calls us forth to minister'a like healing to one another. Redonciliation Before we can know the power of recc~nciliation we must pe~:~onally experience the forgiveness of God. /~fter positioning' ourselves wiih the prodigal son or his jealous older brother, we turn back' to our loving Fatl~er who longs for our return. Our weakness and failures do not discourage him from stretching forth to eml~race us, to welcome us b~ick and to~ cele-brate the occasion with the entire household. The forgiving Francis of Assisi words it this way for his followers: There should be no friar in the whole world who has fallen into sin, nb matter how far he has fallen, who will ever fail to find your forgiveness for Chapter." ,4 Call. (o Conversion /o 527 the asking, if he will only look into your eyes. And if he does not ask forgive-hess, you should ask him if he wants it. And should he appear before you again a thousand times, you should love him more than you love me, so that you may draw him to God.z The sacrament of forgiveness, of healing, of reconciliation takes flesh as we offer ourselves to the power of God's Spirit and one another. The "grace" of our own self-righteousness must die before we can gift another with new birth in reconciliation. What succeeds from any chapter proposals for the building up of the kingdom will be rooted in the spirit of forgiveness among the members. As this forgiveness and reconciliation takes hold, the members of the community can extend this Good News to other members of the kingdom. Confirmation Perhaps the success or failure of a community chapter can be determined by the conversion of its members. The signs within the community that the ~vord and action of the "Spirited" chapter are still, alive would seem to be the lived forms of these document-words uttered in ,the lives and ministries of the members. The decrees of a chapter wi.ll not be understood completely or effected immediately. However, the on-going affirmation of its statements _i_s a sign of confirmation by the Spirit of Truth. ,The signs of the individual sister who is graced in the decisions and odocuments of her community's chapter will be an increased faith in her vocational call, the harmony pf her own being and the courage and determination to live out the written word. Conclusion As each of us enters into chapter planning,or emerges f~rom the process involved in the search for the new direction of religious life, let us be en-couraged by Jesus' words: . . . the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the F~ther will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of alibi have said to you. Peace I bequeath to you, my own, peace I give you, a peace the world cannot give, this is my gift to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid (Jn 14:2.6-27). -°"Letter to a Minister" in English Omnibus Edition o] the Sources (Chicago: Fran-ciscan Herald Press), p. 110. " Contemplation Vera Gallagher, R.G.S. Sister Vera's work is described in her article. She resides at Christ the King Convent; 11544 Phinney Ave., N.; Seattle, WA 98133. I was fifteen when I.decided suddenly, totally, to join a contemplative religious order, God's call 'was clear, if abrupt, and I responded~ whole-heartedly. My parents, however, were unwilling to consent to either the Carmelites or Poor Clares, my first choices. Because I was equally reluctant to wait until I was eighteen, we compromised. They agreed to the Sisters of Charity of the Refuge, then a cloistered, contemplative order devoted to serving and rehabilitating delinquent teenage girls. ,~ Always protected, I knew nothing of delinquency. But, having read widely the books in my parents' bookcases, I knew a great deal about prayer. And into that I threw myself. Between meditation, Mass, Office and reading we devoted about three and a-half hours daily to prayer. I gobbled that up. Sundays were free, so I turned to six or seven hours of prayer then. While I was a second-year novice, our isolated convent in Vancouver, B.C., joined the Good Shepherd Order--world-wide, devoted to the same work, and with the same emphasis on prayer. For six weeks I was sent to a Good Shepherd novitiate in Minnesota, and then became professed. Shortly, I found myself teaching in our special education schools (spe-cial, not because our girls were retarded but because they had missed so much school), then sent to college, then appointed principal. So I wandered, principal of our schools, from Minnesota to Washing-ton to Montana to Nebraska to Colorado; back to Montana, and Minne-sota, and Nebraska. All the time, while I willingly served wherever God 528 Contemplation / 529 called, I lived a split-level life: level 1, being principal; level~2, being a con-templative. What hours I could beg, borrow, or steal were unceasingly devoted to prayer, my primary calling and delight. Over and. over, I asked God why he so clearly summoned me to contemplation and so obviously assigned me to administration: He did not reply. ~ Finally, when state and child-care agencies' rulings came to the point that religion, of whatever denomination, could no longer be freely taught and promoted, and when my order had meantime emerged into one no longer cloistered, no longer primarily contemplative, but apostolic, I re-quested a change of work: from education into pastoral ministry. Forthwith, I was engaged by a medium-sized church in Seattle. Here for three and ~a half years I have rediscovered and---finally--integrated my vocation as contemplative and apostle. Lilurgy In the convent, we had observed the church year but, somehow, it had usually passed me by. When I joined, as staff.,person, our Liturgy Commit-tee and discovered lay people studying the gospels, creatively designing methods of changing background, music, space to emphasize each mood of the liturgy, really living, in mind and spirit, every aspect of worship to make it compellingly clear to the congregation, I burst alive to the wonder, grandeur, simplicity, lowliness of the worship of the Lord. Personal prayer had meant too much for me to have become aware of the ever-chan~ing, challenging worship of the Church. Now that same liturgy, parish-celebrated, summons me to a. communal meal of adoration, love, and thanksgiving wherein each of us enriches the other by his/her gifts of insight and prayer, and all of us complete each day of living worship more attuned to God because we know our neighbor better, while all the adjunEts to worship which we have designed emphasize, in color and shape and texture, kaleido-scopic stories of God's relationships with his people. Home Visiting Most nights I am out visiting families throughout our widely scattered parish. Generally, these visits are devoted to pastoral counseling, spiritual direction, theological up-dating, accordir~g to the various requests and desires of those whom I visit. Simply and easily, as we chat together, people often share with me their experiences of God. Coming from men and women I know, in the simplest of everyday language, those descriptions of personal encounters with God leave me so silently breathless that I feel as .though I ought to be kneeling. There is the man who drank a fifth a day, smoked heavily, lived with little regard for God's law---but whose wife prayed for him unceasingly. One day, in total self-disgust, he turned to God and his wife in heart-broken sorrow. Such an overwhelming visitation by God was granted him that he 530 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/4 never as much as desired alc6hol or cigarettes again. Because he was so overpowered by gr~ice, he quit work for two years to pray, ponder, meditate, absorb the wianders he had seen. When I came to his apartment, Bob's greatest, desire was for an in-depth discussion of the~ works of St: John of the Cross. He had read, comprehended and loved every word in the saint's writings. He quoted them to me easily, expounding on their beauty. And I --- I felt like a child listening to a master of the contemplative dire. .There are Richard and Nancy, a young married couple who,have taken private vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to free themselves for con-templation. Their .lives are totally regulated by their need for prayer, Each works half-time, earning only enough for a simple life,~giving away anything in excess. They rise very early in the morning for their first hour of prayer together, meditating daily for a total of three hours. Their love for Scrip-ture is so great that they have memorized whole chapters, setting them to music. Their sights are so irrevocably, irresistably fixed on God that they see nothing unusual about so living. Naturally enough, their parish commit-ment is to the St. Vincent de Paul Society. I could' write story after story, each thrilling, . about parishioners who, through the ~scintillating brilliance of everyday living in closest harmony with the Eternal, direct the onlooker, like the whirling lights of a police car, straight to God. Pastor Very few diocesan priests have ever been canonized. I used to believe this was because of a life which, de facto, militated against sanctity. I have discovered the reverse: lives so simply and poorly dedicated to Jesus that no association or congregation has been built up to study the individual, obscure life, promote tit, pay, for its publicity, push it through to canoniza-tion. In our parish we have team ministry: the staff consists of one priest, three sisters, two deacons and one deacon's wife on a volunteer basis, and one single young man. All decisions are reached by consensus. No one per-son leads, directs or governs. In this situation, the pastor could be lost. Our pastor lives his very busy, very undistinguished life according to one principle: what"would Jesus do? His consequent devotion to poverty, love, service, compassion, understanding is such that I watch him to see Jesus incarnated again. I remember my first Christmas in the parish. Father '~X" brought me to the :tree in the rectory, surrounded by gifts. "These are my Christmas presents," he said. "Take whatever you wish." Then he handed me an en-velope full of bills--half of the money given him for Christmas; the other half he gave to another sister. That was my first introduction to the stark poverty of Father "X's" life. He has no savings account. He uses his salary primarily to give it away to whichever person asks for it first. His days off and vacations are simple, ¯ Contemplation / 531 usually spent with other priests. He shares his rectory with whoever comes along: currently two priests are resident; the young youth minister and the male head of the liturgy committee live there; whatever man is unfortunate, poor, in need of an overnight accommodation gets the one room which is left. In ,that last room I have discovered a poor black family passing through town; a .veteran with amnesia waiting for an opening in vet's hospital; a disturbed man with a knife.under his pillow awaiting transportation to Cafiada; a chef wit.hout .a job, and many others. Finally, in the housekeeper's apartment in the rectory, lives a talented drummer Father "X" picked up off the streets, homeless, hooked on drugs and alcohol, hungry. Totally re-habilitated now, he does his own thing from the rectory, and will, until he feels safe enough to move out on his own. Naturally enough, the rectory has become everybody's home. Father "X" owns nothing which he does not share. The parish drops in, commit-tees meet, people come for appointments, and all of us learn that the parish is more than a church: it is a radius of sharing love--a koinonia--a dia-konia-- a drop-in center--a haven for all in need. ~ The words of~ Script:ure are inspiring. But meditating and praying over them has not ,compelled' me to follow Jesus as forcefully as has the life of a diocesan priest devoted to making .that Scripture alive--today, now. Preaching About every six weeks I preach on weekends. What I have learned thereby would fill an encyclopedia. To compress the messages of the readings of the Sunday into a ten-minute homily means that those readings must be meditated over, pon-dered, searched, re-searched until they become a light glowing in my mind. So brightly incandescent does that one word become, after the hours of contemplative prayer devoted to it, that neither writing it down nor memo-rizing it is.necessary. Also, I need stories, everyday tales, to illuminate the gospel of. yesteryear into the imper~ative of today. So I reach back through my life, or into the stories of their lives which parishioners have shared with me, or into the happenings of this particular calendar month of 1977. And in so doing, I discover how truly each occurrence of everyday an-nounces, again, the coming of God's kingdom, the incarnation of his Son. I discover, too, that in nothing have I ever been alone: those experiences I tfi~ought to have been most personal, most private, most singular become, when shared in the light of the gospel, the most universal experiences of my congregation, the ones they tell me they know and have lived. I ha.ve learned that nothing should be hidden because God is alive in all--writing straight with crooked lines--so that the whole world with its sins, its sorrows and its shortcomings--and its soarings--becomes one sung paean of praise to the Almighty. Translating that song into simplicity is the task of the preacher. ' 53:2 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/4 Fasting Often throughout my life I have heard God's call to fast, and almost as often shuddered and said "no," hurrying on my way. One Sunday in the parish, three different persons told me that they were leaving the Church because of their problems with the institutional Church. I was stunned. In our parish we have, I thought, everything: a priestly priest, excellent liturgies, first-rate music, good preaching, a devoted community. What else could we offer? And three parishioners were still leaving the Church! I prayed for enlightenment as to ways to help~for I knew both the men and the young woman very well. Clearly I heard the words: "This kind of devil goes not out but by prayer and fasting." Those words left me with no alternative: pray, I would; fast, I must. For four months I fasted. Meantime, one man and the young woman not only came back to the parish, but became deeply involved in parish activities--much more so than usual, The third young man had dropped out of my sight. I continued to fast and to pray, a bit hopelessly. Th6n, one night, as I stood in the convent of a distant parish, Rob walked to the door: We looked at each other, and embraced. He had come, he told me, for a meeting of youth ministry in the parish: he intended to get involved; and he said that he had joined the choir. "I searched for something better than the Church," he said, "but I couldn't find it." That convinced me of the value of fasting in the service of the Church. Now I frequently fast: a week here, a week there; now a month; then two. Fasting brings me closer to God in prayer, but without the real-life motiva-tion of the parish, I would not persevere in it. Ecumenism Eight Protestant and two Catholic churches, one of which is ours, cooperate in our neighborhood. The ministers of the churches meet twice monthly, the laity meet once a month. As soon as I was engaged for work, Father "X" involved me in CHOICE ("Churches Involved in Common Effort"). The first really important happening was our ministers' decision to keep a prayer diary, meet weekly, and share. For me, the decision was no less than terrifying; prayer had always been very personal, very private to me. However, my curiosity as to how Protestant mirdsters prayed was so great that I consented to go along. We continued for one year. I discovered many things: foremost, perhaps, my realization that not only were Protestant ministers comprehending of contemplation, they also lived rich and variegated prayer lives of their own. I discovered a pyramid of errors in my past concepts of Protestant ministers: Contemplation / 533 Celibacy is not absolutely essential to the developm'ent of a rich prayer life. ¯ The gospels apply to all persons of whatever denomination; within them, God lives for all. God reveals himself to whoever wholeheartedly searches. Protestants, by their eagerness and uprightness, can challenge Catholics. .Catholicism does not have an edge on the ecclesiastical market: I learned to share my prayer, my closeness to God, my silences in his presence, my ecstasies in the love of his sheltering arms, and to feel myself totally accepted and understood in what I would formerly have considered an.inappropriate company: a circle of Protestant ministers! That experience has been one of the most important, most radical in my life. It lifted me suddenly and freed me from the parochialism in which I had been reared. In many ways the CHOICE churches have cooperated to make God better known, more real, better served in our area and neighborhood. All of. this I have found enriching to our congregations, as well as truth-reveal-ing to me. God is found in truth, not in error. We must reach out, beyond ourselves, to discover where those unknown errors lie. Social Justice When I was less wise, I attended some social justice workshops at a large university and came back, I thought, permeated with an urgency 'for social justice in the world. I preached a couple of sermons on the subject and was disappointed to discover that my congregation was not totally with me. Figuring that I must be, in some way, stumbling about in wrong turns, I decided to let the matter drop for the time being. Then I discovered a group of parishioners who wanted to form a social justice committee, another grouWwhodesired to organize for Bread for the World, a third who wanted to create a St. Vincent de Paul Society to care for the poor, the hungry, the frightened, the homeless, especially in the area contiguous to our parish. I assisted each group in its formation, and met with them. There I discovered hard-headed; practical Christians who cared about the hungry homeless men and women next door, in preference to those a continent away to whom they were not sure they could get bed and ~board. Meantime, I discovered that our parishioners were ready to pour money into the St. Vincent de Paul Society when they knew it was immediately transferred into relief for the very poor; they were delighted to contribute food to a neighboring parish in the Central Area for its Food Bank; they were eager to organize to provide legislatively for the food needs and ap-propriate distribution centers with adequate safeguards for the hungry of the world,, They had been turned off by sermons~which revealed to them a naivete and lack of pragmatism inherited by me from Academe. "534 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/4 , Because money, efforts, work flowed freely to the really poor, I found myself involved with the impoverished. The ideals of social justice and the thundering of. Isaiah had sounded out like trumpet calls, but dealing with the querul.ousness, and the unrealistic, improvident needs of the poor, first-hand, became a different and much, more challenging matter--one which I would gladly., have ducked. But Jesus lives hidden in the difficulties, de-mandings, despotisms of the poor; and, with the aid of our laity who give of their time without counting, I have found him there. I must admit it: it was easier, more pleasant, more justifying to h~ave discovered God in. social justice workshops on broad grassy campuses among .nice people ~dressed in clean clothes than among the very poor, improperly dressed, poorly housed, querulous, and sometimes "ungrateful" impoverished. Contemplation Finally, this article closes where it began: with the quest for contempla-tion. Contemplation is not, as once I thought it was, a way of prayer, Contem-plation is a way of fife. Truly, in embracing .a religious life devoted to cloister and to .prayer, I chose a life-style immediately preparatory of contemplation. I had not, how-ever, counted on the life-style changing radically from one of cloister ~0 one of intense apostolic activity in interaction with the ,world. When that hap-pened, I scarcely knew which way to turn. Now, I realize, it didn't even matter, God lives, in the world. God created that world, and made of it his' own cloister. The more we know and interact with God's world, provided we. keep aware of what, in fact, we are about, the more imbued with God we be-come. On silver trumpets, my parish has called forth the name of God from every cornet wherein I have sought him and his people, and from other corners into which, unseeingly, and unknowingly, Ihave wandered. J I have found God vibrantly alive in people's homes; on the deserted city streets which I may be walking at midnight; in ch6i'ch; in poverty; in fasting as well as in restaurants; in priest and in people; in the hitchhikers I have picked up; in the cold, wet weather and the .Seattle sun; in the puddles I have plodded through and on the dry, comfortable kneelers in church; in the pants I wear,to keep warm and in the skirts I adopt to look good; in the faces of parishioners and in the stranger's' smile I meet at an intersection when-we bump into each other and apologize; in Protestant ministers and in Catholic laity. ' God encompasses me. He attends my lying down°and my getting up. His shadow cools me in the day and ~warms me at night. He guards my "waking hours and my broken dreams. He loves me alone in the midst of crowds. God is my be-all and end-all; he is my life. And that, I think, is contemplation. I have reached it, at last. Prayer and Freedom of the Spirit Maria Edwards, R.S.M. Sister Maria is Secondary Rdigious Educ'ation CoOrdinator ,for the diocese of Nash-ville. Her last article in these pages appeared in the July, 1976, issue. ,Her office is located in the Catholic Center;. 24~00 21st Ave. S.; N~shville, TN 37212. One day Jesus stood up in the synagogue and read the~following passage from Isaiah: "TheSpirit of the Lord has been given to me;°for he'~has anointed me. He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclai~m freedom to captives, and new sight to the blind, to set all captives free, and to proclaim the Lord's year of favor" (Lk 4:17-19). As ~eligious are we able to affirm the statement that the Spirit of the Lord has .been given to and accepted by us; are we certain that he has anointed us and called us his own? The more certain we are of his love and his presen~e~ the clearer do we hear his invitation to. proclaim .the good news, to be his special ministerg,'to be his disciples. As we allow the.Spirit room to move in our lives, we begin to feels, the urgency to help others to be more aware and more open to the working of the Spirit. within them. People are yearning to hear that this is the year of the Lord's favor for them, that now is the day of salvation. Prayer is our proclamation that Jesus is risen and is living, among us--that he not. only exists but that he is present and alive in all who believe in him. Prayer is our expression of hope in times that to many ~people seem hopeless. It is our conviction ,of faith, lived in'a world that seeks proof for everything. It is our experience of love reaching out and touching persons who are the abandoned, the forgotten;° the bitter, the disappointed, the poor, the disgruntled, the spiritually blind. Prayer is freedom! It is life lived in the fullest manner, for through, prayer we are healed and set free again and again. We are con-stantly being formed into new creations, into the very image of God, How many of us have been set free by the love of the Lord and then 535 536 / Review [or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/4 have allowed ourselves to be bound up again? How many of us are like Lazarus waiting for Jesus to call us forth again from the tomb of our own selfishness, our own complacence, our own indifference to a world that needs our help in order to be set free? How many of us are still bound up by our past lives, our past experiences, experiences which may have hurt us so deeply that we have vowed never to open ourselves to love again for' fear of being crushed again in the process? How many of us have wrapped our-selves up in our own burial cloths and have settled down for a long, slow, comfortable death? To live as Christians in complete freedom demands too much effort, too much dying to selfishness. "If today you hear my voice, harden not your hearts." In God's eyes it is never too late to begin again. He wants us free to love and be loved. Will we give the Spirit full reign in our hearts and lives? Are we willing to risk being a part of what we pray for: peace, love, joy, hope, freedom? Are we ready to take responsibility for our prayer, no matter what the cost? Can we honestly place our lives freely and unreservedly in God's hands? If we refuse to take the risk with Jesus, our prayer will become a selfish enslavement rather than a real liberation in the Spirit. "For freedom Christ has set us free; remain free therefore, and do not submit again to the slavery of sin . . . for you were called to freedom, brothers, but do not use your freedom to do. wrong, but use it to love and serve each other as the Holy Spirit directs . If you are living by the Spirit's power, then you will follow the Spirit's leadings in every part of your liv.es" (Ga 5: l ; 13; 25). What Is Freedom? Freedom is being open to new awarenesses of who we are, who God is, and what life is and holds. Persons who are truly free are persons who are able to live in faith. They are in touch with, and willing to share their weak-nesses as well as their strengths; they are able to grow with the pain as well as with the good times. Since they are people of faith, people who believe in the now, they are also people of hope, people who believe in the tomor-row. They admit that they do not have all the answers, that they do not possess all the truth, and this very admission sets them free to grow in the spiritual life. ,. Definitions or descriptions of freedom are as varied as the persons en-deavoring to explain them. But to Jesus "freedom" meant everything. It meant his very life. "I have come that they might have life and have it to the full" (Jn 10:10). He came to free the captives. He never forced freedom on anyone; he generously offered it to everyone. With his life, death, and resurrection he freed us all from sin and guilt, anxiety and fear. Are we daily allowing him to heal and free us in prayer--from loneliness, a sense of rejection, lack of self-respect, narrow-mindedness? How difficult it often is for us to choose life over death! "I have set before you life and death, Prayer and Freedom of the Spirit / 537 the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendents may live by loving the Lord. " (Dt 30: 19). Jesus daily reminds us that he is the way, the truth and the life as he gently calls us to follow him. God is infinitely patient as he waits for his people.to make choices. He is in-finitely patient as he waits for his chosen people to choose him. The type of freedom that the Lord offers us is so special that no indi-vidual or group can take it from us. It is essentially an inner 'attitude, a whole orientation toward life that is deeply implanted within those who believe. The well-known Austrian psychiatrist, Viktor Frahkl has written about this type of freedom from his own experience in his book Man~s Search for Mbaning.1 During the horrible years spent in a concentration camp in World War II, he often meditated on the meaning of freedom in his ~own life. Everything was taken from the prisoners---family, possessions, status, and identity itself (they were known as numbers). But after months and years in such an environment he was able to say that everything can be robbed of a man but one thing, the greatest of human freedoms: to choose one's own attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own life, one's own way. In the midst of his suffering, God and prayer became living realities to Frankl. It was the "freedom to be" that prayer gave to Frankl. He was a prisoner on the outside, but a free man on the inside. No person, no torture, no enticement could motivate him to give up his God-given freedom. Many people have the tendency to think that the two words, "motivation" and "causation," have the same meaning, but that is not true. No one can cause us .to be or do what we do not wish; people can only motivate. There are some religious who state that their bitterness or lack of interest is caused by hurts that they have received in the past. If they are bitter it is because they have chosen bitterness; they have chosen not to forgive and forget; they have chosen not to be healed and set free. This may seem a hard saying but after reading Frankl~s life it seems more evident than ever. No one is to blame for our lack of freedom but us ourselves. We can never anticipate what we might do in any given circumstance of the future, but we can make prayer such a part of our very .being that we can always be assured of being able to pray, and hopefully we will always have the courage to pray. It is this quality of courage, this growing awareness of our constant need to, pray,, that enables us to be listeners to and followers of the Spirit, to step into the uncertainty of the darkness knowing that God's presence is ever with us. The more we pray the more certain of his presence we become. Doubts will never cease to drift into our lives, but doubts give rise to the opportunities we need to choose the Lord: It might be well to remember that the Lord wants to be chosen, that he does not wish to be taken for granted in our lives. 1New York: Washington Square Press, 1959. 5311 / Review for Religious, Volume 36, 1977/4 Freedomand Commitment W~hen talking about freedom in a Christian ~context, by necessity the aspect of commitment must be touched upon. Some of the major crises in our .lives and in our times occur because of lack of meaning, lack of purpose, lack of hope, and especially lack of love on the part of individuals and of groups. If' we are living as committed Christian religious we should be filled with purpose, with meaning, with love. Commitment implies total giving of self on a. daily basis; it implies new discoveries of faith and love. Each of us has, forfeited certain freedoms in preference for a particular freedom-- Jesus Christ himself. We have chosen a definite life-style, we have chosen a vowed life. .In :searching the gospels there is one thing we can be certain of: Jesus wants committed followers. He never minced any words on the subject: "He who is noLwith me is against me, and he who does not ~gather with"me scatters" (Mt 12:30). Either we receive these words with joy or we live our lives as religious in misery. All the~.rationalization in the world cannot blot out the bold pass, age: "How I wish you were one or the.other--hot or cold! But because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of my mouth!" (Rev 3: 15-16). He asks us to make a choice daily, either be hot or cold~ but for God's sake make a choice. Are we setting any captives free; are we allowing others who love us to set us free; are we feeding ~any poor people; do ~we have something and Someone to give to the spiritually blind; are we signs, of faith and hope to the people.with whom we live and the people we endeavor to serve? We must not wait until, we are "perfect" before we begin to live out the gospel message. We must try to live the gospel message even in our profound weak-ness and°then we will be on the road to perfection!: How many minutes a day do we spend reading and praying over the Word of God; how ~any minutes a day do we spend living it out? .How many minutes a day do we spend growing closer to the One with whom we will live for all eternity? God needs our commitment; God so needs :our lives. The whole history., of God's chosen ones is the story of a people claim-ing to have responded fully to God's words to follow him in freedom, while in, actuality most were too bound up in their own sicknegs and powerless-ness to let the Lord, call them forth and free them. But Jesus° makes the process "too" simple: "Give up all that you have and come follow me!" What a risk that kind of freedom involves. It seems so frightening and yet all we have to do is to, let ourselves be filled .with God, to empty ourselves in prayer, so that .he can fill us with himself. Prayer can lead us to total commitment; prayer can free us sothat we can continually make total commitment~ As religious we need one another to support us in our choices, in our prayer and in our commitment. Although our lives as religious do not depend solely on whether or not those around us live in a Christian way, Pr~ayer and Freedom~o]~ the Spir!ti~ / 539:. we have to admit that living with those persons who are kind, loving, and service-oriented naturally encourages us to be and do likewise. The Lord told us to form community, to carry one another's burdens freely. We must nev.er give up trying to make Jesus the center of our community life. We may be "a voice crying in the desert" but if we cease to cry we may soon cease to care. The cry says that we need one another; the cry says that we are almost dying on the inside and we want to live again'; the cry says that we have not yet arrived. "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (Jn 8:31-32). To be free, then, is really to be able to follow our quest for the truth, to be able to fulfill our potential for spiritual growth. Conclusion Prayer is our witness to an unbelieving world that the Lord is present and living within us. Prayer opens us up to choose freely God and life over nothingness and death. We must .decide in what ways' we are bound, in what ways we.need to be set free. We must believe'that God loved us so much that he sent his Son to take on our flesh and our weakness in order that we might be led to freedom in the Spirit. The Lord wants his religious to be free. In his eyes each a~ad every living person is special and beloved. As religious we should know this even though others do inot .know of their specialness. In prayer each day let us hand over to the Lord all '.of our fears, our dreams, our burdens, our insecurities, our hopelessness, and even our faithlessness, If we want to be free we can The,.Lord not .only accepts us and loves us unconditionally, but he gives us the~freedom to choose to be changed. This change begins the moment we say~a total yes to.him and allow him to set us free in the Spirit. Off COmmitment to the Poor Gerald R. Grosh, S.J. Father Grosh, in addition to teaching theology at Xavier University (Cincinnati), also gives retreats and resides at the Jesuit Renewal Center; P.O. Box 289; Milford, OH 45150. We live in a divided society. We live in a society in which the clamor of the oppressed rings forth to all people to struggle, for love and justice and peace in our world. The poor, especially those in the Third World, cry out that they cannot live as human beings, that they have no sense of their own value as persons, because the structures of society keep them from feeling their own dignity. Many men do not earn enough to provide the basic necessities for wife and family. Many do not receive an honest day's pay. Often the system is such that a man cannot even get a job; or, if he does get one, it is only through political favoritism and not on his own merit as a man and a worker. Today the poor are crying out that they are op-pressed by the system--political, social, economic, and cultural--and thus are robbed of their dignity as human persons. As religious we have a choice, just as all people have a choice in the face of this reality. We can shut our ears and refuse to hear, we can close our eyes and refuse to see the misery and suffering of the poor. Or we can let this reality sink in. "The poor we have always with us"; but today men and women are shouting that this poverty is unnecessary, that it is the result of the evil and greed of men---even of so-called "committed Christians." The poor and the hungry throughout the world are calling for brother-hood, freedom, justice, love and sharing. These are the values of the kingdom which Christ preached. Meditation on the gospels reveals Jesu.s as a man of love, as a man who entered into our situati0n--the human situation, the concrete situation of the people of his time. He, too, lived in a divided society; and in this divided society he drew close to those who were weak and oppressed. He challenged those who were: the organizers 540 On Commitment to the Poor / 541 within this society; he preached the kingdom. He preached the reconcilia-tion of man; he effected justice. The values of his kingdom were brother-hood, freedom, justice, 10ve and sharing; and in order to realize these goals he found himself in conflict---especially in conflict with money, honor and power. If a religious is one who espouses the values of Christ's kingdom he must espouse brotherhood, freedom, justice, love and sharing. Like Christ, he too must draw near to the poor, the weak, the oppressed. And it is impor-tant for him to reflect on why he commits himself to the poor. There are many possible reasons: ideological, political, reasons arising from sadness because of the sufferings of the poor or from guilt because of the injustice they suffer. As religious, our primary motivation is simply Christ and the desire to announce Christ and his kingdom. We believe in the values which Christ preached. Jesus committed himself to the poor and the oppressed. The ~call to religious today, as well as to all Christians, is to follow Christ, doing in our day what he did in his, that is, doing justice and effecting reconciliation. Frankly, some of us do not want to do this because we are too attached to the comfortable life-style in which we now live. Others are afraid to abandon the security that the system provides them. For these people, a conversion is necessary--a conversion which depends on the Lord's grace. But there are also many religious who do see the need for commitment to the poor, though they are confused as to how they might respond. Many are using their talents in important work, and they are so overwhelmed and overworked that they find little time to reflect on or to act on a commitment to the poor. The question before them is how the way in which they lead their lives can reflect a genuine concern for the poor. The present article will attempt to offer these religious some concrete suggestions as to how they might commit themselves to the poor. Becoming ln]ormed ~ If we are really to help the poor, we must know their needs. We must hear the national and international cries of the poor and oppressed. We must know how the);" want to be helped, rather than how we think they want to be helped. First,hand experience, wit_h the poor will clarify our perspective a great deal. But many of ~us are very busy people and our present commitments m~y not allow much time for this. Most cannot do first-hand investigating. That means we have to choose to whom we are going to listen. As we filter the information we receive, we must always keep in mind what truly beriefits the poor, what helps them grow and respect themselves as persons. Personal Contact We are incarnate people; our physical presence has Significance. The poor suffer from a lack of dignity. They cannot choose where they live; 54~2 / Review ]or Religious, Volume 36, 1977/4 perhaps we can. When some of us religious choose to live in their neighbor-hood, they can gain anew respect for themselves. Yet not all can or should live among the poor. Living among the poor depends on a personal call.and on the different, psychological drives of each person. Furthermore, the ghetto life is already overcrowded; we don't need thousands of people suddenly pouring themselves into homes in the ghetto, though it is obvious that each one of us needs some material contact and sharing in the lives of the poor if we are really to enter into their world and commit ourselves to them and to their struggles. Contemplating th~ Lives o[ the Poor One's stance before the poor should be contemplative--that is, one has to listen, and to listen long. We come from our own cultural and economic backgrounds through which we have accepted many blind biases. We.have to listen long to the poor to discover their values and ways of looking at things, thus destroying our own ideological blocks and preconceived notions. As we listen, we shall discover some values that are quite attractive: simplicity, joy, hospitality, and sharing. We shall also discover their in-security. Their insecurity is not an experience that we can ever enter into fully. We cannot live their insecurity, their closed horizons, their closed present; we can never really lose our status. But we can enter into the way that they try to deal with their insecurity. We can enter into the security that they .can have in material work and in brotherhood in the Lord. We can recognize in their values the presence and action of the Lord in their lives and we can respond, to this in faith. As we contemplate their suffering and pain, we may also discover some attitudes which are very different from our own, attitudes with ~egard to sex, for instance, or violence, or deceit, or the struggle between classes. We need to listen long to understand what their attitudes are really saying. For example, a poor person may try to manipulate you or deceive you in the hope of getting some material gain or economic help. We Can judge this out of our own moral system, applying to it the valu~ that we put on honesty an'd truth, on honest communication. Such a judgment may be perfectly sound according to our own biases and cultural values. But it fails to take into account the real, lived situation in which the poor person exists, a situation that we have never really experienced. If we enter into the world of the poor man, we may discover that what~he is really saying is that h,~is situation is so bad, that the system is so destructive of who he is, that he desperately needs this economic help and will go to any length to get it. Contemplation does not mean a blind acceptance of what the poor say or what they ask for; but it does mean that we really try to listen to them, tO see where they are coming from, and to understand what their experience is. We try to judge their actions and,our response from the gospel: what.helps the poor man to be more a person? On Commitment to the Poor / 543 Questioning Our Own Lives From the Experience of the Poor It is not just simply a presence among the poor or a contemplation of their lives and their values to which we are called. We are called also to look at ourselves and the lives we lead in comparison with the lives and experi-ences of the poor. We need to enter into the suffering that they experience because of the system--the political, social and economic system of our times. Thus it is fruitful to experience the frustrations that the poor endure as a matter of course. Try to experience dealing with the power structures without, using "cc~nnections," and get the same run-around that the poor receive. Travel by bus not in order to save money, but simply because this is the experience that the poor have; Such experiences might enable a per-son to question his life more fully in the light of the experience of the poor. We must be rea
Se puede pensar que esta asociación pudiera tener alguna relación biológica, pero como argumenta Pauletti (2012) no hay raíces ancestrales de esta asignación de colores a las niñas y niños. Esta autora señala que estos colores empezaron a asociarse al sexo en la Segunda Guerra Mundial, ya que antes se usaba el blanco para los bebes. La finalidad de esta imposición es establecer unas pautas, normas y estereotipos a las personas. Esta cuestión no tendría importancia si ello no conllevara una clasificación y jerarquización. Esta asignación condiciona el aspecto físico, el entorno y hasta los gustos. Y lo mismo ocurre con la música. Cuando se piensa en instrumentos o dirección de orquestas se extrapola a los varones. Si nos preguntasen por el nombre de algún compositor de música clásica, prácticamente todas las personas podrían responder como ejemplo que son Mozart, Beethoven o Falla. En cambio no mencionarían a las mujeres, como ocurre en otras artes. La invisibilidad de las mujeres en este ámbito es tan llamativa que, una de las razones para realizar esta Tesis es poner en evidencia los mecanismos que son los causantes de ese error. Los pilares básicos que sustentan este trabajo son la igualdad, el género, los derechos humanos, la música y la educación. Con los hallazgos se pretende conocer, analizar y demostrar cómo se construye la identidad del alumnado a través de la educación musical en la etapa de primaria, desde una mirada de género. Queremos "prestar nuestras gafas" para que se vea la discriminación que aún existe en la educación. De hecho la Ley Orgánica 8/2013, de 9 de diciembre, para la mejora de la calidad Educativa (LOMCE), afirma que "el nivel educativo de los ciudadanos determina su capacidad de competir con éxito en el ámbito del panorama internacional y de afrontar los desafíos que se planteen en el futuro", esto supone abrir las puertas a puestos de trabajo de alta cualificación, lo que representa una apuesta por el crecimiento económico y por un futuro mejor. Para ello se resalta el papel de materias científicas y técnicas, eliminando la obligatoriedad de cursar educación artística (plástica y música) en Educación Primaria, y música en Educación Secundaria, hecho que posibilita que un alumno o alumna termine su escolarización en España sin haber estudiado dicha materia. Otra razón para iniciar este estudio es que, como docente que soy, comparto los planteamientos de la corriente constructivista (Porlan, 1993; Díaz-Aguado y Medrano, 1994; Carretero, 2010) en la consideración de que la investigación es un factor fundamental para que las personas elaboremos y reconstruyamos nuestro conocimiento. Está claro que es fundamental mantener una perspectiva investigadora que nos permita conocer cuáles serían los nuevos conocimientos más adecuados para interaccionar en un contexto de aprendizaje y/o de formación. Pero la valoración de esta disciplina no siempre ha sido positiva, en concreto en la enseñanza básica. Murphey (1992, pp. 8-9) recoge algunas creencias del profesorado sobre el uso de la música en el terreno educativo, como son ''Los profesores no se toman la música en serio; creen que puede molestar a las clases contiguas; los estudiantes "se desmadran " y se pierde el control de la clase; los diferentes gustos musicales entre los estudiantes de un mismo grupo es un problema. " Santos (1997a) insiste también en que siguen persistiendo los prejuicios contrarios a la utilización de las canciones en el colegio, ya que se considera una pérdida de tiempo, una distracción del currículum a seguir, además de una falta de rigor y seriedad académica. Partiendo de la afirmación ya conocida de que "la educación, bien entendida, no es tan solo una preparación para la vida; es, en sí misma, una manifestación permanente y armoniosa de la vida" (Willems, 1984, pp. 13-14). Nos planteamos que esta idea debería extenderse a todo estudio artístico y particularmente para la educación musical, que apela, como afirma Willems (1984, pp. 13-14) "a la mayoría de las facultades del ser humano ". El desarrollo de estas capacidades y cualidades en los niños y niñas va a depender de los ambientes sociales a los que están expuestos: la familia, la escuela y la sociedad en general. En particular, la familia es el primer ambiente en el que pasamos los primeros años de nuestra vida, y precisamente es en éste, dónde reside la base de la educación musical. En ella se adquieren las habilidades sociales que permitirán desarrollar la autonomía, ya que "e/ modo como están siendo educados puede contribuir para que lleguen a ser más completos o, por otro lado, para limitar sus iniciativas y sus aspiraciones" (Finco, 2010, p. 59). Por lo tanto, será la familia la primera forma natural de preparación, transmitiéndoles, por medio del canto y juegos, la sensibilidad por la música. Luego está la escuela que complementa la formación en valores que el discente recibe en su hogar, máxime cuando existen en el entorno deficiencias en esta formación (García, 2005). Incluso desde "las ropas rosas y azules y los pendientes que 'adornan ' las orejas de las niñas, son claros indicios de que el desarrollo de los roles de género comienza muy tempranamente" (Gómez Bueno, 2001, p. 56). El segundo agente es la escuela. El colegio tiene un importante papel socializador, transmisor de valores, normas, hábitos de comportamiento., que facilitan la convivencia entre las personas. Tiene una serie de funciones, las cuales podríamos resumir en tres: preparar al sujeto para su futuro profesional, educar a las personas moral y socialmente, y dar una cultura personal. El ambiente social y público de las instituciones educativas, posibilita una educación colectiva, lo que propicia al niño o niña diferentes experiencias por medio de la convivencia con las diferencias de sexo, edad, etnia, religión, entre otras (Faria y Finco, 2011). Dentro de la función socializadora que tiene el colegio, es destacable "el papel de las personas que intervienen en él, las relaciones de poder, usos del lenguaje, estereotipos de género, estrategias de enseñanza y pertinencia de sus contenidos, y evaluación en la escuela" (Chavez, 2006, p. 18). Imbemón (2002, p. 17) considera que "la educación por sí sola no puede introducir los cambios necesarios en las sociedades pero sí puede actuar como instrumento fundamental para promover cambios en la misma. Es precisamente en estos tres ambientes, donde se mueve este trabajo de investigación que se presenta como Tesis Doctoral, puesto que la música se aprende desde la familia, ya que forma parte de la cultura de un lugar, y se vivencia en la escuela y la sociedad. La finalidad de este trabajo de investigación tiene una doble vertiente, por un lado valorar y demostrar que la música es un potente agente transmisor de conocimientos, no solamente musicales, sino también de valores, costumbres, creencias, estereotipos., que influyen en el desarrollo de la identidad de las personas. Por otro lado, resaltar la importante labor de la música en el proceso educativo del alumnado, ya que a través de ella se desarrollan capacidades, habilidades, destrezas. básicas para la vida de nuestro alumnado. El interés por este tema, parte del año 2008, ya que me inicié en esta temática con el trabajo de investigación titulado "Análisis de la transmisión de los estereotipos de género en el cancionero de Huelva como recurso educativo" realizado para el programa de doctorado "La Educación en la sociedad multicultural" (Bienio 2006/08). Para el desarrollo de dicho trabajo, se tomó como referencia el Cancionero infantil de la provincia de Huelva, realizado por Francisco José García Gallardo y Herminia Arredondo Pérez (1995), investigadores y docentes de la Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación de esa provincia andaluza. Las conclusiones de dicha investigación fueron la génesis de esta tesis doctoral, pues como se verá más adelante en el apartado "Conclusiones Finales", se siguen manteniendo los estereotipos en los recursos utilizados en las clases de música. En los primeros pasos para profundizar en esta temática, se puso de manifiesto los pocos estudios realizados en nuestro contexto sobre este tópico. Precisamente éste fue uno de los motivos que profesionalmente como docente, me generó curiosidad y fue decisivo para iniciar el estudio de investigación Como se ha mencionado anteriormente, tras una primera labor de búsqueda de documentación e investigaciones al respecto, encontramos que existen trabajos sobre el desarrollo de la identidad en la infancia como Phinney & Ong, 2007; Smith, 1995 y 2002; Pnevmatikos, Geka y Divane, 2010; y Markus, 2008; Al mismo tiempo, constan numerosos trabajos de investigaciones sobre transmisión de estereotipos de género a través de diversas asignaturas (como lenguaje, matemáticas, ciencias sociales, naturales, educación física. e incluso en la formación del profesorado que las imparte) como Márquez Guerrero, 2013; Álvarez, 1990; Torre, 2002; Velasco Marugán, 2012; Torres, G., y Arjona, 1988; Martínez Scott, 2012; Marco López, 1991; Lomas, 2004; Lozano Domingo, 1995; Díaz De Greñu, 2010; entre otros. Sin embargo, a la hora de abordar la educación musical como trasmisora de estereotipos a través de los recursos utilizados en las clases de música, existen muy pocas investigaciones al respecto. Con esta Tesis Doctoral, se pretende demostrar que en los recursos utilizados en clase, en este caso uno de los más empleados, como son los libros de texto de la asignatura de música en un centro educativo concreto, se transfieren conocimientos, hábitos, creencias., en definitiva, las concepciones existentes en una cultura andró céntrica, incluyendo los prejuicios. Se pretende poner de manifiesto el poder de este medio, ya que la educación es sonido e imagen; es decir, se transmite lo que se escucha y se ve, pero en la música, más concretamente, está acentuada esta relación por su incidencia en el desarrollo de las personas. Concretamente nos centramos en la influencia y efectos de la educación musical en la conformación de la identidad de género y en concreto en la transmisión de los estereotipos que se divulgan en los libros de texto de música. Para ello, se ha elegido un colegio onubense, el CEIP Aurora Moreno, ubicado en la localidad Gibraleón (Huelva). El planteamiento de este trabajo en el estudio de los libros texto es porque (desgraciadamente) en la educación en general, y la musical en particular, es el recurso más extendido a la hora de impartir las clases, limitando enormemente las actividades, tareas y ejercicios, ya que "todo está planificado" por las editoriales, ofreciendo hasta las respuestas estandarizadas que cada alumna o alumno debería dar, y no solo eso, sino las imágenes y textos que contienen, están encasillados en unas creencias, valores, pensamientos, actitudes. que poco a poco van influenciando la identidad de nuestras niñas y niños. Este poder educativo en la construcción del género, lo tiene incluso en la música actual, ya que se representan patrones de comportamiento que se asumen como normales y que, aun en la actualidad, ni se cuestionan. Podemos poner como ejemplo de esto la canción titulada "Mujer Florero" de Ella baila sola. Los fenómenos educativos no son de carácter meramente técnico. Son, más bien, de naturaleza moral y política. La actividad educativa está impregnada de contenidos morales. La responsabilidad que tenemos como profesionales del proceso educativo -en política, gestión, docencia.- es tener un control democrático externo de las acciones que se llevan a cabo y, también, un control interno nacido de las exigencias y necesidades de los protagonistas (Kelley y Beauchesne, 2001). Por eso, "no podemos ignorar o desatender que las escuelas están altamente implicadas en la educación, regulación, control y corrección de las expresiones sexuales y de género de niños y niñas, y que esas prácticas son indisociables de la producción simultánea de ordenamientos y jerarquías que legitiman y autorizan situaciones de exclusión, marginación, subordinación y violencia entre las identidades sexuales y de género, lo que posee una trascendencia política imposible de ignorar, por lo que urge avanzar en la inserción y discusión del tema en la formación de los y las profesionales de la educación" (Quaresma da Silva, Fanfa Sarmentó & Fossatti, 2012, p. 17). Los estereotipos de género que se muestran en muchas ocasiones en los libros de texto, canciones populares o tradicionales, videojuegos., encasillan a las mujeres en las "perfectas amas de casa y esposas", amables, dóciles, frágiles y, en definitiva, sin voluntad propia ni identidad o autonomía, dependientes siempre de un hombre para sentirse realizadas. Todo esto pertenece en educación al llamado currículum oculto. Se puede definir el currículum oculto como el conjunto de normas, costumbres, creencias, lenguajes y símbolos que se manifiestan en la estructura y el funcionamiento de una institución, constituyendo una fuente de aprendizajes para todas las personas que integran la organización (Santos Guerra, 2002). Los aprendizajes que se derivan del currículo oculto no solo afectan al alumnado sino también a los docentes. A partir del currículo oculto se asimilan significados a través de las prácticas que se realizan, de los discursos que se utilizan, de los textos que se leen (Santos, 2002). El androcentrismo tiene acciones muy poderosas y, en el ámbito musical más concretamente, han tratado de desvalorizar todo lo que hacen las mujeres. Estas acciones sumadas a la invisibilidad de las mujeres en la música, contribuye a desarrollar este papel secundario de ellas en esta materia de conocimiento. Por una parte se consigue infravalorar a la música realizada por mujeres, ya que carece de valor o importancia y, es por ello considerada una actividad propia de ellas, mientras que cuando hacen una aportación importante se destaca si son hombres. Como se plantea al inicio de este apartado todas y todos hemos oído hablar de Mozart o Beethoven, pero apenas se conoce la producción y el papel que han desempeñado en la vida de sus familiares mujeres como Fanny Mendelssohn (hermana de Félix), Clara Schumann (mujer de Robert), Alma Malher (mujer de Gustav) o Nanerl Mozart (hermana de Wolfgang Amadeus). Estas cuestiones son, muchas veces, olvidadas por el profesorado a la hora de seleccionar los libros de texto y quien tiene la responsabilidad en las editoriales, mostrando las concepciones y creencias arcaicas de una sociedad patriarcal, dominada por los hombres, que en algunas cuestiones es diferente en nuestros días, estando, por tanto, fuera de contexto. Con los hallazgos de este estudio se obtienen pruebas que resaltan la importancia que tiene el papel femenino dentro de la música y su efecto en la educación de las personas, en la línea que plantea una corriente actual del postmodemismo como es la musicología feminista. Esta rama de la musicología reivindica la figura de las féminas como eje central para evitar la discriminación de las mujeres no sólo como contenido, sino también como objeto. Para llevarlo a cabo, planteamos esta investigación cuya estructura se presenta a continuación: Para iniciar la fundamentación teórica de este trabajo, iniciamos una presentación de aspectos básicos que aportan la aclaración de los conceptos básicos que van a permitir la comprensión del mismo. Se parte de la idea de que la música es potente medio de comunicación, en muchas ocasiones objetivo y en otras subjetivo, otorgándole así una gran importancia como transmisor de ideas, creencias, valores, sentimientos. En primer lugar, se presenta la música como lenguaje, con sus elementos constitutivos, pues es una faceta poco conocida. También describimos lo inmensamente relacionada que está con la palabra, pues, muchos musicólogos coinciden en asignarle un origen común con el lenguaje oral. Como expresa Bernabé Villodre (2012, p. 107), "la música es una manifestación artística, es un medio de expresión de ideas, de emociones, de vivencias de una sociedad. El arte musical combina sus elementos propios de tal forma que acerca al oyente a la cultura del pueblo que la ha producido y a las emociones humanas. Por todo esto, podemos considerarla como una base para el establecimiento del diálogo intercultural, como una herramienta más de trabajo de la ínterculturalidad". La educación artística y, más concretamente la musical, ayuda a una transmisión de creencias, normas. ya que "en la música se enseñan valores y con la música se aprende a elegir valores" (Touriñán y Longueira, 2010, p. 160). Posteriormente, presentamos a la música como una fuente de expresión, e incluso haremos un recorrido cronológico del desarrollo expresivo de los niños y niñas a través de la misma. Además, se explicará con más detenimiento los tres tipos de expresión musical: vocal, instrumental y corporal. "El proceso de creación de la música puede contribuir a la apreciación de la diversidad cultural y al respeto de la libertad de expresión; de ahí, la importancia de la música como medio de comunicación entre culturas y, por extensión, la importancia de la educación por la música. Sin embargo, debe señalarse que no sólo la práctica musical en el ámbito formal puede favorecer la adquisición de la denominada competencia inter cultural" (García, Escarbajal de Haro y Escarbajal Frutos, 2007, p. 26). Posteriormente, se explica cómo el estudio de la música a lo largo de las distintas sociedades ha dado lugar a una ciencia llamada sociología. Se desarrolla una aproximación cronológica de la génesis de esta ciencia, así como de los distintos intelectuales importantes en el desarrollo de la misma. "Partimos de la idea de que la música se ha dotado desde un principio de una carga inherente de sociabilidad, es expresión de la vida interior, expresión de los sentimientos, pero a su vez exige por parte de quienes la escuchan, receptividad y conocimiento del estilo de que se trate, además de conocimiento de la sociedad en la que se crea, ya que cada obra musical es un conjunto de signos, inventados durante la ejecución y dictados por las necesidades del contexto social. Si desligamos a la obra de la sociedad que la creó los signos musicales tendrán sentidos distintos" (Hormigos, 2012, p. 75). En la antigüedad, el sentido musical estaba asociado a actividades colectivas, donde se compartían experiencias y vivencias, es decir, el contacto del individuo con la música se producía en el directo, compartiendo la experiencia musical con otras personas y generándose, de este modo, un verdadero acontecimiento social, sin embargo en la actualidad, es habitual que olvidemos esta dimensión ya que estamos demasiado acostumbrados a escucharla en solitario (Drósser, 2012). A continuación, se presenta el desarrollo cronológico de la función social de la música, desde la prehistoria hasta la actualidad. En este apartado se explica la importancia de la misma en las distintas sociedades y los usos que se hacía o hace de ella. En el desarrollo de este punto se resalta la importancia que tenía la música en la prehistoria hasta Grecia y Roma, pues entonces, tenía un valor formativo y educativo, y como posteriormente se le dio un trato de divertimento o pasatiempo, obviando sus propiedades. "Para descifrar el mensaje que posee toda composición musical es necesario entender su estructura y la forma de la música, estructura y forma que quedan determinadas por las características de la sociedad que las crea, las hereda o las interpreta. Por tanto, el hecho musical debe entenderse como una actividad social" (Hormigos, 2012, p. 76). Además, destaca la importancia del protagonismo femenino a lo largo de la historia, pues como veremos más adelante, las mujeres somos las "grandes olvidadas" en los libros de historia de la música. Green (2001, p. 25) argumenta que "la división del trabajo musical en una esfera pública, en gran medida masculina, y una esfera privada, en gran parte femenina, es un rasgo de la historia de la música occidental, así como de muchas culturas musicales de todo el mundo ". "En la música, el sistema patriarcal no ha sido menos influyente que en otros niveles sociales. La mujeres en la música han estado siempre invisibilizadas y relegadas a un segundo plano. No debemos olvidar que la música está insertada en un determinado modelo de sociedad que la produce, transmitiendo un determinado tipo de cultura, valores e intereses estéticos que siempre han de estar en conexión con el resto de factores que conforman dicha sociedad" (Laborda, 2015, p. 168) En el siguiente apartado se aborda el valor educativo de la música, iniciándolo en los antecedentes históricos y recorriendo cronológicamente las distintas épocas hasta llegar a la ley educativa actual, LOMCE. En este apartado, se desarrolla cómo se entiende la educación actual, así como más específicamente el currículum de música. Como en este trabajo es especialmente relevante el valor educativo de la música, así como de sus aportaciones a la etapa de primaria, se realiza una revisión detallada de los métodos de enseñanza y aprendizaje con fundamentación psicológica, los cuales aseguran que la música contribuye a una formación integral del alumnado, como son los de Suzuki, 1978; Willems, 1984; Kodaly, 1974; Ward, 1964; Orff-Schulwerk, 1969; Martenot, 1993; Paynter, 1999; y Dalcroze, 1998. En la escuela es fundamental tratar, estudiar y formar al alumnado en conocimientos sobre música. Según Alonso, Pereira y Soto (2003) la música es un instrumento educativo para la expresión de valores y sentimientos, ya que a través de la educación musical, el alumnado puede participar en producciones de forma cooperativa, establecer relaciones sociales, trabajo en equipo. Herrera (2007, p. 6), considera que "desde la educación musical podemos elaborar un marco de actuación idóneo para trabajar aspectos como la libertad, autonomía personal, autoestima, honestidad, felicidad, espíritu crítico, igualdad, solidaridad, pluralismo, cooperación, amor, creatividad. ". Una vez contextualizado el marco teórico, en el segundo bloque, se fundamenta y describen los objetivos de este estudio, que pueden resumirse en el título de esta Tesis Doctoral, realizar un análisis de la construcción de la identidad desde una perspectiva de género a través de la educación musical en la etapa de primaria. Para ello, se analizan los libros de texto de música desde una perspectiva de género; se realiza un análisis de los personajes que aparecen en los libros; se describe el rol social que desempeñan hombres y mujeres presentes en los libros de texto utilizados en las clases de música; se detectan y analizan los estereotipos de género que se le enseñan y transmiten al alumnado. Todo ello, con la finalidad de sensibilizar y crear conciencia entre el profesorado y a la administración pública de la presencia de un potente currículum oculto en los libros de texto; descubrir si en los libros de texto y editoriales seleccionadas existen valores racistas, sexistas o de otro tipo de discriminación de las personas de forma explícita y, además, proporcionar unas pautas de análisis que faciliten una mirada crítica, de género, sobre el material que se utiliza en las aulas de Educación Primaria que son los libros de texto. Sobre el material estudiado se ha realizado un análisis de contenido, cuyas categorías son la denominación de los personajes, descripción física, descripción psicológica, acciones que realizan, oficios o profesiones y objetos. Entre las conclusiones extraídas destaca el importante papel que desempeña la música como transmisora de normas, costumbres., en muchas ocasiones estereotipados, así como la influencia que esto produce en el desarrollo de la identidad del alumnado. De esta forma, se demuestra el verdadero valor educativo que tiene la música, más allá del aspecto lúdico, revalorizando su papel en el proceso formativo de los niños y niñas. Para finalizar, se ha incluido un apartado titulado "Limitaciones y posibles nuestras líneas de actuación" en el que se expondrá tanto propuestas de interacción como futuros estudios a realizar en esta línea. Dadas las condiciones de espacio y tiempo, hay cuestiones que no se pueden presentar en este trabajo, pero siento un gran interés para abordarlas en futuros estudios como son tratar las principales aportaciones de la musicología feminista, estudiar y poner de manifiesto en el contexto educativo los nombres de instrumentistas, directoras y compositoras, así como los instrumentos y repertorios considerados masculinos o femeninos. Por ello, hay que recalcar la importancia de una buena selección de los materiales utilizados por parte del profesorado en las clases, pues en la escuela, como agente socializador que es, se transfieren las creencias y valores inmersos en ellos. ; As presentation of this thesis, we want to mention the name of it in the title. By "Beyond Pink or Blue" we wish to express the arbitrariness of cultural patterns that prevail in childhood and spanning the entire life of the people. You might think that this association could have any biological relationship, but as argued Pauletti (2012) no ancestral roots of this color mapping to children. She points out that these colors began to associate sex in the Second World War, since before white for babies was used. The purpose of this tax is to establish guidelines, standards and stereotypes people. This issue would not matter if it did not involve a classification and prioritization. This assignment affects the appearance, the environment and even tastes. And so it is with music. When you think about instruments or orchestras address is extrapolated to men. If question at by the name of a classical composer, virtually everyone may respond as such they are Mozart, Beethoven and Falla. However not mention women, as in other arts. The invisibility of women in this field is so striking that one of the reasons for this thesis is to highlight the mechanisms that are responsible for that mistake. The basic pillars of this work are equality, gender, human rights, music and education. With the findings it aims to analyze and demonstrate how identity is constructed pupils through music education in the primary stage, from a gender perspective. We want to "pay our glasses" to see that discrimination still exists in education. In fact the Organic Law 8/2013, of 9 December, for the improvement of educational quality (LOMCE), states that "the educational level of citizens determines its ability to compete successfully in the field of the international scene and to face the challenges arising in the future ", this means opening the doors to jobs for highly qualified, representing a commitment to economic growth and a better future. For this, the role of scientific and technical matters is highlighted by eliminating mandatory study art education (plastic and music) in Elementary Education, and music in secondary education, a fact that enables a pupil finished his schooling in Spain without having studied this matter. Another reason to start this study is that, as a teacher I am, I share the ideas of the constructivist (Porlan, 1993; Diaz-Aguado y Medrano, 1994; Carter, 2010) in considering that research is a key factor for we draw people and rebuild our knowledge. Clearly it is essential to maintain a research perspective that allows us to know what would be the most appropriate new knowledge to interact in a context of learning and / or training. But the assessment of this discipline has not always been positive, particularly in basic education. Murphey (. 1992, pp 8-9) collects some beliefs of teachers on the use of music in the educational field, such as "Teachers do not take music seriously; They believe it can disturb adjacent classes; students "are desmadran" and control of the class is lost; different musical tastes among students of the same group is a problem . " Santos (1997a) also insists that those opposed to the use of songs in school prejudices persist, as it is considered a waste of time, a distraction from the curriculum to follow, along with a lack of rigor and academic seriousness. Starting from the well-known statement that "education, properly understood, is not just a preparation for life; is, in itself, a permanent and harmonious manifestation of life "(Willems, 1984, pp. 13-14). We propose that this idea should be extended to all artistic study and particularly for music education, appealing, as Willems (1984, pp. 13-14) "to most of the powers of the human being," he says. The development of these skills and qualities in children will depend on the social environments to which they are exposed: the family, school and society in general. In particular, the family is the first environment in which we spent the first years of our lives, and this is precisely where the basis of music education lies. In her social skills that will develop autonomy, because "the way we are being educated can contribute to become more complete and, secondly, to limit their initiatives and aspirations" (Finco, 2010 are acquired, p. 59). Therefore, the family is the first natural form of preparation, passing, through singing and games, music sensitivity. Then there is the school that complements the teaching of values that the learner receives at home, especially when there are deficiencies in the training environment (Garcia, 2005). Even from the "pink and blue clothes and earrings 'adorn' ears girls, are clear indications that the development of gender roles begins very early" (Gomez Bueno, 2001, p. 56). The second agent is school. The school has an important socializing role, transmitter of values, norms, habits of behavior . that facilitate the coexistence between people. It has a number of functions, which could be summarized in three: prepare the subject for their professional future, educate people morally and socially, and give a personal culture. The social environment and public educational institutions, enables a collective education, which encourages the child through different experiences of living with differences in gender, age, ethnicity, religion, among others (Faria and Finco, 2011) . Within the social function that has the school is remarkable "the role of the people involved in it, power relations, use of language, gender stereotypes, teaching strategies and relevance of its contents, and evaluation at school "(Chavez, 2006, p. 18). Imbernon (2002, p. 17) believes that "education alone can not make the necessary changes in societies but can act as a key instrument to promote changes in them." It is in these three environments, where the research work presented as a doctoral thesis, since music is learned from the family moves, as part of the culture of a place, and is experienced in school and society. The purpose of this research is twofold, first assess and demonstrate that music is a powerful transmitter agent of knowledge, not only music, but also of values, customs, beliefs, stereotypes . that influence the development the identity of people. On the other hand, emphasize the important role of music in the educational process of students, since through her abilities, skills . basic life of our students develop. Interest in this issue of the year 2008, since I started in this area with the paper titled "Analysis of the transmission of gender stereotypes in the songbook of Huelva as an educational resource" made to the doctoral program " Education in multicultural society " (2006/08 biennium) . For the development of this work, reference was made to child Songbook province of Huelva, by José Francisco Gallardo and Herminia Garcia Arredondo Perez (1995), researchers and teachers of the Faculty of Education of the Andalusian province. The findings of this investigation were the genesis of this dissertation, because as you will see later in "Final Conclusions" stereotypes are still maintained in the resources used in music classes. In the first steps to deepen this subject, it revealed few studies in our context on this topic. Precisely this was one of the reasons that professionally as a teacher, I generated curiosity and was instrumental in initiating the research study As mentioned above, after a first work of literature search and research the matter, we find that there are studies on the development of identity in childhood as Phinney & Ong, 2007; Smith, 1995 and 2002; Pnevmatikos, Geka and Divane, 2010; and Markus, 2008; At the same time, numerous studies consist of research on transmission of gender stereotypes through different subjects (such as language, mathematics, social sciences, natural, physical education . and even in teacher training that taught) as Marquez Guerrero, 2013 ; Alvarez, 1990; Torre, 2002; Marugán Velasco, 2012; Torres, G., and Arjona, 1988; Scott Martinez, 2012; Marco Lopez, 1991; Lomas, 2004; Lozano Domingo, 1995; Diaz De grenu, 2010; among others. However, when dealing with music education as a transmitter of stereotypes through resources used in music classes, there is little research on the subject. This doctoral thesis aims to demonstrate that the resources used in class, in this case one of the employees, such as textbooks for the subject of music in a particular school, knowledge, habits, beliefs are transferred . In short, existing in a male-centered culture, including prejudice conceptions. It is intended to demonstrate the power of this medium, since education is sound and picture; that is, transmitting what is heard and seen, but in music, more specifically, this relationship is accentuated by their impact on the development of people. In particular we focus on the influence and effects of music education in shaping gender identity and specifically in the transmission of the stereotypes that are disclosed in music textbooks. To do this, we have chosen a school Huelva, CEIP Aurora Moreno, located in the town Gibraleón (Huelva). The approach of this work in the study of text books is because (unfortunately) in education in general, and music in particular, is the most widespread when it comes to teach the classes, greatly limiting the activities, tasks and exercises resource because "everything is planned" by publishers, offering up the standard replies that each student or student should give, and not only that, but the images and texts that contain, are encased in some beliefs, values, thoughts, attitudes . that they are slowly influencing the identity of our children. This educational power in the construction of gender, has it even in music today, as behavior patterns that are assumed to be normal and, even today, not at issue are represented. We can make an example of this the song entitled "Woman Vase" Her dances alone. Educational phenomena are not purely technical. They are, rather, moral and political. The educational activity is imbued with moral content. Our responsibility as professionals of the educational process-in policy, management, teaching . - is to have an external democratic control of the actions undertaken and also an internal control born of the demands and needs of the protagonists (Kelley and Beauchesne, 2001) . Therefore, "we can not ignore or neglect that schools are highly involved in education, regulation, control and correction of sexual expression and gender of children, and that these practices are inseparable from the simultaneous production of systems and hierarchies legitimizing and authorizing situations of exclusion, marginalization, subordination and violence between sexual identities and gender, which has a political significance impossible to ignore, it is urgent to advance the inclusion and discussion of the issue in the training of and education professionals "(Quaresma da Silva Sarmento Fanfa & Fossatti, 2012, p. 17). Gender stereotypes shown on many occasions in textbooks, popular and traditional songs, video games . pigeonhole women in "perfect housewives and wives", kind, gentle, fragile and ultimately without free will or identity or autonomy, always dependent on a man to feel fulfilled. All this belongs to the so-called hidden curriculum education. You can set the hidden curriculum as a set of rules, customs, beliefs, languages and symbols that appear in the structure and functioning of an institution, constituting a source of learning for all people within the organization (Santos Guerra, 2002 ). The lessons derived from hidden curriculum not only affect the students but also teachers. From the meanings hidden curriculum through the practices carried out, the speeches that are used, the texts read (Santos, 2002) are treated. Androcentrism has very powerful actions and, more specifically in the musical field, have tried to devalue everything that women do. These actions added to the invisibility of women in music, helps develop this secondary role of them in this area of knowledge. On the one hand it is achieved underestimate music by women because it has no value or importance and is therefore considered an activity for them, whereas when they make an important contribution stands out if they are men. As discussed earlier in this section each and everyone has heard of Mozart or Beethoven, but little production and the role they have played in the lives of their female relatives as Fanny Mendelssohn (sister of Felix), Clara Schumann is known ( wife of Robert), Alma Mahler (Gustav woman) or Nanerl Mozart (sister of Wolfgang Amadeus). These issues are often neglected by teachers when selecting textbooks and who is responsible for the editorial, showing the archaic conceptions and beliefs of a patriarchal society dominated by men, that on some issues is different nowadays, being thus out of context. With the findings of this study tests that highlight the importance of women's role in music and its effect on the education of persons, in line it posed a current stream of postmodernism and feminist musicology is obtained. This branch of musicology claimed the figure of the women as central to prevent discrimination against women not only as content but also as an object. To carry out this research propose the structure is as follows: To start the theoretical foundation of this work, we began a presentation of basics that provide clarification of the basic concepts that will allow the understanding of it. It starts from the idea that music is powerful means of communication, in many goal chances and other subjective, thus giving great importance as a transmitter of ideas, beliefs, values, feelings . First, music is presented as a language with its constituents, as it is a little-known facet. We also describe how immensely related one with the word, then, many musicologists agree to assign a common origin with the spoken language. As expressed Barnabas Villodre (2012, p. 107), "Music is an art form, it is a means of expressing ideas, emotions, experiences of a society. The musical art combines elements so that the listener about the culture of the people that has already produced human emotions. For all this, we can consider it as a basis for establishing intercultural dialogue as a working tool of multiculturalism ". Arts education and, more specifically musical, helps transmission of beliefs, rules . and that "values are taught music and music learn to choose values" (Tourinan and Longueira, 2010, p. 160). Subsequently, we present the music as a source of expression, including making a chronological development of the expressive children through it. Also, it is explained in more detail the three types of musical expression: vocal and instrumental body. "The process of creating music can contribute to the appreciation of cultural diversity and respect for freedom of expression; hence the importance of music as a means of communication between cultures and, by extension, the importance of education for music. However, it should be noted that not only the musical practice in the formal scope may favor the acquisition of the so-called intercultural competence "(Garcia de Haro and Escarbajal Escarbajal Frutos, 2007, p. 26). Later, he explained how the study of music along the various companies has led to a science called sociology. A chronological approach to the genesis of this science develops, as well as other leading intellectuals in developing it. "We start from the idea that music has provided from the beginning of an inherent burden of sociability, it is an expression of the inner life, expression of feelings, but in turn requires from those who listen, responsiveness and knowledge of style which, in addition to knowledge of the society in which you create concerned, as each musical work is a set of signs invented during implementation and dictated by the needs of the social context. If we disclaim the work of the society that created the musical signs have different meanings "(Hormigos, 2012, p. 75) In ancient times, the musical sense was associated with group activities where life experiences are shared, that is, the individual's contact with music was produced in the direct sharing music experience with others and generating, in this way, a real social event, but today, it is common to forget this dimension as we are too used to listen alone (Drosser, 2012). Then the chronological development of the social function of music, from prehistory to the present day is presented. In this section the importance of the same in different societies and the uses made of it does or says. In developing this point how important it was the prehistoric music to Greece and Rome, since then, had a formative and educational value, and subsequently was given as a deal of amusement or pastime, ignoring its properties it is highlighted. "To decrypt the message that has all musical composition is necessary to understand its structure and form of music, structure and form are determined by the characteristics of the society that created, inherited or interpreted. Therefore, the musical should be viewed as a social activity "(Hormigos, 2012, p. 76). It also highlights the importance of women's role throughout history, because as we shall see, women are the "forgotten ones" in the history books of music. Green (2001, p. 25) argues that "the division of the musical work in a public sphere, in large measure men and a private sphere, largely female, is a feature of the history of Western music, as well as many musical cultures around the world. " "In music, the patriarchal system has not been less influential than in other social levels. The women in music have always been invisible and relegated to the background. We must not forget that music is inserted in a particular model of society that produces it, conveying a certain type of culture, values and aesthetic interest must always be connected with the other factors that make that society "(Laborda, 2015 , p. 168) In the next section the educational value of music, starting it on the historical background and chronologically through the different times to reach the current education law, LOMCE addressed. This section develops understand how the current education and more specifically the music curriculum. As this work is especially relevant educational value of music as well as their contributions to the primary stage, a detailed review of the methods of teaching and learning is done with psychological foundation, which ensures that music contributes to a comprehensive training of students, such as Suzuki, 1978; Willems, 1984; Kodaly, 1974; Ward, 1964; Orff -Schulwerk, 1969; Martenot, 1993; Paynter, 1999; and Dalcroze, 1998. In school is essential to address, study and train students in knowledge about music. According to Alonso, Pereira and Soto (2003) music is an educational tool for the expression of values and feelings, and that through music education, students can participate in cooperative productions, social relationships, teamwork. . Herrera (2007, p. 6), believes that "from the musical education we can develop a framework for suitable action to work on aspects such as freedom, personal autonomy, self-esteem, honesty, happiness, critical thinking, equality, solidarity, pluralism, cooperation, love, creativity . " Once contextualized the theoretical framework, in the second block, is based and describe the objectives of this study can be summarized in the title of this thesis, an analysis of the construction of identity from a gender perspective through music education in the primary stage. To do this, the music textbooks are analyzed from a gender perspective; an analysis of the characters in the books is done; the social role played by men and women on the textbooks used in music classes described; They are detected and analyzed gender stereotypes that teach and transmit to students. All this, in order to sensitize and raise awareness among teachers and public administration of the presence of a powerful hidden curriculum in the textbooks; discover whether there are racist, sexist or other discrimination against people explicitly values in selected textbooks and publishers and also provide guidelines to facilitate analysis a critical, gender, about the material used in classrooms of primary education are textbooks. On the studied material it has conducted a content analysis, whose categories are the names of the characters, physical description, psychological description, actions performed, trades or professions and objects. Among the conclusions drawn stresses the important role of music as a transmitter of norms, customs . in many stereotyped occasions as well as the influence it has on the development of the identity of the students. Thus, the real educational value of music, beyond the recreational aspect, reassessing its role in the learning process of children is demonstrated. Finally , we have included a section entitled " Limitations and our possible courses of action " in which both proposals as future interaction studies performed on this line will be exposed. Given the conditions of space and time , there are issues that can not be presented in this work , but I feel great interest to address in future studies as they are treating the main contributions of feminist musicology, studying and highlighting the educational context names of musicians , directors and composers , as well as instruments and repertoires considered masculine or feminine. Therefore, we must stress the importance of a good selection of materials used by teachers in the classroom , because in school as a socializing agent that is , beliefs and values embedded in them are transferred .
2010/2011 ; La tesi è uno studio interdisciplinare e comparativo sul regime di protezione delle minoranze autoctone in Slovenia e Svezia. L'ipotesi di ricerca è che i due paesi abbiano scelto dei regimi di protezione molto efficaci ed avanzati che sperimentano un grado relativamente basso di tensione interetnica. Grazie ai loro sistemi fortemente sociali, hanno sviluppato un sistema di protezione delle minoranze nazionali che si spinge, per certi versi, oltre agli standard esistenti all'interno della UE. Ad esempio, il diritto all'istruzione ed all'informazione nella madre lingua – che nella maggior parte dei paesi difettano di base legale – risultano ben assicurati. Inoltre, entrambi includono i Rom tra le minoranze territoriali, creando così dei prerequisiti per un'effettiva non discriminazione. La bontà del regime di protezione viene valutata, da un lato, attraverso l'analisi dei vari campi di tutela, prendendo in considerazione sia le fonti legali che le politiche pubbliche volte ad implementarle; dall'altro, attraverso la rilevazione delle opinioni dei membri delle minoranze stesse. L'analisi degli standard esistenti mostra che entrambi i paesi possiedono un sistema di protezione relativamente completo, sebbene vengano sottolineate notevoli differenze tra un settore e l'altro. A tal riguardo, sono stati utilizzate varie fonti – legislazione esistente, report ufficiali, discussioni con esperti – al fine di redigere un tabella di valutazione riassuntiva per ogni singolo campo di protezione. L'affermazione viene poi ridimensionata alla luce dei risultati della ricerca empirica, condotta tramite questionari strutturati: le minoranze nazionali esprimono un giudizio positivo limitatamente a certi campi di tutela, ma danno, nel complesso, valutazioni poco generose sul sistema generale di protezione, tanto che emergono chiaramente sentimenti di esclusione. Le fonti dell'opera comprendono: analisi della letteratura rilevante, analisi della legislazione, analisi delle statistiche nazionali, visione di progetti e studi settoriali in corso, discussioni informali con ricercatori e interviste con 'testimoni qualificati', essenziali nel ricostruire un quadro sintetico della situazione data la carenza di letteratura in materia. La tesi si articola in 3 parti distinte. La prima intende fornire una cornice teorica sul tema della protezione delle minoranze nazionali, attraverso la presentazione delle definizioni più illustri elaborate dalla letteratura internazionale e di alcuni concetti chiave nel dibattito, come origine, natura, manifestazione esterna del fenomeno, differenze nel concetto di ethnos tra nord e centro Europa, etc… Nel secondo capitolo viene brevemente analizzata la storia della protezione delle minoranze per soffermarsi poi sui principali documenti elaborati all'interno della UE, dell'OSCE e del Consiglio d'Europa al fine di individuare alcuni standard universalmente riconosciuti da tutti i membri UE. La seconda parte si concentra sulla protezione delle minoranze territoriali in Slovenia (capitolo terzo) e Svezia (capitolo quarto): vengono analizzate la struttura etnica del paese, le caratteristiche delle varie minoranze e le politiche governative adottate, prendendo in considerazione anche l'evoluzione storica di queste ultime. I campi di tutela analizzati nel dettaglio sono: istruzione, uso della lingua, partecipazione e rappresentanza politica, vita culturale, informazione e media, cooperazione transfrontaliera. Di seguito vengono sottolineati i punti forti e quelli deboli dei rispettivi sistemi. La terza parte presenta le caratteristiche fondamentali dei due regimi in chiave comparativa (capitolo quinto) ed i risultati della ricerca sul campo (capitolo sesto), che è stata limitata a due minoranze per paese al fine di rendere più agevoli delle considerazioni comparative: una minoranza tipo transnazionale, i Rom, e due minoranze di confine, gli ungheresi in Slovenia e i finlandesi tornedaliani in Svezia. Il questionario, somministrato attraverso un metodo di campionamento di tipo snowball, o meglio, respondent driven, indaga sulle seguenti tematiche: percezione della tutela nel campo del linguaggio; percezione della tutela nel campo dell'istruzione; percezione della tutela percepita nel campo della partecipazione politica e della rappresentanza; percezione della tutela nel settore della vita culturale; percezione della tutela nel settore dei media e dell'informazione; percezione della tutela nel campo della cooperazione transfrontaliera; percezione della tutela globale; percezione dello status della minoranza rispetto alla maggioranza; percezione dell'uguaglianza dei diritti in confronto alla maggioranza e alle altre minoranze. Non è stato possibile raccogliere un numero sufficiente di risposte da parte di tutte le minoranze nazionali presenti nei due paesi a causa sia delle grandi difficoltà incontrate nel reperire soggetti disposti a collaborare che a causa dei tassi di risposta molto bassi. L' indagine svolta tra le suddette minoranze sembra suggerire che l'affermazione secondo la quale entrambi i paesi hanno un buon sistema di protezione deve essere circoscritta: anche se la protezione globale appare sufficiente, le minoranze nazionali non sembrano essere soddisfatte dell'implementazione dei loro diritti, se i risultati vengono comparati con quelli della tabella riassuntiva teorica. I Rom, paradossalmente, pur avendo un punteggio più basso sia a livello empirico che teorico, sembrano essere relativamente più soddisfatti dei loro diritti. Questo può essere dovuto al fatto che essi considerano effettivamente la recente introduzione di leggi ed atti in favore della loro minoranza come un importante progresso. Se le minoranze prese in considerazione danno valutazioni piuttosto positive per quanto riguarda alcuni settori di tutela, la sensazione di essere tutelati non sembra essere data semplicemente dalla somma di tali valutazioni ma ne include altre che hanno ha che fare con la dimensione sociale, in particolare il rapporto con la maggioranza, lo status all'interno della società, l'attenzione data alla minoranza da parte delle politiche di Stato. L'ipotesi di ricerca iniziale è quindi solamente in parte confermata: dall'analisi emerge un modello gerarchico nel trattamento delle minoranze nazionali, suscettibile di creare nuovi confini e tensioni tra a) le varie minoranze nazionali, b) le minoranze nazionali e altre minoranze, c) diversi sottogruppi della stessa minoranza. ; The dissertation is a comparative and interdisciplinary study dealing with the protection systems of autochthonous minorities in Slovenia and Sweden in a comparative key. Slovenia and Sweden were chosen as a focus of the research because of some similarities which may be found in relation with minority issues. In spite of their experience of recent migrations, they can be considered as two historically relatively homogeneous states both of which experience a low degree of interethnic tensions (even though it has not always been so). Thanks to their strongly social systems, they in fact developed a system of minority protection which, in some aspects, at least on the paper, goes even beyond E.U. existing standards; among them, the right to information and the right to public education in the mother tongue of minorities- which in most of countries lack legal basis or are simply not applied- are well assured. Moreover, their national minorities have intense relations with the neighbouring mother state. And last but not least, they both include the Roma among their territorial minorities, creating also for them legal prerequisites for the non- discrimination of the members and formal equality for all the legal aspects. Both countries chose a model of integration of their minorities which has resulted quite effective, especially after the latest improvements. Nevertheless, in both countries, even though in different manners, it is still possible to notice a hierarchy of treatment of different kind of minorities, where some fall behind the others in spite of their demands (and recognition) of autochthony. Sweden, for example, did that by excluding ethnic groups that were already present in the country and by denying substantial language rights to those national minorities whose languages were deemed to be non territorial ones, whilst Slovenia did that by introducing a difference between those groups who enjoy single or dual political subjectivity and by breaking the in- group unity of Roma. The thesis can be roughly divided into three main parts. The first part aims to provide a theoretical framework on minority issues and their protection. I first illustrate some definitions of ethnic minority and national minority taken from the literature and international fora as well as some related key arguments present in debates, such as the origin, the nature and the different manifestation of this phenomenon. The difference of perception of the concept ethnos in Central European and Western - North European world will be mentioned. The aim of the first chapter is to provide an almost legal definition to be used as a guide line in the analysis. It will be underlined that minority protection is only an empty concept in absence of a clear and universally or regionally accepted definition. In the second chapter the focus will be on the protection of minorities in Europe in historical perspective, taking into an account four main phases of development: from the peace of Augsburg until World War I; the period between the wars; after World War II until 1989; after 1990. The main documents elaborated within the Council of Europe, the OCSE and the European Union will be analysed, in order to get to point out some existing standards generally recognized by E.U. members even though differently applied. The second part deals with the protection of territorial minorities in Slovenia and Sweden, giving an overview on the ethnic structure of the country, on the main features of the minorities and on the governmental policies pursued since the last century. The content of the chapters will be enriched by the contribute of some minorities' representatives who accepted to be interviewed. In the third and last part, the main characteristics of these two systems will be analysed in a comparative key. Later on, the results of a small field research dealing with the practice of minority protection in the two countries will be presented. The main research hypothesis is that Slovenia and Sweden chose a successful and effective model of minority protection. This statement had to be assessed, on one hand, through the analysis of specific minority policies and, on the other hand, through the collection of opinions and feeling by behalf of minorities' members. The first and second part of the research aim in fact to assess minority protection in Slovenia and Sweden on the paper, analyzing field by field and underlining similarities and differences, strong and weak points of the two models and applicability. We have therefore tried to assess the level of protection for each minority within the two countries, giving an evaluation for each single field with a score ranging from 0 (poor) to 5 (excellent). The evaluation was drawn on the basis of existing laws, degree of application, State reports, relevant literature and discussions with experts. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the in depth analysis, it does not demand to have scientific accuracy due to the too many variables to take into consideration for every single field, but constitutes only a general orientation with regard to the interpretation of minority protection. The analysis of existing standard show that both countries actually have a relatively good protection system, although significant differences can be noted amongst different fields. The third present the results of a small scale survey conducted through questionnaires. The survey has been limited to two minorities for each country: one minority which enjoys the status of autochthonous in both countries, i.e. the Roma; and two minorities, the Tornedalian - Finnish one in Sweden and the Hungarian one in Slovenia, which present some common characteristics – first of all being a border minority - and appear therefore comparable. The aim is to identify the perception of protection by submitting some structured questionnaires to the members of these minorities through a kind of snowball method (in particular, a respondent – driven sampling), in order to find out any discrepancy between the policy goals and the everyday life level and compare the level of protection not only on theoretical but also on practical base. In particular, the questionnaire investigates opinions about the following topics: perceived protection in the field of use of language; perceived protection in the field of education; perceived protection in the field of political participation and representation; perceived protection in the field of cultural life; perceived protection in the field of media and information; perceived protection in the field of cross – border cooperation with the mother state (or with the communities in other states in the case of Roma); overall perceived protection; perceived position of the minority in comparison to the majority; perceived inequality of rights in comparison to the majority and the other minorities. It was not possible to collect a sufficient number of answers from all the protected minorities present in the countries due to the serious difficulties encountered in order to establish initial subjects who may be willing to cooperate and to the very low response rate. Some difficulties have been encountered also with regard to above mentioned minorities, i.e. the Roma, the Hungarians in Slovenia and the Tornedalian- Finnish in Sweden; however, they have shown a more collaborative spirit with regard to the present research. The survey carried out among the above mentioned minorities seems to suggest that the statement according to which both countries have a relatively good protection system has to be circumscribed: even though the overall protection appears as sufficient, the analysed national minorities seem not to be quite satisfied of the implementation of their minority rights. By contrast, Roma in both countries, in spite of having lower scores both at the theoretical and at the empirical level, seem to be relatively more satisfied about their rights. This may be due to the fact that national minorities are more conscious about the rights they should enjoy as historical minorities; whilst the Roma, although not being very satisfied about their condition either, consider the newly introduced laws and acts in their favour as an important progress. If the minorities taken into consideration give positive evaluation regarding certain fields of protection, the overall feeling of protection is not purely given by the sum of such fields but obviously include discretional elements which are more closely linked with a social dimension including the relationship with the majority, the status within the society, the perceived attention and importance given the minority issues by behalf of State policies. The research hypothesis has to be in the end further specified: all analysed minorities evaluate positively certain fields of protection, but surprisingly (of course with many differences among the various groups), when asked explicitly how much protected they feel as a minority, answers are less flattering: in certain sectors they feel indeed excluded from the majority society. The initial research hypothesis appears therefore to be only partly confirmed: from the analysis results the emergence of a hierarchic model with regard to the treatment of national minorities, which is likely to create new boundaries and tensions among the various national minorities, the national minorities and other minorities which did not receive recognition and different subgroups within the same minority. ; XXIV Ciclo
This doctoral dissertation aims at reading and analysing the selected works of Shakespeare through the prism of conceptual metaphor theory. Roman Jacobson pointed out that linguists negligent of the poetic functions of language represent an equally flagrant anachronism as literary scholars oblivious of linguistic aspects of the texts that they study. Exploring the relationship between linguistics and literature cannot be avoided (Carter and Simpson 1995). Conceptual metaphor is the link which binds language, thought, and comprehension. For most people, metaphor is a device that poets and writers use as a means to achieve extraordinary language, and it is usually perceived as a matter of words alone. On the contrary, metaphor does not only exist in poetry. It is omnipresent in daily lives, and it is the basis of language, thought, and action. Ever since Lakoff and Johnson published their epochal work Metaphors We Live By, literary scholars have become concerned with how individual authors use metaphor in their work, with how they develop metaphorical patterns as part of their perception and style. In recent years, literary scholars are becoming more and more influenced by conceptual metaphor theory, and they have started to treat conceptual metaphor as a representation of an author's world view. The paper Metaphor in Literature published by Elena Semino and Gerard Steen inspired this doctoral disseration in offering the insight that profound comprehension of literary works may be achieved through focus on conceptual metaphors combined with discourse analytical, corpus-linguistic, and psycho-linguistinc approaches. Furthermore, Caroline Spurgeon's study Shakespeare's Imagery and What It Tells Us implies that analogies that lie beneath source and target domains bear in themselves the secret of the universe. It is no wonder then that Shakespeare's works prevail in metaphorical representations of the abstract given the fact that the bard managed to shed light on the obscure questions of life, death, the afterlife, purpose, and order of tings. It appears that profund meanings of Shakespeare's plays cannot be reached through analyzing the syntax, theatrical or structural properties of his texts. Should we rely on these means to read and comprehend his plays, we face the risk of missing their complexity, philosophical and psychological depth, and also of narrowing down his larger-than-life characters to the level of allegories. Proper understanding of Shakespeare's lines, entire plays, his characters, and their actions is closely tied to patterns and skeletons of conceptual metaphors that are recurrent in individual dramtic texts. More than this, conceptual metaphors and metaphrical linguistic expressions that they trigger reveal worldviews of the people in Renaissance, but also of the author himself. Given the fact that details about Shakespeare the man remain unclear to us, conceptual meataphor analysis of the most significant lines in his tragedies, comedies, and tragicomedies allows us to explore the vast consciousness of the author who came quite close to defining life, death, emotions, passions, time, religion, and social constructs such as politics, law, familial and interpersonal relations. This thesis treats language as a surface, as a manifestation of thought and cognitive mechanisms, so penetrating the level of linguistics means diving into the sphere of conceptualization where true meanings, motives, and characters are to be found. The analysis conducted in this thesis identifies the most prominent source and target domains around which plots of the selected plays evolve. It offers a comprehensive list of conceptual metaphors that serve as foundations for complex metaphorcal linguistc expressions that are representations of thoughts and cognition. In carrying out conceptual metaphor analysis, we will be able to come quite close to the essence of Shakespeare's works, his characters, and the way in which the author himself, his Renaissance contemporaries, and people in general grasp and make sense of existential questions such as life, death, purpose, order of things, but also of time, emotions, passions, religion, and social constructs. Different patterns of conceptual metaphors will account for different mood, atmosphere, and ambient that dominate various genres of drama such as tragedies, comedies, and tragicomedies. Also, conceptual metaphors will prove to be responsible for the creation of particular dramatis personae, most strikingly obvious in the characters of Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, and king Lear. Phrases given in small caps, such as LIFE IS A JOURNEY, mean that wording like this is not to be found in Shakespeare's lines as such. These represent conceptual metaphors that lie underneath complex metaphorical linguisitc expressions as their representations. Identification of conceptual metaphors that lie beneath metaphorical linguisitc expressions is conducted through constant reference to numerous sources found in Lakoff, Turner, Johnson, and Köveces, to name a few, where most common conceptual metaphors, target and source domains are recognized and listed. In order to conduct an in-depth, qualitative and quantitative research, this thesis focuses on nine plays that represent different genres of drama – tragedies, comedies, and tragicomedies. Within nine different plays, lexical items referring to source and target domins are picked with the aim of establishing concepts of primary importance for the text in question, such as LIFE and DEATH in Hamlet, or PATH and CONATINER in Macbeth. Putting emphasis either on target or source domains comes as a result of extensive reading of Shakespeare's works, where his intention to grasp and explain the abstract becomes obvous, along with the most striking concrete notions that he recurently uses to refer to something less clearly delineated. The most important idea in the thesis is that language is used to communicate thoughts, feelings, and worldviews, with metaphor being the primary means of reasoning that makes sense of the more abstract aspects of our experience. In this, Shakespeare will reveal himself to us not as a master of words, but as a master of thought and consciousness who was able to surpass well-established modes of conceptualization by extending, elaborating, questioning, and combining conventional metaphors. ; Ова докторска дистертација приступа читању и анализирању Шекспирових одабраних дела са станишта теорије појмовне метафоре. Роман Јакобсон је истакао да је лингвиста који занемарује поетску функцију језика у једнаком проблему као и изучавалац књижевног текста који заборавља на његова лингвистичка својства. У том смислу, веза између језика и књижевности је нераскидива и немогуће ју је запоставити у ма каквој анализи (Carter and Simpson 1995). Појмовна метафора је нит која повезује језик, мишљење и разумевање надчулног. Уврежено мишљење прихвата метафору као средство којим се служе песници и писци како би својим делима дали димензију поетског и несвакидашњег. Овакво традиционално поимање везује матафору искључиво за њену менифестацију у језику. Нова виђења метафоре указују управо на супротно, да метафора не постоји једино у књижевним текстовима. Она је свеприсутна у нашим животима и чини основу из које произилазе разумевање, језик и делање. Након што су Лејкоф и Џонсон објавили Metaphors We Live By, књигу од суштинског значаја за разумевање природе и улоге метафоре, изучаваоци књижевности почели су да посвећују пажњу употреби метафоре у делима појединачних песника и писаца како би се уочили одређени шаблони у репрезентацији апстрактног, у поимању и мишљењу. Изучаваоци књижевности су последњих година показали да утицај теорије појмовне метафоре постаје све већи, и појмовну метафору постепено третирају као показатељ пишчевог погледа на свет. Рад који су објавили Елена Семино и Џерард Стин под насловом Metaphor in Literature је у одређеној мери инспирисао ову докторску дисертацију, нудећи виђење да се до истинског разумевања књижевног дела може доћи анализом која се заснива на појмовној метафори, корпусној и психолонгвистичкој методи. Поред овога, студија Каролине Сперџон Shakespeare's Imagery and What It Tells Us заговара идеју да сличности између изворних и циљних домена садрже у себи тајну читавог универзума. У том смислу, не треба да нас изненади и збини чињеница да су Шекспирова дела препуна метафоричких репрезентација аптрактног будући да је овај писац успео да понуди одговоре на питања о животу, смрти, загробном свету и сврси људског постојања. Чини се да истинско разумевање Шекспирових драма и значења не може да се досегне анализом синтаксе, структурe заплета и драмских особина текста. Ако се ослонимо само на ова средства у проучавању Шекспирових дела, у опасности смо да не приметимо филозофску и психолошку дубину његових драма, али и да његове комплексне ликове сведемо на ниво алегорије. Право разумевање стихова, драма у целости, ликова и делања на које се одлучују у тесној је вези са појмовном метафором и њеним учешћем у реализацији метафоричких језичких израза. Поред овога, појмовна метафора и метафорички језички изрази који настају на њеним основама указују на ренесансну слику света, али и на погледе на свет самог Шекспира. Ако узмемо у обзир чињеницу да су многи детаљи из живота самога барда недоступни и изгубљени за данашње изучаваоце његовог живота и дела, онда се анализа појмовних метафора у његовим најзначајнијим стиховима преузетим из трагедија, комедија и трагикомедија намеће као најбољи начин да се истражи огромна стваралачка свест аутора који готово да је успео да објасни и дефинише живот, смрт, сврху битисања, осећања, страсти и друштвене институције. Ова дисертација посматра језик као први слој значења или као отелотворење мисли и спознајних способности. Постепено раслојавање и досезање сфере мисаоности и поимања апстрактног јесте ниво значења који открива смисао, праву природу људи и драмских ликова, као и мотиве који наводе на делање. Анализа Шекспирових дела спроведена у овој дисертацији издваја најзначајније изворне и циљне домене на којима се заснивају заплети његових драма. Она такође нуди и свеобухватан списак појмовних метафора које представљају базу за развијање сложених метафоричких језичких израза у којима се огледа мисао и истинска спознаја ствари. Књижевна анализа заснована на појмовној метафори омогући ће нам да проникнемо у саму суштину Шекспирових дела и ликова, а такође ће нам помоћи да увидимо начин на који аутор, његови савременици у доба ренесансе и човек уопште узев промишљају о гносеолошким и егзистенцијалистичким питањима као што су то живот и смрт, човекова сврха у свету и космосу. Од Шекспира се може научити и како људи промишљају о осећањима, страстима, религији, као и бројним друштвеним конструктима попут брака, политике, и монархије. Заступљеност различитих појмовних метафора одређује опште расположење, атмосферу и амбијент који преовладавају у различитим драмским жанровима као што су то трагедије, комедије и трагикомедије. Такође, појмовна метафора показаће се одговорном за стварање специфичних драмских ликова, што ће бити најочигледније код Хамлета, Макбета, Отела и краља Лира. Фразе наведене малим курзивом попут ЖИВОТ ЈЕ ПУТОВАЊЕ не значе да се баш овакви изрази могу наћи у Шекспировим делима. Они представљају појмовне метафоре које леже у основи метафоричких језичких израза. Уочавање одређених појмовних метафора у метафоричким језичким изразима врши се кроз сталан осврт на литературу и дела Лејкофа, Тарнера, Џонсона, Ковечеша и других, где су појмовне метафоре, најчешћи изворни и циљни домени дефинисани и излистани. Како бисмо спровели квалитативну и квантитативну анализу стихова и дела, ова теза за корпус узима девет Шекспирових текстова који представљају резличите драмске жанрове – трагедије, комедије и трагикомедије. У оквиру ових девет драма, изворни и циљни домени биће издвојени као појмови од примарног значаја за дате текстове, као што је то случај са појмовима ЖИВОТ и СМРТ у Хамлету, или ПУТАЊА и САДРЖАТЕЉ у Макбету. Обраћање пажње на изворне или циљне домене у анализи производ је пажљивог ишчитавања Шекспирових дела, након чега је могуће уочити његову тежњу да разуме и објасни одређене апстрактне појмове, као и његове покушаје да честим реферисањем на нешто конкретно укаже на појмове који нису чулима доступни. Најважнија претпоставка на којој почива ова теза јесте да је језик средство да се саопште мисли, осећања и ставови, док метафора представља примарни начин за промишљање и разумевање апстрактних аспеката нашег искуства. У том смислу, Шекспир нам се представља не као мајстор речи и стила, већ као геније мисли и свести који је успео да превазиђе уврежене начине мишљења о надчулном тако што је неуморно спајао, проширивао, комбиновао и доводио у питање свима познате и доступне појмовне метафоре.
Newsletter No. 59 March 1995 Code Number: NL95023 File Sizes: Text: 134K Graphics: Line Drawings (gif) 26K MEETING REPORTS Penetration of Science and Mathematics in the Education of Children in the Primary Schools Sherburne Abbott National Academy of Sciences Advisory Committee on the Environment (ACE) Julia Marton-Lefevre, Executive Director, ICSU ICSU's ACE held its 9th meeting in Paris, in January, and reviewed ICSU's involvement in various programmes dealing with the environment, including the three Global Observing Systems (GCOS, GOOS and GTOS), the IGBP (International Geosphere- Biosphere Programme) and the WCRP (World Climate Research Programme). ACE also continued to advise the Executive Board of ICSLI about rotation of ICSUappointed members of relevant environmental bodies. Special Committee on Science in the former Soviet Union (FSU) and in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) (COMSCEE) Julia Marton-Lefevre Executive Director, ICSU The ICSU Special Committee, COMSCEE, held its annual meeting in Paris in January, and, before continuing to develop its own programme, it reviewed relevant activities carried out by ICSU family members. These were submitted in response to a request from the Chairman of COMSCEE. A review of the activities of partner organisations represented on COMSCEE, such as the European Union, OECD and UNESCO also took place. Electronic Publishing in the Scientific Domain: An international conference of experts to identify issues of concern and to advise on future action for the benefit of science D.F. Shaw Fellow of the Keble College, Oxford ICSU Press and UNESCO have set up a Programme Committee to plan the Conference of Experts in Electronic Publishing, which is to be held in Paris at UNESCO HQ during the week 19-23 February 1996. The first meeting of this Committee was held at ICSU HQ on 15/16 December 1994 and this report summarises the arrangements so far proposed. INASP Board Meeting London, 9 and 10 February 1995 Carol Priestley, Director, INASP The International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) held its meeting on 9 and 10 February in London. It is now in its third year of operation. The Network continues to be run from the small secretariat in London, headed by Carol Priestley as Director, and supported by Pru Watts-Russell as the other member of professional staff. Ard Jongsma returned to the Netherlands in June 1994 to take up work as a freelance journalist. It has, however, been possible to retain his services on a consultancy basis for preparation of some of the INASP publications. The SC-IGBP reports on the 9th meeting Neil Swanberg Deputy Executive Director, IGBP The ninth meeting of the Scientific Committee of the IGBP (SC-IGBP) was held in early December in the small skiresort of Thredbo, Australia. For one day prior to the meeting, the members of the SC participated in a Global Change Seminar at the Australian Academy of Sciences in Canberra, Australia. A series of talks by leading Australian scientists and IGBP Core Project Chairmen provided an excellent counterpoint between national and regional focus and global interests. After this, the SC members proceeded to Thredbo for their meeting. Situated in the Smoky mountains, about a 3-hour drive from Canberra, this off-season locale (late Austral spring) offered a pleasant, inspiring and costeffective environment for the meeting. The all-too-brief glimpse of the Australian countryside and wildlife en route was welcomed by all. Establishment of the new Scientific Committee on Water Research: From COWAR to SCOWAR lanusz Kindler* Chairman The Committee on Water Research (COWAR) was established by ICSU in 1964, as a forum for information exchange among the international nongovernmental scientific associations working in the field of water. In 1976, COWAR became a joint ICSUUITA (Union of International Technical Associations) Committee. By the end of 1992, the General Committee of ICSU reviewed COWAR and recommended that it should become more research oriented in order to meet the challenges of the post-UNCED period. In fact, in recent years COWAR had already been involved in the UNCED process, among others, summarizing research needs of the water sciences arising from the concept of sustainability ({{Water in our common future}}, UNESCO/IHP, 1994). SPOTLIGHTS ON SCIENCE + 1 C? It happened before ! N. Petit-Maire Vice-President, lUGS The world socio-economic and political structures rest, for a large part, upon the presentday climatic conditions, widely dictating the regional availability of fresh water, food and shelter. The study of the realistic archives of the Past (ice and deep-sea cores, continental sediments) provided by long term geological records has shown that the present-day scenario is only transitory within the huge variability of the Earth's climate. Changes in the solar energy received by the planet have induced, at least in the last 2 millions years, alternate cold and warm phases: over the last 20,000 years only, average global temperature has shifted from a glacial maximum (-3 C relative to nowadays) to a warm pattern (+1 C) which peaked between 9,000 and 6,000 years ago, then slowly degradated, due to the slow astronomical trend presently leading the globe toward a new cold phase, at the slow pace of - 0.01 C / century. 6th Meeting of the OECD Megascience Forum Paris, 24-25 January 1995 Francoise Praderie. Coordinator, Megascience Forum During its sixth meeting held in Paris on 24-25 January, government representatives attending the Megascience Forum discussed what the Forum had achieved since the meeting of the OECD Committee for Science and Technology Policy (CSTP) at Ministerial level recommended its creation in March 1992. GETTING TO KNOW World Data Centre C-Glaciology Ailsa Macqueen Manager of World Data Centre - Glaciology and William Mills Scott Polar Research Institute This article provides a brief introduction to World Data Centre C for Glaciology (WDCC), one of the less well-known members of the ICSU family. WDC-C has much to offer all those whose research interests relate in any way to snow and ice. European Network for Research in Global Change (ENRICH) Anver Ghazi ,Head, ENRICH Office With less than 250 weeks left to go until the beginning of the twenty first century, formidable tasks remain for the scientific community to monitor and detect, understand and predict changes in the Earth System and its interactions with human beings. A crucial challenge is to make scientific research results accessible and usable for those involved in the decision making process related to the concept of Sustainable Development. Major international scientific programmes under the umbrella of ICSU, such as the IGBP and WCRP, are dealing with these issues. SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY FOR DEVELOPMENT Science Publishing in Latin America Kai Inge Hillerud, Chairman, ICSU Press ICSU Press and COSTED/IBN organized jointly on 27-30 November 1994 a Workshop on {{Scientific Publications in Latin America}} in Guadalajara, Mexico. Cosponsors of the workshop were UNESCO, the University of Guadalajara, the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), and the Academia de la Investigacion Cientifica (Mexico). Guadalajara and the Scientific Magazines of Latin America Ennio Candotti Editor, Ciencia Hoje There is a clear message coming forth from Guadalajara: there is Science in Latin America. Here, we find a rich biological, environmental and cultural diversity. Historical documents of great value for the history of civilization and for natural paleo-history developed here. In Latin America, complex societies were formed and have survived against the most cruel economic and political pressures. E. Candotti, Editor, Ciencia Hoje, Rio de Janeiro, at the Workshop on Scientific Publications in Latin America in Guadalajara Developing a New Science Agenda for Africa A. RANDFORUM's Mandate Prompted by the fact that Africa had so far failed to put into place mechanisms for the economic and social development of Africa, The Research and Development Forum for ScienceLed Development in Africa (RANDFORUM) was established two years ago with the following guidelines: NEWS IN BRIEF New President of the Third World Academy of Sciences Jose Israel Vargas from Brazil was elected President of the Third World Academy of ciences (TWAS) at its recent Council meeting held in Trieste, Italy on 27 January 1995. NEWS IN BRIEF First International Course in Biotechnology of Plants and Microorganisms 25 October to 13 December 1995 Rehovot, Israel The COBIOTECH's Training Centre of Biotechnology in Agriculture, in cooperation with the Otto Warburg Centre for Agricultural Biotechnology, established at the Faculty of Agriculture, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is organizing the {{First International Course in Biotechnology of Plants and Microorganisms}} to be held at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rehovot, Israel, from 25 October to 13 December 1995. LOOKING AHEAD Future Meetings METEOHYTEC 21 UPDATE WMO International Conference on Meteorological and Hydrological Technology and its Management - METEOHYTEC 21 Geneva, 22-26 May 1995. International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics General Assembly Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A. July 3-14, 1995 Data Challenges of the 21st Century An Inter-Association Workshop, sponsored by the International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth's Interior (IASPEI), and co-sponsored by the International Association of Geodesy (lAG), the International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeronomy (lAGA), the ICSU Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA), and the ICSU Panel on World Data Centers (WDC). ICSU Forum 22 October 1995 and SAC IV, 23-27 October 1995 Beijing International Convention Center, Beijing, China The International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) The records of ancient China give detailed descriptions of weather and landscape, providing invaluable documentation of climate and landuse change. We search these records for indicators of global change, and whether changes in China did, or did not, correspond to dramatic changes in warm or cold, wet or dry, periods in other parts of the globe. ICSU Forum on Earth System Research The ICSU Forum taking place on 22 October in Beijing is the third one to accompany a Scientific Advisory Council meeting for the IGBP. The first in Paris (France) in September 1990 addressed global change studies in the different ICSU Unions, the second in Ensenada (Baja California, Mexico) covered different aspects of the follow-up to Agenda 21 and the Rio Conference, and the third Forum addresses scientific issues with regard to Earth system research. The Forum, with an approach to the global change work of the ICSU bodies, provides an introduction to the more specific scientific research and results of the IGBP. Conference and Business Forum Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico 26-29 November 1995 This Conference is jointly organized by the Scientific Committee for Biotechnology (COBIOTECH) of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) andthe Instituto de Biotecnologia (IBT) de la Universidad Nacional Aut6norna de Mexico (UNAM). This is a first interdisciplinary brainstorming event to discuss the needs, opportunities, and tools for promoting biotechnology through methods of cooperation between all Third Scientific Symposium {{Global Change, Local Challenge}} Geneva, 20-22 September 1995 Background The Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Programme (HDP) addresses processes that transcend political and cultural boundaries. Understanding and responding to these global scale phenomena requires international coordination and cooperation. HDP contributes to global change research by providing mechanisms to foster collaboration among natural and social scientists, develop compatible and comparable data sets, elaborate common methodologies, and exchange research results. Preparations for 25th meeting of ICSU General Assembly The 25th General Assembly of ICSU will take place in Washington, D.C., in September 1996, hosted by the U.S- National Member of ICSU, the National Academy of Sciences. The General Assembly will open on the evening of 24 September 1996 and will conclude its business by the afternoon of 27 September. A day will be set aside during the Assembly for a Scientific Symposium the programme of which is presently being finalized. OBITUARIES Tribute to Cyril Ponnamperuma by Professor Julian Chela-Flores from Venezuela, TWAS Fellow (Written for TWAS Nezvsletter) PUBLICATIONS ICSU 1995 Year Book The 1995 ICSU Year Book was published in March This valuable reference tool contains 475 pages of information on the Council, its Members, Committees, Associates and partners with details of their activities and chief scientific officers. In addition to an alphabetical address list of over 2,000 leading scientists throughout the world, the Year Book contains a comprehensive calendar of international scientific meetings from the present to the year 2000. It is an essential publication for scientific and university libraries, institutions and individuals with serious interests in scientific research. Guidelines for Scientific Publishing Second edition ICSU Press Publishing Services has concentrated its efforts on being a source of advice and counsel to ICSU bodies in matters relating to scientific publishing, including financial, legal and technical aspects, and as an agent for any family member wishing to engage in the publication of books or journals. It is within this context of this advisory role that these revised Guidelines for Scientific Publishing have been issued. This book may be obtained from the ICSU Secretariat. Universality of Science The eighth edition of Universality of Science}} (1995/1996) is now ready for distribution. This handbook of ICSU's Standing Committee on Freedom in the Conduct of Science (SCFCS) gives advice to organizers of international scientific meetings. The 51-page booklet has kept the same blue cover ever since the first edition and is widely known as {{The Blue Book}}. CALENDAR OF MEETINGS 27 March - 7 April 10-11 April: 12 - 28 April 20 - 21 April 24 - 26 April 02 - 03 May 04 - 05 May 6 May 29 May - 4 June 15 -16 June 21 June 22 - 23 June Copyright 1995 ICSU
[SPA] La contaminación de las aguas por nitratos es un fenómeno cada vez más acusado, que se manifiesta en un aumento de su concentración en las aguas superficiales y subterráneas, así como en la eutrofización de los embalses, estuarios y aguas litorales. Con el fin de solucionar este problema, se publicó la Directiva 91/676/CEE, de 12 de diciembre, relativa a la protección de las aguas contra la contaminación producida por nitratos de origen agrario. Su fin es establecer las medidas necesarias para prevenir y siempre que sea posible, aminorar o eliminar la contaminación de las aguas subterráneas, evitando el uso inadecuado de abonos nitrogenados, ya sea por excesos en las cantidades aportadas o por épocas inadecuadas de aplicación. El aumento de la superficie de regadío en la Comarca del Campo de Cartagena, que pasó desde las 10.000 ha en los años 80 hasta las 42.000 en la actualidad, ha generado un notable aumento de la entrada de nitrógeno y fósforo de origen agrícola al Mar Menor en las últimas décadas. El auge de las desalobradoras, que vierten salmueras ricas en estos nutrientes, por el problema de fondo de escasez crónica de recursos hídricos en la zona, no ha hecho más que agravar el problema. Todo ello justifica, la necesidad de optimizar las dosis de fertilizantes y fitosanitarios en la Comarca del Campo de Cartagena para minimizar el impacto medioambiental, evitando daños socio-económicos y manteniendo la productividad de los cultivos, lo que constituye la base de los ensayos de la tesis. Se escogió el cultivo de pimiento bajo invernadero por su importancia en la zona. Para el desarrollo de los ensayos se acondicionó un invernadero situado en el Centro Integrado de Formación y Experiencias Agrarias de Torre-Pacheco (Murcia), tipo multicapilla, de dimensiones externas 12 x 36 m, que se dividió en dos bloques paralelos, separados por un foso central de recogida de lixiviados, construyendo en cada uno de los bloques cuatro lixímetros de 40 m3 cada uno, que corresponden a las parcelas elementales de los ensayos. El diseño experimental durante las ocho campañas de cultivo consistió en cuatro ensayos diferentes. Durante los años 1999, 2000 y 2001 se aplicaron los siguientes tratamientos de abonado mineral nitrogenado: 0 g/m2 (T-1); 15 g/m2 (T-2); 30 g/m2 (T-3), y 45 g/m2 (T-4). Durante el año 2002 se aplicó el mismo abonado a todas las parcelas, con una dosis de abonado mineral nitrogenado considerada óptima según los cálculos del Código de Buenas Prácticas Agrarias de la Región de Murcia (C.B.P.A.) de 13 gN/m2. Durante los años 2003, 2004 y 2005 los tratamientos consistieron en ensayar los tres tipos de cultivo existentes en la Comarca: ecológico (0 g/m2 de nitrógeno mineral), integrado (~15 gN/m2) y convencional (~30 gN/m2). El año 2006 el ensayo consistió en realizar solo los dos tipos de cultivo con mejores resultados agroambientales: el ecológico (0 g/m2 de nitrógeno mineral) y el integrado (~15 gN/m2), ya que el cultivo convencional dio niveles más altos de lixiviación de nitratos. Se obtuvieron las siguientes conclusiones: • Programar el riego por el método de la FAO con datos obtenidos de la cubeta en el interior del invernadero permite un 15-20% de agua. • La m.o. incorporada al suelo como parte de la preparación del terreno y la biofumigación fue la responsable de gran parte de la lixiviación de nitratos. La media de nitrato lixiviado para el conjunto de tratamientos asciende a 145,55 kg/ha. • La metodología de discriminación isotópica es válida para detectar la adición de abonos nitrogenados en cultivos ecológicos • La concentración de nitrógeno en frutos puede ser un buen indicador del exceso de abonado nitrogenado. • La variable producción comercializable y lixiviación de nitratos correlacionan negativamente. • Hay un punto óptimo de aplicación de abonado nitrogenado para el cual se obtiene más producción comercializable, por encima y por debajo del cual esta disminuye • El cultivo ecológico fue el que mejores resultados dio de producción y menor lixiviación de nitratos. • El aumento de la dosis de fertilizantes minerales estimuló el crecimiento vegetativo en detrimento de la producción de frutos, dando menores producciones los tratamientos con más abonado nitrogenado. • El C.B.P.A. y la Orden de 16 de junio de 2016, de la Consejería de Agua, Agricultura y Medio Ambiente son buenos indicadores de la dosis de abonado mineral N a aportar en el cultivo, pero tomados los cálculos como valor máximo. • Una reducción en las dosis de N del 50% podría suponer un ahorro anual en torno a 780 €/ha (1 200 000 € en la Región de Murcia ). Por todo ello, los estudios derivados de esta tesis, permiten dar a conocer a los agricultores cómo una reducción a unos determinados niveles en el abonado nitrogenado no supone una reducción en la cantidad y calidad de las cosechas y si en cambio un ahorro en el consumo de fertilizantes, lo que conllevaría una menor lixiviación de nitratos. Los cosecheros se beneficiarán aplicando las recomendaciones derivadas de esta tesis, de una reducción en sus costes de producción y, por su parte, el consumidor se beneficiará de una mayor seguridad del producto, manteniendo la calidad y al mismo tiempo, con estas prácticas, se favorecerá el objetivo medioambiental de reducir la lixiviación de nitratos en la Comarca del Campo de Cartagena, tan importante para la preservación de la laguna del Mar Menor. [ENG] The incorporation of fertilizers into agriculture has been one of the main factors that have increased agricultural production, but currently the excess of chemical fertilization is the main cause of the contamination of aquifers and groundwater. This effect is caused by nitrate, which is not retained in the soil and is affected by strong leaching processes. These processes result in its transfer to underground aquifers, with the consequent contamination and risk to human health. Therefore, in the efficient management of N in agricultural systems there is a challenge: namely, to maintain the rate of growth in productivity while ensuring the sustainability of the environment. Water pollution by nitrate is an increasing phenomenon, since there has been an increase in its concentration in surface and groundwater, as well as in the eutrophication of reservoirs, estuaries, and coastal waters. Therefore, in order to solve this problem and address the growing concern for the environment, the Directive 91/676/EEC was published on 12 December in relation to the protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrate from agricultural sources. The purpose of this Directive is to establish the measures necessary to prevent and, when possible, to reduce or eliminate groundwater contamination, by avoiding the inadequate use - due to either excess quantities or inappropriate application periods - of nitrogen fertilizers. The Directive considers that the main cause of pollution from the diffuse sources which affect waters of the European Union is nitrate from agricultural sources, and therefore it is necessary to reduce these sources. Moreover, it is important to take measures concerning the application to the soil of all nitrogen compounds. Thus, by promoting good agricultural practices, Member States can provide, for all waters, a general level of protection against future pollution. Also, those areas that discharge or drain into waters vulnerable to pollution require special protection. The Directive imposes a number of obligations on Member States, including the implementation of action programs to reduce water pollution due to nitrogen compounds in vulnerable areas and the inclusion of measures to limit the application to the soil of all nitrogen-containing fertilizers, an aspect that is part of this thesis. Within this theme, one of the critical points of the Strategic Plan for Development of the Region of Murcia (2007-2013) considers minimizing the nutrient and phytosanitary discharges to the Mar Menor Lagoon, caused by the development of the agriculture in its basin. This Plan also promotes lines of research that prioritize the main environmental problems in the Region, including an increase in the monitoring and control of fertilizer discharges to the environment, as well as the dissemination of information to the farmers. The growth in the area of irrigated land in the Campo de Cartagena zone, which has increased from 10,000 ha in the 1980s to 42,000 ha today, has led to a notable increase in the entry into the Mar Menor of nitrogen and phosphorus of agricultural origin, in recent decades. The rise in the number of desalination plants, which release brines rich in these nutrients, due to the underlying problem of chronic shortage of water resources in the area, has only aggravated the problem. All the factors pointed out above justify the necessity to optimize the doses of fertilizers and phytosanitary products in the Campo de Cartagena, in order to minimize the environmental impact, avoiding socio-economic damages while maintaining crop productivity. This is the basis for the experimental approach described in this thesis. For this study, the crop chosen was sweet pepper grown under greenhouse conditions, because it is a typical example of the new productive orientations of the commercial agriculture in the Region of Murcia and the south of the Province of Alicante. In these areas, agriculture is highly technical and with an eminently social character. This crop occupied 2,500 ha in 2006, with a progressive reduction to 1,224 ha by 2012. It is cultivated with three management systems which are studied in this Thesis: ecological, integrated, and conventional cultivation. The conventional cultivation is of great interest in the Region of Murcia, and occupies the greatest area within the greenhouses of the Campo de Cartagena, where the experiments were carried out. With these studies, the aim is to demonstrate for the pepper crop under greenhouse conditions, in the Campo de Cartagena, the hypothesis that a surplus of nitrogen fertilizers does not always contribute to an increase in yields, but does increase the risk of diffuse contamination of the groundwater by leaching (Pratt, 1984). Moreover, this leaching will be quantified according to the dose of fertilizer, and the agricultural practices in this crop that can reduce the losses of nitrate into the aquifers will be evaluated. This thesis aims to expand the scientific/technical knowledge of nitrate leaching in the greenhouse cultivation of pepper by systematizing and analyzing the results of three research projects: Project I.N.I.A. SC-99-042, Regional Project RTA-Positivo-03-3, and Project I.N.I.A. RTA-04-035. The duration of our study in this crop (1999-2007), the singular experimental set up with large drainage lysimeters in greenhouse, and the multidisciplinary team involved in this research (from the Regional Ministry of Agriculture, IMIDA, UPCT, CIFEA, LAYMA, SYNGENTA, and KOPPERT) provided an overview of all the important aspects of crop sustainability, irrigation, and leaching over an eight-year period. The findings form the basis of this thesis. Therefore, the idea was to determine the influence of different doses of nitrogen fertilizer (from 0 to 45 g N/m2) and different agricultural practices (organic, integrated, and conventional cultivation) on the leaching of nitrate and on yield, with the aim of establishing the basis of the impact of the greenhouse pepper crop in this zone. Thus, the aim was to develop techniques that minimize the risks of contamination due to excess nitrogen fertilizer, with the consequent environmental, social, and economic benefits. ; Escuela Internacional de Doctorado de la Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena ; Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena ; Programa de Doctorado Técnicas Avanzadas en Investigación y Desarrollo Agrario y Alimentario
Issue 49.3 of the Review for Religious, May/June 1990. ; REVIEW I:OR RELIGIOUS (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at St. Louis University by the Mis-souri Province Educational [nslilule of lhe Sociely of Jesus; Editorial Office; 360~ Lindell Blvd., Rm. 428; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis MO. Single copies $3.50. Subscriptions: United States $15.00 for onc year; $28.00 for two years. Other countrics: US $20.00 for one year: if airmail, US $35.00 per year. For subscription orders or change of address, write: Ri~vn-:w FOR R~uc, ous: P.O. Box 60"/0; Duluth, MN 55806. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to RF:VlEW vok REI.I~;IOt~S; P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Ol990 REVIEW voR REt.l~;Iot~s. David L. Fleming, S.J. iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Editor Associate Editor "~ Contributing Editor ~.~o' Assistant Editors Advisor\, Board David J. Hassel, S.J. Sean Sammon, F.M.S. Mary Margaret Johanning, S.S.N.D. Wendy Wright, Ph.D. Suzanne Zuercher, O.S.B. Ma\'/June 1990 Volume 49 Number 3 Manuscripts, books fl~r review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW ro~ REt.l~aOt~s; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the departmenl "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Rich-ard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709-1193. Back issues and reprinls should be ordered from REVIEW VO~ REI.tC;IOt~S; 3601 IAndell Blvd.; St. I~mis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues are available from University Microfilms Internalional; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, M1 48106. A major portion of each issue is also available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write tn the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. PRISMS . Questions play an important part in our biblical tradition. The first question presented in the Bible is the one which God directs to us hu-man beings, "Where are you?" In the gospels, Jesus" question, "Who do you say that I am?," demands a response from every Christian, per-haps more than once in a lifetime. "Woman, why are you weeping? Who is it you are looking for?" challenges us in our sorrow and our dis-appointments. "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" pricks the con-science of sinner and saint alike. Not all questions are neatly answered. For example, "how does one pray" and "how does one love" have pieces of answers which together make up a simple but intricate mosaic that stretches as far as human ex-perience can reach. Jesus, in trying to share with us his experience of God, seemed to be most at home in everyday images of the living world around us and the parables which capture some basic human experience writ large. Who does not remember a woman sweeping a house for a lost coin? That is the way God searches out each of us in our lost moments. Who has not been touched by a story of a person, robbed and left half-dead by the roadside, and the various passers-by among whom there is one who cares? From such a parable, we all know a little better what it means to be neighbor. Stories, symbols, and images become so often the prisms whereby we gain new or fresh insight into some of our deepest human and divine realities. Some of our authors in this issue are directly led into their reflec-tions by a question. "What is a priest?" led Richard Hauser, S.J., to his considerations on the "Spirituality of the Ministerial Priesthood.'" Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O., is making a report on the Religious Life Futures Project as he looks at the question "Where is Religious Life Go-ing? . Whence Come the Candidates?" stirs Gabrielle Jean, S.C.O., to focus once again on the instrumentation for the screening of candi-dates for the priestly and.religious life vocations. William Mann, F.S.C., raises the question "Brothers, Do We Have a Future?" and enters into his own religious life experience to provide a response. If I could make five wishes for a new novice director, Melannie Svoboda, S.N.D., asks, what would they be? Her answer to that ques-tion is her article "Wishes for a 'Novice' Novice Director." Mary Polu-tanovich, D.C., faces the questions, "do the poor need the artist'? does 321 322 / Review for Religious. May-June 1990 the artist need the poor? how is Christ served and the gospel preached by this charism?" Her reflections are captured in her article "More than Bread: Art, Spirituality, and the Poor." Religious imagination unveils how God may be working in "The As-sociate Movement in Religious Life" according to Rose Marie Jasinski, C.B.S., and Peter C. Foley. Thomas F. McKenna, C.M., seeks out meta-phors as he tries to stimulate our thinking about "Images for the Future of Religious Life." Correcting some metaphors may be important in our understanding of "Obedience and Adult Faith" as presented by James D. Whitehead and Evelyn Eaton Whitehead. Other authors in this issue suggest creative ways to pair a deeper un-derstanding of violence and ministry as a response, the connection be-tween the stages of conversion and the gift of tears as imaged in the spiri-tuality of Catherine of Siena, naming experiences that represent the sur-rendering of ourselves to the Divine Other, discovering the gifts and the pitfalls of praying through a tradition which is non-Christian, and re-flections on the historical sweep of foreign mission involvement and its effect on the renewal movement in women religious congregations dur-ing the past quarter-century. It is true that questions sometimes only lead to more questions. But questions also lead to ways of responding that affect the direction of our lives and our ministry. Some questions can truly affect our relationship with God, with our fellowmen and women, and with our world. Perhaps our authors will raise some of those questions and also provide us with some of those images which will call forth such a personal conversion. The God who asks questions is also a God of surprises. Our Pentecost prayer: recreate in us your own Spirit, Lord. David L. Fleming, S.J. Spirituality of the Ministerial Priesthood Richard J. Hauser, S.J. Father Richard Hauser, S.J. is Chairman of the Theology Department at Creighton University in Omaha. Nebraska. His last article in Rv.\,lv.w FOR R~.L~(;IOUS was pub-lished in July-August, 1986. His address is Creighton University: California at 24th Street: Omaha, Nebraska 68178. [~uring a recent board meeting of the Emmaus Priest Renewal Program I had a disconcerting experience. The discussion moved to the question: what is a priest? For the next hour we worked in vain to come to a con-sensus. In exasperation someone said, '~No wonder priestly morale in the United States is so low. We don't even know what it means to be a priest?" At that point the Emmaus board commissioned me as their theo-logical consultant to put together a five-day retreat on priestly idefitity and spirituality. Immediately I found myself resisting the task, claiming ignorance of the topic. This resistance was even further disconcerting. Since I have been a priest more than twenty years and writing on spiritual topics for almost as long, why wouldn't I have something to say on the spirituality of the priest, supposedly my own spirituality? Gradually I realized that my hesi-tancy had many roots. First I was self-conscious about my identity as priest because rightly or wrongly as a priest I have felt under attack by two very important movements in the Church, the lay movement and the women's movement. As a result I have inadvertently downplayed this aspect of my identity so as not to occasion criticism from these groups. Further as I reflected on the documents of Vatican II, I became more aware that they gave thorough treatment both to the roles of the lay per-son and the bishop in the Church but have said very little about the role 323 :324 / Review for Religious, May-June 1990 of the priest. Though Vatican II did set some new directions for a recon-sideration of the identity of the priest, it did not develop this theology to any great extent. Finally I saw that many currents in the Church have subtly made me hesitant to reflect on the area: the debates on priestly celi-bacy and married clergy, the prevalent--and inadequate--theology of the priest as the "holy man" set apart in a separate caste to "mediate" grace to the laity, the tendency to "clericalize" most ministries in the Church, the ecumenical movement. I should also note that as a priest from a religious congregationl had defined my spirituality almost solely by the charism of n~y order and therefore neglected aspects of spiritual-ity related to my role as priest of the universal Catholic Church. In this I suspect I am typical of many religious order priests. The following reflections are an effort toward a theology of priestly identity and spirituality. I believe the lack of such a theology has had dele-terious effects both on morale of many current priests as well as on re-cruitment of future priests. The American bishops in their statement is-sued 1988 "Reflections on the Morale of Priests" agree that there is a morale problem: " . . it is aiso clear to us that there exists today a se-rious and substantial morale problem among priests in general. It is a prob-lem that cannot be simply attributed to one or another cause or recent event, but its profile and characteristics can be clearly described, and its presence needs to be addressed directly." It is my conviction that one of its causes is an ambiguity about what it means to be a priest. These reflections attempt to address that problem using guidelines from Vati-can II as well as recent documents from the Priestly Life and Ministry Committee of the American bishops. All Christian spirituality flows from incorporation into the Body of Christ through faith and baptism. The priest's spirituality is no excep-tion. Basically, then, priestly spirituality is Christian spirituality. How-ever, since the priest has a special role in the Body of Christ it is appro-priate to discuss how this role specifies the practice of Christian spiri-tuality. But an integral examination of priestly spirituality must first situ-ate the priest within the Body and only then discuss the aspects of spiri-tuality proper to the priest as priest. This article is concerned with priest-hood in the Roman Catholic Church; hence the terms Body of Christ and Church have primary reference to this community. Body of Christ: Priest as Member Priests are members of the Body of Christ. Their dignity as mem-bers of the Body has frequently been obscured by treatment of their spe-cial role within the Body. The Decree on the Ministt3, and Life of Priests Ministerial Priesthood / 325 from Vatican II clearly situates the priest's leadership role through ordi-nation within the priest's membership in the Body through the sacra-ments of initiation: "Therefore, while it indeed presupposes the sacra-ments of Christian initiation, the sacerdotal office of priests is conferred by that special sacrament through which priests, by the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are marked by a special character and are so configured to Christ the priest that they can act in the person of Christ the head" (par. 2). Membership and leadership must be seen together for comprehensive understanding of priestly identity and spirituality. It is significant that Vatican II chose the image of the Body of Christ to discuss priestly identity and ministry. This image highlights both the equality of all in the Body as well as the difference of roles in the Body. The equality of all members within the Body is clear: "There is but one body and one Spirit, just as there is but one hope given all of you by your call. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all, and works through all, and is in all" (Ep 4:4-6). Equally clear is the difference of roles within the Body: "There are dif-ferent gifts but the same Spirit; there are different ministries but the same Lord; there are different works but the same God who accomplishes all of them in everyone. To each person the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good" ( I Co 12:4-7). Furthermore Paul's image of the Body of Christ highlights the Spirit as the source of all life within the Body. Membership in the Body flows from the Spirit received through faith and baptism. Specific roles (charisms) within the Body flow from the special gifts given by the Spirit to different members of the Body for the sake of the entire Body, Finally, the Church as the Body of Christ shares Christ's mission. This mission so clearly presented in all the Gospels is serving the king-dom of God. Each member is called by baptism to assume a share of re-sponsibility by accepting ministry according to his or her specific charisms. This ministry is oriented to serving the kingdom of God both within the Body of Christ itself as well as beyond the Body in the world. The example is, of course, Jesus himself. Jesus ministered to his disci-ples; the washing of the feet in John's gospel is the most dramatic exam-ple of his role of service to his disciples. Still this concern for his own in no way lessened his ministry toward those outside his community of followers; his preaching, healing, and love extended to everyone he en-countered. These reflections presume that the priest's basic identity is that of a member of the Body of Christ and consequently the priest's ba-sic spirituality will be living that identity. 326 /Review for Religious, May-June 1990 Body of Christ: Priest as Leader As members of the Body of Christ priests have received the Spirit incorporating them into the Body and giving them charisms for the ser-vice of the Church and of the kingdom. What, then, differentiates the priest's identity and spirituality from that of other members of the Body? Most agree that ministerial priesthood in the Church implies a permanent office flowing from charism and formally recognized by the Church. The very important statement of 1977 from the Bishop's Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry "As One Who Serves" expresses the consen-sus well: "In summary, the holder of an office in the Church would be (1) a person endowed by the Spirit, (2) with personal gifts (charisms), (3) called to a public and permanent ministry, and this call is formally recognized by the Church" (par. 20). The fact that this office implies a role of leadership in the community is also agreed upon by the magis-terium and by most theologians. Yet there remain theological disagree-ments on the relationship of the priest's role as head of the Body (always with the bishop) to the Body itself. The discussion is focused on a pas-sage from The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church from Vatican II: "Though they differ from one another in essence and not only in de-gree, the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hier-archical priesthood are nonetheless interrelated. Each of them in its own special way is a participation in the one priesthood of Christ" (par. 10). Since this article is concerned primarily with the spirituality of priests as leaders of the Body--an identity that is acknowledged by most--it does not seem necessary to treat the doctrinal disputes. Christian spirituality flows from response to the Holy Spirit, the sanc-tifier. Priestly spirituality is simply the priest's effort to respond faith-fully to the Spirit in living the priestly identity as defined by the Church. The Church teaches that ordination establishes the priest in three new, distinctive, and permanent relationships: with Christ, with the Church, and with the world beyond the Church, This identity today includes-- for both diocesan as well as religious order priests--a call to observe the evangelical counsels. Since observing these counsels affects the living out of the three basic relationships, they must be discussed with them. It should be recalled again that this discussion focuses on those aspects of priestly spirituality that distinguish the priest as priest; it does not fo-cus on aspects of spirituality common to all Christians through baptism. Priest and Christ: Person-Symbol of Christ the Head of Body Through ordination the priest is established in a new, distinctive, and permanent relationship to Christ: the priest becomes the person-symbol Ministerial Priesthood / 327 of Christ, the head of the Church. Priests receive an anointing of the Spirit which enables them to act in the name of Christ the head. Thus priests are empowered to act in persona Christi. "As One Who Serves" makes the crucial observation that priests can be the person-symbol of Christ the head of the Body only because of their membership in the Body: "It is only because of the Church that the priest can be said to act in persona Christi. He is called to be an effective sign and witness of the Church's faith in the reconciling Christ, who works through the Church and through the one whom the Church has sent to be the steward of its gifts and services" (par. 22). It is the Body of Christ that is holy through the presence of the Spirit. The priest, as the preeminent head of this Body, becomes the symbol of the holiness of the Body. And as head of this Body, priests can now act in persona ecclesiae and so also in per-sona Christi. Through ordination the priest is established in a special relationship to Christ. As head of the Body, the priest becomes an "effective sign" or sacrament of Christ's authoritative presence in the Church. All aspects of priestly spirituality flow from this relationship. Since it is the role of a symbol to make present what it represents, the priest is called by the Church through ordination to awaken Christ's presence within the com-munity in all service for the community. Consequently all priestly min-istry to the Church must be done in a way that awakens faith within the community. This awakening of faith in others is possible only if the priest has a deep relationship personally with Christ. The biggest chal-lenge of priestly spirituality is becoming internally the Christ symbolized externally. To a great extent the effectiveness of priestly ministry flows from a heart transformed by the Spirit and then ministering to others. All Christians desiring to follow Christ fully are called to observe the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience within their own state of life. The priest is no exception. However, the priest's ob-servance of the evangelical counsels is orientated toward conforming the priest more closely to Christ and so increasing effectiveness as the person-symbol of Christ the head of the Body. The priest today is called by the Church to celibacy and so to meet personal affective needs in ways con-sonant with the celibate state. Christ is the model of priestly celibacy in his relationships with the Father, his community, and his apostolate. Above all the celibacy of Christ was founded on his relationship to his most dear Father, Abba. From within this intimate and often solitary pres-ence before his Father Christ's entire life flowed. Christ's relationship to the Father is the model for the priest's relationship to Christ. As 328 / Review jbr Religious, May-June 1990 Christ's heart flowed instinctively to the Father, so does the priest's heart flow to Christ and the Father. Love unites without obliterating personal distinctiveness. As Christ was able to say "The Father and I are one," and as Paul could say, "I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me," so the priest prays to become equally one with the Father and Jesus. By em-bracing celibacy the priest imitates Jesus in allowing sufferings of fail-ure, loneliness, and isolation to foster even deeper intimacy with God and with Jesus himself. Christ is the model of priestly celibacy in his relationship to his com-munity. He looked to certain of his apostles and disciples for the per-sonal support he needed to sustain the failures and loneliness of his min-istry. So Christ is the model for priests in developing deep human rela-tionship, especially with fellow priests. Finally Christ's affectivity was also directed toward those he served. We recall how Jesus wept over Jerusalem because he was not able to draw the chosen people of God to himself as a mother hen draws her chicks to herself. In embracing the vow of celibacy the priest strives to imitate Christ in each of these three dimensions of affectivity and so become a more effective person-symbol of Christ as head of the Body. To be faithful to the call of today's Church to live this identity of person-symbol of Christ we priests must ask some basic questions. First, do I see my vocation primarily as a call to become Someone, Christ, and not merely as a duty to perform certain ministerial functions closed to others? The Church today is saying to priests that who we are is more primary than what we do; presence has replaced power. We are being called to be so configured to Christ that our actions radiate his presence and so awaken awareness of God's own love. Have I built into my daily life the rhythms necessary both to grow continually in knowledge and love of Christ and to allow this knowledge and love to permeate my ac-tions? And second, have I actively embraced my celibacy'? Do I cherish my celibacy as a gift intended to foster intimacy with Christ and the Fa-ther and thereby increase my effectiveness as a person-symbol of Christ in my leadership? DO I imitate Christ in meeting my affective needs pri-marily in my relationships with Christ and the Father and with my pres-byterate? Do I allow myself to be supported by and do I support my fel-low priests'? Do I allow the crosses of celibacy to deepen intimacy with Christ? Priest and Church: Servant-Leader of Body Through the anointing of the Spirit at ordination the priest is also es-tablished in a new, distinctive, and permanent relationship to the Church: Ministerial Priesthood / 399 the priest becomes the servant-leader of the Church, the "effective sign" of Christ the head of the Body. As the preeminent leader of the community the priest thereby acts in persona ecclesiae. This leadership of the Body is marked by four functions essential for the community. The priest is called to serve the Church by proclaiming the Word of God, by presiding at worship, by pastoral care of the People of God, and by fa-cilitating the different charisms within the Church. But the priest's lead-ership will take many differing forms depending on the talents of the priest and the needs of the community. The American bishops high-lighted the importance of sensitivity to varying forms of priestly leader-ship with which the Spirit endows priests: "All priests are endowed by the Spirit in various ways to serve the People of God. There are forms of leadership . The gifts differ and each must discern in the Spirit how he has been gifted. No one has all the gifts. Some seem to disap-pear in the history of the Church; some are transient even in the lives of priests" ("As One Who Serves," par. 32). Christ is the model for the priest's leadership of the Church. Just as Jesus' love of the Father impelled him to live for the Father's kingdom, so does the priest's love of Christ impel the priest to live for the Body of Christ. The priest wil.I, furthermore, exercise leadership in the same way Jesus exercised leadership--through service: "The Son of Man has not come to be served but to serve--to give his life in ransom for the many " (Mk 10:45). And through the special anointing of the Spirit in ordination Christ now stands with the priest empowering the priest to be an "effective sign" of Christ in all ministry to the Church. Thus the priest can fulfill the vocation to be the sacramental symbol-person of Christ actually awakening Christ's presence in the community through his .daily service. In a new way since Vatican I! priests are being called to facilitate service and leadership of others within the Church. The role has been com-pared to that of a conductor of an orchestra: "The conductor succeeds when he stimulates the best performance from each player and combines their individual efforts into a pattern of sound, achieving the vision of the composer. The best leader is one who can develop the talents of each staff person and coordinates'all their efforts, so that they best comple-ment each other and produce a superior collective effort" ("As One Who Serves," par. 46). In facilitating ministry of others the priest is not unlike Christ who prepared the disciples and then sent them off on their own. The priest recognizes that the Spirit in baptism incorporates mem-bers into the Body and simultaneously gives them differing gifts of min- 330 / Review for Religious, May-June 1990 istry for the Body. Yet according to the above document the priest re-mains the one "in whom the mission of the Church, and therefore its ministry, finds focus and visibility" (34); thus the priest acts within the community preeminently in persona ecclesiae. To enhance the priest's effectiveness as a person-symbol of Christ, the Church calls the priest to evangelical obedience through the promise or vow of obedience to their bishops or ecclesiastical superiors. This prom-ise or vow of obedience places the priest in special union with the uni-versal Church and so enhances the ability to act in persona ecclesiae. The priest symbolizes the unity of the entire Church in Christ: the local parish or community, the diocese, the national Church, the universal Catholic Church. In addition, the priest symbolizes the continuity of the Church through the ages from the apostles and Peter to the present-day bishops and pope. It follows from this that the priest must fully own this position in the Church by loving, protecting, and defending it at every level and, even when called to prophetic criticism, by doing so with love. While acknowledging the Church's faults and foibles past and present, the priest still believes that it is the privileged place of the Spirit's activ-ity in this world for the kingdom of God: "I for my part declare to you, you are "Rock," and on this rock I will build my church, and the jaws of death shall not prevail against it" (Mt 16:18). The model for the priest's obedience is again Christ. Nothing stood between Christ and doing his Father's will. The priest's obedience is to God. The priest is convinced that the will of God is now revealed through the authoritative structures of the Church. In obeying these structures the priest is obeying the Father. The priest's obedience to the bishop or ec-clesiastical superiors gives eloquent testimony to the belief that Christ continues to work through the ages within the authoritative structures of the Church. By embracing the promise or vow of obedience the priest refuses to allow any personal desire not in accord with God's will as ex-pressed through Church superiors to determine actions. The sufferings of obedience to God's will are accepted and offered to the Father in the same manner as Christ's. To be faithful to living this identity of servant-leader of the Body we priests must reflect on our underlying attitudes toward ministry. First, do I truly see myself as servant to my community, that is, do I radiate the attitude of Christ who came to serve and not to be served'? Do I strive to be an effective servant-leader in each of the four major ministerial roles, that is, teaching, presiding at worship, pastoral care, facilitating gifts of community? Or do I find myself holding back in some particular Ministerial Priesthood / 331 aspects of my ministry'? Have I identified charisms of leadership that are unique to me and used these in a special way for the Church? Do I fully grasp that as a person-symbol of Christ in my leadership role I can trust that Christ stands behind each aspect of my ministry enabling me to be an effective sign of his presence'? Second, do I embrace my promise or vow of obedience? Do ! see it as a gift enhancing my effectiveness as a person-symbol of the universal Church, the Body of Christ'? Do I love the Church and protect and defend it at every leve~? If necessary to criti-cize, do I speak in love? Is my obedience ultimately to the Father? Do I allow the crosses of obedience to conform me more totally to Christ'? Priest and Society: Promoter of Justice in the World Through ordination the priest is established in a new, distinctive, and permanent relationship to Christ and to his Church. Contained in this iden-tity is a new relationship to the world beyond the Church. Because the priest now acts in persona ecclesiae and in persona Christi, the priest becomes the preeminent witness of the Church's and Christ's concern for the world. Vatican II and subsequent documents of the Church both on an international and national level have put increasing emphasis on this aspect of the Church's mission. The statement of the World Synod of Bish-ops in 1971 entitled Justice in the World is apt: ". action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully ap-pear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or in other words, of the Church's mission." The priest today is called to integrate this dimension into ongoing ministry. The American bishops echo this thrust by presenting their descrip-tion of the priestly ministry under four co-equal divisions: To Proclaim the Word of God, To Preside at Worship, To Serve the Christian Com-munity, To Serve Humankind. The last-named section begins as follows: "The Church is called to serve all of society: that is its mission and the hope of its ministry. While the priest may have a certain primary respon-sibility to the Catholic community which he serves, nonetheless he has been sent by Christ and the Church to all people who comprise the larger community in which the parish community exists. The concern for all people gives reality to the presence of the risen Lord" ('~As One Who Serves," par. 50). The priest has a double role in this ministry to humankind. As ser-vant- leader of the Body tile priest is called to be engaged personally in actions on behalf of justice to witness most effectively to the Church's concern. In addition, the priest is called to facilitate action and leader-ship by others for the transformation of society. Church teachings ac- 339 / Review Jbr Religious, May-June 1990 knowledge that time constraints may limitthe priest's personal involve-ment but also point out that the apostolate within society is also most ap-propriate for the laity: "The apostolate of the social milieu, that is, the effort to infuse a Christian spirit into the mentality, customs, laws, and structures of the community in which a person lives is so much the duty and responsibility of the laity that it can never be properly performed by others. In this area the laity can exercise an apostolate of like towards like" (Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, para. 33). In addition to working for justice throughout society, the priest is called to have spe-cial concern for the poor: "Although the presbyter has obligations to-wards all persons, he has the poor and the lowly entrusted to him in a special way. The Lord himself showed that he was united to them, and the fact that the Gospel was preached to them is mentioned as a sign of his messianic a.ctivity'" (Decree on the Miniso3, and Life of Priests, par. 6). Again Christ is the model of the priest in this dimension of minis-try. Jesus' concern for others was not limited to his immediate commu-nity of disciples. He continually extended himself beyond his followers to others. His entire ministry is marked with personal compassion for any person who came to him in need. In addition to his one-on-one concern for others, Jesus also spoke out against society's injustices. At times the condemnation was marked by actual disobedience to laws when he viewed them as contradictory to the revelation he received from his Fa-ther. Indeed, his criticism was so threatening to the establishment that it eventually precipitated his death. And finally the Gospel reflects that Jesus had special care and concern for the poorest of the poor, the out-casts of society. The parable of the Last Judgment testifies to the cen-trality in Jesus' eyes of service to the hungry, thirsty, shelterless, impris-oned. To enhance the priest's effectiveness as a witness of Christ, the Church asks all priests to have special concern for evangelical poverty within their own priestly vocation, diocesan or religious. And again the model is Christ himself. Christ was poor. He let no material desire or possession come between himself and doing the Father's will. He was detached from possessions in order to be more free to serve. And Christ chose to live a simple lifestyle, perhaps to be more approachable by the poor or to witness to the sufficiency of the Father's providence for his material needs, taking his cue from the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. Through embracing evangelical poverty the priest refuses to al-low any inordinate attachment to food, clothing, shelter, possessions to Ministerial Priesthood / 333 affect service of the kingdom either within or outside the Body of Christ. With this inner quality of heart the priest thus becomes an even more ef-fective witness of Christ to the Church and world. To be faithful and responsive to the call of promoting justice in the world we priests must ask whether we have adapted to this rather new dimension of priestly ministry. First, does my ministry include leader-ship in witnessing to Christ's concern for the world both through actual "hands-on" service to promote justice in society as well as through fa-cilitating service of my congregation? Most especially am I an effective sign in witnessing to Christ's concern for the most needy and under-privileged of my parish and my society'? Second, what is my attitude to evangelical poverty? Do I desire to imitate Christ by adopting a simple lifestyle? Do I embrace evangelical poverty as a gift because it conforms me more closely to Christ and so makes me a more effective symbol-person of Christ in my leadership, especially in his concern for the poor'? Do I allow the crosses of poverty to deepen my bonds with Christ'? Ministerial Priesthood: Challenge and Consolation The challenge of priesthood is perhaps greater today than ever be-fore. In the ministry of leadership for the Church the priest is called to become the person-symbol of Christ and so live and serve in a way that awakens awareness of God's continual presence and love both for the com-munity and for the world. A recent document from the American bish-ops catches the immensity of this challenge putting it in the context of the role of the pastor today: "The pastor in the parish today becomes-- whether he knows and likes it or not--a religious symbol to his people. The pastor becomes a religious symbol of tradition, the keeper and speaker of the revealed Word in all of its rich expressions. He becomes the religious symbol of God's care for his people, expressing compas-sion for the wounded and outrage at injustice. He becomes the religious symbol of order, calling the community to an effective stewardship of its gifts and shared use of its resources" ("A Shepherd's Care: Reflec-tions on the Changing role of Pastor," 1988). But if the challenge is immense, so is the consolation. Through or-dination the priest exists in a new, distinctive, and permanent relation-ship to Christ, to the Church, and to society. But like all sacraments the sacrament of orders confers the grace it proclaims and signifies. There-fore, priests have the immense consolation of knowing that the Holy Spirit stands behind them enabling them to live this threefold relation-ship conferred at ordination. In their relationship to Christ, the Spirit en-ables priests to be configured to Christ poor, celibate, and obedient and 334 / Review for Religious, May-June 1990 so be more powerful person-symbols of Christ. In their relationship to the Church, the Spirit enables priests to be effective servant-leaders in the fourfold dimensions of priestly ministry: proclaiming the Word of God, presiding at worship, caring for the pastoral needs of community, and facilitating charisms of the community. Finally in their relationship to society, the Spirit enables priests to be eloquent witnesses of Christ's care for.the world in promoting justice in society and most especially in serving the poor both personally and in their leadership of the Body of Christ. Priestly ministry, like all ministry, is a charism, a gift of the Spirit. The challenge for us priests is living in a way that facilitates the Spirit's action. We must take a serious look at our daily schedules and ask whether they, in fact, foster our living in tune with the Spirit, thereby growing in knowledge and love and Christ and so radiating a Christ-presence in all our ministry. Being fully effective sacramental signs of Christ demands daily attention to our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. And this may require rearrangement of our schedules, especially to assure we have the leisure to grow in an ever deeper union with Christ whom we sacramentalize in our leadership. A recent document from the Priestly Life and Ministry Committee pointedly advises us that the crite-ria for the effectiveness of our ministry ought not be the quantity of our work but its quality: "One of the most probable causes of difficulties with spirituality in a priest'~ life today is simply his ability to find (or at least justify) sufficient time to spend in solitude and prayer. A consci-entious priest, especially when under pressure of incessant demands, can forget that the quality of his work is more important than the quantity. What people are looking for in him more than anything else is a spiri-tual guide and model who will help them come to know the Lord and find his peace. Thus he must be, first of all and above everything else, a man of God's peace. Regular time each day for prayer, meditation, and spiritual reading is a sine qua non for the unfolding in a priest's life of an authentic Christ-centeredness" ("The Priest and Stress," 1982). There are many ministries in the Body of Christ. The priest's is but one of these, yet it is distinctive. Only the priest is called by today's Church to a ministry of leadership whose essence is symbolizing Christ's presence. Hopefully a deeper appreciation of this calling will have its ef-fect on morale of current priests as well as attract many others to this vo-cation. Where is Religious Life Going? M. Basil Pennington. O.C.S.O. Father Basil Pennington, O.C.S.O., is well known for his conferences and writings on centering prayer. His address is Assumption Abbey: Route 5: Ava, Missouri 65608. This is a question that is being asked with concern not only by religious themselves and the Church at large but even by the wider community. One significant indication of this is the fact that a secular foundation has recently given a secular university over a half million dollars to study the question. Lilly Endowment, Inc. has awarded Boston University a $575,000 grant to have its Center for Applied Social Sciences serve as the site to study the question "Factors Influencing the Transformation of Religious Life in the Catholic Church in the United States." This cur-rent research grant follows the successful completion of an earlier $100,000 planning grant. It is almost twenty-five years since the close of the Second Vatican Council which called for an adaptation and renewal of religious life. In that time the average age of members of many religious congregations and monastic communities has increased dramatically while the number of members has decreased just as dramatically. Many traditional works of religious have been called into question. New works have been un-dertaken and the whole understanding of mission reconsidered by some groups. The sense of separation from the laity is greatly diminished. Lay persons take a much greater part in the life and mission of religious and religious generally feel closer to the active lay Catholic. What does all this portend for the future'? More importantly, what must religious do in order to be truly renewed, adapted to the twenty-first century Church, so that they may continue to bring to the Church 335 336 / Review Jot" Religious, May-June 1990 and to society as a whole the gift that they are? The proposal submitted to the Lilly Endowment set forth six basic or broad objectives for the study: I. Identify the interpretative schemes used by reli-gious to describe the meaning structure of their commit-ment and their perceptions of the distinctions of religious life in relation to the other ministerial roles in the Church. The interpretive schemes will be examined from the perspective of the psychological, theological, and or-ganizational changes that have occurred over time, with special attention to the degree to which religious orders are becoming more or less distinct. 2. Describe and analyze the psychological, struc-tural, and organizational changes that have occurred and those yet to occur both in religious life in general and within congregations in order to predict the future shapes of religious life. 3. Identify individual religious who are perceived as the emergent leaders of religious life and explore with them systematically the changes that have occurred and must yet occur if religious life is to remain a vital social and ecclesial reality. 4. Describe and analyze some effects of change and perceptions of religious life on the commitment of in-dividual religious, former religious, and recent candi-dates to religious life. 5. Describe the environmental influences on re-ligious life in the United States, including cultural shifts that influence commitments, the supply and demand econ-omy for religious service, and the enhancement of the role of the laity in the Church within the historical con-text of theology. 6. Provide a paradigm for developing strategies of leadership that will enable leaders to move the pro-cess of renewal that was begun in Vatican II through a process of systematic transformation. The term "interpretive schemes" may not be familiar to many but it refers to a very important factor in religious life. Interpretive schemes are made up of the understanding the members of the group or commu-nity share in regard to the world and their place in it. They are primary Where is Religious Life Going? in drawing the members together, giving them a shared sense of belong-ing. These guide religious as they interpret their own past and look at their present environment, select their value priorities, and allocate their resources. Oftentimes these interpretive schemes are not explicitly articu-lated by a group. They are revealed rather in the metaphors the mem-bers use to describe their community, the stories they tell and the rites they celebrate. Transformation involves a shift in interpretive schemes. The pro-posal describes transformation as "qualitative, discontinuous shifts in organization members, shared understandings of the organization, accom-panied by changes in the organization's mission, strategy, and formal and informal structures." Transformation usually begins with a crisis that unfreezes dominant organizational members' current interpretative schemes by presenting a significant challenge to their validity. The Sec-ond Vatican Council did this to religious. But not the Council alone. The transition from the modern to the postmodern era, one of the three great cultural shifts in the history of humankind necessarily brought on a "cri-sis" for all human organizations. The next step in the transformation pro-ess is the development of alternative interpretative schemes leading to new types of action which in turn leads to changes in the structure of the organization. There is likely to be considerable conflict among the origi-nal and developing interpretive schemes and the subgroups espousing them. Leaders of the community will necessarily have a large impact on the process and its outcome. If they support only one perspective they are likely to decrease the potential creativity of the transformational pro-ess and the sense of belonging and involvement of the members whose perspectives have not been taken into account. If they try to separate out the different perspectives they are likely to perpetuate splints within the community. If they facilitate the interaction among the conflicting per-spectives they will increase the chances of paradoxical outcomes of trans-formation, of new and creative shared understandings, of a truly renewed and vital religious life. During the course of the process members will experience discomfort both with the ambiguities and the confusion. The conflict of understandings and those who espouse them will create ten-sions. But when (and if) a new synthesis is reached that is experienced by the whole group as acceptable, there will not only be a sense of satis-faction but there will be a new force in the community for life. In its study of the factors influencing the transformation for religious life, the study is going to give special attention to two: the environment, 338/Review for Religious, May-June 1990 that is, the factors external to the community that impinge on it in some way and can effect the transformation process by inducing the crisis and affecting the development of new interpretative schemes, and the lead-ership. Two types of leadership within the communities need to be and will be considered. There are formal leaders, those who are designated to see that the roles, resources, and necessary structures are maintained to provide for both the mission and the members. Emergent leaders are members who are generally recognized in the community as complemen-tary to the formal leaders, but distinct from them in purpose and func-tion. These often act as catalysts for new ideas within the community and, as such, are seldom selected by the membership to represent them. The study hopes to explore the underlying changes in interpretive schemes both qualitatively and quantitatively arid at several levels: within the social institution of religious life as such, within individual congre-gations, and within individual members of religious communities. This will involve questionnaires, regional meetings, and individual interviews to be carried out over the course of the next two to three years. The proposal sees as the outcome of the project: I. Identification of the normative beliefs about reli-gious life and how they will likely shape the future of re-ligious life in this country. 2. Build a national comparative data base of all male and female religious that includes current demographic data, membership information, existing and emerging structures, current member attitudes on multiple dimen-sions, and projections for the future. 3. Enable the leadership of religious communities to identify in the current context paradigms of planning that enable transformation, consolidation, merging, or extinc-tion. 4. Label the changes that must yet occur if reli-gious life is to remain a vital social and theological gift to the Church into the next millennium. The results of the study will, of course, be published and generally available to interested parties. But the researchers hope also to work with organizations and groups of religious to consider and further explore the findings. The principal researchers for the project are David Nygren and Miriam Ukeritis. Father Nygren is a Research Associate at the Center for Applied Social Science, a unit of the Graduate School of Boston Uni- Where is Religious Life Going? / 339 versity. He has been a member of the Congregation of the Mission (Vin-centians) since 1968 and has served his congregation in many capacities over the years. He holds six academic degrees. Sister Miriam, a mem-ber of the Congregation of Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondelet, is com-pleting a term as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Harvard Community Health Plan, Boston. She is a clinical psychologist by profession and has served as a director of the House of Affirmation in Hopedale, Massachu-setts. Besides the extensive facilities of the Center for Applied Social Sci-ence, the researchers will be aided by a National Advisory Board which includes Archbishop Thomas Kelly, O.P., the newly elected chairper-son of NCCB's Committee on Religious; Abbot James Jones, O.S.B. of Conception Abbey; Howard Gray, S.J., former provincial of the Detroit Province, five religious women, two brothers, a monk and two represen-tatives from the Lilly Endowment. The Advisory Board will meet regu-larly with the researchers to assess the results of their work and offer guid-ance to the pursuit of the project. The success of the project will, of course, depend largely on the col-laboration of religious, both as groups and as individuals. But the bene-fits that they can hope to reap from it are considerable, so such collabo-ration is well assured. However, they will not be the only ones to profit from the study. Reviewing the expected outcomes it is easy to see why the Lilly Endowment and a community oriented university are willing to make such a considerable investment in this study. If the study does suc-ceed in producing the results it projects, there can be little doubt as to the significance of the contribution it will make not only to the Church but to society as a whole by enlivening and promoting the social outreach which depends so heavily on the leadership and support of the religious communities. Whence Come the Candidates? Gabrielle L. Jean, S.C.O. Sister Gabrielle Jean, S.C.O., last appeared in these pages with her article. "'The Alcoholic Religious Woman," in September/October 1985. Her address is 715 Per-shing Drive: Silver Spring, Maryland 20910. Over the past several years, authoritative articles on the assessment of can-didates for the priestly/religious life have appeared in Catholic periodi-cals. Kraft (1978)~ clearly stated the differential role and competencies of the psychiatrist and psychologist relative to evaluation and treatment of religious personnel. While both professional groups are involved in therapy, the psychiatrist focuses on the abnormal behavior while the psy-chologist deals with a much broader range of human behaviors. The psy-chiatrist's forte lies in his medical expertise and pharmacological arma-mentarium; the clinical psychologist's educational background provides for research and evaluation of human behavior, especially personality as-sessment. Kraft strongly recommended that such professionals have a working knowledge and appreciation of the role of spirituality in the life of religious men and women. Values incongruent with those of the cli-ent could prove prejudicial to his or her ongoing spiritual growth. A more recent article by O'Connor (1988)~- addressed the appraisal of candidates with attention directed to the formation process, the test-ing of the applicant's spirit, assessment of his or her motivation and fit-ness for the chosen institute. The key elements lie in the interactional pro-ess of interview and dialogue. The present article focuses on the instrumentation for the screening of candidates, that is, the psychological tests selected for that purpose. It is intended to inform superiors, vocations directors, and formation teams of the rationale and philosophy inherent in the selection of instru- 340 Whence Come the Candidates? / 34"1 ments; a "model" battery will then be suggested. Do the candidates come from the general "normal" population or from a psychiatric pool? The choice of instruments such as the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory), TAT (Thematic Apper-ception Test) and Rorschach Inkblots reflect the latter since they are stan-dardized or normed on a psychiatric or dysfunctional population. Granted, they provide valuable information (in terms of impairment), but would it not be more helpful for the formation teams to know the strengths and weaknesses of the personality of their candidates? Would they not be in a better position to maximize the psychological and spiri-tual growth of their charges with a positive set of data on them'? If one begins the psychological screening process with scales normed on a psy-chiatric population, the results can only reveal the extent of the pathol-ogy found in that individual when compared to psychiatrically impaired individuals. The strengths of the personality are clouded by the pathol-ogy and the formation personnel are left to ferret for themselves the per-sonal resources of the recruits. Personality measurement is a typically American phenomenon; it originated in the United States and has evolved greatly, especially since the early 50s. Its scope includes both personality inventories (standard-ized on the general population) and instruments designed more specifi-cally to detect the presence and extent of behavior pathology. The re-spective personality theories provide the background for such instruments and caution the user relative to the holistic nature of the person. Because of the importance of the psychological screening process, further clarification seems warranted, especially since Vatican II alerted to the need of heeding the advances made in the behavioral sciences. So-ciology and psychology do shed scientific light on human behavior both as individuals and in groups. Purpose and Ethics Tests are standardized tools for the measurement of individual dif-ferences in intellectual, emotional, social, and motivational aspects of behavior. Personality assessment focuses primarily on the emotional ad-justment, social relationships, motivation, attitudes, interests, and val-ues of the individual. The American Psychological Association has codified ethical prin-ciples to govern psychological testing. Many personality tests are re-stricted to qualified users, and the qualifications vary with the type of test. The rationale is that test scores should be released only by and to persons qualified to interpret them. The candidate is entitled to know the 342 / Review for Religious, May-June 1990 information he or she revealed in the testing. Knowledge of the test scores only may be emotionally disturbing to the candidate; they should be properly interpreted to him or her in a situation that allows for dis-cussion of the results. Many personality instruments and measures of emotional, motiva-tional, or attitudinal traits are necessarily disguised; the subject may re-veal characteristics about the self without realizing that he or she is do-ing so. It is of primary importance that the examinee have a clear understanding of the use that will be made of the test results, who will receive the report, and how long it will remain in his or her file. Quot-ing directly from the Ethical Standards of Psychologists: "The psycholo-gist who asks that an individual reveal personal information in the course of interviewing, testing, or evaluation, or who allows such information to be divulged to him, does so only after making certain that the person is aware of the purpose of the interview, testing, or evaluation and of the ways in which the information may be used." No report should be sent without the consent of the examinee through a "release of confiden-tiality" form. The receiver of such information is bound by confiden-tiality; the information is privileged; if the examinee agrees to release such information, it is because it will be handled as privileged commu-nication. Evaluation: Testing, Interviews, or What? There are many arguments for and against testing, and I wish to share my biases with you; I do so willingly because psychological test-ing is my area of specialization and, therefore, I feel better qualified to support them than I would be in other areas of psychology. The arguments I would advance in favor of a sound testing program are these. First, it serves to provide an appraisal of candidates who feel attracted to the religious/priestly life. Secondly, it can help the candidate gain insight into his or her own behavior. Thirdly, it can serve as a basis for counseling in view of overall personal growth. The reservations I would have to comprehensive testing are many; my remarks here pertain primarily to candidate assessment for the priestly/religious life. ( I ) Psychiatric screening should not be required of all candidates; if the findings on the personality inventory suggest more than average pa-thology, a psychiatric instrument could be used to determine the extent of the pathology. If psychiatric screening is required for all candidates, are we not suggesting that our pool of subjects lies in the "disturbed" group? However, I favor scheduling a psychiatric interview/evaluation Whence Come the Candidates? / 343 for applicants to monastic life. The withdrawal from the world implied in the lifestyle could attract individuals ill-equipped for social inter-course. (2) There is a danger of categorizing people for life, very much like the penal system where no room is allowed for growth and change. (3) In the hands of poorly trained people, these instruments are ex-tremely dangerous. Granted that most formation personnel would not ad-minister the tests themselves, there is still grave danger that reports will be misinterpreted. People with little sophistication in this area tend to put more faith in the instruments than is warranted. (4) The use of test information for acceptance/refusal makes sense only if the results are validated by information from other sources: let-ters of reference, observed behavior, and the like, No matter how good and competent that psychiatrist or psychologist is, the dynamics of grace elude measurement, and everyone involved in the assessment process must be mindful of this fact. (5) I would not advocate involvement in a screening program unless there is a willingness to share the information with the candidate. A good policy is to provide a feedback interview to discuss the test findings with the examinee. Should the evaluation be psychodiagnostic (with the use of psychiatric questionnaires), the feedback would then be provided by the therapist who would be in a better position to decide on the timing for such disclosure. In all such work, Catholic psychologists consciously strive for the fundamental attitude which Pope Pius XII advocated in 1953: 'Psychotherapy and clinical psychology must always consider man as a psychic unity and totality; as a structured unit in itself; as a social unit and as a transcendent unit, that is to say, in man's tending towards God.' ,3 Candidate Assessment We are reminded through the Second Vatican Council documents that the unity of the Church thrives on the variety of gifts in its mem-bers. In Perfectae Caritatis, it is explicitly stated that religious are to bring "to the execution of commands and to the discharge of assign-ments entrusted to them the resources of their minds and wills and their gifts of nature and grace" (PC, Art. I). The text is supported by Paul's I Corinthians: "All these gifts are the work of one and the same Spirit, distributing them separately to each individual at will" (I Co 12:l I). The decree on religious life was intended for all religious men and women, whether in the ranks or in authority. It must be admitted; how- 34"4 / Review for Religious, May-June 1990 ever, that when it comes to acknowledging the "special gift of each," we are somewhat in the dark. The Superior/Director/Coordinator is ex-pected to be respectful of the Giver of gifts by avoiding arbitrary assign-ments. The religious man or woman may be an individualist who feels that one owes it to oneself to fulfill the self in the sense of using one's gifts for personal enhancement and satisfaction; a correct interpretation would lead one to regard all gifts as intended for service to the commu-nity and to the whole Church. A scientific way of arriving at a knowledge of these gifts is psycho-logical testing and evaluation. I would set as one of the primary func-tions of candidate assessment: the identification of the assets of the indi-vidual. There is room for screening out undesirable applicants but this aspect of screening should not supersede the screening in of those who have great gifts of heart and mind to use in the service of the Church. As a marginal note, may I add that it is usually enlightening for the vocation directors (or whoever requests the assessment) to subject him-self or herself to the whole process. It may be an eye-opener as to the anxiety-provoking experience of personality assessment. For some cli-ents, self-disclosure is a very traumatic experience, and counseling may be advised. For most who have been exposed to testing in all forms, the whole procedure is taken in stride. Criteria Used What are we looking for in a good candidate to the priesthood/ religious life? The criteria have generally been clearly stated by the vari-ous religious groups, rectors of seminaries, experienced masters in the formation of candidates, and vocation directors. In general, they can be grouped as follows. ( 1 ) Intelligence I think we are justified in looking for average intelligence or better; without it, a religious professional cannot grasp the import of his or her commitment to Church service within the framework of a religious life-style. During the assessment, the candidate's intellectual efficiency is con-sidered in the light of one's intellectual potential. Does the client oper-ate better in a situation where conformity is rewarded or where auton-omy and independence are viewed as positive behaviors? The individ-ual's cognitive style is also studied along with factors capable of reduc-ing his or her mental efficiency such as anxiety, perfectionism, compul-sivity, or poor thought control. (2) Personality Here, it is important to have inventories/questionnaires standardized Whence Come the Candidates? / 345 on a non-psychiatric population; the candidate is not expected to live in a psychiatric ward! Instruments are usually selected which address prin-cipally the personality characteristics important for social living and so-cial interaction. Attention focuses first on personal integration: the individual's self-concept as covered by such factors as social presence, sociability, self-acceptance, sense of well-being. The candidate's social maturity and re-sponsibility come under scrutiny in a cluster of scales tapping socializa-tion, self-control, and tolerance. Temperamental variables such as per-sistence, cooperation, aggressiveness, tact, moodiness, impulsiveness, and adaptability are given some attention. The motivational aspects of the applicant are usually considered in a separate scale covering the home environment, career, religion, social endeavors, needs, values, and in-terests. A social-religious orientation is usually a more favorable indica-tor of a true call than a political or power orientation. (3) Sexuality This area is considered critical for today's candidates who will com-mit themselves to a celibate life. Projective techniques (disguised tasks) are used in this case to assess the basic sexual orientation of the candi-date and impulse control. The leads provided by the test data are openly discussed with the candidate in view of verification of the findings and subsequent recommendations. Not all information gathered in the inter-view need to be reported; problems resolved earlier fall in this category. (4) Magisterium The candidates are also queried about their attitudes toward author-ity, toward the Church and her teachings, and toward the ministry or apos-tolate. Feedback The feedback interview can be used advantageously to cover impor-tant areas such as interpersonal relationships: at home, at school, and at work, and for the older candidates, relationship to the local church. The individual can be further interrogated relative to anger and hostility: what triggers his or her anger and how is it handled? Recommendations for the proper handling of st.tong emotions are usually in order. The area of sexuality is probed further: orientation, ~,ex education, if given (when, by whom), dating history, the applicant's understanding of celibacy/ chastity, and his or her readiness to make the commitment to a celibate life. The last area tapped in the interview pertains to "spiritual evolu-tion," or the applicant's personal spiritual journey. When was he or she first attracted to the Church, (rites, sacraments, music, service, and so 346 /Review for Religious, May-June 1990 forth) and how did that attraction grow (or lapse) in the course of his or her life? Conclusion It is obvious to whoever has read up to this point that the evaluation/ assessment of candidates is serious business and a time-consuming propo-sition. Is it not worth the effort for a lifetime of service to the Church? The full day of testing and the few hours needed for the feedback/ interview are little when one considers the benefits to be derived through a lifetime of dedicated service to others. It is a rewarding task tbr the examiner who is constantly confronted with the promptings of grace in the life of today's young people. NOTES ~ William F. Kraft, "'Psychiatrists, Psychologists and Religious." R~vw.w FOR RF.LIGIOUS, Vol. 37, (1978), pp. 161-170. 2 David F. O'Connor, "Appraising Candidates for Religious Life or Priesthood," Human Development IX (Fall. 1988), pp. 26-30. 3 Address of His Holiness Pope Plus XII, "On Psychotherapy and Religion," Fifth International Congress on Psychotherapy and Clinical Psychology (April 13, 1953). Converted i come into Your glorious presence Changed, Newly dressed In Your garments, Feeling strangely at home there. Delighted, excited, I am waiting . . . Longing once more For Your kiss of peace. Sister Columba Howard St. John of God Convent P.O. Box 14 SUBIACO 6008 Western Australia Wishes for a "Novice" Novice Director Melannie Svoboda, S.N.D. Sister Melannie Svoboda, S.N.D. is currently dividing her time between teaching and writing. She served as novice director for six years. Her address is Notre Dame Academy; Route One, Box 197; Middleburg. Virginia 22117. For six years I was novice director for my religious community. During those years, the number of novices I had was anywhere between nine and one. As I reflect back on my experience as novice director, especially now that I have a little distance from that ministry, I ask myself, "What advice would I give to a new novice director--to a novice novice direc-tor? What would I wish for him or her?" There are many things I could say, much I could wish for. But if I had to limit myself to five words of advice, five wishes, what would they be? My answer to that question is this article. Warning.t Self-knowledge. Beware.t And give thanks. In my second year as novice director, I made my annual retreat as usual. During my first one-on-one conference, the retreat director asked me what my min-istry was. When I told him I was novice director for over a year, he smiled and said, "Well, well! I bet you've come to a beck of a lot of self-knowledge this past year!" His words struck me. They encapsulated something I had been experiencing, but something I had not yet been able to name: formation ministry has a terrible and marvelous way of en-couraging growth in self-knowledge--and this growth is usually accom-panied by discomfort, confusion, or even pain. Prior to becoming novice director, I had been a successful teacher and free-lance writer. It was easy for me to begin to find a good meas-ure of security in my obvious successes in these two areas. Success has 347 348 / Review for Religious, May-June 1990 an insidious way of leading us into a kind of "spiritual coziness." My success tended to give me the illusion that, indeed, God is in his heaven, I am in my classroom or at my typewriter, and all is well in the world. Formation work, which was both new and challenging, had a way of nudg-ing me (sometimes even shoving me) out of my complacency. I noticed my prayer becoming less pharisaical: "I thank you, Lord, that I am so successful!" and more "publican-ish": "Lord, now what do I do? Help!" As disconcerting as this growth in self-knowledge was at times, I see it now as a very real blessing for me. There is another reason why formation work was such a challenge for me personally. Both teaching and writing have goals and objectives by which one can, to an extent, measure one's success. Are my students learning? Yes. Are editors accepting my articles? Yes. The'n I am doing something right. I am a success. But formation ministry does not have such clear-cut ways of measuring success. In fact, by some measures, I was quite unsuccessful as novice director. Were novices flocking to our novitiate now that I was director? No. In fact, the formation team and I were not even accepting all of the few that did apply. Once they came to our novitiate, did they stay'? No. Some stayed, but many left. And, worse yet, some of the ones that did leave, ! even encouraged to leave. Formation ministry forced me to redefine success. More than that, it caused me to question how much l needed success in order to minis-ter. The ministry of formation challenged me to devote time, energy, and creativity to a work that, for the most part, did not give me the steady encouragement of measurable results. It called forth new kinds of strengths in me--such as patience, trust, letting go, and greater depen-dence on others who could help me. I needed such qualities which might otherwise have remained undeveloped because of apparent outward suc-cess. Decisions, decisions! Shortly after receiving my appointment as nov-ice director, I met my own novice director in the lunch line at our pro-vincial house. She had been a novice director for more than twenty years. Now, confined mostly to a wheelchair, she continues to serve the com-munity in the mailroom and archives. When she saw me in the lunch line, she took me aside, wished me well, and then said, "Just remem-ber: as long as you believe your decisions are right before God, that's all you've got to worry about." In those few words, my novice director had gotten to the core of for-mation ministry: the making of decisions. For me, the crux of being nov-ice director (and I use the word "crux" intentionally) was having to Wishes for a Novice Director I 349 make a decision that affected the future of another human being. Of course, I knew that I was not totally responsible for deciding whether a woman should remain in our novitiate or leave. The novice herself played a paramount role in that decision. I also knew full well that I had other people I could and did consult for valuable advice and input. I also realized that the provincial and her council ultimately were responsible for this decision. But despite knowing these things in my head, I still felt in my heart that the decision whether a novice should stay or leave was essentially mine. For me there was nothing ever easy about making such a decision--one way or the other. And there certainly was nothing easy about being the one to tell a novice that she could not stay--especially if she was unable to understand why. As I told my provincial superior onc+ after the council had decided to let a candidate go, "You're not the one who has to look into her eyes and tell her. I do." For me personally, this was the greatest challenge as novice direc-tor: trying to make the right decision for each individual. It meant I also had to face the possibility that, despite my conscientiousness and my good will, I could, indeed, make the wrong decision about someone. I had to ask myself, "Do I trust God enough that ! can be at peace with every decision I make? Can I entrust even a possible wrong decision to his love and creativity?" I never fully appreciated what a burden this was for me until I no longer bore it. After | left formation work, I was given other big respon-sibilities- among them was being local superior of a rather large com-munity. But, so far, none of these new responsibilities quite compares with the responsibility I felt as novice director: having to make a deci-sion that profoundly affects the future life direction of another person and a religious community. At the risk of sounding pious, this is a burden we cannot bear alone. As my own novice director implied, we make our decisions before God. I add: we also make them with God. With hoops of steel. In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Polonius gives some beautiful advice to his son, Laertes, before he sets out on his own. His words of advice should be given to every new novice director: Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel. l, iii One of the greatest needs of a novice director is friends. Hopefully, most novice directors enter their ministry with a "generous supply" of good and loyal friends. But even if this is the case, a novice director soon 350/Review for Religious, May-June 1990 learns that the ministry of formation has some built-in obstacles to the retention of friends. First of all, as novice director, I was in a ministry all by myself. No one else in my community did exactly what I did. As a teacher and writer, I had enjoyed the camaraderie of other sisters in my community who were actively engaged in the same ministry. We swapped stories, shared ideas, and encouraged each other in our com-mon ministry. But when I became novice director, I suddenly had no one. There is another reason for the sense of aloneness that novice direc-tors sometimes feel. Much of our ministry involves things we cannot talk about or share with others. Even our schedule may prevent us from so-cializing with our friends. For example, as a teacher I looked forward to weekends when I had a little time to "unwind" with my sisters and friends. But as novice director, my weekends suddenly became my busi-est time. That was when 1 had classes with the novices, I tried to see them individually, and I "socialized" with them. These factors cannot be allowed to become excuses fo~" losing touch with our friends. But they are challenges for us to find new and creative ways to "grapple" our friends to our souls "with hoops of steel." Eventually, I did find considerable support from novice directors in other religious communities. Sometimes when we got together, we tended to "talk shop." We found ourselves talking only about problems in formation and expressing to each other worries and frustration. This has its place, of course, but we soon realized we needed each other not merely to "gripe with" but also to "play with." As a new novice di-rector, find ingenious ways to hang on to your old friends, and be ready and eager to make new ones. The wideness of the sea. One of my favorite old hymns says this: "There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea." I think we could paraphrase those words and say. "There should be a wideness in a novice director's life like the wideness of the sea." A nov-ice director could be tempted to live in a very narrow world--a world no larger than his or her novitiate. Do not succumb to this temptation. It is important for a novice director to receive some professional prepa-ration for the ministry of formation. Yes. It is also vital for him or her to keep abreast of developments in the field of formation. Definitely. But we novice directors must not limit our input solely to formation. My ad-vice is to widen your world. Get involved with other groups of people, with issues besides formation and religious life. As novice director, for example, I taught a course in pastoral ministry at our college almost Wishes for a Novice Director / 351 every semester. The course met once a week in the evenings. Teaching that course was extremely healthy and beneficial for me. When I was not teaching a course, I was often taking a course. Some of these courses had nothing to do directly with formation. I also continued to write arti-cles for publication--the vast majority of them riot on formation. I know other novice directors who widened their world by being life guards at swimming pools, music ministers in parishes, volunteers in soup kitch-ens, or teachers in seminaries. As directors, we need ample time for a ministry of formation, true. Bui we also need time to extend our bounda-ries beyond the walls of the novitiate and our religious community. Let them love you. So far I have said nothing specifically about the novices themselves. As novice director, you must love your novices. Sometimes your love will take the form of gentleness and kindness. Other times it will assume the shape of firmness or even apparent hard-ness. Whatever form it takes, love is essential. This goes without say-ing. But there is a flip side to this fact that gets too little attention: allow your novices to love you. Be open to their love. More than that, encour-age it, welcome it. As directors we can become overly conscious of our role as director, as formator. We can shield ourselves from the give-and-take of relationships by setting strick boundaries with our novices. I am director, you are directee. I form you. I love you. Formation becomes a one-way street. When we do this, we are forgetting this great truth about formation: while we are helping to form our novices, they are also helping to form us. If we allow them. My novices helped form me in many ways--sometimes gently, other times almost roughly. They formed me by their honesty and humility-- especially in the one-on-one sessions I had regularly with each one. I was always amazed at how the novices were, for the most part, incredibly honest with themselves. By their honesty, they encouraged me to be more honest with them. During my six years, I found myself trusting the novices more and more. I had always basically trusted other people, I believe, but my six years as novice director only encouraged this atti-tude. The novices ministered to me at times in my need. One time a friend of mine in the community was dying of cancer. I left her infirmary room one night on the verge of tears. Shortly afterwards I ran into one of my novices in the hall. My initial reaction was to put on a cheerful front and hide my tears from her. After all, I was her director. In fact, I was the one who had dried the tears of this particular novice on more than one 359 / Review for Religious, Mav-Jttne 1990 occasion. But when I saw the concerned expression on her face, I was unable to hold back my tears. I cried, "Nadine's dying." Without a word, she took me in her arms and held me for a few minutes, comfort-ing me. In one way, it was a reversal of roles, but I still treasure the mem-ory of that moment when I allowed the novice to minister to me. Sometimes novices will love us in "tougher" ways--challenging our judgments, questioning our decisions, asking us to explain something we would just as soon leave unexplained. As novice directors, we must be open to that kind of love, too. My father, now retired, spends much time growing things on my par-ents' three-and-one-half acre plot of land. He grows apple trees, exotic grapes, peach trees, English walnut trees, and'the like. He once told me, "I get a kick out of figuring out how to help things grow." I would hope that every new novice director could say something similar: "I get a kick out of figuring out how to help people grow." My final wish for the "novice" novice director is this: May you figure out (often through trial and error--plus the help of God's grace) how to help (not "make" or "'force") people grow. And, in the process of your helping, may you yourself grow in faith, hope, love, and much joy! Retreat at Glenstal Abbey I have no preacher here but only quiet trees that pray one solemn silent so-be-it frown cell, from sap, from sinewed standing stem frown bough and branch from twig and sprig all said all summed in this brief silent now. The Master called and with the stars each answered to the limit of every limned lettered lace-like latticed leaf: "Here 1 am." Cothrai Gogan, c.s.sp. Naraiga Catholic Church Box 220 Limuru Kenya, Africa The Associate Movement in Religious Life Rose Marie Jasinski, C.B.S., and Peter C. Foley Sister Rose Marie Jasinski. C.B.S. is currently director of the associate community for the Sisters of Bon Secours and president of Bon Secours St. Joseph Hospital and Nursing Care Center in Port Charlotte, Florida. Peter C. Foley is presently working as a free-lance consultant and facilitator for religious congregations, dioceses, and parishes. Correspondence should be addressed to Associate Membership Office: Sis-ters of Bon Secours: 1525 Marrionsville Road: Marriottsville, Maryland 21104. The task of the imagination, specifically the religious imagination, has been described as naming, even "composing," the real. Another way of saying this is that the religious imagination unveils where God is at work among us. Stories of God at work, and of the unfolding of a real-ity whose scope and power have not yet been imagined were told in May 1989 at the Bon Secours Spiritual Center in Marriottsville, Maryland where more than 100 Directors of Religious Associate Memberships, and associates too, gathered to share the histories of their associate move-ment. It was the first such gathering of lay people and religious designed .just to explore how spiritualities or charisms of the Church, previously identified with particular religious congregations, were being assimilated by groups of lay people who claim the identity, history, and traditions of a particular spirituality as their own. The reality that emerged is that the traditional spiritualities are alive and well, even flourishing, but in ways we had not imagined. Most congregations reported more applicants to the associate program than to the congregation, and some associate members outnumbered the sisters themselves. But even more striking than the rapid growth of associate memberships was the intensity of the 353 Review for Religious, May-June 1990 commitment brought to them. These were not casual or sentimental re-lationships- it was clear that there was great personal significance in be-longing to an evolving spiritual community. This powerful movement has been quietly erupting within the Church for the last ten to fifteen years. Among the groups gathered to-gether in May we discovered associate members of women, men, sin-gle, married, of various professions, of differing faiths and even a few clergy and religious of other congregations. Associate membership tends to look and act differently within individual religious communities. The basic ingredient, however, is a strong emphasis on forming bonds be-tween laity and religious around a specific charism and mission; attempt-ing to live out that spirit and charism in one's particular lay lifestyle be-comes a significant piece of the "bonding" together. An area of richness that was shared by the groups in May was the expressed felt need and desire to journey together toward deeper spiri-tual growth. The word "together" here is significant and seems to be gaining in popularity. While indeed there still lingers the sentiment that "sister is better at this than I am" we discovered also that the notion that "the same Spirit moves among all of us" is gaining ground as well. Of course, this growing sense and desire for "bonding" also tends to blur the distinctions between laity and religious which is a challenge for some and a gift for many. Developing a sense of community was an important and, at times, a primary reason for approaching associate membership. For some it is the lack of community experienced in the local parish setting; for others it is the desire to deepen their prayer life that initiated the attraction. This sense of community and "bonding" that begin to take shape between the lay and religious members is encouraged and strengthened through regular times of coming together to share prayer, ritual, reflections, Eucharist, and other social feastings. Along with these activities the de-sire to have a "significant" role within the religious community is also exerting its influence among laity and religious. Participating in commu-nity decision-making, committee functions, chapter meetings and the like were not an uncommon topic at our May meetings. The area of service or ministry had a broad range of response among the groups. For some it was an integral part of the associates" role; for others it almost appeared as a distraction from the original intent of spiri-tual development; and still others seem to be on a progressive path of moving through spiritual development outward to "mission.'" This brings us to the progression of "gerierations" that is becom- The Associate Movement / 355 ing evident to those people who have been around this movement ['or a period of time. A pattern appears to be evolving within the associate move-ment. The first generation seemed to be people who wanted to be "filled up" spiritually plus a few who just could not say "no" to sister in those communities where the religious extended the invitation to join. In this generation the religious were looked to for the leadership. The second generation seemed to move more deeply into spiritual development in that the laity and religious have journeyed that path together as equals. The third generation emerges as associates become active in, or are in-vited into, various ways of participating in community life itself. Spiri-tuality as well as leadership is shared. A fourth generation seems to be spiritually motivated and supported by a faith community to go out in mission to share the charism. Throughout this progression of generations has remained a growing, though sometimes ambiguous, sense of commitment--ambiguous in that it is not always clear if the commitment is to the congregation, to the lo-cal community, to the associate community, or to individual sisters. And growing in that there are those rich experiences when associate members feel they have no choice but to live the charism--they have become so imbued it is as though "the charism has me!'" It seems most desirable for each group to grow in its own understand-ing and expression of, and comfort with, the focus of its commitment. While all groups expressed uncertainty about the long-term embodi-ment of their spirituality, they were equally comfortable with a sense of journeying together, accompanying ehch other in a life of prayer, shar-ing, and service. This was the area of greatest commonality among the participants. Otherwise their differences were so great that many of our assumptions about the associate movement were exposed and dispelled. Our first assumption was that a healthy associate program needed to be closely knit to the sponsoring congregation, starting with a strong for-mation program (conducted by the sisters), ongoing liaison with or lead-ership from the sisters, and some degree of monitoring of prescribed norms of behavior. Not so. Although many of these chara~:teristics were present in most programs, there were some that were not even started by the sisters, much less "managed" by them. A "healthy" and vigorous program depended more on the quality of the relationship between indi-vidual lay person and sister (living or dead) than on the sophistication of its organization and structures. The spirit or charism of the congrega-tion was passed on most effectively, it seemed, from person to person. In one group, the "formation" program consisted primarily of one-to- Review for Religious, May-June 1990 one storytelling on the part of the retired sisters with the prospective as-sociate. Another had an adoption structure, in which the associate and sister became family with each other. Another assumption was that there were sisters, on the one hand, and associates on the other. But for some, the associate membership con-sisted of lay people and those sisters who chose to join it including, in-terestingly, sisters from other congregations. These groups, obviously, had no trouble "getting sisters involved"--one of the more common problems expressed. The sisters were free to commit themselves to this other expression of their charism, or not. Another surprise was the range of expectations or requirements for associates to "keep up their membership." Many groups had calendars of annual events that included monthly meetings, annual retreats, "home-coming weekends" with all the sisters at the motherhouse, and some even offering weekly prayer meetings. But it was clear, due to geo-graphical movement of both sisters and associates, that the real and ef-fective criterion of memberships for some groups was the intention and commitment of the individual associate. In a movement like this there is a lot of giving and receiving. Who is giving? Who is receiving'? The obvious answer is that the congrega-tion is extending itself to others, including them, giving them something that they could not have by themselves. The opposite seems to charac-terize many of the groups reporting. The more the sisters listened to what was going on in the desires, dreams, and active faith life of their friends and dedicated collaborators, the more they received. Their own appre-ciation of their congregational charism and history was renewed and en-livened. Many sisters reported "receiving their charism back" from their lay associates. And, on a more pragmatic vein, the more the con-gregation included its associates in governance and community struc-tures, the greater the commitment of time and energy of the associates to the religious group. Finally, we had assumed, of course, that we were talking about per-sons of the Christian faith when we were discussing associates. Not so. A number of congregations reported including not only non-Catholic Christians in their associate programs, but also non-Christian persons. How could this be? We did not ask. If we had had the time, we would have asked three other questions: -What human behaviors facilitate the "passing on" of a charism from person or group to another'? -This seems to be more a women's movement than one The Associate Movement / ;357 commonly or equally shared by men and women. If so, how does it relate to the larger feminist or women's move-ment? And, also, how is it related to earlier women's movements in the history of the Church? -Are congregations that have a vital and active associate membership capable of having an equally vital and ac-tive group of "lay volunteers"? We ended the May meetings with no conclusions other than it was very good to get together and share what is happening; that some groups would initiate regional networks: and that we should all meet again in two years to hear the continuing story of the associate membership move-ment. As participants and observers we rejoice and hope to see the continu-ing openness to the Spirit-filled variety of associate memberships in the Church. A variety that may lead us to a fifth generation of associate mem-bers and "religious" sharing community: living together in a variety of many different ways, providing a variety of different services, praying in a variety of different styles--all through the power of one Spirit-- one baptism. Sunrise When the earth tipped its rim this morning, letting the sun in, filling itself with color and.light, You handed it to me; putting my mouth to the other side, I drank the dawn wind, the morning sun rising, dripping with glory. Then handing the cup back to You, I wiped the drops from my mouth, touching my lips again with Your light: Satiated with splendor, so glad of Your love. Sister Columba Howard St. John of God Convent P.O. Box 14 SUBIACO 6008 Western Australia Images For The Future Of Religious Life Thomas F. McKenna, C.M. Father Thomas McKenna, C.M., is an assistant professor in the theology department at St. John's University in New York. He has also served as novice director for the Eastern Province of the Vincentians. His address is Vincentian House: 101-25 104th Street: Ozone Park, New York 11416. One of the signatures of any age is the time-dimension to which it is drawn. At a given period, a culture is fascinated by past, present, or what is to come. For a number of interwoven reasons, religious life in this pres-ent age is taken with the future. The harder times it has fallen upon in filling up its thinning ranks and the upsetting wonder about what forms will take it into the next. century raise questions which only forward-looking answers will give. Add to this the growing appreciation that the origins and, therefore, the identity of religious life lie in visions precisely about what could be, and the reasons for concern about that future be-come all the more apparent. Often enough, these worries and hopes find expression in a search for what is termed "The New Image.'" That taken-for-granted inner land-scape which grounded the operations of a congregation for generations is less and less able to hold the center. Members realize that some new image is required, a different "root metaphor"~ which once in place will again provide that clear prism through which the apostolates, govern-ance, prayer styles, and, indeed, the very self-concept of the order can be freshly perceived. In his book on the meaning of history,2 Theodore White describes the precariousness of trying to peer into the future from the only van-tage point available, the present. He invites the reader into a small boat 358 Images of Religious Life / 359 bobbing up and down on the swells of the mid-Pacific, thousands of miles from any coast. Inside, the waves lifting and lowering the boat feel much the same, but in fact they are not all alike. Some are only surface ripples blown up for a few hundred yards or even miles. Others are surges left from mid-ocean storms out still farther over the horizon. They, too, will smooth out and die. But others still are the tips of deep running transoceanic currents. They were born in the river canyons of continents two thousand miles to the east and will crest on the shores of another coast four thousand miles westward. The historian is the person who thinks himself able to read which of the waves are shallow and so eventually will fade, and which reach to the floor of the sea and so will roll on into the future. While the bases for his judgments are not the kind which can serve up airtight predictions, they are rooted eno'ugh in pres-ent conditions to get him beyond clairvoyance. His knowledge of the cur-rents and tides enables him to give some backing for claims about what will continue beyond the horizon. This article intends to feel for some of those currents. While there are any number of root images which might be the synthesizing meta-phors on which religious life will be carried into the future, there are some which because of their ancient lineage in the religious movement on the one side and their attunedness to present society on the other show promise beyond mere guesswork--though, to be honest, not perhaps be-yond wishful thinking! The metaphors to follow can stand by themselves, but are more use-ful when anchored in the first. Connecting them sequentially allows for a certain priority but also for enough interaction that each can be a cor-rective for the others. The Religious Infiltrators of the Culture The scenario here is one body of people led forward by a common vision who insert themselves into the dead spots, so to speak, of the world of another group. They attempt to work their variant view into the places in the dominant culture which are spiritually empty and hunger-ing for freedom and new meaning. The sportscaster's phrase "in the seams" catches the idea. In a zone defense, players are assigned to cover certain sectors of the field or rink. The weakest points are along the bor-ders of zones because that is where confusions and even collisions be-tween the defenders are most likely to occur. The pass or shot is aimed "in the seams" between the zones; it is put "in the crease" at the edges of the coverage where the system most often breaks down. This analogy places religious among those believers who carry the 3BO / Review for Religious, May-June 1990 cause of Mystery to those border areas in a culture. Into those margins where the prevailing world view has lost its depth or has failed in nerve, religious bring the riches, appropriately enough, of religion. They are the outriders of the culture, the hikers along the margin where moder-nity has unraveled and is dealing death rather than life. The orders are among the entrepreneurs of the Mystery in a resistive society. This last figure brings out the assertive and perhaps even aggressive side of the image. Not intimidated by the muscular idols of the culture, religious purposefully seek out opportunities for evangelization and join with other groups who struggle to inculturate kindred values. They are convinced of the profundity of what they carry and so actively search out the soft spots in a society for chances to penetrate. Opportunistically, they move into the seams. In the description of the mid-ocean sailor, we spoke of the need to justify the use of a particular image. Why does this metaphor show more promise than another'? In this case, what signs of the times recommend the infiltrator over competitors'? Both negative and positive warrants come to mind. The negatives cluster around a foreboding sense of the spiritual bank-ruptcy of certain sectors in the modern world. By modern we connote here modernity, that whole ethos born in the Enlightenment and bred in the industrialized West whose place in history is slipping off its assumed highest perch to a level of one era among others, but one, indeed, whose effects are threatening to annihilate the gains of all the rest. Interestingly, this critique is being mounted by commentators who truly admire many of the accomplishments of the modern era such as freedom, communi-cation, labor saving devices, democracy, and so forth. They counsel not so much a nativist return to some pre-technological world, but rather a move beyond technology. To that end, they make the case that within the soil of the very blessings modernity bestows are sprouting the mostly unnoticed seeds of its own destruction. The most noxious plants on the American scene are being fed by the system of total capitalism. When left unchecked, they poison the very kind of moral character needed to sustain the democratic society in which capitalism flourishes. Among the more widely known critics are Robert Bellah and his as-sociates3 who have detailed the ways in which individualism threatens to remove its communal counterbalance, republicanism, from the ethi-cal arena in American life. A flattened self, the person as a "bag of needs" disconnected from other subjects and unable to collaborate from motives beyond self-gratification is the narcissistic prospect. Barbara Hat- Images of Religious Life / 36"1 grove's depiction of the "New Class" analyzes the ways which the spe-cializing and rationalistic tendencies of the baby boomer culture can shut down its own best possibilities.'~ In a more popular vein are the addresses of Franciscan preacher, Richard Rohr, who of late has been announcing "the death of the liberal agenda."-s An inability to cooperate with any-one besides an elite few, an idolization of personal feelings, and a per-fectionistic search for the fullest experience and/or the flawless process are some of the disturbing undersides he fears now beginning to surface. A more philosophical warning is being sounded by a group known as the Post-Modernists. Taking negative expression in its Deconstruction-ist variety,6 the critique is more optimistically stated by a group who call themselves, fittingly so, the Constructionists.7 Affirming the benefits of modernity, they also desire to move beyond its pitfalls and so join the assault on individualism. Their particular contribution is not only to have analyzed further its pedigree and progeny, but to have proposed means by which it can be overcome. There is an anthropomorphism in the culture, they contend, which immoderately subordinates the whole of creation to its human part. The attitude denies any "inwardness" to what is not human, thereby remov-ing nature's intrinsic value and laying it open to the worst kinds of ex-ploitation. The social counterparts of this dominative style are the patri-archal rules in society, assumptions which prevailed in all ages but get honed to their sharpest edge by the competitive, rationalistic, and ef-ficiency myths of the present.8 Powering everything are the twin dynamos of economism and con-sumerism. The blanket moral pardon granted the so-called side effects of the free market (steered by its invisible hand of self-interest) is ex-tended to all sectors of life. Social, aesthetic, moral, and religious issues are approached as if their ultimate bearings were also supply and de-mand. The pressures to define self by possessions, to regard the public good solely as economic wealth, and to eliminate concern even for one's posterity are some of the more chilling prospects when the profit princi-ple is transmuted into the universal moral touchstone. Such a world, in a Constructionist phrase, has lost its enchantment.9 Emptied of mystery and dulled to the wisdom of the best of its myths, it can no longer re-spond to the deeper hopes and so begins to feed on itself. Modernity's prospects: a superficial and morally spinning world set on a disastrous course that of itself modernity is powerless to change. If the infiltrator metaphor stayed only with condemnations, its indict-ments could have the ring of a culture-bashing fundamentalism which 369 / Review for Religious. May-June 1990 railed against the society but did not involve itself in it. Happily, these critiques are simultaneously stirring up a kind of religious revival or at least the beginnings of one. ~0 In the so-called secular disciplines for in-stance, there is a growing movement to sacralize the world. Proponents in the natural sciences for one, awed not only by the indeterminacy of things but also by their interconnectedness, are proclaiming a newly dis-covered mystery in creation. Various schools of psychology for another are reclaiming a spiritual base. Educational circles are feeling a surpris-ing pressure for more theology and religion courses at secular universi-ties. ~ These and other indications mark a widening search for values which are rooted in something other than the economic. This quest has a prag-matic ring to it inasmuch as the conviction is spreading that religiously grounded foundations are the only ones on which lasting social change can be built. Interestingly, the revival appears to have gathered greatest momentum among Roman Catholics. A 1987 Gallup poll names them as the denomination which feels most able to provide religious leadership in American society because of both the wide backing they accord their bishops' social teachings and because of the stronger communal bonds they enjoy. ~- In sum, there is on a number of fronts a growing unease about the spiritual vacuum in the culture together with initial signs of an initiative to fill it. Motivation for the renewal is not the self-righteous and con-demning sort, but comes from culturally sympathetic people who at the same time sense the dissonance between their own religious experience and the hollowness in key sectors of modernity. This analysis was done to indicate possible points at which religion could be inserted into the culture. Such intersections hold invitations for religious to join with other subgroups in society~3 in witnessing to firmer grounds of meaning. Carrying in their traditions such wisdom as the in-terrelationship between humans and the rest of creation, the universal dis-persion of spiritual energy, the immanence of the divine feminine, and the riches which cannot be packaged as a commodity and which flow out of the acts of loving and hoping, members of orders do not come empty-handed to those vulnerable seams. Nor do they come alone. The infil-trator is meant to work alongside of other servants of Mystery who are soon discovered to be, in Thomas Merton's phrase, "the monks' natu-ral allies in the world.''~4 If this line of thought sounds familiar to the religious reader, it is likely because something of the sacred time of his or her beginnings is hnages of Religious Life / 36:3 evoked. All founding persons were in effect entrepreneurs of religion in a culture. The desert journeys of the monks as response to the dying and brutal fourth-century society, the ingenuity of the mendicants in evan-gelizing a world of new city-states, the missionary fervor of the congre-gations of the seventeenth century reaching across from the Old World to the New--all these were tides taken at the ebb to penetrate a weak-ened and changing society. The crisis of meaning in American culture today and some initial responses to it present new windows of opportu-nity for would-be refounders. What special qualities are required of these so-called otitriders of re-ligion? In an essay on the future of spirituality, ~5 Karl Rahner addressed the situation of believers living in a time of sociological diminishment. Their faith must be sustained by what he termed "a solitary, immediate experience of God." They are to be new types of mystics whose con-viction does not come from any place other than the hearts of their own existence. Infiltrators are, therefore, marked in the first place by a per-sonal experience of God. Their second trait might be called culture-friendliness. Refounding persons exhibit that certain feel for the divine possibilities in society, that willingness to mix it up with the shapers of meaning in the wider world. While they are not uncritical of the age, their more basic desire is to engage it in order to move quickly into the spiritual openings it presents. But infiltrators also have blind spots. A common one is to so con-centrate on the strategy and practicalities of insertion into a culture that they lose sight of the sources of the salvation they bring it. Two further images, each able to stand on its own, speak more pointedly to ways of listening for the Word which religious carry to the world they would serve. The Navigator A type of spiritual sensibility long associated with the religious move-ment is at the core of this metaphor. To arrive at it, we add to Theodore White's image of the boat bobbing in the mid-Pacific the lore surround-ing certain revered individuals in Polynesian culture known as Naviga-tors. Now gone, these adventurers were the last repositories in their so: ciety of the secrets of open ocean sailing. Without modern navigational instruments, they could make landfall on a tiny dot of coral thousands of miles across the seemingly trackless Pacific. Anthropologists found their basic talent to be an ability to read the movements of the waves. Through a long and spiritually intense initiation, they learned to tell the crucial difference between the surface disturbances and the ocean- 364 I Review Jbr Religious, May-June 1990 spanning bottom currents which led in definite directions, changed head-ings with the seasons, and were deflected as they ran past the archipela-goes that speckled the Southern Seas. From their minuscule platform on the raft, they could judge which of the great ocean waves to follow and which to let roll past. In terms we will use, these were the special ones who could read in the present which movements had the long-range prom-ise and which would not reach the far shore of the future. Joseph Campbell speaks of an analogous phenomenon in other primi-tive societies which today might come under the title recruitment. While undergoing the long initiation to adulthood, one of the adolescents suf-fers a kind of nervous breakdown. He seems to take things too seriously. He does not see reality the way his peers do and is not in step with their pace and general rhythms. Observing this, the elders remove him from the group--and make him their religious leader! Their intuition, says Campbell, is that the youngster is picking up the contours of another world. He is reading signals from a different depth and perceiving a pic-ture of the way the tribe could be when at its very best. In the language of the previous example, this person becomes the tribal navigator, not just in sailing but in all things, because he can discern directions com-ing 'back from the future,' directions which the rest of the clan recog-nizes as valuable and even salvific. In this metaphor, religious are among those special ones with sensi-tivity for what of God's future is just over the horizon. Intuiting the source and goal of the divine good working in the world, their faith vi-sion focuses more on the da~vning of God's presence than on its fruition in the present. To paraphrase Karl Rahner, they are among the first to catch the glimmer of the morning light on the far mountain which will eventually turn into the brilliance of day. ~6 Following him again, these are the eschatologically inciined believers whose intimations of God's grace which comes from beyond the world creates the saving tension with those disciples whose more incarnationa[ faith celebrates the pres-ence of that grace already come. ~v Two signs of the times which in an obverse way recommend the Navi-gator are the sleek idol-making machines of secularism and materialism. To those driven by them, all observable ~:eality is explainable in terms of itself, and things (including persons perceived as things) hold the high ground of ultimacy. To counteract this massive message, there is great need for the relativizer, the individual who cherishes the good of this world but who also spots its incompleteness and inability to save. These are the ones who catch the presence of the world-to-come in the midst hnages of Religious Life / 365 of the world-that-is-here and so can accept the graciousness of the pres-ent while rejecting its different pretensions to absoluteness. Groups who can "name grace''~8 because they know the difference between groundings which are ultimate and penultimate help save a world which too indiscriminately mixes the two. And indeed, has it not always been one of the liberating functions of religion to lead people into places where, in one writer's imagery, "they can transcend the mazeways they have known to glimpse new visions of what may be"?~9 If this metaphor again seems an old friend, it is because it carries strains of both a classic description of religious communities and of a strong trait in the spiritual experience of their founders. Magisterial docu-ments depict religious orders as witnesses to the world-to-come, as fore-tastes of the kingdom's fullness, and as apostles of the transcendent.2° The innovative apostolic strategies of founding women and men sprang from their ability to see the world which hemmed in their contemporar-ies against the backdrop of the better one illuminated by the light of the coming kingdom. The ancestry of religious life is heavily eschatologi-cal. Witness to that faith-dimension is needed in every age but for the reasons discussed above crucially so in this one. The community which images itself as Navigator values discern-ment. As a group it not only spots the religious possibilities and then im-plements them, but lays explicit hold of the power and source of its vi-sion. It is a mobile group, able to roam free, and has a lower than usual need for the security and predictability of set roles. Its critique of the status quo will disturb those less attuned to the future and it will line up more quickly with other visionaries in the world and Church. For all its sensitivity, such a community also has its limits. Naviga-tors can so focus on the land over the horizon that they miss some of the places they travel through in the present. Eschatological types have their eyes on the better world ahead and tend to be impatient with the slow birthing process needed to bring that world to light of day. In the lan-guage of psychology, they can be perfectionistic, enamored of the ideal, and intolerant of development toward it. In theological talk, they are tempted to angelism, imagining they can detour around the process of history instead of laboriously going through it.2~ Often enough, naviga-tors need to be brought back down to the agitated ocean surface and re-learn the wisdom of the journey itself. Enter the next image, a specialist in the art of journeying. The Lean and Light Remnant The title draws the scene for this third metaphor. It is the Israelite 366/Review for Religious, May-June 1990 people on a long and ragged trek across the desert. Their march this time is not toward the new Promised Land but toward their old one, having just been released from their captivity in Babylon and now heading back to rebuild a ruined Jerusalem. They have little to carry because recent slaves do not amass many possessions. They rely on no social standing other than the dubious kind of the refugee. Most telling, because so many of their kin fell off the trail on the way to Babylon or chose to remain behind there, their numbers are hardly the kind to pose a threat to world order. For all that, they are grateful for their station because they have learned from their experience and their prophets that dispossession and pilgrimage have a way of opening hearts to Yahweh. They are the Remnant. Not lamenting their losses nor ashamed of their smallness, they are in some measure even glad for them because these deprivations have proved to be better teachers about what counts before their God than the power they wielded generations ago. These travelers have no preten-sions of overwhelming their world with multitudes or even talent. What they have to offer is what they are constan,tly aware of receiving, the di-vine mercy and sustenance. At best, they see themselves as catalysts, tiny enzymes in a large mass, invisible and unobtrusive. They are satis-fied on the circumference of society because their ordeal has convinced them that circumferences can often enough in God's eyes be near the cen-ter. The fit between Remnant and the orders of the 1990s is the obvious demographic one of diminishment. Not just on the way, smallness is al-ready here. To begin to extol the benefits of shrinkage at such a time could be written off as a kind but unreal attempt to console the dying, a thought which most likely occurred to Babylon-bound Israelites as they heard the same sentiment from their preachers. But to at least some of them, the truth of the claim proved itself over time. That proof is being given again today in a number of testimonies to the spiritual good which can come of vulnerability and powerlessness. One especially forceful witness is given by the liberationists who in their own pragmatic way have unearthed the riches at the margins. The poor evangelize the wealthy, the no-accounts unlock the Gospel's mean-ing for people of consequence, the small, ordinary, and forgotten ones are revealed as standing at the hub of the kingdom's activity. The very meaning of insignificant is transposed. Another more quiet testimony comes from Jean Vanier and his years of living with the handicapped.22 These sociologically most invisible of Images of Religious Life / :367 people have their own ways of making very visible the presence of grace in creation. The precariousness of their existence and their survival-need for the compassion of others lays bare the essence of how it is be-tween God and all of humanity. Such little people, when cared for and allowed to progress on their own terms, turn out to be large gifts to the caretakers. Gospels such as these are advancing the claim that diaspora time is the spiritually best time. Facing the onset of their own smallness, reli-gious communities could do worse than take to heart this winter spiritual-ity. In its bleakness they might come to see another kind of beauty and in its silence a call to a more anonymous style of influencing the world around them. Is this not the climate in which most all orders and con-gregations began? In the desert where smallness reveals itself as bless-ing by keeping the group real, minority status does not allow social and numerical superiority to figure in its estimation of success. Pilgrim com-munities of the coming decades will have both grieved the loss of high visibility and learned better to rely on their own inner experience as sus-tainer and guidepost. Like the tiny band of emigres approaching the out-skirts of Jerusalem, they will recognize their smallness as the lean and light condition which best suits them for the task of building their old/ new city. Scripture experts tell us that when the exiles entered the settlement, they found others already there, both their own who had been left be-hind as well as others who over the decades had wandered in. To move to our final metaphor, we add the following piece of imagination. Because the project of reconstructing the Temple and city would re-quire more arms than these pilgrims could supply, they realized they needed the help of the resident aliens. But the Jews also noted that these foreigners possessed building skills different from their own which might add much beauty to the final product. The New Jerusalem could better be built collaboratively. The last image is at hand. The Square Dance The picture here is of a swirling group, moving to the rhythm of the same tune and the shouts of the one caller. The dancers begin as a single couple, then join larger and still larger circles, change to other partners along the way, then come back to the original two--and repeat the cycle again and again. While at the beginning the steps and switches are a bit ragged and the caller's instructions hard to understand, the promenaders do not drop out because the energy spreading across the floor has caught them. They know best the partners they came with, but they also know 368 / Review for Religious, May-June 1990 how much more dance there is when they can join hands with other cir-cles and be part of the bigger whirl in the room. They trade some of the freedom of couple-dancing for the chance to be part of something larger to which they now know they can contribute. The dance metaphor speaks of new ways for the religious communi-ties to be together, both with themselves and with others. Beginning within the circles of their own congregations, they move out to other prov-inces and communities, to laity, to their natural families, couples, friends outside their order, co-workers, to other Infiltrators, Navigators and Remnants both Christian and non. The image encourages them to listen for the rhythm which matches the cadence of their own religious experi-ence no matter where in society it is sounding. With a graciousness, they let go the hands of the community partners with whom they began so that these too are free to step off into the bigger enterprise. But they are also happy to welcome them back when the time for regrouping comes round again. Each member of the congregation sacrifices some independence, convinced that the overall cause is worth the initial unsettlement and risk. The sign of the times for Square Dance is quite simply its present existence. Many congregations have already moved the borders on their maps of inclusion. Associates, service corps, laymission extensions, in-terprovincial apostolates, joint ventures by men's and women's branches of the same order all testify to the shifting sense of what it means to be-long. If the initial enthusiasm for widening circles produced some overly fluid boundaries, it did enlarge perceptions of membership. This stretch-ing permitted groups to recognize certain natural allies outside their walls who were in effect anonymous carriers of the community charism. A more recent attempt to strike a better balance between centrifugal and cen-tripetal forces has sought to tie tighter but still flexible bonds between the members. One fine instance is the recent essay by George Wilson which tracks the sharp change in attitudes of Jesuits about inclusion.-~3 The image of a single closed circle embracing all the spiritual, profes-sional, familial, apostolic, and even recreational aspects of communal life has largely been supplanted by another of many smaller circles, some not connected to each other and most tellingly not to the Jesuit one. Be-longing no longer means fitting everything inside the one ring of total community but rather negotiating between the different circles (for ex-ample, professional societies, local living group, non-Society friends both male and female, the world Jesuit fellowship, and so forth), espe-cially between those of one's primary and secondary commitments. hnages of Religious Life / 369 Useful as it is on the intra-community level, a Square Dance model also serves the wider society, Any truly collaborative venture on behalf of issues other than the group's self-preservation is a prophetic word to a culture so tilted away from the ability to cooperate by the weight of individualism. And could it not also be that arguments within religious communities themselves against widening the circle (phrased at times as the loss of needed autonomy or dilution of our special spirit) are partially an echo of the privatist bias in the wider society? Whatever the case, the move to collaborate for reasons beyond self-interest is not only evangeli-cally countercultural, but hearkens back to that surrender to something greater which gave rise to the religious movement in the first place. People of the Square Dance have a mind for the communal. The op-posite of in-house types who require the safety of same-sex, walled-off environments, they still maintain primary loyalties to their own, Their toleration for fluidity in boundaries is high. They have opted to learn ne-gotiation between different memberships rather than to close ranks around the one. This insight that collaborative communities are in a position to infil-trate the individualistic culture completes the circle. The Square Danc-ers widen the Remnant's sphere of influence. Both look to the Naviga-tors for the source and direction of their projects. And all three join in the Infiltrator's attempt to bring the depth of the kingdom to the shallow places of the world. It is time to conclude. Conclusion Nearly twenty years ago when reflecting on the spirituality of the fu-ture, Karl Rahner predicted that whatever forms it takes, it "will remain the old spirituality of the Church's history."24 He meant that even though the relationship between the different parts of Christian existence will shift, its essential elements (for example, adoring the incomprehensible God, following the suffering and triumphant Lord, protesting the world's forms of wealth, power, and pleasure, living within the Church, and so forth) will remain. In a somewhat reverse way, the same holds true for the different images of religious life with which we have been playing. These paradigms do not submerge those components which the recent Vatican document termed "Essential Elements,''25 but they do recon-figure them. Communal living, for instance, is linked to mission in a much different way in a Square Dance framework than it had been in more tightly inclusive forms of the Augustinian one-heart-and-one-spirit tradition. It is precisely that repatterning which makes all the dif-ference. For it allows religious the suppleness not only to set new courses 370 / Review for Religious, May-June 1990 by the waves of the future moving past them, but also to take conscious advantage of the momentum those waves contain. To return to Rahner, religious life will and will not remain the same. Its refounders are those people who through freshly imaging its possibilities will keep the reli-gious movement intact and at the same time reshape it into its most us-able form for the coming age. The overall interplay between the images seems an apt point on which to conclude. The Remnant calls the Infiltrator to remember the hum-ble conditions under which the message is given; the Infiltrator in turn cautions the Remnant against enshrining smallness as a value unto itself. The Navigator supplies the direction for the Infiltrator; the Infiltrator pow-ers the boat which the Navigator might be content only to steer. All three are vitalized by community living, but now expanded into its Square Dance form. Our attempt has been to suggest culturally relevant paradigms which might anchor 'newly emerging syntheses for religious life. If these par-ticular ones do not speak to individuals or communities, they might at least trigger the power of other imaginations to discover even deeper ly-ing metaphors which can again hold the center for this ancient and ever new blessing in the Church. NOTES ~ Thomas Clark, "Religious Leadership in a Time of Cultural Change," Religious Life at the Crossroads, David Fleming, ed. (New York: Paulist Press, 1985), p. 169. 2 In Search of History (New.York: Harper and Row, 1978). 3 Habits of the Heart (New York: Harper and Row, 1985). 4 The Emerging New Class (New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1986). 5 "Religious Life Of The Future," Origins, Sept. 22, 1988 (Vol. 18, no. 15) pp. 234-239. 6 For a general sketch of this school and its leading proponent, Jaques Derrida, see Religion and Intellectual Life, Wint
Lack of trust predates the outbreak of Covid-19, but it is an essential element for anyone involved in tackling the outbreak as well as strengthening of global governance.
